Up front if you arent into discussing nutz and boltz of systems you might want to turn back this may get very in depth and mathy. @MichaelChan We presently have the following data on how damage is calculated. basically we don't know as players what E is its a constant we don't have access to at this time or if its been clarified i couldn't find it. Unless its https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(mathematical_constant) But essentially what i gather is you have a % based damage reduction system with diminishing returns. essentially the higher the toughness rating the more mitigation you achieve but as you progressively get higher above the pen you mitigate. which has some side effects when comparing high levels of toughness to low levels of pen you get a wierd diminishing returns on your pen value where sure you pen some but it was all diminishing returns pen so you gained like 2% more damage ... its why they removed so much toughness from the game. Im wondering Why specifically the already quite existant and balanced flat damage mitigation system in all the wh40k properties wasn't used ... was it in an attempt to match DOW1+2 ? why was the armor system chosen ? was it to match Relics Space marine ? and essentially try to gell some things from each game so all players of those games would feel comfortable with at least one aspect of the damage system ? as it stands with this damage formula you get into some very hairy situations .... like the Power fist ..... where because it has to punch through the mitigation % of vehicles it has a 2000 damage fierce right now and its running rampant. What im saying is why didn't we use a comparative flat damage comparison that becomes curved by association rather than 2 diminishing returns curves. for instance the "baseline comparison of the average starting SM is 300 effective HP and essentially 0% mitigation and we have some formula above that we use to set the amount of shots to kill said space marine with a bolter. i forget the exact number but it was 17 shots at one time so lets go with that just for the sake of explaining. so essentially if we want a TTK of 2 seconds if target is center of mass to be the baseline for said bolter we need it to do 300 HP in 2 seconds so we can use any mathematical variant of bullets per second, or damage examples include :: (10 bullets per second 15 damage per bullet)(5 bullets per second 30 damage a bullet)(15 bullets per second 10 damage per bullet) so essentially under the current system everything flat and dry gets directly mashed down to DPS and then that dps is then multiplied by a base ten fraction like .69 for 31% damage mitigation and is then applied to your "effective HP" of armor first and then Health until you die from it. All of the above examples would boil down to 103.5 DPS under the 31% mitigation reduction making then take approximately 3 seconds TTK as opposed to 2. and basically toughness is on a diminishing returns effect and penetration reduces the amount of toughness you get ... it is not however a direct relationship but a bell curved relationship .. if it was a direct relationship the 80 pen weapons would pen almost all mitigation in the game and they don't. Where as with a competing flat damage system we get a lot more nuance to our damage system .... for instance lets start where we were in the last equation but change things slightly number one our baseline marine instead has 300 Health and 0 armor 0 toughness giving us the same effective health but with no recharging shield we use the same exact comparison for bolter types so default ttk is 2 seconds. now bring in the following ... toughness is flat damage reduction that Cannot be penned, and armor is flat damage reduction that CAN be penned and toughness costs more per point than armor does. suddenly we have made support classes much more valuable and medkits, because marines cant just "cover skum" to have higher health pools and we in fact more incentivize marine to act like marines and not hide behind cover unless there is a good reason like a heavy bolter set up or they are low on health or they need to stay hidden(sniping) etc. so we go back to our previous situation and introduce some mitigation we have a trinket that gives 2 toughness and one that gives 3 armor equipping the toughness one will cost more but REGARDLESS of pen it will subtract 2 damage from each hit if we compare it to each of the previous examples it will have DIFFERENT effects on each one making different weapons function differently against the SAME armor rating instead of being gruelled down into sludge. (10 bullets per second for 13 damage apiece) = 2.30 TTK (5 bullets per second for 28 damage apiece) = 2.14 TTK (15 bullets per second 8 damage apiece) = 2.5 TTK So as you see the caliber even without considering pen can have an effect on the TTL if you add in the armor trinket you will see an even higher TTK considering 0 pen. however you will have a nuanced situation as you introduce pen to the equation which just basically negates 1 armor for each pen flat. so ultimately you will wind up with a damage chart just like the one you have now that is a bell curve where you only get diminishing returns if you overspend on PEN. Now understanding this this means you will need a tiered system just like melee weapons clang system but you will have more nuance within a certain category as RoF , Caliber, and AP properties will all effect TTK and in different amounts depending on what each player bought. for instance. all weapons marked with * are outlyers and have tags explained below tier 1 (0-small amounts of pen) shotgun sword knife *chainsword *chain axe etc. tier 2(2-4 pen lower mid range) force