FM's Thoughts & Ramblings

[teachu2die]

I think that another problem with Ringil is that it is a guaranteed artifact. If we specialize in swords we know for sure where we can get the BEST weapon available.

I think that's nice to have a good reward for a hard fight but the guy wielding a greatsword should have a chance at one too.

But if we have lots of artifacts, the odds that the Ultra-greatsword pops up just for the right character are probably very slim.

Maybe there should be other ways to get guaranteed artifacts (wishing, choosing them as a quest reward)

this is why i'm against guaranteed artifacts as a rule. and i don't think flooding the game with more guaranteed artifacts to balance things is a good solution - just make most of the 'guaranteed' artifacts not 100% guaranteed....will make for a much more interesting game....

[yufra]

this is why i'm against guaranteed artifacts as a rule. and i don't think flooding the game with more guaranteed artifacts to balance things is a good solution - just make most of the 'guaranteed' artifacts not 100% guaranteed....will make for a much more interesting game....

What about a guaranteed artifact of a broad type? For example, a warrior boss would drop a guaranteed weapon, maybe skewed towards his/her personal weapon (I am thinking specifically of Trollshaws here).

[teachu2die]

a guaranteed artifact of some sort is fine in my books - the only issue is that the artifacts that bosses drop are sometimes very tightly themed (bill's club, barkwood, etc).
and some of the guaranteed drops are fine - things like the sandworm heart, the silmaril, and obviously the quest-related ones...
but guaranteeing ringil, hammerhand, frost treads, and the barkwood in the first ~20 character levels doesn't leave a lot of room for surprises...

[Susramanian]

I'd love to do away with fixed drops. Imagine how much more eager you'd be to kill Bill (or anybody else) if he dropped a randart. Replay value would jump tremendously.

[Grey]

Would make sense for Bill at least to drop some random treasure item, given the teasing lore scroll. As things stand I don't think many bother with his little mace. (I did use it once actually, and I must admit it was fairly good for the high damage, but the high St req means few get a chance to touch it, and it's not long before it becomes outdated. Maybe if it caused an automatic knockback it would be more worthwhile.)

[edge2054]

What if he had a good chance to drop his club but otherwise dropped a random artifact?

Then if he didn't drop his club it got added to the world artifact drop list?

[teachu2die]

What if he had a good chance to drop his club but otherwise dropped a random artifact?

Then if he didn't drop his club it got added to the world artifact drop list?

i suggested a while ago that most boss artifacts be reduced to 50% chance of drop, i think that would be sufficient to keep things exciting. (edit: although come to think of it, something like ringil should drop with considerably less than 50% reliability)

and agreed, bill's club is pretty underwhelming. if there was the promise of better artifact greatmauls, than berserkers planning on specializing in them could get some decent use out of it. otherwise, you're generally much better off with a steel battle axe or greatsword and a couple points of mastery.

[yufra]

i suggested a while ago that most boss artifacts be reduced to 50% chance of drop, i think that would be sufficient to keep things exciting. (edit: although come to think of it, something like ringil should drop with considerably less than 50% reliability)

Maybe I am too greedy a player, but I want to know going against one of those tough bosses that I am going to get something nice out of it, so I like the 100% guaranteed artifact and having the excitement (or disappointment) being what in the world is going to pop.

[Gwai]

What if after the first dungeons AN artifact were guaranteed, but no promises of which one?

[darkgod]

About artifacts not coming fast enough, I do not want to have the angband syndrom where most artifacts are utter crap, so I try to make each of them special in some way.

About the exp system, it does not display exp worth because the huge, vast and near total majority of monsters provide the same exp, it's a direct offshoot of their level. Only bosses and a few others have special exp values.

As for talent description, what do you mean they are different between G and m screens?? They run off the same code using the same numbers and the same base text...

I also feel that instead of giving so many damned talent trees to so many classes, we need to start to take some away. I'm all for character build options. That's why I love archmages and shadowblades. But how many freaking trees does a fighter need? What about archmages? Do they really need so many options? Why not take the temporal, meta, and survival away, sense in the class descriptions it SAYS that they don't really know anything about those two schools. I know doing that would just let the class catagory talent points go into mastery ups, but then it would LIMIT their options so that not every build has either invisibility/telepathy and essence of speed running all the time.

