Anorithil resource system

[sarracht]

The positive/negative energy system is...wonky. There's very little use for positive energy other than a small amount for circles and the magic number 15 for Twilight, so negative energy is the only real resource; there wouldn't be much difference if you removed positive energy entirely and just had Twilight restore negative energy.

With other resources in the game, you rest to get to "full" and then move toward "empty" as combat progresses, but anorithil have it backward. Their resources can be sustained indefinitely in combat, but have to be constantly replenished outside of combat, so that people are autocasting Twilight Surge and Bathe in Light outside of combat just to keep energy up.

I don't have a super detailed implementation worked out involving changes to actual spells etc., but I'd like to broadly outline a possible alternative to the current resource system.

Instead of positive and negative energy, we could have just one resource, let's call it "energy". Energy is 0 at rest; casting positive spells like Healing Light increases energy, while casting negative spells like Moonlight Ray decreases energy. Energy can be negative.

Like equilibrium or paradox, there's a threshold value at which there is a penalty for continuing to cast. Let's say that the threshold value is 50 at level 1, and increases with level (just like pos/neg energy pools currently increase with level). This could play out in a number of ways:

• At 0 energy, positive and negative energy spells perform optimally. At the threshold value of -50, negative energy spells are 0% effective. At the threshold value of +50, positive energy spells are 0% effective. At in between values, the power level of spells is scaled accordingly; at -25 energy, negative spells are at half power.
• Alternatively, energy might provide a bonus instead of a penalty. At +50 energy, negative spells are 150% more effective, while at -50 energy, positive spells are 150% more effective.
• Both of the above; if your energy is positive, negative spells are stronger and positive ones are weaker, and vice versa.
• Equilibrium style: spells perform the same regardless of energy value, but beyond threshold values, there's an increasing failure rate. Beyond -50 energy, negative spells have a chance to fail, and beyond +50 energy, positive spells have a chance to fail.

I'm not married to any particular implementation, but I think the basic idea—a resource centered at 0 and moving up/down from there as spells are used—might be an improvement on the current system, while keeping to the overall design of balance between dark and light.

Thoughts?

[HousePet]

Changing the way the resource works isn't a good solution for a class that has problems with how it uses its resources.

[Delmuir]

That would require a pretty intensive re-design of the resource cost of the spells.

That being said, I rather like the notion but I don't know if it's viable as it might restrict play fairly dramatically. Honestly, I just don't play the Celestial classes as the resource management is just too irksome.

[Red]

First off: Yes. Yes please. I played Anorithil and I really disliked the positive/negative energy system.

However, there's an issue with this. Sun Paladin plays just fine with the system as it is, using only positive energy. They've got a good balance of abilities that use positive energy and that replenish it, as well as a useful way to burn it on a sustain. (I never actually used a positive energy consuming skill past level 10. I only stored it up so it'd heal me when I got hurt.)

The issue is, both Sun Paladins and Anorithils use one of the same resources, but whereas Anorithils are supposed to be all about balance, Sun Paladins are just pure light. This makes a system designed for balance seriously mess with them.

Still, if you're remaking one energy system, why not two? Sun Paladins could just get an update. Three ideas I can think of right now for them.

One: Leave it as is. It'd be weirdly inconsistent between the Celestial classes, but it'd work.
Two: Treat it just like mana. It'd make some amount of sense that Anorithils, who balance light and darkness, maintain equilibrium at twilight, whereas Sun Paladins get positive energy regeneration and fill to max because they banish darkness, not use it.
Three: Let them push into negatives, but have negatives be an almost direct failure chance. Maybe failure is equal to -(energy+Willpower), so at level 1 you start suffering failures at -11 (assuming no racial mods). This should affect sustains, so every time a sustain is used (or maybe just once a turn when it is used, for something like Shield of Light that could get checked dozens of times a turn) it checks for failure. Because of how many sustains a Sun Paladin can have up and running and how vital some of these are to survival (Retribution, Shield of Light, Second Life) this gives Sun Paladins some choices to make. They can play it cautiously, keeping energy high but letting their damage output suffer for it in exchange for guaranteed defenses, or play it recklessly, dishing out some large damage with positive energy using abilities but risking death when something important just stops working.

Also, to Delmuir, play Sun Paladin. Activate a million and one sustains and only use positive energy gaining abilities. I did that and won the game first time.

[donkatsu]

Changing the way the resource works isn't a good solution for a class that has problems with how it uses its resources.

