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[Ardanis]

Call Lightning

As I said in my previous post, I do tried back then. I seem to recall the problem was that only the external main spl check for the flag, whereas the subspells ignore it. I'll try it again.

Whoops, didn't notice it. I suppose it won't work then, just like casting failure only works upon the true casting.

[Demivrgvs]

Lightning Bolt

How to enforce a single bolt, hmm... Offhands I've no idea. Maybe using the VVC field would help, like it did with Flame Strike, but this is a cone... Well, added it to the 'try to do' list.

Actually I do tried a solution with a single bolt:

- the main spell casts 2 subspells at 1 target

- the first subspell has only vanilla's LB animation and targets only the selected creature

- the second subspell has the cone shaped projectile with no animation, and applies the dmg

The problems here are:

- the timing between LB's animation and dmg application is tricky (though it seems to work fine)

- if any creature quickly moves out of the cone shaped area during LB's animation weird things happen (such targets are damaged despite being clearly not hit by the lightning bolt animation).

On second thought, the real problem is another (the above mentioned ones can be handled). Cone shaped projectiles are difficult to handle by themselves but in this case the mess is even worse. LB's animation will stop at the selected target, whereas the cone shaped AoE may affect targets well behind the selected target if the spell isn't cast at max range. Edited May 4, 2011 by Demivrgvs

[Ardanis]

EDIT

 

Alright, here's what I've managed to do. I added a secondary projectile (LIGHTBLT) to the main cone, and it displays normally - a single bolt that flies past critters up to the max distance. The only catch here is - secondary one will only fly as far as the spot the spell was cast at. So if you target ground nearby yourself, the bolt will disappear few feet away, while everything standing farther will take damage nonetheless. Otoh, seeing how electrical damage already produces lightning sparks, they might be counted as the bolt's extension.

 

 

And another edit

As I feared - it affects only those, whose circle's center appears within the cone. At a distance of 1 foot it's near impossible to hit somebody with a thin cone.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Ardanis

[Demivrgvs]

Alright, here's what I've managed to do. I added a secondary projectile (LIGHTBLT) to the main cone, and it displays normally - a single bolt that flies past critters up to the max distance. The only catch here is - secondary one will only fly as far as the spot the spell was cast at. So if you target ground nearby yourself, the bolt will disappear few feet away, while everything standing farther will take damage nonetheless. Otoh, seeing how electrical damage already produces lightning sparks, they might be counted as the bolt's extension.

Well, you pretty much achieved the very same I did but in a different way.

 

As I feared - it affects only those, whose circle's center appears within the cone. At a distance of 1 foot it's near impossible to hit somebody with a thin cone.

Which width valu do you use? I used 20 and it seemed to work...

 

Anyway, between the first and second above issues I'd say this solution is far from flawless. Sounds like A64 is our last hope.

[Ardanis]

I used 16. At longer distances it still spreads a bit.

Agreed about A64 part, though he seems to have stopped the active development.

[phordicus]

can you recolor, give another sound, and vastly speed up the cone of cold anim?

[Ardanis]

CoC was the one I've used for visuals. I'd say it's out of consideration - too discreet, and displays almost nothing when shooting along the screen diagonal.

The best choice imo is the secondary projectile used for graphics, but it still has an issue of disappearing too soon sometimes. Well, all in all I'd say it could work, but just like Demi has said, together with another issue it deviates dangerously far from 'perfect'.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Ardanis

[Demivrgvs]

Lightning Bolt

CoC was the one I've used for visuals. I'd say it's out of consideration - too discreet, and displays almost nothing when shooting along the screen diagonal.

Can CoC animation look like a lightning bolt?

 

The best choice imo is the secondary projectile used for graphics, but it still has an issue of disappearing too soon sometimes. Well, all in all I'd say it could work, but just like Demi has said, together with another issue it deviates dangerously far from 'perfect'.

Yeah, making LB more like PnP would be cool, but only if we can do so flawlessly. Fortunately, considering how SR's Flame Arrow work since more recent versions, LB isn't in direct competition with it anymore, and is relatively fine as the 3rd lvl single target dmg dealing spell of choice (doesn't it?). Ironically this make Chain Lightning a more consistent Mass Lightning Bolt instead of working in a completely different way, which makes sense imo (why having LB affects anyone on its path when CL does not?).

