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Martial Arts Rebalance for Dragon Kung Fu #33093

Merged
merged 2 commits into from
Aug 12, 2019
Merged

Martial Arts Rebalance for Dragon Kung Fu #33093

merged 2 commits into from
Aug 12, 2019

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Hymore246
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@Hymore246 Hymore246 commented Aug 9, 2019

Summary

SUMMARY: Balance "Martial arts rebalance for Dragon Kung Fu"

Purpose of change

Partially implements #32422
Update for the martial art: Dragon Kung Fu

Describe the solution

One of the five Shaolin animal styles. The Dragon uses fluid movements and hard strikes.

Current Buffs, Techniques, and Special Abilities

Name Level Available Type Effect
Arm Block Unarmed 2
Dragon Style Unarmed 2 Static Buff Bash damage increased by 80% of Intelligence
Dragon's Flight Unarmed 2 OnMove Buff +2 Bash damage, +2 Accuracy for 2 turns. Stacks 2 times.
Dragon Snatch Unarmed 4 Unarmed Tech +20% bash damage, Stun duration: 2
Dragon's Vortex Block Unarmed 4 Unarmed Block Counter Stun duration: 2
Dragon's Vortex Dodge Unarmed 4 Unarmed Dodge Counter Stun duration: 2
Dragon Sweeper Unarmed 5 Unarmed Tech Down duration: 2
Dragon Strike Unarmed 6 Unarmed Crit Tech Knockback duration: 1, Stun duration: 1

Dragon Kung Fu is one of the strongest styles in the game. It may not have the raw damage that Tiger Kung Fu does but it still gets a massive damage bonus from Intelligence. It also has both a block and dodge counter and every. single. technique. stuns.

Problems and issues

  • Bash damage increased by 80% of Intelligence.
    This is common problem with most the animal kung fu's. Having 10 in the given stat is worth +8 bash damage and when you consider that normal bash damage is 75% of Strength you will realize just how powerful this static buff is.

  • Every technique stuns.
    Stun is a strong status effect that needs to be applied carefully to techniques. For the most part, as long as a stun technique has some sort of restriction (crit tech, needs a buff to use, etc), the technique is balanced. Dragon Kung Fu completely throws this balance away by having stun on everything with no sort of drawback or requirements. This allows you to stunlock everything you attack and makes combat really easy.

Rebalance Goal
In real life, Dragon Kung Fu is based on circular movement. Attacks transition to counterattacks and back to attacks in a seamless, fluid motions.

Dragon Kung Fu's main way of fighting now is to attack, counterattack, and perform a powerful critical finishing attack. The way this is implemented is similar to how Viper Kung Fu's "3-hit combo" works.

  1. First, the player must hit an enemy with an attack. This triggers the Dragon's Flight buff.
  2. Aside from the normal bonuses Dragon's Flight buff gives, Dragon's Flight also enables Dragon Kung Fu's Block and Dodge counters. You must have Dragon's Flight to do counterattacks. Both counters were changed to inflicting status effects and do less damage. Hitting with a dodge counter inflicts Stun while the block counter inflicts Downed.
  3. Dragon Kung Fu has 2 crit techniques that function as finishing moves for this combo. Dragon Tail (renamed from Dragon Sweeper) will do +50% damage and knockdown but only on a critical hit against a stunned target. On the other hand, Dragon Strike is a +100% damage crit technique that only works against a downed target.

To sum it up, you need to inflict Stun or Downed on an opponent to use your powerful finishing moves. The only way to stun or down an opponent is to hit them with a counterattack. You can only counterattack if you have hit your opponent recently and gained the Dragon's Flight buff.

New Buffs, Techniques, and Special Abilities

Name Level Available Type Effect
Arm Block Unarmed 2
Dragon's Knowledge Unarmed 0 Static Buff Intelligence determines bonus Accuracy instead of Dexterity.
Dragon's Flight Unarmed 1 OnHit Buff +1 Accuracy, +2 bash Damage. Enables "Dragon Vortex Block" and "Dragon Wing Dodge". Lasts 1 turn.
Dragon Claw Unarmed 0 Unarmed Tech +20% bash damage
Dragon Vortex Block Unarmed 2 Unarmed Block Counter -50% damage, knockdown duration: 1
Dragon Wing Dodge Unarmed 3 Unarmed Dodge Counter -50% damage, stun duration: 1
Dragon Tail Unarmed 4 Unarmed Crit Tech Opponent must be stunned. +50% bash damage, down duration: 2
Dragon Strike Unarmed 5 Unarmed Crit Tech Opponent must be downed. +100% bash damage, stun duration: 1

Important Changes

  • Intelligence determines bonus Accuracy instead of Dexterity.
    A theme between all animal kung fu's is that the static buff will change what stat is considered for a damage or accuracy calculation. Dragon's Knowledge add 25% of Intelligence and subtracting 25% of Dexterity to Accuracy. This effectively changes which stat is used for to-hit calculations.
    The base accuracy calculation can be found in character.cpp - line 2371:
float Character::get_hit_base() const
{
    /** @EFFECT_DEX increases hit base, slightly */
    return get_dex() / 4.0f;
}
  • Counters do -50% damage.
    I like the fact that Dragon Kung Fu has two counters. This is rare among the martial arts and Aikido is only other one that has both. However, having two counters is really powerful and if left unchecked, the damage done can get really high. Dragon Kung Fu's counters have been redesigned to be more focused on causing status effects which in turn allows powerful crit techniques against afflicted opponents. In a sense, you can say I moved the damage from the counter to the crit techniques.

