[1.7.0] Hiveminder v1.3.0 "Freshly Functional Flowers"

[Mr Frog]

This looks to be caused by Dread Necro, at a glance.

You're probably right, but it happened with Hiveminders also installed and I remembered some fucky interactions with Moult so I told them to pop it into here just to have it on hand if similar things happen.

[nsrr]

This looks to be caused by Dread Necro, at a glance.

You're probably right, but it happened with Hiveminders also installed and I remembered some fucky interactions with Moult so I told them to pop it into here just to have it on hand if similar things happen.

Ah, I see. I personally haven't played with effect cloning, but it is notorious for causing issues. Could be that Moultings might clone an effect from another add-on and spit out an error that only references the other add-on. I poked around enough to check that those Engine lines in the error have to do with setting temporary effects.

I played a bit more. The fix for the disappearing Beetles worked for my save, which is great.

I was hoping Web Burst might have been fixed too, but it still affects allies (which is kind of great for Escorts, but kind of terrible with Beetles). It's not as pressing as the dissappearing beetle issue was, I just wanted to mention it again in case you had missed that in my first post.

I hadn't noticed before, but the tier 2, 3, and 4 Beetle talents all seem to have teir 3 talent requirements (level 8, 28 stat). I don't know if that is intentional or not. Probably fine if it is, as most players wouldn't unlock the tree until after level 8 anyway. I'm also enjoying the class more now that I have a few more buttons to press, even if bumping is generally stronger.

As for the Morph tree, I was just tossing out an idea off the top of my head in case it caught your interest. If that's not a direction you want to go in, I completely understand. I would hardly expect anyone to significantly change their class based on one player's random suggestion. As I said, more attacks and offensive talents would suit my personal taste, but I understand that different folks enjoy different play styles. You can never please everyone and you'd drive yourself mad trying. If it's any consolation, a certain shadowy diety mentioned that he was quite enjoying the class.

[Mr Frog]

Ah, I see. I personally haven't played with effect cloning, but it is notorious for causing issues.

Yeah, it kept throwing weird errors. I cleaned up the code a bit but there'll still probably be issues since the error messages were a bit arcane. Fortunately, nobody takes Metamorphosis by virtue of it not being Insect Guardians, so hopefully nobody will notice.

I was hoping Web Burst might have been fixed too, but it still affects allies (which is kind of great for Escorts, but kind of terrible with Beetles). It's not as pressing as the dissappearing beetle issue was, I just wanted to mention it again in case you had missed that in my first post.

I did miss that, and it's fixed now (along with a few other friendly-fire issues)! Thank you! I kind of want to make Web Burst only ignore beetles/summons because, as you said, it's great for making escorts not charge into death, but that's outside the scope of what will hopefully be just a simple bugfix release.

I hadn't noticed before, but the tier 2, 3, and 4 Beetle talents all seem to have teir 3 talent requirements (level 8, 28 stat). I don't know if that is intentional or not.

Intentional, yes. It's mostly there so that cornacs won't have the advanced beetle stuff right away if they unlock the tree early.

I'm also enjoying the class more now that I have a few more buttons to press, even if bumping is generally stronger.

tbqh I'd kind of figured that having an entire talent tree rendered inoperable would have colored your experience pretty negatively :p Still, you've provided great feedback nonetheless.

As for the Morph tree, I was just tossing out an idea off the top of my head in case it caught your interest. If that's not a direction you want to go in, I completely understand. I would hardly expect anyone to significantly change their class based on one player's random suggestion. As I said, more attacks and offensive talents would suit my personal taste, but I understand that different folks enjoy different play styles. You can never please everyone and you'd drive yourself mad trying.

I get that. It wasn't even a bad idea! It was a really cool one! I just don't really feel it for whatever reason. In general, I think I like to fix things with as few changes to the basic concept as possible, so unless something's badly broken (like Parasitism on NPCs, heh) I'll probably always be really resistant to suggestions like that unless the suggestion in question is more-or-less a divine revelation.

If it's any consolation, a certain shadowy diety mentioned that he was quite enjoying the class.

I have already been shown the screencap, which may or may not be getting framed on my wall as soon as I have access to printing devices :p

Now, rambling aside, update time!

