Developer Commentary: Piety and Feedback

[Xerah]

One of the things that I looked into doing when I joined the team was trying to find a better system for piety or balance out the current ones. As some of you have given me feedback (appreciated!) on the system change, ultimately, it was decided to scrap that plan and just add some more methods for piety generation.

One thing to note is that the new options were not added to be even across the board since some aspects were easier to generate piety than others.

What I'm looking for now that you've had a few days to go over the system (and going forward) is how the aspects compare as I'd like to bring them in line. Not that any character should be able to take any aspect and do well, but if you take aspects that relate to your characters you should be able to do fine (not just take aspect XXXX and you'll be fine). I don't want to piety system to be trivial, so please share your experiences with the aspects! Thanks!

[Kalopsia]

First of all: Amazing work on this update! I'm really glad to see all deity aspects are viable in their own ways now.
Personally, I think piety gain from spellcasting could be increased a little - the majority of caster classes has limited spells per day, after all. And infinite casters won't struggle to have maximum piety either way.

Also I'd like to suggest adding a +1% piety gain per tick for characters with Gift of Unique Favor.
This seems thematic and is unlikely to cause any balance-related issues.

[Zed]

It seems at the moment wizards are getting the short end as far as piet generation.

Theyve always gained piety pretty slowly, but H&H wizards (mystrans for example) still gain piety at a slow rate,

I wouls suggest that wizards gain piety over time if they have wards acitve, either a slow gain or say .01% per ward.

Or maybe increase their pray rate as essences arent really used that much by wizards unless you are a spellsword, at the moment I just find myself applying all the essences I have in my inventory for a small amoubt of piety

[Xerah]

I was considering giving spell level / 3 * 0.1 for magic piety.

[magistrasa]

I think all the piety gains are fantastic for people with lesser-known gods, who don't want to take Unique Favor just so they can have their piety at a nice place. A friend of mine (who's probably the only person on the server worshipping their particular deity, lol) was thrilled by the fact that now they've had their piety above 50% for the first time ever.

My personal experience as far as wizards go, however, kinda contradicts the above accounts. Playing a wizard with a magic deity means I've pretty much never had my piety below 50%. And I do enchanting and I -pray somewhat frequently! Infinispells make it to where earning piety naturally is just too easy to even bother worrying about.

[Zed]

I was considering giving spell level / 3 * 0.1 for magic piety.

Im on board with that.

As for the above, at the moment most clerics I know are getting 2 to 3% piety a tick, meaning now they will basically always have 100% piety.

[Xerah]

I was considering giving spell level / 3 * 0.1 for magic piety.

Im on board with that.

As for the above, at the moment most clerics I know are getting 2 to 3% piety a tick, meaning now they will basically always have 100% piety.

Which god are you playing as your cleric now? Just want to use that to reference where the feedback is coming from.

[Za-Lord~s Guard]

K&I is still a little rough to get piety for. You’re capped at 5% max per two 1/2 hours from crafting, and spam writing letters for piety would be strange.

Considering the limitations on K&I’s methods of generating piety, could the amount of piety they get from crafting be increased, or scale with their crafting skill? This would reward investing in a skill with easier piety regeneration, and suits an aspect based around knowledge; more knowledge of the craft, more favor in inventing in it.

[naturaly]

Perhaps k&i could give piety increase in large amount for successful start of crafting project. Currently only work on craft give piety, not start project.

This is a minor point though. Great changes so far!

[Zed]

I was considering giving spell level / 3 * 0.1 for magic piety.

Im on board with that.

As for the above, at the moment most clerics I know are getting 2 to 3% piety a tick, meaning now they will basically always have 100% piety.

Which god are you playing as your cleric now? Just want to use that to reference where the feedback is coming from.

Corellion clerics at level 27 gaining 2% a tick last I heard from them. I'll ask am what their gain is

[Xerah]

Corellion clerics at level 27 gaining 2% a tick last I heard from them. I'll ask am what their gain is

I'm asking for feedback from people who actually have played with the aspects or piety gain. Not someone 'guessing'.

And yes, it will be 2%

[flower]

Is it not a bit overkill?

As paladin following Corellon my character does not decreases piety at home, gets piety per kill, every time heals anyone...I never get below 97% piety now despite extensive usege of divine feats.

