Celestial Resource Final Thread

[Red]

-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.

Make sure you have the right info. Believe me, I love the Sun Paladin, so if it broke it I would not support the system until it got fixed.

[donkatsu]

The problem with Luminosity is that it completely breaks the Sun Paladin. Paladins are designed around always being able to use the pos generating talents.

No it doesn't. Paladins would always be able to use the pos generating talents with Luminosity. For the umpteenth time, please read over it again, carefully.

If autocasting is evil and must be destroyed just reduce bathe in light's generation rate and possibly increase the decay rate* so it's a net loser. Nothing else can safely be put on noncombat autocast to generate energy because having them on cooldown when you enter a fight can be hazardous.

Autocasting is a tourniquet to the actual evil, which is redundant out-of-combat resource management. This would make it even worse. Instead of autocasting Bathe in Light (which isn't even a good idea to begin with since Bathe in Light is one of your best talents), you would just be cycling through all of your other generators every X steps. And of course you would wait for cooldowns before you started exploring again-- however much decay you get for the 10 turns or whatever would just be your "resting level" since, as you point out, you don't really want to start combat with talents on cooldown (unless the talents are useless, which is another problem entirely).

[Doctornull]

Fewer possible options, but like I mentioned its the presentation thats obfuscated. Should I user uppercut when I have 2 combo points? Should I use it when I have 3? Does it make any difference? Right now, the talent just gives a range along the lines of "10%-30% chance to stun based upon combo points". If it would tell me what my CURRENT chance is based upon how many points are there, I can get behind that.

Ah, gotcha.

Well, I'd encourage you to check out the info text of my Nullpack Far Fist tree, which does exactly that for current combo points.

It's easily doable, and in fact it's what I have already done.

So yeah, clear communication is very compatible with combo points.

[T-Mick]

@Sradac & Atarlost

These are the key phrases in luminosity: Luminosity is a rename of positive energy. On Sun Paladin, it should behave exactly the same as positive energy does now, except that all talents would use resources, instead of generating them. Luminosity would regenerate, like mana, so generating positive energy is no longer needed.

The Twilight talent, which only Anorithils get, adds the negative energy aspect, by allowing your Luminosity to go negative (below zero, that is), benefiting certain darkness talents and lessening the effects of light talents. The same works in reverse. Using Negative energy talents swings the bar toward the positive side, and vise verse.

[Red]

Not quite right. Generators still generate Luminosity, it just has a default +.5 per turn so you don't need to autocast to be at full.

It might actually be a good idea to change that to a +.5 only while resting (like Equi with Meditation) so in combat you're relying only on generators like you have to now, but really the only change this system would bring to Sun Paladins is getting rid of autocasting to top off the tanks.

[0player]

Donkatsu, would you mind if I tried and implemented your system as an addon? For resource bar, assets for negative/positive can be reused and the bar shown as Positive if >= 0 and as Negative if < 0 (with the max value display adjusted appropriately, in case they're different.)
It seems interesting to me and I would like to see how it actually plays out.

[donkatsu]

Go for it! I'd like to see how it plays out as well.

[Red]

We have a taker! A programmer has decided to do something about Anorithils! Huzzah! *Salutes 0player*

Man do I love games like this. Players see a problem/something that could be better, and someone just goes ahead and says "I'm gonna make that happen." People like you help make great games like this even greater. Thank you, 0player.

[0player]

Hm, I need details.

• So, the Twilight provides damage bonus from -50% to 50%, right?
• Both Positive-generating and Negative-consuming talents will have negative Luminosity cost now. The generating ones should obviously be usable whenever.
  What about neg-consuming ones? Only when Luminosity is negative? Only when it is at max? Whenever?

[Red]

There should be no difference between the two. Luminosity is not two seperate resources, it's one. The balancing factor for darkness nukes that increase your Luminosity would be that their damage is decreased by a lot when you have high Luminosity. Anything with a negative Luminosity cost can be cast whenever.

As for exact numbers, I believe that's something that will have to simply be playtested. +/-50% seems like a good starting point for the absolute floor and ceiling Luminosity, though.

[0player]

What about things with positive cost? Certainly you'd want them to be casted whnever, too?
(Except for stuff like Shield of Light, I suppose.)
How should Manaburn work? Burn towards zero?
Should Twilight just disable sustain fall-off at zero which Sun Paladins and stray escorters get?

[Red]

If it would increase Luminosity above max, it works fine.
If it would decrease Luminsoity below the floor, you cannot cast it.

Manaburn, hrm... I'd say set it to burn away from your default value. You can set where you want your Luminsoity to rest towards with Twilight, so if it's negative, burn towards positive. If it's positive, towards negative. If it's zero, then burn positive if you are at positive and negative if you are at negative, to get to as extreme a value as possible.

Sun Paladins don't get Twilight. If you aren't using Twilight, you have a resting rate of +.5 Luminosity per turn. If you are using Twilight, you set a certain amount of Luminosity and it adjusts towards that value at a rate of .5 per turn when resting.

[0player]

I would deem the situation with positive Luminosity costs horribly asymmetrical, but then again, it may not be an issue. After all, the behaviour can be changed.
I'm NOT in favuor of setting an arbitrary threshold using Twilight, and not the fan of it being a sustain. Instead, I'll make it a command staff-esque talent, and you can only set The Sun (to the max), The Moons (to the min) or Stand Between (to zero).
Verily in favour of regen being resting-only, however, for everyone. Maybe items will be allowed to change it.

[Red]

It might actually make more sense to simply let both ends overflow. Since dark offense raises Luminosity and light offense lowers it, there won't be the infinite cycle of increasing damage issue.

Having it be an active that changes a passive seems fine to me. Main issue is "Stand Between"-just call it Twilight, or Dusk or something. Stand Between sounds more like a warrior ability than a celestial one.

Agreed. The current system is based on not having regen in-combat, just abilities to change your energy level, and I like that idea. This will actually lead to a minor buff for Sun Paladins (who are basically untouched except for negating the need to autocast), since they'll no longer have the -.2 positive per turn they currently have.

[donkatsu]

I would deem the situation with positive Luminosity costs horribly asymmetrical, but then again, it may not be an issue. After all, the behaviour can be changed.

It is asymmetrical, but this is how resources normally work. They're always limited in one direction. Stamina, mana, vim, hate, and psi all stop you from trying to go too far down but never stop you from going too far up. Paradox and equilibrium stop you from trying to go too far up but never stop you from going too far down. This is just for consistency and not really an integral design point. As you said, the behavior can be changed.

I'm NOT in favuor of setting an arbitrary threshold using Twilight, and not the fan of it being a sustain. Instead, I'll make it a command staff-esque talent, and you can only set The Sun (to the max), The Moons (to the min) or Stand Between (to zero).

Whether you like it or not, players are already effectively able to set their own resting level anyway. By not allowing this as a sustain, you're just creating busywork. If my capacity is +/- 120 luminosity, and I want -70 luminosity exactly, I'll just set The Moons and then use a +10 luminosity talent 5 times. This was exactly why Spacetime Tuning works the way it does now.

Hm, I need details.

• So, the Twilight provides damage bonus from -50% to 50%, right?

The problem with making it a damage bonus is that it has no effect on utility talents like the Light tree, so a full dark Anorithil would still be able to make full use of, say, Providence. I was hoping it could be hard-coded into each talent so that the Twilight modifier would always be relevant for each talent, but that's probably too much of a pain, so how about just a spellpower modifier, again like paradox? The new paradox, that is. +/- 50% of current spellpower.