Making the werediggle the true terror of the night.

Dunno. Every egg you get is effectively 36 Hp in the form of a cheesy omlette.

Is 540 extra HP of healing 'not a big deal', especially considering the heal -on -transform in addition?

 

Maybe not on level two, my two dears, at level three I think it's more than enough, if we consider giving it this ranged attack (and maybe a little offensive stats too). Because, yeah, we must integrate the diggle plague from the start. Because of this:

So we can make that low level Diggle Plague into something useful also on late levels, giving late levels "boosted" version of the plague that need the previous one on the target to work.
Also, I would like to say that the total stat gained from the skill isn't nearly comparable with other rebalanced skills. Like, we can say, armor mastery, that gives you way more block and armor than the form; considering that this will synergy with everything else that gives , or whatever and the werediggle must live on its own, we should remove this problem ALSO with "boring numbers".
Half of my succesful gameplay with the werediggle was with an old version of the game, when the werediggle received full stat from other skills (and I had vegan, so...). Without such a bonus, all those little bonuses to many things seems to be here just for a thematical reason.
Later I'll post a prototype of the updated werediggle skill, so we can have more material (and a sum) to discuss with.

 

What about... what about some kind of debuff that strength your own skills if you use them on enemies.
And what about MORE different debuffs that add things to your skills?

 

You'll have to be slightly more detailed than that, I think.

 

Uhm. I'll try with an example:
There are 2 different debuffs which can be used by the werediggle, ABC, and XXX. Both are coded so when XXX afflict the target, ABC is removed (if it was on the target), and the opposite.
Skills like Egg Toss, procs and Diggle Smash have their own effect, but if casted upon an enemy afflicted by ABC or XXX, a secondary tematical effect takes place.
So, for istance, Diggle Plague could buff the damage for the Egg Toss (rotten eggs anyone?), or could give Diggle Smash a confusing effect (due to nausea).

 

Yeah, thinking about it in terms of cheesies puts a different spin on things. Maybe put it at level three and add a line of text to the description saying the egg sometimes breaks when you throw it (because you're throwing it, right?) Then give it a 80-90% chance of spawning an egg. That should even out the HP gain.

 

I think you've hit on a fantastic, elegant solution - just push all the Warrior - appropriate buffs to the front of the tree, and save more Rogue-like buffs for later in the tree! Give us arch-diggle smash, the huge and bonuses - front-load all that good stuff. That would make Werediggle a one-stop win button for DL 1-4. Then put all the interesting utility stuff in the second half of the tree - egg, invisibility, wall-smasher... One new utility-themed capstone skill for level 8 would be all the "new" you really need.

This makes Werediggle a bit like Demonology - two trees mashed together. Some raw power that keeps you alive early on, and then some awesome tricks that keep you alive later. Nobody would worry about whether or not being in diggle form would help against Dredmore - just like people don't complain because Breath of the Dragon isn't a viable attack against Dredmor - all of the diggle melee abilities would just be gravy, instead of making them look like the ultimate point of the skill tree.

To put this another way - the fact that Werediggle (currently) ENDS with strong melee buffs makes the tree feel like it should be a mele powerhouse - and it's just not (for all the reasons we've discussed here.) But simply re-ordering the tree changes the perception of what the tree should be. Which is a much more elegant solution than changing everything in the game to meet the original expectations.

 

Ok, I'm not good with too many words, so here's the promised prototype.
I'll say, anyway, that this could make the werediggle a little more of a tank in early levels, and definitively will be more useful in late game, while not having nukes or too much broken/simply too much skills. Keeps in mind that those numbers are here just to make examples, and could be subject of changes.

lvl0: Werediggle Form (self buff: +3, +2, +2, +2, +2, +5). [the same werediggle skill, just a little boost to stats because yeah]
lvl1: Diggle Plague (targethit and playerhit procs debuff, not-stackable) +2, +2, +2, +2. [a little more damage and more resistances, this little will be boosted further by diggle plague]
lvl2: +4, +4, +5, +4, +2, +2, +2 [just boosted stats]
lvl3: It comes from Where?! (ranged attack, does crushing damage, has 70% chance of spawning an egg on the feet of the target, 25% chance of more explosive power - the egg is shattered upon the hit and 5% chance of nothing more appearing, upgradeable), +15.
lvl4: The mughty Auger (the old good drill nose attack), +3, +2, +2. [this could have a secoundary effect on enemies like some kind of bleed effect, and anyway I propose to make it a 1 skill]
lvl5: +4, +4, +2, +4, +5, 3, +2, +2, +2.
lvl6: Going Commando (self buff: invisibility, +20, upgradeable), +10.
lvl7: Archdiggle Smash (melee attack + target debuff Arch Smashed, upgradeable), Archdiggle Plague (debuff boosted version of Diggle plague, stackable to 3).

