reduce most impairing effects duration and remove immunity

[marvalis]

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.

Okey, let us look at a winner: I will take the first one from the character subforum: An alchemist!

http://te4.org/characters/2038/tome/1a9 ... 25900d6212
Congrats Dakar!

Anyway,
Let us look at his resists:

Poison Resistance 100%
Bleed Resistance 100%
Confusion Resistance 100%
Blind Resistance 100%
Silence Resistance 40%
Pinning Resistance 60%
Stun Resistance 100%
Fear Resistance 100%
Teleport Resistance 30%

His stats:

Strength 29
Dexterity 33
Magic 97
Willpower 56
Cunning 83
Constitution 76

Now tell me, what did he 'sacrifice' to get immunity to bleed, confuse, stun and poison?
All I can see is a lot of stat bonuses.
97 magic and 83 cunning? Not bad. The 'max' is 60 right? So he got a bonus 47 for magic and bonus 23 for cunning. What sacrifice did he make? He could have gotten 103 magic instead of 97?

[Frumple]

Um, for two of those, what he sacrifices is infusions. Dek was playing a skeleton. He's also losing mana (glory of the pride, stun/confusion) and cold res/damage (fiery choker, blindness). There might need to be a heftier cost to those immunities, which is a fair point. Neither item is guaranteed, though, and there's been winners without either of them.

And yeah. He could have got a good 115 or better mag if he replaced the glory, bloodcaller, and choker with better +mag kit.

[bricks]

Make the mage quest easier to complete?

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.

Classes do not balance against each other. Cursed is currently in dire need of attention, and benli is aware of this. Rogues do have poor survivability, but I think this is because they have some of the most advanced tactical skills available. I wouldn't say that ToME has any "main classes," and that your analysis is based upon inherently skewed statistics.

Now tell me, what did he 'sacrifice' to get immunity to bleed, confuse, stun and poison?
All I can see is a lot of stat bonuses.
97 magic and 83 cunning? Not bad. The 'max' is 60 right? So he got a bonus 47 for magic and bonus 23 for cunning. What sacrifice did he make?

He played Skeleton, for one. That is a rather big trade-off. Frumple got to it before I did.

[marvalis]

OK lmao bad example (how did I miss that xD)

Plenty of other winners to look at:
http://te4.org/characters-vault?tag_nam ... ner=winner#

BTW the pearl of life and dead is the most annoying artifact. You have to look at the equipment to see the 'real' stun immunity before the pearl.
'Grimm the level 50 Dwarf Fighter' by user kazak

Poison Resistance 15%
Bleed Resistance 30%
Confusion Resistance 100%
Pinning Resistance 0%
Stun Resistance 90% <- without the pearl of life and dead
Fear Resistance 70%
Knockback Resistance 100%

Dry the level 50 Cornac Archmage by parcel

Code: Select all

Poison Resistance	16%
Bleed Resistance	30%
Confusion Resistance	100%
Blind Resistance	40%
Silence Resistance	15%
Disarm Resistance	30%
Stun Resistance	100%
Knockback Resistance	30%
Teleport Resistance	23%

Both character have (almost) full stun and confusion immunity, the most import effects.
To get these immunities, they had to sacrifice 'slightly more stat bonuses'. This is not a real trade-off, just a little bit less of a boon.

[marvalis]

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

Good idea. Do this and I can guarantee you that players will come crying that 'you cannot remove stun immunity' and that they 'keep on getting frozen' all the time and 'confusing is overpowered give us back immunity'. Instead of balancing the monsters and the talents, immunity will be added again.

(Status effects like freeze are game-wide balance issues, affecting many classes including rogues and corrupted, two classes in need of more balance)

[sarcasm]
To balance rogues, maybe we can give them a chance to freeze the target with each melee attack. Oh wait, we already have that! It is called arcane blades and I hear the effect is rather nice
[/sarcasm]
Yes these talents are overpowered! I say nerf them all to 1 turn (or 2, or 3 really).

[Frumple]

OK lmao bad example (how did I miss that xD)
'Grimm the level 50 Dwarf Fighter'

Stun res is actually >100% without pearl, but at the cost of having -20% physical damage and +36% fatigue, i.e. increasing all his talent costs by a third. The confusion res is coming primarily from telos's staff crystal, which is both rather rare and has other uses (though admittedly not many better ones for a fighter.). The rest is from the girdle of preservation, which is pretty bloody rare.

