Dreamweaving

Estarra

Just wanted to let you know the direction we're going with Dreamweaving. Thanks to Enyalida for being such a great help with the design! Apologies if the formatting is icky. Everything is of course subject to change as coding commences but this should generally be the direction.

DreamBody: Separate your dreambody from your corporeal. Change dreambody regen maluses from mana to ego

Burst: An attack against noncorporeal beings. Allow use in corporeal body against non-corporeal foes (as psyblade). Add sever syntax (as psyblade)

Evaluate: You can evaluate the state of corporeal bodies. Requires but does not consume eq/bal if user has contemplate. Additionally shows the target’s consciousness state (unconscious, asleep, or blacked out).

Slumber: Bring sleep unto the waking. Causes stun equivalent to shieldstun when cast on targets in the Dreamrealm.

Dreamcatchers: Store your dream motes on a dreamcatcher.
Remove existing DREAMWEAVE syntaxes. (DREAMWEAVE STUPIDITY etc.) Dreamweavers may craft their own dreamcatchers, as Enchantment - DimensionPockets - dreamcatcher. Dreamweavers mark a dreamcatcher: May only have one marked dreamcatcher. May recall their marked dreamcatcher to their inventory. All mote effects take motes from the marked dreamcatcher, which must be in their inventory to use.  Marked Dreamcatchers: have a 25 mote maximum storage. have a 10 mote active pool that recharges from the storage at a rate of 1 per 6 seconds. Motes may be removed from the dreamcatcher permanently with DREAMWEAVE PLUCK [#], for use in crafting. All existing crafting mote costs are changed to generic motes. Bonus if motes may be EATen to immediately experience a dream as if sleeping.Mote costs now cast from the active mote pool, instead of a mote rift. Dreamweavers may HANG or UNHANG a dreamcatcher in a room. Note anyone can unhang anyone else's dreamcatcher, but with a hefty balance or EQ cost to stop trolls. Sleeping in a room with a dreamcatcher hung does two things: You or anyone else recover tiredness faster (like sleeping in a tent) Each dream tick from a sleeping person charges the dreamcatcher with 1 mote up to 100. Motes are lost when the dreamcatcher is UNHUNG Dreamweavers may siphon motes from a hung dreamcatcher to their marked personal dreamcatcher after a short (3s) channel, subject to maximum mote limits. Dreamweavers with the anchor skill may siphon motes from a hung dreamcatcher to their anchor after a short (3s) channel, subject to maximum mote limits.  Dreambodies or dreamweavers in the dreamrealm may DREAMWEAVE <dreamcatcher> to generate motes in the hung catcher at a rate equal to dream ticks. Bonus if they get a “You see in the depths of your dreamcatcher: [the result of a random dream tick]” to witness dreams while in dreambody.

Stupidity: Cause a loss in concentration by addling the mind. (Note: “Former mote abilities” are stupidity, hallucinations, amnesia, undoing, memoryloss, and pacification. Anything that currently has a DREAMWEAVE syntax that isn’t mindsoothe) While in dreambody, former mote abilities may only be cast on LINKed targets. Applies to all former mote abilities.

Bodysnap: Snap back into your corporeal body from afar No change.

Pacification: Soothe all violent thoughts from your subject's mind.

Dreamrealm: Enter the dreamrealm. Remove dreambody regeneration maluses for dreamweavers in the Dreamrealm.

Anchor: Anchor dreamcatcher in dreamrealm. DREAMCAST ANCHOR FORM creates an anchor in a Nirvana dreamland room (not in Citadel or Narcoponatrix area) using/consuming a dreamcatcher. No passive generation of motes, you have to store them there. Can store up to 250 motes or less, depending by the hanging dreamweaver’s skill. Each dreamweaver may only have a single anchor. Forming a new anchor has a confirm syntax and destroys the old one. Anchors are invisible except to the caster. DREAMCAST ANCHOR (with no arguments) shows the status of your anchor, location and current motes. When traveling to Nirvana via any method, you may append ANCHOR to land at your anchor instead of a random room. If dreamjacking, your victim will come to the same room if you anchor. DREAMCAST ANCHOR SIPHON [#] fills your marked dreamcatcher from your anchor after a short (3s base) eq channel. If no number is supplied, it fills your dreamcatcher to full if possible. Anchors may be DREAMWEAVE’d at to generate motes, see Dreamcatchers.