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Changes for 1.0.3:
- Removed a debug message from Insect Guardians's activation effect (oops!)
- Web Burst and Floral Growth no longer harm friendlies (beetles are friends, not fodder!)
- Floral Growth now procs immediately on cast instead of taking an entire turn
- Silk Barrier no longer entangles friendlies and its propagation is no longer blocked by NPCs
- Larva is now properly a tier 4 ability (it was mistakenly set as tier 3, meaning Imago wasn't strictly necessary to learn it)

[Fertasd]

Had a test run with a Cornac on Insane up to first death (Norgos), couple thoughts:

1. I really like the concept and look of the class! Talent icons and beetles look great It was a fun run while it lasted, thanks for making this addon!
2. The beetle whirlwind attack can currently hit friendlies, which leads to sad situations when they're next to each other or especially the player.
3. Beetles have a talent which says in the description that I shouldn't be able to see it and should report this occurrence.
4. Making beetles automatically resummon on rest the same way WtW does would be a nice QoL feature.
4.5 I really like the beetle tree in general! The way it's organized and the beetles get abilities feels quite nice.
5. The suture talent as is benefits enemy rares/randbosses a lot more than it does the player, same reasoning as with Parasitism. Might be good to change it the same way Surge of Power was changed.
6. Some more points on why I feel no incentive to use knives on the class, in addition to stuff that's already been said: all of Lethality works with mindstars, having many sustains makes high Willpower important early on (if antimagic, also later on) and mindstars with Psiblades will give much higher Will and Cun boosts than knives. Also, the class has multiple talents affecting nature damage and enemy nature resistance, but only Expose Weakness to boost physical damage/pen, and since it's all res pen, it gives the same benefits to mindstars as well.
7. Against anything rare and above, I only had meaningful damage from Expose Weakness->bumps boosted by Summertide Phial's onhit (it almost doubled my damage output, not sure what I would've done without it), and a 100 damage projection wand I picked up. In quite a few fights including Bill, I used web and kited them with the wand, since trading with them in melee was too much damage on me. Morph Strike looked like it could be a good attack talent, but the cooldown on it feels kind of long considering that there aren't that many other offensive options available. Poison immune basetypes will also probably pose an annoyance without Morph Strike with Wolf Spider keeping their poison resistance down. I like that you're being careful with the poison DoTs to avoid stacking them too hard, but this also means that against anything with flat damage reduction, they do next to nothing, especially since Swarm Assault and Attack Command are different poisons. Besides Morph Strike cooldown being lowered, I don't really have suggestions on how to improve the damage situation, sadly. Having a ranged option that can be used from behind beetles would've been useful on multiple occasions but I understand if that's not really in line with your vision for the class.
8. Although you mentioned several times in this thread that the class is going for a more straightforward bump-based offense, it starts with no engagement options (actually has no mobility talents at all at start). In comparison, Cursed gets Blindside, Reckless Charge, and Rampage, and also an always-on aura that hard CCs nearby enemies. Berserkers and Bulwarks have Rush. Having Mobility unlocked at mastery 1.3 (or at least 1.0) at birth would allow for engaging with a movement infusion and still having Disengage as an escape, and would be an incentive to put at least some points into Dex and go for light armor. Relying on bumps and DoT would also benefit from more CC, maybe something like Attack Command reducing enemy damage or causing confusion as the bugs interfere with their concentration or something so that at least opponents near you are somewhat hindered, many classes on enemies deal high damage without any of their sustains.
9. Never had this before but i'm not 100% sure it's an issue with the beetles, the escort I got teleported 15 squares into the map into a position where it had Norgos to the front and a Doomed ready to come up from behind, instead of spawning at the first free space not occupied by beetles. Might be worth looking into.

Anyways, it's a cool addon, I liked it a lot! Keep up the great work

[Razakai]

While I can see some people being put off by the lack of active attacks, I think a class focusing on bumping for offense and utility is fine. Not much is added by giving you 5 buttons that are just 'press this on cooldown for max dps'.

I think my main suggestion would be rolling the insect forms into 1 talent like chants. Otherwise, it's most likely that people pick a single form and focus on it (probably ladybird!) - as spending 1-5 additional class points for a talent that gives you 0 benefit most of the time is a high cost. Perhaps then move the strike talent to T2, and T3-4 could be the talents for people that want a more active experience - one that gives an instant, thematic effect when switching forms (although forms would need to take a turn to switch, off the top of my head I can't remember if they're instant or not). E.g. Ladybird gives a shield, spider charges your next melee attack with +poison, etc. Plenty of design space for a shapeshifter.

Balancing daggers vs mindstars is going to be near impossible on a mindcaster - so I think you might want to decide if you want them to be one or the other.

Aside from that it's fairly minor stuff, I think wolf spider is a tad weak, especially early on when your crit chance is low. Maybe just make it a flat % chance to apply as opposed to crits? I think shifting the poison resistance reduction into Swarm might be a good idea too, as that category's offense falls apart if you're fighting undead.

