That sounds like the affliction system in Lithmeria, which is actually very effective in handling group combat (meaning it's not a matter of 'focus fire on target and move on to next').
It'd be sort of like that, but instead of everything scaling directly off your affliction 'counters', it would used the tiered affliction stuff @Estarra already has: Once you have 20 points on you, you'd gain aff effect x! After 100, you'd have x3! And so on.
I am not certain if this is the place to make mention of this, but I had a suggestion and request I wish to make.
Is it possible with the overhauls that the wyrdenwood and wildewood concept be adjusted? I love the idea in itself but the problem with making players become walking trees is the envisioning of them with different aspects of the game. Example, with the crow and hart skills, how is a tree growing a beak or hooves? Also eating carrion and flying? Compared with other mechanics, how is a tree losing an ear to a Blademaster, or having their blood vessels burst?
I was wondering if it could be changed into more of a 'transform' mechanic, where players remain the race they are, but transform into their treekin form to utilize the other abilities. This is just off the top of my head but I'd love to hear other suggestions of others feel the same.
The -wood spec 'master' skill should be a transformative toggle that allows them to swap between forms. It should utilize a masquerade-type mechanic, where the player stores their alternate form's description in-game so that it automatically switches when they do.
Perhaps even them retaining aspects of their race when they transform. Such that one is a lucidian treekin or elfin treekin. This could add more substance to the concept of other mechanics having effects. I could picture it as the race becoming almost half a tree
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EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
More like Tolkien's ents are actually described, based on what I read.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
On the subject of all this, I would -love- to see some concept art for how wyrdenwood are supposed to look. Because frankly right now I just cannot tell.
On the subject of all this, I would -love- to see some concept art for how wyrdenwood are supposed to look. Because frankly right now I just cannot tell.
I personally find the -wood specs more attractive (in terms of fun and flavor) than the druids ones and would take them in a heartbeat. Just as I said, I can't picture the skills and mechanics meshing
On the subject of all this, I would -love- to see some concept art for how wyrdenwood are supposed to look. Because frankly right now I just cannot tell.
I've a sketch in my notebook but I'm too lazy to upload.
Viravain, Lady of the Thorns shouts, "And You would seize Me? Fool! I am the Glomdoring! I am the Wyrd, and beneath the cloak of Night, the shadows of the Silent stir!"
You know...now that I think about it, the -wood specs seem more like a Totem spec than a Druidry-type one. When you think about it, it is sort of as if the druid has choosen Tree as their totem spirit to worship, in place of Crow and Stag. :P.
This is taking a long time, I'd like to make a reference to a similar overhaul-like event in Aetolia and how it played out.
I
remember back when they were making an entirely new curing system in
Aetolia for undead players. It was a great idea but also a huge design and political
disaster. Players were trying to sneak in all sorts of fundamentally
unbalanced things, the system was partially playable within the arena,
everyone was arguing, it was impossible to please everyone, it was an ongoing disaster with no end in sight.
At one point I
suggested that they scrap the whole thing and just re-skin the existing
healing system, based upon herbs and salves, into an undead theme. It
would be easier to balance. They did that and it all worked out pretty
well, reanimation was
a lot of fun for everyone.
With that in mind, I would like to make a similar suggestion here. A
100% combat overhaul may never actually happen. It certainly won't please everyone. Lusternia's biggest flaw may be that it is, at times, too ambitious. Why not try to integrate the new system into the existing system, one class at a time with a transitional approach. Place
the new affliction levels system alongside the existing system, by having an affliction level increase when you give an original affliction and when you cure that original affliction, it also decreases the affliction level. So people play the same way, likely with the same systems (some systems would need a small modification), but they have a new thing to keep track of.
At first the affliction levels would not do anything in of themselves because that would mess with game balance, but they could ease people into the system by making them do things as classlead reports are done. For example, after people have had time to adjust their system to the inclusion of the affliction level messages, a classes' original affliction mechanic could be removed and replacing with something based upon the affliction level state. Eventually, many classlead reports later, the original stuff is gone entirely and replaced with affliction levels-based things.
The very old reanimation period in Aetolia is usually regarded as a complete failure. The only reason they "reskinned" it into a clone of the normal herbs-and-salves setup with an undead theme was because the prospect of liquidating and making useless the original reanimation cures was not one that was considered good business. Going from the "overhauled" reanimation to the "reskinned" reanimation was basically a retcon, with the admin all but openly admitting that introducing a new curing system was a mistake in the first place. I don't think it was a step toward completing the project: it was basically them giving it up.
