Werewolf probably needs a rework

[JustMonika]

Firstly, either the Wiki is wrong or out of date or the code is broken;

The full Moon is at 0 Hour at the end of a month on Arelith (days 25 into 26, 26 into 27, and 27 into 28).

Current date & time can be determined by using the command -date.

I turned into a werewolf at midnight on day 1, which isn't any of those times.


Secondly, it isn't any fun, and I'm not sure it's fun for people on either side.

Firstly, I don't get any warning I'm about to transform. That robs me of any ability to do any emotes, hints or suggestions. I'm just suddenly a werewolf.

Secondly, you lose control. I get it, this is so we can't have cuddly loving werewolves, but honestly this is something much better policed by DM's. You can't make sensible tactical decisions. You can't flee when outmatched. You can't chase wounded players. You just flail mindlessly at whoever the nearest PC is regardless of the sense it makes.

Thirdly, you're awful. Like. Awful.
I'd of posed a bigger threat in my human form disarmed with nothing but my fists than in the werewolf form. My AB was halved, you do basically no damage, and you're unable to use any wards, buffs, or special abilities.

Forthly, you just can't be beaten.
Sure, you can be subdued. Then you drop unconcious and turn back to your human form. Great! Then you... Just heal a bunch of HP, turn back into a werewolf, and resume attacking everyone again. This repeats endlessly. I was beaten unconcious and tied up _Five times_ in a row. That's just ridicious. I didn't even have any control over it either. I might as well have just gotten up and got myself a drink. In the end I just -letgo myself to spare everyone having to stand around my unconcious body and beat me up every two minutes.


There's _so much_ potential in this system. It could make an amazing RP tool. But the system has been forcibly bent so badly to stop it being abused that honestly I'd rather see it gone.
Then to top it all off, you just get forcibly escorted to shove some wolfsbane down your throat the second it's all over.

To recap;

It poses no threat.
It's easy cured.
The implimentation is very clunky.
You don't have much control over RPing it, other than passively emoting for your own character while it does it's own thing.
Either the Wiki is wrong, or the code is broken.


(A big Kudos to those who endured me being a wearwolf today by the way. This isn't a dig at you, and I thought you handled it very well. My issue is entirely with the system!)

[Svrtr]

Firstly, either the Wiki is wrong or out of date or the code is broken;

The full Moon is at 0 Hour at the end of a month on Arelith (days 25 into 26, 26 into 27, and 27 into 28).

Current date & time can be determined by using the command -date.

I turned into a werewolf at midnight on day 1, which isn't any of those times.


Secondly, it isn't any fun, and I'm not sure it's fun for people on either side.

Firstly, I don't get any warning I'm about to transform. That robs me of any ability to do any emotes, hints or suggestions. I'm just suddenly a werewolf.

Secondly, you lose control. I get it, this is so we can't have cuddly loving werewolves, but honestly this is something much better policed by DM's. You can't make sensible tactical decisions. You can't flee when outmatched. You can't chase wounded players. You just flail mindlessly at whoever the nearest PC is regardless of the sense it makes.

Thirdly, you're awful. Like. Awful.
I'd of posed a bigger threat in my human form disarmed with nothing but my fists than in the werewolf form. My AB was halved, you do basically no damage, and you're unable to use any wards, buffs, or special abilities.

Forthly, you just can't be beaten.
Sure, you can be subdued. Then you drop unconcious and turn back to your human form. Great! Then you... Just heal a bunch of HP, turn back into a werewolf, and resume attacking everyone again. This repeats endlessly. I was beaten unconcious and tied up _Five times_ in a row. That's just ridicious. I didn't even have any control over it either. I might as well have just gotten up and got myself a drink. In the end I just -letgo myself to spare everyone having to stand around my unconcious body and beat me up every two minutes.


There's _so much_ potential in this system. It could make an amazing RP tool. But the system has been forcibly bent so badly to stop it being abused that honestly I'd rather see it gone.
Then to top it all off, you just get forcibly escorted to shove some wolfsbane down your throat the second it's all over.

