RFT

[madmonk]

OK, working now...

Comments;

1) Damage notification on screen can be confusing... especially on map redraws
2) Area effects spells that cause damage to the caster is a good thing, no longer is an AoE Spell bomb to be used at all times.
2.a) This type of damage will lead to game changing tactics, might be a good idea...
3) Implement school specific damage prevention ???
4) On death I exited straight back to load screen when playing a mage, trying to replicate...

[update] forgot to add, I like creeping molds...
Also is this deliberate (example):

Need 21 points in magic for a spell... Get ring of magic, giving me the required points, get spell... Take off ring, I still have the spell and it is castable. Is that deliberate?

I think I might prefer losing the ability to cast the spell (although not the investment) if my Magic drops below the required level.

[darkgod]

OK, working now...
1) Damage notification on screen can be confusing... especially on map redraws
2) Area effects spells that cause damage to the caster is a good thing, no longer is an AoE Spell bomb to be used at all times.
2.a) This type of damage will lead to game changing tactics, might be a good idea...
3) Implement school specific damage prevention ???
4) On death I exited straight back to load screen when playing a mage, trying to replicate...
[update] forgot to add, I like creeping molds...

1) I'm not sure what you mean ? The flying texts and at the same time scrolling ?
2) Yes I'm quite fond of it
3) There will be a few non-friendly fire spells (obviously nova-like spells)
4) Yes that's normal, exit to system on death is so unfriendly .. (although this obviously requries a little intermediate screen

As fort the creeping molds ... hehe maybe I could leave it

[madmonk]

1) I'm not sure what you mean ? The flying texts and at the same time scrolling ?

When play fast, the flying text gets everywhere, and when moving in a spell like Noxious cloud, the damage you are taking plus the damage you are dealing to everything else can get very messy. Also if you move and the screen has to redraw to accomodate the new position the flying text also does some funnies...

2) Yes I'm quite fond of it

Great! Nothing like friendly fire to spice your life up...

3) There will be a few non-friendly fire spells (obviously nova-like spells)

Plus spells like asbestos (fire resistance for short periods of time)???

4) Yes that's normal, exit to system on death is so unfriendly .. (although this obviously requries a little intermediate screen

At this stage, I was not concerned by the lack of a screen advertising death, more checking that that is what had been written.

As fort the creeping molds ... hehe maybe I could leave it

Make them very slow movers and breeders!

[darkgod]

For the "learning trick" I does sound a bit like an abuse yes, although it does not bother me much. But yes probably just forbidding the cast would be ok.

1) Humm .. Not sure what to do

3) Yes probably

[madmonk]

For the "learning trick" I does sound a bit like an abuse yes, although it does not bother me much. But yes probably just forbidding the cast would be ok.

The thing about this would be that if applied equally across the board it would be interesting in different ways, a reduction in stats might hit a fighter just as hard, consider someone who cannot wear Plate Armour anymore because of a stat reduction. Of course gaining it back in a fight might be difficult, surviving the fight could be even more difficult as our hero stumbles around struggling with the armour and of course any enemies...

[madmonk]

Got a dead end level where the room with the stair wasn't connected to the rest of the level. Went back up the stair and the game froze.

I was playing a warrior and things seemed to be working fine. I was clvl 4 and dlvl 5, I think.

I got a dead end level too... actually it was the 5th level, all rooms connected, no dead areas, and no down stairs. Went upstairs, game froze, I had to kill the process, since there was no graceful way of exiting as end process did not work.

[Yottle]

I generally like the new targeting system. It will take getting used to- I killed myself once with Noxious Cloud while trying to hit something farther away.

The side effects make area spells more interesting to use.

Noxious Cloud kills even undead- is that intended?

I had Arcane Lance. It seemed that for it to hit a more distant monster I had to target it. If I targeted a closer monster the manathrust stopped there. That is not how beam spells work in Tome.

I can't see Necromancy on the talent screen. I know it is there because I can use the arrow keys to get to it.

In general all the screens are small and can't be re-sized. Is that a windows port issue or intentional?

The mage is much easier than the warrior.

[Yottle]

Got a dead end level where the room with the stair wasn't connected to the rest of the level. Went back up the stair and the game froze.

I was playing a warrior and things seemed to be working fine. I was clvl 4 and dlvl 5, I think.

