Alright, I've done some comparison tests of some low to moderate mana rooms using my Bard in Prime and Test.

- He has 255 PP in Prime, 256 PP in Test.
- I travelled the ring road of Haven in a clockwise manner starting at the Town Square.
- I used EASE to determine the max amount of mana I was able to put into it without straining.
- I tracked the number of exits per room to see the effect that losing the neighbouring room mana has.
- The rooms numbers are there simply for reference if people want to talk about a specific line or lines. It should also help track down the same room easier in game if desired.

	Prime		Test
Room #	Message	Mana	Message	Mana	# of Exits	Difference
1	flickering	31	dusky	45	3	14
2	flickering	31	dull	31	4	0
3	flickering	28	muted	40	2	12
4	pulsating	47	flickering	57	2	10
5	pulsating	50	pale	52	3	2
6	hazy	19	dull	33	2	14
7	vague	11	hazy	28	2	17
8	vague	10	hazy	28	2	18
9	vague	10	hazy	28	2	18
10	hazy	19	hazy	28	2	9
11	slowly pulsating	42	shimmering	62	2	20
12	dimly flickering	23	hazy	28	3	5
13	dimly flickering	23	dusky	42	2	19
14	dimly flickering	21	dull	31	3	10
15	hazy	17	dull	31	2	14
16	slowly pulsating	39	dusky	47	3	8
17	slowly pulsating	44	shimmering	59	2	15
18	dimly flickering	21	hazy	28	3	7
19	vague	10	hazy	28	2	18
20	vague	12	hazy	28	2	16
21	dimly flickering	20	muted	37	2	17
22	flickering	30	dusky	42	2	12
23	slowly pulsating	41	pale	53	2	12
24	shimmering	35	dusky	46	2	11
25	dimly flickering	20	muted	36	2	16
26	vague	12	hazy	28	2	16
27	hazy	13	hazy	28	2	15
28	dimly flickering	23	muted	41	3	18
29	hazy	16	hazy	28	3	12
30	vague	12	hazy	28	2	16
31	hazy	13	dull	33	2	20
32	hazy	13	hazy	28	2	15
33	dimly flickering	22	dull	33	4	11

My observations:

1. Overall mana levels have increased.
2. The low mana levels especially seem to have benefitted from the increase the most. This appears to be from a minimum cap of sorts since every hazy room in the new system had 28 available to me.
3. Rooms that have less exits gain much more mana under the new system. Rooms that have more exits didn't improve as much if at all. I think that a room with lots of exits will likely have less mana under the new system. This makes sense because of the loss of adjacent room mana, but it will likely cause a lot of the current good mana spots people use to become less desirable.
4. The relative mana levels from room to room have changed in many cases. Just by looking at rooms 1 to 3 or at rooms 4 and 5 it can be seen that the order of highest to lowest is different, and by a fair margin.

I will be doing this soon with some lower skilled characters to see how they fare as well. I hope this info helps the GMs out, or at least helps guide others in their own testing.

-Evran

Crackling with unspent rage since 386AV.

I've continued my tests using the same criteria as before:

- Bard with now 256 PP in Prime, 256 PP in Test.
- I travelled the Town Green in Crossing this time as well as a few spots with zero exits.
- I used EASE to determine the max amount of mana I was able to put into it without straining.
- I tracked the number of exits per room to see the effect that losing the neighbouring room mana has.

	Prime		Test
Room	Message	Mana	Message	Mana	# of Exits	Difference
TGNW	shining	90	lambent	79	4	-11
TGN	flaring	109	shimmering	64	6	-45
TGNE	shining	87	glowing	73	3	-14
TGSW	powerfully glowing	75	dusky	47	4	-28
TGS	brightly burning	118	lambent	79	6	-39
TGE	luminous	92	lambent	79	3	-13
Milgrym's	dimly flickering	24	muted	36	0	12
Tembeg's	dimly flickering	22	hazy	28	0	6
Berolt's	hazy	16	hazy	28	0	12
Bard's Guild - Conservatory	pulsating	52	glowing	73	0	21

As I predicted, rooms with more exits tend to lose out a lot under the new system.

I'd previously said there was an overall increase in mana levels. I take that back since I'd only tested lower mana rooms up to that point.

