no. It doesn't do anything actually. But you can use it. 

Oh.

It might be possible to change that without removing its silence-breaking effect, but it'd require a re-write of some parts of the ability system.  And if it's not hurting anything, then, welp.

The activation during Mist is a trivial side effect. Hedgie's main concern is that it can be used to remove Sedna's Silence effect from the user.

Right, but it has NotSilenceable = true set.  The only purpose of that would be to be used while silenced, to remove silence.

Now maybe it's a balance concern (I'm not so sure, given how otherwise weak it is), but I think its current behaviour is intended.

From : awuffleablehedgie
Sent: 4/19/2010 10:07:18 PM

Yeah I've been looking into this as well. I found out about the form switching being unsilenceable and I've been able to reproduce it like you said. I'm okay with those being unsilenceable although I didn't actually know that was the case. Now I know not to Silence an Open queen

One of the things that scream to me this is unintentional is that you can use Symbol of Purity while Misted as Erebus. Sure, there is no reason to, but you still can. Luckily, you still lose mana like normal and you aren't able to use Batswarm or any abilities or consumables so it isn't a big issue. 

I'm fine with opening this up to discussion once the tournament is complete. The issue is I play a very very aggressive Silence Sedna and this favor item alone would completely destroy my build and playstyle if it was known to the public at large; eg, they could keep it hidden until I do my normal Silence bullshit, they break Silence, get a kill, win the tourney .-.

So that leaves out pacov and just about everyone else ^^; once the tournament is over then I don't see a reason for not bringing it up for discussion or whatever even though I won't be happy about it being used against me in pug games, though I consider that unlikely. 

Never-FukWit-anOak is the person who suggested it originally and he is the only one besides you and me that knows. And he agrees that it shouldn't happen. 

Regarding "In contrast, IIRC silence was actually supposed to be an antimagic effect. If this is the case, then it does make sense to prevent Symbol of Purity use while under silence." Again, see my comment I made before about how this favor item was used as a stain-lock counter.

The gametext for Silence says enemies in the area around Sedna are unable to cast (the antimagic field). I would consider "casting" any activated ability or item.  I also feel this was one of the gametexts that has a lot of lore or "fluff text" along the lines of Armor of Vengence.  The gametext for Deathbringer says: "Silence target, preventing any abilities for 5 seconds". 

Again, I'm not against the idea that Silence should be dispelled. If another character comes in and cleanses a Silenced Demigod they should be unsilenced. I mean, heal III doesn't cure Stuns even though they are "debuffs"... at least I'm pretty sure. You could verify that by using a 10 second stun on a demigod (Universal Gadget effect) and then try healing them with Heal III or using Shield. But the point of Silence is that they are "shut down" completely. 

--------------------------------------------------
From : Ptarth
Sent: 4/19/2010 9:30:40 PM

Hmm... I need to think about this one.

As you say, the Symbol of Purity says that it cannot be used while Stunned or Frozen, however it does not include Silence. This suggests that it should be legal.

In contrast, IIRC silence was actually supposed to be an antimagic effect. If this is the case, then it does make sense to prevent Symbol of Purity use while under silence.

To add to the list of NotSilencible = true:

• All form terminations (Angelic Fury off, Vampiric Mist off, Ooze off)
• Form switches (Torchbearer and Queen of Thorns)

To add it to the UberFix I would have to add it to the Buglist and BugFix Lists, so the ploy would become open knowledge. It would also still be viable in Demigods 1.20 (the current version).

Again, I'm not sure on this one. Who else knows about it so I could get some second opinions and without opening it up more?

Thanks for giving me the heads up. I really do appreciate all the help you've provided with finding and duplicating bugs.

Ciao,

Pt

--------------------------------------------------
From : awuffleablehedgie
Sent: 4/19/2010 7:59:13 PM

Keeping this out of the general Uberfix thread for a reason Mostly because this is an exploitable issue. 

