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QCF Design Community • View topic - Tikki Tooki


Tikki Tooki

All things Desktop Dungeons

Re: Tikki Tooki

Postby booooooze on Tue Jun 26, 2012 11:58 am

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Re: Tikki Tooki

Postby Lujo on Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:30 pm

Well, someone, gjaustin or someone, was really good at squeezing the maximum uot of the +1 resists pact, sure, and I like the +XP on potion use one in theory. However I detest putting my piety use out of my hands, especially with how harsh the penalties for pissing a god off are.

Doubly so, since I spend most of my playtime worshiping TT, who is easy enough not to anger if you can manage your piety well, horrible when pissed off, and easy to get yourself locked into a "can't covert out, can't gain reliable piety" spiral. I used to worship GG a lot as well, who has a simmilar "finite max piety" sandtrap built in.

It just seems to require a lot more effort to squeeze the pacts for what they are worth (exploration, math), and soem of their rewards cap off below what I could get by simply using the consensus to squeeze one god dry and convert out, or grab an effortless big boon... I know people have been using the pacts, but putting the cold hard stupid facts in front of "hmm, this looks nice, lets see if it works" - consensus is just too huge compared to the pacts.

I'd even say it'd be a whole different story if consensus gave you 25 (a free desecration), lowered 25 off your max piety cap, but didn't lock you out of pacts. He'd be sort of self sustained for a few pact hits, still let you pull piety out of your ass, not rob you of a desecration, and not put you in a position to choose between "braindead asspull conversion piety" on one side and "uncontrollable semi-worthwhile piety sink on the other".

And I sort of said all there is to say about Drac, don't worry. I'm allso not really qualified to speak about just any topic as volumiously as on TT, but I think the essay sort of speaks for itself there. And consensus IS a big part of TT worship to be honest.
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Re: Tikki Tooki

Postby gjaustin on Tue Jun 26, 2012 2:17 pm

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Re: Tikki Tooki

Postby fall_ark on Tue Jun 26, 2012 3:52 pm

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Re: Tikki Tooki

Postby Lujo on Tue Jun 26, 2012 5:48 pm

I really wouldn't mind introducing some of the stuff before you get to prep them. I call TT potions as precedent. And the Sensation Stone must be the most inellegantly and patently unintuitively introduced item ever. It took me months to figure out it's supposed to be lockerable, originaly.

But I don't insist on any of those boons except the general purpose of most of them. I believe we need a goldmongering weaksauce utility god, because what we are using to fill that niche is a obscenely powerfull and a bit tricky to use goldmongering utility god.
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Re: Tikki Tooki

Postby Fran on Tue Jun 26, 2012 9:37 pm

I'm not really seeing your point here regarding a new god, lujo.
What you're describing is effectively the gameplay that the tinker offers:
Preserving gold and using items to a great extend.
It sounds like you're basically asking the devs to put an extra god into the game only to grant every class the upsides of the tinker.
If you want to introduce concepts of the game, you're better of making some puzzle packs / quests to introduce things or dropping hints in the description of items.
Besides, I believe it's part of the game to figure out yourself that you can do things such as lockering the sensation stone. If there was some kind of guide telling you to use things at maximum efficiency from the start, there really is no need to experiment anymore. And I'm sure I missed alot of potential by reading the forum instead of discovering things in the game myself (although this has more to do with my schedule these days).
TT may be strong, but he certainly isn't straight forward to figure out for a new player (tooltips of potions and things like that aside). The fact that darwin uses the god late game and you guys use him in the early game illustrates pretty good the controversity one might get when one is new to the game.
After all, the devs are not limited to balance the game by nerfing TT, there are more than enough ways to change other things to indirectly balance him. Like undead monsters regarding poison, for example.
Maybe you could elaborate a little bit more about why you feel that there is a need for the additional god?
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Re: Tikki Tooki

Postby Lujo on Tue Jun 26, 2012 9:41 pm

Sure, it sort of got lost in the TT overview.

