Some thoughts on the current influence.

Empowering thoughts:
1) I would like to see empowering demons/angels help when raising supernals/demon lords like getting the demons to give some essence to the Fallen Lord.
2) Give it a bit more of an effect on level/health/damage

Weakening thoughts:
1) More of an effect on denizens damage

General thoughts:
1. Make it easier to win influence battles. Lessen the amount of attacks needed or as suggested, influencing criticals.
NOTE: Make level effect influence crit rate so it gets easier as you get higher

2. Lower experience loss when you lose ego battles.


New influence types:

Motivate:
A denizen under this effect will find themselves working harder thereby producing more commoditys (perhaps also a minor boost in power like.. 1-2?).
-Strong against attitude: ???
-Weak against attitude: ???

Bargaining:
Though more difficult than most forms of influence a commodity selling denizen (maybe for mount denizens?) will find themselves willing to sell one type of commodity at a cheaper price for a short time once every few months.
-Strong against attitude: ???
-Weak against attitude: ???

Laziness:
A denizen under this effect will work less, causing a lower commodity production.
-Strong against attitude: ???
-Weak against attitude: ???

Change for revolts:

Maybe having seduction help.. like if that village revolts within an hour (nothing too imbalancing) after you influence that denizen remembers you and is fond of you.. like

Slykok says, "Malarious my friend welcome back! How can I be of service?"
And is therefore easier to influence with whatever you do next within that hour.

Change to reprieves:

Also I had a thought that maybe you could use the same skill on things (parley mainly or maybe motivate if it was a single skill and not have 3 skills to it etc) but with changed syntax like..

PARLEY WITH

Ex.. if you empower with a type you ask inthat way..

*Charity- You beg for aide in seeing justice served and the removal of the status of
*Seduction- Telling of your desire for them you gently hint that you wish to see unenemied.
*Weakening- You whisper to of the pain you have been known to afflict upon those who dont give you your way, and urge he/she reconsider the enemy status of .
*Paranoia- With a cautious look about the room you quietly tell that the only reason this status was wrongly brought upon was for the plot against them and that unenemying them would be a great aide in the coming times.
*Empower- You speak of such mercy and grace passed down the grace vine about and say that they could surely show such an example by allowing free passage.

You could change around which you use. However whichever attitude the denizen has effects which work well and which work poorly. To make things interesting the denizen can change attitudes after a hit on an X% thereby throwing off your attempts.



Dramatics stuff:

AB DRAMATICS INTENSITY

Syntax: INTENSITY
Use intensity to get your point across faster! Intense influence attacks cost more ego and make denizens stubborn faster, but also work faster. Intensity is a constant drain on willpower.


AB DRAMATICS NONCHALANT

Syntax: PERFORM NONCHALANT
PERFORM END
By acting nonchalant, you are less likely to make people stubborn against your message.

I like

Still don't like the first part, but you already know that

I think there are too many suggestions there.

I only like the idea of Crits, and the Dramatic abilities of NonChalant and Intensity.

Since paranoia has no effect on villages, motivate, bargain, and laziness are there for it.

Yes I know Acrune doesnt like influence crits.

Also there is no number limit on suggestions, when they are brought up they will be in a large group and likely picked through unless something seems like it needs to be removed first.

There should be... the larger the list, the more likely good things will get overlooked in the morass of badness.

Influence crits don't make a ton of sense with influence fixed. For a little while, Acrune's arguments were based on things that weren't true. They're back to the way they were. Dramatics, beauty, and level one ego regen is enough for me to not have to sip against most things.

What does sipping have to do with Crits?

The point of crits is to require less time between mobs you influence, since you need more xp per level. Influencing needs to be a viable option to reach Demigod with.

If crits are going to be added to make it a "viable option to reach Demigod with", then the following changes need to occur to influencing:
1) The amount of ego loss when you influence an NPC with something needs to be significantly reduced.
2) When you influence them, their response needs to NOT be reset-- they should fight back.
3) NPCs should have multiple responses which cause varying amounts of ego loss (from medium to heavy), much like NPCs have different damage attacks.
4) Some of them, especially the stronger ones, need to use afflictions. New ones could be made, or they could use FastTalk afflictions. Best would probably be a mix of these, and some mental afflictions.
5) Add in crit chances. Don't touch how fast they become willful, 'cause with crits that won't be anywhere near as much of an issue.

Open to suggestion on which ideas to take down.. and waiting on replies to Xenthos

You should add to that list.

6) Add 10X more mobs that can be influenced.

I'm not sure why you need to do changes 2-4 when its based on the idea of changing 1. Add crits, and then see what needs to be tweeked after that, IF anything.


@Malarious

Remove: I'm really not sure what the purpose of this is, other then maybe for people with influence artifacts? If so, just add a new parlay artifact.


Remove:

If they are seduced, then they arn't being influenced towards the revolt. Unless there is a major change where mobs can be influenced while still suffering the affects of an influence battle. (which would be nuts)

I think keeping the changes simple makes them easier to balance later, and be easier to get implemented.

There's no need to add 6. Look at the Undervault. I'm pretty sure you can influence all the kepherans and illithoid (or you should be able to, at least). That right there's a ton of influencing to do. You can also do the krokani/aslaran for 2x the experience (influence then kill), etc. 2-4 are essential if you're adding crits, because otherwise you're making it as fast to influence something as to kill it, without the same issues as bashing. If you want it to be a bashing equivalent, actually go through and make it a bashing equivalent.

The simple point is to decrease the amount of time needed to kill the mobs as the amount of mobs required to be killed are increased.

Suggesting completely changing influencing to be something that its not is silly.

If you can think of a way to decrease the amount of time per mob in proportion to the number of mobs you need to influence other than crits, then thats fine to.

It should be an alternative to violent bashing, not the exact same thing with different text.

Which is why you kept the two things that make it much faster and easier than bashing, with the same experience gain... since there are tons of mobs around to influence with the advent of the Undervault. If you want to speed influencing up with crits, fine. However, it then needs to be balanced in other ways. Add in afflictions, let the mobs actually talk back, and so on.

I think not having mobs reset thier attack is a good idea. And having the Dramatics afflictions would be good to.

Make it more like debating and less like bashing though.

So... which of my points, except crits, doesn't work almost exactly like debating? I was actually keeping debating in mind while I made the list. In fact, if you want it to be like debating, you'd adopt everything except the crits.

In replacement of that number, instead you'd remove the whole "willful" thing and make it so that both parties lose more ego the longer it goes on, until someone wins.

Mental afflictions is nothing like debating. Nor am I suggesting that you have mindsets to defend against different attacks.

It should be more similar to debating then it is similar to bashing. That does not mean it should be like debating.

Adding varying attacks is more like bashing, not more like debating.

If adding crits by itself is a problem and it requires some set back (which I don't think it does since nobody has gotten even titan from influencing) then there are 2 suggested changes. (not 4)


I don't understand why people have such a hard time allowing people to use Influencing as a viable method to getting past level 85. You can influence to get to level 85, why not have it be viable to get past it?

In exchange for it being easier to win, the consequence of failure is greater. But because of hte lack of crits, you basically have to switch to bashing after level 85.

Sure it is. Fasttalking is, in my opinion at least, a mental affliction. Letting mobs go a bit further than that isn't too much of a stretch, depending on the affliction.

Intensity and nonchalant! Increased cost, increased risk, increased speed! That's more like bashing right there.

If I could have just one Influencing wish....

...it'd be for them not to walk out of the room once I've started influencing. I -hate- chasing things around forever trying to influence them.