Instead, we've ended up with a smaller scale. Before I was able to use anywhere from 10 to 118 mana. Now, I'm able to use anywhere from 28 to 79 mana. While this helps to alleviate the low mana room issues (especially as a bard who moves around a lot) there's no longer an option to move to that one really good spot since the mana in those spots is greatly reduced. It's still good, just not especially so anymore. Locations like the Town Green suffer the most since they had lots of exits connecting to high mana rooms.

I am in the process of conducting these same tests on my lower skilled war mage in the same locations to get a rough comparison of his gains/losses.

-Evran

Crackling with unspent rage since 386AV.

<<This is expected and part of the point. Mana ceases to be meaningful if it isn't actually a resource, so along with getting rid of the terrible terrible rooms we needed to poke down the fact that certain rooms are crazy good for no real reason.

Yup, I'm just making observations more than anything and giving numbers so that you can see if they line up with intentions and/or expectations.

-Evran

Crackling with unspent rage since 386AV.

Z, will these changes alter power settings that affect large areas, like P2 (I'm thinking of creepers, Elbains, Theren, etc)?

GENT

I was referring to a post by Dart that stated that a large swath of rooms in Therengia (creepers, Elbains, etc) were mistakenly given very low/minimum mana ratings at some point in the past.

Basically, most of the northern parts of Therengia have really poor mana settings, and it was not intended. From what you are saying however, it sounds like this change would not have affected these room settings.

Is there any chance that this problem could be investigated, if it's not already being fixed? The mana in these areas is quite terrible across the board under the current (non-Test instance) settings.

Thanks!
GENT

<<If you're getting those numbers via script, would you post it? I'd like to do some similar tests but it's just tedious to do by hand.

Not a fully automated one, but yes I am using a very basic script. I just manually move from room to room and do a CONC command followed by this script. It will work in Wizard, although you may need to add a match for your spell prep in the checktens and checkones tables. It also won't work for moon mages other than to sense the average mana available to them (i.e. Transduction)

---

#.mana - checks the mana levels using EASE

counter set 10

checktens:
match subtractone You have to strain
match addten You trace
match addten You focus your sense
match addten You close your eyes
put prep ease %c
matchwait


addten:
put release spell
wait
counter add 10
goto checktens


subtractone:
put release spell
wait
counter subtract 1
goto checkones


checkones:
match subtractone You have to strain
match done You trace
match done You focus your sense
match done You close your eyes
put prep ease %c
matchwait


done:
echo *************
echo *
echo * You can sense %c streams of mana available here.
echo *
echo *************
put release spell
exit

---

-Evran

Crackling with unspent rage since 386AV.

>>From what you are saying however, it sounds like this change would not have affected these room settings.

It's not changing the settings, but I believe we will see an increase in mana there. We will no longer be drawing from the nearby (also-awful) mana, but will be seeing an increase in available mana just because of our own skill. The room itself may still be set at "awful," but enough skill might bring it to "eh, kinda mediocre."

Killing you softly with his song,
- Stormsinger Shavay

---

Faerie tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know dragons exist. Faerie tales tell children that dragons can be killed.
- G.K. Chesterton

So you basically used DIR NORTHEAST GATE and went up from there? If so, I'll do a similar test with my clerics when I get home.


Nikpack
player of more than I should list

Climbing List:http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Climbing_skill
Swimming List:http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Swimming_skill

And while I am evil, I try to avoid being just plain mean.
-Z

>P.S. Single-player DR is creepy.

I agree. Would be nice to know times when people tend to be in test so we could go in when other folks are around to discuss the testing, help with getting situated, etc.

I had to bug the GMs to get taught slips since none of that stuff transfers over from Plat. Didn't feel like rewriting all my combat tools for testing...

