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Poison spell need re-examination

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Poison spell need re-examination Empty Poison spell need re-examination

Post by musicman Wed Aug 17, 2016 10:37 am

The poison spell does not work like it has in other versions. In other versions, only slimes, elementals, golems, and illusionist types (and most on the Uniques) were immune to it's effects. It would kill (choke) 4 in a group up to 3 groups.
I noticed this sometime ago actually, sorry for the delay on the report. Experimenting with the villain class has made it painfully obvious that it needs attention.
Thanks in advance for your attention to this matter.


Last edited by musicman on Wed Aug 17, 2016 6:48 pm; edited 1 time in total

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Post by ghard Wed Aug 17, 2016 10:56 am

Right, i have been experimenting with villy as well. Seems to be a much weakened version which bounces a fair amount even on the monsters it does work on. My recollection is that bounce was rare, but bigger monsters would not get 4 until spell level was higher, would get only 1 initially the work up the scale.

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Post by musicman Wed Aug 17, 2016 11:16 am

Right, the spell started out weak and built strength.

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Post by Jude Fri Aug 19, 2016 11:33 am

Ok, I just looked at the poison spell data. Its dimensions are currently set to 3x4, which sounds right.

I think we may have an issue with the max damage per group being a bit low. Also, I think that since the spell is a level 7? for villains, it suffers from being weakened as part of our less than optimal spell progression code.

Question--at its absolute best in previous versions, how many hit points (per group) would the spell take out? (I realize it is a kill spell--so I can calculate the cumulative hits by number multiplied by monster type.) You could help me by telling me something like: with a maxed out villain, I used poison to kill 2 swordsmen per group, or one silent eagle per group... Our strategy here is to figure out what the max potential kill damage dealt should be, and then investigate progression to that max. (Both are likely screwed up at present.)
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Post by ghard Fri Aug 19, 2016 11:59 am

1 eagle in 3 groups
3 or 4 mercs per group

Will think some more and post specifics, but here are sum guidelines from memory (from memory so close but not always accurate)

basically level 7 on up was 4 in 3 groups

8,9 natives 3 per group

10,11 natives 2 per group

12,13 natives 2 or 1 per group

14 natives 1 or 0 per group

15 natives none always.


Last edited by ghard on Fri Aug 19, 2016 12:42 pm; edited 1 time in total

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Post by musicman Fri Aug 19, 2016 11:59 am

I only have experience using the poison spell with sorcerers and wizards (1st villy ever), and like glenn has mentioned, the spell took some time to gain strength and effectiveness. For what it's worth, it was a bread and butter spell for a sorcerer until the elemental spells gained strength and became the preferable choice, but poison was very effective up to about lvl 12 monsters. That is my experience.
Anyone else?

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Post by Jude Fri Aug 19, 2016 12:53 pm

Thanks for the detailed feedback--very helpful.

I just bumped up the max damage dealt by poison. It was quite underpowered compared to how it used to work. We may not be out of the woods yet, based on how the spell's effectiveness is progressing... but it should be hitting for a lot more when it tops out now. This change should be live on the server
now.
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Post by ghard Mon Aug 22, 2016 8:41 am

Jude,

I took a tour on 9 with 160x level villy. I cast poison at all the humanoids and animals i encountered as a test. I got attempt failed in all cases. FYI

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Post by dungeonmaster Mon Aug 22, 2016 10:28 am

I am currently leaning towards a whole new series of spells for the villain.  In the previous version of this game you could poison almost everything, and I wanted to reign that in.  I made larger dragons immune, as well as demons and devils at least resistant to poison.  

I am considering removing poison entirely, and going another direction with the Vil's.

Rationale:
Takes too much effort to tweak/tune/balance poison.
Sorc's do not need a poison type spell here, their low level spells work just fine.
Villains require more than poison to be effective.  

Please discuss your thoughts on this issue.
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Post by ghard Mon Aug 22, 2016 11:00 am

I would say villy needs something which it sounds like your are hinting at (if not poison).  All of this I mentioned before, but will do here as well.  Not to beat a drum too much but I favor giving villy bstab ability if you agree obviously.

I would agree with your assertions on sork not needing poison.

Not "harm" but a spell with the effectiveness of harm (ballpark) would be great for villy.  Then villy is a pseudo caster (strong but not elite casting ability).  Perhaps draw out how fast it improves to later than wiz/healer with harm.  

