Come Bitch About Skills! [Skills Rebalance Brainstorming]

Repeat after me: "Skill rebalance".

Now tell me how does "skill rebalance" pertain to not being enough of some type of item.

A bunch of buffs, because if armour penalty scaled with your skill tree's progress, people would want a smoother progression than "-5, then -2".
Either way, you'd still have to place triggers on every piece of heavy armour in the game, both basic and all expansions, and in mod-added pieces of heavy armour too. So the solution, while possible to code in, if far from elegant.

Every skill tree, because otherwise crossbows' critical hits would work normally and not the way you propose them to if you didn't have that particular skill.

And just end it. We can already see that your idea will get very convoluted before you even get near where you want to be. Just take "we can't do it with the hooks we have now" as an answer and if you really want that change, go to the suggestion area and write about that to Nicholas as he's pretty much the one who can add hooks we would need.

Spoiler: But for those who really want to know:

You'd need two triggers, one a crossbow trigger that would have to be activated first, and one a critical trigger.
Crossbow trigger would give you a buff that would disappear at the end of your attack.
Critical trigger would activate the desired effect (two triggers, one activates the "buff" you want, and the other activates additional attack effect that scales with EDR) and remove the dummy buff at the end.

But that is a shoddy solution.

Erm, what?

I think it's more about people thinking of different "blood magics". There are some fantasy settings where blood magic pertains to souls rather than blood, and the one I see here is a mishmash of both concepts. Not that it's bad or anything, since the skill trees are supposed to be more about theme and mechanics rather than matching some particular definition of what something is.

 

Nerf/Buff Golemancy. break wall/make wall is useful. but other skills are.. meh.. also mustache(why mustache?) overpower(breaking game) early game/machine useless. Machine hp scales to magic power and let it use magic(i didn't test it but i think this may work. every turn 90% chance to charm target.if fails it use magic(machine should have 100% chance to use magic when hes not pet)(rage or lightning etc)) and it should use more mana when use it -> drink and wait 'till mana up. seems abuse able. so i think it needs duration

Necromancer nerf when use it with Celestial Circle(+9 necro and 70% resist) or not. i dunno this should be nerf. debuffs cannot resist right?

What is blast effect A? damage scales to melee power? if yes : Hand of belimawr deal too much damage if not : it seems too much weaker than magic steel except fire resist. but magic steel still gives 2 voltaic resist but i'm not sure it should nerf or buff because both are useful for additional damage. just saying 5 tier magic weaker than 1 tier magic.

i think this already suggested. change Astrology's brittle buffs

Demonology to mage or warrior(why Demonology is rogue? also there's nothing for rogue except penalty), if warrior : nothing need to be change if mage : remove demon form debuffs, Turn in to slick or lich make powerful magics on demon form. if rogue : Just remove Celestial circle's Nimbleness Debuff

Et tu scales to something but not magic power. or just turn this into mage so gain full advantage from sneak(savvy) and magic power

Vampirism eh.. it looks well balanced as wizard but why tooth scales to magic power.. never mind

Sword : overhau really scales to nimbleness?

Axe overpower and Where's additional effect for sword? chain sword or Dwarven sword would use Threshing i think. but i don't like (only used it for archer) craft so hard to say

Edit : Skill damages reduce by per armor, another way to nerf heavy armors

You are so.. Conservative!. but still i think place triggers on every piece of heavy armor is not hard thing. gloves has 3 heavy armor, pants has 3 heavy armor, shoes has 5 heavy armor. armor has somewhat more but copy/paste is not hard (unless pedia don't showing expansions) Edit : suggesting

I think Critical crossbow shot only deal 1 per melee power unlike melee critical attack. if so, It will feature for archery who knows how to use crossbow. but i will suggest this. Edit : Suggesting

I don't know about fantasy so can't say much. so agreed.

 

Actually, I'm simply someone who has almost succeeded at creating a faux weapon proficiency skill tree, and with all the code I saw because of that, I know that you'll need triggers on both affected items and corresponding skill tree. And since armours don't have a corresponding proficiency skill tree, anything that would work depending on their presence would be a "faux proficiency" skill tree.

That being said, I might appear as a conservative one because of that, since I set my code on fire so many times with it that I now know better than to try some things. And I know that if you have time, creating a faux proficiency skill tree isn't difficult at all. No, the problem is compatibility with the game's native content and any mods that don't have versions compatible with such a rewrite, which is something that can only be circumvented by creating a whole new weapon/armour class.

That is not to say I don't like the idea of heavier armours reducing nimbleness more and becoming less cumbersome as you get more proficient with their use. Anything like that is good in my opinion.

