Magic Darkness

[Lauriert]

So let's talk about magic darkness.... it's awful. That is, it's terrible the way it is.

It can be to cheese pve, letting the user easily kill things they shouldn't be able to AND making city assaults stupidly easy.

It can be used to cheese pvp, the user can just see an enemy is hunting, go back a couple rooms and triple layer it, and then walk in for a cheap and easy win. This can be used to generate many cheap and easy pvp wins and only doesn't work if the target has enough light sources, which can only happen if they are expecting it and have the light already because a lot of light sources can't be lit in combat. Every light source in the game is limited in some capacity and therefore having enough light all the time is bothersome at best.

What's the solution? Most of the problems stated stem from the problem that the darkness follows the caster. If it was stationary, it would be more of a tactical tool to hide the contents of a room to try to deceive the other side. It couldn't be used as a cheap ambush tool anymore, but would still have usage, a much more nuanced usage.

[Silvie]

I don't think making darkness stationary is the correct way to do things. It would completely ruin it's use in PVE and honestly. Being a cool and powerful tool in PVE isn't a problem. Cheesing city assaults is. But that's easily fixed on it's on.

As for PVP, Darkness has many more uses than just being able to get "cheap wins" as it can be used to control information, I had an interesting situation where a Satho used darkness outside of the tower of pain and it made a large group of goods nervous to attack them as we didn't know what we were going into. It made for some fun rp and a rush as we went out to face them, followed by Relief when it was just one Satho, Good all around! I will also say darkness on my Satho is super duper fun for PVE. And I wouldn't want to see it made stationary which would make it very very meh in PVE situations.

So, right now in PVP people have their own solution cooked up, which is to carry around a bunch of lamps and then light them all at once however this is held back by the few things, mainly that you need multiple lamps which is kinda silly to carry around 3-5 small ones and also lamps can't be lit in combat for some reason. Even in a backrow. So this would be my ways to fix darkness being used for cheap and easy wins in direct PVP and cheesing cities whilst keeping all other aspects fine.

1. Make lamps produce the light of 3-5 lamps. All the lamp light currently produced already lights up caves fine. And they can't be used underwater. So this would only affect them versus magical darkness and it is just making the current strategy of aliasing 3-5 easier and make more sense IC
2. Let people light lamps in combat. It just seems kinda fine to let people do this, It's not really that odd compared to doing other things. You need a hand free to light a lamp already and that's big enough of a downside imo. Also let people wear shields in combat too!
3. Put a light source at the gate of cities. This prevents darkness being used to cheese city attacks by just making it so you can't have darkness on the same tile as the gate guards.

I haven't actually ever used the light miracle myself but I've heard people say it's underwhelming. Perhaps making it produce the same amount of light as a lamp would after such a change and then also extending it's duration so it's more easily kept up at all times like darkness can be would be good? However I don't have any personal experience of magical light so I could not say in confidence what to do with it.

[Delia]

I think allowing lamps be light up in combat would be a good fix overall. Light miracles could be made to last longer too. Changing Taniel light miracle to work like the mage light touch version does would give added versatility. You could also add the area light version too while you are at it. Both are very Taniel-like and would fit well as miracles.

[ferranifer]

I'd love to see "false dawn" as a Tanielite miracle.

The main issue I see with darkness (and light) is the stacking mechanism.

I agree that darkness is cool and has many layers of utility, some of which are core of the satho powerkit. But it does seem rather easy to cheese a bit too many things with it, namely city/guild defenses which can get trivialized by darkness. Also, when brought to PvP, fighting in the dark is synonym to a very quick, very easy death.

My proposal:

• Remove darkness and light stacking.
• Casting darkness snuffs all light in the room. Casting light dispels all darkness in the room. This includes spells, miracles, lamps and rings. Artifact light should not be dispelable. E.g. Wrathbringer negates darkness by virtue of being wielded, period.
• Mage dark/light power levels provide resistance to being snuffed. "After a quick struggle, darkness prevails and snuffs your light spell/lamp/torch/ring."
• Elves, dwarves and darkelves can see in the dark, period.
• Allow darkness and light to be seen from adjacent rooms. "It goes dark to the west." This is give the defenders a bit more time to prepare as the offenders already have the advantage by virtue of having the initiative.

[Delia]

Good thoughts from Ferranifer.

Lamps could also be a tad lighter and blindfighting skill could be more versatile, allowing for more specials to be used.