ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

continuation of the poll from http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=41571 this thread is for narrowing down what people want from a wyrmic remake in order to focus the various efforts.

in order to give proper options I will be spreading the topics out around threads keep discussion relevant to the mechanics discussed in a particular thread please.

also this is for general direction not exact one and different combinations will interact differently the parts make a whole.

part two is here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=41840

informed voting info below

keep the class geared toward being a draconic warrior
yeah keep weapons.

drop weapons grab mindstars and be the dragon priest
more priest of dragon worship than warrior use mindstars but no weapons

make both options viable with a balancing boost given to melee
okay this is giving a mindstar tree alongside some powerful melee buffs so they don't eclipse traditional weapon use.

tweak breaths but keep the current structure
yeah this is just keeping the breaths as the capstone talents of the aspects

majorly change the existing breaths with new limiters like air cost or charging
yeah this is just adding some kind of breath limiter beyond cooldown and equilibrium costs

throw the entire breath structure out the window for unified breaths or something
not throwing out breaths here just redoing how they work entirely most likely for some kind of unified breath talent.

keep fungus it may not be dragony but it is wildery
yeah fungus is to good to even think of remaking so this option is just leaving it alone

mighty dragon vitality needs not this filth
with this get powerful draconic vitality to make up for it now being impossible to get fungus without going antimagic (may not even be able to get fungus here anymore if the antimagic drake aspect gets made)
this option is for removing the fungus tree from wyrmic in exchange for some kind of dragonic vitality based replacement

my mouth is a fountain of elements
yeah this makes it easy to spam breaths they may be less damage more debuff to compensate though

I don't always breath fire but when I do it kills all the mooks
yeah you can't breath often but its very powerful when you do

Should probably add the option:

My Breaths do anything and everything I desire them too
Breath Attacks can be tailored as desired - Spammed, Charged Up, Or Whatever Else as Talents interactive with the Breath Attacks dictate

As of now I'm sort of clicking both the last two options

Voted for options 3, 5, 9, 10

Technically could have voted for 4 or 6 and I'm good with either option; though I guess option 5 was suppose to stand out as an 'inbetween'. Skipped Fungus related options due to lack of information.

I love the idea of breaths being either 1-element chargeable or multi-element spammable. Making both options viable would be a challenge though.

I think it's more then doable. Unless someone sees some limit in the game mechanics that prevent it I had an idea for it that translates as:

- Have a Sustain Talent that when turned on, removes Cooldowns when using Breath Attacks with an associated cost attached to being able to Spam Breath Attacks
- Have an Active Support Talent that will give you a buff that makes your next Breath Attack used do more damage with an associated cost to it

These talents would be on top of the regular Breath Attack Talents (or Unified Talents) for impacting their use.

In both cases I suggested using Air Capacity - both to prevent continually Spamming as well as for charging Breath Attacks.

I actually think the dragon priest idea is kinda cool(if a bit similar to Skyrim). Would be best as it's own class, though. Some sort of Wyrmic/Summoner hybrid, who can summon spectral dragons and use weaker breath attacks? Iunno. x3

- Have a Sustain Talent that when turned on, removes Cooldowns when using Breath Attacks with an associated cost attached to being able to Spam Breath Attacks
- Have an Active Support Talent that will give you a buff that makes your next Breath Attack used do more damage with an associated cost to it

Do note that a big part of Wyrmic is the very strong parity between enemies and the player, which as far as I'm aware of DarkGod wants to maintain.

Allowing an average Drake, or even a Wyrm, to chain breathe and pre-buff its breaths will make it far more dangerous, without really improving Wyrmic much for the player, and it's pretty hard to change this. Something to consider for whoever tries to code ideas in this vein.

