>A crazy ton of good things could happen with a person or two to help out with each system. Adding higher Tier templates, fixing bugs, expanding Work Orders, expanding Prestige, adding secondary effects to materials, etc etc etc. I can dream :)

Definitely, the interwebs leaves lots up to interpretation. People are willing to help you, Kodius. Players want to test, we want stuff released where we can feel confident there's no bugs and what we see is what we get. How can we make that happen?

We should do this.

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"Brace yourselves, Squanto is going to bleh blah fart fart bleh.." -the player of the character formerly known as Pureblade

As someone who plays a Tog with a huge strength and stamina focus, as well as a fondness stylistically for hugely heavy weapons, I'm all for anything that opens up larger weights, even if it comes with some severe penalties.

I'm sad if the senci has to change, but I get it. But I'm sad.

I think regardless of what happens, if any changes are made, probably exchanging will remove at least some people's bad taste.

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Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html

I'll probably recommend we leave them for the current set of runs and come up with different material prizes for the future. Maybe an equivalent bone option for puncture weapons that is appropriately weighted :P


There are some near-finished combat expansions that I'll try to get to Test in the next week.

- Armor hindrance tweaks for critical saves/miss and hindrance
- New mechanics for weapon balance/suitedness

Maybe I'll bundle some things for heavy weapons in there for people to test and provide feedback on.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

Sounds like he's leaving it be.

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"Brace yourselves, Squanto is going to bleh blah fart fart bleh.." -the player of the character formerly known as Pureblade

>>The Test server is so often unavailable when I need it, and that makes testing hard. I am not allowed to give players new materials in the live instances to test with. It would get me fired :/

i'm sure i am not the first to suggest this but can't you make a "Kodius' tower" where players can go let's say from Fang Cove and it would just be a forge/or whatever where they can manipulate a certain material without being able to pick it up? set it up for the exact condition you want and let the players tool around with it then save the outcome on your end and maybe throw them a few prestige points?

i know that occasionally GMs would make their "office" or "home" available and have beverages or food or whatever.. why can't you just make yours into a forge or loom or whatever to test out what you want tested and just set it up and throw out emails/IMs to those interested to come and do their thing.

this way they can't take the item with them, they can possibly archive it for Epedia if it's ready for archiving, not feel like they had to step away from their gameplay to do something they get no reward for, and in the process help you with the finished product.

Damian, a voice from the distant and long-forgotten past.
AIM:DamianDR

>Why can't test just be left open, with restrictions on who can enter it? Why close it down at all?

Resource allocation is probably a part of it, I'd assume Simu has to pay for the extra instance somehow. Then you have to copy the entire player database over every time you want an 'updated' test, and even with automated tools that takes more resources. Players certainly wouldn't want to test with last weeks stats.

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'

>>Get me a GM helper for testing and you'll see the number of bugs go down ::: cricket cricket :::: Ok, I thought so :P

I play roughly 40-60 hours a week I play from work, I play in my free time. I do not want to be a GM because I enjoy being a gamer BUT...

I would sign any NDA and devote a few hours a day to testing anything they asked me to test as a player in the test instance, and make a formal observation or report of what was done.

I am not talking about logging into test and testing things willy nilly. Send me a "request to test" a list of things that need to be checked out, give me tools to do this (characters skills whatever) or lack there of. I have a pretty good gammut of diversity on my account but some things I would need GM intervention.

I would even be willing to learn anything they wanted system wise.

I have applied for a GM spot, but again I like playing the game, and the application for GM is frankly intimidating, and turns me off to the whole process.

I am not loosely creative. I can present excellent ideas on things I am passionate about but the questions of the app are just too concise for my taste.

I mean pure GM/GH is great but smaller devoted tester spots should be invented. I do not think I am alone in my position. a lot of us have extra time they could devote but do not want to be tied down to a GM/GH position because they like to play but would be willing to keep anything they do quiet in test for the games sake.

The test server was unavailable this weekend, so I've been unable to get anything moving. Sorry folks :(

This week is looking to be extremely busy for me, so we'll try for next weekend if all goes well.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

The maximum density that tyrium can get to with currently available metals is 6.99 not 7.5. No metal weighs enough to be added to tyrium to get it to 7.5 without it turning to tyrium alloy

>>Weighting shifts points around, from balance and speed to damage and suitability (it's more complicated then that)

The problem is that players can always work the speed back down to 0 with high stats. So effectively the high density weapons do win.

