On off-sides xp/essence loss

Delphas

[Since this is a bit longer than a tweet, and looks like one of those ``idea'' things, I thought perhaps this might be the appropriate venue.]

Apropos what @Arcanis posted in the tweets recently, veddy veddy interesting.  I really don't have enough experience with this to have any sort of opinion on the specific numbers of the present system.  Simply put, I have no idea how much essence I may or may not have lost during my various engagements.  Perhaps the numbers are right on the mark? Way off base? How to know?

I wouldn't
ever say there is One True Answer.  I wouldn't approach this from
by way of ``what feels right'' either, but rather interpret the whole thing in
terms of what IRE (and hopefully we the players) want to encourage and
discourage.  If raiding is to be uniformly discouraged then cranking up
the off-sides penalties all the way to 11 would send that message. 
Similarly if these penalties were nerfed down to nothing then that would
certainly signal raiding is something every single one of us should be
doing and should be doing it all the time.

I guess really it comes down to two questions, because it may be possible these penalties can be independently adjusted:
How much raiding should demi's be doing?
How much raiding should non-demi's be doing?

Given
the non-demis are often partitioned into distinct brackets for various
events and contests (1-40, 90+, etc) it might also be possible to adjust the non-demi
penalties over different tiers as well.

Several different modes could be established, each of which would establish the character of the environment.
Example: If the novices and demis have no place raiding, then crank up their penalties but nerf those for the 41-89 level bracket (and only slightly nerf the non-demi 90+).  The middlings would serve as the shock troops and pacify the area under the leadership of the oldies and only then would the demis move into slay pots/supernals/whatever.  Great opportunity for cityfavour and guilldfavour here.
Example: If raiding is supposed to the end-game adventure, nerf the heck out of it for demis, nerf it only a little for non-demi 90+, and penalize the tar out of everyone else.  Under this proposal you can expect opposing demis to regularly rampage.
Example: Perhaps just one day each year humour prevails (we've seen it before, and I'm talking to you Evilopolis, Stiffieville, et al.).  In that case then drop it to the bottom for 1-40, max it out for everyone else, and plant all sorts of rifts all over the place.  Hijinks will most certainly ensue.

To me it's not a matter of ``what's fair?'' since I'm not even sure how to define ``fair''.  It comes down to ``What modes of behaviour do we want to encourage and discourage?''.  If we can answer that question first, then I think the applicable mechanics of the system will become obvious.

Ssaliss

Just as a note, this has been discussed in this thread too.

Enyalida

For more about possible raiding 'modes', try here.

Enyalida

I was really confused reading your post, until I realized that when you're talking about "Nerfing it for demi's", the 'it' isn't 'raiding'. 



Anyways, The a variant of the idea expressed in the link I just posted is the best solution, in my opinion. There are a lot of potential fine points and adjustment levels, but what is boils down to is this:

-Leave in place large penalties for dying in enemy territory. 

-In addition, buff the raided denizens of each plane where needed, so that it is very hard to take them out without encountering said penalties

-Introduce a set of 'miniquests' that can 'open' a plane for a window, for a particular objective. This would drop the large penalties, and weaken the denizens of the plane down into managability.

-These miniquests would have cooldowns proportional to their strength: The smob token would take longer to get and have more restrictions than the 'we just want to occupy for a little while' token.

-Some of the stronger/longer tokens could have additional restrictions. For instance, the smob token might warn players at some middle stage, before its use. Something to the effect of "Oh no, I sense a disturbance in the schwartz. Glomdoring must be charging their most evil planar dongle for use against is!". You'd get warning that something was going to happen soon, but not exactly when.

This would make it possible to conduct meaningful raids on territories without crushing personal loss, while also preserving the general purpose of those penalties: To curb whimsical occupation. You would need to go in with a purpose, and leave at some defined point after that purpose is accomplished (or failed). 

Arcanis

Concerning current raiding, it basically is impossible. An example was done some time ago when a group was massed on Celestia to try and kill the weakest supernal; Japhiel. Even with no resistance, it was simply impossible and the group continued to be wiped out, with the added 500k-2m essence loss each time. It was frankly pointless.

I suppose we could wait for the mythical overhaul to finish..some day, in the distant future, when the sun sets in the east and rises from the west. #Overhaul

Lerad

First of all, the overhaul was never designed to fix raiding.

Next, to actually comment on the thread, raiding currently is still possible, as has been demonstrated recently. The heavy costs, however, are meant to discourage constant and un-ending harrassment. There definitely are problems with these cost-mechanics, and I think Delphas' premise has a point - figuring out what raiding behavior is desired is the first step to determining what mechanics to have.

