I really don't understand what you're saying about the healing scroll and sparkleberry. If they acted the same (on same balance, do the same thing, etc), they'd be completely redundant. Either get rid of one or the other but don't make them basically the same!

Those afflictions that make you prone aren't really redundant of each other, they're pretty much completely different afflictions. Maybe some of them shouldn't make you prone? Should we get rid of any of them?

Should scarab, throatlock and/or homeostasis simply give anorexia? (Granted it doesn't make RP sense but oh well!)

I missed the constructive part in your post...


Anywho...I think we're all going to have to take a step back here and accept that if we want to simplify/streamline combat, there are going to have to be major changes, and you are going to see some skills get nerfed, and some get buffed. That means that you're also going to have to take a step away from your personal agenda and make decisions that may not be what's best for your class, but rather but what's best for the game as a whole.

Just my two cents on the argumentating going on under the main topic.

Oh dear, please don't dumb it down -that- much. Throatlock and homeostasis are distinct afflictions that do wildly different things. I really don't think the number of afflictions is the problem, but more that the lack of upkept records (curelist, which you do have a call out for, ) and the lack of standardized lines by which one can -deal- with the afflictions.

I know there's been discussion over the problem with standardizing lines and illusions, but I'm sure a solution can be found. Someone suggested making the first newline free, and maybe upping the mana cost a bit? That would be acceptable to me.

I would also like to reiterate my request for distinct afflictions to give distinct problem lines. For example, severed spine and paralysis should not give the same action-fail message. The same goes for hemiplegy and broken arm. The lack of distinct action-failures makes diagnosing these issues far more difficult than it needs to be. Then, of course, we get into the issue of void, stupidity, and fracture skull... the first two are cured in the same manner, they just have different failrates, so I think leaving the same secondary action-failures is fine. Fractureskull I'm bit more ambivalent about, but in the name of consistency, I think it should give a unique action-failure message as well (your addled brain refuses to obey your thoughts, or something like that).

I disagree with a fair bit of this. Things that are meant to be system breaking should continue to be system breaking. Even good systems are tripped up by silly little things when the conditions are just right, and definitely in the case of stupidity, which, like Recessional, only has benefit in the fact that one needs to figure out a split-second after the fact what went wrong. Recessional would be crazy OP if it gave uncurable stupidity instead of the effect it has now, and a lot of that has to do with how loudly and noticeably that Recessional creates failures.

Ok will come to heal scroll last.

They all cause prone and stop STAND I believe was the criteria. I believe you can stand on broken leg(s?) so I didnt put those down. Since prone ups monk damage and removes the effect of stance/parry/dodge those are all important for that.

They dont do anorexia specifically.. but scarab and homeostasis are really similar though still very different. Making them all anorexia would be bad though. I was just explaining what someone else said so you had a basic list.

Ok as for Heal scroll... right now... there are alot of balances:
-Elixir
-Sparkle
-Herb
-Salve
-Focus
-Purgative
-Allheale
-Scroll

Now I wont break into a rant of removing balances ENTIRELY but what I am saying is to remove the scroll balance. Make heal scroll require and consume eq like all the other scrolls. Aka dont make it fly by curing, make it active. This would lower healing back to old levels before ANOTHER form of healing was added.

Make it require and consume eq like all other scrolls, but instead of simply healing health it would heal all of them, say it heals 1000 max it would put most of its healing into whatever is most damaged and split what was left. This way it would be helpful to cure priority but heal everything. A handy method to heal actively and it could heal anything.

If thats confusing I can rephrase but thats more simple than throwing out lots of numbers.

Except for the requiring eq part, I thought it already worked that way.

Making the healing scroll require equilibrium instead of scroll balance will only hurt combat at this point. It's not simplifying things as much as it is just nerfing something that's already useful to a lot of people.

It wont hurt balance to remove something that skills were never intended to offset. Most damage and mana drains were made during elixirs only, then sparkleberry and later on heal scroll was introduced. By removing healing scroll again you help brings things back to a balance, otherwise you are looking at risking multiple other skills being altered again. Amissio and Leech both have had upgrades to make wrack and absolve more doable BECAUSE of the constant increases in healing and reflexes. Now we face the chance to smooth things out, why not remove yet another healing that will cause issues down the line (I assure you it will).

P.S.
Dont think healing keeps expanding?
-Elixir
-Later sparkleberry
-Then Healscroll
-Now Beast heal...

none of those use eq, you can now stack all of them.

Try to wrack someone with all those short of being balance locked on crucify or SOMEHOW negotiating an aeon lock.

You...are trying to nerf healing scrolls cause you think Nihilists need help with their offense? I think we'd all just be better off moving forward before things devolve again...

So, how about them demesne runes. Do I have to cough out more credits to reach the base 25 again.

