Also, nekcree interacts based on darts and poison transfer chance? Meh. I thought its effect was not noticeable but significant over the long run because of the low base damage monks do, but that's just lame for both the user and the target, especially considering dart mechanics. Oh well, when I get the chance, I'll make a report for it.
1. RE: bleeding - again, it's mostly for for PB's, BM's just use it to count towards their instakill / minor pressure.
2. RE: aggravate - since the current idea doesn't work, we can simply make it a modifier that does not apply a poison but does increased scaling damage if the opponent currently suffers from one of the following affs: anorexia, asthma, weakenedleg, weakenedarm, disloyalty. The more affs, the more damage. This version is to increase pressure.
If this is too easy, we can change the pool to be less forgiving. Example: Damagedthroat, collapselungs, mutilated arm, mutilated leg, anorexia. This version will do way more damage and will be intended as a finisher, however.
3. RE: addition to ice curing - sounds fine with me, this will definitely help towards being overwhelmed. If it still proves too much, we can definitely look into being able to parry while prone and just have an extra affliction (clumsiness?) block that.
4. RE: stab - it really is just meant to guarantee one poison using both arm balances. It's meant for lock situations or groups (mostly ganks), but the there are definitely situations where you can use stab to perpetuate a lock.
Also, nekcree interacts based on darts and poison transfer chance? Meh. I thought its effect was not noticeable but significant over the long run because of the low base damage monks do, but that's just lame for both the user and the target, especially considering dart mechanics. Oh well, when I get the chance, I'll make a report for it.
When hitting with a dart attack, it always scales the damage up. If you're using a nekai, it will increase the damage on the hits when the poison procs on the weapon.
---
I'm finishing up the batch of updates based on discussion here, should be announcing them shortly.
I've made some updates to the overhaul knighthood skills. First, two
additional abilities have been implemented:
o Aggravate (passive): Strikes will do more damage for each of the
following afflictions on the target: weakened left/right arm/leg,
anorexia, asthma, disloyalty.
o Intensify (passive): Strikes will do slightly more damage for each
affliction on the target.
Additionally, the following adjustments have been made based on player
feedback:
o Lunge will now bypass parry.
o Haymaker strikes have a lower chance to be parried.
o Haymaker balance cost has been reduced.
o Stab will now bypass shrugging.
o Blademaster damage has been tweaked slightly up.
o Blademaster bleeding has been tweaked (very) slightly up.
o Calcise and dendroxin will give the new weakened limb afflictions
instead of broken limbs for players in overhaul matches.
o The stun time for mutilated limbs has been reduced to 1.5s.
o The cure delay for restorative ice with critical wounds has been
reduced to 2.5s.
---
Question for @Shuyin: Intensity is mentioned in the spreadsheet as being a power defense, but I'm not sure if the intent was to be a short-term timed defense, or a set-and-forget sort of thing. I've implemented it currently as a passive since if it's meant to be set-and-forget, the extra complexity isn't really worth adding a new defense. If it was meant to be a short bit of burst damage or something at a power cost, though, I can change it to be a timed power-based defense or something to that effect.
I assume he meant limited time because of the note on seconds and the fact you just coded the same skill twice. One is more damage for more affs, other is more damage for specific affs, but those will double dip right now.
Will test more and get back to you on rest Breaks still look really easy to stack, but we should get more feedback now.
This also brings up some discussion:
- I believe it was wonderwand was stopped by broken leg, most attacks seemed to work. I need a Nihilist though cause that stopped a lot.
- As a monk the kick failing to work will stop the form if the kick is at start (this will vary by guild, because some use the kick for stun or prone to help rest of the form).
What do you all see as the intent for curing?
* Every critical aff is intended to be cured first.
* Do you expect weakened limbs to be next priority or just suffer them and try to cure wounds?
Wondering the view of how it is intended this is handled so we know the intended way to keep up on things.
Malarious had it right. In my head, one of the skills (doesn't matter which) will give a larger boost for a shorter duration as a finisher in addition to the other. There's not much point in having two passives that effectively do the same.
I don't think broken legs stopped attacking, does it? One broken leg gives the hobble effect, prevents standing up, and prevents using monk kicks on that leg. Two prevents moving. But neither prevents attacks that aren't monk kicks, iirc.
If wounds can be cured while the affliction is being cured, it'll probably be fine. Repeated mutilates are basically just stuns, so while the mutilate affliction is actually being cured, if the target manages to cure down the wounds below critical, the mutilate, and therefore the stun, and therefore the affliction, will all be gone. The question is that of the detailed balance matching between cure and warrior attack speeds. At a purely theoretical look of the numbers, 3.5s warrior balance, with a 2s stun and a 1.5s ice balance, on paper, a warrior can mutilate+wounds on the leg repeatedly, and the target will only be able to cure off one wound-point that gets put back every round, keeping it at critical all the time.
While there are definitely other factors in combat, this could be a benchmark we keep in mind when balancing mutilate. It's possible we could do stuff like lengthen the stun immunity on mutilate only to prevent that 2s stun every single time, or increase the balance taken for a mutilate attack only, to open slightly longer windows of curing for the target. Alternatively, things like parrying when prone (if rebound and stancing are going away, that might not be a bad idea) could be used to put the onus of curing (and parrying) on the target, so that they can carve out longer windows of curing with smart use of parrying, stuff like that.
