Celestial Resources (Anorithil & Sun Paladin)

[donkatsu]

1) Does negative energy have any form of decay?

- Negative energy does not decay nor regenerate.

[sarracht]

I want to start by making sure I understand your system correctly.

• The current light nukes (Searing Light, Firebeam, etc.) and Twilight Surge generate 1 solar point and increase negative energy when they hit.
• Defensive light spells like Barrier and Providence generate 1 solar point if an enemy is nearby.
• Circles cost 1 solar point and possibly negative energy. When they hit, they presumably generate negative energy at double the usual rate.
• Corona drains negative energy when procced, and uses solar points sometimes?
• Mobility spells and nukes cost negative energy.
• Debuffs and other utility generate negative energy.
• Moonlight Hymn presumably drains negative energy.

Please correct any of the above or add additional info if it's missing.

Now,

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!

I don't think I buy that this is a feature.

Anorithil have one spell that works at range 10. Maxed Starfall can get things at range 9 iirc, and Shadow Blast might be able to hit out that far as well. Every other ability is range 6 or less. There's no question about tactical positioning here; I'm going to end up at range 6, because the vast majority of my abilities operate only in that range. The only variation is whether I sit and wait for a melee to come visit me, or draw a ranged mob back into a cleared area. Thus, running out of neg is the only danger, because if I do, I have no mobility spells, no silence, no warding, no stun, no +defense, no AoE, no moonlight hymn or corona procs, and the spells with the highest damage and range are unavailable.

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.

To clarify, my problem with the resemblance to vim is mostly in the "regenerate from killing" aspect. And yes, the current system's resemblance to hate is precisely one of the things I was fussing about in the original thread :3

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.

Regarding this, the only anorithil abilities listed as using solar points are circles, Totality, and in some way Corona. Everything that generates a solar point also generates negative energy, so I don't see why the points exist. As far as I can tell, if we eliminate the positive energy bar, have anything that currently costs positive cost negative instead, have anything that generates positive generate negative instead, only allow negative energy gain when enemies are in range 7, and get rid of neg decay, we end up with something functionally identical to and conceptually simpler than your proposal:

• Use sun spells and lunacy debuffs to generate energy.
• Kill things to generate energy.
• Nukes, utility, and mobility spells consume energy.
• You can't generate energy unless you're in combat, and you don't lose energy when you're out of combat.

Moonlight Ray/Starfall/Shadow Blast are almost certainly going to cost more energy than you recover from killing a mob. So the gameplay experience is going to be blasting weak mobs from range until your energy gets too low, then having a fiddly fight at midrange to top off your energy again. The threshold for how often you have to have these midrange energy-generating fights is determined by how much energy you need to have in reserve for when you get into a "real" fight, with rares/uniques/bosses. And in these "real" fights, resources aren't going to be a problem because the energy-consuming spells have longish cooldowns and you're always going to have dead turns in which to cast the energy-generating spells. Unless Corona/Moonlight Hymn are going to consume energy faster than it can be generated, in which case you just can't use them.

In short, the current system and your proposed system both require the player to worry about resources outside of combat but not inside it. This is backwards. The hate and vim classes are the ones that cannot generate energy on their own and have to feed on combat to sustain their power. Let anorithils rest to reach their optimum levels and then worry about resources during fights.

[Doctornull]

I want to start by making sure I understand your system correctly.

• The current light nukes (Searing Light, Firebeam, etc.) and Twilight Surge generate 1 solar point and increase negative energy when they hit.

I don't think of those as "nukes" really. I think of them as weak Light spells which generate resources. I'd like to add some Light-based nukes, things which would hit harder than the stuff in the Sunlight tree.

• Circles cost 1 solar point and possibly negative energy. When they hit, they presumably generate negative energy at double the usual rate.

Circles don't generate Negative energy, except Searing Light.

• Corona drains negative energy when procced, and uses solar points sometimes?

Corona requires that you have Solar points, and sometimes reduces the duration of your Solar points.
Corona eats Negative.

• Mobility spells and nukes cost negative energy.
• Moonlight Hymn presumably drains negative energy.

Seems right, yes.

• Debuffs and other utility generate negative energy.

No.

Anorithil have one spell that works at range 10. Maxed Starfall can get things at range 9 iirc, and Shadow Blast might be able to hit out that far as well. Every other ability is range 6 or less.

Actually most are range 7 exactly. Searing Light, Firebeam, etc. Easy enough to check.

There's no question about tactical positioning here; I'm going to end up at range 6, because the vast majority of my abilities operate only in that range. (...) running out of neg is the only danger, because if I do, I have no mobility spells, no silence, no warding, no stun, no +defense, no AoE, no moonlight hymn or corona procs, and the spells with the highest damage and range are unavailable.

