Medusa Sheild is killing blind and undead, bug?

[NTJedi]

Argitoth said:
Xietor, I can agree with that. However, it doesn't make sense that ethereal beings can be turned to stone.

Ghosts have no substance to turn to stone.

It seems turning to stone should work on some undead such as ghouls and vampires and other undead have an immunity for turning to stone, unfortunately since there's a mix the developers would need to create a new type of undead tag for a permanent fix. It's very unlikely JK or KO will examine all undead and provide some with a new extra undead tag.

This is one of those scenarios like the spell 'maggots' which targets the undead... this should only work on some undead and not work on ghosts or spirits.

[Kristoffer O]

Ghosts don't turn to stone, you know. They turn into glow-in-the-dark-jello. It is not as hard as stone, but it tastes good. Many petrified/jellyfied ghosts have found themselves eaten by young menacing humans with lots of make-up and dark robes.

[Renojustin]

It's a magic spell... the maggots that come into being have been created through magic and thus are magical themselves and can hurt and devour magical beings. Even if part or all of their victims' makeup is ethereal, I don't see how they can have an immunity to it. It says right in the description that ethereal undead without bodies have a good chance to resist, and that's more than enough already.

[Darkstone]

I thought Maggots specifically had a hard time affecting ethereal undead (like mundane weapons). At least, it says so in the description.

Is that not the case?

[Renojustin]

That's what I just said.

[DonCorazon]

llamabeast said:

Ooh! Ooh! Complex-matter-PhD-boy can't resist! There's more than just those three - gels, for instance (e.g. jelly/jello). And things which appear solid but slowly flow, e.g. glass (well, glass that we see every day is pretty close to solid, but some glasses flow more quickly). And cornflour in water!

I think my points are pretty much irrelevant to Xietor's post though. And of course, most things are pretty much solid, liquid or gas. Just thought I'd add to the geekiness of the thread.

Allow me to carry this to a level of geekiness that could possibly allow me to ascend to geek godhood.

So our dilemma here is how can petrification possibly impact the animated dead and the visually impaired?

Perhaps, the petrification wavelength need only touch the retina - whether the retina itself works is irrelevant. This avoids the sticky issue of how the undead see, which I am guessing looks something like the Predator.

[deadboi]

Xietor said:
And lest you forget, the 3 medusas were as powerful as gods.

Since we are getting all technical and letting our true nerdlyness show I would like to correct this statement as I often see/hear people use "Medusa" when they should be using "Gorgon", it is a very common mistake so I mean no disrespect to you personally Xietor.

The species, if you wish to call it that, is Gorgon. Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa were the names of the Gorgon sisters of Greek Mythology.

As for the topic, I think from a technical standpoint all mindless beings would be immune to the effects of the Medusa Shield and Gorgon petrification because the reason people would be turned to stone when they looked at a Gorgon was because they were so hideously ugly. Mindless beings have no mind to comprehend ugliness, they are just constructs being controlled by their master. It would be like saying a robot or a car being driven by a person could be turned to stone. Now the person driving the car could be if they weren't careful, but it's not going to stop the car.

From a game play perspective it could be possible to say that all mindless being are "bind" because their mind, or lack there of, does not process what the eyes are seeing so even if they have eye balls it doesn't mean they work, like people who are blind from birth they still have eye balls... usually.

I don't know how this would affect game balance though.

[NTJedi]

deadboi said:
It would be like saying a robot or a car being driven by a person could be turned to stone.

On a side note... within DOM_3 mindless beings such as the vine ogres can receive the feeblemind affliction which is equivalent to a unit without eyes receiving the 'lost an eye' affliction.

[deadboi]

NTJedi said:
On a side note... within DOM_3 mindless beings such as the vine ogres can receive the feeblemind affliction which is equivalent to a unit without eyes receiving the 'lost an eye' affliction.

True, to me those sounds more like a bug/over sight then by design. Depending on how the game is coded it could be difficult to fix and could require some serious refactoring which is always problematic.

The same is true for the topic, although it more comes down to defining what actually causes the petrification. Is it a kind of ray blast from the Gorgon/Aegis that hits a target and turns them to stone like in God of War? Or is it merely the target seeing the hideous visage of the Gorgon/Aegis that causes them to turn them to stone?

There is a slight difference in the descriptions for the Gorgon and the Aegis as far as how they work exactly.

The description for the petrification effect of the Gorgon states "This unit is so hideous that onlookers will be petrified if they attack the beast". Implying that only the target must see the Gorgon, the Gorgon does not necessarily have to see the target.

The description of the Aegis says "The image is so vivid that anyone who meets the mad gaze of the painted eyes". I'm assuming this would mean eye contact, the target eyes must meet the eyes of the Aegis.

So according to the descriptions, it would seem that the latter is the more likely of scenarios as to how the petrification is suppose to work. For simplicity sake we could say that the target would need to make eye contact with the Gorgon, just like with the Aegis. But in both cases the targets eyes must meet the eyes of the Gorgon/Aegis and it is the hideous and horrific visage of the Gorgan/Aegis that causes the petrification. Therefore, blind units should not be effected and animated mindless constructs that are incapable of comprehending ugliness or horror would not be effected.

I have no qualms about how it works currently, after all it can always be chalked up to "It's Magic", this is only my interpretation given the information that is provided. If it is working as intended then perhaps the definitions need to be altered or clarified.

[Reay]

Yes, I agree that blind and mindless units should be immune from petrification. It should not imbalance mindless units that much since most SC's are not mindless.