"Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...

[jenx]

"Odyssey of The Summoner" has been updated!! (Version 0.3.1)

*** Version: 0.3.1 ~ "Now with more luck, biting, and charisma!"

*** This update features 3 very important changes:
- "Rabbit's Foot" now only removes Physical effects, as well as ALWAYS removing cross-tier effects. We'll see if people will find this talent a little more appealing now that it's somewhat more consistent!
- The character sheet now describes (with MUCH detail) the damage and individual qualities of an Avatar's unarmed attack! This is the first step to adding more clarity to "OoTS".
- The Summoner should now operate correctly no matter where he is. I DEEPLY apologize if, for example, you became blighted and returned to The Summoner, only to find your pleas land on deaf ears

[General]
(CHANGES)
- The character sheet now describes "Natural Attacks". This is just one of many changes to come for improving the clarity of the Avatar's unarmed attacks.
*** This is a fresh new addition. I encourage people to find ways to break it (errors in the character sheet are harmless anyways!)
- "Slyness" now states that it will only function for "melee" attacks.
- "Hydra Toxin" now specifically states "maladies" are not "poisons" (despite checking poison resistance).
- "Hydra Toxin" now explains that the power of the malady is based on the power of the breath used.
- "Hydra Coating" now explains that the power of the reaction is based on the power of the breath used.
- "Sickening Mist" no longer refers to itself as "poison".
- Corrected spelling of "Subterranean". (mini-ahhhhhhh...)
- Moved A LOT of "Multi-Head" logic around. Hopefully, this doesn't bug anything out...
- "Rabbit's Foot" will now ONLY affect detrimental physical effects. However, in return, the chance of removing 0 effects is now ever-so-slightly higher.

(BUGS)
- The Summoner SHOULD now provide ALL of his services at ANY location (except the Battlefield, of course)
- Wild Power scaling for biting attacks now correctly caps at 100.
- Fixed a bug where "they" weren't displaying a message upon being spawned (my bad again)

[Hydra]
*** I have been convinced NOT to change the way on-hit effects work with multi-attacks. With that said, I hope that this is not abused too badly...
(BUFFS)
- Tweaked the "Rapid Attack" code ("Tear Apart" and standard biting attacks). The penalty for multiple attacks is now more consistent (higher damage in general)
- "Feral heads" will no longer increase the rapid-attack penalty (in layman's terms: Hydras with "Feral" heads deal more damage now)
- "Underdog" now rounds up its bonus (slightly less "wacky" numbers, such as +3.1415 Cunning)
- "Tear Apart" will now only shuffle head priorities if you actually have Feral heads (improving damage consistency)

(BUGS)
- Heads that (for some reason) do not attack will no longer increase multi-attack count.
- Some corrections to "Tear Apart" behavior.

[Fire Drake]
(BUFFS)
- Fire Drake (and its Drakelings) now have newer, stronger damage calculation for their biting attacks; They are SIGNIFICANTLY stronger.
*** These changes will apply as soon as you enter the Wilderness

[Ritch]
(BUFFS)
- "Stings" now have 10% Wild Power scaling (from 1 damage power).

Thanks nekarcos

You have taken on board a number of suggestions and I appreciate that.

Time to try out Hydra IV

[nekarcos]

@jenx
I might have sounded frustrated, but I'm always taking notes-- Always.
... Just don't expect all of my notes to be everything that's being said.

[jenx]

Blood of Life - because you have no heads when you die, blood of life brings you back to life but you have no body and no visuals on screen for some reason. i managed to walk around for 25 turns to regrow some heads, but often in this situation you are in deep trouble.

not sure how this should be handled

[jenx]

Hydra Mixture - I am still undecided about this talent.

Is there something about using this mechanic that improves your overall damage, when used in combo with talents 3 and 4 in the tree?

[nekarcos]

@jenx
When you revive from Blood of Life, it removes all your buffs-- Which will also leave you without any heads... And when a Hydra has no heads... It goes completely blind and becomes confused.
Hmmm... So, maybe... There's another way to make use of it...