First of all, the upgradeable tag means that those skill will change (or expand) their effects if are used on an enemy with debuff(s). Skill-boosting debuffs are Diggle Plague, Archdiggle Plague and Arch Smashed.

Secoundly, I would like to give Diggle plague a special effect: the possibility to boost itself. Basically the spell check if there is already a Diggle Plague on the enemy, and in that case it removes the debuff for a subsequent Plague. Something like:
Diggle Plague
1st stage: unstackable, -3, -3, -3, -1, -1, -1 - casted with Diggle Plague procs on blank enemies.
2nd stage: unstackable, -5, -5, -5, -5, -10, -2, -2, -2, confuse the target - casted with Diggle Plague procs on enemies afflicted by 1st stage.
3rd stage: stackable (3 max), -4, -4, -4, -4, -5, -5, -2, -2, -2 - casted with Archdiggle Plague proc.
1st and 2nd stages gives the same upgrade to abilities, while 3rd stage, while weaker than 2nd stage, is stackable and gives way better (and/or stronger - or maybe lightly different) effects to abilities. This means only tough mobs will see second and third stages.
Arch Smashed, instead, will be a one-time debuff, since it's casted with a cooldown ability and it's freely controllable.

Third thing: those special skill-buffing debuffs remove each other, so you will never have all the effects active all together. This makes Archdiggle Smash a very particular ability, since it can be used with diggle plague for an effect, and after that it can be used again with arch smashed for another effect.

Tomorrow I'll post the boosted effects of spells, for what I've thought until now.
Thoughts, anyway?

 

I think that's a little too much warrior and a little not enough Rogue.

If it were me, and this is purely offhand, I'd do something like:

0: Werediggle Transformation -- as yours.

1: Diggle Plague: inflicts the enemy with a few small stat penalties and a DOT that inflicts a small stacking - debuff. The skill level should add to the character, so that essentially those enemies you proc the Plague on take more damage from your melee attack every turn, up to a point, in addition to all of the other cool Plaguey-mechanics like the infection percentages. Each time the proc goes off, you get a one-turn buff called 'Diggle Mary' that adds one point of Putrefying damage. If you have Diggle Rage! active, the proc affects all adjacent squares instead of just your target.

2: Egg Cannon. Like yours. If you fire it while you have Diggle Mary active, you get a Noxious Brimstone Flask effect in addition to the typical cannon effect. If you fire it when you have Going Commando active, you get massive single-target blasting damage in addition to the typical cannon effect (Sniper!). If you fire it with Diggle Rage! active, it adds knockback.

3: Diggle Rage! It's a buff. Adds the same stats that your level 2 gives.

4: Mighty Augur -- combine Arch-diggle smash and drill nose into a single skill here. If you hit a wall, you get the 1-turn cooldown, but if you hit an enemy, you get a debuff that prevents you from activating the ability for 13 turns. If you use it when you have Diggle Mary active, you inflict Archdiggle Plague in addition to the normal Smash effects. If you use it when you have Going Commando active, you get an asphyxiative DoT that scales to Sneakiness (Garrotte!)

5: Going Commando. As normal. If you have Diggle Mary active when you turn this on, you also activate an Odious Puffball-like toxic confusing cloud. Cannot be activated while Diggle Rage! is active.

6: Diggle DIG! It's a teleport. There' s no way to get the diggle digging animation to play when you do this, which is sad, but it's the same idea. It's a low-cooldown Blink, but you still choose a target tile, and if you use it with Going Commando on, you teleport directly to the target square. Cooldown long enough that you only get to do it once every other transformation if you transform as often as possible.

7: dunno yet, still working on this.

 

I prefer Vitellozzo's version.

