Overhauling saves

[Susramanian]

ToME's saves system has numerous problems, most of which have been discussed elsewhere on the forums. The following proposal should both differentiate it from the resists system and improve its transparency.

Make saves reduce the durations of appropriate effects by X turns, while opposing stats (attack, spellpower, or mindpower) cancel out Y turns of this duration reduction. When a timed effect is first applied, its duration is modified by these effects. The duration can never exceed the basic duration in the talent description. This system has the benefit of using opposed values like the current system (eg, spellpower vs. spell save), while still being simple enough and transparent enough to be immediately obvious to the player. Tooltips can be much improved, too; for example, the physical save tooltip might read, "Reduces the duration of effects from physical sources by up to 7 turns." Similarly, a line like "Prevents up to 4 turns of duration reduction to magical effects" could be added to the spellpower tooltip. The exact formula for translating a save of, say, 79 into a duration reduction of X will need to be tinkered with to get things balanced nicely. This will also put a spotlight on effect durations, and probably result in some rebalances there, too.

Here are some other changes that would go nicely with this overhaul:

1) Alter monster tooltips to display the net effect of these opposed duration modifiers. Display favorable (to the player) values in green, and unfavorable values in red.
2) Rename saves. Terms like 'mental hardiness' or 'mental resilience' seem more suited to describing a person's ability to shake off unpleasant effects quickly. The name change would also signal the significant change in mechanics to the player.
3) Allow net reductions to bring an effect's duration down to zero and display that effect in grey in the timed effects pane for a single turn. The effect would do nothing to the player, but displaying its greyed-out name with a duration of zero will be very satisfying to see. For the first time, we'll be able to see the bullets we're dodging with our high saves!
4) Since strict grouping of effects within save types is probably not feasible (confusion, for example, comes from a variety of sources and, depending on the source, could be opposed by any of the three save types), some sort of feedback should be added to the timed effects display to allow the player to easily see what type of effect they're afflicted by. Maybe a tiny icon next to each effect name-- one for a magical source, one for a mental source, and one for a physical source. These icons could be as simple as 16x16 solid-colored blocks. The idea is to let the player easily see the effects of their save values on the durations of timed effects, so they can make meaningful gameplay decisions (something that's difficult right now). For example, a player might be able to say, "Hey, physical effects aren't even lasting a turn; it's time to stop gearing for physical hardiness for now."
Another possibility is organizing the display of timed effects. Put all beneficial effects together and all detrimental effects together. Then further break down the detrimental effects by source to make it obvious to the player at a glance what the source of a timed effect is.


Somebody is inevitably going to suggest that the system above could be improved by making the duration increases and decreases percentage-based instead of simply additive. The reason I didn't use percentages is clarity; if my physical save gives me a 73% reduction in duration of physical effects, and an enemy's accuracy gives them a 48% increase in duration of physical effects, the net effect isn't obvious to the player. Also, we'll frequently be dealing with rather small numbers-- single-digit, in most cases. There's no need for involving anything as complicated as a percent here.

[Hedrachi]

So basically you're trying to say save formula for duration of bad effects should be something like (drastically oversimplified) this?

Code: Select all

duration = casterGoverningStat - (victimDefendingStat + victimSavesModifier)

Also with my dwarves, I've noticed that by the time I'm in the Far East I don't really seem to suffer much of anything once I get 2750g to my name, because my saves are so high. GMHW in some tower breathed sand at me, I had less than one turn of blind. Was blind so long as it was the dragons' turn and not mine, once it was mine, blindness went *POOF*. So I think the net reductions can effectively already bring the effect duration to 0.

[tiger_eye]

*bump*

What do other people think of this proposal? Personally, I think the current saves could be made more clear by seeing the chance of success of your physical, mental, or magical power against an enemy's saves in the actor tooltip. And that's all that's needed.

*edit* Or do something like proposed here:

http://forums.te4.org//viewtopic.php?f=39&t=26986