Earth's Eyes change

[lukep]

Currently, Earth's Eyes (Wilder skill) allows the player to map out the entire level after clearing a safe spot, with only boredom to discourage this. The optimum strategy for any character with Earth Eyes when entering a level is to:

1. Clear the first room
2. If whole level is mapped go to step 7, else go to step 3.
3. Cast Earth Eyes, mapping a small area
4. Rest 10 turns
5. If equilibrium is too high, cast meditation.
6. Go to step 2
7. recover fully, leave the starting room, and fight the enemies.

Steps 2-6 are repeated dozens of times over the course of mapping each level, which is bad because it forces the player into boring and repetitive actions to get the most out of their character.

My suggestion for changing this (without changing/replacing the skill) is to limit the range of Earth's Eyes to a maximum of (5 + 2 * talent level) instead of 100. I believe that this would be an appropriate compromise between being able to map the entire level and losing the flavour of the skill.

[Varil]

Well, as one who likes to abuse Earth's Eyes for figuring out where these stupid escorts are planning to go, I can support this on the grounds of Earth's Eyes being much, much more powerful than Vision and other, similar mapping skills, aside from maybe the crazy powerful Burning Eye.

What if it was a "Cone" instead, with 15-30 tile range? Instead of the "circle of mapping" effect, you'd pick a direction and get a "cone of mapping".

[donkatsu]

I'm of the opinion that mapping talents could just be a passive or sustain that constantly mapped an area within a certain radius of your character. You'd accomplish pretty much the same effect by using the skill, resting/meditating to recover resources, taking a step, and repeating the process, only that's much more tedious.

[Varil]

I'm not sure...on one hand, a low-cost mapping sustain sounds interesting, but I'm not sure I'd prefer it. It'd be more low maintenance, certainly, but it'd also be more resource-intensive, in a strange sort of way. As it is I tend to rest up, use whatever mapping technique I have, rest again, and then continue until I encounter a new room or the edge of my mapped area. Thus, I tend to enter new rooms fresh, but with the room mapped. With a sustain, you'd either make it so cheap everyone ran with it, or you'd get an even more micro-managy situation because they'd turn on the sustain, map a bit, then turn it back off before entering the mapped zone.

Edit : Actually, now that I think of it, what about a mapping duration? Up the price of the spell/talent a bit, and give it a modest duration(10-20 turns), enough for a lap around a room in order to map around it, or for a trip down a corridor. That way you could map a reasonable area in one cast, without worrying that you're "wasting" resources by sustaining a talent you don't need on constantly.

[donkatsu]

I was imagining little to no cost, since there isn't a real cost to mapping right now anyway. Everyone with access to Vision/Earth Eyes/whatever would use it, yes, but that would just give everyone the advantage that micromanagers have already, without the micromanaging. I'm just not a fan of things that are balanced by having the only downside be "you have to press a lot more buttons". (Although now I'm imagining a talent that gave you a time interval to mash buttons, and got stronger the more buttons you mashed. Totally inappropriate for the genre, but still an amusing thought.)

There are fringe cases where this system would be more powerful. For example, if you teleport to a new location and there are a lot of dangerous enemies in the area, in which case you wouldn't want to waste a turn using your active mapping talent. Or if there's a boss hot on your tail as you flee into unmapped territory. But I think the downsides of making it more powerful in those situations is worth the benefit of not encouraging tedium.

[marvalis]

Although now I'm imagining a talent that gave you a time interval to mash buttons, and got stronger the more buttons you mashed. Totally inappropriate for the genre, but still an amusing thought.

Reminds me of some old game on the nintendo gameboy where you had to press "x" as fast as possible to win a race or to get the meter full.

Capping the range would be an easy and fast fix.

[eliotn]

Earth's Eyes could be a passive that reveals a % of tiles upon entering a level. In order for this to work, talent points could not be uninvested from this skill. It could also have a % chance to detect traps on those tiles.