How should we go about damage?

[TyCarter35]

Just say the actual damage numbers for combos. The percentages can't be that wide of a difference against most of the roster anyways

 

[Arzumis]

Just say the actual damage numbers for combos. The percentages can't be that wide of a difference against most of the roster anyways

The damage numbers are different against every character. A combo on batman does 3% more on superman. Thats alot imo.

 

[HeroesNZ]

Based on what Bio said you should be able to calculate the actual percentage on one character (including defense stats) and it'll be the same percentage on every character but Darkseid.

 

[Rip Torn]

No you cant say a combo does X damage because characters have different defense values. In the original post I said a 417 combo on batman does 375 to superman.

And that's with gear off/competitive mode on? Weird.

 

[IceNine]

To add onto what I said a few minutes ago: If we investigate and gather the health and defense values of every character, and it turns out that what Bio said is inaccurate, we can determine what the most common values are. If there's a defense value that's clearly shared by the majority of the cast or one that makes for an obvious baseline as a median or average, I think that's what ought to be used. It then becomes a simple matter for players to memorize whether or not a character's defense is "above average" or "below average". If we blindly pick a character like Superman for convenience's sake, and it turns out that he is skewed toward one end of the spectrum, then he doesn't make a very effective baseline.

And this is just an opinion, but I do think we should veer away from working entirely on percentage based notation, since the game doesn't use it itself. While percentage is traditional for NRS, in this case it's simply an extra derivation. Using the numbers the players can see on the screen in-game is common sense, as it best allows us to "check our work" on the fly.

 

[BigMacMcLovin]

To add onto what I said a few minutes ago: If we investigate and gather the health and defense values of every character, and it turns out that what Bio said is inaccurate, we can determine what the most common values are. If there's a defense value that's clearly shared by the majority of the cast or one that makes for an obvious baseline as a median or average, I think that's what ought to be used. It then becomes a simple matter for players to memorize whether or not a character's defense is "above average" or "below average". If we blindly pick a character like Superman for convenience's sake, and it turns out that he is skewed toward one end of the spectrum, then he doesn't make a very effective baseline.

And this is just an opinion, but I do think we should veer away from working entirely on percentage based notation, since the game doesn't use it itself. While percentage is traditional for NRS, in this case it's simply an extra derivation. Using the numbers the players can see on the screen in-game is common sense, as it best allows us to "check our work" on the fly.

At the end of the day, one reason we notate a combo with its damage dealt to see what the strongest combos are. It doesn't matter if the dummy chosen has obscure stats because the hardest hitting combo will still be the hardest hitting combo regardless.

I think people are over complicating this far too much.

 

[trufenix]

I think people are over complicating this far too much.

Seriously, it doesn't matter who you lab against as long as you note their def stat in the notation. Do they not teach math in schools anymore?

 

[HRshuvNStuff]

My question is how is it fair that some characters take less damage than others? I would understand if it were a trait thing like with Bane or a gear ability of some sort. But how can this be made fair in a tournament setting when certain characters base stats make them deal or take more or less damage? I'm actually surprised no-one has a problem with this tbh.

 

[GAV]

I vote to pick any character with 1000 defense simply because in any formula they use, 1000 is a number that will get the most precise and clean results while also being the average defense. I think Robin has 1000 defense and probably others too.



Just being nitpicky but damage isn't noted as percentages as characters have varying life totals in adition to different defense values.

Figuring it out mathematically wouldn't be difficult and percentages with highs and lows would be the most clear and concise manner to everyone.

 

[GAV]

My question is how is it fair that some characters take less damage than others? I would understand if it were a trait thing like with Bane or a gear ability of some sort. But how can this be made fair in a tournament setting when certain characters base stats make them deal or take more or less damage? I'm actually surprised no-one has a problem with this tbh.

Life isn't fair, but this is yet another balancing tool for the design team to work with.

If you don't trust their choices on balancing, that is another matter altogether.

 

[-LD50-]

I like all the theorycrafting but we should just focus on the easy way to do things as not everyone posting combos on a whim can or will take the time to calculate or do it on a specific character.

We should just post damage numbers as they are on the defaulted character as training dummy in practice - sounds like it's supes in this one?

 

[HRshuvNStuff]

Life isn't fair, but this is yet another balancing tool for the design team to work with.

If you don't trust their choices on balancing, that is another matter altogether.

This isn't life, it's a video game. And I'll trust their balancing when they release a game they don't have to patch within the first week.

 

[-LD50-]

This isn't life, it's a video game. And I'll trust their balancing when they release a game they don't have to patch within the first week.

Patching in the first week has to do with the fact that long before May 16 they have to ship out copies of a game.

It's inevitable they will find things to change between the date they manufac copies and the date the game launches.

If there wasn't a week one patch it'd essentially mean they weren't even trying to balance and perfect in the time available to do so - i, you, and the NRS community ought to feel insulted at lack of a week one patch, not the presence of one

 

[CrimsonShadow]

why dont we just say how many points of damage a combo does like literally every single other fighting game known to man does?

Because they don't do the same number of points to different characters.

You didn't read the OP mah man

 

[IceNine]

My question is how is it fair that some characters take less damage than others? I would understand if it were a trait thing like with Bane or a gear ability of some sort. But how can this be made fair in a tournament setting when certain characters base stats make them deal or take more or less damage? I'm actually surprised no-one has a problem with this tbh.

It's actually atypical for a fighting game to have entirely flat life values like NRS games do. I've always found this particular quirk to be a bit odd, if anything.

How much damage a character can take is something that's usually taken into account when designing them individually, much like any other facet of the character - damage output, range, mobility, size, etc. In other words, it's another way of compensating for a character's pros and cons. In the example the OP posted, it looks like NRS decided that giving Superman a smaller health pool was one way of balancing his characteristically extreme damage output (among his others virtues). Making a character a "glass cannon" is a really classical design choice.

