SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

[Mabuse]

neeeext


EDIT 4: ahaha, deleted again. no unnessessary information to potencial players.
anyway, i'll consider your idea, woodmouse



EDIT3:

the only reason why i dont upload a test version (old maps, new shop) on the server is ... that the folder are full of stuff and the download will be definately above 10 MB -

so people download 1 MB and get the old maps, and a few items in shop.
nah.

and im to lazy to delete the new content before uploading, so i guess i wait until map release - lol

[Mabuse]

btw, i had another Idea -

as you know (or might nor know) there are sometimes Monsters in caves, usually these are cavespiders (mainline) since they are quite strong, recently fungi were added -

with the new addon a good new bunch of critters is added, which can be even used
(or what means bunch, well at least a few)

so i decided to make a kinda "random" option for critters, this wil be a new macro, you must give position, and about what strengh the critter should have (+% of HP and damage) and can give a list of critters -

these will be also used in the old maps, not for all positions but for some

for more diversity in caves (and/or other locations containing random critters), and slight differences per game



EDIT:
as said just "some" positions may be randomized, in any case it could be fun to be in doubt which crittter will guard "that chest", but key-positions may be better positioned with fix creeps. anyway, should be good to have that macro ... and ...

i need anyway macros allowing me to playce critters with % improvements instead of fix numbers


EDIT:
this has nothing to do with BOSSES, GUARDS or SPAWNS/Recruits -
(well recruits are anyway a "random" selection of a list)

although it could be also a nice option to have randomized mobile Bosses (well randomized in the sense that there is a list of 5 possible bosses and then the ai selects them ) - but thats kinda SCN dependend


EDIT: lol. but for soem fun replay value, i really may randomize even the leaders and recruits
lets say i make 4 options for each slot (ok they need to be worked out nevertheless) - but it woudl be fun on some minor maps like CANTAR not to know what wil be your enemy.

playing non-default settings is no real option since most recruiting list dont recruit monsters that are suitable for SX, nor wil take advantage of the new units - ... nor will be allowed in future anyway (unless you edit the SCN and remove the default-check )

however, thats just for the TO DO list atm



EDIT:

Item Balance:
Silver Necklace gets nerfed to +10% resistance for Arcane, Fire, Cold
(instead of +20% each)

with dropable items the chance is high that the group will generate one super hero with all items accumulated -

and silver necklace is very powerful, so it gets nerfed -




EDIT:
Cauldrons:
After some thinking (lol), i came to the conclusion that all Cauldorns, except GREEN ones, get dropped

yellow cauldrons are anyway a no go, since players could simply boost their HP permanently to an unlimited value, but also red and blue caludrons are bad since players coudl simply set up a defense and heal permantly there

green cauldrons are a good way to support players with aditional movement though in certain areas so they are kept

[Golbeeze]

There is droppable stuff in the Modular RPG by Ken-Oh. Maybe you should check that out, it could help. You can right-click to drop weapons that other people can pick up, for example.

[Mabuse]

nice hint golbeeze, i checked it out and it uses a complete different approach.

it stores the items in variables (well, it places an image on the map also) whcih also contain the x and y coordinates -
pick items and drop items is all about (right click) menu actions

well, while this approach definately has its advanatges, for example:
1) it works
2) you can deal with the situation of not having multiple items in same hex


it has also some downfalls -
1) that fancy i walk over the hex and pick item automatically is lost (you know right clicking and use probably different solutions for things ("to drop an item right click on a hex next your hero which doesent contain an item yet, and select drop item (name)", "to pick up an item move your hero on the same hex and right click on it and select pick Item (name)") is ok, but slightly annoying (ok i may haven even an idea how that could stil work but bh, once i get something

2) the item "system" has to be rewritten


ok, im a lazy on , especialy becasue i thought i woud be done with the coding and gfx and mapping stuff, and soon be finished.
also it delays the release, but atm i dont care, since the pro's definately outweigh the cons', and i have thought a bit about a concept for that and got rid of my depression regarding that item thingy -

so thx for the hint, i guess i will change the item system.



