choices Meditation Rework

[MrGARY 12,421]

8 minutes ago, blayze said:

Would I be taking damage the entire time I meditate?

 

No, you only take damage walking on the tile if it's the right age.  You don't need any tower or altar btw as is, and can use a player god to cast fungus, but shouldn't be necessary imo

[Manik 53]

Seems legit, nice work. +1

[Omar 479]

2 hours ago, Zekezor said:

Prenote:

Terms such as "Offensive CR" and "Defensive CR" are used throughout the suggestion. This does not necassairly mean actual CR codewise but rather modifiers that gives bonus hit chance for offensive actions or miss chance for defensive actions that would equate to the CR mentioned.

 

 

Basics

All 5 paths (Love, Hate, Insanity, Power, Knowledge) got their own individual passives.

These passives scale linearly based on player level starting with level 2. (10 levels in total)

Meditation abilities are not dispellable... since they arent spells.

The max cooldown between path levels is reduced to 1 week and thus lets players experiment with diffrent paths without feeling they are horribly gimped by doing so. The skill level is what truly restricts the player.

 

Love performs 3x healing for all non-spell sources. (+15% per level. This includes cotton, lifetransfer, regen and mycelium absorbation)

Hate gets 20% dmg bonus and 20% offensive cr bonus. (2% per level. does not stack with passive faith bonuses.)

Insanity gets 20% dmg reduction (2% per level.)

Power gets 30% stamina reduction (3% per level)

Knowledge gets 25% skill increase (2.5% per level)

 

Now with that out of the way, here comes the fun stuff.

 

Each path has 4 abilities that are choosen when to unlock.

New ability choices are given at level 4, 7, 9, 11.

One ability is unlocked at a time.

Only one ability? cd on switching?

Love

Refresh

Unchanged.

Enchanted tile

same functionality except that enchanted tree tiles yield 3x harvest.

Love effect

When used on the ground it makes all hostiles in local friendly for 10 minutes. If used towards a specific non-unique non-tamed non-valrei non-human creature it will perform a strong charm/dominate effect and turn it into a pet. Includes unusual types of creatures that normally cant be turned into pets, like whales and kingdom animals. (sidenote: You can currently ride aquatic creatures like crocodiles in water. Human and Humanoid isn't the same thing.)

Cooldowns are unchanged.

Soothing presence

Permanent aggro-range reducing buff (similar to the newbie buff). Also makes taming and breeding easier.

 

Power

Erupt/Freeze

Allows the creation of lava on rock/cliff tiles aswell as turning lava into rock. Same timers as currently but domain influence doesn't matter. Erupt only works inside your own kingdom like currently.

Erupt can also be used on forges and ovens. Thereby lighting the oven/forge, fueling it and turning all items inside them searing hot.

Freeze can be used on any container and instantly cools all content within.

Elemental Immunity / Lava Walker

Passive buff that gives permanent 50% reduction to all sources of fire, ice, acid and water.

Active 30 minute ability with 3h cooldown. 50% reduction to all sources of fire, ice, acid and water.

(the passive and active ability stack as additions. thus giving full immunity togheter)

Might

2 hour ability with 4h cooldown. 50% increased carrying capacity and 50% longer stuns.

Wanderer

60% stam reduction for movement (includes walking, swimming, riding, sailing, climbing, dragging). Does not stack with the level-based passive.

 

Knowledge

Get Info

Combination of level 1 and 3 get info.

Thus giving general information, affinities and carrying weight all at once.

Also gives +4CR in combat against that specific target for the user.

1h cooldown and the effect last 15 minutes.

Survey Area

Slightly modified Get info level 3.

Informs you of all creatures and settlements in local aswell as showing all tracks of the past 3 wurm days (same as tracking) at your location.

1h cooldown.

No skill loss

Unchanged.

Attention to detail

Passive that gives +2 radius for prospecting/analyzing, 10% higher chance for rarity rolls to succeed and +2 passive CR.

