[Campaign] Tales of Silventria Mechanics Thread

[Lord Aiden]

This thread is created for the purpose of designing, implementing, and evaluating various elements of the Tales of Silventria Campaign (Please do not merge or delete)

 

[Blake8]

Ok...so I thought the first order of business would be to determine the hp baseline (or standard or whatever you wanna call it) of heroes, while carefully looking over the majority of heroes I realized that their hp ranged from 875 (Idin the wise) to around 1750 (a high level hero). Now after some careful thinking I realized that this needs to be broken down into 3 parts; baseline for intelligence based heroes, baseline for agility based heroes and baseline for strength based heroes.

Intelligence based heroes have the general hp range of 875 - 1075
Strength based heroes have the general hp range of ~1150 -1750
Agility based heroes hp range is not really well defined although most of the hero's Hp ranges are above most of the intelligence based hero but below most strength based heroes

 

[Lord Aiden]

I just opened up some of the files in the editor and I don't really get is why Lord Peradale only has 1025 hit points, isn't he one of the main villains whos supposed to be really strong?

 

[Blake8]

Peradale is powerful, not necessarily physically strong, but his hp has more to do with him having to be weaker than a certain other arch villain who hasn't been introduced yet

 

[Lord Aiden]

hm . . .

 

[Blake8]

Let's say you have a very powerful wizard, he leads the armies of a certain nation, he has power (socially) because he's a leader as well as being immensely magically powerful, both of these however have nothing to do with how physically strong he is,

A queen could command several armies, yet she does not need to be strong or magically gifted to do this

A person can be the most powerful (his abilities are the best) mage in the land and not be physically strong

The bodyguards of a nobel can have tons more hp than the nobel even though the latter is much more powerful (socially, other ways too) as well as much more relevant to the story

Hp is not an indicator of status or power, it can be seen as an indicator of physical strength

 

[Lord Aiden]

I was asking because it wont make much sense to have a boss battle with a hero who has 1025hp

Dioneve for that matter has 1000hp

 

[Blake8]

Oh the heroes will either be given amulets of health, hardened skin, maybe a reincarnation ability, or something similar of they are encountered in a boss battle type situation, also when you go up against Dioneve she simply raise a ton of fallen soldiers as undead to destroy your base and you, your goal is to destroy several of her bases along with the hills of bones within them and ye once you get to her final base you have to destroy her bodyguards and her, and although she does have relatively little hp, the battle will be hard because of the various other factors, plus there might be some surprises once you actually get into her base (or fortress or whatever she's in)

 

[Blake8]

Also forgot to mention that Dioneve wears a special amulet, it gives her like 250 or so extra hp, magical resistance, and true sight if I remember correctly

 

[Lord Aiden]

Ok I see now

 

[Colonel Aster]

Yeah. Most heroes carry lots of excellent items, especially since they have a total of 6 slots to do this in. If you played the demo the supreme councilor (I cant remember his name) would normally have 925hp, but he has a gem of health which enhances his hp all the way up to 1225, but the demon is still the main threat

 

[Lord Aiden]

Why make Idin so weak?

 

[Colonel Aster]

He was intended to be some sort of advisor to rebel leaders if I remember correctly, but his main role was to be the player's rival in several chapters; he would just trash talk to the player, and he definitely wasn't a major character or anything, why give him loads of hp?

Anyway I'll test out the hero without spirit link, if it does ok we'll stick to the design, if not we'll have to come up with other solutions

 

[Colonel Aster]

Ok, @Blake8
In your test paradigm the hero can stand up to 3 knights while the rest of her foots man are engaging the other knights, I would recommend giving her an ability like hex, slow, cripple, or cyclone, but maybe a better option would be something like chain lightening or forked lightening which could damage many enemies at once

 

[Blake8]

I see, interesting I considered giving her blink but this could result in the player abusing it and using it to get her across cliffs and other things, and we just don't need that, what about phase shift? have you tried that?

 

[Colonel Aster]

No, what about modifying spirit link to spread anywhere from 40 to 20 percent of the damage across, that way she will survive longer without becoming invulnerable

 

[Blake8]

Maybe, also I'm thinking of lowering the cooldown on flare rain, what do you think?