I echo the comment earlier as well that too much of the class defense might be tied up in Swarm, which is a shame as the AoE poison aura is neat.

Regardless of the above, very cool class.

[Frumple]

Small heads up on an addon incompatibility -- not sure if you really have reason to care, since the problem looks like it's on the other end, but still -- with randboss rando. Game'll hang when generating levels fairly often, spitting out

Code: Select all

Lua Error: /data-hiveminder_class/talents/gifts/insect-guardian.lua:335: attempt to index local 't' (a nil value)
	At [C]:-1 __index
	At /data-hiveminder_class/talents/gifts/insect-guardian.lua:335 check
	At /engine/Zone.lua:783 addEntity
	At ..._rb_rando/superload/mod/class/generator/actor/Random.lua:89 generateOne
	At /engine/generator/actor/Random.lua:127 regenFrom
	At /engine/generator/actor/Random.lua:49 generate
	At /engine/Zone.lua:1133 newLevel
	At /engine/Zone.lua:989 getLevel
	At /mod/class/Game.lua:1156 changeLevelReal
	At /mod/addons/cults/superload/mod/class/Game.lua:45 changeLevelReal
	At /mod/class/Game.lua:955 changeLevel
	At /mod/class/Game.lua:2207 
	At /engine/KeyBind.lua:243

As an error.

Seriously not sure how much there's reason to care, exactly, as the addon in question hasn't been updated in like two years, but... anyway. Figured it wouldn't hurt to know about.

... also the buggo buddies guardian scarab talent is telling me to say something if I see it. Well, I see it, heh. Shows up just fine on the talent tab when you're inspecting the critters, or controlling one and checking the character sheet.

(probably ladybird!)

Wait, why ladybird over dragonfly? The stun res is okay I guess, but better than +global speed? I'm trying it right now just to see if I'm missing something but it seems to me like dragonfly is basically an order of magnitude or somethin' better than the stunres or discount poison talent insidious poison.

[nsrr]

I'd rate ladybird highest for the stun res.

Usually global speed is a go to, but the ammount it gives is low and the class has a talent to boost attack and mind speed already, and move speed is incredibly common on items now. Stun res from a talent means you need less on equipment and can gear more freely. Ladybird also has the better Morph Strike, imo, with an AoE stun.

[Arcvasti]

I'd rate ladybird highest for the stun res.

Usually global speed is a go to, but the ammount it gives is low and the class has a talent to boost attack and mind speed already, and move speed is incredibly common on items now. Stun res from a talent means you need less on equipment and can gear more freely. Ladybird also has the better Morph Strike, imo, with an AoE stun.

I meant, having a talent that boosts attack and mind speed[by a ridiculous amount, too], just means that every source of global speed is even better. The Morph Strike for Dragonfly also hits like an absolute truck, being basically just Dissolve that doesn't blind.

[Mr Frog]

I meant, having a talent that boosts attack and mind speed[by a ridiculous amount, too], just means that every source of global speed is even better. The Morph Strike for Dragonfly also hits like an absolute truck, being basically just Dissolve that doesn't blind.

This. Having even that little bit of global speed makes the action speed boost from As One and even that Lethality sustain whose name I can't be bothered to remember that much better, and Dragonfly Strike does horrifying things to targets if you have enough on-hit procs from equipment since you can hit upwards of 8 times in one go with it with enough investment. I'm definitely open to convincing re: increasing Dragonfly's speed boost but I think people might be underrating the synergy between it and As One a bit.

Got a lot of really great feedback while I was sleeping! So much that I can't really respond to any of it one-on-one. Just know, fellow bugfriends, that this addon's first major balance change is currently in the pipes, most notably featuring massive buffs to Wolf Spider Morph and its corresponding Strike, because after playing a bit more myself I have concluded that it does indeed suck shocking quantities of ass. (scattered applause)

Also @Fertasd, I couldn't get either of the scarabs' AoE attacks to hit each other or the player in testing. Could you give a bit more context?

[Mr Frog]

Big ol' update here. Small buff for Attack Command and Swarm Assault, BIG buff for Wolf Spider Morph, and a small grab bag of assorted fixes and tweaks. Poison-focused builds should be a lot more appealing now. I'm debating disabling Insect Guardians for NPCs in the public build until I can be sure they won't explode peoples' games.