No, but changing the way the resource works is a good solution for a class whose resource works in a completely pointless and tedious way. What are you trying to say?

This system would work for Anorithils. You would also have to include something like the celestial version of Spacetime Tuning, where you could set your rest energy level, because otherwise they'll still be autocasting to get to where they want. The real problem is Sun Paladins. By doing this, you make negative energy generation the same thing as positive energy costs, which means Sun Paladins will be wanting to keep their positive energy as low as possible without hitting 0, which works mechanically but sounds unthematic.

I would make this an Anorithil passive only. Sun Paladins can't go into negatives, and they don't get penalties to positive spells when they have excess positive energy, like it is now. Or maybe make this the default behavior, and give the Sun Paladins a passive that makes it so that they can't go into negatives but don't get penalties to positive spells. Either way works.

Another thing that would be changed is Corona. The current Corona with this system would fluctuate your energy up and down a little bit, but on average it would cost you nothing. So, have the bolts be pure light if your energy is positive, and pure dark if your energy is negative.

Let's not do failure rates. We have two resources with failure rates already and I don't think it fits for celestial energy. Stick with the power modifiers.

Anorithil light spells will need an overhaul even more than they do now. Right now Anorithils are just dark mages with a random, almost completely useless joke sun tree thrown on for no reason than to generate positive energy. That's fine with the current system because people can just ignore the tree, but if you make the resource a balance between light/dark, as I think the class was originally meant to be, then there will actually have to be a balance between light/dark, instead of it just being the Light tree versus the entire rest of the class. Someone suggested replacing it with the Sun Paladin Sun tree (or Sunlight or whatever it was called) because that tree is actually good. Speaking of which, Suncloak scaling really needs to be toned down at the high end and maybe buffed at the low end, because endgame Suncloak + Timeless is still as silly as ever.

There's been some talk of an Anorithil overhaul in the past, but if you're going to do anything with this, this HAS to be where you start, because right now the resource is just dumb and everyone knows it.

[HousePet]

The problems include needing to use the Twilight talent to generate negative energy, which wastes a turn. And that there is no good use for positive energy.
Neither of those problem are related to the resource system, just the talent that use them.

What we need is some talents that convert positive into negative energy while blasting. We already have loads of good talents for opening a battle and generating the positive energy and good finishing talents which drain negative energy. Its the bottleneck in the middle that is the problem.

[donkatsu]

Second Wind "wastes" a turn. Jelly "wastes" a turn. Static History "wastes" a turn. Why is it a problem to have a non-instant resource recovery talent?

Yes, Anorithils need something on the light side. That's true of the current system and would still be true with the proposed system in the OP. This would not fix that problem; in fact it would make it worse. But that's an easy problem to begin with; just give them a useful offensive light tree and voila, problem solved.

The trickier, more fundamental issue is the whole autocast/ energy decay fiasco. Last I heard, Darkgod refuses to get rid of the decay because that would make it like other resources, except it wouldn't, because negative energy is already like other resources ie you use autocast to start combat from full and go down. So if the simple, sensible fix is out of the question, then the only solution is a more complicated fix that would also make the resource legitimately different from stamina and mana. This complicated fix will inevitably mess up certain talents and/or require heavy rewriting of others, so before you address any simple Anorithil issues that can be solved by tacking on more talent trees, this resource issue needs to be looked at first so that everything else can be designed around it.

The resource system proposed here is the best one I've seen so far (and not the first time I've seen something like this proposed).

[HousePet]

Second Wind "wastes" a turn. Jelly "wastes" a turn. Static History "wastes" a turn. Why is it a problem to have a non-instant resource recovery talent?

If it wasn't a problem, why would people put celestial energy generators on automatic?
Also, it isn't that its a non-instant recovery talent, its that it is your main source of negative energy and that is all it does.
Jelly and Static History have other benefits.

Incidentally, why do people put those talent on auto? Do people really not like the idea of a generator/finisher mechanic? Brawler also has one.

[donkatsu]

Second Wind "wastes" a turn. Jelly "wastes" a turn. Static History "wastes" a turn. Why is it a problem to have a non-instant resource recovery talent?

If it wasn't a problem, why would people put celestial energy generators on automatic?

Because celestial energy doesn't generate on its own like stamina, equilibrium, or paradox.

Also, it isn't that its a non-instant recovery talent, its that it is your main source of negative energy and that is all it does.
Jelly and Static History have other benefits.

