How does that work with non-wounders dealing physical external afflictions?
All I'm able to think of is like breaking limbs from poisons/trample/woodchems which could be dealt with by having them give minor limb bruising + activating the usual effect of broken limb. Still cured with restorative ice when bruising reduced to zero. If there are other physical external affs (?), something similar.
How would delayed cures work, add the few seconds on top of whenever wounds drop low enough?
Something like, say the major lacerations level kicks in at the (arbitrary) laceration level 12. Set LegTendon to activate with 14 lacerations, with the step to massive lacerations at mebbe 16 lacerations. Then it would take 3-4 applies of restorative ice (~3 or 4s) to drop lacerations to moderate and cure the tendon.
I think at this point the admin need to pull the trigger on one proposal and run with it. All the different proposals are mucking things up, and left to our own devices we can continue to run along with varying proposals indefinitely.
Whatever is decided on, allowing for testing in overhaul shells would be optimal!
@Shuyin should release his drafts already. *crack whip*
I've talked him through a few of his thoughts and they've made sense to hit the points Estarra wanted (afaik). A condensed skillset for each spec, a list of 10 external affs incorporated through said skillsets, and enough differentiation to make each warrior spec unique without too much added fluff.
Yeah, I want to pull the trigger on a decision this week as we've been wobbling on this for a year. I will wait for Shuyin's proposal unless he decides not to publish it by the end of the week.
@Ushaara - your proposal is very close to Proposal I that we were considering.
Applying ice would most likely cure both drink-stopping ailments if the target happens to have both.
How do you feel about that specific way of handling afflictions though, @Estarra? Are you comfortable having what's essentially 10 affs as far as curing goes, but that the effects change with increasing wounds? Is it possible? It feels like 'cheating' in a way, but it actually seems like it could maintain varied enough effects to keep a similar feel to the different specs to what they have now.
How do you feel about that specific way of handling afflictions though, @Estarra? Are you comfortable having what's essentially 10 affs as far as curing goes, but that the effects change with increasing wounds? Is it possible? It feels like 'cheating' in a way, but it actually seems like it could maintain varied enough effects to keep a similar feel to the different specs to what they have now.
Ah, my apologies. I think I'm following your proposal a little better now...Maybe tomorrow I'll make some mock ups in a system similar to what Ushaara suggested...
Yeah, I want to pull the trigger on a decision this week as we've been wobbling on this for a year. I will wait for Shuyin's proposal unless he decides not to publish it by the end of the week.
@Ushaara - your proposal is very close to Proposal I that we were considering.
Applying ice would most likely cure both drink-stopping ailments if the target happens to have both.
Yep, I tried incorporate elements of what you wanted, and just scrapped the idea of 10 afflictions in addition to wounds to throw everything on wounds, with temporary activated effects being the important differences between specs.
How do you feel about that specific way of handling afflictions though, @Estarra? Are you comfortable having what's essentially 10 affs as far as curing goes, but that the effects change with increasing wounds? Is it possible? It feels like 'cheating' in a way, but it actually seems like it could maintain varied enough effects to keep a similar feel to the different specs to what they have now.
Isn't that what this last proposal offers?
Just in case it's unclear. There are only 10 'afflictions' that need curing with restorative ice in that they are: lacerations_head, lacerations_chest, lacerations_gut, lacerations_arms, lacerations_legs and similar for bruising.
But because differently specialised warriors can activate different effects on the 4 severity levels of the lacerations/bruising, there are more than 10 effects. The 'cheating' Rivius mentioned.
Here is my outline of wound tables. Worked out as 18 blunt, 22 cutting effects, but all you care about for curing them is getting the lacerations/bruising down a level, with one or two exceptions on things like Impale/PinLeg.
BOLD ANGRY
DISCLAIMER: The numbers
presented in this proposal are purely theoretical, do not take any suggested
values seriously, these can (and probably will) be adjusted. The ideas
presented are more important.
Knighthood slashing, bashing, and targeting should be merged
into one universal command that will hit a specified body part. Doesn't matter
what the syntax is as long as we're able to hit the body part specified.
Removal of the RNG aspect is highly encouraged here.
