On the Power of mattack

[Geras]

The problem is, as I see it, that mages are not supposed to be able to stand toe-to-toe with Knights in outright combat using magery - they're supposed to be able to do so if they invest in combat, sure, but using magic? Nope. But maxed-out fighters are getting walloped in a one-on-one with a mage using magic to attack.

Given that, I think this has been clear evidence mattack is too strong. It already has the advantage of being usable at any range sans penalty; I think it 1) probably shouldn't be neutral to all defenses, and 2) probably shouldn't ignore armor.

Az let me know this wasn't the case in testing, but I wrote it already and it has some points that are still relevant.

I suspect when it comes down to it they aren't actually as maxed out as this mage, and they're going against someone with substantially better stats than them because of Will to Power. I'd suggest looking to tweak that spell rather looking too hard a mattack. If you're at 95 STR/DEX/CON you're going to be a beast even pummeling someone with your fists. Frankly, that spell's design has always seemed iffy to me - it really encourages you to go full minimax which I don't think is a great design philosophy for the game. Holdover from OldTI really. If you're built for it, Will to Power is the single best spell in the game. If your stats are average across the board - which was the case for Edwynn - it's not particularly useful at all. Maybe it could be juggled around so that chars with average stats still get some benefit from it, and chars with full mini/max get more benefit than those average chars, but not to the same extreme as now. I'd be careful about touching mattack until that is sorted out, as I'd bet you if you took a high level mage with average combat stats and pitted them against a high level knight with average combat stats it would be closer.

Talking about it in chat though, it seems the biggest issue is using the choice of weapon, and particularly not using a ranged weapon against an opponent who is at range. So I'd suggest Knights may want to work on their bow skills. I think switching weapons easier or buffing everyone's HP to extend combat may want to be considered too.

I'm not opposed to mattack being mitigated somewhat my armour though. I think it fosters the kind of meta game where it makes sense for knights to wear armour rather than run around naked, and I think it's a good for the game mechanics to serve our RP rather than the other way around. That being said, it seems like we have a bit of a rock-paper-scissors situation right now where magic beats melee beats ranged beats magic. Or at least the beginnings of that. I'm not sure that's the exact configuration we'd want, but I think a rock/paper/scissors situation is actually a decent design goal.

[Geras]

Dice - your point re: unarmed combat is an interesting one. Though I think the situation for other defenses (being forced to switch between them based on OOC knowledge of what nerfs what) isn't really ideal either. I wonder what would be a better system?

So mattack is doing more damage than a weapon if a mage simply has armor and the right defense: advantages a mage may or may not have, true, but advantages a Knight CANNOT have when facing mattack.

I think the armour one is an obvious one to deal with - but please take care not to swing the nerf bat too hard. It's good for the game to have rare strong mages around that take a group effort to take down so long as it doesn't get out out of hand.

One alternative to making mattack mitigated by the defender's armour would be to mitigate it based on the mage's armour. So mattack is less effective if you wear armour. High risk high reward. Not sure that's the meta we want to encourage (ie naked knights fighting mages) but it's a thought.

I think the root issue here is that the simple combat system isn't easy to fine tune from a balance perspective though. Worth thinking on the deeper issues here and not just mattack IMHO.

[Praen]

Heyas Gang.

Chiming in here for visibility — initial testing on this issue seemed to reveal some oddities and bugs in checking defenses against mattack, potentially having mages strike against defense values of 0; that might have been what caused so many critical attacks against certain players. These bugs seem to have all been tracked down and initial returns suggest that fights are a fair bit more balanced with that, with power swinging a bit more towards the good ol' reliable steel.

We're still going to do more extensive testing on Knights vs Mages in Armor. We don't want there to be scenarios where a Knight in close combat with a mage of equal combat prowess simply can't win. Hang tight with us, and please keep giving us your feedback! Do the players think that a mage should destroy a Knight 1v1? Do players think the opposite? Conversations like this help us do better for you!

<3s, Praen.

[Voxumo]

In response to Praen,

A knight wielding a weapon in ideal range, with proper level of skill in said weapon, should not be beat by a mage wielding Mattack. However a mage who is wielding a weapon and may or may not be buffed by some spell should have a legitimate chance at beating a knight. In simple terms, Mattack should not beat a physical weapon if proper range and skill level for the physical weapon is in place.