ahah, a bit depression was also caused since i found out that if you increase the speed (movement) over the maximum speed once you stop or get stopped (for example by detecting a new unit) your movement drops down to your default.

thats of course [censored] for movement potions -
so i guess i make it that a move potion gives 9 moves, if we assume that a default hero has about 7/8 move at least (and i will also give the hint that you should only use move potion when you dont have any moves left) its acceptable if you get stopped after moving 2 hexes for example, then the potion is not wasted - additionally i will raise the total number of potions that can be carried to 3.

the very nice thing is though that your sight radius isnt increased, hehe, so its really like exloring and more fun imo and fits well -

and if you get to a green potion cauldrom you can stock up your movement-potions.

anyway, time to go to work again ( i gues i finsih the map now though , then look for the item thingy)

[Golbeeze]

Sounds good, I'm glad to have helped and not let the idea drop away. I like the item systems that let you drop / pick up stuff.

[MCP]

@-stf-:
I cannot email you. Your email server is blocking my email service.

[Mabuse]

btw, i think about adding an abilities section in shop

feel free to list useful abilties (also non existing) that could be added to it:
some basic thoughts

- fearless (unit gets fearless)
- cure (unit cures itself and adjacent units from poision)
- heal (+100, +200) (unit heals itself and adjacent units with 100, 200 Hp per turn)
- regenerates (+100, +200) (unit regenerates itself with 100, 200 Hp per turn)
- lawful (unit becomes lawful ... for neutral chars who want to utilze fearless)
- chaotic (unit becomes chaotic)
- feeding (needs maybe another name, since most chars wont feed actually, but it will work in the same way)


i dont list "hide"-abilities or skirmish, because i think these should be exclusivly for the units that come with them, also i want to avoid that players hide all the time and ai cannot find them :p. Also making skirmisher available woudl decrease usefullness of units that actually have skirmisher, which are already penalized heavily due to bad bad resists.
there is a skirmisher item though.

[MCP]

Just one caveat.
Sure I guess it's ok to allow fearless + lawful/chaotic. First, cap it to max two traits. Don't want regen, heal, feeding, fearless, lawful, chaotic, undead dwarf.
Second if any two traits combined are absolutely broken, then have some easy way to specify they cannot be purchased together. So the next time they shop, if say they become or are naturally lawful, chaotic is removed from the options.

edit:
Also cure is worthless. ;p Don't even put it there.

[Mabuse]

sounds good.

technically i guess its impossible to be lawful and chaotic at the same time anyway though.
so if i set the alignment to chaotic for the unit, the old alignment wil be simply overwritten.

but cap it to 2 traits/abilities is a great suggestion i think.

this would make the lawful/fearless dwarf als a bit more "reliant" on a another char that chose to get "heal" for instance - so it would make sense to have a healer in the group - and not all simple take regeneration


EDIT:
i guess though that heal+cure gets combined then, but heal dont affect self, only adjacent units, also just +100 heal/regen, no 200 variant (since i dont want to have immortal units)


the abilities will be fairly expensive though (so for use in later game),

in case of fearless we speak about +25% seasonal damage for example
upper price category

feeding, regenerations and heal will find themself in the medium priced category

lawful/chaotic will be rather cheap

ah well, lets see what the final prices will be


ah well, i may add neutral to the mix
which can be clicked "unlimited" times though

so you can initially make a chaotic/lawful unit neutral, but later change it back and give it fearless (which uses up your two ability slots then)

[Mabuse]

ok, there will be a few changes
after some comments of players that think the new system is too difficult.

but a few things straight:

1) increasing prices for strieks and damage and movement will be kept
1)a) there may be a slight reduction for the movement though
instead of base 5 and increasing steps of 15, there may be base 10 and increasing steps of 10
old: 05,20,35,50,65,80,95,110,125,140,155,170,185,200,215,230,245,260,275,290
new:10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90,100,11,120,130,140,150,160,170,180,190,200

this is a quite significant reduction, im stil not sure if i should make movement that cheap (old 2950 toal for 20 move, new: 2100 toal for 20 move)
but im a fan of "round numbers" on this. of course i coule make something weird like increasing steps of 12 but this result in ugly numbers.

i also think about making base 11 and increase 11, lik 11,22,33,44,55,66,77,88,99,110,121, 132 ... (total 2310 for 20 move)

this woudl be semi-ugly, but still a bit more expensive.
In any case prices for movemtn wil be a bit reduced, since i agree that 12,13,14 is a bit too low - it should be about 14,15,16 for a resonable cost



2) as said abilities.
i wil go with MCP suggestion for reg100 - reg100: will heal 20% of total hp per round or 100, whatever is smaller . so theres a max of +100 per round once you reached 500.

abilities will be availble once max level is reached.
(at least i plan to implement this like this)

- fearless: 250 gold
- feeding: 250 gold
- reg100: 250 gold
- heal: 250 gold
- lawful: 0
- chaotic: 0
- neutral: 0

maximum of 2 abilities



3.)
Armor. ok, i see there must be something done about the armor in order to make more chars useful.

technically the system will be inspired by STF System, though it may be a bit toned down, in some way.

i plan to add up all POSITIVE resistances of the hero and then calculate the slots that are left.
The maximum POSITIVE Slots you can get is 12 (120) though. 23 (230) is maximum base.
Negative Resistances can be nullified without using armor slots.
So negative resistacne can be nullified and weak armored chars get up to 2 additional slots. this may be stil not enough, but wil improve some chars for sure. espcially the nullifiying negative resistances will make more chars more attractive.

i really dont want to go with extremely high since this makes the game too easy. get a reg100 to boost your durabilty for example. combine specials, play smart. since i also need to keep the armor items into account, which will provide very though boosts later.

-----------------------

for example dwarfen Lord:
has 130% positive resistance. 230-130= 100. dwarfen lord gets 10 armor slots
so this would be pretty much the same. (total 230). 230 may be our base in system, since i dont want to make the dwarfen warrior any better. it is good enough, no matter what people say . Improvement: 0%


a Sylph:
has 20% positive Resistance, the -10% can be nullified costing 0 slots.
230-20=210. since 210 is higher than 120, and the max armor that can be added is 120, the sylph wil gain 12 slots. so sylph total armor wil be weaken than dwarfs, but it still effectively gains 13 slots (the -10% that are nullified). thats an improvement of 30% over the OLD system. i dont want to get higher than this though, since sylph has some advantages

thunderer:
has 90% positive resistances. no neg resiatances. 230-90= 140. 140 is higher than 120 so thunderer gets 12 slots and end up having ALMOST same armor as dwarfen lord. making it useful again as a top-notch ranged unit (though a bit slow, and it need additional weapons) . the 12 feely distributable slots make it more versatile and allow to specialize on ranged armor. not to ,emtion its thunderstick, which coudl be equipped with a special (for example magical) and prove useful later. improvement: 20%

silver mage:
has 120% positive resistance. no neg resistances. 230-120=110. silver mage gets 11 slots, having effectivly same armor than dwarfenwarrior, though probably extremely specialized. it has more armor then thundere, but this is wanted, since thunderer has extremely good movement base. improvement: 10%

skeleton warrior:
has 160% positive resistance. 90% negative resistances which can be nullified. 230-160=70.
skeleton warrior gets only 7 slots. but remember he can nullify his 90% negative resistances.
so he has a toal of 160% additonal armor.
of course its clear that skeleton warrior need to get less (positive) slots than for example a dwarfen lord, since its positive armor is so extremely high. but the opportunity to nullify its weaknessess wil make it surely more useful.
improvement: 60%

lich:
positive armor: 100. neagative armor: 70. 230-100 = 130. 12 slots. 7 negative slots that can be nullified. total 190%.
Improvement: 90%

necromancer:
20 positive. 0 negative. 230-20= 210. 12 slots
improvement 20%.