Changes for 1.1.0:
- Increased the base damage of both Attack Command and Swarm Assault by about 1/8
- Swarm Assault no longer slows enemies by the maximum amount allowed by the engine (big thanks to billybao for catching this!)
- Tripled(!) the damage dealt by Wolf Spider Morph's poison (I, uh, don't know why I thought it was even remotely adequate before)
- Increased the healing reduction from Wolf Spider Morph's poison effect
- Wolf Spider Morph's poison effect now uses the greater of your Mindpower and Physical Power to apply
- Wolf Spider Morph now grants base 12-36% nature resistance penetration
- Increased the base duration of Morph Strike's Spider Venom effect from 4-6 to 6-8
- Decreased the high scaling point on Spider Venom's damage a bit (Sorry! It's still a lot stronger and more useful now overall)
- Morph Strike now uses the greater of your Mindpower and Physical Power to apply effects
- Floral Blessing gives more all resistance per stack
- Floral Vigour gives much more +nature (2% - 4% base!) per stack consumed
- Seal Wounds is temporarily banned on NPCs pending a redesign
- Moult triggers slightly more often (previously base 15% - 30%, now base 18% - 36%)
- KO'd Insect Guardians now automatically revive when you exit combat (NOTE that this change will most likely not take effect if you already had the talent learned prior to updating, unfortunately)
- Insect Guardians' housekeeping talent is now properly hidden
- More fixes towards the game locking up when attempting to spawn an enemy with Insect Guardians (Thank you to everyone who's been posting logs! It helps a lot!)
- Added a message when a moulting transfers effects to targets, primarily to make it easier to identify which ones are causing errors

[Fertasd]

I did some more messing around with the whirlwind scarabs and realized that they don't stun or damage each other or the player, but so far 2 out of 2 times when they are right behind each other in a corridor, there are 2 enemies in a line in front of them, and at least 1 free space behind them, Insect Bulwarks knocks back the back enemy and the back beetle on activation. I think it might also do that to the player, if the player is in the place of the back beetle, and I mistakenly assumed that the knockback was damaging me earlier.

[rexorcorum]

A new error from 1.1.0, while running a wolf-spider dagger dwarf! Triggered in Daikara upon Harkor'Zun's assembling from his fragments:

Code: Select all

[resolveObject] adding to main inventory:	167039	shocking steel shield of fire resistance (#RESIST#)
Loading tile from tileset	/data/gfx/shockbolt/npc/elemental_xorn_harkor_zun.png
[Actor:move]	167024	Harkor'Zun	(forced) move from	nil	nil	to	0	29
Added unique	mod.class.NPC/Harkor'Zun	::	1
[applyRandomClassNew] applying	1	classes at	50	%%
[applyRandomClassNew]	167024	Harkor'Zun	Adding class	Hiveminder	Wilder	level_rate	50
[Actor:levelupClass]	Harkor'Zun	auto level up	Hiveminder	0	-->	5	table: 0x1a32f340
[Actor:levelupClass] 167024 Harkor'Zun ## Initialzing auto_class Hiveminder (Wilder) 65% level_rate from level 20.8 ##
  *** power types: not_power_source =	antimagic,arcane	power_source =	nature
	 ** learning Hiveminder birth talent T_MRFROG_COMMAND_SWARM 1 (every 0 levels)
[CALLBACK] upgrading to prioritized	talents_on_act_base
	 ** learning Hiveminder birth talent T_WEAPON_COMBAT 1 (every 0 levels)
	 ** learning Hiveminder birth talent T_KNIFE_MASTERY 1 (every 0 levels)
	 ** learning Hiveminder birth talent T_MRFROG_GATHER_NECTAR 1 (every 0 levels)
[CALLBACK] upgrading to prioritized	talents_on_talent_post
	 *** Assigning	2	category points
	 *** auto_levelup LEARNING TALENT TYPE	wild-gift/insect-guardian
	 *** Assigning	1	category points
	 *** auto_levelup LEARNING TALENT TYPE	wild-gift/metamorphosis
[CALLBACK] upgrading to prioritized	talents_on_die
[CALLBACK] upgrading to prioritized	talents_on_combat
[CALLBACK] upgrading to prioritized	talents_on_stat_change
Loading tile	npc/hiveminder/scarab_yellow.png
[Actor:move]	167046	Harkor'Zun's yellow scarab beetle	(forced) move from	nil	nil	to	1	30
Loading tile	npc/hiveminder/scarab_blue.png
[Actor:move]	167048	Harkor'Zun's blue scarab beetle	(forced) move from	nil	nil	to	0	28
##Use Talent Lua Error##	T_ATTACK	Actor:	154541	The Fragmented Essence of Harkor'Zun
[PROFILE] Server accepted our incr log, deleting
[PROFILE] mounted 	online	on /current-profile
[PROFILE] unmounted 	online	from /current-profile
FROM 	/mod/addons/cults/superload/engine/dialogs/ShowErrorStack.lua	loading previous!


