Thoughts on Banksterism

Discussion in 'Conquest of the Wizardlands' started by Essence, Jan 6, 2013.

  1. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    I don't see or hear much about Banksterism in builds much around here, and I read basically everything on these boards and a few others. I've been staring at Bankster for a long time, trying to figure out if there was something I could do in the ESCRII to make it more attractive, and I think I've reached a conclusion.

    I can't.

    It's because Bankster's problem is quite fundamental -- it's an entirely separate ecosystem from the rest of Dungeons of Dredmor. Bankster doesn't interact meaningfully with anything except itself, and even in and of itself, the interactions it has are primarily annoying rather than cool. The concept of managing cool skills by inflicting debuffs totally works for Necronomeconomics and Communism, because the benefits of those skills are very worth the debuffs. But in Banksterism's case, it really does come off less like a game and more like accounting, and that sucks.

    And when you look at the special effects you can get for your effort -- a single-target nuke, a charm, and a damage shield out of six levels worth of skill and a pile of management you have to perform -- it's just really questionable whether or not it's actually worth it.

    Banksterism needs to interact more with other skills in interesting ways, in short, and I don't really know how to do that without gutting a couple of the existing skills.


    Anyone have any ideas for more interactive Bankster skills, or thoughts on which of the current skills are the least interesting/most guttable?


    Thanks!
     
  2. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    It interacts with Tourism in that Tourism makes it 25% stronger, and Egyptian Magic with Pyramid Scheme. And it kind of, sort of interacts with the weapon skills (and archery/throwing) in that you can use it to buy new weapons/arrows/throwing things.

    I never really got the point of Insurance Fraud though. It costs money, it costs more money when you get hit, and it barely generates any money at all. You should be rolling in cash just from High Interest Loan, which makes Insurance Fraud something of a dead level. You don't need 2 skills in the same tree that give you money any more than you need 2 healing spells.

    The other issue is that the debuffs it gives you primarily remove the tree's benefits without affecting your effectiveness in combat. They give minor stat penalties, but really, they just take away the money High Interest Loan and pyramid scheme give you. And since you can remove them easily with your level 2 skill, it's simple to end up with a heavy net gain in Zorks. Maybe if the debuffs actually mattered. If they gave real stat penalties, or dealt damage. Then it could become a Necronomeconomics style utility tree, with healing and mp regeneration and stuff like that. Powerful abilities with benefits worth the levels you put into them, the debuffs they give, and needing to "charge" them up by using High Interest Loan.
     
    Kazeto likes this.
  3. mining

    mining Member

    Debuffs for utility is generally bad. Either you 'require' the utility (e.g. a teleport) and don't care about the debuff, or the utility is strictly more important than the debuff, or the other way around. In contrast, damage for debuff is a matter of moderating your use of the damage and combining it with mitigating utility.
     
  4. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    The Cure debuffs [​IMG] -1 [​IMG] -1 [​IMG] -1 [​IMG] -1 for 99 turns when you use it, and I'm pretty sure I've seen Socialized Healthcare inflict communism debuffs when it's used (though the wiki doesn't mention it). And Essence just got through implementing a debuff that randomly attaches to people to overuse mana regeneration skills to keep them from being abused. Though if you want damage instead of stat penelties, I'm not arguing against that either.
     
  5. mining

    mining Member

    Yeah, and you use The Cure whenever you need a debuff removal or healing, ditto socialized healthcare. There's never going to be an "I'm down 20 health and desperately need healing, but can't afford a little debuff"
     
  6. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    I guess I just don't see what the problem is then.
     
  7. Turbo164

    Turbo164 Member

    Maybe a Risky Investment that lets you spend piles of cash to gamble on random artifacts/krongings? Being able to turn Zorks into equipment that doesn't come from Brax could help some builds.
     
    Bohandas likes this.
  8. mining

    mining Member

    The main thing is that 'utility for debuffs' doesn't create very engaging play - neither does debuffs for damage. War Weaver circumvents that by dramatically lowering the 'big' stuff for mages and gishes - mana. You can never fully circumvent that limit, and you need to play with your skills and usage carefully to afford your actual spells while retaining a maximum of buffedness.

    One way to do it with bankster would be to offer buffs that cost zorkmids each turn to keep up - so you'd essentially be taxed for your awesomeness. Couple it with another tree or two centred around zorkmids that synergised at ~20%, and it'd work
     
  9. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Tourism only affects piles of zorkmids you find on the ground, doesn't it?
     
  10. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    A chance of being debuffed when you cast a spell is just another form of cost. Saying it "doesn't create very engaging play" is like saying paying mana for utility is generally bad and should be avoided at all costs. You're right, you'll never say "I'm down 20 health and desperately need healing, but can't afford a little debuff", but you will say every time you start a new game "Can this build support these debuffs, or should I take a different method of utility instead, and pay other things (like mana, levels, skill trees, or other debuffs) for them instead?"


