Midnight (v1.13)

[HousePet]

Updated again!?

Two new subraces added.
Mardrop Humans and Star Elves.
They start in the Far East regardless of class.
Might not fit the lore correctly, cos there isn't much to go on.

Still puzzled by faulty Sigils and Nocturnal Raid.

[Elroniel]

I've been rolling with the Starslinger for most of the day today, trying a few different race combo's with it. During such, I noticed a couple issues with some of the new moves.

Orbit: The buff "Orbit" shows up on mobs that get hit by it, but I don't see any other mobs around it getting hit. Also, the description is a bit vague on which enemies it hits, and what damage those enemies receive. (Which means I could just be doing it wrong.)

Starburst: Doesn't seem to work at all. I activate the move, target an enemy, and seemingly nothing happens. Also, could possibly use a little more description on what/how the shards target after the initial hit.

Black Hole: Love this; super useful, much like the gravity spell (gravity well maybe?). However, I got a LUA error whenever I use it and when it tries to draw in mobs (Still seems to be drawing in mobs, regardless).

Overall: Love the class, the custom trees seem to have some good symmetry. It would be nice to have some way of getting negative energy regen that didn't break stealth. On that note, is Shadow Shot always supposed to generate Negative energy? It seems to only do so when used from stealth. It might be nice to roll just a little bit of Negative regen into another move or something similar.

Great job so far, lots of interesting options and great custom trees galore. Keep up the awesome work!!

[HousePet]

Black Hole: Love this; super useful, much like the gravity spell (gravity well maybe?). However, I got a LUA error whenever I use it and when it tries to draw in mobs (Still seems to be drawing in mobs, regardless).

Really need the error message.

It would be nice to have some way of getting negative energy regen that didn't break stealth. On that note, is Shadow Shot always supposed to generate Negative energy?

Do you really think that I wouldn't give you a way of generating negative energy without breaking stealth, and one talent would randomly do so?

[Elroniel]

Do you really think that I wouldn't give you a way of generating negative energy without breaking stealth, and one talent would randomly do so?

Heh, I wasn't talking about anything broken, I just think it'd be nice to have some way off gaining more negative energy from it. Maybe tie it into a passive of sustain, or make it generate a percent of your max (Could help making it difficult to choose which sustains are really worth it).

[HousePet]

Or you could just use the current method, where cost becomes negative when you are in stealth mode.

[Elroniel]

Alright. I'm glad it works the way you intended.

[StarKeep]

This has an interesting interaction with the old Gardener.

They gain your Guidence tree... but it behaves strangely.

They have a generic one by the same name, and yours is displayed above it, on the generic side.
Yet, it still uses class points.
They also act as though one point in the other tree, is along the way to unlock another talent on their own tree.

Doesn't need to be fixed, or looking into, or anything. Just thought I'd say this funny interaction.

[HousePet]

I forgot that had a category with that name.

[HousePet]

Updated again.

New second starting zone: The Tenebrous Glades.

Travel to the barely made training camp of Midnight via a jumpgate on the west side of the Gates of Morning, then head southwest.
The shadows summoned to conceal the camp have become restless and dangerous. Quiet them down and investigate what is working them up.

4 new artifacts.

Bugfixes for Sigil of Fascination, Black Hole, Orbit (partial), Moontide.

Some cosmetic tweaks.

[Gatewalker]

Hey, just grabbed this the other day, played around with it a bit.

Initial feedback is that the classes seem fun, Moon Pally was cool to take through the starting zones, fun to play with even at low levels. Starslinger I just made and looked through the skills of, but it also seems fun. If orbit actually works as intended(seems there's some issues with that?) it may be one of the most hilarious skills ever made, love the idea behind it.

