zero-sum resistances

I want to discuss the advantages to using a zero-sum, or (almost) zero-sum model for elemental resistances. What I mean by zero-sum resistance, is that armor giving fire resistance would give an equally negative amount of a specific other resistance, i.e. water.

Advantages:
1. Increases build diversity: Maybe you're going out to fight earth elementals today, and don't need to worry about fire elementals.

2. Creating niche builds, allowing for niche professions, increases the size and diversity of the game's economy.

3. Creates value for items with any amt. of resistance: A piece of armor with 20/-20 may be more preferable than an item with 40/-40 if it means you won't get two-shotted by a stray slime.

4. Makes multiplayer more advantageous. Divide and conquer.

5. Makes weaker PvE monsters potentially scary, and tougher monsters a little less scary. How many games have you played where you start to ignore the pesky little critters that only low-level players have trouble with? Only the biggest guy in the room can do damage to you? Not anymore.

6. Fits well with many of the element-oppositional themes of SotA.

7. Can extend to weaponry.

8. Significant variation in PvP. Limitations in backpack size may cause you to be thrifty with the types of gear you can bring.


Feel free to discuss cons/advantages. This was just a stray idea I had.

 

My assumption was that passives would be more or less zero sum. You'd have some build with some slots and you'd only have space for N things.

I wouldn't put this on gear though and make people need 5 sets of gear. Then what started as a decision bleeds into inconvenience and other aspects of the game.

 

A side-idea to the main suggestion would be non-zero-sum gear that could be a third as effective as the niche gear but has no negative aspects. This gear would be optimal in the sense that it's not zero-sum, and if you wanted to go adventuring into the unknown, it may be the best option.

I think your point about people needing 5+ sets of gear is fair, but I would counter-argue: what's the point of having specific elemental damage types if there is no functional difference between them and physical damage? What distinguishes a swamp from lava, if they both do damage to a person when you walk over them? I think the pros of additional depth to the functional mechanics of gameplay far outweigh the inconvenience generated by the need for various armor types.

Also, I don't think we should all be mighty indestructible warriors of penultimate power. I think balancing strengths with weaknesses is a great way to encourage diversity, and ensure that people don't all strive to have the exact same gear.

 

There's no bad ideas, so lets see what we can mine out of this one. Who knows, maybe there's some unrealized gold in here somewhere.

#1 hmm... Maybe with such a statement, we could maybe have different styles of armor be better for certain things. This would have a give and take to it, thus maybe fighting earth elements could be fought better with a pickaxe and can be further enhanced by wearing chain male so you could more easily shake the dirt out, thus granting more comfort = some + to getting struck by them.

#2 economy ... hmm ... more junk in the world isn't strongly encouraged I don't think, but we can't rule that out because it's cool for us to make and sell.

#3 yep, I can see that...

#4 yep, I can see that too...

#5 Here's where one of those off shooting stray thoughts comes out of this; "Why aren't there any annoying bugs in Ultima that aren't the size of a VW Beatle?"
I mean, "where are all the tiny Fire Ants, mosquitoes, hornets and tics?" Certainly if we had those in game then each of the armor types would have different effects for us to react to them.

6# yes it does... armor that can also be used as a floatation device... or... like using plate male in the ocean, can sink you like a hunk of lead down to your death at the bottom of the ocean.

7# a supper soaker could really come in handy with fire elements

8# I think we could have different sizes of backpacks for many good combat reasons when thinking of wearing one at all while fighting. "What does any soldier do whenever they encounter the enemy?".... "Drop that Backpack!"... so I could see a + from having the option of which size you're wearing.

9# (I'm feeling free on this one) Why can't we have horse armor and why can't we have the horse get damaged and need replacing?" I enjoy more reality whenever I can get it and would help the tamers become something more than some weird elephant trainer. Also why can't those trained animals get pissed off and as uncooperative as a war elephant dose. The Tamer craft of UO was so domineeringly lame. Stabling any HUGE animal should cost much more than they did in UO. "A chicken cost the same as a dragon does to keep and feed.... give me a break and I'd like to have horse shoes that need replacing by the blacksmiths. Different saddles should diversify too for different special ops.

OK, who's next with a rant
Cool post Eidon... maybe there's something we're both now missing in all this
Your Buddy,~Time Lord~

 

@Eidon,

There's difference between someone having a fire resistant set of boots that offer him no advantage when he's in situations that don't involve fire, and a fire resistant set of boots that are detrimental in other situations. One doesn't require 5+ sets of gear, one makes it attractive.

Anyway, I think its more important to make magic gear expensive or rare than to worry about counterbalancing strength with weaknesses. If every warrior in a town has a lightning sword and a full suit of magic armor, its a bit dumb, imo.

 

I don't think it's dumb if every warrior in town uses different fully magical gear. It's dumb if this is the best weapon and everyone uses and this is the best armor everyone uses that. I don't mind if there is a very rare/difficult item that is "the best"(in average situations- weapons should be good in most situations, but they should have their strengths/weaknesses) and when you see it you notice it because they are that rare.

