Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

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Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

Postby Woolad » Tue Oct 20, 2015 5:41 pm

First off, let me address modifiers.
I'm not sure if there's a way in the game to see a list of what abilities can be chosen from applying a modifier, but I can't seem to find it. I'd like for it to either exist if it doesn't, or if it does, to be added as a page when previewing the fusion via the <- -> arrows.

Next, Gazes. in particular, Charm Gaze. it's a ranged ability, unlike Arresting Glare which is a cone, costs a bit less, has a slightly higher chance of activation, but is so rarely useful it's not worth it and is more often than not a waste of SP. if it was conal and 50%, it would be fantastic, but the way it works now, it gets blocked by allies, only targets a single creature, and more often than not charm wears off after a single attack. Maybe that's just because I'm level 1, but if you have a starting ability that doesn't work well at low levels, you're wasting a skill slot for something that hinders your survival and it should not be a starting ability. God forbid I actually try and use it to get monsters to kill other monsters, the one time I tried to do that I ended up dancing around in a square for ~500 turns. FIVE HUNDRED. FOR ONE KILL. Charm Gaze should either be changed to be a charmed Arresting Glare, be Ranged Direct, removed as a starting ability, or the charm from it should last a minimum of 2 turns.

Party Control: I want to be able to set commands for my demons, dammit. I want to be able to tell them to stay close to me at all times, or to charge ahead, to focus on healing, to not use SP at all unless I command it, to target only strong enemies with SP attacks, stuff like that. Ctrl+move doesn't exactly work when your demon(s) are already out of position because they saw an enemy before you and rushed ahead, and I sure as fuck am not going to manually explore the dungeon.

Pariah: I'm not sure if it's a %chance to activate, or has a damage range of 1-X, but a good chunk of the time when I'm attacking a Pariahed enemy the surrounding enemies don't seem to lose any HP. if it's just them taking a single point of damage and the bar not changing, that's fine, but if it is %chance based to work, then the description should be changed.

Links: I am angry that there's a "kill x amount of enemies before x amount of turns" link, when monsters are so sparsely scattered throughout the dungeon in blobby groups. in other words, if I recruit something that says "Kill 5 enemies before 150 turns", and it came in a pack of 4, that means I have to run around the dungeon looking for another mob to fight, throwing caution to the wind because that clock is ticking, and inevitably fail because I just can't find anything at all to kill. Trouble Chimes solve this issue wonderfully, but you can't rely on them and you might not get one until you're 6 or so levels in. More often than not, you just run out of time and have to kill the monster you were trying to link with. I think I've only ever succeeded those links once, or when they're kill 1 enemy in 4 turns, the better version of the link. I suggest either implementing a yell function, drawing monsters near if they even exist somewhere on the level, increasing the time to 200 or so, or make it so you can encounter wandering single monsters in hallways occasionally, that way you have a chance of getting those kill 5 in 150 monsters when you don't have a trouble chime. Unique enemies are easier to recruit than ones that have the kill 5 in 150 and variant conditions.
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Re: Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

Postby Ferret » Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:45 pm

Hey. :) Thanks for playing, and for the feedback post. :D

Re: Modifiers: It's only in the very newest builds (10/6 and later), but you should be able to right-click a modifier in the "Sacrifice which demon?" list of a matrix to get the full list of abilities that modifier can give as bonuses when applied. (The list is the same regardless of whether the modifier is natural or from a matrix, by the by.)

Re: Alluring Gaze. Charm's one of the nastiest conditions around: it can be a 2 turn gain (-1 enemy turn, +1 helpful to you turn) every turn it is in effect on a target. By comparison, paralysis is a 0.5 turn gain on average (50% chance to stop the enemy from acting) with a evasion debuff thrown in. Charm is also notable in that it is reliable control: it is one of the only forms other than Stun/Shock (which is brief) and Sleep (which breaks on most damage) that never lets the target behave normally when in effect. That's why the duration is so tiny on Charm (1-4 turns) compared to most other debuffs.