So, I've been experimenting with the Symbol of Purity favor item recently (in competitive games). It's pretty nice to use to cure Spit and all the other debuffs that you can be hit with, so it's actually a rather nice and frequenly overlooked favor item. I think that most people don't realize that it gives a +250 hp bonus on top of it's short 30 second cooldown (25 on Cataract).

Anyway, so a friend of mine asked "can you use Purity to remove Silence?" I was like "I don't think so, you shouldn't because Silence stops other favor items, like Cloak of Night and Symbol of Purity says specifically that it cannot be used while Stunned or Frozen so why should you be able to use it while Silenced?. Well, me and my friend lab it and lo-and-behold, you can use it while Silenced!

I took a look at the code in Achievement_Items.lua and I see this under it's blueprint:

            NotSilenceable = true,

This is the only Consumable and AchievementItem that has this attribute. 

Back in the original beta of Demigod, there was no such thing as Stun immunity, so stuns were rampant and chain stunning was how you won. Symbol of Purity used to be able to cancel stuns, and then when GPG added Stun Immunity to all stuns (except for Grasp), Symbol of Purity become overwhelmingly powerful. So, they removed the ability of Purity to be used like that. 

I think that this is an oversight that the developer's had and the NotSilenceable attribute should be removed. This is the only item in the game that has this attribute (that I could find).

I /do/ agree with Silence being the only "stun" that can be removed from Heal III, Shield at any level, and now Occulus' Brain Storm because Silence is only a debuff. That isn't what I'm complaining about: that works as intended and should remain as it is now. The thing you have to be careful with while using Silence is you have to remember to make sure you Silence Oak/Sedna/Occ so that they can't de-Silence their allies. 

But, you should never be able to de-Silence yourself with an item. The whole point of Silence is that you cannot use items or abilities.

Silence is one of the best counters to a Shield III Oak at your portal, and Silence also has a whole bunch of other utilities (Silence to cover a teleport away or a lock. Erebus can do this with Mass Charm, Rook with Boulder Roll and TB can do this with Frost Nova, it's not a special ability only Sedna has). Now, an Oak with Purity can get Silenced, pop Purity, then shield port away anyway, or interrupt Sedna as she is locking. Like I said, it's one thing if a seperate demigod comes up and removes the debuff and then they can use their abilities. They shouldn't be able to use an item on themselves to do so.

I have to disagree - there is only one possible purpose for NotSilenceable = true on this item, and that is to remove silence.

Even disregarding 'developer intent' (which is pretty clearly to break silence) and focusing entirely on balance, this affects one ability that one demigod has.  If you're taking a favor item that is inferior to virtually every other semi-useful favor item in every other way, just to be able to counter a 3-second ability that another demigod uses, you're making a tactical choice to be weaker in general combat while being able to counter this ability roughly every 30 seconds.   This also assumes a 1v1 situation, and not the far more common team situation where one debuff may be applied to bait the user into using his HSoP before hitting him with silence, or vice versa.

Edit: Also try to keep in mind that Sedna has an interrupt (Pounce) as well as silence.  I don't think any other demigods have two ability interrupts, nevermind one that lasts 5 seconds against any demigod that does not have this one otherwise-inferior item.

There are plenty of favor item choices that nearly invalidate several demigods' entire ability trees - the Swift Anklet completely surpasses all snares, the Blood of the Fallen gives you so much health that it's basically a free absorption of any one max-level damage ability, etc etc.  While I would argue that the BotF is a bit powerful due to the universality of its benefit, none of the others are, and you're sacrificing their effect (including that of the too-powerful BotF) to gain occasional relief from a negative effect here and there.

I think virtually all of the favor items are out of balance in at least a small way, but that's a discussion for a greater balance mod that needs to take into consideration all items, favor items, and currently-weak demigod abilities.

TB has Frost Nova and Deep Freeze.

