Troubling Times pt 2

[Gorgon]

If regen-fighting is the problem, his resistances should be raised and his HP should be lowered. In my opinion: 2500 HP, 80% resists. If it's not enough, 100 attack damage.

[Lujo]

[Gorgon]

I don't agree with these heavy changes to the game. In my opinion, anything can be rebalanced with just small changes (except the transmuter).

Monks with 25% resists would be completely useless. Let them have 50% resistances, capping at 75%. After all, they're only exploitable in one single dungeon. I wouldn't like to see an entire class being changed because of a dungeon.

CYDSTEPP can be balanced if its cost is increased. If it had 12 MP, it wouldn't be so unbalanced...

[The Avatar]

Monks can beat 3 out of 5 vicious dungeons... that's a little too powerful. If they started at 40 it would be more fair, although Taurog and then Body Pact after you get all Taurog's stuff would easily make the cap. Another solution would be to make his damage penalty more severe. Something like -50% and -2 base per level, not just -30%. I agree with Lujo on the fact that anything that can beat a 5000 hp boss after plowing through armies of level 10s is kinda broken. I disagree that CYDSTEPP should be removed, but the problem is too many bosses are balanced around it. How many vicious wins wither have CYDSTEPP or high resist and double regen/HALPMEH: 99%! I have my PISORF wizard, but that's it. Also, Transmuters don't count, because they're going to be balanced.

Back to CYDSTEPP. Since it seems a lot of bosses are balanced around it (152 damage?!) then the game immediately narrows you down to two solutions: CYDSTEPP or high resist and double regen/HALPMEH. The problem is if you nerf their stats, those strategies become things that can't lose. The solution seems to simultaneously nerf monsters, HALPMEH, and CYSTEPP. Nerf monsters to encourage other strategies, nerf the two glyphs, so they are not the go to glyphs for everyone. I mean other than Naga City and Gaan-Telet you'll stack up about 28-33% resistance if you bring a Dragon shield, which isn't a problem. It's just in Gaan-Telet and Naga CIty you can stack up 43%. As for HALPMEH, a simple increase to 4 mana would be sufficient. And CYDSTEPP would be fine at 11, because then max mana Berserkers can still cast it. Simultaneously, a buff to elves (55-60 CP to a mana) would make the spells just as fine for them, but make them less effective for damage races. And if they're less effective for damage races, they're less powerful. Problem solved!

[Gorgon]

I have an idea for the transmuter.

-Starts with IMAWAL,rock heart and ENDISWAL in inventory.
-ENDISWAL costs 10 MP. Destroys 5 random walls in the dungeon and applies 5 levels of stone skin.
-IMAWAL costs 2 MP and regenerates 5 MP per use. No natural MP regen.

[Lujo]

Most of what Avatar said is what I'm saying about the whole thing, and is also the answer to Gorgon's "not agreeing with heavy changes".

25% resist monks would be useless in the game the way it is now, but the high end content is a bit of a cluster of imbalances pulling each other (and the power curve) way too high for any other strategies. And at the core of this is the fact that CYDSTEPP is a glyph. I could do a game design seminar on how wrong that thing is.

It's not a matter of one or two classes being able to use it, anyone who can use it can, for the purpose of fighting the boss, ignores HP as a resource for at least 2-3 attacks. A wizard with no glyphs can beat a hard dungeon off of "free" death protections from Taurog... And every boss has to take this into account. And it's blocking a whole bunch of other stuff from being discovered/viable. Hell, it's even a problem for players - high levlel animated armours are nigh untouchable for most classes, and a level full of them anywhere in Gaan'Telet would make it unbeatable in an instant.

Dwarves, for example, are underplayed because of this, and before the trisword rework, so were halflings. The only reason the Tri-sword ended up the way it is was that devs felt they need to tack on +3 dmg per pop to healing potions to make the halfling a viable race (and that in a game where +dmg items are stupidly hard to come by).

But think big! Imagine you could turn piety into a dmg bonus? You could turn Dracul into a piety farm (and you can, and I have), because if you can ignore HP, then 10 hp for 20 piety is no price at all. 20 piety for 10 hp? Which I don't need if i can make enough mana to push a button that lets me survive anything without mana burn? Realy?

Or a more concrete illustration, concerning the Fighter. His "one free death protection" spells this for me "if i prep a STR potion, I will start the level at lvl 3-7 depending on whether I can find a goat, bandit or medusa around". Just ONE death protection. The only reason that STR potions are not being nerfed as I'm typing this (or at least moved to wich lvl3) is that for some unknown reason there is a repeatable death protection glyph in the game as a feature. Seriously, I've been abusing the crap out of that thing ever since it came out, not sure if it was intended (Tiki Tooki fighter is hilarious).

What cydstepp really is is this: "A button that sayes - i don't care how hard the boss hits, and anyone with enough mana can use it". It's 100% physical alnd 100% magic dmg reduction for as many attacks as you can pay for. And it's also the reason 25% starting resists looks laughable, or why 50% max would look silly - it's only half the damage everything does, but as you can push a button and get 100% it doesn't even look good... And in reality, 50% dmg reduction with any sort of regen capability is unbelievably powerfull.

Cydstepp is a cheat, or rather, in any other game would be considered an exploit. The glyph, not the effect, but just one without a considerable price/limitations is powerfull (I'm not even sure how powerfull or balanced Namtar's ward is - it's inferior to cydstepp, so I somehow never prep it.) So, anything trying to compete with it (or surpass it) for players, or take it into account (for monsters) is going to be waaaay off any serious power curve.

And if they simply gave up on the damn glyph, made it an item with 3 charges, they could fix everything with light simultanious nerfs to monsters dmg/hp numbers (or scaling, or bosses, but at least Zombies and Animated Armors need fixing besides all this), upping HALPMEH's cost to 4 and removin the poison removal, making a "shield" glyph with -X dmg per level (1 or 2) that also removes poison and reigning in all the dmg resistance crap that was always out of hand. After that, everything that was slowly getting buffed to compete with the brokenness would become apparent and could be adjusted to a reasonable power curve (Trisword, Str potions, conversion rates, god knows how many othes smaller things).

[Gorgon]

OK. So let's do as you say and remove CYDSTEPP. Would you rather get +25% damage or resistances? Probably damage, because it. stacks with base damage and becomes even better.

But I agree with part of what you wrote. Having death protection is cheap, but I think it shouldn't be removed, just nerfed...

[Lujo]

[Gorgon]

Instead, they could limit the glyph to be useable only when over 50% HP. Simple solution.

[Lujo]

Check the edit, correct me if I'm wrong.