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Sprint points feel very arcade when you have lots of them

A topic by petercordia created Jan 11, 2024 Views: 414 Replies: 8
Viewing posts 1 to 6
(6 edits)

... which isn't necessarily bad. RF4 is very arcade as a whole, really cultivating the feeling that you're playing a game. Sprint points allowing you to basically freeze time does fit with that. The only thing about sprint points that feels unambiguously bad is how long it takes for your sprint points to recharge in the late game, if you have a pool of (say) 9SP.

But it got me thinking of a system which would feel less arcade, and more like agility gives your character muscle speed:
  * agility (mainly) increases SPregen instead of your maxSP.

To be more specific, you could do it for example like this:
  * most characters have no SPregen, only getting new SP from mushrooms
  * your SPregen increases by 0.2 per Agility point. (Or maybe 0.1, if that's more balanced.)
  * the total SP pool of most characters is 2. Or maybe 1. Rare equipment or talents could perhaps increase this.
  * the lava-fueled SP boots and other SP-granting skills could perhaps grant SP beyond the maxSP, but they're lost if they're not used that turn.

This would result in the late game in characters sprinting 1 tile every turn, or 2 tiles every other turn, which would feel more like Agility and less like time magic than the current system. It would also make the Sprint and Jump talent feel more unique.

Even if this turns out to be a bad idea, or if Justin doesn't want to take the game in this direction, I'd be curious to see what a race would do where Agility functions like this.

A stronger version of haste (which was absolutely OP in RF3 Web) that has to be used manually, hmm. It would also completely break duelist, and charge would need to change as well.

Developer

I think rather than overhauling the entire system it might work nicely to have many items that currently grant additional speed points to instead grant +1 (or -1 technically) to SP regen speed. Imagine in the extreme case that there are no, or very few items that grant raw SP and so only the most absurdly DEX specialized character could ever get more than 5-6.

I'm also somewhat uncomfortable about speed points when they are more than around 5-6 for the same points your making i.e. stopping time just feels somewhat odd once its more than 1-2T and also the crazy long time to regen them (I often forget to rest with SP heavy builds).

Is 6 turns * 9 (a large SP pool), 54 turns overall, really a crazy long time to rest? MP on mages takes far longer to restore (even 30 mp takes 90 turns). Removing extra SP from items and giving them -SP regen will both make dex even more valuable, and way, way stronger.

@Justin Wang: I can see that reworking some items would probably be a lot less work from your end ;)

I would note that in about half the games where I have +SP items, they're technically +Dex items. It's not uncommon for a Dex-based character to never find a single +SP item. Also there are games where getting 19 Dex is entirely reasonable. (If you get the gun and a Dex altar for example)

If you want to limit the SP cap characters reach more effectively, you could also have every odd Dex level grant +maxSP and every even Dex level grant +SPregen. That would also further differentiate SP from Mana.

Also as a player I prefer if +regen item have properties like +50% SP regen, rather than -1 turn SP cooldown. The scaling is different, with the former every next pip of SP regen has a smaller relative effect, whereas with the latter every next pip of regen is more important than the last. Which makes me feel like I have less options, because if I commit I have to really commit, and with the randomness of a roguelike sometimes you can't really commit.

@Random595: with mana-based builds it feels reasonable that you have to use mushrooms to get your mana back up in the late game. It doesn't quite feel the same with SP-based builds. Not sure why.

I don't think SP regen should ever be zero, as it would cause some issues. In the past, there was a problem with the power swing of having 1 compared to 0 SP, forcing everyone to get dex ASAP. This severely limited early build possibilities and was generally just no good. SP not regenerating as a base would cause the same thing to happen again.

An alternative to reduce the time stop effect would be to limit the amount of SP movement you can use to a few per turn, somewhere around 3? This would still give the movement abilities like sprint a purpose, or they could even be changed to increase the cap. That would fix the problem without messing with the balance of duelist, barb with charge, or creating issues where SP can regenerate too fast and be way too powerful. It also guarantees to remove the time stopping issues, without having to remove a lot of SP related items. If the SP items remain, players will either be able to stack SP, or if they are changed to regen, get insane SP regen.