ERROR:
Game version: tome-1.6.7
Addons: neka_qol01a-1.0.0[X!], items-vault-1.6.0[O], wall_clock-1.3.0[X!], cosmetic-shimmer-dwarf-1.6.0[O], easy_map_v2-1.6.0[X], cosmetic-shimmer-pyro-1.6.0[O], ashes-urhrok-1.6.7[O], cosmetic-shimmer-plumpkin-1.6.0[O], hiveminder_class-1.6.7[X], tk-weapon-sprite-1.6.0[X], orcs-1.6.7[O], effects_z-1.3.0[X!], cults-1.6.7[O]

Game version (character creation): tome-1.6.7
Lua Error: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:329: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:302: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:164: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:528: Learning unknown talent: nil
stack traceback:
	[C]: in function 'assert'
	/engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:528: in function 'learnTalent'
	/mod/class/Actor.lua:5019: in function 'learnTalent'
	/mod/addons/orcs/superload/mod/class/Actor.lua:212: in function 'learnTalent'
	/data-hiveminder_class/talents/gifts/insect-guardian.lua:920: in function 'on_learn'
	/engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:581: in function 'learnTalent'
	/mod/class/Actor.lua:5019: in function 'learnTalent'
	/mod/addons/orcs/superload/mod/class/Actor.lua:212: in function 'learnTalent'
	/mod/class/Actor.lua:3782: in function 'levelupClass'
	/mod/class/Actor.lua:3873: in function 'resolveLevelTalents'
	/mod/class/Actor.lua:3881: in function 'levelup'
	...
	/data/damage_types.lua:539: in function 'defaultProjector'
	/data/damage_types.lua:810: in function 'projector'
	/data/damage_types.lua:1354: in function 'projector'
	/mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:883: in function 'attackTargetHitProcs'
	/mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:649: in function 'attackTargetWith'
	/mod/addons/cults/superload/mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:30: in function 'attackTargetWith'
	/mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:227: in function 'attackTarget'
	/data/talents/misc/misc.lua:81: in function </data/talents/misc/misc.lua:54>
	[C]: in function 'xpcall'
	/engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:162: in function </engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:151>
  At [C]:-1 
  At [C]:-1 error
  At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:329 useTalent
  At /mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:37 attack
  At /engine/interface/ActorLife.lua:42 check
  At [string "return function(self, x, y, what, ...) local ..."]:1 checkAllEntities
  At /engine/Actor.lua:243 move
  At /mod/class/Actor.lua:1395 moveDirection
  At /engine/ai//simple.lua:144 
  At /mod/class/interface/ActorAI.lua:70 
  At /mod/ai//improved_tactical.lua:1084 
  At /mod/class/interface/ActorAI.lua:70 runAI
  At /mod/ai//improved_tactical.lua:1142 
  At /mod/class/interface/ActorAI.lua:70 doAI
  At /mod/class/NPC.lua:77 act
  At /engine/GameEnergyBased.lua:129 tickLevel
  At /engine/GameEnergyBased.lua:64 tick
  At /engine/GameTurnBased.lua:51 tick
  At /mod/class/Game.lua:1534 

The game continued without problems after that (and Harkor died pretty quick, so ...)

[Mr Frog]

- snip -

fuggin insect guardians lol

At a glance it looks like it's trying to teach the scarabs their talents before they fully exist. One step closer to making the lil buggers work correctly on NPCs, I suppose.

(also ty for humoring me and trying a dagger build lmao, I'm told they're kinda booty)

[rexorcorum]

it was fun! The Chronolith twins glomped me, but I wasn't paying too much attention anyway.

https://te4.org/characters/1899/tome/46 ... fb57f02550

[Mr Frog]

Bugfix update, hopefully fixing the undefined 'ed' error that consistently pops up when used with other mods. Huge thanks to nsrr, who dove into my code and did all of the diagnostic work for me while I watched in awe on Discord!

Changes for 1.1.1:
- Hopefully put a stopper on the persistent conflicts with other addons' temporary effects (huge thanks to nsrr for more or less doing my work for me, you're an amazing guy )
- Rewrote Insect Guardians' scarab talent handling entirely
- Scarabs now no longer are attempted to be taught skills before they fully exist
- Scarabs will now spawn with all of their talents learned to the appropriate level if the respective player talent is learned before they are spawned (ie. by first learning Insect Guardians and then one of the 3 other talents without leaving the levelup screen in between)
- Added both visual and sound FX to Wolf Spider Strike

E: Pushed another update (1.1.2) after it came out that I did not in fact fully address the undefined 'ed' issue, hopefully it's banished for good now.