Topic

Is higher energy tank linked to anything positive?

I previously stepped into threads to defend going up levels and increasing energy tank as a net benefit based on the fact that it was linked to quoin value.  Now that it is de-linked to that, you can estimate whether max energy is good for you by whether 3.2 x hours played per game day + teleports < 10.  For those of us who often play more than 2 hours at a stretch it usually won't be.  If you play 3 hours in one game day then it pretty much surely isn't.

So basically buying energy tank is a bad thing.  If there was a card to decrease my energy tank, I would buy that (I want about 1k just so I can season full stacks of beans and such conveniently).  Is there something we are unaware that makes maximum energy a benefit to everyone, or is it only a benefit to those who play in short play sessions?

Posted 7 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

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  • Personally I use a lot of energy, so it is a major inconvenience for me to keep refilling constantly. If my tank is big I can do it all at once. I never understood the "punishment" angle - balance keeps things fair for players at different levels, there's no problem spending more for teleports - it's always 10%. 
    Posted 7 months ago by snarkle Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Whoa. Thanks, here was me just upgrading away not knowing I was making it harder to get a decent return from items due to mood. Thank you for highlighting this.
    Posted 7 months ago by jiva Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oops, my mood loss estimates were sadly misinformed.  You lose mood at 3 times the rate I posted.  So with 8k energy you'd lose 120 mood a minute.  You'd pretty much have to chug Savory Smoothies - I don't think there is any other way to keep up.
    Posted 7 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Rookswort?
    Posted 7 months ago by Liza Throttlebottom Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, what's the challenge in the game then if we had no mood? ;)
    Posted 7 months ago by I Love You TS Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i don't think anyone said anything about eliminating mood, they're just illustrating the penalizations that comes with increasing your energy pool. many people may assume logically upgrading = good but if you look under the hood it can really be more of hindrance. people should be made aware of that so thanks Humba for this thread.

    i assume the current system is in place to mimic how regular mmos operate (as you level monsters get harder to kill and you gain less xp) and to stem the amount of currants we accrue but there has to be a better way. right now it feels counter intuitive, like we're punished for progressing... maybe instead as we progress we could gain access to more difficult regions or activities like a wintry palace region where you have out smart yetis and bigger currants sinks like i dunno...... glitch poker or something, that way it wouldn't feel like we're getting b-slapped for upgrading our stats.
    Posted 7 months ago by Fur Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Humbabella-
    Do you still believe 1300 is the "optimum" energy tank?
    Posted 7 months ago by Snowpuff Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hmm. Well, I'm already screwed then, because my energy is already 2450. The major upside is that I eat much less of what I make or harvest, which means I can sell or trade it. But mood management is definitely an issue.
    Posted 7 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I have 5690 energy now and am keeping my mood up with Rookswort or Savory Smoothies in case I forget the herbs. I use all the energy till I die and then I use the get out of hell free cards. Sure, teleportation costs suck, but with the get out of hell free cards and the new day refills there is a lot of free energy...
    Posted 7 months ago by Hackepeter Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think what the real issue is, is that it's 'advertised' on the cards that having a bigger energy tank is a good thing. It's not mentioned at all that you will have to work damn hard to keep your mood above the magic 90% to get the most from your iMG. I've upgraded my tank to close to 4k, and now I wish I hadn't.
    I went for a little walk and yeah, if I'm constantly nibbling, petting watering and massaging, then I can just about keep my mood up, but barely, the measly amount of mood from tree interactions makes it not worth while if I'm trying to boost my mood, and meditation doesn't really add enough to really cover the degradation.

    I understand that there must be a trade off for having a larger energy tank, but there should be a warning on the box before you open it, no? Now that I have made this mistake and there is no way to go back, I'm finding it very difficult to enjoy the game at times, when, if I want to get the most from the Quoins, I have to 'waste time' in game by farming for mood.

    I say +1 for a downgrade card, so that the choice is available.
    Posted 7 months ago by Mr Mellifluous Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Mr. Melifluous, no matter what your tank size, munching a sprig of rookswort will keep you from losing any mood for 10 rl minutes or 1 hour game time.   

    I can see a big run on rookswort
    Posted 7 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Try quaffing Amorous Philtre.
    Posted 7 months ago by 1padme Subscriber! | Permalink
  • First Ur problem
    Posted 7 months ago by TheBoyWhoCriedRook Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Windborn You can't munch rookswort at will any more. There's a delay now. *nerf*
    Posted 7 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Not for me Pascale.  It's working as always for me.  If it has changed, it's been in the last 10 minutes
    Posted 7 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This is why I avoid all the energy tank cards.

