Changes in the Barrier Skill

[LittleLostThief]

I had thought of working with someone else to get what you wanted done done.  I tried to only include solo scenarios.  Working with a friend or an NPC will always give you a huge leg up.  If more than one of anything is after you, you've got far more severe problems.

I am not arguing that barrier shouldn't work this way.

I was merely giving some thought to an area where other people were screaming "OMGS!  LOW LEVEL KARMA GUILD IS EPIC NOW!  CAN'T BE STOPPED."

Apparently several of you were very worried about this.

[brytta.leofa]

I'm totally giving desert elves a second look.

[X-D]

Well, though I think it was giving the low level one a larger advantage, that is not what I was worried about, it is the already super powerful scary high karma guild.

[Nez]

Personally I'm not so worried about the <low level guild> doing <ability> after attacking. God knows, said <guild> already has plenty of tools to make you cry momma.

What I am worried though, is the psi scrying, sdesc sniffing. Some hooded figure fails a steal and gets attacked. Gets away and runs off, but immediately everyone present will scry him up. Hit and runs by assassins? The chances for upkeeping anonymity are ... that much lower.

I do not particularly understand why it's considered a bad thing to always maintain a barrier on your mind. It's not like it doesnt have a price for upkeeping it. And no, I do not mean the stun price. The barrier is a person's choice to be outside the way (or try to) Not only can he not be contacted by enemies, but his friends cant find him either, and he ... cant find them.

In many aspects of Armageddon, particularly if your character has to stay under the radar of the Templarate, upkeeping the barrier on a near constant basis is 'extremely' important. And ... it 'helps' roleplay, more then harms it. If a person is initiative enough to be participating in many plots, and yet requires to upkeep anonymity. Then this person has barrier up 90% of the time, and has an 'aide' or a 'right hand in his crew' to do the communicating for 'him'. Or ... picks and chooses places and times for conversations. All that adding to the mystery, subtlety, and stealthy way of life for the character.

You can say that this happens only to those who actually participate in plots a lot, but it allows those spam happy individuals who just stay away untill maxed out aswell. Well ... those people tend not to interact with people enough to be contacted anyway, so it hardly affects them.

[musashi]

While I don't have a feeling about the change in barrier one way or the other, we may have to revise the docs a little in light of the bug-fix since it says under the help file for sorcerors:

Because of their potential power, the Kings of Old, as well as the lords of the city-states of the contemporary world, do not permit sorcerers to exist. All who demonstrate knowledge or use of wizardry are typically killed at the earliest opportunity. Being powerful in the way of psionics, High Templars and the Kings themselves can easily sense a sorcerer's presence if said sorcerers do not properly shield their minds at all times.

[Nyr]

While I don't have a feeling about the change in barrier one way or the other, we may have to revise the docs a little in light of the bug-fix since it says under the help file for sorcerors:

Because of their potential power, the Kings of Old, as well as the lords of the city-states of the contemporary world, do not permit sorcerers to exist. All who demonstrate knowledge or use of wizardry are typically killed at the earliest opportunity. Being powerful in the way of psionics, High Templars and the Kings themselves can easily sense a sorcerer's presence if said sorcerers do not properly shield their minds at all times.

Nice documentation grab--but it doesn't need to be changed, in my opinion.

[musashi]

I'm not trying to do a "doc-grab" or throw some kind of text back in the face of the staff or anything like that Nyr, I just wanted to show that while reading, I did come across some text in the docs that seemed to imply there are people out there who would keep barrier up at all times.

Like I said before ... I really don't mind having barrier drop when combat starts, but I believe X-D said that some of his previous characters all but lived with barrier up, and then Nusku said that shouldn't be possible. Just saying, the text does imply that some folks do live with barrier up all the time ... punches to the face not withstanding.

[Nyr]

Let me rephrase:

What I meant was that I didn't realize that was even part of the documentation anywhere--it's really neat. 
However, I don't think it needs to be changed since this is an example (to me) of exceptional circumstances.  Not every Amos Six-Bottle^tm is going to be a sorcerer.

[musashi]

Ahh, I got ya now! 

I agree that it's apt to be uncommon for folks to run around with a barrier constantly up, but I just wanted to interject that it should probably be possible if that uncommon need arises. A person should be able to train themselves into keeping barrier up almost all of the time.

But ... those same people should probably avoid the Gaj since getting punched in the face it going to make them drop it 

To reference X-D's analogy ... you could very well be able to train yourself to walk around with a tennis ball on either shoulder, but let someone start swinging a basebal bat at you, and see how long those tennis balls stay there.

[Agent_137]

Let me rephrase:

What I meant was that I didn't realize that was even part of the documentation anywhere--it's really neat. 
However, I don't think it needs to be changed since this is an example (to me) of exceptional circumstances.  Not every Amos Six-Bottle^tm is going to be a sorcerer.

it's neat he says.

And last I checked, sorcerors have very mundane psionic abilities, otherwise they tend to turn into God-Kings. So why couldn't every Amos Six-Bottle do with psionics exactly what a Sorceror would do? Sure it might not be worth the trouble, but he should be CAPABLE of it.

[mansa]

Check again, Agent.

[musashi]

Ah ah ah ... lets not go down that road.

[manonfire]

So, if a Sorc hiding in Allanak gets into a scuffle, he's automatically noticed by the Highlord.

SWEET.

[Riev]

I'm calling for a city-wide brawl in Allanak.

[Nusku]

What I am worried though, is the psi scrying, sdesc sniffing. Some hooded figure fails a steal and gets attacked. Gets away and runs off, but immediately everyone present will scry him up. Hit and runs by assassins? The chances for upkeeping anonymity are ... that much lower.

