Damage Types

[xienwolf]

So, FfH has 8 different Damage Types (if you include non-typed Physical). We also have some promotions to provide resistances.

How many of you can list all 8?


How many of you who can list all 8 can recognize the graphics for each of them?


I've thought about how to make the Damage Types more integrated, and if I stick to the current mechanics, it becomes rather unwieldy. You have to assign more promotions with resistances, but then risk having too much resistance altogether. Or you can assign more races with resistances and weaknesses, but then it is predictable and SOMEONE winds up being stuck with a bad weakness that is exploited...


So I want to get people's thoughts on a new approach.



Right now, your combat Strength is determined by 2 values, <iCombat> for attack, and <iCombatDefense> for defense. You can augment that with

<DamageTypeCombats>
	<DamageTypeCombat>
		<DamageType>
		<iCombat>

This will raise both your offense and defense, and supposedly just this portion will be resisted by people with the appropriate resistance, or augmented against the appropriate weakness.

Meanwhile, off in the land of defining the Damage Types, the only tag we have is for the graphics which nobody has seen unless they went digging for it, because they aren't in the game, ever.

This is decent... but it leads to the impass above... how precisely are we going to make it more noticed?



I propose a change to this:

Remove the basic <iCombat> & <iCombatDefense>. This will understandably be a ton of code, but that forces one to get it completely rooted out of the AI, which is important. Replace it with...

<Combats>
	<Combat>
		<Type>DAMAGE_PHYSICAL
		<iAttack>3
		<iDefend>3

Now you can list all of the damage types that you want, and have both an attack and defense value for them.

Also add to the Damage Type Definitions:

<DamageInfos>
	<DamageInfo>
		<Type>DAMAGE_HOLY
		<Descroption>TXT_KEY_DAMAGE_HOLY
		<Button>Art/Interface/Buttons/Holy.dds
		<CombatModifiers>
			<CombatModifier>
				<Type>DAMAGE_UNHOLY
				<iModifier>50

This way you can have it so that each Damage type is in itself a strength or weakness against another one (and no, you would not then make Unholy have a 50% bonus against Holy as well, or they would just cancel out).


With these changes, you would also set it so that the strength of a unit is the Physical Damage + only the highest of the Type Damages. And the ENTIRE DAMAGE counts as that type. While you are at it, change the symbol to the symbol of the damage type if they are no longer Physical.



Doing it this way, you can have that Unholy > Holy > Death > Fire > Cold > Lightning > Poison. Or some other setup. Personally I would like to add in even more types in this case, with each one having a bonus against a few of the others (and thus having more than 1 with a bonus against itself). It would be quite simple to add other effects to the Damage Types as well. Like allow Poison Damage to inflict Poisoned Status. Undead Damage allows a strong chance to gain a Skeleton or Spectre from the battle if you win. Unholy can convert the unit to your control if you do NOT win. Lightning grants first strikes (or Blitz). Cold causes the other unit to become immobile. Fire causes collateral....


I really think that this sounds like a worthwhile change. But I tend to love making things overly complicated, and I am pretty busy with other projects, so realistically couldn't devote myself to this for a fair whlie. So I ask what your opinions are. Would this seem fun?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

With these changes, you would also set it so that the strength of a unit is the Physical Damage + only the highest of the Type Damages. And the ENTIRE DAMAGE counts as that type.

I like most of this proposal (perhaps because I've suggested much of it myself), but this part makes no sense to me. Also, I don't like the idea that individual units and promotions lose the ability to have resistance to specific damage types (if that is what you are proposing). This would weaken magic resistance, magic immunity, and prevent almost any unit from entering flames tiles.

While you're looking into damage types, can I convince you look into Affinity as well? You should really be able to set attack and defense strength from affinity separately, and also the type of damage dealt should be defined in the unit/promotion file instead of always being the same for each resource. It makes perfect sense for a unit/promotion's Body(/hate) mana affinity to boost only attack strength. Air could sometimes do lightning and sometimes cold damage, and Sun could sometimes do fire and sometimes holy. Promotions that have positive unholy affinity for a resource should probably have negative holy affinity too. (I'm assuming that negative affinity would be defined for each damage type's attack and defense strengths separately and would never reduce that strength below 0.) Rounded/truncated Fractional Affinity and maybe even affinity requiring multiple resources would be nice too.