 

I think a compromise would be good here:

• Essence's skill ordering is good
• Combining the augur and archdiggle smash is pretty nice
• Vitellozzo's egg thing is more attractive
• also the "upgradeable" concept

though things are getting a bit weird with the skills with stance-like mechanics, choosing werediggle could be comparable to choosing a "stance".no more stances plox. i'm just not fond of stanception

anyway i propose two more skills:

1.) Adds a bit of and exotic resistances
2.) Some / for when you aren't polymorphed and adding a small% chance to not spawn as a werediggle and instead spawn a muscle diggle that lasts for 15 turns while you fall asleep.

and visual tweaks to polymorph:
progressing up the skills line changes the polymorph spirte, from a plain diggle to eventually an arch-diggle thing, not different transforms, but working something like putting invisible buffs on the character with every level put which determine what the polymorph would look like

 

First of all I love the idea of combining Arch Diggle Smash and The Mighty Augur into, say, a "new" Arch Diggle Smash and replacing The Mighty Augur with a teleportation spell. It'd be simple, effective, fun and easy. Most importantly though is that it dosen't change the flavor of the skill as you can do it all with a bit of coding and changing the skill descriptions ever so slightly.

Not sure if I like the idea of the new Diggle Plague, a simple stackable debuff that has a 10-20% chance to proc when you hit in melee or with a thrown item alongside a -small- stat boost seems sufficient, maybe it would deal a small amount of slow scalling and . I'm really, really, really, not a fan of the "Upgradeable" concept seeing how the skill is already as unfriendly for new players as it is and it would only add confusion for the sake of confusion. Keeping it simple is key.

The Egg thing I -kind- of agree with as it technically weakens the skill late game and the flavor is kind of silly but then again it is kinda bonkers to have 120 Deep Omelets and god knows how many Noxius Brimstone Bombs at will and the restrictions that the "new" It Comes Out of Where?! would add (needing a target to spawn an egg) would be an elegant solution in of itself.

Question; why haven't anybody suggested adding activated abilities to Werediggles of London and Dr. Diggle and Mr. Hyde rather than just adding stats to them? Adding raw stats makes the skill an instant "lol at teh first flurs DD", it's not a huge issue but it's an issue none the less, also it dosen't exactly make things more fun for anybody but the munchkins (aka Spike) whereas giving them abilities for you to use adds both utility and fun to the skill.

I'm thinking something along the lines of summoning a Muscle Diggle pet with Werediggles of London which can act as both a companion (...maybe even, a friend) early game and as a distraction late game whereas Dr. Diggle and Mr. Hyde could be the "DIGGLE RAEG!!!" skill that Essence suggested. Sure they still need a -small- buff in terms of stats.

...

Also, I suggest having the skill scale with seeing how the skills themselves add and we want to give it a rogue/warrior feel and I can't really see how sneezing at somebody or throwing an unborn youngling could scale with /. Diggles are a bunch of adorable bastards, period.

EDIT: Also, I wouldn't recommend add stats for while outside of Diggle Form as it kinda defeats the purpose of the skill. Likewise I can't really come with that many inane ramblings as my internet is fudging up.

 

Ok, time to those upgrades, since I feel that post is half empy without those. Essence felt this too, since

Because, yeah, there are just numbers. But I wanted some sleep. ^^'
What I was thinking should be easily understandable.
You got those cool debuffs, ok? Let's recall those (for now, for example sake): Diggle Plague (1st and 2nd stage), Archdiggle Plague (3rd stage), Arch Smashed.
Let's now collect the upgradable skills: It comes from Where?! (egg throw), Going Commando (invisibility), Archdiggle Smash (melee attack). Maybe The mughty Auger too.
Now what we get when we hit enemies afflicted by debuffs, when we use one of those skills?

- Diggle Plague:
The egg launched makes the victim feels more nauseated - 70% chance of egg spawn and a single tiled damaging smoke of gasses, 25% of explosive cloud of toxic substance, and 5% of paralyzing enemy (those gas clouds could infect others caught into it).
The invisibility gains a 100% melee proc, upon exiting from the invis buff, making enemies confused (or maybe another effect?).
Archdiggle Smash, before giving the enemy his particular boosting debuff (Arch Smashed), get moved aside in form of knockback (?).

- Archdiggle Plague:
Something similar but more effective than Diggle Plague.

- Arch Smashed
Egg launched summons some (maybe one of more possible) diggle slaves with big damage power and really low hp, or the inverse if you want. Or, maybe, 70% summoning a simple diggle, 25% of a tanky diggle and 5% of a really high dps diggle.
The invisibility gains 100%, on becoming visible with a melee attack, of charm that monster.
A secondary succesful archdiggle smash could make really a punch with a high damage output.

