"Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...

[astralInferno]

You could just hook corruption to appear on the character sheet, if nothing else.

[nekarcos]

@jenx
I've said it before, I'll say it again: I can't take anything you say about game balance or difficulty seriously because you don't play on "Normal" difficulty with Lives-- Which is the ONLY way I have attempted to balance this add-on. From my experiences, difficulty severely winds DOWN for Avatars because of how exponential their power growth tends to be.

Also, I have already spoken my point about the corruption meter. Honestly, I think it makes itself pretty well known, so that's really not too much of a problem yet. I dunno-- Maybe I'll add a cosmetic status effect that indicates your current stage (if that doesn't look too awful )


@daed4
"Hydra" was definitely the most simple of all... I dare say it's the "Bulwark" or "Brawler" of "OoTS"
... Heh... I remember when everyone was freaking out and raving about how "overpowered" Hydra Breath is... Now, you understand.

And yeah, "Fire Drake" is severely complex, but I made it that way on purpose, such that people would still be figuring it out, even weeks/months after "OoTS's" release. It is certainly NOT your standard ToME character-- Especially since its the only one that implements a system of permanent companionship.

Finally, "Ritch" calls back to the original "Rogues" in... Well, "Roguelike" games. Severely honest and simple-- But powerful when used cleverly. Ritch is the type of character that will feel very satisfying once you get the swing of it and start advancing a little further. Afterall, it's a class all about the joy of bloodshed, and nothing else!


@astralInferno
"Corruption" is something that needs to be a little bit more apparent... But "how" is the question...?

[daed4]

Wait.
Normal AND adventure?

[jenx]

@jenx
I've said it before, I'll say it again: I can't take anything you say about game balance or difficulty seriously because you don't play on "Normal" difficulty with Lives-- Which is the ONLY way I have attempted to balance this add-on. From my experiences, difficulty severely winds DOWN for Avatars because of how exponential their power growth tends to be.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: you're not listening. look at what others are saying, it's the same as me.

as I said previously, I"m not going to bother anymore now giving feedback. you have your mind made up about how you want this to play and our comments are getting in your way most of the time.

[Darkgobbo]

I have to agree with jenx, the classes i have played feel very underwhelming.
i have only played hydra and fire drake, and on normal and adventure i can barely get to old forest with half my lives. God help me if i ever encounter top tier rares. I had a cursed bear take 4 lives on the Inquisitor camp before i decided to give up and try another zone.
I am by no means the best or even amazing at the game but i rarely have had as much issues getting passed the tier 1 starting zones as with these classes.
Even on the Exploration Hydra i am currently playing i have never felt strong or overpowered. I am nearing level 30 and my character is still getting 1-2 shot by certain enemies. I will admit at first is was the creatures with retributive damage killing me off but then my damage is low enough that sometimes they still deal roughly half my health and before i can rest another creature shows up and i am forced to fight with limited resources.
I have play first release oozemancer, reworked temporal warden and have never felt anywhere near the unkillable power those classes had.

but those are my two cents from a ok player at best, trying to play the way it is meant.

[nekarcos]

@Darkgobbo
These classes are, by no means, simple or easy (except maybe Hydra in some virtues). When I say "balancing", I mean that the "possibility" of winning is there-- Not that it's guaranteed. So, all I can recommend is to keep trying and... Well, keep making posts about your experiences. I am definitely reading all of them and making considerations based on what I read. Besides, if I end up concurring, chances are I will probably immediately buff/nerf the thing you're talking about

[Darkgobbo]

I think my problem is it plays very different than i enjoy playing. I don't know how to say this well but ill try.
I like how transparent ToME is and i like how the game plays, this mod seems to be a throwback to older roguelikes or different roguelikes.
It feels very much like other roguelikes where when i die i never really know why, or there was literally nothing i could do to stop it. Dying never helps me prevent it in the next life where as in tome if i get one shot i can stop, figure out what i did wrong, and most of the time defeat the enemies that killed me.
i like to play casually most of the time and you just can't do that with these classes. The early game is just so hard because all the strategies i have learned from playing tome are useless. I just don't think the campaign is for me even though i love the concept it just frustrates me to no end when i play.
I don't think it is a bad campaign, i just love ToME and this isn't the game that i love.

[nsrr]

@jenx
I've said it before, I'll say it again: I can't take anything you say about game balance or difficulty seriously because you don't play on "Normal" difficulty with Lives-- Which is the ONLY way I have attempted to balance this add-on. From my experiences, difficulty severely winds DOWN for Avatars because of how exponential their power growth tends to be.

I have concerns about the balance of the mod, as well. Now, let me preface this by stating that this is only my opinion; I did not create this game, so of course I can not speak with absolute authority on mechanics and game play. I also want to add that I love what you have created here, and I am saying this because I want as many people as possible to enjoy it.

Now, I am not a great player, but I am moderately experienced, with several hundred hours under my belt. I have also created add on content for this game (albeit very meager and poorly coded, especially compared to OoTS ), and have discussed balance and playability with others in the mod community, as well as players more experienced than myself. So I feel that I have a firm foundation for my opinions.

First off, ToME is a roguelike. There is no question about that. It does vary from other roguelikes in that it offers play modes with increased difficulty and modes with extra lives, but it is clearly stated that these are either unfair to the player, in the case of difficulty, or not the way the game is meant to be played, in the case of extra lives. Therefore, it is my opinion that any race/class/campaign that cannot finish the game on the Normal Roguelike setting is not balanced.

