Improving the "Use Talents" screen

[tiger_eye]

The "Use Talents" screen (press "m") separates talents into four categories:
1) Activable talents,
2) Sustainable talents,
3) Sustained talents, and
4) Cooling Down talents.

Maybe I'm playing the wrong characters, but "(1) Activable talents" often gets a lot of talents (25-30+) , and it's a bit overwhelming to look through all that to find an appropriate talent to use for my current situation. I think it would be a great help to separate "(1) Activable talents" into two categories based on the following tactical info:

1a) ATTACK, ATTACKAREA, DISABLE, CLOSEIN
1b) BUFF, DEFEND, ESCAPE, HEAL

It's simple to do: talents belong in (1a) if the sum of the tactical weights of that group are greater than the sum of the weights of group (1b). If there is a tie, then the talent belongs in (1b) if there is any other miscellaneous tactical info like STAMINA or MANA, otherwise it belongs in (1a). There are only a few ties right now, so the tactical info should probably be modified slightly to remove any ambiguities in groupings.

I estimate (*roughly*) that group (1a) would have approximately 300 talents, and (1b) would have approximately 200 talents (of which BUFF is the largest group).

I quickly perused the talents, and I estimate that these groupings should "just work"--as in the talent will be in the group you expect--about 95+% of the time. In my perusals, though, I did find a few talents whose tactical info should be revised. If there is sufficient interest, I can post the approximately 30 talents that I was unsure whether they should be in group (1a) or (1b), as well as the talents whose tactical weights I find a bit wonky.

The other plus side of this is that the tactical weights will most likely get improved, making the AI even better

[tiger_eye]

Regardless of whether the above suggestions gets done or not, I think the following changes should be made to these tactical weights:

Code: Select all

TALENT NAME              CURRENT                                               PROPOSED

Repulsion Blast:       { ATTACKAREA = 2, ESCAPE = 2 }                        { ATTACKAREA = 2, ESCAPE = 1 }
Blood Grasp:           { ATTACK = 2, HEAL = 2 }                              { ATTACK = 2, HEAL = 1 }
Supercharge Golem:     { DEFEND = 1, ATTACK=1 }                              { DEFEND = 1, ATTACK=1, BUFF = 1 }
Time Prison:           { DISABLE = 1, ESCAPE = 3, PROTECT = 3 }              { DISABLE = 3, ESCAPE = 2, PROTECT = 3 }
Retch:                 { ATTACK = 1, HEAL = 1 }                              { ATTACKAREA = {[DamageType.RETCH] = 1}, HEAL = 2 }  <-- RETCH damage will work here, right?
Wing Buffet:           { DEFEND = 1, DISABLE = 2, ESCAPE = 1 }               { DEFEND = 1, DISABLE = 2, ESCAPE = 1, ATTACKAREA = 1 }
Push Kick:             { ATTACK = 2, ESCAPE = 2 }                            { ATTACK = 2, ESCAPE = 2, DISABLE = 1 }
Knockback:             { DEFEND = 2, DISABLE = 1 }                           { DEFEND = 1, DISABLE = 1, ATTACK = 1 }
Lightning Speed:       { CLOSEIN = 2, ESCAPE = 2 }                           { CLOSEIN = 2, ESCAPE = 2, BUFF = 0.5 }
Essence of Speed:      { BUFF = 2 }                                          { BUFF = 2, CLOSEIN = 2, ESCAPE = 2 }
Grace of the Eternals: { DEFEND = 1 }                                        { BUFF = 2, CLOSEIN = 2, ESCAPE = 2 }
Wrath of the Woods:    { ATTACK = 1, DEFEND = 1 }                            { ATTACK = 1, DEFEND = 1, BUFF = 1 }
Tidal Wave:            { ESCAPE = 2, ATTACKAREA = 1, DISABLE = 1 }           { ESCAPE = 1, ATTACKAREA = 2, DISABLE = 1 }

With these changes, the only talents I'm currently not sure about regarding the above suggestion are:
Stone Wall (you can target an enemy at high levels, so the weights should probably change)
Burrow
Dimensional Step
Reflective Skin
psionic/voracity talents

The attached file includes the changes listed above as well as some formatting changes to make the talent tactical weight more consistent and easily grep-able, and also a few typo fixes.

[greycat]

A good start would be to separate runes/infusions into a different group than actual talents.

[lukep]

One change that I want is to switch the organization from alphabetical to being based on tiers. For example, an archer's talent display (with only the three trees) would look like this:

Steady Shot
Flare
Piercing Arrow
Crippling Shot
Dual Arrows
Pinning Shot
Volley of Arrows
Relaxed Shot
Scatter Shot

Aim
Rapid Shot

This leads to a display that is more intuitive to me, with weaker talents at the top, and more advanced ones at the bottom. This could be done within your proposed system quite easily as well.

[bricks]

"Weaker" is a rather hairy distinction. I find alphabetical to be the most intuitive, although I don't use the screen for anything other than assigning hotkeys. Secondary organization by tree would also be OK for me.

A quick "sort by" dialog should leave everyone happy. Being able to sort by cooldown would be nice in a few situations.

[Frumple]

Ability to just sort the ruddy thing manually might be nice, too. Drag and drop, yo', or a simple 'assign letter' dialogue. Perhaps even the ability to make custom groupings according to one's own preferences. A 'hide' option for certain talents would be delightful as well.

If we're just throwing stuff out, being able to stick items, or have them automatically display, in that list would be nice, too.