report 108 - this may not be what we want

AeldraAeldra , using cake powered flight
edited June 2020 in Common Grounds
Hello everyone,

I wanted to draw attention to the decided resolution in report 108 to the issue of cement socks, specifically:


Resolution: We will increase the current resistance debuff to a larger reduction on each failed attempt, as well
as implement a system where celerity and rooting will affect each other. The more rooting you have,
the more your celerity will be reduced and vice versa



I kind of feel this is highly not what we want and it actually has very little to do with the actual report and the solution and I think it should possibly be drawn attention to. I'd ask for this to be reconsidered because:

1. there's a lot of artifacts, curios, beast powers, etc that mostly deal with celerity and a good deal of people have invested into having a high celerity (sandals of haste for example only buff celerity and price 400cr) or a high rooting or both. Having those two stats suddenly interlock with each other will severely nerf those investments.
2. The issue described has to do with the power of a singular artifact, not with rooting and celerity itself. I feel the first part of the solution addresses this and I have nothing against this.

I simply felt, after reading this, that tying rooting and celerity together will be really painful for a lot of people and I for one would consider wanting a refund on a few of my  items that specifically deal with celerity. I really can't picture swapping whole stacks of abilities and artifacts to get from celerity to rooting and vice versa.


Avatar / Picture done by the lovely Gurashi.

Comments

  • To add to this, a lot of celerity buffs are 'always on' (Base, wonderclock's time tattoo, curios, wonderboots, armour enhancement) and don't currently have ways to turn them off. A large part of their value is the 'always on' aspect.
    I agree that the first part of the solution would be probably enough to address the problem.
  • Agree with everything so far. I'd imagine they wanted to follow the Cement Socks design of bonus/malus with rooting/celerity, but I do not agree with the tradeoff.

    The rooting vs celerity seems to just pit artifacts directly against other artifacts you own. It certainly undermines all those celerity buffs, some of which are heavy credit investments (coal shoes, shanth boots, etc.). Beyond that, I just don't find it reasonable to make someone trade walking fast versus being hard to move be the solution to having such absurd amounts of rooting.

    Resolution: We will increase the current resistance debuff to a larger reduction on each failed attempt
    Add: increase debuff reset timer to 15 seconds (anything 10-20s seems fine here). It's currently at 5s, for reference, which is too low. Keeping the 40% minimum cap is probably fine as is.
    Optional Add: Rooting to bodyscan system as QOL, or add message when rooting resets.

    That should tidy it up pretty well, and Cement Socks special people can at least be somewhat countered without multiple people spamming nothing but movement abilities for multiple balances.
    image
  • Ayisdra said:
    To add to this, a lot of celerity buffs are 'always on' (Base, wonderclock's time tattoo, curios, wonderboots, armour enhancement) and don't currently have ways to turn them off. A large part of their value is the 'always on' aspect.
    I agree that the first part of the solution would be probably enough to address the problem.
    to add to what Ayisdra said, some of weighting/rooting isn't togglable, but even if it was who the hell wants to spend time toggling so much junk in-game.

    There's a point where you can make things a chore and things stop being fun. But, even more, there is I believe a point where you just make crap so frustrating that people don't want to play. 

    These are exactly the types of reports that never should have been approved.

    The admin haven't given the boundaries of when rooting should work and not work (i.e. some sort of design specs). Additionally, players aren't required to show a problem, all they have to do is handwave and make vague assertions in which we're stuck guessing because there are seldom actual examples.  Further, we as players can't know there's a problem without knowing how the effect is supposed to work.

    Problem: 
    Rooting can be stacked to levels so high where it's incredibly unlikely to be moved. Being able to move people is a counter and strategy to combat many different classes and abilities, so not being able to do is a problem. Just like when size 25 existed and it was nearly impossible to move someone, here we are once more. Specifically, the Cement Socks artifact is a major factor. It's limited availability and overtuned level of rooting make it a two-fold problem


    This is the claim. There's no metric from the devs here so no real way for any player to know what should be happening here. What we do know is that over time it has gotten easier to move people and not harder as the OP claims. Just like when size 25 existed and it was nearly impossible to move someone, here we are once more. 


       o Report 1696
         - Successful resisting to forced movements will give a temporary
       debuff toward the next attempt
         - The debuff will only last 5 seconds, but will reset if attempted
       again before it fades. Each consecutive attempt will double the debuff,
       but never below 40% resistance.
         - A successful forced movement rooting check will clear this debuff,
       even if something else stops the movement (walls, being in a pit, enemy
       territory etc).

