Balance and Mechanics

Some random thoughts on future balancing and mechanics. All of this is work in progress and represents my current thoughts on these issues:

Increase all HP/Damage numbers:

This will be just a flat x1.5 to all hp and damage values that will simply make it easier to balance values. By applying this equally in all regards, this is not really a change in any mechanical sense. At the moment, its pretty tough to balance damage values when the numbers are so small so this just gives a bit more room to make fine adjustments. I want to keep the numbers reasonably small and immediately understandable so the multiplier will be something small like 1.5 or 2.0. Something like x10 would obviously make fine tuning super easy but A) I want to keep the numbers small so that comparisons can be made at a glance. B) I'd rather things be balanced by being actually different rather than extremely minute differences in numbers.

Decrease Max Ability / Weapon Range:

Currently the max range of weapons and abilities is, I believe 7, for both the player and the enemies. I want to reduce this to say 6 across the board with all lesser ranges adjusted accordingly. This is just a general, across the board nerf to range power of any source. At the moment, against a melee enemy, a ranger with a bow essentially gets 6 shots off before the melee enemy can close to range. The same is true in reverse with a melee pc chasing a ranged npc (without charge). In my opinion, melee should be quite a bit stronger on average than ranged damage since ranged damage is dealt from a safer distance. If I wanted to do this by adjusting just damage alone, melee weapons would therefore have to deal some absurd amount of damage to make up the difference. Therefore a slight nerf in max range and perhaps a slight boost to melee damage should bring them somewhat in line with each other.

Standardized Max Enchantment of 3:

Cap all items at a maximum enchantment of 3 and spread the power growth evenly across all 3 enchantment levels.

• First off this will help to make each point of enchantment more powerful. The difference between a long sword and a +1 long sword will be greater than in the current system. This fits in with my preference for 'chunky' stats and progression rather than fine tuning tiny numbers.
• This will reduce 'buy in' i.e. where you've poured so many points into a single item that its now a huge waste of time to swap to something else. This is just a general theme I have of encouraging the use of a wide set of tools rather than just focusing in on some narrow subset. If a new item is found, its not nearly as hard to add a point or two of enchantment to it and immediately make it useful in its specific niche.
• I will go in, by hand, and pretty much precisely set what each point of enchantment does on each item, and it will be balanced across values. For example, in the current game adding an enchantment to say a short sword takes it from 4dmg => 5 dmg an improvement of 20% wheres adding it to a war hammer takes it from 12dmg => 13dmg, a significantly lessor increase. With the new system, these will be balanced correctly. Again this will help to keep each piece of equipment distinct. That +1 warhammer that drops late in the game will retain its tempting massive damage even compared to a weapon that you have maximally enchanted. Obviously, based on your build, your unlikely to switch to the warhammer in this case permanently, rather it will be useful in some situations rather than just being garbage vendor food as it currently is.