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New attacks for teammates

Started by KZ, February 05, 2010, 07:29:41 PM

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SmartyPants

Quote from: Ertxiem on September 01, 2010, 05:48:53 PM
What about an Haste attack, that increases the Spriggat's speed by 1 (with cost equal to the current speed, as Flint had)?
That attack made sense for Flint, because his speed is very low and he can't fly.  This doesn't make sense for Spriggats, because their speed is already one higher than most humans and they also have the gift of flight. Haste would make spriggats too fast.

KZ

With a limit, or without a limit? Say, the Spriggat learns to channel his natural Psy talents into gaining speed? That surely would be a lovely attack, for someone of assassin type. But in any case, that's a fresh idea- why not? This will certainly balance out the lack of much in terms of powerful attacks (a 2 tile attack can only be called an "area" attack on a technicality, and a linear, 3 tile attack is, effectively, the most basic area attack there is, with no status-effects, thus there isn't much to show for this unit over others for now).  But, on the other hand, as im2smart4u points out, the Spriggat is pretty fast already, plus there is a possibility of a Gelf pet being very fast indeed.
I, however, like where this is going- it's at least a very fresh look on what a Spriggat could have equipped. Because so far I don't really see much reason to use the Spriggat,save for the relatively high mobility (even there, he/she will lose out to a Shadowling with Shadow-port or an Assassin with Leap).
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Ertxiem

We could impose a speed limit or raise the cost with speed in such a way that it would not be cost effective to raise the speed above a certain value.
I think that using haste once per battle is the right amount. Perhaps in some maps, using twice may be advantageous. More than that is too much.
The cost could be: 10*2s-6, with s being the current speed.
So, the cost starts at 10 and doubles after each usage: at speed 6, the cost would be 10; at speed 7, the cost would be 20; at speed 8, the cost would be 40, etc.

Another possible attack could be incineration, where the Red Spriggat causes severe burn damage to the enemy in front of him. Something like 3-4 times the damage of fire breath but only with range 1.


I find flying units quite useful and most of the time I don't use all their steps. In TPA2 I used many times the Spriggats as tanks (but not exclusively as tanks). So, I view them as a mix between the shadowlings and humans in terms of battlefield function.

I was thinking of the Spriggats and I thought about a new move for Arman - assisted leap. Arman jumps to a teammate, and he pushes Arman further away (say, 3 or 4 squares away from the initial position). It will be harder to code, since it requires one more check than the usual square where the jump ends: there must be an ally in front of Arman. On top of that, the animation should include both characters (meaning that if you agree with this idea, Craig will kill me and ban all the supporters).
Ert, the Dead Cow.
With 2 small Mandelbrot sets as the spots.

KZ

Interesting about the cost- I guess the discrepancy in cost values can be that the Spriggat, unlike Flint, is pushing himself to his physical limit with his Gift, and therefore requires a lot of strength. I like the idea, though then comes the question- will it be worth it? After all, a Spriggat's speed is pretty high, it is a flying unit, I don't really see an increase of 1 as an advantage at all, unlike with Flint, who was increasing his speed initially by up to 33%! Thus, I doubt people would use the attack that much.

Inicineration- a bit like Double Strike? I like that, though let's make it range 2- the standard/basic breathing range for all the elemental attacks. Then it would be worth using that on occaison. But the cost will need to balance it out- say in the region of 12 PsP?

Indeed, in TPA2 I used Spriggats and Shadowlings quite a lot- once I even had, apart from the Hero, a Shadowling/Spriggat only team, covering the 3 elements, plus the Hero was Light. Very mobile, very effective, though to balance things out I introduced a Healer and, on occaison, used a Spirit as well.

Heh, Craig would eat you alive for such a suggestion :P
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SmartyPants

Craig would agree that with Spriggats' current attacks, they are already one of the most powerful classes available.

Pirouette- Luca uses her mysterious powers to rotate her friends or foes 180°.  This would help teammates face thier foes.  It would also make enemies vurnable to backstab.
Element: Spirit
Range: 2 Spaces
Cost: 5 Psy Points
Damage: No Damage

KZ

I remember that post, but there Craig specifically goes against the idea of huge area attacks- which is fair enough, but that still doesn't make the current attacks very powerful in comparison with area attacks available to humans and Shadowlings. Thus, the interesting attacks proposed by Ert will not fall into "huge area attacks" category, and they'll also give a reason for players to select a Spriggat over some other teammate.

Pirouette is an interesting idea, but I think it's too situational and it seems to me that in vast majority of cases, some other mode of action will be more favourable.
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SmartyPants

Quote from: KZ on September 01, 2010, 07:58:51 PM
I remember that post, but there Craig specifically goes against the idea of huge area attacks- which is fair enough, but that still doesn't make the current attacks very powerful in comparison with area attacks available to humans and Shadowlings. Thus, the interesting attacks proposed by Ert will not fall into "huge area attacks" category, and they'll also give a reason for players to select a Spriggat over some other teammate.
Craig said, "Their attacks are fairly powerful as it is."   This prior to Spriggats getting gust attacks.  To give spriggat too many attacks would be unreasonable.

