Remove MP costs from god abilities


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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 03:43

Remove MP costs from god abilities

God ability MP costs are almost irrelevant to any melee brute who is casting only utility spells and therefore has plenty of MP he's not using. The only thing that MP costs do is make the god unattractive to mages, because the god cannot be called on when the mage is in trouble at low MP.

If god abilities did not take MP, then mages would have a greater selection of viable gods.

The only case I can think of where this might cause imbalance, is with Qazlal. Qazlal could be an exception, or perhaps not; after all, the main restriction on a brute spamming Qaz abilities is piety, not MP.
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VeryAngryFelid

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 03:47

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

hmm, controlled blink costs mp but for some mysterious reason, it's still learned by mage characters for extended. perhaps players playing mage characters... can manage mp?

see also: blink, sticks to snakes, passage of golubria for non-extended examples

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duvessa

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 04:16

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

CanOfWorms wrote:hmm, controlled blink costs mp but for some mysterious reason, it's still learned by mage characters for extended. perhaps players playing mage characters... can manage mp?

see also: blink, sticks to snakes, passage of golubria for non-extended examples
I don't see how MP management is relevant here. The question is "why should mages have harder time using god abilities".
It is interesting that you mentioned Blink because I tried using it as 1) ranged attacker, 2) polearm user 3) conjurations user to kill alone ogre. Guess who dealt the less damage before running out of MP? There is a possible excuse "we should limit spells synergy" but I don't see why "gods are less useful for casters" is in the game.

Just create Abilities Points which would be used for divine abilities and evocations, increased by training invo and evo.
Last edited by VeryAngryFelid on Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 04:18, edited 2 times in total.
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Berder

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 04:17

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Even if the mage can manage the MP cost by saving enough MP to use the god abilities as well as his spells, it's making him weaker by forcing him to cast fewer spells. Therefore it makes the god weaker and less attractive for the mage, while the MP cost is mostly irrelevant to the brute.
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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 04:35

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

"Mages" typically have larger MP pools than "brutes", so if anything, MP costs on god abilities bias the gods towards "mages".

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 04:46

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Berder wrote:Even if the mage can manage the MP cost by saving enough MP to use the god abilities as well as his spells, it's making him weaker by forcing him to cast fewer spells. Therefore it makes the god weaker and less attractive for the mage, while the MP cost is mostly irrelevant to the brute.

god powers don't reduce your mp bar, there's nothing being "forced" onto the player. does having controlled blink castable "force" the player to cast fewer spells?

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bel

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 05:06

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

The basic idea, in my guess, it is that god powers should have a long-term as well as a short-term cost. This is presumably so you can't use the god powers too frequently over the whole game (long-term), and can't use it too frequently during a fight (short-term).

Piety costs exist for the former purpose, and I suppose MP costs exist for the latter purpose. It's a bit of a hack, but seems to work.

Just a random proposal for short-term cost: how about, instead of MP, using god powers caused drain? It would be flavorful, and it would still mean that you couldn't use it too often in a fight.

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 05:16

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

"Mages" typically have larger MP pools than "brutes", so if anything, MP costs on god abilities bias the gods towards "mages".

That's not what matters. What matters is how much spare MP the character has that they weren't planning to use for something else instead. The brute has much more spare MP than the mage, because the brute is not using much MP for other purposes.

CanOfWorms wrote:
Berder wrote:Even if the mage can manage the MP cost by saving enough MP to use the god abilities as well as his spells, it's making him weaker by forcing him to cast fewer spells. Therefore it makes the god weaker and less attractive for the mage, while the MP cost is mostly irrelevant to the brute.

god powers don't reduce your mp bar, there's nothing being "forced" onto the player. does having controlled blink castable "force" the player to cast fewer spells?

IF they want to keep enough MP in reserve to use their MP-costing god abilities, then they have to cast fewer spells. Here I am using the word "forced" not in the sense of having no choice at all, but in the sense of having to make an undesirable choice because other choices are made even worse. It's just a figure of speech.

