Looking for dedicated alpha testers for Not All That Secret Project

I think something that cannot be blocked or dodged can be tested directly against Lord D. himself, since his freaking defences.
Anyway, I couldn't play for a minute yesterday: university is back.
:edit:I've found that the space before "dummydiggleplague" name was too short, and the name suddenly poped up hitting something, on the very right side of the screen. It felt weird, and I kwnow that it's ridicolous, but I think that the name needs more space. So the code should look like

Code:

<spell name="                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             dummydiggleplague" type="target">
  <effect type="trigger" requirebuffontrigger="1" requirebuffontriggername="Werediggle Form" spell="Diggle Plague" /> <!--  percentage="100" -->
<anim sprite="sprites/sfx/null" frames="2" framerate="100" />
<description text="Fear the ill diggle." />
  </spell>

and

Code:

<ability name="Diggle Plague" icon="skills/diggle_plague64.png" skill="36" level="1" polymorphedOnly="1" polymorphTag="Diggle">
  <description text="While in your Werediggle form, you may give enemies the dreaded Diggle Plague."/>
  <targetHitEffectBuff percentage="10" name="                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             dummydiggleplague" />
  <playerHitEffectBuff percentage="5" name="                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              dummydiggleplague" />
  <resistbuff putrefying="2" toxic="1" />
  <damagebuff putrefying="1" toxic="1" />
  <!-- <spell name="Diggle Plague"/> -->
  </ability>

in their respective dbs (spell and skill on that order).

 

OK, so.

I'm replacing Viking Slash with Viking Armor Destruction, a persistent debuff that removes 5 . Few enemies in the game have more than 10, and none have more than 20 -- 4 crits on Dredmor will reduce his AA to zero. This basically makes Axes the "large group hits, crits, and removing-enemy-protections" weapon (between Rending Stance and Viking King.)

Cogito Ergo Splat (which, interestingly, uses the same sprites as Thibault's Trompenant, it just looks a lot better when there's fewer of them) now uses Ragnar's Meteor's impact sprite and the 'player's head explodes' sound effect because it seems very Axey to me. It's downtime is now 17 and it's damage is increased to 8+(.25*Crit Chance).

I'm working on the design document now, will upload the most recent files once it's ready.

 

Viking Armor is far too op. Give it a very short duration so it's not too strong on bosses like dredmor and is still useful for weak enemies. Seriously stop with all these permanent debuffs.

After 4 crits suddenly dredmor loses basically all defense and that's just not right. You should really put durations on ALL these debuffs so that they can be balanced against bosses.

Also I don't think that that sound effect is very good for the spell. Yes it's a scream but not a warlike scream and the blood isn't quite the same either.

 

I agree with Null there, Essence. Buffs are good, but permanent buffs are too abusable. With it being permanent, there really is nothing stopping someone from creating an almost purely defensive build that would also have a permanent debuff like that from some skill and just smack Dredmor until his defences reach ridiculously low levels hundreds or thousands of turns later.

 

DESIGN DOCUMENT IS COMPLETE. PLEASE TO TEST FULLY.

Comments are in blue. If there aren't any, I'm pretty happy with the level as it stands.

Spoiler: Design Document

Philosophy:
Swords is about nuking single opponents and countering attacks, with one 'off' level devoted to defense from magic. Key Stat:
Axes is about nuking groups, crits, and increasing damage by disabling enemy defense stats. Key Stat:
Maces is all about high damage numbers, knockbacks, and a bit of debuffing. Key Stat:
Staves is all about flexibility and damaging through Magic Power. Key Stat:
Unarmed is all about knockbacks, stuns, and multiplying damage. Key Stat:

Mechanics:
In General: All debuffs triggered by targetHitEffectBuffs need to only take effect if the weapon attack hits. I'm talking to David about this.

Spoiler: Swords

Level 1: Touche! Activated attack; cooldown: 6. Attack inflicts an enduring, stacking debuff of -5 Counter, -5 Block, and -5 Dodge on your opponent. Passive: +3 +1

Level 2: Liechtenauer's Overhau. Activated attack; cooldown: 5. Attack inflicts extra damage equal to 2+(.25*Nimbleness) and causes Bleed. Passive: +1 , +2 Maybe too weak for pure warriors?

