The Tavern

I am a big fan of bh's changes to TSO and Oka, but I think TSO could use one more change:

What if we gave TSO a 0* ability that allows the player to maintain the attention of any single target? I'd prefer doing away with TSO punishing you for attacking enemies who are distracted altogether, but I get that it's decent flavor. You could flavor the new ability as "Challenge" or something, a bit like the system of marking in D&D, whereby the enemy becomes entirely focused on you or gets a penalty to attack. I think the only drawback necessary would be noise, so that challenging an enemy is the equivalent of a shout; it could be a LOS/beam attack, too, as I think TSO would appreciate it if you locked eyes with the enemy, etc.

well, this would solve the problem of having to wait for a monster to wake up and notice you, so you dont get penance. also, tapping gently the shoulder of a bloodthristy demon-like evil monster and asking for a honorable duel does look like the kind of thing TSO would like.
this could be the ability to mesmerise the monster like a siren, waking it up and dragging it to melee range. it would be very useful against ranged jerks and fleeing cowards.
I like it very much, if it is worth anything.

yeah i like that idea. Similar to "taunting" on WoW.. getting "aggro".. but yes rewording it for TSO would be cool. "Challenge", "Incite", "Duel" are all good name choices for an activated ability.

This would help with the recent issue I had with Cleansing Flame angering the Shining One, though I still question its ability to be used around angel allies (they're immune to the damage) if it's just going to get you into trouble anyway when it hits the enemies said angels are attacking.

Well, it doesn't matter if angels are attacking your enemies, only if your enemies are trying to attack the angel rather than you (They have the "distracted" status)

But yeah, you do have to be very very careful to pay attention to what's happening when you have cleansing flame and angels around, and it does sometimes limit cleansing flame's usefulness.

Just make it so the enemies never get distracted if you follow TSO, because you have a huge glowing halo all around you, and it's really hard to not notice you.
No idea how hard would that be code-wise, though.

I like this idea better than my idea. I mean, an ability to get somebody's attention is kind of cute, flavor-wise, but doing away with distraction altogether with TSO is just as flavorful.

That said, would that prevent enemies from attacking your angel bros or other allies? I'm not 100% sure on how distraction works, but I assumed that it meant "this enemy is focusing on attacking another ally," and letting TSO make it so that no enemies will attack your allies seems like an insane buff. That seems like it might be a stumbling block, to say the least.

I believe enemies will still hit your allies, even when not distracted, if your ally is in their path. In other words, non-distracted enemies effectively push whichever arrow key gets them closer to you, and if that causes them to whack an angel, so be it. It's the same reason neutrals will attack you if you're in the way.

This is correct, an enemy trying to get to you will hit allies that are in the way, distracted is all about what they are *trying* to hit, rather than what they are *actually* hitting. (if I recall correctly having an 'ally' next to your enemy gives them a 1 in 5 chance of "trying" to hit that ally instead of the player)