Just because you can send commands that fail in other ways when you're not aeoned doesn't mean you don't need your priorities to be correct outside of aeon as well. If you curing is bad outside of aeon, you'll also die. If your aeon curing is bad, you'll die, what's the difference?
You people are acting like aeon means you have to have all this code. I think what you're really saying is m&m sucks at curing aeon with default settings, and you can't be bothered to make it good; whereas m&m works OK outside of aeon so it's fine...
Can I say it one more time? You need heaps of code to cure well regardless of aeon or not. Just because the code you already have works better outside of aeon doesn't mean it's harder to write aeon curing!!! (I find it to be easier in fact!)
Sap screws me more than Aeon ever has. I can also understand the sentiment of make combat easier to get into, but I would rather not see combat watered down to the point where we might as well just kick each other and see who gives up first.
Instead of you people having a genital-comparison match, why don't you start offering actual ways to refine curing?
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.
I don't use m&m so I don't know how to make it better, but it's pretty simple... When in aeon don't wait to regain balances, just check what affs, and go in order from:
wake up aeon cure (steam) cure asthma (dust) cure anorexia (slush)
cure damaged throat (ice to head)
if you can't manage any of those things try green/gedulah
Don't get caught without lit pipes, keep a few dust in your inventory and you'll get out of most aeons. If you have to outrift dust, relight, or refill a pipe under aeon you're just hurting yourself by not being prepared.
To Xenthos who says aeon is stronger now post overhaul... I disagree. You have to have a ton of affs stacked on you to stop from quickly smoking steam now.
edit: For clarification, starting from the top going down, do whichever is possible considering your affs. And notice that they're all on different balances so you can use focus with no downside.
I didn't read the whole log, and I could try to do it later, but I did notice that you were sipping a lot of health and eating coltsfoot when you could have cured aeon, and you were spamming diagnose a fair bit. In general, you really should only ever need to diagnose very rarely in combat, especially now that most hidden afflictions are grouped under fewer cures. I won't get into the argument about aeon as an affliction in general, but I will say that this log actually does demonstrate many missed opportunities to cure it.
Aeon curing in general demands that you be very careful. I recommend the above mentioned priority queue or some variant, and try to keep your aeon queue very narrow. Cure only what you need to survive. Make sure your aliases don't work under aeon, unless it's to add an action specifically into your aeon queue that you know will help save you.
The best way to set up m&m is to have slowcuring in general optimized for aeon curing. Aeon is far more common than sap. I'll be the first to admit that m&m's prios out of the box try deal with both in general and haven't taken into account the balance switches of certain afflictions etc.
(As an aside - redoing the default prios may be a good project for someone that's interested in helping with m&m development now that it's open source)
When you do get sapped, you can actually use events(m&m got aff) to import a new set of slowcuring prios that is more optimized for sap and upon curing sap(m&m lost aff), reimport your original aeon optimized prios.
While I haven't done this myself (yet) I could see having multiple ice prios that are imported depending on what warrior spec you are fighting as well, to optimize your wound curing even more, could even do the same for parrying as well.
Learning how your system works and making it work for you is definitely one of the hallmarks of being a top-tier fighter. That's one of the reasons I really like m&m is because it's extremely configurable, scriptable and adjustable, people can adjust it to their needs.
M&M has fully customizable aeon curing, but the default is pretty bad.
I think the disparity is evident in how people talk about how easy aeon is to deal with. Aeon in solo combo or with very small numbers (1 or 2) aeoners present with only active aeon, yes aeon is pretty easy to deal with. These are also situations where a 3 second immunity and auto quicksilver defense will have minimal impact. I don't have any issue challenging a solo aeoner (I have an issue challenging a solo sapper, but that's a different animal).
I understand you don't deal with it as often because you face primarily Glomdoring who has extremely limited aeon, a gutted Nihilist class, the forever dormant Cacophony, and Synkarin, but try to have some perspective here. Instead of calling other players partisan, consider they are seeing that you are not.
You don't want to nerf your core mechanic? Great! We don't want to play "watch your system cure." Also Great! There's probably a mechanical compromise somewhere that doesn't include being assholes to eachother.
