ARENA: some points of view From: euaahg@eua.ericsson.se (Anders Hallberg) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 1994 13:06:21 +0000 Here are some points of view on ARENA. All this is IMHO of course. I have mailed this to Scott as well. -- \Anders (Ziplock, Brutus II and Tin Can) Balance of stats ================ Are the stats balanced? If you would run a check on how people have allocated their + and - you would probably find that some are much more popular than others. How many of the top fighters have no plus in torso vigor? How many people have ditched the perception stat? I think we need more balance between the stats. Contest of stamina ================== How many fights have not been won by the fighter with the best stamina? If you have two fighters with very high defensive skills, the one who first runs out of stamina will most probably loose. I don't think different riposte skills will have that much effect unless the stamina problems start to show very late and there has been time to land 20 or so riposte blows. The difference need only be slight since when one fighter starts to pant for air, he will make fewer attacks and the stamina consumption of his opponent decreases, increasing the effect. Reduce the severity of stamina problems. As it is now, you seem to be running at full speed until you run out and then you suddenly can't do anything. I would like to see a more gradual change. %-penalty on all skills. Make unsuccessfull attacks and defenses cost stamina (maybe not as much). This would make it more costly to have both shield and weapon parry. It looks like heavy weapons burn a *lot* of stamina. Is the pay-off for the extra damage enough? The Impenetrable defense ======================== If someone 50% weapon parry, a parry weapon, 50% shield and defense 100, what are the chances to land a blow on that guy? The way I understand it the attack sequence goes something like this: attacker rolls against attack chance if he succeeds defender rolls against each defense until all fails if all fail attack hits else check for riposte I think you should only get one defense against an attack. If that fails, the attack hits. How much the attacker makes his roll with should affect the chances of defense. It should be more difficult to defend against a *good* attack. A good attack might force someone to use his worst defensive skill. Just how much is the parry bonus of the fencing weapons? I have had a fighter with 30% parry skill parry more than 50% of the attacks using a foil (at 50% defense). The offensive defender ====================== I have run a fighter att 100% defense and he still makes a lot of attacks. 80% attack skill may have something to do with this but it seems strange. It might be better to have the defense setting determine how many times you *try* to attack rather than the attack skill. Weapon/Shield Breakage ====================== Parrying does not seem to cause any wear on the weapon. Weapon and shield breaks seem to occur a bit randomly. The following should wear down a weapon/shield: Successfull parrying, both weapons/shields involved should take damage with the heavier/higher quality item taking less damage. Successfull attacks should cause weapon and armour damage. More armour than weapon damage. I think this is the way it works now. If a weapon breaks and the gladiator does not have a second weapon 'used'. He should automatically 'use' the first available weapon in his inventory in the next round break (he left it at ringside). Randomness here and Randomness there ==================================== I think the randomness of some things should be reduced. I would rather pay 250 for a technique and be sure to succeed than trusting lady luck. This opinion might be affected by the amount of money I have burned on unsuccessful research. Is there any reason why the % gained from study couldn't be a non-random amount? The success of a gladiator should come from a well selected combination of stats, skills and equipment, not how lucky he was with the STUDY command. Newbie killed (again) ===================== The amount of gladiators per arena must increase. As it is now we rarely see more than three fights per arena and night. Poor newbies run a pretty high risk of getting trashed by a top gladiator in their first bout. I would not like to pay money to create a new gladiator and then see this happen. Techniques ========== I would like to propose the following: Techniques are only effective against gladiators who do not know them. The old "known to 7 gladiators" rule should be removed. This would increase the value of the perception stat. Techniques are researched by paying large amounts of money. You will always succeed (less frustration). The amount of money paid will affect how good it is. In a given fight you may 'use' a limited number of techniques (making expensive techniques more valuable). Thus you could select to hold back on your best techniques if you are up for an easy fight or select damage bonus techniques if you are up against someone who is well armored. Learning Curve ============== There is a big difference between a 0-0-0 fighter and a 4-0-0 fighter. The difference between a 4-0-0 and an 8-0-0 is much smaller. I think that study should be cheap at the beginning and then curve upwards. Each study after the first could cost your skill % in gold. I think this would smooth the learning curve a bit. Payoffs ======= Scrap the entrance fee. The rules say the gladiators with 30 losses before 30 wins will be retired. In reality, few gladiators can handle more than a few losses in a row. Let the gladiators split 50 gold. 40 to the winner and 10 to the looser. This would give the winner some money to burn on training and such and the looser will at least afford to replace his worn-out equipment. They would get 10 each in case of a tie since the arena managers will have to pay guards to calm the enraged audience. In a death arena, the winner would get 100 gold. You could increase the value of the purse depending on the ranking of the fighters involved. This might encourage top fighters to actually fight each other. I think this would make it possible to start a gladiator who barely makes it in the beginning but slowly increases his skills and win ratio. You might also see someone accumulate 30 losses before 30 wins. -- \Anders Hallberg Referenced By Up