Training Fix for Staff combat and Mindstar Mastery

[Hachem_Muche]

This add-on updates the staff combat trainer in Angolwen and the mindstar mastery trainer in Zigur to work with unlocked categories from escorts without penalizing the player, adjusts training costs, and provides an enhanced training option.

At these trainers you can
reveal the talent category for 100 gold
unlock the talent category for 500 gold
improve talent category mastery by 0.2 for 750 gold (up to a maximum of 1.3)

If you have revealed the talent category from an escort and unlock it with the trainer, the mastery will be improved to 1.1, and can be enhanced further to 1.3.

It can be downloaded at http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/traini ... ar-mastery

[Doctornull]

Very interesting, this does scratch an itch of mine!

Does this mean you're locked to at most 1.2 mastery (or 1.4 with a cat point) if you don't get any Alchemists?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Very interesting, this does scratch an itch of mine!

Does this mean you're locked to at most 1.2 mastery (or 1.4 with a cat point) if you don't get any Alchemists?

Well, there's always worldly knowledge... (Not that I'm endorsing that as a good idea, mind you.)

[Hachem_Muche]

Does this mean you're locked to at most 1.2 mastery (or 1.4 with a cat point) if you don't get any Alchemists?

That's correct, barring some other way to get more mastery.

The idea is to provide a tangible reward going forward for escorting an alchemist successfully.

[Doctornull]

That's correct, barring some other way to get more mastery.

The idea is to provide a tangible reward going forward for escorting an alchemist successfully.

Hmm. The free talent point is already a nice reward IMHO, but maybe this is fine too.

It's certainly an improvement over being permanently punished for rescuing the Alchemist early.

[Sedrahl]

Just to clarify things:
-Getting the locked category OR a talent from the escort allows you to unlock the tree at 1.1 mastery in Zigur for 500g, so getting the category is still pretty pointless.
-Characters that don't find an Alchemist before buying the tree are actually worse off than characters who don't, because they're stuck at 0.1 less mastery
-It's actually bad to buy the 100g tree because it will lock you at a lower talent mastery once you unlock the tree. (Similarly to how it used to be bad to take a talent/tree from an early Alchemist.)

This comes close to addressing my two biggest complaints about the Staff/Mindstar training issue. For one, it boosts the low mastery level an early Alchemist Escort will stick you at, and second, it lowers the training price to a figure more manageable in the earlygame.

However, I feel it introduces a new problem in the process- You're now punished by the RNG if you don't find an Alchemist before buying the tree. This problem is considerably more annoying because you're much less likely to get an Alchemist before clearing t1s than you are not to. I think the ideally the Mastery level should end up the same either way, either by shops selling the tree at 1.1 mastery to PCs who have not met an Alchemist escort, or by only boosting the mastery to 1.0 for those who have.

As for the final +.2 mastery for 750g, I like it a lot and think it's a nice addition to the game.

[Hachem_Muche]

I'd like this addon to be good enough that DG would want to include it in the main game. so I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it.

Just to clarify things:
-Getting the locked category OR a talent from the escort allows you to unlock the tree at 1.1 mastery in Zigur for 500g, so getting the category is still pretty pointless.

Not quite pointless, since it affects the timing of your build -- if you want to develop mindstars/staff combat early, this has a place. Also, not all characters have access to trainers they need when they need them. It might make sense to always charge 100 gold to reveal the tree, though, so that the first alchemist reward becomes a question of getting a generic talent for 100g or not.

-Characters that don't find an Alchemist before buying the tree are actually worse off than characters who don't, because they're stuck at 0.1 less mastery
-It's actually bad to buy the 100g tree because it will lock you at a lower talent mastery once you unlock the tree. (Similarly to how it used to be bad to take a talent/tree from an early Alchemist.)

Another way to look at it is that characters that successfully rescue an Alchemist are better off than those that don't, which is intended. There is no guarantee that you will get an alchemist escort, let alone save him. If the staff/combat tree is really important to your build, and you haven't seen the escort you want towards mid-game, I think it's a reasonable trade-off to go ahead and buy the tree and start leveling up it's talents at the cost of a small loss of top-end potential.

This comes close to addressing my two biggest complaints about the Staff/Mindstar training issue. For one, it boosts the low mastery level an early Alchemist Escort will stick you at, and second, it lowers the training price to a figure more manageable in the earlygame.

