Rethinking Mages 2: What should elements have in common?

[donkatsu]

I think this thread is drifting a bit.

As for the penetration talents, I think they are good as is. Because they give you a big penetration bonus for little investment, and it also gives you a choice about whether you want it. A mono element build needs it and gets the most out of those talents, whereas for a multi element build the effect is basically useless. Therefore, making it a passive bonus spread over all the talents is less functional and gives it to builds that don't want it.

Resist all is a thing. A pretty significant thing too, on Insane+. Another benefit of turning penetration into a passive bonus spread over all talents is that mono element builds can get a small amount of penetration before level 24, making the progression smoother.

[HousePet]

Good points, but if resistance penetration is important, it shouldn't be given as a small passive bonus.

[edge2054]

The current model falls apart when you try to do mono-element with Air and doesn't fare so well with Cold either. Fire doesn't really have much resistance to deal with until mid to late game, at least not on normal. Same for physical of course.

So yeah, I'm in favor of changing it. I don't see any issue with spreading it out either aside from talent clutter. Making penetration the capstone on the base trees would be good too. Assuming mono element should be supported anyway.

[Atarlost]

The current model falls apart when you try to do mono-element with Air and doesn't fare so well with Cold either. Fire doesn't really have much resistance to deal with until mid to late game, at least not on normal. Same for physical of course.

So yeah, I'm in favor of changing it. I don't see any issue with spreading it out either aside from talent clutter. Making penetration the capstone on the base trees would be good too. Assuming mono element should be supported anyway.

If resistance penetration goes in the fourth slot of the first tree the killer apps get displaced. Forcing the player to choose between disruption shield, stone prism, shivgoroth form, cleansing flames, and whatever storm winds up getting probably kills the attraction of multi-element builds. It would be a way to keep them away from ABs by just denying them all second elemental trees but I think a lot of people rely on disruption shield being accessible for AMs.

What would spreading resist penetration at 1% per talent point do to NPCs? Common orc elementalists would suddenly have resist penetration and I think a fair amount. Rares or uniques with elemental skills would have resist penetration and since they tend to have skill levels higher than players can get so they could potentially have quite a lot. It also becomes passive rather than a sustain so it can't be removed. Is this going to make resistance not viable in the late game?

[Delmuir]

What would spreading resist penetration at 1% per talent point do to NPCs? Common orc elementalists would suddenly have resist penetration and I think a fair amount. Rares or uniques with elemental skills would have resist penetration and since they tend to have skill levels higher than players can get so they could potentially have quite a lot. It also becomes passive rather than a sustain so it can't be removed. Is this going to make resistance not viable in the late game?

I'm at a loss for why resistance penetration is a thing at all. More so, it doesn't make sense with resistance caps. There's are multiple easy solutions:

1. Eliminate resistance caps such that players can over-buff against certain resistances, i.e. having 150% would be helpful when dealing with resistance penetration.

OR

2. Just eliminate resistance penetration entirely. It's an unnecessary element. Just re-balance resistances such that no one is immune to anything, or at least very few are immune to even less.

There's no point to resistance penetration other than to make it harder to figure out how much damage you're inflicting or receiving and create unnecessary problems such as those mentioned.

You can get the same effect by just buffing the amount of damage. It would be easier to figure out and more intuitive.

[donkatsu]

If resistance penetration goes in the fourth slot of the first tree the killer apps get displaced. Forcing the player to choose between disruption shield, stone prism, shivgoroth form, cleansing flames, and whatever storm winds up getting probably kills the attraction of multi-element builds. It would be a way to keep them away from ABs by just denying them all second elemental trees but I think a lot of people rely on disruption shield being accessible for AMs.

What would spreading resist penetration at 1% per talent point do to NPCs? Common orc elementalists would suddenly have resist penetration and I think a fair amount. Rares or uniques with elemental skills would have resist penetration and since they tend to have skill levels higher than players can get so they could potentially have quite a lot. It also becomes passive rather than a sustain so it can't be removed. Is this going to make resistance not viable in the late game?

Wait, so to you, a multi-element build is one that doesn't get any secondary trees? If so, then they should be weaker than mono-element, since they save a category point.

Good point about the resist penetration thing. Orcs actually already have a ton of resist penetration due to their racial and resistance is correspondingly not very good late game, but this would make the problem a lot worse.

[HousePet]

Passive res pen based on all elemental talent investment will mean that all archmage talent using enemies will have res pen. I cannot see that being a good thing.
The res pen bonus needs to remain contained in a single talent. (ignoring potential synergies like the Wet debuff for the moment)
And I think the current location, as the cap stone of the element, is good.
Its an 'I ignore your pesky resistances' buff for anyone investing in a single element, and the advanced category is used more by people investing in a single category.
It has an extra buff which synergises with the theme and tricks of the element, so putting it early in the category is a bit of a waste, as you would want to get the cool tricks first.
Yes, this does mean that it is better for a mono element build to invest in one basic attack talent outside of its main element in case it runs into something with immunity early, but that isn't really a bad thing.

And finally, I think rewriting the res pen and res cap mechanics is a little outside the scope of this thread.

[anonymous000]

I concur. Good points about enemies res pen. I did not think of that when I raised the suggestion. Actually my original argument was mainly about introducing intentional in-tree and cross-tree synergies, the res pen thing was a side note only.

To get back on track, let me state my opinions regarding the the key points in this thread, any thoughts about them?

