"Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
Moderator: Moderator
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
There's a few that hit drakelings, actually, not just pyro wheel, and most of your stuff hits escorts. Basically anything that says fire instead of dragon fire in the description will (try to) damage drakelings, and almost everything will hit allies, iirc (I've lost a good handful of escorts to renewing flames, ehehe -- bloody thing's too good to ignore but it likes to kill allies). There's a talent (the fourth tier one, I think?) in the initially unlocked drakeling tree that stops the fire damage aspect for drakelings, at tlvl 3, though I don't think it negates the physical part. Still have to be careful with the escorts, but that's fairly normal for any class with any AoE to speak of...
Probably if you're wanting to make much use of it, you'd pick up the sand drake scales and then go to town once your drakelings have enough inherited resistance to ignore most/all of the damage.
Probably if you're wanting to make much use of it, you'd pick up the sand drake scales and then go to town once your drakelings have enough inherited resistance to ignore most/all of the damage.
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
@jenx
For balancing, when it comes to Fire Drake, the factor I'm MOSTLY scared of is turning Drakelings into too-effective of a meatshield/damage source. We're talking about 3 extra characters who, essentially, have the same durability as you. There are plenty of times I wondered if anybody would actually fight with Drakelings, or if they'd simply use them as walls-- Which lead to A LOT of my design choices. Particularly, it's my concern to figure out how I can "divide" a Fire Drake's damage output amongst the Drakelings without suddenly causing it to do 2-3 times the damage of a normal ToME character. I've been meaning to tell you, but balancing Fire Drake is, quite simply, going to be the hardest thing of all, and it's going to be a VERY rocky time if you intend to stick with it, fair warning!
Anywho, the important stuff!
RE: Breath of Fire
This is a tricky talent to allow to scale, because it is also simultaneously a "healing" talent. Think of it like this: "180" damage might not be a lot-- But consider that it's an AoE 180 damage that also heals 1~3 allies by that much. For this reason, striking the right "middle ground" for damage and healing is a big concern, and that's the kind of ratio/number I'm looking for in this talent.
RE: Renewing Flames graphics
It's... Strange. I still don't know exactly what causes it. As I've said in the past (*snort*), I actually don't know much about the GFX stuff, particles, or shaders. I only really figured out the most rudimentary stuff. For that reason, I don't know if I can "certainly" solve this problem, and you might need to find me some sort of expert on this...
RE: Titanic Roar
Originally, this didn't give allies a barrier-- It used to hit EVERYONE except yourself...
If it feels powerful, it's because it was previously buffed-- So it's not exactly in line with everything else at the moment...
RE: Titanic Roar shield
No can do. The whole point of how this talent functions is to "parry" a damage source that you're anticipating. I could change anything else about it, but I can't extend the duration of the barrier it forms.
RE: Drakeling Penalty
When I created that penalty, I never really put much thought into the situations it might cause. So, I'm thinking of changing the penalty-- it will reduce "Constitution" by some flat number each time you do it (probably -10 CON). If you don't have 10 Constitution when you try, the talent will fail. However, I'm concerned about if someone might be brick walled by this if their constitution falls too low and they have no Drakelings. This all needs a lot of testing...
RE: Drakelings Balance
... I don't think ToME was ever meant to be a "party" game.
I am still trying to figure out how I can make this SEVERELY bizarre and alien element cooperate with it...
RE: Drakeling growth rate
Yeah, think I'll lower their EXP requirements a bit. I find A LOT of people creating new ones, and killing low level enemies doesn't actually grant them EXP...
RE: Cunning on Fire Drake
No no no-- That's only for Drakelings!
Getting Cunning on Fire Drake doesn't do... anything!
For that matter, I originally intended players to focus on only 1 or 2 teaching stats (STR, WIL, or DEX), and the rest is WIL (for various utilities) and CON (for Dragon Brood talents). "WIL" should always be an obvious option because "Fiery Breath" allows you to maintain your Drakelings a little easier, and isn't bad damage either.
RE: Eagle Eyes
I'll put the Talent Level 1 accuracy back up to 10. I've always been concerned about it being a one-point wonder, so we'll see how that goes.
RE: Sturdy Heart
How would you suggest making a Heroism Infusion that you can access from the very beginning of the game... scale reasonably?
RE: Pyro Wheel friendly fire
I wanted a sort of underlying "difficulty" in trying to fight without having your Drakelings get in the way. Particularly, "Savaging Claws" was a talent tree meant to force the player AWAY from the Drakelings and battle on their own. Don't get me wrong though-- I don't think it's very rewarding at all at the moment since relying on Drakelings to heal is... RISKY-- But I'll need to hear some stories/theories/suggestions about how I can turn it into exactly that.
- Additionally, there's A LOT of talents I've allowed to friendly fire for the sake of Parental Bond's Fire-to-Healing conversion effect-- So THAT has also muddled things quite a bit.
- ... THEN, on top of THAT... There are actually Drakelings mechanics that allow you to "suppress" or "calm down" your Drakelings' behavior by hitting them with damage or status effects. Of course, this mainly only existed for the purpose of preventing your Drakelings from running off (back when they used to stalk enemies). So... Long story short-- It's all very messy, and I'm still trying to figure out where every talent lies in the grand scheme of things (that is, "Drakeling maintenance/control"). An idea I have in mind is generally giving Fire Drake MUCH shorter cooldowns and keeping its damage output where it is, since the class is mostly micromanagement, and not so much "fighting", so you need to be able to use talents very frequently.
@nsrr
RE: Health Boost
That's actually my fault... I wrote the code for how "Maximum Life" updates from Wild Power a little clumsily, so it's currently only allowed to update once per turn (as strange as that sounds). For that reason, you won't see the "big" change in Maximum Life until you let a turn pass and then have something bump your maximum life. However, I'll see about fixing that by this next update, because it honestly doesn't make sense at all to a player...
RE: Corruption display
Already done. That'll be showing up in the next update!
