Re-balancing Urkis the tempest mage

[marvalis]

No edge, we disagree, and it is not because we disagree (I think stun immunity should be removed - you don't) that my logic is flawed. And yes I am stubborn, I have my own idea about what good game design is and what not. The fact that other people do not agree with that doesn't change that fact. So, can we just have our own opinion, ok?

[Elkan]

Have to say I'm with edge on this one, not a fan of the proposed changes methodology, and don't really feel the difficulty of these bosses needs adjusting, if I'm honest.

[tiger_eye]

I appreciate the effort you've put into trying to improve the game, marvalis. However, I think there is an issue with how you present things. Remember, the main person you need to convince is DarkGod, and he most likely doesn't have the time and will to carefully read and consider every nuance of every proposal that gets posted. Doing so does actually take a fair bit of mental effort. So, make it easy on him (and on us). Posts for balance and game improvements should have two main parts: (1) well-reasoned justification for why something should be changed, and, optionally, (2) a possible solution. (1) is far more important than (2).

There is most likely a reason why things are the way they are--such as this is the way DarkGod wants it to be... just because --so try to understand why something is the way it is first, then, if you still think it needs changed, try to present a facet that DarkGod may not have thought about to show how it's broken. So far, your recent posts have appeared to focus almost primarily on (2). I'm still unclear as to why you think these bosses and stuns/freezes/etc. need changed, except that you apparently don't like freeze/stun and the fact that players need to die somehow.

So, here are some positive things that one can gleam from your recent posts:

• some artifacts that give really high resistances/immunities may be a little over-powered and not very interesting.
• is the duration or effect of Flameshock unfair?
• Providence is too good as an escort reward (although one may not think so after encountering an orc mage hunter )
• Does it really make sense for Stun, Freeze, Daze, and Paralyze effects to all use "stun" immunity?
• Why do so many early-mid bosses freeze? Can we make them more thematic, interesting, and fun?

But I have a confession to make: Most recently, I have found looking at the code more interesting that playing the game

Great! You are not alone. Contributing to ToME can be just as gratifying (and perhaps more so) than playing ToME. If you're willing to help, I'm sure there are many things you can do that would be appreciated. Right now it sounds like you want to cover balance issues, so I might suggest that you create a new thread just listing things you think are unfair, unbalanced, uninteresting, or not fun, and why. If you wish to make a suggestion for how to fix something, be very short and concise, and encourage constructive community feedback. Or... if you want to implement a new feature like auto-explore, i'm sure we'd all be very grateful!

[edge2054]

No edge, we disagree, and it is not because we disagree (I think stun immunity should be removed - you don't) that my logic is flawed. And yes I am stubborn, I have my own idea about what good game design is and what not. The fact that other people do not agree with that doesn't change that fact. So, can we just have our own opinion, ok?

Sure, we can have differing opinions. But the fact is that it's not that you and me disagree that makes your logic flawed. It's that pretty much everyone disagrees with you and when they start bringing up other ways around being stunned you flame them or call out one or two abilities they mention as OP or not available enough and ignore the rest of their point. Simply put, your logic is flawed because you're to stubborn to listen to reason.

The fact is the game has many many ways to deal with stun based status effects even at low levels. Two often overlooked yet effective and very easy to acquire methods are saving throws (much more available at low levels then they where in earlier betas for this very reason) and Movement Infusions (because Darkgod wanted more ways for low level characters to deal with creatures that stun).

I won't list anymore then that, I did that last night. I will however say the feedback given in the threads you've posted over the last two days shows that most of the forum goers at least are fairly comfortable with the options they have for dealing with negative effects. As more artifacts get added to the game maybe we can bias them more towards stuff like penitence and the new wintertide phial to curb the immunities arm race and put more interesting ways of dealing with status effects in the game so people don't feel so much like it's immunities or nothing. Other interesting ideas are status effect reductions which really aren't that hard to code and could be quite interesting (choker of flames for instance could reduce the duration of freeze effects by 50% rather then having a blanket stun immunity).

