The biggest thing that irks me about affinity is the halved offerings, simply because it makes zero logical sense. "Someone who is not even in the Order... and even if in an enemy organization & enemied to the Order... gets normal-sized offerings, but by being in the Order and NOT the organization, their value is somehow halved".
I really feel it needs to be made consistent. Either: 1) Remove the malus outright. 2) Make it so that everyone who is not in the organization of the God has the same 50% malus (so org-members get full, outsiders do not, and are equivalent to the affinity-wracked). 3) Remove the malus, and then give a buff of between +10% and +50% to people who are in the same org as the God (this way nobody has "penalties," but there is incentive to stay close to home because you get a reward).
This is one of those things that is terrible because it is very specifically applied to certain people, instead of being implemented in a fashion that actually feels consistent (and thus ends up feeling very unfair).
CyndarinAscends said: The design of the game on a very basic level is to maintain severely conflicting ideologies on multiple levels. The game does not want you to have an easy time as a taint god worshipper in Glomdoring for reasons that you can rightfully dislike, but ultimately can't really disagree with. The game wants gods and mortals aligned with specific orgs, period. Grey area loyalties are not a part of Lusternia's game design.
I would say that the conflicting ideologies are rarely enforced as they appear to be. Hell, the whole XI/hai'golah(or whatever the spelling) specifically shows that two 'conflicting' orgs can work together for something they share in common. The game's design is big on player run things and things being shades of gray - if these 'gray area loyalties' are something the players want to see happen then why should there be something from making that harder?
I want Trueheal, but I'm still a Pyromancer at the end of the day. Going against the grain in Lusternia comes with penalties. You can't be a successful Geomancer in Glomdoring because you require power specifically from the Megalith. The design of the game on a very basic level is to maintain severely conflicting ideologies on multiple levels. The game does not want you to have an easy time as a taint god worshipper in Glomdoring for reasons that you can rightfully dislike, but ultimately can't really disagree with. The game wants gods and mortals aligned with specific orgs, period. Grey area loyalties are not a part of Lusternia's game design.
Then make them outright impossible. Quitting org automatically quits order.
Psssst. That's what I suggested in one of the first responses to this thread. You disagreed with my post.
The biggest thing that irks me about affinity is the halved offerings, simply because it makes zero logical sense. "Someone who is not even in the Order... and even if in an enemy organization & enemied to the Order... gets normal-sized offerings, but by being in the Order and NOT the organization, their value is somehow halved".
I really feel it needs to be made consistent. Either: 1) Remove the malus outright. 2) Make it so that everyone who is not in the organization of the God has the same 50% malus (so org-members get full, outsiders do not, and are equivalent to the affinity-wracked). 3) Remove the malus, and then give a buff of between +10% and +50% to people who are in the same org as the God (this way nobody has "penalties," but there is incentive to stay close to home because you get a reward).
This is one of those things that is terrible because it is very specifically applied to certain people, instead of being implemented in a fashion that actually feels consistent (and thus ends up feeling very unfair).
If people are really arguing (and they are) that hey want to be able to mix and match alignments for "interesting RP," I highly hiiiiighly doubt force quitting orders would resolve any issue. Rather, it'd just spawn more complaints. It just makes no sense to me to argue that you hate affinity so much that you're willing to allow force quitting of orders, but not enough to just quit yourself. I don't get it. If quitting is the solution you want, it's already available to you.
It is not about the powers, never has been, and no classflexing does not cause daily drain that you have to keep up with.
Thank you for today's moment of things I already knew but wasn't talking about. Incidentally, being in a guild from outside your org may not have a daily drain to a third party, it does come with a much more severe consequence of you not being able to use many of your skills at all.
@CyndarinAscends I agree with you on the broken classflexing out of an org, regarding the power skills you can't use (I'm currently using broken Nihilism skills).
However it is not comparable to affinity drain.
Edit : Well, maybe it is comparable, concerning the whole ' You can use that but actually, no you can't ' mentality in both affinity drain and classflexing in a different org. If a guild approved your use of their skills, why not get the whole set of skills? The two are still two separate things, regardless.
I don't think it's broken -- it's by design. Certain archetypes (such as wiccans, guardians, mages, and druids) are thematically more tied to their home orgs than others, and power restrictions reinforce that. Otherwise we'd be treacherously close to the debacle that was Achaea Autoclass.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that while it may seem fun for an individual player to be in a god's order while being in another organisation is that this is typically only fun for the individual and can be potentially very frustrating to deal with for everyone else, including the god. While in practice the alliances are very static, what happens if your new organisation and your god's organisation suddenly goes to war? Judging from some of the comments, I don't really seeing this being a fun experience for anyone.
I should elaborate now I'm not skimming on my phone and am again properly caffeinated.
I DON'T agree with enforcing membership in orders be tied to orgs. I DON'T agree with making it so heavily penalised. And it's a hefty penalty. The 50% less worth of offerings makes no logical sense whatsoever. It's stupid, even moreso when coupled with the daily drain.
HOWEVER, if it's supposed to not be a grey area, if it's supposed to be cut and dry follow the gods in your org only, then ENFORCE it. And while we're at it, make class-flexing cross-org also impossible. Have all guild skills also drop to dormant upon quitting the org (so obviously shared skills could be activated again).
I get that it's frustrating for the god in question. Poor Morgfyre has his two highest ranking members now outside of Magnagora. But at least we are still there for the order, right? I know Morg was unhappy. I felt and still feel bad about that, but he also understands the need for me to play where I need to, to enjoy the game. I probably would have quit playing altogether, I'll be honest, if I was forced to stay in Magnagora or quit the DisOrder.
