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So one of the next big projects that have been mentioned is finding a way to balance barrier spells/ability.
I was halfheartedly thinking about it when it occurred to me that it seems like combat often breaks down in the balancing act when things aren't balanced against skill. Look at how SvS used to work.
So why not make barriers basically a debuff to a certain class of attacks?
Example: Barrier of swirling winds, -100 ranks (made up numbers) to attacks with light thrown, crossbow, or bow.
Basically, it would be the anti-weapon/spell buff. And since it's rank-based, rather than damage-based, I imagine (correct me if I'm wrong) it would be easier to balance.
Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
The current barrier mechanics aren't the problem, the mechanic actually works rather well and is quite flexible.
The review is more looking at how we're using that mechanic - there's very little standardization in barriers right now (Particularly flat damage reduction ones) and most provide extremely broad coverage which makes building new and different warding spells hard.
-Raesh
"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose
The review is more looking at how we're using that mechanic - there's very little standardization in barriers right now (Particularly flat damage reduction ones) and most provide extremely broad coverage which makes building new and different warding spells hard.
-Raesh
"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose
Well, since you are reviewing such things..... My paladin, Sylvaeus, specializes in the Warding skill as far as magic goes. I only pick up Warding scrolls, constantly cast them, research it, ect.... Its a major cornerstone of his build.
The spell Soldier's Prayer is not going to be a spell choice of mine in its current form. It eats up too much mana for the short duration and the fact that I can't cast OUT while its on means it hurts me more than it helps me. I've lost a spar before because I didn't RELEASE it in time when I needed to throw out a key spell at a critical time(rookie mistake, sure, but a learning experience about the spell). I'd have to devote some of my already-very--tight mana strategy to it, time it pretty darn well given its short duration or its a completely waste of said limited mana, and it (sometimes severely) handicaps me to boot even if I do decide to pay said price AND predict needing its use like I'm a RL moon mage or something. Finally.... Lay Ward is sitting right there, smugly just being better. At least for poor, magic-oriented Sylvaeus, casting Soldier's Prayer is tantamount to lowering his stance for his opponent.
Now, since I like to state positives along with complaints, most Warding in general I obviously like (I do cast them more than anything else by far). I like that they seem to stack fairly well- I enjoy piling them up to turn Sylvaeus into a 'little gnome tank' for a few minutes when its really needed. His ability to stack wards well is what really balances out Sylvaeus' low weapon damage. I urge the reviewers to lean towards allowing Wards to stack rather than make some spells redundant or make some spells drop when others are cast- that would be like walking up to a beautiful ice sculpture and quickly dousing it with fire- the individual ice chunks exploding everywhere are not so nifty or appealing as the whole art object combined and some might be a little appalled at the destruction of art. So... to state positives: What I like about magic, especially Wards thus far, is that you get to play with it like Legos- building yourself your own custom toy out of the parts.
The spell Soldier's Prayer is not going to be a spell choice of mine in its current form. It eats up too much mana for the short duration and the fact that I can't cast OUT while its on means it hurts me more than it helps me. I've lost a spar before because I didn't RELEASE it in time when I needed to throw out a key spell at a critical time(rookie mistake, sure, but a learning experience about the spell). I'd have to devote some of my already-very--tight mana strategy to it, time it pretty darn well given its short duration or its a completely waste of said limited mana, and it (sometimes severely) handicaps me to boot even if I do decide to pay said price AND predict needing its use like I'm a RL moon mage or something. Finally.... Lay Ward is sitting right there, smugly just being better. At least for poor, magic-oriented Sylvaeus, casting Soldier's Prayer is tantamount to lowering his stance for his opponent.
Now, since I like to state positives along with complaints, most Warding in general I obviously like (I do cast them more than anything else by far). I like that they seem to stack fairly well- I enjoy piling them up to turn Sylvaeus into a 'little gnome tank' for a few minutes when its really needed. His ability to stack wards well is what really balances out Sylvaeus' low weapon damage. I urge the reviewers to lean towards allowing Wards to stack rather than make some spells redundant or make some spells drop when others are cast- that would be like walking up to a beautiful ice sculpture and quickly dousing it with fire- the individual ice chunks exploding everywhere are not so nifty or appealing as the whole art object combined and some might be a little appalled at the destruction of art. So... to state positives: What I like about magic, especially Wards thus far, is that you get to play with it like Legos- building yourself your own custom toy out of the parts.
>>The spell Soldier's Prayer is not going to be a spell choice of mine in its current form.
