You could also make armour stats independent of wound reduction, then you can just tweak things (like 10 prec = 10 wounds, etc) to get to the best balance. This could also be used to improve warrior damage if that's what it takes.

The point of this is, as said before, to reduce the number of things to that we need to take into account.

Estarra mentioned somewhere in this thread that tweaking combatstyles to interact with the current damage/wounding formulae is not practical because of the variables involved.

At the same time, if I heard it right, combatstyles are almost entirely unused because of how little effect they have as they are.

In which case, why not delete them and re-institute them with a new mechanic aimed at helping warrior problems as they stand? For example, if warrior problem is building wounds (not enough damage -> constant health application) then make a style that adds a flat wound or damage bonus (so that it doesn't interact with formulae) to help build wounds. To balance this out-of-nowhere boost, make being in the style give a flat malus to affliction proc rate, and make a mirror of it as another style (flat lower damage/wounds, flat higher affliction proc rate), and add a balance cost to changing styles.

So you start in one style, build wounds effectively but are unable to land dangerous afflictions, switch to another style (alerting your opponent) and start landing afflictions, but your wound building suffers, making it impossible to sustain regeneration affs indefinitely.

Other styles to deal with parry/stance/rebound/miss/dodge/poison RNGs as well?

That's actually really brill.

Actually, it was possible prior to the tempering modification to get weapons with total stats near 500; is it not possible now? If not, re-enabling that as far as forging a weapon (but not tempering) isn't a bad option, though I doubt anyone wants to be slaved to a forge for weeks to try to get that one perfect weapon again.

The current 480 tempering cap is closer to +5 comparison.

I like this idea! A lot, actually...

One problem with that is the high cost of runes. Estarra has no intention of lowering profit margins for game balance (understandable, even if unadmirable) and thus the prices remain where they are. People who do buy then feel entitled to a significant impact on combat - they don't want to be merely "comparable" to unruned warriors. Again, understandable. Besides, if we make them comparable, no one would buy these runes, so this would be blocked by the admin as well. These outliers have to be limited so they cannot break combat just by their presence alone (or at least, not any mroe than they currently are) which in turn limits unruned combatants to being forever mediocre.

Working within this mess, we have no way of making it possible for unruned warriors to be on par with runed warriors in terms of damage, wounding output. What we can do is to make sure unruned warriors are at least not gimped.

You win, Shuyin. You win. The more I think about your idea, the more it makes sense. It pretty much accomplishes the whole point of this thread in one fell swoop, and in such a simple way, no less.

(well at least the wounding/damage related part. It doesn't address the major RNG problems, but it'd still be a huge step forward toward simplifying the whole thing.)

It's a simpler idea too!

Edit: This way also doesn't touch any of the other things like parry/stance/whatever, since I feel those are actually fine. Warriors have no trouble getting around that if they're even halfway competent.

Edit2: The RNG part, IMO, really should just be an adjustment of the current ratios for hacks in favour of the limb you want, then maybe that power move for swings that guarantees the hit on the limb you want, but does nothing else (probably, haven't thought about that much yet).

Yeah, that's where I'm at too. It leaves the RNG part in for the most part, but helps reduce it a bit for wounds and removes a huge source of fluctuation and difference in wound buildup.

Not sure it would cover everything but it would be a major step and allow for wounding to be done and tweaked much more readily as needed.

Strength still needs to have a noticeable effect on wounding, or its effect on damage needs to be greatly increased, if prec turns straight to wounding. I know it's obvious, just don't want it to be forgotten.

Yeah, I mentioned that possibility, though I admit it was very vague.

Just thought I'd throw my two cents in and agree with the bandwagon here. Separating armour stats from wounding is an ingeniously simple idea. Whether or not it's simple in the code, well...that's another story.

What does that do with armor stats then? Make them entirely irrelevant? Also, do warriors then become as wound-susceptible as robes wearers? Further, take into account things like trueshield that act as extra armour. What do we do with that skill? I'm not against a level playing-field but I don't see how this would really be feasible without major changes to current game mechanics (that I really don't see ever happening).

"Someone suggested to me making hemiplegia and similar things just prevent parry and stance on that arm while active. Does that sound good?"

