Why do we need Legendary ability?

[Sapher]

Pandora's Box was designed for Chaos Artificers, it's supposed to be very rare in treasure items.

It is available using enchant item as i remember. Why is it different from other very rares that need create artifact?

including Invulnerability is definitely a good idea. It's not available any other way in the first half of the game

You can get any rare spell from a treasure without a turncount limit. Killing a lair guarded by 4 air elemetals and 2 phantom beasts can be done during the first 2 years with 10 spearmen , confusion,  250 mana.  And that is not the easiest lair, just an example of a lair that gave me a rare spell last game.
Invulnerability is overrated by the way. Simple +1 to def from a holy armour is almost as strong(1,5 damage blocked vs 2), works vs spells and is a common spell.
Invulnerability is for all those normal units that have low armour value.  

I don't think those items will be "trashy". Regeneration is possible

Any item with regen is good and that is just a question of time before you decide to ban it also ^_^

[Seravy]

I meant "very rare" as "doesn't appear often", not as a spell rank for Pandora's Box. The ability was designed to give more options for Chaos Artificers. Finding items with the ability wasn't among the goals, it's just a side effect. I'm ok with allowing it early as long as it appears infrequently enough, but I want to keep it as a curiosity, not something that is regularly part of the game.

You can find any rare spell but those can be dispelled and cost a relevant amount of casting skill to put on the unit. Items can't be dispelled, have no cost, and can be reused infinitely, on any number of heroes, with no cost associated. Finding Invulnerability and casting it on all 6 of your heroes costs 6*150 = 900 overland casting skill. Each time it's dispelled - and it will often be if the AI can't do anything else to hurt the hero - you have to recast it for another 150, which takes another 2-3 overland turns. Of course, casting it in battle is an option, but that leaves the hero vulnerable for the first, most critical turn, and it's easier to dispel, risking additional damage to go through. It also doesn't really work that early because it leaves you no casting skill for further spells, so it basically replaces your ability to heal or otherwise buff your hero. It's not going to be an additional effect on top of those.

Invulnerability blocks 2 damage vs +1 To Def that blocks 1.5, yes, that's true, except
-Invulnerability blocks 2 damage by itself. +1 To Def requires the hero to already have 15 or more defense.
-Invulnerability is hard to replace, Holy Armor is not. To replace Invulnerability you need to find the spell (super low chance) and spend resources on casting it. Casting Holy Armor is trivial, but Invulnerability costs 3 times more. So disabling invulnerability has a lot more effect than disabling something else the player might already have from another source. (Holy Armor does not stack with Holy Armor common spell. Lucky from Divine Protection does not stack with Lucky on heroes. Resistance bonus does not stack with Charmed. So removing any of those does nothing, the player can still access the effect from a non-item source.)
-Invulnerability blocks Illusion and Armor Piercing damage fully. +1 To Def doesn't.
-Invulnerability adds Weapon Immunity on top of all of these. Yes, you can have that through Wraith Form but here you get it as a free additional effect on top of all the above.
-Invulnerability is guaranteed to be exactly 2 reduction. Defense or +To Def goes through a defense roll and fluctuates. There will be low rolls where significant extra damage goes through and high rolls where extra prevention is wasted - enemy damage isn't high enough. So while the average blocked amount is different by only 0.5, the difference in effective amount is higher, as Defense/To Def will waste more of the prevention on "excess" prevention. Risk factor is also higher as damage is more uneven, the hero has a higher chance to die between two heals.
I believe all of this together is a good enough reason to have Invulnerability on the list instead of other + Defense or +To Def effects and is the only one of those kinds of effects where including it is meaningful.

You didn't respond to Invisibility, so I'll assume you agree that it is too powerful and should be included.

You also didn't respond to Merging, Haste, Teleportation and +3 Move bows. I'd like to hear your opinion on those as well.

[Sapher]

Invis is powerful when it works but i dont like the idea that killing the same army on a later turn gives stronger items. I dont like limiting anything by a turncount in general. It is a lazy way to balance things.
I might feel that way way because i dont like the idea that you need to wait to get stronger. Training? Studying? Reading? No, you need to wait.

[Seravy]

I don't like turn count either but is there any other working solution? One that doesn't limit the player even more through changed game mechanics? This has been an open issue for years and this is the first idea that looks at least somewhat capable of improving the situation.