Haunt (Summon) Add summon tag. Any target in the area is valid (as TK-Dagger). Applies to all ticking, targeted summons. Tracks to target within a five room radius (as TK-Dagger). Applies to all ticking, targeted summons.
 As current Dreambeast: Flings one random mote at the target every 5-6 seconds (slightly random.) If no randomness is desired, effect should tick at 6 seconds, not 5 or 10. New Mechanic: Materialization - Casting a skill tagged 'summon' outside of the dreamrealm only comes with a mote commitment cost. These costs require and consume the listed number of motes, but also reduce the dreamweaver’s maximum active mote pool by the same amount. That reduction is called “committing motes”. When a materialization skill ends, the maximum active pool is instantly restored, and motes fill the newly restored empty space from storage at the standard rate. Dreamweavers may only have one instance of a given summon effect at once. Any in-effect targeted summon effects may be retargeted using their casting syntax without paying further mote costs or affecting mote commitment. Any other costs must be paid each cast, as usual.

Dreamspeak: Communicate with the corporeal. No change.

Illusion: Create basic illusions while in the dreambody. Bring back the Illusion skill, for roleplaying as a dreambody. (Works as a basic but unresistable illusion in the room of the dreambody).

Control: Gain complete control over your sleep. No change.

DreamSearch: Scan the dreamworld for other dreambodies. Combine sleepsense and DreamSearch.

Hallucination: Deals the Hallucination affliction instead of current effect.

Channel: Extract ego from corporeal bodies to your dreambody. No change.

Envelop: Absorb items your dreambody encounters. No change.

Dreamjack: Bring someone into the dreamrealm. Dreamjacking requires: Commit cost: 10 A channel with a base duration of 12s, during which the dreamweaver may not enter any commands. The victim receives a message at the beginning, end, and every 3 seconds inbetween for a total of 4 messages before completion. That the dreamweaver be linked to the victim for the duration of the channel. This means that they will automatically follow the target, this does not break the channel as long as: That the target remains in the area the channel was started in for the duration of the channel. An eye sigil being present in the room at the any tick doubles the duration of that tick, from 3s to 6s. Throwing down an eye sigil immediately upon seeing the first message increases the total duration from 12s to 21s, if the sigil is not removed by a third party.

Amnesia: Induce temporary forgetfulness into your subject.

Nightmare: Make your enemy's nightmares become reality! No change.

Link: Join your dreambody to the spirit of others. No change.

Tether: No change.

Epilepsy: Throw your victim's nervous system into disarray.

Induce: Force another to act upon your whims. No change.

Embed: Drop motes into your demesne. No change.

MemoryLoss: Cause a short-lived, total blackout to your subject. Change blackout length to 4s.

MindSoothe: Soothe the ailments of the mind. Instead of being a mote cast, mindsoothe becomes a dreambody only effect that passively heals a random lucidity affliction from the person the DW is linked and tethered to. Toggled on/off.

Dreamblade (Summon): Create a disembodied blade in the dreamrealm Add summon tag. See Haunt.

Doldrums: Summon forth a doldrum mist in your demesne. Adds a regeneration malus to affected people. -5/5 to ego and mana

Undoing: Strip the defences of your opponent.

Dreamtower (Summon): Trap an opponent with a mystical dreamtower. Add summon tag. See Haunt.

Coalesce: Make your corporeal self coalesce around your dreambody. No change.

DreamDrift: Let your dreambody drift to meet a friend. No change.

EternalSleep: Induce a "sleep" that lasts forever. Remove sleep requirement.

DreamBeast (Summon): Summon a monster from the dreamrealm. Add summon tag. See Haunt.

Possess: Take complete control of the sleeping body! No change.

