07/17/2009    |    Devlog    |    Lum    |    Discuss

Since 1.15, we’ve been adjusting how Damage Resistance affects combat. In general, Damage Resistance was too powerful and there was no effective way to beat a player with lots of it. We started by reducing the amount of Damage Resistance on skills and gear. The next step is to introduce a new combat mechanic to help level the playing field: Cannon Resistance Penetration (CRP).

Heavier guns are intended to punch through armor and that’s represented by the Damage Reduction mechanic. Heavy guns lose less of their damage to Damage Reduction than smaller guns do, but Damage Resistance always reduces the same amount, no matter how big your guns are. That’s changing a bit in patch 1.17, as bigger cannons are going to ignore a percentage of the Damage Resistance on their target. This helps compensate for the fact that larger guns do less damage per second makes them more valuable against targets with lots of resistance.

You’ll notice that each cannon has a set of new stats. These are static properties of the cannon and cannot be modified in any way:

• Minimum Range Penetration: The amount of resistance the cannon ignores at minimum range (0y).
  
• Mid Range Penetration: The amount of resistance the cannon ignores at mid range (250y).
  
• Maximum Range Penetration: The amount of resistance the cannon ignores at maximum range.
  
• Resist Floor: The cannon will never reduce the target’s resistance below this value.
  
• Resist Ceiling: The target will never have greater than this resistance against the cannon.
  

The floors and ceilings mean that they will only impact targets within a certain resist range. Just as having 0 Damage Reduction does not penalize you, neither will having no resistance mean you’re taking extra damage from penetrating attacks. Here are some examples for how the math works:

• MinRange = 0
  
• MidRange = 500
  
• MaxRange = 1000
  
• MinRangeResistPenetration = 20
  
• MidRangeResistPenetration = 12
  
• MaxRangeResistPenetration = 8
  
• TargetResistFloor = 15
  
• TargetResistCeiling = 35
  

Target A: Range 500, Resist 30
Penetration: 12
Final Resist: 18 (30 – 12)

Target B: Range 500, Resist 46
Penetration: 10
Final Resist: 35 (Resist Ceiling, calculation order: 35 < ( 46 – 10 ) )

Target C: Range 750, Resist 10
Penetration: 10
Final Resist: 10 (Resist Floor, counts as base resist)

Target D: Range 250, Resist 20
Penetration: 16
Final Resist: 15 (Resist Floor, 15 > ( 20 – 16 ) )

Target E: Range 1000, Resist 50
Penetration: 8
Final Resist: 35 (Resist Ceiling, 35 < ( 50 – 8 ) )

All calculations are based on your current effective resistance. So even if you have 200% damage resistance, you’re still capped at 50% and penetration is based off that second value. This is important to note because it doesn’t work that way anywhere else in the game.

Target F: Range 0, Resist 88
Penetration: 20
Final Resist: 30 (Effective Resist, 50 – 20)

Note that this example is just to show how it will work, as opposed to representing how much it will impact cannons. Initially, we’re going with a very small impact on resistance:

• Cannons under 7lb will not penetrate the target’s Resistance.
  
• Cannons starting at 7lb will ignore a small portion of the target’s Armor and Structure Resistance.
  
• Cannons above 16lb ignore larger amounts of Armor and Structure Resistance.
  
• Cannons above 26lb ignore the same amount of resistance as a 26lb gun does.
  

Each cannon from 7lb – 26lb gets an increasing amount of penetration; the floors and ceilings also get lower. Since this mechanic represents more overall damage being inflicted on targets, we’re reducing the damage of all cannons by 3 to compensate.

We hope you enjoy this and all the other changes that are coming in 1.17, and we look forward to reading your feedback!

07/17/2009    |    Devlog    |    Lum    |    Discuss