Post by Lorenor on Dec 17, 2015 9:52:46 GMT -8
Note: You can find almost all the new and changed equipment in this attachment. The only two pieces missing are the Repeating Crossbow, which now deals 100% damage on it´s first hit and 75% reduced damage on the consecutive shots if they hit the same target as the first bolt, and the Liquidator Spellblade, which now has a significant attack speed boost (about 300% attack speed), decaying very fast over 2 seconds.
Diseased Cocktail and Unstable Concoction
These two new items finally bring something to KT that many of us wanted for a long time: Skillshots! Both are a bomb-like throwing potions with 3 stacks that explode on impact, either poisoning or igniting the targets. The Unstable Concoction even knocks enemies back or down.
Both items are very similar to two items I had in mind, but these are part of two major suggestion packs and it wouldn´t make much sense suggesting only the two items without all the related content such as new weapons, resources, animals, quests etc. So I hope that the items might get adjusted later on, if my suggestions find acceptance.
For now, there are still a few things I would change:
First, if it is somehow possible, it would be great to be able to use the bombs from your inventory (even though I assume if it would be possible it would already be implemented, right)? They don´t give any STATs and they are temporary, so once you used the three casts, they disappear, leaving you completely without offhand. So beeing able to use them from your inventory would make it a lot easier to use them. Because of the 8 second cooldown, it would be necessary to swich your offhand constantly, otherwise the bombs wouldn´t make up for the lack of an offhand weapon, I´m afraid.
Second, the unstable concoctions should deal some initial damage, imo. It looks strange seeing the enemy getting knocked down without taking any damage. Also, 1.5 second intervals are too long, the burn damage should at least apply every second, even better would be every 0.5 seconds, so that it actually looks like damage over time. I found myself thinking that the concoction wouldn´t work because the initial 1.5 seconds in which the targets don´t receive any damage are too long.
Third, I think the burning mechanics could get some more details. For example, killing a wolf or sheep with burn damage could drop roasted meat instead of raw meat, while pheasents dying to burn damage don´t drop meat at all. Trees and buildings shouldn´t receive more damage, but therefore burn twice as long, acting as little campfires during this time (so warming nearby kobolds and scaring wolves). A burning kobold should regenerate some warmth (~5 per second). A burning campfire shouldn´t be affected by burn damage at all, and a doused campfire should even be lit from burn damage instead of getting destroyed.
About the Cocktail: I don´t really like the fact that the Diseased Cocktail can destroy food. It makes sense, sure, but it weakens cooking even more. Rather than countering cooking, I hoped to see poison as a way to make cooking more viable and give it some agressive potential. So what I would suggest is the following:
"On impact, the cocktail poisons the targets, dealing 1 damage and slowing them by 2%, increasing with every second (so after 2 seconds it´s 2 damage and 4% slow, after 3 seconds, 3 damage and 6% slow) for 10 seconds. That equals a total of 55 damage dealt and an average slow of 11% for 10 seconds. The damage increases with cooking skill (just a temporary solution, in the alchemist post intelligence will play a more important role here). If a poisoned kobold eats something, the duration of the poison is increased by 2 seconds (keep in mind that the damage and slow are exponential, so two more seconds of poison increase the total effect by about 42%)."
Mysterious Spoon and Chef´s Rolling Pin
I like the concept behind these items, especially the mysterious spoon, but there are some pretty imbalanced effects, and I also think the items are too similar. They 10 and 15 ART, crafted at the working bench, both clearly related to cooking, both are weapons (so they can´t be used as a set or something) and they both do require an infused lumber, which makes it a total of 4 weapons between 10 and 15 ART crafted at the working bench that require infused lumber (the oher two are the enigmatic staff and elder wand).
I would rather combine some of the effects in one item and put some other effects on the Chef´s Hat (the quest reward from the cooking quest), because the hat needed a buff for a long time and you have some really interesting effect ideas here.
About the "broken" effects that need balancing: Three second eating cooldown reduction is a lot considering that berries only have 4 second eating cooldown. With 8 sageberries you could get 240 mana in 8 seconds... what´s this toxic frog everyone´s talking about? ^^
The other one is the +2 STR and DEX passive on the Rolling Pin, which stacks up to 6 times. This means the pan can give a total of +16 DEX, +16 STR, just by eating some grilled lamb. Also, there are more than enough STR DEX items in the game, I don´t think another one is really necessary, especially if the STAT choice isn´t that obvious (could as well be STR INT for example).
