Mastery gain rate

[cadfan17]

It seems very slow.

Unless I’m missing something.

I created a test character in the open world mode, and ran it to level 13. I completed about ten or eleven challenges. My mastery level gains for race and class combined were less than seventy, if I recall correctly.

Running through three levels of gauntlet gives about 12 combined mastery.

You need 150 to see literally any bonus.

Unless I’m playing it wrong that means like a dozen hours to earn a +1 in a single race/class combination. A +1 isn’t even all that valuable, really. Seems like it should be a lot quicker to earn.

You could probably multiply it by five and it would still feel slow.

[[ER] Raven]

You need 150 combined mastery so 75+75, or 100+50 etc.

The amount you earn in challenges is based on the Challenge level. So you'll start earning more in the higher level ones as you approach mid-high levels. There are about 50 challenges to do, so by the time you complete the mode, even if you skip several challenges you'd still have about 300 in each of your species and class masteries, which will be a +4.

Assuming I was a Human/Mystic in this adventure, if I play a Human/Shadow next, I'll start with a +2. Because of Human. Or Play an Undead/Mystic, again I'll be having a +2.

Next run in either will be much more etc.

Anyway let me know *after* you complete the mode if you feel its low or not. Imho is way too much gain in so little time. But this divider is not set in stone, and can be adjusted if the majority of the feedback leans there. ;)

Gauntlets go like this:

Quest 2+4+6 = 12
Heroic Quest 8+10+12 = 30
Epic Quest 14+16+18 = 48
Legendary Quest 20+22+24 = 66
Demigod Quest 26+28+30 = 84
== 240 on each (Combined 480 = +3)

I also want to point out that this Mastery gain is just a carrot stick for completionists. It's optional to get, and you don't need it to beat neither Campaign nor Collector.

[cadfan17]

I think you might want to compare that rate to the rate in the original Erannorth, in particular, to what you get in the various gauntlet modes. I don't recall the exact figure you get for running a 1 to 9 gauntlet, but I am pretty sure it was more than 90.

At present, I have played 16 hours. I have earned zero mastery bonuses. Not all of that time was on the same character, and I took some phone calls and left the game running in the background a few times... but still. I've completed two gauntlets, took a character to level 5 or so, and took another character to 13. I guess I haven't been grinding in the most efficient manner, but is grinding really the point?

[[ER] Raven]

You aren't supposed to reach full mastery in a day. But after each adventure get your favorite characters slightly stronger. You don't *need* mastery in Chronicles. It's something you gain on the side as you play the game. This isn't a roguelite like Reborn to unlock things. Everything is already unlocked, you access all cards with 0 mastery.

So the idea is to play the characters you like, and eventually they'll get a few extra points.

That's all there is to mastery.

[cadfan17]

Alright. I've completed the open world mode with one character, and I've run another character to the third reboot of Gauntlet and halfway through. Plus some miscellaneous characters and experiments. I have over 30 hours in the game, though some of that is inflated by being able to walk away from a turn based game and do things around the house.

I think there are a lot of really positive updates in Chronicles. But I think some of the modes just don't work. Mastery gain is just the start of it.

Full disclosure- in Reborn I played gauntlet type modes, exclusively. I played a LOT of them. I made a list of races and classes I took through the 9 level gauntlet- 16 of them, several multiple times because I reused some races and classes in certain combinations. I also took a few to 12 or to new game plus to go for the achievement.

Gauntlet is just a really, really bad feel now. Having to restart continuously is just annoying, and watching your LP and PP gain drop to a crawl really sucks. There's no reason at all to not just let the player play a longer period of time in the difficulty they selected, like you did in Reborn. Not to mention, unless its hidden somewhere I cannot find, you literally can't see what the difficulty rules are in your reboots. You eventually feel like you're just slogging through, barely dealing damage.

Shops in gauntlet don't really work. It's always 2 AM when you arrive, and it doesn't seem like time passes when you refresh a shop page... except sometimes it does for some reason and you have to rest, after which it is 2 am again. When you sell items your displayed gold doesn't visually update (you get the gold, it just doesn't visually show your new gold count), unless you buy an item in which case it does.

But more important than the bugs, if the player is going to be allowed to just infinitely refresh the shop... why not just let the player buy whatever they want without refreshing at all? Just give them an enormous scrollable page with some sorting features and let them buy whatever they're qualified to buy. If the player wants three of something, why make them refresh over and over until it shows up, instead of just buying it?

The open world mode has similar but sometimes opposite problems. You get so much PP that you max everything out. You can ignore the random dungeons, because you can level up perfectly fine doing only quests... and quests give mastery points. Random dungeons don't. But the nature of how the quests are laid out means that you're going to constantly end up crunching your way through quests you out-level, just to clear them and unlock the higher level quests that actually grant mastery. Shops do take time in the open world mode, but you earn so many free cards that you don't really care about refreshing infinitely to get what you want because you can just sell stuff and afford anything you like. In fact, earns cards mostly just clog up your inventory and make finding things harder. You may as well give the player a fourth place to send new cards, like how in some RPGs you get a junk storage for quick resale.

