To add to the current vapours questions, are things that currently giving vapours (that will now give recklessness instead) also going to be amended to give blackout if it's staying? Or is that more likely to be decided on a case by case basis?
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
My train of thought is that the end goal is to simplify combat for everyone, and excessive blackout is a significant roadblock. Replacing vapors alltogether was an opportunity to do this. So while blackout is not going away, vapors is (because it's the same thing more or less).
So vapors is just being replaced according to the list, unless a reasonable case is made that a short blackout is needed in specific cases.
I see! So if I'm understanding correctly, removing afflictions is more about removing redundant afflictions that now share a cure, rather than simplifying the affliction list in general ? Or is it phases?
I see! So if I'm understanding correctly, removing afflictions is more about removing redundant afflictions that now share a cure, rather than simplifying the affliction list in general ?
Not only redundant but also rarely used or 'throw away' afflictions. Hopefully, this will result in simplifying the affliction list!
You of course are correct about masochism I was thinking about the version in my head and not the one in game...an aff where if you attack another player you damage yourself.
If not that, I'd like to see an aff or two that cause players to have to use caution when attacking (much like rebounding does), that's the sort of complexity that I feel even casual players can enjoy and appreciate. In general, I think players are more forgiving of their own mistakes. I don't have much control over being stunned, but if as a knight I attack someone with rebounding up, that is a choice I made. If you're familiar with IRE kai monks, they have that ability where if you're not paying attention and attack them you die (not an attack or die aff, but a reflect damage one).
Anyways, new affs aren't the topic. I just wanted to explain my goof.
Well we have the justice domoth that does that and it is, not coincidentally, rarely used. I appreciate the feedback and don't disagree with your point. It's just not the direction we're going right now.
edit: or was that the justice affliction? One or the other. Justice something. No one uses them.
Is focus body/mind/spirit staying as a cure balance?
If not, then are impatience/deadening going to be repurposed because as of now, impatience stops focus body/spirit and cures first on focus mind and deadening doubles focus balance, so if those are removed, then impatience/deadening don't serve a purpose right now.
Is focus body/mind/spirit staying as a cure balance?
If not, then are impatience/deadening going to be repurposed because as of now, impatience stops focus body/spirit and cures first on focus mind and deadening doubles focus balance, so if those are removed, then impatience/deadening don't serve a purpose right now.
We're still discussing focus body/mind/spirit. We may change them to allow targeted curing (i.e., focus mind would allow DRINK LUCIDITYSLUSH FOCUS EPILEPSY). Thus, there'd be a purpose for impatience. Deadening could extend all cure balances. Anyway, again, this is all speculation and undecided which is what you get when we release info early!
I've no problem working with speculation and alpha stage, I'm not about to dive into a rant about how x/y/z is going to break the new system when it's still in design phase, and I hope no one else is either.
People are just curious as to the mechanics and how you're looking to impliment specifics. The information in that regards is really useful, thank you!
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
In the case of more unique afflictions, will administration be open to envoy changes that involve bringing back certain afflictions in limited context?
Generally no, I'd prefer to see the dead afflictions stay dead. If this is about narcolepsy and daydreaming, I am pretty set on seeing them go. I don't think their existance adds anything to the game and I don't believe weavers really suffer without them. I would like to see the issues resolved with the afflictions we are keeping. That being said, I don't like shutting the door completely without hearing anyone out on a specific issue. I can't guarantee we'll agree, but we'll listen.
It partially has to do with them, but is meant in a broader context. Along with the move away from as many afflictions, a lot of classes will undergo pretty drastic changes, part of which may involve changing afflictions again, possibly reviving old afflictions (so, not generally things like vertigo, but possibly daydreaming/narcolepsy), or even adding class-specific afflictions.
For instance, if dreamweaving moved away from sleep attrition (which would be a celebrated move, I believe), the reintroduction of those motes might be desirable. The same would apply if aeon-type moves like sap are changed directly as part of high-threat affliction overhauling or indirectly as a result of different locks.
Unrelated, will there be any space for filler afflictions? For instance, there's a class in Aetolia that can spawn mental afflictions that do absolutely nothing... but eat up cure space/time and have amusing messages. Vertigo and the like will not be missed, but that could make an interesting submechanic for some archetype.
We discussed that at the beginning of this; one of the problems with streamlining the cure system means that "filler" affs become far, far more serious; they will block the curing of a wider array of more important afflictions. This means that they can potentially become very powerful under the new system, or be absolutely pointless if the 'targeted' curing (being able to specify the aff to cure) goes into effect.
To me, this means that it is better to not have these than to have them. They either become difficult to balance in terms of how they block a wide swath of other cures, or they add nothing at all because you never have to cure them.
