ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Forking off from another thread with different ideas about the same problems.

Unlike that thread, though, I'm aiming at Sun Paladins in addition to Anorithils.

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.

Even more unfortunately, having optimal resources at encounter start is usually possible by the mechanism of wasting turns in safety. Specifically, the cycle of:
1/ See a foe at range 10
2/ Moonlight Ray
3/ Cast a Positive generation spell
4/ Cast Twilight
5/ Rest off the cooldowns
6/ Hit auto-explore
... is a boring, brainless cycle. Most of your "maintenance" actions require no meaningful choices, and this is at least in part because the resource decay takes longer than your talents cooldowns.

IMHO the Brawler's (relatively) new resource, the Combo Point, is a better fit for the desired behavior. They can't be generated outside of combat, they last for a very short amount of time, and having even just one of them is always enough for effects which require them.

So, for the Positive side of things, simply removing the Positive bar and adding a new type of combo point ("Solar Point" perhaps, or "Reflected Glory") is probably sufficient... if we can work out what to do about the non-combat Positive generation talents, like the Light tree.

The proposed name "Reflected Glory" hints at my solution: only award points when enemies are within a certain range, say range 7 which is the farthest range Positive talents seem to go -- correct me if I'm wrong here, please. So you get your +1 point if you use the spell within 7 tiles of an enemy, as your glory reflects off of your foe's resolve (or some other twaddle, there's lots of room for delicious purple prose in this celestial metaphor).

Unlike Combo Points, though, I feel like Solar Points should NOT always be expended all at once. Sure, there can be some "Finishing Moves" which eat all your points, but there should also be some talents which merely eat one point, so you can lay down several of them in a row -- specifically I'm thinking of Circles here, which are often used one after another. But that's starting to get into specifics, so let's just get into the specifics.

Combat / Weapon of Light - Each turn, the first time you hit in melee, you have a 30% - 50% chance to generate a point.

Combat / Wave of Power - Costs 1 point to use.

The whole Light tree: if you can see an enemy within range 7, gain 1 point.

Sun / Sun Ray: Generates 1 point if you hit someone with it.

Sun / Path of the Sun: Generates 1 point if you hit someone with it.

Sun / Suncloak: I'd suggest making this cost 1 point.

Champion / Absorption Strike - Generates 1 point.

Champion / Mark of Light - Eats all your points, and scales up the effect and duration per point.

Champion / Flash of the Blade - Costs 1 point.

Guardian / Shield of Light - Heals you if you have any points. Each turn you are healed, you have a 50% chance to lower the duration of your Solar Points by 1. So this doesn't cost you any Solar Points directly, but it does encourage you to generate them regularly in order to reset their duration.

Guardian / Brandish - Either costs 1 point, or maybe it consumes all your points to increase the area.

Guardian / Crusade - Generates 1 point.

Radiance / Judgement - Costs all your points, effect scales up with more points. Since it costs all your points, perhaps have it NOT shut down your Radiance radius.

Also, their Positive sustains are now free, because there is no bar, and that's it for Sun Paladins. Ideally, Sun Paladins will play a little bit smoother than before, but overall the experience should be quite similar to the current experience.

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Now, Anorithils. They've got two resources, and they're the main reason for this mechanics change.

Negative energy mechanics:
- You get +(Cun/10) Neg when you kill something.
- You get back some Neg when you damage a foe with a Celestial spell that generates a Solar Point. If the spell costs a Solar Point to use, you get 2x the usual Neg.
- Negative energy does not decay nor regenerate. It behaves like Souls and Vim. (Except maybe for Liches, which would make them very special.)
- Your Negative bar starts at 40 and increases with level at the current rate.

All Circles which now cost 10 Positive will instead cost 1 Solar Point. Their Negative costs are unchanged.

Totality also costs 10 Negative and 1 Solar Point.

Corona would function a bit like Shield of Light (above): it would require Solar Points to function, but not always consume one. It would always consume Negative Energy when it triggered.

Moonlight Ray, Shadowblast and Starfall work fine at their current cost. Twilight Surge would behave like a Light spell which generates Neg when you hit something with it, and also generate 1 Solar Point.

IMHO Mind Blast and Shadow Simulacrum ought to generate Negative energy, and a couple more debuffs ought to be added which similarly generate Negative energy.

IMHO a new category of movement-type spells, which might include a revamped Jump Gate, should also exist. These spells should cost Negative energy.

The spell Twilight would go away, never to be seen again, and the book of the same name ideally ought to follow its example.

