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

[nekarcos]

@nsrr
RE: Stinger
The 3rd and 4th talent both turn "Predator Stance" off after usage. I suppose you never got that far, huh?

RE: Mindstars
I have been thinking about exactly this. Mindstars were ALWAYS going to be an ENORMOUS part of Avatar gameplay-- That's originally what "Mouth" slots and "Clasp" was going to be for. In fact, there was a point where the element of Fire Drake's "Fiery Breath" talents were going to be affected by the Mindstar's damage element-- But as I went further and further into implementation, I begun to realize I was getting a bit carried away with ideas, and needed to slow down a bit
Still a thought-- But there's no way I could do that without A SOLID system in place to keep it in check.

RE: Natural Combat
I have a BIG change coming to Natural Combat very soon. Let's get back to this after you and everyone else has had a chance to play around with it a bit.

RE: Breakable Weapons
Because it's absolutely UNACCEPTABLE that an Avatar would be able to use human weaponry as effectively as a human! That's the STRONG point of humans afterall, right?
Oh, and by the way... You get absolutely FLOODED with weapons by the time you reach the east. It reaches a point where you are actually transmogrifying swords because you simply cannot carry any more. This is why I have repeatedly buffed early durability and nerfed late durability. However, even so, it seems that's still not quite enough, huh...? Perhaps, I should just make EVERY weapon have a durability of 100~150 instead...

RE: Weapon Longevity
Let's just see how people feel about the new stat-scaling of impermanent weapons BEFORE we throw this mechanic out the door. I have a feeling this will be the buff that ultimately makes me nerf Ritch again...

RE: Synergy
We'll see, we'll see... One buff at a time, though.

RE: Concealed Blade
Basically, it will be an instant-activation sustain-- And as soon as a weapon breaks, it will make you quick-swap, then deactivate.
... Besides, Temporal Wardens actually CAN'T chrono-swap if they're silenced or their talents have been put on cooldown...
As for scaling... Ahhh, ummm... I'll figure something out.

RE: Stun Immunity
Oooo... Don't get so excited. Giving Ritch a way to consistently nullify stuns without a hefty penalty would be poor design *grins at "Thrash About"*

RE: Impermanence
Ritch can dabble with human weaponry-- But it should not be able to rely on them and work with them in the same way a human does. It should ALWAYS be relying on its primal instincts and skills-- Not armor and steel... And if it DOES try to rely on weapons... It should eventually suffer the consequences-- Much like a parakeet that hits a "food" button without eating what comes out.
However, what examination HAS ultimately shown is that there's too strong a reliance on Impermanence weapons-- Whereas they're just supposed to be an enabler for melee combat from the very-much-glass-cannon Ritch (hence why weapon durabilities were originally 16~80, though they're now 50~200).
What I need is to find a way to "draw out" and make appealing the power of a Ritch WITHOUT human weaponry-- Fire, diseases, and bleeding-- All of it.



PS: Whoa-- I completely forgot about this message I was writing-- A sweet new idea came to me, and I got engrossed

[nsrr]

Ok, when you explain the weapon thing that way, I get where you are coming. Explanations like this are more helpful to understanding your decisions than the dismal of an idea and a laughing face
Thank you.

I admit, you're right about Stinger. I found myself putting so many points into Scrap and Flame Spit for survival, even when trying to run Stingers, that I did not get to invest in the later talents. I stand by the statement that it's a little tedious early on, but fair enough That last talent does look like a pretty potent ranged physical damage beam, with disease and blight on the primary target to boot. Dive Bomb is very attractive, too. I just haven't survived long enough to use them with that build

If fire, bleed and disease were all more a little reliable and present throughout the skill set, the apparent emphasis on weaponry wouldn't be as drastic, and their impermanence would not be as much of problem. I admit, I hadn't really considered it that way. Thanks again for the explanation of your thinking.

RE: Stun Immunity
Oooo... Don't get so excited. Giving Ritch a way to consistently nullify stuns without a hefty penalty would be poor design *grins at "Thrash About"*

Honestly, I wouldn't expect anything else at this point

[nekarcos]

An important notice!! New Minor due for August 10th
This next update is looking rather loaded-- It will likely be incompatible with all current characters in several ways. As such, I'm calling this one another "Minor" update.
... Yes-- We're going to 0.4.0 now. That sure was fast, wasn't it? I'm going to run out of beta Minor versions at this rate!


In any case-- As usual, I don't want to destroy characters people worked hard on-- But, at the same time, this MUST be released eventually.
I'm scheduling the upload of this new version for this coming Wednesday-- That is, August 10th. This should give everyone plenty of time to wrap up characters-- Or maybe even quickly start up and finish new ones before the update falls.

Please continue posting any thoughts you have or bugs/issues you encounter-- These will be included with the new update, assuming it's not too large of a problem at the last second.


