Golems, Mana Shield, Curse supports, Soul Flask, Blessing of Death, skill gem recipe, and more!
|
Blessing of Death - Hell no. System is entirely too easy to exploit. In SC, you just determine if you die more or less than once per character level; if it's less than once, you activate the bonus. In HC, this is just removing the death penalty for everyone who doesn't have balls.
Golems - No. I like the idea of a golem as a mobile melee attack totem, but I don't like your golems at all. They're entirely too derivative of Diablo 2's golems; you obviously played a necromancer. What we should have is a golem support gem, and a "soul link" support gem (gives supported minions damage- and leech-sharing properties similar to D2's blood golems). Curse support gems - Hell no. Ultra-specific support gems are bad. Broad support gems are good. If you really want this, how about a nice, balanced deliver-any-spell-with-basic-melee-attack support gem? Or just make do with spell totem support, which is very efficient and already works fine. Mana shield - Hell no. We already have energy shield, one form of alternate life is enough. Orb of rebirth - Hell no. Why would you want an ultra-rare orb that would have to be worth 50 Orbs of Regret, when the game already allows you to stack 50 Orbs of Regret? Orb of exchange - Hell no. This is a Mirror of Kalandra without the drawbacks. Skill gem vendor recipe - Maybe. The thing you're ignoring is that you can always see the outcome of a vendor recipe before you click Accept. Therefore, unless you added some kind of buffer, you'd be able to retry the recipe with the same three gems over and over again until you got the desired result, then click Accept. So you'd need to add a new item type — let's say Gem Box — that you can right-click to open and it gives you a gem based on the itemlevel of the Gem Box. But that's kind of clunky, dontcha think? So I'm not sure if that's something we want or not. But maybe we do. Soul Flask - Hell no. The game is already lacking enough in defensive or offensive cooldown skills — and if you think about it, that's what flask charges are, a special way to manage cooldowns that lets you stack multiple uses if you need to. This flask would encourage all types of characters to use a soul flask, resulting in less different abilities to activate while activating them more often. Visual Effect Redo: Domination Blow - Yes. No reason to overly clutter the gamespace, and with the new life bars the need for the big icon is less than ever. Deployment Damage - Kind of. Instead barrels, etc should just straight-up trigger traps, and be targeted by mines in lieu of more hostile targets. Summon All Minions - No. That isn't an ability like Detonate Mine or Town Portal, that's a skill all unto itself. However, there probably should be a skill that summoners could use to move their minions around while simultaneously dealing damage to monsters. Permanent Minions - Yes. No reason not to do this. New Features - Mostly meh, except the clock. I'd really like that. Oh, and hell no to pausing; even in the heat of combat you can TP back, and if real life distracts that much then restarting the instance is a fair cost. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Jun 26, 2013, 12:38:15 AM
|
|
|
@ScrotieMcB:
Thanks for the exhaustive reply! " The experience penalty (or bonus) is adjustable. I went with 15%, but it could be 30% or whatever else. I used numbers rather than variables to give an idea, even knowing there would be people who would get hung up on the specifics I chose. The core concept remains solid: You turn a huge frustration into a choice. When those who took the buff die, they only have themselves to blame. It makes the loss of XP easier to accept. (To compare, imagine if this game was HC-only -- leagues give that same sort of choice to players) The HC option was added to keep the two on equal footing with regards to XP. As it stands, people who die in HC turn around and sell their gear in SC for new HC gear. This increases the amount of uniques and other usable items in SC, driving down the value of those items. Taking the buff in HC will be a no-brainer for most people, and makes death in HC a little more true to its origins. However, again, it is presented as a choice, so no one can be upset about the chosen consequences. In both modes, exploits are minimized by the On-Level/After-Death requirement to remove the buff. It is not an on-off; you have to 'earn' its removal. In SC, intentionally dying will always result in lost XP. If you have reached 50% XP, for example, the 15% bonus XP only accounts for 7.5% of what you've earned, yet dying takes a flat 15% chunk. You must earn 99.99% to get a "free" death to remove the buff, yet leveling would accomplish the same thing. EDIT: Changed the main post to 10%/-20%. The bonus was lowered to fall in line with what you can get on some uniques, and the penalty was increased to satisfy the masochists among us (who are, in fact, the intended users of this buff -- those who enjoy a penalty to sharpen their attention, but perhaps not so extreme as HC). " The derivative nature was intentional to attract attention and communicate the concept efficiently. They could take on any theme the devs want. But let's not be bashful here, PoE is based on Diablo 2. Zombies are the melee skeletons from D2, Punishment is Iron Maiden, Enfeeble is Weaken, Detonate Dead is Corpse Explosion, Ice Wall is Bone Wall, Dominating Blow is a clever use of Revive, etc etc. The Clay Golem is quite different from D2. In D2, it was a starter golem who had a slowing attack and was good against bosses. In my PoE variant, it is a mobile melee totem, something clearly missing with Spell and Ranged Attack totems in play. The Iron Golem in D2 consumed the item it was used on. My PoE variant makes use of the existing skill socketing system to determine its item. D2's IG could