Not my experience at all. That seems to be the heart of our disagreement. Last time I fought Dredmor was in 1.0.9 where he was a beast in melee and much easier for wizards. I haven't yet had time to play a straight-melee character to the end of the game in 1.0.10. Checking Dredmorpedia, I see now that the new and improved Tougher Lord Dredmor has been entirely rethemed. His first spells are now Anti-Magic Field and Greater Targeted Mana Drain. That makes Melee (or at least non-Wizard) look a lot more tempting. So, my bad. I withdraw my objections.
I'm not too sure why you'd be finding wizards to have an easier early/mid game than warriors. Warriors typically start with better gear, so they tend to have a de-facto better early game, and their ability to secure durability and damage by dual wielding swords, for example, gives them a smoother scaling into the mid-game relative to Wizards (i.e. wizards typically get more damage, but less durability than warriors, which means they are more prone to dying owing to streaks of bad luck than a warrior would be). While Wizards tend to outstrip warriors late game because of their immense mana pools and spammy aoe nukes, dual Wielding Warriors can keep up somewhat in the late game atm because chests of evil allow them to have access to massive exotic AND basic damage output per hit. However, that is based on the personal experience of a guy with an uncanny tendency to lose GRPD wizards to traps he can clearly see, but who will, on the other hand, typically pick up 4-5 doul's (1/2 of which will be chest of evil) on any given run.
It depends on how you use your skills, AllurIewtsRbelongtome. If your assortment of skills is wide enough that you don't have to care about resistances raping you, playing with a mage is like playing with a ranged rogue, only trading some of your defence for unlimited ammunition. And you don't have to play with a pure mage. I can't recall any game where my character would have no skill that gave me trap sense.
This. It's pretty much why I never really considered traps as a part of this thread. They're just really easy to avoid. If you get careless and wander over one, well, as was mentioned in the patch feedback thread, that's just a reminder that it's on.
Personally, I agree with both Kaze and Lorr - Me not doing well as wizard is a carelessness issue, not a "wizard is bad issue". Warrior is not "better" than wizard in an absolute sense. Instead, it offers a smaller "risk/reward" proposition. If you have enough skill/good playstyle that it makes extra the "risk" factor of playing wizard minimal, then more power to you. However, that doesn't change anything to the fact that warriors achieve comparable results during the early-mid game without the risk. Eventually, a well played wizard will outstrip warriors in everything, but that is a natural result of the risk/reward proposition paying off dividends. There are more risks involved to getting to the late game as a wizard, so you should naturally have an easier time there than warriors. However, even then, the price of carelessness (which does happen, sooner or later) for the GRPD wizard tends to be instant death, whereas, for the warrior, it typically means having to eat an omelet and hitting the digest button. However, that too was part of my argument - You need to be careful with basic/exotic damage, because that really throw an already delicate balance of the game off. For example, given the silly exotic damage resistance stats, the first iterations of bushido made warriors>wizards (you still did not do comparable damage to wizards, but you took near zero damage from everything).
and In my experience, wizards have a hard time for the first half of floor 1, then should coast thereafter. If you split your points and dabble in magic, it's hard to get it going, but if you identify your best AoE and rush straight to it, they can get way ahead of warriors really damn fast. Max out Necro on the first floor, and you'll steam-roller over everything thereafter. Same for Promethean, though it hits some speed bumps on specific floors that have lots of . Golemancy isn't as efficient in small fights, but allows you to kill entire zoos without taking a hit, by just sealing them in with the bees. There are several viable wizard builds that basically never engage in melee after floor 2. Other wizards love melee, but only engage in it when they've got 6 or more buffs going at once. Traps are a killer, to be sure, but taking a single rogue skill will usually give your wizard enough trapsight to avoid them. If you still step on them despite detecting the dang things (as I recently did, losing a great character on floor 11) then that's another issue that build alone can't fix. As to the Doul's, the one and only game where I can specifically remember finding a second one, I was already wielding a Lirpa with 24 . The RNG does strange things. EDIT: Restored the quotes to direct quotes. Apparently my attempt to summarize posts was deemed hostile or condescending, neither or which was intentional.