Technically, both Silence and Frost Nova don't interrupt, as even if you get caught mid-cast you can resume as soon as the debuff wears off. So, Frost Nova isn't reallly a stun, it's a "freeze". Notice that the pendent says in particular that it cannot be used while frozen... yet being frozen is a debuff. Hmm....

Heal III and Shield both cure Symbol. Scenario is 2v2 (since 1v1 Silencing is rather uncommon), Sedna v Oak mirror. Sedna A Silences, Sedna B Symbols then Heal IIIs Oak to negate Symbol for everyone on their team.

Freeze is a stun, for all purposes other than cooldown reset.  Silence is not a stun in any sense.  Silence does have a few advantages over Frost Nova, namely duration and lack of cast time, while having the disadvantage of not being a full stun.

That scenario sounds like a pretty well-planned setup?  I guess I don't see the issue, as Sedna A will probably have BotF or something similar, resulting in better combat-effectiveness outside of a niche situation like this.  I'm sure this scenario could occur / has occurred, but again, that's not a serious problem, as the HSoP has an opportunity cost in the form of poor passive bonuses and limited applicability.

Either way, it's a balance concern, and is nowhere near game-breaking enough to warrant inclusion in a bugfix.  I'm not sure how you can feel so strongly about this and not about all of the other little item imbalances in the game - balance needs to be addressed holistically in a total balance patch to avoid creating new imbalances, not very selectively in a bugfix (except when something is seriously game-breaking or very obviously unintended).

I've been playing around with item balance when I get bored of fixing bugs, but I haven't put much time into it, and I don't really have enough competitive experience with the game to release a balance mod myself.  Has anyone actually tried anything like this, or is it all just the little piecemeal mods I see that tend to go a little too far with some things while ignoring others?

Just an update making sure everyone knows we aren't dead. We've been really busy with non-Demigod related things, but we are still around. As a side note, most of the current activity is taking place on the Google Code site.

Any of you guys know how to contact UhelligGudn?  I'm going to send him a pm, but apparently the back end side of www.demigoddb.com is no longer working. 

I might have an address. I just don't want to post it on the board in case UhelligGudn is feeling antisocial (or wants to avoid spam). I'll try getting on Ventrilo tonight sometime and send it to you if you are around. (PM isn't working).

Well if you don't mind just relaying the message that it appears to be down, that'd do it.  I know that guy pops in for bit, then vanishes.  Thanks!

Just to go off topic one more time instead of starting a new thread (sorry btw) - does anyone know what exactly we'd need to be able to view old versions of the replays?  Just dgdata.zip from the previous version?  A full side by side install of all the versions? 

In the patches there are changes in the executable and in the dgdata.zip. Given this it seems very likely that you'd need separate installs upgraded to each specific version.

I'll send the address I have the message.

Uhellig replied to my pm and said he'd get check it out.  Thanks though!

Hi Guys,

Sorry, I haven't been around much, things stalled because we were all waiting for v1.3 and I lost momentum and got distracted by other things *cough* Starcraft II *cough*. I intend to keep DemigodDB up and up-to-date when (if?) patches are released in the future. Unfortunately it seems my love for this game is not as true as that held by you guys, easily lost when something shinier comes along. I am currently finishing up my last semester of my undergraduate degree, then planning to do a Masters so my free time kind of vanished overnight it seems.

I am looking into fixing the DemigodDB issues, I may have to move the servers entirely if I cannot work out the issues, I'm fairly sure I have everything backed up properly *hopes*, thanks for letting me know.

The email address that Ptarth contacted me is indeed correct, and I'm thankful that you didn't post it here, it's my one spam free email address remaining at the moment If you do need me for whatever reason in the future it is the best way to contact me as I check it pretty much every day. If there is some kind of renewed spirit in the Demigod community I may be given enough incentive to return, unfortunately v1.3 was pretty much an entire let down compared to the normal advancements over a 0.1 version increment, in my opinion anyway.

