Frostbow but it actually works

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Putting a lot on Dridje there - SFAIK, he only has the one play

True there is only one play there now but it wouldn't be too difficult to rig up a few more, especially if you reused many of the props he had already created for the first play.

So, after all this... Just keep on doing what I was doing? ><

Well, definitely don't keep backing us into a corner when you release new items. Do keep working on lore and questing related stuff but don't let the new bombs become the next thing everybody spams relentlessly. If you are going to make them too powerful, put some kind of limit on how many can be in your inventory at a single time and/or make them rare so players don't stock up hundreds of OP bombs.

And since the problem is so bad now, mappers should consider making stuff that takes time to complete no matter how strong you are, rather than stuff that is difficult to complete because the monsters are tough as nails.

 

[Dridmar]

It's nice to see some people talking about Deralia Theatre. I haven't touched that map in ages, so it might be a while or a couple weeks before I get back to it again (I've cranked out this Cleicert remake in only 7 days so far). I still think we should just make a transition point instead of attaching the map straight to Deralia.

Some of you need to remember it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. Also stop taking the damn game so serious all the time. Start an alt and just chill out, the early game is the best part and much more enjoyable than farming all the maps for loot when you're 750+hp.

Edit: Cosmetics are cool too, needs moar cosmetics.

 

[Thothie]

Well, definitely don't keep backing us into a corner when you release new items. Do keep working on lore and questing related stuff but don't let the new bombs become the next thing everybody spams relentlessly. If you are going to make them too powerful, put some kind of limit on how many can be in your inventory at a single time and/or make them rare so players don't stock up hundreds of OP bombs.

Sadly, don't really have a mechanism for that, save to make them non-stacking.

But, given how you're under the impression that potions are unlimited, I'm tempted to drop the idea altogether, as I'm not entirely convinced what might be behind that has been fixed. You have indeed nerfed some of your encounters from the original versions, and the thought that said effort was going to continue, and thus the power creep was going to continue forever, was behind their introduction anyways. While I'd planned to make tamer versions for more conventional usage as a new mechanic for even low level characters, think the first of those came out pretty OP as well, even if I didn't do the script myself.

Though I'd really hate to dump the chodes Greatguys put so much effort into... Could reduce them to a gimmick item. (Still have the mob, I guess.)

I suppose we could keep the item mod system plans in, even if we freeze the items, just have to be less luxurious and more restrictive with their max stats and mixes. Then, even at max levels, at least ya'd have something to perpetually build on, before Titles came around. Had planned to use the new models for randomly generated ones.

 

[Thothie]

It's nice to see some people talking about Deralia Theatre. I haven't touched that map in ages, so it might be a while or a couple weeks before I get back to it again (I've cranked out this Cleicert remake in only 7 days so far). I still think we should just make a transition point instead of attaching the map straight to Deralia.

If it's possible (and I think it would be with an underground passage), it'd be much more optimal. Less character corruption to deal with, if folks can deal with the town stuff and the play in the same place (which in the future would include Titles and Dynamic Quests). Gave your source to Dehoth, can't recall if I gave Dehoth's source to you.

 

[Kanta]

Sadly, don't really have a mechanism for that, save to make them non-stacking.

But, given how you're under the impression that potions are unlimited, I'm tempted to drop the idea altogether

I don't think you should give up on them. I seem to remember @The Man In Black saying he could make it so the bombs would have a separate stack size from ammunition(less than 1500) but maybe it was you saying that such a thing could not happen...

 

[Dridmar]

I believe I posted it in the PM with you both and Dehoth last had it and showed how it might be a difficult fit there.

 

[Thothie]

I don't think you should give up on them. I seem to remember @The Man In Black saying he could make it so the bombs would have a separate stack size from ammunition(less than 1500) but maybe it was you saying that such a thing could not happen...

Can define the max stack size, but the potions this thread has been on about are mostly non-stackable already, so, even if I removed their ability to stack entirely, could easily get into a situation where mappers make ludicrous encounters claiming they are trying to counter "unlimited nukes".