Ant not all have them. Maybe yours do because you like those, fine, I saw many archmages posted who did not pump those because of their steep cost/penalities.
Why would you want to remove choices?? People have been clamouring, and with good reasons, to get new talent trees for their warriors, why take them away ?

As for masteries, it's numbers, I could make the default mastery to be 3245.122 and the higher ones 3642.768 if I wanted and it would not change anything since then talents would be balanced around those numbers. Currently talents are all balanced around their masteries level and it works. Why break it ? The effort or rebalancing all talents to an other set of masteries levels would be huge and would not change the game in the slightest. (and you'd complain you dont get new shiny artifacts event more)

About robes, they are 5 of them to keep balance with the armours, it helps the probability tables to not screw up mages and other robe wearers too much.

Tidents have been in for a few betas now and they are not common place at all, are they ?
They were made to give nagas a thematic weapon and will be used in some future things I have in mind.

Now this brings up an interesting bit of questions that I have. With the new tool tips added for the character sheet it gives a very generic and vague list of what the saves do, but not how things like telepathy, invisibility, stealth, and levitation is checked.

I do believe in given information to the player, I try to make talents and such as accurate as possible. I however do not think it's wise to tell the player everything down to the math formulas. Does the average player want to know taht the check hit formula used for saves, defense, invis, stealth, .. is:

Code: Select all

	if atk > def then
		local d = atk - def
		hit = math.log10(1 + 5 * d / 50) * 100 + 50
	else
		local d = def - atk
		hit = -math.log10(1 + 5 * d / 50) * 100 + 50
	end

I dont think so

Invisibility: the formula did not change since the first alphas and telepathy is not a check, it always work which is why it's so powerful and not readily available.

Infravision is the same as heightened senses curently.

Shatter: well it insta kills critters and provides damage to all others with improved crit chance, I just tested it it works.

The saves are not against an effect, they are against a source. If a stun comes from a physical attack i'ts the physical save that works, if it comes from magic it's the magical one. Same for others. There is thus no list.

It took what... 11 betas before boots (which were available from beta2 if I remember right) to get any egos at all. Hell, I remember when weapons only had prefixes... It's again, just greatly disappointing that with all the valid and sometimes great ideas that they are added in such small amounts and in such slow paces in comparison to new interfaces, graphics, and other features.

Well please add them, test them, make them not overpowering and send me a patch.
I have a limited time to spend on T4, and without trying to give myself flowers, I think I work faster than most other devs I saw working on RLs, but I *STILL* have a wife, 2 jobs, other hobbies and I am preparing to move to a new place.

[Gwai]

I for one have been very impressed with how fast darkgod works. I am now unemployed except for my daughter and I have been utterly unsuccessful in keeping up with him in my lore-writing.

Thanks dg!

P.S. That note totally sounds suck-up. Oh well, I meant it, so hang the rest.

[madmonk]

I for one have been very impressed with how fast darkgod works. I am now unemployed except for my daughter and I have been utterly unsuccessful in keeping up with him in my lore-writing.

Thanks dg!

P.S. That note totally sounds suck-up. Oh well, I meant it, so hang the rest.

I agree DG's work rate is prodigious!

[darkgod]

/bows

[Final Master]

First I feel that I should apologize as it seems some of my opinions have upset quite a few people. I don’t mean any disrespect or wish to show a lack of appreciation to anyone. Yes, it is very true that this may well be the fastest rogue-like ever designed from the ground up, and I’m sure it will be the most popular once a full release is available to everyone. My ravings, complaints and opinions are just my thoughts made public. Nothing is directed at anyone in particular, so please, do not take offense. I really do mean no harm, I just wish a bit to draw some attention to some aspects that I feel may be a bit overlooked.

Again, let me point out that I understand that all player submitted ideas, such as artifacts, egos, talents, classes, npcs, and graphics are being proposed and submitted between beta development; and that they are not planned for, balanced, coded, or tested in most every case. I know that it takes a lot of time to introduce them to the game, and I know that the people developing tome have busy lives that are much more important than a video game. I simply believe that there is a bit of a lack of artifacts in each release in comparison to other things in the game. The same applies to egos, classes, races, ect.

