Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

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SageAcrin
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Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

#1 Post by SageAcrin »

Just got done with a Shadowblade (http://www.te4.org/characters/10195/tom ... 7da62444c8) that spent the latter half of the game invisible, and had a few thoughts/suggestions about the build that I'd like to share.

A: Invisibility is a little overpowered...situationally.

Generally speaking, enemies can see and react through Invisibility to some degree, in many situations.

But then there's times where, due to lack of Invis sight, etc., an entire large room full of enemies doesn't and slowly gets cut to pieces. This is hilarious, but sort of too much.

Idea for this: Have a (low) baseline for everyone in the game to see through Invisibility(but not stealth! Stealth doesn't need a nerf, it's in good shape.). Say, 5% chance every turn. Even once enemies know you're there, Invisibility is still very useful, but enemies never figuring you're there is ridiculous. Thematic, but overpowered when it happens.

Passing out a little more see invis(Maybe some more to demons?) wouldn't hurt, but that's the big thing.

Actually, you could probably solve the issue just by passing out Piercing Sight to, say, thief type enemies and mage type enemies. That might be even better, thinking on.

B: Negative regens get boosted by resting.

This is kinda frustrating-it was very often better to not rest with Invis on, than it was to rest with Invis on, since my negative regeneration would increase to ridiculous levels that autocasting Manasurge couldn't handle. :(

Idea for this: Don't let resting boost negative regens. Please. It was just annoying. :|

C: Ambuscade is sorta silly.

Ignoring some recently reported bugs about changing skills while under the effect(Which I easily avoided, thankfully), Ambuscade still is a little abusable with controlled teleport. It's quite possible to simply have your Ambuscade teleport across a dungeon, slowly killing everything in it. Goofy and overly good if you're really boring.

Idea for this: Have an Ambuscade evaporate/die/whatever if it goes beyond (10+talentlevel*5) squares away from the host. This'd at least make it more of a short range abuse than a long range one-more along the lines of a normal summon, instead of a massive range one.

D: Shadow Veil does some weird things.

D1: Shadow Veil only functions once per "global" turn, as in the rate that status degenerate etc. at. If you have more than 100% speed, as such, turns taken under Shadow Veil will be fully controlled. This may be a good thing, though...it's quite questionable without that, for normal use(as opposed to an Ambuscade casting it), and it's hard to get up enough speed to stay reliably in control without burning resources or something similar.

D2: Shadow Veil, when used by an Ambuscade, seems to not take up remaining summoning time turns for Shadow Veil attacks. This is a little bit silly and leads to Ambuscades being able to last 15-20 turns. This is somewhat more abusable, though there's still somewhat of a question if it's a bad thing.

D3: Shadow Veil, when used and then Ambuscade cast, will cause your unconscious body to run around Shadow Veil attacking people, if they are in range, as well as your Ambuscade. This is hilarious, and while it's extremely damaging, it's also extremely risky since you have to stay entirely out of control of your body-aka the part that game overs you when you die. It's probably fine.

Solution: Heck if I know. I don't even know if any of these needs a fix-it may all be intentional. It's pretty funny though, and worth commenting on.

E: For some strange reason, world map enemy sets can reliably see through Invis.

Solution: Heck if I know. I didn't think they had any see invis. It's funny to be chased unerringly by a squad of enemies and then have none of them know where you are when they catch up to you.

F: You can't always see through your own invis. And, at least on very low graphical settings, your tile just disappears when this happens. So, it can be hard to figure out where you are.

Solution: Make it possible to see through your own invis or make a no-shaders graphical effect to note where you are, I guess.

Overall, though, it was really fun. Shadowblade starts out hard and has a really, really strong later game, and Tricks of the Trade worked out very well. Fun stuff.

supermini
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Re: Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

#2 Post by supermini »

I don't think a fixed chance to see through invisibility is a good idea. It has to be something that scales with level of the monster and your invis score. Piercing sight should be ok...But should you really give it to mages? Invis tends to fail vs. mages the most as far as I know(as it takes just one dude to see you and then pass the target to the rest of them). I'd rather give it to melee enemies/archers who suffer blind fight penalties.
<darkgod> all this fine balancing talk is boring
<darkgod> brb buffing boulder throwers

SageAcrin
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Re: Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

#3 Post by SageAcrin »

I was thinking of the classes that have Survival normally unlocked.

Granted, it would help if I could actually remember which classes normally have Survival unlocked besides Rogues(if any)...

Mewtarthio
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Re: Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

#4 Post by Mewtarthio »

SageAcrin wrote:Ignoring some recently reported bugs about changing skills while under the effect(Which I easily avoided, thankfully), Ambuscade still is a little abusable with controlled teleport. It's quite possible to simply have your Ambuscade teleport across a dungeon, slowly killing everything in it. Goofy and overly good if you're really boring.
As I've said before, I think anyone targeting a dead summon should automatically get target:resolveSource() as a new target if there are no other targets in sight. That way, the Ambuscade teleport trick would me more like regular hit-and-run teleportation tactics.

