Suggestions: Posession time limits

[CStafford-14]

I would like to introduce two game mechanics that would change the experience of possession, soul binding and rejection.

• Soul Binding: This mechanic starts after 5 in-game days of possessing a mob continuously. On the night of day 5, you begin to have the Soulbound effect, which essentially means you are becoming the mob. From dusk until dawn, you become slower and need to eat to fill up the now present hunger bar as it slowly appears. When the process runs out (cannot be ended with milk), you should have a hunger bar (hopefully full) and can no longer cure yourself. In essence, you are that mob. Natural regeneration is now possible. The only way to become human again is to be killed by a player wielding a sword with the Humanity enchantment, at which time you are asked if you would like to remain a demon or to respawn as a player.

• Possible mechanic for soul binding: Even if you die, once the soul binding process is complete, you will respawn as that mob. Better hope you respawn in a good place!

• Rejection: This mechanic also starts after 5 in-game days of possessing a mob continuously. Starting on the night of day 5, you begin to lose control over the mob. Each night for the next 3 days, the mob has full control over itself again, but you are still trapped inside its body. You still have complete control over it during the day, though. After the third day, you are rejected from the body. This could be one of two things, A, you are expelled from the body and become a demon again, or B, you are trapped in the body but can no longer control it. The mob must die for you to be released. Either way, you can never control that entity again.

• The differentiating factors: Depending on what you do while possessing the mob will have an effect on what you do on the 5th day. If you kill enough hostile mobs during this period, you start to become soulbound. If you do not, you begin to become rejected. On the 5th day, there isn't much you can do to change your fate, unless you miraculously manage mass genocide to achieve being soulbound (This should give the player the "Last minute decision" achievement). As for rejection from soul binding, there should be something such as breeding enough mobs to become rejected rather than soulbound.

[James103]

For Soul Binding:

1. What if there's no way for you to have another player kill you, or no other players are online? Maybe if you are killed by any (not undead) mob that's holding an item that has the Humanity enchantment at the time of death, you would get the same 'respawn as player or remain a demon' message.

For Rejection:

1. What if the possessed mob is trapped in such a way such that it can't ever naturally die? Maybe have the possessed mob very slowly lose health until you either regain control or until the mob dies and you are ejected.
2. A variant of Rejection could be that you still retain full control over the possessed mob, in conjunction with the mob being able to fully control itself via its AI.

[CStafford-14]

You bring up some valid points.As for your point with Soul Binding, you may need to die under the weakness effect as an alternative to the being killed by another player. Additionally, it could be having to die by fire to represent cleansing.Natural deterioration should be a good idea for when in rejection. After about a week in-game, how about adding another level of attrition before the slow death kicks in?