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OLD Feb Playtest
Topic Started: Feb 22 2016, 09:01 PM (5,637 Views)
Moriya
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I like the direction you seem to be taking things. Some of the simplifications were sorely needed (looking at you, Solid Rock and Filter). I do have a few questions about wording and intent on some abilities. I'm going to copy-paste things for everyone's ease of reading.

Quick Curl:
Quote:
 
Ability: Quick Curl
Scene – Swift Action
Effect: Connection - Defense Curl. The user may use Defense Curl as a Swift Action, and gains +15 Damage Reduction for 1 full round.
Which of the following is an accurate re-wording?
Quote:
 
Ability: Quick Curl
Effect: Connection - Defense Curl.
Scene – Swift Action: The user gains +15 Damage Reduction for 1 full round.
Bonus: The user may use Defense Curl as a Swift Action.
Quote:
 
Ability: Quick Curl
Effect: Connection - Defense Curl
Scene – Swift Action: The user may use Defense Curl as a Swift Action for 1 full round. The user gains +15 Damage Reduction for 1 full round.
Quote:
 
Ability: Quick Curl
Effect: Connection - Defense Curl
Scene – Swift Action: The user may use Defense Curl as a Free Action. The user gains +15 Damage Reduction for 1 full round.
I think the second one is correct, but it seems odd to have an ability that consumes a Swift action, then allows you to do something else as a Swift action.

Rock Head:
Quote:
 
Ability: Rock Head
Static
Effect: The user ignores the Recoil keyword when attacking. If the user moved at least 4 meters in a straight line towards an an adjacent foe before using a damaging attack, they may add a +10 Bonus to the Damage Roll.
The intent of this ability is clearly to enhance Physical Melee moves. If my Cranidos charges from 8m away to 4m away from a Wingull, stops directly in front of a Geodude, and uses Thunderbolt on the Wingull, should it still receive the damage bonus?

Weird Power:
Quote:
 
Ability:Weird Power
Static
Effect: If the user’s Attack is higher than its Special Attack, the user may add its Attack Stat to its Special Damage Rolls. If their Special Attack is higher, they user may add its Special Attack Stat to its Physical Damage Rolls. This does not stack with Mixed Power.
Does the bonus stat damage replace existing stat damage or get added to existing stat damage?

Example: Suppose I have a Zorua with Weird Power, 10 Attack, and 5 Special Attack. If it uses Pursuit, the damage is (Pursuit DB)+10. If it uses Snarl, the damage is (Snarl DB)+5+10. Is this the intended behavior? Should Snarl deal (Snarl DB)+10 damage?
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SonusAnima
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I've seen many Abilities that grant flat bonuses, like Filter, Rock Solid, Sniper, etc.

I believe that design-wise, this is unbalanced. Sniper would wreck everything at early levels, yet be pretty useless at later ones. Filter and Rock solid aren't so abundant and are used as vital defences by stuff like Mega Aggron and Amaura, which desperately needed that resistance buff, or in case of Mega Aggron was its niche. I'd consider leaving them as they were or introducing a scaling element, preferably with level like Huge Power.

Maybe the bonus for having both was a bit overpowered, but I still believe that upping resistance is a must for some pokémon. It saves you the trouble of designing a scaling system.

I liked what you did with Pure/Huge power, Shuckle's new ability and Weird Power. Also it feels like many evolution lines will shine more due to their new abilities diversifying the playfield.

EDIT: Also, I noticed Primal Groudon doesn't have his Ground/Fire Typing like in the games. Either here or in the last Pokédex version. Is this intentional?
Edited by SonusAnima, Feb 23 2016, 07:21 PM.
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Najundam1
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is there a chance in 1.06 we could get an update version of the other eevee evolution.
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Doxy
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Najundam1
Feb 23 2016, 07:28 PM
is there a chance in 1.06 we could get an update version of the other eevee evolution.
what?
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Najundam1
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the eevees on Do Porygon dream of Mareep for types that have not been made yet
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Domo
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Personally I disagree with Sniper; the early game damage boost is real, but not actually that significant. And here's a good, easy example:

