This came up in the fixed items thread, and I think it's an important discussion to have. The current story of the game is: No regen in act 1 (birthday gift aside). No regen in act 2, unless you're very lucky or very patient. Then you get Jariel and you suddenly have like 10 SPR on everyone.



This means you go from a playstyle that is to some degree conservative (make your mana last for all the battles you plan to do) and to some degree expensive (pay to replenish it) to one that is neither. Cast whatever spell you think is right for the situation. Is this a good transition? If yes, there should be some (easily available) SPR in act 2 to make it a smooth transition. Furthermore, SPR should become more and more available through acts 3 and 4 so that you don't have to use Jariel, and if you do use him you can actually pick some other buff-song than Vigorous Sonata. If no, then Vigorous Sonata needs a pretty hard nerf (something like static 2 per turn).



My opinion on this: I enjoy the game more with "infinite" mana than with the act 1 situation. It's not ideal, but I don't think Jack is up for rebalancing it so that SPR doesn't allow us to outgrow mana problems altogether. Frankly I'm not sure how I would suggest he do it even. I would definitely want to see some SPR introduced in act 2 (without casino), and then more and more available through acts 3 and 4. But I would want it to be a sizable payoff. I would want SPR to feel really expensive, perhaps not so much in terms of gold as in terms of "item budget": If an item has high SPR, that's pretty much all it has. You want a 5 SPR necklace? Okay, but there's also this 15 magic 5 speed necklace... just saying.



So let's fire this discussion up, and with one request. I usually find myself discussing with renke, fabulaparva and Jack, with Anima and Troyen sometimes interjecting some choice words. I don't know if it's obvious but I'm not really trying to design "the ideal game for yayswords", still when more casual players don't speak up I have to figure out what might be good for them. Surely even the people playing mostly for plot have an opinion on the mana situation, so let's hear it.

Well, a solution could be simple: Jariel Vigorous Sonata could replenish 5% or 5SP each turn, up to 15-20% of target's total SP. This could already balance the battles a bit ?

Could do the same with the HP regen too.

Clarify. Do you mean that if I have 200 max mana, it doesn't work unless I'm below 40 mana, or do you mean that it will replenish 40 mana for me and then stop working until the fight is over? The former is not much of a restriction I'm afraid. Sure I will always be on "low" mana but that doesn't matter if I can always afford my spells through the regen anyway.

The former, but this way you can't spam the special attack. Example:

Krimm's Wreak Havoc: cost 40. You use it and have 10 SP left. Even with the Sonata running, assuming I put a fixed 5SP/turn regen, you need 5 SP x 6 turns before your SP are back to 40SP and you can use it again. So you would be either forced to use other SP regen skills (wasting turns) or potions (wasting money) ?

Hmm. I guess that doesn't sound so bad. VS would be some measure to take to scratch and claw with a little mana. I assume you would make SPR gear generally unavailable together with this?

This skill will result in many support requests "fscking Sonata doesn't works! it gave only one char lousy 3 SP back!" -> skills with conditions based on some percentage of some value are counterintuitive, I don't have a simple way to discern if my party members have 20 % mana or 40 % mana (same applies for HP and both pools on the enemy side).



Something like "+5SPR up to 20% mana max, above +3SPR" would give a better user experience (the skill works all the time, but under special conditions it simply is more effective).



About SPR and the development between Act 1 (nada) and Jariel (I'm drowning in SPR) in general:

- I outlined SP regen potions http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=3423&start=30#p27580

- Jariel's Sonata could redesigned as +200% SPR (only a booster for already existing regen items/skills), but then we need guaranteed SPR for everyone (8 fixed +2SPR rings? every char comes with built-in SPR +1? the sonata gives not only <existing SPR>*n but also a small fixed mana regen?)

- I outlined SP regen potions http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=3423&start=30#p27580

I was going to comment on that...



I checked the stores ingame, didn't find any mana potions. Now I did. Now I can say "that's just a slow mana potion"

Something like "+5SPR up to 20% mana max, above +3SPR" would give a better user experience (the skill works all the time, but under special conditions it simply is more effective).

Still allows regen dancing though. But Energize already does that, so no matter what we do with VS, it's still possible to regen dance, it's just a matter of patience.

I like the progressive decrease idea. Something like 5SP initially and then gradually goes down as the percentage of SP/HP is filled. Seems the simplest solution, also to balance. Changing the HP/SPregen multiplier could have issues later in the game, while with this system I know exactly the impact of his songs. Will try that

Still allows regen dancing though. But Energize already does that, so no matter what we do with VS, it's still possible to regen dance, it's just a matter of patience.