You're contradicting yourself here: why would "highest range" matter if you're always at range 6?

To clarify, my problem with the resemblance to vim is mostly in the "regenerate from killing" aspect. And yes, the current system's resemblance to hate is precisely one of the things I was fussing about in the original thread :3

Hate and Vim both naturally increase from killing. With ego support, you can also get Psi back from killing. With talent support, you can get Life back from killing.

So... yeah. It's pretty common.

Regarding this, the only anorithil abilities listed as using solar points are circles, Totality, and in some way Corona. Everything that generates a solar point also generates negative energy

Incorrect. Defensive buffs generate solar points but not negative energy.

As far as I can tell, if we eliminate the positive energy bar, have anything that currently costs positive cost negative instead, have anything that generates positive generate negative instead, only allow negative energy gain when enemies are in range 7, and get rid of neg decay, we end up with something functionally identical to and conceptually simpler than your proposal

Nah, then you'd end up fixing the current Anorithil but not being able to innovate it into something better.

Solar Points do two things:
1/ Make Sun Paladins interesting, with an obvious direction for innovative growth (finishers); and
2/ Allow Anorithils some obvious directions for growth (finisher spells and other consumers of points).

You're just pointing out that the Anorithil as it currently is written does not need a Positive bar, and that's true. But I'm aiming higher than just streamlining the current Anorthil. I'm aiming to make it deliver on more of its promises.

---

Also, about the killing-to-regen aspect of Neg: that's in there in part for Necromancers. I don't have a strong position on whether it's right or wrong to give a strong Neg tree to Necromancers, but it's in the game, and since it's there I feel like it should be supported.

If you can convince DarkGod to drop the Necromancer Neg tree, then I'll happily stop supporting it.

[malboro_urchin]

There's no question about tactical positioning here; I'm going to end up at range 6, because the vast majority of my abilities operate only in that range. (...) running out of neg is the only danger, because if I do, I have no mobility spells, no silence, no warding, no stun, no +defense, no AoE, no moonlight hymn or corona procs, and the spells with the highest damage and range are unavailable.

You're contradicting yourself here: why would "highest range" matter if you're always at range 6?

Sarracht's main point here was that tactical positioning isn't a danger, as you said, and that the only real threat to an Anorithil is running out of negative energy, the power source for all their offense and utility.

To clarify, my problem with the resemblance to vim is mostly in the "regenerate from killing" aspect. And yes, the current system's resemblance to hate is precisely one of the things I was fussing about in the original thread :3

Hate and Vim both naturally increase from killing. With ego support, you can also get Psi back from killing. With talent support, you can get Life back from killing.

So... yeah. It's pretty common...

---

Also, about the killing-to-regen aspect of Neg: that's in there in part for Necromancers. I don't have a strong position on whether it's right or wrong to give a strong Neg tree to Necromancers, but it's in the game, and since it's there I feel like it should be supported.

If you can convince DarkGod to drop the Necromancer Neg tree, then I'll happily stop supporting it.

Sure, resource generation on kill does show up with certain egos/talents, but to me, at least, it makes sense that those specific resources can be generated on kill. Hate is obvious, vim and life are both life forces that can be salvaged from the dying enemy, and psi on kill is mental energy gathered in the same way. Neg energy is totally unrelated; it's the arcane power of Eyal's moons, completely unlike the other resources you mentioned.

Also re: necromancers, maybe bundle the passive ability to gain neg energy on kill into Lichform, so that the celestial bodies/death remain the power sources of Anorithils/Necromancers respectively.

Solar Points do two things:
1/ Make Sun Paladins interesting, with an obvious direction for innovative growth (finishers); and
2/ Allow Anorithils some obvious directions for growth (finisher spells and other consumers of points).

You're just pointing out that the Anorithil as it currently is written does not need a Positive bar, and that's true. But I'm aiming higher than just streamlining the current Anorthil. I'm aiming to make it deliver on more of its promises.

I honestly feel somewhat iffy about solar points as a resource for Anorithils (though I do think they'd really make the Sun Paladin a blast to play!). Part of it could be that, although I do find micromanaging positive/negative energy/Twilight incredibly annoying, I do like the Anorithil class, and the themes of light/dark balance and symmetry present throughout the class. I like how the class conveys these themes, in part, through its resource mechanic, and the asymmetry of Solar Points with negative energy, in my opinion, disrupts that symmetry.

