Um... this is going to sound so childish of me, but could we please be more positive? As with any RPG, different people want to play it different ways. I (kinda) want to play the system to make a powerful support character. I ended up being a summoner when I got the Tophat, but still...

What do we realistically want to see happen? And please don't just say "nerf Generic/Talist/Wilson". I already know that.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 04:22:00

I just want to reach the point where I get a spell/special that brings enemies towards me, then I'll just torch 'em.

~~

What if, rather than the current alchemiter system, we just found small things hidden around the pages to make cool things with (eg. Leather Shoe 1/3 where 3 is the amount of hidden artifacts and 1 is the number owned. eg2. Paradox Burrito 2/5; 2 denotes that the players have 2 of the 5 hidden artifacts for THIS item). It means we don't feel bad for using materials, we keep the soul of the card game intact and it means Ire has as much of a load (at least for alchemy) as he likes.

P.S. Honestly I felt I was abusing (something I do a ton of in DTG games) the Origin String with Infernal Torment's cone attack.


I think that Skill points are good, but the +Int/MP/Regen for Int weapons are a bit bonkers. Gold is in a wierd spot, I think that high-cost items are bad (maybe 10 gold at the most, and for spell books ONLY (because Bill's Cane is only for one person)). Buying spells are fun when they are interesting or have high utility. Cure-all spells aren't the answer (unless you want to make a spell that cures all debuffs, which is fine).

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 04:49:00

While I agree with a lot of the points Tazz made about focused mages dominating the battlefield with TemsFour, etc, but, Tazz, you're REALLY taking this too seriously I feel.
Sure, Generic and Talist's builds are powerful, and we need to draw the line somewhere, but I wouldn't consider Talist to be in the 'broken' category... yet. His build's good, but it has some weaknesses.
(And I suppose you could also argue that Talist admits to being powerful, but either way, a nerf to TemsFour is nessecary)
As for Generic, though... yeah, it's gonna take a LOT more than nerfing TemsFour into oblivion if he gets that cane. I know that an unbalanced game isn't fun for anyone, and that's honestly something I don't want... neither of us want. We should really just save the coinage for those who need stuff most. Such as, but certainly not limited to, getting a Shield for NumberSoup, and/or getting that purple flake thing from Tem. I have no idea what it would do (unless we bought/heard about it already without me even realizing it), but why not find out?

As for my own build, I'd say it's noticeably situational, despite my technically 6HP regen and 38HP and the ability to OHKO some of the foes we face. My special fixes that, but it's not permanent, like all buffs.
I'd say Numbers is the true tank out of us. I'm not really a tank if you think about it; just extremely high in HP and regen. Even at higher regen, it's still situational.
...
Hm... mind if I try...

Metal Plating && Potions of Regeneration && (Green Orb && Potion + _Build Grist = Red Orb) + _Build Grist = ???
...if/before Toast's idea comes into existence, and then I create it, even without knowing what this thing's gonna be?

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 05:15:00

My primary beef isn't really at Talist/Generic, it's really that there are issues with scaling going Hard Mage. Basically, you win. Period. It's like 3.5 D&D Wizard that makes me want to avoid 3.5 D&D altogether. Also, I'm kind of just annoyed by...well, a lot really. GMing might just be making me very irritable, though it is starting to really interfere with life. If there has ever been any believed laziness in updating it is precisely because of the fact that, at some point, I really just do NOT want to deal with how insane people get, the irritable updater, and so on, and the fact that quite literally no-one will actually take up the GM mantle-I can't give it to them without basically condemning them to some kind of fresh hell. That's just straight-up mean.

As for balancing concerns: The primary issue is, above all else, the reason why Generic is so inhumanely broken is because of the Alchemiter-if every gear he ever got from it was removed and he reverted to his pre-alchemiter build he'd be powerful but not a game breaker, barring Bill's Cane of course. Henceforth, even if removing his Alchemiter gear isn't a go, it's gotta happen. I don't care if there's literally no more 'free' loot thereafter it just HAS to go.

