reduce most impairing effects duration and remove immunity

[lukep]

Most status attacks have both an element and an effect associated from them. Allow them to be resisted with either. So, Flameshock gives you one roll to resist based on your fire resistance, and one roll based on your stun/freeze immunity.

Or, instead, decrease duration based on the elemental resistance, with immunity working the way it does now. So something with Cold resistance of 50% is only frozen for half as long as something with 0%, and monsters with 100% can't be frozen at all.

Sounds similar to this idea; nobody weighed in then, but I still think it could be a good idea if it got developed more.

Regarding the rest of the thread, I don't like the idea of adding effects to more talents, am ambivalent about reducing their duration, depending on how it is done, and opposed to removing effect immunities.

A one turn disable (stun, freeze, daze, pin at range etc...) that takes one turn to use is absolutely useless, as all of the time gained by disabling the enemy is used by the talent. If the effects lasted one additional turn, it might be worth it in a 1v1 fight.

Instant use disabling talents would make kiting, pillar dancing, and other tactics based on running away absolutely lethal, and remove all risk from them. The tactic would become run away (or pillar dance, etc...) disable (if it fails, disable with second talent, or a third, or don't hit it, and keep running), hit once, repeat. This would effectively be a 100% chance to avoid all chances of damage from a melee enemy.

I'm not sure how removing immunity would work after these changes.

[marvalis]

A one turn disable (stun, freeze, daze, pin at range etc...) that takes one turn to use is absolutely useless

Exactly, as I wrote in my first post:

All skills with a secondary freeze effect would have a 1 turn freeze, and skills with only a freeze effect but no other effects or damage could have a 2-3 turn freeze assuming these skills consume a turn to use. Similarly, an archer skill that only immobilizes but does no damage could last 2-3 turns. A disarm skill that does not do damage, for example, could last 2-3 turns.

A skill that takes a turn and only freezes for 1 turn, gives you no advantage (other than reducing cool-downs of everyone because we are one turn further in the game).
A skill that who's primary purpose is to do damage, and who's secondary effect is freeze, is very potent! You get two attacks for the price of one. I would argue that even a 1 turn freeze is to strong! However, we cannot go below 1 turn ;D (then it would be more like a slow effect - something different).

As you pointed out, crowd control effects should always consume a turn, unless they only boost another skill and do nothing them-self. Imagine, for example a talent called 'infuse ice' that 'causes your next spell to have a chance to freeze your target). Infuse ice would not cost a turn to use, then you cast a spell (consumes a turn) and the target is frozen (for one turn).

A 9-turn irresistible paralyze from flameshock is just retarded. Even if it can miss you, it only need to hit once and you are dead. Paralyze needs to be removed completely from the game as it cannot be justified in any way (even a 1-turn paralyze can lead to insta-kill).

With my suggestion, you would never be paralyzed but suffer _at most_ a 1-turn freeze that allows you to use a healing infusion and a shielding rune.
As you rightfully pointed out, we should be very careful not to give monsters to many skills that freeze, confuse, etc.

Again I ask the question: Why give monsters skills that can freeze you if the players are immune to it? Is it then not better to reduce these effects to the point where they are balanced (a 1-turn freeze is balanced) and can be used?

[bricks]

Paralyze is definitely broken, and should probably be replaced with Stun or Daze. Multi-turn Freeze, however, can be fought out of, and with careful attention to your surroundings, Blind is no more than an annoyance. I hardly ever stack Blind resistance for SWL/Briagh's unless I happen to have an item that provides a great deal of it.

[Frumple]

Many classes abilties and themes revolve around the idea of CC. Putting all CC durations to 1 would take a ton of rebalancing, some classes would need more CC, other classes would lose their niche entirely and need more damage.

This is the closest I've seen to mention of a big issue with this proposed change -- this whole thought experiment seems to be completely ignoring the crowd aspect of crowd control.

A one turn (or even 2-3 turn, depending on the damage output of the class in question) duration debuff -- stun, confuse, daze, it basically doesn't matter -- is effectively completely useless (or at least of so little use as to be meaningless) in a multiple actor battle.

Any class that relies on AoE or multi-target debuffs for survival in group combat (if only to get away!) would be horrifically gimped by the considered change. The chances of a one to two turn stutter saving you when there's five or six ranged enemies breathing down your neck is bloody close to nil. If nothing else, it drastically reduces your options in that situation -- you basically have to teleport out. You won't have time to retreat if you don't have some sort of movement enhancer, and trying to fight part of the group while the rest is out of action would be a complete non-option. They wouldn't stay out of action long enough for you to do anything meaningful.

