A Proposal For Weapon Skill Gains

[Kunren]

Weapon skill training has always been a complex affair, with certain classes of weapons and certain weapons within those classes having notable advantages with progression speed.

Considering Multi-attacks are being considered to be reimplemented currently, I believe now is a fantastic time to make a proposal for an overhaul of weapon skill progression (and similarly offense as well).

Currently, if you succeed in an attack vs an opponent of sufficient challenge, you gain 0.025 weapon skill progression, and a relatively smaller chunk of offense skill growth.

I propose that instead of these flat skill gain, we instead implement a scaling skill gain dependent on the energy cost and potential number of successful attacks of a given round.


I believe that tying energy cost to progression speed is super important, so as to avoid giving a progression advantage to those swinging particularly lightweight weapon classes and therefore getting more bang per buck for their pool of 500 energy over time.


The calculation should look like this: (BaseSkillProgression*EnergyCost)/potential number of attacks.


So, let's take two examples. We'll compare a massive two handed hammer user vs a dual wielding dagger user.


Let's say that for our purposes, default skill progression was set to 0.01.


Let's say our hammer user has a really massive honkin thing, and it costs a whopping 12 energy per attack to swing (can't recall if this is under or overselling two handed mauls, it's been a while).

He'll most certainly only get 1 attack per swing, so if he succeeds it against a challenging foe, he'll be getting base skill progress (0.01 for this example) multiplied by energy usage (12) for a total of 0.12 progress on his related weapon skill.


Our dual dagger wielder, on the other hand, assuming multi-attack returns, might get as many as six attacks per swing. However! They aren't guaranteed that, so it wouldn't be fair to always penalize them for it.

As a dual wielder, they'll be using more energy than a normal dagger user per swing, so let's call it 10 energy for our purposes (again, unsure if over or underselling but doesn't much matter right this second).

And, we'll say that on this particular combat attack, they managed to swing 4 times out of their potential six attacks.

Of those 4, they were successful in three of them.


So, the calculation would look like this: baseline skill progress (0.01) times energy cost would be a progression of 0.1 per successful swing. As a multiattack weapon, we divide this by the number of times the weapon swung this round, so they'd get 0.025 progress per successful swing.

Since in our example they succeeded three times, that's 0.075 progression.



What do you all think? Calling weapon vets to run the numbers on these examples and provide more accurate judgments, would this feel good for everyone? More attacks would still generally ensure more consistent progression through sheer number of rolls, but the weightier progress on the slower weapons would make it feel more viable to grind with those as well, imo.

[Squeak]

It'd be interesting to see greater skill gains for larger, non-multi strike weapons, sure.

A couple things, though. A greatsword is -9 energy. A three-strike dagger attack, one handed, is also -9 energy, for about half the maximum damage of a greatsword. Assuming dual-wielding daggers maintains the same energy use per strike, it'd be a whopping -18 energy per manual "attack" and still only do about the same max damage as a greatsword, perhaps a little higher ... there seems to be some variation on damage factors for dagger-type weapons.

[Sneaky]

One concern I'd have is that early on, player's won't be getting those multi strikes. I don't recall exactly, but it took quite a while before even a couple strikes would land successfully when using a dagger. Using the numbers provided in the previous post, 9 energy, we can say for a dagger attack with 3 strikes, it would divide .9 by the total number of strikes in that round. So each strike carries a potential for .3 skillgains. If we strike a single time with a dagger, that potential is instead .9. Here are a couple examples:
Bob wields two daggers and strikes mushroom Michael 4 times for a cost of 9 energy. Out of those 4 strikes, 2 attacks land. Bob is awarded .45 skill gains.
Mushroom Michael lashes out at Bob with his hefty mace and lands a single blow that cost them 9 energy. Mushroom Michael is awarded .9 skill gain.
A couple of other concerns I have are related to the weapons in each class. The hafted, swords, and polearms, class has several options, some single strike, some multi strike, at least if we're considering old CLOK multistrikes to still be relevant. However, for daggers, there is no single strike option. Every dagger type weapon I've ever had was a two or three strike weapon. I'd personally like an option to toggle whether or not you want a single focused attack that has the potential for high damage similar to how they were in COGG, or multiple less damaging attacks as they are currently. The dagger class would still be separate from other classes of weapons because of their limited parry potential, with stilettos not having any ability to parry, but with relatively high armor chink potential.

[Kunren]

It'd be interesting to see greater skill gains for larger, non-multi strike weapons, sure.

A couple things, though. A greatsword is -9 energy. A three-strike dagger attack, one handed, is also -9 energy, for about half the maximum damage of a greatsword. Assuming dual-wielding daggers maintains the same energy use per strike, it'd be a whopping -18 energy per manual "attack" and still only do about the same max damage as a greatsword, perhaps a little higher ... there seems to be some variation on damage factors for dagger-type weapons.

