Pakellas Reform

[amaril]

Pakellas seems to have a few problems: He provides the player with unlimited access to effects that should not be unlimited (Heal Wounds, digging, enslavement, etc) and his effective prohibition of spellcasting impinges upon Trog's design space. Additionally, most Pakellas characters play more-or-less identically and make identical skilling decisions, but this may not actually be a problem (i.e. most of my Trog characters make predictable strategic decisions, but I still enjoy the Trog tactical game and therefore still enjoy Trog).

So: Remove Pakellas' MP conduct, and remove the Quick Charge ability (maybe Surge as well). Instead, have Pakellas gift the player wands and other consumable evocables semi-frequently. Other Pakellas gifts (i.e. guaranteed rod at *****) remain unchanged, as does the Supercharge ability. Ideally, Pakellas will still provide a comparable amount of evocable power, but in a less predictable fashion and without compromising the balancing gimmick of wands (that they are ultimately consumables). Additionally, Pakellas characters will now be less homogenous, because light armour/spellcasting is viable.

Arguably, this version of Pakellas is too similar to Nemelex (god of gifted abilities). However, Nemelex is already even more similar to Makhleb. IMO, the solution is to remove Nemelex.

Other proposed changes to Pakellas/arguments against changing him are welcome, as are arguments for/against his removal. Evocation reform is also probably worth discussing, but that might require a thread of its own.

Edit: just noticed ManiacJoe's YAPR thread in Yiuf's corner; perhaps these threads should somehow be consolidated.

[duvessa]

remove pakellas, increase rod generation

now the interesting part of the pakellas """playstyle""" is preserved and there's one fewer badly designed god in the game

[Tiktacy]

Pakellas is the new Beogh.

[amaril]

Pakellas is the new Beogh.

one fewer badly designed god in the game

So I like memes and all but I think it is important to articulate why you hold certain things to be true, rather than assuming they are self-evident. Sorry if I am being dense.

I agree that Pak (as is) should be removed, and I 'instinctively' feel he is poorly designed, but it is possible that this feeling is misguided or just a natural opposition to change. The most obvious problem w/ his design (IMO) is that having unlimited wand charges enables scummy/overpowered behavior. Additionally, the MP/quick charge mechanics are rather opaque--when is it optimal to charge wands? is sitting around at full mp and letting Pak gift you MP pots a waste of charges?

Are these the real problems w/ Pakellas, or am I missing something?

[ydeve]

You get the benefits of infinite Conjurations, Hexes, Charms, etc for training only one (already overpowered) skill. Sorry if we think the problem is self-evident.

[Sar]

Is that really a problem in a game where Trog and Fedhas exist? I always thought the problem with Pak was that Evo is boring.

[amaril]

I get that evo is strategically boring compared to magic from a skillpoint allocation standpoint. Also, evo contains too great effect diversity for one skill (but this could perhaps be ok if evo was less powerful than comparable but more narrow options or if evocables had a consistent compensating drawback), and certain evocables don't even care about skill and are effectively stacks of potions/scrolls. Still don't think that Pak + evo is more overpowered than Trog + throwing for the most part though. That doesn't mean that Pak + evo is 'balanced,' but I also don't think that balance is always the primary concern in crawl design (as evidenced by gods/ the imbalance between the xp/defensive costs of spells>lv4 and ranged/melee weapons). If something is 'poorly designed' it (to me) indicates a problem other than balance. But again, I could be 'wrong'/ lacking a fundamental assumption about good crawl design.

[genericpseudonym]

Is that really a problem in a game where Trog and Fedhas exist? I always thought the problem with Pak was that Evo is boring.

Yeah you can't exactly remove gods for being "overpowered" unless they're somehow better than MiBe, which is impossible.

and certain evocables don't even care about skill and are effectively stacks of potions/scrolls.

We should remove those as wands and instead add rare "Staffs" that work like stacks of consumables but can be recharged. Staff of teleportation/HW of course, but maybe even more! On the other hand if you could have staff versions of every scroll/consumable it would add a bunch of inventory clutter...