So my suggestion would be to remove the Rolling Pin and rearrange the effects:
Chef´s Hat:
STATs
+ 6 END
+ 6 INT
+ 4 WIL
Passive: Reduces the eating cooldown by 35% if your hunger is below 50.
Passive: You and all allies near you receive 25% of all the health and energy you get from eating. (so you get 25% more, the rest just get´s 25%)
Mysterious Spoon:
Replace the required infused lumber with 2 iron ore.
Passive: Melee attacks lower the eating cooldown by 0.75.
Active: Same as currently, but without disabling other effects.
Other effects:
Stealing random food on attack: I suggested the "Pilferer´s Thorn" once, a weapon that steals a random item from the enemy when you attack him with cloak. I will post a slightly reworked version soon in an rogue-themed suggestion post.
Increasing the STATs by eating food: I had the idea to give a similar effect to the 20 cooking perk: "All food you´ve cooked increases your INT or END (alternating, to keep it as equal as possible) by 20% of the required cooking skill for 20 seconds after eating. If an ally eats your food, you gain the same bonus, but the duration is increased to 60 seconds. This can stack up to +1 INT and WIL per 5 cooking (so +5 INT and WIL with 25 cooking)."
This would encourage people to share food and even get an advantage from it, which hopefully improves teamplay. Also the addition of it beeing 20% of the cooking skill means that sharing better food rewards you more. Roasted lamb and wolk steaks do nothing.
The "steal hunger on hit" effect is already used for siphon life.
Changed Equipment:
Berserker´s Battle Axe:
Since the new charge effect is a huge buff, I would recommend to remove the 5% movement speed instead. Also, I think the charge should only trigger against enemy kobolds, so that it can´t be used to run away (that wouldn´t fit the name). Lastly, the range limitations are kinda strange. 9 range is probably too much, even though it didn´t feel very much when testing it. Still, I would keep it at 5 or 6, just enough to close up to any ranged fighter.
The minimum range of 3.5 makes the effect feel really unreliable, especially when you use javelins. Since you have to get in range with javelins, you usually won´t use your charge ability, because you are already too close. So I would prefer a charge distance limit of 2 - 6 units instead of 3.5 - 9.
And may I ask how you did come up with the cooldown? Why not 15 or 20 seconds? ^^
Twin Throwing Axes:
I really like this effect, it is far more noticable now than the passive before. Something I would suggest though is to decrease all the values of the active by 50% and therefore double them (so back to 100%) when your life is below 50%. That way it´s more important to time your active and it also has a feeling of a berserker weapon. (...and it would harmonize very well with an armor I plan to suggest ^^" )
Liquidator Spellblade:
Nothing very special, but might help to make the Spellblade viable. But, guess what: I already have a suggestion for this item, that I will post in the rogue suggestion pack
Murloc Skull:
An interesting concept, even though I don´t know if it fulfills it´s purpose. First off, it´s a straight nerf to the skull, because even with "normal" equipment (everything but repeating crossbow) the damage will be lowered, not by much, but it´s noticable. Therefore I don´t see the skull crossbow combi beeing nerfed enough to allow buffing the repeating crossbow.
The actual goal is to find an elegant way that allows us to buff the crossbow, making it viable in other builds, while keeping the crossbow skull combi balanced.
So to achieve that, the skull would at least need a more adjusted nerf - for example, reduce the duration of the damage decrease to 0.5 seconds (still enough to affect both bolts, I guess), but therefore increase it to 33% of the total skull damage.
It´s still obvious that this change´s only purpose is to nerf the crossbow skull combi, though, which is why I would still prefer the changes I suggested for the crossbow in my other post, tbh.
Repeating Crossbow
Well... just as I said one sentence ago ^^
Vicious Javelin
A really cool change, imo, I´m not sure if it´s necessary (I had no problem with the endless chasing potential of the javelin, every ranged weapon has the same chasing potential), but it´s cool and somewhat more realistic ^^
I would prefer a shorter throwing cooldown though, maybe 2.5 or 3 seconds, to make up for the 5 seconds you have to stand still and repair the javelins. The javelin wasn´t OP before, so just nerfing him doesn´t seem to be the right choice to me. By lowering the cooldown and therefore adding the need to repair, the javelin would become more useful in a fight, therefore less useful in a chasing scenario, which probably is a good trade-off.
