Addon: Wights(OP obsolete, always get last release!)

[belmarduk]

Shielding would make him more on par with the bone giant. Healing is hard to deal with at this low level because damage output is dependent on luck with gear. It's possible to luck out with a chest and destroy your starter boss but a lot of the time you're going to be kiting, esp. on undead classes who have no means to heal themselves other than rest at this level.

[Sradac]

I dont know why so many people have problems with him. Undead arent supposed to be easy.

I have played Wight Archmagi, Cursed, Doomed, Paradox Mage, and Mindslayer and none of them had any trouble at all clearing all levels of all zones.

Just got to play smart. The shielding rune is a 100 pt shield, that is MORE powerful than a starting 60 point regen.

[Hunter]

I dont know why so many people have problems with him. Undead arent supposed to be easy.

I have played Wight Archmagi, Cursed, Doomed, Paradox Mage, and Mindslayer and none of them had any trouble at all clearing all levels of all zones.

Just got to play smart. The shielding rune is a 100 pt shield, that is MORE powerful than a starting 60 point regen.

All of those have one thing in common, though -- decent ranged attacks for kiting. Going toe-to-toe, especially when you're sitting in the middle of a field of light, is a bit more perilous.

[belmarduk]

I dont know why so many people have problems with him. Undead arent supposed to be easy.

I have played Wight Archmagi, Cursed, Doomed, Paradox Mage, and Mindslayer and none of them had any trouble at all clearing all levels of all zones.

Just got to play smart. The shielding rune is a 100 pt shield, that is MORE powerful than a starting 60 point regen.

All of those have one thing in common, though -- decent ranged attacks for kiting. Going toe-to-toe, especially when you're sitting in the middle of a field of light, is a bit more perilous.

This is it exactly. Undead shouldn't be CASTERS ONLY, and there's a reason the cloak doesn't drop off the bone giant in the ghoul/skeleton starter. Considering most of the wights you encounter in the game are melee or at least melee hybrids, it stands to reason that a wight melee should be playable. Some of them are very hard to get out of the starter. The regen makes it impossible for melee to flee effectively, which makes it impossible for some classes to kill the boss without getting very lucky drops.

I really think the only change the fight needs to be fair is the regen changed to shielding. Then you still have a difficult fight, but you're not struggling with a fight specifically tailored to your racial weakness that you can only hope to outgear if you're not playing the correct class.

[Sradac]

if you review those arent only casters, cursed are in there and they have one of the hardest starts. About the only thing harder would have been a rogue or maybe brawler.

[gfder]

First off, nice job on the addon.

I played a wight cursed with this addon. I made it up to about lvl 16 in lake nur before I suicided him against an ai because I realized I stood no chance at winning. As the race stands right now, I can't see a class that doesn't have reliable means of healing from their talent trees(aegis, light, etc) being able to win. If somebody wants to prove me wrong on this, go right ahead.

Both ghouls and skeletons have reliable ways to regen built into their racial talent trees, the wight is currently lacking that. With 5 points in "The Draining" I was only healing for about 4 hp per enemy in range and as far as I can tell this talent doesn't scale. Making this talent scale so the life drain is actually valuable would probably be a good idea. This would make it so the race has to have enemies around it in order to survive which would make it unique as opposed to the other races. This would have a problem of favoring melee classes far more than ranged classes though. So another option might be to make the "Dread" skill drain life.

Just two other minor things. It'd be nice if "The Draining" listed the talents it put on cooldown in the message log. I also noticed that this skill tries to damage npcs on the world map. It doesn't actually do anything to them, it just probably isn't something that should happen.

[Zonk]

Sorry for the late reply again. I definetely see how there are still huge balance issues.

A bit of background: at first, when making this I was worried the race would be overpowered outside its starting zone which is - not intentionally! - extremely hard for many classes, especially Cursed which are meant to 'fit' with this race.
I thought the physical resistance would mitigate the early lack of healing(and the healing being small-ish later on) but it's fairly obvious now that it's not just not enough.

So my next releases will likely focus on making the race somewhat stronger- and if it ends being somewhat overpowered well, it's not the end of the world.

As for the Draining:

The talent does scale, but it should be clearer for the lifedrain damage, which is currently 1+TL/2.)

I think I could boost the damage and range somewhat - damage could go as high as 2+TL(yes, doubled) and range could be increased to 3(instead of 2) plus TL/5.

Alternatively, rework things so it's LARGE radius - not 10 but I think 6 or 7 would work - but the power is also affected by distance somehow. This means meleers still have an advantage but ranged characters get something.

I like this but I have a technical issue: slowdowns, especially later on if I apply this to NPCs.
Imagine a Dreadfell vault with many Wights each which has this aura. Might be brutal for some CPUs...
Still, it might not be too bad if I run some tests before applying this change.

