Rune/Infusion Ideas

[Grey]

Now that the system is up and running I think it could do with some tweaks.

The main thing I must suggest is a change to the mana restoring runes, as they make a mockery of the idea that Arcane Blades and Shadow Blades have no natural mana regen. The amount of mana restored by these runes dwarfs any potential natural regen over the course of their cooldown. I would suggest either remove them entirely.... or set their cooldown to be about 10 times what it currently is.

In general the cooldowns need to be longer. One can easily get two runes together and have their effects lasting almost constantly. Regeneration should be the only one with less than around 20. There also needs to be tighter control of high level runes in low level areas, as they can be quite unbalancing.

New rune ideas:

Rune of sorcery
+10 Mana, +30% spell crit chance for 6 turns. Cooldown 20.

Rune of pyromancy
+25% fire damage for 5 turns. Cooldown 20.

[Mithril]

If you use two slots to get the same runes or infusions then you have already given away a lot of your capacirty so you should get something in return. Generally I do not think that the system should be increased in difficulty! How not played that much but to me it looks that the current implementation will make game substantially harder compared to the older scroll/potion system since it is no longer possible to have a stack of 20 healing potions each one of which was as strong as single rune/infusion and could be used in combat without having cooldowns between!

[Zonk]

Now that the system is up and running I think it could do with some tweaks.

The main thing I must suggest is a change to the mana restoring runes, as they make a mockery of the idea that Arcane Blades and Shadow Blades have no natural mana regen.

Notice that Arcane Feed was changed to have no stamina drain.
Thus, as long as they have that sustain on - and it requires level 8, so not that hard to get, they DO regenerate, even if it reduces their max stamina.
It's obvious that thet 'no natural mana regen' isn't supposed to be that significant a limitation now.

Mithril points out something I agree with - there's limits on the number of runes you can use, and improving your capacity costs something pretty rare(category points!).
Thus the manasurge rune - and others - may look good, but it has a significant opportunity cost which I think is balance enough.

I do disagree about the game being harder overall.
Perhaps at higher levels...at lower levels(and haven't gotten farther than 13-14, lost my best char to the ruins bug ), I find it slightly easier as I don't have to worry about stocking up on potions(this also means more gold to spend on other stuff).
Maybe later the cooldown becomes more significant a hindrance compared to the reusability.

[Grey]

Notice that Arcane Feed was changed to have no stamina drain.
Thus, as long as they have that sustain on - and it requires level 8, so not that hard to get, you DO regenerate, even if it reduces the max stamina.
It's obvious that thet 'no natural mana regen' isn't supposed to be that significant a limitation now.

And that ability is now left redundant by the manasurge rune, which restores way more mana than natural regen and Arcane Feed combined.

The point about limited runes slots is a valid one. I suppose the trouble is in the early game, when the runes choices are "obvious", and there's no pressure to choose one rune above another. Later on it'll become more interesting.

I feel in general the runes make normal dungeon exploring much easier, especially if used to tactical perfection (triggering Wild on every fight for instance). Bosses of course are much harder without a big stack of healing potions, though I think the regen infusions seem quite well balanced, and the damage resistance of the Wild rune gives an extra tactical option.

I like the system overall, I'm just concerned about areas of overpowering/abuse, and about how the mana restoration runes have completely changed the semi-casters.

[Vee]

I like the system overall, I'm just concerned about areas of overpowering/abuse, and about how the mana restoration runes have completely changed the semi-casters.

With such a fundamental change in game mechanics something like this should have been expected. But I think especially the semi casters have a problem with few oportunities: where a caster can simply use spells like teleport and PD, a semicaster needs either a rune, or some luck with equipment (Teleport necklace anyone?). As they go into meele, health and/or regen infosions become much more important as well - same for wild infusions. They probably want a movement infusion as well in the mid- to late game. I'm not finished with the different infusions/runes, but the 3 slots are more than full already.

I don't think this is a bad idea. On the contrary, it makes the semi-casters even more diverse: how you equip them changes the playing style in leaps! And if I remember correctly those semi casters were short on category points as well ...

