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State of Conflict
Vivet
, of Cows and Crystals
I'm opening this strictly because I think there's some worth in the discussion going on, if people wish, and to divert it from tweets, where it doesn't particularly belong.
That said, I've a few things to say on the matter.
We're here to have fun, and having fun means different things to different people. People shouldn't be expected to put themselves in unfun situations "for the sake of the game" - if there is a hard road to forge, the game should incentive people to that end on its own, or it should otherwise still be enjoyable to be in that position.
Lusternia has run on many of the same people for a long time now. Early on, it was easy for conflict to push itself and propel. The overall pbase was younger, had more free time, and didn't know each other so well. People enjoy playing against people they don't like more so than people they do - it's a natural inclination to want to team up with friends and stick together.
Most of us that are around still have been here for years, even if the characters we are currently playing have not. We're older now, have less free time, and are pretty well acquainted with everyone else. When a few of the old guard in a given place step back and never return again, it does have a distinct ripple effect - those remaining might find that their reason for staying where they are has gone now, and are more inclined to try something new or go somewhere else simply for a change of pace.
As well, people who are anchored where they are, and still have the friends to engage them, are a lot less likely to want to make any such changes. These people are also the ones most likely to have invested a lot of time/effort/money into the game, and have All The Things for whatever they need to get done. Things like feature creep have much less of an impact on them as it does on new players.
If those old players stop caring or thin out too much, you also generally lose access to all of their resources, leaving new players/characters having to fend more for themselves. The more things people need in order to compete competently in given situations, like bubblixes, the more difficult this becomes. New players might be misinformed on exactly what is "required" and what isn't, and with few people to guide/direct them, they'll either quit or move. If you're from another org and try to help them out, chances are you will just convince them to move over to your own org, even if you don't suggest doing so - they'll want to return the favour, after all.
I feel like all these factors and more are contributing to the current situation. I don't have any proposed solutions just yet (haven't had time for that), but I do think it might be more useful if players can come up with their own solutions before expecting admin intervention, since we already have the overhaul in progress and a lot of effort going into Newton/newbie intro, which I think are also important. Anything we might ask from the admin should conceivably be -small- and very easy to code/manage.
Otherwise, this thread might just be used to discuss what -is- the problem, exactly, since it is hard to come up with a solution if you aren't actually looking at the problem correctly.
Hopefully this should be enough to get things off the ground a bit.
That said, I've a few things to say on the matter.
We're here to have fun, and having fun means different things to different people. People shouldn't be expected to put themselves in unfun situations "for the sake of the game" - if there is a hard road to forge, the game should incentive people to that end on its own, or it should otherwise still be enjoyable to be in that position.
Lusternia has run on many of the same people for a long time now. Early on, it was easy for conflict to push itself and propel. The overall pbase was younger, had more free time, and didn't know each other so well. People enjoy playing against people they don't like more so than people they do - it's a natural inclination to want to team up with friends and stick together.
Most of us that are around still have been here for years, even if the characters we are currently playing have not. We're older now, have less free time, and are pretty well acquainted with everyone else. When a few of the old guard in a given place step back and never return again, it does have a distinct ripple effect - those remaining might find that their reason for staying where they are has gone now, and are more inclined to try something new or go somewhere else simply for a change of pace.
As well, people who are anchored where they are, and still have the friends to engage them, are a lot less likely to want to make any such changes. These people are also the ones most likely to have invested a lot of time/effort/money into the game, and have All The Things for whatever they need to get done. Things like feature creep have much less of an impact on them as it does on new players.
If those old players stop caring or thin out too much, you also generally lose access to all of their resources, leaving new players/characters having to fend more for themselves. The more things people need in order to compete competently in given situations, like bubblixes, the more difficult this becomes. New players might be misinformed on exactly what is "required" and what isn't, and with few people to guide/direct them, they'll either quit or move. If you're from another org and try to help them out, chances are you will just convince them to move over to your own org, even if you don't suggest doing so - they'll want to return the favour, after all.
I feel like all these factors and more are contributing to the current situation. I don't have any proposed solutions just yet (haven't had time for that), but I do think it might be more useful if players can come up with their own solutions before expecting admin intervention, since we already have the overhaul in progress and a lot of effort going into Newton/newbie intro, which I think are also important. Anything we might ask from the admin should conceivably be -small- and very easy to code/manage.
