(1.0.4) Legacy of the Naloren

[supermini]

Getting to 5 levels of exotic mastery and then taking the prodigy (warrior escort), pushes it to 10 levels, or 16 adjusted. Doesn't seem to be WAD.

[Zonk]

Getting to 5 levels of exotic mastery and then taking the prodigy (warrior escort), pushes it to 10 levels, or 16 adjusted. Doesn't seem to be WAD.

While possibly unbalanced(but not sure, in practice...diminishing returns, no?) I think that is intentional, as equipments that give +1 talent levels CAN push you above 5...

[supermini]

The prodigy is the one that gives you talent levels, but I was under the impression that it was supposed to set them to 5, not add 5.

And while diminishing returns apply to the physical power bit, diminishing does not mean no returns...effective talent level of 16 in any weapon mastery is...insane.

[SageAcrin]

Known bug-into-feature as far as I'm aware. (Or maybe it was always intended. Not sure.)

The alternative is that it makes taking the Exotic weapon oriented Prodigy actively bad to take Exotic Weapon Mastery for. Which is sorta bad too.

[supermini]

Well, currently it gives something like 190 power and 95% bonus damage[*] on the modified skill level. More with battlemaster cloak and ring of war master.

[*] I'm not sure about the exact numbers, but I could check.

[Mewtarthio]

It requires that you either burn generic points on a talent that will become obsolete (Weapon Mastery) or spend most of the game without mastery in the weapon you're using. And even then, it's not guaranteed to work, since it requires a specific escort reward. I'd say it's not overpowered unless you're using some sort of crazy two-handed sunpally build that lets you start with tridents from the Slazish Fens.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

It's that bonus damage that makes it WORTH the prodigy point over something else. I mean, as it stands using exotics would just be a different set of weapons. That prodigy allowing them much higher damage is what MAKES it a prodigy.

[supermini]

It requires that you either burn generic points on a talent that will become obsolete (Weapon Mastery) or spend most of the game without mastery in the weapon you're using. And even then, it's not guaranteed to work, since it requires a specific escort reward. I'd say it's not overpowered unless you're using some sort of crazy two-handed sunpally build that lets you start with tridents from the Slazish Fens.

You can shuffle weapon mastery points. As long as they are the last 3 points that you put in, you can unlearn them. You can shuffle your generics every level to make sure those points are the last 3. Making it to the east with 3 points in weapon mastery isn't that much of a problem.

Re: specific escort, as long as you 'restart with the same character' after you die, you will get escorts in the same place (but the class will be random). So, restart until you get an escort in the second level of your first t1, then die until that escort is a warrior and you can save it. Even if this was changed so that the places randomized, you could still start characters over and over again until you get a warrior escort, this just shortens the time to do it, a bit.

[Waladil]

It requires that you either burn generic points on a talent that will become obsolete (Weapon Mastery) or spend most of the game without mastery in the weapon you're using. And even then, it's not guaranteed to work, since it requires a specific escort reward. I'd say it's not overpowered unless you're using some sort of crazy two-handed sunpally build that lets you start with tridents from the Slazish Fens.

You can shuffle weapon mastery points. As long as they are the last 3 points that you put in, you can unlearn them. You can shuffle your generics every level to make sure those points are the last 3. Making it to the east with 3 points in weapon mastery isn't that much of a problem.

Re: specific escort, as long as you 'restart with the same character' after you die, you will get escorts in the same place (but the class will be random). So, restart until you get an escort in the second level of your first t1, then die until that escort is a warrior and you can save it. Even if this was changed so that the places randomized, you could still start characters over and over again until you get a warrior escort, this just shortens the time to do it, a bit.

On the other hand, that is way too much min/maxing, shuffling, and general cheese to balance the game around. While it is technically all true, basically you're asking the game to be rebalanced based on the fact that someone _could_ exert a lot of effort including repeatedly restarting characters, to cheese a skill up to silly levels. And let's make a prodigy be -5 generic points for the majority of players who take it! If you don't shuffle your points around constantly, then you're doing it wrong!

That said, there probably is a sideways way to fix this that would allow that bug to be fixed WITHOUT requiring players to cheese themselves. For example, insert a few lines of code that refunds spent generic points on Exotic Weapon Mastery. So you'd end up with 5/5 EWM after taking the prodigy and a few generics to be spent elsewhere.

[supermini]

On the other hand, that is way too much min/maxing, shuffling, and general cheese to balance the game around. While it is technically all true, basically you're asking the game to be rebalanced based on the fact that someone _could_ exert a lot of effort including repeatedly restarting characters, to cheese a skill up to silly levels. And let's make a prodigy be -5 generic points for the majority of players who take it! If you don't shuffle your points around constantly, then you're doing it wrong!

Don't shoot the messenger. I am not asking the game to be balanced around cheesing, I am asking for the current way to cheese it to be taken out.

Right now the optimal way to do it is: restart until you get a warrior escort, level 2 ranks of exotic weapon proficiency and 3 points of weapon mastery, shuffle the WM into EM before taking the prodigy, and you both save generic points that would have been wasted, and you get 10 points in the exotic weapon mastery - making the cheesy way even more rewarding than before!