[ydeve]

Evocables should be consumables. Then they'd be meaningfully differentiated from magic. A God that gives infinite evocables like Pakellas might as well just give you all spell books and make spellcasting use the evocations skill.

[Siegurt]

Alternate interpretation:

Pak gives you a very limited number of gifts (say one at each *, with only the last one being a rod)

Quick charge decreases the max charges of wands by the same number of charges it adds.

[Tiktacy]

Pakellas is the new Beogh.

So I like memes and all but I think it is important to articulate why you hold certain things to be true, rather than assuming they are self-evident. Sorry if I am being dense.

I already did

[Psieye]

So to summarise the dislikes:
1. "I don't like the tedious interface"
2. "I don't like the hijacking of MP"
3. "I don't like how easy the game gets by making one skill do the job of lots via effectively-infinite consumables"

Looking at them separately:

Regarding point 1, personally I feel the spellcasting interface is more tedious than "recharge and evoke wands". Still, there can be improvements to streamline the play experience.

Point 2 I believe is a gut reaction to "what is this alien feeling?" - a lot of people don't like this new system of highly restricted casting (not the same as no casting). I do like it, because it makes me feel like the god has turned me into an alien machine component that serves a greater, divine schematic - or at least that's what I want to feel when I read this god's description. Taken in isolation, I think the MP hijack idea should be kept - iterations can tweak the exact details of it. For example, I want to see CBoE breaking on one use ("your body's mana is too alien for the crystal ball") instead of being banned by the god. It's good when a new (optional) feature is hated by some and loved by others (as opposed to a universally lukewarm reaction).

Point 3 threatens wand balance and is jarring for the perceived flavour. Pakellas is meant to be the inventor god. Instead, he plays like a repair technician god. Instead of trying out new things (mad scientist experiments), Pakellas worshippers just do the same old things but way more often.

If the devs want ideas, we're more than happy to help brainstorm. But the devs are perfectly capable of coming up with answers. They just need to be aware what the scope of the problem is and the direction of the solution: that's what players have a better grasp of.

So for me, the direction I want Pakellas v2 to go would be:
- he helps out with existing wands, rods and maybe other evocables too (without making them infinitely recycleable).
- his passion for innovation affects the player. Without feeling like Xom or Nemelex.
- he likes when you create interesting experimental setups to test out his (and I mean HIS) inventions.

[Sandman25]

- he helps out with existing wands, rods and maybe other evocables too (without making them infinitely recycleable).
- his passion for innovation affects the player. Without feeling like Xom or Nemelex.
- he likes when you create interesting experimental setups to test out his (and I mean HIS) inventions.

I don't see why players would join god who can become useless without some lucky drops. It's like training Evocations only as Artificer, eventually you will run out of wand charges and die. Or do you mean that the god will constantly give something else instead of wands? Why not wands? Do we need another "Nemelex" who is unplayable unless player learns huge number of unique effects/items?

[Psieye]

- he helps out with existing wands, rods and maybe other evocables too (without making them infinitely recycleable).
- his passion for innovation affects the player. Without feeling like Xom or Nemelex.
- he likes when you create interesting experimental setups to test out his (and I mean HIS) inventions.

I don't see why players would join god who can become useless without some lucky drops. It's like training Evocations only as Artificer, eventually you will run out of wand charges and die. Or do you mean that the god will constantly give something else instead of wands? Why not wands? Do we need another "Nemelex" who is unplayable unless player learns huge number of unique effects/items?

You're being distracted by "I can't imagine how this would translate into playable mechanics". It's instinctive to want to have some concrete mechanics to judge a direction by. But the purpose of game mechanics is to make you feel a certain way which should be a fun feeling to a subset of players. Step back a moment from "how to do it" and ponder on the "where to go". This current incarnation of Pakellas is the result of thinking about "how to" (i.e. "Devices god is design space that can be tapped") without much thought for the end user experience.

