Celestial Resources (Anorithil & Sun Paladin)

[donkatsu]

Sorta like black pudding farming from NetHack-no punishment or nerf was added to it, because the only suitable punishment for black pudding farming is black pudding farming.

Those kinds of oft-repeated excuses are what hold NetHack back from being a good strategy game. Which is fine, because I don't think anyone really means for NetHack to be strategic; it's closer to a sandbox. ToME, not so much.

Hmm. You could do that with damage talents also, via stair-scumming, which heals the enemies on your return.

Doesn't stair-scumming cost you drops? I always thought that was the trade-off, but I never did test to see if it's actually the case or even understand exactly what stair-scumming does.

If anything becomes too strong as a result of any of these changes, you can always just adjust the numbers. Overall power is SUPER easy to adjust; playstyle is the tricky part.

[Red]

I'll repeat my earlier statement-it's possible, but it's such a massive hassle that I don't really see it being even a quarter the issue autocasting is. Still, if you can give Mindblast damage without bumping the power too much (never gotten far enough on an Anorithil to really use it), then that's an easy fix.

As for the stair scum, any items that get dropped are easy enough to pick up before you start stair scumming. Just run around manually after a fight to grab all the goodies, head over to the stairs and scum away. No loss, just tedious, tedious negative energy gain.

Edit: Speaking of stair scumming, that's something that should probably have some sort of fix. It'd stop little abuses like this from cropping up-I imagine you could do the exact same thing with Vim and Drain, to keep that at max, or use a Worm Mass, Ooze, or anything else that can generate extra monsters to top off Souls. So, a branching thread off of a branching thread.

[donkatsu]

And I'll repeat that using tedium as a balancing factor is lazy and bad design for a strategy game. I said that with metaflow staves, the old equilibrium system, vim wands, breeding pits/ Sludgenest farming, and talent point juggling, and I'll continue to say it every time someone tries to use that particular argument to defend what is obviously a design flaw.

[Doctornull]

Doesn't stair-scumming cost you drops? I always thought that was the trade-off, but I never did test to see if it's actually the case or even understand exactly what stair-scumming does.

If anything becomes too strong as a result of any of these changes, you can always just adjust the numbers. Overall power is SUPER easy to adjust; playstyle is the tricky part.

It can, but I think it doesn't always. The total amount of time off-level needs to exceed some threshold, I think.

Regarding adjustments: also I can just store the drain count on the monster itself, so it's even easier to limit scumming than I'd thought previously.

And yeah, the specific numbers are pretty easy to tweak.

[Red]

It's better than games that use tedium as a selling point. Looking at you, [insert MMO of choice here].

Although a simple fix for the stair scum issue could actually be setting your negative energy to zero every time you change a level, or possibly just when entering a level you've visited before. I think it'd be better if you could enter a new level with some negative energy if you just ended a fight, trading rest to heal up and cool down for a stronger offensive start to your new level, but even if it did just set to zero even for new levels, that'd just make you always start at zero like you should be.

As for storing drain counts on the monster itself, I'm assuming this is to cap how many times you can gain negative energy off of one monster, right? I think taht should be disabled for unique, rare, and boss monsters since you might attack them enough times to exceed the limit in a normal fight. (Potentially elites too, but considering the prevalence of elites in the Prides, this might not be a good idea.)

So damage to stop scumming inside a level, setting to zero to stop stair scumming... I believe the only issue left is summon scumming. Items like the Crystal Staff or racial talents are capable of summoning monsters you could attack to gain sun points or negative energy going in. How would these be addressed?

[Doctornull]

vim wands, (...) talent point juggling

Just as an aside, Nulltweaks 'fixes' both of those. The wands ego gives +max_vim instead of Vim on use, and talent point respec can only happen on empty levels (no hostile creatures outside vaults) -- but you can respec all the points you want, so if you forget to re-assign your experiments for a few levels, it's no big deal.

[HousePet]

Vim wands already do +max vim in vanilla.

But more on topic:

These Solar points look like they would function in a similar way to just having positive energy decay faster. eg. If each point decays 10 turns after it was generated it would be the same as 1 positive energy decay per turn.