There is a concept in economics called opportunity cost. To a mage, the opportunity cost of using a god ability that costs MP, is high, because it prevents them from using that same MP to cast a spell. To a brute, the opportunity cost of using the same ability is low, because there is nothing else they would be doing with the MP.
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VeryAngryFelid

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 05:24

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

you're still not answering the main issue, which is "does having controlled blink memorized and castable somehow reduce the power level of a mage character?" should players avoid learning utility spells because it "reduces their power level"?

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 05:39

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

CanOfWorms wrote:you're still not answering the main issue, which is "does having controlled blink memorized and castable somehow reduce the power level of a mage character?" should players avoid learning utility spells because it "reduces their power level"?
We should compare it to melee characters. Let's assume that scroll of blinking costs 7 MP to use also. Who would have much easier time surviving battles: a brute who can use its melee or ranged weapon indefinitely while still able to read scrolls of blinking 3-4 times in a row or a caster who needs to reserve half its MP for that?
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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 05:47

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

CanOfWorms wrote:you're still not answering the main issue, which is "does having controlled blink memorized and castable somehow reduce the power level of a mage character?" should players avoid learning utility spells because it "reduces their power level"?

No. Look at it this way: neither knowing controlled blink, nor worshiping a god like Qazlal, actually *reduces* the player's power level in an absolute sense. But, if a mage worships Qazlal, he gets *less benefit from it* than a brute would, because for the mage, the abilities cost a lot of MP that he already needs for his spells. Using the Qaz abilities prevents him from also casting some of his own spells. Whereas, for a brute, using the Qaz abilities has no penalty except piety loss, since he had no other use for his MP.
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bel

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 05:55

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

The spell level on utility spells often works more as a gating mechanism, rather than anything specifically having to do with MP costs. So in, say, the Controlled Blink case the "mage" types will typically find Controlled Blink much easier to learn (and cast).

bel

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 06:00

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Berder wrote:There is a concept in economics called opportunity cost. To a mage, the opportunity cost of using a god ability that costs MP, is high, because it prevents them from using that same MP to cast a spell. To a brute, the opportunity cost of using the same ability is low, because there is nothing else they would be doing with the MP.

There are several possible responses to this.

What matters is not absolute cost, but relative cost. So, as duvessa pointed out, mages get more MP to begin with, so it's actually relatively cheaper for them. In another sense (as you say), it's more expensive, because brutes often don't use MP at all, so it's basically free for them. Furthermore, brutes and mages tend to worship different gods, so it's not even easy to compare. I do not know what the net effect of all these things is.

The whole line of argument, to my mind, is rather beside the point; for reasons I gave in my first post.

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 06:22

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

The relative amount of MP might matter if the cost to the brute was not approximately 0, as they had no other use for the MP. 0 scaled by any factor is still 0. Whereas the cost to the mage is significant.
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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 06:30

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

No, that's not the way it works. Brutes still have a max MP. So, say, if they have 10 MP and the god ability costs 5, they will only get 2 uses max in a fight. While mages with more MP will get > 2 uses.

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duvessa

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 07:35

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Think 20-40 MP for a brute that trains invocations, not 10. As a practical matter a brute tends to have plenty of MP to use god abilities as many times as necessary. Most god abilities are only designed to be used once or twice in any given fight. The only times one is likely to hit an MP limit for god abilities is if he's worshiping Qazlal (and he still won't be limited by MP very often with qazlal), wielding an antimagic weapon, wearing guardian spirit, or in the presence of a ghost moth. (Or being mp drained by a melee attacker, which doesn't happen often).