The lack of cards from level up make shops very important, but they're just an awkward feel. If they're supposed to be restrictive and roguelike, they kind of aren't, in either mode. If they're supposed to be an open ended purchasing opportunity, the UI isn't the most efficient.

Speaking of Mastery, after over 30 hours of gameplay I have earned three bonus LP, if I play a specific race/class combo. That's it. Please compare that to Reborn.

It's not a good feel. When I hit high levels in my Lampad Augury Witch run, I felt like I had exhausted the fun to be had (I had all the high level cards I wanted and thousands of unspent PP, and could plausibly take on the end boss), but I still sort of ground things out because this is the ONLY point in the game where Mastery is available.

That's my view. I feel like I gave the game enough of a try to have a worthwhile opinion, and that's where it is. I really like the race/subrace class/subclass structure, and I like the variety I see in some of the builds (obviously I've only tried out one to completion, as a result of the increased game length caused by the shift away from gauntlet, but that's how it seems from looking at card sets). But Mastery points coupled with selectable difficulty sort of rounded out balance issues before in a way that just isn't the case now.

So I think I'm done for a while barring patches that adjust some of these mode issues.

[[ER] Raven]

Thanks Cadfan, I'll use these insights to tweak the vanilla gauntlet modes a bit, in the coming patch. But in the meantime you don't really need to wait for it.

All these aspects are rules in the game mode which you can tweak to your liking right now.

If you want higher rewards, then have the mode give higher mastery rewards. Or if you want longer Gauntlets make the Gauntlets longer. Or add a quicker doomsclock in Sandbox etc. Have time pass in towns or not. Get less PP, less LP, everything is fully customizable. You can find a gui editor in the Custom Modes page.

* Landing in towns at night can be easily solved by resting at the inn. It always skip you straight to the morning.
* You can search for any game mode and see its rules in the Rulebook.

[cadfan17]

I guess I didn't see where those were customizable. I'll take another look.

I think you might have misunderstood my comment about landing in towns at night in gauntlet mode.

In my last game, every single time I went to a town in gauntlet, it was 2 am and the shop was open. I could refresh the shop as many times as I wanted and it remained 2 am, and the shop remained open.

Except one time, for a reason I don't understand, it didn't work and it became a "normal" night. So I slept at the inn, and then instantly it was 2 am and the shop was open again. I was once again able to re-use the shop indefinitely.

So perhaps a bug?

[[ER] Raven]

Yes. Sounds like one. I'll investigate ;)

Once you create your basic custom mode in the gui editor, you can open it in a text editor to tweak more things. Like how many PP you want to gain etc. If you need more help on that let me know.

[cadfan17]

Would it be possible to get a cut and paste of the text printout for the standard Quest mode, if it has one similar to the custom modes?

There are a lot of lines in this that aren't immediately apparent, but if I could see what the existing mode I'm familiar with already has, I could probably work the rest out.

[[ER] Raven]

You can ignore the lines with 0 value. 0 means set to their default.

