Something I've been thinking about. Retardation is a fun skill to have in certain situations. However, Retardation also makes it impossible to balance the class in any agreeable way because 99% of the game dreads and fears Retardation, the very thought of the skill being the focus of tales to make bad children behave, "Else the Ret Monster will eat your toes!"
First, I will preface this with saying I love fighting in Retardation. I find it fun and challenging. What I don't like is having to fight -other- people in Retardation. What I mean by this is that dropping ret quickly because a game of "spam the brazier", which makes it no fun at all, or "cheese the sleep lock", which isn't any fun for the opponent.
I want to suggest something radical: remove retardation from the game. Why? Because the top 1% of the top 10%... erm, uhh... I mean, I want to make changes to Magi to make it a more dynamic class to play, and to open up more options for magi to have defensively and offensively. Without the looming threat of the Ret Monster above our heads, it'll be easier to make suggestions to make healthy changes to the class. What are everyone's thoughts?
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That being said. I'd be glad to see retardation go if it meant the skillset didn't have to be so bland. Smash smash X 7 instakill is just.... not fun. The things you can do in ret are still fun but I agree with the brazier mania.
Also, destabilisation: amazing concept, for groups in particular it's a really great way to screw your whole entire team over. I'd prefer to see it using targetable effects instead of just ...never getting used because it's going to make your whole team hate you. Plus if you're 1v1 it's already going to only effect the target you're fighting. Win win.
- You can chain multiple action into an alias and queue that alias, all the actions go through
- You can have up to 9 actions in a single alias
- You can line up the cures you need into that alias, to go through with your offense too
- You can clot in retardation, outr, eat, sip, tree, shield, wake, smoke, and still hit at the same time.
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It's one of the most unique abilities in the game and it's especially neat in that it's symmetric - dropping ret doesn't directly benefit you, it's only to your benefit if you're better at making use of it than your opponent is. It's the Achaean equivalent of turning off the lights and fighting in the dark because, even though it means you can't see either, you're wagering that you're more practiced at fighting in the dark than they are.
It seems like the main problem with retardation is that people feel like leaving the vibe is usually a better option than fighting in it. I wonder if a better solution isn't some sort of engage-like mechanic to discourage just trying to run the moment retardation goes down?
I'm not really sure how I see how retardation precludes making magi combat more dynamic either.
At least, that's my understanding of it?
It seems more to me like the idea is that people who are wrong will complain about making magi more dynamic because magi also has access to retardation - the you already have a fun, unique mechanic, you shouldn't get to have any more! people. But that's not really a balance problem or a reason to get rid of retardation, that's just an issue of people being wrong.
And this is all ignoring the existence of non-magi classes that already have extremely strong abilities under retardation.
I will say that removing ret entirely would probably remove the only dynamic ability magi has left now that it's been brought in line with other classes but I am biased and absolutely adored old magi for letting me get away with average technical knowledge but different and crazy ways to kill someone. Like how I realized that evade was also a serpent's weakness as much as it was their solution to ret (hello balance loss from evading into a room). I was also that weird guy who actually loved magi vs. magi combat, so I may actually just be a psychopath come to think of it.
Personally I felt that the actual problem with old mage had more to do with how crazy good it gets damage-wise as well as some really niche but cheesy abilities (looking at you hellfumes). And I did notice that in the combat season just before artificing was rolled out. Every other mage I ran into in ranked spars were either artied to the teeth and leaned on their incredible damage (I'd go from green health to dead in dragon if I wasn't really careful) or just used hellfumes and waited it out.
I honestly think it'd have been better if we got destabilize as a class skill because it'd have been a risk-reward proposition between gaining advantage from wrecking one of your vibes while shortening that timer you had to kill someone. People may disagree but I am rather open about my dislike that magi kill routes feel like its been taken from the same cookie-cutter as other classes.
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