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Thread: Dragons are the worst creature in game

  
  1. #21

    Default Re: Dragons are the worst creature in game

    Quote Originally Posted by Krizzie View Post
    Exploits, bugs, errors, mistakes should be fixed. If the fixes cause new problems then these should be discussed.

    So you could make Armor increase by level? Can you also change the percentage of increase? Cause the normal 35% of the base value per level is a bit much I guess..
    If that is the case then that could be an ideal fix. The higher the level the higher the Armor gets.
    In this case, changes made to the game made every level 10 creature hit over twice as hard as before and land hits much more often, causing the dragon to die really quickly. The dragon was also the only melee creature that did not get this boost in attack power.

    That was why I was interested to hear from you why you thought the dragon had enough armor as it is? Most level 5 creatures could kill a level 9 dragon in no time.

    In the latest nightly, Mefistoteles strongly reduced all creatures melee-attack power, to be much more in line with the original game. Spellcasters still do more damage. So now see how this will effect the balance.

  2. #22
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    Default Re: Dragons are the worst creature in game

    Well that's what I would call a bug, and it's good that it's fixed.

    I haven't noticed the level 10 problem though, but I rarely use Dragons in my Dungeons. Is this present in stock DKFX 0.4.5? Not that I hate them, but I prefer more agile creatures like Orcs.

    Btw, I find groups of enemy Dragons, especially at level 10 very annoying to deal with, cause of the WOP and mass meteor spam afterwards, which makes them very destructive and chaotic. (Which could be seen as a positive thing when you're the Dragon owner )

  3. #23

    Default Re: Dragons are the worst creature in game

    Call it a bug if you want, but it was a conscience decision to implement this, and yesterday to undo it. This was present in 0.4.5 and the versions before that yes.
    It's not just a level 10 problem,... each level above level 1 the damage would grow too much, making the difference in level 10 the largest.

    And yes, a group of level 10 dragons would put up some fight with their WOP and Meteor, because then they may cause some chaos and not get hit in the face. 3 Hits from that orc of yours would put them down. And level 9 dragons would die to anything. Also, keep in mind that for the cost of a single dragon, you could get 3 orcs of the same level, and throw in a troll and a spider. 5 creatures that each would kill the dragon in a 1-on-1 fight.

    And yes, I also naturally drifted away from using them, because they added nothing of value. In the old days, when you were losing a fight, the dragons where the last to stand tall, allowing you to regroup or turn the tide of battle. Now they were just kinda there, slow to reach the actual fight, not dealing any damage and dying as soon as they were attacked.
    Dragons have to have a place as a slow but formidable and sturdy backbone of your army, expensive to maintain, but useful when used right. They bring order to your lines, and bring chaos the their adversaries.

    I've put in a request to have the meteor spell work as intended and blow up on impact. (currently it blows against walls, not creatures). This would add to that purpose.

  4. #24
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    Default Re: Dragons are the worst creature in game

    But isn't "the problem" fixed when mefisto changes the calculations of the stats?

    It now sounds as other creatures are the problem cause they use an overpowered melee attack?

  5. #25

    Default Re: Dragons are the worst creature in game

    Could be, looks promising. This 'Damage growth' is now changed back, but more changed, spellcasters do more damage, different changes to hit/mis. And some changes were made to compensate for the damage growth(for example, I believe the doors have gotten a lot more HP).

    Best thing I think is to play a bit and see the full effects.

  6. #26
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    Default Re: Dragons are the worst creature in game

    Quote Originally Posted by YourMaster View Post
    And back on topic, the removal of 'IncreasedDamage' on top of strenght has had an even bigger impact on the dragon than I would have had expected. My guess is this change has a huge impact all around.
    Well based on what you're saying here and in posts after, it sounds like the damage increase stacked with the strength increase by a multiplier. So it would be (Base Strength + Strength Growth) * (1.00 + Damage Growth). For comparison, the actual percentage damage values for melee fighters would be:

    Code:
    Original	FX
    Lv1: 1.000	1.000
    Lv2: 1.350	1.458
    Lv3: 1.700	1.972
    Lv4: 2.050	2.542
    Lv5: 2.400	3.168
    Lv6: 2.750	3.850
    Lv7: 3.100	4.588
    Lv8: 3.450	5.382
    Lv9: 3.800	6.232
    Lv10:4.150	7.138
    Quote Originally Posted by YourMaster View Post
    Needs a lot more testing before making further balance modifcations.
    I don't have time to get involved in balance testing for FX right now so not much else for me to say about that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krizzie View Post
    I have no problems with change, as long as it keeps close to the original game. Adding/removing skills is something I'm not a fan of. Just as you pointed out.