PS: What's wrong with laughing emotes?? Context is really hard to convey over text, so I'm trying to make my inflection a little bit more evident! Stop reading into this so much!

[astralInferno]

Laughing emotes come across as really, really condescending, especially when paired with words to the effect of 'I'm not going to do that' or 'ah, but there's something you don't know'. Tone is very complex.

...honestly, all these emotes look like jerks. The green grinning one looks fairly wholesome...

But I do have a couple of pieces of solid(ish) feedback.
First is that the classes seem fairly low on things to do. I mean a couple of things by this.

nsrr touched on the first earlier when talking about Firestarter; if you want to make a ranged, fire-gatling ritch, you have one tree made for you, and... that's pretty much it.
Similarly, a Hydra who wants to focus on breath weapons has the breath tree and the glob tree, and then stalls out. (The Hydra is better about this; they clearly have a locked tree vaguely winking at each head archetype.)
(I haven't tried drakes yet. I don't want my babbies to die.)

(As an aside to this, the Firestarter tree isn't marked as natural - I made an undead avatar and they could use flamespit, but not flame breath.
On an adventurous note - which you likely don't care about, but I'm a huge proponent of them - the Avatar trees are almost entirely independent of the rest of the game. It's nearly impossible to build anything that uses Avatar trees without being the relevant Avatar; maybe you can add on one or two trees from a wilder or a technique class. One particular thing that bugs me here is Breath talents - there's no way to enhance them but what you give. If their base speed were linked to Mindspeed, that'd be a huge boost for anyone trying to do their own thing; and part of the joy in tome (for me) is how you can do completely your own thing. Avatars don't have that so much. (Similarly, I'd make Gatling Fire boost mindspeed, to make it less situational. Gatling Fire is probably my single favourite talent in OotS. (Man, OotS is Order of the Stick. this is such a confusing acronym. (how many brackets can I nest?)))
Adventure interactability beyond the very basics is definitely something that can wait for later, though.)

The second thing is that they lack any bread and butter trees. I know everything's meant to be fun and exciting, and that's an excellent plan, but.
To be fair, ritches don't entirely suffer from this - they always have their cooldown 0 flamespit to resort to. On Hydra, though, I used my three breaths, then tried to lay (underwhelming) traps for them with globs. Then my ranged character had nothing to do but bump attack. I really feel like they could use a generic attack tree, something equivalent to two-handed-assault with a couple of short cooldown attack-with-bonuses. (Or, preferable to my ranged-preferring tactics, another ranged attack tree. )

On impermanence, I don't like handling consumables. My reaction to impermanence was 'okay, so, I have 80 Str 80 Dex weapons and bleed myself on hit.' Which worked out okay, since the bleed you cause to yourself grants you the bonus for a bleed occurring. Presumably other players will like the mechanic. (shrugs)

Finally, I'll echo nsrr. It's way more fun to be overpowered than underpowered. None of my OotS characters have felt overpowered, even when I've had bonus-points addons running. I'll add to that one of the favourite adages of a game designer I follow - You can't fight human nature.
If everyone expects the game to work one way, and it doesn't, they're gonna be annoyed. Don't subvert things for the sake of subverting them, do it because it makes the game better.

I hope this doesn't come across as salty or condescending or something. I really, really love the concepts here, but playing with them is... kind of aggravating.

[emblempride]

I would also say that using "overpowered" or at least "powered" lol within the context of this kind of content mod for this game as a base and then nerfing from there would be way more reasonable. You're never going to receive feedback on how the classes deal with 2/3rds of the game, which trivializes any content updates or the piecemeal updates like we've been getting that only seem to make it slightly easier to just get through the T2s. It's also important to note that there are many talents in the base game that give you things like Stun immunity, etc. WITHOUT some nonsensical penalty, and keeping it so tightly tit-for-tat is arguably bad design. You can't keep adding a penalty for every buff when you yourself can't even get through the game without dying multiple times. Which goes against what a Roguelike is. When people have clearly been having a lot of trouble, and I absolutely guarantee you that almost none of these ideas suggested that you have shot down would make the Avatar classes even close to OP, a truly open mind is key. This is from someone who actually enjoys your inscription mechanic and thinks it's a pretty neat idea. Balancing towards Normal/Adventure is also flawed logic when the base game is balanced towards Roguelike, and ultimately that will never change. Honestly, not trying to put you down, but the idea that as a poster I feel pressured to say that when trying to give criticism (admittedly none of which give you specific suggestions on anything outside of methodology) is... off-putting

[nekarcos]

@astralInferno

...honestly, all these emotes look like jerks. The green grinning one looks fairly wholesome...