I wanted to give werediggle utility effects aside from being big in fights, at least for the first levels.
But, maybe, those are little too gimmick.

I could have said that.

Some skills already scale with and , and those buffs were meant to boost that aspect.

I woundn't too.

Essence, I kind of like your ideas, but I don't feel well with some decisions.

Why a buff, and not passive resistances? For the sake of having that buff? That seems very unconfortable too, if its cast is meant to be actively casted.
But actually having different buffs that can boost your skills could work just as fine, since all those debuffs, while I like the idea, seems really too confusing. I don't know.
And, anyway, a friend of mine suggested the teleport just the other day. That could be cool too. Anyway, why can't one make the animation what he prefer more? Instead of the usual teleport animation, I mean (hardcoded?).
But yeah, I think that this project will take some time, I don't have anymore clear ideas about it.

 

Because a buff is more fun simply because it adds something to the skillbar. The more skills you have the more fun the average player thinks it is, even if it's merely superficial. Besides having it be a 5-10 turn buff means that you can pimp it up and make it more controlled that a passive stat boost would. It's not a perfect solution but it adds something to the skill that wasn't there before and helps the theme flavorwise.

...likewise I don't like the Arch Diggle Plague idea, it seems like a forced subtheme flavor wise, it goes way too far away from the original design of the skill and I have a really hard time seeing an Arch-Diggle (who's part of the rulling class in diggle society) suffering from Diggle Flue.

 

If I must be honest, Diggle Rage was there because, when you look at the list of core diggles, you have Diggle, Sickly Diggle, Enraged Diggle, and Archdiggle. Enraged Diggle wasn't represented anywhere in the skill, and that seemed like weaksauce.

 

No really, no.
If we want to make the werediggle funnier (we don't, anyway) and more useful (we should), we can't just add buttons.


Anyway there could be something werediggle could be masters of: the control of battlefield through physical power.
Like making plaguing spell mines under the infected enemies, drills into the floor to block enemy legs, earthquakes, splatted eggs.

 

Yes, really, yes. It's actually one of the most commonly used and effective game design tricks, I can't remember the exact name but I could do so relatively quickly seeing how I've got a few books on game design/philosofi. I want to say it's called illusory depth but I'm pretty sure that's just my sleep deprived brain messing with me.

Also, yes you do want to make the skill more -fun- above all else. Fun equals something that feels rewarding/challenging to play with/as, not raw numbers. Now naturally you could just focus on power but by doing so you'll end up with a subpar product, alienate a HUGE amount of the target audience (only "Spike", who equals roughly 1/5 of a playerbase thinks power for the sake of power is fun) and the mod'll sieze being the community project that you're attempting to create and become a personal project.

It's a game, games are fun, power can be fun but not in an environment ment to challenge the player.

EDIT: Note that "design fun" and "fun fun" are two VERY different concepts. I'm not talking about bad jokes and so on, I'm talking about creating gameplay that'll stimulate the player to have a more enjoyable experience.

 

Fun for the sake of fun is something werediggle can achieve by just flavor text. Like lots of content in the game. This is what I wanted to say with "(we don't, anyway)".
And anyway the question here is: making the werediggle USEFUL, not the biggest nuker of the planet. Spending a turn obtaining something vanilla gave to you can be funny the first time you must use the skill, but is just gimmick. And that's not something useful, or something that can help us give Werediggle more utility and a personal nature. And I can say, instead, that since I was here as an anonymous guest, I've read LOTS of complaint about making too much skills. People had complained about the clutter of too many skills. Nor I like useless buffs, a casted buff could be useful if it added something more than raw power. If that skill (for example) lowers your accuracy, but gives your attacks the possibility of push enemies, could be something you want sometimes. If that skill gives you popcorn each time you dodge, could be something you want sometimes too, but you could want it more. If that skill is just to make you thougher and those stats are needed to help you survive that "useless diggle form", you would have them always active.
That is not a Killing Blow one time damage. That is not a stance, which you must chose to use it or use another one. That is just old useful stats into something players just cannot have all the time (and if they can - 30 turns duration 30 turns cooldown, it's just more gimmick than ever).
Man, I cannot even recall other buffs in the vanilla game that are just "more raw power" without a challenging mechanic, like cost or something similar.

