Solving Issues With Channeling

[Tiktacy]

I just wanted to throw out a quick and simple solution to solving the issue with channeling in which after each battle you are forced to press 'aa' over and over again instead of just resting in order to play optimally(which most people, including myself, consider extremely tedious).

What if while a form of channeling that is harmless is usable by the player, pressing 5 results in channeling by default until mana is fully regenerated?

There is the issue that using channeling causes the PC to lose satiation, but I suggest to simply remove the hunger cost of channeling since it really doesn't end up stopping players from making consistent use of it. The hunger cost doesn't really seem to add anything interesting to the game imo nor does it limit its use, it just forces you to eat more chunks(which just seems to add more tedium).

[kuniqs]

What if Sif channeling worked like Powered by Pain, but for MP?

[byrel]

The hunger costs do limit channeling in branches with limited corpses. I would like to see them go, but it isn't really true to say they have no gameplay effect.

Eliminating hunger costs on channeling would be a sizable Hell buff for some builds.

[duvessa]

sif well known for being the optimal god in hells

[Tiktacy]

The hunger costs do limit channeling in branches with limited corpses. I would like to see them go, but it isn't really true to say they have no gameplay effect.

Eliminating hunger costs on channeling would be a sizable Hell buff for some builds.

I don't really get how limiting the use of channeling through hunger costs makes it interesting. I see your point though, it does have somewhat of an effect on gameplay.

I think making hell more doable for the average character is a good thing. It certainly wouldn't make it any easier, it would just make it more doable.

[tabstorm]

Eliminating hunger costs on channeling would be a sizable Hell buff for some builds.

Good joke!

[kuniqs]

Give Sif's channeling a bigger effect from Invocations, but with diminishing returns (from increasing Invo)?

[Rast]

Current god-granted mana regen behavior:
Veh: gain mana from kills
TSO: gain mana from undead/demon kills
Sif: gain mana from wasting turns hitting 'aa'.

Solution: Remove Sif channeling ability and Sif ability to train Invocations. Grant Sif followers bonus passive mana regen each turn of 1+(piety/100). Leftover fractions carry over from turn to turn, of course.

[Siegurt]

The problem with this (and most of the other proposed solutions for channeling tedium) is they solve *the wrong problem*

That you can spend a turn to get MP back in combat is the *interesting* part of the ability, being able to spam it out of combat to more efficiently regen MP between combats is *uninteresting* and having to press 'aa' a lot to do so is *tedious*

It's interesting to have a tactical ability at your disposal with a cost (in this case more MP, so you can cast more spells in exchange for turns in combat)
It's uninteresting to have something that makes you better at the mechanical aspects of the game out of combat at no cost (turns outside of combat aren't a cost, nor is the food a real cost, and being better at resting isn't interesting)

So the solution isn't to take away the interesting aspect of the ability and to enhance the uninteresting part by making it not-tedious, that's just making the game worse to avoid some keypresses.

A solution would enhance or at least retain the interesting part of the game, while making the uninteresting part not-useful, and/or not tedious.

As an example:

  Code:

Instead of aa being channeling, aa could be "mana drain" where all nearby creatures give you mana, (since creatures don't have literal mana to drain you could have them suffer a small antimagic malus for a short while akin to the brand's effect, if we actually care to make the the theme effective, alternately 'you can only use this ability that only effects you, while creatures are in LOS' seems pretty weird)

This would mean:
1. You could use the ability to regain mana in combat, and it could be more powerful/interesting to do so.
2. It would be useless to spam it out of combat

This could further be augmented by a separate passive piety based mana regeneration if it was decided that we still wanted sif users to be better at resting (Perhaps if the active ability cost piety, that would be an interesting tradeoff, if not I wouldn't really care about a be-better-at-resting ability, personally)

That isn't a perfect, or even particularly serious proposal, and it's just off the top of my head, but it at least attempts work towards a good solution.

[WingedEspeon]

You could change channel to a status effect like ray from searing ray. After you spend one turn channeling you keep channeling if you pass a turn of press 5 until you have full mana. This would mean less pressing aa and no balance changes*. I do like the the proposal in the OP better as hunger costs as tactical costs you annoying because the encourage weird behavior like eating to engorged before hard fights and hunger costs as strategic costs don't do jack shit, but it would be an ok compromise if the devs insist on keeping the hunger cost.

