shadow tunnel; adv minions & archlich staff; etc.

[MalReynolds]

Shadow tunnel can be used to pull one's necromantic minions to one's side during the Zigur attack and the Fearscape; I think it works during Dreamscape as well. Not necessarily a bug; but my understanding is that you are supposed to be summoned, at least in the 'scapes, without companions. It's neat you can pull them in; it's just odd.

When one has the advanced minions talent (at, say, 5), and then equips the archlich staff, the percent chance of summoning certain critters goes up (e.g. lich 4%-->6%), while the percent for others goes *down* (e.g. barrow wight goes from 6% to 0%). All numbers should go up; a barrow wight is still better than a skeleton warrior.

Again, skeleton archers with blighted summoning really, really, really should not be given bone grab. See my post "Blighted summoning skills are...odd choices."

This has been noted before; but when minions for some reason lose track of their target (e.g. when I phase door to safety, and then shadow tunnel them to my side), they just mill around, occasionally throwing up their shields, and refuse to follow me, and I have to abandon them. Their behavior/target should be reset to "default/none" after a while if no one is in sight.

When you are frozen, your minions suddenly *appear* hostile. They are not; they don't attack, I don't think; but their tactical highlighting turns red, and their faction is listed as the opposition.

Could the staff of the archlich have some comment that its power is increased when wielded by a necromancer or lich or whatever the requirement is? It's 30% obvious; but it should be 60% obvious, in my opinion.

When you are stopped and resting, could minions please be encouraged to gather more closely? This is a big problem I think in general, that monsters don't try to crowd around to attack @, but will often just wait politely for their turn, even if they could go around. (Even better would be if intelligent monsters that in a position such that they could take one turn to move to @'s side to free up additional attack space for monsters behind would do so. But that's a bigger issue.) By gathering more closely, I mean that sometimes if I go, say, diagonally for ten steps and then rest, they will have lined up behind in a diagonal trail like a comet and stay in that Rockettes formation, even though they could take a simple step in either cardinal direction and decrease their actual distance from the summoner (and then diagonal moves will again be open).

This has also been mentioned before in other contexts, but I wanted to note that it occurs with Rigor Mortis: when cast at its limit of distance, its action is not actually instantaneous; sometimes monsters get a move before the "instantaneous" spell gets to the spot, and move out of the Rigor Mortis target area. This is odd; it's fine to say that it goes at 10,000% speed, or something; but it is not quite instantaneous and shouldn't be described as such.

When one dies and becomes a Lich, one is stopped from unlearning ANY talents, not just one's Lich skill. So if you hit Lich, you could put a generic point into, say, evasion, to see what the next level would give you, and even BEFORE closing out of the shift-G screen, you will be unable to unlearn the point. (Note that this happened to me at lvl 50, so it might be a conflation of the 50 + lich issues; but I definitely did not close out of the screen prior to trying to unlearn the talent.)

Having a lot of fun.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

When you are frozen, your minions suddenly *appear* hostile. They are not; they don't attack, I don't think; but their tactical highlighting turns red, and their faction is listed as the opposition.

This is deliberate. They actually do read you as 'hostile' and will attack, while you are frozen. They are attacking the ice block in order to attempt to free you. They immediately revert upon you thawing.

Could the staff of the archlich have some comment that its power is increased when wielded by a necromancer or lich or whatever the requirement is? It's 30% obvious; but it should be 60% obvious, in my opinion.

A number of items have special properties not listed. This has been the subject of much debate. I would prefer for them to simply mention that there are special properties, and leave it to you to discover, but the next version is apparently just going to list them outright, thus destroying the mystique these items have, and removing some element of fun and mystery from the game.

Having a lot of fun.

This is good, and it's more then I got out of the necro class.

[MalReynolds]

I should also mention I am currently using Necromancy+ v1.2.

This might impact some of the bugs, but I don't think so, because I believe I saw each of these before I tried N+.

And speaking of "having fun," I quit my previous Necromancer because it wasn't. Fun, I mean. Before N+. It was miserable; particularly the inability to use autoexplore, and the occasional need even when manually exploring to pause and clump your minions together. N+ solves about 60% of the problems (thanks, HousePet!) that made me quit. On balance it became fun again. (Did I mention?: thanks HousePet!)

Although problems remain... particularly minion-cast DarkFire wiping out my undead friends quickly, and losing minions to autoexplore even when they move at 80%+ movement speed due to the poorly timed moves of far-away minions I mentioned in an earlier post. (I believe they could move at 1000%+ speed, and you would still lose them sometimes in autoexplore; at least I do, on completely cleared levels, due to move timing, I think.)

Regarding giving away secret powers, it's important to at least know there's *something* special; I didn't bother using the archlich staff for a while because it didn't even have an indication of special powers; I figured it was just a good mid-game staff, and I had already found something better. I think you just need some vague indication; you don't need to give *everything* away. Celia's heart is a good example.

Just got to high peak lvl 1; looking good. I think I forgot to mention something...

Oh, yeah! Thanks, HousePet!

[HousePet]

a barrow wight is still better than a skeleton warrior.

Its not though.

My addon shouldn't be interfering with the AI at all, so those bugs are bugs.

The Sceptre of the Archlich has some bonuses which display when wielded by a Lich. Hence, 'Lich' in its name. Any additional information about that is going to be insulting to the player.

I'm glad I've made Necromancer more fun for you.

[jenx]

my addon, better tactical ai, will vastly improve the behaviour of your minions. I'd be interested to see how they go with an experienced necromancer.

[Moander]

my addon, better tactical ai, will vastly improve the behaviour of your minions. I'd be interested to see how they go with an experienced necromancer.

Don't the summons only use Dumb AI?

[jenx]

my addon, better tactical ai, will vastly improve the behaviour of your minions. I'd be interested to see how they go with an experienced necromancer.

Don't the summons only use Dumb AI?

oops - your'e right. In that case, use my tough dumb ai addon