I checked with Kalnid.
For some reason Nihilists (and presumably guardians) get shafted on this.
None of the following work with a broken leg:
- Symbol strike
- Adjure web
- Demonweb
- Cosmicfire
By no means an exhaustice list, wondering if cosmic specifically fails with broken legs or what. Wiccans, can you guys update if it effects your areas too?
Disclaimer: Right now, my testing has been limited to
setting up a very hacked and rudimentary system and testing out how the new
specialization stands up to curing. As of right now, I am sure there’s
improvements to be made on my end of things, and I’m more than willing to try
out any suggestions. Right now, my ice priorities are as follow and subject to
change:
"damagedthroat",
"critical_head_wounds",
"critical_left_leg_wounds",
"critical_right_leg_wounds",
"critical_chest_wounds",
"critical_gut_wounds",
"critical_left_arm_wounds",
"critical_right_arm_wounds",
"heavy_head_wounds",
"heavy_left_leg_wounds",
"heavy_right_leg_wounds",
"heavy_chest_wounds",
"heavy_gut_wounds",
"heavy_left_arm_wounds",
"heavy_right_arm_wounds",
"weakenedleftarm",
"weakenedrightarm",
"mutilatedleftleg",
"mutilatedrightleg",
"weakenedleftleg",
"weakenedrightleg",
"internalbleeding",
"light_head_wounds",
"light_left_leg_wounds",
"light_right_leg_wounds",
"light_chest_wounds",
"light_gut_wounds",
"light_left_arm_wounds",
"light_right_arm_wounds",
Of course, this might need to be fine tuned a bit more on my
end, given the gap between wound levels and where afflictions should be placed
in relation to them.
Building wounds
After testing with Mnemosyne a bit yesterday, we found that
ice balance of 1.5 seconds was a bit too fast to allow any initial building of
wounds. As a result, it was bumped to 2 seconds by Ieptix. This seems to be a
nice sweet spot, and as you can see from the logs, she was able to build wounds
quite well. As a reference, the average warrior balance time appears to be 3.5 seconds
right now.
Afflictions and ice
curing
My thoughts may change on this, and perhaps it’s an error of
my doing, but the current interaction between ice afflictions and wounds is not
a very desirable mechanic. Right now, there may be a prejudice towards poisons
such as dendroxin and calcise. By utilizing these while building wounds, you
will throw the player into the dilemma of either never having free arms/legs, or
letting wounds build up on him that much quicker. I understand that it was
initially designed this way to allow some level of curing complexity, but I
argue that the end player does not make these decisions on the fly – their system
does, and ultimately all systems will try to find some sort of a sweet spot. I
see disadvantages in the current setup as follows:
1) If
it is intended that utilizing these poisons is meant to accelerate wound
building, we’ll find that there will be almost exclusive use of these poisons
through most of the fight until wounds are high and the player is working
toward a lock or a kill condition. Personally, I find that this might be a bit
boring as a common strategy to most warrior specs, killing a bit of variety.
2) If
it is intended that we ignore these affs to cure wounds, we end up never being
able to attack back.
My personal solution is to divorce wound curing and
afflictions curing. Move wound curing back to healing potion and leave ice
afflictions where they are, but continue to have scaling delays with increasing
wounds. In fact, by doing this, it’ll be easier to find a sweet spot for the
curing of each. There are two advantages:
1) Damage
and bleeding will be of similar value to what they are now, where increasing
damage/bleeding will help with wound building. Right now, they have lost a lot
of their synergy.
2) We
avoid many unforeseen effects between physicial afflictions (dealt through
poisons or skills outside the knighthood skillset) and their effect on wound
building.
Kill methods
My opinion on this may change if people are able to convince
me, but eviscerate requiring internal afflictions will be problematic to achieve
unless a full lock is performed. Similar to the complaints behind the –chem and
–wood archetypes, having transient afflictions as a kill requirement is not a
good mechanic. My suggested alternatives are to tie them to either physical
afflictions entirely, wounds or both. If you must, require only one internal
affliction. My reasoning behind this is that wounds and physical afflictions
(with their scaling delay) don’t disappear within the simple firing of a
trigger.
It also makes more
thematic sense that someone is more likely to get eviscerated because their gut
is afflicted and chest is critically wounded, than just because they have pox
and powersap…This is actually a bit of a side problem I’ll speak about later.
Haymaker
Haymaker is just about as useless as its old version. My
suggestion is to turn this into a damage attack that scales with total wounds
throughout the body, possibly even instakilling at a certain threshold. The
current concept of doing extra burst hits on a body part for power is not a
good mechanic and cannot be balanced into one.
Messages and
thematics
This is likely low priority and chances are, most messages
are placeholders for now. I do feel like they are too simplistic and plain, and
we lost a lot of the beautiful flavour warriors had before. This might not seem
important, but one of the pride points of MUDs like lusternia is that things
are described vividly with amazing use of descriptive language. My hope is that
each warrior messages will become a little more interesting to read than what
is presented now.
Important suggestions I do advise regarding messages that
will assist with system writing (I’m no writer. So pardon my examples):
1) When
ice is first applied to an afflicted body part, and there is a delay, change
the message to indicate this:
Eg. You take out some restorative ice salve
and quickly rub it on your head.
The freezing liquid seeps deep into your wounds and you begin to feel
its restorative powers take effect.
