The next update will be a major combat update. Overall, combat is getting a bit tougher, because I'm fixing the tactics god mode issue. Here's what's currently planned for talking attacks:
- Defense rolls will no longer be penalized by your wisdom score. Having wisdom penalize your defense causes a positive feedback effect.
- Juice-enhanced stats will be used for calculating your defense, rather than just your base stats. This makes combat build characters with a lot of juice much more capable of resisting attacks. This does add a slight positive feedback mechanism when you drop juice levels, but that's not as bad.
- Juice will still drop by 50 points per hit if you have over 100 juice. Understand that the juice penalty is merciful -- it's much better to lose 50 juice than gain one wisdom. While the short term effect may be more damaging, in the long term, wisdom is permanent and irreversible damage to your character's loyalty.
- Music attacks will have a heart bonus to attack that was previously only given to non-music attackers.
- Debate character equipped with guitars will use the guitar instead of attacking with their normal debate attacks.
- All successful talking/music attacks will stack exactly two points of stun on a character, rather than an amount dependent on how much the attack succeeded by.
- No more than four points of stun will stack on a character at one time.
- The stun counter will be reduced by one at the end of each turn, and an additional one for every action that gets interrupted by stun. This means that if you keep trying to attack, your stun counter will drop by two each turn, rather than one per turn if you're just moving. This also means that in a 1-on-1 duel, the debater needs to hit each turn with no misses in order to keep their opponent from attacking.
- Characters will have their status changed from "Liberal" to "Confused" if they are stunned.
I mentioned tactics being broken, and that I'm fixing this. High tactics is god mode in the current version because you get a defense bonus is equal to half of the best tactics score in the group, PLUS your own tactics score. That means that if you have a tactics score of 14 or more, you have a tactics bonus over 20 -- and that is a huge problem, because enemies attack using d20s, and d20s can't hit you if your defense is over 20. That means that once you get a tactics score of 15 or 16, it is literally impossible for most enemies to hit you, unless they have weapons with accuracy bonuses or unusually high skills.
In the next version, you'll get EITHER half the best tactics score in the group OR your own tactics score, whichever is better. That means no more impossible to hit characters, and more damage received when you are hit, since the size of your defense roll impacts the amount of damage your enemy can do. I have tested this before and after with a character duly named Neo, 1000 juice, trenchcoat and submachine gun (or martial arts, I tried both), 15 tactics and 15 weapon skill. With the current version, I can go solo against six Police SWAT and kill them all without taking damage. With tactics brought under control, I can take out one or two of them, but get hit within a few rounds of combat, then start taking more hits as the defense roll is gimped by an increasing number injuries, and eventually I get mowed down.
So in summary, in the next version, talking attacks will be easier to defend against, and the stuns won't last as long. You can still be stun locked however, and they'll still be just as devastating to your juice if you get hit by them. Additionally, non-talking attackers will be able to hit your high tactics Liberals again.
Also, I'd like to get mimes in.
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Topic: Talking Attacks (Read 4324 times)