Malayn

Does this imply being able to summon something like 4 passives on a target at once? That seems a bit excessive potentially.  Yay for shoroter blackout.

Not a fan of slumber causing a long stun for no real reason (shieldstun).  What is the rationale she presented (paging @Enyalida) for shieldstun as a normal cast skill?

Also @Enya, how do you forsee this all playing out exactly?

How long will dreamtower last since that sounds like the skill to trap people in place. Etc etc

Elryn

Out of curiousity, would this mean I could dreamjack someone who happens to be safe in protected territory, and the only sure way to stop me if I have oodles of health is to switch areas (and potentially pk rules/consequences)?

Edit: And I assume dreamjacking someone from prime, then killing them in Nirvana, will give suspect status?

Enyalida

                  @Malarious, it's not entirely clear in the doc posted, but the text under Haunt describing its limitations applies to all of the passive dream* skills. Specifically, the paragraph should answer your question. The costs weren't included in Estarra's paste, I don't think, but its tuned such that tower and beast  are mutually exclusive and with one of those up you can only have one of the other two up.

Note that slumber only causes the stun effect in the dreamrealm, where it otherwise would do nothing, as everyone in the dreamrealm is already asleep!

Tower lasts the same length as when debuted, and its roughly equivalent to shadows fading. 

Enyalida

@Elryn Dreamjacking cannot currently be used on prime unless the victim declares (or autodeclares) the dreamweaver and this report does not change that, so the short answer is no to both questions. I'm on my phone, but I can try to answer design intent questions later today.

CyndarinAscends

So how do you stop the dreamjack process? Eye sigil only delays it and apparently you can't run away, if I'm reading this right. 

Dream summons are cool!

What are eternal sleep's requirements?

Rivius

Other than leaving the area, is there a way to break link?

Enyalida

Yes, that seems to have been left off. Any sever attack targeting the dreamweaver will degrade their link. Thats intended to be the primary method of avoiding a dreamjacking. Of note, jacking also costs the entire mote pool, creating a pretty substantial cooldown in the context of a fight.

Synkarin

violet the dreamweaver

I'm not really a fan of being able to lock someone in an inescapable room, which is what this new skillset sets up. If it's working as it was initially (where dreamtower is in one room) then Enyalida needs to be envoying something to remove allergies from the equation when you're in the dreamrealm. That's simply too much.

Enyalida

It isn't, and no.

CyndarinAscends

Oh just 1 violet? That's easy enough to work with. 

What's the new tower mechanic then if it doesn't lock a person in a room?

Twytch

Not a fan of a class having both a run-to-cure aff (allergy) and inescapable-room abilities.

Rivius

Hrm, but if I understand right, the only way you'd get jacked and towered is if you stand still for 12 seconds and don't violet? It sounds like jacking won't really have much combat potential in this new skillset, unless the target in question is not paying attention.

CyndarinAscends

It does sound like dreamjacking is going to be generally difficult and impractical.

That being said, kill rooms are always a terrible idea. Kill rooms around afflictions that are designed to be incurable unless you run are even more terrible. 

Synkarin

Then please do elaborate on what the new dreamtower is. 

Is it what you initially suggested and it's increased to 4-5 rooms? Because that's even more nuts because it lets phantomspheres become a thing.

Rivius

Also, I haven't had a chance to get jacked before. What determines when you get out of there? Can you force your way out somehow?

Shedrin

You send WAKE and it starts a timer. After a few minutes you leave.

Falaeron

Keep in mind that violet/kether are both very high up on a skillset that most people wouldn't prioritise. I'm a bit skeptical.

Malayn

MINUTES!?

Can dreamjack pull you out of bubbles, domoths, and open declare areas?

Enyalida

Alright, so I kept my previous comments regarding Druids in particular  and Dreamjacking short both because I was posting from a public place on a dying phone, and because it's a subject that was treated exhaustively in the previous thread.