2) Going
forward, the initial “Mnemosyne strikes at your left leg with a steel
broadsword” should be tailored and stylized to each specialization. As of right
now, people are capable of custom naming their weapons without including a
noun. Eg. A sword called “Bob”. Unfortunately, this has trouble in estimating
how many wounds a given weapon deals out. By making each specialization have a
particular style to their first message, we get around this problem.
Eg. For blademasters it can be something
like “With expertly swiftness and precision, Mnemosyne aims a strike at your
left leg with a steel broadsword.”
And then for bonecrushers it can be
something like “Hefting a steel hammer with brutal strength, Mnemosyne brings
it crashing toward your left leg”.
**
Certain things don’t make sense thematically, such as a
strike to your arm making you spiritually peaceful…I’m not sure why a
weakenedarm wouldn’t work well here. I think taking creative freedom is fine,
but we should try to have things make thematic sense so as not to appear
sloppy. Remember, these things may appear superficial, but this is what you’re
presenting to potentially new players, and it’s important that the face of it
looks good and presentable.
Things I like:
-
I very much like the new 20-point wound system,
and also the concept of delayed physical affliction curing.
-
I like the new system of dealing physical
afflictions and think it works well with an RNG-less system.
Things to consider
and look out for:
-
Parrying split is not effective. You’re best off
parrying a part 100% of the time. With the removal of stance, this means that
you have less protection against wounds than you did before. If you end up feeling
as if wounds are building too fast and want to add more player protection
options, you can consider either allowing parrying two body parts 100%, or
reintroducing the concept of stances. Possible points for simplification are:
1) Remove
the ability for parry to be anything other than 100%
2) If
stances are ever reintroduced, make them more limited in options: eg only head,
chest, both arms, gut, both legs.
-
Under the current system, there isn’t as much of
a reward to building high wounds as there was before, so wound stacking may be
less of a problem. If this ever changes, consider monitoring for if we need to
reintroduce attack obstruction into the new system for group battles.
If anyone wishes to help me understand the flow of the
specialization better and stress test it in the arena, be sure to message or
tell me ingame. I’d like it if you can mount an offense against me and help me get
the curing in a good place and test the viability of each kill method.
These are just my preliminary thoughts for now, and I’m
approaching this with an open mind. I generally prefer arguments based on sound
evidence and testing, and would really appreciate demonstrative logs or people
willing to go into the arena with me.
I hope not to offend anyone by saying this, but I'm a little concerned about the general lack of testing and discussion by warrior envoys. I'd really like it if we all joined together in forming what'll eventually become an archetype we'll all be left to play with.
As an aside re: use of calcise/dendroxin spam to build wounds being one dimensional - what if those two poison afflictions were replaced with something else? Would that address something potentially lacking by forcing a different choice?
As for whatever new effects they'd do, that can go almost anywhere we want to think of, but that might be a consideration.
It would help, but the reason we kept them was because it would make things difficult for sap otherwise, right? Because they rely on breaking legs to prevent standing up to cleanse etc.
- Custom weapons will not deal special wounds, so tracking would be easy.
- For those who did not notice, GMCP reports wounding on ALL AREAS. There is no guesswork, you always know your exact wounds. It is not a game of hiding and guessing for that.
- I do not see any real efforts to build wounds fully. Was she burning power? In theory you do 2 wounds every 3.5s. You are ON BALANCE though at the start, so you won't notice a build for awhile. If she used power she could build up on you much much faster, the system does not have costs for afflictions, just wounds building. The 1.5s balance is better.
- I would not be entirely opposed to moving the afflictions with ice cures out of poisons to stop that, though the old methods required it, we can work around it or change some goals. Most locks used broken legs as options, but this can be worked around.
- Sap is supposedly going away (cleanse cure), so their need for it is a nonconcern in theory.
I still need to make a plugin to handle most of the curing to properly test it, but I want to see hardcore parry/stance and full power offense spam all over! If you are just taking single hits, that isn't realistic. If we balance to that, any power use will destroy everything completely. I am more wondering what damage and such seems like, since BM gets skills for it, but no note of if warriors should damage kill (Nil I hope not, not with attrition actively building).
" Custom weapons will not deal special wounds, so tracking would be easy."
- But 1-handed weapons and 2-handed weapons will have a difference. In the current non-overhaul system, someone who names their sword "Sworda" will have a message that goes "Bob strikes at your left leg with Sworda", which could trick a system up since it has no idea of knowing which type of sword they hit you with. The suggestion is just so that each warrior spec has a unique pattern to that introductory line that makes it easy to tell. It's a good opportunity to get rid of that annoying problem once and for all.
She was utilizing power on every balance she could. Keep in mind, I wasn't hindering her either.
Removing broken limbs from poisons could definitely work. I like that idea too.
After some testing, have a few possible ideas to mull over:
o Add an automatic prone to legtendon. At critical wounds, this seems reasonable.
o Replace pacifism with weakenedarm.
o Remove internal affs from eviscerate and require instead crit chest + internalbleeding and another external aff.
o Maybe change both Stab and Remiss to be one-handed actions. This might give them a bit better flow with eviscerate. It's also just a much smoother way to play as a 1-hander.
o Possibly change remiss to just give one of: internalbleeding, paralysis, clumsiness, weakened arm/leg.