For example, the current mechanics can be intepreted as to encourage certain raiding behavior:

Currently, from my perspective, the mechanics work in a way where raiding is designed to be an avenue to get PK, but unlike revolts or domoths, raiding does not have a specified end, other than a player's choice. That choice is tied to how much essence they have lost since their raiding has started. On theory, on paper, this is a system where players get to make a decision as to when things should stop, and not a timer in the background, with inevitably mounting costs being the major deciding factor. Defenders speed up this process by killing raiders, causing the mounting costs to hit the opposing players' acceptable threshold faster. Once that threshold is reached, the raider will leave. Therefore, the theory goes that if a well-organised raiding team kills any and all opposition, they can stay in there, getting the PK they want for longer, whereas if a well-organised defending team can wipe the opposition with ease and speedily, they can pretty much chase them off in a few minutes, because the raiders now have suffered so much loss they are no longer willing to risk any more. This is important because if we limit raiding with concrete timers, defenders are no longer incentivized to take part in defending. While winning a revolt or a domoth confers mechanical benefits, raiding doesn't. The same logic that applies to major conflict quests apply here as well: if something will just go away after a while, why bother? (This is a rehashe of some arguments in the previous threads, yes, I know.)

As a theory, this is what I subscribe to, anyway. The above "goals" are what I have personally come to terms with, based on the mechanics. Whether it is what the admin intend, I don't have a means of knowing. I personally haven't raided in a long while because I haven't had the inclination to seek PK at the cost of my essence. And I have no qualms about pulling every trick out of the hat to kill and chase away raiders, because that's the goal that I am encouraged to achieve: to get the raiders to hit their acceptable-cost threshold as soon as possible. Of course, the downside of accepting the current system in this way is that it ends up irking me when people raid but do not want to PK, but I sometimes forget that my own philosophies are only my own philosophies, and not what other people are obliged to subscribe to.

One thing I don't agree with Delphas, however, is the idea that the exp/essence loss mechanics are meant to (or should be meant to) encourage or discourage raiding by select groups only. The reason why demigod essence loss is much higher than non-demigod essence loss is simply that demigodhood is the level at which raiding is competitively balanced. Demigod essence loss is higher because raiders are usually demigods. It is not higher to encourage demigods to raid more (or less, as case may be). As it is, we all know that the stat boosts a demigod gains can make a big difference in combat, and therefore raiding. Largely because of that, raiding is usually only done by demigods. It therefore stands to reason that exp/essence loss for raiding should be targeted at demigods.

Other than that, however, there is no real reason for high death penalities in this game. Most IREs I have experience with have moved away from death penalties altogether. In your day-to-day (virtual) life, death should not be a cause for frustration: making newbies or midbies pull their hair out everytime they die is not the best way to retain interest in a genre that is already extremely niche. Maintaining low exp loss for non-demigods is a good idea, simply because death penalties have no real role in the game generally.

Having said all that, it would actually be nice to move raiding penalties (different from death penalties) away from essence loss. Raiding penalties, as I mentioned above, can be used as a form of threshold or a soft-cap of sorts, for raiders to stop raiding. However, I don't see why it necessarily needs to be tied to grind, to the demigod-power currency, to the demigod status itself. I can see that tying it in this way can discourage raiders with an actual, real threat, the threat of losing their demipower investments, but I don't feel that is a very worthwhile way to go about it. Does it work? Yeah, it does. Every new demigod learns not to risk death until they have a buffer. And to have several multiples of that buffer before they even consider raiding. But is that really the best way to go about soft-capping raid times, and prevent raiding from traipsing into harrassment? Possibly not, because as it is, it still remains possible for a person to raid to the point of harrassment. I mean, I have 32 million essence. I can raid and die 15 times before I reach the point of no-return. And my level of grinding has gone down hugely. Others, who want to, can most certainly get enough essence to put up a campaign that would tip-toe close to limits, if not cross them entirely.

Rethinking exp/essence loss mechanics relating to raiding is possibly a really worthwhile excercise, starting with Delphas' premise. First, we have to figure out what kind of raiding behavior we want to encourage and discourage, and go on from there.

Enyalida

I'm aware. Basically everyone knows that already, heh, that was the point of posting previous threads where this was discussed at length. There is a reason that raids have dropped off sharply, and that the only combat tends to take place during scheduled events (or domoths). 

Shaddus

Arcanis said:

Concerning current raiding, it basically is impossible. An example was done some time ago when a group was massed on Celestia to try and kill the weakest supernal; Japhiel. Even with no resistance, it was simply impossible and the group continued to be wiped out, with the added 500k-2m essence loss each time. It was frankly pointless.

