Report 419

Report #419
Skillset: Night Skill: Choke
 Org: Ur'Guard Status: Rejected Jul 2010
Furies' Decision:
We will expect defer covering this until Shuyin's Special Report.
Problem: As much as everyone complained about roomwide choke, after months of
the alternative, single target choke has proven to be an even greater evil.
Single target choke in group combat is akin to playing hot potato with a small
nuke: whether it's the caster or the target (more often than not the target,
since the caster can decide when's best to choke), someone is going to nigh
instantly die as entire groups dogpile someone with extremely limited curing and
ability to act. Indeed, I feel the path that was taken with choke was not only a
little shortsighted, but also more complicated than it needed to be.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Solution 1: Make choke roomwide once again, but with
 some strict limitations: anyone standing in a choked
 room receives a protection field that blocks demesne
 effects and loyal entities (fae, angels, demons,
 etc). Furthermore, if the choker leaves the room he
 choked, choke will drop in 2-3 seconds unless he
 returns.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: Same as solution 1 except make ents tick 1.5 times
 slower and double the time for demesnes
Player Comments:
---[Viynain on 7/12 @ 09:45 writes]:
...? I'm not certain if you're entirely serious about this report considering
the short-sightedness of the proposition in regards to the wiccan guild.
---[Raeri on 7/12 @ 11:16 writes]:
Well... assuming it is a serious report, it would also mean a Shadowdancer can
kick the stuffings out of a Druid even easier than they currently can with
Brumetower. What would a druid have without a demesne or trees(sap)? A simpler
solution along these lines would be to have choke be a room effect again, but
like Octave instead of old roomchoke - making it affect everyone in the room
equally, but cancel instantly upon caster movement?
---[Raeri on 7/12 @ 13:27 writes]:
To clarify my comment above, I'm not saying that roomchoke is a good idea, but
that the solution currently proposed could do with some refining.
---[Geb on 7/12 @ 18:42 writes]:
I too would like a return to room-wide choke sans the ability to use it in
Supermob rooms. I don't see a need for there to be any other limit outside of
that, since most room-wide effects hit on a 10 second cycle anyhow.
---[Viynain on 7/12 @ 20:57 writes]:
As highly suspicious as the report might be after 4 or 5 preceding reports
already, the doubt remains as to the seriousness of the proposition as it
doesn't take into account the perspective of a Shadowdancer using the ability.
Nonetheless, I don't believe that I can recall a skill that kills off an entire
skillset of a class when it's supposed to supplement their offense either, and
as systems have shown already, singular choke seems to be dealt with just fine
in one on one combative situations. Until these most base issues are addressed,
the report just seems to be some haphazard reaction to some recent group scuffle
where the rules of affliction still remain worlds apart in balancing, since any
other well-used hinder will inevitably kill the lone target against the group
(read: forced off-equilibrium, stuns, pits, crucifies, etc.)
---[Xenthos on 7/12 @ 21:20 writes]:
"Single target choke in group combat is akin to playing hot potato with a small
nuke."? Drop Brumetower, drop Choke, Hartstone is SOL. Drop Choke, kill
Geomancer effects. I'm not entirely sure how this is a 'downgrade' myself.
And, given that Choke is the Shadowdancer form of aeon, it kind of -needs- to
work in combination with their fae somehow. Just like the other ent-classes
with their versions of aeon.
---[Fillin on 7/13 @ 16:29 writes]:
I don't think the idea is as outlandish as you make it sound. In other IRE
games, retardation (choke) makes your passive vibes disappear. What if choke
made the ents tick 1.5* slower (there are already bard songs that affect their
rate, so this has got to be possible), and demesne effects twice as slow (from a
coding perspective, an effect would give you a 'charge' for that effect, then
the next time it hit it would do the actual effect. Basically it would tick
every other hit). Lord knows active attacks suffer in choke; there should be
some restraint on passives I think.
---[Viynain on 7/13 @ 21:45 writes]:
I'm guessing you're also going to apply the same slow-down principle to bard
songs hitting in choke as well. It's more palatable, but I still don't see the
effects of choke dropping on movement, especially since we don't have
perfectfifth to keep someone in the effect.
---[Fillin on 7/14 @ 03:27 writes]:
We could and it's probably a good idea, though I don't see it as as big of an
issue since they need to strip deaf for them to work. The reasoning behind the
fade on movement is so you can't drop choke in important rooms (like domothean
thrones) and bail. You need to be there to keep your choke active. Furthermore,
it ensures you can only choke one room at a time.
---[Raeri on 7/14 @ 07:28 writes]:
If demesne ticks are going to slow to half-speed, I'd say just make it half-
speed for fae too. Technically, effects of choke used to drop on movement anyway
since the target would be out of the choked room with the tumble. Also agree
with Fillin above on making sure you can't blanketly choke an area and run for
it. Perhaps ought to ensure multiple people can't all choke the same room, too.
(It also occurs to me that this might mean druids'll use thornlash more.)
---[Viynain on 7/14 @ 21:59 writes]:
Going to need to ensure that elevation change doesn't drop the choke if room
change does. Also, 2-3s before the choke drops in a room change isn't enough
since moving out to chase and hopefully shove someone back into the choke will
take more than 3s.
---[Kalin on 7/14 @ 23:39 writes]:
Make it like carcer where you can only have 1 choked room. If yuo choke another
your last room choked fades. Also drop the duration of room wide choke to about
half.
---[Raeri on 7/15 @ 07:54 writes]:
Or what if it stayed as the current targetted casting, and just have it affect
everyone in the caster's room until caster/target separation(curing choke)
occurs like it does now? That way you could still chase, and making it require a
target would help stop camping a prechoked a room with hexes, etc. And if you
choke an ally, it makes it easier to drop since there's now two people you can
move to try to stop the choke. (Also, with a Shadowdancer's access to
Brumetower, what elevation change could possibly be relevant?)
---[Fillin on 7/15 @ 14:33 writes]:
That's actually... very clever. I'd support that if it went with the passives
mitigation as well.
---[Viynain on 7/16 @ 03:26 writes]:
Very interesting, actually, Raeri. I'd like to retain the chasing mechanism, and
the song/demesne/ent slowdown wouldn't be bad either.
---[Geb on 7/18 @ 16:44 writes]:
His worded of the problem is wrong and he did not research well what he was
discussing. Still, solution 2 does not in anyway require him to have done full
research on Temp Insanity, since solution 2 can easily stand on its own by
making a simple statement of how it is more inline with how aeonics works, than
the present effect of TimeWarp. So I support solution 2 because it makes sense,
not because of what of the comparisons made between Temp Insanity and TimeWarp.
---[Geb on 7/19 @ 02:09 writes]:
Bah, hit the wrong number when posting what I have above. Ignore it please
---[Viynain on 7/19 @ 10:38 writes]:
Oh, and to reiterate, without a better form of keeping someone in choke, having
the room-version drop on caster movement won't work since people like to tumble.
At least the current incarnation enables the possibility of good timing to keep
it going through tumbles or somersaults, but if chasing were outright removed,
the power cost will need to be reviewed.