Winter 2014 Liaison Round Discussion

Toz

I'm...really curious what all of these skills have to do with class balance. The sand wall stuff in particular - just use an icewall ring. Teradrim are also, imo, balanced much like other limb classes in that they don't have a great way to keep you in-room, so giving them a class-based icewall makes them compared to monks/lycans/etc. an unneeded leg up, at least imo.

Ezalor

A clay golem (golem52746)

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Room:       In sight of a convergence of shadow.

Area:       Tiyen Esityi.

Level:      150.

Exp:        32399874/39734452.

Health:     16500/16500.

Escapes to: The Portals of Bloodloch

Paint:      Yellow.

I don't really see any problem with golem XP gain. There's no real benefit to leveling it either, you can already keep one alive indefinitely through golem recover and getting one to level 100 for customization is already pretty easy.

Also regarding the statpack changing stuff, I bought transmutation and adaptation just so I could still class switch faster but also be able to reincarnate without class switching. There is still a reason to have distinctions between them. As far as testing your statpacks, that's why we have this two week free reincarnates period.

Areka

@Ezalor - golem gain is pretty, especially for those of us who accidentally killed our own golems and have had to get one to 85 three times (since the skill to have it run away isn't until what, virtuoso?), and the point of leveling it is to get it customized. It's easy to dismiss it when you can powerbash wherever you want, but starting fresh on a new character, it's one of my deterrents with playing my Teradrim (both coding a failsafe so I don't accidentally target my golem again, which is a risk if you're trying to bash through areas and have to target by number, since things move around and your golem changes in the queue, as well as having to repeat it and watching it slowly creep. It's tedious). If golem gain could be affected by the other xp bonuses (chalice, chocolates, etc), that'd be amazing.

@macavity - do not push to get rid of Transmutation - the point of the gem is for people without multiple classes. It's why I initially got it, since adaptation would be useless as I only had Templar and yet needed to be powerful for bashing and dexterous for PK. 

Ezalor

The golem already gains 4x your exp or something wild like that. Between golem recover (should be using it after every attack) and escape there really is no situation where a golem should die. I suppose escape could stand to be moved so fewer lessons are required to get it. Having golem be affected by chalice and stuff sounds reasonable. Killing your own golem is just easily avoided user error.

Areka

It's easily avoided if you -know what you're doing and have the skills accessible-, but noobs don't have those, and golems are a big shiny point for the class, especially customizeable ones (but animation's the tertiary and thus not the focus for lessons).

Again, it's really easy to look back and poo-poo things when you already have the experience/funds. 

Edit: To clarify, the times I killed my golem were when I was bashing Moghedu - understanding the class and having the skills available in the tertiary beyond 'oo I can make it now yes this is why I got the class' simply wasn't there. 

Macavity

its easy to say the golem XP gain does not need a boost when you are out bashing all the time, but keep in mind the average to light player as well, that just can bash a few hours here and there.  Why do we hinder them, when we really do not need to.  Power bashing a Golem, is something I do not think the creator of the skill Animation and the Golems wanted in the first place.  In my own opinion that is.  

On top of my report to add in the extra XP gain on the yellow ink, I also suggest to add in modifiers for chalices, chocolates, and other XP boosters for ourselves to be granted to the Golem as well.  

also consider this, the max level of a golem is 250, from what I have been told.  The only reason to level a golem is to gain the extra 110 in health on each level granted.  All other minions that are used in game are not put in this position where they have to power their ents up with leveling them.  They are given an entity at full strength right at summoning or creation.  I am not asking to remove this feature from the golem as I and other Teradrims enjoy it, however I am asking that golems are made easier to get to level 250 without having to bash for hours and hours non stop on end.  

Irruel

Ezalor said:

A clay golem (golem52746)

-------------------------

Room:       In sight of a convergence of shadow.

Area:       Tiyen Esityi.

Level:      150.

Exp:        32399874/39734452.

Health:     16500/16500.

