Remove "The fire blazes with new energy!"

[Chicken]

The current situation with Conjure Flame is that you have to watch the tile the flame is on, wait for the one turn where it is extinguished before the big nasty monster moves onto it, and then make sure to cast it right then. Now if you fail to cast it in time the problem is obvious, but if you cast it too SOON it is also bad. This is because what you get is NOT a brand new conjured flame, but a message "The fire blazes with new energy!" I think it actually delays it going out by a turn or two, but the amount of new energy is miniscule, and the MP are just wasted. If that's the only thing between your mage wimp and the big nasty monster, he better hope he has spare MPs lying around or that's the end. And telling whether there is a little bitty flame on a tile or not is not easy if there's some item there.

I think it would be a good idea to do one of two things, both of which are more regular, less special rule than what the game is now. Either:

a) Make the attempt fail like any other attempt to cast conjure flame where there is fog, dust, translocational energy or whatever. No special exemption for clouds of fire at all. (note that failure under this circumstances is a message, not a waste of MP)

b) Make the attempt succeed like any other attempt to cast conjure flame. (Note this makes it much easier for characters with a fail rate to hold up the wall of fire anyway)

I don't really have a strong opinion which, just ... not what it is now.

[Siegurt]

Well, the 'blazes with new energy' thing actually adds a decent amount to the duration of a cloud, if you're only getting a turn or two, you are casting it with pretty lousy spellpower.

I did some experimenting in wizmode, and I found that with good spellpower, extending the duration of a cloud was at least as worthwhile as casting a fresh one.(Casting it twice on the same square approximately doubled the duration of a given cloud) The results were much spottier at low spellpower, but the duration at low spellpower were pretty poor to begin with.

I think you've imposed a mistaken impression on how much extending the duration of a cloud helps.

[Chicken]

I just retried to make sure, and I stand by what I said. Maybe my use case is atypical, but I tend to focus wizards exclusively on fighting skills when they're young so they don't die when they run out of MP (which generally seems to work, since they typically die when I give into the temptation to start getting those spells up, or else later by sheer carelessness). Anyway, when I saw this reply I took a level 9 wizard with spellcasting 3, conjurations 1, fire 0 (yeah, that's ridiculous, and it certainly isn't a very reliable wall! Yet, it makes a big difference when you have a halberd on the other end!) and started casting Conjure Fire. It lasted anywhere from 4-9 turns, usually 5 or 6. But when "the fire gets new energy", I repeatedly get only 2 or 3 turns more --- casting it when it still had 1-2 turns left! Which means that the fresh casting is good for precisely ONE TURN more, instead of five.

I should add that even if I am just ridiculously unlucky every single time I ever screw up and get this message, or always have characters too unconventional to be worth thinking about, it STILL is extra code to maintain and extra worry for the player to try to figure out this mysterious mechanic, and that alone ought to be enough to kill it.

Note: I just took the same character's conjuration up to 6, and now the "renewed" flame lasted 4 turns in two tests. But that was after waiting *12 turns* for the original casting to die down to the smallest flame icon!

[VeryAngryFelid]

It's my experience too. I tried to add fire a few times in a normal game, found it barely adds any duration and stopped using it completely.

I know it's not going to be implemented but it would be nice to at least see "fire cloud lasts for 3-6 turns" in spell description (dynamically taking spell power in account of course). Otherwise I am encouraged to cast it a couple of times without any monsters in view, just to learn what spell really does.

[bel]

  Code:

        // Reinforce the cloud - but not too much.
        // It must be a fire cloud from a previous test.
        if (you.see_cell(where))
            mpr("The fire blazes with new energy!");
        const int extra_dur = 2 + min(random2(pow) / 2, 20);
        cloud->decay += extra_dur * 5;

I believe "decay" is the time left in auts.

[Siegurt]

I just retried to make sure, and I stand by what I said. Maybe my use case is atypical, but I tend to focus wizards exclusively on fighting skills when they're young so they don't die when they run out of MP (which generally seems to work, since they typically die when I give into the temptation to start getting those spells up, or else later by sheer carelessness). Anyway, when I saw this reply I took a level 9 wizard with spellcasting 3, conjurations 1, fire 0 (yeah, that's ridiculous, and it certainly isn't a very reliable wall! Yet, it makes a big difference when you have a halberd on the other end!) and started casting Conjure Fire. It lasted anywhere from 4-9 turns, usually 5 or 6. But when "the fire gets new energy", I repeatedly get only 2 or 3 turns more --- casting it when it still had 1-2 turns left! Which means that the fresh casting is good for precisely ONE TURN more, instead of five.

I should add that even if I am just ridiculously unlucky every single time I ever screw up and get this message, or always have characters too unconventional to be worth thinking about, it STILL is extra code to maintain and extra worry for the player to try to figure out this mysterious mechanic, and that alone ought to be enough to kill it.

Note: I just took the same character's conjuration up to 6, and now the "renewed" flame lasted 4 turns in two tests. But that was after waiting *12 turns* for the original casting to die down to the smallest flame icon!