The other big issue is Mana discounts. Not an issue with Talist but that's precisely because he's not exploiting it at all. A Mana Regen of +3 plus the Staff equals Free Fireballs, which isn't broken, but is a very optimized build considering that's not all it can do and it's got more; Generic breaching it means he's literally gaining MP from casting effectively. Because everyone has +1 MP regen naturally, Ire, i'd balance out a LOT of effects that either give Mana regen or reduct spell costs with magic weapons. In particular, flip out (-1 cost with Magic Weapons) to (+1 damage to Magic weapons if you can cast this spell)-that means that, if a Mage doesn't feel his insane Wide Beam is worth it, he can thwack with slightly more damage instead, thereby allowing for the versification of builds without making everyone a mix build, as long as the mana exists to cast it AND they actually can use the skill...The other big thing is, any Regeneration beyond 3 (counting the team regen factor) should instead be +1 MP to the total instead, achieving a similar effect, because at some point Mana Regen becomes a cooldown to when you can cast X spell instead after the first initial casts, and 3 MP Regen is still pretty solid without breaking the game in half. (the Staff should keep it's mana cost reduction ability by the way, but that should be unique to the Staff itself and/or very special items, IE Bill's Cane).

Other minor things...
-Providence now costs at LEAST 150% mana of the standard spell (rounded UP) to cast if the mage doesn't already know it, preferrably 200%. Why? An infinite spellbook means the wielder can pull out anything-even unique spells like Foxfire, Firewall, ect. The short of it is, this is amazing, straight up, no questions. A group in dire need of a wall to make chokepoints could have a Providence mage concouct one up.
-TemsFour is reduced to Range 1 summon. Simple, elegant way to make anything with splash a hard counter to TemsFour. On that note, TemsFour also cannot transmit dodge chance at all and will always have a dodge chance of diddly squat, so TemsFour will ALWAYS be a waste in these cases. Other things might come up that are more obvious, but this is a really subtle way to make the investment go sour. Another way is to make the user of TemsFour become not only weak to Psychic (by 25%, like Temmie), but also make the TemsFour clones ways to hit the enemy-the full damage is still transfered to the user if hit with a Psychic attack (on top of destroying the clone and the 25% weakness while in effect).
-Summon doesn't need any changing whatsoever bar one thing. Summons no longer persist between battles, meaning the caster MUST recast it to resummon. Might bring out the flexible side of the spell, summoning a different beast to combat every situation instead of the same one, in case you don't feel like messing around with scaling.
-This is more of a quibble than anything, but remove effects that ignore ALL AC, instead give them a value of AC they can ignore (and make it unable to add negative AC), barring very special effects (IE special weapons with powerful drawbacks).

I'm not entirely in my right mind to think of more balancing stuff, but that's all I have.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 07:39:00

Ya know, I'm surprised there aren't any enemies which deal damage to Mana showing up.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 09:12:00

Or a boss that completely removes healing/regen effects of any kind. #sorrydarkside

Item Suggestions?:

Actually just two sets of 6 incredibly inaccurate dice on strings (they each deal 1 damage)
..? 1-6 DMG, Range 4, Retreat 2
Weapon Passive: Double attack. Getting two identical rolls gives you 100% dodge chance and +1 DMG until next regen. STR increases upper value only. it lets you carry more dice

String weapons (chain knife, rope dagger, dice) could curl around walls once. I was doing this in maths earlier so yeah.

Sorryforpostingsofrequentlytodaybutwemightneedanotherthreadforthis>:?

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 09:29:00

@Toast: A boss that does that would merely be annoying and a one-off event that punishes it that time only, which definitely would NOT get the job done. Those nerfs would take the most broken things about full mages and reduce their weakness to the point where it's honestly fair and they don't lord over everything, and things can get fun again, because really, as it stands I feel like most of the fun of this game has just been sapped by the fact that, yes, the mages WILL have a solution.

@Talist/DarkSide: The primary reason that Talist' build is broken is because, simply put, a Mage cannot and WILL not be backstabbed because they're gonna be hiding behind everyone else if they have any sense of self-preservation. In Talist's case, he can MAKE his own wall of entities to kill to get at the ONE thing that'll actually shut it off while relentlessly supporting everything to make sure it doesn't break with FoxFire spam. On that note: I just kind of REALLY hate Foxfire and how applicable to every situation it is in general. As it's the primary strength of a mage to be flexible and powerful in exchange for low survivability, a spell that covers MOST of what to do...Well, it IS balanced well but it's still pretty strong, perhaps too strong though I can't tell. I kind of agree with DarkSide here, partially; Talist's build is merely the line between 'optimized' and 'cheese,' while Generic is just cheese. MOst everything else is just kind of optimized (and that definitely includes Origin String+Infernal Torment, Toast, as I personally think the Infernal Torment is kind of underpowered without it.)

