Revamped Skirmisher

[Doctornull]

I have a 5 day weekend coming up, I have them often (yes, I know I am fortunate ). So in another day I will give this a try after I get done with work. The more I think about it the more I think all shots for all ranged classes should be instant. Or at least a decent percentage. Casters often have aoe or ways to disable that cannot miss so it is fine for them to have projectiles that are not instant. But this goes beyond the scope of this addon of course. Updates sound great. Looking forward to giving it another try!

In my opinion, making casters LESS instant would be a better solution.

There are already some non-instant mechanics available, including the pre-attack trail that the EoR minotaur boss uses, and the pre-area-attack yellow ring that Aeryn uses.

Turn more spells into projectiles like Fireflash, cut down on beams a bit -- maybe turn Chain Lightning into a bouncy slime-like projectile, for example.


IMHO that's a better design direction than the power-creep arms-race of turning archery into instant attacks.

[nsrr]

I realized about half way through the day at work that I was about 80% certain I had forgotten to update Kill Shot when I made Hurricane Shot, Kneecapper, and Noggin Knocker projectiles instant. Sure enough, I did not.

v.1.0.4
---
[Kill Shot]
Projectiles now (actually) travel effectively instantly.

[scul]

In my opinion, making casters LESS instant would be a better solution.

There are already some non-instant mechanics available, including the pre-attack trail that the EoR minotaur boss uses, and the pre-area-attack yellow ring that Aeryn uses.

Turn more spells into projectiles like Fireflash, cut down on beams a bit -- maybe turn Chain Lightning into a bouncy slime-like projectile, for example.


IMHO that's a better design direction than the power-creep arms-race of turning archery into instant attacks.

It is not about being instant. It is about the fact that it can miss even when you have lined it up perfectly. I am fine with planning out different strategies, taking into account things that take time to hit or build up power etc. More strategies I am pretty much always in favor of.

It is just the fact that there can be times where I can have a set of shots and use my entire quiver/pouch and half my shots missed because they just stepped forward. And with things like soul rot in the game... You just can't survive as a fairly low health class when a rare can hit you for 700 while you are not even up to 500 health, you have to be able to stun/cripple reliably. And I am only talking about easy mode (nightmare and below). And if they can just dodge your stun... That does not happen in melee. Melee cannot be dodged. Yes, accuracy and defense. But I think if monsters could randomly "the orc decides that even though you clearly hit him he is going to ignore it and negate all on hit effects".

I think if that could happen 25% of the time in melee there would be a revolt. I would be fine with making accuracy harder to stack etc, making you invest more to have "perfect" accuracy. But it is just the dodges that are not dodges that I am referring to.

[Doctornull]

It is not about being instant. It is about the fact that it can miss even when you have lined it up perfectly. I am fine with planning out different strategies, taking into account things that take time to hit or build up power etc. More strategies I am pretty much always in favor of.

It is just the fact that there can be times where I can have a set of shots and use my entire quiver/pouch and half my shots missed because they just stepped forward. And with things like soul rot in the game... You just can't survive as a fairly low health class when a rare can hit you for 700 while you are not even up to 500 health, you have to be able to stun/cripple reliably. And I am only talking about easy mode (nightmare and below). And if they can just dodge your stun... That does not happen in melee. Melee cannot be dodged. Yes, accuracy and defense. But I think if monsters could randomly "the orc decides that even though you clearly hit him he is going to ignore it and negate all on hit effects".

I think if that could happen 25% of the time in melee there would be a revolt. I would be fine with making accuracy harder to stack etc, making you invest more to have "perfect" accuracy. But it is just the dodges that are not dodges that I am referring to.

Play is symmetric though, so now you're going to get hit with 700 undodgable arrow damage (across two fast archery attacks) instead of a dodgeable Soul Rot projectile.

Being able to dodge projectiles -- archery and spell -- is a thing that keeps the PC alive.

I'm sympathetic to the frustration of NPCs dodging, but think about how awful it would be if you were on the other side of that mechanic.



Consider this instead:
- The talent-effect lands as a "mark"-like status, which turns into the real status when you hit with any archery attack.
- A dodged arrow isn't a waste of your talent cooldown, since you can shoot again.
- From the PC side, you get an indication for when dodging an arrow is especially important (since it'll turn your talent-mark into a debilitating status).

