Report 1461

Report #1461
Skillset: Skill: None
 Org: Moondancers Status: Completed Mar 2016
Furies' Decision:
Mobs in inventory should not be able to attack the owner. Have just tried
testing and cannot replicate - if someone can, please contact Iosai and this
will be corrected. Arco's bite will be changed to a psychic bark.
Problem: The addition of poteens and their corresponding beasts have also
introduced everyone a free entourage that can hit their target for very small
damage. These creatures have also been used by keeping them in inventory and
afflicting self with disloyalty, or ordering them to attack self, to allow
owners immunity to sleep, apart from metawake. That these creatures can be
easily killed, cannot be called easily (as in FAECALL) and owners can be forced
to pet them may make them unwieldy however that does not diminish the advantage
it gives over classes whose primary lock route requires sleep. For a case of
three creatures following, that is already twelve seconds of free hitting from
owner if target chooses to permanently dispatch these creatures (4s equi per
moonfire). Disloyal owners who have them in the inventory present an even harder
obstacle as the counters mentioned in the entourage case do not apply. Apart
from that, there is also the case of utility creatures/fae (such as the
leprechaun) that attack the owner for a small damage when disloyal, which
presents an unexpected and unjustified hindrance to sleep users. In a similar
light, Arco (the prize fae of the Caoimhe Quest) wakes people up with its bite
making it unappealing for most Wiccans to have.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Disallow the ordering of these poteen creatures.
 Prevent disloyalty from making these creatures attack
 owner whether as entourage or in inventory. Or
 convert damage to psychic that does not wake.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: Prevent disloyalty from making utility creatures
 (such as the leprechaun) from attacking owner. Or
 convert damage to psychic that does not wake.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #3: Change Arco's bite attack to a bark attack that does
 magic damage of similar quantity but does not wake
 target.
Player Comments:
---[Enyalida on 2/26 @ 02:17 writes]:
Support for all solutions.
---[Raeri on 2/26 @ 04:05 writes]:
Just make them all do psychic damage instead.
---[Tredian on 2/26 @ 04:30 writes]:
Raeri's suggestion would be alright.
---[Wobou on 2/26 @ 05:51 writes]:
I like the idea of converting to psychic damage for sol. 1 and 2 rather than
having awkward exceptions to how afflictions or entourages generally work, I
also support sol 3.
---[Celina on 2/26 @ 23:21 writes]:
Solution 1 only, because these poteen creatures serve no actual purpose so
removing them from combat entirely is a simple move. Solution 2 appears, to me,
to be a valid counter to sleep tactics. It's just how setting yourself ablaze
works, and removing it seems more like trying to buff sleep tactics than
addressing a balance concern or oversight. No to solution 3, if you don't want
to wake people up, don't use Arco.
---[Lerad on 2/27 @ 03:03 writes]:
I'm personally leery of sleep tactics. However, poteens being an un-counterable
metawake is definitely a balance concern. These pets were not meant to be of any
use or have any effect in combat. I support solution 1.
---[Wobou on 2/27 @ 05:01 writes]:
I disagree with Celina in comparing this to ablaze. At least on me the ablaze
tick is around 1k, that's somewhat sigificant damage so you're at least trading
some risk for being re-awakened. If these things are only doing a small amount
of damage then there is no risk but the gain is the same, this is even stronger
since ablaze will go out in water as well.
---[Tredian on 2/27 @ 05:52 writes]:
With regards to solution 2, my main concern was that leprechaun doesn't really
attack anyone when ordered, so its a strange and unexpected response that it
would attack owner when disloyal. No wiccan would really want to be disloyal,
however, in the case when they are (such as when they are nearly being locked up
by a sleep user: DW, MD, SD) it presents a way to escape it simply because they
are being locked up and not because they prepared it beforehand. As for solution
3, the change was meant to make it more appealing for most MDs and few SDs, as
it stands it gets utilized only by Astro MDs and non-sleeper SDs, solution 3
would make it appealing for all and not some (not that this is that major as
only one can have it at a time and its a quest fae), it would definitely
encourage more to do the quest.
---[Synkarin on 2/27 @ 20:19 writes]:
I'm not sure how you're getting ablaze ticks of 1k, I'm getting 150ish damage
give or take.
---[Lerad on 2/28 @ 01:23 writes]:
Taking 180-220 damage from ablaze ticks, current fire resist is at 3.
---[Shuyin on 3/1 @ 01:32 writes]:
Why can't you gust? That'll get rid of the issue. This isn't really a problem,
but I'm not opposed to making them unable to attack.