Pretty well the first line of my thinking from my Analysis thread took Dragons into account in the last sort of post I made. I made an attempt at noting and outline with such recommendation as nerfing 'Spammed Breath Attack' Damage or adding a delay for 'Charging' - both in making full use of the talent and several turns after. I also threw out an idea that something like 'Daze' could remove a 'Charging' Talent (so a tactic would be there to deal with the enemy), ideas like 'Constriction' could prevent Breath Attacks in general, and I hinted that Drakes and Wyrms could be made to spawn alone instead of with an entourage.

This is also in relation to all Breath Attacks being on the same Cooldown or just having a Unified Breath Attack Talent.

I also think Drakes and Wyrms that aren't Multi-Hued need to be brought more in line with Multi-Hued counterparts in terms of difficulty. Right now Multi-Hued Drakes stand out too much in how threatening they are - they really shouldn't be outclassing Wyrms. Part of my recommendation was on mostly rebalancing things so that Wyrms would be stronger or at least even with Multi-Hued Drakes.

Multi-Hued Wyrms of course would just be Terrifying.

Daikara with Ice/Fire Drakes that are even remotely similar in killing power to MHDs would pretty rapidly become an RNG-fest nightmare.

I mean, more than it is. Right now it's once every three runs or so that Daikara really decides to have it out for you on a floor. It'd just be every run with high end Drakes.

MHWs similarly don't need to be more powerful for various reasons. The MHW Archmage fixed boss in Slime Tunnels and a bunch of MHW specific vaults are part of the reason, but I'd more seriously tout Gorbat as a reason not to overly buff them, and Drakes/Wyrms in general, as it's fairly in line with the other Prides for power right now. They also have a nasty habit of showing up in Dreadfell, which also doesn't really need that flavor of buff.

I'm not against buffing Drakes/Wyrms-I did exactly that, a bit, and any Wyrmic buffs are inevitably going to buff them somewhat, and there's some leeway there. But you really want to avoid giving them a ton of power, as they can easily turn into waterhoses that emit tons upon tons of damage and come in trios, or potentially solo kill you in a couple turns if you come on them at the wrong time(and still come in trios, so you're getting wiped in a turn in some situations by a single non-rare, non-unique spawn).

Similarly, nerfing the heck out of them incidentally with such changes also kinda would suck. Dragons in general are in a reasonably good power spot, and while I feel like upping their power a little is good, dropping their power a lot isn't.

And making them spawn alone basically makes them generic and boring. Right now, the dragon family is one of the more interesting quirks they have. I'd rather see that expanded on somehow, if possible, than removed. (Which is, I suppose, an option if the resulting mechanics end up heavily nerfing the system for Wyrms/Drakes. More dragons!)

I don't really see any real benefit to having a bunch of Hatchlings or a pair of Drakes spawning with a Drake/Wyrm respectively. Snow Giants have a habit of spawning in 'Clans' sort of already and Orc Wyrmics come with a small following; Vampires also seem to spawn in massive groups sometimes in the Exploratory Farportal.

As for Daikaira, I don't see a problem with simply receiving a bit of a 'bump'. Just upgrade the Ruined Halfling Complex to Tier 2 status and make Daikaira a later term dungeon (on Par with Elven Ruins) - or move it to the Far East perhaps. This would make Drakes just the 'odd' encounter until about close to halfway or past the halfway point of the game.

Gotta Ask as well - does anyone really feel Gorbat, Gorbat's Pride, or the Dragon Guardian really match up in difficulty to their respective counterparts? I tend to rank these guys as bottom tier in the Far East - sometimes 2nd Bottom tier over Rak'Shor, Rak'Shor's Pride, and the Archlich Guardian. Vor, Grushnak, and their respective posses put the other two to shame.

I'd also throw in a note that with a Unified Breath/Breath Cooldown that Multi-Hue's are going to lose their 'natural' Breath Spam - this means they will be much less threatening then they are now. Giving them the 'Spam Breath Attack' Talent would mostly just retain the status quo, sort of (they would still be governed by associated costs with the talent so they would still be weaker in that specific department).