1. All elements could stand on its own, that means every tree should have some decent attack spells. As long as a player want to play as Cyromancer/Pyromancer/Geomancer/etc, they could do so and not forced to take other trees. With that I agree to Atarlost's opinion

2. Each elements should have a different playstyle and they should have very little in common. With that I agree to Delmuir's opinion, except the below only:
2.1 Attack spells are present in all trees, at least one low cooldown (or even no cool down spells to avoid forcing people to take the tri-beam setup early on). But all these attack spells are to function differently to accentuate the playstyle of the tree
2.2 Keep the res pen talent

3. In-tree synergy and cross-tree synergy are to be developed. For mono-element build, they are with decent in-tree synergy and stronger raw damage (due to easier damage stacking and the res pen talent); for multi-elements build, the lower raw damage is compensated by higher versatility and utility in cross-tree synergy

[Effigy]

I don't have much to add right now, other than to keep Arcane Blade in mind when revamping the relevant trees. This is going to concern the spam attack from each element tree primarily.

[supermini]

Good point about the resist penetration thing. Orcs actually already have a ton of resist penetration due to their racial and resistance is correspondingly not very good late game, but this would make the problem a lot worse.

The orcish racial was changed in one of the previous patches to grant less resistance penetration. Level 5 grants 15%, and the hard cap is 20%. It's less of an issue now than it used to be.

[Atarlost]

I'm at a loss for why resistance penetration is a thing at all. More so, it doesn't make sense with resistance caps. There's are multiple easy solutions:

1. Eliminate resistance caps such that players can over-buff against certain resistances, i.e. having 150% would be helpful when dealing with resistance penetration.

OR

2. Just eliminate resistance penetration entirely. It's an unnecessary element. Just re-balance resistances such that no one is immune to anything, or at least very few are immune to even less.

There's no point to resistance penetration other than to make it harder to figure out how much damage you're inflicting or receiving and create unnecessary problems such as those mentioned.

You can get the same effect by just buffing the amount of damage. It would be easier to figure out and more intuitive.

NPCs have no resistance caps and are frequently 100% immune to an element. All single element dragons and many demons have 100% immunities.

1. Eliminating resistance caps is not an easy solution at all. They were introduced for a reason.

2. Eliminating immune NPCs is an even more difficult solution. It would require overwriting many enemies including those in DLC I don't have access to and since NPCs get random gear high resistance enemies could still wind up with immunities.

[Atarlost]

Okay, most of this thread has been pretty nonproductive. Too many people are saying the answer is "nothing" and I do not believe inter-element balance is possible if they can't fill the same roles and that means having similar talents at similar levels.

Spreading penetration was a nice idea, but based on NPC symmetry I think that's rejected. Where the resistance penetration talent goes is kind of up in the air so I'm going to go ahead and put forth some layouts for further discussion. Please do not discuss whether the idea of having structured elemental trees is valid at all.


Base Tree without penetration:

• Basic Attack: low cooldown single target, beam, multi-missile, or possibly rad 1 ball compatible with Arcane Combat.
• Attack with minor utility: eg. pulverizing augur, freeze, or at a bit of a stretch flameshock.
• Attack of some sort
• Killer App: a major utility that justifies 8 talent points (eg. disruption shield or stone prism)

Either the second or third attack should always be an area or pseudo-area attack Chain Lightning and Aether Beam would qualify as pseudo-areas.

Base Tree with penetration:

• Basic Attack: low cooldown single target, beam, multi-missile, or possibly rad 1 ball compatible with Arcane Combat.
• Attack with minor utility: eg. pulverizing augur, freeze, or at a bit of a stretch flameshock.
• Attack of some sort
• Damage Penetration: If Damage Penetration goes here the riders may be moved to where they become relevant (eg. Burning Wake for Wildfire's self-damage resistance)

Either the second or third attack should always be an area or pseudo-area attack Chain Lightning and Aether Beam would qualify as pseudo-areas.

The order of talents is a bit less critical for locked trees because they're basically extras.

• Killer App: a major utility that makes you want to unlock this category (if not in the base category)
• Damage Penetration: as current (if not in the base category)
• Spell Enhancer: a talent that makes spells better either by adding a rider or through strong synergy (eg. hurricane, burning wake, or shatter)

The Killer App should probably always be in the first slot if it's in this tree. The damage penetration talent should probably also always in the first if it's in this tree to handle the early immunity issue some elements have.

[supermini]

Okay, most of this thread has been pretty nonproductive. Too many people are saying the answer is "nothing" and I do not believe inter-element balance is possible if they can't fill the same roles and that means having similar talents at similar levels.

Absolute balance in power between elements is hardly necessary - ToME is not a multiplayer game.
I don't see how making the abilities more uniform is going to make the game more fun.

[Atarlost]

Okay, most of this thread has been pretty nonproductive. Too many people are saying the answer is "nothing" and I do not believe inter-element balance is possible if they can't fill the same roles and that means having similar talents at similar levels.

Absolute balance in power between elements is hardly necessary - ToME is not a multiplayer game.
I don't see how making the abilities more uniform is going to make the game more fun.

Just saying "I don't like balance" is not going to convince me. Please stop clogging the thread.

[edge2054]

Okay, it's not even possible without making a class super boring. There's always going to be abilities that from a min/max perspective are strictly better and there's no way around that without making everything exactly the same.

Additionally symmetry is great for the design phase. Once things are implemented and being balanced, playtested, it's much better to spread things out a bit so the player isn't getting all attacks at level one, all passives at level four, all utility at level eight, all whatever at level twelve.

Your setup also screams talent point tax. Which I get. There's several mage trees that are already built this way. But there's others (air/light) that are not.

*edit* Also I'm curious what these threads are for? Are you coding this as an addon? As far as I know the guy that wrote Archmages is fairly happy with them as they are now and isn't planning to do a rewrite of this magnitude and I'd be really really surprised if he let anyone else do it.