Dry the level 50 Cornac Archmage by parcel

70% of the stun resistance and all of the confusion res is coming from glory of prides. Again, with a notable-if-not-significant mana cost. Glory of the prides is an incredibly powerful and very late game artifact. You might want to advocate for either the removal or reduction of its resistance bonuses if you feel it's overpowered. The artifact wouldn't be terribly hurt from it, but it would become a lot less attractive to non-melee classes (barring, possible, archers). Whether that's desirable or not, I couldn't say.

The rest of the stun res is coming from the gloves of the firm hand, which are hilariously suboptimal for an archmage.

Point being: It's not easy to get full immunity to anything, barring a fairly small number of very powerful artifacts. It's even harder to do that without making some fairly painful sacrifices unless you're incredibly lucky.

[Sradac]

or you can just carry a good wild infusion and be done with it.
I rarely have problems with status effects just because I plan ahead.

Escort anorithil? Providence please. 5 turns of status removal.

Its really not that big of a deal, you just need to find better ways to deal with them. Blinded? move in the opposite direction of where you were so you stay out of melee. Confused? Do your best to get an infusion or rune off to protect yourself. I do like the idea of saves being able to end an effect early like the fighting through confusion or stun temporarily but it would be nice if it ended completely. Using mental save to completely shake the confusion off early would be nice.

Its just...not that big of a deal, really. The game is easy enough as it is, why make it easier? A giant scary massive ice wyrm covers in you his frozen chilling breath and you are encased in ice! Oh but it only lasts a few seconds so you are ok.

Or you can use your saves to break out of the ice early instead.

And whats that going to do to a cursed other than make their gloom completely useless? Should we make Burning last only 1 turn to completely gimp fire arch mages as well? And whats that going to do to the Freeze spell? The whole point of it is to do a massive hit of cold damage with a long freeze duration and an even longer cooldown so it cant be abused like it used to. How about poison, lets make that last 1 turn. Yeeks charm? You only get 1 turn control over that actor before they die off. Martyrdom? Sorry, only 1 turn status effects so its useless as well.

I say stop complaining and plan your character better.

[Sradac]

here we go, 42 necro with great immunites. And I didnt even try to get them, it just kind of happened. Spellpower focus for me.

http://te4.org/characters/50/tome/85db1 ... 25900d6212

So the argument of "You HAVE to hunt for immunity gear or else you will die super easy!" is kind of lame as well. I have never hunted for specifically immunity gear. If it has it, cool. If not, oh well. Attack power, stats, HP, and resource pool are far more important to me.

You can be as immune to stuns all you want but that tiny HP and resource pool isnt going to save you.

[marvalis]

Escort anorithil? Providence please. 5 turns of status removal. Its really not that big of a deal, you just need to find better ways to deal with them.

You are pointing to the most broken and unbalanced defensive skills currently in the game to prove that freeze is not unbalanced? Really? Lmao. Providence will be removed from escort quests sooner or later. You know why? Because it is overpowered.

here we go, 42 necro with great immunites. And I didnt even try to get them, it just kind of happened.
http://te4.org/characters/50/tome/85db1 ... 25900d6212.

This equipment is a left-over from a time when stun was a multi-turn paralyze effect. There are simply to many overpowered and unbalanced stun/confusion resistance items in the game, and your post and character confirm this.

I suggest removing stun/confusion immunity. That means I suggest removing all these overpowered 40%, 60% or even 100% stun resistance items. Since freeze effects should only last a turn or two, there is no need for stun resistance.

Let me look at your inventory: Telos's Staff Crystal
while carried: 80% confusion immunity! From one item and you do not even have to equip it. And you are telling me this is fine? This is balanced?
[sarcasm]
There is, however, a trade of to be made: you exchange carry capacity of 0.1 - oh wait, it actually weighs 0.00 encumbrance! But there is still a trade off! You could have gotten another artifact with better +spell-power stats.
[/sarcasm]