 

[Colonel Aster]

It might make it really abuseable >at level 3 with the ultimate learned it does 215 damage to all hostiles within 700 of the hero

 

[Blake8]

Ye, but unlike the original design it does not harm buildings, and a cooldown of 12 is rather long,

Also you should think about the fact that the reason its so strong is because all the ultimate really does is enhance other spells, so this seems fair in my book

 

[Colonel Aster]

Well now that I think about it I never knew it had a cooldown of 12, yes, this seems rather long [I would suggest getting it down to 9 or 8 at the lowest, otherwise it WILL get abused] guess this is fair because like you said the spell is technically part of an ultimate

 

[Lord Aiden]

Woa, a cooldown of 12 seems unfair. 10 or 9 seem perfectly reasonable to me though

 

[Colonel Aster]

It just has to be balanced, too short a cooldown = abuse , too long a cooldown = ability becomes less useful, also the mana cost can be adjusted to prevent abuse, you could give the unit a relatively short cooldown (5 or 6 s) but if it costs a good amount of mana it will not get abused

 

[Blake8]

Has anyone noticed that Flare Rain costs 140 Mana?

 

[Colonel Aster]

I was oblivious to this, sorry

 

[Blake8]

Ok I'm chaning the cooldown

12seconds --->9seconds

 

[Colonel Aster]

Cool, I can test it if you want

ps. one of your favorite users got banned again

 

[Blake8]

Ye, I'm aware, he always gets banned, unbanned and then re-banned

Anyway I think its all balanced now

 

[Colonel Aster]

You know I realize that the biggest disbalance is the heroes that you get to use and the heroes that you get to face

 

[Blake8]

What do you mean? while some heroes like Idin, Darvel etc. are weak there are some other ones like Vitrous that are really damn strong, also some of the strength of your heroes comes from the fact that you may only get to use 1 or 2 heroes in a certain mission while the enemy will have 3 or more, for instance in the mission where you'd have to face Dioneve she would have 3 heroes protecting her base alone

 

[Colonel Aster]

Lord Noren >> Enemy Heroes

 

[Blake8]

Lol, he's just op when he's level 8 or above, you should see some of the heroes that you'll meet further down, on top of that the high summoner hero might not have lots of HP, but his abilities are literally the best, he can probably beat 3 heroes at once

 

[Colonel Aster]

I guess we'll have some good boss battles then eh?

 

[Lord Siler]

@Colonel Aster You worked with blake on the heroes right? What do you think of Lord Peradale's abilities?

 

[Blake8]

No idea what the Colonel Aster thinks of them, but they definitely need more work

 

[Lord Siler]

I do agree, but his ultimate and shadow abilities are powerful and very practical

 

[Blake8]

Still needs work

 

[Lord Siler]

Well the only one that doesn't is Sevine, and despite being a Mage (or was it a sorceress) the direction of her abilities is the exact opposite of Rem's the only similarity is that they both have an upgrade ability, btw Arcane Potency is OP for being just a part of a spellbook ability, but I understand why you made it like that

 

[Blake8]

Sevine (Im not sure I'll even use that name) is meant as a more offensive hero who operates alone, and she is more of a damage dealing hero

Rem is meant as a support unit who is best used with a group of units, she has one offensive spell that deals damage to nearby attackers but her primary strength is that she can keep the units around her fighting longer

 

[Lord Siler]

@Colonel Aster Where you at man?

 

[Blake8]

he's chilling with @pyf and @San, they have some sort of bong party going on

 

[Lord Siler]

Watch San come here and spill some of his darkness on this thread....

So have you decided what Rem's default ability will be ?

 

[Blake8]

I hope @Rem can decide that for herself

 

[Lord Siler]

Anyhow I send you the abilities list, also we might try something new, I'll tell you about my idea later as it's in its "infancy" stage if you can call it that at the moment

 

[Lord Aiden]

Blake didn't you mention giving her purge as a default?

 

[Blake8]

Maybe, there was an absorb magic ability I've created that could also be her default...but I think I'd rather have her decide what ability her character will get though

 

[Lord Siler]

Thing about Rem's Character is she is not very good alone, so you cant send her on solo missions, shes just there to make sure your army survives longer, also she's not a tank, not an offensive hero, but a supportive one, so I would think some sort of armor buff or maybe a scouting ability should be her default if you ask me, I'm not saying you should do this, it's just advice after all

 

[Rem]

Thx Blake =)

i think u guys are better at picking good abilities then me though, so u guys decide, if i would have to choose i think id choose maybe slow or inner fire

 

[Lord Siler]

We can't do inner fire because its been converted into something else, slow might not be a bad idea though, but that purge ability is essentially slow + dispel

 

[Lord Aiden]

Blake send me the list. . . intriguing stuff

 

[Blake8]

np Rem, Siler's right about the slow and inner fire though