                                                       
    >--------------------------[ Changelog Entry #1658 ]--------------------------<
       Entered by: Orael the Anomaly                   Date: 2019-03-16 13:59:07

       o The Featherweight Charm, Cement Socks and the Rune of Solid Mass will
       now take 30 seconds upon wearing or removing for the effect to become
       active or inactive.
    >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<

    This is not comparable at all to 25 size unless you don't believe you have to factor in the debuff.




  • edited June 2020
    Additionally, players aren't required to show a problem, all they have to do is handwave and make vague assertions in which we're stuck guessing because there are seldom actual examples.

    Good thing Orael knows the difference between handwaving and an actual problem, even if there are some disagreements in the solution/details. If you have been in fights watching what's actually happening for the past year (or longer, even), you'd understand how absolutely silly rooting has gotten. When the counter to many strategies is moving, having Cement Socks is more or less effective immunity to that. Even with the debuff it takes multiple attempts to reasonably get someone moved if you're in the same room, extra balances and time you don't have in those situations to counterplay. Even if you do, 5 seconds reset is so fast that the debuff in the grand scheme of real situations means little.

    If you are group vs group in adjacent locations as it often boils down to, not every pull method is 5 seconds or less, so one person can endlessly spam their pull method and fail essentially 100% of the time with enough rooting. Example, I've had chaindrag fail 40+ attempts in a row on someone with Cement Socks. Does that sound reasonable to you? Do you really think a few select people should have such high rooting and low risk of movement? 

    Further, we as players can't know there's a problem without knowing how the effect is supposed to work.

    Sure we can. Also it is known how rooting works, so why make such an odd claim?
    ---
    We agree on the toggle commentary and such though. I simply reject that your toggle/chore claims give credence or substantiate the claim These are exactly the types of reports that never should have been approved.
    image
  • TL/DR: I understand that this is a major change to how things have worked but I believe forcing choices and decisions is a good thing to move forward with and I don't necessarily think it's going to be as complicated or unfun as is being claimed.

    The major complaint here was that having top-tier rooting (especially with the socks) was too easy, made people impossible to move, and that there really wasn't any malus or cost associated with being able to stack rooting that high (ie, no reason not to max it out). We've made adjustments to this already (see Steingrim's quoted changelogs for some examples) and we are finding it is still a problem (and I do believe it is a problem, not a handwave).

    What I don't want to do is just continually keep nipping away at this, but instead give people a reason (and a choice) to not stack rooting in every situation. I want to make it more strategic decision making rather than just something where you can have your cake and eat it too. That leads to more interesting, nuanced combat. 

    And before it gets brought up - I understand that there are situations where it is a no-brainer to choose rooting over celerity. This is why we're also addressing the debuff period as well. I also believe there are situations where it is better to choose celerity over rooting and I absolutely believe there are situations where what you choose is going to have an effect and potentially change the outcome. 

    As far as difficulty in toggling it - I don't think it'll be that big of a deal in the long run.

    The way I'm intending to implement this is by having your rooting give you a cap on how much celerity you can have. (IE, max rooting = min celerity) in a way that you don't need to turn off/remove your celerity items to increase your rooting. This way, you can wear all your celerity items, no need to toggle them on/off, etc.

    Then, to deal with your rooting, we have the featherweight charm - 3000ag in the ASHOP. This negates all your rooting. So, the only toggle realistically needed is if you are wearing your charm or not. (and don't forget the 30s cooldown on wearing/removing before the change takes effect, something that's already in place to ensure your choice has an effect).

    So basically, it can be as easy or as complicated as you want it to be. If you want to go through and choose which rooting buffs to have on or off, then by all means, balance it the way you want to. If you want a simple on/off switch, you have that option as well.






  • Orael said:
    TL/DR: I understand that this is a major change to how things have worked but I believe forcing choices and decisions is a good thing to move forward with and I don't necessarily think it's going to be as complicated or unfun as is being claimed.

    The major complaint here was that having top-tier rooting (especially with the socks) was too easy, made people impossible to move, and that there really wasn't any malus or cost associated with being able to stack rooting that high (ie, no reason not to max it out). We've made adjustments to this already (see Steingrim's quoted changelogs for some examples) and we are finding it is still a problem (and I do believe it is a problem, not a handwave).

