Official Expansion Pack Beta Thread/1.0.8 Beta Thread

Gnomes don't seem to be doing any damage, even when I have no damage reduction stats.

I'm getting brief lag spikes when I open certain doors. It's like the lag spike you get from opening into a monster zoo, except that it's not accompanied by a music shift and it isn't like there's multiple monsters or anything on the other side.

Interesting... I just found a Burnt Out Wand, flagged as a reagent. So, is the reason why wands don't become Burnt Out Wands when they run out of charges a balance thing? Seems a little illogical, though...?

Hm. After I windowed out to write that last note and then windowed back into the game, my framerate in the game took a major hit.

...why do Pirate Training Breeches add Magic Power? It's not even a Pirate-related stat...

 

Most of the monsters don't have stats yet and so their attacks are something like (or in this case are) 1 blasting.
I'm assuming they're working out some stuff with the wands considering there's that and as of right now two stats for wand (affinity and wandcraft, both which do nothing, wandcraft is the shown one though)

I'm not sure what the cause of this lag is but it's affecting me to. I'm getting massive lag spikes for stairs as well, particularly at low floors.

And another bug, when monsters have multiple statuses appended to their description (eg fear and root) then when one is gone they both will be.

 

Hmm I just got a 0 priced lutefisk cube in a dispenser as well as a 3 charge burnt out wand. First one I can understand, but is the second one intended? Do they have a different use now?

 

I guess the reason why Diggle Plague costs 0 Mana is because it's supposed to be spammable, but it looks a little weird to have it have a Mana cost (even, or perhaps especially, if that cost is 0) when nothing else in the tree does. Is that because the actual cost isn't implemented yet? (And, for that matter, the abilities in that and other trees that have a cooldown of 1 turn?)

 

Yes, it quite obviously is.

 

The 0-1 cooldown and costs I would assume it's for testing purposes, or maybe they are balanced like that. I find it a bit weird though that I can shoot acid every turn.

 

Dunno if this is new, but if a monster is running from you in fear and it's two squares away (ie: XOY), you can click the monster and you'll step a square up to it and attack it before it has a chance to step away. I kind of like it that way, but it's not really fair to the monsters.

 

Unusual line-of-sight behavior, probably due to the aforementioned terrain bug (or, in other words, screenshot proof of the bug):

Well, then I stand by my other point that it seems weird that the one ability in the tree will cost Mana while the rest are cooldown based.

I think the "click to gain an extra move" bug has been around for a while.

 

Well that's again part of the thing I mentioned a bit earlier about casting while moving and walking onto monsters. It's all part of the same bug. You're just attacking before the turn from moving ends, thus getting an attack and a move at once, but passing two turns after that.

And it doesn't necessarily cost mana, when no cost nor cd is set it shows zero mana. It may surely be cooldown based but they never set one yet and so it shows up as zero mana.

 

IIRC, some other of the new abilities are entirely cooldown based and show no cost.

Also, I just got to see the changes in some of the old skills. So far they sound awesome, there is a bunch of skill trees I deemed useless before, now they may even be core on some of my builds

EDIT: hmm... I just noticed spawning of the new rooms is a bit weird. My first 2 characters found about 10-15 rooms type A in the first floor, 0 type B. Now my new character has found no type A rooms at all, but I've been through 6 type B in a row

 

I said when it doesn't have a cost or a cooldown it's shown as zero mana. And a ton of old abilities are entirely cooldown base.
Of course most of the old skill tree changes have the same 'this skill isn't implemented' problem.

 

Found a bug with piracy at start (or I believe it to be)
It doesn't show an initial level given (assuming it should be rogue)

 

That's a bug with all the enchantment skills at the moment, they don't give levels.

 

Werediggle and Emomancy are really fun and work with a lot of builds. Vegan seems good for survival? Haven't looked much into it yet. For Piracy I'll try to get a dual sword swashbuckler character tomorrow and put points into it, see how it goes. As for Demonology, I haven't touched it either past the first skill, Descriptions in the book are vague, so until I do a run leveling only demonology I'll have no idea.