Yes, I think unarmed should also lose this advantage. It turns out to be a monster one against other talented combatants, as a recent fight showed me: I beat somebody wielding a weapon while unarmed, and it was probably MOSTLY because I could nerf them and they couldn't nerf me.

I actually had no clue unarmed did not have a defense that it was weak against. I always assumed footwork would be a logical defense against it. Though the fact it doesn't have a negative defense and range played alot into that fight. Though that fight also made me realize how absurd the parry defense is without weapon or shield equipped. It makes no sense to be able to parry a bladed weapon with one's arm. Not calling you out on this, just thinking that perhaps parry should have a requirement similar to how block does, where a shield is required for the defense to actually work, at least that is my understanding of the block defense, as I've never actually used it.

[Geras]

We're still going to do more extensive testing on Knights vs Mages in Armor. We don't want there to be scenarios where a Knight in close combat with a mage of equal combat prowess simply can't win. Hang tight with us, and please keep giving us your feedback! Do the players think that a mage should destroy a Knight 1v1? Do players think the opposite? Conversations like this help us do better for you!.

I think it's important that both the knight and mage would be at serious risk from one another in such a circumstances, so that neither can act with impunity. I'd keep in mind that the states are usually higher for the mage though - as theme doesn't obligate them to kill knights.

I think the bare minimum design constraint should be that 2 competent knights should generally be favoured to beat 1 competent mage, while 2 competent mages should generally be favoured to beat 1 competent Knight.

Beyond that, I think the details of the fight should be relevant, as well as just a certain amount of randomness. There should be real risk for everyone in these fights.

I do think having very strong mages show up once in a while is invaluable to the game too, provided it's within reasonable limits, and they don't end up walking around as if invincible and finishing a bunch of PKills. Death is a certainty for mages who lose because of the theme. I think it should be rarer for defeated lawful types - not unheard of, but rarer.

[Dice]

I agree with Vox here: all else being equal, weapons should beat mattack every time. Mattack is a desperate form of attack used in last-ditch circumstances. It should be effective against non-coms, or against legitimately outclassed fighters, but it's not a match for steel; mages who want to win toe-to-toe fights should need to invest in weapon skills as well.

Mages who are frightening should be frightening due to plans, plots, etc., not due to magic's ability to engage in open battle. That's just always how I've felt the theme.

I don't agree re: parry; I think it makes sense to be able to parry sans a weapon by knocking blows off track, etc, the other things I posed in that fight. It strains realism a bit, to be sure, but I think it's not ridiculous. More importantly, I think parry is fairly weak as defenses go given that the weapons it nerfs are not super common, so I don't want it further weakened. (Block compensates for its demand of an object by being better in other ways - ways parry does not have.)

But I definitely feel that the advantage of being neutral to all defenses is too powerful an advantage, period, for any attack or ability.

[Geras]

I agree with Vox here: all else being equal, weapons should beat mattack every time. Mattack is a desperate form of attack used in last-ditch circumstances. It should be effective against non-coms, or against legitimately outclassed fighters, but it's not a match for steel; mages who want to win toe-to-toe fights should need to invest in weapon skills as well.

Mages who are frightening should be frightening due to plans, plots, etc., not due to magic's ability to engage in open battle. That's just always how I've felt the theme.

I don't agree re: parry; I think it makes sense to be able to parry sans a weapon by knocking blows off track, etc, the other things I posed in that fight. It strains realism a bit, to be sure, but I think it's not ridiculous. More importantly, I think parry is fairly weak as defenses go given that the weapons it nerfs are not super common, so I don't want it further weakened. (Block compensates for its demand of an object by being better in other ways - ways parry does not have.)

But I definitely feel that the advantage of being neutral to all defenses is too powerful an advantage, period, for any attack or ability.

Why should it be a last ditch weapon only? It's much more thematic for mages to be fighting with the elements rather than beating people with sticks.

Absolutely agree that planning should be the key for mages. I'd just point out though that in the mage in question did have that edge at least to an extent here.

[Voxumo]

Why should it be a last ditch weapon only? It's much more thematic for mages to be fighting with the elements rather than beating people with sticks.

Actually if quit quotes are any example, there is one mage, I think thandok, who has a quit quote that basically equates to even he believes magic is not always the answer.
"Magic can be an excellent defense, Aquiel, but I always keep a dagger handy in case it's just one of those times it's not."