To recap;

It poses no threat.
It's easy cured.
The implimentation is very clunky.
You don't have much control over RPing it, other than passively emoting for your own character while it does it's own thing.
Either the Wiki is wrong, or the code is broken.


(A big Kudos to those who endured me being a wearwolf today by the way. This isn't a dig at you, and I thought you handled it very well. My issue is entirely with the system!)

The lack of threat barring really niche builds is intentional. Its meant to be a curse, and likewise if people get it with a right build and go kill anyone and remain undefeated with their super high stats its a PITA to deal with. WW isn't meant to be mechancially good

Not sure making it harder to cure would be good, similarly for fear that more people turn, and if it got buffed even less so.

It is clunky Ill admit, mostly subduing them or killing and rezzing them and instant loss of control because of failed save

The lack of control is mostly for the save.


As for the wiki? Just to be sure, did you transform on day 1 of the new month according to the clock in the bottom right or the time on -date? The time change does mean parts of the wiki was probably wrong.

[Captain_Siix]

One of my favorite moments was actually because someone transformed without knowing it. My duergar was in the middle of a bar fight and some initiation of another duergar. I decided to box out the WW and we dragged him to a jail cell that another faction let us barrow. Afterwards we had some nice RP where we had to find the cure for them. Overall really enjoyable for all parties.

Mechanically it is bad on purpose because some people were making WW builds that were annoying and a bit too good.

[Amateur Hour]

As for the wiki? Just to be sure, did you transform on day 1 of the new month according to the clock in the bottom right or the time on -date? The time change does mean parts of the wiki was probably wrong.

As one of the people who witnessed it (and felt really bad about pummeling someone repeatedly with archons but having little other choice), it was indeed Day 1 of Mirtul (month 5) per -date that the transformation happened.

[WanderingPoet]

Werewolves turn on the mornings of the 1st to 4th, not the end of the month.

[Azensor]

The server still has ptsd from /wayyyyyy/ back in the day when monk werewolf was a thing

[Mattamue]

Wiki

The dev who did the time change code edited the wiki and kept the moon data as 26-28: Full Moon. Those dates were originally added back in 2012 so there's no way to track down the source. Leaving it the same unless another dev advises.

Added a note to the werewolf page that its been reported that transforms can happen outside of the full moon.

There have also been bug reports:
viewtopic.php?p=308161#p308161
viewtopic.php?p=274358#p274358

[AstralUniverse]

I could write a serious wall of text here but I'll keep it short.

It's a curse, it is not meant to be mechanically useful to ANY build what so ever and thank goodness for that (however, it is somewhat useful to shadow dancers actually aka turning, summoning shadow, turning back). It's also great that it's not that complicated to cure, but does require a little bit of foig info, which is great. Most people hate it. Hells, I'll even guess most admins hate it.

The thing is... with all things considered, it has a track record for engaging characters with other characters and enabling RP. I cannot count the times I, or someone I witnessed, turning and attacking someone, then being put down and having a bunch of people help the lycan find a cure. Whenever I find out my character is infected I'm thinking "well, at least I can make some RP out of finding the cure and making friends this way". It's forced and I could find infinite other ways to engage with other players with RP without being forced into it, but I like that the game as some semi-harmless *forced* engagement with other characters. It can be useful to new players who struggle to initiate RP with others and put goals/purpose for their character. Players who arent new can simply meta-game and go get the cure in 5 minutes before they even turn once. I dont think anyone gives a rat about such case of meta-gaming.

On top of that, I dont really think anyone from the team cares about this mechanic enough to rework it, and for the reasons above it hasnt been outright removed yet. So here we are.

[Paint]

My opinion on the werewolf mechanic is that it accomplishes what it needs to right now; it successfully generates RP. Making it mechanically useful for PVP or PVE, might encourage more people than it reasonably should to pick up 'werewolf' builds and I am... really against that.

The one point I do agree on is that lycanthropy can feel really inconsequential and easy to cure. I don't really know if there's a particularly good way to fix this, but one suggestion I have might be a night-only Ritual that requires wolfsbane.

The problem with that, of course, is that, if someone happens to play at the wrong times of the day, finding enough clerics/favored souls/druids/shamans or whatever to run the ritual might be pretty rough.

