Currency

[Ferret]

Yeah, I'm leaning more towards restricted forms of item generation for most things. Matrices will be built in and not even actual items anymore: it will just be an ability you can do at any time, provided you can afford it (it will be expensive, and modding uniques much more so!)

Still undecided on which way to go with spirit chimes. Demon deaths sometimes feel kind of like getting crippling mutations in DCSS without cure mutation, or losing important items to item destruction used to. Even I sometimes just feel like I want to quit when it happens, even if it was my fault. I think having it possible (if expensive!) to correct it with money would be a good fix.. but, all that said, I am still undecided on it. Permadeath integrity is important to me.

And yeah, when this stuff is implemented, it will generally be done so with an eye to keeping the challenge level where it is now. You'll have more control over things, but as Sandman suggested, there are ways I can even it out. (That doesn't mean I'll get it right on the first try though. But we'll get there.)

Difficulty levels is something I've actually thought about more recently. I could probably get most of the way there just by nerfing the enemy AI. But, currency adjustments is something I could consider too.

[Ferret]

Some numbers and facts, now that I'm closer to being happy with them, but they're still far from settled, especially since nobody but me has played with them yet.

Removals:
* Silver Matrix, Gold Matrix, Sage Tome, Student Tome, Mind Matrix, and Spirit Chime have all been removed from the game.
* Demons no longer earn training points.
* All demons immediately have 8 ability slots.
* Players no longer automatically learn abilities from demons.

Additions:
* Each floor of the dungeon has roughly 1000 + FL*100 currency to find, if fully explored. (FL = Floor Level, generally, this will increase by 1 per floor) Side dungeon/branch floors have a bit more.
* Copy Ability lets you copy an ability from one demon to another demon or to the player. This costs roughly 500 + 50 * XL (XL = level of the target learning the skill) The cost is increased by 150% for the player. Copy Ability gets slightly more expensive as the target fills up its ability slots. Copy Ability's cost is now paid when training demons as part of a negotiation demand as well.
* Fuse Demons lets you sacrifice one demon to modify another, in exactly the manner of Silver/Gold Matrix items of the past. This costs roughly 2000 + 200 * XL (XL = level of the target being modified), and is increased by 100% if the demon being modified is a unique.
* Restore Demon lets you revive a demon, exactly as a Spirit Chime used to do. The cost is 1500 + 150 * XL (XL = level of the target), and is increased 25% for a modified demon, and by 50% for a unique demon.

For now, I've left out the various add-ons we talked about (such as loyalty discounts, restrictions on who can train what) that were intended to counter various possible issues. This is for no greater reason than I want to see if the problems these are meant to address actually happen before I add complications designed to fix them. I definitely think they are *risks*, but what remains unclear is 1) how likely the risks are to happen, and 2) how bad it will be even if they do. I pin a fair bit of my hopes for avoiding the risks on the relatively high cost assigned to Skill Copy. Each floor gives you roughly enough currency for either 2 at level Ability Copies or 1 at level Ability Copy for the player. Even this rate, the maximum, makes ability copying much rarer than it was before, when you had tons of TP and when ability copying to the player was free if you just waited long enough.

But, on the other hand, Copy Ability is highly targeted now. You pick the ability you want, each and every time. So while you do get a much lower number of them, you use all of them exactly how you want.

Still, I can type all day, and all that matters in the end is the results, and we won't know that until this thing is out in the wild. I just wanted to let you know where things were headed.

[wizzzargh]

Neat! Expect a great many rambling, overreaching opinions based on single-points of data in my YASD thread once this is released!

[Sandman25]

When I checked Copy Ability for the first time, it cost 561 C. Then I lost my starting ally and cleared first level, now Copy Ability costs 612 C. Why? Is it caused by loss of starting ally, by my XL 2 or are you trying to encourage training as soon as possible? So far I got impression that the game is much harder: before I was trying to get as many allies as possible even as meat shield or to learn somewhat useful abilities, now it is not a good idea since I will not learn anything (too expensive) and the demons request for credits too often during negotiations.

[Ferret]

The cost scales slightly with the target's level. The idea is that it matters less what you do early game because by later game, "inflation" will have softened the impact of your early decisions. Early on, you find 1000 C per floor and spend 500 on a copy, late game, you're finding 3000 C per floor and spending 1500 on a copy. The ratio is the same, but those early copies (or early savings) have less impact, since the copy you do or don't do at 1st level is only 1/3 of a copy by the time you're near the end of the game.