Level 3: Duelist Stance. Activated Buff. Removes Knight Stance. Grants +10 Counter, +10 Dodge, and +5 Melee Power. Also adds a playerHitEffectBuff that inflicts a 5-turn-long debuff on the player 100% of the time when hit: -2 Counter, -2 Dodge, and -1 Melee Power. The buff stacks once, the debuff stacks up to 20 times. Passive: +2 +1 Intent here is for the warrior to prosper so long as he's not cornered -- if he starts taking more than 1 attack per turn, the stance turns against him.

Level 4: Thibaults Trompenant. Activated attack; cooldown 9. Inflicts attack damage + 4+(.25*Nimbleness) damage in a 3-square-long line in front of the player. Passive: +2 +1 Again, not sure if pure warriors get enough out of this.

Level 5: Knight Stance. Activated Buff. removes Duelist Stance. +40 Block, +10 Counter. -100 Dodge. -10 EDR. Triggers a secondary, separately-removable buff called Parry Magic that grants +51 Magic Reflect but is hungry (1 per 2). Passive: +2 +2 .

Level 6: Sword Poet. Passive. CounterBuff (100%) inflicts 8+(.25*Nimbleness) and causes bleeding and has a 50% chance to Paralyze for 2 turns. Passive: +6 +1 +3 Again, not sure if pure warriors get enough out of this. Maybe this, Trompenant, and Overhau should be scaled to Caddishness?

Spoiler: Axes

Level 1: Rend. Activated attack, cooldown: 6. Inflicts an enduring, stacking -4 Slashing Resistance bonus on the target. Cooldown: 6. Passive: +3 Basically tosses on an extra 4 damage on future attacks against that enemy. Is that too much?

Level 2: Lumberjack Stance. Activated buff. Removes Barbarian Stance. Adds -5 , +25 , +3 . . Passive: +1 +2 Possible OPness by combining this with Dagger Crit Stance?

Level 3: Norwegian Axenado. Activated attack, cooldown 13. Attack deals normal damage + 4+(.15*Crit Chance) to all 8 squares around the player. Passive: +3

Level 4: Barbarian Stance. Activated buff. Removes Lumberjack Stance. All normal attacks are modified to use this template:

Code:

X#X
X@X

Enemies in the # take normal damage and are locked down and bleed. Enemies in other Xs take normal damage.
Passive: +2 +2 Something tells me this might be OP, but I'm not quite convinced.


Level 5: Viking King. Passive. Player gains a 100% CriticalBuff that inflicts an enduring, stacking -5 debuff on your opponent. Passive: +3

Level 6: Philosopher Of The Axe. Activated attack, cooldown: 17. Deals 8+(.25* Crit Chance) damage to all monsters within 2 squares of the player. Maybe boring for a capstone? But quite strong and hits lots of enemies, so I think it's OK.

Spoiler: Maces

Level 1: I Am A Player And I Crush A Lot. Activated attack, cooldown: 8. Deals normal weapon damage and inflicts Broken Bones (-2 , -4 , -2 , -5 , -3 for 68 turns) and Daze (-40 , -40 , -30 , -20 , -20 , and mute for 8 turns). Cooldown: 7 Passive: +2 , +1 OP?

Level 2: Dwarven Handshake Stance. Activated buff. Removes Sundering Stance and Mjolnir Stance. -40 Crit, +4 Piercing damage, 25% to proc Unresistable Knock and 2+(.1 * Burliness) . Passive: +1 +1 +1

Level 3: Sundering Stance -- Activated buff. Removes Dwarven Handshake Stance and Mjolnir Stance. Attacks inflict a 4-turn stacking debuff of -2 and -5 . Passive: +3

Level 4: Ragnar's Meteor -- Activated Attack, cooldown: 13. Hits the 6-square area immediately in front of the player for attack damage plus 4+(.2*Burliness) and an Unresistable Knock. Passive: +2 , +1

Level 5: Hulk SMASH! -- Activated attack, cooldown: 8. Deals additional 1.5* Melee Power damage and inflicts a 2-turn debuff on you such that when attacked, you take (.1 * Melee Power) extra damage. Passive: +3 , +1 Not sure about this one. The debuff doesn't seem to do anything.