Really? I thought for sure I remembered big heavy weapons having higher energy costs than itty bitty ones, must be going crazy. The second half of the equation still stands, though. The fact that you are getting more consistent damage out overall by ensuring you are hitting a challenging enemy more frequently makes up for the potentially lower maximum damage output, imo.

One concern I'd have is that early on, player's won't be getting those multi strikes. I don't recall exactly, but it took quite a while before even a couple strikes would land successfully when using a dagger. Using the numbers provided in the previous post, 9 energy, we can say for a dagger attack with 3 strikes, it would divide .9 by the total number of strikes in that round. So each strike carries a potential for .3 skillgains. If we strike a single time with a dagger, that potential is instead .9. Here are a couple examples:
Bob wields two daggers and strikes mushroom Michael 4 times for a cost of 9 energy. Out of those 4 strikes, 2 attacks land. Bob is awarded .45 skill gains.
Mushroom Michael lashes out at Bob with his hefty mace and lands a single blow that cost them 9 energy. Mushroom Michael is awarded .9 skill gain.
A couple of other concerns I have are related to the weapons in each class. The hafted, swords, and polearms, class has several options, some single strike, some multi strike, at least if we're considering old CLOK multistrikes to still be relevant. However, for daggers, there is no single strike option. Every dagger type weapon I've ever had was a two or three strike weapon. I'd personally like an option to toggle whether or not you want a single focused attack that has the potential for high damage similar to how they were in COGG, or multiple less damaging attacks as they are currently. The dagger class would still be separate from other classes of weapons because of their limited parry potential, with stilettos not having any ability to parry, but with relatively high armor chink potential.

So, the answer to this one is pretty simple. Even though each individual strike is worth potentially less skill gain, you will more consistently gain skill than Mushroom Mike because you have more rolls with a chance to succeed per turn.

In a world where you're both guaranteed to hit, Mushroom Mike obviously has the advantage, but you must face challenging foes to advance at all. It's not quite as simple as this, but let's say you both have a 50/50 chance to land any individual swing because of fighting an equal foe.

Mushroom Mike would, over three attacks, be making three coinflips. He gets three chances for skillgain. He could get all three, or miss all three, without statistical improbability,

Bob on the other hand, over three attacks, could theoretically get up to 18 coinflips. He'll likely get less, maybe even down to half, that, but your skillgain potential is scaled based off the number of multi-attacks you can potentially hit someone with per round, not the number you could potentially make at all, so that's fine. It is extremely unlikely you go through 9-18 coin flips without ANY successes on your part, ensuring that you'll get more consistent progression.

[Sneaky]

Your still not addressing the issue of early skill levels when multiple strikes are uncommon. You're suggesting that they be very slow to start, and then middle of the pack later on, while single strike weapons start out as basically coin flips that grant big boosts when successful. If you add in factors like stealth, abilities that apply negative rerolls, the single strike weapons begin to pull ahead substantially over lighter weapons.
I also forgot to point out that in CLOK's system, the most strikes you could ever get with two weapons was 5 strikes.

[Squeak]

Your still not addressing the issue of early skill levels when multiple strikes are uncommon.

FYI, as a new character, this is largely untrue. There has been very few instances where I haven't gotten a 3-strike dagger attack. I don't always land those three strikes, but the potential is there.

Anyways, how do you propose to apply these skill gains? Per enemy defeat, like Sneaky suggested? Like it is now? Or per "round" of attack and defense, i.e. Player attacks, mob attacks, skill gains are calculated and awarded?

[Kunren]

Your still not addressing the issue of early skill levels when multiple strikes are uncommon.

FYI, as a new character, this is largely untrue. There has been very few instances where I haven't gotten a 3-strike dagger attack. I don't always land those three strikes, but the potential is there.

Anyways, how do you propose to apply these skill gains? Per enemy defeat, like Sneaky suggested? Like it is now? Or per "round" of attack and defense, i.e. Player attacks, mob attacks, skill gains are calculated and awarded?

As soon as all consequences of a player/mob using the 'attack' command have been calculated, so effectively in real time.


There aren't neccessarily 'rounds' in clok combat because every action has an individual roundtime, so we can't really track that way. We COULD track by tick, and say something like 'every 10 ticks you get a notification of the skills you've raised in that time' but even then I think tracking skill progression in real time under the hood would be superior.

[Rias]

I was considering having multi-strikes work like spells that can land multiple hits, and make only the initial attack have the Offense vs Defense rolls (and thus skillgain). If the initial strike misses, the attack is done. If it hits, there are chances for additional strikes but they are more like simplified "extra damage flares" than full new attacks with all the standard dice rolls. I think that would even things out pretty well. A small multiplier can be applied for any attacks that are more or less than the standard 5 roundtime to keep them in line as well.

