Make Cheibriados Better

[galehar]

I coded a patch some time ago that tweaked the piety costs of various skills, before Temporal Distortion was added, and moved them around. Bend Time cost 0 Piety and exhausted you, Step From Time cost less MP and Piety, and Slouch was a bit weaker and cheaper.

Sounds interesting. Have you submitted it?

[Bloax]

Making Bend Time exhaust you with an awesome range of "whack me please" hardly makes it worthwhile in anything but 1-on-1'ing a monster you can't take down without slowing it.
For which you really ought to have enough MP to use it.

And even then, exhausting kind of makes it look like a poor man's berserk, which it is far from.

[The Mantis]

Making Bend Time exhaust you with an awesome range of "whack me please" hardly makes it worthwhile in anything but 1-on-1'ing a monster you can't take down without slowing it.
For which you really ought to have enough MP to use it.

And even then, exhausting kind of makes it look like a poor man's berserk, which it is far from.

It was intended as a parallel to Berserk. Bend Time was the first power. Its Exhaustion timer is short, about the same as that of Recite's breath timer.

[crate]

If Bend Time costs no piety it is probably worthwhile to use it in every single fight. It is already reasonably good as-is (though more range would be helpful).

[The Mantis]

It costs MP. 3 MP, to be precise. The same as Slow.

[pratamawirya]

EDIT: Nevermind, I think free-piety Bend Time isn't a bad idea.

[Abominae]

This may have already been suggested somewhere or considered, but an idea for buffing Strength would be to give it more significant damage/accuracy bonuses after a certain threshold. Like, points beyond 20 (or 15 or w/e) Strength adds significant damage and accuracy bonuses (or just an increase to damage).
This would make the very high Strength values you can reach with Chei be worth something and strength values useful beyond being able to wear your armour of choice.

[Deimos]

This would also buff pure-melee.

[tasonir]

Aye, gdr helps that but chei doesn,t impact gdr,, so. I'll go with the teased explaination...anyways I like the idea of instant bend time and exhuastion. Go with that imho

[Bloax]

Oh so it's instant. oicnao

I'd still like if it wasn't adjacent-only.

But yes, strength needs a damned buff. I've accidentally put myself on penance, and guess what. 10 Strength more or less makes absolutely no difference.
And I hugely doubt +10 Str is just a random thing you'd get.

[Wereox]

I agree with the basic "(at least part of) the problem with Chei is that Strength and Dex aren't very useful" idea. But I don't like the idea of giving him I Can't Believe It's Not Haste; that kind of defeats the point.

Strength and Dex really just need a fixin' in general. Almost everyone has a no-brainer choice to raise int and that's bad. That would indirectly buff Chei which is good.

After doing that, another interesting option on Chei might be to have Chei increase your GDR. That would fit with the turtle theme and also with the whole "slow and steady" gameplay.

[cerebovssquire]

It would help if GDR was actually worth much... a medium percentage at best, capped at ac/2, isn't good. This wouldn't be a noticable Chei buff.

[pratamawirya]

What's the reason behind it affecting only melee attacks?

[Wereox]

I did not realize it didn't work against arrows, I'd been thinking it worked on anything that checked AC but I see it doesn't. Herp derp never mind, that does indeed make it not really helpful. That's really odd, but good to know.

[dpeg]

As far as I am aware, GDR used to be even more marginal. I believe the intention was to reduce damage variance for heavy armour guys. This it does, of course. As always, there are two questions:
(a) Is that variance reduction a good idea? If not, best to scrap GDR. If it is:
(b) Does GDR do a good job at it? If not, how to buff it?

I've utterly burned myself once on questions related with AC so I don't even have an opinion on the matter.

[Wereox]

I'm not a big fan of the actual implemention of GDR, largely because it's complex and there's no in-game indication that it exists.

I do think something like this needs to exist to reduce damage variance for heavy armor. But I really don't like the mechanic where 30 AC from wearing GDA is different from 30 AC from wearing robes and rings of protection, and you'd never know this without looking it up online. And now that we've brought it up, I don't like that they are the same for arrows but aren't the same for swords and that you would never guess this.

