Griefing suspision: The new 1.10 bonewall...

[GenericKen]

Other non-hostile players ARE allowed to unsummon other player bonewalls, right?

[Roland]

AFAIK, non-hostiles were NEVER allowed to unsummon another character's summons - be it Bone Wall, Clay Golem, or whatever. Why would that have changed? What justification is there for such an idea, in any case?

[MongoJerry]

Even the necromancer himself can't unsummon his own bone walls or prisons. I know what you're driving at, though, because I thought of it, too, when I was playing Maldar. Since characters can no longer attack bone walls and prisons, it'd be easy for a malicious necromancer to trap other (non-sorc or barb) characters either as an annoyance or even a PK trick. In hardcore, that's what "Save and Exit" is for.

[GenericKen]

Well, bonewalls are a special case, since players can't clip through them. This should be a serrious consideration.

[Crystalion]

Since characters can no longer attack bone walls and prisons

I saw this statement made many times during beta. It is not strictly true. Many methods of attack that previously harmed bone walls now ignore them, but not all (as of v1.10s--sorry, I'm too busy ATM to test everything in v1.10 release).

Nonetheless, bone walls/prisons could indeed be a major "grief" spell. But, like Everquest, there are already so many ways for players to agrieve one another you really must be willing to fall back on the old "I'm not playing if you're around" solution from time to time. YMMV.

[Roland]

I thought you were posing the question of whether or not Bone Walls could be unsummoned by someone other than the owner - thus griefing the owner of the Bone Walls. In reality, you are posing the question of Bone Walls blocking PCs. IIRC, this CAN be fixed by making Bone Walls / Prisons a "Mercenary" class creature, I believe (memory is foggy as to whether or not this works perfectly), which is done the same way that Bone Walls were changed from a "hostile" to a "friendly" (or was it neutral?). A small change, very easily made (takes a matter of seconds, and only a matter of minutes to implement into a patch - not that you need a patch for Realms).

I can't recall whether you can walk through Bone Walls or not. I don't believe so, at least for the caster, but I'm not 100% certain for other players. Mercenaries / Pets I am certain cannot pass through, however, which would lead me to believe that neither can players. Intriguing development, and one I hadn't thought of while doing work on my 1.10 mod (which did make Bone Walls / Prisons neutral / friendly).

We shall see how this develops, but as has already been said - it's a trivial issue compared to most other ways to grief someone.

[NiteFox]

But aren't BW and BP considered "absentee" spells?

Terminated the casting of 'absentee' skills such as the Sorceress' Meteor, Firewall, Blaze, Hydra; the Assassin's Sentries; the Druid's Volcano; etc. when the player enters town. This prevents declaring Hostility and doing immediate damage to the unsuspecting.

Of course, knowing Blizzard they've forgotten about the lame ol' Necromancer and his skills.

And it's still possible to PK block, all it requires is two players instead of one: Necro casts BW over their "buddies" while their partner heads on into town and declares hostile.

Still, duration is cut in half. That's another consideration to take.

[Loki]

Also you have to wait 10 seconds after you became hostile before you can enter tps or wps. So the person that was blocked has plenty of time to save/exit before pked.

[Pren]

There's always simply walling/prisoning someone up while they're in combat with a bunch of ranged attackers and waiting for them to die/quit/portal away.

People most likely wouldn't realize what was going on at first.

[Occhidiangela]

Tp Scrolls in a slot on the belt to make for autocast. IIRC, it does not get kicked out of the bone wall upon casting, and you are in town very quickly.

Comments, or is that defense no longer a good one?

[GenericKen]

I'm not talking about half-a-second-and-then-you're-dead-griefing, I'm takling about Anya's-only-four-feet-away-stop-casting-those-bonewalls-you-bastard-god-damnit-I-don't-wanna-save-and-quit. Or even more general asshattery when you're trying to exp with a good party and some neutral comes along and stops you stone-cold.

[Occhidiangela]

Should be outlawed.

*snickers*

But until they are, I now have a great way to get back at pubbies who act like jerkoffs.
Thanks for the tip, I had not considered that before.

:)

*ducks as Bolty swings a trout*

[GenericKen]

Damnit, don't spread it around!

[Brista]

Quite a while ago there was a post here about an Annoyamancer - a necromancer that specialises in annoying people

Terror on melee character's monsters and bone walling closed town exits - the Pandemonium Fortress in particular were two of the tactics

The Necromancer has always been able to do this to some extent although I think it is a very valid point that it is now boosted

Consider: Nec and Zon fighting Diablo. Diablo down to a sliver. The Nec traps the Zon then wonders over to inspect the drop at his leisure :blink:

Crystalion's tactic of playing with people you like works though :)