A. Lairs changing the monsters to evolve along with the treasure would be not only hard to implement but pretty bad for the game, you'd prepare an army to beat the monsters only to find different monsters the next turn.
This is by the way not limited to only lairs, it applies to all item sources, such as the merchant or gift event. Evolving lair contents would not work for other sources of items even ignoring the other problems.
B. One other possibility is to tie item powers to item total value and limit higher value items to harder lairs, then change lair rules so that harder lairs become impossible to take early - the only way I'm aware of that can achieve that is making killed monsters respawn immediately after battle so the lair has to be beaten in a single combat. That does work but it's unfun on a level much higher than simply limiting which item power can appear. If we want to preserve the fun of the human player getting to hunt lairs easier than the AI, we can't do this.

I'd also like to point out you're still getting the same total mana cost in items, so if you insist it means weaker items that implies those abilities we're discussing are currently underpriced. As item power price can't depend on turn count, but item powers clearly are not equally effective in different phases of the game, we'd need to base their cost on when they are the most effective, the early game. But I don't think such a cost really exists because even some of the highest value lairs can be cleared early by a human player. It's intentionally so because it's more fun that way, see B. 

What I'm trying to achieve is, Invisibility (and whatever else we decide on) to become available at the turn when it is fair to have it at their cost. That means, if you do kill the same army later, you're no longer getting a "stronger" item, because later in the game, Invisibility isn't as powerful. Turn 100 Invisibility = Turn 40 Lionheart or Regeneration or Divine Protection. The item would ONLY be better if you actually received it on turn 40, but that'll no longer be a possible outcome so it's not a concern. Waiting won't be "better" and I'm pretty sure a skilled player can get more benefits out of a turn 40 good item than a turn 100 even better one. Afterall, you do get 60 additional turns to use it. So no, I don't think waiting would be the good strategy at all. (if it is, that means we've chosen a too low turn limit for the ability to appear first)


Turn count limitations are unfortunate, but necessary. We already have them in not letting people find very rare spells such as Armageddon early. The main difference here is, those spells were things the AI could have used to win against the human player, so whoever found them won. Items on the other hand, usually don't let the AI win because the human player can and will kill the AI hero and then use the item for their own victory. This is why this feels worse - it affects the human player more while the AI doesn't really care. Nonetheless, if an AI opponent attacked my fortress with a hero equipped by an Invisibility+Invulnerability item in 1403 and maybe some basic Life buffs, I'd lose to it without a way out. So this goes both ways. Sure, the AI will almost never get that lucky - they are slow at lair hunting and they are also pretty bad at using heroes - but once in the blue moon it can still happen and it's literally unstoppable, even for the human player. (Especially now that Fortress Lightning is no longer infinite duration)
So I think we should also look at this from the other perspective instead of only focusing on what's too powerful for the human player : which item abilities do we not want the AI to have on their heroes attacking the player's capital before turn X?

[Sapher]

Nonetheless, if an AI opponent attacked my fortress with a hero equipped by an Invisibility+Invulnerability item in 1403 and maybe some basic Life buffs, I'd lose to it without a way out. 

I would block the way of this doomstacks with solo spearmen(like i blocked settlers in part 1 of a last game). Firebolted/confused evething to death(not in one fight, no hurry, i can block it forever) grabbed his items and killed all the AIs with those items ^_^. Please, give AI all the items ^_^

which item abilities do we not want the AI to have on their heroes attacking the player's capital before turn X?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HH9IiHMD2M ^_^

if you insist it means weaker items that implies those abilities we're discussing are currently underpriced

Probably, or other abilities are overpriced. Destruction for 450?Phantasmal for 700? Please no...All those <250 cost abilities like stoning, vampirism, path finding, exorcist(300) also no. I'd prefer a single regen item at 900 cost to a summ of 4 250 cost abilities. Does this mean regen is underpriced?

[Seravy]

You're saying the AI is too dumb to use items and they're all yours, like I said. That's all the more reason why it's a problem if they are too powerful., it only proves my point. Game mechanics that are poorly playable for the AI or outright work against them should be toned down. I'm trying to avoid that and keep the damage to it the minimal possible because heroes and items are fun.

You have way more experience with using heroes in the early game than I do so I was expecting more serious answers. I guess I have to go into more detail if I want that to happen.

Probably, or other abilities are overpriced. Destruction for 450?Phantasmal for 700? Please no...All those <250 cost abilities like stoning, vampirism, path finding, exorcist(300) also no. I'd prefer a single regen item at 900 cost to a summ of 4 250 cost abilities.

That can be solved. In fact, any item with a total cost of 1500 or higher is required to have at least 2 abilities from a list of "good" abilities, that don't include the cheap crap. This ensures good items are actually good, most of the time. This system already exists although the detailed probabilities weren't explained yet, only the fact these items require at least two "good" powers. And this system will get even more elaborate by this update.

