Looking for dedicated alpha testers for Not All That Secret Project

OK, then. Give me a few days to process and come up with some decent simplifications, and I'll recode a couple/few abilities per skill and resubmit to everyone.

 

I understood your point, but I don't agree totally. But, since I have to go to the university now I can't answer properly, nor I've read the last post from berg.
But I wanted to say something: dredmor, being more newbie-friendly, isn't exactly a game that you play and you win on your first try. You have to know how things work, or you can get your face smashed by the first Unfriendly AI that you can meet in the first floor. And you know how things work by playing the game.
So, if dwarven handshake is a proc on hit, when I random whack faces I learn that this extremist form of greeting is something that cames from nothing, if I just continue to whack faces. But if the same proc is made from a stance, I learn (also from the flavor text, don't we forget about flavor text) that the same cool ability is born from that strange persistent buff, and since I have that one and not another one, I can move people.
Dredmor can be truly played by casual games, but it's a roguelike: for definition, a game that wants you death.
And, also, making the weapon skills less appetible by a constant gamer makes them useless in real builds (what was the last time you picked a weapon skill, wanting it and being satisfied by all those invested points, aside from liking "the axe wielding concept guy" that I also like). Weapon skills should be like a main skill, after all characters kill most of the monsters with that weapon.
On the last thing, and then I have to teleport myself:

Thanks David for entering the discussion field.
I just wanted to say that just one stance for weapon seems boring: you get that, and you obtain an infinite durable buff that gives you things. The "ability in the skillbar that must be understood" problem remains, and you get a less interesting skill growth, without twists, for something so complex like being able to combat with a weapon.
Ok, bb.

 

hmmm...V raises a good point. Do we really need to consider stances to be 'complex activated abilities'? Once they're on, you can ignore them; they basically become passive abilities.

From that standpoint, are these actually that complicated? They essentially have 3 (or 4) 'passive' abilities per skill and 3 (or 2) active. Yes, some of those passive abilities cause skillbar clutter, but they don't really increase cognitive load.

 

I've finally read the last berg post. I share your point of view, but I just want to say that Timmy, in every build he can chose, has to understand, at last, a little of the gameplay mechanics.
Ok, so this casual boy want to run a simply axe wielding fury warrior, but with a shield for better protection and that cool looking pirate, in a build like: axe, shield, armor, berserker, pirate. He then must choose something a little more peculiar, since there are few other "simply" skill trees. Let's says he choose dodger, burglary and assassination.
At the point he can go down to DL2 and DL3 he died at least a couple of time to just the first monsters. He then learn how to use food properly. And the existence of potions, wands and mushrooms.
At the point he can do down DL5-6 he died quite a lot of times, so then he learn about traps, monsters' special abilities and that booze gives you strength related bonuses. Maybe he used at least once a crafting skill, and he shot at least two arrows, just to try them.
He chooses to mantain a casual play style, so he never learn well of everything works, but he has accumulated a lot of concepts that he must use in order of survival. Just thinking about how many different kind of items the game throws at you, and you already have lots of different "abilities" to choose between.
In the middle, Timmy had to level up, in order to mantain the chance to kill monsters.
Just looking at the core actual skills, shield, dodger, burglary and pirate gives you lots of different skills, popping suddenly up in your hotkey bar. You just learn what they do by using them on things, and looking at how that ability changed your way of doing things. Even weapon skills, while having lots of hidden procs, have activated abilities.
By giving more of them, you don't confuse your players, since you don't toss everything at them in the same moment. Flavor text, also, helps people figuring what those new levels give them, to first choose and to use their effects later.
When Essence posted the first version of the modified dbs, I've started some character by choosing what I wanted in that moment. And when I had to choose on level ups, I had to look at the flavor text to understand something. When I picked up a stance, I didn't know what it did until I activated it, read it and used it while whacking monsters. The same with the first activated skills: I seen that it helped killing monsters, so I kept using it against was though enough to not being killed by few hits. I never looked into the xml files to just see what those skills were doing, since it didn't matter: I was having fun killing stuff with those skill trees, so I just continued until the very death of the character.

 

The passive stances are not added complexity now that we have additional skill bars. I'm entirely for keeping them

 

Ok, so then -- in terms of simplification, without looking at the XML, what needs more explanation in the popup text and which are just too complex in the first place? Do I need to lay out more of what the debuffs are doing, since you can't see their effect (i.e. you can't mouseover the monster's popup and see their debuffs?)