Binacle. It's one of the handful of Pokemon that could even get access to Sniper as a basic ability (barring Cool Expert). Looking at one of its earliest moves, Water Gun, 1.05 Sniper adds ~15 damage on average compared to playtest Sniper's flat 20. While that is, yes, a nice boost at extremely low levels of gameplay, it is not that huge of a buff, and certainly not something that is going to completely unbalance the few Pokemon who can start with Sniper. The difference in average damage slowly evens out and by about level 40 starts to swing the other direction, which I think is fair given that late game Snipers usually have much more access to critfishing support and needed a slight nerf for how reliable crits start to get.
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SonusAnima
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Domo
Feb 23 2016, 07:33 PM
Personally I disagree with Sniper; the early game damage boost is real, but not actually that significant. And here's a good, easy example:

Binacle. It's one of the handful of Pokemon that could even get access to Sniper as a basic ability (barring Cool Expert). Looking at one of its earliest moves, Water Gun, 1.05 Sniper adds ~15 damage on average compared to playtest Sniper's flat 20. While that is, yes, a nice boost at extremely low levels of gameplay, it is not that huge of a buff, and certainly not something that is going to completely unbalance the few Pokemon who can start with Sniper. The difference in average damage slowly evens out and by about level 40 starts to swing the other direction, which I think is fair given that late game Snipers usually have much more access to critfishing support and needed a slight nerf for how reliable crits start to get.
This. In the Videogames, Sniper works because crits are damn hard to get. But here there's a ton more options to ease their appearance, so the Ability will be very strong if the player can exploit that. I think reducing pokémon's access to crit increasing moves is better than nerfing this ability, because not many species will get access to it before it becomes irrelevant at higher levels.
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Najundam1
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I dont see this on here much, but I just want to say, You all made a great game that is real fun to Play
Edited by Najundam1, Feb 23 2016, 08:04 PM.
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Doxy
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Kasumi
Feb 23 2016, 06:46 PM
I'm also noticing a lot of moving away from playing with the Damage Base and more towards flat +5 bonuses, which have a lot of the same problem of scaling poorly. What's the design intent there?
Well, Damage Bases don't scale either I'm afraid to say.

I long ago noticed that people are very adverse to static number bonuses, and so for a long time tried to do things mostly through damage bases.

The problem with this is that due to how Damage Bases scale, these bonuses benefit high DB Moves much more than low DB Moves.

If do it through Damage Bases, I have two choices. The first choice is to set DB bonuses to be fairly low, such as Adaptability's old +1 DB. This makes for very sad little abilities.

My other option, in theory, would be to say FUGG EET and set things to be more like, +3 Damage Bases. While that only gives +7 damage on average to an otherwise DB6 Move, to a DB14 Move it grants more like +20 Damage on average. I do not want to do this because PTU can already suffer from rocket-tag and high-DB moves are appropriately incentivized as-is.

Same deal with Sniper by the way; +20 might seem like a huge bonus early and feel like it'll peter out late-game, but Crit Damage was based on Damage Bases, which again, do not scale in and of themselves. 20 damage is roughly the equivalent of a Damage Base 9 attack. So yes, it's a very nice buff to very-low DB moves, but not as humongous as you might think (At DB4 it's +10 more damage, only +5 damage at DB6).

The long and short of it is, that while I understand that psychologically there's a certain preoccupation with 'scaling', that's already taken care of by the accumulation of Abilities/Features over time and the Pokemon's Stats. The system is built and balanced around the interplay of Static Numbers, Scaling Numbers, and Multiplicative Factors and all three are needed for proper health.

Static Numbers are necessary because they provide the system's backbone and help equalize access. Scaling numbers meanwhile provide advancement and customization. Multiplicative Factors which provide high-payoff interactions and force tactical decisions. If everything was Static, that'd be boring for fairly obvious reasons. But if everything was scaling or multiplicative, it would create a highly unbalanced environment where a lot of factors would stack in exaggerated ways, pushing the system towards Rocket-Tag with insane damage numbers that could only be survived by dedicated tanks, with Pokemon in the middle or other approaches being unable to compete.


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SonusAnima
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Doxy
Feb 23 2016, 07:55 PM

I long ago noticed that people are very adverse to static number bonuses, and so for a long time tried to do things mostly through damage bases.
I'm alright with the changes in Sniper, but Filter and Solid Rock have seen a massive decrease in power. 5 reduction is okay, but most mons that have those abilities are quadruple weak to elements. Those mons are gonna see a massive hole in their defenses, Amaura among them.

Mega Aggron gets significantly weaker if it can't tank properly.
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