The Stone Caves of Nores 2: a Dungeon by Xaklor

[SirSpud]

Man time for a 0/8 grave

I highly doubt you will be using this item on a 0/8.

[Puffagod]

This is way better than the original! Here is my review:

HAPPY c:

• Really cool sounding event, which appears to verge on the goldilocks zone of risk and duration.
• The new status ailment is both realistic and interesting - could potentially alleviate the excess of pet stasis, I think it would be devastating if applied to large, chaotic groups.
• Map is great, as per usual.
• NO SHADOW THEMED ENEMIES!
• NO UMBER COBRA!
• Finally, unique projectile sprites - gives the dungeon a unique identity (Clock Tower was lacking these).
• Unique bullet patterns and formations are fun!
• Boss room portals look badass, would totally go for in-and-out 20 minute adventure.
• Animated scenery lends a lot of charm, its tried and tested in the ideas section now :3
• I am really happy that there are different bosses to fight rather than the same marginally different reskin like in the Clock Tower. I’m also really glad that players can choose which/in which order to fight, increases co-operation, variation and (unlike LoD) seems really well executed with the Alloy.
• Bosses are fun, different from eachother and unique - great job!
• I didn’t read the journal entries, but lore integration is always a +1 C:
• Scepter is honestly a great idea in particular, also always loved the beam spell.
• I love where you’re going with trying to fill new item niches, especially adding vit and wis to rings!
• The insignia is a good idea, even though the reindeer might be a bit mechanically janky.

NOT-SO-HAPPY :o

• Starting the introduction with -“Nores.” makes it sound like some war movie exposition given over long-distance comms as our protagonist prepares for tactical incursion from a chinook.
• How do you even pronounce ‘Nores’ anyway? Does it rhyme with ‘ores?’ Does it sound like ‘Norris’? I’ve been personally pronouncing it classical-style like Nor-rees. It’s just a weird name, not certain it should be in the title of the dungeon.
• The overbearing black-and-white colour scheme is tedious, and when applied to projectiles is just confusing. More soul and less steel would be aesthetically pleasing.
• Ye gods, that complex behavior interaction with the robots is irritating. Nobody is realistically going to learn it, it just adds a layer of esotericism and subsequent smugness to those who implement it.
• The robot sprites… what’s with that floating limb? Why are all the non-boss enemies so spindly? Most of all, where’s the minitank and friends from the original? ;-; they looked much better than these!
• I do not especially like this artificial taxonomy into ‘families’ of enemies, that’s a pet peeve :3
• The odd damage numbers still make my blood boil.
• Kelram’s sprite is incorrigible. Perhaps it would be better if you removed that floating stuff (which I totally don’t understand, the metal wraith also has it and it looks weird). Where’s its head?
• Lordeus is almost as bad. A sprite from the frontal perspective with what appears to be a three-quarters-view head? Also extremely sloped/non-existant shoulders mean that the walking annimation cannot convey the vital contrapposto which animates a figure. It just looks clumpy and juvenile.
• Nearly everything with an epithet has a comma. Jirun, the Judge - Kelram, the Silver Death - Lordeus, the Soulsword. Does ‘Jirun’ mean Judge? I just think its unnecessary and confusing.
• The item descriptions are either ordinary or shuddersome. Why in heaven’s pale are some abstract concepts like Justice, Dream and Endure turned into proper nouns while others like fury, sorrow, etc, aren’t? It’s just odd.
• I personally would never use the katana. If it were an animal, it would be a giraffe - overly specialised to the point of absurdity. The star also seems a little overbalanced but I’m not so good with items :3

So there you have it! A mixed bag but a thoroughly enjoyable read, I’d definitely play the hell out of this if it was added to the game despite my little gripes, and I am inclined to agree that it is one of your finest works to date

[fury]

This is a beautiful and polished idea, so I am going to go on a limb and guess you want to most annoying, pedantically critical review you can get. I will try!

Intro:
[spoiler]
"First, the caverns were filled with discomforting murmurs, with then grew to violent wailing"
Change “with” to “which”.

"People quickly believed the caverns were haunted, but were still not deterred."
They didn’t quickly believe, they quickly came to believe. Quickly just isn’t an adverb that makes sense with the verb “believe”. Also, you might want to rephrase the last bit to something like “but this did not deter them from continuing their mining expedition,” just to make it more clear.