[Sandman25]

Maybe my English is too bad and my understanding is wrong but I believe "he helps out with existing wands, rods and maybe other evocables too (without making them infinitely recycleable)." means Evocations will become useless unless "he likes when you create interesting experimental setups to test out his (and I mean HIS) inventions" gives some new evocable items, in this case my reply was "why not wands" and explanation that I don't want to study and carry more items.
But you are right, I have no idea what you meant as "his passion for innovation affects the player", I hope it is not meant to create new (=innovative) items or using wand of random effects on yourself because it is more likely to give beneficial effects.

[Psieye]

I can lay out the specific ideas for mechanics I have to support this direction, but then everyone would be distracted by that and not think about the "where to". All the Pakellas reform threads I've seen agree that Pakellas needs to be changed, but they make the same mistake of not thinking about the end user experience. They just dive into yet more untested ideas with the attitude of "if we keep guessing, hopefully we'll randomly land on a good experience which we can keep."

[Sandman25]

Ok, let's discuss "where to". I don't see problems with Pak (won a single game though) and I see only 3 options:
1) Pak gives evocables which results in unlimited evocables (current situation)
2) Pak does not give evocables (but improves existing ones), it results in god being useless in the long run
3) Pak does not give current evocables but gives some new evocables (somewhat similar to Nemelex, the worst option IMHO).
That's why I think first option is the best. If potions of magic is a problem, there might be another use of extra MP. For example, automatic recharge of a wand with lowest assigned letter (to prevent player from having just a single wand in inventory if he/she wants it be automatically recharged).

[Psieye]

You're still discussing mechanics. Each one of your options can be expanded upon to be supported or refuted, but that's not constructive. I want a discussion on end user experience. Of course I have no authority to enforce that desire, but this endless wallowing in mechanics is not helpful until the devs decide on what the goal should be. That goal should not be "scratch this specific mechanical design space".

Answer me this: how should you feel when you play a Pakellas worshipper?

[Arrhythmia]

You're still discussing mechanics. Each one of your options can be expanded upon to be supported or refuted, but that's not constructive. I want a discussion on end user experience. Of course I have no authority to enforce that desire, but this endless wallowing in mechanics is not helpful until the devs decide on what the goal should be. That goal should not be "scratch this specific mechanical design space".

Answer me this: how should you feel when you play a Pakellas worshipper?

Like I'm playing an atheist who found a rod, and also has infinite HW, hasting, and teleportation for some reason.

[Psieye]

Answer me this: how should you feel when you play a Pakellas worshipper?

Like I'm playing an atheist who found a rod, and also has infinite HW, hasting, and teleportation for some reason.

I should have been clearer: "how should you feel when you play a character who worships {your vision of Pakellas v2}?"

[Sandman25]

I should have been clearer: "how should you feel when you play a character who worships {your vision of Pakellas v2}?"

Exactly like I am feeling now i.e. I have several rods and can spam wands when I want to, I always wanted to play this way but it required some quite lucky drops before Pakellas. As I wrote before, I don't see problems with Pakellas, maybe that's because I didn't use potions of magic but they are optional indeed.

[Psieye]

In other words, "I want to feel like a powerful cyborg who retrofits himself with whichever devices are needed for the occasion. A cyborg that never runs out of fuel and steamrolls over any obstacle with a wide variety of features all available to go off at will."

Ok that's your answer. My question is still open for everyone else who has a strong view on Pakellas.

[ydeve]

I still think that Pakellas's theme is "Be a Mage Without Training Magic!" The basic premise of this god is inherently flawed. You could try to design a new god, but then it wouldn't be Pak anymore.

Pak and Hexes/Conjurations shouldn't coexist. If Conjurations and Hexes should be a single skill (without all the elemental schools), then they should be a single skill. If they should be separate skills (with all these additional elemental skills) because they're powerful and players should have to make decisions on which ones they want to have, then it makes no sense to introduce content that takes all this decision making away. What meaningful decisions are introduced by consolidating Conjurations/Hexes/Elemental schools with Evocations?