Level 6: Mjolnir Stance. Activated buff. Removes Dwarven Handshake Stance and Sundering Stance. Grants +30 Burliness and a 5% targetHitEffectBuff that essentially casts Fulminaric Bolt on your melee victim. Passive: +3 , +3 , +1 . Is 5% still not enough?

Spoiler: Staves

Level 1: Not In The Face!-- Activated buff. Removes Two Ends Stance and Long Stance. Grants +10 Block, +10 Magic Resist, and a 20% stun proc. Passive: +3 .

Level 2: Spirit Conduit. Activated attack, cooldown: 5. Inflicts 1+ (.2 * Magic Power) Transmutative damage and hits the enemy with a 2-turn -20 Magic Resist debuff. Passive: +1 , +1 , +1 .

Level 3: This Thing Has Two Ends. Activated buff. Attacks deal an additional (.5*Melee Power damage). All Staff-based special attacks (Spirit Conduit, Shillelagh, Priming Blow) have their effects increased by 50% while in this stance. Passive: +1 , +2 Complicated enough that it's hard to judge the balance of. Please test this one thoroughly.

Level 4: Shillelagh. Passive ability. All Staff strikes deal an additional 1+(.05* Magic Power) Aethereal damage. Passive: +1 , +1 , +1

Level 5: Priming Blow. Activated Attack, cooldown: 9. Deals normal damage and inflicts a debuff of -3 , -2 , -3 , -2 and -2 permanently and stacking. Passive: +3 , +2 . Potentially quite powerful even without spell use, given Shillelagh and Spirit Conduit are both boosted by this move.

Level 6: Shepard's Style.Activated buff. Removes Two Ends Stance and Not In The Face.
All normal attacks are modified to use this template:

Code:

.#.
...
.@.

Enemies in the # take normal damage. Because all attack="1" effects also hit the square in front of you normally, this basically makes all of your melee attacks 2 squares long (but you still have to have someone directly in front of you to aim at.) All Staff-based special attacks trigger on the template square as well whenever this stance is active. Passive: +3 , +6 . Except for some reason, this doesn't work at all even though Barbarian Stance, which works on the same theory, is totally functional. No freaking clue.

Unarmed edited into next post due to character limit.

 

Spoiler: Design Document Continued

Spoiler: Unarmed

Level 1: Brawlin' Stance. Activated buff. Removes Nerve Strike Stance. All attacks proc 1+(.2 * EDR) Crushing damage and Crushed Bones (see Maces level 1) 20% of the time. Passive: +1 , +1 , +1 .


Level 2: Billy Quan Maneuver. Activated attack, cooldown: 4. Deals double melee damage, hits the target with an Unresistable Knock, and teleports you one square forward. Passive: +3 . Double melee damage may be too much for the low cooldown; maybe that should be increased.

Level 3: Boot To The Head Activated attack, cooldown 7. Normal attack damage procs Unresistable Knock and Daze (see Maces level 1). Passive: +2 , +2 It's weird to have 2 Knock effects in a row, but since one teleports you forward and the other doesn't, I think they're different enough to be OK.

Level 4: Nerve Strike Stance. Activated buff. Removes Brawlin' Stance. Attacks have a 50% chance to proc, and procs triggerfromlist one of the following effects:

• Dazed (see Maces level 1)
• Stunned (-100 , -100 , -20 , -20 , and paralyzed for 2 turns.)
• Paralysis for 2 turns
• Crushed Bones (see Maces level 1)
• Sundered (see Maces level 3)
• 6+(.2*EDR) damage.

Passive: +1 , +1 , +1 . Maybe reduce the proc rate?

Level 5: Two Feet Stomp The Diggle. Passive. Melee attacks have a 25% chance to proc Nice Combo!, which deals an additional melee attack that also has a 25% chance to proc Nice Combo! (Yes, this can chain indefinitely if you're absurdly lucky.) Passive: +2 , +3 This doesn't seem to be working? I don't know why -- it used to.