About the Hidden Fun Stuff, I'm not entirely sure what you mean, there is just so much awesome content I can't tell appart secret fun from the regular fun stuff

 

Piracy I can see working in most builds also- at least on the 2nd skill, countering everything for 5 turns is ridiculous, especially for a mage.

The teleport switches personally, I think they're kinda annoying, especially if you have a low mobility build.

 

I think it would be cool if there were blue colored satanic glyphs in place of the leavers that teleport you around rooms that have separated sections. It gets annoying having to walk over and click on the leaver every time.

I like the 50/50 chance leavers that disappear if you pick the wrong one.

Love Will Teleport Us Apart sometimes gets enemies stuck in walls. Also, the AoE from My Chemical Explosion doesn't seem to affect mobs walking into it until they walk all the way across it.

Liking all the new enemies I've been seeing. The earlier floors feel a lot less dreadful than they did before.

 

So these are my opinions, I haven't played that much with these so some of this is just theorycrafting. So detailed analyses in walls of texts lie below:

Werediggle is just awesome, the way the stats work I feel it'd be better on someone with just smithing and procs rather than a pure warrior. Especially considering it's a rogue skill this seems like it'd turn rogues into temporary warriors, depriving them of skills but giving them brute force. I find it odd that equipment works but no bonuses from skills, especially trees for weapons, work. Yet at the same time I still get my hit buffs. I'd really like if even just the weapon skills applied. This does little for mages though so really I feel it finds a good niche but could be useful to a large number of builds. I really feel that non-edible/drinkable items shouldn't be able to be used in this. The last skills have some utility in a renewable food source and a dig, which is nice and makes investing in the tree worthwhile. The last skill would need to be useful because investing so many points for something that's only up 60% of the time needs to be worthwhile. Personally I believe it should be a very long cooldown skill that can be used in diggle form (or potentially out of it, it would transform you) for dealing with difficult circumstances. Maybe a strong heal over time with large offensive boosts and resistances. The diggle form buff would also be refreshed.

Emomancy has huge amounts of utility. A monster blink as cc for really strong single monsters. Level 2 is a heal which is always nice, even with a small debuff. Level 3's chemical cloud is probably the least useful. L4 Silencing Cloud. L5 Permanent? glyph that potentially paralyzes, does damage, causes a massive debuff and pacifies monsters. L6 Mark gives brittle but decent defenses, with some resistances for the odd damage. Overall it's probably not that good. And Depressing Elemental Blast is a beam damage and pacify, but overall is bad.
So it's really a good CC and support skill, and I like that. I want to see some other skills (eg Astrology) made to be able to be support skills that compete.

Killar Vegan I haven't done that much with but free fruitful staff to vegetables is nice. It's kind of annoying that it benefits melee against plants (and only at L1) but hurts it versus animals severely. And considering the first floor consists of many diggles and lutefisk, that's something of a problem to melee characters. And that fact that it should restrict your diet makes it seem rather bad personally. Yes you get free fruit but at the cost of all the meet you could find, and only from direct melee combat from plants. The stats it gives are nice though, L4 gives a passive blinding area hit chance, this could probably help for aoe melee but requires much of a devotion with little benefit to combat at earlier levels. And for ranged characters it does very little. The only time it helps is for aoe meleers (this seems to be getting some love with dual wielding). Level 5 Vegan gives an uncurse on 200 CD. While this is nice, this could be done with a lower cooldown by someone with a starting point in wands and a zodiacal wand. That might not be true depending on what you're doing with the wands but it seems to be outclassed for a five point investment.

