Esteem

Riluna

As far as I can tell, the primary use for esteem was for those who wished to use it to take down enemy war shrines. With war shrines now existing only within org territory, this use has almost entirely disappeared. The other current use is simply offering to a Divine, and this is not enough to drive the market for esteem, considering the exorbitant quantities that currently exist. There's way too much supply, and almost zero demand.

To that end, I would like to propose a new feature to spend esteem on. The basic premise is that it could be put right back into influencing, though there are many different ways to do this.

1) More powerful influencing attacks. This would be a temporary boost (maybe 10%?) to all forms of influencing, or one selected at purchase. The duration would depend on the amount of esteem spent. The bonus itself could be something on par with bluebell/foxglove results.

2) More powerful influencing results. Empowering denizens makes them even stronger. Weakening, even weaker. Charity doubles the 'gift' received, and maybe seduction empowers the mob a bit (not as much as a standard empowering influence, but slightly stronger than usual). Village influencing makes the mob worth more points until they shuffle (or however those numbers actually work). I'm not really sure yet how paranoia could be boosted though, that one's pretty powerful already.

The main issue I can see with this is that the cost would need to be prohibitive enough that it can't be used permanently, but low enough that it's still useful. For example, perhaps something like 1000 esteem for a minute of this boost? That's something roughly like 20 minutes of influencing for each buffed minute (that you can activate whenever you want). Or perhaps you could pay maybe 500 for each mob you influence, the mobs could still be diverted as a counter, and that diversion makes the esteem investment go completely to waste. So it would still need to be done very strategically in revolts, for example.

This is all just brainstorming. It's the spirit of this that I'm proposing, not really the specific numbers themselves, though I hope that can give some solid ground to spitball from. In my opinion, being able to spend esteem in this way would do much to make it a more desirable commodity, and thus improve the market for it for all influencers, newbie and veteran alike.

Enyalida

I like the idea of other things to spend esteem on (Especially for those not in order, or in inactive orders), but more buffs to Influencing is not the way to go. A huge number of influencing boosts already exist, and this sort of bonus would reward those already pushing all of those bonuses even more, without doing much for anyone else.

Riluna

I'm not following. If it works similarly to other buffs, it would do exactly the same thing for everyone, whether you're stacked with other buffs or not. Why wouldn't anybody who desired to use it actually be able to?

Lerad

If you're already an influencing powerhouse (as compared to a normal player), you'll get a lot of esteem to spend it on more buffs, which makes you influence even stronger/faster, which will give you yet more esteem. That said, I don't see that as a big problem, but I don't influence that much.

Enyalida

What I meant with the 'without doing much for anyone else' is that not everyone can reasonably participate in influencing. Adding in more and more bonuses that make Influencing an uber-option unreasonably hurts those who have to make the choice between the-rest-of-gameplay or influencing. Those that already have a great influencing setup will push ahead, as they already are making esteem at a faster rate, and will therefore benefit most from these effects... which will allow them to make esteem at a faster rate, and so on. In contrast,  gaining the majority of other influencing bonuses has little to no relation to how good you already are at influencing, or how much gold you have. You either have them, or you don't.

While some ideas will avoid this positive feedback trap (like your second suggestion, I think), others will definitely fall into it. Having being good at influencing (generating esteem quickly) allow you to hit harder with your influence attacks for longer periods of time than people who are not good at influencing means that the gap between you and those other people will progressively widen.

Riluna

Unless the esteem cost to activate it is prohibitively higher than what you can reasonably gain in the duration of the buff? 1000 esteem is roughly 20 minutes of work, and if it only lasts a minute or two, there's no way by using it you can even break even in such a short amount of time. So it's used when you want that extra punch, not for generating more esteem.

Daedalion

I don't agree with any sort of bonus to revolt influencing. There are already people who two shot mobs, -named- mobs. That is ridiculous enough.

Riluna

Who two-shots named village mobs, exactly?

Sure, that's ridiculous, if true. But even in that situation, such a buff is extremely unlikely to turn that into a one-shot. At best, it would give such a person a chance to do it slightly more consistently. They'd stay at two, with another chance for you to be on par with them.

For comparison, I tend to do city guards in four hits. With a bluebell, I will occasionally empower them in three. I doubt the admin would be willing to implement anything that extreme.

Daedalion

Riluna said:

Who two-shots named village mobs, exactly?

Vivet, Talan or anybody with 25 cha and the beauty demi influencing power.

The point isn't how strong the buff is or whether it actually makes them a 1 shotter or not. The point is that if you can two shot something away from me, why should you get ANOTHER buff on top of that to make your already ridiculous crap easier or worth more village points? There is absolutely no reason for a revolt influencing buff, period.

