Sixth Sense

Featured Questions #9

2011-05-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

Will players ever get the option to choose which statistical gain they receive, via success in pvp combat?
I do not intend to implement this, no. PvP gains are balanced around a random distribution of mastery gains, not around a player pumping all of their gains into the single "strongest" mastery. I find the minor "lottery" aspect to be more interesting, as well.

Are you happy with the current state of gem acquisition?
Fairly so. There will be more gem sources as time goes on and more reward systems are implemented, but strong gems are intended to be an uncommon bonus, not the standard for every crafted item slot. In addition, weaker/less desirable gems (such as many "transmuters") will find their niche via schematics (which will be introduced in the spoils of war system). =)

What do you think about extending the 75 days to 90 days on crafts?
This is my current plan for crafted gear:
- "Refreshing" a temp item with an infuscated marble will reduce its max lifetime by 20% each time. (Thus, the first stone will refresh 80% of its lifetime; the second stone will refresh 60%; and so on.)
- Crafted gear will have their base lifetimes increased from 75 days to 90 days.
- More sources of crafting materials and gems will be available, to make gear easier to craft.

Crafted gear was never meant to be "permanent" to the extent that has been realized through infuscated marbles (an interaction which was unintended but kept in-game after going through much feedback); this power swing is exacerbated by the fact that keeping a strong piece alive has the side-effect of making it even more powerful (via the marble's uniqueness stat bonuses). However, I do realize that it can take an inordinate amount of effort to gather the materials necessary to upkeep multiple crafted slots. I'd like to move crafted items back toward their intended functionality (where replacing a crafted item eventually becomes necessary), without inflicting undue hardship upon those players who would rather upkeep their gear with stones for as long as possible. (Note that given the 75-90 day increase, for the first two marbles used, a player will get nearly the same amount of bonus duration as they do now even with the 20% loss taken into account - just over 7 months of added lifetime.) I plan on implementing this just before spoils of war is released (since new, stronger crafting materials will become available at that time); discussion is, as always, welcome. =)

What's this command about: reattune ?
Many future rewards will be "attuned" to the specific player who earned it (analogous to the "bound to player" system found in some other loot-oriented multiplayer games). An item may only be worn/read by the player to whom it is attuned. This allows me to implement strong, worthwhile quest/event rewards without worrying about inappropriate stacking, and to focus more on permanent item rewards (instead of temporary items) without worrying about flooding the market and item devaluation.

The reattune command will allow players to change the attunement on an item attuned to another player, thereby taking "ownership" of it. This costs a number of sun stones specific to the given item (of course, many attuned items will not be reattunable).

Is every craft with at least two stats balance-able?
The distribution of stats across an item is determined by the type of material used to construct it. As a fictional example, a piece of constitution/speed chest armor crafted from metal and leather might have more points in constitution than in speed, whereas a constitution/speed tunic crafted from leather and cloth might grant more speed than constitution.

Someone recently asked, "accolades give me a chance for better rewards, right?" How is the faction reward computed? What determines if I get faction under the heroism rune?
Ruushi accolades provide several benefits:
- Slightly lowers the cost of obtaining a requisition for Ruushi-forged gear.
- Certain accolade levels allow the player to purchase requisitions for new equipment slots.
- In the upcoming spoils of war system, each successive accolade increases the quality of the spoils received after each invasion.

For visit + xt "Empowered: visit a groupmate in a no-portal room." what is the span[definition] of 'groupmate'?
'Groupmate' refers to someone in your group (via the 'group' command).

To follow up on what Magrath said, has there been a change to the way gems are given out for turning in 50 jewel frags? I have also noticed a drop off in the number of gems from salvage.
This question is a fairly common one. The last time I touched the salvage drop code was in 2008; the system's been stable for a long time, and I haven't needed to change anything since then. (I'll need to make some changes for the spoils of war feature, but those haven't been pushed live yet.) Therefore, no - any changes in drop rates/gem returns are due solely to randomness or changes in player behavior (e.g., converting more or less jewel fragments at a time).

Which stats or other stuff affects the damage decaying touch deals?
Learn curve and wisdom (as well as +damage). This is shown in the decaying touch helpfile; however, I'm guessing the reason this question was asked is that word completion defaults to "help affect: decaying touch" before "help decaying touch". Thus, typing "help deca tou" will display the helpfile for the affect: rather than the skill's helpfile, because both helpfiles match the input and the former appears first in the (alphabetically sorted) helpfile list.

In order to view the helpfile for the skill, the player needs to type "help decaying touch" in full (since word completion only kicks in if there's no 'perfect' match). I've noticed this behavior while looking up helpfiles for several other abilities as well. I'll look at making the behavior more intuitive in the future (perhaps by prioritizing matches with the same number of words first).

In what ways, if any, does the strength stat affect devil siphon's or elemental malediction's damage?
The power of devil's siphon, per its helpfile, is based on willpower and wisdom; elemental malediction is based on intellect and wisdom. Strength will not have a direct effect on either spell; however, strength does provide +damage, which will increase the damage of both spells.

The damage of basically any attack is increased by +damage, be it from a skill, spell, or natural attack. This is part of what makes +damage so desirable. Note that I've been tending to reduce the contribution of +damage in many of the recent abilities I've been creating (thus making the relevant stats far more important to the ability's effectiveness).

At what %age, if any, does practicing dodge or parry cap in effectiveness?
There is no hard cap to dodge or parry; every mastery point beyond 100% increases their effectiveness to some degree.

Do the effects of circle of bane stack?
Nope; circle of bane puts the victim in a 'baned' state, which causes it to suffer more damage and strike with decreased accuracy. Doing this multiple times does not multiply its effect, as the victim is already 'baned'.

Cipher question - Is the health spoken of in the helpfile of ogrish malison based on dynamic real-time values?
Yes. Ogrish malison's improvement versus 'more powerful' opponents is based on a flat comparison of current hp values (not percentages, but flat hp amounts).

About the update on 7/30/10, are the rune-eq presently available to players?
Not yet. The code is present (I could create runed gear on the fly without a reboot, if I so choose,
and it would function correctly), but the actual items aren't in-game yet. One of the potential rewards obtainable via the upcoming spoils of war system are schematics which will allow you to create runed gear.

Ranks to exclude those with the bot lag affect please?
Not a bad idea. I'll look into this.

Combat choice's tactics options seems to dwarf decree of innocence, at least as far as the actual buff goes. Actual % of lat det, prevention, everything.
Decree of innocence (in addition to its restorative effect) grants lateral deterrence to the paladin's entire group, whereas nojohr's combat choice is a self-buff only. Decree of innocence is also much more dynamically accessible (as a nojohr running with the 'power' choice will not be able to switch to 'tactics' for the lateral deterrence until the buff fades). A stronger decree via inscriptions is a possibility, though. =)

hey i have a question, doesn't really pertain to this blog, but idk where else to post lol, but what's the damage increase rate on hurricane kick for +100% mastery?
It absolutely pertains to this blog - that's what the Featured Questions column is for. =) I tend not to give out actual formulas for several reasons (I don't want to start a bad precedent). I can say that the damage return is pretty decent, in addition to the other benefits (increased accuracy and an increasing chance to bypass parry/dodge). I spend a good deal of time making passes through Nodeka's ability system, trying to ensure that each ability's mastery bonus is significant and justifiable (see the previous blog entry's notes on the static charge/devil's siphon update).

Game updates: 3/28 - 4/5

2011-04-26T09:03:00.001-07:00

Getting back into the swing of things - here's some discussion on the updates I've managed to eke out this past month, between work on the spoils system. =)

Static charge is now free, and may replenish mana/spirit.
Devil's siphon gains power versus heavily damaged targets.

There are a number of abilities which, in their current form, are very similar to each other. These abilities have a tendency to obsolete one another (lagged abilities such as static charge vs. elemental malediction), or to mirror each other with no variation or incentive for strategic use (e.g., kick, striking fist, and ashi barai kick). As as additional undesirable side effect, the lagless abilities and the inferior lagged abilities tend to be extremely poor choices for advancement beyond 100% mastery.

By differentiating these abilities in subtle ways, I can diversify their mastery benefits (making the comparison more than a numerical scaling comparison) while introducing the possibility of strategic use for some of the plain lagless 'strikes'. There are three ways I can do this: 1) introducing additional base functionality, as in the case of static charge; 2) granting additional functionality with mastery beyond 100%; and 3) through the use of inscriptions (as in the case of oblique pattern - tih).

Some abilities which were hard-capped on damage will now improve at diminishing rates instead.

Some of the more statistically inclined scripters among you have already noticed that certain abilities seem to stop scaling completely after a certain point. In addition, these "hard caps" tend to be coded into older abilities, and so they tend to cap extremely early (as the average power level of a character is much higher than it was 10 years ago). I will slowly be working on addressing these hard caps over time (the process will be slow, as a significant amount of balancing is required).

Nojohr's combat choice has been redesigned.
Nojohr's lightning choice has been redesigned.

The nojohr 'choice' abilities were used, 99.99% of the time, as simple +dam and +spe buffs. The other two choices on each ability were generally ignored due to the fact that they served similar functionality to the +dam and +spe aspects, but with poorer bonuses. I've reduced these abilities to only two choices each, but with a stronger differentiation between functionalities (pure damage output versus speed and lateral defense for the combat choice, and a defensive boost to counteract the nojohr's fusing penalty versus a situational attack for the lightning choice). The benefit to nojohrs is twofold: more diversity in combat options as well as new avenues for mastery improvement (as the new versions improve beyond 100%)

The lightning choice drains over time normally, but it increases in power instead while the nojohr has the galvanize effect up. Galvanize uptime can of course be maximized by simply keeping it charged constantly (and never discharging it with a war-strike or cleave); less obviously, a nojohr can maintain a good galvanize uptime by discharging it near the end of its 10-second duration (instead of using war-strike/cleave immediately after the galvanize).

Instrumentation of riposte improves beyond 100% mastery.

I've always liked riposte as a unique, flavorful nojohr ability. The new mastery benefit for instrumentation of riposte not only improves the base ability slightly, but it also grants a lesser riposte buff whenever the nojohr has a gambit active (currently, gambit of the warring shield or aulora's gambit). The warring shield is obviously the more popular, powerful gambit on its own merits; however, aulora's gambit has a much longer duration, and can thus maintain a higher riposte uptime.

Connection issues

2011-04-22T16:14:00.001-07:00

Nodeka is temporarily inaccessible due to connection issues beyond our control - we'll have this ironed out as soon as possible. I'll keep you posted if further issues develop.

Update: It appears to be an ISP network issue; we don't yet have a timeline for resolution but we'll keep you posted.

Update 2: The issue has been resolved; you should be able to connect to Nodeka normally.

Game update: 11/12

2010-11-12T00:42:00.000-08:00

Some bugfixes and tweaks in this morning's update.

The pvp reward system is now more sophisticated in player comparison and merit rewards:

I've spent the past couple of weeks monitoring the pvp reward system and its scoring, as well as taking in all of the feedback I've received from various players. While doing so, I've implemented various improvements to the invisible merit system, making it much better at gauging the "difficulty" of a player fight. I will continue to monitor and improve the pvp system over time; while much of this work will be invisible to you (since merit gains are intentionally hidden), rest assured that the system will continue to improve and that I will be working on developing Nodeka in both the player-combat area (via rewards and pvp-based advancement) and the non-player combat area (via events and areas).

Reduced the chance of gaining off-class pools via pvp rewards:

Players now have a lower chance of gaining pools which their class does not normally gain, when granted a +pool pvp reward. I will not completely remove the chance of these gains for several reasons (the importance of pools versus abilities such as evasion, balance issues with certain classes gaining hp from pvp twice as fast as others, etc.), but this should make the distribution a little less scattered for those classes.

Fixed a pool display bug in pvp rewards:

Just a small bugfix, addressing an issue reported by both Jilpora and Thraka. Whenever a class would be granted (via pvp rewards) a pool that their class doesn't normally gain, there is a chance that a limited number of re-rolls may occur to redetermine which stat is gained. (This re-roll system's probability distribution is what I tweaked in the previously mentioned bullet point.) When these re-rolls occurred under certain circumstances, the player sometimes was granted improvement in one pool while the reward message indicated a different pool. (For example, a player might gain +20 to their endurance, but the reward message might say "## You have gained a pvp reward: +20 to your spirit!".) I've fixed this display issue up; my apologies for the confusion - rest assured, you were gaining pool rewards, even if the message was lying to you. =)

Game update: 10/25

2010-10-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

Hey, folks - the 'mystery feature' is finally ready!