This is a matter of subjectivity, isn't it? I have absolutely NO reason to be rude or condescending to anyone-- Especially since I'm requesting all of you. Though, at times, people complain about things I feel they simply do not understand, and so, all I can do is grin and laugh about it until they eventually figure it out (IE: nsrr having never tried the 3rd and 4th Stinger talents )

nsrr touched on the first earlier when talking about Firestarter; if you want to make a ranged, fire-gatling ritch, you have one tree made for you, and... that's pretty much it.
Similarly, a Hydra who wants to focus on breath weapons has the breath tree and the glob tree, and then stalls out. (The Hydra is better about this; they clearly have a locked tree vaguely winking at each head archetype.)

The difference between Hydra and Ritch... Is that Ritch gets 3 Locked Talents and 2 Locked Generics. Hydra gets 5 Locked Talents and ZERO Locked Generics. Obviously, Hydra is going to have a growth focus on offensive variety, while Ritch will not have nearly as much... Not to mention that Hydra can hardly even learn most of its Unlocked Talents because they each require specific heads now.

(As an aside to this, the Firestarter tree isn't marked as natural - I made an undead avatar and they could use flamespit, but not flame breath.

So, you're not playing the add-on the way it's intended, and are surprised that things aren't working as you expected them to... How strange... Hm.
*sarcasm* Yeah, hold on. I'll get right to adding support for undead Avatars.
(Besides, how did you even make an "Undead" Avatar? That shouldn't be possible. You're obviously using strange add-ons. )

On an adventurous note - which you likely don't care about, but I'm a huge proponent of them - the Avatar trees are almost entirely independent of the rest of the game. It's nearly impossible to build anything that uses Avatar trees without being the relevant Avatar; maybe you can add on one or two trees from a wilder or a technique class. One particular thing that bugs me here is Breath talents - there's no way to enhance them but what you give. If their base speed were linked to Mindspeed, that'd be a huge boost for anyone trying to do their own thing; and part of the joy in tome (for me) is how you can do completely your own thing. Avatars don't have that so much. (Similarly, I'd make Gatling Fire boost mindspeed, to make it less situational. Gatling Fire is probably my single favourite talent in OotS. (Man, OotS is Order of the Stick. this is such a confusing acronym. (how many brackets can I nest?)))
Adventure interactability beyond the very basics is definitely something that can wait for later, though.)

Eventually, I'll add special item egos that improve weird things like Breath talents-- But, for the time being, "Hoarding Beast" is supposed to be your way of interacting with the various objects you find in the world for the purposes of powering up your Avatar. "Treasure Hoarder's Will" offers you just about all you could ask for-- Besides "Breath Speed" I guess.
Also, "Breath" is naturally faster than ANY other combat, as long as you aren't currently dying... And, chances are, if you're currently dying, you have probably already used all of your breath talents anyways, so you've gotten the additional speed benefit out of them anyways.
Finally, with all of that said-- Isn't this a little early to be asking for "flexibility to do whatever you want"? This is... not even a full version yet, man...
That and (if you recall) this project WAS me doing precisely what I wanted, remember?

The second thing is that they lack any bread and butter trees. I know everything's meant to be fun and exciting, and that's an excellent plan, but.
To be fair, ritches don't entirely suffer from this - they always have their cooldown 0 flamespit to resort to. On Hydra, though, I used my three breaths, then tried to lay (underwhelming) traps for them with globs. Then my ranged character had nothing to do but bump attack. I really feel like they could use a generic attack tree, something equivalent to two-handed-assault with a couple of short cooldown attack-with-bonuses. (Or, preferable to my ranged-preferring tactics, another ranged attack tree. )

I'd argue Hydra's bread-and-butter is being able to attack about 16 times in one turn, tbh...
If not that, "Tri-Breath" is a pretty strong bread-and-butter, considering the cooldown can be as short as 3~4 turns once you get 4 Drool Heads.

Finally, I'll echo nsrr. It's way more fun to be overpowered than underpowered. None of my OotS characters have felt overpowered, even when I've had bonus-points addons running.

This depends what you consider overpowered. Personally, I think having 3000 Life and being able to Recuperate about 40~100% of damage you take is pretty dang OP-- And this is without even factoring in the possibility of Draconic Body or other regeneration talents.
I simply cannot agree with these classes being underpowered, because my experiences have shown they each have the potential to become absolutely ridiculous in their own ways. Although, I'll admit one thing: The "ridiculousness" doesn't really start until the Level 20~30 range-- Which could explain why a lot of people haven't really experienced this yet. This is about how far I've seen most people get in vaults and such.

I'll add to that one of the favourite adages of a game designer I follow - You can't fight human nature.
If everyone expects the game to work one way, and it doesn't, they're gonna be annoyed. Don't subvert things for the sake of subverting them, do it because it makes the game better.

