Improve worthless possible crowning gifts
issueid=1489 12-18-2012 04:38 PM
rho rho is offline
Member
Number of reported issues by rho: 10
Improve worthless possible crowning gifts
Some potential crowning gifts (silver key, thunderstroke, true aim) are more or less worthless. These should be improved.
While I don't think that all artifacts should be created equal, and am even happy with some worthless ones (like the black tome) kicking around, I don't think it should be possible to receive worthless artifacts as crowning gifts. Crowning is an important point in the game, and having the let-down of a worthless artifact really sucks the life out of a character. The three that I'm thinking of are:

The Silver Key
Thunderstroke
True Aim

There are a few others (eg, Black Thumb, Bugbiter) which aren't exactly inspiring, but the three that I mentioned are the only ones that I consider completely worthless. These three items should either be removed as possible croning gifts and replaced with other options or improved. Personally, I favour the latter option, and would suggest improvements along the following lines:

The Silver Key -- Being able to better deal with locked and trapped doors is never going to be exciting, so how about giving this artifact some stat bonuses and/or intrinsics when wielded in the tool slot? They'd have to be pretty strong bonuses to be more attactive than the elemental orbs, but would be useful before the water temple and after D48 regardless. Maybe something like Dx +6, Sp +4, grants lucky, grants see invisible.

Thunderstroke ad True Aim -- These have always been eclipsed by ammo of foo slaying, and with missile prefixes and suffixes are now even worse. I'd like to see magical effects added to these two artifact missiles so that you know you're only going to get one shot with them, but you also know it's going to be a good one. In keeping with the names, I'd give True Aim the unerring property (never misses) and make it have a higher critical hit percentage. For thunderstroke, I'd make it ignore PV and have the chance to stun enemies that ammo of thunder has. (If these then proved too powerful, the raw damage numbers could be tuned down a little.)
Issue Details
Issue Number 1489
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority Unknown
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 7
Implemented Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 9
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 10
Votes against this feature 1
Attachments 0
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)


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12-18-2012 04:57 PM
Junior Member
The ammos could be made artifact-level simply by making them returning.
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12-18-2012 05:15 PM
Senior Member
I'm for improving True Aim and Thunderstroke's stats.
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12-18-2012 05:17 PM
Senior Member
The problem for missiles it not slaying ammo. It's the fact that you have to waste time taking it from the ground and rearming.
Make them always returning, and they will become decent.
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12-18-2012 05:27 PM
Member
Yup, making them returning would be just great.
I would also suggest an artifact sling bullet (e.g. stone sling bullet "Blue Moon", 3s, M(+12, 15d5+3) H(-2, 1d4), retuns, slays humanoids, deals double damage during night (if possible to implement)).

Edit: as for the Silver Key; apart from opening all doors and bypassing all traps it should perhaps have the functionality of autosearching every turn plus increased chance to avoid traps (when equipped in Tools slot). It might as well give invisibility next to walls when not a thief, and invisibility for thieves.
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12-18-2012 06:42 PM
Qui Qui is offline
Senior Member
Silver key could grant Alertness 50 for characters that don't have it. Perhaps just by being in the inventory if possible. And/or passive Detect Traps 50. That should make it worthwhile for a lot of chars.

As for artifact missiles, I'd vote for getting rid of them.
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12-18-2012 07:31 PM
Member
To make them penetrating will be enough
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12-18-2012 07:51 PM
Ancient Member
No sort of penetrating/other magical properties for the artifact missiles is going to make them useful; the only thing that will help is if they auto-return (and with a bit more consistency than the other auto-returning items!)
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12-18-2012 08:20 PM
rho rho is offline
Member
As I see it, there are two possible roles that an artifact missile could fill. Either it could be something that you woud use reguarly as your main ammunition, or it could be something that you keep in your backpack and only pull out in times of need when there's something big and scary that you want to kill as quickly as possible. As things stand at the moment, the artifact missiles are not useful for either purpose. Different changes would be needed depending on how you want them to be used. If they are to be used routinely, then yes, returning would be the way to go. You don't want to be constantly picking up and reloading your main ammo. On the other hand, if they're the sort of thing you pull out rarely and only when it really matters, then you want to make sure that the one shot that you have with them really matters. If they could routinely kill greaer molochs in a single hit, for instance, or take Nuurag Vaarn down to half health, or whatever, then I would want them even despite their one-shot nature. The problem as thing stand is that against powerful foes you're likely to either miss or just not do a whole lot of damage, and that is a problem that can be fixed by adding magical effects.
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12-18-2012 09:11 PM
Junior Member
Quote Originally Posted by rho
As I see it, there are two possible roles that an artifact missile could fill. Either it could be something that you woud use reguarly as your main ammunition, or it could be something that you keep in your backpack and only pull out in times of need when there's something big and scary that you want to kill as quickly as possible. As things stand at the moment, the artifact missiles are not useful for either purpose. Different changes would be needed depending on how you want them to be used. If they are to be used routinely, then yes, returning would be the way to go. You don't want to be constantly picking up and reloading your main ammo. On the other hand, if they're the sort of thing you pull out rarely and only when it really matters, then you want to make sure that the one shot that you have with them really matters. If they could routinely kill greaer molochs in a single hit, for instance, or take Nuurag Vaarn down to half health, or whatever, then I would want them even despite their one-shot nature. The problem as thing stand is that against powerful foes you're likely to either miss or just not do a whole lot of damage, and that is a problem that can be fixed by adding magical effects.
this.
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12-18-2012 10:04 PM
Ancient Member
Sometimes god sucks.
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12-18-2012 10:05 PM
Joe Joe is offline
Senior Member
Another option could be to make them a limited stack of say, 5-25 arrows (possibly with a bit lowered stats depending on the amount). That would make it powerful allround ammo and remove much of the reloading hassle. Also good ammo that doesn't break or disappear is just nice to have.
Returning arrows and quarrels don't make sense to me really.

