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

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@tabs
RE: Tannen's Tower
TANNEN'S TOWER. ALRIGHT. THIS PLACE.
Because it was a HUGE spoiler, it has been VERY hard to discuss "the things that happen" in this place-- And trust me. I KNEW there would be issues. LOTS of issues-- And I have been anxiously awaiting people to get here and... Well... "Express their discontents".
... In fact, I'm sorta REALLY surprised no one has voiced their absolute OUTRAGE about this place until... Well-- Until jenx recently (apparently) quit OoTS for good because of it, hahaha...

But yeah-- The idea here is that being able to use "Blighted" talents usually requires an EXTREMELY steep investment of points, and a rather nasty loss in critical stats-- However, it was going to be THIS place that "opens up" that possibility and gives you a taste of what you have probably been missing.
I don't know if you noticed this, but you were automatically given 5 Talent Levels of EACH blighted talent-- And I can tell you right now: ALL Blighted talents are extremely powerful and each designed to COMPLETELY replace standard Avatar play. However, it has always been an unexpected side effect that this ALSO turns your Equilibrium Drain off. I suppose I was curious to see if anyone else considered this as much of an inconvenience as I did, or if they would go power-crazy with Blighted talents and not even notice AT ALL.

But yeaaaah... Long story short: Tannen's Tower is A THING and I expected many complaints/issues/bugs concerning this area. It's just a shame it's so far into the game, so these kinds of reports of far rather than near, hahaha...

Yes, I did notice them. I looked them over and, like Almonihah, found them not very tempting. Having something use HP with you just lost a LOT of HP (and regen) due to Wild Power isn't the greatest. I'm just happy the passives from Natural Combat talents stayed there. If I'd had any points in Natural Cycle then the equilibrium would have been a non-issue.

[nekarcos]

@Micbran
The thing is, I tested for "the dance" with the "Elven Ruins" (the crypt with all the mummies and such)-- And if THAT place couldn't produce the dance, I was certain NOWHERE else could... This bothers me so much!

@tabs
Y'know, you make a great point-- Everyone else too. I honestly can't remember the reason why this zone locks your Wild Power to 0, even though I also LOCKED the usage of active Natural Combat talents anyways. I think this was remnant, redundant code I forgot to remove... So, I think I'm gonna fix that.

... Also, it's pretty unfortunate that you lose all that HP, considering Hydra's blighted talents require you to have BUCKET-LOADS, hehehe...



*** SPOILER WARNING ***********************************************************************************************
PS: "Tannen's Tower" is going to be a rather HUGE plot point in "Odyssey of The Summoner". Tannen moreorless discovers you and "describes" what you are. Using the fact that he understands enough about you to even temporarily transform you into a corrupted being as justification for his actions, he begins sowing seeds of doubt and betrayal, allowing you to traverse down an "evil" path in the story, starting with your (optional) immediate Blighted Corruption and a grudge. Of course, this is all unimplemented stuff and whatnot...
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PPS: FUN FACT! The "Life cost" of Blood Geyser talents is actually a VERY slow BLEEDING effect. I think I'll rename it to "Bleeding: X" instead. If you have Ceaseless Blood, it almost ENTIRELY counteracts the life drain those talents cause. I have always been wondering if this was a bit broken-- But let's see how people feel about it when they try it out themselves!

[Almonihah]

PPS: FUN FACT! The "Life cost" of Blood Geyser talents is actually a VERY slow BLEEDING effect. I think I'll rename it to "Bleeding: X" instead. If you have Ceaseless Blood, it almost ENTIRELY counteracts the life drain those talents cause. I have always been wondering if this was a bit broken-- But let's see how people feel about it when they try it out themselves!

Ah, yes, that would have made it much more tempting.