All that said, I agree with you about it may not being an awesome starting ability as it stands. The idea was that you could combine it with Ego Theft's ability to reduce the cooldown and throw lots of Charms around, seriously hindering the ability of your enemies to do anything. I'll play a few games of Mind/??? again and see what's what.

There will probably be three options after that review: 1) Leave it alone, 2) Change Charm to have a 50% chance of the enemy doing nothing and a 50% chance of them acting against their interest... that would drop the turn advantage to 1.5 and let me raise the duration a little, 3) Remove Alluring Gaze as a starting ability for Vodun/Mind. I'll post again when I've finished those games with where my thoughts are on it at that point.

Re: Party Control. I admit I've been a bit of slacker on this up to this point. It is on the "polishy bits" (viewtopic.php?f=8&t=27) list at #4, but I admit it has gotten left out up to this point. As much as I want to work on content next after this capture mechanics pass, I probably should buckle up and go ahead and do improved AI controls next. To be honest, I had hoped to not need them, but trying to develop an almost completely automated AI that can make every player happy in every situation *may* have been unrealistic. :P This will probably not happen until after the capture mechanics pass and the "secret" thing I'm working on, but I will not forget about it, and I will post specifics once I've done some design work on what I want, though the stuff you suggested here sounds like a pretty good starting point for pondering. :) I want to go with the minimum necessary here, not because I don't want to do the work, but because I don't want people to have to manage it for a constantly changing party of demons. We'll see what ends up being required. :)

Re: Pariah: It should always work, but the damage is very, very low. It's intended to be at its best when you're hitting multiple Pariah'd targets with AE attacks. It deals damage based on the targets' MaxHP, so it will scale past the 1 HP/trigger point eventually. That said, even if it's just one Pariah'd target being hit 3 times a turn by single target attacks, it will be almost like having every enemy in the Pariah'd one's sight Poisoned or Ignited.

Kill X in Y turns links: Yeah, these are a problem, and they will be addressed during the current capture mechanics review. The solution will come from at least two angles: 1) The ability for these capture types to follow you to new levels, 2) Some means of detecting enemy positions on the map... this might be through a passive skill, or it might be a side-effect of being in the middle of one of these capture attempts. That combination of things should solve the issue: #1 will ensure there are always enemies you can find, and #2 will give you a fair shot at finding them without just hoping to get lucky. I'll also adjust the durations if that still proves necessary even after those changes. (Part of the problem is also my crappy dungeon layouts, I haven't put much time into them yet, but everyone knew that the moment I added automapping :P )

Thank you again for the feedback, this is good stuff. :) I'll get back to you here sometime later this week with further thoughts re: Alluring Gaze after I've had a chance to play a few Mask/Mind/???? builds.
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Re: Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

Postby Woolad » Tue Oct 20, 2015 7:33 pm

In regards to Mask/Mind/x, is the build supposed to be support-based or offense-based? because it's not direct, it seems like you're supposed to be on the front line using it, but because charm often has only a 1-turn duration, depending on your secondary, you're better off using that most of the time instead, whether it be mind blank, life siphon, numbing needle, ember burst, or whatever. if you take life siphon, unless the enemy is immune to body, it will always be the better choice - it does damage based on your magic stat, heals you, costs exactly the same, cannot miss, cannot fail. Numbing needle is just straight-up damage with a longer range and a chance of longer-lasting status, ember burst is ranged direct area, so you can hit multiple enemies with a debilitating status condition, mind blank is much cheaper and has 4 40% chances to proc, so you can essentially stun a single enemy that's bothersome and wait for your minions to finish off it/other enemies, and distract is a longer-lasting debuff that you can fire and forget.

in addition, blight is practically useless as a secondary with the build because charm doesn't last long enough the majority of the time and you'd burn through mana going through charm, ego theft, and blight, so you're taking not one but TWO essentially useless abilities to start off, and draw wounds is a supporting move that the player most effectively uses from the back lines, where you cannot use Alluring Gaze because your allies would be in the way, so you wouldn't be using it anyways. That's why I suggested Ranged Direct as a change, that way you can use it as support, provided you intended the build and charm itself to be mostly supportive in the first place.

