Poisoning/Burning still broken

[DGDobrev]

I can assure you that as soon as you get the hang of it, you are going to love the new formula.

[bot_pet]

It actually makes more sense with this formula... imagine in the real world 1 guy poisoning a well in a village with 10 population, then 1 guy poisoning a well in a castle with 500 population. The same 1 guy did much more damage to the castle population

I guess they went with this line of thinking, maybe to open up new strategies or something

[Kathos]

I don't really understand how to read that formula, but I have definitely noticed the damage on burn damage (havn't really been poisoned yet, although my royal snakes poison doesn't hit high at all) is disgustingly high. I hate the new formula for it though because the computer always has 100+ burn damage on any of my units, and I get a whopping 20-40. To say the least it's really pissing me off trying to play with no losses and I have to restart every battle with a hero because of the damage coming out of an enemy hero's flaming arrow with 2 intellect and killing several high health units with it that are hard to resurrect in a 3-4 round fight.
In KBTL I really only used psn/burn to lower defense/attack, I never relied on the damage since it didn't do a whole lot anyways. From 1 extreme to the other =/

[DGDobrev]

I can assure you that burning/poisoning is only irritating in the beginning. Once YOU get to use this little tool and master it with time, you will change your opinion.

General rule of thumb when using units with burning/poisoning post-effects:

1. Make sure the enemy stack is big or is comprised of high-health units.
2. Make sure the enemy stack has low fire/poison resistance. The lower the resistances, the better the effect.
3. Make sure the leadership difference between your stack and the enemy stack is close. This will maximize the effect.

You will soon find out that it is worth it. Whenever I play with units with post-effects, I always make sure that I get the battle alchemy medal. The extra poisoning/burning damage is more than welcome.

[Stepsongrapes]

Originally Posted by bot_pet

It actually makes more sense with this formula... imagine in the real world 1 guy poisoning a well in a village with 10 population, then 1 guy poisoning a well in a castle with 500 population. The same 1 guy did much more damage to the castle population

I guess they went with this line of thinking, maybe to open up new strategies or something

It doesn't make sense. In your analogy, each of the 10 people or 500 people would get a little sick. Yes, more people get a little sick in the second scenario because of the numbers, but no one dies.

In Armored Princess: with 10 people, the first guy in the stack gets a little sick. With 500 people, first guy in the stack drops dead. The game is calculating damage as a fraction of the total stack health, but applying it ALL to the first guy. Strange how more people drinking from the well made the first guy keel over, eh?

If they wanted to make poisoning more sensical (but still useful) the effect should be some percent decrease of health for every unit in the stack: i.e., a stack of ten 100-hp units becomes a stack of ten 90-hp units. This simulates the weakening/burning effect.

Lumping all of the effects for the whole stack against the top guy is very unrealistic. Now, I understand that game mechanics need not be realistic. This new system may or may not be better for gameplay, but it certainly isn't grounded in realism.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

Basic formula:

Damage = Burn/Poison Factor * random number (0.05-1) * Current total troop health * Medal Bonus

where:
1) Burn/Poison factor is equal to - Leadership of the troop who inflicted the post-effect/Leadership of the Target
Restrictions: min 0.1, max 1.0. The factor can only range between these 2 values.
Special: Burn/Poison factor for spells is always 1.0. It is also 1.0 for the summoned Phoenix's ability Fire storm.
2) Current total troop health - the current total health of the troop that has received the post effect.
3) Medal bonus - the bonus from the Battle Alchemy medal. According to the level of the medal, the bonus is 10/20/30%, so the multiplier will be 1.1/1.2/1.3.
Restrictions: if a friendly unit is poisoned by friendly unit's attack that has a post-effect, the multiplier is 1, regardless of the level of the medal.

There you go. These are the game mechanics. I know that KBTL had it different, but this is how it's done in KBAP. In this case the current total troop health was your biggest problem. If it were 1 snake, it would have burned for 1 point.

Ah, okay, so if burn factor = 1 (Equal or greater leadership in attacker), and the random number is 1, then the stack is killed outright? 1*1*currentHealth = currentHealth.

Is the random number meant to be .05 to .1? or .05 to 1? Because that simply isn't supported by experimental data.

[DGDobrev]

Well, the random number is any number between 0.05 and 1. Generally, I think it's pretty much impossible to get 1 as a number. That would be like hitting the jackpot. The leadership of the both troops also applies. It is very hard to find 2 troops with equal leadership. usually either your unit will have more or the enemy's.

Let's not leave out the resistances. They also factor in the damage calculation, but at a much later time.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

Well, the random number is any number between 0.05 and 1. Generally, I think it's pretty much impossible to get 1 as a number. That would be like hitting the jackpot. The leadership of the both troops also applies. It is very hard to find 2 troops with equal leadership. usually either your unit will have more or the enemy's.

Let's not leave out the resistances. They also factor in the damage calculation, but at a much later time.

Hmm, this is still not sounding right, because the leaderships need not be that close, as long as the poisoners leadership is higher, that will get that max poison, according to the equation you have listed. Also, if you just cast poison skull on someone, which has the factor being 1, you will do randomly 5% to 100% damage to the stack on the next turn. That's an average of 52.5% damage... and is completely not what actually happens in game.

Where exactly are you deriving these numbers from? Decomposed script file somewhere? I think there is something very wrong here. That random number either has the wrong boundaries noted, current health represents a percentage of total, or something.

[Granamyr]

If they wanted to make poisoning more sensical (but still useful) the effect should be some percent decrease of health for every unit in the stack

That's a great idea! Sort of a poor man's version of Pygmy. You still get get the crazy amount of damage (depending on stack size) and it has a more realistic edge to it.

Consider the one bowman igniting a stack of 100 assassins....even if it reduces the health of the stack by 1 point, that's 100 damage but you won't have people up in arms because a lone bowman just killed one of a group of 100 assassins (and threatens to do the same on the next 2 turns....300 damage from one bowman is broken).

[DGDobrev]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

Hmm, this is still not sounding right, because the leaderships need not be that close, as long as the poisoners leadership is higher, that will get that max poison, according to the equation you have listed. Also, if you just cast poison skull on someone, which has the factor being 1, you will do randomly 5% to 100% damage to the stack on the next turn. That's an average of 52.5% damage... and is completely not what actually happens in game.

Where exactly are you deriving these numbers from? Decomposed script file somewhere? I think there is something very wrong here. That random number either has the wrong boundaries noted, current health represents a percentage of total, or something.

From the Russian KBAP guide. I simply translated it, because it sounds about right. I am not certain whether the defense of a unit factors in the post-effect damage calculation.

EDIT! OUCH!!! For shame, I seem to have made a very serious blunder. That will explain a lot. The random number varies from 0.05 to 0.1, not 1. Jesus... I'll fix it right away.