[sarracht]

I just ended a NM/RL run as anorithil (died at 30 T.T) so I want to offer my thoughts based on my experience in the early- to mid-game.

I don't think a combo point system is the way to go for this class.

While I was playing, it felt absolutely crucial that I be able to disable enemies on turn 1. The ability to open a fight with Circle of Sanctity/Circle of Warding and Starfall is tremendous. Shadow Simulacrum, Circle of Shifting Shadows, Mind Blast, Jumpgate, and Sun Flare are all, to a greater or lesser extent, survivability tools, which are far more important in this game than nuke spells. And out of all of these, the only one that doesn't require negative energy is Sun Flare, which is probably worst of the bunch (Shifting Shadows may give it a run for its money).

If I'm right on this—which I may not be, I've only been playing for a month and I'm a noob—any charge-up/convert/finish cycle, whether energy or combo point based, means that anorithil are locked out of their defensive utilities at the beginning of a fight, when they're most important. And this is completely nonviable in a class that has so little mobility, so little passive defense, and such limited effective range.

It works for brawlers because they have pretty strong offense, defense, and mobility before they've built up combo points. Moon/star spells are an anorithil's offense, defense, and mobility.

[Doctornull]

While I was playing, it felt absolutely crucial that I be able to disable enemies on turn 1. The ability to open a fight with Circle of Sanctity/Circle of Warding and Starfall is tremendous. Shadow Simulacrum, Circle of Shifting Shadows, Mind Blast, Jumpgate, and Sun Flare are all, to a greater or lesser extent, survivability tools, which are far more important in this game than nuke spells. And out of all of these, the only one that doesn't require negative energy is Sun Flare, which is probably worst of the bunch (Shifting Shadows may give it a run for its money).

Well, in that case you may like what I'm proposing.

Of those options, immediately available would be:
- Mind Blast (generates Neg)
- Shadow Simulacrum (generates Neg)
- Circle of Shifting Shadows (costs Neg)
- Starfall (costs Neg)
- Sun Flare (generates 1 point)

So basically you ought to love the system I'm proposing.

And this is completely nonviable in a class that has so little mobility, so little passive defense, and such limited effective range.

Adding mobility options is a thing which I want to do, yeah.

[Doctornull]

These Solar points look like they would function in a similar way to just having positive energy decay faster. eg. If each point decays 10 turns after it was generated it would be the same as 1 positive energy decay per turn.

Er, not really?

If you have 2 solar points, in 10 turns both are gone.

If you have 20 positive points, in 10 turns you have 10 positive points.

[HousePet]

It works for brawlers because they have pretty strong offense, defense, and mobility before they've built up combo points. Moon/star spells are an anorithil's offense, defense, and mobility.

Any changes won't be in isolation. That can easily be dealt with. (also Barrier is a Sun spell)

If you have 2 solar points, in 10 turns both are gone.

If you have 20 positive points, in 10 turns you have 10 positive points.

Okay, wasn't sure so I gave an example.
Still, I'm not sure its a big enough difference to make it worth the change.

[Doctornull]

It works for brawlers because they have pretty strong offense, defense, and mobility before they've built up combo points. Moon/star spells are an anorithil's offense, defense, and mobility.

Any changes won't be in isolation. That can easily be dealt with. (also Barrier is a Sun spell)

Yeah I think the main defensive spells are currently all Positive related: Barrier, Bathe in Light, Providence.

Also, I think that with a more limited Negative resource, more powerful mobility and defenses can be added without destroying game balance.

Okay, wasn't sure so I gave an example.
Still, I'm not sure its a big enough difference to make it worth the change.

Gotcha.

I feel like it's both an elegant mechanical solution -- that nearly always does the right thing -- and also an elegant communication mechanism, which helps players set their expectations appropriately.

So in part it's mechanics, in part it's communication.

[sarracht]

Any changes won't be in isolation. That can easily be dealt with. (also Barrier is a Sun spell)

Fair enough, but the same applies to some of your responses in the other thread .-.

