Various small balance thoughts/suggestions/questions [1.8.1]

[sasbot]

Time to dump the list of things I was making note of along the way, that didn't necessarily stand out as bugs or big topics on their own:

1. Rings can boost thievery stat, but most characters do not have access to the ability
2. Selling scrolls and potions to a vendor will identify them (and you can buy them back if desired, but not so for mushrooms
3. Refilling oil lamps does not ask which one you want to refill, if you have multiple possible ones. (that being said, I never had it choose a lamp that I *didn't* want to refill, so it might be fine)
4. Curse of the leprechaun effect icon looks more like it has something to do with traps than gold
5. Nothing distinguishes the entry and exit portals on special levels (only seemed a problem on astral plane level, or if I saved/reloaded and didn't remember from yesterday)
6. Vampiric weapons (blacksmithing with onyx, or a few legendary weapons) still steal life from undead targets, which seems like it shouldn't really work
7. Swapping rings doesn't take any energy, so in theory you can swap out rings for every occasion, like gold-find rings before every gold stack, or melee damage before every attack etc etc. It never seemed worthwhile to me, but it is possible.
8. Sounds for eating food are played before the food gets eaten, like a vegetarian attempting to eat meat but being stopped by the trait
9. Typo "Halbred" => Halberd
10. The library special level can generate tiles that are unreachable without portal/ethreal/etc magic. But I only saw this on very large levels, and never with entrance/exit or nexus.
11. Unique item - 'The Bone Bow' has no special tooltip description, is it supposed to do something aside from shoot your arrows?
12. Genie lamps with traders inside don't let you know that they have a chance to disappear upon use (you just have to figure it out)
13. Genie lamps with traders inside can still be used by characters with outcast/pride, the only way I found that allowed such characters to buy anything. I like it though, by the time you find a lamp it won't imbalance anything. Maybe powerful beings such as genies don't care what the humans think of each other
14. Negative traits pride and outcast seem to have some overlap, and isn't particularly clear what all the different categories of NPCs are and what options still remain for characters with one but not the other.
15. Transforming into a crow or other forms doesn't seem to populate the hotbar with skills like stealth, only the button to end the transformation

[zefz]

Rings can boost thievery stat, but most characters do not have access to the ability

Yes there are a couple of items that only benefit those with the correct traits. Other example include items that boost sneaking og items that improve spell power (for characters with No Magic). I agree though that it would be annoying to find a good magic ring and discover it is only for thieves (like Gloves of Pickpocketing). You can still sell it for some cash though

Selling scrolls and potions to a vendor will identify them (and you can buy them back if desired, but not so for mushrooms

This was intentional. This is a way for players to identify items at vendors. But since mushrooms are so cheap, it would make them very easy to identify with no cost (and some mushrooms can be quite powerful). This would make traits like Herbalism kinda useless.

Refilling oil lamps does not ask which one you want to refill

I think it will pick the lamp that is most emtpy and refill it. It will never waste a flask on refilling a full lamp.

Curse of the leprechaun effect icon looks more like it has something to do with traps than gold

I can take a look if I can find a better graphic.

Nothing distinguishes the entry and exit portals on special levels

This is only an issue for the Demi-Plane. Since there is only one portal in the demi-plane I found it not to be a problem.

Vampiric weapons (blacksmithing with onyx, or a few legendary weapons) still steal life from undead targets, which seems like it shouldn't really work

Good point. But what about constructs like Golems?

Swapping rings doesn't take any energy

This was a small oversight by me and has been fixed.

Typo "Halbred" => Halberd

Fixed!

The library special level can generate tiles that are unreachable without portal/ethreal/etc magic.

There are some levels with inaccessible tiles yes. But the entrance and exit will always have a possible route (i.e you never need magic to finish the level).

Unique item - 'The Bone Bow' has no special tooltip description

I think what's special with this bow is that it has a high crit chance (+15%) which is highest of all ranged weapons in the game. Perhaps this seems underwhelming due to it being Unique and very rare.

[zefz]

Genie lamps with traders

Yes, the genie is magical creature which doesn't care that you are an outcast. I think the lamp can be used 3 times before it disappears from the inventory (or else it would be way to powerful!). It's similar to staves, rods and wands which may randomly break after usage.

Negative traits pride and outcast seem to have some overlap

Pride prevents you from getting help from the Friendly Wizard or using trainers, but not trading with merchants. Outcast prevents you from interacting with merchants as well. Most importantly pride prevents you from going back to the previous level.

[sasbot]

Negative traits pride and outcast seem to have some overlap

Pride prevents you from getting help from the Friendly Wizard or using trainers, but not trading with merchants. Outcast prevents you from interacting with merchants as well. Most importantly pride prevents you from going back to the previous level.