Otherwise, this thread might just be used to discuss what -is- the problem, exactly, since it is hard to come up with a solution if you aren't actually looking at the problem correctly.
Hopefully this should be enough to get things off the ground a bit.
15
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
One place to start is to establish, or at least try to put a face on, the problem. What is the problem with "the state of conflict" in this game at the moment? Lusternia has no lack of conflict mechanics - Domoths, revolts, wildnodes are the first that would come to the mind of any PKer. Not much raiding now, but do we need raiding as a conflict mechanic when we have the others? Cultural activity and bardics/prestige are conflicts for the more RP inclined, and have just as big an affect on the POLITICS command as winning a revolt, so there's no lack of avenue for non-PKers to take part either.
Let's go from there, what is the problem with the Lusternian conflict-scape, if it's not the lack of opportunities and contests?
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I've played for far longer than I care to admit to, and I have seen and previously noted a trend regarding conflict. The majority of changes to the conflict systems have been to discourage players from participating in PK rather than encouraging them.
Take Supernal/DL/Avatar raid mechanics, for instance. Not only has the cost of dying during these wildly increased, actually taking down a DL/Supernal/Avatar is now exponentially more difficult than it once was to the point where the risk (you're probably going to die, there's a good chance everyone else will die too and the raid will fail horribly, and it's going to cost you) outweighs the reward (you get personal satisfaction and some power...which is a bountiful resource already...now go sit in your manse and wait for the insanity you accrued to fade away) by such a huge margin that no one actually engages in these types of raids anymore. So now the conflict mechanic exists...just no one participates in it. So I think the reality of existing conflict mechanics is very different from the opportunity of conflict.
What did we see when cosmic/ethereal raids were bountiful yet still challenging and dangerous? A much larger PK population, and a more active player population. The reality is that we've largely driven the PKers away because the avenues for conflict have systematically been eliminated or made inaccessible that they aren't worth bothering with. So instead of a large pool of players spending some money, we're now implementing changes to squeeze large sums of money from a much smaller pool of pkers with things like multiclass. Which then creates a larger chasm betwen the haves and have nots, so we get fewer new pkers to the already smaller pool. Let's face it, there's a fair degree of ego and competitive drive in everyone who actively pursues PK. If they can't compete because of mechanical disadvantages, they're not going to stick around.
I mention raids, but it's only one of many changes that drive off PKers.
Another big issue is the cost of entry. It's been complained about and discussed many times, and we've lowered the "entry level" bar with changes to the common skills, and it will supposedly be lowered even further with the overhaul. However, at the very same time we're lowering the entry level bar, the ceiling is climbing faster than it ever has before. Curios are a little out of control, and have gone from fun but pointless dragons you can keep in your manse to damage and health buffs. Multiclassing and skillflexing has added on another (very expensive) layer to the meta. So while the bar to enter pk is lower, the bar to be successful and competitive at the higher end is far more expensive and difficult than it was 4 or 5 years ago.
It drives me a little crazy because I could be, and was, competitive with no artifacts as one point in time in Lusternia. I now possess a couple thousand credits worth of artifacts and even I'm lagging behind the curve. If I came back active now, I won't have the fancy divinus whip that will set me back 250 dingbats, or the new health buff genie bottle whatever that will be virtually impossible to get on my own, or multiclassing. And that's just stuff that was implemented since I went inactive which was only 7 months ago! I still don't have the skillflex arties or the leprechaun charm dingbat whatever or rune of absorption or the health buff artie, or a cameo etc. etc. I left Achaea FOR Lusternia because, while I don't mind investing in some artifacts to be competitive, I don't want to have to invest in being a walking artifact pile just to be seen as a top PKer. And the best part was I did it, I become a notable PKer on my own merits, not because I could crush people with my mountain of buffs and arties. This is becoming less and less possible (I would say it's not impossible, unless you choose to play a handful of very specific guild/race combos) Then we have the ascendant system on top of all of that that gives a whole slew of buffs and perks to the few snowflakes that got it that I have less of a problem with on its own, but when combined with the existing disparity issues really create a monster of a "lack of fun" issue.