Riluna

Because YOU get that buff, as well as them? And if the disparity is that large, you're far more likely to benefit from it than they are. If they're already hitting that strongly, they're not likely to notice the difference at all, in any practical sense. If their results are the same, it's not making anything easier for them? But you have another opportunity to catch up, as well as them having another opportunity to actually sell esteem once in a while (if people would pay for such a thing).

Charisma doesn't affect your influencing power though, just your speed, and that speed caps out just below 3 seconds, IIRC. The only benefit really high cha people get in the end is more ego.

Daedalion

I.. I don't really think you're following what I'm saying. There is no way to "catch up", the mob is gotten in two hits. It doesn't become four or five if I suddenly get a buff, it's still two. It's the entire reason Hallifax is still able to get villages even when there are only like three Hallifaxians. I am perfectly fine with not getting this buff if they do not get any more.

Also, the only thing I have a problem with is the revolt bonus you suggested. The overall idea is fine, but no revolt bonuses.

Shaddus

Daedalion said:

I.. I don't really think you're following what I'm saying. There is no way to "catch up", the mob is gotten in two hits. It doesn't become four or five if I suddenly get a buff, it's still two. It's the entire reason Hallifax is still able to get villages even when there are only like three Hallifaxians. I am perfectly fine with not getting this buff if they do not get any more.

Also, the only thing I have a problem with is the revolt bonus you suggested. The overall idea is fine, but no revolt bonuses.

Actually, the way we're able to get villages when there are only like three Hallifaxians is because of teamwork from our allies, plain and simple. No ifs, ands, or buts. Vivet doesn't have 25 charisma, Entrias SURE in the hell doesn't have 25 charisma or any sort of buff to influencing that isn't available to anyone else, and Talan wasn't at the last revolt where Halli took a village. We took that village because our allies worked their asses off to help us.

Daedalion

Shaddus said:

Actually, the way we're able to get villages when there are only like three Hallifaxians is because of teamwork from our allies, plain and simple. No ifs, ands, or buts. Vivet doesn't have 25 charisma, Entrias SURE in the hell doesn't have 25 charisma or any sort of buff to influencing that isn't available to anyone else, and Talan wasn't at the last revolt where Halli took a village. We took that village because our allies worked their asses off to help us.

Point, but there is no way Vivet wasn't using the ascendant beauty power. She was hitting mobs too hard and I know Talan uses it. Regardless of how many allies you have, two or three hit influencing battles after a shuffle definantly doesn't hurt.

Lerad

Revolt mechanics should not be changed lightly. Regardless of whatever new things esteem is used for, it should have zero effect on revolts. Any change on the status quo for revolt mechanics should be looked at long and hard, and have a imbalance to be fixed, not just "to give more use to esteem".

Enyalida

Riluna said:

Unless the esteem cost to activate it is prohibitively higher than what you can reasonably gain in the duration of the buff? 1000 esteem is roughly 20 minutes of work, and if it only lasts a minute or two, there's no way by using it you can even break even in such a short amount of time. So it's used when you want that extra punch, not for generating more esteem.

It would still be the case that if player A generates esteem twices as fast as player B, player A will potentially have the buff up twice as often as player B. If the buff gives you a bonus to influencing speed/strength valued at x, over a given stretch of time player B will benefit by a bonus of value x, while player A (Who already is better at influencing than player will be receiving a bonus of value 2x. 

Synkarin

Esteem is still really useful to carry with for defiling

Shield shrines are no war shrines, but they're not something you can always ignore. Pacification/protection/armor can have pretty big impacts.

Malayn

Did you ask for being able to spend the product of influence.... to improve influence? 

Influencing is already the best way to gain levels.  There is no cures beyond bromide, there is no risk of dying, heck most mobs cant even attack back, and you do not have to worry about groups of them.

Influencing should be made far harder, give it crits, etc to put it more on par with bashing. Then can look into it, but right now you can already get huge buffs that only effect influence (ikons), but the same isn't true of bashing. I would like to see a shift away from EZ moding, not make it even easier.

Munsia

I'd like to note you have to consider the imbalances and implications of this towards influencing events such as Ascension, Great Hunts, etc.

Vivet

PS, it is impossible for me to get 25 CHA. Most of the named mobs that go fast are in the earlier villages, where the mob levels are much lower. Even the unnamed villagers in Talthos tend to take longer to influence than most of the named ones in Stewartsville, as an example.

I'm going to echo Synkarin here - esteem is still plenty valuable. It just doesn't deserve the overinflated price it currently holds, which was the direct result of people buying it out en masse to resell it, specifically to people who so desperately needed it to fight. Once the majority of it goes back down to 20gp per unit or so, I'll be sucking it all up and making it vanish off the market.

Esteem doesn't need more uses unless we insist that it needs to maintain a high price.