Hydra Mixture? Oh, it's a VERY useful talent. EXTREMELY useful, really. You are honestly leaving me a bit bewildered that you have never discovered why it's good. If you're not sure what I mean by this, try fighting a Storm or Venom Dragon inside the Noxious Caldera using only Tri-Breath attacks. You will VERY quickly understand its usefulness.

-- Also, one more tip: "Sadistic Calm" + "Hydra Mixture" = HORRIBLY large damage

[jenx]

@jenx
When you revive from Blood of Life, it removes all your buffs-- Which will also leave you without any heads... And when a Hydra has no heads... It goes completely blind and becomes confused.
Hmmm... So, maybe... There's another way to make use of it...

duh duh duh .... next time then

Hydra Mixture? Oh, it's a VERY useful talent. EXTREMELY useful, really. You are honestly leaving me a bit bewildered that you have never discovered why it's good. If you're not sure what I mean by this, try fighting a Storm or Venom Dragon inside the Noxious Caldera using only Tri-Breath attacks. You will VERY quickly understand its usefulness.

-- Also, one more tip: "Sadistic Calm" + "Hydra Mixture" = HORRIBLY large damage

ok, i normally have it on, but the precise advantages are not clear....I'll keep experimenting

btw, I"m lvl 16 on insane RL, your latest edition is a good improvement. T2 dungeons next, which is the real test for insane. if I make it to Nur on insane, I"m normally good through to lvl 50. dying then becomes from carelessness etc.

the "alternative" system to inscriptions will be tested mightily in sandword, daikara, old forest and Lake nur on insane with a Hydra...

[tabs]

How do drakelings get stats? I have one at lvl 11 with 7 willpower and he can't learn a thing because of stat restrictions...

[nsrr]

@Razakai
Avatars have an UNGODLY, TERRIBLY HUGE weakness to stuns. However, I'm really not sure if I'm ready to call this a "weakness". Stuns in ToME tend to be lame-- But they're lame in an "equal-opportunity" way. However, that said though, I gave Ritch absolutely no stuns whatsoever in exchange for extremely-high, bloodletting, life-stealing damage.
Tell me... What do you think? Do you think ToME's difficulty was designed to operate with stun-cures and such? "Physical Wild Infusions" are completely optional, and there are various stun-resistance objects you can get... Plus, there's THAT item you get at the very end of the game...

... I dunno. I don't know how to call on Avatars' inherent stun weakness.

Stuns are a killer. Especially on higher difficulties, when you are more likely to run into rares and randbosses wielding a number of stun abilities. Still, even on Normal, a rare with a stun can easily spell a dead end. It doesn't matter how many tools you have in your arsenal when you can't use them.

I would say ToME's difficulty is balanced toward stun-cures being widely available. A physical wild is nice, but Movement Infusions are the real life saver. Not only do they remove stuns, they also make you immune to them for a few turns. If you don't think that will be enough to overcome your enemy, it also gives you a huge speed boost so you can GTFO and come back with a new strategy (or several more levels under your belt).

As a case in point, lets consider the Undead. They cannot use Infusions either. They get runes, and while a heat rune may remove physical effects, it's not near as good at dealing with stuns as a movement infusion. Runes just do not stack up to infusions.
So, do they get anything to compensate?
Well, skeletons have a free shield, a free heal, and up to ~50% reduced length of detrimental effects, as well as innate immunity and resistance to a number of effects (not to mention a free life). Ghouls have Retch, which deals damage in an AoE, heals the caster, and removes detrimental physical effects each turn for a few turns (on top of 50% stun resist and a number of other innate resistances and immunities).
Does this suggest that dealing with stuns and other physical maladies is very important to the balance of the game? I think so.

So, what do Avatars have? Well, they get Natural Combat and Hoarding Beast.