  • Dodge counter redesigned as Dragon Wing Dodge.
    Rather than have two identical counters, I changed the dodge counter to a different name and changed the Block counter to knockdown instead of stun. This adds some variety to the style.

  • New technique attribute: "downed_target"
    "downed_target" is a technique attribute that when set to true, causes causes the technique to only trigger against an opponent that is inflicted with the "Downed" status. This attribute is cumulative with other conditional attributes such as disarms and stunned_target. In this case, a technique with all these attributes set to true would require an opponent to be armed, Downed, and Stunned to trigger.

  • New technique attribute: "stunned_target"
    "stunned_target" is a technique attribute that when set to true, causes causes the technique to only trigger against an opponent that is inflicted with the "Stunned" status. This attribute is cumulative with other conditional attributes such as disarms and downed_target. In this case, a technique with all these attributes set to true would require an opponent to be armed, Downed, and Stunned to trigger.

Advantages

  • Having two counter that cause status effects is handy in a group fight.
  • Dragon Tail and Dragon Strike do very high damage.
  • Dragon Claw is a decent standard attack.

Disadvantages

  • Counter will not work unless you hit an opponent first.
  • Unless you can stun or down an opponent and follow up with a crit, you will never see the finishing moves.
  • You need a high level of Unarmed skill to fully utilize the style.

Describe alternatives you've considered

If the style is too strong...

  • Reduce the damage on Dragon Strike or Dragon Tail.
  • Increase the duration of the stun on Dragon Strike.

If the style is too weak...

  • Increase the damage on Dragon Strike or Dragon Tail.
  • Remove the -50% damage from both counters.

Additional context

References:
Five Animals wikipedia page
Kung fu animal styles
Shaolin Dragon Kung Fu
Dragon Sweep
Dragon Screw Legwhip
Dragon Screw Legwhip example "Tundra Storm"
Block Counter example (used by kung fu enemies against the player)

@Hymore246 Hymore246 mentioned this pull request Aug 9, 2019
33 tasks
@ZhilkinSerg ZhilkinSerg added Game: Balance Balancing of (existing) in-game features. Melee Melee weapons, tactics, techniques, reach attack labels Aug 9, 2019
@ZhilkinSerg ZhilkinSerg merged commit 940d759 into CleverRaven:master Aug 12, 2019
@Hymore246 Hymore246 deleted the rebalance-dragon branch August 12, 2019 18:17
@TheoryInfinity
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TheoryInfinity commented Aug 12, 2019

Great! Dragon style is no longer a go-to mid-late game auto pick on a non-idiot character! Honestly, it feels a little weak right now but I'll need to play with it a little more to see if that is bias from juxtaposing it to the previous state.

However, I have found a few complaints. First of all, the change from int to damage into int to hit felt jarring. First of all, it left my existing high int low strength unarmed character a fish out of the water to the point of needing a complete build redesign.

While that might be a minor concern for future characters, I also find that having dex be a dump stat for this style has some logical inconsistency. Dragon style is a martial art that puts a lot of focus on fluid strikes, movement, and countering. Having a low dexterity build be able to go through with these maneuvers (so much spinning and pivoting, or I guess dragon stepping, speaking from experience) sounds like a disastrous trip waiting to happen. The footwork alone would stop them cold. Second, from a gameplay perspective, it does not make sense to have a dodge, block, and counter heavy build lose benefit from taking dexterity. In order to benefit from the maneuvers, you pretty much need to forgo any saving on dex you might have gained from the passive in order to keep dodge up.

As for the lower damage counter-attacks, the main issue I have there is the falloff when fighting enemies with armor. They become useless damage output wise fairly quickly with a 50% dropoff when fighting anything more resistant than a standard zombie. I understand that there exist twice the avenues for counters, but in effect, it's not like you can both block and dodge and attack. The output is not quite double, so having a complete halving of the counter's damage feels like overkill when compared to the counters from other styles, especially with the only after attacking restriction in place.

I don't think the damage from dragon strike or dragon tail needs any increase. Those are definitely the highlight of the style right now, but I feel they overshadow the lackluster counters and passive.

@Dvachman
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Dvachman commented Aug 13, 2019

Dragon's Knowledge add 25% of Intelligence and subtracting 25% of Dexterity to Accuracy

So basically character with 8 dex and 8 int is going to have less accuracy than the one with 4 dex and 8 int?

@TheoryInfinity
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TheoryInfinity commented Aug 14, 2019

So basically character with 8 dex and 8 int is going to have less accuracy than the one with 4 dex and 8 int?

No, I think dexterity still adds it's initial hit value and then has it subtracted, so increasing dexterity will not reduce your accuracy.

However, instead of two attributes that affect the character's ability in melee, strength for damage and hit points and dexterity for dodge, crit, and hit, the character now splits their attributes three ways. You need strength to deal damage and take hits, dexterity to dodge attacks and crit, and intelligence to hit with attacks.

Honestly, with intelligence dropping fastest in combat due to pain, the replacement with dex to hit with int might be a substantial disadvantage for this style. Not only do you need to split attributes three ways to be effective and therefore likely have less base damage, hit, and/or dodge. You lose one of those attributes after a single point of pain.

misterprimus pushed a commit to misterprimus/Cataclysm-DDA that referenced this pull request Sep 21, 2019
* Martial Arts Rebalance for Dragon Kung Fu
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4 participants