Leafsnail wrote:I don't see the inherent problem with broadly strategic spells, and as I've pointed out above I think this model for buffs leads to more tactical decisions, not less.
You're attempting to add a tactical element to repel missiles by giving it a chance to randomly expire at the start of a fight. Just going to mention that this is a pretty bad way to balance a spell, but that's not the point that should be argued here.
The addition of this random chance to expire doesn't change the fact that in the majority of cases the spell will be cast outside of combat. Even in the best case scenario where the player recasts the spell during a fight, the spell effect BEFORE the recast is a strategic effect, not a tactical one (the effect is free regardless of whether the spell is recast afterwards or not). In terms of game design, strategical spells don't work because they ignore several spell mechanics, are boring to use because they don't use tactics, and are recast dozens to hundreds of times in a game -for no reason- (because they don't use tactics so the recast is completely pointless).
It seems strange that some people focus on attempting to make rmsl permanent, and then try to fix the problems that a permanent spell causes (by making it randomly expire, or by increasing the exp investment). Let's be honest, you want to invest exp and get a permanent effect. There's absolutely nothing spell-like about a permanent rmsl spell, other than it still being called a spell. The mp cost doesn't matter, failure doesn't matter (even if you try to make it matter it still doesn't matter), the turns spent casting it don't matter. Just skip the whole spell thing. Someone suggested an item that, when charged with exp, provides an effect such as rmsl. This is what you want. If this was what the people who want permanent rmsl were suggesting, I would be completely fine with it, because it doesn't try to shoehorn an effect that's not a spell into the spell system. But trying to fix buff spells by making them permanent is going in the wrong direction and making the problem worse. To make the problem more evident, imagine applying the permanent rmsl idea to stoneskin, ozocubu's armor, phase shift or the brand spells. It becomes "learn stoneskin to get a permanent AC bonus, but sometimes it goes away in the middle of a fight!!". There's no way that's a well designed spell. Buffs as active tactical effects are the way to go.
Siegurt wrote:I would much rather see repel missiles converted to the proposed and written spell that creates (non-spell) missile-deflecting clouds that don't move with you than try to add some sort of MP drain to it.
The cloud rmsl idea is good (why non-spell though?), but this thread is not just about rmsl, and cloud rmsl doesn't fix the other buffs. I think it would be ok if all the buff spells that currently have problems were changed in their own way, like cloud rmsl, to not have problems anymore. But I'm suggesting mp drain because it manages to fix all buffs at the same time including those that currently have awkward drawbacks, and puts them all under the same system. I don't agree with the 2nd paragraph of your post, the reasons for my disagreement are in this thread.
and into wrote:contam as a balancing mechanism
Currently contam does two things. 1- prevents the player from using haste/invis too much. 2- punishes the player for doing various actions like miscasting, canceling tele with stasis, Lugonu wrath, etc. The punishment comes in the form of mutations, the other contam effects are largely irrelevant unless you get red contam which never happens, and even then.
Changing your idea a bit:
- The punishment in the form of mutations becomes instant, no contam. Example: if a miscast would give yellow contam which in turn would eventually give mutations, just give the mutations immediately without giving contam. Mashing 5 waiting for the possible mutations might be kind of exciting, but getting them instantly wouldn't change anything in most cases.
- Contam doesn't give mutations or cause any other contam effects like explosions, it does nothing. Unfortunate flavor loss here but I think I got one or two explosions in hundreds of games played.
- Contam is now exclusively used for buffs.
- All buffs generate contam while they're active.
- If the contam level reaches the maximum amount of X, active buffs are automatically turned off.
- Contam goes away a lot faster.
This is exactly like mp drain, but without any tradeoffs between buffs and other mp uses. Losing the tradeoffs is both good and bad, but it's certainly less radical than using mp, like you said, so it's easier to implement.