balancing debuff spells that the player can use

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Started by jonthefox 37 posts Page 2 of 2 View original ↗
  1. Wavelength
    #21 Source
    BK-tdm said:
    I find a 75% reduction ridiculous, that leaves a 1000 hit on 250, if your party members can take a 1000 hit then balance wise id say the hp pools are around 5000, a 250 hit on a 5000 hp pool is negligible, we went from 5 turn kills to 20, adding healing spells and said debuff as renewable, your party cant lose against any melee attackers, period.
    ...
    I would leave it at -20 to -30%, and make it universal for mobs and bosses, make it a useful tool not a necessary one and make some bosses outright inmune to it or be able to dispel it.
    Make it -30% ATK and MATK to make it a more universal one.

    I do agree with some of your wider theory about "make it useful; don't make it a necessary crutch" - but I want to point out something that's unintuitive but important about your example: it discounts the value of a Turn. The "Turn" (or "Action") is the single most important resource in most battle systems, and it's often ignored by new designers. It's useful to look not at raw numbers (which can be arbitrarily high or low), but at the number of "average turns" that an action would be worth. And if you count in the value of a character's Turn, the numbers for a -75% reduction no longer look as ridiculous.

    Let's look at the value of a -75% ATK debuff, used by a member of a four-character party, against a challenging enemy troop of four identical Golems:
    • The debuff requires one Turn for a character to cast (as well as some amount of MP).
    • Assume the debuff lasts three turns. This will, in theory, make the next three physical actions (turns) of a Golem 75% less efficient. That's a value of 3 * 0.75 = 2.25 turns of value.
    • Except that if the Golem already acted this turn, it's actually two turns. Let's compromise at 2.5 actions at -75% efficiency, so 2.5 * 0.75 = 1.875 turns of value. Let's round in your favor to 2 turns of value.
    • During these three turns, assume the Golem is equally likely to use physical or magical attacks. Since the magical attacks aren't affected by an ATK debuff, we have to cut the value in half, so 2 turns * 0.5 = 1 total turn of enemy value negated.
    • If the Golem enemy has intelligent AI, it will use mostly magical attacks during this span, which would further reduce the debuff's value (making it more of a tactical shutdown than consistent, guaranteed value). I won't use this as a value-diluter in this example, but it's something to keep in mind.
    Even with assumptions slightly in your favor (and against mine), you can see how this seemingly powerful -75% ATK debuff barely paid for itself as far as turn value, and also cost you MP to cast. This means that, in standard encounters, even a powerful debuff like -75% can only be used effectively in very specific situations (such as an enemy that you know is only going to use physical attacks), and even then, it's not broken.

    Of course, against a Boss enemy where (even if the boss has underlings) the Boss itself represents a huge portion of the enemy's total damage, the -75% would be really powerful because you are expending one turn from one character in order to negate one turn's worth of value from the "entire" enemy troop (minus the weak underlings). But this is why @jonthefox asked the question in the first place! Because you need large numbers to make the debuff effective in standard encounters, while large numbers (without corresponding countermeasures) can make the debuffs outshine all other tactics in boss fights.

    That's why I recommended Absolute Debuffs as a smart solution to this problem - since the Boss is likely to have much higher stats than standard enemies, your debuffs will be somewhat less effective against the Boss but will still be able to really cripple single enemies out of a larger troop.
  2. BK-tdm
    #22 Source
    Spoiler
    Wavelength said:
    I do agree with some of your wider theory about "make it useful; don't make it a necessary crutch" - but I want to point out something that's unintuitive but important about your example: it discounts the value of a Turn. The "Turn" (or "Action") is the single most important resource in most battle systems, and it's often ignored by new designers. It's useful to look not at raw numbers (which can be arbitrarily high or low), but at the number of "average turns" that an action would be worth. And if you count in the value of a character's Turn, the numbers for a -75% reduction no longer look as ridiculous.