>2 turn gain (-1 enemy turn, +1 helpful to you turn)
see, the problem with this is that it assumes that the helpful turn is worth using your turn to attempt to charm and that the cost is worth the reward. but when you're fighting packs of 5+ enemies, you don't want to use an ability that you have to have a direct line of sight to, which often means front-line combat, that has a chance to fail, and that doesn't last very long. This is especially true if you're fighting a pack of Jiang Shi that heal after each attack, enemies with ranged direct spells, like Easg Saints, and things that cast a lot of buffs/debuffs; you need to dispose of the problem creatures immediately, and since charm is not ranged direct, you end up hitting whatever is in front of you. if you charm one of the two Jiang Shi right in front of you, yes, one attacks the other, but it ends up being of no gain to you, as you get hit, you lose health, the other Jiang Shi gains most, if not all, of the health they lost back, and the one you charmed stays healthy. You're the only one losing HP at a significant
rate. with Easg Saints, you charm one, it bumps into another, and you get bombarded with 2 or 3 spells anyways, meaning you lose a chunk of HP while one of the other enemies loses very little, and you would have been better off using numbing needle or something. not to mention you spend 1 turn casting the spell, so even if you do charm something, the other creatures get attacks off on you anyways; it's essentially only a single-turn gain, and even then that "gain" is questionable unless you've whittled down a pack to two or so enemies.

Compare this to numbing needle, a 70 power attack that costs the same, does damage, has a greater range, and also has a chance to prevent the enemy from acting out their turn. it's a net positive every time you use it, because even if the status doesn't proc the enemy is one turn closer to death.
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Re: Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

Postby Ferret » Tue Oct 20, 2015 9:15 pm

Mask/Mind/x is definitely support. But, abilities like Glares/Projectiles occupy an odd spot: they work well at range in open areas where you can more easily aim around allies, but they do run into more difficulties in hallways where you won't be free to use them unless you go front line. Granted, projectiles can get around it if you stick w/ Low Profile tanks, but glares don't have that option. On the other hand, glares tend to bestow fairly nasty status conditions and at relatively high odds compared to other sources (65% vs. 35% on Numbing Needle.) It could be that the balance of all that isn't right, but that was the idea anyway. :) Changing Glares to be Ranged Direct is a possibility too, but there are higher "level"/later game versions of these abilities that already provide these effects w/ Ranged Direct, so I'd rather find some way to give Glares a niche other than that. And, as previously discussed, it may well be that Glare just isn't an appropriate starting ability for Mask/Mind, before or after any such changes.

As far as how it works with secondaries, let me get back to you on that after I've done my playthroughs of it. I could throw out some opinions on how I think they'd go now, but I'd rather see them in action first. I appreciate your evaluation of them though. :) Only thing I want to throw out for now is that while Blight + Charm probably isn't a match made in heaven, 3 of the starter monsters are fairly reliable about sticking debuffs on enemies. You'd probably want those guys with w/ Blight in any build using it since the damage on it goes up for 'extra' debuffs. That said, I'll agree on first inspection Blight's probably one of the weaker secondaries to go w/ Mind.

Re: 2 turns. Yeah, it's a potential of 2 turns, not a promise, for sure. Some critters/situations are definitely better for Charm than others.. which may go back to your point about it not being a great pick for a starter ability on a Primary. It may also just be too short a duration even as powerful as it is... the 1 turn rolls in particular seem to be jarring to folks. I'll see how I feel about it after I play with it a bit on some Mind/? builds.
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Re: Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

Postby Ferret » Wed Oct 21, 2015 10:47 pm

I started my Mind/???? playthroughs today as part of taking screenshots for the surprise I'll be unveiling very soon, and yeah, I agree with you on at least two counts. 1 turn charms, even though they theoretically could be clutch, most of the time feel pretty lame (and probably are, for how expensive/hard to land Charm effects are.) The need for a clear of fire was an intended restriction for Gaze attacks control effects, but it does interfere quite a bit with normal support play... too much so, really.

