I've had a good night's sleep and mulled over it a little. This post will be a long ramble. For those who don't want to read: I feel that dramaturgy is a great addition to the game because it is a prime example of how pointless illusions ultimately are. And I'm hoping that this means that the admin will consider eventually phasing illusion-style combat out altogether, when dramaturgy's limitations due to its reliance of illusion mechanics become seen as a clear liability more than being a fun mechanic.
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I'd like to disagree partly with Xenthos saying that the min-maxing is on the part of the dramaturgy user. This is untrue in part, because dramaturgy users only become effective (maybe not even that) by making scenes which are basically illusions of other affs to combine with their actual aff output. A dramaturgy user who wants to compete in combat has no choice but to make scenes that use illusionary lines. They are, in other words, balanced around actually being able to give an illusion message while giving a different aff. Instead, the min-maxing choice is on the part of the opponent. With extensive code and anti-illusion (or rather, anti-dramaturgy) scripts, an opponent can take a dramaturgy user using all of his abilities at maximum potential and cut away a large portion of his effectiveness. The only way a 3.8s attack that gives 2 affs, only 1 of which is hidden can be competitive in pvp is when the attack message can be illusioned to mislead the opponent's system successfully. If this effectiveness of the illusion is removed, then dramaturgy is simply impossible to use as a competitive skillset. In other words, you can fight "fairly" against a dramaturgy user by not coding against him. If you can successfully code against and remove some of his illusion effectiveness, you make his offense underpowered compared to yours. A min-maxer can, in other words, affect the balance between himself and a dramaturgy user with scripts.
Illusions is just a false code-wall, effective against those who don't
code against it, and failing against those who do. No class can be
properly balanced around illusions simply because its actual effectiveness isn't
stable, and is entirely dependant on your opponent's coding ability. If a
class has his affliction output limited (ie dramaturgy has a slow affliction rate) because illusions supposedly
give him an advantage, it means he is irremediably crippled against
opponents who have sunk in wasteful hours of time to counter it, or ironically, those who have no system to be fooled with at all. If he
is allowed a potent affliction output while being given illusions, then
he would be overwhelmingly unbeatable unless the opponent sinks in those
wasteful hours of time to counter it.
Dramaturgy is a prime example of this, expanded on a huge scale. It is the first skillset in Lusternia to truly rely on illusion mechanics, the same way the Syssin class in Aetolia had been relying on illusions. (There was a point when syssin illusions was buffed to be usable off-balance, on its own balance, and with 2 uses each balance.) There
are ways to code against this skillset using affmessages as well as
other coding whizbangs. Colour matching, an exhaustive list of aff-lines
that can be used with the scene limitations, affmessage failsafes etc.
You could even code a script to identify dramaturgy scenes via
linguistic properties because of the limitations (subject, object, need
for an action being one, even use of present or past tense and other
grammatical considerations could be factored in, depending on how strict
the admin intend on administrating scenes) the ability comes with, if
you felt like it. Doing this can take months of work, but assuming it's
done, and a dramaturgy user's falsely bloated effectiveness based on
their ability to mix and match illusionary lines with actual affs become
cut into ribbons, what should we do? Buff them more? Or let dramaturgy
just fade into obscurity as a useless skill for pvp?
I'd like to agree with those who are saying that this skillset is one
that takes a step backwards from some general trajectories of change
we've been going with. Affmessages is one example of this skillset making a turn-about from what players have thought were established trends. They were introduced to allow easier entry
into combat for the low-to-mid tier, who cannot afford a system and are
overwhelmed by the huge amount of triggers they'd have to gather
otherwise to build their own system. It won't allow them to compete
against top tier combatants. And indeed, this skillset appears to be
taking these affmessages and giving them more importance than just that,
since they now become a possibly powerful tool to use against dramaturgy, for use in code to counter their effectiveness. They are now more than just combat-introduction aids, they are now part of top-tier combat, a tool for min-maxers who want to gain an advantage over anyone who chooses to use dramaturgy.
I am in full support of such a move. I have always been a supporter for easier system making, because fully reliable affmessages means much easier system creation/maintainance, and allows greater participation in all kinds of combat scenarios, allowing even new players to impact and have their presence felt in important and significant fights without needing to shell out for complicated systems or sink pointless hours of work into making one that can compete with those on the market. My hope is that eventually, we can dispense with making systems based off game messages entirely, and based only on aff-messages. Game messages can then be changed more frequently, typos corrected without needing for system makers to scramble to update, and players no longer need to feel frustrated that they lost a fight because they typed in bad regex in one out of a few thousand triggers they have in their system.
