FR: MP and HP regeneration on levelling


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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Thursday, 27th July 2017, 06:32

FR: MP and HP regeneration on levelling

In some games (Wesnoth comes to mind, but there are others), units get back to full health when levelling up. I want to suggest this for DCSS, specifically that HP and MP get fully restored to the new maximum when the player reaches a new level.

The way I see this, it would particularly benefit players in the early game, where levelling happens frequently, and MP and HP levels are generally low. It would happen exactly 26 times in the course of a game, and would become less and less frequent, and less and less subject to tactical applications, the further the player progresses. And it would have absolutely no effect from the extended game onwards.

I have seen recent complaints that currently the game is too punishing on early players, and too forgiving from the mid- and late game onwards. This step would somewhat work towards re-balancing things. In the light of the recent discussion on very-early-game dangers, a complete restoration of health and mana might give a new lease of life to a character who has bumbled into a mob of rats, lizards and kobolds on D1.

I guess it would be a more significant buff for early DD. Some might feel that such a buff would get it out of balance.

A big advantage is that this change could be coded quite easily (I think).
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Post Thursday, 27th July 2017, 06:36

Re: FR: MP and HP regeneration on levelling

This is bad because players would farm XP to have N.99% XL and then lure some popcorn for heal-on-demand to fight a dangerous unique.
It works in Wesnoth because there are multiple units fighting for you and your opponent there, farming XP is usually bad because you lose turns=gold.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Thursday, 27th July 2017, 07:11

Re: FR: MP and HP regeneration on levelling

I believe the farming option would be less and less reliable at higher XL, as you never exactly know how many popcorn you'd need to reach the threshold. Players attempting that would experience some really bad surprises.
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Post Thursday, 27th July 2017, 07:17

Re: FR: MP and HP regeneration on levelling

Coincidentally I started paying attention to how much XP every monster gives at each XL in my last game, it was not very complicated to figure out. I don't think we want to encourage it.
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Thursday, 27th July 2017, 12:13

Re: FR: MP and HP regeneration on levelling

This would not achieve anything useful. MP and HP regeneration by game time are bad, but this does almost nothing to address the problem. HP and MP regeneration by exploration would be worth a look. Heal on kill, of which this is a variation, already exists and clearly improves playability a bit, but even it doesn't quite handle the basic problems.

Any time you give the player HP and MP, you're reducing the number of turns spent regenerating. Some of that means less luring and stair/pillar dancing, but you may not be reducing the number of times the player issues a rest command or the number of times the player goes into a luring/dancing cycle. The goal should be to completely eliminate such things.

An interesting proposal on MP and HP regeneration should involve eliminating game time based regeneration entirely in favor or something else.
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