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Light and Dark Revamp

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 12:13 am
by Ferret
Alright, I've been thinking about this awhile, and here's what I'm poking at so far:

Light/Dark will be shifted to mostly be made up of the following types of spells:
1) "Smite" spells
2) "Miracles" (more on these further in)
3) Miens
4) Each element's "flavor" damage spells
5) Status effect appliers (Weigh Sin, Hex, etc.)


So, let's talk about each:

"Smite" spells: These are new. Light and Dark will each be getting two: one is a straight up, no cooldown, but low power/moderate SP cost direct smite. The other has a Light or Dark (as appropriate) cooldown of 1 turn, but amps up the power. Why bother with a 1 turn cooldown? Well...

"Miracle" spells: These are also new...well, newish. They will resemble the old style smites, except they all have the distinction of affecting every enemy in a wide area who meets the condition. Almost every word of that is key: they only affect enemies, and they affect all of them you can see, except for those at the *very* edge of LoS (for FerretDev reasons, most hostile abilities are never allowed to hit things at the extreme edge of LoS, and these will be no exception.) So, for example, Humble will affect *every* enemy at > 50% HP now. Additionally, you will find these have low or no SP cost... but their cooldowns are significantly higher, probably somewhere around 6 or so. (This is when it starts to matter which "Smites" you're running with: the low power, no cooldown one is always usable, but the high power one gets shut down once you use a miracle.) Miracles will probably be highish power: 85 is the most likely candidate, which is usually the maximum for AEs that can't miss (Breath Weapon + Tireless is one of the few ways around this.) Keep in mind that even a Jinn's Fireball is only 55 Power... and 85 Power is what a full power breath weapon (without Tireless) hits at: 85 is pretty heavy. :)

Miens: These will pretty much be unchanged in concept, though the specifics will likely change in some cases: basically the idea is that they add extra effects to Light/Dark damage spells if extra conditions are met. Interesting combinations abound with all 3 of the types of damage spells available: With Smites, you can potentially trigger the effect on individual targets while waiting for a good time to throw a miracle. With Miracles, you can potentially trigger the effect on multiple targets at once.

"Flavor" damage spells: Essentially, things like Light Dart, Wraith Touch, Vigor Siphon. In essence, Light gets "friendly" projectiles that allow you the option of spending points on Agility (or finding other ways to get accuracy) to get what effectively act like even higher Power smites with no cooldowns. Dark will continue to get MaxHP draining as before. Not really any changes here per se, but the changes to miens will likely have some effects here. I will probably add Light Arrow in order to even things out (85 Power, higher SP cost version of Light Dart) You can also include things like Holy Word (the Light-elemental breath weapon) in here as well, little one-offs that were added for... well, flavor. :P

Status appliers: No real changes here, but it's worth pointing out a difference in how Light/Dark handle these versus say, Debuff. The single target versions tend to be equally straightforward, but Light/Dark status appliers hit all enemies, where as Debuff targets an area indiscriminately.

The basic goals are:
1) Make them both more fun/usable in general. Both will have a fair number of spells that are generally useful and usable even when the cooldown is active, giving you good things to do while you set up for a miracle
2) Big payoff from Miracles/Miens: Getting things set up right for a miracle will be tough, but the payoff should be quite nice when it works, especially if match up some miens too.
3) Reward deep investment in Light/Dark: The Miens were intended to start this, but I'll try to find some other new passives too. We'll see what I come up with. :D Of course, there is the issue of resists/immunities to concern yourself with, so I'm not expecting anyone to ever go 7-8 Light or 7-8 Dark, but it'd be nice if there were solid reasons to play a 5-6 of one build.
4) Interesting build options from Miens, for both heavy Light/Dark users, and for those dabbling in it: I like what Reaper's Mien has done for Dark usability, I'm hoping I can get more of them to that level.


Anyway, that's where I'm at on this for the moment. This will probably be the major "thing" in the first "resting hamster" build. Feel free to chime in with any thoughts, comments, suggestions, etc. :D

Re: Light and Dark Revamp

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 12:40 am
by Gaswafers
What will Twilight do?

Re: Light and Dark Revamp

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 1:08 am
by Ferret
Good question. :) It would probably be broken in its current form under these changes, that's one of the answers I haven't come up with yet. It will depend on how the basic abilities themselves shake out.

Re: Light and Dark Revamp

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 7:42 am
by mbj
MIRACLES MIGHT MAKE QUIET PRAYER+DUALITY ACTUALLY WORTH GETTING NOW.
Also there should be an ability that makes miens apply to both light and dark abilities, that'd be cool. It could go on duality because it seems kinda weak and comes really late in the game, on a unique no less.