 At the end of the day, it's a lot of posting about nothing, on the basis of bad information and (reasonable) but overblown fears. The truth is that while the current incarnation of sap (let's set allergies already, it's a scary sounding red hering) does not need much support the 'new Dreamweaving' changes remove most of the remaining tools the skillset has for propagating a saplock. In my long and extensive history with both skillsets, the biggest assets in dreamweaving were 

a) sleep level attrition causing a very frequent sleep tick 

b) this sleep tick being bolstered by potential passive sleep ticks (through sleepmist changes)

c) the stacking of afflictions on kafe balance making it difficult to recover kafe defense to deal with point a

b) the long blackouts

d) the combination of narcolepsy and epilepsy for off eq/bal chances

e)the availability of a spammable shut down technique with sleep and double sleep attacks

This report utterly removes items A through D. Gone. There is no more sleep attrition. Sleepmist no longer has a passive sleep tick (which is why it's called doldrums now). Kafe balance is now free of afflictions. The active blackout is slashed in half. Narcolepsy and daydreaming are both gone. In the dream realm, sleep attacks do nothing anyways. There are no more double sleep skills or 'makes it harder to wake up' skills in the skillset. This report makes the one (ONE) sleep attack in the skillset - slumber - deal a stun equivalent to shieldstun. Slumber is not an especially fast attack, it's on par with the sleep enchantment in every place other than the dream realm, where it has this one special effect. Dreamweavers are now exactly at good at sleeplocking as anyone bearing a sleep enchantment (and a force command skill if metawake is involved). 

Further, the design is such that you will be in relative danger from any person who successfully dreamjacks you, and should therefore make use of the various methods of avoiding the dreamjacking in the first place. The timescales and restrictions involved in dreamjacking a target are comparable to several instakills. If a Celestine starts a judge on you and no one in your group takes the time to put in a command to stop them, they die. If a bard has pfifthed you and starts a deathsong and no one takes the time to put in a command to stop them, you die, dead. If a dreamweaver dreamjacks you, and in the course of the pursuant 12-24 seconds no one in your group takes time to put in a command to stop them - they get pulled to a demesne room in the dream realm, become 100% invulnerable to bothering in their corporeal sense and get a chance to kill their aggressor. Combatants avoid getting judged etc. as a matter of course. Avoid getting dreamjacked.

I understand the anxiety and misgivings about dreamjacking. I agree that it would probably be best to do something entirely different with the skill and the skillset, and have made that case repeatedly and in depth to the people in charge of making that call. I get it. I agree with the sentiment that the game would be better without a kill-room esque mechanic, no matter how untenable. The report makes every reasonable effort to qualify and mitigate dreamjacking abuse, while still including a mechanic in which a dreamweaver duels a victim in the dreamrealm. If you have an issue with allergies or druids in general, you (or any other envoy, particularly the other druid envoy) are well welcome to make that case in a report. 

To address some of the other questions and comments in the thread, in order of most urgent:

You can escape the dreamrealm through a WAKE FORCE command, which begins a channel on par with DOMOTH DESCEND and the same limitations, but that command costs 25% of your maximum ego. Of course, your dreamweaver foe leaving the dreamrealm for any reason (including being killed) instantly returns the dreamjacked person as well. So no, not minutes - seconds. Dreamjacking does end on its own after a few minutes (2?). 

Kether and Violet are not the only severing skills! For instance, dreamweaver's second skill is a severing skill! One of psionics very early skills has a sever syntax as well. Keep in mind that you hanging out in your Prime city or commune are at no risk for being dreamjacked, and that in most of the other places in the game, the dreamweaver's body needs to be in the same area as you for them to be in dreambody in that area at all! Also remember that doing something like entering an aethership docked somewhere is leaving that area! The only time you are in real danger of being dreamjacked is during joined group combat, during which it should be extremely easy to rustle up one person who has a severing skill, if not kether or violet. The option to leave the casting area for a second is intended to prevent random (non-raiding) adventurers from getting dreamjacked unless they completely flounder. If you're going into a hostile area and have exit strategy, you're already in for a world of hurt.  

