Openings

[Lxndr]

So... why aren't we talking about them yet?

What have people discovered?
(I haven't taken any notes yet)

The hero-openings are pretty obvious. What about the villain openings?

[xKiv]

So ... I don't like this "throw away foe". It's too dickstabby. Incentivizes taking spell damage *penalties* and prolonging combats against undesirable foe (for arbitrarily many skipped turns).
And it doesn't seem to be limited (I counted 31, and before that did a few more that I didn't count).
This is obvious at my level against scaling foes - telekinesis costs me 1 PP (and full healing less than 20 PP every couple dozen fights) and does so little damage (50, give or take) that I am almost guaranteed a crit eventually (this is in the reaches of insanity, and one guess as to which is the only "desirable" foe there).
But even at mick-beating-level, TK would do perhaps 20 damage, which gives ... 4 tries? against level appropiate foes? (checked gonzo accountant only)
Assuming full salt of the earth and 5% base rate (for 12% critical rate), that's around 40% of just skipping a NCI room even without using free runaway ...

ETA: And I can spin dreidel for chips+PP from those free fights? Ow

[Kinak]

I think openings are pretty cool!

Also, nerfed Throw Away Foe so hopefully it won't encourage people to hurt themselves. If it still does, it will be replaced with something completely different.

I must say that one of the most challenging and frustrating parts of design is steering people away from destroying their own enjoyment of the game. On the bright side, there are about thirty ideas for openings that died on that altar before they were even released, so only having to change one is pretty good.

Cheers!
Kinak

[Lxndr]

I'm still not sure what the openings DO yet.

What did Throw Away Foe do?

[Patojonas]

We're gathering info, you're welcome to contribute

http://th.blandsauce.com/wiki/Talk:Openings

[Kinak]

I'm still not sure what the openings DO yet.

There's actually an option to point you in the right direction in the openings dropdown. If you've already noticed that and found it insufficient, I'll shut up

What did Throw Away Foe do?

Ended the combat without taking any time. Which could be used to endlessly annoy yourself for the slow accrual of benefits; hence the change.

Cheers!
Kinak

[TedDudz]

In fighting the same monsters at the same level, with the same equipment, and using the same auto-attack spam, I have not really noticed openings (at least with The Tenderizer's hammer) making much of a difference despite my variability in choice and utilizing the function Kinak kindly mentioned.

Of course, I am likely just bad at this.