Soldier's Prayer is a barrier spell. It will be reviewed in the barrier review. All barriers will be.
>>Endurance skill could increase the duration of certain spells like Wards and Sentinel's Resolve?
That is an unlikely direction for us to take the Endurance skill. For the skill to work we need to give it a clear and functional definition (Which it currently lacks) instead of making it an oddball collection of "stuff". It's also an armor skill, and will be focused on that skill set not on the magic skill set.
-Raesh
"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose
Soldier's Prayer is a barrier spell. It will be reviewed in the barrier review. All barriers will be.
>>Endurance skill could increase the duration of certain spells like Wards and Sentinel's Resolve?
That is an unlikely direction for us to take the Endurance skill. For the skill to work we need to give it a clear and functional definition (Which it currently lacks) instead of making it an oddball collection of "stuff". It's also an armor skill, and will be focused on that skill set not on the magic skill set.
-Raesh
"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose
Your post makes complete sense to me, Raesh. Thanks.
I hope knowing how I view the spell helps. I also wanted to share that there is at least one character out there who is largely built around the system under review. [no pressure. ;)]
I posted something recently about characters developing natural resistance to poison and disease through repeated exposure like people/animals do in real life. Is that the kind of direction for Endurance you all are (tentatively, I know)thinking for it? I'm not even sure if the future skill is worth considering when reviewing barriers but I thought I'd ask as a sort of preemptive catch to make development for it easier later.
I hope knowing how I view the spell helps. I also wanted to share that there is at least one character out there who is largely built around the system under review. [no pressure. ;)]
I posted something recently about characters developing natural resistance to poison and disease through repeated exposure like people/animals do in real life. Is that the kind of direction for Endurance you all are (tentatively, I know)thinking for it? I'm not even sure if the future skill is worth considering when reviewing barriers but I thought I'd ask as a sort of preemptive catch to make development for it easier later.
>>Is that the kind of direction for Endurance you all are (tentatively, I know)thinking for it?
Basically we're at a crossroads with Endurance that we're going to need to decide which path we're going down when we start doing heavy work on Paladins and, so far as I know a decision hasn't been made yet. (Keep in mind I only dabble in Paladins, I'm not an SGM and I'm not in charge of Paladins in any way.)
The current options on the table for Endurance are:
1) Endurance is the Paladin equivalent to Expertise. It unlocks maneuvers and combos focused on benefiting the Paladin instead of crippling the enemy. This is an interesting idea but the scope of what you could actually do with the skill is more limited than you think (Since it would need to exist in a rather small mechanic area and be sharply defined by all the other systems in place around it).
2) Endurance does something endurance-y. This strikes me as a very hard road to develop but stays the most true to the current name of the skill and would cover the things you're talking about (Building up the ability to endure more punishment and so forth).
3) Endurance becomes something else. One variant of this is my current brainchild and I'm not yet willing to talk about exactly what it would look like. This isn't because I haven't managed smooth away some of the larger burrs in the idea enough to formally take it to proposals and I'm leery of over-promising. In extremely broad terms it would try and unify new armor based development with the existing (but revamped) glyph/soul system.
-Raesh
"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose
Basically we're at a crossroads with Endurance that we're going to need to decide which path we're going down when we start doing heavy work on Paladins and, so far as I know a decision hasn't been made yet. (Keep in mind I only dabble in Paladins, I'm not an SGM and I'm not in charge of Paladins in any way.)
The current options on the table for Endurance are:
1) Endurance is the Paladin equivalent to Expertise. It unlocks maneuvers and combos focused on benefiting the Paladin instead of crippling the enemy. This is an interesting idea but the scope of what you could actually do with the skill is more limited than you think (Since it would need to exist in a rather small mechanic area and be sharply defined by all the other systems in place around it).
2) Endurance does something endurance-y. This strikes me as a very hard road to develop but stays the most true to the current name of the skill and would cover the things you're talking about (Building up the ability to endure more punishment and so forth).
3) Endurance becomes something else. One variant of this is my current brainchild and I'm not yet willing to talk about exactly what it would look like. This isn't because I haven't managed smooth away some of the larger burrs in the idea enough to formally take it to proposals and I'm leery of over-promising. In extremely broad terms it would try and unify new armor based development with the existing (but revamped) glyph/soul system.
-Raesh
"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose
That is very informative![Also, exciting!] It seems to me that options 1,2, and 3 are not mutually exclusive. Kodius seemed to approve of my Defense Maneuvers post, for example, which I could easily see going alongside the things you are talking about with options 2 and 3. Why not all of those options to some degree or another? Would that make the skill unbalancingly powerful?
