Firewall Changes

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

How the hell does someone level their firewall anyway?

If the monsters run from it... how are they able to get enough damage on monsters to gain exp to get super powerful boss slaying firewalls?

 

[The Man In Black]

By trapping monsters in it.. Or training it ON bosses..

(I love how this has become the Firewall Exploits thread)

 

[evilsquirrel]

yeah...i hope this means firewall will actually use/level the FIRE spell category instead of null...because if it doesn't, this whole thing is kinda useless..

 

[Jelly]

Does the Fire Wall spell level the same "(null)" skill as Volcano?

 

[Xeropace]

My Poison and Rebuke Unead level (Null)...?

Also, Firewall NEEDS that fear removed, I learnt it today, and I can't hit anything with it, as before the wall even appears they run away :|

 

[evilsquirrel]

Does the Fire Wall spell level the same "(null)" skill as Volcano?

not sure.

 

[The Man In Black]

My Poison and Rebuke Unead level (Null)...?

It's because the MSC levelling system works like this:

(Essentially)
Array (Proficiency, Balance, Power)
display levelled array[Subskill number] (So if you levelled the first subskill, it will print out that you levelled proficiency)

When it gets to the fourth and beyond, there is nothing, so it prints NULL. It's the same reason that Fire is Proficiency (I think that's right >_>)

 

[Thothie]

No, yer not. Fire = Power.

Due to the way they pass XP, Volcano and Firewall are buggard, they each have their own "mystery skill". Tests have been inconclusive as to weather these two mystery skills are one in the same. Suffice to say it's seriously buggard.

I do intend to force Volcano to be sustained, eventually (if I can pull it off), at which point it will pass its XP to fire, proper.

Considered doing something similar to firewall, but I see this making it even less useful. It would, however, make its skill rating and damage predictable, and cause it to pass XP proper.

But, basically, there's no way to pass XP to the proper skill without the mage hands being out. This why summoning gives no XP, and why Volcano and Firewall are buggard, XP wise.

 

[The Man In Black]

I haven't looked at the order of magic subskills recently ;-)

 

[Drigien]

But, basically, there's no way to pass XP to the proper skill without the mage hands being out. This why summoning gives no XP, and why Volcano and Firewall are buggard, XP wise.

well how do other spells get there xp?

I dont know about hl1, but for source theres a CTakeDamageInfo class that is sent to the player/npc when damage is deal. That includes: the damaged entity, the entity that did the damage, and that entitys owner (ie: a player, npc, and some cases itself, like arrows) and other stuff like damage type, etc...

I used this to look for npcs that had a vaild pointer to a player to give them credit and exp for a kill. If there was something similar to that, it shouldnt be too hard to do.

 

[Thothie]

Spells pass their XP back to their owner, however, which skill category the XP goes to is determined by which weapon (or magic hand) he has deployed. The game doesn't otherwise know what category to store that XP under. Hence we get the mystery skill.

The what's worse, is that the spell's damage gets multiplied by this skill in strange and mysterious ways.

There's a function that's supposed to tell the spell to store the XP under a specific skill category ("* setexpstat *", but it don't seem to work, and no one who has looked at the code has managed to figure out why. Using it just seems to result in XP being passed to the mystery skill, instead of whatever weapon he has out (this at least prevents you from leveling Swordsmanship with Fire Wall).

As such, I've given up on passing XP in this fashion, and instead am moving on to figuring ways to sustain spells in such a way that the owner has the proper weapon (ie. magic hand), with the proper registered skill deployed while his spell murders things.

 

[The Man In Black]

No, yer not. Fire = Power.

Fire = Proficiency. Just got a fire level.

 

[Thothie]

My bad - point is, it's not Null.

 

[The Man In Black]

I know, but the skills other than Fire, Lightning, and Ice are. I was just pointing out that Fire matched up with Prof, so when skills have nothing to match up with, they're NULL. (Essentially)

 

[Thothie]

Yeah, this is known... Although some skills seem to go half to a null and half to a spell category. Divination and Affliction seem to be busted in this way. Affliction actually seems to level twice per kill in some circumstances.

Looking at the skill category, spell casting is indeed broken up into all those spell sub categories proper, but like I said when trying to fix the XP loss on death, there are three seperate arrays keeping track skills, so one or two of them is out of whack. The one made up of constants all looks right though, the others I can't make heads or tales of.

