Herb Addiction

Recall is balanced by the lag, I'm all for disabling it within combat and blind but that lag has to go. 

For someone who advocates timing a lot, I'm sure you understand that recalling willy nilly will just get you killed.

And besides, if someone is recalling from you, that means you're already winning. You're saying it needs to be nerfed so the one winning has more of an advantage?

26 minutes ago, Wade said:

And besides, if someone is recalling from you, that means you're already winning. You're saying it needs to be nerfed so the one winning has more of an advantage?

That's a red herring and is not what f0xx said. I think he's just pointing out that an attempt to make everything "equal" might result in a lot of the uniqueness in class skill sets being eroded.

Re: "nerfing something that is available to everyone isn't giving anyone a disadvantage" - that's not really correct either. Imagine tomorrow the government passed a law saying "No one is allowed to drive their car to work ". That is nerfing something that is available to everyone, everyone is technically affected equally. I don't drive to work, so I wouldn't care at all. But the thousands of people who drive to work would be disproportionately affected by the new law.

While I am not against changing herbs in some way, you can't deny that 95% of the people affected by a herb change will be melee classes.

@f0xx is making the point that because casters have a critical ability on demand, the same should be true for melees.

He is saying that if mages can recall 'at will', melees should be able to replace sanc 'at will' (this isn't exactly true, but you understand).

The big difference is that casters have word of recall as a class skill and the melee doesn't. If the melee had recall as a class skill, they too could use it in combat like a caster without using a consumable (and the downsides of that). That answers why nobody complains about how casters can recall in combat (actually people have complained about this).

So the comparison is a false one. A caster does not have non-class abilities on demand any more than a melee does. Thus the comparison is not a good one.

@f0xx's second point is that these differences between classes are obviously intended and that is a cornerstone of the game. I think everyone agrees with this. What I don't understand is what this has to do with an addiction change suggestion. I'm not proposing the elimination of classes or giving everyone the same stuff.

I do believe that using consumables (i.g. non-class skills) should generally be unwieldy in combat. Herbs break the trend because their downside is not as potent as it should be, but the solution for that is bigger than this suggestion. This suggestion addresses drug use in a new way (different from other consumables). In this system, a herb would:

1. Still have no real lag.

2. Still do not need to be held to be used in combat.

3. Still work 100% of the time with 100% potency.

4. Has a 50% chance for a side effect *when used in combat. *<--- secondary proposal to be considered separately because this one DOES have an immediate effect on balance.

5. Has a 100% chance for a side effect if under addiction and wait too long before smoking - this side effect can be cancelled at any time by smoking. Smoking this late, however, gives a different side effect.

6. Addiction can be cured by enduring the 12 ticks.

This proposal says nothing about not being able to replace sanc in combat as a melee. It doesn't imply a great imbalance between melees or casters. It does state that drug addiction is not an interesting drawback right now.

The only implication here is that drugs should have a drawback, just like every other consumable. I think we all already agree on that.

edit: We could be lazy and give drugs a lag, fumble, or some other mechanic that is already in place for consumables (rare, poor spell selection or level, rot quickly, can't use when full, whatever). That would be boring though. I think it is better and more interesting to make different drawbacks for consumables -- since we don't want things to all be the same, right? I offer one such possibility here.

Dude, Wade - you were gone for several years (at least from the forums).  I think some of Foxx's sentiment comes from the fact that you basically just returned from a break and are expecting to do very well with some of your first characters back.

I've played this game off/on for too long and it doesn't matter if I take a 2-month break or 2-year break...I always feel like a noob when I return. I get my ass handed to me left and right, i'm running from most fights, etc.  But I read all my logs, remember certain things...and usually I turn it around.  Things are pretty balanced.  I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement...and I don't disagree that Hit/Dam AND Saves gear has gotten a little out of hand, but it's just that - a little.  There are a few pieces that need to be toned or just removed (Feral vuln-covering cloak for example - just ridiculous).

What I would recommend are finding those pieces, and making suggestions.  Or making suggestions of recently re-worked classes to improve balance.  Or heck even some PK logs.  I just have a casual kick-around character at the moment, uncaballed, and the only trouble I've had are melees that are T or above in their cabals.  And I'm still wearing a handful of non-rare armor :P

Fair enough beer, I see where you're coming from. From the sound of my posts people probably think I'm getting slaughtered but truth be told I'm sitting at just over a 50% winrate combined across all my characters since coming back. I know that isn't much compared to some of the elite records but its statistically above average.