RE: Clasp
Okay, so... This is very strange but-- I actually REMOVED the ability to equip Headgear/Necklace-- But I forgot to remove it from "standard" clasping as well, and ended up doing all my testing with it malfunctioning. As such, I decided to make this into a thing: It's only "Hydra" that can't clasp Necklace/Headgear-- But what I need is a noticeable, obvious means of indicating this without simply changing the description text on "Clasp" (because that would STILL be misleading-- In a "treacherous" sort of way). A player should only need to read rules text ONCE to understand something-- And it shouldn't magically change...
@Frumple
Heh... Fire Drakes are fiery creatures-- And they have to be careful how they fling all of that around if they're going to be escorting "certain creatures with a MUCH lower melting point"...
However, to be honest, I always wanted "Luck" to be a VERY big thing for Fire Drake, because it would reduce the amount of Friendly Fire incidents for most damaging moves. But, the problem was that the way the game considers projections, it would be VERY difficult to make Fire damage pass through and everything else not... Well, it would be very "clumsy" more so-- Likely to cause issues not just in my add-on, but anyone else's ("OoTS" is already modifying the Default Projector-- And I'm honestly surprised this hasn't caused any add-on conflicts yet!)
*** What I've gathered from all of this:
- "Fiery Breath" needs some tweaking. Perhaps, the damage/heal ratio should be unequivocal (x2 Damage, x1 Heal... maybe?)
- "Renewing Flames" graphics continue to be awkward... HELP!!
- There's a concern about "Titanic Roar", but I would rather continue to observe it than tweak it right now
- The "Birth Weakness" penalty needs to be changed. Lowered "Global Speed" is too severe (as I thought...)
- "Drakelings" are STILL throwing people for a loop... *sigh* Continuing observation and investigation...
- "Eagle Eyes" needs a higher minimum accuracy-- Probably "10"
- There is concern about the "Die At" value "Sturdy Heart" gives being too low. Perhaps I should change it back into a flat value (from being a percentage value)
- General "Friendly Fire" disagreements with Fire Drake-- Particularly with "Pyro Wheel". I have no idea how to "gracefully" fix this, so I'll need a bit more input and investigation from people...
- It seems the "Maximum Life" bonus of Natural Combat is acting up again... Could swear I fixed this for good-- But I guess it's going back into the investigation list...
- "Clasp" is not very clear about when you can clasp Necklaces (currently says "Jewelery"-- which is too "inclusive")
- Take another look at "Luck" and how it could work with Fire Drake. Concerned about Fire projections NOT hitting Drakelings, and thus, causing most forms of healing to randomly miss them for no good reason...
@echo42
You have to understand I've spent the last month doing NOTHING but giving people what they want, and recently, I decided I want to slow this down a bit and do some things *I* want. However, as soon as I did, everyone blew up on me and suddenly thought I hated them and was ignoring them-- YOU included. I guess I'm saying many have been COMPLETELY unfair to me and disrespectful of my own wishes-- Only thinking about what THEY want with this add-on and not what *I* may have wanted in the long run.
This said-- Any play-testing you do is purely voluntarism. If you aren't having fun, or the classes feel unbalanced, you're not being forced to play it. You don't have to support this project, nor do you have to play the broken mess it currently is. You can do what MOST people do when a beta is unfun and broken, and just wait until the game is in a much more... "Graceful" state of order. That, or pick the most OP thing and just keep doing that!
Honestly, there really is NO reason for you to torture yourself on this-- Which is mainly why I highly recommended using cheats and such to "alleviate" your troubles.
If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now: I'm sorry for what you had to go through playing this. It DOES keep me awake at night knowing the frustration people have, and I'm always trying to think of ways to fix that without completely bastardizing the vision that I have promised myself and everyone else.
@daed4
... Why are you still arguing this? Can't you see everyone (INCLUDING jenx) has moved on from this?
Honestly, most of your statements in the past were not any kind of issue or bug report-- Which is what this thread is for. If you can't post relevant things, I'll need to find someone bigger than me to deal with it.
As for yesterday-- If something like that EVER happens again, I am just going to find a moderator and have them silence the issue. I got absolutely NO work done yesterday due to that big dispute-- And that is detrimental to both me and ANYONE who is expecting ANYTHING from this project. It's terribly unproductive, and I don't think I'm ever going to let it happen again.
... Now... Can we play nice? Don't you want to see some improvements with this add-on...? Please stop all of this fighting...
For balancing, when it comes to Fire Drake, the factor I'm MOSTLY scared of is turning Drakelings into too-effective of a meatshield/damage source. We're talking about 3 extra characters who, essentially, have the same durability as you. There are plenty of times I wondered if anybody would actually fight with Drakelings, or if they'd simply use them as walls-- Which lead to A LOT of my design choices. Particularly, it's my concern to figure out how I can "divide" a Fire Drake's damage output amongst the Drakelings without suddenly causing it to do 2-3 times the damage of a normal ToME character. I've been meaning to tell you, but balancing Fire Drake is, quite simply, going to be the hardest thing of all, and it's going to be a VERY rocky time if you intend to stick with it, fair warning!
Anywho, the important stuff!
RE: Breath of Fire
This is a tricky talent to allow to scale, because it is also simultaneously a "healing" talent. Think of it like this: "180" damage might not be a lot-- But consider that it's an AoE 180 damage that also heals 1~3 allies by that much. For this reason, striking the right "middle ground" for damage and healing is a big concern, and that's the kind of ratio/number I'm looking for in this talent.
RE: Renewing Flames graphics
It's... Strange. I still don't know exactly what causes it. As I've said in the past (*snort*), I actually don't know much about the GFX stuff, particles, or shaders. I only really figured out the most rudimentary stuff. For that reason, I don't know if I can "certainly" solve this problem, and you might need to find me some sort of expert on this...
RE: Titanic Roar
Originally, this didn't give allies a barrier-- It used to hit EVERYONE except yourself...
If it feels powerful, it's because it was previously buffed-- So it's not exactly in line with everything else at the moment...
RE: Titanic Roar shield
No can do. The whole point of how this talent functions is to "parry" a damage source that you're anticipating. I could change anything else about it, but I can't extend the duration of the barrier it forms.
