Veyrzhul:


I dunno, I don't wanna see psionicists use full combos with an illusion line at the end via stratagem. Most guilds will have some way to make use of this in one or more good ways (although few people have a wand), and while you can work around most of those things, probably, it makes illusion detection a lot weaker if you do (since you'll have to rely on the curing system to do the double check, which, depending on the illusion, can hinder you more or less).

I do agree it makes illusion detection much much weaker (you have to code in consideration for the illusion line being an illusion itself). I think we pretty much agree that it's pretty powerful, I'm just saying in the instance Morbo used it, it's not that big of a deal to just assume shatterplex now and do a quick focus/horehound to cure it.

Arguing 'intent' seems pretty pointless to me. One, it's very open to subjective interpretation. Two, even if something goes against the original intent, it can be good for a game. Thus, the argument should be focused on whether or not the tactics used here are overpowered or not.

To this, I offer:
- Illusions can only be used after abilities that take balance or psi-bal, aka no eq abilities. This dramatically limits the uses.
- Most balance and psi-balance abilities have easy ways to check if it's an illusion that don't involve the perception line. Often prompt info, such as damage and the status string thingy can reveal an illusion right away, else simple checks for certain afflictions are possible (trying to apply a salve, trying to eat or speak, trying to stand, whatever.)
- Three, there's the chance to perceive the fake perception line, which makes this also not a 100% thing, like other illusions.

Now, that's just generalities. If specific combinations are suspected to be too powerful, then those can be brought up and discussed.

Shedrin:

Arguing 'intent' seems pretty pointless to me. One, it's very open to subjective interpretation. Two, even if something goes against the original intent, it can be good for a game. Thus, the argument should be focused on whether or not the tactics used here are overpowered or not.

To this, I offer:
- Illusions can only be used after abilities that take balance or psi-bal, aka no eq abilities. This dramatically limits the uses.
- Most balance and psi-balance abilities have easy ways to check if it's an illusion that don't involve the perception line. Often prompt info, such as damage and the status string thingy can reveal an illusion right away, else simple checks for certain afflictions are possible (trying to apply a salve, trying to eat or speak, trying to stand, whatever.)
- Three, there's the chance to perceive the fake perception line, which makes this also not a 100% thing, like other illusions.

Now, that's just generalities. If specific combinations are suspected to be too powerful, then those can be brought up and discussed.

You can't argue that it doesn't makes illusion detection harder, because it makes the general detection line(currently the most reliable way to detect).. unreliable.

Sojiro:

Oh good lord the example is not the point, here, feel free to use this one:

Vadi:
Can you tell if that was a real illusion catch or a fake illusion catch? With stratagem, you can't. Without it, you could have, as this would not made sense:

He posed the question. I gave a response. It's a faulty example. Yours works better, thank you (though IIRC you don't have access to illusions either, but meh).

EDIT: @Xenthos below: WTB anorexia poison.

It -should- be possible to do what I suggested, since mages don't see their own illusions (I think....)

Edit: Oh, maybe I misinterpreted a log I had at hand here. nevermind!

Sidd:


You can't argue that it doesn't makes illusion detection harder, because it makes the general detection line(currently the most reliable way to detect).. unreliable.

That's not what I'm arguing. I'm asking, 'are the specifics of this situation too strong or not.'

Swinging the shaft of an elegant black steel bardiche finished with golden webbing with brutal strength, Xenthos aims for your head. Your head snaps back as your skull is smited hard and fractures, causing your thoughts to spin.
The idea of eating or drinking is repulsive to you.
Swinging the shaft of an elegant black steel bardiche finished with golden webbing with brutal strength, Xenthos aims for your chest. Your chest is brutally pounded and your ribs snap under the force of the blow.
You notice that your sweat glands have begun to rapidly secrete a foul, oily substance.
Your eye immediately notices the flaws in what is obviously an illusion.

Well, I can illusion too, just not very well.

Another option is to make stratagems give a 3rd person line.

Not sure if that would help though, but it would make it a bit easier to code against.

Oh fun, let's be pedantic! The recent changes that are being talked about, which includes major buffs to affmessages, new cure lines, and stratagems, don't seem to care one whit about how they affected illusions. So another side effect, unintended or not, that actually buffs illusions? I'm all for it.

I'm also amused that we're not allowed to bring up reality because it's 'old news' but you get to bring up stuff that isn't relevant anymore. Please make up your mind about what is and isn't acceptable to bring to the conversation.