KZ

The gust attacks haven't been confirmed, plus most of the teammates are getting quite a few attacks anyways- why waste the space? Furthermore, a Spriggat as a class should somehow stand out from the rest of the crowd, but I don't think they have enough right now as it is to be fully rounded teammates yet.
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Ertxiem

Quote from: KZ on September 01, 2010, 07:35:01 PM
Interesting about the cost- I guess the discrepancy in cost values can be that the Spriggat, unlike Flint, is pushing himself to his physical limit with his Gift, and therefore requires a lot of strength. I like the idea, though then comes the question- will it be worth it? After all, a Spriggat's speed is pretty high, it is a flying unit, I don't really see an increase of 1 as an advantage at all, unlike with Flint, who was increasing his speed initially by up to 33%! Thus, I doubt people would use the attack that much.

Inicineration- a bit like Double Strike? I like that, though let's make it range 2- the standard/basic breathing range for all the elemental attacks. Then it would be worth using that on occaison. But the cost will need to balance it out- say in the region of 12 PsP?

Indeed, in TPA2 I used Spriggats and Shadowlings quite a lot- once I even had, apart from the Hero, a Shadowling/Spriggat only team, covering the 3 elements, plus the Hero was Light. Very mobile, very effective, though to balance things out I introduced a Healer and, on occaison, used a Spirit as well.

Heh, Craig would eat you alive for such a suggestion :P

We could either lower the base cost or raise the speed by +2, to make it more interesting. Perhaps the cost could halved, i.e., PsP cost=5s-6.

The range 2 version really has the advantage of being unique. Cost 12 seems OK to me.


I'm hoping that Craig doesn't visit this dark alley in the forums and that my suggestion quickly falls into oblivion... :)



I agree with KZ. The spriggat available attacks should be such that he's balanced with other teammates, so that many formations are viable. Hence it will all depend on what others teammates have and on the enemies we'll find.

An alternative effect of Pirouette would be the enemy becoming so dizzy that he couldn't defend properly, meaning that we got a backstab bonus the next turn (again, hard to code) or the enemy defence got reduced for one turn (once more hard to code) or for the rest of the battle (easier to code).
Ert, the Dead Cow.
With 2 small Mandelbrot sets as the spots.

MikeW781

I am against both the new spriggat attack and pirouette. Pirouette seems far to situational, and luca has a lot of attacks anyways. As for the spriggat attack, I dislike the idea of an upgrade to a current attack, because the system of attacks getting stronger with use could make the new attack abselete when you got it. I barely like Mega Shield, but Mega Shield is so strong that its almost impossible to have mind shield beat it. The thing is, its okay to have a really strong healing move, because it makes healing important and useful. Making the new attack strong enough that it wasn't redundant would overpower the spriggat.
However, the spriggat needs new moves, because so far he is lacking in just about every way to Malis (mobility, flying, area attack size, etc), so unless Craig allows the Spriggats stats to depend on your stats, I'll just ignore him in favor of Malis
Currently tied with Zack for the title of Master of Light!

SmartyPants

Quote from: MikeW781 on September 01, 2010, 08:34:11 PM
However, the spriggat needs new moves, because so far he is lacking in just about every way to Malis (mobility, flying, area attack size, etc), so unless Craig allows the Spriggats stats to depend on your stats, I'll just ignore him in favor of Malis
What are you talking about? Spriggats fly just like Shadowlings.  Malis doesn't have an area attack, while spriggats have 2 to 3.

MikeW781

My bad, with area of elemental attack I had thought Malis was going to get Dark Vortex for some reason. I think it was because I had just read a few posts about wether or not she should get it. But, considering how I level a lot in between missions, a larger EAA is the only thing the spriggat will have over Mails for me.
Currently tied with Zack for the title of Master of Light!

SmartyPants

Quote from: MikeW781 on September 02, 2010, 06:13:15 PM
But, considering how I level a lot in between missions, a larger EAA is the only thing the spriggat will have over Mails for me.
That is a big difference.  Spriggat attacks hit more spaces and causes more damage than a Psy Assassin's attacks.  This causes them to be used completely diffrently.

ArtDrake

Okay: about the coding for the assisted Leap. As a programmer, I don't know exactly how Craig codes his battle movieClip, but I would think he has a field object, a general game computations and testing zone object, player objects, enemy objects, and tile objects, all with certain properties. All he would have to do would be put in a getter event and method that would tell the player character object if there was an Ally in the right place.

However, as I would still like not to have been eaten alive, I would like to add in that if he has a different object setup that works for him, it might not be as easy as that.

KZ

In any case, I think it's worth thinking about what else to add to the Spriggat arsenal, apart from large area attacks.
Any ideas, folks?

Not sure if I even like the idea, but we could have the Psy equivalent of Fury, whereby the Spriggat gets enrgaed, and since his attacks are partly body-based, with a bit of the Gift to guide the shots, this will allow the Spriggat to make a more damaging blow by increasing Psy Power by 1. Useful, methinks.
Or have a special, expensive, Fire Breath 3 with range 1-4.


PS
Let's not be too afraid of Craig turning cannibal on us and, without fear, keep on suggesting interesting things ;)
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