It may be simply that it's incremental and fractional, but I've gained inspiration from about 10 different ego battles now, but my inspire status still lists at 0% Does anyone know how slow of a progression the inspiration gaining is supposed to be? I don't want to bug it if it takes 50 influence battles to gain 1%
EDIT: I spoke too soon. I just gained my first % of inspiration, so I guess it is incremental/fractional.
"He was well fed, and on his way to being slightly intoxicated--which contributed to his sense of wellbeing. And, most important, he was among friends. There can't be much more to life than this, he thought." -Pug's thoughts on his first Ale (via Raymond Feist)
Lerad explains well in depth the issues I was trying to highlight earlier with designing combat around tricking illusions. When it works, it's fine (if meta), but eventually systems will become sophisticated enough to negate or drastically nullify their usefulness, and then you're left in a total hole.
I also agree with him in that I foresee that combat against competent or competitive Dramaturgists will inevitably devolve into targeted illusion scenes. Without them, a sophisticated system) will be able to quickly catch and cure out of the afflictions gained far before the bard recovers balance from performing that scene. Only by pairing the afflictions with un-see-through-able illusions could a dramaturge possibly expect to have their afflictions 'stick' for any length of time.
I also don't really see any non-competitive players who are fully informed about their choices taking dramaturgy, except to make some kind of point. This is because it just doesn't offer anything to the non-combative player. There isn't any tangible PvE utility provided by this skillset beyond the bonus to influencing. The RP benefit of being able to perform a scene at will for an illusion type effect is far outweighed by the many RP skills of illusions and glamours, including the eponymous skill in the set - Illusion. In that one skill is encompassed the entire role playing feel of Dramaturgy, and it is expanded further in the Improved illusions skill, and in Glamour, and Conceal. Even Ecology offers more ability to assist in casual/group oriented combat situations, more defenses during PvE, and more utility abilities.
I expect that the combat fitness of this skillset will peak soon as the more sophisticated systems come to understand how to automatically handle scene illusions, the less sophisticated ones learn to diagnose more often under scene-like conditions, and as the few very overpowered things in the skillset are toned down (Jealousy, for instance).
Regardless of where that combat fitness lies on the continuum, I highly recommend that an administrator, volunteer or otherwise, consider making it a new project to rework this skillset, to remove the dominance of the blank-slate-scene mechanic from it, and to introduce more unique and interesting mechanics related to the idea of being a dramaturge to the skillset. Right now, over 75% of the skillset is devoted to a fill-in-the-blank mechanic, which is very bland (and, as Lerad pointed out, will likely devolve into mere mimicking of other attacks). Compared to the scene mechanic, the few non-scene skills in the skillset are interesting and have unique messages and effects that are exciting! More like that would be great!
If I were working on this skillset, I would make it an extension of the way stages in lusternia work, after all, being the coordinator of theater is what being a Dramaturge is! Much like Ecology has different clusters of mechanics (Charms, smudges, fetish, bond, banes), I would split this skillset into a few different mechanic clusters. In each category of effect, there would be a limit to how many you can have active, or complications for their use. Personally, I like the idea that you need certain effects going to unlock others. For instance, you might need to 'set the scene' in a room to be able to use the more powerful effects. To preserve the 'fill in the blank' portion of this skillsets, the actual abilities and effects would be based off archetypes, with some of the abilities allowing the dramaturge to fill in their own specifics. Each different category would have 3-4 choices, gained as you go along the skillset. The different categories could be something like this:
=Scenes=
Concept:This would set the 'genre' of the play the Dramaturge is creating, adding a line to the QL of a room denoting the magical scene imposed on the room.
Effect: Meta-effects on other Dramatury skills. For instance, one could make any damaging effects do slightly more damage, while making chance-to-afflict or afflict-on-a-timer ones weaker. Using a sad mask in a tradegy would have different impact than using it in a comedy.
Restriction: Only one in a room, and switching is highly restricted. Perhaps swapping it knocks you out of your role? These won't have open-ended messages, they will be the same for everyone. Example archetypes: Tragedy, Comedy, Adventure, Experimental.
=Roles=
Concept: These change the Dramaturge's QL slightly (like the demigod power choice look), without obscuring their name. One of the very high level skills could be a glamour-esque ability to mask your name as well for a time, only on QL/WHO HERE (like glamour).
