I'm not following most of the connections in your flowchart. Questions about it:
Is the progression beta to beta (eg, fixing balance issues from beta 20 in beta 21, then fixing new ones in b22 etc...) or game progression (eg. Fight Bill, get stun resist, fight the Shade, get more HP, fight other stuff, improve more etc...)?
How does giving monsters more HP, infusions, damage etc... (everything there, other than debuff talents) lead to them stunning (etc...) too much? (F=>D)
How does high saves/effect removal/immunties lead to classes relying on CC skills? (D=>A)
How does the classes relying on CC skills lead them to having high immunities? (A=>E)
reduce most impairing effects duration and remove immunity
Moderator: Moderator
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
I was wrong in IRC earlier. I checked the boss files and of the files I checked (probably 75% of them before I got tired of looking at them) I came up with 3 partial and 7 full immunites (roughly 40% of the bosses I looked at). So the number of bosses with partial or full stun immunity is way less then the 90% I said it was.
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
The progression is beta to beta (development) and not game progression. The funny thing is, like you point out, that this has an almost identical effect on the gameplay. The 'arms race' in the development (add more effect -> add more resists) leads to an 'arms race' in the game.lukep wrote:Is the progression beta to beta (eg, fixing balance issues from beta 20 in beta 21, then fixing new ones in b22 etc...) or game progression (eg. Fight Bill, get stun resist, fight the Shade, get more HP, fight other stuff, improve more etc...)?
Oh yes, ty, I am glad you asked:lukep wrote:How does giving monsters more HP, infusions, damage etc... (everything there, other than debuff talents) lead to them stunning (etc...) too much? (F=>D)
F => D means:
If monsters are more powerfully (generally speaking) and if you have to fight 10 instead of 3 and one freezes you for 5 turns without you having resistance, then we will give you resistance instead of scaling the monsters down.
D is give the monsters more damage (F) + monsters freeze daze to much (D). This leads to (A) give the player more CC skills.lukep wrote:How does high saves/effect removal/immunties lead to classes relying on CC skills? (D=>A)
High saves/resistance/immunities are a consequence of D.
Yes, wel actualy it has to be A=>F=>D=>E and then A+E=>Flukep wrote:How does the classes relying on CC skills lead them to having high immunities? (A=>E)
Give the player strong CC => buff the monsters => give the player more resists => most players are immune. => buff the monsters again
This is what happened for example with the prides, an area (or area's) with lots of very strong monsters with heavy CC potential.
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
I still dont see whats wrong with freeze. Not only does it reduce all damage you take, but you are free to try and take actions every turn of the freeze. Whats the point in being able to remove status effects if they only last 1 turn? Wild infusions alone will become obsolete. "Nah, not going to waste an infusion slot because status only last 1 turn. No point." At least with the current freeze you can break out if you can do enough damage but say your wild has 3 turns cooldown and you get froze for 8 turns. You are getting out of the freeze more than 50% early. I say thats a good deal.
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
Lets assume all talents that use freeze are perfectly balanced. This not the point I am making.
Now we make a new class: Lets give him some cool talents.
Suppose we give this class a talent with an effect that significantly reduces strength. Let's call it weakness disease.
This skill can immobilize the player for up to 20 turns (or whatever it used to be) because of the reduced carry capacity.
This is clearly not balanced. There is nothing the player can do. He is frozen to the ground for 20 turns.
Enter wild infusion.
Now we give the player a wild infusion. This cures any one effect without consuming a turn.
The player uses his wild card, and removes weakness disease.
This is what happens! Whether it is freeze, stun, paralyze, weakness disease or whatever!
Let me explain a little bit:
It all started with the creation of the fighter. It was given a cool skill that paralyzes the target for ~5-9 turns.
Then a new dungeon was created. To fill that dungeon we create a skeleton, and we give him the same skill as the player.
Players would stand next to the skeleton at full health, and the next turn the where dead.
They looked at the game log and saw that they where stunned by the skeleton and killed in 2-3 hits that followed the stun.
Then stun resistance was added to the game, and armor with 60% stun resistance was created. Life was good and players thought this was great and the game is now balanced!
Finally at some point stun got fixed. It changed completely. Paralyze was removed and functionality changed.
So you think we removed stun resistance right?
Wrong? Instead, we just said that stun resistance from now on is stun+freeze+daze+flameschock resistance, and we also got confusion resistance and more.
etc. etc.
The biggest problem that still exists to this day, is the fact that these resistances are not capped, and that players can become immune to these effects.
This completely removed the need to balance the talents that cause these effects.
