Too much damage overall?

[La Makina]

You gotta remember that sometimes you get hit in the face rather than in the body, that means pierce damage do x3 damage and cut x2.

For the sake of clarity: I do see instakill hitting me on the main body even though I have 50 points of body armor (plus the gauntlets). I have 0 in Iron Flesh but I am not sure that 8 more HP would really change something.
The armor is really useful against arrows, bumping horses and teamhits (that's already a lot). Otherwise I am not impressed by its protective value (or people's damages are comparatively exceptionnal).

[Xant]

You have no right to complain about too much damage overall if you have no IF. It makes a huge difference.

[MouthnHoof]

Yes I agree that there is too much damage. I played Brytanwalda extensively and the reduced damage there significantly contribute to the game play and even change the whole fighting style. I do not suggest to lower it that much, but a good lowering of damage can improve gameplay and lower effectiveness of spamming. However, the preferred solution is not among the options in the poll!

The easiest way to change effective damage is to tweak the soak/reduction values in the module.ini file. This can increase armor across the board with tweaking of only 6 numbers instead of going item by item. It is a huge advantage as a practical solution because it keeps the relative item stats and VERY quick and easy to test - leading to quick optimization during testing (vs. editing all items in each testing iteration...).

However, increasing soak/reduce factors make strong armors even stronger and has little effect on light armors, so everything up to mail will still get one shotted and plates become titanium armor. The effectiveness of armor increase non linear: the difference between 50 and 55 is much greater than between 30 and 35.  If soak/reduce values are to be increased, top armors need a small armor value reduction - note that this is not a nerf because each armor point becomes much more valuable.

The best solution: Reduction of weapon damage stats.
Some swords do well over 40 in damage and PLAENTY of 1H weapons do above 30. After some heirlooming 2H swords reach the 47-48 cut - high damage benefit even more from PS and the damage becomes INSANE. Damage stats on items need to come down 15-20% across the board This will lower 2H swords from 40ish to 32ish and 1H swords from 30ish to 24ish. It use percentage instead of flat number because all bonuses (PS, speed) are % based.
It has several advantages over messing around with armor values and factors:
1. It makes medium armors more meaningful, makes plate stronger but not impenetrable.
2. It makes PS felt more - with current damage you one-shot almost anything or two-shot at most with PS5 or PS10 with the heavy weapons.
3. It makes Heirlooms more significant without overpowering them - 2 more damage on a 32 cut sword is much more significant than 2 more on a 40cut sword.

After the damage reduction, the final touch can be done by the tweaking of armor soak/reduce in the module.ini

[La Makina]

You have no right to complain about too much damage overall if you have no IF. It makes a huge difference.

This was not a complaint, just a statement to contribute to the thread. Very well, I will try with more IF on my next gen and see if the difference is substantial.

After my war cleaver went from 43 to 48 cut(after triplle heirlooming) I really felt a big difference. I started one shotting people a lot. I say 50% of my strikes kill the enemy immediately (with 6PS and 160 WPF). That's just too much (...) Armor heirlooms are quite bad in comparison. (...)

This is how I experience it (on the wrong side of the cleaver).

[AgentQ]

after trying if 0 my last gen, i agree that IF 0 to 6 makes a big difference. There is no point wearing heavy armor if you have if 0

[Chasab]

the difference between an AWP in CS and someone coming at you with a warcleaver in C-rpg is you can block the warcleaver. If he hits you, you die. ok, well dont let him hit you you can block the attack either with your weapon or with a shield. With the Awp as soon as he fires if he either hit you and you died, or he missed and is reloading.

For me there is nothing more infuriating, then getting behind the archer lines, hitting the nearest archer in the head wearing his leather cap, with my 8PS 148 WPF doubleloomed elite scimitar and having them not die in one shot.

[bruce]

Meh, I'd just do it RCM-style if you asked me.

The only good way is to change the armour stats, and then change soak/reduction in modules.ini to make bouncing less common. Essentially, up the armour rating of mail & mid-tier helms to 50-60, armour rating of plate & high-tier helms to 120ish. Leather and so on should stay where it is. Make all the throwing bullshit cutting damage as well as sword stabs (increase damage there), and increase arrow & bolt damage.