 

[Thothie]

I believe I posted it in the PM with you both and Dehoth last had it and showed how it might be a difficult fit there.

Darnitall... Meh, may try later (didn't look that big, and Deralia is almost entirely on one level). Feel free to fiddle with the standalone meantime, may just end up that way.

 

[Kanta]

Can define the max stack size, but the potions this thread has been on about are mostly non-stackable already, so, even if I removed their ability to stack entirely, could easily get into a situation where mappers claim they are trying to counter "unlimited nukes".

Not sure I'm following this. Just set the stack size of the nukes to be very low?

 

[Thothie]

I'm saying even if they were entirely non-stackable (ie. max stack size of 1), wouldn't help with that "bug" you were on about earlier. At best, you'd be tossing them out, slightly more slowly, but still endlessly.

I can control how much room they take up in your inventory, but, well, beyond the usual 75 item limit, not how many you can have (let alone "make").

 

[Kanta]

I somehow doubt people will care enough for them to do that with em. Even withouth that I certainly wouldn't wanna have two separate stacks of them taking up precious inventory space.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

I still think we should just make a transition point instead of attaching the map straight to Deralia.

I agree with this. It provides the illusion that Deralia is larger than what is contained in the .bsp file, if nothing else.

But, given how you're under the impression that potions are unlimited, I'm tempted to drop the idea altogether, as I'm not entirely convinced what might be behind that has been fixed. You have indeed nerfed some of your encounters from the original versions, and the thought that said effort was going to continue, and thus the power creep was going to continue forever, was behind their introduction anyways. While I'd planned to make tamer versions for more conventional usage as a new mechanic for even low level characters, think the first of those came out pretty OP as well, even if I didn't do the script myself.

Though I'd really hate to dump the chodes Greatguys put so much effort into... Could reduce them to a gimmick item. (Still have the mob, I guess.)

Definitely don't nix stuff you've already made, just balance them so they don't become the next soup. If you can't stop players from gathering too many in their inventory, what about having the map where they drop scan players' inventories and if there's too many in that players inventory, then no potions spawn in his chest?

Not sure how feasible that least idea is.

 

[Thothie]

I somehow doubt people will care enough for them to do that with em. Even withouth that I certainly wouldn't wanna have two separate stacks of them taking up precious inventory space.

Well, seems they maybe doing that with the potions, and affecting maps adversely in the process. These would be just as tempting, if not more so. I mean, if yer bent on revenge, having a boss die to a huge spam of explosions would be a lot more satisfying than chopping them to bits while yer immune to damage.

Definitely don't nix stuff you've already made, just balance them so they don't become the next soup. If you can't stop players from gathering too many in their inventory, what about having the map where they drop scan players' inventories and if there's too many in that players inventory, then no potions spawn in his chest?

Not sure how feasible that least idea is.

Eh, I can count up nukes, and have the chest not give them more if they already have a certain amount, but I'm more worried that certain folks maybe just spawning them at will. (Plus doesn't stop ya from tossing them to other players.)

Not saying we can't do that anyway and thus dismissing the idea, but their very existence could be a problem.

If the goal is to reduce the power creep...

 

[Kanta]

If you're worried about people spawning stuff at will then the bombs clearly aren't the problem.

 

[Thothie]

Expendables are the only thing where that becomes such a huge problem that mappers decide they have to up the ante, thinking they're unlimited, and it becomes an endless cycle. I mean, you can spawn a thousand Unholy Spears, or whatnot, but you can only use the one - not going to make you any more powerful, and at worst, puts your cohorts on your level. Potions and nukes are another thing.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Well, seems they maybe doing that with the potions, and affecting maps adversely in the process. These would be just as tempting, if not more so.

I'm not sure what you are talking about here but I don't think most of the GPoPs in existence were cheated, as the amount that drops on undercliffs is probably enough to explain how many are out there. I actually still have hundreds of gpops left over from the days when Old_Helena used to literally dish out infinite potions every fifteen minutes. Back in the day I'd sit in the server for hours and just grab potions and stick them on my mules, so I may have actually inflated the count significantly.