In addition to being spellcasting without training skills or finding books, it's also spellcasting with infinite mp. If it is good to have spells be tactically limited (ie not able to be spammed) then why are you giving players the ability to spam spells? What meaningful decisions are introduced by removing the mp constraint?

Pakellas is playing a mage with infinite mp, only needing to train one spell school, infinite spell slots, and guaranteed book drops. Yet if I proposed any other god that did this it would get shot down instantly.

How is this not inherently broken?

[Sandman25]

How is this not inherently broken?

All wands use 15 + 2.5 * Evocations for spell power, that's 15 at Evo 0, 40 at Evo 10 and 82 at Evo 27. This is not really great.
It is easier to spam spells than wands provided the best spells like Confusion or Ensorcelled Hibernation cost just 2-3 MP which is basically nothing and you can cast them as often as you like (unlike wand).
Int 20, Hexes 8, Spellcasting 4 and you have spell power 36 for Confusion, add robe of Archmagi and you have spell power 52, add gods like Dith/Chei/Ash for even easier game. This is superior to Pakellas.
For Conjurations you have low level spells like Conjure Flame, Sticky Flame, Stone Arrow, Throw Icicle etc.
For Summons you have low level spells like Ice Beasts, Lightning Spire, Imps etc.

Edit. Yes, Pakellas can have all 3 but it is "master of none".

[ydeve]

You have all the saved skill points from investing in one skill (Evo) instead of 4-5 (Conjurations/Hexes/Spc/Ice/Fire/Air/Earth). AND you have spamability for conjurations. I'm sorry, but low level conjurations don't compare to bolt spells, which are definitely not spammable in spell form but are in wand form with infinite charges.

[Sandman25]

I mean specialized character can do their corresponding thing better i.e. FE will have easier time overall casting Conjure Flame, Sticky Flame and Fireball (and Bolt of Fire later if lucky) than Pakellas character with all its tools because when you need something die quickly, you use the best tool and the best tool of Pakellas is not that great.

Edit. There is no need to invest into Summoning/Hexes when you are FE. Also FE can use wands too.

Edit2. Ok, I guess I will play MiAr of Pakellas today. Maybe I am completely wrong.

[ydeve]

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=20308&p=274086#p274086
Pakellas "conjuror" in plate with a weapon at mindelay on L2.

[Psieye]

I still think that Pakellas's theme is "Be a Mage Without Training Magic!" The basic premise of this god is inherently flawed. You could try to design a new god, but then it wouldn't be Pak anymore.

I don't see a problem with completely revamping Pak so he's mechanically no longer recognisable. So long as he meets the end user experience objective in a reasonably balanced and streamlined way, how he does that doesn't matter. What that end user experience should be is muddled, hence why I'm trying to direct the discussion this way. For the record, I've laid out my vision in a prior post:

the god has turned me into an alien machine component that serves a greater, divine schematic

So your vision of him is "Be a mage without worrying about int, magic skills or armour encumberance!" Two questions on that:
1) What 'shape' of "Mage" is that? We're agreed that for the current Pakellas it's "so many spells from so many schools for one skill" which is broken even if we didn't have effectively infinite mp for them. What narrower range of spell-like effects do you have in mind, if any? Of course the follow-up question will be "and does this new vision tread on the toes of existing gods who do just that?"

2) Does this vision need to care about Evocations? Perhaps more broadly, should there even be a god that encourages you to train Evocations instead of Invocations? Wands, rods and other misc. evokables all rely on Evocations, is the vision boosting their 'spellpower' (but NOT giving them infinite charges) inherently bad? Suppose only a subset of them could be boosted at any one time, instead of All Of Them Just Pick Whichever Is OP For The Occasion? For instance, what if Pak 2.0 hates the use of all pre-existing wands and instead hands out his own wands (or re-invents wands you pick up)?

