rebalancing cumulative infravision ranges

[marvalis]

Currently there are several items in the game that can give bonus to infra-vision. These are great, especially when combined with the talent Heightened Senses for 5-9 additional range.

In my last game I had the skin of many and the wintertide phial:
6+6
and heightened sense (1)
+5
and another item
+1

For a total of 18 infravision range. This is great to have, but somewhat unbalanced. I do not think stacking these is working as intended.

The solution would be to give smaller bonus on equipment items (+1 or +2 bonus, or even +3 is better than +6 we have now).
In addition, equipment items could give you minimum range of 6-8 or whatever.

So skin of many:
Infra-vision +2 (min range 6)

If you have no infravision, you would get range 6.

If already have 5 range from heightened senses, then you will get range 7, and not range 11.
If you also have the wintertide phial, then you will get range 10, and not range 17
If you add more points to heightened senses then you can have up to 9+2+2=13 range
(most monsters have range 10 infravision)

[edge2054]

I think a lot of the bonuses could be halved for sure. A lot of the infravision values are hold overs from when max line of sight was 20. Now that it's only 10 infravision should probably cap at 10 and be a lot harder to stack.

*ninja edit* Of course highers should be able to push that cap up higher with their racial talent.

[Zonk]

PERHAPS we could make infravision not apply outside your sight range, but add some egoes/artifacts that increase sight range by +1(amulets of vision come to mind - (currently the only source of that effect is the Higher talent).

[Elkan]

If this were to be implemented I think NPC infravison would need to be looked at pretty seriously also, as almost all NPC's have a infravision range of 10 and do not need light AFAIK. Whilst this *does* make sense for a number of monsters, I think a lot of monsters could use some revisiting in terms of which ones need light, generate light and where the previous two are false, what their infravision ranges should be.

I've also been playing with the idea that monsters with a strong (8+) infravision might in fact be dazzled or blinded by a very bright (+3 or stronger) Light source - Causing to hit penalties in the case of dazzling. (a guttering torch makes a guy in a dark room an easy target, Firing a bow at someone standing in front of the sun is a bitch) A paladin Radiating an aura of light, with a mirror shield and an artifact light source is going to be very much like someone pointing an incandescent floodlight right at you, and that is SO going to ruin the mole peoples day.

(Edit: grammar, typos)

[marvalis]

Ahahahaha great idea's Elkan.

[bricks]

Yeah, re: my post in the spoilers forum, there is currently no use for infravision over regular light other than it's more plentiful. It should have a purpose beyond Stealth. Also, see my suggestion about giving access to level 1 stealth for all classes.

[Elkan]

For those monsters which logically or lore wise have no innate infravision (lets say elven cultists, for the sake of argument) to become invisible to them, all you would need to do is turn off your light source outside of their light radius and move a couple of squares, you should now be invisible to them, they should possibly be granted a small chance to spot you based on sounds, ranged attacks etc, and failing that can blast away at your "last known location" with AOE. But as it presently, anything that can draw an LOS to you at range 10 or less can see you all the time. no matter what, and its a bit one sided.

Implementing this could give some nice tactical flexibility (and it might be nice to have "Shutter lite" Key command or ability or simply give everyone a very basic form of stealth, lets call it sneak, separate from and vastly inferior to "stealth" with stealth supplanting sneak if it is available) The mechanics could also backfire of course, a player controlled rogue with his lite off and high infravision opening a vault door to find a radiant horror behind it is going to be blinking away purple and green spots for hours.

[TheRani]

Right now, infravision will light the tiles around you if you have lots of it (something like 1 light radius per 4 points of infravision), and I often like to stack it for use as a substitute for normal light. I would be fine with limiting infravision's monster detection to 10, but further amounts of it should still count for light radius. Like if you have 20 infravision, it should let you see monsters 10 tiles away, and give you light radius 5.

[Grey]

Maybe the player should be given base 4 infravision, and the different talents and such that change it can be reduced to having ranges on the lines of +1 to +3, whilst giving other extra effects to compensate.

Infravision is definitely useful on non-rogues by the way - it lets you see monsters beyond your light radius. The only problem is it's not particularly useful unless stacking several sources.

Would also be nice if some enemies had reduced infravision ranges and sight ranges - not everything should have 10 vision range.