@Ire: This might be missed, but I'm switching out TemsFour to Zillycharm for the time being.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 17:25:00

Here's a general list of things I may want to do during the Balance Patch. These changes haven't been applied yet, and are not final. I will listen to suggestions and the like, as I generally do. Wrote these ideas up very quickly; still probably gonna take another look at Mage Gameplay.

>THE BALANCE PATCH



It occurs to me that this defusing this situation / balancing this game may be harder than coding any sort of singleplayer game, without making anyone angry.

*reads down*

Welp, gorilla.

@Piono: I might do that. I'm actually debating still with how I WANT TemsFour to be balanced. I want to retain "the soul of the card", while making it balanced. Also, by "not like" the enemy upgrades, do you mean "well damn, i'm gonna die" not like, or "i legit hate this decision" not like?

@Insert: Please don't be like that. Perhaps we could come to a compromise?

@Toast: Still thinking about the Infernal Torment nerf. Again, these haven't been released yet. The Shifting Sands nerf is actually because I feel Shifitng Sands is one of the most versatile spells in the game; you can swap with friends and foe alike. I might make it a 1 MP increase only, though.

@Numbersoup: The cap idea is interesting. Instead of a direct gold / grist cap, how about a "level cap"? ex: You can have a max of, say, 7 levels of gear. Basic Gear being 1 level, ect... That'd add an interesting dynamic; do I go for this one amazing hat of judgement, salad and lasers, or several, lesser items?

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 17:26:00

Well, this is just great. Thanks to the censors not catching the obvious use of an unmasked, unhidden, untampered swear word in one of my posts to Acolyte (which is straight up stupid because it was so easy to point out), now I can't make new posts on the minecraft forums for three days!

RIP me

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 18:35:00

@tazz: Calm down, you attacked generic WAY to viciously.

@toast: abusing the system in your case is fine, as is talist's. Both of you have abilities that are relatively easy to cope with. Insert's just requires some enemies with silence on them, although that'd require enemies with silence in every battle, so, yeah, that's a problem.
The biggest issue I've been seeing (keep in mind that this portion is being typed prior to reading ire's changelog) is that certain people are getting to build stupidly big builds, but it's really hard for other players to keep up in terms of usefulness most of the time. As ire's said, the biggest change we want isn't nerfing (Although that does need to be done to further our actual goal) but rather the ability for EVERYONE to pull crazy crap and get away with it.
So yeah, tazz is right, our issue is the same as D&D's, going hard mage breaks things a bit too hard. I've got a nice, stable build, but the mages aren't squishy enough to be honest. HP's just too expensive, and other, non-spellcasting based paths don't seem to be effective enough just yet.

@irepatch:
Urm, I think dealing MHP/6 to the caster upon death is too much. The temclones go down as soon as something targets them, and even they're kept behind enemy lines, all it takes is one jerk with range 4 or 5 and suddenly your summoner's ded, and so are all of his minions. It turns temsfour into a liability. I think that tazz's suggestion of giving a weakness to psychic is better, with some modifications:
25% weakness per each temclone still up (so with all three, you have a 75% weakness to psychic), but weakness is also given to light and dark, since very few enemies have any of those three, giving vulnerability to all of them makes it more applicable. and all psychic, light, or dark damage dealt to one of the clones while they're up will be applied to you, but by the vulnerability multiplier (so if you have all three up, you take 75% damage from the attack, if the attack the kills the last one is light/dark/psychic, you take 25% damage from it) This might be bit complicated, but it applies in enough situations to be relevant, but it's not so harsh as to make the move worse than useless.
Everything else (barring the enemy upgrades) I like.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 19:28:00

Okay then. I sell ???'s bow because I have no use for it, I sell the Regenerative Robes because their bonuses are even more outweighed now, and I buy the Battery Pack and make my special "Do nothing", which costs 10 SP.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 19:40:00

Here's a suggestion:

Being able to choose a class during character creation, moreso than you can now, anyways.

Specifically, I mean a way to choose base stats. Here's the specific option I had in mind:

Mage: -10 starting HP, +5 starting MP, +1 mana regen
Apprentice: Default
Muggle: +10 starting HP, -5 start mana, +2 HP regen

Or something like that.