That should be all the changes. I hope I didn´t criticise too much, the ideas are great and the execution (for example for the cocktail and concoction) even better. I just like to share every idea I have about an item, even if it would work just fine the way it is.
I also hope to get some of the promised posts done soon, it´s a lot more work than expected to formulate my notes into understandable language ^^
Diseased Cocktail and Unstable Concoction
These two new items finally bring something to KT that many of us wanted for a long time: Skillshots! Both are a bomb-like throwing potions with 3 stacks that explode on impact, either poisoning or igniting the targets. The Unstable Concoction even knocks enemies back or down.
Both items are very similar to two items I had in mind, but these are part of two major suggestion packs and it wouldn´t make much sense suggesting only the two items without all the related content such as new weapons, resources, animals, quests etc. So I hope that the items might get adjusted later on, if my suggestions find acceptance.
For now, there are still a few things I would change:
First, if it is somehow possible, it would be great to be able to use the bombs from your inventory (even though I assume if it would be possible it would already be implemented, right)? They don´t give any STATs and they are temporary, so once you used the three casts, they disappear, leaving you completely without offhand. So beeing able to use them from your inventory would make it a lot easier to use them. Because of the 8 second cooldown, it would be necessary to swich your offhand constantly, otherwise the bombs wouldn´t make up for the lack of an offhand weapon, I´m afraid.
Second, the unstable concoctions should deal some initial damage, imo. It looks strange seeing the enemy getting knocked down without taking any damage. Also, 1.5 second intervals are too long, the burn damage should at least apply every second, even better would be every 0.5 seconds, so that it actually looks like damage over time. I found myself thinking that the concoction wouldn´t work because the initial 1.5 seconds in which the targets don´t receive any damage are too long.
Third, I think the burning mechanics could get some more details. For example, killing a wolf or sheep with burn damage could drop roasted meat instead of raw meat, while pheasents dying to burn damage don´t drop meat at all. Trees and buildings shouldn´t receive more damage, but therefore burn twice as long, acting as little campfires during this time (so warming nearby kobolds and scaring wolves). A burning kobold should regenerate some warmth (~5 per second). A burning campfire shouldn´t be affected by burn damage at all, and a doused campfire should even be lit from burn damage instead of getting destroyed.
About the Cocktail: I don´t really like the fact that the Diseased Cocktail can destroy food. It makes sense, sure, but it weakens cooking even more. Rather than countering cooking, I hoped to see poison as a way to make cooking more viable and give it some agressive potential. So what I would suggest is the following:
"On impact, the cocktail poisons the targets, dealing 1 damage and slowing them by 2%, increasing with every second (so after 2 seconds it´s 2 damage and 4% slow, after 3 seconds, 3 damage and 6% slow) for 10 seconds. That equals a total of 55 damage dealt and an average slow of 11% for 10 seconds. The damage increases with cooking skill (just a temporary solution, in the alchemist post intelligence will play a more important role here). If a poisoned kobold eats something, the duration of the poison is increased by 2 seconds (keep in mind that the damage and slow are exponential, so two more seconds of poison increase the total effect by about 42%)."
Mysterious Spoon and Chef´s Rolling Pin
I like the concept behind these items, especially the mysterious spoon, but there are some pretty imbalanced effects, and I also think the items are too similar. They 10 and 15 ART, crafted at the working bench, both clearly related to cooking, both are weapons (so they can´t be used as a set or something) and they both do require an infused lumber, which makes it a total of 4 weapons between 10 and 15 ART crafted at the working bench that require infused lumber (the oher two are the enigmatic staff and elder wand).
I would rather combine some of the effects in one item and put some other effects on the Chef´s Hat (the quest reward from the cooking quest), because the hat needed a buff for a long time and you have some really interesting effect ideas here.
About the "broken" effects that need balancing: Three second eating cooldown reduction is a lot considering that berries only have 4 second eating cooldown. With 8 sageberries you could get 240 mana in 8 seconds... what´s this toxic frog everyone´s talking about? ^^
The other one is the +2 STR and DEX passive on the Rolling Pin, which stacks up to 6 times. This means the pan can give a total of +16 DEX, +16 STR, just by eating some grilled lamb. Also, there are more than enough STR DEX items in the game, I don´t think another one is really necessary, especially if the STAT choice isn´t that obvious (could as well be STR INT for example).
So my suggestion would be to remove the Rolling Pin and rearrange the effects:
Chef´s Hat:
STATs
+ 6 END
+ 6 INT
+ 4 WIL
Passive: Reduces the eating cooldown by 35% if your hunger is below 50.
