Herb addiction is supposed to be the balancing point to the strength of herbs. I suggest we make addiction more interesting by revising and improving it.
I suggest that once you become addicted, every twelve ticks that you have not smoked, you will get a prompt:
You feel the drug addiction setting in.
If you smoke BEFORE you get this prompt, that is before 12 ticks since the last smoke, it resets the counter and you have no ill effects.
If you wait until the prompt and then smoke (within the next 12 ticks of withdrawal), you will experience a high which is randomly chosen from (please expand this example list):
You feel very hungry. (sets food counter to beginning of 'starving')
You feel very disoriented. (two tick thunderclap effect)
You feel very confused. (all skills drop 10 prof for two ticks)
If you do not smoke after the prompt within a tick, you will start to feel the withdrawal:
Tick of the prompt, nothing happens.
Next tick, inflicted with insomnia for 6 ticks.
On the seventh tick, insomnia fades and is replaced by poison for 4 more ticks.
On the last tick, poison finishes and dysentry sets in for one more tick.
After that, the withdrawal finishes and drug addiction is removed.
Drug withdrawal symptoms are not curable.
If you smoke at any time during the withdrawal phase, the symptoms are removed (you get the 'high' affect replacing them) and the addiction counter is reset.
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I also suggest that if smoking in combat, a character has a 50% chance for a 'high' affect regardless of addiction state due to the adrenaline.
I quite like this idea. Maybe shorten the addiction time though so that it doesn't nerf it too much. Otherwise you'll have to chain smoke all your herbs considering addictions lasts in the 100's, not exactly sure how much.
Maybe another high could be a 0-1 hour sluggish effect?
Possibly have a forget effect too, but make it highly unlikely?
Once you go through withdrawal once, you won't have it again until you get addicted. So if you want to conserve herbs (out of PK for instance), find a quite moment to endure the 6 minutes of withdrawal and you are good to go.
mastered wands/staves dont really fail, i wouldnt count this as a drawback.
staves lag is long and wand lag is super low, they can both be used in combat almost always without fail. you can also use staves while blind if you are holding one.
scrolls are different because a lot more classes get them, they are mostly used for buffs since you cant recite in combat, not many people use the scrolls out there for initiating combat.
Would be nice if scrolls worked differently. As an example, if a player has scrolls as a skill, they could recite a scroll thereby granting themselves a new spell, the spell would take the place of the scrolls skill, until such a time as the character reads a new scroll. Now, before you all go off half cocked. I would destroy (remove) a couple of scrolls first. If you can not imagine which ones, do not remove them and Brent will kill us all.
Having such an addiction in place with zero downfall of the other consumables is moot. As the most reliable consumable for sanctuary is the herbs. Vials are just terrible. The buyable vials are a bit expensive and not everyone can kill the wight.
Just because most people do not use the scrolls that are there to open combat, does not mean they arent capable of being used.
Placing things like insomnia on an addiction is crazy.
I honestly do not see what most of the whining is about now days anyway, some things, yes, but come on.
Most of all fights are long and drawn out, unless someone is caught with their pants down or just isnt paying attention to their affects. Only exception to this is perhaps new players or old players with a new class to them.
Thats fine to have that opinion, but you need to offer some suggestions.
What downside would you give the other consumables?
That would have to be looked into more as I do not see many use wands, but perhaps have a chance for wands/scrolls/staves to backfire and give a drain effect or something. Or if while using in battle, has a chance to backfire and injure the user, or give other debuffs.
Insomnia/poison really mean nothing if you manage your addiction in a PK. With a 12 tick cooldown, it should be fairly easy. You are going to naturally smoke more than that in PK, so you probably won't even notice it. Remember, the insomnia/poison goes away as soon as you smoke too. It is just a big pain in the butt if you completely run out of herbs while in the middle of a long PK, but even then, you know exactly when it will hit.
Everyone can use herbs. Only particular classes can use scrolls/staves/wands, so those should be better. Wands have to be held, staves have lag, scrolls are hard to gather.
Nothing is going to stop you from using herbs as you currently do with this change. You'll just have a longer cool-off period after PK to get rid of the addiction (if you want to).
