The revamped Invasion, as most of you know, is now live and on its automatic cycle now. It's much more polished than the previous Invasion event; there's more variety, it's a bit more dangerous, and it's much more rewarding in the long run. It's also far, far more intelligent in scaling itself correctly for different quantities of defenders. =)
I could spend pages talking about it and giving you tips and hints... but I've already done that. Just type help ruushi invasion while you're in-game, and check out the tree of related helpfiles - there's a wealth of information and clues in there regarding the event.
Iron also has written up a great guide with his own personal observations, strategies, and guesses over at this thread on Nodeka 411 - check it out!
The event's been in test mode on live for the past four days, and after a lot of tweaking, I feel like it's pretty well-balanced overall, enough that I'm slowing down on the balance adjustments and picking up the next phase - finally whipping up the special rewards that the Invasion will offer for the most dedicated defenders of Ruushi. =)
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
An eternal flame
Took a break from Invasion testing this afternoon to implement some updates to game mechanics, along with some marauder development. I'll spend a little time here discussing the most recent updates, before getting back to the new Invasion code (which is coming along great, by the way)... Just needed a temporary change of pace. =)
Firebrands, in specific, took a little bit of a running hit with this update, as silver inferno was reduced in power a bit. Its previous incarnation was fair at moderate stats, but its scaling tended to get out of control once crafted (or rp) gear was added to the mix, and especially so now that dexterity has been promoted to the rank of "statistic that actually matters to some people now" (via open wounds and the overextended attack system).
However, all of the marauder classes have (a weaker) silver inferno now - something which helps to promote the overall direction of the marauder class design (chaos!), especially now that allies are no longer protected from the inferno. (See http://nodeka.blogspot.com/2009/06/dirty-dozen5.html for my class direction primer.) The other marauder subclasses are definitely more attractive with access to the inferno, as well.
We can't leave firebrands without a unique ability, of course, and so they've developed the art of the eruptive stigma - a fiery rune which provides protection against special attacks (ice blades, kicks, lightning bolts, etc.) and which then responds by burning the offender's face off. It's a kind of a more situational form of unearthly rapture. (Don't worry, dajas - your rapture is still far superior, and in fact has been strongly buffed in the update as well, as it now triggers on the numerous types of attacks out there that ignore counterattacks.)
The other big portion of the update is related to the rapture/stigma pair - a mechanic update to counterattacks, which will now act logically for each of their damage types. (Thus, fire invulnerability will protect you from fire counterattacks, and so on.) Because of this, jakaens took a (probably long-overdue) hit to their immunities down to 50%; however, it's a tone that's also a buff in some ways, since their immunities are now effective against a variety of counterattacks. (Poliir are another class that, like marauders, need more design work in the direction of their intended flavor but have been held back by overly strong subclass abilities. I'd like to flesh out the "defensive" aspect of the poliir much more in the future.)
The consolidation of healing effects to all be affected by healing amplification is really a bit of a code-cleaning setup. Now that all healing functions in a standardized way, effects such as healing amplification will work consistently, avoiding the whole "does this ability work with heal amp?" guessing game. In addition, it makes it easier to introduce new functionality that interacts with healing, such as necromancer diseases/footpad poisons that reduce or even prevent healing. =)
Stepping back a bit to the 1/14 update, the decree of guilt buff is fairly self-explanatory. Alignment is a bit of a sticking point with paladins, and some of their abilities can really wreck it. Having decree of guilt function as an alignment-raiser felt fun and flavorful, improves the class's usability, and helps guilt to stand out just a little from the shadow of his big brother, decree of innocence.
And finally, the open wounds mechanic - this one's a strong benefit for having greater dexterity and +hit, two stats which were lacking in functionality. There's a lot of subtle possibility here. The damage dealt by open wounds is based on the wounder's +hit/+dam ratio, and the bleeding victim's maximum health. Thus, while open wounds will not have much effect in day-to-day running, it can be extremely effective in PvP combat, especially with good +hit gear for nastier wounds (and +dex to increase the chance of wounding). However, defense becomes important as well - a player can bind their wounds as soon as they leave combat, so it's easiest to take advantage of a good wound if you have someone able to tank the victim and keep them in combat as they bleed to death.
And now, back to Invasion work. =) Enjoy, and don't be shy with feedback!
Firebrands, in specific, took a little bit of a running hit with this update, as silver inferno was reduced in power a bit. Its previous incarnation was fair at moderate stats, but its scaling tended to get out of control once crafted (or rp) gear was added to the mix, and especially so now that dexterity has been promoted to the rank of "statistic that actually matters to some people now" (via open wounds and the overextended attack system).
However, all of the marauder classes have (a weaker) silver inferno now - something which helps to promote the overall direction of the marauder class design (chaos!), especially now that allies are no longer protected from the inferno. (See http://nodeka.blogspot.com/2009/06/dirty-dozen5.html for my class direction primer.) The other marauder subclasses are definitely more attractive with access to the inferno, as well.
We can't leave firebrands without a unique ability, of course, and so they've developed the art of the eruptive stigma - a fiery rune which provides protection against special attacks (ice blades, kicks, lightning bolts, etc.) and which then responds by burning the offender's face off. It's a kind of a more situational form of unearthly rapture. (Don't worry, dajas - your rapture is still far superior, and in fact has been strongly buffed in the update as well, as it now triggers on the numerous types of attacks out there that ignore counterattacks.)