    Let's look at the value of a -75% ATK debuff, used by a member of a four-character party, against a challenging enemy troop of four identical Golems:
    • The debuff requires one Turn for a character to cast (as well as some amount of MP).
    • Assume the debuff lasts three turns. This will, in theory, make the next three physical actions (turns) of a Golem 75% less efficient. That's a value of 3 * 0.75 = 2.25 turns of value.
    • Except that if the Golem already acted this turn, it's actually two turns. Let's compromise at 2.5 actions at -75% efficiency, so 2.5 * 0.75 = 1.875 turns of value. Let's round in your favor to 2 turns of value.
    • During these three turns, assume the Golem is equally likely to use physical or magical attacks. Since the magical attacks aren't affected by an ATK debuff, we have to cut the value in half, so 2 turns * 0.5 = 1 total turn of enemy value negated.
    • If the Golem enemy has intelligent AI, it will use mostly magical attacks during this span, which would further reduce the debuff's value (making it more of a tactical shutdown than consistent, guaranteed value). I won't use this as a value-diluter in this example, but it's something to keep in mind.
    Even with assumptions slightly in your favor (and against mine), you can see how this seemingly powerful -75% ATK debuff barely paid for itself as far as turn value, and also cost you MP to cast. This means that, in standard encounters, even a powerful debuff like -75% can only be used effectively in very specific situations (such as an enemy that you know is only going to use physical attacks), and even then, it's not broken.

    Of course, against a Boss enemy where (even if the boss has underlings) the Boss itself represents a huge portion of the enemy's total damage, the -75% would be really powerful because you are expending one turn from one character in order to negate one turn's worth of value from the "entire" enemy troop (minus the weak underlings). But this is why @jonthefox asked the question in the first place! Because you need large numbers to make the debuff effective in standard encounters, while large numbers (without corresponding countermeasures) can make the debuffs outshine all other tactics in boss fights.

    That's why I recommended Absolute Debuffs as a smart solution to this problem - since the Boss is likely to have much higher stats than standard enemies, your debuffs will be somewhat less effective against the Boss but will still be able to really cripple single enemies out of a larger troop.

    Taking your Golem party examples i will take it from the perspective of someone playing the game, not designing it.

    Assuming the given skill as a 75% reduction for 3 turns on AOE useable by only one party member, and assuming also that using this debuff switches golems AI to prioritize magical attacks.

    It would create a nice tactical strategy, this is the necessary strategy to clear this encounter then? (making golems hard physical hitters and average or bearable on magic) in this case the debuffer is again a required member that when lost puts the party in a huge disadvantage, makes that party member a revival priority and becomes a necessary resource dump of MP recovery items to mantain the debuff, in the case the debuff stacks on renewing the valid quantity of turns gained grows exponentially as long as you have enough resources to keep adding to the stacks.

    Assuming the debuffer attacks in the middle-late turn phase, after 2 golems and 2 party members got their turns.

    Turn 1 golem 1&2 attack (which lets assume doesnt kill anyone), debuffer reduces 75% atk, in case of a normal non adaptable AI the other 2 golems do little damage, all got 3 turns of debuff, turn ends 2 stacks remaining.
    Turn 2 golems 1&2 do magical attacks (which assuming this is the valid strategy, are endureable) you recast the debuff which, assuming it stacks, now adds up to 5, turn ends, stacks lower to 4.

    Every turn you gain 2 stacks/refresh (in case it only renews) and the rest of the party will deal with the enemy, as a player i wouldnt give two... things about on locking down one party member to lock down the enemy party, and if the rest of the party cant survive or quickly kill the golems whitout this debuffer guy, well guess who's the bigger crutch now.

    Now this is only in your "magical/physical golem" scenario. Will all enemies switch attacking types when affected by this debuff? We fall on the crutch again as this one guy is the one controlling the enemy behaviour, attack pattern and type of reaction, worse yet, it will fall on repetitiveness and sometimes implausible situations (debuff a bandit, will the bandit switch to fireballs now?) so like it or not, some encounters will be completely shut down by this debuff or all encounters will change behavior depending on it (unless we fight a party of 4 mages making the debuff useless), even in the case the debuffer attacks after some enemies you will only have to endure the first turn which if you cant whitout the debuff, we fall on "necessary" ground again.

    Note im not even taking into account boss battles anymore, as from my point of view this skill's existance makes everything but boss battles revolve around it.

    In the case you want to keep it on such absurd numbers, make it one turn and on cooldown/high cost so its a brace/one turn barrier and the player can regain momentum on a critical situation, on a free cast, these high amounts make it a balance nightmare and something i and many other players would gladly abuse.
  3. Countyoungblood
    #23 Source
    Wavelength said:
    I do agree with some of your wider theory about "make it useful; don't make it a necessary crutch" - but I want to point out something that's unintuitive but important about your example: it discounts the value of a Turn. The "Turn" (or "Action") is the single most important resource in most battle systems, and it's often ignored by new designers. It's useful to look not at raw numbers (which can be arbitrarily high or low), but at the number of "average turns" that an action would be worth. And if you count in the value of a character's Turn, the numbers for a -75% reduction no longer look as ridiculous.