This way, Mages will be more fragile, and a high health build, without boosting items, could maybe be feasible.

Also, items and attacks could be more or less effective depending on the player's choice. Specifically, enemy status effect buffs and such could counter specific builds better without irritating everyone because status effects are really annoying.


Originally posted on 2016-02-18 19:56:00

QUOTE (PitTheAngel @ (time=1455820536))

Well, this is just great.  Thanks to the censors not catching the obvious use of an unmasked, unhidden, untampered swear word in one of my posts to Acolyte (which is straight up stupid because it was so easy to point out), now I can't make new posts on the minecraft forums for three days! RIP me

Welp, you could be worse off. Namely, banned outright.

@Piono: To be totally honest, in general, I really just do not like Generic. Let's just LEAVE it there and never bring it up ever ever again, barring everyone WANTING to hear me lambast him (further) for some reason. Also, yeah, I prefer the weaknesses thing over just 1/6 MHP, though 75% weakness in total seems extremely harsh. 25% to Psyche/Light/Dark will do for all 3. The reason why TemsFour is so powerful is simply because it immediatlely quadruples your AoE and diverts attention from the caster that could be used to KILL said caster...And that ranged units of such a description don't exist in enough quantities and with enough strength to really matter, bar maybe a Fearful. Also, I digress; this isn't DTG and we shouldn't need to perform the game of eternal one-upsmanship, sometimes you just have to tone things down. Especially here, where such a call would mean EVERYONE would have to be buffed instead of just toning the offenders down, and that can become very hard to pinpoint-in this case, that's seriously making Ire's day harder than it should in this case. For most of us, we ARE in that range already. I move 7 spaces, ignore enemy placment, and can drop Sapsplash to make enemies easy pickings so everyone can kill them, as well as pick off the weak vital targets, and dodge nonstop to the point that I effectively have twice my listed HP value; Toast can wade into any fight (or pop up and flank without warning thanks to shifting sands) and not only do massive damage to anything in front of him but also burn every offender, dealing INSANE damage over time (IF they do not resist fire); Engie has enough burst damage on one attack to obliterate whatever he pleases from a range most enemies in the game can't counter; Talist (as mentioned before) can bury everything in bodies and support himself and his frontline to the point that he's invincible by proxy, as enemies will be too busy dying to be able to hit the insultingly small enemy on the backlines; DarkSide and NumberSoup can just wall for days, and in DarkSide's case his abilities also give him MASSIVE damage in burst if the situation calls for it, while NumberSoup's new build has enough AC to no-sell a variety of attacks. And this is ignoring specials-I have a brainwash (and if properly specced it works on BOSSES), NumberSoup becomes MORE unkillable, Engie's burst damage madness goes into overtime, and more.

The reason why I'm so infinitely salty is because Generic blew all of that out of the water by the ninth mile, therefore making the fact that we can all do these amazing things void, as Generic can make all of that next-to-irrelevant by blowing up everything and Autoreviving without ANY sort of issue whatsoever.

On that note, I'd like more items that give SP/aid specials over INT so I can spec into that. I'd rather distinct myself from Mages overall and just focus on getting a lot of SPC so I can do some awesome stuff with the Aura of Smooth, as Sapsplash is perfectly fine as it is for my build, but I don't have any other real option right now.

/null.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 20:04:00

This DTG game is probably the hardest to GM, I doubt anyone could do the job ire does as well as he does. JustthoughtIshouodsaythat, .

So anyway, I got slightly screwed on these updates because dealing 8-9 damage BASE is pretty bad at Range 1 (I'm not considering the cone affect since when are enemies standing in a line within range 3 of me.#shiftingsandsmatters), which makes 7-8 (with Origin String) at Range 2 still kinda sucky since I pretty much have to be point blank to use it. (tbh the Infernal Torment is only good against groups of enemies and makes me practically unusable in every boss battle.) It's alright for cleaning up small enemies but pretty much any melee weapon can probably do it better against less than 3 enemies.

Shifting Sands' nerf was kind of unexpected and limits my mobility a ton since my mana is pretty ridiculously low.

