I make this thread to pose a very simple question: Why does the game have defenses?
Let's take a look at my current defense list:
Limber, Balancing, Falling, Elasticity, Adroitness, Kafe, Blur, Invisibility, Yesod, Malkuth, Netzach, BardicPresence, Deathsight, Thirdeye, IllusorySelf, Insomnia, Perfection, Mercy, Kingdom, Beauty, Waterwalk, Waterbreathe, Levitate and Protection.

Out of these, only Balancing, Yesod, IllusorySelf, Kafe, Insomnia, Netzach, Waterwalk, Levitate and Protection fade or get stripped in combat time. The rest last until logoff or death, and every time I die or log back in, I'm just going to put them back up. Alot of them, like BardicPresence, Falling, the enchantments, Blur, etc. are just plain numbers boosters that are vital but ultimately uninteresting. I'm almost never going to not want them on, so there's no reason why they should fade on death or logout - it just adds a bit of tedium to the game.

The simple answer is to just get rid of them. Change those skills to simply be passive abilities in their skillsets that are always on without you needing to spend them "deffing up" and recasting them. Give them a toggle if you want, so you can turn them off for testing, but don't make them fade on their own.

Defenses add a bit of choice if you die and need to get back in a hurry. Which ones do you really need and which ones are just nice to have if you're not pressed. The only thing about them that bugs me is losing them if I get disconnected.

I like the idea in principle; it would, however, completely destroy certain skills (Inquisition, for example) that are based around removing defenses and making someone far weaker during the Inquisition / after it is done.

Same with Toadcurse, if cured before the stomp.

Plus there are a number of skills that strip individual defs - atone, spring, undoing, dark, etc.

@Xenthos: Understandable, I suppose, but it shouldn't be too hard to change those skills to have some other effect that replaces the defense stripping aspect.

@Shamarah: AFAIK, those skills all target a short list specific defenses (ie. quicksilver, kafe, fire, frost, waterwalk, and a couple others) not "any defense at all, chosen randomly".

The defense stripping skills, outside of those that take all of them, have always seemed pretty lackluster. DeadlyPattern's been envoyed repeatedly to make it worthwhile.

Some skills use that short list, others don't. Dark moon, for example, picks from all of them (although some defs cannot be stripped this way).

Sylphas:

The defense stripping skills, outside of those that take all of them, have always seemed pretty lackluster. DeadlyPattern's been envoyed repeatedly to make it worthwhile.

I actually like Needlerain well enough. I find some of the defs that Alter Aura strips to not make sense though.

Xenthos:

I like the idea in principle; it would, however, completely destroy certain skills (Inquisition, for example) that are based around removing defenses and making someone far weaker during the Inquisition / after it is done.

Same with Toadcurse, if cured before the stomp.

Greleag, your idea is great, two options seem to reconcile your idea, and Xenthos' legitimate concerns.

Make those defenses you mention last through logoff.
Should they last through death as well? Meaning you only have to put them up once until they're stripped? Or put them up every time you die also.

*shrug*

Removing tedium is always good though!

I think this would work out a lot better if other time constraints were attached to death. For instance, instead of instantly phoenixing for a cost (as a demigod) and spending time durping around deffing up, you instead spend time phoenixing and not time deffing!

Sounds like this needs to be a collaborative special report. There are too many edge cases that need to be looked at.

I'm sure someone like Vadi has a file somwhere with all defenses that can be looked at and seen if they make sense as defense to be stripped, or a passive ability.

Is there any skill for example that unbinds totem spirits?

I think defences should stay through relogins. It seems to me that it is just an old technical limitation.

Otherwise they are fine as-is.

Vadi:

I think defences should stay through relogins. It seems to me that it is just an old technical limitation.

I've always been curious what the limitation could be. Seems like giving each character another 10-15 bytes of data, with a bit to represent each possible defense they could have would be a pretty easy solution. On exit, see what defenses they have, set the appropriate bit to '1', and on login, check what bits are set and give them that def.

Vadi:

I think defences should stay through relogins. It seems to me that it is just an old technical limitation.

Otherwise they are fine as-is.

This is a fine idea. It would really encourage me to play a lot more often if I could login for 15 minutes and do something and then log out. Now I only play if I've got at least an hour or two available.

Acrune:
I've always been curious what the limitation could be. Seems like giving each character another 10-15 bytes of data, with a bit to represent each possible defense they could have would be a pretty easy solution. On exit, see what defenses they have, set the appropriate bit to '1', and on login, check what bits are set and give them that def.

Acrune:
I've always been curious what the limitation could be. Seems like giving each character another 10-15 bytes of data, with a bit to represent each possible defense they could have would be a pretty easy solution. On exit, see what defenses they have, set the appropriate bit to '1', and on login, check what bits are set and give them that def.

Trances are 24 hours in length, if this could be applied across the board (with or without exceptions for death) that could be interesting. Though maybe a fifteen minute warning when they are about to expire, or recasting resetting their times.

Just making all of the defences a permanent thing... mechanically there really seems like there'd be little issue making defences just permanent buffs except where they should be strippable etc, but... it just seems a bit off thematically.

Idea: Let defenses remain through logouts (no longer tie them to the socket connection but instead to the character).

Clear them out when the character goes 'inactive' (unranked), so as to free up the space in the database.

That way active players keep their defenses, but bloat is removed from the inactive folks!

Only if defenses from forgotten (permanently or skillflexed) skillsets are strictly stripped (that doesn't currently happen). Other than that, I don't really care one way or the other, it's honestly a non-issue. Most systems can do the deffing up for you nicely, as we as the keeping up of defenses that drop.

The idea is certainly feasible if everyone gets behind an Envoy report, then. I've talked with Iosai about this and that's what she recommended to do (otherwise it's a fair bit of work to convert defences to the different storage format just for no real reason).

I could submit this as the next Blacktalon one.

Veyrzhul:

Only if defenses from forgotten (permanently or skillflexed) skillsets are strictly stripped (that doesn't currently happen). Other than that, I don't really care one way or the other, it's honestly a non-issue. Most systems can do the deffing up for you nicely, as we as the keeping up of defenses that drop.

Not really required IMO, given that they'd still go away on an Inquisition / Toadcurse / death.

If you're that worried about it, make it so that your defenses are cleared if you quit your guild or org. That way you can't take defs from one to another.

Clearing defenses on skillflex would be pretty annoying, though. Especially for everyone who has doctoral cords and thus switch on a regular basis.

Edit: That'd also be a heck of a lot simpler than going through and associating each defense with a skillset to determine whether or not it should be lost. I can see a lot of reason to make them go away if you quit your guild / org though.

Works for me. It's not something you want to completely dismiss, though, since there are some juicy defences out there that don't drop on death.