awkwarrd
Veteran
SmurfInHell said:So awkwarrd has several comments on multiple forum posts talking about the undead, their respective morality, and a host of other things. I wanted to consolidate some of these into the suggestions thread so it doesn't get too spread out. I feel the suggestions thread is best for this, because it seems like an area for people to post ideas on suggestions and for other to give feedback, insight, and other forms of communication about an idea in one area.
In this post awkwarrd talks about the current system of morality and how it works with respect to the undead, hell units, and the Delthersam village recruits (mummies). He also talks about things like the morality issues due to things like companions, fighting other undead, and the overall difficulty keeping a party of undead going.
While I do think his posts can be rant-ish at times (I simply jest) - He does bring up several good points of issue. My response details some of the lore of the mod, from my understanding, and attempts to talk about the different undead variations along with talking about how they are different.
awkwarrd said:
So lore wise in terms of undead we should talk about sentience and morality.
The fodder units you summon like zombies are undead or bent to your will. I could absolutely see them not being affected by morale (but I don't know how you could implement only some units being not affected). Eventually, at level 10 Necromancy (in the upcoming update) ANY undead will not break free from your control. This means you have mastered control of the undead WITHOUT the need for lichdom (though lichdom could accelerate gaining the Int stats needed for 10 necro).
Shadows and Mummies are sentient to an extent. The Shadows are bent to your will, but are capable of some form of learning and intelligence, WHICH explains how they can gain experience and level-up. It's like a gaining of knowledge, a retention of skills. This could also be used to argue if they should / should not be able to leave for morale issues. That being said, they can NOT break away from you as undead in combat at level 10 necro. This could lead to the argument that those unable to leave you during battle should not be available to leave you out of combat.
Mummies are a very different story. In the lore of the mod they are people who kind of chose to follow the lich king into death or voluntarily chose to become undead. They kept all, or some, of their past life memories and became a mummy. This allows them to basically be an undead human. They are not bent to your will, they are free form undead who chose to follow you with causes of their own. Similar to village recruits, but ya know, undead. Now in terms of morality it would make sense they would leave you if morale is low, because they are not bound to you.
Demons, from my understanding and other lore sources, are only in groups when it best suits them. They are manipulative, compulsive, and have a host of other thought processes. Normally demons are either looking for a larger goal for them to gain power, or to simply spread death and destruction. Does that mean party morale should matter to them? Well, I guess it would depend on what the demons in Calradia are after. If they seek death and destruction then it would make sense morality wouldn't matter to them, but in terms of say gaining power if a party is not doing well... The party has become dead weight and they would move on.
That being said, the morality affect they have on a party including evil units like shadows, demons, and etc, is not supposed to be like that. I am almost 100% certain that these are simply by-products of a fairly complex system being worked on. Considering they did choose to become undead I highly doubt they have problems with the likes of other undead apparitions.
Quick Note: These are all viewpoints based upon lore, logic, and rough ideas of morality. Game balance should be of utmost importance. I just feel that these three principles are a good starting place to test possibilities and options for game mechanics.
I agree, i re-read over some of my posts and noted how i spoke.SmurfInHell said:While I do think his posts can be rant-ish at times (
While trying to make my points i can carry on with pretty blunt anti-argumentative context.
And thankyou for looking past that stuff, i do love this mod, and i don't want to be considered trolling or be seen as angry posting, i just want to help in whatever way i can.
I will try to word things in an easier to read format that seem less like a rant.
- The fodder units, morale and lichdom:
-Seeing that people have spoken about morale in general in a few threads before, it may be worth while to try dumbing down the morale a bit, maybe by 50% of it's effectiveness so we can tell what is doing what and be able to react, or put together a chart of things that hate each other from an intended perspective.
-Lichdom will add INT in an upcoming update?
-If you tested playing Necro when cheating, you can see that you can get 15 skill in Necro, will there be any point to getting 15 Necro skill? (especially if you are getting more int from lichdom)
-Will there be any changes to the starting Necro skill or a starting weapon with a special Necro affix that will stop the first 5 Shadows from rebelling from you within the first couple of fights? - Shadows:
-Are sentient but are still part human with humanity, because they still have the same Morale issues as the living, they don't seem to have any noticable difference that makes them evil other than the looks, you can have a full army of shadows, and then go hunt down Shadow bandit groups, and your shadows will lose morale from it, asif every shadow was from the same family and you just ordered them to kill their brother and they shed a tear, they would do it anyway, but with morale issues later on, like a Rhodok being ordered to kill his own countrymen, except Rhodok are not an agent of chaos.. why so serious?
-Shadow Wizards have morale issues with Mummies. - Mummies:
-Chose to be undead, and have morality and memories of their human life, they get no benefits other than the "don't eat", they are one of the weakest Town recruited units, and other than their skins they have no uniqueness to them and no usefulness in an army other than more fodder.
-Golems are still the better option for town recruits.
-They cause Shadow Wizards to lose morale. - Demons:
-I hope that the morale problems caused by hell units being in your evil army is a bug, because other evil units losing morale and companions losing morale because of "volunteering" prisoner hell units is not fun.
-It's pretty hard to capture a Balrog, let alone make an army of them without having to worry about morale issues with the evil units you are using to capture them with, even if you are trying to capture the Balrogs to use them as a suicide bomber on the Blazing Hand to break their ranks or cause problems for them.
-Having a demonic card up your sleeve would be an evil thing i think, if i could put the demons in an enemies army to cause them morale issues.. then i would.
Balance wise, Clerics clearly have an advantage over a Necro.
With Mummies and Shadows being sentient, they still share the same vulnerabilities as something that is purely undead and has no memories, which would make the Cleric spells like purely fire or something and not of a paranormal element, because it wouldn't work at 100% effectiveness to things that have humanity in them, probably only scorch the outer crust of the enemy and weaken them, not flat out kill them.
The Necro class seems built around the early game, with nothing to do in late game when everyone has Clerics.
I personally see the Necro as a "Puppet Master" that can make all the undead he summons do whatever he wants, even leveling up and upgrading, it's all up to the Necro and his Will power, if he/she wants that to happens or not, which is up to the person playing the Necro anyway.
If the Shadow's upgrade on their own, without the need for the player to manually click upgrades for them, then i can understand the Sentient part.
)
)