Now, Natural Combat, as you say, is like a bunch of watered-down infusions you can pick from. It does have the advantage of the passive bonuses from Wild Power, which are nice, but will not get you out of a jam. However, natural combat talents are doubly watered-down because they all share a cool down. For instance... gaining die-at for a few turns would be great, if you could also use Growing Bones to steal some life back or Avoidance to run away. But because it puts all the other talents on cool down... well, it's not ever worth investing in. If Natural Combat abilities had a number of 'charges' of sorts (such that you could use two or three before triggering the cool down, but not the same one more than once), then they might start to approach Infusion level of usefulness.

Hoarding Beast essentially turns infusions into consumables, in the traditional RPG sense. It is my understanding that ToME4 was designed intentionally to avoid consumables. It is entirely based around talents, which is why inscriptions function as talents that do those things consumables were most useful for in earlier iteration of the game, such as healing and debuff removal. As this is a fundamental tenant of the game, naturally adding consumables is going to encourage the types of behavior that removing them was meant to eliminate. The Hydra I had with 12 mindstars, for instance, was hunting down adventurer parties at level 14. I could have kept this up for quite a while, if I had wanted to, hoarding up infusions and money to buy infusions. Doing so would put me in a much stronger position than if I did not. However, I don't like grinding; it is boring and feels cheap. After I had collected enough mindstars to fill all of my jaws, I moved on.

Since they cannot inscribe infusions, having talents that interact with them is nice, so they don't become entirely useless. I've thought a lot about this, and I would suggest an experiment where consuming infusions no longer releases their power, and instead reduces the remaining cooldown on Natural Combat abilities (possibly based on the tier and/or power of the infusion). I think this would encourage players to invest more diversely in Natural Combat, while at the same time reducing the incentive to grind (because, the fact is, you do get a lot of infusions during normal game play, the problem is that the majority of them are useless, e.g. sun infusions).

[nekarcos]

@nsrr
I'm glad you brought this up! Let me talk about some thoughts and yet-to-be-implemented future mechanics.

*** Wild Power = Resource!
It is not yet implemented, but "Wild Power" is SUPPOSED to be a "resource" meter that you would spend to freely activate ANY combination of Natural Combat talents all at once. The loss of passive effects would be gone because the "NEW" drawback would be that you are temporarily giving up Wild Power, which ultimately weakens you as well. The basic gameplay principle would be that you are ALWAYS evaluating whether you need to pop your "desperation" meter or not, whether you're doing it to escape, improve the situation, or to press the offensive.
I have a few complications with implementing this system however, and now seems like a good time to share it!

1. How would one "restore" this resource meter?
It would need to be something unique and thematically correct, yet also "limited" in supply (such that it could not be abused or "waited out" through resting). A good example is the Afflicted's "hate" meter, which relies on the momentum of combat. However, unlike Hate, it wouldn't drain out from waiting. A thought was gaining "Wild Power" for each creature you kill (as though you're eating them), but I haven't yet determined what the ratio of Natural Combat usage is to defeated enemies (such that I could balance this handily)-- This, and it would end up behaving too much like Vim (BLERRGH!! ).
Also-- A note to nsrr: Eating Inscriptions WOULD restore Wild Power by a certain amount, which in turn means more Natural Combat usage. I'll be investigating how to make this work a little more, but you are definitely not far off the mark. I've had this in mind for a long time-- But the nature of things at the moment, this implementation might not be happening until, at the very least, the Melee Avatars come about and I have determined their capabilities as well.

2. To much of mine and everyone else's detriment, I absolutely cannot bring myself to create content without graphical assets.
Graphics are extremely important-- Especially in ToME, where everything is QUITE beautiful-looking. There are a number of creatures, mechanics, and other things I would LOVE to start implementing-- But if I cannot depict them graphically, I can't bring myself to do them right away. For example, I have been asked to graphically depict "Avatar Corruption" as a meter/resource... And dammit. I REALLY want to do this. However, making a "cool" new UI is just out of my abilities. I really don't know how or when I'm going to approach this issue :/

3. This will require a TON of re-testing.
All the study I've previously done with these classes would go down the drain if I were to change the system up too much now. I'm taking things slowly, and I have A LOT of plans. As I've said: One step at a time.