[Sandman25]

Psieye

I suspect you missed my objection so I will write it again, with some examples. Either the god guarantees that you will be able to use "wands" all game ("infinite charges" in your terminology, no matter if they are found as loot or gifted by Pakellas), or it is a god who is picked by bad players only. Now examples. Would you worship Vehumet if at some points it randomly stopped improving your spell success and range unless you find a book every N turns? Would you worship TSO if at some point in extended it would stop doing anything unless you killed 3 Hellions every N turns?
All Pakelas abilities are directed at evocable items and you cannot rely on luck to get them. If you want to make Pakellas work without items, you can call it Makhleb 2.0 instead.

[ydeve]

Psieye

I suspect you missed my objection so I will write it again, with some examples. Either the god guarantees that you will be able to use "wands" all game ("infinite charges" in your terminology, no matter if they are found as loot or gifted by Pakellas), or it is a god who is picked by bad players only. Now examples. Would you worship Vehumet if at some points it randomly stopped improving your spell success and range unless you find a book every N turns? Would you worship TSO if at some point in extended it would stop doing anything unless you killed 3 Hellions every N turns?
All Pakelas abilities are directed at evocable items and you cannot rely on luck to get them. If you want to make Pakellas work without items, you can call it Makhleb 2.0 instead.

This is why Pak should go. It is based off of giving infinite consumables.

[Sandman25]

This is why Pak should go. It is based off of giving infinite consumables.

I would be sorry if it got removed but I agree it is too similar to Nemelex with that and Nemelex is well known for being considered for removal/change during long time.

[Psieye]

Sandman25, your stance is "I don't see any problem with Pakellas as is, he's doing exactly what I want. Please don't take this dream away from me." You have made your opinion clear and I felt there was no need for me to confirm "yes I have noted your opinion". Why? Because you and I are just players, not devs. Neither of us actually hold power to make changes. It does not matter whether I understand or agree with your view - you should be appealing to the devs, not me.

You have said your piece. I am trying to get constructive discussion (collected in just one thread) out of other people too. The devs can then read through the posts to aid in their decision making.

[Tiktacy]

How dare you compare Nemelex to Pakellas.

[Sandman25]

How dare you compare Nemelex to Pakellas.

Right, they have nothing in common. They don't gift items, don't use Evocations, don't allow you to use summons/conjurations in GDA with 1 Int. (Nemelex was changed to use Invo a couple of days ago though)

[Tiktacy]

How dare you compare Nemelex to Pakellas.

Right, they have nothing in common. They don't gift items, don't use Evocations, don't allow you to use summons/conjurations in GDA with 1 Int. (Nemelex was changed to use Invo a couple of days ago though)

Mahkleb, qazlal, nemelex, and even TSO all do that. Nemelex is the only one that gives gifts, which don't really even count as gifts, they are just a unique way of manifesting god powers(since they are now nemelex exclusive).

Nemelex and pak have even less in common than vehumet and sif muna, or Yred and Beogh.

[Psieye]

Ok, so we're not getting much out of asking about "end user experience". Let me try a different approach them: mechanics-first thought experiments. The following two cases are not proposals, they're specifications for what-if thinking:

Pak 2a: the only thing this god does is gift and passively enhance all evokables. Gifting exactly like the current version. 'Enhance' meaning 'boost the "spellpower" of the evoked effect'.

Pak 2b: the god abilities have things which care about Evocations and makes you do Cool Things with evokables. But he shuts down a (fixed and constant? different each game?) subset of evokables so your Evocations skill can only be used for X, Y and Z (instead of every wand, rod and misc).


What are your thoughts after (separately) contemplating these two what-if scenarios?

[Sandman25]

2b is like god of evocations who prohibits some evokables, does not make much sense to me. If Nemelex was changed to use Invocations, I don't see why 2b Pakellas cannot be changed this way either.

[DracheReborn]

I've had the chance to play a few Pakellas characters, and I want to give some feedback.