I mean sure it's just a quit quote, but this isn't some player written one to my knowledge, and it could reinforce the concept that mages should look into alternative combat methods than just mattack.

[Geras]

Why should it be a last ditch weapon only? It's much more thematic for mages to be fighting with the elements rather than beating people with sticks.

Actually if quit quotes are any example, there is one mage, I think thandok, who has a quit quote that basically equates to even he believes magic is not always the answer.
"Magic can be an excellent defense, Aquiel, but I always keep a dagger handy in case it's just one of those times it's not."

I mean sure it's just a quit quote, but this isn't some player written one to my knowledge, and it could reinforce the concept that mages should look into alternative combat methods than just mattack.

Right. Doesn't have to mean magical means are only used in desperation though.

[Noobus]

We're still going to do more extensive testing on Knights vs Mages in Armor. We don't want there to be scenarios where a Knight in close combat with a mage of equal combat prowess simply can't win. Hang tight with us, and please keep giving us your feedback! Do the players think that a mage should destroy a Knight 1v1? Do players think the opposite? Conversations like this help us do better for you!

My thoughts on this are when all conditions are fair and a mage decides to use mattack against a weapon, said mage should lose the fight-- well, if the mage is equal to or less than the knight in question when overall combat prowess/combat factors are considered. But if the mage is able to impose a penalty of sorts beforehand, it shouldn't matter what type of attack they are using-- as long as it is high enough to do actual damage it should do it.

Unless I'm wrong, blindness is supposed to exact only a small penalty on combat (to keep it from being too wildly overpowered), and given that I would call at least our fight pretty dang close to even - we both attacked every round, I was at my ideal range, and the blindness was the only actual disadvantage I had at all. But I couldn't do any damage to you (I think it was swings wildly or glancing hits), and you were crit-hitting from the start, inflicting a pretty serious amount of damage - something like 130 in two hits or so.

Both attacks were skillful hits, which I think is mostly the message people get when they are about even? With the damage done on the first round, I think Maximum would have been about 110-115 HP since I never got the chance to look at what the second round dealt, there were no critical hits in that skirmish, as I see it, the penalty that blindness places on someone + my steel plate is what kept you from outright doing more damage to me. But it was pretty close, would've been slightly higher if you weren't blind and with this said, small penalties will cause you more than you expect if an opponent is about as skilled or a little bit less.

I don't think I could have won that fight even if I could see, and while granted my PC isn't ideally specced for combat (nor is this about me), it is pretty bad when a Knight with all maxed skills and maxed stats can't win a toe-to-toe fight with a mage using mattack. The damage decrement mattack suffers from in comparison to weapons looks to be significant, but when you unpack the whole combat situation, it may not be at all. Why?

Ultimately, all combat on TI comes down to damage. Hitting harder than your opponent is translated into damage. Wearing more armor than your opponent is translated into damage. Being nerfed is translated into damage. If you balance an attack by giving it lower damage, but then giving it other benefits that then allow it to add the damage back on in other ways, that balance is illusory.

So how does mattack get its damage "back"?

1) The mage can wear armor to make up for the damage difference while their enemy cannot;
2) The mage can attack from any range with no range penalty while their enemy cannot;
3) The mage has an attack that cannot be nerfed by any defense while their enemy's can be.

It's issues 1 and 3 I think we should consider.

The effect of platemail is pretty obvious, so I won't belabor point 1). (And I think it's 100% logical that armor COULD protect against magic given that mattacks in TI have physical form.)

I think 2) is a logical and good benefit of mattack working the way it does, ICly and all, and should stay the same.

I am a bit iffy on armour protecting against mattack for reasons already stated in an older topic( was it knights vs mages or the revamp one?), but we COULD, for the sake of comfort of both sides implement it to work like that for reasons stated in this one topic --> Why do knights wear armour if it doesn't do anything against mages? (I could say it is out of habit and because they were not facing mages during the consolidation but mages and people with weapons, but that would be bringing up an event that isn't at play in the game anymore). I agree with point 2.

On the rest of the points, I can't really comment because I am not THAT versed with combat in TI and Leofrick is actually my first attempt at it, so I will leave that to people who will know what they are talking about!