Others can follow. It is a short channel which you need baleq to start and finish. Unsure about prone restrictions. Moving the bonded animal to the target destination also takes time (either seek, which goes room to room automatically until it finds the target) or through manual movement (eq cost).
There is definitely a window for a team to just kill or fear the bonded companion before unite goes through, especially as you can't use armour when using unite and seek.
Others can follow. It is a short channel which you need baleq to start and finish. Unsure about prone restrictions. Moving the bonded animal to the target destination also takes time (either seek, which goes room to room automatically until it finds the target) or through manual movement (eq cost).
There is definitely a window for a team to just kill or fear the bonded companion before unite goes through, especially as you can't use armour when using unite and seek.
Ah so a well prepared team could stop it going through then.
The list of things a well prepared team can't stop is exceedingly short. You're already talking about at least 8 people dedicated to stopping each direction if you want it blocked indefinitely, and that's to do so without anyone being left over to do whatever it is you're setting up the defense for. Unless you're proposing 8 people go up to turtle for the sake of the turtle club.
The list of things a well prepared team can't stop is exceedingly short. You're already talking about at least 8 people dedicated to stopping each direction if you want it blocked indefinitely, and that's to do so without anyone being left over to do whatever it is you're setting up the defense for. Unless you're proposing 8 people go up to turtle for the sake of the turtle club.
Well it just means a well prepared team can turtle down without an effective counter. I mean most things have a counter but like you could in theory set this up with no counter from what you guys are saying about its usage. Its pretty situational but its going to be really useful for holding events but well beyond that its pretty situational I agree.
Ah well the only definite counter I can see to this being set up properly is what shu said, someone with igasho race + the 1000credit race artifact.
Well, 2 people sending in wolves at the same time would hinder it. Same concept as doppies in Aetolia/Achaea. You send in the decoy and then a half second later the real one.
I'm not saying forcewall isn't situationally powerful, but when you are saying "if they have 4+ people permanently and perfectly chaining salt per forcewaller and still have people left over to ensure that no bonds or other things can get through while still working on the objective that they're trying to lock you out of" then I find it hard to agree with your argument. You can do the same thing, much more effectively and with much fewer human resources, with gpent.
I'm not saying forcewall isn't situationally powerful, but when you are saying "if they have 4+ people permanently and perfectly chaining salt per forcewaller and still have people left over to ensure that no bonds or other things can get through while still working on the objective that they're trying to lock you out of" then I find it hard to agree with your argument. You can do the same thing, much more effectively and with much fewer human resources, with gpent.
I thought gpent was nerfed specifically to prevent that.
The only 'situation' I could see this being a valid and imbalancing concern is Ascension, or to a lesser degree Chaos, by having the staff holder be one of the ones chaining the salt, or an extra up there keeping him or herself shielded, and that's still asserting that it's more powerful than those same 4-5 people chaining gpent.
The Ixthiaca thing can still end up bypassed by burrowing under or having your bond seek to an NPC behind the forewall, or having a dreamweaver meander past it and coalesce on the other side.
Can you burrow into Ixthiaxa? Most of that underground area has ground that is "too hard" to burrow in (rock, not dirt).
PS: Bond seek actually has your wolf/hound walk to the NPC, which means it has to walk through the group (and if some of them are spamming attacks they'll see it go by). The dreamweaver thing is valid, but at least one of these is not really an option (the burrow one) in a lot of situations (can't currently verify Ixthiaxa specifically atm, but I'm sure someone can!).
I'm not saying forcewall isn't situationally powerful, but when you are saying "if they have 4+ people permanently and perfectly chaining salt per forcewaller and still have people left over to ensure that no bonds or other things can get through while still working on the objective that they're trying to lock you out of" then I find it hard to agree with your argument. You can do the same thing, much more effectively and with much fewer human resources, with gpent.
Doesn't Great pentagram have a cool down so you can't chain it?
Although I didn't think about Great pentagram actually, you could throw that into the mix using forcewall and great pentagram in combination so that the great pent can cover any mistakes or failure to overlap. So even with a few mistakes you can still maintain a near perfect defensive formation.
What is is that you disagree with? I mean I've just said it sounds situationally very useful.
I mean I can see it being really good for a holding event from what people are telling me how it works. Go to one of the 1 exit indoor rooms and set up properly. Chances are no ones getting into that room, or like locking down the entrance to tunnel areas etc pretty situational but still super powerful for these types of situations if the team using it prepares properly.
In other IREs this is where ranged attacks and forced movement would balance things out, but I have seen very few ranged attacks in Lusternia. Combat newb here, though. Are there many ranged options here?