*you would need to give players the ability to waste a turn without channeling to make truly no balance changes, but a cancel channeling ability should solve this.

[tabstorm]

I'm still not sure why there is an "issue" to be solved with channeling. It's an interesting ability to be used in combat, and if you're using it to restore MP after a fight in case more enemies come along, you weren't really "out of combat" in the first place. It's more like you are in a lull between fights, rather than being in a completely safe location. There's basically no reason to spam channeling to recover MP in a completely safe situation, and don't reply with 'But PIETY DECAY!" because that is taking hypothetical optimal play concerns to a ridiculous extreme.

[Hurkyl]

There's basically no reason to spam channeling to recover MP in a completely safe situation,

Yes there is -- you don't actually know the situation is completely safe.

[gammafunk]

I play a lot of Sif games, and I too don't find the keypresses to be that onerous (I do use a macro, but a very simple one like 1->aa). As said in the post above, using channel out of LOS of monsters is often not really out of combat since you're preparing to go right back into combat, but now with more MP. It is true that, with current Sif channel, after a fight where you've exhausted MP and also want to restore HP, you have a strong incentive to channel at least a few turns until your MP is at least partially restored and then begin a normal rest. This is so that any monsters wandering into LOS early in the resting turns won't find you with very low MP.

Siegurt's proposal isn't a bad idea to reduce the amount of keystrokes the player needs to make for optimal play. I'd much prefer not applying any malus to enemies in LOS, mostly because this unnecessarily shifts the ability to be more useful against spellcasters regardless of what kind of malus it applies to spellcasters, and secondarily in the case of anti-magic because Trog is the god with the anti-magic theme (i.e. specifically helps you fight spellcasters). If you apply a malus you'd have to reduce the mana restore to compensate for having this strong additional effect. Your channel would be would be strong overall versus spellcasting enemies and much weaker against the many monsters without spells. I like Sif much more as a generalist magic god that helps *you* cast spells. A mana-drain that simply "draws from the energy field of monsters" to get MP only and possibly having a passive MP regen bonus would be better for this proposal, IMO.

I had an idea for Sif channel which could work but isn't without its own potential issues:

• Sif's channel becomes an ability that you can use to cast a spell regardless of MP.
• It applies a debuf of single-tile Silence only on the player for a duration based on how much MP was needed to make up the difference between your current MP and that required to cast the spell.
• It works seamlessly through the z/Z casting interface, so that spells costing more MP than you have at present are listed in a special color and trigger the ability automatically.

So if you have 0 MP and cast Shadow Creatures, the Silence duration is longer than if you had 3MP at the time. The duration of Silence for many use-cases would be quite short, only a few turns at most, but if you cast an L9 at 0 MP you'd be potentially silenced for 9 turns. The exact turn duration and whether this is lessened by training Invocations is something that could be tweaked.

Silence is a pretty strong debuff since you can't use scrolls (nor can summoners use t commands) with some milder secondary effects like not being able to use any MP you do get back from regen or !magic for follow-up turns as long as Silence is up. To be closer to how Sif's channel currently functions, it's possible to simply have -Cast applied for that duration instead.

[kuniqs]

I'd rather have channeling, thank you very much

[Tiktacy]

The problem with this (and most of the other proposed solutions for channeling tedium) is they solve *the wrong problem*

That you can spend a turn to get MP back in combat is the *interesting* part of the ability, being able to spam it out of combat to more efficiently regen MP between combats is *uninteresting* and having to press 'aa' a lot to do so is *tedious*

It's interesting to have a tactical ability at your disposal with a cost (in this case more MP, so you can cast more spells in exchange for turns in combat)
It's uninteresting to have something that makes you better at the mechanical aspects of the game out of combat at no cost (turns outside of combat aren't a cost, nor is the food a real cost, and being better at resting isn't interesting)

So the solution isn't to take away the interesting aspect of the ability and to enhance the uninteresting part by making it not-tedious, that's just making the game worse to avoid some keypresses.

A solution would enhance or at least retain the interesting part of the game, while making the uninteresting part not-useful, and/or not tedious.

