"Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...

[nekarcos]

"Odyssey of The Summoner" has been updated!! (Version 0.2.3)

*** Version: 0.2.3 ~ "Now with (mostly) less performance-enhancing bugs!"

[General]
(BUGS)
- Heart of Gloom's "Soporific" effect is now only "-25" instead of "-50", allowing some (but still slight) Equilibrium recovery within.

[Hydra]
(BUGS)
- Hallucinations will no longer imitate passive talent effects (particularly, "Gluttony")

[Fire Drake]
(BUGS)
- "Torrential Blaze" will now correctly damage targets that are successfully knocked back.
- "Heart of Gloom" reflection for Fire Drake will now trigger correctly (INSTEAD of displaying "TODO")

[Ritch]
(BUGS)
- A textual warning has been added to "Cutting Edge" talents, warning the player of the dangers of impermanence weaponry.

[astralInferno]

I think -25 would be a good idea, or whatever value necessary for some level of equilibrium regen. It's not especially hard to climb out and regenerate your equilibrium on the surface, so zero equilibrium regen just makes the dungeon more tedious without being significantly harder.

Suggestion: Why not make it 50%? that way it will never Nope you, but will always hurt.

[nekarcos]

@astralInferno
I don't really want it to hurt, per se. The main point is that the +50 Wild Power gives you a taste of "ultimate power" by bringing you close to 100 (since anybody going there will usually have 30~40 Wild Power).
As for the -25... That's entirely to kick you in the junk in case anyone starts trying to make anticipatory Wild Power builds.
Remember, this add-on is built on top of a "Roguelike", so I'm always trying to minimize predictable behavior, just to keep you off your seat

[rexorcorum]

I'll leave an archive file in the GFX folder in the next update, so look for 'em there. Maybe there are others that might want to give it a shot too (I won't pretend like my rather-blurry artwork is anything to brag about )

Thanks, and for your information I think the art is pretty good .

Edit: Note that male/female is just a simple color tweak. If you're going to sharpen the images or something, try to do it with a layered-images program like Photoshop and put the male/female images underneath. That way, you can effectively cut your work in half.

All is known .

[daed4]

Question: When we'll get a golem-like interface for drakelings so they're not hellish to equip?

[nekarcos]

@daed4
It was actually incidental that equipping Drakelings ended up this way
It wasn't until VERY late in their development did I realize that "Show Inventory" was a "Debugging Mode Only" feature, even for Party Members.
I spent a very long time trying to figure out how I could make my own version of that pop up WITHOUT being in debug mode-- But alas, no dice.

As such, I ended up creating the current equipment system at the last second... About 2 days before release. I have no doubt there are flaws to it, and ya, it can be pretty frustrating that they drop the item on the ground like some sort of uncivilized brute (actually, I did this on purpose to avoid certain exploits)-- But the alternative would be that they wouldn't be able to wear equipment at all.

... It's not that I'm saying "count your blessings" or anything-- It is rather that I'm saying... Patience. I'm aware of how crappy it is, but I have yet to come up with something better yet...


... Oh, and to answer your question: 110% certain you NEVER will. Drakelings have far too many delicate mechanics to allow players to simply "control" how they behave. For example, how "frequently" they use talents is determined by Cunning. If I had a "control" interface, you could simply tell them to use talents 100% of the time, completely nullifying the point of Cunning on Drakelings.

[oliverrook]

@daed4
It was actually incidental that equipping Drakelings ended up this way
It wasn't until VERY late in their development did I realize that "Show Inventory" was a "Debugging Mode Only" feature, even for Party Members.
I spent a very long time trying to figure out how I could make my own version of that pop up WITHOUT being in debug mode-- But alas, no dice.

As such, I ended up creating the current equipment system at the last second... About 2 days before release. I have no doubt there are flaws to it, and ya, it can be pretty frustrating that they drop the item on the ground like some sort of uncivilized brute (actually, I did this on purpose to avoid certain exploits)-- But the alternative would be that they wouldn't be able to wear equipment at all.

... It's not that I'm saying "count your blessings" or anything-- It is rather that I'm saying... Patience. I'm aware of how crappy it is, but I have yet to come up with something better yet...


