Shields: Am I doin' it wrong? (or is regen not functioning properly?)

[Wanderer]

Alright, Shields.  They look great on paper...

Then you upgrade them to rank 1 or 2 and fire one up... and 8 seconds later (I counted) on a guy with 300 mana they've wiped out your mana pool and are gone, without you doing a single thing (I'm standing in the settlement).  Am I doin' this wrong? It costs 17 MP / second, and I regen 83 / second, it seems like I should be still able to net-gain MP here.  It's like it jams up the regen.

[x4000]

I need to look at why it says 17/s mana, but beyond that it's functioning correctly.

[Wanderer]

I need to look at why it says 17/s mana, but beyond that it's functioning correctly.

So, they're supposed to just poof very quickly?   Hm, I see.  Well, that goes in the 'waste of tier orbs' pile.  Well, maybe the fire one... depends on how fast I learn to use the 'quick spell' selectors coming into play.

[Martyn van Buren]

I dunno, I think they're pretty useful --- it isn't an invincibility power-up, but when you get caught by a ton of dragon breaths or have to charge down a hallway full of espers and snipers, three seconds of shield can come in pretty handy.

[zebramatt]

I just use it like a fighting game/God of War/Dark Souls -style parry system, and it works really well for that!

[x4000]

In for next version:

* In previous versions of the game (basically since forever, it seems), the "mana cost per second" of stuff like shields was being shown incorrectly on the interface.  But int he past it was subtle enough of a wrongness to not really jump out at people, because mana recharge was pretty slow.  However, in the latest version it was reporting that shields were costing 17 mana per second when it was really 125 mana per second.  That's, uh, not a small difference.  Fixed.


Yes, they're meant to be mostly a reflex-based thing.  They can be really useful, but they only give you a few seconds of protection while you run down a hall or whatever.

Thanks!

[mrhanman]

What if you had an always-on shield that reduced incoming damage by, say 10% (or less), but reduced your total mana pool by 25% (or more) while activated?  I realize that may be redundant since enchants can reduce damage, but it might add some versatility.

Or another, slightly more novel idea: make a shield that works something like the shields from Dune (fast attacks were blocked, but slow strikes could pass through).  You could have a shield that was effective against projectiles, but not melee attacks or vice versa.

[keith.lamothe]

What if you had an always-on shield that reduced incoming damage by, say 10% (or less), but reduced your total mana pool by 25% (or more) while activated?  I realize that may be redundant since enchants can reduce damage, but it might add some versatility.

We could add an enchant type that does something very similar (affecting spell mana costs, rather than mana pool size), if folks would like that   The Risktaker (+100% damage taken, +20-ish% damage done, stronger-than-average randomly added stats) is just the first example of what we can do in terms of a "tradeoff" enchant

[Terraziel]

We could add an enchant type that does something very similar (affecting spell mana costs, rather than mana pool size), if folks would like that   The Risktaker (+100% damage taken, +20-ish% damage done, stronger-than-average randomly added stats) is just the first example of what we can do in terms of a "tradeoff" enchant

Personally I've always thought some of the current enchants could use some negatives, as well as there being a need for some just negative enchant types, lowering knockback and projectile speed come to mind (for the projectile speed one, my logic is that it would let me use an extremely slow moving creeping death as a way of slaughtering bosses)

[keith.lamothe]

Personally I've always thought some of the current enchants could use some negatives

It's important to have the basic ones be pretty much completely positive or new players will shoot themselves in the foot (and I guess they could in theory pick up a risktaker as their first one, might need to change that), and also because it's a bit more fun if you're not always paying a pint of blood for an advantage.

But yea, I'm thinking most of the new enchant types going forward will be tradeoffs of some kind.  Probably won't have randomized negatives as that could just lead to total-junk (TM) because no matter how good something is it can still get messed up by random negatives.

as well as there being a need for some just negative enchant types, lowering knockback and projectile speed come to mind (for the projectile speed one, my logic is that it would let me use an extremely slow moving creeping death as a way of slaughtering bosses)

Yea, that would be interesting, though the ability to create a stationary (or nearly so) creeping death shot could be a bit OP depending on boss type and position (but maybe that's rare enough where it's not OP, it's just clever tactics?).

But those aren't really "negative" in the gameplay sense, they're buffs where the math includes a minus sign; there's already some of those: resilient form reduces damage taken, cloak of shadows reduces enemy detection range, etc.

But yea, shot speed is one of those things where there's no "positive" direction; usually you want higher values, but sometimes lower is better.

[Penumbra]

One thing to say about enchants having both positive and negative modifiers is that it will self-balance a bit. If you put a huge bonus that comes with an equally huge negative, it isn't as OP.

I have been thinking of another enchant that is an old staple of shooters, extra projectiles. It would be really cool to have a "+1 Projectile" enchant, but the straight doubling of damage would be totally over powered. If it came with a +100% Cooldown and +50% mana cost, it would be balanced-ish.

[keith.lamothe]

I have been thinking of another enchant that is an old staple of shooters, extra projectiles. It would be really cool to have a "+1 Projectile" enchant, but the straight doubling of damage would be totally over powered. If it came with a +100% Cooldown and +50% mana cost, it would be balanced-ish.

Yea, I've thought of doing those, and the mechanism is actually already there from the old crest system that was cut.  Also for adding homing to shots (but that only works with tab-targeting, otherwise what does it home in on?).

But having that affect all your spells isn't really a good thing, I think.  Particularly those spells to which it wouldn't apply (say, Nightfall, or shields, or whatever).  Granted, the cooldown/mana-cost debuff could just not apply to those too, but that would actually be a MAJOR implementation pain due to the way the enchant effects are coded.

So I still want to do effects like that, but I don't think the enchants system is a good fit for it.

[Terraziel]

Also for adding homing to shots (but that only works with tab-targeting, otherwise what does it home in on?).

Surely it would just use the same mechanics as clinging fetor?

[keith.lamothe]

Also for adding homing to shots (but that only works with tab-targeting, otherwise what does it home in on?).

Surely it would just use the same mechanics as clinging fetor?

Hadn't thought of that, as I didn't touch that, but yes, I suppose it could do that

[Penumbra]

But having that affect all your spells isn't really a good thing, I think.  Particularly those spells to which it wouldn't apply (say, Nightfall, or shields, or whatever).  Granted, the cooldown/mana-cost debuff could just not apply to those too, but that would actually be a MAJOR implementation pain due to the way the enchant effects are coded.

So I still want to do effects like that, but I don't think the enchants system is a good fit for it.

The +Damage enchants already don't affect Nightfall. (Do they have an effect on shields?)

I would imagine this would go on the right hand slot, which already affects damage, mana and cooldown.  What if this just did +1 projectile, -50% damage as a starting point, then it would interact with the non-damaging spells in the same manner.