The 1.00 Tweaks Topic

[supermini]

Of course, the other race that wins less than Shalore is Thalore. Thalore has the lowest win rate of any starting unlock and aren't even that far ahead of Ghoul/Yeek(it's hard to say if they even are at all-Selfless and Triumph of the Way have not always given Winner status in the archives, due to bugs.), an interesting figure I didn't realize until just now.

There's some question about a race with that little of wins. Maybe they need something, at least in some direction.

Right now, Thalore get one extra hp per level and a mediocre racial tree, so when you're playing one you have to ask yourself - what are you paying 35% xp penalty for? Dwarves get 1 more hp, get a better tree, 2 extra starting dungeons, 1 backup guardian extra, a few artifacts that work better for them, and they have beards, all for 10% xp less.

Thalore also don't have a synergy with any class. Their tree is mostly advanced for the save bonus (1/5/0/0 or 1/5/1/1) and the benefits are general enough. My suggestion would be to make them a good choice for wilder classes. I'm not sure how though.

[qui]

Some changes to the first racial talents of some races would be nice. For many of those, additional levels only reduce cooldowns. Investing 4 generics to go from 45 to 25 cooldown on, for example, Resilience of the Dwarves, is pretty useless. Having the bonuses scale instead would make the investment a viable option. Also applies to, if I'm not mistaken, Shalore, Thalore, Halfling and Higher.

When it comes to rares, personally I don't like the concept much. Just adding a type of beings, a type of items, and having the items drop always and only from those beings seems... strange. Perhaps instead having rares drop items with egos with a chance of a randart would be better. Or having the item dropped related to the type/class of the rare creature.

[SageAcrin]

If I were to go about trying to make Thalore worth their EXP penalty, my main suggestion would be mindpower orientation.

The simplest idea I have for that is to turn Nature's Pride(which is kinda iffy, no-accuracy meatshield summons on a reasonably durable race. Also, no one ever levels it, ever.) into a +2% Mind Casting Speed/+2% Mindcrit per level skill.

This suddenly makes them a very obvious Mind race-they already tend towards that anyways, and those are unique and strong bonuses.

The only real downside is, I can't think of a spin that makes it not just for specific classes without making it overly strong for the target classes. Maybe it could grant Equilibrium regeneration as well(.1 per turn per level)? This would up the usefulness to anyone with Antimagic, which makes it a reasonably broad skill.

[tiger_eye]

The simplest idea I have for that is to turn Nature's Pride(which is kinda iffy, no-accuracy meatshield summons on a reasonably durable race. Also, no one ever levels it, ever.) into a +2% Mind Casting Speed/+2% Mindcrit per level skill.

Oh, that's not true at all. I love those Treants. I use and level it often. Leveling up increases the odds of their Stun applying. Their accuracy is respectable, and they can have good success Stunning enemies. See:

http://te4.org/characters/6887/tome/f72 ... 1ebdf52b4e
http://te4.org/characters/6887/tome/a1d ... 25900d6212

I tend not to level Guardian of the Wood.

So, maybe give Thalore some innate resistances or immunities (like undead and yeek have), or buff Guardian of the Wood, or just drop their XP penalty to 30% or so. Actually, in the race definition, the experience penalty appears twice (30% and 35%).

[SageAcrin]

I would not object to Guardian of the Wood being replaced instead, honestly.

I thought people liked that skill more than the treants, but you're the second person in a few hours to suggest changing that skill to me. And the trees are, admittedly, a skill I find more useful.

[donkatsu]

Tons of great points here, however, I'd like to argue against buffing Shalore. Shalore are really, really, really good. Don't get too hung up lack of synergy with certain classes. Even on the least synergistic classes, their tier 1 is never useless, and Timeless is still amazing even with no duration-based buffs native to your class. It's Relentless Pursuit on half the cooldown, it's Fungus, it extends both Shalore haste and invisibility, it's more mana from manasurge runes, more resist all from wild infusions, and more stats and temporary life from heroism, it dices and slices and makes julienne fries, all combined into one talent, before you even begin to factor in class talents. Then, on the right classes, they rocket up further into becoming one of the best races... as long as you survive up to 5/5 Timeless.

[wobbly]

The way that iceblocks are handled could do with a rethink. An example of there silliness from today: I'm frozen, my golem attacks me, my retribution damage hits the iceblock, as it is mind damage it is resisted by the golem halving it.

[5k17]

I like Guardian of the Woods, and would prefer replacing the racial summons (but seeing as others like them so much, maybe we should keep both). I agree Thaloren should be moved into a Wilder/Psionic direction; the way they are, they are better as most mage classes than Shaloren, which can hardly be intended. Non-AM Thalore Warriors shouldn't get disadvantages from such changes, though.
Giving them intrinsics may be a good approach; perhaps a pentalty to spell speed but a bonus to mind speed?

