I wouldn't have anything against them dissipating when the sorcerer leaves the room. If I didn't think they'd also decrease the power of the spell in the process, I wouldn't be against it being made player friendly either, for that matter.

There are a couple exceptions, but most other spells that have a persistent effect on a room dissipate when the caster leaves the room (710, 213, both ranger spells prev mentioned, 125, etc). Rather then hindering sorcerers, it would benefit others hunting in the area... esp if the sorcerer using it doesn't know you can STOP 709 (I didn't until I looked at the wiki article for the spell just now).

I will note, though, that critters that previously cast Quake can now cast the Grasp of the Grave (my ranger walked into a set of hands summoned by a moor witch last night). If that's the case for the hunting ground you're having the problem in, the change prolly wouldn't help much.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

<It is not that they do not know this. It is they just do not care.>

Being able to STOP offensive spells isn't exactly common. Until relatively recently, the only way to get rid of similar spells (clouds, 610, etc) was to either dispel them or leave the room. Also 710, 720, and 125 don't work with STOP and 610 uses DISMISS rather then STOP.

Add that the predecessor of the current 709 (Quake) couldn't be dispelled, stopped, or dismissed and the wiki doesn't mention STOP works for the current version until the very bottom of the article, and it's perfectly reasonable that a sorcerer might not be aware of it.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

Starchitin, the sorcerer knows.

>We're going to be updating it so the arms decay away if the caster isn't present (in the same room).

This is an excellent and welcome change. Thank you!

The arms from 709 will now decay immediately if the caster is not in the same room and alive when it's their turn to go. This applies to both player and critter casters.


Ixix

Since the 'update' to Grasp of the Grave I have seen the following;

1) after killing the last creature in a room, my arms begin crumbling, rapidly, more than 1 arm per round

2) leaving the room and peering back, I see my arms are still there, crumbling, approximately slower than 1 arm per round.


what gives?

Like this, in under 30 seconds;


You hear a blast of thunder as you twist the spiritual and elemental forces into one manifestation, preparing the Dark Catalyst spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture at an elven highwayman.
CS: +540 - TD: +416 + CvA: -1 + d100: +77 == +200
Warding failed!
... and hits for 20 points of damage!
An elven highwayman is suddenly engulfed in flames of pure essence!
... 35 points of damage!
Right leg horribly scorched. Won't be usable for weeks.
... 35 points of damage!
The elven highwayman's left arm is shattered beyond recognition by frigid blow.
The highwayman's reinforced shield falls to the ground.
... 40 points of damage!
Arcing bolt of electricity galvanizes right arm to elbow. Won't be using it for awhile.
The highwayman's morning star falls to the ground.

[You have 16 kills remaining.]
The elven highwayman rolls over and dies.
You feel 1 mana surge into you!
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>
A fleshless arm thrashes about briefly before decaying into dust.
>
A putrid arm thrashes about briefly before decaying into dust.
>loot
You search the elven highwayman.
You discard the highwayman's useless equipment.
He had 579 silvers on him.
>loot
You gather the remaining 579 coins.
He had nothing else of value.
An elven highwayman decays into compost.
>l
You search the erithian bandit.
You discard the bandit's useless equipment.
He had 264 silvers on him.
You gather the remaining 264 coins.
He had nothing else of value.
An erithian bandit decays into compost.
>
[Teras Isle, River Road - 2067]
A broad road leaves the village here to follow the course of the narrow river upstream. The river along the southeast side of the road, and the dense forest to the north prevent travel in those directions. You also see a morning star, a reinforced shield, a longsword, a ball and chain, a pair of clawed arms, a pair of clawed arms, the Rolfard disk, a pair of three-fingered arms, a bloody arm, a fleshless arm, a horned frog, a black-tipped majestic snow leopard, an animated gnomish marauder and an ashen grey pink-eyed grantris.
Also here: Lady Erienne, Lord Eliaku
Obvious paths: northeast, southeast, west, northwest
>
A pair of clawed arms thrash about briefly before decaying into dust.
>
A fleshless arm thrashes about briefly before decaying into dust.
>
A pair of clawed arms thrash about briefly before decaying into dust.