Also I suspect that Draining not working on undead is, while thematic, is a MAJOR disadvantage in some zones. Too significant, perhaps? Should it instead work at half strength?

Just two other minor things. It'd be nice if "The Draining" listed the talents it put on cooldown in the message log. I also noticed that this skill tries to damage npcs on the world map. It doesn't actually do anything to them, it just probably isn't something that should happen.

I thought about the first thing already and was about to post that's how I wanted it to work before I saw this part Definetely going in.
And I know about the second issue and agree it's awkard. I'll see how Gloom handles it and fix it!

Hopefully I can release another version soon, including the nerf/rune change to the boss, which I agree is definetely a BIG issue for quite a few classes.
Also another bit of development history just because: some of my initial ideas was for the area 'boss' to instead be a bunch of random adventurers.
Now consider how NASTY that would have been if you got unlucky. You could have gotten multiple Sun Pallies or Solipstists
I also realize only now that artifact-wise it would make perfect sense for the boss to drop Wintertide Phial in addition to the cloak, with the usual artifact replace change.

Anyway, aside from the talents, anyone has any issue with the racial intrinsics?
That +1 str +2 con +2 wil +2 cun, life rating 11, infravision 4, see invisible 5, full poison/blindness/fear immunity, 20% confusion resist.
I was worried these bonuses were a bit too much, but I thought them fitting and wanted to be relatively faithful to Wight NPCs.

However, as I don't see many claiming this is overpowered, and as I'm changing the NPCs eventually...
What about raising life rating to 12(like skeletons)or even 13(halfway between skeletons and ghouls), removing the need for breathing and giving partial bleeding resistance(something which is very rare).
The confusion resist could perhaps be removed, it's an afterthought(they confuse others, so they have some resistance to that?) and they are already going to have above-average mindpower.
Blindness resistance doesn't seem too fitting but the NPCs had it and it fits with their enhanced sight so it can stay.

So in short here's my release plan:
- Boss should have shielding instead of regen/healing, drop Wintertide Phial(with regular art replace chance)
- The Draining should be boosted in both damage and range, tells you which enemy talents were affected, doesn't work on the world map
- Rebalance racial intrinsics as needed

By the way, I'm actually quite flattered that this addon has such a discussion going on!
Keep the feedback coming!

[Zonk]

Update: Implemented most things I wanted already, also made the boss NOT use tactical AI(it helps and I somehow like the idea!).
Want to do some more clean-up/tweaks before release though, so if there's anything you want, please mention it!

[Zonk]

Release! Been pretty bold with the buffs, hopefully not too much...

Full changelist

Race intrinsics changes:
Life rating increased from 11 to 13
Exchanged the 20% confusion resist for 50% bleed immunity & not breathing
Con & Wil bonuses increased from +2 to +3

The Draining changes:
Range increased from 2+TL/5 to 3+TL/5
Damage increased from 1+TL/2 to 1+TL.
Tells you which talent is affected.
Works vs enemy undead but at half strength
Less spammy, Draining Resistance effect is silent.
No longer triggers on world map

Boss changes:
Wild & sun inscriptions
No longer has tactical AI
Lowered armour training from 4 to 3, now uses heavy not massive armour
Stamina & life regen 0.5->0.25
Can drop Wintertide phial w/75% replacement chance, same as golem.
Killing him REALLY ends the quest


http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/wights/wights-1
For compatibility's sake, will leave the old versions there until 2013.
Edit: There might to be some validation issues let me know if they're still there...

[King Gainer]

The boss of the starting area died several steps into the level without me ever seeing him.
Is he capable of drowning? Seems like a bug of some sort.

[Zonk]

The boss of the starting area died several steps into the level without me ever seeing him.
Is he capable of drowning? Seems like a bug of some sort.

Yes, he is...maybe check the log though(if it's still there)to see what caused his death? I hope that wasn't caused by the AI change...
Still, hey, you got the experience.

[tarantoga]

i think other monsters killed him, once i found him with 20% hp missing and there were some gold piles lying around, might want to check his faction or something

[King Gainer]

Now that I think about it there were several monsters near his loot pile.

[belmarduk]

could give him a regen infusion or heal spell on a VERY long cooldown, that way he only uses it once, pref. when you're not fighting him.

[Zonk]

Yeah, he's meant to actually fight the other stuff there but perhaps it's too easy for him to be swarmed.
That and the necrotic air auras are meant to be helpful things a player could exploit against him.

For the regen infusion, I'll consider giving him that(I don't like him being SO nerfed he doesn't make too much sense as a Sun Paladin), but the most basic one(60 life). That should still make the fight winnable for meleers.
Alternatively could get back the Sun Paladin healing talent but I'm not so sure about that. Still, him being underpowered is better than the opposite!

Any feedback on the other changes?

By the way since blighted ruins got changed to 3 levels in the SVN, I might as well do that in the next release(while ensuring you are still level 3 when you face him)