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OOOOOH! I love love love it!!

I would be worried that random teams, whether fixed for the whole event or changing regularly, would cause problems for people's systems. I imagine that there would be a lot of saving people who were suddenly not on your team, and a lot of frustration caused by having to change things every time a fight started.

Sapphira said:

I had other stuff typed and Seren as an example of a lively org with not a huge list of always around pkers but I really don't want to come across as antagonising or dismissive. All I can suggest is pursue your joy in the game, whatever that may be. Design what you love, get those quest lines, make frenemies, spar everyone who will engage with you - whatever it is. Lusty should never ever be a job or obligation, and activity and enjoyment of the game, your org, your order, whatever, always breeds more.

.Sure, people should find things in the game they like outside of combat, especially if the don't like combat or conflict events. But there are people on the SL side that do. They should have some opportunity to participate in that part of the game, too, and feel that they can improve at it. That's really hard to do if you're usually outnumbered and, more importantly, facing more experienced combat leaders and pkers. Just sparring more doesn't address the reason why people bother to spar at all - to compete. 

And my own selfish motivations here are that I'd like to compete too, but I don't find the current conflict enjoyable. I know it's complained about all the time in IHC servers, too. There's certainly other things I could do in the game, and I like doing those things. Doesn't change the lack of competition frustrations.

I will go into the benefits of no hard alliances.

Let's say, at a given timequake, the organizations can field these numbers:

Gaudiguch (10)
Magnagora (20)
Serenwilde (10)
Hallifax (5)
Glomdoring (5)
Celest (15)

If we were to go by the current hard alliances (IHC vs SL), it would be 40 vs 20. But if we were going to operate under ad hoc agreements, we could have Gaudiguch-Serenwilde-Celest fielding 35 vs Magnagora-Hallifax-Glomdoring fielding 30. It's a much more even spread and it might make for a more competitive quake.

I would even argue that it makes more RP sense; freedom-loving Gaudiguch should not be so close with hierarchical Magnagora. Serenwilde shouldn't be so close to the Gaudiguch, the city that literally burned a road through their forest. Whenever they work together, it should be because it's the last resort.

Edit;

It might even help the huge OOC divide that seems very prevalent. Right now, there are Shadowlight and IHC echo chambers wherein their players basically just reinforce one another's ideas about the Other Side. It fuels animosity. If alliances were much looser, then we might be more open and accommodating to a wider selection of players. 

Saran said:

Yinuish said:

Saran said:

I kinda wish there were more non-conflict org activities for org credits personally. Like, yay I get credits for bashing/influencing/questing and just giving points for those ticks wouldn't work but ways to mechanically feel like you helped were missed earlier when you weren't a combatant.

I know it's not combat and conflict which people are missing out on, but ways to feel like you're succeeding/advancing/progressing/etc even if conflict isn't working out right now might at least help with morale to retain people?

What's wrong with stage, books, designs already? 

I was a non-com for the first ten years of the game. I don't think there's anything wrong with it if all you want to do is hang out in your org and make pretty things and build culture.

However, I feel like you're derailing this thread from being about what can we do to improve the combat situation for combatants and turning it into 'why can't we give more things to the people who aren't the combatants' and that's not really what this is about. I can design away, write things and it's not at all impacted by the combat situation. I've been pushing RP and events in game and it's in no way impacted by the combat situation, so I don't understand why you're coming back with more things about ways non-combatants can contribute to help improve something unrelated to the combat situation. 

Nothing, I was saying they were an improvement on the past.

The suggestion was simply that if combat isn't great right now and people are leaving because of that, maybe there are other ways that could be tried to keep those players engaged. Maybe there are other ways to make the situation feel less bad and help with morale to try to maintain populations so that numbers can stabilise and maybe even grow over time.
That could also be something like the hunting grounds for Aetolia (seems like... one person per org free-for-all with personal prizes), boss mobs, idk stuff that people who aren't having a good time might enjoy as a diversion.

Numbers, alliances, mechanisms, and all that seem like hitting the actual conflict side of things could be pretty complex so trying to mitigate the impacts might help *shrug*.

The issue isn't keeping players engaged though, it's the lack of combat for those who play for the PK part of the game. Lack of combat leadership, lack of numbers to participate, and lack of knowledge to be shared with others who want to get involved with PK.

Sure, you could do all of that to raise morale and whatnot, but that won't change anything in the combat side of things for either side. I personally play Lusternia mostly for the combat, I'm not against doing other things or RPing, I just enjoy the combat side of things and I know I'm not alone. But it's rather discouraging to try and get involved into combat when A, there is a sever lack of combat leadership to direct who needs to be targeted, B, the numbers are stacked against you in highly unfavorable odds, and C, when there aren't many people who are able or willing to share their knowledge of combat as <insert class here> with others who want to learn.

Edit: At least that's my understanding. Morale aside anyway, because if you can manage to cover at least 2 of those things, morale will begin to rise even if slowly.

Yinuish said:

Saran said:

I kinda wish there were more non-conflict org activities for org credits personally. Like, yay I get credits for bashing/influencing/questing and just giving points for those ticks wouldn't work but ways to mechanically feel like you helped were missed earlier when you weren't a combatant.