Escapes to: The Portals of Bloodloch

Paint:      Yellow.

I don't really see any problem with golem XP gain. There's no real benefit to leveling it either, you can already keep one alive indefinitely through golem recover and getting one to level 100 for customization is already pretty easy.

Also regarding the statpack changing stuff, I bought transmutation and adaptation just so I could still class switch faster but also be able to reincarnate without class switching. There is still a reason to have distinctions between them. As far as testing your statpacks, that's why we have this two week free reincarnates period.

I agree with you here. If you want to be able to change statpack without changing class, pay the extra 250cr for transmutation.

HOWEVER

It would be nice if you could upgrade from the adaptation to transmutation directly, as at the moment if you want to you need to trade it in and buy new, which costs 500cr.

Perhaps they could be two levels of the same artifact.

Ezalor

Level 250 is probably the max for player levels too, doesn't mean we have to make it easier to reach it. There is no mechanical benefit at all to bashing up the golem. You don't need it levelled up to be able to use any of your skills. It's just a little fun perk to watch its level go up and if you don't want to bash to level it up, well, then you aren't forced to at all.

@Areka I do agree that escape should probably be lower in the skillset. As far as knowing how to use the skills and such, well, that's on the Teradrin guild I guess. Or perhaps we can add some of those tips into AB ANIMATION ANIMATE.

Irruel

Being an ease of use liaison round, what are people's thoughts on removing the requirements to specify directions with ranged attacks, across the board? Some ranged moves, admittedly only adjacent ones like yank, have never required a direction be specified, so I figure that the reason a direction is needed is not because of a dev choice that it ought to be difficult, but because of resource requirements, i.e. server load, calculating the direction of the target.

However, a lot has changed since 1999 and if that is no longer an issue, would people agree that it would be nice not to have to worry about directions in their aliases/macros?

I admit that I am a little daunted by the coding needed to manage the different shot types in tracking, especially given how much UI space is already taken up by traps and other directional abilities (block, icewall, leaping etc).

Moirean

That's a good idea and I don't see there being a problem for combat balance, since none of these skills cost anything for a miss - I know I personally have macros that just spam every direction if I'm being lazy.

Daskalos

not having to specify direction on boomerang would be great.

Xiuhcoatl

@Irruel the answer is simple, get more monitors at a higher resolution. Then you don't need to worry about space at all. 

Irruel

I have the complete opposite philosophy. I haven't owned a desk in years. It's all about mobility, for me. In a few weeks, once I've got my head wrapped around the sentinels and have finished tweaking mine and tripwire's gui, I'll post a screenshot showing how to play from a 10" touchscreen. Yesterday I played for a while sitting on the grass up on the headland, looking out across the ocean.

But really, I love these new class concepts, with the tactical choices and complex arrays of options without just speeding it up - but I think it is important to try and keep the complexity down when it comes to the sheer amount of different commands that must be sent.

When the best answer is, "make an alias that shoots in every single direction and just gag the fails", then I think something could be designed friendlier.

Moirean

I absolutely agree. I read something a while back from one of Blizz's devs where they were saying that they were finding that players were making a lot of add-ons just to bypass or help navigate certain elements of WoW's design, like handling quest tracking or search bags or even gag certain noises and they came to the conclusion, if people need external resources to handle basic, core design stuff then we aren't designing it right. Since then they have been incorporating in a lot of the stuff players wrote add-ons for to help deal with basic functionality and ease of use, and it's been great for gameplay. I think it's a smart design philosophy to have.

Aishia

Irruel said:

Being an ease of use liaison round, what are people's thoughts on removing the requirements to specify directions with ranged attacks, across the board? Some ranged moves, admittedly only adjacent ones like yank, have never required a direction be specified, so I figure that the reason a direction is needed is not because of a dev choice that it ought to be difficult, but because of resource requirements, i.e. server load, calculating the direction of the target.

