Can't sleep until I write this down

Items and Tiers:

So, its time to start planning items and how they work and how they are classified. In this sense I mean to target armor and weapons, being the most important items to PoP 4.o. We have a new member of the team who is in charge of making these changes, and he has been gracious enough to listen to what I have to say on the topic. My ideas on game balance don't mesh well with a mod, because they require a new system for combat. However, I am choosing to write this post as if I had my druthers.

Tiers:

There are two ways this system can work, the first is the carrot on a stick method. A clear line of advancement that allows the player to grow more and more powerful as time goes on. I have a few opinions on why that system doesn't work well for PoP 4.0. The main importance is that it only helps the power user who relies on strength and agility. Sadly in PoP 4.0 there is no way to kill someone with intellect points, no fireballs, for better or for worse.

My proposal relies on less tiers, but sadly doesn't scale as well. I suggest reducing the tiers, and making them finite. This prevents lower strength units from becoming obsolete, so ill talk less about my plan on a general level and get down to specifics.

I am proposing to balance all weapons against available armor, and a 5 tier system (the number is up for debate but it should be in the single digits).

Example: Progression Requirement (str)

Tier 1: Linen 0-6

Tier 2: Leather 6-12

Tier 3: Mail 12-18

Tier 4: Plate 18-24

Tier 5: Unique / special 24-30

Tier 1 weapons should be designed to trump tier 1 armor, tier 2 for tier 2 and tier 1, etc. In theory I would like for weapons in tier one to be 50% less effective against armors in the tier above it, and 75% less effective in the second tier above it. This assures us that moderately armed unites in tiers 2 and 3 can still contribute to a battle against tier 4 soldiers (house hold knights), and ever so slightly against tier 5 soldiers (demonic nasties, and eventually the player).

There is leeway inside of these tiers, each has six points of strength involved, so let us assme that to do any sort of damage to a tier 5 armor wearing critter you need to have a weapon in tier three. It stands to reason that you need a strength between 12 and 18, but will only do about 25% damage to that enemy. This I feel is fair, I mean that unit is very well armored, if you want to kill the best with thine own hand, you need the best weaponry. Most characters with an INT or CHR build can afford 12 points of strength, most of my characters utilize 18 so that they could wear plate.

So inside a tier, lets call 0 strength (which is impossible) linen cooking apron, then at strength 6 you can wear padded armor. It is important to note that anything above a farmer is probably in the leather category of 6-12 strength. A medic companion for example might only have 6-9 strength in favor of agility to raise a strong shield and survive the encounter. There will be rare armors that belong to the top of the tier below it but can contend with armors in the tier above it. For example, enchanted robes might fall in tier 1, but off there protection of mid tier 2. The difference is rarity, and carrot on a stick, maybe this armor is hard to find, and gives the player something to work toward.

I am also suggesting that a tier 5 weapon should be roughly 25% more damaging to someone wearing tier 4 armor, 50% for tier 3, and 75% for tier 2. The weapon should sheer through tier 1 armor like paper. The idea here is that a player who does spec all str should be able to totally rock lower level people and feel like a true god, only finding challenge in other tier 5 units. Some of those units may have inflated statistics or special armor to provide a true challenge.

So how do we figure all this out you say, with all these percentages. Well, to be honest its not perfect, and we have already started. We have determined that the strongest offense (t5) should need 1-3 shots to destroy someone with the best defense (t5). However, these shots are unprotected, full damage shots, and on the hardest difficulty with no damage reduction. Lastly it does not take into account any movement bonus or count for lances because that is a different beast entirely.

So lets talk about a mismatch, a t4 diamond tipped throwing ax should deal and additional 75% damage to a person in t1 kitchen apron before taking into account power throw and strength bonuses. This ax may do 50 base damage and when all is said and done may get an additional 100% when including power throw, and basically murder anyone who is max level wearing said apron in 1-3 shots... probably 1. By that same token, a demon magus strolling around in his t5 sparkling death garb might require more axes than the player has, due to the -50% damage modification.

So the way that we arrive at these values is to pick the most armor we want someone to have numerically and then divide that by the number of tiers and generate a scale. For instance T5 armor for any one body part might be 50. 50 head 100 body 50 feet, as an example. We then take the maximum amount of damage by testing wacking someone with that much armor undefended till we get a sweet spot of 1-3 wacks per death. Again, divide by five, and we have the damage tiers as well. All that will change between different types of weapons, a piercing weapon will have less base damage than a cutting weapon to work appropriately against the armor. Faster weapons will have lower damage, and longer weapons will do more damage but act more slowly. This sliding scale, aside from the tiers is arbitrary and relative.

So where is my carrot on a stick, when do I stop hunting for armor. The plan is to have those examples that are outstanding for their tier hard to find, and one item of each in each tier. Man that's a lot. But lets say its more common from tier 3-5. We need to fill each niche with a special piece of armor, and weapon of each type. That doesn't mean fifty different swords that do different things, that means maybe a sword or two, an ax or two, a bow or two, and the player can pick and choose based on his playing style. We would not suit every last play style, because thats what the underside of the tiers are for.

We cannot lose sight of people who don't want to feel obligated to max their strength, there should be neat things for all characters to find. Isn't the end goal to conquer the land using a variety of skills? By this same token there should be companions at the higher levels, so that we can live vicariously through them. Running an int character? Cant equip that ebony sword of ass kicking? No probs, give it to your companion that is all decked out in skull crushing gear. Play the way you want to play, and keep the game competitive without player involvement.

In a perfect world I would balance different types of gear with different stat requirements, like CH for pretty gear, INT for the high level cloth and linen gear, DEX for the faster weapons and shields, etc. That isnt possible yet, so we have to make due with what we have. The goal of the system is to allow a large number of medium tier troops to have a shot at killing one higher level troop. 5 higher level troops should wipe out 15-20 mid tier troops like grass, but you shouldn't be able to win the map with one high level soldier, especially if you aren't playing hercules. More to come after I hear back from the rest of my team.

This scale is relative, and isn't perfect in its percentages, a high tier 3 is as good as a low tier 4, and in some cases better if it is a unique item. This, however, does not mean that a tier 5 wearing goddess can get run down by Joe Schmo and his pig sticker, chances are good his knees will buckle and head will explode upon approaching. If Joe Schmo has his grand daddies sword of +9 ass kickery, he at least has a shot to contribute to the fight before he falls on that sword.