[Kunren]

I was considering having multi-strikes work like spells that can land multiple hits, and make only the initial attack have the Offense vs Defense rolls (and thus skillgain). If the initial strike misses, the attack is done. If it hits, there are chances for additional strikes but they are more like simplified "extra damage flares" than full new attacks with all the standard dice rolls. I think that would even things out pretty well. A small multiplier can be applied for any attacks that are more or less than the standard 5 roundtime to keep them in line as well.

10/10 if this is an option that resolves this argument completely. 100% behind this implementation. Thanks Rias!

[Sneaky]

That would simplify things. I'm just curious about how your viewing the damage totals. In the past maximum multiple strikes have been pretty equal to single strike weapons. Like a greatsword did 90 damage, and a dagger could do 3 strikes for 30 damage each. If you're considering adding a small multiplier to the round time for multiple strikes, does that mean that there would be a potential to do more damage with them, assuming maximum strikes and quality /material bonuses being equal?

[Rias]

The multiplier would be to skillgain, so attacks that incurred less roundtime would get less skillgain, and attacks that incurred more roundtime would get more skillgain. The main idea of multistrikes is to let things like daggers or fist weapons be more viable with their damage levels while still being believable, attributing that roughly equal damage potential to multiple strikes rather than seeing a single dagger strike do the same damage as a single greatsword strike which would be pretty goofy.

[Sneaky]

Alright, so if I'm understanding this correctly, you are thinking about decreasing the roundtime for the initial strike for multi hit weapons, which will also have lowered damage outputs compared to single hit weapons. However, they will have the chance to have additional attacks associated with the successful initial attack. With each additional attack, the roundtime is increased. Would it then mean that in addition to sometimes having less round time, they could possibly have more round time than single strike weapons?

[Rias]

No, no roundtime adjustments. I just meant for attacks that do have roundtimes other than the standard 5 seconds, such as shortbows (4) and longbows (6), they should have a slight skillgain adjustment to compensate so they don't feel any better or worse for skillgain purposes. I don't see multistrike weapons having variable roundtimes based on strikes landed, I think that would just make things more complicated and difficult to balance. We can assume every 5-second attack with a dagger has all strike opportunities attempted during that roundtime, even if none of the extra strikes actually succeed.

[Zeldryn]

I was considering having multi-strikes work like spells that can land multiple hits, and make only the initial attack have the Offense vs Defense rolls (and thus skillgain). If the initial strike misses, the attack is done. If it hits, there are chances for additional strikes but they are more like simplified "extra damage flares" than full new attacks with all the standard dice rolls. I think that would even things out pretty well. A small multiplier can be applied for any attacks that are more or less than the standard 5 roundtime to keep them in line as well.

I think this would be -perfect- personally.

[Sneaky]

Alright, I do like where this is at. The only thing I might suggest is that the damage for the additional attacks be based loosely on the success of the initial strike, rather than completely random. So if you roll very well, your additional attacks might have a value between 60 and 100% of their potential, and if you roll low then they would have between 10% and 30% of their potential. Not actual values though, just place holders.

[artus]

I loooove the idea of damage flair. That'll make things easier. In theory, a knife is supposed to be faster to swing anyway so technically you get less damage output over all but you can strike perhaps twice when your greatsword pal still needs to wind up his muscles for another round. Less gain but faster still means equal gain anyway.
While we are at it, any potential chance for something like a disarm feature? It used to be a pretty overkill ability that literally shut down everything once it managed to land. I'd love something like that though, but perhaps not as op as before, perhaps a proc,the same way you can get your stuff yanked out of you if you happen to have it passively on or something, or whatever else works.

[Zeldryn]

While we are at it, any potential chance for something like a disarm feature? It used to be a pretty overkill ability that literally shut down everything once it managed to land. I'd love something like that though, but perhaps not as op as before, perhaps a proc,the same way you can get your stuff yanked out of you if you happen to have it passively on or something, or whatever else works.

I really, really, really don't want old disarms to return.

It was briefly discussed that disarm be reflavored into an ability that flavors it so you're temporarily disarmed and have to retrieve it without actually disarming the weapon. In this way-- no one's disarming mobs and beating them senseless with 100% safety like back in the old days, we can still do our temporary disarms to give us a moment to capitalize, and no one loses their fancy shmancy weapons because of a disarm proc, either.

[artus]

Oh wait yar sorry bout that. I think I was there too when it was discussed about but forgot about it. Like a few rounds of you fumbling to get your weapon back, caught in your own roundtime while doing so...I'm thinking almost like how you're stuck in spider webs or something. Wasn't it in one of the vc talk? I think it was there that Rias talked about it.