The Temple of Torment

[Endorya]

Some ideas about new classes:

Bard: Class skills are songs, one could demoralize enemies by reducing their damage by 1 (song of demoralize), one could boost hit points (song of bravery)

Monk: Class skills are one kick skill, one fist skill and one skill to improve some stat, maybe damage reduction by 1 for given amount of turns, unarmed damage is 1d6 instead of 1d3 and it grows to 1d8 by level 3 and to 1d10 by level 6.

Druid: One class skill would be shapeshift, probably werebear with increased damage and hit points.

Something I need to take out of my chest regarding the Bard class:
Bard is that one class I don't recall ever playing with and also the one class making no sense to have as an option to be an adventurer. I mean, a guy who spends his entire life playing musical instruments and travelling that also happens to know how to fight beasts. I simply can't picture in my mind having a guy playing magical music during a battle to add bonuses or penalties to characters - "Come here you little bastard! Feel the wrath of my flute!" - it feels more like a parody to me. I think such mechanics should be part of other classes, mainly the Mage class, but instead music just using plain spells to add bonuses and penalties. I believe that the bard class exists just because it became a tradition to have it in roguelikes without that much of a thought.

The bard class could make sense for party based games as a support unit though. They are travelers, so their general world knowledge should be high as well as having high experience dealing with people making them exceptional traders. Ok, have them also playing magical music during combats but the effect should only remain as long they are playing it.

If you really need more classes:
Necromancer - It is so fun to mess around with the dead.
Summoner - A guy who specializes in summoning all sorts of beings.
Mentalist / Enchanter - A guy who as a power to use his mind as a weapon, including causing pain and paralyzing his foes.
Soulreaper - A guy that earns a lot with death. Like having his life or mana recovered by each kill or something.

Just some thoughts. I just made up some of them so...

[Aukustus]

Something I need to take out of my chest regarding the Bard class:
Bard is that one class I don't recall ever playing with and also the one class making no sense to have as an option to be an adventurer. I mean, a guy who spends his entire life playing musical instruments and travelling that also happens to know how to fight beasts. I simply can't picture in my mind having a guy playing magical music during a battle to add bonuses or penalties to characters - "Come here you little bastard! Feel the wrath of my flute!" - it feels more like a parody to me. I think such mechanics should be part of other classes, mainly the Mage class, but instead music just using plain spells to add bonuses and penalties. I just believe that the bard class exists just because it became a tradition to have it in roguelikes without that much of a thought.

Yeah I agree. Bard just happens to be one of the basic D&D classes and I wish to have recognizable classes in my game. I'm pretty much doing a lot of stuff because of tradition in p&p and crpg games.

Regarding those classes you made up, if I ever happen to make sub-classes, some of them could be mage subclasses.

In fact that mind weapon that causes pain and paralyzes happens to be one of the spells that's available in my game. It's a prayerbook found in the deepest parts of the dungeon.

[Endorya]

Regarding those classes you made up, if I ever happen to make sub-classes, some of them could be mage subclasses.

In fact that mind weapon that causes pain and paralyzes happens to be one of the spells that's available in my game. It's a prayerbook found in the deepest parts of the dungeon.

You could have the Mage casting mainly offensive magic while having paralyzing, healing, sleep, cursing etc. being part of other classes, in fact the mind attacks could be part of a particular class that is melee based with ability of causing these mind attacks without even requiring mana. These attacks could instead be cooldown based, like only available once per 100 turns and the cooldown could in fact be tied to particular attribute. I think that could be interesting. Just some more thoughts.

[Aukustus]

Regarding those classes you made up, if I ever happen to make sub-classes, some of them could be mage subclasses.

In fact that mind weapon that causes pain and paralyzes happens to be one of the spells that's available in my game. It's a prayerbook found in the deepest parts of the dungeon.

You could have the Mage casting mainly offensive magic while having paralyzing, healing, sleep, cursing etc. being part of other classes, in fact the mind attacks could be part of a particular class that is melee based with ability of causing these mind attacks without even requiring mana. These attacks could instead be cooldown based, like only available once per 100 turns and the cooldown could in fact be tied to particular attribute. I think that could be interesting. Just some more thoughts.

Yeah, there's more offensive spells on spellbooks and more defensive spells on prayerbooks. At the moment Cleric is more defensive caster than Mage. I've been thinking about cooldown based skills too but I think that I want a single mana system to power everything.

Adding cooldown based skills I think makes the existing skills that are not magical and use mana somewhat bad. I mean that entering stealth doesn't make sense using mana but it's okay since everything uses mana. I'd have to change quite a lot of skills into cooldown based if I added some cooldown based skills.

[Endorya]

ah, there's more offensive spells on spellbooks and more defensive spells on prayerbooks. At the moment Cleric is more defensive caster than Mage. I've been thinking about cooldown based skills too but I think that I want a single mana system to power everything.

Adding cooldown based skills I think makes the existing skills that are not magical and use mana somewhat bad. I mean that entering stealth doesn't make sense using mana but it's okay since everything uses mana. I'd have to change quite a lot of skills into cooldown based if I added some cooldown based skills.

I see what you mean. But I was referring to very specific abilities and not making everything being cooldown based. Still, you could have mana to power abilities and at the same time having cooldowns to restrict their usage as well and this also plays at your favor when balancing classes. I think that cooldowns adds tremendous flexibility, ability wise. For example, a mage could have a powerful (or emergency type) spell that would require little mana to cast but with a nasty cooldown. This concept is mostly used to create portals to escape; the nasty cooldowns are there simply to keep exploits at bay.

