Slight magic rework

Sorry for the few updates… development is still going on but quite slowly. I thought I’d give a small update on what is in the works. One of the things that are changing in the next version is how magic works.

Spell Resistance

So far, spell resistance has been connected directly to your current max mp. The idea was to make max-mp somewhat more relevant even if you don’t find any wands. However, it turns out spell resistance is super powerful, especially in the late game, and it encourages carrying around magic equipment just to swap it in for resistance. Another problem is that monsters with any kind of magic attack consequently had spell resistance, and spell resistance on monsters is quite annoying and really discourages the player from using pure magic builds.

For these reasons spell resistance is now disconnected from max mp, and is much rarer in general, both for the player and for monsters. Only a few monsters will now have spell resistance at all. For the player, only a few powerful items will convey spell resistance.

Magic point regeneration (for monsters)

Initially I designed TGGW with the philosophy that monsters should be similar to the player in most regards. This makes it easier to learn the rules and what to expect, it also makes implementation easier. However, I feel more and more the need to move away from that because it doesn’t work well: The lifespan of monsters and the player are so different that it doesn’t make sense for them to have the same rules. A monster lasts for a couple of turns, while the player lasts the whole game.

A problem with the mp system for monsters is that they spam their magic attacks until their mp is out (anyone died to flaming bats this way?), and then becomes quite harmless. This could probably be mitigated somewhat by changing their AI behaviour, but since they generally live so few turns, I can’t really see a good way of doing it without being too unpredictable.

So, in order to make monsters dangerous during their whole lifetime, while at the same time preventing them from spamming their magic attacks right away, all monsters, unlike they player, will now regenerate their mp. As a compensation they will have a lower max mp, generally as low so they can just cast their most expensive spell. The regeneration rate is approximately 1mp per normal speed turn (regardless of their own speed). I have also adjusted the cost of their spells for this to make sense.

Mp-regeneration makes monsters more predictable, and you can anticipate how often they are going to use their spells. This also makes most monsters more interesting. For example: fungi can now use their abilities until they are killed, making them a higher priority target. On the flipside, monsters like flaming bats are more manageable since they can use their attack once (instead of 2 times in quick succession) before charging up mp to use it again.

Spell Cancellation (for the player)

In early versions of TGGW you couldn’t equip items that would take you to negative mp. This to prevent excessive equipment swapping (like constantly shifting between tank/magic builds). Later on I introduced the ep system instead. However, I notice that it is still often beneficial to cast a buff spell and then equip something else to take your mp to negative in order to effectively “ignore” the mp cost, since ep can be quite a plentiful resource later in the game.

If you have buff spells (those that can be used once per day) or conjure spells (those that create equipment) active and your mp goes below zero, these spells will now be cancelled. So this is a bit more flexible version of the system I originally had in place, and hopefully also less annoying.