However, a lot has changed since 1999 and if that is no longer an issue, would people agree that it would be nice not to have to worry about directions in their aliases/macros?

I admit that I am a little daunted by the coding needed to manage the different shot types in tracking, especially given how much UI space is already taken up by traps and other directional abilities (block, icewall, leaping etc).

I both like AND agree with this idea!

Belgarion

Wanted to see what people think about this.

Report #1381
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Submitted by: Belgarion                     Status      : Unsubmitted
Skillset    : Enchantment                   Skillname   : Waterbreathing
Creation Date:  2013/12/07 01:17:37
Submitted Date:
[ ]Archive
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Problem:
Waterbreathing's effect, giving air bubbles with basically no restriction on touching at all. This is far superior to other items of its cost, ease of production, and combat sacrifice*taking eq, can't do while prone*. It currently makes an Ascendril's watersprite nullified completely, and aquasphere basically just being a audit readjustment that is mostly worse for us, and we can already stop flying for the most part. I don't really think the world needs this enchant in the first place now that there is a class mechanics based on it, as there is pear, but if it could either change or just be toned down quite a bit..
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Solution #1:
Bring Waterwalking back. Make it the gold man's zephyr arti, but it'd only have a very limited amount of charges, and it would last for an in game hour or 2.
Solution #2:
Make it take at least 1 arm, and not hindered by writhes/paralysis. Takes either eq or balance, Possibly with an increasing cost like fitness, as we cannot increase/control the pear stripping.
Solution #3:
Make an item like a time sphere/sigils that you have to wield and throw down to get the effect.

Belgarion

Thought I'd get reactions on this also.


Report #1566
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Submitted by: Belgarion                     Status      : Unsubmitted
Skillset    : Bladefire                     Skillname   : Resonance
Creation Date:  2013/12/18 18:07:51
Submitted Date:
[ ]Archive
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Problem:
Resonance gives Templars the ability to check an enemies wounds and diagnose, free of balance while the target is afflicted. It used to allow us to assess/contemplate also, but that is neither here nor there. There are two sets of problems here, that I can squash with one report, with 3 options.  The first is that we have a half hearted attempt at a "bleeding/mana" route, from a number of different abilities, when put together just right, but outside of running someone completely and utterly out of mana, or keeping haemophilia in them without relent for an absurd amount of time, for it being second on the ginseng stack, its really hard to know when to use hemorrhage. Resonance seems the perfect place to give us an option to be able to check someone's bleeding levels. Second is more quality of life, it would be nice to have an ending line after the diagnose finishes, as it doesn't always have a prompt right after, and it would be nice to have to give a stop to triggers attempting to capture from it.
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Solution #1:
Give an ending tag to the bottom of the diagnose/wounds list when used with resonance, to both differentiate and to simplify coding.
Solution #2:
Give us Resonance Target Bleeding, gives us their bleeding amount
Solution #3:
Both
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Decision:
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Irruel

Comments?


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Submitted by: Irruel                        Status      : Unsubmitted
Skillset    : Primality                     Skillname   : Scourge
Creation Date:  2013/12/26 11:52:10
Submitted Date:
[ ]Archive
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Problem:
Scourge delivers the affliction 'vitalbane'. Vitalbane has no particular cure,
but each time the afflicted eats a herb to cure something else, there is a
backlash of loki on the afflicted. Additionally, there is a chance that the
vitalbane will be cured at the same time. It is common for vitalbane to be cured
the first time, but it can also last for 2, 3 or even more, though only rarely,
herb eats. THE PROBLEM: when vitalbane is 'cured' there is no way for the shaman
to know. It is not revealed by discernment, there is no third person message,
and with no specific cure there is no way to know.
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Solution #1:
Allow discernment to show when vitalbane is cured
Solution #2:
Give the curing of vitalbane a third person, room wide, message when cured.
Solution #3:
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Decision:
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Irruel

And this one, please. Something to note is that if facemaul is made viable, which could be done either by changing faceslash as I suggest in this report, or as a separate report addressing the prerequisites of facemaul itself, then a new kill route will be opened for lycans - because facemaul is powerful enough to be a damage kill on its own, if you can meet the requirements needed to pull off a few in a row.