So each archery attack talent would do two things: set up a talent-mark, and fire an arrow.

The talent-mark would last for a few rounds, so you'd have an opportunity to cash it in even if you miss initially.

Applying another talent-mark would overwrite the first one, so NPCs can't stack up several if you keep dodging their arrows -- smart play is still rewarded for the PC, too.

[Arcvasti]

Being able to dodge projectiles -- archery and spell -- is a thing that keeps the PC alive.

And keeping the PC alive at all costs is what the game should be balanced towards? Archers would probably need to be nerfed, probably by taking away their free attack speed, but I'm not convinced that there would be many other changes. When it comes down to it, non-weapon projectiles don't have that much higher damage then non-weapon non-projectile attacks. Even many archery attacks pale before attacks like Ice Claw, Wave of Power or Abduction. We know that having high-damage undodgeable ranged attacks doesn't ruin the game because they already exist.

I'm sympathetic to the frustration of NPCs dodging, but think about how awful it would be if you were on the other side of that mechanic.

You acknowledge how annoying it is for enemies to dodge projectiles, but you don't mention how annoying it is to dodge enemy projectiles. There's no "skill" involved, just walking from side to side sometimes while enemies waste their turns. I'm really not sure how this is compelling gameplay at all, no more then aiming your abilities one tile behind an enemy so they can't dodge them is.

[Doctornull]

And keeping the PC alive at all costs is what the game should be balanced towards?

And hyperbole which scores points at all costs is how the forum should interact?

Obviously not.

Please dial it back a bit and have a conversation with me.


You ought to know that aiming one tile behind won't always help (snakes will laugh at you), and certainly won't help NPC when the PC has effects that slow projectiles -- which is a key survival mechanism for some well-liked classes.

The changes require would be wide-spread and nontrivial, it's not realistic to claim the impact would be small or simple.



Regarding "compelling gameplay" -- are you honestly proposing that unavoidable PC death is somehow more compelling gameplay than projectiles which could be dodged?

Are you aware that dodging projectiles grants one of the earliest Archmage achievements?

Apparently someone thinks that dodging is not bad gameplay -- SPOILER: it's DarkGod, and I bet he sells more games than you

[scul]

I think I need to clarify a bit. I am not referring to being able to side step an attack that you can see coming whether "you" is the player or npc. I think that is perfectly reasonable. My initial concern was when I am shooting at something that is coming straight for me, they do not move in any direction but straight towards me. And then the attack silently misses, ie it was not that they had great passive defense and my accuracy was too poor or they deflect it using a passive or active skill. But it just does not land and they walk right through it.

This is what I think needs to be solved. I have had several "misses" in a row with this. Normal bow or sling shots are annoying to miss in this way. But if in the aforementioned case where you know there is big damage in coming that you likely cannot dodge you want to debilitate the enemy, in this case with noggin knocker to stun. I use it and the enemy walks right through it and I die. Perhaps I was in an area before my time (saving Melinda, I always save her what can I say, I am an rper at heart sometimes). But I know I could have survived that damage if my stun would have landed and at this point I am basically an elite sling master able to take down small armies with my sling and shield.

Things should not be able to walk through my shots without even attempting to dodge and I don't even get the chance to see how my skills match up to theirs. Maybe they could have shrugged off the stun. But I don't even get the chance to find out because the shot did not even land even though it is lined up perfectly and they did not dodge and I did not miss. So for me as a player, I don't mind dying, I play rogue like mode always. I like the risk, but it feels like it removes player agency if I cannot even see if I can do anything before that 700 damage spike comes in that I know I could have turned into 200 or 300 damage and survived.

Sorry for the wall of text, brevity is a good skill, but verbosity also has its place, feel free to disagree

Ps to nsrr, enjoying the changes so far. Loving your addon, as usual. More on topic thoughts after I die or win in nightmare.