Level 6: Master of the Dragon Foot Technique. Activated attack, cooldown: 24. Deals attack damage to all 4 surrounding squares. Then has a 66% chance to do it again, then another 66% chance to do it again, then a 67% chance to do it again. Then hits all 4 surrounding squares with an Unresistable Knock.
Passive: +3 , +5 Deals an average of 3x normal melee damage...is that too much? At one point I had it without the first, 100% chance to deal damage...should I change it back?

Re: the permanent debuffs. The only case in which I see what you're describing as an actual issue is vs. Lord Dredmor. The cooldowns on the debuffs are all at least 5 turns long and none of them can be used outside of melee range -- so you're talking about wasting dozens of turns kiting if you intend to stack them to any realistic degree. If you're willing to do that kind B.S., you can already trivialize named mobs with existing mechanics.

Against Dredmor, you have to succeed at critting against him four times, which isn't easy (and means you have to stay in melee with him until you do, so your weapon is losing damage to corruption the whole time) -- and after you've done that, you still have all of his other resists to deal with. I'm totally willing to listen to contrary arguments, but I wanted to get my thoughts out first.


Here are the up-to-date files. Big question: why the hell is Long Stance not working?

 

Cooldowns don't apply to procs. I can theoretically apply them all over literally 2 turns and then deal 20 extra damage for every single instance of mundane damage; with axes that's at least 2 or 3.

Long Style doesn't work cause you didn't anchor the template so it hits two tiles north of the target.

Also stop using -- in text; when you comment it out then you end up with errors in the xml since it can't have -- in comments. Btw there's one in the commented deadshot.

 

Right. Which is why the only debuff applied via a 100% proc (Sunder from Sundering Stance) got changed to have a duration (see design document just completed above). All of the others are either percentage chances or are activated attacks, not procs.

 

I think that this is ok, there are skills (like Remember Your Charlemagne) that don't scale with one of the main stats of the class. But think about what do you want to accomplish. Those are the two stats:

Do you think sword fight is more a Rogue, or a Pirate style?

Yeah, I this so. Nerve stance needs like 25% at least, I think the effects are good enough to not give half the time a different proc, but I'll test it first.

 

That depends on what sword fight. Fighting with a normal blade? Yup, that's "rogue" stuff alright because you are trying to get through your opponent's defences with fencing tricks and by generally being more dexterous than him.

 

re: scaling to vs and whether or not that makes it not good enough for pure-warrior builds. It's generally okay for skills to work better with some builds than others. I'd go so far as to say it's actually preferable for the various weapon skills to each excel is a slightly different build style than the others. So, swords is generally for the mobile dodgy warrior-rogue. That said, the only one I'd consider changing the scaling on is the final level. Specifically, because it comes after the knightly stance which conceptually and mechanically favors heavier armor and less mobility. If someone decides to switch to heavier gear after getting knightly stance, it might not be a bad thing for the level following it to reward them for that decision.

Also, what Null said about the enduring effects at level 1. I don't think they'll be a major problem re: Dredmor himself as by then you've got better guns to unleash on him, and are probably hoping for the run to end soon anyway. However I do expect we'll see a lot of kiting of Bee Arthur, Siegfried and other early game threats by first and second level characters. A 20- to 40- turn debuff duration would shut that nonsense down.

Since I'm here anyway, I'll remind you of the input I gave repeatedly back in the top-secret discussions back in the day when this was being considered for CotW. My greatest concern about these skill rewrites is their impact on newbs and casual players. Dredmor's audience includes a number of people who do not traditionally play roguelikes. Deciphering complicated skill trees and maximizing builds isn't necessarily something they want to do (at least not while still learning the game). There are times (and personalities) where you want to puzzle out a synergistic combo and do something clever, and other times (and personalities) where you just want to hit diggles with an axe. It would be a shame if what is probably the most-accessible roguelike for non-gamers ever lost some of its accessibility in the process of trying to make weapon skills a little more powerful. Less of an issue if the skill-belt is upgraded to double row (as hinted in a beta test thread around here somewhere) but still a potential stumbling block.