Effect: These would mostly be self-effecting defenses, but generally not defensive. Generally, they in some way would assist an offensive strategy, either by defending against afflictions that only stop you from attacking (like peace), or offering offensive dmp. Some could even have some minor downsides, like making you more open to attack in exchange for making your attacks stronger. These should make effort to be double-edged.
Restrictions: Only one up at any time, and it takes time to fully inhabit the role (gain its benefit). This could be akin to the time it takes to get into a shamanism trance (30 seconds). Switching makes you lose the first role and have no role until the next one is inhabited at the end of the time. These should allow some limited customization, to allow a different line on QL to fit the story the Dramaturge is telling. I suggest making there be a long-ish cool down on swapping these around, though, a few RL days at least, so that it's not a 'free poses' ability.
Example Archetypes: The Protagonist, The Antagonist, The Wise Woman|Man, The Trickster.
Note: I'm not happy with these example archetypes. These four display differences on two axis: The first two are direct actors, one positive one negative. The second two are ancillary actors that change the journey of the pro/antagonist. One to assist, one to cause trouble.
=Costumes=
Concept: The role you inhabit is your character's identity/personality archetype. The costume is all about appearance. Unlike a stage costume, it does not fully overlay your appearance, it merely adds to it. Like face paints for Stag/Crow users, it appends the relevant lines to your description.
Effect: Like roles, these should mostly be self-effecting only, but would be probably more defensive. These effects should not generally have downsides, beyond not being able to use other costumes at the same time. They could do things like regeneration, aff defense, enabling a curing command (as in, as long as you have x costume defense, you can do X command that heals two affs, or whatever).
Restrictions: These should take a short channeled action to swap around, as you change your appearance. A skill a medium way along called 'Quickchange' could the channel, just for the fun factor of a skill that makes you an expert quickchange artist. Keep in mind that costume doesn't necessarily refer to clothing, or any specific piece of clothing anyways. It's more the 'look' your character gives off. This might even include a mood your character is in?
Example Archetypes: Minimal, Gaudy, Period (as in, "it's a period piece"), Modern
=Props=
Concept: Most dramatic productions employ the use of... stuff! From furniture to cookware to tools and weapons to unidentified doodads that just take up stage space! This is where you start using effects on other people!
Effects: Like I said, this is the start of the active abilities. Pretty much anything appropriate can go here. None of these effects should be recurring or thematically require ongoing action by the Dramaturge, though you can pretend! Basically, you take out and flourish the item in question, depending on its type, to effect your 'audience'! This might be bonking them with a weapon, or forcing them to contemplate mortality with a well-employed skull. I suggest there be a cop out choice to just use a generic item instead of a crafted item. A penalty for doing so may or may not be warranted!
Restriction: This is the first one that doesn't require you to pick and stick with a particular choice! You can use them freely, provided you have an appropriate object (or use the generic option), crafted by a real tradesman. Want your own? Join a cartel and design one for your moving combative production!
Example Archetypes: Weapon (any blade/bludgeon, instrument, or cookware will do.), Clothing (you can dazzle with a scarf or clothing), Objet d' arte (This can be a great many things. Figurines, baubles, music boxes, watches, and so on. The idea is that you'd be occupied by an interesting thing.), Book/Writing
=Effect=
Concept: I think this is what that stage illusion thing is called, where the director just makes stuff up? It's been a long time since I've done a Lusternian play. This is the other active ability thing for this skillset. Basically, it's the power to mess with the dramatic timing of things, in a way you normally can't. You can engineer situations that otherwise wouldn't arise, like how pratfall works now!
Effects: These would be the group target or lingering passive effects of the skillset. Things like pratfall's group target capability. In stage performances, effects are the catch-all for the director to do anything he or she cannot with the other functions, so that's probably what this would end up being for Dramaturges also. This would be the category all the random stuff falls under.
One of the effects could even be 'improvise'. It would use the scene mechanic in existence right now, where you pre-write an action that involves you and your target, and then perform it at your target. Conceptually, you've understood that sometimes things go wrong in drama, and you have a backup plan to save the show if things go awry (your pre-written scene) to save your character and your act. This would do a few random affs from a list (possibly the current dramaturgy list, with some trimming?). After all, if you go off script, the results can be unexpected!