Now, is it necessarily the case that the Avatars cannot complete the Normal game with only one life? I can't say for sure, of course. I think that a skilled player, especially one accustomed to playing on higher difficulties, could likely do it (at least with Drake or Hydra). However, you have stated that you have made no attempt to balance OoTS to the point where the Avatars can complete the game on a Roguelike setting, so whether it can be done or not is irrelevant: you have stated outright that it is not balanced for the game as it is meant to be played.

Challenge mods are fine, but this is clearly intended to be a content mod. It adds characters and story and new mechanics and all sorts of great stuff. I think it would be a shame for players not to experience what OoTS has to offer due to the difficulty. Let us not forget that there are challenge modes built into this game. Players who want to experience the content of OoTS and have a more challenging game play experience should be able to play in those modes, while players of lesser ability (e.g. me) should be able to play on Normal without being frustrated to the point of giving up. I am much in the same boat as Darkgobbo.

The point here is that, in my opinion, any mod that is not intended to overtly alter the difficulty, and most especially a mod with so much content, should, at the very least, endeavor to match the difficulty of the standard game experience. So that is one concern.

Another is the fact that you say that the difficulty tends to drop off later in the game. This is quite obviously not what the standard experience is meant to be. It is fundamental to the nature of any RPG/strategy game that difficulty should increase as the game progresses. This is even more important in a roguelike, because if the player has too much difficulty early on they will never make it to the later stages anyway. You are meant to learn through trial and error and get better with more experience, but what is the point if, after you finally master it, the difficulty just erodes away? I haven't personally made it far enough to say if this is the case, but, well, you just did.

I have been intending to make a post regarding my concerns for the balance of the Ritch, but after reading this post I felt I should give you my opinion on the general balance, as well. There may not be a lot of voices here in the forum, but pretty much all of them have expressed concerns regarding the balance, and the answer you have given here sounds to me like: "Well, that's because it's not balanced."

I am all for having more content, and I will continue to follow the development of OoTS, but I am not convinced that a fair balance has yet been struck, and in its current state I am afraid that I will not be able to experience much of what you have to offer without resorting to playing in Exploration mode or using cheat mods, neither of which I like to do, in spite of my lower skill level.

A review of the character vault shows me that not many Avatars are making it past the mid-20's, and nearly all that have are using cheat mods. As such, I would highly recommend working on balance more before putting a lot of effort into adding in more late-game content. No one is going to see it if they can't live long enough (note the lack of laughing emoticon). As I said before, I think the biggest problem with balance is that you have removed the inscription system without providing a comparable replacement. If Natural Combat is meant to be this replacement, something needs to be done to bring it up to par, and that is where I would suggest focusing your effort.

Of course, I can only make suggestions, and you will do as you like anyhow, but don't be too surprised if you add in a bunch of late-game (and I'm using that very liberally in this case to mean anything post twenty-ish) content, and then don't get any feedback on it.

[nekarcos]

@Darkgobbo
This all sounds about right
Although, I kinda regret to say-- This mod DOES, in fact, attempt to step away from standard ToME and create-- As you described-- A sort of more murky, survival-oriented, "Roguelike" experience.

However, I don't intend at all for opaqueness. That's a consequence of... Well, somewhat half-baked early-stage development that I suddenly released on a whim
Though, it's posts EXACTLY like yours that leads to greater transparency-- jenx motivated the addition to the character sheet that lets you see what each head does. It was a great idea, and I don't think I thought about that at the time of making multi-attacks.


@nsrr

Now, is it necessarily the case that the Avatars cannot complete the Normal game with only one life? I can't say for sure, of course. I think that a skilled player, especially one accustomed to playing on higher difficulties, could likely do it (at least with Drake or Hydra). However, you have stated that you have made no attempt to balance OoTS to the point where the Avatars can complete the game on a Roguelike setting, so whether it can be done or not is irrelevant: you have stated outright that it is not balanced for the game as it is meant to be played.

Challenge mods are fine, but this is clearly intended to be a content mod. It adds characters and story and new mechanics and all sorts of great stuff. I think it would be a shame for players not to experience what OoTS has to offer due to the difficulty. Let us not forget that there are challenge modes built into this game. Players who want to experience the content of OoTS and have a more challenging game play experience should be able to play in those modes, while players of lesser ability (e.g. me) should be able to play on Normal without being frustrated to the point of giving up. I am much in the same boat as Darkgobbo.

The point here is that, in my opinion, any mod that is not intended to overtly alter the difficulty, and most especially a mod with so much content, should, at the very least, endeavor to match the difficulty of the standard game experience. So that is one concern.

That's definitely a thought... I'll be entirely honest-- I, myself, am not a good (confident, rather) enough player to beat the game on Roguelike difficulty. I'm aware of all of the Avatar class's tricks, and I could think of a few ways I would approach it-- But I really didn't have the time to test every character in a one-death run without consequentially making them absurdly strong in order to expedite it, so I decided to lean on a multi-life approach of balance instead, for both convenience and efficiency. That is, more or less, what you're seeing right now.

