Crafting leaked

Sorry 'bout the textwall but I had to reply once I slept

It... fixes that specific problem with the system, but not any of the other ones. What happens if my guy gets hit by a tank shell? What percentage of that damage should be mitigated? A negligible amount, if any. A scaling percentage, then, addresses this problem, but still leaves the problem of not allowing the character to completely ignore that tiny little rabbit nibbling his toes magically through those inch-thick steel boots. Flat reduction solves all of those problems while still allowing the gameplay needs for gear to be useful. (As a binary defense system would not).

In battlefield, my guy can take 5 or 6 bullets and be fine a few seconds later if I'm standing by a medpack. Does that mean magic is in battlefield? "Magic won't be in the game" doesn't mean that typical videogame shenanigans have to be removed. I don't fancy having to spend months recuperating after taking some fall damage.

I agree that chance based systems are bad, when they're implemented badly. Missing is indeed silly, but a lot of games only use chance to determine how effective an attack was, not whether or not it did anything at all (a lot of games usually use entirely chance-based damage systems but you don't see misses popping up, only "my attack has a range of 10-300 damage"). But no, going around it is not relevant to the discussion of how useful it should be, unless you are advocating a chance-based system (which I know you are not). It just does not even remotely make sense for a papercut to hurt you underneath even the most basic of protections. Also, what are you talking about with that critical hit statement? It's a base mechanic that can be implemented many different ways, and you're using one specific example of some game that does it pointlessly. The game Path of Exile, for example, you can build your entire character around critical hits and be completely viable, in fact better than pure dps boosting.

And you should be able to ignore that little wolf. Developers are far too afraid of trivializing content that should be trivial. If I return to a level 1 planet when I have a full set of level 50 or so gear, I really should be able to just wander around as basically a god to these insignificant creatures. If I can't, it's also fine, as long as the progression curve is shallow enough that it makes sense. But if my armor is dozens of times better, it should show it.

Easier, sure. But not more realistic, which of course as a videogame doesn't really matter unless the designers want it to. (by the way, if you watch the streams where they spawn in high-level weapons they are one-shotting literally everything- I'd call that OP, at least relative to the location they were- one gun's damage had to be expressed in scientific notation ). Oh, and I also am aware that this discussion is pointless relative to this game, but I like talking about these things- game design and the logic behind mechanics is kind of my thing.

 

this crafting leak in november stream....

 

I think you are missing my points. All of them, actually.

Especially with the wolf scenario. The point wasn't that you should or shouldn't be able to ignore the wolf, the problem is that one piece of equipment is all it takes to go from ~10 damage to the minimum 1 damage. Also, the game is almost certain to have a minimum of 1 damage, so all your arguments about being able to ignore things are pointless.

My criticism of Hp being "general physical toughness" is that it really doesn't even mean anything. How is one guy with 1000Hp physically different from another guy who has 10Hp, given that all their other stats are the same? They'd be equally strong, equally fast, etc... What is this "general toughness"? Is one character's body actually rock hard while the other guy is soft like jello? If not, then is it a personality trait? It can't just be force of will, because that is utterly not scientific at all, which is why Ichigo is the perfect example. On the other hand, my representation of Hp being the ability to make an otherwise fatal attack be less than fatal actually does fit with the setting, though I suspect very few players will actually care either way. The fact that with the wonders of technology we will be able to do realistically impossible things does not even factor into it.

In games where critical hits happen to be a balanced strategy, they are still usually pointless. For example, if a critical hit deals double damage, then each 1% chance of a critical hit is functionally equal to 1% higher average damage. If critical hits ignore armor, then each 1% chance of a critical hit is functionally equal to ignoring 1% of the opponent's average armor. In both systems, If the build is designed to always deal crits, then it is functionally no different than another build that always deals 100% bonus damage or ignores 100% of the foe's defense. The problem with both of these is that crit builds tend to not scale well-- They are garbage at low levels and hard and frustrating to play with, but at high levels tend to outpace regular damage builds because they get a larger maximum bonus.

As for the extremes, I really don't think you've tried my formulas. Check my thread. If a tank shell deals ~500 damage, it would always kill you even with the top tier armor. If a vorpal bunny nibbling on your toes deals ~5 damage, then even with low tier armor you would only take 1-2 damage. In any game that has a minimum damage of 1, this would be the case anyway. If you think that there should not be a minimum of 1 damage, then that is a whole different argument to have.

