Unloved Skills

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Re: Unloved Skills

Postby Ferret » Tue Jul 19, 2016 12:11 pm

Buff/Debuff is up next for the revamp, we'll see how things go with that re: Debuff. Though, I will say there are players who actually like buffing/debuffing the heck out of things and watching their demon buddies clean up. On the other hand, I agree the experience could be made more interesting, even for them. :)

In general, I'll admit I view Demon's ability list as more like a Magic: the Gathering set than anything else. It isn't necessary, to me, for everything to be popular, so long as it has some theoretically decent use. If something's *completely* useless or has no place, that's one thing. But Soothe, for example: it offers a choice: You can get a 20% discount on SP->HealPow cost if you're willing to accept a condition on that healing. Is this particular choice one many builds will make? Probably not. But, is it a choice at least a few builds might make? Yeah, I can see it.
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Re: Unloved Skills

Postby wizzzargh » Wed Jul 20, 2016 7:24 pm

I was just referencing Chocolate Rain for Healing Rain because reasons, not actually complaining about it. I think I've gotten it a grand total of once, from a random Lifebender.

Soothe has the problem of shutting off when you REALLY want some healing, but it's cheap and powerful until then so I don't mind it myself. It works best when you have soul/flesheaters I think.

Bull Rush has a longer range than Pounce and Leap Attack so I actually like it more for closing distance. Jumping over dudes is sometimes good and sometimes suicide, depending on who's jumping and what they're jumping into.

Eat Alive can be pretty neat, it just requires support. The standard option would be Hinder and Stuns and so on, but I pulled some impressive shenanigans with Eat Alive and Dreamstalker with a Psychic Shoggoth once.

Sure Shot has a hard life because misses are rare to begin with and ways of compensating for low accuracy are many.

Ferret wrote:Part of the issue that makes it feel weaker is that it often just doesn't apply: Light, Dark, Mind, Debuff abilities in general bypass it almost completely. Body largely does. Anything does if you get slapped with Stun, Shock, or (once only) Sleep. Most area effects of any element also do.


Yup, this is why my +5 Agility builds keep dying(Well really it's because I'm greedy and lazy and play when tired but you know :roll: ). They're fine against standard melee brutes but ho diggity their life becomes pain against things that auto-hit.

My latest greatest Agility fiend actually died to a mix of Siphons and Sepsis Waves from Lioth's crew.
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Re: Unloved Skills

Postby Ferret » Fri Jul 22, 2016 4:45 pm

More thinking out loud here, but perhaps the example of the saving throw would be useful here.

i.e.: Your Agility% is your chance to save against Cannot miss attacks, reducing the damage by 1/2.

This would pretty much single-handedly remove Agility's major weakness of not being relevant against a fairly large number of attacks. Indeed, with very high Agility, you would end up dodging a large number of normal attacks and would have nearly assured successful saves against Cannot Miss stuff. Your main weakness would be status effects, but this provides a good contrast with Vitality which (with this change) probably is the less effective of the two at mitigating hits. Vitality also remains the more reliable choice (even with a 50% save you could nailed 6 times in a row, but 50% better HP is always there for you), and the only choice if you want to use Veils (since these don't work if you aren't getting hit :P )

The check would be unopposed except by the attacker's level, so Cannot Miss attackers still don't need Agility for accuracy themselves. And there would be no further penalty for defenders with crappy Agility, it would just act the way it does now.

Of course, saving throw chances hit 0% if your evasion is disabled in any way (Stun, Paralysis, etc.)

Finally, I could optionally have EVD buffs/debuffs affect the mechanic too, which would give another way (besides status effects like Stun) for Cannot Missers to potentially mitigate enemy saves.

Note however, that you only have a positive bonus for a stat if you are investing *more* than 1 point a level into it. This mechanic would largely only be applicable to characters willing to invest significantly in Agility, it isn't going to act as a blanket nerf/buff across the board.
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Re: Unloved Skills

Postby mbj » Fri Jul 22, 2016 8:25 pm

Saving throw as you wrote it sounds like it might work ok, although it feels weird since it will only apply to can't miss abilities (whether physical or magical), and it scales differently than actual dodge chance. When I first read it it sounded like no-miss abilities were going to get nerfed hard, but the save only reduces damage by half and will only happen a small percentage of the time for most enemies.

