This is how you can implement this move Code: <spell name="Moonwalk" downtime="3" type="template" templateID="629" anchored="1" icon="skills/skill_stealth_small.png"> <description text="Move it, move it!"/> <effect type="teleport"/> <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/impactA/impactA" frames="6" sfx="missile" framerate="20" centerEffect="0"/> <effect type="trigger" spell="Moonwalk2"/> </spell> <spell name="Moonwalk2" type="template" templateID="629" anchored="1" icon="skills/skill_stealth_small.png"> <description text="Move it, move it!"/> <effect type="teleport"/> <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/impactA/impactA" frames="6" sfx="missile" framerate="120" centerEffect="0"/> </spell> <template width="1" height="2" name="629" affectsPlayer="0"> <row text="#"/> <row text="@"/> </template> Hint: template 629 will be part of the main game soon.
I used template 31. Only skill I'm having difficulty with is #5, and it's an issue with generating the super-high mana cost per turn. Edit: BTW, there's no need for the secondary trigger. I first tried it with template 03. The player would actually stand and snap in each of the three squares in order! It was slow, but awesome-looking. Problem was that you could move through doors with it... a bit too strong. After that I decided a 3-square teleport was probably too good in the first place, considering you also get a stat bonus and it's only barely less versatile than Knightly Leap. So I dropped it to 2, and t.31 works fine. Also I just realized that you may have thought "How do you DO that?" was an actual question. It's the flavor text for the spell.
you can make it not go through blockers and such if you make the teleport effect a triggered spell that is set to targetemptyfloor.
Per the "Exotic Damages and You" thread, the player character basically doesn't get hit by until the second half of the game. There's monsters that do on floors 14 and 15, and the Djinn Fizz on floor 10 uses Monstrous Nerve Staple which does 9 the first time but then gives the player 20 for the next 20 turns. Which means that +1 per level is basically irrelevant. By the time it matters, the player will have 4 or 5 levels. I do get that it parallels some of the main-game skill designs to have that +1 per level, and there is something nice to that, but I suspect it's not as potent as you were imagining it to be. Unless it's part of a larger mod that includes some enemy , my vote would be to move it all to the end-cap skill level, so when you get level 5 you get a single lump of +5 . The players won't really need it before then, and it makes your final level look that much more exciting. Also, shouldn't any skill about being Michael Jackson include a level where you set yourself on fire? Maybe the final level should do instead of ?
I know. That's why I felt safe giving it. It's really just a flavor thing, and since you're doing at level 1 it seemed reasonable to toss it in from the start. And once in a while you run into a named monster with a random buff, so it's not totally void. That's not to say I don't want feedback on the passives. After laying out the skill progression, adding because it's obvious and because it's awesome and meaningless, then comparing to similar active-heavy skills like Piracy (which has no passive stats at all), I was concerned about it being overpowered, especially at the top end: that's why there's a growing penalty. The bonus only balances out the loss after you've got all five ranks, though the front-loading makes it a little more interesting as a dip. The question is whether I overdid it. It's -10 overall, and while you also get +5 that's generally considered the weakest stat (though the scaling synergy at level 2 makes it more valuable) so really, the skills just have to be good enough to make it worth the trade. That's why I'm spending so much time trying to make the capstone just right. Huh, I've probably missed a reference? I mostly ignored Jackson's final 10 years. (But I bet it's awesome.) I considered a penalty. Seemed a little too nasty, tho.
Good points on . I wasn't considering that named monsters might get as a damage bonus, but now that you mention it I think I read that somewhere. So, yep, you're probably right to keep that part as originally conceived. If you were already aware about , then you probably also realize that is the best damage type in the game. Only fish resist it, and more creatures take bonus damage from it than any other damage type. So I'd encourage you to keep a close eye on that 2nd level power, especially given the aggressive scaling. Moonwalk may also need a longer timer. As written, it would allow for infinite retreat and shoot antics. "Moonwalk away from monster. Use the force. Moonwalk away. Fire a bolt or throw a weapon. Moonwalk. Fire a bolt." Repeat as needed. (I'm remembering how timers work, right? I'm pretty sure they count the turn they're used.) Not final 10 years, this was in the 1980s. He was filming a Pepsi commercial, IIRC, and the fireworks on-set caused his hair to burst on fire. It was a big deal at the time, and there's plenty of stand-up routines and late-show monologues from the 80s that referenced it.