Re: Light and Dark Revamp

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 2:41 pm
by Ferret
There may not need to be such an ability. :)

Re: Light and Dark Revamp

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 5:32 pm
by Ferret
Here's where the design is at so far. Not final or anything yet, but wanted to give some more details on where things are going. Note that only new/changed spells are listed here: if something isn't on the list, it is either not changing or is being removed due to irrelevancy (i.e.: Mass Punish and Mass Agony)

Faithful Heart starts:
Light Primary: Smite, Humble
Dark Primary: Malice, Agony
Light Secondary: Censure
Dark Secondary: Spite


Light Abilities
[ ] Censure: 55 Power Light damage smite, Can't Miss, 15 SP
[ ] Smite: 70 Power Light damage smite, Can't Miss, Light: 1 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] Wrath: 85 Power Light damage smite, Can't Miss, Light: 2 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] Expel: Light-elemental Snuff Out, basically.
[ ] Light Arrow: Light Dart, but bigger

[ ] Exorcism: 10-100 Power Light damage (HP based), all enemies weak vs. Light, Can't Miss, Light: 4 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] Humble: 100 Power Light damage, all enemies >= Base MaxHP, Can't Miss, Light: 4 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] Punish: 85 Power Light damage, all enemies whose last action was hostile, Can't Miss, Light: 4 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] (this space for rent)
[ ] Purify: 85 Power Light damage, all enemies w/ bad status conditions, Can't Miss, Light: 6 Cooldown, 15 SP

[ ] Exorcist's Mien: Light & Dark damage abilities hitting Weak vs. Light targets deal 20% more damage.
[ ] Angel's Mien: Light & Dark damage abilities hitting targets at or above base Max HP have a high chance to apply Guilt.
[ ] Judge's Mien: Light & Dark damage abilities hitting targets that attacked last turn have (x y%) chances to delay the target's next turn.
[ ] Inquisitor's Mien: Light & Dark damage abilities hitting targets w/ bad status conditions have a chance to apply Ignite, Poison, Charm, or Mute.


Dark Abilities
[ ] Spite: 55 Power Dark damage smite, Can't Miss, 15 SP
[ ] Malice: 70 Power Dark damage smite, Can't Miss, Dark: 1 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] Rage: 85 Power Dark damage smite, Can't miss, Dark: 2 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] Unholy Word: Dark-element breath weapon basically.

[ ] Bane: 10-100 Power Dark damage (HP based), all enemies weak vs. Dark, Can't Miss, Dark: 4 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] Cull: 85 Power Dark damage, all enemies <= 50% HP, Can't Miss, Dark: 4 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] Goad: 85 Power Dark damage, all enemies whose last action wasn't hostile, Can't Miss, Dark: 4 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] Agony: 85 Power Dark damage + Agony status, all enemies without Agony status, Can't Miss, Dark: 6 Cooldown, 15 SP
[ ] Blight: 85 Power Dark damage, all enemies w/ bad status condition, Dark: 6 Cooldown, 15 SP

[ ] Demon's Mien: Light & Dark damage abilities hitting Weak vs. Dark targets deal 20% more damage.
[ ] Reaper's Mien: Light & Dark damage abilities hitting HP <= 50% targets heal user for 50% of the damage dealt.
[ ] Warlord's Mien: Light & Dark damage abilities hitting targets that didn't attack last turn have a high chance to apply Pariah.
[ ] Witch's Mien: Light & Dark damage abilities hitting targets w/ bad status conditions have a chance to apply Ignite, Poison, Charm, or Hex.

Shared Abilities

[ ] Quiet Prayer: Reduces Light and Dark cooldowns by 1, may have other effects, 0 SP.
[ ] Duality: Removes Light/Dark cooldown conflict.
[ ] Twilight: If HP <= 50%, -10 SP cost for Light & Dark abilities, Light & Dark cooldowns <= 2 clear at turn start
[ ] Priesthood: Reduces Light and Dark cooldowns for abilities by 1, minimum 0. Abilities with a cooldown reduced to 0 can be used even when that cooldown is present.
[ ] Martyr: Reduces Light and Dark cooldowns by 1 when damaged (not counting Ignite/Poison/Pariah)
[ ] Mantra: Reduces Light and Dark cooldowns by 2, Free Action, Cantrip: 5 Cooldown, 0 SP.


Some anticipated questions:

1) What does ">= base Max HP" mean? Basically, it means "is the target at or above their max HP not including bonus MaxHP" For most characters, this will mean "Are you at maximum health?", but if a character has bonus MaxHP (say, from Dark abilities), it is possible to meet the condition even if you have taken damage.