It certainly seems like pride is pretty close to a being a free build point for anyone who already took outcast. Personally I never bother going back upwards, unless maybe the nexus or sanctum is right by the downstairs. So for me it is always outcast + pride, never just outcast.

I can see the problem with splitting up the inability to go back up from the inability to use skill trainers - if no going back up were a flaw by itself, I would take it on every character ever for the "free" point

That thought kinda leads into another, build point inflation. If fine tuning of balance is needed (something too weak at current cost but too strong if lowered, or the reverse) better fine-tuning is still possible by multiplying both the current costs and starting budget. Basically just pretending that fractional build points exist. Start with 28 instead of 14, most traits are 4 or 2. etc etc.
If something needs balancing, no need to let "but this isn't worth 1 whole point" kind of thoughts stop you when you get to redefine what 1 point is worth

[zefz]

Transforming into a crow or other forms doesn't seem to populate the hotbar with skills like stealth

Fixed.

Sounds for eating food are played before the food gets eaten, like a vegetarian attempting to eat meat but being stopped by the trait

Fixed.

[sasbot]

Another list of small things and various thoughts:

1. Program can have multiple instances running at the same time. Didn't test anything with it, and though it could cause problems that seems like not a priority to change unless it is an easy fix
2. Farming a level with blessing of god of war is much more accessible with the existence of the harvest lore trait. Get a character strong enough to consistently take out mushrooms without any loss of resources, and you could stay in a level for as long as you wanted farming attack/health/strength until you no longer need any. Water would still be an issue, but not if the level has a river or a well. This was possible before only with the genie blood trait. Perhaps war blessing (and secrets too?) could have a cap of 10 or so gains gains per level.
3. Not a balance issue since your character should be strong enough at later levels, but the fixed duration on the god blessing skills (war, wisdom, etc) were hardly worth using once you reach deeper levels
4. When restarting multiple times (trying for starting equipment rerolls, or builds with hard times in early floors) it was annoying to keep resetting the skill bar. It seems likely that a given player will want to put things back the same way, so perhaps the file that stores the starting trait selections could also hold a layout for the skill bar that was in use during that character's last death
5. The auto-disarm traps ability seems more like a feature to reduce player-tedium than an in-game bonus; i.e. it is something that any character with a trap kit is already able to do if they are careful. The numeric boosts are the real reason to take the trait. The same idea could apply to the sped-up animations you get when under a haste effect - Both of those could be available to all players without affecting game balance. Fast animation could be a settings option, auto disarm could be another skill available for all like sneaking.
6. Placeholder descriptions for monster abilities are visible in the skills screen for summoned creatures
7. Summoned creatures that use the 'dismiss summon' skill still get attacked on that turn before they actually leave play. Not sure if there are situations where this would matter though.
8. Where does one find out how many staff pieces have been collected?
9. Alternate timeline does not seem to reroll level modifiers, I did quite a few casts on levels that got modifiers and it was always modifier-free afterwards (or was I just getting lucky?). Quite a good spell to find on an ancient staff
10. Alternate timeline is able to place you on top of a monster on top of the entrance after casting
11. Alternate timeline does not behave the same as entering the level for the first time, adjacent monsters get off free attacks if they are generated next to you or in line of sight. Doesn't seem too bad, the spell itself is already very powerful.

[zefz]

Program can have multiple instances running at the same time.

I've added a check to try prevent this from happening. This is to prevent save games from getting corrupted if you load the same game from two different instances and auto-save from both.

Not a balance issue since your character should be strong enough at later levels, but the fixed duration on the god blessing skills (war, wisdom, etc) were hardly worth using once you reach deeper levels

Blessing abilities now scale with level (30 turns + 1 turn per 2 character levels)

The auto-disarm traps ability seems more like a feature to reduce player-tedium than an in-game bonus

I agree. I've made it available to all players now.

Where does one find out how many staff pieces have been collected?

This can be seen in the "Quest Log" screen.

questlog.png (128.9 KiB) Viewed 8357 times

It would be better if this was more obvious somewhere... like "Staff Pieces found 0/7" along with an icon of the staff (since it is the main objective of the game).

Alternate timeline is able to place you on top of a monster on top of the entrance after casting

Fixed.

[zefz]

Farming a level with blessing of god of war is much more accessible with the existence of the harvest lore trait.

Good point. Limiting it to a few times per level might be a good idea.

[zefz]

Farming a level with blessing of god of war is much more accessible with the existence of the harvest lore trait.

God of War bonus is limited to 5 times per level now.