Rewriting a Bunch of Abilities

Was going to update the OP, but it's too many characters. Up to about the E's at this point. Probably going to do a pass over the stuff that's already been done to iron out things that have come up.

Also, as a point of grammar -- which of these sounds better?

1. When this unit is successfully attacked, the attacking champion becomes Charmed for 3 turns.
2. When a champion makes a successful attack against this unit, the attacking champion becomes charmed for 3 turns.

One of them uses passive voice to put the focus on the champion that has the ability, while the other uses active voice to make the participants and actions more clear. I'm not sure if either is more intuitive, or better. Thoughts?

And, does anyone think there's a functional difference, or should be one, between "When" and "Whenever"?

 

Passive voice always sounds cooler. I vote for 1.

And I don't think there's a functional difference in Pox, as "when" already gives us a feeling of "whenever", as the fact that the champion is on the battlefield implies the ability will work any time the requirements are met, without the need of "whenever". However I stil support using "whenever", just to leave no doubts.

 

Ok, I was thinking something like "When" goes for abilities which have a limited number of triggers, either per-turn or in total, or ones which only have one relevant trigger, such as Absorb, while "Whenever" goes for things which have much looser trigger times. Maybe it's not important to make a clear distinction between those, though.

 

I think there should be consistent use of "free" for all 0AP attacks caused by abilities. This would be "free attack", "free basic attack" etc.

Currently two relevant abilities are listed:
Blindfire -- "makes a non-basic ranged attack against the attacking champion for free." ==> "makes a free non-basic ranged..." Also: is "non-basic" redundant?
Counter Attack -- "makes a free melee attack" ==> no change

But it will become more important on other abilities:
Pummel (1AP): "This champion makes a basic attack. If successful, this champion makes a free basic attack against the same target." Note that the first basic attack is implicitly on the attack chain.

Alternatively, this could not list the 1AP and be described as "This champion makes a basic attack at +1AP. If successful...".

I also think that every ability that causes movement (e.g. Manic, Fascinate, Wandering, Charge) is a "free move", though I'm not entirely convinced it's worth putting this in the descriptions. The reason this distinction is important is that it bypasses abilities that increase movement costs (e.g. Lumbering), abilities that prevent moving (e.g. Constriction). and abilities that count spaces moved (e.g. Running Start).

 

That is a really good point about how to designate "free" attacks. Turning it into an adjective, as you say, sounds best. For Pummel, I think the ability wouldn't include the +1 AP in the text, because those sorts of cost modifiers usually appear within the ability stats, so it would be like the first version you posted.

As for movement... that will definitely be something about which to think. Once we get deeper into the re-writes, it might be a good idea to check through how each ability has developed, and then go back to make them a bit more consistent.

 

Glad to see this thread is doing so well and you are still going at it. The only thing I have to ask is to double check capitalization and punctuation on all of these ( pet peeve, I know ).

One question, certain abilities like Artillery Blast are missing from the list, did you miss them or chose not to include all of them?

 

Most I chose not to include, mainly if they were already accurate to what I would want them to be. Some others are left off for more intensive work, such as Block/Dodge, or because they no longer exist.

And yes, all punctuation and capitalization will have a thorough pass once I get around to it. The re-writes project will be far on the backburner for now, though, as school is picking up even more -- the pace was about a novel a week of reading, along with ancillary texts and writing and class time, and that is increasing. Good-will, time-intensive projects like this are a low priority.

 

@Sokolov Fix Artillery Blast "all units within 2 spaces of the target takes Fire damage" then

 

It's called Fire Blast now, and it deals fire damage.

 

oh my bad, made that note a month or so ago

 

Made any progress @kalasle or did you scrap this?

 

Indefinite hiatus. Many reasons. High cost in time and mental energy, marginal benefit when there is little chance of long-term consistency or satisfactory implementation. Will un-stick thread. Still like the idea, but material realities make it less attractive.

 

Don't agree with this, but can't argue with the rest.

 

sounds like the devs weren't cooperating with kalasle

 

If that's the case he should come out with it so I can be mad at the devs.

 

Not so much this, rather it's just a lot of work for the devs to get used to using a complete grammar and lexicon for this stuff, and they are investing energy elsewhere. It's a lot like inventing a language: it's useless if noone uses it or its hard to learn. They are under no obligation to take any suggestions I make or work that I do, and that's a-ok. This is just like anything else a player proposes; it depends on whether or not the devs like it, and how important they think it would be. I totally respect, and to some extent even agree with, their implicit assessment in this case.

Well, I think because it would be a bunch of work. Doing a pass on abilities takes a lot of time and input; I have a lot of things going on this summer, next fall, and next spring, and can only do so much stuff out of good will. If I'm not even sure I can do a good and thorough job with these changes considering the circumstances, then I do really doubt if it would work out, assuming nothing else changes.