Reworking Chronomancy

[parcel]

Clearly spacetime tuning getting faster would solve the main problems (all problems?) people have with paradox management. Maybe you can make it go faster the longer you wait, so it's not much better in fights but much faster when resting.

The unfun part about classes like PM is not so much that they aren't neat, but that they are too busy. Spending time swapping weapons, painstakingly aiming TBTC, and instablinking is boring but tolerable, but you should also bear in mind that not everyone plays with enough room for many actions to fit on one page. Some slightly better emphasis on tighter builds would be good, generally speaking, so there's less reliance on sprawling use of talents.

Why do you think this? I could not disagree more to be honest. The most fun part about classes like PM is that they're very busy. Spending time swapping weapons, carefully using many different spells and abusing your great mobility is great. You should keep in mind many people play like to use many varied spells and that you can expand your toolbars. Some emphasis on increasing your versaility and allowing more diverse builds would be great, so there's less reliance on only a few good spells.

Like, it's okay to have a different opinion, but we're discussing actually changing the base class and there's no reason why we need more classes that have tight builds.

I like classes with a variety of options but there is a conflict with tightness. I am well aware that the talent bar can be expanded but my point is that this will cut into your main space and limit north-south vision below 10 tiles on many setups, requiring either a tile size reduction (not desirable on the main map) or moving the talent bar so that it sits to the side (not comfortable). Business is a problem. I'd rather a class that made you choose very carefully how to build the character rather than choose which of a million talents to use at a given moment. You are right that we are entitled to different opinions but tracking this level of cooldown information is a bit of a chore from my perspective. The general idea of making a few roughly interpenetrating builds in a single class seems quite good to me. There's a reason why doomed and cursed are popular, because they accomplish this quite well.

It seems to me that we have plenty of classes with sprawling builds and since the creeping tendancy is to add trees, we'll get more sprawly with time. I may have the better mirror argument in saying that we don't need more classes with loose builds. Note that we can still have a tactical class based around low-cooldown teleports, swift hands and talents that incorporate various tricks, without sprawling all over the place in terms of the way a player builds their char.

[edge2054]

Here's my thoughts for Spacetime Tuning/Static History.

Spacetime Tuning
Cooldown: 24
Sustained (No Paradox Cost so no chance of failure)
Now costs a turn to use.

Each turn it reduces your Paradox by 2-10 based on willpower. Deactivating it reduces Paradox by 40-200. No longer deactivates on spell cast.

So essentially it becomes both talents rolled into one and Spacetime Tuning now scales with Willpower.

As to Paradox Mages dealing more damage late game it's going to be dependant on current Paradox levels. The idea is that if Paradox costs no longer scales with Paradox players can more comfortably run around with more Paradox. I don't believe the increase is going to be gamebreaking. At 600 Paradox effects are at 122%. At 1200 it's 158%. Not a lot, but hopefully enough that players feel some reward for investing in Willpower and some encouragement to keep Paradox high.

I'm also debating doubling the effect of Willpower on Paradox and halving all the paradox_reduce_fails flags on artifacts and egos. In other words, making actual Willpower mean more so players want to invest in it.

[SageAcrin]

I'd leave the break on spellcast clause in, or add a different downside.

Otherwise, people will just leave it on all the time, which is sorta dull. Perhaps lowered Casting Speed while it's on? Or maybe have spells cost more while it's on?

[Doctornull]

Here's my thoughts for Spacetime Tuning/Static History.

Spacetime Tuning
Cooldown: 24
Sustained (No Paradox Cost so no chance of failure)
Now costs a turn to use.

Each turn it reduces your Paradox by 2-10 based on willpower. Deactivating it reduces Paradox by 40-200. No longer deactivates on spell cast.

So essentially it becomes both talents rolled into one and Spacetime Tuning now scales with Willpower.

As to Paradox Mages dealing more damage late game it's going to be dependant on current Paradox levels. The idea is that if Paradox costs no longer scales with Paradox players can more comfortably run around with more Paradox. I don't believe the increase is going to be gamebreaking. At 600 Paradox effects are at 122%. At 1200 it's 158%. Not a lot, but hopefully enough that players feel some reward for investing in Willpower and some encouragement to keep Paradox high.

I'm also debating doubling the effect of Willpower on Paradox and halving all the paradox_reduce_fails flags on artifacts and egos. In other words, making actual Willpower mean more so players want to invest in it.

Dislike.

With my PM changes, you have the option to go high-Willpower or mid-Willpower. You can compensate for mid-Willpower by buying up Static History.

Tying together the extent of high-Paradox and the speed of Paradox reduction will actually reduce these two options into a single stat which is too good to pass up.

Allow Paradox reduction speed to either scale with current Paradox (so it's a bit like Feedback), or have it scale with Spellcraft.

[edge2054]

I see what you're saying Doctornull.

Honestly I'm not that happy with Spacetime Tuning, it feels to much like Meditation. Trying to think of a way to reimagine it.