This will be changing though. Heavy (unbalanced) weapons will soon have their DPS brought more in line.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

> RTs that care about density as well as weapon type?

At one point Kodius was talking about density-gated maneuvers.

Balance will play an expanded roll in determining accuracy caps. Weapons with low balance will always miss more than weapons with high balance, regardless of player skill. I am also adding special messaging so you know when this happens and can use it to determine if extremely unbalanced weapons are too penalizing for your play style.

Likewise when high balance turns a miss into a hit, you will also see messaging indicating as such. This should help mirror weapons and other templates with high balance provide feedback as to how much they are helping.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

Messaging like that is hugely helpful. Thanks for incorporating more of that into combat.

I am redoing the to-hit tables to make room for the new attack Fumble/Recover mechanics.

Later today I will (hopefully) be pushing the following to Test:


* For every attack you compare OF and DEF and have a To-Hit target

* Attacker then rolls on the target and determines a Hit or a Miss

* If a Hit, the weapon balance determines the Fumble Chance.

* The attacker rolls on this fumble chance, which can negate a hit

* If a miss, the weapon balance determines the Recover Chance.

* The attacker rolls on the Recover chance, which can negate a miss


* All attacks still have a chance to hit or miss, even at the extremes.

* The base to-hit chance went down slightly to accommodate these changes.

* Reasonably balanced is considered the middle-spot for fumble/recover chance


The intent behind these changes is to bring back some importance to the weapon balance stat, without disrupting combat too significantly.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

Looking further and assuming you are using steel as a baseline>

Even among heavy edges, absolute minimum weight on the 7 volume templates show as decently/decently. Absolute minimum weight in the 8 volume templates is reasonably/fairly. Absolute minimum weight on the 9 volumes templates are inadequately/soundly.

All values pulled from elanthipedia for reference.

Further questions I would like to pose are:

How would this translate to ranged/thrown weaponry? Heavy crossbows are notoriously unbalanced for example.

Is it ok that a very very large number of weapons can only hope to reach the baseline if that?

How does this change the balance between edged and blunt templates? If you were to use caraamon's metric of adding the damage totals together blunt weapons already average far less total damage than edged counterparts. Blunt weapons are on average far less balanced as well.

Just more cents to add to the conversation.

I agree with the idea of that. But the focus of my comments is just refers to the BASELINE of what kodius is proposing. Regardless of where the baseline is set, lighter weapons will now be more accurate than their heavier counterparts under kodius's proposal. (excluding quarterstaff and mirror weapons) With the baseline set at reasonably, most anything bigger than a scimitar automatically starts with a penalty to hit and gets worse with no chance at not getting a penalty. And that is looking at weapons through the filter of minimum weight to start. Steel at natural density instead of minimum paints an even worse picture.

TLDR: Most weapons are looking at a penalty and the only question is to what degree. The ranges that provide a bonus to-hit are limited to a very very small subsection of all weapons as a whole. Reasonably is just to high on the scale for what occurs commonly in forged weapons. Lastly, you have to consider the implications on forms of combat that do not naturally generate personal character balance. (nimbly adeptly etc) Such a change needs to take into account thrown weapons and ranged weapons that are already missing the to-hit gains from balance and position.

@Embodiedchaos

Using your specific template as a reference. For steel at an absolute minimum weight of 25 stones without balancing (per your example) you would hit decently/decently. That means that in order to hit the baseline of kodius's proposal you would need to balance it to reasonably/fairly. Again, this is the absolute minimum weight for the template in your example just to hit the baseline. If steel is not the metric by which the system should be judged I could investigate further on the effects rare-metal brings to things but my understanding is that steel should be the baseline. Does anyone feel differently on that point?

I absolutely agree with you on that fixing balance is certainly a step in the right direction however.

At the risk of over-saturating this thread before more people can comment, I also wonder how does brawling factor into these changes? How will the fumble/recover mechanics interact? Will brawling maneuvers be set to a certain balance behind the scenes to not be excluded from fumble/recovery?

Let's see how it feels before we start complaining about it? This is why we have a Test server and why I spend time deploying things there first for people to play with and report feedback on using actual in game numbers instead of imaginary thought experiments :P

Baseline just means somewhere near the center of the lopsided curve. All weapons, even those with 500 points of balance will be able to fumble, and even those weapons with 0 balance will be able to recover.

Heavy weapons should not always be the best always in every situation forever. Lighter weapons specialized for balance should have their own niche.

This also gives me an opening for balance-related enchantments.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes