Morpher/ Mirror

[Nex]

i'm still working on it, but since a similiar idea was mentioned in another thread i might as well toss mine out for you all to toy around with

it's designed to potentially have big influence on battles without being gamebreaking. limiting the number of mirrors per account is considered lest they become vastly overused.



[b]Morphing Ooze[/b]
creat desc:
a lump of animated ooze. without a real form itself, it roughly mimiks things in its surrounding.

target: single random
ability: distorted mirror
(when the battle starts it will copy a randomly selected enemy creature, then it will use the copied creatures target and ability)

VE: 300
other stats are copyed from enemy creature
(the copy will have 60% of the stats of the enemy creature, [b]including[/b] stats from auras, tokens and profile-influence)


[b]Shifting Blob[/b]
creat desc:
the blob gained a primitive conciousness. it starts to copy shapes with more detail.

target: single random
ability: distorted mirror
(when the battle starts it will copy a randomly selected enemy creature, then it will use the copied creatures target and ability)

VE: 600
other stats are copyed from enemy creature
(the copy will have 70% of the stats of the enemy creature, [b]including[/b] stats from auras, tokens and profile-influence)


[b]Reflecting Shape[/b]
creat desc:
after copying a couple of shapes, it begins to enjoy the constant changes. it developed a preferrence for motion, rather than static shapes. the ever-changing surface reflects light.

target: single random
ability: mirror
(it copies a randomly selected enemy creature like the former levels. but instead of keeping this shape throughout the entire battle it will copy a new randomly selected creature each round)

VE: 1000
other stats are copyed from enemy creature
(the copy will have 80% of the stats of the enemy creature, [b]including[/b] stats from auras, tokens and profile-influence)


[b]Malevolent Mirror[/b]
creat desc:
tired of its ever shifting state, it slumbers in a smooth oval shape, like a mirror.
knowing that it is without a true form, it envies those whose bodily shapes are defined.
it reflects an eerie, hateful image of whoever looks inside, and will assume the viewers shape to destroy him.

target: single random, single weak, single strong
ability: perfect mirror
(when the battle starts it will copy the selected enemy creature. once the shape is chosen it will [i]immediately[/i] attack with the enemies ability / target)

VE: 1800
other stats are copyed from enemy creature
(the copy will have 100% of the stats of the enemy creature, [b]including[/b] stats from auras, tokens and profile-influence. it always attacks first in the first round and with the copied creatures initiative in every following round. if multiple mirrors are used in the same ritual, all of them lose the ability to act immediately)

-----------------------------------

i'll probably tweak it and add more details later, but that's the rough concept so far.

especially the last level could pose a nice threat to those who attack with forces they couldn't survive themself it could potentially benefit newer and weaker players a lot, since it copies the enemy creatures stats along with its shape.

awaiting (constructive) criticism

[EDIT: slightly tweaked the VE values, updated to current state of discussion]

Edited July 18, 2009 by Nex

[Jubaris]

i like it, would be excellent counter creature against overpowering rituals

[MRWander]

i'd say it seems pretty strong might be awesome like as an rpc reward or so.. a question though say its up against a grassan does it weaken if the original crit is on weaken or does it choose randomly whether it does damage or weaken?

[Nex]

the initial thought was that it copies exactly what the enemy creature is set to. but chosing an action randomly could be an interesting option for one of the levels. will think about it

[Liberty4life]

actually this would be a waste of time, since it will mirror everything except creats ve, and original rit would have more ve than copied one, so original ritual needs to have higher ve than his own stats can kill, so it will survive first strike from mirrored ritual and kill it in one blow, then ppl will start rising ve to insane highs like few millons, and then lifesteal will come back into play, and then everything would became so mixed idk wot would happen next, but i see it as todays full drach ritual, everyone will want to have 6 of those, and wot will happen when 6 mirrors fights other 6 mirrors i guess nothing, so it will be most likely ritual of 5 mirrors and drach or ele, so then it would all be big mess and ppl will maybe start using a bit more brain than they do now and will start to grind a bit less than they do now, but regardless of everything in each ritual would be 5 mirrors XD

thats how i see it

[Guybrush Threepwood]

The only reason to use a mirror is to take the stats and critters of a stronger player. There is no reason for the stronger player in a battle to use a mirror. Also, the IMMEDIATELY attack thing is a bit overpowered methinks. It should take it's turn in line just like any other critter.

[Liberty4life]

yea but if weaker player has more ve, he will beat stronger player, so stronger player will need to use ele, then weaker player will use single drach/grasan to beat ele, then stronger player would use his normal ritual, and then circle continues that was my point

[Nex]

first to the concern of using them en masse. i propossed that every account should be limited to a single morpher, for pretty much the reasons lib pointed out. it should make people rethink their setups, encourage them to experiment again, not be the new uber-creature
one of the things i had in mind when designing it was that it could counter creatures that can kill anything (including their own rituals ) with a single blow. the mirror having the ability to attack immediately (but only at the start of the battle) makes the use of such hyper-charged creatures a risk, rather than a no-brainer. it is mainly for this purpose that i considered the "limited first strike", but if you can provide some examples why you think it's gamebreaking i'll try my best to tweak it.

[EDIT, to reply to libs last post: yeah, that exactly [u]is[/u] the point of the creature: encouraging a change of habits, new ritual setups. for example, if the stat- and creature-wise weaker player has higher VE, you might want to set a mixed ritual of strong weakeners, decent attackers and lifestealers. of course that could be what the opponent was preparing for in the first place. it's more dynamic an experienced player may still have the upper hand overall, but it doesn't have to be granted that s/he'll win.]

thanks for the comments and critisism, please keep it comming

Edited July 15, 2009 by Nex

[Guybrush Threepwood]

If the mirror is copying the stats of this all powerful one-hitter it will have the same initiative. Why not just say it gets the stats of the copied critter +1 initiative? With the first strike thing people would then be required to not use critters that can kill their own rit in one hit, but only against people with mirrors. The person with the mirror could still use one hitters to wipe out their enemies. Meaning if you didn't have a mirror you'd be screwed.

[Burns]

*applauds* great idea, V ^^

would it also copy enemies auras? meaning, grab their freezes and anti-freezes for itself?
however, i don't see how this creature would cause troubles when used more than once per rit...
if you try fighting mirror vs mirror, nothing happens in general, and i think it should be part of the strategic decision whether you want to use one or more of them...

i'd also suggest that one creature can not be mirrored more than once in a fight, if you allow more than one of them per rit

apart from that, i think that the maxed mirror should have much less VE, it's already very strong with its first-strike ability, no matter what it mirrors, so i think it should by default not get a second round to hit...

overall, i agree with the idea of stealing the creatures of extremely strong people, but if that is what you want it to be, it can't be an RPC reward or have limited access by insane VE or VP requirements, else they will be reserved for the people who are their potential targets...

and hand in hand with that, nice age requirements for max (100 at least), so people will actually know how they want to use the malvolent mirror... til then, anything would be worthy of stealing, like eles with good power-stats and such, but the last mirror is lethal to hardcore fighters and almost useless against anyone else, as you can't build a strategy around this crit... you don't know if you'll get a stealer, a damager, a weakener, or even a tree...

[Nex]

[u]availability:[/u]
a vaild concern guybrush. people without mirror would be at the same disadvantage at which they are now, thats why i was hoping it could be a commonly available creature. having a mirror doesn't stop you from using one-hitters, the other person having a mirror would

[u]copying auras?:[/u]
interesting thought... i originally wanted it to copy all influences the mirrored creature is benefitting from, but not the auras themself. i thought that would be overpowered (and a hell to code). but thinking about it, maybe the last levels 'perfect mirror' should copy them too?

[u]about VE: [/u]
how about giving the earlier levels a little more VE to make them more useful in balanced fights where both players have approximately equal strenght, and reducing the final levels VE due to its first strike.

[u]about multiple mirrors/ first strike:[/u]
i agree with both of you, if there were to be more than one mirror per ritual, they shouldn't all have the ability to "attack immediately", nor should they copy the same creature.

it's an improvised solution, but what would you think of the following:
a single mirror will act immediately, but if there is more than one in the same ritual they will each act with their copied stats.
also, a mirror cannot copy another mirror, nor a creature that is copied by another mirror. if it tries to copy either of them, it will select another randomly chosen [i]potentially valid creature[/i] (not an empty slot, not another mirror). if it connot find a valid target, it does nothing. if it tries to target another already copied creature, it also does nothing.

-> this should deal with the problem of using too many of them, since a single mirror is attractive for its first strike, yet 2 or 3 against a very strong player can still help a lot (i'm assuming that if 2 or more creature have the exact same initiative, it will be randomly decided who will go first, thus it's a gamble). using too many mirrors is discouraged by the risk of not finding a valid target.
(if the benefit of multiple mirrors would still outweight the drawbacks by far, maybe reduce the stats of each copy by 10% per mirror in the ritual. i.e. the last level will start at 110% stats reduced by 10% for itself and by another 10% for each additional mirror. i'm not a big fan of this myself, but it's a possible tweak)

[EDIT: edited for clarity]

Edited July 16, 2009 by Nex

[Guybrush Threepwood]

As was stated earlier, if you have six you would just completely copy the opponents ritual. Then you just need to make sure you have more Ve. A person with 6 mirrors and more Ve then the person they attacked would pretty inevitably win. If the opponent has critters, you'll completely copy their ritual and it'll be a mirrored fight, not just crits but stats as well. (assuming you chose for the max to also copy things like freeze aura). If they are using 6 mirrors on defense it will be a no damage battle, but since you attacked you'll still win.