    The only benefit to a higher energy tank are as follows.

    Daily refill, get out of hell cards, no-no powder, it's harder to waste energy with overfill from things like icons. (It would be neat to find out if icons respond to your level or max energy and mood when you interact with them. It seems to be lvl.)

    The bad stuff!

    MASSIVE mood and energy drain rates. The increase is huge and outweighs the benefits if you play for more than an hour or two per game day. The mood penalty is probably the more serious of the two since you have to keep it topped up for exp. Smoothies and rookswort are a pain and they aren't free.

    SOLUTIONS
    A very simple solution would be to make some high end food that refills a % of your mood and or energy based upon your total capacity.

    Another one would be to add upgrade cards that are like the brain capacity ones except for the drain rates. They would basically work by subtracting something like 300 energy per upgrade from your currant max when it comes to calculating the drain rates.
    Posted 7 months ago by Melting Sky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That's the thing, although I'm annoyed that I now have to constantly remember to up my mood, I understand it is a trade for the higher energy. It would have been nice, though, to have been informed on the card.

    It also strikes me that it's at odds with the 'specialisation' aspect of the game, how can I specialise in crafting, if I have to learn the skills to either grow herbs or make smoothies? I have the skills required, but I'd rather spend the time doing other stuff.
    Posted 7 months ago by Mr Mellifluous Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This is an interesting thread. I like to play longer sessions, and so to me, it's really nice to have a big energy tank to work from, so that I can play until I'm red and then log out. I don't really find that keeping my mood up is an issue at all - I guess maybe because all my favorite actions are harvesting and foraging, and the mood benefits from those things is more than enough to combat any periodic loss. I don't find it hard to keep my huge energy tank full, either - by the time it runs into red, I've made good use of what I had and have gathered plenty of meat to eat to refill myself, with tons left over.  I agree that it might be better to warn people that the tank card involves two tanks, but I don't mind how it actually works.
    Posted 7 months ago by Wintera Woodswitch Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm done part three of my series on maximum energy now, which covers mood, how expensive it is and whether it is worth it.  Actually doing the calculations has made me a lot more positive about larger energy tanks - they aren't as bad a thing as I thought they would be.  On the other hand, how they good they are very dependent on using no-no powder and/or get out of hell free cards.

    I still object to the fact energy tanks are only a substantial upgrade if used correctly, that they come with a downside, and that for some people they are an actual detriment that cannot be undone.  But having actually looked a the numbers I won't rule out increasing my own energy tank in the future - though I'd definitely max out around 2500 to ensure that meditation can still keep me at full mood while crafting.
    Posted 7 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • One mood strategy I have come around to is more frequent donations.  If I'm mining I carry items I can throw in a shrine if my mood goes too low.  Rather than trying for big maxed powder-assisted donations, I am doing smaller donations more often, only sometimes assisted by FHSP.   I find that red element is great for this - 50 red = 1 mood.  If my mood is low I pop home, grab some pouches of red (which I save for this purpose), pop back, do the math, throw in the red and keep moving.  
    Posted 7 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes. Not dieing every fucking five minutes. That's incentive enough for me!
    Posted 7 months ago by RJStormRider Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I forget what my max mood was at the old lvl 42 but I disliked it enough that I had stopped trying to level.  High max energy is nice when you get a bunch of energy for new day or a get out of hell free card but for me it doesn't offset the disadvantage of having drinks or meditation only restore a small % of my mood tank while I'm crafting, mining, or hanging out at a party.  I bought to 1100 energy/mood and while I'm eating a little more food than before, I'm happier.  I find crafting drinks a little tedious because we can't change big enough stacks of fruit at once, while crafting stew is really easy.
    Posted 7 months ago by Lucille Ball Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm starting to see it as more of a balancing act with iMG/Mood efficiency on one side of the scales and Cash/Energy efficiency on the other.

    If you're willing to be less iMG efficient and perform actions in game at lower than max mood, you decrease your cash outlay for food and drink. If you insist on being at max mood at all times, the game mechanics make you pay for that extra bit of iMG efficiency.

    I'm not sure that I understand why some people insist on having MAX mood at all times when good mood still provides iMG. If I'm getting 11 iMG from an action instead of 12, that might be good enough to continue without worrying about the difference given that I don't have to bother spending the time and cash on food and/or drink to either force a lower cap or keep a high cap mood topped off. The extra iMG you get from max mood isn't free at all...it costs either time spent switching to mood enhancing activities/meditating or money on food and drink.

    Choosing high or low energy/mood cap is an interesting choice depending on which resources you wish to be more efficient with, but it isn't an all or nothing scenario. Either option has both advantages and costs associated with it.