Enyalida

I think the problem is more that a lot of people are sitting on huge stockpiles of essence they can't shift, because everyone who wants it already has more than enough. Stack that with the general difficulty of selling small amounts (because of the way figurines work) and you have some of the causes of the weird esteem market. 

If you're not directly involved with a god, it's basically a useless commodity. What are you going to do with your esteem, offer it to gods? What if there are no appropriate gods that will give out favors, aren't you basically just throwing it away at that point? Use it to defile shield shrines? (Why?) Granted, I might be devaluing the use of shield shrines, because I've never felt their effects for myself (or even seen them used).  It seems like it's stretching it to say that these two very specific PvP uses justifiy an entirely separate resource system presumably intended to match the gold drops and turn-ins of bashing.

A better use for esteem could get things moving, and potentially drop the price of each unit as more of the people who aren't moving their esteem for lack of buyers will suddenly have a reason to compete, because there will be a large pool of buyers.  Or not. Note that the prices for esteem shot up when the supply was drastically increased in the last revamp, even though the only change was the frustrating figurine changes.

However, saying that the way to fix the esteem market is to wait for people to charge less for esteem doesn't make sense. Once the market is up around a certain value, there isn't any real profit to be made in suddenly dropping that value a significant amount, so it won't happen. Only the introduction of new sources/uses for esteem will fix the problem.

Lavinya

I would buy lots of esteem to offer if it wasn't the ridiculously inflated price it is now. Back when it was around 15gp? It was more on par with needles of old, and I would happily pay it. It's not worth 30gp.

Also, reinstating the no revolt influencing buffs please. Unless you're only going to make it available to the races with low Charisma (I think I max out at 17 with all the buffs I can get, and viscanti isn't even the worst). I will happily use it to make me more on par with the likes of Trill or elfen with buffs

Vivet

Enyalida said:

However, saying that the way to fix the esteem market is to wait for people to charge less for esteem doesn't make sense. Once the market is up around a certain value, there isn't any real profit to be made in suddenly dropping that value a significant amount, so it won't happen. Only the introduction of new sources/uses for esteem will fix the problem.

When there were few influencers, a few people did take total control of the market by cutting prices, so it's not impossible, nor has it never happened. It just takes someone deciding to do it (and there are lots of people willing to undercut for more market share in other venues in this game).

The only reason the price became hyperinflated and stayed that way was because of war shrines, and how often they went up and down. Shrining was a lot more common in the last year or so, and that had more to do with changes in the market than any changes to how esteem works.

Do you really think it is prudent to suggest adding a new mechanic with as much incentive for it as war shrines? I'm going to guess no.

Vivet

Also, as a note, when selling esteem first started, it was viewed as borderline taboo/alien in concept, and when the gods were asked about it, they just kind of shrugged. The esteem market was never intended as far as I can tell - it just sort of happened. That we presume anything about the "purpose" of the market is strictly on us as players.

Munsia

Vivet said:

Also, as a note, when selling esteem first started, it was viewed as borderline taboo/alien in concept, and when the gods were asked about it, they just kind of shrugged. The esteem market was never intended as far as I can tell - it just sort of happened. That we presume anything about the "purpose" of the market is strictly on us as players.

What? No it wasn't... maybe in a closed circle, but this definitely wasn't the games general appeal towards it. I've been making money on esteem since it's creation, and this was before Ceren made crown (inb4snipes)

Arimisia

Lavinya said:

I would buy lots of esteem to offer if it wasn't the ridiculously inflated price it is now. Back when it was around 15gp? It was more on par with needles of old, and I would happily pay it. It's not worth 30gp.

I just sold a crap ton at 18gp. I generally do not go above 20gp unless demand is high (Order announcing an offering contest is my favorite time to make gold!). The highest my shop has sold it at was 35 and that was because of a contest going on, in general it will not sell for that much so the 15-20gp range I have found to be more around the average.

Vivet

Munsia said:

What? No it wasn't... maybe in a closed circle, but this definitely wasn't the games general appeal towards it.

I'll take your word for it, then. This just stands out as a very early memory to me (esteem sellers smelly funny and shouldn't be trusted), but I'll admit that when I started I also had very limited exposure to the full scope of the game. I didn't really talk to much of anyone outside of my guild, nevermind the city, and probably didn't look at the forums at all for a few months.

Karlach

Synkarin said:

Esteem is still really useful to carry with for defiling

Shield shrines are no war shrines, but they're not something you can always ignore. Pacification/protection/armor can have pretty big impacts.

What, lies, they are completely pointless. Pay no attention to the swarm of heal and shield shrines I have out >.>

On a serious note Side's right. Pacification+armour+allcure+area heal and then personal shrine effects on top make a huge difference in small scale fights, in larger fights they are a great counter to mass serving a person with burst damage/mana damage.

Munsia

Some people may or may not use them to bash astral.