[JustMonika]

It might generate RP, but it was throughly _unenjoyable_ RP.

I don't think being unable to control what your character does is terrible engaging writing. Now I'm being forced to tell a story I didn't want to, in a way that doesn't make sense, while people play wack-a-mole with me.

That's not good design.

[Edens_Fall]

Most WW RP I've witnessed is the "Oh, someone turned in the square again. Let's keep subdualing them until the hour passes and take them to a cure after. Wait? You don't want to be cured right this second, perhaps wanting to explore this game mechanic/RP you've never experienced before as a new player here? That's cool, let me just go ahead and Pariah you and post on all the boards you're a WW. Enjoy the RP that follows each time you enter a settlement."

So yeah, it's not been very impressive in opinion. But I get it. It's an annoying system with no real consequence to either side that's been around awhile and after so long players just get tired of dealing with it. The old, "Oh look. Another PC just turned in Cordor, here we go again" vibe. WW definitely generates RP, just not very good RP in my opinion.

I wouldn't personally be bothered if WW curse was removed IG and just made into a Major award later.

[perseid]

I really liked the point about the complete lack of warning. I don't know how much effort it would be to implement but imo an alert when transformation is imminent and which perhaps blocks teleportation (to avoid people just lensing away but give them the possibility of a few hurried emotes) would do a lot as far as allowing people to rp in a more immersive fashion around the curse.

[Amateur Hour]

It might generate RP, but it was throughly _unenjoyable_ RP.

I don't think being unable to control what your character does is terrible engaging writing. Now I'm being forced to tell a story I didn't want to, in a way that doesn't make sense, while people play wack-a-mole with me.

That's not good design.

This sort of touches on a larger point with the server: there isn't that much out there that can derail your character without your--that is, you-the-player's-- consent. The werewolf curse is one of very few. It does, however, have fairly minimal lasting consequences to compensate. It's not to everyone's taste, but considering how much of a sacrifice it is to choose to totally derail your character from their plot/goals and therefore how infrequent it is that people choose to do that and therefore how infrequently people's characters are derailed through anything other than wars of attrition on player sanity, it's not the worst way to spark a few hours of RP without DM involvement.

[AstralUniverse]

So yeah, it's not been very impressive in opinion. But I get it. It's an annoying system with no real consequence to either side that's been around awhile and after so long players just get tired of dealing with it. The old, "Oh look. Another PC just turned in Cordor, here we go again" vibe. WW definitely generates RP, just not very good RP in my opinion.

I believe this can be said about any system or mechanic in this game. It also reminds me of Arigard's long post about getting 'old' in this game and everything over time becomes less and less exciting, in Irongron's thread about economy. I hardly think it's anecdotal for the ww system and ultimately the ww system is yet another *tool* to produce RP, it can be used boringly or not boringly, depends on how immersive and invested the involved players choose to make it. I know the ship sailed 15 years ago, but I still like 'purism' RP style.

[Azensor]

Meh they'd be better off just scrapping the entire werewolf system out of the server imo

[Scylon]

So the 1st time I turned I didn't even know I was a WW. I was just selling crap in a shop and turned right then and there and proceeded to kill all the NPCs and players around me.

Was kind of funny actually, but the DC 40 will saves are a bit much.

[Naghast]

Werewolves turn at 25-26, 26-27, and 27-28 nights, but they follow the compass date/time, not the -date command date/time. Look at the compass, it will show you the truth.

And yes, mechanically, werewolf is garbage. It's attacks are +0. It will deal... 26 damage to you at *best*. And monk levels disable it.

And as Eira stated on discord, any way discovered to make werewolf useful is going to lead to werewolf being nerfed. Since it is not meant to be useful, never, ever, it is meant to be objectively a detrimend that is only meant to be rp'd around a bit, then cured and discarded. Because it is a curse.

Is my opinion the same? No. I hate the fact it's like this. But unfortunately my actual opinion here is not relevant, the stance on it was, last i checked, rather firm.

[Sincra]

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=31838&p=311734#p311734