Counter-proposal, to be fit into the current system: Have duration degrade an extra amount based on % of health lost. This would reduce the effectiveness of debuffs in single combat (if they actually need them -- everything else aside, I'm not really convinced of that) without removing their viability as crowd control.

[marvalis]

Any class that relies on AoE or multi-target debuffs for survival
Like who? cursed?

Anyway, if you are being hit by 5 archers at the same time then the problem might be:

* the map is badly designed and the monsters are badly placed, or the monsters are just to powerful for this setting
* your position is bad
* you are not using your skills as intended
...

Instead of standing in that room with 5 archer shooting at you, you could:
* design maps without to many ranged classes, and with a good balance between melee and ranged.
* block line of sight by moving, teleporting, conjuring a wall, ...
* some classes will still get AOE freeze effects that last one turn, and after that they can use a 1 turn AOE confuse attack. Both attacks also deal damage so these archer will be dead by now.
... do something else, be creative.

Essentially you are saying: "This game is to hard for certain classes. The solution would be to give these classes overpowered AOE crowd effects so they are playable. The player is immune to these effects otherwise monsters would be to strong."

Again, where is the fun in TOME when high level players are immune to freeze, blind and other effects? The game is not only about making the player strong, it is also about giving monsters skill to defeat that player! Skills that are balanced.

If these effects are reduced to 1-turn, then the effect might be balanced but some monsters and some classes will not be balanced with these changes. The problem is not the reduction of freeze to 1 turn, but rather the classes and monsters need to be fixed. Yes this is an issue, yes this will have to be taken into account. Yes this can be fixed!

Multi-turn Freeze, however, can be fought out of

Keyword here is 'can'. However, suppose you can't for whatever reason and you are frozen for 3 turns. In those 3 turns you can still be killed in some situations. The fact that you can be insta-killed is enough to say that a multi-turn freeze is too strong, even is 'usually' you survive it.
The only reason you do not fear freeze is because you are used to being stun immune at high level.

[lukep]

Again I ask the question: Why give monsters skills that can freeze you if the players are immune to it? Is it then not better to reduce these effects to the point where they are balanced (a 1-turn freeze is balanced) and can be used?

Why give enemies resistances if you can get resistance penetration? Why give saves if you can increase your spellpower (etc)? Armour vs. APR? Defence vs. attack? Sustains vs. learning to dispel them? Invisibility vs. see invisible? Stealth vs see through stealth? All of these apply equally to monsters and the player, I don't see why immunities are unique and should be excluded from the arms race mechanic present in the rest of these.

[marvalis]

Q: How do you make an encounter hard?
A: By giving monsters skills.

But the player is immune to blind, stun etc.!

Solution: Just give the final boss 10k hp and make some bosses hit for 1500 damage?

Effects like stun, daze, paralyze, slow are *effects* and are not influenced by level scaling _by design_.
A freeze effect is a freeze effect, if you are level 1 or 1000. If the map designer choose to give the monster a skill that freezes the player to change to dynamics of the battle, then it can be used. It is a tool in the hands of the map maker. There are only so many possible effects you can use:

You can slow the player
You can freeze it
...

Take these away and there is nothing left!

According to you, the game is about an 'ams race' where you have to get the right equipment to make progress? A map has monsters that freeze => the players grinds a few dungeons to find a stun immune items => all the monsters on the map effectively loose the freeze effect. Is this fun? Challenging? The game should be about designing interesting encounters, about inventing talents that change the battlefield in interesting ways, about skill combinations that produce original effects, ... .

[edge2054]

Any class that relies on AoE or multi-target debuffs for survival
Like who? cursed?

Paradox Mages. That's pretty much their niche. Brawlers rely a lot on debuffs too (1 or 2 turn grapple, god that would suck). Scatter Shot is a pretty big deal for archers. Anorithils have an AoE confusion and AoE stun spell. The blind talents Illuminate and whatever the Sun Paladin one is called. Wyrmics get an AoE blind, an AoE daze, an AoE confuse (two of them actually), and an AoE silence if you go Antimagic. Of the above classes I'd say only the Wyrmic and Paradox Mage rely on AoE CC as part of their niche but it's an important strategy for many many classes.