RE: Drakeling Penalty
When I created that penalty, I never really put much thought into the situations it might cause. So, I'm thinking of changing the penalty-- it will reduce "Constitution" by some flat number each time you do it (probably -10 CON). If you don't have 10 Constitution when you try, the talent will fail. However, I'm concerned about if someone might be brick walled by this if their constitution falls too low and they have no Drakelings. This all needs a lot of testing...
RE: Drakelings Balance
... I don't think ToME was ever meant to be a "party" game.
I am still trying to figure out how I can make this SEVERELY bizarre and alien element cooperate with it...
RE: Drakeling growth rate
Yeah, think I'll lower their EXP requirements a bit. I find A LOT of people creating new ones, and killing low level enemies doesn't actually grant them EXP...
RE: Cunning on Fire Drake
No no no-- That's only for Drakelings!
Getting Cunning on Fire Drake doesn't do... anything!
For that matter, I originally intended players to focus on only 1 or 2 teaching stats (STR, WIL, or DEX), and the rest is WIL (for various utilities) and CON (for Dragon Brood talents). "WIL" should always be an obvious option because "Fiery Breath" allows you to maintain your Drakelings a little easier, and isn't bad damage either.
RE: Eagle Eyes
I'll put the Talent Level 1 accuracy back up to 10. I've always been concerned about it being a one-point wonder, so we'll see how that goes.
RE: Sturdy Heart
How would you suggest making a Heroism Infusion that you can access from the very beginning of the game... scale reasonably?
RE: Pyro Wheel friendly fire
I wanted a sort of underlying "difficulty" in trying to fight without having your Drakelings get in the way. Particularly, "Savaging Claws" was a talent tree meant to force the player AWAY from the Drakelings and battle on their own. Don't get me wrong though-- I don't think it's very rewarding at all at the moment since relying on Drakelings to heal is... RISKY-- But I'll need to hear some stories/theories/suggestions about how I can turn it into exactly that.
- Additionally, there's A LOT of talents I've allowed to friendly fire for the sake of Parental Bond's Fire-to-Healing conversion effect-- So THAT has also muddled things quite a bit.
- ... THEN, on top of THAT... There are actually Drakelings mechanics that allow you to "suppress" or "calm down" your Drakelings' behavior by hitting them with damage or status effects. Of course, this mainly only existed for the purpose of preventing your Drakelings from running off (back when they used to stalk enemies). So... Long story short-- It's all very messy, and I'm still trying to figure out where every talent lies in the grand scheme of things (that is, "Drakeling maintenance/control"). An idea I have in mind is generally giving Fire Drake MUCH shorter cooldowns and keeping its damage output where it is, since the class is mostly micromanagement, and not so much "fighting", so you need to be able to use talents very frequently.
@nsrr
RE: Health Boost
That's actually my fault... I wrote the code for how "Maximum Life" updates from Wild Power a little clumsily, so it's currently only allowed to update once per turn (as strange as that sounds). For that reason, you won't see the "big" change in Maximum Life until you let a turn pass and then have something bump your maximum life. However, I'll see about fixing that by this next update, because it honestly doesn't make sense at all to a player...
RE: Corruption display
Already done. That'll be showing up in the next update!
RE: Clasp
Okay, so... This is very strange but-- I actually REMOVED the ability to equip Headgear/Necklace-- But I forgot to remove it from "standard" clasping as well, and ended up doing all my testing with it malfunctioning. As such, I decided to make this into a thing: It's only "Hydra" that can't clasp Necklace/Headgear-- But what I need is a noticeable, obvious means of indicating this without simply changing the description text on "Clasp" (because that would STILL be misleading-- In a "treacherous" sort of way). A player should only need to read rules text ONCE to understand something-- And it shouldn't magically change...
@Frumple
Heh... Fire Drakes are fiery creatures-- And they have to be careful how they fling all of that around if they're going to be escorting "certain creatures with a MUCH lower melting point"...
However, to be honest, I always wanted "Luck" to be a VERY big thing for Fire Drake, because it would reduce the amount of Friendly Fire incidents for most damaging moves. But, the problem was that the way the game considers projections, it would be VERY difficult to make Fire damage pass through and everything else not... Well, it would be very "clumsy" more so-- Likely to cause issues not just in my add-on, but anyone else's ("OoTS" is already modifying the Default Projector-- And I'm honestly surprised this hasn't caused any add-on conflicts yet!)
*** What I've gathered from all of this:
- "Fiery Breath" needs some tweaking. Perhaps, the damage/heal ratio should be unequivocal (x2 Damage, x1 Heal... maybe?)
- "Renewing Flames" graphics continue to be awkward... HELP!!
- There's a concern about "Titanic Roar", but I would rather continue to observe it than tweak it right now
- The "Birth Weakness" penalty needs to be changed. Lowered "Global Speed" is too severe (as I thought...)
- "Drakelings" are STILL throwing people for a loop... *sigh* Continuing observation and investigation...
- "Eagle Eyes" needs a higher minimum accuracy-- Probably "10"
- There is concern about the "Die At" value "Sturdy Heart" gives being too low. Perhaps I should change it back into a flat value (from being a percentage value)
- General "Friendly Fire" disagreements with Fire Drake-- Particularly with "Pyro Wheel". I have no idea how to "gracefully" fix this, so I'll need a bit more input and investigation from people...
- It seems the "Maximum Life" bonus of Natural Combat is acting up again... Could swear I fixed this for good-- But I guess it's going back into the investigation list...
- "Clasp" is not very clear about when you can clasp Necklaces (currently says "Jewelery"-- which is too "inclusive")
- Take another look at "Luck" and how it could work with Fire Drake. Concerned about Fire projections NOT hitting Drakelings, and thus, causing most forms of healing to randomly miss them for no good reason...
@echo42
You have to understand I've spent the last month doing NOTHING but giving people what they want, and recently, I decided I want to slow this down a bit and do some things *I* want. However, as soon as I did, everyone blew up on me and suddenly thought I hated them and was ignoring them-- YOU included. I guess I'm saying many have been COMPLETELY unfair to me and disrespectful of my own wishes-- Only thinking about what THEY want with this add-on and not what *I* may have wanted in the long run.