 

I just don't understand how changing abilities can vary the very essence of the game. Why incrementing the power of some skill trees makes the game less "casual"?
For everything else, I agree with berg.

 

"Casual" skill trees just give you "general" power, while possibly adding one or two activated tricks that you would want to use as aces from your sleeve, and their power is a semi-consistent boost for your character with occasional effectiveness increases - Assassination, old-style weapon proficiency skill trees, Dual Wielding,Vampirism (to a degree, though it is still pretty challenging unless you know how to use it), crafting skill trees (again, to a degree, because you do have to know what you want to craft), Fungal Arts, Master of Arms, etc.
"Non-casual" (or however you decide to call it, I decided to use "non-casual" because I know of at lest a few names people use for it and I don't want to confuse anyone here) give you mostly activated abilities and require you to know when to use them, these skills are nigh-useless if you don't know when to use what, but when you know how to play they can cause large effectiveness spikes to appear - examples are Promethean Magic, Communism (to a degree, because it is a utility-themed skill tree and thus instead of large effectiveness spikes every so often it allows you to get a lot of smaller spikes), Psionics (similar to Communism), Warlockery (well, duh), etc.

Some skill trees are amidst, of course, since the scale has a soft slider - Clockwork Knight would be a good example of such a skill tree, being adequate when played "casually" and getting to a whole new level if you know how to play it; another good example would be the only crafting skill tree that is not entirely casual, Wandcrafting, which is less of a crafting skill tree and more like D&D's "mage prepares a spell assortment for his next day when the party is resting" (you need to know what to stock on and what to have, but if you do, you can get a rapid combo of small effectiveness spikes; yet another good example would be Egyptian Magic, as it can be used for simply stacking on the buffs that you benefit from, but you can also try to juggle buffs to attack things with its (in)famous offensive spell if you are willing to monitor your mana usage all the time and that will increase your efficiency if you know what you are doing.

Generally speaking, "non-casual" (and "mixed") skill trees are those you build your character around (again, exceptions do happen), while "casual" skill trees are those that can benefit most characters without requiring constantly thinking about them.


And this is where the real answer lies - rewriting the weapon proficiency skills (and possibly some other abilities) will result in there being less skill trees that give you a simple power boost, and thus some less skilled players might find the game more difficult even with these skill trees getting a power boost.

 

Mainly it's about skill-bar clutter and analysis paralysis. If you've got time to dedicate to the game, complicated characters are great. If you're just learning, or trying to fit in a run broken up across lunchbreaks, more decision making isn't automatically an improvement.

The oldest version of weapon skills essentially just gave damage and procs, so while they figured into decisions about what equipment to use and what skills to take, they didn't require complex tactical decisions in the middle of combat. You clicked on the target with the same attack nearly every turn, watched your health bar, and just hoped for the best. New players naturally gravitated to the weapon skills because they were easier to understand than things like golemancy and necro.

The current versions are a little more complicated than they originally were (like Axes having two different area-effect activated powers to choose from when surrounded), but still pretty straight-forward. Roughly 2 activated abilities per weapon skill, backed up with a lot of passive bonuses and procs.

The proposed versions being discussed here are significantly more complicated. We've gotten rid of all the levels that are just +stats, and each skill tree has at least 5 activated abilities to juggle. So, twice as many timers to keep an eye on, twice as many buttons not currently on your skillbar for you to forget you had access to, and a need to periodically reassess which stance is best for the enemy at hand. All of which is great if you're an established player who really groks the mechanics and knows what to expect from the game. Not so great if you're still attempting to clamber up the learning curve.

Of course, at this point the game is over a year old and well established. With every passing month newb gates such as these become somewhat less of an issue than they were previously. The changes being discussed here were first brainstormed several months ago, and my objections to specific parts were stronger at that time.

 

That is exactly the point. Well spoken.

 

I'm not disagreeing -- and if it would be better to have, say, one less activated ability (and one more passive ability) per tree, I'm not at all adverse to that. That said, the primary motivation here was to eliminate the disparity between Daggers/Polarms and Swords/Axes/Maves/Staves/Unarmed.