In the new version, this is currently implemented but we can change it any way we want to :

Cost<1500 items before turn X get all their abilities from the "early item" table. (col 1)
Cost<1500 items after turn X get all their abilities from the "normal item" table. (col 2)
Cost>=1500 items before turn X get two abilities from the "good early item" table (col 4) and the rest from the "early item" table. (col 1)
Cost>=1500 items after turn X get one ability from the "good item" (col 3) table and the rest from the "normal item" table. (col 2)
Cost>=2000 items after turn X get two abilities from the "good item" (col 3) table and the rest from the "normal item" table. (col 2)

This is the current contents of the tables. Number means the weight of that power being chosen (3 means the power appears 3 times more often than one that has 1), X means it won't appear when chosen from the table at all - equivalent to the number 0.

   

This does mean, if we remove anything from column 1 and 4, we can compensate for it through adding more of the "better" item powers to column 4, although it already isn't supposed to contain anything actually "bad". Also notice that before turn X, cost 1500-2000 items get two abilities from column 4 while after, only one ability to column 3, to compensate for column 4 not having the abilities we remove right now. We can, for example, raise Doom, or Divine Protection or something like that.

Feel free to suggest a better table, or better rules on when to pick how many abilities from each column. (if absolutely necessary, we can even have more columns)
This is for random generated items. Predefined items are carefully designed to make sure they are all useful but don't make the good abilities overly common. I don't think you have to worry about getting bad items from there.

5.63b had True Sight at 3 in what's now col 3. I'm unsure if it's worth being listed a good ability, it's low cost but Illusion Immunity is VERY useful. It saves heroes from dying to Sorcery magic as well as revealing invisible things that might unexpectedly kill the hero. Do let me know what you think. Same for Resist Magic, another low cost, but super useful effect.

To answer your question, casting cost and found item cost isn't the same. A cost 900 Regeneration item "costs" 15-20 turns to create. That's a pretty large price in delay. A cost 250 "crappy" item only costs 4-5 turns so you can use it for 15 more turns.  That's the main reason why good abilities are somewhat underpriced - overland casting skill is too precious and turns you spend without the ability to cast other spells add up. Found items have none of that plus higher value lairs are not that much harder to beat (you need more confusions but that's it) so the balance doesn't hold for items obtained that way - nor does it need to if the random generator and predefined item set makes sure each ability appears at a reasonable chance and timing.

[Sapher]

5.63b had True Sight at 3 in what's now col 3. I'm unsure if it's worth being listed a good ability, it's low cost but Illusion Immunity is VERY useful. It saves heroes from dying to Sorcery magic as well as revealing invisible things that might unexpectedly kill the hero. Do let me know what you think. Same for Resist Magic, another low cost, but super useful effect.

If true sight and resist magic are called good regen/invis/tele/merging/invul are to be called very good. 2 columns is not enough.
In a three-point system i would rate like this:
Flaming - bad
Lightning - bad
Doom - good
Destruction - bad
Vampiric - bad
Death - bad
Divine prot - very good
Exorcist - bad(i want bless, i dont want to pay more for something i am not interested in(resist or die))
True sight - good
Resist elements - bad(maybe good?)
Elemental armour - good
Inner fire - good
Stoning - bad
Phantasmal - bad
Guardian wind - bad
Haste - very good
Resist magic - good
Pandora's box - bad (might be good, not sure)
Wraith form - good
Cloak of fear - bad
Bless - good
Shadow - good
Invul - very good
Tele - very good
Necro - bad
Lion heart - good
water walkinig - bad
Regen - very good
Pathfinding - bad
Merging - very good
Flight - good
Invis - very good.

That is why i think only trashy items will be left if merging/tele/invis/invul/haste are going to be removed from the game until turn 100.
upd. about the picture: yea, as i thought the plan is to randomly renerate some trash until the AI has learned very rares.

[Seravy]

Okay, I have to agree removing all the movement effects would leave way too few good abilities. I'll try only disabling early Invisibility and Invulnerability for the next version and see how that works.
Movement effects are powerful but if you can see and target the hero, they are not that much of a problem, you still need other items or buffs to reduce the damage. Invisibility and Invulnerability on the other hand can make the hero unkillable by themselves. Fast units are available early anyway, even though they aren't as powerful as a hero. Cavalry, later Unicorns can be used for the same purpose as a haste or merging hero.
   

-Random generated items before turn 100 will not contain Invisibility or Invulnerability. Predefined items containing the above abilities will not appear before turn 100 from any source. Items with a value over 1500 found before turn 100 are guaranteed at least 2 “good” item powers on them. Items with 1500 value after turn 100 are guaranteed one, over 2000 value, two good item powers.