I am just trying to say piety became just redundant. If you never loose it, what is its sense?

[Zeskay]

Tymoran Healer Path Cleric here, with no real way to gain piety through anything other than H&H.

Between buffs, summoning, and offensive & defensive spells / epic spells, she can easily lose 30%+ per rest if it's a tough place (Summon and a few storms add up real fast). With the regen overheal, she doesn't need to cast much healing, so what she gets back that way is usually around 2%, let's say 5% now that healing kits give piety. So at 2% tick, it will take her over an hour to get back to 100%, but there's a good chance she'll have another buff round before that happens. By the time a long trip is done, she's now hovering around 60%+ piety. (I'm looking at you crazy level 15 that wanted to go deeper into the Slime Temple...).

Before she used to come dangerously close to not having enough for a god raise more frequently than I was comfortable with, and had to afk at an altar for a long time to thank Tymora profusely for letting them return in one piece.

So overall the change is good. I can see how for some domains it might be a bit much. Even in my situation I wouldn't mind if the tick was reduced, but in the end it really depends on the domains, and how often they use their piety. I can only speak from the point of view of a caster cleric.

Hope that helps, keep up the good work!

[flower]

Days back, healers were getting piety per regeneration.

[Zeskay]

That's not a thing anymore. You only get 0.5% back for the initial cast, which costs 1%.

[Xerah]

Is it not a bit overkill?

As paladin following Corellon my character does not decreases piety at home, gets piety per kill, every time heals anyone...I never get below 97% piety now despite extensive usege of divine feats.

I am just trying to say piety became just redundant. If you never loose it, what is its sense?

If you are going to respond in this thread, I am looking for actual playtested feedback. This is now the third time I've mentioned this.

Also, if you'll refer to my initial post:

One of the things that I looked into doing when I joined the team was trying to find a better system for piety or balance out the current ones. As some of you have given me feedback (appreciated!) on the system change, ultimately, it was decided to scrap that plan and just add some more methods for piety generation.

One thing to note is that the new options were not added to be even across the board since some aspects were easier to generate piety than others.

What I'm looking for now that you've had a few days to go over the system (and going forward) is how the aspects compare as I'd like to bring them in line. Not that any character should be able to take any aspect and do well, but if you take aspects that relate to your characters you should be able to do fine (not just take aspect XXXX and you'll be fine). I don't want to piety system to be trivial, so please share your experiences with the aspects! Thanks!

I do appreciate people who took the time to provide what I asked for and gave actual feedback from their experiences in game.

[Rotary]

I'm playing a max level battle cleric with a War deity and in truth the new piety update has made the system feel rather trivial from this class perspective.

Before the update I usually had to spend time praying every couple of days, or some other fashion of gaining piety. I would conserve 7th, 8th, and 9th spells as not to burn through piety too quickly and would enact -yoink sparingly.

Now in the current update I no longer worry, or do any of those things out of need. Between the 0.5% for slaying enemies, and 2.0% gained per tick I don't think I've found myself under 50% since the update.

That's not to say it's all been bad, I imagine this has been a large boon to healer path clerics who are actually healers. Allowing them to regain a decent amount of piety that was virtually unavailable to them by slaying enemies.

[Sea Shanties]

Playing a Spellsword of Gond who doesn't yet have hide invested. Without the ability to sneak and without using disguise they are reliant on K&I for piety gain which is too incidental since it only comes from crafting. I know I've said this elsewhere but as someone who would like to play a Gond cleric next, K&I still isn't in the best place and Trickery is very good for sneaks, not good for clerics who don't have that skill (unless they dump 5 points in hide and "sneak" when walking, which seems effective but a cheat.) Noted, most other deities will have at least one easier-to-gain-piety aspect. I have a few other other characters of various deities and all seem to get piety at a good pace

I'd suggest trickery is basically fine (though still not cleric-friendly) and there's a need to boost K&I a little somehow, particularly in a way that will boost when adventuring instead of at home base. +.5% for ID'ing an item would be thematically appropriate for example.

Also, is Mystra's "Hearth and Home" aspect working? I have another character with that deity selected and they only get piety from casting spells, never from heal potions or kits.

[Red Ropes]

All I have to say is:

Druids!

Druids need the piety uptick.

The non-war druids will still sort of struggle to get piety via their non-nature based kills.