 

Hate

Rage

Rage: Gives 4x increased damage from bashing and 25% dmg bonus to siege engines for 15 minutes. 1h cooldown.

Frenzy

+50% attack speed and -35% defensive CR for 1 minutes. 15 minute cooldown. (also modifies minimum swing timers)

Added to 20% damage and 20% offensive CR this is a huge increase in damage output.

Roar

Turns all agressive entities in local passive against the character for 2 minutes and breaks their combat with the character. (This includes guards and kingdom animals)

Also provides 2 defensive cr for the duration. 30 min cooldown. Targeted at the ground.

Hatred

Passively adds a 1 minute debuff to anything that hurts you.

If the person who gave the debuff attack the person/creature with the debuff they receive +2 offensive CR.

 

Insanity

Break Reality

Teleports the character to a random tile on the server, heals all wounds, removes all spell effects, gives a 10 minute +25% speed boost and +5 CR. Also performs a Fill effect. Same restrictions as normal teleports. Makes the eyes of the user go black for the duration of the effect.

No vision for 10 minutes?

Unstable

Passively gives 15% dmg reduction in two resistances that shifts to random new ones every minute.

Imagination

Activated ability that removes the largest wound of the user and gives single-target spell immunity for 5 minutes. 45 min cd. Also spawns 2 random insanity illusions that only the user sees.

Nightmare

Activated ability that spawns a neutral shadow being (translucent and black shaded fog spider, wolf or wraith) that attack the closest hostile entity with the power of a dominated troll and dissapear after 30 seconds. 30min cooldown.

These last 2 would make a 1v1 fairly one sided.

 

 

Power stuns plus a few hate bonus guys would mess up anyone trying to gatehop...

Overall seems ok but i'd rather see some more tweaking to rock paper scissors on armor and weapons.

 

Another route to take would be putting some bonuses on to say: archery - plate with halberd - speed bonus from light armor light weapon / shield.

Giving specific roles on the battlefield.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2016 by Omar

[Gone420 609]

+1

[LorenaMontana 3,008]

Good topic

[Budda 2,669]

Good start. Can we get some more discussion going on the proposed abilities and balance involved, instead of just +1's.

 

Hate would seem fairly powerful to me for example. As Omar said, the stacking of the passive and Frenzy seems like it could be a bit too much - I like the idea of it though.

I'm not sure on the ability unlock choice at each level, as some abilities are clearly better than others on each path - especially with how easy it is to get to level 4. Possibly a choice between a couple of abilities at each level - or only having one or two active abilities at a time that you can switch off to another one after x hours or days..

 

Anyway, more discussion please. More thoughts and ideas or alternatives is always good. We might even be able to work out some higher level (>13) abilities if we can come up with some good ones.

[blayze 314]

I don't see hate being all that powerful because all of the abilities are limited time buffs. For instance, Frenzy is only 1 minute which would only allow a small number of hits in even if its +50% attack speed that ignores minimum swing timers. It also would reduce your defensive CR by 35% which can be a lot. For instance if you had 12 CR and you activated the spell you would loose 4.5cr which I think is the same as around a 130 numbness cast and more than the kingdom king bonus (+3CR). When this is activated you would be taking good sized risk. Even if you also activate Roar, its still only a 2 minute bonus. Fights can last a while so these could also be potentially wasted if the opponent backs out for a short time.

 

The one I see being the weakest for pvp out of all of the paths is Power. The main buff that you get is elemental immunity but most player gods have bl spells (fungus trap, RT, scorn, rotting gut, ect.) so there is a easy way around it. The longer stuns could be powerful but bashing can be difficult to do depending on who your fighting so again you could easily be in a situation where you die without getting the bonus from any of these. Increased stam is nice but you can also just back out of a fight.

 

This being said I still think this is quite balanced and I would need to see it implemented to see exactly how powerful one is over the other.