As for Piracy, I haven't done that much with it but it seems pretty nice from what I can tell. Plunder is a steady income of gold assuming it scales somehow. Swashbuckling is decent for a skill, it could probably serve to be just a tiny bit longer. I'm not sure though because it's a strong offensive and defensive buff that counters all melee. It's offensive power reduced in effectiveness by dodge though. Thus it'd be much worse on a pure rogue. Corsair mists has a pbaoe pacify and confuse. Then a buff to sneak and dodge. Personally I don't feel that that's that useful. Considering you have swashbuckling and are probably a melee character to have this skill, it's not that much of a threat to have enemies in melee. I'd rather have it be a missile so you could throw it at casters to keep them from attacking you. The buff would thus only activate if you were in the smoke itself but I think throwing it would be much more useful. The Black Spot seems like it'll be really good for taking down single targets, I'd have liked to see something like this in Assassination instead of procs but anyway, this seems like a good cd anti-defensive buff for taking down tanky enemies. I can't say anything bad about this, but I haven't tested it yet. And finally Broadside. The first thing that irks me is the long cooldown. It's probably not necessary. It's a missile that causes a small bit of mundane damage with a knockback, plus it gives a free projectile. The solid shot item isn't the best throwing item but has some damage. The swashbuckling pirate just probably won't be the person throwing a lot but it applies melee power at a range so it's not bad. I just don't feel this is that useful as is. If you lowered the cooldown it would have utility for it's long-ranged knockback and damage without the free item being overpowered.

Demonology is kind of odd how it changes halfway through, but I like it as it adds to the flavor. The problem with the first half is just the number of demons. There's barely any, unless your job is to piss off shopkeepers you won't see a whole lot of demons (speaking of this, the spawning rate for collectors seems way down, this is intentional right). Turn Demon especially doesn't do that much against demons, other than cc them. When you're facing multiple it does nothing when you're facing one it doesn't really help much other than moving them away from you. I guess if you're trying to get one from a group of enemies. I'd prefer something that would bless a tile with anti-demonic magicks or something to that degree so it's useful against multiple demons. Because right now while the cooldown keeps it from being overly powerful against individual demons it makes it useless against multiple. Fervor of the Flagellant doesn't seem too good but I can't quite tell. It simply helps fight demons at the cost of temporary -2 max health. Resistances and righteous damage are always nice but I don't know how it works in game. The same problem of too little demons applies though. Celestial Circle right now just does righteous damage. Of course it seems like you want to have a buff, which I like the idea of. So it requires that you stay still but gives boosts while you stay on it. Especially if monsters get boosts this actually seems like a nice unique idea because it has risks and rewards. It doesn't relate to demons (unless you make it instead smite them or something) so it doesn't fit as much. It makes more sense in astrology personally, given that skills lack of use and the style of this skill. And here starts the descent into being demonic. Abyssal fire seems nice as just a firey melee buff. The onhits are kind of meh. There's a burn and a weak flamefield that doesn't scale. Infernal Contract obviously is not finished. No, You are the Demons could always remain as a stat boost, considering this whole expansion crowds our skill bar. I'd want to see a thematic demonic transformation somewhere in here given the new polymorph and everything. Flames of the Hellforge is nice, a corruption remover. But it requires a ton of skillpoints as an investment, so many that it's just not feasible as those could be spent on skills to improve your combat directly. And it destroys your stats a bit when you cast it. So overall, Demonology just seems kind of bad. Demons are quite few, there's no spot this fills at all. It has a mixed up set of skills that doesn't offer much utility at all. I feel that while this is nice thematically it probably needs some redesigns to be viable.

 

Pure theorycrafting here quickly looking at unfinished skills

So, Big Game Hunter to start. First is Butcher, an equivalent to Vegan's harvest, doing slashing to animals for free meat. Nothing to say about this, seems rather solid, damage and the occasional free meat. Release the Hounds is a temporary horde summon. I have a feeling this will have more defensive than offensive uses, and is going to be a really strong ability. It will help in dealing with larger hordes of enemies and I feel it will be very strong and thus should not be usable often at all. I'd put this on a long cooldown. Tracker is just a set of stat boosts. EDR, crit, sneak and sight. I have a feeling this skill will be almost universally taken over perception because the bonuses are better. Trophy Collector as some sort of corpse-eating zorkmid/item reward will be nice as a gold booster or item source (depending on what it creates, maybe a bloody taxidermic shield with semi-randomized stats?). The Most Dangerous game is bleeding out which then stacks with weapons. Then it gives more sneak and sight, again replacing perception. I was really hoping for some see blood/bleeding enemies through walls thing here. That could be better than sight radius and would distinguish it from perception. But as it is right now it's a melee utility skill with vision boosts, edr, crit, sneak and procs, with release the hounds which may be a very nice skill regardless of the strength of the monsters.