The god abilities that cost MP are:
Ash scrying (4 MP)
Beogh smite foe (3 MP)
Beogh recall followers (2 MP)
Chei bend time (3 MP)
Chei temporal distortion (5 MP)
Chei slouch (5 MP)
Chei step from time (10 MP)
Dith shadow step (4 MP)
Dith shadow form (9 MP)
Ely lesser healing (1 MP)
Ely heal other (2 MP)
Ely purification (3 MP)
Ely greater healing (2 MP)
Fed evolution (2 MP)
Fed sunlight (2 MP)
Fed growth (2 MP)
Fed reproduction (4 MP)
Fed rain (4 MP)
Hepl recall ancestor (2 MP)
Hepl transference (2 MP)
Hepl idealize (4 MP)
Jiyva request jelly (2 MP)
Jiyva slimify (4 MP)
Kiku receive corpses (3 MP)
Kiku invoke torment (4 MP)
Lugonu depart abyss (1 MP)
Lugonu bend space (1 MP)
Lugonu banish (4 MP)
Lugonu corrupt (7 MP)
Lugonu escape to abyss (10 MP)
Nem draw three (2 MP)
Nem deal four (8 MP)
Nem stack five (5 MP)
Oka hero (2 MP)
Oka finesse (5 MP)
Qaz upheaval (4 MP)
Qaz elemental force (6 MP)
Qaz disaster area (7 MP)
Ru power leap (5 MP)
Ru apocalypse (8 MP)
Usk stomp (3 MP)
Usk line pass (4 MP)
Usk grand finale (8 MP)
Yred recall undead slaves (2 MP)
Yred animate dead (2 MP)
Yred drain life (6 MP)
Yred enslave soul (8 MP)
Zin vit (2 MP)
Zin imprison (5 MP)
Zin sanctuary (7 MP)
TSO divine shield (3 MP)
TSO cleansing flame (5 MP)
TSO divine warrior (8 MP)
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bel

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 07:41

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

[Edit: nvm about the earlier version of this post.]

You've carved out plenty of non-trivial exceptions there. I can think of even more, which you didn't mention: Chei abilities cost a lot of MP, so do Lugonu abilities. So Qaz is not the only relevant god here. Also, keep in mind that if you're training invo (that leads to more MP), that action also has an opportunity cost.

Again, I think this entire line of discussion won't lead anywhere. You're free to continue it though.
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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 13:52

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Berder wrote:The only times one is likely to hit an MP limit for god abilities is if he's worshiping Qazlal (and he still won't be limited by MP very often with qazlal), wielding an antimagic weapon, wearing guardian spirit, or in the presence of a ghost moth. (Or being mp drained by a melee attacker, which doesn't happen often).

You've never screwed up somewhere in Crawl and said "good thing I have full piety with Zin (or Lugonu or Chei), my panic button is ready and waiting" and then looked at your MP bar and said "nooooooooooooooooooo"

Because I sure have, and I think that it is good. There are lots of ways to run out of MP; there's also "casting spells" or "exploring at a dumb time" or "getting shafted/teleported when low on MP."

Yeah, most of those situations are avoidable with careful, knowledgeable play. But the arguments that Crawl should be designed first and foremost with careful, knowledgeable players in mind falls kind of flat to me -- Crawl's a big game, and learning to identify and manage threats and remember and use your resources takes practice.

Put another way: I think one of the things that defines roguelikes is having systems that interact in ways that are often unimportant but are occasionally extremely consequential. Learning those and remembering them (or forgetting them and then slapping my head!) at the appropriate times is part of what I like about the genre.
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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 14:03

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

njvack wrote:You've never screwed up somewhere in Crawl and said "good thing I have full piety with Zin (or Lugonu or Chei), my panic button is ready and waiting" and then looked at your MP bar and said "nooooooooooooooooooo"


As primarily melee character? Never. Let's give such characters a chance to experience the same feelings and unlink divine abilities from MP. By the way, there are god abilities that require HP to use and I think they are more interesting as they are more risky and equally fair to everyone.
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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 16:56

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

My first instinct is that god abilities taking MP doesn't make any intuitive sense to me, so I'm favorable of the idea, initially. Remove the MP gains on invocations training, rebalance god abilities such that they don't take MP - that sounds good to me.

However, lots of god abilities become better when they're more spammable. Should Ru's Exhaustion mechanic become the norm rather than the exception for god abilities? You could certainly still remove exhaustion from whatever abilities shouldn't have it, but having the only restriction to god abilities being a strategic resource(piety) feels like it might be exploitable.
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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 17:54

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
njvack wrote:You've never screwed up somewhere in Crawl and said "good thing I have full piety with Zin (or Lugonu or Chei), my panic button is ready and waiting" and then looked at your MP bar and said "nooooooooooooooooooo"


As primarily melee character? Never.