 

 

 

Edit:

If people still think the hate abilities are too strong you could add the fire pillar animation or something similar on the player when the person actives the spells to alert other players. LoL does something like this for all of the champs that have similar limited time glass cannon abilities. The one I'm thinking of is the ult for Olaf, see the one on the left in the video https://lolstatic-a.akamaihd.net/champion-abilities/videos/mp4/0002_05.mp4

 

Edited December 8, 2016 by blayze

[MrGARY 12,421]

37 minutes ago, Budda said:

We might even be able to work out some higher level (>13) abilities if we can come up with some good ones.

 

This is a good idea to me, but I would specifically say from the start, nothing at all that directly affects pvp, and more of gimmick bonuses that are just neat qol or something along those lines, and probably equal to all paths like recall home/final breath are

 

Like some bonus to reduce natural drain on ccfp, a natural higher healing factor, some kind of small like 1% per level skill gain bonus to all skills that stacks with knowledge, dunno, neat little stuff like that, stuff that isn't game breaking but rewards spending the days/weeks getting the question with something other than a shorter cooldown for level 12/13 abilities

[Darmalus 631]

How would choosing abilities interact with letting premium lapse?

 

With more frequent use of abilities (and more useful abilities), could meditation abilities be moved into a specific sub-menu to prevent accidental misuse? I think I've used my PoK radar accidentally more often than on purpose.

 

I think the PoK Get Info would work better if split into 2 abilities, "Get Info" and "Know My Enemy". "Get Info" wouldn't trigger the "Know My Enemy" CD, but "Know My Enemy" would trigger the "Get Info" CD. Or just separate CDs completely.

 

 

[SmeJack 5,796]

I think any changes made need to keep level 4 out of it, anything decent needs to start at 7 to require prem and at least 30 skill since you know the nerds will always have their alts with a bonus (not the path level but skill required) in a matter of hours from account creation. (obviously this will never be a complete solution to anyone with enough determination but really level 7 and 30 skill isn't too much to ask in place of med alts errywhere)

[Propheteer 7,139]

hate seems -really- strong

[zigozag 918]

Love path

I suggest to remove tile enchanting from meditation and give it to every player through some other means, be it runes (if rift resources stop being limited) or something different. The reason for this is all other meditation abilities are focused on the character, while enchanting is focused on "deed-building". It isn't anything game-breaking so could easily be made available to all. I know there're some people offering this as a paid service now, but they're very few and usually don't travel far for that anyway.

 

Path switching

While 1 week instead of 24 days is pretty good, I want to sugegst a new mechanic: instead of leaving path and then choosing a new one, meditate on a new path tile to get an option to switch to this new path, losing half your levels (rounding up or low). For instance:

Switch at lvl 6 of path A to lvl 3 of path B

Switch at lvl 11 of path A to lvl 5 or lvl6 of path B

 

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Budda said:

or two active abilities at a time that you can switch off to another one after x hours or days

Nooo...

 

50 minutes ago, Darmalus said:

With more frequent use of abilities (and more useful abilities), could meditation abilities be moved into a specific sub-menu to prevent accidental misuse? I think I've used my PoK radar accidentally more often than on purpose.

Yes, please!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Darmalus 631]

I agree with Zigozag, moving Enchanting from meditation to something like Alchemy would be an improvement. Replacing it with a Self-Heal or maybe a Sheild power (absorbs incoming attacks, not just bonus armor) might be keeping with the defensive theme of the Path.

 

Edit:
Path Switching

I'd want switching to have to be a deliberate action on my part, to avoid constant pop-ups of "Do you want to switch paths?" since I meditate where ever I happen to be.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Darmalus

[rixk 830]

Whole concept of meditation would change. Currently it is something you choose and it will accompany you through whole game. If you feel, that you made really wrong choice, you can correct that by switching path. That takes time tho, so you have to really think twice before you do it. Making these changes and meditation will be another required min-maxing option.

