If you want me to spell it out, the fact that it occasionally saves your target (something shared by literally all group splitting abilities) is nothing compared to the utility you receive from the skill. It's a fake downside, like low max hp.
Wait, doesn't staticfield only proc when 1) the staticfield user gets attacked or 2) when an enemy walks into the room..?
A staticfield saving an enemy that is radded or pulled in is simply the aerochem user needing to write a few lines of code. It's not difficult (though it is a little spammy) to unenemy whenever you switch target and re-enemy the target you switched away from when you have staticfield up. I do it for fearaura, and my code doesn't even use mm.defs to track fearaura. I don't even bother to differentiate it for bashing, so my system spams enemying mob names (which obviously fails) when I bash. It's no big deal.
As an aerochem, the only time you need the target to be on your enemy list is when you're using a bomb. So apparently, when you DO have success radding and beckoning through the apparently overpowered and unbeatable bonds, you can, you know, just unenemy that target so you won't staticfield (or fearaura) him away. Hell, even when you are using your bombs, keep the target you're hitting unenemied anyway. It's no big deal to let him get a free pass from the bomb if your team is focusing him. This isn't really viable for classes like bards or melders - that's why a radmense or treelife or currents can and DO backfire on the melder.
If you're a staticfield holder, be the target caller. Choose the priority enemy, target him, let your code unenemy him automatically, and spam that targeting alias so your team knows to knock him down, and watch as staticfield pushes everyone EXCEPT your target out of the room. Here, I'll even write you the code:
You can have a truehealer walk in, everyone will attack and drop shields, a bard can follow in behind and scissor, Celestine trueheals and walks out.
It's dishonest to draw a direct comparison to why distort needed to be nerfed vs the application of bonds. Distort is not OP/broken/whatever because it prevented summoning effects, it was nerfed because it made escaping enemy territory exceedingly more difficult. You had to have a ship present and could only exit out of 1 specific room. You can escape bonds anywhere by moving a room away.
Hey, since staticfield was brought up and I thought about it a little, it's a pretty good counter to bonds. Don't even need prismatic. You activate it, walk into a bonds/pitted/melded room... and see everyone get pushed out of bonds just by attacking you - if they weren't already scattered by your entry. Don't even need to rad. Haha.
Hey look, I too can quote things I find outrageous and put a "lol" after it. Doesn't really mean anything, because no one can really say "oh, this is how to walk into a kill room with bonds and come out with a victory".
EDIT: I think Enyalida really hit it on the head: we want to nerf distort because it makes escape or movement too difficult, but a portable, strategically advantageous room distort is A-OK? In a game where single rooms (astral nodes, wild nodes, choke points, breakable meld rooms, domoth item rooms, kill rooms) dominate? Let's not kid ourselves with a distort =/= bonds argument, either. Let's not forget how bad scissorkick and tackle is at moving people, especially with summon resistance.
The basis of Night is, and I think everyone can agree, that it is a double-edged sword. That was the premise of Choke and Bonds. Because they could potentially harm the caster, they were given powerful (in my mind, too powerful) effects. The balancing of the skillset has been a slow and painful process, because smart people know how to game Choke and Bonds to their distinct advantage over the opposing team. Suddenly it's not so much a double edged sword as much as a giant sword with a blunt edge for the user and an extremely sharp and deadly edge for the receiving end.
It's easy to laugh it off as a "grass is greener" or "partisan" argument, or try to deflect it with a "zomg you have aeon, so powerful and holy it is" argument (I scoured the whole thread and didn't find anyone calling aeon bad -- such a dishonest derailing), but Bonds needs balancing. It's overpowered because it's meant to be this really risky move that could fuck you over as much as it could the other team, but it really isn't a risk at all to a group that knows how to use it. Therefore, the risk to reward ratio is skewed. Everyone in Glomdoring wants to cry about "oh no this is another attack on yet another of our skills", but there's a reason Choke was removed (and it wasn't the admin bending to whining or complaints). Bonds is just another one of those legacy skills you need to hand over, or nerf. It's really that simple.