 

[Thothie]

Alriiight - I'll put in a nuke counter so chests won't let you have more than five or so at a time (maybe via diminishing returns so it can't be easily exploited)... Can't really do anything about folks farming like mad and passing them to other players, and if I start seeing multipliers or resistances so drastic they look like they are trying to counter nukes, probably gonna say no, and nix the nukes at the same time.

(Though I don't think Undercliffs is the culprit, given it only passes out 1 - two if you have three players. [A certain time travel map] and ancient players might be, though it only gives one per run now. Same with [a certain orc town], and... Now I'm posting spoilers.)

Still think nerfing the potions could be done, however, if we pulled back on some of these boss rainbows... Shouldn't need more than either one elemental immunity or gpop. Easiest and most intuitive thing to do is restrict it to one active potion, just anytime you drink a new one, it removes and overrides the old one (might make exception for the claws, but man I hate how those work). Wouldn't much matter how many or how much variety of them they had then.

...and if we did that, I could also probably reduce the soup to just restoring all health and mana, saving you one potion. Not that I've found those three minutes to be a huge game changer, save with demon and bear claws, lest you fill half your inventory with them.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Easiest and most intuitive thing to do is restrict it to one active potion, just anytime you drink a new one, it removes and overrides the old one

One alternative thing you could do is make all potions last for the same, fixed amount of time and for every potion you drank, the timer would decrease by a certain %. So if you choose to deck yourself out with Gpop, Mana font, lodestone, fire immune and ice immune then your buffs would only last for a few minutes at most, whereas if you just drank a single potion it could last for much longer.

Might be more convoluted than is necessary but I'm no stranger to that.

...and if we did that, I could also probably reduce the soup to just restoring all health and mana, saving you one potion.

This is a good change to soup (makes more sense than mana regen for a food type item anyway) but the easiest thing to do might be to make it so you can't buy the soup in Edana anymore and just restrict soup to 1 time per completion of m2_quest.

 

[Thothie]

One alternative thing you could do is make all potions last for the same, fixed amount of time and for every potion you drank, the timer would decrease by a certain %. So if you choose to deck yourself out with Gpop, Mana font, lodestone, fire immune and ice immune then your buffs would only last for a few minutes at most, whereas if you just drank a single potion it could last for much longer.

Might be more convoluted than is necessary but I'm no stranger to that.

I'm big on KISS, but also that's more apt to break. I mean, if that's the only way yer willing to do it, I could look into it, but even with most of those on the scriptflags system now, that'd be really complex to implement, and not exactly intuitive (also difficult, if not impossible, to adjust the time on the first potion you drank, if that's what yer at).

Meh, really need to get the status icon system in that thing to behave... Status icons in general seem to be screwing with me. (Killing those other Shadowforms in Lodagond-4 was actually a lot easier, since you can trap them to only have to deal with one at a time, but the combat status and debilitate icons were not working right at all, let alone the potion icon.)

This is a good change to soup (makes more sense than mana regen for a food type item anyway) but the easiest thing to do might be to make it so you can't buy the soup in Edana anymore and just restrict soup to 1 time per completion of m2_quest.

I think I'd have to give you a full map's worth of mana and health regeneration to justify that (if maybe not as fast). That's just way too much time investment for an instant recharge, followed by less than a single encounter's worth of full mana, but getting two insta-restorative potions in one, later in the game, is at least a tried and tested standard. Could up the price.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

I'm big on KISS, but also that's more apt to break. I mean, if that's the only way yer willing to do it, I could look into it, but even with most of those on the scriptflags system now, that'd be really complex.

nah it's just an idea I'm throwing out there

That's just way too much time investment for an instant recharge, followed by three minutes of full mana

Fair enough, but you could always make an item like soup have a dual purpose if there was an NPC somewhere that gave you a quest if you gave him your soup. Maybe that quest could reward you with a ticket to a play by Darrelino Varr at the theater in Deralia? Again, just an idea to throw around but I think stuff like that would encourage people to obtain certain items or replay certain maps where the time sink otherwise would not justify it.

