Here's a quick guide to the usage of wicked fidelity, for those of you who might not have gleaned all of its quirks and advantages (understandable, given its charge-based nature and prevention).
Each enhanced relic (katar, lance, falx) has its own base lifetime when created (which increases with mastery in wicked fidelity). Thus, if weapon duration is a concern, it is in your best interest to transform your base weapon near the end of its lifetime. For example, if your Lorhu's claymore lasts 12 minutes, you can get maximum usage out of it by holding on and converting it in the 10th or 11th minute; then you'll have a spite-forged falx (which is directly superior to a claymore) for the next 7 minutes (or whatever your personal duration may be).
Enhanced relics derive their stats directly from the base weapon you are transmuting. The better your ataghan/gate-staff/claymore is, the better your enhanced relic will be. The relic's stats are improved from the base stats as well (and the special hidden effect is then added), so a relic will always be superior to its base weapon. (The amount of improvement gained from transformation can also be separately increased with intellect and mastery in wicked fidelity.)
The katar of sublime cruelty's special ability (critical strikes) is dexterity-based. Your dexterity must exceed your victim's agility for the effect to occur at all; if it does, then the critical strikes grow much, much stronger with increasing dexterity.
The compelled shadow lance's special ability is straightforward - resistance and invulnerability bypass. It's one of the only ways in Nodeka to counter invulnerabilities and resistances.
The spite-forged falx's special ability is based directly on current health. If your victim has more health than you, the falx will enhance its damage proportionally to the difference (up to a certain limit). The effect can be quite potent, making the falx great for fighting larger mobs or in any PvP battle where you are taking a lot of damage or fighting larger players. The falx does receive a slight penalty when striking victims with less life than you, but the penalty's cap is extremely low.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Take a number!
I've spent the past week's development time writing and refining a single block of Scar AI code, about 1000 lines in total. In terms of quantity, that's mighty slow work. In terms of functionality, however, it's vital stuff which will make the event run much more smoothly.
The Invasion (that one-weekend diversion) ended up being a valuable lesson in many respects, especially in terms of designing an interface (through mobs such as Christof and Vai-shan) that's efficient and easy to use. (Remember the first few days when Vai-shan would constantly cancel the reward process mid-speech?) A lot of these lessons learned contributed quite a deal to the Scar redesign; these 1000 lines are part of that.
I'll try to have a class update for you (most likely one of: valkyrie, monk, druid, or witch) early next week, probably Monday, just so y'all don't feel too neglected while I pour all of my time into Scar code.
The Invasion (that one-weekend diversion) ended up being a valuable lesson in many respects, especially in terms of designing an interface (through mobs such as Christof and Vai-shan) that's efficient and easy to use. (Remember the first few days when Vai-shan would constantly cancel the reward process mid-speech?) A lot of these lessons learned contributed quite a deal to the Scar redesign; these 1000 lines are part of that.
I'll try to have a class update for you (most likely one of: valkyrie, monk, druid, or witch) early next week, probably Monday, just so y'all don't feel too neglected while I pour all of my time into Scar code.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Hey yey yey, what's going on
This is what my upcoming development plan looks like as of 7/10:
- priority 1: Finish the Scar
- priority 2: update the newbie experience
- priority 2a: more class design as August approaches
- priority 3: additions to the Invasion, and a new Vl'lak-related group dungeon
Priority 1 is obvious. Priority 2 has always been on the backburner, but I'm pushing it up the list since we are currently exploring some active advertising avenues to open our doors to new players.
Priority 2a is a constant one, of course, but I intend to work on it a little less until the Scar is released, and a little more afterwards (concurrently with newbie improvements).
Priority 3 is a combination of things: some new ideas I have for improving the Ruushi Invasion, as well as a sort of offshoot/replacement of the Twisted Divide. All of the structural work that I've implemented for the Invasion and Scar gives me a lot more options in terms of group dungeon design, and so I'm cannibalizing a lot of the Divide's old design work and molding something new from it which extends the Invasion story a little further. The Twisted Divide itself will be redesigned farther down the road, once I've had a chance to implement the Vl'lak-related dungeon to see what works well and what doesn't.
- priority 1: Finish the Scar
- priority 2: update the newbie experience
- priority 2a: more class design as August approaches
- priority 3: additions to the Invasion, and a new Vl'lak-related group dungeon
Priority 1 is obvious. Priority 2 has always been on the backburner, but I'm pushing it up the list since we are currently exploring some active advertising avenues to open our doors to new players.
