NEUS Projects

Just started having thoughts about Oracles and how they could possibly be reworked for general benefit.

Let me know if any of this is possible or even wanted, looking forward to positive response and helpful critics about why things wont work ^^

Lets start with the GOOD!

Firstly, if it is even possible I think as oracles are farseer's it'd be nice if they had some benefits such as:

Being able to tell how many floors, and how many total monsters (encounters) are in a dungeon when they enter, in the form of a prompt in the chat box (such as corrupted get upon a star color change)

I doubt this is possible but it would be amazing, seeing what players will say before it is said (since they can see the future) :lol: Or even extending the range that they can "hear" making them able to hear mumblers and people off screen to a point!

The ability to always see traps in dungeons or at least a large boost to their range to detect them. (again, they see the future)

Maybe they know how many chests and collectables (IE gather points) are on a floor on entering.

Less of a game mechanic, more of an RP one, but perhaps make a discord group for oracles where people post when they need help in a dungeon or something, and oracles in game need to alert players, rather than everyone knowing someone needs help in so and so dungeon "magically" it'd add a nice RP reason to have oracles around

Onto the BAD EVIL NASTY stuff.

first off, nothing this good comes without terrible repercussions. so lets get those out of the way here.

Oracles are forever inflicted with UNCURABLE Blind status, making them always have -100 hit. it fits with the lore of them having milky white eyes as well!

When an enemy is more than 1 space away from an oracle, the oracle gains a -50 evade debuff as they're too busy focusing on every event around them to dodge. making them terrible for combat.

I know what you're thinking! But they'll just be mages, and wont even need to worry about blind! well I got that covered as well.

Oracles spells cost 50% more focus to cast (can even have a chance to fizzle as their focus is broken by a future event they saw that distracted them)
and on top of that, all forms of FP regeneration will be forever HALVED...as they are constantly expending focus on reading future events. (such as vampire healing only 25% from anything other than Silvermists as an example of Regeneration being cut.)

so say you get 30FP per turn regen from traits and skills, it'd be 15 only. food FP regen would also be halved (so fugu katsu as an example would only heal 20% post battle rather than 40%)

Things like this would make oracles require a party to function, which would be helpful as most of their current racial traits benefit party play. also makes them less combat and more RP oriented.

These are of course just idea's I had, hopefully some of them seem useful.

If you read this whole thing, thanks, you're awesome! All feedback is welcome, so long as it isn't overly hateful

Have a wonderful day.

I'd argue these points could be re focused into a set of optional traits in the trait rework.

Also I feel that the down sides are bit harsh, atleast without a positive to weigh against them.

Like the perma blind could be coupled with a boost to their evade and each turn one random enemy is selected and their next attack against that person will hit (has a chance to not select a target in 1v1 fights, maybe another effect happens if no target is selected)

The cons outweigh the pros by a long shot. It's not really worth it imo this seems more like a debuff than a rework. Also they aren't completely blind just like how blind people irl aren't completely blind. It's to a certain degree iirc (leaving it already up to the players choice how blind you really want to be) and they still see certain outlines or refractions of lights maybe but they just can't see from far away thus their hit and evade penalty from ranged attackers but buff against opponents in 1 tile range. You can already RP some of these things IC without having to compromise anything mechanic wise. I assume the reason Oracles aren't involved insanely with foretelling the future like that is because it would allow people to metagame extremely easily. I think they're perfectly fine the way they are mechanic wise they can just use little small tweaks like being able to foreshadow the weather or Iahsus and maybe black beast events and such. Another really interesting idea would be making them expert map users, just by touching/using it they can already "feel" (see rather) where the chest is buried thus giving them a much larger insight on hidden objects/staircases and chests in dungeons. Perhaps an internal compass.

I like the idea that randomly they'll get an auto-hit to a basic attack. this is of course just a rough idea and totally open to re-working to make it more balanced, I just gave it harsh cons so people wouldn't think I was just trying to overpower oracles.

Also like the map idea where just holding it lets them have the location (kind of just like a perma landmarker)

thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated.

EDIT: on the same page as the map idea, I wonder if it would allow the idea for the "seeing" into dungeons thus knowing the depth and density of encounters, I feel like it would help parties know if something is worth the time it would take or if it is clearable before a reboot would happen. just some ideas, I'm not going to pretend I know anything about proper balance, so hopefully my ideas can be taken in by someone who does.

I just really like oracles and the idea of being able to see the future needs more RP uses imo, would also encourage more party playing and roleplaying.

Preoridinance should give messages predicting these things it would be really cool and interesting i.e. they know what color Iahsus will be before it happens and predicting black beast events. And things like a trait called "Scry" which would allow them to solve treasure maps very easily and see how many floors a dungeon has as well as finding staircases easier.