 

Well I think it's just about too many skills. I've said that SMASH is rather superfluous and doesn't really add anything.

Billy Quan and Boot to the Head should be merged; you can have it fire an invisible missile at the tile two in front of you and teleport to the tile one before where it hits so if there's something in the way you don't move. Then you knock back what's in front of you.

Staves don't really need that third stance at level one and it's significantly less interesting than the other two stances so I'd personally remove it.

Having Parry Magic on Knight Stance is just really odd (and I'd prefer it built into the stance if properly balanced without requiring a mana cost on the stance: minus stats). That way at least it feels like a single ability rather than a stance with an unrelated effect tacked on. Why do I need to lose my duelist stance in order to use parry magic which isn't part of knight stance?

Barbarian Stance does too much (I've said this already)

Simple +damage attacks such as Liechtenauer's Overhau would be better off as procs than activated attacks as there are very few 'strategic' times you want a bit of extra damage for just that hit, at least not for small bonus damage.

Duelist Stance will need to be explained to the player well but isn't all that complex.

 

Smash could be funny, if the increased damage worked properly. Maybe with a cooldown of 10 and the 100% effect of smashing legs for a root effect, and a little more increased damage turns, could be very cool. You SMASH them in the place, hammering their bodies like nails.
:edit-after-kazeto's-like: maybe it could be an area of effect skill, which consists in smashing the ground (and everything else that's directly on it) in front of you so you create a line of effect (maybe like the first polearm skill, with 3-4 max tiles involved in a line) in which the terrain tremble. Who is caugh in this terrain is given a -x///whatever and takes some minor damage, and maybe they can be rooted to the ground.

I talked about those two knock back effects to a friend, and he was enthusiastic like me about the different possibilities of the two stances. There are times when you have to move foward (like in an escape, or in the first rounds of combat) and opening with a knock back effect can help a lot, but there times which you just need to stay in the very place to mantain a defensive position, and the teleport effect could not be so handy in those moments (like in a combination with magic circle). So I think that those could stay together. After all, one punchs more with lot of damage, and the other dazes away the target.

The very first stance is one of those skills which one could call "skills for first floor". It's more useful than you think, Null, since it adds survivability to characters too frail in the initial phase of the game: mages. A mage can build his power through lots of magic skill trees, but there are mages who can find it useful to use a staff for melee combat (more usefulness from this project). Some of those mages, however, tends to increase staff levels a little late on, since there are lots of magic trees with cool stuff (heals, teleports, more mana, better fire power, pets) and to those, a mere activated ability which damages something, or a passive stat increased isn't very good. But with a stance one can give to the first level a little more power, since this is a "this or that" kind of ability, And "Grants +10 Block, +10 Magic Resist, and a 20% stun proc." is something lots of mages want in every DL, since it helps them survive better.

The parry magic on the knight stance seemed a little silly to me too. I know there are lots of fantasy games in which there are warriors which can CUT A FIREBALL IN HALF, but usually those are very poor armored (except from bladesinger of d&d), so maybe it can be a separate proc ability of the tree. But I also see that the "knight stance" is just something that helps you stop things from hitting your body. Maybe with a different name it could be good as it is (and maybe giving the buff something that lets it fades away naturally, like something that fades away after some hits, plus if not paid the 1 every 2 turn).

Barbarian stance could just hit in aoe and inflict bleed, and not the root effect too, or the two things (bleed and root) not on 100%, since it appears that if you have this stance and get surrended, you just can hit everyone once and go away without no one chasing you.

I think this can work, but just Liechtenauer's Overhau is something that just attack more. That and the SMASH, which could be used on proc too (you let yourself go in the middle of the combat, doing brutal damage while downing your defences for a brief moment).

I didn't read the duelist stance, so I don't know.

Also, I wanted to say that Nerve Strike Stance could have something more peculiar, especially in place of paralysis only effect (which is a part of another effect of the same stance) and crushed bone effect, since the first stance does that, and we don't need a "better" stance, but just a different one. There could be nerves which, if hit, lower the strenght or the stamina of enemies, or something that (yeah, now we can) root the enemy to the ground.


On a similar note, I just wanted to say that the Fungal Arts, if still has the increased damage of the spore clouds, is losing his pet class ability in change of better damage: damage scales, pet resistance don't. So also in the first DLs when a pc summons a pet, it does massive damage to the enemies AND to the pet, decurting its life or killing it directly. So it's a no-no to this buff, that should be lowered in damage or changed in some other way. Or the summon effect could be modified with some after="1" or something.