Ok, so, I've read that sometimes during the development of the alpha there was a god called Glitterfinger, who got removed. There's a joking reference to him at the church lvl1 ("we worship everyone except glitterfinger - he's a silly god"). The way I read it he got removed due to people complaining about him "muddying up the god pool" to borrow the term from the "potions in shops" conundrum. He was a starting out god who rewarded you with gold for various stuff in some way.

I'm guessing that the gameplay of the alpha, with no paying for building or preps, and class unlocks happening for "free" didn't realy have a place for him, so he got scrapped. But the game's changed and Glitterfinger doesn't seem like such a silly idea anymore. I should know, because he's the first thing I ever unlock, and he's also my most used god. He's called Tiki Tooki now, and instead of giving you what he is supposed to be giving you he also gives boons belonging to the god of rogues.

In other words, the game is really tough to start out unless you unlock the god which gives money for boons. I don't unlock TT for the poison or the potions, to be honest, I unlock him for the gold. And I also feel like every other god is muddying up the pool because in reallity, you most often don't really need another god apart from the new TT/Glitterfinger rolled into one.

One of the devs was surprised at one point by the statement that TT was a gold farm. I've been using TT as nothing BUT a gold farm, and I wanted him in every game. I "stumbled" onto his potion boon, which is really devastating, and I've stumbeld onto his synergies, but I would've been prepping him even if he didn't have any. Just for the gold. I've been taking the potion boon for ages AFTER I've beaten the dungeon, because it was the cheapest TT gold farming boon left. I'm not kidding, I'd clean the dungeon up (before badges) and convert all my health potions into the more expensive ones and get gold out of it. I even used to calculate if paying 10 gold for tribute would give me a net gain if it was enough to turn a HP potion into 2 more expensive ones and get my 10 gold back. I might have done that about 50 times before I thought about giving the potions a try BEFORE I've killed the boss.

Simply put, I didn't even care what his boons gave me on top of the gold. Except poison, ofc, but poison was this ubelievable broken ability that they somehow decided to put on the best and only gold farming god in the game. But then it turned out the potions were also unimaginably powerfull.

So the situation, from my perspecitve is the following:

- Everybody casual enough to not figure out how the potions or the poison works still probably wants TT in every dungeon, if for no other reason then to clean up after they've won and press buttons that say "you give piety, I give gold, sweet deal". I certanly did. They don't care or don't even know about TT. They want a Glitterfinger.

- Everybody who's discoverd TT, in his gold-farming Glitterfinger funcionality, might eventually stumble onto the fact that his standard gold-farming utility god also kicks all sorts of ass if you simply take his boons before you fight the boss instead of waiting for the chance of angering him with concequence to pass. And he'll start playing both TT and Glitterfinger.

- Everybody who stayes casual, will keep on playing Glitterfinger, and I bet there are more of those than the other guys. There really is little incentive to even imagine TT could be something besides a gold farm, and even pro's can only be happy with the gold. When I do Gaan'Telet runs, I don't take TT for the poison anymore, or the potions, I pick him up for the 20 gold that comes with Tiki's Edge and Dodge. I'm back to Glitterfinger. Because i feel like I need him.


So, if there is need for a god that has buttons with an effect you don't really care for which let you turn piety into gold, and there is, there is need for one right from the start. Gods were in tutorial no.3 in the Alpha, in the beta it takes a while to even get to see one. I'll bet anything that the game is significantly easier if you unlock TT first, rather than any other god. But how is a newbie supposed to know he has to go to the southern swamp to make his shopless, itemless, godless, goldless game playable? Or beat TT's subdungeon?

Because, what a newbie, or a casual want's at that point is just a Glitterfinger, not the guy with stuff like the potions or the poison. A god with boons like those has to be tricky to use to be balanced, he rewards gameplay "reversed" from the standard good play (you have to kill monsters that are worth less XP). In order to get the only thing he is looking for and thinks is great (and it is) - gold - he has to pull all the trickshots required of someone who wants to harness Poison and Potions. And those things confused vets for months.
Last edited by Lujo on Wed Jun 27, 2012 9:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tikki Tooki

Postby Lujo on Tue Jun 26, 2012 10:45 pm

So to sum up my previous post:

Tiki Tooki is doing a double duty of being a gold giving utility good (apealing to newbies) and a very powerfull "all-you'll-ever-need" god for vets (powerfull boons require heavy balancing, and specific rules).

