jayrshaw wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:50 pm
Well, I just confirmed that whatever phenomenon I thought I was witnessing does not appear to be a result of my character's maximum stamina values.
Despite this, there is definitely something weird going on with my characters' stamina values. A good portion of the time while I'm training now (particularly if I've been focusing on Ninja skills), my entire group will typically collectively be down several hundred points of stamina from their maximum stamina values; this was definitely not happening when I was training at earlier levels. Also, I noted that restocking my supply of screamer slices brought Halk and Hissa (the characters who were killing the screamers using the Stab technique) down about 300 stamina points each. However, I was definitely able to restock my supply of screamer slices at earlier levels in the same manner (i.e., using the same Stab technique) without their stamina values dropping nearly this much; when I started training, my characters' maximum stamina values weren't even at 300 yet, and I never had to take any special measures to prevent their stamina from falling too far below their maximum. Weird stuff!
jayrshaw wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 2:35 pm
Also, I was really surprised to see how crazily effective high level stamina potions are at restoring your characters' stamina. I was training Sonja's Ninja skills and noticed that her stamina had dropped to around half its maximum level of ~900. I had her drink a single Mon level (i.e., Level 6) stamina potion, and it brought her all the way back up to her maximum!
After observing the natural stamina recovery rate more carefully, I can see why the game's developers made the stamina potions so effective. As far as I can tell, the rate at which your characters recover stamina does not improve at all as your characters' maximum stamina values improve. This means that you can expect some crazily long recovery times if you are waiting for a character with a high maximum stamina value to naturally recover a significant percentage of his/her stamina. In my game, Halk was down roughly 500 stamina points from his maximum of 999 after repeatedly using War Cry to gain his On Master (i.e., Level 3 Master) Fighter level and killing a bunch of screamers afterwards to restore my party's supply of screamer slices. Since I was done with Halk's Fighter level, I decided to just let his stamina recover naturally while the next character, Hissa, worked on his Fighter level. It ended up taking significantly longer than two hours for Halk to naturally recover to his maximum stamina level without the aid of a potion, and this was when the game's time was flowing at twice the normal rate due to me being in the character inventory menu the entire time!
Ok, I kind of feel like I'm beating a dead horse here at this point, but I just noticed that one of my characters (Stamm) is down more than 80 points from his maximum stamina value for (as far as I can tell) no apparent reason at all. The last activity I was doing with my characters was killing screamers to restore my supply of screamer slices and running down to Floor 4 to restore my water supply; however, Stamm was not one of the characters actually killing the screamers. I was also casting spells periodically with my characters (which is something I always do when they start approaching their maximum mana values).
I have read that your characters will consume some stamina as they recover mana, but I know from observing my characters over time that one of my characters who is idle while another one is training will very gradually recover stamina over time (as opposed to losing it), even if I periodically cast spells with all of my characters as they approach their maximum mana levels. As far as I can tell, the drop in stamina occurred at some point while I was fighting screamers and going on a water run - is it possible that Stamm could have lost that much stamina just from running around the dungeon for a short distance? Not sure if it matters, but Stamm also just gained a Wizard level; however, his maximum stamina was already at 999 prior to the time that he gained the level, so I don't see how that would impact anything.
I guess I'm just finding it completely bizarre that my characters are having way more problems with their stamina now that their maximum stamina values are in the 845-999 range than they were when their maximum stamina values were less than half that amount. I guess I'll watch my characters as I work on my next level (Fighter level for Sonja) and see if they are still recovering stamina over time...
After observing my characters for a longer period of time, I believe that stamina loss associated with mana recovery may account for the issues I have been noticing with my characters' stamina. While I am not completely certain of this, it appears that stamina ticks and mana recovery ticks occur at exactly the same time and the amount of stamina you recover each tick is reduced by an amount that is directly proportionate to the amount of mana you recover during that tick (in other words, as far as I can tell, you lose a lot more stamina for recovering 10 mana points during a recovery tick than you would if you were only recovering 1 mana point).
Basically, I just tried training one of my characters (Sonja) for roughly an hour and observed that my other idle characters were now recovering stamina at a rate of roughly 4-5 stamina points every 10 minutes (an even slower rate than I reported during my last post on the topic). After noting this, I tried observing one of my idle characters (Stamm) from the character inventory menu as he recovered his entire mana bar from around zero. What I was originally looking for was to see if Stamm's stamina dropped at the same time his mana recovery ticks occurred. What I actually observed was that nothing visible happened to Stamm's stamina during the vast majority of mana recovery ticks; however, I would occasionally observe Stamm's stamina go up by 1 point at exactly the same time that he gained mana from a mana recovery tick. As a result, I am guessing that the stamina recovery ticks and mana recovery ticks occur at the same time but that Stamm's stamina recovery ticks are so heavily impaired by the high amount of mana he is recovering each tick (9 mana points per tick) that nothing observable to the player occurs to Stamm's stamina during the vast majority of these stamina recovery ticks. This explanation seems to agree with the information I see on Christophe's encylopedia, which states that recovering mana causes your characters to consume stamina and also states that your characters' "real" stamina values are actually divided by 10 before being displayed on the screen to the player (in other words, the game is constantly managing amounts of stamina that would often only represent a fraction of a stamina point as displayed on the character screen). So, in a nutshell, I am guessing that the amount of stamina my characters are recovering each recovery tick is being decremented by such a huge amount due to mana recovery that the amount that is left over is only a small fraction of 1 stamina point (and is therefore only visible to the player every few ticks).
It is probably apparent from all of my previous complaints on the topic, but I figured I would mention that at higher wisdom and maximum mana levels, your characters will be recovering so little stamina on recovery ticks that it becomes necessary to periodically restore their stamina using stamina potions instead of relying on their natural stamina recovery. I do not know if it is possible to actually lose stamina on a recovery tick, but I would say the point where you are either recovering no stamina at all or actually losing stamina on a recovery tick likely occurs when your characters reach a maximum mana level of 360 or (less likely) 400 points and are therefore recovering 10 or 11 mana points per recovery tick, respectively. My characters are already barely recovering any stamina at all with a mana recovery rate of 9 mana points per recovery tick.
If your wisdom is buffed high enough so that the formula [Wisdom + Healer Level + Wizard Level] exceeds 112, you will be recovering mana on every recovery tick. If your wisdom is significantly lower than this but your maximum mana values are still really high, you will recover a normal amount of stamina on the recovery ticks where you don't recover any mana and little to no stamina at all on the ticks when you do, resulting in a more moderate rate of stamina recovery overall.
If your wisdom and maximum mana are both really high, you will definitely have to resort to using stamina potions to recover your characters' stamina. However, by the time this is necessary, your characters will have so much mana that consuming a mere 13 mana to create a Level 6 stamina potion will barely be an afterthought (as I mentioned in an earlier post, a Level 6 stamina potion will recover several hundred stamina points). Also, if your characters' levels are high enough for this to be necessary, your characters' maximum stamina values will also likely be very high; as a result, you will likely only have to use a stamina potion on a character once his/her stamina has dropped a few hundred points and is approaching the point where it is at risk of falling below the critical threshold of 50% of the characters' maximum stamina value.
jayrshaw wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:29 pm
I do not know if it is possible to actually lose stamina on a recovery tick...
Well, for anyone who might be interested, I just verified that it is definitely possible to lose stamina on a recovery tick. I let my characters' food levels get into the yellow zone and saw that their stamina levels were decreasing in ~5 point increments at exactly the same time when their mana recovery ticks were occurring...