Also, about the late game difficulty-- If you are focusing on a strategic approach, you have A LOT of tools at your disposal at this point, which is mainly what makes Avatars so much more powerful. It's not like enemies suddenly stop causing tons of damage-- It's more so that you have several ways of dealing with that by now (since "Avatar" combat focuses less on "I create bigger numbers than you" and more on "What can you do about this?!")

And so, balance-wise... Still a work in progress. Not much more that I can say until I learn exactly what problems general "ToME" players are having (because, I'll admit, a lot of initial balancing was based on my own abilities/strategies as a player-- Not the typical player). The only way I could discover such is... Well, through the attrition and pain I might have subjected everyone to with, perhaps, underpowered classes... *looks over at initial-release Ritch and sweats profusely...*

*** More on this at the end ***


@(everyone in general)
Overall, I haven't received a ton of feedback (besides you nsrr-- you spoil me with your huge essays of explanation lol), especially about exactly what people consider difficult. The feedback that sounds like "I don't have enough healing/survivability/regeneration" is not entirely useful because-- And let's be serious here-- "I need more ways to get hitpoints" is DEFINITELY not the solution to balancing out difficulty problems in ANY game whatsoever. "Healing" is a mechanic to undo error-- And when used in excess, I personally think it makes for very messy, clumsy gameplay (since the player must lean too much on it). Honestly reminds me of fighting an optional, challenge boss in some sort of JRPG
With that said, I could double the amount of life every avatar has, but I promise you they will still get blown up by things like Worm That Walks (ESPECIALLY THE HYDRA) or a nasty unique Bulwark or something because they might entirely lack the "aptitude" to deal with them-- And THAT is honestly what worries me the most when it comes to tweaking things.
... That, and people will still post to here asking for even more health/healing after it happens.

So, concluding that thought, balancing this requires very precise and exact observation and judgment-- And especially patience. It's careless to swing the scale of balance without making minute changes first and examining them. My only regret is that *I* couldn't be the one that suffers in your stead, because I simply could not produce the same amount of testing as an entire community might.
However, with THAT said, stories of death... Stories of success-- Generally significant experiences with classes in particular places against certain enemies and in specific situations... These are the things that GREATLY sway my opinion of balance and help me determine what needs change. In my own mind and notes, I have already painted rather-colorful pictures of what I want each class's gameplay experience to be-- Hydra is unstoppable, Fire Drake fights in numbers, Ritch is a deadly killer...

So, here's an example-- One of my own significant experiences when playing "OoTS":

During my testing, fighting Luminescent Horrors as a Fire Drake was PARTICULARLY nightmarish, and is the entire reason why Drakelings are glued to their parent and are not allowed to chase enemies AT ALL. They are an enemy type that negates MOST of Fire Drake's damage output-- But even worse: Benefits from the presence of Drakelings since the built-in Tactical AI is not clever enough to avoid using elements that enemies can absorb for healing. It got to the point where I had to use Rod of Recall JUST to escape the situation and peel my (rather idiotic) Drakelings off of them. Then, I would have to return to the dungeon and CAREFULLY sneak around them so that they did not end up engaging them in endless fiery warfare again.
This lead to two very notable changes: "Drakelings never chase enemies", and "Turn Up The Heat" reducing Fire Affinity by a fixed amount.

So, a lot has been said-- And don't worry, I read all of it. However, it's hard to quell and satisfy a mobbing crowd
I don't feel any discouragement from negative stories-- Only more conviction to fix exactly what bothers you (without consequentially making another bothered). All I can ask is that everyone calm down and let me deal with these changes. Have faith that I can... somewhat unrealistically... Find a way to... Well... Satisfy everyone...

[jenx]

How do drakelings get stats? I have one at lvl 11 with 7 willpower and he can't learn a thing because of stat restrictions...

Has this been answered? every time they level I am told "Select XXX in the party list and press G to use them". but you can't select them. i've tried every possible key, click,right click etc.

and so mine can't learn talents either....

[nekarcos]

How do drakelings get stats? I have one at lvl 11 with 7 willpower and he can't learn a thing because of stat restrictions...

Has this been answered? every time they level I am told "Select XXX in the party list and press G to use them". but you can't select them. i've tried every possible key, click,right click etc.

and so mine can't learn talents either....

It probably has and you (once again) never read it, but I'll answer this anyways.

- Drakelings automatically choose what to do with their level up points themselves. You don't really decide. That "press [blah] to use them" message that appears on the screen after they level up is built-in and not by my design-- But you ARE right. It's misleading and I can see about removing it, but you should honestly be taking the "press this button" message as you would a grain of salt
- As for how to control these stat gains... I've written some BIG messages about how Drakelings work, even though I intend to keep their "precise" functionality a secret for as long as possible. Simply put: They can't learn a talent that requires 10 Willpower if they only have 7 Willpower.

Anywho, jenx, Drakelings are the only thing I am going to (mostly) keep quiet about. Understanding how they work is something I want to be learned through experience and trial, not complex explanations. These are "children", not an Alchemist Golem, not an always-obedient spider-- I DO want to create a somewhat faltering/fallible companion that grows with your input as part of a certain curve of difficulty for the Fire Drake-- A "black box" as I frequently call them.