    The mentioned changes for the Dragon are getting more of a personal taste thing than just "fixing" something.

    So I would search for a "fix" in the stats of the Dragon and not in adding spells.
    Changing stats is just as drastic as changing abilities. Certain stat or ability change can push a unit more towards its intended purpose or it could pull a unit away by deluding its concept of function. This of course depends on the specific changes being done to a specific unit.

    The current suggestion for the Dragon's abilities does not involve personal taste at all. It comes from an understanding of what the original Dragon did and the acknowledgement that the Dragon is currently weak and thus needs certain buffs to remain relevant. The Dragon is a Heal / Armor tank primarily, and the suggestion is to help realize that within current FX.

    If anything, your suggestion for adding melee is far more drastic than my suggestion to boost his Armor and give him Protect.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krizzie View Post
    Everything here is based on opinions, I get the feeling you think yours has a higher weight than those of others.
    I do not devalue the opinion of others. Quite the opposite, in fact. I am more interested in hearing what others have to say if they think differently from me, even if I end up disagreeing with them. They are more likely to say something that I did not consider as they have different mentalities and priorities compared to me. It's all apart of increasing my understanding and perspective of a situation. It's quite simple, really.

    You probably only feel that way because of the comment I made at the end of my last post. However that is merely an observation I made based on your current and past actions. It is something that does heavily influence your stance in these kind of discussions, so I felt it was a significant detail to point out.

    Talk of balance is more objective than you might think. The concept of what to do with the Dragon and to make him into a Heal / Armor tank, for example, is something that is subjective, yes. However, what makes him balanced and what is able to realize that concept within the context of the game and its mechanics is something that is much more objective. I do also have a lot of experience with balancing in specifically both DK1 and DK2.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krizzie View Post
    Er, when did I say this?

    Exploits, bugs, errors, mistakes should be fixed. If the fixes cause new problems then these should be discussed.
    It would take some time to find the discussion thread even with an advanced search, I think, so for now I won't bother.

    However, if it freshens your memory, the discussion was about the Dark Mistress being overpowered and how she is effective against practically everything. You were saying how Orcs can counter the Dark Mistress because they can chase them and back them against a wall. That's when the Ranged AI bugs out and no longer casts its spells like Lightning / Drain and the Orc's higher melee capabilities over the Dark Mistress starts to shine. I'm fairly certain that you did not present it as a bug, however, which is quite important to establish proper perspective from your past position.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krizzie View Post
    So you could make Armor increase by level? Can you also change the percentage of increase? Cause the normal 35% of the base value per level is a bit much I guess..

    If that is the case then that could be an ideal fix. The higher the level the higher the Armor gets.
    Armor shouldn't increase on leveling. As mentioned before, it is consistently good no matter how high or low damage values get because it absorbs damage by a percentage. Armor's effectiveness is relatively the same. The only thing that needs to properly scale with damage, in this case, is Health.

    Causing armor to increase on level will have a drastic impact, requiring units to be rebalanced in addition to having the undesirable effect of pushing the game away from its roots. The only way an armor increase could avoid having that level of impact would be to have an extremely low growth; something less than 5%. At that point, however, it does beg the question of 'Why?' The armor growth ends up being either pointless because its too low, or causing more drastic and undesirable effects because it isn't too low.

    Adding the functionality for the possibility of Armor increasing on levels, however, isn't a bad idea. It allows for more flexibility if someone wants to do modding within FX.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krizzie View Post
    But isn't "the problem" fixed when mefisto changes the calculations of the stats?

