Vocalizing (Announce 2577)

Atrapoema

Bear with me, I'm frustrated and angry. There are some decent changes in this list, there are some awful ones. Let's break it down.

- [2246] Howls no longer strike all victims, instead they now follow some rules:
* Serenade and Disturbing will always hit everyone except yourself.
* Soothing, Comforting, Rejuvinating, and Invigorating will only hit allies.
* All other howls will only strike enemies where applicable.
* Snarling will cause howls to ignore the above rules and strike everyone.
* You can only be hit by three howls in total per tick from any player.

All of these are fine, sans the Snarling change. This change means we're still hitting anyone to come through in 1v1 combat. Why is this the case? It goes against the rest of the changes and the point of Akara's report. It doesn't make any sense and no one asked for this.

- [2246] Convergence and Interchange have been removed per the above.

Convergence being nuked is strange, but fine, but why Interchange? Yes, below we see that howl recovery time has been reduced to 8 seconds with TriplePitch, but Interchange made it possible for us to change howls easily on the fly. You've now removed that ability and made it a mess and cumbersome again. Why? Again, it doesn't make any sense and isn't what Akara's report asked for.

- [2246] Wailing is now marked as a magical damage source and should
work again.
- [2246] Fixed affliction ownership not being set on certain howls.
- [2246] Fixed a bug that would cause hidden howls to be revealed through
Snarling if you already had the affliction.
- [2246] Fixed Screeching being reduced by mana reduction abilities and items.
- [2246] Snarling now hides what howl is being used when you start and end
one.

- [2246] You can now use CEASE HOWLS because damn I try to type that way too much.

This actually broke CEASE HOWLING/HOWLS functionality altogether. I'll have to bug this later.

- [2246] Howling combat and normal messages have been updated to fit with
the current convention.

- [2246] Bellowing renamed to Baying.

Another strange, pointless change.

- [2246] Baying equilibrium recovery time reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3.
- [2246] You can now use Baying with all howls except Serenade, Disruptive,
Enfeebling, and Disturbing.
- [2246] You can no longer use Baying while fallen.
- [2246] Baying howl balance reduced to 20 seconds, down from 30.
- [2246] Packhowls should now work once again.
- [2246] Packhowl howl recovery time reduced to 15 seconds, down from 30.
- [2246] Packhowl howl recovery time is reduced by 2 seconds further for
each member participating in your howl.
* There is a minimum recovery time of 3 seconds, regardless of how many
Shapeshifters you gather.
- [2246] Added all howls to Packhowl except Serenade, Disruptive, and
Enfeebling.

- [2246] Normal howls recovery time reduced to 30 seconds base, 15 seconds with Dualpitch, and 8 seconds with Triplepitch.

Interesting change, but not at all what Akara had in her report. It still takes 24 seconds to put up 3 howls, which is a massive improvement over the full 60 seconds it used to take, but why? What's the reason for not implementing it as she suggested?

@Keroc: Can you give some reasoning? I'm beyond frustrated with the classlead process. You sometimes fail to elaborate on approvals or approve something and implement it another way, completely ignoring the initial report. Most of these Vocalizing changes are fine, but the ones I touch on in particular actually almost make Vocalizing worse, especially when you nuke features like Interchange. It makes zero sense.

Furthermore, is there a reason why you're still failing to address mutation_sickness? It's been reported over two rounds now and been explained extensively in the comments of reports why mutation_sickness is a detriment to the health of Shapeshifters. And still we have nothing to show for it and not even a word that you're looking into it or brainstorming something, which we, the players who actually use the class, could help you with.

Teani

Another question: If a person can only be hit with 3 howls and several are howling in the room, is it random which ones will strike or will it pick one individual's howls?