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Now, under the new system, if you see a jerk at range 10, your options are:
- Use Moonlight Ray, spending energy you can't get back before your next fight.
- Approach and use "free" spells, increasing risk but also increasing your more valuable Negative energy.

IMHO that's a much more interesting array of tactical choices.

Further Directions:

- More debuffs for Anorithils. Specifically, I think Mental status effects are appropriate for Moon-themed effects. Possible tree name: Lunacy.

- A Supernova tree for Anorthils which consumes Solar Points.

- A movement tree for Anorithils. ("Moonwalk", heh heh heh.) Put the new re-worked Jump Gate in there.

- I don't know if Glyphs are good or bad, since they don't appeal to my playstyle, but I'd consider making them a low-level tree like Trapping.

Having just played a Sun Paladin, I gotta say I don't like the direction this takes with them. It completely wrecks Shield of Light, which is a very valuable source of healing, and removes any choice on sustains. I ran with every sustain I could get, but that meant I had basically no positive energy left to use offensive abilities. Someone else might run with less sustains (or just micromanage sustains, like leaving Second Life off until nearing death) in order to get use out of more powerful abilities, but under your proposed system sustains have no cost at all. That would take a pretty powerful class and buff it to high hell.

As for negative energy... Well, Donkatsu put it well.

donkatsu wrote:I actually like the symmetry. I mean, they are called "positive" and "negative". Light and dark. Day and night. The sun and the moon. Thematically, I like that these are just two faces of the same coin.

Your system has them be totally different, which isn't neccessarrily bad, but I agree with Donkatsu here. However, you said it yourself-it'd behave similarly to Vim and Souls, and in addition to making no sense thematically (you gain life force and souls by murder, makes sense. Darkness, though?), it basically turns the Anorithil into a Reaver/Brawler. While that sounds like an awesome Adventurer build or addon class, it doesn't sound appropiate for the Anorithil.

Finally, anyone reading this, look at this page. Search for a large post by Donkatsu about Luminosity-I'll leave it to him if he wants post the idea here, but it's an excellent idea for positive and negative energy.

Red wrote:It completely wrecks Shield of Light, which is a very valuable source of healing

No, it does not.

The expected healing per spell is nearly identical (amortized over typical spells of course).

If you disagree, would you mind showing how you think it would work?

As it stands now: I cast Crusade, gain 20 positive energy and can expect ten heals off of that.

Under your system, it'll be worth 2 heals on average. Since it's 1 guaranteed, then .5 of another, then .25 of a third, etc., it ends up averaging out to 2 heals per Crusade. Even at a relatively low level, that's a difference of 80 HP. Once you put serious points in, that could hit 160 or 240 HP you're missing out on.

As for the Light tree, I'm not 100% what you mean by that (is it one point per skill per enemy in range 7? One point per skill if any enemies are in range 7? One point per enemy if you have points in the tree? Or one point if there's any enemy in range 7 and if you have points in Light?), but my best guess is it works out to 1 point per turn, and averages to 2 heals. Every skill in the Light tree, except Healing Light, gives 20 positive (10 for HL). That's 10 (5) heals from a single cast, so if you use a Light ability once every 10 turns, that'll be the same healing if the fight lasts for bare minimum 17.5 turns. If, however, the fight doesn't go as long (and it will rarely go that long. It make take a long time to kill someone, but if I'm in combat for a long time it's because all my escapes failed and I'm doomed) you'll be getting a lot less healing.

Part of what made Shield of Light so useful is the fact that, since you'll typically get a lot of hits per turn, you could use it for pretty reliable and quick damage mitigation. Under your system, Crusade (the only offensive skill I used) would only give 20% of the healing, and the Light tree would provide a very small amount of steady healing. It'd cut its effectiveness as a healing tool by about 80% in most cases. Close to 100% in Path of the Sun, since that's not an offensive tool. It can deal damage, but it's far more useful as a mobility tool that might not hit anything.

The only buff given to Shield of Light is that most positive consuming skills won't take as much healing away. However, it still removes the option of using it for quick mitigation, turning it something more akin to Fungus because it's designed to work largely over time.

That actually kinda sums up my issue with your system, besides that it seems too similar to Vim and Combo Points-it removes options. The Sun Paladin, especially as I played it, wasn't a particularly complicated class. But this system simplifies positive and negative energy, especially positive energy, so it's taking what was already a somewhat simple class and making it even simpler, and in the process you're taking away choices. Like I said in my first post, I chose to use sustains at the cost of offense. That's no longer a choice in your system, because all the sustains are free.

Red wrote:Under your system, it'll be worth 2 heals on average.