    Let's look at the value of a -75% ATK debuff, used by a member of a four-character party, against a challenging enemy troop of four identical Golems:
    • The debuff requires one Turn for a character to cast (as well as some amount of MP).
    • Assume the debuff lasts three turns. This will, in theory, make the next three physical actions (turns) of a Golem 75% less efficient. That's a value of 3 * 0.75 = 2.25 turns of value.
    • Except that if the Golem already acted this turn, it's actually two turns. Let's compromise at 2.5 actions at -75% efficiency, so 2.5 * 0.75 = 1.875 turns of value. Let's round in your favor to 2 turns of value.
    • During these three turns, assume the Golem is equally likely to use physical or magical attacks. Since the magical attacks aren't affected by an ATK debuff, we have to cut the value in half, so 2 turns * 0.5 = 1 total turn of enemy value negated.
    • If the Golem enemy has intelligent AI, it will use mostly magical attacks during this span, which would further reduce the debuff's value (making it more of a tactical shutdown than consistent, guaranteed value). I won't use this as a value-diluter in this example, but it's something to keep in mind.
    Even with assumptions slightly in your favor (and against mine), you can see how this seemingly powerful -75% ATK debuff barely paid for itself as far as turn value, and also cost you MP to cast. This means that, in standard encounters, even a powerful debuff like -75% can only be used effectively in very specific situations (such as an enemy that you know is only going to use physical attacks), and even then, it's not broken.

    Of course, against a Boss enemy where (even if the boss has underlings) the Boss itself represents a huge portion of the enemy's total damage, the -75% would be really powerful because you are expending one turn from one character in order to negate one turn's worth of value from the "entire" enemy troop (minus the weak underlings). But this is why @jonthefox asked the question in the first place! Because you need large numbers to make the debuff effective in standard encounters, while large numbers (without corresponding countermeasures) can make the debuffs outshine all other tactics in boss fights.

    That's why I recommended Absolute Debuffs as a smart solution to this problem - since the Boss is likely to have much higher stats than standard enemies, your debuffs will be somewhat less effective against the Boss but will still be able to really cripple single enemies out of a larger troop.

    When a move becomes needed to make the battle possible a turn is being expended every so often to make the game playable. Its a mechanically flawed design.

    Edit: one turn high cost 75% single target debuff..oh man im using this. Gonna call it topple.
  4. Wavelength
    #24 Source
    BK-tdm said:

    Taking your Golem party examples i will take it from the perspective of someone playing the game, not designing it.

    Assuming the given skill as a 75% reduction for 3 turns useable by only one party member, and assuming also that using this debuff switches golems AI to prioritize magical attacks.

    It would create a nice tactical strategy, this is the necessary strategy to clear this encounter then? (making golems hard physical hitters and average or bearable on magic) in this case the debuffer is again a required member that when lost puts the party in a huge disadvantage, makes that party member a revival priority and becomes a necessary resource dump of MP recovery items to mantain the debuff, in the case the debuff stacks on renewing the valid quantity of turns gained grows exponentially as long as you have enough resources to keep adding to the stacks.

    Assuming the debuffer attacks in the middle-late turn phase, after 2 golems and 2 party members got their turns.

    Turn 1 golem 1&2 attack (which lets assume doesnt kill anyone), debuffer reduces 75% atk, in case of a normal non adaptable AI the other 2 golems do little damage, all got 3 turns of debuff, turn ends 2 stacks remaining.
    Turn 2 golems 1&2 do magical attacks (which assuming this is the valid strategy, are endureable) you recast the debuff which, assuming it stacks, now adds up to 5, turn ends, stacks lower to 4.

    Every turn you gain 2 stacks/refresh (in case it only renews) and the rest of the party will deal with the enemy, as a player i wouldnt give two... things about on locking down one party member to lock down the enemy party, and if the rest of the party cant survive or quickly kill the golems whitout this debuffer guy, well guess who's the bigger crutch now.

    Now this is only in your "magical/physical golem" scenario. Will all enemies switch attacking types when affected by this debuff? We fall on the crutch again as this one guy is the one controlling the enemy behaviour, attack pattern and type of reaction, worse yet, it will fall on repetitiveness and sometimes implausible situations (debuff a bandit, will the bandit switch to fireballs now?) so like it or not, some encounters will be completely shut down by this debuff or all encounters will change behavior depending on it (unless we fight a party of 4 mages making the debuff useless), even in the case the debuffer attacks after some enemies you will only have to endure the first turn which if you cant whitout the debuff, we fall on "necessary" ground again.

    Note im not even taking into account boss battles anymore, as from my point of view this skill's existance makes everything but boss battles revolve around it.