Restrictions: If unified in theme some, a good restriction here would be a simple cooldown. If your characters continually find themselves in contrived situations, your 'audience' begins to lose credulity and the effects wane. Have a sense of pacing, will you?
So yeah. That's a rough look at what a skillset based around the idea of a Dramaturge could look like with work. It really IS just a rough idea, banged out in a brainstorming session, but it could avoid the conceptual problems of the illusion-hex skillset, and (I think) has a lot more room for both unique pre-written flavor and player-input flavor. An ambitious administrator could even code in different messages for the different categories of effect, depending on what the genre being used is. After all, the 'hero' of a comedy is different from the 'hero' of a tragedy, so their lines could be different.
I'd be really interested to see what different characters players cook up for their battles. Some combinations would work better in different situations (different audiences require different acts, duh), so an ambitious player would work out a different narrative for different situations. In the heat of combat, it won't matter, but the RP combinations that would arise out of the combat necessities could be very interesting outside of combat, especially if players embrace the 'theater geek' persona suggested by the skillset. Or you could just be boring and use all the default text and default options, you boring person you.
While I broadly agree with Lerad's huge post (Illusions are very difficult to balance for because of the unstable rate at which anti-illusion coding is done by system developers) I disagree with the proposed solutions. Enyalida's is essentially "Make a new skillset off the same theme". That's going to far. It seems like only a relatively small (code-wise, at least) change is needed:
Do not allow players to make scenes that mimic other skills. Balance Dramaturgy in line with this new, no-illusion paradigm.
Do not allow players to make scenes that mimic other skills. Balance Dramaturgy in line with this new, no-illusion paradigm.
Were I still playing, I would certainly like this to be the solution used. It would allow the skillset's balance between flavor and mechanics to be preserved -- so you could still use it for artistic and entertainment purposes without giving up the ability to be effective in combat.
The trouble is, how do you do this? The code can't be made to prevent any line that could look like an illusion of an affliction or other trigger-faking effect. There just isn't a list of all the lines and line-fragments that an illusion could be used to simulate, and if there were, how would it be updated, and how would you prevent people from finding fragments of lines to fake, or lines that aren't traditionally combat but still are sometimes triggered?
And a policy isn't going to do it. It would be a huge nightmare of enforcement and then people would cheat around it anyway.
Requiring the name at the start and the target name somewhere in the scene is already a good step towards making the illusion function limited. I don't really know or remember how many lines there are that could effectively be illusioned within these limitations. Might it be possible to start changing all of those lines until no actual affliction line ever takes the form that a dramaturge can create?
Failing that, perhaps they could change one thing about Dramaturgy: that its lines show in emote color. Make it have its own config color, so system writers can color-match and give it a unique color. Or is color matching not really viable for enough clients? I would hate to see something like having to always put a tag on all Dramaturgy lines, as that would be ugly, but it might be better than having to see Dramaturgy get trapped in this vice forever.
Do not allow players to make scenes that mimic other skills. Balance Dramaturgy in line with this new, no-illusion paradigm.
Were I still playing, I would certainly like this to be the solution used. It would allow the skillset's balance between flavor and mechanics to be preserved -- so you could still use it for artistic and entertainment purposes without giving up the ability to be effective in combat.
The trouble is, how do you do this? The code can't be made to prevent any line that could look like an illusion of an affliction or other trigger-faking effect. There just isn't a list of all the lines and line-fragments that an illusion could be used to simulate, and if there were, how would it be updated, and how would you prevent people from finding fragments of lines to fake, or lines that aren't traditionally combat but still are sometimes triggered?
And a policy isn't going to do it. It would be a huge nightmare of enforcement and then people would cheat around it anyway.
Requiring the name at the start and the target name somewhere in the scene is already a good step towards making the illusion function limited. I don't really know or remember how many lines there are that could effectively be illusioned within these limitations. Might it be possible to start changing all of those lines until no actual affliction line ever takes the form that a dramaturge can create?
Failing that, perhaps they could change one thing about Dramaturgy: that its lines show in emote color. Make it have its own config color, so system writers can color-match and give it a unique color. Or is color matching not really viable for enough clients? I would hate to see something like having to always put a tag on all Dramaturgy lines, as that would be ugly, but it might be better than having to see Dramaturgy get trapped in this vice forever.
AFAIK it DOES show in emote colour. But it's also affected by rainbow pots. So I guess you could try to ignore any line that's not your default combat text colour...?