Ah, there's what you misread.

Nope.

It's worth 2 turns of healing (at minimum).

Not 2 "heals".

The only way you'd get the behavior you're complaining about is if you hit "wait" (without attacking) for 19 turns while an enemy hits you. That's not behavior I feel is worth supporting.

My character will prefer to:
- Cast spells to attack (refreshing my points)
- Make melee attacks (refreshing my points)
- Heal myself (guess what, refreshing my points)

So uh... yeah if you just sit there with your thumb up your bum, I guess this will be bad for you. But there's a simple solution: don't just sit there. Instead, go make melee attacks and cast spells.

Red wrote:As for the Light tree, I'm not 100% what you mean by that

One point when you use a Light skill, if there is an enemy within sight and within range 7.

Glad to help clear that up.

Forgot to address Weapon of Light. That's a pretty variable bonus, but even with Skills like Assault it's only going to give you 1.5 heals (which would average to approximately 3 heals. The math here is getting kinda fuzzy, but it should be close enough.) Bumps would be worth just under 1 heal, I believe.

Thank you for clearing up Light. Makes sense now, and actually just swap Weapon of Light with Light category in my earlier post. About the same thing. Though I was wrong.

And actually reading it more closely, it should be fully possible to maintain permenant light points if you don't cast offensive abilities. This makes the opposite issue-it's now actually overpowered. Since it only consumes, at most, one point per turn and you can easily generate one point per turn, this makes it effectively a powerful flat damage reduction tool. I just pulled up a random high-level Sun Paladin from the Vault (my own got lost, so can't use that as an example), and his Shield of Light healed him for 18 HP each time he's hit. Under the current system or Luminosity, that makes Crusade also give 180 healing over the course of 10 attacks. under your system, it will end up being a flat 18 point damage reduction from every single piece of damage you take, since you'll heal for that much afterward.

More than that, since each Crusade or similar is going to last, on average, two turns, that means you'll be generating more sun points than you're spending on Shield of Light, letting you cast offesnive abilities while still benefiting immensely from Shield of Light. No danger in running out, since you should be getting at least 1 point per turn and spending less than that on Shield of Light. Under my build (all sustains, no positive energy using skills), I initially was unable to use positive skills because all my sustains gave me a positive energy ceiling of not even 10. But once my level went up and I had a larger pool, I still couldn't because my energy got chewed up by Shield of Light. Your system removes that, making it give more benefit for less cost.

Finally, the main thing I want addressed is that this system just plain simplifies the Sun Paladin. Just with the one Sun Paladin I've run, it already makes my choice to run sustains instead of abilities a meaningless one and majorly buffs Shield of Light. It also benefits two-handed builds far less, since they have less multi-hit attacks, no automatic shield bash from Shield of Light, no sustain that consumes positive energy like Shield of Light to benefit from the new system, and one less sustain that's now free anyway. To my knowledge, the class already works better with shields because of the powerful defenses, and this system buffs shields immensely while barely touching anything unique to two-handed builds. It won't be removed as an option, since it's not getting nerfed, but it's now a plainly inferior option instead of a question of offense or defense.

In just a few words, your system will simplify an uncomplicated class, remove an amount of choice, and buff already powerful abilities.

I think scaling up the Solar Points numbers would make this easier to balance, and address Red's concern about simplification. So instead of generators generating 1 point, have them generate, say, 10-40 points. And point consumers could then consume equally variable amounts of points. This way you can have talents that consume relatively small amounts of points at a time, but consume them multiple times per turn for a potentially larger cost, like Weapon and Shield of Light. In fact, just scale them up to current positive energy numbers. The important thing is that they drop to 0 all at once out of combat, and quickly, like Brawler Combo Points.

I'm iffy about Light generating Solar Points. You can make it work but it's going to be a big headache (from a design point of view). On the other hand, you can't make it cost Solar Points because escorts.

Darkest Light is going to have to be completely changed, but it was useless anyway.

Negative energy generators have to deal damage or else your entire negative energy system falls apart. Because of this, Mind Blast cannot generate negative energy. Debuffs that do not do damage cannot generate negative energy.

Other than that I think this would be great from a gameplay perspective.

From a flavor perspective it's weird that Anorithils thrive off of death and destruction like Necromancers and Defilers. In my mind they were always pretty chill, and I liked the idea of having a mage that uses darkness without being a card-carrying villain. But personally I don't really care about flavor in roguelikes as long as the gameplay is good.

I care a bit more about flavor, so I think this system would actually work better for some kind of Brawler/Reaver combo class. Which again, would be an awesome concept for a class.