I am rather surprised to find that the exp system is based almost entirely on the level of the npc. It seems rather simple compared to most the rest of the game. Its fine as is, but I do wish that you could gain some experience from a larger level range of npcs, preferably a new cut off of 10 levels below instead of 5. If this were changed to a level range that is broader than what it is now, more fights are worth something again, and won’t feel like such a chore later on.

I’m also surprised to learn how the various saves work. I really honestly thought that they saved against specific status effects, but to learn that they save against the way the status is inflicted is so much better. It also makes more sense.

The talent descriptions are different in the damage % modifier they show, along with teleportation ranges. For example the G talent screen for phase door may read a teleportation range of 10, but the m talent description man read it as 16 range. I don’t know why there is a varied amount of data here, and I haven’t found a way to change it.

The topic I have been trying to bring up on talents is covering a large array of things. I’ll try to break them down a bit here, but first I would like to direct you to madmonks thread here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=22850 that is talking about a new talent development system.

First, I’ll attempt to completely explain what I want to discuss about the talent mastery levels. It is my understanding that the flavor aspects of the different talent levels are to show the power levels of the various classes that share the same talent tree. I would assume then that the baseline is mastery level 1.00 as it does not modify effective talent levels. I would then go the route that the classes that could be considered the ‘base’ class for more specialized classes that share the same talent categories would then have masteries of 1.00. Probably the best current example is the archmage vs. the cryo/pyromancers. The archmage has access to all the same talent trees as the cryo/pyromancers except for their one specialized talent trees. This makes perfect sense and I agree that it should be that way. However, as the archmage is then the base class, and shares most of the talent trees it has with both cryomancers and pyromancers, I feel it should have 1.00 mastery in the shared talent categories, those being fire, earth, water and air. This is to better show the mastery of the respective ‘mancers in their talent category. I think that this was somewhat attempted by not letting the ‘mancers have access to certain talent trees, which I think is also a good idea, but not a full solution. I suggest the following changes:

Archmage:
talents_types = {
["spell/arcane"]={true, 0.3},
["spell/fire"]={true, 0},
["spell/earth"]={true, 0},
["spell/water"]={true, 0},
["spell/air"]={true, 0},
["spell/phantasm"]={true, 0.2},
["spell/temporal"]={false, 0},
["spell/meta"]={false, 0},
["spell/divination"]={true, 0.2},
["spell/conveyance"]={true, 0.2},
["spell/nature"]={true, 0.2},
["cunning/survival"]={false, -0.1},
},

Pyromancer:
talents_types = {
["spell/arcane"]={true, 0},
["spell/fire"]={true, 0.3},
["spell/wildfire"]={true, 0.4},
["spell/earth"]={true, 0.2},
["spell/phantasm"]={true, 0},
["spell/temporal"]={true, 0.1},
["spell/meta"]={false, 0},
["spell/divination"]={true, 0},
["spell/conveyance"]={true, 0},
["cunning/survival"]={false, -0.1},
},

Cryomancer:
talents_types = {
["spell/arcane"]={true, 0},
["spell/water"]={true, 0.3},
["spell/ice"]={true, 0.4},
["spell/air"]={true, 0.2},
["spell/phantasm"]={true, 0},
["spell/temporal"]={false, 0},
["spell/meta"]={true, 0.1},
["spell/divination"]={true, 0},
["spell/conveyance"]={true, 0},
["cunning/survival"]={false, -0.1},
},

Tempest:
talents_types = {
["spell/arcane"]={true, 0},
["spell/fire"]={true, 0.2},
["spell/storm"]={true, 0.4},
["spell/air"]={true, 0.3},
["spell/phantasm"]={true, 0.1},
["spell/temporal"]={false, 0},
["spell/meta"]={false, 0},
["spell/divination"]={true, 0},
["spell/conveyance"]={true, 0},
["cunning/survival"]={false, -0.1},
},

