Damage Skill

[Osho]

A separate skill introduction specifically for the damage.

Here's my proposal:

1) +1 additional points each time the player chooses to pick damage on every level, thus resulting total points of +2 are added to the attack damage. This skill can only be accessed after passing minimum base requirements, be it a level, or anything else. For ex: +1 additional damage each time once you unlock the skill at Level 20. +2 additional damage at Level 40, and so on...

OR

2) %number of increase to any existing weapon's damage modifier. Ex: 20% increase to base values from 100% DM to 120% DM after unlocking the skill at Level 15. Subsequent unlocks can occur at different levels with additional 20% increase.

What are the advantages to the player?

In case of 1) Increases both minimum and maximum damage unlike the hard hit skill which only increases the maximum damage. Bonus increase on every level up ensures that the player has more room to spend levels on other stats like AC, BC, and allows to keep a slot open to experiment with other equipments.
Right now, I rely on the same equipments more often to meet the damage requirements.

In case of 2) Something I prefer over 1) as it allows to upgrade any EXISTING weapon's resulting damage potential through increased damage modifier and retaining it for a long time, particularly for special benefits (be it conditions, AC, criticals, etc) attached to the weapon. This will significantly help to make the weapons with low attack damage more attractive over time. Importantly, the increase on every skill point should come with minimum gap between the level requirements for a long term benefits, otherwise a mere 20% increase at every 20 levels won't encourage players to invest in it. Maybe at every 5 or 10 levels?

[Schmmiiirc]

Is there one single aspect of this game that you don't want to change?

[CUCHULAINN3]

I think if that happens, the game will become too easy. You. Should be able to do the Crossglen quest easy. And then heading to Fallhaven and doing those is easy too. If they do this, then there will be no challenge left in the game

[Osho]

I think if that happens, the game will become too easy.

In case of 1) the difficulty would certainly be impacted. Thus concern can be addressed by NOT making it every level up bonus, and instead every 5 levels. Similar to Bark skin (5 levels of BC). In this case, +1 Damage bonus granted every 5 levels after soending 1 skill point. +2 bonus can only become available after passing a certain level (say, after level 30).

The purpose behind a separate damage skill is to have some flexibility in spending experience points. Other than leveling up, there's no way to increase damage w/o relying on the same equipments that provide damage boost.

In case of 2) I don't think this would have any negative impact. %increase of DM can be tweaked keeping balancing of difficulty in mind, which should be easy to do.

[Antison]

Too overpowered

[CKork]

Once again, you request to overpower something. I don't like it.
I love my games with challenge, options and choices with rewards and drawbacks.

[Osho]

I also support the same challenging experiences. No intentions of overpowering the player. These are just my proposed ideas, and in case of 1), the difficulty is certainly impacted, which is why I also mentioned at the start that I prefer 2) over 1)

The purpose of the topic is to start discussions related to skills tied to DAMAGE.

If my ideas are not satisfying then please suggest your own ideas on how to create a DAMAGE relevant skill!

If the developers find it worth considering then it'll help to intriduce the skill a success!

Anyone?

[CKork]

Hard hit is for damage.
Accuracy is for damage.
Combat speed is for damage.
Critical skills are for damage.
Masteries are for damage.

I can see tons of damage related skills in game already.

[rijackson741]

This will significantly help to make the weapons with low attack damage more attractive over time.

This was a very big problem. Low attack cost weapons almost always beat any others. That's why we introduced the damage modifier. The DM values are not arbitrary, or guessed. They are calculated based on data we have, so that all weapons are equally good, on average (they are not all equal in every fight though! It depends on the fight).

We will not introduce something that undoes the rebalancing that we just did. We put a lot of work into getting that right.

[Osho]

This will significantly help to make the weapons with low attack damage more attractive over time.

This was a very big problem. Low attack cost weapons almost always beat any others. That's why we introduced the damage modifier. The DM values are not arbitrary, or guessed. They are calculated based on data we have, so that all weapons are equally good, on average (they are not all equal in every fight though! It depends on the fight).

We will not introduce something that undoes the rebalancing that we just did. We put a lot of work into getting that right.

I see. The developers can understand the specific practical issues much better than the players, and I understand the balancing issues one change could create.

So that makes both 1 and 2 clearly not feasible for the proposed skill.

What I really want is to have some alternative way to improve the attack damage outside the normal level up system.

It's pretty much the same equipment that I wear in most of my playthrough no matter which type of build I'm planning to play.

Maybe introducing more variety in equipments which support damage bonuses would be great, including separate potions that grant a boost to the damage for higher rounds