I posted this in the wrong topic, and there was no response, and I really would like any kind of comments. Well, comments other than just 'This stinks'. I want to know if this would really work out or not. Well, here goes.

I like how there are skills that help with PvP, with bashing, and for RP. What I don't like is how there are so few skills that help influencing. And mostly they just increase ego regeneration, increase charisma, and increase influencing strength. That that is rather...boring. Boring as in not interesting. Some of the skills that helps influencing that I really like, and what I felt were interesting, is the ability in Necromancy which lets you influence undead, and the one in Ecology which lets you influence animals. (They may or may not be useful, but they sound great to me.)

Perhaps there can be an ability which decreases the resistance the denizen gains against your influence attack on a timer? Something like having a leprechaun would do that for charity, banshee (or crone/slaugh) for weakening, nymph for seduction, pooka (or banshee) for paronia and sprite (or mother/redcap) for empowering.
Or it could be a demesne effect, since melding increases influence strength anyway, they might now want to meld the room of a tougher denizen. (Not that I know if they do it now or not.) Ideas can be like Mindgas for Geomancers to mess with their minds, SoothingStreams for Aquamancers to provide a more conducive environment and make the denizens get too relaxed, and druids get AnimalVoice, where there'll be sounds of the forest that will affect them. Sort of like how you get paranoid when you hear wolves howling in a forest.

Another idea is to reduce the amount of ego you need to use an influencing attack. Something like Superego, but only for your own attacks. Celestines can have the Light infusing them with the strength to orate and thus allowing them to feel righteous and less self-conspicous when influencing. Nihilists will just care less about how the others feel about what they are doing, and again, less conspicous.

And to justify having such boosts in influence, can we have high-level denizens which can afflict similarly to those debating afflictions? One of the main reason why most forumers disagree to have buffs to influencing is that they say influencing is safe, and you won't lose once you get to high levels. But my feelings for this is that this is similar to having to bash moose or other such mobs, because they are just as safe, but it is terribly slow.

Back on to the ideas track, there can be afflictions which makes influence attack less effective, and/or take up more ego, and/or creates resistance more easily. Then there can be afflictions such as muteness which will make you unable to influence until you cure it, and the influence equilivant of confusion. There can also be other regular afflictions which can mess with influencing just as easily with, such as stupidity, phobias and aneroxia(do regular mobs even give this affliction?).

And then, just to shake things up, there can be mobs which afflict themselves with influencing deafness (Perhaps they are ignoring you? I'm getting the mental image of Master Quettle sticking his fingers in his ears and saying 'Neener neener, I can't hear you!'), and this results in you being unable to influence them until you cure them by giving them the herb. To make you want to cure them, they get increased ego regen while ignoring you. So that'll be shielding for influencing, which only mobs get.

Any thoughts, problems, comments, improvements and criticism will be very much appreciated.

*cough*
Dramatics and Demesnes.
*cough*

That being said, is the demesne bonus to influencing working? And shouldn't it stack with other influence bonuses?

I know about Dramatics and Demesnes. But all they do is to increase your influencing strength. Unless I've been misled by the AB files again.

I think we should start slow.

Having denizens that are more active in thier attacks is a good idea.

some denizens should influence back at you, even if you have 19 charisma.. the hard part is balancing it because of the way ego is used to attack and its the target of the attack.

I like the way it works right now; it makes sense that if you keep talking, they're not able to talk back. Although maybe some denizens should talk faster and manage to get a line back at you in there occasionally. This could be changed to be semirandom, for example.

Oh, and there are plenty influencing buffs, they just need to stack, dammit. I don't see no reason why a tailor mage faeling with trans dramatics shouldn't be better at influencing than a tailor wiccan faeling with trans dramatics.

I am 62.534% sure that influencing bonuses do NOT stack (with the exception of the 100cr runes). When I use demesne influence + trueheart + vagabond, I find that I influence just as well if not worse than if I just use one of them trueheart or vagabond (since I think demesne influence is less of a bonus, and a random bonus is used instead of all three). I have not tested it extensively, as it's hard when you beat denizens after 10 hits and the bonuses give less than a 10% boost. I have to work really hard to find denizens where the bonuses even do ANYTHING for me at all.

Also, his point was that the bonuses are BORING. They just decrease number of hits needed, nothing more. It's like having nymph, sprite, medicinebag, stagtotem, reflections, circle/pentagram, weathering, armor, healspring, aqua twirl, moondance waxing, etc etc all just increase your damage in bashing rather than doing any unique effect.

The way I view it is, your own drain on ego is considered their 'attack'. The attacks they manage to slip in, are considered 'criticals'. The resistance over time is uncurable 'bleeding' Getting them to influence back no matter how high your influencing speed is, well, not really fun for influencers.

Getting them to be more active is good, though. Just not a direct attack on the ego. Some of the afflictions I mention could be one way, and I'll try to think of more methods to make influencing more than just hitting the one/two/three command(s) over and over, and chasing.

One thing I'm not sure of is what those bonuses actually do. They can increase your damage to the denizen, reduce the ego damage you take, or speed up your attacks.

The OP fails to mention either dramatics, demesnes, prestige, or anything - Those should be made better to start with. But these are my suggestions for Influence buffs:

Insight - This causes you to occasionally make a very good point, causing several times more damage with one hit. The effect is dependant on level. You can use Power to force an insight to happen on your next attack.

Smear: Smear mud over your clothing, drastically reducing their prestige.

My sacarsm-o-meter is going crazy here.

You do have a point though. I guess I'm having a case of the-grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side syndrome.

But still, it can't hurt to have more things that help influencing. All you need are bromide vials, some lessons in influence and a moderate charisma to influence. Your influencing style doesn't change no matter what guild you are in. You just put up passive defenses, and go in and influence. Nothing else, just influence, influence, influence, move to chase, and then influence. And sip a few times.

Just in case its that syndrome again, bashing styles do differ among guilds, right?
Ooo, and do those stories which you tell denizens do anything?


OP? Erm, Over Powered? I'm not that good with acronyms.

I assume you're refering to me, and now that you mention it, I forgot about Dramatics and prestige. I loved Dramatics. And still do. But what I'd like is to see more guild-specific abilities.

On Smear, would it work with rags? In other words, is there a prestige level lower than rags?

OP = Original post.

And no, it wouldn't work with rags.

As for your question about bashing, yes, bashing is the same for nearly all guilds: You hit your kill macro until it's dead. The wiccans have nymph, mages have reflection, aquas have twirl, that's it. And even those are just different ways of using shield, more or less, except for the twirl, which is a passive defense and a way of saving potions.

Umm, no sarcasm intended at all....


They make the denizen HARDER to influence, doing absolutely nothing beneficial in any way. I don't get their point apart from griefing.


Original Post.




Unless they do more than one thing, they all make it take fewer attacks to win. I didn't test them extensively, but testing each skill alone showed that demesne influence was about a 5% decrease in number of attacks required, vagabond and trueheart were a 10% decrease. With all of them, I had about a 5% or 10% decrease total, meaning they did not stack.

Ah, I thought it sounded weird. You could have called me by name, though, couldn't you?

And as for bashing. Oh. I didn't know that. I don't bash very much. Should have clarified this because claiming it so.


Really? Its not working then.


Do they increase esteem and/or experience?

Village influencing. And possibly, they increase the experience gained from influencing the denizen, but don't quote me on that.