Prodigies tweaks

[Micbran]

I do not see how anyone can seriously support option 3. What do prerequisites-that-you-can-cheat-around add, in your opinion?

Makes tinkers usable on classes that don't build Cun.
Makes adventurers not a pain in the ass to build.
Opens up prodigy choices.
Allows dumb shit like staff doombringer (full Mag investment).
Allows you to save stats points for more important investments, Mindslayer shields, for example, need Cun just for reqs but scale off mindpower, which is more easily obtained through willpower.
Classes that have weird stat reqs (looking at you skirmisher) don't have to build those weird stats that don't benefit their build.

I think it should stay as and I'm just as biased you, just in the opposite direction.

[Aquillion]

I do not see how anyone can seriously support option 3. What do prerequisites-that-you-can-cheat-around add, in your opinion?

Makes tinkers usable on classes that don't build Cun.
Makes adventurers not a pain in the ass to build.
Opens up prodigy choices.
Allows dumb shit like staff doombringer (full Mag investment).
Allows you to save stats points for more important investments, Mindslayer shields, for example, need Cun just for reqs but scale off mindpower, which is more easily obtained through willpower.
Classes that have weird stat reqs (looking at you skirmisher) don't have to build those weird stats that don't benefit their build.

I think it should stay as and I'm just as biased you, just in the opposite direction.

No, what I mean is - why do you support option 3 over option 1? Look at the three options I listed and explain why you think the third one is better than first - since by choosing option 3, you're saying "I think stat prerequisites are important. I want them to stay in the game, but I also want to be able to cheat them."

Why do you want stat prerequisites to stay in the game? What do they add, if you're able to cheat them with items? Why not just argue for removing them or reducing them to trivial levels?

Basically, you gave a lot of arguments for why you hate prerequisites and don't think they should be in the game at all (and I can respect that and I think that that's a reasonable decision.) But then you picked option 3, which is "don't remove prerequisites, because I like stockpiling items and shuffling them around every time I do anything that has a prerequisite." It feels like you misread my post - I asked "why do you want to leave prequisites-you-can-cheat in the game (as opposed to just removing them entirely)", and you responded with all the reasons you hate prerequisites, while saying you wanted to keep them.

Why? What does that add? Why not just remove prerequisites entirely (or eliminate them on most things, anyway)? A big part of my objection is that the current system is both counter-intuitive and involves a lot of unnecessary, fiddly micromanagement to reach an end result that is basically like having no stat prerequisites. Why are you arguing in favor of keeping stat prerequisites if you don't like anything that they're supposed to be doing?

When I said "what do prerequisites-that-you-can-cheat-around add", I was asking you to defend prerequisites - to argue why you support option 3 over option 1. My point is that option 3 is pointless and adds nothing to the game - I can totally respect wanting to remove stat prerequisites entirely (or nearly-entirely.)

[Micbran]

Because why fix what isn't broken?

[Aquillion]

Because why fix what isn't broken?

I gave my reasons in the other thread, but:

1. It requires an annoying degree of micromanagement (collecting stat+ items and then tediously swapping to them). It isn't generally a meaningful achievement to collect the items, since you'll always find them if you keep your eyes out, and the swapping involves no meaningful choices because you're only wearing them for an instant (so nothing else about the items matters.) Micromanagement with no meaningful choices is bad for the game and ought to be removed.

2. It serves as a trap for new players, who may not realize they're supposed to cheat around the prerequisites and will therefore waste stats (which is a problem when the game, inevitably, ends up balanced around the idea that you will be cheating them.) Having important-looking prerequisites that, because they can be cheated around, are actually completely unimportant only serves to make the game harder to learn.

3. It adds nothing beyond artificial complexity ("artificial" in the sense that it's not contributing to the game's depth at all; it adds no interesting choices or challenges, just pointless busywork.)

I'm indifferent to whether they're removed or enforced (although like I said, if they were enforced they'd have to be revised to keep options open, sure), but the current situation seems like the worst of both worlds.

[Micbran]

Yes, well lets just say those points came out as reasons why option number 2 shouldn't happen, rather than chalking it up to my ability to comprehend.

I don't mind removing all stat reqs (its essentially the same thing as keeping them as they are now, really), but please, anything but option 2.

[Steven Aus]

I think it's the status quo. Number 2 has potentially the most benefit, but it also requires the most work to rebalance.

If we keep it as is, we need to make sure that the player knows what they need to do, so we need to tell them at the start.