Do we really believe aeon, in the context of the game, has not changed? Let's consider...
>Researchers, Illuminati, Symphonium, Minstrels and (less relevant) sentinels were added to the game.
>Classes with the ability to give afflictions to prevent aeon curing as class skills rather than tertiaries were added (researchers).
>Passive aeon became a class specific skill, where as previously it was limited to a single player in the entire game. The MD champion who owned Patchou. You could also kill Patchou.
>The overhaul reduced the penalty of aeonfield at the same time where mana drains universally became less effective (the flat portion of every drain now represents a smaller percentage).
>Trash afflictions were removed, increasing the chance that passives (such as the ones researchers and Illuminati give) will give afflictions that will make aeon more difficult to cure such as stupidity, or paranoia which can cause demesne stuns, etc etc.
>Focus mind was removed, removing the ability to cure afflictions of the same type simultaneously.
>Hexes was buffed to add twice the number of available hexes (hexaura and hexenpalm).
>City bards were introduced with tarot.
>Two bard classes were given class specific aeon (Syphonium and Cantors).
>Aeon that bypasses quicksilver was given to 3(?) classes. Shadowdancers (in very limited access), Syphonium, and Cantors.
>Healers who have aeon became a thing.
>A class was added with aeon resistance.
This is not a comprehensive list, by any means. These are just some of the major changes that have changed the games relationship with aeon as an affliction. For the sake of fairness and no one screaming "OMG YOU'RE OUT TO GET US" again, some things have changed such as the removal of throatlock, but these are far fewer in number and significantly more isolated.
These are the facts of aeon, this is the truth, not some nonsensical argument about "being the dominant melder."
Does the change disproportionately affect the North? Sure, there's no argument there. Aeon has always been more prominent in Seren than Glom and in Hallifax than Gaudi. As a result, you've also disproportionately benefited from aeon. Sometimes, however, saturation uncovers new problems and the game is not the same game it was 8 years ago when aeon was far more limited and as a result, considered much less of a threat. The scariest source of aeon 7 or 8 years ago was a tarot Nihilist who could only soft lock you with a timed demon.
Unfortunately, that stopped being the reality of the game several years ago, and until the other side of the game is willing to accept this reality, that they have disproportionately benefited from the ever growing sources of a specific crippling affliction, and the ease of which that affliction can be maintained or reapplied, we just aren't going to have an honest and fair discussion or make progress on the issue.
When issues become prevalent, they are addressed. See: dreamweaver blackout spam that eventually directly lead to blackout immunity. KD spam that lead to stun immunity and ultimately stun being removed from KD. NSB, crucify, inquisition, barrier/stonewalls, choke, whatever. Pick your poison. Move past the "you aren't allowed to change our skills," and look at the larger picture.
Another good practice for sap curing is to have a defense mode specifically for sap to switch into when sap is detected, to manage defense keepups in sap. You also want to change your sipping prios and behavior in sap. It would be useful if m&m had some native configurable capacity to do these things automatically, but it doesn't.
The one great thing that aeon/sap does for the game that I think @Lerad was alluding to is that it creates a scenario where the four otherwise almost totally independent and choice-free curing balances go into competition with each other and force the victim to make choices (which yes, are offloaded onto system configs etc.). That means that theoretically, the aggressor can make reactive choices to the victim's choices and can engineer situations to force tough choices and capitalize on them. That's a really important thing in a combat system where choices are moving more and more to metacombat strategies related to placement and movement, it just doesn't practically work that way anymore for a lot of reasons. When looking at what might replace aeon/sap, that concept of tying together curing balances and forcing roughly equivalent tactical choices looks like the way to go.
Another good practice for sap curing is to have a defense mode specifically for sap to switch into when sap is detected, to manage defense keepups in sap. You also want to change your sipping prios and behavior in sap. It would be useful if m&m had some native configurable capacity to do these things automatically, but it doesn't.
I don't know why you think it doesn't have this, but it certainly does have the 'native configurable capacity' to do this automatically. You just need to tie to the 'm&m got aff' and 'm&m lost aff' events to perform whatever changes you want to make that are specific to sap.