Passive: You and all allies near you receive 25% of all the health and energy you get from eating. (so you get 25% more, the rest just get´s 25%)
Mysterious Spoon:
Replace the required infused lumber with 2 iron ore.
Passive: Melee attacks lower the eating cooldown by 0.75.
Active: Same as currently, but without disabling other effects.
Other effects:
Stealing random food on attack: I suggested the "Pilferer´s Thorn" once, a weapon that steals a random item from the enemy when you attack him with cloak. I will post a slightly reworked version soon in an rogue-themed suggestion post.
Increasing the STATs by eating food: I had the idea to give a similar effect to the 20 cooking perk: "All food you´ve cooked increases your INT or END (alternating, to keep it as equal as possible) by 20% of the required cooking skill for 20 seconds after eating. If an ally eats your food, you gain the same bonus, but the duration is increased to 60 seconds. This can stack up to +1 INT and WIL per 5 cooking (so +5 INT and WIL with 25 cooking)."
This would encourage people to share food and even get an advantage from it, which hopefully improves teamplay. Also the addition of it beeing 20% of the cooking skill means that sharing better food rewards you more. Roasted lamb and wolk steaks do nothing.
The "steal hunger on hit" effect is already used for siphon life.
Changed Equipment:
Berserker´s Battle Axe:
Since the new charge effect is a huge buff, I would recommend to remove the 5% movement speed instead. Also, I think the charge should only trigger against enemy kobolds, so that it can´t be used to run away (that wouldn´t fit the name). Lastly, the range limitations are kinda strange. 9 range is probably too much, even though it didn´t feel very much when testing it. Still, I would keep it at 5 or 6, just enough to close up to any ranged fighter.
The minimum range of 3.5 makes the effect feel really unreliable, especially when you use javelins. Since you have to get in range with javelins, you usually won´t use your charge ability, because you are already too close. So I would prefer a charge distance limit of 2 - 6 units instead of 3.5 - 9.
And may I ask how you did come up with the cooldown? Why not 15 or 20 seconds? ^^
Twin Throwing Axes:
I really like this effect, it is far more noticable now than the passive before. Something I would suggest though is to decrease all the values of the active by 50% and therefore double them (so back to 100%) when your life is below 50%. That way it´s more important to time your active and it also has a feeling of a berserker weapon. (...and it would harmonize very well with an armor I plan to suggest ^^" )
Liquidator Spellblade:
Nothing very special, but might help to make the Spellblade viable. But, guess what: I already have a suggestion for this item, that I will post in the rogue suggestion pack
Murloc Skull:
An interesting concept, even though I don´t know if it fulfills it´s purpose. First off, it´s a straight nerf to the skull, because even with "normal" equipment (everything but repeating crossbow) the damage will be lowered, not by much, but it´s noticable. Therefore I don´t see the skull crossbow combi beeing nerfed enough to allow buffing the repeating crossbow.
The actual goal is to find an elegant way that allows us to buff the crossbow, making it viable in other builds, while keeping the crossbow skull combi balanced.
So to achieve that, the skull would at least need a more adjusted nerf - for example, reduce the duration of the damage decrease to 0.5 seconds (still enough to affect both bolts, I guess), but therefore increase it to 33% of the total skull damage.
It´s still obvious that this change´s only purpose is to nerf the crossbow skull combi, though, which is why I would still prefer the changes I suggested for the crossbow in my other post, tbh.
Repeating Crossbow
Well... just as I said one sentence ago ^^
Vicious Javelin
A really cool change, imo, I´m not sure if it´s necessary (I had no problem with the endless chasing potential of the javelin, every ranged weapon has the same chasing potential), but it´s cool and somewhat more realistic ^^
I would prefer a shorter throwing cooldown though, maybe 2.5 or 3 seconds, to make up for the 5 seconds you have to stand still and repair the javelins. The javelin wasn´t OP before, so just nerfing him doesn´t seem to be the right choice to me. By lowering the cooldown and therefore adding the need to repair, the javelin would become more useful in a fight, therefore less useful in a chasing scenario, which probably is a good trade-off.
That should be all the changes. I hope I didn´t criticise too much, the ideas are great and the execution (for example for the cocktail and concoction) even better. I just like to share every idea I have about an item, even if it would work just fine the way it is.
I also hope to get some of the promised posts done soon, it´s a lot more work than expected to formulate my notes into understandable language ^^