Daggers has 5 activated (2 of which are stances) and 1 passive ability.
Polearms has 5 activated (2 of which are stances) and 1 passive ability.

The new weapons skills are modeled after those. David has admitted that maybe they went overboard on those skills, but for now, in order to bring the skills in line with the new ones, yes -- there will be a bit of skillbar 'clutter' as it were. Fortunately, we have multiple skillbars in the near future, so that will be much less of an issue.

 

Well, personally I don't really mind. It means that instead of being just a bonus that might not be able to bring a sub-par weapon of the right type to the values a "mis-typed" equip might have, it will be a bag of weird tricks for when you are using that weapon. Sure, it will require some time to get used to it, but I don't mind learning new things.

 

Smash isn't really necessary, doesn't add anything but unnecesary complexity. Parry Magic just adds complexity while throwing off balance and design greatly. Priming Blow probably needs a max duration. Barbarian Stance does too much. Please drop the root bleed and/or main-target damage.

 

Complexity is a completely different axis than Power.

Disparity of power level should indeed be eliminated. I see, understand, and absolutely agree with the desire to have all the weapon skills have balanced (read: "approximately equal") amounts of Power relative to one another (and, to varying extents, the other skills in the game).

I'm really not sold on the desire to make them all have approximately equal amounts of Complexity. "Slightly less powerful but significantly easier to use" is a trade I would happily make, and relatively often at that. Even granting that there's artistic merit to having them all feature a collective commonality of structure, I don't automatically see the need to elevate the simplest to the most complex instead of striking a balance somewhere in between or allowing for variety of play experience.


You look at the original weapon skills and see them as inferior (or at least that's the impression I've gotten from your response to them). I just don't think you're the intended audience for those specific skills. I feel they serve a solid purpose for certain players. Just as some skills are better for some builds than others, some skills are better for some players than others.


I'm reminded of a number of game design columns by Mark Rosewater over at Magic The Gathering where he discussed designing cards for various segments of the audience. Those who want to attack with big awesome dragons 'cause it's fun (Timmy), those who want to make clever decks that do unexpected things to express themselves (Johnny), and those whose primary desire is to win (Spike). Dredmor isn't quite the same as Magic, but those three dynamics essentially exist in the fan base.

Timmy has fun smashing diggle face. He doesn't care that weapon skills might not be as good as other things, because they're fun and flavorful. If he has to set the game to Elvish Easy and turn off Permadeath to win using a weapon skill, he's okay with that. Good for him.

Spike cares about overcoming the challenge. He probably sets the game to higher difficulty or PD (but some spikes may set it easier to make the sting of failure less frequent). For Spike, a little more complexity is a fine cost to pay for kicking in Dredmor's teeth. Good for him.

Johnny... Johnny mods. Complexity isn't just "okay" with Johnny, it's the whole point. Good for him.


Adding complexity and power to the core weapon skills will thrill Spike and interest Johnny, but in the process runs the risk of making the game less fun for Timmy. That would be unfortunate.



Back on page 4 of that old private conversation about this topic, I gave you a counter-proposal that was basically taking the current core versions, and only modifying levels 3 and 5 of each. Basically replacing the parallel Procs on levels 3 and 5 with Stances that capture the best of your ideas. That way you'd have a little more reliable power for Spike, a clever way to customize the character (by building towards a particular Stance) that should appeal to both Spike and Johnny, and yet you keep the main skill in a form that won't overwhelm Timmy. For what it's worth, I still think that's a better approach to this whole weapon-skill issue, at least for the main game. That said, it may not be the most helpful feed back at this late stage.






Slightly More Tangential: I suspect we have at least a fourth archetype playing Dungeons of Dredmor. Oswald likes to meticulously explore every corner of every dungeon floor, never skips a floor, completes every quest, gets excited when he discovers hidden rooms or fights a new named boss he hadn't seen before, makes a point of crafting (or at least reading) every item in the game at least once, actually pays attention to things diggles say, and has explored a staggering number of wizardlands. Flavor and exploration are what Oswald likes most about the game. Good for him.

Agreed. Expanded skill bars will be sweet.