sword power sword bolter heavy bolter *stalker bolter shuriken cannon *tempest launcher etc. tier 3 (full mid range 4-8 pen) *plasma rifle *plasma cannon plazma deffgun plasma pistol etc. tier 4 (high range 8-10) *multimelta *reaper launcher Tier 5 (10-15 pen) *Power fist *Scorpions Claw *Power claw *Lascannon *zzap gun * these are all weapons that presently could be better explained with outlyer mechanics ... for instance give the power fist much more normal melee animations/speed and damage ..obviously it should be one of the slowest but highest damage melee weapons but at this low damage it wouldn't be able to kill tanks ... well give it a special ability called "Seige" that makes it do as much more damage or gain as much more pen as you need it to to damage tanks appropriately. the same can be applied to all the outlyers like giving the chain weapons something like bleed stacks or a bleed effect similar to dark souls. or the stalker type bolter a "Assassin" ability that enhances its ability specifically when its scoped in and head shots someone. now basically armor needs to be accessible in the same tiers for the same price since its a direct comparison .... most of this will be achievable with trinkets .... and your main armor will skip you to say tier 2 when you get the first armor upgrade and then tier 3 when you get the top armor and your more expensive accessories should be able to get you to the top tier of 15 armor. toughness probably needs to be somewhere between 25%-50% more expensive for the same effect as armor or you can only get 50%-75% as much for the same cost .... now if you'll notice i specifically made it so that the highest tier on defense can become "immune" to some weapons in tier 1 the trick for this is all weapons need cheap mods to either swap tiers or somehow circumvent armor via another method a good example of this is the Narthecium which is presently very low damage but if you take a hit or 2 you will die from poison. so lets say shotguns as an example you could add rounds that set people on fire or have more AP or higher caliber(more damage). but each wepaon is only allowed to stretch 1 tier. Its important to note you could customize and intentionally gain a lower tier by giving yourself an advantage so lets say you want to tyranid hive you could take your heavy bolter and mod down its damage or pen for higher RoF making you more capable of adjusting it for what you need. and maybe some accessories attach outlyer mechanics like adding "seige" to weapons close enough to seige class weapons like the tempest launcher you could make it shoot krak equivalents. essentially this would allow faster comparison between the costs of armor and pen and we would have less weapons with whacky costs and whacky damage. our outlyers would be more controlled being that their special role is equated into a bonus attribute as oopposed to a raw damage score that just gets ground up into chum and doesn't always remained balanced ..... essentially what im proposing is completely un-marrying all mechanics of each gun from each other so that you have WAY more tweak on each individual weapon and many more ways to defend yourself and be out performed on offense as well .... Its also Much more transparent to the player how much they are getting for their investment and specifically how each thing measures up against each weapon. and lets say for instance you want that pop in and out of cover mechanic where you have a "shield of effective hp" make that the iron halos role or subsequent things in other factions that do the same. This particular system makes it much less game breaking and extreme to adjust starting health levels, and maximum health levels you could quite possible aschew all armor and toughness and just make some insane high max health build that is better approached by things like the shotgun modded with caliber... this would give you more nuance with the Marks of Chaos too ... as opposed to them seemingly tripping over each other ... the Tzeentch symbol could give sort of like a proposed iron halo and maybe an effect on sorcery or maybe sorceries have the reaction trait from being equipped with tzeentch mark, nurgle could be about max HP and toughness and maybe a passive poison1 aura Slaanesh could add a lot of HP but no toughness and armor(likes the pain) keep the speed bonus, khorne gains his effective HP through lifesteal so he would have maybe less toughness than nurgle but the lifesteal enhances his staying power. The loyalist banners can be simplified in relation to damage add in a squad wide bonus of X damage or X armor or X toughness(keep it small). have shield bro no longer block damage completely with his shield necessarily instead have it add armor to his front ark while its up and make it capable of negating the size and caliber weapons you want it to and taking incrementally more damage as you approach the highest tiers of pen. it also obviously shouldnt negate certain outlyer tags like "fire damage" or "seige" damage
Don't you know what is one of the most important mathematical constant? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(mathematical_constant)
I think it'd be easier if they just moved the damage reduction into tiers instead of the system they have now. T1 being the lowest (squishy Eldar classes), T2 being standard power armor, T3 being heavy varients of power armor, t4-7 being reserved for Terminators/heroes, and 8-10 being for vehicles. The way they have it now allows more customization and balance, but it makes it difficult to get there. The issue with asymmetrical balance is nothing is constant so everything gets tweaked continually. Adding a but of stability to that would go a long way.