This said-- Any play-testing you do is purely voluntarism. If you aren't having fun, or the classes feel unbalanced, you're not being forced to play it. You don't have to support this project, nor do you have to play the broken mess it currently is. You can do what MOST people do when a beta is unfun and broken, and just wait until the game is in a much more... "Graceful" state of order. That, or pick the most OP thing and just keep doing that!
Honestly, there really is NO reason for you to torture yourself on this-- Which is mainly why I highly recommended using cheats and such to "alleviate" your troubles.
If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now: I'm sorry for what you had to go through playing this. It DOES keep me awake at night knowing the frustration people have, and I'm always trying to think of ways to fix that without completely bastardizing the vision that I have promised myself and everyone else.
@daed4
... Why are you still arguing this? Can't you see everyone (INCLUDING jenx) has moved on from this?
Honestly, most of your statements in the past were not any kind of issue or bug report-- Which is what this thread is for. If you can't post relevant things, I'll need to find someone bigger than me to deal with it.
As for yesterday-- If something like that EVER happens again, I am just going to find a moderator and have them silence the issue. I got absolutely NO work done yesterday due to that big dispute-- And that is detrimental to both me and ANYONE who is expecting ANYTHING from this project. It's terribly unproductive, and I don't think I'm ever going to let it happen again.
... Now... Can we play nice? Don't you want to see some improvements with this add-on...? Please stop all of this fighting...
Creator of the (rather large) "Odyssey of The Summoner" add-on pack
-
- Spiderkin
- Posts: 574
- Joined: Sun May 12, 2013 7:00 am
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
To be very transparent, I will not be doing that. I will be very clear right now to everyone though: regardless of your perspective in these things remain civil. Direct harassment has no place here. There isn't a clear line drawn for unacceptable negativity, but stop and ask yourself if you see anything productive coming from your post; if not then reconsider posting it.nekarcos wrote:As for yesterday-- If something like that EVER happens again, I am just going to find a moderator and have them silence the issue
<astralInferno> poor stunt
<astralInferno> you suffer so that others may suffer in the intended way
Have a save in need of fixing? Open a ticket, send me a copy of your save: http://www.te4support.org/
<astralInferno> you suffer so that others may suffer in the intended way
Have a save in need of fixing? Open a ticket, send me a copy of your save: http://www.te4support.org/
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
I was correcting him on the fact I said he won but didn't specify the times he won said arenasnekarcos wrote: @daed4
... Why are you still arguing this? Can't you see everyone (INCLUDING jenx) has moved on from this?

Also, I've done plenty of things related, it's not my fault you can't put more points into "reading comprehension", you're worried of doing too much damage when everyone, literally, EVERYONE tells you that everything is UP as all hell, and your 'testing' is "lol dude just cheat", that way rogue ghoul madness is easy peasy, just let me get dev mode and delete any enemy that might be a problem, and start the game with 60 on every stat.
We've telling you for a long time, nobody will get to late game because you simply do no damage, have no tools, and give up shitload of stuff for zero reward.
here is what an avatar gives up:
1. Infusions and runes (now the game has shit itself because it relies on runes/infusions)
2. Shit yourself vs anything with blight (Again, all avatars are so UP I'd never do crypt with them (or get past t2 short of a miracle(vault: ))
3. No good way to get rid of status effects (good luck with any rare with huge global or move speed and a stun-spamming ability) -> Your answer is "Lol l2p

4. No good equipment slots (Also hydra-juggling is annoying AF) -> Changed to gems and mindstars which is OK early on at best (I do agree late it's gonna be great, but not as good as actual items), and consumables (see point 1, tome does not play nice with consumables)
5. All your solutions as a PC is "run away" -> Your answer is "I'm going to nerf running away

6. On drakelings: They're bad. If I had to chose summon dragon vs the whole tree and drakeling support. That's how bad they're. Because most of the time they jerk off in a corner while you die and maybe, at some year deciding to puke fire. They don't even - BUMP last time I checked they just(might be wrong), well. Stay. Also you can't direct them (see DCSS, neither a party game but at least you have a command to yell your buddies to - up someone). At least now the punishment for one of the little lizards dying isn't varying degrees of the ghoul experience.
And the pay off is minimal. Why? Because your balance seems to be exploration normal, any rare is OTK if they can stun you and you can't one-shot them (and with your piss poor damage... yeah that won't happen much). And all of your answers are still "Lol ur bad" without providing proof, hell I'd say that browsing the code is more fun on the basis that I won't get cryptically shit everywhere.
The addon on story and design space exploration is very good, mechanically wise on a viability level... Well. It's very bad, mostly because your answer to most stuff is "nerf it!" or "it's actually very OP!" when most things are never over great and just stand in mediocre or outright awful (- paw.). Hell, the best ability any avatar has it's ritch's (I'll just say the word "Unstoppable").
Also y'all feel free to ignore this post, because sure as - from my last posts at least you didn't comprehend anything at all.
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
you said "RE: Cunning on Fire Drake
No no no-- That's only for Drakelings!
Getting Cunning on Fire Drake doesn't do... anything!
For that matter, I originally intended players to focus on only 1 or 2 teaching stats (STR, WIL, or DEX), and the rest is WIL (for various utilities) and CON (for Dragon Brood talents). "WIL" should always be an obvious option because "Fiery Breath" allows you to maintain your Drakelings a little easier, and isn't bad damage either.
but there is no way to shape the stats on drakelings other than five equpiment slots, and because they need lots of will for their talents, it's very hard to get cunning up.
so I can't figure out how you want us to manage the drakelings.
also, they are massively a case of micro-manage - if i create three i have to transfer 5 pieces of equipment, and any gems I transfer they take the lot and drop all but one. so it is about 10 clicks per drake, just to set them up. then they go and die straight away, and sometimes, i forget to collect their gear.
and the cap on the number of items is killing me. I keep leaving behind lots of good gear because I am so used to being able to have an infinite number of pieces of equipment. I was going to get You can Carry the World prodigy, but there is no point because of this equipment cap, which is not documented anywhere that I can find....
No no no-- That's only for Drakelings!
Getting Cunning on Fire Drake doesn't do... anything!
