Damage type resistance

[MrEntity]

Is there a way to see what the pierce/slash/crush damage resistances are on enemies/equipment, or am I just expected to infer from experimentation?

[Pickleton]

You can check out enemy equipment the same as you would your own units, but you'd have to look at each individual piece of equipment and add them up.
Just go into the scouting or in-battle unit menu (RT on an Xbox controller, R2 on a PS5 controller), and then go to the "square menu" (X on Xbox, square on PS5) of each item.
I think beasts/dragons also have hidden resistance values but I'll leave that in Rucession's capable hands.

[Rucession]

No Class or Race in Reborn (or even the PSP version of LUCT for that matter) has innate "resistance" against any Elemental or Physical Damage Type. What you see in the enemy's equipment stat screen is what you get.

However, no unit in this game (regardless of the Physical Resistance values on their Armor) is more or less "resistant" to one particular Physical Damage Type. This is due to the unintuitive way in which Physical Resistance values are applied to the damage calculations of Basic Attacks/Finishers/Special Attacks/Spells.

Instead of checking the Physical Damage Type of a Basic Attack/Finisher/Special Attack/Spell (Missile/Summon Spells have Physical Damage Types) to determine which Physical Resistance's total value (on the target's Armor) to apply to the Attack's damage calculations, the game instead checks the Physical Damage Type of the target's main-hand Weapon.

This results in the total value of the Physical Resistance that matches the Physical Damage Type of the target's main-hand Weapon being applied to the damage calculations of all incoming Attacks (regardless of their Physical OR Elemental Damage Type).

For example, if a unit were to wield a Leather Cestus (Crushing Damage Type), the total value of the Crushing Resistance on their Armor (and only the Crushing Resistance's value) will be applied to damage calculations of all incoming Attacks. Slashing Attack? Apply Crushing Resistance value. Piercing Attack? Apply Crushing Resistance value. AIR Attack? You guessed it, apply Crushing Resistance value.

[MrEntity]

Originally posted by Rucession:

This results in the total value of the Physical Resistance that matches Physical Damage Type of the target's main-hand Weapon being applied to the damage calculations of all incoming Attacks (regardless of their Physical OR Elemental Damage Type).

Well that's a nuts design decision. Thanks for the explanation, though.

[Rucession]

Originally posted by MrEntity:

Well that's a nuts design decision. Thanks for the explanation, though.

Yeah, it's very strange (and in my personal opinion, unintended). It basically turns the Physical Resistance (on a unit's Armor) that matches the Physical Damage Type of their main-hand Weapon into a sort of "Universal Resistance".

It also means that Physical Damage Types of Attacks serve no mechanical purpose.

[mdcpaladin]

Originally posted by Rucession:

No Class or Race in Reborn (or even the PSP version of LUCT for that matter) has innate "resistance" against any Elemental or Physical Damage Type. What you see in the enemy's equipment stat screen is what you get.

However, no unit in this game (regardless of the Physical Resistance values on their Armor) is more or less "resistant" to one particular Physical Damage Type. This is due to the unintuitive way in which Physical Resistance values are applied to the damage calculations of Basic Attacks/Finishers/Special Attacks/Spells.

Instead of checking the Physical Damage Type of a Basic Attack/Finisher/Special Attack/Spell (Missile/Summon Spells have Physical Damage Types) to determine which Physical Resistance's total value (on the target's Armor) to apply to the Attack's damage calculations, the game instead checks the Physical Damage Type of the target's main-hand Weapon.

This results in the total value of the Physical Resistance that matches the Physical Damage Type of the target's main-hand Weapon being applied to the damage calculations of all incoming Attacks (regardless of their Physical OR Elemental Damage Type).

For example, if a unit were to wield a Leather Cestus (Crushing Damage Type), the total value of the Crushing Resistance on their Armor (and only the Crushing Resistance's value) will be applied to damage calculations of all incoming Attacks. Slashing Attack? Apply Crushing Resistance value. Piercing Attack? Apply Crushing Resistance value. AIR Attack? You guessed it, apply Crushing Resistance value.

thats so weird i dont understand it

[Rucession]

Originally posted by mdcpaladin:

thats so weird i dont understand it

Yeah, there just doesn't seem to be any intuitive logic behind why it works that way, which is why I personally believe it isn't functioning as intended. Unfortunately, the game developers have been entirely opaque with their design intentions, so we'll never know for sure.

[MrEntity]

The only reason I can think of for it working that way is to vaguely turn characters into Fire Emblem-style weapon triangles. Like, sword-boys are gonna do meh against sword-boys, but better against poke-boys and slash-boys. Which means you don't have to consult every character sheet for every character constantly. Which would be defensible if the game wasn't already over-complicated in general. And if it didn't affect magic.
More likely, though - it's just an over-ambitious old game with related issues and ideas that got worked out or thrown out in later games.

[Rucession]

Unfortunately, that's nowhere close to how Physical Resistances function in this game.

Each individual unit is equally "resistant" to Attacks of every Physical Damage Type (and every Elemental Damage Type as well before Elemental Resistances come into play).

For example, if a unit has a total of 8% Crushing Resistance on their Armor and is wielding a Crushing Weapon in their main hand, that 8% will be applied to incoming Attacks of every Physical/Elemental Damage Type.

[Thorbalt]

Originally posted by Rucession:

Originally posted by mdcpaladin:

thats so weird i dont understand it

Yeah, there just doesn't seem to be any intuitive logic behind why it works that way, which is why I personally believe it isn't functioning as intended. Unfortunately, the game developers have been entirely opaque with their design intentions, so we'll never know for sure.

No their intentions are obvious. Make a trash product that allows the bare minimum compared to what it used to be and get money for it (and an inflated amount). And the main philosophy in game design these days with remakes is ♥♥♥♥ the player

[MrEntity]

Originally posted by Thorbalt:

Originally posted by Rucession:

Yeah, there just doesn't seem to be any intuitive logic behind why it works that way, which is why I personally believe it isn't functioning as intended. Unfortunately, the game developers have been entirely opaque with their design intentions, so we'll never know for sure.

No their intentions are obvious. Make a trash product that allows the bare minimum compared to what it used to be and get money for it (and an inflated amount). And the main philosophy in game design these days with remakes is ♥♥♥♥ the player

A trash product that has a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of QoL and other fixes to make this game not incredibly tedious and fiddly to play? And charge 60$ for it when the original would cost you $124.68 on release (assuming a reasonable CAD low-medium price of 60$ originally)? And they would have likely had to reprogram almost all of the game from scratch? To function on all the computer hardware in the world? Clear cash-grab, I agree.

I will never understand people who refuse to acknowledge that games cost waaaayyy less than they should now.
Super Mario 3, if you do the inflation calculations, cost a bit over 130 CAD when it came out. It was programmed over 2 years by ~12 people, multiple of whom show up more than once in the credits. Mario Odyssey cost 89 CAD when it came out, and had at least 20 *departments* of people working over 3 years to make it. That math is nuts.
The cost of games for consumers is ludicrously low these days. Most people in the industry will tell you a AAA game should cost ~130-150$ on release, but unfortunately people are unwilling to accept that, and that's why we have to deal with predatory micro-transactions, DLC, and etc. This is why indie studios were so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by Unity. A lot of them are on record as saying things like "we make 10 cents per sale" because consumers have an idea of what a game should cost that hasn't moved from the 80s or 90s. Update your ideas.
60$ is a quite reasonable cost for a pretty thorough remake, especially when it's been 50% off multiple times since it was released.