[BUG] Research price scaling

[monbon234]

It is possible for the cost to research a wand to outscale the maximum possible gold value the player can have, making some wands impossible to research.

[codefaux]

I've not actually encountered this, and I did not write the price scaling routines, but this doesn't surprise me given how crazy the game gets.

What would your proposed solution be?
Limit price to maximum gold?
Limit to something below that, because what's the point of gold after six digits anyway? lol.

I'm open to either improvements to the price scaling formulas, or suggestions on hard limits/etc. I'm about to push a full, major rewrite that really kicks this whole thing up a notch, but these formulas are unchanged, so I'll leave the issue open.

[monbon234]

Id recommend a rework of price scaling, maybe with a hard cap added of 10% of the max gold value.

With the price scaling, I can recommend a way to replicate the issue, which also shows a possible solution for the price scaling (or at least a temporary fix)

Essentially, there is a perk that causes held wands to gain slight stat improvements when spell refreshers are collected. When this perk is stacked and activated multiple times it can lead to some very good stats on a wand.

Ive also noticed that linear increases in stats cause exponential increases in research price, and this is the main issue, if you have a good wand, that you have researched, and then it gets some stat bonuses, even small ones, the price skyrockets. This eventually will lead to a wand with a research value higher than the gold cap. If research values were calculated from stat difference from researched value instead of stat difference from 0, it could fix this issue too.

[codefaux]

Regarding top-end scaling of wands, I'm not going to be able to write a calculation which will not eventually overflow if you break the game mechanics (even in expected ways) so I'm not compelled to try very hard. Likely what I'll do is disallow researching or creating wands beyond a certain stat value and before the scaling breaks, but allow that limit to be disabled for users who just want to play around.

Regarding research-per-stat-increment, that's a good idea but I feel it's a bit too easy unless I also dramatically increase the cost factors. A skilled player can already have a game breaking wand on their first run with the mod.

For the present, my plan is:

• I'll add a limit to the best stats which can be researched. (I like power, but this mod already makes it really easy to "break" the game.)
• I'll add a setting to disable the stat limit. (If you want to power play to have fun, I don't want to get in your way.)
• I will clamp maximum research price to below overflow, regardless of wether stat research limits are in place. (If you have that much gold/power, it's just busywork to make the number bigger anyway.)
• I will revisit the cost calculations to verify that they're sane within the research stat limit.

Would you consider that acceptable? Objections?

[monbon234]

that sounds perfect to be honest, thanks!

[codefaux]

V3 has been released, but this issue has not been addressed properly. Download it from the workshop or the persistence_v3 branch for now; I'm having issues merging that branch to master.