New stat drain model rocks

[DaviddesJ]

This logic is faulty for the same reason that argument we had about no-selling being optional ("If you don't like selling things, just don't take them back to town") is faulty. People -- lots of people -- will play the game in horribly boring and un-fun ways if they perceive those ways to be the optimal way to play the game. Making certain that the optimal way to play the game is also a fun way to play the game is something like 95% of balancing singleplayer games.

Well, I don't agree with your logic. I don't think the problem of people playing in "optimal" but unfun ways, is real. The optimal way to play is to stay on level 1 until you find every item you might possibly want to beat Morgoth. Everything can be found there with some probability, it just would take a million years. But people don't actually do it.

But, even under your logic, the problem is that the new system creates a new "optimal" way to play, i.e., don't ever go below level 3 until you've accumulated at least a stack of 40 Mushrooms of Vigor, just in case you might need them later. And, once you have enough, then you don't have to worry about stat drain at all (except to go back to your house to get one whenever you get drained). This optimal way of playing seems even more unfun than the old optimal way of playing.

[Derakon]

You're being deliberately obtuse, and I can just tell that this is going to turn into yet another pedantic and horribly sloggish argument thread, so this is going to be my last post here.

Many people have stated on these forums that they find no-selling liberating because they no longer have to do boring-but-advantageous actions. By your logic, "optimal" play under the with-selling rules would be to scum dlvl6 for salable wands until you have several million AU and no longer have to worry about gold. I would have thought it obvious that this is not what those players (who rejoiced when no-selling became an option) were doing, and similarly I would have thought it obvious that optimal play under the new stat-drain model does not involve scumming for 40 mushrooms of vigor right from the start of the game. But apparently these things have to be said, so let me line out what I mean by "optimal play".

Optimal play under the old stat-drain system: when you get drained, return to town. Scum the town for stat-restore items.

Optimal play under the new stat-drain system: when you get drained, evaluate: are you so badly reduced that you need to [return to town and] consume a mushroom of vigor from the stash you have collected through normal play up to now? If so, do so; otherwise, continue with drained stats.

[DaviddesJ]

You're being deliberately obtuse

Maybe my ideas are stupid, but they are actually what I think. I'm not being deliberately obtuse.

If a player really can't stand to take even a single step at depth with drained stats, so that they "have to" return to town immediately whenever that happens, then why wouldn't that same player "have to" go scum a low level for mushrooms in the new system? If that's really their motivation, they are still going to do that, and so you've replaced something tedious with something even more tedious.

Many people have stated on these forums that they find no-selling liberating because they no longer have to do boring-but-advantageous actions.

People like no-selling because they get the same results they would have gotten anyway, while deleting some tedious parts of the game. So that's a pure win.

The "new stat drain model" isn't like that. It's missing the positive part. It's like having no-selling without the extra gold. And it creates a new situation that's even more tedious than what it replaces.

[Malak Darkhunter]

Birth_no_selling option is awesome .. Love just not having to lug things around the dungeon to bring back to town to sell.

New stat drain model from V 3.3.2 -3.50 is great at low levels , highly aggravating at high levels. My main beef with that is stat restore potions being eliminated entirely from the game.

The main idea seems to be to make the town boring and the dungeon more interesting, I'm an old player, so stat restore potions just seem natural to me, so for me it's a hard change to get used to.

[takkaria]

Birth_no_selling option is awesome .. Love just not having to lug things around the dungeon to bring back to town to sell.

New stat drain model from V 3.3.2 -3.50 is great at low levels , highly aggravating at high levels. My main beef with that is stat restore potions being eliminated entirely from the game.

The main idea seems to be to make the town boring and the dungeon more interesting, I'm an old player, so stat restore potions just seem natural to me, so for me it's a hard change to get used to.

We were chatting on IRC about this and we're going to tweak Shrooms of Vigor to start appearing later but be found easier. Hopefully that should balance it out a bit.