A lot of the appeal of the Anorithil, for me, is its idea of balancing light and dark. Doctornull, both yourself and HousePet have hit on an important step in making that 'balance' theme stronger: making offensive Light spells not suck. This needs to be done regardless of which system gets implemented. That being said, I think I prefer donkatsu's idea of Luminosity, because it encourages build diversity by allowing you to go pure light, pure dark, or Corona-heavy by keeping your Luminosity within Corona's bounds, and simply because it fits the Anorithil

[Doctornull]

Sarracht's main point here was that tactical positioning isn't a danger, as you said, and that the only real threat to an Anorithil is running out of negative energy, the power source for all their offense and utility.

... but that's only a danger because without Neg you are limited to mid-range.

So the thing I was talking about -- the choice between attacking at long range with Moonlight Ray or Starfall vs. closing in to attack at closer range with cheaper spells -- is a real choice.

Sure, resource generation on kill does show up with certain egos/talents, but to me, at least, it makes sense that those specific resources can be generated on kill. Hate is obvious, vim and life are both life forces that can be salvaged from the dying enemy, and psi on kill is mental energy gathered in the same way. Neg energy is totally unrelated; it's the arcane power of Eyal's moons, completely unlike the other resources you mentioned.

If it makes sense that the power of the Sun can restore life, then by symmetry it makes sense that death could be related to the Moons.
Sun -> Life
Moon -> Death

I honestly feel somewhat iffy about solar points as a resource for Anorithils (though I do think they'd really make the Sun Paladin a blast to play!). Part of it could be that, although I do find micromanaging positive/negative energy/Twilight incredibly annoying, I do like the Anorithil class, and the themes of light/dark balance and symmetry present throughout the class. I like how the class conveys these themes, in part, through its resource mechanic, and the asymmetry of Solar Points with negative energy, in my opinion, disrupts that symmetry.

I'm fixing the micromanaging thing. I'm fixing the "Light sucks" thing. I'm doing that specifically by slaughtering the sacred cow called "symmetry".

A lot of the appeal of the Anorithil, for me, is its idea of balancing light and dark. Doctornull, both yourself and HousePet have hit on an important step in making that 'balance' theme stronger: making offensive Light spells not suck. This needs to be done regardless of which system gets implemented.

That can't be done while preserving symmetry, is the thing. It's just too easy to generate Positive energy.

[malboro_urchin]

If it makes sense that the power of the Sun can restore life, then by symmetry it makes sense that death could be related to the Moons.
Sun -> Life
Moon -> Death

Although neg energy on kill still feels weird to me, you certainly make a good point here.

I honestly feel somewhat iffy about solar points as a resource for Anorithils (though I do think they'd really make the Sun Paladin a blast to play!). Part of it could be that, although I do find micromanaging positive/negative energy/Twilight incredibly annoying, I do like the Anorithil class, and the themes of light/dark balance and symmetry present throughout the class. I like how the class conveys these themes, in part, through its resource mechanic, and the asymmetry of Solar Points with negative energy, in my opinion, disrupts that symmetry.

I'm fixing the micromanaging thing. I'm fixing the "Light sucks" thing. I'm doing that specifically by slaughtering the sacred cow called "symmetry".

Implying that symmetry is an unreasonable and altogether bad concept, which it's not; it's a large part of the Anorithil's identity, that serves to differentiate the Anorithil from 'mage with different elements tacked on', to make the Anorithil something greater than that.

A lot of the appeal of the Anorithil, for me, is its idea of balancing light and dark. Doctornull, both yourself and HousePet have hit on an important step in making that 'balance' theme stronger: making offensive Light spells not suck. This needs to be done regardless of which system gets implemented.

That can't be done while preserving symmetry, is the thing. It's just too easy to generate Positive energy.

I don't see why that can't be accomplished by simply altering the costs of various positive-generating/consuming abilities. Then again, I have very little experience in designing/balancing, so if just changing costs wouldn't work, I'd appreciate an explanation of why or why not.

One final note: Thanks for the civil discussion! This forum has always been a pretty great place for that, far better than most!

[donkatsu]

A lot of the appeal of the Anorithil, for me, is its idea of balancing light and dark. Doctornull, both yourself and HousePet have hit on an important step in making that 'balance' theme stronger: making offensive Light spells not suck. This needs to be done regardless of which system gets implemented.

That can't be done while preserving symmetry, is the thing. It's just too easy to generate Positive energy.

You can just make it so that it's not too easy to generate positive energy. Luminosity does this by reversing the cost of Sun spells but there are many other possible solutions to this. The current model (piss weak light spells that generate, normal-strength dark spells that consume), which Solar Points uses, is sound as well, at least in theory. The only reason it doesn't work right now is because positive generation is not needed to begin with, but Solar Points fixes that.

[Doctornull]

Implying that symmetry is an unreasonable and altogether bad concept, which it's not; it's a large part of the Anorithil's identity, that serves to differentiate the Anorithil from 'mage with different elements tacked on', to make the Anorithil something greater than that.