Wound Levels
Wounds are now on a 20 point system. Every X wounds, the
overall level increases. 1-handers deal 1 wound per knighthood hit, while
2-handers deal 2. Power moves (lunge/sweep/etc) deal twice the amount.
Wound System
Wounds are dealt by either cutting or blunt damage and are
cured by restorative ice on a 1.5s (?) balance. The tables below illustrate the
various effects that your character will suffer from while he/she remains at
that wound level. None of the effects are actual afflictions, they simply
modify the length/effectiveness of certain afflictions/effects by warrior
attacks. EX: Hitting the head of a victim as a BC will increase any blackouts
dealt by the BC by X seconds depending on the victim's current blunt head wound
level. Note: Arms and legs will be separated into left and right, however for the effects of the wound levels, only the higher of the two will count. EX: heavy left arm and critical right arm, wound effect will be critical overall. This is a bit messy; suggestions welcome.
The cutting wound table tends to be better over time, while
the blunt wound table tends to have a better immediate effect and tapers off.
The arm and leg effects for both tables remain the same. Suggestions are
welcome to either improve the effects or give different ones that mesh better.
External
Afflictions
The current warrior wounds have been condensed into the
following 10 afflictions. Many redundant afflictions have been merged together,
so as a result, many afflictions are more "neutral" in tone than
their previous versions. These are all cured by restorative ice. Note: Broken/Mutilated Arm/Leg can technically be separated into 2 affs that do the same thing, since there will be a left and right version. EX: mutilated left leg and mutilated right leg.
System Pros and
Cons
Pros
-This does not have any new afflictions or effects aside
from the merging/deleting various warrior afflictions.
-All 25+ warrior afflictions have been reduced to 10.
-Health and wounds remain separate systems. It is easier to
understand sipping health is for HP while applying ice is for wounds.
-Each warrior spec is made more distinct from one another
even if the affliction table has been reduced.
-The change to underlying warrior systems should be less
compared to other proposed systems.
-A large degree of control for both offense and defense is
left within in order to encourage smart strategy.
Cons
-This idea involves a large rewrite of the wound system.
There is currently one small table for wound effects (less poison shrugging),
now there will be two big ones.
-It will be difficult to initially find a reasonable value
for the various balances proposed. We will definitely get it wrong the first
time. Too much or too little one way or another will spell bad news.
-Modifiers to afflictions may prove tricky to some people
who are used to the static nature of most of them. EX: there is always an X seconds
delay before paralysis is cured, but now the length depends on your current
wound level.
-There is most definitely some flavor lost due to the
reduction of afflictions and/or change in focus for many of the specs. Some
might prefer the old version.
Warrior Attacks
The majority of moves within each warrior spec contains
various attacks that require the appropriate wound level (or higher) to work. These
will always work provided that you
meet the requirement for activation. These attacks do not cause additional wounding
to avoid a negative feedback loop. The general idea is for the warrior to build
wounds via knighthood attacks, then unleash warrior attacks based off the
wounding built.
Rebounding, Parry,
and Stance
These defenses should remain as-is, given the (presumed)
removal of swing RNG and warrior effect RNG.
Warrior and Spec
Design Rationale
Warriors revolve around a 3 point model: wounds, poisons,
and afflictions. With the poison list finalized and the afflictions reduced due
to the overhaul, the wound system was identified as the primary facet to
expand, as shown above. Further, the effects selected for the wounds do not
involve new afflictions or effects, they only enhance what already exists.
With the reduction of unique warrior afflictions, we ran
into the risk of the various specs looking far too similar to one another. In
order to alleviate this, I identified various kill strategies that revolve
around systems that are: 1. unlikely to change and/or 2. Is virtually
guaranteed by the admin to be coded in. Here is a short list: damage,
afflictions, bleed, wounds, time-based effects, etc. I then simply parsed them
out to the various specs in a way that thematically (to me) fit the theme of
the spec.