I wrote a more moderate post addressing each of the three quotes you put up there, when I realised how facetious you were actually being, and forcibly stopped myself. I'll just scratch my itch by pointing out just one strawman in your post though: Celina's comment about distort specifically, explicitly stated that it was being nerfed (or argued to be nerfed) for making escape from enemy territory difficult. She referenced, in fact, the different options (or lack thereof) of leaving a distorted plane to support her argument. Your post, however, explicitly, and possibly intentionally, left out the planar/territorial aspect out of her argument, and accused her of double standards by painting her argument against distort as being the same as "strategically advantageous" bonds. That is a clear fallacy - if you have an argument against what she is saying, then not mis-representing what she actually said is going to be the first, the basic, and the decent thing to do. Okay, that's all the constructive argument I'm going to offer in this post. Everything below is just a rant, you can stop here if you don't want to listen to that.
Edit: Nevermind, spoiler tags failed. Edit2: Okay, managed to get the spoiler tags fixed. Now you can actually skip the rant if you don't want to read it. God bless firefox.
[spoiler] Implying that my 8 lines of code, which actually, literally addresses the concern that staticfield saves enemies, was a ridiculous one and "doesn't mean anything" is a clear sign of how little interest in actual discussion is actually in this thread.
I was the one who made aeon a big deal when Yarith implied that it had costs it didn't actually have. I pointed out the fallacy in that argument, and somehow, that was a "dishonest derail"? His statement about the actual availability of aeon across the game's orgs was also inaccurate, and somehow, I am the one who is "deflecting" for pointing it out? Sure, he could have just been mistaken. Fine. Maybe I was being a little too aggressive fine.
But you know what? Somewhere between being called a liar and a dodger, I've lost my patience.
Maligorn said:
... The basis of Night is, and I think everyone can agree, that it is a double-edged sword. That was the premise of Choke and Bonds. ...
I don't know if you're trying to act like you're some big shot at being a psychic, or if you're just harboring fantasies about game design. Either way, you're pretty delusional.
The "basis" of Night is not that it is a double-edged sword. It just so happened that a few of the abilities in there turned out to be such, and the fact that they are double-edged have always factored into discussions of their balance. End of story. The "premise" of bonds wasn't to "potentially harm the caster". The premise was probably (I say this without surety, but with confidence) to simply prevent forced movement out of the room. That it turned out to affect everyone in the room, and also be immobile, could be a masterplan of whoever designed the ability (Maybe Estarra, maybe some random guy on the internet Estarra got to help her create the skills) or it could just be code limitations and/or a lazy programmer.
Making the argument that Night was designed to be a wrist cutting ability from the start is a gamble at best, and sheer delusional projection of your fantasies at worst. Save it.
The fact that bonds actually, factually, mechanically DOES affect the caster is... well, a fact. That is the mechanical "downside" to the ability. Whether it was intentional - see my above point. The fact remains that this downside exists. It cannot be circumvented by writing some code in your system. It cannot be changed by casting a different spell in the game (beyond clearing bonds - and therefore its "advantageous" effects). The arguments in this thread that I've put forth has always been about the (variable) effect of this downside - and how opponents fighting against bonds can use it to their advantage. I'm not going to rehash my arguments - you can read them again if you want, but if you were plugging your fingers in your ears yelling neener neener the first time, then don't bother - I doubt you'll have the self-consciousness to get anything new out of a second reading.
What I'll do instead is to simplify things and summarize them in another way.
Bonds forces opponents fighting against the bonds users to rush them. If your team is unwilling to rush because you don't feel like it, or don't want to, you literally forfeit the fight. If you're unable to rush because you are outnumbered beyond a chance of success, then the bonds team wins by default. This is acceptable in my arguments because bonds endangers the defending team's critical targets, and therefore gives the rushing team an advantage they otherwise would not have if bonds was not cast in the room.
From what I can discern reading your posts, this is unacceptable in your arguments because rushing is not "cost-effective" enough. What constitutes cost-effectiveness for you, I don't know. But what is apparent to me is that the cost of possibly dying is too much for your delicate sensibilities. Perhaps the answer is not to "hand over" or "nerf" bonds. But rather, to give you invincibility. Well, you can keep on with your delusions - all the power to you.[/spoiler]
Personally, I don't think bonds needs nerfing directly. It just needs all forms of magical movement to be equal on both sides of it. The ability would be more fair to me if you couldn't rad into it, or both sides could rad through it.
