Ideas to Improve Scouting

[grmblfzzz]

Explanation/Quick Rant
In my opinion, scouting is critical, getting more so with each difficulty above normal. Almost all classes have access to scouting in some form, varying from the standard form of Track, Meditation, and Vimsense, to things like Alchemists sending golems around corners, or Projection/Ambuscade. It's also available in many ways through items/escorts/runes. However, the quality of the available options varies greatly (particularly of the Items/runes), and I'd like to offer some suggestions for buffing them. I think this would encourage more people to get comfortable with scouting in general, as it's the key to playing tactically and will save worlds of frustration when moving up difficulties.

Weak Scouting Abilities and Buff Ideas

Vision Runes: Grant Vision (rad 8-18 according to wiki... generally on the low side of that for sure), +see invis/stealth, Telepathy 1 creature type. I suspect these see almost no use at all. I've used them occasionally for very specific reasons and times, but overall it's incredibly difficult to argue for using a rune slot on one. The vision granting that's not like earths eye/burning star is cool (just see outline of walls), and so is the idea of limited telepathy instead of general track. Problem is that to even consider these, you'd have to have the upper end of Rad range and the appropriate creature type for whatever zone you were in.

Suggestion: Buff the radius range, and make it so that you get 2+ telepathy types. That keeps it's unique flavor, and makes it much more likely to be usable if you can find something like Human+dragon or something.

Wands of Detection: Can't find the specifics, but currently the range tends to be on the pathetic side. I know I've found as little as 5 (pretty sure I've had a 4...), and not sure I've ever found > 14. The wand slot has some very powerful effects, kind of hard to justify a sub-11 (your/mobs sight range!) track.

Suggestion: Either just buff the radius, which would make them quite handy... but also kind of bland as there's already Nighthunter/Delving/Watchleaders (which, unlike this, scale with your stats). What I think would be nifty is if it could be used similarly to Warding, in that when you used it you could select a telepathy type that it grants you for the duration.

Meditation: (already posted about this one somewhere else, reposting here) There are 4 wilder classes now, who depend on this as their natural scouting. It already has a disadvantage that you're doing half damage, so you can't sustain it while actually fighting most of the time... I honestly fail to see why the radius of it's track portion shouldn't be buffed. I don't mean necessarily up to an actual track-like level, but perhaps to a level corresponding to the radius of earths eye? Personally I feel that somewhere right around 14 (the radius of TW's precog track) is about the minimum level that it can really be useful and non-tedius. Minimum 11, so you can see mobs before they can see you, and that gives enough of a buffer so you don't have to do it constantly.

General complaint applicable to many of the psuedo-tracks: A maxed out scouting talent, or high level/hard to acquire scouting item (Such as Taint of Telepathy)... shouldn't have sub-11 range. Yes, obviously there are many places where this can be used to see through walls and scout stuff. Just as obviously, the general utility of something with so short a range is diminished by two major factors: 1) If you're trying to actually not get gibbed around all corners, tiny range just makes things incredibly tedious. 2) There are many places where you are in wide open areas or long corridors, where these just do nothing at all for you. Sub-11 range is fine for something like Cursed's passive track (Because it's passive)... but otherwise really doesn't fulfill it's fundamental purpose of scouting.

[Infinitum]

Personally, I would be cool with turning all existing non-combat talents into passives. Currently the only thing holding the PC back from just activating any tracking/mapping ability nonstop outside of combat (which is technically optimum play) is the logistical annoyance of doing so. Having a cooldown in itself does nothing to dissuade overuse unless there's pressure to act on the players part (ie being in combat).

[SageAcrin]

Having a cooldown in itself does nothing to dissuade overuse unless there's pressure to act on the players part (ie being in combat).

I'd argue that's a good enough reason not to just leave it passive, personally. That added info can be useful in combat, even if it's hard to get a turn for it, and it turns them from scouting skills to general information skills-which is somewhat better.

The main exception is Arcane Eye, which is Instant...but turning that into a passive effect basically takes away all the interesting elements of it(and, unless you come up with some amazingly complex passive handling, makes it worse).

As to the tweaks? Yeah, I kinda agree; Scouting skills really ought to be less about seeing through walls(not that this is bad, but there's some talents that fill this niche cleanly and obviously and aren't bad at it, such as Preternatural Senses) and more about seeing outside of sight range. Within that, extending the ranges on those specific skills listed to 11+ would be good.

