[feature request] spell casting fatigue / gem use

[msew]

It would be really nice to have the following:

When you script a mage to cast spells you can see what the curent amount of fatigue he will accrue based on the number of gems he uses (in addition to the spell cost).

so

You have your uber death mage casting some Death 7 spell with a base cost of 700 fatigue.

Then there is a nice chart that shows gems mapped to the fatigue value the mage will get.


Such as:

SpellDeathSpell

gems to reduce    -  fatigue 

fatigue 

0                     800

1                     400

2                     266

3                     200

4                     160

5                     133

6       base spell level not high enough to spend this many

7       base spell level not high enough to spend this many

8       base spell level not high enough to spend this many

9       base spell level not high enough to spend this many

etc

etc

Then you can CHOOSE to tell you mage how many gems you want him to spend. (i.e. I gave my mage 25 gems. I don't want him to use the vast majority on the first spell. I want him to use 3 only. And save the rest for later spells.)



Taking it to the next step, the current scripting UI would be modified to have a UI such as:

spell to cast -- gems for fatigue -- total accrued fatigue

                  reduction

so:







spell to cast -- gems for fatigue -- total accrued fatigue

                  reduction

spellA                2                33

spellA                2                66

spellB                10               189

(NOTE the total accrued fatigue takes into account your spell ecuberance)

NOTE: this is of course an estimaged accrued fatigue. As the enemy could cast fatigue++ spells on you or a myriad of other things)



With both of these enhancements, it would be A LOT easier to see if your path 5 mage has a chance of casting that level 5 spell with 700 fatigue. And more importantly how many can he cast and can he interleve other spells between the casts or not? etc



~msew

[DLC1]

they think its too much micromanagment

[Boron]

DLC1 said:
they think its too much micromanagment

who is they ? illwinter ?

msew your suggestion looks great

[Ironhawk]

Yeah this is way too much micro. If you want a fuller argument just look up the threads about increasing the size of the scriptable spell list.

There is simply a point at which you have to accept the loss of control in exchange for the lack of micro managment gains.

[Sheap]

There is a series of rules which are known imprecisely but which govern gem usage.

1) If the mage currently has less than 75 fatigue, he will use as many gems as necessary to keep his fatigue below 75.

2) Similar rules at 100 fatigue, and 200 fatigue. But of course if the mage cannot cast the spell and keep himself below 200 fatigue, he will do something else.

3) I don't think encumbrance is included in the calculation, so sometimes the mage will use just enough gems to keep himself at 105 fatigue. This has gotten me killed before

[msew]

>Yeah this is way too much micro. If you want a fuller argument just look up the threads about increasing the size of the scriptable spell list.


How do you figure out what spells your guys are able to cast?

When you start casting the fatgiue 300+ spells you need to use gems to reduce fatigue. How many gems to use?

Oh wait now you are casting a number of spells before the mega spell. How much fatigue do you have? Did you bring the right amount of gems and correct type?

Or shoot! the mage just ate all of the gems to cast the spells before the mega spell.

Ughh battle lost.


If you are just merrily clicking on the spells to be cast and giving your dude 30 gems and hoping for the best, well umm yeah that is just silly.

More than likely you are sitting there guestimating on how much fatigue he will have after casting the big spells. And saying: okie I might as well give him N gems. No wait I will give him N+3 gems. Nah n+5 gems! that will do it.


And if you are not guessing then you are enjoying the tedious calculations either on calculator or in your favorite spreadsheet program.

Utilizing the EASY to use UI list above is a billion times easier than guessing or spreadsheet hell.


Let's check out the differences:


CURRENT:

A) guessing
-just pick spells and dump an assload of gems on the mage

B) off line computation
-mark down your mage's data so you know what paths he has and what his spell encumberance is
-Choose a spell from the list
-mark down that spell's various info in your spreadsheet / notepage (this includes, path requirement, number of gems to cast it, fatigue cost)
-calculate your expected fatigue after casting this spell (hoping the mage uses the correct number of gems and doesn't eat them like M&Ms)
-mark down how many gems AND of what type to give to the mage (you can't give the gems to the mage right now, have to give them after the fact)
-repeat this proces up to 5 times for each spell you are casting

c) Proposed way
-pick the spell you want
-look at the chart already calculated with fatigue cost and click which one you want
-repeat this proces up to 5 times for each spell you are casting (EACH time being able to see the over all fatigue cost you have accrued)

NOTE: the proposed way could easily give you the number of gems you will need at the end also. So you look at the summary of fatigue and will say: gems required: 3 earth, 10 astral, 14 death.


I see a TON less micro in C than B. And if you are doing method A well good luck to you as you are going to need it.



~msew

[Agrajag]

The MM part is probably for all the guys who don't care too much, or already know exactly how many gems they want.
Lets say you intend to use only none-gem-costing spells, and with a mage with high magic in the required path (just as an example, a pretender with 10 in one path), would you really like to increase the amount of buttons you have to push tediously by 50%?
I guess if you had the option to turn of the gem thingy you suggested it wouldn't create any extra MM...

[alexti]

In most cases, you know what the spells you request cost and how many gems to give. In a few cases, when that's not true, you need to spend half a day thinking what you're going to cast, so extra minute to calculate required gems won't make much difference. And anyway, you're probably going to give your mage few extra gems to handle unexpected. You don't want to lose a major battle just because your main spellcaster got hit by something fatigue increasing.

[Cainehill]

Sounds like a massive PITA for the programmers, for something that only some people would find to be much of an improvement.

Either because they can mentally figure out the spell fatigue costs, or because they calculate them out, and don't think that mentally lazy players should get the same benefit as them.

Given that Illwinter won't implement much easier, more universally salubrious UI improvements, don't count on this one.

[Stormbinder]

Sheap said:
There is a series of rules which are known imprecisely but which govern gem usage.

1) If the mage currently has less than 75 fatigue, he will use as many gems as necessary to keep his fatigue below 75.

2) Similar rules at 100 fatigue, and 200 fatigue. But of course if the mage cannot cast the spell and keep himself below 200 fatigue, he will do something else.

3) I don't think encumbrance is included in the calculation, so sometimes the mage will use just enough gems to keep himself at 105 fatigue. This has gotten me killed before

Actually this is not entirely correct. I've did some experiments with gem usage a months or two ago after hearing of these 75/100/200 limits, and I found out that your mages are quite happy to waste your gems, even when casting spell without gems would *not* put you over 75 fatique.


Another rule about gem usage is that mage can not spend more gems his magic school level, *including* gem cost of the spell. Keep in mind that I am not 100% certain about this one though, but experiments seem to confirm it.