Nodeka now offers pvp-based character advancement:

Yeah, this one is pretty darn cool. =) Basically, pvp can grant you random improvements to your character's stats (up to 300), pools (up to your pool cap), and ability masteries. (Only abilities which grant benefits beyond 100% will be selected for improvement - which is why I needed to be able to identify those abilities internally, which resulted in the side-effect enhancement of the 'skills/class' command in the last update.)

This is a very important step for me in terms of design. I've babbled a lot about rewards and the difficulty of designing them; part of the reason that it's so difficult is that, in a nutshell, running has always been "superior" to pvp. While pvp on Nodeka can be a powerful, exciting experience, there has never been a significant inherent benefit to participating in it. Over time, people came to realize that even if you ARE interested in pvp, it's often more lucrative to keep your head down and script areas in order to grow first.

Now that pvp provides an inherent benefit and (eventually) an alternate path to character improvement, rewards which are more pvp-oriented (that is, any inscription, mastery, or piece of gear which provides a benefit outside of the generic "running stats") can justify their existence more effectively.

This is obviously just a first step, and I'm sure I will need to tweak the numbers as things play out over the next few months. However, as far as first steps go, it's an important one and it has been a long time coming (the "pvp advancement" tab in my design spreadsheet has been there for quite a while, evolving over the months and years). =)

The original design had a "pvp rank" element to it as well - sort of a pvp level which represented how experienced your character is in pvp combat. This rank was to be used as a statistic, much like a player's experience level, to meet requirements - for example, a piece of gear might have a requirement of "pvp rank 7" in order to be equipped. I've removed that element from the design for now, to keep the base system simple and intuitive; we'll see how things unfold and whether the idea of such a statistic is warranted, or if the system would be better improved in other ways.

'Help rules' updated with rule #14:

This rule a safety catch for the pvp advancement system. The internal structure of the pvp merit system is designed to reward "good" behaviors and to automatically penalize (or complete deny a reward for) "bad" behaviors, such as intentionally killing your friends over and over for credit. However, no system is perfectly free of abuses. Rule #14 is a formal statement that we'll be watching for behavior which attempts to "game the system"; several features have been coded into the system which allows the staff to keep an eye on pvp advancement, and to lock players out of the merit system (or take more severe action) if they attempt to do so.

Tweaked mastery benefits for armor, greater armor, and bless:

These three abilities now provide mastery benefits for fighters as well as casters, but these bonuses are not as strong as those granted to pure magic-users. The base benefits for magic-users have been tweaked slightly as well, to make the bonuses scale more smoothly and aesthetically (and to improve them slightly where warranted).

Game update: 10/1

2010-10-01T23:38:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned earlier, I'll be keeping the live MotD messages as brief as possible whenever I post a game update; in exchange, I'll be discussing each MotD entry in more detail here on the Sixth Sense whenever I update Nodeka.

'class/skills' command shows abilities which improve beyond 100%:

A small but very useful interface improvement. The skill/spell list for each class will now identify those abilities which can be trained beyond 100% for additional bonuses, making it much easier to see how each class can advance at a glance. This works for classes other than your own as well, of course.

This feature is actually just a side-effect of something more exciting which is still in development. =) I've made a number of internal improvements while developing the new 'mystery thing', and this happened to be a feature that I could code quite easily with the improvements implemented so far - so here it is.

As for the 'mystery feature', it's coming "soon". =) It's something that I want to release on the same general schedule as the spoils of war (for reasons I'll explain once they're in) and the newbie improvements (because these are improvements to Nodeka's fundamental experience, which need to be explained during the newbie experience and thus necessitate updates to my work in that area).

Quick note regarding bless and greater armor: these spells will report as trainable beyond 100% even for fighters, who do not gain benefits from doing so (they're set so that only casters gain additional bonuses). In the next update, I will be implementing small training benefits to those spells for warriors (although they will be fairly minor, to maintain the original intention of the training boosts). Armor falls under this category too (it does already gain a +ac boost for fighters, but it's pretty insignificant.)

Cinderskein improvements:

Cinderskein can be a bit challenging to use, given its war-shell and range restrictions. I've improved the spell's feedback a bit by adding a message which informs the sorcerer whenever the cinderskein "misses" a player due to the fact that they've moved away from the targeting rune. (Previously, cinderskein would just silently fail on that player, which could be confusing.)

I've also made a number of small improvements to the spell (slightly reduced the lag when firing the heat rays, and slightly improved the damage range, especially when more targets are struck).

Vicious Fist bugfix:

The buff to hand damage which vicious fist grants at masteries beyond 100% was increased slightly in the 9/10 update. However, when I implemented this increase, I only applied the change to left-hand attacks, and failed to increase right-hand attacks... This has been fixed. =)

Helpfile fixes:

Thanks for all of the typo/discrepancy reports, folks. Our helpfiles can always use some spring cleaning, so I appreciate you bringing these issues to my attention. =)

Featured Questions #8

2010-09-23T23:10:00.000-07:00

If you have a Nodeka-related question you'd like to see answered in a future Featured Questions article, just leave a blog comment or e-mail it to me!

Featured Questions #8:

A single death takes ALL of your renown.. Why not only a portion?

It's basically a "death penalty" for losing in PvP. If you don't manage to win or escape, you lose the (usually 5%) renown benefit to gold and experience until you can build that renown back up. (It takes a little over four hours outside of a safe-room to build your renown back up to the base 5% level.))

In invasion, is the reward of killing your own ogre the same as assisting someone killing theirs? Or has it a lower count. And what if we kill a bigger ogre do we get a higher reward count?

The specifics of the Invasion contribution system are a bit complex, and it's intentional that I avoid sharing many details when talking about it. Rest assured that I try my best to design and tweak these systems with fairness in mind; if there's a glaring issue, you should definitely bring it up, but as long as the system is working fairly, my response to these questions will generally be "don't worry about it, the more you participate, the better your contribution". =)

Do aura affects stack with other similar abilities? i.e. Let's just say I had what appears to be a 25% lag reduction that the zmo aura grants - would that also stack with time bending if I had it?

Yes, empyreal striding stacks with other similar effects, in the same way that time-bending and the two time-walker abilities stack (multiplicative, as is usual for Nodeka). The various auras were designed and tested with these types of interaction in mind.

You'd mentioned that the eventuality of +aura equipment coming in. Are those pieces of equipment already accessible? Are scrolls already accessible too? Spoils of war, any update on progress, when it will be out, ideas of what the spoils may be?

Runed equipment and scrolls aren't accessible yet; you'll see them first as rare 'spoils of war' benefits. I don't want to spoil the 'spoils of war' too much; they're on my active plate, so you shouldn't have to wait too long for stuff to start appearing. (The primary delay, other than sharing development time with newbie improvements, is that I'm still working on the design side and trying to solidly delineate precisely what rewards I want to appear where. I'm currently designing four different reward sets - Invasion spoils, special Citadels, a new event, and general PvP. The primary design issue here is that I don't want to just haphazardly throw out rewards for each of them - each system needs to be logical and compelling.)

Is it intentional that auras sometimes shift to the 'fringe' auras (i.e. the cyclopean ones) when an inscription is empowered?

Absolutely. It is the only way (outside of the cyclopean riddle) to obtain these auras, since you can't empower them manually. There are definitely reasons for this. =)

Is it possible to program into one ability, multiple counterattacks of the same type?

Of course. =) I implemented a sorcerer + daja ability (wings of seraphic fire) which essentially did that, but it got tweaked and eventually became unearthly rapture instead. I like the idea of nasty (perhaps stacking) reactive shields (as opposed to the "buff" type which are up 50% of the time or so, which seem less strategic). Note that there are more and more ways to counteract shields nowadays, as well - definitely intentional. =)

I'm not sure if this question is in the spirit of "Featured Questions", but I was curious if Nodeka tracks any statistics, in particular to aid in class balancing?

Nodeka creates and retains numerous logs of various types, for administrative and rule-enforcement purposes. In addition to Nodeka's internal logging, I do a lot of monitoring (both manual and automated) between and during projects (I have a number of scripts set up for this purpose). This is where I get my initial assessments; I then have the capability of running tests locally to verify things (which is what I do for every update - in fact, testing and design both take far, far more time than any actual implementation).

Let's consider a char that is blackened, cloaked, and blended. Rank affects come up, and this person now get's a 30% invisible affect. Suppose there is another char with more than 131% see visible. For the blackened-cloaked-blended: is there an overall precedence in the ability to not be seen by the invis char? With that 30% aff and the 131% sight, will the see-invis char always get to see the otherwise hidden char? Thanks for your 100% inSIGHTs!

Keep in mind, first of all, that 'see invisible' cannot reveal a blackened character. The 'see invisible' effect only works on invisibility and the 'see cloaked' effect only works on cloak. (The only viewer-based way to break through blackened, currently, is empyreal vigilance. Note that having the forced visibility effect can force the subject to be visible regardless of the hiding source, and thus can nullify blackened.)

Vision works like this: for each hiding effect that the "hider" possesses, roll its percentage. If it succeeds, the "viewer" gets to check against his or her matching vision effects, if any, to counter the hiding effect success. If any hiding effect goes through uncountered, the hider is hidden from sight.

Thus, if the viewer has 131% chance to see invisible, then any invisibility effect on the hider would be countered every single time (thus, invisibility could never hide him or her from the viewer). Having more than 100% does nothing special; nor does this chance to see invisible have any effect on other hiding effect types, such as cloak.

Re: Targeting.. Way it seems now, I need to almost be in the same room in order for target to work.. Any chance of a skill that can boost the distance? Maybe make it only increase it very little when at 100%, but can prac beyond 100% to increase that distance?.. Or instead of an automatic skill.. make it have a high prevent time, so its not something that is just kept up all the time.. High prevent, short active time.

Targeting range is slightly shorter on average, currently (especially since people are far more likely to stack strength than learn curve - imagine that!). I'm working on new types of bonuses to add to equipment (such as the runes which were implemented but are not yet accessible), and you'll definitely see more learn curve equipment out there in the future (and perhaps plain +target range as well). When I go back to tweak the races a bit, I'll also differentiate their learn curves in order to make some into excellent targeters. =)

Game update: 9/10

2010-09-10T23:27:00.000-07:00

In the past, I've tried to strike a balance between "informative", "complete", and "readable" whenever posting live update news in the Message of the Day. I've now decided to split those goals between the MotD itself and this blog.

As I've mentioned in the 9/10 MotD entry, I will be attempting to keep each future MotD entry extremely brief (no longer than a single line per change, when possible). This should help to reduce "colossal paragraph syndrome", making the MotD easier to browse and making sure important changes don't get lost in the scroll.

In the interest of keeping you informed, I will now be posting a "Game Update" article on this blog whenever a non-trivial MotD update occurs (each reboot, generally). In these updates, I will talk about each of the changes and new features, letting you know how things work, why things have changed, and what each entry means.

Cinderskein:

In this evening's update, the biggest news is the new sorcerer spell - cinderskein. Available to sorcerers of all remort tiers, this one's a pretty cool new ability - it allows the sorcerer to "mark" a number of nearby targets with special runes, and then to unleash a web of fiery rays which will fry anyone who was thus marked. The sorcerer needs to raise her magus war-shell before she can use cinderskein, however - it's that dangerous. =)

The kink is that the web feeds on itself - launching a single heat ray will only do moderate damage, whereas launching several at once will cause each individual ray to be much stronger. Thus, the more targets which the sorcerer "marks" before pressing the detonate button, the more damage each target will take.

The "marking" process can be tricky. Whenever a victim is marked, a targeting rune is drawn on the ground where he is standing (and he gains a "cinderskein target" in his affects list). If the victim leaves the room before the heat rays are launched, the heat rays will not be able to seek him out (they strike the ground where he used to be instead).

The sorcerer's constitution determines how many targets she can strike at once (newbie sorcerers can only handle two targets). The targeting runes fade quickly, but their duration increases with constitution as well (to ensure that they last long enough for the sorcerer to mark enough targets to reach her potential limit).

Targeting:

The 'target' command's range is now based on learn curve. Previously, it used the same range calculation as the 'throw' command (which is strength-based).

Although it might be argued that it would be convenient to have 'throw' and 'target' share the same range calculation, this convenience would be somewhat arbitrary given that other variants may use different statistics to calculate their range (for example, telekinetic projection's range is intellect-based).

Colossal Smiting:

Previously, colossal smiting was slightly more accurate than a normal attack. I've changed it to be slightly less accurate than a normal attack instead; it's not a big change, but grey trolls make up 13-20% of the current population at any given time, and I feel this is a much more lenient and logical way to address the racial's damage output than a reduction in damage.