[nsrr]

I certainly don't want to discourage you, nor do I want you to feel you're being mobbed by an angry crowd. I realize the timing of my post comes when others are raising balance concerns as well, but this is just a consequence of a frustratingly busy life. I don't spin thought into word on a whim; I like to think things through, even things other people might consider inconsequential, like a post on a web forum ('people still use those?!?!'). When I sit down to write a post like the last one (or this one), believe me when I tell you it took me a least a couple of hours. Time I might have rather spent playing OoTS

I just want you to know, and I think you are beginning to realize as well, that if you want this mod to appeal to your typical ToME player, it needs to more closely match a typical ToME experience.

The biggest discrepancy comes from the lack of reliable healing and status cures, something that is inherent to every other class in ToME via the inscription system.

Here is my opinion on adding reliable status cures and on-demand healing: The Avatars do have an extensive kit at their disposal, and it is exactly for that reason that such options would be less impactful. With all NC talents on a long, shared cool down, an insta-heal or status cure might not be the right answer.

Here's an example: Say 'Sturdy Heart', for the sake of picking one, gave you an instant heal instead of a 'die at' modifier. And let's say that 'Rabbit's Foot' has a chance to remove 1-2 detrimental effects. Now you encounter a Rogue rare. You are stunned, you are poisoned, you are bleeding, and he hit you for half of your max life in one Flurry. You can only use one NC talent (either due to cool down in its current incarnation, or due to diminishing returns in the proposed wild-power-as-resource version). What do you pick? The gut reaction might be to hit Rabbit's Foot in an attempt to remove that stun, and hopefully the bleed or poison, as well. But, even with a guarantee to remove at least one effect, this is still too unreliable. What if you only remove the bleed or poison? Now you're still stunned, weak, and dying, with no good option for 16 turns or until you recover Wild Power. AND your defense has been drastically reduced, making it all that much easier for the Rogue to whack you some more. So, what about that instant heal? Say it restores a fixed 30% of your max life. That might bring you back up to your comfort zone, HP-wise, but you're still stunned, bleeding and poisoned. Those DoTs could easily drain away the life you just restored, and more, over a few turns. So that really didn't help you out. In my opinion, the best choice in this situation would be to pop 'Lick Wounds', because it will remove both the bleed and the poison. Flurry is still on cool down, so you shouldn't have to worry too much about taking another a huge hit, and, while you may be stunned, you can still try to back away from the Rogue until the stun fades, or just fight through it now that you have eliminated those DoTs.

This is a very straight-froward example, of course, and situations are often a lot more complex than this. As such, the best choice is likely to be even less obvious. Your concern seems to be that having such options in Natural Combat would cause players to rely on them too much, and my opinion is that this would only be to their own detriment. They will hopefully learn better, but if not, at the very least, they would have no grounds to complain about the lack of said options.

As it stands, I have found that the best option is to just pop Elusiveness and run away, in pretty much any tricky situation. It is at least reliable, and will hopefully get you far enough away that you can rest, or kite the mob until your abilities are off cool down again. This is a tactical game, and fleeing is sometimes the best tactic, but when it becomes the only thing you can rely on, you end up running from everything. Which, ultimately, is not going to help you drop the mob that is stopping you, and makes the player feel very, very weak.

This is pretty much the situation that all of my runs have ended in, most especially with the Ritch. I encounter a rare that stops me in my tracks. The only way to handle it is to run away, but this effectively means I've hit a dead-end in that dungeon. My most successful Ritch made it to the tier two dungeons without dying at all, but once he started into them it was a dead-end at every turn. He made it most of the through Old Forest, but the boss kept me pretty much permanently frozen. A Berserker rare in Sandworm Lair kept me from the stairs going down. A rare Brawler next to the entrance in the Maze meant that I couldn't even deal with that mob by running away (stunned and pinned... Oh, fu--!). That left me with Daikara, but since I hadn't been able to rack up any experience and loot from the bosses in the other three dungeons, I was feeling very under-powered, and boulder-throwers and thunderers are menacing enough, even when they aren't rares. So, that was it. I had only died once, but in order to progress I was going to need more experience and better gear, and I had no way to get them. I could have tried to brute-force it past one of my obstacles, but that would almost certainly have just resulted in my death. The run was over when it had just gotten started, and I knew I had been playing very well. If it were only my own mistakes that had lead to my defeat, I would be fine with it, but here I was with an effectively-dead character who still had many lives. Frustrating does not begin to cover it.

I've found that Fire Drake and Hydra can make it to this point much more easily, and with their multitude of jewelry/gem/mindstar slots they can rack up stun resist fairly effectively, and have quite a bit of healing at their disposal on a class level, as well as a variety of ranged attacks. I feel they are in a pretty good spot, balance-wise, especially at an early stage of development, but they are still far from over-powered.

My opinion is that it is always best to err toward the side of over-powered, especially when you have to rely on others to do a lot of testing for you (which is the case even with a small mod, such as the ones I have made, never mind an undertaking as grand as this). They are not going to keep at it if they are feeling weak and frustrated. If, on the other hand, their power gets to the point where it is trivializing the game on Normal, it can always be scaled back, and at least you will have more folks making it to the late game so they can provide you with feedback on any bugs or content issues they run into. Also, I remind you again, that even if a class is so powerful that it trivializes Normal mode, that's exactly what Nightmare and above are there for. Players who want a challenge will always be able to get it, and players who are more interested in content (and what great content it is!) will be much more willing to experience it if the campaign is at least as forgiving as the standard game.