Honestly, I feel that removing stat requirements altogether is not the way to go either. It means all skills are equally easy to get and if they're not balanced reasonably well (which we know they're not) there will still be "go to" skills, even more so than now. At least now you can't meet Thick Skin etc. requirements until later in the game when you have enough of the right +stat items.

[Cathbald]

What about keeping the prerequisites as is but when your stat diminishes (through gear swap, disease or other) then you can only use the talent to the level which your current stat allows.
For example : you have 40 str and assault level 3. You remove an item that was giving you +2 str, if you use assault it'll be level 2. If you get diseased and lose 10 str, you can't even use assault!

The same could be done with gear, you used heroism and stat gear to put on that massive armor? Good luck moving once those stat buffs wear off. You were fighting with a greatsword and don't have the necessary strength to wield it anymore? Have fun punching things since it's now too heavy for you.

[bpat]

I don't how one could argue that making players invest stat points for prodigies would nothurts build diversity and flexibility. I have tons of examples of how this would cripple build diversity on many classes.

Arcane Blade wants Flexible Combat at level 30? Hope you didn't put too many points in Mag or Cun lol, gotta put it in Str which does literally nothing until level 30. Arcane Blade wants both Flexible Combat and Windblade/Spine of the World? Too bad you can't do that anymore without losing points in Mag or Cun. Sawbutcher wants Windblade and Spine of the World? Too bad you can't do that anymore without losing points in Str or Cun. Bulwark wants Bloodspring or Draconic Body at level 30? Hope you didn't put points in Dex or you're out of luck. Bulwark wants Eternal Guard and Spectral Shield? Haha nice try hope you didn't want Dex for GWF and accuracy. Mindslayer wants any relevant prodigy at level 30? Enjoy doing no damage and not unlocking talents until then. Doomed wants Spine of the World and PES or Superpower, which are their only good prodigies? Guess your Wil or Cun is gonna take a huge hit then. Summoner wants Blighted Summoning and Through the Crowd (Blighted Summoning sucks but it'll probably get buffed in the near future)? Enjoy not being able to summon as many dudes because you don't have as much Cun. Anorithil wants some combination of Range Amplification Device, Spine of the World, and Crafty Hands? Enjoy your DPS loss from lower Cun.

If you don't like the way it works, you can use self-imposed restrictions, but don't ruin build diversity and general QoL for everybody else. If you want to not take prodigies or talents you don't have the base stats for, that's up to you, but there's no good reason to impose this on other people who don't like it. Maybe even make an addon for it if you want.

As a side note I'd be fine with the stat requirements being removed completely but I don't think it's important to change.

Edit: The same issue applies for talents as well. Try playing Brawler and having the Str, Dex, and Cun for talent requirements from stat points alone. Spoiler: you can't.

[Steven Aus]

I guess it's okay now then.

[Davion Fuxa]

bpat's post got me thinking that making Prodigies opened up by Levels and their necessary requirements might be a good change to have if we also redistribute experience modifiers.

If we boost up the Shalore's and Ogre's Experience Modifier to +35% and +40%, you likely won't be getting your first prodigy until after The Master. On the flipside, Skeletons and Thalore having Experience Modifiers of +20% and +25% might be able to pull it off.

[Jarinex]

In terms of skills/talents, I really have not seen a problem with stats being a requirement. Most of the stats are what you would be putting points into anyways. In my opinion (and just my opinion), I haven't felt like there is any micromanagement that you describe.

In terms of prodigies on the other hand, that is a bit of a different case. Sometimes I do save gear to boost my stats to get a certain prodigy. I don't really feel like its a big deal, but I can see why people would think differently.

I would say option 2 is a big fat no from me, but I'm not going to lose any sleep if prodigy stat requirements were slightly altered or not.

[anonymous000]

Going back to the original topic: Although the thread's name is "Prodigies tweaks", it was more about outlining general design principles. Thinking back now I don't really have much idea about how certain underpowered Prodigies could be changed. Actually such Prodigies pose an imaginative barrier in reworking them because you will always be trying to rework them within the boundary that their names suggest. Even though Lucky Day is pretty much unloved, you will still be forced to think in terms of related things like Luck and Evasion, and jump to another grid for Giant Leap.