In other IREs this is where ranged attacks and forced movement would balance things out, but I have seen very few ranged attacks in Lusternia. Combat newb here, though. Are there many ranged options here?
Runes, mage/druid staff attacks, ecology smudge deliver, uh... shamanism lightning. There are a few.
The Divine voice of Ianir the Anomaly echoes in your head, "You are a ray of sunshine in a sea of
I'm not saying forcewall isn't situationally powerful, but when you are saying "if they have 4+ people permanently and perfectly chaining salt per forcewaller and still have people left over to ensure that no bonds or other things can get through while still working on the objective that they're trying to lock you out of" then I find it hard to agree with your argument. You can do the same thing, much more effectively and with much fewer human resources, with gpent.
Doesn't Great pentagram have a cool down so you can't chain it?
Although I didn't think about Great pentagram actually, you could throw that into the mix using forcewall and great pentagram in combination so that the great pent can cover any mistakes or failure to overlap. So even with a few mistakes you can still maintain a near perfect defensive formation.
What is is that you disagree with? I mean I've just said it sounds situationally very useful.
I mean I can see it being really good for a holding event from what people are telling me how it works. Go to one of the 1 exit indoor rooms and set up properly. Chances are no ones getting into that room, or like locking down the entrance to tunnel areas etc pretty situational but still super powerful for these types of situations if the team using it prepares properly.
We're saying that 5 people doing a 2 man job but worse isn't as OP, even situationally, as people are making it seem.
Heck, during one event effectively the same thing was accomplished by sitting one guy with the event thing in an indoor room with a door, having a script to keep closing and magelocking that door, with icewalls for when it got broken, and a monolith inside. Granted, there was a second fortress outside the first one, but it would have been nearly a complete lockdown even without that.
How is that room not indoors? It's a one story mausoleum from my memory of the area, and I know no one was able to get to him by any means. I couldn't even dreamwalk through the door because for whatever reason dreambodies obey door physics.
Generally speaking, the channeled nature of forcewall balances it out enough, most of the time.
Forcewall's most "unbalanced" point is the ability to chain it back to back, (something that GPent was nerfed specifically for) - but that point is not an unanswered and unconditional advantage. GPent has a hardcoded cooldown, but it's not a channeled ability, and doesn't autoraze shielding.
Regardless of channel, it's definitely possible to make the argument that due to precedent, there shouldn't be a back-to-back GPent-like effect in the game, but at this point, the counter-balance does give additional, actionable counters to forcewall in addtion to those that you can use against GPent. You can do everything to a forcewaller that you can do to a GPenter which will drop the movement blocking effect, and on top of that, you can do some additional things due to the fact that it is channeled. The autoraze is crucial here because allows you to do those additional things out-of-room as well. I think we can continue to wait and see if an actual, egregriously unbalanced situation crops up before looking to change it - at the moment, I'm not sure if the theory of such a situation exists.
Trying to actually move past a forcewall (or GPent) is always very tough, simply because the concept of those skills is to prevent that. To be able to disrupt those skills from out of room is actually the valid counter that really needs to be made viable, and the autoraze plays that role well enough to justify not needing a hardcoded room cooldown. Ranged attacks are not THAT common, but they are by no means uncommon as well. If nothing else, zap is available to all demigods, and just damage, assuming you can push it in during the autoraze windows, is enough to disrupt a forcewaller.
As a note, all the theories about how many people it takes to fully prep a room for a forcewaller is really irrelevant. It doesn't matter if it takes 100 people to make a forcewaller safe - if valid counters are not available, then there's more than enough reason to change it. As an additional note outside of hyperbole, you don't need 2 blockers per direction. You only really need a single TK with barrier.
In other IREs this is where ranged attacks and forced movement would balance things out, but I have seen very few ranged attacks in Lusternia. Combat newb here, though. Are there many ranged options here?
Lusty dosn't really have much effective ranged combat because there are no meteor arrows or ways to break shield at range that I'm aware of.
As a note, all the theories about how many people it takes to fully prep a room for a forcewaller is really irrelevant. It doesn't matter if it takes 100 people to make a forcewaller safe - if valid counters are not available, then there's more than enough reason to change it. As an additional note outside of hyperbole, you don't need 2 blockers per direction. You only really need a single TK with barrier.
I disagree on this point. The number of people required to execute a strategy is a balancing factor if each of them must be devoted to a single task in order for it to work. You have some flexibility if/when you choose to abandon the strategem, but that requires you to abandon it.
As a note, all the theories about how many people it takes to fully prep a room for a forcewaller is really irrelevant. It doesn't matter if it takes 100 people to make a forcewaller safe - if valid counters are not available, then there's more than enough reason to change it. As an additional note outside of hyperbole, you don't need 2 blockers per direction. You only really need a single TK with barrier.