Hermeticism from what I can see is kind of odd. The later spells drain stats permanently (Cube of Souls by an insane amount), while the first give some defensive/utility abilities. Triangulon is a missile reflection buff which can never not be useful. I'd hope for this to have a long duration, smaller reflect chance, and maybe some passive reflect. It's really not that useful in anticipating because unless you get swarms of casters you can't know for sure if any single enemy will cast. Voorish Sign doesn't do a whole lot, it lets you see invisible things but really doesn't seem that useful. Perhaps if it let you see fake walls or something like that. It doesn't fit with the other skills as far as the type of effect goes either way though. The Ring of Asmodai summons a djinn. This basically means it's a spell to summon a meatshield. You probably just wanted to use that icon didn't you. And unless charmed monsters become able to cast this is a bit useless. The Lantern of True Appearances transforms a monster into a weaker one, which is nice. It's essentially single target cc, reducing a monster's strength. I hope this has a limitied duration or isn't that strong, or else it will be cast on every out-of-depth monster. Bosses should probably remain bosses either way though, changing only their base stats and not regenerating any. The Philosopher's Stone recharges all abilities at the cost of a permanent 5 max mana. Ouch that cost is a lot. Yes this is a lifesaver ability but it already costs a turn, and could have a massive cooldown or temporary debuff instead. That's just a huge cost for that. The Trismegistron cleanses an artifact for the cost of 5 max mana permanently, and while Demonology's Flames doesn't cost that much this is a lower skill level and in a more useful tree. This is nice but the cost is again a bit steep but not too much. The cube of souls. So this is an evade death ability that teleports you somewhere in the dungeon at the cost of half your max health and mana. This is really nice of an ability, but at a high cost. It's nice if you really value your character but the fact that you survive as rather broken is bad. I'd prefer a more flat decrease rather than half. Especially if it includes skill bonuses that's just brutal. Dying might be better off than surviving like that. You'd save time. So overall this is a support skill with a mage theme that's actually good on warriors and rogues that don't use mana, but then those are delayed until far in. And since it has a mage theme that actually decreases it's usefulness as it'd give mage levels which makes it worse on a rogue or warrior. A mage has no use for this, their abilities generally don't have cooldowns, they don't need to worry about casters that much, and other skills they'd take anyway can stop casting. Voorish Sign isn't that bad for them if they have no rogue skills. The Djinn is helpful. The corruption removal is near useless as they shouldn't be in melee and corruption traps which can be avoided aren't that common. The soul stone is equally useful to everyone but I just don't see the use in it.

Magical Law is the last skill here. The first ability is field of damages with a pseudo-midas to all spell damage against oneself. So this is just a gold collection ability like plunder and the stats will really determine it's usefulness as it's not that often it will trigger. Legalese is just damage so little to say on that without numbers. Sigil of Ambulence Chasing has nothing. Confiscate Evidence is a long-ranged pickup but overall I see no usefulness in it. A teleport suffices and most isolated items can be reached with knockback as well. This could be placed earlier, but as is has less utility than other ways to grab items on an island, as it can only grab items. Rune of Objection is a debuff negator. It's usefulness is marginal as it's mostly a I stepped on an acid trap spell. I'd rather have it just negate the last spell on you, rather than debuff. Writ of Counterspelling, this is pretty nice but the actual number of times it will happen during which you can fling it (ie not from traps) it won't come up much. So this is pretty much useful to a non-mage, as it's a skill tree for dealing with magic. Mages can cast stronger spells than they would reflect and have easier ways to do some things it does. So basically it's mage-hate for non-mages. I can't say anything bad, disregarding two unfinished skills.

So that is my analysis on every last skill in the expansion, implemented or not. It is so long that the board made me split it into two posts. It took me maybe two hours or so.