I got a dead end level too... actually it was the 5th level, all rooms connected, no dead areas, and no down stairs. Went upstairs, game froze, I had to kill the process, since there was no graceful way of exiting as end process did not work.

Level 5 is the end of the dungeon, correct? There is a boss monster there.

[madmonk]

Level 5 is the end of the dungeon, correct? There is a boss monster there.

You beat me to it, I was about to post on the boss monster, and so I assume DLvL 5 is the bottom.

Funny though, in its very simplistic way, it is fun! Well done, DG!

[darkgod]

Madmonk, thanks

Yes level 5 is the bottom, the Shade of Angmar being the boss (probably too easy, although maybe not for a warrior ?)

Simplistic because of the limited number of monsters or talents ?
You can find the list of all planned talents in ideas/spells.ods and ideas/technics.ods in the SVN.
Mages will have around 86 points to spend (and you only get 49), melee has less, I need to find more ideas for special melee moves/passive talents.
And then there will be also archery, rogue-y stuff and "monster-lore" stuff as in T2.

How do you like the change from skills to talents ?
Do you like the melee talents ?
The interface in general ?

Yottle:
The targeting system also works with the mouse (like many other things), once you "unlock" it from a target(using shift+direction) you can target freeform with the mouse.
Since the targeting system also displays the affected target zone, it is not so deadly to have friendyl fire though

Yes noxious cloud currently kills all, I'll probably change it.

As for arcane lance, IIRC it worked the same way, it beams to the target but stops at it.

I need to add scrolling to all dialogs yes.

Ah you find mage easier ? I had found warrior easier, maybe it's because I had increased object drop to test it

[Yottle]

I know that the mouse works for targeting. I am stuck on using the keyboard- after all, I started with Rogue in 1983. I don't mind the new targeting, it just is going to take a while to switch.

I couldn't find a way to target a spot as opposed to a monster (I didn't experiment much because of worrying that I would kill myself again). That would be very useful for area effects- I would want to find a target that engulfed all of a group of monsters but left me out.

Aside from the Shade, all of the monsters died after one or (rarely) two manathrusts. Because there aren't many casters, I could just wander and kill anything that I saw. My only issue was watching to make sure my mana didn't get too low. That was complicated by not having a Rest command, but I found that I could just run into a wall (hold down the cursor) and get the same effect. I realize that this is not surprising in a 5 level starter dungeon.

I assume that you have the stats on the two starting characters set high to make it easy to test. A level 1 mage with 170 hp? With 15 it would have been a lot tougher (and the Shade next to impossible). There would have to be some detection talents to give me a chance to get the first shot in.

Will the map work this way in the future? It is much easier of course when we don't have to find hidden doors, but I assume that it won't automatically enlighten me when I change areas.

One of the things that I like about 2.x is the almost unlimited combination of skills and abilities possible. Once I got past the standard warrior, sorceror, and so on, there were many other possibilities. How many points do I want to put into Mindcraft, or Mimicry, or Stealth? With 300 points and a large number of skills and abilities, there were almost always tradeoffs. The different stats and skill gain levels of different races and classes means that no one is ever going to exhaust the possible character types. I stopped playing Nethack because all winners there have exactly the same equipment, stats, and strategy- the only difference is the process of getting there from a starting character.

The talent system is going to be less rich, since the number of possibilities is much lower. Essentially the new stats correspond to the old skills and the new talents to the old abilities. There isn't a parallel to the old stats. Will there be stat gain potions? I guess that the real test of this will be when a module is configured with different types of characters.

I did not find the fighter talents to be all that useful, but then I only played one fighter. Bashing didn't seem to be much of an improvement on hacking away. I am more of a mage player, so take that with a grain of salt.

I adjusted to the interface quickly, although having the keys remapped took some getting used to. The stat and talent pages were intuitive and easy to use. I like having the available talents visible at the bottom of the regular screen. I agree with madmonk that the floating damage messages are a bit distracting and that in a big battle they might be dangerous. Imagine casting Noxious Cloud into an orc pit... I like the look of the dungeon.

[darkgod]

Target a spot using shift+dir, it doesnt work for you ?

Most monsters are to weak probably yes, in the first tests it was the player that was too weak (had trouble killing one monster, and two were certain death).

You can "rest" by simply pressing numpad 5, no need to bump walls
But yes I'll probably add a rest command soon.