Anyway, it's like I said awhile back. You're asking for homogenization. If something like this went through the classes would start to look more and more alike. There would be no niche crowd control classes and no niche damage classes. You'd have offense and defense and would tie a few crowd control effects to each offense and defensive talent.

And frankly marvalis, the longer this thread goes the more I realize you're suggesting a way way bigger change then the one that's already coded and outlined in my first post. You want to rebalance every class, 50% of the talents, 50% of the monsters, how encounters are generated, and how the random unique generator works. I'm not saying a system like this couldn't work but it really is a much bigger overhaul then making the saving throw system act more like armor.

[bricks]

Any class that relies on AoE or multi-target debuffs for survival
Like who? cursed?

Doomed and Cursed have a number of options. Corrupters have two entire generic trees based on debuffing targets, one of which is 3/4 area-of-effect, and Reavers can make great use of diseases. I imagine Ice Archmages use freeze effects a great deal. Stun is important for Rogue damage, as are the various poisons (poisons may not be AoE, but they can be placed on multiple targets). The Gravity tree uses pin for crowd control and increasing damage. Stop and Slow are both area-of-effect, and can be very useful. Without meaningful status effects, there actually wouldn't be much difference between the classes. AoE status effects come about naturally since the game is the player vs. the world, not the player vs. a single file line.

Ninja'd by edge, though we generated rather different lists.

[marvalis]

And frankly marvalis, the longer this thread goes the more I realize you're suggesting a way way bigger change then the one that's already coded and outlined in my first post. You want to rebalance every class, 50% of the talents, 50% of the monsters, how encounters are generated, and how the random unique generator works. I'm not saying a system like this couldn't work but it really is a much bigger overhaul then making the saving throw system act more like armor.

Yes exactly! I am glad you noticed this. I want to make the game balanced so that the end boss can still use a freeze, stun or blind effect and a high level encounter can still be interesting. This will require the things you mentioned. You can see this as a long-term development plan or something (I know this will not be done in one or two beta's or whatever).

BTW you both raise good points about re-balancing classes *if* a change such as proposed by me is made (or at least changes that go in the direction of my suggestion). I am glad you are willing to fill in some of these gaps as I do not play all these classes.

Again I ask the question: Why give monsters skills that can freeze you if the players are immune to it? Is it then not better to reduce these effects to the point where they are balanced (a 1-turn freeze is balanced) and can be used?

Why give enemies resistances if you can get resistance penetration? Why give saves if you can increase your spellpower (etc)? Armour vs. APR? Defence vs. attack? Sustains vs. learning to dispel them? Invisibility vs. see invisible? Stealth vs see through stealth? All of these apply equally to monsters and the player, I don't see why immunities are unique and should be excluded from the arms race mechanic present in the rest of these.

About effects not scaling: Let me try to explain it like this:
HP and damage scales:
level 6: 150 hp, the monster does 30 damage.
level 50: 1500 hp, the monster does 400 damage

same with spellpower armor and armor penetration etc.

Now let us look at an effect in terms of gameplay:
The level 1 skeleton mage uses freeze:
The player is frozen in place and can only use skills that target himself.

The level 50 skeleton mage uses freeze:
The player is frozen in place and can ony use skills that target himself.

Regardless of the spell-power of the skeleton mage, the *effects* of freeze are the same, whether at level 1 or 1000. Effects cannot be scaled. If a 2 turn freeze is to strong in *some* situations, then freeze is overpowered by design regardless of the level, spell-power, armor penetration or whatever. As a map designer, you can choose to use freeze effects or not, knowing the player will not be immune, and will not be insta-killed.

If, as a map designer, I would give all my monsters freeze, then the player would say: The monsters are to strong, please give me better crowd control skills. If we would do this (like we do now in a sense) then it would be a matter of whoever shoots first wins! That would mean 'hit and run' and 'back and tag' attack (like we do now, you back off ... wait for the boss to some ... BAM he is frozen for 7 turns /lmao). This does not lead to interesting encounters. Shooting first should give you an advantage, but should not win the game. That means most monsters should not die in one or two hits from range (like they do now), so they at least have a change to inflict some damage and perhaps even an effect on the player. That is good design.

Provide the player with 10 levels of monsters that die in one hit: bad design (that is why I absolutely hate the maze: endless corridors of pointless 1v1 encounters). Provide the player with 3-4 interesting encounters that are challenging and an end boss: good design. How are you going to make a battle interesting without status effects?

