Fix the Damage and Damage Resistance interaction

[Bopper]

As a means for not going too off topic in other threads, I felt compelled to start a discussion specific to this issue (thanks @Dr Causalityfor suggesting it). 

 

For those that don't know, the reason why all of the enhanceable resistance powers (such as armors, but also heals that may have toxic resistance included, or powers like Fade that provide both defense and resistance) get flagged as "Ignores outside buffs" is because of a weird interaction between Damage buffs and Damage Resistance.

 

@Trickshootergoes into great detail about this interaction (I'll find the link later, but its dated around Jan 7, 2020), but the main point is Damage Buffs will cause Damage Resistance powers to also be buffed (conversely, Damage Debuffs might cause Damage Resistance powers to be debuffed?).

 

This interaction is why all (well most) the powers in the game that contain an enhanceable resistance component will be flagged as "ignores outside buffs". Without it, you can increase the strength of your resistance powers by using Build Up, Assault, or using a Damage Inspiration.

 

So the problem is known, and it is understood why this flag is used. It is needed. But it sure would be nice if it wasn't. 

 

The point of this thread is to discuss ways this interaction can be removed. What are the game limitations preventing this to being reworked? It is my hope that we can reach a point where Resistance can be enhanced by effects such as "increase strength to resistance +10%", similar to how Power Boost can does with strength to defense. Or possibly introduce strength to damage effects as well.

 

I have some ideas that I'll have to sound out on paper before I suggest them, but hopefully others have suggestions themselves. So I guess this thread is a suggestion with a request for more suggestions. Please, discuss.

[Dr Causality]

I think this is the link to @Trickshooter's post:

 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Dr Causality

[Trickshooter]

I'm not a developer or a programmer, so this might not actually work, and even if it could, it might still be a lot of work and there might be a lot of exceptions and rebalancing of powers needed, but...

 

There is a field for powers called something like "Strengths Disallowed". This is the field that prevents most Melee attacks from being affected by +/-Range and Pet powers from being affected by +/-Recharge. This is a different field from the one that prevents all outside buffs/debuffs, which is called something like "Ignore Strength" (with a value of "true" causing the "Not affected by outside buffs/debuffs." message you see on City of Data).

 

Would it be possible for some of these powers, with effects that would otherwise be "Power-Boost-able" if not for their enhanceable +Resistance, to instead have Strength(Lethal Damage, Smashing Damage, etc.) added to the Strengths Disallowed field? Would this prevent +/-Damage from affecting the power at all and prevent the interaction between Damage buffs and Damage Resistance?

 

Edit: Nevermind, wouldn't work, I have the dumb today. I guess if it had been that easy it would've been done by now.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Trickshooter

[nzer]

1 hour ago, Trickshooter said:

I'm not a developer or a programmer, so this might not actually work, and even if it could, it might still be a lot of work and there might be a lot of exceptions and rebalancing of powers needed, but...

 

There is a field for powers called something like "Strengths Disallowed". This is the field that prevents most Melee attacks from being affected by +/-Range and Pet powers from being affected by +/-Recharge. This is a different field from the one that prevents all outside buffs/debuffs, which is called something like "Ignore Strength" (with a value of "true" causing the "Not affected by outside buffs/debuffs." message you see on City of Data).

 

Would it be possible for some of these powers, with effects that would otherwise be "Power-Boost-able" if not for their enhanceable +Resistance, to instead have Strength(Lethal Damage, Smashing Damage, etc.) added to the Strengths Disallowed field? Would this prevent +/-Damage from affecting the power at all and prevent the interaction between Damage buffs and Damage Resistance?

 

 

Assuming I understand the system correctly, this would also prevent those powers from having their damage/damage resistance increased by enhancements, which defeats the point.

[Trickshooter]

2 hours ago, nzer said:

Assuming I understand the system correctly, this would also prevent those powers from having their damage/damage resistance increased by enhancements, which defeats the point.

Oh hahaha, you're right, I somehow forgot (even though I wrote that guide) that Damage Enhancements and Resist Damage Enhancements are the same Strength effects. 😅

Edited March 9, 2020 by Trickshooter

[nzer]

1 hour ago, Trickshooter said:

Oh hahaha, you're right, I somehow forgot (even I wrote that guide) that Damage Enhancements and Resist Damage Enhancements are the same Strength effects. 😅

Yup. Ultimately, damage resistance and damage should just be separate attributes. It really, really doesn't make sense for damage resistance to be implemented as res(damage) if you think about it for more than a few seconds.

 

This isn't even the only problem it creates. How would resistance to -res be implemented under the current system? Can it be?

[Blackfeather]

4 minutes ago, nzer said:

Yup. Ultimately, damage resistance and damage should just be separate attributes. It really, really doesn't make sense for damage resistance to be implemented as res(damage) if you think about it for more than a few seconds.

 

This isn't even the only problem it creates. How would resistance to -res be implemented under the current system? Can it be?

I'm pretty sure resistance to -Res effects is baked in - the higher the resistance, the higher the resistance to -Res.

[nzer]

1 minute ago, Blackfeather said:

I'm pretty sure resistance to -Res effects is baked in - the higher the resistance, the higher the resistance to -Res.

Yeah, that actually sounds right now that I think about it, and it does seem generally correct from a balance perspective; defense provides resilience to def debuffs by making them less likely to hit, res should also provide some kind of innate resilience to res debuffs.

 

But it's still icky. The better way to handle that would be for all sources of resistance to also provide resistance to -res, that way if the team wants a particular source of resist to not do that, they have a way to make that change.

[siolfir]

1 hour ago, nzer said:

Yeah, that actually sounds right now that I think about it, and it does seem generally correct from a balance perspective; defense provides resilience to def debuffs by making them less likely to hit, res should also provide some kind of innate resilience to res debuffs.

 

But it's still icky. The better way to handle that would be for all sources of resistance to also provide resistance to -res, that way if the team wants a particular source of resist to not do that, they have a way to make that change.

Just because it's fun to read I'll type it out again: resistance resists resistable resistance debuffs.

 

The balance on it works until you get to a cap or start stacking, since the first debuff that hits you means you're taking that percentage more in damage. Because it's base and not current resistance that acts as the resisting value, the second resistance debuff doesn't add the same percentage increase to the damage taken after the first, though this also prevents cascade resistance failures like you can have with defense.

[nzer]

Having thought about this some more, I think the solution is actually really straightforward: we need something that can multiplicatively modulate an attribute's resistance without also modulating its value.

 

I can see two possible options:

1. Change strength to not affect resistance, and add a second strength modifier that only affects resistance
2. Add flags that can be applied to sources of strength that restrict them to affecting either the attribute's value or the attribute's resistance

Either solution would allow the team to handle these problematic interactions directly rather than with kludges like "ignores external buffs." For example, if damage inspirations were flagged to only affect attribute value and not attribute resistance powers with enhanceable resistance wouldn't have to be flagged to ignore external buffs in order to prevent those inspirations from boosting their resistance values. This would allow for abilities that both have enhanceable resistance and are affected by power boost.

Edited March 13, 2020 by nzer

[Vanden]

On 3/9/2020 at 6:16 PM, Blackfeather said:

I'm pretty sure resistance to -Res effects is baked in - the higher the resistance, the higher the resistance to -Res.

Yeah, but you can’t ever have a resistance to resistance debuffs that’s a different value from your damage resistance.