[nsrr]

I understand precisely what you mean, scul. That's why I made the changes that I did. This is not about 'sidestep' dodging. It is about the fact that the mechanism used by Called Shots and Hurricane Shots to bypass incidental targets is flawed and will cause the projectiles to ignore any actor who is not the target, and, importantly, is not on the targeted tile. That means that even if your target moves directly into the projectile it will no longer hit them because they are no longer on the tile they were on when they were first targeted. This can happen when the target is far enough away and has a chance to move before the projectile reaches them (which seems to be why Called Shots have increased projectile speed in vanilla per the comments in the code), or, and this is the frustrating one, if they have a fraction of a turn banked and get to act before the projectile. Then they could be 2 tiles away and still step toward you and avoid the hit. Imagine a snake is next to you and you use Stunning Blow but the snake says, 'Nope, I'm so fast I moved to the next tile over and then back again before you could hit me.' That would be the comparable melee scenario, and think most would agree that that is not how it should work.

Should all projectiles be instant? No. I don't think so, at least. Should all weapon projectiles be instant? I think you could make a case for that, but that's beyond the scope of what I'm doing, and I can certainly see arguments for the other side, as well.

As far as maintaining symetry goes, I think that's a shaky argument at best. For one thing, Skirmishers are banned from NPCs already, for other reasons. For another, the game is really not symmetrical. It has symmetrical aspects, but that's as far as you can go. Some enemy base types have speeds you would have to seriously go out of your way to reach, or they have talents inherent to their base type, which they will have regardless of any class or gear they roll. Sometimes these are talents that are NPC exclusive. On top of that, mobs have bogus resource regeneration. On the other hand, some talents are explicitly banned from NPCs. All of this goes directly in the face of symetry.

Anyhow, if you want to continue to debate the pros and cons of making all projectiles instant, I'd prefer it be done elsewhere. If you have thoughts or suggestions regarding the few faulty talents that Skirmisher possesses, I'd be interested in hearing it. On that note, I'm not keen on the 'marking' idea. It adds unnecessary complexity to solve a problem which, in my opinion, should not be a problem to begin with. Again, this is not about accuracy vs. defense or even about sidesteepping, it's about a targeting mechanic which, in my opinion, is faulty and leads to unintended, unpredictable, and unintuitive behavior.

[Doctornull]

On that note, I'm not keen on the 'marking' idea. It adds unnecessary complexity to solve a problem which, in my opinion, should not be a problem to begin with. Again, this is not about accuracy vs. defense or even about sidesteepping, it's about a targeting mechanic which, in my opinion, is faulty and leads to unintended, unpredictable, and unintuitive behavior.

The "marking" thing would fix the primary complaint -- an enemy walking right into your shot would be affected, not missed -- but if you just don't like it, then there's not much to discuss.


New topic: I've seen in some guides recommendations about ignoring shield-bash talents, because you get no shield mastery. It'd be fairly trivial to add shield mastery to either Buckler Expertise or Sling Supremacy.

I'm not entirely convinced that missing out on Shield mastery is a bug, but if it were then it could be fixed quite easily.


Side topic: in theory a Skirmisher could use both Steamtech weapons at once, making it a more-coherent Tinker than the Psyshot, but none of the buckler talents apply to saws, and none of the sling talents apply to guns.

[nsrr]

Regarding mastery, I don't think that's a bug, and I think Bash and Smash stands up fine without shield mastery. I feel like Dash and Crash is also fine, even though it does far less damage, but I could be biased there. I'd be glad to here what others think of it.

Steamtech Skirmisher could be fun. It would be easy enough to change the pre-use conditions, I think. I'm not sure if your sling mastery would still apply to your shots or not, so that could be a problem. You'd also have to give up an inscription slot for a steam gen for your weapon attacks. Probably fine though since you get injectors and tinkers to compensate. The shields attacks actually dig into the shields combat fields to change the modifier to Dexterity on the fly. Which should probably be changed to just straight up replace the damage mod at an item level. Anyhow, that could add some complexity to adapting the attacks for saw use, but I'm sure it could still be done. I'm not crazy about tinkers or steamtech personally, but I understand the appeal for some people, so it's something I'll think about.

[Doctornull]

Steamtech Skirmisher could be fun. It would be easy enough to change the pre-use conditions, I think. I'm not sure if your sling mastery would still apply to your shots or not, so that could be a problem. You'd also have to give up an inscription slot for a steam gen for your weapon attacks. Probably fine though since you get injectors and tinkers to compensate. The shields attacks actually dig into the shields combat fields to change the modifier to Dexterity on the fly. Which should probably be changed to just straight up replace the damage mod at an item level. Anyhow, that could add some complexity to adapting the attacks for saw use, but I'm sure it could still be done. I'm not crazy about tinkers or steamtech personally, but I understand the appeal for some people, so it's something I'll think about.