Another important thing about allowing maxSP increasing items to remain, is they are very important for giving more flexibility to builds. If SP items didn't exist, a lot of builds would be forced into more dex. Talking about dex, if it gave increased SP regen this would limit dex based builds a lot. Getting SP back faster is just so strong, there would be few viable options apart from to fully invest in dex. Any changes really need to consider this, as the balance of RF4 attributes is pretty good right now. After your talents are unlocked, you can take most attributes and not be severely handicapping yourself, which opens up a lot of possibilities and is fun.

This would not do anything about the overall SP regen rate, but I would need to understand why you feel that SP regen out of battle feels bad first to have ideas on that. What part of resting for SP feels unreasonable? Does it use too much food, or something else? It feels perfectly natural to me that after a fight if you want resources like SP back immediately you can rest, or grab a shroom.

I love the idea of limiting ordinary SP moves to 3 each turn.

(5 edits)

I think I would hate SP spending being capped 3 per turn, because it would increase the mental load, without giving enough in return. But if I (have to) try it out, I might change my mind.

Part of the issue (with the current system) might be that mana-based characters can spend SP to pick up those mushrooms, with Dex-based characters that defeats the point. Part of the issue is that mana-based characters use up SP too, so the shrooms refill SP and mana, which feels better. Part of the problem is that I hardly ever use up all my mana, and I'm often ok going into a fight at 80% mana, but I do often use up all my SP, and I really don't want to start a fight without maxed out SP. Part of the issue (or maybe the culmination of all this) is that mushrooms don't feel effective enough at refilling SP, when they do feel effective at refilling mana. I can't rule out it playing a role that the mushrooms are purple, not blue.
As for why waiting at all feels bad, having to press 'rest' too much slows the game down. And I do like that, honestly, it makes the game feel more alive.

The 'problem' you seem to diagnose, that SP regen would be 'too strong' could be fixed simply by reducing the amount of SP regen. Maybe 0.2 / Dex / turn is too strong, then just pick a smaller number. 0.1 regen every other level would let you reach half a sprint point per turn at the cost of not getting 80 hp.

Getting max hp increases is very valuable to me, with most characters it's worth putting at least 2 points into Strength. I don't see that changing, unless the numbers associated with Dex are too high. (But I can't see the point in investing in Int with Dex- or Str focussed characters, unless it is to buy specific talents. That wouldn't change either.)

As for the equipment, look you can't guarantee getting +maxSP equipment in any particular game. I agree there should be equipment in the game which grants extra maxSP, whether that is by explicitly granting +maxSP or implicitly by granting Dex doesn't matter (to me). None of my or Justin-Wang's proposals would have removed +maxSP form all these items. I think you're making a mountain of a mole-hill here.

If I'm reading you correctly you really like the current system because getting 2 extra SP (from Dex or equipment) is (for you) extremely valuable, and at some point they stop being so valuable even for bow users, and that encourages characters to hybridise, and you want to keep that?

What part of a 3 turn cap would add much mental load? There could be a nice UI indicator to tell you how many tiles you have moved if you only move a few at a time. This also conveniently fixes strafe 2, no more time stop shenangians there as well.

Purple shrooms are far, far stronger for dex classes than mages during a fight. Mages get SP and MP back, Dex characters get cooldowns and SP. The cooldown reset is the most powerful thing purple shrooms does. It is definitely worth using SP to go pick them up mid-fight, and is something I use far more often on dex classes than mages. It is also % based, so dex classes have more range to go pick up shrooms, they will get more SP back.

You can shift click the character to rest to full, it should take less than a second?

The problem I see is any increase in SP regen will make it a lot stronger, even at the cost of reducing the max SP. SP is already one of the strongest stats, it doesn't need to get stronger.

To make it hard to get more than 5 or 6 SP would require a large reduction in the amount of max dex/SP giving items, which would affect how much classes have to invest in dex for sure. Replacing them with -SP regen items would also make SP stronger overall, something I am not a fan of.

I don't think SP stops being valuable, full dex is a viable build, but so is getting some str, or some int. In RF3 we had a big problem that dex was just the superior option, in RF4 the attributes are far more balanced. I worry that increasing the power of SP (making it regen faster) would upset this balance (maybe not for everyone, but the top players will be able to seriously abuse the game with faster SP regen).