Suggestion: Exclude Quicken from Double Cast

[Meredith K Pseudonym]

No particular reason comes to mind, just seems like a smart move, y'know?

https://youtu.be/hDM_tpZPA50

[Royic]

I never done what you did in the video, with Mana Font and Economy. I did Blood Magic and Bloodlust instead, work the same way, but more offesive.

But it would be ideal to remove it form the list to prevent this kind of early game cheese. While I do love having Quicken as a spell in the Princess Abilities Kit, or Druid if you put Gambler as secondary class, it's cheating for the monster since they can't really defend themselves from this.

Or you can implement a once per a unique turn casting for Quicken :D?

[pjlanzino]

something being overly powerful is kind of unavoidable in these types of games as a side-effect of giving people the freedom to customize that makes them so fun. and you couldn't have a princess early on unless beyond lucky in a drop right? i'd love it! lol

[Meredith K Pseudonym]

Originally posted by pjlanzino:

something being overly powerful is kind of unavoidable in these types of games as a side-effect of giving people the freedom to customize that makes them so fun. and you couldn't have a princess early on unless beyond lucky in a drop right? i'd love it! lol

As mentioned above, Druid has the weaker version of the Double Cast passive and Gambler also has Quicken as a spell. Druid/Gambler with Mana Font and Economy is pretty much the same setup. Although Gambler/Druid with Mana Font and Double Cast means you absolutely need all of the boots ever, having Initiative means combat almost always starts with you taking infinite turns.

[6 Eyes Studio]

Thanks for the feedback.
Going to add a note about this and see what we want to do :)

[KalaniuM]

Should add a pair of quicken-spamming princess like that as a battle for a challenge dungeon XD

[Snuggy Serian]

I suggest a 1 turn (or 2 for mechanic reasons) debuff that blocks the effect of quicken.
Exhausted or something. No effects except blocking quicken. Maybe for even 3 turns (what would lead to 2 normal turns are needed to disappear).

[RavenOfRazgriz]

It's worth noting that there are exploits possible with two units with Quicken even without Double Cast, as long as they can generate more MP than they consume with Quicken. An example of such would be to use three groups of two units that back-and-forth for infinite MP into Eruptor and/or Elemental Mastery-backed Sorcerer Spells. They use their turns to be able to all achieve the optimal position for damage then immediately translate it into K.O.s once they're all set, with enough MP in the tank to kill off stragglers.

Double Cast magnifies the problem but removing Quicken from Double Cast doesn't fix it. The only two ways to truly "fix" it would be to somehow make it not possible to recoup the cost of Quicken or to give it a miss chance. The former is preferrable to the latter.

The easiest way to do that, then, would likely be to make it function like Cleave where the unit that gets Quickened doesn't gain MP for the Quickened turn. (Maybe have a turn that happens via Quicken not affect the unit's normal place in the AT order to offset this?) That, and maybe capping the MP one can get from Mana Font to 10 MP (the cost of an Economy Quicken) so that units can't try to bypass the restriction with the end-game +2 Move Boots.

Another option that might work (in addition to or in place of the above) is making it so units can only be Quickened once in-between each regular AT via some kind of debuff that applies after a Quickened turn, but that could be unintuitive for the end-user.

[Snuggy Serian]

I still believe the debuff option would be the easiest way, also because it does prevent all kinds of possible exploits and also just prevent cheesing to use the strongest character.
Without changing other passives.

But yes, ond the user-site, it may not the perfect thing.
But thats the same with stuff like mirage etc.

Maybe if it would be possible to exclude units with that specific debuff from beeing a possible target for quicken.

[Meredith K Pseudonym]

Originally posted by RavenOfRazgriz:

It's worth noting that there are exploits possible with two units with Quicken even without Double Cast, as long as they can generate more MP than they consume with Quicken. An example of such would be to use three groups of two units that back-and-forth for infinite MP into Eruptor and/or Elemental Mastery-backed Sorcerer Spells. They use their turns to be able to all achieve the optimal position for damage then immediately translate it into K.O.s once they're all set, with enough MP in the tank to kill off stragglers.

That certainly is worth noting.

If Quicken is that problematic then, yes, there has to be a way to limit what a Quickened unit can do. I suggested removing Quicken from Double Cast for no other reason than because it was a guaranteed win, even (as proven) for a lone pair of level 1 characters if the enemy lacked Magic counter or Magic immunity. Preventing a previously Quickened from being Quickened again until they've been given a normal turn would put an end to such an exploit too.

[Snuggy Serian]

I prefer the debuff option because the gambler skillset is full with unique and different skills.
And with quicken you can support in way more different situations. Like you got more damage then expected, so you give your turn to the one healer.
Or someone is in danger and needs to move away, but is to slow.
Taking the mana regeneration away would prevent a normal use.

With preventing the exploiting, i find it great.
Though i still see myself rarely use the card skills. But thats another topic.

[pjlanzino]

i'm also nervous about loosing something that makes my beloved gambler unique with options and strategies

[Boweh]

One way might be to make a quicken spell merely make a turn come up faster by a fixed value, rather than it always automatically being the next turn. I'm not entirely sure how the initiative system works under the hood, but the general idea should be that in normal gameplay, the quicken reduction effect would be enough 99% of the time to make the quickened character act instantly, but the AI's initiative is still ticking down to the point where a character being quickened a second time still makes their turn come up faster, but not quite fast enough. Again, without knowing the actual system that handles initiative I don't even know if that's feasible.

One solution might be that the quicken spell becomes a buff, which comes with a temporary [negative speed stat?] modifier to their initiative. So they take their quickened turn and the buff wears off at the end, but the action they performed on their turn decreased their initiative even more. So instead of wiping away the wait time before a character's next turn, what quickening ACTUALLY does is let you take a single turn early, but then have to wait that extra turn's worth of initiative before the unit can act as normal again. That makes it stronger for speedy characters than others, since the wait is less of a drawback for them. It's a hard nerf for the effect, but in a way that should increase tactical decision making and the weight to the ability instead of using it so casually or for cheese like its current iteration. Just make sure you make it immune to the buff extension spells.

[Heau]

Without going to lengths about it, I think I would prefer to restrict double cast + blood magic from being paired than the quicken lock.

I think mana pooling for some quicken shenanigans restricted by the mana pool would provide interesting gameplay beyond the current issues whereas even with fixing the current issue through quicken, I think the combo of passives still provides a little too much. I could see how this solution may turn into a problem again if some huge mana swing options become available in the future though.

[Meredith K Pseudonym]

I don't see why you'd have to pick one change over the other.

Quicken at the moment has too many overwhelmingly powerful applications. It's the infinite mana engine, it's the max level engine, it's the Eruptor building engine, with Double Cast it's the instant win generator and I've probably missed something. All of those problems come from the same place: You can't be interrupted from looping Quicken. A fix can therefore be localised to Quicken itself and it won't really get in the way of anything else needing to be addressed.

Blood Magic wants it own conversation.