Code: Select all

newEntity{ base = "BASE_GEM",
	power_source = {arcane=true},
	unique = true,
	unided_name = "scintillating white crystal",
	name = "Telos's Staff Crystal", subtype = "multi-hued", image = "object/artifact/telos_staff_crystal.png",
	color = colors.WHITE,
	level_range = {35, 45},
	desc = [[A closer look at this pure white crystal reveals that it is really a plethora of colors swirling and scintillating.]],
	rarity = 240,
	cost = 200,
	material_level = 5,
	carrier = {
		confusion_immune = 0.8,
		fear_immune = 0.7,
		resists={[DamageType.MIND] = 35,},
	},
	wielder = {
		inc_stats = { [Stats.STAT_STR] = 5, [Stats.STAT_DEX] = 5, [Stats.STAT_MAG] = 5, [Stats.STAT_WIL] = 5, [Stats.STAT_CUN] = 5, [Stats.STAT_CON] = 5, },
		lite = 2,
	},
	imbue_powers = {
		inc_stats = { [Stats.STAT_STR] = 5, [Stats.STAT_DEX] = 5, [Stats.STAT_MAG] = 5, [Stats.STAT_WIL] = 5, [Stats.STAT_CUN] = 5, [Stats.STAT_CON] = 5, },
		lite = 2,
	},

[edge2054]

Escort anorithil? Providence please. 5 turns of status removal. Its really not that big of a deal, you just need to find better ways to deal with them.

You are pointing to the most broken and unbalanced defensive skills currently in the game to prove that freeze is not unbalanced? Really? Lmao.
]

Okay then. Wild Infusions, Spell Shield, Stun Immunity, Providence, Disperse Magic, Body Reversion, Gloves of Dispersion, just being a high DPS class, Resilient Bones, Movement Infusions, Fade From Time, Being a Pet Class, Indomitable, Timeless, Power is Money, Chant of Fortitude, Quantum Feed, Born into Magic, and I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty.

There's other options. If all of this is really coming down to a nerf freeze thread can we get to the point? Because rebalancing the whole game around your new timed effect idea sounds like a pipe dream and if anyone in this thread's posts are worthy of getting flamed it's the OPs and not you know... everyone else who's on the same page!!

This thread has turned into pages of back and forth between one person and everyone else. Shouldn't that tell you to open your mind a bit and realize that maybe, just maybe, you're not the center of the universe and the rest of the community and posters actually have a clue what they're talking about? I hate to come off like a douche but you're flaming people Marv. You think your blah sarcasm blah stuff is acceptable behavior? Quit being so stubborn for five seconds and realize that your not funny, your not clever, and your idea really isn't any good.

[lukep]

Okay then. Wild Infusions, Spell Shield, Stun Immunity, Providence, Disperse Magic, Body Reversion, Gloves of Dispersion, just being a high DPS class, Resilient Bones, Movement Infusions, Fade From Time, Being a Pet Class, Indomitable, Timeless, Power is Money, Chant of Fortitude, Quantum Feed, Born into Magic, and I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty.

There's other options. If all of this is really coming down to a nerf freeze thread can we get to the point? Because rebalancing the whole game around your new timed effect idea sounds like a pipe dream and if anyone in this thread's posts are worthy of getting flamed it's the OPs and not you know... everyone else who's on the same page!!

This thread has turned into pages of back and forth between one person and everyone else. Shouldn't that tell you to open your mind a bit and realize that maybe, just maybe, you're not the center of the universe and the rest of the community and posters actually have a clue what they're talking about? I hate to come off like a douche but you're flaming people Marv. You think your blah sarcasm blah stuff is acceptable behavior? Quit being so stubborn for five seconds and realize that your not funny, your not clever, and your idea really isn't any good.

I wish we had a rep system, so I could +1 this. I agree.

[bricks]

Thanks for speaking up, edge. This got out of hand. :/

here we go, 42 necro with great immunites. And I didnt even try to get them, it just kind of happened. Spellpower focus for me.

Not to belabor the point, but... Lich provides a lot of immunities, right? That doesn't seem to fall in the realm of "just happening."

[marvalis]

The point? Here is an overview:

Before you all start to flame me because of my stubborn narrow-minded point of view: This is very much an analysis of the _past_, the historical development that TOME has gone trough. Some of the logic still applies to the current development, as can be seen by some quotes below.
This is by no means a perfect representation.
Try to look especially at the last quote in point F) where lukep points out how many monsters have 7 turn or more stuns or equivalent effects. This is true. If we change the development cycle and remove stun immunity, then we will have to re-balance these area's and monsters.
With so many new talent and classes in the new upcoming releases, and when those talents flow over into the monster skills, are we going to face the same cycle we are facing today? Or will we try and balance the game differently? That is IMHO the balance challenge TOME is facing ATM.