Change the syntax to STRIKE TARGET REMISS <chest|left/right arm/leg|gut> <gashchest|piercearm/leg|collapsearm|disembowel>.
The reasoning behind these suggested changes are:
1) Stab/regular strikes probably will have you covered on the things you can apply poisons for.
2) It will flow better with eviscerate (with the suggested changes)
3) It looks more thematically appropriate for remiss to hit with warrior-style affs, preferably already in the skillset.
In fact, thematically, I'd probably change the name to 'feign' and have it so that instead of being an attack that magically is delayed, it looks like:
"John swipes his broadsword in the air before you, missing you cleanly"
and 5s later
"Distracted by the earlier near miss, you are caught unaware by John's swift strike to your <bodypart>, which <pierces your arm/leg|slashes into your chest/tears into your arm nerve/pierces into your gut...etc>"
and in 1P:
"You swipe your broadsword in the air before target, deliberately missing him cleanly with your strike. You grip your other sword tightly in your hand, preparing an opportune attack."
"Catching him unaware, you strike John's <bodypart> precisely with your broadsword, <piercing his arm/leg, slashing his chest, tearing his arm nerve/piercing into his gut..etc>
As a side request, is it possible to get an overhauled asthma, anorexia and slickness for more accurate lock testing?
Remiss being a feign doesn't make sense as next round you would hit with 3 attacks. The way I see the ability, you are able to get the poision in, in such a way that it takes a while for it to activate. Maybe it should be more clear that it's using a poison type thing.
I think remiss being one handed would be too powerful. Stab as well.
New specs! Details below. I've also added the Poisonist Blademaster combatstyle, which trades damage for an increased chance to proc poisons from the weapon. A lot of general numbers (mainly regarding bleed/damage) have also been adjusted. As with Blademaster, there are a few abilities from the proposal that have been omitted for now, either because they do not affect combat or because I want to tune some of the basics before throwing in some of the things that might end up causing huge outliers off the bat otherwise.
EDIT: Yes, the messages for most of the new abilities are placeholders.
I'll be going through the recent discussion and making updates based on it as well in the next day or two.
Note that you now have to select which specialization you want to use in the arena, using the command KNIGHTHOOD_SPEC <spec>.
Skill details:
PUREBLADE
-----------
---
Greatsword
Increased effectiveness when using two-handed swords via quicker balance than non-Pureblades.
---
OpenChest
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: chest
Prereq: Light wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with haemophilia
---
Sealing
Passive
Effect: Slightly reduces bleeding damage taken
---
OpenGut
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: gut
Prereq: Light wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with internalbleeding
---
Cleave
Syntax: CLEAVE <target>
Same as existing cleave, but does an unmodified overhaul strike.
---
PierceArm
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: larm, rightarm
Prereq: Light wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with clumsiness
---
Assault
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: any
Prereq: 4p
Effect: Applies 4 wounds to targeted bodypart, unparryable
---
SlitThroat
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: head
Prereq: heavy wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with slitthroat
---
SeverPhrenic
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: chest
Prereq: Heavy wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with sensitivity
---
Warcry
Unchanged from non-overhaul
---
Impale
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: Gut
Prereq: Heavy wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with impaled gut
---
Bleeder
Combatstyle
Effect: Reduced wounding for more bleeding
---
HeftySword
Unchanged from non-overhaul
---
LegTendon
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: lleg, rleg
Prereq: Heavy wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with mutilatedleg on targeted bodypart
---
RuptureStomach
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: Gut
Prereq: Non-zero wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Strike's bleed scales up with wounds
---
Twist
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: Any
Prereq: N/A
Effect: Increased damage based on target's bleed level
---
PinLeg
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: lleg, rleg
Prereq: Non-zero wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Strike's bleed scales up with wounds
---
PinArm
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: larm, rarm
Prereq: Non-zero wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Strike's bleed scales up with wounds
---
Exsanguinate
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: gut
Prereq: 3p, critical wounds on targeted bodypart, 2000+ bleed
Effect: Death, bypasses parry
---
Decapitate
Unchanged from non-overhaul
---
AXELORD
-------
---
GreatAxe
Increased effectiveness when using two-handed axes via quicker balance than non-Axelords.
---
SliceForehead
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: head
Prereq: Light wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with blindness
---
SeverPhrenic
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: Chest
Prereq: Light wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with sensitivity
---
UpsetStomach
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: gut
Prereq: Light wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: 2s dust balance loss
---
BreakArm
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: larm, rarm
Prereq: Light wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with weakenedarm on appropriate bodypart
---
Cleave
Same as existing cleave, but does an unmodified overhaul strike.