    Edit: I'm mid level, so I might be oversimplifying a bit based on my experiences.
    Posted 7 months ago by Millstone Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Millstone, getting 11 rather than 12 from a particular petting of a piggy is not too bad, but when you're crafting large stacks of high level items worth a few hundred iMG even a 8% drop in iMG is significant. 
    Posted 7 months ago by Hrulgin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I find that Rookswort, Amorous Philtres, and Crabato do an excellent job of sustaining mood. I'm thinking a larger energy tank may turn out to be a good thing.
    Posted 7 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Millstone, I think you are right that there is a balancing act there, and that it's totally legitimate for someone to choose to not always have maximum mood depending on how they value currants versus imagination.

    But for a lot of glitchen I think maximum mood makes a lot of sense.  Suppose you go out mining for half an hour, starting with full mood.  We'll say you're actually mining about two thirds of the time and walking between rocks the other third, so you do 10 ticks a minute.  For the first seven minutes you get 120 imagination a minute.  If you do nothing about mood then for the next seven you get 110, then 100 for the next seven and 80 for the each of the last 9.  That's a total of 3030 imagination.  If you kept your mood at full you would have gotten 3600, 570 imagination more.  How much would that cost?  Three sprigs of rookswort would have done the job for around 300 currants.  Two savory smoothies would have done it for 192. 

    570 imagination for 192 currants is a trade most of us would readily make.  Considering many glitchen donate just for imagination - effectively paying 1.07 currants per imagination - many of us would easy pay 300 currants for 570 imagination.

    Depending on how much money you have, what your current upgrades look like, and your personal style, allow mood to fall below maximum sometimes can make sense.  So I agree it is a balance, but I think the balance is in favour of keeping mood at maximum for the majority.
    Posted 7 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I do a lot of gardening, which keeps my mood high, but the minute I walk away from it my mood starts to drop dramatically.  I need to look for mood supplements.  I thank Pascale for his suggestions!

    In any case, I don't mind the balancing act at all.  It means making interesting choices, instead of just doing things by rote to get the maximum of something that really doesn't gain me more friends in the end.
    Posted 7 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Humbabella - I found a couple of items missing or glossed by your recent posts...

    Focused mood meditation often returns a good-sized mood boost (I have gotten 70+) and is not capped.  I rarely bother meditating for energy.  I assume that food is easy to get in the game and eat for energy. 

    Because of the way savory smoothies currently work, they are wasteful unless consumed when mood has declined significantly.   I only consume these when my mood has gone down close to 60%.   The problem is that the benefit of an SS goes up as your mood goes up

    As I mentioned above, donating gives both mood and img for the item - donating for mood is a strategy to be considered. 

    You do not necessarily need to teleport OUT of the ancestral lands.  You can go /home instead, which reverses guilt accumulation.  If you alternate AL running with /home crafting you can TP into a remote dead-end and run towards an exit, crafting at /home as you go.  At the exit you can walk or subway elsewhere. 
    Posted 7 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I see no downside.  More time doing stuff before I die, tp cost has always been relative to energy so it is no surprise.

    I am having a blast with being able to pick what I want to do.  I don't need math to know that it is fun so far.  :)
    Posted 7 months ago by Thursday Soleil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • WalruZ - I don't meditate except when I am crafting because I think the seconds spent meditating would be better doing something else.  When crafting how much better focused meditation is than normal meditation for getting mood depends on the thing you are making and how the 20 and 30 second cooldowns line up with how long it takes to make stacks.  For example, with food you will interrupt a meditation by starting a stack, then meditate for the second half, so you are meditating half the time and getting 1 mood and energy per second.  With focused meditation you really don't want to start with only 10 seconds left in the stack (you'd only get 30 mood) so you instead meditate every other stack you create.  But the meditation doesn't last the full 40 seconds so you meditate less than half the time.  Generally I only focus mood when I've already hit Zen.

    Savory smoothies may be wasteful if you consume them at 90% mood, but they are still usually the best option unless your energy/mood pool is very small.  Basically if you knew you were only going to use two tablespoons of mayo before it went bad in your fridge, would you pay $10 for a two tablespoon container or $5 for a five cup container?  Since this is a video game and waste isn't wasteful in the physical sense, it's just better to buy it cheaper even if most of it rots.

    Finally, if you use the AL that way then there is no benefit to a higher energy tank since you can just as easily go home after one quoin as after five.