The old big game hunt had that

Code:

<!-- <effect type="damage" slashing="5"/> # no point; on-death effect -->

in the butcher effect. Since the most dangerous game procs butcher on live things too, why don't make it working as intended? After all, if you cut meat parts from a body, you must damage it a little badlier than a simple attack.

For the werediggle (I'll stop, I promise), I was just thinking about two little changes, and not directly to that skill tree.
Having Throw weapon in diggle form should give to the pc the Monster Toss ability, since it's all about strenght and giving the enemy flyborn abilities, things that are abundant in werediggle form. A gigantic Werebeast that throws enemies away is kweel stuff indeed.
Also, with the Big Game Hunter, the lure effect could be used also in diggle form. In fact, the lure effect is performed by "squeezing ones hands together in a particular manner and waggling your fingers while blowing air through the entire mess", to just produce "the Diggle mating call". Something that a trained half diggle should not have problems performing with the original orefice a normal diggle use for this mating call.
What do you think?

 

OK, so:

Swords: Knight's Stance needs flavor change and Parry Magic should be part of the stance, not a separate buff? (Overhau already is a proc and not an activated attack.) Duelist's Stance needs more explanation in the flavor text.

Axes: Barbarian Stance should just be the AoE with no other effects. All about that.

Maces: SMASH! is superfluous? Just curious -- is that because you feel like the extra damage it deals is unimportant given the other +damage from the tree? It's something huge like 1.5*melee power in addition to all the other normal damage boosts. Is that just boring given all of the other damage bonuses the tree gives you? I'm more than willing to come up with a new, passive ability here to simplify the tree a little.

Staves: Not In The Face...my thoughts are as Vitellozzo's. 20% stun proc and +10 block/resist adds quite a bit of survivability to the first floor (and, oddly, the bottom floors if it can get you near 100% block or resist; the stun is always useful). "Not interesting", oddly, I see as a good thing at this point, because we're taking a simplification pass, not a interestingification pass. So I think this is going to stay.

Long Stance, on the other hand, is failing utterly and needs to be completely ripped out and replaced unless someone smarter than me figures out why.

Unarmed: The two knockbacks, I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, two knocks in two levels does seem kind of like you're not adding a meaningful new tool to the player's toolbelt. On the other hand, the difference between a move-forward-and-knock, which is an escape tool, and a stand-still-and-knock, which is a defensive tool, is actually kind of enormous. Anyone else want to pitch in with some feedback here? I wouldn't mind combining them, but should they combine into a move-and-knock, or a stand-and-knock? Of course, the new ability to replace whichever one leaves would also be a passive for simplicity purposes.

(Nerve Stance, just to let everybody know, I'm planning on adding all of the Shot In The 'X" effects from Deadshot to the list of potential effects, so it'll get quite a few interesting debuffs to choose from.)


Also, as a general issue, has anyone else noticed that some abilities aren't properly requiring their appropriate weapons to be equipped? I know that Cogito Ergo Splat isn't; are there any others?


Anything else from anyone else?

 

Smash! I probably should have explained better; superfluous wasn't the best word choice of mine. It doesn't seem like it adds anything to the feel of the tree. Maces tends not to be much about single target damage, but rather long-range aoe, knockbacks. It's a defensive skillset and boring +damage doesn't add anything. I like Vitellozzo's idea to make it a proc. This fits in well with its simplicity. As it stands single-target damage doesn't seem like something that maces wants, though the -defense is an interesting choice for a defense skillset and could perhaps be implemented somewhere else.

As for Unarmed I was suggesting merging them in such a way that one skill fulfills both functionalities and neither is lost, freeing up the skill bar and tree, while removing the number of skills the player has to worry about. And it puts them on the same cooldown so that you can't chain-knock. So the result would be: move forward if there's no target in front of you, knock away the target in front of you. I can code this if you want.

I'll fix Long Stance for you, it's breaking because it has nearly the exact same bug as Barbarian Stance did, but the fewer number of targets makes it less obvious.
EDIT: Okay I'm wrong about this, it has that bug but also something else

Cogito Ergo Splat doesn't require an axe because it doesn't say anywhere that it requires an axe?

 

Pretty recently, actually. Not my current character, but the one before it. Philosopher of the Axe stays relevant right up until you're facing the big D himself. Some of the stuff before it eventually becomes ineffective, but the early-game damage boost is totally worth it. I figure less than half of my GRPDNTTG characters will even survive to the floors where weapon skills start looking lame.

