You'd get people bouncing to a friendly org for a month and a half before going back home.
You essentially create a dead org for that time period. It's one thing to have an org go quiet during ascension because they allow a "why bother" attitude to fester in, it's another to mechanically kill off an org by saying "We're having fun, but you sit it out this year." Hell, the person who TA'd might have moved, how's that fair on the people they left behind?
Not to mention people who rolled a character since. We've had people join Glom as fresh newbies since last Ascension, and they're participating in the games for their first time. What kind of experience would it be to tell those people "Ok annual big event that the story has lead up to this last 12 months is starting but you can't play."
Ascension isn't a 1 1/2 month event, people work all year round (and some even longer) training up, honing skills, finding ways for each seal events, studying, questing etc. Kira winning Knowledge is the prime example of this, For some people the entire year of gaming in various fashions and manner leads up to this one event. Your suggestion wouldn't fix the problem you're hoping for, all it will do is create a short term instability while people mechanically wrangle the system.
Because that's what this game encourages, it encourages people to meta, to min max, to play for the small gains, because when you add them up together it makes giant gulfs. If you want to fix the imbalance, the biggest base would be to change the mentality of certain organisations. There are places where knowledge isn't shared, or it isn't being pursued, people are dying and complaining that they were killed by unreasonable damage then you find out they barely make use of mitigation. There are people who lose with numbers on their side and blame x/y/z ability rather than the fact they decided the best thing to do would be rambo in and spam damage attacks with no focus fire.
People don't learn their abilities because they're either not taught or they don't care to learn. The same mentality issues brings itself about in some orgs where people don't want to do, they just want to benefit, not just in combat but a whole number of ways. The few people who are being depended on for a, b and c eventually burn out and move somewhere they're not only appreciated for their passion and commitment, but they can rely on others to work with them, not just cheer on from the sidelines and reap the benefits.
There's some places where the organisational mentality makes things counter productive, adjust, reinvent, refocus, take the same core principles and move in a different direction. One of the biggest issues is delegation and those who grab power and fail to utilise it. There isn't a single organisation in this game that doesn't have people on its inner council who get the main voice on matters they know nothing about, combat or otherwise. Not one. The fact that these voices hold more weight than the people actively involved in various manners is one of the most simple ways to burn people out. Power shouldn't come from an elected position within a group of 3-5 people when it affects an organisation of 30+, power should be given as a responsibility to those who know what they're doing.
The biggest issue in the state of conflict is that mentality, when the last split happened just over a year ago (Happy anniversary!) one organisation went into it with the mentality it was the right choice, that they were the powerhouse and they'd cut the dead weight. Within a month and a few hard losses, they crumbled. The rambo esque tactics weren't working, there was infighting and political drama for months after that's up on pastebin for everyone to enjoy still, with people burning out from that, and others giving up because they had the mentality of "We're losing, why bother." and simply quit playing.
That last bit has reared its ugly head time and again, and become a self fulfilling prophecy, where many fights that could have been a victory through their participation, teamwork, preparation and focus, became one sided masochistic poundings (thank you OMF 2097 for that perfect definition) simply because they couldn't raise numbers.
It's late, the wind is shaking my windows and I can't sleep. Apologies if my disgruntled state and blunt opinion offended anyone while I merely speak my mind.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
I think it was Leolamins who pointed out on the Facebook group that the conflict systems in Lusternia are predominantly of a Capture the Flag (CTF), or King of the Hill (KOH) type, where larger groups are preferable, leading to what we see in game, large (and static) alliances.
When the activity level of one of these opposing alliances drops for an extended period, conflict essentially evaporates and things get stale. The ‘winning’ side is starved of an enjoyable PVP outlet, and the ‘losing’ side struggles with morale, low population, lack of leaders, etc. Without the resetting action of an alliance shift or a few prominent org-hops to even the sides, the dominant side are left twiddling their thumbs waiting for the other side to pick themselves out of their slump, while the subdominant group face a lengthy period of rebuilding.