Class balance is so out of whack that some guilds have just died and stayed dead. Cacophony sucks on its own, but compared Geomancers or Nihilists, they are garbage with a viola. Who wants to play a moondancer with their one cheeseball kill method and ancient skills that have not changed in a decade when you can be a sparkly illuminati that can do the same cheeseball kill method plus kill you 2 other ways, and then another mountain of utility and crap on top of that. The degree to which the envoy system devolved into a self buff arms race really hurt the game. Before the envoy system may have been vitriolic but at least skills didn't stay broken and OP as hell forever (see: Fillin and Geomancy Pollute) because the envoys had been scared to the point of not envoying other guild skills ever. You could TRY and possibly fail to nerf this one guild skill for that one guild that really needs a whack with the nerf bat and lose a month of self buffing while the rest of the game self buffs the hell out of themselves, or you could fight to keep your guild competitive. Lo and behold, crazy geo pollute still exists, just no one decent around to abuse it, nihilists and illuminati and researchers are all still bonkers, and warrior ascendants are running around out damaging casters.
Anyways, I'm rambling at this point but those are my thoughts on it.
It just so happens that one side of the game has a more dedicated core of these people than the other, which tends to have a ripple effect like vivet mentioned.
I do agree though that there are too many factors that have made the game but this way but I think that feature creep, cost of entry, a lack of end goal, and no smaller scale types of conflict are the biggest culprits.
Can talk about those guys once I'm off my phone.
Fact check: Glomdoring was doing well before the Hai'gloh. Quest really had nothing to do with anything long term.
You can disagree, but you are factually incorrect. Shuyin and Viynain had already migrated to Glomdoring. Sidd was active. I joined just prior to the Hai'gloh ("the betrayal of Celina d'Murani lead to the Rite of hai'Gloh Zemordia"). Glom was already doing well going into the Hai'gloh, and the PKers that made up Gloms core group for all those years were already in Glom (I forget when Krellan appeared, but he didn't come from Seren).
I don't even remember how much power the hai'gloh gave the communes but it wasn't anything close to raising a single ascendant, much less 5.
edit: I actually don't know why I am debating this with you, of all people. It's off topic either way.
See @Shuyin, you aren't Glom Jesus. It was the Hai'gloh all along.
It is easy to make claims, but the facts just don't support them.
PS: Sojiro was indeed in Glomdoring before Hai Gloh. Seren considered him a traitor for going to the enemy and fighting them.
I wold love to see raids return. Because the smobs are so powerful, they can only be taken down by a massive zerg--which defenders can't stop anyway, so it doesn't really make a difference. But the smobs were buffed because we engorged PKers with so many buffs, powers, and boosts that it was getting easier and easier to jump in, smash a bunch of things, and jump out (this still happens--plenty of people are powerful enough to bust in, slay all aspects/lords/supernals, and get out before people even have a chance to get up to defend).
Feature creep is, I believe, the main source of our problems. The powerful were made more powerful, and we're all reaping the consequences. A whole lot of extraneous featuers, boosts, and buffs, need to go away entirely.
>.>
<.<
Also, Krellan did come from Seren. He started off in the Moondancers. I believe I kicked him out. Twice.
He originated in Seren ages ago. He didn't hop ship to join Glom because of the Hai'gloh, which was the point of the argument.
Also the Supernals/DLs now require like...math and stuff. You have to bring X number of people to tank the damage because the roomwide attacks decrease in damage based on the number of people present but only Y people can actually attack because too many people attacking triggers more roomwide damage. It's hard to figure that out when you're sitting in ripple + shrines + defenders trying to eat your face. And if you get the math wrong, you all die.
One problem, if you can really call it that, is that everything comes down to the number of people on the field at any given time. The winningest org or alliance is the one with the largest population of willing combatants - plain and simple. There is nothing that a consistently smaller population can do to gain a foothold in any of the various conflict events except stay online around the clock and hope for a lucky break. This is frustrating and leads to burnout.
Some of the mechanics have actually changed over the years to reinforce the idea that the largest population must win. The change to village revolts, which everyone seemed inexplicably (to me) elated about, really just eliminated the opportunity for quickest-response to ever trump power-of-numbers. To a lesser extent, the way you have to uproot wild nodes instead of just grabbing them has the same effect. It gives the larger-numbers team more opportunity to upset the first-on-the-field (provided they are not one in the same). People complained that under the old way, they "never got a chance," but stalling conflict events until behemoth orgs can rouse all their men from their manses isn't exactly providing anyone new with a chance to get some play either. This just feeds the mindset of entitlement amongst already-winners. Things won't get going until they show up anyway.