    In the case you want to keep it on such absurd numbers, make it one turn and on cooldown/high cost so its a brace/one turn barrier and the player can regain momentum on a critical situation, on a free cast, these high amounts make it a balance nightmare and something i and many other players would gladly abuse.

    Countyoungblood said:
    When a move becomes needed to make the battle possible a turn is being expended every so often to make the game playable. Its a mechanically flawed design.

    Edit: one turn high cost 75% single target debuff..oh man im using this. Gonna call it topple.

    You guys both misunderstood my post, and I believe it's because you started with a faulty assumption that the debuff was "necessary" to reasonably win the encounter. Please start with the opposite assumption - assume that the battle is well-designed and can be won using standard damage techniques alone with no debuffs. Now, with that in mind, introduce the -75% ATK state as a possible option for one of the characters to use, and go through the battle again. You'll see that the outcome didn't change that much, meaning that the debuff is balanced. (If you use a -30% ATK state instead of a -75% ATK state, you'll find that using the debuff is absolutely not worthwhile.)

    Use of Turns is a helpful shorthand that becomes necessary once there are a lot of factors at play, but since this example is so simple, we can actually go through turn-by-turn and crunch the numbers.

    I'm going to start with the assumptions that Golems each have 400 HP and deal 60 damage with an attack or magic spell, whereas Characters each have 400 HP and deal 100 damage with an attack or standard damage spell. You can choose almost any numbers you want as long as they're not ridiculous, and this example will still hold.

    With Debuffs:
    Turn 0: All characters have 400 HP; all golems have 400 HP.
    Turn 1: Character 1 debuffs Golem A. Characters #2-4 attack Golem B (no point in attacking Golem A who was debuffed), dealing a total of 300 damage. Golem A attacks Char 1 for 15 damage; Golem B and Golem C attacks Char 3 for 60 damage each (120 total); Golem D attacks Char 1 for 60 damage. Characters now have 325/400/280/400 HP. Golems have 400/100/400/400 HP. Golem A has a debuff.
    Turn 2: Char 1 debuffs Golem C. Char 2 attacks Golem B, killing it. Chars 3 and 4 work on Golem D, dealing 200 total damage to it. Golem A and Golem C each deal 15 damage to Char 2 (30 total). Golem D attacks Char 3 for 60 damage. Chars now have 325/370/220/400 HP. Golems have 400/0/400/200 HP. Golem A and C have a debuff.
    Turn 3: Chars 1 and 2 attack Golem D, killing it. Chars 3 and 4 start on Golem A, dealing 200 damage. Golem A attacks Char 4 for 15 damage. Golem C attacks Char 1 for 15 damage. Chars now have 310/370/220/385 HP. Golems have 200/0/400/0. Golem A's debuff wears off at the end of the turn; Golem C still has a debuff.
    Turn 4: Chars 1 and 2 attack Golem A, killing it. Chars 3 and 4 start on Golem C, dealing 200 damage. Golem C attacks Char 4 for 15 damage. Chars now have 310/370/220/370. Golems have 0/0/200/0. Golem C's debuff wears off at the end of the turn.
    Turn 5: Chars 1 and 2 finish off Golem C before it can attack. Chars still have 310/370/220/370.
    Party has cleared the battle, having lost a total of 330 HP (and having spent MP on two debuffs).

    Without Debuffs    :
    Turn 0: All characters have 400 HP; all golems have 400 HP.
    Turn 1: Characters 1-4 attack Golem A, dealing a total of 400 damage and killing it. Golem B and Golem C attacks Char 3 for 60 damage each (120 total); Golem D attacks Char 1 for 60 damage. Characters now have 340/400/280/400 HP. Golems have 400/0/400/400 HP.
    Turn 2: Characters 1-4 attack Golem B, killing it. Golem C attacks Char 2 for 60 damage. Golem D attacks Char 3 for 60 damage. Chars now have 340/340/220/400 HP. Golems have 0/0/400/400 HP.
    Turn 3: Chars 1-4 attack Golem C, killing it. Golem D attacks Char 4 for 60 damage. Chars now have 340/340/220/340. Golems have 200/0/400/0.
    Turn 4: Chars 1-4 attack Golem D, finishing it before it can attack. Chars still have 340/340/220/340.
    Party has cleared the battle, having lost a total of 360 HP (and having saved MP by not using debuffs).