Vicious Fist mastery:

Just a small monk buff - I've slightly improved the rate at which vicious fist mastery beyond 100% adds to the damage of the monk's bare-hand attacks.

"radius" attacks:

There was an issue with many "radius"-type area-of-effect attacks, in which one potential target was always "removed" from the list of targets to attack. (This could only occur to a potential target in a different room - never in the same room.)

While this issue wasn't very noticeable when attacking a ton of targets at once, it became much more apparent in PvP situations where a player tried to strike a nearby victim with a radius-attack. If that victim was the only potential target in range (and he wasn't in the same room as the attacker), he would always be the removed from the list of potential targets - thus, radius attacks would always "whiff" and hit nothing in these situations.

This update should fix this behavior.

Featured Questions #7

2010-09-10T00:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay - here's the next installment of Featured Questions!

Featured Questions #7:

If elemental resistance is 50, and other normal types reduce 20, where does this land supreme resistance and is it both elemental and non-elemental resistance?

Supreme resistance is not considered an elemental resistance. It will trigger on any damage type, and will always provide 20% damage reduction when triggered.

Will practicing impairments above 100% increase the chances for target to fail "impairment break" checks? and does the ninja's hakanai shouten perfect stun denies any "impairment break" check?

Currently, the chance to land an impairment is an attacker-victim comparison, but once an impairment lands, only the victim's stats matter. Thus, stun mastery and hakanai shouten affect stun's chance to land successfully. However, once a victim is stunned, the only thing that alters the victim's chance to "break" it is the victim's constitution.

Does the Silver Elf racial healing boost stack with Dajain Healer's 'Augmented Divine Healing'?

Augmented divine healing provides the same effect as the silver elf's racial healing. As long as either one triggers, your healing is doubled. (It cannot be applied more than once per heal - you cannot get a quadruple heal with multiple augmented healing effects.)

Here's a technical question. I was randomly looking at different skills and noticed warp reality and how it can be used 'through' such things as temple touch. If the person is suffering lag while crippled, etc., then how abilities like warp reality go 'through it' ?

Impairment does not actually add lag to a person (currently, only a few abilities can inflict lag on others - inharmonix helix, rite of sundering, and trial of aggression). Every attack or action that an impaired victim attempts must succeed against a specific "break chance"; otherwise, it fails. Some impairments are much harder to break than others (and each checks against a specific victim stat when rolling this break chance). Temple touch provides no break chance.

Certain abilities (such as warp reality) and attacks (such as shape-of-the-mind fist and most mental attacks) cannot be stopped by an impairment. These abilities and attacks automatically succeed on their break chance 100% of the time. (They can even break through impairments which normally do not provide a break chance, such as temple touch.)

Whim, you've mentioned before of an event called Vl'lakian Ramparts. Could you give a teaser on what it is about? How it would help the gameplay of nodeka, how it will promote less botting, and uniqueness to the game.

The Ramparts are just a logical extension of the internal AI improvements I've been implementing with each update, as well as the events that have been implemented so far (Invasion, Sigil Cits, Orator missions). It's a group-based event, with a more rigid structure than the current Invasions (i.e., a linear progression and strict group limits). The newbie improvements, some pvp improvements, and another smaller-scale event will probably be released before the Ramparts surface. (A number of outside responsibilities surfaced in the past week and a half which ate into my development time, but progress should be back on track shortly. =))

Going on for strike from the shadows, approximately how many % more damage are we looking at (while flanking) for training over 100%?

Strike from the shadows provides a flat damage increase, not a percentage-based increase. It's a pretty good number. =)

Where's the [new spell] you said was coming?

It's working, but I'm still tweaking it. I didn't quite like the original implementation; it's an important spell in terms of what I want it to do and a bit tricky to design correctly. (I want it to be a fairly effective sorcerer spell, which is potentially useful in both pvp and as a somewhat non-traditional running tool, which requires the use of the magus war-shell.)

Can you talk about the Phase of the Suns and Solar Poliir?

Sure - sunbind and solar-flame can only be used during the daytime (or a nighttime hour which is very close to daytime). The Phase of the Suns displayed via the 'time' command shows you the current Nodeka hour. There are 30 hours in a Nodeka day; nighttime hits sometime around the 20th hour. =)

How do you calculate the value of damage gained when [element of surprise] lands?

Element of surprise simply turns your attacks into flanking attacks. The amount of bonus you gain from flanking depends on your victim (players who focus on +dam over other stats tend to get flanked harder) - flanking attacks tend to be quite accurate with a fair damage bonus. If your attack gains any special bonus while flanking (such as the precision pierce from archer's competence, which deals double damage while flanking), element of surprise will trigger that as well.

FQ will be on Thursday this week

2010-09-07T19:30:00.002-07:00

Featured Questions #7 will be a little late this week, due to outside commitments. Sorry for the wait - the article will be up this Thursday!

Featured Questions #6

2010-08-24T19:45:00.000-07:00

It's that time again... so let's jump into another installment of player-submitted Featured Questions! I'm always happy to chat and hear your questions and concerns regarding Nodeka; you can submit any Nodeka-related questions you may have as a comment on this blog or via e-mail, and I will select a number of them every other Tuesday to answer in this column.

Featured Questions #6:

Why is the affect you get when you fail a trade with Gerahf so long (4 days)? Seems like a severe punishment for making a typo.
Is the spit affect for Gerahf being angry with you made invisible once you acquire a smile affect? That is to say, you have the spit affect, he smiles on you, and the spit affect is visibly replaced with the smile affect, but he still holds you in scorn due to ripping him off, and refuses to accept offers that were acceptable pre-spit affect? If this is the case, would it be possible to clear the spit affect once you get the smile affect so you can obtain the full benefit of the smile, or make the affect not disappear?

Gerahf's favor is on a sliding scale. Every time you anger him with a poor trade offer, his opinion of you slips down a little bit. Every time you please him with a particularly good trade (i.e., not just any successful trade but one in which he smiles at you), his opinion of you increases a little bit. "Spit effects" and "smile effects" are not actually differentiated; there's just one sliding scale based on the sum of your positive/negative interactions with him. If you're at the undesirable end of the scale, the effect's duration is reduced a bit.

In invasions, if you hit something smaller than you and don't kill it before you get jailed, when you come out of jail, it hunts you down and hits you and sends you right back (unless someone else kills it). This can result in a cycle of permanent jailing. Can it be fixed to clear the player from the mobs agg list if the player is jailed for hitting the mob and the mob is too small?

Thanks for reminding me. I think there might be a clever way to address this; adding it to my to-do list. =)

...I noticed (or hope) that 'help resistances' is out of date. Reason being it says there that for any given attack only -one- resistance can proc, with the logic being that all resistances provide equal damage reduction. Seeing as this is no longer the case - do resistances work differently now?
Multi-part question, but really just looking for an entire chart as an answer:
1. What is the % damage gain for a vulnerability?
2. What are the % damage cuts for the following resistances: magic, mental, holy, physical?

Currently, some resistances are more effective than others. They work along these lines:
1. All applicable resist percentages are attempted. Of the successes, only the most effective successful resist is applied.
2. Vulnerabilities work the same way; only the most 'painful' successful vulnerability is applied.

All resistances reduce damage by 20%, except for the elemental resists which reduce damage by 50%. These resists are considered elemental resists: fire, frost, lightning, earth, elemental.

All vulnerabilities increase damage by 20%.

Thus, if Serenity has 70% lightning resistance and 50% physical resistance, and is hit by a lightning bolt (which is physical + magical + lightning):
1. If the lightning resist check is successful, Serenity takes 50% less damage.
2. If the lightning check fails, but the physical check is successful, she takes 20% less damage.
3. If both checks fail, she takes full damage.

Statistically speaking...
70% chance: takes 50% damage
15% chance: takes 80% damage
15% chance: takes 100% damage

An attack can be both reduced (via resistance) and increased (via vulnerability) simultaneously.

For empowered aspect - aura: jta rank 1, what's the rank number mean? What's the highest rank attainable? Do they grow naturally?

That rank is the power level of the aura; this power level is determined by the number of times the player has inscribed that aura. For example:

- Iblis has no inscriptions. When he successfully empowers an 'xt' aura, it will be of rank 1.

- Alala has four inscriptions -- [ armor: loj ], [ lightning: sji ], [ visit: xt ], and [ extrinsic elucidation: xt ]. When she successfully empowers an 'xt' aura, its rank will be boosted by 1 for every 'xt' inscription she possesses (thus, her aura will be of rank 3).

Higher-ranked auras are more durable, and they provide a greater combat bonus as well. In addition, many inscriptions base their effectiveness in part on the rank of the triggering aura (these are clearly marked as such in the online inscription list helpfiles).

I've always felt that sun stones played a crucial role in character development and even more so now with everyone needing to augment to progress. Any plans on implementing more ways to acquire these?

Yup, definitely! I feel that sun stones should be (in general) a PvP-oriented reward, with questing as a secondary source. There are plans. =)

How is the precedence of altered attack types determined? E.g. I'm a ru wulniothe fallad and have 100% spiritual attacks with creed of the gods volition, and 64% frost attacks from race, do I ever get any frost-based attacks? What if my spiritual attacks were under 100%?

Right now, halwen/spiritual/black magic are checked sequentially before the elemental attacks. Thus, while your 100% spiritual attack effect is active, you will never see a frost attack (you can verify this by expanding your combat output, since "altered" attacks have their text visibly altered).

I'd like to lodge a complaint about the koj spiritualist immoral trial. I ran around the arena for 15-20 minutes today without one spawning. >:|

Agreed. I think the Trials' concept is sound, but there's soooo much more I can do with them given the advances in AI tech that Nodeka has made since their implementation. The current set of trials on each side is pretty arbitrary and not necessarily superbly balanced (I still remember the two nights I spent drawing them up and trimming them down, in a rush to get this cool new feature out the door.) Expect a redesign. =)

What are you [working on] now? Any improvements for (my_class)?

My active work right now is split between the new Fields of Guidance, a new monk skill, a new sorcerer spell, and helping to prep some new areas for you folks that other builders are working on. =)

Featured Questions #5

2010-08-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

Featured Questions is back! Find the answers to your Nodeka-related questions in this column every other Tuesday - just submit your questions via the comments section or e-mail them to me.

Featured Questions #5:

Can you quantify for us what training nim past 100% does?

Training nim beyond 100% reduces the chance of being caught. Currently, no other bonus is gained.

If I have evasion at 250% and 400 willpower, does my evasion prowess increase with 500 willpower?

Yes. There are three ways to improve your chance to evade:

- Improve your evasion mastery beyond 100%.

- Improve your willpower.

- Improve your spellpower (that is, your maximum mana and maximum spirit).

The basic "challenge" to evade an attack is a randomized comparison of your willpower versus your enemy's. This randomized comparison is tilted in two ways. First, your evasion mastery beyond 100% tilts the chances in your favor. Second, the chances are tilted AGAINST you by a certain value - let's call it X. This X is multiplied by the ratio of the enemy's spellpower versus yours. If the ratio is 2:1 (your enemy has twice your spellpower), then X is doubled, making it harder for you to evade. If the ratio is 1:1.5 (you have 1.5 times the spellpower of your enemy), then X is multiplied by 2/3, making it easier for you to evade.

Why do empowered inscriptions only last for 1 use of the ability, causing the aura to shift immediately? Seems pretty harsh since a. most empower attempts fail and b. on a successful empower, the aura doesn't last very long in the first place.

At the risk of sounding ostentatious - "ah, but that's the beauty of the system!" =) The fact that your aura shifts when you fire off an empowered inscription is vital to the system's design.

First of all, point (a) is definitely valid right now. It is hard for a "vanilla" character to empower very often. That's the point of runed gear - by assembling a good collection of runes on your equipment, you make it easier to access the auras that match those runes. You'll find that as the system gets deeper, the combination of runes and ciphers (e.g., cyclopean) will allow you to design your character to access certain auras with more consistency than is possible right now. You'll be able to "customize" your character to access the auras which you want the most (or, conversely, you might choose your inscriptions based on which runes are on the best gear you've collected).

As for point (b) - remember, when the aura shifts, it also refreshes its duration! If you need to fire off that empowered inscription immediately, go for it, but if you can afford to time it, you can greatly extend your "aura uptime" by shifting your aura just before it's about to expire. This leads to an interesting dynamic in inscription choice as well. If you choose to learn several "kyf" inscriptions, then your "kyf" aura will be more powerful - but once you shift out of kyf, chances are you won't have any inscriptions to match the new aura. On the other hand, if you learn a variety of different inscriptions (say, a "kyf", a "bal", and a "zmo"), you greatly increase the chance that you'll be able to chain inscriptions off of each other when they shift, but none of your auras will be quite as strong as a stacked aura.