On a more general note, I think it's interesting that NRS has decided to finally tackle another dimension of character balance, but I'm not sure if they're tackling it all that efficiently. If the OP's math is correct, Batman took more points of damage, but lost fewer percentage. Presumably, this is because despite having a smaller defense value than Superman, Batman has more health points. That's a bit convoluted, if you ask me. Having to manually derive effective character health via two entirely independent statistics despite what we're shown on screen is such a big leap from entirely universal health values.

That said, Bio could be entirely correct and all of this is meaningless outside of discussing Darkseid. Maybe every other character does have the same effective health - but if OP's example is true, that doesn't seem to be the case. If Superman and Batman have the same effective health, I should think a combo would deal the same amount of damage in terms of percentage. It makes me wonder if there's some gap in my logic. Gah, I wish I had the game. I really want to experiment with this right now and get some definitive answers. I love a good investigation.

 

[GAV]

This isn't life, it's a video game. And I'll trust their balancing when they release a game they don't have to patch within the first week.

Would you prefer the old way of do it and be done with it - meaning no patches at all, ever?

 

[Wavy]

Just say the actual damage in relation to Superman. We should assume +/- 50 points for example. People who are using the characters will eventually know if its more/less damage in certain match ups through labbing. And it's not like we're going to stop doing certain string because of diff characters diff damage. Although, is it really true health/defense stat doesnt exist with gears off? I'm confused about that.

 

[tatterbug4]

Joker should be training dumby again

 

[SaltShaker]

No idea what this "Bio said" stuff is about, but no, the same combo does more damage to each person, like more damage to Batman than Superman. This is fact. Also dependent on your own character too. My B1 combo does 161 against Superman, and 179 against Batman in competitive mode.

We need a base dummy for damage, like "this combo does 350 Batman points". It's the only way to keep from getting messy.

 

[Raiderhorn]

This is a good question. And I think it's best we go with either
-a "default" like Superman
-whichever character has the highest def stat
-the average between highest and lowest defense stats

Though a default dummy is most likely to be chosen and is a good solution

 

[Akromaniac27]

There's really only 3 different damage outputs for this. Everyone has either 1050HP, 1150HP or 1250HP, so you can have it read 32-33.5-34% or something along those lines. I say really though, because Black Canary has to be the one to just randomly have 1200HP all on her own. She's the only character with a different HP than the rest, so idk

 

[Akromaniac27]

1050HP:

Aquaman, Black Adam, Brainiac, Cyborg, Firestorm, Green Lantern, Supergirl, Superman, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing

1150HP:

Blue Beetle, Cheetah, Flash, Robin

1200HP:
Fucking Canary only

1250HP:
Atrocitus, Bane, Batman, Captain Cold, Catwoman, Deadshot, Doctor Fate, Gorilla Grodd, Green Arrow, Harley Quinn, Joker, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow

Nor sure where Darkseid falls

 

[Dankster Morgan]

1050HP:

Aquaman, Black Adam, Brainiac, Cyborg, Firestorm, Green Lantern, Supergirl, Superman, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing

1150HP:

Blue Beetle, Cheetah, Flash, Robin

1200HP:
Fucking Canary only

1250HP:
Atrocitus, Bane, Batman, Captain Cold, Catwoman, Deadshot, Doctor Fate, Gorilla Grodd, Green Arrow, Harley Quinn, Joker, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow

Nor sure where Darkseid falls

Thanks for the info

 

[Wavy]

No idea what this "Bio said" stuff is about, but no, the same combo does more damage to each person, like more damage to Batman than Superman. This is fact. Also dependent on your own character too. My B1 combo does 161 against Superman, and 179 against Batman in competitive mode.

We need a base dummy for damage, like "this combo does 350 Batman points". It's the only way to keep from getting messy.

He's saying those numbers don't matter. It's still the same percentage wise. The 161 damage against Superman is the same percent as 179 against Batman according to him. Unless you're suggesting that you are noticing a difference in how much the health bar drops then he would be wrong. If I recall correctly in one of their streams I think 16bit said tournament mode does additional scaling to "normalize" stats(which makes it less drastically different from character to character than with gears on) which leads me to believe Bio is wrong. I could be pulling that statement out my ass though.

 

[IceNine]

That's very useful info Akromaniac, thank you. Though, the primary problem is that each character seems to have an individual "defense" stat, so they deal different point values worth of damage. Each character having different health values wouldn't be an issue (as that's the norm in fighting games): We could just say how much damage a combo does in points universally (as opposed to percentages) and be done with it.

Regardless of the topic at hand though, I must reiterate that this information is actually very useful. It's good to have information at a glance for the entire cast. If nobody does so prior to release, I'd like to see if I can put together a table with various individual character stats, including a derived "effective health" statistic, if possible. Maybe in a google doc or somesuch. A handy resource anyone interested in the game could use.

On another note, using the damage numbers provided in SaltShaker and Akromaniac's posts, it does point to Bio being off about the percentages being truly universal. 161/1050 (~15.3%) =/= 179/1250 (~14.3%). This is consistent with the OP's findings, where Superman takes fewer points of damage, but higher percentage due to his lower health pool. How interesting. These percentage differences are small (as you've no doubt noticed), but naturally grow more pronounced as a combo deals more damage. And the difference should be more extreme in general between characters who have low health pools and low defense (if I had to guess, I'd bet on Firestorm being one of them) vs. characters who have high defense and high health pools (Bane? Atrocitus? Grodd? They seem like the "tanky" type). Hmm.

Pending on how this all turns out, it may be a fairly minor issue, but I'm fine with dissecting it nonetheless. It's fun.