 

All right, I'll try using a real-world example that everyone should be relatively familiar with. You can even try this as an experiment to verify, though I wouldn't recommend it, this is just to address the false statement "it isn't realistic".

Bake a lasagna. The lasagna itself isn't really important to the example, I just like lasagna. Anyway, after you're done baking this lasagna, get yourself an oven mitt. Just one. Put it on your right hand, then use both hands to remove the lasagna from the oven. Now, after you've done this, tell me what percentage of the burns to your left hand were prevented by the oven mitt on your right hand. This is the key point- It's not based on any percentage, fixed or scaling, it is literally completely protected. In game terms, your hand took 0 damage from the lasagna's attack (not 1, regardless of whatever that would mean, minimum damage is ridiculous mostly for this reason, though I can usually give it a pass as I had to in Terraria). This is simulated easily with a flat defense system.

However, if you then use that same oven-mitt-clad hand to try to pick up some, say, molten metal, you're going to get maybe a few seconds before your hand gets burned to hell (I'm talking standard kitchen oven mitts here, not industrial grade stuff that can actually handle that- which itself is pretty awesome, as an aside). That few seconds is still key, though, as it demonstrates that even in the extreme scenario the protection was still there, it was just overcome to the point of irrelevance, but in game terms it doesn't have to be ignored. This is, also, simulated easily with a flat defense system.

There is also a third window here- a point where the oven mitt isn't fully effective, but still provides relevant protection- in some range past the temperature it's able to handle, you're going to get burned if you try to use it, but significantly less than bare-handed. This is, once again, simulated easily in a flat defense system.

To address the flaw in comparing an oven mitt to armor, as you're probably already aware there is one- an aggressive attack is going to be intended to injure you in more than just one way- even a swing of a sword is an impact as well as a cut, and obviously armor can't protect you from the laws of physics, so you're still going to feel the force of the blow even if the cut or puncture is negated. But this resulting impact, if it doesn't penetrate your defense, is spread out in such a way that turns a stab into a punch, a slice into a slap- basically meaning that if your armor is good enough, you can *effectively* ignore the blow (some weapons are designed to injure by force alone, so armor isn't much good against them- many games use different types of physical damage to account for this). But I say effectively, because in gaming the nature of injury is inherently temporary, so a minor injury such as a bruise is not even worth considering beside getting stabbed or shot or... et cetera.

Also, I'm not questioning your math- simply its relevance. Percentages just do not make sense in any way. Even if the tank shell still kills your character, the fact that you even consider its damage to be reduced by a percentage is, honestly, just silly. If the issue is balance, this is just as easy a system to balance as any other- you control the damage output of enemies and the defense available through items in such a way that it's literally 'this enemy should be X danger to the player at Y level- make their damage output that much higher than the defense rating the player will have at that level'. There's admittedly some issue with high-rate vs low-rate attacks, but they are also easily solved with the same balancing methods, it just means that the difficulty curve is a bit sharper concerning high-rate attacks.

tl;dr lol lasagna attacks

 

It is hard to gauge an exact percentage for the iron mitt scenario, but it is just as hard to set a flat rate for it too.

If I hold the lasagna long enough (ten seconds? twenty?), the heat will eventually conduct through the oven mitt and burn me (just like the molten iron in your other example), but the process is significantly slowed because the conductivity of the mitt is much lower than the conductivity of my skin (due mostly to water content). Also, the oven mitt lacks nerve endings, so I don't feel the outside of the mitt rapidly heating up until the heat reaches my skin, unlike my bare skin which feels it instantly. My own over mitts are actually rather dark and crispy on the outsides near the finger tips, which are signs of burning.

What I find particularly amusing is that you are clinging to a system that literally emphasizes a one-point window: The difference between taking 1 damage and 2 damage. A given suit of armor may provide complete defense against a sword (1 damage/hit), but then if you wear another suit that has less defense by as few as one or two points, the enemy can be doing doubled or even quadrupled damage. After an attack is dealing more than one point of damage, each additional point of attack is progressively less useful-- the most important thing is that you are at least above that threshold. This is totally nuts! It's like saying "Oh, I'd better not wear that iron armor, it is ever so slightly less durable than this other armor, and that tiny amount could be the difference between life and death! I want to be able to ignore that wolf, so I need to hit at least 54 points, and 52 doesn't cut it!"

I mean, calling it a "flat reduction" isn't even really accurate, since the percentage of damage dealt ends up being quadratic when you express it in a graph of the number of hits it takes to kill the foe.

