Emphant and horron PMares

[Noidea]

Sidas in another thread said he would like to be able to play as a Horron:

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.

Speaking for myself, I'd like to be able to run an Emphant PMare, costing correspondingly less (say half a Bogrom, or whatever). It would be fun for RP purposes (wasn't there a little emphant with a pink bow in Lyra Underlight? That may have been a darkmare, of course). And it would be more of an option for people like me who simply can't imagine how anyone could ever raise enough RP Points to run anything else for more than five minutes. It would also give lower-sphere dreamers the thrill of occasionally having a chance to help in a fight against a daymare (and actually have some effect), rather than them being strictly for higher spheres. I remember a few darkmare emphants in SoT (Eatu and Benpi), who were fun and popular with dreamers. What do others think - either for emphants or for horrons?

People have said that you can't have emphant PMares because they would collapse too easily, but surely if they have correspondingly lesser drops and XP rewards, that's fair enough? Maybe give them more dreamsoul or more resistance than they should proportionately have, so that the fight won't be over before you know it, but still dealing measly damage so that the increased stamina won't make them more dangerous than they should be. Any reason why not?

[Noidea]

You what what?! Aha! So that's how it works. I honestly didn't know before (in fact I had noidea ) Where does it say that? I've not noticed anything about it on the website. Thank you very much!

All the same, emphants would still be fun, though evidently not so necessary for making-ends-meet purposes as I thought.

[Cherokee]

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=988&p=5386&hilit=Pmare#p5386

As for an Emphant option, I don't really see a point. From what I hear, the GMs have been trying to steer clear of any RPs involving the PMares (outside of the one involving Agonarius). It's also really hard on the PMare client, because you literally cannot tell what players are saying. It would be one thing if it translated their speech to maren, but it just scrambles it.

I agree there should be a Horron option, even if it gives you less time to play. Or possibly change the resume option to last longer than it currently is, so that it would give us a chance to get enough collapses over a few runs to reach Horron level on our own.

[Noidea]

Thanks for the link to the PMare code of conduct - I've seen those rules before but if I might be playing a PMare myself I need reminding!
I know they can't talk, and I appreciate that the GMs want to keep any discussion of how the mares are organised etc. in their own hands. I was only thinking in terms of things like having one that is curious and sniffs around without attacking unless attacked, or one that swoops down and flies away with hats, that kind of thing! Just for variety. I remember hearing that there have been darkmares and possibly daymares like that. (Can PMares do emotes?)

[Cherokee]

The client only allows a list of preset emotes and phrases. It would be interesting if we had the option to emote our own things, though.

[Pickman]

The client only allows a list of preset emotes and phrases. It would be interesting if we had the option to emote our own things, though.

I would be the most pedantic and smartassed Agoknight you ever met.

[Uthanatos]

for some reason, I envision a Horron who doesn't understand why everyone runs away and just craves acceptance

[Koi-Spark]

Another option on the table (no decision has been made yet) is to allow Nightmare Form to actually change to higher mare forms at higher plateaus. Also a possibility is to allow you to evoke Nightmare Form (and only Nightmare Form) to turn you back into dreamer form, rather than having to wait forever or get an SM to abjure it from you.

The downside to allowing higher mare forms than just Emphant is shielding and auras and all that - we don't want to make NMF a new uber fighting style that people will use as an unfair advantage, so there is a lot of balance issues to consider.

And no, PMares are really only intended to be used to find dreamers and attack them indiscriminately and have fun doing it. It's not meant to be a fully-developed character with all kinds of unique personality traits, which is one reason why speech, emotes, and even descriptions are pre-selected. It's not an RP tool, it's a "kill everything in sight" tool.

Because people can't seem to follow this, we're working on locking PMares out of sanctuaries and probably out of houses (except for the main entrance rooms). This way, houses can have meetings without having to deal with a PMare (usually a player from an opposing house) crashing the party every time. Way too many have used PMares to mess with items in houses and there is no good in-game reasoning for it. The only items that should interest PMares are dreamer essences.

So now that I've unloaded that tiny rant, please let me know what you think of these potential changes.

[Cherokee]

Another option on the table (no decision has been made yet) is to allow Nightmare Form to actually change to higher mare forms at higher plateaus. Also a possibility is to allow you to evoke Nightmare Form (and only Nightmare Form) to turn you back into dreamer form, rather than having to wait forever or get an SM to abjure it from you.

The downside to allowing higher mare forms than just Emphant is shielding and auras and all that - we don't want to make NMF a new uber fighting style that people will use as an unfair advantage, so there is a lot of balance issues to consider.

I love this. Jade has actually been talking about this IG ever since she learned NMF. She doesn't see a real point in plateauing it at this point, but has talked about altering it to work like the Cloak of Bashir the Cult had in SoT, which progressed in forms through art level. I'd totally help on the role playing side of things if this was going to be implemented.

As far as balance issues, I'd have a certain base duration set and only add a little bit with each plat. So in the long run, at the highest level, it could last only 5 minutes or something. It'll also help if the art isn't stackable, can only be evoked outside of sanctuary, and has a long evoke... so that people can't go on Horron rampages and just reapply midbattle or sneak off to sanc. That way, players can prevent them from doing it again.

[FrigginAwesome]

The lack of ability to evoke arts, use items, or move at a run is enough of a disadvantage that even if evoking NMF turned me into a horron, there's no way I'd want to do it.

In SoT Underlight, that was how it worked (except I think you could use items? Maybe? Not sure on that point).

[Arnaya]

There's also the Abjurability of NMF to consider. Even with a higher level form, there's a few SM's around capable of abjuring (most of the main SM players are now 5th sphere and have at least learned it). So that should help with the game balance a little at least