You'd enforce it the same way you enforce the "Nothing obscene or nonsensical" rule. If someone does it, they get reported and then an admin looks at it and goes "Yep, that's a direct quote from some skill." or "Nope, that's unique text." and responds accordingly.
You could also have it show in emote colour, sure, but the above should be plenty. You'd rely on people knowing how incredibly sure they are to be caught and deciding not to do it, for the most part.
E: The proposed rule would be "No scenes that duplicate non-customizable messages already used by the game." which is entirely unambigous. If someone can show a message produced by the game that matches your scene letter for letter and isn't produced by a player's custom emotes, speech, etc., you have to change your scene to be distinct.
Without the illusions though, you'd definitely have to beef up the skill a bit more.
I'd say let's just get rid of affmessages altogether and then nerf skills as needed, especially since they were introduced to make coding a simple system easier, but now we have firstaid, and that has essentially done this (auto firstaid will help even further)
If affmessages were removed, I'd be completely fine with these not being able to be illusions, FYI, as then both afflictions would be completely hidden.
I'd agree with that too, except if aff messages are present, it was never meant to be hidden.
Which is why the giving up the illusions part at the end is there. It would be some way to balance the skill out a bit. As I said, if affmessages were removed, we'd have to go through and probably nerf some things here and there.
I don't know if you've played with it much but types of 'illusions' available really are not that impressive. If you have affmessages visible then it makes it clear 100% of the time what really happened.
They have to be one line, have your name and the target's name in them. Now the target sees you and not their name.
You can't even set up one to look like you have webbed someone or used the necromancy version of ectoplasm.
Also, illusions are living on borrowed time. The game side 'client' that has been in development for some time now doesn't recognize them. It won't be long before all systems are hybrids of client and game side systems and illusions are just pretty things.
This isn't some secret knowledge that only I am privy to. It has been publicly discussed on several occasions.
And jealousy is OP, I know it, you know it and it's going to be addressed. Asmodea being able to hit 3k minor seconds is out of control. Why, because bard attacks are too fast for that kind of direct damage. (Also, way jealous of that, on my best day I could only get low 2k)
The set up where you have some hex like aff choices and then some mechanics to turn combat around on people so they have to be more strategic about their decisions is solid. Yes, like all new things it will need some tweaking but the skill set is lots of fun.
I spent hours coming up with some awesome attack messages. I only have one that could be considered illusion-ish and that is to make it look like I left the room, which if i just spent ~4 seconds of eq to give two affs I assure you I would not be leaving.
I meant a change away the fact that it does show in emotes color, by making it NOT show in emotes color but instead in a new CONFIG COLOR option just for it. Then you can set that to be the same color as emotes if you like it as it is now, but if you're a system-writer, you can set it to its own unique color which you can use to trigger against (and then, if you want, recolor the output to emotes color too, so only the system sees the different color, not also the person using it).
That's the last resort "tag" option I referred to at the bottom of my post -- a terrible solution since it almost completely neuters the expressivity of the skill, but still better than the morass the skill will live in forever if it is allowed to be an illusions knockoff.
That's the last resort "tag" option I referred to at the bottom of my post -- a terrible solution since it almost completely neuters the expressivity of the skill, but still better than the morass the skill will live in forever if it is allowed to be an illusions knockoff.
...How does that completely neuter it? You still get a ton of expressivity.
I did say "almost" quite specifically; and the how is because a lot of things you might want to depict won't make sense with the prefix, or will just be terrible writing with a clumsy flow or rhythm and with the prefix dominating over the artistic expression intended. It'll still be better than not having it, but it's still far worse than the better solutions I proposed before it, if those could be made to work.
Or the prefix could just be a preceding line, not actually a prefix to the sentence of the attack.
Blah person is about to perform!
Green beams of lazer death lance brilliantly from the eyes of Blah, turning into giant peeps made of green light that smash down on you, before vanishing in a poof of sparkles, glitter, and giggles.
You all are confusing, first people are saying it's going to be easy to code around, and that it will need to be improved in order to be good. (Moreso on Facebook than here, if anyone is confused) Then you are saying that they need to make it easier to code around by adding a prefix...
Making it easier to code around removes it as illusion-based combat. If part of what 'balances' it is the idea that you're able to do illusions, it's false balancing, see Lerad's post. Removing that from the picture entirely opens up the skillset for actual balancing.
I don't really care if you want to add a prefix. It's not really even on the radar of things that deserve attention though. Affmessages totally gives it away.