My Argument is not an X>Y argument. My argument is that X gives less power than Y but has lower risk to go with it (and vice versa). As to X being actually BETTER than Y, that depends on the how much power you are forgoing for that lower risk. Right now, I feel that it is a somewhat even trade (which is what the devs intended). Successive patches tend to edge the needle one way or the other, but mods tend to mess with it very bad. If you ran the earlier versions of bushido with the scaling version of blood knight, warriors would be running around with high damage stats for most of the game, and boast almost non-existent chances of dying at any stage of the game. Assuming these are the only two mods you are running, then that clearly makes Warrior > Wizard. THIS. IMO, getting careless and making a stupid mistake is not a question of if. It's a question of when. If you agree with that assessment, then bear in mind that when wizards make a stupid mistake, they tend to die. When a warrior makes a stupid mistake, they tend to lose a chunk of hp, but still have plenty more left over. Based on this, my argument here is that warrior is more FORGIVING than wizard, not BETTER in an absolute sense. Because warrior is more FORGIVING, you can make the odd STUPID mistake and still get moderately far, hence the proposition that warriors have an "easier" time getting moderately far(i.e. floor 10+). However, if, on the other hand, you go on the assumption that everyone is good at this game (and if they are not they should try to be, dur hur hur), and a result of their l337 skillz (real or imagined) they will never make a mistake, then yes, Wizard is BETTER than Warrior. Personally, I choose to not make that assumption, because I've played competitive games with people who had that kind of attitude, and however good their intentions, on the receiving end, they come across as a better-than-thou patronizing bunch. "Why yes, I see your point, if you're new at the game, then the M4 is good. But if you're good at this game (which for the listener, reads as "I am, and you're not"), you should be using the AK47 (which for the listener, reads as "you are a complete idiot for not doing this"). At the end of the day, the main reason why I play warrior is because the RNG demands it. I find good melee stuff when I play warriors, and good melee stuff when i play wizards too. Go figure.
I meant no offense. I do not think you are an idiot. EDIT: I have edited my previous post (#46 in this thread) to include direct quotes instead of the summary I'd had in the quote block, because I gather my over-simplified and quickly-composed summary pissed you off. My apologies for that. It was never my intention to insult you, and I didn't realize until reading your response that my summary was likely to come off the way it did.
No offense taken. I was merely justifying why i don't make said assumption, not implying you thought my mental aptitudes were lacking in any way.
I'll list some of my intuitions that I developed playing the game, they seem pretty consistent with what bergstorm found so I might as well mention them. Mainly because my reaction to bergstorm mentioning how terrible piercing was sort of was "what, that wasn't obvious?". is one of the least useful of the useful special damage types, but is quite potent. However, nothing in the game seems to have a weakness that's especially noticable. is a very useful resist in small amounts, not so much in large amounts. Probably fine to add it because many sources of it don't stack to something especially threatening. For modding I would avoid adding monsters with -, and make spells that deal depend more on debuffs like - and - to do their work. is great on weapons. This seems to be intended, as uber chests give heavy bonuses to this on weapons. I would avoid making spells that do large do willy nilly, even though monsters do have missile spells to that effect, and I would avoid adding more monsters with . is wonderful, and rather difficult to find outside of astrology, providing it early game will make the lives of melee characters much easier, if you have a mind to do that. has the dubious distinction of being worse than as bonus damage. is only potent on floor 1. Later down, is of very little use except in the case of spell mines, which often do other damages you could negate instead anyway. has the interesting effect of effectively limiting the damage to "living things" which might be a neat thematic consideration for modders. High amounts of will have great deals, even most of their damage negated, while many small hits of do nothing at all. is nice, but not as much as people make it out to be. seems to be all around more reliable. It used to be much more powerful than it is now, perhaps a bug related to it was fixed? is generally not worth it, but it does protect you from some traps and the AoEs from your bombs. One nice thing about though is that bonus effectively adds a third base damage type to your melee weapon, which is invaluable as there are some enemies weak to it, it benefits from melee power, and just 1 ensures this. Modders should not add on skills and items unless they are fine with making artifacts less important. is an excellent damage type, and is an excellent resist, but it takes longer for it to become important compared to . makes floor 7 much more workable than it would be normally, it is most frequently the floor my characters have to skip due to the comparably strong monsters and the nasty blinding that is everywhere. is lovely for floor 7 alone but it's a good damage type in general too except for floor 9. is the best of the base damage types in terms of overall reliability, but weapons that deal are more likely to have less and more other types than weapons that do . So in comparison to it is about what monsters have in terms of , which they do often have quite a bit of. As a bonus damage type though on an enchantment, is better than and more reliable than . The balancing between seems to be largely depend on the weapons in the game, thus modders should be careful of introducing weapons that deal lots of , instead splitting it with some other damage type, , , and being the most conservative (worst) choices. is nice for floor 2, as ectoplasmic excessions are very dangerous. Far more threatening though are zombies which resist it completely. doesn't really matter and can be safely ignored. It's probably a candidate for the least useful resistance in the game. is a very reliable special damage type as, once you're past floor 2, you have very little to worry about in terms of resistances. Thus it's great to get it as a bonus damage type on an artifact or so forth. Like , modders should probably not add items or skills that add low amounts of , as that would nerf artifacts somewhat. I would not add new monsters with significant amounts of or -. is not that useful as very little takes extra damage from it but a lot of monsters resist it heavily. It is a perfectly decent special damage type, however, and if you don't have access to something better it does swell. , on the other hand, is absolutely wonderful. Ice bolts and arctic swirlies can hurt, and monsters on floor 7 deal and leave low damaging spell mines where a small amount of goes a long way. is not something that should be added lightly if you're concerned about balance. is a good damage type to split away into. Adding more monsters with - is a good idea. cotd...