---[Tredian on 3/1 @ 11:44 writes]:
You can gust and they could re-enter, re-order, and hit while you regain
balance, or use beast gust and they could do the same but you wouldn't be able
to use the beast for anything more.
---[Synkarin on 3/1 @ 20:59 writes]:
Just make it so you can't use poteen creatures to attack - problem solved. The
other issues don't need addressing. Disloyalty should adversely affect wiccans,
so I don't think leprechauns really need addressing. Better they attack then
steal the owners gold just so they can give it right back? Don't use Arco is you
don't want to wake the target
---[Xenthos on 3/1 @ 23:49 writes]:
Don't really see any need for these (except possibly #1, making poteen creatures
unable to attack). Leprechauns should attack the owner when disloyal,
because... that is what disloyalty -does-. It makes no sense for it to be
psychic. Being attacked by NPCs is supposed to wake you up. If you want to
sleeplock a Wiccan, don't use disloyalty on them (they're not going to use it
themselves!). Similarly with #3, if you want to sleeplock, don't order Arco to
attack. Seems pretty straightforward to me, and doesn't require coding changes
or resources.
---[Tredian on 3/2 @ 13:05 writes]:
It makes sense for disloyalty to make ents attack the owner when that ent
ACTUALLY attacks a person, but of all the utility ents, only the leprechaun (not
the mother, nymph and pooka, willowisp, or even your beast) attack the owner. I
haven't been specific to make way for cases I don't know, but that probably
hasn't helped, for that I'm sorry and this report should be limited to
leprechaun as none other has come up. As for Arco, apart from discrepancy of
current SD and MD usage, its really off how it would go against Wiccan
inclination of sleep hinder (pixie) when all other fae damages don't wake.
Saying "don't use Arco for sleep" is probably just suggesting we change the
effect to fully utility/rp, which I'm open to and will be thinking about if the
solution is rejected.
---[Enyalida on 3/4 @ 16:44 writes]:
It's weird that leprechauns are the only loyals that do something different when
disloyal. It should probably be bugged to check if that's intentional or not.
---[Shedrin on 3/13 @ 05:06 writes]:
Poteen creatures don't need to be able to attack. Support Solution 1.
Leprechauns acting how they do is weird, but not sure if it's necessary to
change.
---[Rivius on 3/13 @ 12:25 writes]:
So Poteen creatures look to be doing 1-2 damage on me. Not sure if this is the
same on other armour types. I'd say, why not just make it so that a certain
threshold of damage wakes you up? Like say 30 damage or whatever's high enough
to be common among actual battle entourage.
---[Rivius on 3/13 @ 12:33 writes]:
The reason I suggest this is just to avoid making weird exceptions. Plus the
poteen creatures do have some delightful little attack-lines that'd be a shame
to do away with, even if they don't have much effect. Although, I don't really
mind solution 1 or 2.
---[Shedrin on 3/13 @ 18:44 writes]:
Wouldn't mind Rivius' proposal there.
---[Lerad on 3/14 @ 12:27 writes]:
That spam is irritating though. Would be really nice to make that not possible
to be used in combat or prevent more than 1 poteen attacking per owner or
something, if we go with Rivius' suggestion. Of course, that's just a minor pet
peeve (regarding the spam), so it's not integral to solving the problem.
---[Synkarin on 3/15 @ 23:56 writes]:
I think it's just easier to make poteen pets not able to attack player
characters. That's much simpler than messing with damage numbers and putting
caps on that. It may have further effects that are unanticipated and unwanted
where as this directly solves the issue at hand. There's not need to poteen pets
to be attacking anyone, no matter how 'cute' the line is.
---[Wobou on 3/22 @ 10:40 writes]:
So I'm either insane or a liar, ablaze is now also ticking me in the 150-300
range so either I was making things up or looking at an anomaly in a combat log.
I suppose that using ablaze is comparable to this after all. The creatures do
seem more powerful still though because it doesn't take a balance to use them in
this way where as igniting yourself does, igniting yourself also requires
masochism which means you can't do it easily mid-fight although there might be a
better way to achieve ablaze that I don't know of. Ablaze is also a trigger for
a few skills (like TK pyre) where as disloyalty does not (as far as I know).
---[Silvanus on 3/30 @ 06:11 writes]:
Again, late to a lot of these reports, and didn't feel like reading the 23
comments. The Poteen pets are neat, but I don't think people thought it would be
abused this way, similar to the way scholars/bards were (ab)used by Narsrim, he
would go around and seduce them and have an army of scholars/bards to kill
people. I don't care what solution, but if Narsrim would've abused it, I think
it's worth fixing.