it kinda already is the tiers are 0 pen / 80 pen /120 pen / ( forget this tier but its the lascannon tier) easier for them yes .... easier for understanding why to pick the maul/axe/sword ... not so much you would lose a lot of nuance that way and each weapons diversity would rarely be much more than a "skin". much like right now theres hardly a difference between the axe and maul. without using excell or a calculator tell me how much damage a plasma rifle does vs +50 toughness ... its not very easy is it ? you also are left once again with trying to explain a dual opposed percentage comparison vs a much more cut and dry yet equally effective dual compared linear opposed properties that has more nuance and potential for different and flavorful balance changes. as each weapon has alot more metrics for how it does its damage.
Adding onto this concept the classes should have by definition have at BARE MINUMUM three poles .... Damage - Mobility - Durability. i think we should base the system around each class being able to push all the way to two poles and therefore completely neglect the other pole. and essentially the "support classes" have a fourth pole and they have to chose another pole to lose from to pay for having the fourth pole and make it fluff appropriate. so for instance AS would have Damage - Mobility - Durability - Healing obviously warp sorcerers aren't known for their kind and caring demeanor so the healing takes a hit over other support classes and they clearly are very offensive magic oriented so we leave that damage pole alone and we make them choose mobility or durability as they are "Aspiring" maybe thier durability pole is less and cant go as high. compare it with the space marines Apothacary who pride themselves on being good at keeping thier squad alive so the heal pole is strong and they are extra healthy by lore so the durability pole is better strong so they have to suffer in mobility or possibly damage whichever is more fluff appropriate and again both can only by LP max 2 poles and completely neglect the other 2. So basically what im saying is if you make a character with heavy armor and toughness and they STILL have a good weapon they need to be easily kiteable maybe some of the things you take drops your walk run speed some and if you take too many people can backpedal away from you ... if you are super mobile and high damage you better pop like a zit when someone has you in thier sights. if you are really mobile and tough you better have a hard time damaging hard targets quite possibly if the difference is substantial enough not damage them at all ... (shooting a shotgun at a shield bros front ark with the shield up.). And if you have full support in your kit you need to have a primary weakness and another fairly bad weakness. essentially creating a triangle advantage meta with all class types .... Tough/strong gets trumped by strong/mobile gets trumped by tough/mobile gets trumped by tough/strong. now you don't want this advantage to be insurmountable by skill or position or squad mates but it think the basic principle is very solid.
I hate those overly complicated formulae for things that should be simple, to me Toughness should be a flat damage reduction and penetration should be a flat toughness reduction making the formula for damage be for health damage: Damage Dealt = Damage - Toughness and for armor damage: Damage dealt = Damage + Penetration - Toughness and for vehicles and buildings just make it so that only weapons with a specific trait could damage them. that way we the players feel much less alienated from the numbers, instead of just knowing more penetration means more actual damage delivered to the target we'd know exactly how much damage we'd deal with each weapon against certain armor values without a need to resort to some crazy formula and making high penetration weapons much better at dealing with high armor enemies than low penetration ones.
The problem with that is you won't do any damage if you have more penetration than whatever weapon you're using. It would massively promote single shot weapons over rapid fire weapons. The reason they use these formula is for diminishing returns and making them applicable evenly to all weapon platforms. Using something too simple makes it so diminishing returns don't exist, and diminishing returns helps balance things.
I actually changed my formulas but i don't see your point, just tweak the armor, health, damage and penetration values and it should work fine.
I'll give you an example using my formula. Let's assume we're trying to kill 2 guys, one of them has 200 health, 100 armor and 20 toughness and the other one has 100 health, 200 armor and 20 toughness. we have 2 weapons, one deals 70 damage per shot with 0 penetration and the other deals 60 damage per shot with 60 penetration weapon 1 kills guy 1 in 6 hits and guy 2 in 6 hits weapon 2 kills guy 1 in 6 hits and guy 2 in 5 hits making it superior to deal with an armored opponent than weapon 1 even though it's damage is a little lower.
