SOTW 0.8.9 - First Act Beta preview!

[renke_]

you should rethink your versioning scheme, release notes of a minor subrelease should not include a phrase like "Two big changes" :)

but that's not what I'm here for - I think it would be helpful if you include the greater impact of attributes (I read speed is now relevant for defence) in the char gen screens. Not all your customers are forum lurkers :)

update: there's one debug output left displayed also in non-debug releases:

[[email protected] SOTW-0.8.7-all]$ ./SOTW.sh
X:3 Y:6 TILE:79
X:9 Y:4 TILE:79
X:3 Y:4 TILE:79
[[email protected] SOTW-0.8.7-all]$

placement of random encounters?

[jack1974]

Yes will remove that, even if most players won't ever see it
As for speed is just a supposition, so before changing text I'll wait. If I changed the description every gameplay tweak I do I would spend 50% of development time writing and rewriting texts

[renke_]

after the umpteenth walkt through Act 1 I have only such nit-pick topics left :)

could it be that non-magical elemental attacks are overpowered at the moment? hunter with dark short bow makes over time similar damage as the druid with ice spike - and in contrast to the latter for free; most noticeble when used against enemies with high dark resistence and low water tolerance like skeletons.

--------

hu?!? I just bought a new crossbow and selected "equip directly" - the old one vanished and I own now 2 of the newly bought weapons. never happened before, no idea how I triggered this glitch

[yayswords]

could it be that non-magical elemental attacks are overpowered at the moment?

What point did you think I was trying to make when I said Vaelis was hitting for 114-140 (axes) on a 25% resistant (air) target when barely having cared about his attack stat? Meanwhile my druid was damage capped at 55 (which was Vaelis' melee swing). I loaded that save post-patch just now and all the numbers are a little lower but the ratio is not; Vaelis' 6 delay 0 SP melee swing is still as good as my druid's 25 SP 12 delay Inferno.

And the damage cap still feels stupidly implemented, however it is implemented. My druid is damage capping for different numbers on two targets with the same amount of resistance. I have no idea how it works.

Just throwing it out there...

Desired base damage multiplier: ((attacker magic)/((defender magic)(1+resistance)))^0.4 or maybe (1-resistance)((attacker magic)/(defender magic))^0.4

The ^0.4 can be changed, the lower the number (anywhere between 0 and 1) the more diminishing returns on increasing your magic. In the first function, 100% resistance will double your magic in defense against the particular spell. In the second one, 100% resistance will outright make the spell do 0 damage. Perhaps the first one is too weak and the second too strong but you can easily add coefficients to the resistance.

You don't want me to get involved with the numbers but when resistances are, build after build, reducing spell damage after the multiplier cap, the numbers are getting involved with me

[jack1974]

I thought about it and I think the problem might simply be that the melee weapons have the damage added, while the spells not, or the staves have super low damage. So if you have a 14 dmg weapon and you have a 4 dmg staff, that's the cause of the big difference. In this case if my theory is correct is enough to raise the value of the staves or tweak the spells, since the damage calculation now is perfect, the spells damage is not capped - is just reduced like everything else, so is just a matter of balancing the melee, but there is NO damage cap whatsoever this time, just less impact of the stats vs before.

Can you send me a save with your equipment before a battle? In the saves I got at end of first act before it wasn't so bad, so I'm trying to understand why is happening.

Just need a small tweak, and then I won't touch this anymore EVER for the rest of this game

[jack1974]

hu?!? I just bought a new crossbow and selected "equip directly" - the old one vanished and I own now 2 of the newly bought weapons. never happened before, no idea how I triggered this glitch

This is basically impossible I think you've been playing too much the first act (my fault, sorry!).

[yayswords]

ok I guess it wasn't capped, it was just a combination of owned by resistances + no damage variance (especially this) + vaelis hitting for ridiculous damage that made me want to blame something

sent the save

[jack1974]

No worries I still might need to tweak it - I noticed Vaelis axe attack was too powerful too, but when drawing conclusions you must always take in consideration the resistances. Like if you use a dark weapon with a target with 0% dark, and then try Ice Spike on same target that has 50% Water resistance (assuming also attack/defense and magic values are the same), it might be more powerful the weapon (but not by a lot, so that's why I want to see the saves). Will check now

[jack1974]

OK analyzing your save, I used a cheat to get the druid air spell:
Druid Fire spell on skeleton = 40 magic vs 19 magic, 50% fire resistance = 42 dmg
Druid Air spell on skeleton = 40 magic vs 19 magic, 25% air resistance = 49 dmg
Vaelis normal attack with his Air weapon = 36-43

(numbers could vary since the enemies have a small random applied, but by 5-6 points max I think).
So as you can see the resistance impact is really small. But yes this is a problem. So what I did? using another cheat I summoned a Staff with damage 19 (overpowered on purpose).
Now the druid was doing 92 damage!!!

My theory was correct I only need to add more damage to the staves. Makes some sense since in many games it's the catalyst / source of magic power.
Going to do this update, even if it's just a single value changed in the weapon values list

I'll put a higher value but not too high and won't change this one too much in the item generation, but at least now I know where's the problem! thanks for reporting it

[yayswords]

Bear in mind though that +magic for a druid is everywhere, whereas a warrior with as much as +10 attack from gear would probably be considered insanely well geared. There's just jewelry and the weapon. The magic vs. magic ratio is always gonna be much more favorable than the attack vs. defense one.

Oh also. You can open inventory in the battle setup screen but after like 20 builds you still can't use the hotkey for it FIX!

(P.S. You sure about no cap? I've seen Vaelis' damage variance be 80-102 and 100-102 and I think even a flat 102 once. Plateaus?)