Filler afflictions in Aetolia are important because each herb/potion/focus has a specific cure order, so you are able to block the curing of more serious afflictions by using more mundane filler afflictions. That's not a mechanic that's readily available in Lusternia, which means filler afflictions are less important.
No need for filler afflictions if the focusing mechanic proposed stays.
Personally I feel that giving a set curing order to afflictions is far simpler than our current system, so if that happened, there would be no need for focus. Maybe focus can be repurposed to an allheale like mechanic.
Speaking of, might add well talk about green and allheale too.
Likewise I'm also for keeping deleted afflictions gone, no need too bring them back. Further, the admin already said that they'd rather not overhaul entire classes at the moment so I don't think this is a good place for proposals.
No need for filler afflictions if the focusing mechanic proposed stays.
Personally I feel that giving a set curing order to afflictions is far simpler than our current system, so if that happened, there would be no need for focus. Maybe focus can be repurposed to an allheale like mechanic.
Speaking of, might add well talk about green and allheale too.
Likewise I'm also for keeping deleted afflictions gone, no need too bring them back. Further, the admin already said that they'd rather not overhaul entire classes at the moment so I don't think this is a good place for proposals.
Set curing order might oversimplify the curing against certain classes while making it easier for other classes to exploit the system. Each and every affliction-heavy class will need very careful looking at to make sure debilitating afflictions aren't overwhelming the curing completely to the point where it is impossible to get out of a situation once said situation is reached, making a fight an instant-win. (Not that we don't have that at present in certain situations)
That said, I'd personally prefer a set curing order too, but I understand if it is not implemented, especially considering the amount of extra work it might involve to balance the system to where there's no automatic wins for any affliction-heavy class.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
@Steingrim: Hypersomnia can also be given by moon tarot unless it was specifically removed, we used this in the Nihilists for locks sometimes, though unreliably.
@Shuyin: There are at least two, not easy to pull, and the version using crucify will often need another person. I true locked as a Nekotai.
@Estarra: Addiction is cured by slush and increases drinking time, which unless I misread will mean it effects its own cure. Not sure if this was intended or not, but thought I would make a note.
On a different note, my main concern with things like confusion, paranoia, and such will be cure balance times. Paranoia currently causes bard songs, melds, etc to hit everyone including the owner, having this easy to stack could shuffle things up a bit. Confusion has a similar issue, if you can be stuck with it for 4 seconds because of cure time for instance you will take the much higher loss. If cure times are too high, you could potentially make new hekoskeri as an aff with a tiny bit of stacking.
I am not sure what to think about focus at the moment. The point of delivering multiple afflictions is to make them last, if you can always target the important one you only ever have the "minor" ones. This also means that in any instance with more than one person, or where there are say two or more passives, you will always have a stacking count of scary afflictions. I have no suggestions on handling that right now, but wanted to make a note that we may need to tone down/back the number of passives. If all of Illuminati passives and "casted passives" for instance stayed they have something like four ways to cause afflictions ignoring them, including the dreaded greywhispers with 3 affs a tic.
Getting rid of mental affs that make people try to run out of the room...not sure how I feel about that yet. Generally good, since it'll make chasing less of a pain. I know that as a hexen SD, I relied on vapors a lot to both eat allheale as well as stripping insomnia under blackout to prep people for double sleep/pixie/beast sleep cloud and then the inevitable lashing.
I don't mind strategies changing, obviously. And it'll be interesting to see how things shake out as a hexen illuminati for stacking mental affs to have jinx and badluck do their thing.
Speaking without absolute experience, I do think that affs that split groups inspire one to use strategy in PvP situations and can really make a difference when the odds are not quite in your favor (strength and numbers). I'll hop out of PvP talk now. Meep .~.
Do I really need to outright say the word reasonable. Truelocking someone by your definition is going to take forever.
So okay, if you're willing to run your opponent out of power, willpower, get 30 afflictions on them, and hope that off balance and off equilibrium alternate conveniently so the victim cannot act, then yes, truelocks exist.
This is still a tangent to the discussion so I'm gonna move on before the self appointed forum police cuff me with the chains of off-topicness.
My big concern at this point is what @Malarious brought up, involving affliction stacking. Making a random cure order with such broad curing pools makes affliction-based combat something of a crapshoot. As the attacker, you're just hoping they don't randomly cure all of the important afflictions first, and need to spam until you finally stick your afflictions. As the defender, you're hoping the opposite, that while you're spamming cures you'll be lucky and cure the ones you actually want cured.
This is true to some extent now, but with the relatively large number of cures and balances, you will usually only have one or two afflictions on a particular curing balance, and different ways to try and cure your target affliction if that balance fails to do so. On the offensive side, you know what afflictions you can give and can usually understand which of them have been cured by your opponent by observing their actions, because each only has a small number of things to cure.