Some of the things like reapply sanc mid battle have never happened against me because dispel has NEVER landed (with a sample size of around 15 attempts) for me since returning.

Most of the suggestions I make, I do so mainly with the focus of lowering the barrier of entry. We all want new and rusty veterans players to play and keep playing, and as someone who has just returned I'm pointing out things that grab my attention or turn me off about this game.

If no one wants my input, that's fine and I'll understand. But any suggestion I make isn't for my own self interest, its hurdles or things I've noticed that might of turned other people away.

6 hours ago, Wade said:

For someone who advocates timing a lot, I'm sure you understand that recalling willy nilly will just get you killed.

Recalling while near your hometown has little to do with timing though.

6 hours ago, Wade said:

And besides, if someone is recalling from you, that means you're already winning. You're saying it needs to be nerfed so the one winning has more of an advantage?

Nope, that's not what I am saying at all, but Nekky already covered that.

5 hours ago, Celerity said:

The big difference is that casters have word of recall as a class skill and the melee doesn't.

The big difference is, that in order to be competitive, melees need to hoard MANY consumables. That's one of the reasons why mage players stick to mages. Having to collect a consumable just so you stand a chance, is a drawback in itself. Having a drug effect that stays for 700 hours, is a HUGE drawback that eats from your herb stash and makes it even more annoying to collect herbs. Having to collect a consumable which decays, is another drawback. So that's three drawbacks to herbs already.

And now you suggest that we put affects like fear, thunderclap, insomnia and poison, on consumables, without which melees stand no chance? Really?

Since when having to rely on consumables is considered an edge? If you ask me, the guy that has the spell in his arsenal should have a drawback, because he doesn't have to spend tens of hours running all over Aabahran, collecting consumables which 90% of the time decay before being used. 

5 hours ago, Wade said:

Some of the things like reapply sanc mid battle have never happened against me because dispel has NEVER landed

I play a mage myself. 90% of my wins come from a well timed dispel. The only person against whom my mage has never been able to land dispel is someone who is VERY decked and an elder in his cabal.

The power creep is undeniable. Noone can argue about it. It's a fact. It comes both ways though. My mage currently has ~1200 HP, 700 AC and 50 saves across the board, while having parry well above 100%. And that's not even with the best EQ out there. I can walk over anyone and the only people that give me trouble are some very specific combos, that are decked, hold cabal positions higher than mine and have been around much longer than me. And none of them has managed to kill me so far. Because I can recall from within combat, because I can not be lagged. Funnily enough, the only person that gives me trouble while holding similar level of EQ and cabal position is a mage.

I'm having a hard time following your argument, @f0xx - at first, you bring up that classes and mechanics should be different for variety, and now you are saying they should have equal drawbacks. Stranger yet, this is a topic that doesn't really concern what I suggested. I don't know what side you are on about cross-class skills and drawbacks, but my suggestion wouldn't change any of that. You are essentially arguing with yourself over something off-topic that you brought up.

Should melees be so reliant on consumables? That is a big topic, but that isn't this thread.

The other parts about recall, powercreep and you being immortal as a mage are also completely off-topic. I generally agree, having played a couple of unkillable casters myself. Those issues deserve their own threads, so I won't address them further in this thread.

You did bring up some relevant points though:

Drugs have three drawbacks (actually only two):

1. Drugs are consumables, so they are finite and must be gathered. This is the definition of a consumable. While useful to consider when thinking about the role of consumables as a whole, especially when balancing through scarcity, I don't suggest any change to how drugs are gathered or their decay rates.

2. Drugs already have a 700 hour annoying addiction. This is what I want to change. I want to replace the addiction, not add to it. I do not want to add an additional drawback; I want to modify the current one. You can call it a buff since I am getting rid of this "HUGE" drawback.

Maybe it would help if I worded the suggestion as a buff instead of a modification?

Let's try: Drug addiction at 700 hours is really annoying and doesn't have any element of tactical management nor does it enrich the depth of drug use in any meaningful way. Being incurable means that drug users have a frivolous trait (constant shivering) that can't be removed for an ungodly amount of time. It is in practice just cosmetic spam. My suggestion changes how this works, making addiction both curable, have some interesting effects, all without giving any direct PK nerf to drugs. You will be able to time the 100% predictable addiction (on and off) so that you can maintain greater stockpiles of drugs than what is currently possible, if managed correctly.