Huh, I've messed up with both ghost moths and guardian spirit; with melee as my primary killdudes I tend to think "I'm fine without MP" and then I want a divine panic button and am in trouble.

But I am not a very good player.
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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 18:10

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Berder wrote:Think 20-40 MP for a brute that trains invocations, not 10.
By the time a non-spellcasting character has that much MP, a spellcasting character has far more MP than they could ever need as well. So I don't see the problem.

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2018, 20:37

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

njvack wrote:
VeryAngryFelid wrote:
njvack wrote:You've never screwed up somewhere in Crawl and said "good thing I have full piety with Zin (or Lugonu or Chei), my panic button is ready and waiting" and then looked at your MP bar and said "nooooooooooooooooooo"


As primarily melee character? Never.

Huh, I've messed up with both ghost moths and guardian spirit; with melee as my primary killdudes I tend to think "I'm fine without MP" and then I want a divine panic button and am in trouble.

But I am not a very good player.
Oh, I misunderstood you then. I thought you are talking about "player casted spells recklessly and now must pay for it" situations. Ghost moth can be treated like silent spectre, there is often no players fault in being unable to invoke an ability. Still ghost moth hurts to casters much more because they are likely to meet it when already being below max MP.
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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 02:23

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

duvessa wrote:
Berder wrote:Think 20-40 MP for a brute that trains invocations, not 10.
By the time a non-spellcasting character has that much MP, a spellcasting character has far more MP than they could ever need as well. So I don't see the problem.

Absolute nonsense. A spellcasting character never has more MP than they need (unless they worship Veh). Even if they have 55 MP they are going to use it all in a single continued fight. A brute character almost always has much more MP than they need.
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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 05:09

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

It is painfully obvious and clear that a character who primarily relies upon spending mana points to survive gives up more when they spend MP on an invocation than a character who barely, if at all has any need for their pool of MP, even if it isn't as large.

How is this even an argument?!

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 05:43

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

To me, it is painfully obvious that having more MP makes it easier to use god abilities that cost MP. If emptying your MP bar with spells will leave you in danger, then don't empty your MP bar with spells. If casting spells is your means of killing monsters, and using your MP to cast spells won't kill the monster anyway, then you shouldn't do it. Most direct damage spells' damage is very stable, so it is pretty easy to know when you have enough to kill a monster. All you need to do is recognize that and you have a large amount of MP that you can use to get away from the monsters instead.

I find that with characters that primarily or exclusively use spells to kill things, most of my MP bar is only used for convenience from approximately Lair onwards - the first half is sufficient to kill anything that I can kill at all. I don't think I've ever needed 55 MP except in ziggurats and when killing the unique Hell/Pan lords (which are both completely unnecessary). Perhaps you should fight fewer monsters at a time.

Early in the game you are likely to use all your MP, but high MP cost god abilities aren't available that early in the game anyway.

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 05:51

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

duvessa wrote:To me, it is painfully obvious that having more MP makes it easier to use god abilities that cost MP. If emptying your MP bar with spells will leave you in danger, then don't empty your MP bar with spells. If casting spells is your means of killing monsters, and using your MP to cast spells won't kill the monster anyway, then you shouldn't do it. Most direct damage spells' damage is very stable, so it is pretty easy to know when you have enough to kill a monster. All you need to do is recognize that and you have a large amount of MP that you can use to get away from the monsters instead.

I find that with characters that primarily or exclusively use spells to kill things, most of my MP bar is only used for convenience from approximately Lair onwards - the first half is sufficient to kill anything that I can kill at all. I don't think I've ever needed 55 MP except in ziggurats and when killing the unique Hell/Pan lords (which are both completely unnecessary). Perhaps you should fight fewer monsters at a time.

Early in the game you are likely to use all your MP, but high MP cost god abilities aren't available that early in the game anyway.


