Current Armor Penetration Mechanic Vs The New Proposed System

There's no scaling. Minibosses and bosses have more than 100hp, fliers have 80hp, you and normals have 100hp. Most weapons do the same damage. They're then adjusted by armour pen. Weapons do about 38 Damage per second at the crafted level. Always. They go up for some drops and down for others but that's the "Par". Regardless of level. If your penetration is higher it's multiplied up. If you have more than about 3 levels on the enemy it will one shot them unless you have an attack speed of 4. If you are more than a couple of levels lower then you will be one shot and barely tickle them. Armour pen is like 50% per level. Unless you have a legendary and pick up trash, the higher AP weapon will do more damage. It's that simple. If you are more than a couple of levels ahead every weapon one shots so it doesn't matter and if you are behind that penetration is vital.

On top of this it means the best way to hunt is to go with your level x bow to somewhere at the bottom of it's tier and one shot stuff for meat. Monsters beyond that are just hazards and pixels.

I don't know if the new system is ideal but it's better than the existing one because of how ludicrous it presently is. I'd still like to see 100 Threat levels but essentially the monster breakdown should be what changed. You have about 20 levels of monsters so you could just vary the breakdown as at any tier you'll have a mix of 3 levels. That would probably be the best of both worlds. Have 10 tiers each broken down with sublevels where the dangers increase a little but so do the risks. You start on a low level world with mostly easy monsters, get some gear, move to a medium one to get more resources then start doing one with mostly hard stuff so you're prepped for next tier and so on.

 

The current system does have a rather blatant flaw that's easy to test out.

You start a new character, gather enough fuel to go to the highest level planet, roam the planet looking for chest and get a lv 9/10 armor penetration weapon. Now you are pretty much set for the sector.

Go to the next sector and you repeat the process, run around the highest level planet til you find the chest with weapons in it and suddenly you can one shot pretty much anything.

Though this just might need a suggestion added to it, maybe it would be a good idea for chest to offer "weapon augments" that you can attach to specific weapon types for a specific weapon rather then giving the player a usable weapon.

Say there was a Titanium Sword(1 handed) that you could craft and in the chest you found something like a fire blade version III(this model is usable for weapons of Armor penetration 30 or less)

Then to craft that say you need 10 iron ingots, 5 steel and 5 titanium plus the titanium sword. With this process at least the crafted weapons would still be worthwhile to seek out but with the current system players can just go to the highest level planet to set themselves up weapon wise.

 

I find the armor penetration system pretty fine as it is now. Maybe needs a bit of a fine tunning but the current systems works.

 

I like the current system it just needs to be a bit more open, armour needs to be buffed to be in line and there needs to be less impact on damage when calculating armour/pen.

For example;
Level 28 monster, Level 25 armour pen, Weapon damage 20
Instead of the weapon doing like 4 damage, it should do something more like 14. Those 3 levels shouldn't be taking off 80% of the damage, just 30% would suffice.

It works the same the other way around;
Level 25 monster, Level 28 armour pen, Weapon damage 20
Instead of the weapon doing like 100+ damage, it should do something more like 40.

Balancing the amount of damage deflected and damage gained from armour vs armour pen shouldn't be too difficult, not difficult enough to have to remove the system entirely!

 

I really want either a new system or a reworked one. One-shotting enemies that can one shot you is not fun, it's basically a game of who can hit first and gets pretty insane with gun-wielding enemies. It takes a lot of strategy out of combat, since weapons either do hardly any damage to enemies, or they insta-kill them and enemies do the same.

 

I disagree with the OP.

The current armor penetration system is flawed. If they can get it to work, that would be fine (as I think bigger numbers are more fun), but I can only assume the OP didn't get very far past Tier 1. Once you hit Tier 2, the penetration system is so unbalanced that even if you're sporting the best possible armor you're killed in two hits. It makes armor almost completely pointless. You're forced to fight things at your current armor level, and nothing more. This doesn't only make the game harder, but just random. Every fight is a luck of the draw, whichever side can shoot first. Over time it just becomes frustrating.