Spoiler: douchebag's words

Another commonly used trick in the game world is to sell Day1 DLC with the game. Popular doesn't necessarily means good; nor good for what we're trying to achieve here.
Essence gave his reason why that skill is like he suggested: not for buttons, but to mantain the idea of multiple diggles in a single pack. That gave me ideas. Your post didn't (and you could just spend half a minute replying to my last proposal - the terrain control - like "it sucks", but you didn't).
And yeah, if I wanted to be the star I just didn't have to post all those words, I could just posted my finished personal project.

Anyway, I want to expand a little what I suggested in my last post, since being low in informations can be useless (I was with a friend yesterday, I didn't had the right time).
As I said, werediggle could have just simple activable abilities with a special effect: the idea here is to make a rogue golemancy-like class, where you can control the flow of the enemies by placing whatever (spellmines, activable debuffs, simply dot aoe).
Like: when Diggle Plague comes into play, it can spawn a 1 tile toxic cloud or something like that, which could infect more enemies stepping on it.
Archdiggle smash+mighty auger skill could have that double effect essence said, but not as an attack (I think casted attacks are something werediggle just doesn't need right now). Something like: dig through the wall OR dig into the floor (with debuffs inabiliting too much cast). Digging in the floor could create spellmines that immobilize who steps on them (having half body buried in the ground doesn't help if you want to walk) and maybe gives - too. However I would like to not lose the archdiggle reference, and the archdiggle thing could be made as some other castable skill for the capstone, leaving the mighty auger all alone.
Enraged diggle reference could create rage-inducing effects on its targets (-x , -x ) , maybe (to mantain this idea of territory control) it could piss on floor (PISSING its enemies - oh god forgive me) or just writing offenses on walls and floor tiles, enraging enemies. This second possibility could be made with different random effects, that could just change the duration or the intensity of the enraged debuff: from "I hate you" being the lowest intensity rage to "I dug through all your relatives" to maybe "Your eyebrowns aren't just as stylish as mine" (this one could lead to confuse subeffect since werediggles don't have eyebrows.
Archdiggle smash could be something on its own, with magical like or bleed focused effects in big aoe (but as a spellmine, and not something like fireball).

 

I'd like the egg to explode at some point, dealing medium damage to a 3x3 square but with no chance of leaving an egg behind (probably when it hit someone who was Arch Smashed). Just because exploding eggs are cool. Maybe poison exploding eggs which give nearby enemies one of the 3 debuffs or something.

 

Spoiler: Wall o' text that's not that interesting

First of all; I get that there's a language barrier component here and that it may be the explanation for some of the confusing. English is far from my first language. Likewise my posts are generally rather rushed so I don't always have the time to read correctitude on myself, which I apolegize for,

Now I wasn't defending the idea of a buff (and especially not a plain stat boosting one), which it appears like you thought for some reason. Rather I was answering your question as to why a buff would be pefferable to a passive boost in the given scenario. Because studies shows that, believe it ot not, buttons are fun and that include useless ones. I really, really, really, don't get the Day 1 DLC remark seeing how that's a marketing strategy whereas the other is related directly to game design, neither of which has anything to do with one another at all. It was a, with all due respect, horrible and kinda redundant comparision.

Naturally I don't mean that you should add activated skills all willy nilly, of course not that'd be silly. But considering the nature of the Werediggle the usual Werediggle build in the main game ends up with little to no activated skills. Leaving the average player with an almost empty skill bar which in turn isn't that engaging to the avarage player. Keep in mind that I'm talking statistics here, hence the use of the word "average", and that we're getting more skill bars soon. This should be kept in mind when designing the mod.

As for the terrain control I simply didn't mention it because I've already mentioned before that I don't like the idea of straying too far away from the original design of the skill and it felt redundant to repeat myself. Similary I wasn't calling you an attention seeking bastard, or rather I didn't mean to but text is understood differently than words. Rather I was attempting to point out that a community mod should be aimed at just that, the community, unless it's a target audience thing of course.

Futhermore I'm just going to repeat myself and say that -fun- in this case isn't "hah hah" funny, it's creating interesting and engaging mechanics for the skill mod.

EDIT: I thought the Enraged Diggle refference was sufficiently obvious as to not verify clarification, seems like I was wrong as Essence wasn't bashed on. *shrug*.

EDIT: Won't be reposting in this thread so don't bother responding to this post. I'm not really fond of the hostile turn of events here.