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).
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Game updates: 3/28 - 4/5
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.
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.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Connection issues
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.
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.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Game update: 11/12
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. =)
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. =)
Monday, October 25, 2010
Game update: 10/25
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).
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).
Friday, October 1, 2010
Game update: 10/1
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. =)
'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. =)
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Featured Questions #8
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. =)
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. =)
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