--

For my suggested drug use to have a negative result in PK, you must make a series of mistakes/bad luck:

1. You choose to use your last drug (mistake or not).

2. This drug must make you addicted or you haven't yet fixed your previous addiction (since you can cure addiction between drug use).

3. You get involved in PK that isn't resolved in 12 ticks.

4. You find yourself needing to regen at the 12+ tick mark and haven't made an escape yet nor have you gathered a drug to smoke.

5. Once the side effects of addiction set in, you are not able to find/reach any other drug to use in the game either to bad location, lack of knowledge, maledictions, or already expended all your moves.

6. The subsequent lack of regen or side effect lead to your death by PK.

You really have to make a lot of critical errors for this addiction system to hurt you. This is by no means a huge melee nerf, drug nerf, or anything like that. You don't smoke drugs and get afflicted by fear, poison, insomnia, thunderclap, etc. You make a long series of bad decisions, preventable at every step, and then end up with ONE of those things for a couple of ticks (or awhile, if curing addiction) IF and WHEN you choose.

It adds a very little bit of management to timing drug use. That is, one affect to manage in combat which is typically auto-managed by normal drug use in combat anyways - and if you aren't smoking drugs more than once every 12 ticks in combat, they must not be that useful, right? This is the 'nerf' or 'buff' of my system. It is a nerf if you don't manage well (side effects), it is a buff (curable addiction, less wasted drugs) if you do. This is why it is a good system. It is even very newbie friendly because the effects are predictable in their timing, curable and won't kill you by themselves.

your idea is so good, though Cel I think it just complicates things.

add lag to smoking in general at LEAST equal to casting the spell.

add 2 rounds lag in combat.

problem solved...Just seems the simplest solution.  The buffs still stay, but smoking is no longer the buffest single skill in the game.

Two rounds of lag in combat is too much, the whole point of smoking in combat is to combat dispel or remove magic. If you make the lag 2 rounds to smoke it defeats the whole purpose, you will just get dispelled and hit before you can re-apply.

Yes, that is another alternative:

Much more controversial being a straight nerf, way less interesting in practice, but certainly works effectively if you just want to make drugs like other consumables. Simple and easy to do, but boring.

I generally agree that they should have some kind of drawback similar to other consumables for use in combat, so I made the second suggestion for the 'high' effects when used in combat.

I think that will draw the thread back towards whether or not a nerf on drugs is necessary. My main post is more about how drug addiction is a boring system, and we can expand (thus more complex) how it works, making it something more tactically and in RP interesting.

If you are in favor of having less drawbacks on drug use, you'll definitely not want the easy solution that @Kyzarius is offering because that IS a straight drawback (2 rounds is a long lag). Much more than what I am suggesting.

20 hours ago, Wade said:

Recall is balanced by the lag, I'm all for disabling it within combat and blind but that lag has to go. 

For someone who advocates timing a lot, I'm sure you understand that recalling willy nilly will just get you killed.

If the lag is that big of a deal, select the perk at creation that cuts it in half (50%)

2 hours ago, Celerity said:

I'm having a hard time following your argument, @f0xx - at first, you bring up that classes and mechanics should be different for variety, and now you are saying they should have equal drawbacks. Stranger yet, this is a topic that doesn't really concern what I suggested. I don't know what side you are on about cross-class skills and drawbacks, but my suggestion wouldn't change any of that. You are essentially arguing with yourself over something off-topic that you brought up.

Should melees be so reliant on consumables? That is a big topic, but that isn't this thread.

The other parts about recall, powercreep and you being immortal as a mage are also completely off-topic. I generally agree, having played a couple of unkillable casters myself. Those issues deserve their own threads, so I won't address them further in this thread.

You did bring up some relevant points though:

Drugs have three drawbacks (actually only two):

1. Drugs are consumables, so they are finite and must be gathered. This is the definition of a consumable. While useful to consider when thinking about the role of consumables as a whole, especially when balancing through scarcity, I don't suggest any change to how drugs are gathered or their decay rates.

2. Drugs already have a 700 hour annoying addiction. This is what I want to change. I want to replace the addiction, not add to it. I do not want to add an additional drawback; I want to modify the current one. You can call it a buff since I am getting rid of this "HUGE" drawback.

Maybe it would help if I worded the suggestion as a buff instead of a modification?

