Pacify Mastery

DrZola

Perusing the forums and looking at my own (and my friends’ recent game anecdotes), I’m curious whether there’s any sense that the Pacify mastery’s often unexpected effects on nodes is a positive or a negative thing.

Like most masteries, Pacify hasn’t really been touched since the concept of masteries began. With the proliferation of abilities and accuracy reduction in game over the past couple of years, I’m leaning toward revisiting the intended effects of Pacify or at a minimum clarifying precisely when and where it’s supposed to work.

Maybe I’m in my own private Idaho on this one. Maybe not. Curious what others think...

Dr. Zola

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DrZola

HI_guys said:

The mastery itself and its effects are all fine. It's just that only recently are we seeing nodes that benefit the attacker. The whole change of ideals that seek to reward is instead of punish.

This is what is causing people to dislike and question the mastery

That’s the point. Does that make the game better/more interesting when a mastery causes a node to work “differently” and against the player?

Shouldn’t that different set of effects be spelled out somewhere (other than on a forums that is loosely organized and frequented by a small minority of players)?

Are those intended effects?

Dr. Zola

Campo4

I think this is worthy discussion because there are times when pacify mastery seems to reduce the ability accuracy of a beneficial part of the node.

Two examples I have witnessed are Slumber, where the stun but not the power lock proc, and flux dispersal where when stunned a heavy attack does not remove charges.

I think this is a symptom of a mastery that was designed in 2015 that was intended to help prevent Magik limbo, SW poison, etc during a stun and greatly benefited champs like Elektra that already had base AAR. Additionally the complex interactions we see today did not exist back then so there may be some unintended consequences.

There are times when the mastery works as intended but can impede your fight flow, for example Thing’s rock stacks.

For me personally, I need points to lead to mystic dispersion and I have just recently swapped out my 2 points in pacify to more points in limber.

I don’t think this is a “bug” but more a change in the complexity of game mechanics which has made a mastery’s initial function somewhat out dated.

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JueVioleGrace

DrZola said:

HI_guys said:

The mastery itself and its effects are all fine. It's just that only recently are we seeing nodes that benefit the attacker. The whole change of ideals that seek to reward is instead of punish.

This is what is causing people to dislike and question the mastery

That’s the point. Does that make the game better/more interesting when a mastery causes a node to work “differently” and against the player?

Shouldn’t that different set of effects be spelled out somewhere (other than on a forums that is loosely organized and frequented by a small minority of players)?

Are those intended effects?

Dr. Zola

Recently, Pacify has had nothing but negative effects for me and ironically does more bad than good.

But maybe it can be looked at like we do with the suicide masteries. There's times where it's really helpful, and then times where you wish you had it turned off.

I think it goes beyond being just a mastery, and into how AAR in general works in the game. Either Pacify itself gets changed, or the rules of AAR gets changed in the sense of how it can have negative effects.

Kill_Grey

I hate it. Doesn't allow me to benefit from cav difficulty nodes, and that alone is enough for me to want it turned off permanently.

Only time it comes in clutch is in situations like Claire versus 6.1.5 Crossbones; or something like CMM versus caustic temper doctor strange.

DrZola

Thank you @Kill_Grey @Campo4 @HI_guys @JueVioleGrace

This is the type of discussion that’s useful in forums (and hopefully for the team as well).

I’d be curious to know what some other denizens like @DNA3000 and @LeNoirFaineant and @Worknprogress think as well as anyone else who has constructive thoughts.

Dr. Zola

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Thicco_Mode

HI_guys said:

The mastery itself and its effects are all fine. It's just that only recently are we seeing nodes that benefit the attacker. The whole change of ideals that seek to reward is instead of punish.

This is what is causing people to dislike and question the mastery

well said. i dropped pacify a while ago for reasons like this and for fighting thing

Worknprogress

DrZola said:

Thank you @Kill_Grey @Campo4 @HI_guys @JueVioleGrace

This is the type of discussion that’s useful in forums (and hopefully for the team as well).

