One with Nature

Enya

It seems that as part of the Melding Update, the One with Nature racial power shared by Elfen and Faelings has been silently nerfed. It now no longer applies to rooms that have been terrained by druids. This dramatically reduces its strength and utility, so I think it's time to again consider some alternative ideas to replace One with Nature for Elfen, Faelings or both.

Some of the ideas I've floated in the past include a power allowing the use of Mystic Pathways, but I think that more direct combat utility is favored for these. There was another thread on the subject back when the Racial Overhaul was newer that I'll be scraping for ideas, but the context has changed a fair bit since then so we'll see.

Xenthos

Did you bug this?  This is a key part of the power as developed / implemented by Roark.  Elfen should get the buff in any natural underlying terrain & Hartywoods, Faelings should get it in natural underlying terrain & wyrd.

If the design changed I would expect an announcement of such, because that would be a big nerf to the racial.

Enya

I bugged it TWICE. Was told first that it wasn't a bug [that it always worked this way], and then that it wasn't a bug and I should envoy it.

Xenthos

Someone isn't sure how the skill works then.  I spent a couple hours getting it to work correctly with Roark in the first place, then did a followup with Orael on that live stream thing he held.

Tonight is not looking like a great night for me to spend much time on it, this is a miserable week.  Will try to check it out by tomorrow though...

Orael

I'm the one that not bugged it both times.

Nothing about One with Nature was changed during the melder revamp, it's the same code and the code is pretty explicitly looking for natural environment state and not changed state unless it's trying to determine if you are a faeling and benefitting from wyrd rather than normal forest.

Xenthos

It seems to be working to me... I decided to get a little me-time before the rest of the night kicks in, so logged on.  I'm getting One With Nature on the road when Wyrd is in place (and also Nature's Warmth from nature research).

I get neither of them when I trueground.

Edit: Orael beat me to it.  I think this bug report needs more details, because at least the Faeling end appears to be functioning the way I expect it to.

Enya

I, on the other hand, am not getting One With Nature on the road when Ethereal Forest is in place. Of course I also don't get it when truegrounding. Perhaps this is related to the changes in terrain overall and other associated bugs like the vanishing Ethereal Totem?

All I know is that A) One With Nature did work based on druidic foresting before; this was, if not an intentional feature, well known and discussed between players and the administrator who was at the time handling the racial overhaul; and C) at some point something changed that made it no longer function in this way. That's why I bugged it, it was not behaving in a manner consistent with how it had been for a long time and there weren't any announced changes to explain why. 

Xenthos

Enya said:

I, on the other hand, am not getting One With Nature on the road when Ethereal Forest is in place. Of course I also don't get it when truegrounding. Perhaps this is related to the changes in terrain overall and other associated bugs like the vanishing Ethereal Totem?

All I know is that A) One With Nature did work based on druidic foresting before; this was, if not an intentional feature, well known and discussed between players and the administrator who was at the time handling the racial overhaul; and C) at some point something changed that made it no longer function in this way. That's why I bugged it, it was not behaving in a manner consistent with how it had been for a long time and there weren't any announced changes to explain why. 

I just verified with Esri that this is the case.  He gets Nature's Warmth in both terrained types (wyrd & harty) as expected.  But he gets One With Nature nowhere when on the road in any environment type.

I would actually pin this down to a long-standing bug that has existed since implementation of the skill, not a recent change; when I worked with Roark, he had a lot of issues getting it to work right, and I was testing primarily as a Faeling in Wyrd terrain.  We might both have just never got the Elfen side in place.  The terrain things seem to all be working as expected for everything except for Elfen's One With Nature.  I know that I have been stating that is how it works because that's how it's supposed to based on the discussions with Roark, but... maybe it just hasn't been?

I can't think of why only Elfen would break if they were working right in the first place.

Enya

I'm pretty well sure that in testing and just... experience using it both when it came out and more recently, that I have gotten One With Nature places like Nirvana's Citadel and other spots where it would otherwise not work.

Either way, as a new bug or a standing one, it is a bug then?

Orael

I'll look more into it later tonight or tomorrow when I get a chance.

Xenthos

Orael said:

I'll look more into it later tonight or tomorrow when I get a chance.

It was brought up elsewhere, but remember how terrains got reworked in preparation for this whole thing, and we had bugs filed about how (for example) Bondero Bay was suddenly flooded by water when it was naturally water?  Similar things happened to a lot of natural forest that suddenly was overlaid by Hartwoods.
What if the Hartstone terrain was doing a basic terrain check prior, so it was automatically making the place count as 'natural,' and when the whole terraining thing got reworked it lost that?