Gaze abilities used to be relatively rare/hard to get before I added relics, so I hadn't had a whole lot of experience with playing with them. As much as I'd love to say I've played every possible relic build extensively, I haven't. :) I make a point of picking new ones whenever I need to test for other reasons or if I get complaints, but there are some I just haven't hit much yet. Thank you again for your feedback on this, and for being patient with me while I looked into it. :)

Anyway, so here's what I'm going to try (and this will be in the next build):

* Charm will last at least 2 standard turns when applied. (Slower creatures may still only be held for 1 turn, however.)
* All Gaze abilities can be aimed freely within their range, but gain a slight increased cost to compensate (either +5-10 SP or a slightly longer cooldown, not sure yet) Gazes still need something to make them difficult to use since they have a higher hit rate than most sources of hard control, but I agree not being allowed to aim them through other targets isn't the answer.

There will still be some secondaries Mask/Mind meshes with better than others, of course. For example, I agree that Numbing Needle tends to steal the show from Mind (and still may after this change), but at least now they can work together: Numbing Needle gives you a great way to disable+damage guys you can see, Charm lets you control the backrow a bit too. Even a 2 turn duration won't solve Blight's issue of not having long to land... but there are 4 starter pets happy to help with that by providing things Blight can trigger off of. The SP issue can be addressed in the usual Gandayah/Freybug-centric ways.

I should point out I don't necessarily object to secondaries occasionally overpowering the primary. I'm more concerned with with "is this combination fun and effective" than "does the primary feel primary"... though I like to get both when I can, if there are some cases where I only get the first, that's fine. :) The first isn't optional though. :)

Thanks again for the feedback. :) I hope you like the changes when they're released. :D
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Re: Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

Postby Ferret » Wed Oct 21, 2015 10:55 pm

Oh bloody hell, I hate when I find out I'm arguing with my past selves.

When I went to change all the gazes over to Direct, I found out, to my surprise, all of them *are* Direct... except Arresting Gaze. :P Nothing worse than figuring out something, then thinking it's a new problem after you've forgotten all about it, and having to solve it again. :)

Well, I'll fix the bug w/ Arresting Gaze and up the min duration on charm to 2. Since this was apparently already baked into Gazes (all of the them except the Stun one have the same SP cost and cooldown), the change to Direct will not come with any cost increase.
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Re: Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

Postby Abe » Fri Oct 30, 2015 2:02 am

Buffing Charm should be okay in terms of monster difficulty because it doesn't appear in the earlygame anyway, and by the time it does appear the duration shouldn't matter as much because it's cured by Calm, which you'll probably already have at least two of in your pool because you'll die otherwise.

Mind Mask could use the Gaze buff too, because with it's current implementation it tends to be very high risk for relatively low reward, and paired with Ego Theft's low damage they're very low impact. This is especially bad in the earlygame since as a caster you're so reliant on your starting abilities to actually be relevant to combat. Later on it's not that amazing either because you'll face increasingly large numbers and thus disabling a single demon for a few turns becomes less impactful than actually killing things. The only time, in my experience, the ability is actually a big deal is when it's used against Heroes, Uniques, and Summoners, which all seemed to be surprisingly vulnerable to it.