    And there are no other trees that center around zorkmids. The closest thing is Tourism's +25% Zorkmid pickup.


    Bankster only adds piles of zorkmids to the ground for you to find. I'm 99% sure Bankster's money is effected by Tourist's ability, but this computer doesn't have DoD installed, so I can't check.


    edit: As far as levels to gut, 2 and 6 should go. Or at least 2. Balancing the skills with the debuffs they create isn't possible when the debuffs are so easily removed, and at level 1 too.
     
  11. FDru

    FDru Member

    The whole concept of generating massive amounts of zorks is flawed. In most cases you can just steal the valuable gear, or if you don't like to abuse Brax's stupidity you will end up sitting around grinding HIL until you have enough (which isn't very fun, but very effective).

    I like taking Bankster for use with Egyptian Magic for the obvious synergy, and therefore having enough cash to empty all of the vending machines and buy out shops that "exit to the right" (which can't be stolen from easily). There is really no other good use for it, and no good reason to go past level 2 if you don't really want a summon pet spell.

    Without being able to remove the debuffs you go bankrupt extremely fast. It's almost pointless to use HIL before you get Dump Toxic Assets because you will just end up going bankrupt soon after you get the first debuff. I think the idea of the skill tree is to generate and then dump massive amounts of money, anyway... like it was designed with the idea of totally trivializing the acquisition of zorkmids. So what would you do if you could not do that easily?
     
  12. Wootah

    Wootah Member

    I haven't played banksterism almost at all. I will get back some amazing feedback for you soon though.
     
  13. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    I would re-design the debuffs. Like you said, level 1 is dead until you hit level 2, and once you do, any debuffs it gives are trivialities. That's poor design, and I think it needs to be changed. Reduce the debuffs, put them all on timers, and generally make it so you don't need 2 levels dedicated to removing the downsides of taking the tree.
     
  14. Isasaur

    Isasaur Member

    The problem is it just doesn't have enough stuff soon enough, you get a pet for 50 turns on the 3rd skill point, and that, IMO, is way too long, damage mitigation is very good, but it does cause you to lose zorkmids pretty fast, also, Nacho, the thing about insurance fraud is you can use it on enemies too, if they take more than 2 hits, basically, you're coming out with more money than you started with. I just finished playing a game where all I had for damage was Egyptian Magic and Banksterism, needless to say, even by playing to my best, I couldn't get past floor 4 and died, because I only ever found 1 shop in the entire game, and also, that's another thing, banksterism is too dependent on finding shops to be useful other than the damage mitigation :\
     
  15. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    But you don't need to come out ahead Isasaur- High Interest Loans with Pyramid Schemes to boost output and Dump Toxic Assets to remove the debuffs leaves you with more zorkmids than you know what to do with. The extra Zorkmids Insurance Fraud gives you is nothing compared to what you're making from High Interest Loans.

    And I don't see how you could get more back than you pay. You spend 62.5*floor-.25:savvy: zorkmids to cast the spell, and get only 1/10 their hitpoints back. On floor 4 with 30 savy, you'd still need a monster with 2425 life to break even. Unless I'm screwing up the order of operations. Is it (25*F*2.5)-(.25:savvy:) or (25-.25:savvy:)*2.5F or 25*(2.5F-.25:savvy:) ?
     
  16. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    :looks at Skepticism:

    Apparently, <effect type="spawnitematlocation"> with no further arguments spawns a random item appropriate to your current floor.


    :looks at Banksterism:

    Brax' Bargian Basement Blowout!! Trade 500 + (250* Floor) for one random level-appropriate item. Cooldown: 27.

    I have no idea if this will break horribly on Wizardlands/Mysterious Portals/Diggle Hell or not...but it's worth a shot.
     
  17. Wootah

    Wootah Member

    That does look kinda cool Essence. I was laying up at night wondering if you could make code that would summon a random vending machine for short while (like 50 turns). Then you would have a lot more to do with the money, and it is still very capitalistic in nature. Still haven't played it yet, but I might make a banker for beta 1.1.3 Version 3 :)

    Edit
    At that price though, on floor 13 you would be paying 3750 and often be pumping out items that could sell for 6.5K on GR... which would totally pay for itself. I like it.
     
  18. Isasaur

    Isasaur Member

    It looks cool, also, it would break as much as it would HIL, it would just make nothing happen, I think.

    Also, what is Pyramid Scheme? Am I missing something?

    Edit: I just thought of an amazing (atleast in my mind) of an ability for the Bankster: reroll all the items in a shop! :D Don't know what it would be called, but I'd go for a high price range like 500 x floor level or something like that
     
  19. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    Pyramid scheme is what you have a 25% chance of getting every time Cooked Books, Frozen Account, or Poor Investment proc while you have Egyptian Magic's Glyph of Imhotep. It lasts 32 turns and gives you 10xFloor Zorkmids each turn.
     
  20. Isasaur

    Isasaur Member

    Isn't there one like that for Imhotep too? I remember that happening on my last banksterist game