... Oh, and to answer your question: 110% certain you NEVER will. Drakelings have far too many delicate mechanics to allow players to simply "control" how they behave. For example, how "frequently" they use talents is determined by Cunning. If I had a "control" interface, you could simply tell them to use talents 100% of the time, completely nullifying the point of Cunning on Drakelings.

I have a question about drakelings, actually a few.
1. I'm not entirely sure how the system works when it comes to drakelings dying and whether or not they get the same name, personality, and stats as the ones that died. Can you give me a bit more detail?
2. I'm noticing that I've had to restart a few times, due to all of my draklings dying before I reach Derth, due to not initially knowing how to take care of them, and a very annoyingly places allied kingdoms party that seems to keep popping up the moment I exit the summoner's grove. Any ways to avoid this?

[nekarcos]

@oliverrook
1. Simply put-- You can only have 3 drakelings at a time. You can create a new one by using the "Raise Drakeling" talent, but you have to satisfy one of the 5 conditions on the talent (depending on how many talent levels you currently have), which in turn causes you to become "inspired", which allows you to create a Drakeling. You start at Talent Level 1, and the very first talent level allows you to become inspired whenever you complete a quest.

As for how a Drakeling gets generated... OK, I'm going to tell you secret, classified information on how it works.
- A Drakeling's nature and gender is always randomly chosen (3 natures, 2 genders-- 6 possibilities).
- Newborn Drakelings always start with the "Newborn" style. The "Newborn" style has no preference to any type of talent, meaning they cannot learn any talents whatsoever. However, the "Newborn" style focuses on Constitution and Cunning, making them SIGNIFICANTLY more durable and useful than the "Unique" Drakelings you start with, as long as they manage to survive long enough (although, their stats will be very low and it will be difficult to teach them new talents).
- Note that a Drakeling will ask you about "changing styles" every 10 levels when you enter the Wilderness, so that's when you pick which style they'll do next.
- Finally, when a Drakeling is born, each of its stats are randomly generated (with exception to Magic and Cunning, which both always start at 1).
- The HIGHEST possible value for a Drakeling's stat is HALF of your current Constitution stat. The LOWEST possible value for a Drakeling's stat is 20%, or 1/5 your own stat. This means Drakelings born in the late game tend to be VERY steroided compared to Drakelings born early game, ESPECIALLY if your constitution stat is high when you birth them.

(I think I'll add a simplified version of this explanation to the "Raise Drakeling" description, actually!)


2. Heh. I WANT to say "You're unlucky, mate"-- But the truth is, it sorta is BS when you turn around the corner to Derth and get ambushed by a patrol. I dunno... I'm not sure whether to call this a matter of bad luck or bad design. Besides, it's only a very brief issue at the very beginning of the game, so let's see if this REALLY gets on everyone's nerves before we just do away with it

[daed4]

I'll be honest on patrols, just use the optional patrols addon since patrols are basically horribly designed in general, on UP classcombos they're basically "re-startlol" on OP combos (or non-UP) you just walk in for the free xp/loot.


Also, jesus hell does mantis feel like utter shit, literally nothing you do deals any damage and you're wet tissue, it's like playing ghoul rogue on madness, which makes the whole class feel like utter shit. Again, most monstrosities do feel like that thanks to the no-infusion rule, in one hand feels a lot more roguelike and it's interesting, but it's just frustrating as shit since makes rares even worse, but sure boy do I enjoy having ZERO infusions the whole early game, same goes for the non-durable weaponry.

[nekarcos]

@daed4
... I really don't get it. Ritch does SOOOOOO much damage, but EVERYONE is telling me it doesn't.

Honestly, I'm afraid to buff Ritch's early game, because it's mid and late game damage is so utterly ridiculous (because it has the benefits of being Nature-Taught AND being able to use standard ToME weapons). To give you an idea, my critical hit rate was 87% and my critical hit power was about 230%, so my standard melee attacks were dealing 600 per weapon to orcs-- And because I had various Life Steal effects on, each attack was healing me for like 100-300 per strike. To make matters even worse, I was maxed out on "Macabre End", so it got to the point where entire mobs of enemies had 100 Demoralization, so they simply could not place status effects on me anymore.
Come on people, give it a chance

[daed4]

@daed4
... I really don't get it. Ritch does SOOOOOO much damage, but EVERYONE is telling me it doesn't.