Herbs are the easiest consumable to gather and use, and the current addiction system doesn't do anything. Pills can't be used when full and are uncommon. Potions can't be used in combat and are weak. Herbs are both common and powerful, so they need something to counterbalance them. This suggestion is a very weak counterbalance, looking more to make addiction interesting instead. In essence, the suggestion neither significantly buffs nor nerfs consumables, it just makes herbs have a unique side effect.
This suggestion isn't aiming to rebalance herbs as a whole. I believe that would be best done by going through and sorting which spells should be granted by each tier of consumable and at what strength.
So, what draw backs to mages get for staves/wands/scrolls?
They are skills to grant some stuff to some classes. Wands for Sanctuary for BMG's, DK's, Necros. Staves for flight and some curatives for Rangers, ninjas, Monks, Casters and communers. Scrolls for protection and flight for rogues.
They are class features, to grant access to some spells without them being free, like spells. Herbs on other hand can be used by anyone. It's like asking what is the draw back of fired weapons.
Frankly I don't think herbs should be that discouraged, the only thing that I have with herbs is instant combat smoking. I think they alleviate some headaches for meeles, and that is a good thing. Having meeles resort to only vials would be quite detrimental to the game.
Realistically putting more downsides on addiction will only impact newer players, or those with limited time to play and farm herbs. It won't affect the powerhouse herb users, and I don't think we really want to increase the gap between the haves and the have nots any further.
Herbs have 2 balance issues - smoking in combat, and zero lag. Give herbs a 1 round lag, and make them not smokable in combat and you balance them with other consumables.
They are skills to grant some stuff to some classes. Wands for Sanctuary for BMG's, DK's, Necros. Staves for flight and some curatives for Rangers, ninjas, Monks, Casters and communers. Scrolls for protection and flight for rogues.
They are class features, to grant access to some spells without them being free, like spells. Herbs on other hand can be used by anyone. It's like asking what is the draw back of fired weapons.
Frankly I don't think herbs should be that discouraged, the only thing that I have with herbs is instant combat smoking. I think they alleviate some headaches for meeles, and that is a good thing. Having meeles resort to only vials would be quite detrimental to the game.
I understand the aspect of all of it. And I understand that ALL classes can use herbs. The problem lies in if herbs gain some sort of awful drawback, those with staves/scrolls/wands will just no longer use herbs. The thing is, most mages have access to everything as it is, so placing huge downfalls on herbs just hurts melee. Personally, I do see that more saves can be achieved now, but I have not seen the mages affected in very negative ways. I myself have had saves stacked, at least -20 across the board and higher and still have had a problem fighting mage classes.
The biggest problem I see lately, is everyone wants something changed that favors their race/class/playstyle. That is not how FL works. Everything has a bane in one fashion or another. Some things in the game actually need to be looked into and others do not. And quite frankly, too many threads are being shut down because everyone wants to take everything out of proportion when it comes to certain topics.
If you're nerfing something thats available to everyone, you're not really giving anyone else an advantage.
You're also making the mistake of thinking people only play 1 character. Heck, I have 8 active 50's and more than half of them are melee and I'm still in favor of this change.
The thing is, yes, it is available to all, but many classes can just replace the herb usage with their skills of scrolls/staves/wands. Which have no downfall, except for staves (if you call a tiny bit of lag a downfall).
I've always found the argument that one shouldn't be able to to put sanc back on, while in combat, through herbs, a funny one.
I'll explain why:
Mages are used to having all their spells provided to them, so they don't really need herbs to be competitive, so the lazy mage players don't usually use them. And since they can not cast sanctuary while in combat, they think it's not fair for melees to be able to smoke in combat.
Right.
On the other hand though, I've never seen someone complain that a mage can recall from within combat. You see, if a melee wants to recall from within combat, he has to hold a potion and quaff it. He faces a chance to fail, and if he is blind he can't even do it. All a mage has to do is type "c word". No chance to fail, no need to flee from combat.
You see, that's how FL works.
Classes are made to be good at different things.
But since everyone want things to be "fair", then it will only be fair, if you disable the recall spell while within combat, and blind.