I also prefer that like you said, my fire boots are +5 fire resistance, good if I run into fire.. not all that great if I run into everything else. What I don't like is a system where I can achieve a "max resistance" in all slots. so you have this ideal suit of armor that everyone uses because it gives you the max resist all around.

Should I be able to stack resistances though... this leads to situations where you put on a fire resistance gear for fighting fire elements here, now let me switch to my cold resistance since we are going to fight ice elementals.. I'd prefer not to see that. elemental resistances should be fairly rare on otherwise good items. (most good items don't have resistance)

That way you might have a couple of good items with random resistance on them, a spattering of resist here and there. but if you wanted to full gear up for a lot of resistance against an element, you are sacrificing other stats, such as armor value, bonuses to str/dex/int, focus, bonus regeneration.. so yeah you now resist well and that might work okay for a tank type, but you would be more effective in good all-around gear.

 

The problem, *I* think, is not with people being mighty and nigh indestructible, but in that nigh indestructible person ALSO being able to cleave a monster in twain with a single stroke, AND wield mighty spells, and being a deadeye shot at three hundred paces.

Forcing the players to specialize themselves and find balance between those factors is far better.

What, I ask, would be the danger of allowing a player to invest heavily in armor and resistance and shield use, if they barely did anything else? No massive sword dancing, no rain of fireballs. Hell, barely anything better than auto-attack, not even a fireball or lightning bolt to his name?

Just as we will have dedicated magick users who are utter glass-cannons, able to rain devastation but dead in one or two hits (if you ever reach them), and stealthy archers, and dual wielding dervishes... the tradeoff shouldn't HAVE to be one type of defense against another, if someone wants to focus on defense, let them.

Now, if it's NOT compulsory, but armor with zero-sum defensive ratings was an OPTION, I could totally see some players making exceptional use of it and being very glad it was there. Perhaps in order to have talents and cash left over for offense, you take a shield that only works on fire, because you are preparing to fight fire monsters. And perhaps instead of going for the best possible sword outlay, you go for a sword that does ice damage, and a sword skill that works well against the fire monsters, and spec heavily into that, so that while not optimized vs all, you are very well optimized vs fire beasties. That would definitely have a place.

As long as it isn't forced.

 

I'm all for diversity, but if resistance is zero sum, then there is little to no benefit for paying for gear or enchantments that give you little to no benefit overall.

 

If a lightning sword and a full suit of magic armor is best for most/all situations in the game, everyone will eventually have it. Gamers are pretty good at optimizing. Zero-sum resistances would make all elemental resistance armors sidegrades of each other, rather than upgrades - and would make them situationally useful rather than generally useful.

Resistances don't necessarily need to take up an attribute slot on an item. They could be inherent to the item, i.e. the crafting material used to create the item. Also, if you are specifically going to an environment expecting to fight fire elementals, you'd probably not expect to run into ice elementals. As a sidenote, I would be impressed by a tank who could swap armors mid-fight to minimize the damage he's taking, based on who he's fighting.

Again, resistances don't necessarily need to come at the expense of other item attributes.

Wearing elemental resist armor would never BE compulsory. You could wear armor that doesn't change your elemental resist at all. The game would be balanced against no-resist characters.

The problem with non-zero sum resistance armor is that eventually, people would figure out the best combination/set to maximize resistances, and that would be the only items there would be demand for(bad for the economy). Also, gameplay-wise, you the player would not notice/care about the type of elemental damage you are receiving, with your optimized build. The damage types would be effectively, and functionally indistinguishable - armor may as well be simple % damage reduction.

In order for resistances to add to the game, they need to impact the behavior of the person playing the game in some way. With zero-sum resistances, you the player would need to be more cautious around some enemies, and can be more aggressive around others. You would also want (but probably not need - with customization of abilities/skills) to be wearing certain types of armor in certain situations.

 

I don't know, you can make them

* hard to get
* easy to lose if you're not careful, encouraging players to only take them out when they really need them

 

I completely agree. I actually had a dream about this a few nights ago. It's Rock, Paper, Scissors but with many more layers.

So all other things being equal, Rock (sword) always beats Scissors (magic) but always loses to Paper (bow), or something like that. The more layers you add into the equation the more diverse outcomes you get. The same thing happens with the various schools of magic.

The strategy game, Age of Wonders 3 does this to some extent. For example, if you get an item that gives you a 40% boost to your fire protection, you might also get a 40% weakness to your ice protection. This system works great.

 

While I understand your point, I must point out the reality of the response I have seen. I the theoretical player will ditch resist gear entirely, accept the incoming elemental damage as unavoidable, and take my whuppin. I'll pack enough HP and healing to take the hits, or I won't pick the fight. Because it's not worth the time expense to go hunting for resist gear. I don't want to carry multiple sets, I don't want to have to spend time changing into my spare set between fights because the elemental type changed.

Now, IF there was some super mob somewhere, and a group of fellow players wanted to team up on it, and we planned out the fight, and it only dealt massive amounts of cold damage, I could see bringing cold resist gear. But otherwise I'll ignore it.

This is the feedback I've gotten on resist gear in every single game that has had it EXCEPT the games where it's possible to get max resist all on a good set of armor. In THOSE games, everyone goes for max, and there it sits.

