Circle of Eight Modpack 5.9.x/5.9.xNC General Commentary & Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' started by Necroticpus, Aug 27, 2010.

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  1. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Alrighty, after some consideration I think we're going to have to wait to include this stuff until the next release (7.0.0 beta or whatever), the reasons being:

    • The help.tab descriptions should really be updated parallel to these changes, otherwise players might get contradictory info. They'd pretty much need to be gone through line by line - a big job.

    • Comprehensive testing should be done to ensure everything works. Being as an individual can't really test comprehensively, we have to turn to our player base as beta testers ... which is something that should be done in a beta release. While mini-edits might not be such a big deal, the whole game could get turned on its head if a few (or many) spells were found to no longer function properly in a variety of conditions. (Think of old favorites such as magic missile and whatnot - having them unavailable would probably cause riots and we'd be criticized for adding bugs where no bugs existed before. ;) )

    • I see a distinct potential for unforseen consequences with enemy spellcasting, of which there is quite a lot in the new content. For example, if a spell is changed to require individual targets instead of an area of effect, that will very likely break an NPC's AI routine where it contains a command to 'target area.' While it's possible that the NPC would simply skip that spell/command and move onto the next (still not desireable itself), it's also possible that their entire routine would break down and they would do nothing, being as ToEE's AI routines are so 'mystical,' for lack of a better word, in general. (In testing they often work one day but not the next with no changes made in between.) If that happened it would be a disaster - again not something we want to trot out with a full non-beta release. All those battles that involve NPC casters will need to be tested internally on a case-by-case basis, and I don't have the time for that now.
    I think by and large these will be really good improvements and rules compliance updates, and you certainly seem to be carrying out your due dillegence, so cheers to you for that. It's just that now is not the right time. :( It would be great if you continued to work on it though; maybe you could turn in a complete 'spells fix' mod sometime down the line, sort of like Kalshane's proto overhaul back in the day.
     
    Gaear, Dec 22, 2010
    #901
  2. dolio

    dolio Established Member Supporter

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    Sure, I have no problem with that. Although, to answer once concern:

    In all (I think) of the cases where I checked the in-game help about a spell I was changing (which, admittedly, weren't that many), the entry already reflected the change I was making (and matched the SRD), and it was essentially the .txt that was wrong. So although they'll have to be checked, it's quite likely that not many changes will have to be made there.
     
    dolio, Dec 22, 2010
    #902
  3. dolio

    dolio Established Member Supporter

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    One additional thing about this: I noticed that the range in the txt was "Touch." Apparently, the AI does actually pay attention to this. This meant that the bodak would run into melee range before using its death gaze.

    I changed it to Specified 30, which is what the SRD says, and once you do that, the bodak will use its gaze from range.
     
    dolio, Dec 24, 2010
    #903
  4. Oakheart

    Oakheart Member

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    Ahh... NASSSSTY BOKAKS! We HATES THEM!!

    Ranged death gaze makes me sad :p
     
    Oakheart, Dec 24, 2010
    #904
  5. dolio

    dolio Established Member Supporter

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    I'm not sure you have to worry that much. Even with the ranged death gaze, the AI seems to prefer running up and clawing you about 60% of the time, which is much less dangerous.
     
    dolio, Dec 24, 2010
    #905
  6. Shiningted

    Shiningted The Thunder of Justice Administrator

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    Can I just say (again?) this is fantastic, Dolio. We have been getting regular "aargh, that Bodak just bypassed my Death Ward" and "Remove Fear does nothing, NOTHING!" complaints for as long as I have been here, if we can fix bugs like those it would be a truly big step.

    My last question is, adding those descriptors won't make inappropriate spells (like Circle of Death) turn up in Domain lists will it?
     
    Shiningted, Dec 25, 2010
    #906
  7. dolio

    dolio Established Member Supporter

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    Nope. Domain lists are governed by the "Level" field same as the class spell lists.

    So, "Level: Sun 6" makes a spell available for the sun domain at 6th level, just like "Level: Sor 6" makes it a 6th level sorcerer spell (domains aren't abbreviated, though, so it's "Level: Death 7" not "Dth 7" or something like that; I think the SRD follows the same convention).
     
    dolio, Dec 25, 2010
    #907
  8. Oakheart

    Oakheart Member

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    As one of the people that complained about remove fear etc... I say YEA! indeed, YEA! I say to Dolio!
     
    Oakheart, Dec 25, 2010
    #908
  9. dolio

    dolio Established Member Supporter

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    What was the problem with remove fear, exactly? I don't see spell entries that look like monster fear effects, so I don't know if they'll be fixable in the same way.

    And it is entirely possible that remove fear just does nothing. Negative energy protection appears to do nothing to me. I mean, if you query if a creature has negative energy protection, it will return 'yes' instead of 'no,' but it doesn't, for example, reduce negative energy damage to 0 automatically (or prevent level or ability drain).
     
    dolio, Dec 25, 2010
    #909
  10. Skyrider51

    Skyrider51 Member

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    I have the same problem in the arena that after I beat the first battle, no master shows up so I run all around the arena and can't find anyway out or anyway to continue to the 2nd battle. I even downloaded that zip file but it is a .php file so I can't open it to extract the contents to fix the arena. Is there a new file or can you send me the file that would fix it. The arena appears to be a great addition to the game but being stuck in it sucks.
     
    Skyrider51, Dec 26, 2010
    #910
  11. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    It seems that a lot of forum attachments here have become corrupted. I tried attaching a new one of the same thing but it was corrupted too. I'd suggest you wait until Tuesday when 6.0.0 comes out.
     
    Gaear, Dec 26, 2010
    #911
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