I know it's not combat and conflict which people are missing out on, but ways to feel like you're succeeding/advancing/progressing/etc even if conflict isn't working out right now might at least help with morale to retain people?

What's wrong with stage, books, designs already? 

I was a non-com for the first ten years of the game. I don't think there's anything wrong with it if all you want to do is hang out in your org and make pretty things and build culture.

However, I feel like you're derailing this thread from being about what can we do to improve the combat situation for combatants and turning it into 'why can't we give more things to the people who aren't the combatants' and that's not really what this is about. I can design away, write things and it's not at all impacted by the combat situation. I've been pushing RP and events in game and it's in no way impacted by the combat situation, so I don't understand why you're coming back with more things about ways non-combatants can contribute to help improve something unrelated to the combat situation. 

Nothing, I was saying they were an improvement on the past.

The suggestion was simply that if combat isn't great right now and people are leaving because of that, maybe there are other ways that could be tried to keep those players engaged. Maybe there are other ways to make the situation feel less bad and help with morale to try to maintain populations so that numbers can stabilise and maybe even grow over time.
That could also be something like the hunting grounds for Aetolia (seems like... one person per org free-for-all with personal prizes), boss mobs, idk stuff that people who aren't having a good time might enjoy as a diversion.

Numbers, alliances, mechanisms, and all that seem like hitting the actual conflict side of things could be pretty complex so trying to mitigate the impacts might help *shrug*.

i will openly admit, the designs in Magnagora are very strongly being muscled along on my shoulders. I took over some inactive cartels, and I put through a lot of designs of my own for a) we get paid and b) org credits means better for all of us. It's also definitely an easy way for people to contribute, especially not liking conflict. 

I had other stuff typed and Seren as an example of a lively org with not a huge list of always around pkers but I really don't want to come across as antagonising or dismissive. All I can suggest is pursue your joy in the game, whatever that may be. Design what you love, get those quest lines, make frenemies, spar everyone who will engage with you - whatever it is. Lusty should never ever be a job or obligation, and activity and enjoyment of the game, your org, your order, whatever, always breeds more.

Yinuish said:

No, you are a Bad Person, I can't believe anything you say! -shakefist- 

You're just saying that because you're really a Mag.

Parhelion said:

Silvanus said:

And finally, at one point I heard the last competitive mode that saw any kind of competition was Orgcredits, yet since that comment, Ironhart has came in 1-2-3 place every single year. Perhaps the issue is not mechanical related at all since any area where competition has been in the past few months has been conceded, even ones that were not mechanically overbearing as PK.

Nobody in Hallifax is writing plays anymore. Very few are writing books. Half the time, people are just afk or roleplaying, and I love that, but it doesn't bring in orgcredits, or give new players a reason to stick around because Hallifax looks deserted. We've had a few new people show up lately like Aevum, Zoraida, Sofka, but we're not getting nearly the new people that other orgs are picking up. Whether this is because of the Ascension or not is moot, really. Hallifax simply has nothing drawing people in right now, and very few active, visible people outside myself and a few others.

Silvanus said:

And finally, at one point I heard the last competitive mode that saw any kind of competition was Orgcredits, yet since that comment, Ironhart has came in 1-2-3 place every single year. Perhaps the issue is not mechanical related at all since any area where competition has been in the past few months has been conceded, even ones that were not mechanically overbearing as PK.

Gonna jump on this.


Silvanus isn't wrong. I'm having to bribe Hallifaxians to make designs, half of our city cartels haven't had an accepted design in 3+ years ingame, and I've went so far as to offer to pay people to contest these cartels and submit designs. I actually contested for the tattoo cartel, but made the mistake of classflexing out of monk, and I think it probably stopped the contestation.

Nobody in Hallifax is writing plays anymore. Very few are writing books. Half the time, people are just afk or roleplaying, and I love that, but it doesn't bring in orgcredits, or give new players a reason to stick around because Hallifax looks deserted. We've had a few new people show up lately like Aevum, Zoraida, Sofka, but we're not getting nearly the new people that other orgs are picking up. Whether this is because of the Ascension or not is moot, really. Hallifax simply has nothing drawing people in right now, and very few active, visible people outside myself and a few others. 


Glomdoring especially has kind of fallen down. I haven't seen Snald, Xenthos, Tarken, or many other "leaders" in Glomdoring in a very long time. Celest has picked up, but the population is spotty at best.

Meanwhile, Gaudiguch is booming, Serenwilde is apparently doing well, and Magnagora is on top. This isn't entirely because they dominate in timequakes, but I can't help but to think being the winners on a constant basis lately does kind of lead to people wanting to play there. Serenwilde is constantly getting designs approved, as is Magnagora.


I guess I'm kinda all over the place with this post, but my point is this: People in some orgs have just decided that it's not worth it to fight or contribute, and I can't blame them. It's been shown that even if you try your hardest, either the other side is still going to win, or if you win, the other side still gets their first place trophy. Shadowlight is too quick to throw their hands up and shrug, and I get it. I've devoted myself in game to something that the other side can't take away from me, and can't do some kind of quest to ruin it for me.