    What I don't want to do is just continually keep nipping away at this, but instead give people a reason (and a choice) to not stack rooting in every situation. I want to make it more strategic decision making rather than just something where you can have your cake and eat it too. That leads to more interesting, nuanced combat. 

    And before it gets brought up - I understand that there are situations where it is a no-brainer to choose rooting over celerity. This is why we're also addressing the debuff period as well. I also believe there are situations where it is better to choose celerity over rooting and I absolutely believe there are situations where what you choose is going to have an effect and potentially change the outcome. 

    As far as difficulty in toggling it - I don't think it'll be that big of a deal in the long run.

    The way I'm intending to implement this is by having your rooting give you a cap on how much celerity you can have. (IE, max rooting = min celerity) in a way that you don't need to turn off/remove your celerity items to increase your rooting. This way, you can wear all your celerity items, no need to toggle them on/off, etc.

    Then, to deal with your rooting, we have the featherweight charm - 3000ag in the ASHOP. This negates all your rooting. So, the only toggle realistically needed is if you are wearing your charm or not. (and don't forget the 30s cooldown on wearing/removing before the change takes effect, something that's already in place to ensure your choice has an effect).

    So basically, it can be as easy or as complicated as you want it to be. If you want to go through and choose which rooting buffs to have on or off, then by all means, balance it the way you want to. If you want a simple on/off switch, you have that option as well.
    This answer partly goes against what the stated solution is - that the more celerity have, the less your rooting works. So if I have 10 celerity, that might completely negate a decent part of rooting buffs, armor and highmagic are the ones that come to mind.
    Looking at a super basic rooting buffs - armor enhancement and High/low magic. The enhancement is is always on thing and the high/low magic is once you cast it (as the only way to get rid of it currently is death). So, these two basic rooting is going to hurt my celerity (most buffs of which are only 1-2), I might as well not use them at all as a casual person who sometimes shows up for pvp.
    I do not believe the idea of 'just buy this artifact and wait 30s' should be a solution dealing with 'always on' buffs that hurt you under new systems
  • Ayisdra said:
    Orael said:
    TL/DR: I understand that this is a major change to how things have worked but I believe forcing choices and decisions is a good thing to move forward with and I don't necessarily think it's going to be as complicated or unfun as is being claimed.

    The major complaint here was that having top-tier rooting (especially with the socks) was too easy, made people impossible to move, and that there really wasn't any malus or cost associated with being able to stack rooting that high (ie, no reason not to max it out). We've made adjustments to this already (see Steingrim's quoted changelogs for some examples) and we are finding it is still a problem (and I do believe it is a problem, not a handwave).

    What I don't want to do is just continually keep nipping away at this, but instead give people a reason (and a choice) to not stack rooting in every situation. I want to make it more strategic decision making rather than just something where you can have your cake and eat it too. That leads to more interesting, nuanced combat. 

    And before it gets brought up - I understand that there are situations where it is a no-brainer to choose rooting over celerity. This is why we're also addressing the debuff period as well. I also believe there are situations where it is better to choose celerity over rooting and I absolutely believe there are situations where what you choose is going to have an effect and potentially change the outcome. 

    As far as difficulty in toggling it - I don't think it'll be that big of a deal in the long run.

    The way I'm intending to implement this is by having your rooting give you a cap on how much celerity you can have. (IE, max rooting = min celerity) in a way that you don't need to turn off/remove your celerity items to increase your rooting. This way, you can wear all your celerity items, no need to toggle them on/off, etc.

    Then, to deal with your rooting, we have the featherweight charm - 3000ag in the ASHOP. This negates all your rooting. So, the only toggle realistically needed is if you are wearing your charm or not. (and don't forget the 30s cooldown on wearing/removing before the change takes effect, something that's already in place to ensure your choice has an effect).

    So basically, it can be as easy or as complicated as you want it to be. If you want to go through and choose which rooting buffs to have on or off, then by all means, balance it the way you want to. If you want a simple on/off switch, you have that option as well.
    This answer partly goes against what the stated solution is - that the more celerity have, the less your rooting works. So if I have 10 celerity, that might completely negate a decent part of rooting buffs, armor and highmagic are the ones that come to mind.
    Looking at a super basic rooting buffs - armor enhancement and High/low magic. The enhancement is is always on thing and the high/low magic is once you cast it (as the only way to get rid of it currently is death). So, these two basic rooting is going to hurt my celerity (most buffs of which are only 1-2), I might as well not use them at all as a casual person who sometimes shows up for pvp.
    I do not believe the idea of 'just buy this artifact and wait 30s' should be a solution dealing with 'always on' buffs that hurt you under new systems
    I'm telling you what the plan is to implement it. I'm the one implementing it. You can argue with me if you want, but what I've said is how I'm planning on doing it. 