Oh yea, support for Rivius' idea here, too. It also gets rid of the possible mess I described in my first post.

Oh, feel free. I just think it's a bad argument and I've repeatedly posted why.

Shedrin:


That's not what I'm arguing. I'm asking, 'are the specifics of this situation too strong or not.'

Right, and I just pointed out that this makes the currently most reliable way at detecting illusions, not reliable, at all, It invalidates the entire point of transing Arts for illusion detection, that's pretty damn strong.

Lilia:

Oh fun, let's be pedantic!

How about we act mature and actually address the issues presented rather than talk utter nonsense?

I thought mages could choose to see their own illusions? I'm pretty sure I used to be able to toggle it so I could check them for accuracy

Lilia:

Oh fun, let's be pedantic! The recent changes that are being talked about, which includes major buffs to affmessages, new cure lines, and stratagems, don't seem to care one whit about how they affected illusions. So another side effect, unintended or not, that actually buffs illusions? I'm all for it.

I'm also amused that we're not allowed to bring up reality because it's 'old news' but you get to bring up stuff that isn't relevant anymore. Please make up your mind about what is and isn't acceptable to bring to the conversation.

Look, any illusion that was screwed over by an affmessage, wasn't an illusion worth doing in the first place, simple coding will get around any of those. Stop using an example that isn't actually true for your basis of this argument.

Sidd:


Right, and I just pointed out that this makes the currently most reliable way at detecting illusions, not reliable, at all, It invalidates the entire point of transing Arts for illusion detection, that's pretty damn strong.

Sidd:


Look, any illusion that was screwed over by an affmessage, wasn't an illusion worth doing in the first place, simple coding will get around any of those. Stop using an example that isn't actually true for your basis of this argument.

It doesn't actually invalidate arts, and infact arts can still be used to identify the illusion component of this and will show double lines of "Your eye immediately notices the flaws in what is obviously an illusion." You could script this so that if there are double lines of it, it assumes the first action is true, For this to be abused, someone would have to do at least a 3 line illusion which typically isn't worth doing. So yes, with coding fixes this illusion is almost not worth doing, and as sidd said, it's a one trick pony. In conclusion, Arts with proper coding (as is required for arts to be useful anyways) will help identify when the illusion is being used.

Thus, the easy solution: Remove the "Your eye notes the flaws" line from being appended to the end of the illusion blocks, and just put it in front of each illusion line. Tada. That was easy!

Morbo:




It doesn't actually invalidate arts, and infact arts can still be used to identify the illusion component of this and will show double lines of "Your eye immediately notices the flaws in what is obviously an illusion." You could script this so that if there are double lines of it, it assumes the first action is true, For this to be abused, someone would have to do at least a 3 line illusion which typically isn't worth doing. So yes, with coding fixes this illusion is almost not worth doing, and as sidd said, it's a one trick pony. In conclusion, Arts with proper coding (as is required for arts to be useful anyways) will help identify when the illusion is being used.

Here's the issue though, when you only get the one line (which will happen more often than it will have 2, due to actual illusions(not the illusion line) and the times the illusion line doesn't come up, you would have to double check every single time a single line comes up, rather than just assuming it's a straight up illusion like it was before stratagem. It makes it much much harder and diminishes the usefulness of Arts by quite a large amount. Trying to argue otherwise is just false and a lie. Remember, this extends to more than just to people with the Wand, mages can use this easily.

So instead of simply coding the illusion line in, you have to code in a multitude of checks, making it a lot more coding than you are trying to make it sound like.

Morbo:

It doesn't actually invalidate arts, and infact arts can still be used to identify the illusion component of this and will show double lines of "Your eye immediately notices the flaws in what is obviously an illusion." You could script this so that if there are double lines of it, it assumes the first action is true,

That's nice, but still means that I have to assume each thing detected by arts is NOT an illusion, and that makes it close to useless. Not a big deal in case of shatterplex, but Shuyin's ecto example is a nastier one.

Or even just move it so it's a newline on top of the illusion instead of on the bottom:

Your eye immediately notices the flaws in what is obviously an illusion:
Shamarah points his staff at you, and electricity crackles across its length before it discharges a bolt of blue lightning that slams into you in an explosion of cobalt sparks.

Or, just add prompts between stratagem'd actions.

I mean come on guys, let's be serious here, there is no reason stratagems should work this way.