Affliction Revamp

We are likely to soon revamp how some afflictions work. The goal is to make affliction class strategy more dynamic and to give afflictions that are little used more of a reason to be used. Basically, the logic is that certain afflictions react to each other, creating dangerous side effects. Below are what we are currently considering. There's a few more groups that may also be considered but below are the ones we think show the most promise. Please feel free to comment and make suggestions on these or other afflictions (note we are only looking at afflictions you get from hexes, runes, etc., not warrior/monk afflictions such as lacerations, broken jaws, furrowed brow, etc.).

Intestinal (worms, dysentery, vomiting, anorexia)

  • Worms + Vomiting: The damage from vomiting task is increased and causes bleeding.
  • Worms + Dysentery: The damage from dysentery task is increased and causes bleeding.
  • Vomiting + Dysentery: The vomiting and dysentery tasks cause balance loss.
  • Worms + Vomiting + Dysentery: Major damage, bleeding and balance loss, as well as immediately dropping target to starvation level. If target tries to eat before curing one of these ailments, immediately is afflicted with anorexia.
  • NOTE: The "vomiting blood" ailment is removed and wherever occurs is replaced by vomiting+worms.

Lungs (black lung, shortened breath, vapors, asthma)

  • Shortened Breath + Vapors/Black Lung:
    • Chance (50%) to drop unconscious on vapor/black lung tic (increases to 100% if both vapors and black lung) instead of blackout/balance loss.
    • Chance (25%) to receive asthma when trying to cure shortened breath, vapors or black lung (increases to 50% if both vapors and black lung). If you receive asthma instead of cure, no cure affected.

Phobic (agoraphobia, claustrophobia, fear, hypochondria, paranoia, shyness, vertigo, vestiphobia, omniphobia)

  • If 2 or more phobias, causes .5% drain of max ego per second per phobia (i.e., if you have 4 phobias, you’ll be drained 2% max ego per second until cured).
  • If 3 or more phobias, you will automatically be afflicted with omniphobia.
  • If 4 or more phobias, bromide potions will no longer heal ego.

Mental (confusion, dementia, hallucinations, impatience, masochism, recklessness, stupidity)

  • If 2 or more mental illnesses, causes .5% drain of max mana per second per mental illness (i.e., if you have 4 mental illnesses, you’ll be drained 2% max mana per second until cured).
  • If 3 or more mental illnesses, causes insanity, which increases exponentially based on number of mental afflictions.
  • If 4 or more mental illnesses, mana potions will no longer heal mana.

Disease (sun allergy?, pox, scabies, sickening, rigormortis)

  • If 2 or more diseases, chance that attempting to cure them results in health loss instead of the cure. Chance increases with number of diseases.
  • If 3 or more diseases, max health lowered by 10% per disease.
  • If 4 or more diseases, health potions no longer have any effect.

Nerves (clumsiness, deadening, dizziness, enfeeble, epilepsy, narcolepsy, sensitivity, trembling, weakness)

  • If 2 or more nervous ailments, movement speed is cut in half.
  • If 3 or more nervous ailments, physical movement is impossible.
  • If 4 or more nervous ailments, all wielded items become unwielded and wielding becomes impossible.

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Comments

  • How soon is soon?

    This is very significant... I'm not even sure where to start analyzing this.

    Need time to unexplode my brain.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    edited May 2013
    Uh. Wow. This would drastically change some curing priorities (as well as making things more complex, such as "you cannot try eating things now, including herb cures, or you will additionally be hit with the anorexia aff which will also have to be cured".

    Most of the lower level ones look pretty good to me as interactions. They make the afflictions more powerful without going into the "superbly strong" realm, but I am really wary about the top-tier effects listed here. Disabling health & mana, for example. Afflictions can be (and are) thrown on quite rapidly in group combat which is most of the combat we have these days, and it feels like this will be significantly overhauling that as well.
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  • Frankly, as a non-com, I think combat should become less complex, not moreso. This would make it a lot harder for people to get into combat without buying an entire curing system (and even then, it'll increase the difficulty).
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  • I can see this being extremely powerful for just about every class. Many of these afflictions can be granted via poisons as well, which makes this potentially insane. I worry about this causing power levels to skyrocket, but at the same time this will throw a massive wrench into the works and redefine combat on group and individual levels. I like the general concept, but I worry about just how well it will pan out.

