Feedback on Those Sweet (and Bitter)Skills --Act 2

[renke_]

okay, wish list :)

I like the new battle dynamics caused by the importance of the position (like distance in fighter vs thief).
this part could be more complete with use cases like "move a foe in the front line to the middle position" (1 good and 2 meager melee attack positions, not 1 good, 1 meager and 1 miserable), methods for blocking movement (the skill name is set: Glue Pot ^^) and maybe even a battle field with much more slots (say 4 vs 4 and a field of 6x6) so movement has more tactical possibilities (melee attacks are not possible until someone moved). combined with Civ1-style movement restrictions (with an enemy in front of the char the only possible actions are pause, attack or pullback) I smell some fun battles

[jack1974]

Personally, though not sure how simple is to do, I would like a full isometric battlefield, not superbig, like the maps we have now on SOTW, where the "units" can move freely. It would allow much more possibilities, though of course that's a BIG step up from the current system, so might need a few more games before reaching that

[renke_]

please not with renpy - the maps are nice but also very sluggish, battles with this performance would be Not Fun ;)

[Anima_]

No idea if we can somehow create a bigger battlefield, that's mostly a GUI problem.
But position will become more important in the sequel. We have several new ranges that also care about your position in the row, so that will definitely become more interesting.
In addition to those adjacent type of ranges I'm also thinking about restricting the current ranges. Close range actions can't be used from the rear against the enemy front any more, and ranged attacks can only hit the Rear from the Front. (Of course All type attacks will still exist, but will probably be much weaker/slower/expensive.)
More actions and effects that affect movement are also planned, so I think we can work out a few interesting things in that regard.

[yayswords]

@yayswords
You know, I think we should add a bit more historical accuracy to the sequel. Instead of swords everyone will be using polearms and warhammers.

I like medieval combat in general. Swords are just symbolic to it

Also, I find hammers are the best melee weapons in SotW anyway. Raw damage is a huge factor to consider.

Might be better if you all would post wishes, suggestions and observations early since I'll be working on the framework this summer. It's much easier to incorporate things from the beginning then to try hacking them into the framework later on.

Sure, let's go.

[jack1974]

please not with renpy - the maps are nice but also very sluggish, battles with this performance would be Not Fun

Yes, definitely need to do something. I have a friend who right now is coding an isometric system for other games, it runs at 240FPS on my dekstop with 500 sprites on screen, so I think I could use that and be safe

Sure, let's go.

Read the post, I'm replying here because this is about SOTW. I noticed too, using your saves, the "mana problem". I agree that's not really cool to be unable to use 2 nukes at level 1 and instead currently with 180 SP I can cast 7 without using any regen Sure enemies can be stronger but in general is a bad thing, but obviously I won't be able to fix this on SOTW.
Maybe I could reduce a bit the SP gain on level up, but not sure how...

[renke_]

though this could be related to yaysword's lowSP/highHP strategy he described somewhere here (traits thread maybe?) - my magic users have more often than not Will as the highest attribute and at the end of act 2 200+ mana.

[jack1974]

Yes but in general I think makes more sense a "cool off" system, like most RPG/MMORPG do recently, so at lower levels your skills/spells do less damage/are less powerful and as you level up their power increases.
Actually I found a simple thing I could change. Right now you get +10HP/level and +5SP/level. So at level 20 you'd get 200HP and 100SP without spending a single point in Con/Wil. I guess I could remove the SP increase at least so you don't end up with 150 SP base value at level 30

edit: or maybe even better, reduce the amount of SP you get on each point spent in Will. Having a fixed increase each level probably makes sense and guarantees at least a certain amount of SP (easier for me to balance the battles). So instead of +5SP each point could be +3SP or something.

Just thinking out loudly, as you might imagine I don't want to make any BIG changes now. But if having tons of SP is a bit pointless and makes the game too easy, could tweak that a bit.

[fabulaparva]

^I guess there's a balance to be found between automatic SP/level, SP/skill point and SP/level from the Willpower trait.


I like the Crosscut-skill, despite the stagger and no-special-effect-on-boss limitations . It's as good in finishing staggered backrow enemies as Vaelis' leap attack. Plus with the dual-wield trait it can hit pretty hard. And it can also be used on front row if needed. So far I've found the 15% HP decrease irrelevant, but I bet there'll be use for that later in the game with some aggressive healers.

[yayswords]

% regen is the major problem with growing mana pools. The large mana pool itself is just a buffer, and raw mana is a rather unexciting stat compared to SPR, although you can't choose between them. Yes I have more raw mana in act 2 than in act 1, but battles are much longer too. I think getting more raw mana is a legitimate tactic (as far as what we could reasonably change about SotW goes), until Vigorous Sonata comes into play.

If you want to make a change right now I don't think it should be about will or the free SP each level up, it should be about % regen - make all those abilities (Rage, Meditation, and obviously VS) static. Still this only solves the lesser problem (that mana becomes rather infinite with Jariel around), and I'm not sure everyone even thinks that's a problem. There's still the painful mana conservation until you do have some SPR + Jariel.

Obviously it would require too much rebalancing now but I think it would have been good for the game if everyone had like 10 base SPR