Overhaul Afflictions

Hiriako

Ok, the thing I see here is that as it stands now overhaul afflicting power is rather obscene. Lower level afflictions are nearly impossible to get rid of, and the way higher level ones work, it's very easy to repeatedly stick someone with these afflictions until such a point that they cannot get out of it with any ease.

Although we still need to know a few elements to determine exactly how things will fall, including whether or not things like Focus and Green will exist, I promised you @Estarra that I'd make a post over these next few days with a proposition for editing afflictions to a more manageable level. I've seen a few different propositions out there, and honestly, the one I like the most is that lower-level afflictions (1-3) will cause one-time effects upon being hit with the affliction, effects which would repeat if say you get a 1/3 attack and you're sitting at L3 in that affliction tree. To explain that better assume the following (and note that this is NOT my proposition, just an explanation):

Auric:

L1: Mana Drain
L2: Mana Malus

L3: Loss of Focus Balance

L4: Justice Curse

L5: Aeon Curse

Let's say we have Hollimar, with tarot to use Aeon and Starhymn's Starlight, causing 1/3 Auric every song tic.

Song tic: 1/3 Auric: L1 Auric - a mana drain.

Aeon Tarot: 1/5 Auric: L2 Auric - a mana malus. (Extra cost on next mana skill? Weakened use of next mana potion?)

Aeon Tarot: 1/5 Auric:  L3 Auric - instant loss of focus balance, preventing a next focus mind/body.

Song tic: 1/3 Auric: L3 Auric - Repeat loss of focus balance.

Aeon Tarot: 1/5 Auric: L4 Auric - Justice curse

Aeon Tarot  1/5 Auric: L5 Auric - Aeon curse

Song tic: 1/3 Auric: L5 Auric - Aeon/Justice still in effect, but repeats L3 effect, loss of focus balance.

This is just an example, of course. But that's one possibility. Another is to repeat L1-3 each time, which would steal focus balance, cause a small mana drain, and the mana malus. But only on repeated attacks. The Aeon Tarot for L4 would still just cause Justice, and L5 just cause Aeon. But the L3 would cause the weaker effect(s?) to occur again. Granted, I still have concerns about both cure speed and lingering aeon. I think, if we're to keep aeon, it'd be wise to keep quicksilver as a defense that L5 Auric would have to strip before afflicting. I don't think that quicksilver is too complex an element to remove. I would like to see other things gone, like healing scroll (keep other magic scrolls, and change that to another effect) and beast healing. That's aside from this discussion.

For the moment, I ask for thoughts: Repeat just the triggered-level effects, or have everything below it repeat when an affliction has maxed out? I'm thinking the former, but I wanted to ask. (Plus, hey. the former might give cause for 1/1 or 1/2 skills to be quite handy.)

I'll post thoughts on reworking specific affliction trees a bit later. I need to pour over those first.

Malayn

Can we not assume there is a focus balance? This will be a nightmare to balance if we have focusing.

Hiriako

Look above, I said that it's a question as to whether or not stuff like focus and green will remain. I'm just giving an idea for how afflictions could potentially function and inviting feedback. I picked focus for the example purely because it came to mind. That is -not- going to be my final Auric Affliction suggestion.

Winnae

Personally I am wondering, what is the game play goal of the combat overhaul? What kind of game is going to be created?

Previously combat (1v1) was usually won by system error or timing mistakes, assuming you couldn't damage someone to death, or so is my impression of the system.  There was little to no cost/benefit analysis in the decision making process of combat.  No attack was a "double edged sword."  Even worse, there was never an equally balanced yet interesting form of guaranteed progression and so fights could last an incredibly long amount of time.  Randomness was poorly executed because of massive differences in character strengths.  This is without going into how hard it is to find the lines need to script, or to write script.

I could write about this for quite awhile if I thought the devs would listen to me But I will try and keep it short... I read a great interview of a guy in the gaming industry who is releasing "Chess 2.0." One of the features he added was that if you can get your King across the middle of the board, you win, but taking turns to move your king is also very dangerous, particularly since he also removed the stalemate from the game.  Using your turn to move your king forward can get the king killed or get your other pieces killed.  Yet each move of the King is also a step closer to victory for the person who moves their king forward.

I'm not going to play an IRE again myself unless someone can fundamentally improve the combat system.  In my mind, this means including more cost/benefit moves that actually mean something strategically so that we don't have long, long fights.  Good use of randomness is also good but it needs to be a mechanic that effects both players, for example, draw systems in trading card games.  Having only knights use randomness and combining that with the huge differences that came from artifacts, race and level was a disaster in my mind.

It will probably require some fundamental changes or sacrifices to the area of team combat to get any of this done.  I would also say that if team combat is not going to be removed, then consider downplaying 1v1 combat instead.  You simply can't effectively mesh these two things together in a text game and still have them share the same mechanics.  One or the other would have to be simplified.