[Wurmhole 3,650]

This is really interesting.  I do think the med paths have more importance in the PvP world and would like to see more attention to the PvE world.  In PvE, does anyone care about anything other than enchant and 25% skill gain?  The refresh and get info have some utility, but really big cool downs make them weak, compared to just eating whenever you need and having a priest find critters near by.  Healing bonuses in pve are a bit pointless. Any basic fighter can already kill the hardest normal critters, with little trouble.

 

I'd almost like to see a combination of pvp and pve abilities for each path, or allow for following two paths at once.

 

Quick swapping between paths is needed.  Any game that has character development choices that are long term and very hard to undo, is a game that doesn't want to keep players around. People need to feel good about what they have invested in.  In Elderscrolls Online, I can play as a mage, then decide to switch over to a melee based character, with a full retraining, for a few gold.  I really love that option.  Your time investment is never lost that way.  In Wurm, swapping paths or priest choices becomes a massive time sink and it is hard to feel good about making the change.

 

So, I say add more med options for pve and make path swapping even quicker.  Maybe even do away with specific paths, but just have meditation levels and ability choices available to pick from at each level, with a cool down and cost for switching abilities.

[Sila 339]

lets nerf PoL  even more.,.,, if this is another try i will do -1

 

 

also why would pol not get some new powerfull spell?

Edited December 8, 2016 by Sila

[zigozag 918]

3 minutes ago, Sila said:

lets nerf PoL  even more.,.,, if this is another try i will do -1

 

 

also why would pol not get some new powerfull spell?

 

I think Zekezor proposed a nice buff to PoL. And i believe i did too! I don't know what could take place of enchanting, but any ability focused on character would be a buff.

[rixk 830]

25 minutes ago, Wurmhole said:

This is really interesting.  I do think the med paths have more importance in the PvP world and would like to see more attention to the PvE world.  In PvE, does anyone care about anything other than enchant and 25% skill gain?  The refresh and get info have some utility, but really big cool downs make them weak, compared to just eating whenever you need and having a priest find critters near by.  Healing bonuses in pve are a bit pointless. Any basic fighter can already kill the hardest normal critters, with little trouble.

This is actually the only problem which meditating has. Meditation is something that is optional in PvE, only in PvP it has become requirement. And that also not that much because of bad design, but the fact, that most high level meditating toons, which are being sold, end up on Chaos. It wouldn't be a real problem, if only few people in chaos had high meditating.. But current state is, that it has become norm, that you are being left out of everything, until you either buy a meditating toon, or skill it up yourself.

[Wilczan 2,048]

+1

[Ecrir 887]

I like what's mentioned for PoK, merging Get Info into one thing sounds like a good improvement to an ability which is currently really lackluster.

I really like the sound of the prospect/analyze area increase in the Attention to Detail power.

 

I think overall PoK looks nicely balanced as proposed.

[Pingpong 1,070]

How about somewhere in the 13+ med abilities, recall home 2 allows you to TP home with your horse? Throwing away your horse+ gear after all that time always turned off everyone I ever talked to from using a very cool option except as a last resort. Ironic as back in the day it was a super unique ability before everyone was karma parachuting in.

[MaurizioAM 919]

-1 since I can't put a half and half.

 

Lowering DR once again will do more harm then good. Hate not stacking ? Why does all other paths have the ability to stack and not hate, it does have a negative affect and it also does not have DR so its a situational path at that point and its not fair all other paths can use all their abilities while hate cannot. 

 

Ill comment more in a little bit. There are some nice additions but in an overall picture in sorry we would be somewhat in the same situation a year from now that we are in right now.

[Mclovin 2,590]

Quote

e might even be able to work out some higher level (>13) abilities if we can come up with some good ones.