I agree to Snarvid that we can simply ditch some underpowered (in terms of fun and actual power) Prodigies and add some more. I don't see a reason why would we want to struggle with changing Tricks of the Trade or Lucky Day instead of thinking up something new. Here are some of my idea if anyone is interested:

Unstable Existence: Every time you take hit that does more than 20% of your life, a psychic imprint of yourself is ripped from your body, serving you for 3 turns. Such imprint's life and damage scales with the % of life taken from the hit. For example, if you take a hit that does 40% of your maximum life, the imprint will inherent 40% of the max life and damage of your character

Charm Master: You can equip 3 charms

Projected Strength: All your melee range attacks now has range 4 but radius remains unchanged, also applies to bump attacks (very similar to Parcae2's suggestion for Range Amplification Device buff, maybe it can simply be merged in it)

Runeblade: Sustain, etch runes into your weapon granting on-hit effects of your choice, I expect something fancy like triggering Devouring Flame on hit

Snaproot: Your skin is so thick and you physically resembles Snaproot. You learn Crush, Stun, Grab and Throw Boulder, also provides armour buff. Taking this changes your player's doll as well

Geomancer: You learn to place zone objects like antimagic bush, fell aura, etc. Effectiveness scales with cunning

[Snarvid]

Particularly like that Geomancer one. Maybe high level you could temporarily enforce a Zone-wide effect.

To be clear, I don't actually care whether we choose "eliminate and replace" or "radically fix" underpowered and unfun ones - if we want to still call the Prodigy that gives rogue-like options to non-rogues Tricks of the Trade I'm for it, but it should be at least one of "good" or "hilarious." If we want to combine existing weak Prodigies into something that meets that threshold I'm also for it - e.g. slightly weaken Massive Blow's on-wall-hit ability and then combine it and Steamroller into a single Prodigy called "Pinball Wizard" that refreshes both Massive Blow and Rush on kill.

Because people want different things from gaming, sometimes people will review Prodigies with only their own preferences in mind, and whatever they don't like = bad Prodigy. I think a good inspiration for future content would be looking at the subsets of player psychographics and making sure any new content is a clear homerun for at least one of them. So we might add a Qog's Essentials type effect to Lucky Day in an attempt to make it more interesting to the Adrenaline Gamer, or create more Prodigies with the level of specific talent synergy that Slime Roots has with Fungal Blood or Mental Tyranny with Madness for Combo Players. But given that you only get two Prodigies, any one of them should make at least one player type giggle gleefully, or why bother?

[bpat]

If you think making stat point investment for talents is fine then play a Brawler or Psyshot with that restriction and let me know how that goes.

Unstable Existence: Every time you take hit that does more than 20% of your life, a psychic imprint of yourself is ripped from your body, serving you for 3 turns. Such imprint's life and damage scales with the % of life taken from the hit. For example, if you take a hit that does 40% of your maximum life, the imprint will inherent 40% of the max life and damage of your character

Even with a large cooldown this looks pretty OP on classes like Summoner, Necromancer, and Doomed.

Charm Master: You can equip 3 charms

Very OP, just use three pickaxes on physical characters or three warding items on anyone else. Maybe if it gave one slot it would be fine.

Projected Strength: All your melee range attacks now has range 4 but radius remains unchanged, also applies to bump attacks (very similar to Parcae2's suggestion for Range Amplification Device buff, maybe it can simply be merged in it)

Remember how the old projection ego was removed? This looks OP for the same reason. Maybe if the power diminishes over range, so 100% damage and power at range 1, 80% at range 2, 60% at range 3, 40% at range 4 or something like that. Also sounds like a pain to use since you'd need to bind attack to a hotkey. Interesting idea though that could work with some tweaking.

Runeblade: Sustain, etch runes into your weapon granting on-hit effects of your choice, I expect something fancy like triggering Devouring Flame on hit

More procs sounds fun. Gonna be hard to make there not a clear best option though.

Snaproot: Your skin is so thick and you physically resembles Snaproot. You learn Crush, Stun, Grab and Throw Boulder, also provides armour buff. Taking this changes your player's doll as well

This looks ridiculously overpowered even ignoring the armour buff but I love the idea behind it. Crush and Grab do almost the same thing so maybe replace or remove one of them. Throw Boulder kinda creeps up on Stone Warden's Deeprock but I don't think it's a big issue. It could let SW get level 10 Throw Boulder when in Deeprock which would be cool.

Geomancer: You learn to place zone objects like antimagic bush, fell aura, etc. Effectiveness scales with cunning

Sounds pretty good and really cool. None of these alone are gamebreaking but the versatility is great.