Polymorphing and Staff of Change Rework

[Kaed]

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6899

-Polymorph spells are longer lasting, and when used on an individuals, they do NOT drop all their items, but rather they go away with their older body and are returned to them when they change back
-Polymorphed individuals will have a lot more health than they used to, making it harder to murder-cheese them.  150 hp, in fact, less than a regular humanmob, but also much more than a regular mob of their type
-Polymorphed victims will lose their old mind when polymorphed, becoming like the creature they have  turned into.  If this is a corgi or lizard, they will have to roleplay like one. It is now, however, possible for them to get a hostile form, such as a spider or slime, which means they may attack people. Including the wizard. They get their mind back when they return to their former shape.  
-Wizards can recast Polymorph on someone to change them back to normal early.
-The Base duration of baleful polymorph for wizards is 60 seconds, and it cam be increased up to 180 seconds by using 4 extra spell slots on it, for a bonus 30 seconds each.
-The wand of change works like baleful polymorph, but only lasts 40 seconds.  You can rapidly cause chaos this way, but it is no way permanent, and even the wizard themselves can undo their own transformations with another staff shot. It also now has 4 shots max, removing the previous nerf put on it due to how horrible it was.
-Polymorphed characters can rename themselves to not be so generic during their tenure as a critter. Technically, anyone nearby can, but it basically works the same way as pet dogs.

Oh, I also removed the utterly garbage birdform spell from the code entirely. It was already removed from the spellbooks, no one uses it and it's really bad.

All of this has been playtested.  It is possible, with feedback, I could increase the duration of the spell, or something.  If people think 1 minute base time is too short, or something.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Kaed

[Fortelian]

1 minute is too short. The staff needs to be worth purchasing. By the time they figure out how to RP as their new form, they will have turned back.

[PoZe]

On 21/08/2019 at 20:17, Kaed said:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6899

-Polymorph spells are longer lasting, and when used on an individuals, they do NOT drop all their items, but rather they go away with their older body and are returned to them when they change back

The reason why some of them drop items is also because sometimes you change from human mob to different lesser mob like carbon or living. Neither of these support slots for items humans have, so extra stuff have to drop.

[Carver]

7 hours ago, Fortelian said:

1 minute is too short. The staff needs to be worth purchasing. By the time they figure out how to RP as their new form, they will have turned back.

1 minute for what is essentially a powerful disable/'pseudo-stun' (preventing using weapons or really defending oneself capably) is fairly long. It also removes armour values for the duration, so the Secorgi Officer no longer has the advantage of his riot armour or whatever he was wearing. It's generally far, far easier to kill non-human mobs even with 150 health than it is to kill a naked human, possible exception withstanding for Guard Spiders which honestly should have higher than 150 base health, but I can't remember how many shots it'd usually take to kill one (tho they're still weaker than a properly armoured human effective health-wise).

In short, a minute is fine. If the mobs were unkillable then I'd support it being longer, as it were even with the buff to polymorphed health 60 minutes is an incredibly powerful disable in a game where one can kill a human in about 10-15 seconds or less on average.

[Kaed]

7 hours ago, PoZe said:

The reason why some of them drop items is also because sometimes you change from human mob to different lesser mob like carbon or living. Neither of these support slots for items humans have, so extra stuff have to drop.

That's not how this works.  The mob isn't 'changed' into anything. You don't drop anything because your original mob is shoved inside the temporary simple mob and restored once it wears off.  The dropping all your items (including stuff like implants) mechanic was a gimmicky process from lowrp shit that didn't need to stay.  

Fun fact: During testing, since I was doing this all in a single player mapload, spiders would attack the body inside themselves because their AI made them maul the nearest mob.  This shouldn't occur in actual gameplay though, because mob AI is suppressed when someone is in control of it.

4 hours ago, Carver said:

1 minute for what is essentially a powerful disable/'pseudo-stun' (preventing using weapons or really defending oneself capably) is fairly long. It also removes armour values for the duration, so the Secorgi Officer no longer has the advantage of his riot armour or whatever he was wearing. It's generally far, far easier to kill non-human mobs even with 150 health than it is to kill a naked human, possible exception withstanding for Guard Spiders which honestly should have higher than 150 base health, but I can't remember how many shots it'd usually take to kill one (tho they're still weaker than a properly armoured human effective health-wise).

In short, a minute is fine. If the mobs were unkillable then I'd support it being longer, as it were even with the buff to polymorphed health 60 minutes is an incredibly powerful disable in a game where one can kill a human in about 10-15 seconds or less on average.

The buff to health was intended to make it so it's at least a moderate effort to kill a polymorphed character, instead of something you do in 2 the seconds while they're still disoriented by being turned into a corgi.  It was never intended to prevent polykills.

However, you do have it right in that this is intended more as a disable than a character dynamic change.

I do plan to implement a druid version of the spell that can be upgraded to permanent until removed by wizard later, assuming this rolls over well.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Kaed

[Carver]

1 hour ago, Kaed said:

The buff to health was intended to make it so it's at least a moderate effort to kill a polymorphed character, instead of something you do in 2 the seconds while they're still disoriented by being turned into a corgi.  It was never intended to prevent polykills.

However, you do have it right in that this is intended more as a disable than a character dynamic change.

I do plan to implement a druid version of the spell that can be upgraded to permanent until removed by wizard later, assuming this rolls over well.

Oh I'm aware, merely stating to Fortelian why 'one minute' isn't short at all. I'd've done 45 seconds but honestly Wizard is impossible to balance and there're much stronger options in their repertoire for efficient and fast murder.

[geeves]

4 hours ago, Kaed said:

because mob AI is suppressed when someone is in control of it.

Is this true for disconnected or SSD clients as well? And ghosting?

[Kaed]

4 hours ago, geeves said:

Is this true for disconnected or SSD clients as well? And ghosting?

Not with ghosting, because that removes the key from a mob.  It would be impossible for me to test with SSD and disconnected clients, though, because I can only playtest single player servers (myself). I would presume not, though if it was the case there is not a whole lot I am aware of that I can do to prevent it.

7 hours ago, Carver said:

Oh I'm aware, merely stating to Fortelian why 'one minute' isn't short at all. I'd've done 45 seconds but honestly Wizard is impossible to balance and there're much stronger options in their repertoire for efficient and fast murder.

I would strongly hope that the primary benefit people get out of this change is not 'it's easier to murder people safely'.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Kaed

[Fortelian]

16 hours ago, Carver said:

1 minute for what is essentially a powerful disable/'pseudo-stun' (preventing using weapons or really defending oneself capably) is fairly long. It also removes armour values for the duration, so the Secorgi Officer no longer has the advantage of his riot armour or whatever he was wearing. It's generally far, far easier to kill non-human mobs even with 150 health than it is to kill a naked human, possible exception withstanding for Guard Spiders which honestly should have higher than 150 base health, but I can't remember how many shots it'd usually take to kill one (tho they're still weaker than a properly armoured human effective health-wise).

In short, a minute is fine. If the mobs were unkillable then I'd support it being longer, as it were even with the buff to polymorphed health 60 minutes is an incredibly powerful disable in a game where one can kill a human in about 10-15 seconds or less on average.

I am talking about RP wise like that guy above me said (I think something like that) but I do agree with the points you raise in the functionality and gameplay with the staff. One time in fact, I turned someone into a cow then killed them with a sword. (on Sybil) Staff of change on /vg/ lets you actually CHOOSE what people become so very scary there.

[Gem]

old/stale thread.

locking and archiving.