Hi guys! I've been playing the game for a while, but as you can tell from the fact that you have no idea who I am, I only just started posting on these forums. Also, I don't know how to mod. I took a computer science class in freshman year and nearly flunked it so I don't feel great about learning, either. I don't know when I'll have the time to prod at someone else's mod and figure out how to just edit values and words, essentially using their work as a template for my own (this is probably the only way I'll end up teaching myself to make a mod.) So for now I'll use this thread to talk about balance and skill ideas! My goal is to create a very powerful skill line that offers utility for many different builds. Ideally this tree will be theoretically reasonable to pair with a couple of wildly different characters, so that it's not a strictly Rogue or strictly Wizard thing. I do NOT, however, want it to be an Archaeology-esque tree that you'll never max because you just want the one neat utility trick. I plan to make its later levels very strong, so that this tree might potentially be part of what defines your character. My ultimate, ultra-ambitious goal for this mod is to have it be a "lifestyle" skill like Vegan or Vampire in that it radically changes what your character is good at or how they tackle certain situations. That might run counter to my goal of making it actually useable and making it mesh well with other things, though. It will be pony themed. Why? Because I was dissatisfied with "Equestrian Expatriate" and I'd like to try to work the pony flavor for myself, since I don't see the creator of that skill around. So as not to step on Equestrian Expatriate's feet too much, I will pointedly not have a skill representing each Element of Harmony. So I might have more fandom jokes than anything else? We shall see. On to my ideas: It's late and I need sleep so I'll edit when I actually have some.
Why not, sir? Also, be careful trying to make a skill that is very powerful. It's hard to gauge the power of a mod which introduces new mechanics, but making a skill too powerful will kill the fun for many. http://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/know-what-would-be-awesome.2477/ ^ Has some good nuggets of wisdom in it regarding thoughts on mod balance. It also has a lot of random in it; sift through that. I look forward to seeing what you bring to the modding table.
In my opinion, "too powerful" is: -Letting players take "drawbacks" that mean nothing to their character (QiGong strikes me as this, though I've never tried it) -Sidestepping the actual drawbacks of a build (Ninjutsu would be this if it wasn't specifically made to open up a weird concept that most people don't touch) -Being strictly better than something else -Offering a tool that the game was never meant to have (Sonic Rainboom's no-restrictions teleport that drains your mana but can be cast even if your mana is at zero) Again, my goal with making this skill "powerful" is to make it so it offers interesting, defining advantages at the later levels. Being that I'm limited by the game mechanics though, I can't think of what to do to be interesting. Vegan sure does nail the idea of being a "lifestyle."
For the record, QiGong's drawback isn't intended to be a drawback in the sense of "your character will feel the hurt". It's designed to keep you from playing QiGong and 6x Mage skills and thus getting huge damage from the free, fast-refreshing Qi Blast.
Hmm. Yer making me think Staff+Dual+Qi+Emo+Necro+Blood+Wizschool. Maybe Necro wouldn't work out there. Archaeology to be a huge minmaxing jerk? Well anyway, what should I do as far as learning to mod? I did TAKE a comp sci 100 level class even if actually doing my homework for it made me want to throw my keyboard at the wall on a nightly basis. Tags and comments and booleans and shit don't scare me or anything.
Hey, I haven't taken a programming class since I finished my basic C++ back in high school in the mid-ninties, and I just jumped right in and started hacking at the XML until I came up with Bushido. It's not that difficult, especially once you find yourself an XML validator that you can comprehend the results of.
Right. XML validator. Noted. In my experience, the most valuable effects in the game are armor absorbtion, teleporting, pushing, and ranged death- dealing, which I guess goes to show why warriors are so underpowered. The worst effects in the game are getting countered, stepping on traps with nasty DOT effects, and getting corrupted. Only one anti corruption effect that I know of exists, and it's on a shitty skill that's at the end of a shitty tree, so maybe I could have Faust's divine touch purge the shittiness from your gear or something. If only it were possible to have an ability only come off cooldown under certain conditions.