(I'm sure you recall and/or can find some of my past affinity requests, so I won't go into too much detail on the more outlandish changes I'd also like. You know, movement, withdrawal, % combat vs specific units/promotions, etc.)

Poison damage will give the poisoned promotion again in .32, but I wish it were handled in a way that made adding effects to other damage types.



Oh, also, the damage type graphics are used sometimes. They show up in those little bubbles (similar to those showing resources or enemy troops) when typed damage is dealt by a spell. I wouldn't mind removing though.

 

[xienwolf]

I do think that the individual resistances on other units/promotions are still appropriate. The reason I say to only count the highest type is because the types will become much more common on the whole.

Maybe a slightly better approach would be that you still get a bonus to strength for each other type, but overall your entire damage is considered to be of the type which you have the most points from.

If I were to approach Affinity I would do a pretty in-depth overhaul, allowing fractional changes and allowing access to many more fields (attack, defense, movement and about every other INT value I can think of). Then of course I would encourage people to mix Plus and Minus values as much as they can when setting up what an affinity does (+1 Move and -10% City Attack Wind Affinity maybe?).

Not sure how you'd approach Affinity that REQUIRES multiple resources. Just make it a fractional affinity for each of them would approximately get you that, but not quite. It would add a whole extra layer of complexity to it though.

 

[Kael]

Its a fun system to design, but I dont know how much fun it would be to play. Its a lot of micro.

I think it could be fun in a system that is more rpg focused than FfH. Like Lutefish's dungeon adventures it would be nice to exapnd the damage type system so that different quipment can have a wider variety of effects and different monsters can have dramatically different resistances to different attacks.

That level of focus (on attacks, on individual combat) is appropriate to character level rpg. But an empire level game needs to make sure that level of detail is abstracted out. Even if FfH does push the focus a bit more from the empire to the units, it isnt far enough for mechanics like this.

At least thats my 2 cents.

 

[3141592]

Personally I think that the amount of damage types should be scaled way down to just poison, elemental, magical(a compolation of everything that isn't one of the other three), and physical. Right now it is cool for flavors sake to have lots and lots of combat types but it is very rare to actually change your strategy due to them.
If this post is intimidating just read paragraph 2. 3. and 5.

1. For example, drowns are weak against fire and have +1 unholy damage. Yet even against an empire that uses fireballs a drowns are still a good bit more effective than warriors due to their other attributes. Granted a warrior or two in a drown stack to absorb fireballs might not be a bad idea, but it is a bit of a micromanage. Furthermore, when does a +1 unholy damage ever ever affect your strategy as apposed to just +1 strength, it basically means drown get a very small bonus against a very small set of creatures. The effect could either be moved to a promotion or ignored all together.

2. Besides for poison, I have never changed my strategy even a little for the damage types. They do give nice % bonuses, but against a very small set of creatures and they are often under 25% of a units total damage so the actual bonus is very small. Right now damage types are just random and minute bonues of minuses I may happen to ren into on accident. I do play at emperor level, so I am no stranger to micromanaging, but the bonuses aren&#8217;t even worth it.

3. I guess I wouldn&#8217;t mind the damage types if they were more extreme. Make drown nothing but unholy damage, Meshaber of dis could be all unholy fire death. If you are going to have eight different damage types (some of which are only used a couple of times) then at least have them be major when they do show up.

4. I can see how in brainstorming sessions it is cool to think of all the different ways damage types could affect the game. A civ with OO on their border might focus on fire instead of mind and than decimate the Drown hordes. But really by the time you get to elementals Drowns are becoming obsolete anyway. This is just a specific example but it is indicitive of most of them; a given stratagy agaist a unit of a certin damage type would work well, but a big more overreaching stratagy would work better. The great thing about civ is how random it all can be, but random matching, two front wars and overreaching strategies don&#8217;t have time for finicky damage types.