You're missing the point. This isn't about whether or not a player can cast spells, use MP for invocations, and still complete the game. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it has anything at all to do with the game being balanced. I never once asked for advice on how to achieve this. Suggesting I fight fewer monsters at a time as a justification for why blasters are the same as brutes when it comes to mana is incoherent.

The point: MP are not of equal value to both styles of builds (spellcasters vs. brutes), yet MP are consumed by invocations.

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 06:06

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

svendre wrote:I never once asked for advice on how to achieve this. Suggesting I fight fewer monsters at a time as a justification for why blasters are the same as brutes when it comes to mana is incoherent.
That suggestion was for Berder, not you, since Berder apparently thinks they always need more MP.
svendre wrote:The point: MP are not of equal value to both styles of builds (spellcasters vs. brutes), yet MP are consumed by invocations.
I agree that the value of MP depends on the character. I do not agree that a point of MP is necessarily more valuable for characters with spells, because characters with spells tend to have much more MP than characters without spells. I don't think the MP costs are worse for, say, a pure conjurer of Uskayaw with 30 MMP, compared to a non-spellcaster of Uskayaw with 15 MMP. The conjurer has more things to use MP on, and it "needs" to use MP more, but it also has more MP available to use in the first place.

But thinking about it more, I think that is beside the point anyway, because the conclusion of the OP (remove MP costs from god abilities) does not follow from the premise (MP costs for god abilities hurt some characters more than others). MP costs for god abilities hurt guardian spirit users more than other characters. MP costs hurt antimagic users more than other characters. The HP costs on Makhleb's abilities hurt tengu more than they hurt ogres. Piety decay hurts mummies more than it hurts trolls. I am not persuaded that this is a problem.

If anything, I would say the best case for removing MP costs from god abilities is that most of the costs are small enough that they don't matter (oh no, greater healing takes 2 of my MP!). I think I would rather increase the MP costs instead, though.

I also do not think there are any gods that would go from "unviable" for spellcasters to "viable" with this change. Sure Qazlal would suck slightly less, but they would still suck.

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 06:17

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

duvessa wrote:
svendre wrote:I never once asked for advice on how to achieve this. Suggesting I fight fewer monsters at a time as a justification for why blasters are the same as brutes when it comes to mana is incoherent.
That suggestion was for Berder, not you, since Berder apparently thinks they always need more MP.
svendre wrote:The point: MP are not of equal value to both styles of builds (spellcasters vs. brutes), yet MP are consumed by invocations.
I agree that the value of MP depends on the character. I do not agree that a point of MP is necessarily more valuable for characters with spells, because characters with spells tend to have much more MP than characters without spells. I don't think the MP costs are worse for, say, a pure conjurer of Uskayaw with 30 MMP, compared to a non-spellcaster of Uskayaw with 15 MMP. The conjurer has more things to use MP on, and it "needs" to use MP more, but it also has more MP available to use in the first place.

But thinking about it more, I think that is beside the point anyway, because the conclusion of the OP (remove MP costs from god abilities) does not follow from the premise (MP costs for god abilities hurt some characters more than others). MP costs for god abilities hurt guardian spirit users more than other characters. MP costs hurt antimagic users more than other characters. The HP costs on Makhleb's abilities hurt tengu more than they hurt ogres. Piety decay hurts mummies more than it hurts trolls. I am not persuaded that this is a problem.

If anything, I would say the best case for removing MP costs from god abilities is that most of the costs are small enough that they don't matter (oh no, greater healing takes 2 of my MP!). I think I would rather increase the MP costs instead, though.

I also do not think there are any gods that would go from "unviable" for spellcasters to "viable" with this change. Sure Qazlal would suck slightly less, but they would still suck.


Ok, some progress here. Next, please ask yourself the following question:

Who is hurt more by invocations consuming MP?
a) Spellcaster/blaster using guardian spirit and/or antimagic weapon?
b) Brute using guardian spirit and/or antimagic weapon?

The HP costs of Mak having different relative cost values between different races with differing amounts of health is an interesting presentation, perhaps worth looking at, perhaps not, but in any case it's not the topic being discussed here as it is a different mechanism. The OP is referring to god abilities which cost MP, not HP.