I suppose we could wait for the mythical overhaul to finish..some day, in the distant future, when the sun sets in the east and rises from the west. #Overhaul

On a tangent here, but why is Japhiel considered the weakest? When Thoros and Crew used to raid Celestia, we'd spend a day getting astral corpses and turning them in to Raziela to lower her shield, then kill her first.

Ssaliss

Honestly, the more I think about it the more I like the whole "quest token" idea. It doesn't even have to be a full-on quest, but rather something you do at the nexus. Each token would have a set of goals and a timeframe in which to accomplish them. For instance:

Token of Earth Assault: Slay all five Earth lords. You have ten minutes.
Token of Nil Assault: Slay 20 demons (depending on how many there are; I have absolutely no clue). You have ten minutes.
Token of Demon Lord Assault: Slay the Demon Lords. Each one will count as a victory, but wouldn't in itself end the timer. You have 30 minutes.

Each token would cost a certain amount of power (something minor, like 50 power). If the goals are met within the timeframe, the assault is considered a success, and a small amount of power (say, 75 or so in order to cover the cost of the token) would be drained from the target orgs nexus and put into your own. They would each have a cooldown of, say, two hours, to avoid nonstop raids. If no token is used, the current effects exist; you'd lose the same amount of essence you do today etc. However, if a token is used and you die, you lose, say, 10% of that.

Of course, whenever a token is used, the target org is notified through CT. The token won't come into effect until a set time after it was used; for instance, for the Earth Assault and Nil Assault, it'd take a minute or so. For a Demon Lord Assault, it'd take ten minutes or so.

This can (in my mind) be enhanced further by minor modifications to how the conquest pool works. Right now it only builds if you're a conquest org, and it only builds from villages (IIRC). Instead, it could build for all orgs (50% of your power income for religious and commercial, 100% for conquest) and for both village, bubble and domoth power, and you'd drain that conquest pool on creating/winning assaults. This would also allow you to up the cost/benefit from the assaults, since there'd be a more limited amount to drain instead of the nexus. For orgs that are down on their luck without domoths, villages or bubbles, there'd be essentially nothing to gain from declaring assaults on them; you can't drain what isn't there.

This would also allow the admins to create a limited-time token for other things... like a special "assault the rockeaters" token for a special event or something. I'm sure the rest of you have a far better imagination than I do.

Cyndarin

Shaddus said:

Arcanis said:

Concerning current raiding, it basically is impossible. An example was done some time ago when a group was massed on Celestia to try and kill the weakest supernal; Japhiel. Even with no resistance, it was simply impossible and the group continued to be wiped out, with the added 500k-2m essence loss each time. It was frankly pointless.

I suppose we could wait for the mythical overhaul to finish..some day, in the distant future, when the sun sets in the east and rises from the west. #Overhaul

On a tangent here, but why is Japhiel considered the weakest? When Thoros and Crew used to raid Celestia, we'd spend a day getting astral corpses and turning them in to Raziela to lower her shield, then kill her first.

You go for the strongest one first because supernals/DLs defend one another. Gorgulu and Raz are far and away the strongest ones, and they make taking down the weaker ones harder because they pop in to defend them. Where as if you smack Raz, I believe Japhiel comes to defend and he's a lot easier to tank. Nif defends Gorgulu and she's also a lot easier to tank. 

They not only hit the hardest, Gorg also eats people at random and Raz flings them to astral, which the others don't do. 

Enyalida

That's the idea, @Ssaliss. I didn't literally mean a true 'quest' with puzzles and all, just a short trip to an appropriate org mob or two, for RP reasons. Perhaps you need to ask Brennan for a widget you then hand to Rowena, who charges it with her cauldron, or something. 

Perhaps even more complex time limits involved, if things are difficult. For instance: Slay all the Earth Lords. Every time you kill one, you get an extra 5 minutes! This would allow a framework for more complex objectives that currently don't exist. Perhaps you need to plant x number of Sacred Trees in the enemy territory, and killing off their loyal mobs gives you extra time/resources to do that, or you need to erect a shrine and defend it (in the style of order wars).

Saran

I kinda wish there were tech trees for the orgs and even the guilds. From memory it was one of the impressions I got from Dharma or maybe the nexus worlds.

The basic idea would be that going out and engaging in PVP activities would generate a resource (Dharma, auronidion, goodvibes, whatever.) and orgs would be able to develop a suite of bonuses for themselves. 

Unfortunately with constructs and domoths it may just be more bloat, but there could be nice things like an extra construct in your nexus world or something.

Of course the issue may end up, as always, that the people that really need the benefits would be the ones currently on the losing side

Shuyin

Pretty down with tokens that you can turn in to minimize xp loss.

Enyalida

It would have to be at least a little more complicated than that.