Stamina

[Once]

Can you guys log onto my test port ( pievolution.org 6010 ) and start playing around with skills and spells and looking at the proposed stamina costs.

We're assuming a base of 100 stamina with a regen rate of between 2 and 10 stamina per second. Every skill and spell in the game has been associated with a stamina value. The idea is stamina will have a bigger role in overall activities (and will also affect which skills mobs can use as well).

[Prometheus]

We need to be careful not to alienate players with changing things around too much. I could see making stamina a bigger factor in the next version of 4d. Not sure how I feel on increasing stamina cost with what we have know. But as long as input is used wisely.......

I don't think the players mind minor changes but to throw in stamina when most players have tons of mana / movement. What is the point of having mana / movement. Why not just go the route Virisin suggested and make one pool for Mana and maybe another pool for movement / stamina for next version of 4d?

Prometheus

[Once]

I don't think there is a next version of 4d. I'm not intending to do a pwipe or a new codebase. I've tried those before multiple times with muds that had playerbases and it just doesn't work out.  No, I think the way forward is an evolution of what we currently have. Stamina adds a lot of tactical techniques, and lets us play around with balance and new skills.

With stamina as a metric for balance for instance we can make focusing on one set of tier 4s have value, but also there being a reason to go with lower stamina usage skills across a broader range of tier 2s and 3s. Currently moves just benefit the high level player and stamina and moves together are just an inconvenience for lower levels. There's no tactics to using it, there's no tactical advantage. It's just an impediment. We need every part of this game to have a point, a solidified defining goal that it's following. That's what you'll see in these updates moving forward.

[Molly]

I don't think there is a next version of 4d. I'm not intending to do a pwipe or a new codebase. I've tried those before multiple times with muds that had playerbases and it just doesn't work out.  No, I think the way forward is an evolution of what we currently have.

I have to agree with Once on this.

A step by step development would be the best way to go. That way the evolution itself would be interesting, and we wouldn't have to wait an indefinite time for one big change that might never happen.

So should I add Stamina to the priority list?

[Virisin]

I think you should definitely add something to do with stamina/movement/transition to action points which can equally measure and balance actions

[Once]

Stamina  will be an action points system. It serves no other purpose contrary to moves otherwise.

[Once]

So the general system will be 100 stamina/action points, give or take some bonuses. Let's say a realistic cap is 200 stamina and that's with a lot of questing, PK rewards, remorts, etc.

From there, there's a regen rate of between 2 and 10 stamina per second depending on the bonuses and the focus you've taken. I imagine with remorts and PK rewards you can opt to choose between faster stamina regen, or more stamina points. Faster regen is great for more consistent speed, but having 200 stamina means you can get off 4 rounds of something in rapid succession that before you'd have been lucky to get 2.


In terms of stamina cost, I'm currently going with a relatively simple system which I think we're going to want to keep. The formula is as simple as skill level * skill tier / 4 + 1.  So a level 50 tier 4 skill is 50 stamina. A level 8 tier 1 spell is 2 stamina. We may need to adjust this a little, but I think generally speak it makes sense for the stamina formula to be skill level and skill tier based and then for skills/spells where the stamina cost is lesser or greater than the value of the skill/spell in all honesty we probably have the wrong tier/level to it.



For this particular system I've drawn out a scenario below:


Once begins a fight with the Minotaur. [100 Stamina]
Once cleaves the Minotaur. [-12 S] [88 Stamina]
Once turns active dodging on. [-8 S] [80 Stamina]
Once dodges the Minotaur's pierce. [-2 S] [78 Stamina]
Once cleaves the Minotaur. [-12 S] [66 Stamina]



As I look at the example I start to see that maybe our current formula is a little weak at a 100 stamina base. I'll probably revise that. I also start to see that there's a lack of skills that currently could take advantage of stamina. This could be where new skills and some of the "reshuffling" come in to play.

I think one usage of stamina could also be for maintaining "passive" skills and deciding which ones are on and off. The choice between going full evasive or just taking the damage should depend on the situation. Evasion or shield blocking takes up some amount of effort. I can see the same concept being applied to certain spells (although not all).


Anyway, that's the brain dump on this so far. I think a better formula currently may be skill level * skill tier / 2 + 1

In that situation we'd have Cleave costing 24 stamina per usage or basically 4 cleaves in a row followed by some time to regen. That seems a little bit more logical given that when I first wrote the formula I was assuming we had some tier 4 level 50 master skills that people were using. We should also be thinking about master skills like that that we can bring in.

[Prometheus]

Sort of makes sense to me.

But that brings up the question of what do we do with our mess of code we have now. Are we going to look at compressing it somewhat or just live with the mess we have now?

I will be honest I'm still not 100 percent on board with the stamina thing but I will wait and see how it pans out and to wait for some of the other active 4d players to input since I know others might have an objection as well. (Stupid weird keyboard making me mistype )

Prometheus

[Virisin]

I like this if it can be implemented well, which I imagine it can with good testing. I'll try get on with Jaros at some stage to help you with this.

[Jaros]

The cost formula according to skill level/tier is a good idea. Next most important thing would be something similar for damage / effect duration. Will be on to test at some point.