Ranged combat now.

Telendrieth

I started playing Achaea less and less as I grew to play other games, but as I went into nursing school, it pretty much put the nail in the coffin. As I'm wrapping that up, I'm trying to catch up on all of the exciting changes I've missed, and apparently area-wide attacks and range got hit pretty hard. If you'll oblige an older player on some catching up, just what skills changed? How are they now? What skills are the same? And as a special request, since I've never fully looked into either of these.. how exactly does kai choke work now, and what exactly does snipe do? I remember Kai choke getting some grace cooldown something ages ago.

Sorry for the broad request, just sort of wanting to know the state of things, what's still area wide, what's not, and how the new things are. Thank you for any and all information!

-Tel

Mishgul

I don't think there is anything that is "area wide" except certain specific non-damage telepathy attacks. Things like cataclysm, star, thurisaz and meteor were made to be within x rooms, with no respect to area boundaries, and things like kai choke, mind crush, are now line of sight. Snipe is a more accurate "shoot" i believe.

Telendrieth

Mishgul said:

I don't think there is anything that is "area wide" except certain specific non-damage telepathy attacks. Things like cataclysm, star, thurisaz and meteor were made to be within x rooms, with no respect to area boundaries, and things like kai choke, mind crush, are now line of sight. Snipe is a more accurate "shoot" i believe.

Cata isn't area wide anymore? That's.. really quite depressing actually. Hrm.. so do they have varying room distance, or do they all adhere to like.. five rooms for instance?
(Now I'm kind of worrying about vodun as well.)

Klendathu

AFAIK it's three rooms or line of sight, but accuracy goes down rapidly over more than 2 rooms for LOS. The exception seems to be atlatl, which remain area-wide, I believe.

Sena

I don't think vodun/puppetry ranges were changed, so anything there that was area-wide or continent-wide before is still area-wide or continent-wide now.

Doppleganger seek is still area-wide, but channeling any abilities through them requires LoS.

Meteors, star tarot, and thurisaz are now limited to a range of 3 rooms or LoS.

Cataclysm has a 3 room range. It also only requires 2 magi now, instead of 3.

Kai choke and mind crush are LoS. When you choke someone, they automatically start holding their breath, so further chokes won't affect them until they stop holding their breath.

Telendrieth

Sena said:

I don't think vodun/puppetry ranges were changed, so anything there that was area-wide or continent-wide before is still area-wide or continent-wide now.

Doppleganger seek is still area-wide, but channeling any abilities through them requires LoS.

Meteors, star tarot, and thurisaz are now limited to a range of 3 rooms or LoS.

Cataclysm has a 3 room range. It also only requires 2 magi now, instead of 3.

Kai choke and mind crush are LoS. When you choke someone, they automatically start holding their breath, so further chokes won't affect them until they stop holding their breath.

That was actually a fair bit of what I'd like to know, thank you. I'm glad they Eased up on the requirements for cata with those changes.
It's an odd feeling knowing how most of the game worked and then coming back and not even knowing if your base mechanics are even right anymore.

Thanks!

Sena

Also, archery accuracy has changed significantly (generally making it less accurate). If the target is more than one room away, accuracy is reduced. Artefact bows without the proper abilities (like wind and aiming) are a lot less accurate than they used to be (under optimal conditions, the chance to hit is about 65%).

Snipe increases accuracy and hides your name from the attack message, so the target can't see who's shooting them.