 

Right, things wear out. But as most games do not use durability systems any more (and rightly so, there's one realism aspect that doesn't add anything), each event can be treated as being the same as the first one. And yes, the heat eventually gets through with enough time- this would be referred to in most systems as a DoT, which are usually handled differently in regards to armor anyway. I'm referring to effectively single instant events, as attacks are typically treated. Pick it up, put it down. Look, 0% of the burns.

Ok, so a flat defense system doesn't work as well if your characters have ten health points, so it wouldn't be a good fit for... umm... d&d? Which already uses your hated chance-based system so maybe it'd be an improvement. I don't know of any other systems where the difference between 0 and 1 damage (yes, 0, don't be scared of the mean old 0) would be significant in terms of gameplay (the monster is doing [1/0- oops. Let's just say infinitely] more damage than they were before! Oh, it's still irrelevant...). This discussion is, or at least started as, realism in armor systems, which are far more realistically accounted for in a flat defense system. Most of the time, you're not going to be dealing with ratios that are that tight, and if you are, well, you either did something wrong, or the character is in an area beneath where they should be but exactly not far enough to just go AFK for an hour.

And yes, flat reduction is accurate... you're being silly here. You know what the phrase is referring to, and of course it's going to look different if you change that.

 

So you say that paper cuts can't kill?

scene is from the spectre at 11:19

On-topic: Once Starbound is released I am sure you can just mod it to fit your preference on how armor should work.

 

Absolutely. I won't be modding it in any way, at least for a while, for me this is mostly just an irrelevant yet interesting discussion.

 

I never said anything about using a durability system. This also has nothing to do with damage over time effects.
To be much more relevant, how long do you have to hold the lasagna before it counts as one, full attack? I mean, if you only use 1/1'000'000th of a second, then even a bullet wouldn't even deal fatal damage, it would barely even break the skin. Just as a bullet takes a certain amount of time to penetrate armor, so too does the heat from a lasagna plate.
A bullet usually travels at ~1'000m/second. 1/1'000'000th of 1'000m is 1mm. An attack that only pierces 1mm into the target would not be fatal, and would not deal any damage to a target with at least 1mm of armor, even if that armor was made of cotton. Do T-shirts stop bullets? Not any more than oven mitts stop heat.
Now, admittedly, the bullet requires much less time to cause fatal injury. That would be represented by dealing much greater damage, so it depletes a much larger amount of your Hit points. Since the damage of the lasagna is likely only 1, even without protection, if it was further divided then it would probably take an extremely long time to kill someone (or it should be rounded down to zero, which is realistic in my opinion. This is one of the points that I disagree with Saber Cherry on. I also disagree with her formula, but cest la vie.)

If your character has 100 Hit points, 10 Hit points comes out to 10% of your health. Ten hits and you die. Compare with 1% or, if there is no minimum damage, zero! Anyway, it pretty silly that you say realism doesn't necessarily help in the case of durability, but then you fall back on it for flat defense. The only reason to keep flat defense over percentile defense is if it is better for gameplay, which it is not.
The fact of the matter is that players should never, ever take as little as one or zero damage from any enemies unless they are specifically intended to do very minor damage. I don't care if you are revisiting a much lower level area, having the incentive to avoid enemies makes the game more fun. At the same time, it is crucial that high level equipment makes you feel much stronger and more durable, and that it makes lower level areas much easier, and percentile defense does exactly that. Just try playing Super Metroid and go back to Crateria after getting the Gravity Suit. You have about 3 times as much health, and the suit reduces damage by 75%, so enemies that used to be able to kill you in 8 hits now take 96 hits-- You feel invincible! And yet you are still taking meaningful damage that can add up if you are careless.

On the other hand, here's an example to illustrate the weaknesses of flat defense: whenever I play Star Ocean 3, I just use Fayt or Cliff, slap on the best armor I can afford, and make sure his defense goes up by 4 points each level (Fayt's average is 3/level, Cliff's is 2.5/level). Even when I am under-leveled, I end up taking 0 damage from any enemies on the first disc. On the second disc the enemies start to have attack ratings that are too high for me to reach the single-digit window, so instead I focus on attack because boosting my defense barely makes a difference. I'd rather deal 300% more damage than take 5% less damage. The sad thing is that this isn't even a poorly balanced game! In fact, many reviewers really loved the fact that you didn't have to level grind because the battles were so well balanced.