If people start coming on the forums saying they got destroyed by dramaturgist custom attack lines then maybe.
I'm not sure if the people complaining have a lot of experience with creating effective illusions or not but the options you are limited to would be the worlds worst illusions setup, ever.
It can only be 1 line which eliminates 90% of anything worth doing since most attacks have 2 message ie. Llandros smacks you in the head/Your head starts bleeding. Decent systems will only trigger off both lines, not one or the other.
It could only possibly trigger for the person targeted since systems would be worthless if they triggered off of every attack against every person in the room and the description must include the name of the person targeted.
Using them offensively is more hypothetical than I think you realize.
Add a pre-amble to each emote line. Add following lines to indicate what afflictions you have akin to poisons/non-whammied hexes.
Eg.
Bard bows and begins his performance.REST OF ILLUSION HERE ON SAME LINE.
SOME LINE INDICATING YOU WERE AFFLICTED WITH A CERTAIN AFF.
Done, simple.
That is my suggestion for the solution as well. I REALLY want to keep the creative aspect of Dramaturgy because it is for bards, especially of the stage sort, and the whole FUN of this skill for me, as a bard, is that I can create these awesome fun scenes out of a play and perform them. So I'd say move the affliction reporting to a separate line, that way it allows the Dramaturgy user to completely customize their scenes but still be handled correctly by system developers.
Though on Enyalida's note, I DO Think it would be cool to add some stuff to this skill. Roles in particular interests me, but not as a buff for the Bard, but rather as a damage/aff multiplier, or as an affliction giver. Here's an example:
syntax: CAST <target> AS FOOL You can cast one of your enemies into a scene. When you cast them as the Fool, they are forced to dance for the lead role of the scene.
So what happens is you perform one of your scenes. And then if I want to cast someone:
cast rivius as fool Rivius has taken the role of the Fool in <scene>
On Rivius' end he gets trapped in a writhe-cureable dance or something. While he's dancing in the scene, he can't do anything except what an individual can do while entangled. Perhaps too he will take slightly more damage from allies of the bard while he is cast in this role.
Another addition to this is to have both negative and positive roles. So I can cast Zyphora as the King of the court and Rivius as the fool. This gives Zyphora better damage against Rivius and she can afflict him more easily. This would only last for a limited time, and I think there should be a lockout of some sort on who can receive the buff role, since we don't want to see the most powerful person in game be the perma-king. I would say too that only one person can be cast in each role at a time, to avoid mass slaughterings.
Just a rough idea, but that's the sort of improvement I'd love to see in this skill set, if it were to be improved.
EDIT: One last idea is to provide mega damage if you can cast someone in a role and progress them through each scene to the end, where you've set up that their character will be killed. I don't think this should be an instant kill necessarily as I'm not too informed about all the skills out there and balancing in terms of tertiaries, but it would be cool if you manage to keep someone in a particular role and moved into each scene with them if you can hit the climax of your drama and deal extra damage.
Also a fun addition would be scenes with roles that are single targeted or multiple targeted. Single target you have one role, maybe two (if you include yourself) and you have to keep both roles cast throughout the whole set of scenes. But the further into the scenes you go, the more control you have over your opponent and his damage. Would be fairly easy to break out of I'm guessing, but an idea to toy around with perhaps.
"He was well fed, and on his way to being slightly intoxicated--which contributed to his sense of wellbeing. And, most important, he was among friends. There can't be much more to life than this, he thought." -Pug's thoughts on his first Ale (via Raymond Feist)
...It's an example. It can be whatever, so long as systems can tell that they've been hit by a dramaturgy attack and they can begin their aff checks. Aff messages are a bad solution. I'm not going into that again.
"'Cause the fighting don't stop till I walk in." -Synkarin's Lament.
7
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I'm really just concerned with this trend of giant damage capabilities. When did wantonly blasting people to death with bashing attacks and group bombs become the new "thing." Damage is a legit tactic, but it always had a counter with dmp and health pools.
To which the solution, apparently, is arm everyone with nukes.