    As you can see, in this very apples-to-apples example, the balance and the outcome in using the -75% Debuffs, versus using all of Char #1's turns to attack the Golems instead, ends up being very neutral. (If you had reduced the ATK Debuffs to -30% instead of -75%, the party would have lost 492 HP in this battle, meaning that these MP-costing Debuffs were actually worth far less than the value of the turn it took to cast them). The player was able to win the battle about as easily in the first example as the second, meaning that there is no "crutch" here - just a choice between two different styles, one more offensive and one more defensive.

    The very close outcomes mean that, in this simple example, the Debuff is very well balanced at -75%, even though intuitively you would think that this percentage would be way too high.
  5. BK-tdm
    #25 Source
    Wavelength said:
    You guys both misunderstood my post

    Right back at you since you're taking the single target approach and my examples and approach was always based on AOE debuff, in which case i take your point and say is pretty balanced if its single target, i keep my statement that if the skill is an AOE is too op.

    As your post explains, the single target approach is not that impressive, not that gamechanging and not even useful once the player party damage output outshines the necessity of lowering non boss enemy stats, which is why i never assumed the OP wanted to approach balance on a single target scope.
  6. Countyoungblood
    #26 Source
    Wavelength said:
    You guys both misunderstood my post, and I believe it's because you started with a faulty assumption that the debuff was "necessary" to reasonably win the encounter. Please start with the opposite assumption - assume that the battle is well-designed and can be won using standard damage techniques alone with no debuffs.

    This hasn't been considered because the damage output range the monster would need to be designed to for the debuff to not be required for reasonable combat nullifies any kind of challenge by the existence of the debuff. its not the individual pieces that are being mistaken its the interaction between the two pieces. call the balanced design 100% damage to make it easy. balance your teams power against 100% of the damage you expect the team to manage. include the debuff in this battle without any changes and suddenly the advantage shifts drastically to the party side. start over and design around including the debuff by assigning the enemy with 400% of the original damage so applying the debuff returns the monster to what would of been 100% damage in the prior example. if you design the party around handling 400% of the damage its the same as before and the party will be OP. design it around handling the original 100% with the condition of needing to apply the buff and you maintain balance while necessitating the use of the debuff. its just how things line up.
  7. Wavelength
    #27 Source
    BK-tdm said:
    Right back at you since you're taking the single target approach and my examples and approach was always based on AOE debuff, in which case i take your point and say is pretty balanced if its single target, i keep my statement that if the skill is an AOE is too op.

    As your post explains, the single target approach is not that impressive, not that gamechanging and not even useful once the player party damage output outshines the necessity of lowering non boss enemy stats, which is why i never assumed the OP wanted to approach balance on a single target scope.

    OK, fair enough - I did miss that you said AoE, but single-target scopes were what we were mostly discussing through the body of this thread, and in Post #15 the OP made it very clear he prefers single-target debuffs (he said while the party approach might work, he likes non-party approaches a lot more - i.e., approaches that affect only a single target). I think we were both talking past each other a little bit, then, and seem to be in agreement that for single-target debuffs, high numbers like -75% will work fairly against regular enemies.

    As a matter of curiosity, why are you interested in AoE stat debuffs? I personally feel that they tend to be very blunt instruments, as opposed to the precision strikes of single-target. :)

    Countyoungblood said:
    This hasn't been considered because the damage output range the monster would need to be designed to for the debuff to not be required for reasonable combat nullifies any kind of challenge by the existence of the debuff. its not the individual pieces that are being mistaken its the interaction between the two pieces. call the balanced design 100% damage to make it easy. balance your teams power against 100% of the damage you expect the team to manage. include the debuff in this battle without any changes and suddenly the advantage shifts drastically to the party side. start over and design around including the debuff by assigning the enemy with 400% of the original damage so applying the debuff returns the monster to what would of been 100% damage in the prior example. if you design the party around handling 400% of the damage its the same as before and the party will be OP. design it around handling the original 100% with the condition of needing to apply the buff and you maintain balance while necessitating the use of the debuff. its just how things line up.

    Maybe there's something unclear here that would explain it, but WHY would you ever design the party around handling 400% of the damage you expect to be incoming, or around the original 100% with the "condition of needing to apply the [de]buff"? That's bad design! Don't start there!

    I challenge your assertion that IF you start with the "balanced design" (where the party can safely handle 100% of the damage they'd expect to take, using no debuffs), THEN the advantage dramatically shifts to the player's side when the opportunity to use the Debuff is added in. My example above presented this setup! It was a "reasonable" battle against a pack of golems, balanced around no debuffs being necessary. Then, using those exact same numbers and the exact same balance levers, I added in the -75% debuff as an option for Character 1 to use any turn she wants to use it. The final outcome did not significantly shift in the player's favor.