First, damage from different sources that check AC should work the same way. Not having that be the case is strange and confusing, and I'm not just saying that because I put my foot in my mouth earlier.

Second, whatever the mechanic is, it needs to either just depend on total AC and nothing else (ie, so more AC is more better, period), or be shown in-game. And if it's shown in game it is going to have to be something more clear than it is now.

Just throwing out a few ideas:

Ditch armor-type-based GDR, make heavier armors just have more AC, and make AC use a somewhat more normalized distribution. For example, instead of -1d(AC), have it be -(AC/10)d10-1d(remainder[AC,10]), so AC 44 is -4d10-4 rather than -1d44. Or something like this.

List armor explicitly as a range. So you don't have AC 15, you have AC 7-22 or whatever, where the actual amount is randomly generated between the lower and upper range. Then have items just show what they give and stack, so if you have a Ring +2-4 and Armor +6-15, you have 8-19 AC. This adds a bunch of rebalancing, but it does allow for more interesting options, eg, do you wear the +5-5 Ring of Protection or the +1-12 Ring of Protection?

Just add damage shaving on AC-checking attacks to heavier armors, list it, and call it a day. This is functionally equivalent to the second option, but "looks" different.

[crate]

Do you know what I like best about the current implementation of GDR? The game doesn't tell you it exists. It just does its thing on its own, which is fine because you don't need to understand how it works.

[cerebovssquire]

Ditch armor-type-based GDR, make heavier armors just have more AC, and make AC use a somewhat more normalized distribution. For example, instead of -1d(AC), have it be -(AC/10)d10-1d(remainder[AC,10]), so AC 44 is -4d10-4 rather than -1d44. Or something like this.

And you complained about something complex... not only is the GDR formula absolutely fine as it is, as crate pointed out, it's also a lot simpler than these proposals.

[CommanderC]

As usual, crate is right. Ok, let's keep the thread on topic. Here is my proposal (probably too radical).

1. Remove stat bonuses and movement delay penalty.
2. As you piety increases, Cheibriados increases the base delay of all your actions by a factor A: 1 < A < 3/2 (3/2 at full piety).
3. As you piety increases, Cheibriados increases all your outcoming damage (melee, spells, ranged) by a factor B: 1 < B < 3/2 (3/2 at full piety).
4. As you piety increases, Cheibriados decreases all the incoming damage (melee, spells, ranged) by a factor C: 2/3 < C < 1 (2/3 at full piety).

IMO, as long as Chei has stat bonuses it will be very difficult to achieve a balanced solution. The reason I removed the movement delay penalty is just because it is completely redundant after adding the penalty to your base delay.

I'm not sure what to do with Bend Time: remove it, or make it a very expensive ability (piety cost > 10). I want to hear your opinions.

[galehar]

So, what does it do? Movement delay penalty is less harsh, so you can move around a bit more. On the other hand, all other actions are also penalized (swapping jewellery, casting buffs,...). Maybe it's counterbalanced by the defense bonus. Base delay penalty and outcoming damage bonus balance each other, right? So your damage output is mostly unchanged as long as you only fight/cast/fire (although better against high AC, worst against high EV).
Sounds it's balanced, and what makes the god good is the other powers now. I guess there's still the issue of haste.

[Bloax]

IMO, as long as Chei has stat bonuses it will be very difficult to achieve a balanced solution.

I'm not sure what to do with Bend Time: remove it, or make it a very expensive ability (piety cost > 10).

Unless you're talking about this in combination with your proposal, then I'd like to say what's going on here.

Otherwise, I think it'd be better to keep the damage boost around 6/5ths, and keep the stat boosts. (Or cap them at 10?)
The only thing the stats are good for is giving you a potentially alright EV (Dex), make transmutations hilariously good (Str/Dex) and make you a bit better at casting (Int).

The transmutations bit would be balanced off a bit by the slowness, because unlike now - you'd attack slower.
Not to mention that if you'd dare use statue form, you'd be 2.25x slower.

I'd still like to know what's going on with you and bend time, however.

I'd like to see how this proposal would work out, even if it's just curiosity.

