We're going to chat a bit about 'sigil of the undead army', the major remort necromancer spell which summons (at sufficient levels of willpower) 8 immobile red skeletons to do their master's bidding.
Here's what I am comfortable with currently:
- the spell's concept and flavor is great
- the overall power level and running damage is on cue
- the non-movement limitation and the min sali tra solution is good
Here's what I'm not comfortable with:
- battle and equipment spam
- eight pets' worth of impairments (although skeletons are weak enough that this is a valid but lesser concern)
This spell is an odd one, because its power level is good and its flavor is awesome, but its fundamentals lead to some subtle but persistent problems. Having a group of three players is a simple, common situation which works just fine. Fight a group of three necromancers with their skeletons out, however, and that's already 28 lines of battle text flying by every 2 seconds, minimum. We won't even talk about what an innocent observer's screen will look like if they all decide to equip or unequip their pets together.
It's not a problem of lag or code, Nodeka can handle all of this flawlessly. It is a question of aesthetics, comfort, and keeping battles and inventories clean, however. The harder battles are to understand, the less strategic reaction is possible, especially on a 2-second-per-round scale.
This is the solution I'm considering.
- Change sigil of the undead army from 8 skeletons to 3 thingies (type yet undetermined)
- Maintain all other variables (e.g., the 3 thingies will be rooted and will have a damage output in the same vicinity as 8 skeletons)
This is fairly easy for me to do, and allows for a little creativity and perhaps some beyond 100% mastery improvement. I have heard counterarguments to this solution, however, and I can imagine others. Thus, I'd like to hear your thoughts (especially if you like moonlit nights and casting 'passage of the bleeding moment' without warrior's magical study).
Quick question- what was warlock wrinkle before? If its magical and physical now.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the impairments go, I'm not sure how huge of an impact the skeleton's channeled anger has. Granted, I don't have my skeletons fully eq'd yet, but it seems when I order all eight to channel anger it's not too often that more than one will actually land it. It's possible that on weaker mobs this would be different; I have yet to extensively test skeletons' channeled anger during pfights.
ReplyDeleteI'd agree that there is a lot of spam when a group of necromancers get together; thanks to the invasions we're seeing that quite often now. I can understand the aesthetic desire to limit some of that spam, however one of the things that drew me to the class was the 'skeleton army'. It's a very unique ability and I think it's power-level is controlled well. There's just something really cool about a big group of skeletons to do your bidding. I'd like to hear more from the other necromancers as I'm still new to the class.
I certainly understand wanting to limit the spam. Is it possible to have all 8 skeleton attacks combined into one line by adding in a new output control?
ReplyDeleteDitto what Drayke said
ReplyDeleteDarko was necro and I loved playing him and I for sure would hate to go back to playing one without the skeletons. That said I hated the EQ spam.
ReplyDeleteAs now followers are tagged with "follower". will it be possible to have follower on its own output settings? as drayke has discussed. Maybe a toggle setting: follower output brief. where if you order all.followers wear all. it just outputs a general single output: all your followers wear what they can. and as drayke pointed out have them combat output a single line as well. An army of skeletons land [72 of 72] attacks rah rah rah
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above posts. I like my skellies but the spam is def. a downside.
ReplyDeleteInterested in seeing whats up your sleeves Whim.
I think the spam is part of what makes them fun. The sheer joy of having nine lines of battle info all to yourself is part of the intimidating effect of possessing and commanding an army. But...I'm also a loser that casually scans the lines regularly for the lady in the red dress and to keep an eye out for skills, attacks, buffs, skellies not joining, etc.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, it is a reasonable notion to understand that most people find distaste in the deluge of green/gray spam stealing their attentions. Perhaps a compress for their combat output would work best. Eight red skeletons land x of y attacks: z'ing damage!
A compact option as opposed to decreasing the amount of followers instead. Gathering all the eq for skeletons is a task and goal in itself, as well as trying to organize it, tweaking what's optimal, keeping track of it, and eventually putting it all away. Now comes the question of eq spam. It's there for all followers; from one to two to eight. Degree varies accordingly of course. What was that one recent update...the one that hid backpack examinations from other players...or something...apply it to eq removal/putting away? Reserve eq spam of each degree for the rightful owners.
Onto impairments. Eight (sixteen...twenty-four...) impairments seems like an easy button for instant win. This would generally hold true, if not for the fact they were administered by mere base-100 mortals. The power of such can be worthy of recognition, in the rare cases that they land and take effect. Running, mobs of small-average size are susceptible, as they should be. As we gradually increase the target size, resistance becomes more apparent. Entering the realm of PVP and essentially uber super duper craft eq, the impairments' roles seem negligible to say the least. Unless I'm mistaken because I PK only once every blood-red moon. ;)
AS far as impairments go, the partial channels can be devastating to any class that relies heavily on in-between round actions, but I think the REAL power lies in keeping your target tripped in perpetuity. It's a powerful suppressor that does not miss, and the prevention is short enough that 8 skeletons can keep something tripped pretty much forever.
