Gameplay -- Overpowered

[khan]

The only reason I was able to kill it is using my Uber Marksman (will post later when I've killed Balacia), but also relates to something V said in another thread about his young Angel finding it to easy - I don't think the general balance is to bad, but ranged builds are easy once you get going.

[Gando]

I hesitate to say this for fear of breaking character but I think the reds may be slightly overpowered for their misfortune level now that you buffed them up a bit. I am not in anyway against strong reds but as I understand them you want people to risk death and mayhem for wearing even one. As it is I have 3 at misfortune:1 that are good enough to give leveling to and wear. As I said I hesitate to say it because imho the players need ALL the help they can get against the monsters now but I am concerned that your concept of reds may become irrelevant if I only need to wear misfortune 1 items and only worry about the lowest level Red mobs. (Who I know are dangerous as all get out but still can be avoided/run from without fear of instadeath upon sighting.)

[Variaz]

Nov 13, 2010 7:23:11 GMT -5 Gando said:

I hesitate to say this for fear of breaking character but I think the reds may be slightly overpowered for their misfortune level now that you buffed them up a bit. I am not in anyway against strong reds but as I understand them you want people to risk death and mayhem for wearing even one. As it is I have 3 at misfortune:1 that are good enough to give leveling to and wear. As I said I hesitate to say it because imho the players need ALL the help they can get against the monsters now but I am concerned that your concept of reds may become irrelevant if I only need to wear misfortune 1 items and only worry about the lowest level Red mobs. (Who I know are dangerous as all get out but still can be avoided/run from without fear of instadeath upon sighting.)

Remember that the Misfortune adds up. And right now, only Nightmare Scout is in this release. You say your Misfortune is 3, and in the future releases, this is going to unlock more Nightmares. Nightmare Scout can be avoided fairly easily if you have telepathy, but things like Phantom of Misery who can move through walls, or Nightmare Shadow Mistress who can teleport to you if you get in her line of sight, are more difficult to avoid.

Of course, the right balance has to be found. My goal is to make red items risky, but not to the point where they must be avoided at all cost. One red, for example, shouldn't mean instant death on sight. If they are too weak, they are not worth it. If they are too powerful, of course, they need to be nerfed, but we must be careful to keep them above the normal purples.

[Gando]

So Nightmare Scout is CR 4??? I was wondering why it was able to so easily one shot me after appearing in the distance, before I even noticed it. Not nice. At all.

[Gando]

Nov 9, 2010 9:15:17 GMT -5 Variaz said:

Nov 9, 2010 2:37:39 GMT -5 khan said:

Just killed my first Nightmare Scout (don't ask about number of attempts please - Nightmare scouts seem much harder) and used the Licialhyd to make a new item. Item ended up with approx +3000 strength, +3000 Intelligence and +3000 in a skill. Very overpowered I thought. It had a misfortune level of 48 , where the largest I've found by normal means is 3. I think this is because the Licialhyd had a power of 40.

More like a bug. I have changed the way Misfortune works, but did not adapt the Nightmare Licialhyd. To be honest, I wasn't really expecting that NS would be beaten in the alpha!

Yes that is quite an achievement considering it is a CR 4! Incredibly nasty being able to clone itself at will and thus ensure your destruction unless you could somehow 1hit it. (seems very unlikely.) I tried to confront one with my level 30monk and found myself unable to hit it or even cast a spell at it. So How it was done would be greatly desired. After all this is an alpha test. It might be there is a flaw that we need to test.

[khan]

Using my kobold marksmans (20 levels of Piercing Shots, 10 levels of Accurate Shots), duel wielding crossbows I get 12 shots a turn. I am also quite fast, so wait around a corner, shoot nightmare scout jump to next corner, repeat. The accurate shots mean I usually hit. It takes a while, but the scout never gets a dark ball or fire ball off and if you use passages to confront the scout in, it doesn't seem to summon more scouts.

[Gando]

Nov 15, 2010 4:57:09 GMT -5 khan said:

Using my kobold marksmans (20 levels of Piercing Shots, 10 levels of Accurate Shots), duel wielding crossbows I get 12 shots a turn. I am also quite fast, so wait around a corner, shoot nightmare scout jump to next corner, repeat. The accurate shots mean I usually hit. It takes a while, but the scout never gets a dark ball or fire ball off and if you use passages to confront the scout in, it doesn't seem to summon more scouts.

Ah well that quite explains it. Thanks. *notes as someone who dislikes how ranged weapons work in Port I may have to revise my outlook to be able to play the newer versions.*

[Variaz]

Nov 15, 2010 4:57:09 GMT -5 khan said:

Using my kobold marksmans (20 levels of Piercing Shots, 10 levels of Accurate Shots), duel wielding crossbows I get 12 shots a turn. I am also quite fast, so wait around a corner, shoot nightmare scout jump to next corner, repeat. The accurate shots mean I usually hit. It takes a while, but the scout never gets a dark ball or fire ball off and if you use passages to confront the scout in, it doesn't seem to summon more scouts.

I am curious though: at what depth did you kill it? (it's easier if you kill it at lower depths) And how much speed do you have? You say you were fast, however, NS isn't exactly slow(it gains +1 speed every 3 levels, starting at +20 I believe). I'm asking because the instant you have it in it's line of sight, it should have YOU in it's line as well, and should have been able to cast at you. (of course, it doesn't have 100% cast rate, but it doesn't really take more than one shot. )

I don't really want speed to be overpowered to the point where you can kill everything if it can get too high too quickly. Speed has dimishing returns, and doesn't provide any benefits past +80, but I don't want it to be too powerful early on. Also, 12 shots seems like a lot. I'm assuming it's 6 shots with two crossbows? Did you obtain them through levelables and rings of extra shot? (the only way you SHOULD be able to get it)

[challtdow]

You can get 5 shots from Piercing Shots lvl 20 so if he also has 40pts in shooting that would give him 6 per xbow without any bonuses from equipment.