    I open it up to you for a counter-example, my friend! :D Feel free to change any of the HP or Attack Damage values in the initial setup, or change the order in which Characters and Golems attack, and then run through the battle without the use of Debuffs and with the use of Debuffs like I did above. If you can come up with an example where the outcomes are so different as to be gamebreaking, I'll gladly admit I'm wrong about this.
  8. BK-tdm
    #28 Source
    Wavelength said:
    As a matter of curiosity, why are you interested in AoE stat debuffs? I personally feel that they tend to be very blunt instruments, as opposed to the precision strikes of single-target.

    Just a bad habit of working around worst case scenarios about exploting any flaws any design may have, too ingrained on me thanks to irl work i guess.
    Since the OP initial question was how would any of us approach this debuff i pretty much took the worst that could happen, explaining that in the case it were an AOE debuff, it would shift the game balance towards it and the character that can use this ability.

    To keep it on topic: Never do this debuff on AOE...
  9. Wavelength
    #29 Source
    BK-tdm said:
    To keep it on topic: Never do this debuff on AOE...

    Cheers! I can sign onto that one, that -75% or similar debuffs should not be placed on AoE skills unless it's something crazy like a Limit Break. :D
  10. Countyoungblood
    #30 Source
    Wavelength said:
    OK, fair enough - I did miss that you said AoE, but single-target scopes were what we were mostly discussing through the body of this thread, and in Post #15 the OP made it very clear he prefers single-target debuffs (he said while the party approach might work, he likes non-party approaches a lot more - i.e., approaches that affect only a single target). I think we were both talking past each other a little bit, then, and seem to be in agreement that for single-target debuffs, high numbers like -75% will work fairly against regular enemies.

    As a matter of curiosity, why are you interested in AoE stat debuffs? I personally feel that they tend to be very blunt instruments, as opposed to the precision strikes of single-target. :)



    Maybe there's something unclear here that would explain it, but WHY would you ever design the party around handling 400% of the damage you expect to be incoming, or around the original 100% with the "condition of needing to apply the [de]buff"? That's bad design! Don't start there!

    I challenge your assertion that IF you start with the "balanced design" (where the party can safely handle 100% of the damage they'd expect to take, using no debuffs), THEN the advantage dramatically shifts to the player's side when the opportunity to use the Debuff is added in. My example above presented this setup! It was a "reasonable" battle against a pack of golems, balanced around no debuffs being necessary. Then, using those exact same numbers and the exact same balance levers, I added in the -75% debuff as an option for Character 1 to use any turn she wants to use it. The final outcome did not significantly shift in the player's favor.

    I open it up to you for a counter-example, my friend! :D Feel free to change any of the HP or Attack Damage values in the initial setup, or change the order in which Characters and Golems attack, and then run through the battle without the use of Debuffs and with the use of Debuffs like I did above. If you can come up with an example where the outcomes are so different as to be gamebreaking, I'll gladly admit I'm wrong about this.


    Ok, starting at the original post we're discussing how to make this debuff similarly useful in boss battles and regular battles. to clarify, 100% is 25% of 400% of any number so if you were to buff the attack up so debuffing back down returned the power to the initially balanced value (which if balanced against the rest of the game prior would be ideal) Id say id expect a boss to be able to deal about half a characters health in damage in a single turn or maybe 1/4th of the party hp in a single turn.. but we can just look at single target to keep it easy.

    so easy numbers if the players have 400 hp id expect my boss to deal at least 200 HP in a turn. enough to make you nervous but not a frustrating number. the length of the fight i spose we will decide through player attack power and monster health but to keep it simple lets say 5 rounds.

    turn 1

    400/400/400/400 boss hits any one player.. 200/400/400/400 next turn 1/4 chance to kill a player so you might consider healing with a character but so far we've ignored healing and held a dps contest so it continues.

    turn 2

    200/200/400/400 team got lucky but now its 1/2 chance.