(I'm not sure what defense keepups you want in sap, your goal should be to cure sap, keeping up defs is wasting time you could be spending curing, but maybe Enyalida will elaborate on that)
I mean that if you take m&m out of the box, there is no MMCONFIG for it, and there isn't a separate curing queue for aeon versus sap even though best practices for each are different. To do that stuff, you need to add code/modules yourself.
That's my point, yeah - you don't want many keepups that you might have in your regular curing profile. So, it can be helpful to have a cleaner mode (that isn't the 'empty' mode) to manage the different behaviors you want in sap. There certainly are a few defenses you want to keepup, but plenty that aren't worth it at all. For instance, kafe is not really a useful defense once you are sapped if you have metawake upkept and toggle it back on successfully. It's really hard at that point for a druid to take down your metawake, as you can interrupt the command, and the time to wake with kafe will be longer than the metawake time - and you sending that wake command interrupts your previous command that can still go through because of metawake waking you.
Coming from a place that I feel as far, far better combat balance (Achaea, where there's an admin who knows the ins and outs of every class and deals specifically with combat balance), the amount of aeon here is staggering.
It seems like the core mechanic of Hallifax isn't aeon, but timewarp. If the city's core mechanic relies so heavily on aeon, a change should be made to reduce this reliance in an attempt to open an avenue to improve the true core mechanic. Just my two cents.
Another good practice for sap curing is to have a defense mode specifically for sap to switch into when sap is detected, to manage defense keepups in sap. You also want to change your sipping prios and behavior in sap. It would be useful if m&m had some native configurable capacity to do these things automatically, but it doesn't.
I don't know why you think it doesn't have this, but it certainly does have the 'native configurable capacity' to do this automatically. You just need to tie to the 'm&m got aff' and 'm&m lost aff' events to perform whatever changes you want to make that are specific to sap.
(I'm not sure what defense keepups you want in sap, your goal should be to cure sap, keeping up defs is wasting time you could be spending curing, but maybe Enyalida will elaborate on that)
Do you just use the mm importprio command for this? I have been trying
to figure out how to do an aeon and sap priority system for a while now,
but was not sure on the mechanics of how to swap out the lists.
You don't need a different defmode to accomplish that, you just need those prios pushed to the bottom so curing always takes priority. Even if you wanted to set it up, it's easy to configure keepup like that.
Adding in functionality and a config option to auto import sap prios (as well as updating default prios) sounds like another good project for someone!
Another good practice for sap curing is to have a defense mode specifically for sap to switch into when sap is detected, to manage defense keepups in sap. You also want to change your sipping prios and behavior in sap. It would be useful if m&m had some native configurable capacity to do these things automatically, but it doesn't.
I don't know why you think it doesn't have this, but it certainly does have the 'native configurable capacity' to do this automatically. You just need to tie to the 'm&m got aff' and 'm&m lost aff' events to perform whatever changes you want to make that are specific to sap.
(I'm not sure what defense keepups you want in sap, your goal should be to cure sap, keeping up defs is wasting time you could be spending curing, but maybe Enyalida will elaborate on that)
Do you just use the mm importprio command for this? I have been trying
to figure out how to do an aeon and sap priority system for a while now,
but was not sure on the mechanics of how to swap out the lists.
I'll have to look it up, but basically you use the function the alias calls. I'll look it up when I get home.
By warping time around another, they will suffer from a longer delay in
quicksilver speed defence and take longer to concentrate on equilibrium
if it is disrupted. You can stack multiple timewarps around a victim to
achieve a cumulative effect.
Quicksilver protects against aeon, and I do not believe we have any proper eq disruption besides shockstone in Institute, and I can't think of any warrior ones right now (though I am drinking heavily as I write this). Timewarp as a core mechanic is flavourful, but in reality it does not do as much for us as we would like to outside of supporting aeon. I would very much like to change this, but I cannot find anything that it synergises with in Hallifax other than aeon, which is what it already does. If you have ideas, I'd love to hear them (not being facetious).