However, with your modification, Donkatsu, the system sounds basically like it stands now, only positive energy exists as a status buff like Combo Points instead of as an actual resource. It'd solve the autocast issue, but wouldn't solve the Anorithil's annoying gameplay (though in conjuction with some of Housepet's skill reworks might do the trick), and also pretty important, it'd make you immune to Manaclash and other forms of positive energy burning.

If it could be set up so Manaclash can drain your Sun Points and do appropiate damage as well, then it'd be a minor but viable change to the system. Still have to work out how sustains would work (because the Sun Paladin has a lot of sustains, if those come free, it'll be a ridiculous buff), but it'd be something that'd fix autocast while leaving the class basicly intact.

Still prefer Luminosity and your changes, though. Seems more interesting, but at least the OP suggestion is getting the kinks worked out to be made viable.

donkatsu wrote:In fact, just scale them up to current positive energy numbers.

That's hilarious. Nah, the current ones mostly divide into 10 (they're usually either 10 or 20), so that would be a starting point.

donkatsu wrote:The important thing is that they drop to 0 all at once out of combat, and quickly, like Brawler Combo Points.

That's the most important thing, but it's also important to keep the numbers reasonable. If it's going to fit in a side-bar icon, the numbers can't be huge.

donkatsu wrote:I'm iffy about Light generating Solar Points. You can make it work but it's going to be a big headache (from a design point of view). On the other hand, you can't make it cost Solar Points because escorts.

That could go away, I guess, but only if Anorithils got some new talents. Sun Paladins can generate points via melee okay, but Anorithils can't.

donkatsu wrote:Darkest Light is going to have to be completely changed, but it was useless anyway.

Yeah I'm not even considering Darkest Light, it's bad and has to be re-worked.

Hmm, now that Negative energy is difficult to generate, perhaps Darkest Light could just be invisibility which:
- Costs Negative every turn; and
- Stops generation of Negative.

donkatsu wrote:Negative energy generators have to deal damage or else your entire negative energy system falls apart. Because of this, Mind Blast cannot generate negative energy. Debuffs that do not do damage cannot generate negative energy.

Why do you think so?

donkatsu wrote:From a flavor perspective it's weird that Anorithils thrive off of death and destruction like Necromancers and Defilers.

Nah, it's not that they thrive off death & destruction, it's more that their opponents reflect their glory, like the Moons reflect the light of the Sun.

Maybe it's also that Light = healing, therefore Dark = hurting? They must seek the balance between healing and smiting?

Considering that elements have no moral standing, I don't really think you can just slap those labels on light and dark. Especially since Sun Paladins, the lightiest lightbearers who ever lit light, also are walking murder machines who stab people to death with light. Frequently.

More than that, the whole "hurting enemies gives you negative energy" just feels really, really similar to Vim, and it shouldn't. Both because the point of the energy system is to not have the same resources as another class, and because it makes no real sense via lore. The only good comparison between positive and negative energy and killing people would be if you think of life as a light-killing someone would be stealing their light from them. Which should give you positive energy, not negative. (I glow brightly because I bathe in the blood of those I kill. Interesting take on Radiance.)

I do (in theory, in practice I get real impatient real fast) like the idea of a system that uses one kind of attack to generate resources for another kind of attack, so giving negative energy life-drain based restoration cheapens the core of the system. It'd be appropiate for an offshoot class, like a Abominathil (corrupted Anorithil that can no longer use light and instead must drain others of life to use its powers) or a passive bonus from a prodigy only available through the Grand Corruptor, but I feel it doesn't fit with Anorithil itself.

I guess what I'm saying with those last two paragraphs is this: The Anorithil's positive and negative energy system is designed to generate positive energy with light spells, convert positive energy to negative energy, and use negative energy to power the most devastating spells. Any and all suggestions for new resource systems should follow that idea. (Which Luminosity doesn't, but it does fit the balance between light and dark theme, so I still like it. Plus I'd play it.)

I don't have any solid ideas, but in the vein of this idea, I'll bring up something Housepet said in the other thread.

HousePet wrote:Anyway, it has been mentioned that someone would like to see some suggested talents from me.
So these would be grouped into three types: Sun, Moon and Star.
Sun talents would generate positive energy. They would focus on simple light nukes and defensive buffs.
eg. Light Flash: A light damage hit to a single target at long range, which can also blind. Also Barrier.
Moon talents would cost positive energy and generate negative. They would focus on aoe light/dark damage spells and disabling effects.
eg. Moonlight Ray and Mindblast.
Star talents would cost negative energy. They would be big dark nukes.
eg. Starfall.

