First, what is the Ad-venturer? It's a Hero who seek sponsors to gain more gold/power. Utility/rogue tree with lots of crowd control and cool-down based skills. What is my problem? To find ad/products easy to parody and to recognize for everyone (and as a French I don't know that many English ad), according skills, skills order, and avoiding an OP all-purpose skill-tree. So far I have, without any order (or name change) : -Colgate : Blind a enemy (passive or active, not sure). -Nivea : Increased for a few turn (doesn't really fit this tree). -Nike : Jump, passive boost. -L'Oréal : Confuse everyone around you. -Geico : Make a enemy switch to Hero (fight for you). -Old Spice : No idea. I just love the ad. Random teleport maybe? -Coca Cola: Free drink in vending machine and/or random potion drop. Passive boost. Each level also give you a chance (5%?) to drop more gold. Jokes and puns are welcome!
I think it might be funnier if you changed the names so that they were parodies of the existing names. For example, changing "Old Spice" to "Old Pepper", or something of the kind. And I like the idea. That kind of theme is a novelty right now, and it might have potential.
Yeah, that's the plan, but finding clever and funny names isn't easy because it's not my native language. If you think of anything, I'll be happy to rob to plagiarize to give you proper credit. Some ideas I got : Diggle/Octo Cola, Cougar (Puma instead of Nike), L'Otruly (truly~real), Wyrn (the closest thing to a Gecko in Dredmor)... But I prefer focusing on the code right now, it's my first mod and I don't want to screw it. Summon Several Poorly Cloned Heroine to follow you around? Or a "Lured" effect? I'll think about it, thanks.
Adopted. But I'd like to make a crowd-control only tree, with only debuff and movement skill. So far I've done : Ad-venturer Passive Midas on critical hit 0. No funny name, Toothpaste joke needed. Blind a monster in front of you (dodge: -20, -99 to all damage type until I found a way to force a monster to "miss") for 4 turn, 15 CD Completely unbalanced, I still hope to find a trick to give monster negative EDR or onhit effect. Not really "fun" to use, I'll probably turn it into a passive. 1. Cougar Jump 2 tiles in a cardinal direction, 7 CD +2 Nothing fancy, should probably be lvl 2 instead of 1. Not very original, need a little something. 2. Wyrn Charm a monster for 15 turn. 100 CD. Short duration and "high" CD to balance it with the low level. Not very original, need a little something. 3. Old Pepper (Doesn't it sounds more like Dr. Pepper than Old Spice?) Randomly teleport you and your target. Deal 5+0.30, cause confusion for 2 turn. 100 CD. Might change the CD, but look very good for now. And to do : *. Diggle Cola Something with vending machines, but all interaction with real vending machines seem to be hard coded. So probably something like "Watched by the Council" to spawn a fake one. *. L'Orly ??? *. Staff Knock back (aura?) with Heroine clone sprites all around you. I'll try to release a beta version soon.
I think the toothpaste one can be called "Willgate" - people who have any idea about the company will get the joke. Unless anyone has a better idea. And if you think the "Old Pepper" one can be mixed up, it's possible to change it to something else, e.g. "Old Sauce" or "Old Space". Either way, it's your call, but I do agree that one is slightly weird to name. The cooldown would probably have to be changed after you playtest it, but that's hardly unusual, since it happens to everyone who makes mods. Cougar can be changed so that it'd increase your dodge for a few turns after the jump, because that's the way it works for running shoes' ads. That way a 7-turn cooldown would be balanced, and the ability would have its own unique use. I think L'Orly should, for the irony bonus, create a few puddles of harmful (either debuffing or damage-dealing) paint on the floor in form of mines. With safe-to-use hair paint being their first product ever, you can see where this goes. Diggle Cola, that is a hard one. I guess making it spawn a faux vending machine would work, though I wonder if making it passively spawn some health/mana potions when you are hit on a random (low) chance, and giving it an activated ability similar to Syzygy (but timer-based and with different bonuses) wouldn't be better. I really have no idea what Geico is (the only one I can find being an insurance company), so I'll abstain there.
Because of William Colgate? A little obscure, but still understandable if you don't know it. I just changed it for "Ancient Spice" until a better idea pop out. Well, I was using Knighty Leap as a base witch has a 7 turn CD and is 1 level higher. I'll see later. The dodge buff after the jump is a nice touch, it really give a more "unique" feeling. Haha! I like it. It will probably reveal invisible unit too. I was aiming to a double effect (and now I want to add a Kiss Cool skill, but only the French will get the joke) skill with a passive chance to drop Soda (who give a "sugar rush" buff, stackable until a nervous breakdown... might be fun), and spawning an exploding vending machine. Just because I can. That's it. Geico became quite (in)famous by spamming short ads the tagline : "15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance."If it's not know enough, I'll probably scratch it in favor of another ad/product. Thanks for your input, it help a lot!
I think abandoning the Colgate joke may the best option, replace it with something like Monday Night Combat's Ad-bomb, which is just a metric fuckload of ads plastered all over your face. If you're just starting out, you'll accept any lame sponsorship you can get, right?
Or, if necessary, you could use Crelm Toothpaste with the miracle ingredient Fraudulin. Interesting skill idea you've got here, by the way!
This mod isn't dead! It's just that I'm working on that secret stuff that I will reveal soon! Or not. Just busy. Slowly working on the arts now Crelm, the miraculous toothpaste L'Orly. Because you're the worst. And trying to find a way to make crowd control relevant in the deeper level (without being OP), especially blind and a better capstone.