For that matter, I originally intended players to focus on only 1 or 2 teaching stats (STR, WIL, or DEX), and the rest is WIL (for various utilities) and CON (for Dragon Brood talents). "WIL" should always be an obvious option because "Fiery Breath" allows you to maintain your Drakelings a little easier, and isn't bad damage either.
but there is no way to shape the stats on drakelings other than five equpiment slots, and because they need lots of will for their talents, it's very hard to get cunning up.
so I can't figure out how you want us to manage the drakelings.
also, they are massively a case of micro-manage - if i create three i have to transfer 5 pieces of equipment, and any gems I transfer they take the lot and drop all but one. so it is about 10 clicks per drake, just to set them up. then they go and die straight away, and sometimes, i forget to collect their gear.
and the cap on the number of items is killing me. I keep leaving behind lots of good gear because I am so used to being able to have an infinite number of pieces of equipment. I was going to get You can Carry the World prodigy, but there is no point because of this equipment cap, which is not documented anywhere that I can find....
MADNESS rocks
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
@jenx
Drakelings automatically develop and allot their stat points when they level up, based on their combat style. A Drakeling that is focusing on "Breath" will put nearly all of their points into Willpower. A Drakeling focusing on "Claw" will put them into Strength. However, note that if a Drakeling has "no focus"-- They'll mostly only put them into Cunning. This means the best way to make a "spammy" Drakeling involves making a completely new one and not suggesting any new styles (of course, this also means the Drakeling won't do much of anything until it can change its combat style at Lv10).
Also note that every Drakeling (no matter what their style is) will get points in Constitution and Cunning-- Faster depending on how "useless" their current style is. To account for this, Drakelings get 4 stat points per level instead of 3. However, in the next update, they will be getting 5 stat points per level and their experience requirements will be reduced SIGNIFICANTLY.
Finally, you can give them a ton of cunning by making them participate in reflections (this gives them "knowledge", which also boosts their Cunning). This is a little reward for keeping Drakelings alive for a long period of time.
So, with that said, I really don't recommend trying to increase their cunning via equipment because the actual "effect" Cunning has is not significant enough to justify it (not even +10 Cunning from equipment will do a whole lot). You're better off figuring out what types of talents each personality prefers to use and make a team that agrees with your playstyle.
Hint: The "smart" ones ("prudently cautious") prefer healing, defending/protecting, and escaping talents-- Which is most of what "Fiery Breath" and "Mighty Wings" has to offer.
Addition: Sorry about the crappy inventory stuff with Drakelings. That is a problem I've known about for a long time, but I currently can't figure out how to allow the player to open up a party member's inventory without needing to be in cheat mode. This is something I didn't realize at the time of testing, and is a rather grievous mistake on my part...
Also, objects you've eaten with "Hoarding Beast" don't count towards your inventory cap. Maybe it's time to start eating stuff...?
Drakelings automatically develop and allot their stat points when they level up, based on their combat style. A Drakeling that is focusing on "Breath" will put nearly all of their points into Willpower. A Drakeling focusing on "Claw" will put them into Strength. However, note that if a Drakeling has "no focus"-- They'll mostly only put them into Cunning. This means the best way to make a "spammy" Drakeling involves making a completely new one and not suggesting any new styles (of course, this also means the Drakeling won't do much of anything until it can change its combat style at Lv10).
Also note that every Drakeling (no matter what their style is) will get points in Constitution and Cunning-- Faster depending on how "useless" their current style is. To account for this, Drakelings get 4 stat points per level instead of 3. However, in the next update, they will be getting 5 stat points per level and their experience requirements will be reduced SIGNIFICANTLY.
Finally, you can give them a ton of cunning by making them participate in reflections (this gives them "knowledge", which also boosts their Cunning). This is a little reward for keeping Drakelings alive for a long period of time.
So, with that said, I really don't recommend trying to increase their cunning via equipment because the actual "effect" Cunning has is not significant enough to justify it (not even +10 Cunning from equipment will do a whole lot). You're better off figuring out what types of talents each personality prefers to use and make a team that agrees with your playstyle.
Hint: The "smart" ones ("prudently cautious") prefer healing, defending/protecting, and escaping talents-- Which is most of what "Fiery Breath" and "Mighty Wings" has to offer.
Addition: Sorry about the crappy inventory stuff with Drakelings. That is a problem I've known about for a long time, but I currently can't figure out how to allow the player to open up a party member's inventory without needing to be in cheat mode. This is something I didn't realize at the time of testing, and is a rather grievous mistake on my part...
Also, objects you've eaten with "Hoarding Beast" don't count towards your inventory cap. Maybe it's time to start eating stuff...?
Creator of the (rather large) "Odyssey of The Summoner" add-on pack
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
but why is there an inventory cap at all? it serves no purpose, is frustrating, and severely penalises the player later in the game, as the number of items I typically carry moves into the hundreds.nekarcos wrote: Also, objects you've eaten with "Hoarding Beast" don't count towards your inventory cap. Maybe it's time to start eating stuff...?
there is no rationale for this that I can see.
MADNESS rocks
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
btw, level 29 normal roguelike fire drake:
http://te4.org/characters/2460/tome/3c7 ... 1cd60b4210
defeated master, off to the east
http://te4.org/characters/2460/tome/3c7 ... 1cd60b4210
defeated master, off to the east

Last edited by jenx on Tue Aug 09, 2016 4:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
MADNESS rocks
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
wow - all those generics have come back!! I just leveled up to level 27, and got given 10 generics !!!! Or is that because I did something....?
MADNESS rocks
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
Regarding the health boost;
It was an issue with Infusions, not Wild Power. Perhaps the problem you mentioned with Wild Power is related, but I just wanted to clarify, in case there was some confusion. I was using Consume to eat Infusions. Tier one Infusions should increase my max life by one each, per the description of Consume. The first one I ate increased my life by one. The next turn it went back down down by one. The next couple of Infusions I Consumed did nothing. Several turns passed, as Consume has a decent cool down.
Regarding Stinger and Ritch;
First, 'Ejection' does not actually mention that it gains any benefit from Predator Stance, or that it will automatically deactivate it. It does both, so this should probably be in the description.
