Anorithil resource system

[HousePet]

I explained how to fix starting combat with a full negative bar, block the use of Twilight when there isn't an enemy near.
I also said that making Light spells useful was only part of the solution. That is effectively the carrot, whereas blocking Twilight when no enemies are around is the stick.
The stick would stop the autouse issue, but it doesn't fix the class.

As for the proposed new resource systems; They appear mechanically similar to the existing system. So there is no point on changing it.

The light spells having shorter range than the dark spells is a good point. Those light spells need to lift their game.

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.
Combat would run as follows:
For trash mobs, you would use a Sun talent nuke and likely kill them in one turn. If its a mob, you follow up with a Moon talent nuke to clean up the rest.
For tough mobs, you would start with a Sun talent buff, then a Moon talent disabler and finish off with a Star talent.

[donkatsu]

I explained how to fix starting combat with a full negative bar, block the use of Twilight when there isn't an enemy near.

Your "solution" is counterproductive for at least two reasons, and that's giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you meant to include Twilight Surge:
1.) It would simply encourage leaving a weak enemy alive to tag along with you as you explore the dungeon, which is even worse as now you can't even autoexplore
2.) It would penalize resting, as resting typically takes a lot longer to get you to full health than manually healing yourself. During that time you would be losing negative energy that you wouldn't otherwise be losing.

As for the proposed new resource systems; They appear mechanically similar to the existing system.

Err, no. No they are not similar. Try reading them again.

[Red]

Minor issue that's laregly unrelated, why the hell is the darkness category something to do with Stars? Stars are really freaking bright! Look at the sun!

As for similarities, the Luminosity system actually permenantly solves the "full bar" issue, since a full negative is intrinsically an empty positive. By using Twilight like Spacetime Tuning you just get to play it your way, and the damage bonuses and Corona limitations makes three general builds plainly apparent: Keep positive energy maxed and use light to gain the damage bonus, with dark for energy regen, keep negative maxed and do the opposite, or start at zero and use Corona.

Under the current system, there is no bonus for greater resources, Corona can be used whenever (and is best used from full to avoid total drainage), and you can easily have both bars full.

To Donkatsu about your two points, the first isn't really valid. In the same way you could in theory pull off fancy summoning shenanigans with the Crystal Staff to keep a Cursed at full Hate when you need it, it's too much trouble to be worth it. I at least would not bother keeping an enemy alive like that. The current build up to nukes might not be fun, but it's a lot better than lugging around a crystal rat, especially since I'd have to keep it alive. The second point is pretty valid, though, and part of ToME is letting you start every fight with the same capabilities you ended the last one at. In the same vein as having Inscriptions instead of potions, there's no hunger or similar so you are fully allowed to rest and recuperate before going on.

[HousePet]

2.) It would penalize resting, as resting typically takes a lot longer to get you to full health than manually healing yourself. During that time you would be losing negative energy that you wouldn't otherwise be losing.

Again you are taking a part of the solution I've put forward and saying it doesn't solve the problem I didn't say it would solve.
If you have no need to start combat with a full negative bar, then not having a full negative bar isn't a penalty.

As for the proposed new resource systems; They appear mechanically similar to the existing system.

Err, no. No they are not similar. Try reading them again.

Sarracht's system made certain talents either useless or fail at certain amount of energy. This is pretty similar to not being able to cast due to a lack of energy. (though possibly worse due to wasted turns on accidental casts)
Your Luminousity system just reverses the restriction so that you can't cast if it would overload your energy bar. Its still a you can't cast if your energy is on the wrong side of this line.
Doctornull was discussing a system where casting light spells gave you combo points to spend on darkness spells. So again, you can't cast if you don't have enough resource and resource generation is linked to light magic.

[Red]

You do not, strictly speaking, need a full bar to start combat. However, the highly popluar Corona build (which I do not believe any of your suggestions would make major changes to directly) is capable of draining even a full bar very quickly due to the sheer number of bolts it can spit out. And more than that, having a full bar gives you many more options. Under your last suggestion, starting combat with both bars full gives you access to any skill. Starting with negative empty, you can only use Sun skills, which make up at most a third of your skills.

It's not an insurmountable penalty, not by a long shot, but it's a penalty all the same. No need is not the same as no benefit.

