Wood races and elevation

Belibi

A few things about how Wyrden (and preumably Wilde) wood interact with elevation seem inconsistent to me. They're all pretty small things, and I woulda posted em in "simple ideas" except that I imagine some of them have implications on combat balance and I wasn't sure how big a deal those were. I figured better assume people will be opinionated and make a new thread than risk clogging up the other one with discussion. Here are the changes I propose:

1. Woods should be able to SPRINT while their perspective is in the trees (after all, their "feet are firmly on the ground", aren't they?)

2. Wood should either be able to FLY while their perspective is in the trees or not at all while in the forests (after all, aren't they always surrounded by entangling branches?)

3. I'm not sure if it's already like this or not, but anything that restricts or forces movement at ground level (I've heard about icewalls as well as demesne effects that pull or push you one way or the other) should effect a wood with it's perspective in the trees.

Enyalida

All of these seem like coding limitations. The way that -woods currently work (only being able to 'be' on one elevation at once) comes to the same issue of not being able to realistically be in two places at once. 

Ideas one and two would be alright, but idea three sounds like a  bad idea. Woods are already penalized for fighting across multiple terrains, more so than literally any other spec or race in the game. Climbing takes no equilibrium or balance, and even with the balance time reduced, changing perspective does take balance. Add that to the fact that, unlike normal druids, -wood combat doesn't improve in the tree terrain, and you have little reason a -wood would want to fight in a forest terrain already. Making it so that you could hedge one in and force a special escape action like tumble by pressing your advantage in a forest over a tree person doesn't sound like a good move to me.

EDIT: All you get are regens, which cap out anyways, and are ill supported.

Xenthos

By "realistically," Enyalida means that it is an actual mechanical problem.  Dreamweaving was bugged for RL years due to this limitation; Roark eventually spent something like a month just tracking down all of the various issues and trying to slay them, all the time muttering about it.

That's why you cannot really attack a Wyrdenwood on multiple elevations, because mechanically the player is only on one.  There is just an object that moves around on the other.

Enyalida

Right, I meant realistically from a feasibility standpoint, not a roleplaying 'what makes sense' standpoint. I had a front row seat for part of the dreamweaving problem, including the final (backstage) fixes.

It would also be wildly unfair to allow players to fully attack a Wildewood while their player "isn't there", even though the character's legs are present. Same logic with the icewalls.

Enyalida

By the by, if you have any -wood ideas for better mechanics (please, oh god) or anything, hit me up. I did some pretty extensive testing and theorizing back when they came out, and only gave up out of a sense of looming depression. 

If you think perspective works weirdly now...

EDIT: Of course, with the looming overhaul and general... attitude around the woodchem skillsets, I can far from promise anything being done, but it's fun to talk about.

Belibi

The -wood already has some kind of presence on multiple elevations - you can see them (their "trunk" or "crown") and they can hear you and sense when you enter. I'm not sure where the limits to that are.

Really, I just want 1 and 2. I only added 3 because past experiences have made me very leery of suggesting buffs for my own race/class without either a good reason why they NEED those buffs or some nerfs to balance them out.

Enyalida

Xenthos'es guess to how it is handled sounds fairly accurate, something akin to an object that follows around on the other elevation. When you move, you have an additional check so that when the new room is updated to include you (as the old one is updated to not include you), that additionally adds the properly colored line to the appropriate elevation level.

Elanorwen

Belibi said:

The -wood already has some kind of presence on multiple elevations - you can see them (their "trunk" or "crown") and they can hear you and sense when you enter. I'm not sure where the limits to that are.

Really, I just want 1 and 2. I only added 3 because past experiences have made me very leery of suggesting buffs for my own race/class without either a good reason why they NEED those buffs or some nerfs to balance them out.

There are plenty of pets that relay what they hear, too. (And an artifact that allows you to see people burrowed/flying at your location) I'd assume that's the way hearing and noticing presence works. The crown or trunk are like an NPC that walks along with you.

Arcanis

im considering taking up a -wood spec and fully testing it out and seeing the kinks and if it can be at all effective. I'll get back to you when im done.

Enyalida

It's been done a-fore.