    And the 'buy this artifact' isn't -the- solution, but it is -a- solution. As I said, you're free to make it as easy or hard as you want to, depending on what you want to get out of it. I don't feel that those who are investing heavily in both celerity and rooting artifacts will have a problem investing in a charm as it is.

    I don't know what the specific numbers will be, but the plan is to start small and scale larger as your rooting increases. Not a straight linear relationship.
  • If the basic abilities that increase your rooting will also be lowering celerity, you should definitely add a way for people to lower said defenses without killing themselves or buying an artifact.
    Take great care of yourselves and each other.
  • Or it could just... you know, scale? Like, until you reach 7 rooting/celerity, they don't interact, at 8 you lose 1 of the other, hit 10 you lose another 3 of the other,  hit 12 you lose another 3, and so on and so forth.
    I'm Lucidian. If I don't get pedantic every so often, I might explode.
  • AeldraAeldra , using cake powered flight
    Orael said:
    Then, to deal with your rooting, we have the featherweight charm - 3000ag in the ASHOP. This negates all your rooting. So, the only toggle realistically needed is if you are wearing your charm or not. (and don't forget the 30s cooldown on wearing/removing before the change takes effect, something that's already in place to ensure your choice has an effect).


    For me, this would be an acceptable solution, thank you. Still, I'd prefer a general 'ignore rooting' toggle to an artifact, maybe something somewhere higher up in one of the general skill trees? Would make it easier for people who don't have a lot of artifacts with them. Still, thank you for clarifying this, makes this sit a lot easier with me at least!
    Avatar / Picture done by the lovely Gurashi.
  • Might be worth a pass over (class) rooting effects to address if they need adjusting to compensate for rooting nerfs, especially if high rooting and celerity are both features in the same skillset/class kit and will be newly competing with each other.
  • I don't have a problem with the idea behind this change. A tradeoff is fair, but I don't think simply implementing it without reworking several artifacts and abilities will be a positively received adjustment. It's essentially creating a list of additional work for yourselves.

    For example:
    -Wonderboots. They increase your celerity and increase your rooting simultaneously.  Basically this (expensive) arti will cancel itself out.
    -Any abilities that give rooting but cannot be lowered manually will leave you in a situation where you have to turn off all of your rooting to increase your celerity (with an artifact to boot, which is kind of lame. I mean, I have one, but not everyone is an arti-pile).

    Making the featherweight charm the solution means you cannot have anything in between full rooting and no rooting whatsoever, which just simply doesn't seem like a very good design. All of these different abilities and items, and they just are tossed together only to be negated intentionally by your own artifact that you've donned to be able to actually move around.

    What if I'd like to have some rooting and some speed?

    Maybe there is an implementation that I'm failing to imagine, but with this drastic change to the functionality of rooting, a lot of the design behind artifacts and abilities will no longer really fit.

    Anyway, as I said before, I'm not against the change in principle. but I foresee some challenges with the implementation.

    One possible solution could be to allow the featherweight charm to be set to an amount of celerity. This will lower your rooting to the point that this celerity is allowed via the new system.  Some syntax would be added to adjust the celerity, which would again have a 30s delay until effectiveness. It would look something like:

    Set featherweight 1 -- Allows your maximum rooting to be in effect, and allows your celerity to be lowered to 1 (if your rooting is indeed that high).
    Set featherweight 10 -- lowers your rooting to the point that 10 celerity is possible. (If your celerity is indeed that high)
    And so forth.

    In addition I would suggest making all rooting abilities manually lowerable, for those that cannot afford the arti.
    Take great care of yourselves and each other.
  • KagatoKagato Auckland, New Zealand
    I agree that abilities like Malkuth in Highmagic need to be given an 'off' toggle if this is going to be implemented.  I tend to automatically raise defenses upon logging in.  With this change, if the weather happens to lower celerity further still and I decide I want to get rid of Malkuth to boost my walking speed a bit, the only options I have are to buy the 3000 goop featherweight charm, kill myself, or utilise the Spurs of the Traveller (again 2000 goop) with my pet to negate the weather malus.
    Never put passion before principle.  Even if you win, you lose.

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