Report 1873

Report #1873
Skillset: Tracking Skill: Pits
 Org: Hallifax Status: Pending
Problem: Pits continue to be a powerful addition to any team, eclipsing many of
the specialised skillsets available to warriors (i.e. Paradigmatics for
Templars, Night for Ebonguard). This particular report deals with the problem
that laying pits is entirely too fast. Currently, the base balance time for
laying a pit is 2 seconds. That means that, depending on an area's size, a full
area can be pitted in 1-2 minutes. While the spirit of Tracking is presumably to
anticipate enemies before they arrive to fall into said traps, this amount of
area control is blindingly fast and incomparable to other area control classes,
like melders. Pits being able to be laid so quickly also provides a quick and
easy way to deter being chased, making it extremely difficult for any one
individual to catch a fleeing Tracker and/or his/her allies. This report seeks
to bring Pitting further into line by increasing the time it takes to set up
pits. This report should also apply to spike pits and snake pits.
Solution #1: Increase the balance time of laying a pit to 4 seconds, double
 the current time. Also increase the balance time of concealing a
 pit to 4 seconds.
Solution #2: In addition to solution 1, make laying a pit a channeled action
 that also has a base balance of 4 seconds. Interruptible by the
 standard options: webbing, blindness, sprawled, and by the player
 entering a second command during the channel, and so forth. Same
 thing for concealment.
Solution #3: In addition to solution 1 and 2, make laying a pit in enemy
 territory cost 6 seconds base balance, as well as concealment.
 Concealment by non-enemies should remain at 4 seconds.
Player Comments:
---[Maligorn on 3/20 @ 01:02 writes]:
Food for thought: this is still noticeably faster than melding, which I feel is
appropriate given that a meld has multiple effects. To give numbers:
condensating a regular room (with my Censer) takes ~2.5 seconds, with ~4 seconds
for melding, for a total of 6.5. Forcecondensating with censer takes 3.5
seconds, plus 4 seconds for melding, equaling 7.5 seconds, not counting
realitycheck or chopping saplings for additional time. Granted, sol 2 calls for
a channel time on pits. Furthermore, it should be considered that spike pits and
snake pits should take even longer to set up than regular pits.
---[Maligorn on 3/20 @ 01:02 sets as pending]
---[Aeldra on 3/21 @ 10:06 writes]:
I have personally always felt that pits were a rather powerful advantage to any
team and were really fast to add on the fly to adapt to any situation. I am not
sure I am a fan of a channeled action, nor am I 100% sure if this report is the
right route to go. Pits amount to a large and powerful amount of area control,
even with the changes that they do decay. I sadly do not have any meaningful
other solution at mind right now, will give it some thought though.
---[Deichtine on 3/21 @ 14:19 writes]:
Not a fan of channeled action either. 100% support for option 1 though.
Tentative support for option 3. If option three is put in though I would say
make conceal and lay pit 6 seconds as well, cant see a point in them being
different times.
---[Danquik on 3/22 @ 21:06 writes]:
I am not a fan of any of these options, though I agree that Pits need more done
to them. One suggestion I have is divorce pits from enemy/ally list. They just
plain hit anyone, except the Owner. Making them a double edged sword.