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jack1974 Jul 14, 2014
strange, only one shop displays the fame correctly:

Hm really weird. Send saves please, want to check :) I don't know how could happen, seems like the shop weren't updated to use the Fame from the right Season, but I am looking at the code right now and should work :o
I sorted my driver problem but the low FPS is still there. Mind you though it was worse before you made the combat log change and I had a long fight. This is just "a little slow" all the time. The thing is, given that my software didn't actually check for drivers since early April, I've run act one (pro FPS) and act two (low FPS) with the same drivers, so yeah...

OK, to make this second act/build I actually updated Ren'Py, so might be that the cause. I'll ask the coder. Here I didn't notice any difference, but I have an Ati, I should check on my other PC with an nVidia card.
Update on Chalassa's damage: I guess it's just a matter of a multiplier cap because bigger [ranged] weapons help, but all the +attack I pump into her just goes to waste. I'm not friends with multiplier caps, for the record.

Yes, exactly you always max the damage with her, that's why was always displaying same damage against different opponents. That's what happens in Nightmare mode :lol: The extra attack "goes to waste" against those low HP enemies, but against bosses with more HP they'll matter :)
More than likely you have a noted this missing imgage: (lol not reading through 20 pages lol)

I actually missed that, thanks :)
First fight with skeletons says Chalassa is required but she volunteered to stay at the arena.

Oops, is a problem of a previous condition that isn't cleared, will check now.
I see you've added the trait changes, but they don't seem to be retroactive. Riley had the +MP trait before you changed it. He no longer meets the requirements for it, yet he has 206 mana. Without the trait there's no way his mana shouldn't be a multiple of 5.

Yes, unfortunately if you already unlocked the traits, you have it sooner than expected :oops:
When I leave for the bathhouse and the Dingirran asks where we think we're going, I get the impression he's mad because I'm a slave walking away from the arena without permission or something. I didn't quite feel like I had walked anywhere since the background didn't change. (omg i said something about plot)

True will do a BG change :)
Okay, and this is srs. Jack, I get the feeling, the very very distinct feeling, that you are penalizing mage damage in the steam tunnels too. Which onehander is my druid supposed to use in place of her staff?

Ah right. Need to check. Two handed weapons, but using mages/magic attacks you shouldn't get the penalty :lol:
yayswords Jul 14, 2014
So you're saying Chalassa should be able to get a higher multiplier on bosses? Those mobs didn't have the same health either you know, and yet not a single point of damage difference.



:DD Why do I get a discount at the northern tavern? I caused a fukin brawl there and wasn't even allowed in for a while. The others charge me full price.



Skeletons feel weak by the way. My ranger has more magic than the mages. My druid has twice the defense of the warriors. Riley nearly has the same attack as the archer. This can't be right.



Lorecrime! Riley: "What on earth are you talking about?" The planet is called Aravorn, not Earth.



One random monster pack is like 20 xp per member for a full party. Quests are 1k. Pretty sure the difference wasn't this large in act one.
jack1974 Jul 14, 2014
So you're saying Chalassa should be able to get a higher multiplier on bosses? Those mobs didn't have the same health either you know, and yet not a single point of damage difference.

I don't know at this point. I know that she does the most damage per weapon with that insane attack value you have. Better weapon=more damage. Makes sense to me. :lol:

I'm seriously thinking to go back to the old Planet Stronghold system on next RPG. Attack 20 - Defense / Armor 10 = 10 dmg. Stop. Plain simple. Much easier and would avoid thousands tweaks! :?

:DD Why do I get a discount at the northern tavern? I caused a fukin brawl there and wasn't even allowed in for a while. The others charge me full price.

Like in real life, there isn't a "standard price". Each tavern has different prices and also restores different amounts if you check.

Skeletons feel weak by the way. My ranger has more magic than the mages. My druid has twice the defense of the warriors. Riley nearly has the same attack as the archer. This can't be right.