And yes, Barrier/Bathe in Light are Sun spells, but I found myself either precasting them before engaging, or using them second after silence/stun/etc. The combination is great and it's easily another 1k effective health, but for early- to mid-game a non-crit Barrier is pretty weak and can easily get taken down in one turn, in which case you're worse off having spent the turn casting it. These are powerful defensive tools but not ones I felt were reliable enough to open with on turn 1, especially since high rank Bathe in Light is so powerful that mobs in melee range are going to have significant shielding by the time you get Bathe in Light/Barrier up and then cast Twilight. Having Circle of Warding up at the beginning of the fight is great for this but again, it requires negative energy (and in this system, a solar point).

Well, in that case you may like what I'm proposing.

Of those options, immediately available would be:
- Mind Blast (generates Neg)
- Shadow Simulacrum (generates Neg)
- Circle of Shifting Shadows (costs Neg)
- Starfall (costs Neg)
- Sun Flare (generates 1 point)

So basically you ought to love the system I'm proposing.

Doh, reading comprehension fail. Moral of the story: don't write forum posts at 1am. Although (assuming I'm now reading correctly) Starfall and Circle of Shifting Shadows still wouldn't necessarily be immediately available as they cost negative energy.

Other than that, this system fixes some of my issues with the class's current setup. I like the suggestion of a new mobility tree and a lunacy tree would be amazing.

I still dislike combo point systems in general, as well as the proposed negative energy's similarity to vim, and for those reasons I prefer donkatsu's system. But that's just my preference, it doesn't reflect any intrinsic problem with your design.

[Doctornull]

Doh, reading comprehension fail. Moral of the story: don't write forum posts at 1am. Although (assuming I'm now reading correctly) Starfall and Circle of Shifting Shadows still wouldn't necessarily be immediately available as they cost negative energy.

No problem.

Regarding the fact that you may not have Neg energy available immediately, YES! That's totally a feature. Through a combat, you have to decide how much "true power" you expend vs. generate. When a new combat begins, you have to decide if you hit the range 10 jerk right now with Moonlight Ray, or if you close in (and thereby perhaps expose yourself to more danger) and use a less expensive spell. Same deal with Starfall.

Your decisions will matter. Running out of Neg will be one danger; putting yourself in a worse tactical position because you wanted to save Neg is another danger. Since danger = fun this means more fun. Yay!

Other than that, this system fixes some of my issues with the class's current setup. I like the suggestion of a new mobility tree and a lunacy tree would be amazing.

Cool.

I still dislike combo point systems in general, as well as the proposed negative energy's similarity to vim, and for those reasons I prefer donkatsu's system. But that's just my preference, it doesn't reflect any intrinsic problem with your design.

Well, my Neg isn't really like Vim. There's no one big spell to recover a bunch of it. There's no spell to allow you to cast with Life instead of it. There's no option to get some of it back when jerks hurt you.

The decay / regen is similar ... but everything is similar to something, if you look. The current Neg has a decay which is similar to Hate, but nobody gets fussed about that because they're different in other ways.

My Neg is different from Souls and Vim in lots of ways, so if it's similar in one way, that's ... not a problem, I think. Not in play anyway. Nobody will confuse one for the other.

Regarding combo points, yeah they take some getting used to, but they are perhaps the cleanest and least abuse-able choice from a designer's perspective. From a player's perspective, I guess they might rub your face in the fact that you're playing a video game, and thereby harm immersion, but that's easily fixed with some flavor overlays, like my thing about each point being a reflection of your own glory.

Then you just have Reflections (5 / 7) instead of Combo Points or whatever.

[Red]

Just checking, there are two big things that I feel aren't clear at the moment.

1) Does negative energy have any form of decay?

2) Is the suggested life drain ability of negative energy still planned for this resource system?

As for mobility, perhaps add in something similar to the Doomed's shaow-walk. A negative energy sustain that costs energy each turn (not much, but enough that it's an important choice if and when to activate it), adds a zone effect to all Moon and Starfall spells so the area affected (and possibly the area it takes for a bolt or other single target ability to hit) leaves behind a shadow that deals minor darkness damage, and more importantly either vastly buffs your move speed or just straight up makes movement in the area free. I'd lean towards the former more than the latter, since if you can cover a wide area with absolutely free movement, it'd get a bit ridiculous, but I'm not sure.

This could probably replace Darkest Light. I'm not sure what to do for early game mobility, but for mid- to late-game mobility this should help a ton.