And I just looked over Luminosity again (which is, in my opinion, the best suggestion currently on this thread) and it does not stop you from casting if it would overload your energy bar. You cannot spend Luminoisty if it would tkae you below your minimum, but it sepcifically states you can gain energy above your max.

-You can't use spells that cost luminosity if your luminosity is at its minimum, but you can still use spells that cost negative luminosity (ie generate it) if your luminosity is at its maximum.

As for the "wrong side" bit, I'm not quite sure what you mean. If you're saying you can't cast Light spells while in the negative, that's just not right. If you meant something along with the overflow issue, then I hope I addressed it with what I said above.

[HousePet]

Oh misread.

Corona will fire with any energy, so it will work with any positive energy generated by the first talent you use.
Also, the situation is far less binary than it is being made out to be. Your energy bars didn't hit 0 very often inside a dungeon before Twilight did the passive effect. With the passive effect, you are never going to be entering combat with insufficient energy for Corona fun.

The class is designed for charging up and blasting. If you really can't cope with doing that, play another class. There are already two other arcane resources that regenerate outside combat.

[Red]

Fair enough. I can't argue that I'm not a fan of starting with most my abilities unavailable, but you like the concept, so we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

Thematically, though, I think the Luminosity system is better. Anorithils are supposed to be about the balance between light and dark, but as it stands currently, Anorithils are about abusing light to get to the dark power. Not exactly a healthy balance there. And while Luminosity does let you work entirely on light and use dark to power it or vice versa, it's also got a better balance mechanic that encourages people to try to balance the two elements instead of treating one like a charger for their actual spells. I personally think the changed resource system would work better than your skill changes to restore Anorithils to what they're supposed to be, since it actually grants significant bonuses for balancing your spells out, whereas yours is still use light to charge dark. A better light, but it's still just a charger against the real powerful foes.

If you think the class, crunchwise, should stay as a use light to charge dark and doesn't need to reflect the balance that they're supposed to have according to lore, then I guess there's no reason for you to want the system changed. Plenty of other people do, though, so I suppose we'll just have to see who Darkgod ends up listening to.

[donkatsu]

Thematically, I think it can also make sense for Sun-themed spells to be used as fuel for Moon-themed spells, seeing as how the moon is just a mirror for the sun. The theme breaks down if you extend that to stars, but eh. Artistic license.

There are serious mechanics issues though, and Housepet's only defense is... play another class? Okay, I'll play a Brawler instead, ie a class with an actually sensible "charging up" mechanic.

[grayswandir]

Another approach would be to make it more like Paradox - you can set your 'rest' value to anything you want, and there are different advantages for having it low/high. Here's a quick proposal along that vein:

Positive Energy: As you build up positive energy, your skin begins to glow and you start to possess the raw power of the sun. Too much celestial power will however leave your body weakened. Passively get +physical power, +spellpower, +light radius, -defense (you're easier to see), -stealth power (ditto), +% light, fire, physical damage, -% light, fire, physical resistance. Bonuses scale with magic, penalties are mitigated with constitution. If you overflow, it will begin to decrease by constition points per turn, and you will be unable to cast spells that generate or use positive energy until it falls below your willpower.

Negative Energy: As you build up negative energy, your mind quickens and you start to posses the cunning guile of the moon. Too much celestial power will however leave your mind weakened and befuddled. Passively get +mind power, +spellpower, +% mind and casting speed, - vision range, - see stealth/invis, +% darkness, cold, mind damage, -% darkness, cold, mind resistance. Bonuses scale with magic, penalties are mitigated with cunning. If you overflow, it will begin to decrease by cunning points per turn, and you will be unable to cast spells that generate or use negative energy until it falls below your willpower.

Sun paladins would obviously need some more ways to consume positive energy. You'd also probably have some talents to mitigate/enhance these effects, and maybe some sort of damage explosion when you overflow or something.

[donkatsu]

Another approach would be to make it more like Paradox - you can set your 'rest' value to anything you want, and there are different advantages for having it low/high.

This is exactly what Luminosity is.

[grayswandir]

Everyone with a luminosity bar regains +0.5 per turn, instead of decaying.

I don't think so? Did I miss you changing it later?