Now let me explain the problem with the wild card as it exists today (wild card=wild infusion, or things like providence, and soon many items that cure mental/magic/whatever):
Lets look at a purely hypothetical and exaggerated combat situation:
Example 1
Snake from beyond the grave uses overpower! on player (recharge 12)
- The player is stunned! (80 turns) The player is frozen (80 turns) The player is pinned to the ground (80 turns) The player is confused (80 turns)
Player uses his wild card (does not take a turn to use) (recharge 11)
- The player is no longer stunned! The player is no longer frozen! The player is no longer pinned! The player is no long confused!
Player hits the Snake from beyond the grave with his sword
- Snake takes 10 damage => hp 590
Snake attacks player!
- Player takes 10 damage => hp 290
Player hits the Snake from beyond the grave with his sword
- Snake takes 10 damage => hp 580
Snake attacks player!
- Player takes 10 damage => hp 280
...
(this continues for 10 rounds until both talents of the player and the snake are recharged)
...
Snake from beyond the grave uses overpower! on player
- The player is stunned! (80 turns) The player is frozen (80 turns) The player is pinned to the ground (80 turns) The player is confused (80 turns)
Player uses his wild card (does not take a turn to use)
- The player is no longer stunned! The player is no longer frozen! The player is no longer pinned! The player is no long confused!
Wild cards could be a very interesting game mechanic, but only when the effects that it cures are actually balanced:
Example 2
Suppose the game throws a stun, a freeze, and a immobile at the player. Each effect is balanced (lets say they all last for two turns)
Now the player can choose when to use his wild card: Will he remove the stun, freeze or immobile? Lets say he waits to use his wild card until he is frozen, and then he removes a two turn freeze.
This is an interesting, but not overpowered, tactical choice.
Most important of all, in example 1 the player was did not suffer an effect for a single turn (despite the fact that the snake had the most overpowered talent over conceived by mankind), while in example 2 the player was actually pinned to the ground for two turns and stunned for two turns.
Now we make a new class: Lets give him some cool talents.
Suppose we give this class a talent with an effect that significantly reduces strength. Let's call it weakness disease.
This skill can immobilize the player for up to 20 turns (or whatever it used to be) because of the reduced carry capacity.
This is clearly not balanced. There is nothing the player can do. He is frozen to the ground for 20 turns.
Enter wild infusion.
Now we give the player a wild infusion. This cures any one effect without consuming a turn.
The player uses his wild card, and removes weakness disease.
This is what happens! Whether it is freeze, stun, paralyze, weakness disease or whatever!
Let me explain a little bit:
It all started with the creation of the fighter. It was given a cool skill that paralyzes the target for ~5-9 turns.
Then a new dungeon was created. To fill that dungeon we create a skeleton, and we give him the same skill as the player.
Players would stand next to the skeleton at full health, and the next turn the where dead.
They looked at the game log and saw that they where stunned by the skeleton and killed in 2-3 hits that followed the stun.
Then stun resistance was added to the game, and armor with 60% stun resistance was created. Life was good and players thought this was great and the game is now balanced!
Finally at some point stun got fixed. It changed completely. Paralyze was removed and functionality changed.
So you think we removed stun resistance right?
Wrong? Instead, we just said that stun resistance from now on is stun+freeze+daze+flameschock resistance, and we also got confusion resistance and more.
etc. etc.
The biggest problem that still exists to this day, is the fact that these resistances are not capped, and that players can become immune to these effects.
This completely removed the need to balance the talents that cause these effects.
Now let me explain the problem with the wild card as it exists today (wild card=wild infusion, or things like providence, and soon many items that cure mental/magic/whatever):
Lets look at a purely hypothetical and exaggerated combat situation:
Example 1
Snake from beyond the grave uses overpower! on player (recharge 12)
- The player is stunned! (80 turns) The player is frozen (80 turns) The player is pinned to the ground (80 turns) The player is confused (80 turns)
Player uses his wild card (does not take a turn to use) (recharge 11)
- The player is no longer stunned! The player is no longer frozen! The player is no longer pinned! The player is no long confused!
Player hits the Snake from beyond the grave with his sword
- Snake takes 10 damage => hp 590
Snake attacks player!
- Player takes 10 damage => hp 290
Player hits the Snake from beyond the grave with his sword
- Snake takes 10 damage => hp 580
Snake attacks player!
- Player takes 10 damage => hp 280
...
(this continues for 10 rounds until both talents of the player and the snake are recharged)
...
