Changes to Auras Discussion to get rid of AHK-Mechnics

Hello there,

I want to open a discusson to bring a positive change to:
- Group-Auras for Skald, Warden and Paladin.
- Resistance-Auras for Skald, Bard and Paladin.

Classes with a lot of auras, especially with resistances, have to cycle all of them constantly to keep them active for the group.

I want to collect some ideas here to improve this system and make it usable in a good way without using out-of-game-hotkey-mechanics at all. Some of them may be overpowered or hard-to-implement suggestions, but see it as a base idea which can be altered to something considerable.

A) Allow all auras to stay active at the same time until canceled (this could drain 1% base power per cycle per aura then as balancing factor)

B) Allow to activate all auras at once via /macro or a new skill

C) Allow to actiavte one offensive and one defensive aura at the same time (e.g. Warden with Damage Add/Bubble, Skald with Damage Add/Healsong)

D) Have three categories of auras - offensive, defensive, resistances - one offensive, one defensive and six resistances can be active at the same time.

E) Change auras to 20-minute-self-buffs with the area-effect-meachinc auf auras

F) Implement a realm ability for aura-characters to increase the maximum number of permanent active auras or..

G) Increase the maximum number of simultanious auras based on the aura-skill-line-hardpoints.

Feel free to share your opinion and also with an argument, why you think, that this is good or bad.

Thu 13 May 2021 11:29 PM by easytoremember

is there an H) Remove aura resists from the game ?

and I) Clump certain auras to the same RUT ?

Fri 14 May 2021 4:11 AM by ExcretusMaximus

I prefer keeping AHK because I like not having to wear a wrist brace due to carpal tunnel.

It's useful for a lot of things outside of aura twisting; this isn't a modern game with five whole abilities you need to use, it's an ancient juggernaut where even melee classes can be using upwards of a dozen abilities through a fight.

Fri 14 May 2021 6:28 AM by Centenario

I would agree that skald chants are a little overpowered. Twisting all resists while still being a core class, while on the other hand the paladin is never seen in groups, nor is he twisting as easily due to the amount of things he needs to worry about in group play. I don't know how hard it is on the bard, I know that bard is core too.

To just spam all resists is way too overpowered in my opinion if the opposing team cant do the same. I'd rather have a thought-based interaction (choose one of them).
That would mean all resist chants/shouts/songs should have a global cooldown on them == > cant spam them all at once, must choose one.

I also wouldn't put pulsing bubble in the same group as health regen. I wouldnt also let warden pulse both speed and bubble, since most of the time wardens dont even get in combat via healing and just keep moving about with speed, while still throwing some heals. Impossible to catch them.

The twisting of spells for paladin is part of the class identity and charm.
I wouldnt boost skald any more, not having an instrument is already overpowered enough.

Only warden could see a boost in exchange for not going 45 heal 48 buff or similar, in my opinion this is already very OP, while having bubble on top.
The only thing I could see would be to remove bubble from warden and put it on Valewalker ^^ that would balance the realm a little, in exchange give warden access to shield line and slam

I would consider that a nerf somewhat.

To conclude, I can't find anything worth doing that wouldnt be a nerf to those classes.

Fri 14 May 2021 6:45 AM by Kurbsen

Centenario wrote: ↑
Fri 14 May 2021 6:28 AM
To just spam all resists is way too overpowered in my opinion if the opposing team cant do the same. I'd rather have a thought-based interaction (choose one of them).
That would mean all resist chants/shouts/songs should have a global cooldown on them == > cant spam them all at once, must choose one.

i mean most groups have both resists covered so this doesnt matter at all?

sham/aug
ward/druid
cleri/friar

pretty much every roaming 8 man has them both always

Fri 14 May 2021 8:51 AM by Noashakra

Kurbsen wrote: ↑
Fri 14 May 2021 6:45 AM
Centenario wrote: ↑
Fri 14 May 2021 6:28 AM
To just spam all resists is way too overpowered in my opinion if the opposing team cant do the same. I'd rather have a thought-based interaction (choose one of them).
That would mean all resist chants/shouts/songs should have a global cooldown on them == > cant spam them all at once, must choose one.

i mean most groups have both resists covered so this doesnt matter at all?

sham/aug
ward/druid
cleri/friar

pretty much every roaming 8 man has them both always

The tri resists chants of the pally stack on top for the buffs

I would agree that skald chants are a little overpowered. Twisting all resists while still being a core class, while on the other hand the paladin is never seen in groups, nor is he twisting as easily due to the amount of things he needs to worry about in group play. I don't know how hard it is on the bard, I know that bard is core too.

No bard in their right mind would use the resist songs, they are casted like endo/speed, and you would never take 2/3s to twist to one of the resist in fight

You (try) to switch to endo as the fight start for your tanks and then you don't touch the chants anymore, your role is to rupt.

Fri 14 May 2021 12:07 PM by Astaa

ExcretusMaximus wrote: ↑
Fri 14 May 2021 4:11 AM
I prefer keeping AHK because I like not having to wear a wrist brace due to carpal tunnel.