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 06:31

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Perhaps you should read the posts in this thread, where just these questions were debated thoroughly. You may agree or disagree, but at least you won't repeat questions which have already been discussed.

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 06:39

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Perhaps it would help to get some realistic numbers on how much MMP characters of different types actually have. Let's stop talking about the brute having 10 MP or 15 MMP when the mage has 30. That is not realistic. The gap is not that large. By using queries of the sort "!lm tenpercenters recent !mage xl=10 x=avg(mmp)" I find that at XL 10, the brute has 14 MP, the mage has 20. At XL 15, the brute has 22 MP, the mage has 31. At XL 20, the brute has 29 MP, the mage has 40.

I would characterize the brute's XL 10 pool, 14 MP, as already more than enough to use any god abilities as much as they would realistically want, except for Qazlal. The mage only has 6 more MP than the brute at this point, and certainly they want to spend a lot more than 6 MP on spells in a given fight (indeed, they can maximize their killing potential before resting by spending all of their MP on spells). By XL 15 the brute has enough MP that even with Qazlal he can do 5 or 6 Upheavals, making him more limited by piety than MP.

Conclusion: the MP cost on god abilities is irrelevant to brutes. It is relevant and costly only to mages.
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bel

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 06:40

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

14 MP is not even enough for one slouch followed by one step from time.

Besides, max MP is not the relevant consideration; current MP is.

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 06:46

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

That is unrealistic because almost nobody is going to step from time at XL 10. They don't have the piety or invocations, and if they did, they could instead Slouch once or twice to just kill any threat at that XL.

Incidentally, if they had 10 invocations, at xl 10, they'd have 17 MMP.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 06:47

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

svendre wrote:Who is hurt more by invocations consuming MP?
a) Spellcaster/blaster using guardian spirit and/or antimagic weapon?
b) Brute using guardian spirit and/or antimagic weapon?
Again, it depends on whether the characters both have enough max MP to use the ability the desired number of times. If they do, the answer is trivially "the one with fewer/worse other ways to use that MP" (the "brute"). If they don't, the answer is probably "the one with more MP, because it gets to use the ability the desired number of times, or at least closer to the desired number" (the "blaster").
The latter case is much rarer, but if it does happen, the consequence is probably going to be a lot worse than not being able to cast LRD as many times as you wanted. Certainly the "blaster" is technically hurt more by the MP costs that can never plausibly use much MP, such as Fedhas's, but because they can never plausibly use much MP, you're comparing no impact to essentially no impact.

bel wrote:14 MP is not even enough for one slouch followed by one step from time.

Besides, max MP is not the relevant consideration; current MP is.
The MP costs of a god that is bad anyway are irrelevant. And you don't enter fights with current MP below max MP unless you are speedrunning or something...

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 06:48

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Let's use our standard approach i.e. let's assume that currently invocations depend on some special "InvocationsPoints" bar and someone created a new thread in GDD suggesting to remove it and use MP instead. Would that idea get approved by devs and why?
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 06:50

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Let's use our standard approach i.e. let's assume that currently invocations depend on some special "InvocationsPoints" bar and someone created a new thread in GDD suggesting to remove it and use MP instead. Would that idea get approved by devs and why?
That's not how to use this approach. Berder didn't suggest adding an InvocationsPoints bar, just removing the MP costs. So the hypothetical would be if invocations currently didn't have MP costs, and someone made a GDD thread asking to add MP costs to them. Probably with the rationale that it would give brutes a use for all that MP they have lying around. Or that it would nerf brutes by making them less able to spam god abilities than casters.

bel

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 06:54

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Let's use our standard approach i.e. let's assume that currently invocations depend on some special "InvocationsPoints" bar and someone created a new thread in GDD suggesting to remove it and use MP instead. Would that idea get approved by devs and why?

As I said already, the use of MP is a way to impose some tactical (short-term) limits on how much god powers can be used. It's rather hacky for sure, and one can probably imagine better ways. I tried to propose one above, but such discussion isn't possible when all the energy is sucked into this kind of (in my view) pointless discussion filled with dubious assertions.

