Changelogs and Hiddens

[Jumpy]

I think changes to hiddens should appear in the changelogs, even if the tradition dictates not to, we, as a community, ended up deciding to show numbers for hiddens on the wiki. This would both help the wiki to be accurate and would let people with certain hiddens know if something has changed without having to discover it mid-fight.

The alternative is to remove the numbers on the wiki and give a vague description and leave it all secret; hidden, if you will.

Oddly enough, the alternative seems to align itself more with the current state of the game as is. Mouse's hour-long rants on discord about going for what fits your IC shows as much.

[Mouse]

As said and as you pointed out, I disagree. Showing numbers in any regard will lead to people simply going for whatever they perceive or recognize to be the strongest, as is shown with the 50,000 Spectral Sight apps, the fact that SB is never apped for but CT is, or the sixty billion wrath apps from Spires. That said, your second point is pretty much what I'd insist on;

Remove numbers from the wiki entirely, if I'm honest. It's a pain in the ass to keep updated and leads to a lot of confusion when changelogs say something but the wiki says otherwise. Naturally, the Discord hivemind makes this a lot less genuine and people will tend to pass around via word of mouth what's strong and what isn't, but I don't think that means we need to give people the tools to powergame. In a perfect world, people should build for IC instead of strength. Alas.

I don't think hiding numbers or their changes will stop people from picking whats strongest(sadly), but I think anything to push us in that direction is good for the game in general.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic about things, though.

[Milly]

If you don't want people to know changes to numbers - how about just a quick blurb of, "Altered [x] hidden" or, "Tweaked numbers on [x]"?
So no one knows if it's a buff or nerf, but it gives people a chance to test and see.

[Oyster.]

i think perhaps you could code in so that if your spell (not just hiddens) is changed it comes up with a prompt on logon informing you of the change.

Your (spell here) has been modified since last reboot: (small comment by chance or whoever did it on what was changed)

[Chance]

i think if a hidden is changed the character/s with the spell should be informed prior - the journal review is a good place to note this. specific numbers do feel a bit unnecessary to have on the wiki, as with any hidden spell they're generally going to be stronger than a public one, but i'm not against them being listed so much as i have no interest in maintaining the page beyond the core mechanics

somewhat unrelated, but i'd like to see more... presentable documentation of hiddens in general. images, gifs, instead of endless text? maybe a wiki page isn't the best place for that

[Chance]

Your (spell here) has been modified since last reboot: (small comment by chance or whoever did it on what was changed)

this'd be very easy to do, and it's not a bad idea at all, but at the same time i feel like we've developed a community culture that worries a little too much about build optimization and stresses out if there's a nerf (even slight). i'm not sure if there's much we can do in that department without hindering other parts of the game though

[SilkiyTea]

i like mouses idea of removing number variables. i used to want wintermute because of the cute snowflakes i saw on zion! and then i saw it gave a high amount of power and crit and was a toggle buff. and then it went from “it is pretty” to “i want it because it is powerful”. and i am realizing how much i do not like that i thought like that!

[Datura]

Okay but here’s my issue with this, in a game that stresses war, fighting, and conflict, even if I wanted to play a non magi miner I’ll end up verbing, if I go and join events, there will be verbing. I really wanted to get run casting, but then Iearn its a 5% AP + dr cast buff that can sometimes shoot a projectile, and honestly I’d prefer rping having something similar, whilst not giving myself a detrimental addition to my build that’s supposed to make my character stronger than most. I know that at the end of the day my chances of survival are better against meta builds so I can do my fluff that I do runecasting without a detriment to my bar. I honestly would have been cool w/ it if it was a toggle buff but knowing what you’re getting from hiddens is, in my mind the only way a shitty verbers like me can at least have some kind of fighting chance.

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In the ideal world, yes we could have numbers taken away but when I worked my way to T1 artificer, did a bunch of rps using some shotty runecasting and did scenes that would guarantee an application if I put them all together, why, comparatively should I let myself fall dick-first into a bear-trap when everyone else is just getting upgrades to their tree?