I'll see your quote with a paraphrased quote from a rather famous general: "When you fight the war on your own shores, the battle is already lost."
One of the biggest mistakes game developers make is beta-releasing their games and trying to satisfy their players BEFORE a full-release even comes out. That's why a lot of games don't leave beta-- Production grinds to a slow and their players are already exhausted and bored of the game before the real stuff could even come out.
However, with that said, I don't care about any of that. All I have done is open the doors to some of my in-progress development. I am not aiming to satisfy people's desires and suggestions and such-- All I really want are reports about bugs and anything you might consider unpleasant about the experience. Yes, this probably includes a class feeling underpowered and such-- But that's usually what happens when you're the first to try something new out-- You get the unpleasant fate of learning everything that's wrong with the unfinished release



@emblempride

I would also say that using "overpowered" or at least "powered" lol within the context of this kind of content mod for this game as a base and then nerfing from there would be way more reasonable. You're never going to receive feedback on how the classes deal with 2/3rds of the game, which trivializes any content updates or the piecemeal updates like we've been getting that only seem to make it slightly easier to just get through the T2s. It's also important to note that there are many talents in the base game that give you things like Stun immunity, etc. WITHOUT some nonsensical penalty, and keeping it so tightly tit-for-tat is arguably bad design. You can't keep adding a penalty for every buff when you yourself can't even get through the game without dying multiple times. Which goes against what a Roguelike is. When people have clearly been having a lot of trouble, and I absolutely guarantee you that almost none of these ideas suggested that you have shot down would make the Avatar classes even close to OP, a truly open mind is key. This is from someone who actually enjoys your inscription mechanic and thinks it's a pretty neat idea. Balancing towards Normal/Adventure is also flawed logic when the base game is balanced towards Roguelike, and ultimately that will never change. Honestly, not trying to put you down, but the idea that as a poster I feel pressured to say that when trying to give criticism (admittedly none of which give you specific suggestions on anything outside of methodology) is... off-putting

... Don't get me wrong, but this sounds like a lot of dissatisfied venting.
Firstly, in my defense, I suggested that you play this on cheat/developer mode. Mostly because of bugs-- But also to give you a means of "forcing" your way to the end if you are having a tough time or something seems heinously underpowered. Feel free to Ctrl+RightClick something away if it's bothering you, but just make a note of what it was, and tell me all about it. This is mainly why I haven't included most of the end-game plot-- I honestly expected everybody to cheat their way to ending, so I'm making sure everyone still has something to play when this is finished.
Also, I don't recall promising you any kind of smooth or "excellent" experience. In fact, I have constantly stated this is an unfinished work. However, people have constantly posted in this thread making demands as though this is some finished product they paid for. It's not. Please, be patient. I am dealing with problems one at a time-- Albeit, slowly.
And finally, if there's something that bothers you, state it-- But don't word it as though I'm sworn by some sort of pact and obligated to satisfy you. I'm not. Just remember there is only one person working on this, and they have A LOT in mind for it-- However, if they're stuck trying to satisfy every problem a person has with it, it will NEVER become finished. As such, I have to make the tough choice of deciding what to fix and what to defer to another date.

... All of that said-- I want you to consider this: I have taken the time to read EVERY last word you wrote, and to even respond to it piece-by-piece. You have not been ignored. You have been acknowledged. Everything you've conveyed to me has been absorbed, and even if it's unconscious, your suggestions have reached me. The developer of this add-on spends every day responding to you and others, as well as continuing to release completely free new updates, where anybody else could have stopped.
... This said, most of your post has been formatted like a complaint, making demands and trying to appeal for a change in development. Not once have you suggested that I continue doing what I'm doing-- You've only suggested that I make this rather-ugly mess of an incomplete product prettier-- Which perplexes me. Why do you want me to beautify an incomplete add-on... Instead of completing it?

... Anywho, thanks for posting I suppose-- Any feedback is welcome-- But angry demands are not.


Addendum: Criticism is not always welcome-- Especially when the same thing is stated umpteen times. Be mindful of that.

[daed4]

I would also say that using "overpowered" or at least "powered" lol within the context of this kind of content mod for this game as a base and then nerfing from there would be way more reasonable. You're never going to receive feedback on how the classes deal with 2/3rds of the game, which trivializes any content updates or the piecemeal updates like we've been getting that only seem to make it slightly easier to just get through the T2s. It's also important to note that there are many talents in the base game that give you things like Stun immunity, etc. WITHOUT some nonsensical penalty, and keeping it so tightly tit-for-tat is arguably bad design. You can't keep adding a penalty for every buff when you yourself can't even get through the game without dying multiple times. Which goes against what a Roguelike is. When people have clearly been having a lot of trouble, and I absolutely guarantee you that almost none of these ideas suggested that you have shot down would make the Avatar classes even close to OP, a truly open mind is key. This is from someone who actually enjoys your inscription mechanic and thinks it's a pretty neat idea. Balancing towards Normal/Adventure is also flawed logic when the base game is balanced towards Roguelike, and ultimately that will never change. Honestly, not trying to put you down, but the idea that as a poster I feel pressured to say that when trying to give criticism (admittedly none of which give you specific suggestions on anything outside of methodology) is... off-putting

This.
I could probably add +100% damage and +100% health mod and still be UP as Avatar.

