[Valkuk]

And I’m here for round two to discuss the legendaries because I’ve lately been asked a lot about those. And I want to preface this by saying this is my view and opinion on how the legends work. Anyone with more experience than me probably has more insight and can correct me if I’m wrong about anything.

Didn’t think I’d need to mention them too much because higher tiers are harder to get right now, but I failed to consider artifacts. So if you’re considering getting any, might at least give you my insight before you spend any favor on it

———————————————————————-

Swarm shifting

Starting with swarm because it’s one that works pretty different to what shapeshifting seems to be wanting to aim towards in H7. Shapeshifters in H7 were affected by the HP cap reductions pretty heavily (They used to benefit from people being limited to HPs lower than their caps because they gained extra HP without reaching that cap), and removing damage per round cap from them essentially makes them glass cannons.

Swarm in contrasts is a power about making your swarm forms tanky. It’s a defensive legend in combat. You reduce the damage you get per round, but your damage is reduced in consequence. This reduction is mostly impacted by the size of your form, so you pretty much want really small forms to benefit from the defense and likely act like a tank or a wall for someone who will deal damage for you, and it’s incredibly obnoxious to deal with if they have a way to heal.

Theme wise? Pretty cool, if you get small enough animals, you can even play as kind of you own small pack, or have some gimmick around splitting into multiple animals. If you’re not worried about the combat aspect, I think there are a lot of cool avenues to explore, just know that, well, mechanically it will still be one single form and all that.

Hybrid shifting

Now, hybrid shifting is one odd ball.The main thing with hybrid is that it provides a lot of useful things by, you know, invalidating some principles of shapeshifting. You remain able to speak, you can open doors, retain your items, are able to use weapons. And to counter all this, it forces your form to be mansized- Which, you know, it’s not too bad. It will not be as good offensively up close as some of the bigger shifters, or you won’t get too much stealth compared to the smaller ones neither the cool keywords. But you will be able to use ranged attacks and perform some basic actions that other shapeshifters would need to unshift to perform.

Also to note, werewolves will automatically have their wolf form become hybrid if they have the legend, and it will prevent them from getting extra weight for either being the T5 archetype, or a monstrous shifter. And while they will still get the stats for being monstrous if they are, they will not get the weight, and thus not the multiplier, making it an odd mix.

My take? It’s pretty good all things considered. It won’t be the strongest or the fastest that you can build, because it locks you to a size in the middle. But I think the comparison is low enough to be neglected. Sure, you won’t have a times 1.2 multiplier from very large, you will have a times 1 for being mansized. But that’s not a big deal. You won’t be a medium size with surreal speed because it costs you double… But you can still get a decent amount. And in exchange you get all the perks of not being shifted. So if it’s your thing? Definitely take it, don’t worry about the people who will tell you “not the highest stats”, and just enjoy your hybrid.

Monstrous shifting

Now, those who know me also know this is a favorite of mine, but I do also have a hot take about this legend. I don’t think the legend is too good outside of werewolves, specially in H7. I absolutely love the legend for the theme it provides and the roleplay opportunities it creates, you’re suddenly not a bear, or an elephant, you’re this massive creature that doesn’t have any right being that size. So the roleplay of it is marvelous, really enjoyable.

The combat behind it? Not as good as most people would think. For werewolves it’s crazy, not only it gives them the monstrous size with its multiplier, it also automatically sets their power stat to 4, and their toughness stat to 3. Meaning a werewolf with not a singular point in primal focus, would gain a 30 shapeshifting pool points investment (translating to +40 tooth and claw and +20 natural toughness, before the size multiplier). So it turns the weakest of werewolves into true monsters.
But for any other primalist or for fae knights? It only provides you with the size multiplier. And you’re probably thinking: If Mansized is times 1, Very Large times 1.2, and Monstrous times 1.5… It definitely is significant, right? Not really. It will only add a tiny bit more on top of what your combat form is already doing itself. Maybe the difference is that of 30 tooth and claw for a fully maxed T2, and when you’re already in the 150s… Being at 150 or 180 is kind of the same.

There’s also some potential with the fact that it’s the only legend not tied to a genus, instead to size… But that potential goes out of the window when out of the other legends, swarm benefits from small sizes and monstrous from big. Hybrid locks you into mansized so it can only be combined on werewolf to get your free stats. And Mythological is normally only for fae knights, that don’t benefit as much from it.

