Random Characters

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Random Characters

Postby wizzzargh » Fri Oct 30, 2015 8:05 am

I think it would be nice if there was a 'random relic, element, and ally' function so if you weren't sure what you wanted to play, you could just roll up a random character and give it your best shot, and maybe discover a combination that you wouldn't have found if you were picking your character manually.
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Re: Random Characters

Postby Ferret » Fri Oct 30, 2015 12:41 pm

I keep meaning to do this, but always get to feeling like it's been too long since I put out a new build and not doing it. :P

So, this time, I will do it immediately. This will be in the next build (quite soon now) in some form or another. :D
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Re: Random Characters

Postby wizzzargh » Wed Nov 04, 2015 6:53 am

Great! I tried some random characters and found the Maul+Terrifying combo. I focused on Cunning and did fairly well Panicking my enemies, though I eventually ran out of steam on the later levels because I simply could not keep my demons alive, and as such had a very weak party. Also a pack of Psychic Raicho with Pink Whisper and Ego Theft taught me that Charm DOES work on players, which made me cry bitter tears as I killed my own Violent Zombie with Guilt-causing slash that I had dumped so many skills onto. Worse still, the Psychic Raicho that I tamed seemed content to spam Ego Theft and then do regular melee rather than the more aggressive Pink Whisper+Shocking Touch I would have preferred. It had great promise for my team, but alas, Raicho are fragile it died before it could pass on a single skill. I think I ended up dying to a double encounter of wisps, chindi, and the fish saints I never remember the name of.

I also thought I found a great combo of Weaken Host+Ember Burst but then I realized Ember Burst doesn't do any damage. I think that guy got eaten by ghoul pounce-stun-paralysis on 1 1/2.
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Re: Random Characters

Postby Ferret » Wed Nov 04, 2015 2:45 pm

Erp, I forgot to mention this new feature when I was posting my various update notices around the web. :D But, at least you found it. :D

Hand/Slash is actually one of my favorites too. Somewhat oddly, I find it pairs well with Mind since Yellow Whisper is a more reliable means of inflicting Panic and because it's a free reaction, giving you a way to occasionally try to Panic two targets at once.

Yeah, the first time a player gets Charmed is probably a very, very nasty surprise.

I'm starting to wonder if I might close of my AI gap (not all of it, but quite a bit) just by allowing players to set priorities for each demon's ability. This would probably be a very simple system, such as allowing you to set [Normal], [Rarely], [NEVER] for each ability. Normal would be what you get now, Rarely would only use the ability when it is a REALLY good idea (for example, use this heal spell to save someone's life, or this nuke if it will absolutely kill someone, don't bother otherwise), and NEVER means (I wish you didn't have this ability at all.)

I've resisted that sort of thing up to this point because I have a silly dream of an AI good enough where it would be able to figure out these things on its own... but realistically, there are limits to this approach. There will definitely be times like you describe where there are two relatively equally viable strategies that could be used with a given ability set, the player wants A, but the AI decides (if only by a hair) to go with B. Even if the AI was the best in the world, it would not be able to figure out what the player wants unaided. This most often shows up with healing abilities: the AI is often obsessive about restoring HP, sometimes more so than players would want. I don't feel this is a "bad" move for the AI to be making, but it's definitely one where a case could be made for backing off a little too.

Anyway, so, I think I'm shifting to the point where my new AI goal would be: You don't *need* to use advanced AI control features in order to play and have a fair shot at winning, but if you want them, they're there.

Not throwing a timeline for when I'll make a swing at that though. I'm at the point where I really feel like I need to get on content ASAP. The only absolute priorities before that are finishing the capture mechanics polish pass and the level/encounter generation system so that levels don't have to be so ridiculously big.
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Re: Random Characters

Postby wizzzargh » Thu Nov 05, 2015 1:01 am

Eh, I personally think the player already has tools to control their AI, namely by removing skills from training and proper timing and positioning of summoning. In my example, for instance, I bet if I had summoned the Raicho directly into melee it would have used its more powerful melee skills instead of Ego Theft (and to be fair it makes a lot of sense that a fragile raicho would want to avoid melee). If you want a healer to heal less, you can always dismiss them or summon them later in the fight.

My concern would be that even having 3 options for each active skill for each demon would potentially balloon up to lots and lots of options, and even ones you might want to change midfight, and since the AI seems pretty smart already, I don't know if the added complexity would really be worth it.

My current feeling is that the AI not doing 100% what the player wants is a feature, not a bug. If a Blessed Preta uses Fade when really all you want it to do is buff other demons, I think it's more interesting to have to make the choice to spend multiple training points to remove Fade, or live with a suboptimal buff-demon, than it would be to make the 'choice' of opening the Strategy menu and disabling Fade.
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Re: Random Characters

Postby Ferret » Thu Nov 05, 2015 2:52 am

wizzzargh wrote:My concern would be that even having 3 options for each active skill for each demon would potentially balloon up to lots and lots of options, and even ones you might want to change midfight, and since the AI seems pretty smart already, I don't know if the added complexity would really be worth it.


This is a pretty good summary of why I should not do and have so far resisted doing tweaky-level AI controls. :) Still, it does get requested sometimes.

You may have a point on the feature/bug issue. :) I'm not sure I like having to spend TP to train off undesired abilities... maybe a good compromise would be allowing permanent discard of abilities from demons for free? It has the upside of allowing you to customize their behavior a bit more while avoiding the downside of it being something you'd tweak often: since the discard is permanent, it'd be a pretty major declaration of "yes, I want this demon to not do this, ever, I have a different plan in mind."

On the other hand... starting ability load out is currently a major part of a demon's identity. Training a demon to do something counter to its original nature probably should be difficult perhaps, to help differentiate demons (something that otherwise is left only to stats, resistances, and art once you've recruited one.)

Generally speaking, once I get to the point on an issue where I find myself able to make a strong case for both sides of it, I usually just leave it alone. I'm feeling like that may be the right call here for now.

I'd still like to and will look improve the AI in general, of course, I'm only referring here to tabling the idea of specific-level controls per demon/demon ability. :D
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Re: Random Characters

Postby wizzzargh » Fri Nov 06, 2015 2:09 am

Maybe this is a design space that items could fill.

Item that removes 1 skill
Item that removes ALL skills
Item that replaces a skill with another skill
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Re: Random Characters

Postby Ferret » Fri Nov 06, 2015 5:26 am

Maybe. :) Mind Matrix kinda sorta does this... it doesn't delete skills, but it dumps so many on you at once that you probably will end up discarding plenty. :D

Eventually though, this sort of thing would be handled by the currency system... I don't like to go on and on about stuff that won't be implemented anytime super soon, but basically, there will eventually be a currency system, and you'll be able to use it to (among other things) power your relic to reproduce some of the demon management effects currently handled by items (Matricies, Spirit Chime, Sage/Student Tomes maybe, etc.)
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