Once done, I designed skills that synergized with the kill
strategy assigned. Many skills were deleted as a result, however I also designed
additional defenses, passives, utility, and/or group-based skills in order to
make up for it. I am a big fan of giving all skills a purpose towards the kill
strategy, so I will admit that the skills will most likely tend to be very (overly?!)
powerful. With that said, I’ve been very clear in the past that I personally
prefer potent offenses given how easy it is to run away/cure in Lusternia, so I
designed the skills to reflect this philosophy. Further, I feel that it is far
preferable to tone skills down rather than bump them up because it is easier to
make adjustments once you have a baseline (an effective kill) to start from. I
don’t think anyone would like more toothless primary skills like the various –chem/wood
specs that have little synergy to the kill condition.
Brief Summaries of
Warrior Specs
Blademaster
The primary theme for this spec revolves around afflictions.
I gave this spec afflictions that most warriors cannot access in order to
synergize with the theme and help build towards an affliction-based instakill.
This spec will have the easiest time locking an opponent, however it will have
a difficult time getting them prone to do so.
Bonecrusher
This spec is all about time-based afflictions like stun,
blackout, and offbalance. Most of the key BC moves involve these in varying
lengths of time. The goal is to build wounds in order to lengthen these time
based effects. However, this spec has very little in the way of actual
afflictions and it always runs the risk of hitting various immunities (stun/blackout)
or reductions (offbalance) coded into the system. Also artifacts like the Tear,
etc.
Pureblade
Bleeding is the strategy for this spec. Almost every skill
here is designed to ramp up the bleeding in order to land the (obvious)
bleed-based instakill. Further, the nature of bleeding is that it will
eventually overwhelm you once you run out of mana to keep clotting.
Unfortunately, this spec is very one dimensional. You have very few (almost
none) avenues to pursue other than bleed. You might get lucky with decapitate
though.
Axelord
Damage is the focus for this spec. It has a couple of key
skills to help ramp up the damage via wounding. The nature of these skills make
it so that AL’s attacks are almost always two-pronged: they help build towards both
the HP-based and wound-based instakills. The downside to this is that damage
(especially cutting) is one of the most heavily mitigated kill methods in the
game. There will be issues when facing tanky or defensively minded players. Further,
the headway made is more quickly lost compared to other skills when the victim
runs away.
Cavalier
Limb damage is most valuable to a Cavalier. Its kit is
designed to make it more possible to break multiple limbs at a time. Further,
it has access to both the cut and blunt wound table and it has the capacity to
swing twice per “round” due to Heft. As with the current version of Cavalier,
it cannot lock victims in a conventional way and a good amount of its skills
involve/require a mount, so the actual fighting skills are limited in
comparison.
They'll likely need to be separate, with the persistent effect that comes with the wound level needing to just be applied at the level which is the higher one (heavy left arm and critical right arm means the effect is at critical.)
Personally, I'm more inclined toward Shuyin's version, because it'll make things easier for converting monks.
Just one question, Shu. I assume there's no delayed cure in your afflictions, right? And I also assume applying ice will cure both one affliction on that bodypart it is applied to, and some wounds from it at the same time, right?
RE: delayed cure in afflictions - that depends on the affliction. I'm currently leaning towards maintaining the status quo - whichever affs were delayed cures will remain delayed cures. Instant cures will remain instant. Further, some of the wound effects in my proposal purposely lengthen the time it takes to cure an affliction, like how cutting chest wounds increases the delay between eating dust to cure paralysis and actually curing it. I'm not overly sold on this though, so suggestions are welcome.
RE: applying ice - I was kind of hoping that applying ice would cure one or the other, not both in order to add a layer of offense/defense strategy. But if it's simpler/more desirable to do both, it can be incorporated.
So in short, whichever works for everyone!
Edit: I'll spell it out in my proposal if people weigh in one way or another.
Would affliction hits do damage? Seems like the 1hand specs would have the benefit of hitting with two afflictions or one affliction and a wound. Unless the 2hand affs are intended to be stronger.
What's the intention on having a cap on wound levels and not being able to go past 20?
What happens if you use an attack the target doesn't have sufficient wounds for?
Neat proposals, guys! Going to be tough for the admin to choose a direction, but I think that's a good problem to have.