Technically, the correct term for the "flat" reduction formula is "Arithmetic Equation", while the percentile reduction would be a "Geometric Equation". If you graph the number of hits is takes for the enemy to kill you, the Geometric Equation makes each point of armor give the same amount of benefit as the last point, which is exactly why it is so balanced. If +4 armor allows you survive one more hit, then +8 armor will allow you to surive two more hits, and so on. The graph of an arithmetic equation, on the other hand, has the result that the benefit of each point of armor is equal to 1-(N-1)/N where N = the total armor value. This means that for each point of difference between your defense and your enemy's attack, the value gets rapidly reduced until it is practically worthless. moving from 2 damage to 1 damage makes you 100% more durable, but moving from 10 damage to 9 damage is only a 10% increase. That's a single digit window that goes from 100% benefit to 10% benefit. Beyond that point, raising armor is completely pointless and you may as well wear a cardboard box.

Just in case you are still clinging to the realism argument, police and military still wear vests even if they know they are dealing with armor piercing ammunition and tank/artillery shells because although the vest will not stop a direct hit, it can still deflect and reduce impact and lethality. Even against tank shells, it is better to have a vest than not, because it increases the % chance that you won't just die outright. That % chance should be represented in damage reduction, since evasion is an unpleasant system in gaming. In real life, some protection is better than none at all, which is more strongly supported by a percentile defense. The only reason we even use Hit points in the first place is to counteract chance-based systems, so if you take all chance based systems out, the only practical way left to replicate the fact that it takes multiple attempts to kill you is to apply a percentile reduction to the damage.

And although this is not an actual argument, here is a short list of games I found, sorted by damage formulas.
Games that use percentile defense:
Pokemon, Elder Scrolls Series, Ragnarok Online, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Diablo III, etc...
Games that use flat defense:
Terraria, Maple Story, Old JRPGs, Tri-Ace and Atlus games because they are so lazy, etc...

 

That's a whole lot of text that still misses the point. By the way, since you seem to think I'm saying something I'm not- any of these systems are absolutely fine for gameplay as long as they are well balanced, so don't take my criticism as saying that your way wouldn't work. I'm just pointing out that it ignores reality. Which, again, is fine, and is a decision each designer has to make for themselves. Also, a lot of that post is talking about balancing issues rather than issues with the system itself, which is a different discussion to have.

But I'm going to give this one more shot, since I think we're just going around in circles here, I'll be as general as possible.

For a system to be considered "realistic", it needs to be able to model real-world scenarios in relatively accurate ways. Since we're talking about protection, there are three general cases to consider.

1. The "fully protected" scenario- oven mitt vs lasagna pan, paintball gun vs bullet proof vest, sitting in a tank while people shoot their handguns at it, etc. In all these cases, you are completely uninjured by an event that, without that protection, would at the very least cause a non-negligible amount of pain.

2. The "my protection was virtually worthless" scenario- high powered sniper rifle vs bullet proof vest, oven mitt vs magma, cut-resistant gloves vs guillotine, etc. In these cases, you may have a small chance of being less injured than without them, but for the majority of cases you're going to be pretty much screwed, only a tiny bit less than without the protection all together. But we aren't talking about chance-based systems here, so if you're considering every "attack" to be the same, talking about "you might be better off" seems like deliberately sidestepping the point.

3. The middle case, where your protection isn't good enough to fully prevent injury but you are still substantially better off having had it. The handgun vs bullet proof vest (where you may take a painful bruise or possibly broken bones, etc).

Any system that you want to call realistic has to be able to handle all three of these scenarios. Now, if you're paying attention, you'll note that 2 and 3 don't have a clear distinction between them- 2 is just 3 taken to the extreme, but it's still useful to consider these as though they were separate cases.

A fixed percentile system, such as the one you propose in the OP of your armor thread (I didn't read the whole thread to see if you changed it later), only considers case 3 (and, in fact, only a single point in its entire range). It is very weak in that it considers 1 and 2, which are highly dissimilar, to be the same.
A scaling percentile system (such as saber cherry's) is better, as it can handle 2 and 3, but it still ignores 1. Which, admittedly, case 1 probably won't come up very often in most games, but as the end result is very similar there's no real reason to use a less efficient solution.
A flat defense system handles all 3 cases.

 

You completely ignored my point about all attacks being able to deal fatal damage, given enough time. Percentile reduction answers that because it is realistic, as does durability, but flat reductions do not address this issue at all. Since durability is an irritating mechanic, that leaves percentile reductions.