Earth's Eyes is the only exception that might be fine without that, but I think that it'd be balanced enough with that change for that to be fine.

[grmblfzzz]

I agree with SageAcrin: There are all sorts of game design/balance reasons to not just have everything like that passive. Some of the bigger ones being:

1) In any game of any sort, and especially in things like roguelikes, there's a balance with active vs passive abilities. Notably, actives are stronger, temporary buffs, while passives are... weaker but passive buffs. See Temporal Form vs Mental Tyrany. Fundamentally similar, but TF's got some extra goodies packed on due to being on-use with a cooldown. Just the way things work, and it works well.

2) As Sage mentioned, lots of abilities simply wouldn't work in a passive way. Arcane Eye, as he mentioned. Then there's the forms of scouting like using your Golemn to explore for you, or doing so with Projection/ambuscade, or Precognition. There's currently an interesting variety of ways to scout, many of which simply wouldn't translate to passives. Decreased diversity is bad.

3) Somewhat related to point 1, but actives promote making skillful/tactical decisions, while passives do not. The game as is already has plenty of scouting, it's just that there are options in the game (particularly things like vision runes/wands of detection), that are just really sub-par for their purpose.


Just throwing out some more ideas here, as in addition to the things i've mentioned, the following classes have no intrinsic means of scouting:

Arcane Blade
Doomed
Anorithil
Sun Paladin
Mindslayer
Reaver ** Just kidding, forgot they got vimsense as well

Twenty out of 26 already have at least *some* method of doing so, and I think there's some different methods of scouting that could still be explored. Such as:

Oldschool earths eye (where you targeted an AOE somewhere on the map)
Something that only works within LOS (like a huge infravision radius, for instance)
The equivalent of Earth's Eye to Vision runes as Track is to... That would be some form of AOE track that didn't actually reveal the creature, but just that there were creatures there.

[SageAcrin]

Thought experiment; How hard would it be to fix those six having no scouting options?

Reaver: Sorta does already, in the same sense Corruptor sorta does(Vimsense).

Arcane Blade: Could get Divination...but if it was locked no one would use it, and if it was unlocked it would be a power raise. A...rather small one, though, mostly due to Keen Senses, and come to think of it it probably wouldn't be a meaningful raise to their power outside of scouting abilities.

Doomed: Sorta needs a new category for that. Doomed could use one extra category with some weird utility stuff, in general.

Mindslayer: Same as Doomed, but already has more than enough categories. Giving them locked Mentalism would be an interesting way to try to fix this, though.

Sun Paladin/Anorithil: Really needs a new category for that.

So yeah, not easy fixes on average. It's a pity.

[Mewtarthio]

Doomed: Sorta needs a new category for that. Doomed could use one extra category with some weird utility stuff, in general.

One With Shadows (lvl 10, locked)

Shadow Senses: Passive. Your awareness extends to your shadows. You always know exactly where your shadows are and can perceive any foe within X tiles of their LoS. This also allows your shadows to target such foes, even if you cannot see them directly.

Shadow Empathy: Activated. For the next X turns, Y% of all incoming damage is shunted to a random shadow.

Shadow Transposition: Activated, instant. Observers find it difficult to tell you and your shadows apart. You can target a shadow and instantly trade places with it. X random negative effects are transferred from you to the chosen shadow in the process.

Shadow Decoy: Costly sustain. When you would receive a fatal blow, you instantly transpose with a random shadow that takes the blow instead and gain "die at -X" for the next Y rounds, putting this talent on cooldown. ("Fools, you never killed me; that was only my shadow!")

Mindslayer: Same as Doomed, but already has more than enough categories. Giving them locked Mentalism would be an interesting way to try to fix this, though.

Sun Paladin/Anorithil: Really needs a new category for that.

Anos get Jumpgate for scouting, though I'm not sure how common it is for Anorithils to get one-shotted on higher difficulty settings.

[ohioastro]

The range and cost of Jumpgate combine to make it barely useful unless you invest a lot of points in it. More to the point, showing up where you can get whacked is not the same as a passive scouting ability...

