Is this actually an issue though, I mean you guys conveniently posted this...call for balance immediately after losing your domoth because of (what you perceive to be) this. It's pretty understandable that you guys don't have cooler heads at the moment.
I mean, I have my messiah complex, ego, and everything, but I feel like it was team GG that did most of the work. I just helped by being what amounts to a fancy webber.
I mentioned reality actually a few days ago to you over an ooc clan (after Celest had won a domoth battle incidentally), @Shuyin to which you flippantly remarked how you're no e-samurai and a lot of blah blah hufflepuff. You seem to have a really poor attitude about it in general or just bored with the argument but I'm sure this isn't the first time you've heard complaints about reality so .trying to reduce it to a rage-moment because of a lost domoth is pretty sad. As for Morbo's decision to make a forum post, it'd probably have been better for him to go through envoys.
Here's the thing, in this last domoth fight, the first time you came in, I scissorflipped, you guys got seperated, we killed people and eliminated your group.
We moved people one room away, you guys, as a whole, never recovered nor regrouped and all died. I think we can agree, that this was on you guys as a group, not on scissorflip.
Reality is much the same, albeit more rooms, that's the only difference really (well besides the whole astral/hitting allies too/staying for a bit thing).
@Malicia - if fearaura is so bad compared to other things, why are you using it? It's a pretty sweet ability, and it's effective, if it wasn't, I don't think you'd be using it.
Fearaura is passive, which is why I think it's better. It's not too hard to see it catch people on balance and fear them away. Yes it can be countered, but then so can reality.
Stopping the ramboreality isn't any different than stopping the jump in/gust out/method. Reality also can be resisted by summon resist and you can always just regroup!.
@Ciaran - if you got realitied into an enemy meld with the group, that's unlucky, the odds are you'll be in some random room away from the group, where the meld won't hit you.
So because I knocked apart your weak argument about fearaura being better than reality means that I believe fearaura sucks? It's a decent ability and it can be countered. I don't like to use it much because of lovepotion, but that's me. Reality as it stands has no counter. Scissor/fearaura move me a single room away. There's a difference.
Yeah, I'm no e-samurai, I'm not gonna stop using skills I have access to for the sake of fairness or fun.
In fact, I even wanted Sidd to shrine up during this domoth because I knew you guys would if we gave you the chance. Sidd's probably a better man than I when it comes to that.
And come on, you mean to say this isn't partly a rage post? Let's be real here.
By the way, the fear that you get knocked into an enemy meld is seriously getting blown out of proportion when enemy melds don't even tick unless you're in an adjacent room.
except it can be resisted, you can hinder/kill the reality guy before he can do it, stay shielded when he jumped in unless you are throwing a web or a stun. Several things you can do to 'counter' reality, just as you can 'counter' fearaura with walls, being off bal etc.
By the way, did you know that if you shield when I drop reality initially, it won't hit you. You don't actually have to instantly try to hit me the moment I walk into the room.
This means that if for some reason you think I'm invincible and will just run away if you try to hit me, you can always just shield and we can twiddle our thumbs as I'm not gonna risk losing 3s of eq to sulphur anyone. From there, you can try the hinder plan, which really is effect when you have web/stun/aeon -at the same time-..
We've been giving you guys legitimate ways of getting around this skill, we're not Ixioning you, what else do you want.
You think that trying to kill the person using reality hasn't come up? I guess that's how you counter any overpowered ability- just kill the person using it! Thanks Sidd. You've given us an answer to every single balance issue that may ever come up.
The threat about being flung into an enemy meld isn't that the meld kills you, that isn't even the threat when its effects are actually hitting you. The threat is that you are basically behind enemy lines, several or even many rooms away from safety, and the enemy group may reach you instantly. With a meld often comes a means to prevent you from just walking back to your own group, too (briarwalls, for instance). These problems get aggravated when the area is not a large square, but more of a bottleneck type area.
