How do you balance hp and defense in an rpg?The stats are fundamentally the same.
>hp reaches 0>die>def reaches 0>don't dieBet you thought you cooked with this one
>>738924082Just have HP, defense barely does anything different.
>>738924082I look up exact damage calculation formulas, enemy attack stats, and fire up excel to plan my build all the way to max level.As a general rule if DEF>ATK guarantees 0 (ZERO) damage I take DEF and suffer from piercing/internal/dots later.Are stat increases linear or diminishing returns?Which stat has build synergy I want?Does healing scale with max HP?
>>738924082I've seen plenty of games where defense doesn't matter but I've never seen any where HP didn't. So HP.
>>738924350>hp reaches 0>you don't die because you're a lich
HP is always better because HP protects against attacks that ignore def as well and even if def is a good stat, having more HP also increases the value of def.
How come there is no defense regen like how there is hp regen?
>>738924082The stats aren't the same, different games handle defense differently.For example in some games defense reduces damage by a flat amount, if you stack defense and a weak enemy attacks you they will do 0 damage. If you had no defense the enemy would do more than 0 damage. In some games defense reduce damage by a percentage instead.Then you have to consider how you get more HP. Not every game lets you increase HP to infinity so at some point you stop getting more HP and then you need defense to mitigate damage.
>>738924082By having more mechanics or damage formulas. If it's just 1 DEF = -1 damage taken then they are the same, but most games use different math just to smooth things out. E.g. in Path of Exile there's hard cap of how much damage armor can negate, so it's better vs. many small attacks.Then you make a bunch of content that interacts with the stats:>armor-piercing attacks>nature spells heal %health, holy spells heal fixed based on caster stats>shield attacks scale with defense>you can adjust defense through switching gear(each with their own tradeoffs), but not HP>different thresholds for diminishing returns>>738925301Because in most games defense is not a stat that can be lowered? Divinity Original Sin 2 has regen because armor serves as extra health pools.
>>738924082I very rarely see games with attacks that do a % of your max HP as damage.
>>738924082Generally you want both but HP is more important. Usually hp is easier to increase than defense so it has more value when it comes time to take a big attack but defense is still important for mitigating all of the smaller attacks too. And obviously if heals are based on a percent of your max hp that makes hp stronger too.
>>738925057Until you run into something that does % damage.
>>738924964You have to factor in how readily available the stat is. If there's not enough Def to reduce atk to zero and hp is way more plentiful it's probably better to all in hp
HP regenerates, def doesn't. More HP the faster it regenerates.
>>738924082>>738925023Energy shield sorcerer. Or that endurance+sandstorm pokemon combo.
>>738929950You're buying say 10,000 points of health when you choose defence, but it wears away with each hit. You can take more hits but only while you have defence (armour). You can wade into hordes of enemies and be ok.With health you can last longer as long as you take on lesser fights.
>>738924082what is the tank doing with all these taxes?
>>738924082True damage or magic damage counter defence Poison, bleeding and the like counter HP>How do you balance hp and defense in an rpg?>The stats are fundamentally the same.By giving the player a certain amount of both and creating mechanics that interact with them in fun ways
Defense only applies when you get hit, HP applies every time you take damage. They are not the same.
>>738930441Sending them to their greatest ally, the ranged dps.
>>738924082DEF until I reach a soft/hard cap, HP afterwards
>>738924082There should be attacks that ignore defense, either because there's like a Magic Defense stat they're working off of, or just because the point of them is to deal the same amount of damage no matter what the target's stats are.
>>738924964>Does healing scale with max HP?this is the important one. if healing is percentage based, then just healthmaxif healing has absolute values, raising your defense will give you more bang for your buck
>>738925023Another Crab's Treasure. Stack enough defense and you just become invincible.
>investing in hp and/or deflol nubs
>>738933717>You deal zero damage to me>You have 1 HP and die in one hit Not too bright eh
>>738924082POE already solved this years ago
>>738924082defense negates small hits so you can handle crowds of trash, while hp lets you live more big hits
>>738924082healing
>>738924082the way pokemon does it
>>738924082well you have multiple damage systems that don't all go off def. Like magic or special attacks going through a special defense. That way it's not just two stats doing the same job
>>738924082hp is superior in most cases, defense usually has diminishing returns and defense is also split between magic and physical damage
>>738934241>defense applies a reduction to any damage you take>damage reduction is capped so that every hit has to do at least 1 damage>maximize defense>a group of lvl1 rats are now more dangerous to you than a lvl 50 fire archdemon because the rats are all damaging you for 1 hp with each bite and they're doing dozens of bites per second while the fire demon is only doing 1 hp of damage with each of their big, slow, flaming sword swings
>>738924082I don't, I optimize for speed, evasion, and turn denial. I'm playing Grandia right now and instead of making Sue a healer like most people do I specced her with fire, since she is the one character who can cancel from range without spending any resources. I don't use any of her fire skills but I leveled them just to give her more IP speed so that she's readily available and can act very quickly to cancel pretty much anything instantly. With action RPGs I spec into dodging and parrying. The goal is to get hit as little as possible rather than tanking damage.