With the new enemy AI, I don't know if you'll have much time to dance around

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOyF4hR5GoE, if the engine allows it it will be used - and I think it's legit. My point is usability, and though you're probably able to write down mana pool sizes and current amount of your last save game without even thinking, I am way too lazy for that. Estimating the percentage is even a pita if I look at the char details in combat and see "SP max 170, SP current 40". (yes yes, a little bit over 20 %, but categorically not a calculation I want to do while playing a cRPG.)

Hehe. Stopping my regen dancing would require rather extreme encounter design. Anyway, a little SPR from gear together with this perhaps?

mostly unrelated (and probably better for the Loren 2 skill thread) but your "extreme encounter design" got me thinking - would it be possible to design skills working like a dead man's switch? I think of (no idea why ^^) "Otherwordly Drain" (Character binds own soul to the battle field, when K.O. the delayed curse lowers SP Regen of all enemies by 100 % for 8 turns.).

I will nerf down both the SP / HP regen songs in any case, since otherwise are really too powerful, especially the SP one. So take that in consideration when doing the act2 items

mostly unrelated (and probably better for the Loren 2 skill thread) but your "extreme encounter design" got me thinking - would it be possible to design skills working like a dead man's switch? I think of (no idea why ^^) "Otherwordly Drain" (Character binds own soul to the battle field, when K.O. the delayed curse lowers SP Regen of all enemies by 100 % for 8 turns.).

Those things could be possible even in SOTW though a bit of a hack again for Loren 2 yes, I don't think there should be problems. If I remember correctly, Anima is designing it in a way that there are several "events", like "on hit", "after hit", "after dead" etc so much more flexible than current system.

That is, unless I was drunk when I read the email where he was talking about that because right now I can't find it anymore

Why nerf the HP regen song? All other heals are % based anyway. There seems to be a lot of thinking that everything that is a problem with SPR is also a problem with HPR. But I don't really care for HPR. I certainly don't think HPR items should be as expensive as SPR. If you have 25 SPR, you have virtually infinite mana. If you have 25 HPR, you're certainly not virtually immortal.



Also renke, totally not what I had in mind, but I guess it could work. After Jack has disabled the curse from being dispelled anyway

OK will nerf only the SP for now, then we'll see during act3 testing. Those Nagas (the screenshot I posted) are tough no matter what (I managed to win but was hard when they heal and speed buff so well!).

With the new enemy AI, I don't know if you'll have much time to dance around

I'll dance around them once they are dead.



Admittedly, I have no idea how many other players (since I assume majority don't post here) go through acts 1 & 2 like I do..that is with minimal or no SPR during battles apart from what is given by skills and potions. So, if/when Jariel's SPR-jingle will be nerfed, I'm not engulfed by sadness. If I never had the toy to begin with I won't cry for losing it..... I use him way more for his Static Lullaby, anyway.



Yeah, since we have Jariel only for one or two fights, it's impossible to say now how overwhelming/underwhelming his skills are going to be in Act 3. Since the HPR-skill is currently %-based, I assume that it's OP for players with massive HP-pools but not for others.

Since the HPR-skill is currently %-based, I assume that it's OP for players with massive HP-pools but not for others.

I'm getting my entire party to 40 con and I'm not really excited about it, though I haven't tried it, I guess it could be funny for fast characters. In fact, imagine a ranger spamming Taunt with its insanely low delay. He'd get those ticks while building aggro - but also lose the buff really fast.



The thing is that Jariel's abilities have rather big delay - he has nothing with less than 10, and he has abilities with as much as 20 - so I'm not really inclined to keep swapping his songs.

Taunt? The trick in Loren was just to swap places. Helped get rid of stagger fast too.

I wonder if swapping places had same delay as a melee attack, what people would do?

Yes well, position swap has gained 1 delay since and there were no 2 delay actions in Loren IIRC. Plus the Taunt spam actually accomplishes something (Guard is another 2 delay action though). Another important thing to note is that position swap causes 4 delay for both you and your partner, so it's effectively an 8 delay action. You can try it in a pretty funny way: At the start of a fight (with an act 2 sized party), have your first character to act swap positions with your second fastest. And then every character after that swaps with Mr. second fastest, repeat until you've lost. I assure you Mr. second fastest will not get to act once.



Swapping does not need more delay Jack it takes me 24 delay total to recover from a Slam ("mass push") :D