Yes, dreamjacking can pull you out of bubbles, domoths, and so on, sort of. Your body remains there and at the end of the dreamjacking, you return to the  location of your body, which goes totally invulnerable in the mean time. 

The caveat about dropping a dreamtower under some conditions, including an impending unleash staff effect, phantom sphere generation, or the caster leaving the area by any means. 

Eternalsleep has the same 50% ego restriction it's always had. With the removal of most of the sleeping attacks and sleeplock promoting effects, it didn't make sense to require targets to be asleep for what is already a restricted and highly power intensive instakill. When the target IS asleep, the power cost on eternalsleep is reduced, but the threshold remains the same. 

 

@Malarious asked how I saw this skillset playing out. When I was going through and desigining the skillset, I wanted it to present an alternative kill path in the way that psionics do for mages. The idea is that dreamweavers will be trying to stack mental afflictions on their target and pressure lucidity balance, using those afflictions through their other skills to pressure vitals for an eternalsleep. The lynchpin of that concept is the new effect of Dreambeast, which works sort of like a Carrilon Knell: The more mental afflictions you have when it ticks, the more damage it deals to mana and ego. Additionally, at sufficient numbers of mental afflictions, the beast ticks cause your next ice balance to be slowed, to help cinch the deal once the dreamweaver has gotten a target loaded with afflictions. 

The intent here is that guilds and orgs who can supply a large number of mental afflictions already will pair beast (Which, I note, still will cost power to begin, as well as motes!) with blade, which causes periodic damage to health, mana, and ego - cutting to the chase of pressuring vitals for an eternalsleep. Others can choose to use haunt, which flicks dreamweaving motes (mostly mental afflictions) to help build a mental affliction stack. Or you could split the difference, using both blade and haunt, dropping one of them and applying beast once you feel the victim is ready for that. Personally, I'd be more afraid of the Aeromancer or Pyromancer dreamweaver, both being members of guilds or cities that already do a very good job of stacking mental afflictions and penalizing victims for trying to cure them. 

Honestly, this strategy might not work very well out-of-the-box. Numbers will have to be tuned, potentially more afflictions will need to be assigned to motes, and there's a lot of room for new skills. The goal here was to set forth a foundation to build on and declare a direction to go forwards. Trying to find new, extensible, and sufficiently interesting mechanics was a challenge, but I think at the end the report mostly got there. 

Tremula

Are violet/kether/severing abilites going to be made more available for people who haven't invested heavily in high/lowmagic? 

Eldanien

So monks have access to Psionics Psiblade as a sever attack - assuming they're Psymet versus the more PvP-favored Acrobatics and requiring them to keep the Super channel unlocked - which is not how monks use psionics.

Alternatively, I assume Harmony monks will be able to use Akhlumooshchu.  May be worth a highchant to switch over and sever if no one else tosses a violet/kether soon enough.

Or violet/kether as the fast option that doesn't limit utility of guild skills, if one has invested in it.

Makes a strange sort of sense to me.  But I feel like there are so many classes without a sever option that Lowmagic/Highmagic then becomes their only fallback.  Or pray that their allies have sever abilities ready and are watching for the message.

Elryn

Also, I think the flavour of the skill is tremendous. Dreamcatchers sound very cool! 

Nice work to all involved!

Synkarin

Ok - I do have an issue with dreamjack.

1) Does the line on starting it tell you who is dreamjacking you, or do you just know you are getting dreamjacked?

 2) Does kether/violet sever the link between the dreamweaver and the target? 

When I suggested using violet/kether - it was more tongue in cheek to kill the dreamweaver. I don't remember the balance time, but assuming it's 3 secs, that's 3 kethers IF you know who it is, 2 if you don't (without use of eyesigil). Obviously it's more if the balance time is faster, less if it's longer. With eyesigil, assuming throwing it is 3 more secs you're looking at 5ish kethers if you already know who it is. In groups, it's probably easier to stop if your entire team kethers, but individually, I don't know that 3 kethers or even 5 kethers on some people would kill them. More numbers on that would be prudent.