 

Speaking of LB and CL, a couple of quick questions:

a) if LB has to remain single target, do we still prefer to replace V3 animation with vanilla's LB animation?

b) if yes, should we make CL's primary projectile look the same?

 

a) my doubt is that vanilla's animation seem to imply a linear AoE instead of a single target (at least more than V3's animation).

 

b) it may be doable removing trailing anim1/2/3 from lightcha.pro, is it?

 

 

One last wild thought...is there a way to rape either Color Spray or Prismatic Spray explosion projectiles? They look identical (and I can indeed live with it) despite using two different resources. I guess they use spcsprai, spcspra2 and spcspra3, do they share them?

Edited May 5, 2011 by Demivrgvs

[Ardanis]

Lightning Bolt

a) As a matter of personal preference, I'd stick to respective vanilla animations for both spells.

b) Should they look alike? One spell is single target, while another has AoE.

 

c) I don't know if there's any direct way to identify a source referenced in fireball.ids. Needs to check manually.

I assume you want to make a brand new explosion animation? Holy/unholy smite also could use the same one, they don't look too different and most certainly the source spells are nearly identical in all aspects.

 

Speaking of CS and PS, the Prismatic Chain should then also be immune to CS, in addition to CO and PS. Not that anybody still uses CS by that time, though.

 

Disintegrate

Reposting feedback from Russian boards - both -5 penalty and 5d6 on failed save is too much. Reducing penalty to -2 would be most fine.

I know we've already discussed it earlier, so it's more for statistics.

 

Cure Wounds

I've just recalled something. You said that "X+(lvl/2)dX" will present very weak CLW and CMW in BG1, yes? But, how often do people memorize something else on first levels beyond healing? Slots are scarce, and having a free substitute for a couple of potions of healing is probably the best deal an adventuring party can hope for.

Then, if CLW is quite weak, there's a better reason to invest in something else. Like - Doom, Remove Fear, Bless, Sanctuary, etc. All are fine spells, but they imo pale compared with a free potion.

 

Lastly, light wound probably shouldn't mean more than 25% of the max health.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Ardanis

[Guest Guest]

The invisibility sphere spell description says it affects friendly creatures only, but it affects enemies too (not sure about neutral).

 

The invisibility spells are all now 8 hours in duration, but druid spell pixie dust is 24 hours, intentional?

 

Just want to say I prefer the 24 hour version (good for travelling/being waylaid/interrupted in rest when playing no/min-reloads-type-game at the early game when you're weak) and would rather they were all 24 hours, or that you leave pixie dust be at least one that is that long, being level 5. Thought i'd mention it though in case it's an inconsistency you didn't want though.

[Demivrgvs]

Lightning Bolt

a) As a matter of personal preference, I'd stick to respective vanilla animations for both spells.

b) Should they look alike? One spell is single target, while another has AoE.

Well, I think the first projectile should look the same due to LB's changes which actually make CL a Mass LB. But it's probably a matter of tastes, I can live with LB using vanilla's animation even if it remains as per V2.

 

c) I don't know if there's any direct way to identify a source referenced in fireball.ids. Needs to check manually.

I assume you want to make a brand new explosion animation? Holy/unholy smite also could use the same one, they don't look too different and most certainly the source spells are nearly identical in all aspects.

Yeah, I had a strange idea that we could have a Cone of Lightning projectile, and then tweak it to work more or less as we want LB to work. I've made a little research on fireball.ids and it seems there' nothing we can do.

 

Speaking of CS and PS, the Prismatic Chain should then also be immune to CS, in addition to CO and PS. Not that anybody still uses CS by that time, though.

Ih ih, deal.

 

 

Disintegrate

Reposting feedback from Russian boards - both -5 penalty and 5d6 on failed save is too much. Reducing penalty to -2 would be most fine.

I know we've already discussed it earlier, so it's more for statistics.

Yep, we already agreed on seriously nerfing its save now that it has a useful secondary effect. Furthermore, V4's version of this spell will have an additional secondary effect with no save to destroy Mordy's Sword as per PnP (also note this will be uber useful to transmuters as they won't be able to cast Banishment).