The threat about being flung into an enemy meld isn't that the meld kills you, that isn't even the threat when its effects are actually hitting you. The threat is that you are basically behind enemy lines, several or even many rooms away from safety, and the enemy group may reach you instantly. With a meld often comes a means to prevent you from just walking back to your own group, too (briarwalls, for instance). These problems get aggravated when the area is not a large square, but more of a bottleneck type area.
briars also affect everyone else (maybe not the druid that sticks them up, I don't remember) which means that they may not get to you instantly, and it's not hard to maneuver around enemy lines.
Reality doesn't knock you off balance or anything, so nothing's stopping you from instantly moving back to your group.
So fly, ignite the briar, call for an empress, port back, and so forth. These aren't inescapable death traps here.
This is getting pretty ridiculous, why are we mixing skills together now? If we're gonna start cherry picking skills together to form an inescapable death scenario, can I complain about how blackout + chestpain + stun + aeon + pfifth means I'm guaranteed to die? There are thousands of situations that do this, so I feel that it's unfair to voice complaints using this argument.
I feel like we're just going in circles here. No one has actually provided a situation where reality accomplishes anything more overpowered than what fearaura, rad, etc. can do.
If you guys are gonna complain about reality, only complain about reality, not reality + meld/pit/traps/people/kitchen sink/eventru.
Edit: You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you're going to complain about mixes of skills, then I'm afraid what's overpowered is group combat in general.
Reality has been envoyed before, with an extreme negative opinion about it. Nothing was changed. The gods have said specifically that without the support of an envoy with the skill, report is automatically denied.
What you are suggesting is that you see agree there is a balance issue, but won't work to address it because you'd have to work with me. This is exactly my argument of party lines and how the envoys has fallen from a group of individuals trying to promote the health of the game to being a group of people that are advocates for their class or alliances, not the game.
My point about Hallifax does detract from the reality point, but I'd rather see the flaws in the envoy system addressed rather than the flaws in reality. This was simply an example of the limitations of the envoy system that I am personally familiar with. However, this thread has become far more about reality and less about envoys so I will yield to that from this point on.
I do not think reality is the reason we lost that domoth, we were beat to the setup. My point is only that reality causes that forward momentum to continue because once you have a meld and shrine up, those 5 extra rooms it throws you turns into a gauntlet of traps, meld effects, loyal mobs all trying to kill you. This is without even putting in the human element.
I also feel there are not suitable counters to reality. It is instant, it is relatively low power, it hits everyone. If you own the meld however, it is significantly less intrusive to your members being warped, if you do not own the meld, you control the skill so can simply choose not to use it.
Further suggestions: Playing on the chaotic and transformative nature of Gaudiguch, Reality becomes a 5 power defense around the user. It ticks at random intervals of 15-30 seconds, and will fling a maximum of 4 enemies and 2 allies when it ticks.
Make reality work exactly as it does now, but have a setup time (in the style of octave) in which you can clearly see it being raised but you have that time to kill or move the person using it. This would limit the use of starleaper to avoid the downsides of the skills, and give well organized groups a chance at canceling i
I agree Morbo - let's nerf everything that lets you maintain forward momentum. Traps, shrines, and of course, melds. Why discriminate against reality (and thus Gaudiguch) only?
Another issue: Cast reality in an smob room. You've successfully defended that smob (assuming that the smob even needs defending.) Throwing out even a fifth of the enemy group ramps the smob damage up a lot, and any attempt to regroup (After someone goes in and scissors) will be automatically defended against with no additional input. Throw down realities in rooms adjacent to the smob for added bonus. Is there any other skill in the game with this sort of impact?
EDIT: And 'just regroup' tends to fall apart in the face of shrine distort/the best anti-regroup meld (pyromense). And people bitch(ed) heavily about pathtwist, which is mild in comparison. At the very least reality should not be working in any sort of distort (as pointed out multilaterally when the skill came out).