I’d be curious to know what some other denizens like @DNA3000 and @LeNoirFaineant and @Worknprogress think as well as anyone else who has constructive thoughts.

Dr. Zola

It's always been a double edged sword really, it's just coming to light in more cases to more people lately I feel.

Could always stop something Thing gaining rock stacks when you want him to just like assassin does. Could stop a champ that gets buffs from being hit when you're using Sym and want to fuel MD.

It's more a question of should ability accuracy reduction always favor the player. I personally like the current way it interacts as that gives an additional level of complexity to mastery/champion choices in certain situations. Having to think more about choices and coming across things that don't necessarily work the way you expected and having to adjust to them has always been one of the more engaging sides of this game for me.

Mobius360

Great discussion that just leads me to this:

Perhaps it's really time Mastery swaps stop costing us units.

Why is spending the resources to unlock them not enough?

So many questions with masteries that go unanswered over the years.

Hera1d_of_Ga1actus

Masteries just need a rework, they have not been changed for years so of course they have unique and less than beneficial interactions with current in game abilities and such. If the whole system along with a handful of masteries were reworked we would not have to be pondering these questions

Farrukh_tv

one thing I don't understand with AAR is when it prevents the attacker to do stuff. for example, in variant 5 I think in symbiotes chapter global node AAR messes up your attack sometimes. Maybe I don't have enough knowledge to fully understand it but IMHO that kind of interaction is wrong,

Worknprogress

Mobius360 said:

Great discussion that just leads me to this:

Perhaps it's really time Mastery swaps stop costing us units.

Why is spending the resources to unlock them not enough?

So many questions with masteries that go unanswered over the years.

I, and I'm willing to bet most players, definitely agree that mastery changing is well past due for being looked at. I'm still not firmly in one camp of whether changing should have no cost or lowered cost or even cost something instead of units though.

Then you have to decide whether players being able to freely and quickly change mastery setups is healthy for the game, particularly in competitive areas. I don't necessarily think it would be bad for the game at all but I'm also willing to admit it's still something worth considering

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DrZola

Mobius360 said:

Great discussion that just leads me to this:

Perhaps it's really time Mastery swaps stop costing us units.

Why is spending the resources to unlock them not enough?

So many questions with masteries that go unanswered over the years.

This is a good point and, in hindsight, revisiting masteries should probably have been part of the Roadmap.

Swapping presets would be great for me—but I can also see how it might be problematic for different areas of the game. For example, if I want suicides for AW attack, but not for my defense, how precisely would that work?

Apart from swaps, there’s a good case to be made to take a look at some of the most discussed masteries and their intended interactions (have to throw a Pure Skill plug in here).

Pacify is perhaps the latest example, and I find myself agreeing with @Worknprogress a bit: it can be an interesting part of the game.

However, I’d rather that interesting aspect be part of the official team communications (example: “Hey Summoners we are introducing a new node called ###—watch out, your Pacify points and AAR champs may make this one act unpredictably!”).

As it is now, many of us just wind up scrounging around on YouTube or chats to figure out what’s happening. Who knows? It’s even possible that some of these “the game is bugged” posts could be reduced if the team cracked masteries back open again...

Dr. Zola

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Worknprogress

HI_guys said:

Worknprogress said:

Mobius360 said:

Great discussion that just leads me to this:

Perhaps it's really time Mastery swaps stop costing us units.

Why is spending the resources to unlock them not enough?

So many questions with masteries that go unanswered over the years.

I, and I'm willing to bet most players, definitely agree that mastery changing is well past due for being looked at. I'm still not firmly in one camp of whether changing should have no cost or lowered cost or even cost something instead of units though.

Then you have to decide whether players being able to freely and quickly change mastery setups is healthy for the game, particularly in competitive areas. I don't necessarily think it would be bad for the game at all but I'm also willing to admit it's still something worth considering

One "health" issue that comes to my mind is that players no longer need to care about suicide friendliness since you could just swap masteries between fights in a quest.

