Make potentials untrainable or trainable only limited times per game - ADOM & Ultimate ADOM Forums

11-23-2015 06:58 PM

JellySlayer JellySlayer is offline

Ancient Member

I like this idea in general and have made similar recommendations in the past.

My only concern is really this part:

Of course that would require attentive potential revising: no more potentials of 11 or like that. Basically new potentials should provide a room for improvement during the whole game so that speedrunning characters wouldn't hit them but characters visiting every location and doing ultras would have to play hitting these potentials at least part of the game.

If you make potentials very high to allow hard limitations on endgame characters, then you reintroduce the issue that herbs can essentially wipe out all of the early game differences between characters. I think that distinguishing stats at lower values is more of a consideration than at high values--my experience is that stats at high values are not so different from stats at astronomically high values--St of 30 is not so different from St of 60, but is very different from St of 15 or 20. Wi is maybe the exception because of the ball spell thing.

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11-23-2015 07:04 PM

wheals

Junior Member

I like things as they are now; potentials are as far as you can get with training, 99 is as far as you can get with magic or boosts. It's simple and consistent.

At the same time, I admit it is annoying that you don't want to use a potion of strength (say) at low levels since you first want to raise your strength to potential by burden training. One alternative solution would be to scrap potentials altogether, and instead add "training points" per stat: you start with however many (determined by race and RNG) and whenever you gain a point in a stat by training, it uses up one. Potions of gain potential could give you training points instead.

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11-23-2015 07:29 PM

Harwin

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by JellySlayer

If you make potentials very high to allow hard limitations on endgame characters, then you reintroduce the issue that herbs can essentially wipe out all of the early game differences between characters. I think that distinguishing stats at lower values is more of a consideration than at high values--my experience is that stats at high values are not so different from stats at astronomically high values--St of 30 is not so different from St of 60, but is very different from St of 15 or 20. Wi is maybe the exception because of the ball spell thing.

I'll second this concern. Right now, you can exceed potentials, sure, but the non-scummers don't do *that* much of it. If I don't see variations in stats in the end game, it's because many of my stats haven't hit their (Very high) potentials, not because my potentials were too high.

Edit: And if I *did* start with 11 potential toughness and couldn't raise that, then I'd never have been able to gain a point of toughness at all, which feels bad in an RPG. I'd like to progress somewhat.

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11-23-2015 07:35 PM

ixi

Junior Member

Originally Posted by JellySlayer

If you make potentials very high to allow hard limitations on endgame characters, then you reintroduce the issue that herbs can essentially wipe out all of the early game differences between characters. I think that distinguishing stats at lower values is more of a consideration than at high values--my experience is that stats at high values are not so different from stats at astronomically high values--St of 30 is not so different from St of 60, but is very different from St of 15 or 20. Wi is maybe the exception because of the ball spell thing.

Thanks for your support. I totally agree on low potentials but not sure if community would. Could you probably try suggesting potentials per several races here (and probably several classes / starsigns if they should be taken into account)? If suggestion would be liked I'd add a spoiler with suggested potentials per race.

By the way, shouldn't Harwin's suggestion and Blank4u47's suggestion address herbs issue? I got a feeling like with them amount trained by herbs and caps should be different depending on race / potential which would keep the difference.

Originally Posted by wheals

99 is as far as you can get with magic or boosts.

Thanks for feedback wheals. Unfortunately that's the point I want to address - make this "as far as you can get with magic" different and same-fixed per character depending on race, class and starting bonuses rather than just 99.

Originally Posted by wheals

potentials are as far as you can get with training.

Would you agree on having two potentials - one for training and one hard limit for magic (not for boosts?). I have an odd feeling about it because of two reasons. First is complexity, having one potential is simpler than two (currently we already have wto mentioned by you - potential and 99). Second reason described below.

Originally Posted by wheals

At the same time, I admit it is annoying that you don't want to use a potion of strength (say) at low levels since you first want to raise your strength to potential by burden training. One alternative solution would be to scrap potentials altogether, and instead add "training points" per stat: you start with however many (determined by race and RNG) and whenever you gain a point in a stat by training, it uses up one. Potions of gain potential could give you training points instead.

