SkullFace wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 11:55 amAll of which are straw arguments that really should be put to be bed once and for all. Sense MO is not required, rather it's Common Sense. A simple tap with a low damage weapon or spell, or viewing the profile of the character, will reveal the likely MO of a potential target. There is no catastrophic loss of abilities for 99% of the Angelic horde, it's a fiction.
The old reliable "taste morality" strategy can work for a low level hunter who is just trying to find sleeping targets, at least for a time. Even love-tapping for a MO check will result in the hits to the morality, meaning an eventual stop to attacking altogether and needing to search for FAKs or take Engineering (mentioned below) to correct.
You are right that someone can conclude the MO of a lot of characters in the Nexus: angels are good, demons are evil, NCs are neutral, all transcended NPCs are neutral. But this does assume a sleeping target or an inactive NPC character. Against an active opponent, or against a large pet shield, things work a bit differently. I don't think someone can just click on a character's profile and check if they're an NPC when ten pets are eating their face; they need to choose to fight back or run away. And choosing to fight at the wrong time can easily drop a character under 20 MO, especially if they've already been taking MO hits by attacking other targets.
I don't see this as a problem, necessarily. It's just as aspect of angel life. You either attack and take the risk of your MO dropping too much, or you choose to pass up targets unless your more certain of their MO or there is less risk. It's getting T3 powers in exchange for needing to be more discerning with action choices, much like how demons get T3 powers in exchange for nobody else being able to heal them.
SkullFace wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 11:55 amMO inertia will keep truly Good characters in a state of grace. For those rare occasions when someone really messes up there are 10 CP utility abilities such as Engineering or the Advocat who can wash away your sins with click of a button.
I'll admit, I'm not that familiar with exactly how the MO inertia system works. From what I've seen about it, it seems to mostly penalize good characters and for characters towards evil when gaming the system (or at least make gaming the system harder). Did someone kill an angel and then expect to repair doors to recover their MO? Well now it takes longer for them to get back up to positive, because the angel kill is lowering the MO gain from the inertia.
I've not really noticed it happening in reverse - I don't know if killing demons makes MO-lowering actions give less of a hit - so I can't say if that changes the situation. It certainly would if that's the case, but my good-Revenant doesn't have any more blood ice/soul ice to see if they take the same MO hit after chewing on a 6-pack of IBs. I guess I'll find found in B6.
I'll also point out how the required 10CP Sense Morality is considered a "strawman" but the solution is to purchase the 10CP Engineering skill. I'll admit that Engineering has more utility than Sense Morality, but it's still practically a requirement. And sure, it's not technically required - a good MO character could just gain EXP from healing, Engineering, Repair, Alchemy, and so on. But "be a crafter" isn't a good reply to somebody wanting to play a combat angel character. It's not
bad to have such restrictions or forcing a player to do the extra work, but I don't think that claiming there are none is fair either.
Also, how does a -40 MO character get to talk with an Advocate to get their sin eaten, outside being in the same faction or some discord conversations? My experience with evil characters and Advocates have generally not involved the skill Sin Eater, even when the characters don't attack or have all pets set to defensive/passive. It's also not very relevant to a character who has dropped to 19 MO, either losing their angel powers or just losing the protecting of Elysium pets, which is generally the situation we're looking at here. I doubt a combat-crazed Seraph is going to drop all the way to -40 MO even if they're ignoring target morality.
SkullFace wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 11:55 amAgain, nobody need invest 70 CP in MO focussed skills, this is a myth, a straw argument.
I've addressed Sense Morality above, but do people honestly use angelic characters to attack neutral targets without Hand of Zealotry? It seems like a very risky situation. Sure, an angel at 40 MO could probably take the hit and stay in good MO, assuming they deal enough damage.
However, in the discussion of Lightspeaker pets, I don't think that's relevant. Lightspeaker pets will attack neutral targets ONLY with the HoZ skill, with a few exceptions. A Lightspeaker who wants their wheel to roll over neutral targets doesn't even get the iffy proposition of taking a MO hit to get a kill. Instead, their pets just act like they're passive against anything but evil targets without the skill purchase.
SkullFace wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 11:55 amAnd the Lightspeaker endgame is entirely voluntary, it is a choice not a "woe is me I'm missing out".
Fair enough. Other T3 endgames do require some specific skills to access or interact with, after all.
SkullFace wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 11:55 amUnaligned characters lack many of the benefits of the forces of Evil and Good. They are pretty much the whipping boy of the Nexus. As noted elsewhere, no Angel or Demon suffers default planar damage on Neutral planes; their planes are the literal hunting ground for the Aligned classes.
Really? I've always considered unaligned characters to be the most versatile. Conduits can craft every enchantment but holy/unholy, Luches and Elementalist can petshield in any faction, ESs and even NCs can jump into nearly any faction they want. While
unaligned factions suffer a number of restrictions based on needing to have unaligned (restricted) morality by definition, the unaligned classes themselves have a lot more variety.
Altho the idea of angels and demons suffering planar damage on B6 Purg (even if just in specific areas, like the stronger environmental damage on Elysium/Stygia) that doesn't affect transcended or mortals does sound like a good idea. It could work as a "more safe" zone for strictly transcended characters to help keep demons and angels out.
SkullFace wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 11:55 amIf there are any significant changes coming then arguably the Neutral / Unaligned aspects of gameplay should get those changes first. The unaligned are long overdue some upward balancing, not the depowering that is being mooted elsewhere in these forums (e.g. Eye of Death, Lich).
I think that changes can be applied to everyone at equal pacing. I don't know that the development of Nexus Clash involves so much focus that people need to only make changes to one class at a time. More changes for angels or demons probably means there were better ideas to implement for those classes, as opposed to a deliberate attempt to make angels characters better than transcended characters.
I'm not sure why there's an interest in nerfing Eye of Death. I've not use the skill myself, and it can be used in conjunction with Psychic Bloodhound and Psychometry to help with tracking as opposed to instead of it.