Infusions a bit over powered?

[Dougiegee]

I'm enjoying the new version. the removal of consumables seems to fit the game pretty well and the runes/infusions are ace. However, I think it has made the game a lot easier (or at least the early game, I haven't made it far!). The regen infusion as it stands is especially powerful. I have a character now with 2 of them and I can have regen on at all times! Is this intended?

Great job with this so far, could see this one day being up there with crawl as my top roguelike. Have to keep playing now...

[edge2054]

From what I've seen so far drop rates on them need to be balanced.

It seems like some of the best infusions and runes in the game are readily available to early characters (which would be like a level 5 character walking around with as many greater healing potions as he could carry).

[Dervis]

I'm enjoying the new version. the removal of consumables seems to fit the game pretty well and the runes/infusions are ace. However, I think it has made the game a lot easier (or at least the early game, I haven't made it far!). The regen infusion as it stands is especially powerful. I have a character now with 2 of them and I can have regen on at all times! Is this intended?

Great job with this so far, could see this one day being up there with crawl as my top roguelike. Have to keep playing now...

The infusion system makes you feel that the game is much easier mostly because in the early game you couldn't afford carrying stacks of potions, and so you wouldn't be popping potions whenever you need. Actually the game is harder this way, you just feel it's easier because you have reliable healing starting from level 1.

[darkgod]

Which is good imo, making the start easier and the end harder

[Zaive]

Maybe I'll make it to the far east now.

[greycat]

I totally agree that this makes the early game much easier, and the mid-game much harder. I haven't made it to what I'd call the late game with any post-beta-13 characters yet, so I can't judge that....

[Grey]

Was the end game too easy before? :P

I think there's a serious problem with finding 300+ healing infusions at the start of the game. Also seems strange that the prices don't vary with rune/infusion power. Otherwise it seems fairly okay.

[Zonk]

I agree they make the starting game easier(and the new exp system makes me 1-2 levels ahead of what I'd be after slaying the boss in previous versions, which I love), while not unbalancing it later on - remember, potions had no cooldown, while runes/infusions do.

Even the instant stuff - shielding and wild, my favorites - while very often lifesavers won't make you invincible, especially when you're surrounded, as I learned while facing many confusion-causing monsters...your nice runes/infusions aren't that useful when you keep failing to activate them(and failing to activate instant stuff DOES take a turn).

I think the 'spend category point to get an extra'slot is also a very interesting choice to make - even though it's slightly 'unfair' because cat points are worth much more or less to some classes. Although that should be fixed by making each and every talent tree cool

Also, as much as I love using them...I agree with Grey that perhaps 300+ regeneration/shielding runes should show up later(NOT be removed from the game), and also that the prices should vary.
Could make the starting runes SLIGHTLY stronger to compensate, but it's not needed.

Also the scaling runes/infusions looked like a good idea, but overall they're fairly weak as of now compared to non-scaling higher quality stuff.

Or maybe I just got unlucky.


Overall: the system is surprisingly good and balanced for something that hasn't been in for a lot of time, although it does need tweaking.

[darkgod]

I tweaked stuff to make the values feel less completely random

[Wombat]

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with making the early game a bit easier. For me, the game really gets exciting once a character is heading to take on the master. The beginning is just preparation for this.

[kingvictory2003]

I'm on board with the general feel of easier early game and more difficult mid and endgame with the infusion/rune system. Not completely sure how I feel about endgame endgame yet--going to see since my berserker is pretty geared up Now I'm busy fretting mightily about what 3 infusions/runes I could possibly use to hopefully achieve victory. It will be devilishly hard, no doubt about it.

[overtrix]

At first I was horrified by the whole affair, but now believe it to be conducive to a more measured and thoughtful approach to play - no, really, it's got nothing at all to do with the regen infusions 388(13) and ... 546(11)

Will be horrified again when the elite berserkers and their pals start to make 100/turn look like Junior Disprin.

p.s. have gone without all but my character's unmissable unlockable, because still think 3 slots is cruel - can believe now that 5 (okay, or 3 for magic users) is enough to make it work out.

[Grey]

Early game 3 is fine. Later on 4 feels essential for many classes. 1 heal, 1 regen, 1 teleport, and then 1 out of invis/speed/wild. The strategic choice in this is interesting though. Still, would be nice if we got more category points at level 40 and 50.

[greycat]

Is there a limit on the number of runes/infusions, apart from the talent category points needed to buy them? My character has 5 runes/infusions, and 1 category point left, but there is no longer a choice on the menu to buy a new slot.

[Sirrocco]

Absolute max number of infusions is 5.

Personally, though, my thoughts are a bit flipped. I don't think that infusions are too strong, so much as feeling like the boost to existing categories by spending a category point might be a bit too weak. Consider: if you've sunk all 20 points into a tree with a 1.000 rate, spending a category point on it is the equivalent of getting 2 class skill points. Admittedly, at that point you're getting it in a tree that you like a *lot*, and can't add to otherwise, but that's the absolutely optimal situation (...and it won't *ever* be seen by most classes. Some classes have a few trees that might be worth maxxing. Many don't. Relatively few have trees that are worth maxxing completely that have rates of 1.000) I'm basically looking at this from the point of view of someone who *likes* to focus. I have a cursed character, and I'd like to seriously push the Gloom tree. I'm dumping category points into it, I'm maxxing it out in class points and so on... and even for this sort of a best-case-scenario situation, I'm *still* not convinced that it's worth giving up an infusion slot to put a category point there. Given that it's debatable in the best case scenario, it seems like it's an utter newbie trap in anything that's not the best-case scenario.

Of course, if we do raise it up to, say, +0.200 per point, you have to consider the possibility of dealing with the baseline human Cursed who has effective 8s in his Rampage tree at level 30 (having not spent any category points anywhere else ever) but given that he has to deal with walking into endgame with only 3 rune/infusion slots (and no racial power), even that might not be horrible.

Alternate thought: make category points spent to juice up existing categories give a +0.200 modifier, but only allow one such boost per tree. You give people an actual reason to consider it, and you make it not a total waste in the cases where it looks like its reasonably worthwhile, but you avoid the really abusive possibilities that it could spawn with multistacking.