I disagree on this point. The number of people required to execute a strategy is a balancing factor if each of them must be devoted to a single task in order for it to work. You have some flexibility if/when you choose to abandon the strategem, but that requires you to abandon it.
I agree that the number of people is sort of a balancing factor and well the number of people is relevant to some extent but no point talking about theoretical numbers when like you said an eight person team could lock down an entry way full time I mean an eight man team is perfectly doable. We had 20+ on each side during one of the past flare.
Idk about you, but that amount of Aerochemantics-specced people would make me wish they were Sentinels, Institute or Symphonists instead. Does that make sense?
Idk about you, but that amount of Aerochemantics-specced people would make me wish they were Sentinels, Institute or Symphonists instead. Does that make sense?
Would you not just need one chem per direction you needed to block? I mean there's no reason a sentinel couldnt be the salter or pentagramer etc.
There is a distinction that needs to be made when we're thinking about balance concerns due to numbers of people. And balancing for numbers (or groups) is very different from balancing for the choice of initiative (the part I bolded in your post below):
I disagree on this point. The number of people required to execute a strategy is a balancing factor if each of them must be devoted to a single task in order for it to work. You have some flexibility if/when you choose to abandon the strategem, but that requires you to abandon it.
The initiative of choice is a balancing factor, and can/should be a consideration when assessing how "powerful" an ability is, or how "restricted" it should be, whether there should be additional factors to contribute to temper and limit it, or to boost and compensate it. When an ability's effect is entirely at the mercy of when the user chooses or not chooses to initiate it, there usually are additional limitations, like taking away the choice of whether it affects allies or enemies when it is active, and vice versa - when a user has control over who it affects, the ability usually can also be targeted and countered by opponents doing specific things.
You don't, however, balance initiative control by the number of people needed to make that choice - the number of people should not dictate the advantage of initiative: and whether or not you have the choice should not be restricted by the number of people required to make that choice. Mixing the two vectors thoughtlessly will simply create situations that are unfun and not balanced.
Consideration of numbers for balancing, also known as balancing for groups, is always controversial, because you cannot, and should not neutralise number advantage to the point where it is not a factor. However, such balance should be restricted to a question of degree - how much impact additional numbers have on the see-saw of advantage. Diminishing returns is the most common way of balancing for groups - either by limiting the additional impact an extra person brings to a fight based on how many are already there, or by reducing as a whole the team's efficiency based on how many people make up sthe said team. Balancing for groups, however, shouldn't be a threshold at which a strategy, a tactic, or an effect is flipped along an "on/off" switch. Things should get easier as numbers increase, but at a rate that is balanced. But entire strategies should not be enabled (or disabled) by the presence or absence of one extra body in the room.
When you're asking the question of "is X amount of people a 'reasonable' threshold to enable this strategy?" you are creating a situation that is inherently imbalanced, because the strategy (all strategies) should be enabled and viable at all times, regardless of the number of people - but at different degrees of efficiency. And all counters should be enabled and viable at all times, regardless of how many people are "countering" the "counters" - but the speed at which the counters act, or the degree of success with which counters can temper the tactic/strategy that it is trying to blunt etc.
Balancing for groups, however, shouldn't be a threshold at which a
strategy, a tactic, or an effect is flipped along an "on/off" switch.
Things should get easier as numbers increase, but at a rate that is
balanced. But entire strategies should not be enabled (or disabled) by the presence or absence of one extra body in the room.
I haven't really read this thread, mostly skimming, but this stuck out to me.
I disagree with this point. New strategies should become available with different group compositions and numbers. That increases the variance and dynamicism of the game. So long as there are counters to this strategy with reasonably equivalent composition and numbers, then it's fine. And it's fine for their to be explicit requirements for a strategy, if there is a reasonably available counter. It's the nuances of the counters or lack of that should determine if something is unbalanced, not those other factors. Just commenting on the general point, not forcewall or any other specifics.
As we generalise more and more, it's harder to make specific arguments and points - perhaps it was a mistake for me to move toward a broader argument of "strategies" as a whole and how number balancing should play into it, and when we look at it from an overview perspective, perhaps you're right that numbers "enabling" strategies (to use my own words and terms) is something that could be acceptable.
To pull myself back down from floating further away with broad generalising, though, in the context of what spawned this discussion, I sincerely do not believe something that is greatpent-like movement blocking should be able to be flicked on and off like a switch based off numbers. Especially not based off only one side's numbers. There should always, regardless of the differences in number, be a way to engage, but with nuances in how difficult it is to do so. You can't just say, "Oh, as long as my team has X number of people, it should be reasonable for this tactic to be immune to the normal means of getting around it."