I'm guessing that updating descriptions takes a back seat when you know you might be changing the talent again for the next patch. XD

[nekarcos]

I've been playing Odyssey off an on for a little while, great job!, and I'm really quite fond of Ritches & Hydra

My feedback is in regards to Fire Drakes and their Drakelings, that I only really started playing in the last few days as I was concentrating on getting to know the other Avatars.

a) There still seems to be at least 1 old message from when I assume you had more direct control of your Drakelings, this is the one you get when they get thier first talent points and it tells you to choose them from the party roster and press 'G' to assign them, but you can't take direct control anymore and only get the inventory option. Presumably this is now all handled by the 'automatic' attempts to imitate some of your talents when you have learnt the respective talents to enable this.

b) The Drakelings AI seems to have some minor issues
i) They can easilly get stuck in small diagonal cul-de-sacs when following you, where normally 2 get stuck as they try to follow you and just swap positions constantly (it looks like 1 tries to follow you displacing the other one, that then itself does the same thing, looping the actions). This is especially common in places like the Trollmire but can occur elsewhere. If resolving this isn't feasible then possibly you could give a free talent that can 'summon' them to you if there are no enemies in sight and they are fairly close by? (I know that you can just leave the level and return but sometimes this is rather difficult to do and can get you into sticky situations)
ii) They almost always seem to follow you in a single file line, would it be possible for them to try to cluster around a little bit when you you stop? i.e. if going diagonally would put them closer to you than just sitting behind the next nearest Drakeling they might do that (if not always)
iii) Can there be some way to tell they to wait (possibly only a somewhat short while similar to Escorts?), as sometimes them following you will either potentially kill them or stop you going into some trapped vaults (such as the two ended, two trapped, skeleton vault with the 4 cubicals. I just have to skip them every time or the traps can often kill 1 or more of my Drakelings while I'm trying to get the goodies ). If you don'y want to allow that level of control over them another possibility might be to automatically move away from a trap if they are taking damage from it.

But to sum up, thank you very much for making Odyssey of the Summoner it is great fun, very distinct from the base campaign while keeping the Tome 'feel', and the new mechanics & 'lore' are really keeping my interest!

... Weird... Your post didn't show up for me until... Well, right this moment! I only noticed because something in the past very strangely pushed all the posts up forward. Sorry if it seemed like I was ignoring you!

RE: Press G to what?
That's actually built into ToME. I could remove it for Drakelings-- In fact, I SHOULD remove it for Drakelings. I guess I've just been very lazy about it because its more syntactical than anything!

RE: Drakelings are getting stuck
I'm not sure if this is old or new Drakelings. Either way, I'm already on it! Seems someone else already requested this!

RE: Single file!
Actually, it was entirely by much effort and design that they DO follow you in single file! In my experiences, it was "bothersome" when they clustered around me... But maybe, in the future, I'll implement a few new orders for Drakelings, now that I've figured out precisely HOW to do it!

RE: Stop following me!
But they're just children! They don't know better!

... But, seriously though, you're looking for a very special talent in "Dragon Army" called "Battle Formations". This talent forces them to absolutely STOP following you (until they lose sight of you or their life is threatened). Otherwise, you can't tell them to stop being clingy!

RE: Thank you
Thank you too, sir! I'll try to keep it up! However, I'm a bit swamped with making the classes at least "playable", you see, heh... New content will be coming slowly-- But once we're over this hump, it will come thick and fast!




@Almonihah
I have no excuse for this lack of clarity. It was only NOW that I realized there is absolutely NOTHING that hints to the aforementioned... So, this is entirely my bad-- Sorry!

[Stuntofthelitter]

nekarcos - First-time-posters have their post not show up until approved by moderators, so theirs was hidden until I pushed it through =)

[nekarcos]

And actually, I have a question about drakelings: I left them with summoner while doing Sandworm lair. How do I get them back now? I return to Summoner and they're there, circling around me, but not as a party members. When quitting location they don't go with me and Summoner isn't saying anything about them.

While I was experimenting, something dreadful occurred to me...
It is DISTINCTLY possible you might have a special add-on active that automatically clears away any party entries for actors who are in your party, but currently "not present". This was mainly used as a countermeasure to a glitch that could occur when "Summons" are "Removed From Time" and the summoner would leave the zone. I vaguely remember reading about this in an add-on description somewhere... I think it was part of the Zomnibus add-on pack... If you had that add-on active, there is an EXTREMELY DISTINCT possibility it has CLEARED the Drakeling party entries BECAUSE they were no longer present! YIKES!