Together with the CTF/KOH setups of domoths, wildnodes, and even villages/flares, I think the -unchanging- opponents imposed by static alliances compound the low level of conflict problem. Every resource can be shared within a dominant alliance in a “We get X, you get Y, We’re all winners!” arrangement. While there may be some disgruntlement, there is little to no incentive for alliance members to compete with each other (at least until boredom gets to an intolerable level), and rather the alliance maintains the low conflict status quo of shared dominance.
Now while I would love to see more fluid alliances and for each org to act more independently, sadly without each org’s population taking a dramatic jump, static alliances will likely remain the norm. So instead, we could look at tweaking or adding to the conflict systems to encourage a smaller org vs org conflict outlet, within the larger alliance vs alliance conflict systems of domoths, supernal/demonlord raids, and ascension.
Wildnodes, I think, could easily be altered to encourage an org v org, rather than alliance v alliance setup. When there is no alliance opposition, nodes are typically shared by the dominant group, and everyone gets free power, though it becomes a failed outlet for conflict.
I posted a suggestion to the Facebook group last time this came up proposing that rather than planted nodes build up your own org’s points, planted nodes instead drain points from ALL other organisations. So every org starts at some maximum, and the more planted wildnodes you control, the faster you drain every other org’s tally and the slower your own tally is drained. Wildnodes then only ends with a single winner/reward, when all other orgs are at 0 points. So even if there is no alliance opposition, a single reward removes the “we’re all winners!” arrangement and there is incentive for a solely org-centric approach.
Summary? Wildnodes would become purely org-focused, its reward is not so critical that losing is demoralizing, eliminating the free power reduces the glut of power in the game, dominant alliance members have an outlet for conflict against fresh opponents, subdominant alliance members hopefully have more opportunity to play against more evenly matched sides. Wildnodes gets more wild!
There are many different ways to approach this, and offhand I ran out of fingers on one hand when I started counting perceived issues. I'm going to show restraint though and just focus on one.
Conflict in Lusternia is different, and it largely stems from Estarra's philosophy. I became aware of it when I saw the interview he did on Youtube. In that interview, he talked about the motivation behind the creation of revolts, and the big thing that he emphasized is how the conflict had a beginning and an end. Conflict that goes on and on is an issue that he perceived from Achaea, and he wanted to address it in Lusternia. That was the start, but it didn't stop there.
After villages came wildnodes, nexus weakenings, domoths, and after that aetherflares replaced weakenings. Add on top of that the epic quests that require conflict as well. It all adds up to an immense amount of forced and routine conflict. Each of these conflict systems are self contained. They have a beginning and an end. That is the appeal on the admin side, but combined they have the effect of incentivizing the thought that conflict is only something that happens through mechanical means, and with that a lot of the unique appeal of MUDs is lost. Also they focus attention on the moment rather than the flow of events.
For example:
It's a revolt! Go! Go! Now! Now! Whew, good job. Or bah, we suck. Conflicts happen outside of the control of the players in large part, and there is both IC and OOC pressure to participate, and then shortly afterward there is a climax, and the result matters more than anything else.
In such a system tactics are valued over strategy because the lack of control makes luck more important than preparation. Also the amount of conflict systems is incentive to value fleeting accomplishments over lasting contributions.
This is why I don't play here as much as I do in my home IRE. Conflict there is very very easily accessible and it is so much easier to feel involved. Every time I attempt to log in and play here, there seems to be absolutely no pk going on at all. As a matter of fact, there isn't anyone to start conflict with even on a personal (though I much prefer small group raiding/fights) level. Running off your players who were active in pk was a very bad move for the game as a whole. The world just seems like a ghost town.
Conflict here suffers for numerous reasons. Conflict/pk is a huge factor that attracts players to IRE muds. First of all, your players are spread way too thin here. You're not going to attract new players, or keep older players, in empty orgs. Secondly, if you aren't both attracting new blood and keeping your seasoned players, there simply isn't going to be anyone to engage in conflict with. It's an endless cycle and frankly, the mindset behind the game's design needs to change. While I am not writing this post with the intent to offend your admin here, it remains true that the basic design is where it is falling apart. Your admin needs to be more open-minded when it comes to the "vision" behind Lusternia.
Instead of making the act of engaging in combat feel like a punishment, more reward should be offered for participation in order to encourage. Cut down on your orgs and stop coddling players who tend to be sore losers. Combat is fun whether you win or lose. You still get that adrenaline rush regardless. Failure leads to improvement.