"…gladiatorial champions of battle."
This is poetry .

"Finally, the spirit’s strongest emotions…"
You mean spirits’ I think? Multiple spirits? If not, change the pronouns later in the sentence.

"There is little else recorded of the warlords conquest,"
Warlord’s
[\spoiler]

Event:
[spoiler]
Spirit of anger:
So, this thing chases players? Hell. How quickly? Will it actually try to sit on a player, or just go nearby and move to the next target? Because if this sits on you and shoots…well… You dead. 20 stars at 80 damage a piece? Yikes, man. There is a reason Spooky goes in a roughly pre-determined path in the sentry fight. Even then he is a scary mf.

Spirit of Despair:
I like this one a lot. Just picturing it rotating around while shooting the rotating stars… Bullet hell is awesome. I like it. But increases my concern with the red spirit coming and just insta-ing character after character while they are trying to dodge the minefield of blue stars.

Spirit of fear:
With the fear bolts- are these targeting the closest player? Shot in particular directions in a pattern? I think the latter would be better, considering the rest of the madness already going on. I love the slow-speedy combination. Brilliantly evil.

My main worry with this whole thing is that if you don’t do it clean, you just really aren’t going to be able to kill these things. Like… Ever. Think about all thee of these going at the same time. Honestly, that is just madness. Might want to consider scaling damage down just slightly, considering the number of projectiles that are going to be everywhere at all times. I know you are intending for players to concentrate on one at a time, but it should be at least possible if some fools screw it up.
[\spoiler]

Well that took longer than expected…I will come back to finish this later! Awesome, thorough idea.

Edit: I don’t know the tags here yet…I am trying to collapse the material between spoiler tags. Can someone help?

[Atrapper]

the goal was to turn it into a weapon that is almost ability-like in function, one of the few weapon effects never been attempted before. each of those effects serves a very specific function that would lessen the functionality of the Soulteel Blade as a whole (imo) if they were removed.

Like I said, it was just my opinion. I understand that a lot of people will enjoy it, but personally, it felt weird to me. I feel better about it with this explanation of it, though.

well they are rings. as I mentioned in the Insignia of Oryx description, while you could try to add new passive effects or whatever to them, I don’t feel that’s RotMG-like. I feel like adding something like that would be better suited to some sort of temporary generator (not necessarily something like the Insignia of Oryx, but something along those lines). I know the original Amulet of Fortitude granted auto-healing when your HP was low, but my mind has changed since then.

This was just another opinion I had.

can you be more specific? this comes up in nearly every single dungeon idea ever, yet the people doing the accusing rarely go into a level of detail that helps (myself certainly included). I remember Dappertron being somewhat dissatisfied with Lordeus as well, but again, not enough details.

Sure. Lordeus is pretty rectangle-y (especially in his arms), has a flat and wide chest, and has a very wide waist. For someone titled “The Soulsword”, I’d imagine a sleek physique.
The Soulsteel Revenant is a bit difficult to make out. I’d suggest making its attacking arm a bit lighter.

Really, those are the only sprites I have any issue with. I’m not the best person to come to for sprite advice, though, so if I were you, I’d take this feedback with a grain of salt.

I know I poke fun at your inconsistent rating system a lot, but is that really how you feel this measures up to the Clock Tower? if yes, can you explain why?

I guess I rated it a bit lower than I should’ve.

I know I poke fun at your inconsistent rating system a lot, but is that really how you feel this measures up to the Clock Tower? if yes, can you explain why?

In retrospect, I probably should’ve rated it higher. I was exhausted from the Christmas festivities and just overall worn out, so I was rushing through typing my comment. Now that I’ve got to sort of savor the dungeon, a 9.5 or 10/10 (I’m only rating this slightly lower than CT because CT was a bit more expansive, but Stone Caves 2 is still great) is more accurate. I’ll fix my original comment.

[CptShevu]

I’ll start with the bad and then move on to the good.