Now, I think I can fix this... But it's VERY messy (since it involves creating a completely new Party Member entry). I would rather preserve the already-existing one-- But I could always work around it if "ZOmnibus" doesn't have some sort of "exception/filter" parameter for the auto-remove behavior. Now, I WOULD investigate this myself... But compatibility with other add-ons is my last priority, since I strongly encourage players to use as little add-ons as possible to avoid... Well, terrible add-on conflicts like this, hahaha...

Some investigation later: I can't seem to find it, and it's NOT the ZOmnibus pack (I think). Can someone please confirm what add-on has this behavior? I'm actually VERY concerned about whether it's doing what I mentioned or not... Oh god.



@Stuntofthelitter
Ah! Thanks for the clarification! However, now I'm kinda concerned about how many posts I may have missed due to this...

[Micbran]

@Stuntofthelitter
Ah! Thanks for the clarification! However, now I'm kinda concerned about how many posts I may have missed due to this...

Most people create a forums account with the intent of posting a new topic, rather than posting on an old one. So, most likely none.

[64legos]

I had not confirm this myself, but the problem may be Marson's Bosses Gone AWOL -NPC Monitor & Clone Killer.

[nekarcos]

• If a summons is temporarily removed from the level via Time Skip, it remains in your party. If you leave the level before the summons returns, the connection to the summons is severed and it becomes a not-there party member. If you return to the previous level, the original summons will come back out of Time Skip, but it will now be a separate entity from the one that's in your party. The one on the level will sit there and then decay. The one in your party will not decay and will take up a summons slot from that point on, but will not be on any level you visit. BGA will remove the summons in the party slot if the connection is broken, clearing it for future summons.

THIS. This is my concern. I believe this could have a bad interaction with the Drakeling's "dismissal" mechanic...

Good catch 64legos!

[sadisticnerd]

Here goes one major error that I found, when playing exploration mode( ).

If you go to Zigur, after being...blighted(I hope that is not a spoiler, considering how the mechanic works) Fun fun things happen but I got an error every turn I spent there, literally. I don't know if it was because I got mana clashed constantly, or the little, lovely...'surprise' our lovely creator put in there. I am going to search for more mana clash users which hopefully don't have nasty little events included in them, but I believe the error was the nasty, nasty surprise that I got.

All I can say is, I'm glad for playing on exploration mode, if I was roguelike instead, I'd be spamming hate-mails. XD

[jenx]

Just entered Tannen's tower. Now have zero equilibrium drain. This seems like a big "screw you" to the player.

Lol. Let me know when this is changed.

[nekarcos]

@sadisticnerd
Bah! This is what I get for trying to add a new feature without testing it thoroughly! I'm almost 90% certain this is being caused by the new "manaburn" change I made for Blighted Avatars.

Also, I'm glad you liked it. You only have yourself to blame, y'know... I can't imagine why you'd go there of all places...!



@jenx
Be nice.

Yes, it's being changed... However, I need you (and everyone else) to be clear that YOU take responsibility for whatever happens to you when you play this add-on in a non-developer mode. I am making absolutely no promises that you won't suddenly bump into a difficulty spike due to something unforeseen, or something blowing up and behaving unexpectedly, leading to loss of playtime and/or character corruption. In this case, Tannen's Tower, where you are apparently stuck, heheheh...

I appreciate that you ONLY play online (NOT developer mode), and I will ALWAYS give said players special, first-priority treatment. However, I would ALSO appreciate it if you weren't so bitter about every issue you encounter in this UNFINISHED add-on. I'll fix these problems, but I might get a bit "lazy" about it if it starts to feel very thankless, you get me?

So, to reiterate: Be nice. Considering the nature of your previous post and this last post you just made, it's pretty evident you are mocking me now. Less of that, alright? It's inappropriate and I'm just here to help!

[Xeno The Morph]

<snip>

... Weird... Your post didn't show up for me until... Well, right this moment! I only noticed because something in the past very strangely pushed all the posts up forward. Sorry if it seemed like I was ignoring you!

RE: Press G to what?
That's actually built into ToME. I could remove it for Drakelings-- In fact, I SHOULD remove it for Drakelings. I guess I've just been very lazy about it because its more syntactical than anything!