    turn 3

    0/200/400/400

    turn 4

    0/200/200/400

    turn 5

    0/0/200/400

    and lets assume the players managed to kill the boss even though 2 died in the process. lets do that again with 75% less damage for 3 rounds. (50 damage)

    turn 1
    400/400/400/400 to 350/400/400/400
    turn 2
    300/400/400/400
    turn 3
    300/350/400/400
    turn 4
    100/350/400/400
    turn 5
    0/350/400/400 or 100/150/400/400 or 100/350/200/400

    this is of course..assuming the team for some reason takes 5 turns still with more living members and is skipping one attack to cast the debuff once. the numbers would be even more favorable if we cast it twice. this is ignoring healing of any kind and assuming the boss will only single target. just for fun lets see how many more rounds team 2 survives

    turn 6
    0/150/400/400
    turn 7
    0/150/200/400
    turn 8
    0/0/200/400
    turn 9
    0/0/0/400
    turn 10
    0/0/0/200
    turn 11
    0/0/0/0

    but what about team one? they didnt die yet.
    (turn 5)
    0/0/200/400

    turn 6
    0/0/0/400

    turn 7
    0/0/0/200

    turn 8
    0/0/0/0

    so if you only get to cast it one time for the length of the battle its only a minor thing right? lets cast it twice.

    turn 1
    400/400/400/400 to 350/400/400/400
    turn 2
    300/400/400/400
    turn 3
    300/350/400/400

    same as before for 3 turns now 3 more turns of 50 damage per turn

    300/350/350/400
    300/300/350/400
    300/300/300/400

    so thats 6 turns of debuff and heres what we had prior

    turn 6
    0/150/400/400

    and heres not debuffed turn 6

    turn 6
    0/0/0/400

    lets take it back to turn 11 with our 2x debuff group.

    turn 7
    300/300/300/200
    turn 8
    300/300/300/0
    turn 9
    300/300/100/0
    turn 10
    300/100/100/0
    turn 11
    100/100/100/0

    so, in the most favorable situation with a merciful boss we have 3 characters alive at turn 11 after 2 debuffs. but what if it were worse?

    turn 7
    100/300/300/400
    turn 8
    0/300/300/400
    turn 9
    0/100/300/400
    turn 10
    0/0/300/400
    turn 11
    0/0/100/400
    turn 12
    0/0/0/400
    turn 13
    0/0/0/200
    turn 14
    0/0/0/0


    gamebreaking? i dont know. its not my taste but maybe its yours.
  11. Wavelength
    #31 Source
    @Countyoungblood Props for making the effort of going through all the numbers. I think I understand where we weren't seeing eye to eye now! I was specifically saying (and I did say this earlier, though it might have been easy to miss) that the 75% debuff is not gamebreaking (or even particularly strong) in ordinary encounters (where you are usually fighting several enemies that are somewhat close in power to each other). I believe that @BK-tdm was following the same logic, though I don't want to put words in her mouth. Without a doubt, -75% would be broken (if reliable) in a boss encounter where one single enemy represents a majority of the troop's power.

    This of course brings us back to the original question, which is how to balance such a spell when it requires ~75% to be balanced in normal encounters, but would be broken above about 30% in boss encounters - and I still do think that the best answer is to use Absolute Buffs/Debuffs if possible. But there was a lot of fire coming in from a lot of directions saying that a -75% Debuff is broken to start with (and if this were true in all/most encounters, it would change the paradigm of how we should be looking at the question), which is why I was arguing the point so vigorously. :)
  12. Countyoungblood
    #32 Source
    @Wavelength makes sense, i was looking at a boss perspective because thats where the problem sits to me. Itd be fine if it were high cost single turn or something but 3 turns and low enough cost to justify regular battle use and its way OP

    Edit: but to clarify i dont concider boss alternate effects an option so im designing only one spell
  13. Wavelength
    #33 Source
    Countyoungblood said:
    @Wavelength makes sense, i was looking at a boss perspective because thats where the problem sits to me. Itd be fine if it were high cost single turn or something but 3 turns and low enough cost to justify regular battle use and its way OP

    Edit: but to clarify i dont concider boss alternate effects an option so im designing only one spell

    Right. Against bosses, a really powerful debuff will be more balanced with a short duration, plus either a high resource (MP etc.) cost or a high cooldown. But either one of these designs - especially the high resource cost design - is likely to make the debuffs obsolete in "regular" encounters, which means you are severely limiting strategic diversity in those battles.

    It's a really tricky issue to solve. And I think that either troop design tools (like designing boss troops and regular troops with a similar split of power between members of the respective troop) or systemic design tools (like a shift in all stat-manipulation mechanics from percentages to absolutes) tend to be the best tools to use in solving this particular issue.
  14. Aesica
    #34 Source
    I'm starting to suspect that "utilizing high level debuffs" is more of a personal design choice than anything else, as some seem to be firmly against it while others (myself included) see it as a positive design choice that adds depth to combat. How does it add depth to combat? I'll explain!

    Typical basic combat system
    Each time a turn comes up, players either attack the boss or heal wounds. Maybe they have to occasionally revive a fallen party member. Maybe they have to occasionally chug a mana potion. They repeat this cycle until the boss dies.