Finally, ciphers can change the inscription game in many different ways. The magi's remembrance cipher can make your auras last considerably longer, if duration is a concern; the cyclopean cipher can sometimes turn a failed empower into a success (albeit of a strange and different aura type); and so on. The sky's the limit - just wait 'til I start really expanding on the available inscriptions and ciphers. =)

Bash+trip+lock in groups of 2 or more is [harsh]... While lateral defense has been introduced as one means of defense... I would like to see [other methods of defense].

Actually, I've had plans to approach this from a skew angle. Expect bash and trip to be reworked at some point. I'd like these impairments to be useful as strategic counters and pacing tools; right now, at instant speed, they're usually just "spam me right away" spoilers, which is not where they should be.

Speaking of which, can we take Stun Immunity away from ranks as well?

I'm open to a reworking of rank bonuses. We have a lot of unique and interesting potential bonuses which simply didn't exist at the time that rank effects were introduced which could be interesting.

Will Sigil Citadel ever be automated? And will we be looking at more of such events in the near future?

Yah, this is easily doable with the advancements in AI sophistication which have been implemented over time. The primary reason that I haven't done this already is that I'd like to rework Sigil Citadels at the same time - they're a nice stepping point but right now they primarily devolve into a single, giant, bloody, game-ending Team A vs. Team B pileup (not that there's anything wrong with that, and that could easily be its own Citadel mode, but that's selling the intent of Sigil Cits a bit short).

I've talked online a bit about Citadel variants I'd like to do (for example, the champion idea I've mentioned a few times and even experimented with a few days ago via a MechaGodzilla-sized Issabella). I have several ideas that you'll see pop up eventually, and the plan is for these to be automated Citadel variants with a faction-based incentive to compete and win (a simple shared set of faction rewards).

Are there any gambling systems on the table to be implemented? Even something as simple as spinning a wheel and betting on even or odd with 1:1 plat payouts would be awesome!

The idea's popped up many times (ever since I started working on Aur-vindi all those years ago). I'd want to make it something interesting and unique to Nodeka, but none of the ideas I've ever come up with have struck me as "the one". It's something that shouldn't be too hard to do, though, so I'll take a look at it as a between-time project (the stuff I work on, like new abilities, "in between" sessions of work on a major project in order to clear my mind and change the coding pace a bit).

Will the tech lock be reduced from 18 hours in the future?

I have no plans for this. Teching is fairly hard as it is (tip: tech chance is related to material cost, so a wrist has a much lower chance of teching than a chest), and reducing or eliminating the tech lock wouldn't do much except open up the system to "power-leveling".

Lots of questions this time around; I need to get back to development work so we'll stop here for this session. Keep those questions coming in, I appreciate them and I'm happy to help shed a little light!

Featured Questions #4

2010-07-27T19:19:00.001-07:00

Featured Questions time again - let's get into it! Remember, if you want answers, you gotta ask the questions - pop them in the comments section or e-mail them to me. The Featured Questions article runs every other Tuesday.

Featured Questions #4:

I'm curious as to how improved parry or improved dodge racial bonuses from races like sprite actually helps dodge or parry.

The avoidance abilities (dodge, parry, evasion, and now lesser evasion) aren't necessarily applied to every incoming attack. Avoidance generally works as follows:

1. Each avoidance ability has a chance to trigger on an incoming attack.

2. If the avoidance ability triggers, checks are made against external factors such as stat comparisons, ability masteries, and so on.

3. If the checks are successful, then the attack is avoided.

Improved parry and improved dodge each provide a chance to bypass step 1. Thus, if you were somehow able to obtain 100% improved dodge, you would have a chance to dodge every incoming attack (but a check would still be required for each). The trigger percentage currently cannot be affected by any other means and is low enough that improved parry/dodge provide quite significant benefits.

Evasion is based on willpower and spellpower... it's clearly not a stat/pool (ninjas) master whatsoever. Would that be a problem for the ninjas and a very minuscule improvement?

It's not an oversight; lesser evasion is balanced with the mindset that ninja will have to put in some extra training to make it truly shine, as compared to the caster version.

Is haste a spell that gives benefits over 100% practiced?

Yes; in fact, I think it may have been the first spell to ever do so (before training beyond 100% was introduced as a common method of advancement). It simply adds an extra speed per 10% of training. Not as flashy as some of the more modern options, but it does exist!

Here's my question: a pure platinum bar?

Here's my answer: back in spoils of war. =)

So question, somewhere in the future will there be a player driven economy system? E.g: unique character trade-profession (as most mmos have)?

Eventually, I hope to drive crafting in this direction with crafting specializations (something I've had planned forever, but I haven't been able to implement yet because of the care and foundational work which I feel are necessary in adding to the current crafting system). Currently, crafting is simply a "level up" system; specializations would differentiate people into chosen sub-professions. Beyond specializations, I have no other current plans regarding trade professions, but my comments box and e-mail inbox are always open to ideas. =)

Hello, I was told... that parry doesn't improve beyond 300% could you tell me if this is true or not?

Nope, this is untrue. Parry, dodge, evasion, and lesser evasion all improve in performance with every mastery point; there is no cap. In fact, there are no diminishing returns, either; the performance boost is linear (constant with each point). Don't believe the rumors and hearsay - if it sounds fishy, head straight to the Sixth Sense blog and click that comment button! =)

Featured Questions #3

2010-07-13T18:12:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the third installment of Featured Questions!

If you have any Nodeka-related questions you'd like to see answered, just submit them in the comments section or via e-mail to me (Whim) - I will select and answer several player questions every other Tuesday.

Featured Questions #3:

Are you comfortable with the level Nojohr and Sorcerers are at?

Not really. Sorcerers don't quite scale the way I'd like them to, and they have a couple of significant tricks I'd like to introduce. Nojohrs have defensive/scaling problems as well, although they are a strong base class. They have the additional problem of lernen/magos versatility stunting their development.

Will Necro's ever get sixth sense?

No; at least, not for the spell power benefit. Necros have a different, more flavorful development path to look forward to which does not include "making my maledictions/siphons do tons of damage". The spy-detection functionality might be considered in some necromancer-appropriate variation, though.

Are footpads over powered with shoot?

Tough question. Quick answer: I don't like the fact that enmesh/projectile is, in some situations, equivalent to a slower manual silent malevolence. I do like the fact that footpads have a chance to take down much larger characters with a little work and the proper approach, and in fact I think all pk-oriented classes should have this capability to some extent. I do think it would be good to introduce a little more strategy into this scenario.

I mentioned before that I have a set of abilities in the works, of which every class in the game would be obtaining one variation. These abilities are intended to kind of work towards that goal, giving each class an ability which represents their "role" in pvp to a degree. I'll reveal more about this when design is further along. (Part of the problem right now is figuring out how to introduce and present them in a way which demonstrates their significance, given that they might simply fall into the large sack of abilities each class currently has - making them hard to pick out, especially given individual variations.)

Is unenhance ever coming back? What about a variation of unenhance that does X?

This question is frequently asked, but unenhance is not slated to return in any form. Its existence raises a number of substantial issues, all of which would need to be addressed before we would even consider it. No variation has presented itself which would address these issues.

"Excess pools" (such as mana and spirit on a warrior class) are an issue which I am aware of when designing for the long term, with an eye for justifying their existence. For example, mana and spirit potential now play a very large part in countering evasion; I will also be looking at developing overall rank as a meaningful and desirable attribute rather than just a way to "penalize" players by making missions harder.

Could 'inscriptions clear' return a percentage of the faction spent (on purchasing the inscriptions being erased)?

Unfortunately, no. Inscriptions have no inherent "cost" to them, because they can be obtained in a variety of ways (such as scrolls, which exist and are fully functional but won't actually be seen on Nodeka until the spoils of war are implemented). The faction you paid is just an arbitrary cost which Margrave Krijjkar decided to charge for the privilege of teaching you.

Having said that, I understand that the Invasion inscription costs are pretty high for experimentation right now. I have a few ideas in that regard (such as reduced inscription costs for high accolades) which I may explore.

The scar has been hyped for some time now, is it going to disappoint like Last Air Bender?
How soon can we expect it?
Will there be more areas like pains, except larger, perhaps requiring groups?

I'm sure it'll be a stunning disappointment; hype tends to do that, and well, some people aren't just tough to please, they don't want to be pleased. ;)

Having said that, it will be as good as I can possibly make it. Luckily, that particular benchmark increases over time, as every internal improvement I make for other AI purposes (Invasions, Fields of Guidance, etc.) opens up new doors for areas and events to come. In addition, I think it's evident enough that I'm committed to taking good ideas and developing them, rather than just throwing them out and letting them sit. I think the original Invasion event, as released, is almost laughable compared to what it's evolved into, even if I was proud of it at the time. =) Likewise, I will of course do my best with the Scar, and develop it wherever it needs developing.

Right now, I'm working on Fields of Guidance AI and newbie quest development. After that, I will be working on the Vl'lakian Ramparts (which is similar to what you're asking about a group-oriented Tabernacle) and the Scar concurrently.

Would it be possible for insanity et al. to show up under affects?

Not quite as easy as it sounds. Insanity and havoc aren't simple "add 50 hit, add 100 damage" effects; each affects the barbarian's combat in unique ways, some of which can't be duplicated by current temporary effects. I can, however, let you know what they do:

Insanity:
1. can't be parried
2. increases damage by a random percentage, range is based on strength and mastery beyond 100%
3. decreases hit to a random percentage, range is based on intellect and wisdom
4. drains endurance with each attack, drain can be reduced with mastery beyond 100%
5. makes the barbarian easier to hit

Havoc:
Similar to insanity, with the following differences:
1. the base hit and damage formulae are superior to insanity's
2. endurance drain is greater
3. mastery beyond 100% improves hit instead of damage
4. the "easier to hit" penalty is slightly less than insanity's
5. mastery beyond 100% reduces the "easier to hit" penalty, even going slightly below x1.0 at high %s

Would it be possible to program a 'donation' feature for the repair of Ruushi (during city Invasions) in exchange for faction?

Absolutely, although in a somewhat different form than what you describe. I have planned for the ability for experienced participants to alter the defense effort with certain global tactical decisions which last for one invasion - for example, the ability to increase golem repair rates or to inhibit the spawn rate of a certain invader class which has become too overwhelming. (These aren't slated to incur faction costs.)

This feature isn't on track to be released yet due to the ebb and flow of Invasion difficulty as I further develop the event. Given the recent enhancements, I feel that the event has drifted towards the easier side of the spectrum. (It was somewhat difficult before the golem grouping and shriveled spell nerf were introduced; there was also an unmentioned adjustment to the spawning algorithm which smooths out the spawn curve in certain situations). I have certain challenges I'd like to add to the event to spice things up, eventually; once these are ready, the time will probably be right for adding tactical benefits to balance out the added difficulty. (This is probably a slightly longer-term project, as I think Invasions are running smoothly now and I'd like to address other important areas before coming back to it.)

Featured Questions #2

2010-06-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

As promised, another round of player-submitted featured questions.

If you have any questions you'd like to see answered, don't forget to submit them via comments below or via e-mail!

Featured Questions #2:

Why does upgrading cipher: cyclopean riddle from tier 1 to tier 2 use more inscriptions slots and not over write the tier 1 slot?

Upgrading a cipher from tier x to tier (x+1) does overwrite the previous slot. For example, advancing your cyclopean riddle to tier 2 from tier 1 will display:

cipher: cyclopean riddle -+- tier 2

in your inscription list, and the tier 1 version will disappear.

As mentioned in 'help inscription points', ciphers cost 1 inscription point per tier. Thus, holding a tier 1 cyclopean cipher costs 1 inscription point; tier 2 will cost you 2; and so on. The cost increase is linear, not cumulative.

Higher tiers obviously need to cost more slots than lower tiers; otherwise, there's little point to the tier system at all, and ciphers would all be balanced around the assumption that they were max-tiered.

Inscription points are obviously in short demand, and are designed to be that way up to a point - it's a system in which you need to choose a unique talent configuration for your character, not one in which you "get big and buy everything". Gear will soon be introduced which increases the owner's inscription capacity, which will add to the inscription options available for those who wish to invest in it. (The first set of this gear will be Invasion-reward oriented.)

Some subclasses just seem fairly outdated these days, do you have any plans on revisiting those soon?