My chief problem is the heavy presence of the black, white, and grey themed tiles and shots everywhere. Then you throw in the Mini-bots and the contrast is just a little weird to me. I don’t have an issue with black and white everywhere, after all this is essentially a haunted silver mine… But I’d say either back off on the vibrancy of the Bots’ colors, or add a little more color to dungeon overall. And not so vibrant, maybe something a little more subtle, pale, spectral-looking.

My other big issue has already been addressed… Lordeus’s sprite just looks super awkward. The other two I love though.

I also don’t like Jirun. At all. While I do understand that it and the katana are fundamentally different from one another, they are quite similar in that they are slow firing, niche weapons, and if I had to choose one I like better, I’d say it’s the katana.

Special shoutouts go to the Stone Star, Plasmic Blast Spell, and Liquid Rage! These are all awesome. Like seriously, awesome. I’m also a sucker for new, powerful ring items. I love looking at them and seeing which classes/sets they’d go well with. I also love the amount of effort you put into the lore. Amazing.

You always bring it with your dungeons. This one was no exception.

[Xaklor]

You did a horrible job at giving me a cookie

you already got a cookie >_>

Nores Bomb: What exactly is the range of the blast?

it has a radius of 4, on account of that being the range of its projectiles. not exactly rocket science.

so during certain parts of the bomb it might be super deadly.

that’s the point

The Seals: Glorified Medusa on Test Chest? 0.0

if you feel inclined to call anything that hurls grenades a Medusa then sure. but I’d like the think the real fight comes from fighting the two Spirit Knights at once.

but it doesn’t really do anything on it own, does it?

no. it’s supposed to creates a different sort of projectile, where part of it rotates and part of it does not.

Spirit Rod: Past 40 Defense, which this weapon outdamages Cosmic and Ghost King Staff Thing

no, it beats cosmic and 10 DEF. 40 is just the part where it inflicts so much more damage that you wouldn’t care how much negative DEF you got, you’d still probably main this. if the Spirit Rod didn’t have the -5 DEF, no one would ever use either cosmic or Edictum Praetoris again if they had this.

black line is Edictum Praetoris, white line is Spirit Rod.

How many times are you actually going to take damage as wizzy,

how about any time at all when you’re not hiding inside a gigantic mob? don’t forget piercing projectiles either, those hurt and no amount of knights are going to protect you.

Isn’t paralyze too dangerous?

When you made this, what situation did you think this be useful?

all of them, actually.

you are in complete and total control over when and how long you stay paralyzed. you also aren’t usually in constant motion while fighting enemies, you only have to move when a projectile actually comes your way. you can hold down spacebar anytime you’d be pausing anyway to get a damage boost. you can also stun the enemy, wait for their existing projectiles to go away, and then spacebar to shred their defenseless torsos. and if at any time you see something coming your way you didn’t account for and you need to get moving fast, all you have to do is let go of the spacebar and suddenly you can move again.

This might be a really strange term for you to understand, but does it work similar to a Heimerdinger W from League Of Legends?

no idea what that is.

Insignia Of The Mad God: Thanks to my lack of experience, I don’t know if this will be strong.

it’s a reusable consumable that gives +5 to all of your stats for 20 seconds. even in non-reusable form, that’s pretty strong. the 5 minute cooldown is to prevent constant spamming and always having those stats on, but it’s a lot more generous than the reindeer’s 15 minute cooldown.

How do you even pronounce ‘Nores’ anyway?

however you like I suppose. I’ve thought of it as Nor-ez from the beginning, but Nor-rees has a nice ring to it as well.

The overbearing black-and-white colour scheme is tedious

interestingly, most people seem to dislike the minibots because they’re the only things that don’t use that color scheme. as for the application on projectiles, it’s a counter to something I noticed in the Lost Halls. most projectiles used in there are dull and low contrast, sometimes making them rather difficult to spot. in a dungeon that dangerous, hard-to-see projectiles seems somewhat unfair. by using bright, high-contrast projectiles, I’m trying to boost their visibility so that there’s less confusion and unfairness.

also could you explain what you mean by “more soul and less steel”?

Ye gods, that complex behavior interaction with the robots is irritating. Nobody is realistically going to learn it, it just adds a layer of esotericism and subsequent smugness to those who implement it.

I suppose you have a point there. but I find it somewhat difficult to believe that no one is going to notice that whenever a green robot appears, every robot suddenly starts shooting bright green projectiles and inflicting status effects. same goes for the gold robot.