The other big portion of the update is related to the rapture/stigma pair - a mechanic update to counterattacks, which will now act logically for each of their damage types. (Thus, fire invulnerability will protect you from fire counterattacks, and so on.) Because of this, jakaens took a (probably long-overdue) hit to their immunities down to 50%; however, it's a tone that's also a buff in some ways, since their immunities are now effective against a variety of counterattacks. (Poliir are another class that, like marauders, need more design work in the direction of their intended flavor but have been held back by overly strong subclass abilities. I'd like to flesh out the "defensive" aspect of the poliir much more in the future.)
The consolidation of healing effects to all be affected by healing amplification is really a bit of a code-cleaning setup. Now that all healing functions in a standardized way, effects such as healing amplification will work consistently, avoiding the whole "does this ability work with heal amp?" guessing game. In addition, it makes it easier to introduce new functionality that interacts with healing, such as necromancer diseases/footpad poisons that reduce or even prevent healing. =)
Stepping back a bit to the 1/14 update, the decree of guilt buff is fairly self-explanatory. Alignment is a bit of a sticking point with paladins, and some of their abilities can really wreck it. Having decree of guilt function as an alignment-raiser felt fun and flavorful, improves the class's usability, and helps guilt to stand out just a little from the shadow of his big brother, decree of innocence.
And finally, the open wounds mechanic - this one's a strong benefit for having greater dexterity and +hit, two stats which were lacking in functionality. There's a lot of subtle possibility here. The damage dealt by open wounds is based on the wounder's +hit/+dam ratio, and the bleeding victim's maximum health. Thus, while open wounds will not have much effect in day-to-day running, it can be extremely effective in PvP combat, especially with good +hit gear for nastier wounds (and +dex to increase the chance of wounding). However, defense becomes important as well - a player can bind their wounds as soon as they leave combat, so it's easiest to take advantage of a good wound if you have someone able to tank the victim and keep them in combat as they bleed to death.
And now, back to Invasion work. =) Enjoy, and don't be shy with feedback!
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Old dogs, new tricks
Quick update - the super-revamped Invasion event seems to be running correctly locally. Always feels awesome once the machine starts chugging. =) I've tested the individual mechanics to ensure that the logical flow is correct; I'll be spending the next several days on balancing the event itself. (There are a ton of inputs which need to be tweaked - mob size, damage rates, participation scaling, timers, and so on. This event in particular needs a lot of tweaking; it's much more complex internally than the current live Invasions, and there is a lot more logic in there dedicated to scaling the event more smoothly for different numbers of participants.)
I'll probably kick the revamped Invasion to live right after tweaking it, minus the reward system (you'll be able to earn faction, just without a place to spend it yet). That'll give you the event to play with and clear my table a bit so I can put serious attention into the rewards (inscriptions and otherwise). =)
I'll probably kick the revamped Invasion to live right after tweaking it, minus the reward system (you'll be able to earn faction, just without a place to spend it yet). That'll give you the event to play with and clear my table a bit so I can put serious attention into the rewards (inscriptions and otherwise). =)
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Tapping the power of Grayskull
The empower command has been live for a few days now (long enough to spit out a crash bug which was fixed last night), along with inscriptions and read. As many of you have seen, empower is a bit of a reprise of the old grei/naj'k system (an awesome discarded feature from Nodeka's very early years).
With empower in place, players can currently raise a number of auras. These auras currently provide certain benefits in and of themselves, although the precise benefits will probably be tweaked a bit.
The first batch of obtainable scrolls will be released sometime near the end of this week. These scrolls will allow players to inscribe certain auras onto their abilities, allowing each person to customize their skills and spells in certain ways. For example (and this specific one may change, as it's obviously still in the test batch, but it'll do for an illustration): if a ninja reads an 'ancient scroll: antei of formation - jta', she will gain the jta inscription on her antei of formation. From then on, whenever she uses antei of formation while in a jta aura, her endurance and hit points are revitalized by 100%+ of the cost of the antei, depending on the strength of the aura.
Thus, each player can customize the abilities they choose in a variety of ways, limited only by their inscription points and their ability to obtain and use these special scrolls. The most basic idea behind it is "empower raises an aura, and abilities do cool things when linked to that aura". There's more to it, especially in terms of gear, aura benefits, and tactical decisions, but the details are for you to discover yourselves.
A lot of people have tried experimenting with abilities that have preventions corresponding to their aura, and that's a great guess, but there's no connection there. =) The benefits of possessing an aura aren't linked to those preventions. (Right now there's a set of global benefits regardless of which aura is active, but I plan to add slightly different benefits for each aura on the next pass.)
Anyway, just a touch of information for you blog devotees and those of you who are wondering where this is all going. =) More to come this week!
With empower in place, players can currently raise a number of auras. These auras currently provide certain benefits in and of themselves, although the precise benefits will probably be tweaked a bit.
The first batch of obtainable scrolls will be released sometime near the end of this week. These scrolls will allow players to inscribe certain auras onto their abilities, allowing each person to customize their skills and spells in certain ways. For example (and this specific one may change, as it's obviously still in the test batch, but it'll do for an illustration): if a ninja reads an 'ancient scroll: antei of formation - jta', she will gain the
Thus, each player can customize the abilities they choose in a variety of ways, limited only by their inscription points and their ability to obtain and use these special scrolls. The most basic idea behind it is "empower raises an aura, and abilities do cool things when linked to that aura". There's more to it, especially in terms of gear, aura benefits, and tactical decisions, but the details are for you to discover yourselves.
A lot of people have tried experimenting with abilities that have preventions corresponding to their aura, and that's a great guess, but there's no connection there. =) The benefits of possessing an aura aren't linked to those preventions. (Right now there's a set of global benefits regardless of which aura is active, but I plan to add slightly different benefits for each aura on the next pass.)
Anyway, just a touch of information for you blog devotees and those of you who are wondering where this is all going. =) More to come this week!
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