[Nex]

[quote]As was stated earlier, if you have six you would just completely copy the opponents ritual. Then you just need to make sure you have more Ve. A person with 6 mirrors and more Ve then the person they attacked would pretty inevitably win.[/quote]

maybe it ws a little ambiguous: (bold word is added for clarity)
a mirror cannot copy another mirror, nor a creature that is copied by another mirror. if it tries to copy either of them, it will select another randomly chosen [b]potentially[/b] valid creature (not an empty slot, not another mirror). if it connot find a valid target, it does nothing.

-> the mirror will first try to chose a random creature amongst all creatures the enemy is using in the ritual. if the enemy uses 4 creatures (including mirors), it will target any of the 4, but no empty slot.
if it tries to target a mirror or an already copied creature, it will chose another potentially valid target: this time neither empty slots nor mirrors, but it could still chose another already copied creature (which is very likely in the case of 6 mirrors) and thus do nothing.

if the above doesn't convince you, would you rather go for a single mirror per account rule, the proposed 10% stat hit per mirror used or an altogether new restriction?

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Got it now, I was under the impression that it just keeps trying over and over until it's tried every one. Anywho, with the different targeting available you'll be able to use more mirrors successfuly. On the second target (assuming the first failed) Does it retain it's target for the next try? Ie. the mirror targets a mirror using it's target weak critters, would it then try to target the next weakest critter?

[Nex]

yes, in case it gets a mirror on the first try at target weak, it would then target a weak non-mirror.
[b]
multiple mirrors targeting weak / strong:[/b]
i'm not certain though if weak is absolut, i.e. if all would target THE weakest creature, or if several creatures can be classified as 'weak'. if it's the first (which is the most likely) they would copy
1. only the weakest creature if they had targeted a mirror before, since all would chose a mirror first and then the weakest non-mirror, resulting in doing nothing.
2.the 2 weakest creatures if the enemy had no mirror, since the first mirror would target the weakest and the second would target the next weakest. all additional mirrors would try the weakest first, then the next weakest and would ultimately do nothing. the same would be true for target strong. thinking about it, it's actually a good thing since it prevents 'climbing up the ladder' to the next weakest, and the one after that etc, till they had copied all creatures.

in the later case of a 'field' classified as weak or strong i guess it would randomly chose a creature with that classification and do nothing if it can't find any valid targets anymore.

so due to the last level having target strong, weak and random you could copy 2 creatures with certainty. a strong and a weak creature (or either strong or weak and a random creature). chosing another strong/weak would result in doing nothing. chosing another random target can, with a slight chance, also result in doing nothing if it tries to target both of the copied creatures. for each additional mirror the risk of doing nothing increases.

sidenote: many potential problems seem to revolve around multiple mirrors. how about a limit of 3 instead of 1 or 6+? good chance for valid targets, no certainty though. also no cheap attempts to copy complete rituals

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Two mirrors on weaken would get the weakest two then, two on strong would get the strongest two, and three on strong could well get the strongest three as there are often copies in the match and multiple critters are tied for strongest.

For example, 4 birds and two grassan. Three mirrors targeting weak would end up like this. First mirror hits bird. Second mirror hits bird, probably one not already hit, but even in the 1/4 that it does it WILL re-target a bird not hit and work. Third Mirror has a 1/2 chance of landing on a targeted bird, if it does it then has a 1/3 chance of a previously targeted bird. Soooooo with 4 copies there is a 5/6 chance that three mirrors WILL land three targets. Two are guaranteed. This is true with ANY rit with 4 copies, even if they're rusties. Of course, with tokens the same critter is not necessarily a copy.