-pete

Here's the same test run for holy mana for my two clerics:

Zakuro	Power Perceive:	557 80%				Celeiros	Power Perceive:	211 90%
Prime		Test		Difference (Test - Prime)		Prime		Test		Difference (Test - Prime)
slowly pulsating	67	shimmering	144	77		shimmering	32	dusky	42	10
powerfully glowing	114	luminous	185	71		glowing	59	glowing	65	6
glowing	100	shining	169	69		quickly pulsating	52	pulsating	63	11
pulsating	74	pulsating	134	60		slowly pulsating	36	pale	47	11
shimmering	58	shimmering	117	59		flickering	27	dusky	41	14
slowly pulsating	68	lambent	137	69		slowly pulsating	36	shimmering	54	18
slowly pulsating	67	shimmering	105	38		shimmering	31	muted	37	6
pulsating	78	glowing	128	50		slowly pulsating	40	flickering	52	12
glowing	105	luminous	149	44		faintly glowing	55	glowing	67	12
pulsating	72	glowing	116	44		slowly pulsating	36	flickering	49	13
shimmering	55	shimmering	96	41		flickering	26	muted	37	11
flickering	52	shimmering	95	43		flickering	24	dusky	39	15
dimly flickering	43	shimmering	97	54		dimly flickering	21	dusky	40	19
glowing	105	shining	130	25		faintly glowing	54	pulsating	63	9
faintly glowing	93	lambent	119	26		quickly pulsating	47	shimmering	55	8
glowing	104	luminous	135	31		faintly glowing	54	glowing	65	11
faintly glowing	97	shining	125	28		quickly pulsating	49	shimmering	59	10
quickly pulsating	85	lambent	120	35		pulsating	43	shimmering	55	12
quickly pulsating	82	glowing	112	30		pulsating	41	flickering	50	9
faintly glowing	94	luminous	135	41		quickly pulsating	50	glowing	65	15
slowly pulsating	68	pulsating	103	35		shimmering	33	pale	44	11
shimmering	58	pulsating	102	44		shimmering	29	pale	43	14
quickly pulsating	87	glowing	112	25		pulsating	43	flickering	50	7
softly shining	124	brilliant	162	38		powerfully glowing	68	luminous	83	15
pulsating	76	pulsating	100	24		slowly pulsating	36	dusky	42	6
slowly pulsating	65	glowing	112	47		shimmering	34	flickering	51	17
flickering	51	shimmering	97	46		flickering	24	dusky	40	16
slowly pulsating	67	shimmering	96	29		shimmering	31	dusky	40	9
faintly glowing	92	shining	129	37		quickly pulsating	49	pulsating	62	13
glowing	103	shining	129	26		faintly glowing	53	pulsating	62	9
faintly glowing	91	shining	129	38		quickly pulsating	48	pulsating	62	14
Average Change				42.71						11.71

Faldesu with Zakuro
Prime		Test		Difference (Test - Prime)
powerfully glowing	114	luminous	139	25
blinding	213	lambent	119	-94
flaring	160	brilliant	163	3
blinding	207	shimmering	99	-108
blazing	177	radiant	143	-34
blinding	215	fulgent	155	-60
blinding	230	lambent	122	-108
blinding	231	radiant	149	-82
blinding	261	brilliant	161	-100
blinding	214	radiant	148	-66
luminous	140	shimmering	96	-44
blinding	191	luminous	136	-55
blinding	250	fulgent	155	-95
blinding	206	fulgent	152	-54
blinding	214	pulsating	106	-108
flaring	163	fulgent	154	-9
blinding	206	lambent	109	-97
burning	171	luminous	109	-62
brilliant	150	shining	95	-55
faintly glowing	90	pulsating	105	15
average				-59.4

Unfortunately, Celeiros can't swim the Faldesu. But I'm seeing a bigger boost overall just not in the many multi-entrance rooms.

Nikpack
player of more than I should list

Climbing List:http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Climbing_skill
Swimming List:http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Swimming_skill

And while I am evil, I try to avoid being just plain mean.
-Z

We're doing some frenetic behind the scenes stuff but the exp from PP should be basically tripling in the near future, and be highly based on the mana you actually sense.

-Z

<<We're doing some frenetic behind the scenes stuff but the exp from PP should be basically tripling in the near future, and be highly based on the mana you actually sense.

That just makes so much more sense. :D

Nikpack
player of more than I should list

Climbing List:http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Climbing_skill
Swimming List:http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Swimming_skill

And while I am evil, I try to avoid being just plain mean.
-Z

Is this change slated for Empathy and PH as well?


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