There isn't a "starting out safety net" utility god, but there is need of one. A god which gave gold on blank boon buttons would be enought to satisfy the need, and this is probably the most common overall way people use the current TT. This is how I used him for the majority of the Beta, and so did probably most other people, judging by the fact that one of his "power" boons wasn't "discovered" publicly until recently.

TT is balanced to prevent abuse of his "powerfull" boons (aruably among the select few most rule-breaking boons in the game), and his restrictions are confucing and hard to deal with to the newbies. His balancing also makes him hard to play as your "only" god because of his severe punishment. Optimal usage of TT sort of demands a conversion into or out of, and in my expirience heavy use of the Pactmakers "Consensus" boon. The board community seems to have a consensus that the consensus is way too good, so the current TT relies on a way too good ability to deal with his balancing. Add to that the fact thet the Pactmaker takes a while to get unlocked.

So, to conclude this part, in order to acess the only goldmongering utility god, who's boons you take for the gold rather than the "proper" effect, people are forced to deal with the restrictions of one of the most if not the most powerfull god in the game. This has led me, for example, to wait untill I've finished the dungeon to pick up TT and grab all the boons I can in order not to screw my run up trying to get his gold. This is where I draw the "I'd still use him if his boons gave nothing but gold". This also led me to learn to save popcorn, only I was saving it for AFTER the boss, rather than during or before, for a long time. I believe this is the practice for most non-vets.

So, in addition to the need for a goldmongering utilty god, there is also need for a non-restrictive piety farm, if anything is to be gleaned from the fact that everybody and their grandmother seems to have been using the Pactmaker for consensus. We all knew it was too good, but we also had a need for it for some reason. Most gods there days are piety farms, but the way they farm piety mandates some of your gameplay, and consensus gave you a (flawedly instant) way to get some "no strings attached" piety out of nowhere.

I wouldn't mind having a way to "earn it" in a non-restrictive manner, without my casual piety farm having very powerfull boons like clearance, refreshment, mystic balance or stone heart attached.

Ok, now to explain why I sort of suggested a Tinker god. And why I'm not in love with that particular idea, but I feel like there probably should be one.

Most people who played the alpha used to worship the old Pactmaker. In every "recommended gods" part of a dungeon guide there was probably a clause "Pactmaker works too". He was too powerfull, yes, he was a newbie crutch, yes, but he was also incredibly non-restrictive. People didn't even use him optimally most of the time, but they were happy there was a god you could just worship whatever you were and not be affected negatively. If you managed to squeeze something out of him - great, if not, no harm done. Some of that functionality has been spread around (JJ rewards exloration, TT gives bonus XP per kill), but the main reason everybody worshiped Pactmaker was that they could get on with their game without having to worry about thier god.

What people are looking for for their initial "player friendly" god is ease of use and gold. The early game is also devoid of a lot of utility which makes the game run smoother. Once you unlock gods, however, you get exponentially more powerfull with the current god roster. If a god is usefull on his own, like Taurog, he creates guaranteed abilities where there were none before, making you many times more powerfull, but also dictationg your gameplay. And while this works out for powergames, it's not really the case for casual minded people, who would probably be happy to have a good which doesn't give too much, but doesn't force them into a particular playstyle.

Such a god wouldn't be attractive to pros unless the utility provided could really be usefull - they'd compare him to other gods, and valuing the "ease of use" part less, they'd find his boons lackluster. Powergamers motto is ussually "power at any cost", or "power I can trick the game into not making me pay for it". But even they could get mileage out of a gold per boon giving god, if he provided stuff that couldn't be found elsewhere, and some easy to acquire piety - or just a place to convert out of a more restrictive god.