With four curing pools that are totally random, with no special jinx-type mechanics (none of which have been mentioned) the only way to really stick an aff would be brute overwhelm tactics, which typically require very little strategic or tactical skill, and are prone to poor balancing.
EDIT: As to solutions, the most expedient would be to reduce the total randomness somehow, while injecting more of a need for strategic curing choices. The idea of being able to focus your curing is key, though not necessarily to a single specific cure, and definitely not 'silently' in the way that our current focus balances give no third person message. A scheme in which you can 'focus' one of the four cures to narrow it down to only curing a portion of its total capability would work. You could either eat the wafer with no extra command to cure one of its (say) 18 afflictions, or focus it one of three ways to address curing three groups of 6 within that total.
I think you are taking a premise, that reducing the number of afflictions and cures will make it harder to track some afflictions for some classes in some situations, and taking it to an irrational extreme where tracking afflictions is now impossible and sticking afflictions is "only" possible with volume and fundamentally imbalanced. The former has the potential to be true, the latter is not grounded in evidence. Let's reel it in to a discussion we can actually apply to the situation at hand.
Currently it blends one at a time at a 2 sec balance, so that's quite a lot
Also, will we be able to get refund for artifact pipes, since we'll only need 1 pipe and not 3 now?
Also potentially artifact vials and bandoliers etc, as the number of liquids needed will be dropping dramatically. Estarra did say that artifacts affected would be refunded fully, so I'm hoping all these things will be considered.
That's not quite the premise, because the extreme to which cures have been reduced is so.. extreme. In effect, for any given aff, there will be one cure, that it shares with at least ten other afflictions. If the way that cures work on afflictions goes unchanged, any specific affliction will have a one-in-potentially-many chance to be cured at each use. Some afflictions, if not cured promptly, lead to a very high probability of death!
This creates a situation in which the attacker wins almost purely on a roll of the dice: If they have the two dangerous, but not critical afflictions on the target, there's just a flat chance each cure balance for the opponent to escape their critical affliction, if they don't get the correct dice roll within x time period (an offensive balance, for instance), they're in big trouble. Unlike wounds, you can't push your opponent to focus their curing balances elsewhere, or use the high danger afflictions to distract from other-aff buildup... because the defender is unable to focus their curing.
It just doesn't make sense to me to leave so much up to chance. Yes, to a certain extent, this is how afflictions and affliction curing already work. However, if I'm being afflicted with sensitivity under the current paradigm, I have two different die rolls I can do at the same time (myrtle and melancholic), I can try to cure off competing afflictions (like vertigo, with focus mind) first, and at most I'm looking at only 1 or possibly 2 competitors. That will go away if approximately a quarter of all afflictions are on the same cure, and that cure is the only way to get rid of the affliction.
Example: As a Druid, I have a few ways to hinder curing out of sap, including broken legs (if sprawled). I can use shamanism bone to break three of your bones on a single balance. Currently, if I break two arms and one leg you add one item to your curing queue: You only want to cure that leg. Similarly, if I break one arms and two legs, I add two items to your queue, pretty simple.
Now take that same example, but with all mending afflictions having the same syntax, apply ice salve. 2 legs, 1 arm: You might only take two balances to cure both legs, but you have a chance each time to cure the arm instead, so it could take three balances. 1 leg, 2 arms: This could take only a single curing balance, if you're lucky, or it could take all three if you aren't. This makes it distinctly harder to intelligently cure for the situation you're stuck in.
That's all in a vacuum, too: Compound that with also receiving slickness, presumably cured by the wafer of purity dust. You are receiving both slickness and paralysis on a tick, and may not begin the limb curing until you get lucky here with the 50% cure rate on slickness. On top of that, you have stupidity, and so on. It snowballs very quickly until you'd need a very unlikely chain of probability to cure out of the broken limbs, a feat that is quickly and efficiently accomplished (even in max allergies sap) in 1v1 combat against a shaman druid.
The problem is not that curing choices are being pared down, that's great. We absolutely needed to get rid of focus balance, and could stand to cut down on some cross-curing, where you can be sure of getting rid of an affliction instantly, because you have so many balances to cure it on. There are probably far too many herbs, and I think we have an extra potion balance when compared to other IREs. Jumping from that to a system where no use of a cure directly impacts your ability to use another cure seems extreme.
I think the best intermediate is to allow the defender some method of focusing their curing within the same balance, in the way we do now with multiple herbs on the same balance, albeit on a far far lesser scale. @Estarra's idea for appending a focus to a curing command is one method for doing so, though I think it's too fine tuned.
