Well, this article is gonna be technical, as we’re diving into the heart of RPG games. As it turns out, most RPG games use percentage to calculate damage, so the more armor you wear the less damage you receive. Although it’s a good and simple system, it always bothered me that even when wearing a full metal armor, I would still be damaged from knives, clubs and small creatures such as wolves. And no, I don’t think that those pesky wolves from Skyrim are strong enough to bite a full metal armor…
So we developed a different combat system, which uses the concept of armor integrity. This idea is simple - your armor blocks very well, but it also receives damage during combat. Depending on the type of armor, it will be less effective the more blows it absorbs. This system doesn’t mean that the armor itself is broken, it means that your enemies learned it’s weak points, the armor plates comes off, or blunt weapons bent it or loosened the connecting plates. Neither does it mean that you’ll have to carry a hammer and repair your armor after each battle, as the integrity regenerates over time. So without further ado, let’s introduce this concept:
Here's how the new combat system works:
Armor rating and armor integrity
Most creatures in Legends of Ellaria have armor rating and armor integrity. Before calculating any damage, the armor rating is calculated based on the integrity of the armor. For instance, if you have an armor of 16, with an armor integrity of 30 out of 60, your actual armor rating is 8 (50% integrity).
Physical damage vs armor and armor integrity
Any weapon (except for some magic effects) has a physical damage. The physical damage is calculated against the armor and needs to be higher than the armor in order to cause damage to its target. For instance, if your armor is 8 and you received a damage of 5, you won't suffer any damage.
However, every damage that your armor absorbs will lower your armor integrity, which degrades your armor and makes it more ineffective with each blow. For instance, if you have an armor of 16, with an armor integrity of 30 out of 60, and you received a physical damage of 10, then your armor will only absorb 8 points of damage (50% current integrity of the 16 armor rating). You will then receive a -2 health and a -8 armor integrity (22 out of 60), and will now have an armor rating of 6 instead of 8.
* Depending on your character level, armor integrity slowly regenerates over time
* Also, these calculations don’t affect knockdown and knockdown damage from blunt weapons
"Ignore armor" effect
Most piercing weapons will have a smaller damage but will have an "ignore armor" effect. The ignore armor effect ignores some of your armor without causing any damage to your armor or to your health. For instance, if a weapon has 5 damage and 6 "ignore armor", and you have an armor of 8, then 2 points of damage will be absorbed by your armor, and your health will drop by 3.
* The ignore armor doesn't damage any of your health or your armor integrity.
Fire, Frost and magic effects
Once the physical damage is calculated, other effects may damage you:Fire damage - ignores half of your armor for damage calculations
Frost damage - any damage that penetrates your armor is doubled
Magic damage - ignores all of your armor
Although these effects are more useful than a regular physical damage, they have the following disadvantages:
Weapons that holds these effects are rare and expensive
Magic projectiles that hold these effects don't usually do physical damage
None of these effects drops your armor integrity(no, fire damage will not melt the armor)
Resist fire, frost or magic effects can negate these effects
Here's an example:
If you have:
Health - 50
Armor Rating - 16
Armor Integrity- 45/60
(Actual armor rating - 12)
And received the damage of:
Physical damage - 5
Ignore armor - 5
Fire damage - 6
Then:
- The ignore armor will drop your armor rating from 12 to 7
- The physical damage will not penetrate but will drop your armor from 7 to 2, and inflict 5 points of damage to your armor integrity
- The fire damage will ignore half of your armor (one point) and will do a damage of 4 to your health.
The result will be:
Health - 46
Armor rating - 16
Armor integrity - 40 / 60
(actual armor rating - 10)
With this in mind, blunt weapons will do more physical damage but will have less armor piercing. Arrows will have more "ignore armor" than actual physical damage, and swords will have a balance between armor-piercing and damage.
Well, that’s about it. The end result is not as complicated as it sounds; the more you fight, the more damage you receive, but you’ll also have to worry about your armor integrity as your health will drop exponentially with each damage you receive. Of course, there are other factors, such as stamina, knockdown, and blunt damage, as well as skills and armor integrity regeneration.
So, does this system sounds awesome or complicated? Let us know your feedback and suggestions about this topic.
there it is :)
