THF 5.01 B (More Toys To Play With!)

[Gwynhala]

Thanks for the feedback on THF 5.01. I've made a few more changes based on player feedback. Let me know what you think!

1) Cleric CURSE forces enemies into a shrine animation, so you can't hold spin attack to defy the curse.

2) Bug in sv bot spawn fixed - now, you always get the kind of bot you ask for (as long as it's allowed on the server, within maxclasses setting).

3) Fast-moving daggers will now bounce off of hard surfaces (at half speed and half damage).

4) Bug in dagger reflection fixed. Reflected daggers now stay daggers (they don't turn into fireballs etc).

5) Daggers now come in tomed and untomed varieties. King Arthur's daggers are always tomed. Warrior daggers are tomed or not, based on power-up status. Tomed daggers do about 50% more damage than untomed daggers.

6) The damage for daggers, fireballs, and magic missiles is re-worked.
Daggers:

Dagger: 10-12
Tomed Dagger: 17 + knockback

Fireball, No Ammo: 7-10 + fire
Fireball: 15-20 + fire + knockback

Magic Missile, No Ammo: 6
Magic Missile: 12 + knockback

7) Auto-target radius for improved hellstaff reduced from 64 to 32.

I'm not going to teach the bots about this until there's some agreement that it's worth keeping. Let me know what you think

GameSpy 3D:
Gwynhala's THF 5.01 (Experimental)

IP Address:
66.235.20.14

rcon password is "password".

[SoulHealer]

Really nice!


i want them! but how long do you think it takes to the final release?:confused:

[DraX]

Since ti's the shrine animations, maybe Curse isn't the right term... it ends up looking more like they worship the cleric, I'd think.

[Cenwolf [H(V)]^KS^]

"You have been sanctified!"

"You have been prostrated?"

[Bleed]

I think I crashed the server. It happened shortly after I stole the sword and the warrior was throwing daggers at me. I was also using the repulsion at the same time, if it could've been a factor.

Btw, I like the hellstaff now. It seemed hard to kill people with it, at least with my ping. It's kind of a user friendly and you can cover an area with a constant stream.

[Gwynhala]

Yeah the server is crashing . I'm not sure yet what's doing it, whether it's the new reflection code or the new thrown weapon code.

I agree it's not exactly a curse any more, it's more of a worship, with the shrine animation. I put the shrine animation in there mainly to break spin attacks and (I hope) snowplows, although I haven't tested against snowplows yet.

LOL "You have been called to worship." Kinda fits the whole Heretic theme...

Thanks for the feedback, and let me know what you think of the changes to the fireball, etc. It seems to me like there might be too much knockback in the fireball and magic missile right now.

[Cenwolf [H(V)]^KS^]

I broke it just now. I was reflecting a sphere with the ring. Though it coulda been bot doing something else somewhere else.

[Gwynhala]

Thanks, Cen! Server is restarted.

I've caught it once on the debugger here - and it also had to do with the ring of repulsion spell.

If I see the ring cause a problem again on the debugger, along with Cenwolf's report, I'll be convinced that's where to look for the problem.

[Gwynhala]

I think I found the bug that was crashing the server.

It happened when the blue ring reflected a dagger that really close to a wall or other structure, so that the reflection couldn't be created.

I'll be watching the server to see if there are any more crashes.

[Jar Jar]

I was on by myself, and I couldn't see the light in the shrine.
Is this a normal thf defect?
No one had the light, but the shrines were just the color as if
someone had it.

[Cenwolf [H(V)]^KS^]

I got that too...wrote it off as lag...seems to happen when a map's been on a while...
along with invisible fire, tornados..and my persoanl favorite the invisible ddoor straight to a pit of lava..

[Cenwolf [H(V)]^KS^]

Ok who broke it this time?

[Gwynhala]

Sorry Cen - that time the computer running the server crashed, for a different reason.

[-diVe-]

I never realized how great a weapon that was until Aldawile brought up the shortcomings of our current hellstaff. I guess I was blinded by the beauty of the hellstaff spitting purple globs of energy. I would love to have the old hellstaff back to the yellow, invisible, fast and accurate weapon that it once was. I remember it being HIGHLY effective, unlike our current hellstaff. Although our current hellstaff's effects are alot prettier. I'd much rather have an effective weapon than a pretty one.

Just a suggestion.

Gwyn, I got my first taste of the Cleric "worship" spell tonight. At first I was kind of against it, but I think it's starting to grow on me. However, I still need to test it more to give more reliable feedback as far as gameplay goes.

Keep up the good work Gwyn and welcome back.