Absolutely, I have a lot of subclass spells and skills sketched out which only need to be implemented and tested. My focus right now is on content + newbie experience + pvp, though, as I feel those need to be developed first.

Consider an item with the attribute of speed, can a minor major and divine inspiration be fixated on speed and the final product be greater than 3 times the speed of the base creation?

Inspirations are general boosts to the power level of an item. Each inspiration adds to the crafted item's potential in a couple of ways, but the overall result is an even power increase. There's no fixation on a single stat.

Featured Questions #1

2010-06-15T16:03:00.001-07:00

And here we go! As promised, I will be selecting some interesting player-submitted questions regarding Nodeka and answering them for you in this regularly updated article. For now, we'll say that Featured Questions will run every other Tuesday, and I'll modify that in the future if necessary =).

If you have any questions you'd like to see answered in upcoming articles, please don't hesitate to ask (either in the comments section of this blog, or via e-mail). The questions below are quoted as submitted, edited slightly for grammar and spelling.

This week's Featured Questions:

What does Difficult To Hit actually do?

Difficult to hit is a simple, strong mechanic. Whenever it triggers, it reduces the hit bonus of the attacker by a certain amount, making you... difficult to hit. =)

- Crafted items level
What/how does the item level outcome work? Is it better to use Tier 3 materials for the primary component and Tier 1 components for the secondary, rather than using Tier 1 materials for the primary and Tier 3 for the secondary?

This is correct. Crafted items have a primary component and a secondary component; these classifications correspond to the material which you need more and less of respectively. While both components contribute to the power level of the crafted item, the primary component has a greater influence.

- What abilities do gemstones have besides the only one truly verified (Transform one bonus to another)? (Example: increase chance of inspirations, add levels, something else ) ?

- Does using multiple gemstones of the same type do anything for the crafted item?

- Is there a system to gemstones that can be 'figured out', like there is with components and bonuses using the (quest action, crafting) list?

The set of currently available gemstones can be divided into several different categories, each of which increases the power of (or transforms) the resulting crafted item in various ways. While every gemstone has the potential to improve the craft on its own, the greatest benefits can only be attained through combining certain gemstone categories together.

Using multiple gemstones of the same name does not *currently* do anything to improve the craft.

There is, of course, a system that can be figured out, as with any of Nodeka's various mechanics. The crafting system, as a whole, has only two elements of randomness to it - the chance to gain a tech when crafting with a new material, and the chance for an inspiration. No other aspects of crafting utilize random rolls of any kind.

Sumer Is Icumen In

2010-06-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

... and it brings with it good tidings and mad updates. =)

Things have been hectic recently, but my vacation officially starts next week, and with it comes the next towering wave of major updates (finally!) and some new tidbits to chew on. In addition to new online content, I'll be moving forward with an idea that's been kicking around for a while - a "featured question" article (probably every two weeks or so) in which I'll select and answer one burning player-provided question regarding Nodeka and its mechanics.

My apologies for the recent real-life-imposed break; thankfully, it's summertime, so bring on the parties! (Someone in Ruushi needs to invent the hot dog.)

It's alive

2010-03-03T00:09:00.000-08:00

Krijjkar now resides in a cozy corner next to Commandant Vai-shan, and he's willing to sell you the first wave of inscriptions in exchange for Ruushi faction. =)

Keep in mind that the list is far from complete - I will be adding more inscriptions to his list in the near future. (I have a few other things to work on first - a feature for demigods, Fields of Guidance, and the remaining Invasion rewards - but they're coming.) So make sure you read up on the helpfiles and think twice before buying an inscription, if you can't spare the sun stones to respec!

If you have any questions about the system, feel free to ask in the comments section of this entry. =) Thanks, folks!

Incoming

2010-03-02T04:48:00.000-08:00

The first Krijjkar setup (19 inscriptions to start, with more coming soon to fill out the gaps) is ready to go live. The reboot will probably be later today sometime - I do want to write the helpfiles before I make it live, since purchasing an inscription is a bit of a commitment. And as much as I'd like to start on those helpfiles this very minute, my body is insisting on scrounging up a bit of sleep first. =)

'Cause that's my fun day

2010-02-27T15:57:00.000-08:00

Krijjkar should be showing his face in Ruushi sometime on Monday, with the first set of inscriptions purchasable with Ruushi faction. He's coded and working locally; I just want to scratch up a few more hours to make absolutely sure each inscription works correctly and to tweak the numbers and costs a bit.

The first set of rewards will be incomplete (I have more inscriptions to add for the classes with less than others, and accolades and schematics will be added after the fact), but I just wanted to get it up so you can start playing around with it. =)

Gonna bosh'n nosh

2010-01-31T23:14:00.000-08:00

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. =)

An eternal flame

2010-01-18T22:15:00.000-08:00

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!

Old dogs, new tricks

2010-01-16T15:50:00.000-08:00

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). =)

Tapping the power of Grayskull

2010-01-03T21:42:00.000-08:00

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!

Inscription progress report

2009-12-28T20:39:00.001-08:00

It took a heck of a coding marathon and the lives of a million tea leaves were lost to the cause, but the basic structure for inscriptions is complete and fully functional. This means that, on my local codebase:

1. A new item type exists - 'scrolls'.
2. The new command 'read' allows a player to read said scrolls.
3. Players can learn new inscriptions by reading the appropriate scrolls, and view their current inscription tree (or those of other players) with the 'inscription' command.

There's a ton of unspoken detail in there, but that's the basic summary. The reward structure which I've spoken about previously involves, in part, the addition of these scrolls - different quests and events will offer access to scrolls with a wide variety of different inscriptions.

Of course, you don't know precisely what inscriptions are for, yet. That's the (nearly) last piece of the puzzle which I'm working on as we speak - the 'empower' command, which is related to the gibberish clues I've provided in previous entries. Once 'empower' is finished:

1. A player will be able to 'empower' him/herself with... something. :)
2. This empowering provides benefits in and of itself, but more importantly, it allows access to the customizations a player has chosen through learning new inscriptions.

I expect to finish testing of 'empower' tonight or early tomorrow, after which this will all go live in one major update. (I do still need to pretty up the output for these new commands - it's pretty ugly-looking at this point.) There is a strong element of mystery and the unknown built into the system, and helpfiles will be scarce at first, so the Sixth Sense will be a good resource for those of you who enjoy unraveling the intricacies and depths of a new in-game system. =)

Thanks for your support and patience. Back to coding!

Holiday cheer!

2009-12-25T14:45:00.001-08:00

Best holiday wishes to all of you! Thank you all for your kind thoughts and concern. I am safely back at home, and hard at work on the system alluded to in the Nov. 14 post. Paper design is done, and I've made a ton of coding progress in the past two days.

In the spirit of the season, as well as the spirit of toying with you all, here's just a few pointers as to what the new system will be about:

1. The gibberish in the Nov. 14th post is part of the foundation of the new content.
2. The name of the Nov. 14th post is significant in some way.
3. Inscriptions.

Enjoy your eggnog; I'll be working hard to get you some much-needed code love!

Emergency leave

2009-12-11T10:47:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry to push back the long-overdue content releases, but I will not be able to provide any updates this coming week. Due to an immediate family emergency, I will be unavailable until the 20th. I'll resume working on updates when I return. Until then, best wishes and good health to you all.

Blast from the past

2009-11-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

Hi! Here's a quick progress report, by request, on what's working its way through the Nodeka creation pipeline and how far it's gotten.

Last week, I inquired if anyone talented with the pen would be interested in helping me out with room/mob descriptions (one of the bigger "busywork" obstacles for me in releasing an area, as it tends to take me a long time to tweak these). Several people responded (and thank you all for your willingness!); one of those players is now helping me with the Fields of Guidance descriptions and should get back to me this weekend. Once I manage to integrate those, the Fields should be just about releasable.

For the rest of the players who responded, I may be tapping your talent in the future given the numerous areas I have in the pipeline; I'll work it out via e-mail when the time comes, and thanks again! =)

In the meantime, I've been working out the details of a certain new in-game system which underlies a lot of the new content. One of the challenges in designing new content is the reward aspect - once the "new toy" sheen wears off, how do you keep this content relevant to the players? The current setup of the Ruushi Invasion is a good example of a failure on my part to set up a compelling reward system (compounded by the fact that numbers correlate to success in the current setup, exaggerating the inertia of increase/decline in participants). This is a mistake I don't want to make with the future content, and so I'm cleaning up this particular in-game system to interlock with the next few areas' reward structures.

What is this in-game system precisely? I'll talk about it more next week, hopefully after the Fields of Guidance have been released. For now, I'll just leave you with this indecipherable gibberish: ra znv yd sji. =)

A steady hand

2009-10-09T01:25:00.000-07:00

The latest update is pretty self-explanatory. =) Speed, at least at high values, is now tied somewhat to dexterity - if you're superloaded on speed but completely skimping on dexterity, you'll start to notice the attack degradation. Only speed-based attacks beyond your dexterity-based "steady attack" cap are affected - having more speed is never a liability. The benefit simply scales down if your dexterity is too far behind.

At the current numbers, the change should be mild for anyone who isn't on the crazy side of imbalanced (say, rocking 1000 speed while augmenting their dexterity down to 200). In addition, the renown additions will provide a constant 5% boost to your incoming xp and gold from now on once you've accumulated renown up to the base of 500. (Assuming, of course, that you don't get pkilled!)

Questions are welcome, as always. It's a super busy time for me - back to work!

We're driving 60 miles an hour

2009-09-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

As promised in the MotD, here's a slightly more in-depth discussion regarding the new speed change.

Before this update, entities gained an additional attack at certain speed "breakpoints" (388 speed, 412 speed, etc.) At higher speed values, these breakpoints were absolute - you either had enough speed or you didn't. There was no difference between, say, 320 or 381 speed in terms of attacks; the extra speed points were "wasted".

Now, however, every speed point contributes slightly to your attack frequency. The base underlying "breakpoints" remain similar (for example, about 490 speed will net you about 12 base attacks, just as before). However, that number of attacks is no longer set in stone. For example, at 400 speed, you will usually perform from 10-11 base attacks, with more 11-attacks than 10-attacks. As your speed increases beyond 400, your 10-attack rounds will decrease and your 11-attack rounds will increase, slowly increasing your average. By the time you hit about 440 speed, 10-attack rounds will be rarely seen, 11-attacks will be much more common, and you will start to see 12-attack rounds beginning to pop up. As you approach 500 speed, you'll be doing 12-attack rounds more often than 11-attack rounds... and so on.

The net result is that speed is no longer a game of "hitting that breakpoint", but a stat that scales just as the other stats do. This should make gearing for speed a bit less restrictive, as you won't have the "I can't take off my speed wristband because it will drop me below a breakpoint" problem anymore. If you were previously right on a breakpoint and had more than 300 speed, you may notice a slight decrease (half an attack, or slightly more at very high speeds as those breakpoints were shifted up a few points).

This change was implemented and tested with crafted gear in mind. If things work out as I hope (with balance remaining fair and the restrictiveness of speed easing up a little), I may be able to leave speed gear at its current levels rather than tweaking it as mentioned on the Nodeka 411 discussions. (I have some ideas in store for the attributes that are just slightly undervalued at the moment by many classes, such as hit and dexterity.)

And, in the meantime, the wood-based crafting fix should open up more crafted gear possibilities for you in certain slots (such as caster/finesse weapons). I pushed this particular fix up the timeline because of a serious bug which was brought to my attention by Iron (with a wonderfully descriptive, analytical e-mail, I might add - makes bugzapping so much easier, thank you!). In fixing that bug, I had to rewrite some of the same AI that was causing the wood-based crafting anomaly, so I mashed the bugs together and made an update stew. Now, I need to step away from this little distraction and get back to the Fields of Guidance. =) Thanks for playing, and thanks for your patience - great things are coming, folks!

Everything old is new again

2009-09-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

Busy busy busy! Still hacking away at that Fields of Guidance update; it should be pretty soon now. =) There were a lot of underlying issues I had to poke at, and even tasks that sound simple (such as writing the quest text) present some surprising challenges.

In the meantime, I've addressed a few of the current discussions over at Nodeka411, so if you're feeling a little information-starved, mosey on over to these threads:

http://www.nodeka411.net/forum/showthread.php?t=423
http://www.nodeka411.net/forum/showthread.php?t=433

In the not too distant future

2009-08-16T17:13:00.001-07:00

Here's a little what's-happenin' update, by request, along with some extra babble (no cost!).

Last weekend's life nova + wild calling + convocation's mark update marked the end of a pretty good run of class adjustments and additions. I'm not done updating base classes yet, but class-based work is on very temporary pause, probably until the end of the month or so.