In long sap fights with druids you can spend enormous amounts of time just waiting for writhe to go through. I eventually gave in and threw in auto metawake and insomnia in my sap queue since sometimes I'd have seconds to spare not curing anything necessary. Sometimes. Might be less necessary with the coming DW and hopeful metawake changes though.
Achaea and Imperian both have far more balanced combat mechanics than Lusternia. Achaea dealt with Aeon with a pretty comprehensive serverside curing + limited aeon access. Imperian went a whole new direction and gave a new function to aeon (basically, Imperian aeon 'stores' damage for a set amount of time and then unleashes all of that stored damage at the end of aeon).
Lusternia has done neither. It has kept on adding Aeon accessibility (Tarot which all city bards and guardian guilds can take, researchers, moondancers, shadowdancers). Further more, these classes (researcher in particular) are highly reliant on aeon to reach their kill condition (need aeon to build timewarp for timequake). If anyone has suggestions to bridge this gap once aeon goes, please, do tell. As it is, it's just 'remove aeon, who cares what happens after' is not an appealing plan, especially when the prevalence of aeon in the North is counteracted by the prevalence of other synergies of the south (mana draining of Glomdoring, fire damage of Gaudiguch).
Pretty sure it's just a matter of two guilds in Gaudi doing the same damage type (minstrels and pyromancers). Which, incidentally, holds true for every org.
I would like to note that this immunity period, while annoying to deal with on our end, is nowhere near the extreme of 'OMG DELETE AEON' that we've gotten in the past, and it's a good working point.
By warping time around another, they will suffer from a longer delay in
quicksilver speed defence and take longer to concentrate on equilibrium
if it is disrupted. You can stack multiple timewarps around a victim to
achieve a cumulative effect.
Quicksilver protects against aeon, and I do not believe we have any proper eq disruption besides shockstone in Institute, and I can't think of any warrior ones right now (though I am drinking heavily as I write this). Timewarp as a core mechanic is flavourful, but in reality it does not do as much for us as we would like to outside of supporting aeon. I would very much like to change this, but I cannot find anything that it synergises with in Hallifax other than aeon, which is what it already does. If you have ideas, I'd love to hear them (not being facetious).
From my understanding, timewarp is an affliction. The timewarp skill only increases its levels. This is my base assumption. If this is wrong, correct me.
if building timewarp without aeon is not possible, then aeon quickly becomes the centralized theme. To buff timewarp (by giving Hallifaxian guilds alterantize build routes, more afflictions that help cover timewarp to require focusing [which will waste beast balance, cost power, or extend curing times, all of which open up various routes to capitalize on your target's choices], or a change in the mechanics of timewarp as an affliction), aeon must first be changed.
When balancing combat, it is far more acceptable to succumb to a nerf before a buff. This is simply how balance must work. Since aeon itself is already incredibly strong (due to its mechanics [which no one is asking to change - aeon should be left alone as it stands), prevalent in a wide variety of guilds (mostly those in Hallifax), and easily spammable (because there is not aeon immunity), any buffs to other areas (the timewarp affliction and how it can be stacked) are also a buff to aeon. Aeon does not need buffed. Therefore, a change in the way aeon is handled must come first.
As for group combat, no one should be able to spam a skill and shut down an opponent's ability to escape, cure, and fight back all at the same time. An immunity period after a successful aeon would hamper group combat only to the extent that spamming it is no longer an option. It does not detract from aeon's power. What it does is force people to use aeon more tactfully by properly assigning people new roles: classifying personal responsibility to giving the affliction and prolonging the affliction. An example would be to have a researcher afflict aeon while a cavalier sits on balance to PunctureLung with Chansu while using beast amnesia. In this example, two people are capitalizing on aeon in a way that is more mechanically sound and requires a reasonable effort.
Achaea and Imperian both have far more balanced combat mechanics than Lusternia. Achaea dealt with Aeon with a pretty comprehensive serverside curing + limited aeon access. Imperian went a whole new direction and gave a new function to aeon (basically, Imperian aeon 'stores' damage for a set amount of time and then unleashes all of that stored damage at the end of aeon).