cavalry:
110 positive. 20 negative. 230-110= 120. 12 slots. 2 "negative slots". total 140.
can have effctivele same armor as dwarfen lord. has great movement.
the cavalry wil prove another great melee unit due to its high base movement.
the downfall is that it has to pay for the additional armor and also must equalize the bad movement type. still a very good alternative over the dwarf now. of coruse dwarf wil always have better defense in caves, mountains and stuff.
improvement 40%


fencer:
20 positive, 70 negative. 230-20=210. 12 slots for fencer. 7 "negative slots". total armor: 190
fencer will never have top armor with its total of 140 positive armor. but it has high def and skirm. may be worth a try now, as it can nullify its negataive resists
improvement 90%


ghost:
230 positive resistance. 10 negative. 230-230 = 0. gets 0 slots. but may nullify its arcane armor to 0. improvement: -90%
so ghost gets actually a lot weaker an may be even playbale now. it still has top movment. and its armor is almost developed which will save a lot of money.


heavy infantry:
120 positive, 20 negative. 230-120 = 110. 11 slots. 2 negative slots. total : 130
improvement: 30%
has still bad movement, bad def, and bad movetype. for fans
but now same armor as dawrf at least - and: since it doesnt "waste" armor on fire and cold, it may have finally in melee armor 20% more than dwarf. so its more specialsed in melee combat.





note:
of course the downfall of the improvements is that you have to pay for each armor slot (also negatives 30 gold), so an improement of your char of 90% cost in the end 270 gold . but that is surely worht it.


so you see, new system wont make out of a loser unit a top notch unit, but it clearly adds more top notch units, cavlary, lich, skeleton, thuderer, sylph (even with its just slight improvement), ghoul (ghoul gets 12 slots - 20% improvement), fencer


so see this as a slight tribute to make more chars playable on a high level.
but it wont get any better than this most likely, since i want to favor smart play, team play, combination of abilties.



last note:
since units may change their resistances until they reached the max level, armor that can be bought until max level is reached is limited to 6 positive slots. you can work on your beg resistances if you want though.


EDIT:
the armor system wil not be unit dependent, so it can be combined with any era

[MCP]

Check the wose and the drake glider. Those are two extreme units like the skeleton. Paladin is interesting because it gains armor once. Like the dwarf it gets stronger. I see you have up to '6' resist upgrades before last level, but what if at the last level it should have only 4 resist upgrades because of some massive upgrade from lvl 2 to lvl 3?

Yea you can include ghost only if you do not mind arcane drain. Drain is pretty powerful, but at least now the ghost cannot usually become a berserker. So drain on defense and rage or drain on offense.

[Mabuse]

btw armor system included

due to some nice work from stf to draw inspiration from it was easier to implement than i thought.
i also made some "fancy" things like negative resistances are displayed red, and resistances above 70 are displayed green. lol

well, maybe i should delete the green thingy, but i wanted the negatives be colored differently since they dont cost slots


btw, the system is unit-independent, so it wil work for all units - no need to check particular units, with that system -

in the ADD_ON Era a lot of new units wil be included now
drakes wil be included, skeletons and woses ---

bascially all units with resonable positive armor vaules (but probably a lot of negative resists) will become way more useful and maybe even interesting to play.

btw, muahaha, wose will profit a lot - it has 110 positive armor - thats means it gets 12 slots, and can nullify 8 negative slot - for a total of 20 slots. improvement 100%

all units with 110 positive armor wil be really lucky, since they get the full 12 armor slots (for a total of 230% positive armor), also soem drakes have 110% positive armor, these wil get surely interesting