I still don't know what I'm going to do exactly, but I've come up with an idea that I think is interesting. I might end up breaking my vow to not step on Equestrian Expatriate's feet, because making skill levels correspond to characters makes the most sense for this idea... Every time you level this skill up, what it does for you will change radically. For example, level 1 will probably give bonuses suitable for a Rogue, and level 2 will give penalties that essentially take away those bonuses but give something else, like armor absorption and melee power. Level 3 and on are where we'll see active abilities, like teleports and AOE attacks, that help in the deeper levels. Each level will have something that will NOT stay useful if you find yourself suddenly in the wrong archetype's shoes. I'll probably give an on-melee-hit effect, a teleport that debuffs you so it can't be used like SwiftStriker as a fearless charge, a strong AOE of some kind, a strong missile attack that can't be spammed... In short, very good skills that don't make a cohesive build. The problem comes with wizard-ish skills, which will be crazy deadly if you're a wizard, but if I give that level bonuses that make it deadly even if you're not a wizard, then it'll be crazy OP for wizards. So you'll likely want to stop at a level that suits your class before you lose the cool stat bonuses. However, as a reward for sticking with these wild swinging changes, the final levels will start to give all that power back, culminating in a massive mega-buff that hits the character with a crippling debuff afterwards, to make you think twice about when you use it, or at least make you take precautions. Now the question becomes: What class should this tree go under? Rogue I guess? Or I could even use skill bonuses to negate what this tree gives, i.e. penalties that make it as if the tree was never a Rogue tree, and bonuses that make it like it was always a Warrior tree, along with my other ideas for that level. So here are the beginnings of my ideas... 1: Silly Pony. +1 armor, +5 HP, +1 melee power. Start the game with 3 apples and a bottle of Applejack. Whenever you eat an apple or drink cider/applejack, you gain 6 extra health/mana over 6 turns and get +1 (plus some kind of very low scaling) melee power for those turns. You also can't ever eat red meat. 2: Yay. +3 dodge, +6 sneakiness, lose bonuses from last level. Long-cooldown ability that debuffs your own melee stats (still thinking about what those are. Block, counter, melee power?), costs a bunch of mana, and inflicts fear on a shape like the meteor slam mace attack. 3: WahaHA! +3 Sagacity, +1 Mana Regeneration, lose bonuses from last level. 5% chance to find a gem on a dead enemy. Sacrifice a gem to inflict a moderate-weak "turn to gold" DoT effect on an enemy and gain +2 magic power for 10 turns. The effect can stack 4 times. 4: Partying with Pinkie. Lose bonuses from last level and the tree's stats change into those of a Rogue. Ability to teleport up to 3 squares away with a modest cooldown, but you get hit with a major accuracy and melee power debuff for a short time. 5: Seeing Rainbooms. Stats change into a those of Warrior. 20% chance of a bonus attack that hits with 7 different damage types and scales with melee power. 6: Magic makes it all complete. Stats change into those of a Wizard plus you get the bonuses back from levels 1-3. Powerful missile spell with splash damage and a push effect on the direct target, but with a 6-turn cooldown. 7: Dear Princess: Remove all stat increases from the entire tree. Character begins alternating between two wildly different buffs, day and night themed, that are a lot stronger than what was lost. Maybe one offensive and one defensive? 8: Touched by Faust. Access to a no-cost, long-cooldown megabuff that silences and debuffs you when it's done.
With the new scaling effects from the upcoming update it shouldn't be too hard to make effects that are useful for warriors or rogues, but not for wizards. I like how the first bonus goes away, since it seems to be there for extra early survivability.. but then the second bonus is dropped too (and all the rest). So you end up spending alot of points for seemingly small boosts, it does seem pretty interesting, but because you aren't going to get stat boosts for each level, the boosts that you are getting will have to be bigger.. it might also be hard to make every change seem different, maybe you could lose previous stat boosts ever other level? On a side note I just wanted to say that I would use this type of skill tree, it seems really cool even though I don't like ponies that much, and different enough from the other pony skill tree (and pretty much every other tree) that it shouldn't have any conflict.