One also has to consider that it limits your movement to indoor rooms. While you can still turn into one in them, the “You wouldn’t fit” message doesn’t seem to be triggering anymore- You cannot traverse them, so, if you wanted to do that you’d have to move – shift – unshift- move – shift again. So, you can transform indoors, you cannot move indoors.

So my take? Monstrous is definitely not a clever decision if you’re just looking for higher number unless you’re a werewolf. You will gain some? Sure. Will it be worth a legend? I don’t think so- You will be getting the same benefit as making a +1 shapeshifting artifact and investing an extra point into power. So if you play this legend, either do it because you’re a werewolf, or to enjoy the roleplay it generates. I would recommend going into it expecting the big numbers, because a) At that point you don’t need more number, and b) You will be overcharged if you pay that extra bump at legend price.

Mythological shifter

Now for the last legend, mythological shifter, which is, in my opinion, arguably the best shapeshifting legend for non werewolves (For wolves I think it’s monstrous, figure you already got that). Mythological at first glance, when you read it, seems to be just a flavor legend, right? Allows you to make mythological and extinct animals and stuff, which just feels like saying “You won’t be smitted for picking something that isn’t an animal, enjoy your extra 5 points”.

But the reality is, the true value of mythological is having so many useful keywords without being tied to a size limit. You get flying (best mobility), you get armored (+20 natural armor without downsides), you get amphibious (no water penalties), and poisonous if you wanted to make something small. Meaning you can, for very low prices, give your shapeshifting forms pretty useful tools regardless of their size, and like that cover their weaknesses.

My offensive form is too slow? Don’t worry, give it flying and problem solved. My smaller form is too fragile? Give it poisonous and armored and suddenly it’s not that fragile anymore. For some reason you want to avoid water penalties (Because sometimes those happen every couple months), just give it amphibious. It doesn’t sound that strong because it’s not flashy like monstrous having higher multiplier, or hybrid having ranged weapons and all. But I genuinely think it’s simply that good by giving you the chance to patch up weaknesses in your form like that

So my take? Probably the most worth taking. Not only mechanically it’s great for your forms, it also is pretty cool thematically. You can turn into mythic beasts and extinct animals. Go be a dinosaur or a dragon. If you care about your roleplay, you will definitely get tons in that department, and if you care about mechanics, you will also see yourself rewarded in that front, even if it’s not with extra numbers. No matter my love for monstrous, I genuinely think mythological is objectively the best among the four.

———————————————————————-

And once more, this is just my opinion. Anyone with experience or opinions on the matter feel free to correct me. I’m just putting this out there because quite a bunch of people were asking me, and that’s why the original guide started, so figured I’d add this little extra to it. If there’s anything else anyone wants covered, feel free to ask or put it out there

[Valkuk]

I want to say, I don’t think this is meant to hit you every 3 months, it’s supposed to hit you the doom timer, which to newer players, is just a mechanic from H6… Essentially, T3 archetypes would have something like 6 months before elective, T2 archetypes something like 9-11… So on for different groups. This one I’m pretty sure is bugged in terms of who it picked, but having gotten that out of the way, and warning that I might derail a little bit…

I’m personally also not a fan of how this has played out, even if likely a ton of the system is just not working as intended. Even assuming everything was properly working, it’s not a great perspective, as someone who has been trying to play a consistent antag character, to be told that the game is going to try and make my life harder to get to the antag tools every single time I try.

I’ve had T3 on my character for exactly 1 month before the hunt arrived. Now I am down 25k karma on that character (because, yes, while only 20k is removed from my spent, meaning upon reroll I will have only lost 20k, the character has now 5k spent towards nothing, meaning I need to get another 25k anyways). The stats I had spent more than 300k rpxp on getting in this past month, and for which I had been saving for a while, have been negtrained returning a around 200k, meaning having to wait longer to return to the state I was in.

I intended to at some point go T4 to really commit to the antag, and until then have a T3 (which has taken longer than expected, but I like to prioritize it fitting the events than just rushing it mechanically), and now I’m faced with the reality of. Your archetype determines that every 4 months you’re going to be gotten, and lose a modifier worth 50k karma. I am going to spend at least a third of the time between hunts as a tier lower (Because even if you go immoral the second time, 2 months cd until you can tier up again), and all the while praying that I will get the enough karma to sustain a system in which I have to be more focused on making up for lost resources than really progressing other narratives, because surprise, sometimes stats actually matter when we try and build these stories.