Touching on the updates briefly - the new daja spells (life nova and unearthly rapture) are pretty spectacular in potential. It took a fair amount of time to get the rapture working right, as it's a pretty unique effect. :) Both abilities reach their fullest potential when used on an overwhelmed target; whereas the rapture is the sicker effect with the longer prevention, the nova is somewhat more utilitarian, as it has a short prevention and can even be used as a running tool (even a single target struck will give the target at least some percentage of holy light attack). Both are useful for granting the daja some breathing room in reviving an overwhelmed ally.

Wild calling and the convocation's mark are pretty unique. Wild calling basically grants the druid access to a variety of targetable buffs, including faerie fire, lateral deterrence, or delayed-action healing bursts... but never more than one at a time. The druid must commit to a specific council when acquiring the convocation's mark, and that decision governs which effect the wild calling provides until the mark fades.

The weeks before that update were pretty intense in terms of adding "shine" to classes that needed it; while the task isn't quite done yet, my focus will be changing for the next few weeks. I'll be working primarily on content updates, in this order: Fields of Guidance revamp, cleanup in Mejath, Invasion additions, finishing the Hallowed Scar, improving the Trials of Karmova, adding the Vl'lakian Ramparts group dungeon, adding more Ruushi functionality tied to Invasion damage levels (gambling?), and finally some crafting system updates.

That's a lot of work, yeah. :) I'm pretty far along in the Fields revamp; I think you should see that coming out in a few days or so. This past week has been spent primarily on designing and implementing that revamp, while adding a few specific features to the mob AI system to support some of my plans for the above. The updates beyond Mejath might fluctuate slightly in order; some will require substantial amounts of time to fine-tune (Scar, Ramparts, crafting) whereas the others are a bit easier to work with (Trials, Invasion), and I might push up the easier stuff if updates become too sparse, just to keep everyone happy with shiny new toys. A lot of the development will be concurrent as well, since so much of it is linked (the Trials affect the Scar, new rewards will be available from Scar/Ramparts which are used in the crafting system, etc.)

The Fields and Mejath are definitely first in line, though. We now have both a sidebar icon and in-forum banners on zuggsoft.com, as well as an icon in new Cmud/Zmud installations; we're also making some impressive work climbing the mud site rankings (keep up the voting at nodeka.com; you're all making a big difference and we appreciate it a ton!). Because of this, our newbie experience is at the top of my plate right now. :)

So that covers the past week and the next few weeks, at least. As always, I'm happy to address any questions or concerns you may have, and thank you for your patience, active voting, and support in helping to bring out the excellence in Nodeka!

A guide to wicked fidelity

2009-07-31T14:58:00.000-07:00

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.

Take a number!

2009-07-25T03:57:00.001-07:00

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.

Hey yey yey, what's going on

2009-07-10T20:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Failure to Launch

2009-07-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

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.

Stand (in the place where you live)

2009-06-23T02:19:00.000-07:00

Monk stance revamps are now live. =) The basic martial styles all operate as described in the previewed help file. I'm pretty excited about the tactical space this opens up for monks, and I've spent a lot of time testing it out - I hope I got everything right, but nobody's perfect, hehehe.

I have more stances in testing, but they won't be put on live just yet. Philosophy of solitude may make it soon, depending on some internal circumstances. Philosophy of wine won't be seen until I start working on subclass abilities, as not all monks will get it. =)

Ghoul update is now live too. Hopefully three massive mounds of rotting earth, each sprouting forth 16+ attacks' worth of bloody talons and knee-teething, has enough of a cool factor for those lamenting the old skeleton spam.

I will be on vacation from Tuesday, June 23rd through Thursday, July 2nd. I'll be taking my work with me, so hopefully I can get some Scar progress done in between sun and fun (and I'll have interweb access, so I'll at least get my fix). See you all with more development fun next week!

6S Preview: help martial styles

2009-06-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

Martial styles:

These abilities form the basic martial styles:

annulment stance, dragon stance, hao'tien stance, mantis stance,
philosophy of solitude

Some subclasses possess additional martial styles. Any skill that is a
basic martial style will be clearly marked in its helpfile. Basic
martial styles derive their effectiveness from the user's learn curve
and intellect.

Each martial style provides two benefits upon activation:
- A long-term boost to a single stat, lasting ten minutes.
- A short-term "burst" benefit with a brief duration.

As long as martial styles are used in sequence (that is, the monk does
not activate a martial style when another is already active), no
prevention of any kind is incurred. The monk may use the same style
continuously, or adopt a new style when the first has dropped.

The monk may manually drop a style by using the ability when it is
already active. Doing so incurs a 15 minute prevention on that style.

Finally, a monk may choose to devise a "composite style" by
combining multiple martial styles. Whenever a style is stacked upon
another, the monk gains/resets a 15-second timer, during which
more styles may be added. When this timer expires, or when the
monk reaches the maximum number of styles he can combine, the
monk gains a "state of reflection" lock which prevents him from
using any martial styles for a duration based on the number of
styles stacked.

Thus, martial styles provide the monk with a number of options:

- Continuous benefits from one martial style at a time, including a
constant boost to a single stat based on the style selected.

- Alternating burst benefits gained by dropping and switching
styles.

- Full stacked benefits from multiple styles, at the cost of being
style locked for a duration proportional to the quantity stacked.

* bonus tip: Invoking the 'meditative healing' spell will also very
slightly reduce the 'state of reflection' lock duration. This benefit
will increase with mastery points.

Coming up next...

2009-06-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

The change to sigil of the undead army has been implemented and I've had it in testing for a few days now; it feels good enough to take it live in the next update. The eight skeletons have been reduced to three ghoul mounds (piles of earth with ghoul claws and heads bursting out of them). They each get a ton of attacks plus a couple of kneecap bites. (I love kneecap bites.)

I've run a lot of scripted tests; the overall damage output of the ghoul mounds is similar to that of the eight-skeleton army at 100% mastery with a good level of willpower. There is a loss of certain advantages (eightfold kicks/impairments/thunderous strikes etc.), but the new version is more scalable with both willpower and masteries and alleviates the item and output spam.

That update will come along with a revamp of the monk stance system, once testing is complete. I'm really enjoying the new monk styles in testing. =) I'll be on vacation for a week from next Tuesday, so this update should come through before then.

Are we there yet?

2009-06-11T15:04:00.000-07:00

Where's the Scar? Naw, I haven't forgotten about it. =) The concept is just under a bit of redesign right now. There are some aspects to it that I felt were clumsy, and there are also a number of lessons I've learned from the Ruushi Invasion event that I'd like to incorporate. Just letting you all know that it's still being worked on. =)

The Skeleton Discussion

2009-06-09T00:23:00.000-07:00

We're going to chat a bit about 'sigil of the undead army', the major remort necromancer spell which summons (at sufficient levels of willpower) 8 immobile red skeletons to do their master's bidding.

Here's what I am comfortable with currently:
- the spell's concept and flavor is great
- the overall power level and running damage is on cue
- the non-movement limitation and the min sali tra solution is good

Here's what I'm not comfortable with:
- battle and equipment spam
- eight pets' worth of impairments (although skeletons are weak enough that this is a valid but lesser concern)

This spell is an odd one, because its power level is good and its flavor is awesome, but its fundamentals lead to some subtle but persistent problems. Having a group of three players is a simple, common situation which works just fine. Fight a group of three necromancers with their skeletons out, however, and that's already 28 lines of battle text flying by every 2 seconds, minimum. We won't even talk about what an innocent observer's screen will look like if they all decide to equip or unequip their pets together.

It's not a problem of lag or code, Nodeka can handle all of this flawlessly. It is a question of aesthetics, comfort, and keeping battles and inventories clean, however. The harder battles are to understand, the less strategic reaction is possible, especially on a 2-second-per-round scale.

This is the solution I'm considering.
- Change sigil of the undead army from 8 skeletons to 3 thingies (type yet undetermined)
- Maintain all other variables (e.g., the 3 thingies will be rooted and will have a damage output in the same vicinity as 8 skeletons)

This is fairly easy for me to do, and allows for a little creativity and perhaps some beyond 100% mastery improvement. I have heard counterarguments to this solution, however, and I can imagine others. Thus, I'd like to hear your thoughts (especially if you like moonlit nights and casting 'passage of the bleeding moment' without warrior's magical study).

The Dirty Dozen.5

2009-06-05T03:27:00.001-07:00

Here is a page out of my design notes (not literally, I've collected the random scribbles and prettied it up for you all): my intended vision for each of the 18 base classes. This is the direction that I'm following as I develop new abilities and tweak old ones for each individual class.

Obviously, I'm not taking any class down a wild, radical development ride that completely flips around their playstyle. This is all based partly on what each class already possesses and does well; I've simply chosen which strengths to focus on and develop. Nodeka's classes are all strong independently - I'm just trying to add some spice, variety, and balance. =) For a few classes, developing their listed strengths will require a bit of rearranging or adding to their skill set; however, no class will be ignored. Trust me, I've got scribbles for everyone.

As always, I truly welcome and value your feedback, questions, and other discussion. =) (Note: the tags following each class name are just my guideline as to what the majority of that class's skills will lean towards; group doesn't mean a class can't solo, defensive doesn't mean the class won't do any damage, etc.)

Barbarian
(solo, single-target, offensive)
Rockin' single target damage, especially against slower targets. Nobody clears an area of hapless chumps better. As a base class, the Barbarian tends to eschew any but the most basic of defensive and reactive abilities, instead relying on their opponent's inability to get back up again. For a hulking brute, however, the Barbarian does have a surprising number of tactical options, especially when he gets the jump on his target.

Druid
(group/stealth, single-target, defensive)
Like the natural world she is attuned to, the Druid is long-lived and patient; her force is sometimes slow to gather, but difficult to deny. Anticipation and planning are key, as the Druid is much stronger as a defensive, reactionary caster than as an offensive beast. Many of the Druid's abilities wax and wane with the spheres of nature, and many are derived from the Druid's choice of haven - a single, stationary sanctuary which serves as a temporary "home base".

Fallad
(group, single-target, offensive/defensive/weaken)
In many ways, the Fallad stands evenly between two realms - healer and crusader, offense and defense, hammer and mind. Fallads are charged with the eradication of evil and the cleansing of its corrupted path. Their mastery of both the physical and the spiritual marks them as stout warriors and valued protectors in their own right; however, it is when facing opposition in its most perilous forms that the fallad truly feels his greater calling. Even the strongest bastion of evil will crumble under the Fallad's ability to intimidate and weaken large opponents.

Footpad
(stealth, single-target, offensive)
Cowardice, weakness, greed - the words that uptight moralists will only spit forth are the very principles that define the Footpad's strength. Fighting face-to-face is for suckers and coffin stuffers - a footpad's m.o. is to bewilder, bleed, distract, and harass until his mark has been dispatched.

Healer
(group, single-target, defensive)
Whatever evil and malice can do, the healer can undo with a word. The path of the Healer is never an easy one, and yet few can stand with such subtle, unrelenting strength in the face of dire opposition. Every spiteful act begins with some small thread of hate, and it is the Healer's talent to find that thread and unravel the offense. A Healer is not necessarily slow to anger, but she is an expert at control; for when reaction and defense falter, the offensive initiative must be taken, and the Healer's status with her deities is such that few pleas go unheard - even those that entail the sacrifice of peace for the greater good.

Hunter
(solo/stealth, single-target, offensive)
The Hunter is a lone warrior- swift, silent, and deadly. While a Hunter may not stand toe-to-toe with an armored warrior or call upon the deep mystical resources that a true magus might, the Hunter is resourceful in his own right, possessing a formidable array of weapons and tools with which to even the odds. Hunters tend more towards the solitary than group warfare, picking their targets carefully and choosing to enlist the aid of their obedient pets rather than more argumentative humanfolk.

Marauder
(solo/stealth, single/multi-target, offensive)
The Marauder values chaos and self-preservation above all else. Confusion reigns supreme over any battlefield darkened by a Marauder's presence; powerful warriors in their own right, they represent certain danger to their foes and a potential threat to their less careful allies, as well. The Marauder holds impressive sway over the darker forms of magic, and they will happily rain destruction down upon friend and foe alike, savoring the chaos and mayhem.

Monk
(solo, single-target, offensive/defensive)
The Monk is, in many ways, the Marauder's opposing counterpart. The Monk values tranquility and order, and his inner focus grants him incredible levels of self-control as well as great strength in both the physical and the spiritual arts. His spiritual talents grant him wide access to abilities in the realm of the protective and the introspective; his physical talents, on the other hand, are the product of endless intensive training and are tied closely to an assortment of physical stances, each of which open up varying offensive options.