    It now sounds as other creatures are the problem cause they use an overpowered melee attack?
    Part of the problem from what I've seen with the Dragon is related to what I mentioned before. Due to the removal of the Strength cap of 255, higher leveled enemies are more threatening to Dragons. Spell damage increases also played a part in this too. It's kind of funny because Strength now properly scales with Health, as Health eventually outpaced the former in the original.

    Now, the removal of drastic spell damage increase does help the Dragon considerably. He might still be weaker than he's supposed to be at higher levels, so a minor stat increase of +10 Armor might give him an extra push.

    It would seem that YourMaster and I were on different pages when we spoke earlier. We both acknowledged that the Dragon was weaker, but I didn't realize just how severe his problem was. I was referring to how he's been noticeably to significantly weaker for a long time in FX due to certain bug fixing. YourMaster was referring to a problem that popped up recently with melee damage scaling out of control due to a bad damage formula / growth as I highlighted at the beginning of this post.

    With Mefisto's change, the main problem that YourMaster highlighted is fixed, but there is still the problem with the Dragon generally being weaker that I've been talking about. The spell damage drop does help him but it also hurts him in other ways, so he might still need a little extra something. It's just something that'll need experimenting.
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  7. #27

    Default Re: Dragons are the worst creature in game

    Quote Originally Posted by Metal Gear Rex View Post
    Well based on what you're saying here and in posts after, it sounds like the damage increase stacked with the strength increase by a multiplier. So it would be (Base Strength + Strength Growth) * (1.00 + Damage Growth). For comparison, the actual percentage damage values for melee fighters would be:

    Code:
    Original	FX
    Lv1: 1.000	1.000
    Lv2: 1.350	1.458
    Lv3: 1.700	1.972
    Lv4: 2.050	2.542
    Lv5: 2.400	3.168
    Lv6: 2.750	3.850
    Lv7: 3.100	4.588
    Lv8: 3.450	5.382
    Lv9: 3.800	6.232
    Lv10:4.150	7.138
    Well, yes, this bit I knew fom some time. But this change would 'only' mean a decrease of 40% damage to the dragon. This would allow his heal spell to come into effect a lot more of course, but as the change still seemed bigger then I expected, I underestimated the heal spell. Before a dragon would only hurt a skeleton for 20% health, but know manages to defeat the skeleton again with health to spare.

    The test-map I made only had the dragon face of against a single enemy, which now seems almost right compared to DK1. I need to look into dragons facing multiple creatures at once, which is a more frequent occurrence.

  8. #28

    Default Re: Dragons are the worst creature in game

    I'm a noob and I'm drowning in jargon here. To go straight to the point, has the issue been fixed or not?

    The thing about me is, I fricking LOVED the dragons in the original DK. I didn't just love them for being the sturdy, well-behaved tanks that they were, but because I love dragons as a mythological creature. I couldn't wait to get my first dragon in the original DK. When I did get one, I geeked all over it.

    Recently when I started Deeper Dungeons with keeperfx I noticed how squishy the dragons were, and it bummed me out. I hate to run a Dungeon without my beloved dragons, and I'd also hate to stop using keeperfx for all it's other enhancements.
    Last edited by Valhallaist; February 27th, 2015 at 06:59. Reason: The message was incomplete

  9. #29

    Default Re: Dragons are the worst creature in game

    Basically yes, if you use a recent nightly build.

    The armor of the dragon has been boosted and the additional problem has been fixed as well. It's not quite the same as in the original game, as fixes to the strength and agility cap, the nerfing of the heal spell and an increase in damage of spells did change the balance somewhat.
    Basically the dragon can now hold out against bigger groups quite well again, but in vanilla keeper 1-on-1 against a warlock/wizard the dragon would manage to survive forever because of the good heal spell. Now he dies eventually.

    However, if the current implementation of the dragon is the only thing that bugs you, you could easily change him further yourself, by giving him even more armor, a second heal spell, or increasing the spell power of heal in the config files. This can be done by opening keeperfx/creatrs/dragon.cfg or keeperfx/fxdata/magic.cfg with a text editor like notepad.

  10. #30

    Default Re: Dragons are the worst creature in game

    I remember how heavily dependent I was on dragons to capture the Avatar on Skybird Trill. It took an insanely long and intense battle with four of my dragons to bring him down. I wonder if you could do the same with non-healing dragons.

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