2) Explain this "have a chance to apply Ignite, Poison, Charm, or Mute/Hex" business! Sure. :) Basically, it will randomly choose a "valid" option from that list and try to apply it. An option is valid if the AI would choose to try that itself. i.e.: It will not pick Ignite on an Fire immune target, it will not pick Charm on an already Charmed target since Charm isn't refreshable, etc. Note that other than checking validity, it IS totally random with no weighting (i.e.: Ignite vs. Fire resistant is just as likely as Charm vs. Mind weak)

3) Wait, Miens work w/ both damage types by default now? Yep. :D One of themes of Light/Dark is that they aren't all that different. :D This is also why some "conditions" exist in both lists (example: Purify and Blight)

4) Hey wait, Twilight looks nerfed! If you only look at Twilight itself, yeah, it probably is. But, the abilities it works with are themselves much, much more powerful now, so used in concert, the result is probably about the same.


It's worth stressing these aren't final yet (nor will they be "final" even when they're in a released build, part of the fun of being in active development. :P ), but I wanted to keep everyone appraised of where things are going. :) Cheers!

Re: Light and Dark Revamp

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 8:41 pm
by wizzzargh
Pretty mighty looking abilities, I could anticipate slapping Punish on all your demons for some easy AoE...Well, assuming Punish can still be found on Easg Saints.

Flavor-wise I think Judge's Mien should get to keep Guilt though...
And whattabout 'Blaspheme' for Unholy Word, eh, eh?

EDIT- I guess it's Humble that's on Easg Saints, not Punish. Shows you how much I bother with them...

Re: Light and Dark Revamp

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 9:07 pm
by Gaswafers
Am I imagining it, or is that a pretty large amount of abilities when compared to the other elements?

Re: Light and Dark Revamp

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 9:33 pm
by Ferret
Punish is easy AE... if every enemy has actually attacked that turn. This is rarer than it may sound, most enemies groups aren't such where every member will attack every turn, you'd usually only see this with projectile heavy groups.

Though, if I'm being honest, I admit I've been rethinking whether these need to be/should be maximum range circle AEs. I had the idea of using cones, and I was fond of it, but one problem with cones is that the AI would suddenly have a heck of a lot of possible aiming locations to consider per "miracle", it might slow things up too much, especially once minions (i.e.: summon enemy type capture attempts) are involved. We'll see how things look once I've implemented this stuff and can do real testing on it instead of putzing around in Excel. :)

I kind of agree flavor wise on Judge's Mien, the problem there was that Guilt is probably more useful on the "hit at very high HP" conditional, since it implies the fight is just beginning. I could do some name shuffling, but not sure that will really address the issue.

Blaspheme could work, but I kinda like the idea that the Light/Dark breath weapons are just single words.

Most elements hover in the 20ish range in terms of ability counts. Body and Mind are unusual in that they have more like 30, but this is in no small part because they are both magical elements (in terms of having lots of direct spells) and a physical element (in terms of having lots of passives related to physical attacks/combat) Light and Dark will still be in the 20s after these changes, mostly because many of these abilities already exist and are just being changed, and also because some existing ones are being removed as previously mentioned (i.e.: Mass Agony is no longer needed in a world where Agony is multi-target anyway.)

It's also worth noting that ability count isn't everything: high numbers of abilities doesn't necessarily imply easy access to those abilities. :D At least until some new demons get added, some of these new Light/Dark abilities will likely only exist on modifier lists. Granted, digging into those is easier than it used to be thanks to Transpose Soul and (to a lesser extent) Revelation, but still considerably more work than just Copy Ability.

Re: Light and Dark Revamp

PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 10:07 pm
by mbj
TWILIGHT NOOOO. I don't know if anyone actually made any use of it before, and I only used it in that gimmick build I did, but now it doesn't seem that great since all these spells are only 15 sp which is already cheap, and also it doesn't completely clear the cooldown for the nukes/instakill abilities. Actually now that I think about it I guess it's still good when paired with Rage/Wrath.

Hmm... seems like there's going to be a lot of redundancy. Light/dark versions of the same spell (including two of the miens), multiple cooldown reducers, and FOUR 85 power conditional dark nukes. I like the Goad dark nuke condition, and the others ones are just multi-target versions of the good old dark abilities, but I'd only ever just use one of them due to the 8 ability limit.

Some variety could be added (ignoring names for the moment) by having Purify+Inquisitor's mien hit enemies with good statuses/buffs instead, or perhaps have Purify target allies and purge any debuffs, something like I think ayayaya suggested a while back. The list of debuffs on Inquisitor's and Witch's mien could be a bit different too, maybe Inquisitor could have ignite, charm, mute, and Witch could have poison, panic, hex (for flavor reasons of course 8-) ).

I don't know how to feel about a lot of the spells being the same (except for different types), I liked how light and dark seemed to be fairly unique schools of magic.