Snake from beyond the grave uses overpower! on player
- The player is stunned! (80 turns) The player is frozen (80 turns) The player is pinned to the ground (80 turns) The player is confused (80 turns)
Player uses his wild card (does not take a turn to use)
- The player is no longer stunned! The player is no longer frozen! The player is no longer pinned! The player is no long confused!
Wild cards could be a very interesting game mechanic, but only when the effects that it cures are actually balanced:
Example 2
Suppose the game throws a stun, a freeze, and a immobile at the player. Each effect is balanced (lets say they all last for two turns)
Now the player can choose when to use his wild card: Will he remove the stun, freeze or immobile? Lets say he waits to use his wild card until he is frozen, and then he removes a two turn freeze.
This is an interesting, but not overpowered, tactical choice.
Most important of all, in example 1 the player was did not suffer an effect for a single turn (despite the fact that the snake had the most overpowered talent over conceived by mankind), while in example 2 the player was actually pinned to the ground for two turns and stunned for two turns.
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
The basic premise of what you're saying is wrong.
Classes are not and have never been intended to be balanced against each other -- I recall DarkGod writing a lengthy post about this back when ToME 4 was still in development. Each class is meant to offer it's own distinctive and fun gameplay experience, but this isn't a MMoRPG -- classes can and do differ wildly in terms of difficulty. Cursed and Doomed in particular are specifically intended to be more challenging classes.
If a class is so hard or so easy that it's not fun, that's an issue that clearly needs to be addressed, but "class X is stronger than class Y!" is not an issue.
But that's not the real point of this thread, so to get back on topic:
Marvalis, you're going about this entirely wrong. Your suggestions in this thread are way, way too sweeping and even as someone who only idly follows ToME from an outsider's perspective, I can easily see that they'll never be implemented. Rewriting and rebalancing the entire debuff and immunity system from the ground up at this late stage in ToME's development is absolutely not in the cards (you understand that it would require rewriting nearly every monster and every item in the game, plus a huge number of talents, since they were balanced around the idea that immunity and disabling effects were a big deal?) It's just not a workable suggestion on any level, and you're hurting your own argument by trying to push it so hard.
I'm also not seeing your suggestion as something that would make the game more fun, overall. I mean, fun is subjective, so that's a harder thing to argue (which is why I'm leaning more on the 'this would be totally unreasonable to actually implement' thing), but in general, shorter durations and fewer ways for the player to deal with them equals less game -- that turns debuffs from challenges for the player to confront into automatic penalty-box effects that they just have to suck up. It reduces the thought that players have to put into selecting and hunting down equipment and learning talents by decreasing the number of things they have to deal with and reducing the impact those things have on the game.
With that said, the basic idea that stun/freeze immunity is currently too important is not a bad one. It's your solutions that are wrong, not your complaint. I feel that immunities should stay in the game, but they probably shouldn't be as absolutely vital as they are right now (that's why I made, you notice, a relatively much more minor suggestion earlier in the thread that would allow an alternate way to protect yourself without requiring a complete rewrite of the entire status effect system and everything it influences.)
Additionally, perhaps some new magic items, such as ones with automatic contingency-activated instant charge-consuming effects to protect you from nasty things. Eg. you could have a magic ring that has 100 charge and automatically consumes 70 to cure you of an incapacitating effect instantly whenever you get hit by one, or whatever. This way, you'd have a degree of reliable protection against stun/freeze effects without requiring complete immunity.
Part of the fun of the game, to me, is planning ahead and making contingencies for dealing with various effects. Having freeze and such be extremely deadly (as it is now) but with many different ways to counter it is the best solution.
Last edited by Aquillion on Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
This is wrong, full stop. To wit:marvalis wrote:Let's give him some cool talents.
Suppose we give this class a talent with an effect that significantly reduces strength. Let's call it weakness disease.
This skill can immobilize the player for up to 20 turns (or whatever it used to be) because of the reduced carry capacity.
This is clearly not balanced. There is nothing the player can do. He is frozen to the ground for 20 turns.
Point: Mitigation of status effects =/= resists, or 'wild cards', or saves, but all of them, and the player's awareness of the situation. This isn't a single variant problem, and part of learning how to play T4 is learning how to use all available resources (For example: You've got a ruination staff, wild infusion (poison, disease), and teleport rune. You're hit by a weakness disease and encumbered. Guess which of those three you can use?) as well as avoid the situation or manipulate it to your advantage. Something like that hitting you from the other end of the room? Lure it around a corner and jump it with burst damage/disable. Problem solved. That's just an example, of course, but the point should get across.10:13 DarkGod2 ?? just drop your stuff ?
10:13 *** namad7 quit (Ping timeout: 240 seconds)
10:13 Frumple Or get rid of the effect, boost strength, wear a mule ring...