Comments
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I'd like to disagree partly with Xenthos saying that the min-maxing is on the part of the dramaturgy user. This is untrue in part, because dramaturgy users only become effective (maybe not even that) by making scenes which are basically illusions of other affs to combine with their actual aff output. A dramaturgy user who wants to compete in combat has no choice but to make scenes that use illusionary lines. They are, in other words, balanced around actually being able to give an illusion message while giving a different aff. Instead, the min-maxing choice is on the part of the opponent. With extensive code and anti-illusion (or rather, anti-dramaturgy) scripts, an opponent can take a dramaturgy user using all of his abilities at maximum potential and cut away a large portion of his effectiveness. The only way a 3.8s attack that gives 2 affs, only 1 of which is hidden can be competitive in pvp is when the attack message can be illusioned to mislead the opponent's system successfully. If this effectiveness of the illusion is removed, then dramaturgy is simply impossible to use as a competitive skillset. In other words, you can fight "fairly" against a dramaturgy user by not coding against him. If you can successfully code against and remove some of his illusion effectiveness, you make his offense underpowered compared to yours. A min-maxer can, in other words, affect the balance between himself and a dramaturgy user with scripts.
Illusions is just a false code-wall, effective against those who don't code against it, and failing against those who do. No class can be properly balanced around illusions simply because its actual effectiveness isn't stable, and is entirely dependant on your opponent's coding ability. If a class has his affliction output limited (ie dramaturgy has a slow affliction rate) because illusions supposedly give him an advantage, it means he is irremediably crippled against opponents who have sunk in wasteful hours of time to counter it, or ironically, those who have no system to be fooled with at all. If he is allowed a potent affliction output while being given illusions, then he would be overwhelmingly unbeatable unless the opponent sinks in those wasteful hours of time to counter it.
Dramaturgy is a prime example of this, expanded on a huge scale. It is the first skillset in Lusternia to truly rely on illusion mechanics, the same way the Syssin class in Aetolia had been relying on illusions. (There was a point when syssin illusions was buffed to be usable off-balance, on its own balance, and with 2 uses each balance.) There are ways to code against this skillset using affmessages as well as other coding whizbangs. Colour matching, an exhaustive list of aff-lines that can be used with the scene limitations, affmessage failsafes etc. You could even code a script to identify dramaturgy scenes via linguistic properties because of the limitations (subject, object, need for an action being one, even use of present or past tense and other grammatical considerations could be factored in, depending on how strict the admin intend on administrating scenes) the ability comes with, if you felt like it. Doing this can take months of work, but assuming it's done, and a dramaturgy user's falsely bloated effectiveness based on their ability to mix and match illusionary lines with actual affs become cut into ribbons, what should we do? Buff them more? Or let dramaturgy just fade into obscurity as a useless skill for pvp?
I'd like to agree with those who are saying that this skillset is one that takes a step backwards from some general trajectories of change we've been going with. Affmessages is one example of this skillset making a turn-about from what players have thought were established trends. They were introduced to allow easier entry into combat for the low-to-mid tier, who cannot afford a system and are overwhelmed by the huge amount of triggers they'd have to gather otherwise to build their own system. It won't allow them to compete against top tier combatants. And indeed, this skillset appears to be taking these affmessages and giving them more importance than just that, since they now become a possibly powerful tool to use against dramaturgy, for use in code to counter their effectiveness. They are now more than just combat-introduction aids, they are now part of top-tier combat, a tool for min-maxers who want to gain an advantage over anyone who chooses to use dramaturgy.
I am in full support of such a move. I have always been a supporter for easier system making, because fully reliable affmessages means much easier system creation/maintainance, and allows greater participation in all kinds of combat scenarios, allowing even new players to impact and have their presence felt in important and significant fights without needing to shell out for complicated systems or sink pointless hours of work into making one that can compete with those on the market. My hope is that eventually, we can dispense with making systems based off game messages entirely, and based only on aff-messages. Game messages can then be changed more frequently, typos corrected without needing for system makers to scramble to update, and players no longer need to feel frustrated that they lost a fight because they typed in bad regex in one out of a few thousand triggers they have in their system.
EDIT: I spoke too soon. I just gained my first % of inspiration, so I guess it is incremental/fractional.
"He was well fed, and on his way to being slightly intoxicated--which contributed to his sense of wellbeing. And, most important, he was among friends. There can't be much more to life than this, he thought." -Pug's thoughts on his first Ale (via Raymond Feist)
Visit my personal authorial website. (coming back up soon, with my first publications)
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Example archetypes: Tragedy, Comedy, Adventure, Experimental.