It's useful for a lot of things outside of aura twisting; this isn't a modern game with five whole abilities you need to use, it's an ancient juggernaut where even melee classes can be using upwards of a dozen abilities through a fight.

I'll concede that in your situation then AHK is perfectly fine. But let's not pretend that is the norm, most people use AHK because they aren't very good at DAOC, I use 14 melee styles alone on hero, plus all the other stuff and the only macro I use is /switch. People just aren't willing to learn their class.

Fri 14 May 2021 5:17 PM by Nephamael

I think it would be a great idea to make a macro like /switch to twist multiple chants to match what AHK does here.

For everyone with resist chants it is literally impossible to do what AHK does with their own hands and the ingame options.

For example: /chant speed healsong dmgadd body heat

Or - the resist songs could at least become 3ple resistsongs, so it is somewhat possible to accomplish twisting thru speed+healsong+dmgadd+2 resist songs = 5 twists instead of 9. - Or make it even just 1 resist song for all 6 resists.

(same for bard ofc)

That way it could be avoided to mess with the abilities too much for balance.

#2 warden/healer

I suggest making the casterspeed of warden and healer both baseline and making the cast instant for warden, as it fits the class feeling of all other chants being instant - besides alb always has infight casterspeed with sorc and mid always has infight casterspeed with the aug or 3spec healer - just balance it = all 3 have red caster speed baseline and all 3 chants can be active always or at least warden speed instant like skald speed.

Fri 14 May 2021 9:18 PM by gotwqqd

Astaa wrote: ↑
Fri 14 May 2021 12:07 PM
ExcretusMaximus wrote: ↑
Fri 14 May 2021 4:11 AM
I prefer keeping AHK because I like not having to wear a wrist brace due to carpal tunnel.

It's useful for a lot of things outside of aura twisting; this isn't a modern game with five whole abilities you need to use, it's an ancient juggernaut where even melee classes can be using upwards of a dozen abilities through a fight.

I'll concede that in your situation then AHK is perfectly fine. But let's not pretend that is the norm, most people use AHK because they aren't very good at DAOC, I use 14 melee styles alone on hero, plus all the other stuff and the only macro I use is /switch. People just aren't willing to learn their class.

using AHK and learning their class are completely different things.

Sat 15 May 2021 12:42 AM by ExcretusMaximus

Astaa wrote: ↑
Fri 14 May 2021 12:07 PM
People just aren't willing to learn their class.

I would argue that you need to know your class inside and out to be able to write a macro which takes advantage of all your styles and abilities.

Anyone can hit 14 buttons individually, but it takes someone who understands their class perfectly to condense those 14 buttons into five with no conflicts.

See how stupid the "know your class" argument is? We both made perfectly valid points, yet they're both completely ridiculous.

Ease of interface vs. "lol I'm better because I push more buttons" is not an argument, it's just chest thumping over stupid shit that doesn't matter.

Sat 15 May 2021 10:33 AM by Noashakra

True good players play with a 3 buttons mouse.

Sun 16 May 2021 1:22 PM by omicidi

Astaa wrote: ↑
Fri 14 May 2021 12:07 PM
ExcretusMaximus wrote: ↑
Fri 14 May 2021 4:11 AM
I prefer keeping AHK because I like not having to wear a wrist brace due to carpal tunnel.

It's useful for a lot of things outside of aura twisting; this isn't a modern game with five whole abilities you need to use, it's an ancient juggernaut where even melee classes can be using upwards of a dozen abilities through a fight.

I'll concede that in your situation then AHK is perfectly fine. But let's not pretend that is the norm, most people use AHK because they aren't very good at DAOC, I use 14 melee styles alone on hero, plus all the other stuff and the only macro I use is /switch. People just aren't willing to learn their class.

That’s like saying you’re a bad driver because you use cruise control. Oo

Sun 16 May 2021 1:23 PM by Astaa

Not really, a driving analogy would be you're not as good of a driver if you can only drive an auto

Sun 16 May 2021 1:54 PM by Irkeno

Astaa wrote: ↑
Sun 16 May 2021 1:23 PM
Not really, a driving analogy would be you're not as good of a driver if you can only drive an auto

Tbh, making excuses about the way other people play (short of radar cheats or otherwise) because you lost makes you a bad player. Better to look inwards at yourself and learn what you could do better.

If you're a purist driving a manual who cant beat someone driving an automatic round a track... the problem is you.

Sun 16 May 2021 2:53 PM by Ceen

Pretty sure I can offer more to my group by focusing on position and communication only using snare and slam than trying to land 14 styles on my qbar.

Sun 16 May 2021 3:45 PM by ExcretusMaximus

Ceen wrote: ↑
Sun 16 May 2021 2:53 PM
Pretty sure I can offer more to my group by focusing on position and communication only using snare and slam than trying to land 14 styles on my qbar.

Pretty sure I said buttons, not styles.

Sun 16 May 2021 5:23 PM by Noashakra

He was speaking about astraa and his 14 melee styles