Critical hits

NighthawkUL · February 2005

How about critical hits in the game? Say, if a dreamseer is sneaking around and the lunge out for an attack it does extra damage or if a gatekeeper was in the throes of flipping out in a huge battle they'd have an increased chance of dealing a nasty blow?

StrikesBrain · February 2005

Well critical hits were something often done in pen and paper games to represent a nice coup in hitting an especially vital spot of anatomy. In a game like UL, you control how the blows fall so critical hits, if done should be more of, if you hit the proper sort of anatomy, kind of like headshots. Though one has to wonder, does a dreamer really have vital anatomy?

One idea though is to have some sort of function or art, I'd personally see this as a Kabalist skill, power strike. The Kabalist stands still as he's using the ability, his dreamsoul drains away into the weapon selected, the weapon takes on a glow as he does so. The longer he stands still, the more dreamsoul he can transfer into the weapon, when he finally choses to deal a blow with it, he deals aggivated damage, directly based on how much of his own energy he traded off into the weapon.

Here's a crazy soulmaster idea, Reciporcate. The soulmaster evokes a fast (about half second) evoking art, and they get the reciporcate status affect on them. When struck by an attack the affect goes away, but they get a damage bonus on their next attack equal to the amount of damage suffered. If they miss the attack, the bonus is wasted. If they connect with their attack they deal their weapon damage + the amount of damage they suffered when reciporcate was up, possibly throwing in a cap based on the level of their art. Be a funky move though, casting that art, letting the guy with the level 50 weapon smack you upside the head, then throwing all that back at him and then some.

NighthawkUL · February 2005

I like the idea of vital spots, maybe have the chest or the stomach or hitting where certain chakras are reputed to be.
Then again it could just be normal vital spots like heart, heat, lungs and joints.

It would be extremely cool if you could limit someone's mobility a bit by hitting them in the knees (the severity would depend on the level of the chakram or blade or whatever).

Dunno about the kabalist thing, that sounds kind of soulmasterish as far as the draining dreamsoul goes. But standing still while taking a shot dealing extra damage seems like a pretty good idea, taking careful aim before firing should have some sort of benefit at least for the kabalists (I mean other than hitting the intended target).

Hmm...
Ragdoll physics anyone?

That would make for extremely satisfying combat!

That would probably also make for a lot of lag = /

Still, seeing someone's avatar fall off a bridge and plummet to the bottom as the soulsphere is torn away from its avatar would be very cool (but also maybe not possible).

-nh

NighthawkUL · February 2005

What's everyone think?

Crap! I forgot to add both headshots and criticals under the poll. Who things having the first to options both in the game is a good idea?

I wish you could edit your polls...

StrikesBrain · February 2005

It is very much a kabalist thing. Kabalists use items better then anyone else can, and if someone knew how to overcharge an item, a Kabalist would. They don't nessecarily have to be standing still when they fire the shot, just standing still when charging up. If you were standing still taking careful aim, well, UL is something where you can aim freely, you are literally taking careful aim and it would tie back up to my above point. Though agian I wonder, do avatars really do have vital anatomy?

Though, I do not like having everyone thrown in the same boat by focus. Striker was a gatekeeper, though he was level headed in a fight, he'd never fly into a berserker rage. Same thing goes for a fair amount of GK's I know. Though, I knew a few DS's who would go crazy and a FS. Thing is, you are trying to say that GK's are voilatile people who fly off the handle easily, and that's not the case, no matter how often DS's may rib'em.

Same goes for DS's, not every DS is a sneaky weasel who'll stab you in the back the first moment they get.

Though if you want to take on either combat style as either focus, it does work in its own ways. If you rush someone with total disregard to your own safety, you'll have a much easier time scoring a hit, you'll take more abuse that way, but if you got good SM's behind you you can get away with it. If you sneak up on someone in stealth and then nail them from behind, they have no chance of dodging so therefore you get a shot at nailing them however you please.

In fact, Reminds me of a time when I was helping the GoTE face this one mare, I think it was Vraadurger. It was a slow horron class darkmare. The fight was one room away from GoE's facade IIRC. The mare jumped into a pool of water with his back exposed to a small area of the room, and was firing, at the people, everyone was running around like a pack of ants. Striker Glances at the situation, he non-chalantly slips up behind the mare, he carefully took aim at its exposed back, and then he unleashed a barrage of aggrivated damage on that mares heiny. The mare was a notoriously slow one, he slowly turns around to face Striker. Striker jumps clear and gets the hell out of the way as the entire room takes advantage of the fact that the mare just turned his backside to them.

I will note, if GK's get the same damage benefit in this game as they do in UL, they don't need any more damage bonuses. Every plateau of GK adds +1 damage to all their attacks. Striker at level 49 deals +4 damage on his chakrams. Which is pretty significant when you do the math, when he blades an emphant he's gaurnteed a one hit kill.