Would love to see villy get to max boxing ability at max level (999).  Perhaps make villy open to one of the guilds with higher dex so could make a boxer at very high level (but only at very high level).  Make villy able to use the dex items too like TA, loki, thief's gloves, gloves of silence (probably can already use some of those).

my 2 cents

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Post by boxripper Mon Aug 22, 2016 1:51 pm

My 10 cents worth (inflation)

Scavvie is thief/fighter
Ninja is good fighter/sort of thief
Nomad is fighter/sort of thief
thief is thief / with minor crit-hit =little fighter

Villain is sort of fighter/sort of healer/sort of thief.
Why not take away all spells that villain currently has, let them use healing wands and spheres (they stole this knowledge) take away weapons except daggers, and give them some attack and defense spells. Can you make a whole new class of spells? Witchcraft spells or Voodoo or something? Leather armor, limited healing, some decent type attack spells... maybe a version of buff spells that are self only????
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Post by ghard Mon Aug 22, 2016 2:36 pm

Wow, a total rework of villy.  I am prejudice toward my suggestion for obvious reasons, but an entire new direction is always interesting.

My overriding suggestion would be to pick a target for villy first rather than adding/taking away this or that. Villy is a ____ ____ ____ now. Fill in the blank as you see fit of course. Then plan a course to get villy there.

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Post by boxripper Mon Aug 22, 2016 5:34 pm

my way is obviously a whole bunch more work.  but it has always seemed to me that avatar lacks something in its implementation of magic.  Elemental Damage, and Injure spells-- got those.  Mage spells are weird-- but there is a whole lot of room left un explored.  Necromancy.  Witchcraft.  Blood Magic.  self buffs and mob debuffs.   Acid.  Alteration.
All these are wide open fields.  Voodoo would open a lot of doors-- compulsion, necromancy, pain based spells, curses, -- there is a lot of fertile ground a creative guy could use to make them very interesting... but it will be very hard to keep from over powering them.  and if you underpower them-- no one will play, so why bother.

Does anyone have any experience with class creation?

And can you/ are you interested in creating a new class of spells?
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Post by dungeonmaster Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:36 pm

My thinking had been something like magic missile, quarrel, blastbolt for the attack spells... I like the self only idea on buffs and maybe even heals. I do not see regular healing items making an entry here. I must admit the whole ACID thing could play pretty well-- acid arrow, corrosive jet, slime spray-- or some such.

I don't know how Jude has things programmed. Adding a new class of spells maybe ridiculously hard and thus impractical.
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Post by Jude Tue Aug 23, 2016 5:15 pm

The toughest part about adding new combat spells would be the manual labor involved in assigning new spell resistances to every monster in our database.  I *think* I may even have some resistance slots coded in that we aren't using, maybe even one labeled acid..  (Were we thinking ahead for once?)

Otherwise, if you are talking about adding new damage or kill spells, that's pretty much a copy paste addition.

Entirely new spells, ones that do things our current spells don't do, are a little more tricky, but certainly possible.. especially hybrids of spells we already have, I.e. a spell that simultaneously damages a mob and heals the caster..
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Post by dungeonmaster Tue Aug 23, 2016 6:23 pm

I am willing to do all the manual labor, associated with a new breed of spells. As always-- you give me the tools and I will make it happen.

A vampiric damage spell would be &^$%#@ AWESOME. Do you want to tackle such a project???? I have time (not tons of time, but some)... You are the one with limits... this whole thing can be pushed off til a later date when everything else is done.
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Post by Jude Tue Aug 23, 2016 11:56 pm

I'm down for adding this.

I just did some snooping around, and it appears we have plenty of 'empty' variables stored with each monster in the database.. so assigning them resistance values to a new class (or several new classes) of spells should be straightforward.

I think a vampiric damage spell (or progression of such spells) would be a nice fit for the Villain. (Wasn't there one named 'vampirism' on NovaNET?) I just looked at the code, and I could probably hack together something that works pretty quickly. It's mostly copy/paste, once we decide how we want the spell to work.
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Post by ghard Tue Sep 06, 2016 3:36 pm

Just checking in to see where villy spell casting ability is sitting. Running one I will say the villy needs some help as a guild Smile

I certainly get that this can take some time, it is why i waited 2 weeks before even asking. No worries.

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Post by musicman Tue Sep 06, 2016 5:22 pm

I put my villy on the back burner several days ago at lvl 140 or so. The class definitely needs some help if to be considered a useful contender down deep. Several practical suggestions so far, Backstab, Vampiric spells, class only items (other than a sash, none have been found yet if they exist) or increased thieving ability. Someday when it's not so low on the things to do list.

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