{
"Mode": "Quest",
"ModeDescription": "In this mode the tactical map and all adventure features are disabled.<br><br>You will fight a linear series of procedurally generated encounters, and after clearing 3 stages, your character will be moved to the 'Book of Heroes'. From there you can ascend to any other vanilla, custom mode or attempt the next Quest difficulty.<br><br>Quest is aimed for Level 1 characters.\n\n<b>Notable Rules:</b>\n→ At End of turn: Randomly discard down to 7 cards.\n→ DoT effects like Bleed, Venom etc. persist till they expire or cured.\n→ Ally stats are capped at 120 Power and 160 Health.\n→ Leylines are disabled. ",
"ChallengeRating": 2,
"GMCategory": "Gauntlet",
"AscensionOnly": false,
"ShowOnlyModeDescription": false,
"MinEncounterNormalNum": 3,
"MaxEncounterNormalNum": 4,
"MinEncounterEliteNum": 4,
"MaxEncounterEliteNum": 6,
"EliteLevelDifference": 1,
"EnemyHealthMultiplier": 1.3,
"EnemyPowerMultiplier": 1.1,
"EnemiesWithResistance": "Vanilla",
"PositiveEnemyResistanceMultiplier": 1.0,
"NegativeEnemyResistanceMultiplier": 1.0,
"XPGainMultiplier": 0.40,
"PlayerLevelAdjustment": 0,
"PlayerWealthAdjustment": 200,
"InitialHPBonus": 35,
"APRegenRateBonusPerLevel": 0.5,
"LPGainedPerLevel": 2,
"PPGainedPerLevel": 25,
"MinDeckOverride": 0,
"MaxDeckOverride": 0,
"MinDraftDeck": 0,
"MaxDraftDeck": 0,
"MaxDeckCopies": 0,
"UniversalPerks": [],
"PunishingReinforcements": true,
"EnemyReinforcementsEveryXTurns": 6,
"ReinforcementsIfEnemiesLessThan": 3,
"ReinforcementsToCall": 2,
"MaxReinforcementWaves": 4,
"Endless": false,
"Sandbox": false,
"Draft": false,
"Conquest": false,
"ConstructedMode": false,
"Agent": false,
"CustomCube": false,
"Expert": false,
"CustomCube_FirstSetx3Packs_Tier": 0,
"CustomCube_FirstSetx3Packs_ArchetypeCards": 0,
"CustomCube_FirstSetx3Packs_nonArchetypeCards": 0,
"CustomCube_SecondSetx2Packs_Tier": 0,
"CustomCube_SecondSetx2Packs_ArchetypeCards": 0,
"CustomCube_SecondSetx2Packs_nonArchetypeCards": 0,
"CustomCube_ThirdSetx1Packs_Tier": 0,
"CustomCube_ThirdSetx1Packs_ArchetypeCards": 0,
"CustomCube_ThirdSetx1Packs_nonArchetypeCards": 0,
"ExpertCollectionTier": 0,
"InMediaRes": false,
"InMediaResLocation": "",
"InMediaResArea": 0,
"StartingNode": "Encounter",
"UseCustomStageSet": "",
"StartingStage": 0,
"StartingStageLength": 10,
"MaxStageLength": 10,
"StagesToCompleteTheRun": 3,
"RunCompletionRewardTokens": 0,
"RunCompletionRewardMastery": 0,
"NodeBasedRulesActive": true,
"LeylineRulesActive": false,
"LeylineAffinityMin": 0,
"LeylineAffinityMax": 0,
"LeylineAversionMin": 0,
"LeylineAversionMax": 0,
"EnemyCanAmbushPlayer": true,
"EnemyAmbushChanceAtNight": 30,
"EnemyAmbushChanceAtDaytime": 10,
"ActivateHourglass": true,
"BlankSlate": false,
"BlankSlateKeepPerks": false,
"ClearStartingDeck": false,
"AdjustSkillLevelReqsBy": 0,
"PermaDeath": true,
"ReincarnationToll": 0,
"Fatigue": true,
"FatigueThreshold": 8,
"DrawPhase": 0,
"DiscardPhase": true,
"DiscardDownTo": 7,
"ForceClass": "",
"ForceRace": "",
"ConvertToSkillCost": 0,
"StashIsDisabled": false,
"AddToStashInsteadOfDeck": false,
"BackpackDiscardCost": 0,
"NonPassiveEquipment": false,
"NoobProtection": false,
"TrulyUniqueAllies": true,
"HoursPassWhileShopping": 1,
"PlayerPermanentDOTs": true,
"DecayingBuffs": [],
"ClearBuffs": [ "Judgement", "Vigilance", "Grace", "Mystique", "Allure", "Momentum", "Vengeance", "Nether", "Aether", "Confidence", "Song of the Fay", "Transformation", "Overlay" ],
"AdventureModeDynamicRewards": false,
"AdventureModeDynamicEnemyLevels": false,
"AdventureModeEnemyLevelBoost": 0,
"AdventureModeEnemyBossMult": 0.0,
"AdventureModeScaleEnemiesToPC": 0,
"AdventureModeScaleChallengesToPC": 0,
"AdventureModeDynamicAreaLength": false,
"HighMagick": 0,
"SummonPowerCap": 120,
"SummonHealthCap": 160,
"MaxConcealment": 0,
"MaxEnvy": 0,
"EnemyShieldPerLevel": 6,
"OverrideNextAscension": "Heroic Quest",
"OverrideNextSandboxAscension": "Conquest",
"OverrideNextAscensionStartingStage": 3
}

If any settings are unclear you can ask for further clarification on them.
The most important hidden setting is Challenge Rating, as it acts as an overall difficulty modifier. So if you want super tough enemies you can just scale it up. This corresponds to the skull icons of the modes.

I'll also be adding a vanilla 12x Ironman in the next mode. But custom is always better :)

[[ER] Raven]

And you probably want to set a value for this: "RunCompletionRewardMastery", it will determine how many extra Mastery you'll get once you complete this custom mode (that is aside what the boss gives).

[cadfan17]

Thank you

[cadfan17]

What does enemyshieldperlevel do?
What is trulyuniqueallies?

[[ER] Raven]

First one defines how many shield stacks per level they'll get when using the shield tactic.

The second adds uses in all unique ally cards, so when the ally gets summoned their card is destroyed even if it didn't normally have uses.