Solstice Stockings!

Estarra

Hope everyone is enjoying their solstice stockings!

One thing that hasn't been decided, and that we're still debating, is what the powers should be for the gifts in the gold/platinum stockings. I thought you might appreciate helping us decide what powers could be! (Obviously, everything below is a draft and subject to change, especially after we get your input.)

First, the gold and platinum stockings have the same gifts so don't worry if you have more gold than platinum or vice versa. What's in them? Well, it depends whether the Gnodfather gets to you or not. The Gnodfather leaves coal. Ironbeard leaves peppermints. Coal and peppermint can be traded among players.

The peppermints can formed an item that gets bigger the more coal you put in, to a maximum of an item created with 5 peppermint pieces (max of one item per person).

• 1 peppermint = candy stick (2/6 ego buff for 1 hour, usable 1/game month)
• 2 peppermints = candy rod (2/6 mana buff for 1 hour, usable 1/game month)
• 3 peppermints = candy cane (2/6 health buff for 1 hour, usable 1/game month)
• 4 peppermints = candy staff (2/6 universal damage resistance for 1 hour, usable 1/game month)
• 5 peppermints = candy pole (trueheal, usable 1/game month)

The coal works the same as the peppermint.

• 1 coal = trowel (acts as a shovel for digging)
• 2 coal = spade (stun target, usable 1/month) (or we are considering a pit trap)
• 3 coal = shovel (burrowing)
• 4 coal = mattock (2/6 universal damage buff for 1 hour, usable 1/game month)
• 5 coal = drill (earthquake that knocks down enemies and stuns, usable 1/game month)

Anyway, we aren't looking for anything crazy, but rather powers that are limited or minor. If you have suggestions, help us design your stocking gifts!

Enyalida

Peppermint seems sort of useful (with a trueheal capstone), the coal seems rather useless. 

For peppermint, the useful powers are the 3, 4, and 5 effects. 

With coal you're looking at an infinite shovel (no value), single target stun once (low to no value), burrowing (no value), damage buff (nice), and a spike/quake spell (low value). 

I have no skin in the fight, in that I'm not going to buy any of these with real world cash, but I would feel really cheated getting coal. 

Estarra

Alternate coal power ideas are welcome!

Cyndarin

Holy trueheal. Sort of useful? That's an incredible power.

edit: Can we make it like a trueheal light? Diet trueheal? Maybe just a refresh on h/m/e but does not give prismatic. Trueheal is basically one of the best, if not the best skill in the game. 

Vivet

Just as a suggestion, if you want to encourage people to trade coal/peppermints so everyone has a few, I'd say adjust level 1 coal to be:

*Halves balance for digging, allows you to dig if you don't have a shovel*

This would make is useful for people who already have digging skills and the silver shovel, and would make the level 1 on the wishlist of anyone who does questing (or is looking at the aether epic and not looking forward to Dramube). It would make having just the level 1 desirable to a lot more people and would encourage people with mostly peppermints to trade for at least that one.

Estarra

Note trueheal is only usable 1/game month.

I like the idea of halving balance on digging!

Tekora

Estarra said:

I like the idea of halving balance on digging!

Yes please! 

Yarith

I agree with @Celina on the trueheal comment. Poor Sacraments users with level 5 peppermint

Edit:
-snip-

Estarra

We could make trueheal 1/game month for 10 power. For sacrament users, no power 1/game month.

Kiradawea

Make it work like Institute Scalpel Discharge instead. Still a decent heal, but not the "get out of trouble free" card that it currently is.

Vivet

Kiradawea said:

Make it work like Institute Scalpel Discharge instead. Still a decent heal, but not the "get out of trouble free" card that it currently is.

I'm thinking that won't be considered since it's more like Wondercure from the Wonder Wand, and they'd want to avoid overlap.

But... since we're talking about the scalpel.

In the spirit of the season and for the sake of flavour, how about making the peppermint version one you can -only- use on other people? No self-casting. That'd be more unique.

Estarra

Hmm, trueheal you can only use on someone else?

Cyndarin

That'd be better. Support skill that still has group value (I used sacrifice ALL the time as a healer) rather than a bail out button that has some serious PK ramifications. 

Vivet

Another coal idea, not giving it a specific tier since stuff could be moved around however:

Oil Aethers: can cast an oily sheen on the aethers surrounding you, and you will see the location of anyone who scries you, ex - You feel the [piercing eyes|sweeping gaze] of Weepaw looking upon you from the Cardinal Planar Fulcrux.