Now that I have that out of the way, let me tell you about my experience with the Ritch, as it is my greatest concern on the balance front. I don't feel that they are living up to your intentions, but I will give you my experience, and you can be the judge. I have tried a variety of builds, but only one has had much success. This is to focus on Flamespit and to use the impermanent weapons only as a shield via Scrap, and as a last resort against fire-resistant enemies. Any run where I have tried to focus on melee combat has been ruined by the fact that your weapons don't last. When I finally get to the point where I can dish out enough damage to compensate for how fragile I am, I'll run into a mob that has Disarm, and now all my points have been invested into talents that are utterly useless. Even if it were a standard Disarm this would be a huge problem, but your weapons are destroyed on top of it. (You can become disarm immune, eventually, but getting that far can be rough, even with a build that is not focused on melee.) Nearly all of the Ritch talents and synergies are focused on melee attacks or physical damage, so it does not seem like this kind of build should be so easily shut down. This also means that a build focused on Flamespit hits a wall around the mid-teens, as none of the locked class trees synergize very well, or at all, with a Flamespit-, range-focused build.

I've given it a lot of thought, and I have a couple of suggestions, if you are interested.

I would suggest changing the Durability and Impermanence system a bit. Rather than having weapons be destroyed when their Durability reaches zero, I would suggest having their damage scale to their Durability. A weapon with zero durability would deal no damage. (Except in the case of Shatter; this would still destroy weapons if it causes their Durability to reach zero. Destroying your weapons intentionally is fine, plus it's thematic to the ability). The second step would be to allow players to 'melt down' any metal weapons (i.e. all melee weapons except whips) into slag (or whatever) which in turn would be an item that could be used to restore Durability. The longevity of your weapons is still going to be tied to how many weapons you pick up, and Durability would still only be able to be restored when you are out of combat. The second talent in the Impermanence generic tree (I forget the name at the moment) would be a good candidate for this active effect, as it currently only adds a passive effect, and many players are only going to juggle points into it, as it does literally nothing except when creating weapons. (Head to town, drop in as many floating points as you have, create weapons, take the points back out.) Unequipping (or Disarming) a weapon would not destroy it, but reduce its remaining durability by 50% or so, and weapons that have already been reshaped would not be able to be melted into slag.

I would suggest some change to the third talent in this tree, as well. The protection is from Disarm is... well, I would say 'nice', but currently it's pretty much mandatory. It is the weapon swapping mechanic that I have an issue with, however. Typically I have kept my off-set empty so that I can switch to it while fighting weak mobs, so as not to waste my Durability on them. That makes the weapon-swap mechanic useless. I would prefer it if it instead granted quick-swap, so that I could switch to my empty off-set without taking a turn. I would be fine with the off-set being Hookclaw only, sort of as though your impermanent weapons are switch-blades. Also, the rather strict rule that taking off an impermanent weapon destroys it does not seem to jive with the idea that you can somehow have two sets equipped at once and easily switch between them.

Bladed Mail is quite powerful as it is now, but giving it the Durability-to-power ratio treatment as well might be a good idea, if you go that route. The Armor granted would decrease as you lose Durability, and Bladed Mail with zero Durability would not deal any retaliation damage, or grant wielder bonuses, etc. Having to decide where you need to apply that slag the most would be an interesting tactical decision.

With all of the great talents that focus on melee and physical attacks, I feel that an effort to make the Impermanent weapons a little less, well, impermanent, would help to bring the Ritch up to par with the Hydra and Drake, and at the same time would make the bloodthirsty, enemy-shredding play style that their flavor seems to indicate a lot more viable. They would still be harder to play, in my opinion, because they are not tanky at all and have to rely exclusively on lifesteal for healing, which can be especially problematic when facing mobs who don't bleed (I'm looking at you, Skeletons ). Fighting mostly in melee will make you more susceptible to stuns and pins, as well, and the Ritch is already less well prepared to deal with them than the other Avatars.

I appreciate your desire to focus on content, and I can't wait to see what else you have in store, but it is my sincere fear that people are going to stop playing if the difficulty is not brought more in line with the standard ToME experience. And I can't test this whole thing myself

Well, there's my 'essay' for the day, I hope it helps to give you some direction and encouragement

Cheers!

[nekarcos]

@nsrr
You have, indeed, given me a lot of insight. You'll be happy to hear I agree with a lot of it as well (but not ALL of it).
Here are my thoughts and feelings:

*** Power Levels
Yes, this is just as I thought.
Personally, I don't feel that the Avatars lack any kind of survivability at all... Frankly, I think they lack power and damage output.
Hydra and Fire Drake feel so powerful early on because they're both classes that get powerful ranged nukes ("Tri Breath" and "Fiery Breath")... But I can tell you right now-- Nobody really cares much for "Savaging Claws", "Mighty Wings", or "Glare Hydra" because they don't offer this high-powered damage option that the others do. As for Ritch-- I STILL personally feel people aren't giving "Stinger" a chance-- But yeah, people gravitate towards "Flame Spit" because it's the closest thing to a high-damage ranged option early on.

*** So, how to scale power?
Standard ToME "weapon" attacks tend to scale with weaponry-- Which are naturally balanced towards the rest of the game. Weapon talents always remain relevant as long as your weapons remain relevant. This is where things get a little tricky for Natural Combat though, since they mostly scale ENTIRELY on innate character stats... I need to create a scaling level of power that grows flatly from early to late game, much like weapon damage. This was originally why Natural Combat used to give Physical Power-- But I have recently realized nothing quite beats finding a new weapon that outright increases your damage output 2-fold.
My challenge here is making sure that Avatar damage output remains relevant from beginning to end... But the tricky part is deciding... What is a good way to incorporate Wild Power into damage scaling without doing something arbitrary like ALL DAMAGE +%...?