So yeah. That's a rough look at what a skillset based around the idea of a Dramaturge could look like with work. It really IS just a rough idea, banged out in a brainstorming session, but it could avoid the conceptual problems of the illusion-hex skillset, and (I think) has a lot more room for both unique pre-written flavor and player-input flavor. An ambitious administrator could even code in different messages for the different categories of effect, depending on what the genre being used is. After all, the 'hero' of a comedy is different from the 'hero' of a tragedy, so their lines could be different.
I'd be really interested to see what different characters players cook up for their battles. Some combinations would work better in different situations (different audiences require different acts, duh), so an ambitious player would work out a different narrative for different situations. In the heat of combat, it won't matter, but the RP combinations that would arise out of the combat necessities could be very interesting outside of combat, especially if players embrace the 'theater geek' persona suggested by the skillset. Or you could just be boring and use all the default text and default options, you boring person you.
Do not allow players to make scenes that mimic other skills. Balance Dramaturgy in line with this new, no-illusion paradigm.
You could also have it show in emote colour, sure, but the above should be plenty. You'd rely on people knowing how incredibly sure they are to be caught and deciding not to do it, for the most part.
E: The proposed rule would be "No scenes that duplicate non-customizable messages already used by the game." which is entirely unambigous. If someone can show a message produced by the game that matches your scene letter for letter and isn't produced by a player's custom emotes, speech, etc., you have to change your scene to be distinct.
Without the illusions though, you'd definitely have to beef up the skill a bit more. I'd say let's just get rid of affmessages altogether and then nerf skills as needed, especially since they were introduced to make coding a simple system easier, but now we have firstaid, and that has essentially done this (auto firstaid will help even further)
If affmessages were removed, I'd be completely fine with these not being able to be illusions, FYI, as then both afflictions would be completely hidden.
Which is why the giving up the illusions part at the end is there. It would be some way to balance the skill out a bit. As I said, if affmessages were removed, we'd have to go through and probably nerf some things here and there.
...How does that completely neuter it? You still get a ton of expressivity.
You all are confusing, first people are saying it's going to be easy to code around, and that it will need to be improved in order to be good. (Moreso on Facebook than here, if anyone is confused) Then you are saying that they need to make it easier to code around by adding a prefix...
#-oThough on Enyalida's note, I DO Think it would be cool to add some stuff to this skill. Roles in particular interests me, but not as a buff for the Bard, but rather as a damage/aff multiplier, or as an affliction giver. Here's an example:
syntax: CAST <target> AS FOOL
You can cast one of your enemies into a scene. When you cast them as the Fool, they are forced to dance for the lead role of the scene.
So what happens is you perform one of your scenes. And then if I want to cast someone:
cast rivius as fool
Rivius has taken the role of the Fool in <scene>
On Rivius' end he gets trapped in a writhe-cureable dance or something. While he's dancing in the scene, he can't do anything except what an individual can do while entangled. Perhaps too he will take slightly more damage from allies of the bard while he is cast in this role.
Another addition to this is to have both negative and positive roles. So I can cast Zyphora as the King of the court and Rivius as the fool. This gives Zyphora better damage against Rivius and she can afflict him more easily. This would only last for a limited time, and I think there should be a lockout of some sort on who can receive the buff role, since we don't want to see the most powerful person in game be the perma-king. I would say too that only one person can be cast in each role at a time, to avoid mass slaughterings.
Just a rough idea, but that's the sort of improvement I'd love to see in this skill set, if it were to be improved.
EDIT: One last idea is to provide mega damage if you can cast someone in a role and progress them through each scene to the end, where you've set up that their character will be killed. I don't think this should be an instant kill necessarily as I'm not too informed about all the skills out there and balancing in terms of tertiaries, but it would be cool if you manage to keep someone in a particular role and moved into each scene with them if you can hit the climax of your drama and deal extra damage.
Also a fun addition would be scenes with roles that are single targeted or multiple targeted. Single target you have one role, maybe two (if you include yourself) and you have to keep both roles cast throughout the whole set of scenes. But the further into the scenes you go, the more control you have over your opponent and his damage. Would be fairly easy to break out of I'm guessing, but an idea to toy around with perhaps.
"He was well fed, and on his way to being slightly intoxicated--which contributed to his sense of wellbeing. And, most important, he was among friends. There can't be much more to life than this, he thought." -Pug's thoughts on his first Ale (via Raymond Feist)
Visit my personal authorial website. (coming back up soon, with my first publications)
Coding Resources: Mechanic's Corner | Code Academy | StackOverflow