*** Rabbit's Foot = crappy Wild Infusion?
My first step towards "diminishing" the inherent stun weakness was making "Rabbit's Foot" into a "physical" cure instead of a random cure. Still, I can't make this too reliable, because once it becomes a 0~2 cure (or moreso, a 0~3 cure), it becomes considerably reliable. Frankly, I don't want this to happen. I don't want "Rabbit's Foot" to become another "Lick Wounds". This is exactly why all the activated effects are so niche and somewhat unappealing in a general situation.
With that said, I have no intentions of providing Avatars with some sort of permanent status resistance. However, I DO want to make more talents like Hydra's "Thrash About", which has an interesting interaction with Stun/Pin effects in general. The opposite to this is Fire Drake's "Low Flight", which turns Stuns/Pins into a Risk-Reward situation (I, admittedly, have yet to make it a WORTHWHILE risk, however ).
Perhaps I will create more ways for Avatars to improve their saves, perhaps somewhat mitigating the dangers of most physical stuns...

*** Natural Combat - Cooldowns = Problems...
Another thing is, since Natural Combat activates are so "generally" useful, they need to be fairly limited, such that they are only "supplementing" an Avatar's abilities, and NOT comboing with one another (how nsrr mentioned "Sturdy Heart" + "Growing Bones").
Yes... This very much contradicts what I said earlier about "activating multiple Natural Combat talents at once"-- But, if you recall, the "potency" of Natural Combat talents scale on "Wild Power", so each activation would have diminishing returns. No worries, this is all thought out.

*** Inscriptions for Avatars = Potions ... Oops.
About Hoarding Beast turning things into consumables... Would you believe there was a point that it didn't activate Inscriptions... AT ALL??
This was a VERY recent buff I gave it-- About 2-3 weeks before the release. The "original" effect was a heal for [100 * Tier Level]... But, before even THAT, it didn't even heal you... It only increased maximum life and removed corruption.
Yes... It haunts me constantly that I've essentially turned Inscriptions into "disposable" items-- But this was under the pressure-filled alternative of Inscriptions just being bits of free HP that randomly showed up in dungeons. I wanted to give them a meaningful, but timely usage other than "oh, that looks tasty-- MUNCH!"... But alas, looks like I fell into an equally devious trap: Now all I've done is turned them back into potions...



Also, a closing thought (I'm assuming everybody is reading this)...
... Guys, now that we've hit the 2 week anniversary of this add-on, I think I can safely assume people know "most" of the secrets this add-on holds. Would anyone be in objection with me finally spilling the beans about a few things here and there? I'm not going to go nuts. I'll still be restrained about what I revealed but... Ah heck! Here's a few good examples:

- Guys, I have been wondering how people feel about the "Lifelink" mechanic that gets introduced... Any reactions? What did you think? I want to hear from everyone about it.
- Also, has anyone become "fully" corrupted yet? Have you discovered what happens to an Avatar that interacts with blighted energies too much...? Again, I want to hear about this and any reactions.
- There is still A LOT underlying about these classes, but I have heard very little about what people are discovering. Maybe it IS time to start that spoiler thread... Where should I make it?

I want to hear from everyone. Please, speak your mind!

[tabs]

*** Rabbit's Foot = crappy Wild Infusion?
My first step towards "diminishing" the inherent stun weakness was making "Rabbit's Foot" into a "physical" cure instead of a random cure. Still, I can't make this too reliable, because once it becomes a 0~2 cure (or moreso, a 0~3 cure), it becomes considerably reliable. Frankly, I don't want this to happen. I don't want "Rabbit's Foot" to become another "Lick Wounds". This is exactly why all the activated effects are so niche and somewhat unappealing in a general situation.
With that said, I have no intentions of providing Avatars with some sort of permanent status resistance. However, I DO want to make more talents like Hydra's "Thrash About", which has an interesting interaction with Stun/Pin effects in general. The opposite to this is Fire Drake's "Low Flight", which turns Stuns/Pins into a Risk-Reward situation (I, admittedly, have yet to make it a WORTHWHILE risk, however ).
Perhaps I will create more ways for Avatars to improve their saves, perhaps somewhat mitigating the dangers of most physical stuns...