Honestly, I'm afraid to buff Ritch's early game, because it's mid and late game damage is so utterly ridiculous (because it has the benefits of being Nature-Taught AND being able to use standard ToME weapons). To give you an idea, my critical hit rate was 87% and my critical hit power was about 230%, so my standard melee attacks were dealing 600 per weapon to orcs-- And because I had various Life Steal effects on, each attack was healing me for like 100-300 per strike. To make matters even worse, I was maxed out on "Macabre End", so it got to the point where entire mobs of enemies had 100 Demoralization, so they simply could not place status effects on me anymore.
Come on people, give it a chance

Nobody (on the vault) has a ritch over level 20, I'm tempted to try adventure (? Infinite life) mode just to try and get him up, I don't doubt you nor i blame you (I'm bad at videogame) just saying that they're cool ideas, and that you should totally make your own roguelike/game with them.

Also been giving it tons of chances, so far, but - the early game is hard as -, and tedious to boot, all I do is spam the fire on everything and get my nature fail % to absurd amounts.

[nekarcos]

@daed4
Okay buddy, you asked for it. I hope you're prepared for what you're about to get:

- Ritch will now start with 1 talent point in "Flamespit"
- Flamespit no longer has an accuracy check; it hits 100% of the time (it might as well, since you'll always have a ton of accuracy by mid and late game)
- Flamespit is now an instant projection (much like the original Flamespit)
- Ritch will now start with 1 talent point in "Deadly Sting"
- "Pernicious Sting" now has half the duration (this is a buff because it will cause its total damage twice as fast)
- Ritch will now start with 1 talent point in "Strongarm"
*** Coming soon: "Strongarm" will work while unarmed, but will cause bleeding damage to you instead of depleting durability
- Ritch will now start with 1 talent point in "Macabre End"

The only way I could think of improving Ritch's early game without making its late game fly out of control... Is providing more freebie talent points at the start of the game. Besides, people have constantly brought up how both Hydra and Fire Drake gets 6 free generics while Ritch only gets 2. Yes, I know-- Talent points aren't exactly the same as Generic points-- But screw it. Whatever it takes to convince people to go a little deeper with Ritch

So there. That's my compromise... Now, can I see some results??

[daed4]

@daed4
Okay buddy, you asked for it. I hope you're prepared for what you're about to get:

- Ritch will now start with 1 talent point in "Flamespit"
- Flamespit no longer has an accuracy check; it hits 100% of the time (it might as well, since you'll always have a ton of accuracy by mid and late game)
- Flamespit is now an instant projection (much like the original Flamespit)
- Ritch will now start with 1 talent point in "Deadly Sting"
- "Pernicious Sting" now has half the duration (this is a buff because it will cause its total damage twice as fast)
- Ritch will now start with 1 talent point in "Strongarm"
*** Coming soon: "Strongarm" will work while unarmed, but will cause bleeding damage to you instead of depleting durability
- Ritch will now start with 1 talent point in "Macabre End"

The only way I could think of improving Ritch's early game without making its late game fly out of control... Is providing more freebie talent points at the start of the game. Besides, people have constantly brought up how both Hydra and Fire Drake gets 6 free generics while Ritch only gets 2. Yes, I know-- Talent points aren't exactly the same as Generic points-- But screw it. Whatever it takes to convince people to go a little deeper with Ritch

So there. That's my compromise... Now, can I see some results??

I'll be honest, I'm a badie so no need to buff anything because I say so. However the strongarm looks real fun and the flamespit part sounds good for an early game damage/reliability buff.

[nekarcos]

I'll be honest, I'm a badie so no need to buff anything because I say so.

Ohhhh... Begging for mercy now, are you??

- The damage bonus from "Strongarm" at Talent Level 1 is now 50% (from 30%), diminishingly improving its damage bonus until Talent Level 5.

You're just lucky I'm out of things to buff, or I'd be a lot less lenient with you.

[nekarcos]

A new "celebratory", anniversary add-on! You can find it here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=46625

Won't repeat myself-- Just check out the details there.


Edit: I figured it was finally safe to release something semi-spoilerish, now that we're a week in.