Cool.

IMHO the Steamtech trees fill a gap in the Skirmisher's generics, and they give some extra tactical & mobility options -- Rocket Boots, for example, seem like a really good match for the Skirmisher's playstyle.

For mastery, I think you'd need to add steamguns to Sling Supremacy -- looking at the EoR code it appears to be its own weapon type.

[nsrr]

Well, steamtech integration did not go so well. Actually, it went really well... until Bombardment. The shield attacks actually did not require any changes, and the sling attacks worked fine with a minor tweak to the pre-use condition. I tried for a couple hours to bludgeon Bombardment into working, but the original implementation is hard-coded into the Shoot talent's action and makes the whole thing into a jumbled mess. I even tried overloading the action definition for Shoot (which I was reluctant to do because it's hard to know at a glance how many other things that's going to mess with) and then changing the checks to accommodate steamguns, but I couldn't get it worked out.

So, on the one hand, you can use saws in place of your shield, but, on the other hand, adding steamgun support is beyond me. I could still add steamgun mastery easily enough, but that seems like a moot point if using a steamgun is going to cause Bombardment to toss out errors and spam your log with 'You require a sling to use this talent!'. Tinkers are still great for Skirmisher, though, as they already rely on Cunning and tinkers offer all kinds of utility. Actually, they are so good that I feel like if Skirmisher could use steamguns it would be too much of an incentive to use tinkers, which are already really great on the class. So, upon further consideration, I don't think that's a route I want to go. Good news is that it would be super simple for someone else to create a separate addon that gives them steamgun mastery, and even update the attacks to work, if they were so inclined. Good luck with Bombardment, to anyone who tries to crack it.

I thought of a little quality of life improvement for Pace Yourself while I was at it, though, so I went ahead and updated with that change.

v1.0.5
---
[Pace Yourself]
The global speed reduction will only apply when enemies are in sight (and not at all on the world map).

[scul]

Still enjoying, found the blood of life so hopefully I can easily win with 2 lives! On an unfortunate note, I just loaded my game from last night. I am in the 8 legs of wonder cave, Ardhungol. And there were a bunch of spiders on the screen, I can make about 3 or 4 moves/attacks and so far no matter what I do the game hard crashes. As in, does not spit out a lua error but the screen just flashes and game becomes unresponsive, kill with task manager. I looked into the error report folder and sure enough there is a report, I will paste it here:

Code: Select all

error = "Lua Error: /data-skirm_revamp/talents/techniques/skirm.lua:341: attempt to call global 'skirmPreUse' (a nil value)\
  At [C]:-1 skirmPreUse\
  At /data-skirm_revamp/talents/techniques/skirm.lua:341 on_pre_use\
  At /mod/class/Actor.lua:5044 preUseTalent\
  At /engine/HotkeysIconsDisplay.lua:194 display\
  At /engine/HotkeysIconsDisplay.lua:285 toScreen\
  At /mod/class/uiset/Minimalist.lua:1765 displayHotkeys\
  At /mod/class/uiset/Minimalist.lua:2006 display\
  At /mod/class/Game.lua:1856 "
seen = true
reported = false

Hopefully this helps, seeing if there is anything I can do that allows me to continue, but I thought I would post this now so you will see it sooner rather than later.

[nsrr]

Ouch, my bad. Vestigial code from trying to make Bombardment work with steamguns. I thought I had it all commented out, but I missed one line. All fixed. Thanks for the report, and my apologies.

[scul]

Fixed! Also, still testing this. I seem to notice that when I am attacking from stealth and I am pretty sure I am not spotted I am not getting the auto crit for skills all the time. The called shots generally give them to me, but due to increased crit rate and things potentially seeing me and me not getting a message (pretty sure that is a thing) it is hard to be certain. I am certain that vital shot and the normal shoot talent are definitely NOT giving me the auto crit from stealth. This may be a game thing and have nothing to do with the addon. Obviously I am just going to get my crit rate to monstrous levels if I can so it will eventually be a moot point, but that will likely not be until I am about to beat the game or already have. It is nice to have the normal shoot talent able to crit from stealth to give on crit effects. May not be related to you, but mentioning it just in case.