Keroc

Valid concerns so here's the deets:

The class has gone pretty neglected for a while, so I'm going to try and update slowly as I think a lot of knowledge about what it can do has been forgotten (including myself). This means I'll probably try some different things, see how they go live, then tweak accordingly. Vocalizing specifically has some really powerful passive effects that in 1v1 probably aren't too bad (although some would say otherwise), but in team fights could be potentially crippling as an AoE. Hidden sensitivity for example really sticks out to me, as well as a few others. So to try and address that I started by making Snarling 'unusable' in team fight scenarios to try and make things a little more fair. The same is true for Convergence and Interchange, although they could make a return. I figure it's just easier to rule them out for now.

True that this doesn't really address 'ease of use' that the report asked for, but I would rather make sure that this is a direction that we can actually take with the class first. Then we can get to that good stuff.

Mutation sickness is the equivalent of class aggression cooldown, so I can't really get rid of it. Originally I was going to just swap it over to the CLASS verb like other classes but @Hadrak asked me not to for lore/roleplay reasons.

Kelliara

Keroc said:

Stuff

Thanks for the response, @Keroc.

Shapeshifter is far and away my favourite class, and the neglect that it's been experiencing (which I don't think is really anyone's fault) has been bumming me out severely last month or two. To the point I had literally no idea where to even start during this last Classlead round.

Serrice

You should fight @Valingar in lycan. It's really obnoxious. And if you don't parry head as your backup, lethal.

Hadrak

Keroc said:

Mutation sickness is the equivalent of class aggression cooldown..

Just to clarify (and after I doublechecked with Keroc), he meant Madness in this instance. Mutation sickness will be going the way of the dodo.

Atrapoema

@Keroc: Thanks for the insight, I appreciate it massively. I'm sorry about the aggressive way I presented the thread, but I hope you can understand I was a little frustrated at the time without an idea of how/why you were handling things the way you were. I'll be patient and see how things play out.

@Hadrak: That's some of the best news I've heard.

Teani

@Keroc, my question too?

Keroc

Teani said:

@Keroc, my question too?

Depends on which howls are first in the database much like how vibes and rites work. So it's puesdo-random.

Aishia

I think what is most important going forward is to remember lycans have the right to bear arms.

Coryn

And wolf arms, and boar arms, and croc arms.

Pypo

I couldn't help but find a song when I read all the conversation here. Its odd when I was searching for Banjo and Crocodile kept taking me back to banjo kazooie. However its funny how Sesamie Street still has some of the best cute tunes. Just give me a banjo to help with my personal vocalization.




An I apologize if this is better placed in videos, but man....after reading everyone's comments it just felt appropriate.

Vaskar

Here's a request? Can packs and packhowl and all that stuff stop being type-specific?

I'd love to go werebear, but my darkside crew is all werecrocs, so going werebear is decidedly suboptimal for me. What's the point in letting me be any subtype if mechanics still make it optimal for me to pick the same thing as everybody else?

Keroc

Vaskar said:

Here's a request? Can packs and packhowl and all that stuff stop being type-specific?

I'd love to go werebear, but my darkside crew is all werecrocs, so going werebear is decidedly suboptimal for me. What's the point in letting me be any subtype if mechanics still make it optimal for me to pick the same thing as everybody else?

Dunno just yet, but I'll think it over and keep it in mind.

Vaskar

Keroc said:

Dunno just yet, but I'll think it over and keep it in mind.

It is also especially bad because once you pick a shapeshifter subtype you're locked into it. If you picked werewolf years ago and find that everybody now is running bear/croc/boar, welp, you're not gonna pack up.

It feels like a weird frustrating legacy mechanic.

Atrapoema

You can pay 400 lessons to the leaders at the packmoot to change your shifter type, unless that's a one-off deal. Just greet them and ask them to join.

Malok

This thread strangely tempts me to play again. I really enjoyed Shapeshifters and making an offense for them near the end. Some of these changes, at least in the context of what I remember, do seem a little odd. Intriguing.

Keroc

Are you guys still wanting Lycans to use the CLASS SWITCH verb or are we happy with how things stand currently?

Pros:
- No more mutation sickness.
- Can keep certain defences when you REVERT.

Cons:
- Loss of bonus skill points.
- Class aggression cooldown is longer then mutation sickness.

