Effect of UDamage on abilities and weapons

This continues a discussion started over in the Banter thread, but I felt it need it's own thread.

Szlat wrote:

In invasion, the amount you vampire back is not affected by the triple damage and double damage, as they get applied after the abilities are processed

In fact, lots of abilities do not take the DD/TD into account - for example

Energy Vampire (Leech)

Healing done from healing weapons only uses the base damage not the doubled damage

Likewise Rage and Energy weapons
In fact all of them that use the damage value as a feed for some bonus.
My feeling is that if we change one, we perhaps need to change all of them.

are you sure this is correct? I'm pretty sure I saw my health go up faster with the dd using a medic weap

EDIT: I guess you mean a healing weap and not a medic weap as they are different

No, they are essentially the same. A medic weapon is just a +6 healing weapon that is infinite and returns more xp.

EDIT: But your memory was correct. I did a test as a medic and my rocket healed me +12 normally, but +25 per rocket with the DD.

The timing is based upon if the target is a monster or a player. There is a set of code (NetDamage/ReduceDamage) that is normally called after the UDamage is accounted for. However, the Invasion code for some reason does not call it if the victim is a monster. So Mysterial bodged in a FakeMonsterWeapon which calls the (NetDamage/ReduceDamage) code instead. But this gets called before the Udamage is accounted for. So healing a player will get the DD effect, healing a pet will not.

This same effect will apply to all of them. Where the target is a player (e.g. in deathmatch), you get the DD applied before the effect, in Invasion it is after.

Ok, so we increase the vampire to take account of the doubled damage. And this can apply to the ability and the weapon.

So, next question. Should an Energy weapon give back the energy benefit based on the doubled damage or not?
And what if it is a triple artifact - should the energy returned still be based on the increased damage?
Remember that the Energy Vampire ability does not return energy if the user has an artifact running.

i think as long as the benefit is nulled during the use of a running artifact or multiple running artifacts. itll be cool.

I need to do some testing of my own to confirm this...

My answer: No.

Why?

-Abilities that are strictly based on DPS are frequently too powerful. Back in Diablo 2 there was the same problem, with virtually every character using Health and Energy leeching items and increasing their DPS in lieu of building their characters with lower DPS but higher health or energy. Since DPS is innately tied to experience gain, having the ability to sustain your character's peak functionality through DPS alone becomes the ideal character building path.

We see the same thing on Monster Mash. Vampirism effectively makes Medics redundant for the Weapon Master class, and Energy weapons are one of the most prized weapon types since they can sustain use of adrenaline-using skills/artifacts indefinitely.

Two newer games that I have played, Guild Wars and Titan Quest, get around this issue by simply making these effects into Effect-Over-Time conditions and not DPS dependent. They're good, but not necessarily no-brainer choices.

-Double Damage & Triple Damage are meant to be damage enhancements, not all-purpose enhancements. DMM already exists. How much point is there to DMM when some of the most desirable weapons (Vampiric & Energy) would be improved by using Triple Damage, not to mention the larger additional damage bonus?

In other games there's a fair bit of precedent for +Damage bonuses not impacting abilities that might be based on damage, to avoid the DPS issue I mentioned above.

I think that if you don't change the abilities and weapons to reflect the dd then the definitions of both becomes deceiving and misleading, not to mention cumbersome having to factor in all the different variables. example, I was using my junkie a little bit ago using the beam. I accidentally picked up a dd from my lucky weapon and surprise... I can't use my beam anymore. having so many conditions makes it cumbersome to figure out whether grabbing that dd is worth it or not.

Wail wrote:

Two newer games that I have played, Guild Wars and Titan Quest, get around this issue by simply making these effects into Effect-Over-Time conditions and not DPS dependent.

They are already there as well - regen and drip.

Wail wrote:

Double Damage & Triple Damage are meant to be damage enhancements, not all-purpose enhancements. DMM already exists. How much point is there to DMM when some of the most desirable weapons (Vampiric & Energy) would be improved by using Triple Damage, not to mention the larger additional damage bonus?

I am in two minds. On one hand I agree - best to keep it simple and have them do just one thing. Plus the triple is pretty powerful already. However, its the inconsistency I don't like. In DM the triple damage does get fed into the vampire amount. In invasion it doesn't.

Trooper wrote:

I think that if you don't change the abilities and weapons to reflect the dd then the definitions of both becomes deceiving and misleading, not to mention cumbersome having to factor in all the different variables. example, I was using my junkie a little bit ago using the beam. I accidentally picked up a dd from my lucky weapon and surprise... I can't use my beam anymore. having so many conditions makes it cumbersome to figure out whether grabbing that dd is worth it or not.

I agree that we need a clear definition of what is what. Some nice simple rules that we can all understand and follow.

