Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

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Rias
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Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

Post by Rias »

Per the changelog:
- The Soul Detection ability now also has a targeted version to create a tenuous soul link. See the helpfile/article for more info.
- The Echoing Whisper ability has been overhauled. It now utilizes soul links rather than directly consuming blood samples, and is able to last longer and facilitate small group conversations with enough Sorcery skill. It now requires Soul Detection as a prerequisite. See the helpfile/wiki article for more information.

The idea here was to give Soul Detection a little more utility on its own: it can now be used for rough proximity tracking like the deathknell corpse tracking, but for all currently-linked souls. I had this utilize the blood mechanic to initiate, and that led to deciding to make that "soul link" mechanic a foundation upon which various other blood-utilizing spells could be built. Step 1 of blood-targeted spells will now essentially all start with a Soul Detection link used on a blood sample (or a bleeding creature, or a corpse).

Echoing Whisper was then updated to utilize the new soul link from Soul Detection, which gave it a longer duration as the soul links last longer than Echoing Whisper ever did. And with the idea of multiple links came multi-person Echoing Whisper conversations. Hopefully that makes it a little more useful as a coordination tool. It should be great for people far away from one another as well as small group coordination outside ESP zones. The Warlock can add and remove participants at will, provided they have an active soul link with them.

I have additional aspect ideas for both Soul Detection and Echoing Whisper at some point, but I'm pretty done with looking at their code for the time being. I hope these updates make these two abilities feel a tad more useful!

P.S. Blood vials can be used five times in the Soul Detection ability, rather than the old one-and-gone that Echoing Whisper had. Expect blood samples to have an expiration date in a future update, though (soon!(tm)).
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Dennis
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Re: Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

Post by Dennis »

I think this could be a great idea for organizing the warlock abilities into distinct branches in the future as well. Breaking them down into blood abilities and soul abilities would provide a clear structure for players to understand and navigate. Blood abilities could focus on manipulation of the physical body (Energy, harm, healing, etc), while soul abilities could focus on detection and manipulation of the intangible (reanimation, familiars, morale). You can also build more advanced abilities by linking the two branches together, such as the oft-requested reanimation requiring aspects of both. This would deepen the lore and players would be able to understand how certain abilities interact.
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TheCacklackian
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Re: Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

Post by TheCacklackian »

I know it was mentioned in the voice chat the other night but I wanted to post it here for more opinions. I feel that the expiration for Blood Vials should be between 1-2 weeks. I feel this is the best blend of what is realistic for blood stored relatively properly while also allowing a useable but not excessive length of time for usage.
jerc
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Re: Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

Post by jerc »

I think I speak for all players of warlocks when I say:

This. Is. Awesome.

Dripping with flavor, widely applicable, and only one real bug that I've found so far (#8485).

One thing that we've found is that the duration of ewhisper seems slightly excessive now, at least when the target has no way to dismiss the effect apart from saying, "GTFO my head, Mr. Warlock. Pretty please?" We could maybe use some sort of "silence voices" command on the receiving end (along with an EFFECT that shows up - not just the start/end messages) that lets them attempt to leave the ewhisper conversation. Maybe with a meditation roll and a mild sanity hit on failures? That way they have at least some recourse against less-than-friendly whisperers.
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Lexx416
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Re: Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

Post by Lexx416 »

jerc wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 9:18 am One thing that we've found is that the duration of ewhisper seems slightly excessive now, at least when the target has no way to dismiss the effect apart from saying, "GTFO my head, Mr. Warlock. Pretty please?" We could maybe use some sort of "silence voices" command on the receiving end (along with an EFFECT that shows up - not just the start/end messages) that lets them attempt to leave the ewhisper conversation. Maybe with a meditation roll and a mild sanity hit on failures? That way they have at least some recourse against less-than-friendly whisperers.
My only real issue is the lack of a way to trace this back to people (see the post I just made in the other suggestion). I like the idea of being able to use meditate to break the connection early, though - perhaps with a mild sanity hit to the caster/originator on a success as well.
"You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods... Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as beasts."
jerc
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Re: Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

Post by jerc »

You get the voice number thing, which precisely identifies people. If we get voice identification to a better place, it'll feel a lot better from that perspective.
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Lexx416
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Re: Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

Post by Lexx416 »

jerc wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 9:24 am You get the voice number thing, which precisely identifies people. If we get voice identification to a better place, it'll feel a lot better from that perspective.
Ohh, that's fair then, yes. Not sure how to make Voice IDing better in the meantime (I'd hate to see numbers every time someone says something), but that makes it more palatable.
"You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods... Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as beasts."
jerc
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Re: Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

Post by jerc »

You only get that when they actually speak though, which means they can listen in entirely anonymously, and you have no way of knowing how many other people are involved in the conversation.

Maybe upon being added to the conversation, you get an "impression" of other participants in shadow-cloaked form? That way you at least know how many other people are on the sorcerous conference call, and if you recognize them by build, you might know who they are.

inb4 all new warlock characters are average-average shadowy figures.
TheCacklackian
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Re: Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

Post by TheCacklackian »

I personally don't think you should be able to deduce the build of people who are using Ewhisper. I hesitate to suggest it be easily breakable at that, given the nature of what's required to initiate the ability, though I'm open to it being breakable with some kind of check, but there has to be a penalty for failure so that it's not easily spammable.
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Lexx416
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Re: Warlock: Soul Detection, Echoing Whisper abilities updated/overhauled.

Post by Lexx416 »

It'd be neat if Soul Detection could be used in non-wilderness rooms to directionally scan for life - only really relevant with stealth mobs which are rare and the new updates to weather and peering (which I do love, even if Mack curses the rain a little more these days), but it'd be a nice utility case-use for this ability I think.
"You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods... Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as beasts."
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