Geomancer:
talents_types = {
["spell/arcane"]={true, 0},
["spell/earth"]={true, 0.3},
["spell/quake"]={true, 0.4},
["spell/water"]={true, 0.2},
["spell/nature"]={true, 0.1},
["spell/temporal"]={false, 0},
["spell/meta"]={false, 0},
["spell/divination"]={true, 0},
["spell/conveyance"]={true, 0},
["cunning/survival"]={false, -0.1},
},


This change I feel would better represent where the classes focuses lie. Archmages, while the base class and thus are the generalist, are actually better at the utility schools because they chose to not specialize heavily in attacking schools and neglect them. Pyromancers have clearly studied firey and earthy magic more than archmages, and are then perceived as hot headed fast actors that prefers physical armor over metaphysical armor. Cryomancers then follow the image of those that like to line up attacks to trigger all at once, and more prefer long range combat more than medium or close range. Tempests I see now as real heavy blasters that survive purely by blowing stuff up. Geomancers now would be capable of a few different damage types, but would still be rather defensive mages. This would also better balance this class of mage against the other classes, as most all spells are based on effective talent level. Reducing the masteries lowers the power of the spells and that puts them on a more even field with other classes. I feel that this is a good thing as everyone knows that archmages are probably the easiest and strongest class in the game right now.

Tridents ~ I purely assumed that they would be introduced as a semi common drop at some point because they have different material levels. I still assume that. I assume the same thing with whips even though they do not have material levels defined yet. No they are not implemented yet in that sense, but obviously they are planned for some more detailed release later.

Talent descriptions I feel are rather lack luster in the information given, and some do not use a uniform glossary of terms. Usually it’s just repeated typing errors which get reported then fixed, but some varying all across the board, seemingly because there isn’t an agreed term to use. If you are interested in helping draw up better talent descriptions please visit edge’s topic here http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=22847 . Such examples are with the various instances of speed that are mentioned. So far I believe I’ve seen speed mentioned in the terms of ‘global’ ‘movement’ ‘attack’ ‘range’ . I’m sure that these are all different things; however these are purely guesses. I would think that global speed effects all things that involve a speed check, movement is moving in relation to the ‘base’ speed of actors, attack speed is in relation to the base energy that melee attacks use in relation to actors, and range speed I believe is based on how fast bolt projectiles move in relation to global speed. This is important for this kind of speeds to exist in name as it is more descriptive for what affects what. However there seems to be issues with the wording of how speed is displayed, as discussed in this thread http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=21996 .

Coming again to artifacts, it appears that a really good new idea by taxgorian (EDIT: Actually Repton did this) has been suggested and may be implemented by DG by word of this thread http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=22854 . I would like to see this tried out as it would still allow the current flavor to remain smooth, but also let players use what they really want to at the same time. Anyone having anything to add about a way to (assuming here) ‘transform’ the base ‘type’ of artifact to something else, please, give your ideas and opinions on the topic mentioned above.

In that same vein, a very cool idea has been brought up by teachu2die by having artifacts vary in power and ability by who is wearing them. His current example/idea is an axe, that when wielded by dwarves unlock further abilities such as added stats and greater resistances. I really love this idea, and am very glad that DG has decided to try it out as well. I’m a huge fan of the flavor sucker and anything that really makes my character even more MY character is absolutely awesome.

And about 100% artifacts, I DO like them from a flavor point, because what is morgy without his crown and hammer? Why would he NOT have those, and then because of that, not drop them? It just makes sense. HOWEVER, they are a bit too predictable in where you should go and what you should do when to make things easier later because of the drops. With the possible placement of taxgorian’s (EDIT: Repton again) idea to become a solid editor in the game, and maybe the inclusion of the (apparently) much desired random thematic artifacts, this should probably make the game much less predictable, and that of course means more fun.

Now I’ve got some stuff to say about the fact that the game has locked content, and the way most of it is unlocked. If you don’t want to spoil yourself, I’ll color it, but beware, it’s very spoilery… probably.