Atrapoema

Mutation sickness is godawful, no class should ever have to deal with it (and no other class currently has to). My vote is to switch it back to CLASS SWITCH.

Aishia

I'd prefer to leave it as is for sure. Like x100.

Draiman

We all know why, no one wants to say it. Mutation sickness is worth it. 

Valingar

I think there might be differences of opinion between people whose only class is Lycan and people who have several classes and use Lycan on the side here.

Personally, though, given the choice between the two, I'd pick the current state of things. Mutation is a cool mechanic that doesn't exist elsewhere in IRE.

Also, I've referred so many Ascendril and Luminaries to use Shapeshifter because the bashing revamp that has caused those classes to stay bloody awful at bashing for over 3 real-life years worth of reports is still nowhere in the horizon.

But! Why do we need to pick between the two? With a few tweaks, Lycan could have the best of both worlds, without breaking anything. So here's my suggestion:

- Leave mutate / revert mechanic as is, not tied to classes.
- If you aren't under the aggression cooldown for class change (ie, haven't performed any aggressive actions within 10 minutes), mutation sickness will last 15 seconds instead of 2 minutes.
- Together with the above, add a Trans skill to Shapeshifting that automatically sets you up with all your basic Lycan defenses when you mutate. This is a lot less radical than it sounds. Remove the effect of Mutation sickness on secondary skill balances (basically, howl balance), allowing you to put up howls twice as fast after mutating.

Missari

Draiman said:

We all know why, no one wants to say it. Mutation sickness is worth it. 

I'll say it.

It triggers polymath, and it's nice to be able to switch statpacks, enhancements and augmetic enhancements on the fly for what accounts to a 30 second timer. I would still very much like lycan to be viable in spontaneous pvp like when they were a real class, the very thing sickness prevents currently.


Edit: as a side note, some of us lycan enthusiasts have asked for Lycan to remain the way it currently is, AND ALSO be a class you can switch to to avoid shitty mutation sickness, giving "full time" lycans the benefits that the class had when they were guilds, I.E. keeping defs between mutate/revert, marks staying active while reverted, balanceless mutate and reversion, some defences getting paused while reverted, and coming back when mutated, etc.

Aishia

Yeah a way to like LOCK IN FULL THROPE mode would be nice. It's not really fair now if someone wants to be a lycan all the time. I mean to be clear on my full opinion though, It is a class I enjoy using sometimes, but not one I would ever touch if I had to be locked into it for 24 hours or whatever. It's pretty rich with RP opportunities and some fun stuff to do in group fighting. Going ALL THE WAY with it as a full class again would certainly be a change more in the direction of never touching it again unless there were a LOT of other changes to make it more palatable to be for more extended periods, but maybe the more important people to consider are those who are more dedicated to the class than I.

Vaskar

Lycanthrope is not good enough for me to deal with the 12 hour class change timer for it. It's fun to have as something I can switch to on the fly, but I would never use lycanthrope if I were going to be stuck in it for 12 hours at a time. The bashing is mediocre, its tanking is terrible, the PvP routes are clunky at best. To me, shifter only feels good when you're fighting with other shifters in a group, and even then it only feels good because quarters are so easy to get in groups.

Atrapoema

For the record, there are ways to lower and bypass the class change timer.

Missari

It's almost as if the class has some problems that aren't being addressed because it's not a real class so why waste the time on it, right?

Vaskar

Atrapoema said:

For the record, there are ways to lower and bypass the class change timer.

If it's not good enough to justify spending 12 hours in it, it is not good enough to justify spending hundreds credits to be able to spend less time in it.

Missari

30 lessons. Not credits. Not hundreds.

Razmael

Missari said:

It triggers polymath, and it's nice to be able to switch statpacks, enhancements and augmetic enhancements on the fly for what accounts to a 30 second timer.

Honestly, polymath working like that is very much unintended and probably shouldn't factor into your thoughts on the matter since I'll likely be fixing this somehow.

Draiman

Hooray, we got a bug fixed that everyone with polymath thoroughly enjoyed, and shifter still sucks ass and no one is going to PK as it.

Thread success.