Scenario 1: When you wear an oven mitt, it becomes a part of you as an entity. The same applies to riding inside of a tank. Effectively, both you and the protection are under attack, but the protection is taking the bulk of the harm so that you can continue to function. Even a tank can be taken down with low caliber handguns given ridiculous amounts of time. This is obviously represented best with a durability system, but that is annoying to deal with in a video game. A flat damage reduction completely ignores this and considers the person inside to be invincible, which is far from the truth. Eventually, the attacks will wear through your defenses, and you will be harmed-- percentile reduction mimics this by having the protection significantly lengthen the amount of time it takes for the weapon to deal fatal damage.

Scenario 2: First of all, I'd like to point out that your mentioning armor piercing rounds in a sniper rifle is not relevant because such a weapon would have armor piercing qualities, no matter what system is being used. So too would the tank shell, most likely, but I'll ignore that and continue on.
Anyway, when an attack such as the tank shell is almost certain to kill you in a single blow, armor that reduces it by 50% or even 75% still means the attack will kill you as soon as it lands a clean blow, but having it take multiple hits to kill you (if the % lowers it below your max Hp) reflects the fact that there is still a "chance" that the armor can deflect or lessen the severity of the attack (without using chance!). If the shell deals 360 damage, and you have 75% damage reduction, then the attack would still do 90 damage. This would represent the fact that your armor gives you a 10% chance of the tank shell not immediately killing you. Of course, I'm using 100 HP as a standard and that the tank shell should be able to kill pretty much anyone with less than very good armor in a single shot. Even a glancing blow would kill an unprotected victim, but your percentile armor allows you a "chance" of survival. The best part is that unlike using truly chance-based systems of defense, your armor always does what it is supposed to do-- protect you. It's like you always get your 10% chance of survival, as long as you are at full health. This matches perfectly with Hp as representative of your ability to minimize the lethality of incoming attacks-- if your Hp is low, you already used up your protection.
Flat damage reduction, on the other hand, wouldn't help you at all. You'd be just as likely to die from the tank shell as anyone else on the street. This is problematic because it is bad for gameplay AND it is unrealistic.

Scenario 3: I think this is actually where flat damage reduction fails the hardest. This would have to be the point where you can reduce the attacks to manageable levels (single digits or low double digits so that you can survive >5 hits, assuming 100hp as the standard). The thing is, I've pointed out about a dozen times how this is where you end up with ridiculous situations where one point of defense makes the difference between dying in 7 hits instead of 6, and that if you slap on a few defense boosting accessories you can easily survive 100 hits, or even watch the foe hit you and laugh at all the zeros flying around your head. There is no situation in real life where small boosts in protection can suddenly nullify all damage.

So no, in fact, flat defense handles none of the three cases. Meanwhile, percentile reduction is more realistic AND is easier to balance. There is literally only one reason to use flat damage reduction, and that's if you are a munchkin and your favorite number is zero.

 

"Given enough time". So, what percentage is 'realistic' here? 1%? At this point you're still using a threshold, you're just hiding it.

1- So when I'm playing battlefield, my pistol should damage the tank. Or, ooh, my knife too. I'll contact EA right away to correct this oversight. Are you also confused by a fire elemental being unharmed by a fireball? A stone golem ignoring a lightning bolt? Sure, these are fantasy tropes here, but it's still in the "defense in video games" category.

2- I never said "armor piercing". You are literally making up things to argue against. And what kind of personal body armor can deflect a tank shell? Literally doesn't exist. If you get hit, you are dead (or missing whatever part of your body was hit- but then, that part has nothing to do with the body armor you were wearing). We can take this even further into the extreme and talk about actually having a tank fall on top of you, what percentage of that would you say makes sense to be negated?

3- This point is a matter of balance, not a matter of a system flaw. If you're working with relatively small numbers, it's obviously going to be harder to get those extra points. Again, you are making things up to argue against.

In conclusion: Nah. But thanks for resorting to insults, makes me wonder why I was bothering trying to explain things to you.

 

I'll admit to using a threshold. I think it is a good idea to round down decimal values, so any damage <1 is negligible. That's not exactly realistic, but it works well for gameplay and is easy to code for. Events that don't normally cause fatal damage would just be ignored and no calculation would be done in the first place. However, percentile reductions without said threshold would be the most realistic.

Yes, your pistol should damage a tank. So should everyone else's. In fact, why don't we have an army of 1'000 people fire at the tank simultaneously. When you multiply the speed of the damage by 1'000 or more, it is easy to see that the tiny dents and nicks actually add up to substantial damage. As for elemental damage, there is a reason Molotov cocktails are often used as an improvised anti-tank weapon in gorilla warfare. Elemental damage should be treated differently, which is why I proposed a flat reduction for those in my thread-- Given a strong enough lightning bolt, even a stone will show signs of damage.