---
Knockdown
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: lleg, rleg
Prereq: Light wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Prone + 2s balance loss
---
Sweep
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: Any
Prereq: 4p
Effect: 4 wounds on targeted bodypart, cannot be parried
---
SlitThroat
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: Head
Prereq: Heavy wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with slitthroat
---
GashChest
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: Chest
Prereq: Heavy wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with paralysis
---
Disembowel
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: Gut
Prereq: Heavy wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with internalbleeding
---
Berserker
Combatstyle
Effect: Decreased chance for target to parry, decreased wounding
---
Chop
Unchanged from non-overhaul
---
HeftyAxe
Unchanged from non-overhaul
---
LegTendon
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: lleg, rleg
Prereq: Heavy wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with mutilatedleg on appropriate bodypart
---
Opencavity
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: chest
Prereq: Heavy wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with sensitivity, plus increased damage
---
Criticalcondition
Passive
Effect: Attack damage scales up with wounds on targeted limb
---
AmputateArm
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: larm, rarm
Prereq: Critical wounds on targeted bodypart
Effect: Afflict with mutilatedarm on appropriate bodypart
---
Behead
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: Head
Prereq: 3p, critical wounds on targeted bodypart, < 50% health
Effect: Death, cannot be parried
---
Execute
Modifier
Allowed bodypart targets: Head
Prereq: 5p, heavy wounds on head, chest, gut; at least one must also be critical
I would appreciate if you could make overhaul fights not have timers or a syntax to remove the timer so you could self test in arenas without being kicked and having everything cured.
My thoughts may change on this, and perhaps it’s an error of
my doing, but the current interaction between ice afflictions and wounds is not
a very desirable mechanic. Right now, there may be a prejudice towards poisons
such as dendroxin and calcise. By utilizing these while building wounds, you
will throw the player into the dilemma of either never having free arms/legs, or
letting wounds build up on him that much quicker. I understand that it was
initially designed this way to allow some level of curing complexity, but I
argue that the end player does not make these decisions on the fly – their system
does, and ultimately all systems will try to find some sort of a sweet spot. I
see disadvantages in the current setup as follows:
1) If
it is intended that utilizing these poisons is meant to accelerate wound
building, we’ll find that there will be almost exclusive use of these poisons
through most of the fight until wounds are high and the player is working
toward a lock or a kill condition. Personally, I find that this might be a bit
boring as a common strategy to most warrior specs, killing a bit of variety.
2) If
it is intended that we ignore these affs to cure wounds, we end up never being
able to attack back.
My personal solution is to divorce wound curing and
afflictions curing. Move wound curing back to healing potion and leave ice
afflictions where they are, but continue to have scaling delays with increasing
wounds. In fact, by doing this, it’ll be easier to find a sweet spot for the
curing of each. There are two advantages:
1) Damage
and bleeding will be of similar value to what they are now, where increasing
damage/bleeding will help with wound building. Right now, they have lost a lot
of their synergy.
2) We
avoid many unforeseen effects between physicial afflictions (dealt through
poisons or skills outside the knighthood skillset) and their effect on wound
building.
Kill methods
My opinion on this may change if people are able to convince
me, but eviscerate requiring internal afflictions will be problematic to achieve
unless a full lock is performed. Similar to the complaints behind the –chem and
–wood archetypes, having transient afflictions as a kill requirement is not a
good mechanic. My suggested alternatives are to tie them to either physical
afflictions entirely, wounds or both. If you must, require only one internal
affliction. My reasoning behind this is that wounds and physical afflictions
(with their scaling delay) don’t disappear within the simple firing of a
trigger.
It also makes more
thematic sense that someone is more likely to get eviscerated because their gut
is afflicted and chest is critically wounded, than just because they have pox
and powersap…This is actually a bit of a side problem I’ll speak about later.
Haymaker
Haymaker is just about as useless as its old version. My
suggestion is to turn this into a damage attack that scales with total wounds
throughout the body, possibly even instakilling at a certain threshold. The
current concept of doing extra burst hits on a body part for power is not a
good mechanic and cannot be balanced into one.
Messages and
thematics
This is likely low priority and chances are, most messages
are placeholders for now. I do feel like they are too simplistic and plain, and
we lost a lot of the beautiful flavour warriors had before. This might not seem
important, but one of the pride points of MUDs like lusternia is that things
are described vividly with amazing use of descriptive language. My hope is that
each warrior messages will become a little more interesting to read than what
is presented now.
Important suggestions I do advise regarding messages that
will assist with system writing (I’m no writer. So pardon my examples):
1) When
ice is first applied to an afflicted body part, and there is a delay, change
the message to indicate this:
Eg. You take out some restorative ice salve
and quickly rub it on your head.
The freezing liquid seeps deep into your wounds and you begin to feel
its restorative powers take effect.
2) Going
forward, the initial “Mnemosyne strikes at your left leg with a steel
broadsword” should be tailored and stylized to each specialization. As of right
now, people are capable of custom naming their weapons without including a
noun. Eg. A sword called “Bob”. Unfortunately, this has trouble in estimating
how many wounds a given weapon deals out. By making each specialization have a
particular style to their first message, we get around this problem.
Eg. For blademasters it can be something
like “With expertly swiftness and precision, Mnemosyne aims a strike at your
left leg with a steel broadsword.”
And then for bonecrushers it can be
something like “Hefting a steel hammer with brutal strength, Mnemosyne brings
it crashing toward your left leg”.
**
Certain things don’t make sense thematically, such as a
strike to your arm making you spiritually peaceful…I’m not sure why a
weakenedarm wouldn’t work well here. I think taking creative freedom is fine,
but we should try to have things make thematic sense so as not to appear
sloppy. Remember, these things may appear superficial, but this is what you’re
presenting to potentially new players, and it’s important that the face of it
looks good and presentable.
Things I like:
-
I very much like the new 20-point wound system,
and also the concept of delayed physical affliction curing.
-
I like the new system of dealing physical
afflictions and think it works well with an RNG-less system.