Using magic is simpler than training. If you could increase your strength in real life with magic would you bother with natural training? Exactly the same applies to ADOM. Unfortunately I don't see and easy fix but removing potentials for natural training would nerf magic training a bit and buff natural training a bit in the same time too. You still might want to use potion of strength as late as possible but since limits on natural and magic training are the same keeping potions isn't that critical.

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11-23-2015 07:41 PM

ixi

Junior Member

Originally Posted by Harwin

If I don't see variations in stats in the end game, it's because many of my stats haven't hit their (Very high) potentials

Could you probably reveal more on this? Why characters become the same without any interaction due to potentials? I have guess but hearing from you would be better...

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11-23-2015 07:55 PM

ixi

Junior Member

Originally Posted by JellySlayer

If you make potentials very high to allow hard limitations on endgame characters, then you reintroduce the issue that herbs can essentially wipe out all of the early game differences between characters.

You're touching ADOM in the one place and it breaks in another. There are so-called herb-training potentials equal for all races. Since they're higher than racial potentials there is almost no issues.

Do you have any idea how to overcome this? For example get rid of any other training caps completely or make them dependent on racial potentials rather than fixed.

E.g. if Moss of Mareilon was able to train dexterity up to, say 40-60% of dexterity potential?

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11-23-2015 07:56 PM

Harwin

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by ixi

Could you probably reveal more on this? Why characters become the same without any interaction due to potentials? I have guess but hearing from you would be better...

Because STR from carrying + corpses tends to end up around 24/25. Herbs cap out at 24/25. So that covers 4 stats (St/Dx/To/Wi). It doesn't cover Mana, which admittedly does continue to rise somewhat. Sometimes my character has a 20 toughness potential so he caps out 5 lower than the guy with 25, but having a 50 toughness potential wouldn't make a lick of difference. Learning is actually pretty tough to raise - I'm at 30/54 right now - I'm not getting those 24 points. Also - if I drink PoGAs at this point, all my stats go up - some will exceed their potentials (bumping them up), but my learning would just be 31/54 - the potential still not mattering. I could find a potion of potential learning and woo, 31/57, that's not going to change anything.

Originally Posted by ixi

By the way, shouldn't Harwin's suggestion and Blank4u47's suggestion address herbs issue? I got a feeling like with them amount trained by herbs and caps should be different depending on race / potential which would keep the difference.

I didn't suggest different hard caps on herbs/race. All my suggestions were about soft caps. One possibility is instead of X herbs to raise toughness by 1 point, it takes as little as X/2 if you're far from potential and 4X if you're right up against it. But I'm not sure how much different that *really* makes - you could just scum even more herbs.

My suggestion was mostly aimed at the non-scummy people. If you intend to raise millions to train with Garth, well there's only so much it's worth preventing that. But if you're just trying to play the game and eat stat boosting corpses when you find them, having some better/worse luck depending on your potentials can make a difference.

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11-23-2015 08:04 PM

ixi

Junior Member

@Harwin, JellySlayer thanks for explanation, I got the problem. I wasn't experiencing it for a while hence I forgot about how it was.
I dropped a comment at the bottom of the OP to address it. Should that work?

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11-23-2015 08:36 PM

Harwin

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by ixi

@Harwin, JellySlayer thanks for explanation, I got the problem. I wasn't experiencing it for a while hence I forgot about how it was.
I dropped a comment at the bottom of the OP to address it. Should that work?

Suppose you change to the behavior you suggest, and you decide nobody should have potential 11 toughness, so you bump it up to 25, but you say Herbs only do 50%, so herbs get them to around 12, 13.

Questions:
1) That means herbs will rarely be useful. I'm not sure I would have earned any Willpower increases with herbs with my character. I'm fine with herbs not being OP, but they should be useful.
2) How *do* you envision getting your stat the rest of the way from 13->25, assuming you want to? What's the gameplay you want people to do to do that?

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11-23-2015 08:58 PM

hapro

Senior Member

This is different but I don't see how it's better. Personally I don't find potentials a hassle, it's just how the game work. If you want to differentiate characters more, I think things like Barbarian's spell penalty is good implementation of that (which effectively works like a learning cap of ~5, but doesn't prohibit you from gaining additional skill points per level).

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11-23-2015 09:01 PM

ixi

Junior Member

Originally Posted by Harwin

Suppose you change to the behavior you suggest, and you decide nobody should have potential 11 toughness, so you bump it up to 25, but you say Herbs only do 50%, so herbs get them to around 12, 13.

