We've been trying to foster more healthy and roleplay-consistent bonded pair behavior. In that vein, we are limiting Warder bonuses based on the Warder's distance from the Aes Sedai. We are doing this for a few reasons:
- Currently, due to how HP drain works, the best strategy for a bonded pair when in trouble is to run in different directions rather than stick together. This does not make any roleplay sense.
- Because there was no distance limit on drain and other bonuses, we have had to implement pretty draconian policies on bonded pairs being online together. This is a terrible experience if you need to, say, afk in a clan room or are logging on to RP while the other person wants to PK. We think the mechanics should generally enforce any restrictions wherever possible, to make it simple to play, and so strive to move towards that.
- Logged-in Warder bonuses now scale based on the distance between the Aes Sedai and her Warder, and stop functioning entirely if the Warder and Aes Sedai are more than 3 zones away.
- HP drain now has a multiplier to the amount drained from the Warder based on distance.
- Same room is 1:1 (which is how HP drain works today).
- Same zone is 1:1.25 -- that is, for every 1 HP the Aes Sedai drains, the Warder loses 1.25 HP (rounded down to the nearest whole number). So if the Aes Sedai is hit for 10 HP worth of damage, her Warder must have and will lose 12 HP for drain to function.
- 1 zone away is 1:1.5.
- Farther is 1:2.
- The Warder's HP regen bonus is cut in half if the Warder is more than 3 zones away from his Aes Sedai (or the Aes Sedai is offline).
- Multibash only works within 3 zones. Same with multiple hits on bashed opponents when several are on you.
- Berserk attack only works within 3 zones.
- HP drain now has a multiplier to the amount drained from the Warder based on distance.
- To help you know whether the bonuses are active or not, there are some changes to "where" and movement:
- You'll both receive a message when you move either in or out of bonus range.
- "where" is now more vague when you are out of bonus range, and lists the general direction and distance rather than the room name in that scenario. If you are within bonus distance, it continues to show the room name as before.
- If the Aes Sedai dies (regardless of distance), the Warder will be set to a very critical HP state, and will probably take no more than 1 hit to kill (to discourage abandoning your Aes Sedai when she is in danger). Previously this was not an issue, but since drain cuts off based on distance we needed to make sure there is still danger to the Warder.
- If the Warder dies, the Aes Sedai no longer loses half her SP. This is a buff to the Aes Sedai (we feel the HP, MV and stun penalty are enough).
- We also improved the gameplay for Green Ajah bonding multiple Warders, which was a very broken experience before:
- Autorescue now prioritizes the Warder who (1) has fewer opponents and then, if the same number, (2) has more HP.
- HP drain now drains from the Warder with more HP, and splits across the Warders if the one with more HP cannot survive the full drain. The ratios above still apply individually and separately to both Warders.
- A bugfix: mobs now count against the Warder's max engage for purposes of auto rescue, under all circumstances (it behaved inconsistently before).
Please pay attention to the movement messages and "where", so you are not caught off-guard.
- You might intuitively assume that Tarwin's Gap and Fal Dara are 3 zones apart (and therefore bonuses are active): Tarwin's Gap -> Winding Road (1 zone away) -> Dusty Road (2 zones away) -> Fal Dara (3 zones away). This is not how the (x, y) zone coordinate grid works!
- Tarwin's Gap is actually (X=7, Y=14), and Fal Dara is (X=7, Y=10): that means these are 4 zones apart, and bonuses will not be active if separated by that distance. This is why the movement messages and "where" changes are so important.
We hope these mechanics incentivize and encourage more RP-ish bonded pair dynamics, and also improve the general quality of life of playing a bonded pair. It is now acceptable for you to not be together when online, for example -- including for one player to be AFK without the other or doing something separate.
The one thing we have not addressed here is if a Warder is nearby getting healed (e.g., Aes Sedai is PKing on dusty road and Warder is in FD getting healed). If this is still an issue, we have some other ideas we can introduce, such as the Warder eating a healing penalty when having been recently drained and separated from their Aes Sedai. But we did not want to risk over-doing it so we are doing this incrementally.
Please enjoy, and feedback or bug reports welcome.