In this month before the hunt, I had already started throwing cues and building some stories based on these things. Things like branding or high tier hypnotism ever since I went T3. It’s things that actually impact stories, that can either make someone fall in line or decide to turn on you, that can make it so that other characters have to be more or less cautious. They are tools that help you antag, and that’s why they were locked by tier, because they are meant for the antag characters. All this to say I don’t agree with the idea that we need to rush things and characters need to flow in and out of the grid, and that they should be punished for existing longer. Like Yourstruly said, I do also like character arcs, I don’t want antagonists to be something that victims will go “Well, just ignore it for a couple months, it’ll be gone then”.

Some people have said that they enjoy that the Hunt has brought them all to one small grid to play with each other and break free of people playing house or ERPing… And I couldn’t really disagree more? For someone that has been actively roleplaying and participating in the game, that has been out there and trying to craft stories with other characters, this Wild Hunt is like a prison. I don’t know if half of this will be relevant or retconned, so I have no incentive to do anything high risk or high stakes; We are in such small space and without any protection that actually antagging with my character could be fatal because there’s no saving someone if they want them dead here, nor any privacy to actually distress or torture a character without appearing in someone’s periphery that has different content warnings. The contributions, borough control, favor… All of those systems that people have been working towards for so long? Well, not only we cannot do anything about that here, we also will be likely penalized for being locked out for however long it takes to get out.

I don’t really know what I’ll do with my character, as I see it right now I have two options: Stasis it and bring it back whenever I have the resources to properly face the Wild Hunt (aka, a bunch of karma and rpxp piled up), and in the process leaving hanging everyone I’ve started a story with. Or to just keep playing right now taking the hit and keep working towards the goal I had in mind, even if the character will be way too old by the time I reach it, and likely uninteresting anymore due to everyone having seen enough of it. None of them is a good option, I don’t like any of them. If I have to choose, I will likely go towards the second, but I really wish it had not come to this. That the game wasn’t out to punish the players for investing their time and effort into their characters, and instead tried to encourage different behaviours in ways that didn’t depend on “You will abandon this because you have no better choice or because I ruined it for you”

[Valkuk]

I have gotten “Not enough information” even with dates and timestamps for logs, so it’s not a foolproof system, definitely the way to go though.

As for imprints resisting costs, I have personally gotten them, and the one I did resist was somewhat hefty to do, around 16%. I’ve also heard from people that have resisted mine that the cost is still there, although it seems to be lower to the costs I remember from last iteration, so maybe if the price is small enough it just takes it as free? Not entirely sure, but given some people still have costs, I am inclined to think the lack of them is likely a bug, if I had to venture a guess at least

[Valkuk]

I wouldn’t really use the last couple raids since then as much of reference, for what I remember, as someone that has attended most of them, most of those raids have also had the game crash halfway through them, and then when it came back up, the raid spawned from one to three units at a time… Not saying it’s not related, just saying that lately that’s happening a bit, and I wouldn’t really trust much of what happens when a crash is involved.

Maybe things have been changed, maybe it’s actually more manageable, maybe there’s some correlation maybe- But I wouldn’t be fast to make a judgement when in a lot of those there’s been a crash halfway through and then the raid has become just waiting for the singular enemy to appear to dispose of it. But we’ll have to see, we can only know for sure doing more

[Valkuk]

I would also like to add to this matter, if you want roleplay and interaction out of the experience… Probably don’t attack someone in the middle of mist? Going to the only place in the grid in which a character is threatened for simply existing in the room, to then start attacking them and then complain “Combat is not a great time for posting” when you were the one to engage in it without a word in. Probably not the wisest of decision either if you want that cooperative interaction.

Also having been involved in the discussion Matias mentions. The point of executing without waking was brought up a couple of times, to a massive response of “Do it, why risk, this, that or else to happen?”, specially because as he mentions, people knew the character was a Lt. People are not willing to risk things going south when they don’t see a clear roleplay path and everything are disadvantages, it feels like you are risking the important thing for something that none of the parties will enjoy that much.