Questions:
1) That means herbs will rarely be useful. I'm not sure I would have earned any Willpower increases with herbs with my character. I'm fine with herbs not being OP, but they should be useful.
2) How *do* you envision getting your stat the rest of the way from 13->25, assuming you want to? What's the gameplay you want people to do to do that?

Numbers are just an examples yet. I didn't thought what would be real ones - it's not a thing that could be decided in a couple of minutes and appreciate any help of determining them.

Trying to bring real example:
Dwarven monk. Starts at 16 Strength. Say, potential is 50. Let's assume the following burden caps: 25%, 30%, 40%, 60%.

He's already quite strong to be trained by burdened and strained. He can't gain strength from kicking doors. But he can train up to 20 by being strained! and up to 30 by being overburdened. If there is a cap for corpses lets he can train strength up to, say 80% (40) eating ettins and other stuff. The rest 10 points he can get only drinking potions and kikcking stairs (if there is a limit for such unsafe action I'd remove it). But if at St 40 he drinks a potion of St potential and gets it 53, he would be able to get his strength to 42 eating corpses.

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11-23-2015 09:32 PM

Harwin

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by ixi

Numbers are just an examples yet. I didn't thought what would be real ones - it's not a thing that could be decided in a couple of minutes and appreciate any help of determining them.

Trying to bring real example:
Dwarven monk. Starts at 16 Strength. Say, potential is 50. Let's assume the following burden caps: 25%, 30%, 40%, 60%.

He's already quite strong to be trained by burdened and strained. He can't gain strength from kicking doors. But he can train up to 20 by being strained! and up to 30 by being overburdened. If there is a cap for corpses lets he can train strength up to, say 80% (40) eating ettins and other stuff. The rest 10 points he can get only drinking potions and kikcking stairs (if there is a limit for such unsafe action I'd remove it). But if at St 40 he drinks a potion of St potential and gets it 53, he would be able to get his strength to 42 eating corpses.

That would certainly differentiate race/class combos at the end, if corpses could get me to 40. I think you might end up having to rebalance other things - I think important (to your class) stats would actually be higher with your change at endgame than current ADOM, but it would change it. I do worry it's a pretty significant change everywhere to how things work currently. I like the principle of differentiating race/class more at endgame, but this is pretty big.

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11-23-2015 10:13 PM

JellySlayer JellySlayer is offline

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by ixi

You're touching ADOM in the one place and it breaks in another. There are so-called herb-training potentials equal for all races. Since they're higher than racial potentials there is almost no issues.

Do you have any idea how to overcome this? For example get rid of any other training caps completely or make them dependent on racial potentials rather than fixed.

E.g. if Moss of Mareilon was able to train dexterity up to, say 40-60% of dexterity potential?

Back when we discussed making potentials hard caps, my original thought was to simply drop the training caps on herbs and whatnot, but a lot of people felt that this was equally problematic, as, say, a troll could easily have a St/To potential of 50, and being able to train that much, aside from encouraging pretty excessive levels of scumming, would be pretty problematic from a balance point of view.

I... don't really have a good answer for this. If I were designing the game, I'd probably go with very hard caps--potentials can only be broken by a potion of potential stat, by corruption or by magical gear, and other potions and corpses simply do nothing if you're at your cap. Then I'd probably make potions of boost stat more common, more powerful, and last much longer, and maybe buff some other stat boosting gear, and leave it at that. But I have never had any particular ambition to try to max out my stats, and I know that there's a number of people in the community who are quite vehemently opposed to this sort of change, and I think that there's validity to those viewpoints, even if that's not how I personally play the game. I don't have anything against the game allowing you to become godly powerful, I'd just rather that 1) it required skill and difficulty, not excessive grinding, and 2) that the game did not require you to do so to finish fairly (barring maybe a few challenge areas).

I think you may have the right idea about changing the herb cap in some way. Here's one thought: Remove the hard cap on herbs at 25, but instead implement a cap that you can't gain more than, say, 5 points of stat from a particular herb type.

[edit]As a note on the high stat thing, I'm rather hoping that the changes to the Maze in particular has removed a lot of the insane stat increases that you get there, which will also help balance this. Part of the issue about endgame characters getting more uniform stats is due to, IMHO, the significant increase in the number of guaranteed PoGA and potential-breaking corpses in the game.

