SpottedShroom's wish list

[SpottedShroom]

I figure I'll start a topic for my wishlist and then come back and revise the top post as necessary. Here's my top list:

• Rework Dodge and Armor skills. There are three kinds of defense in the game: AR, DR, and percent miss chance. There only needs to be one. Dodge and Armor skills should improve AR, relative to what you're wearing - you have to wear armor to get AR from Armor skill, and wearing armor will reduce AR from Dodge.
• Do not nerf (just) mages. 5 MP/turn regeneration makes for a powerful character, but an archer with insane levels of Bow skill is even stronger - does more damage per attack, and has (effectively) no limit to the number of attacks he can make. If mages get toned down, other classes should be too.
• Balance ability scores. Endurance and Perception are by far the best use of ability points, and every class should spend most of them here. Wisdom and Intelligence are necessary for spellcasters to a point, as is Strength for heavy armor wearers. The others are (comparatively) useless.
• Balance skills. Medicine and Meditation are poor because Endurance and Perception do the same thing, and ability points are less useful than skill points. Lore, Pick locks, and Skullduggery are poor because (comparatively) low level spells do the same thing better - you're better off spending points on Arcane. Move Silently is poor because it's unnecessary - with enough Hide in Shadows it doesn't matter how noisy you are.
• Balance spells. As mentioned above, Lore, Lockmelt, and Trapkill are so good they devalue the skills. Turn Undead and Toxic Element are just not very good. There are too many redundant damage spells.
• Improved/varied enemy AI. There seem to be three AI routines for enemies in Book II: melee, ranged, and flee. It would be nice to see some more variety to distinguish enemies. Smarter ones might not just rush you, for example, but organize themselves to hit you all at once. Melee fighters could get in your way to protect archers, etc.
• Increased randomness. Enemy numbers/placement is the one I've seen mentioned, and it seems like a good idea. More randomness means more replay value.
• More NPCs/social interaction. I know this is a tall order for a one-man development team, but it can't hurt to ask, right?

[IJBall]

I figure I'll start a topic for my wishlist and then come back and revise the top post as necessary.

I plan to start some separate threads on aspects of Book III's gameplay that I'd like to discuss/hope to see. But your thread's a good start.

Here's my top list:

• Rework Dodge and Armor skills. There are three kinds of defense in the game: AR, DR, and percent miss chance. There only needs to be one. Dodge and Armor skills should improve AR, relative to what you're wearing - you have to wear armor to get AR from Armor skill, and wearing armor will reduce AR from Dodge.

I agree that Armor needs to be seriously reworked to make it better for Book III. Armor just hasn't worked very well in either Book I or Book II. I think we all have separate ideas on how that could work (I have one set of ideas, you have a second, I think Kreador has a third, etc.).

But I think how Armor, and Armor Rating, etc. should work in Book III is probably worthy of its own thread all on its own...

• Balance ability scores. Endurance and Perception are by far the best use of ability points, and every class should spend most of them here. Wisdom and Intelligence are necessary for spellcasters to a point, as is Strength for heavy armor wearers. The others are (comparatively) useless.

Concentration isn't useless, it's just subtle.
(And Intelligence is actually better than Wisdom - if it wasn't for Healer and Divination Magick, there'd be no use for Wisdom, whereas Intelligence does have other applications (e.g. Lore).)

But, as currently implemented, Speed is pretty nigh on useless. That's why some of us would like to see Speed tied into at least a few Skills (obvious choice: Dodge).

I think BW had an original conception for Speed (i.e. that it would literally allow your character to move faster (or slower) than mobs & NPCs as your Speed points increased, but I think it ended up being too hard to implement that way. As a result, out of all the Attributes, Speed has ended up being kind of "orphaned". Tying Speed into at least a few Skills would mitigate that a little.

• Balance skills. Medicine and Meditation are poor because Endurance and Perception do the same thing, and ability points are less useful than skill points. Lore, Pick Locks, and Skullduggery are poor because (comparatively) low level spells do the same thing better - you're better off spending points on Arcane. Move Silently is poor because it's unnecessary - with enough Hide in Shadows it doesn't matter how noisy you are.

The other issue is that a number of these Skills can be out and out replaced by certain Attributes - e.g. you don't even need Move Silently with high enough DEX; you don't even need Spot Hidden with high enough PER; your probably can get away without Skullduggery with high enough CONC; I guess Lore could be replaced by high enough INT; etc.

Survival/Medicine and Meditation have worked out poorly enough over both Books I & II that I almost think they should just maybe be cut for Book III - no point in keeping a couple of Skills around that few are going to use...

I'm not sure what the overall solution to this issue is. But it's worth keeping in mind...

• Balance spells. As mentioned above, Lore, Lockmelt, and Trapkill are so good they devalue the skills. Turn Undead and Toxic Element are just not very good. There are too many redundant damage spells.

I have a concurring issue with your last point - that there's little to differentiate Fire Dart and Fleshboil. One way to to that, aside from the fact that Fleshboil can't be cast on objects while Fire Dart can, would be to make Fleshboil also not work on the Undead.

Which gets to your other point - currently, what's the point of the Turn Undead spell?! Well, if Fleshboil (and Sunder Flesh) no longer work on the Undead, then Healers would have a real reason to want to get the Turn Undead spell. But, without that modification to Fleshboil/Sunder Flesh? - yeah, Turn Undead is not likely to be a spell you'll seek out.

Toxic Element can be fixed if Poison damage is made "progressive", which I think BW did with v1.05 of Book II (haven't tested that yet, to confirm...).

But, yeah - I'd like to see some more balance on the spells' end...

• Improved/varied enemy AI. There seem to be three AI routines for enemies in Book II: melee, ranged, and flee. It would be nice to see some more variety to distinguish enemies. Smarter ones might not just rush you, for example, but organize themselves to hit you all at once. Melee fighters could get in your way to protect archers, etc.
• Increased randomness. Enemy numbers/placement is the one I've seen mentioned, and it seems like a good idea. More randomness means more replay value.

Can't argue with either of these (esp. the latter, as (at least somewhat) random placement of mobs/items was my suggestion! ).

• More NPCs/social interaction. I know this is a tall order for a one-man development team, but it can't hurt to ask, right?

Yeah, I agree with this. I suspect BW is leery of doing this - but perhaps some of these tasks could be "outsourced" (e.g. to Crazy Bernie?...).

It's just a thought, but I feel like if there's a place where the "one man operation" has hampered game development somewhat is on the NPC end - there's only so much one guy can do, and if that guy is great at graphics and engine dev., then maybe the NPC stuff can be "farmed out" to one or two others...