GreenGoose vs Sammas

[Andre]

We played Human vs Arcatta on the new Twin Peaks map. His Archmage had Stone Skin at the end of one of his turns, but during the Expiration Phase (just before my turn), the Stone Skin wore off, and we were a little confused what exactly had happened, but I wasn't able to reproduce the perceived problem when I kept track of what happened during the Expiration Phase.

The trick to a duration of 2 turns, is that it basically works through the turn you cast it and your opponent's next turn, but expires just before your opponents next turn after you go again, so the effect is on for 2 of your turns, but not 2 of your opponent's turns. Watch out for this one.

[Sammas]

This is not consistent with earlier behaviour. Previously, I have been able to have 2 archmages buff each other in one round, [opponent moves], then attack with archmages, and on [opponent move] they retained the additional defence.

Additionally, note that the 'downpour' debuff lasts for 3 opponent turns, not 2 as would be expected from your explanation.

And the stoneskin icon was present for the unit (on my screen) during the opponent's turn, yet the unit did not have +2 defence.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Well, the expiration phase can be kind of confusing. It works like this:

(From the tutorial) 'At the end of each player's turn during the "Expiration Phase", any Status Effects on units owned by that player have their Durations reduced by 1. When the Duration on a Status Effect is reduced to 0, that Status Effect "expires" and goes away.'

So if you give a Duration:1 status effect to one of *your own* units, (Second Wind for example), then at the end of YOUR turn, the duration will be reduced to 0 and the effect will go away.

But if you give a Duration:1 status effect to one of *your opponent's* units, (Paralyze, for example), then at then end of your OPPONENT'S turn the duration will be reduced to 0 and the effect will go away.

Another way to think of it is simply that for status effects that you give to your own units, the current turn counts as 1 turn of the Duration. Other than that, the whole system should be pretty intuitive.

So Stoneskin (Duration:2, applied to a friendly unit) would go away after your next turn. (this turn=1, next turn=2.)

And Downpour (Duration:3, applied to an enemy unit) would go away after 3 enemy turns, with its duration dropping by one at the end of the opponent's turn because it's on an enemy unit.

As for the +2 Armor not showing up when the unit had the Stoneskin status effect, that's a very serious bug if true. I've tried on my side to reproduce it, but it seems to work right in the scenarios I've tried. If you can reproduce this bug, please send me a screenshot! Just select the unit, hover over the unit's Armor stat, and take the screenshot. That should show the status ability icon on the unit and also show the stat card for the Armor stat w/ all modifiers.

You can take a screenshot of a window by holding down the ALT key and pressing the 'print screen' key on your keyboard. You can then go into a paint program (like MSPaint) and press Ctrl-V to paste it. You can then save it and voila, there's you're screenshot!

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Sammas]

Ok, I get it now. Extremely unintuitive, since if you try to rationalise it by saying that you get the benefits of stoneskin in your turn (vs retaliations) so that initial turn should use up a 'turn', yet downpour also provides benefits in your turn, yet lasts the full 3 opponent turns.

Put simply, the symbol 'turn' refers to different things, with regards to those 2 abilities.

I tried to stop Andre so that I could work out the deal with the stoneskin icon showing, but he was obsessed with killing the unit in question.

Remember that when testing, you need to be looking at your own stoneskinned unit during the opponent's second turn after the cast. I was also standing on a gold mine, and may have healed myself with one of the cat healer people in the interim.

[Sammas]

And also, how does plague work in this case? Does that mean if I have Plague(1) on one of my units, that expires at the end of my turn and I take no damage? Because damage from plague etc seems to occur at the start of that unit's owner's turn, not the end.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Sammas said:
Ok, I get it now. Extremely unintuitive, since if you try to rationalise it by saying that you get the benefits of stoneskin in your turn (vs retaliations) so that initial turn should use up a 'turn', yet downpour also provides benefits in your turn, yet lasts the full 3 opponent turns.

Put simply, the symbol 'turn' refers to different things, with regards to those 2 abilities.

Well, I don't think it means 2 different things at all, and I'm not trying to rationalize anything. A turn is a turn, always.

The problem comes with saying that "Duration:2" means "this ability lasts for 2 full turns from the time it was given", which isn't the case.

The tutorial and manual both say that all duration timers on a player's units are reduced by one during the Expiration Phase at the end of that player's turn.

Under this system, in order to have a friendly-targeting ability last through 1 of your opponent's turn, you have to give it Duration:2. If you give it Duration:1, it will go away at the end of your turn (just like Second Wind or Levitate does.)

I looked into all sorts of ways to implement this system when designing LOL, and all other systems were even more confusing, believe it or not. You have to have an expiration phase to reduce these timers *sometime*, and this was, all things considered, the option that caused the least confusion, especially given that most status effects are debuffs appied to enemies.

Let's say I put the expiration phase at the beginning of the turn instead. Then, if you gave an enemy a Duration:1 debuff (like, say, -1 Skill or something), it would go away at the beginning of their turn and wouldn't have had any effect, except for the short period remaining in your turn. It's basically the same 'problem', but would affect enemy debuffs instead friendly buffs. When weighing the options, I found the current system the least confusing, especially since there are more enemy debuffs than friendly buffs.

FWIW, any other turn-based strategy game that has both timed friendly buffs and timed enemy debuffs will have the same 'problem'. But other games usually have so much information flying around, and effects that matter less in the scheme of things, that their expirations often go unnoticed...

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Sammas said:
And also, how does plague work in this case? Does that mean if I have Plague(1) on one of my units, that expires at the end of my turn and I take no damage? Because damage from plague etc seems to occur at the start of that unit's owner's turn, not the end.

That's correct. If you have Plague (Duration:1) on one of your units, you will take no more damage from that instance of the Plague, and it will expire and go away at the end of your turn.

You will have already taken the damage from it for that turn at the beginning of your current turn.

I really am sorry for any confusion about this mechanic -- I really did all I could to make it as clear as humanly possible in the game!

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Sammas]

Sorry, it has just been quite a confusing facet of the game for me. Also, when I said "since if you try to rationalise it", I meant "you" in the general sense of anybody trying to figure out a simple way to represent the system - I wasn't making a personal attack.

I understand it now, although other turn-based systems do not have the same conundrum, because in those systems the duration of an effect does not depend on which player receives the effect. ie. the expiration timer for any effect is based on the player who produced the effect, not the player who receives it. The LoL ruleset is pretty much sui generis in taking the latter approach.

I can deal with it now that I understand it, but it's definitely not simple to figure out - for example, if I have Plauge(1), I don't really have the plague, and if I have Stoneskin(1), I won't be protected from the enemy.

[Loops]

I wonder if you couldn't address some of the confusion by modifying how a status effect on a friendly unit with duration 1 is displayed, since that is one of the more important (and easily misread) pieces of information.

You could look at a label change to maybe hint that *this effect is temporary and disappears at the end of your turn* instead of just showing "1". Or perhaps do something with the icon to visually indicate it's 'fading out'.

I don't think the current system is bad, but it does take some getting-used-to to realize that a buff that says "1" disappears when you hit end turn and a buff spell that says 2 turns will only lasts through *one* of your opponent's.
- Loops