Mephitic Cloud Suggestions.
Posted: Saturday, 12th March 2011, 12:11
It seems pretty widely accepted that Mephitic Cloud is still overpowered, makes the early game too easy, and is due for further nerfing.
Here are some suggestions that I think would reduce its potential for abuse while still leaving it powerful enough to be useful.
Apologies if these have already been suggested or dismissed elsewhere...
1. Confused =/= suicidal
It seems crazy to me that as well as all the other benefits of this spell, it often causes monsters to plunge to their deaths in deep water or lava, giving the player huge amounts of XP for doing almost nothing. Maybe if a confused monster 'tries' to move towards terrain that would be fatal, it should 'wobble on the edge' instead and then stop, just losing its chance to move rather than killing itself. Monsters hitting themselves is pretty silly too.
I'm all in favour of confused players falling into the lava if they try to move - it's up to the player if they want to take that risk.
2. Greatly reduce the duration of the confusion effect
3. Monsters build up immunity
For example, if a monster gets hit by Mephitic Cloud and then recovers, it would then be immune or much more resistant to further castings, as it has now become accustomed to the effects.
2 and 3 combined would mean that Mephitic Cloud, instead of being an almost foolproof method to kill most of the dangerous early game monsters, would instead be useful in giving the player a few extra turns to run away. They could still attempt to kill the monsters, but doing so would be risky as if they recovered from the confusion the player could not just keep confusing them again and again.
Here are some suggestions that I think would reduce its potential for abuse while still leaving it powerful enough to be useful.
Apologies if these have already been suggested or dismissed elsewhere...
1. Confused =/= suicidal
It seems crazy to me that as well as all the other benefits of this spell, it often causes monsters to plunge to their deaths in deep water or lava, giving the player huge amounts of XP for doing almost nothing. Maybe if a confused monster 'tries' to move towards terrain that would be fatal, it should 'wobble on the edge' instead and then stop, just losing its chance to move rather than killing itself. Monsters hitting themselves is pretty silly too.
I'm all in favour of confused players falling into the lava if they try to move - it's up to the player if they want to take that risk.
2. Greatly reduce the duration of the confusion effect
3. Monsters build up immunity
For example, if a monster gets hit by Mephitic Cloud and then recovers, it would then be immune or much more resistant to further castings, as it has now become accustomed to the effects.
2 and 3 combined would mean that Mephitic Cloud, instead of being an almost foolproof method to kill most of the dangerous early game monsters, would instead be useful in giving the player a few extra turns to run away. They could still attempt to kill the monsters, but doing so would be risky as if they recovered from the confusion the player could not just keep confusing them again and again.