Think of it like this: Undead races and classes with no anti-status resistance (and shit damage, - rogue.).
If there was a tierlist with OoTS avatars would be tier Z. Undead are the worst races because they cannot use infusions, but they can use runes. Avatars can't use infusions at all (no, one-use it's not how the game is designed) so having natural combat be so absurdly weak is stupid, avatars have been the only two times i've run into having HUGE amounts of equilibrium fail because how piss-poor damage they do. And no, they're not 'tanks' they just have huge HP which is irrelevant because of how absurd tome numbers go and the fact that what kills you is status effects, and your huge HP is meaningless because you have shitty armor and defenses in general.

And yes, I know late-game hydras can pack 100% stun/freeze immunity with 2 gems. But doesn't mater because you'll die before you get 100% stun/freeze immunity, it's like saying "Alchemist is OP because you can just spam bombs from LoS edge with a spy-eye!"

[nekarcos]

@daed4
Please stop posting complaints. This thread is not for people to hear you get mad about your experiences.
If you feel underpowered, state EXACTLY why. I WILL NOT pay any mind to posts like this if you can't at least explain your reasoning.

[daed4]

@daed4
If you feel underpowered, state EXACTLY why. I WILL NOT pay any mind to posts like this if you can't at least explain your reasoning.

I've literally explained why in the "bitching" post.

But let me put it in very, very, VERY simple terms:

Status effects are broken in tome4 they're the main danger in the game by far. You have no reliable way of taking care of them in avatar making them the worst race and class by far, way, way, way UP. Case in point, being undead who can't use infusions and can use discount infusions, known as 'runes'. They're not OP nothing about them is or can be OP because you have a huge weakness that reads "I die when I get stunned". Your only way to deal with status effects it's A) Run away B) Pray foot works and you don't get stunned again. If you find ANY enemy that can spam you with stuns before you have a nice stack of freedom infusions, of which you can only chug one each 9 turns (iirc, could be wrong).

P.D: Nobody has won with an avatar online yet except Jenx in arena,. And the main complain is how UP everything is, and how unreliable some things are.

[nsrr]

Hey, you're right when you say inflection is really hard to convey in text. Also, I read way too much into everything.

Plus I'm slightly crazy.

You're doing great work here, I absolutely want you to keep it up, and I appreciate all the time and effort you've put into it. I sincerely apologize if I have incited any one into complaining; this was not my intention at all

I have been trying to convey my thoughts in a way that they do not come across as demands, only suggestions, while also trying to make my reasoning clear. Obviously I'm not the best at hitting the right tone, either

Anyway, I'm going to shut up and stick to bug reports and specific, particularly irksome situations.

On that note...

If you escort a Loremaster, your options are are Luck, Wild Power and Natural Combat mastery. The description here when you highlight Natural Combat hasn't been updated to match the changes to Wild Power; specifically, it still states that you gain Physical Power and does not state that you gain Life Regen.

Secondly, if you choose Wild Power as your reward it is either not granted or not reflected any place that I can see. The description for the Nature-Taught talent and the individual descriptions for the Natural Combat talents still read that I have 35 Wild Power (I started with 30 and I have 5 points invested in talents). I was in Norgos's Lair, not Hear of Gloom or any other place that might affect Wild Power.

[64legos]

Wow, a lot of posting happened while I was writing this, so sorry if anything I say here was already said.

It's not just stuns that Avatars have trouble with, it's status effects in general. Avatars have very few ways to remove them.

Ways available to all Avatars:
Rabbit's foot - chance to not work at all and prevents use of other Natural Combat skills

Hydras:
Heads - not certain to work and hinders your combat abilities when it does

Drake:
Drakelings - hiding behind drakelings or retreating behind them when disabled works decently, but have no way to quickly get rid of status effects

Ritch:
Nothing! - technically you could "kill them before they killed you" but try do that against that stealthed rogue snake that just kicked you in your ritch-nards (no really, that actually happened )

So I was thinking about some ways to help with status effects, and here's a few ideas I came up with:

Hydra:
Since heads can block status effects, maybe a talent that lets you sacrifice HP to quickly grow a new head (this damage probably shouldn't be affect by Recuperate).
Building on a Hydra's regeneration, maybe a way to recover from status effects quicker (similar to Temporal Warden's Invigorate talent)?

Drake:
Instead of removing effects from yourself, you could only remove effects from drakelings. This would give you even move reason to use and position your drakelings. Perhaps Fire Breath (or even just dragonfire in general) could give a chance to remove effects.
Drakeling's Firebreath could also remove effects from you, and it would also give more reason to build CUN.

Ritch:
A talent that cleanses a status effect, by shooting yourself with flamespit (DIE STUN DIE).
Overkill could lower the duration of status effects (your frenzy helps you ignore pain) or put an effect on enemies that gives them a chance to fail to apply debuffs.