[grmblfzzz]

... Forgot that Reavers got vimsense as well. Strike that! Although for the record, I still wish vimsense got up to ~14 perhaps. Perhaps make it scale with something like... Will? Supposedly a stat you'd get on Cor/Reaver, but as is there's really no incentive)

As for the others though:

Doomed: I really like Mewtarthio's suggested tree. A lower effort fix though would be to just tack this ability on to one of the shadow talents that already exist.

Shadow Senses: Passive. Your awareness extends to your shadows. You always know exactly where your shadows are and can perceive any foe within X tiles of their LoS. This also allows your shadows to target such foes, even if you cannot see them directly.

I think that's a unique and interesting scouting ability.

Arcane Blade: If I recall correctly, they used to get the divination tree... That would probably be a fairly safe/easy fix. Don't remember how stacked their generic tree's were, but they already have a billion class ones.

Sun Paladin/Anorithil: Jumpgate isn't really a scouting ability... It's an escape/utility ability, but what I mean by a scouting skill is something that lets you, in some way, see mobs before they can see you. With jumpgate, they can see you just fine, you just have an escape.

I don't see how you could easily tack on tracking to some of their tree's... but then, I don't really play them all that much. But I think it'd be easy to make one that they both share, wouldn't necessarily need one for each.

Mindslayer: Mindslayers are already really hurting for both class and generic points. I'd think if you wanted to go for everyone getting some scouting, redoing one of the existing more lackluster talents would be best.

Cursed: They weren't on the list, and they already have a passive track which is cool. But Mewtarthio's shadow idea got me thinking it'd be cool if you got LOS from your Cursed Sentry. It's currently kind of a pain in the ass compared to how good it is, what with having to carry around tons of extra weapons, and this'd give them a way to peek down long corridors, but have a hefty cost assosiated with it as well.

[SageAcrin]

..Doomed: I really like Mewtarthio's suggested tree.

I have to strongly second this; Doomed doesn't need a powerful utility tree, but it needs a utility tree-it has more than enough raw damage, and the four base trees+one unlockable it has is really tight and allows for few choices. Basing the utility around Shadows is basically a perfect way to do it, and shadows make interesting, if flaky, scouts.

Someone should code that.

[HousePet]

I'm tempted by that shadowy one...

Anyway, I don't think every class needs Scouting talents. Inscriptions and Charms exist for filling in these gaps. They just need to be worth using.

[grmblfzzz]

@HousePet: Agreed! I mean, I think its fun using the different types of scouting that exist for each class, and an intrinsic scout can usually complement scouting from Inscriptions/Items... But do you agree with the original point that at least Vision Runes and Wands of Detection are currently pretty worthless? As is, they're things you're just sad to find because they could be other, usable items. But seeing as how they exist, might as well make them fulfill their intended purposes!

[HousePet]

Of course I agree they should be wroth using, that is what I said.

[Doctornull]

Ideas for Wands of Detection and Vision Runes, hmm...

Vision Rune: This thing takes up an Inscription slot, so it's gotta be very useful or it's not going to be worth the opportunity cost. Here's what would tempt me to spend one of my precious slots on a Vision Rune:
- The type telepathy is passive and constant. Your rune lets you detect Dragons? Great, now you detect Dragons all the time.
- The rune removes blindness on use, as well as giving the stealth / invisible detection bonus.
- Using the rune is instant.

Wand of Detection: Make it detect in a cone instead of a circle. All other wands are directional. Then it can give you a decent sized area, but still be different from other detection methods, and thus it can complement other detection methods.

Totem of Plant Affinity: Something for the Anti-Magic folks. Lets you see through the "eyes" of plants, giving you vision radius 1-5 around each Immovable within radius 11. Maybe now you'll avoid offing that nice friendly slime in the corner. Long cooldown.

[HousePet]

An accuracy buff on the vision rune could be interesting.

[SageAcrin]

I don't think any of these really fix the problem of how to make Vision Runes more generally useful in combat, thoug-

*Lightbulb*

Combine Vision Runes and Sun Infusions.

I'll let people discuss if it's better as a Rune or an Infusion. I lean Rune, it fits with the damage runes. Just call it a Light Rune. Sun Infusion could keep its name reasonably enough, if it goes with Infusion.

Edit: Actually, I think I like it more as an Infusion, on reflection; It's basically the only good offensive Infusion right now, and I'd hate to take that away.