I guess my only issue with this is that I was (apparently) one of the few people that made use of the old Quake, specifically for neighboring rooms.

Keeping the arms around when the room was left had some semblance to the old Quake spell (though, not as good in my opinion).

Could this be made to check neighboring rooms or the like? Putting arms out as a barrier to a dead-end area where one is foraging, or something, doesn't seem unreasonable.

I think if the sorcerer is far away, it's perfectly reasonable for the arms to crumble, but one room over still has quite a lot of relevance to the caster's protection.

Most especially because this has been a recent issue between two players, I'm not sure it's perfectly reasonable to deal with a problem between two players on this sort of broad-sweeping scope.

Grimswarm use webs, implosions, sandstorms, tremors?, mana focus, and spirit fog are a few examples of room based spells that stay a while after the caster leaves the room...

The arms continuing to do their thing when the caster was dead or not present was an oversight/bug - I had coded up just everything for that and missed one little bit is all. As GM Estild has said, we want to have a consistent design of the caster needing to be present for these sorts of extended duration spells.

Strengthwise, I think that 410 is a good comparison for 709. I tried to position the numbers for similar knockdown abilities, with less roundtime on the initial knockdown in exchange for the continued single target attacks.

Ixix

My understanding is that the change affects the grappling of critters while the Sorcerer is not in the room. It does not mean that arms will disappear any faster than they did before the change. If you cast 709, leave the room and then come back before the arms decay, then the remaining arms will continue to grapple any critters that may be in the room.

This change means that I can leave arms where they are without worrying about using Stop, and in the unlikely event that I happen to return to the room before all of the arms have decayed, then the remaining arms will reactivate.

Is the complaint that the change means you can no longer leave arms to grapple while the caster is in another room? I never considered that. I have never actually timed it, but doesn't the spell last less than 60 seconds?

>>the individual arms just need you to present (and alive) in order to perform their single attacks.

It still reduces the power of this spell where you could use it in ways that area web is utilized to help reduce your risk of danger when traveling through multiple rooms repeatedly. Sorcerers are incredibly susceptible to walking into a room and being pummeled by something before they can even react (had this happen two me two times this weeks where I just step into a room and die immediately because a critter was just ready). Admittedly there are not a lot of situations where you can use these tactics, but there are definitely a handful of places (as mentioned before) where 709 left in the open helps mitigate these kinds of risks. The #1 off the top of my head is warcamps. If the creature isn't disabled while you're out of the room, you can easily walk in and be hit with a 20s RT warcry before the arms re-activate, and now you're stuck in a room quickly filling with swarms.

I hate to see spells reduced in power, and strategies disabled because someone disliked how it interacted with them. Instead, I'd rather see the spells updated to be more player friendly to benefit the inconvenienced players rather than detriment an entire profession from leveraging the full potential of their spells.

The 'bug' is arms now decay more quickly while in a room after the last critter dies. From peering back they are decaying 1 per round or slower, but in a room where you just killed the last critter (and more may be spawning) they are decaying >1 per round, while still in the room.

As a non-sorcerer who has been negatively affected by leftover arms many times since the spell was released, I am grateful for this change. I can now have my alts hunt the same area as a sorcerer without frustration, so thank you for this.

___________________________________

The flamepoint sand kitten hisses at a patchwork flesh monstrosity.
... 9 points of damage!

I guaranty more people are killed due to area web being left in rooms (usually from critters) than 709. This was more of a nuisance to one person who literally came here to complain about a single player that they've been harassing in-game for the past week. Area web in places like grimswarm camps and definitely OTF are killing players every week while left in a room empty of creatures (specifically the one that cast it).

The major difference between 709 and other similar spells is that the arms are designed to target hostile NPCs before players. Therefore, if you enter a room with a bunch of arms, and you get pulled down, there's an EXTREMELY HIGH CHANCE that everything else is already prone already. This spell didn't kill players, and it definitely didn't need a power reduction because of one whiny person. If anything, just remove the chance the arms will pull players down.

>As a non-sorcerer who has been negatively affected by leftover arms many times since the spell was released, I am grateful for this change. I can now have my alts hunt the same area as a sorcerer without frustration, so thank you for this.