*** Elusiveness too strong... Or everything else too weak?
I admit-- I would say "Elusiveness" tends to cure a situation's problems better than any other Natural Combat effect can-- WHICH IS WHY I'LL PROBABLY NERF IT
However, it then brings to question... How can I make every other Natural Combat talent better to compensate? As I said before, "multi-use" is something I've been thinking about for ages, but I'm finding difficulty deciding on a measure that won't cause everything else to fall apart...

*** Weapon destruction is too harsh-- I KNOW this
Something I have been thinking about for ages was the ability to benefit from broken equipment... IE: "Scrap materials". Scrap could be used in various ways, such as reinforcing, improving, or other such things. Of course, you could not use it to "repair" your weapon, or something SENSIBLE like that
Also, as you said-- It would PROBABLY be the second talent ("Tempered Steel") that would allow you to play with scrap for reinforcement purposes. Particularly, one of the reinforcement options would definitely be Disarm Immunity.

*** Weapon longevity sucks-- I KNOW this as well
You've hit another nail right on the head again-- ORIGINALLY, a weapon was not going to "break" at 0 Durability. Instead, it would lose a sizable fraction of its damage, and become incompatible with all Extravagancy talents. This, however, ran into an issue with a few Artifact weapons that had VERY strange properties in regards to simply being equipped-- So I decided on a "weapon disappears" method until I could figure out something agreeable. I hate to admit it though, but I may have used everyone as a guinea pig before... "Deciding" on choosing a new method...

*** Early Ritch talents are mostly non-synergetic-- I know.
This is to encourage you to move towards a new tree and try something new. The idea was that each unlockable tree synergizes with about one of the other trees ("Firestarter" --> "Strewn", "Extravagency" --> "Metal-Rending", "Stinger" --> "Victimize"). However, what it sounds like (and I have personally felt this way too) is that I need to make these synergies a little bit more explicit and noticable. However, I'm always fearing the large amount of power I might accidentally thrust into a Ritch's hand.

*** "Concealed Blade" auto-swapping is annoying and bad now
The swapping effect this provides has become HIGHLY irrelevant now that "Strongarm" works for unarmed attacks, AS WELL as triggering a rather-necessary bleeding effect. Simply turning it into a "Quick Swap" effect would be too powerful (and would also negate the purpose of a particularly despised Prodigy Talent), so I'll be turning this into an instant-use sustained effect with a cooldown so that you can choose when and how you are forced into auto-swapping.
Additionally, another thought is turning this talent into a barrier against a single disarm effect. The talent would deactivate, and the disarm would be negated. Any thoughts?



So, in summary... This is what I'm thinking as of this moment:
- Avatars need to hit harder.
I need to create some universal "thing" that will make them stronger when they get Wild Power, but WITHOUT artificially boosting their power, such as with an ALL-DAMAGE increase.
(My thoughts): Granting 1% ALL Resist Penetration per 1 Wild Power, such that you would have 100% at 100 Wildpower-- But this would break A LOT of "unique" encounters (such as the "Eldritch Eye")... So I'm fearful to implement something like this so... haphazardly.

- Ritch wants to kill things, but it's too busy being killed at the moment.
As I said before, I want to give Ritch some sort of special "stun" immunity effect, much like Hydra's "Thrash About".
(My thoughts): Thinking of giving "Cut Loose" a stun immunity effect.
(Another thought): Revising how "Overkill" works, such that every 1 point of Demoralization is a guaranteed -1% Status Duration. This would mean that 50% Demoralization would cause all status effects from them to last 50% as long. This would mean that Ritch would deal with stuns... By simply killing harder

- "Cutting Edge" needs to be a little more... Cutting-edge.
In general, the weakness of Ritch seems to lie ENTIRELY in this talent tree and impermanent weapons being... "Underwhelming" at the moment. I think I will generally revise and buff ALL the talents in this tree in order to see if this will improve something about the way Ritch approaches impermanent weapons.
(My thoughts): Making ALL impermanent weapons scale the same way Hookclaws do (80% STR, 80% DEX). This tree requires TONS of DEX, but the weapons you will generally craft... DO NOT (Longswords and Greatswords are entirely STR-scaling). This change would make damage more predictable and consistent-- As well as MUCH, much higher... But again, this will require more examination than anything else at all (since there are "bizarre" weapons like "Spellblaze Shard" that might benefit TOO well from something like this).


I might have missed a few things here and there from your comment, but I've tried as best as I can to collect my thoughts/deliberations and put them into intelligible words.
By the way-- I wouldn't mind if anyone else discusses this as well. This is a great thing to talk about, and will help me move forward if I could hear a few strong points here and there.

[nsrr]

*** Power Levels
Yes, this is just as I thought.
Personally, I don't feel that the Avatars lack any kind of survivability at all... Frankly, I think they lack power and damage output.
Hydra and Fire Drake feel so powerful early on because they're both classes that get powerful ranged nukes ("Tri Breath" and "Fiery Breath")... But I can tell you right now-- Nobody really cares much for "Savaging Claws", "Mighty Wings", or "Glare Hydra" because they don't offer this high-powered damage option that the others do. As for Ritch-- I STILL personally feel people aren't giving "Stinger" a chance-- But yeah, people gravitate towards "Flame Spit" because it's the closest thing to a high-damage ranged option early on.