Turn of activation is NOT counted. I thought the same at first, but my design doc says every 3 turns and that's what it is in practice. Definitely wary of the , but it's just so damn appropriate, particularly considering the 80s slang usage. "Woah, moves dude!" Somehow I totally missed that pyrotechnics incident. Probably happened when I was living in a shack without electricity (no, seriously). Hmm, wonder if I can work it in somehow...
Found a design for the capstone which I like and can implement. Setting self on fire included. Updated first post. (Reformatted, too.)
Thoughts after a good night's sleep: Probably do need to nerf the scaling on 2... or maybe swap it with 3 and fiddle with cooldowns? (Do both?) I think Pyrotechnic Mishap needs more , maybe increase to 0.6 scaling too... you're potentially avoiding a LOT of damage with that AOE charm effect.
You can do this with every existing teleport. At least, you can teleport onto doors then walk right through them.
Yeah, that's still possible. But with the three-tile template, you could go all the way through to a tile you couldn't even see. That generally the domain of blink effects, not teleport; and as mentioned, I don't want to devalue Knightly Leap.
If you don't want to devalue Knightly Leap, you might raise your timer to a value that's more than 1/3 of knightly leap's downtime.
KL goes farther (and has +3 attached). I'm pretty sure it's more useful with more than one mob in the vicinity (i.e. usually). That said, yeah, I'm considering bumping the timer up another turn. It's a fine balance between not breaking Dredmor balance, and not violating the Michael Jackson Moonwalker Experience!
Multiple adjustments above. Pretty happy with balance for levels 1 through 4, haven't really played/compared 5 yet. Having fun adding SFX and visuals (though half the time they just don't work... still trying to figure that out). Need art but probably have a source. Huzzah!
I love this, mostly because I'm 90% sure that the tweet exchange that started this whole thing came about while playtesting one of the skills I wrote for Fight Club. I accidentally started a chain of events that ended up with Michael Jackson dance-fighting Lord Dredmor! How epic is that?
Don't say you love it until you've tried it out. And now, please try it out. Beta 0.1 attached to first post. Immediate d'oh edit: Robot polymorph wipes out other skill bonuses. Hrrgh. Will figure out how to mitigate that later. More edit: It's later. Robot buffed, 0.2 uploaded. No more Savvy penalty (or Haywire bonus) because that goes away in roboform... kinda weird to be sneakier when you're shooting lasers.
ROBOT TOO BUFF Gonna go with only ONE interpretation of the arcade game's "laser attack" instead of (over)doing both. More actual math this time, instead of panicked spitballing. The Force Don't Stop was a bit too good as well, especially when combined with warrior or gish skills. Nerfed scaling, swapped positions with Moonwalk. (Yes, that means a teleport at level 2. But after some testing, I'm confident that it's weaker than Knightly Leap by enough for the difference to matter.) Comment on the level 1 ability's scaling: yeah, it's good. Nimbleness can hit 100 just from skills... but those are mostly the opposite skills from those used to pump melee power. Dance Envy lets other rogue skills contribute to melee, and it's considerably weaker if you're pumping melee by any other method (gish spells or raw power). I'm hoping this will allow more diverse builds, rather than turning out too good in combination with traditional melee. Still have not tested capstone beyond "huzzah, it makes boom and not the crashy kind." May be useless or game-breaking. Related: version number still has a zero on the front (0.3 uploaded above).
0.3.1 uploaded: very slight Dance Envy nerf, rebalanced Pyrotechnic Mishap damage (higher base, less scaling), and all stacks of the two Dance Magic buffs should now be reliably removed by a mishap. Dance Magic needs more testing in more configurations... it actually feels OK right now at level 5 against a Dlvl2 monster zoo (considerably weaker than Promethean + Blood Magic, but y'know), but that says nothing about scaling. Still, I hit closer to the mark than I expected. Once the expansion comes out I want to try a rather different implementation that requires as-yet unavailable features, but I think I've got a solid fallback with the current design.
