Re-balancing Urkis the tempest mage

[edge2054]

Some stuff.

Marvalis has had some really good ideas and I'd hate for him to quit posting. He's also been doing a fantastic job with the timed effect tiles. He is stubborn as a mule though

If I've personally made people feel unwelcome posting on these forums and come off as an elitist know that that's not my intent. Just like Marvalis is stubborn I can be an over zealous jerk and stubborn too. It's not my game and it's not my forum so regardless of how I or anyone else may come off know that in the end Darkgod makes all the decisions concerning the future of his game and it really doesn't matter what I or anyone else says. If you have an idea post it, if Darkgod likes it he likes it.

[Final Master]

I personally think Frozen itself is too far reaching.

1) You cannot move
2) You cannot teleport
3) You cannot heal
4) You are being damage
5) If you are trying to break free, you are damaging yourself

But, what's this?

1) You can use a shield effect ???

I like the split damage, I like that you cannot teleport, but if you can form a shield, I think you should beable to heal. This does not mean that I think you shouldn't beable to use a shield or heal - that would be even worse.

[Grey]

Yeah, being able to heal whilst frozen would make life a lot better.

[lukep]

1) You cannot move
2) You cannot teleport
3) You cannot heal
4) You are being damage
5) If you are trying to break free, you are damaging yourself

As far as I can tell, Freeze does not have a DoT effect, meaning that #4 is wrong, and #5 is usually wrong as well, as only extra blows from multi attack talents hit you.

[tiger_eye]

and #5 is usually wrong as well, as only extra blows from multi attack talents hit you

Which I believe is fixed for next beta

[Final Master]

1) You cannot move
2) You cannot teleport
3) You cannot heal
4) You are being damage
5) If you are trying to break free, you are damaging yourself

As far as I can tell, Freeze does not have a DoT effect, meaning that #4 is wrong, and #5 is usually wrong as well, as only extra blows from multi attack talents hit you.

... 4 is point out that if you became frozen, something is then most likely going to continue to attack you. And, for five, how does that even make sense? It explicitly states that the damage is split 60/40 ice and you. Why would it matter if you are doing 1 attack or 45646 in a turn? If damage is being split, it's being split.

[lukep]

... 4 is point out that if you became frozen, something is then most likely going to continue to attack you.

That is hardly from being Frozen. The same could be said about pin, stun, daze, confusion, or simply being near an enemy. If it wasn't for enemies attacking you, status effects would not matter at all.

And, for five, how does that even make sense? It explicitly states that the damage is split 60/40 ice and you. Why would it matter if you are doing 1 attack or 45646 in a turn? If damage is being split, it's being split.

That is only for enemy attacks. All damage that you deal goes 100% to the ice block.

[marvalis]

Bosses should have different weaknesses and strengths, not all the exact same list of Contractual Boss Immunities based around stealth-nerfing certain things.

Good point. I added the stun immunity without really thinking about it, but I have to admit it was a mistake.
Just looking at some immunities I noticed that several bossed have 100% blind immunity. This includes Urkis and the final two bosses. I see no real thematic reason for this, perhaps it could be changed (for the same reason that you argued that stun resistance should not be added).

Also non of these changes I suggest are actually made. I am just posting the idea here in the open where everyone can read them. I am not changing the actual game files in SVN or 'stealth nerfing' anything.

Frozen was just bugged. Would be nice if you could use all skills that affect yourself (healing, sustains, bath of light?, ...).

[darkgod]

Just a note on frozen state, in next beta it is outright impossible to damage yourself by trying to break free, so do it
Also one thing not noted about frozen state: you are immune to any new status effects while frozen, this is also a neat bonus

[edge2054]

Just looking at some immunities I noticed that several bossed have 100% blind immunity. This includes Urkis and the final two bosses. I see no real thematic reason for this, perhaps it could be changed (for the same reason that you argued that stun resistance should not be added).

No idea about the other ones but if you're a great mage of lightning and have bright flashes of light going off around you all the time I can see blindness immunity being thematically appropriate.

[bricks]

No idea about the other ones but if you're a great mage of lightning and have bright flashes of light going off around you all the time I can see blindness immunity being thematically appropriate.

Heh, I can buy that. 100% is still a lot, though. Complete blindness immunity should be reserved for things that don't have eyes.

[spiralrazor]

this is just ridiculous

First you light up the beginner town with flashy laser effects drawing the player in (lightning bolts and smoke on the world map).
If the player takes the bait he has to save derth (luckily this has been slightly rebalanced, previously new players did not even stand a chance to survive this encounter).