Do I think the no roleplay kill is a good thing? By no means. I don’t think it should be something that happens even to Lieutenants as a rule of thumb, but I don’t think people can’t complain about it either when their approach to the situation has been the exact same. “I came in without saying a word and started a system inconvenient for roleplaying- But when it ended they didn’t do it either”. I don’t mean to insult or say it’s your fault or anything, I simply try and bring the perspective of, the other parties involved might have seen it as giving the same they were dealt.

[Valkuk]

Yeah, the amount of spawns is something I definitely see as a problem in a lot of them. I don’t think they are impossible, people have been completing them, but a lot of the ones I’ve participated in are just… A pain? Every single pause you get from 4-7 enemies to spawn, which wouldn’t be an issue since raids are attended by around 7-12 PCs normally… If it wasn’t for the fact that you cannot clear those before the next pause, and the Legion will wait to have double your numbers or more before approaching you.

Try to approach them yourself? Get shot down in the process- Or have another one of those 7 NPCs spawn in your face and take you down anyways. A lot of times it feels like when winning it’s not because you did anything special, but because the NPCs were silly in their approach.
Not to mention the scrolling nightmare it becomes, lines upon lines of text that you cannot read or keep track of with locations you cannot see. And because the legion spawns at different times, the NPC messages are never coordinated. So it’s not even waiting for the big drop and making a quick assessment, it’s just hoping for a breather, or to pull up “map” or “scan” and try to do something quickly enough.

As much as I don’t enjoy pauses all that much, ironically enough they are a relief in legion raids whenever it gets this bad. Because it just allows you after so much chaos to say “Alright, wait a minute, where is everything?”. But whenever the chaos isn’t as high, it’s just another “Oh, whatever you were doing? Pause it, another wave incoming”

Maybe I sound overly negative about the topic, but this is just my experience. Sometimes it just feels like defaulting to attacking the first thing you see because you do not really have the time to look at anything else.

[Valkuk]

I personally am fond of the system, and I am thankful for it because it has indeed made me meet a bunch of people to play with that I don’t think I would have normally, specially given the size of the grid right now, and seeing that sometimes you can see 50 people playing and not a single one on where.

I think it can be confusing or annoying, for sure, but I personally enjoy it, I think once you get used to it it’s a good way to say “I cannot find anything right now, please help”. I actually really like how it interacts with antag and couriers because a lot of times it doesn’t require you to go through the process of having to know the other char very well, or having to figure what the other player wants before hand, and removes some of that “finding” process by simply stating with the opportunities and encitements what you might be looking for in the scene and what might have driven your character there, making it possible to interact even with strangers and make something coherent. Maybe it requires doing some mental gymnastics to explain how you ended up there, but that’s nothing new to Haven, see encounters… Not to mention, you will always see the prompt before accepting and decide based on that.

I think the points that one could criticize or find annoying about it would be, for the annoying, when it gets stuck on giving you the same thing over and over again- Which I get, the system sees “Person A is seeking, and B is seeking, match it” and when rejecting it and waiting a bit, the machine keeps seeing the same thing, but sometimes it’s annoying to be offered the same thing that you shouldn’t take because of how your character is, and having it pop over and over again.
I think something some people have been struggling with as well is when it actually triggers , it’s not entirely reliable to fire off or match people, even when it’s targetted directly at someone… Which normally wouldn’t be an issue if you’re just looking for casual roleplay, after all, if you know the others are looking for the same or you want a particular person, you just go for it without lookfor- But it does get annoying when it comes to certain kinds of events that depend on the lookfor system, namely encounters, patrols, couriers… People might want to make those and having the system be inconsistent about firing can get annoying after a while, if you try to participate in an activity for days and don’t have any luck with it.

But overall, I think it’s a good system, I enjoy it, could definitely use some more polishing, but it’s a new system, I am sure it will improve given some more time.

[Valkuk]

So, I’ll preface this by saying I doubt I’ve played a significant amount of time around T3s for my invitation to have been greatly impacted, but from the things I’ve been hearing around from other players. It seems that invitation gains are a bit inconsistent, and sure, we don’t know the code or the logic behind it, so all we can do is really speculate about why it happens, but we have the results. Some people aren’t too affected by play with T3s, some others are to a point they think it’s unplayable.