 

[Thothie]

Fair enough, but you could always make an item like soup have a dual purpose if there was an NPC somewhere that gave you a quest if you gave him your soup. Maybe that quest could reward you with a ticket to a play by Darrelino Varr at the theater in Deralia? Again, just an idea to throw around but I think stuff like that would encourage people to obtain certain items or replay certain maps where the time sink otherwise would not justify it.

Eh... Sure, could...

Framework for an achievement system is also kinda in place, could give tickets for filling out those (basically a token string with single digit counters). Was planning to move Syphiel's quest completion marker to it, so as to save on quest data space. Hopefully will be able to rig it up so it shows as a text display list, and give the option for other players to be able to read your achievements from the player interact menu, but probably wait until after the next patch. Could later affect various NPC dialogue - like they'd know if you defeated Calrian, Undamael, or whatnot (and give us some better mechanism as to your status with the Sorcs than, "Do you have a Blood Drinker?").

 

[Dehoth]

Darnitall... Meh, may try later (didn't look that big, and Deralia is almost entirely on one level). Feel free to fiddle with the standalone meantime, may just end up that way.

I believe I posted it in the PM with you both and Dehoth last had it and showed how it might be a difficult fit there.

As the scope might expand for both maps, having a transaction is the best solution here. The counts were getting close to max with the theater added and trying to fit it in without some spatial manipulation of buildings would seem weird. Reading on that more plays are supposed to be added/planned it would be best to not to push the limits here.

Could have a NPC only prompt you to navigate to the theater if you have a ticket in your bags of some sorts (opening a gate f.e.) everyone can then enter and go in. Beats being able to zone in the theater without anything to do imho. If it is possible with blooddrinker = yes, it should be possible with ticket = yes.

If that is too much of a hassle, putting in a navigation spot shouldn't be that hard, you can even pick the main gate in the west or most doors.

 

[Cyclophammer]

I agree with JMs suggestions in respect to how things SHOULD have been done a long time ago, but it's likely not possible to go back and fix everything in such a drastic way.

I also think it's easier to work with what we currently have, rather than rebalancing every single thing in this game.

287 greater protection potions over ~11.6K characters, which makes them a lot rarer than Tomahawks

I mean they are consumables??? What are we comparing here?!

Cosmetics are cool too, needs moar cosmetics.

Frost Bow is my favourite cosmetic

Anyways the reason I asked for a thread closure, was to not get to deep into any of this. I just brought the clouds up as an example of disconnect between dev and player.
Furthermore there is so much in this thread, that it will only fade into oblivion. Since I can detect some resemblance of common sense within @TheOysterHippopotami and @MS:C community I would beg you two to start individual threads on the points you've made. Keeps it all more concise and organized.
As for @Thothie - You should be a tad more respectful. I've already told you that people who do make contributions are invested and are not out to harm the game they love :Heart Emoji:. When it comes to discussions you keep getting backed into a logical fellacy and then simply dismiss the case as a simple "rant". Your approach is to compare numbers and ignore the milieu they exist within. The cloudyboiz easily deal 2k raw damage coupled with Stonemasons that have untechable stuns - isn't really gameplay. But that is for another thread. They whole time you're spending here trying to deflect stuff, we're adamantly trying to get through your skull, could be spent way more productive. I'm even baffled as to why there was work done on these bomb flasks to begin with. There is a like a 500 word essay long list of issues and we are supposed to be getting this.

To conclude: Request to change the Frost Bow has been denied.
//Thread Closed
everything else via DMs smile

 

[zeus9860]

//Thread Closed
everything else via DMs smile

Double nope.

just restrict soup to 1 time per completion of m2_quest.

Nope. That sounds like an awfull idea. Would be much easier to limit stock based on real time. If anything, redoing the quest multiple times, increases the amount of stock she sells per "day". That is the proper approach for the m2_quest replayability.

As for the soup changes, i think the mana regen has to be removed. It is a consumable item, would make more sense for the regen to be focused on the health side, perhaps give it a regen effect similiar to the regen potion? Idk. Those potions seem to be the most balanced potions in the game right now tbh, of course they can become slightly OP if you drink other potions and stack up healing effects. Perhaps giving the soup half the regen amount per tick would suffice as it is.