I am glad you guys are still going strong, I wish you all the best in your endeavors to fix this game and make it awesome for the few players that remain

Regards,
UhelligGudn.

Have any of the changes in DG v1.3 superseded details of UF v1.02?

Yes. Although v1.02 is still compatible.

DG 1.3 fixed around half of the things that 1.02 was addressing, but as Ptarth says, they'll still play nice together for the most part.  I can't remember if 1.02 overwrote any targeted abilities, but if it did, they may not re-engage targets properly, since DG 1.3 added a flag to a bunch of abilities that determines their post-use re-targeting behaviour.

If you're feeling enterprising and don't mind giving some feedback, I posted a test release in the downloads of the google code site.  I'm not going to link it directly, because it's Ptarth's baby and he hasn't given it the OK yet, but it has a few new fixes and is fully compatible with DG 1.3 and any mods that hook non-destructively (which I guess is like none, oh well) as well as the skirmish AI mod.

There are still a few outstanding issues that we haven't cracked yet, like the sticky lightning animation and the purchase-item-on-death bug, but this version fixes a lot of problems with Oculus and Ball Lightning, the Oak max spirits bug, and a few issues with citadel upgrades and AI purchasing.  Check the last few issue updates if you want to know what we've been working on.

I tried the version which is available on google code and it looks stable to me. I would not be able to tell if it fixes anything up but I didn't get any error and nothing awkward happened.

I would love to help you out guys, really. However that kind of script language is too hard for me to handle and I would not be able to tell you if something's wrong with this item or spell.

Just know that there are still some people who do appreciate your work.

Thanks.

New test / RC release, should be stable enough:

http://code.google.com/p/uberfix/downloads/detail?name=UberFixv103_RC2.zip&can=2&q=

I've been slowly pecking away at issues when I feel the urge to play a game or two.  Haven't been keeping a dedicated changelog, but I've still been updating the issues on the google code site.  Here's what I can recall of fixes from 1.02 from memory:

- Map control voiceovers now correctly occur upon flag capture, rather than flag loss.

- Metadamage (knockback) kills now count as damage done by the initiating party.  This primarily affects Unclean Beast's Post Mortem ability.

- The Experience citadel upgrade no longer stacks the level IV bonus on top of level III.  Level III is correctly removed when IV is purchased.

- The AI can now purchase citadel upgrades without same-named buffs.  This primarily applies to the Experience upgrades.

- Oak's Summon Wards now behave themselves and don't cheat the limits of their ability level when another Oak has a higher level ward.

- Oculus' Ball Lightning now correctly advance and attack where you click the ability, and now have a normal minion health bar that is actually visible.  Ball Lightning also no longer cause Oculus to move slowly when selected and moved together.

- Ironwalkers and Desperate Boots now no longer leave their conditional buffs on a demigod who sells the item while the buffs are in effect.  In addition, the Ironwalker buff is no longer permanently in effect for Rook and now activates at 95% of any demigod's base speed.

- The main causes of Chain Lightning and Ball Lightning effects 'sticking' permanently to their targets are dealt with.  This still may happen, and if you can run the game with '/log log.txt' in the commandline while you're playing with this, I'd appreciate any log files I can get for games where the sticky lightning happened.

Outstanding issues that I am confident can be solved whenever I get the time or motivation to work on them:

- Loss of gold when dying during an item purchase

- Stats windows not showing secondary weapon stats for QoT and TB (I already have this fixed, I just need to refine the method used and confirm that it isn't impacting performance)

- Gold amounts for enemy demigods accessible in the UI layer

Nice work here, thanks.

We have a tourney coming up - any chance version 1.03 could be used?  I know you've published a release candidate.  Hoping we can get something finalized and use for the tourney, though.  Thanks!

Please see my post in the other thread. 

what thread... sorry...

edit -nvm... saw in tourney thread.