Thanks for the feedback gGeo and Hiver!
That would improve game like a charm. I hope Larians are not tooo stuborn to accept that.
On top of yours, I would like to see a cumulative soft cc to get to hard cc.
First stage >>> Soft cc
does minor issues. Often it makes target more sensitive to fallowing attack.
Second stage >>> Soft cc with serious effect
has serious effects like limiting AP, reducing chance to hit or cast (introduce spell fizzle here)
Third stage >>> Hard CC
is Hard cc as we already know.
It's a bit more work to implement a three-stage system like that, and I'm not sure if it'd be worth the extra work. My concern with that system is it would encourage using the same or similar attacks several times in a row, rather than diversifying your actions. This would especially hurt hybrids. It also still keeps hard cc as the end goal, which is what I'm trying to avoid.
I do like the existing two-stage systems with chilled/frozen and warm/fire, so I could see, say, knocking down someone who's already knocked down does cause something like "concussion," which would upgrade the physical resistance and add a hit chance penalty and keep it around for a couple turns. A third stage could get a bit clunky, though. I'd also rather keep source skills more interesting than just insta-disabling all your enemies.
Frozen should not damage enemies close by but apply a small measure of slow down, reduce movement speed for them too, if they are very close. Lasting a turn if they move away.
I like it. Maybe even chill nearby characters. Nearby damage did seem off to me. I could see burning cause damage or warm nearby targets, though.
Fear should not give damage either.
Charm should not give damage either.
Those are not meant to be direct damage skills or effects and we have plenty of damage dealing skills anyway.
I like charms as it is. Its an effect that can be a great help or great hindrance requiring turning it back as soon as you can manage. I would only add some lesser debilitating effect to it after it wears off or gets turned back, so the affected character or enemy wouldnt be up to 100% efficiency right away. Something like reduced precision and dodge for a turn after Charm wears off.
Im not sure if Fear needs to be changed either or in what way, it seems simple enough as it is.
Maybe adding the "drop weapon" effect similar to "disarm" that is now in the game would be a good addition...
Or just disarm, which forces the enemy (or you) to re-equip the weapon once the fear wears off.
I'm not sure about my idea for fear, and am especially wary about changing charm, since it's indeed a very fun status to use. But they are still very hard cc. Maybe instead of fear damaging, it would only make the character spend 1 or 2 AP running away. Still very inconveniencing, can trigger AoO attacks, make you run through status fields, but it's not a turn ender. The thing is, whatever hard cc ability that remains after purging the others will be king, unless it has serious downsides as a hard cc like petrified.
I actually think charm needs the opposite effect after it wears off, some kind of buff or mixed effect. In the mod Epic Encounters, characters get raged after being charmed. This might be a little too much with how power swingy rage is, but maybe a lesser effect like "angry," +25% crit chance and -25% dodge chance. I also think if a charmed targets takes enough damage to their vitality (like 25-33% of their max health or something), they get broken out of charm. This way you can't use a charmed target as a punching bag when convenient, or throw them in the middle of an AOE attack and expect them to stay loyal. Would also give you an option as a player to smack your teammate to wake them up.
I guess you can see my suggestions about making new magic and physical armors work based on percentages, rather then hard barriers, so ... it would be nice if someone could mod it, in case devs dont see the brilliance of my idea.
I'm not about making armor a sliding scale of effectiveness. Further complicates things. Regardless, it's going to be tough (mechanically and balancewise) to implement a global resistance system. I'm not quite sure how I'd go about it, but I think the formula would take armor, constitution, perseverance, vitality percentage, and glass cannon into account.
Probably having any armor at all would give you 50-75% chance to resist. Each point in Con above 10 would add 1-2% chance to resist. Perseverance would add 3-5% chance to resist per point, depending on whether it would also keep recovering armor. Glass cannon would subtract 30-50% chance to resist, and having less than max health would decrease resistance chance, probably at certain breakpoints. Like, 50-75% max health = -15% resist, 25-50% max health is -30% resist, <25% health is -45% resist. Maybe just less than 50% health has an effect for simplicity.
Armor would remain the backbone of resistance, but it wouldn't be impervious (maybe max resistance chance of 90% even with high con and perseverance), and a character built to resist wouldn't be completely vulnerable without armor.
I think ideas for Stun and Knockdown are very good. I would maybe add losing a few APs for the next turn when standing up from knockdown because standing up wastes a few APs itself.
Knockdown standing up could cost an AP perhaps. Does make some sense.
