I've been basing my suggestions for genjutsu off of what we saw from the anime/manga. I've suggested some that were subtler such as the sleep (that took out almost everyone in the chunnin exam), misdirection (Kurenai and Diedara attacking themselves) and dead teammate (Sakura during the bell training).
But on the other side of the spectrum, we have genjutsu that teleport you to an eerie world were you can be tortured for three days in a span of a second or turned into paper and burned.
Between them is Emphermal (Naruto having his friends faces grow out of his body), and Shikamaru melting.
Not all genjutsu is subtle. Half of it is royally fucking with another's head.
True, but I still contest that it's the less effective of the two; and think about it, how in the world would you be able to "royally fuck" with the heads of gamers? Other than a control swap or those various incarnations of *Screen Malfunction Example*, what's going to surprise a player 'without' them calling bullshit? Nearly all of the Sharingan-related Genjutsu are near-impossible to recreate anyway outside of *graphically* -- it'd be impossible to represent the amount of pain Kakashi, Naruto or Shikamaru went through.
Unless you added in some TRULY grueling mini-games --the Metal Gear Solid, Solid Snake electrocution scene comes to mind with its thumb-killing button-mashing-- the player simply *cannot* empathize with what the character is 'supposed' to be going through. Not to mention the repercussions from players if the Genjutsu strips away *too much* control, which is one of the main reasons why I'm more for subtlety and less straight-up-trolling. The subtle approach might give wary players a chance to back out of --or at least *recognize* and attempt to form countermeasures to-- these mind-fucks; the more blatant approach could end up down-right infuriating (rather than panicking) players, because there's a completely removed sense of control.
We could go back and forth all day with the nitty-gritty of what is and isn't OP compared to a fiction that throws out most of its rules following the second half of it's second chapter -- but I'm ultimately more of a fan for "Ahhhh -- ah-hah...damn, he got me." rather than "MOTHERFUCKING BITCH!!!"
Of course you'll always have *someone* getting pissed, but I'm speaking on the behalf of your normal players, not the dweebs, the imbeciles or the asshats. Normal players *generally* have a sense of respect for one another, and this is proliferated by a general feeling of *balance* within the game. Come to think of it as a whole, actually -- is this topic even worth talking about when it has *such* an absurdly large potential for imbalance, of either OP or Nerfdom?
Maybe it is...though I'm unsure at this point, given the sheer magnitude of it. Anyway, further thoughts?
P.S.
It occurs to me I have a problem letting go of arguments...hmm.
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