tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post6989038313253793309..comments2024-03-28T10:31:45.644-07:00Comments on Vigaroe: Dark Side Skill Analysis Part 3: MagicVigaroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02405424233776571308noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-43953393573283876662022-12-18T14:47:33.697-08:002022-12-18T14:47:33.697-08:00Huh. I guess I just didn't notice the Scroll.
...Huh. I guess I just didn't notice the Scroll.<br /><br />Got the Puppeteer exception list added.<br /><br />Bagyr and Daert having equal Leadership honestly makes design sense to me -variable Leadership across Heroes has always been a wonky strength/weakness concept, and as each game got tighter design so that money spends a reasonable chunk of the game being a meaningful limiter (Where in The Legend gold is a joke fairly quickly) its wonkiness became increasingly pertinent of a problem. WotN and Dark Side both successfully mitigate the flaws with 'high Leadership is my strength' by improving the gold intake of Skald Olaf and Neoline and in Neoline's case giving her Recruiter, but only for the class it's the specialty of; poor Viking Olaf is left in the lurch with higher expenses than Soothsayer Olaf and little to show for it, and even Bagyr suffers a bit from this until he gets his ludicrous Rage-focused Skills online. As early as The Legend I was having thoughts to the effect of 'it would be better if classes had unified Leadership, or if only one of them was an outlier and the game accommodated for it'.<br /><br />'Higher Magic for everyone' could've actually been nice, depending on how it was handled. I've talked before on this site about how wonky it is that the Mage gets superior ability to grind out eg Guardian Angel and its following variants -Guardian Angel doesn't improve your Spellcasting, it improves your army, but whoops you grind it out through Spellcasting so the Mage can get ranks in it a lot faster. Having that more even across classes would've been nice, and in terms of more direct tactical combat stuff it would've been nice to have stuff like Double-Blind not be exclusively a Mage trick. And I don't think Daert would've been particularly harmed by this -getting over *30* Intellect plus his other personal Skills would still mean Daert was the ultimate blaster caster, with the highest damage and best sustainability on Spellcasting. Spreading around Higher Magic in a prior game would seriously risk leaving the Mage in the position of 'why play the Mage?', but Dark Side's willingness to enforce *drastic* stat differences means Higher Magic isn't really essential to making the Spellslinger choice actually best at doing so.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-24973202902375782972022-12-18T04:57:32.442-08:002022-12-18T04:57:32.442-08:00Daert's starting quest that requires to just s...Daert's starting quest that requires to just speak with Clarissa give him 1 rage potion, 1 mana potion and a random scroll; internal level 1-2 only, I think, but still, getting Chaos Missiles or atleast Ice Grasp can be helpful. You can actually just restart the game until you get what you want.<br /><br />You skipped Puppeteer exception list.<br /><br />What is your opinion on "Higher Magic for everyone"/"Bagyr and Daert have the same leadership with only Neolina's being higher" discarded ideas?Quaranyrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13563621496147736585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-31884915749244388332022-12-17T15:23:24.880-08:002022-12-17T15:23:24.880-08:00Updated post appropriately. (Took longer than it r...Updated post appropriately. (Took longer than it really ought to have due to weird technical difficulties...) Nice to know Breakthrough does stuff and is just poorly-explained/non-obvious in its impact.<br /><br />I only recall the Scroll in the mine cart. I'll boot up a new Daert to see if Clarissa has a Scroll opportunity, but I don't recall her offering a Scroll.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-25620971061190586522022-12-02T08:57:28.865-08:002022-12-02T08:57:28.865-08:00In Bibliophile comment you say about playing Daert...In Bibliophile comment you say about playing Daert "...There's exactly one possible Scroll chance before you should be Level 5-6..." But we get a random scroll from Clarissa and another one in Dragondor? <br /><br />Defiler increase duration and indeed use percentage. It has unusual for KB but common for normal people rounding. It's basically "if fraction is below 0.5, round down. If it 0.5 or higher - round up". So even duration of 2 will be increased to 3 with Defiler 3 (2 * 1.3 = 2.6 > rounded up to 3). <br />For spells with duration scaling, Defiler is applied to the scaled result, so even Defiler 1 can have some effect if INT is high. <br />For spell with non-scaling duration Deflier 1 is useless, Deflier 2 often too. Defiler 3 will allow them to get a bonus turn through. <br />Spell book hint does not take Defiler into account. <br /><br />I wonder why Wight called this way. It's internal name is "deathbringer", and it's dev-comment name is neologism that is basically "he who makes [...] dead". What does "wight" even have to do with offensive magic? "Warlock" would fit here better.<br /><br />Puppeteer use the same exceptions list as Recruiter. <br /><br />I wish Archmage had name and icon more fitting for a vampire.<br /><br />DS devs actually considered an act of high treason. The ultimate blasphemy. High Magic 'available to all classes'. Only 1/2/3 times per combat for Bagyr/Neolina. <br />They also considered Daert having the same leadership as Bagyr. <br />Both of those ideas feel really wild for a KB game. <br /><br />Breakthrough work like this: Daert casts spell on a target that has resistance to spell's damage type (not necessarily magical). Spell will consider resistances being lower than it is; it will be reduced by 4/8/12 points. If it's still above 0, it is then additionally reduced by relative 10/20/30%. Then game rounds the result in the same way as Defiler does with duration.<br />Example: Daert with Breakthrough 3 casts Poison Skull at Venomous Spider. For some reason. Spider has 50% poison resistance but because of Breakthrough 3 Poison Skull will deal damage as if resistance is equal to (50-12)*0.7 = 26.6 > 27%.<br />Example 2: now Daert casts Fire Arrow on the same Venomous Spider. It has -10% fire resistance. Breakthrough 3 will make it -10-12 = -22%. No additional percental decrease as the result is already below zero.<br />Example 3: now Daert's victim is a rebel Peasant. 0% resistance to anything - with Breakthrough 3 any spell will deal damage as if Peasant had 12% weakness to spell's damage type.<br />This skill is essentially just a spell damage increase with bonus against damage-resistant targets. It kind of compensates for Wight being weaker than Destroyer regarding direct damage. It is also especially nice for Chaos Missiles. Quaranyrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13563621496147736585noreply@blogger.com