Necromancy and Undead; A much needed update

[Martyr]

Only concerned with how gray or other chaotic archetype factions/groups/individuals will deal with maker's seal if in conflict with a necromantic faction, considering they're unlikely to be on good terms with well the holier than thou types.

[VibeEntertainment]

I personally think a lot of the perceived restrictions come from when Morgwynn was around, since I don't think there's been a more iconic undead in the lifespan of E4 at least from my opinion.

As I recall, she was denied the ability to break away from her Necromancer, but I have no real context to this. Signature -wise we did have one of Wra'gul's undead (I forget the name) who managed to get Wildcard. But that's also the only undead I ever heard who had a unique to begin with.

I've been curious about playing undead for a while myself, but that's mostly because they are, no matter how much we want to tell ourselves otherwise, essentially designed to throw hands, and not really to create any deep story on their own.

I think the fatal flaw of them is exactly that-- they're given one obvious route to reach their destination, and the other routes tend to be hidden behind a lot of maybes, and potentiallys. So they default to throwing hands to reach their goals. That's not bad for someone that thrives in that environment, but it leaves much to be desired narratively.

So my suggestion is to give them a clearly defined alternative to pvp-- the undead. Not the Necromancer. Something like a certain amount of undeath per x amount of activity. So that by the time they reach rpl 220 they can become champions without fighting once, or something similar.

Or maybe the undead can infect coops, and cow pens for undeath. Tint the animals green, halve the production rate, and give medics the ability to cure them again.

Just my two cents.

I played an Undead with a Sig and Unique but unsure on what restrictions are on them entirely now tbh at least earlier in E4.

[Shaqdaddy94]

As gunther I gave dev for everyone and everything. I was chaotic and destructive with a good story. Sadly I was not given Any good leadership guidance role until I was deep done down permed. Except my boys wragul and neather love you chads. My boys did their best to pick me up after but gunther was to far gone. I tried to dev for a water undead or ascension.

But Crimson God he was bread and butter for me.

My advice for players playing undead here is what you can do.

1. Develop a personality that's your own or maybe a past of your former char life

2. Slowly become the wrath of someone or others by doing big scenes or announcing your presence.

3. Don't be a death verber without purpose. Make others tremble or smile when you enter a scene.

4. Ask your leader or master for something to help dev your character growth.

5. Have fun but remember to gyazo or pastebin your important scenes.

6. Goals for undead: Lich, Death Knight, Super Zombie, something honestly refreshing for your own creative.

[PastaTM]

Much like Necromancy...

I raise this thread back from the dead.

[The Eye]

So with this thread raised from the dead, I figured I'd give my thoughts. Sorry for posting incognito, though I'm sure some of you know who I am anyway.

Firstly, This is cool and I can't wait for it to go live.

But Ultimately I do think there are certain ongoing issues with Necromancy that I do think are worth mentioning.

First, just to address sentiments I've seen that are common.

"Undead should have plaguelands!"

This would turn plaguelands from "This is a neat thing to help you get started and give you a baseline long-term income." Which I love into "This just gives you a truckload of undeath for basically no effort." Without significant overhauls. While ultimately not fixing the issue of undead being 'disposable resource gathering mooks'

Plaguelands in general has issues. Just to set a baseline I'll explain how it works.

• You can cast it once per year. And like old quests, you have to do it after the time you did it last year. Meaning it gets later and later in the day until you miss one day.
  
• It can blight up to a 5x5 field of crops.
  
• You get 3 undeath for casting it. This does not change depending on the size of the field or level of development.
  
• It's instant. There is no delay in getting the undeath. You do not lose the undeath if you walk away. The field is blighted instantly. The loading bar does nothing.
  
• It does not spawn skeletons despite what it says.
  

Which also addresses why Necromancers rarely use it to wreck other peoples crops. A lot of risk for basically no reward other than trolling, which feels more mean-spirited than it does like 'Yolo badguy causes conflict'.

My pie in the sky ignorant of all coding difficulties suggestions for fixing it? (And also buffing it.)

• Whatever fix was made for quests, please apply it to Plaguelands so it doesn't just get later and later.
  
• Make the undeath received depend on the level of growth and the size of the field. IE 1x1 patch? You get one undeath if it's at least a little bit grown. Maybe 2 if you get it just before harvest. IE at max you could get 10 undeath if you hit a 5x5 field right before harvest. While also halving gains from plants you planted.
  
• Fix it so it gives you the undeath bit by bit over the course of the spell-casting. Blighting squares bit by bit over the course of the spellcasting.
  
