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Aside from buffs and debuffs, we only have three real statuses, both good or bad. These being Sleep, Root, and Fear. So I was thinking zOMG! could do with a few more. I'll kick things off with a couple of ideas.

Berserk: Your hit rate is reduced (a seperate check from accuracy/dodge) but every hit you manage to land is a critical hit.
Curse: Although your Dodge is unaffected, you become more susceptible to critical hits.
Stickybomb: Slows your footspeed slightly. If struck by a critical hit, the bomb goes off, damaging you and all nearby targets (friend and foe alike). You can pass it to another target by attacking it.
Confusion: All attacks will target the closest target, friend or foe. AoE attacks will hit both enemies and allies. Buffs and healing will also target the nearest target.

Well, a simple one would be Blind. Turn the screen black, remove the target pane (or just make it all ???). Remove the crew pane (perhaps making it just go ??? for the period of the effect). Perhaps make spacebar, or whatever people might use to select themselves, not work. Maybe make Q (or whatever people toggle that too) not work if you really want to be mean.

Rage (or perhaps Berserk) - you lose all buffs and none will stick to you. Maybe hit rate lowers, or you lose health (or maybe just your natural dodge rate goes down). In return, you get all crit hits.

Stun - basically, what you get with Root and Fear, but just in one status effect. Person doesn't move away (like Fear), can't fight back (like Root), and attacking them doesn't immediately break the effect (like sleep). Could be made so that doing a certain amount of damage would break the effect, and of course time would break the effect.

Effect specific Sleep.
- Can't heal.
- Can't attack.
- Can't buff.

Anger/Taunted/etc. - Ability to resist debuffs and status effects, as well as dodge go down for awhile, while getting more powerful hits or something (maybe extra stamina if it's just used against players). Would be used to weaken people for other effects.

I do like the "no buffs for x period of time" idea, though to keep it in line with the zOMG tone, how about something like ... Soapy? A Soapy character can't be buffed. It would also be a fine condition to inflict on an Animated, once they start learning how to buff each other.

And I was looking to broaden the definition of "Status Effects" to include something beyond crowd control. These would be conditions that affect your fighting abilities in a way other than buff/debuff, but don't necessarily alter controls. Granted, Confuse and Charm are both a form of CC, but Curse and Stickybomb are not.

Hm... Meatshield... Wasn't there a similar idea in the Dastardly Strategies thread? Where a boss Animated uses a player to block damage to itself?

Finally, I think a "Spamtongue" effect would be hilarious. The Devs just have to come up with a lot of random things for people to say. Some of it could be genuinely misleading, too! (e.g. "Div just ran out!")

Heh, a spam talking status effect would be really amusing. I'd actually want to get it, as I don't spend a lot of time typing out stuff to say naturally, and random stuff like would probably appear would be just what I'd say anyway.

If it used tricky things, might want to really make sure people know about the effect, or else it could start arguments and such (sort of Gandalf and the trolls style).

Ooh, blurring would be cool. For Fear, it would be awesome to just have the purple scaredness effect that pops up over the target's head just appear over the screen, staring at you. I'd image that would lag, though.

I'd be a bit worried about self targeting because it's actually pretty effective. You can heal yourself, buff the crew, etc. Of course, buffing isn't that problematic, and it does make sense to be able to self target (and target anything around you with AoE, or just target random places with AoE). Then you try to get the crew leading around the blind person (and add in Spam with misleading directions! heh lol ).
- Might have some powerup or ring or other thing with the ability to light the way for blinded people. A sort of targeted circle of light (I guess I'm sort of combining Blind with Dark, which could be its own effect). Maybe even animated that give off light for a little bit when they die or are hurt, thus providing some oddly targetable lighting.

How about Glue or something, sticking targets together? This could be implemented either with a kind of group control - each target pulling the connection one way or another, and so ununified movement would almost make it like Root, while a unified movement of targets (such as a well grouped crew, or a bunch of animated moving towards the same aggro area) would just bunch targets together - or with one thing controlling movement:
- Either an ally-ally one. A bunch of animated which move as one until the status breaks and they split up into easier to defeat animated based on where they are aggroing. Players leading other players (perhaps for speed, perhaps because some players are blinded [for something like this, might want to make the effect voluntary - so players can split off when they want to])
- Or perhaps an enemy-enemy one. Animated stick players together so they can use Root or Fear on one target alone, or just to group players together for AoE attacks. Players stick animated together to get aggro control (move the mass of stuck together animated in one direction by just having one person aggro the leader animated, while the rest attack and kill the other animated while they are being towed away at a safer distance), use Root and Fear easier, group for AoE attacks, etc.
- Or perhaps even enemy-ally. An animated drags a crew around to force them into trouble. A player drags animated into or out of a battle, etc.

How about range restrictions? Nearsighted or something. Targets would only be able to use rings in melee or short distances (good to use against sniping animated and/or players).

The frequently suggested Charge might be a workable effect. Players move quickly to target (basically making melee attacks at range) and have some bonus to attack (knockback, more crits, willpower buff, whatever).