To bring it back to topic, too, I'm really not qualified to state if the future skill should be thought about when rehashing barriers or not but I thought it would be nice to just put up a sign saying 'hey this might be related down the road so putting it in the back of your minds now might save ya some work later'.
Thanks for the window into your minds again, Raesh.
To bring it back to topic, too, I'm really not qualified to state if the future skill should be thought about when rehashing barriers or not but I thought it would be nice to just put up a sign saying 'hey this might be related down the road so putting it in the back of your minds now might save ya some work later'.
Thanks for the window into your minds again, Raesh.
>>It seems to me that options 1,2, and 3 are not mutually exclusive. [...] Would that make the skill unbalancingly powerful?
It would make it an extremely patchwork skill that would be very hard to balance, build a coherent training system for or define. It would be the Mech Lore of Guild Skills (That's a bad thing).
>>That reminds me.... who IS in charge of paladins and such skills, anyway? I remember trying to look it up under the idea of Advocates but I learned that system has gone by the wayside. So.... who should we be communicating with now?
Advocates aren't, strictly speaking, in charge of development of a guild - though they help guide it. It's been many, many years since we had enough staff members to have one person (let alone an entire team) assigned to each guild so that's why you see people working so broadly. Who will be doing the actual code for Paladins when the time comes? Does it matter? We tend to shift projects around to development team members that have both available bandwidth and a passion for the project.
Who should you bring ideas to? The forums as has currently been going on. Staff is reading.
-Raesh
"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose
It would make it an extremely patchwork skill that would be very hard to balance, build a coherent training system for or define. It would be the Mech Lore of Guild Skills (That's a bad thing).
>>That reminds me.... who IS in charge of paladins and such skills, anyway? I remember trying to look it up under the idea of Advocates but I learned that system has gone by the wayside. So.... who should we be communicating with now?
Advocates aren't, strictly speaking, in charge of development of a guild - though they help guide it. It's been many, many years since we had enough staff members to have one person (let alone an entire team) assigned to each guild so that's why you see people working so broadly. Who will be doing the actual code for Paladins when the time comes? Does it matter? We tend to shift projects around to development team members that have both available bandwidth and a passion for the project.
Who should you bring ideas to? The forums as has currently been going on. Staff is reading.
-Raesh
"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose
>>So.... who should we be communicating with now?
AFAIK, with the exception of whichever GMs decide to work on the Expertise system, or the reworking of any other particular Paladin system, there's no go-to person for Paladins as a default. But this is generally normal with all Guilds these days. No one GM is the overall Paladin GM, just like there isn't an overall Thief GM, Bard GM, etc. There are some GMs who could arguably be the [Guild] GM, but that's more because they're just explicitly working on rather big systems for that guild. Kodius, for example, isn't the Barbarian GM as much as he is the GM who is building out all their abilities.
>>Right.... I imagine the way things are leaves the players who have experienced real combat scratching their heads.
I didn't know that you normally create magical barriers to deflect lightning bolts! In less sarcastic terms, it's generally better to not go "this is how real world combat/physics work so that's how it should work here."
It's not that it's a bad idea to consider how real things function as inspiration for how the game should play out, but it is a bad idea to refuse to suspend some disbelief for fantasy combat.
Plus, what you're describing essentially sounds like what ANALYZE and combos does, anyway. You look for a weak spot, do some hits that exploit that, and get a [temporary] advantage as a result.
Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.
AFAIK, with the exception of whichever GMs decide to work on the Expertise system, or the reworking of any other particular Paladin system, there's no go-to person for Paladins as a default. But this is generally normal with all Guilds these days. No one GM is the overall Paladin GM, just like there isn't an overall Thief GM, Bard GM, etc. There are some GMs who could arguably be the [Guild] GM, but that's more because they're just explicitly working on rather big systems for that guild. Kodius, for example, isn't the Barbarian GM as much as he is the GM who is building out all their abilities.
>>Right.... I imagine the way things are leaves the players who have experienced real combat scratching their heads.
I didn't know that you normally create magical barriers to deflect lightning bolts! In less sarcastic terms, it's generally better to not go "this is how real world combat/physics work so that's how it should work here."
It's not that it's a bad idea to consider how real things function as inspiration for how the game should play out, but it is a bad idea to refuse to suspend some disbelief for fantasy combat.
Plus, what you're describing essentially sounds like what ANALYZE and combos does, anyway. You look for a weak spot, do some hits that exploit that, and get a [temporary] advantage as a result.
Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.