10:14 Zonk_ Or transmog
Except not. This happened, and only happened, when said skeleton was generated with a massively out of depth weapon; i.e. stralite or voratun two-hander. That particular issue was fixed.marvalis wrote:It all started with the creation of the fighter. It was given a cool skill that paralyzes the target for ~5-9 turns.
Then a new dungeon was created. To fill that dungeon we create a skeleton, and we give him the same skill as the player.
Players would stand next to the skeleton at full health, and the next turn the where dead.
You've got some confusion, here. The reason, particularly, that stun/freeze/flameshock run off the stun resistance is, for most of their existence so far, they were effectively identical effects. They all did the same exact thing. The reason that hasn't changed is simply priority -- it's working fairly well as is, so the legacy effect hasn't been treated yet. That could stand treatment, but it's not exactly a huge issue at the moment.marvalis wrote:Wrong? Instead, we just said that stun resistance from now on is stun+freeze+daze+flameschock resistance, and we also got confusion resistance and more.
Explain clearly why this is a problem, please. There's always gaps in a player's defenses, which get hit regularly. Part of playing most roguelikes (And T4 is among these) is learning how to deal with and mitigate those gaps. Immunity is just one method, isn't the only method, and isn't always the best method.marvalis wrote:The biggest problem that still exists to this day, is the fact that these resistances are not capped, and that players can become immune to these effects.
Correction here, again. It didn't 'remove the need to balance the talents that cause [said] effects', it balanced (or at least moved toward balancing) those talents.marvalis wrote:This completely removed the need to balance the talents that cause these effects.
Except... why bother to remove them at all? It's a single bloody turn -- two, at most -- of debuff, which, unless there were absolutely ridiculous balance changes made to the game (Halving HP gains, removing most defensive measures (i.e armor, defense)?) or the enemy was given enough disabling talents to chain them together indefinitely, is about as much of a threat as your average brown mold.marvalis wrote:Now the player can choose when to use his wild card: Will he remove the stun, freeze or immobile? Lets say he waits to use his wild card until he is frozen, and then he removes a two turn freeze.
This is an interesting, but not overpowered, tactical choice.
In reply to this, there's a reason you have a limited number of accessible 'wild cards' and most of those can't be used faster than debuffs can be inflicted. It's so precisely so that status inflicting enemies can't be completely shrugged off like that.marvalis wrote:Most important of all, in example 1 the player was did not suffer an effect for a single turn (despite the fact that the snake had the most overpowered talent over conceived by mankind)[...]
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
Omg frumple really? I am trying to make a general point and you attack me on the fact that I choose 'weakness disease' as my example?
Are you saying you disagrea that we pretty much all (whoever 'we' is) agreed that stun resistance was needed to get trough the game?
I cannot believe you are arguing this. Yes ok weakness disease was perhaps not the best example.
Yes! You got me on my example! Good for you.
You know Frumple, the truth is you will not be dropping your equipment when you get weakness. You will just use your wild infusion and smile and think how great of a player you are.
Are you saying you disagrea that we pretty much all (whoever 'we' is) agreed that stun resistance was needed to get trough the game?
I cannot believe you are arguing this. Yes ok weakness disease was perhaps not the best example.
This just proves that you do not understand my point. You cannot just get rid of the effect. This is the point. Making it so the player cannot just use his wild infusion to counter everything in the game. I am not in any way trying to prove that there are no other workarounds for weakness, but this is prove that you are missing my point. Also, how much is the STR reduction? If it is really big, then you will have to spend 5 turns or whatever dropping stuff while taking heavy damage.Frumple wrote:10:13 Frumple Or get rid of the effect, boost strength, wear a mule ring...
Now you are just making things up. The old stun was something like a 8-turn paralyze. Freeze allows the player to act (heal, shield). This is a significant power shift. The fact that you claim these are almost identical proves to me you have no clue when it comes to balance.Frumple wrote:You've got some confusion, here. The reason, particularly, that stun/freeze/flameshock run off the stun resistance is, for most of their existence so far, they were effectively identical effects.marvalis wrote:Wrong? Instead, we just said that stun resistance from now on is stun+freeze+daze+flameschock resistance, and we also got confusion resistance and more.