[CommanderC]

Bloax: my main concern is that Bend Time would allow you to run away from most monsters in the early game. It can also be very powerful combined with (3) and (4).

galehar: Is the lack of haste still a problem? Just modify the range of the factors B and C. My solution can be adapted very easily (although I think the current ranges are fine).

[The Mantis]

Successful major proposals are easy to understand or fix issues with the game. Is your proposal easy to understand?

Secondly, major proposals that add content should have a flavor rationale. That way they are not simply numbers.

[galehar]

Successful major proposals are easy to understand or fix issues with the game. Is your proposal easy to understand?

I think it is. Chei's slows your actions and buffs your offence and defence. The modifiers applied are linear scaling. Seems pretty simple to me.

Secondly, major proposals that add content should have a flavor rationale. That way they are not simply numbers.

It's certainly not worse than the stat boost!

[crate]

I would like to say that if you adopt something like CommanderC's proposal you are doing a major reflavoring of chei. Right now chei's biggest benefit is the int boost, which is both a major success rate boost and a large spellpower increase. CommanderC's proposal eliminates this entirely; in fact it turns chei from the god who gives you the biggest spellpower boost (and the biggest or second-biggest success boost, competing with Vehumet) to the second-worst god for spellcasting (behind only trog): you no longer do more damage per turn than a non-chei character, and in exchange you cannot move or use haste, and also your non-damage spells get really awful.

So I don't like it, since the huge int boost is lots of fun.

[The Mantis]

It's certainly not worse than the stat boost!

Let us compare it directly to the boost so that the gameplay value of the two might be assessed. Movement malus is in AUT, stat bonus is per stat.

Movement malus: Piety/20 + 2, up to 10.
Stat bonus: Piety/10, up to 15.

Action malus: up to 50%.
Damage bonus: up to 50%.
Damage resistance: up to 33%.

[galehar]

It's certainly not worse than the stat boost!

Let us compare it directly to the boost so that the gameplay value of the two might be assessed. Movement malus is in AUT, stat bonus is per stat.

I was answering to your comment that "major proposals that add content should have a flavor rationale". The damage boost of CommanderC's proposal hasn't less flavour than the current stat boost.

[The Mantis]

I was answering to your comment that "major proposals that add content should have a flavor rationale". The damage boost of CommanderC's proposal hasn't less flavour than the current stat boost.

I do not understand what you are implying. I am simply outlining the rules that future proposals might follow. I hope that he will add more detail to it in terms of flavor, as it currently has no flavor. Perhaps the current stat boost needs flavor, and that is what you mean.

[Mankeli]

I would like to say that if you adopt something like CommanderC's proposal you are doing a major reflavoring of chei. Right now chei's biggest benefit is the int boost, which is both a major success rate boost and a large spellpower increase. CommanderC's proposal eliminates this entirely; in fact it turns chei from the god who gives you the biggest spellpower boost (and the biggest or second-biggest success boost, competing with Vehumet) to the second-worst god for spellcasting (behind only trog): you no longer do more damage per turn than a non-chei character, and in exchange you cannot move or use haste, and also your non-damage spells get really awful.

So I don't like it, since the huge int boost is lots of fun.

Yes and yes. Chei maybe very weak but not boring nor hugely annoying, in my opinion, and the annoyment I usually have with Chei comes from Chei being weak, not because I think it is a bad concept itself. I don't like making all Chei followers act like statueformers.

[Mankeli]

This one is based on the summon player clone spell thread and my own and Tiber's comments on it.

New Chei ability: Intertemporal self or Temporal guardian

Flavor: Disrupts the space-time continuum and lets player to get a copy of himself/herself from earlier point in time.

Mechanics: Summons a clone a of the player with its HP, spellpower, attack and defences (AC/EV/SH) dependent on invocations and the players stats. At low invo the hp would be something like -75 HP % and damage output, defences and spellpower reduced by 40 % and the same resistances as the PC has. At high invo it summons a "clone" with HP -50 % and with -20 % defences, spell power and melee damage output and the same resistances as the PC. The maluses are mainly for balance reason and can be explained in terms of flavor: this a copy from a different point of time the PC you know, earlier, so your character was weaker. If you wish, it could alternatively be a 1:1 copy of the PC like 5-10 levels ago but this would be problematic because you wouldn't know what your gonna get excatly. It would need a lot of invo to be of good assistance.