is quite nice. Deths resist it early on in small amounts (and even early on you will frequently overcome it), but not much else until you get to later floors. Chest of evil weapons provide this, so it is probably intentional. is of moderate use as missiles tend to be more about their debuffs and few monsters deal in low amounts once you're past the Deths. However, is of great use to people with necroeconomics as it negates their self damage. Be hesitant about adding sources of . is a good candidate for splitting damage away from . I would avoid introducing monsters with large amounts of as this would substantially alter the balance of the game, unless you really have something against chests of evil and necroeconomists, which I understand a lot of people do. Many more monsters should have low amounts of it though. means you do nothing to slimes, undead, and constructs. It's generally very awful. This makes it a reliable, conservative special damage type to use when modding stuff in. I don't really know what is supposed to do, thematically, other than not work against lots of things. On the other hand, it's abundant, and I would like to someday figure out how to make piercing themed weapons much more useful than they are now. is invaluable, abundant, and actually quite useful up to a point. Go wild with and save for one exception; don't give monsters too much . With enough armor, should be completely negated, just as many monsters completely negate player . Tit for tat. Splitting and with makes enemy armor more effective, not less, keep this in mind and don't stack up too much base damage. If you do, make it , not or . is a very nicely balanced damage type for the player and absolutely feel free to go crazy with it in scaling spells just like how , , and are used. It is quite powerful, so also be careful, but it is something that you should generally have the player deal in large amounts. is very nice against the zombys on floor 2, as they're the toughest opponent people have to worry about due to their tank. Later on, damage tends to come too hard for to be very useful. This should probably be followed faithfully. Have from monsters come in large doses, and have from players come in large doses. Have on monsters be rare, and have on players be rare. is a solid damage type, is resisted by very little, and some floor 5 monsters are even weak to it.. is a good resist for melee characters, and they should definitely be encouraged to have it. Avoid putting on monsters, and go wild putting on monsters. Players who deal with their attacks should have the reassurance that very little except the odd octo will resist it (and even then not much), and players should always be happy to see . is actually a lot like in terms of its overall usefulness, and given that Recursive Curse is quite expensive higher up, can be resisted, and is less effective lower down, is especially unwelcome on something that also has ; avoid mixing the two. Finally, although is okay in low amounts, avoid adding - at all, except when adding monsters to floor 5. is another solid damage type. It is more like and in terms of how monsters resist it and can be thought of something like an intermediate. It is a great type to split into. Very few monsters deal , but the game still provides a fair deal of , why? seems very promising to be fleshed out by more monsters and equipment. Feel free to add lots of monsters with , , and - I suppose, there doesn't really seem to be much harm that can be done messing around with them.
This thread is so full of win. Just thought I would stop by and say Hi. I have so much respect for the modders and the amount of analysis and thought that goes into your mod balance. Plus the new workshop that is on its way will allow you to update your mods steam side without the players constantly having to check for updates.
I wanted to ask if you meant that as it is? bypasses like all exotic damages. Do you mean it *Should* negate the or that if you have enough it should be negated as the code is currently? Or were you referring to the odds that with good armor you will get enough to negate it?
Oh, sweet bergstrong savior of mine! Most of the other posts on here come up with their "average" by simply adding the min to the max and dividing by 2. Which is a great way to allow outliers to completely wreck your data!
All the data in this thread is, of course, based on pre-DLC version. A lot of these numbers and observations are going to change significantly once YHTNTEP becomes the standard.
This really needs to be stickied, there's only six threads up there. I almost didn't see it down here.
Well it's a useful thread on the topic of game balance. The reason I posted that was because I came here for information on the usefulness of damage types. Kaidelong's posts above are especially useful.