Things to consider
and look out for:
-
Parrying split is not effective. You’re best off
parrying a part 100% of the time. With the removal of stance, this means that
you have less protection against wounds than you did before. If you end up feeling
as if wounds are building too fast and want to add more player protection
options, you can consider either allowing parrying two body parts 100%, or
reintroducing the concept of stances. Possible points for simplification are:
1) Remove
the ability for parry to be anything other than 100%
2) If
stances are ever reintroduced, make them more limited in options: eg only head,
chest, both arms, gut, both legs.
-
Under the current system, there isn’t as much of
a reward to building high wounds as there was before, so wound stacking may be
less of a problem. If this ever changes, consider monitoring for if we need to
reintroduce attack obstruction into the new system for group battles.
If anyone wishes to help me understand the flow of the
specialization better and stress test it in the arena, be sure to message or
tell me ingame. I’d like it if you can mount an offense against me and help me get
the curing in a good place and test the viability of each kill method.
These are just my preliminary thoughts for now, and I’m
approaching this with an open mind. I generally prefer arguments based on sound
evidence and testing, and would really appreciate demonstrative logs or people
willing to go into the arena with me.
I hope not to offend anyone by saying this, but I'm a little concerned about the general lack of testing and discussion by warrior envoys. I'd really like it if we all joined together in forming what'll eventually become an archetype we'll all be left to play with.
Regarding poisons: I am not averse to changing the limb poisons to other effects, so long as this won't end up causing issues with other classes, or if the other classes effective are a small enough group that the issues can easily be patched over individually; I am open to suggestions and discussion for replacement effects.
Regarding ice: We are not going to be switching wound curing back to health potions; ice is going to be the cure for both wounds and physical affs unless it can be shown that this is absolutely 100% not a workable setup in any way. I can tweak things so that e.g. wounds and afflictions have different balance times or whatever, but we're going to be doing everything we can to make it work with the setup we have now.
Regarding eviscerate: The motivation behind including internal affs here is that Blademasters are themed around using poisons and non-physical affs, and this is reflected in their kill condition and other abilities (e.g. poisonist combatstyle, aggravate, stab, remiss, etc), and iirc they're also the only warrior spec capable of a full asthma/anorexia/damagedthroat/slickness lock. If four affs on eviscerate is too much, I can look to changing it to maybe 2 external + 1 internal or something, or maybe something similar, but I do want to keep their kill setup involving non-physical affs. Am open to ideas that could be a bit more sensible so long as this theme is maintained, as well.
Regarding haymaker: The specific idea here regarding damage scaling with wounds is a bit out-of-place on the Blademaster (axelords are focused on damage/wounding instead). However, what if we did something similar but with afflictions. I'm thinking we remove aggravate (keep intensify as a passive small boost to damage based on total affs, analogous to Axelord's CriticalCondition), and then lower the power cost on haymaker (say 5p) but have it amplify the effect of intensity so that it basically becomes a burst damage ability scaling with afflictions.
Regarding messages: The blademaster messages aren't intended as placeholders, though I am open to prettying them up some. Note however that they are intentionally relatively short (i.e. no more than one line) because there is the potential for a lot of text here, especially with the 2h specs, and I want to try and keep the spam down as much as possible. Additionally, each weapon type/spec has its own message for the initial strike, though they're only being added as the specs are finished so two days ago 1h swords had its own message, while everything else shared a more generic message. Now 2h swords and axes have their own strike messages as well. Additionally, each modifier has its own message (though some specs share modifiers so e.g. all the legtendons have the same message).
Removing broken limbs from poisons could definitely work. I like that idea too.
After some testing, have a few possible ideas to mull over:
o Add an automatic prone to legtendon. At critical wounds, this seems reasonable.
o Replace pacifism with weakenedarm.
o Remove internal affs from eviscerate and require instead crit chest + internalbleeding and another external aff.
o Maybe change both Stab and Remiss to be one-handed actions. This might give them a bit better flow with eviscerate. It's also just a much smoother way to play as a 1-hander.
o Possibly change remiss to just give one of: internalbleeding, paralysis, clumsiness, weakened arm/leg.
Change the syntax to STRIKE TARGET REMISS <chest|left/right arm/leg|gut> <gashchest|piercearm/leg|collapsearm|disembowel>.
The reasoning behind these suggested changes are:
1) Stab/regular strikes probably will have you covered on the things you can apply poisons for.
2) It will flow better with eviscerate (with the suggested changes)
3) It looks more thematically appropriate for remiss to hit with warrior-style affs, preferably already in the skillset.
In fact, thematically, I'd probably change the name to 'feign' and have it so that instead of being an attack that magically is delayed, it looks like:
"John swipes his broadsword in the air before you, missing you cleanly"
and 5s later
"Distracted by the earlier near miss, you are caught unaware by John's swift strike to your <bodypart>, which <pierces your arm/leg|slashes into your chest/tears into your arm nerve/pierces into your gut...etc>"
and in 1P:
"You swipe your broadsword in the air before target, deliberately missing him cleanly with your strike. You grip your other sword tightly in your hand, preparing an opportune attack."
"Catching him unaware, you strike John's <bodypart> precisely with your broadsword, <piercing his arm/leg, slashing his chest, tearing his arm nerve/piercing into his gut..etc>
As a side request, is it possible to get an overhauled asthma, anorexia and slickness for more accurate lock testing?