That said, it's not like primary spells being on the weak side is necessarily a bad thing, because there's also the resistance to take into account. I'd much rather have Dark or Healing's spell sets, but I'd also much rather have Mind resist than Dark or Body on a ranged caster. I just think that Mind's current earlygame is a little too much of a crapshoot unless you specifically take Needle or Siphon secondary for an immediate combat power boost.
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Re: Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

Postby Ferret » Fri Oct 30, 2015 3:58 am

Hey, welcome, and thanks for stopping by the forum. :)

Yeah, I think the Charm buff will be okay, the buff I put in was relatively minor anyway. That said, I don't want to rely on Calm being literally the only to survive it (or anything else) either. Status infliction/removal is something I've got an eye on at the moment. I'm not 100% happy with where it is at, but I'm not near ready to make a new call or do anything with it yet.

Mind Mask's Alluring Gaze will be getting switched to Direct (I typo'd Arresting Gaze in my previous post as being the one being fixed, it should have been Alluring, which is the Mind Mask ability.) This won't really address it's risk/reward other than reducing the personal risk by not having to be on a clear line of fire, but it will at least make it fit much more easily in support roles: that may be enough? Mask by its nature tends towards low impact/subtle effects anyway. so that part bothers me a bit less... though the concern is still valid, Mind Mask is useless if it's too subtle to get off the ground. :)

I might consider switching Ego Theft out for Mind Blast (Ego Theft's damage, put +Stun instead of Presence cooldown drain): it's still a low damage build, but "support" effects are supposed to be the Mask's primary gig anyway, I can live with them being low damage so long as they at least do solid support.

But, I want to see how things go with Alluring Gaze being fixed and Charm being buffed slightly first though: being able to properly stay behind your guys to use it in a support role and knowing that Charm will last at least 2 turns when it lands has helped them feel much better, at least to me.

Thanks again for the feedback. :) I'm glad you're enjoying the game. :D
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Re: Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

Postby Abe » Fri Oct 30, 2015 6:54 am

My biggest problem with characters that start off really weak (pure stat buffers/debuffers for instance) is that for the first few floors your demons just aren't very strong. It's entirely possible, and not even that unlikely, to face off with your first pack of Jiangshi in 1 1/2 without even hitting level 2 and spending a single training point or learning a single meaningful ability, and unless you get a really superb start just having some support moves usually isn't good enough.

That said, Mind Blast sounds like a solid plan. It would give the set a strong attack foundation right from the beginning, and direct Charm would fall into it's rightful place as a support ability rather than the core. It would bring the class up to par without making something so overarching as a change to the status itself.

I almost think it would be too strong, but Mask really deserves good spells in general to make up for the Light weakness. The main comparison I personally make the set to is Heart's Light set. They both set up for no-accuracy magic/cunning direct ranged support/attacker builds, and have access to very similar tools. (Ember Burst, Draw Wounds, and even Alluring Gaze, Weigh Sin, and Hex among secondary picks.) The biggest difference is that Heart gets a solid earlygame thanks to direct Light attacks (notably super effective against nearly everything in 1 1/2 while Mind is useless against West's zombies) and the fantastic +Light/-Dark typing. (Mind resist is as good if not better, but -light hurts much, much more than -dark.)

As for Calm, I didn't necessarily mean you'd be running Calm because of Charm, since Charm has so little presence among enemies in the first place. Charm is a dangerous status effect no doubt, but the degree of it's threat almost doesn't matter because if you don't run Calm (with a second as backup, ideally) you'd probably die to Panic and Sleep long before Charm even appears, and if you do run Calm it's mostly nullified. (Then again maybe Charm Gaze appears early and I never noticed because it was being bodyblocked too much to be overly relevant. I can't even remember what enemy uses it.) Barring freak accidents like early mind-attributed enemies rolling gaze or pink whisper among their extra moves of course.

Also something completely unrelated but vaguely status-related, I really don't think Pounce needs to have an irresistible Stun attached. Being able to jump directly over your creatures and attack in the same action is already pretty powerful, especially when it's on big packs of mauling, muting, Hand Of Light tigers and panthers with Panic as a free action. :?