[nekarcos]

@daed4
If you feel underpowered, state EXACTLY why. I WILL NOT pay any mind to posts like this if you can't at least explain your reasoning.

I've literally explained why in the "bitching" post.

But let me put it in very, very, VERY simple terms:

Status effects are broken in tome4 they're the main danger in the game by far. You have no reliable way of taking care of them in avatar making them the worst race and class by far, way, way, way UP. Case in point, being undead who can't use infusions and can use discount infusions, known as 'runes'. They're not OP nothing about them is or can be OP because you have a huge weakness that reads "I die when I get stunned". Your only way to deal with status effects it's A) Run away B) Pray foot works and you don't get stunned again. If you find ANY enemy that can spam you with stuns before you have a nice stack of freedom infusions, of which you can only chug one each 9 turns (iirc, could be wrong).

P.D: Nobody has won with an avatar online yet except Jenx in arena,. And the main complain is how UP everything is, and how unreliable some things are.

- So you admit that your complaints are not with my classes-- But ToME itself? I'll admit something too: My classes HAVE drawn out the OPness of status effects in ToME, AND I ALREADY KNOW HOW AWFUL THEY ARE. REMEMBER?? I PLAYTESTED THIS?? If you recall, I'm WORKING on ways to minimize the threat of stuns without outright NEGATING them. SHEESH! Thanks for stating the obvious!!

- Not every ToME class has a status cure. You're exagerrating-- A lot.
- I haven't exactly designed these classes to be bonafide, foolproof game-winners. THAT part I left to the imaginations of my players.
Although, from my testing, they CAN each reach the end somewhat reasonably.

- What exactly is stunning you to the point where it upsets you this badly? If it's Necromancers, then I definitely agree with you. F**k those guys.
I'll tell you a secret though: I'm working on something that will make Avatars more effective against the Undead. That's all I can say about it, though.

- You're relying on a consumable (infusions). I've designed them to give you an extra kick in tough situations. I absolutely intended for relying on them to lead to PAIN. This is why they can remove corruption and increase your maximum life-- For RELIABLE, PERMANENT bonuses.
- I have said this before, I'll say it again: You weren't even supposed to be able to play Avatars in Arena/Infinite. That was just something I left in for convenience. It is a COMPLETELY moot point that someone can beat Arena, as far as I'm concerned, since I want people to (perhaps cheatingly) attempt to beat Normal/Adventure "AoA" before I start making LARGE power/damage/survivability tweaks.



@nsrr
No, I personally think you've been the kindest so far in regards to all the frustration you've probably gone through with this add-on. Really, I'm trying to minimize the frustrating situations-- But explosions in the thread like this REALLY slow me down...

Oh? I'll fix the Loremaster thing-- I completely forgot I wrote that

I'll investigate the Wild Power bonus thing. It's been a while since I checked up on escort functionality, so something might have broken in the meantime.



@64legos
Man, you've hit A LOT of nails on the head

*** Hydra
I gave "Avoidance" (3rd "Prudence" talent) to Hydra as an experimental means to progressively weaken and nullify physical status effect chains. It DOES, in fact, trigger when an effect is reapplied, meaning you could do something silly like sit around inside of a Bane of Blindness or your VERY OWN Sickening Mist and just marvel as your Physical Save increases to something crazy like 120 in a few turns. Although, in my experience, Physical Save doesn't seem to correctly reduce the duration of stuns. Is this just me?
Also, I originally buffed/nerfed Hydra so that Stuns and such could still pass through heads. This was mainly to prevent the Hydra from suddenly losing EVERY head it had all at once-- But maybe this presented unsavory side effects...?

*** Fire Drake
When you reach Talent Level 5 in "Parental Bond", you get a special effect that causes you to instantly break all stuns/pins whenever a Drakeling goes into Anti-Death mode. However, I'll be honest with you... I don't think it's working correctly either. I need someone to confirm this
Also, Fire Drake has A TON of abilities that slow/disable a large group of enemies with absolute ease (ESPECIALLY "Overshadow"). I'm not sure if it would be reasonable to give it the ability to negate/remove crowd-controlling on top of what it already has...
-- Also, I just remembered that "Relativity" also reduces the duration of physical status effects caused by things smaller than you!

*** Ritch
OW! My Ritch-nads
Yeah-- Me and nsrr were talking about making "Overkill" into a straight up status-duration-reduction effect, instead of the TOTALLY-NOT-WORKING-CORRECTLY save/apply power modifier.
Also, maybe giving "Cut Loose" a stun immunity effect. As I said, I don't believe in "derp-stun immunity" type abilities, so there WILL be a catch. What I am thinking is that you'll become confused for a few turns if you don't kill anybody by the end of the duration.