+1. People inconsiderately do this all the time, everywhere. Arms should never have affected PCs repeatedly to begin with. That was why Quake was player unfriendly, and Grasp of the Grave even more so.

>It was inconsistent design. All room based effects should end when the caster is not present or is dead. All clouds, Light/Darkness, Minor Sanctuary, etc, work that way.

I agree. Spells should never intended for someone to cast them and run away to a different room while leaving the danger present for any other passersby.

>Please note importantly that not many sorcerers in this thread have promoted that the spell should interact with PCs.

I never said that they did.

>Look at the old Quake. Look at open Implosion. Look at Torment. Look at Evil Eye on Eye Spy. Look at area Web.

I understand the point and I sympathize, but the current direction of the game does not appear to support running away and leaving persistent danger behind as a hunting tactic.

This was why cloud spells were removed from PCs to prevent the "cast and run" method of gaining experience safely. This is likely why old Quake was removed as well. I would classify area web separately as 209 removes its effect if you have it cast upon you as a persistent buff. I do agree in general, it's far more potent when cast by creatures rather than by PCs.

>Sorcerers tend to have a lot of indirect methods of combat that doesn't require them to be in the same room. They can use 718 from adjacent rooms. They can use 717 from adjacent rooms. You can animate something, set it to attack a target, and move to another room. Sorcerers can also poison, bleed, and curse targets then leave and let them die while in other rooms...

Note that sorcerers are the only profession who can do these things, which already grants them a level of offensive power and flexibility others don't have. It's not too much to ask that the spell that affects other passersby directly on a persistent basis be changed. That's exactly why Quake was removed.

>It's catering to a player whining about a specific sorcerer instead of getting the community to help police the player.

It's not just one player, just because nobody else has posted about it yet. It's an annoyance that happens on a regular basis, and despite politely asking, the response is usually that the sorcerer is just going to do whatever they want. This is the result of that lack of consideration.

>If you get pulled down frequently by sorcerers leaving arms up, it is almost never going to put you in danger.

This isn't a given. All it takes is one inopportune moment of a creature wandering in while one is involuntarily prone.

>so this is far less dangerous than say someone leaving their bandits behind... which happens just about every single day.

Bandits don't attack people outside of their level range unless someone is blindly script hunting and attacking everything in sight. When walking through bandit areas however, it should always be assumed that bandits exist. That's part of the danger of the lands. Bandits, however, do not exist in capped hunting grounds where there are other kinds of unexpected danger that might result from being pulled prone with no warning.

>>Bandits don't attack people outside of their level range unless someone is blindly script hunting and attacking everything in sight. When walking through bandit areas however, it should always be assumed that bandits exist. That's part of the danger of the lands. Bandits, however, do not exist in capped hunting grounds where there are other kinds of unexpected danger that might result from being pulled prone with no warning.

This is actually not true. I've had capped bandits on the trail from Icemule to the Landing kill my level 30s and 40s characters as they are just walking between towns. This has happened to me on at least three or four separate instances where the character walks into the room, does nothing else, and dies instantly due to capped bandits. You see people looking for assistance due to capped bandits killing them "on the trail" almost every day since someone leaves them behind.

While it's a deviation from the topic, it's an example of where players leave things behind that are far more dangerous than leaving the arms from 709 behind.

>>Danger while traveling from A-Z is different from danger within a hunting ground.

That's not really true. Hunting grounds exist within traveling A-Z. Like when my little ranger gets killed by the bard using non-friendly AE spells on the trail between Landing and Solhaven. I was hunting the large ogres there, and they happen to be on that trail (had a similar occurrence with greater orcs on the same trail). Or when my wizard gets e-waved by capped groups hunting bandits in the same forest that is my hunting ground on Teras.

The point is, people leave things behind that kill other players far more frequently than 709 ever does or could. On top of that, 118 area web is much more deadly than 709 ever was, and that sticky business sits around for a while. Ain't nobody on here whining to the devs that they got ganked by area web in OTF. No, in fact, I believe the devs will simply state that's "part of the danger" of that hunting area. And not a single person has responded to this thread indicating that 709 was repeatedly killing them when it is generally just a minor inconvenience to other players.

Which is why it's silly to reduce the power of a spell based on a whine post.