Now, something I mentioned back when H7 was announcements, was my worry that invitation would cause higher tiers to isolate even more, coming from H6, in which they already did so. Sure, acedia would be there to fight it, and things weren’t as grim as I made them out to be initially, but as things stand right now, I can say I notice people not playing around T3s because of the invitation. I’ve heard it from T3 players, I’ve heard it from players that avoid T3s, we even have it on this thread. At least a significant amount of the playerbase is worried enough about their invitation that higher tiers are avoided, maybe not entirely or completely, but a decent amount.

If we went back to H6 times, this would likely translate in “I have to feed, I got, gank someone and antag”. I don’t think you can do that any longer. Antag has become a large opt-in system, which I don’t think is a bad thing, but when the thing you want to fight is invitation, a system that not only characters want to avoid, like feeding in H6, but also the players want to avoid, you’ll find less and less people going into that opt-in.
If the outcome of antag is “I lost a bit of lf and my char has had a bad time”, maybe some people will play along in order to have realism or to storytell, maybe even because they enjoy the character’s bad time. If the outcome is that you build invitation and at I3, the relic you spent two months working to get gets stolen, or something along the lines, I doubt the player will be as eager to accept.

I think a couple of the issues why players might avoid it is how the different invitation powers are distributed. I think some people are likely seeing fast spikes of invitation without understanding where it comes from. And I think, maybe in some cases, T3s might be generating too much invitation. By the feedback I hear around, it seems like higher tiers past this will be rare, not because of the Hunt or how they’ve taken power from them, but because less and less people will play with you.

Again, can’t say I have much personal experience with it. And this is just how I see the issue, maybe in a month or two things have drastically change and I’m completely wrong in my assessment, but to me trying to make high tiers not isolate while also making the pressence of even the smallest high tier more impactful and worrying, just feels counter-intuitive.
I like the system of invitation, and I like the idea in order to feel the monstrosity feel more real, but I think in the way its tuned right now, it’s not really giving them a pressence as much as isolating the characters little by little. Storytelling and roleplay can only be so rewarding, and if the drawback for doing it is severe on the players, the incentive dies down and is replaced by discouragement. Sure, another person by person case, but it’s the way I see it.

Anyways, that’s my two cents on how I see things as of right now, hopefully things change, or hopefully I’m wrong about this, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

[Valkuk]

I probably arrive a bit late at this, but I also have some grievances with the favor system. Namely, I am experiencing that same thing, getting very low numbers for high contributions- Even not seeing any favor at times at all. I don’t know what exactly is wrong with the system, but it just swallows the contributions and returns barely anything compared to what I’m seeing other people get. I’ve been a couple times among the top 3 for at least 2-4 groups on the society report, just to bank favor ranging from 50-90.

It’s just very discouraging when you see people able to easily afford things like relics or faecloth to tell yourself “If you keep this pace up, you might get it in maybe another 2 months”. I don’t think it’s an issue with top earners, I don’t think it’s an issue with a wide range between minumum gotten and maximum gotten. I personally think the favor generated should vary to some degree with the amount of people to divide among, even if the increase is very little. Sure, a society with 25 people like the Court will get a borough easier than one like Sons with 9. But when it comes around, Court will be debuffed towards the next for already having one- And even if Court win again, they’d need 3 boroughs, which with the system to prevent hoarding several I doubt is easy, in order to have the same amount of effort report the same amount as if they were in Sons.

This is just my personal take on it, feel free to disagree. But when I roll a faeborn character that I am commited to go through their story, I want them to be in a society that doesn’t penalize me for being a faeborn instead of something else. And the same goes for my foci decisions and background and such. Right now a society works for me, and if people flock it, well, then my effort goes to waste, just because others arrived at the same conclusion or had some similar interest or something.

I really don’t want to make a big deal out of this, or sound overly complaining about everything when this comes up- But I talk to people who are making easily 5 or 7 times as much as me and when prompted “How?” I just get answers among the lines of “Go out do stuff” or “I didn’t really do much”. I don’t know how much other people are doing, I don’t want to imply I do, but I just feel like I do a lot, and put in effort, and just get scraps. It just doesn’t feel rewarding and it feels like in a sense, it can be gatekeeping of certain ways of progression or fun to be had with different options. But that might just be me seeing the worst option possible.

Anyways, that’s my two cents on favor. At least in the current state it’s in

[Author]

Posts