Yes skeletons were in act1 so to balance there it was screwed here. I'll replace them with "Skeleton V2" (same images/skills but different stats).



One random monster pack is like 20 xp per member for a full party. Quests are 1k. Pretty sure the difference wasn't this large in act one.

Because you had 3 characters, so in act1 you would get 60xp instead. But anyway I had lower XP on quests initially, but then I noticed that the leveling was going too slow, so I raised that since was the easiest way without "losing control". I know quests are done so is easier to increase their XP rather than monsters :)
jack1974 Jul 14, 2014
Yes I checked, all fine. There's a 2.0 multiplier damage cap. Say your weapons 1:1 damage is 16, you get 32 (the x2 multiplier) against all enemies because your attack is so much higher than their defenses. The thing is you shouldn't be able to hit that easily, especially with melee. So in practice: Chalassa is overpowered :) She is supposed to be strong of course but maybe I've exaggerated a bit! Will probably reduce her starting attributes a bit!
yayswords Jul 14, 2014
I recall suggesting something like:



Same attack and defense: Normal damage

25% higher attack: 25% higher damage (+25% attack for +25% damage)

75% higher attack: 50% higher damage (another +50% attack for another +25% damage)

150% higher attack: 75% higher damage (another +75% attack for another +25% damage)

300% higher attack: Double damage (another +150% attack attack for another +25% damage)



You get the idea, it becomes increasingly more expensive to improve your damage, without there being a definite cap anywhere. You can always pursue more damage, but you will give up more and more for it. That way I can choose where to stop. Right now you are choosing for me.


The thing is you shouldn't be able to hit that easily, especially with melee. So in practice: Chalassa is overpowered

Yes I reach it easily. I can buff Chalassa with Acrobatics, Rally and Protect, but she never needs all three to hit damage cap. However the damage at the cap isn't particularly thrilling...



Maybe if I used that capped damage with No Escapes but I don't have it.



I spent too long on this post. What was my plan for this battle? Vaelis does what? Tell me :(
jack1974 Jul 14, 2014
Well it really works like that in practice. It's proportional, 1:1 defense normal damage, and then progressively higher. 111 attack vs 32 defense is indeed 300% the difference :)

The thing I wanted to achieve with Chalassa is different from the other classes: she can use only daggers or short swords, so they have less dmg than say normal broadswords (or 2h weapons of course). BUT she is much faster, so she can hit more often, and also because of her buffs can reach higher attack. But after seeing your screenshots I realized is too easy, as you say enough to stack Acrobatics, Rally and Protect, and she's invincible.

So I need to tweak her character a bit. Combat code is fine :)
yayswords Jul 14, 2014
Don't get so caught up on the specific numbers :P obviously I don't wanna have to have quadruple the attack to do double damage. What I want is to always get SOME damage for more attack, even if the benefits shrink and shrink. I wanna decide when it's no longer worth giving up other stats for more damage. Kind of how attributes are working already. Sure your favorite stat hits 20 quickly, but after that, are you gonna keep pumping it at half efficiency or get some secondary ones?



Also Krimm's Finishing Blow is kinda funny. It's very hard to bring a monster to that sweet spot where it's better than a normal attack. The damage sucks until like 1/3 mob HP, at which point it might do more damage than a normal attack, but still less damage/delay. And then you bring it a little lower and you get http://i.imgur.com/otSo6Nj.jpg, which is hilarious to see but obviously a normal attack would do the job again.



P.S. Chalassa's flashback: I skipped all 5 guards yet only one joined the battle. Happened when I skipped 2 or 3 too. Plus those that join are in the backrow sucking anyway. Oh and it's really poor wording that Chalassa says it will cost her "Stamina Points" to assassinate guards. She's talking to the twin, not the player.
fabulaparva Jul 14, 2014

wrote:

Okay, and this is srs. Jack, I get the feeling, the very very distinct feeling, that you are penalizing mage damage in the steam tunnels too. Which onehander is my druid supposed to use in place of her staff?