Someone else already said it - Lusternia is full of grey areas. Diametrically opposed orgs working together all the time, people org and guild hopping at whim for their personal ooc enjoyment. So why punish people for wanting to keep enjoying divine rp outside the designated allowances of what is acceptable rp? It's already inconvenient due to the legislation of Glomdoring (no shrines, sermons, rituals, inducting Gloms etc etc) and every org already has the ability to demand people quit orders before granting admittance, so does it -really- need further punishment?
I guess my ultimate thought is this - if the admin don't want it to be a thing, make it not a thing. If they don't mind, then be less harsh about it.
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SylandraJoin Queue for Mafia GamesThe Last Mafia Game
I think that hits the nail on the head. It depends on what the admin want to get out of affinity/foreign membership etc.
"Oh yeah, you're a naughty mayor, aren't you? Misfile that Form MA631-D. Comptroller Shevat's got a nice gemstone disc for you, but yer gonna have to beg for it."
SylandraJoin Queue for Mafia GamesThe Last Mafia Game
Well, we can say what we want all day and all night, but if the admin want affinity, it's staying. This is a conversation that's been around a long time. I think if the option of removing affinity entirely had been received favorably, it'd be gone by now.
Which is to say that the admin know what foreign orderlings want: no malus to foreign membership. They've known that for awhile. The question is what the purpose of the penalty is, and whether or not the penalty is currently achieving that. And what I'm saying is that we can't pinpoint the answer to that question on this side of the curtain.
"Oh yeah, you're a naughty mayor, aren't you? Misfile that Form MA631-D. Comptroller Shevat's got a nice gemstone disc for you, but yer gonna have to beg for it."
Well, we can say what we want all day and all night, but if the admin want affinity, it's staying. This is a conversation that's been around a long time. I think if the option of removing affinity entirely had been received favorably, it'd be gone by now.
Which is to say that the admin know what foreign orderlings want: no malus to foreign membership. They've known that for awhile. The question is what the purpose of the penalty is, and whether or not the penalty is currently achieving that. And what I'm saying is that we can't pinpoint the answer to that question on this side of the curtain.
I'm usually with you on this attitude but I feel like affinity is a really bad design to solve a real problem. The biggest issue and the biggest reason affinity was put in was to prevent large groups of order members from leaving the order's main city and moving to another one to "take over" which is a real problem that can happen. The problem is that it hits people on an individual basis. Quick and dirty answer would be to have it apply retroactively, so the offers from someone in another org is the same as everyone else but at the end of the weave a tax is taken from the affinity. Same effect but visually it is shouldered by the whole order and not just one person losing that stigma you get when you look at the logs. Second, increase that tax as more people are outside of the org. So an order can maintain a couple of people from outside of the org but can't have a ton. That gives room for some rp.
For me the dislike of affinity comes more from the limitations on Elders it seems to present.
The elders were a vast group of individuals who all had their own interests and specialisations, they also existed millennia before any of our present organisations were even conceived.
Player Characters as mortals can be expected to be shaped somewhat by the organisations they call home, because our characters have grown up in a world heavily influenced by these organisations and the entities/powers that are associated with them.
Morgfyre is an entity that has existed since long before the first stones of Magnagora were laid, His teachings might align most directly and heavily with Magnagora but that doesn't mean that there aren't those in other orgs that might also be attracted to His cults.
Crumkane is a culinary artist with fae followers, I'm not even certain why he is aligned with Gaudiguch, maybe because there is a higher demand for party food? But really, he seems like the sort of Elder that any dedicated chef might consider following. The forced association with a city limiting a concept that could be at home in, at the least, every kitchen in the basin. His relationship with the fae could also lead to greater understandings of their nature which seems like it would be appreciated in either forest.
Elostian sought the brightest minds in the world and even left Celest from memory to go to Glomdoring. From memory, Elcyrion and Lacostian were also not too heavily tied to their orgs thematically, drawing membership from Serenwilde and Celest though they potentially would draw from more given more orgs.
Though, the most important thing here is that Elostian moved, for whatever reason he decided that he was done with Celest and left them. A god that is not so rigidly bound to an organisation has that capacity.
Of course, on the flipside, there are gods such as Lisaera, Charune, Viravain, Isune. Who have deep connections to their orgs, it doesn't make sense for them to be elsewhere and potentially little sense for their followers to wander away from their orgs.
Beyond them, there are going to be other gods that are obviously connected to an org for less direct reasons, Hoaracle perhaps is an example here. He has links to Serenwilde in theming, but The Dreamer seems like he could have conceivably welcomed Celestians into his order(one of the aspects of his teachings I didn't like), but anyone associated with a traitor even by being in the same org as them would be unlikely to find a welcome with him.
Of course this, in turn, can limit players to some degree, though we can try to work past affinity, it seems less likely that say a Chef in Hallifax would seek membership in Crumkanes order, or that Elostian might allow the best biologists in Gaudiguch to join his order.
Comments
I really feel it needs to be made consistent. Either:
1) Remove the malus outright.
2) Make it so that everyone who is not in the organization of the God has the same 50% malus (so org-members get full, outsiders do not, and are equivalent to the affinity-wracked).
3) Remove the malus, and then give a buff of between +10% and +50% to people who are in the same org as the God (this way nobody has "penalties," but there is incentive to stay close to home because you get a reward).
This is one of those things that is terrible because it is very specifically applied to certain people, instead of being implemented in a fashion that actually feels consistent (and thus ends up feeling very unfair).
Thank you for today's moment of things I already knew but wasn't talking about. Incidentally, being in a guild from outside your org may not have a daily drain to a third party, it does come with a much more severe consequence of you not being able to use many of your skills at all.
Granted: one order of pyromancer for Falmiis. Please JOIN GAUDIGUCH to continue.