Spoiler: For those who want to know what the "almost" in "almost succeeded" means:

It works, but I need either "triggeroncast" or "castBuff" triggers working on items to make it work the way I want it to. That is not to say I can't rewrite it instead, but it's far from the preferred solution as it is supposed to only work when you cast spells unless you take the corresponding skill tree.

Also, it's for Heimdallr.

 

Difficult? No. But it's not worth the time needed to implement, and it is impossible (barring some theoretical mod standards conventions that will never happen) to implement everywhere. What you suggest would make core armors specifically superior to mod armors, but only when using Master of Arms. It's kind of a big deal.

 

I fully endorse the "tons of procs on succesful block" motion for shield bearer. As to why this has not been done before, i do not know.

Personally, I always thought the easiest way to "fix" master of arms was to make it give recipes for "special" armors at each level. It kind of makes sense - master of arms should not just be able to WEAR armor better, but to be able wear BETTER armor as well. It wasn't possible before, but now it is, so yeah, why not?
Also, i think that, conceptually, we all agree that Master of Arms should make you stronger WHEN WEARING ARMOR, rather simply stronger outright. The best way to do that would be, imo, to simply give it procsonplayerhit and little to no passive buffs. The net result of that would be that you NEED heavy armor to take advantage of the tree. As it stands now, Master of Arms is closer conceptually to an "ironskin"-themed tree, rather than an "armor-wearing"-themed tree

On a side note I really think that Shield Bearer and Master of Arms should include a capstone nuke that scales on and respectively.

Edit: Amended the post to include new ideas

Edit 2: Tentative Proposal for rework

Tier 0 - Suit Up (no recipe, since you start with plate. All other levels imply a recipe of some description)

Adjusted to give 2 and 2 with a 10 brittle, 20 CD to provide for it being tier 0. The need for a 10 brittle will be become obvious later down the tree.

Tier 1 - "Polished"

Essentially, this applies an onplayerhit "dazed" debuff to any attacking enemy while the "suit up" buff is up. It's built on the idea that your armor is so shiny, it dazes attacking monsters... Until all the blood and gore makes it un-shiny, and you need to polish it again. It gives - to help warriors survive AND preserve their brittle buff (which they kind of need since heavy armors really hurt dodge).

Tier 2 - "The wall"

Gives you a 25% onplayerhit chance to "unbalance" the enemy. This debuffs their .

Tier 3 - "It only makes you stronger"

Attacking monsters who are "dazed" and/or "unbalanced" take extra damage (exotic or phys?) from your attacks, preferably scaling on (by checking for the buff and applying a spell if the debuffs are present damage, i would think). The general idea is to address the key problem with most "heavy armor" based playstyles i.e. you tend to not die, but you also have a hard time killing them too. So yeah, going for Master of Arms lets you actually turn some of that durability into damage. The damage should be substantial because you only get to benefit from it by losing suit up charges, and they should be higher for "unbalance" because of the % component.

Tier 4 - "One with your armor"

Gives you a passive "armor sage" stackable onplayerhit buff that gives every time you get hit (Perhaps 2 for each stack, with you being able to sustain 10 at max). You have get an active that does a lot of based damage to all adjacent enemies, but requires/consumes both "suit up" AND "armor sage" buffs.
I think this is fitting for a capstone because it gives a lot things we like
1. There is the idea of a tradeoff - do you want to wear them down with superior durability and your tier 3 procs, or do you want to try to end with one big bang?
2. It has a substantial block component, which allows it to synergize with Shield Bearer, something we wanted (assuming it gets reworked along the proposed lines)
3. It is the only thing in the tree that gives raw durability, and it comes very late in the tree (which prevents you from popping 1-2 points at level 2-3 and becoming nigh-on invicible for the first 2-3 floors)
4. Even though it gives a lot of durability, you still need to be able to tank that initial damage to get it.

 

Double Post - bit tired right now, so I don't really feel like seeing whether or not i can fit this in the last post.

Btw, proposed 'whatever' are just that - proposals. They are intended to be help cement the discussion with actual examples, rather than be "the" conclusive solution to the problem.

Anyway, proposed rework for Shield Bearer

Tier 0 - Bash

A low cd based nuke that gives a one square knockback. For clutch moments, and as a generic nuke once you have a lot of

Tier 1 - Turtle Stance

Gives 20 turn, 40 cd buff that gives +10, at the cost of -5

Tier 2 - Perfect Guard

Successful block during Turtle stance has a 50% chance of applying "off guard" 1hit brittle-debuff to the attacking enemy, which gives -10 for the next hit

Tier 3 - Moving Fortress

While turtle stance is active, every block gives you a stackable + (should stack to high numbers, has a high duration BUT moving removes it)

Tier 4 - The best defense...