Ah right. Need to check. Two handed weapons, but using mages/magic attacks you shouldn't get the penalty :lol:

I think I definitely noticed this as well on magic bolts and most likely also on my druid's elemental nukes. None of my mages were resurrected in there, so I didn't get to compare the power before and after and see if the 2H-penalty vanished from them, too, like it did vanish from Krimm. :P



I finished Act II in NM-mode, but I must've missed some kills, quests or areas, as most of my chars were left on level 12 at the end, instead of somewhere between 13 and the maximum of 14.

I didn't see any bonuses for completing all the quests. My logbook shows *9* new completed quests. The tileset counter shows that there should be 8 on the area.

Also, just before I return to the arena for the last time, it shows that I've found 9/12 areas. So something's not adding up if I've done 9 quests but haven't found 3 areas. :?:



In general, I think that the difficulty was good for NM-mode. Some individual fights felt a bit over the top. Most difficult ones were:

+ The lizardmen in the sewers (especially if one happened to get 3 mages at the same time)

+ Assassin boss (I read that the arena slaves aggression-level was lowered after I got through that part and the assassin boss, so this might be fine now )

+ Kiduu -fighters... considering that it's just the start of the act, when you have the luck of getting 6 of them :P

+ Getting out of the Lugal area in the beginning of the act, if you repeatedly counter 3 of them



Final boss fight was on the easy side. Not sure if I should blame Jariel or Rowinda for that. :lol:



There were some fights that might've benefitted or suffered from bugs, though. Like the fact that Krimm got all her powers back in the tunnels after a resurrection...but then again if the mages were penalized too... hard to judge. Also, one could cheat with the bombs since they can be thrown at the back row again....which is a bug. :P





Question about Chalassa's personal quest: How does the number of guards you kill affect the number of guards joining the fight in the end? I only left 1 alive, but still 3 of those romanced-to-death guards joined the fight.



And...an anatomical question: Why do all the male elves have nipples but the Dingirran males (Riley & master of the pits) don't?



I'll post some general feedback on the skills a bit later. Should I put it here or in the skills thread? :P
yayswords Jul 14, 2014
Just make a new thread for skills, our 9001 page threads probably look imposing for some people and I don't even remember what we talked about in the old one. Probably half of it was about Invigorating Prayer.
jack1974 Jul 14, 2014
Yes but you're talking about NORMAL ATTACKS! that's the point :) reaching x2 multiplier with those shouldn't be actually easy at all. With special skills/attacks, OK. If you could do more than x2 with normal attacks... would screw up everything.

The combat code is fine and I'm not touching that ever again. Also because wouldn't be possible, I would had to rebalance act1 again, and game would never be out, etc etc as you know. So I can tweak the characters or the enemies if needed. I've already reduced Chalassa skills now, is too powerful honestly.

And you say giving up adding attack. Yes maybe in this act. If in act3 enemies have 100 defense? then it wouldn't be wasted.



Krimm's finishing blow can use some tweaking too as well, I didn't check it much. Going to do more tests. At the end (when target has low HP) yes, it should always be fun to see though :lol:
jack1974 Jul 14, 2014

I think I definitely noticed this as well on magic bolts and most likely also on my druid's elemental nukes. None of my mages were resurrected in there, so I didn't get to compare the power before and after and see if the 2H-penalty vanished from them, too, like it did vanish from Krimm. :P

Yes I'm fixing that now :) also good that you remembered me of the "vanish on kill" thing, forgot to check that :)

I finished Act II in NM-mode, but I must've missed some kills, quests or areas, as most of my chars were left on level 12 at the end, instead of somewhere between 13 and the maximum of 14.

Well wait, that's MY ESTIMATE :) so you need to tell me. Also, I didn't implement the XP bonus if you do all the quests and discover all locations, so you're missing that too. I want to get some feedback from people to see what is the max number of locations/quests they can reach, and then code the bonus (won't be that big but I think at least 1000XP).