Also, a specific part of my recommendation was also that Air Capacity could be used to regulate Breath Attacks (And Bellowing Roar) when spamming them. If just for Spamming, but also perhaps for all Breath Attacks (and Bellowing Roar), there could easily be an associated hardlimit here to manage them out. I suggest using Yeek Wyrmics as a baseline for Top-tier and working down from them (Dragons either matching Yeek Wyrmics or being weaker).

I was hesitant to call it immediately but I think i'll call it now -

It seems players want conventional weapons of Two Handed talents and Shield Offense along with adding in Mindstars in some shape or form.

Everything else is still too close to call.

Also, just bumping activity in this thread with a post to draw attention to the poll that is running.

I think the most controversal point in this poll is breath frequency. Since almost 50/50 votes are on spammable breaths and chargeable, apparently both options should be made possible as viable build directions.

Probably too many options were combined in regards to Breaths - we really needed like 10 options JUST for Breath Attacks. I might make my own poll just on Breath Attacks and this one can mostly just be used to get an idea on Weapon Use and Fungus/No Fungus.

We should separate Wyrmic into two classes. One can do all the weapon and utility stuff. We'll call it Wyrmic. The other can have like 20 breath attacks. We'll call it HEAVY BREATHER. It'll be great.

here's a physical tree for you:
Huff/Puff/BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN/Exhaling Mastery

and here's a fire one:
Glasses Fogger/Hot Air/5 Alarm Chili/Blowhard

It'll be great! The possibilities are endless!

yeah I could of done this poll better oh well it's a multi part thing I can just put other aspects of breaths in another thread.

now to respond to the posts here.

okay with the fungus options I probably should of clarified those options are for whether to keep fungus or not in response to the remove fungus from wyrmics thread. of course the remove fungus option comes with some kind of more draconic defense/recovery options to compensate. details on what kind will have to be made by whoever makes the new wyrmic.

the dragon priest thing isn't my idea just put it here since I remembered seeing it proposed in another thread think the analysis one. anyway general idea the guy had was using mindstars to form a spectral dragon around you for doing dragon things instead of becoming more dragonlike yourself. my first thought seeing this was of naruto not skyrim.

yeah breath spamming talent is really tricky ground and considering how most enemies tend to cheat with resource costs probably not the best idea.

okay considering the danger of mindstars eclipsing traditional weapons even with a melee booster makes the coexistence options popularity a bit worrying to me.

yeah spammable and chargeable breaths aren't necessarily independent of each other people who wanted to spam a lot of breaths could just not charge them much while those who want powerful breaths could just charge them a lot more. really should of considered this while making the thread but it kind of depended on whether people wanted a limiter or universal cooldown for breaths.

okay gonna start another thread what issues do you guys want polled in it right now I've got breath adjust-ability, and whether we should have a general dragonyness tree and what to do with it which is kind of a complex question as we've got a melee booster, mindstar user, and possible draconic vitality trees that it could be meshed with and whether it should be more general draconic traits like gray did or a combo of swallow, wing buffet, and bellowing roar.

While you were gone I started another poll relating to Breath Attacks. Wyrmic Breath Attacks includes 3 separate issues:

Unified Breath Attack or Keeping them Individually separate - 2 Voting Options that are Mutually Exclusive
On Spamming Breath Attacks or Not - 3 Voting Options that are Mutually Exclusive
On Whether Individual Breath Attacks should have High or Low Damage or Debuff Power - 4 Voting Options that are Mutually Exclusive

This led to 9 options in regards to Breath Attacks. Charging Breath Attacks were not addressed in this poll, since I didn't have enough room for every topic on Breath Attacks and the above all relate to the current situation with Breath Attacks.

I would probably let my poll on Breath Attacks run its course before moving on to deal with any further issues of directions for Breath Attacks. Outside of that it would probably be a good idea to start a poll on Additional Wyrmic categories and talents that might be added to them.