WAIT NO
SNUFF OUT IS GETTING NERFED
IF YOUR ENEMY SAVES AGAINST SNUFF OUT YOU ONLY DEAL HALF OF THE REMAINING HEALTH IN DAMAGE
WHYYYYYYYYYY
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Re: Unloved Skills

Postby Ferret » Fri Jul 22, 2016 9:14 pm

This Agility stuff is still drawing board talk, it isn't coming in the next build or even any build yet. :P So no need to worry about Snuff Out yet. :P

Though, I will say that Snuff Out is probably going to be better than it was, potentially. The base ability isn't changing, and Priesthood + Mantra would let you use it much, much more often. Reaper's Mien is the same as before, and Exorcist's and/or Demon's Mien can increase the chance of success. You'll also have Expel, a Light-based version of Snuff Out that works with all the same goodies. :)

Probably won't get to it this build, but all these Miens are making me think I should add a few physical/light and physical/dark hybrid goodies, and maybe a light and dark veil. :D

Edit: FYI, the reason I'm talking saving throws and not crits like you and a think someone else earlier suggested is melee summoner survivability. It's already a fairly decent-sized concern, adding more damage into the general mix of combat, while it might let them deal more damage, would also result in them taking more, and that's not a direction we want to go at the moment probably. (I'm even nervous about Exorcist and Demon's Miens, and those are fairly small, somewhat situational damage bonuses!)
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Re: Unloved Skills

Postby mbj » Fri Jul 22, 2016 9:51 pm

Probably won't get to it this build, but all these Miens are making me think I should add a few physical/light and physical/dark hybrid goodies, and maybe a light and dark veil.

yes please

Also yea pure melee summoners suck (excluding veil tank cheese), and yet for some reason melee enemies always seem really strong, especially melee uniques like Reprobus's devil friend. Maybe it's because the AI for melee packs is smart enough to focus stunning abilities (and all attacks in general) like pounce/leap/bull rush/impact shout/stunning blow/etc. on the player character (which will guarantee a win for them), whereas the PC doing the same with his team will at best only take out a small percentage of the enemy pack? I mean this applies for any encounter and any summoner, but for melee summoners, being in front guarantees you'll be focus-fired upon. To survive you need high effective health (vitality, HP sapping abilities, blocking abilities) AND a way to quickly destroy the pack, which is why veils tanks are so powerful. I'm not sure how this problem can be handled for melee summoners specifically without excessively boosting ranged physical players/demons and melee demons. Or maybe it isn't a problem and we just haven't found the right way to play a non-wisp non-veil melee character?
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Re: Unloved Skills

Postby Sandman25 » Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:58 pm

I believe the obvious solution is to make Copy Ability cost depend on ability also. Weak abilities might see some use if they are cheap enough to copy.
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Re: Unloved Skills

Postby Ferret » Wed Aug 10, 2016 2:47 pm

The only problem with specific ability costs is having to set them accurately. :) If my knowledge of game balance was that good, we wouldn't have needed an Unloved Skills topic. :D

That said, Copy Ability did get a heck of a lot cheaper in 8/3, especially for allies. It should be much easier to experiment with weaker abilities now.
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Re: Unloved Skills

Postby Sandman25 » Wed Aug 10, 2016 5:30 pm

Well, if I am allowed to write crazy ideas, you might gather statistics from online games how often every ability is used and change costs accordingly... It would be dynamic costs and add some interaction between players (mainly players cursing other players for using the same abilities :))
Or maybe you can do it with taking into account local games only so player would need to adapt, she/he would not be able to win limitless times using the same strategies again and again. It should be optional of course, something like new option "dynamic prices".
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Re: Unloved Skills

Postby Ferret » Wed Aug 10, 2016 7:06 pm

It's not such a crazy idea, but even if it was, you're always allowed to write it. :D

Basing it on metrics is worth considering, but on the other hand, it probably wouldn't be high on the priority list for awhile when there's still major gameplay systems and content to work on.
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