---------------------------

i set the armor limit before max-level down to 5. but i cannot go lower than this. since you may want to zerk early on a particular damage type and then 5 (+any default) is kinda minimum.

of course in extreme cases, which may occur in some fantasy era that doesnt yet exists or i am not aware of, there may be extrmely huge armor jumps from initial level to final level.

with lowlimit of 5, there must be a jump of 190% in total to gain advantage of this system -
so if lvl 1 unit start with everything at 0, and lvl has 40,30,30,30,30,30 or 70,60,60,0,0,0

then you may profit from that and get maybe one more armor slot.
however this is not the case in any era known to me.

dwarvish runemaster (from ee) for example has 160% positive in the end, and gets 7 free slots then

230% positive armor total is kinda a ceiling (in my system)

--------------------------

hehe, i got a bit distracted as i now also oiverwork the terrain section, so only Terrains that have move_cost of 2 or higher will be displayed at all for buy.

so you cannot buy false terrain (those you dont benefit from) anymore.

------------------------

well, next thing is the abilities
update tomorrow


-----------------------------------

EDIT:

i set up the system that i can easily edit the upper limit.
so if 230 is not enough it can be set to 250 with no problems

btw, i juts recognized that even saurians with 40% positive armor are kinda attractive now, so basically we can just play default SX era now

no need for a special era. almost.
of course a new era with just the best units then woudl be nice.


BUT: a new era is terribly easy to make.
just take SX Era (lvl1 for instance), delete the lvl 0 entry, rename it and delete all units you dont want to have in the list. voila' your new SX era.

anybody who may want to give it a go and collect the potencially most useful units shall go for ti, i can include it in my upload - np


EDIT2: ah well, i may go for that era (derivate form SX lvl1 era) also, so it will be included in the upload then


EDIT3: i just decided to increase the max slot limit to 13. so low armor units will profit more.
("magical ceiling" is now 100 positive armor - if you have 100 positive (or less) then you get 13 slots)

[Mabuse]

EDIT4:
new pricelist for abilities:
let me know what you think

ablities will be available right from start away
(with particular restrictions in special cases)

abilities (including the alignment changes) are limited to 2 per hero.

Regenerate100: 250 Gold
Fearless: 225 Gold
Heal100: 200 Gold
Feeding: 200 Gold

lawful: 0 Gold
chaotic: 0 Gold
neutral: 0 Gold


Notes:
Regenerate100:
is a very nice ability and for sure the most valuable, costwise. now 100 Hp dont seem a big deal, but to have them EACH round for cheap is a great boost.
in order to simplify this (i am no sure if i can add an ability with a "non fix" value) this will be only available if the Unit has 500 or more HP. it wil add 100 hp at beginning of each round.
Well from my guts i could make it even more expensive, but right now it costs same as 8 armor slots - i think it is enough . wil also cure poison.

Heal100:
basically same as regenerate, but it affects all adjacent units and not the healer itself. it also cures poison. i made it a bit cheaper since this is kinda a selfless ability, from that only teammates wil profit, and that also only if the teamplay is good.
available only with 500 Hp

Fearless:
well, initially i though this is such a good thing, but in detail, it will add +25% for 2 of 6 turns.
its cost resembles now 3 strikes. so it makes basically only use if yu have at least 12 strikes or something. and even then the strikes may be better coz they serve you 6 of 6 rounds.
nevertheless it a nice thing to have of course. dont get it too early though.

Feeding:
well, Feeding is basically an investment. you invest 200 gold (for which you could have also bought 100 HP) adn nget 1 HP for each slain enemy. will start to pay off when the 100th foe is slain. if you get it you may be slightly weaker but it can pay off later.


