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

[Terraziel]

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

Yep they effect shields. That's probably why it is framed as "+X% power" rather than "+X% damage"

[keith.lamothe]

The +Damage enchants already don't affect Nightfall.

Right, but it doesn't hurt Nightfall either.  +cooldown or +mana-cost would.

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.

But how would that work with ice cross, etc?

[Terraziel]

But how would that work with ice cross, etc?

I get the feeling that dealing with those sort of issues was how you ended up with crests system in the first place

[Penumbra]

For even numbers of projectiles, the logic could be to adjust 10 degrees in either direction and fire both. So, a fireball would become less accurate due to the spread at long range. With an odd number, the center would be on target, with the others spreading around it.

In the case of Ice Cross, you would rotate the cross slightly. With 2 projectiles, you would get, in effect, two long, skinny X's. The Fire Nova spell would get more coverage.

Meteor shower would be awesome.

I don't know what to do about shields. But, as an enchant is doesn't have to be good for all cases. I only ever use acid gills underwater. This could be a player decided situational enchant instead of environmental.

[Terraziel]

Just because I'm interested in seeing what you can come up with, how about what would it do to Teleport?

[Oralordos]

Meteor shower would be awesome.

Now I want to see what that would be like. Rain of doom anyone?

[Penumbra]

Just because I'm interested in seeing what you can come up with, how about what would it do to Teleport?

You end up with a Thomas Riker situation.

[Wanderer]

Just because I'm interested in seeing what you can come up with, how about what would it do to Teleport?

You end up with a Thomas Riker situation.

A perfect reference, we'll see how many of the kids even know what you're talking about.

[keith.lamothe]

But how would that work with ice cross, etc?

I get the feeling that dealing with those sort of issues was how you ended up with crests system in the first place

Crests predated enchants, but yes, it does lead back that way, doesn't it?


And Forked Teleport would be so hilarious.  Poor Riker.

[Terraziel]

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.

Out of general interest how much hassle would this actually be? yes, "Major Implementation Pain" is pretty explicit, but having been trying to come up with some enchants being able to limit them to certain spell types adds a lot of flexibility, ie enchants which only buff shield spells or melee spells.

[keith.lamothe]

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.

Out of general interest how much hassle would this actually be? yes, "Major Implementation Pain" is pretty explicit, but having been trying to come up with some enchants being able to limit them to certain spell types adds a lot of flexibility, ie enchants which only buff shield spells or melee spells.

Making the current stats work selectively on different spells would probably be about half a day.  Making it show up reliably in the interface in an intelligible way... not sure if it ever would

A more workable solution would be to define new enchant-effect stats (e.g. "ShieldStrength", "MeleePower", etc) so there wouldn't be any selective recomputation of enchant effects per-spell; we could just use the totals of those new stats and only apply them to the corresponding spells.  Probably less than an hour per stat (including adding the stat to existing enchants; adding a whole new enchant type takes more time because of art, achievements, etc), unless there's some odd wrinkle.

[Penumbra]

Could we have "Offensive Mana Cost", "Logistical Cooldown" etc.?

[keith.lamothe]

Could we have "Offensive Mana Cost", "Logistical Cooldown" etc.?

In theory; they don't sounds like very compelling names on the display, but I guess much the same could be said of some of the AI War abilities, which nonetheless are interesting gameplay.

[Penumbra]

That's why Diablo and its ilk use the prefix/suffix thing. Instead of:

Jewel with 33% attack rating vs. demons, 25% damage vs. demons, + 20 poison damage over 5 seconds

Would instead be:

Diamond Jewel of Envy

Separate "Informative and boring" from "cool and catchy" with a well defined mapping of properties.