Agreed.

My problem with Stinger, by the way, lies largely in the functionality of Predator Stance. I intended to mention this before now, but I kind of forgot until you brought it up again If it were either instant to activate or to deactivate, it would be a lot better. Having it deactivate automatically and without taking a turn if all of your stings are on cool down would best, probably. You could require some investment, say three talent levels, to achieve this benefit. Stings are powerful, but it's tedious to manage and leaves you highly vulnerable if you forget to turn it off when you are trying to move away from an enemy.

You could also just blame this on poor play on my part, though.

*** So, how to scale power?
Standard ToME "weapon" attacks tend to scale with weaponry-- Which are naturally balanced towards the rest of the game. Weapon talents always remain relevant as long as your weapons remain relevant. This is where things get a little tricky for Natural Combat though, since they mostly scale ENTIRELY on innate character stats... I need to create a scaling level of power that grows flatly from early to late game, much like weapon damage. This was originally why Natural Combat used to give Physical Power-- But I have recently realized nothing quite beats finding a new weapon that outright increases your damage output 2-fold.
My challenge here is making sure that Avatar damage output remains relevant from beginning to end... But the tricky part is deciding... What is a good way to incorporate Wild Power into damage scaling without doing something arbitrary like ALL DAMAGE +%...?

There is one weapon that would be a 'natural' fit, even if it was not wielded conventionally. All avatars could have a mindstar slot (how they equip it is kind of irrelevant; avatars and mindstars are both 'natural energies' of sorts, they could just sort of 'merge' with it). It wouldn't be used in attacks in the standard way, but rather would be used to calculate damage of all abilities by using its power in a calculation along with your Wild Power. This would naturally incorporate their damage into the weapon mechanics already present.

I haven't given this a lot of thought, to tell the truth, but it's an idea, anyway.

Personally, I thinking granting a +% all penetration would be just as arbitrary as granting +% all damage, and as you say, I worry about what it would do to the mechanics of some encounters.

*** Elusiveness too strong... Or everything else too weak?
I admit-- I would say "Elusiveness" tends to cure a situation's problems better than any other Natural Combat effect can-- WHICH IS WHY I'LL PROBABLY NERF IT
However, it then brings to question... How can I make every other Natural Combat talent better to compensate? As I said before, "multi-use" is something I've been thinking about for ages, but I'm finding difficulty deciding on a measure that won't cause everything else to fall apart...

You could nerf it, I suppose, but personally I don't feel that it is over powered, there are just a lack of better options.

As for multi-use... Maybe each NC talent could have its own cool down and each one you use after the first would lay a stacking global speed debuff on you while it is on cool down, someting like 15%? It could also increase the cool down for each talent by a turn or two. This would likely discourage most people from using more than two or three in one go, and if they were foolish enough to do so, they would certainly pay the price.

Again, haven't given this tons of thought, but it's an idea.

*** Weapon destruction is too harsh-- I KNOW this
Something I have been thinking about for ages was the ability to benefit from broken equipment... IE: "Scrap materials". Scrap could be used in various ways, such as reinforcing, improving, or other such things. Of course, you could not use it to "repair" your weapon, or something SENSIBLE like that

I still don't understand your reluctance to do sensible things

Weapons are naturally going to be outclassed by better weapons later on anyway, having them become useless in the meantime is just frustrating.
I also worry that in the end game you are just going to run out weapons if there is no way to repair them. I certainly have found myself running out of weapons on the runs where I have tried to focus on using them.

*** Weapon longevity sucks-- I KNOW this as well
You've hit another nail right on the head again-- ORIGINALLY, a weapon was not going to "break" at 0 Durability. Instead, it would lose a sizable fraction of its damage, and become incompatible with all Extravagancy talents. This, however, ran into an issue with a few Artifact weapons that had VERY strange properties in regards to simply being equipped-- So I decided on a "weapon disappears" method until I could figure out something agreeable. I hate to admit it though, but I may have used everyone as a guinea pig before... "Deciding" on choosing a new method...

You could consider this experiment a success in that you have found the result that the current method does not seem to be agreeable

I wouldn't worry too much about artifacts when trying to work things out-- they are intended to upset the balance of the game. Certain builds can be made or broken by the right artifact, that is just a fact of the game. However, it seems that having a weapon become unequipped and drop into your inventory when it loses all durability would be fine, and weapons with zero durability could not be re-equipped.

*** Early Ritch talents are mostly non-synergetic-- I know.
This is to encourage you to move towards a new tree and try something new. The idea was that each unlockable tree synergizes with about one of the other trees ("Firestarter" --> "Strewn", "Extravagency" --> "Metal-Rending", "Stinger" --> "Victimize"). However, what it sounds like (and I have personally felt this way too) is that I need to make these synergies a little bit more explicit and noticable. However, I'm always fearing the large amount of power I might accidentally thrust into a Ritch's hand.

Firestarter does synergize best with Strewn, but it is still largely melee focused, which was my issue. With a Flame Spit build you are shooting fire so fast nothing should be getting close enough to you for the talents in this tree to be relevant, and it doesn't help you at all against other ranged attackers.