So I listed stuff which I feel like I'd love to have more acess to in game rather then from the prep screen, and those things are:

- A compression scroll = a generic inventory management boon. Compression scroll is such an importan part of gameplay that having to unlock it, and not being able to acess it any other way, has me prepping it all the time. If it was available through a boon, I'd feel very happy as a player when I did unlock it, because I'd gain a way to start out with something I had to worship for before, and unlocking the alchemist in this regard would allow me to explore other gods with more ease, removing my newbie crutch in this regard.

- Miner Bombs = a specific wall destruction boon, because I'd feel less obliged to prep a tinker or a transmutation scroll if I wanted to explore / reach a walled off subdungeon. People are at the mercy of the RNG or foresight about those right now, and the cramped dungeons with long hallways could use a way to "earn" your one time wall destruction as opposed to having to play/prep binlor.

- Sensation Stone = making it obtainable in a way other than having to kill the troll and then locker and relocker it would really be sweet. It would be something to try for, it's not too powerfull the way it works now, and the price of lockering a consumable item in the current economy, pre PQI, is a bit too steep. Then, when you kill the troll, you'd get something you can put a mental price tag on, a high one, and know you've been rewarded really well.

Other things which could work and are under represented:

- Rewarding equal lvl monster kills - either asa way to gain piety, or togather with a Tiki's Edge like boon for Equal lvl Monster kills. People would be taking his boons for the gold anyway, and this effect is only represented by the Balanced Dagger, which has only really worked in Gaan'Telet for me. If a god rewarded me with piety (and gave me gold for piety), then yes, I'd be happy to do it.

- Spawning a subdungeon - could be an alternative big piety boon. Would probably be too powerful / hard to code, and very "tinker like", but that's one bigass reward that would really be worth it. If he spawned a walled-off one (from any list) you could use it to give "previews" and give the players reasons to go looking for it then :)

- Rewarding picking up stuff - either from the shops or from the ground. Somebody suggested it for TT.

- Fixed small XP bonus bonus - used to be a "consolation" one for the old pactmaker. Could be used to set up level catapults.

- Selling potions - could steer players away from relying on copious potion use, as well as a reason to play Halflings and Gnomes (would need tuning to avoid pure goldfarming runs). Could also entice the playes to try to beat bosses while saving as many potions as possible so they can sell them "after the fight". Would need a steep piety cost (and increese) to avoid overusing it. Tricky but worth thinking about.



Most of these are just suggestion, apart from the "Gold per boon" principle. It could be a 5 gold per boon, as long as the rest of the package didn't iclude balancing for poison and dodgestep potions. The "pay gold for piety" is only busted if you pay the gold for poison or the potions, not utility. TT would be better served with a "pay for XP" boon which would allow more ease in early worship, especially if his gold-per-boon stuff was moved where it belonged (and toned down, ofc).
Last edited by Lujo on Wed Jun 27, 2012 10:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tikki Tooki

Postby Nandrew on Wed Jun 27, 2012 10:03 am

Hmm.

Right now, I'd be inspired to leave TT as-is and simply balance the rest of the early game's economy to appeal more to newbies. TT could stay in as the lesser-known "gold farm" trick for vets who want to get ahead a little faster.

Dark Souls has a similar thing going with an early-game artifact known as the Drake Sword: a ridiculously overpowered weapon that can basically take players through the initial third of the game all on its own. Naturally, you have to know the *trick* to getting it, otherwise you won't even know it exists.

The way its unlock is structured, only a confident / knowledgeable player will be able to get their hands on it, which means that it serves one purpose rather perfectly: if a veteran finds the initial stages of the game tedious and sorta-but-not-really challenging on their second or third playthrough, they can just opt to "cheat" and grab this weapon for smoother sailing before getting to the proper hard stuff. Chances are that these players have all proven their worth before and want to save time.

Maybe early-game TT can hold this same niche?
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Re: Tikki Tooki

Postby Nandrew on Wed Jun 27, 2012 10:04 am

Or more to the point:

Okay, so TT is an early gold farm. Technically he could be nerfed on that axis.

But would you really want that?
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