You would remove a two turn freeze if you can, obviously. Why not? You have to assume that the battle you are facing is a challenge. That means that you have to use all your available tools. You just assume the game is not challenging, and then tell me it will always be this way. Your point? If the game does not provide enough challenge that a 3 turn freeze is not significant, then improve the game. The fact that you or whoever else does not want to spend time to balance zones so they are challenging is a really, really bad argumentFrumple wrote:Except... why bother to remove them at all? It's a single bloody turn -- two, at most.marvalis wrote:Now the player can choose when to use his wild card: Will he remove the stun, freeze or immobile? Lets say he waits to use his wild card until he is frozen, and then he removes a two turn freeze.
This is an interesting, but not overpowered, tactical choice.
Yes! You got me on my example! Good for you.
You know Frumple, the truth is you will not be dropping your equipment when you get weakness. You will just use your wild infusion and smile and think how great of a player you are.
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
Now let me ask you a question in return:
Why drop your equipment when you can just use a wild infusion?
Why drop your equipment when you can just use a wild infusion?
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
The 'attack', if you want to call it that, was that you're focusing on a single variable in a situation that has multiple. There was actions the player could take that would break encumbrance. Beyond the weakness disease example, I literally cannot think of a situation where there aren't at least two ways to either get out of or prevent the situation from occurring.marvalis wrote:Omg frumple really? I am trying to make a general point and you attack me on the fact that I choose 'weakness disease' as my example?
It's actually not, as amazing as that might sound to you. A high save build is just as viable, if not even more so. That might change with the upcoming refactor, but even without that stun immunity isn't necessary.marvalis wrote:Are you saying you disagrea that we pretty much all (whoever 'we' is) agreed that stun resistance was needed to get trough the game?
And old freeze did the exact same thing. It was a full stop paralyze, same as stun, thus they worked off the same resistance.marvalis wrote:Now you are just making things up. The old stun was something like a 8-turn paralyze. Freeze allows the player to act (heal, shield). [...]
Because it's not very threatening, plain as that, and there's more dangerous things to save your debuff-cancelling options for. For a two-turn freeze to be genuinely dangerous, it either has to be sequential (chained together) or the character has to be considerably weaker than anything in the current game.marvalis wrote:You would remove a two turn freeze if you can, obviously. Why not?
Except, yanno', I have dropped inventory to break encumbrance, especially when playing undead or yeeks. I've also swapped in +encumbrance items, +str items, popped strength boosting talents, and simply teleported. A wild infusion isn't always an option, especially if you get hit by sequential debuffs (and use the wild to break the first).marvalis wrote:You know Frumple, the truth is you will not be dropping your equipment when you get weakness. You will just use your wild infusion and smile and think how great of a player you are.
Even if it is an option, in reply to your double post, it's often a much better idea to just drop some junk you're carrying instead of using it -- a strength penalty isn't very dangerous compared to some other things that can be dropped on you. This kind of cost/benefit analysis is pretty integral to getting the best effect out of wild infusions.
I'd still like a response to this, if you can spare the effort:
Frumple wrote:Explain clearly why this is a problem, please. There's always gaps in a player's defenses, which get hit regularly. Part of playing most roguelikes (And T4 is among these) is learning how to deal with and mitigate those gaps. Immunity is just one method, isn't the only method, and isn't always the best method.
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
The response is, simply: Adding immunity does not balance anything, it only removes that effect from the game. That is why immunity is not 'just another tool'.
Suppose I'm making a map, and I want to put a monster that causes confusion on that map. But if the players are immune, what is the point?
(And I suppose you will now deny that most if not all players will either be immune to stun/daze or can be immune if they wanted to.)
Right now when facing bad effects (multiple freezes for example) the player just uses his wild infusion. It happens again? Use providence (if you have it) It keeps happening? Just swap to your stun immunity amulet (100% from Limmir if you want too, or just get one of the almost guaranteed 100% stun resist rings).
The truth is that anyone reaching the endgame will have by 99.9% certainty obtained the items he needs to become immune to stun, daze and blind, and most likely also pinning and knockback.
Whenever they meet a meaningful challenge that involves any of these effects, they simply swap to their -effect- immunity gear and it will no longer have any meaning full effect!
Weakness disease? Ill just put on my magic saves items when I get to many of these, or I will use my helm that cures all magic effects in the game, or I can pop my wild infusion, or I can put on my weakness immunity disease. How often will you find players actually dropping their stuff? In the endgame? Maybe in the early levels. It could be this effect or any other, same principle apply.
You know, there is this game called guitar hero.
Game: press red
Player: presses red
...
When you say, in TOME:
Game: here is a magic effect
Player: presses cure magic effect button (or the cure any effect button aka wild infusion)
That is the action-counter mechanic. It is binary and linear.
