Competition 88

[PowerDiver]

Personally I think it would be entirely consistent to set recharge times in player turns - especially since things don't recharge unless you're carrying them!

Carrying is irrelevant. Rods charge on the floor or in the pack, but not at home or in stores. Wieldables recharge only when wielded.

I wonder whether the distinction between wieldables and rods was intentional, or just the result of different people writing different pieces of code.

[Magnate]

Carrying is irrelevant. Rods charge on the floor or in the pack, but not at home or in stores. Wieldables recharge only when wielded.

I wonder whether the distinction between wieldables and rods was intentional, or just the result of different people writing different pieces of code.

Are you sure rods still recharge on the floor? I thought that had been changed so they had to be in the pack. If that's wrong then I suspect the difference is unintentional.

[PowerDiver]

Are you sure rods still recharge on the floor?

Does "pretty sure" count as sure? I remember it happening recently. That doesn't mean it did.

[PowerDiver]

I saw a new ticket that seems confused. Total energy suffers the same score penalty for resting and/or waiting at higher speeds. It's better for extra shots and much better for ammo pickup, but it doesn't change the quirk I mentioned.

It's not as if you often have the Palantir, activate it, and see nothing worth investigating very often. I was more amused than annoyed by it.

I was happy the comp was set up so that I didn't suffer a penalty for not using rings of escaping.

[Magnate]

I saw a new ticket that seems confused. Total energy suffers the same score penalty for resting and/or waiting at higher speeds. It's better for extra shots and much better for ammo pickup, but it doesn't change the quirk I mentioned.

Oh yes, I get it. Since recharge times are set in game turns, and +speed means more energy per game turn, then yes counting total energy still penalises extra speed.

I am now more convinced than ever that recharge times need to be in player turns. Or better still, in units of energy.

[PowerDiver]

I am now more convinced than ever that recharge times need to be in player turns. Or better still, in units of energy.

I disagree on rods. How does the rod on the floor know how fast you are? Presumably devices draw mana from the ether at a fixed rate. Let me put on a ring of escaping while I rest so my rods recharge faster. Ugh.

The more interesting question is resting. When you are faster, should your body heal more in a fixed amount of time? That seems much more reasonable to me.

I think the real problem is the distaste for game turns, which IMO is the obvious thing to optimize. The faster your char kills M, the more of the Middle Earth Cup he can watch. Sure, a lucky early speed find makes a difference, but so would luckily finding Aule.

[d_m]

I agree with you about rods on the floor, but there's no reason rods on the floor have to recharge at all. An equally reasonable scenario is that weapons/armor/rods draw their power from the character's own chi or something. In that case player turns seem fine, and only items in the inventory recharge at all.

[Derakon]

I suspect that an early BoS +4 would make a bigger difference in the long run than an early powerful weapon. While a powerful weapon lets you skip some portion of the game (the portion at which you are unable to kill certain enemies due to an insufficient offense), a speed boost makes everything you do faster by a multiplier. So maybe Aule could compete with an early BoS+4, because it's so powerful a weapon (and thus lets you skip a very large portion of the "insufficient offense" section), but I don't think most other non-speed-boosting weapons could.

The real problem here is that we're trying to hold competitions, which rely on every player having equal access to advantages, in an inherently random environment. It just so happens that speed boosts are an unusually prominent factor in that random environment.

[buzzkill]

What power diver said, I think. Rod recharge should not be based on player speed, but based on the passage of real time. For rods to recharge faster, time would have to pass faster. In fact though, just the opposite happens. As you move faster, time effectively slows down. I can't imagine a logical justification for 'Because I can beat you in a foot race, my rods will recharge faster than yours'.

In other words, if you really want to maximize your competition turn count and make your rods recharge faster just quaff every potion of slowness you can find. Problem solved.

IMO the whole "let's count turns in three different ways" is a waste of energy.

[LostTemplar]

It is not recharge times but normal regen of HP and SP that hurts more.

[Timo Pietilä]

It is not recharge times but normal regen of HP and SP that hurts more.

I think that should be variable of speed.

Actually I think that "speed" as magical bonus or penalty is "tweaking with time" and should affect anything that player is, while getting burdened or "non-magically hasted" is tinkering with your physical being and thus does not affect your recovery times.

Making distinction between those two is a bit beyond what we are now discussing.

So: I think player recovery times should depend of "player time" IE player turns, while player equipment recharge times should depend of "game time" IE game turns.

[PowerDiver]

So: I think player recovery times should depend of "player time" IE player turns, while player equipment recharge times should depend of "game time" IE game turns.

My only problem is that increasing regen based upon energy is yet another change to make things easier.

[Magnate]

I think that should be variable of speed.

Actually I think that "speed" as magical bonus or penalty is "tweaking with time" and should affect anything that player is, while getting burdened or "non-magically hasted" is tinkering with your physical being and thus does not affect your recovery times.

Making distinction between those two is a bit beyond what we are now discussing.

So: I think player recovery times should depend of "player time" IE player turns, while player equipment recharge times should depend of "game time" IE game turns.

I think both of these are wrong, since the timings should be based on total energy not on whatever size clumps of energy are measured as turns. I propose a "standard turn" of 100 energy, which may be more or less than ten game turns and one player turn, depending on your current speed (and extra shots and fractional blows etc.). Recharge times should then be set in standard turns. Regeneration I'm less fussed about - I can see an argument for making it related to player speed, but I can equally see it being left as is.

[Derakon]

If anything, regeneration is currently too powerful; making it even stronger isn't a great idea. So if we decide to make it based on player turns, then we should simultaneously weaken the effect.

[PowerDiver]

If anything, regeneration is currently too powerful; making it even stronger isn't a great idea. So if we decide to make it based on player turns, then we should simultaneously weaken the effect.

I find my early spellcasters do not have enough mana. Both pure and impure. Weakening mana regen seems like a bad idea to me, unless maybe you simultaneously flatten the int curve to give starting chars significantly more mana.