Maybe switch them up to have a half-gain on piety in non-nature marked areas, and full piety trickle in nature.


---

Feedback beyond that I love how piety works now, it makes non-war people pretty viable and have a comparable level of piety gain and you don't have to live on your knees as BG, paladins, or clerics.

[Xerah]

Playing a Spellsword of Gond who doesn't yet have hide invested. Without the ability to sneak and without using disguise they are reliant on K&I for piety gain which is too incidental since it only comes from crafting. I know I've said this elsewhere but as someone who would like to play a Gond cleric next, K&I still isn't in the best place and Trickery is very good for sneaks, not good for clerics who don't have that skill (unless they dump 5 points in hide and "sneak" when walking, which seems effective but a cheat.) Noted, most other deities will have at least one easier-to-gain-piety aspect. I have a few other other characters of various deities and all seem to get piety at a good pace

I'd suggest trickery is basically fine (though still not cleric-friendly) and there's a need to boost K&I a little somehow, particularly in a way that will boost when adventuring instead of at home base. +.5% for ID'ing an item would be thematically appropriate for example.

I've played a K&I character with my last three characters, actually, and found it to be very good with piety. That was why I went with the letter over the ID option.

Also, is Mystra's "Hearth and Home" aspect working? I have another character with that deity selected and they only get piety from casting spells, never from heal potions or kits.

I do not understand what is going on here. Other H&H deities get piety from heal kits, but not Mystra. But Mystra still gives piety for healing spells/potions. Nothing in the code looks like it should prevent only Mystra from this. I have to look into it more.

[Xerah]

All I have to say is:

Druids!

Druids need the piety uptick.

The non-war druids will still sort of struggle to get piety via their non-nature based kills.

Maybe switch them up to have a half-gain on piety in non-nature marked areas, and full piety trickle in nature.


---

Feedback beyond that I love how piety works now, it makes non-war people pretty viable and have a comparable level of piety gain and you don't have to live on your knees as BG, paladins, or clerics.

I will add in druids when I tinker with the numbers a bit.

[Sea Shanties]

My Mystra character isn't even getting piety from potions. They're in Skal on Distant Shores if that helps at all, I haven't tested in on C&P or surface.

I don't want to be argumentative about the K&I, but were any of these characters clerics? Getting piety from crafting and an occasional letter is fine for someone who doesn't need piety constantly but the average level 17 and up cleric will blow through at least 10% per rest even if conservative with their spells. Again I'm being selfish and going back to the Gond cleric with K&I/Trickery, who won't be able to sneak or disguise effectively due to low skill points even with a late bard dump. Piety gained would then only be the uptick (which is appreciated) and from crafting at home base. You get a nice amount from crafting but it's only every two hours and the amount gained only covers a few spells.

If the goal is actually to make piety gain constant across the aspects I'd hope every cleric would have a way of regaining piety when on an extended adventure. War, H&H and magic can maintain really well through activities that synergize with adventuring, trickery if you build for it though clerics don't have those skills, nature if you know where the plants are. A cleric who relies on K&I instead of it being an afterthought doesn't have a way of gaining piety "in the field", unless they write dozens of letters I suppose. That's why I suggest ID'ing items, as boosting lore is affordable even for a gnomish cleric and it's in line with K&I worshippers being about knowledge, and it even fosters RP for them to be the loremaster in a party.

Like I said, I'm sorry to be argumentative and hope this comes across in the spirit of discussion. I'll let it rest if no one else cares.

[magistrasa]

I like the idea to get piety on item identification! Seems right up the K&I alley.

[Freyason]

I don't want to be argumentative about the K&I, but were any of these characters clerics?

Are you forgetting that clerics also get 1-3% piety every hour?

[Sea Shanties]

Of course I know this. I acknowledged that in the post. But +3% is one level 9 spell regained per hour with no other meaningful way in that aspect to regain piety when out adventuring. It's a great addition and a great supplement but not enough if it's all you have.

Other aspects let you regain piety on the fly by doing things in dungeons and the wilderness which is a huge advantage when on a longer dungeon crawl. Most regain it by doing stuff you'd be doing anyway, killing and casting spells. I know with most deities the other aspect will probably be generous enough to make up for this, but not always and I think K&I could use a boost.