The three biggest problems I see with main-game weapon skills:

• When the penalty for using an untrained weapon went away back in 1.0.8 or so, the damage boost for weapon skills didn't get increased to compensate. Non-skilled users got a +X damage boost, which made the skills a lot less worth it. The skills could probably use another +X basic damage each, split between the top few levels. The catch is, the old penalty value was hidden, so I don't really know how large X is / should be.
• The buffs on levels 3 and 5 aren't big enough for anyone to care about. The 8% chance for -2 -1 -4 is laughable. Bleed out has a 16% to do 3 per turn... which is trivial in the deep dungeon, and even early on to be effective that requires kiting tactics that the rest of the skill tree does nothing to support. Etc. I'd be far happier with 3 Viking Strikes than the existing Viking Strike / Crippling Wound / Bleeding Wound set up... but I'd be even happier with unique procs here that actually had a noticeable impact.
• Chests of Evil weapons remain comparable to maxing an entire tree. But if problems 1 and 2 were addressed, it would probably solve this.

 

Ah, OK. That makes a lot more sense. I think I like the idea of adding to the 'long-range AoE' thing; it wasn't really an intended part of the Maces and only Ragnar's Meteor currently does it. Hmm...

OH! I get it. I didn't get it, and now I do. It would be really cool if you could code that up for me. I've already got a sweet passive in mind for 2nd level, then.

Null, you're awsome.

Oh, I never commented out the first version of Cogito. I rewrote it down below with the requirement, so if you comment out the first one, it should proceed to work properly. Thanks.


Re: Bergstrom: I actually agree with everything you said, but again, working toward a thematic similarity with Polarms/Daggers, and I think we're far enough down this road now that it's not going to be radically revised from here unless David decrees it done.

 

Long Style might have more difficult bugs. It did have that but it wasn't the only thing that's the problem. It's odd that Woad Warrior works but other things don't.

Yeah the long-ranged aoe wasn't really that accurate. It's more about defense and knocking things back. Smash doesn't help any of this.

EDIT: Just figured out the Long Stance bug. The other templates need anims. Not sure why Woad Warrior doesn't. Hopefully this is it. Also in some places it's named Long Style and others Long Stance.

As a bug for gaslamp and not you requiring unarmed doesn't work because it requires 0 (essentially the same as a non-value)

Dragon Foot Technique doesn't have an icon for the spell (or it's invalid)

 

Yeah, I've told David that we need

<requirements weapons="0"> for unarmed
<requirements weapons="2"> for dual wield, and, if he wanted to give the modders a little extra fun to play with,
<requirements weapons="1"> for two-handed fighting (which would also in theory allow <requirements weapons="1" shield="1"> for a specifically sword-and-board skill.

I haven't tested to see if you can do <requirements weapon="0" weapon="1"> and make crazy axe-and-sword-only spells, but that would be something the modders would love, too.


I'll fix all that stuff you noted up, too, Null. Thank you so much.

 

Spoiler: Staff fixes

Code:

<spell name="Long Style Spirit Conduit Strike" type="template" templateID="31" anchored="1">
<effect type="damage" transmutative="2" transmutativeF=".2"/>
<buff usetimer="1" self="0" time="2" icon="skills/warrior/staff-fighting1_64.png" smallicon="skills/warrior/staff-fighting1_32.png">
<secondarybuff id="11" amount="-20"/>
</buff>
      <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/null" frames="1" firstframe="0" framerate="100" centerEffect="0"/>
</spell>
 
<spell name="Spirit Conduit" downtime="5" attack="1" type="adjacent" icon="skills/warrior/staff-fighting1_32.png">
<requirements weapon="3"/>
<effect type="damage" transmutative="2" transmutativeF=".2"/>
<buff usetimer="1" self="0" time="2" icon="skills/warrior/staff-fighting1_64.png" smallicon="skills/warrior/staff-fighting1_32.png">
<secondarybuff id="11" amount="-20"/>
</buff>
<effect type="trigger" requirebuffontrigger="1" requirebuffontriggername="Two Ends Stance" spell="Two Ends Spirit Conduit Strike"/>
<effect type="trigger" requirebuffontrigger="1" requirebuffontriggername="Long Style" spell="Long Style Spirit Conduit Strike"/>
</spell>
 