>>738934915literally no game does this
>>738934915How can rat bites be dangerous when I need them to live
>>738924082it depends on the game system and is why most min-maxers use the term 'effective hp' to decide when you get diminishing term on either.realistically it is almost never the case that one is always better than the other, and also, realistically, it depends if you can cheese one. very often defense is easier to cheese because hp is usually capped to some static amount, whereas defense is often related to percentage of damage reduction, which through cheesy builds might reach absurd reduction. for instance its not uncommon that, for games like elden ring, it is far easier to cheese defense than hp.
>>738924082Last faith raises hp and def when pumping vitEvery point makes you significantly stronger.
>>738924938Depends on the game. Max defense can reduce damage 99%
>>738924082It's completely circumstantial to the rules of the game.Is healing possible? Is healing a percentage of your maximum HP?If increasing your maximum HP has the side effect of increasing the restorative effect, it becomes favorable.In a system where you can choose the number of HP or DEF points to increase, and increasing one has a greater impact than the other, than you balance your choices around the breakpoints between damage received and hits you can sustain before loss.Even so, you have to assume that later enemies in the game will deal greater damage, and if their damage output can overwhelm your defense (such as using defense bypassing attacks), then max HP cannot be ignored.
Evasion. Just max evasion, and nobody can hit you. Someone stabs you in the back? Evade it. Someone fills the room you're standing in with poison gas? Just evade it. HP and defense are both worthless.
>>738924082In guild wars 1 you could make an (almost) unkillable character by lowering your hp to 55, and then using this skill that limited any single hit to 10% of hp. This means any single hit would only do 5, and a healing over time spell could quickly do more than 5 and keep you alive as long as there weren't more than like 10 hits on you a second. With more hp this build doesn't work, the healing can't keep up
Defense doesn't reduce %-based damage.
>>738935434>enemy has a sure hit buff
>>738935460GW1 Monks were unkillable.
>>738924082Defense has a percentage reduction, so a good mix of the two gets you the most effective HP. Ideally defense should be against a specific damage type (not too granular, just like physical or magical) so it can be situational and highly efficient per point while +HP acts as a generic but less efficient survivability stat.
>>738924082That's like comparing fuel tank capacity vs efficiency. As long as you can get to your destination, the most efficient tank is your best option.
>>738924082DEF because heals generally don't heal % of your hp but flat value, high hp low def character generally are good only for one fight and then have fun bringing him back to full for next one
>>738924964>I look up exact damage calculation formulas, enemy attack stats, and fire up excel to plan my build all the way to max levelHow utterly fucking soulless.
>>738937116The soulless part is having stats in the first place instead of just letting me pick up a sword and shield and bow and magic all at the same time.I just wanna do cool combos and combine magics.
>>738935562Neither does HP? Number actually goes up with more HP
>>738937353>Revenge/counter mechanic where damage is based on HP lost
>>738924082hp * def = ehp which is the only stat that matters unless the game has shit healing mechanics
>>738925029name ten thousand games that do this
>>738925301
If you needed more than 1 HP and 1 defense, you didn't beat the game.
>>738937116To be fair games should tell you how damage is done so you can actually know if what you're getting make sense. Like is 10 DEF a 10% reduction, a flat 10 damage reduction or a weird formula based on other stats.Sometimes the stat is just bugged and doesn't even work.
>physical and magic defense are separate stats
Games with Def tend to have an equivalent stat for magic attacks or something akin to that. In these cases HP is going to help a little with both.
>>738938353FF15 has HP putting the player character into a harmed state where potions and shit still work on him. I guess a lot of games with a partner who can come help you up when your HP hits 0 count.
>>738937116This is how devs want you to play their games btw.
>>738924082>>738925057The true path to tankiness is both, however Defence is often substantially better than raw HP. If the def formula gives flat damage reduction like in Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy or Neptunia it becomes the most effective way to protect against lots of hits, while HP protects you from one-shots.In games with multiplicative defence it hinges a lot more on how harsh the diminishing returns are, and whether pushing your defence-based damage reduction from 70% to 85% is easier than doubling your max HP.Armour-penetrating shots or other forms of true damage skew it back towards maximum HP if they're overused, but there are still often a lot of cases where having enough defence to not explode is better than sacrificing defence for more HP.
>>738924082>Low HP, high defense>Heals are way more efficient, but get fucked by magic and armor piercing >High HP, low defense>Heals do basically nothing, overall more consistent, but high damage enemies will take chunks off your health
>>738924082either make it like fallout 1 or nothing, never liked the 5555 defense yet a shit thug enemy does the same damage than with 555 defense due to retarded cap values and diminish return
>>738924082Defense lets you model armor piercing.