Regarding legtendon: Currently you'll be proned if you're hit with mutilatedleg on both limbs. I'm not sure about adding it to a single mutilated limb without some input from others, though; would having mutilatedleg knock prone on just one leg be too powerful? Or what about a middle ground where getting hit with mutilated leg will knock you prone if the other leg is weakened (but not the other way around)?
Regarding pacifism: Pacifism is included because that's what @Shuyin included here in his proposal. I'm not necessarily averse to changing it to weakened arms, but if there was a particular reason for having pacifism designed into the skill then I'd prefer to leave it in place.
Regarding eviscerate: see the discussion in the last post.
Regarding remiss/stab: I'm open to possibly changing stab to require only the one hand, since you're giving up another affliction in its place anyway (maybe with a small power cost instead?). Remiss will need to stay two-handed, though, both for implementation and probable balance reasons.
Regarding the remiss affliction list: see both the eviscerate/blademaster affliction theme comments in the last post.
Regarding updates asthma/slickness/anorexia: I'll look into seeing if there's a decent way to stick them in alongside the non-overhauled versions. Probably will be, but I'm not going to make a promise just yet.
I just want to confirm that newbie weapons are just as effective as forged weapons for the overhaul arena?
I'm liking the differences between combat styles. But what is the increase in bypassing parry? 10% 50%?
Also, is it possible to get 3 or 4 people in the arena so we can see how different weapon specialists interact with each other in group combat?
I would appreciate if you could make overhaul fights not have timers or a syntax to remove the timer so you could self test in arenas without being kicked and having everything cured.
I know it is awkward, but please if possible?
FFA overhaul would also work
I'll look into some method of group overhaul arena fights. I make no promises, though, since the arena is the pinnacle of old Achaea legacy code.
Based on impressions of the proposed skillsets, what specialization does everyone plan on picking post-overhaul? Why? What will be the new best choice solo, or in groups? How many licks to the centre of a tootsie pop?
Based on impressions of the proposed skillsets, what specialization does everyone plan on picking post-overhaul? Why? What will be the new best choice solo, or in groups? How many licks to the centre of a tootsie pop?
Axelord looks really good on paper... really nice amount of hinders.
For solo, I'll probably be rocking Axelord. Always loved big giant axes in whatever game I play where they're an option. Or giant hammers. But then I start quoting Captain Hammer over and over.
For groups, can see rocking Bonecrusher. Stuns and blackouts are always good in a group setting.
For solo, I'll probably be rocking Axelord. Always loved big giant axes in whatever game I play where they're an option. Or giant hammers. But then I start quoting Captain Hammer over and over.
For groups, can see rocking Bonecrusher. Stuns and blackouts are always good in a group setting.
... so, in groups, you'll be shouting Captain Hammer quotes?
Comments
*Preliminary opinions*
I have included a very basic log of testing here, if anyone wishes to puruse it: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16429247/bm2_testing.html
Disclaimer: Right now, my testing has been limited to setting up a very hacked and rudimentary system and testing out how the new specialization stands up to curing. As of right now, I am sure there’s improvements to be made on my end of things, and I’m more than willing to try out any suggestions. Right now, my ice priorities are as follow and subject to change:
"damagedthroat",
"critical_head_wounds",
"critical_left_leg_wounds",
"critical_right_leg_wounds",
"critical_chest_wounds",
"critical_gut_wounds",
"critical_left_arm_wounds",
"critical_right_arm_wounds",
"heavy_head_wounds",
"heavy_left_leg_wounds",
"heavy_right_leg_wounds",
"heavy_chest_wounds",
"heavy_gut_wounds",
"heavy_left_arm_wounds",
"heavy_right_arm_wounds",
"weakenedleftarm",
"weakenedrightarm",
"mutilatedleftleg",
"mutilatedrightleg",
"weakenedleftleg",
"weakenedrightleg",
"internalbleeding",
"light_head_wounds",
"light_left_leg_wounds",
"light_right_leg_wounds",
"light_chest_wounds",
"light_gut_wounds",
"light_left_arm_wounds",
"light_right_arm_wounds",
Of course, this might need to be fine tuned a bit more on my end, given the gap between wound levels and where afflictions should be placed in relation to them.
Building wounds
After testing with Mnemosyne a bit yesterday, we found that ice balance of 1.5 seconds was a bit too fast to allow any initial building of wounds. As a result, it was bumped to 2 seconds by Ieptix. This seems to be a nice sweet spot, and as you can see from the logs, she was able to build wounds quite well. As a reference, the average warrior balance time appears to be 3.5 seconds right now.
Afflictions and ice curing
My thoughts may change on this, and perhaps it’s an error of my doing, but the current interaction between ice afflictions and wounds is not a very desirable mechanic. Right now, there may be a prejudice towards poisons such as dendroxin and calcise. By utilizing these while building wounds, you will throw the player into the dilemma of either never having free arms/legs, or letting wounds build up on him that much quicker. I understand that it was initially designed this way to allow some level of curing complexity, but I argue that the end player does not make these decisions on the fly – their system does, and ultimately all systems will try to find some sort of a sweet spot. I see disadvantages in the current setup as follows:
1) If it is intended that utilizing these poisons is meant to accelerate wound building, we’ll find that there will be almost exclusive use of these poisons through most of the fight until wounds are high and the player is working toward a lock or a kill condition. Personally, I find that this might be a bit boring as a common strategy to most warrior specs, killing a bit of variety.