The two starting zones are alright. Worm that Eats freaked me out when I first saw it, due to triggering too many flashbacks of being murdered by Worms that Walk on so very many characters(I reaaaaaaaally need to stop opening vaults in Dreadfell). Tenebrous Glade was fun right up until the boss, who I lost a life to and beat by the skin of my teeth the second time(still don't know how) due to the lack of a magical wild. That cold/dark magical DoT status he throws on you is ridiculously strong, I'd suggest toning that down or giving him a different shtick. High grade DoT effects you won't have the wild to remove are not the best idea for a starting zone boss. Otherwise, the glade was fun, getting jumped by shadow critters constantly and whomping them with Wax a neat gimmick for the zone. Dunno how starslinger will handle it, I'll find out in a bit.

The races, on the other hand...well, they just seem bad, I'll be honest. Looking through the racial trees, Mardrop is....a sidegrade to Higher, probably not even as good overall, and is very Celestial focused. As a design philosophy, I think a class being geared towards a single race(see: Stonewarden) is okay if not something that should be done often, but a race being geared towards only a single class, or small set of classes, is....not. Non-celestial classes have no reason at all to pick Mardrop or Star Elf(Star Elf def. needs a different name to fit with the Shalore/Thalore style).

Going over specific skill feedback:
Mana Flare - Okay, but very Celestial focused. Probably worse then most other races' starting skill, as it has less general use and temp +spellpower is generally less overall useful then +crit or +damage/resistance, for example.
Blessing of Altia - I may be undervaluing ResPen, but this just does not seem useful much at all. I find that you hit resistance cap rarely enough that a skill to increase it by 1% per level(if I'm guessing the scaling right here) is just not worth the points.
Hale - Hale is...okay. I have no real objections to this one, not great but hardly a waste of generics if you are playing a class that lacks a good sink.
Chromatic Flash - ....this one I have problems with. First, it's an activated ability, but doesn't say how long it lasts. Second, a 1% chance of adding damage? On an activated ability, that will almost never come up as the durations just aren't that long(again, need to know the duration). The damage it does scales with magic, but the activation chance doesn't say what it scales with, so I would assume talent level? Even if that gets up to a 5% chance, that's still bad. At the very best, the description for this is lacking, at the worst it's utterly useless. I'd really like to hear how this is intended to function.

Star Elf time.
Shadow Swell - Is the Evasion it grants absolute evade like the Evasion talent? Or is it Defense? I'm assuming the former, but asking just to be sure. The "extra stealth" and Neg regen bits make it very focused not just towards Celestials, but towards Starslinger in specific. I guess a Rogue or Shadowblade could make use of it, but a primary racial skill that's only really usable by 3 classes at best is not great design. I'd really consider changing this to something more generally useful.
Blessing of Felia - Same problem as the above one.
Starlight - A sustain that gives +infra is cool. I'm fine with this one, though again it's very focused towards classes that have the Stealth tree.
Lucky Stars - ...okay, this one is good. Good enough to make up for the first two being bad? Probably, life saving stuff like this is really powerful. I'd like to know how it scales with talent level?

Star elf is definitely the more powerful of the two races, and more overall useful, despite the greater focus towards a specific class, just because of +infra on Starlight(which is good for alot of people) and Lucky Stars.

tl;dr version: I like the ideas behind the classes, Astrologer might be a touch op at the moment, the races seem too heavily designed to be used by only specific classes.

[HousePet]

Yay, detailed feedback!

Orbit does not yet work as intended. I can't correct it until 1.0.5 comes out.

The Astrologer does seem quite powerful. I'll have to work out whether that is him or Chilling Night being too powerful. (since Chilling Night is just Heat with different damage, I'm leaning towards that being too powerful...)

The races are a little on the weak side.
Manaflare: Spellpower can be useful for even non spellpower classes because of how easy it is to get something that scales with spellpower. However, it does need an extra effect. Mana regen would fit, but this talent is veering too far towards only being useful for casters.

Blessing of Altia/Felia: I'm thinking of doubling the values of these. Its tricky, as ResPen and MaxRes are quite useful in the right circumstances, but then those circumstances are rare.

Hale: Will be buffed when the passive regen talents are buffed in 1.0.5. Likely more towards the warrior resources.