Unfortunately at the moment, there are all sorts of special cases involving the triple, and also involving vampire and energy vampire - piercing, vorpal or rage weapons, running artifacts or if you are in a combo etc. I am well confused at the moment.

Szlat wrote:

Wail wrote:

Two newer games that I have played, Guild Wars and Titan Quest, get around this issue by simply making these effects into Effect-Over-Time conditions and not DPS dependent.
They are already there as well - regen and drip.

Actually, what I'm referring to is more of an effect like Poison than Regeneration or Drip.

Szlat wrote:

Wail wrote:

Double Damage & Triple Damage are meant to be damage enhancements, not all-purpose enhancements. DMM already exists. How much point is there to DMM when some of the most desirable weapons (Vampiric & Energy) would be improved by using Triple Damage, not to mention the larger additional damage bonus?
I am in two minds. On one hand I agree - best to keep it simple and have them do just one thing. Plus the triple is pretty powerful already. However, its the inconsistency I don't like. In DM the triple damage does get fed into the vampire amount. In invasion it doesn't.

Competitive gametypes with RPG is a travesty unless the server enforces equivalent levels for all players... Which DC did not do last time I played CTF on there. Very "fun" playing as a low level character and literally not being able to kill the high level players, simply because they have spent more time grinding on monsters.

Although I agree with the inconsistency aspect. I would simply adjust the functionality so that these abilities only apply to the unmodified damage. Since Invasion is played the majority of the time anyway, this creates the least amount of disruption.

Szlat wrote:

Unfortunately at the moment, there are all sorts of special cases involving the triple, and also involving vampire and energy vampire - piercing, vorpal or rage weapons, running artifacts or if you are in a combo etc. I am well confused at the moment.

Agreed special cases shold be minimized, although personally I think the interaction of say, Artifacts & Drip is generally good: The interaction is transparent, and does not disrupt normal play. Whereas the Triple being disallowed on the Vorpal can disrupt your play. As long as the special cases are handled transparently to the player, there is no problem.

same with piercing and rage too I think. multiple times I've tried to activate a triple without realizing the weapon was one of the 2 making it so the triple turns off instantly.

Szlat wrote:

Ok, so we increase the vampire to take account of the doubled damage. And this can apply to the ability and the weapon.

So, next question. Should an Energy weapon give back the energy benefit based on the doubled damage or not?
And what if it is a triple artifact - should the energy returned still be based on the increased damage?
Remember that the Energy Vampire ability does not return energy if the user has an artifact running.

I think at the moment I am leaning towards the following:

Make the artifact a double not a triple, for all gametypes, and slightly lower cost (nerf to AMs for non-invasion, slight benefit in invasion)

Have the UDamage increase damage for weapons only. So Bolt and Beam still work, but do not do increased damage. But allow all weapons, including piercing, rage and vorpal (slight benefit for all classes, but more for AM/WM)

Doubling is taken into account for effect. So Vampire and Energy both get benefits from the extra damage, both for the vampire/energy weapons and the vampire/energy abilities. (Benefit for AMs and WMs)

However, disable energy vampire for both energy weapons and the energy vampire ability if an artifact/combo is running. (Slight nerf to mainly AMs)

Leaves Engineers and medics largely unaffected.
WMs are better off due to increased vampire and ability to use double on piercing weapons.
AMs slightly better off. Benefits are being able to use piercing/vorpal etc with double, and increased energy vampire. Nerf in not getting energy vampire from energy weapons with an artifact/combo running. So AMs will build up energy faster, but not be able to run an artifact as long.

while I might not like that you don't get leech while running an artifact, it seems balanced. but taking the adren given by an e weap is not a minor nerf... its a MAJOR nerf. nearly all artifacts that last over time are next to useless if you take that ability from them. alot of people, not only junkies, use the globe and e flak tactic on titan wave, counting on the adren to keep the globe up. take that out and major changes in gameplay are required

Removing Energy weapons' effect when using artifacts ... Does not strike me as a tenable change, at least on Monster Mash.

Also, I am not sure why you would want to further increase the effectiveness of Vorpal or Piercing weapons. Vorpal already is twice as effective as any other weapon modifier in normal circumstances*, and Piercing can easily do multiple times the damage of any other weapon when you're down to only high level players. I suppose for Piercing it'd be nice to be able to make it possible to use Double Damage except if the Monster Level/DR is above a certain threshold.

*Why Vorpal deserves twice the damage bonus of most weapons, with twice as high a max modifier, plus the Vorpal effect itself... Quite a puzzle. I can understand with Rage, since it's got a huge drawback, but Vorpal?

Szlat wrote:

Have the UDamage increase damage for weapons only. So Bolt and Beam still work, but do not do increased damage. But allow all weapons, including piercing, rage and vorpal (slight benefit for all classes, but more for AM/WM)

Oops. Might need to make an exception for the rod. I have said elsewhere I am not planning to nerf the rod/double combo. So no artifact damage except the rod.