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11-23-2015 11:19 PM

Al-Khwarizmi Al-Khwarizmi is offline

Ancient Member

I think all these RFE's about potentials are overcomplicating things.

I don't find I can raise stats that much, maybe because I tend not to grind. But if this is deemed to be a problem, a simple solution is to increase rarity of potions of potential as much as needed (and there is a huge range to do so, from the current frequency to the ultra-rarity of the everburning torch)! and the same for potions of stat and PoGA's. Also, optionally, nerf blessed potions of potentials and of stats.

This solution doesn't need any overarching changes to how potentials work, and has the added advantage that if someone wants to spend a wish on potions of potential, they can still use them, which introduces potentially interesting decisions when wishing.

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11-24-2015 12:28 AM

shockeroo

Senior Member

I don't think there is a significant problem with how things work now, nor is there much consensus on what the best change would be.

I think potentials can be left alone.

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11-24-2015 04:16 AM

Jokke77

Junior Member

I would really, really like to see permanent, "not-counterable" differences in races and classes.

In the past this type of suggestions have had little or no support http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=3694

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11-25-2015 10:31 AM

Blasphemous Blasphemous is offline

Ancient Member

Downvoted.
My fundamental problem with this is reduction of gameplay flexibility.
I want to be able to get all my attributes to 99 if I so choose.
I think irrespective of race and class, every character has potentially identical capacity.
Enforcing race/class differentiation through attributes and hard caps on stats/potentials is the wrong way to go, since those attributes represent general affinity for growth, not specific talents.
Instead, exclusive race/class special powers or skills would do much more to make each combination play differently, including stuff like much more pronounced positive/negative synergy (trollish wizards would gain both benefits and drawbacks - the former from class, the latter from race).
This RFE aims to cover cases of a rather narrow range of players without really providing universal benefits to the game and majority of player base.
I feel like this is another example of "I don't do this stuff so let's make it that others won't be able to do it either".
The strength of this game, I think, is that one player may elect to close the gate in 30k turns with minimal grind and virtually no stat development outside of natural level progression, while another player might choose to invest 230k turns and expects to have a return for this investment - a godly character that transcends the classic meaning of the word "hero" and maximizes all abilities/skills etc despite natural limitations.
The second playstyle is what I find so continuously attractive in ADOM and I'd hate to see that truncated as you suggest because of an ill-conceived sense of balance.

In other words, I'm all for more race/class differentiation and I'd take that to extreme but not at the cost of culling powergrinder players and imposing hard caps on attributes/potentials.

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11-25-2015 04:05 PM

ixi

Junior Member

Originally Posted by Blasphemous

My fundamental problem with this is reduction of gameplay flexibility.
I want to be able to get all my attributes to 99 if I so choose.
I think irrespective of race and class, every character has potentially identical capacity.

Are you trying to say that Mist Elf and Troll has exactly the same potential (99) in Strength and Mana? Odd...

Originally Posted by Blasphemous

The second playstyle is what I find so continuously attractive in ADOM and I'd hate to see that truncated as you suggest because of an ill-conceived sense of balance..

Appears that you do want to see you characters the same at the end game?

Ok, if you try to think another way. If I were suggesting to increase some caps beyond 99 depending on race and class? E.g. for trollish barbarian - 200 strength, for mist elven wizard 200 mana, what would you think?

If such potentials were already implemented for races and classes would you upvote and idea to make them the same 99 for all?

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11-25-2015 04:16 PM

shockeroo

Senior Member

The things you want to limit just don't happen over the course of a normal game. There's no need to limit what imaginative scammers choose to do if they want to do something they enjoy other than just beat the game in a more straightforward way.

Stop trying to police other people's fun. They're not detracting from yours.

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11-25-2015 04:35 PM

auricbond

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by shockeroo

The things you want to limit just don't happen over the course of a normal game. There's no need to limit what imaginative scammers choose to do if they want to do something they enjoy other than just beat the game in a more straightforward way.

Stop trying to police other people's fun. They're not detracting from yours.

Games are all about policing the fun. That's why they have rules, limits and boundaries for one to operate within. Without those it is a toy, not a game.

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