Report 1295

Report #1295
Skillset: Moon Skill: Shafts
 Org: Moondancers Status: Completed Oct 2013
Furies' Decision:
We'll look into having the number of exists effected per tick scale with the
number of exits in the room
Problem: Shafts: Costs 2p, lasts 3 minutes and ticks every 3 seconds. On the
tick an exit is randomly selected, if that exit is present it will be removed,
if it has already been removed it will be restored. The change to available
exits is reflected in EXITS and gmcp.room.info.exits. As such, it is vastly
better in rooms with two or less exits, in which it has the chance of blocking
both exits for a lot of the time, but far less so in rooms with more exits where
the probability of it actually stopping anyone leaving the room drop off
exponentially. This does give it some situational use as has been previously
discussed, but in this way it is both not useful in the majority of situations
and fails to compliment other skills available to Moondancers such as Dark which
require the target to stay in the room. The skill should act as a compliment to
these skills, and it fails to do so in its current incarnation. I can see two
options for this - one is change the way the skill works so that it doesn't
depend on the number of exits from a room (effectively changing it to yet
another carcer clone) - which would need a relatively low chance (30% ish) to
ensure that it remained balanced, and the power cost removed from the skill,
perhaps afflicting with a related affliction (such as dizziness at the same
time). The upside to this is it removes the variance in skill effectiveness due
to number of exits, but the downside is it is a rather boring solution, and adds
another skill clone. The other option is to change the skill so it still affects
exits from the room, but has a more subtle effect that is harder for the target
to avoid. This has the disadvantage of letting the variance based on number of
exits remain, but the advantage of keeping the originality and flavour of the
skill.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Rather than removing an exit, the skill should be
 changed so that the exit affected redirects the
 target back into the room. All other specifics should
 be kept the same.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: Change the skill to yet another carcer clone - Reduce
 the power cost to 1, change it to a flat rate 30%
 chance of preventing the target leaving the room, and
 should it trigger the target should be afflicted with
 dizziness, dementia, or confusion. Duration should
 remain at 3 minutes
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #3: Make it even more of a carcer clone. Solution 2
 without the power cost and the chance to afflict.
Player Comments:
---[Synkarin on 10/7 @ 18:04 writes]:
What about making its effectiveness dependant on the moon cycle? Like 50% on
full moon, 10% on new moon and 10% changes as it changes? That'd make it a bit
more unique than just a carcer clone, 50% may be too much, but you get the idea
---[Laysus on 10/7 @ 18:44 writes]:
That's a nice idea, and if you were going to scale it that way, I'd say at full
moon it should be at least 50%, to make up for the limitations at earlier
points. I'll think about that.
---[Chade on 10/11 @ 00:03 writes]:
Supported in theory, quite like the idea of effectiveness based on the moon
cycle
---[Wobou on 10/18 @ 02:50 writes]:
It should be noted that this skill as it works now is one of the few things that
outright counters tumble/mantra wind/night flight (in rooms of 2 or fewer exits)
so I was surprised to see these solutions. That said I like solution 2 the best
out of these because it retains some uniqueness to it. I think as far as making
it cycle based that wane is a good example of how to do it. It's primary purpose
always works but you may get a little something extra during full. To that end I
think if you made this cycle based it should have the same chance to reject exit
attempts at all times, but perhaps cause an affliction (or an extra affliction
in the case of solution 2) based on cycle.
---[Enyalida on 10/20 @ 23:37 writes]:
It doesn't actually block mantra wind or night flight in any real way, you can
just hammer your alias for them until they work without any ill effect. It
blocks tumble in very low-exit rooms because of the delay timing, it's such that
any time you can tumble, it will be blocking the exit when the tumble would
complete. It's SUCH a niche application that fails in the majority of rooms, so
I don't think it's worth sticking with. Carcer and similar skills (that give
movement out of the room a chance to fail with some penalty to
prevent/discourage spamming) are the best/easiest way to accomplish movement
hindering. Solution 1 doesn't really change much, as far as I can tell.
Solutions 2 or 3 would be fine. I like the idea that the affliction chance
varies, but too much cycling is needlessly complex and screws balance.
---[Thoros on 10/24 @ 08:47 writes]:
Solutions 2 or 3.