Second, while the talent can be quite useful, I'm not convinced it's anywhere near useful enough for the harsh penalty of shutting down the entire tree while it's on (a very long) cool down. Generally speaking, a long cool down is enough to keep a useful talent from being too strong. I'm curious, why do you think it needs such a high opportunity cost?
'Diving Bomb' is not very useful. The range is low (I know it scales, but I'll get to scaling in a minute). As such, it's not very good as a closer, which is what it seems like it is intended to be. To make matters worse, you land randomly next to your target. That's enough to make the whole thing a no-go. Even if it had decent range to close distance, you can't risk using it. True, it might get you out of a corner in some situations, but it's just as likely to get you stuck in one. If it functioned more like Rush, requiring a clear path and allowing you to predict where you will end up, it would be a lot better, even with the short range.
An overall problem with Stinger is that it relies on Diseases to do the majority of its damage. There are too many things that are diseases resistant, and diseases can too easily be purged, for this to be a reliable source of damage. Compare Stinger to Corruption/Plague. Plague gives you many chances to apply multiple diseases, and stack them, on multiple targets. Most important is Epidemic, a disease which cannot be resisted, spreads to other mobs, and lowers the disease resistance of mobs it infects. All this in an effort to make Disease a useful, reliable source of damage.
This leads me into what I think is the overall weakness of Ritch that I couldn't quite put my finger on before. At first glance, it looks like you could make a few builds out of it: Fire/Sting, Sting/Blades, Fire/Blades. In practice, however, you need to invest diversely to always have a reliable means of damage, and decent utility. The problem with investing diversely is the scaling of the talents. Most talents in ToME taper off, with only a few that reward you for deep investment with a new effect or some bonus. The Ritch talents scale pretty evenly, or are back-weighted, and this means that a lot of them need three or four points before they become useful. With so much investment required, you are either investing too heavily in one aspect and suffering when you're up against something that is resistant to it, or you are suffering because the selection of skills you have are all pretty weak.
Here's my take on scaling:
When I first started playing ToME, and even when I first started modding it, I was kind of put off by the fact that talent scaling is often heavily front-weighted. Many talents were just fine with only two or three points. It seemed odd to me that investing more didn't reward you more, and that the increases from the last point or two in most talents were a mere fraction of the increases granted by the first point or two.
After many hundreds of hours of playing, I began to realize that there's a good reason for this. You need a diverse kit to handle all the sh-- ToME throws at you. If you were trying to max everything out, you wouldn't spread out your talents. At very high levels you might come back and drop in those last couple of points, once you have a good selection of tools, and those small percentage increases are translating into some solid numbers, but in the meantime you still have useful, functioning talents.
I'm happy to set balance concerns aside for now, and I have no expectation for you to act on any these critiques at the moment. However, I feel it may be this sort of scaling difference that is creating the weakness we are all perceiving in the early game versus the drastic level of power in the later game that you fear. I think this is something that will be worth looking into (probably across the board for all Avatars), when we get to the point where the content is polished up and we can worry more about balance.
Edit:
Something I keep forgetting about: The description for Killing Blade seems to imply that it will only work for Daggers and Longswords (single-handed, bladed weapons). I got in the habit of keeping every artifact to check for the 'Inspect' option, and this is the only reason I discovered that it also works on Greatswords.
It was an issue with Infusions, not Wild Power. Perhaps the problem you mentioned with Wild Power is related, but I just wanted to clarify, in case there was some confusion. I was using Consume to eat Infusions. Tier one Infusions should increase my max life by one each, per the description of Consume. The first one I ate increased my life by one. The next turn it went back down down by one. The next couple of Infusions I Consumed did nothing. Several turns passed, as Consume has a decent cool down.
Regarding Stinger and Ritch;
First, 'Ejection' does not actually mention that it gains any benefit from Predator Stance, or that it will automatically deactivate it. It does both, so this should probably be in the description.
Second, while the talent can be quite useful, I'm not convinced it's anywhere near useful enough for the harsh penalty of shutting down the entire tree while it's on (a very long) cool down. Generally speaking, a long cool down is enough to keep a useful talent from being too strong. I'm curious, why do you think it needs such a high opportunity cost?
'Diving Bomb' is not very useful. The range is low (I know it scales, but I'll get to scaling in a minute). As such, it's not very good as a closer, which is what it seems like it is intended to be. To make matters worse, you land randomly next to your target. That's enough to make the whole thing a no-go. Even if it had decent range to close distance, you can't risk using it. True, it might get you out of a corner in some situations, but it's just as likely to get you stuck in one. If it functioned more like Rush, requiring a clear path and allowing you to predict where you will end up, it would be a lot better, even with the short range.
An overall problem with Stinger is that it relies on Diseases to do the majority of its damage. There are too many things that are diseases resistant, and diseases can too easily be purged, for this to be a reliable source of damage. Compare Stinger to Corruption/Plague. Plague gives you many chances to apply multiple diseases, and stack them, on multiple targets. Most important is Epidemic, a disease which cannot be resisted, spreads to other mobs, and lowers the disease resistance of mobs it infects. All this in an effort to make Disease a useful, reliable source of damage.
This leads me into what I think is the overall weakness of Ritch that I couldn't quite put my finger on before. At first glance, it looks like you could make a few builds out of it: Fire/Sting, Sting/Blades, Fire/Blades. In practice, however, you need to invest diversely to always have a reliable means of damage, and decent utility. The problem with investing diversely is the scaling of the talents. Most talents in ToME taper off, with only a few that reward you for deep investment with a new effect or some bonus. The Ritch talents scale pretty evenly, or are back-weighted, and this means that a lot of them need three or four points before they become useful. With so much investment required, you are either investing too heavily in one aspect and suffering when you're up against something that is resistant to it, or you are suffering because the selection of skills you have are all pretty weak.
Here's my take on scaling:
When I first started playing ToME, and even when I first started modding it, I was kind of put off by the fact that talent scaling is often heavily front-weighted. Many talents were just fine with only two or three points. It seemed odd to me that investing more didn't reward you more, and that the increases from the last point or two in most talents were a mere fraction of the increases granted by the first point or two.