Then you can easily just tack something else minor and irrelevant onto Twilight, like Jelly and Static History. And do something for Second Wind while you're at it. I absolutely agree that it would make Anorithils more interesting. But that is like, one of the most minor of minor Anorithil issues. There is no reason to complain about a solution to a bigger problem because it does not address a separate, smaller problem.

Incidentally, why do people put those talent on auto? Do people really not like the idea of a generator/finisher mechanic? Brawler also has one.

They do like it. This is not a generator/finisher mechanic. If it was, that would be really cool! But it is not. The Brawler's combo mechanic would also be meaningless if you could walk around with full combo points and finishers only used a single combo point each.

[donkatsu]

Here's a more concrete proposal, going off of the OP.

Luminosity: (n) The relative quantity of radiation emitted by a celestial source (as a star)
Might need a different name due to Sun infusion's Luminosity effect, but honestly that effect is pretty lame anyway. That's a whole different can of worms though. Let's just consider this a working name for now. Obviously there are a lot of Anorithil talents that could use some work, to make them more useful or interesting, but these are just minimal changes that would be necessary to make the new resource system work.

New resource: Luminosity.
-New name for positive energy
-Negative energy costs are changed to actual negative luminosity costs.
-Former negative energy sustains now increase your luminosity floor; former positive energy sustains still decrease your luminosity ceiling.
-Everyone with a luminosity bar regains +0.5 per turn, instead of decaying. Sun Paladins no longer need to autocast outside of combat to keep a full bar but otherwise stay the same. Taking Chants or Light escort trees makes you vulnerable to manaburn damage, if you weren't already. Former positive energy sustains can now be shut down with manaburn.
-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.

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.

Minor tweak: Jumpgate
No longer has a maximum range, instead has an accuracy radius that scales with talent level. Starts out rather large, like on the order of 50 (pretty much the entire map). No more constantly sustaining and unsustaining Jumpgate as you autoexplore, just set it at the start of the level. I promised minimal changes but man is Jumpgate such a hassle to use right now.

Minor tweak: Twilight Surge
Luminosity cost: -20
If your luminosity is negative, Twilight Surge's luminosity cost becomes positive.

Minor tweak: Corona
Generates only shadow bolts at negative luminosity, and light bolts at positive luminosity. Only activates if your luminosity is between -X and +X, where X increases with talent level. Coronas are intersections of darkness and light, and this mechanic thematically encourages balance.

Minor tweak: Circle of Sanctity
Luminosity cost: 10

Minor tweak: Circle of Warding
Luminosity cost: -10

Minor tweak: Darkest Light
Generates luminosity each turn. When your luminosity reaches its maximum or you deactivate the talent, your luminosity is lowered to its minimum and does damage based on the luminosity lost. Does not disable your sustains. Replaces the old Twilight as a way to recover a large amount of negative energy all at once.

Minor tweak: Searing Light
Luminosity cost: 10
Cooldown: 3
Increase damage so that the initial hit matches Moonlight Ray. The DoT is Searing Light's advantage. Range and beam coverage is Moonlight Ray's.

Minor tweak: Sun Flare
Luminosity cost: 15
Cooldown: 18
Blind duration matches Flameshock's duration, to compensate for lower cooldown. Deals damage at all talent levels instead of requiring level 3.

Minor tweak: Firebeam
Luminosity Cost: 20
Cooldown: 7
Deals half fireburn and half light damage. Rolls for crit twice, like Dust to Dust. Increase damage to match Flame.

Minor tweak: Sunburst
Luminosity Cost: 40
Cooldown: 15
Increase damage to match Flame. Cost is doubled, giving it a niche as a quick way to shift from positive to negative, when desired.

Minor tweak: Starfall
Luminosity Cost: -40
Cooldown: 12
Cost is doubled, giving it an additional niche as a quick way to shift from negative to positive when desired.

Final comments:
Ultimately, you have three choices. 1.) Specialize in darkness damage, setting your Twilight level to its minimum and only using Sun spells to keep your darkness spells powered up. This also gives you better utility from the Eclipse tree. 2.) Specialize in light damage, in which case you don't need to sustain Twilight at all (but you can still benefit from its passive effects). Only use Star fury spells to keep your light spells powered up. This has the utility benefit of powering up your Light tree. 3.) Specialize in a balance, setting your Twilight level to 0, bouncing back and forth between positive and negative, allowing your light and dark spells to power each other up. This choice is supported by Corona, which only works within a certain range centered at 0.