In general, I think that the difficulty was good for NM-mode. Some individual fights felt a bit over the top. Most difficult ones were:

+ The lizardmen in the sewers (especially if one happened to get 3 mages at the same time)

+ Assassin boss (I read that the arena slaves aggression-level was lowered after I got through that part and the assassin boss, so this might be fine now )

+ Kiduu -fighters... considering that it's just the start of the act, when you have the luck of getting 6 of them :P

+ Getting out of the Lugal area in the beginning of the act, if you repeatedly counter 3 of them

The lizardmen are due to the bug of caster's damage because considers the staff 2h weapon. Now that I'm fixing this, should be much easier: ice spell of Druid went from 6 to 34 :lol:

I'm mostly worried about the Kiduu and the Lugal, since happens early in the story, so might make those easier, at least during the first part (it should be like that in last update though, maybe you played it before).

Final boss fight was on the easy side. Not sure if I should blame Jariel or Rowinda for that. :lol:

OK. That should be hard. Though I think might wait for Anima new AI battlecode to make a very bastard Yeldin that debuffs all your party members :mrgreen:



There were some fights that might've benefitted or suffered from bugs, though. Like the fact that Krimm got all her powers back in the tunnels after a resurrection...but then again if the mages were penalized too... hard to judge. Also, one could cheat with the bombs since they can be thrown at the back row again....which is a bug. :P

Yes definitely!! Damn bombs :lol:



Question about Chalassa's personal quest: How does the number of guards you kill affect the number of guards joining the fight in the end? I only left 1 alive, but still 3 of those romanced-to-death guards joined the fight.

I think you stumbled in a bug, sometimes would show up an extra guard. There should be guard left alive + 1 (or 2, don't remember now). So 1 alive = 3 might be right :)

And...an anatomical question: Why do all the male elves have nipples but the Dingirran males (Riley & master of the pits) don't?

Ah they don't have them? lol I didn't even notice!

I'll post some general feedback on the skills a bit later. Should I put it here or in the skills thread? :P

Yes probably better! I'm tweaking some Chalassa's skills but want to hear about the others too.
yayswords Jul 14, 2014
Also because wouldn't be possible, I would had to rebalance act1 again, and game would never be out, etc etc as you know.

Yeah, and that is the only argument in that post I am buying too. Have you seen these damage caps in any other game? Can you name one where you can increase your offensive stats but not get more damage out of it? If you know any, you're gonna need them for the Loren 2 megapost :)



P.S. Don't nerf Bleeding Strike or I can't do her flashback quest again :(
renke_ Jul 14, 2014
strange, only one shop displays the fame correctly:

Hm really weird. Send saves please, want to check :) I don't know how could happen, seems like the shop weren't updated to use the Fame from the right Season, but I am looking at the code right now and should work :o

just mailed you the save game
jack1974 Jul 14, 2014
Well perhaps in the other games is still done but in a different way, like less freedom and always balancing enemy defense so you never hit the max cap, etc. I think here the problem was the initial design, with all this relative damage stuff. Not sure, for sure games with big teams have more time to think about everything, not me sadly :mrgreen:

Actually I could do a SMALL TWEAK, put a code that works only in act2 and forward. So I wouldn't need to worry about act1 :) I might do that, just a small increase for any extra attack. But still your Chalassa's values are really out of the norm!! :lol:



Maybe send me the saves so I can check ?



Bleeding Strike is fine, is No Chances and Acrobatics that are too powerful :)



renke:thanks!
yayswords Jul 14, 2014
Hmm, I don't find Acrobatics overpowered. I don't use it that much. Obviously if all +attack modifiers are multiplicative (= if Protect, Rally and Acrobatics give a 1.3*1.2*1.2=1.872=+87% attack bonus) then it's an ingredient in that soup.