Most of all, where’s the minitank and friends from the original? ;-; they looked much better than these!

you liked the minitank that much? and who are these friends you mention? I seem to remember the minitank being the only sprite that was liked all around. I suppose I could redo the minitank and stick him back in, but it’s a bit out-of-place imo.

The odd damage numbers still make my blood boil.

then boil harder! glory be to 108!

Kelram’s sprite is incorrigible. Perhaps it would be better if you removed that floating stuff (which I totally don’t understand, the metal wraith also has it and it looks weird). Where’s its head?
Lordeus is almost as bad. A sprite from the frontal perspective with what appears to be a three-quarters-view head? Also extremely sloped/non-existant shoulders mean that the walking annimation cannot convey the vital contrapposto which animates a figure. It just looks clumpy and juvenile.

I’m thinking about taking another shot at Lordeus now that I’ve drawn it outside of the 16x16 pixel domain.

(from my art thread here)

if that works out well, I’ll do the same to Kelram as well.

Nearly everything with an epithet has a comma. Jirun, the Judge - Kelram, the Silver Death - Lordeus, the Soulsword.

does it actually not need the comma? I’m nowhere near the writer you are, so if you tell me it’s unnecessary I’ll remove it.

Does ‘Jirun’ mean Judge?

no it’s just a name.

Why in heaven’s pale are some abstract concepts like Justice, Dream and Endure turned into proper nouns while others like fury, sorrow, etc, aren’t?

I can fix that.

and I am inclined to agree that it is one of your finest works to date

yay!

so I am going to go on a limb and guess you want to most annoying, pedantically critical review you can get. I will try!

[array of exposed typos]

thank you muchly! those I can fix pretty easy.

[Xaklor]

totally bumping just so it doesn’t lock

on a more serious note: the XML is coming along, but slowly. partially because it turns out I have a billion questions on what everything does and partially because one of my really important classes this semester is far more difficult than I anticipated. (I basically had to learn Java in 2 weeks flat, not impossible but difficult when doing other classes as well.)

if I had to give an estimate on my progress I’d say around 20%.

[SkullzUT]

The Katana is way 2 op… 5 shots with 750 avg dmg
even trough it would shoot each 4 sec

[Xaklor]

4 seconds for a weapon is a lot longer than you think:

the black dot flashes every 4 seconds, that’s how often you unleash the burst. in between, you get nothing. you’re completely stunned until the 4 seconds is up. the true range of the katana is also less than a single tile, so you have to get really super close to get in the damage. I don’t think it’s quite that bad

[Xaklor]

another status update:
the XML is complete except for the new effects I can’t actually add and the bosses. I’d have more motivation if I knew one way or another if DECA cared, but I still haven’t heard anything. I’ll finish at some point anyway though.

[Ezth]

that was a bump wasn’t it
good luck

[Xaklor]

Galactic serfs! Cower before my 6000+ lines of code!

the Stone Caves of Nores XML is complete! aside from the following items, the Stone Caves of Nores could be implemented in RotMG right now. to the best of my knowledge, these things would still need to be done:

• Sealed. this is a completely new status effect and would need to be put into the games source code, there’s nothing I can do in XML files to make this happen. however, if DECA decided not to use this, every instance of Sealed could be replaced with pet stasis/sick/weak etc.

• Bottomless Pits. again, new effect. DECA has to add it, not me. but if DECA decided not to use this either, they can simply be unwalkable tiles like the ones in sprite world. no big deal

• The ability items. I can’t make a charging effect with xml, nor can I make a focused spell or a multi-stage inferno spawn. DECA would have to add something to make these effects work. (but come on, the Stone Star really should be implementable. just find the one line of code that says “speedy” and replace it with “paralyzed” and “berserk” or something.)

• Map Generation. the XML documentation is public but the map generator isn’t. I would still need to figure out how the maps are generated and laid out. it sounds like I could handle this myself if I was in UGC, but I’m not.

• Teleportation gimmick. I know for a fact that this is doable, it was used in the halloween nexus last year. the effect just isn’t documented somewhere I can see. I would need to learn this sorcery.