Yes that alone would go a long way- it'd be just wonderful to have. However.. monks would get it too, and it would be too strong for them.

Armor stats would do what they've always done, reduce damage from cutting and blunt sources. As far as plate being as wound susceptible as robes, perhaps make it so that the type of armour (cloth/robes, leather, chain?, plate) confer a generic depending on the type static resistance to wounds. Ie, robes/cloth reduce wounds by 10% compared to nekkid, leather 20%, chain 30%, plate 40%? Now, when looking at things like splendours/masterplate/tattooarmour, possibly have it count as armour of the next tier, thus making the trans skills for their respective crafts a it more useful? Splendours would provide 20% reduction, tattoos probably the same, and have masterplate give a 50% reduction.

I have no idea how balanced these numbers are, and am merely providing them as an example of how the different armours would scale in regards to reducing wounds dealt.

Fun secondary effect? You might see people opting for leather/chain armour as opposed to robes if they want to mitigate against warrior wounding as opposed to warrior damage. But, considering the fact that monks generally rely on locks/damage kills, high armour stat robes would still be desirable. Could expand forging a bit, without having a negative impact on tailoring. Or, worst case scenario, everyone would have two sets of armour, one for fighting warriors, one for everyone else.

Would be better to just increase weapon damage to the point where wearing better armor is advantageous in addition to DMP while fighting warriors/monks, while leaving the wounding numbers independent of armor.

Doesn't make them entirely irrelevant, they'll still be used to calculate how much blunt/cutting damage is reduced, which is still very important for both pk and pve. This could even lead to ideas such as finally allowing armour to hold proofs. Again, with this change, strength can also be made more important or even overall damage can be increased to the point where damage becomes feasible for a warrior.

Yes, this will make warriors become as wound susceptible as robes wearers, which I feel is just overall better for the game balance, but warriors already have a natural advantage due to improved parry (shield/weapon) in knighthood in addition to higher armour stats.

In my head, trueshield can be changed to simply greatly improve the chance to parry/stance the parts trueshield covers. I could also see it just making it another separate 'layer' of protection like stance though.

It sounds like a really good idea. I just wonder if they'd go for that.

Completely off topic, but that so makes me think of Better Off Ted.

Back on topic, regarding not changing combatstyles at all. The poster and then Estarra's replies had mentioned stances, not combatstyles. I'm just curious if there was any hint of a mix up between the two of them on either side, hence the idea/ideas regarding combatstyles.

If armor no longer reduces wounds then it would likely need to see other changes. For instance if trueshield is at MAX 52/52 which converts to about 13/13 armour why is that worth 350 credits? The price has not changed but its effect was already reduced, making it (oh kata deflect fits in here too, supposedly they are identical?) not effect armour hinders its usefulness.

That said I think Shuyins idea is pretty solid so long as armour is adjusted in response.

Strength should still be required to cause precision so we dont end up with low strength super high speed races. The strength factor is part of why faeling is considered "worse" if they can just take brute speed as precision is all they need then having low strength wouldnt matter so long as you have dex. My idea is in the new formula either make it a modifier or a bonus, that is:

wounds = prec * 3 + f(strength)
or
wounds = (prec * 3) * f(strength)

It should be possible at super high precision to land a heavy still given high strength of course, but in this instance I think we need to consider the wounding boosts from skills. Should you be expected to lunge to get your heavy aff on first swing or should we just remove the wounding adjustment? Being able to reliably and constantly achieve a heavy aff may be a bit much so my proposal is to make it still require power to instantly achieve these results. So the question would be where would the balance be? Should you have to be near max precision? If so where should strength factor in? Is it for instance 180 precision and 22 strength or 240 presicion and 16 strength?

I dunno, these are just the thoughts that went through my head, and I have been finding recently that gut feeling is the best thing to follow rather than overthink it.

P.S. Just think we are further falling into power creep, as the adjustment would mean warriors could RELIABLY insta gib you instead of have a chance to. I know two warriors can tendon till amputate hits then just go head and slitlock/behead etc. And I have 78/78 armour plus deflect, hate to be someone weaker, eesh.