Hell, one intruder once caught striker without any weapons, the guy was moving a tad slow, so Striker whipped out a Blade and began to chop the guy up, with the full level blade combined with the GK damage bonus the guy was forced to be defensive to avoid collapse. Though, one interesting way to get someone in a fight is to evoke the blade art, if your bluff works right, they'll think you are out of ammo and about to melee, they'll stop to line up a sweet shot with the flame art to conserve ammo, that's when you fire your nastiest chak in their face.

Khyperu · February 2005

I like all the idea's. Both the chance that everyone has a chance to Critical and that only certain classes can do critcals. Like the Dreamseers might be able to "backstab" or something to that affect and Cabbies being able to do called shots and Gatekeepers with a "berserk" ability. I think its all a great idea and would like to some one or the other placed in Rec.

StrikesBrain · February 2005

I still don't like those ideas. It forces steriotypical roles upon classes. Lyra made a game of forging your own path in UL and I don't want to see that ruined.

That's like saying all GK's are big blockhead brutes who "hulk smash" things.

Or its like sayinig all DS's are sneaky bastards who fight dirty.

Some of either do, but not all.

What if a GK likes to wheel and deal and be sneaky does beserk REALLY fit that? And a GK CAN wheel and deal.

What if a DS likes to charge into battle full speed and let the torpedoe's be damned, does thief REALLY fit that? I've seen Wraith in action, that DS was downright crazy in battle, I saw the crazy guy charge into people firing off min velocity chaks.

And agian, doing the actions are their own reward due to UL's very unique first person combat system. If you sneak up behind someone physically and unload a healthy portion of chakram up their rear, you'll give yourself a significant advantage over them, NO damage bonus required.

And honestly, if there was a soft spot to stab in the back wouldn't that be knowledge that could be passed by word of mouth?

GK "I don't get it! I stood behind the bastard for 10 whole seconds considering a spot to put the dagger. I finally shove it straight through his spine and he barely winced."

DS "No man... you gotta go 3 centimeters to the right!"

GK "Thats it?"

DS "Actually no, I was lying, trade secret."

GK "OH come on."

DS "No, really."

GK "Hmmmph, I bet you don't even know!"

DS "No, I really do!"

GK "Yeah right, I bet you this high quality Dreamsoul elemen."

DS "You're on and you lose that bet."

GK "Oh do I really?"

DS "Yes, because its 3 centimeters to the LEFT!"

GK "AHA!"

DS "DOH!"

GK *Backstabbies DS* "I can backstab! The day is mine!"

And that's why backstabbing is silly in a setting with free first person combat such as reclamation.

If you make GK's blockheaded bersekers you'll find yourself warded into a room, double warded if you are a dreamseer!

SN!PER · February 2005

I like the idea of critical hits, but I think the chances of extra damage should be based on the item level and level of the user. So if a FateSender hits you with a 5-12 damage chakram and have their FateSender art maxxed they could perhaps do up to 8 more damage or something like that. And the chance of higher blows would go up as their focus art goes up. Then again...This also takes away from the GK's hit bonus. And the GKs were sort of screwed on arts in UL.

StrikesBrain · February 2005

Instead of doing criticals, which is horribly artificial, what about other systems for aggrivated damage.

Resonance discord.

The psuedo science behind this idea is any attack or offensive art causes the keyed element to resonate through the avatar. The degree of the resonance is based off the power of the attack and the level to which the affected avatar had raised their keyed element. Having high willpower when struck by a GK chak will NOT reduce the damage of the chak, but it will reduce the resonance.

NORMALLY you do not notice the resonance in combat. In fact on average it should persist for only about a second after the fact. Either way there is no outward indication of this resonance taking place. Though, clever and well coordinated individuals can anticipate and play the resonance to their advantage.

If an avatar resonating with a particular element and it is struck with a specific other elemental attack, the two elements mix violently in the avatar and produce a particularly violent reaction.

The elemental sequence as I'd see it being would be lucidity agianst will, will agianst insight, insight agianst reslience, resilience agianst lucidity. In other words will>insight>resilience>lucidity>will>insight..... would be the proper order of attack to hit someone.

If you manage to pull a successful resonance discord on someone with a damaging chakram or art, you deal more damage. If it's an affect art, you get a better affect at a better duration.

Here's how it'd work.

Gerald is a GK, Sally is a SM, Don is a DS, Frank is a fs. They are fighting a darkmare.

