Report 194

Report #194
Skillset: Environment Skill: Chop
 Org: Cantors Status: Completed May 2009
Furies' Decision:
Chopping will now take 1 chop out of natural forest, 2 chops in, regardless of
axe stats.
Problem: Chop currently is vastly inferior to reality check, regardless of the
axe used when dealing with saplings in a druidic meld. The problems are numbers:
reality check takes 2.5 seconds to regain equilibrium from and always succeeds
where a chop takes at least 2.5 seconds, but generally will take more
(especially when using a waraxe) as a single chop often does not take down a
sapling, doubly true in true forest regions. This disparity makes breaking a
druid meld much more difficult than a mage meld. A sapling in a true forest can
take up to 4 chops to cut down with a 220 damage axe at 300 speed with 17
strength with no axelord bonus and base balance (or 3 chops at 350 damage and
190 speed) making it approximately 8-10 seconds to cut down a single sapling.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Change chop with an axe to always succeed in felling
 a sapling with 1 chop regardless of location. Special
 moonhart/ravenwood trees used for totems would
 obviously not be included in this change.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: Same as solution 1, in addition, change saplings to
 reject any terrain change or further melding until
 chopped down. This would allow saplings to function
 in a manner similar to how illusory terrain works.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #3: Same as solution 1 and 2 while also making saplings
 and illusory terrain mutually exclusive.
Player Comments:
---[Gregori on 5/10 @ 10:18 writes]:
To be perfectly honest the Sapling issue is a never ending cycle. If you make
saplings 1 swing only in forest environments then that means that trees we
actually have growing are being felled with no issues. If you make them require
more then you have people complaining about the disparity. Then there is the
massive eq penalty for not mulching/chopping a sapling before melding over. Add
to that reality Terrain can be cast anywhere anytime, while saplings can ONLY be
cast in natural or druidic forest. I personally feel that druids need a new
mechanic that falls in line with Terrain and then Saplings should be changed to
something more suited to the way they are set up.
---[Xenthos on 5/12 @ 01:37 writes]:
My preferred solution: Make chop work the same regardless of axe statistics.
Same time regardless of axe, same number of chops-- always 1 in non-true-Forest,
2 in TrueForest. This is about the same as a "decent" axe does now (my axe at
300 damage with 17 strength already works 1 in other areas, 2 in Forest). This
is the current minimum possible, and I think that's fine, assuming it's just
that amount for everyone regardless of strength / axe statistics.
---[Nienla on 5/13 @ 21:54 writes]:
I like Xenthos's idea
---[Zynna on 5/13 @ 23:50 writes]:
I like Xenthos' idea about making it take the same number of chops, regardless
of axe statistics. This allows melders/fighters to use the simple woodcutter's
axe without having to spend a large sum of gold or chain a forger simply to take
over a meld.
---[Shamarah on 5/19 @ 19:22 writes]:
It really needs to take only one chop on Ethereal, though. So while I like
Xenthos's suggestion, I'd suggest making it 2 in prime trueforest, 1 everywhere
else.
---[Krellan on 5/25 @ 03:59 writes]:
I think that a lot of people are forgetting an important advantage terrain has
over saplings. There's actually few advantages it is. Off the top of my head,
terraining takes about half the time as it does to raise a sapling. You can also
terrain over -any- terrain. This is important because mages are better
combatants outside of their meld, while druids will not kill any actual
combatant outside a demesne solo. So, in a demesne war, a mage could simply
terrain, which is fast already, and then a druid would have to realitycheck,
forest, sapling to stop an instant break, and then meld. Normal melding alone
takes the same equilibrium cost as balance on chop. In addition to these two
advantages, any mage can terrain anyone's meld. Terraining is much easier to
maintain a meld than sapling as saplings can only be raised if in your
respective forest/wyrd. Another advantage terrain has is the ability Mirage,
which will terrain your whole demesne for 7 power. I don't know about you, but
in a 25 room demesne that saves 100 seconds of time, at which point a battle
could have been over because you failed to expand fast enough and properly
protect it with saplings. On a 50 room demesne, it saves 200 seconds. Same
issue. And the last advantage off the top of my head is that saplings provide no
protection against other druids. They are free to instantly break another druids
meld if it is a break point. Yes, equilibrium time is doubled. However, when it
comes to breaking, that makes no particular difference because mulching takes 4
seconds and breaking takes 4 seconds to total at 8. Double a 4 second instant
break and you are still at 8 seconds.
---[Ceren on 5/31 @ 00:02 writes]:
It's true that there are a lot of miscellaneous advantages to both terrain and
saplings. For example realitychecking nothing takes eq, but chopping nothing is
free, and you can also see saplings by squinting. One Krellan pointed out
(though I don't think it was his point) was that druids can sapling to stop an
instabreak (preventing two steps, forest and meld, from being cancelled in one
forcetaint/forest/flood) and then meld over it, whereas terrain has to be the
last thing a mage does because you can't meld over your terrain. Regardless of
such differences, I don't think it's fair that it's possible for saplings to
take more than one chop, as that gives it a huge advantage in what both saplings
and terrain are fundamentally for. I don't mind saplings retaining their natural
forest boost on prime forest, as nobody really cares about prime, but off plane
on ethereal and godrealms they need to be one-shottable. Also, dryad trees
should be one-shottable regardless of terrain; they currently get the boost from
natural forest as well.