Pros:
- damage overall reduced, less oneshotting medium armoured people with swords or suchlike
- blunt and pierce damage become more important to deal with armour rather then an optional extra (mind you, it might warrant a rebalance of a few blunt/pierce weapons)
- armour becomes something prized and important rather than stuff you wear for looks and for surviving the occasional ranged projectile

Cons:
- ninjas and various agispammers cry rivers

[Spawny]

3. It makes Heirlooms more significant without overpowering them - 2 more damage on a 32 cut sword is much more significant than 2 more on a 40cut sword.

Heirlooms are % based aswell. If I remember correctly, MW adds +14% damage (stats show rounded down values, the game engine might use the actual values though).
So less base damage on a weapon would mean lower modifiers on heirloomed weapons aswell.

Meh, I'd just do it RCM-style if you asked me.

The only good way is to change the armour stats, and then change soak/reduction in modules.ini to make bouncing less common. Essentially, up the armour rating of mail & mid-tier helms to 50-60, armour rating of plate & high-tier helms to 120ish. Leather and so on should stay where it is. Make all the throwing bullshit cutting damage as well as sword stabs (increase damage there), and increase arrow & bolt damage.

Pros:
- damage overall reduced, less oneshotting medium armoured people with swords or suchlike
- blunt and pierce damage become more important to deal with armour rather then an optional extra (mind you, it might warrant a rebalance of a few blunt/pierce weapons)
- armour becomes something prized and important rather than stuff you wear for looks and for surviving the occasional ranged projectile

Cons:
- ninjas and various agispammers cry rivers

The main con here would be the complete obliteration of anything agility related. You would have no reason whatsoever to pick any agility.
Who cares if you can spam a lot when you need 10 hits to kill someone.

Other than that, it could improve gameplay.

[Xant]

I disagree. Anything beyond 1v1 would become impossible then, which would suck the skill right out of the game. Only duels would become more skilled, everything else would just depend on numbers.

[bruce]

Well, that's how group combat works, numbers and keeping in sensible formation and cooperating rather then someone with lots of personal skill doing most of the killing. But it'll never happen, so it's a moot point really.

[Xant]

That's how it mostly works now, but you have a chance against multiple opponents.

[bruce]

That's how it mostly works now, but you have a chance against multiple opponents.

Well, yes, but... I mean, I'm not some expert manual blocker, but I've once killed 12 people spamming my MW glaive around. Granted they were coming uphill and generally were wounded and failed, but that is a bit silly really. With a 21/15 build most people die in one slash to the face with my MW sarranid cav sword (ha ha onehanders underpowered, need sidesword to compete). It's a bit bullshit, too. It would improve the group combat part of the game, imo, if armour mattered a lot more then now, and some one-hitters were changed to have a more reasonable performance.

However this is strictly in the domains of the theoretical, I suspect we'll never ever see something of that sort in CRPG.

[Xant]

Well I dunno, if those 12 people failed so hard you deserved to win. Any one of them could've killed you if they were good enough, and no matter how bad they were 4-5 of them could've gotten you if they played smart.

[Wallace]

I don't know if this occurred to you but the changes you are talking about would result in me being both retarded rich on my character and an unstoppable machine from hell.

With my build and what you are talking about I would have well over 100 HP and 90ish armor
I wouldn't die

To top that off 12 PS and a high tier weapon which I have so much gold that I hardly would care about that minor cost jump I would one shot everyone while people glance on me and the peasants yell REVOLT again

[Raskolnikov]

Nope, I think the amount of damage is just fine. I'm glad most people seem to feel the same way.

Well, yes, but... I mean, I'm not some expert manual blocker, but I've once killed 12 people spamming my MW glaive around.

As Xant said, good for you! They made the mistake of attacking you one by one and you were just better than them, so you killed them all as they came. This is exactly the way it should be! I love watching the good players chewing through the lesser players (yes, even if that probably includes me). If combat was made less lethal it would degenerate into protracted slugging matches, and that means we would no longer see heroes running into groups of enemies and cutting them down like wheat before a scythe! I think it's an incredible sight to witness and I would miss it terribly. It's our own fault if we can't block, and we should get punished for it.