EDIT2: What is with this stigmatizing of any suggestion made after fighting a particular skill or combo? If a suggestion or report is made without facing it, it's labeled as theorycraft. If it's made after actually fighting it, it's just butthurt. Either way, you're doing nothing to actually address concerns made.
Reality is not any more overpowered at stopping smob raids than scissor/fearaura/etc/etc. It's not any more special in that regard.
And again, why are we mixing skills together, why not just say group combat is overpowered. If you're going to mention counters to regrouping under reality, it's equally fair to mention counters to those counters.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't aeonfield proc only enemies, IE it's affected by Lust? Why are we comparing these two?
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.
What you are suggesting is that you see agree there is a balance issue, but won't work to address it because you'd have to work with me. This is exactly my argument of party lines and how the envoys has fallen from a group of individuals trying to promote the health of the game to being a group of people that are advocates for their class or alliances, not the game.
Not exactly.
All that it means is that you have a very confrontational and abrasive post & play style which makes people not want to work with you, whether it be Hallifax or Envoy related. Your other thread about Envoys in general is a pretty good example of the situation (I mean, telling Envoys that they suck because they do not fight a lot is not exactly designed to make them happy to work with you).
Someone being turned off by you is not the same as party lines or disagreeing based on alliances / whatever you have. The person presenting the point also needs to be considered a reasonable, fair-minded and balance-concerned individual or it's tough to read anything that they write as being anything but an "omg, so unfair, I want a copy of the skill / my city is underpowered / give me things / nerf everything else" topic.
PS: I supported a change to Reality to make it stopped by distort. The Admin came back and told us that it is, by design, intended to bypass distortion. I do think that one would fix things up pretty well, it doesn't need a hammer so much as just needing a counter that is accessible (even if it takes time to set up).
I also would like to know how you guys can't just regroup especially in the era of nerfed gravity.
You can even fly to bypass traps if needed (not that GG has any trappers).
Furthermore, you guys keep downplaying the fact that reality does hit allies as well. In fact, a most recent occurence was when Sidd kept repeatedly getting booted into a Fog of Creation room and couldn't even rejoin the group properly. The ability hurting friends happens more often than you'd think.
On top of this, Reality + Starleaper isn't an invincible combo. Anything that stops me leaving (most notably, pfifth/pits) still stops it from firing. If for whatever reason you don't have access to either, just chase me down and kill me anyway.
P.S. Reality doesn't fire if I'm not in the area or dead.
I will personally account for it hitting allies. During Ascension, I kept getting thrown all over Astral.
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I'd take this seriously if it wasn't painfully partisan "so and so org I have to fight has this" style ranting from post number one. Addressing reality in a report or envoy discussion that doesn't start with "nerf it," might be your beat option. However, considering Hallifax just got a superbly powerful group splitter, and you've failed to address numerous researcher issues in the past (hi rubies), I'm not sure why I, as an envoy, should consider this anything more than a slanted argument.
As a note, just because you want something changed and the envoy's don't agree or cooperate doesn't default to you being right and the system being flawed. You are subject to the same limitations on perspective and opinion as everyone else.
@morbo yeah, i've personally approached you offering my help and advice with your work on your bard spec. Last I checked we aren't on the same side.
My report from this month has to do with making deafness tracking a little easier, something YOU brought up. Albeit a watered down version of your concerns and more focused on bardlettes but that conversation is why i'm envoying it.
My opinions of balance issues are not affected by who brought them up or how. Whether or not I want to sit down with someone to bounce ideas off of them and tinker with the language in the report is almost exclusively based on whether or not I want to spend time with them.
Frankly, I don't see us spending quality time in the near future. That's not envoy issue that is a human interaction issue.
I think you are suffering under some false impressions and misinformation which may be adding to your frustration. I would recommend a step back, talk to your friends try new tactics to dealing with this and then maybe bringing up again in a more constructive fashion if you still feel the same way.
I also would like to know how you guys can't just regroup especially in the era of nerfed gravity.
You can even fly to bypass traps if needed (not that GG has any trappers).
