So here comes the age old question, when giving the player the ability to inflict poison upon an enemy should it be a static/literal number of damage or a percentage of the enemy's health?

On one hand, you have a static number that may seem good in the beginning but becomes meaningless in later battles (ex. 50 damage a tick, when dealing with an enemy that has 500 life that's not bad at all but when they are a boss with 10000 life, 50 seems so small compared to your hits that deal a good 700 a pop).

On the other, you have a percentage which scales with the growth of the enemies...say 10%. Which against an enemy of 500 life it's 50 damage, but against a boss with 2000 that's 200 damage. In my current game, at the point where the first boss becomes available dealing that much in poison is ridiculous as it is about the damage of a standard hit. If taken down to 5% that makes the damage 100 which is alittle more bearable; however, that means that poison only deals 25 damage a tick to the 500 life enemy.

How would you guys do it? How HAVE you done it? Is there a work around where when dealing in percentages you make another state specifically for inflicting upon bosses to lower the percentage? (Bc that's what I'm thinking about attempting to event...) Let me know what you all think.

Well, I've added both.

Basically there are types of poison or burn.

Poison > 5 / tick | Burn > 6 / tick

Venom > 15 / tick | Scold > 16 / tick

In-toxic > 25 / tick | Cinder > 26 / tick

Bio > 50 / tick | Scorn > 51 / tick


I have then made % versions too;

Potent Poison > 5% / tick | Potent Burn > 7% / tick

Potent Venom > 10% / tick | Potent Scold > 12% / tick

Potent Bio > 15% / tick | Potent Scorn > 16% / tick


Of course, names and static numbers are changed, they are just examples. But adding the two makes the player more alert to what type of poison they have. You can make enemies immune to the higher teirs of % damage of course, because as you said, the stronger the enemy, the more damage they do. OR you can even add a "Cap" on the amount of damage a % DoT can do. I.e monsters above level 50 have a max of 499 HP / turn, which in my opinion is an ideal banter. You can make then seperate spells. I.e

Poison 1 > Poisons the enemy (Add status: Poison)
Poison 2 > Poisons the enemy more precisely (Add status: Venom)
Intoxicate > Afflicts the enemy with a potent poison (Add status: In-toxic)
Bio > Afflicts the enemy with a dangerous poison (Add status: Bio)

The teir two versions of the poisons can be activated via special move, or a skill that temporarily lets the player have access to more spells for that few turns or something. Finishers ect.

P.Poison > Poisons enemy which consumes health gradually (Add status: Potent Poison)
ect
ect
ect...

So in my honest opinion, I would prefer to have both types of damage formulas in terms of DoT. Like I said, you don't have to GIVE the player access to the mathematical formula damage calculations, maybe they're boss exclusive, skill exclusive, rare item exclusive, ability exclusive.

The primary difference between % and flat is their relevance as a skill upon leveling.

A % skill always remains relevant. This can be good and bad. If the skill requires a flat cost gained at a lower level, it will get more powerful yet cost less than it's newer counterparts.

A flat skill is typically replaced by a stronger skill that requires a higher cost. Typically this formula works when the game has a lower growth between levels, lower max levels, and/or a system that allows skill equipping.

It largely depends on the rest of the game's mechanics.

When figuring it out, simulate a battle. Decide how much damage per hit a player inflicts versus the poison damage, how long you want the battle to last, etc. Also decide, since poison is highly strategic skill, what kind of strategy is it asking of the player, and where is it relevant to the strategy for any monster, boss or otherwise.

I prefer for poison to be % based so that it stays relevant. Poison (or whatever you want to call it) is usually one of the last skills I would give the player access to, so enemies can use it against the player throughout the game and the player can learn to dread it, but finally getting the skill seems like a big deal and, since growth curves tend to level-off as games progresses, you don't have to worry about how helpful the spell will be against every enemy over the course of the entire game.

The idea of a poison spell just for bosses is a good one, since traditionally bosses are immune to stat ailments. That way you can adjust the % appropriately.

% gives generally better range throughout the game. 1%-5% is probably enough, except for really serious poisons.

Of a far bigger consideration is the Regen stat. The average turn counts as yours and your enemy, meaning if four characters attack, and you have 10% healing, the characters have to consistently deal 10% or more damage, of the party risks up to a 50% renewal while attacking. Even 1% can be harsh if the enemy has something like 900000 hp (that's 9k! If you were physical attacking you'd need to be doing crits regularly, or using perfect magic). Regen pretty much needs to be fixed, and probably rather low (250 is a good high number, 50 is a good low).

I prefer my damage over time to be based on the caster's attack power and the target's defense power (or magic power and magic defense). Basically, treat the damage formula just like any other skill. That way I don't ever have to make anything in the game immune to it.

I really hate guessing status immunities, and I really hate bosses that cause a bunch of your more interesting tactics to not work (bosses shouldn't be the most boring part of the game). I prefer to balance all my statuses so that nothing ever has to be immune to them.

Well for awhile there I was going with the 5% I quoted earlier on the burn(which is what I'm using in my game), which isn't too high to be mistaken for a standard hit on a boss or too low to be worthless on a 500 life enemy. But after reading what LockeZ had to say, it makes me want to make things complicated lmao I could probably do it through common events called through using the skill, utilize variables, throw the illusion that this is still just a standard status affliction, etc lol the cool part about this is that if you raised your strength/attack power then you leave a bigger DoT for the Boss or whoever to deal with. What do you think a good formula would be? Should I do it based off of the actual STATS or should I do it as a percentage of the damage dealt by the blow that afflicted the burn? I'm kind of leaning towards the latter as that's what I've seen in several mmos...thoughts?

edit: if I do the latter, I'd have to do the math in the common event and find out how much damage is going to be dealt before it happens...then take a percentage of THAT and have it be the DoT for the next few turns lmao umm anyone know the math on a strength based skill? I can probably figure out the rest once I know how to get THAT

I think the best way to handle poison and other damage-over-time abilities is to have them scale off of attack/magic power just like any other spell or ability. For example, poison could do 150% of the damage of a comparable level spell, but do it's damage over 3-4 turns, and not stacking with itself. It's fairly powerful, and worth using, but only on tougher enemies that you don't just blow up right away. Plus it works just like any other spell, it won't stay powerful for too long or lose potency too quickly.

If you're making something with RPG maker, I don't know how well it handles something like that. Looking at RMXP, it doesn't look like it's set up for that, only for 10% per turn. (and only that!?) But if you can do a little scripting to keep track of individual DoTs and the power associated with the casting of them, it can be done.

There's a HoT/DoT script around that I'm currently using http://forum.chaos-project.com/index.php?topic=2481.0. If I could get it to use a variable instead of a constant number, I'd be in business lol

That's so if the boss has a special weakness (hit it with fire, then crack its armor with ice), you don't have someone going "screw that weakness system you made, I'm gonna hit it with poison." Also, if you use the same tactics against every boss, this gets boring (remember the vanish-doom trick in FF3?). That said, if every boss is immune to every status, it's equally boring. I like the minigame puzzle boss that Zelda and Final Fantasy X and Okami started doing.