Feedback talk:User/Mcscamper/Rethinking Phantasms

I like the overall tone of this feedback suggesting that Phantasms should be something more than a powered-up clone. I'm also in agreement that many of the Mesmer mechanics are not quite "there", yet. I don't attribute this to bad design, as obviously much care and thought has gone into this profession. Being a master of psychological manipulation, it's a very tough class to get just "right" while maintaining effectiveness and balance with the other professions. Especially within the limits of a game world where so much of the interaction and feedback with that world is purely visual. How does one convey confusion and misdirection, for example, under such limitations? A tall order, indeed.

One thought I have with regards to Phantasms is to return to their roots. Per the wiki, they are desribed as a "...mind trick...[which] will only attack the target upon which they were summoned...[and] can only exist for as long as that target is alive...". I've also heard illusions described as existing only in the mind of their target. Taken as a whole, this implies the Phantasm is not real; it's an hallucination of the Mesmer's target.

To make this manifest in the game, Phantasms should only appear to their target and the Mesmer who cast it; no other players can see the Phantasm. In a PvP scenario, this would certainly up the psychological tension; if a player can see a Phantasm, they know it's coming for them alone, no one else can see it, and no one else can help them defeat it (directly, anyway; more on that below). The Mesmer's target is now wrestling with their own personal demon. The target foe is still free to attack their Phantasm and inflict damage on it, however.

This also has a carry-over effect of sowing discord and confusion among the target's allies as they may witness the target break off from the current combat while swinging at thin air or running from the fight for no apparent reason. To avoid the target's allies mistaking this behavior as leeching/non-participation in the fight, players afflicted with a Phantasm will be marked with an icon similar to the current condition and effect icons or have some sinister swirling magenta aura writhing above their head indicating they are in the throws of battling a Phantasm (the Luxon version of the Ether Nightmare icon comes to mind). The difference being that a Phantasm is not a removable condition; the icon or aura is just there to inform allies why their friend is acting strangely.

To prevent Phantasms from becoming too overpowered as a result of being immune to targeting by anyone other than their intended target, add the following limiters to the Phantasm mechanic:

• A Mesmer may only cast one Phantasm at a time. Casting a new Phantasm shatters the current one (with the possibility of said shatter causing some effect such as damage or confusion to the target). This now gives the Mesmer control over when and where to shatter their Phantasm, addressing one of the concerns raised by the OP.

OR

• A Mesmer may cast more than one Phantasm at a time but no more than one Phantasm per target and no more than three maximum; consistent with the current limitation on illusions. Casting a new Phantasm on a target already haunted by one shatters the previous Phantasm (with the possibility of said shatter causing some effect such as damage or confusion to the target).

• Regardless of which of the two limiter scenarios above are chosen, Phantasms will take damage if they are within any enemy's AoE, weapon striking distance, or projectile path. Though they can not be seen, let alone targeted, by anyone other than their target foe, that foe can use positioning to lure a Phantasm into an AoE, weapon's striking range, or projectile's path.

This may appear to run counter to my earlier suggestion that Phantasms exist only in the mind of the target. This begs the question of how is a psychological manifestation taking damage from a "real" [game] world effect. The answer is - though the Phantasm exists only in the target's mind - it is still subject to the rules that govern that mind. Since the target knows "real" world spell and weapon effects cause damage, this damage also exists in their "mental" world and can be used to harm the mental Phantasm. Phantasms will not retaliate against a player who is not their target; even when taking damage from those other players. They exist to harm their original target and only their original target.

Alternately, if you really want to put a deep psychological spin on this mechanic (which is appropriate in any discussion of the Mesmer), make it so any damage the target receives other than damage from the Phantasm, will harm the Phantasm, as well. Now the player plagued by a Phantasm has to make a choice between the lesser of two evils; battle the Phantasm alone OR intentionally put themselves in harm's way in an effort to inflict damage upon the Phantasm (and hope the Phantasm dies before they do). Now that's Mesmer-y!

The third option is the Phantasm will take damage from both sources; damage from the target's allies' AoEs, weapons, and projectiles and any damage the target receives. This damage would apply regardless of source; for example, the target could jump off a cliff to damage themself and - by extension - their Phantasm, as well.

• If the Mesmer is defeated - and possibly even if merely downed - the Phantasm dissipates.

• Perhaps add an additional limiter that if the target is stunned or dazed, their Phantasm will dissipate. This forces the Mesmer to choose one or the other; summon a Phantasm or daze/stun the target, but not both.

Now for some changes to the Phantasm mechanic:

• Phantasms will no longer be shattered by the Mesmer's profession-specific skill set; only clones will be affected by the F1 - F4 keys. This addresses the issue the OP indentified in their original post of a need for Phantasms to be something more than a powered-up clone. However, they may be shattered as I detailed in the limiter section, above. Only now, the Phantasm shatter is much more specific and under much finer control.

• If Phantasms will be shattered when casting a new Phantasm, the shatter could have different effects depending on which Phantasm is being shattered or which Phantasm is being summoned to replace the current one. This gives the Mesmer some control over what effects they wish to cause to a target when they shatter a Phantasm, rather than a single effect common to all Phantasm shatters.