 
<spell name="Long Style Priming Blow" type="template" templateID="31" anchored="1">
    <!-- don't ask why, templates just need at least one effect and an anim -->
    <effect type="trigger"/>
<buff usetimer="0" allowstacking="1" self="0" icon="skills/warrior/staff_secrets64.png" smallicon="skills/warrior/staff_secrets32.png">
<resistbuff aethereal="-3" conflagratory="-2" transmutative="-3" necromantic="-2" voltaic="-2"/>
</buff>
      <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/null" frames="1" firstframe="0" framerate="100" centerEffect="0"/>
</spell>
 
<spell name="Priming Blow" type="adjacent" downtime="19" attack="1" icon="skills/warrior/staff_secrets32.png">
<requirements weapon="3"/>
<buff usetimer="0" allowstacking="1" self="0" icon="skills/warrior/staff_secrets64.png" smallicon="skills/warrior/staff_secrets32.png">
<resistbuff aethereal="-3" conflagratory="-2" transmutative="-3" necromantic="-2" voltaic="-2"/>
</buff>
<effect type="trigger" requirebuffontrigger="1" requirebuffontriggername="Two Ends Stance" spell="Two Ends Priming Blow"/>
<effect type="trigger" requirebuffontrigger="1" requirebuffontriggername="Long Style" spell="Long Style Priming Blow"/>
</spell>
 
<spell name="Long Hit" type="template" templateID="31" anchored="1" attack="1"/>
<effect type="damage" crushing="0"/>
      <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/null" frames="1" firstframe="0" framerate="100" centerEffect="0"/>
</spell>
 
<spell name="Long Style" type="self" downtime="1" icon="skills/warrior/staff-fighting3_32.png">
<requirements weapon="3"/>
<effect type="removebuffbyname" name="Not In The Face!"/>
<effect type="removebuffbyname" name="Two Ends Stance"/>
<buff usetimer="0" allowstacking="0" removable="1" icon="skills/warrior/staff-fighting3_64.png" smallicon="skills/warrior/staff-fighting3_32.png">
<targetHitEffectBuff percentage="100" name="Long Hit"/>
<description text="Your staff attacks -- all of them -- strike 2 squares out in front of you as long as you're in this stance. It's the 'fight smarter' way of Wizardly combat. Unfortunately, you still have to have someone right in front of you to swing at."/>
</buff>
</spell>

And no the xml specification preclues doing <requirements weapon="0" weapon="1"/> etc because there can only be one weapon attribute per tag. It also says the 0 is the same as null (at least I think) so that's why unarmed doesn't work: the code probably isn't reading a 0 value as existing. Perhaps unarmed should be -1 given that it isn't any weapon.

Spoiler: Unarmed

Code:

<spell name="Teleport Back One" type="template" templateID="629" anchored="1" noanimation="1" >
<effect type="teleport" skipanimation="1" />
    <!--<anim sprite="sprites/sfx/null" frames="1" firstframe="0" framerate="1" centerEffect="0"/> -->
</spell>
 
<!-- needs to hit a monster to prevent abuse with one-tile wide gaps and traps -->
<spell name="Billy Quan Effect" type="targetmonster" attack="1" >
    <effect type="damage" crushing="0"/>
    <effect type="trigger" spell="Unresistable Knock"/>
<effect type="teleport" skipanimation="1" />
    <!-- the teleport comes first so that the next spell can be anchored, and thus face the correct direction -->
    <effect type="trigger" spell="Teleport Back One"/>
    <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/null" frames="1" firstframe="0" framerate="1" centerEffect="0"/>
</spell>
 
<spell name="Billy Quan Missile" type="missile" >
    <effect type="trigger" spell="Billy Quan Effect"/>
</spell>
 
<!-- fire two tiles ahead because we're stopping one before it -->
 
<spell name="Billy Quan Maneuver" downtime="4" type="template" templateID="31" anchored="1" icon="skills/warrior/unarmed_art0_32.png" attack="1">
    <effect type="trigger" spell="Billy Quan Missile"/>
    <!--
<effect type="damage" crushing="0" unblockable="1"/>
<effect type="trigger" spell="Mind Your Manners!" amount="1"/>
    -->
</spell>

Can you get David to get Chris to add a canDrown="1" to teleport so that when the enemy is above water it can be dealt with nicer than flying back a step. Right now it tries to teleport to them but fails. The next step assumes that you made it there and makes you teleport back. If this is implemented it probably also needs to be able to set the message so that it's specific to this and doesn't say teleport. That could also serve for swapwithmonster for things other than Switcheroo.