The only thing I kind of dislike is the need to do different attacks for wounds and afflictions. Unless I'm misunderstanding, you'd have to, say, "strike Lothringen lleg" to build wounds, and "strike Lothringen mutilatedleg" to do the affliction- though I understand why it's necessary, considering the RNG that's being thrown away and the various other new warrior perks.
Would affliction hits do damage? Seems like the 1hand specs would have the benefit of hitting with two afflictions or one affliction and a wound. Unless the 2hand affs are intended to be stronger.
What's the intention on having a cap on wound levels and not being able to go past 20?
What happens if you use an attack the target doesn't have sufficient wounds for?
Yeah affliction hits do damage. That's a bonus of 1handers. 2handers (theoretically) should make up for it by having access to higher wound rates / effects to make up for it.
The 20 wound level was something Ieptix/Estarra mentioned along with reducing external affs to 10.
If you have sufficient wounds when you do the move, nothing happens. You lose that balance though at least for sure.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
For the purposes of overhauling warriors to a condensed system that incorporates a capped wound limit, ice salve curing, a reduced external aff list, and uniqueness that separates one warrior setup from another, I like @Shuyin's proposal for @Estarra's consideration better.
Speaking from a non-warrior POV, it's much easier to grasp and comprehend warrior combat when the RNG is removed and unique kill conditions are made clear for a given spec.
As well, like @Lerad said, this foundation could, in turn, be translated easier for when monks undergo their own changes.
I thought warriors were meant to be able to deal both external and internal afflictions? That might help diversify a bit if warriors have 20 affs to choose from instead of -10-.
EDIT: I guess the current internal table wouldn't make sense though. Only paralysis, dysentery, vomiting, sickening and haemophilia would be right, and you have poisons for those.
Yep. Shu's current proposal incorporates afflictions from almost every pool depending on the spec, sans spiritual (which is really hard to justify for warriors).
That's why I like his spread that incorporates affs from more than just the external pool while capitalizing on the uniqueness of each build to prevent things from being too similar.
I'm not against most of Shuyin's proposals, but I really do prefer the idea of more varied effects unlocked with wounding. A lot of flavour goes away with a static 10 aff model.
I think Ush's model also would benefit monk design too, because we could have monk effects that are entirely different to warrior ones at different wound thresholds (or momentum or whatever) and get rid of the current problem of overlapping afflictions between the archetypes. Makes it easier to balance them separately.
I like Shuyin's well-thought out proposal. One thing I'm not sure about is the neutral/blunt/cutting types (1 blunt, 3 cutting, 7 neutral). I'd prefer it either to be all neutral or equally divided (5 cut/5 blunt). I'd also like to incorporate a bruising mechanic. In any event, I think much of this can be incorporated in the secondary proposal which I'll tweak and play around with.
Ah man, the reason why I leaned towards more cutting than blunt is because 4 (3.5 technically I guess?) of the 5 specs use cutting, so I figured they'd benefit more from having more cutting unique affs.
My proposal already incorporates bruising, I had pretty much assumed bruising would go in which is why I specifically mentioned it in the BC portion. Bruising is just bleeding but for blunt damage instead of cutting.
Better yet: Convert broken leg / broken arms into one ability (brokenlimb), which is blunt only. Then make SeverSpine neutral (note that right now it's a Cavalier swinging-- blunt-- ability). Then you're at 2/2/6.
I started to tweak the Bonecrusher spec and am already running into issues. For instance, BreakChest gives 1s stun with light wounds. Does this mean 1s light/2.5s heavy/3s crit according to the wound system? But then CrushAorta has 3s stun at critical ... wouldn't that already be under BreakChest per the wound system? Or does CrushAorta do 5s stun (3s stun and +2 stun for crit chest wound)? It seems to me to make more sense just to have one chest-stun ability and have it variable by wound and likewise the same for other bodypart strikes but that would remove several skills out of Bonecrusher (haven't looked at the others closely). Also, I'm not sure what -5/-10/-15 reduction in effectiveness of stance/parry means. Is that an ailment that simply can't be cured? Is it cumulative if you keep striking?
Comments
@Ushaara - your proposal is very close to Proposal I that we were considering.