I know you will now start to argue that it is not linear, that for each talent that you mention there are other ways, and that I am mis-presenting this etc etc. But the simple fact is that most high end character have this binary setup. The are immune and/or are using providence/wild infusions. I do not care if you can also fight your way out of a freeze, or that you can put on a mules ring to counter encumbrance if you are immune (or can be immune) to the effect that causes it in the first place.
When the game makes you do something clever (like in the case of weakness you can either wear a mule ring or drop stuff), then the game is not like guitar hero.
But it only really gets interesting when several effect interfere in the battlefield in different area's and intermingle into unexpected and beautiful results. You cannot have meaningful effects when players are simply immune.
Suppose I'm making a map, and I want to put a monster that causes confusion on that map. But if the players are immune, what is the point?
(And I suppose you will now deny that most if not all players will either be immune to stun/daze or can be immune if they wanted to.)
Right now when facing bad effects (multiple freezes for example) the player just uses his wild infusion. It happens again? Use providence (if you have it) It keeps happening? Just swap to your stun immunity amulet (100% from Limmir if you want too, or just get one of the almost guaranteed 100% stun resist rings).
The truth is that anyone reaching the endgame will have by 99.9% certainty obtained the items he needs to become immune to stun, daze and blind, and most likely also pinning and knockback.
Whenever they meet a meaningful challenge that involves any of these effects, they simply swap to their -effect- immunity gear and it will no longer have any meaning full effect!
Weakness disease? Ill just put on my magic saves items when I get to many of these, or I will use my helm that cures all magic effects in the game, or I can pop my wild infusion, or I can put on my weakness immunity disease. How often will you find players actually dropping their stuff? In the endgame? Maybe in the early levels. It could be this effect or any other, same principle apply.
Really? Wild infusion has a 12 turn cooldown. I do not think anyone would spend 3 turns dropping stuff when he can use his wild infusion. Now you are just arguing to argue.Frumple wrote:Even if it is an option, in reply to your double post, it's often a much better idea to just drop some junk you're carrying instead of using it -- a strength penalty isn't very dangerous compared to some other things that can be dropped on you. This kind of cost/benefit analysis is pretty integral to getting the best effect out of wild infusions.
You know, there is this game called guitar hero.
Game: press red
Player: presses red
...
When you say, in TOME:
Game: here is a magic effect
Player: presses cure magic effect button (or the cure any effect button aka wild infusion)
That is the action-counter mechanic. It is binary and linear.
I know you will now start to argue that it is not linear, that for each talent that you mention there are other ways, and that I am mis-presenting this etc etc. But the simple fact is that most high end character have this binary setup. The are immune and/or are using providence/wild infusions. I do not care if you can also fight your way out of a freeze, or that you can put on a mules ring to counter encumbrance if you are immune (or can be immune) to the effect that causes it in the first place.
When the game makes you do something clever (like in the case of weakness you can either wear a mule ring or drop stuff), then the game is not like guitar hero.
But it only really gets interesting when several effect interfere in the battlefield in different area's and intermingle into unexpected and beautiful results. You cannot have meaningful effects when players are simply immune.
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
And also, the point that I am making, is that very soon we will be seeing more items that cure -type- of effects.
Helms that cure magic effects, gauntlets that cure mental etc. etc. This will only make these effect more trivial and it fits into the cycle as I posted in that picture.
/edit
Suppose the game designer makes a map and tells the player:
"This is a very difficult map. It has many hard encounters where monsters can stun, freeze and daze you".
The designer gives you two items in your hand:
One gives you 100% stun resistance.
The other gives you +20 to all stats.
What would you choose?
All I am saying is: do not give the player this choice (and make sure the effects he is facing are balanced).
Helms that cure magic effects, gauntlets that cure mental etc. etc. This will only make these effect more trivial and it fits into the cycle as I posted in that picture.
/edit
Suppose the game designer makes a map and tells the player:
"This is a very difficult map. It has many hard encounters where monsters can stun, freeze and daze you".
The designer gives you two items in your hand:
One gives you 100% stun resistance.
The other gives you +20 to all stats.
What would you choose?
All I am saying is: do not give the player this choice (and make sure the effects he is facing are balanced).
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
From part of the game. There's roughly two race/class combos I can recall off the top of my head that gets meaningful immunities in the early game (Ghoul 'zerkers or fighters, with stun immunity via berserk or shield wall).marvalis wrote:The response is, simply: Adding immunity does not balance anything, it only removes that effect from the game. That is why immunity is not 'just another tool'.
The negation of dangerous effects as the player progresses through the game ('removing them from the game') is a staple of roguelike design and something you see in pretty much all the major RLs. Again, you've said what is going on, but you've not said why it's bad.
