Discussion: Quasi-Breakthrough and Art Degradation as of the Recent Patch

[Shoury]

UL Community:

With the latest patch came a plethora of changes. As change is inevitable, it brings to light new direction, strategy, roleplay potential, and additional trinkets to make the most of this sandbox known as Underlight. This post is not a rant, however, it is to serve as a catalyst for discussion. I'm genuinely interested in input from the community, and am excited about additional testing IG.

Here are my thoughts and questions.

Thoughts

* I never liked the "set it and forget it" mentality with alts. When Abjure wasn't an issue, it really didn't add interesting gameplay at all. It became a brainless set of actions to have a chance outside of sanctuary.

* This will increase the ceiling of skill in combat. You must be constantly aware of offensive arts chipping away at your protectives, and be ready to art up again manually or tap alts to stay topped off.

* Fights tend to last too long, especially where "chain chugging DrS" is prevalent. As a result, this should make fights last shorter. Instead of fighting for "fighting sake", this will make combat more meaningful, as fewer fights **may result** due to the inherit increased risk of collapse and exhausting your supplies.

* This may force more creative ways to tackle conflict IG outside of actual combat.

Suggestion/Questions

* Even though I didn't play during any iteration of SoT, I heard that breakthrough "broke the game" and many threatened to quit if it ever came back. I'm curious as to the reason of quasi-breakthrough in its current form, given the small testing done last night after the SM meeting.

* Assuming my assumption was correct in my thoughts section, was the goal to increase or decrease the skill cap?

* Would it make sense to bring back buff icons/bars for defensive arts? I would think this would be a QoL improvement due to the fact that some may struggle more with impromptu combat. Or do you want the community to "figure it out" and keep checking our art durations, while going through the text spam on our screens?

* Due to the buffs SMs and FSs got in the recent patch, we Seers thank you for re-igniting demand for Seers recharge - would it make sense to re-visit non-forged talisman charge caps? It appears the burn through rate of items will increase substantially. Or, should I assume that that is up to the community to "figure it out" and stock up on supplies/manage your packs accordingly, as always?

* How do auras impact art degradation and/or quasi-breakthrough? Assuming it is a thing, is the change to "fail" higher due to the increase "refresh" rate of the aura being triggered?

In Closing

This is all I had, really. Overall, I think this makes the dynamic of combat more interesting. I won't assume all questions will be answered, as part of the fun is figuring things out through testing. I'm excited to see how the community as a whole handles it IG, from this point moving forward.

Thanks for hearing my rumblings - just a quick write-up during lunch.

[Sidas]

I think it's a bit overdone at the moment, particularly in relation to the House Arts. Radiant Blaze and Dazzle are essentially mini-Abjure right now because of their ability to tear off effects.

At the very least, it would be nice if you could breakthrough negative effects with positive effects. For instance, when I'm Blind for 42 minutes due to a Radiant Blaze spam, I should be able to spam myself with Vision and breakthrough that effect. It makes little practical sense why this wasn't done both ways.

The other issue is that breakthrough is likely going to create a larger divide between the varying skill levels in fighting. The higher grade fighters aren't going to be hit as negatively as the mid-grade fighters since the biggest difference tends to be item manipulation.

Overall it's an intriguing concept, which has been attempted twice now in different variants of the game, but it's also a very dangerous slope in terms of ensuring that the game remains fun for as many people as possible.

[OfF KiLTeR]

I think this is a little different and a little more balanced. The breakthrough can be predicted and is fairly applied across the board. The nice thing is that all those effect Chakrams have an opportunity to be effective without a SM present, which is exciting.

[Clarity]

I actually like Sidas idea of protective arts breaking through negative effects in a reversed way to counter balance. If... and only if, that reversed breakthrough effect (And really, the FS arts degradation effect) isn't applied to Item effects. Likely it's not possible, but I've never been a fan of Item effects being as strong as player effects. Or really even being decently comparable to them at all. Alts should only have a 5 minute max duration at top end, a quick fix in a pinch, especially when you take into consideration that a forged, combined Alt has 99 charges. Chakram's effects shouldn't last more then 10 to 20 seconds per hit at their strongest (Unsure if that's already the case) and shouldn't stack. Charms would be the only Items I wouldn't change, thus making them far more useful to keep and make, though their effect should be stronger by a small amount if forged by someone of the arts focus (Such as FA charms having a 5 second bonus duration if forged by a Gk). If it were possible to adjust them with out breaking Player arts, it would help balance out the issues we're smacking up against when it comes to item usage and high level forge.

...and I went off on a little tangent. I blame lack of coffee.