Alternatively, some oil/coal concoction you can drink once per month to make you vomit up your guts and do a large chunk of health damage in exchange for clearing drunk status.

Cyndarin

5th level coal power-Once a day VEIL from stealth would have a niche use. I'd use that

Estarra

wouldn't veil be kinda OP? (well i guess depending on how long it lasts)

Vivet

Estarra said:

wouldn't veil be kinda OP? (well i guess depending on how long it lasts)

I'd say it's definitely more than a niche use, and I'd want to have it if it could be generally accessible like that. But if trueheal effect on level 5 peppermint is staying, I'd say people would find this to be comparably desirable for a level 5 on coal.

EDIT: Tangent, but I think this only feels especially OP because all the specialised detection skills like scent/farscout are now available to everyone and it's waaaaaay easier to locate and get a read on where people generally are than in years past. I feel like superior artifacts for avoiding detection are long overdue and that more than anything would compel me to pounce on this. And as a complete aside, if you are running short on world event ideas that would scare people, consider one with global Veil that affects everyone for more than one game month. That would keep people terrified.

Cyndarin

I don't see it being all that OP if it's only once a month. It has a fairly short lifespan.  It's nice enough that I'd try to buy it, and I'd get use out of it. Could use it to hide while setting up a demesne for instance. It's definitely strong, no doubt, but you can still get caught and murdered with veil up and once every 24 hours for something that isn't "get out of jail free" isn't OP to me. 

Can make it shorter than normal veil even. I'd still try to get it.

Estarra

As Veil only lasts 5 minutes, maybe that's fine 1/game month. My concern was certain abuses of veil that I recall from elsewhere so I've always been skittish about it.

Everyone like one use veil for the 5 coal power?

Cyndarin

IIRC the biggest complaints about veil were that it had no cool down so you could do it over and over and remain hidden forever. That was nerfed though through the envoys so its much more manageable now. 

Vivet

Celina said:

IIRC the biggest complaints about veil were that it had no cool down so you could do it over and over and remain hidden forever. That was nerfed though through the envoys so its much more manageable now. 

Yep. The issue with it was the power cost was the only limit, and you could very easily ensure you could reraise it again as soon as it dropped. One use for a single in-game month would be fine imo.

Shaddus

It would be amazing to allow us to trade in 5 of these pieces for one of last year's stockings.

Estarra

Ah, your memory is really off! That stocking was several years ago!

Shaddus said:

It would be amazing to allow us to trade in 5 of these pieces for one of last year's stockings.

Shaddus

Sorry, I'm old and feeble. Still applies though!

Kagato

Would like to see a return of the stocking myself - even as a curio.  It is one of the few things I would probably actually fork out for, having been one of the few years I was completely unable to log in over christmas and missed out, while being stuck seeing all the people who did get one pulling all sorts of useful stuff every 12 days.

Estarra

For one of the coal powers, do we like stun someone 1/game month?

Or we could let anyone make a pit trap 1/game month. If you are a tracker, could just make pit traps free if you have that coal power (no comm cost).

Cyndarin

What kind of stun length? Everyone can shieldstun at will, not sure an artifact stun would be a big deal. 

Rivius

I think the current list sounds pretty good but here are some suggestions:

For peppermint:-

Instead of trueheal maybe just give a prismatic barrier akin to moondance full, once per game month? So like a 5s (or so) prismatic barrier that can't be used prone. Does not cure any afflictions. Would avoid overlap with wondercure (which is like a 15 crystal power) and would be less OP than trueheal.

For coal:

For the one coal power, definitely better to speed up digging than to give a shovel.

Instead of burrowing (not a really interesting power), I'd do the one-time pit here.

I'm really, really not a fan of veil. I'd rather see less of it in the game than more. But that's just my opinion. I think the current 5-coal sounds pretty ok depending on the balance time of it and the length of stun.

Cyndarin

I'd rather deal with veil than more cheap prismatics for people to use as a pk crutch. 

Enyalida

It would be more palatable if it was veil how veil should work: Once someone knows you're there and has already engaged you in combat, it doesn't allow you a "get out of further combat free" card, and drops briefly when you're hit by another player.

Rivius

I don't agree that a 5s prismatic barrier with no aff curing is particularly impactful, especially to the degree of veil. 5 minutes is a lot of time in PK and in certain situations it's very frustrating to deal with. I'd rather deal with it from one guild with a very specific skillset. Opening it up to anyone and increasing its availability in things like wildnodes is not something I'd look forward to.