So I guess on the subject of stun immunities we're at least partially on the same page. We both would like to see players be less reliant on them. But our methodology is heading in two different directions and that's really were we butt heads. You'd like to make stunning effects less dangerous or less available to npcs and I'd like to see interesting ways to counter them made more available to the player.

*fake edit* I typed this all while tiger_eye was posting so hopefully it doesn't detract from anything he's saying. I read his post before hitting submit and I agree with him.

[edge2054]

If you wish to make a suggestion for how to fix something, be very short and concise, and encourage constructive community feedback.

Something else that works well with this is to code it Put it in a diff and explain exactly why you think this change should be applied.

As an example...

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=28435

If I where to rewrite this thread the title would say, Making Urkis Less Deadly

I removed freeze and ice shards from Urkis. They don't fit the rest of his talent trees and between shock and nova he has two ways to daze the player already. His damage output is already quite high due to hurricane and thunderstorm and he probably doesn't need the additional damage from freeze. Also he's an early game caster boss which is a big adjustment for new players.

Finally I lowered his blind immunity some and gave him a bit of stun resist to compensate for his lowered CC potential.

Here's a diff....

Code: Select all

# HG changeset patch
# User Eric
# Date 1316473918 18000
# Node ID 54f31554028b9c160d80acbd0c56314ff79d34ed
# Parent  4d49c8d650c6326bbba4a533ea0386240ee2f630
nerfed urkis

diff -r 4d49c8d650c6 -r 54f31554028b game/modules/tome/data/zones/tempest-peak/npcs.lua
--- a/game/modules/tome/data/zones/tempest-peak/npcs.lua	Sat Sep 17 17:17:59 2011 +0000
+++ b/game/modules/tome/data/zones/tempest-peak/npcs.lua	Mon Sep 19 18:11:58 2011 -0500
@@ -43,7 +43,8 @@
 	stats = { str=10, dex=12, cun=14, mag=25, con=16 },
 
 	instakill_immune = 1,
-	blind_immune = 1,
+	blind_immune = 0.5,
+	stun_immune = 0.5,
 	move_others=true,
 
 	body = { INVEN = 10, MAINHAND=1, OFFHAND=1, BODY=1 },
@@ -57,8 +58,6 @@
 	resists = { [DamageType.LIGHTNING] = 100, },
 
 	resolvers.talents{
-		[Talents.T_FREEZE]=4,
-		[Talents.T_ICE_SHARDS]=4,
 		[Talents.T_LIGHTNING]=5,
 		[Talents.T_SHOCK]=4,
 		[Talents.T_HURRICANE]=4,

[eronarn]

^ looks pretty good to me. Freeze is overused, anyways.

[marvalis]

Yes, thank you for making that diff. I currently do not know how to use SVN and I have to learn that. I am not a programmer. I learned to read this lua code mostly by myself and without any experience (and if you can remember I made that sand stalker class a while ago, that was my first experience coding.)

I have used SVN to download and install TOME exactly once. That is my total experience with SVN. But don't worry I do want to learn these things ;D.

And yes, thank for you consolidating with me (and posting that chat log). I am glad we understand each other. I really do respect the work you and others do to code for this game.

[shwqa]

How about if the arch mage just warns the player that the storm magic is mostly lightning and stun and that it would help greatly to bring those resist? Then new player got their warning on how important resist are in the game and Urkis wouldn't have to be changed.

[Frumple]

Code: Select all

He who created this abomination is Urkis. He is a Tempest, a powerful Archmage who channels the storms.
Years ago he went rogue, severing himself from Angolwen. At first he remained quiet, and thus we withheld action, but it seems we have no choice now.

They kinda' do warn you about the lightning damage. Not so much the stun.

Code: Select all

He is a Tempest, a powerful Archmage who channels the storms -- his magic is that of vicious lightning and debilitating thunder, with winds that cut as cold as the mountain peaks!

That'd be warning enough to me.