First, a few thoughts about the design. My vision of Pak is someone who supports the evocation playstyle, meaning that one can play meaningfully with significant investment in Evo skill (even possibly as the highest trained skill). This is a rather narrow vision of a god, comparable to Trog or Vehumet, I think. I would also sidestep for now the (IMO legitimate) question of whether we need the whole evocations system at all, since evocations is basically magic but with a different set of rules. Let's just say I enjoy playing with evokables and would rather see them reformed than removed.

One thing to note is that current evokables vary hugely in quality, from some which are useful for every character to others which are basically early game junk, viz.

Big 3 wands - every character would want and use these, not Evo skill dependent
Digging/disint - great utility that every character would use, not Evo skill dependent
Elemental evokers - at one point so strong that most characters would train up 10-15 Evo and carry multiple copies (but nerfed now I think?)
Rods - with bad rods removed, I think a lot of characters would find it worth training some Evo for these
Evokable Invis/Rage/Blink/Flight - Invis and Rage are strong, but success rate usually doesn't matter so not much Evo skill needed
Box of Beasts/Sack of Spiders/Phantom Mirror - good items, but limited number of uses means not many characters would train Evo just for these
Hex wands - some are useful for specific enemies (spoilery!) enslave/para/confuse/slow are all great effects though, but again limited by number of uses
Damage wands - basically used in early game only, usually for specific enemies like hydras

In my vision of Pak, the god should focus mostly on improving the last 3 items. Specifically, he should let a character use these items more frequently than before, but not necessarily infinite times. And IMO he should do very little, if anything, to improve the other item categories, which are already good as is.

Current evokables have at least 2 big problems that are often cited, which in turn become flaws in Pak. One is that the interface for wands is pretty bad. It's not as bad for other evokables because they stack, but wands don't. If wands are allowed to stack, then they'll become as easy to macro as spells. Since Pak followers would be expected to use wands a lot, this would be a huge quality of life improvement.

The second common criticism is that all evokables are tied to a single skill (Evo) so training just a single skill allows a player access to at least 3 different classes of effects. My proposal is to make all evokables "dual school", i.e. damage items become (Evo/Conj), hex items become (Evo/Hex), summon items become (Evo/Summon). As a side effect, this change would give regular spellcasters a reason to use wands of the same type as their main discipline (e.g. when they run low in MP), which normally doesn't happen now. This is a (small) buff for spellcasters, and a nerf for non-casters who use evokables, but I think the first category could use a buff and the second category could use a nerf anyway. (EDIT: in as far as usage of evokables is concerned)

Ok, finally I'm going to criticize Pak's design itself. On the surface, the god is pretty close to my vision of what he should do. There are certain things though that I would do differently.

1. No MP regen conduct. Mostly what this does is it makes Pak a niche god for heavy armour melee types who don't cast a lot of spells, i.e. the EXACT character type who already benefits greatly from evocables. The potions of magic make some spellcasting still viable, but not very attractive. This just makes an already narrow god even narrower. Just get rid of this aspect IMO.

2. Quick charge - strategic wand charging on DD doesn't work great and it doesn't work great on this god either. I propose that Pak should just gift more wands (effectively, more charges). IMO part of the artificer playstyle is adapting to the consumables you find, and not just infinitely recharging your best items. This change preserves that. If quick charge were to remain, it should only be to tactically recharge a rod.

3. Device surge - as others have pointed out, giving enhancer effect just encourages players to train less Evo than usual. Really, really strange for the Evo god. One idea I really like (sorry forgot by who) is for Surge to fire multiple charges in the same round. This gives higher effect (more damage/summons, more chances to hex) but at higher cost.

4. Evokable gifting - works great IMO if !magic is removed. Should be weighted more towards damage wands (least useful, but can encourage player to spam). Frequency can be tweaked of course.

5. Supercharge - as a one-off I think this is fine. If anything, it can probably be made stronger. EDIT: big 3 wands probably shouldn't be allowed to supercharge

Just my thoughts.