1. It doesn't matter how long you wait, you get the same (random) bonus to duration whether the flame cloud is new or old. 13 turns is near the maximum in the second example for your casting based on the numbers you gave, and 4 is slightly below average for the extended amount. (The average number of turns for the numbers you gave is roughly 8-9 initial, and 5-6 extension)
2. A fresh cast gets a larger "base" bonus (aka not effected by spellpower) so if you have poor spellpower, (as in both of your examples) you will probably get close to the minimum for both the initial cast and the extension (which is 5 and 2 turns iirc) The higher your spellpower the less significant this difference becomes.

Added complexity is a valid argument for removal, the two options you give either result in a fair sized nerf for conjure flame (it could probably withstand it) or a fair sized buff for it (being able to restore a full-duration conjure flame without having to wait for some critter to possibly slip in is pretty powerful) So the question is, is the change in balance worth the reduction in complexity.

Another small piece of information which is rarely, but sometimes relevant, is that you can renew a neutral flame cloud to make it "yours" giving it the ability to kill things to give you XP, or be walked through (or converted to a fire elemental) with Qaz's abilities (I'm not sure that's super relevant, but it's something to note.)

[VeryAngryFelid]

so if you have poor spellpower, (as in both of your examples) you will probably get close to the minimum for both the initial cast and the extension (which is 5 and 2 turns iirc)

That's the problem we are talking about IMHO. At low spell power recast is almost useless and at decent spell power we don't need to recast the spell often because it already lasts long enough (sometimes even too long) and also the initial duration is long enough for us to retreat one tile and cast a new flame. (When we use spear or strong fire spells 10 times, we can waste 2 turns for that tactics. When we use spear or weak fire spells 4 times, spending 2 turns to retreat and cast the spell allows the monster to get healed to almost initial HP).

[Siegurt]

so if you have poor spellpower, (as in both of your examples) you will probably get close to the minimum for both the initial cast and the extension (which is 5 and 2 turns iirc)

That's the problem we are talking about IMHO. At low spell power recast is almost useless and at decent spell power we don't need to recast the spell often because it already lasts long enough (sometimes even too long) and also the initial duration is long enough for us to retreat one tile and cast a new flame. (When we use spear or strong fire spells 10 times, we can waste 2 turns for that tactics. When we use spear or weak fire spells 4 times, spending 2 turns to retreat and cast the spell allows the monster to get healed to almost initial HP).

Well, one of the two proposed changes forces you to use the 2 turn tactic every time, whether or not you can afford it, the other one makes conjure flame somewhat more powerful (And it's already a really really good spell), which might be a solution to the problem you mention, but I feel like adding more power to a really good spell is probably not likely to go over well.

I mean if the actual problem is "low spellpower extending of conjure flame sucks too much" maybe a better solution is just to make it suck less at low power (increase the minimum extension, and (possibly) decrease the spellpower component)

I'm not sure I've come across situations where I both want to extend conjure flame (Aka I have the MP and extending the existing wall is better than just walking away) and my spellpower is low enough that I feel like it's not worth doing, so I don't see the problem in my games, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Well, one of the two proposed changes forces you to use the 2 turn tactic every time

Personally I am in favor of it, especially since this is what I already do in my games.

I mean if the actual problem is "low spellpower extending of conjure flame sucks too much" maybe a better solution is just to make it suck less at low power (increase the minimum extension, and (possibly) decrease the spellpower component)

Probably. Yet currently the problem is partially hidden by "the spell is not too weak, you can recast the flame on top of existing flame" which is not reliable at all.

[Chicken]

It sounds like there is more support for the nerf, which is the simplest possible thing to implement: the spell simply can't be cast on an existing flame, just like any other cloud. As I said at the beginning, for me this "nerf" is often practically almost a buff, since it keeps you from wasting magic points, though apparently at high levels it is more useful. But if you really want to sweeten the deal, it would be nice to get a "death message" for each conjured flame:

Your conjured flame dissipates.

And for the assistance of newbies (such as myself a while back) who might expect to conjure a flame, close the door, and let the handless monster roast itself while futilely turn the knob on the other side:

Out of sight, your conjured flame dissipates.

These messages wouldn't change the conjured flame in game mechanics at all, but it would make it easier to avoid missing the turn when the conjured flame goes out by accident, so again this would be practically a buff. Also the new message would kind of alert longtime players that something about the spell had been messed with.

[Siegurt]

It sounds like there is more support for the nerf, which is the simplest possible thing to implement: the spell simply can't be cast on an existing flame, just like any other cloud. As I said at the beginning, for me this "nerf" is often practically almost a buff, since it keeps you from wasting magic points

I think your notion of practically and mine differ, this is a flat out nerf, effectively you're trading a 2 turn lower minimum duration for extending a flame cloud for taking an extra two (or more, if the corridor isn't long enough) turns to set up a new cloud. So you're trading "maybe a waste" for "always a waste".

[duvessa]

Recasting freezing cloud isn't allowed; why should it be allowed for conjure flame?