The "resistance" issue

[FinaL]

Well is it just me or is the resistance mechanic ... "not good" ?

I mean it's common technique to stack ward save as well as other resistances, making Heroes borderline weapons of mass destruction. It's totally fine in this game, however I have some issues with these resistances!

1. It's complicated. If you fight (for example) Dwarfs, you will deal -20% damage against them with magic weapons. If you fight Daemons, you will deal -20% damage with mudane weapons. If you having magic flame weapons, you will also deal less damage against them when they have fire resistance, but don't have any real advantage for using fire damage. If you're fighting units with ward save, you will always deal less damage (there is no counter)
My head just spins because you also have to take into account: armour, shield, melee defense, fatigue, terrain, mass, animations, knockdown....

2. Resistances are pretty op. If you're able to stack them, you should. This is especially true with large Lords, stacking "missile resistance". That's really stupid because some counter just don't work any more because you're extremly resistant against most damage types - and this is bad because the game has already mad power creep.

I would rather have a rework of that system! Like, don't be able to stack resistances anymore, neither trough skills nor through items. Not for units and not for heroes.

Make SOME units more durable against SOME damage types and vulnerable against others, like the good ol' skeletton! Give them 20% missile ward (because they're ... boney ^^) but let them take +20% damage from fire. Give Daemons +20% physical damage reduce but don't spread magic weapons all over the place.

But most of all, make the calculations of this system more understandable and less power-creepy

[Aneerah]

Dealing less damage to units with 'magic' resistance is a thing in WH2. It was changed to spell resistance in WH3, so only spells deal reduced damage. Magical weapons are only positive now.

Power creep is an issue, but I'm not sure you quite understand what the issue actually is? Generally the problem with power creep is when new units, characters and factions are introduced that are just plain stronger than what came before. Not the existence of complex systems in the game.

[Aleera]

Little notes here.
Dwarfs no longer resist magic. They resist spells. Magic weapons deal 100% damage to them. There's literally no defense vs magic weapons short of pure ward save.

Once you get used to it, the system makes way more sense. You can fully enjoy the game without understanding what damage works best.

Al these calculations are pure as can be.
Wardsaves and weaknesses stack. A 10% wardsave character with a 20% fire weakeness, will take 10% more damage from fire damage sources. Conversely 10% wardsave with 20% physical resist and 20% fire resist will amount to a whopping 50% damage resist against physical fire attacks. The max is 90%, never more.

Shields are a flat % to mitigate missle fire from the front. It even say which % if you hover over it.

Armour requires a bit more thought. But goes like;
You take max to half of the armour value and subtract that from the non armor piercing. So 100 armour will negate between 50-100% non armor piercing damage.

Just remember, that no matter how much you stack everything. You always will take 1 damage if a attack hits. Death by a thousand cuts is still more then applicable.

With all these resistances etc, why do you think I always say the only thing you should worry about is leadership. You win battles via beating leadership, not hp.

[Toby Larone]

Magic Resistance got changed into spell resistance game 3. Dwarfs now only reduce damage from abilities that is magical. So anything with magic attack doesn't do less damage vs dwarfs anymore.

[FinaL]

Wasn't aware that they changed it to spell resistance ! Thank you for explaining that to me, peers :)

[Spell]

Originally posted by Rianne:

Shields are a flat % to mitigate missle fire from the front. It even say which % if you hover over it.

There is a calculation for shields %.

missile_saving_bonus_base = 20
missile_saving_bonus_coefficient = 0.5
(20 is added to shield% + armour) × 0.5 = true shield block.

Example:
20 + 35(shield) + 20(armour) = 75
75 × 0.5 = 37.5% shield block chance.

Example:
20 + 35 + 90 = 145
145 × 0.5 = 72.5%

shield_defence_angle_missile = 60 (half-angle)
Shields block in a 120 cone.

[hulahoopah]

enough resistance can block out missile attacks.