Sure that was always allowed but not something that you could do on a regular basis

Exactly. Pretty much where I was going with that especially in regards to something like war. I'm not sure I really feel that's "unhealthy" but I admit changing how it works currently would have large effects on how people are able to plan and play

Mobius360

HI_guys said:

Why would this be an issue? Isn't the way it works now like whichever mastery you have when war starts is given to defense champs ?

I'm pretty sure the mastery your Defense gets is the mastery you have when you set them.

DrZola

HI_guys said:

DrZola said:

Mobius360 said:

Great discussion that just leads me to this:

Perhaps it's really time Mastery swaps stop costing us units.

Why is spending the resources to unlock them not enough?

So many questions with masteries that go unanswered over the years.

Swapping presets would be great for me—but I can also see how it might be problematic for different areas of the game. For example, if I want suicides for AW attack, but not for my defense, how precisely would that work?



Dr. Zola

Why would this be an issue? Isn't the way it works now like whichever mastery you have when war starts is given to defense champs ?

That’s probably a bad example.

Dr. Zola

BuffBeast

I’m glad you’ve brought this up. I’ve been running pacify for a long time and have been wondering why I wasn’t getting affects that are meant to benefit me. It’s like those commercials for a type of medicine that are *meant* to heal you but have all these awful side effects, and they dont want to tell you about them directly so they either hide them or read them real fast at the end. I also completely agree with people saying that masteries need revision. I want the “coming soon” ones to be addressed aswell, in terms of whether or not they plan to release them at all or if they’re gonna scrap them. Seriously, it’s been years and I haven’t seen anything about them.
Anyway, that’s my two cents about this

IvarTheBoneless

The first time I noticed this was a month after variant 2 dropped. I was exploring chapter 2 and there's a node that gives mystic attackers unstoppable and indestructible after a heavy.

At the time, it was a sucky path because I didn't have a lot of options and using the node looked like a lot of fun. Ranked up dormammu only to have the node rarely work. I remember being very frustrated because I didn't know what was going on and there was no explanation anywhere. My thoughts were: pacify was a mastery that benefitted you, no way it could have a negayive impact in any way. This is mostly due to the state of the game and nodes already mentioned in earlier comments.

I guess what I'm coming too is: I agree with Dr Zola and worknprogress, a description would be good so you know it's happening and can adjust and try again. Maybe it's less necessary now (because the issue is widely known now -for example youtubers have mentioned it multiple times) but I still think it could be positive for players.

Mastery swapps? Hell yeah been waiting on that for 2 years let's go!

Seraphion

Campo4 said:

I think this is worthy discussion because there are times when pacify mastery seems to reduce the ability accuracy of a beneficial part of the node.

Two examples I have witnessed are Slumber, where the stun but not the power lock proc, and flux dispersal where when stunned a heavy attack does not remove charges.

I think this is a symptom of a mastery that was designed in 2015 that was intended to help prevent Magik limbo, SW poison, etc during a stun and greatly benefited champs like Elektra that already had base AAR. Additionally the complex interactions we see today did not exist back then so there may be some unintended consequences.

There are times when the mastery works as intended but can impede your fight flow, for example Thing’s rock stacks.

For me personally, I need points to lead to mystic dispersion and I have just recently swapped out my 2 points in pacify to more points in limber.

I don’t think this is a “bug” but more a change in the complexity of game mechanics which has made a mastery’s initial function somewhat out dated.

A bit off topic but why not go 3/3 into Petrify as a stepping stone for MD?

Its really good and def helps more than Limber

@Campo4

Silver_Goose

I run max Pacify. If there’s one of those nodes, i just don’t bring a parry/stun reliant champ, and use an intercept heavy playstyle.

Seraphion

Worknprogress said:

Mobius360 said:

Great discussion that just leads me to this:

Perhaps it's really time Mastery swaps stop costing us units.

Why is spending the resources to unlock them not enough?

So many questions with masteries that go unanswered over the years.

I, and I'm willing to bet most players, definitely agree that mastery changing is well past due for being looked at. I'm still not firmly in one camp of whether changing should have no cost or lowered cost or even cost something instead of units though.