ReplyDeleteFrom a pk perspective, impairments will need to be handled delicately to avoid adding a hunter-style lockdown capability. Additionally, fewer mobs that hit harder can be balanced generally for running because most NPC's don't have the high NR that comes into play in pk. Warlocks don't take damage from skeletons, whereas (personal experience here) I've never survived a battle lock against a necromancer with skeletons out, bleed or no bleed.
From the perspective of my class (not even pretending to be objective here), I think consolidating skeletons into fewer mobs is a good idea. I think consolidating output is generally a good idea, but that still exposes the world to spam from attacks. Everyone commenting here has seen the crazy amount of spam that comes through even after gagging the attacks. The screen jerks constantly, and even with highlights and coloring, I just can't keep track of what's going on with 16 skeletons kicking/tripping/trying to channel (that's with only two necros).
Certain clients allow for multiple output windows- just gave everything and have only the pertinent info displayed!
ReplyDeleteNo really- I think that Grim has some great points- the sheer effort that has been put into 8 skeletons is more than what has been put into any other class.
Simply reducing the number while keeping the same damage output as 8 could provide to be challenging as it would bring up issues of necros possibly dealing too much damage compared to what they should deal.
While I don't completely agree with just coming up with a way to compress all of their attacks into 1 line it does seem to be the more friendly approach.
Follow the white rabbit.
Adding on more layers of output compression toggles is tempting (although it may be difficult at my level of coding), but it wouldn't really address the core issues. The problem with "addressing" an issue tangentially is that the core issues will continue to spawn problems. I could add a follower-only battle compression scheme... but then what about equipment spam? I could then code a special equipment spam suppression for followers... but what about abilities such as kicks? What happens as nojohrs get more spammable abilities? Do I continue to deny other nojohr followers (such as elementals and trewans) new nojohr abilities which would otherwise be fine on followers except for the necromancer 8x scaling? They may seem little, but issues like these add up to detrimental effect.
ReplyDeleteSyveril is on the dot in terms of impairments. It's true that a channeled anger attempt doesn't hit maxed players reliably right now. It will sometimes, but fairly infrequently. However, nojohrs also have bash, which is another 8 lagless attempts per minute. And they also have trip, which is another 8 lagless attempts per minute (which don't fail the way trip works right now).
It's not a big issue right now because it hasn't really been abused much, but it's actually trivial for a necromancer's skeletons to keep a player tripped practically 100% of the time at no lag cost (meaning other impairments can be woven in).
I'm actually not sure what you mean with your "issues of necros possible dealing too much damage", Odinn. The sentence contradicts itself - the point of "keeping the same damage output as 8" is just that, keeping damage constant. That doesn't mean increasing it. =)
As I mentioned, I think the power level is fine. I do understand about the "cool factor", but keep in mind that reducing the damage output of 8 pets into 3 will necessarily give the new pets some cool factor of their own. (They're either going to need to hit like trucks or have a boatload of attacks; I'm leaning towards the latter right now.) Another benefit is that I would actually be able to add some scaling into the new pets without the issues that arise with skeletons. (One of the reasons that the disciple was given scaling, while the skeletons were not, was that in testing it was really difficult to scale eight pets in a way that's worth training without tipping them over the line in power level.)
My comment refers to your last paragraph- while everything may seem to be relatively the same damage output as 8, throw in some abilities and SU follower EQ and we could have a mess.
ReplyDeleteIm not saying that it will instantly be OP or even Under Powered.
Merely caution is needed. Which im sure is one of the reasons you didn't instantly make a change to necro( beyond time restraints, other priorities, etc)
Ahh, gotcha. =)
ReplyDeleteWell I'm certainly not going to argue against having another ability to put practices into over 100%.
ReplyDeleteThe trip impairment is based on the person doing the trip dex vrs the target's dex isnt it? My skeleton's only have 100 dex. Even if you focused on SU follower eq to give + dex you could get it to 150 maybe. Seems like most people should be able to break that impairment pretty easily unless the check is scwewed heavily in favor of the tripper as opposed to the trippee. I haven't really tested it so maybe it is.
On a side note, why does kill red dragon Hit a red skeleton?
That's not how impairments work. The initial application is a stat-based comparison - but trip doesn't miss. The chance to break out of impairment once it's applied is an isolated stat comparison - the impairer's stats have no bearing on that.
ReplyDeleteKill does not take two parameters, just one. Pretty easy to figure out with a little testing. =)
@Drayke. Certain commands, including "kill" (and sixth sense, I believe) only accept one argument.
ReplyDeleteName suggestions:
ReplyDeletetriumvirate sigil of the skeletal banshees
triad of the indigo bone forms
sigil of the caged lizard zombie corpses
sigil of the threefold wandering stiffs
dark shadow sigil of the red relics
sigil of the bone-winged skeletal beasts
Race suggestions: gargoyle or weretiger - since they are hunters, protectors, guardians, etc.