Lusternia has done neither. It has kept on adding Aeon accessibility (Tarot which all city bards and guardian guilds can take, researchers, moondancers, shadowdancers). Further more, these classes (researcher in particular) are highly reliant on aeon to reach their kill condition (need aeon to build timewarp for timequake). If anyone has suggestions to bridge this gap once aeon goes, please, do tell. As it is, it's just 'remove aeon, who cares what happens after' is not an appealing plan, especially when the prevalence of aeon in the North is counteracted by the prevalence of other synergies of the south (mana draining of Glomdoring, fire damage of Gaudiguch).
This is the wrong way to approach the situation. You are not entitled to the immediate gratification of a nerf to aeon (which brings it in line to other similar afflictions) while simultaneously receiving a buff to other areas. That's simply not how balance works. However, using the envoy system for both change and communication to work on two separate, appropriate, and dependent changes is a valid option. If your envoys are not willing to do this, then they should be replaced.
The envoy system is not a place to grandstand. It is not a place to plant your feet against all opposition and refuse to see change without compensation. It was not a place for this when I was an envoy back in the day, nor should it be now.
The burden is not on me, or anyone else on the forums, to come up with a way to buff Hallifixan mechanics. Aeon is available to every organization, and therefore bringing it in line with other shut-down mechanics is a macro, meta game change. It is a change that affects everyone, not just Hallifaxian guilds. The inability to recognize this (particularly the apparent "Gaudi hates us so fuck them" mindset that seems to be thrown around) is juvenile and mechanically shortsighted.
I, frankly, don't have a dog in these partisan fights. I don't care who belongs to what faction; I am simply replying to those views that have been expressed in this thread and others. I barely know any of you.
I think the point that's getting skipped over here that's relevant is what Falmiis said: once we count groups, there are so many kill strategies that are basically unstoppable. What I see are a bunch of gaudis trying to nerf hallis #1 tool.
Similarly, in groups I see people spamming damage over and over again. Death is like complete command denial. There should be damage immunity for 1s after every attack because sometimes I die.
Gosh, I missed this!
Mechanics that have been nerfed as a direct result of group concerns:
Inquisition
Sacrifice
Choke
Nightshadeblues
Double haegl
Wolf totem
Warrior stacking
Burns/wounds
If you think something is too strong, envoy it. That is what an envoy is supposed to do. I think out of these, only choke was given a replacement? The others were just flat nerfs. You aren't being targeted, you aren't being treated any differently than (in order) Celest, Magnagora, Glomdoring, Glomdoring again, Glomdoring again, forests, all orgs, and Gaudiguch. Welcome!
Eh, I don't know who this person is, and as far as I can tell he is basing his understanding of combat balance on reading the forums.
With you and Lerad writing novels from your perspective, it's no shock to me what conclusions he's drawing.
I, too, do not know who you are. However, is my understanding not correct? I do not mind that you question my credibility. However, doing only do without explaining why my view is incorrect is nothing more than ad hominem.
I would love to continue the discussion of game mechanics, but I feel as though you do not.
Comments
wake up
aeon cure (steam)
cure asthma (dust)
cure anorexia (slush)
Don't get caught without lit pipes, keep a few dust in your inventory and you'll get out of most aeons. If you have to outrift dust, relight, or refill a pipe under aeon you're just hurting yourself by not being prepared.
edit: For clarification, starting from the top going down, do whichever is possible considering your affs. And notice that they're all on different balances so you can use focus with no downside.
*bowdown*
Do we really believe aeon, in the context of the game, has not changed? Let's consider...
The one great thing that aeon/sap does for the game that I think @Lerad was alluding to is that it creates a scenario where the four otherwise almost totally independent and choice-free curing balances go into competition with each other and force the victim to make choices (which yes, are offloaded onto system configs etc.). That means that theoretically, the aggressor can make reactive choices to the victim's choices and can engineer situations to force tough choices and capitalize on them. That's a really important thing in a combat system where choices are moving more and more to metacombat strategies related to placement and movement, it just doesn't practically work that way anymore for a lot of reasons. When looking at what might replace aeon/sap, that concept of tying together curing balances and forcing roughly equivalent tactical choices looks like the way to go.
