Combat conditions (Bleeding, Deep Wounds, Dazed, Crippled)

[Woody]

Combat is severely lacking any form of meaningful inflicted conditions that could help expand the depth of melee and ranged combat. It also serves to both add to group combat complexity (giving greater meaning to combat healers) as well as duelling by giving additional ways to wear your target down through parries.

~ Combat status effects/conditions ~

All conditions scale their chance on hit to proc based on the damage dealt through their individual Slash/Pierce/Blunt damage contributions. This is the individual damage type contribution after Armor Mitigation but before any modifiers such as Damage Bonus. As such, all effect chances are reduced by Armor.

• Bleeding
  • Chance on hit (2% per slash or pierce damage dealt) to inflict bleeding, dealing 1/2/3/5/8 damage every 5 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.
    • Target design here is for fast slash/pierce weapons to shine as the effect has a higher base chance per damage and is more effective at max stacks therefore benefiting weapons with faster potential hits.
    • Bandages, Healing Spells and certain bleed specific Potions should remove 1 or more bleeding stacks dependent on the strength of the heal.
• Deep wounds
  • Chance on hit (1% per slash damage dealt) to inflict deep wounds, reducing healing effectiveness and total HP by 11%. Stacks up to 3 times.
    • Targets heavier slashing weapons here given the lower chance per point of slashing damage and the lower max effective stack cap. Given this, weapons with higher potential damage output per swing will have higher proc chances.
    • Only specific Healing spells, Potions and Rest should remove deep wound stacks.
• Dazed
  • Chance on hit (0.75% per blunt damage dealt) to inflict dazed, reducing stamina regeneration by 20% for 10/15/20 seconds (Damage via non-perfect parry / Blunt damage to non-head / blunt damage to head). Duration refreshed on reapplication.
    • Targets all weapons that deal some form of blunt damage here, as well as blunt damage through non-perfect parries/blocks. Lower base chance per point of blunt damage dealt to not proc as often given the punishing nature of stam. Duration of dazed scaled on how the blunt damage is received.
    • Given shields do not apply blunt damage through blocks but reduce durability on the shield, gives another good positive toward shield usage.
    • As only the flanged mace does slashing damage, all other mauls are balanced in the sense they can only apply dazed/crippled. Flanged mace has much lower blunt damage as well so a lower proc chance for Dazed.
    • The only way to recover from Dazed is to wait out the time.
• Hamstrung/Crippled
  • Chance on hit to the lower body (0.5% per pierce or slash/blunt damage dealt) to inflict crippled, reducing movement speed by 15%.
    • Given this does not stack and is a flat movement speed penalty until healed, has a low base chance and must be targeted at the lower body. Both combined damage of slash/blunt via slash adds to the total damage done when considering the proc chance.
    • Healed via specific spells, rest and specific potions.

For a non RNG alternative suggestion, see this post below:

Combat conditions (Bleeding, Deep Wounds, Dazed, Crippled)

Combat is severely lacking any form of meaningful inflicted conditions that could help expand the depth of melee and ranged combat. It also serves to both add to group combat complexity (giving greater meaning to combat healers) as well as duelling by giving additional ways to wear your target...

www.mortalonline2.com

~ Arrowheads and fletching ~

Archery should also benefit from the ability to apply combat conditions through the use of fletching and specific Arrowhead types.

+ Add arrow heads crafted from bone, alloy or stone materials which modifies base damage and flight speed.

Arrowheads also trigger conditions:

• Broadhead
  • Can proc Bleeding
  • Can proc Crippled (lower body hit)
• Bodkin
  • Adds weak spot chance across all body parts instead of just head. Marksmanship skill contribution reduced by 50%.
• Barbed
  • Can proc Deep wounds
  • Can proc Crippled (lower body hit)

All procs are at 1/2 chance in comparison to melee procs given they can be applied at range.

+ Add arrow shafts crafted via wood materials which modify flight speed and arc.

• Long (for use in long bows)
• Short (for use in short bows)
  • Greatly penalise arc, speed and damage when fired from the incorrect bow type

+ Add the combination of arrow heads and shafts at the bow crafting table to create arrows.

• Have vendors sell headless arrows only.

 

[Speznat]

Thats is a very nice suggestion. But I think to blaance this will be a lot of work.
Bleeding damage was in MO1 also suggested but never made it to the game sadly.

 

[Jackdstripper]

They cant even balance current weapons (hence why everyone uses poles ), what to talk about races, clades, armours, pets, magic schools, mounted combat….and you want to add dots, bleeds and stuns WITH rng to this mess?

lets first balance what we have. Then think about adding more stuff.im also not a fan of rng mechanics in a full loot game btw.

 

[Woody]

They cant even balance current weapons (hence why everyone uses poles ), what to talk about races, clades, armours, pets, magic schools, mounted combat….and you want to add dots, bleeds and stuns WITH rng to this mess?

lets first balance what we have. Then think about adding more stuff.im also not a fan of rng mechanics in a full loot game btw.

They already intend to add conditions to the game see https://www.mortalonline2.com/beta-patch-notes-0-1-3-9/ which includes bleeding, poison, burning & open wound. If that's the case, what better time to add something to the game so that they can gather data and balance it - sooner rather than later.

Also how does RNG have anything to do with the fact this game is full loot?

