Sekoshiba
Verified Member
In The legend of Aang/The legend of Korra water-bending is affected most directly by the quantity of water present.
"A waterbender gains a significant advantage or disadvantage over other benders depending on the amount of water in the vicinity. Enemies are able to take advantage of this by driving them away from water sources. As a result, traveling waterbenders often carry a water skin with them at all times. Master waterbenders are able to extract water from plants, ultimately killing the plants, and even condense water vapor out of thin air." -TLA Wiki
This is not very apparent in the plugin because there is no gradient or "quantity" associated with water-bending. You can create entire waves from a tiny plant or a bottle, as well as carry several water-bottles allowing you to spam techniques over and over without ever needing a real water source, even advanced techniques receive no penalty to what should be a tiny amount of water being splooshed at people...
What I propose:
When selecting a water source in addition to the generic "check-if-waterbendable-block", a second check is made to check if there are other water-bendable blocks adjacent to the one being targeted, Following this the target block -AND- adjacent blocks up to a max number (I'll use five as an example throughout this explanation) would be used and the technique would be produced from the target block as per usual. Depending on the number of adjacent blocks the technique would receive the "moon" modifier but to varying extents. For the max amount of blocks the server's "night time" value would be used (Full moon would still be a value reserved only for full moons). This would mean "Surge" for instance could vary from a tiny and easily-dodged wave to a large and powerful wave depending on the source used.
examples (Water-manipulation):
Worst case scenario: You're in a desert and bend a single withered sapling at an enemy, That's one bendable block with no adjacent water-bendable blocks- The attack does the minimum damage it possibly can using some value of the "moon" modifier.
Best case scenario: You're near an ocean, river, or lots of snow (or use a tree's leaves) as your source for an attack- Those have water-bendable blocks adjacent to them and so the attacks are more effective/larger than using a small source of water.
Issue resolution(s):
This bonus, if it stacked with the already pretty significant "Night-Time/Moon" bonus for water-benders could make them very OP, So what I propose is that instead of the multiplier coming into affect at night a separate system is used, where at night the value returned for adjacent blocks receives slight bonuses (1-3 blocks up to but not exceeding the maximum value). Meaning that Water-benders become stronger at night but still have to be in the right place in order to benefit fully. It also means that in an ocean where they are already very powerful they do not become OP, it simply gives them more freedom to use smaller water sources such as bottles.
The result:
Water-benders require much more strategic thinking because saplings in a desert are no longer as effective as a river, ocean, or forest canopy. Water-benders would be much weaker during the day-time in deserts and other arid lands, but much stronger in the oceans, swamps, and forests, Much like in the show. At night, however, it makes their dependence on large sources less noticeable, meaning forays into deserts and water-barren lands become more viable (but still more dangerous than watery areas).
In water-abundant areas you are more powerful than before, but you are weaker in drier areas than before.
Less viable/brutal realism changes:
- In deserts your bottles have a chance of evaporating with each (~X~) interval.
~Disclaimer: Think of channeling as torrent or octopus-form "shifting" and read "(~X~)" as "variable"~
- When channeling lightning hits you harder and the channel fails.
- When hit during channeling with a non-lightning and non-water move you take reduced damage but the channel fails (or it knocks water source modifiers of (~X~) blocks off of your attack but dampens damage taken by you).
- When hit during channeling with a water technique of under (~X~) source blocks (A weak attack) it counts as adding +1 adjacent source-blocks to the source multiplier for the move you are channeling, however this only happens once, subsequent water attacks will hit you.
- Certain attacks require a source of (~X~) adjacent blocks to use. Meaning that surge, torrent, octopus-form actually need lower-medium amounts of water to use, no more bottle-bending huge waves! (Water-manipulation and Ice-spike only need 1 block though!)
In the show water-pouches were a Water-benders last option reserve of water, not a "I have a tiny bit of water I can do everything I usually do" pouch.
Edit for addition: Although devs have said many times that "rain-check" is unreliable, if this is ever a viable way to call modifiers it should add points to the aforementioned "source number" above.