[HousePet]

And everything suggested there could be done with the current resources. You just make spending positive give negative and vice versa. Or build it into the talent costs, which is what I'd suggest.

[donkatsu]

*shrug* Doesn't matter either way. If spending positive always gives negative and vice versa then it's redundant to have two resource meters (like having one thermometer that measures how cold it is and another that measures how hot it is) but hey, if it's easier to code, sure why not. The important thing is the regen/ resting energy level.

[grayswandir]

Fun idea: Have positive / negative "balance" each other out with their regen rates.
So if you're at 0% positive and negative, both will recharge until you reach 50% of both.
If you're at 80% positive, 0% negative, then negative will recharge up to 20%.
If you're at 100% positive and negative, they'll both fall until you reach 50%.

Another approach would be to penalize autocasting directly. Asha, the addon class I'm working on now, accomplish that by the following:

• Most talents only generate energy if they actually hit something.
• The decay rate accelerates rapidly outside of combat. So if you spend a turn or two moving, it won't drop your resources by that much, but if you start running away, they'll rapidly dwindle to 0.

[sarracht]

To be clear, my proposal wasn't a "change the resource system and the class is fixed" type of deal. I'd like to see a fairly comprehensive overhaul of anorithil, and a non-derpy resource system needs to be the foundation for that.

Some general comments on the thread so far:

• I like a lot of things about donkatsu's proposal, though I'm not sure about positive luminosity giving bonuses to positive spells and negative luminosity boosting negative spells. It seems like the class is thematically centered around balance and this kind of positive feedback loop opposes that. On the other hand, it does lend itself more easily to developing multiple viable builds, which is (imo) a good thing for any class.
• Out-of-combat resource decay is just plain bad. The only other resource that decays is hate, and hate is terrible and annoying (for this and other reasons). Resource decay isn't the same as builder/finisher systems; brawler's combo system is completely separate from their stamina resource. It might give celestial classes a unique flavor to have both rolled into one, where you build toward one extreme and then dump it all with a big finisher move, but this is still going to encourage people to autocast to keep energy high/low so they can open with the nuke spells.
• I haven't given much thought at all to sun paladins. The other class groups share resource systems (mages use mana, wilders use eq, etc.) so it would be good to have a single system for both celestial classes. I haven't played sun pally at all though, so I have little idea of how to approach this, but again, donkatsu's system is one way to address this.

[donkatsu]

Fun idea: Have positive / negative "balance" each other out with their regen rates.
So if you're at 0% positive and negative, both will recharge until you reach 50% of both.
If you're at 80% positive, 0% negative, then negative will recharge up to 20%.
If you're at 100% positive and negative, they'll both fall until you reach 50%.

This would not change anything. You'd still just autocast so that you have 100% of both at all times, regardless of regen/decay.

Another approach would be to penalize autocasting directly. Asha, the addon class I'm working on now, accomplish that by the following:

• Most talents only generate energy if they actually hit something.
• The decay rate accelerates rapidly outside of combat. So if you spend a turn or two moving, it won't drop your resources by that much, but if you start running away, they'll rapidly dwindle to 0.

This works, but it's just hate with a different name. The "reason" we can't just have regenerating positive and negative energy is because it would be like stamina/mana, and Darkgod wants the different resources to be different.

Edit: Actually it's the way hate used to work before it was deemed unworkable and changed to its current state.

• I like a lot of things about donkatsu's proposal, though I'm not sure about positive luminosity giving bonuses to positive spells and negative luminosity boosting negative spells. It seems like the class is thematically centered around balance and this kind of positive feedback loop opposes that. On the other hand, it does lend itself more easily to developing multiple viable builds, which is (imo) a good thing for any class.

It's actually a negative feedback loop. Darkness spells generate luminosity (negative energy cost => more positive energy => more luminosity), and are powered by having low luminosity, so they get weaker if you only use negative spells. The Sun tree consumes luminosity now, and is powered by having high luminosity, so they also get weaker if you use them exclusively. Same thing with the Coronas, they also tend you towards the center. The Light tree is the odd one out, in that it generates luminosity but is powered by high luminosity, but we can't really touch that because it'll mess up Sun Paladins, and Light spells aren't things that you spam anyway. The reason a dark- or light- focused build would still be viable is because it's easier to stack one element than it is to stack two.