• Phantasms can't be outrun by their target. They exist in the mind of their target; there's nothing there in the physical world to outrun. This could be accomplished by simply giving Phantasms the Blink skill minus a recharge and activated the instant the target begins to move out of attack range.

• Open to debate whether or not Phantasms - under this proposed system - will count towards the Mesmer's limit of maintaining a maximum of three illusions at a time. Probably best to maintain the limit to prevent the Mesmer from becoming overpowered. Now the Mesmer has to weigh the pros and cons of how many clones do they wish to summon versus how many Phantasms do they wish to summon (assuming the Mesmer is given the ability to summon more than one Phantasm at a time).

Thank you for reading. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 09:17, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're getting at OP. Clones and phantasms have different roles. Clones are illusions that act as an interrupt to foes targeting the player caster, while phantasms are illusions that do more damage or other affects. They are similar, I agree, but what sets them apart is the clone's ability to interrupt, which has always been a core ability for mesmers. If nothing else, the devs could give players the ability to choose which illusion to shatter, rather than all or nothing.

To GW3P - you just made a suggestion in a feedback discussion page, when you should have made a suggestion page of your own with respects (re:link) to this suggestion page. With that said, WOW. You're suggestion is mind-freaky awesome, pun intended. I tried playing a mesmer in BWE2 and I just didn't get it; never mind I'm not that good at a GW1 mesmer. Your idea sounds like a programming nightmare, but awesome nonetheless. In Guild Wars 3, perhaps. Ravencroft0 11:47, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Ravencroft. However, I have to give credit to Mcscamper for getting the ball rolling with both this suggestion and another they wrote on rethinking the Mesmer's profession-specific mechanic. Mesmer is a profession that is difficult to get right, IMHO, and Mcscamper has done a good job of identifying some of the current iteration's shortcomings. This has served as inspiration for my own ideas, but it wouldn't have happened without Mcscamper being the first to break the ice.

As to implementing the Phantasm suggestions I made above, it may not be too difficult to pull off. All of the programming and mechanics already exist, more or less. For example, making a Phantasm appear only to the target and the casting Mesmer while being invisible to everyone else would only require placing a permanent stealth effect on the Phantasm. I'm sure there are programming switches that already exist for testing purposes which allow the devs to see a stealthed Thief, for example. Simply apply the same thing to the Phantasm where the target and Mesmer are concerned. This would also solve the issue of how to make the invisible Phantasm take damage; stealth doesn't protect from damage (that I'm aware of, anyway). It also solves the problem of how to prevent anyone other than the target foe from targeting the Phantasm; if stealthed, a player - and now, the Phantasm, too - can't be targeted.

The Blink already exists; just remove the recharge where the Phantasm is concerned to permit it to always keep up with its target.

With regards to making a Phantasm take damage inflicted upon its target (if that limiter were implemented), that may require some new programming. But I imagine not too much since there's already a semi-precedent with confusion. Confusion causes players affected by this condition to take damage when attacking. So there already exists a mechanic that causes reflective damage. Now all the devs have to do is tweak that a bit to make any damage the target takes be reflected to the Phantasm as well.

It shouldn't be too hard to implement a limiter on how many Phantasms can be cast total and how many can be cast on a single target. That already exists with the current iteration of the Mesmer's illusion mechanic.

Also, I've thought of a new limiter with regards to controlling the number of Phantasms in existence at any one time. Turn the skills into chains. The first cast of a Phantasm skill will cast a Phantasm on a foe. The icon now turns into a skill for shattering that specific Phantasm. It would work similar to the Necomancer's minion skills where the first cast summons the minion and the second cast destroys the minion (or causes some secondary effect). This would further help limit the number of Phantasms running around on the battlefield while at the same time granting the Mesmer the ability to choose exactly which Phantasm they wish to shatter and/or which effect they want to cause with their shatter. Doing so separates the clones from the Phantasms. The clones become the illusions effected en masse by the profession-specific F1 - F4 keys, while the Phantasms become a more narrowly targeted and more finely controlled form of shatter.

I'll post the above as its own suggestion along with your comments in the discussion tab. I'll leave the original here, though. It's then up to Mcscamper if they want to delete it or not from their discussion page as this is their suggestion to begin with. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 17:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

A lovely reaction as always, GWP3. I'll probably read up on your suggestion and reply to that later myself.

Ravencroft, what I was trying to address was exactly what you're talking about. I wanted to separate clones and phantasms. However, you say that clones "act as an interrupt to foes targeting the player caster," and while that might have been the initial aim, the only in-game mechanic that performs that function is Stealth. You can summon out an army of clones and, so long as your opponent has a target lock on you, nothing will prevent homing attacks from striking you. However, that is an entirely different problem. With this suggestion for phantasms, I was trying to devise a way to make them invulnerable to the current Shatter mechanic and participate more actively in a battle without being too overpowered. Honestly, GWP3's suggestion does the same thing and I actually kind of like his more than mine. I simply designed mine by going on my minimal knowledge of the current in-game mechanics. It's probably easy to make Phantasms into pseudo-pet-commands for active Clones, but honestly it's a somewhat lazy solution to the problem. Mcscamper 00:20, 27 July 2012 (UTC)