Then you have to decide whether players being able to freely and quickly change mastery setups is healthy for the game, particularly in competitive areas. I don't necessarily think it would be bad for the game at all but I'm also willing to admit it's still something worth considering

@Worknprogress

I dont see a problem with free swaps even if we look at war. In high Tier war they swap mastery’s often anyway. This would only make War a little bit more free to play friendly.

Also the fact that some mastery are killing you or give you a big disadvantage when fighting special champs really calls for free swaps. Just to name a few:

Willpower vs Warlock
Dex vs Mojo/Dorm/SS
Suicides vs Void


On the other hand everyone even in lower Tiers would run 5/5 limber and make war overall harder which could be a problem.

But there would be an easy solution. Give every defender in the game the same default mastery page. Or just put in parry and dex. The fact that every 5 champion can have a diffrent mastery setup is actuly annoying at times. This would make the game more clear.

Worknprogress

Seraphion said:

Worknprogress said:

Mobius360 said:

Great discussion that just leads me to this:

Perhaps it's really time Mastery swaps stop costing us units.

Why is spending the resources to unlock them not enough?

So many questions with masteries that go unanswered over the years.

I, and I'm willing to bet most players, definitely agree that mastery changing is well past due for being looked at. I'm still not firmly in one camp of whether changing should have no cost or lowered cost or even cost something instead of units though.

Then you have to decide whether players being able to freely and quickly change mastery setups is healthy for the game, particularly in competitive areas. I don't necessarily think it would be bad for the game at all but I'm also willing to admit it's still something worth considering

@Worknprogress

I dont see a problem with free swaps even if we look at war. In high Tier war they swap mastery’s often anyway. This would only make War a little bit more free to play friendly.

Also the fact that some mastery are killing you or give you a big disadvantage when fighting special champs really calls for free swaps. Just to name a few:

Willpower vs Warlock
Dex vs Mojo/Dorm/SS
Suicides vs Void


On the other hand everyone even in lower Tiers would run 5/5 limber and make war overall harder which could be a problem.

But there would be an easy solution. Give every defender in the game the same default mastery page. Or just put in parry and dex. The fact that every 5 champion can have a diffrent mastery setup is actuly annoying at times. This would make the game more clear.

Yes mastery swaps between placing defense and attack are common but multiple swaps during attack paths most certainly are not. People may remove dex for a Mojo but that's not remotely close the resetting the entire offense tree between suicides and without.

Those disadvantages are all a point in the planning and champ choices as far as I'm concerned. Again, I'm not saying it's inherently bad but it's not even close to as black and white to say yes it's good for the game either.

Campo4

Seraphion said:

Campo4 said:

I think this is worthy discussion because there are times when pacify mastery seems to reduce the ability accuracy of a beneficial part of the node.

Two examples I have witnessed are Slumber, where the stun but not the power lock proc, and flux dispersal where when stunned a heavy attack does not remove charges.

I think this is a symptom of a mastery that was designed in 2015 that was intended to help prevent Magik limbo, SW poison, etc during a stun and greatly benefited champs like Elektra that already had base AAR. Additionally the complex interactions we see today did not exist back then so there may be some unintended consequences.

There are times when the mastery works as intended but can impede your fight flow, for example Thing’s rock stacks.

For me personally, I need points to lead to mystic dispersion and I have just recently swapped out my 2 points in pacify to more points in limber.

I don’t think this is a “bug” but more a change in the complexity of game mechanics which has made a mastery’s initial function somewhat out dated.

A bit off topic but why not go 3/3 into Petrify as a stepping stone for MD?

Its really good and def helps more than Limber

@Campo4

Not a bad idea. I chose limber for my defenders. I find if I need heal reversal I have other means of achieving it, and as for giving them less power during stun that can be nice unless it’s a fight where you need to keep them throwing specials for openings or something. I wouldn’t want petrify on 100% of the time because there may be scenarios where I want to feed them the normal amount of power.

Might sound like a weird explanation but that was my reasoning.