Priority 2a is a constant one, of course, but I intend to work on it a little less until the Scar is released, and a little more afterwards (concurrently with newbie improvements).
Priority 3 is a combination of things: some new ideas I have for improving the Ruushi Invasion, as well as a sort of offshoot/replacement of the Twisted Divide. All of the structural work that I've implemented for the Invasion and Scar gives me a lot more options in terms of group dungeon design, and so I'm cannibalizing a lot of the Divide's old design work and molding something new from it which extends the Invasion story a little further. The Twisted Divide itself will be redesigned farther down the road, once I've had a chance to implement the Vl'lak-related dungeon to see what works well and what doesn't.
Failure to Launch
Failures are part and parcel of design sometimes. Change and new features are always exciting in the short term, but ensuring that these implementations are done correctly makes a huge positive difference in the long term. It sound like hokey folk wisdom, but it really is true.
Unfortunately, being picky about implementation sometimes results in weeks like this past one. Over the past few days, in between settling down from the end of vacation and handling basic administrative Nodeka stuff, I've managed to:
- overhaul valkyrie songs to a group role, add a new song, improve their pet
- implement the trickiest AI section of the mission structure for the Scar
Pretty good deal, and all according to my previously drawn designs. Problem is, I didn't like either of them, and so neither went live.
My problem with the song implementation was part aesthetic and part mechanical. I designed them to be strong and useful while avoiding the obvious pitfalls (example: look, rite of virility for our whole group, now we can pile onto one helpless chump and flank him before he can withdraw). Problem is, in play, the songs felt clunky and a bit contrived, and they all felt very similar to each other as well.
The Scar mission AI was a different beast. It worked, but in testing I didn't like the balance at all. Limitations in my design were making it too easy to get really great rewards without having to participate in much player combat participation at all, once a smart player figured out the system's underlying mechanics. The mechanics are invisible, as with the invasion (and much more complex than the invasion's as well), but even if they worked for now as a "new feature", I didn't want to put them out unless they were really correct for the long term.
Thus, both got the DELETE button treatment, figuratively. In the short term, that sucks - I'm stuck with a small body of work that I don't want to put live, and you're stuck without the immediate updates. In the long term, however, it's excellent news. The experience exposed a number of flaws with my valkyrie song design which will allow me to rewrite them to be much more elegant and rewarding in the end; similarly, I managed to pinpoint a precise set of issues with the Scar design which will allow me to reshape it to fit the area's goals (promote competition, pk activity, and sneakiness in a way which is accessible to players of all sizes) better.
Unfortunately, being picky about implementation sometimes results in weeks like this past one. Over the past few days, in between settling down from the end of vacation and handling basic administrative Nodeka stuff, I've managed to:
- overhaul valkyrie songs to a group role, add a new song, improve their pet
- implement the trickiest AI section of the mission structure for the Scar
Pretty good deal, and all according to my previously drawn designs. Problem is, I didn't like either of them, and so neither went live.
My problem with the song implementation was part aesthetic and part mechanical. I designed them to be strong and useful while avoiding the obvious pitfalls (example: look, rite of virility for our whole group, now we can pile onto one helpless chump and flank him before he can withdraw). Problem is, in play, the songs felt clunky and a bit contrived, and they all felt very similar to each other as well.
The Scar mission AI was a different beast. It worked, but in testing I didn't like the balance at all. Limitations in my design were making it too easy to get really great rewards without having to participate in much player combat participation at all, once a smart player figured out the system's underlying mechanics. The mechanics are invisible, as with the invasion (and much more complex than the invasion's as well), but even if they worked for now as a "new feature", I didn't want to put them out unless they were really correct for the long term.
Thus, both got the DELETE button treatment, figuratively. In the short term, that sucks - I'm stuck with a small body of work that I don't want to put live, and you're stuck without the immediate updates. In the long term, however, it's excellent news. The experience exposed a number of flaws with my valkyrie song design which will allow me to rewrite them to be much more elegant and rewarding in the end; similarly, I managed to pinpoint a precise set of issues with the Scar design which will allow me to reshape it to fit the area's goals (promote competition, pk activity, and sneakiness in a way which is accessible to players of all sizes) better.
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