[wpegg]

Originally posted by Aleera:

Just remember, that no matter how much you stack everything. You always will take 1 damage if a attack hits. Death by a thousand cuts is still more then applicable.

Have they changed it for WH3? I remember this argument in the WH2 discussions and it was demonstrated that you could reduce damage to zero if you got it to below 0.5.

[AurumHawke]

Originally posted by wpegg:

Originally posted by Aleera:

Just remember, that no matter how much you stack everything. You always will take 1 damage if a attack hits. Death by a thousand cuts is still more then applicable.

Have they changed it for WH3? I remember this argument in the WH2 discussions and it was demonstrated that you could reduce damage to zero if you got it to below 0.5.

It is still possible for a Hit to round/truncate to 0 damage during the Resistance step, even if it includes AP damage.
Requires heavily debuffed Weapon Damage to do so.

Other than Magic -> Spell, most of the common battle-mode changes from WH2 have been in entity behavior.

[Perfie]

Originally posted by Spell:

Originally posted by Rianne:

Shields are a flat % to mitigate missle fire from the front. It even say which % if you hover over it.

There is a calculation for shields %.

missile_saving_bonus_base = 20
missile_saving_bonus_coefficient = 0.5
(20 is added to shield% + armour) × 0.5 = true shield block.

Example:
20 + 35(shield) + 20(armour) = 75
75 × 0.5 = 37.5% shield block chance.

Example:
20 + 35 + 90 = 145
145 × 0.5 = 72.5%

shield_defence_angle_missile = 60 (half-angle)
Shields block in a 120 cone.

Very interesting, extremely obscure and unintuitive based on the information the UI gives us.

Can you clarify if the final % of your calculation is the chance for a missile to miss? or is that the average damage the missile would do, based on both block chance (chance of missing as I understand) and on the avg damage reduction by armor.

What I thought was obvious regarding this mechanic, clearly isn't so I want to be sure.
Can you provide a source for this mechanic and others? There are lots of hidden mechanics I'd like to understand. Like certain projectile penetration of units, for example. All of this is very obscure and hard to find.

[The Coal Man]

@OP

The ai doesn't do it so what are you complaining about. If you don't like it, exercise your free will and don't do it. Problem solved.

[The Coal Man]

@Perfie
The miss/hit chance is different.
I had a FAQ thread in WH2 for things CA never explained/hid for no reason, and below is what the consensus was for that by people who dug through the code. CA doesn't change how they code from game to game so it should still apply. Here is the info for projectile accuracy.

" Projectile Accuracy- You have to dig through coding or patch notes but each unit has like 3 different unlisted attributes when firing.

-There is firing arc , which is how much they can arc. What this value is isnt set in stone based on what they are firing though.

- Projectile Calibration Distance , which determines what is the minimum/maximum range for hitting with maximum accuracy. Basically the closer they are the more accurate they are, but some units have very long maximum ranges so can hit accurately even from a distance.

-The other half of this is Projectile Calibration Area, which is what most people would interpret as accuracy. This is the area a projectile may hit from its intended target, the smaller this number the better. Siege weapons tend to have a large number here, while archers have one much lower."

As far as missile penetration, I think bigger missiles are just set to not disappear after hitting something smaller, so they continue until they hit the ground at the spot calculated by the calibration distance and calibration area. I'm pretty sure large units do still block shots from continuing.

[Lord Farquad]

necromancers sure are wild these past few months

[FinaL]

Where is the issue of having a topic brought back when the info there is still relevant ?

[wrought82]

generally there should be only multiplicative modifiers, not additive in the game. Ai does get and should maybe get more bonuses to heroes and lords. it seems like AI gets some extremely strong heroes early, but i assume endgame they cant keep up especially if player optimizes equipment. Generally i feel like tech and items only make the game worse; add downtime and makes player even stronger in lategame. Game is better when you ignore that stuff tbh

[Weissrolf]

Now I wonder if they may be an addon that only makes the highest/strongest resistance count for each category? Time to check.