Let's try: Drug addiction at 700 hours is really annoying and doesn't have any element of tactical management nor does it enrich the depth of drug use in any meaningful way. Being incurable means that drug users have a frivolous trait (constant shivering) that can't be removed for an ungodly amount of time. It is in practice just cosmetic spam. My suggestion changes how this works, making addiction both curable, have some interesting effects, all without giving any direct PK nerf to drugs. You will be able to time the 100% predictable addiction (on and off) so that you can maintain greater stockpiles of drugs than what is currently possible, if managed correctly.

--

For my suggested drug use to have a negative result in PK, you must make a series of mistakes/bad luck:

1. You choose to use your last drug (mistake or not).

2. This drug must make you addicted or you haven't yet fixed your previous addiction (since you can cure addiction between drug use).

3. You get involved in PK that isn't resolved in 12 ticks.

4. You find yourself needing to regen at the 12+ tick mark and haven't made an escape yet nor have you gathered a drug to smoke.

5. Once the side effects of addiction set in, you are not able to find/reach any other drug to use in the game either to bad location, lack of knowledge, maledictions, or already expended all your moves.

6. The subsequent lack of regen or side effect lead to your death by PK.

You really have to make a lot of critical errors for this addiction system to hurt you. This is by no means a huge melee nerf, drug nerf, or anything like that. You don't smoke drugs and get afflicted by fear, poison, insomnia, thunderclap, etc. You make a long series of bad decisions, preventable at every step, and then end up with ONE of those things for a couple of ticks (or awhile, if curing addiction) IF and WHEN you choose.

It adds a very little bit of management to timing drug use. That is, one affect to manage in combat which is typically auto-managed by normal drug use in combat anyways - and if you aren't smoking drugs more than once every 12 ticks in combat, they must not be that useful, right? This is the 'nerf' or 'buff' of my system. It is a nerf if you don't manage well (side effects), it is a buff (curable addiction, less wasted drugs) if you do. This is why it is a good system. It is even very newbie friendly because the effects are predictable in their timing, curable and won't kill you by themselves.

The idea in itself is cool, but you try doing that when your in the middle of cabal warfare or with someone on your arse. Let alone being bountied and being spied on across the world. Having to make those steps just isnt logical. And yes, you stated herbs are consumables, but so are wands/scrolls/staves and yet they are a lot easier to collect than herbs and I havent seen any of them fall apart. They have a slight chance to fail, but that is hardly anything at all.

Generally speaking, herbs are everywhere. Even being hounded, you should have absolutely no problem finding one to smoke in an emergency.

Also generally speaking, herbs are way, way easier to collect (at their strength) and use than other consumables. If they weren't, pure melees would be using potions/pills and saving herbs for in-combat use.

Scarcity is not a problem for herbs. Any herb will delay addiction and you can grab/buy them all over the place.

Pills and potions are hardly used due to their crap duration.

Right, and poor spell selection, and so forth. Herbs are all over the place, at good strength, with a great selection of spells. Thus they are useful and therefore used.

The original point is that you can find a herb, even while being aggressively chased in PK, very easily. Just like you can drink/eat very easily while being chased.

Pffft, as a mage (or any class), just use detect magic. Oh, look! They're addicted! STAY ON THEIR ARSE! Now they're screwed.

14 hours ago, f0xx said:

I play a mage myself. 90% of my wins come from a well timed dispel. The only person against whom my mage has never been able to land dispel is someone who is VERY decked and an elder in his cabal.

Pls post PK logs. I like PK logs. You guys don't post enough PK logs. Post more PK logs. PK logs are good. PK logs are great. We love PK logs.

5 minutes ago, Zhurong said:

Pffft, as a mage (or any class), just use detect magic. Oh, look! They're addicted! STAY ON THEIR ARSE! Now they're screwed.

Stay on them and try to run them completely out of herbs AND deny them ever zipping through and grabbing one anywhere? Good luck! If you have that kind of absolute domination of the initiative and playing field, they are long dead. It is like trying to run someone out of food.

More importantly, this is done already. You can try to wear out their consumables now and deny access to the source. It can and does work trying to block a single source, but even that is a real pain in practice. It would be nearly impossible to deny access to all of the multitude of sources for herbs.

Since you can use junk herbs for this, you'll have hours of fuel if you want it just walking to get your normal drugs.

4 hours ago, mya said:

Pls post PK logs. I like PK logs. You guys don't post enough PK logs. Post more PK logs. PK logs are good. PK logs are great. We love PK logs.

Exactly. Extraordinary claims require proof, he could easily debunk all arguments with some.