Chromatic Flash: Oops. Lots of numbers involved, didn't list them all. Chance is definately too low. Will bump to 2% per talent level. Maybe change the damage to scale with spellpower so Manaflare would boost it?

Shadow Swell: The primary effect is the evasion. (yes, it is evasion) The extra stealth and negative regen are minor flavoury things really. +10 celestial energy over 10 turns is not a major focus towards celestial classes. Evasion however, is useful for anyone.

Lucky Stars: Can't remember how it scales, I'm procrastinating at Uni and can't check.

Star Elf: There is no mention of their name in the lore. DarkGod won't tell me their name and said that calling them Varloren (siblings of Var'Eyal) is wrong.

[HousePet]

Lucky Stars:
2 Luck per raw level.
Cooldown is 100 - 5 x effective level.
Teleport distance is cunning / 10. Which I seem to have forgotten to mention.

I usually don't mention talent level scaling, as it is linear and you can view that once you put a point in it.

[Gatewalker]

Yeah, there's no real reason to list talent level scaling in the skill description, I just wanted to ask since I couldn't exactly put skill points in it to see how it worked at level 1~

Tried the Astrologer with a Star Elf Starslinger. Got massacred by Chilling Night, just don't have the healing/damage shields/wild to deal with it and PDing away doesn't help since it's a DoT status. I do note that CHilling Night is the 3rd skill in the tree but seems to act like the first skill in the tree(don't need to know any others before grabbing it, lowest level req, etc)? That's kinda odd. Regardless, I'd recommend removing Chilling Night from him and giving him a different gimmick, that one is just too nasty for low level when you don't have much in the way of resources yet.

Re: Mana Flare/Chomatic Flash - Having CF scale off spellpower for the synergy with Mana Flare would be p.good, yeah. Not sure what to add on to MF make it good for people besides casters that also fits the theme of the race, though.

Re: Blessings - Doubling it might work? Would make the respen a little more attractive at least. I still don't really respect ResCap boosting that much, esp by such small amounts, but it's unique enough at least.

Re: Shadow Swell - Does the Evasion boost scale with anything? I didn't think it did, but I may have misread and can't pull it up right now to check. If my memory is right and it didn't seem to scale with anything, then it needs to scale with something to be the primary effect. If it does and I'm just remembering wrong, disregard~

Re: Name - Oh, so they are something from lore and DG just won't give you the real name? That's...uh, odd. But whatever I guess. I thought they were something you just made up~

Re: Lucky Stars - Yeah, that looks really good. Certainly one of the better final racial skills out there.

[HousePet]

Chilling Night is actually the first talent in the category, but because I'm being well behaved and superloading it, the order gets messed up.
I'm not aware of any boss that casts Heat on you, but I'm guessing it would be nasty as an early boss. I'll nerf the boss and the talent slightly.

Shadow Swell evasion should scale with something. Possibly Dex? Will clarifiy when I get home.

As for the race name, I'm guessing they don't actually have one, so anything I guess will be wrong.

[erinye2000]

After 3 or 4 hours playing a moon pally on nightmare there is 1 bug and a few balance things that come in my mind.

1st, the bug.

The talents that give you healing amp is broken. Every time you activate it, you gain the amount said of %, without first reverting back to what it was before, basically you end up having 250% (cap) after a few levels.

Also the Night generic tree need to be tuned down in some ways.

First the invisibility talent with 5 points and a category point got to 10 turns duration with a 10 turns cooldown, which mean you re always invis for a cost of... -20 negative energy. Either diminish the duration or increase the cost, or put a damage reduction like the mage invis spell.

I think the next talent in the tree, (3rd one) is having the same problem as the movement infusion or step up, since you start the talents on whatever % of a turn you get, and the next one is unclear when it start, you cannot gain a full benefit for it. Not exactly sure what to do here.

That s it.

Otherwise I was having a blast on nightmare, very high damage, a lots of controls.
Neg energy was a little too simple to handle, pop out invis at start of a fight, then wax and wane then constellation strike, then either flee or finish the rest. I was liking the hit and run style, even if that s not really paladin like. haha.