Applying ice would most likely cure both drink-stopping ailments if the target happens to have both.
Just in case it's unclear. There are only 10 'afflictions' that need curing with restorative ice in that they are: lacerations_head, lacerations_chest, lacerations_gut, lacerations_arms, lacerations_legs and similar for bruising.
But because differently specialised warriors can activate different effects on the 4 severity levels of the lacerations/bruising, there are more than 10 effects. The 'cheating' Rivius mentioned.
Here is my outline of wound tables. Worked out as 18 blunt, 22 cutting effects, but all you care about for curing them is getting the lacerations/bruising down a level, with one or two exceptions on things like Impale/PinLeg.
Warriors Version Shu
BOLD ANGRY DISCLAIMER: The numbers presented in this proposal are purely theoretical, do not take any suggested values seriously, these can (and probably will) be adjusted. The ideas presented are more important.
HERE IS A LINK TO THE SPREADSHEET
Knighthood
Knighthood slashing, bashing, and targeting should be merged into one universal command that will hit a specified body part. Doesn't matter what the syntax is as long as we're able to hit the body part specified. Removal of the RNG aspect is highly encouraged here.
Wound Levels
Wounds are now on a 20 point system. Every X wounds, the overall level increases. 1-handers deal 1 wound per knighthood hit, while 2-handers deal 2. Power moves (lunge/sweep/etc) deal twice the amount.
Wound System
Wounds are dealt by either cutting or blunt damage and are cured by restorative ice on a 1.5s (?) balance. The tables below illustrate the various effects that your character will suffer from while he/she remains at that wound level. None of the effects are actual afflictions, they simply modify the length/effectiveness of certain afflictions/effects by warrior attacks. EX: Hitting the head of a victim as a BC will increase any blackouts dealt by the BC by X seconds depending on the victim's current blunt head wound level. Note: Arms and legs will be separated into left and right, however for the effects of the wound levels, only the higher of the two will count. EX: heavy left arm and critical right arm, wound effect will be critical overall. This is a bit messy; suggestions welcome.
The cutting wound table tends to be better over time, while the blunt wound table tends to have a better immediate effect and tapers off. The arm and leg effects for both tables remain the same. Suggestions are welcome to either improve the effects or give different ones that mesh better.
External Afflictions
The current warrior wounds have been condensed into the following 10 afflictions. Many redundant afflictions have been merged together, so as a result, many afflictions are more "neutral" in tone than their previous versions. These are all cured by restorative ice. Note: Broken/Mutilated Arm/Leg can technically be separated into 2 affs that do the same thing, since there will be a left and right version. EX: mutilated left leg and mutilated right leg.
System Pros and Cons
Pros
-This does not have any new afflictions or effects aside from the merging/deleting various warrior afflictions.
-All 25+ warrior afflictions have been reduced to 10.
-Health and wounds remain separate systems. It is easier to understand sipping health is for HP while applying ice is for wounds.
-Each warrior spec is made more distinct from one another even if the affliction table has been reduced.
-The change to underlying warrior systems should be less compared to other proposed systems.
-A large degree of control for both offense and defense is left within in order to encourage smart strategy.
Cons
-This idea involves a large rewrite of the wound system. There is currently one small table for wound effects (less poison shrugging), now there will be two big ones.
-It will be difficult to initially find a reasonable value for the various balances proposed. We will definitely get it wrong the first time. Too much or too little one way or another will spell bad news.
-Modifiers to afflictions may prove tricky to some people who are used to the static nature of most of them. EX: there is always an X seconds delay before paralysis is cured, but now the length depends on your current wound level.
-There is most definitely some flavor lost due to the reduction of afflictions and/or change in focus for many of the specs. Some might prefer the old version.
Warrior Attacks
The majority of moves within each warrior spec contains various attacks that require the appropriate wound level (or higher) to work. These will always work provided that you meet the requirement for activation. These attacks do not cause additional wounding to avoid a negative feedback loop. The general idea is for the warrior to build wounds via knighthood attacks, then unleash warrior attacks based off the wounding built.
Rebounding, Parry, and Stance
These defenses should remain as-is, given the (presumed) removal of swing RNG and warrior effect RNG.