[parcel]

Granted, Paradox itself is a lot like Equilibrium in many other ways beside this talent. Maybe the actual effect of tuning should be passive since micromanaging paradox levels is likely to be a chore in most of the ways that I can think of. Have you thought about a depreciation mechanic? That is, the paradox cost of a spell is returned to you over time through the tuning. You can choose the rate at which spells depreciate from a range of options that is based on your (raw) spellpower, but only K spells may be depreciating at a given time; the others must wait in a queue. K improves with WIL. So the actual talent would be a single active where you feed in a single integer, your only allowable input to an automatic routine beside how you build your character.

Determining your depreciation schedule should be kind of intricate but it's unlikely that you will want to do it more than once per character level on average, so it hovers as a general consideration about how to 'kit' your chronomancer without intruding on every single battle.

[grayswandir]

Several quick ideas:

Spacetime Tuning: Maybe make it an active, and just give natural paradox recovery (based on willpower)? Make it recover 50% of current paradox, plus an additional amount equal to your willpower, and scale the cooldown by current paradox as well. Then maybe something like turning each temporal status effect in radius X into X temporal damage (scaled with your paradox) - in effect you're "cleansing" the area. So a decent strategy would be to dump a whole bunch of debuffs on an enemy and then cast spacetime tuning to do a whole bunch of damage, and get rid of your built up paradox at the same time.

Instead of making artifacts increase your base amount of paradox, how about having them increase your paradox recovery rate?

Minor anomalies: A class of 'minor' anomalies which didn't really affect the game much, but happened much more frequently, even at minimum paradox, would be interesting. Maybe event have a specifc side effect attached to individual talents. Like if dimensional step had a 0%-10% chance (based on paradox) to leave behind a random friendly, weak creature at your original location. (Maybe just a clone of yourself?)

Weapon Swapping: Making a sustain that automatically switched weapon sets when you tried to melee or shoot wouldn't be too hard. Another way to do this would be to give TW's another weapon slot on each set for bows only - themed as them pulling them out of a pocket dimension whenever they needed to fire an arrow.

[edge2054]

Not to be dismissive because I like both ideas but I'll probably keep it simple so I don't burn out before I start tackling other stuff. Gray I had an idea for a revamped Rethread and I might incorporate some of your ideas into that. I also really like the idea of getting back Paradox from spells you cast over time and may use that idea for another talent (Reverberation or something).

So with that in mind how about...

Spacetime Tuning
Reduces Paradox by X% per turn or one, whichever is greater. Each turn it deals damage in a radius equal to current paradox/100. The damage will scale with spellpower and greatly with Paradox (double Paradox damage modifier maybe, would have to play with numbers).

This would go back to being a channel with the idea being that as you retune spacetime the paradox leaks out as damage to those nearby. Would probably break on movement as well.

Could also open the door for talents that modify spacetime tuning, possibly increasing the radius or granting defensive bonuses, or adding random anomalous effects to nearby enemies (random status effects).

Granted, there would still be the issue of resting paradox regen. Not sure if that should be a thing or not but I guess it kinda is either way, just takes a button press...

[Salo]

Obviously the rework you propose for spacetime tuning is an insanely big buff to paradox management. It is very easy now already, with that change you make it completely trivial and hence you would have to rework the whole paradox system to make paradox harder to use again. Perhaps you should double all paradox costs of spells? So you'd end up flip flopping between high and low paradox more often in a fight. If not, I see no point of having the resource in the first place if you make it so easy to manage it.

For reference, currently the spells you spam as a paradox mage cost between 8 and 10 paradox and you can easily have +500 paradox early game without problems and +1000 lategame. With your solution you'd (almost) regen paradox faster than you can spend them with the spells you usually cast most so the only possible way to ever get near the dangerous level with your proposal is if you spam the very expensive spells on cooldown (which is often suboptimal) and never spending a turn not casting paradox spells (and not using rethread despite it being very good) and do all this during an extremely long fight. Obviously it is possible to balance everything again by overhauling the whole paradox system again, but it should be obvious it'd require quite a bit of thinking to make sure you don't ruin the system...

You also still haven't explained enough why :/ . Why is what you propose better and how? Obviously I can't force you to since you're the one who wants to change the class, but still it'd be nice since. I feel you are a bit misinformed about paradox mages and especially how good/fun the current paradox system is for them.

edit: typo's

[edge2054]

Yes, all paradox spell costs would be doubled. The current levels are based off being equal to mage spells at 300 Paradox and that's considered the 'baseline' as far as game balance goes.

The change would set Paradox costs to that baseline.

[edge2054]

Also I'll try to address your concerns a bit better when I get home. Going to Tae Kwan Do with the family so I don't have time at the moment.

[Doctornull]

Honestly I'm not that happy with Spacetime Tuning, it feels to much like Meditation. Trying to think of a way to reimagine it.

Scale it with Spellcraft (so basically with Magic) and talent level for some related talent.

Or scale it with current Paradox (so you get accelerated recovery to compensate for accelerating talent cost).