A

Character sheet Skullbones was my first foray into Arcane Blade since I started getting any good at ToME.[...] Flameshock has been an invaluable means of containing fleeing enemies/ranged attackers. I haven't give many other of the abilities serious consideration; the Air tree seems geared much more towards traditional mages. The Fire tree's straightforward damage-over-time and area-of-effect skills complement Arcane Blade better.

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. Duration 1 CC is an invitation for homogenization and frankly sounds really lame from a class design perspective.

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.

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.

... 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.

B
Most do.

C
Stun kills have been more prominent in the past, and are the main reason why we have this balance cycle that are presented here. Since then many new elements and classes have been added to the game, and stun has been changed. However, freeze kills and / or daze skills (because rush was unbalanced, for example) are still very much a part of the game. Flameshock kills are another example.

D

Can we just change freeze effects to check against cold resistance? Since dragons were changed to have 50% stun/freeze immunity, I've seen cold drake hatchlings frozen solid, which really shouldn't happen.

I'd prefer to see it so that resistance reduces the duration of the effect. A 50% resistance would half the duration of the effect. That way there's less of a feel of needing to get to 100%. It was quite nice when stun had this effect on, and it would be nice for all resistances to be the same.

The save system is being overhauled to be a lot less binary which will be a huge change. It didn't make it into this current beta because I think Darkgod wanted a nice clean release for people to play with as few bugs as possible. Anyway, unless something changes between now and b35, saves will function more like armor against negative effects. If you get hit with a power 100 timed effect (say from a spell caster with 100 spellpower) and you have 150 save you'll reduce the duration of that timed effect by 5 turns (note that timed effects can't go above their normal duration, so getting hit with the 100 power timed effect when you have zero save would simply leave the duration as it is). So anyway, something like this is in the works (or something more like what bricks suggested anyway).

Suggestion in the line of the stun/freeze issue above: 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.

The confusion res is coming primarily from telos's staff crystal, which is both rather rare and has other uses (though admittedly not many better ones for a fighter.).
[...]
The rest is from the girdle of preservation, which is pretty bloody rare. Glory of the prides is an incredibly powerful and very late game artifact. You might want to advocate for either the removal or reduction of its resistance bonuses if you feel it's overpowered. The rest of the stun res is coming from the gloves of the firm hand, which are hilariously suboptimal for an archmage.

or you can just carry a good wild infusion and be done with it.
Escort anorithil? Providence please. 5 turns of status removal.

Let me look at your inventory: Telos's Staff Crystal
while carried: 80% confusion immunity! From one item and you do not even have to equip it.

Okay then. Wild Infusions, Spell Shield, Stun Immunity, Providence, Disperse Magic, Body Reversion, Gloves of Dispersion, just being a high DPS class, Resilient Bones, Movement Infusions, Fade From Time, Being a Pet Class, Indomitable, Timeless, Power is Money, Chant of Fortitude, Quantum Feed, Born into Magic, and I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty.

Dek was playing a skeleton. He's also losing mana (glory of the pride, stun/confusion) and cold res/damage (fiery choker, blindness). There might need to be a heftier cost to those immunities, which is a fair point.

Not to belabor the point, but... Lich provides a lot of immunities, right? That doesn't seem to fall in the realm of "just happening."

A nice buff for Wintertide Phial. Purges 'mental' timed effects (much like penitence does with diseases). *Note that this won't clear confusion which is listed as 'magical' for some reason? Maybe that should be changed?*

E
No quotes on this, sadly.

F

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.

[Frumple]

C would be more accurately stated: "Player has not learned how to mitigate the chances of debuffs causing them to be violently murdered, and are thus instakilled."

That said, where's the problem area in that chart? What exactly is the issue here?

To quote myself from a different conversation, "I _think_ the point is that [you don't] like that so many end-game debuffs are outright negated (note: It doesn't actually happen like that[, though that is the least risky method of doing things]), and that making it so those actually do something (i.e. removing immunity) would require the debuffs in question be drastically weakened." Is that an accurate summation?

[edge2054]

Relevant to this conversation.

