Vampirism Rebalance, Sihndar Ability Rework, Ailor Point Boost, Physical Stat Cap & Combat Dices

Long title name, I know. This is more of a comprehensive package of updates and tweaks to bring some of the outdated stuff in line, while also addressing the "vanilla" experience. Because of power creep (abilities are important for player engagement), Ailor usually end up getting the short end of the stick and become completely un-competitive in every field, while Sihndar abilities also don't mesh very well with the current layout, and one particular Vampire bloodline is getting a lot of heat for being not fun to roleplay against. A comprehensive list of changes and reasoning:

• Vampire Bloodline Mutation Changes
• https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Vampirism#Bloodline_Mutations
  • Alais Bloodline
    • Crimson Cloaking changed from Mind Ability to Passive to prevent Witchbloods from seeing through it when it already has counters.
    • Crimson Curse duration increased from 1 minute to 3 minutes.
    • Crimson Aging causes a Vampire to become incurable now as an additional side effect.
    • Crimson Reflection changed from Instant Ability to Passive to prevent Witchbloods from seeing through it and instantly cancelling it.
    • Crimson Guile gained a pain mechanic to prevent infinite vampiric drinking without detection.
  • Barghest Bloodline
    • Passive now allows wolf heads of different colors besides black, and also fox heads for aesthetic.
  • Von Kërle
    • No changes
  • Doughall
    • Passive (-10 Physical Stat on emote radius for Beast Transformations) now only applies to non-Vampires.
    • Mountain Lord no longer gives stacking Body Stat until 45 Body Stat, but rather +10 Body Stat if the character is under 20, or +5 Unarmed Combat if they are over 20.
    • Doughall teeth no longer large sabre teeth, but more like von Kërle. Added sharpened black claw like nails to compensate for theme loss.
    • Mountain Mist has been removed from Lore and replaced with Mountain Runes which allows long distance broadcasting of communication as well as trespassing detection.
  • Zikiel
    • Passive changed from the resurrect mechanic to the ability to break any type of Ward. Haunting Aging now causes a Vampire to become incurable as a side effect.Haunting Wards replaced with Haunting Specter, a casting projectile magic attack.
    • Haunting Aging now causes a Vampire to become incurable as a side effect.
    • Haunting Wards replaced with Haunting Specter, a casting projectile magic attack to enhance the Mage Vampire aesthetic.
  • Dorkarth
    • Removed Auld Mists and replaced with Auld Ballrooms which takes the clothing changing mechanic from Alais.
    • Removed Auld Warding and gave them Auld Vexxing which allows them to cancel an ongoing Vampire ability within 10 blocks of them.
    • Auld Aging now causes Vampirism to be uncurable as a side effect.
  • Crimson Witches
    • Added a new mutation to their pool, the immortality aging mutation.
  • Ancient Vampires
    • Clarified that the Home portal is a one-way ability.
    • Clarified that Ancient Vampires cannot be cured in written form.
• Other Vampirism Changes
  • Faith Bangle has been removed from lore. The negative impact of forced Vampirism infection is considered not-impacting in any way, and players are free to decide if a character is going for premature curing, or completely forgets about it.
  • Vampirism Curing has completely changed
    • https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Vampirism#Curing_of_Vampirism
      
    • Curing period is now 10 hours instead of 3 days.
    • Curing period can now be time skipped.
    • Curing period can now be IC compressed to a 20 minute rp session.
    • Curing process simplified to ingestion + vomit. No more weird stool process.
    • Post-curing infection immunity lowered to 3 days instead of 2 weeks.
    • Post-curing re-infection infects instantly instead of the 3 day infection incubation period.
    • Added a long winded explanation on what happens when an incurable Vampire has a curing done on them. Long story short, it shuts down their abilities for 72 hours and reverts their psyche back to normal, before all their abilities return again. It can now be used to essentially make a Vampire weak, even if they cannot be cured permanently. This also works on Crimson Witches.
  • Lore on the Hallowed Lantern
    • https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Vampirism#Hallowed_Lanterns
      
    • This is a placeholder mostly. It is intended for Hallowed Lanterns to have their own page, but this sets out the rules in the meantime so the players know what Hallowed Lanterns are and can counter play them.
• Changing Mutations as a result of these balances does not require an App re-review. Only submit for re-review if you are changing the entire Bloodline. Ask for your app to be tagged as approved by a Lore staff when you've made the changes.