Pol - level 13 - when activated for 45 seconds every wound you cotton on yourself cottons 1 ally 1 tile away? also - 18 hour cd
Insanity - Level 13 - For 30 seconds allows you to pass over your 20% DR to 1 player aslong as the targeted player does not have a med ability activated - you lose yourself 20% DR until the 30 seconds is up - 18 hour cd
Hate - Level 13 - When activated for 30 seconds if you use Roar all spirit templars will stop attacking ally but instead go to you - 18 hour cd
Power - Level 13 - When activated for 30 seconds you can pass your 50% spell immunity to a different player who does not have a meditation ability activated, you lose the 50% yourself until 30 second timer is up - 18 hour cd
Knowledge - Level 13 - I don't know what to suggest for this; I would say a CHOICE of a ability from ANY PATH for 20 seconds - 18 hour cd


a few ideas for higher up levels - looking to be support based instead of "for yourself" based with exception to knowledge, idk what to say for that

Edited December 8, 2016 by Mclovin

[Mclovin 2,590]

also it's important spell immunity works against AOE / floor spells

[Zekezor 3,188]

Rightie lets adress points raised.

Lets start with Hates ability Frenzy.

By raising the attack speed by 50% you achieve a 150% attack speed rate. Thus lowering a enemys lifespan by one third. (1/1.5 = ~0.6667)

The tradeoff is that you discard your own survivability by lowering your own defensive CR by a bit more than one third. (35%)

Thus you as an individual have become a glass cannon. Higher offensive performance while decreasing your defensive performance.

You essentially painted a big target sign on yourself by doing so.

 

Lets take a 5v5 combat scenario.

In group A 2 people are hate and activate frenzy, thus lowering the effort to kill those 2 targets for 1 minute.

The targets in group B however don't have hate path members and thus remain unchanged.

Group A has 50% increased damage output from 2 members and thus perform as if they were 6.

 

Which group will kill something quicker?

1/6 = ~0,166666667

0.65/5 = 0,13

 

The term used for characters relying on abilities similar to Frenzy in games is commonly called "Glass cannons".

High offensive output but very fragile.

As long as the enemy aknowledge this fact and target the frenzied individual then its not so much of a bonus.

 

For the sake of argument lets say all 5 in group A are hate.

1/7.5 = ~0,133333

0,65/5 = 0,13

 

However its not a pure -35% in survivability from the CR reduction since there is an okay chance to hit naturally. But on the other hand attack speed also suffers drawbacks from web armour. While a non-hate character would get out of  WA ability and thus achieve regular swingspeed instead of 2x, the frenzied individual would be stuck in the web armour state far more.

 

 

As for 1v1's I'd argue that PoL beats insanity and insanity beats PoH and PoH beats love.

PoL would deal blows at an equal rate as insanity, yet PoL fully heals 1 wound per hit. (thus utterely crushing life transfer and rotten touch users)

insanity would beat PoH due to its spell immunity, selfhealing and DR being stronger than the agressive bonuses of PoH (Frenzy doesn't really help in 1v1 vs insanity since they get hit too much, especially with the shadow and possibly pets involved)

PoL however would lose utterely against a frenzied hatepath person due to their contineous barrage of wounds from frenzy, thus reducing the use of the self-healing benefits. (they would be utterely covered in FA/FB and regular wounds)

PoL also gets the option play it defensively in 1v1 by destroying hunger/water of their target with special moves and drawing out the fight (while having refresh themself)

 

I'm not sure how a power character would play out in combat.

They can completely ignore the secondary wound from FA/FB and thus a lifetransfer weapons and AoE heals would always focus their heals on primary wounds along with increased stuns and a wast ammount of special moves at their disposal due to stamina.

 

Knowledge would have +6 CR against a target of their choice but i knowingly decided to leave it at that for now since the +25% skill and characteristic gain is quite a huge longterm benefit.

and everyone and their mothers would cry if i touched that. Not to mention a lot of pvpers already favor PoK due to its benefits without the CR additions.

 

Group combat wise id say insanity is a good pick for staying alive extra long.

Power pays off by providing extra long stuns for the entire group, but not necassairly being good in large numbers. Due to immunity to FA/FB wounds and a lot of AoE spells they would synergise well with healing support.