5. In conclusion am not saying damage types should be done away with altogether, although I would prefer it over the current system, I just think they should be more extreme and game changing. Not enough to warp the game, but enough to change your strategy above the micro tactical level. Limiting the number of damage types would also have more units use each damage type so strategy would actually be affected.

PS I am sorry if I repeat myself a bit, I am coming of off AP tests, who like that sort of thing

 

[Inkling]

Personally I think that the amount of damage types should be scaled way down to just poison, elemental, holy and shock. Right now it is cool for flavors sake to have lots and lots of combat types but it is very rare to actually change your strategy due to them.
If this post is intimidating just read paragraph 2. 3. and 5.
....
snip

if you haven't had to change your strategy due to damage types, its probably because resistences and immunities don't work. example, latest patch and version, 2 fireballs (fire only damage) were able to kill a fire element(fire immunitiy) consistently.(4 vs 9)

as i've said in other posts, i would have been slaughtered in my sheaim game, was turning every node to death mana, had some serious death affinity summons, then the four horsemen showed up with their death immunity. ofcourse i knew it was a bad idea from the start when i was seeing pathetic odds against mud golems.(also death immunity) had resistences worked, that would have been an incredibly stupid strategy. i've noticed this stuff alot more since then. djinn seem the only safe bet, ofcourse they are level 3 summons...

if you can't tell, i am painfully dissapointed this isn't mentioned as a fix in the latest patch. but i imagine when fixed, it will start to play a more prominent roll. atleast it would have in my games. all in good time i guess.

 

[3141592]

Inkling, you have covered one of the times I think damage type is done right. Namely, a unit with that much affinity does mostly one type of damage and the hoursemen are compleatly immune to it. However those times are rare (did damage type affect your game any other way?) and I think they could be delt with better.

First the reduction of damage types to physical, elemental, magical (a compolation of everything that isn't one of the other three) and poision.
Second, having units be all of one damage or another. It might not be as realistic, but it would makes damage types matter a whole lot more and would easier and (I think) funner.
Third, having damage type be measured as a simple promotion. Since units would be all one damage type or another the confusing task of telling how strong and/or damaged a unit with multiple damage types is would be removed. Also tool tips would be able to pop up when hovering over the promotion to help new players.

edit: wow, I must have been tired when I wrote this post, I spelled your name infinity instead of inkling

 

[Bad Player]

So, FfH has 8 different Damage Types (if you include non-typed Physical). We also have some promotions to provide resistances.

How many of you can list all 8?


How many of you who can list all 8 can recognize the graphics for each of them?


I've thought about how to make the Damage Types more integrated, and if I stick to the current mechanics, it becomes rather unwieldy. You have to assign more promotions with resistances, but then risk having too much resistance altogether. Or you can assign more races with resistances and weaknesses, but then it is predictable and SOMEONE winds up being stuck with a bad weakness that is exploited...


So I want to get people's thoughts on a new approach.



Right now, your combat Strength is determined by 2 values, <iCombat> for attack, and <iCombatDefense> for defense. You can augment that with

<DamageTypeCombats>
	<DamageTypeCombat>
		<DamageType>
		<iCombat>

This will raise both your offense and defense, and supposedly just this portion will be resisted by people with the appropriate resistance, or augmented against the appropriate weakness.

Meanwhile, off in the land of defining the Damage Types, the only tag we have is for the graphics which nobody has seen unless they went digging for it, because they aren't in the game, ever.

This is decent... but it leads to the impass above... how precisely are we going to make it more noticed?



I propose a change to this:

Remove the basic <iCombat> & <iCombatDefense>. This will understandably be a ton of code, but that forces one to get it completely rooted out of the AI, which is important. Replace it with...

<Combats>
	<Combat>
		<Type>DAMAGE_PHYSICAL
		<iAttack>3
		<iDefend>3

Now you can list all of the damage types that you want, and have both an attack and defense value for them.