And again, if you want people to play this (and you need them to if you ever want it to be thoroughly tested), I say it is better to err toward the side of more power, rather than less.

*** "Concealed Blade" auto-swapping is annoying and bad now
The swapping effect this provides has become HIGHLY irrelevant now that "Strongarm" works for unarmed attacks, AS WELL as triggering a rather-necessary bleeding effect. Simply turning it into a "Quick Swap" effect would be too powerful (and would also negate the purpose of a particularly despised Prodigy Talent), so I'll be turning this into an instant-use sustained effect with a cooldown so that you can choose when and how you are forced into auto-swapping.
Additionally, another thought is turning this talent into a barrier against a single disarm effect. The talent would deactivate, and the disarm would be negated. Any thoughts?

I feel that no one is going to use that particularly despised prodigy anyway, in spite of its power, and giving Ritch a free quick swap would not be groundbreaking. Temporal Wardens have a free swap, and they can change between two actual weapon sets, whereas I am only proposing the ability to swap between 'armed' and 'unarmed'. Even if it took half a turn, that would probably be fine.

Although, the instant-use sustain would probably work out alright, depending on how it is triggered. Still only by your weapon being destroyed? That would leave it about where it is right now, anyway. By the next melee attack made against you? That might be alright.

As for the sustain that negates a disarm, how would this scale? Would you still have the scaling disarm immunity? Because that would obviously negate the sustain and leave us right where we are now. It seems like this sustain would be a reasonable replacement for disarm immunity, so what would the talent gain in its place to stop it from being a one-point-wonder?

- Ritch wants to kill things, but it's too busy being killed at the moment.
As I said before, I want to give Ritch some sort of special "stun" immunity effect, much like Hydra's "Thrash About".
(My thoughts): Thinking of giving "Cut Loose" a stun immunity effect.
(Another thought): Revising how "Overkill" works, such that every 1 point of Demoralization is a guaranteed -1% Status Duration. This would mean that 50% Demoralization would cause all status effects from them to last 50% as long. This would mean that Ritch would deal with stuns... By simply killing harder

Giving anything on Ritch a stun immunity effect would be excellent, and Cut Loose seems like a good candidate.
I like the demoralization idea, too, though. Why not both? After all, stuns might be the worst detrimental effects (especially in the late game, due to how enemy physical power scales) but they certainly are not the only crippling ones.

- "Cutting Edge" needs to be a little more... Cutting-edge.
In general, the weakness of Ritch seems to lie ENTIRELY in this talent tree and impermanent weapons being... "Underwhelming" at the moment. I think I will generally revise and buff ALL the talents in this tree in order to see if this will improve something about the way Ritch approaches impermanent weapons.
(My thoughts): Making ALL impermanent weapons scale the same way Hookclaws do (80% STR, 80% DEX). This tree requires TONS of DEX, but the weapons you will generally craft... DO NOT (Longswords and Greatswords are entirely STR-scaling). This change would make damage more predictable and consistent-- As well as MUCH, much higher... But again, this will require more examination than anything else at all (since there are "bizarre" weapons like "Spellblaze Shard" that might benefit TOO well from something like this).

The weakness in impermanent weapons lies entirely in their impermanence. They do plenty of damage-- until they break.

You seem to have some obsession with creating consumables in a game that is designed not to have them, so I suppose I am not going to talk you into making them more permanent, anyway. I proposed what I felt was a moderate compromise between permanent and impermanent, that would still rely on the player collecting more weapons, but you laughed at what even you said was the SENSIBLE idea of being able to repair them.

I like the idea of the Durability system and having it tied in some way to the amount of damage you can put out, but making it so your weapons can dissappear on you, well...

Look at it this way: Impermanent weapons, as they are now, are essentially damage potions, or shield potions when used for Scrap. Which is likely the only way anyone is going to use them if they aren't going to last, especially considering how little damage mitigation the Ritch has otherwise. Is that what you want? If it is, I can't for the life of me see why, and if it is not, I don't see any remedy aside from making them (at least somewhat) more permanent.

Also, I say again that you can't be bothered by how things are going to be affected by one or two artifacts-- they are game-breaking by design, and even encountering them in the first place is up to the RNG. I have yet to find Spellblaze Shard on a single Ritch run. Besides, it may gain a lot of benefit, but it is going to be outclassed by higher tier weapons anyway. Which is all irrelevant, really, because power is not the problem.

Well, you got two essays out of me today. You're lucky it's the weekend... I really don't have time for this

Oh, by the way --
Anyone is absolutely free to agree or disagree with me; I'm not trying to just have a conversation with Neka here. I'd like to see some discussion from other people beyond "Stuns suck and Avatars are weak."

It might not result in any changes, but hey, what's the worst that can happen? Speak up, people!

[nsrr]

It might not result in any changes, but hey, what's the worst that can happen? Speak up, people!

Blah. Reading this again it comes off like some kind of call for people to try to convince you to change things, which is not at all what I was going for.
Sigh. It's just, you can come off as a little unapproachable in your comments, but in practice you have actually been very receptive to feedback and suggestions, and have also provided a lot of helpful explanations. I'm worried folks might be slightly intimidated, though, and I just wanted to encourage anyone that is playing this to discuss it, because frankly, I feel like I'm the only one talking here, and I'm sure I'm not the only one playing.

...I think too much...