Furthermore, you guys keep downplaying the fact that reality does hit allies as well. In fact, a most recent occurence was when Sidd kept repeatedly getting booted into a Fog of Creation room and couldn't even rejoin the group properly. The ability hurting friends happens more often than you'd think.
On top of this, Reality + Starleaper isn't an invincible combo. Anything that stops me leaving (most notably, pfifth/pits) still stops it from firing. If for whatever reason you don't have access to either, just chase me down and kill me anyway.
P.S. Reality doesn't fire if I'm not in the area or dead.
Fast notes for how to change: - Check people in random order, for each person flung decrease the chance of flinging the next person. This reduces huge group breaks. - Prevent the skill in smob rooms, for the same reason every other skill was changed, 1 person should never be able to stop a smob raid.
Optionals: - Distort I would like to see penalize reality at least, admin keep disliking the idea of distort stopping reality. But in the world of combat and balance having a single exception skews things greatly. - Make it active only. Firing when you try to walk in is bad (I scissor and get to laugh as the regrouping fails miserably).
Note starleaper is not changed in any of this, but that would be a very specific instance to change, and does not seem fitting.
I like reality, personally. Thematically and usefully both. I would say that its balancing point is that it can move allies, but this point does not matter when you can walk into a group and cast it. This is similar to the issue with squall, but is far harder to stop. I see ways to stop it that arent used, but that is just me and I look for such things.
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
How is it harder to stop than squall? I imagine they have the exact same casting restrictions.
Reality has been envoyed before, with an extreme negative opinion about it. Nothing was changed. The gods have said specifically that without the support of an envoy with the skill, report is automatically denied.
I'm not sure who stated that but I do not believe it is true. If an envoy's report is for a guild not his or her own, then that is taken into consideration (not disallowed) and we look closely to see if this isn't an 'envoy war' or some sort of sour grapes maneuver. We then look at input from envoys with the skill. (If they don't have any comments, we take that to mean they may not have any objections.) However, if they do have strong and logical objections, we may look at any alternate suggestions they have in their comments. But even if they object, if there is a universal consensus among other envoys and we feel the report is addressing a needed change, we may make an adjustment.
In any event, there really isn't anything that "automatically denies" a report. There are factors that weight it one way or the other, but ultimately the determination of the admin on any report is the deciding factor (which overrides even a report that all envoys think should be implemented).
The thing about reality is not just the fact that it moves people. It's the fact that it moves multiple people across a potentially wide range across the area (and despite what it's apparently supposed to, moves multiple people extremely often and quite far). That's the distinction between it and other movement skills like squall and scissorflip. To judge how easy it is to regroup from it, remember that for scissorflip and squall, you just have to move back in one room. If you had a target set, everyone just moves back to that target and they can reasonably assume the rest of their group will have been thinking the same. Either that, or move back to the leader. Since you're one room apart, it's a pretty easy decision. But when everyone gets thrown to different corners of the map, it becomes a whole lot more unsure. When you've separated an entire group with your "an hero" maneuver while leaving your cohesive group behind, you've now got a bunch of confused people all over the map that you can quickly isolate and kill at will.
As a second point, I may get a lot of hate for saying this, but it not being 'feasible' to code out walled off rooms is simply not an acceptable answer to this problem. It's a real issue with the skill and needs to be dealt with somehow.
Comments
I'm done for tonight, bedtime.
briars also affect everyone else (maybe not the druid that sticks them up, I don't remember) which means that they may not get to you instantly, and it's not hard to maneuver around enemy lines.
Reality has been envoyed before, with an extreme negative opinion about it. Nothing was changed. The gods have said specifically that without the support of an envoy with the skill, report is automatically denied.
What you are suggesting is that you see agree there is a balance issue, but won't work to address it because you'd have to work with me. This is exactly my argument of party lines and how the envoys has fallen from a group of individuals trying to promote the health of the game to being a group of people that are advocates for their class or alliances, not the game.