[marvalis]

BTW if you guys feel so strongly about keeping the current class balance (understandable, since you designed them),
then the only real alternative is to make a bunch of monster-only talents.
That way players can keep overpowered status effects,
and monsters can be given balanced talents.

TOME has not taken this route (yet), but it is a possible alternative to achieve game balance while keeping status effects.
At least, keeping status effects in the end-game is what I want but I am getting a strong feeling that you just don't want the player to be frozen for a turn or two in the end game. Are you afraid?
(I understand that with high 'resistance', a freeze would be a 1-turn freeze because of your 'saves', and the freeze would be balanced. Why not just set the duration to 1 or 2, or even 3! and make it balanced to begin with)

[Grey]

I'd personally be happy with durations scaled down by resistances and resistances capped at 70% (as per the damage resistances).

[Frumple]

Any class that relies on AoE or multi-target debuffs for survival
Like who? cursed?

... archmagi, alchemists, both the celestials, everyone with warcries, wyrmics, both the chronomancers, archers, the rogues depending on what talents they take, mindslayers in certain situations. Doomed more than cursed. Everyone that gets ahold of hexes, but especially the actual corruptor classes.

The better question is who doesn't, because most classes have one or more AoE debuffs that can be pretty necessary to survive certain situations. Ninja'd thoroughly, but the point still stands.

Anyway, if you are being hit by 5 archers at the same time then the problem might be:

* the map is badly designed and the monsters are badly placed, or the monsters are just to powerful for this setting
* your position is bad
* you are not using your skills as intended

Or just bad luck, which happens. There's also the ambushes and certain vaults. As is, there's ways of dealing with these exotic or uncommon situations. With the system described, you simply couldn't allow them to be, because you wouldn't have any way of coping. Would much rather have a system where that sort of thing could exist, because it adds variety to the situations you encounter.

Also note that this is a roguelike, where most of the maps are randomly generated and the monsters randomly paced. Map design isn't something you can easily account for unless you several gimp what the map generation is capable of.

BTW if you guys feel so strongly about keeping the current class balance (understandable, since you designed them),

It probably has less to do with that and more to do with the ungodly amount of work what you're proposing would take. There are several hundred talents in the game, a significant amount of which use debuffs to some degree. The entire generation code, both for monster scaling and map creation, are also something you're considering for change. This would take many months of effort, during which progress in other areas would have to be either greatly slowed or completely stopped.

The better idea, as I see it, is to do what's actually being done -- move away from simple debuffs like stun/blind/confuse. The necromancer class, corruptors, mindslayers, chronomancers, and new horror talents, all seem to be headed in this direction. Presumably, the older classes will eventually get touched up like this as T4 becomes more mature as a game.

Best case scenario I could see right now would be for you, marvalis, or someone else interested in doing such a project, would be to start up a module for T4. Use the base game as is, adjust it as you're proposing, and see how it works out in-game. Give a solid proof of concept, then compare the two systems and see what from each of them can be used to improve the other. Given enough time and effort, something impressive could be done without bringing mainline T4's development to a near standstill.

[lukep]

Q: How do you make an encounter hard?
A: By giving monsters skills.

But the player is immune to blind, stun etc.!

Because the player sacrificed other equipment stats, class/generic points, or an otherwise stronger build to get it. That argument does not work for me.

According to you, the game is about an 'ams race' where you have to get the right equipment to make progress?

Close enough, the right abilities, including talents, equipment (and activations), player skill etc...

About effects not scaling: Let me try to explain it like this:
HP and damage scales:
level 6: 150 hp, the monster does 30 damage.
level 50: 1500 hp, the monster does 400 damage

same with spellpower armor and armor penetration etc.

This applies to spellpower, saves, accuracy, defense, armour, and APR, but not to resistances, resistance penetration, invisibility, stealth, see through invisibility, see through stealth (?), those are new mechanics that are not encountered in the early game.

Very few level 6 monsters can apply any status effects at all, but a large amount of level 50 ones can apply several. Also, the duration of effects applied by high level enemies is usually longer, and many of the non-binary ones (diseases, slow, sunder armour) have a larger magnitude, making effects a stronger force later in the game through all three of increased frequency, duration, and magnitude. To use your example:

level 6: stone trolls (10% of the monsters) can stun for 3 turns.
level 50: orc fighters, berserkers, assassins, many demons, some wyrms, and some others (total about 70% of monsters) can stun for 7 turns, or equivalent effects. Some can also disarm, sunder arms/armour, and many other effects.