 

I think its too early in the game to say what is good or bad, chances are they may not even stick to the new system they want to put into beta. I think by the time this game goes into final release we will have accepted what ever the devs have put into the game and look back on this day and say "Yeah I'm glad they did that" Or they may have come up with an even better idea and we wont even remember this new system.

What I'm trying to say is lets not judge anything so quickly in beta until it has all been properly tested, there is bound to be teething problems up until final release and there is a LOOONG way to go yet before that day.

 

I understand the armour penetration system fine, It's just that it's completely broken and extremely easy to exploit as well, You just go to a level 29 planet, find a 29 weapon the surface and start one hitting stuff on all the lower level planets.

The proposed system they're currently making seems much more balanced for both NPC's and players, No one will one hit anyone anymore.

 

(I haven't bought/played the game yet, just giving my thoughts on the matter, which are made-up from all the comments I've read)

As I currently see it right now, a side wants the current AP system to stay in; it just needs balance.While the other side thinks that this system is wrong and isn't putting a little thought into it; so they want the other system the devs *supposedly* are coding right now.

The current system isn't wrong at all(in theory), but the numbers and the AP are not used too well.The 50% damage + per AP level is just...Exaggerated.If I were to balance it, I'd make it just make the normal damage to armors of the same level, and make the damage the same for LOWER armor levels, with the HIGHER armor level decreasing damage a little for each point, so that it doesn't kill you outright the second you fight a higher AP alien.
Example: you currently have, say, 17 armor(making this up).You enter a level 17 planet while it's night, so monsters are level 20 and hurt you 30 health points each hit(Remember!Just imagining this, I don't know if it's fair or not, but you get the point ).BUT.They are only hitting you for 30 damage, not the supposed 85 they should be doing(If 3 extra armor penetration means 150% more damage).It means that they're penetrating your armor, and they're even having extra AP, but it doesn't give the extra damage.My calculations may be very well wrong, but:

Long story short:The only problem is the extra damage per AP point above the current armor; 50% is extremely crazy.A really low extra damage output per extra AP or even no added damage at all should be better.

Even more basic: just remove the 50% extra damage per AP, and you all may start changing your opinion

You all seem to not realize that all this problem is caused by the 50% damage being added per armor penetration point.You're asking for a whole "remake" of this system because you did not understand it.Maybe I am not understanding it.
Maybe if you still did a LITTLE more damage per AP, and there's an in-game explanation, it could say that thanks to those extra point it can harm flesh a bit better.

Edit: now everything is in a spoiler
EditEdit: put more stuff in
EditEditEdit: it's incredible how you can add up more stuff just re-reading your own comment

 

The current system is terrible in practice and you have gotta be a lunatic to defend it.

 

Anyone who likes the current system understands how it works. I doubt anyone is defending the instakill problems that it causes, that's just bad balancing.

 

I understand the current system... It's terrible, Maybe they could fix it's current form, but i'm interested in seeing the new one, It sounds far better anyway and will probably balance the game.

 

Yeah im hoping its better, but i don't want it to be simpler and dumbed down (read as less interesting). That's my concern.

 

It's not really being dumbed down, if anything it will require more thinking seeing as how you can't just find OP shit in the surface of a planet and start one hitting NPC's anymore so the game will in turn become more challenging while at the same time less unfair.

 

Nothing about this new system actually really indicates that one way or another.

 

Well actually.

 

@OP
The change they are proposing won't change core mechanics as much as you think. It's only going to greatly improve the communication to the player as to what he/she should be doing.

 

Don't get me wrong, it is quite possible that it will fix it. This isn't because of a mechanics change or even because instakills are removed, but because of balance changes. Quite simply, the new system can be just as broken as the other one if the numbers use similar scaling.

 

I'm not sure about won't be changing core mechanics it will significantly balance the game, Progression will be paced a little bit slower, and exploitation will be harder. I'm sure atleast one core mechanic has changed. lol

 

One thing tho. If you have an armor rating of 5, and fight a level 5 creature, he'll do little damage to you, but if you fight a level 6 creature, he'll do just a tad bit more. And that's only a 1 level difference. But let's say, your armor rating is 35 and fight a level 35 creature, he'll do a 1/4 or so of damage to you, but.... Fighting a level 36 creater, is far from possible, unless you're extremely good at dodging attacks.