Goldify Nemelex Decks
"Goldify" is perhaps not the correct name. Abilify is better. Nemelex's decks create an inventory management nightmare. This plan replaces them with three god abilities, and adjust's Nemelex's other abilities as appropriate.
Currently a prototype is available in #916.
Either
- Draw Destruction
- Draw Summoning
- Draw Escape
or
Draw One
This replaces drawing from decks of the appropriate type. Deck interactions other than drawing now happen in a sub-menu common to the abilities, which displays the current card count for each deck. The ability menu and ability descriptions give information about the deck (cards remaining, cards it may contain).
Drawing abilities are permitted while silenced.
With decks reduced to abilities, the plain/ornate/legendary modifiers disappear. Normalize to determine card level entirely from invocations and piety:
card_level = x_chance_in_y(power, 900) + x_chance_in_y(power, 2700)
Where power is determined
power = (invocations * 9) + (piety * (invocations + 25)) / 27 + piety * (3/2)
Based on gifting and old card power rates, this results in the following differences in rates of availability of cards of powers zero one and two as functions of piety and invocations. Note, however, that the comparison is imperfect. Under the normalized scheme, the player has no choice to guarantee a higher power. Under the old scheme, with sufficient piety Nemelex worshippers were gifted mostly ornate and legendary decks, which with sufficient invocations could guarantee level 1 effects. This is reflected by the strong negative difference in the upper-right corner of the power level one graph. It also meant that a low invocations Nemelexite had better chances of getting level 2 effects, just by focusing on legendary decks. The chart below shows differences and absolute rates.
| Power zero | Power one | Power two | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New |  |
 |
 |
| Old |  |
 |
 |
| Difference |  |
 |
 |
The loss of the ability to avoid level 0 cards means that some of the less pleasant level 0 effects should be looked at. In particular, Velocity needs revision.
Power level zero velocity is actively harmful: if you are hasted, it sets your haste DUR to 1, and has a 2/3rd chance to haste or swift every enemy in sight (!).
Revised velocity does the following
- To the player: level chance in 2 to remove slow from the player
- To hostiles: (level + 1) chance in 3 to slow
- To allies: level chance in 2 to haste
Nem will occasionally add new cards to a player's decks, up to a maximum of MAX_DECK = 13 cards each, using the same distribution of decks as for old deck gifts, and the ornate card distribution within each deck.
Players will know how many cards they have available in each deck.
- Triple Draw: Piety cost increased to 6 from 2.
- Deal Four: Piety cost decreased to 0 from 8. Dealing from a deck with fewer than four cards just works. Still clears the remaining deck.
The player is prompted five times to draw from a deck, saving the cards. These cards are then shown to the player and can be set in order. Once in order, they form a fourth deck, presented to the player in the Draw One menu along side the god-given decks. If the player wishes to stack five again, the current stack is discarded. Stacking with fewer than five cards is permitted, but if the player has sufficient cards then they're required to stack five. This is a bit wonky, might be better to require five cards for stacking in this new regime.