"A waterbender gains a significant advantage or disadvantage over other benders depending on the amount of water in the vicinity. Enemies are able to take advantage of this by driving them away from water sources. As a result, traveling waterbenders often carry a water skin with them at all times. Master waterbenders are able to extract water from plants, ultimately killing the plants, and even condense water vapor out of thin air." -TLA Wiki
This is not very apparent in the plugin because there is no gradient or "quantity" associated with water-bending. You can create entire waves from a tiny plant or a bottle, as well as carry several water-bottles allowing you to spam techniques over and over without ever needing a real water source, even advanced techniques receive no penalty to what should be a tiny amount of water being splooshed at people...
What I propose:
When selecting a water source in addition to the generic "check-if-waterbendable-block", a second check is made to check if there are other water-bendable blocks adjacent to the one being targeted, Following this the target block -AND- adjacent blocks up to a max number (I'll use five as an example throughout this explanation) would be used and the technique would be produced from the target block as per usual. Depending on the number of adjacent blocks the technique would receive the "moon" modifier but to varying extents. For the max amount of blocks the server's "night time" value would be used (Full moon would still be a value reserved only for full moons). This would mean "Surge" for instance could vary from a tiny and easily-dodged wave to a large and powerful wave depending on the source used.
examples (Water-manipulation):
Worst case scenario: You're in a desert and bend a single withered sapling at an enemy, That's one bendable block with no adjacent water-bendable blocks- The attack does the minimum damage it possibly can using some value of the "moon" modifier.
Best case scenario: You're near an ocean, river, or lots of snow (or use a tree's leaves) as your source for an attack- Those have water-bendable blocks adjacent to them and so the attacks are more effective/larger than using a small source of water.
Issue resolution(s):
This bonus, if it stacked with the already pretty significant "Night-Time/Moon" bonus for water-benders could make them very OP, So what I propose is that instead of the multiplier coming into affect at night a separate system is used, where at night the value returned for adjacent blocks receives slight bonuses (1-3 blocks up to but not exceeding the maximum value). Meaning that Water-benders become stronger at night but still have to be in the right place in order to benefit fully. It also means that in an ocean where they are already very powerful they do not become OP, it simply gives them more freedom to use smaller water sources such as bottles.
The result:
Water-benders require much more strategic thinking because saplings in a desert are no longer as effective as a river, ocean, or forest canopy. Water-benders would be much weaker during the day-time in deserts and other arid lands, but much stronger in the oceans, swamps, and forests, Much like in the show. At night, however, it makes their dependence on large sources less noticeable, meaning forays into deserts and water-barren lands become more viable (but still more dangerous than watery areas).
In water-abundant areas you are more powerful than before, but you are weaker in drier areas than before.
Less viable/brutal realism changes:
- In deserts your bottles have a chance of evaporating with each (~X~) interval.
~Disclaimer: Think of channeling as torrent or octopus-form "shifting" and read "(~X~)" as "variable"~
- When channeling lightning hits you harder and the channel fails.
- When hit during channeling with a non-lightning and non-water move you take reduced damage but the channel fails (or it knocks water source modifiers of (~X~) blocks off of your attack but dampens damage taken by you).
- When hit during channeling with a water technique of under (~X~) source blocks (A weak attack) it counts as adding +1 adjacent source-blocks to the source multiplier for the move you are channeling, however this only happens once, subsequent water attacks will hit you.
- Certain attacks require a source of (~X~) adjacent blocks to use. Meaning that surge, torrent, octopus-form actually need lower-medium amounts of water to use, no more bottle-bending huge waves! (Water-manipulation and Ice-spike only need 1 block though!)
In the show water-pouches were a Water-benders last option reserve of water, not a "I have a tiny bit of water I can do everything I usually do" pouch.
Edit for addition: Although devs have said many times that "rain-check" is unreliable, if this is ever a viable way to call modifiers it should add points to the aforementioned "source number" above.
Thanks for reading, Hopefully a few of these ideas are liked!
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