On the fire demon in the steam tunnels (I said sewers I know :P) Chalassa's bleed hit the tick cap (5% health/tick) without any attack buffs. And that's really powerful against a boss. I'm gonna find a suitable save for you if I can anyway.



The Master of the Pits is making your game too easy for me. I never buy consumables but now I'm gonna do it just so he can't take my gold. Bastard.
renke_ Jul 14, 2014
Obviously if all +attack modifiers are multiplicative (= if Protect, Rally and Acrobatics give a 1.3*1.2*1.2=1.872=+87% attack bonus) then it's an ingredient in that soup.

afaik they are additive 1 (base) + .3 + .2 + .2 = 1.7 - but salted with some limits (both lower and upper bounds) and divided by target's defence with random factors.
jack1974 Jul 14, 2014
Yes that's the problem, most buffs stacks. In many RPGs, buffs don't stack. This because I defined the buffs differently, let's say if I had "Attack Bonus", then I could have it trigger with Rally, etc etc so they would just stack the duration, but not the effects. Instead I wanted to be able to see clearly what are the effects of each skill, but I realize it was a mistake now.

But is a bit too late to change that :lol:

Anyway, I'm going to go on like this. I checked the hours amount I spent on this game and is insane, double than Loren and I had already the engine ready and knew it well. I will already raise price by +$5 when I release it, but if I spend even more time then I should price it at $50 to make worth my time, and it would be a commercial suicide, so... nah won't ever touch again the combat code. Only tweaking skills will be enough, will probably already take a week of works just that minimum!
fabulaparva Jul 14, 2014

Also, I didn't implement the XP bonus if you do all the quests and discover all locations, so you're missing that too. I want to get some feedback from people to see what is the max number of locations/quests they can reach, and then code the bonus (won't be that big but I think at least 1000XP).

Well, I'll probably play next in Easy/Normal-mode, right from the start of Act 1, I'll report back on how high can I get the levels then. :P This one I started from an old NM-mode save, where I hadn't reached quite the maximum possible XP for Act 1, so that might have a tiny effect as well.
I'm mostly worried about the Kiduu and the Lugal, since happens early in the story, so might make those easier, at least during the first part (it should be like that in last update though, maybe you played it before).

I definitely did play it before the updates, I played the first 3 quests of the act with 0.8.11.

Final boss fight was on the easy side. Not sure if I should blame Jariel or Rowinda for that. :lol:

OK. That should be hard. Though I think might wait for Anima new AI battlecode to make a very bastard Yeldin that debuffs all your party members :mrgreen:

Once he had "multiplied", he did take 2 of my party members out in one strike, but that was pretty much it. I debuffed him way more than he debuffed me. :P




And...an anatomical question: Why do all the male elves have nipples but the Dingirran males (Riley & master of the pits) don't?

Ah they don't have them? lol I didn't even notice!

Well, Master of the Pits in Act I kind of made me except that none of them would have them... I just didn't want to say anything about him before, because he has that huge scar on his chest (although it's not located so that it would explain such a "handicap"), accidents happen on the arena etc etc...... aaaaand I'll better stop now :P
yayswords Jul 14, 2014
Dialogue gave me the impression I would heal to full between dwarf and elf pitfights. Didn't happen. Intended?
jack1974 Jul 14, 2014

Well, I'll probably play next in Easy/Normal-mode, right from the start of Act 1, I'll report back on how high can I get the levels then. :P This one I started from an old NM-mode save, where I hadn't reached quite the maximum possible XP for Act 1, so that might have a tiny effect as well.

All right that will be helpful. Just to be clear the quest/locations are reset on every season though.

I definitely did play it before the updates, I played the first 3 quests of the act with 0.8.11.

Ah actually I only changed the level but the amount is the same, I mean is random but you could stumble into 6 of them. I think will make them even more easy for the first round of exploration on next update :)
Dialogue gave me the impression I would heal to full between dwarf and elf pitfights. Didn't happen. Intended?

Ah no, you should heal fully indeed. Going to check!