You cannot affect the clone in any way beside ordering it to attack etc. and the rest of the commands. While you are not in LOS it does nothing but the duration clock is still running. It has a piety cost of 25 and you can only have one at a time. Duration: 50 turns. Slouch deals no damage to them, bend time does not affect them. If you use temporal distortion or step from time it won't attack or move or do anything (should it lose duration during this?). Summoning spells at their current form should not be able to be casted.

Why: Chei doesn't allow haste. Haste is powerful and even if the spell was to go, I don't think the hasting effect itself is to be removed anytime soon (devs and others, please correct me if I'm wrong.). So this fella kinda increases your attack speed (well, with worse intelligence) that others get from haste. Also having your PC's clone would be just utterly megacool me thinks and I think Chei is currently only one that this concept fits in.

Problems: 1) how does monster AI handle powerful spells like fire storm without annihilating the PC? I bet it doesn't do very well. Maybe a clone without shatter, tornado nor storms then. This could dramatically affect the viability of this idea. The AI probably don't know what to do with slow movement either so movement should probably be of normal speed?

2) Ordinary and constant dragon summon-spam with a mummy summoner is probably much, much better than this summonish ability because there is no downside of constantly summoning more. However, I truly hope and believe that summoning will be fixed at some point so this might be more of a problem with summons in general rather than a problem with this idea.

3) How to prevent players from switching equipment to get the resists, weapon brands and AC/EV they want? This could be done by choosing somewhat randomly what the player was wearing like 5-10 levels ago. However, this could lead to further problems as I've explained earlier. You could also just make the clone have whatever you are wearing and wielding at any given moment, so it would change constantly if you tried to gear-switch-scum.

4) Is this all too complex? Well, people seem to think that currently Chei is kind of a noobie trap. Chei's abilities may look great on paper but in reality aren't that great at all. So maybe this adds confusion and steepens the learning curve, but mitigates the trap aspect a bit.

5) Is this too weak/strong? This not to be a spammable ability (haste 2), so I'd rather have a strong clone that would be used in very tough spots. IF the AI can handle storms without slaughtering the PC at the same time, I don't think it would be too weak. The numbers, piety cost, damage etc. can always be tweaked if there is anything worth tweaking in this idea. Alternatively, this could be a spelles clone (boring).

6) Does this require much effort in the coding department? It may and if so, maybe not worth it.

7) How to handle resists? They act differently for monsters and PC. Is it possible to make the clone have the resists act like the player char does?

[Mankeli]

Addition: can the PC be immune to the clones spells? I realized that under this proposal tornado and shatter would be unusable (the part about the clone not acting when not in PC's LOS).

[Peknanjo]

Hi, I registered just to make this recommendation. I'm a veteran of a few ascensions, but I've never been a fan of Chei because I'm a careless player and can't deal with the movement speed penalty.

How about this: A piety-dependent protection against either glowing, or mutation because of glowing. This could scale up very high, to around 90%. Since you already can't use haste, this becomes 3 reasonable boons: protection from a few high-end monsters that cause glowing (orb of fire) and the hells curse, the ability to abuse invisibility and controlled blink, and a small boost to safely casting high level spells that cause glowing as a miscast effect.

This proposal is sort of thematic with Chei, though it might fit better with Jivya, but that's a matter of perspective. It accomplishes the goal of boosting Chei a bit in late-game, and it helps Chei overcome its movement deficit with controlled blink and invisibility. If this protection were 90%, and you were wearing a protection from mutation amulet, that should be a 99% protection from mutation due to invisibility and controlled blink. I may be forgetting other glow-inducing spells that could screw up this proposal though.

I love the game, thanks for all the great work.

[Jeremiah]

Going back to an earlier part of the discussion (nerfing haste.)

Make Haste hexes/charms instead of pure charms.
Gameplay reason: it nerfs haste by making it significantly harder to learn as you need to train 2 spell schools to fairly high levels.
Flavour reason: haste doesn't just work by speeding you up but by slowing the entire universe down, while protecting you alone from this effect.