And wow, that's a few posts since I started writing, I hope that it's all still relevant.

[marvalis]

It probably has less to do with that and more to do with the ungodly amount of work what you're proposing would take. There are several hundred talents in the game, a significant amount of which use debuffs to some degree. The entire generation code, both for monster scaling and map creation, are also something you're considering for change. This would take many months of effort, during which progress in other areas would have to be either greatly slowed or completely stopped.

Cumulative time played by all players
Total play time: 7106 day(s) 11 hour(s) 44 minute(s)
It will take what? 30 hours of coding to change the game? Your point? The final goal is balance, we have our entire lives to complete this goal.

Best case scenario I could see right now would be for you, marvalis, or someone else interested in doing such a project, would be to start up a module for T4. Use the base game as is, adjust it as you're proposing, and see how it works out in-game. Give a solid proof of concept, then compare the two systems and see what from each of them can be used to improve the other. Given enough time and effort, something impressive could be done without bringing mainline T4's development to a near standstill.

This thread is not about what code I am personally going to write for TOME. This thread is about exploring the idea of reducing the duration of impairing effects to 1 turn, and the consequences for this game. Up unto this point I feel like we are succeeding reasonably well in mapping out this idea. I am not going to recode the entire game (probably) all by myself. Instead, we are simply exploring idea's about game mechanics.

The better idea, as I see it, is to do what's actually being done -- move away from simple debuffs like stun/blind/confuse. The necromancer class, corruptors, mindslayers, chronomancers, and new horror talents, all seem to be headed in this direction. Presumably, the older classes will eventually get touched up like this as T4 becomes more mature as a game.

I am going to have to look at these classes to see exactly what you mean because I have not played these (yet).

I can see that there are currently plenty of classes in the game.
Most of these are never unlocked. What this game needs *most* is to balance the current existing classes that are unlocked by default (the ones you will get to eventually by learning from the new ones).
http://te4.org/game-statistics

1 players gained: Infinite x500

// LOL that was me during some tests. Woohoo! I am on the statistics page xD.

The statistics do not say how many players there are sadly, so we cannot compare it. We can look at the difference between the number of players who unlocked summoner (and have player the game a bit) and some of the other unlocks:

Code: Select all

Unlocks
    2415 players unlocked: Class: Wilder / Summoner
    1578 players unlocked: Class: Mage / Archmage
    1403 players unlocked: Class: Afflicted / Cursed
    1258 players unlocked: Campaign: The Arena
    1191 players unlocked: Class: Wilder / Wyrmic
    931 players unlocked: Talents: Spell / Storm
    819 players unlocked: Class: Chronomancer / Temporal Warden
    747 players unlocked: Race: Undead / Skeleton
    743 players unlocked: Campaign: Infinite Dungeon
    724 players unlocked: Talents: Spell / Stone
    666 players unlocked: Race: Undead / Ghoul
    656 players unlocked: Class: Celestial / Anorithil
    614 players unlocked: Class: Corrupter / Reaver
    609 players unlocked: Race: Yeek / Yeek
    521 players unlocked: Class: Celestial / Sun Paladin
    485 players unlocked: Talents: Cunning / Poisons
    428 players unlocked: Class: Warrior / Brawler
    377 players unlocked: Class: Afflicted / Doomed
    329 players unlocked: Class: Psionic / Mindslayer
    264 players unlocked: Class: Corrupter / Corruptor
    238 players unlocked: Class: Chronomancer / Paradox Mage
    233 players unlocked: Talents: Spell / Wildfire
    146 players unlocked: Talents: Spell / Ice
    96 players unlocked: Class: Mage / Necromancer
    34 players unlocked: Class: Rogue / Marauder

For mage it drops almost by half (make the mage quest easier to complete, make it 5 items or whatever). Only ~10% of the players unlocks paradox mages.
Most played classes (just look at the site). Fighter, rogue, mage, berserker, alchemist, cursed. (DG, we need statistics of classes without the class-race combination :/).

Cursed and rogue have lower survival rate than mage, fighter and berserker indicating these classes are currently not balanced. Cursed scores worst. This confirm what we know from other player's posts on this forum.

The point I am trying to make, replying to your post, Is simply that adding new classes is great but for new players TOME really needs to balance the main classes (and there is no reason why we can't have both, I am not attacking your post).