Hachem_Muche
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Re: Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

#5 Post by Hachem_Muche »

I'm working a Shadowblade test character through the I.D. right now (just hit level 125), though it's a more stealth, defense based build. I can tell you that higher level (random) bosses have an abundance of stealth/invisibility detection.
But then there's times where, due to lack of Invis sight, etc., an entire large room full of enemies doesn't and slowly gets cut to pieces. This is hilarious, but sort of too much.

Idea for this: Have a (low) baseline for everyone in the game to see through Invisibility(but not stealth! Stealth doesn't need a nerf, it's in good shape.). Say, 5% chance every turn. Even once enemies know you're there, Invisibility is still very useful, but enemies never figuring you're there is ridiculous. Thematic, but overpowered when it happens.
The stealth and invisibility mechanics are almost the same. All monsters get a chance to see through stealth based on their level and 25% of their cunning. This same formula (with a reduced rate) could be used for invisibility, too, say 10% cunning instead of 25%, since invisibility is harder to stack. Opposed skill checks are always better for scaling, since they can scale indefinitely.

As for detection, monsters definitely should be able to figure out where you are over time, and I know that the new AI code Tiger_eye and Yufra put in was working on that. So maybe it just needs to be developed more. (I also have some ideas on how to do this also, if you all are interested.)
D3: Shadow Veil, when used and then Ambuscade cast, will cause your unconscious body to run around Shadow Veil attacking people, if they are in range, as well as your Ambuscade. This is hilarious, and while it's extremely damaging, it's also extremely risky since you have to stay entirely out of control of your body-aka the part that game overs you when you die. It's probably fine.

Solution: Heck if I know. I don't even know if any of these needs a fix-it may all be intentional. It's pretty funny though, and worth commenting on.
I think this is a bug that I've seen a few times but never nailed down. It can be devastating to a player facing a shadow-veiled boss and needs to be fixed.
F: You can't always see through your own invis. And, at least on very low graphical settings, your tile just disappears when this happens. So, it can be hard to figure out where you are.
I find this very irritating also. On my system, things are OK with just invisibility, but using both invisibility and stealth (for the shadowstep bonus) causes my character to vanish from the screen. A starting point could be just to reduce the intensity of the graphical effects.

I don't like the way Invisibility works presently, the idea that turning invisible stops healing is rather hard to swallow. Instead, I think it should force a reduction of speed to half global (computed after all other effects, with the idea that you have to slow down to stay sneaky), and then tweaked as needed.
Author of the Infinite 500 and PlenumTooltip addons, and the joys of Scaling in ToME.

SageAcrin
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Re: Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

#6 Post by SageAcrin »

The stealth and invisibility mechanics are almost the same. All monsters get a chance to see through stealth based on their level and 25% of their cunning. This same formula (with a reduced rate) could be used for invisibility, too, say 10% cunning instead of 25%, since invisibility is harder to stack. Opposed skill checks are always better for scaling, since they can scale indefinitely.

As for detection, monsters definitely should be able to figure out where you are over time, and I know that the new AI code Tiger_eye and Yufra put in was working on that. So maybe it just needs to be developed more. (I also have some ideas on how to do this also, if you all are interested.)
*Nods.* Yeah, maybe a lower version of that scaling would work.

And yeah, AI is probably a bit of this. That actually goes for Ambuscade/summoning in general, enemies getting a vague idea of where the summoner is would definitely balance out Ambuscade in general. You'd have to teleport and run to Ambuscade again, which would make it only useful for extremely dangerous and well controlled threats, rather than full floors, which feels very fitting.

Not really a big deal, I just feel like I should comment on things that stood out to me.

As to the healing thing, Invisibility Runes stop healing. Other forms lack that specific effect.

Which, honestly, could be fully removed from those runes, reasonably. A rune slot is a fairly reasonable cost in general for an ability, and temporary Invis is flexible, but not especially ridiculous compared to the other options present in slots.

HousePet
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Re: Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

#7 Post by HousePet »

Mages don't need Piercing Sight, they have Keen Senses.

Does the AI react in any way to being attacked by an invisible creature? Or react when a friendly creature is attacked by invis?
My feedback meter decays into coding. Give me feedback and I make mods.

SageAcrin
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Re: Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

#8 Post by SageAcrin »

I'd rather not jack the critical hit rate of every mage in the game 15-20% as a fix to this problem, either. <_<

HousePet
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Re: Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

#9 Post by HousePet »

Make them cast Arcane Eye, when something fishy is happening?
My feedback meter decays into coding. Give me feedback and I make mods.

SageAcrin
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Re: Shadowblade/Invis thoughts

#10 Post by SageAcrin »

Now that'd be cool. Might be a little hard to program, but it'd be cool.

Edit: Oh, I thought of one last thing.

G: Light Radius is really annoying with Invisibility.

I had to transmog Telos Staff Gem, ditch Orc Feller, and several other irritating things, because Invis doesn't really play nice with them. That's okay, but it felt like an extreme effect, and annoying to boot.

Idea for this: Make drop your light *partially*. Either by (Talent Level) or (Talent Level/2). The former means you can use a light and some lite gear, but not stack it forever without thinking, while the latter would let you use stuff like Orc Feller or carry around Telos Gem, but not have a Lite.

I like the thematic, and it's an interesting way to balance it out in part, but it gets really annoying to have to ditch every single source of Lite, including stuff like hold items.

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