• Set the cooldown on being able to use it again based on how much undeath you got from it. IE you got a perfect casting and got 10 Undeath? Instead of 1 year, it's on 3 year cooldown.
  
• Please make it so it actually spawns skeletons that will hang around and attack people and NPC's.
  
• Maybe a command to check the cooldown without having to try and cast it in a valid situation.
  

And for the bit where Pasta will hate me.


"Undead should have a self heal."


Nah, We already have fleshcrafting on its way, though I think that should perhaps be bumped down to basic necromancy rather than master necromancy. Undead aren't demons or magical beasts. By nature they do have a support system.

Now, onto my suggestions for making undead more fun to play.

So, before we get into the mechanics of it all, I feel like I should talk about the Thematics of Necromancy and undead. Just as Undead are twisted mockeries of the living, so too is their relationship with their Necromancer a twisted mockery of civilization. It might be broken, parasitic, and predatory, but it still apes many of the trappings of mortal society. They should work a lot like 'good guy' civilization, but different. For that reason, they need to get some of the love that good guy civilization has gotten. Allow undead to unlock undead specific crafting things, so they can go full gravedew valley. Maybe they can make blight-wells, something that when maintained with undeath creates a drinkable foodstuff that only works for undead.

And just because I think it's neat, I do think it would be cool if a Necromancer could assign supernatural titles to their undead a-la the faction official spells, with limits to keep them at one per necromancer. But still very rough concepts.

Lord/Lady of the Harvest: Lead Fighty Undead. Can spend undeath to conduct a rite increasing the amount of undeath gained per battle for every undead present. Can use the 'Harvest Corpse' ability.

Tomb Seneschal: Lead Crafty Undead. Gains a discount to crafting a-la nimble. Gains access to advanced 'undead structures'. A-la blight wells.

Famulus: Lead Magicky Undead. Can be imbued with undeath by their necromancer and conduct basic rituals on their behalf. IE turning skeletons into zombies, fleshcrafting, harvesting undeath from other undead so it's centrally gathered where the necromancer can easily get it. Can unlock skeleton uprising for themselves.

Also, the undeath grind to get death's door is silly. Just put death's door in master Necromancy and give basic necromancers fleshcrafting for a reasonable price.  Then, as much as I hate to say it, make Master Necromancy an app. The grind just makes playing an undead hell and doesn't really add much.

[PastaTM]

I agree with you on the self-healing, but the only way I will go down in my fighting stance is IF Fleshcrafting is added far sooner than later. I've been speaking to a few people in DM's as well about possible ideas, I think one of the coolest mechanics that was suggested. It was as follows.

Medic + Necromancy...

While it's true Undead will get into a ton of fights, I equally think it should be a reward for the Necromancer to when treating wounds, give them a collection of undeath (note; this only applies for Temps. Perms to heal would COST undeath to heal- See Fleshcrafting)

There needs to be more ways to spend Undeath via the Necromancers too.

There are not many things I disagree with in the post above. I like a lot of the ideas towards the bottom! Really! Different types of Undead is something I've been wanting to see. Though as all things are said and done this can be done with Dev. Not the greatest answer either but it can snowball an effect, it just is going to take time, effort, and truthfully a lot of encouragement to keep the Undead Players going... as well as not burning out the Necromancer in question.

But I've made my stance clear on Undead self-healing. Something I will die on until one of two things happens.

1) Fleshcrafting is added sooner than later.

2) Undead get a healing mechanic (Or my Medic + Necromancer idea goes through)

[uncatastrophic]

undead getting nerfed-rewards (maybe longer cd) plaguelands would mean they could finally grief enemy crops instead of just farming 1x1 plots for necromancers to self grief
it would be funny

[The Eye]

undead getting nerfed-rewards (maybe longer cd) plaguelands would mean they could finally grief enemy crops instead of just farming 1x1 plots for necromancers to self grief
it would be funny

Nah, you'd just get Xarxes and crew blasting crops outside the evil lair for 15 undeath a year. Or however long the cooldown is. Giving undead plaguelands would just throw the undeath economy all out of wack. Which is mostly balanced outside of the 300 undeath needed to get deaths door. Even if it's pretty spare for options to spend on otherwise.

I have literally griefed peoples crops just for the YOLO factor. But it's never going to be incentivized if you get the same benefits for blasting seeds as you do fully grown crops. And it really does just kind of feel rude OOC rather than villainous IC since there's nothing they can do to stop you because by the time they try you're already done.