[Gwynhala]

The hellstaff you're playing with now is a hybrid of the new and old. It doesn't hit instantly, but it auto-targets within a radius half the height of Corvus. What do you think of the hybrid?

I've changed the curse a bit - it no longer uses a worship animation, just a stand animation. Not sure whether it can break spin attacks and snowplows yet, still working on that. Also the effect is different, not a big black puff of smoke but a more subtle puff.

The modified daggers now do twice the damage (closer to what they did in THF 5).

The bots will use the curse now, and also beg Blacksmiths to give their sword back.

Currently running on my server! Let me know what you think.

[Aldawile]

Wow Gwyn!

It's real exciting seeing all these changes being made to THF...this is all GOOD STUFF!

I haven't gotten the chance to test out 5.01b yet, but just read through the posts. I was excited to see the dagger reflection. That's a neat new treat that will surely be fun to use!

Sorry I missed the dagger with damage 10-12 and higher damage when tomed. That caught my eye as absolutely beautiful. That seemed like a perfect solution to my gripes about the dagger being such a beefy offensive weapon...a true stroke of briliance to nerf it down but allow for toming to beef it back up. Plus, the reflection will increase the number of hits too (can you bounce daggers off the ground at people?)

I'm thinking that I like where you have gone with the new hybrid HS...but haven't gotten a chance to test out the latest version.

In fact...
Every one of my gripes have found solutions, though the dust has yet to settle 1) dagger too strong 2) HS too weak 3) superchic spell...Had no idea about the space checking thing on superchic.

So a heartfelt thanks for all your work Gwyn. I gripe about 2-3 things and you offer solutions to them WITH a bonus curse! Too cool...too cool.


PS- old shrine animation curse coulda been like a "suplicate curse" or "bow down sucka" or "repetence" or "hail to the king, baby!"

[Jar Jar]

Can you put some built in lag for -Dive- so he will be easier to kill?

[Gwynhala]

Alda -

The daggers are still nerfed - they do about 2/3 the damage they did in THF 5, and when tomed they do the same damage as in THF 5. Arthur's daggers are always tomed.

In play testing so far with severely nerfed daggers (they did half the old damage when tomed, and less untomed) the daggers just fel too weak. I'm hoping that we can find the right damage level for them.

[Aldawile]

OK, I tested the deal out against the bots (thanks for leaving bots on the server!) Here's another 2cents.

DAGGERS-
-I actually get the feel that they are about where I would want them. The bots were able to avoid my throws and I wasn't able to kill poeple too easily with them. The tome is certainly a great idea.
-What's going on with the reflection? Will it only allow for reflection downwards? Is it possible to allow it to bounce off 2-3 surfaces? Can it bounce off in other directions besides back to tosser at a downward direction?

HS-
I was testing it out a bit and feel that the shots are a bit slow right now. I couldn't test it, but I bet a beserked warrior could run side by side with them. Cool Matrix-like effect but pretty darn slow. Seems like they only move 2x running speed. The guidance feels weak for the speed of the HS right now. I would up one of them.

CLERIC CURSE-
Looks great. Couldn't foil it. Does the curse reverse if the warrior goes to a mana shrine or was that just coincidence for me? Dunno if I like that or not as an option...probably not. (The cleric that cursed me probably just died too often for me to tell what was happening)

Thanks for all the hard work Gwyn, this stuff is coming together real nice!

[Gwynhala]

Dagger Reflection

The physics and code to make daggers bounce properly off walls (like billiard balls) would be pretty complicated, so it's all faked in a way that only works for one or two bounces.

1) They bounce off walls as if being "reflected", meaning they get a random direction approximately back toward the thrower.

2) To simulate an "inelastic" bounce where energy is lost, their speed is cut in half for each reflection and they don't bounce if they are going too slow.

3) To simulate gravity the reflect angle is modified to be "mostly down". The daggers don't have any mass, or they would arch like arrows.

I'll probably decrease the downward effect some, but it will end up looking bad if the dagger stays in flight or "up" too long. I don't want to make the daggers arch.

The Hellstaff

The shots move as fast as a P-bow. They don't do splash damage, but they auto-target within a splash radius, a similar effect. It fires a lot more often than a P-bow but each shot does less damage.

I can speed the shots up, but increasing the auto-targeting makes the weapon too effective (it cuts through wizards like butter).

I might be able to make the hellstaff do extra damage to armor; have to think about that.

Curse

Mana shrine should not reverse the curse. A blacksmith can, or you can kill the cleric, or you can pick up Excalibur (if female). I'll double check to see that mana shrines aren't reversing it.