[DaviddesJ]

You could just have all drained stats recover whenever you return to town. That would eliminate the need for "scumming". There should also be a reasonable way to do it without returning, of course. The old model worked fine for that, you could find enough restore potions just lying around. It shouldn't become harder than that.

[eMeM]

I've played quite a few games in 3.4.1 (not v4) and I don't remember even once having problems with drained stats. I have even stopped collecting mushrooms because I knew I wouldn't ever need them. There are no restore potions anymore but stat and augmentation potions also restore your stats and they are everywhere. Both systems old and new one are flawed with not enough punishment to the player. Drain timer is not going to solve this (Shift+R)

[Malak Darkhunter]

You could just have all drained stats recover whenever you return to town. That would eliminate the need for "scumming". There should also be a reasonable way to do it without returning, of course. The old model worked fine for that, you could find enough restore potions just lying around. It shouldn't become harder than that.

That would make things too easy, and stat drain attacks almost a waste of time
as well as having "too many" stat potions lying around.

I Like the idea of stat draining being on a timer..It effects you for lets say 1000 turns and then it goes away..the player is healed.
you have a few choices in this matter...you could wait it out, or you could attempt to keep slugging away on the level, or if the stat drain attack is bad enough you would have to hide out and sneak around for awhile.

of course the work around is to simply head back to town for 1000 turns yet if you do, you have to leave that vault you where trying to finish...

[eMeM]

Bring more punishment to the player, sustains would mean more with permanent stat drain. At least occasionally like nexus or chaos have additional effects. That would result in Vigor being obsolete to Augmentation, so no more scumming low levels. Maybe that effect would have to be reserved only for strong monsters to keep low level characters healthy.

[Nick]

Simple solution - all stat drain is permanent. Advantages:

• Simplifies code
• Much needed buff to Time Hounds
• All the previous arguments just go away

For bonus points, same system for XP drain.

You know it makes sense.

[eMeM]

I know that will never happen.

On the other hand we can introduce Scrolls of Restore Disenchantment. And in 5-10 years make disenchantment effect disappear from the game because it's annoying.

[Derakon]

On the other hand we can introduce Scrolls of Restore Disenchantment. And in 5-10 years make disenchantment effect disappear from the game because it's annoying.

You, uh, do remember the brief period in which the game had Scrolls of Repairing which did exactly that? They got removed in the next version because the community went "Wait, no, this is dumb."

[Malak Darkhunter]

Simple solution - all stat drain is permanent. Advantages:

• Simplifies code
• Much needed buff to Time Hounds
• All the previous arguments just go away

For bonus points, same system for XP drain.

You know it makes sense.

Sounds good to me Nick, you have my vote on that one.

[takkaria]

Simple solution - all stat drain is permanent. Advantages:

• Simplifies code
• Much needed buff to Time Hounds
• All the previous arguments just go away

For bonus points, same system for XP drain.

You know it makes sense.

I like it. But what about low-level characters? Maybe stat potions would have to start appearing from the off to counter it. Maybe the first attack on a stat would be temporary, but if it got drained again in the next few hundred turns then that point of draining would be permanent.

[Derakon]

If you want a serious suggestion for what to do with stat drains, I'll put my suggestion out there again: make drains severe, stacking, and limited in duration. So when you get stung by a Giant Red Scorpion, you don't lose 1 point of STR until it gets restored or you level up; instead you lose 5 points for 20 turns (or whatever). This has the following advantages:

* Drainers are still dangerous. In fact, if anything they're even more dangerous in the immediate sense because they make your character much weaker in the current fight.
* No getting stuck with a "useless" character; if you aren't killed in the immediate fight, then you'll be back to fighting trim in a short time. Thus, no need to scum for restoratives.
* Draining attacks can be given to more monsters / monsters with draining attacks can be made more threatening.
* Mushrooms of Vigor can be removed as they are now "junk".