only be used on metal items, a clumsy restriction (what happens with composite items, like a maul's wooden shaft and metal head, or a club with metal spikes, or jewelry, or a belt buckle?), whereas this variant is naturally limited to socketable items. There was also a thorns aura, but that's peanuts. The Blood Golem in D2 had linked health and stole life. My PoE variant earns flask charges on damage as a nod to this, but this is not a core feature. Its real purpose is to act as a corpse-creator. It could thematically be an Abomination that tears off chunks of its flesh; either way it'd have the same function. Its purpose is to solve several dilemmas summoners face, chiefly among them being the loss of specially gathered Spectres. Detonate Dead is a cool spell, but it is marred by its unreliability. This golem would rectify that by placing corpses at your target's feet. Before you shout OP, recall that this is still limited by the attack speed of the golem. " Is Blind ultra-specific? These Curse supports are an alternate version of normal curses in the form of support gems, which would have broad application on any ability. There is nothing specific about them beyond their effect, but then that would include every support gem. Placing a curse on a totem just shifts your combat cycle from: apply a curse, then cast/attack; to: cast a totem, then cast/attack. It keeps your curse up, but does nothing for fight-to-fight game-feel. You can't just jump in. If you are a multi-curser, you also cannot combine your curses into one move. So no, a totem is not nearly the same thing, and these supports would have a place. " It is not alternative life, it is a new form of mitigation based on max damage taken. It dulls damage spikes like crits and can save you from one-shots. " Because using all those orbs, one at a time, and then manually using each refund point on your passive tree is tedious and endangers the health of my mouse and my carpal canal. " The Mirror creates a duplicate. This orb swaps all the random stats between two items (Item A gets Item B's stats, and Item B gets Item A's stats). You don't get two of the same item, with an extra to sell. " The key word I used was Unidentified. If you sell three magic Flasks to a vendor, you get an unidentified magic Flask from the vendor. Same idea. " Monsters still have to die somehow to fill the Soul Flask. Your last sentence is what the tradeoff is all about: adaptability for specialization. A few replies in, I mentioned an additional way to balance it: Make it take up 2 flask slots. I should probably add that to the main post. " That'd be fine, though totems auto-targeting barrels has some additional implications that are avoided by my Deployment Damage idea. " You already get this effect with distance. Could it be used to some advantage? Sure, but that would be part of the fun of playing a summoner -- you are a battlefield commander. " Why must there be a "price" for having a life? Not only am I not gaining anything, I should be punished for it, too? A game should never intentionally seek to assert itself over our lives. That is a manipulative tactic reserved for scumbags like Zynga. Last edited by Hercanic#3982 on Jun 26, 2013, 5:49:21 AM
|
|
|
Bah, hit Q instead of E.
Last edited by Hercanic#3982 on Jun 26, 2013, 4:12:05 AM
|
|
|
mana shield is a nice idea but how many ppl will use it m3n ? because of mana pools all being restricted with auras and also the little remaining has to cast spells / attacks
[quote="DirkAustin"]They can always make a loser league where Monsters do no damage and you one shot everything. Goodness, people, just don't play in the hard parts of the game if you cant handle them.[/quote]
|
|
" All the more reason why there should be varied, interesting, and difficult choices with how to use the same resource. |
|
|
Added New Skill - Precision Strike to the New Additions section.
|
|
|
I got some ideas for new gems:
support gem: Inspiration Increases the effect of supported Aura on other players and Minions by x-xx% skill gems: Damage Auras these would be similar to the D2 Paladin Auras that deal damage to enemies. I really miss those. I would like to have some more defensive build options that are still fun to play. Last edited by theHanzou#3373 on Jun 28, 2013, 1:05:15 PM
|
|
|
@theHanzou:
" So Inner Force meets Matua Tupuna? I suppose "other players" is intentionally excluding yourself? So only allies and minions benefit. It's almost like Conduit, but because it affects minions you can personally benefit if you are a summoner. Auras have nearly no worthwhile supports, so something like this is thinking in the right direction. The biggest problem with supporting auras, though, is the Mana Multiplier. Keeping down the aura cost is paramount, which is why you never really see anyone using Increased Area of Effect on auras. With this in mind, any supports intended for auras should probably aim to have no mana multiplier -- or at least a small one. For example, Blind does not have one. " Because it would be permanent, an AOE, and constant, its effects would have to be very weak and/or have significant drawbacks. Or, you could remove the constant attribute and replace it with a trigger. The trigger would be how you could get more interesting gameplay from the ability, and allows you to put in more power so that it feels impactful. For example, what if the damage aura only triggered on a crit? Or on applying a status ailment? Righteous Fire is essentially what you're asking for. It is a Damage Aura balanced around having a very small AOE, and its significant drawback is that it damages you as well. These problems have, ironically, made it undesirable for its intended use. Instead, we get Low-Life builds that capitalize on its MORE spell damage multiplier while completely ignoring its AOE damage mechanic. Last edited by Hercanic#3982 on Jun 28, 2013, 11:53:20 PM
|
|