I would deny it because, for most of the game? Not all players will be, and for some players, they never will be. In fact, most -- especially those who aren't specifically gaming for it -- won't be, at least not until the absolute late game. This is why you design a map with status effects that might be redundant versus certain builds. To challenge the ones that aren't easily able to mitigate.marvalis wrote:Suppose I'm making a map, and I want to put a monster that causes confusion on that map. But if the players are immune, what is the point?
(And I suppose you will now deny that most if not all players will either be immune to stun/daze or can be immune if they wanted to.)
If you want to make a thorough map that relies on status debuffs, you design one with multiple sorts of status effects. If you design one that relies on a single one, it's to be expected the player figures this out and works around it. It's also a good thing! The player has learned to recognize the key issue and account for it. Mitigation is the name of the game.
Which says you've learned how to deal with dangerous status effects! This is normally seen to be a good thing in roguelikes. Dangerous thing = find way of mitigation.marvalis wrote:The truth is that anyone reaching the endgame will have by 99.9% certainty obtained the items he needs to become immune to stun, daze and blind, and most likely also pinning and knockback.
Whenever they meet a meaningful challenge that involves any of these effects, they simply swap to their -effect- immunity gear and it will no longer have any meaning full effect!
Weakness disease? Ill just put on my magic saves items when I get to many of these, or I will use my helm that cures all magic effects in the game, or I can pop my wild infusion, or I can put on my weakness immunity disease.
Twelve to seventeen, actually. The absolute best ones have a twelve turn cooldown, but that's only a fraction of the wild infusions you encounter, and there's no guarantee you'll find a twelve-turn CD one with the counters you want. It's also rarely 'three turns dropping stuff' -- even with Turn back the Clock, which tends to drain more strength than a weakness disease, the strength loss isn't significant enough to need you to drop more than one, maybe two on the outside, items. Especially if you're not doing something silly like walking around with max or near max encumbrance in an area with strength debuffs.marvalis wrote:Really? Wild infusion has a 12 turn cooldown. I do not think anyone would spend 3 turns dropping stuff when he can use his wild infusion. Now you are just arguing to argue.
So yes, I'd rather spend 1-2 turns dropping stuff than not have a wild infusion ready when a status effect that's actually dangerous is applied to me.
Clarification and response is not 'arguing to argue,' thank you.
And here we're apparently going to have to disagree. This is not my experience playing T4. The only time it's even approached that sort of binary setup is with incredibly lucky characters in the absolute late game. Are you genuinely suggesting we change the balance of the entire game to fix the balance in <5% (if that!) of the content? You can reference to Aquillion's post why this won't be very fruitful line of pursuit.marvalis wrote:When you say, in TOME:
Game: here is a magic effect
Player: presses cure magic effect button (or the cure any effect button aka wild infusion)
That is the action-counter mechanic. It is binary and linear.
I know you will now start to argue that it is not linear, that for each talent that you mention there are other ways, and that I am mis-presenting this etc etc. But the simple fact is that most high end character have this binary setup.
Then it's good that most players aren't immune to more than one or two major effects, and even then only in the late game, isn't it?marvalis wrote:But it only really gets interesting when several effect interfere in the battlefield in different area's and intermingle into unexpected and beautiful results. You cannot have meaningful effects when players are simply immune.
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
Let me try something different to try and make my point:
Resistance value of items.
Most items that resist damage only resist one kind of damage, or a selection of several, but rarely all. Stun resistance gives resistance against several effects: Daze+stun+freeze+flameshock.
Most of these resistance are lower than those for stun:
On armor, 20% dmg resist is very good, 60% stun resist is possible (perhaps even 100% I'm not sure, I did not check all items recently)
Other items usually have 10-15% damage resistance, for stun this is 30-40% or whatever it is (depends on the item, there are 11% stun resistance items too)
There is not a single artifact that gives you 100% fire resistance (afaik anyway), or cold or whatever other element. There are several artifacts with 100% stun, or 100% confusion or 100% blind resistance.
If stun/confuse/freeze/... are all balanced, then why is there such a large difference between the resistances provided on armor items between effects and damage? Why can you get full immunity with only one item?
Resistance value of items.
Most items that resist damage only resist one kind of damage, or a selection of several, but rarely all. Stun resistance gives resistance against several effects: Daze+stun+freeze+flameshock.
