Random Tidbits: Bestow, Fetish Freakout, Swarm Move [edited]

[Nefarius]

These are two monster spells from vanilla as you likely know (or don't), Bestow is used by the Unravelers to heal undead, however it's effect is very meager as the skill has wrong params, Fetish Freakout (called Aura in skills.txt, but the graphics are called Freakout) was a AoE buff the fetish shamans could cast on their minions, this skill never worked (in classic they cast it, you saw the AoE, but it didn't do anything), in LoD their AI still searches for a target, but the code is skipped . Bestow was originally supposed to be cast also by the Oblivion Knights, but they likewise seek a target and omit it again right afterwards, oh well.

Anyway, these two things got revamped, while I fixed the Fetish Freakout code as one of the first skills I touched, it wasen't more then a IAS boost for them.

Fetish Freakout - Fetish Shamans search for unbuffed melee fetishes (or the undead variant*1) and boost them, now the AI of these two units is designed to use a hit counter (that is, attack x times and then flee until a couple of frames have elapsed), the buff overrides this behavior and they will go berserk, of course, this means they do not check if hitting you will do more harm to them then good (some weaker monsters are relunctant to hit units with thorns, bloodboil etc).

Bestow - it keeps it's healing capabilities (well 'keeps' is a bit an underestimate, it actually heals now ), however unlike other healing spells it will not give as much life, rather it will give the undead that generally have low or no regen a regen boost, now the actually nifty part is that it queries the last-taken-damage info that I made every unit store, the buff will add a bonus to resistances of the unit depending on the last types of damage it took (this uses diminishing returns so it usually does not produce immunes). It also reduces the duration of active 'bad states' (poison etc).

*1 Their revive behavior is different, if they see a corpse close to the player, they don't revive always but may rather cast RaiseBoneFetish, unit's that are further away are always revived normally.

All of the things mentioned in this topic are completely softcoded and customizeable btw!


EDIT: Today I've repaired the Swarm Move ability that was originally supposed to be used by the swarms, while little is known about it, I presume this was a way for the swarms to damage units that walk into them. So I've implemented a skill working similar to whirlwind, that is, it tries to attack every x frames while propelling the unit around, this attack does 19% of their regular attack damage and of course checks for tohit (it can be blocked etc).

[Drop_Dead]

now the actually nifty part is that it queries the last-taken-damage info that I made every unit store, the buff will add a bonus to resistances of the unit depending on the last types of damage it took (this uses diminishing returns so it usually does not produce immunes). It also reduces the duration of active 'bad states' (poison etc).

I think that is pretty cool!
I just wanted to say i am very excited about your project. I have read through almost everything i could find about metalstorm on this site and it amazes me at just how much you have done... and how much you are probably keeping from me/us/everyone lol. Not many people may know about this project now but i know once it comes out the popularity will explode.

If i could give you a high 5 i would.