Vampirism obviously needs constant tinkering because the abilities are all made with 1 on 1 rp in mind, not WIS group non-fun ability spamming. These changes were all made after numerous exhaustive meetings to spread out favor more among the Vampire Bloodlines, while also nerfing the worst cases of un-fun abilities (the mist abilities). Curing was changed because it was the #1 ticketed feature in terms of unclarity, weird rp and just not being fun on the end of the Vampires. Also added that whole depowering mechanic for immortal vampires. It doesn't really solve the whole "you get executed if you get caught, incurable vampire), but it does give the guards some more flexibility besides outright execution.

• Sihndar Ability Rework
• https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Sihndar
  • All Archons of the past have been deleted, and instead, a combo system of a static Archon and a flexible Lording is now allowed for Sihndar. Sihndar choose one Archon to stick with for the duration of their life during their coming of age ceremony, while a Lording can be switched every 1st day of the month if the Sihndar want to. Each Sihndar chooses one Archon and one Lording.
  • Lordings
    • The Lording of War gives them the ability to summon and unsummon their Khoptar, and have Kathar mutations. These Mutations stay after Lording is changed, or can go away. That is up to the players to decide.
    • The Lording of Magic gives them the ability to resist target abilities, and a spell that can shatter a WIS gate used to defend a base.
    • The Lording of Spiders gives them the ability to Beast Transform into a Dryder and gives them aesthetic extendable black nails.
  • Archons
    • Everbeast allows the Sihndar to copy a nearby Beast Transformation (except Dryder)
    • Everburning allows a Sihndar to reflect any ability cast on them back onto the original caster (non race abilities).
    • Stalwarding allows the Sihndar to create a multiple personality complex by harboring dying souls in their body for aesthetic reasons. Also they don't need to eat drink or sleep anymore.
    • Agebranding allows the Sihndar to cause themselves to appear as an Altalar, and become immune to any abberant detection mechanisms or magic detection mechanisms or ability detection mechanisms.
    • Harbingers allows the Sihndar to cancel out abilities used by other Sihndar.
    • Dimenthism allows the Sihndar to give anyone using teleport,blink,ability leap or other rapid translocation Portal Sickness which essentially "punishes" them for using portal-like relocation for 30 seconds after exit making them vulnerable while in emote range.
• Specify the Archon and Lording chosen as if they were Mutations or abilities on your Character App. A re-review is not necessary for your application if you are switching Archons and adding Lordings, even if your character was previously Destruction and now no longer has Mutations.

There is an intention to add more mutation mechanics for aesthetics to the Sihndar later, but that is mostly for when we finalize the mutation pack lore for categorical mutations that are derived by other races/abberancies. For now, the Sihndar badly needed an update, since all the Archons were kinda lame save for the first one, and lacked flexibility. Allowing the Sihndar to change Lording every month keeps their outlook somewhat fresh, while expanding the combination varieties with the Archons.

• Ailor Buff
  • https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Proficiency#Human_Races
    
  • Ailor now gain a flexible +15 Proficiency Points that they can invest wherever they want.
  • The reason for this change is quite simple: as power creep occurs for the other "young, hot, fuckable, powerful" races (practically all races save for the Dwarves and Ailor), Ailor end up being really un-competitive at nearly every level. An Ailor has to put 40 points into something to be competitive, and at that point quickly get comments hurled at them in combat rp that their character is now old and should have arthritis and not be able to fight anymore. By giving them a flexible +15 point boost, it essentially pulls the benefits of stacking points 15 years forward, while also not creating a problem at the older ranges, since Ailor become physically frail at advanced age. Altalar, despite now only having a difference of +5 points over Ailor basically, get "hot, young and fuckable forever" as their racial trait, which is worth +10 proficiency points in our eyes.
  • Ailor adding more Proficiencies to their Application do not need to ask for a re-review. This is 15 free new points to add to every Ailor App. Just ask for a review approved tag.