At any rate, I haven't had a chance to test the degradation scale yet, and I have no idea or not if it rises based on art plat, simply because we have two kinds of FS in game at the moment - People with 40 or higher arts, and people with no arts yet. I'm sure our GM's know, but honestly I'd like to see it tested in an IC manor then just outright ask. Course that would require FS's to actually show up to more then one guild meeting! *mutters something about herding cats*

In fact, would FS folks even bother to show up at all if I started a push for it? Right now there's only softline ooc knowledge that FS arts do desegregate protection arts. I'd love for us to meet ICly and do a Ig rp (probably centered around Wishbringer and his "experiments") but every time we've tried in the past to put something together, people stop showing up after the first week.

[Koi-Wish]

There is such an easy way to deal with the new "chisel" effect and no one has tackled it yet.

Folks need prepare for battle "smarter" - and maybe... just maybe not go for your standard "Long" of FA...

Because what your not used to is altered its not fair, lets change something else to remedy it.

Perhaps standardly, you Vision to long and settle at that. Maybe that's 2 evokes or a few uses of a Vision Alt.... well just maybe, maybe that's not enough anymore. Go for very long, take a few more doses... hell shoot for an hour or two hours of Vision if your going into battle - even spending 5 minutes using elemens and pounding Vision on. Blind/Radiant would take a lot of evokes, elemens... or even PT to tear down a two hour+ vision, and if you sit around long enough to be blinded THAT many times without reapplying vision or leaving, you deserve to be blinded. Everyone is just used to a certain amount of FA, RF, Pro, Vision on them... it was satisfactory level before. So you might burn thru some Will/Insight elemens to put MORE protective arts on.... bummer... you can forge 100 more. All I am saying is, the chisel affect is nice but its so easily remedied its not even funny. Compare that to Abjure is dramatically more effective considering its removes the protection period no matter how many times you dosed yourself. FS got some love, but if everyone changed what they considered normal protective arts applied... in the end the new normal will result in this change not doing much at all.

Again, though... RP it in the City.

[Dina]

Well yeah, dreamer protective arts are better than alts. I found this out 6 days ago haha. So love your Seers and GKs!

[Shoury]

Well yeah, dreamer protective arts are better than alts. I found this out 6 days ago haha. So love your Seers and GKs!

SoulMistress Dina speaks the damn truth. And thanks for your input, Wish. Those on the edge about these changes will hopefully realize its not really that bad. The sky isn't falling this time, folks!

[Arnaya]

I don't mind the degradation effect personally. It makes sense to me, though I would like to see the reverse applied to negative effects. Unfortunately good alterors are fairly rare. In three hours genning, you can expect to find maybe One beige alteror at the best gens in the game. Tans arn't bad and crop up a lot, but a single fight against a mare (especially a horron) we can expect to burn one full set of alterors (if they arn't forged or combined), not including battle losses from collapsing.

That adds up to a lot of time genning, which most people find pretty tedious. The only suggestion I have would be to allow Alterors to be recharged to twenty-five charges instead of nineteen. Gives a better chance of not having to burn through a full set or more of alterors in an effect heavy fight (such as against horron darkmares). This is also an issue with the prevalence of abjure, which is also really hard on alterors. The increased recharge capability (which really just lets the alteror be recharged to its normal maximum anyway) would help with a lot of that.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the systems broken at all. Just putting out a tweak that may take some of the edge people seem to be feeling off

PS: Yes, Arnaya is considering attempting this in game. Just not for a while, she's got too much on her plate as it is right now If someone else wanted to do it, she'd certainly support them

[Dina]

Having played in SoT and dealt with the breakthrough which sucked really bad, I don't mind this set up. It makes the most sense and it NOW makes GK's and Seers more valuable with their protective arts. I love it. I've been saying for a long time that an FA alt should never trump a GK's FA unless the GK's FA is pretty low. In SoT you had to have the best FA alt to feel safe. It gave you a level 49 FA. In SoT it showed us what level it was that you put on. No one wanted to use GK's, they just wanted the best FA alt out there. When you had a level 59 or 69 para out there, it would breakthrough a lot, which is why Dina's first plat to 50 was Curse lol.

Be happy it is the way it is. The team did great.

[Arnaya]

Yeah, I was corrected about that one in IRC Lol. Sorry, I'd been told in game that Alts and Elems could only be recharged to nineteen.... which is why I put up the suggestion. Ooops

[Shoury]

Yeah, I was corrected about that one in IRC Lol. Sorry, I'd been told in game that Alts and Elems could only be recharged to nineteen.... which is why I put up the suggestion. Ooops

All good, friend.