Whether or not you choose to cheese it - and most people would, because the reward is substantial - it is the optimal way to do it, and that should be fixed in a way so that it does not penalize people who just level the skill normally and take the prodigy.

One way to do it: set exotic weapon proficiency to 5, set weapon and dagger mastery to 0, and reimburse all generic points invested into mastery skills up to that point.

It removes the incentive to level exotic weapon proficiency before you get a weapon that can use it, but that incentive never made sense anyway.

[SageAcrin]

It's build-specific, though.

In order to even care, you have to decide that A: You want that specific build, B: You don't mind the hassle, and C: You don't mind point-juggling and not either losing points on Weapon Mastery or leaving Weapon Mastery at 3(Which is, I feel, a bigger deal than you say; Capping weapon skills is one of the biggest deals for damage.).

All of this for what is, after diminishing returns, around 15-20 modified physical power-something that both Berserker and Wyrmic can get in huge quantities anyways-and a +20% damage bonus to the base weapon-which doesn't translate to +20% damage because you'd already have a 45%~ boost no matter what from Naloren. That makes it closer to 10-15% base damage bonus. Not actually bad; Naloren's a good weapon and all. But Superpower/Flexible Combat still compete, to say nothing of less linear comparisons like Giant Leap.

Put this way; There's a lot of things that you could want to scum for that would make your life easier. Various other escorts...gear...etc. Why is this that different from scumming up an Anorithil? Scumming isn't perfect because you have to decide what you want out of it; If you start requiring fifteen specific optimal items out of your scumming, you'll never win. Within that, does this feel imbalancing on impact compared to the other things you can scum for? Can't say it does.

Basically, I still agree with my initial assessment, when it was brought up ages ago(I believe this has been noted since the first time the code was in the depository, in fact.); It's not really a big deal. Past a certain point, protecting people from their own inflexibility is pointless, and I think this level of optimization is one of those points.

Just choose another Prodigy instead if you don't get Exotic Weapon Mastery-or do choose Naloren, and shrug at the fact that you didn't get lucky, just like people do when they don't get Dakhtun or Girdle of Preservation. Or don't and restart more; Any game with an RNG factor's going to have some level of scumming optimization that you can go for, if you want, or not.

(Alternate answer; Have getting Conditioning through Worldly Knowledge also unlock Exotic Weapons Mastery. It's the same answer any other crucial-to-the-build escort category has.)

[supermini]

The difference is not as small as you suggest - it's effective talent level 8 vs. 16, and that is without further mastery bonuses (like battlemaster cloaks). Diminishing returns apply of course, but the difference is greater than just 15% - I suspect it is at least double that.

Surviving until east on 3 levels of weapon mastery is not that much of a problem, and if you want I'll be happy to get any class you name to the underwater cave on roguelike normal with 3 levels of the respective weapon mastery, just to prove that point.

I don't really understand the other point you were trying to make...Scumming isn't perfect? So we shouldn't fix any exploit in the game because how is that different from scumming an anorithil? This exploit does not require you to do anything other than save a warrior, which you might not even need to scum to do.

Anyway, seeing as I'm the only one who is really bothered by this, I'll just drop it.

[morganp]

Something that has been bugging me for a while, and that probably has some purpose I'm overlooking, is the division of weapon masteries. Is there an in-game reason to have skill in daggers be separate from skill in other one- and two-handed weapons? Ignoring point juggling, it forces me to make an early decision about, say, whether my temporal warden will wield two daggers or a sword and dagger, before I even get far enough into the game to find any of the good drops. Generic point cost for some builds gets much higher if you want to do one-hander and dagger together at any proficiency. It seems like combining these into one talent would allow for more versatility, like using a cool drop you weren't planning on, for more dynamic builds. Which, in my understanding, is what the escorts are about too.

My idea is to combine weapon and dagger mastery, and maybe exotic weapon mastery would just allow you to use exotic weapons at whatever proficiency you've already purchased in the generic weapon skill.

It would make whips and tridents an actual option for more folks, and also help out two classes, TW and Marauder, who may benefit in the mid-game by adding some true useability to the main-hand and off-hand setup. Certain builds, like rogues, would still benefit from using their standard weapons due to other skill or stats, like daggers using cunning and dex.

Or maybe I'm overlooking something, other than the role-play aspects of "it takes a different skill to learn to use a dagger," which I can accept.

Edit: also meant to mention, in this scenario you could have Legacy of the Naloren prodigy give the exotic weapons extension to your weapon mastery and the generic points back like supermini proposed, would effectively be just like his suggestion, and the same net result as the current point-juggling situation.

[Theyleon]

I would expect one of the main reasons for the general weapon/dagger split was due to the stat requirements - most weapons run off of strength, and thus their mastery does too, but daggers are dexterity based, and having them under a strength requiring skill wouldn't work at all. I'm not sure if it's possible to do either/or stat requirements for skills to be able to combine them and keep the stat requirement (the other option is to make it purely level dependent like accuracy I guess)