I agree, the condescension is real. @Maligorn should just go back to WoW.
When you can really explain what's so hard about shielding and double blocking (replicating the effect of bonds) which requires us to come into your room and do the same thing you claim isn't cost effective, then maybe we'll actually listen, but coming from the guy that supported a mana kill due to Halli's abundant mana drain, then adamantly opposed an ego kill because two mage terts and bards could reliably drain ego, your ideas of fairness and balance don't hold much weight.
Because the argument being presented as to why bonds is OP hasn't been "you can't rescue your allies". It's been "it leads to fortress rooms that require you to jump into to break up"
Lerad, Celina and myself have already acknowledged the rescue factor, but if you get pulled in, you already failed, bonds or not.
Yeah, my statement was incorrect and I don't mind admitting that. It's no secret that I have a bit of trouble putting my thoughts into cohesive statements, bwah.
Edit: And so were my followups. I wasn't trying to get across the message that came across.
(I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)
== Professional Girl Gamer == Yes I play games Yes I'm a girl get over it
Going back a page or two, Forcewall does have a counter: Fly over it.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
It's easy to laugh it off as a "grass is greener" or "partisan" argument
It's easy to "laugh it off" because it's true, in this case. You're
ignoring everything you have to go after what your opponents have. You're being extraordinarily transparent, especially
when you rage-ignore things like Lerad posting a tiny line of code that
addresses your chief complaint / dismissal of the power of your own abilities. I'm impressed that Lerad actually has the desire to write lengthy responses explaining why you're full of carp (spelling intentional), while all I can do is eyeroll at what you write and go read something posted by someone who actually knows & cares about the game instead of just their own narrow slice of it. I just can't be bothered with any lengthier a diatribe than this.
At some point you just have to acknowledge that the person you are arguing with lacks the experience and understanding required to fairly participate in a discussion. On any topic, you can not engage in a meaningful or constructive discussion if one side is so far out of their depth of experience that they can't recognize some of the fundamentals (i.e. using prismatic to break up groups is literally a thing used all the time), much less build upon them.
Random thought: would a combat squad ability that had a chance of moving the whole team to follow any member who was forcibly moved/summoned (in the same area) help here? Defuse group splitting abilities generally if they are unfun? Then could also look at how summon resistance of the group combines if necessary.
Maybe a terribly naive idea, I just dislike seeing so much arguing using IC bias ('the north thinks this', 'the south does that') on an OOC forum.
It's easy to "laugh it off" because it's true, in this case. You're
ignoring everything you have to go after what your opponents have. You're being extraordinarily transparent, especially
when you rage-ignore things like Lerad posting a tiny line of code that
addresses your chief complaint / dismissal of the power of your own abilities. I'm impressed that Lerad actually has the desire to write lengthy responses explaining why you're full of carp (spelling intentional), while all I can do is eyeroll at what you write and go read something posted by someone who actually knows & cares about the game instead of just their own narrow slice of it. I just can't be bothered with any lengthier a diatribe than this.
At some point you just have to acknowledge that the person you are arguing with lacks the experience and understanding required to fairly participate in a discussion. On any topic, you can not engage in a meaningful or constructive discussion if one side is so far out of their depth of experience that they can't recognize some of the fundamentals (i.e. using prismatic to break up groups is literally a thing used all the time), much less build upon them.
I agree, the condescension is real. @Maligorn should just go back to WoW.
When you can really explain what's so hard about shielding and double blocking (replicating the effect of bonds) which requires us to come into your room and do the same thing you claim isn't cost effective, then maybe we'll actually listen, but coming from the guy that supported a mana kill due to Halli's abundant mana drain, then adamantly opposed an ego kill because two mage terts and bards could reliably drain ego, your ideas of fairness and balance don't hold much weight.
I don't know if you're trying to act like you're some big shot at being a psychic, or if you're just harboring fantasies about game design. Either way, you're pretty delusional.