 

[Jackdstripper]

They already intend to add conditions to the game see https://www.mortalonline2.com/beta-patch-notes-0-1-3-9/ which includes bleeding, poison, burning & open wound. If that's the case, what better time to add something to the game so that they can gather data and balance it - sooner rather than later.

Also how does RNG have anything to do with the fact this game is full loot?

full loot is a high stakes very punishing playstyle. When you die its a big deal. It takes time and gold to re-gear and often you cant even get back in the fight.

when you add a dice roll mechanics that you cant control (rng like crit or weak spot damage) you essentially remove skill and add pure luck. Pure luck is unfair, and unfairness only adds to the frustration of an already punishing play-style.

Its the same as if randomly you get hit by lightning and die. Its cool and funny the first time or two, but eventually you get fed up and go play something more predictable and fair.

 

[Woody]

full loot is a high stakes very punishing playstyle. When you die its a big deal. It takes time and gold to re-gear and often you cant even get back in the fight.

when you add a dice roll mechanics that you cant control (rng like crit or weak spot damage) you essentially remove skill and add pure luck. Pure luck is unfair, and unfairness only adds to the frustration of an already punishing play-style.

Its the same as if randomly you get hit by lightning and die. Its cool and funny the first time or two, but eventually you get fed up and go play something more predictable and fair.

I agree that RNG doesn't feel amazing fundamentally, however I would argue it's better characterised as RNG feels bad in a skill based game. You want your skill with regards to the game mechanics to determine the outcome of a fight more than RNG and in a full loot game, this feeling is increased tenfold.

With regards to this suggestion, I feel I've taken this into account fairly unconsciously. None of the mechanics presented are overtly punishing in the respect to instantly deciding an outcome of a fight. Sure the values are placeholder but scaled in a way that might make sense (without access to what SV can see in respect to data). Ultimately, I don't see how in a hack and slash game without button mashing/activatable skill based combat, you could achieve this kind of system without a degree of RNG.

In this context the scaling nature of the chance a condition can be applied based on the severity of damage applied is a good starting place and don't forget, conditions would mostly only be applied if you happened to miss a block/parry - as such there's still very much a skill factor that determines the application of a condition.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

Nice suggestion, I think it makes all weapons a bit more interesting in their damage capability than simply dealing one of three damage types.

 

[Woody]

Nice suggestion, I think it makes all weapons a bit more interesting in their damage capability than simply dealing one of three damage types.

Exactly and with this approach it should give the slower, less versatile weapon choices a bit more impact.

They cant even balance current weapons (hence why everyone uses poles ), what to talk about races, clades, armours, pets, magic schools, mounted combat….and you want to add dots, bleeds and stuns WITH rng to this mess?

lets first balance what we have. Then think about adding more stuff.im also not a fan of rng mechanics in a full loot game btw.

I've been pondering how the inverse might look like without RNG and came up with a damage threshold approach.

~ Damage Thresholds ~

Thresholds would work in a way that rewards landing a hit and exceeding a certain amount of damage against the target. Armor would still obviously reduce the damage received and therefore prevent a condition being applied. It follows the logic that the severity of the blow determines the application/occurrence not RNG - therefore rewarding landing or blocking blows (skill) with a guarentee of application of conditions based on damage dealt.

• Bleeding
  • Dealing 7%+ or more of the target's total HP as Slashing or Piercing damage (in a single attack) inflicts bleeding, dealing 1/2/3/5/8 damage every 5 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Deep wounds
  • Dealing 25%+ or more of the target's total HP as Slashing damage (in a single attack) to the Torso or Arms inflicts deep wounds, reducing healing effectiveness and total HP by 10%/20%. Stacks up to 2 times.
    • Note that this would lower the total HP pool therefore lowering the thresholds of damage required to apply other conditions. A cool interaction.
    • Had to also readjust this given the scale of damage required to apply the condition would mean you would never hit max stacks unless the player had healed sufficiently.
• Dazed
  • Dealing 15%+ or more of the target's total HP as Blunt damage (in a single attack) to the Head, Torso or Arms inflicts dazed, reducing stamina regeneration by 20% for 5/15/20 seconds (Damage via non-perfect parry / Blunt damage to non-head / blunt damage to head). Duration refreshed on reapplication. Non perfect parries threshold reduced to 5%+ (total duration reduced to 5s because of this).
• Hamstrung/Crippled
  • Dealing 20%+ or more of the target's total HP as Slashing, Piercing or Blunt damage (in a single attack) to the Lower Body inflicts crippled, reducing movement speed by 5%/10%/15%. Stacks up to 3 times.
    • Adjusted this to stack to make it more of an anti fleeing interaction when chasing down a target rather than an "always go for the legs first tactic". Fairly balanced given only bleeding can be triggered off the legs.

- Both melee and arrows can apply the conditions with the respective arrowheads aforementioned requiring 1.25x the damage to trigger the threshold.
- Because certain low damage weapons such as daggers have a higher base weak spot chance, this system could still work effectively as they're able to ignore the armour damage reduction, and hit the thresholds required. A fairly good interaction.
- High Constitution is a natural mitigation against condition application.
- Higher tiers of weapons and armours naturally increase and decrease the chance of application respectively. A great incentive to roaming with more expensive gear depending on how impactful these conditions are?
- As you can't see what conditions the target player has, perhaps damage assessment has a greater role to play as a skill, by allowing you to see what conditions the target has, with a small icon or text indicator.