Hate path followers would work well in synergy with power members, yet frenzy would make them priority targets for a minute since stuns/attacks/special moves would be easier to land on them.

PoL is probably quite amazing for small skirmishes, especially if you mix in priest abilities for extra healing support. quite poor choice for large encounters though.

PoK is more pve oriented / single target oriented. Great for unique hunts with its extra 6 CR against one target. But it has +25% skillgain which lets a character develop in a great ammount of skills and thus be a huge benefit for players who want to develop their character rapidly.

 

 

 

As for PoH I've considered other routes aswell.

As for the passive it could potentially be more streamlined in the direction of pure offensive CR (thus not giving benefits in 2 areas).

As for frenzy instead of making the person a lot more vulnerable it could potentially lower the damage slightly instead of pure negatives to survival. Thus achieving a very high rate of quick attacks that aren't quite as powerfull and thus lessen the effect of multiple benefitial offensive multipliers working in synergy. It would also heavily cripple enemies relying on healing by giving a ton of lesser wounds that lifetransfer and spells cant really handle.

Rage could potentially also give a minor 5-10% damage bonus. (but not something id recommend if the main passive has damage still)

 

As for buddas suggestion of restricting level 4 from picking abilities... I'm greatly against this.

The suggestion is aimed towards letting new players get into the game rapidly and seeing rewards from the getgo.

A new person wouldn't benefit much from the passives which would grow over time and they would only get 1 out of all the abilities, thus still being far inferior than those with all.

The goal is to incentivise newer players by giving them choices and feel parts of the rewards early on.

Same goes for restricting it to 2 abilities. Against it and I see no reason why it would be keept that way. (note: player enjoyment > artifical hindrances that merely reduce enjoyment)

 

Imagination of insanity could potentially be nerfed if its deemed too powerfull by simply making the healed wound random and thus lessen its self-preservation effect.

The spell immunity of imagination will most likely not affect small skirmishes at all though unless they happend to involve one of the 2 priest types that happend to have life drain. It would mainly affect boat combat.

 

Nightmare only last for 30 seconds and thus I don't think a CR reduced dominated troll could perform much damage at all (this isn't a huge axe wielding zombified troll). If deemed too powerfull after going live its effect could be lessened to 15-20 seconds.

 

 

I believe PoL could receive some extra love (badumtishh), I currently see it as the least incentive choice for pvp but I'm not sure in what way it should be modified. (however for freedom I get the feeling people would love it)

 

 

Omarrr raised a question regarding options to switch out abilities etc. I see no harm in putting a 2 week cd to switch out 1 ability for another.

 

 

So far based on my suggestion I've heard people around me (PVP'ers) being eager to go PoK and PoP. Had a individual saying there is absolutely no way on earth they are going to abandon insanity cuz of the passive DR they already have and love. Some people have mentioned PoH is OP in this thread, but I've actually not heard a single person actually mentioning they want to go PoH.

PoL is... well... Great for PVE and non-combat focused playstyles... and as mentioned earlier it lack pvp stuff except the quite amazing increase on life transfer. So once again, suggestions to adress that is appreciated.

 

 

edit:

oh and about armour and weapons and rock scizzor paper... Uhm yea... That doesnt really work in practicallity.

"classes" only works if there is limiting factors involved. if you can go from robe wearing mage into heavy armour plate knight with a click then all that happends is that people carry multiple equipment sets (this was seen on epic at times).

Same goes for weapons, if its rock scizzor paper people just bring multiple weapons, its fairly simple.

Oh this weapon deals extra mount damage? Alright I'll carry it in my backpack for the times when i need to hit mounts.

etc.

Nice in theory but in this game the concept is pretty flawed.

With the equipment timers it could sorta work, but the equipment timers weren't really implemented in a good way.

 

Anyhow, it's offtopic. I suggest you talk in this thread if you got interest in it:

 

Edited December 8, 2016 by Zekezor