 

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

Also, Firewall NEEDS that fear removed, I learnt it today, and I can't hit anything with it, as before the wall even appears they run away :|

If monsters passed through "Fire WALL" It would defeat the whole purpose of it being a WALL.


I say we keep this firewall that we have... and add a new spell or something... Call it "Inferno" or something much cooler and make the pattern of fiery burningness not a wall and just a massive square or circle shape... Or a random shape.

I really like firewall only for the purpose of it's fear effect. Lower the damage if you may, but I think Firewall should still merely remain as a support spell for wizards to keep monsters away while they use their damage spells...

I'm one of the few who really wants this spell the way it currently is. However, Lower the damage, Fix the exp gaining, put a cast limit or whatever, but the "fear" or only way this spell should keep the name "fire wall" should stay...

Most people don't stand in a fire shamans last firewall... I'm sure monsters, if they can feel "pain", don't deliberately run through a flaming wall of burningness....

 

[Netrogor]

As to the firewall being exploited... take note I'm replyingto stuff from the first page... having a bunch of high HP hit-takers pen a boss in & the magic user raping him/her (whichever boss it is) doesn't seem like an exploit; it is like in MS1.0 when you fought Undamael, and one or two shield holders would stand in front of him while everyone else attacked full force...

That's called teamwork, not exploitation; since when bosses are penned hopelessly like that, I've noticed (for me at least) they won't try to run away but rather attack & kick violently (the blacksmith anyone, kick into the lava...).

 

[Xeropace]

Well Fire Wall on Diablo 2 didn't have fear and just burnt things

 

[BioRage]

If it can't be an exploit, Thothie, make it EXP gainABLE!

Also === Show EXP you earn from monsterS!!

 

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

Well Fire Wall on Diablo 2 didn't have fear and just burnt things

That's nice... I don't give a f*ck about diablo 2.


(plus the monsters that were weak minions would usually die from a decent firewall anyway.)

And I guess I can say to that.... "In Ragnarok Online Firewall pushes monsters back while burning them."

 

[HumanSteak]

In every games I ever played, Firewall was never solid and never kept anyone from walking thru them and did uber damage.

 

[evilsquirrel]

its just supposed to be a wall of flames to DETER them from going places..not stop them entirely..

 

[HumanSteak]

I was just answering to mario

 

[charcolishen]

Are we aiming for realism or something out of a fantasy book? I'm wondering since I keep hearing the majority of you want realism yet your definitions of it still lack the common creature's behavior.

A realistic firewall would require the tweaking of the current creature AI and stats. Not the power of the spell itself.
Orcs are generally stupid due to their backwards culture (much like humans who walk on coal just to seem courageous...). There is bound to be a couple of orcs with a set chance of forcing themselves through a firewall to get to the opponent not realising that it's near suicidal to do so.

Undead are not afraid of pain or death. They have good ice resistance but next to no magic resistance, which is something I still can't agree with. They are hell spawn, they have no flesh (exception being the rotting flesh of zombies) and they are usually reanimate until exorcised properly with the correct school of magic or by massive brute power (A boulder impact scattering the bones of a skeleton for example). A firewall shouldn't stop them unless they are a fragile or weak animation of undead.

Bosses arent supposed to be so freaking stupid and weak as they are now. I can't believe were actually complaining about firewall and not dealing with the fact that Golden axe is bringing down Keledros in less than 3 god damn minutes and making Ice Bone Lord look like a complete pushover. Magic currently has no spell that hits for over 200 plus until the elements level is beyond the sky. Yet here we have some rare as paper crafted axe thats dealing 2000-3000 damage (and is leveling divination, what the freaking hell... I thought this was the freaking axes power, not the player himself). ALL the bosses need tweaking. Each and every one of them should be able to counter both ranged and melee attacks at a higher rate than what they do now. You complain about firewall being exploited simply because the boss gets stuck in the numbers yet you dont make them kick enough.

Diablo 2 actually made sense Mario.
Ragnarok Online did not. There was no effort made on creature AI so they just made creatures recurring bounce off not just Firewall, but even Storm Gust, Magnus Excorsismus, Sanctuary and anything else that had a knock back effect.

 

[Thothie]

This is not about realism (as no discussion about a magically spawned wall of fire ever should be) it's about gameplay.

The vote's close enough that I don't intend to change it. Like most of the magic system, I suspect we'll be leaving it busted.