democracy based wrmic remake thread READ BELOW BEFORE VOTING

[astreoth]

okay yeah I can see that I'll open up more threads but would like to have most if not all of the relevant issues gathered together before starting so anything to add?

[HousePet]

We could have a poll on how to manage the polls.

[astreoth]

well I can't think of enough other issues to make another poll right now and just about to go on a vacation that may or may not have wifi so I'll just pass the torch onto someone else to make a poll on whatever other issues their are.

know theirs the general dragon aspect tree at least so two or three more should be enough make me proud when I get back.

[Davion Fuxa]

Note - Bit Late on posting this but I'll post it here for people to read.

On the issues of Breath Attacks I'm not sure I can think of anything else that would need to be included as an option. I think making a poll deciding on what to do with Breath Attacks would be a good idea because that concept has received the most discussion currently.

On the issue regarding the Fungus category, I think it's too early to sort of establish a poll because no one has really established a concrete idea on a category replacement or what talents it might feature; thus no one has an idea on what would be replacing the Fungus category.

In regards to orientation on how Wyrmics work, there has been a little bit of Addon working in the following:

-Keeping Wyrmics Talent and Category Structure as is and reworking talents to be more effective overall without changing Wyrmic's Core Playstyle much (SageAcrin)
-Changing Wyrmics so they have generalist Draconic Abilities that are passively based on investment in the Elemental Drake Aspect categories (grayswandir)
-Changing Wyrmics so they have generalist Draconic Abilities that are actively based on investment in the Elemental Drake Aspect categories (Housepet)

At the end of my Analysis I also had a sort of had my own recommendation on an approach for Wyrmics to take:

-Keeping Wyrmics Talent and Category Structure but rearrange Talents and Categories while dramatically changing Breath Attack Mechanics from what they are now with direct Talents that interact with Breath Attack use (DavionFuxa)

I suppose a poll 'could' be done to try and decide a restructuring (or lack of restructuring) approach to designing Wyrmics, but likely it would be better to hold a poll on Breath Attacks first since they play such a core roll in the Wyrmics playstyle.

[dayna297]

Let me start off by saying that I am not as well versed as most of you when it comes to mechanical knowledge or experience in Tales of Maj'Eyal so I can mostly only offer my ideas and my opinions on ones already presented.

Particularly, if I understand Housepet's “infusion” suggestion correctly, it is the one I favor the most. So I'll touch on that idea with my own interpretation. Admittedly, some of what I am about to say is bound to be a duplicate idea due to not reading as close as I should have or simply for clarity.

Draconic Aspect – This tree will be composed of what I believe are the four main aspects: sand, fire, cold, and storm. Every skill in this tree is a sustain that provides an effect based on the type. Unfortunately, I'll have to use vague variables like X for numbers not only for this tree but for the following ones as well. Hopefully the core concepts can still be understood despite this.
Sand Aspect - +X Physical Resistance, Wyrmic abilities receive +X Physical Damage and % chance to blind enemy foes. At level X provides X stun immunity(?)
Fire Aspect - +X Fire Resistance, Wyrmic abilities receive +X Fire Damage (DoT) and a % chance to confuse(?) enemies. At level X provides X knock-back immunity(?)
Cold Aspect - +X Cold Resistance, Wyrmic abilities receive +X Cold damage, and a % chance to freeze enemies. At level X provides X pinning immunity(?)
Storm Aspect - +X Lightning Resistance, Wyrmic abilities receive +X Lightning Damage, and a % chance to daze enemies. At level X provides X confuse immunity(?)

*Only one aspect may be active at a time. (This will change later if a player decides to pick up the passive that allows it)
The question marks indicate that I wasn't too sure if the immunity effects were too powerful or weak.

My take on the idea of a “Generalist” tree.
Breath – This tree will involve the abilities that most closely resemble the traditional casters. Abilities in this tree scale off of willpower.
Dragon Breath – Deals damage in a frontal cone area of X influenced by current aspect sustains. If no aspect is available a random damage type is selected from learned aspect talents. Note: This will be a reoccurring theme for future attacks throughout this suggestion, if Tales has some idea of Pure Damage then it can always use that instead.
Vicious Breath – Dragonic Breath attacks ignore X% of enemy resistances.
Dragon's Roar – Release a burst of energy in a radius of X.
Condensed Breath – Release a burst of energy in a line dealing extraordinary damage along a pathway. Condensed Breath is capable of destroying destructible walls.
*In alternative to Condensed Breath is: Inhale - Lowers the CD of Draconic Breath abilities by X and makes the next breath attack deal X% more damage.

A probable version of an unlockable tree would be something like this.
Draconic Ascension
Draconic Endowment - Investing in this talent allows the user to how have multiple aspects active up to a maximum of X.
Dragon’s Greed - You have the greed of a dragon, find X% more gold on bodies.
Dragon’s Ire - Whenever X damage is taken while you are affected by a detrimental status effect, remove a random detrimental status effect.
Dragon Kin - Draconic Aspect abilities have a chance to instantly be put back on if they were to ever be removed by an enemies effect. (I’m not sure if there is something that makes it so sustains cannot be knocked off, so I supposed this is a viable alternative?)

Well, there clearly needs to be more but I was curious if anyone at least liked the concept before I even bothered to continue.

[jotwebe]

Where do you want to have the traditional wyrmic talents in this concept?

The problem with your aspects is the same one the old alchemist infusions had, with the ones above the best infusion not getting used and the ones below being a point tax for the ones above. Can work if the best "infusion" is the capstone, so it's worth paying the point tax, and ideally they'd be pretty close in usefulness so you could save a few points by concentrating on the lower ones or even viably be a generalist.

I'd rate
resistances:
phys >> fire = cold > lighting
damage bonuses:
phys >> lightning = fire > cold
debuffs:
confuse > blind > freeze > daze
immunities:
stun > confuse >> pin > knockback

where >> is a lot better, > is a bit better, and = is about equal.

So sand would be extremely good just for boosting your weapon damage and protecting against ubiquitous physical damage, blind kinda makes sense but it should give the weakest of immunities, knockback. Possibly have a 20-50% weaker effect resistance/damage buff effect than the others. I think it's a good candidate for being the 4th talent.

Cold damage is kinda weak, since so much stuff resists it (lots of undead, also cryomancer rares can get an affinity), but as a resistance it's okay (cryomancers and necros, many early bosses. The debuff has kinda has to be freeze, of course - I'd take confusion and blind over freeze, but not all that much. I'd have it give stun/freeze immunity, which would be fitting, and also make it the 1st talent.

Lightning isn't resisted by much (drakes and elementals), but then not that much stuff does lightning damage once you get through daikara and the urkis quest, apart from the occasional snow giant thunderer or wight (and wyrms of course, but all elements get those). Daze is of course the weakest debuff. I'd make it the 2nd talent and give it pinning immunity.

Fire damage has the problem that some nasty things get healed by it, and apart from elementals and drakes sandworms ad more importantly some major demons resist it. On the other hand it gets a bonus against some stuff, including the super nasty worm that walks, so I'd rate it equal to lightning as a damage type. Fire resist is useful throughout the game versus skelly mages, and in the late game vs pyromancers. I'd give it confusion immunity and make it the 3rd talent.

I wouldn't give wyrmics beam attacks, to keep them distinct from casters (maybe narrow cones like the acid wave/biting gale runes).

The ascension tree is unnecessary, imho. We can soft cap the number of sustains you can concurrently run via equi costs, and pick appropriate talents to reduce the equi cost of a sustain as a passive effect.

I like the idea of an inhale talent - it should pull everybody in LoS one step towards the caster mainly for flavor.