The more people you have, the easier it should be to prevent the opposing team from getting around the strategy - by the sheer volume of people blocking/salting/icewalling/retaliatory-zapping etc, or, from the other side of the fence, the more people you have, the easier it should be to spam ranged attacks and critically threaten and disrupt the lynchpin of the strategy to the point where it can't be maintained. At the same time, you should always be able to forcewall, even if there is only one person in your team, but it should also be very easy to counter that with a few ranged attacks - you won't be able to survive not curing for more than a handful of attacks. This is especially true since movement blocking is a critical ability that is actually a far deeper and meaningful mechanic when used by smaller teams to showcase their skill and compensate for their disadvantage, rather than for big brawls.
I personally find the concept of having kill paths and strategies locked behind something I cannot do anything to remedy with my own effort (number of people in my team - or my opponent's team) to be something that is distasteful and unfun. But regardless of what I personally think, there most certainly are cases where it is not just "distasteful and unfun", but also unacceptable. And this specific ability that started this discussion would fall into that category.
There are a few abilities in some skillsets (the first one that comes to mind is the face-paint in Hart or Crow), but I'm not having much luck thinking of any non-artefact ways available to the general public.
Comments
There is definitely a window for a team to just kill or fear the bonded companion before unite goes through, especially as you can't use armour when using unite and seek.
Ah so a well prepared team could stop it going through then.
Well it just means a well prepared team can turtle down without an effective counter. I mean most things have a counter but like you could in theory set this up with no counter from what you guys are saying about its usage. Its pretty situational but its going to be really useful for holding events but well beyond that its pretty situational I agree.
Ah well the only definite counter I can see to this being set up properly is what shu said, someone with igasho race + the 1000credit race artifact.
The Ixthiaca thing can still end up bypassed by burrowing under or having your bond seek to an NPC behind the forewall, or having a dreamweaver meander past it and coalesce on the other side.
PS: Bond seek actually has your wolf/hound walk to the NPC, which means it has to walk through the group (and if some of them are spamming attacks they'll see it go by). The dreamweaver thing is valid, but at least one of these is not really an option (the burrow one) in a lot of situations (can't currently verify Ixthiaxa specifically atm, but I'm sure someone can!).
Although I didn't think about Great pentagram actually, you could throw that into the mix using forcewall and great pentagram in combination so that the great pent can cover any mistakes or failure to overlap. So even with a few mistakes you can still maintain a near perfect defensive formation.
What is is that you disagree with? I mean I've just said it sounds situationally very useful.
I mean I can see it being really good for a holding event from what people are telling me how it works. Go to one of the 1 exit indoor rooms and set up properly. Chances are no ones getting into that room, or like locking down the entrance to tunnel areas etc pretty situational but still super powerful for these types of situations if the team using it prepares properly.
Heck, during one event effectively the same thing was accomplished by sitting one guy with the event thing in an indoor room with a door, having a script to keep closing and magelocking that door, with icewalls for when it got broken, and a monolith inside. Granted, there was a second fortress outside the first one, but it would have been nearly a complete lockdown even without that.
Forcewall's most "unbalanced" point is the ability to chain it back to back, (something that GPent was nerfed specifically for) - but that point is not an unanswered and unconditional advantage. GPent has a hardcoded cooldown, but it's not a channeled ability, and doesn't autoraze shielding.
Regardless of channel, it's definitely possible to make the argument that due to precedent, there shouldn't be a back-to-back GPent-like effect in the game, but at this point, the counter-balance does give additional, actionable counters to forcewall in addtion to those that you can use against GPent. You can do everything to a forcewaller that you can do to a GPenter which will drop the movement blocking effect, and on top of that, you can do some additional things due to the fact that it is channeled. The autoraze is crucial here because allows you to do those additional things out-of-room as well. I think we can continue to wait and see if an actual, egregriously unbalanced situation crops up before looking to change it - at the moment, I'm not sure if the theory of such a situation exists.
Trying to actually move past a forcewall (or GPent) is always very tough, simply because the concept of those skills is to prevent that. To be able to disrupt those skills from out of room is actually the valid counter that really needs to be made viable, and the autoraze plays that role well enough to justify not needing a hardcoded room cooldown. Ranged attacks are not THAT common, but they are by no means uncommon as well. If nothing else, zap is available to all demigods, and just damage, assuming you can push it in during the autoraze windows, is enough to disrupt a forcewaller.