Chei would allow you to use the 'slowing everything else down' part of the spell without speeding yourself up. Therefore, Chei worshippers could cast Haste as a pure hex spell that only has half its effect (but also reduces the effect of Slouch.)

Silly idea? Probably.

[jejorda2]

If you get your past self killed, do you die?
If you get your past self seriously wounded in the present, then put her back in battle in the past, does she die and kill you?
I guess Chei can move the doppleganger to a safe point in the space time continuum just before a fatal blow hits, allow healing, then move it back where it belongs. Is it stronger now from gaining experience in the future? Are you?

[Bomanz]

I'm just a noob so I'll get flamed for this but here are my suggestions of direct and indirect Chei changes:

1. Nerf haste down to 25% or even get rid of it, or at least move it out of Charms as there are too many good spells there. To compensate see below.

2. Make STR give more significant damage bonuses to melee, and a small bonus to max HP. Like 1 HP per STR.

3. Make INT give a small resistance to mutation, that is calculated after the amulet or similar. Maybe gives you a native chance to identify items and sense invisible at high INT.

3. Give Evasion (and thus DEX) a small chance to dodge hellfire/torment. Make DEX boost the 'evokable' aspects of weapons, reaching past summons with a polearm, cleaving, etc.

4. Make GDR offer a slight of damage from non evadable spells and to hellfire/torment damage. Like 1/6 of the GDR value.

5. Make shields give a small GDR bonus, like - 3% for bucklers, 7% for medium and 12% for large.

6. Reduce the GDR on armors somewhat to compensate for the above.

7. Balance Chei's stat gain to balance for the above.

8. Make a targetable version of Bend Time, which costs more piety, for single targets up to 6 tiles away. Or a bend time cloud or something.

[mumra]

I'm just a noob so I'll get flamed for this but here are my suggestions of direct and indirect Chei changes:

So what you're suggesting is changing how the whole game works, just to make Chei marginally better? (I barely see how a lot of those even have anything to do with Chei ... you would certainly be making the game a lot easier for all characters ...)

[Bomanz]

Most people seem to think that stats (primarily str and to a lesser degree dex) are not good enough, and haste is too good. So removing or nerfing haste would honestly be the easiest way to make Chei more viable relative to the other gods. Unfortunately it makes the game harder all around. Therefore I suggested boosting GDR, stats, and shields to compensate. I think that's reasonable because a lot of people have expressed the idea that those three things are a bit lackluster. I think the GDR boost would be helpful to pure melee types for postgame to take the edge off of torment and hellfire when you don't have magical means of dealing with those.

[Sar]

I think the GDR boost would be helpful to pure melee types

It is possible to cast highest level spells while wearing EVP 3 dragon armours, which have pretty decent GDR (FDA has 34%), and most spellcasters use some kind of shields too.

[Bomanz]

Okay so maybe only give the GDR bonuses for GDA, CPA and Plate or something? And no GDR for bucklers. Meh whatever.

[snicka]

I'm quite new to chei, but considering the usefullness of haste, he's indeed quite underpowered. There's not an easy way to buff him without heavily changing other aspects of the game (as it would be with nerfing haste / changing the way stats work and so on) but one important, flavour wise and quite "not loved by gods" aspect, in which chei could excell, was brought up.

Shields.

The problem is: Lack of haste causes a significant decrease in damage output. But a "slow god" shouldn't really be about damage output - I think it would be much better to make him around better defenses.

Possible additional chei abilities:

Shield Wall (passive) - Decreases upcoming damage by a % when using shields

Spiked Shield (passive / active) - A small passive or a big active chance for reflecting a flat amount of damage every time when attacked / a % amount of damage every time when attacked

Entortoise - At max piety, once per game, a shield of your choice becomes pernamently melded to your body, acts as if it were equipped, prevents the use of other shields, possibly adding some other restrictons.

I'm not a very expirienced player, so this is just some food for thought, leaving the numbers to the pro's, but i think these could be some very flavourable solutions, not affecting other aspects of the game very much.

[jejorda2]

Entortoise - At max piety, once per game, a shield of your choice becomes pernamently melded to your body, acts as if it were equipped, prevents the use of other shields, possibly adding some other restrictons.