Most of these resistance are lower than those for stun:
On armor, 20% dmg resist is very good, 60% stun resist is possible (perhaps even 100% I'm not sure, I did not check all items recently)
Other items usually have 10-15% damage resistance, for stun this is 30-40% or whatever it is (depends on the item, there are 11% stun resistance items too)
There is not a single artifact that gives you 100% fire resistance (afaik anyway), or cold or whatever other element. There are several artifacts with 100% stun, or 100% confusion or 100% blind resistance.
If stun/confuse/freeze/... are all balanced, then why is there such a large difference between the resistances provided on armor items between effects and damage? Why can you get full immunity with only one item?
Re: reduce most impairing effects to 1 turn and remove immun
Removing or resisting an effect is not the only way to deal with it, and seems to be one of the issues that is not being communicated, despite how often it is said. Most classes have access to multiple ways of dealing with (in addition to removing) these effects. I'm not considering DoT effects because they are not generally being discussed here. I am also not covering -X% damage/def/resistances, for the same reason. The rest of them:
Healing reduction (insidious poison, deep wound, epidemic, healing nexus, maybe Curse of Death): escape, tank through it with reserve HP (and shields), have high heal mod equipment, ignore it and heal at reduced rates (except for nexus).
Immobilize (Spydric Poison, pin, frozen feet, constricted, encumbered, grappled): use ranged attacks (spells, weapons of projection, main talents), attacking in melee (sometimes), teleporting, Battle Call (etc...), tanking through it (with shields and healing)
Confusion (Confusion, crippling poison): run away, try to use a talent anyway (at <100%), tank through it (with shield rune)
Stoned: player is intrinsically immune?
pinned + no healing + 0 defence (Frozen): Break the ice, tank through it while taking 60% damage and immune to gaining negative status effects (and with shields)
Paralysis (Burning Shock, Bind): (for this example, I am assuming 35% stun immunity, giving one turn in three), escape, tank through it (with shields and healing)
30% damage, 50% healing, 50% movement, no cooling down (stun): Do pretty much anything, but at reduced effectiveness.
Silenced/ suppress summon: don't be a mage (or summoner), run away (IIRC, includes probability travel), tank through it (with healing/regen infusion).
Disarmed: be a a brawler or caster, escape, tank through it (with shield rune and healing), use other talents for the duration (war shouts etc...)
Dazed: have enough reserve HP and shield strength to survive two attacks.
Slow: Do pretty much anything, but at reduced effectiveness.
Blind: have telepathy (Track sort of works as well), remember where the enemies were in relation to you, escape, tank through it (with shields and healing)
Time Prison: (no immunity, can only be saved against) You are invulnerable for the duration.
I looked through all of the timed effects, and all of the detrimental ones fit into one or more of these categories. All classes have multiple ways of dealing with all of them (excepting Paralysis, Dazed, and Time Prison), not counting immunity, saves, effect removal, or high damage output (to kill enemies first).
Healing reduction (insidious poison, deep wound, epidemic, healing nexus, maybe Curse of Death): escape, tank through it with reserve HP (and shields), have high heal mod equipment, ignore it and heal at reduced rates (except for nexus).
Immobilize (Spydric Poison, pin, frozen feet, constricted, encumbered, grappled): use ranged attacks (spells, weapons of projection, main talents), attacking in melee (sometimes), teleporting, Battle Call (etc...), tanking through it (with shields and healing)
Confusion (Confusion, crippling poison): run away, try to use a talent anyway (at <100%), tank through it (with shield rune)
Stoned: player is intrinsically immune?
pinned + no healing + 0 defence (Frozen): Break the ice, tank through it while taking 60% damage and immune to gaining negative status effects (and with shields)
Paralysis (Burning Shock, Bind): (for this example, I am assuming 35% stun immunity, giving one turn in three), escape, tank through it (with shields and healing)
30% damage, 50% healing, 50% movement, no cooling down (stun): Do pretty much anything, but at reduced effectiveness.
Silenced/ suppress summon: don't be a mage (or summoner), run away (IIRC, includes probability travel), tank through it (with healing/regen infusion).
Disarmed: be a a brawler or caster, escape, tank through it (with shield rune and healing), use other talents for the duration (war shouts etc...)
Dazed: have enough reserve HP and shield strength to survive two attacks.
Slow: Do pretty much anything, but at reduced effectiveness.
Blind: have telepathy (Track sort of works as well), remember where the enemies were in relation to you, escape, tank through it (with shields and healing)
Time Prison: (no immunity, can only be saved against) You are invulnerable for the duration.
I looked through all of the timed effects, and all of the detrimental ones fit into one or more of these categories. All classes have multiple ways of dealing with all of them (excepting Paralysis, Dazed, and Time Prison), not counting immunity, saves, effect removal, or high damage output (to kill enemies first).