 

I also though we could make it disintegrate other force effects as per PnP if we make Breach not affect spells such as Mage Armor and Shield. Not an uber useful tweak, but it may add some spice to this spell imo.

 

 

Cure Wounds

I've just recalled something. You said that "X+(lvl/2)dX" will present very weak CLW and CMW in BG1, yes? But, how often do people memorize something else on first levels beyond healing? Slots are scarce, and having a free substitute for a couple of potions of healing is probably the best deal an adventuring party can hope for.

Then, if CLW is quite weak, there's a better reason to invest in something else. Like - Doom, Remove Fear, Bless, Sanctuary, etc. All are fine spells, but they imo pale compared with a free potion.

If I'm not wrong you're saying: who cares if we make these spells too weak early on, players would still need them because they are essential anyway. Am I correct? If that's so, you have a point, but I don't agree with it much.

 

Lastly, light wound probably shouldn't mean more than 25% of the max health.

Theoretically I kinda agree (I actually thought something like that), we could think of CW spells as the following:

- CLW cures 20% of the max health of a fighter of caster's lvl

- CMW cures 40%

- CSW cures 60%

- CCW cures 80%

- Heal restores health to 100%

Its in-game implementation though makes CLW very unappealing at 1st lvl (it would heal 2-3 hit points - slightly appealing only for non warrior classes imo). At 2nd lvl it should heal twice as much (character's hp progression is kinda silly at low lvls imo, as they grow exponentially before reaching as sort of asymptote) quickly becoming very useful and without a cap it could actually become outstandingly more powerful than vanilla's CLW (e.g. at 6th lvl it would cure 12-18 hp; at 9th lvl it would cure 18-27 hp; etc.).

 

Thinking again about it...it may actually work (if we can find tables that more or less work like that)...I have to spend some more time looking at the whole picture.

 

 

Invisibility Sphere & Pixie Dust

The invisibility sphere spell description says it affects friendly creatures only, but it affects enemies too (not sure about neutral).

Strange, it indeed uses a wrong projectile. Will fix thanks.

 

The invisibility spells are all now 8 hours in duration, but druid spell pixie dust is 24 hours, intentional?

It's not intentional, and I'll almost surely reduce Pixie Dust's duration too. On as ide note, I was thinking of changing PD from illusion to conjuration (a la Glitterdust - the dust isn't an illusion, is it?) to make it slightly more unique and perhaps more appealing (e.g. its invisibility wouldn't be removed by Detect Illusions or Oracle).

 

Just want to say I prefer the 24 hour version (good for travelling/being waylaid/interrupted in rest when playing no/min-reloads-type-game at the early game when you're weak) and would rather they were all 24 hours, or that you leave pixie dust be at least one that is that long, being level 5. Thought i'd mention it though in case it's an inconsistency you didn't want though.

I know some players like to "exploit" 24 hours duration to avoid random encounters, but I'm not too much into it. That being said, Invisibility Sphere within V4 will probably be slightly different following players suggestions. We thought to reduce casting time to 1, and duration to 10 rounds, making it a quick "escape spell" rather than a Mass Invisibility (which should actually require a 5th lvl spell slot - just like Pixie Dust). Edited May 8, 2011 by Demivrgvs

[Thailog]

Cure Wounds

If I'm not wrong you're saying: who cares if we make these spells too weak early on, players would still need them because they are essential anyway.

 

I get the feeling you guys don't play much BG1, do you? As any BG1 player will tell you, healing spells are absolutely essential at lower levels.

 

Nerfing them in this manner would disrupt the game balance greatly.

[Dakk]

Cure Wounds

Thinking again about it...it may actually work (if we can find tables that more or less work like that)...I have to spend some more time looking at the whole picture.

Don't put too much effort into it Demi, the current (SR) system is excellent.

[Ardanis]

I get the feeling you guys don't play much BG1, do you? As any BG1 player will tell you, healing spells are absolutely essential at lower levels.

 

Nerfing them in this manner would disrupt the game balance greatly.

That's what I'm saying - healing spells totally outshine anything else at low levels. At the same time, IR made potions a lot cheaper, so that even 1st lvl party can be offered a couple in any shop.

[Salk]

Cure Wounds

 

I actually am with Thailog on this one. Perhaps because I am a BGT player and appreciate how important curative spells are for keeping my people alive.