Topic

Scaling of periodic mood/energy loss needs to be fixed

There's a big argument elsewhere about nerfing GOOHF cards because for high-level players with large energy tanks, they're an efficient way of filling your tank and food isn't any more, because there are no food items of high enough energy value to really make a dent in a 10,000 energy tank.

I submit that this is completely the wrong approach to the problem, and that the problem goes beyond food.  Food is just a symptom of the underlying problem.

The underlying problem is that periodic mood and energy loss, and teleport costs, are a flat percentage of your tank no matter how large your tank is.  This seriously undermines the point of a large tank.  What's the point in working your way up to a large tank if you're still tapped out after seven or so teleports?  It wasn't long ago that my tank was around a thousand and my periodic energy loss was 6 points per wallclock minute.  Now I have a 4020 tank and I lose 32 per minute.  What's the point?  What did I gain from the 3000 points I added to my tank and the hundreds of thousands of IMG I spent to do it?  Not nearly as much as one would expect.

I'm not sure what should be done to fix teleport cost, but energy/mood loss needs to work differently.  It should still scale, sure.  Perhaps more tied to level than to tank size.  But this business of periodic energy/mood loss scaling linearly with tank size defeats 90% of the point of tank upgrades.  The increase of periodic loss needs to be scaled back to make it possible to actually get ahead by buying tank upgrades.  As it is, consider this: Compare a player with a 1000 tank and a player with a 10,000 tank, both making enough food to fill their tank.  The 1000 player needs to craft five Awesome Stews.  The player with the 10,000 tank needs to craft fifty, which takes ten times as long.  Both players spend the same amount of energy per stew.  But the 10,000 tank player has to stand there ten times as long cooking, during which time he loses ten times the percentage of his total tank capacity just to periodic energy loss that the 1,000-tank player does.  The 10,000-tank player is actually worse off than the 1,000-tank player when it comes to trying to get by on food.

Meditation doesn't help much either, because energy from meditation doesn't scale well with tank size.  I "only" have a 4000 tank, small compared to some players, and I can sit there and focus energy until I'm blue in the face ... well, OK, granted I'm blue in the face to start with ... and I can't fill my tank.  I average about 250-300 energy from Focus Energy, taking distraction and interruption into account; I'll most likely lose at least 32 while meditating and 32 to 64 more during the cooldown; that's 96 loss out of 250-300 gain, for a net gain of maybe 150-200 on average.  Since my total GROSS daily meditation limit is my tank size, and I'm losing 30%-40% of it to periodic-loss overhead, simple math says I can't fill my tank that way.  I just did an experiment and sat repeatedly focusing energy for about ten minutes as soon as the cooldown expired, and came away with a net gain by the time I was done of only about 500 or 600 energy.  (And I have all three levels of Meditative Arts.)

This is the real problem here.  It's not that GOOHF cards are too powerful.  It's not that food isn't valuable enough.  It's that periodic loss of mood/energy with a large tank is out of proportion to everything else that counters that loss EXCEPT GOOHF cards.

One final thought:  the simplest fix for this problem might be to add Energy Loser upgrade cards that scale back energy loss the same way the Mood Loser upgrades scale back mood loss.  I have (all three of?) the Steady On Mood Loser cards, and I don't have a mood problem as long as I'm paying attention.  A matching set of energy upgrade cards — Energy Efficiency, perhaps — would go a LONG way to fixing the energy problem.

Posted 79 days ago by Alaric Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • This is why I consider myself tapped out at 3200, and no I never eat food, which is okay because I hate cooking it. I hardly use GOOHF cards, I don't die often, I have icons for that. And I was just saying in global how happy I was with the meditation upgrade cards and their effect -- they're actually useful now! Two or three runs through at 200-400 energy and I'm good. I think there DO need to be negative effects of having anything too big, same as having it too small. 10k energy is just..... overdoing it in my opinion. Anyway, just my 5 currants.
    Posted 79 days ago by Lady Cailia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • They already capped periodic mood loss, it doesn't scale with tank above 2000.  And you don't need to *fill* your energy tank for eating or meditation or whatever to be useful, you only need to gain enough energy to keep up with what you're doing.
    Posted 79 days ago by Fnibbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I know mood loss is capped.  Periodic mood loss also had the mood loser upgrade cards to cut it further.  Periodic energy loss is disproportionate though, unless you're looking to farm hellwine.  Bringing it more into line with mood loss (cap and loss rate upgrades, or even just loss rate upgrades) would be fine.  It's true that you don't need to keep your energy high the way you need to keep your mood high, but the other side of that coin is you're not constantly spending mood to do stuff.
    Posted 78 days ago by Alaric Subscriber! | Permalink
  • We need to be able to make not just food, but epic meals.
    Posted 78 days ago by Pickle Juice Subscriber! | Permalink
  • They need to make more % energy or mood consumption items (instead of 200 energy for an awesome stew, it should be 10% energy) so the amount of energy one can have, does not matter.

    They should of capped the energy a long time ago, and made a currant upgrade card as an easier iMG dump instead of this perpetual building of energy until people start disagreeing on how much energy one should have.

    For someone who has 50k, I have no problems with my energy, thank you very much.
    Posted 77 days ago by LųĉĩđεşşΨ Subscriber! | Permalink