Alignment changes:
lawful/chaotic are thought for neutral units to be able to utilize Fear and the ToD Bonus.
But it may be also useful if you think you better off being lawful or chaotic.

neutral is thought if you think its more comfortable to be neutral. of course once oyu get it you can never utilize fear again (since this would require either lawful/chaotic and fearless itslef, and since neutral consumes one of two abilities slot this is impossible then)





EDIT:
quick Note to the armor System:

i can even set the "nullify"-limit to > 0, lets say 10. then all resists below 10 (including 10) are free. and everything > 10 costs slots. then the "positive"-calculation would start at 10.

so a dwarf woudl not longer have 130 base positiv armor (for the slot calculation thats is , in real he would have still 130% positive armor of course), instead 70% (130-60)

and thus to this get
230-70=160. 13 free slots (mathematically 16, but 13 is maximum)

so he would get "real" 260% positive amor (real 130 base +130 armor from 13 slots)


so with changing one or two variables this can be tweaked until all are satisfied
as said, the current setup dont improve the dwarf anymore and ciels/caps positive armor to 230% total.


but it can be tweaked in any possible direction.

- so ALL units could get 230% total (even the ones that start with 0 armor)
in other words slot limit can be raised

- or free slots go up above 0%

- or total armor limit can be raised.


im very restrctive about that though :p
as i can only see bad things happen from too high resists and many armor items

[Mabuse]

Yea you can include ghost only if you do not mind arcane drain. Drain is pretty powerful, but at least now the ghost cannot usually become a berserker. So drain on defense and rage or drain on offense.

btw,
the time of overpowered chars from other eras has definately come to an End.
i exspect though that some people may be disappointed about this.

the gameplay im aiming at is more than take ghost, push resists high and kill everyhing.


ghost is now only a unit with 0 (positive) armor slots (it can nullify its arcane weakness though), that makes its use kinda limited, still it will be strong at start and has some advantages since it doesnt need to pay for armor. it has good move, it has good movement cost. (it has drain)

still ghosts and in general OP chars from other eras will suffer a lot from the armor limit, while many default chars will greatly profit. i can only recommend not to get used to these at all. . since you wont get far with them anymore, or at least .... you need to actually play the game.


and i really like that

-------------

in essence there are no OP chars now, there is a fix armor limit and if your unit is not completely weird designed or extremely overpowered anyway, you wont get high than this.

still there are of course OP chars like mystic dschinn from EoM for example, with its 100% hit, drain, slow, poison for example.

but there shouldnt be any "problems" with EE RPG Era anymore. runesmith wil get only 7 armor slots, ok, his hammer is magical .. so .. go for it. but you wont have more total armor now. also ghost is playable now.

[Mabuse]

btw, i seriously plan to change the PLAYERS Income

I thought about cutting players income by 50%.
Of course this will require also to slow down the creep development by 50% as well as adjusting Bosses/fix Map Enemies again.

Since Players start with "normal" Heroes and 800 Gold. Initial Game Balance will stay the same.
Also Shop Prices will stay the same, of course, since we redcue costs to slow down char development (except healing).

i absolutely see this change is needed to maintain playability over longer maps. since SX goes more and more in RPG direction, the really pressing factor is time.

at turn 100 the game slows down considerably.
this limits map design a lot.

also i want to allow the players can do quests in future (or questlike thingies, try out strategies without realizing that after wasting 10 rounds they kinda got stuck somewhere.

in any case i would be interested to know what you think about that, and point out things that i may overlook or something.




EDIT:
im not sure about weapon specials and special abilities though
if they stay at the same cost, their prices effectively double in game context, making them much harder available . in the end this is wanted though - and specials wil be mostly available much later in game

but it also means that initial shop specials are very valueful, and special abilities on the chars also. soulstealer will have more effect/feeding also



EDIT:
It would also mean that the strategy to start with 5 players and let 4 die to get their gold would be advantaged. but thats only for the books


EDIT2:
maybe a cut by 50% isnt needed, maybe by 75%


EDIT3:
well im not so sure about the idea anyway.
maybe we better keep the gameplay as it is. this will put tough limits on SX as it is though

or maybe we "need" a complete new system
(well we dont need it really)


as said keep the suggestions/ideas/comments coming