Sally poisons the mare, now for a very brief time the mare is resonating with resilience. Don knows about resonance discord and had been holding a blast waiting for Sally's poison to hit, the instant he sees it active he fires off his blast. He gets it within the window, discord, his blast does vicious damage. Gerald is firing a GK focus chakram, by sheer luck he manages to smack the beast RIGHT after Don's blast, he discords and gets nastier damage on his chak. Now suppose Frank fires off scare on the mare just after Gerald's GK assault, the mare would be resonating with will at this point and his scare would last longer due to it.

The power of the discord result would be based off of the power of the original resonance, and the power of the attack that managed to get the discord. A level 0 chak's resonance would do scarcely anything for a level 60 chak. ALSO, if you manage to chain discords, like in the above example, the discords get increasingly more vicious, though anytime an improper element, it cancels that resonance, and starts a new resonance with that element. If there was a chain going, it breaks the chain. If in the above example, Sally fires off poison agian, she'll continue the resonance chain the viciousness of the attacks will keep going up as long as it keeps going. Gerald fires off a chak shot and hits, it'll cancel the chain, and start a willpower resonance in the mare.

The interesting thing about this system is you really need more then 1 person to take the full advantage of it. Only a scholar or a Kabalist really have a shot at doing it otherwise with their expanded armory/art library. Even then it would be really tricky for them. A lot of times though you'd get your resonance discord by sheer luck.

SN!PER · February 2005

in the time it would take Sally to poison, and frank to scare, and that other dude to chak, and the other other dude to blast. the DM would probably have collapsed one of them since they are standing still evoking arts constantly. i dont know about this idea, but it's a start.

StrikesBrain · February 2005

That's just a hypothetical situation to demonstrate how that'd work with any sort of offensive action. As you may notice I pointed out it'd augment an affect art, a damage art, and a chakram. I picked those situations to have all 3 happening. It is highly unlikely it'd occur like that. As I said, it works with chakrams, and that's how it'd most likely play out.

In fact if you don't play with a strategy you get the chance for "ramdom crits" if you got someone of the right focus fighting with you, randomly harrasing it.

If you are evoking arts, and you know dreamer A who is attacking with the proper focus is very consistently hitting the target. And you are evoking a slower especially potent art, you may hold very briefly to see if in the space of an extra second or so to see if an oppertunity opens itself. If it doesn't, then you just play with what you have, rather then let the lack of oppertunities hinder your combat.

Since being able to pull "criticals" out of your ass is a VERY powerful ability (nasty nasty damage). This should be very hard to pull off. This does encourage fighting with mixed teams. If you got all 4 foci in some way shape or form in damage on the monster, then everyone has a random chance of getting a discord through luck.

If you got enough manpower and people on the side to try to hammer off a chain, it would be real nasty with its affects, though trying to pull one off, as you pointed out can really screw you and might even make the results not worth the effort. It would require insane finesse, luck, and thinking fast on your feet.

The big reason here though is this is not true random "Critical hits". I just don't like them without a nice explanation but in trying to make that work I came up with an idea. I have an idea for a technique. I will be posting a thread on techniques, they are essentially passive arts that you don't use, sort of like "Gatekeeper" and "Fatesender". They are learned like arts though they never have a cost or evoke.

Chaos Strike - This technique is a slightly dangerous process of allowing your avatar and weapon channel small amounts of chaos in combat creating the possibility for extra damage, but at the risk of a feedback. Due to its dangerous nature, this is one of those few techniques that is not always a wise thing to use, being as such, it can be toggled off and on as you please. Its on/off state is remembered when you log off.

Essentially whenever you strike someone with this art active there's a chance that a torrent of chaos will accompany your attack, dealing aggrivated damage. The odds of the aggrivated damage are dependant SOLEY on where you are. Planes close to the threshold channel very little chaos and produce very few of these vicious blows. The rifts are awash in chaos and produce far more of these blows. Every chance you do a critical attack of this nature there's a chance you will suffer a feedback, you still deal the damage to your target, but you suffer damage as well. The odds of suffering a feedback are based on two things, the level of your "Chaos Strike" ability and the amount of chaos in the plane. If you have it at level 1 and try to use it in the rifts, you'll have your avatar shredded by the very powers you are trying to harness. If you have a high level of this ability and you use it near the threshold, you'll probably never suffer a feedback.

If you are in a friendly aligned plane, it will actually try to buffer the avatar from any spikes. This allows for a slightly reduced chance of feedback when using this ability. The reverse holds true in any hostile aligned planes.

This ability DOES affect nightmares. While they are beasts of chaos, their avatars are imposed order of sorts, and a blast of raw chaos pumped right into them still deals damage. Though, darkmares are better at channeling chaos and if they have this ability, they are less likely to suffer a feedback when using it. I don't know if it'd be good to give any lesser mares this ability.

SN!PER · February 2005

ahhh..I see. Not a bad idea. Thanks for the clarification.

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