I actually absolutely LOVE the concept of locked content in a rogue-like, surprisingly! When I first caught wind that there was stuff in the game that I simply hadn’t reached yet (keep in mind, this was beta3 era, almost half the classes we have now didn’t exist then) it frustrated me a bit at first. I’m actually not that huge of a fan of spell casters in most every game I’ve ever played (which is about 22 years worth of experience ranging from most every console made in that time, along with major pc titles as well), but when I heard that I couldn’t actually PLAY them at ALL until I did something... kind of made me chuckle actually. “Why in the hell would he deprive me of content, especially content I probably won’t like, when he/they could just throw it in front of me?” Well, turns out I did like the spellcasters, and I learned why the archmage is locked. It adds more game play to the game, and that’s really what I want. It’s not some trivial ‘do this and you get this, that’s the end of it’ thing anymore. There’s stuff that goes along with it. It’s grown into a full blown ‘I can do it if I happen to get the stuff, but I don’t NEED to do it if I don’t want to’. The fact that the mage quest has turned into that (which I think it was initially designed to be just that anyway) is fantastic. Every quest that is a side quest I should really follow suit, and I like the way that the cursed class unlock as done it as well. It’s an easy fight, the first time you get the class and some money based on how well you perform. The next time you still get the money, and it’s not a small amount either. It’s about a whole dungeon’s worth, and because you know what to expect and how to handle now on your 3rd, 4th, ect try, you’ll get more money because you’ve better completed the quest. Fantastic! I say. I also like the unlocks through general play as well, which would be the cryo/phyromancers of today, reavers, summoners, and wyrmics. The very first class I unlocked was the summoner and when I saw HOW I unlocked the class, I was amazed. Learning by watching... it makes so much freaking sense! And the over time unlocks of the ‘mancers and reaver based on damage types and npc type kills I think is a third very good standard for unlocking more classes (and hopefully races too!). Over all, I would have to say that most of the initial ways that the unlocks have been devised are … not fully there yet, but (so far) they all have been done great as of now. The concept of unlocked content and its implications and uses in T4 gets my stamp of approval.

Unlocking the races so far, which currently are only the skeleton and ghoul, are a bit … unreliable right now. It’s true, I’ve farmed to unlock both (but then deleted T4 after I had some issues with it, which have been resolved) and now have only unlocked the skeleton. I’m not the only one either. It’s purely because of the way they are unlocked, which is to die by one of them. This actually seems really cool and makes sense, but the game play perspective of it has been proven not so good. Fortunately there have been multiple proposed ideas on how to change the unlocking of these two races along with how to unlock further races such as Vampires, Liches ect. that have been seen and it seems changes for these unlocks are being made as well.

I think I’ll wrap it up here so I can post this, and I know I didn’t discuss ‘Cheese! (Molds will win, eventually), but I plan to do a post IV later today to cover up loose ends.

Future topics include

Character sheet/dump information
Zone construction
Not having/having a winner after so long
What I expect from a full release of T4

And a special dedicated post about how I design, level, and make my characters fun in both the game and in my own little world. Along with that, I’ll cover in detail fighters, cryomancers and summoners.

Again, thank you for your time, and as always, if you have anything you wish to discuss outside the game about what I’ve said here, please, PM me and we’ll talk. I’m good about responding the same day as you send it, so don’t be hesitant about it.

FM

Edit: I incorrectly stated that taxgorian came up with an idea on artifacts that was actually Reptons. Sorry taxgorian and Repton, I've changed it now.

[edge2054]

The artifact trade in thread is http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... t=artifact.

Again I have to disagree on your take on masteries because you're not looking at the whole picture.

I understand what you're saying and where you're coming from but what about the other classes? Shadowblades for instance. Do we further nerf their spell masteries down past 1? Does this mean we have to rebalance phase door and teleport so Shadowblades don't have to dump talent points just to get targeted phase door? What about Arcane Blades? Should they basically play as really weak berserkers with mastery .7 ranged spells? Then to go further down the line how about escort quests? Do we drop those masteries down to .5 so they're even less skilled then the hybrid classes?

It's a slippery slope.

Currently classes are balanced around the masteries they have and if it's not broke well don't fix it. Then again, if it is broke (and some classes may be I don't know) adjusting masteries offers a way to bring a class into balance without having to go through and adjust every talent individually.

Anyway, long story short.

Specialists (Which includes Mages) 1.3

Hybrids (Shadow Blades, Arcane Blades, Many other classes that get 1.0 in weapon masteries) 1.0

Escort given .7

Looks fine to me.