As an example:

  Code:

Instead of aa being channeling, aa could be "mana drain" where all nearby creatures give you mana, (since creatures don't have literal mana to drain you could have them suffer a small antimagic malus for a short while akin to the brand's effect, if we actually care to make the the theme effective, alternately 'you can only use this ability that only effects you, while creatures are in LOS' seems pretty weird)

This would mean:
1. You could use the ability to regain mana in combat, and it could be more powerful/interesting to do so.
2. It would be useless to spam it out of combat

This could further be augmented by a separate passive piety based mana regeneration if it was decided that we still wanted sif users to be better at resting (Perhaps if the active ability cost piety, that would be an interesting tradeoff, if not I wouldn't really care about a be-better-at-resting ability, personally)

That isn't a perfect, or even particularly serious proposal, and it's just off the top of my head, but it at least attempts work towards a good solution.

Spoiler: show

First off, my proposal does exactly as you are describing. It keeps the interesting part intact while removing the less interesting parts of channeling. I don't know if you are referring to my proposal or the one above though.

(Disregard the above spoiler, post wasn't directed towards me)

The problem I have with the example is the fact that it could encourage the player to leave weak enemies alive to regenerate MP quicker.

[Siegurt]

The problem with this (and most of the other proposed solutions for channeling tedium) is they solve *the wrong problem*

That you can spend a turn to get MP back in combat is the *interesting* part of the ability, being able to spam it out of combat to more efficiently regen MP between combats is *uninteresting* and having to press 'aa' a lot to do so is *tedious*

It's interesting to have a tactical ability at your disposal with a cost (in this case more MP, so you can cast more spells in exchange for turns in combat)
It's uninteresting to have something that makes you better at the mechanical aspects of the game out of combat at no cost (turns outside of combat aren't a cost, nor is the food a real cost, and being better at resting isn't interesting)

So the solution isn't to take away the interesting aspect of the ability and to enhance the uninteresting part by making it not-tedious, that's just making the game worse to avoid some keypresses.

A solution would enhance or at least retain the interesting part of the game, while making the uninteresting part not-useful, and/or not tedious.

As an example:

  Code:

Instead of aa being channeling, aa could be "mana drain" where all nearby creatures give you mana, (since creatures don't have literal mana to drain you could have them suffer a small antimagic malus for a short while akin to the brand's effect, if we actually care to make the the theme effective, alternately 'you can only use this ability that only effects you, while creatures are in LOS' seems pretty weird)

This would mean:
1. You could use the ability to regain mana in combat, and it could be more powerful/interesting to do so.
2. It would be useless to spam it out of combat

This could further be augmented by a separate passive piety based mana regeneration if it was decided that we still wanted sif users to be better at resting (Perhaps if the active ability cost piety, that would be an interesting tradeoff, if not I wouldn't really care about a be-better-at-resting ability, personally)

That isn't a perfect, or even particularly serious proposal, and it's just off the top of my head, but it at least attempts work towards a good solution.

First off, my proposal does exactly as you are describing. It keeps the interesting part intact while removing the less interesting parts of channeling. I don't know if you are referring to my proposal or the one above though.

Also, the problem I have with the example is the fact that it could encourage the player to leave weak enemies alive to regenerate MP quicker.

Sorry, that was unclear, my response was to the poster immediately above my post, not to the OP.

[kuniqs]

Make channeling:
- restore a lot of mp, up to full
- cost moderate piety
- put one temporary -wiz on you, with duration based on invocations

This way, Sif's miscast protection synergises with Sif's channeling

[Tiktacy]

Make channeling:
- restore a lot of mp, up to full
- cost moderate piety
- put one temporary -wiz on you, with duration based on invocations

This way, Sif's miscast protection synergises with Sif's channeling

I almost thanked this post but felt like it went against what I like about sif muna. I personally love sif muna channeling, I find it a lot more interesting since it often puts you in situations where you have to weigh the gains vs the losses of spending a turn, but having to do it outside of battle is a major pain.

If at all possible, I would like a see a way to keep sif muna channeling in the game as it is but without the extra key presses.

