I like the idea of making Astral more difficult: the added afflictions could do the job nicely. Perhaps make the creatures as nasty affliction/damage wise as the stronger players:

A creature that can fling double hidden ailments with a chance they could be aeons and webs like Tarot.

Another that tries to put you to sleep (not bad till 3+ show up) and can hurt you without waking up.

One that can do some warrior afflictions (just up to Heavy ailments, though they don't wound you, it's random) and have a 50% chance of doing a second venom in the meanwhile.

Of course they wouldn't realy be player skills: just monster skills that do a similar affect. Then imagine 3 of THOSE running after you.

I've been quite evil today.

Aww, but what about poor me without a curing system?

It would encourage you to make one of course!

With Nexus?

Sure! If I became Champion using cruddy Java you can at least do basic curing

This is the relatively early Hartstone you're talking about.

*hides*

*tap Vix* *peer* It's not hard! If Athana and I can manage it, you can.

Well, the nasty part about player skills is the combos players do. Double throw Jester with Aeon, hoping for a second Aeon while the ent Stuns or Binds. Attempts to venomlock. Rapifast Artery cuts against the young. It looses some of it's edge when it's purely random.

Thus I would imagine the Free system floating around will work wonders, or a simple Trigger=Cure system will do, with Shield+Diag going in if you can't tell what the ailment is.

The HARD part would be if you had 3 creatures on you. 6 hidden ailments, with the possilibity two being Aeon and one being Hanged Man is UGLY on anyone. 20 of them floating around should give the Node a good chance at recharging I believe.

I would still like Astral to be useful.

As useful as it sounds like it is now?

I don't feel so evil now so I can explain what I mean a little better. I'm not realy talking about monsters that require perfect systems to kill. I just like the idea of beefing up the creatures so that it's not so much an easy place to bash in. As such, there's three ways we can do that: Increase the spawn rate, beef up the damage, and add more afflictions. I'm going to assume that the spawn rate doesn't REALY do the job. Beefing up the damage could mean that the low con races will have no chance at all at Astral. Thus, my idea is to up the afflictions. Make it so that fighting 1 isn't too hard with a few triggers that Nexus can handle, 2-3 requires a rather ok system, a strong player, and alot of luck, and anything more requires a well set team. Afflictions are perfect for setting up that balance.

Besides, the NASTY skills wouldn't be availible. No instakills or Impale/Legtendon, or passive attacks or demesnes.

And if there ARE 20+ creatures floating around a dead node and if it IS impossible to solo then the node will have time to charge anyway (in a more natural way than just hardcoding) and I'm sure someone will figure out a way to drop the number down.

It's also pretty easy to RP that as wel: the fluctuations that resulted in the nodes goind wild also affected the creatures as well. Could even be part of a greater event as well.