It worked fine before. Why'd you change it?

I have to say I think this is a negative change.

Darkness/UV was a powerful combo, but so is Haste, and as recently discussed, being powerful is not in itself enough to warrant a change.

This change has made UV effectively useless and made darkness a cosmetic spell to scare children and not much else.

Darkness/UV gave a second option apart from Inviso/see inviso for avoiding combat, or starting combat. In this way it made combat more skilful, as players had to bet both ways, anticipate or find the right hotkey under pressure. Any reduction in skill favours powerful builds over interesting ones.

Having played on a server where darkness was nerfed, I think EfU had it

I'd like to see darkness made as it's original, UV pots are really common drops, and now darkness is just a lame RP spell than a useful spell for combat. And if your going to nerf spells that are supposedly cheap, your better off starting with the cheapest ones.

:evil: Evil :evil: wrong :evil: change :evil: back :evil: now :evil: or :evil: see :evil: evil :evil: emotes

I too liked darkness as it originally was. I guess the question that should be posed is: Why was it changed? I am sure there is a reason that we might not be seeing at the moment. But as previously stated, I think it was a major downgrade in every aspect of the spell.

As I remember it, it's often EfU policy for spells to not do anything more than what they actually do mechanically, altough you in some cases may roleplay it out.

I would suspect this change come from the fact that ultravision only removes the mechanical penalty when in darkness, rather than the black field covering your actual on screen vision.

Still, I too am curious why it was changed.

Edit: Spelling, it's late.

I'd wager the change was made because of the way NPC's react when placed in a cloud of darkness.

Still, seems like it does more harm than good to the mechanics.

Meh, Tab compensated for any cosmetic disadvantage of darkness. I am really saddened that this spell was nerfed. IMO it wasn't overpowered with the commonness of ultravision loot, and added a useful flavour to combat. I am also at a loss why it no longer provides cover for rogues to stealth in, it seemingly makes perfect sense.

I think this was an unnecessary change to a useful, but not overpowered spell.

I'd like to hear some of the other side of the coin on this one. Obviously there is a lot of support for it remaining the way it was, but then why was it changed?

I agree as well that this change seems like a bad idea, but DMs don't make frivolous decisions unless it's about punishing me. Hopefully somebody with an @ will chime in and lay it down for us, homeslices.

At the same time, I know that being in charge often means making unpopular decisions, so I hope that if the DMs' decision is a good one that they don't change it just because we don't like it now. Maybe in time and in practice, with a little tuning, it could become a well-used spell again.

This was changed because darkness breaks AI.

Was there no way to change how it effects NPC's, but not PC's?

Also, I believe the AI breaks only as long as the spell lasts, they stand there in abyssal darkness for....18 seconds.

not long if you ask me.

How does it break AI, Exile? I have been killed in darkness several times, it is not like they stand around and do nothing. They just miss 50% in my experience.

This change has been in EFU since March 23, I believe. Certainly many months. There has not been a recent script change, Scotty was just mentioning it publicly since we forgot to do that way back when.

So the furor is amusing to me. You're more than half a year late.

Anyway, the original problem was that the bioware effect of "Darkness" is crippling to monster AI - they pretty much just shut down and stand there.

Trust me on this one, the fix was necessary.

I am sickened by this change in mechanics and DM Howland in particular.

It only breaks AI for a short period. And the biggest thing is, if you attack them in the dark they attack back after a round or so. I have certainly used darkness attacked, got attacked and ended up only surviving because of the concealment that they have in addition.

I for one welcome and support our fascist overlords DM team!

That spell was ridiculously broken and overpowered. It was an exploit. It's gone now.

The way darkness has been for the past eight months is the way it will continue to be. If you have not noticed anything, please continue to be happy!

...*smacks his forehead&*

He lies! It's all a conspiracy!

Next they'll say "oh but there was always a random chance for drow assassins to spawn within your inn room!" and "oh but you always started at level one, level two? what sort of nonsense is that?!"

All lies secrets and lies.

I WANT TO COMPLAIN TOO.

Oh, nothing changed you say?

Why hasn't anything changed? Why are you so static? Change Darkness, I say.

Slippery Slope.

SLIPPERY SLOPE!!!!

In the online world, this is what's known as a stealth nerf to give complainers no foothold in discussion over a change, when it's announced months after it's change.

Good work.

DM Team 1 Complainers 0

The conservatist in me cries himself to sleep.

Osukarimashita.

Howland are you sure it was changed several months ago because part of the change was that Ultravision no longer worked against it but about a month or two ago i used ultravision to see through a darkness spell and it worked just fine?

Being ignorant of all game mechanics keeps me happy. :lol:

I did think there was something wrong with the spell, I thought it was a bug in it in EfU, now I see it was the change that was put in place.

Now a lot of things are making sense.