the woe with whips - or immersion breaks with bashing

Aeldra

Hello,

so, one thing that does keep bugging me are the way our ultimate bashing artifacts, the 'whips' do currently work. Mostly what disturbs me is that, I for one, start losing the immersion of being a immersion of being a certain character after using the whip for quite a while, it's the same whether I was in Celest or Serenwilde and I guess it would feel similar if I were in Magnagora or Gaudiguch. Everyone who got themselves a bashing artifact wields the same whip and snaps it at things.

Don't get me wrong, the idea of a whip as a weapon is not a bad one and after I got the description and appearance of mine changed, I feel alright using it. But, I've been pondering for a while now if it's not rather deterring to guild / org identity if everyone is using the same weapon unless they are happen to fight other players. Most guilds have many immersive  and pretty ways of attacking, some are better, others are worse, but all in all it still feels that all of this flavor is lost to us with the introduction of whips.

So, I personally would love to see some discussion how this could be possibly amended (if others agree with me that this indeed is rather sad? )

Idea's of my own that popped into my head:

- Allow whips to have a secondary effect that you can activate by touching, converting what ever damage your attacks would normally do into that of the whip ( caveat: would need you to remember to turn off that if you want to use damage dealing attacks against players, as whips are not against players)
- Provide diversity to whip attacks based upon org/guild/faction ( possibly at lot of work to be implemented )
- Providing an alternative artifact to a whip that allows you to manipulate the damage type of your guild attacks against denizens ( not 100% sure that would be a good idea )
- Have a third party skillset ( such as an idea I posted on the demigod power idea thread a while ago ) that let's you siphon on the power of a whip to use in a customizable attack message?
- I've heard people suggest devaluing the usefulness of whips, but that's personally not something I feel like it would be the right thing to do.

I realize all in all it's possibly still minor in a way, but seeing legion of people with the same whip while bashing is disheartening and for me, ultimately immersion breaking. I'm pretty sure someone else possibly has an even more neat idea. What's people's opinion?

Lavinya

I had mine customised which is probably the option most likely you'll be directed to. 

HOWEVER:

Plz plz plz let us also customise the attack message!! My shiny gold whip is instead the malevolent whip of Ouroborian reprimand and I love it...except when I attack it still shines with holy light and angelic choir singing. Not cool.

Silvanus

Angels still sing in prison.

Plus, it just shows how badass Morgy is. Even though he has consumed more Excorbito energy than any other God in history, he can still make angels sing with holy light.

Editted to add: The only immersion with roleplay is against those who support Divinus who take an Excorable whip. The reason why it hasn't been brought up much before is because Divinus is about 750% better than an Excorable whip. Those of a Divinus faction use Divinus only, those of Excorable factions use whatever works.

Arix

This sounds like a problem. And you know what you do when a problem comes along?

Yehn

I don't think I ever want to give up my void blaster, no matter how bad it is >.> <.< It's just really neat

Asmodea

If I could afford it, I would get a cold whip regardless of its usefulness in hunting, I just really want it!

Shaddus

There's no way to customise the attack message without making an entirely new item in the database.

Ranah

I def feel you on this, it's not really within my RP but I wanted to bash better.

I wish that instead of the whip, it was a special damage bash rune (with its own syntax) that you attached to your class' bashing weapon. Could maintain the same syntax, just have it fit in the itemrep of your bashing item in the messages instead.

WHIP FISHER

You strum a lash of [divinus] energy from [a worn lute], the chord sending it into a cave fisher's chest.

You draw an edge of [divinus] energy along [a halberd] and strike a cave fisher with a terrible blow.

Or w/e, though that would be more work with writing up all of those potential lines for each arhcetype. 

CyndarinAscends

I hate whips because they are the default bashing attack for anyone with one. They are just better than typical bashing attacks, as far as I can tell. With a spellcrafted staff, champ artifact, and level 12 fire buff, my whip still outpaces my staff on astral on mobs that are equally weak to both (like fesixes), or at the very least, matches it. 

Which makes them so prevalent that is really detracts from the unique flavor of each guild's bashing skill. A divinus whip is probably one of the most purchased artifacts in the game, if I had to take a guess. So you don't really see bashing attacks anymore, it's jsut whipapalooza.

On the other hand, bashing sucks and is a distant, distant, diiiistant last place method to gain essence behind influencing and aetherbashing. 

Enyalida

I went to an astralhunt with ~5 other people who were all significantly lower might than me (and lower ages by a factor ranging from ~9x to 4x younger). I was the only person not using either a divinus whip or a wondergem bashing item. 

So it's not just one of the most bought artifacts, it's also a shockingly high priority artifact, that relativly new characters have them really early. 

Yehn

CyndarinAscends said:

On the other hand, bashing sucks and is a distant, distant, diiiistant last place method to gain essence behind influencing and aetherbashing. 

Ehm, I don't know, I think it kind of depends... in experimenting a little bit with alts, I think bashing is the most efficient way from 20 to 50, maybe a little beyond. Influencing really just can't compete if you find the right mobs in enough abundance (Lusternia's glacially slow respawn timers can make it hard though, especially if you have competition...)

Bashing at the demi level... I think it depends a bit. If you're decently lucky with crits there's mobs that can give similar returns to influencing if you're not burning ikons (mostly because influencing doesn't have crits and so can only go so fast, I think... Also, not using a whip). There's still dangers influencing doesn't have, like getting swarmed by aggressive mobs, though...

But then there's some oddities like garuls, that seem really tough but for not very much reward...

Enyalida

A lot of times, a mysteriously tough npc is hard because it has a lifesteal attack it likes to spam, healing itself repeatedly. 

CyndarinAscends

Okay. If you don't use ikons for whatever reason, they are comparable. 

But people use ikons so that's not really relevant.

Bashing pre 80 isn't really worth discussing. It can be done in 12 hours (or less) by anyone using virtually any method. It's just easy. 

Falaeron

Most things that are worth lots of experience are loyal so they team and enemy, which is a big risk in itself.

Lerad

Bashing is only bad because we have things called "guard stacks" - 30 to 40 mobs in the same room so influencing can be done with a single alias. Frankly speaking, ikons only really even the field against crits - bashing would be more or less equal in rate if the influencer had to move around to get to their experience.

It also boils down to how the guard/primeraiding system in Lusternia is less than optimal, but that's really another conversation.

Remove guards from being influenceable, and the speed and effort needed to gain exp from influence will be roughly equal to bashing. I'm speaking of at demi or near-demi levels, of course.

Whips basically standardized bashing advantages, which is a good thing in my books. The lack of flavour is sad, but in terms of bashing, it's a necessary evil. Of course, this is without tankiness in the picture. When you start comparing tankiness, whips make some classes better at bashing than others. Without whips, however, the mob resistance modifiers just makes things ridiculously difficult for certain classes locked into certain damage types.

As for how to improve immersion... well, I don't know. Letting bashing attacks be customisable, or limitedly customisable like certain demigod powers are can be a good compromise.