    I might not give donating for mood enough credit and here's why: donating for mood alone would be terrifically expensive, even with EHSP, so I'm going to assume that we're making donations we would have made anyway but timing them strategically to restore mood when we need it.  The thing is, I only make one or two donations a day.  Right now I'm putting 592 seasoned beans in a shrine every day, either as one big stack or as two stacks if one big stack would waste favor.  Obviously I'm not going to throw any reasonable fraction of that in without EHSP, but using more EHSP to break up my donations would be equally silly - it's 400 currants per use when I could just drink a savory smoothie for 96 currants and get the same effect.

    However, I realize that most people don't have donation caps that exceed 30k favor per day with a single giant.  If you are donating to several different shrines every day to get imagination then spacing those donations out could easily be a good way to keep your mood up, and effectively free.
    Posted 7 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ok being high level is getting boring when everything I do is nothing, compared to singing to butterflies and doing AL runs.  High energy tank helps for singing to butterflies by the way.

    I could unlearn every single skill except maybe bean seasoning, teleporting, and tinkering.. and still be getting the same amount of iMG every game day.

    We need all the skills to use more energy now, perhaps that will balance this situation with later ones like animal kin 8, for example.

    Also the value of wine, no no, and get out of hell free cards SHOULD rise in price as everyone gets more energy to spend.
    Posted 7 months ago by LųĉĩđεşşΨ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Your assumption that "everyone gets more energy" is wrong.  

    Some of us are still at the same energy level we were at reset.  It would be totally unfair to make all the skills use more energy because some people had made game choices that are different from ours.  
    Posted 7 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Nice thread. Learned a lot.
    Posted 7 months ago by IZA_C Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The answer is yes, no, and perhaps.
    I'm running fine on a 1660, with a meat, rookswort, and milk diet.
    That's the way dad did it; that's the way America does it; and it's worked out pretty well, so far.
    Posted 7 months ago by CrashTestPilot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So, can TS refund us IMG points for those of us who have more than 3K in the tank, similar to how they refunded brain capacity?
    Posted 7 months ago by bumblepuppy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • My tank is 3500 now. It's great to be able to get a ton done without worrying about eating. Mood control is easy with Rookswort.

    Try a bigger energy tank. You'll like it!
    Posted 7 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink
  • CTP, is that an Iron Man reference I spy?
    Posted 7 months ago by Liza Throttlebottom Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Holy crap, Humbabella.  592 seasoned beans?  Do you make that many every day, or are you buying some too?
    Posted 7 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I keep seeing these energy/mood upgrade threads, and really, I think these upgrades are just part of game strategy and gameplay. I've upgraded to 3410 so far, and I've just built mood stabilization into my game strategy. I enjoy making drinks, so I make the drinks with continuous buffs (savory smoothie.... mmmm... garnished with a bone no less!), and I have an herb garden in my backward that I use to grow rookswort. 

    So, I take a sip of a drink, I munch some rookswort, and go on my merry way. If I forget to re-drink or re-munch, I'll toss a couple gems (when I'm mining) or music blocks (when I'm molesting chickens) into a shrine, top off my mood, and munch another rookswort. My mood never drops below 90% unless I go AFK for longer than 10 minutes.

     I like the AL strategy, too, though I don't utilize it as much as I could. 

    I do a lot of very high energy activities, so having a larger energy tank is beneficial to me. 
    Posted 7 months ago by Zubes Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I just got an upgrade card to combat mood loss:
    Steady On, Mood Loser - A reduction in your periodic mood loss: mood drops from peak highs are 1/6th slower than the natural rate.

    Haven't seen it before and it wasn't mentioned in this thread, so I'm guessing it is a new thing to help with the balancing?
    Posted 7 months ago by Vic Fontaine Subscriber! | Permalink
  • www.glitch.com/forum/genera... Just released today.
    Posted 7 months ago by JohnaMarie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Two words: Amorous Philtre.

    (Okay, I'm starting to sound like a broken record.)
    Posted 7 months ago by larky lion Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I had purchased a handful of tank upgrades without really considering the consequences, largely because Glitch doesn't seem like the type of game with devil's bargains. I don't necessarily think it should be changed, but maybe a bit of flavor text would help...?

    I wonder if the way mood operates was designed to become persnickety at endgame, or if this is just a consequence of scaling.
    Posted 7 months ago by Pomegrandy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'll redo my calculations for slower mood loss, but basically with both upgrades you lose mood 1/3 slower, so 1% instead of 1.5% per minute.  That could be a pretty big deal, but what it does is delays the problem to higher energy tank sizes rather than changing the nature of it.
    Posted 7 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just stock up on and then consequently drink gallons upon gallons of butterfly milk everyday when you play!
    Posted 7 months ago by Branfowl Subscriber! | Permalink
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