But I don't know, it seems "overkill" but it's also the biggest threat that I personally have seen in the game, so I'm not sure what implications it would have for the overall difficulty to change it. It seems like it (or some variant at least) is on nearly everything after all.

Also yeah, this is the most fun and interest I've had in a roguelike in a while. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have in store.
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Re: Modifiers, Gazes, Party Control, Pariah, Links

Postby Ferret » Fri Oct 30, 2015 1:37 pm

Support builds definitely have a bit rougher start compared to damage builds, and you've pretty much nailed the reasons why. I'm okay with that to a limited extent: partly because it's a little inevitable (when you have few resources, allocating a large amount of them to non-damage is by definition going to make killing things harder), and partly because I feel like support builds do very well once they do take off and get some solid demons to provide support for. That said, there's no point in a build if it regularly has no chance of making it past Tower: 1 & 1/2. I'm keeping an eye on this: if there are specific support builds in addition to Mind Mask that you've tried and felt like were hopeless at making it past the first few floors, please point them out to me and I'll give them a few runs and see what I think. :D

That said: The "late" Level 2 thing bugs me a bit too. For the most part I'm very happy with Demon's leveling curve, but the start gets thrown off because the first two floors of the game throw *much* easier encounters at you, relative to the level you're expected to be, than the rest of the game does... that throws off the XP awards, which throws off the leveling. I probably need to stop whining about "breaking muh math curve" and just give a bonus to XP earned at Level 1 so that the problem goes away.

Mind Blast very well may be too strong: it was last time I tried it! :D That's part of why I'm hesitant to pull the trigger on putting it in as a starter again. Long, long ago, before Demon had relics, you just picked a primary and secondary element from the full list of each, and Mind Blast was one of the Mind abilities. Smite-cast Stun on no cooldown, even if it is a little iffy to land, ends up being amazingly powerful. The damage is just gravy at that point really: Stun is an amazingly powerful condition when you can throw it around so freely.

I'm hesitant to change things a whole lot based on one resist/weakness versus another at this time. Demon is nowhere near content complete: new content is slated to be added both in terms of new side-dungeons in the early game and (definitely) more gameplay past the current "end" of Tower:17. That new content will likely change the calculus on what resists/weaknesses are easier/harder to deal with (even in the early game, since some of the planned content is for that), so balancing player packages on that basis would get a little tricky and be prone to constant rejiggering. (ex: Light being strong in Tower 1 & 1/2 is in fact on purpose since it's a mad doctor's zombie lab... what's not on purpose but simply a symptom of early development is that Tower 1 & 1/2 is the only 'early side dungeon' available for the game to pick from, so it appears 100% of the time.)

Unfortunately, *not* doing that constant tweaking based on content deployment does mean there will be times during development when one weakness is better/worse to have than another. I will try to keep it from getting too out of hand, but for the moment, I can tolerate some discrepancies.

Re: Pounce Stuns. You broke the code a little here: I discovered a couple of months back that pretty much the biggest factor in whether or not a melee-oriented monster was properly feared and respected was "does it have a faster than normal way to close the gap". Back then, a great many melee-oriented monsters did *not* have that capability, so as part of the melee review I did during Annual Roguelike Release Party I passed out Pounce and its variants to quite a few more demons. For similar reasons, I'm a little reluctant to nerf it just yet. It's definitely strong, but melee in general is pretty high risk, so I have some tolerance for them having access to powerful goodies.

I'm glad you're enjoying Demon (and even more glad you're writing up good feedback on it :D ) In brief, the immediate future of development is: finish this capture mechanic polish pass, work on AI a little bit to at least address the most glaring issues, then plow headfirst into content development / level creation algorithm improvement for as long as I can get away with it. :) It's been way too long since I did a serious content push... but then, until the recent surge of interest, so few people were making it past Tower:3 that it seemed silly to schedule time for content development when nobody would see it, as opposed to working on system stuff everyone plays with. :D
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