So the real question is, how will we be encountering the damage? If it's constant exposure, we're gonna want constant protection. If it's occasional spikes from rare sources, we are going to avoid those sources, when forced, we will build one shot resistance suits. If we get constant exposure without the ability to stack constant defense, what ends up happening is that elemental damage is suddenly considered UNAVOIDABLE, elemental PC abilities are considered OP, and physical attack forms will be disused. It breaks game balance.

Now, what I've always thought is, why does elemental damage automatically bypass all armor? Most energy forms can be BLOCKED by chain, leather, and plate. Acid? Go burn the steel. Electricity? It only seeks the most conductive path to the ground, lightning rods are metal, they protect wood. So a path of metal surrounding leather, cloth and flesh would direct electricity AROUND the wearer. Cold damage? Have you ever WORN armor? It's seethingly hot in there! As a good heat insulator it will block both heat and cold. Wind damage is really just impact. Blasts of light will hit the armor first, I'd rather have a laser hit armor before it hits flesh. The list goes on. I've never encountered a real energy form that would go through armor as easily as through empty air. So why does anything remotely energetic get a free pass to penetrate full plate? I think someone without a lick of physics way back up the line made a bad judgement call, and the gaming community has been following that tradition ever since.

 

@MalakBrightpalm: You say you want armor that defends against constant exposure to all of the elements. I would say that there is no reason for elemental damage, if such armor exists.

If the game's fire monsters don't strongly encourage you to pick up some fire resistance armor, they're not doing their job. If you can't be bothered to pick up armor to fight a strong fire monster, then that's your choice as a player - not a break in the game balance or OPness of the monster.

As an addition to my original idea, consider this:
Lets say we have some regular non-zero-sum armor, which adds 10 to a magic resistance per piece. We could have near-zero-sum that is equivalent to the armor in magnitude gained, but geared for a specific element (+40/-30).

 

I agree that, in theory, nobody should be carrying around 3 extra sets of magic enhanced plate armor. Too bulky and too heavy. But - what to do if/when the "Bag of Holding" makes an appearance?

 

I'd just rather not have it on the gear. It's a buff. A spell, a passive toggle, a potion, etc. And again it can be either modeled as <+fire, -cold> or you simply have 3 total slots to fill so you can't choose everything.

 

I don't like zero sum systems. I hate having to swap items out for specific encounters, especially in games that have a weight mechanic (which require me to go back to town to switch out items). I also dislike the way zero-sum systems require designers to design special encounters, like bosses, in that every single encounter inevitably becomes a minigame of stacking resistance X and praying the party manages its interrupts well for those odd attacks where the boss uses an off-elemental attack. Also, I don't feel it should be at all possible to wear a full set of armor that provides net zero protection. That's just silly, unless the set is uniquely cursed or something.

 

Better analogy... Its like Pokémon

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Type_chart

 

I said I always wondered why heavy layers of plate gave NO protection against damage just because it is energy damage. I didn't say I wanted a super suit. I pointed out, as you know full well, that players ALLOWED to get a super suit will opt for it. Now...

So in your view the PURPOSE of elemental damage is to bypass armor? I think that's kinda shallow. I think the purpose of elemental damage is to provide a way for different levels of resistance and vulnerability to matter, whether the damage gets a total bypass or not isn't the issue.

Holy crap, so those fire elementals WORK for the 'Fire Resitant Armor Merchant's Association'? Dastardly! How about, their JOB is to defend their turf, incinerate intruders, and from a more video game design standpoint, to give me cool stuff to kill. Just because I failed to buy special armor to fight them doesn't mark them a failure. Unless they really DO work for the 'Fire Resitant Armor Merchant's Association', which would be an AWESOME subplot.

Still not sure what is so sacred or holy about zero sum, it's like having an obsession with Platonic Ideal Forms. However, in this example you have left the zero sum world. I can now equip this piece of gear, another with reversed stats, and come out +10/+10, which is what most players will do. Will they have swappable gear? Depends on weight limits, but I'm guessing most will skip doing so until forced to. And if you have to force the player population to play a certain way against their will, you are probably doing something wrong with your game design.

 

If they wanted a zero-sum approach, they could make a chaos resist armor that was weak against all the elements, and then an elemental resist armor that was weak against chaos.

I'm not dead set against a zero-sum approach, its just my thing is I hope magic armor and weapons doesn't become so common that your concerns are necessary in the first place. You don't want fighters who are as good as mages in everything, plus they can have extra defense.

@Malak, actually I recall Bowen saying something about plate armor being unpleasant in freezing weather.

 

In freezing WEATHER yes, just like it would be unpleasant to wear across a desert by day. Anything made of metal will gain and lose heat more slowly than, say, thin air, or light clothing. So holding such a thing against your skin after it's had a chance to become very hot or very cold... not fun. When I spoke about it's ability as a heat insulator, I was thinking purely about a single blast of elemental cold or heat. E.G. a standard magick missile attack. Those would be less effective against an armored target than an unarmored one, suggesting that standard armor WOULD be of some benefit against them. It's why I don't like the "elemental damage bypasses armor unless you have resists" school of thought.