[supermini]

Giving them intrinsics may be a good approach; perhaps a pentalty to spell speed but a bonus to mind speed?

Spell speed penalty is too big of a push in a certain direction.

How about we make one of the resists from Guardian of the wood racial, and replace it with mind speed buff?

[ohioastro]

I see no good reason for the exp penalty for Thalore. The game winner list is very heavy on dwarfs and skeletons, and has very few thalore. I'd drop the exp penalty to something more like 10% and bump the penalty up for dwarfs to 35% (the save bonus and stone walking really are extremely powerful.) I'd drop the ghoul penalty for the same reason as thalore. This, at a dead minimum, would align the current advancement rates with the current relative values of the characters. If we then boost the racial specials of some of the classes we can adjust the exp accordingly.

In terms of polishing I would look hard at the classes with tedious maintenance abilities (mostly related to resources that actively decay unless you do something.) Anorithils would be a more popular class if you didn't need to continuously mash buttons to regenerate negative energy. Forcing arcane blades to wait for mana runes (early game at least) has a related effect. Reloading is a similar issue for archers. I understand the justification in terms of power, but you could achieve similar ends without adding mechanical push-this-button-every-four-turns tasks to classes. There would be no real loss to removing natural negative energy draining for anorithils. Infinite basic arrows for archers would be a sensible setup as well - you may need to reload the fancy ones, but a "shoot basic arrow / bullet" option that doesn't use ammo would be a real blessing. Adding minor mana regen to arcane blades, etc. would fall into a similar philosophy: it's not a good design idea to make some classes tedious to actually run and adding hours of busy work per run that other classes don't have to worry about.

Another polishing feedback: the crypt near lost hope can permanently harm your characters with curses, and attempting it before the end of the game can actually damage your chances at winning even if you don't lose lives. I don't care if the curses are "significant"; this is the only dungeon where you can leave worse off than you entered even if you lose no lives (and are in fact very likely to do so.) I'd replace the permanent curses with time-limited ones that are more severe.

[5k17]

Another polishing feedback: the crypt near lost hope can permanently harm your characters with curses, and attempting it before the end of the game can actually damage your chances at winning even if you don't lose lives. I don't care if the curses are "significant"; this is the only dungeon where you can leave worse off than you entered even if you lose no lives (and are in fact very likely to do so.) I'd replace the permanent curses with time-limited ones that are more severe.

Then again, with sufficient investment, the curses can become pretty good (although getting the right one on a good item is still a matter of luck), and restricting it to Afflicted would penalize builds with few good generic talents. I'd keep them, but they should be more predictable, i.e. at least it should be knowable from very early in a game whether there are curse-giving coffins, and ideally they should avoidable for those who don't want them and guaranteed for those who do. Some class and race-independent (but not necessarily trivial) way of seeing what's inside a specific coffin without actually opening it would be nice.

[supermini]

Then again, with sufficient investment, the curses can become pretty good (although getting the right one on a good item is still a matter of luck), and restricting it to Afflicted would penalize builds with few good generic talents. I'd keep them, but they should be more predictable, i.e. at least it should be knowable from very early in a game whether there are curse-giving coffins, and ideally they should avoidable for those who don't want them and guaranteed for those who do. Some class and race-independent (but not necessarily trivial) way of seeing what's inside a specific coffin without actually opening it would be nice.

They are avoidable - stay away from the graveyard. It is not a required zone. Also, precognition works on coffins in b43.

[Elkan]

A suggestion for Adventurers, if they Have at least 4 (perhaps 3?) Category points spent on Wizard categories/mana using schools, give them standard mana regeneration. This allows viable mage hybrid builds. without giving mana regen just for grabbing aegis or divination

[Dwindlehop]

Give arcane blades a passive mana regeneration which is put on cooldown whenever they act. So 'r' gets you full but you don't get the combat regen of a mage.

[ohioastro]

Then again, with sufficient investment, the curses can become pretty good (although getting the right one on a good item is still a matter of luck), and restricting it to Afflicted would penalize builds with few good generic talents. I'd keep them, but they should be more predictable, i.e. at least it should be knowable from very early in a game whether there are curse-giving coffins, and ideally they should avoidable for those who don't want them and guaranteed for those who do. Some class and race-independent (but not necessarily trivial) way of seeing what's inside a specific coffin without actually opening it would be nice.

They are avoidable - stay away from the graveyard. It is not a required zone. Also, precognition works on coffins in b43.

Agreed, and I always do that. If you want people to actually use the content, however, it should obey the same rule that all of the other optional encounters do: if you are strong enough to survive it you don't end up worse off than you were going in.