• Testing. I haven’t seen a single line of code I’ve written in action, there’s no way on earth it all functions perfectly. once again, I could handle this myself, but I’m not in UGC.

so if DECA wanted this dungeon in action, and wanted to be as lazy as possible, all they would have to do is add me to UGC and add the new ability effects. if they still refused to do the second part, I could probably (though not happily) find some other effect for each ability, but it would be best if they could be added as-is. eventually new effects are going to need to be added at some point, just about everything that can be done at this point has either already been done by something else or is just broken as hell.

---

one final note, due to the poison buff a while back, Liquid Rage’s damage has been boosted slightly.

[Atrapper]

I can’t make a charging effect

Yep, it’s currently 100% impossible.

a focused spell

The only thing preventing this from being possible is the Shoot behavior not being able to damage enemies. If it were capable of doing that, this spell would be possible.

multi-stage inferno spawn

This is actually possible using the new ObjectToss Activate type (the type that was used for the Orb of Aether on public testing). You’d use

<Activate objectId=“string” throwTime=“int” color=“0xint”>ObjectToss</Activate>

objectId is the entity “thrown” by ObjectToss.
throwTime is pretty obvious. Same with color.

Orb of Aether set color to -1 (invisible) and throwTime to 0 to simply spawn the entity on the cursor.

In your case, an entity would spawn the Flames in around it, and the Flames themselves would use TrapTrigger to damage enemies.

but come on, the Stone Star really should be implementable. just find the one line of code that says “speedy” and replace it with “paralyzed” and “berserk” or something.

The Speedy effect is actually hard-coded. It sucks, and I hate that Kabam lazily coded it that way.

Teleportation gimmick. I know for a fact that this is doable, it was used in the halloween nexus last year. the effect just isn’t documented somewhere I can see. I would need to learn this sorcery.

Listen, young one, and I shall teach thee!
You’re talking about the TeleportPlayer behavior. It works like this:

<Behavior targetId=“string” range=“int” cooldown=“int”>TeleportPlayer</Behavior>

targetId is an entity. As the name implies, the player that’s teleported is teleported to that entity.
range is how close to the entity performing the behavior the player must be to be teleported.
cooldown is pretty self-explanatory. After teleporting a player, the entity can only teleport another player after the cooldown ends.

[Xaklor]

You’d use

<Activate objectId=“Flamehelper” throwTime=“x” color=“y”>ObjectToss</Activate>

huh. well I’ll go add that then.

The Speedy effect is actually hard-coded. It sucks, and I hate that Kabam lazily coded it that way.

yeah, I’m just saying that it really wouldn’t be that hard to go into the source code and change it.

You’re talking about the TeleportPlayer behavior. It works like this:

<Behavior targetId=“string” range=“int” cooldown=“int”>TeleportPlayer</Behavior>

neat, I can go add that too now. is there a limit to how big range can be? that might affect map generation down the road.

[Atrapper]

huh. well I’ll go add that then.

You’ll still have to create the Flamehelper and Flame entities, btw.

neat, I can go add that too now. is there a limit to how big range can be? that might affect map generation down the road.

Not that I’m aware of, but I haven’t used it much (at all, really).

[PIGGIESFAR]

Um may I ask what level of education/current job do you do that gives you so much free time?

Anyway nice work, xaklor for ugc when

[TannerLG]

@Xaklor
I just came at this idea you’ve come up with, and your dedication to it.

You’re going as far as producing XML code for your dungeon and the enemies and the items that come from it.

What will the enemies stats and attacks be, however?
Nevermind, I’m stupid. Looks balanced to me.

[Xaklor]

xaklor for ugc when

I wish I knew. inquiries have been made, but answers have not been received. I think I remember Kiddforce mentioning somewhere that only one or very few people can actually work on xml testing things at a time, so it may be possible that they’re waiting until LH 2 is done. although it would would be really dumb if their answer was “no”, but decided to wait until then anyway to answer.

What will the enemies stats and attacks be, however?