You specifically mentioned high powered sniper rifles. They use armor piercing ammunition, mainly to penetrate glass without altering the trajectory too much. As for the tank shell, this is Starbound. It is Sci-Fi. Samus Aran's Power Suit could probably survive a tank shell. Even if a tank falls on you, some of that force is absorbed. The thing is, the damage is so high that it is far beyond your max Hp even when 90% is negated, so you are squished flat anyway-- meaning the armor gave you no additional chance to survive.

Even if we work with 1'000hp as the standard, you'd need the flat damage reduction to keep up. Even then your damage reduction window is still very small proportionate to the amount of points you are dealing with. The "single digit window" is really more of a "ten percent window"-- When attacks start to deal >10% of your max Hp in damage, you may as well give up on defense; meanwhile attacks that deal <10% of your max Hp give you huge incentive to munchkin your defense as high as possible because if you raise your defense just 10% higher, you'll be invincible. This is both unrealistic AND bad for gameplay.

I never resorted to insults. I didn't call you a munchkin personally (and in fact I wouldn't mind, I tend to min/max when I play D&D and often get labeled as a munchkin myself), I just said that is the only real reason to use a flat system over percentile. You can argue for any case you want, it makes no difference. For example, in debate tournaments I've had to argue in favor of loose fishing laws that would likely lead to mass extinction within our ocean ecosystems that could result in millions of people starving-- not because I am an immoral person, but because I enjoy debate and the discussion helps both sides prepare better policy alternatives that can make the world a better place. I imagine that you are in this discussion with me about damage reduction for similar reasons.

 

jesus christ everyone calm down you're scaring the children. seriously why does all of that statbabble matter when we don't know what and how they effect yet.

 

ohgodwhysomuchtextwallneedtohideneedtosurviveneedtohide

 

I'm actually quite enjoying this, it's nice seeing some discussion like this.

 

*leaks fluid from optical sensor port*
"WAAAAAAAA!"

 

I'm calm. I think TheLoanArranger is calm, too. I don't know what this phenomenon is, where people seem to think walls of text automatically mean hostility.

Anyway, I think the statbabble matters because it actually effects gameplay a lot more than most gamers realize (ever played Dark Souls? Try looking up the damage formulas). We may not know what system the developers are using, but that doesn't mean we should just forget about it. In fact, I think it means now is the perfect time to talk about it because the game isn't set in stone yet. Once they release the game and we find out what they are using, we won't have much power to change it short of creating a mod that almost nobody will use because switching formulas will probably drastically change how the game is balanced.

EDIT: It might be worth our time to move the whole argument to my thread about damage reduction, because this thread is technically about an image leak, with a title about crafting. While the image is of a piece of armor, it is a bit of a stretch to say we are on-topic.

 

Ah, I see, I was assuming you were using the 'child' meaning, my bad (as they say on the streets).

The main problem I have with this whole discussion is that you seem to be trying to model durability in terms of the armor but completely ignoring it in terms of the weapon. If my pointy stick would break far before the steel plate I'm stabbing at it with, why would any percentage need to leak through? If we're assuming an indestructible weapon, it's lopsided to assume destructible armor.

But, true, this is pretty far off topic. I am accustomed to forums where the original topic isn't usually relevant once the discussion shifts. I'll check out your thread and see if I have anything to contribute.

edit-

I wasn't even talking about this game specifically, just the systems in general. They'll use what they use regardless of what anyone on the outside thinks they should.

 

I don't assume indestructible weapons. If the weapon breaks, pull out a new one. If you are using a gun, reload and fire more bullets. The point is, given enough attacks with wooden sticks, even the tank would eventually take damage from wear and tear. It would be like watching bamboo grow, but hey, tanks need to go through maintenance even if they haven't taken heavy fire.

I suspect a big reason we disagree is because of what we think Hit Points and Defense represent. My model works well for me because I think of Hit Points as being your ability to minimize fatality-- any attacks that hit you without reducing your HP to zero are actually just flesh wounds; though possibly severe, they are not deadly. I extend that model so that armor is basically just a way to make that easier. An attack that would have killed you is instead deflected, but it did still hit you and taking those hits will wear you out over time (or if the attack is severe enough, it kills you anyway and the armor did not really help at all). Eventually you will not be able to survive the next blow and it will be fatal, at the risk of sounding redundant.