[Sharkman1231]

Why not make it semi-passive? The real cost to channeling is that you need to spend a turn using it. At least, that's my understanding. Can we say that hunger is not particularly relevant (this is a legit question, not rhetorical)? Turn the "aa" into "s" or ".". I'm not particularly good at programming but it'd basically be something like if piety > one star, if mana < max mana then attempt channel. Also a concise description would be something like "when waiting you'll attempt to channel energy from your surrounding". There can still be a hunger cost I suppose, but if you were playing a spriggan you might not want to do this passively. Might be a corner case, but I think it'd reduce that message spam.

[Siegurt]

Why not make it semi-passive? The real cost to channeling is that you need to spend a turn using it. At least, that's my understanding. Can we say that hunger is not particularly relevant (this is a legit question, not rhetorical)? Turn the "aa" into "s" or ".". I'm not particularly good at programming but it'd basically be something like if piety > one star, if mana < max mana then attempt channel. Also a concise description would be something like "when waiting you'll attempt to channel energy from your surrounding". There can still be a hunger cost I suppose, but if you were playing a spriggan you might not want to do this passively. Might be a corner case, but I think it'd reduce that message spam.

I like that, it solves an interface issue with an interface solution.

I assume you also mean "each turn spent resting will channel mana based on your invocations if your mp bar is not full" which I assume includes 5 ing.

Also we could make much less frequently needed/used active abilities for turning the status on and off for spriggans who want to micro manage their hunger, if we want to retain the hunger cost.

[Tiktacy]

Why not make it semi-passive? The real cost to channeling is that you need to spend a turn using it. At least, that's my understanding. Can we say that hunger is not particularly relevant (this is a legit question, not rhetorical)? Turn the "aa" into "s" or ".". I'm not particularly good at programming but it'd basically be something like if piety > one star, if mana < max mana then attempt channel. Also a concise description would be something like "when waiting you'll attempt to channel energy from your surrounding". There can still be a hunger cost I suppose, but if you were playing a spriggan you might not want to do this passively. Might be a corner case, but I think it'd reduce that message spam.

I like that, it solves an interface issue with an interface solution.

I assume you also mean "each turn spent resting will channel mana based on your invocations if your mp bar is not full" which I assume includes 5 ing.

Also we could make much less frequently needed/used active abilities for turning the status on and off for spriggans who want to micro manage their hunger, if we want to retain the hunger cost.

For the record, sharkmans solution is extremely similar to the one I made in my new thread specifically about sif muna channeling. Really, its essentially the same idea but implemented differently.

[Siegurt]

Why not make it semi-passive? The real cost to channeling is that you need to spend a turn using it. At least, that's my understanding. Can we say that hunger is not particularly relevant (this is a legit question, not rhetorical)? Turn the "aa" into "s" or ".". I'm not particularly good at programming but it'd basically be something like if piety > one star, if mana < max mana then attempt channel. Also a concise description would be something like "when waiting you'll attempt to channel energy from your surrounding". There can still be a hunger cost I suppose, but if you were playing a spriggan you might not want to do this passively. Might be a corner case, but I think it'd reduce that message spam.

I like that, it solves an interface issue with an interface solution.

I assume you also mean "each turn spent resting will channel mana based on your invocations if your mp bar is not full" which I assume includes 5 ing.

Also we could make much less frequently needed/used active abilities for turning the status on and off for spriggans who want to micro manage their hunger, if we want to retain the hunger cost.

For the record, sharkmans solution is extremely similar to the one I made in my new thread specifically about sif muna channeling. Really, its essentially the same idea but implemented differently.

It's a very similar effect, however sharkman's suggested implementation is cleaner, simpler, and leaves no weirdness around what is "out of combat" and it clearly cleans up an interface problem with an interface fix. Yours leaves questions like 'what if I'm pillar dancing a critter and it's just out of sight for a turn or two' open, and is more complicated to both describe and implement.

[ion_frigate]

There can still be a hunger cost I suppose, but if you were playing a spriggan you might not want to do this passively.

You could have two abilities, a channel ability as now, and a "toggle auto-channeling" ability (they could be a and A, to make it clear that they're related). As for the auto-channeling, it could follow the same rules as autopickup: doesn't trigger if you can see any non-firewood monster, automatically turns off if you get hit by something invisible, turns back on if you kill said invisible monster.

[kuniqs]

Auto-channel is automatic, all the time, as long as you're Full or above