[Laerte]

I just avoid dealing with the tempest until I'm level 27 or so. Things got easier then... I just clean Derth and have Protector Missil (there is no mage town in my games) points the location in the map. But yeah, the proposed balancing sound good to me.

[Aquillion]

Code: Select all

	blind_immune = 1,

Change this to:
blind_immune = 0.3
stun_immune = 0.7

Reason: Blind is less powerful than freeze. Right now the player cannot use a sun infusion for a 3-turn blind (this is not overpowered), but the player can use a 7-turn freeze without any problems (or a 9-turn flame-shock or whatever). Increasing stun resistance and reducing blindness resistance will re-balance this.

Stop trying to suggest that every boss gets stun immunity, please. It's based on a bad idea -- giving every boss resistance or immunity to the same things serves to encourage players to build their characters in unintuitive ways and punishes players for thinking that all their abilities are actually going to be useful. Bosses should have different weaknesses and strengths, not all the exact same list of Contractual Boss Immunities based around stealth-nerfing certain things.

The fact that not everything in ToME has the same universal set of immunities is a very, very good thing, and I don't think you've really given any good justification at all for your implicit request to make every boss nearly-unfreezable.

Create one thread to suggest giving every boss freeze immunity, if that's what you want, and devote more time to arguing for why you feel they need it. Right now it feels like you're just throwing everything you can at stun/freeze effects with the hope that some of it will stick rather than making actual arguments about the problem.

I mean, you haven't really given a reason for it at all! You seem to just be assuming that every boss should be at least partially immune to stun/freeze because they're bosses. Well, if they were supposed to be, they would be -- it's not an oversight. So if you want them to get those resistance, explain why you think they need them.

[Pyris311]

Marvalis, I've looked through a lot of your suggestions and most of the time everyone hates it, to the point that they flame you for it, calling you rude and basically stupid. Why do keep trying to improve a game that the community doesn't want you to even suggest any improvements?

I've have noticed that this community only responds well to a few elite select individuals (edge2054, frumple, Aquillion, etc), and they certainly don't want you in their "circle". Why do you keep trying? It baffles me! Save yourself some time and just stop suggesting anything. This isn't from me; I like your ideas, but the way you are spoken to makes me not want to EVER suggest anything for this game because it will just be shot down, flamed, and ran into the ground like I have no business speaking of it due to my post count or mode I play. Then, after the "elite" get done with you, lackeys come in for the scraps and continue to destroy you even after you try your best to explain why. At least you showed that I have no business ever discussing this game again. I guess my low post count will stay at the current number from now on.

[Rectifier]

Okay, nobody asked you to post in the first place, you are entitled to your opinion and whether to post or not.

[Grey]

Marvalis, I've looked through a lot of your suggestions and most of the time everyone hates it, to the point that they flame you for it, calling you rude and basically stupid. Why do keep trying to improve a game that the community doesn't want you to even suggest any improvements?

I've have noticed that this community only responds well to a few elite select individuals (edge2054, frumple, Aquillion, etc), and they certainly don't want you in their "circle". Why do you keep trying? It baffles me! Save yourself some time and just stop suggesting anything. This isn't from me; I like your ideas, but the way you are spoken to makes me not want to EVER suggest anything for this game because it will just be shot down, flamed, and ran into the ground like I have no business speaking of it due to my post count or mode I play. Then, after the "elite" get done with you, lackeys come in for the scraps and continue to destroy you even after you try your best to explain why. At least you showed that I have no business ever discussing this game again. I guess my low post count will stay at the current number from now on.

I would really suggest you avoid statements that look like deliberate trolling... If you support marvalis' ideas then make posts to that effect about the game mechanics (as others have done - there's certainly not universal derision for marvalis' ideas, and even those negative here are supportive of his suggestions and work in the rest of the forum).

[tiger_eye]

Heh, when DarkGod get's punked, he punks back. See here:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... 4dabd15fa7

At the end, though, he sets things aright:

> Wally wrote:
> I find your tone insulting. Watch it.

Funny that, I found your tone insulting

But it wasn't!

Then I'm sorry and I'll give you the hug !