    If at all possible, can we get extensive testing on a test server before this even has a chance of going live? Let envoys play around with it at least, if not everybody.

    Initial reaction: Hesitation and approval.
  • I like it, but it scares me. 
  • Alban said:
    I like it, but it scares me. 

    :)] :)) 8-X
  • KarlachKarlach God of Kittens.
    edited May 2013
    Looking at this quickly, the Southern Coalition would get insane increases to their already high bleeding, on targets with health pool maluses and unable to even cure healing, and not be able to sustain the mana to clot.

    Meaning if they don't bleed out, they'll get manakilled, because we're not short of those either. And if either of those fail, hello fast stacking insanity illuminate kills.

    Large scale group combat will result in ridiculously fast deaths, and the stacking affliction bonuses will be a huge overhaul to combat and curing priorities. Melders will drop like flies, along with other high priority targets.

    The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."

    You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!


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  • edited May 2013
    I really like the idea thematically.

    However, I really am concerned that combat is already fairly imbalanced.  I'm unhappy that the administration are taking steps that will destabilize it further.  I cannot fathom all of the potential consequences of these changes. Most likely this will create a huge headache for you to rebalance, OR if you don't spend a ton of time rebalancing (and do so very quickly), will leave us with some terribly overpowered classes.

    In conclusion:
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    Take great care of yourselves and each other.
  • I feel like this is way too huge to be done all at once, maybe try using the lowest tier affliction combinations only to start, and have them start affecting you at 3 afflictions.

    This is not so much a revamp as an entire rework of the current game balance.

  • UshaaraUshaara Schrödinger's Traitor
    I think for changes this large, it would also need to be accompanied with a reworking of group combat entirely.

    I'd much prefer afflictions be looked at on a case-by-case basis, and ones that are considered to be underwhelming to be buffed without adding things like negating movement/potions.
  • Since I haven't seen it mentioned here, I'll just toss this gem up:

    (Clan): Person1 says, "Illum hexen will do bad things to your face."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "No."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "You are wrong."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "Its nihilist hexens."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "They can autokill you in one attack."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "For 0p."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "For 2s balance."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "Worms + Vomiting + Dysentery: Major damage, bleeding and balance loss, as well as immediately dropping target to starvation level. If target tries to eat before curing one of these alments, immediately is afflicted with anorexia."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "They can do 2 with hexes and the third with their demon."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "And if recent damage bombs have been any indication, major damage means major damage."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "+ bleeding on top of htat."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "+ starvation on top of that."

    (Clan): Person2 says, "+ possible anorexia on top of that."


    If that's correct, then... yeah.
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  • edited May 2013
    Rivius said:

    (3) I'm not opposed to the changes proposed for worms + vomiting or worms + dysentry. These look okay to me. However, I don't see why we don't just go the simpler route and improve them on their own.


    I am pretty sure that a nihilist can do all 3 with a doublewhammy + demon tic. That is 2s and 2p for "major damage, bleeding, and immediate hunger".

    PS can you guess who person two is, I am kind of freaking out over here.
  • KarlachKarlach God of Kittens.
    Agreeing with most of Rivius' points, especially the last paragraph in it's entirety.


    Lusternia combat if anything needs to be less complex, not more.

    The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."

    You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!


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  • Can we maybe just look at the weaker afflictions individually? This seems a little drastic. I'm especially leery about the combined Mental stack effects, but really all of the combinations seem kinda over-reaching. And they don't solve the problem of the afflictions being undesirable, as much as make the good ones better.
  • Have to agree with Thul.
  • For some of the weaker afflictions you could buff them using this style (having new effects when stacking,) but only make it work if the afflictions were given by the same person.
  • And suddenly, group combat is no longer about knowing how to survive, but about having your group hit your target first while they have literally no chance to survive. :(
  • SilvanusSilvanus The Sparrowhawk
    Kio said:

    And suddenly, group combat is no longer about knowing how to survive, but about having your group hit your target first while they have literally no chance to survive. :(

    That's how it has always been.
    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.
  • Heh, let's not grandstand and say that things like "listen to us" as though speaking for everyone. Just speak on your own behalf. There's lots of opinions and considerations, and of course, we fully expected some people would be interested in this and some people who wouldn't be (as the above posts show!).