Yeah. Somewhere along the line you have to acknowledge that people are just going to tear you down instead of actually listen to the argument you're presenting. GG South, I'm glad your ad hominem is still strong. (I expect better.)
I still perpetuate that the risk -> reward ratio to Bonds is way off, and needs fixing. I still perpetuate that rushing a bonds kill room is suicidal and not a "calculated risk".
Oh, and nobody addressed this either:
I think Enyalida really hit it on the head: we want to nerf distort
because it makes escape or movement too difficult, but a portable,
strategically advantageous room distort is A-OK? In a game where single
rooms (astral nodes, wild nodes, choke points, breakable meld rooms,
domoth item rooms, kill rooms) dominate? Let's not kid ourselves with a
distort =/= bonds argument, either. Let's not forget how bad scissorkick
and tackle is at moving people, especially with summon resistance.
Asserting something does not make it true, by the by. You can believe whatever you want, but throughout this thread you have amply demonstrated that you do not know what game balance actually is, nor do you care. As such, your opinions on any risk->reward ratios and whether anything needs fixing can be (and, as you yourself have quoted, have been) readily dismissed.
You may have noticed StaticField saving a person here or there, but as Lerad pointed out, you could've just unenemied them so they don't get hit by StaticField, and they would not have been tossed out.
Rushing any fortress room is suicidal and not a calculated risk unless you have scissorflip or staticfield or something along those lines to forcibly eject everyone.
It has nothing to do with Bonds but everything to do with how many things you can put up in a room. Bonds is not what is stopping you, just the same as StaticField itself is not stopping us. It's the combination of all these skills working together, not a specific skill.
2014/04/19 01:38:01 - Leolamins drained 2000000 power to raise Silvanus as a Vernal Ascendant.
2014/07/23 05:01:29 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Munsia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:07 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Arimisia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:58 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Lavinya as a Vernal Ascendant.
Asserting something does not make it true, by the by. You can believe whatever you want, but throughout this thread you have amply demonstrated that you do not know what game balance actually is, nor do you care. As such, your opinions on any risk->reward ratios and whether anything needs fixing can be (and, as you yourself have quoted, have been) readily dismissed.
Thanks for continuing the ad hominem friend, it's really quite refreshing and typical. How about you look at the arguments instead and try to refute them.
Asserting something does not make it true, by the by. You can believe whatever you want, but throughout this thread you have amply demonstrated that you do not know what game balance actually is, nor do you care. As such, your opinions on any risk->reward ratios and whether anything needs fixing can be (and, as you yourself have quoted, have been) readily dismissed.
Thanks for continuing the ad hominem friend, it's really quite refreshing and typical. How about you look at the arguments instead and try to refute them.
You edited an argument in after I posted. An argument that has already been refuted, but one that you decide to keep spewing forth hoping that we will bite, though it's as stale as a decade-old loaf of bread.
PS: How can a reply be both typical and refreshing? Tsk. Try harder.
You had the opportunity to engage me in a discussion and comment on the specific points I made, and chose not to. You have even gone so far as to quote me multiple times, calling my arguments "outrageous," only to not comment on the validity of my examples with any substantive counterpoints, and instead call us dishonest because aeon was roped into the conversation.
It is not an ad hominem to call you inadequately experienced to engage in a discussion when you deliberately choose not to engage on a substantive level. That either means you are being a troll and doing it on purpose, or you lack the understanding to engage in higher level combat theory and application. I chose the more flattering option. Instead, you condescend, avoid the points being raised, call people dishonest and outrageous without any explanation, and write your own narrative as to why the admin removed choke and the intended design of Night.
Do we really need to talk about the hypocrisy of you complaining about "tearing people down instead of listening to their arguments," or do you need a minute to remember who you are talking to?
Mainly because you were doing the same to me, buddy.
My thing is; if you flag me, I'm going to flag you back. That's just how it goes. Pretty much everyone here knows it by now (except you, I guess?). Otherwise, I don't touch the things. I find them to be a bit silly.
Mainly because you were doing the same to me, buddy.
My thing is; if you flag me, I'm going to flag you back. That's just how it goes. Pretty much everyone here knows it by now (except you, I guess?). Otherwise, I don't touch the things. I find them to be a bit silly.