RE: Drakelings are getting stuck
I'm not sure if this is old or new Drakelings. Either way, I'm already on it! Seems someone else already requested this!

RE: Single file!
Actually, it was entirely by much effort and design that they DO follow you in single file! In my experiences, it was "bothersome" when they clustered around me... But maybe, in the future, I'll implement a few new orders for Drakelings, now that I've figured out precisely HOW to do it!

RE: Stop following me!
But they're just children! They don't know better!

... But, seriously though, you're looking for a very special talent in "Dragon Army" called "Battle Formations". This talent forces them to absolutely STOP following you (until they lose sight of you or their life is threatened). Otherwise, you can't tell them to stop being clingy!

RE: Thank you
Thank you too, sir! I'll try to keep it up! However, I'm a bit swamped with making the classes at least "playable", you see, heh... New content will be coming slowly-- But once we're over this hump, it will come thick and fast!




@Almonihah
I have no excuse for this lack of clarity. It was only NOW that I realized there is absolutely NOTHING that hints to the aforementioned... So, this is entirely my bad-- Sorry!

Well as Stuntofthelitter said it seems that was due to me undergoing 1st post moderation, so I'm quite pleased that you did notice it


RE: Press G to what? - Ah it was a base tome message! I suppose I didn't really notice it with Alchemists before.

RE: Drakelings are getting stuck - Just FYI it was with the latest version at the time I posted so it should have been the new Drakelings, but as it was already brought up by others I'm sure you will figure it out!

RE: Single file! - Well we all have different tastes in how we want things to work and your the boss here

RE: Stop following me! - Oh OK, I'll try to invest in that when I have access to it, and now that I have realised that you can leave your Drakeling with the Summoner I'll go back to these locations while I leave them elsewhere. Though I do think it is a little odd that they will don't retreat from a damage trap when they get to low health, that is only a fairly minor issue.

RE: Thank you - Well the most important thing is that you enjoy developing Odyssey as much as many of us enjoy playing it We all have to remember that it is still in active main development and not undergoing late stage 'tweaking' and let you figure out how you want to change it from the feedback!

[nekarcos]

Update: There's a lot of really nice, healthy changes coming in this next update! I contemplated releasing them today, but I think I'll try to knock a few more things off before I do.
One of the biggest things this update will have is a nicer-looking description of what individual stats do for your various talents and class attributes. It'll make more sense when you see it yourself! Stay tuned...


@Xeno The Morph
RE: Press G
Don't worry about it-- Whether it's ToME or "OoTS", they're both clarity things as well, so I gotta fix it... Eventually.

RE: Drakelings getting stuck
I have, indeed, fixed this in the next update-- But its a minor enough problem that I'm putting off the update for now to add even more cool things

RE: Formations
I REALLY want to do that, and I've ALWAYS been trying to figure out how to make "Orders" work. Recently, I finally did, so all I need is some time to explore it a bit and attempt an implementation. As nice as "Battle Formations" is, I want some "innate" ways of controlling Drakeling movement-- Although, if there ever IS a "don't move" type of order, it's going to be about as effective as it is when used for Escorts, heheheh...

RE: Returning Drakelings
There will come a time where you can SELECTIVELY dismiss/summon your Drakelings. I've already looked into this, and it's ready to go-- But I gotta determine how "well" a Fire Drake can currently get through the game before I decide on the costs/repercussions of using such a feature.

RE: Thank you
I might sound irritable at times, but that's because I'm a (VERY BAD) combination of "Creative Director" AND "Public Relations"-- And ANY game developer could tell you that's a messy proposition, hahaha...
Anyways, DO NOT let that discourage any suggestions/ideas you might have. The worst that could happen is that I don't take the suggestion-- And that's PRETTY unlikely-- I don't think there's been a single thing I've been told here that I didn't, in some way, take to heart and implement... That said, don't hold back.

[tabs]

So a lot (and I mean easily 50%+) of all enemy attacks hit me for either 'healing' type or (more rarely) 'nourish' type damage. No idea what's causing this. I have both Bloodcaller and a parasitic mindstar equipped, but AFAIK these only apply to damage I do.



PS I'm beginning to see the light on all those hits and procs.