While turtle stance is active, every block returns some damage (based on ). Has an active, single target nuke that allows to charge to an enemy, deal massive based damage AND stun the target for a turn or two. However, it cancels turtle stance, with everything that implies.

 

IMO Turtle Stance shouldn't give -5. You're already giving up dual weilding, let's not give even less power output. Instead, I say -2 and -5

 

Whether or not -5 is too much depends a lot on Bash. I kind of assumed a damage ratio/cd on bash that would give you a bit of extra stopping power from having Turtle Stance up, hence the need to "negate" that with a big melee damage debuff. That being said, I agree that the penalties do not seem to be worth the costs outright, even with the extra damage on bash factored in. However, that's intentional to balance out how strong the subsequent passive upgrades make turtle stance AND to prevent people from cheesing the first floor by getting this as their first level.

Also, this rework proposal tree very much ENDORSES the use of TWO shields, which kind of makes "you forgo dual-wielding" arguments kind of moot.

Edit: one more thing - given how the game works atm, even with this rework, you won't HAVE to actually have a shield to benefit from the tree, just high block in general. Ergo, you CAN have this AND have dual-wield, as long as you have decent base block, which most gish should have anyway.

 

One should also consider Unarmed with Shield strategies, since they synergize well.

 

I actually had an idea for fixing Vegan via a mere mod! It's remarkably simple:

• Animals are no longer peaceful
• You are no longer debuffed for killing animals

This would probably balance Killer Vegan way better as well as eliminating much of the tedium associated with it. Also, the righteous resistance will actually do something.

Of course, it's kind of a sad thematic loss and peaceful animals is a huge boon as well as a huge annoyance, and no other core skill makes a taxa peaceful, so if Gaslamp fixes Vegan it should be by a different approach. However, for a core mod, this would work well.

 

That kind of kills the entire point of Killer Vegan. If enemies were treated more as friendly by the game's code (and by that I mean you could walk through them and switch spots) then I'd play a vegan, no sweat.

 

Just give Vegans a radius 1 permanuke taxa animals that kills them if they get in melee range. Problem solved!

 

Well it's true that it removes the major benefit of playing it. It was unbalanced anyway though, but too annoying as it was to nerf. This will fix both those issues until Gaslamp can make a proper fix. Not being allowed to eat animal foods is still a major problem, unless you use Rougish Renovation or some other unbalanced mod.

 

Poor friendly wyrmlings. Also this would require a recursive trigger, might cause some problems.

 

It works quite nicely in the Mutant mod. (Minus the taxa and with a minor amount of damage.)
http://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/skill-mutant-beta.3305/

 

I come at you, with my own versions of the melee skill trees! BEHOLD!

Swords:
Level 0: Student of Fencing +2 +2 +1
Level 1: Thibault's Trompement +3 +2 Active skill: Thibault's Trompement. Unchanged from the way it is now.
Level 2: Sword Practice +5 +1 Proc skill: Bleeding Out, proc skill: Crippling Wounds, both unchanged (including percentages).
Level 3: Liechtenauer's Overhau +3 +1 +1 Active skill: Liechtenauer's Overhau. Targetted spell anywhere within LoS; damages with scaling to and causes the enemy to bleed.
Level 4: Sword Lore +2 +2 +1 Proc skill: I'm Not Left Handed, unchanged.
Level 5: Sword Poet +5 +2 +1 +1 Active skill: Sword Beam, missile spell on a cooldown, dealing scaling to , scaling to and scaling to .

Maces:
Level 0: Assistant Hammerer +1 +2
Level 1: Dwarven Handshake +1 +1 Active skill: Dwarven Handshake, melee attack that scales to and knocks enemies back, otherwise unchanged.
Level 2: Mace Rehearsal +1 +1 procs Crushed Bones and Crippling Wounds
Level 3: Ragnar's Meteor +1 +1 active skill Ragnar's Meteor
Level 4: Mace Knowledge +1 +1 +1 procs Pedantic Beating
Level 5: Hammer Champion +2 +1 +2 Active skill: Crashing of the Anvil of Krong Onto The Land, 3x3 anchored template with scaling to and scaling to , procs On Fire on afflicted enemies, creates custom blocker broken anvil in the middle of the mess and knocks back any enemy hit by the anvil.