…well

if one were to, I don’t know, read the document, they might find a section of the document labeled “The Monsters”. if that person wanted further information, they might visit that section of the document and find some pages that look like this:

followed by a block of text that looks thusly:

I kid you not, the Soulsteel Revenant posses the most powerful projectile in the entire dungeon. The Soulsteel Revenant slowly crawls toward players while firing enormous waves of 15 nores waves, while annoying, this attack is hardly dangerous. After a few seconds of that, it shoots a sparse ring of 8 nores bolts and halts movement. It becomes invulnerable briefly and glows white, then resumes its stumbled chase while shooting singular nores flares. While in this second attack phase it moves faster than it did before, although one would still describe its approach as “slow”. After 4 flares have been shot, it pauses again and then charges at ice sphere speeds into the nearest player and repeats the whole cycle at point-blank. Revenants are not invulnerable during their second pause, and do not attack during their charge.

For the most part, this enemy is kind of harmless. But don’t lose track of it when it goes into its devastating attacking phase.

if this hypothetical person wanted to know exactly what some enemy wanted to do, they could then even check out the link that takes them to view this wonderful and enormous XML document and find something like this:

<Object id="Soulsteel Revenant" type="FIXME">
		<Group>soulsteel denizens</Group>
		<Enemy />
		<God />
		<Class>Character</Class>
		<StasisImmune />
		<StunImmune />
		<AnimatedTexture>
			<File>SCchars8x8</File>
			<Index>5</Index>
		</AnimatedTexture>
		<HitSound>monster/minion_of_oryx_hit</HitSound>
		<DeathSound>monster/golems_death</DeathSound>
		<Size>100</Size>
		<MaxHitPoints>10000</MaxHitPoints>
		<Defense>10</Defense>
		<XpMult>2.5641025641025643</XpMult>
		<Projectile id="0">
			<ObjectId>Nores Flare</ObjectId>
			<Damage>309</Damage>
			<Speed>20</Speed>
			<LifetimeMS>2000</LifetimeMS>
			<Size>160</Size>
			<MultiHit />
		</Projectile>
		<Projectile id="1">
			<ObjectId>Nores Wave</ObjectId>
			<Damage>22</Damage>
			<Speed>100</Speed>
			<LifetimeMS>1000</LifetimeMS>
			<Size>140</Size>
			<ConditionEffect duration="4">Slowed</ConditionEffect>
			<ConditionEffect duration="4">Sealed</ConditionEffect><!-- new status effect -->
		</Projectile>
		<Projectile id="2">
			<ObjectId>Nores Bolt</ObjectId>
			<Damage>100</Damage>
			<Speed>50</Speed>
			<LifetimeMS>1200</LifetimeMS>
			<Size>120</Size>
			<ConditionEffect duration="3">Paralyzed</ConditionEffect>
		</Projectile>
		<State id="Attack1">
			<Behavior range="11.0" numShots="15" cooldown="0.5" projectileId="1" angle="8">Shoot</Behavior>
			<Behavior range="0.6" speed="0.4">Follow</Behavior>
			<Transition afterTime="4">Pause1</Transition>
		</State>
		<State id="Pause1">
			<Behavior effect="Invulnerable">ConditionEffect</Behavior>
			<Behavior flashPeriod="0.5" flashRepeats="4">ShowEffect</Behavior>
			<Behavior type="auto" numShots="8" cooldown="20" projectileId="2" angle="45">Shoot</Behavior>
			<Transition afterTime="2">Attack2</Transition>
		</State>
		<State id="Attack2">
			<Behavior range="11.0" cooldown="1">Shoot</Behavior>
			<Behavior range="0.6" speed="0.8">Follow</Behavior>
			<Transition afterTime="4">Pause2</Transition>
		</State>
		<State id="Pause2">
			<Transition afterTime="1">Charge</Transition>
		</State>
		<State id="Charge">
			<Behavior cooldown="0" speed="2">Charge</Behavior>
			<Transition playerWithin="1|1">Attack1</Transition>
		</State>
	</Object>

but I guess that sounds like a waste of time and/or nonsensical to you?

[PIGGIESFAR]

I wish I knew. inquiries have been made, but answers have not been received. I think I remember Kiddforce mentioning somewhere that only one or very few people can actually work on xml testing things at a time, so it may be possible that they’re waiting until LH 2 is done. although it would would be really dumb if their answer was “no”, but decided to wait until then anyway to answer.

not anymore, welcome to the club

you make me feel unworthy

[system]

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