2) If it is intended that we ignore these affs to cure wounds, we end up never being able to attack back.
My personal solution is to divorce wound curing and afflictions curing. Move wound curing back to healing potion and leave ice afflictions where they are, but continue to have scaling delays with increasing wounds. In fact, by doing this, it’ll be easier to find a sweet spot for the curing of each. There are two advantages:
1) Damage and bleeding will be of similar value to what they are now, where increasing damage/bleeding will help with wound building. Right now, they have lost a lot of their synergy.
2) We avoid many unforeseen effects between physicial afflictions (dealt through poisons or skills outside the knighthood skillset) and their effect on wound building.
Kill methods
My opinion on this may change if people are able to convince me, but eviscerate requiring internal afflictions will be problematic to achieve unless a full lock is performed. Similar to the complaints behind the –chem and –wood archetypes, having transient afflictions as a kill requirement is not a good mechanic. My suggested alternatives are to tie them to either physical afflictions entirely, wounds or both. If you must, require only one internal affliction. My reasoning behind this is that wounds and physical afflictions (with their scaling delay) don’t disappear within the simple firing of a trigger.
It also makes more thematic sense that someone is more likely to get eviscerated because their gut is afflicted and chest is critically wounded, than just because they have pox and powersap…This is actually a bit of a side problem I’ll speak about later.
Haymaker
Haymaker is just about as useless as its old version. My suggestion is to turn this into a damage attack that scales with total wounds throughout the body, possibly even instakilling at a certain threshold. The current concept of doing extra burst hits on a body part for power is not a good mechanic and cannot be balanced into one.
Messages and thematics
This is likely low priority and chances are, most messages are placeholders for now. I do feel like they are too simplistic and plain, and we lost a lot of the beautiful flavour warriors had before. This might not seem important, but one of the pride points of MUDs like lusternia is that things are described vividly with amazing use of descriptive language. My hope is that each warrior messages will become a little more interesting to read than what is presented now.
Important suggestions I do advise regarding messages that will assist with system writing (I’m no writer. So pardon my examples):
1) When ice is first applied to an afflicted body part, and there is a delay, change the message to indicate this:
Eg. You take out some restorative ice salve and quickly rub it on your head.
The freezing liquid seeps deep into your wounds and you begin to feel its restorative powers take effect.
2) Going forward, the initial “Mnemosyne strikes at your left leg with a steel broadsword” should be tailored and stylized to each specialization. As of right now, people are capable of custom naming their weapons without including a noun. Eg. A sword called “Bob”. Unfortunately, this has trouble in estimating how many wounds a given weapon deals out. By making each specialization have a particular style to their first message, we get around this problem.
Eg. For blademasters it can be something like “With expertly swiftness and precision, Mnemosyne aims a strike at your left leg with a steel broadsword.”
And then for bonecrushers it can be something like “Hefting a steel hammer with brutal strength, Mnemosyne brings it crashing toward your left leg”.
**
Certain things don’t make sense thematically, such as a strike to your arm making you spiritually peaceful…I’m not sure why a weakenedarm wouldn’t work well here. I think taking creative freedom is fine, but we should try to have things make thematic sense so as not to appear sloppy. Remember, these things may appear superficial, but this is what you’re presenting to potentially new players, and it’s important that the face of it looks good and presentable.
Things I like:
- I very much like the new 20-point wound system, and also the concept of delayed physical affliction curing.
- I like the new system of dealing physical afflictions and think it works well with an RNG-less system.
Things to consider and look out for:
- Parrying split is not effective. You’re best off parrying a part 100% of the time. With the removal of stance, this means that you have less protection against wounds than you did before. If you end up feeling as if wounds are building too fast and want to add more player protection options, you can consider either allowing parrying two body parts 100%, or reintroducing the concept of stances. Possible points for simplification are:
1) Remove the ability for parry to be anything other than 100%
2) If stances are ever reintroduced, make them more limited in options: eg only head, chest, both arms, gut, both legs.
- Under the current system, there isn’t as much of a reward to building high wounds as there was before, so wound stacking may be less of a problem. If this ever changes, consider monitoring for if we need to reintroduce attack obstruction into the new system for group battles.
If anyone wishes to help me understand the flow of the specialization better and stress test it in the arena, be sure to message or tell me ingame. I’d like it if you can mount an offense against me and help me get the curing in a good place and test the viability of each kill method.
These are just my preliminary thoughts for now, and I’m approaching this with an open mind. I generally prefer arguments based on sound evidence and testing, and would really appreciate demonstrative logs or people willing to go into the arena with me.
I hope not to offend anyone by saying this, but I'm a little concerned about the general lack of testing and discussion by warrior envoys. I'd really like it if we all joined together in forming what'll eventually become an archetype we'll all be left to play with.
I think remiss being one handed would be too powerful. Stab as well.
I'm liking the differences between combat styles. But what is the increase in bypassing parry? 10% 50%?
Also, is it possible to get 3 or 4 people in the arena so we can see how different weapon specialists interact with each other in group combat?
I'll look into some method of group overhaul arena fights. I make no promises, though, since the arena is the pinnacle of old Achaea legacy code.