>>738924082Let some skills scale with def. The block chance or block strength of your shield could scale with def. Alternatively the strength of a necromancers spells could be infused with his own HP etc. Giving each stat a meaning besides die slower.
>>738925029>>738925029why is there no hero in any hero shooter that allows you to become a lich? make a healer class.>reach ult>ult allows you to throw down a phylactery (preferably somewhere hidden)>while phylactery is placed, you are immortal and your damage output is reduced to zero>can still go around healing and reviving teammates>die when an enemy finds the phylactery and destroys itseems like such a kino concept, why hasn't it been done?
>>738924082Defense should be some kind of multifaceted thing you can increase in different says, on different conditions, that is strong and weak in different ways.Life is just a buffer for when your defensive strategies fail. If your defences fail more than the game wants, you lose.Life should not be an alternative to defense.
>>7389431291) The idea of a Phylactery is inherently Jewish2) This is retarded because now you have to rely on your braindead team handling ads and cat herding3) No one outside of Jews, Urthodox Christians, and NERDS know what the fuck a Phylactery is.
>>738944105it's a videogame, who the fuck do you think is playing it? fucking NERDS, that's who. there is nothing wrong with a phylactery in a game.
>>738944259>nerds play video games
My personal preference is that defense as a stat should do things, instead of provide numerical damage reduction. If you're wearing full plate and someone throws a knife at your chest, it should do literally nothing. If you get clobbered in the head with a rock, it should still hurt. If you're in a modern setting, body armor of a certain class should take the appropriate number of hits - assuming bullets hit the right area - before becoming increasingly useless as it breaks down. In either case, there should always be ways around armor, like fire, gas, unarmored body parts or explosives.If you have to go with numerical stats, then it should come down to the way the game is built, but generally it should always be a flat reduction, rather than percentage-based, and weapons should have armor-piercing capabilities. If you have 100 HP and 0 armor, a hit from a dagger with 15 damage and 0 AP should do 15 damage. If you have 100 HP and 5 armor, the same dagger should do 10 damage. A hit from a longsword with 40 damage and 0 AP would then do 35 damage. 0 armor would be light clothing or shirtless. 5 armor would be akin to a heavy jacket. 15 armor would be a gambeson. 25 armor would be a gambeson and mail. 40 armor would be plate and mail. Something like a smooth mace would have around 15 dmg and 15 AP. A war hammer would be around 20 damage and 20 AP. A poleaxe or halberd would be 35 damage and 35 AP. You should be rewarded for wearing heavy armor and for bringing anti-armor weaponry, which is otherwise much less effective against unarmored opponents, given that large, heavy anti-armor weapons should also have slower attack speeds. But that's why I just prefer specialized armor roles like I first described, because the most shit anti-armor weapon on that list (the dagger) is arguably one of the best anti-armor weapons IRL. It just can't display its strengths unless you have a system dedicated to that sort of thing.
>>738943129Yuumi in league of legends, you make other allies into your "phylactery".
I've actually been considering, in the contexts of say, JRPGs like pokemon and them where you have HP, Defense, and Magic Defense. Wouldn't it make more sense for HP to just be a % and defense and magic defense to be the only defensive stats?Like the question of whether to invest in HP or invest in Defense is always an awkward one. And you'd NEVER invest in both types of defense instead of HP.In pokemon specifically almost all status effects and healing moves are % HP based anyway so it feels pretty arbitrary.
>>738924082just make some enemies hit for a little a bunch of times and other enemies hit for a lot once so you have a good reason to pick one over the other depending on what you're facing
>>738924082>A pool your troops drain from.wtf is this sentence?Also, HP is more valuable generally unless constant healing is available, in that case DEF is more valuable since it also makes healed HP more valuable.
>>738924082I like a multibalance approach. Like the last spell.>HP - Hit Points>Resistance - Percentage DR>Block - Flat DR after Defence>Armor- HP buffer that refreshes each turnand then seperately>Dodge - Chance to avoid damage entirelyThis way the mechanics allow for different defensive builds to thrive in different environments, so you might have a blocky nigger who can go balls out against a death by a thousand cuts chaff army but needs to keep away from bruisers, or an armor focused nigger who can 1v1 mitigate the majority of bruiser damage but might get overwhelmed by multiple chips, or a shieldy nigger who can do a bit of both but if he tips over the razors edge he's chum due to his lack of actual damage mitigation, or some combination of that with various advantages and tradeoffs. There's definitely an enemy who can pierce armor, forget if there's ones that can ignore the others.The game also has HP thresholds so you don't go straight from a perfectly healthy 1%HP to *dies* because a pebble hit you.Wouldn't work so good in 4 niggas in a row but those are kinda braindead by design.>>738946302At least in that context HP provides a middle ground nonspecialist option, it also has some interaction with certain moves like double edge.
>>738946906Oh I got a few things mixed up because I looked up what the things were actually called after I finished posting and corrected it in the meme arrows but not in the body of text below.