As for HP, well the HP range will change from T2 that's sure. But then in t2 a basic attack at levle 1 would be like 1 ou 2 HP, there a normal skeleton is more like 15hp per hit.
Detection will come soon.

The map is enlightened for easier tests yes.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about talents & skills. The old stats were completly useless, you knew they would be mostly maxed out by end level if gearing properly, not much of a choice there.
Mimicry, Stealth, and all those will be back too. So you can still have a stealthing mage, a mimicry warrior, an antimagic archer, ...
If I do it the way I envision it, there will be a very large number of talents to choose from, some learned at start some randomly like the old FF quests.
Characters have 49 (probably a tad more with random objects/quests) talent points, to choose from a pool of probably hundreds of talents. Seems quite customizable to me no ?
But yes the stats will play a more important role than just "be there" as in T2. And there will probably be stat gain potions too.

[madmonk]

Target a spot using shift+dir, it doesnt work for you ?

Works for me...

As to talents and so on, if you are going to run talents you might want to consider breaking out of the old schools and consider that there are only 4 (yes four ) classes:

Warrior
Rogue
Mage
Priest

All of the T2/T3 classes can fit in there, specialisation, comes later so for instance you have to be a warrior to run an Axemaster. Warrior talents are interesting, there are hundreds of different types of talents, the chinese/japanese martial arts could be here, armour wearing weapons handling (hafted, sword, etc), maintenance (don't want the kit breaking down), equestrianism, archery (light, heavy, Xbows, standard bows, horse bows), proper use of morning stars, flails (foot and horse), maces (foot and horse), the more esoteric weapons: war fans, sticks (bo, jo, ko - size related), kusarigama (chain/sickle types), blowpipes, and so on (in fact there is a lot more, I could go on for hours...) I have a vast collection of esoterica in this field and an abiding interest in it so ask and I will attempt to provide info.

Rogues have limited access to Warrior talents since they have their own talents.

Unless you are a priest type (Paladin, Monk, Priest, etc) gods add flavour and very, very, very limited additional powers. Proper priests classes become really powerful in their own right... and thus worth playing

Note that Mages are a little strange, Mithrandir did wield a sword but only cast spells with a staff (focus???)

[darkgod]

Yes there are many possibilities indeed.

I think I'll change my mind somewhat on talents to merge them a bit with T2 skills:

Each school will have a few ordered spells, that is to learn the second one you must know the first one.
I'll remove most of the passive talents and instead give each spells a level.
Most spells will have 5 levels. So one can invest into a spell just one point or more, the more the more powerful the spell become obviously.

For example the Fire school could become, in order:
Globe of Light (5)
Flame (5)
Fiery Hands (5)
Fireflash (5)
Inferno (5)

To get the whole school at max power for all spells one would need to invest 25 points.
Obviously I'll then increase points gained per levels from 1 to 2 or 3.
The ordering of spells means really powerful spells like Inferno will at least cost 1 point per previous talents + the max of the spell itself. In Inferno case That is 9 points, but at least it gives other spells to play with.

Obviously I'm saying spell here, but it works for all talents.

So basically talents become "small scale" skills ordered by school.

Thoughts ?

[Yottle]

...So basically talents become "small scale" skills ordered by school.

Thoughts ?

I think this is great.

Basically most of 2.x school skills do the same thing- although there is a continuous range from 0-50 on them, mostly I am going to either invest to the minimum level to get a specific spell (or max the skill out). I don't care that I can raise Conveyance to 34.9- I am going to either leave it at 30 for Recall or raise it to 35 for PT. So the fine-grained control of skill levels in 2.x is an unnecessary complication. This means that one character might invest a point to get Phase Door and another go the whole way to get PT.

With the combat skills it is a little different, but most of the time I am either going to max them out or ignore them. It doesn't matter whether that is done in 50 steps or 5. What you and madmonk are talking about (I think) is adding some additional enhancements with upping a level of the combat school. Or maybe they are one-off talents comparable to the abilities in 2.x?

A thing that I like in 2.x is that some types of characters pick up different skills at different rates. I don't see how this can be done with the new system. However, with a very large number of talents and restrictions on getting those talents by race/class you could have a similarly rich set of possibilities. Some of the talents ought to be affected by other things- for example a troll ought to be able to shield bash more effectively than a hobbit, but the hobbit ought to be better at stealing.

In any case, as long as there are many more options than points, there should be guaranteed variety in the game.