Physical Stat Cap

• So, we've recently noticed that players started using a really weird proficiency dice system to calculate combat rolls. We do not support the /dice 20 + Proficiency on top. That is really absurd. Ideally, all combat rolls should be limited to -10/+10 on top of a d20, that keeps combat rolls really functional and fair. As such, in preparation to a more commonly advertised staff-friendly rolling system for CRP, we're rolling out a Physical Stat Cap. A Physical Stat Cap is used to limit the "power" index of a race to a specific number. This is necessary because Body Shape is actually just an aesthetic choice, not a gameplay feature to determine Character strength, Physical Stat is. At the same time, Altalar could stat stack this over a 100, far more than an Ailor ever could, even if an Ailor is stronger. As such, we've decided to cap the Physical Stat of each race to a bound number, so that this can start being used in the future for our preferred rolling system. You can consult the implementation here:
• https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Proficiency#Physical_Stat_Limits
  
• The Altalar Ring of Valea has had its stat boost increased to 25, and added that it allows this stat to break the Cap limit, to help balance that.
• Soul Shard beasts (Mane, Grizzle, Claw) now also exceed their Physical Stat bonuses beyond the cap, but they have been slightly decreased to accommodate balance (while Grizzle has been increased for theme reasons).
• If you are updating your app to comply to the new Physical Stat Limits, you do not need to ask for a re-review. Additionally, you are not compelled to update your app at all! Since this Stat Limit exists, other players who CRP with you can read off your character's Limit from the Wiki page, without needing the sheet, but updating it is of course always recommended.

CRP Rolling System

• Our Current CRP rolling system is pretty simple. It is not enforced, a player cannot ever force this rolling system on someone else (inversely, a player cannot force a non-rolling crp on someone), try to find a common ground or compromise when conflict arises over the fair processing of combat numbers. This system is based on MonMarty's personal system and is very much subject to change, but currently holds up as being elegant enough to be used in day to day rp. It goes as followed:
  • A player has an attack and defense roll. The aim is always to have the attack roll be higher than the enemy's defense roll. If the enemy's defense roll is higher, they are allowed to do an attack roll during the next stage. Every successful attack roll is followed by another attack roll, either until 3 successful attack rolls are made uninterrupted (the first can also be a successful defense roll), or until the enemy wins the defense roll, in which case the initiative turns to the other player. This on average leads to CRP that lasts between 5-15 minutes, which is pretty healthy and fun and high-action.
  • On the attack roll, take a /dice 1 15 as base. Then
    • take Physical Stat, divide it by 5 and add that number on top.
    • For example, if the character has 30 Physical Stat, the dice becomes 30/5=6 so 15+6, becoming /dice 1 21.
  • On the defense roll, take a /dice 1 10 as base.
    • Add Athletic Training divided by 5 on top.
    • Add Shielding Combat Skill (if wielding a shield) divided by 3 on top.
    • Add the Proficiency used by the enemy (if your character has any) divided by 5 on top.
    • For example, if the character has 20 Athletic and 10 Shielding, it becomes 20/5=4, 10/3=3, so adding 7 on top of 20 becoming /dice 1 17. Another example is if your character has 10 Atheltics, 0 Shielding and has 30 Blades while the enemy also uses Blades. In this case, You take your base 10, add 2 from the Athletics, and 6 from the Blades, making the defense roll /dice 1 18.
  • The goal of these rolls is always to score higher during an initiative round. If you win your initiative round, you get another, until you get 3 in a row and then perform the victory emote with the winning attack. If you lose your initiative round, the enemy takes over, and has to succeed 2 more initiative rounds to win combat.
• This system is subject to heavy change in the future. It is not enforced. Nobody can force this system on anyone. It is just MonMarty's preferred system that has seen through numerous iterations.

As always, all these changes are of course beta stage, and we have to see how the players end up using/liking them before making changes. For now, we're happy with the comprehensive package aimed at addressing some of the un-fun CRP situations in WIS.

Furthermore, we're starting to move towards the mentality mindset that players should not stratify their proficiencies into single pillars of 40+ numbers to max them out, but rather spread out proficiency numbers on various skills to make a well-rounded design. In the near future, all utlity Proficiencies like Athletic, Rogue, Bodycare and Perception will have additional counters added to them to make them more appealing to use in roleplay. Right now for example, +10 Perception allows a character to see through most camouflage abilities. In the future. Bodycare 10+ will allow characters to see through appearance mutation abilities, Rogue training will gain set rules on pick pocketing, Athletic training on avoiding incoming projectiles etc, but more news will follow on that in a few weeks likely.