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Patch suggestions

This is a game for roleplayers. We want your ideas how how to build the better game. Post your suggestions here.
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Arnaya
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Patch suggestions

Post by Arnaya »

Sorry for putting this up so close to patch release, but didn't know what was coming until it was announced lol.

Overall, I'm loving what I saw there.. though I would like to propose 1 ammendment (I know it's too late for this patch). But rendering mares completely immune to poison eliminates one of the only combat advatages SM's have against mares. Though I do agree that poison really sucks for Datoken. What I would instead suggest is that mares enter the game with like 30 minutes (or whatever duration... make 3 hours even) of Sable Shield EFFECT. Means that they arn't completely invulnerable to effects, but seriously reduces their vulnerability to it. Also limits other hostile effects, while still allowing effective team work to bring effects to bear.

The Darkmares are less of an issue since they tend to have reflect and a bunch of other really high level arts to bring into play. They also have their shielding which is a Huge advantage...but even there, allowing a "Chaos version" of sable shield would work beautifully. Apply the same to the lesser mares, same idea as their vision currently.

An idea for you to achieve a similar effect without completely rendering a primary player art useless against the main "big bads" of the game world :)

- Jan
The most important lesson I've learned over this past year, is not to let anyone make you cruel. No matter how badly you want to give the world a taste of it's own bitter medicine, it is never worth losing yourself.
Uthanatos
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Re: Patch suggestions

Post by Uthanatos »

What she said.
“Sometimes it isn't easy to be sane, smart, and responsible. Sometimes it sucks. Sucks wang. Camel wang. But that doesn't turn wrong into right or stupid into smart.”
― Jim Butcher, Cold Days
Sidas
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Re: Patch suggestions

Post by Sidas »

Pmares should be invulnerable to Scare and Poison. It's not fun to have an SM poison you and run away. There's very little fun in there being no way possible to survive an encounter with a 50+ Poison. It's not worth interacting in those situations. Not being able to heal and generally being limited to damage levels that are incapable of collapsing most dreamers is a major detriment.

It would be nice to have an option to start as a Horron, which would cost twice as much as a Shamblix. So, instead of regularly getting 30 minutes of a Shamblix, you would get 15 minutes of a Horron. This would be more of a challenge to the player base and generally more fun for those who run their pmares. The downside would be the XP influx that Horron Pmares are but that is generally watched by the GMs anyway.
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Cherokee
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Re: Patch suggestions

Post by Cherokee »

^
23:48:24: Laviticas: (( I am going to ****ing say this now because I will not be back in the stupid game.)

22:44:20: >Jawsman evokes his own dreamquake, which is bigger than Magnilia's dreamquake.
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Arnaya
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Re: Patch suggestions

Post by Arnaya »

Adding restore to a P-mares arsenal would help a ton with survivability. The Sable Shield also makes the target immune to poison and gives all protective arts (which would have to be abjured through to drop the poison immunity (ultimate art stacking). Still a huge boost to mares survival odds and the challenge they represent, but doesn't completely make peoples arts (which are generally worked on developing) utterly useless against some of the main enemies people fight.

I was thinking of it as a compromise between the two extemes, and using mechanics that already exist in game or can be introduced easily (even with a bit of an RP by a mare or two) :)

As I said before, I know this is too late for anything this patch.. but maybe revisit it in a couple of months and see how things are working?
The most important lesson I've learned over this past year, is not to let anyone make you cruel. No matter how badly you want to give the world a taste of it's own bitter medicine, it is never worth losing yourself.
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Koi-Spark
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Re: Patch suggestions

Post by Koi-Spark »

Well, several options were discussed when it comes to mares and poison. One suggestion was to give PMares arts like Antidote. The problem with that is PMares don't generally get much time for evoking arts and stopping to evoke it would probably not end well.

Giving PMares a temporary immunity to Poison, as you suggested, is difficult to handle because nothing would stop them from just quitting at minute 14, then restarting to reapply the immunities without really affecting the number of credits used. All that serves to do is interrupt a fight which just annoys everyone involved. Also, no matter how long we set the duration, it would be an Abjurable effect, so we'd be back to square one. Abjure, Poison, dead, done.

Even as a Dark Mare, Poison is almost as much of a pain as Peace Aura. With either PMares or Dark Mares, the general intent is having multiple dreamers against one mare. Those fights can last a reasonable duration and can be exciting for both sides. When you throw a powerful Poison on there (with no way to get rid of it), it ends things abruptly and really isn't much fun - it's one of the main reasons people don't use PMares as often as before.

It won't be on this patch, but on the next we're also planning on locking all sanctuary portals to PMares, mainly due to numerous reports of abuse by PMares trying to avoid collapse by players (especially when poisoned). They go into a sanctuary and collapse themselves so nobody gets the XP reward and that's just lame, lousy playing. But if an SM poisons a PMare then hides in sanctuary - we've had more than a few reports of that happening - then what else do you expect? So we're working to resolve both of these issues and make PMares, and fighting PMares, more fun for everyone.

I understand this makes SoulMasters feel a little less useful when fighting PMares (or Dark Mares). But allowing them to Poison PMares (and then hide) gives SM an unfair advantage where they could actually solo collapse a PMare. The idea here (as with any shamblix/horron) is teamwork. In that regard, I personally value SoulMasters running Restores, Healing Auras, and those sorts of supportive arts than taking all of the glory themselves ;).

But with all of that said, it's a flexible system and we're always open to hearing new ideas. With this patch, we'll see how things go and how far the balance is swinging. Before the last patch, Poison was very rarely used because it had hardly any noticeable effect and if it collapsed your target, you wouldn't even get xp credit for it. We wanted to make it relevant and useful, but weren't really looking to make it the #1 complete buzzkill for PMares - an oversight we're hoping to now correct. In all honesty, I think the effects of Poison on PMares and Dark Mares wasn't even considered because it was assumed they were already immune. They weren't immune, it was just that nobody really used Poison on them before.

Again, I hope this helps explain some of the reasoning for the change - mainly due to abuses by both sides. If we need to make adjustments in the future, I'm more than happy to consider alternatives, and I give extra bonus points when the suggested changes are in conjunction with some in-character efforts to make them (as the Poison changes were last patch).

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you like the other upcoming changes, at least ;)
Koi-Spark,
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Arnaya
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Re: Patch suggestions

Post by Arnaya »

Thanks spark, it wasn't really a "This sucks, OMG how dare you nerf SM's", lol. Just an alternative that I thought might balance things out a bit. I completely get the reasoning, having run into that a couple of times on my p-mare (I don't run it much, or with my full fighting ability usually because I know how much it burns supplies for people that can't forge replacement stuff (15-20 minutes of a good fight means a couple hours of genning/hunting for most people).

Glad to hear that you'll look at it again after a bit to get a better gauge on things, awesome work Spark :)
The most important lesson I've learned over this past year, is not to let anyone make you cruel. No matter how badly you want to give the world a taste of it's own bitter medicine, it is never worth losing yourself.
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