I think I understand the drawback; you can't switch to a better shield if you find it later or stop using shields if you find a good two-handed weapon.

I don't understand what benefit you are proposing. Do you get your free hand back? Does the shield value go up? Does the casting and EV penalty decrease? Why would I want to meld a shield to my body?

[snicka]

Well, i was thinking about getting higher shield value, maybe some more ac, AND a free hand back, with some kind of penalty / restrictions (I am too inexpirienced if it comes to in - depth calculations so I don't think I'm able to post a fitting idea for balancing this) when using two - handed weapons.

So one would basically want to have his shield melded in order to have benefits of both strong attack and solid defense. I know that's a lot of things, and may seem overpowered, but would that be better than a single haste spell?

Gameplay-wise this would result in a new and unique possibility to merge the defensive values of a shield with attack power of a two handed weapon / usefullness of a two handed staff. Also quite fancy for boosting the defenses of slow and squishy transmuters of Chei.

Flavour wise this would make one become a heavy - armoured, slow, shelled "turtle - like" force of destruction with strong defense and offense at the cost of mobility. In my humble opinion, this would suit Cheibriados's followers nicely.

[Roy]

What if Chei followers exuded a "ponderous aura"? That is, what if Chei's ponderousness passively affected not just the player but all nearby monsters? The aura could have a falloff so that the adjacent tile is slowed by X (the same amount as the player), the next tile is X/2, the next X/4, etc., with some cutoff? Then the aura would start at 1 tile radius and grow with piety.

I think this would help with the early game, where players have no means of escape. At least then adjacent monsters would be equally slow.

[Jeremiah]

Make teleport control a Chei-only ability.

This may not actually be a good solution, but it would help answer the question of which is more overpowered: teleport control or haste, since players would then have the option to choose one or the other.

[jejorda2]

What if Chei followers exuded a "ponderous aura"?

This is pretty much a beefed up version of the first ability Chei grants, but the current version is active instead of passive. This lets you start training invocations towards later slouch damage.

If everything is slowed, it gets hard to gain piety by killing things slower than you. With the current version, you can choose between an easier fight or more piety. With your proposal, piety gets annoying and there are fewer decisions.

[TehDruid]

I'm personally all for giving STR+DEX a well thought out revamp.

[BMP]

imho haste shouldnt be touched just to make chei more interesting. maybe haste is too strong but then again its one of the few reachable spells(for a melee/hybrid) that really help in combat. esp for buffs most are situational, only good at really high spellpower etc.

IF haste gets nerfed id like other (new)charms to make up for it.

for chei bigger use out of stats would be a big help and there were some suggestions i liked. think bend time without cost would be a bad idea since it would make it mandatory to use it evryfight. if a general range increase is considered too much maybe a directional increase? like you can pick the direction and the in that direction the range is increased by one tile? about the running away part, maybe really do a short breath status to prevent spamming. that way it would mostly only be gamechanging when you fight single strong melee only fighters.
would still a buff in the area where it lacks the most (range!) without making it a nonbrainer spam always thing.

in general i dont think we have to be that scared that chei suddenly becomes overpowered. think of what other gods offer and how trivial they can make the midgame (nemelex,oka,vehu,kiku for example). cheis flavor alone keeps him from beeing overplayed id say.

/edit also im against some summon/copy beeing introduced. way too many gods and things use that already. yred,kiku(providing corpses+the spells to use em for summons),tso,trog, nemelex,fedhas,beogh etc etc all provide powerful allies. not evry god should have a "lets just summon x to beat monster y i cant beat" button.

[ebarrett]

chei isn't bad because he doesn't let you use haste, chei is bad because you are fuckin' slow while you move around and get murdered; being blocked off from haste exacerbates this but it's still a marginal factor compared to not being able to simply walk away from 99% of things in the game even when any other char doesn't even have sources of haste. if your char doesn't need to move when there are monsters around, chei is actually pretty great. so plz everyone stop turning every chei discussion into a haste discussion, for some purposes chei even gives you a sort of reasonable haste replacement anyway (bend time)

/rant