After many hundreds of hours of playing, I began to realize that there's a good reason for this. You need a diverse kit to handle all the sh-- ToME throws at you. If you were trying to max everything out, you wouldn't spread out your talents. At very high levels you might come back and drop in those last couple of points, once you have a good selection of tools, and those small percentage increases are translating into some solid numbers, but in the meantime you still have useful, functioning talents.
I'm happy to set balance concerns aside for now, and I have no expectation for you to act on any these critiques at the moment. However, I feel it may be this sort of scaling difference that is creating the weakness we are all perceiving in the early game versus the drastic level of power in the later game that you fear. I think this is something that will be worth looking into (probably across the board for all Avatars), when we get to the point where the content is polished up and we can worry more about balance.
Edit:
Something I keep forgetting about: The description for Killing Blade seems to imply that it will only work for Daggers and Longswords (single-handed, bladed weapons). I got in the habit of keeping every artifact to check for the 'Inspect' option, and this is the only reason I discovered that it also works on Greatswords.
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
@jenx
RE: Inventory Limit
... Fine! I give up. I think I'm gonna have to scrap this whole "Stomach-instead-of-backpack" idea. Not even *I* can think of an elegant way to substitute carrying things in your inventory with eating them into your stomach-- Nor can I really justify it. It bothers ME too, and I've already increased the maximum inventory about 3 times now.
SCREW IT! It's out.
RE: High level Fire Drake
Oh? So does this mean Fire Drakes are better/easier to use than Hydras? Seems you reached Dreadfell in less than a day!
RE: No Drakelings
... I hope this next update will make them a little easier to handle...
Re: Generic Points
Oh god-- Why did THAT happen? I definitely need to figure out why your generic points didn't come to you immediately. Tell me exactly what you've been doing-- Anything like turning the game on and off-- Saving? Those are the types of things that can cause those strange behaviors. Let me know!
@nsrr
RE: Health Boost
... Went... Back down?!?!
What in the... I don't even...
-- Completely irrelevant note: I'm thinking of making Consume/Clasp have NO cooldown if there are no hostiles in sight-- The point being that it's kind of obnoxious that you have to wait 10 turns between eating/clasping things. However, the issue I'm facing is that players can abuse this simply by blinding themself, turning around corners, or using something that makes them unaware of hostiles (such as "Relativity"). Any ideas? I don't want to do something silly like a "hostile-spotted cooldown", because that would just lead to more overhead-- Which I don't want.
RE: No "Predator Stance" Ejection bonus text
Whoops.
RE: Ejection cooldown
The fundamental idea was that you jab as many stings as you can into an enemy before "Ejecting" the very last one. Why is it designed this way...? ... Well, I suppose if you're asking that question, I clearly haven't made "Ejection" powerful enough!
RE: Diving Bomb
I suppose the design reason for the random locating is for later in the game when Ritch will spend most of its time kiting entire swarms of enemies by jumping over their heads constantly (particularly, orcs and dragon mobs). For this reason, I was reluctant to make ANY of its "gap closers" get blocked by obstruction, or force you into a very particular spot ("Guillotine" and "Predator's Stride" LOVE IT when you slink behind a group of mobs). The only exception to this rule is "Batter", which DOES behave like "Rush".
... Again-- Most of my design choices were from way back BEFORE when "Wing Pod" was a Ritch's unlocked talent tree, so I figured "Batter" was available to everyone as of Level 4. Now that it ISN'T though... Well... Keep trying it out a bit more, and tell me if you REALLY feel the way that it currently functions is an absolute, unforgivable hinderance.
... Addendum: What if I changed all the "teleport-onto-enemy" talents so that they ALWAYS dropped you the furthest distance possible from where you are? Y'know, as though you were sneaking up behind them??
RE: Stinger Damage
... How would you feel if the diseases caused by "Deadly Sting" did some fraction of its total damage upfront, regardless of whether they become diseased or not? Something like... 33%? It would function the same way "Poison" projections do, kinda like "Spit Poison"-- Except it would be 33%, not 16%.
RE: Scaling
... This might all be ABSOLUTELY true. I think you might be on to something...
I'll be honest-- I haven't touched ANY of the scaling parameters for nearly ALL of the talents in "OoTS". This means EVERY single talent has been growing in power at the same exact frequencies: a "0.75" exponential curve... And this might not have necessarily been correct.
Now the tricky part... Is figuring out WHICH talents, in particular, need the "curve" treatment...
RE: Balance Concerns
You can always just PM me your thoughts from now on, where these discussions can remain between you and me!
*** What I've gathered from this:
- Remove inventory limit from Avatars. Who was I kidding when I thought people would start eating things instead??
- Something strange is happening with the generic points granted by "Nature-Taught". In fact, I noticed it too-- But this needs some evidence/replication for a surgical solution...
- Also, on that note, the "Maximum Life" granted by "Nature-Taught" is ALSO acting wonky. What is going on?!
- Describe the "Predator Stance" bonus in "Ejection" description...
- "Ejection" cooldown is brought into question. Double check it-- Maybe "60" turns at TL1 is too long? *chuckles*
- The landing location of "jump" abilities has come into question. I question it as well-- But let's see if the majority concurs...
- Does the base damage of "Stings" need a bonus? Maybe the "Sting" itself should deal more damage than the "disease" it causes. Maybe it could use better scaling? Hummmm...
- Got an interesting lead on the collectively-agreed "wimpiness" of early-game Avatars. Maybe several Talent Level 1 damage numbers need an increase... But would that end up being TOO effective...?
PS: Don't mind this strange end-note I've started putting on my messages. It's reached a point where I'm taking so many suggestions/corrections that I can't keep track of it all very easily-- So I'm leaving little notes for myself-- As well as easy-to-read summaries of my posts.
RE: Inventory Limit
... Fine! I give up. I think I'm gonna have to scrap this whole "Stomach-instead-of-backpack" idea. Not even *I* can think of an elegant way to substitute carrying things in your inventory with eating them into your stomach-- Nor can I really justify it. It bothers ME too, and I've already increased the maximum inventory about 3 times now.
SCREW IT! It's out.
RE: High level Fire Drake
Oh? So does this mean Fire Drakes are better/easier to use than Hydras? Seems you reached Dreadfell in less than a day!