Chall T. Dow

[Variaz]

Nov 15, 2010 12:14:00 GMT -5 challtdow said:

You can get 5 shots from Piercing Shots lvl 20 so if he also has 40pts in shooting that would give him 6 per xbow without any bonuses from equipment.

Chall T. Dow

If that's true, then it doesn't work as intended. It will give you 5 "Maximum Shots", but to get the actual shots, you need to get them from an external source(such as items, Shooting skill, etc...). That's how it was intended to work.

[challtdow]

Ah, I missread the discription then. I haven't used it myself so I'm not sure how it works in-game.

Chall T. Dow

[khan]

Nov 15, 2010 9:58:52 GMT -5 Variaz said:

Nov 15, 2010 4:57:09 GMT -5 khan said:

Using my kobold marksmans (20 levels of Piercing Shots, 10 levels of Accurate Shots), duel wielding crossbows I get 12 shots a turn. I am also quite fast, so wait around a corner, shoot nightmare scout jump to next corner, repeat. The accurate shots mean I usually hit. It takes a while, but the scout never gets a dark ball or fire ball off and if you use passages to confront the scout in, it doesn't seem to summon more scouts.

I am curious though: at what depth did you kill it? (it's easier if you kill it at lower depths) And how much speed do you have? You say you were fast, however, NS isn't exactly slow(it gains +1 speed every 3 levels, starting at +20 I believe). I'm asking because the instant you have it in it's line of sight, it should have YOU in it's line as well, and should have been able to cast at you. (of course, it doesn't have 100% cast rate, but it doesn't really take more than one shot. )

I don't really want speed to be overpowered to the point where you can kill everything if it can get too high too quickly. Speed has dimishing returns, and doesn't provide any benefits past +80, but I don't want it to be too powerful early on. Also, 12 shots seems like a lot. I'm assuming it's 6 shots with two crossbows? Did you obtain them through levelables and rings of extra shot? (the only way you SHOULD be able to get it)

I can't remember at what level I killed it (but it was fairly soon after killing Quazer).

As to 'line of sight' if you are round the corner like this:

u
X
X@

you can get him, he can't get you. Get a couple of corners together and jump between them.

Got the necessary shots with 40 points in shooting, 2 rings of extra shot and two levelled crossbows (using scrolls of level item). It did take a while to get the 6 shots necessary to fully use the points I put into piercing shots.
Even using this technique I had multiple deaths, until I killed one (as if he gets round the corner and gets another action before I do ...)
Because the fireballs and darkballs pierce defences one shot is always enough (is there any defence against this apart from insane hitpoints?)
I have to admit I'm not sure its worth the effort and I'm not carrying around any reds any more.
At the moment I don't think it's possible for a melee character to get close, although I've not tried it. In previous builds low level nightmares where not this tough (not easy though either).
I don't think speed is overpowered, but ranged is at higher levels (and the higher my level gets the more overpowered it seems to get)

[khan]

Nov 15, 2010 12:14:00 GMT -5 challtdow said:

You can get 5 shots from Piercing Shots lvl 20 so if he also has 40pts in shooting that would give him 6 per xbow without any bonuses from equipment.

Chall T. Dow

Level 20 in piercing shots gives you 6 shots, 1 for every 4 levels (4, 8, 12, 16 and 20) PLUS one at the first level. That's the way I read from the description and the way it's coded, but I could be misinterpreting and the extra shot could be unintentional.

[Variaz]

As to 'line of sight' if you are round the corner like this:

u
X
X@

you can get him, he can't get you. Get a couple of corners together and jump between them.

I am pretty sure monsters can cast at you at this position. I'm sure I've seen it. If they don't, then this will need to be fixed. Monsters shouldn't have blind spots.

What I want to confirm is if you just had a speed advantage, you were lucky(that would be surprising since it casts 50% of the time, unless it really took you only a few rounds to kill it), or if it's really a blind spot problem. If it's a blind spot, it needs to be fixed.


As for ranged characters, they probably get too many extra shots right now, especially for dual wielding. It probably needs to be toned down a bit.

However, I believe you are using Viper Crossbows, right? Remember that these crossbows haven't been officially ported to 0.5 yet, and their damage modifiers is still the old 500%, compared to the normal 100% for a Light Crossbow. Overpowered, when you think that the first actual in-game 500% one-handed ranged weapon is a depth 90 GUN. So, we need to take that into account too!

Try to use normal Light Crossbows, and it probably won't be as overpowered anymore. In any cases, 12 shots is probably too much at that point, so I will look into ways of lowering that.

[khan]

It's not a problem restricted to monsters we have the same blind spot. If you reverse the positions, you can't see them (without telepathy), but they can see you and fire at you. If you do have telepathy you still can't hit them using normal targeting as your shot hits the wall, but if you have a ball spell you can fire at the wall and they get hit with the splash. Is it a problem when both sides have it in the same position. The only reason it works against the computer is that you can sit and wait for them to appear at the corner where as the computer AI will always advance towards you. I think this is just one situation where human is better than computer (we have to have some advantages right .

I had figured out about the viper crossbows being overpowered and had lowered their power to 200%, but I agree the I think the number of shots need a SMALL nerf.