One similar idea would be to class afflictions within a balance, and allow a small number (2-3) of cure categories. In other words, if I have sensitivity, addiction, and confusion and they are in different focuses of the drink balance, I can freely choose which one to cure. However, if confusion and addiction are in the same focus I can choose to either guarantee curing sensitivity or flip a coin and cure one of addiction or confusion. This is similar to how I may currently choose to eat pennyroyal to flip a coin between paranoia and stupidity, or eat myrtle to cure vertigo if I were afflicted with all three. This allows some relief against overload onslaughts, as I can then (to a limited degree) choose my curing priorities and go from there.
A slightly different idea would be something that skews the probability more directly towards a cure, instead of ruling out some possibilities (like the above idea) or guaranteeing a particular result (like focusing and curing one aff). In other words, if I have a 1/3rd chance among three affs, I can focus one and receive a 2/4ths chance to cure it, and a 1/4th chance for each of the other options, essentially introducing that affliction twice to the curing table.
Comments
To add to the current vapours questions, are things that currently giving vapours (that will now give recklessness instead) also going to be amended to give blackout if it's staying? Or is that more likely to be decided on a case by case basis?
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
My train of thought is that the end goal is to simplify combat for everyone, and excessive blackout is a significant roadblock. Replacing vapors alltogether was an opportunity to do this. So while blackout is not going away, vapors is (because it's the same thing more or less).
So vapors is just being replaced according to the list, unless a reasonable case is made that a short blackout is needed in specific cases.
Or is it phases?
You of course are correct about masochism I was thinking about the version in my head and not the one in game...an aff where if you attack another player you damage yourself.
If not that, I'd like to see an aff or two that cause players to have to use caution when attacking (much like rebounding does), that's the sort of complexity that I feel even casual players can enjoy and appreciate. In general, I think players are more forgiving of their own mistakes. I don't have much control over being stunned, but if as a knight I attack someone with rebounding up, that is a choice I made. If you're familiar with IRE kai monks, they have that ability where if you're not paying attention and attack them you die (not an attack or die aff, but a reflect damage one).
Anyways, new affs aren't the topic. I just wanted to explain my goof.
Well we have the justice domoth that does that and it is, not coincidentally, rarely used. I appreciate the feedback and don't disagree with your point. It's just not the direction we're going right now.
edit: or was that the justice affliction? One or the other. Justice something. No one uses them.We're still discussing focus body/mind/spirit. We may change them to allow targeted curing (i.e., focus mind would allow DRINK LUCIDITYSLUSH FOCUS EPILEPSY). Thus, there'd be a purpose for impatience. Deadening could extend all cure balances. Anyway, again, this is all speculation and undecided which is what you get when we release info early!
People are just curious as to the mechanics and how you're looking to impliment specifics. The information in that regards is really useful, thank you!
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Generally no, I'd prefer to see the dead afflictions stay dead. If this is about narcolepsy and daydreaming, I am pretty set on seeing them go. I don't think their existance adds anything to the game and I don't believe weavers really suffer without them. I would like to see the issues resolved with the afflictions we are keeping. That being said, I don't like shutting the door completely without hearing anyone out on a specific issue. I can't guarantee we'll agree, but we'll listen.
Non serious, but someone has to say it with Celina gone
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
To me, this means that it is better to not have these than to have them. They either become difficult to balance in terms of how they block a wide swath of other cures, or they add nothing at all because you never have to cure them.
Personally I feel that giving a set curing order to afflictions is far simpler than our current system, so if that happened, there would be no need for focus. Maybe focus can be repurposed to an allheale like mechanic.
Speaking of, might add well talk about green and allheale too.
Likewise I'm also for keeping deleted afflictions gone, no need too bring them back. Further, the admin already said that they'd rather not overhaul entire classes at the moment so I don't think this is a good place for proposals.
That said, I'd personally prefer a set curing order too, but I understand if it is not implemented, especially considering the amount of extra work it might involve to balance the system to where there's no automatic wins for any affliction-heavy class.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
With that said, a set curing order will also serve to improve weaker affs by bumping them up the queue.
So okay, if you're willing to run your opponent out of power, willpower, get 30 afflictions on them, and hope that off balance and off equilibrium alternate conveniently so the victim cannot act, then yes, truelocks exist.
This is still a tangent to the discussion so I'm gonna move on before the self appointed forum police cuff me with the chains of off-topicness.
DRINK SLUSH
DRINK SLUSH PHOBIA
DRINK SLUSH INJURY
DRINK SLUSH ILLUSIARY
And then it would be divided like this:
Phobias: Anorexia , paranoia , addiction , impatience
Injuries: confusion, stupidity, epilepsy, deadened
Illusions: hallucinations, sensitivity, recklessness
As for why those are phobias. Afraid of eating, affraid of conspiracies, affraid of it not working/not having enough, affraid of being bored :-)
Now on the one hand this increases the cures a bit, but on the other hand it's an optional level of complexity.