As a note, all the theories about how many people it takes to fully prep a room for a forcewaller is really irrelevant. It doesn't matter if it takes 100 people to make a forcewaller safe - if valid counters are not available, then there's more than enough reason to change it. As an additional note outside of hyperbole, you don't need 2 blockers per direction. You only really need a single TK with barrier.
Lusty dosn't really have much effective ranged combat because there are no meteor arrows or ways to break shield at range that I'm aware of.
I agree that the number of people is sort of a balancing factor and well the number of people is relevant to some extent but no point talking about theoretical numbers when like you said an eight person team could lock down an entry way full time I mean an eight man team is perfectly doable. We had 20+ on each side during one of the past flare.
Would you not just need one chem per direction you needed to block? I mean there's no reason a sentinel couldnt be the salter or pentagramer etc.
The initiative of choice is a balancing factor, and can/should be a consideration when assessing how "powerful" an ability is, or how "restricted" it should be, whether there should be additional factors to contribute to temper and limit it, or to boost and compensate it. When an ability's effect is entirely at the mercy of when the user chooses or not chooses to initiate it, there usually are additional limitations, like taking away the choice of whether it affects allies or enemies when it is active, and vice versa - when a user has control over who it affects, the ability usually can also be targeted and countered by opponents doing specific things.
You don't, however, balance initiative control by the number of people needed to make that choice - the number of people should not dictate the advantage of initiative: and whether or not you have the choice should not be restricted by the number of people required to make that choice. Mixing the two vectors thoughtlessly will simply create situations that are unfun and not balanced.
Consideration of numbers for balancing, also known as balancing for groups, is always controversial, because you cannot, and should not neutralise number advantage to the point where it is not a factor. However, such balance should be restricted to a question of degree - how much impact additional numbers have on the see-saw of advantage. Diminishing returns is the most common way of balancing for groups - either by limiting the additional impact an extra person brings to a fight based on how many are already there, or by reducing as a whole the team's efficiency based on how many people make up sthe said team. Balancing for groups, however, shouldn't be a threshold at which a strategy, a tactic, or an effect is flipped along an "on/off" switch. Things should get easier as numbers increase, but at a rate that is balanced. But entire strategies should not be enabled (or disabled) by the presence or absence of one extra body in the room.
When you're asking the question of "is X amount of people a 'reasonable' threshold to enable this strategy?" you are creating a situation that is inherently imbalanced, because the strategy (all strategies) should be enabled and viable at all times, regardless of the number of people - but at different degrees of efficiency. And all counters should be enabled and viable at all times, regardless of how many people are "countering" the "counters" - but the speed at which the counters act, or the degree of success with which counters can temper the tactic/strategy that it is trying to blunt etc.
I disagree with this point. New strategies should become available with different group compositions and numbers. That increases the variance and dynamicism of the game. So long as there are counters to this strategy with reasonably equivalent composition and numbers, then it's fine. And it's fine for their to be explicit requirements for a strategy, if there is a reasonably available counter. It's the nuances of the counters or lack of that should determine if something is unbalanced, not those other factors. Just commenting on the general point, not forcewall or any other specifics.
To pull myself back down from floating further away with broad generalising, though, in the context of what spawned this discussion, I sincerely do not believe something that is greatpent-like movement blocking should be able to be flicked on and off like a switch based off numbers. Especially not based off only one side's numbers. There should always, regardless of the differences in number, be a way to engage, but with nuances in how difficult it is to do so. You can't just say, "Oh, as long as my team has X number of people, it should be reasonable for this tactic to be immune to the normal means of getting around it."
The more people you have, the easier it should be to prevent the opposing team from getting around the strategy - by the sheer volume of people blocking/salting/icewalling/retaliatory-zapping etc, or, from the other side of the fence, the more people you have, the easier it should be to spam ranged attacks and critically threaten and disrupt the lynchpin of the strategy to the point where it can't be maintained. At the same time, you should always be able to forcewall, even if there is only one person in your team, but it should also be very easy to counter that with a few ranged attacks - you won't be able to survive not curing for more than a handful of attacks. This is especially true since movement blocking is a critical ability that is actually a far deeper and meaningful mechanic when used by smaller teams to showcase their skill and compensate for their disadvantage, rather than for big brawls.
I personally find the concept of having kill paths and strategies locked behind something I cannot do anything to remedy with my own effort (number of people in my team - or my opponent's team) to be something that is distasteful and unfun. But regardless of what I personally think, there most certainly are cases where it is not just "distasteful and unfun", but also unacceptable. And this specific ability that started this discussion would fall into that category.
Other than that, it's make sure you can't perform it when it's commanded. Like staying off balance.
Ixion tells you, "// I don't think anyone else had a clue, amazing form."