My point about Hallifax does detract from the reality point, but I'd rather see the flaws in the envoy system addressed rather than the flaws in reality. This was simply an example of the limitations of the envoy system that I am personally familiar with. However, this thread has become far more about reality and less about envoys so I will yield to that from this point on.
I do not think reality is the reason we lost that domoth, we were beat to the setup. My point is only that reality causes that forward momentum to continue because once you have a meld and shrine up, those 5 extra rooms it throws you turns into a gauntlet of traps, meld effects, loyal mobs all trying to kill you. This is without even putting in the human element.
I also feel there are not suitable counters to reality. It is instant, it is relatively low power, it hits everyone. If you own the meld however, it is significantly less intrusive to your members being warped, if you do not own the meld, you control the skill so can simply choose not to use it.
Further suggestions: Playing on the chaotic and transformative nature of Gaudiguch, Reality becomes a 5 power defense around the user. It ticks at random intervals of 15-30 seconds, and will fling a maximum of 4 enemies and 2 allies when it ticks.
Make reality work exactly as it does now, but have a setup time (in the style of octave) in which you can clearly see it being raised but you have that time to kill or move the person using it. This would limit the use of starleaper to avoid the downsides of the skills, and give well organized groups a chance at canceling i
EDIT: And 'just regroup' tends to fall apart in the face of shrine distort/the best anti-regroup meld (pyromense). And people bitch(ed) heavily about pathtwist, which is mild in comparison. At the very least reality should not be working in any sort of distort (as pointed out multilaterally when the skill came out).
EDIT2: What is with this stigmatizing of any suggestion made after fighting a particular skill or combo? If a suggestion or report is made without facing it, it's labeled as theorycraft. If it's made after actually fighting it, it's just butthurt. Either way, you're doing nothing to actually address concerns made.
All that it means is that you have a very confrontational and abrasive post & play style which makes people not want to work with you, whether it be Hallifax or Envoy related. Your other thread about Envoys in general is a pretty good example of the situation (I mean, telling Envoys that they suck because they do not fight a lot is not exactly designed to make them happy to work with you).
Someone being turned off by you is not the same as party lines or disagreeing based on alliances / whatever you have. The person presenting the point also needs to be considered a reasonable, fair-minded and balance-concerned individual or it's tough to read anything that they write as being anything but an "omg, so unfair, I want a copy of the skill / my city is underpowered / give me things / nerf everything else" topic.
PS: I supported a change to Reality to make it stopped by distort. The Admin came back and told us that it is, by design, intended to bypass distortion. I do think that one would fix things up pretty well, it doesn't need a hammer so much as just needing a counter that is accessible (even if it takes time to set up).
I will personally account for it hitting allies. During Ascension, I kept getting thrown all over Astral.
As a note, just because you want something changed and the envoy's don't agree or cooperate doesn't default to you being right and the system being flawed. You are subject to the same limitations on perspective and opinion as everyone else.
Fast notes for how to change:
- Check people in random order, for each person flung decrease the chance of flinging the next person. This reduces huge group breaks.
- Prevent the skill in smob rooms, for the same reason every other skill was changed, 1 person should never be able to stop a smob raid.
Optionals:
- Distort I would like to see penalize reality at least, admin keep disliking the idea of distort stopping reality. But in the world of combat and balance having a single exception skews things greatly.
- Make it active only. Firing when you try to walk in is bad (I scissor and get to laugh as the regrouping fails miserably).
Note starleaper is not changed in any of this, but that would be a very specific instance to change, and does not seem fitting.
I like reality, personally. Thematically and usefully both. I would say that its balancing point is that it can move allies, but this point does not matter when you can walk into a group and cast it. This is similar to the issue with squall, but is far harder to stop. I see ways to stop it that arent used, but that is just me and I look for such things.
And distortion (even though gust isn't any more).
In any event, there really isn't anything that "automatically denies" a report. There are factors that weight it one way or the other, but ultimately the determination of the admin on any report is the deciding factor (which overrides even a report that all envoys think should be implemented).