Necromancer
(solo/group, single-target, weaken)
Brethren of the shadow, the Necromancers hold little regard for the pathetic boasts and clamorous displays of the physical, except as a source of fodder. While the Necromancer holds little inherent power or physical strength to speak of, their talent lies in the draining and the subversion of other resources. Through dark rituals and sacrifice, the Necromancer can call forth vile fiends to do his worldy bidding, and with a single word he can bring down the strongest champion, sapping his victim's strength for his own twisted purposes.

Ninja
(stealth, single-target, offensive)
Secretive and silent, the Ninja are truly in their element when their mark is unaware and unsuspecting. These assassins combine physical prowess, swiftness, and some unique mystical talents to swiftly dispatch their target before fading again into the night. While the Ninja prefer to avoid face-to-face combat whenever possible, they are formidable fighters in any situation; a Ninja is never cornered for long, be it due to a swift escape on their part or a swift execution of the offending obstacle.

Nojohr
(solo/group, single-target, offensive)
Warriors of the sky, the Nojohr are sometimes mistaken for warriors of the divine. However, the Nojohr holds allegiance to no single deity or religion; the source of their connection to the high realms is unknown, but the power they derive is undeniable. The Nojohr are masters at adapting to various forms of combat, possessing a tactical breadth unmatched by most other warriors, especially in the arena of offensive and hindering maneuvers. The Nojohr usually opts for the physical resolution over the mystical, although their connection to the powers of sky and thunder grants them a variety of otherworldly benefits.

Paladin
(group, single/multi-target, defensive)
The true defender of the righteous word, the Paladin's way is difficult at times, and is sometimes seen as single-minded. The truth, however, is never as clear-cut as people imagine. The Paladin understands this, and every decision made by these holy defenders is carefully considered and weighed. Once a Paladin is set in his conviction, however, it takes an army to bring him down. These warriors of the light possess monstrous reserves of inner strength, and can call upon a vast array of divine gifts in their struggle against evil. The Paladin is especially talented at groupwide restorative and defensive effects, extending these talents to shelter and protect their allies.

Poliir
(solo/group, single-target, defensive)
When the dust clears and the battlefield is finally quiet, the smart money rests on the Poliir as the last woman standing. These warriors have devoted their lives to the study of defense, and little else. In battle, this translates into two benefits: the direct application of defense as it applies to their own form, and the analysis and nullification of the enemy's defenses. While the offensive power of the Poliir is neither blunt nor flashy, it is inevitable, and a skilled Poliir will wear her opponent down slowly and relentlessly while suffering little damage on her own.

Sorcerer
(solo, single/multi-target, offensive/limited defensive)
The goal of the Sorcerer is simple - the acquisition and application of power. The ability of a master Sorcerer to focus consistent destructive magical power at a single target is unrivalled, and limited only by the magical resources of the Sorcerer himself. Inevitably, a Sorcerer's quest for power will lead him into studies of the otherwordly and the extraplanar, and as such most Sorcerers develop a keen affinity for planar connection and travel. The formidable power which a Sorcerer can bring to bear is not limited to the offensive, however; when necessary, the Sorcerer is capable of directing that power defensively, calling forth seemingly impenetrable defenses for short periods of time.

Valkyrie
(group, single-target, offensive)
The Valkyrie is defined by history and conflict, grace and song. In ages past, the Valkyrie was charged with guiding the souls of fallen soldiers to their otherworldy reward, singing powerful hymns and lamentations for the benefit of the living and the post-living alike; in times of great conflict, however, these warriors have been known to descend to the realm of the physical themselves. The Valkyrie derives her power through grace and certainty, bringing her deadly dance to the battlefield while inspiring her allies with resonant songs that provide groupwide offensive boosts.

Warlock
(solo, single-target, offensive)
Masters of mind and body, the Warlock is a peculiar hybrid of warrior and spellcaster. Their supreme mental control allows them to push their bodies to physical limits that would be fatal to lesser beings, while ignoring the pain and ill effects of incoming wounds. The most accomplished Warlocks can extend their mental supremacy into the physical world itself, warping time and creating matter from nothing. Warlocks tend towards the solitary, for obvious reasons.

Witch
(solo, single-target, weaken)
The Witch's power, and indeed her greatest joy, lies in the infliction of various maladies and misfortunes upon others. No other class can match the range and creativity of afflictions which the Witches have painstakingly developed and perfected for their amusement. At the hands of a Witch, the strongest warrior can be reduced to a simpering coward, and even an entire town can be stricken down with but a word.

Wizard
(solo, single/multi-target, offensive)
A master of conjuration and control, the Wizard is an avid student of magic, learning from every source she can read, study, view, or scry. The Wizards' strengths are varied, as they tend to pick up new talents easily from a variety of sources, but they have proven especially adept at extraplanar magic. As such, their talents tend to lean towards wide, far-reaching abilities linked to various planes, as well as the summoning and binding of extraplanar inhabitants to do their bidding.

What about me? Part 2

2009-06-05T02:44:00.000-07:00

In light of some of the discussion over the previous post (thanks as always for your feedback!), I thought I'd address some individual points a little bit.

"I'm just afraid that Whim won't get all of the changes in before August..."

I'll be honest with you upfront - I won't. =) There's no way I could do that, because there is no "all of the changes"; I guarantee you that base classes will continue to be developed beyond that point. My intention isn't to rush in a bunch of abilities for the base classes; it's to ensure that each has a fair minimum share of fun, viable, and representative abilities so that players can make an informed decision as to which class(es) they really want to play. I don't think we're so far off the mark; every class has its perks. Right now, I'm simply shoring up the weaknesses that shouldn't be there (keeping in mind that every class does and should have some sort of gap) and trying to ensure that each class is fun in its own right while addressing the more egregious balance issues. The next blog entry will touch on this subject a little further.

"If a subclass needs a quick tweak, why not just do that? What's the big deal?"

This thought process is common to a lot of games, I think, and it's a seductive one (I still catch myself thinking this way quite often). Here are the problems with it:

1. There's no such thing as a truly quick tweak. Any change needs to be thought through, coded (and coded right), and then tested. Testing is huge - I spend a crazy proportion of my development time on local testing, far more than coding or design time (unless you start counting the time I spend thinking in the car or the shower...) Even a seemingly trivial fix can easily be done wrong. "Hey, boot-to-the-head is such a weak attack. Let's boost the damage by 100." Why 100? It could be too much, which could throw the skill out of balance (which becomes hard to fix down the line if players start to rely on it or, worse, to invest practices into it). It could be too little, which would require another fix down the line, turning this process into mostly wasted time. It could even be wrong at its foundation - what if 100 is a good value right now, but the problem is that boot-to-the-head doesn't scale properly with stats? Will it just end up weak again down the line? These may seem like trivial, fixable issues - and in some cases, they are - but embracing the "quick tweak" philosophy too often can easily result in a huge pile of "trivial, fixable" issues, and they add up. Especially when...

2. There isn't just a quick tweak. Is quickbolt - oe naj'k too strong, or watermark of binshou too weak? Absolutely, I would agree with both assessments without hesitation. Unfortunately, Nodeka has (as of now) 90 major remort subclasses, 253 spells, and 270 skills (and growing...) There are a lot of "quick tweaks" out there that need to be looked at, and each person's going to have their own laundry list. In the unique situation we're in now (with an incoming deadline for penalty-less class changes), I think the most important thing we can do is to fix the truly over-strong while accenting the unique - giving players an honest representation of each class to choose from. The underpowered skills and subclasses will be addressed, but they need to be addressed at the right time and with the proper care and attention. Which leads to...

"It makes me sad that my subclass won't get attention until later."

It shouldn't. =) Not getting a "quick tweak" now just means that I will be able to truly focus on and address the issues with each given ability/subclass. That's the difference between a half-hearted numerical tweak (which may or may not address the issue sufficiently) and an actual, well-thought-out attempt to make your subclass interesting and viable.

What about me?

2009-06-03T01:37:00.000-07:00

For those of you wondering why the weaker subclasses (watermark of binshou, ACTIVATE!) have not been tweaked yet, the answer is simple - I'm not focusing on subclasses yet. Currently, I'm sticking to main classes and content development.

Why am I doing main classes apart from subclasses? That's another easy answer - the one-time-no-practice-loss-adaptation deadline. Everyone has an unpenalized adaptation only through August 1st, and so I'm trying to touch up the main classes as much as possible before that deadline. Subclass tweaking will come afterwards. =)

Offer up your best defense

2009-06-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

Decree of innocence is the second paladin decree I mentioned way back in April; it's a judgement on the same prevention as Decree of Guilt (which has itself been buffed to give the paladin a solid +hit option).

The decrees each play pretty different roles. Decree of guilt is a good "anytime" skill, but it really excels when the paladin or his/her group is fighting multiple enemies; it does good damage and buffs up the paladin's combat ability.

Decree of innocence, on the other hand, is great for smaller paladins, providing a solid way to maintain health, spirit, and endurance to stay alive and keep those holy lights and spiritual attacks active. It's also a nice way to help counteract area damage and bleeds, and to help run slightly tougher areas. Perhaps its strongest component, however, is the lateral deterrence it adds. Currently, in group combat, it's almost always the correct decision to flank a single target (usually a high-offense low-defense character). Effects such as lateral deterrence help to make this less of a cut-and-dry decision.

Creepy Crawly

2009-06-01T01:43:00.000-07:00

The crash bug has (we hope!) been fixed, allowing the ogres to raid poor Ruushi with impunity once again.

I've made what I think will be the last of the balance/feature passes through the Ruushi Invasion for the time being. I'm pretty happy with the way it's running now, and so I'll let it sit at an elapsed time of one week since inception. (Apparently my one-night coding impulses employ 168-hour nights.)

Updates this week will begin to focus on class improvements and foundational Scar-work once again. =) As a by-product of being locked into a single development issue all week, I've got a ton of backed up little seeds of ideas for each class to try out in my local test environment. =)

Exit Light

2009-05-30T03:27:00.000-07:00

That... was a lot of work. =) This is the problem with my "one-night coding experiments", they always turn into some bigger monster. (Crafting started out as one of these, too...)

I think these upgrades will contribute greatly to the Invasion event. There's more challenge, more options, and a much smarter reinforcement system, among other things. =) Right now, though, I'm going to go contribute greatly to my pillow. zzzzzz

We've already obtained far too much!

2009-05-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

Update 5/26...

This is why they kept screaming 'Protect the Warlocks!!!'. =)

Note #1: This is not live yet. Keep your eye on the MotD, I should be able to get this live tomorrow at some point. It's a little diversion I started coding during the weekend between binges of Scar work.

Note #2: This is now live. There are some kinks to work out, especially with NPC response time; I'll work on that tonight. Enjoy, and keep Ruushi safe... if not for the principle, then for the fact that the less damage Ruushi takes from the invaders, the more platinum reward Commandant Vai-shan is able to deal out. =) I'll probably eventually expand on this event by adding desirable merchants and services that 'flee the city' when Ruushi suffers too much damage; that's for the future though.

Note #3: The 5/27 update gave the event a major upgrade. =) Theres a scrounger in Ruushi who'll stick around as long as the city is defended, dynamic scaling so that the reinforcements that arrive are the type of invaders that are most needed for the players that 'run out', there are huge rare-spawn bosses that drop heads that... well, lots of stuff. =)

I haz a flavor

2009-05-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

Some abilities are developed from a function-based core ("this class doesn't have a spammable attack - let's give it one"), while others are designed more from a thematic, flavorful standpoint ("man, nojohrs should be able to slap down a whole GROUP of chumps"). The best ones (from a how-fun-is-it-to-design standpoint) are a mixture of both.

I know I've got a flavor-leaning ability on my hands when I realize I'm having way too much fun writing the output, hehe.

You formulate a plan - block the pointy bits.
You formulate a plan - yell louder.

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling

2009-05-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Scar is complete in the skeletal AI structure, which is very exciting for me. =) That is, I have a live setup which successfully does event initiation, player recruiting, event scoring, player contribution accumulation, event scoring/conclusion, and cleanup. (So basically, I can play against myself in an empty roomdescriptionless area! Whee!)

It'll be even more exciting when I can actually get this live, hehehe. Right now I'm working on the internal AI - the mobs inside the event that provide support, missions and such. Seems like every time I sit down to work on it, I come up with another idea I want to test out for inclusion. =)

I'll still be working on our overarching class/ability improvements in the meantime, as well. The most "complete" partially coded/tested new skills I have currently are for the barbarian, marauder, and paladin, so those are likely to come soon (no promises as usual, hehe). Over-100% masteries are always on the table and in development as well.