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 07:00

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

duvessa wrote:The latter case is much rarer, but if it does happen, the consequence is probably going to be a lot worse than not being able to cast LRD as many times as you wanted. Certainly the "blaster" is technically hurt more by the MP costs that can never plausibly use much MP, such as Fedhas's, but because they can never plausibly use much MP, you're comparing no impact to essentially no impact.

Please. Sunlight is useful to a brute, it helps them hit things. Sunlight might be useful to a blaster. Should the blaster therefore continually use Sunlight to increase their spell accuracy? It only costs 2 MP. But, you have to very frequently re-apply it as it expires, and also maybe you want to cover more than 1 area with Sunlight as monsters walk towards you, so maybe you're talking 6 MP spent on Sunlight before the fight ends. Maybe that 6 MP would be better spent on an extra spell or two. There is a definite tradeoff in the case of a blaster mage where the 2 MP for sunlight might be not worth it, and no such tradeoff exists for the brute.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 07:57

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

every mage start other than summoner has a spell that ignores EV, so they don't actually need sunlight

bel

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 08:57

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Leaving aside my opinion of the worth of the various arguments put forth, it is worth looking at the following issue.

Most of the discussion has been about whether the MP cost is "biased" towards brutes or mages. Let's assume that the arguments against Berder's post are completely valid: there is no "bias" towards anyone, brutes or mages.

The question then becomes: are characters ever meaningfully limited by their MP when using God abilities? Is MP cost a good way of limiting god ability use, or can better ways be designed?

I have been unsuccessfully trying to get people to focus on this part, but people seem to be stuck on the former question. The issue of "who is right on the former question" is mostly irrelevant.

[Edit: fixed typo]
Last edited by bel on Thursday, 9th August 2018, 09:31, edited 1 time in total.

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duvessa

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 09:10

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

bel wrote:are characters ever meaningfully limited by their MP when using God spells?


Of course. Otherwise everyone might spam god spells as long as piety allows it and OP would not exist.

Is MP cost a good way of limiting god ability use, or can better ways be designed?


Of course it is not a good way as the limit depends on irrelevant and complicated stats i.e. MP penalty/bonus from species, spellcasting aptitude and evocation aptitude. I believe a new "Invocations Points" bar which depends solely on XL and Invocations level would be much better. For instance, you might balance species based solely on Invocations aptitude. I believe Ds was intended to have easier time with gods except it does not work with many gods who don't use Invocations skill.
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bel

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 09:30

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
bel wrote:are characters ever meaningfully limited by their MP when using God spells?


Of course. Otherwise everyone might spam god spells as long as piety allows it and OP would not exist.

Berder says that brutes are never limited by MP, and you thanked him. So I don't understand your comment here at all.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 09:33

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

bel wrote:
VeryAngryFelid wrote:
bel wrote:are characters ever meaningfully limited by their MP when using God spells?


Of course. Otherwise everyone might spam god spells as long as piety allows it and OP would not exist.

Berder says that brutes are never limited by MP, and you thanked him. So I don't understand your comment here at all.


Maybe it is caused by my bad English but I understand "are characters ever meaningfully limited by their MP when using God spells?" as "are there any characters who are at least sometimes meaningfully limited by their MP when using God spells?" and of course I answer "yes, casters are at least sometimes meaningfully limited by their MP when using God spells".
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bel

bel

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 09:36

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

Ok, now I get you.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 11th August 2018, 00:42

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

On a side note, can chei's step from time not cost 10 mana? It's literally the highest level "spell" in the game, more powerful than fire storm and tornado! Hellcrawl made it cost 5 mana, I'd say go for that in mainline crawl too :)

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Arrhythmia, bel, Fingolfin

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Post Tuesday, 28th August 2018, 08:02

Re: Remove MP costs from god abilities

I think it makes sense to remove the MP cost.

Piety costs already provide an incentive not to overuse an ability, and MP costs really only serve as a hard limit to the number of uses in the short term.

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