ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I think that your fatigue should increase by the % of air you are missing. I feel like there should be an incentive to avoid losing any air, not just care about dying from it.

It's an interesting thought, except...

- It hoses down physical classes, while not really bothering anyone else.
- There are already a couple of water dungeons. You might have to do some pretty fiddly rebalancing to make those work right.
- Really, losing a bit of air *doesn't* slow you down a whole lot, even in the real world, and we're working with a fair amount of abstraction here.

Sirrocco wrote:- It hoses down physical classes, while not really bothering anyone else.

And mages, too? I thought fatigue affected everything but Equilibrium and Vim.

Sirrocco wrote:- Really, losing a bit of air *doesn't* slow you down a whole lot, even in the real world, and we're working with a fair amount of abstraction here.

If you're one point of air away from dying, you're definitely going to be slowed down somewhat. And if you're only missing a bit, then this won't be affecting you much, either.
Plus, that's why I think it works well as fatigue - you can power through not having air, but only if you're not already exhausted.


You'd definitely need to think about the impact on underwater dungeons, though.

Air loss is basically an all or nothing thing as it stands. I think this idea has some merit just on changing that alone.

Considering how some dungeons(Murgol Lair especially) are heavily designed around air loss, and considering how people rarely like to go into dungeons without breathe in water gear to start with, I don't think making those issues straight up worse would be better.

This isn't to say that I'm against the concept entirely, though. Increasing the air gauge, then increasing the downsides for lower air(say, past 50%), would be something I'm okay with(say 50% boost to base, then start getting penalties past half), and Fatigue would be a reasonable penalty(among possibilities). This would decrease the rate of straight up instant death but increase the penalties of water combat overall-which has always been the real risk with water combat, once you understand the forced areas, anyways. But if you're managing combat right, 75 air should still be enough to work with.

I don't think the "drowning" mechanic needs to be any more annoying, plus it seems like another obscure mechanic that will make the game unnecessarily hard for new and unknowing players.

grayswandir wrote:

Sirrocco wrote:- It hoses down physical classes, while not really bothering anyone else.

And mages, too? I thought fatigue affected everything but Equilibrium and Vim.

Ah. Misread on my part. I saw "fatigue" and parsed "stamina cost". That actually makes it more plausible. At the same time, this seems like the sort of change that will make the game less enjoyable, rather than more. It's interesting, but I really have to go with bricks here.

You could make it less opaque by putting some sort of indicator of "current fatigue" or some such on the air indicator, but it would still be an increase in annoyance for... what?

Sirrocco wrote:You could make it less opaque by putting some sort of indicator of "current fatigue" or some such on the air indicator, but it would still be an increase in annoyance for... what?

edge2054 wrote:Air loss is basically an all or nothing thing as it stands. I think this idea has some merit just on changing that alone.

That, basically. I don't like how you can ignore air loss until you are actually in danger of dying. I think being out of breath should actually impair your ability somewhat.

Plus, I was maybe looking forward to weapon egos that do air damage, maybe a wind spell too.

If the underwater areas are too hard, you can just increase the frequency of bubbles. It wouldn't be too hard to balance, really.

Air is binary yes, so is health. You are either dead or not

haha.. fair point.