Sun starts it, Moon transfers it, Starfall finishes it. Combined with the combo pointesque system, it should stop autocasting, make generating and transferring energy fun, and give an interesting class a much-needed touch up without too seriously remodeling it.

The only thing that has to be done is switch Starfall and Moon-Sun is light, makes sense. Moon is transfer, okay, it reflects sunlight. Starfall is darkness? Falling stars are pretty bright and vivid, and stars themselves are really freaking bright. Whereas if Moon and Starfall are switched, you have Sun to make light, Starfall to bring the light down and destroy it, and Moon to represent the darkness that would be if the sun fell.

Doctornull wrote:That's the most important thing, but it's also important to keep the numbers reasonable. If it's going to fit in a side-bar icon, the numbers can't be huge.

There are really important things that have costs that don't divide by 10. Namely, Weapon of Light and Shield of Light. I think as long as the number stays two digits, the display shouldn't be an issue. So like, half of current positive energy numbers? Then -foo- of light can consume 1 instead of 2 and it's all dandy. I believe current positive energy caps out at <200 at level 50, so that would keep the numbers double-digit.

Doctornull wrote:

donkatsu wrote:Negative energy generators have to deal damage or else your entire negative energy system falls apart. Because of this, Mind Blast cannot generate negative energy. Debuffs that do not do damage cannot generate negative energy.

Why do you think so?

If Mind Blast generates negative energy, then at the end of every fight I just keep the weakest enemy alive and repeatedly Mind Blast it while dancing around in circles until my negative energy is back to full.

Donkatsu, I think you overestimate people's willingness to put up with bullshit. The reason Twilight Surge is put on autocast is because it's an easy, simple way to keep the energy bars topped off. You can still autoexplore, and the only difference is you'll ahve the Surge animation and sound playing as you do.

I personally, and I suspect most other players, would not be willing to sacrifice autoexplore, resting, and all the other little niceties ToME has in order to keep negative energy full. The only time I see people doing it is on Madness, where you need every last scrap of advantage you can get, but those are the same people that don't take a single step towards a new area without Track. 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.

donkatsu wrote:

Doctornull wrote:That's the most important thing, but it's also important to keep the numbers reasonable. If it's going to fit in a side-bar icon, the numbers can't be huge.

There are really important things that have costs that don't divide by 10. Namely, Weapon of Light and Shield of Light.

In the more recent versions of the game, the cost for Weapon of Light is exactly zero, so that's easy enough to represent in the new system

For Shield of Light, I did something which will tend to work out as about the same duration, but be a bit better in the end game than the current system, and be MUCH easier to predict and plan around on a turn-by-turn basis.

donkatsu wrote:I think as long as the number stays two digits, the display shouldn't be an issue. So like, half of current positive energy numbers? Then -foo- of light can consume 1 instead of 2 and it's all dandy. I believe current positive energy caps out at <200 at level 50, so that would keep the numbers double-digit.

Mmmmmmaybe.

I'd like to see if it's possible to simplify even further, but yeah if it's not possible then your suggestion means it can work in the less simple case.

Doctornull wrote:If Mind Blast generates negative energy, then at the end of every fight I just keep the weakest enemy alive and repeatedly Mind Blast it while dancing around in circles until my negative energy is back to full.

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

It would be possible to store a list of enemies which you've debuffed and only allow one payout per debuff per enemy rank or something, so you could get paid to Mind Blast a Boss multiple times but popcorn only once. That could be shoved into the level itself, since enemies don't leave levels.

That could also be made to cover the damage-based stair-scum milking.

Thanks, that's good thinking.

Shield of Light is already pretty powerful. It doesn't need any kind of buff, and like I brought up earlier, without new numbers it appears you'll be able to sustain Shield of Light absolutely indefinitely in combat. That turns it from a heal to a permenant damage reduction.

It might not seem like much when enemies hit for hundreds of damage, but even the 18 HP heal I brought up earlier would nullify or massively reduce a ton of DoT effects. They'll typically not pass 50 or 60 points of damage a turn, so that's cutting all DoT by a third or more. While Shield of Light does do this already, it's at a pretty high cost and still makes it worth your time to fix a DoT even if it's doing less damage than your Shield of Light can heal. Do you think you could draft up some numbers for the system using the higher point system?

In addition, how will sustains be handled? Like I said, Sun Paladins have a ton of sustains, so making them all free is basically asking for them to become more overpowered than Oozemancers.