Yes, they do, it's called flow, get monolith, tell wiccan wisp them.

Wisp and Flow are the reason that raiding the cities is so much easier than raiding the communes.

Right, it's not the unbreakable totems nor the inability to force without first chopping down trees?

Obviously, I'm not speaking to someone who understands raiding, totems are not a factor in villages and saplings are a recent addition. Wisp and Flow have always be the sole factor other than player ability that determined the extreme difficulty of raiding the communes versus the cities.

I'm actually quite jealous of flow, it would be a extremely nice to be able to hit a raider within a second of them attacking one of our denizens, by flowing from the Megalith. Hell, I could even summon a few guards before I flow, bringing them with me.

Since there was so much complaining about Unite and Seek, are those being discussed here as well?

First and foremost, I believe the point of this thread is to make minor adjustments in teleportation/summoning skills to make them more balanced. Typically, I find that radical suggestions (such as moving this skill to a new skillset and then redoing this skill to compensate for this change, etc) aren't likely because it basically creates a brand new setup that could be as potentially flawed as the former. The point in making small tweaks is to slowly but surely fine tune everything down to a more balanced state.

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I think a major concern is the movement of groups with teleportation and summoning abilities. Using Flow as an example, the major concern I see is the ability to mass transport an army. You can basically poof in 10 people instantly (9 of which can immediately attack) on anyone who is raiding, etc. I don't like this; I don't think this is fair. If changed, I think this will remove a great deal of concern about "how easy" Serenwilde or Glomdoring has it.

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As Dumihru has suggested, the current setup seems to be that cities have an easier time summoning enemies whereas communes have an easier time getting to enemies when said enemies are in home turf. I think there is a lot of merit here, and it certainly is something I think should be kept in mind

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I'm not sure why the anti-wisp campaign remains. To wisp someone outside of the Commune itself requires:

1. The village be forested by a Druid
2. A wiccan must be present with the ability (near mythical)

The restrictions are that the ability is local-area only and stopped by a monolith sigil. Furthermore, if the target resists the summon then the wisp is lost. This costs 1p to replace the wisp along with a ~6 second eq loss (2 seconds to recover from the failed summon, 4 seconds to summon a new wisp).

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Demesne Summon, however, requires:

1. The target be in the mages respective meld

Although more difficult to achieve, it is far more difficult to stop. It works within the entire meld (which can included a number of areas), costs no power when failed, cannot be stopped by monolith sigils.

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The two are different, however, each is more effective in certain circumstances. Furthermore, enchanters can mass produce monolith sigils to stop wisps. On top of it, the only people who can take down said monolith sigils if flamed are enchanters themselves.

I feel it is a bit misplaced to say that one isn't equivalent to the other when it is the design was for them to be different yet useful - and they both are.

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And to end, I'm going to discuss some points I read:

1. Eye sigils don't stop spirits. They don't stop ghosts. They stop souls. Flow has nothing to do with souls so the argument eye sigils should have some impact is flawed.

2. I remember something about dropping items in your inventory when you Flow. This is silly and the argument could be moved to a number of other methods such as why do ghosts not drop their armour? Balance > realism in this case.

3. As for wisp/flow having less preparation, that's questionable. The only natural forests on prime is Serenwilde itself plus like a couple rooms in the Arysian Isles. Thus, all villages have to force forested beforehand, which costs power and fades (hence they have to be continually scouted and forested as it disappears). However, there are a lot of naturally flooded/tainted areas. Angkrag, Acknor, the Sea of Despair, and all wastelands can be melded by a geomancer for no power cost.

Really, because I never had a problem raiding Glomdoring. I would argue that its 90% player aptitude and then 10% advantage skills such as wisp, flow, and the not so mentioned beckon and demense summon skills.

Well, flow DOES have a long eq, preventing you from flowing and attacking immediately, and making it impossible to flow in, grab a monolith, and flow out, unless your opponents aren't very observant. I guess it's much more possible now with Blend, but still - they'd have to not notice you in the ten or so seconds you're sitting there helpless for you to actually snitch the monolith.

1. Point taken. Indeed if Eye sigils stopped anything with a soul, only the Soulless would be able to pass.

2. Obviously ghosts dropping armour would fall into that category, However, that would be off topic.

2.a. The title of my post: The Case for Consistancy and Logic; was originally The Case for Realism. My suggestions presumed the ridiculous notion that Realism should outweigh Balance.

Somethings are unlikely to be implemented because of the excessive amount of coding that would be required. My concept of connecting rooms for Flow, and the suggestion that Beckon be stopped by obstacles along the way, would be examples. I suspect the code handles these as room to room jumps and not room by room journies. To make it work right, it would have to figure out your path, and then check the rooms between for obstacles that would block it. We might see a check for obstacles in the room you are beckoned from but not the rooms between. If a Demesne is a straight line and there is an Icewall in the middle, it won't stop Beckon

There are no rooms between in case of Beckon, it only works for adjacent rooms.

I wish geo/aquacast center worked instantly like flow even though it has a powercost...yes -daydream-

EDIT: and ya..flow is a freaking awesome ability...I hardly ever died as a Druid because when things got messy I could just put up serpent and flow out...not so easy anymore

I wish forescast center worked instantly

It does, just not when you're not in your demesne, if I recall correctly. I like the idea of moving flow to druidry, and changing pigwidgeon.



So... too bad druids? Unless you already have a demesne set up and are IN IT, if you want to move, it's gonna cost power.

...I'm sorry, usually, I don't bash on ideas. I just -cannot- understand why any player would advocate an ability that caused fellow players to drop all their items. That's just stupid.

Big fat no.

Yay. Non-IRE MUDs do that.

Not exactly. Mistform and Blackwind in Aetolia will cause you to drop all quest items, all herbs, and all "don't stick in your inventory when you quit" items when casts. I think it is a bit retarded myself as there is no justifcation as to why you can poof into a cloud of mist and retain a suit of scale mail but not a berry.

For once, I agree with Narsrim

Flow is fine. If there -has- to be a change, make it so that being prone stops it. Losing entourage? That's questionable. That would hit the Serenguard hard. We'd have to rely more on RIFTS to get to a village quickly, that's if the raiders haven't distorted.

Can you say catacombs, anyone?

I can't believe people are still whining about wisp. Flamed monos work miracles.

Via and flow are two completely different skills. I'm not even sure why they're being compared. Dumi was pretty dead-on in her post.

It's not that hard to raid communes. Not sure what that's all about. There's just heavy numbers in the SW lately and permanent distort makes it worse.

Am I the only one that hates the power cost on summon/teleport? Heh Gods, I miss teleporting for free. Poor Stag Serenguard.

Walking is good for you.

You wouldn't want to get fat, would you?

Well, actually, I wasn't saying that IRE muds /don't/ do that, I'm saying that you'll find non-IRE muds, specifically the LPmud with 'traditional' mudlibs, result in you dying with all of your 'lewt' on your corpse. If you don't rush to your corpse before someone else does they can just loot your corpse for all you own.

Geo and Aqua center is instant and free as long as they are standing in their demesne.