V

[Sirrocco]

I mourn the loss of the slime mold juice potion, and the wonderful things it did. Thus, I suggest...

- Slime Infusion: 5 gp cost. Heals and restores relatively minimal amounts of HP (5-10) and equilibrium (0.1-0.2), and does the slime mold juice thing at the slime mold juice thing percentage chance. Refresh of something like 5, and one turn to use. "You feel the slime coursing through you and shudder." Should be just about the same amount of hassle overall.

[ghostbuster]

I mourn the loss of the slime mold juice potion, and the wonderful things it did. Thus, I suggest...

- Slime Infusion: 5 gp cost. Heals and restores relatively minimal amounts of HP (5-10) and equilibrium (0.1-0.2), and does the slime mold juice thing at the slime mold juice thing percentage chance. Refresh of something like 5, and one turn to use. "You feel the slime coursing through you and shudder." Should be just about the same amount of hassle overall.

You cannot have the effect of the slime mold juice with a fully refillable resource. The talent tree would be to easy to get.
Or the infusion should be permanent and not replacable (as slime is supposed to be really sticky :d).

[Zonk]

I mourn the loss of the slime mold juice potion, and the wonderful things it did. Thus, I suggest...

- Slime Infusion: 5 gp cost. Heals and restores relatively minimal amounts of HP (5-10) and equilibrium (0.1-0.2), and does the slime mold juice thing at the slime mold juice thing percentage chance. Refresh of something like 5, and one turn to use. "You feel the slime coursing through you and shudder." Should be just about the same amount of hassle overall.

You cannot have the effect of the slime mold juice with a fully refillable resource. The talent tree would be to easy to get.
Or the infusion should be permanent and not replacable (as slime is supposed to be really sticky :d).

I was worried about losing the slime tree, yes. If you want to do it with infusion:
the slime infusion gives the tree(unlocks it AND maybe enables it, unless you want people to spend a category point tooo).
Removing/replacing it disables the tree but not does not 'reset'talent points spent in the slime talents, so if you get it again later your latent powers are 'rediscovered'.
Also, 'better' slime infusions could give a higher mastery for the tree, although it probably shouldn't go above 1.3.

[Grey]

Who would bother wasting a whole infusion slot on the slime tree? Perhaps a slime infusion should be very very rare, equipping it will give the tree forever, but keeping it on will improve the mastery significantly.

[Mithril]

Slime mold juice never functioned similar to other potions so why not have it function as before? So there is a special slime mold slime you can find that functions exactly as the potion and that is as rare as the potion was.

[Sirrocco]

Getting the tree before was a matter of knowing what you were doing and a bit of hassle - you had to build up money, scum stores, build up more money, etc. On the other hand, you could buy potions in stacks of 8-10 in the early game and chug them back to back. This version, in comparison, would require you to wait until it recharged, use it once, wait until it recharged, use it again, and so forth. Unless you want to spend silly amounts of time sitting in town activating and waiting for the recharge to come up (which is its own kind of hassle) that means that you have to actually head out into the world, constantly thinking about and firing off your slime mold infusion, until you finally luck into it. Now, you can discuss how to keep the level of hassle appropriate - Perhaps have it only generate in stores, and be fairly expensive? (It's 50 gp, if you want to match the cost of store-buying the average number of potions.) Perhaps the recharge time should be 10 or 20? - but I'm sure that we can figure out something using infusions that fits the "do the annoying silly thing over and over and over until you get lucky" mold that the slime tree is balanced for.

[Vee]

How about an infusion, that works just like the first slime talent - spit slime/acid/poison/whatever was it?
Keep it on a low level, so its not too effective on its own, rather using up a slot and worth less than other infusions/runes.
BUT everytime you use it "you choke as slime builds in your throat, as you spit it at your enemy" you get a small chance to activate the slime tree.

[Zonk]

new ego type: instant/quick/fast as thought(needs a good name, I'm not very good at that)
Makes the infusion/runes take no turns to activate.
Should only be available on some infusions/runes that take a turn obviously - not all, as it could be overpowered if you could get multiple attack runes with this.