ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Put bluntly, this is a clunky spell. Big problem with it is remembering (or in the case of enemies, knowing at ALL) where the center is. (And thusly, what the possible range of explosions are.)

A solutoin to this (both making it look better, and preventing the above problem) is to make a tile/graphic/particle animation/whatever (and possibly a separate shader for hi-fi users) for the 'breach' itself, placed on the tile it's cast on, thus letting us keep track. A simple alteration of the swirl on the awakened staff wouldn't be bad, though anything could work. A nice black rip in space with some purple swirls around it (from the staff graphic, possibly) would be something low end users could see and use (and obviously, some shaders could be applied for the hi-end users and make it look even nicer.)

As it currently stands, we can't even tell if we're in range or not, when an enemy casts this spell. And I've killed myself with it at least twice, because I was a little too close (thinking I was out of range.)

Anyone want to volunteer to do some artwork for this?

A mocking mockup of an idea:



Actually there are two zones - the breach itself (seen here) and the danger zone of + radius 2 of the explosions. So, maybe I should add also that:



Smaller radii:

Very pretty, but kinda overkill IMHO.

Ideally the graphic would leave the map visible (in case there are stairs or walls or traps or whatever in the zone).

I think the outer swirly thing reduced in size to the size of the inner swirly thing, by itself would be good.

Thanks for the feedback!

Doctornull wrote:Very pretty, but kinda overkill IMHO.

But of course it is . That's why it's a mockup in need of feedback, which is greatly appreciated, btw.

Doctornull wrote:Ideally the graphic would leave the map visible (in case there are stairs or walls or traps or whatever in the zone).

There is actually some transparency involved, but looks like it needs boosting. And/or thinning of the swirls (or maybe the blackness beyond)...

HousePet wrote:I think the outer swirly thing reduced in size to the size of the inner swirly thing, by itself would be good.

Not sure that I understand that - do you mean that the first picture (no outer swirls) is better, or that the purple swirls in the central radius should be more toned down, or ... ?

Anyway, will definitely do some more tests of the "thinny" later today.

Part of the point of the outer (thinner) swirls is to show the possible danger zone for explosions. If there's an inferno effect lingering on the ground, we can see the danger zone, currently there is none for the Nuke Over Time spell (TM). Letting us know what tiles are/are not in range is helpful, though again, there is a lot going on. I might thin out (or possibly srhink) the center again, and thin out (but expand to appropriate tile numbers) the miasma for possible damage radius. (Which isn't radius + 2, but Radius + 2, +2 again. Explosions spawn in radius of 2, but have a radius of 2 themselves on top of that.)

Remove the blackness and increase transperancy.
Or maybe just remove the centre blackness and swirly thing, and keep the big swirly thing covering the whole danger area.
I'm not sure we really need to know which tiles could be the centre of an explosion, just which tiles could be hit.

New iterations

With blackish center:


Without black:

All I'd need is a really bright pink fog hovering over the exact center. Then you can use essentially the same effect for aether beam which is also a really clunky effect and animation at this time. Seriously, a pure arcana spell that drops a trap that can be disarmed? Aether spells manipulate aether; they don't summon objects that manipulate aether.

[Edit] Actually, do an intense dot at the center and then a very thin wisp (and not a shaded area) marking the exact perimeter of the effect. With breech you can use two successively dimmer wisps to mark the limit for the explosion centers, and the limit of what any explosion can cover. There is no need to be super swirly everywhere, or to be very dark or opaque. Aether flows furiously at times but it is an oddly quiescent force in general since large scale flow can be so profoundly destructive. Breech could be thought of as an aether storm; unlike the chaotic nature of the storm elemental, a tear in(to) the profound latent energy behind life on Maj'Eyal looks deceptively ordered and calm, a perfect symmetry whose balance is only momentarily disturbed by purely symmetrical explosions of vast aether flow. When the tear itself disappears from the environment the aether is once again quiescent and calm but it is always there, with the potential to flow at arbitrarily high intensity if manipulated precisely.

Hm, actually parcel's edit above makes much sense (as much as I like my swirly miasmas). Maybe I can shrink the swirl to a single tile for the center and then to have a wider purplish-lighted radius for the explosion zone with some kind of ripple effect? Thoughts?

Make it so!

rexorcorum wrote:Hm, actually parcel's edit above makes much sense (as much as I like my swirly miasmas). Maybe I can shrink the swirl to a single tile for the center and then to have a wider purplish-lighted radius for the explosion zone with some kind of ripple effect? Thoughts?

Sounds nice.

As an alternative, how about a swirl / dot in the center, and a pair of rings at the 1st and 2nd zone borders, with small Aether wisps trailing inward from each ring.

It might also complement the minimalist effect of the field to have the explosion animations be a bit brighter and faster, themselves.

The visuals here look really cool!

However, magic in this game is a powerful and damaging thing indeed. It's also meant to be potentially damaging to the caster, if you use it recklessly. And there is a skill designed to lessen, and eventually neglect, these effects on the caster if you invest in it. And the recent changes to the Wildfire tree already made this skill less important that it used to be..

laru wrote:However, magic in this game is a powerful and damaging thing indeed. It's also meant to be potentially damaging to the caster, if you use it recklessly. And there is a skill designed to lessen, and eventually neglect, these effects on the caster if you invest in it.

Notice how we've been talking about much it utterly sucks when an OPPONENT casts Aether Breach somewhere, and you have no f'in clue where.

It's a nice to have effect for your own Aether Breach, but it's incredibly useful for when some boss casts it and you want to know if you need to run away.