Iit's also an idea to make the artifact arrow(s) + bow / quarrel(s) + crossbow match up much to a set like the twin daggers for extra good damage.
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12-18-2012 11:59 PM
Ancient Member
It does really suck when you get a terrible crowning gift. i swear the last 3-4 archers i'd had crowned got thunderstroke. On the last one i just quit in frustration.

Even with massive massive damage they can still miss. unless they had maybe, 4x the damage and a never miss (like unerring arrows) ?
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12-19-2012 01:11 AM
Senior Member
For the silver key, I think giving it incredible powers (like the ability to go invisible when you have it) doesn't make much sense...

But I do think it could be tweaked to improve it. One option could be to give it the power to create locked doors, for some sort of cost. That cost could perhaps be some number of PP, much like how the Phial uses PP when used. Note that door creation is one of the few things a spellcaster can't do with spells, so it gives the Silver Key an unique property. It would also remain thematically consistent with the artifact itself.
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12-19-2012 01:40 AM
Junior Member
Clearly it needs to turn into the "silver keyblade" And become a decent sword type 1-handed weapon that *also* unlocks doors. (or breaks them down w/o setting off traps, and then it's an ironic name).
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12-19-2012 01:42 AM
Ancient Member
If you're going to make the artifact projectiles useful without having them return, even without big damage boosts it might be great to simply have them auto-hit, like unerring ammunition. It sounds powerful, but since the boss will be standing on them afterwards, not too overpowering.

The silver key is a great concept, but a poor fit for a crowning artifact. I'd keep it in the game as-is and take it out of the crowning artifact pool. It was extra-useless for a thief anyway.
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12-19-2012 07:38 AM
Ancient Member
I think a good way to make the artifact ammo useful would be to make it create a ball spell effect wherever they hit, in addition to their current stats.

They would be very useful because they would be the only source of ball effects at zero cost, but still not OP because you'd have to retrieve them, so you'd be able to use them only once in most important fights.

The different artifact ammos that exist could cast different ball spells.

Returning is also a good option though.

About the silver key, I agree with Silfir. I'd definitely leave it in the game because it's an original artifact (there's more than weapon and armor in the world), but maybe not for crowning. Perhaps it could be guaranteed via a quest for thieves, and just in the random pool for the other PC classes.
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12-19-2012 07:49 AM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Al-Khwarizmi
I think a good way to make the artifact ammo useful would be to make it create a ball spell effect wherever they hit, in addition to their current stats.

They would be very useful because they would be the only source of ball effects at zero cost, but still not OP because you'd have to retrieve them, so you'd be able to use them only once in most important fights.

The different artifact ammos that exist could cast different ball spells.
+1 for the bazooka option. Would be great for getting rid of summoners quickly. Picking it up is no problem.
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12-19-2012 08:12 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Al-Khwarizmi
About the silver key, I agree with Silfir. I'd definitely leave it in the game because it's an original artifact (there's more than weapon and armor in the world), but maybe not for crowning. Perhaps it could be guaranteed via a quest for thieves, and just in the random pool for the other PC classes.
I agree. Conceptually, the silver key is one of my favourite artifacts, and I would hate to see it go or change. Just remove it from the crowning pool for thieves.
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12-19-2012 08:50 AM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Al-Khwarizmi
About the silver key, I agree with Silfir. I'd definitely leave it in the game because it's an original artifact (there's more than weapon and armor in the world), but maybe not for crowning. Perhaps it could be guaranteed via a quest for thieves, and just in the random pool for the other PC classes.
See, that's why I think it's worth considering my suggestion. It helps to make the key just a little more valuable, enough that it might be worth having as a crowning gift... but doesn't really screw with the item. All it does is add door creation to its functionality. Which makes sense for an artifact key - it can even lock empty space (but that does take a bit of power).

Since Thieves are the only class to get it as a crowning gift, think about it. Thieves don't like fighting large numbers of foes at once - they're built to take on one at a time at most, preferably not even that. The ability to effectively create walls (actually, locked doors) in any place they want would be a rather useful ability. And then there's no need to screw with the existing lineup (although I'd expect the duplicated spot to be filled with a new artifact).
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12-19-2012 09:08 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Aielyn
See, that's why I think it's worth considering my suggestion. It helps to make the key just a little more valuable, enough that it might be worth having as a crowning gift... but doesn't really screw with the item. All it does is add door creation to its functionality. Which makes sense for an artifact key - it can even lock empty space (but that does take a bit of power).

Since Thieves are the only class to get it as a crowning gift, think about it. Thieves don't like fighting large numbers of foes at once - they're built to take on one at a time at most, preferably not even that. The ability to effectively create walls (actually, locked doors) in any place they want would be a rather useful ability. And then there's no need to screw with the existing lineup (although I'd expect the duplicated spot to be filled with a new artifact).
For some reason (lack of sleep, probably) I skipped your suggestion about the key when I read the thread earlier. But I do like it, it makes sense and it would make a valuable crowning artifact.
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