Thaumaturgy

[Cooper Holt]

Yes pretty much like that; makes you think of what you're doing with your undeads, instead of just mindlessly summon as many as possible.

About piggy, well I just took a random number, and since piggy is a big badass, I'd guess being able to control one of those for a long time would be op. However, if the devs would like this idea, ofc they need to tweak the numbers so it's balanced.

Ohhh, you mean porky? The ogre?

 

[Komuflage]

Ohhh, you mean porky? The ogre?

Oh that's right ^^ My bad.

 

[Infidel]

The current design for this is that an advanced necromancer would raise undead as a continuous power, this means higher concentration skill is required for more "minions" and there's a trade off with the availability of focus and the ability to use other continuous powers.

That's exactly what I wanted to read.

Artificial caps are no fun. They restrict you from doing silly things like raising a horde of undead guinea pigs (all fear their mighty squeaks and furry noses!) in an attempt to balance Necromancy around the assumption a player will always raise the strongest thing they can. The system described is a much better, more versatile, more interesting and most importantly more fun way of doing things.

Sorry for creating a separate Necromancy thread. I saw the title of this one and assumed it would relate to all thaumaturgic powers in general. Necromancy is something typically implemented very poorly in games, seemingly as an after thought by uncreative people (or at least, people who don't use it). I feel special consideration is needed to get it right as its mechanics often require a very different gameplay approach from most other skills.

So I hope a devoted thread to the subject will be acceptable.

 

[Psychomorph]

I wanted to get to that. I like the idea of mouse gestures (edit: gesture is the wrong term, rather mose movements). Like suggested before, I'd like to click, hold and move the cursor from near your character to a target to channel the path and unleash a lightning bolt on mouse button release (like it happens in nature, before the bolt strikes there is a charged tunnel ahead of it).

I think this is basically what I'm thinking about there. Many games have phenomena and effects animated in a sort of unauthentic way, that it looks cartoonish and such. I'd love magical effects to have a really natural and realistic look and feel to them. As if like they were real.

 

[Bibidibop]

The current design for this is that an advanced necromancer would raise undead as a continuous power, this means higher concentration skill is required for more "minions" and there's a trade off with the availability of focus and the ability to use other continuous powers.

Doesn't that imply living skeleton are being directly raised against the player, and that the skeletons cannot be a lingering trap?

 

[Mello]

no?

 

[Cooper Holt]

Doesn't that imply living skeleton are being directly raised against the player, and that the skeletons cannot be a lingering trap?

No.

 

[Bibidibop]

No.

no?

To clarify, I don't mean the skeletons are targeting the player specifically, but that there has to be someone who is actively maintaining the skeletons in a ready state; that a living Skeleton cannot be something which lingers in isolation, and that to have otherwise would require another magic system tacked on. In other words, if you can find the necromancer responsible, you can kill said necromancer, and eliminate the skeletons in the process.

Additionally, the answer "no" is stupid without clarification.

 

[Mello]

To clarify, I don't mean the skeletons are targeting the player specifically, but that there has to be someone who is actively maintaining the skeletons in a ready state; that a living Skeleton cannot be something which lingers in isolation, and that to have otherwise would require another magic system tacked on. In other words, if you can find the necromancer responsible, you can kill said necromancer, and eliminate the skeletons in the process.

Yes.

Additionally, the answer "no" is stupid without clarification.

Maybe

 

[Psychomorph]

For inspiration, maybe:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130311.html

 

[skilzg haki]

A player should be able to discover new forms of thaumaturgy by learning from the world as well. In a very relistic and credible way is possible within the world boundaries. For Example if a player learns that a certain plant produces a scent that causes people to hallucinate so it could be gathered and then used later on in combat to set up a trap before figthing an enemy that will make him hallucinate.

 

[XxBoDxX]

Firstly, hello!

I have been browsing around but not really felt that I had anything worth adding to any of the discussions before now so have been content to lurk; quite possibly people will suggest I was doing better at that than posting but...



I don't think Komuflage is hating by any means and I think what he's asking is not in conflict to the creative concepts you're bringing up. I think I understand exactly what you're saying but I guess the question that I am thinking, and I believe Komuflage is as well, is what prevents someone using a macro approach to repeatedly "attempt" to use a skill whilst they go out for a coffee/lunch/weekend break and then come back to find their character is a now master?

I think it comes down to what mechanism is used to permit you to make these attempts? If it's just pressing a button it's going to be open to the sort of abuse by just grinding as Komuflage has mentioned; do you have any ideas of how the mechanism could be implemented to avoid this? If the mechanism required some active involvement based upon feedback/visual input then it would at least require the player to actively participate in the process... not really fleshed out that as an idea, just throwing it out there.

It's not a criticism of the idea of having mixed level successes in your path from inept to adept and beyond but rather what is the mechanism of activating your thaumaturgic abilities and what prevents its abuse? It might be that the team already have this covered; I'd be interested in hearing their input on the subject.

I think it would be easy to prevent people from grinding the skills simply by requiring a simple combo to do the spell. The whole concept of combat is skill based, why not make the "magical" elements skill based as well? I suppose you could still abuse it with some amazing macro or third party program, but I think needing to do a combo would also make it harder to do it combat. Easy to do on a tree perfectly though. So even though you dont do it perfectly it would still work but it could have some weird or even terrible effects. This way its entirely up to the player and not so much the numbers.