I think Malarious' point is more that the more variables you have which allow healing, the more complex combat becomes. Removing heal scrolls entirely means that a person only needs to worry about balancing sparkleberry and sipping. It's similar to the issue of there being many afflictions with variable cures... more variables = more complexity, often unnecessary (as in, they don't really add anything new or fun to the game compared to the complexity they add).

Covering a large area becomes less important when your effects are going to normally be covering 3-ish rooms at a time. I would just skip the credit investment part and stop using demesnes as long-range scouts.

Figuring out when to apply health and when to sip health is far more complicating to combat than having to hit 'read scroll#' every x seconds.

From my point of view, having the healing scroll actually helps to alleviate some of that.

I don't think this has anything to do with nihlists.

btw, sparklleberry has been around since day 1, so I'm not sure what that means. But I think that healing scrolls should require and consume both balance and eq. Keep them around for times when you are going to stop your offense, but don't allow them to be another thing that just stacks in the background.

edit: Nevermind, I forgot about the whole "applying health" thing.

Perhaps then we should remove "apply health" and instead use a different mechanic for healing wounds?

If you have a large demesne, it's a hell of a lot harder to break, even if the effects aren't covering the whole thing.

I'd like to see demesnes something like, rooms just automatically meld and unmeld as available as you move.

You want to turn Mages into Guardians?

It'd still be dependent on terrain, and can only have one going at a time. I just never liked being tied to my demesne not being able to be really mobile, and that a large meld spread over an area can make attacking it incredibly hard if not impossible.

EDIT: Also yeah, are bards guardians because they have passive effects too?

Not sure why sickening is up there, it doesn't precisely make combat complex. Was it just there because no-one knew what it did? Someone else posted about it earlier, so I'll leave it at that.

Vestiphobia change would definitely be nice, making it act like it already does for people with selfishness for people even without selfishness!


I'd suggest this be a fairly low discernment ability, as a lot of the people who need it aren't likely to learn above diagnose.


Quite happy on the demesne effects thing, although not sure how this would affect abilities like travel (or, for that matter, pollute - being able to move two rooms and be out of pollute range, or being able to move two rooms when you see pollute and toadcurse/wrack/absolve?). Not so sure about the size, for the aforementioned reasons regarding defending planes, although I expect you would simply need to make new, more efficient meld patterns, although this could also be seen as a buff to other watching abilities (ancestralwatch, crow spy, possibly even shrine herald!).

Making meld effects just hit in same/adjacent room and getting rid of effects altogether, with only one set of effects firing at a time (most recent? highest skill? random, but it's decided by person not effect to keep timing straight?) would be a good alternative, but if the code makes this difficult I can understand that.

Not sure if the dissolve change is necessary. The problem - that mages/guardians/druids/wiccans/etc. have a difficult time with shield, both during bashing and combat - isn't fully addressed by this (guardians/wiccans still get the short end of the stick, and dissolve doesn't work on mobs) and it's OP for those that would get it (being able to strip shields while off-eq). Shortening the eq time on void might be a better option here, and also helps with the bashing imbalance due to raze.


Agree, although again more of an envoy issue than a streamlining combat issue.


Nice to know this is being looked at. Not sure if 25% is the right number, and you would need to take into account that some people use smaller attacks more frequently (e.g. one-handed warriors). The last point is certainly good.


Sounds good, although again, shouldn't be much higher than diagnose.


Hitting a shield drops your own shield without making a third-party message, and there are probably other things.


Something I suggested that isn't mentioned here, but I think I'll throw up for discussion anyway: performing another action in aeon/sap/choke doesn't reset the timer if it's already been activated, just overwrites the action. Not going to affect the upper tiers much and still limits you to one action per second (or half second in sap), while giving a bit of leeway to those less sure of themselves in aeon (spamming a direction no longer means you can't get out!). Should probably be applied to delayed movement things, too.

To clarify, here's an example. Fred is affected by aeon.
0s: Fred tries to "sw". Timer starts, at 1s to action.
.2s: Fred doesn't know what's happening, so tries to "sw" again. His old "sw" command is overwritted with his new "sw" command, but the timer is not reset. .8s to action.
.6s: Fred decides "sw" is broken, so tries to move "ne". His old "sw" command is overwritten with his new "ne" command, but the timer is not reset. .4s to action.
1s: Fred's "ne" command fires.

I like that aeon idea, but I'm not sure how you could code that without it also affecting things like inv or look etc.
Is there a strategic/tactical reason that each command resets the counter, and not just have the last action go through? So it's more like amnesia for 1 second?

Handfuls. With a change like that, people would be able to respond to things under aeon much faster, which rather defeats the purpose. The system-breaking aspect is tangential. Aeon's main purposes are 1) preventing stacked cures, and 2) forcing the target to wait at least one second, usually longer, before responding to a new situation. You'd be stripping out the second one, which has implications for things like sleeplock and even getting aeon to stick.