I am suggesting these changes because dark staff exists and healing in most situations can be done via other things, if the soup only gave full hp and mp, it would only substitute the use of strong health potions. And the use of these same potions is limited to when you make mistakes or play like crap.

I'll see what I can do about reducing the sprite generation, but it seems just one beam and one spiral shouldn't be doing that much, and his escorts don't make much... Might be some extra CLFX I'm not taking into account (think some sprites drift from his hands when he casts, like with Keledros, could nix those at least). Can't recall if I swapped out his sprite barrier with a single model already... That sprite barrier has always been trouble.

In that one room, there is just too many things going on at the sametime. Ihotohr causes major overflows when he starts spamming his barrier on top of his fast hitting beam that can lock you into place for a few seconds, along with the undeads boxing you in and all hitting you at the sametime and the fact that you are also dealing damage and could potentially suffer from dot damage aswell (if i remember correctly, ihotohr has a small chance of applying dot, i could be wrong on this one though), plus the screen effects, it's just too many things going on at the sametime that the game might end up struggling and overflow me off the server. Same issue happens with the mages up top but the good side to those is that their main attack is slow and can be easily avoided, i also have the tendency of just shooting them down at distance to avoid overflows. But they are as good as ihotohr when it comes to that, if you go up close and they use the barrier along with the orb thingy at the sametime. I've had this issue in other places aswell, but they aren't as bad since all it takes it to take proper priorities in killing things to avoid getting ganged up and have too many things going on at the sametime.


As for the bombs, putting a stack size will not stop people from hoarding these things. It just reinforces the use of mules to get these things. Perhaps the strongest bombs should be limited to collecting 1 bomb per day cycle, meaning, you could only get 1 of each bomb per day, this would imply a daily reset cycle to be added to the game, similiar to what i suggested earlier on this post for the soups and limited stock. The bombs that are in shops would have the same thing applied to them, instead of being random rng drops from maps, you could buy them directly. The stack size for the "strong" ones should be 5 with this in mind, the buyable bombs, perhaps 10? If they are meant to be weaker and if properly balanced, i think double the size would be good for people wanting to load up on these ones and use them later. Also the buyable ones should be restricted via questing, similiar to the soup, perhaps redoing the quest multiple times, can increase the stock per day to a certain amount. Instead of selling 1, perhaps you could increase the stock limit to 3 by redoing the quest 2 more times on the same character.

Well, wouldn't work with the sorta fundamental changes folks are demanding, which would still involve a decade worth of scripts and map changes, just maybe not all at once - but more than one game mode is possible, and one such has been on the "epic tasks" list long while. Obviously not possible under the current engine though.

But any suggestion that's going to take another decade, isn't a real suggestion, even if I like how you described it a lot better than the rants we've been getting.

F.

The only other thing i can think off, but seems whacky aswell. Would be to forcibly adjust armour resistance to be equal to that of GPOP stacking on top at all times, so if i used a phoenix armour next patch, instead of getting the 55% dmg reduction, i would get those 55% and the GPOP bonus on top at all times. Then nerfing the potions/ice shields to be minimal bonuses as suggested by msc_community. The only issue i have with this is that it would force players in the early levels to potentially become too resistant too early, perhaps this stuff could be restricted to mid to late game gear and instead of GPOP, the weaker lightweight variants would use a POP bonus instead? As for the resistances... this is the tricky part, the only thing i can think of is to limit the resistances to 75% like the grounding ring and then work with the remaining 25% to adjust enemies as they should be in the future. This is to avoid the player from getting curb stomped by elemental effects all the time. Of course, this is only an artificial balance to the game, but at least it would set things down for future balancing while somewhat preserving the old content we have in the game. Players would become too resistant without the need of potions but the use of potions (and ice shield) would drop down alot to minimal usage. Critters from now on would have to be properly balanced based on new resistance values given to the player. This isn't perfect but it is the best thing you can do without having to dig deep into the past and spend 10 years changing things to create balance, as this idea only consists of balancing potions, armour resists, putting caps on elemental resists and balancing some current endgame weapons.