The issue for the Anorithil is that there was no symmetry.

Pos was cheap, Neg was expensive.
Light was weak, Dark was powerful.

That is not symmetry.

So trying to support symmetric resources while balancing an inherently asymmetric talent system was... an issue.

Maybe you can solve it? If so, go ahead.

I don't see why that can't be accomplished by simply altering the costs of various positive-generating/consuming abilities. Then again, I have very little experience in designing/balancing, so if just changing costs wouldn't work, I'd appreciate an explanation of why or why not.

If you think it's doable, go ahead and do it.

I don't see any way to do it, but I certainly won't stand in the way of anyone who does see a way.

[Red]

Rewrite talents. Give an overhaul to the numbers, at the very least, and possibly the skills themselves. Give both positive and negative energy weak charge spells and powerful, costly nuke spells. That'd make an Anorithil a lot more symmetrical, and considering their theme is balance, it'd be a lot more appropiate.

The solution isn't to say "It's easier to make them unbalanced between light and dark, so let's make the system work with that." The solution is to find a way to make that balance exist again.

I'd try to draft a rewrite like that myself (and if no one else will, I'll try) but I'm pretty horrible at doing that. I'll be very glad to help fine-tune any rewrites someone does make, because I'd love to see Anorithils be an awesome class to play and be true to their theme.

[Doctornull]

You can just make it so that it's not too easy to generate positive energy. Luminosity does this by reversing the cost of Sun spells but there are many other possible solutions to this.

I'll look forward to seeing that, hopefully it works better than what we have now.

The current model (piss weak light spells that generate, normal-strength dark spells that consume), which Solar Points uses, is sound as well, at least in theory. The only reason it doesn't work right now is because positive generation is not needed to begin with, but Solar Points fixes that.

Yeah, the theory behind the current system sounded good, but it doesn't work as promised. That's kind of the main problem IMHO: the promised symmetry was never there to begin with, so playing the class just feels like a let-down as you step on the jagged edges of all the broken promises.

Ow, my feet.

Anyway, another neat feature of my system is that I think it'll support a variety of builds. Going hard into light-attacks or going hard into +Neg-debuffs ought to both be viable, and with a high-level light "finishers" tree, going hard into light and only using Neg for mobility might be viable.

Hope so, anyway.

[Red]

I might be missing something here, but I don't see where you've added in negative mobility or offensive light. You mentioned that's something that should be done in your OP, but there's no numbers or ideas that will make either of those viable.

In addition, those are skill changes. It has nothing to do with your resource system, since it'd work just as well on the current system (better, if you autocast), your system, or Luminosity.

Really looking at the class, it seems the biggest problem isn't the resource system (which is fine, if a bit annoying with autocasts on Sun Paladin) but the skills. Fix those, and then see if the resource system is still a problem.

Though a quick mobility suggestion...

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.

[Atarlost]

Right now, it feels like Celestial characters are supposed to start out combat "empty" and then fill up their resource bars as the combat progresses. Unfortunately, it doesn't often work like that, due to the "convenience" of auto-casting, and the optimality of having a nice full Negative bar when you encounter an enemy at long range.

I don't think this premise is correct. Having full bars lets a celestial deal with fights that should be trivial trivially. This is not a bad thing. In longer fights energy use is enough to drain the bar before the fight ends unless actions are spent replenishing, and may even bottleneck an anorthil so the resources aren't made completely trivial by autocasts.

There are also individual things that indicate that starting empty is not intended. Moonlight Ray as a sniping spell is not much use if you start empty. Twilight moves your equilibrium values up and while autocast has superseded it this it stands as proof that anorthils were never intended to run around with zero energy. Wave or Power is another energy consuming lead spell that loses a lot of its utility if energy runs dry between combats. Corona drains energy so fast in-combat regen cannot keep up with it if you start dry. One of the most obvious anorthil oriented artifacts provides energy regen.

I think reworking celestials from based on the above premise will mostly serve to make them more tedious. If you can't maintain energy with autocast you have to lead with an energy producer against mooks you could previously handle with two keystrokes. That's not an improvement.

[donkatsu]

As an aside, I think the existence of lone mooks in the first place is kind of dumb, and if they didn't exist then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[Red]

I think it might be time for some finality in all these talks, or at least a step forward. To that end, I've made a thread to figure out which system everyone thinks is best. Hope this helps make the best system possible.

[sarracht]

As an aside, I think the existence of lone mooks in the first place is kind of dumb, and if they didn't exist then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I sort of agree, but under the current system I'm pretty sure people would still be autocasting if everything were groups and/or rare+ mobs.