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Re: CF: stat raising potions



On Aug 14, 10:09pm, Florian Beck wrote:
> Subject: Re: CF: stat raising potions
> Brian Thomas wrote:
> >
> >
> > 	Hmm. Did the value of these change in 0.92.5? I find
> > 	that my 18 cha wizard can now buy them for around 200-300
> > 	platinum! THis is a HUGE change in playbalance. I would
> > 	vote for changing this back to the old levels.
> >
> > 					-b.t.
>
> My monk (10 cha) needs 1700-1800 platinum (1400-1500 with bargaining).
> My mage (18 cha) needs 1300-1400 platinum (700-800 with bargaining).
> (That is, with power and consitution potions.)
>
> BTW, I'm quite new in this (since 92.4) - and I don't understand
> why the stats are rised by potions. What is gained by that feature?

 It allows some form of stat recovery if you lose stats.  Typical way you can
lose stats if you play with NOT_PERMADEATH, and die a few times

>
> It has, IMHO, some drawbacks:
>
> 1) It's quite impossible to raise stats before you reach level 10.
>    Well, that's probably ok, but:

 This is true, but is a cost issue.  If you can spend 1000 pp, do you want to
spend it on a potion, or better spells, rods, etc.

> 2) The initial stats are very high (or the maximum stats are too
>    low). There are not many stat gains and they take place around level
>    15 (depends on equipment and class) once a character is strong enough
>    for certain quests, where he gets money quickly. I very much enjoy
>    making my character better and better; but it takes place in a very
>    short time in the middle of the game.

 I don't think the problem is as much max stats aren't high enough (General
speaking, max stats for any class average 20, max average stats for a starting
character is 15.  This is 35 stats potions that are needed (7 differents stats
to raise.)

 Arguable, the problem is more being able to get a lot of money easily.  Once
you can take on some monsters relatively safely, you instantly get a lot of
money.

> 3) At the moment, raising stats only depends on how much money you have.

 So do lots of other things.  Unless potions are made exceedling rare, this
will probably always be the case.

> 4) Potions have a certrain price. Indeed, they become cheaper, when
>    a character improves his charisma. IMO, a 20->21 improvement
>    should be MUCH more difficult than a 15->16 improvement.

 This could make some sense, but at the same point, most classes max out at
around 20.  If you make it more difficult (chance of it working is based on
stat), all it really does is increase the money needed. (so it now might take
10 potions to get it to work instead of 1).  That just stretches thigns out
some.

 The other problem with such a system is that it makes average characters more
likely (ie, it would then be easier to get all stats to 15 than it might be to
get your primary stat to 22).  I don't know if this is a good thing.

>
> Why isn't stat gaining handled by the experience catagories?
> Each category is associated with one (or two) stats. Why not rise
> the associated stat when the character gains one level of the
> experience category? (with chance==10%)

 Some of this is historical.  Experience categories didn't show up until around
0.92.0 or (potions have been around long before that.)

 The disadvantage of raising stats in experience categories is that the stats
are used to determine how much exp you gain in that category.  So raising a
stat sort of makes a situation where the rich get richer, but the poor can' do
much.  So some outside mechanism is needed to gain stats.

>
> It's MUCH more plausibe that potions raise stats only temporarily.
> Permanently raising potions still could be (VERY rare) quest items.
>

 I should point out that it is fairly easy for a site administrator to change
this behavior - he could remove most of the potions from the potion
treasurelist and instead put them in one of the artifact treasure lists (or
change the cost in the archetypes, or whatever else.)

 There are already spells that temporarily raise stats.


-- 
 --Mark