[donkatsu]

Complete rewrite: Twilight
Use mode: Sustain
Talent description: Passively allows your luminosity to become negative, with the same negative capacity as your current positive capacity (before sustains). The effects of Chants, Light, Glyphs and Sun talents receive a bonus or penalty proportional to your current luminosity, while the effects of Hymns, Eclipse, Star Fury, and other Twilight talents receive a bonus or penalty proportional to your current negative luminosity. Activate the sustain to set your resting luminosity level and prevent the natural luminosity gain. Further points in Twilight increase your luminosity-based bonuses by X%.

Comments: The sustain part is like Spacetime Tuning, but most of the effects are passive. The bonus/penalty is a multiplier that scales with current luminosity divided by max luminosity. The final bonus or penalty from Twilight is capped at a certain percentage (50%? 100%? Something in between?), or at least give it severely diminishing returns so you don't end up with NPCs with Moonlight Rays that deal a million damage. It would be nice if the talent descriptions for the affected talents took Twilight and the user's current luminosity into account, like Shield Expertise.Here's a more concrete proposal, going off of the OP.

I get the impression certain people aren't actually reading the whole thing. Which is understandable, as it was a long post, but repeatedly referring back to a post that hasn't changed since it was posted on page 1 is a little wearisome.

This doesn't touch Sun Paladins though; the entire proposal was written to change as little as possible while fixing the currently nonsensical resource system, even if the change might be for the better.

[Doctornull]

Doctornull was discussing a system where casting light spells gave you combo points to spend on darkness spells. So again, you can't cast if you don't have enough resource and resource generation is linked to light magic.

Now that it's been mentioned I wonder if I should write the whole thing out...

This thread already seems kind of dense. Maybe a new thread?

What do you think, thread denizens?

[grayswandir]

So, not exactly the same then.

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Combo points sound interesting. What prevents them from being "bad", as was pointed out for my idea, though?

Does that mean I have to start every fight with an attack spell? Or maybe my decay goes away when I see something. Then if I get blinded for a few turns do I lose all my energy? Will using the Stone Wall cloak completely screw me over? What if I just explore and have like, a rat follow me around the entire level? Can I carry over my energy between fights if I heal using a regen infusion instead of resting, and then quickly move to the next enemy?

Don't all these apply equally well to combo points?

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I'm kinda thinking that it'd be neat if the two resources operated completely differently. Like, right now negative is the exact same as positive - it's just a different color. What if positive stayed the same and negative worked like equilibrium instead, for instance? I think it would help them feel more unique, and make the balancing act a bit more intricate.

[donkatsu]

A new thread for a new proposal seems reasonable, provided the proposal is well-thought out. Some people are just shotgunning out random ideas without taking more than a minute to think about the obvious ramifications.

So, not exactly the same then.

I didn't say it was exactly the same as your proposal. I said:

Another approach would be to make it more like Paradox - you can set your 'rest' value to anything you want, and there are different advantages for having it low/high.

This is exactly what Luminosity is.

Does that mean I have to start every fight with an attack spell? Or maybe my decay goes away when I see something. Then if I get blinded for a few turns do I lose all my energy? Will using the Stone Wall cloak completely screw me over? What if I just explore and have like, a rat follow me around the entire level? Can I carry over my energy between fights if I heal using a regen infusion instead of resting, and then quickly move to the next enemy?

Don't all these apply equally well to combo points?

No, because combo points don't decay. The number of combo points you have either doesn't go down at all, or you don't have any at all. Also they are only generated by attacks, and only if they hit. These factors have important ramifications.

The rest of those points were not addressed specifically to your suggestion of having it be based on doing damage; they were pre-empting the suggestion that it could depend on sight, because I knew someone was going to say something like that without thinking about it. And lo and behold, Housepet suggested it. I knew this would happen because that was the first thing I personally thought of, before I took five seconds to critically analyze my own idea and realized "no wait, that would be dumb". My mistake was thinking that people would read the entire thread before posting; that was an unrealistic assumption.

I'm kinda thinking that it'd be neat if the two resources operated completely differently. Like, right now negative is the exact same as positive - it's just a different color. What if positive stayed the same and negative worked like equilibrium instead, for instance? I think it would help them feel more unique, and make the balancing act a bit more intricate.

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.