Warrior and Spec Design Rationale
Warriors revolve around a 3 point model: wounds, poisons, and afflictions. With the poison list finalized and the afflictions reduced due to the overhaul, the wound system was identified as the primary facet to expand, as shown above. Further, the effects selected for the wounds do not involve new afflictions or effects, they only enhance what already exists.
With the reduction of unique warrior afflictions, we ran into the risk of the various specs looking far too similar to one another. In order to alleviate this, I identified various kill strategies that revolve around systems that are: 1. unlikely to change and/or 2. Is virtually guaranteed by the admin to be coded in. Here is a short list: damage, afflictions, bleed, wounds, time-based effects, etc. I then simply parsed them out to the various specs in a way that thematically (to me) fit the theme of the spec.
Once done, I designed skills that synergized with the kill strategy assigned. Many skills were deleted as a result, however I also designed additional defenses, passives, utility, and/or group-based skills in order to make up for it. I am a big fan of giving all skills a purpose towards the kill strategy, so I will admit that the skills will most likely tend to be very (overly?!) powerful. With that said, I’ve been very clear in the past that I personally prefer potent offenses given how easy it is to run away/cure in Lusternia, so I designed the skills to reflect this philosophy. Further, I feel that it is far preferable to tone skills down rather than bump them up because it is easier to make adjustments once you have a baseline (an effective kill) to start from. I don’t think anyone would like more toothless primary skills like the various –chem/wood specs that have little synergy to the kill condition.
Brief Summaries of Warrior Specs
Blademaster
The primary theme for this spec revolves around afflictions. I gave this spec afflictions that most warriors cannot access in order to synergize with the theme and help build towards an affliction-based instakill. This spec will have the easiest time locking an opponent, however it will have a difficult time getting them prone to do so.
Bonecrusher
This spec is all about time-based afflictions like stun, blackout, and offbalance. Most of the key BC moves involve these in varying lengths of time. The goal is to build wounds in order to lengthen these time based effects. However, this spec has very little in the way of actual afflictions and it always runs the risk of hitting various immunities (stun/blackout) or reductions (offbalance) coded into the system. Also artifacts like the Tear, etc.
Pureblade
Bleeding is the strategy for this spec. Almost every skill here is designed to ramp up the bleeding in order to land the (obvious) bleed-based instakill. Further, the nature of bleeding is that it will eventually overwhelm you once you run out of mana to keep clotting. Unfortunately, this spec is very one dimensional. You have very few (almost none) avenues to pursue other than bleed. You might get lucky with decapitate though.
Axelord
Damage is the focus for this spec. It has a couple of key skills to help ramp up the damage via wounding. The nature of these skills make it so that AL’s attacks are almost always two-pronged: they help build towards both the HP-based and wound-based instakills. The downside to this is that damage (especially cutting) is one of the most heavily mitigated kill methods in the game. There will be issues when facing tanky or defensively minded players. Further, the headway made is more quickly lost compared to other skills when the victim runs away.
Cavalier
Limb damage is most valuable to a Cavalier. Its kit is designed to make it more possible to break multiple limbs at a time. Further, it has access to both the cut and blunt wound table and it has the capacity to swing twice per “round” due to Heft. As with the current version of Cavalier, it cannot lock victims in a conventional way and a good amount of its skills involve/require a mount, so the actual fighting skills are limited in comparison.
HERE IS A LINK TO THE SPREADSHEET AGAIN
P.S. Please don’t make fun of my shitty skill names, I’m terrible at that.
What's the intention on having a cap on wound levels and not being able to go past 20?
What happens if you use an attack the target doesn't have sufficient wounds for?
I thought warriors were meant to be able to deal both external and internal afflictions? That might help diversify a bit if warriors have 20 affs to choose from instead of -10-.
EDIT: I guess the current internal table wouldn't make sense though. Only paralysis, dysentery, vomiting, sickening and haemophilia would be right, and you have poisons for those.
I'm not sure where you read the taking of affs from other pools, but if so, that'd be neato burrito.
EDIT: OH HEY LOOK AT THOSE NEATO TABS AT THE BOTTOM