Report #1630
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Submitted by: Irruel                        Status      : Unsubmitted
Skillset    : Ferality                      Skillname   : Faceslash
Creation Date:  2013/12/26 12:00:33
Submitted Date:
[ ]Archive
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Problem:
Faceslash is a tool to help lycans to deal with the passive attacks of classes
that rely heavily on an entourage, and which tend to also have tools that are
particularly useful against lycans. It is a head targeted claw that delivers
disloyalty/disfigurement. THE PROBLEM: is that with no way to threaten the
target's ability to smoke herbs, it is always cured instantly. This also affects
the "Facemaul" ability, which is a powerful bite attack that requires the target
be disfigured, and has essentially never been used in a real fight between
competent fighters, since the day the lycans were released.
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Solution #1:
Change the affliction delivered by faceslash to deliver a mending cured version
of the same affliction
Solution #2:
Modify the effect of THROATRIP to have a 50% chance of causing smoke attempts to
fail, while still consuming pipe balance AND to double the length of pipe
balance.
Solution #3:
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Decision:
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Irruel

I also want to ask about blackout.

As things stand at the moment, shamans very much rely on using blackout to sneak certain important affs in under the radar.

Now, I'd rather the class wasn't reliant on blackout at all. In fact, I hate and have always hated, blackout.

But as the class does rely on it, the clarity artifact is really unfair. Can I buy an artifact that halves the length of time that abilities which knock herb balance (hello Syssin) actually knock herb balance for? No. But people can buy an artifact which stops me from sneaking premonition in under blackout.

And yet, I don't see any reports trying to deal with this. I've tossed ideas around in my head but haven't come up with anything worth posting. What I want to know is - has anyone else got ideas? Is there already a report on it from someone else which I haven't found yet?

Ishin

Irruel said:

I also want to ask about blackout.

As things stand at the moment, shamans very much rely on using blackout to sneak certain important affs in under the radar.

Now, I'd rather the class wasn't reliant on blackout at all. In fact, I hate and have always hated, blackout.

But as the class does rely on it, the clarity artifact is really unfair. Can I buy an artifact that halves the length of time that abilities which knock herb balance (hello Syssin) actually knock herb balance for? No. But people can buy an artifact which stops me from sneaking premonition in under blackout.

And yet, I don't see any reports trying to deal with this. I've tossed ideas around in my head but haven't come up with anything worth posting. What I want to know is - has anyone else got ideas? Is there already a report on it from someone else which I haven't found yet?

If I had to guess, brother, I would say that is because blackout stops you from seeing anything, where-as the knocks are small, short kicks to your recovering balance. Now, I haven't pvp'd or even really played other than logging in and shooting the breeze, but unless your blackout is pretty short, I would say that it's generally all-right for there to be an artifact that lessens the time a player spends in blackout, and that it's generally all-right for there not to be an artifact that lessens the knock times.

Edited: Because I forgot to add something in earlier. I saw some posts by Saybre earlier, about lycanthrope combat. Before I left, I never really had any problems with getting groin-rips on people. It was actually fairly easy on, I would say, 90% of combatants. The spleen-rips were a little harder, and the hardest of all being the throat rip. I would ask that head/torso be counted as parts for that, perhaps, instead of just the head being available to grant access to the throat rip. I very much liked the not needing prone requirement for spleen/throat locks and rips, though. Great ideas

Aarbrok

I read Ishin's response in the voice of Hulk Hogan.....

Its better now.

Toz

I've talked to Ishin on skype. Can confirm, he's Hulk Hogan.

Ishin

Are those my adoring fans I hear??

Xiuhcoatl

How I feel the liaisons are going to be like after the first few reports they need to shift through.