ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

This new prodigy gives the character 5 levels in a chosen talent and raises the cap of it by 5. So a character with level 3 in daggers suddenly has level 8 and can have a maximum of level 10.

I like the idea of supercharging a skill! But that could lead to some scary things, like alchy bombs that cover the entire screen, or summons with no cooldown.
But those crazy talents would be half the fun, right?

Given that it only boosts ONE talent, and can't be acquired twice for 2 different talents (I'm Assuming) that might be balanced, actually. OTOH, rebalancing mods like infinite500 (which are deliberately designed to keep out of control scaling under control) might have an effect on it.

Might also consider that if you buff the talent for RANGE on alchy bombs, you aren't buffing damage, but if you bump damage more, you don't get anything on the range. Also, some talents go purely by the base talent level, and even cap at a certain point... Think about ancestral growth? Set that to 10 with good willpower, and how would more then 100% of a turn when using regen work? Seems like a few talents could get buggy as a field in June with this. If we go this route, could create havoc for the coding of certain talents.

There's a few problems with this, as I see it.

One: The comments about skills spiraling out of control. This is very valid, some skills were designed with incredibly powerful linear effects(such as Essence of Speed) or even increasing returns(Freeze), as they stand. Adding five levels also breaks normal Raw Talent Level limitations, which can really end up silly.

Two: It's harder to code than it sounds. You have to make an interface that handles every single skill in the game and detects which you currently have, for your choice. Not impossible, but solid amounts of work.

Three: It's boring. Players are going to see incredibly obvious targets(mostly taken from the first problem).

In general, people will all pick the same few skills to use this on, with little to no thought involved.

I'd personally much rather see a skill that gives a strong category rank bonus instead(Say, 0.3/0.4) to the category of your choice. It doesn't avoid #2 very well, either, but #1 and 3...well, if there are categories that go massively out of control even at 2.0 category rank, there's a problem, because you can already hit pretty close to that(category point+mastery amulet). I don't know of any, though.

The payoff would be pretty good, though, and it makes it less of a linear "one skill" thing and more a question of if you want to buff a specific, powerful skill and don't care about the other things in the category, or if you want to buff an entire, often used, category instead.

and how would more then 100% of a turn when using regen work?

If you, say, got 130% of a turn, you would get your regen for free, and then 30% of the time towards the next turn, so your next turn would come in 70% the time.

The coding issue is not really a problem. I have fixed (almost) all of the talent scaling problems in the I500 addon, so if and when these are added to the main game in future expansions, the higher talent levels will be OK.

As far as adding extra talent levels directly, I have done exactly that with the Legacy of the Naloren prodigy. In I500, it gives a bonus of 5 talent levels (outside of the normal limits) to exotic weapon mastery and spit poison at level 50 that increase with character level.

Having said that, I think the idea of boosting talent mastery for a tree is a good idea.

SageAcrin wrote:Two: It's harder to code than it sounds. You have to make an interface that handles every single skill in the game and detects which you currently have, for your choice. Not impossible, but solid amounts of work.

Hmm, really? That doesn't sound that hard to me. The fact that it is sort of a no-brainer is a problem, for sure.

I dont like prodigies that feel "bland". I mean it's powerful (too much probably) but it doesnt have the feeling of "WOH!!" that prodigies should give. A prodigy should make you "obviously" superman-esque

bricks wrote:

SageAcrin wrote:Two: It's harder to code than it sounds. You have to make an interface that handles every single skill in the game and detects which you currently have, for your choice. Not impossible, but solid amounts of work.

Hmm, really? That doesn't sound that hard to me. The fact that it is sort of a no-brainer is a problem, for sure.

Said harder, not hard.

You have to whip up a fast interface(probably using a chat window would be fastest) that would detect your valid categories and then add 0.4 to the one of your choice. (If it's doing the skill bonus, it has to check for your categories, then find out what talents are in them.) The game does record this for purposes such as making Rares, so you'd have to interface a chat with that-not entirely sure how that part of the game works, so I'm not sure how hard that would be.

It's harder than most of the Prodigies now, though, which are fast physical talent code, doing fast if/then checks for if talents are there, modifying stats simply, etc. for the most part.

Edit: Hey, wait, here's an idea to make it more interesting and not as hard to code.

Rather than make it grant 0.4 to any category, make it part of Worldly Knowledge, and allow that skill to grant 0.4 to any category you've gained and unlocked through escorts, in addition to its current role of unlocking them if you don't have them.

It's not as powerful, but it barely requires any special coding at all, I think, it's more interesting, and it doesn't take a specific Prodigy slot to code.

Imagine Rapid Shot with this on a Yeek, with Blinding Speed and amulet of enraging, and the speed prodigy. You'd just sit there shooting and nothing else would happen....

jenx wrote:Imagine Rapid Shot with this on a Yeek, with Blinding Speed and amulet of enraging, and the speed prodigy. You'd just sit there shooting and nothing else would happen....

Ah, yes, such combinations can't all be foreseen and dealt with in any complex systems, and hence, bugs.

darkgod wrote:I dont like prodigies that feel "bland". I mean it's powerful (too much probably) but it doesnt have the feeling of "WOH!!" that prodigies should give. A prodigy should make you "obviously" superman-esque

What do you mean? When everybody else could only juggle three daggers at a time anybody who can do seven is quite superhuman-esque.