TLR and combination moves

[Its_A_Random]

Okay after thinking about it for a bit, I guess there are a few things that can be true:

• Combinations are pretty deadly when it comes to Uber level TLR's. The length and the sheer number of encounters as well as the general higher quality of the opposition makes these TLR's really knife-edged and incredibly difficult to win, even with combinations delayed.
  
• On the other hand when it comes to Legendary or lower level TLR's, the difficulty is lower and even with Combinations, most of these TLR's in general can be pretty easy and in some cases, combinations are the -only- way a referee can keep a well-suited team in check (i.e. provide a challenge as opposed to rolling over and dying without a fight). Debilitating consequences as a result of combinations in Legendary and Training TLR's appear to be much lower than they are in Uber TLR's.
• What this would mean is that something like a Training Difficulty TLR could get away with a 1-1 timer for all encounters and the same could be said for the majority of Legendary TLR encounters. Uber TLR's on the other hand could not get away with 1-1 timers due to the high general difficulty and should have combination timers bigger than 1-1 to keep in line with the idea of a challenge being beatable and not impossible.
• Of course if a TLR encounter proves to be consistently too damaging, then the combination timers can be fiddled with.

This is the beauty with the proposed dual timer system; If some encounter is proving to be too inane with a 1-1 timer, we can hit it and make the encounter inherently easier. Alternatively if an encounter is too cripples, you can make the timers earlier. While some TLR's will not have a difficulty change, others like The Planet's Fury can have their encounters nerfed so that they can be more realistic in terms of giving people a fair challenge, giving the designer a licence to raise the difficulty of an encounter creatively and not have to worry about it being too difficult by setting the timer to a non 1-1 value. The timer should also go both ways like some said for fairness. As for implementations, the timers for each encounter will mainly come down to owner's and/or designer's discretion mainly as a sanity check (as long as the designer does not set something ridiculous).

If there are no real objections, then the dual timer can be implemented and we can put this issue to bed. The main point from this is that the idea of the timer is to be able to scale down the difficulty of the more difficult encounters while the easier TLR's can get away with instant combinations simply because the encounter is not strong enough to consistently work with combinations. The idea of people circumventing timer regulations with 1-1 timers and nothing changing as a result with regards to difficult encounters, alongside the idea of TLR's becoming too easy as a result of the timer, is just hyperbole.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

I like the direction this discussion has gone and it looks like its wrapped up so before its put to rest I want to hear final words from Frosty (major opponent) and Deck Knight (original suggestor) about Dogfish's proposal that we appear to be going with. After that it's in DF/IARs hands

 

[Frosty]

The system itself can be either limitating or not really depending on the designer of the TLR. Which is good.

Personally I am against limitating one part of the gameplay when there are other ways to achieve the same goal. But since the end result is roughly the same and it makes it easier to balance uber dungeons, I guess it makes no difference if combos are restricted or not, I suppose.

I just warn that, due to the intense nature of triples, if you delay combos to round 2, while it seems like a small hinderance (only 1 round), it is actually a pretty big limit, as the first round is where stuff is broken mostly. In the other hand, delaying from round 2 to round 3 (and so on) makes little difference, unless you are facing 3 opponents instead of the usual 2 (making the mechanic more useful and interesting on uber dungeons).

But hey, fine by me. At least makes ordering easier for the player.

 

[Deck Knight]

I trust the judgement of the TLR Refs and participants to come up with a good system. Difficulty and Playability are both considered and the system proposed is flexible enough to allow for specific scenarios or crucial exceptions. Move ahead.

 

[Its_A_Random]

Gerard you can finally go and challenge The Planet's Fury since the thing you are waiting for is over and will be implemented across several days or hours or something.

(Dual Timers are going to be a thing as of now in new TLR's)