For those who still think along these lines and haven't been paying attention to staff posts here and elsewhere: after the next reboot, contact will only allow the use of temporary keywords for targeting if the target is in the same room. The old "> contact figure" will not work unless said figure is in the room with you, or you are trying to contact "the dwarf with a shapely figure."

Regarding documentation about sorcerers: now and then, what you see in documentation represents the "common knowledge" side of things, rather than an absolute truth. In other words, public documentation is going to be generic ("sorcerers should have barrier up at all times to avoid discovery!") rather than specific ("sorcerers should have barrier up when doing x,y,z to avoid discovery.") Experimentation in game or learning from other players in game or sometimes documentation that is given to people in particular roles will give more detailed information than generic documentation.

To put it a slightly different way, you already know that we don't tell everyone everything. We like to hold back on some types of information in order to make the game more fun and make certain roles more interesting. Even after joining staff, you will still run into all kinds of things that you just did not know or were slightly (or completely) incorrect about. That's the nature of the game, though. It's meant to be a little mysterious in some ways.

Regarding changes in gameplay... barrier used to be a psionicist-only skill. I wasn't playing when that was the case, that's just what I've been told by a couple of Highlords who were around back in the day. In a way, I wish that were still the case because the widespread availability of the skill has created more problems than it has solved. In particular it seems to have created a widespread set of assumptions about what it can (or should) do that not only don't match up with actual gameplay, but also happen to be ill-advised. The "sdesc-sniffing" is a good example of this. Barrier isn't a good solution to that problem; it doesn't even address the underlying issue. The real issue, in this case, is the way the contact skill handles targeting. Hopefully Morgenes has now addressed that problem, but if it remains an issue, we'll address it as an issue with contact, rather than an issue with barrier.

[Sephiroto]

If melee combat lowers barrier, shouldn't other skills like throw, archery, and magick lower it as well?

[Morgenes]

If melee combat lowers barrier, shouldn't other skills like throw, archery, and magick lower it as well?

It's the matter of turning your concentration to melee fighting, which requires constant attention that we are trying to reconcile with these changes.  You can do other tasks while maintaining a barrier, just not something that requires as much concentration as combat.

[Sephiroto]

You never utterly lose your concentration while fighting in a melee, with the exception of reeling perhaps.  You can lose your concentration with magick though.  I'm sure we've all RP'd a spell backfiring from time to time. 

I understand what your position and intent with the barrier thing is Morgenes, but it doesn't make any sense at all to me.  Wouldn't summoning fireballs be just as hard or even harder than punching someone in the face or slashing at someone?  How is backstabbing or throwing a dagger at someone's throat any less concentration-intensive than regular melee?

There's probably some sort of reasoning behind the scenes for this change that I'm not aware off and I'll concede that.  But from my point of view as a player, the changes don't seem to be fair from one guild to another.

This has gone past how the skill affects my character.  This is me trying to understand how in the world this makes any sense at all.  I've got no problem with skills being sacked as long as they're sacked across the board.

**edited for spelling**

[staggerlee]

You never utterly lose your concentration while fighting in a melee, with the exception of reeling perhaps.  You can lose your concentration with magick though.  I'm sure we've all RP'd a spell backfiring from time to time. 

I understand what your position and intent with the barrier thing is Morgenes, but it doesn't make any sense at all to me.  Wouldn't summoning fireballs be just as hard or even harder than punching someone in the face or slashing at someone?  How is backstabbing or throwing a dagger at someone's throat any less concentration-intensive than regular melee?

There's probably some sort of reasoning behind the scenes for this change that I'm not aware off and I'll concede that.  But from my point of view as a player, the changes don't seem to be fair from one guild to another.

This has gone past how the skill affects my character.  This is me trying to understand how in the world this makes any sense at all.  I've got on problem with skills being sacked as long as they're sacked across the board.

If we're talking about realism, combat is a far more frantic, heart pounding affair than the mud even begins to simulate properly.   I suppose you could argue that since Zalanthans are terrified of magick they'd freak out and lose their concentration if they even saw a spell being cast... but comparing chucking a dagger to engaging in melee doesn't work.

With that said, I think it's more of a game play issue than a realism issue.  So I wouldn't sweat it too much.   

Also, this isn't a mmorpg, the classes were never meant to be balanced.

[Chettaman]

Here I am raising the dead.

I noticed that barrier can no longer be erected during combat.
I've also noticed a trend in ideas where; when I think of something for psionics... the opposite tends to happen.
-make contact more difficult -- everyone gets mastered contact
-make barrier last through the beginning of combat -- you can't even create a mind barrier during combat anymore

luckily, those were the only two things about psionics that I've ever had any knowledge or opinions about.

[Delirium]

I don't know that I agree with that kind of change though, for certain reasons I won't go into on the GDB.

It makes certain situations much, much more perilous, and shafts certain types of characters even further on the ultimate power scale.

Hey look, this is still my opinion 10 years later!

holy shit TEN YEARS later

[BadSkeelz]

You could barrier in combat?

[Delirium]

It was dangerous since you took the substantial stun hit as per normal, and noticeably difficult to do, but there were also benefits to doing so.

I thought the difficulty of doing so - and the stun penalty - reflected the difficulty of holding it up during combat just fine.

Looking back on it, some of the behaviors do seem more like features than intentional code, so I guess the point of this is to make it behave like contact does.

[Harmless]

I liked combat barrier and will miss that but then again combat should be a tough time to create layers of mental defenses. Of course barrier sucks to actually block psionics anyway so it doesn't matter so much in the end.

[wizturbo]

I guess I'm just sorta confused as to why it was taken out?  Of all things to change, why this?