Obviously it's getting to you, though. Oh well!
Obviously it gets to you, if you flag me back automatically. :P
I'm not going to play this childish game with you, Xenthos. It's not worth my time.
Comments
What point are you trying to make here?
I saw someone complain about bonds costing shadows, lol.
lerad.Oldtarget = lerad.Target
lerad.Target = string.title(matches[2])
cecho("<red>Now Targetting: <yellow>" .. matches[2] .. "\n")
send("enemy " .. lerad.Oldtarget .. "")
if lerad.Fearaura == 1 then
send("unenemy " .. matches[2] .. "")
end
Switch lerad.Fearaura with whatever variable tracks staticfield in your system. Voila. "Static field saves more enemies than condemns them" lol
Hey look, I too can quote things I find outrageous and put a "lol" after it. Doesn't really mean anything, because no one can really say "oh, this is how to walk into a kill room with bonds and come out with a victory".
EDIT: I think Enyalida really hit it on the head: we want to nerf distort because it makes escape or movement too difficult, but a portable, strategically advantageous room distort is A-OK? In a game where single rooms (astral nodes, wild nodes, choke points, breakable meld rooms, domoth item rooms, kill rooms) dominate? Let's not kid ourselves with a distort =/= bonds argument, either. Let's not forget how bad scissorkick and tackle is at moving people, especially with summon resistance.
The basis of Night is, and I think everyone can agree, that it is a double-edged sword. That was the premise of Choke and Bonds. Because they could potentially harm the caster, they were given powerful (in my mind, too powerful) effects. The balancing of the skillset has been a slow and painful process, because smart people know how to game Choke and Bonds to their distinct advantage over the opposing team. Suddenly it's not so much a double edged sword as much as a giant sword with a blunt edge for the user and an extremely sharp and deadly edge for the receiving end.
It's easy to laugh it off as a "grass is greener" or "partisan" argument, or try to deflect it with a "zomg you have aeon, so powerful and holy it is" argument (I scoured the whole thread and didn't find anyone calling aeon bad -- such a dishonest derailing), but Bonds needs balancing. It's overpowered because it's meant to be this really risky move that could fuck you over as much as it could the other team, but it really isn't a risk at all to a group that knows how to use it. Therefore, the risk to reward ratio is skewed. Everyone in Glomdoring wants to cry about "oh no this is another attack on yet another of our skills", but there's a reason Choke was removed (and it wasn't the admin bending to whining or complaints). Bonds is just another one of those legacy skills you need to hand over, or nerf. It's really that simple.
Edit: Nevermind, spoiler tags failed.
Edit2: Okay, managed to get the spoiler tags fixed. Now you can actually skip the rant if you don't want to read it. God bless firefox.
[spoiler]
Implying that my 8 lines of code, which actually, literally addresses the concern that staticfield saves enemies, was a ridiculous one and "doesn't mean anything" is a clear sign of how little interest in actual discussion is actually in this thread.
I was the one who made aeon a big deal when Yarith implied that it had costs it didn't actually have. I pointed out the fallacy in that argument, and somehow, that was a "dishonest derail"? His statement about the actual availability of aeon across the game's orgs was also inaccurate, and somehow, I am the one who is "deflecting" for pointing it out? Sure, he could have just been mistaken. Fine. Maybe I was being a little too aggressive fine.
But you know what? Somewhere between being called a liar and a dodger, I've lost my patience.
Maligorn said:
...
The basis of Night is, and I think everyone can agree, that it is a double-edged sword. That was the premise of Choke and Bonds.
...
I don't know if you're trying to act like you're some big shot at being a psychic, or if you're just harboring fantasies about game design. Either way, you're pretty delusional.
The "basis" of Night is not that it is a double-edged sword. It just so happened that a few of the abilities in there turned out to be such, and the fact that they are double-edged have always factored into discussions of their balance. End of story. The "premise" of bonds wasn't to "potentially harm the caster". The premise was probably (I say this without surety, but with confidence) to simply prevent forced movement out of the room. That it turned out to affect everyone in the room, and also be immobile, could be a masterplan of whoever designed the ability (Maybe Estarra, maybe some random guy on the internet Estarra got to help her create the skills) or it could just be code limitations and/or a lazy programmer.