[19:39] Frumple I think he just doesn't like that so much is balance is being hinged on status effects? Maybe?
[19:39] edge2054 "With so many new talent and classes in the new upcoming releases, and when those talents flow over into the monster skills, are we going to face the same cycle we are facing today? Or will we try and balance the game differently? That is IMHO the balance challenge TOME is facing ATM."
[19:39] Frumple And that end-game resistances negate a lot of those talents, thus reducing... something or other.
[19:39] Frumple Or that was an earlier point, anyway
[19:40] edge2054 I can see that point anyway. Banes are a big offender right now because it's yet another new status effect type.
[19:41] Frumple I _think_ the point is that he doesn't like that so many end-game debuffs are outright negated (note: It doesn't actually happen like that), and that making it so those actually do something (i.e. removing immunity) would require the debuffs in question be drastically weakened.
[19:41] edge2054 But I don't think it was written to be uncurable necessarily but rather so only one bane could be applied at a time.
[19:42] Frumple Yeah... I wouldn't mind if wild infusions just became a physical/magical/mental thing.
[19:42] edge2054 Yeah
[19:43] edge2054 Or if there was a type and a subtype
[19:43] Frumple That'd be fine, too
[19:43] edge2054 For the sake of tracking things like banes.
[19:43] edge2054 A curse could still be a curse but it might be type = magical, subtype = curse
[19:43] Nagyhal +1
[19:44] edge2054 poison and disease could be physical with respective subtypes
[19:44] Frumple Mm... Hrm.
[19:44] Frumple Or rather, let the type be determined by the talent source, but the subtype be standard across the board?
[19:44] Frumple So a ghoul disease would be physical, but a corruptor one would be magical?
[19:44] Frumple Both still diseases, though.
[19:45] edge2054 I don't know. I certainly see his point but I think his original post was edited drastically from the first time I read it and now the thread has become more about how we all hate Marvalis and his ego more then anything else (partially if not greatly my fault)
[19:45] edge2054 Nah, they'd be physical, magical, or mental based on what save you use to resist them. Not based on how they're applied.
[19:45] -->| charity236 (~charity23@Rizon-4CA258F7.lns2.way.bigpond.net.au) has joined #tome
[19:46] Frumple Suppose that would work, too... but that'd mean confusion'd still be magical, even when a bloated horror inflicts it
[19:46] Frumple Wait, no
[19:46] edge2054 I'm not saying having them change based on application wouldn't work Frumple. But it's one more layer of stuff a player has to learn.
[19:46] Frumple Yeah, as you said. I think.
[19:47] Frumple Since the save check would be in the talent anyway, so it'd probably amount to the same thing
[19:47] edge2054 And vastly more complicated then confusion is always mental (magical whatever )
[19:48] edge2054 What I'd like to see is the game hit a point where things aren't balanced around immunities and I think that's the direction it's heading.
[19:49] edge2054 For players or monsters. Immunities should be a rare and often magical thing. Not a given just because you have X talent or X item.
[19:49] edge2054 I think lack of options turned the concept of immunities into an arms race and it's gotten out of hand.
[19:50] Frumple *mutters vaguely*
[19:51] Frumple Except it's usually more along the lines of 'player too lazy to use options, and goes for the always:on one'
[19:51] Frumple Though admittedly the always on is much _safer_.
[19:51] Frumple ... maybe have resistances degrade the more their hammered on, over a short period?
[19:52] Frumple And let 'em go >1005?
[19:52] Frumple 100%*
[19:53] edge2054 *shrugs* I guess I'm just saying I'd like to see them used more thematically and sparingly.
[19:53] edge2054 Ghouls being immune to disease and skeletons to cuts and blindness for instance make sense thematically to me.
[19:53] Frumple Mm...
[19:54] Frumple Except the player ones are immune to either
[19:54] edge2054 90% of the bosses having stun immunity so the player can't pwn them so easily just because doesn't and is something I'd prefer to see handled by something like Sus's new saving throw system.
[19:54] Frumple Well, the cuts, yeah. But not blindness or disease
[19:54] Frumple Yeah, that's more of a legacy of the stun == paralyze thing
[19:54] edge2054 I agree
[19:55] Frumple And stun is weaker, now. Freeze, too. Still freaking deadly as hell, but definitely weaker.