[dowan]

I feel like everyone is missing the obvious solution here. If the problem is that Pak gives infinite uses of items that are supposed to be non-infinite, then the problem is the ability to charge wands, right? Well gee, if only there was some resource we could make the player use up, in an effort to balance a very powerful god ability. I'd probably call it piety.

If charge wands costed as much piety as brothers in arms, it would surely not be infinite anymore.
Then, take surge, make it 5x more powerful, and slap a huge piety cost on that as well.

I actually found Pak pretty fun, although as some have noted the rod interface could certainly be nicer, but it's not much different than the spell interface (especially if you swap in an enhancer staff before casting).

[dynast]

The problem with pak's infinite evo spamming is that THAT is his main power. I dont see how taking that away makes the god more appealing or the interface better, heres something else i have in mind:
When worshipping pakellas, rod/wands are absorved by the player's body, making him become a tool for pak(flavor-wise). absorved rod/wands becomes activable abilities. Wands are divided into tiers, which defines how much mp is needed to use, rods keep their charges cost as mp cost instead. Players recover mp normally instead of only on kills and maybe also on kills. Thats just a bland idea anyhow.

[dowan]

Well, ely's main power is healing stuff, but it still has a significant piety cost. I don't see how Pak has to be the god of infinite evo spamming, instead of just increased evo use and utility. It kind of sounds like you've decided the god has to be OP to be appealing, and if the god is OP it should just be removed. That's not reform.

If the problem is powers are too available for spamming, increase the cost. If the abilities aren't good enough with the increased cost, increase the power. There's a balance to be found, and I think Pak is worth having in the game.

[dynast]

It kind of sounds like you've decided the god has to be OP to be appealing, and if the god is OP it should just be removed. That's not reform.

Nice strawman you pulled out. Its not up to me to decide whats appealing and whats not, neither is for you, its just a fact that we have a bad evo interface and his main characteristic is evocable spamming. I have said to remove Pak in many other places, not here.

If the problem is powers are too available for spamming, increase the cost. If the abilities aren't good enough with the increased cost, increase the power. There's a balance to be found, and I think Pak is worth having in the game.

If you think you can find a balance in between those two things i really hope the devs listen to you, we are talking about the god that was buffed to gift magic potions when he was already strong.

[crate]

Make pakellas god of rods instead of god of wands, imo. This is, I think, what players actually want anyway, and it solves the design problems. Perhaps it means pakellas doesn't end up doing enough, but in that case you can use minmay's suggestion from earlier to make rods more common (not like you need a god to make evo super good these days anyway) and then remove Pak.

[Psieye]

- Make the Pak Rod change what it does on an XP clock interval (but not during combat).
- On each change, need to use the rod once to see what it does this time round.
- Use piety to temporarily make rod spammable.
- Use piety to 'reroll' the rod's functionality.

[Siegurt]

FWIW:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=20365

[Quazifuji]

Well, ely's main power is healing stuff, but it still has a significant piety cost. I don't see how Pak has to be the god of infinite evo spamming, instead of just increased evo use and utility. It kind of sounds like you've decided the god has to be OP to be appealing, and if the god is OP it should just be removed. That's not reform.

I think infinite evo spamming is the main appeal of the god. Nearly every comment I've seen from someone who liked Pakellas liked the option of making a character who could rely on wands and rods as their primary form of offense. Take away the infinite, cheap wand recharging and have a god who just buffs regular evocables and gifts a rod and I think you'd get near consensus that he'd just be extremely boring, even moreso than you do already.

The problem with pak's infinite evo spamming is that THAT is his main power. I dont see how taking that away makes the god more appealing or the interface better, heres something else i have in mind:
When worshipping pakellas, rod/wands are absorved by the player's body, making him become a tool for pak(flavor-wise). absorved rod/wands becomes activable abilities. Wands are divided into tiers, which defines how much mp is needed to use, rods keep their charges cost as mp cost instead. Players recover mp normally instead of only on kills and maybe also on kills. Thats just a bland idea anyhow.

Is this an actual suggestion or a joke about how similar infinite wand use is to regular spellcasting?