Making the argument that Night was designed to be a wrist cutting ability from the start is a gamble at best, and sheer delusional projection of your fantasies at worst. Save it.
The fact that bonds actually, factually, mechanically DOES affect the caster is... well, a fact. That is the mechanical "downside" to the ability. Whether it was intentional - see my above point. The fact remains that this downside exists. It cannot be circumvented by writing some code in your system. It cannot be changed by casting a different spell in the game (beyond clearing bonds - and therefore its "advantageous" effects). The arguments in this thread that I've put forth has always been about the (variable) effect of this downside - and how opponents fighting against bonds can use it to their advantage. I'm not going to rehash my arguments - you can read them again if you want, but if you were plugging your fingers in your ears yelling neener neener the first time, then don't bother - I doubt you'll have the self-consciousness to get anything new out of a second reading.
What I'll do instead is to simplify things and summarize them in another way.
Bonds forces opponents fighting against the bonds users to rush them. If your team is unwilling to rush because you don't feel like it, or don't want to, you literally forfeit the fight. If you're unable to rush because you are outnumbered beyond a chance of success, then the bonds team wins by default. This is acceptable in my arguments because bonds endangers the defending team's critical targets, and therefore gives the rushing team an advantage they otherwise would not have if bonds was not cast in the room.
From what I can discern reading your posts, this is unacceptable in your arguments because rushing is not "cost-effective" enough. What constitutes cost-effectiveness for you, I don't know. But what is apparent to me is that the cost of possibly dying is too much for your delicate sensibilities. Perhaps the answer is not to "hand over" or "nerf" bonds. But rather, to give you invincibility. Well, you can keep on with your delusions - all the power to you.[/spoiler]
When you can really explain what's so hard about shielding and double blocking (replicating the effect of bonds) which requires us to come into your room and do the same thing you claim isn't cost effective, then maybe we'll actually listen, but coming from the guy that supported a mana kill due to Halli's abundant mana drain, then adamantly opposed an ego kill because two mage terts and bards could reliably drain ego, your ideas of fairness and balance don't hold much weight.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
It's easy to "laugh it off" because it's true, in this case. You're ignoring everything you have to go after what your opponents have. You're being extraordinarily transparent, especially when you rage-ignore things like Lerad posting a tiny line of code that addresses your chief complaint / dismissal of the power of your own abilities. I'm impressed that Lerad actually has the desire to write lengthy responses explaining why you're full of carp (spelling intentional), while all I can do is eyeroll at what you write and go read something posted by someone who actually knows & cares about the game instead of just their own narrow slice of it. I just can't be bothered with any lengthier a diatribe than this.
Maybe a terribly naive idea, I just dislike seeing so much arguing using IC bias ('the north thinks this', 'the south does that') on an OOC forum.
Yeah. Somewhere along the line you have to acknowledge that people are just going to tear you down instead of actually listen to the argument you're presenting. GG South, I'm glad your ad hominem is still strong. (I expect better.)
I still perpetuate that the risk -> reward ratio to Bonds is way off, and needs fixing. I still perpetuate that rushing a bonds kill room is suicidal and not a "calculated risk".
Oh, and nobody addressed this either:
I think Enyalida really hit it on the head: we want to nerf distort because it makes escape or movement too difficult, but a portable, strategically advantageous room distort is A-OK? In a game where single rooms (astral nodes, wild nodes, choke points, breakable meld rooms, domoth item rooms, kill rooms) dominate? Let's not kid ourselves with a distort =/= bonds argument, either. Let's not forget how bad scissorkick and tackle is at moving people, especially with summon resistance.
Thanks for continuing the ad hominem friend, it's really quite refreshing and typical. How about you look at the arguments instead and try to refute them.
PS: How can a reply be both typical and refreshing? Tsk. Try harder.
And as you've pointed out to me, ad hominem isn't always a fallacy
Oh. I responded to the distort point BTW, just one other thing you've ignored.
Obviously it's getting to you, though. Oh well!
I'm not going to play this childish game with you, Xenthos. It's not worth my time.