Spiritshields

Ezalor

Oh yeah, again I don't disagree at all that it's unfair/unintended/legacy mechanics. Just wanted to point out that it isn't an unfairness that's going to completely break the game, which was the same argument presented against removing sun malus from non-vampire-classed-vampires. I don't agree with the reasoning in either case really but it's been played out before.

Daskalos

Ah, so, we should just abandon the Spirit\Shadow debate because, well, if spirit skills help Shadow side, what's the point?

Enorian: Now Accepting Vampires and the Undead.

Toz

Yes that's exactly my point.

Daskalos

Your point is dumb.

Haven

Is the effect significant in PK? Are classes that were manageable suddenly overwhelming or becoming a problem?

If not, then start RPing at her or something to change. Sniff your nose at her if you want. Maybe even PK if you're that extreme. Perhaps she'll get some ominous RP from a god like Sigfried did back in the day.

Otherwise, unless it is causing serious combat imbalances, I don't believe there should be a mechanical change on her end.

If you feel bliss needs to be buffed then put a report in. I, personally, don't think it needs buffing but maybe the admin/liaison team will think otherwise.

Teani

First off, I'd like to point out that Atrapoema got into some trouble with people in Duiran for helping out, and it started a conflict with Enorian just by him being around to help. I don't think Spinesreach would ever react that way if someone would come help their side mostly because "bad guys" can accept corrupt behavior from good men more easily than say "good guys" can accept a corrupt doing good deeds. There's very little chance that any spirit-aligned person would be able to go to the other side and continue their work in secret and still be respected, though I wish that was not the case.

Second, I think the only thing Daskalos is really after is to remove the mechanical element in this that allows things to be unbalanced, much like what was done to Bliss. We all have our own thoughts on how classes should be played and that's always how it's going to be. There will always be consequences to go with the choices one makes when RPing.

Toz

Ok let's change tactics then.

Priest class no longer exists. This is 1 person using their buffs. They are, theoretically, able to buff everyone on either side. Your side made a choice and ran them off, so now you suffer for it.

We aren't obligated to play by rules set for us by anyone but our side's leadership, or admin.

It doesn't really affect combat balance in a significant way. 5% increase in a few resists? Just go touch the Epicurus statue and call it even.

Any class, regardless of tether, can still help out spirit/shadow side whenever they want. Indorani can fool tarot anybody. A Sentaari can come and mind empathy a vampire. A Templar can still use protect on anybody in the game.

In fact, I can even pk alongside Enorians as a Carnifex. I can do what I want!

Tl;dr - not something that requires immediate admin attention nao. Or really, ever. Figure a way to handle it IC, deal with the consequences of dealing with it IC, and move on.

Daskalos

@Teani hit the nail on the head. We can RP her being corrupt and the combat imbalances that she brings, but she's not Sigfried or Illpalazzo. I just want Spiritshields given the Bliss treatment, something that Loch and Spirean players threw a fit about until they got a couple of years ago. Now that it's a skill that benefits them, they're defending it. All I want is even application. Next liaison round: Write a report to give defenses from bliss again back to allies.

Aishia

Stop using colors!

Toz

PRETTY

Daskalos

Toz said:

Ok let's change tactics then.

Priest class no longer exists. This is 1 person using their buffs. They are, theoretically, able to buff everyone on either side. Your side made a choice and ran them off, so now you suffer for it.

We followed the RP as set by the divine when they said Priests helping Undead will prevent the Age of Dawn. It's in the Revelation and a pretty central theme. Read it.

We aren't obligated to play by rules set for us by anyone but our side's leadership, or admin.

No, you're not, but the very thing she's doing was bitched about BY your side, so I find it more than hypocritical that your side is now defending the very thing you once denounced.

It doesn't really affect combat balance in a significant way. 5% increase in a few resists? Just go touch the Epicurus statue and call it even.

And what happened when your side has Epicurus again? Now you have a 15% combat swing. Also, this more or less negates upcoming nerfs to warmth\divine blessings.

Any class, regardless of tether, can still help out spirit/shadow side whenever they want. Indorani can fool tarot anybody. A Sentaari can come and mind empathy a vampire. A Templar can still use protect on anybody in the game.

This isn't a class heal that's a one time thing. Fool tarot heals one affliction and is passive. Templar protection wears off after a time. This is a defense, that once activated, lasts until death. You are comparing apples and oranges, again.

In fact, I can even pk alongside Enorians as a Carnifex. I can do what I want!