Making the old content easier for everyone with this change would be no big deal, given that the main factor is to grind new items, it would only make things slightly more enjoyable for everyone repeating the same map 100 times to get that one item drop.

Items that would get balanced with this suggestion:
-Lightweight armour = no bonus or POP bonus given accessibility of armour;
-Plate armour = POP or GPOP bonus, based on accessibility of armour;
-Elemental resistances capped to 75% (not sure if this would force all sources for extra resistance to be capped at 75%, i am hoping it would, otherwise it would imply changing all the elemental resistance sources 1 by 1, which is extra time consuming);
-Ice shield nerf, i think the idea of having it scale based on SC is a good idea, other than this, if the ice shield proves to be "OP" with direct tiny damage reduction, perhaps change the spell to work differently instead. Like casting the ice shield and it shatters overtime or based on amount of damage absorbed, as it shatters, it looses damage reduction bonuses untill it collapses. The ice shield bonus would have to be tiny i assume, with these balance changes in mind, otherwise it would just break the balance again;
-Potion tuning (nerf down POP/GPOP to minimal bonuses that are equivalent to lesser ice shield or ice shield in their peak forms and remove the stackable option so players can use only ice shield/pop or gpop, mana font nerfed into a slower mana regen state, lesser swift nerfed down to 10% bonus and swift to 25%, firebrand nerfed down to 25% bonus damage, potion time/rarity doesn't require nerfs if these changes were made), don't think i am missing out of major gamebreaking potions here, unless vampire blood and demon blood are considered op, demon blood was nerfed badly last time it got touched, if it is somewhat OP still, perhaps nerf it down a little more. The vampire blood, either reduce the amount of healing or just make the potion harder to find. Everything else is fine as it is from what i remember (auras, speed, regen);
-Weapon balancing, most importantly weapons such as: acid lance (too strong without the need of potions), vorpal (too strong without potions and beyond broken with potions), demon bludgeon hammer (reduce healing by half the amount at least so it doesn't end up as a temporary godlike tool), infernal claws (the only issue with this item is the mana regen sources, if those are nerfed down, this item should automatically balance down just like the demon claws in the old days, the claws should be items to do one hit or two and retreat or change to something else, constant use of charged attacks is bad), dark staff (mana drain nerf? it is the only OP factor on this item, perhaps reducing the amount of mana recovered per hit to about half of the damage dealt, right now it is 100% of damage dealt i believe). I think these are the most game breaking items we have right now, everything else is good or too strong if using potions. If potions are nerfed, there is little to no reason to balance the other items since they require the use of swifts/brands/fonts to be game breaking. The only two weapons that need a damage nerf is the acid lance and vorpal dagger for obvious reasons.


If you are willing to do any of these changes, do keep in mind these suggestions are ONLY SUITABLE if you decide to balance the game overall, not just nerfing down things in favor of the player/npc so that the game becomes even less enjoyable than the current state it is in. Doing that will just further piss off people to come after your ass in the future. Consider this a fair warning.

Additionally, make sure to spread new loot into different ways of obtaining them, playing the same map a 100+ times with 4 players required is also a bad approach right now. I would rather see loot drops being made similiar to lodagond series, the_wall, forge items and quest drops. These approaches give enough replayability on the new content and people aren't forced to do the same map 100 times to get their drops, then another 100 times to get drops for the 2nd player, and repeating this process for everyone that helped you with the farming process. This is one of the big reasons why people opted to use alts instead of real players, because everyone wants a piece of the new loot and nobody wants to waste their god damn time or well being playing the same cancerous map for everyone else. Other than this, the use of alts if a proper way to actually increase the server population without actually crashing the server, it has been proved already, many times that 1-2 players and 6 alts in a server works almost flawlessly vs 4-6 actual players in the same server, there is a higher tendency to crash when people are actually playing, believe it or not.

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

Can I get this thread on Audiobook?