Generally speaking, I don't want players to feel like they need to save all their money for "later". One of the ways I'm trying to discourage that is by this inflation: the small amounts of currency you work with early game, in the scheme of things, don't matter all that much.

Odd that demons are requesting credits too often during negotiation... at the moment, that only happens if they want to learn something, or if they are angry you killed allies. I may need to tamp down the rate at which they ask to learn things though: before it was limited by TP, but now they will ask for any ability they like if you have the C to train them.

[Sandman25]

I see, makes sense indeed.

[wizzzargh]

After 4 deaths, I agree with Sandman that the game is a little harder with Currency instead of training points. A lot of little things start to add up, especially in the early game. Since there's a lot less training possible, a lot of useful short-term trainings I liked to do early game aren't viable. No longer can you guarantee Freezing Touch or Fierce Stab for the 'unarmed' demons like Goblin and Freybug. No longer can you be certain of having a Tireless Fairy. 1 Healing Charm that doesn't get cast, 20 Power lost from many attack actions, 10% Dodges that you don't have- they all compound into making the game a little harder. No word on how the lategame is yet, I haven't made it past Anomaly yet.

I do think currency makes the first 2 floors less samey, which is good. When you don't have the luxury of 8-10 training points, you start looking a LOT harder at wild demons and thinking 'Will this demon be useful WITHOUT teaching it any skills?' Slimes and Zombies are a lot more desirable now, just because they A) Have a 70 power attack and B) have a great fat stack of HP. It also differentiates demons more- You can't really just go 'Okay I'll teach Ghost Pierce, Evade Step, Swiftness, and Juggernaut to all my frontliners." You have to work more with the starter set of skills.

Generally speaking, I don't want players to feel like they need to save all their money for "later".

Depending on how far in the future you consider 'later' to be, I definitely felt the need to save money for later, better, rarer skills for my Summoner, since even the 'cheap' early summoner training is like twice as expensive as Demon training. Until Anomalyish, I don't think you can really afford early skills for the summoner without starving your Demons of training. Naturally there are some skills that you might want to grab early like Tormentor, but I think there's definitely not much early game room to experiment with summoner skills.

Note- the summoner thing I think is actually a good thing- it makes the starting abilities a lot more important when every Summoner doesn't automatically turn into an earlygame stew of Fierce Stab, Hinder, Cleanse, Low Profile, and Lucky Charm. I definitely was leaning hard on my starting 3 abilities, henceforth to be known as 'Crutches' for ease of typing.

I felt like my party had finally stabilized around Anomaly 3- actually had some demons with 8 abilities, plenty of Modified demons, and good ol Python. Then I ran into Paracelsus after a maxHP giveaway party with enemy Fetches, barely escaped from Paracelsus twice, then ran into the brick wall of Madevra. Just as I was finally bringing together my as-yet-unrealized dream of Void Touch+Innocence+Blue Whisper+Dreamstalker, too!

Overall, I feel like Currency encourages more differences (and thus replayability!) between demons and runs. And I must say I really like hoarding currency and making a Fusion on floor 2- the gambling option is just so much more fun than the safe training option!

[Ferret]

Yeah, 'later' in this context means 10+ dungeon floors. I fully expect there to be some save for later/buy now choices of consequence within smaller ranges of floors. It's only over a considerable amount of time that the impact should be lessened.

Though making early game harder wasn't necessarily a goal, I might be willing to live with it if it comes with other benefits, which according to your feedback, it is.

But I did see what you mean about the summoner training bit. I've had to break a few of my own old training habits in order to have the currency to do more interesting / important things later. Many of the abilities that used to be thrown around the party because you had TP and nothing else to do with them are no longer used nearly so widely.

Floor 2 fusion isn't much of a gamble really. You're getting +12.5%^HP, stat realignment, and (possibly) a resistance bonus no matter what. There is actually AI for modifiers these days that makes at least a little effort to pick abilities that are at least "usable" as well, so chances are you'll come away with something that is at least "okay" there too.

[Sandman25]

Is it possible to give some credit back for copied abilities when deleting a demon? Or maybe even for deleting any demon, recruiting a demon and immediately deleting it to get some currency might be fun.

[Ferret]

There will probably be summoner perks that alter how those abilities work, once summoner perks are in.

I haven't decided which new system is next, but that one is the current favorite.