Now if there are only two copies then the third mirror is gaurenteed a miss (assuming the copies are on the targetted end). So perhaps there is some strategery here as well. I assume since you say target ANOTHER critter the next weakest critter would be assumed, so even if there is one weakest it'd still be a safe bet for 4 mirrors to land automatically, assuming that there are at least two critters different than others, as two mirrors targetting strong WOULD land and two mirrors targetting weak WOULD land (assuming there isn't a mirror in the other rit and at least 4 critters are used)

[Nex]

yep. while you give up acting immediately in using multiple mirrors, you can (depending on the exact enemy setup) copy 4 targets with certainty if the enemy uses no mirrors, 2 if s/he uses at least 1. that would mean strong players too could benefit from setting a mirror to reduce the number of copied creatures. if its worth a creature slot for them is a question of personal strategy.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

If they use one mirror you'd still get a guarantee of 3 copies, assuming that the other five critters aren't all the same.

[Nex]

yeah, true. it's more likely than not to get 3 maxed mirrors to copy 3 enemy creatures (thats why i said it depends on th exact setup). do you regard that as a potential balancing problem, and if yes, what would be your suggested solution?

[Burns]

i consider it a decision...
no matter whom you are fighting, even the strongest palyers can come and play without tokens, specially when they know that a lot of mirrors are around which would have chances to take their tokens and use them against themselves, so no, i don't think it's a problem that a mirror will get a target for sure (i wouldn't even consider it a problem if it targeted 100% sure, they are pretty useless when they miss...)

o think the elite should be capable of setting strategies that outwit the mirror, instead of hoping for luck XD


another issue that just jumped to my mind: when you say mirror copy all stats from the opponent, are my invested stats for nought on a mirror? or will those get added to the copied stats?

[Nex]

yes, the mirror fights with the stats of the enemy creature it copies, including the enemies influences. your profile influence has no effect on it. imagine a battle with a single maxed mirror, target strong, plus your entire stats: too powerful

setting a lone, single mirror [i]can[/i] be beneficial though, for adding 100% of your profile VE to it and to avoid target multi. it can be used to counter supercharged token beasts, but it shouldn't be [i]too[/i] strong against a decently planned and balanced ritual

[Guybrush Threepwood]

The problem isn't that a mirror hits 100%. If you target strong one mirror IS guaranteed to copy the opponent, in fact, two are. The issue is that against a non-mirror involved rit 4 mirrors are GAURENTEED to hit (Again, we're assuming that there are less than 5 of the same critter, we'll call open slots copy critters for easier depiction.)

Issue, if a person uses a six mirror ritual, 3 targetting strong, 3 weak, then 4 WILL hit, unless there are less than 4 crits are in the ritual OR if 5 critters are duplicates. If five are duplicates chances are 4 will be copied anyway.)

Now if the person is using 6 UNIQUE critters the chances of 6 mirrors copying 4 is still guaranteed (With a minimum of 4 mirrors). Chances of copying more than 4 if you are targeting weak with 3 and strong with 3 is 0%. Anywho, it's big and complicated, but what I'm saying is that you can copy a HUGE amount of a persons ritual pretty good certainty using these mirrors. Mirrors + loads o' Ve counter any ritual with 4 or less critters, almost guaranteed. (Though the mirrorer is likely to use 6 critters, so it'd be easier for the mirrored to put more Ve on his useful critters.) Anywho, I am just concerned that number of copies might get out of hand, so as Nex said a limit to the number of mirrors might be a good idea.

[Nex]

good points. it [b]is[/b] comparably easy to copy many creatures, but while i initially wanted to limit the number of mirrors to a single, i'm now leaning towards a higher limit, or even no limit at all. like burns said, just like there are ways to counter nearly any ritual, there are ways to counter any number of mirrors, especially since you are the one providing the creatures and stats if you know somebody generally uses 3 or 4 mirrors, just set a single creature and you will have a huge advantage of VE. if the opponent has way higher VE, add a life stealer or two, since you will benefit more from them than an enemy who copies one of them would.
i hope the added strategical possibilities and synergies are enough for people to play around with them rather than relying on them.

since i imagine limiting the number of mirrors as comparably easy to establish, as long as the concept and values of the creature itself are fine, i'm not too concerned yet, but will keep the problematic in mind should any more additions or alterations be considered

thanks again for all the feedback. impressions and suggestions are always welcome

[Guybrush Threepwood]

I suppose if they are going to just use 6 mirrors and hope for the best you could just throw in a max ele, or a knator. Hmm... I don't like that, I might have to start picking up currently useless critters. Heaven forbid you give more creatures a purpose, I only have so many slots you know. The fact that a mirror would almost be necessary to prevent opponents from using 1 hitters means that anyone without a mirror would be royally screwed over. I know, we want to make them public and all, but the high age requirement will mean people can't really do much until it's maxed. (Assuming your opponent knows that you don't have one.) Though I suppose that most people under 100 days don't have much chance as things are, so maybe that's not an issue.