[astralInferno]

This is a matter of subjectivity, isn't it? I have absolutely NO reason to be rude or condescending to anyone-- Especially since I'm requesting all of you. Though, at times, people complain about things I feel they simply do not understand, and so, all I can do is grin and laugh about it until they eventually figure it out (IE: nsrr having never tried the 3rd and 4th Stinger talents )

Subjectively, I feel like you're laughing at me and everyone else in the thread. It's getting tiring.

So, you're not playing the add-on the way it's intended, and are surprised that things aren't working as you expected them to... How strange... Hm.
*sarcasm* Yeah, hold on. I'll get right to adding support for undead Avatars.
(Besides, how did you even make an "Undead" Avatar? That shouldn't be possible. You're obviously using strange add-ons. )

Dude. Seriously.
It's a wild talent. It's not meant to work on undead characters. I had an undead character and it was usable. This was a minor bug report, and instead you were sarcastic and condescending at me. Again.

On an adventurous note - which you likely don't care about, but I'm a huge proponent of them - the Avatar trees are almost entirely independent of the rest of the game. It's nearly impossible to build anything that uses Avatar trees without being the relevant Avatar; maybe you can add on one or two trees from a wilder or a technique class. One particular thing that bugs me here is Breath talents - there's no way to enhance them but what you give. If their base speed were linked to Mindspeed, that'd be a huge boost for anyone trying to do their own thing; and part of the joy in tome (for me) is how you can do completely your own thing. Avatars don't have that so much. (Similarly, I'd make Gatling Fire boost mindspeed, to make it less situational. Gatling Fire is probably my single favourite talent in OotS. (Man, OotS is Order of the Stick. this is such a confusing acronym. (how many brackets can I nest?)))
Adventure interactability beyond the very basics is definitely something that can wait for later, though.)

Eventually, I'll add special item egos that improve weird things like Breath talents-- But, for the time being, "Hoarding Beast" is supposed to be your way of interacting with the various objects you find in the world for the purposes of powering up your Avatar. "Treasure Hoarder's Will" offers you just about all you could ask for-- Besides "Breath Speed" I guess.
Also, "Breath" is naturally faster than ANY other combat, as long as you aren't currently dying... And, chances are, if you're currently dying, you have probably already used all of your breath talents anyways, so you've gotten the additional speed benefit out of them anyways.
Finally, with all of that said-- Isn't this a little early to be asking for "flexibility to do whatever you want"? This is... not even a full version yet, man...

(Adventure interactability beyond the very basics is definitely something that can wait for later, though.)

That and (if you recall) this project WAS me doing precisely what I wanted, remember?

Great. If you make mechanics that are fun for you and just you, then I hope you enjoy your addon, but other people won't.

I'd argue Hydra's bread-and-butter is being able to attack about 16 times in one turn, tbh...

I find bump attacks boring, however high the numbers are.

If not that, "Tri-Breath" is a pretty strong bread-and-butter, considering the cooldown can be as short as 3~4 turns once you get 4 Drool Heads.

That's fair, I'd forgotten they worked like that.

This depends what you consider overpowered. Personally, I think having 3000 Life and being able to Recuperate about 40~100% of damage you take is pretty dang OP-- And this is without even factoring in the possibility of Draconic Body or other regeneration talents.

From MY experience, Recuperate was useless. Anything that does appreciable damage in tome is a burst, and Recuperation is so low at low levels that it's a negligible form of damage mitigation. Leading into...

I simply cannot agree with these classes being underpowered, because my experiences have shown they each have the potential to become absolutely ridiculous in their own ways. Although, I'll admit one thing: The "ridiculousness" doesn't really start until the Level 20~30 range-- Which could explain why a lot of people haven't really experienced this yet. This is about how far I've seen most people get in vaults and such.

People can't get to the high levels because the low levels do very little. You may already have noted this as something to fix.

- So you admit that your complaints are not with my classes-- But ToME itself?

Dude, you're making a ToME mod.
It's not an issue in ToME itself because normal classes have options to deal with them.

- Not every ToME class has a status cure. You're exagerrating-- A lot.

Every tome class has a status cure. It's called inscriptions.
As another example of how important status cures are, it's accepted meta that undead want to grab celestial/light AT ANY OPPORTUNITY because of how big a deal the Providence status cures is.
Celestial/light is sometimes considered overpowered because of how good it it is at dealing with this massive problem.

- I have said this before, I'll say it again: You weren't even supposed to be able to play Avatars in Arena/Infinite. That was just something I left in for convenience. It is a COMPLETELY moot point that someone can beat Arena, as far as I'm concerned, since I want people to (perhaps cheatingly) attempt to beat Normal/Adventure "AoA" before I start making LARGE power/damage/survivability tweaks.

His point went COMPLETELY over your head, dude. "The only person who's won with an avatar is in Arena."
AKA, no-one has won outside of arena. No-one.
People have attempted to beat normal/adventure. They have failed.