    FYI, we won't track afflictions by who gave it. That's really not doable.

    In any event, this process began when we were reviewing the Wyrdenwood report and really disliked how it was replacing all the wyrdenwood afflictions (with no consideration to the logic or rp of the skills) with every bleeding affliction known (including warrior bleeding afflictions!) because apparently people didn't like the current afflictions or feeling they weren't good enough or synergized enough. Thus, if we do this, probably our first foray would be the Internal set (worms-dysentery-vomiting) and we can see how that pans out. (So, no, we weren't planning on doing everything at once).

    Yes, simplifying combat is a good idea but I don't agree that this is necessarily making it more complicated. It is making the effects of ailments more powerful but not adding more ailments. (Frankly, I'd like to remove a lot of our afflictions which would help simplify combat--if someone wants to start a separate thread on that, feel free!)
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  • RiviusRivius Your resident wolf puppy
    You're better off just re-assessing how wyrdenwood is designed then. Even if you replaced all the afflictions as people suggested in those reports, you get a very poor class that won't stand well on its own. That's not to say that the afflictions being replaced don't need to be looked at.

    For example, pox is an affliction that tics every however many seconds and does so little h/m/e damage that no one notices it. Wouldn't it just be smarter to make it tic faster and do more damage? Little tweaks like that are far more acceptable at this stage of the game's development.
  • Look at the agrees underneath.
    Take great care of yourselves and each other.
  • Overkill, in more ways than one.

  • Ciaran said:
    Look at the agrees underneath.
    Look, you can take the position that everyone agrees with you and that you speak for everyone, but it's not going to move me or constructively add to the conversation. I'll review arguments (if there are any) on their own merits.
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  • I think this is a great idea but I also think it should be phased in and given a few tweaks.

    I think it is great that you came to us with the idea and I hope people will be equally generous in giving constructive feedback.

    Hunger is a non issue for affs if anything it will be flavour. There is no intentional strategic gain to come of it.

    Getting ideas here and working out the details in an envoy special report would be my suggestion.

    The move to make groups of affs have secondary effects is solid we just have to find the right place for them and keep them in balance. 

    Getting all the sources of these afflictions together and analyzing the secondary effects in combination with the 28 guilds in Lusternia will take some time. This is a good first step though.

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  • Estarra said:
    ...

    Yes, simplifying combat is a good idea but I don't agree that this is necessarily making it more complicated. It is making the effects of ailments more powerful but not adding more ailments. (Frankly, I'd like to remove a lot of our afflictions which would help simplify combat--if someone wants to start a separate thread on that, feel free!)
    I have to disagree there. There'd no longer be a clear and easy-to-understand "This affliction does that". Instead, it'd be "This affliction does that, but if you've also got this affliction or that affliction, it'd also do this, and if you have all three, you'd be hit with that". In addition, that kinda punishes fresh combatants far more than experienced ones, since they're the ones who have the hardest to keep up with afflictions. Especially since it's been pointed out (and not refuted in any way) that one guild can do all three intestinal afflictions at once (which would completely wreck novice combatants).
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  • This is a lot of stuff. I can't really speak to how good or bad any of it is, but there's a lot of it and it looks like each piece is pretty big. So, y'know, be careful. Fighting games taught me that it's really easy to make something horribly unbalanced.
  • SilvanusSilvanus The Sparrowhawk
    The weaker versions of the combinations of afflictions look decent, the ones that require only two afflictions, like the ego and mana loss.

    Otherwise they seem too strong.
    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.
  • So warriors get no love because they synergize well in group combat, in fact I think there's a report out on reducing wounding in group combat right now.  And now we want to add that level of synergy to affliction classes?  It doesn't make any sense to me ...
This discussion has been closed.