Wait, something with 33% (or 25%) failure rate is "considerably" reliable in your book? If I had a friend who let me down a third of the time he'd be considered far from reliable...

[Micbran]

Just what I want: luck in a tactical game. Especially considering how powerful stun is.

[nekarcos]

@tabs

Wait, something with 33% (or 25%) failure rate is "considerably" reliable in your book?

"Reliable" in the sense that you might actually start trying to use it whenever you're in a bind

The design behind "Rabbit's Foot" is something you use when the situation looks bleak and all other options are exhausted (IE: 90% of the time when you're "Stunned" lol)
So, why not throw your fate to the wind if you already feel the situation is out of control? There's nothing to lose afterall-- Except maybe even more luck.


@Micbran
Alright, alright... I've heard this same sad story a bunch of times already...
I get it. You're frustrated with being stunned-- But frankly, stuns are STILL a problem, even if you weren't an Avatar and had wild infusions at your disposal. I feel an important strategic decision (for both avatars and non-avatars) is simply trying to avoid the situations where you know something's going to stun you. After all, most stuns come in the form of melee-ranged talents-- The rest are usually manageable because they're nowhere near you anyways.

Some advice from me about how I personally deal with stuns-- "Elusiveness" is AMAZING for waiting out long stuns because the movement speed bonus it gives FAR overpowers the movement speed loss that stuns cause. It also lasts 3 turns (instead of 1) and DOESN'T break when using talents! Just always make sure you have an open escape route, and "Elusiveness" can be your best friend against mostly any stun.

... Oh, so what do you do if you're a Fire Drake and have Drakelings...?
Hah! I make THEM take the stuns! It's not like the AI understands how to save them for the REAL problem (me)

[rexorcorum]

2. To much of mine and everyone else's detriment, I absolutely cannot bring myself to create content without graphical assets.
Graphics are extremely important-- Especially in ToME, where everything is QUITE beautiful-looking. There are a number of creatures, mechanics, and other things I would LOVE to start implementing-- But if I cannot depict them graphically, I can't bring myself to do them right away. For example, I have been asked to graphically depict "Avatar Corruption" as a meter/resource... And dammit. I REALLY want to do this. However, making a "cool" new UI is just out of my abilities. I really don't know how or when I'm going to approach this issue :/

You know, you can always ask around . I like doing some addon community work from time to time myself, but there are other people who are making graphics as well, coming and going.

P.S. Actually I'm working on the OotS unscaled pics as my daily warm up routine, so they should be ready in a couple of days

[nekarcos]

@rexorcorum
It wouldn't feel right tasking people to do my own work. Plus, the moment this becomes a non-solo effort, it will grow a little larger than I think can be managed...

Though, if anybody DOES want to contribute work or offer help (like what you're doing right now), I will support you in absolutely every way that I can, and you will CERTAINLY be credited for it-- With MUCH lavish--
... But, with that said, I definitely don't want to make plans around work that isn't mine because it would make the workflow a lot less consistent (which is probably the best thing I have going for me right now )

Thanks though, I want to add. I appreciate your suggestion-- And don't worry, I AM considering it... Despite everything that I just said...



Edit: For anyone curious about what exactly my "coding" workflow is like... You can take a peek into the code of "Odyssey of The Summoner". I left SEVERAL markers in it that indicate "issues" I have yet to resolve/correct, but can otherwise be left alone. Low priority is marked as "@@@ <--", while medium priority is marked "??? <--". "High" priority issues aren't included because they're spoiler-ish, content-related stuff. Do a text search for those tags and you'll see just a small portion of what still needs to be done.

[nekarcos]

Opened a new spoiler thread: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=46651

If there's any issues/concerns you want to talk about/report, you can put them there. However, don't be afraid to describe bugs/issues you encounter in this thread either-- I suppose the only exception to my "no spoilers" rule is when "the thing" is breaking the game to the point of becoming unplayable or something