covert hamlet
Currently, the cultist mask buff increasing mechanism is very poorly balanced number-wise. To illustrate, this is the approximate duration increase (percentage) between +1 and +20
This makes it practically unusable in any meaningful capacity until it is highly enchanted, with +21 making it effectively permanent.
I'm suggesting these numbers to be retuned towards a more meaningful duration increase, making the mask more useful before level 21
molten plaza
A 0.26% increase is actually diabolical 😭
wispy dawn
What would you want it to be, any transcendent is every 2f, any red is every 3f, blue 4f, green 5f, etc?
Also how does it choose which frame to extend on? Is it a global timer or consecutive frames of mask or what
covert hamlet
that's the current implementation that give rise to the current dilemma. A stat that scales by denominator towards 0 in such a linear fashion is doomed to have this kind of pattern
wispy dawn
Its not really a problem, doubled buff duration is a good effect as well so i think unlocking that at +16 is reasonable
covert hamlet
simple solution (pseudo):
float percentage, progress
OnTic()
percentage += progress
if (percentage) > 1
buff += 1
percentage -= 1
better to talk in a design manner though
I'm thinking of designing a extension pattern ranging from, say, 50% increase to 400% increase, over level 1 to 20
number can be balanced accordingly, either linearly or logarithmically
the goal is for perma pot to not really be easily attainable until 21, so +20 increase could be balanced by making, say, berserk not being extendable past 1 minute
wispy dawn
I think linear is still fine, rather than 21->1, 5->1 by increments of .2?
If you want it to be smooth, but i think having it be integers is also ok
covert hamlet
the number could be arbitrary, since the math isn't direct
a 0.2 frame increase every frame would be 25% net, for example, so the math on the implementation wouldn't be linear to begin with
so the focus could be more on power growth
two potential idea is to have the growth be (rounded) logarithmic, so every level gives a percentage boost, which would make more sense given how +21 is effectively infinite
alternatively, having the growth increase everytime the player hits the next enchantment tier would be another option
wispy dawn
It literally doesnt matter how smooth it is at low levels, this isnt an early game item
covert hamlet
fair
so, let's say 50% increasing by 20% every level until 20?
wispy dawn
Giving clean numbers is probably more important than what the duration increase is, how would you word the description, would you continue to give the frames per extension or tell them some other value?
covert hamlet
it depends
frame is technical, so we could do second instead, although it's a unit choice
just a direct "extend buff duration by x frame/second every frame/second" could suffice
If greenlit, I can try to implement the change as well, hopefully it wouldn't be a nightmare
wispy dawn
Extend the oldest buff by 1 second every 1.0 seconds? I think you still have to do 5.0->1.0 scaling by .2
Doing the other value as the variable doesnt work for giving nice values
Well imo just keep it as integers but have it go from 5->1 (step every 5 levels), this would make +11 give 50% and +16 give 100% buff extension which are the only relevant thresholds
wispy dawn
It goes to infinity so in a sense no matter what its infinitely sharp
100% buff extension is a usable effect and 200% is like the same as permapot if you know how it works
covert hamlet
strictly speaking, let's say a run is 4 minutes, and we're extending lucky
doesn't matter that it is infinite, the player would've benefitted the same from a 3900% increase
hence why it doesn't feel as sharp if it's jumping somewhere closer to 500-900% increase even
if we use the threshold to be 2 minute berserk at +20 for example
wispy dawn
200% is already more than enough to set up permapot im saying
covert hamlet
not really
200% is 18s lucky
30s berserk
while holding a cultist mask
not within permapot category
wispy dawn
Yes, then you refresh cus u used it for just the last 30s of the run and got a refill on chest pickup
covert hamlet
realistically +20 can give up to 10x duration without being game breaking
wispy dawn
Now u have 30s of buff and can triple that to 90
And u get an extra potion refresh on loop so actually you have 360s to finish the next loop
So 200% extend is enough to set up permapot if you complete the loc within 6 minutes
covert hamlet
interesting
though with that level of planning, even if permapot is made available earlier, the complexity does justify it