Where I think this will really shine is in the middle of a fight. You pick a target to pull out, while your team focuses elsewhere. You start dreamjacking them, and it's suddenly expected that you have to either stop whatever you are doing and spam violet/kether to kill the DW, or leave the area. It's nice to compare to judge and say 'you have to avoid judge, avoid dreamjack' but think about the actual comparison you are making. To avoid judge you (or any one person on your team) webs the judger, once. Judge averted by -one- person in -one- balance. That's not the same with dreamjack. You either need your entire team to start kethering/violeting (meaning they aren't attacking anyone anymore) to kill the DW, or the person in question needs to leave the area (as I said, I don't think 3 kethers will kill a dreambody and that's assuming no hindering).  Even if the dreamjack fails, you've essentially removed the person from a fight for however long it takes to kether/violet

That's not even considering the fact that you are now pulling your target into likely an already setup, inescapable room against things where the only cure for it is to escape. Nice

Of course, if violet/kether just sever the link between the dreambody and the target meaning one kether/violet stops it, I'm all good with that.

CyndarinAscends

1) I think we do need an alternative way to break the link that is accessible to lowbies/midbies/people not omni trans. I think if the target is shielded at the end of the link, it should fail. 

2) Web stops judge, a readily available and cheap enchantment. Weird comparison to draw.

3) Come on. Either allergies or dreamtower need to be addressed. Give allergies a cure (like burns) or change dreamtower's effect OR, at minimum, explain your position on allergies.. You dismiss concerns about allergies, but you never seem to actually address the specifics of allergies. I don't think it's particularly appropriate to say "I'm not going to talk about allergies, if you have a problem with it, you envoy it." Let's not relive the shackles debacle please. It is your responsibility to justify the existence of your own report. 

4) Can we get more details about dreambeast? I'm curious as to how this kill method is intended to work. Is dreamtower less of a concern and dreamblade (it hits ego right?) + dreambeast passives going to be more of the focus?

5) Is there an active ego drain anywhere or am I missing it?

6) I don't know if I share Sidd's fear of group conflict. I think other skills (bubble, stoneflesh, maze, whatever that aeonics skill is) are much more effective at short term body removal. 

7) I agree that an ego draining focused weaver is going to be scarier as a pyro/aero than a druid. I would even emphasize pyro due to Minstrel compatibility. You also mentioned slower ice balance, which directly applies to burns? Sounds like fun to me. I don't know if it'll overshadow burns+TK but it's an option.

Pyrochem weaver might be a thing!

Synkarin

I would put Dreamjacking more akin to inquisition (though inquisition is obviously stronger) than those other options.

It in itself doesn't stop you from attacking, or running, but if you don't, you're going to be worse off, meaning it requires you to actively counter it and the counter isn't a simple 'web' like it is with judge. If you don't counter it, you are pulled into Nirvana for much longer than stoneflesh/maze whatever lasts.

Tarkenton

On the other hand. If the Druid is stuck in a single room with me, even prepared, I like my chance of killing them.

CyndarinAscends

It's definitely situational. There are some archetypes/builds that would punish the killroom. Others would have no chance.

The weaver can decide though.

Elryn

Oh, and just in case the design has any room for a couple more flavour abilities (especially support-focused), there's an old thread of suggestions here - Some Dreamweaving Suggestions.

Saran had some awesome auric ideas, and I'd love things like helping to make an ally less tired, weaving good dreams, sleepwalking for mischief, and so on. If the meta has changed too much or they aren't feasible, that's cool of course. I'd be a Dreamweaver tomorrow though if I could turn into an incubus of the dreamrealm. :P

Rivius

It sounded to me like kether/violet would sever it in one hit. Would like verification. From what I'm understanding, the intention seems to be to make dreamjack as combat irrelevant as possible without outright deleting it or making major changes to its core concept?

Xenthos

So, anything that can be SUMMON'd can be used outside the Dreamrealm, if I am reading this correctly.

Dreamtower has the ability to SUMMON.

How will Dreamtower work outside the Dreamrealm?  Or am I just misreading this entirely?