Conclusion: so really I can't use TemsFour, Shifting Sands or my basic attack - without putting my relatively fragile self in to die (which kinda stings; not being able to attack), even if I was going to switch out TemsFour anyway.
I hope this didn't sound like a rant, I agree with most of the changes but I'm kinda awkwardly screwed now that I have limited mobility and a short-range, low-damage attack.

Also I like NumberSoup's idea.

@Pit I got a warning for saying wtf to many times as ~Toast when she realised she was blind and telling everyone to shut up and look up what chromesthaesia and chronoesthaesia is- not that the latter exists or anything.


@Tazz, Mhm, forgot about the burn. That's probably pretty important to consider, so consider my not-rant mostly debunked.


Now that I think of it, do damaging status effects ignore AC?


EDIT60: Autorevive probably shouldn't be self-targettable.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 20:05:00

I will be editing the "balance patch notes" throughout the day. With responses! And extra notes! WHO KNOWS WHAT'LL APPEAR.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 20:13:00

Oh, also, about the Alchemiter.

I really don't think it should be removed. More customization in stats is really good. Perhaps some sort of... Loadout value cap?

Yeah, actually, I say that should be considered for both Gold and Grist. It'd prevent excessively stacked loadouts, and also stop people from spending more than their fair share. The cap wouldn't apply to non-exclusive stuff like skills and such, only weapons and equipment. I would suggest also suggest a combined cap, which would be like... some sort of math system to ensure you couldn't just fill both caps and achieve pretty much the same effect. Of course, all these caps would increase over time, though... is the amount of gold/grist we get increasing? If not, it should be.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 20:21:00

@Toast: That's kind of made up for in that you burn everything you hit, which does 2 damage per turn AND lowers their DMG by 1, which makes it more like 10-11 at Range 1 (and that's just the 1st turn). Unless they're immune to status conditions and/or resist fire (and there's an equal amount of enemies WEAK to Fire), that's pretty good against hordes and the generic mooks on your own. That being said, I think Shifting Sands costing more MP was incoming given how well you use it, and you can still cast it twice per battle within reason.

@NumberSoup: I honestly really just hated the way the Alchemtier was implemented in general, as while you're right (customization good), I'd much rather find gear and then just take time to potentially kit-bash things together (IE the Slingshot).

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 20:44:00

ONE FINAL THING: Please move the discussion to the DTG: Chaos discussion thread! I'd like to not completely fill up the main thread, if we could.

Originally posted on 2016-02-18 21:46:00

Creating a character, mostly. Because i have no idea what is going on. Never mind that, i have the general idea.
Assuming we are in zone 2.


16.5 HP (1 expended! 0 remaining! (rip me ded)
15 Mp (5 points expended! 16 remaining!)
1 STR
2 AGI (3 expended! 4 remaining!)
4 INT (9 expended! 7 remaining!)
2 SPC (3 expended! 1 remaining!)
0 AC
Weapon: Staff
Gear: Mana Circlet: +1 INT, Mana Regen(1)
Mage Robes: +3 MP, +1 INT
Finale Amulet: +2 AC and +2 DMG below 50% HP.
Leet Skillz
/ Thunderburst
Earthbomb
Extra super amazing Omegarare 2000.00$ supermegaultragammarare staff skill: Totem: (7 MP) (I just realized how strong this is with decent INT. i have enough for all the bonuses.)
Special: Absurdly Powerful Magicks
SP: 400 to go!
SP: Filled by dealing and taking damage. Death is triple the amount given from taking damage. Damage from bosses is double the points of normal damage. Being buffed.
Effects: (Used as buff): Caster plus another player is healed by 5. Mp is refilled, and all stats plus 1, with the largest stat gaining plus 2. Damage increased by 10, and first attack while in this stated is dodged and countered for a minicrit. All other player's healed by 2. Caster gains 1 splash.
Used as attack (BOSS ONLY): If used to attack a boss, will instead debuff the boss, deal 30-50 damage, and stun. If used to finish the boss, regain 50 SP. If the boss has over 200 HP max, gain one INT permanently.

QUOTE

The Alchemiter was alchemized with a burrito, three bombs and a cat, destroying it horribly. Sorry

I think you mean someone used a catnip burrito trap to make a cat set off three bombs horribly wrecking it.




Originally posted on 2016-02-18 23:28:00

Nice character. Although you should have 3 skill slots, because the Staff grants one.
///nullnullnull

Originally posted on 2016-02-19 01:09:00