I don't know why you think it doesn't have this, but it certainly does have the 'native configurable capacity' to do this automatically. You just need to tie to the 'm&m got aff' and 'm&m lost aff' events to perform whatever changes you want to make that are specific to sap.
That's my point, yeah - you don't want many keepups that you might have in your regular curing profile. So, it can be helpful to have a cleaner mode (that isn't the 'empty' mode) to manage the different behaviors you want in sap. There certainly are a few defenses you want to keepup, but plenty that aren't worth it at all. For instance, kafe is not really a useful defense once you are sapped if you have metawake upkept and toggle it back on successfully. It's really hard at that point for a druid to take down your metawake, as you can interrupt the command, and the time to wake with kafe will be longer than the metawake time - and you sending that wake command interrupts your previous command that can still go through because of metawake waking you.
Do you just use the mm importprio command for this? I have been trying to figure out how to do an aeon and sap priority system for a while now, but was not sure on the mechanics of how to swap out the lists.
I'll have to look it up, but basically you use the function the alias calls. I'll look it up when I get home.
Ixion tells you, "// I don't think anyone else had a clue, amazing form."
Ixion tells you, "// I don't think anyone else had a clue, amazing form."
They're more balanced, not balanced completely. There are rock-paper-scissors match ups that can only be overcome by capitalizing on mistakes.
From my understanding, timewarp is an affliction. The timewarp skill only increases its levels. This is my base assumption. If this is wrong, correct me. if building timewarp without aeon is not possible, then aeon quickly becomes the centralized theme. To buff timewarp (by giving Hallifaxian guilds alterantize build routes, more afflictions that help cover timewarp to require focusing [which will waste beast balance, cost power, or extend curing times, all of which open up various routes to capitalize on your target's choices], or a change in the mechanics of timewarp as an affliction), aeon must first be changed. When balancing combat, it is far more acceptable to succumb to a nerf before a buff. This is simply how balance must work. Since aeon itself is already incredibly strong (due to its mechanics [which no one is asking to change - aeon should be left alone as it stands), prevalent in a wide variety of guilds (mostly those in Hallifax), and easily spammable (because there is not aeon immunity), any buffs to other areas (the timewarp affliction and how it can be stacked) are also a buff to aeon. Aeon does not need buffed. Therefore, a change in the way aeon is handled must come first. As for group combat, no one should be able to spam a skill and shut down an opponent's ability to escape, cure, and fight back all at the same time. An immunity period after a successful aeon would hamper group combat only to the extent that spamming it is no longer an option. It does not detract from aeon's power. What it does is force people to use aeon more tactfully by properly assigning people new roles: classifying personal responsibility to giving the affliction and prolonging the affliction. An example would be to have a researcher afflict aeon while a cavalier sits on balance to PunctureLung with Chansu while using beast amnesia. In this example, two people are capitalizing on aeon in a way that is more mechanically sound and requires a reasonable effort.
This is the wrong way to approach the situation. You are not entitled to the immediate gratification of a nerf to aeon (which brings it in line to other similar afflictions) while simultaneously receiving a buff to other areas. That's simply not how balance works. However, using the envoy system for both change and communication to work on two separate, appropriate, and dependent changes is a valid option. If your envoys are not willing to do this, then they should be replaced. The envoy system is not a place to grandstand. It is not a place to plant your feet against all opposition and refuse to see change without compensation. It was not a place for this when I was an envoy back in the day, nor should it be now. The burden is not on me, or anyone else on the forums, to come up with a way to buff Hallifixan mechanics. Aeon is available to every organization, and therefore bringing it in line with other shut-down mechanics is a macro, meta game change. It is a change that affects everyone, not just Hallifaxian guilds. The inability to recognize this (particularly the apparent "Gaudi hates us so fuck them" mindset that seems to be thrown around) is juvenile and mechanically shortsighted. I, frankly, don't have a dog in these partisan fights. I don't care who belongs to what faction; I am simply replying to those views that have been expressed in this thread and others. I barely know any of you.
I, too, do not know who you are. However, is my understanding not correct? I do not mind that you question my credibility. However, doing only do without explaining why my view is incorrect is nothing more than ad hominem. I would love to continue the discussion of game mechanics, but I feel as though you do not.