rethinking equilibrium

[teachu2die]

i posted some thoughts about this awhile ago, but i wanted to address it again.
i think the current implementation of equilibrium is broken. in angband, ToME, etc, the point when you obtain 0% fail rates, especially for a critical spells like heal, teleport, etc, is a very big deal. as it stands, mages (and basically every other class, come to think of it) in t4 have 0% fail around the board from the start. this is fine, but it leaves the wilder classes comparatively quite undesirable. any chance of spell failure at higher levels can be instantly fatal - and the fact that you can still fail even when at 0 equilibrium is verrrrrry frustrating. wyrmics can be additionally aggravating, as normal melee classes do not have any chance of failure with their attacks.
additionally, meditation suffers from the same problem that arcane feed/shadow feed do. since one would never deliberately use it while endangered, it just forces you to wait for a while until it recharges.

i would suggest the following basic changes:
wild gifts can be used with 0% fail rate until equilibrium is greater than one's willpower. if equilibrium exceeds willpower, then failure rates start kicking in (failure rates could possibly just be the percentage by which your current equilibrium exceeds ones willpower, capped at 95% or something).
increased equilibrium decreases the overall efficacy of wild gifts by a certain percentage (perhaps something like 1% per 3 equilibrium).
meditation restores all equilibrium, and stuns for 10 turns, regardless of talent level (the difference between stunning for 11 turns and 13 turns is pretty irrelevent if you're in potential danger). further points in meditation reduces the amount your wild gifts are weakened by increased equilibrium. so for instance, 30 equilibrium might normally reduce the power of wild gifts by 10% - with 5 points in meditation, the same amount of equilibrium might only reduce the power by 5%.

[teachu2die]

no thoughts on this topic? is everyone pleased with the current implementation of equilibrium?
i just find failure rates very problematic, particularly when almost no other features in the game are subject to failure....

[darkgod]

I like your idea of no failure until you reach your willpower, it looks neat

[edge2054]

The Paradox code works similarly.

Basically the Paradox amount it checks for negative effects is your Paradox - Willpower.

[teachu2die]

i'll take a look at paradox...if its too similar, equilibrium need not work the way i suggested - was just trying to brainstorm ways around the failure rates...

[yufra]

I like the idea of redoing equilibrium and think teach's suggestions have merit.

[edge2054]

i'll take a look at paradox...if its too similar, equilibrium need not work the way i suggested - was just trying to brainstorm ways around the failure rates...

Sorry my meaning was lost in my previous post.

I was saying it sounds like a good balancer and I coded it that way for Paradox (think it was Yufra's suggestion actually).

Anyway the Paradox failure formulas are way different so it wouldn't really matter teach. Having willpower offset them both would make sense too (they're similar affects, one is how out of balance you are with nature and the other is how out of balance spacetime has become).