    Combat system designed around debuffing powerful foes
    Instead of just having the attackers attack and the healers heal until the boss turns into a loot pile, you also need to pay attention to and maintain debuffs or it's game over. That alone already adds another layer of depth and complexity to your battle system. Add in buffs and other utility effects which might make tackling a deadly boss more manageable and the complexity grows further. You've pretty much upgraded your battle system from "one dimensional checkers" to "two dimensional chess." Hurray!

    "Then it just becomes an example of 'always use the same buffs/debuffs/etc on every boss, win game!"
    It's up to the designer to avoid that. Maybe one character has access to an attack debuff while another has access to a magic debuff. You won't need the magic debuffer on a physical-heavy boss, and vise versa. Not every boss needs to be vulnerable to (or balanced around) stat debuffs, either.

    "That just wastes player turns that could be spent attacking!"
    A "turn" is really just a resource you use to overcome a given encounter. In a more simplistic battle system, this is pretty much just attacking and healing, so the value of a turn isn't really felt by the player. By adding extra bits of complexity--buffs, debuffs, and other things you have to manage in addition to attacking, the value of a turn becomes much more important and meaningful.
  15. Countyoungblood
    #35 Source
    Aesica said:
    I'm starting to suspect that "utilizing high level debuffs" is more of a personal design choice than anything else, as some seem to be firmly against it while others (myself included) see it as a positive design choice that adds depth to combat. How does it add depth to combat? I'll explain!

    Typical basic combat system
    Each time a turn comes up, players either attack the boss or heal wounds. Maybe they have to occasionally revive a fallen party member. Maybe they have to occasionally chug a mana potion. They repeat this cycle until the boss dies.

    Combat system designed around debuffing powerful foes
    Instead of just having the attackers attack and the healers heal until the boss turns into a loot pile, you also need to pay attention to and maintain debuffs or it's game over. That alone already adds another layer of depth and complexity to your battle system. Add in buffs and other utility effects which might make tackling a deadly boss more manageable and the complexity grows further. You've pretty much upgraded your battle system from "one dimensional checkers" to "two dimensional chess." Hurray!

    "Then it just becomes an example of 'always use the same buffs/debuffs/etc on every boss, win game!"
    It's up to the designer to avoid that. Maybe one character has access to an attack debuff while another has access to a magic debuff. You won't need the magic debuffer on a physical-heavy boss, and vise versa. Not every boss needs to be vulnerable to (or balanced around) stat debuffs, either.

    "That just wastes player turns that could be spent attacking!"
    A "turn" is really just a resource you use to overcome a given encounter. In a more simplistic battle system, this is pretty much just attacking and healing, so the value of a turn isn't really felt by the player. By adding extra bits of complexity--buffs, debuffs, and other things you have to manage in addition to attacking, the value of a turn becomes much more important and meaningful.

    depth? yes always. but enjoyable scale able or strategic? not always. good idea bad execution.
  16. Aesica
    #36 Source
    I find stat debuffs to be quite scaleable, but that could be due to the multiplicative damage formula I'm using. A 50% atk debuff reduces the attacker's damage by roughly half, whether it's a green slime or a 10 headed demon lord.

    When you think about it, an atk/mat debuff is really just another form of defensive option, so if things are hitting too hard, you can use them along with, say, protect or shell to relieve the pressure on your healer. Is it more efficient to do that, or to just heal through it? There's some strategic choices right there.

    But again, that's why I began my post by stating that such debuffs really appear to be a design decision more than anything else. Is one wrong to use them, or wrong to not use them? Not really in either case. It all depends on the type of game you want to make, and the whole point is to make the kind of game you enjoy or think others will enjoy, right?
  17. Countyoungblood
    #37 Source
    Aesica said:
    I find stat debuffs to be quite scaleable, but that could be due to the multiplicative damage formula I'm using. A 50% atk debuff reduces the attacker's damage by roughly half, whether it's a green slime or a 10 headed demon lord.

    When you think about it, an atk/mat debuff is really just another form of defensive option, so if things are hitting too hard, you can use them along with, say, protect or shell to relieve the pressure on your healer. Is it more efficient to do that, or to just heal through it? There's some strategic choices right there.

    But again, that's why I began my post by stating that such debuffs really appear to be a design decision more than anything else. Is one wrong to use them, or wrong to not use them? Not really in either case. It all depends on the type of game you want to make, and the whole point is to make the kind of game you enjoy or think others will enjoy, right?

    there is in fact players for both checkers and chess and combinations of both chessers is very good