However, I feel it introduces a new problem in the process- You're now punished by the RNG if you don't find an Alchemist before buying the tree. This problem is considerably more annoying because you're much less likely to get an Alchemist before clearing t1s than you are not to. I think the ideally the Mastery level should end up the same either way, either by shops selling the tree at 1.1 mastery to PCs who have not met an Alchemist escort, or by only boosting the mastery to 1.0 for those who have.

I'm not sure I follow your logic here. If you end up in the same spot (disregarding the money spent) whether you rescue an alchemist or not, what's the point of the quest?
I think a small permanent bonus (a potential 0.1 mastery increase) is a nice incentive for a player to plan ahead and exercise patience.

As for the final +.2 mastery for 750g, I like it a lot and think it's a nice addition to the game.

Which brings up another question: Is this too good? This lets you (for a significant cost) get on an equal footing with classes that start with these trees locked. I considered letting the final training (up to 1.2/1.3 mastery) count as if you put a category point into the tree, so that you can't get to 1.4/1.5 mastery unless the tree is part of the class to begin with.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I dunno. 1.1, even 1.2 mastery is probably fine. That keeps it below the 1.3 other classes would get, if you're concerned about that. So learn it from alchemist, then purchase (upgrading to 1.0) and then pay more to upgrade to 1.2, if it's actually really critical to your build. Yeah, I can see that. Keeps it below classes specialized in it, but doesn't unduly harm the intent behind offering the buff.

[HousePet]

I'd be happy with all new categories being added at 1.00 mastery instead of this annoying 0.8 weirdness.
That would solve loads of problems by itself.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

The reason for 0.8 from escorts is to show that you aren't really a master of the trade. You've learned a bit about it from someone, but you haven't studied it enough to be skilled at it. It's like a local guy building a shed. It might not be bad, but it's not going to be as good as a trained contractor who spends his whole life doing construction work.

I could play beethoven's fifth, but I guarantee you I can't play it like Beethoven himself could. Same analogy.

[Sedrahl]

I'm not sure I follow your logic here. If you end up in the same spot (disregarding the money spent) whether you rescue an alchemist or not, what's the point of the quest?
I think a small permanent bonus (a potential 0.1 mastery increase) is a nice incentive for a player to plan ahead and exercise patience.

The quest gives you free generic points in a tree that's quite critical if you're going to be using staves/mindstars, just like it always has. You don't need to attach something as significant as a mastery bonus when Alchemists are already extremely desirable for anyone that plans on using them.

My issue with it is that in this case patience is a smaller factor than RNG. If you're lucky you can get an Alchemist on Norgos 2 and everything's fine and dandy, but if you're not you can end up postponing a critical component to your build all the way till post-Daikara (and through some miracle surviving) and still NOT find an Alchemist. We already have a patience mechanic in the form of needing to save up the hefty sum of 500-600 gold in the earlygame before we can even get it. The mastery thing is (in my opinion) entirely random, arbitrary, and extremely punishing.

Which brings up another question: Is this too good? This lets you (for a significant cost) get on an equal footing with classes that start with these trees locked. I considered letting the final training (up to 1.2/1.3 mastery) count as if you put a category point into the tree, so that you can't get to 1.4/1.5 mastery unless the tree is part of the class to begin with.

Excluding addons, I believe only one class (Alchemist) stars off with Staff Mastery, and two (Summoner, Oozemancer. Wyrmics don't even have it locked.) start with Mindstar Mastery. None of these classes have much emphasis on the trees, generally just preferring the weapons as stat sticks and perhaps grabbing utilities from the talent trees. Doomed and Psionics pretty much get identical usage out of the tree/weapons that Summoner/Ooze do, so I don't think it's unfair for them to be able to use it on equal footing. If Staff/Mindstar Mastery was made a key feature on a new melee class then things may need to change.

[HousePet]

The reason for 0.8 from escorts is to show that you aren't really a master of the trade. You've learned a bit about it from someone, but you haven't studied it enough to be skilled at it. It's like a local guy building a shed. It might not be bad, but it's not going to be as good as a trained contractor who spends his whole life doing construction work.

I could play beethoven's fifth, but I guarantee you I can't play it like Beethoven himself could. Same analogy.

Except the all the people who can master it start at 1.3 mastery anyway.
It is generally not worth spending two category points to just be average in category.

[Hachem_Muche]

The changes from this addon have been committed for ToME 1.0.5.