Brand Build Testing

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Re: Brand Build Testing

Postby oneeyedjoe » Sun Mar 17, 2019 3:00 pm

Oh and one more thing related to the bug report above. When you have someone with +vit under "last action: movement" condition brand and you auto explore (or just explore, probably doesn't make a difference), they lose/gain hp all the time, which causes your healer to heal them. It slows down the exploration and sometimes you enter fights when your healer misses some SP.
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Re: Brand Build Testing

Postby Ferret » Sun Mar 17, 2019 10:06 pm

Yeah, I'm basically going to have to prevent +/-Vit and +/-MaxSP from spawning with modifiers that can toggle frequently during resting/exploring. :(
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Re: Brand Build Testing

Postby Ferret » Mon Mar 18, 2019 2:11 am

Whoops, somehow missed the bigger post when I replied to the smaller one :D

Yeah, I'll need to give the SP cost/per turn ones another look, balance-wise I think. SP costs affecting reactives and auras is a bug, I've added it to the list. :) Thanks. Same for Meditate... I'll probably just exempt any 0 SP ability form it at this rate... though that may get confusing, so the solution may just be to get rid of flat +SP cost entirely and leave it only +% SP.

It not changing much was the point with the level change for heroes. :D Hero-specific Brands will probably be the replacement, but I still want to think that over more.

Levels don't have anything to do with spawning in that way, so you may have just gotten RNG'd with regards to Adria. (I manually make the spawning tables myself, so if I change something's level, it only affects spawning if I change the table too, which I didn't for heroes.)

There will almost certainly be a way to level up Brands: no argument on that point.

I'll check into Mirror Chime and see if I can figure out what's going on. Possibly being affected by the enemy summoner code somehow and generating extra random brands to pass out?

Thank you for the feedback :D Sorry I missed this post the first time :D
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Re: Brand Build Testing

Postby carnegie » Mon Mar 18, 2019 2:44 am

This isn't really a bug but I feel, balance-wise, that there are maybe too many brands. Usually within the first couple levels I have a full or nearly full list of brands, sometimes with one or two duplicates as well. Deleting brands I don't think I'll use has become a small timesink although not strictly a necessary one. Spacing them further apart would make them feel more meaningful, maybe.

Overall, though, I love what Brands add to the game. It's a much cheaper and quicker way to customize your team than fusion.
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Re: Brand Build Testing

Postby Ferret » Mon Mar 18, 2019 4:20 pm

The high number of Brands is partially a testing thing. :) I'll probably reduce it at some point nearer the end of the testing cycle.

Brand management / deleting should be less of an issue once I release the UI change where picking up Brands requires a Y/N confirm that displays the Brand's tooltip during the confirm. If you say No to a Brand, auto-explore will ignore it unless you fully "cycle" auto-explore (in much the same way corpses work now.) This should allow you to skip picking up Brands that aren't important to your strategy, and reduce the time spent managing them.

I'm glad you love them so far though. :) There's still a fair bit more content related to them that will be coming, but I want to work down the bug count first.
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Re: Brand Build Testing

Postby Saler » Wed Mar 20, 2019 12:31 pm

A thing that bothers me is that is you pick up a brand from a corpse, it goes to your brand inventory without displaying it's tooltip. It would be more comfortable if it displayed the tooltip until your next turn or another tooltip opens.
Also, Actaeon spawns with a brand, but Artemis spawns without one. To me it seems like Uniques that spawn as result of links should get brands too.
Ferret wrote:It's funny because I mostly intended them to be a support unit: the one attack and the high Strength were more a nod to them being bears than anything else. :D
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Re: Brand Build Testing

Postby Ferret » Wed Mar 20, 2019 7:10 pm

Hmm.. probably shouldn't try to sneak it into the Wed/Thurs build at this point, but I'll make a bug note to address corpse Brand pickup too. :D

"Late" spawns coming in with Brands will be a bit tricky, at least if I want them to also be limited to Brands that spawned on that floor. I'll probably do something here, but not sure what yet.

Thanks for the feedback :D
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Re: Brand Build Testing

Postby Saler » Thu Mar 21, 2019 10:24 am

This is pretty complex, but is it possible to expand the window where you have to choose an ability (like copy ability or delete ability) to also show you brand requirements related to having abilities? It sounds like it would be complex, but it would make managing those brands much easier. While at at, maybe make the delete ability icon flash if some abilities make the brand turn off? That change probably wouldn't be too good without the previous one, because it would look confusing if you don't notice the brand's requirements.
Also, this isn't related to brand build, but Stellar Ray might be overpowered. Compared to Heal Wounds, it's ~80% of it's healing and 5 more Sp, but allows you to also deal decent damage and/or heal multiple allies. It also has a ton of synergy with Draw Wounds – you can heal one frontliner and then recover most of the Hp you just lost, heal anther frontliner and hit an enemy. And it gets the benefits of Light/Dark passives, Tormentor, Pariah and Guilt. That seems like too many advantages for it's downsides.
Ferret wrote:It's funny because I mostly intended them to be a support unit: the one attack and the high Strength were more a nod to them being bears than anything else. :D
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Re: Brand Build Testing

Postby Ferret » Fri Mar 22, 2019 4:22 am

Those would be pretty hefty UI requests... I'll think about them, and/or other ways to get similar results, but no promises on an ETA: we're pretty late in the Brand test build for major UI changes. I do understand the issue though: If I can think of a less high impact change to get the same result, I'll do it. :D

Stellar Ray vs. Heal Wounds has some other considerations:
1) Range. Stellar Ray is slightly less long ranged than Heal Wounds.
2) Stat requirements. Stellar Ray's offensive component requires Agility to make full use of.
3) While Stellar Ray benefits from Light/Dark passives, it doesn't benefit from Heal related ones. Whether that's a + or a - depends on whether you want offense or defense from it... though I admit there are generally speaking far more offensive-oriented passives.
4) 5 SP isn't nothing when you're already at 25 SP cost. 25 vs 30 SP means you get to use an ability 4 times in a row, and a 5th time after 1 turn of no SP use, versus 3 times in a row, and a 4th time after 1 turns of no SP use, assuming base SP maximum and recovery.

Granted, all that aside, Stellar Ray is probably a little bit better on average, but it isn't so far out of whack I'm concerned just yet.
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Re: Brand Build Testing

Postby SummerSnowman » Sat Mar 23, 2019 4:18 pm

I think I found a bug. An ionic angel in Phoenix's pack spawned with Sh-Ac, a brand that gives 32 cunning for having no passives. The number went up when I checked the character sheet and there was a check mark next to the brand information. However, the angel has Angel's Mien, which is clearly a passive.
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