The game I'm developing uses cooldowns to add diversity and strategy during fights, regardless of the class party members belong to. I tried making everything stamina (for melee) and mana (for magic) based and I ended up having classes that would play quite similar where only the attack names were different (in some cases). Once I added cooldowns everything changed.

[Endorya]

Does the libtcod supports PNG files with transparency?

[Aukustus]

Yeah. I'll think about it.

Does the libtcod supports PNG files with transparency?

Yep. You can put any single color background behind tile with transparent parts. Overlaying tiles on top of each other isn't supported.

[Endorya]

Yep. You can put any single color background behind tile with transparent parts. Overlaying tiles on top of each other isn't supported.

But does it support PNG's alpha channel where transparency has different opacity values? I'm asking this to see how restricted I am, in case I get free time to draw you a new GFX tile set. I'm not particularly pleased with the one you are currently using. Would you actually like to see a bigger tile size with a particular size instead of the standard 16x16? How about 32x16? Can you have non proportional tile sizes? This would make text reading so-very-much-freaking-better.

[Aukustus]

But does it support PNG's alpha channel where transparency has different opacity values?

Probably, I'd have to check it. So you mean that alpha values would be different throughout the tile so they let background color different amounts through?

I'm asking this to see how restricted I am, in case I get free time to draw you a new GFX tile set. I'm not particularly pleased with the one you are currently using.

I'd appreciate it. I have a lot of stuff I'd like to add to my game but I'm not a fan of using multiple tilesets together. World map town tiles are from different tileset than other tiles and I've drawn couple of tiles myself. It bugs me that it's not consistent art style for everything.

Though I like the current tileset since it's quite gritty opposed to cute-looking tilesets, which I do not like, there are in many roguelikes.

Would you actually like to see a bigger tile size with a particular size instead of the standard 16x16? How about 32x16? Can you have non proportional tile sizes? This would make text reading so-very-much-freaking-better.

16x16 is the only option since it has to be the same size as the font and the whole game has to be one font size. Libtcod doesn't support multiple fonts or non-monospace fonts since it's basically x,y coordinate system for the whole window.

[Aukustus]

But does it support PNG's alpha channel where transparency has different opacity values?

Probably, I'd have to check it. So you mean that alpha values would be different throughout the tile so they let background color different amounts through?

I'm asking this to see how restricted I am, in case I get free time to draw you a new GFX tile set. I'm not particularly pleased with the one you are currently using.

I'd appreciate it. I have a lot of stuff I'd like to add to my game but I'm not a fan of using multiple tilesets together since my base tileset I've been using doesn't have all the tiles I want. World map town tiles are from different tileset than other tiles and I've drawn couple of tiles myself. It bugs me that it's not consistent art style for everything.

Though I like the current tileset since it's quite gritty opposed to cute-looking tilesets, which I do not like, there are in many roguelikes.

Would you actually like to see a bigger tile size with a particular size instead of the standard 16x16? How about 32x16? Can you have non proportional tile sizes? This would make text reading so-very-much-freaking-better.

16x16 is the only option since it has to be the same size as the font and the whole game has to be one font size. Libtcod doesn't support multiple fonts or non-monospace fonts since it's basically x,y coordinate system for the whole window.

[Endorya]

Probably, I'd have to check it. So you mean that alpha values would be different throughout the tile so they let background color different amounts through?

Exactly That is something the PNG format lets you do due to its alpha layer.

Though I like the current tileset since it's quite gritty opposed to cute-looking tilesets, which I do not like, there are in many roguelikes.

I really hate zelda-cute looking graphics. That's also the main reason why I was unable to play WOW. Cartoonish looking GFX simply hurts my brain in every possible way. Cute or cartoonish GFX is such a turn off to me (with very few exceptions). Anyway the real problem with your current tile set is indeed you said, they have mixed styles and some of them are really hard to understand.

16x16 is the only option since it has to be the same size as the font and the whole game has to be one font size. Libtcod doesn't support multiple fonts or non-monospace fonts since it's basically x,y coordinate system for the whole window.

That sucks big time

[Aukustus]

Does this picture answer to your alpha question? https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/95372567/alpha.png

I put the above tile on top of a yellow background in libtcod.

[Endorya]

Does this picture answer to your alpha question? https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/95372567/alpha.png

I put the above tile on top of a yellow background in libtcod.

So I guess it does supports alpha layer. But you said libtcod doesn't support overlayed tiles. My idea was having items GFX over the floor tile GFX.

[getter77]

This is a longer shot, but perhaps more elaborate graphical translations could be facilitated via eventual Necklace of the Eye support...especially given the whole libtcod angle?

http://www.roguetemple.com/z/noteye.php

I would definitely think the Temple of Torment would be in good company amongst the lot that is already there at present.

[Aukustus]

So I guess it does supports alpha layer. But you said libtcod doesn't support overlayed tiles. My idea was having items GFX over the floor tile GFX.

Yeah, in fact that's the reason why my floor tiles are like '.' but in a graphical way. Having an item or anything on a floor would not look weird.

This is a longer shot, but perhaps more elaborate graphical translations could be facilitated via eventual Necklace of the Eye support...especially given the whole libtcod angle?

http://www.roguetemple.com/z/noteye.php

I would definitely think the Temple of Torment would be in good company amongst the lot that is already there at present.

I once looked into noteye but I couldn't figure out how to run my game in it. It is interesting though and I'd like to try it.

Edit: Mainly I have absolutely no idea where to copy what file.