1852 kills: gwelgoroth

Then he has to collect 10 staffs/rings/amulets (a lame and pointless quest)
If he manages to somehow figure out that he has to speak to the mage after completing the quest, then he can continue this 'beginner quest' and go to tempest peak.

2188 kills: Urkis, the High Tempest

Here the new player on his beginner quest will face Urkis.

And you are saying me that you do not want to balance this encounter because it unlocks storm mages?
You want to keep the game unbalanced because:

I like that he is big jerk. I like that he makes players cry. If you don't want/need the unlock, maybe you just want to avoid him?

I spend the last few days thinking about the game balance problems in TOME, and I am trying to come up with concrete idea's to improve that balance. Tempest peak is clearly a balance problem.

Actually, I'm relying on one of three types of equipment, or I could go Antimagic, or I could use Providence, or a Wild infusion.

As I said before in my 'remove stun/confusion/blind immunity thread': Providence is an overpowered talent that is given as an escort reward. Escort rewards should not give the player talents that have such a significant impact on the gameplay because this causes game balance problems. I do not understand why you keep insisting on defending your arguments that the game is balanced by referring to unbalanced skills.
Antimagic? Be my guest, it is pretty hard.

I've playing a Storm mage to a moderate level, and the very considerable trade-off of Hurricane is that you end up doing damage instead of dazing (and reapplications of the Daze effect are still broken by Hurricane). I think you are trying to subvert the fun of roguelikes by making encounters trivial enough that experience and preparation will amount to nothing.

This thread is about balancing a boss, not about balancing skills for the player. I do not care if thunderstorm breaks daze. Daze+daze+free attacks from thunderstorm and hurricane is unacceptable spike damage. Perhaps all these sustained effects are balanced by their mana cost for players. This is possible, but I do not care. We are talking about the application of these talents for Urkis.

Best post in this thread...yall could learn something about game design from this guy.

[Rectifier]

Best post in this thread...yall could learn something about game design from this guy.

That comment is borderline confrontational razor, please play nice.

[yufra]

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".

What is this?! I leave for a few months and get lumped into "etc"? *troll rage*

First, I want to thank everyone that posted. It seems to me that marvalis is chiefly concerned about the amount of damage that Urkis can do while the player is not able to respond. This is the same reasoning that in my opinion led to the changes of the stun effect, allowing the wild infusion and other instant talents to work while confused, etc. Some players do not like to have their control completely removed, and this is actually a common mistake made in for example PnP games.

Daze works like the old stun except that it breaks when you receive damage. Chaining dazes together can result in the same issue there was with the old stun, namely you cannot do anything but watch a bunch of ugly numbers fly up from your character on the screen. Planning ahead can alleviate this by: a) having stun immunity to shrug off one of those dazes, b) casting Providence beforehand, c) having high saves in the new system to reduce the daze effect length.

As an aside, I love when get a sun paladin escort and do consider Providence to be a significant boon to the player. Having said that, I am of the opinion that Rogue-likes are by definition subject to the RNG and are not required to be fair. That is of course debatable. Back on topic, though...

So where does this leave us? We still have people arguing whether or not we should remove talent X from Urkis. These arguments are made on personal observations. What if we take a breather and talk about something else: how best to collect data. The current "Urkis kills X players" has limited usefulness because it doesn't say WHY Urkis kills so many players. I propose we store a summary of the last 10 or so game+player rounds. The obvious things to store would be each of the resources (life, stamina, etc) and the current timed effects. Then if Urkis kills a player you can simply point to the online character profile and say "see how much damage was done before I could act." What do people think about having more quantitative data collection?

[edge2054]

Better data collection would be nice. Being able to see recent trends would be nice as well. Breaking the top kills down by beta, what class they killed, and what level the player was would also be nice. The game has changed a lot since the data started being collected and as far as I know it's never been wiped.

As an example (which is something I think I've brought up earlier in this thread) Urkis used to drop the Rod of Recall which lead to a lot of players rushing him at low levels which in turn has led to inflated numbers. Another example would be Rattlesnakes. They used to reign pretty high up there on the kill charts but shortly after data started being collected the XP changes went in and people no longer rushed Old Forest with level one characters for XP. Which lowered the position of Rattlesnakes on the chart even though the enemy was never *nerfed*.

My point is the current data doesn't show much of the picture anymore. It was very valuable when the data was from the last couple of betas but now that it's over the last 20 or however many it really doesn't reflect the current state of the game.