Axes:
Level 0: Combat Lumberjack +2 +2
Level 1: Lumberjacked Up +3 Active skill: Lumberjack It Up, 3x3 template centered around the player; every enemy hit procs a stack of Bunyan's Blessing on the player up to 5, for 10 seconds; Bunyan's Blessing adds 3 per stack.Cooldown.
Level 2: Axe Training +2 +2 Procs Bleeding Out and Crippling Wound.
Level 3: Viking Strike +3 +1 Active Skill: Viking Strike, no cooldown, attack="1". Consumes one stack of Bunyan's Blessing if it's up, causing extra scaling to . If Bunyan's Blessing is not up, this attack is like a normal attack.
Level 4: Norwegian Axenado +3 +2 +1 10% chance to proc Norwegian Axenado, unchanged except for having the scaling removed (so only 4 and bleed in a template)
Level 5: Philosopher of the Axe +2 +3 +1 Active skill: Cogito Ergo Splat. Same template as before, deals scaling to ; ALSO consumes all stacks of Bunyan's Blessing, causing an extra 1 per stack. Cooldown.

Staves:
Level 0: Trainee Stick Wrangler +1 +1
Level 1: Spirit Conduit +1 +1 +1 Active skill: Spirit Conduit, attack="1" skill on a cooldown that deals extra scaling to that s.
Level 2: Staff Discipline +1 +2 Procs Crushed Bones and Bleeding Out
Level 3: Ki Cascade Strike +2 +1 Active skill: Ki Cascade Strike. Unchanged.
Level 4: Staff Secrets +1 +1 +3 Procs Lingering Weakness and Lingering Dullness on a fairly high chance each.
Level 5: Staff Sage +2 +3 +3 +2 +1 Active skill: White Flash, two tile wide circle AoE around the caster; deals slight and and passes multiple checks to Fear (if it doesn't exist, Confuse) enemies so that resistance is rare but possible.

My tea has ran out.

 

BUMP.


I'm actually starting to work on this now, and a lot of skills have been changed with the release of CotW, so, let's start anew.

Here's my changelog so for:

Spoiler: My Changelog

Hand of Belimawr swapped with Unholy Warcry.
Unholy Warcry's Blasting damage given scaling (.18 * Magic Power)
Unholy Warcry's debuff increased to -20 Nimbleness, -5 Armor, -5 Melee Power.

It Belongs in a Museum swapped with Remember Your Charlemagne.

Shield Bearerer's Block and Piercing Resist lowered slightly.
Shield Bearer given 3 points of each basic damage type at levels 1, 3, and 5.

Third Sight adds 1 damage that only affects walls.
Third Sight now gives a 1-turn buff that allows a 100% proc of Luckiest Find on-kill.
Eye Lasers now also trigger On Fire on the target.
Eye Lasers now scale 3x Sight on Blasting Damage, 2x Sight on Conflagratory damage, and (still) 1x Sight on Aethereal Damage.

Ignition Bolt (triggered by many effects) adds On Fire rather than the old burn=1.

Psychic Vampire's second 'gain mana' trigger was missing an amount="1". I added that back in.

Vital Siphon now returns at least 1 spell point each time it goes off (which is still only 30% of attacks), plus extra on Animals, Demons, and Others.
Replaced Steal Spirit with Bloodwrencher, a spell that, for free, deals minor damage to blooded creatures.
Replaced Steal Soul with Essence Siphon, which is as Vital Siphon only it returns double the spellpoints and goes off on every critical hit. Also, this level gives you +5 HP, because seriously.

First level of Archery's recovery rate bonus increased to 40.

Transdimensional Dodging's downtime increased to 18, and it now triggers Froda's Jump Discontinuity when it's activated.
Supremely Sly Side-Stepper now adds an additional (stacking) 30% chance to trigger Adventurer Aikido

The Toxic Spore Cloud created by Fungal Arts' Puffball is now a permanent mine (meaning it will continue to trigger each time a creature steps on a square within it's radius.)

Taking into account the more-or-less stable current state of skills, what actually needs attention?

Keeping in mind I have my own plans for the core weapon skills that are going to probably severely irritate David and Nicholas.

 

Making activated abilities for Archery and Thrown Weapons somewhat more interesting, I dare suggest.

 

Not quite sure what Shield Bearer getting three points of each basic damage type means. Can you elaborate?

Also, Werediggle needs some love. Maybe more bonsus to burl and caddishness, and I liked the idea mentioned elsewhere of healing on transformation, perhaps scaling very slowly to caddishness (4-10%?) or just granting 12 health regen while in werediggle form to ensure 1 HP/turn healing. Maybe some kind of new activated ability? Not sure what it could do yet...

 

How about making the Promethean magic trigger On Fire instead of the old burn? Also, I left my personal thoughts on weapon skill rebalancing last page, if that's still an issue.
EDIT: Ok, this page.