Short of making every conflict event forced-even-teams, there's no way to address population disparities. There are ways that this could work that are slightly more elegant than it sounds off the cuff -- sort of like tag-teaming with the threshold set by the team with lesser numbers. It still sort of penalizes people who prefer to play with their friends in the larger orgs, and it would also limit the opportunities for new people to be involved. Some would go elsewhere, but you shouldn't have to org-hop just to be able to participate. This sentiment is true on both sides of the fence.
Winning leads to more winning. People will gravitate toward a winning team for no other reason than a desire to share a part of the good feelings that accompany victory. People also tend to gravitate toward already-large populations. Margins of error are larger. Mistakes aren't as noticeable. People have the chance to learn and test their mettle from a position of relative security. People want to fit in, and joining a large and successful group gives them more people to fit in with. There are many psychological reasons why established winners are more likely to continue to win -- and we can't change those.
We can change the mechanical reasons.
Lusternia's mechanics strongly support repeat success. The awards for victory are outlandishly huge in some cases. 1000 power per construct per day. Stat boosts and quest rewards that counteract any semblance of racial balancing. Level 3 village feelings. Many things are too much. Every new thing stacks with, and tops all existing things, and the only 'penalty' for having everything is maintenance that in itself creates more opportunities to rack up WINS.
@Munsia was right about the hai'Gloh being ridiculous in terms of power. 45k (or whatever it was) is insane when you consider that a devastating whole-plane raid in the normal course nets 1 org maybe 5k power total. It was a unique situation, but one thing people seem to have forgotten is that with with the ultimate success of the Xion Initiative, Magnagora got back everything they'd lost and then some.
This is just one example of Lusternia's need to dial things back several notches. We did the hai'Gloh initially with no expectation of a power reward. It was done for role-play reasons. I'm not saying that the power didn't become this tantalizing incentive to not negotiate. It certainly did. The first time we saw the totals, we were shocked to the point of assuming it was a bug, if I remember correctly. But the bottom line is that the quest was created so that the two communes could try to prevent what ultimately happened to the Ethereal Plane. We would have done it anyway. We didn't need the extravagant powerdumps.
The game does not need a lot of its extravagant perks. A lot of things could do with being toned down. This would serve the function of limiting some of the mechanics based momentum that follows the already-winners, while making losing not as demoralizing. Just like winning is its own reward, losing is already its own punishment.
For example, the current blessings for the domoth of life are:
Domotheos of Life
o Minor: Bless a race with +2 constitution (weighted).
o Lesser: Bless a guild with a decrease on all damage to members.
o Major: Bless a city/commune to give health regeneration to all members
of the city/commune on non-enemy territories in the prime plane.
These rewards could be nerfed to +100 hp for a race, +200 hp for a whole guild, and +300 hp for a whole org.... and people would still vie contentiously for it, because every advantage counts, and because in addition to all these bonuses, any domoth imbues the holder with 10k essence every hour and 250-500 org power per day. That's nothing to shake a stick at.
There are a lot of places where we could rein in the rewards and bonuses. We're a min/max world, and the threshold for what players will find useful and worth pursuing is a lot lower than evidence suggests the admin believe. For all the reasons I mentioned above, people will strive for victory as a cause in itself. A pile of win is a pile of win, whether that pile is 10 feet tall or 1000. The main difference is in the perspective of the losers. 10 feet is something you can work to overcome - 1000 can seem insurmountable.
I hope that makes sense.
I imagine this thread will be chock full of long posts like this one. What I'm basically trying to say is that while the real issue is population disparity, that's not something we can reliably address. People love to say that the solution is for losing orgs to create and project a better atmosphere and to keep trying. That's good, if condescending, advice. It's true that positive, encouraging atmospheres and interesting role-play will draw additional players, and it's true that additional players means additional potential for success, but this only goes so far.
Positive atmospheres will not upset powerhouse alliances rooted in shared mechanical advantages, and they won't draw in established players who have come to rely on these advantages. Diminishing the potency of these effects might. At the very least, it would increase the likelihood of people willing to go without. It would diminish the need to cling to alliances the way the currently spread-thing population does. Winning would still be winning, and losing would still be losing, but the distance between the two would seem a whole lot smaller. It's more fun to win when you don't have to feel guilty about it, and it's more palatable to lose when you don't feel like the game itself is working against you. I think the latter has attributed to a lot of giving up over the years.
Vive l'apostrophe!
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