Sure you can. You'll never be allied to Enorian though as a Carnifex. Some pretty set in stone RP to fix that. And we won't willfully fight with you.

Tl;dr - not something that requires immediate admin attention nao. Or really, ever. Figure a way to handle it IC, deal with the consequences of dealing with it IC, and move on.

Fine. The Revelation says that Priests who help Undead will prevent the Age of Dawn. It says you must change or be destroyed. Since she is not willing to change (and never has been) the alternative is to be destroyed. Time to PK her every time I see her out. She is aiding and abetting the enemy with Spirit. She has access to the Spirit Plane and just like Meltas and Exayne in the Ascendril, it must be dealt with.

Haven

Teani said:

First off, I'd like to point out that Atrapoema got into some trouble with people in Duiran for helping out, and it started a conflict with Enorian just by him being around to help. I don't think Spinesreach would ever react that way if someone would come help their side mostly because "bad guys" can accept corrupt behavior from good men more easily than say "good guys" can accept a corrupt doing good deeds. There's very little chance that any spirit-aligned person would be able to go to the other side and continue their work in secret and still be respected, though I wish that was not the case.

Second, I think the only thing Daskalos is really after is to remove the mechanical element in this that allows things to be unbalanced, much like what was done to Bliss. We all have our own thoughts on how classes should be played and that's always how it's going to be. There will always be consequences to go with the choices one makes when RPing.

The problem is that his proposed change goes against the class design and is in part what made it attractive to people from what I'm able to tell when it wasn't a legacy class. Unless her buffs are breaking combat balance now, I find changing the skills just cause he doesn't agree with her RP to be extremely unfair. The issue primarily seems to be an RP one rather than a class issue.

Daskalos

Actually, my issue is that I want the same standards applied to Spiritshields that were put on Bliss, after Bloodloch and Spinesreach complained about people getting toughness that weren't in the class. I'm not saying change the healing aspects of it, just the defenses that can be handed out.

The fact that RP backs up the mechanical complaint is just an added bonus/

Aishia

I mean not to get into a huge argument, but I think I can agree that long term buffs on other classes that effect pk balance AT ALL are probably a bad thing. The other examples given of player to player buffs are all single target, with damage feedback, and requirements, limitations of SOME sort.

Minarael

Hypocrisy would require that Toz was the person initially complaining about the older skillset. He may have been for all I know, it's just an awfully big label to apply to a whole group of people who have nothing to do with the original complaining. You can't claim hypocrisy on half the game because some people who happened to have a shadow-aligned class once had an issue with something and now other people who happen to have a shadow-aligned class don't have the same issue.

Deal with it IC.  According to the lore you mention, the response is for the light to kill her. It does not say priests are not actually capable of aiding the undead. It says they will prevent the Age of Dawn by doing so. I see absolutely no reason why a turned priest would not work towards that.


 

Draiman

Daskalos said:

Fine. The Revelation says that Priests who help Undead will prevent the Age of Dawn. It says you must change or be destroyed. Since she is not willing to change (and never has been) the alternative is to be destroyed. Time to PK her every time I see her out. She is aiding and abetting the enemy with Spirit. She has access to the Spirit Plane and just like Meltas and Exayne in the Ascendril, it must be dealt with.

Uh isn't that griefing?

Toz

Draiman said:

Daskalos said:

Fine. The Revelation says that Priests who help Undead will prevent the Age of Dawn. It says you must change or be destroyed. Since she is not willing to change (and never has been) the alternative is to be destroyed. Time to PK her every time I see her out. She is aiding and abetting the enemy with Spirit. She has access to the Spirit Plane and just like Meltas and Exayne in the Ascendril, it must be dealt with.

Uh isn't that griefing?

Nah, just start pking his newbies. Vampire gotta eat, yo.

Haven

Daskalos said:

Actually, my issue is that I want the same standards applied to Spiritshields that were put on Bliss, after Bloodloch and Spinesreach complained about people getting toughness that weren't in the class. I'm not saying change the healing aspects of it, just the defenses that can be handed out.

The fact that RP backs up the mechanical complaint is just an added bonus/

They're not the same class by design (not anymore anyway) though. It would not be fair or right to apply the same kind of nerfs/buffs to two separate designs. That'd be like saying I want DSK nerfed to match DSTAB speeds. Or more comparatively, nerfing/buffing Carnifex skills that are similar to skills in the Templar skillset and vice verca. While similar in some aspects, by design they're different as a whole.

The exceptions would be if the effects significantly tipped combat balance and made it unbalanced.

