Hey everyone! I’ve just implemented a basic combat system into The Lands of Eyzira!
Here’s how it works:
All creatures, armor, and weapons will have six base elemental weaknesses or resistances/strengths, as well as two very special stats.
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Base elemental stats:
- Elemental fire
- Elemental water
- Elemental earth
- Elemental air
- Elemental life
- Elemental logic
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Special stats:
- Pure light
- Pure shadow
All damage types have something called a “Damage Context”. Damage contexts describe how and when damage was applied. Here’s the contexts:
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Generic Damage: All types of damage include this as their base type. It is impossible for damage to not be put under this category.
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Stealthy Damage: Used when you attack someone strictly by surprise. This will generally have bonuses e.g. sneak damage. This is a damage attribute, and can be used on top of the two types below.
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Innocent Damage: Used when attacking a friendly or passive creature.
- Players and sentient NPCs (people) can use this context. This type of damage is usually treated as a crime or frowned upon by certain factions e.g. the Wayfinder Faction if you attack animals native to the location you’re in.
- Wild animals can use this damage context when hunting. This also occurs when an animal attacks a defenseless person.
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Aggressive Damage: Used when attacking an enemy creature.
- Players and sentient NPCs (people) can use this context. Unlike Innocent Damage, aggressive creatures can be safely killed without it being seen as bad.
- Wild animals can use this damage context. This is used if an aggressive NPC attacks you or another sentient NPC.
How do the elements work?
Elemental stats, contrary to what you might think, do not cancel out as they do in traditional systems! Yes, this means that you can have something composed of 50% water and 50% fire. Doesn’t guarantee that it’ll be a safe mixture (because given how elements react, that mixture would be incredibly volatile and deadly! More on that in a later thread). Instead, each element has a set of attributes that make the element unique. In a bit more detail:
- Water is unstable and unpredictable. It manifests in stuff like tropical storms and blazing hot steam for example. When present in an object or creature, it generally makes it more erratic or unexpected in behavior, among other factors.
- Fire is energetic. In tame amounts, it can give life a stable ground to build upon, but in excess, it can be incredibly destructive and dangerous. When present in an object or creature, it tends to make it have higher energy, among other factors.
- Earth is incredibly stable. It tends to follow a set of specific behaviors that make it predictable and relatively easy to work with. When present in an object or creature, it tends to make it very stable and difficult to break, among other factors.
- Air is an element that represents activity in motion, a sort of “freedom in movement” idea. As such, its primal form is inherently difficult to contain for studying. When present in an object or creature, it tends to drastically reduce its weight, among other factors.
- Life is … life. Self-explanatory. In an excess, it can even grant immortality.
- Logic represents order and structure. When present in objects or creatures, it makes them far more ordered and rational, or increases intelligence drastically.
All elemental stats that an object has can be negative or positive, ranging from -100% to 100%. Negative ratings are used in creatures or armor to represent weaknesses to a specific element. Affinity is strictly 0% to 100%.
Special stats have very different rules, however!
- They can not be less than 0, so there is no way to be weak to a specific stat (they are used together, so having pure light = natural weakness to pure shadow, and same the other way around)
- Certain effects are applied exclusively if this value is non-zero. Simply put, if you have this, you will face these specific effects, and the strength of this effect will not change no matter what the percentage is. They may only apply over certain percentages, however!
Here’s how they work:
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“Pure Light” is used by holy items or creatures. Holy items will be held in extreme regard in-lore, and will not be common. The Ani race is the only race in the game that has a Pure Light base stat.
- [Passive, only when >= 50%] Monsters and other aggressive creatures will not attack someone with this stat unless they attack first.
- [Passive, only when >= 80%] “Innocent Damage” has no effect. This is both on the sending and receiving ends (It’s impossible to harm a friendly or passive NPC, and they cannot harm you.)
- [Passive, always applies] It is impossible to have any Pure Shadow stat.
- Damage received by Pure Shadow is raised directly to be equal to 2x this stat. If this is at 50%, you receive 100% more damage (double damage) from Pure Shadow.
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“Pure Shadow” is the evil counterpart to the Pure Light stat.
- [Passive, only when >= 50%] Monsters and other aggressive creatures will not attack someone with this stat unless they attack first.
- [Passive, only when >= 20%] During the night, all incoming damage will be nerfed by 30%, but Pure Light damaged will be increased by 30% (on top of the existing buff from simply having this stat!). All outgoing damage will be buffed by 50%.
- [Passive, always applies] It is impossible to have any Pure Light stat.
- Damage received by Pure Light is raised directly to be equal to 2x this stat. If this is at 50%, you receive 100% more damage (double damage) from Pure Light.
No monsters will have these stat values. They are reserved for special NPCs and certain players only.
Let me know what you all think on the Lands of Eyzira Group or Official Discord (which you can get to from the group)!