One of the biggest mistakes game developers make is beta-releasing their games and trying to satisfy their players BEFORE a full-release even comes out. That's why a lot of games don't leave beta-- Production grinds to a slow and their players are already exhausted and bored of the game before the real stuff could even come out.

This is a valid concern, but a beta release should still be, you know, fun. You're getting a lot of people saying 'this is really hard to use' 'this isn't fun' 'this doesn't fit the rest of the game' and you're laughing at them and going 'ur doin it rong'.

... Don't get me wrong, but this sounds like a lot of dissatisfied venting.
Also, I don't recall promising you any kind of smooth or "excellent" experience. In fact, I have constantly stated this is an unfinished work. However, people have constantly posted in this thread making demands as though this is some finished product they paid for. It's not. Please, be patient. I am dealing with problems one at a time-- Albeit, slowly.
And finally, if there's something that bothers you, state it-- But don't word it as though I'm sworn by some sort of pact and obligated to satisfy you. I'm not. Just remember there is only one person working on this, and they have A LOT in mind for it-- However, if they're stuck trying to satisfy every problem a person has with it, it will NEVER become finished. As such, I have to make the tough choice of deciding what to fix and what to defer to another date.

... All of that said-- I want you to consider this: I have taken the time to read EVERY last word you wrote, and to even respond to it piece-by-piece. You have not been ignored. You have been acknowledged. Everything you've conveyed to me has been absorbed, and even if it's unconscious, your suggestions have reached me. The developer of this add-on spends every day responding to you and others, as well as continuing to release completely free new updates, where anybody else could have stopped.
... This said, most of your post has been formatted like a complaint, making demands and trying to appeal for a change in development. Not once have you suggested that I continue doing what I'm doing-- You've only suggested that I make this rather-ugly mess of an incomplete product prettier-- Which perplexes me. Why do you want me to beautify an incomplete add-on... Instead of completing it?

... Anywho, thanks for posting I suppose-- Any feedback is welcome-- But angry demands are not.

Addendum: Criticism is not always welcome-- Especially when the same thing is stated umpteen times. Be mindful of that.

I know that what I and some others are saying reads like complaints and demands. I'm sorry about that. As I've said, I really like your ideas and your concepts, and I really appreciate how much time and effort you're putting into this.

But the way you respond to criticism is discouraging. It's said umpteen times because the first ten times it was said, you went 'pffft nah'.
Maybe if a hundred of us say it and the mods descend in all their glory to back us up, you might listen.

Everyone who is posting here wants to help you make your mod better. Just as you don't have to spend your time working on it, they/we don't have to spend our time doing free playtesting for a product that - to your own admission - is incomplete and unbalanced.
But then when people say 'this is unbalanced' you go 'I know lol.' If you would at least sound like you were listening to people's concerns, that'd be nice.
"Thanks, I'll make a note of that for when I'm working on balance."
"I'm hearing that a lot, I'll look into it when I have some time."
"Eh, I don't agree. Don't you find that (X Y Z)?"

I promise, I swear to the gods, I am trying to help.

[rexorcorum]

Nekarcos, the last hour or two I was seriously pondering if I should bother with it at all, but then again - the things are done already and there's no use for them gathering dust in my archives. So, here are the redone 128x256 player tiles and some other things I think OotS will look nicer with:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/861 ... pc_128.zip

Do you know what is the difference between the happy and the miserable game developers? The former delight in making their audience/players happy. I've been doing things for ToME addon creators for the last 3,5 years and I can tell you from experience - it is a great joy to see someone else pleasantly surprised and overwhelmed with something you have made (and I'm not implying here that you should be). I'm just mightily annoyed that you're continuously thinking that reasonable people are thrashing your work of art, but doing so - you are really thrashing it yourself. Because if no one is playing it, what is the use of your one year+ labour (of love, most likely)?

And speaking about artistic vision - just load the Heart of Gloom and bask in my "artistic vision". Everybody is hating it and you know what - they are right to do so. The mushrooms are all too tall, their colours are all over the place (further camouflaging the already barely seen monsters standing behind them) and alas, gloomy it is not (dreamy - more so). And it is completely reworked for 1.5 (yay!). It took me 2 years to gather strength and enough free time to fix it. And if they are still not good enough by general consensus, I'll do it again. Because the game is meant to be played and enjoyed, not to be enshrined and worshipped by it's creators.

Also - books usually lack smilies and they are not tone mute by far. At all. We are just getting lazier by the hour in writing and reading tone.

That's it from me (for now) and it is the most personal thing I've written in the forums, so that probably counts for something. Cheers.

[daed4]

- Not every ToME class has a status cure. You're exagerrating-- A lot.
- I haven't exactly designed these classes to be bonafide, foolproof game-winners. THAT part I left to the imaginations of my players.
Although, from my testing, they CAN each reach the end somewhat reasonably.

1. Infusions, reading comprehension.
2. Proof.