Dragon foot technique also isn't anchored. And needs centerEffect="1" on the explosions.

 

Code:

<spell name="Symbiotic Toadstool" downtime="96" type="adjacent" icon="skills/rogue/fungus3_32.png">
<buff usetimer="0" allowstacking="1" stacksize="2" self="0" icon="skills/rogue/fungus3_64.png" smallicon="skills/rogue/fungus3_32.png">
<primarybuff id="0" amount="12"/> <!-- Burliness -->
<primarybuff id="2" amount="12"/> <!-- Caddishness -->
<primarybuff id="3" amount="12"/> <!-- Nimbleness -->
</buff>
</spell>

The symbiotic toadstool built into this version doesn't work as intended. It lacks that self="0" which blocks the buff from buffing the character, instead of the adiacent tiles. This is the right code.
I was thinking about giving it some kind of regenerative effect, maybe like the Fairyworgen, just to help pets survive longer (and from the toxic spore cloud).
I've tried to make it like this (I also added +2 just for the sake of flavor and survivalims):

Code:

<spell name="Symbiotic Toadstool" downtime="96" type="adjacent" icon="skills/rogue/fungus3_32.png">
<effect type="heal" amount="5" />
<effect type="dot" resistable="0" amount="6" spell="Fungal Heal 0" />
<buff usetimer="0" allowstacking="1" stacksize="2" self="0" icon="skills/rogue/fungus3_64.png" smallicon="skills/rogue/fungus3_32.png">
<primarybuff id="0" amount="12"/> <!-- Burliness -->
<primarybuff id="2" amount="12"/> <!-- Caddishness -->
<primarybuff id="3" amount="12"/> <!-- Nimbleness -->
<resistbuff toxic="2"/>
</buff>
</spell>

But neither the cure nor the fungal heal works, on the pet.
:edit:

Code:

<spell name="Symbiotic Toadstool" downtime="96" type="adjacent" icon="skills/rogue/fungus3_32.png">
    <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/flesh_heal/flesh_heal" sfx="flesh_heal" frames="7" framerate="100" />
    <effect type="heal" amount="10" />
    <effect type="dot" amount="6" resistable="0" spell="Fungal Heal 0" />
    <buff usetimer="0" allowstacking="1" stacksize="2" self="0" icon="skills/rogue/fungus3_64.png" smallicon="skills/rogue/fungus3_32.png">
        <primarybuff id="0" amount="12"/> <!-- Burliness -->
        <primarybuff id="2" amount="12"/> <!-- Caddishness -->
        <primarybuff id="3" amount="12"/> <!-- Nimbleness -->
        <resistbuff toxic="2"/>
        </buff>
    </spell>

This seems to work for the buff and the direct heal effect. Somehow, the dot effect doesn't seems to want to work, and in this case the stacking buff doesn't have a maximal amount of buffs.
:re-edit: I figure that the max number of buffs doesn't work properly on pets, in any case.

Also, the Bloodwrencher spell has that nasty bug which let's you cast as many as you can in one turn if the monster is far away, and there are no melee combat in the sight. And casting a 0 spell is something everyone can do, infinitelly. Btw, what's the point of this skill, Essence? It deals fair too low damage to be something someone should use seriously.

 

I don't believe that's supposed to be tested anyway, just the weapon skills.

 

Why those modifications are there, then? I could test anything, but I cannot see if something is OP, if everything gets a mass unofficial buff.

 

yeah, I actually just slapped the weapons code into my existing Core Skills Rebalance II files. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake -- I'll get the official core files updated with the weapons and Deadshot code and get them posted up here sometime today, barring reality intervening.

BTW, you guys are amazing, thanks for all of the code help.

 

It's a pity, since I cannot count how much fun I'm having with those new weapon skills PLUS a better werediggle (cure on cast, yay, ass saver) and a really functional big game hunt, and somehow a balance with dual wield with that -20 edr.
GLG guys should really consider watching all those changes, to see what they prefer to implement in the core game. After all, weapon skills weren't the only kind of skill which was needing more love.
But anyway, I think I'll stick with those changes, since I'm again enjoying skill trees that I liked just for the flavour they brought to the game.

Essence, I think pets (and monsters, in general) have a bug in which the buffs don't have a maximum stack. Maybe it's for this that enraged diggles can REALLY GET MAD.