--

Other talents that could refund Paradox:

- Destabilize: gives you some incentive to not kill the victim immediately for the explosion damage.
- Swap: if the Confusion lands, then you get negative Paradox instead of positive as you "vent" Paradox into the swap victim.
- Temporal Fugue: it's a big cone, so it could work like Rethread and only give you a net Paradox reduction if you get enough victims at once.

[HousePet]

The problem here is that you are trying to make a basic resource regeneration over time mechanic into something interesting and tactical. It won't work.

Spacetime Tuning is slow regeneration for use between battles. It should function like the passives effect of Meditation or a Mana Surge Rune. The only problem is, it is about as fast as 0.1 mana regen per turn.

Spacetime Tuning is the fallback resource recovery and a fallback resource recovery is required. If it really grates that a free talent is rather boring, then make it passive or an innate regeneration effect.

[edge2054]

Alright, back home. So I'm going to try to address your concerns Salo.

Obviously the rework you propose for spacetime tuning is an insanely big buff to paradox management. It is very easy now already, with that change you make it completely trivial and hence you would have to rework the whole paradox system to make paradox harder to use again. Perhaps you should double all paradox costs of spells? So you'd end up flip flopping between high and low paradox more often in a fight. If not, I see no point of having the resource in the first place if you make it so easy to manage it.

As I mentioned in my last comment Paradox cost and damage scaling was designed with 300 Paradox as an assumed base. So when I said Paradox costs would no longer scale up I should have clarified that they would start here. That said I'll probably take a good look at all Paradox costs including sustains. Sustain costs may go down a bit. Spell costs may go up. I feel some of these numbers, especially TW sustains, are an issue anyway that should be looked at regardless of Static History so doing it at once just makes sense.

For reference, currently the spells you spam as a paradox mage cost between 8 and 10 paradox and you can easily have +500 paradox early game without problems and +1000 lategame. With your solution you'd (almost) regen paradox faster than you can spend them with the spells you usually cast most so the only possible way to ever get near the dangerous level with your proposal is if you spam the very expensive spells on cooldown (which is often suboptimal) and never spending a turn not casting paradox spells (and not using rethread despite it being very good) and do all this during an extremely long fight. Obviously it is possible to balance everything again by overhauling the whole paradox system again, but it should be obvious it'd require quite a bit of thinking to make sure you don't ruin the system...

I don't think this part really applies to my last idea for Static History, which itself isn't set in stone or anything but I'm still glad you mentioned it as it is something to keep in mind. As to thinking things through.. hence the thread :shrug:

You also still haven't explained enough why :/ . Why is what you propose better and how? Obviously I can't force you to since you're the one who wants to change the class, but still it'd be nice since. I feel you are a bit misinformed about paradox mages and especially how good/fun the current paradox system is for them.

edit: typo's

There's a few reasons why. A big one is that I hear a lot of complaints. I'm glad that you found a build that worked for you but a lot of people don't find the class as fun as it could be. I hear a lot that Static History feels like a talent tax and it's something I've been trying to address via stuff like Rethread and the latest version of Weapon Folding. I also hear that it's too fiddly. In the end I think I'd just prefer to get away from Static History completely and go over to a system where the player is managing Paradox via non-fluctuating talent costs, a new and funner Spacetime Tuning, and more fun talents that also reduce Paradox in interesting ways. I really liked those ideas grayswandir and parcel just posted for instance and plan to work them into other talents.

Another reason is because I don't want Paradox management to be trivial but I do want to strike a better balance. If the class was working as designed players would feel encouraged to use higher Paradox values for the increased spell values and run the risk of spell failure and anomalies. Players that prefer the safer route would still have the option of investing heavily in stuff like Rethread but I don't want players to feel that starting every fight at 0 + sustains cost is optimal play. Some of this is part of bigger design issues that need to be addressed. I realize it's going to take some work.

Finally I'm just not happy with it. I'm glad you're having fun and I understand that your fear is that I'm going to come in and either nerf them on accident or ruin what you most enjoyed about them but I hope you'll just trust me on this. They can be better.


@Doctornull
I like the idea of looking at other talents that might include paradox reduction. Swap and Destabilize make more sense to me than Fugue. I'll keep them both in mind

@HousePet

Yeah, you might be right. I'm going to play around with it tonight or tomorrow anyway just to see how it feels. The issue I see with a base regen or passive is that Darkgod's made it pretty clear that Paradox shouldn't regen 'naturally'. So I know it looks like I'm shooting in the dark here but there's a reason for it.

One thought I had while replying to Salo was to rework the anomalies code so we can add talents that would make anomalies less dangerous. The idea being to have talents that intentionally trigger anomalies for paradox refunds. Hmmm.. . maybe that's how Static History should work. Might need a rename.

Anyway I'll have to look at it all tomorrow.

[edge2054]

Oh, and a couple more things before I log for the night.

Doctornull, I've come around to Paradox reduction, in whatever form it happens to take, being based off either current Paradox or spellpower, depending on the effect.

Salo, if it helps any I'm considering tweaking Timeline Threading and making it a tier 1 tree available at level 1. I know you have a lot of reservations about the changes proposed in this thread so far but it's part of a broader vision.