Xiuhcoatl

This argument turned into a slip n slide so fast I'm at the bottom of the hill wondering how I got here. 

Xavin

Haven said:

Daskalos said:

Actually, my issue is that I want the same standards applied to Spiritshields that were put on Bliss, after Bloodloch and Spinesreach complained about people getting toughness that weren't in the class. I'm not saying change the healing aspects of it, just the defenses that can be handed out.

The fact that RP backs up the mechanical complaint is just an added bonus/

They're not the same class by design (not anymore anyway) though. It would not be fair or right to apply the same kind of nerfs/buffs to two separate designs. That'd be like saying I want DSK nerfed to match DSTAB speeds. Or more comparatively, nerfing/buffing Carnifex skills that are similar to skills in the Templar skillset and vice verca. While similar in some aspects, by design they're different as a whole.

The exceptions would be if the effects significantly tipped combat balance and made it unbalanced.

They're basically the same class though. The only difference, quite literally, is that instead of illumination priests still have healing. As I said earlier in the thread, the priest class has benefited from every spirituality/devotion buff/change and suffered every one of their nerfs. The classes are basically identical.

Edit: And I know this because it's a class that can be played with in the liaison arena.

Edit2: I have another fairly reasonable solution. Make the auction artifact that allows the wearer to bestow spiritshields a regular, purchasable artifact. Put it at 400 cr. Done.

Ishin

It certainly is, Draiman

Veovis

Daskalos said:

And quite frankly, I think it's terrible RP on the part of anyone that takes them on that side. You are, literally, the antithesis to Spirit. Why would you want Spirit power coursing through you? And please don't give me the 'we use anything we can to our advantage' line. It's a flimsy justification for bad RP to give yourself a mechanical edge in combat. (note: the you in this last part wasn't address  to Eza, but a general 'You' to the shadow side).

Here's how this works if you're Veovis:

Is it good for me? Will it benefit me? Will it make it easier to kill and eat the prey I want to kill and eat?

Great!

So what if it makes him uncomfortable? Divine blessings make him itch, too, and he was also uncomfortable when someone suggested he instill divine essence into himself to become an Azudim. He'll still use divine blessings even though his relationship with divinities is touchy at best. 

That's very consistent with the way I've played my character. You might think it's bad RP, but you and I have always had very different ideas about what good RP is anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Haven

@Xavin: That difference is the point. Healing (I believe that's the name of the skillset in question) != Spirituality/Devotion.

Take Paladins and Infernals for example. Their only difference were Necromancy and Devotion. It'd be like an Infernal asking that a Paladin Devotion skill be nerfed because their skill in Necromancy was nerfed.

Calipso

Daskalos said:

Ah, so, we should just abandon the Spirit\Shadow debate because, well, if spirit skills help Shadow side, what's the point?

Enorian: Now Accepting Vampires and the Undead.

*sends in application*
8->

Arbre

Clean up the hostility, guys.  Polite conversation or locked thread; your choice.

Damonicus

Please change the name of the thread, to compare any in game skill to something like that is just well...wrong.

Arbre

Alright.

Veovis

To be honest, the whole Spirit/Shadow divide seems to have mellowed conflict in the game quite a bit, at least compared to what it was like when Aetolia launched. Heck, conflict in Aetolia is sedate compared to what it was even in 2008-2009 when I stopped playing to finish my thesis. 

Also, I've been told repeatedly that one-man PK wars against individual players are a no-no. We're not allowed to grief people like that in the name of RP anymore, so hopefully @Daskalos finds a different way to deal with it. Get her to hook up with @Haven, maybe? 

Alexina

I agree with Daskalos. To me, it doesn't make any sense at all with Spireans running around with spiritshields. They are essentially defensive magics rooted firmly in the spirit tethering and while they do not create any huge imbalances, it seems odd that Carnifex, Sciomancers, and vampires are suddenly running around with spirit shields. Could always just add 'shadowshields' with a similar functionality to a darkside class (why not indorani/cabalists or something such) if we really feel it necessary.

Then again, there was an auction artifact ages and ages ago that allowed its owner to give out priest spiritshields. I have no idea who actually owns it, but changing the skill actually affects more than one rogue priest.

Daskalos

It's not griefing. Every time Kerryn restocks her shops it's a 'new' offense and pkillable by Moirean because the designs she uses used to belong to Moirean (who gave them away) and she wants them back (Kerryn has refused). What's to say every time she casts it on an undead it's not a 'new' offense?