I personally didn't agree with stopping all envoy reports to work on the overhaul, but well, resource management is Estarra's call. If he feels that it would be detrimental to put in an overhaul piecemeal while maintaining envoys, then I'd say he's got the right of it. Putting in an overhaul piecemeal will also only really work if there's a solid base and foundation of concepts and theories to work from. For example, we have been, and can, add new guilds at staggered times in the current system because even if the new guilds bring complication and new meta to the combat scene, it will not fundamentally change how cures, priorities, strategies work in Lusternian combat. Without such a basic foundation, where the flow, the feel and the concept of how combat should be applied, it is near to impossible to release things one-by-one.
The chance to return to a clean slate mechanically presents the biggest opportunity for real and satisfying resolution to problems Lusternians have been citing for years, including more variety of viable choice (no more 'master races') and strategy (all hail the grand hexenwump?), while reducing the most frustrating and backwards aspects of PvP and skill design.
At this point in the process, I don't see any of those things happening. As it stands now, both conceptually and in practice in the arena, the current iteration of the overhaul looks to exacerbate long standing Lusternian combat problems, while simplifying combat to a series of spammable 'best options', allowing even new combatants to quickly lock down opponents by spamming one or two aliases. This means that combat's prime strategy will be 'do not engage until you know you can win', because you're liable to get smashed to bits instantly otherwise. Already rare 1v1 battles will devolve to a match of "ye olde rokket tagge", while guilds will share a very small pool of afflictions, varying mostly in method of delivery.
It would even be worth it at this point to not utterly overhaul the entire system, but to go the aetolian route and overhaul each archetype one by one, using the same curing frameworks, but introducing new mechanical conceits for each archetype as things progress. While that wouldn't address some issues (like there possibly being too many curing balances in Lusternia), it would accomplish the same 'new game' feeling, with a lot more continutity with the old mechanics, a phased approach, and way more interesting and involving outcome.
Comments
Is it possible with the overhauls that the wyrdenwood and wildewood concept be adjusted? I love the idea in itself but the problem with making players become walking trees is the envisioning of them with different aspects of the game. Example, with the crow and hart skills, how is a tree growing a beak or hooves? Also eating carrion and flying? Compared with other mechanics, how is a tree losing an ear to a Blademaster, or having their blood vessels burst?
I was wondering if it could be changed into more of a 'transform' mechanic, where players remain the race they are, but transform into their treekin form to utilize the other abilities. This is just off the top of my head but I'd love to hear other suggestions of others feel the same.
I remember back when they were making an entirely new curing system in Aetolia for undead players. It was a great idea but also a huge design and political disaster. Players were trying to sneak in all sorts of fundamentally unbalanced things, the system was partially playable within the arena, everyone was arguing, it was impossible to please everyone, it was an ongoing disaster with no end in sight.
At one point I suggested that they scrap the whole thing and just re-skin the existing healing system, based upon herbs and salves, into an undead theme. It would be easier to balance. They did that and it all worked out pretty well, reanimation was a lot of fun for everyone.
With that in mind, I would like to make a similar suggestion here. A 100% combat overhaul may never actually happen. It certainly won't please everyone. Lusternia's biggest flaw may be that it is, at times, too ambitious. Why not try to integrate the new system into the existing system, one class at a time with a transitional approach. Place the new affliction levels system alongside the existing system, by having an affliction level increase when you give an original affliction and when you cure that original affliction, it also decreases the affliction level. So people play the same way, likely with the same systems (some systems would need a small modification), but they have a new thing to keep track of.
At first the affliction levels would not do anything in of themselves because that would mess with game balance, but they could ease people into the system by making them do things as classlead reports are done. For example, after people have had time to adjust their system to the inclusion of the affliction level messages, a classes' original affliction mechanic could be removed and replacing with something based upon the affliction level state. Eventually, many classlead reports later, the original stuff is gone entirely and replaced with affliction levels-based things.
I personally didn't agree with stopping all envoy reports to work on the overhaul, but well, resource management is Estarra's call. If he feels that it would be detrimental to put in an overhaul piecemeal while maintaining envoys, then I'd say he's got the right of it. Putting in an overhaul piecemeal will also only really work if there's a solid base and foundation of concepts and theories to work from. For example, we have been, and can, add new guilds at staggered times in the current system because even if the new guilds bring complication and new meta to the combat scene, it will not fundamentally change how cures, priorities, strategies work in Lusternian combat. Without such a basic foundation, where the flow, the feel and the concept of how combat should be applied, it is near to impossible to release things one-by-one.
The chance to return to a clean slate mechanically presents the biggest opportunity for real and satisfying resolution to problems Lusternians have been citing for years, including more variety of viable choice (no more 'master races') and strategy (all hail the grand hexenwump?), while reducing the most frustrating and backwards aspects of PvP and skill design.