SOTW 0.8.9 - First Act Beta preview!

[renke_]

Am I getting mad?

The crossbow equip directly issue happened again - before Althea (a ranger) had a earth one, now she's equipped with the new water one and a second copy is in the inventory. The earth crossbow is gone.

Before I changed from bow to crossbow and I didn't triggered this bug - could it be related to crossbows only?

[jack1974]

More than crossbow in specific, ranged items perhaps. I am not sure, what are the exact steps to reproduce it? I can try here

[renke_]

exact steps? how should I know :)

as I tried it deliberatly I was no able to see it again...

[Troyen]

I need to play a bit more the battles on Act 2 before confirming it but so far seems interesting. I need to make sure that doesn't unbalance the game too much, because if for example you can destroy Healers' SP, they will become useless quickly.

What? Both the ratmen cleric and mage have a skill called Energize or something that restores their HP. (Unless it's an item, and not a skill, but I think I've seen it twice in one battle.) You're just delaying their ability to heal/do damage at the cost of doing damage to them and prolonging the fight.

I do agree that you shouldn't be able to wipe out an enemy caster's SP in one round (and so it shouldn't be % based - maybe a fixed amount like 50?).

[renke_]

if I had to guess the problematic AIs/enemies are probably not the one used in Act 1

[jack1974]

No the ratmen have that SP regain skill but other enemies in act 2 not, or the normal "Warrior class enemies". If you use that to them and they have low SP, they won't be able to perform their skills. Anyway I'll play a bit more, worse case I'll have to limit it somehow, for example that the SP damage is lower as the SP is lower, or something like this.
Luckily I can simulate level 20-30 characters to test with the system so I'll be able to see if this change can break the game later will devote next days to test this.

[yayswords]

I am all for mana burn as a game mechanic but replacing the magic bolt with it is a big step and I don't think I like it. It's like at the start of the fight, you have the option to either burn mana or cast spells. And then later on in a long fight, neither side has mana, and your sorry druid now can't do any damage without mana. I guess the regen spell is nice though if yet not very inspired. If you're up for adding default skills, Hide in Shadows would be a nice candidate too.

I rely a lot on magic bolt for bread and butter damage vs. animals though, and wouldn't be very excited to see it replaced.

[jack1974]

Not going to add other skills as default, this would be an exception.
I can always have both, the old magic bolt and the new one (with a different name). A bit like the Thief class has the normal ranged shot and the aimed shot.

[renke_]

Both HP and SP bolt would probably break the balance - highish HP damage plus the ability to thwart hostile skills would be too much.

The druid was appealing because the SP burn variant required new tactics (especially mana handling), if the char is just equipped with yet another attack it would be not very interesting anymore.

[jack1974]

After some preliminary testing, there's definitely need to limit it somehow. In act 2 you can have two mages. If both target the enemy healer/caster with it, and have good magic, they can drain its SP rather quickly. This changes everything, with just 1 caster is not much of a problem, but with 2 yes, and in theory you could have 3 (Althea/Shea Druid, Riley and Rowinda).
Encounters with 3 warriors in frontline and a single caster/thief in backrow would become too easy (two magicbolt and the enemy in backrow is harmless). Even with mana regen, mages could keep hammering him so he can't cast. A solution would be to raise the SPRegen or the total SP, but feels like a hack, and besides I would never know how much is enough, because with 200 SP then the magic bolt would lose importance.
Besides some characters like Rowinda have a SP drain skill too - so this would unbalance things even more

However raising the delay makes it more viable, since forces you to choose: cast a damaging spell/heal ally OR reduce a single opponent SP. I want this as a way to prevent a healer from resurrecting allies towards the end of battle when he is too low on SP, rather than something that lets you make an enemy powerless quickly and early in the battle. Same goes for the other proposed skill, a default small mana regen for casters, can work if has a long delay, and is to be used more for emergencies than as a "regular skill", otherwise all the other skills designed to restore SP would become obsolete/useless (including the expensive potions).