Given that we've got interesting ideas for this in discord it feels worth producing a place where they can be collated so they don't get lost.
Probably it's worth starting with some ideas as to what pact debt is trying to achieve so people can be on the same page whilst thinking up ways to enact that since there's always two points of discussion that are easy to happen across one another "I don't like this objective" and "I don't think this achieves this objective". The old cost had the following properties.
No/minimal up front cost (you weren't paying until you next died), it should always be tempting in the short term to hit up the pact right now (and potentially regret it later)
A cost that in some way benefits the DO or evil in general (making stygia, the place where they got awesome bonuses more active was beneficial to DOs in at least a nebulous way)
The cost stacked up in such a way you could potentially just write it off as a facet of your life now that it wasn't worth trying to dig yourself out of without ever feeling like a painfully high cost (once you had 36 stygian respawns banked adding 6 more to the back of the queue didn't really feel like a meaningful cost, your were just committed now)
Doesn't do anything to make people want to awkwardly hang onto the later uses, each use should be just as tempting as the last (if not more so due to sunk cost)
People can argue whether that's a good set of objective or I have somehow missed the mark.
My first thought is an AP/MP tithe, for the next 6 nights your midnight AP/MP tick goes to the pacting DO instead (or possibly you always pay it but the DO only gets one or other of them with the missing half going to the dark powers). I feel like that works as a deferred cost that will always be tempting in the moment and need paying back later.
My suggestion would be that for every use of a pact, you will pay the AP costs for the scriber's next respawn once. This would be a deferred debt, paid off somewhat quickly time-wise, a substantial-enough cost to "feel it", the scriber gets something out of it (tangible usefulness), and you are "reminded" of your debt at an unforeseeable time in the (probably near) future when the "invoice" hits.
The scriber when dead and having one or more pacts active would, instead of or in addition to their regular and (maybe) hellspawn respawn buttons, see one button per pact user (no need for one button per pact) that will let you "claim that debt to be paid" (0 AP, <name> pays XY AP); or a single button that would randomly choose one of the outstanding debts if that is easier to code and/or fairer / less prone to abuse.
Good thread. I agree with some of what's written, however I'd like to expand with my thoughts.
The old version had good sides and bad sides. I'll describe it as I see it.
- The benefit of using the skill: obviously
- Respawning in stygia: often just straight up beneficial to the user
- XP to the DO: nice while leveling but ultimately not worth much later on outside passive infusion stuff. This shouldn't be the incentive to use pacts.
- Summoning a pet for the DO: Rarely useful. I turned them off.
- a bunch of 1 weight pacts that accumulate in your inventory: annoying, but often not impactful
Overall, it felt a bit off. As a DO, I was never interested in 'holding' people to their pact debt, as the only meaningful personal benefit from having the pacts (the xp) was already obtained. It felt like the thematics of seeking dark power and becoming beholden weren't fully realised by the game mechanics.
The new version is just expensive all round. It's a cool skill (my favorite skill in the game) and I think the extreme costs of using it do it a disservice. The cost is unmanagably high for normal use, and very high to the DO also. Why is the DO getting punished here for people using their pacts. Some guy can use 5 times and then just hold it, FORCING the DO to revoke for massive AP at no cost to the pact user. It's a bad paradigm.
While I agree that it was a powerful skill, I don't necessarily agree that it was 'too' powerful. Lets consider the skill's power based on which skill it gets used on:
- Occasional use abilities like pattern weaver: really nice utility. Super handy. Saves other characters some CP. Not powerful per se, just convenient.
- blood transcription: Honestly could be interesting but I have no idea.
- Spell combat: never bothered
- Dark heart: it's... fine at best. It's an ok skill, but it's not really convenient to use overall.
- defiler poison: never bothered. It's not a particularly good skill.
- taint spell: pretty much useless since the more strongly enforced unholy damage type restrictions came in.
So we've gone through most of the list. There's some more:
- Desecration: The default option. It's not super strong, but it's nice. The main reason for using this is just to 'activate' the pact. Lets vassals get full strength desecrates.
- Soul vampire: the cornerstone of why this is a good skill. soul vampire pacts let combat classes generate copious amounts of soul ice, fueling the demon MP economy. Is it powerful? ABSOLUTELY! But I think this needs to be viewed through the lens of advocate prayer+energise. Which is just as AP efficient and just as convenient, and requires a similar amount of coordination. This outstrips advocate energise by sharing the load a bit more, and by creating an alchemy resource. The alchemy side might be a bit strong.
- life vampire: also nice.
- Spells: nice, solid. Good use of a pact but no-one is going to be crying in discord about being beated by someone with an extra tiger claw when advocate spell transfer and conduit enchanted food exist.
What's my point? The point is that the reason that scribe pact felt like it needed to be nerfed was because of soul vampire specifically. Nothing else is in the same league of overall impact on the game. I maintain, as described above, that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. But the point I'm making is that nerfing scribe pact is a pretty indirect approach.
Here's how I think pacts should feel:
- The DO should want people to use pacts for selfish reasons
- People should be tempted to use pacts for selfish reasons
- There should be an element of addiction: once you've started using pacts it should be particularly punishing to stop. You want people begging once their pact runs out.
- The cost of using pacts should be moderate provided that you are paying it continuously, and a little punishing if you aren't.
Here's my suggestion for structuring it.
- Scribe pact increases to 5 ap/ 10 mp. The cost was silly low, and this version creates a pathway to recouping the costs.
- Using a pact reverts to 1 AP up front for the user.
- Use a mechanic like Mousus described to pay off the pact debt, where a specified tick gives AP/MP and maybe also HP to the DO.
- Number of repayments per use for a pact should be about 4 per use.
- If the pact user has pact skill or pact debt (i.e. they've used a pact in the last 24 hours), they donate 1 tick/day no matter how many pacts or debts they hold.
- If the pact user does not have a pact skill or pact debt, they are debited once for each pact they hold. But in this case they are debited an extra 1 AP/MP per pact, while the DO still only gets one. i.e. the pact user is paying an even higher cost, and AP is getting wasted instead of getting funneled back to the DO.
AND for fun, let the DO call in the debt at will, but reduce the gains to 1/3 of what they'd get if they waited.
Sorry, haven't really gone through and done a proper edit. I'll go back over this when I get a chance to make sure it makes sense.