RE: No Drakelings
... I hope this next update will make them a little easier to handle...
Re: Generic Points
Oh god-- Why did THAT happen? I definitely need to figure out why your generic points didn't come to you immediately. Tell me exactly what you've been doing-- Anything like turning the game on and off-- Saving? Those are the types of things that can cause those strange behaviors. Let me know!
@nsrr
RE: Health Boost
... Went... Back down?!?!
What in the... I don't even...
-- Completely irrelevant note: I'm thinking of making Consume/Clasp have NO cooldown if there are no hostiles in sight-- The point being that it's kind of obnoxious that you have to wait 10 turns between eating/clasping things. However, the issue I'm facing is that players can abuse this simply by blinding themself, turning around corners, or using something that makes them unaware of hostiles (such as "Relativity"). Any ideas? I don't want to do something silly like a "hostile-spotted cooldown", because that would just lead to more overhead-- Which I don't want.
RE: No "Predator Stance" Ejection bonus text
Whoops.
RE: Ejection cooldown
The fundamental idea was that you jab as many stings as you can into an enemy before "Ejecting" the very last one. Why is it designed this way...? ... Well, I suppose if you're asking that question, I clearly haven't made "Ejection" powerful enough!
RE: Diving Bomb
I suppose the design reason for the random locating is for later in the game when Ritch will spend most of its time kiting entire swarms of enemies by jumping over their heads constantly (particularly, orcs and dragon mobs). For this reason, I was reluctant to make ANY of its "gap closers" get blocked by obstruction, or force you into a very particular spot ("Guillotine" and "Predator's Stride" LOVE IT when you slink behind a group of mobs). The only exception to this rule is "Batter", which DOES behave like "Rush".
... Again-- Most of my design choices were from way back BEFORE when "Wing Pod" was a Ritch's unlocked talent tree, so I figured "Batter" was available to everyone as of Level 4. Now that it ISN'T though... Well... Keep trying it out a bit more, and tell me if you REALLY feel the way that it currently functions is an absolute, unforgivable hinderance.
... Addendum: What if I changed all the "teleport-onto-enemy" talents so that they ALWAYS dropped you the furthest distance possible from where you are? Y'know, as though you were sneaking up behind them??
RE: Stinger Damage
... How would you feel if the diseases caused by "Deadly Sting" did some fraction of its total damage upfront, regardless of whether they become diseased or not? Something like... 33%? It would function the same way "Poison" projections do, kinda like "Spit Poison"-- Except it would be 33%, not 16%.
RE: Scaling
... This might all be ABSOLUTELY true. I think you might be on to something...
I'll be honest-- I haven't touched ANY of the scaling parameters for nearly ALL of the talents in "OoTS". This means EVERY single talent has been growing in power at the same exact frequencies: a "0.75" exponential curve... And this might not have necessarily been correct.
Now the tricky part... Is figuring out WHICH talents, in particular, need the "curve" treatment...
RE: Balance Concerns
You can always just PM me your thoughts from now on, where these discussions can remain between you and me!
*** What I've gathered from this:
- Remove inventory limit from Avatars. Who was I kidding when I thought people would start eating things instead??
- Something strange is happening with the generic points granted by "Nature-Taught". In fact, I noticed it too-- But this needs some evidence/replication for a surgical solution...
- Also, on that note, the "Maximum Life" granted by "Nature-Taught" is ALSO acting wonky. What is going on?!
- Describe the "Predator Stance" bonus in "Ejection" description...
- "Ejection" cooldown is brought into question. Double check it-- Maybe "60" turns at TL1 is too long? *chuckles*
- The landing location of "jump" abilities has come into question. I question it as well-- But let's see if the majority concurs...
- Does the base damage of "Stings" need a bonus? Maybe the "Sting" itself should deal more damage than the "disease" it causes. Maybe it could use better scaling? Hummmm...
- Got an interesting lead on the collectively-agreed "wimpiness" of early-game Avatars. Maybe several Talent Level 1 damage numbers need an increase... But would that end up being TOO effective...?
PS: Don't mind this strange end-note I've started putting on my messages. It's reached a point where I'm taking so many suggestions/corrections that I can't keep track of it all very easily-- So I'm leaving little notes for myself-- As well as easy-to-read summaries of my posts.
Creator of the (rather large) "Odyssey of The Summoner" add-on pack
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
Level 33, I've made it back from the East to the West, opened the portal...
Fire drake is starting to look more powerful now, though still some big problems with certain classes....paradeox mages YUCK
HAHAHA - took prodigy worldly knowledge and then Celestial Light
now I have heal and providence - I'm set 
Fire drake is starting to look more powerful now, though still some big problems with certain classes....paradeox mages YUCK
HAHAHA - took prodigy worldly knowledge and then Celestial Light


MADNESS rocks
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
I JUST watched you do that! VERY CLEVER, SIR... YOU HAVE BEATEN MY SYSTEM...jenx wrote:HAHAHA - took prodigy worldly knowledge and then Celestial Lightnow I have heal and providence - I'm set
Creator of the (rather large) "Odyssey of The Summoner" add-on pack
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
I can't do backup guardian for sandworm. major lua error due to addon.
Code: Select all
error = "Lua Error: ...neka_therianthropy_summoner/superload/mod/class/Grid.lua:8: attempt to call global 'base_tooltip' (a nil value)\
At [C]:-1 base_tooltip\
At ...neka_therianthropy_summoner/superload/mod/class/Grid.lua:8 check\
At /engine/Map.lua:801 checkEntity\
At /mod/class/Tooltip.lua:36 check\
At /mod/class/Tooltip.lua:71 getTooltipAtMap\
At /engine/Tooltip.lua:284 displayAtMap\
At /engine/interface/GameTargeting.lua:66 targetDisplayTooltip\
At /mod/class/Game.lua:1597 "
seen = true
reported = false
MADNESS rocks
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
my character is increasingly just upchucking random pieces of equipment for no reason. I almost lost a very valuable item as it was miles from where I was located.
I can't find anywhere that says this will happen or how to stop it.
is this intended behaviour?
I can't find anywhere that says this will happen or how to stop it.
is this intended behaviour?
MADNESS rocks