Players are going to complain when they lose no matter what. What you should really focus on is developing an atmosphere that attracts the type of players who will generate both an exciting environment and profits for IRE.
Compare the current version of Lusternia to the one that contained active pkers. I've never been a long-time player of Lusternia, only playing on a more casual basis, but even I can see a huge difference between this Lusternia and the one I first created a character in. Needless to say, this one is much less attractive, offering no sense of adventure or nail-biting danger.
Again, I truly apologize if anything I post here upsets or offends the admin. This is just how I see it. I view Lusternia as an IRE that holds a ton of potential if certain things are done differently.
Conflict in Lusternia is different, and it largely stems from Estarra's philosophy. I became aware of it when I saw the interview he did on Youtube. In that interview, he talked about the motivation behind the creation of revolts, and the big thing that he emphasized is how the conflict had a beginning and an end. Conflict that goes on and on is an issue that he perceived from Achaea, and he wanted to address it in Lusternia. That was the start, but it didn't stop there.
There could be a system in which combat is less scheduled and regular (less of a set 'beginning') but still has distinct 'ends', with raids and other conflict not dragging on into the range of harassment, and they've been suggested a few times.
My favorite sort of solution to this particular problem is a 'raid pass' implementation. Essentially, you give each org a set of thematic miniquests they can pursue that create new avenues of attack on their enemies, but with limits.. While using a 'raid pass', you open up a set of objectives. If you fail to achieve the objectives within a time frame, you are encouraged to leave the territory, and need to wait some number of RL hours or days to try again, depending on the level of the objective.
A rough example: Magnagora could go about forging and charging a weaponized enchantment that will weaken the Supernals (or any similar Smob group) temporarily. Completing it opens the objective "Kill the supernals and offer their corpses to the demon lords", and the weapon will stay charged for 1 RL day. Once brought to Celestia and discharged, it nerfs the Supernals such that they do not take 50billion people to kill, and drops the massive enemy territory death loss a substantial amount. However, for every 15 minutes a supernal is not killed, they begin to recover and get increasingly stronger. After an hour (or an hour and a half), the effects of the weapon fade - your raid is over. Unfortunately, powering the weapon used up a lot of the Demon Lord's phlebotonium, and you'll need to wait 5 RL days to call upon their great weapon again. If you succeed in wiping the Supernals out of existence temporarily, not only will the sky of Celestia be twisted with evil symbols and lidless eyes, you gain a chunk of power for your nexus, and all the beggars of Magnagora wear gold feathers in their hats, feathers plucked from the bloody wings of fallen angels (got silly there at the end, sorry).
The benefits of completion could - and probably should - vary from just being 'chunk of power'. There are all manner of things that could be granted as boons to an org that wouldn't fall into positive feedback loops, including largely rp boosts or changes for smaller targets.
In addition to varying benefits, sufficiently high profile conflicts could have counter-objectives in replacement of or in addition to time limits. In the Supernals example, if defending against the assault directly isn't in the cards (because you have a much lower fighter contingent, or whatever), you can instead try to divide the assaulting forces by invading Nil to take out the tethers providing magical energy to the weapon anchored on Celestia... or try to attack the weapon itself directly! Smobs are currently the biggest targets, their events can afford to be more complex!
On the other hand, doing things like raiding to attack the elemental lord equivalents could be done much more often, with less effort - but equally less reward (but something more interesting than essence being worth less for a short amount of time).
While this kind of implementation wouldn't fix all of the combat woes of Lusternia, it would to two things:A) Provide non-god-event combat that means something in the story context of Lusternia, something most people find lacking, while keep the idea of 'combat that ends' alive, making a much more RP driven and enjoyable casual combat scene. It would unfortunately take a tremendous amount of effort to really get right, of course. You'd want enough things to do for there to always be some outlet for PK while not making it such that orgs are still being constantly bombarded to the point of not wanting to participate - sucking the fun out of it for everyone.
So essentially you want to create a system similar to reinforcement timers for POS bashing in EVE.