Also add to the Damage Type Definitions:

<DamageInfos>
	<DamageInfo>
		<Type>DAMAGE_HOLY
		<Descroption>TXT_KEY_DAMAGE_HOLY
		<Button>Art/Interface/Buttons/Holy.dds
		<CombatModifiers>
			<CombatModifier>
				<Type>DAMAGE_UNHOLY
				<iModifier>50

This way you can have it so that each Damage type is in itself a strength or weakness against another one (and no, you would not then make Unholy have a 50% bonus against Holy as well, or they would just cancel out).


With these changes, you would also set it so that the strength of a unit is the Physical Damage + only the highest of the Type Damages. And the ENTIRE DAMAGE counts as that type. While you are at it, change the symbol to the symbol of the damage type if they are no longer Physical.



Doing it this way, you can have that Unholy > Holy > Death > Fire > Cold > Lightning > Poison. Or some other setup. Personally I would like to add in even more types in this case, with each one having a bonus against a few of the others (and thus having more than 1 with a bonus against itself). It would be quite simple to add other effects to the Damage Types as well. Like allow Poison Damage to inflict Poisoned Status. Undead Damage allows a strong chance to gain a Skeleton or Spectre from the battle if you win. Unholy can convert the unit to your control if you do NOT win. Lightning grants first strikes (or Blitz). Cold causes the other unit to become immobile. Fire causes collateral....


I really think that this sounds like a worthwhile change. But I tend to love making things overly complicated, and I am pretty busy with other projects, so realistically couldn't devote myself to this for a fair whlie. So I ask what your opinions are. Would this seem fun?

Could you also have synergy damage types - maybe a unit has unholy damage + 1 AND fire damage +1 (e.g. Orthus axe) but together they give +3 total damage (instead of +2 total).

 

[Inkling]

Inkling, you have covered one of the times I think damage type is done right. Namely, a unit with that much affinity does mostly one type of damage and the hoursemen are compleatly immune to it. However those times are rare (did damage type affect your game any other way?) and I think they could be delt with better.

First the reduction of damage types to physical, elemental, magical (a compolation of everything that isn't one of the other three) and poision.
Second, having units be all of one damage or another. It might not be as realistic, but it would makes damage types matter a whole lot more and would easier and (I think) funner.
Third, having damage type be measured as a simple promotion. Since units would be all one damage type or another the confusing task of telling how strong and/or damaged a unit with multiple damage types is would be removed. Also tool tips would be able to pop up when hovering over the promotion to help new players.

edit: wow, I must have been tired when I wrote this post, I spelled your name infinity instead of inkling

well, i feel like an idiot, because i can't site more examples, but honestly it seems every strategy i try finds some glaring weakness(i just can't remember them), someone always shows up sporting an immunity, ready to crush my well crafted plans for world domination. and in the case of death damage, The horsemen weren't the worst of it, they would have slaughtered me sure, but it was the luchirp bordering me on the north. a decently placed mud golem, their lowly worker, could take two or more spectres to dislogde, much less anything tougher if the AI were smart enough to build it, and hyborem and the infernals and their demon hordes were gonna give me a serious beating as well, as were the Octopus Overlord worshippers and their drown and stygians.

and you say it often only counts for less than 25 percent of their strength, but i find a point or two can make a big difference, especially with the increased bonuses in FFH2. a combat 1 or 2 promotion really starts to increase their value.

ofcourse, while i'd rather wait till after the AI has a decent upgrade to do anything, i'm not opposed to increasing the drasticness and frequency of the immunities and resistences. i just think you guys are under valuing its current effect. if it worked that is.

 

[Sureshot]

id like to see a purely magical damage type (enchanted blade spell could add +1 magic strength, adepts+ could have part of their strength as magic)

also, physical damage really needs a counter that doesnt affect other damage types as well, like a "physical immune" promotion if only on specific units and "physical resist" available to some unit classes

and like xienwolf said id like more effects attached to the damage types, like higher withdrawl for each poison strength (poisoning is pretty useless when a unit has to die to do it generally) and higher magic resistance with magic strength

it might be neat for damage types to add a glow of their colour to units too heh