Just a quickie

2009-05-13T00:32:00.000-07:00

New abilities now live:

Cleave - a little bit of nojohr defense, a lot of glee in large-scale combat.
Immaculate Retort - a simple automatic poliir tactic, designed to wear you down.

Poliir lost a little bit of their burst offense, but gained some good sustained benefits. Life also got a bit easier for small poliir (cheaper focus sphere, and a cheaper awakening of the guard with a nifty beyond-100% bonus...)

The Passage of Dark Summoning boost is a ton of fun, too. The "secret" part is somewhat uncommon, but exciting when it does happen...

Blessed are the cheesemakers

2009-05-11T18:34:00.001-07:00

Blessing of the meek is pretty rockin'. =) It's a new fallad/daja spell which basically gives hope to the weak and the face-ganked. It caps incoming damage; the lower your hp, the lower the damage cap, meaning you take less. Works great on folks who are being seriously oppressed, or on people who just don't have a lot of hp training yet. (It's also super-fast preventionwise if used on someone smaller than you.)

It's a really good effect; the recipient can be made pretty resilient at low hp. Because it's a damage cap affect (per attack), massive damage increases such as rite of virility aren't gonna help bust through it much; on the other hand, increasing the number of attack sources (e.g. with radiant awakening or just saving a bunch of kick-style preventless attacks) can ruin their day.

There are other pros and cons to it, but I'll leave it to our friendly neighborhood healer classes to play with. =)

The Scar is coming along. I have the AI in a semi-functional state - it's very exciting to see the gears start to turn in my local testing. It might sound a bit silly, but the point where I can boot up a new event/area and actually interact with the NPCs is always a big deal for me - it's like they're coming to life Pinocchio-style. (I'm sure that's not creepy at all.) Right now, the big challenge is making the whole event reboot-proof (the way the Trials resume after a reboot).

This week, unfortunately, is going to be a heavy one for me in terms of rl responsibilities, and so I'm pretty stuck for time until this weekend; I'd expect the Scar to take at least another week or two before it's release-ready.

After the Rain

2009-05-04T23:18:00.000-07:00

Just for those who have been wondering, my short-term priority after the Scar is released will be on class development. I have a lot of new abilities and mastery improvements on the table, and a lot of work to do in light of the recent discussions, so when this area is done I'd like to take a little time to focus solely on that area. And after that - back to the Divide. =)

This is, of course, subject to change on a whim.

The Hallowed Scar

2009-05-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

An update on what I've been working on recently:

The AI functionality mentioned a couple of entries ago seems to be working perfectly; as of last Thursday I've completed all of the necessary structure and a good deal of testing. I have not put the code live yet, however; it's a big update and I have the perfect project to serve as a rigorous test before I upload it - the Hallowed Scar.

Thus, I've spent this past weekend trying to get this area into shape. This is the PvP-based Trials extension that I mentioned previously. It's basically an event triggered with each Trial win; completing a Trial grants a rally effect which allows the player to access the event.

The area itself is a fairly sizable zone, with four main subsections. The central section is a small shrine to Illanielle, the goddess of fertility; however, the shrine itself has been damaged and the land around it shattered, obliterated by the dark magic of a vengeful rival goddess, Ashabelle. The dark scar left behind by Ashabelle's bolt carves a deep impassable slash throughout the zone, splitting the land around the central shrine and forking outwards.

Illanielle's shrine serves as one of the zone's four points of control, alongside her militant disciples' garrison to the west, a flattened caldera which once held a great amphitheatre to the north, and a nearby irontree forest stretching to the east. What was meant to be a spiteful, crippling strike on Ashabelle's part has instead resulted in the rallying of the forces of both immorality and morality - the former bent on gloating over the dark side's conquest and looting the remains, the latter determined to extract triumph from tragedy and to demonstrate the resilience and drive of the light.

While the event is active, players with the appropriate rally effect may enter the Hallowed Scar and contribute to the glory of their respective sides. While there are NPCs to interact with (and combat) within the zone, the main focus of the zone is on the players themselves. Simply being present in one of the four zones of control will constantly contribute to the control points which that player's side has accumulated for that zone of control; at the end of the event, the side with the most control points in each zone of control claims that subzone. The side which has claimed the most subzones is the winner of the event. (Ties, in both control points and subzone claiming, are automatically given to the side which won the last set of morality Trials.)

Thus, it is in each side's best interest to occupy as many zones of control as possible while driving out the players on the opposing side. There are no rank restrictions to join the event, since even the smallest player can contribute to zone occupation by avoiding the enemy team (albeit at a slightly slower rate than a high-ranking player); the overall event is, however, rank-controlled to ensure that the total ranks on each side are fairly even. The event will automatically "expand" the rank restrictions to allow more people in if there are players on both sides who can't get in due to rank caps.

I'll save the reward system for another day, except to mention that it's a pretty deep and unique reward set based on accumulating favor (which is earned constantly as a player contributes to zone control, and in larger chunks for the event's winners).

Anyway, this zone is what I have been working on over this past weekend, as both a demonstration and a rigorous test of the capabilities of the new AI functionality. There's a lot to do, but I've also got a lot of it completed and ready for testing, and the new functionality greatly simplifies many of the tasks required. As of tonight, I have the barebones AI nearly ready for testing and the physical structure of the area completely built. Over this week, I'll be working on testing and adding to the AI; once that's done, it's just a matter of implementing the reward system and whipping out the final details (room names and descriptions, etc.) I expect that I will need at least another weekend to finish all of this.

Your over-100% mastery discussions are not falling on deaf ears, by the way! We have already gotten a lot of great feedback from the players, and we look forward to more. I can promise you that of your feedback, absolutely zero percent is being overlooked or ignored; even if I feel initially that I disagree with your analysis, I am still making the effort to check the code and test out your observations locally, and sometimes that ends up changing my initial opinions. This takes time, but we will get to every class. I've got a lot of exciting plans for all of the varied classes of Nodeka, and all I need to let them unfold is a little time and your patience. =) Thanks for your support, folks!

Masteries beyond 100% - discussion #1

2009-04-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

Ok, this particular entry has a very specific purpose. We'd like to use this entry as a collection tool for abilities that you feel are not scaling properly beyond 100%.

As per the 4/30/09 MotD, we're trying to move Nodeka away from the "class change of the month" model and a little more towards personal investment and individuality in each class. Since ability clearing will have a steeper cost associated with it, the balancing of abilities which scale beyond 100% mastery will become an even stronger focus for us.

This is where you come in. If there is a scaling ability which you feel is too weak (or strong), you can place your explanation/argument/analysis in a comment here. Obviously, I cannot guarantee that everyone will agree with your analysis, but I can guarantee that I will take a close look at every well-constructed explanation (and even some of the more scattered ones).

I will be happy to look at the code even if you suspect something is off-kilter - I understand that not every ability is easily tested.

If this thread grows too cluttered, I will start a new one. =)

Math is hard

2009-04-27T23:15:00.000-07:00

Last night and today were spent on a bit of a diversion, but an important one.

In working on the Twisted Divide AI, I kept thinking to myself that it could be implemented much more cleanly with a certain piece of AI functionality, which I'll call 'X'. The desire for X is far from just an isolated random wish, however; all of the more complicated AI I've designed (crafting, the Tabernacle, and the Trials of Karmova) tries to "hack together" a form of X with our current tools (which are by no means meager, by the way - Nodeka has some crazy strong AI).

It works, but the problem is that things get really complicated. For example, the live crafting mob AI alone (just the handful of mobs with the portion of the crafting system that is live) is over 200,000 lines long. When things go wrong, sometimes it can be REALLY tough to figure out where the issue is. (For example, the crash issues with the seasonal quests last Christmas, or that pair of morality Trial bugs that still pops up from time to time.)

As my plans for the Divide expand, it has become apparent to me that it would be a huge benefit if I worked on implementing X first. Having X would greatly simplify my work on the Divide and just about every other piece of future AI I've been planning.

Thus, my current focus is on adding that AI functionality. I've already implemented the base, so right now I'm in testing and bugsmashing mode.

The flipside to this is that, if I can get X working, it would enable me to easily finish up a pvp-based Trials extension that I've had on the design table for a while now - much sooner than I could possibly have the Divide ready. Thus, I may work on whipping that out for you in the near future. If I can get X working soon, expect an entry by this weekend chronologically outlining the details of what major area/event based additions to Nodeka will be coming next.

Back in action

2009-04-25T01:11:00.000-07:00

Vacation's over! I've updated live with a few mastery-over-100% improvements (stance of symmetry for you monk lovers out there, and shadow cast for those who prefer basements and shady alleys).

Work continues on the Divide. In the meantime, the next live update will likely be mastery-over-100% improvements for some subset of: druid, nojohr, sorcerer (simply because these are the most thoroughly tested updates I have on local so far.) Keep in mind that it may not be all of the above at once, and I'm going to fit the new paladin stuff in there somewhere as well.

I have some cool stuff tested for valkyries as well, but despite their handful of issues, they do have some excellent scaling beyond 100% with their current skill set. To be honest, I have a lot of potential abilities that are simply on "indefinite hold" simply because their base classes scale exceedingly well - classes such as warlock, poliir, marauder, and the like. Should I be looking at reining in the more egregiously overpowered skills so that I can develop each class on an even keel, or simply let them slide at the cost of a drought of updates for those classes? A tough dilemma. Thoughts?

A Little R & R

2009-04-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

I'll be off on vacation for a week, from today until next weekend. I won't be able to implement updates on the road, but I'm bringing my Twisted Divide work with me, so progress will be made there. Once I'm back, I'll have some beyond-100% skill improvements implemented as well, so that we don't have too large of an update gap.

I'll also be coming up with some potential topics of discussion for this blog. If you have any burning issues that you think should be the center of a focused public discussion, bring them up here and I'll add them to the list of candidates.

Decree of Guilt

2009-04-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

The aforementioned major remort paladin skill is now live - Decree of Guilt. It's a short-range (three target) AoE attack with a twist: it will only strike enemies that are attacking the paladin or his/her groupmates. (Thus, it's much safer than abilities like Fury, but by the same token it can't be used to initiate a path of destruction on a room of smaller mobs.) It also buffs the paladin's +dam increasingly for each target that it hits; thus, the bigger the enemy force s/he's smiting, the greater the combat benefit s/he receives.

The second base major paladin remort ability will be a second Decree on the same prevention with a different role. This is already designed, but it may not be the next update, since I have a lot to work on. Now that this is live, I'm going back to working on the new area (the Twisted Divide) for a bit. Feel free to drop a comment if you have feedback or concerns about the new Decree.

Evildoers, beware

2009-04-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

Finishing work on a new major remort paladin (general) skill for the next update; the skill is fully functional locally and so I'm just spending time on balancing the numbers.

Paladins have some interesting issues on the design board. My estimation of the class is that they are pretty strong in their warrior role; they have some very powerful pk tools and White Dragoons especially eat evil opponents alive. Dragoons are also no slouch when it comes to running.

However, paladins do lack some of the more exciting scaling factors beyond 100% that other classes enjoy, and I think they lack something in the "feel" department combatwise. They also suffer from a mild subclass imbalance (mild in comparison to some of the more severely deficient class tierings); while 4 of their 5 subclasses have fairly decent talents, Dragoons outstrip all of the others in practical functionality and power.

Addressing these issues can be tough when taking into account the fact that they're already fairly strong as a baseline class. The upcoming skill has been designed under the framework of this assessment, with several goals in mind:
- Add another tactical option to paladin combat; add another scaling option beyond 100%.
- Address the subclass imbalance.
- Do so in a satisfying way without overpowering a strong class.

The skill itself won't do all of this alone; it is, however, a first step in a series of future paladin improvements that will shoot for these goals. It will eventually compete with another new general paladin ability on the same prevention. Both of these are general paladin abilities, not subclass-specific; however, I need to implement them first because my plans for differentiating and polishing the paladin subclasses will be partly related to this pair of new abilities.

Pleased to meet you

2009-04-09T21:50:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the Sixth Sense! This blog will serve as a point through which Nodeka's players can access the latest news, ideas, and upcoming developments regarding the Nodekian realm. This blog is run by Whim (responsible for world/system design and artificial intelligence).

Having a spot through which I can keep you all updated on ongoing developments and foster further Nodeka-related discussion should benefit us all, players and developers alike. I'll talk a little bit more about our plans for this blog in upcoming weeks, as the wheels are set into motion. Once again, welcome to the Sixth Sense, and thanks for being a part of the world of Nodeka!