Let me briefly explain how that works btw, in EVE Online when you want to take over a system, you have to kill the control unit which is usually hosted within a player owned station (or POS for short).These stations are filled with a fuel charge that allows the station to go into reinforcement mode when you strip the shields and armour and knock it into structure. Reinforcement means they get a 99% resist to all, and means if you want to destroy it, you'll have to spend the entire next 24 hours shooting at it.
Alternatively you come back when the tower is due to exit reinforcement, 24 hours later.
Now the metagame to that, is that if you're fighting an alliance that is based in Europe, you'll strike roughly late evening American west coast time. That way everyone's asleep, or getting ready for work the next day and resistance will be minimal. You metagame the timing of your strikes to not coincide so much with your best numbers, but their worst. Why? Because you have a limited time window to do it, so you maximise your chances of success.
What does this have to do with your suggestion? It's exactly the same thing, You've a short window every five days, you'll do it at the absolute perfect moment to benefit you by removing your enemies, you as the offensive are in complete control of the time window and can dictate when this essentially glorified PvE bash takes place. It doesn't create conflict, it will sadly be meta'd to sidestep it entirely.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of creating ways to build up to conflict and at the same time make powerful objectives both reachable and limited in their frequency, but I'm sat here playing Devil's Advocate while I can't sleep and that's the first problem I see with such a system.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
It doesn't really matter what's added, it'll be gamed to it's fullest extent. That should just be a given. It's a matter of finding solutions that have the least gamability.
The limiting factor with current large-scale pvp is having enough people around, which means that the majority of uber-raids will generally happen during the lucky USA prime time when you have a huge population and circumstances conspire to make your raidee not. Making the number threshold low enough so that it is actually reached from time to time, and simultaneously barring the lucky (or very meta-coordinated, nothing to frown at) mega-group from hitting every target in one spree during their time of glory can only be a step forwards.
The other goal is to give the aggressor some degree of the elements of surprise and timing, but not the kind of free reign we theoretically see now - and only don't see because the threshold for a large scale raid is so high. Part of the package with the very-large scale offensive setups (like smob attacks) would be a degree of warning for possible targets. In my (rough) example, nearing the completion of the weapon would issue a warning to all the other orgs: "Oh crap, Magnagora is doing something dangerous.", with the exact nature of the warning being tailored to the org. Of course, Magnagora still has a range of times they can choose to deploy their attack (which I set as 1 RL day in my example, but that doesn't necessarily need to be that, or it could be more dynamic than a set time limit), and therefore can plan some strategy. In other words, you (on the offensive) wouldn't necessarily be in complete control of the time window, like you are in the current system.
And anyways, in an implementation similar to what I'm suggesting, you'd not want to try an smob raid every five days on the dot, because it would limit your ability to gain the maximum benefit from other, lesser-but-more-frequent conflict opportunities. Making your major attack would not only knock out your ability to do it again for some period it would weaken or limit your other options as well. Of course, all the little attacks wouldn't necessarily hamper your options in a significant manner, but it would be part of the system: The high reward attacks are high risk, in that you risk future potential engagements. If you fail the big one, you knock out a big chance to profit. If you fail a little one, so what, not as much resource blown!
But you're right, the rough idea would have some gaps that would require serious thought and work, but I think a system like it would be a lot better than the virtually non-existant systems for non-scheduled event (wildnodes, revolts, flares, et. al.) that we have now.
Another big flaw, that I mentioned two posts back, is that for that kind of implementation to be really fun you'd want a lot of options, and you'd want the options to be RP oriented.
While normal 'hit and run' style melding wouldn't be banned or restricted (any more than it currently is), raid tickets would only really hit their stride if you had several different types of objectives, as well as several levels for each. As was pointed out, all of the current combat tends to be 'king of the hill' style, even smob raids: gather a huge group and sit on a single room, keeping all enemies out while you complete x objective (killing an npc). Having more choices would make the system more engaging, and the low level objectives could provide easier active ways for lower tier/newer combatants to participate in a more meaningful manner.
This is a flaw because it depends on a really crack team of writers/coders spending a lot of time for each org fleshing out the options evenly for every org. We certainly have a crack team, but for various reasons we/they might not necessarily have the time, or equal interest in every org. But, it's an ideas/discussion thread, so it's an idea!
This is a problem I've seen in all three IRE games I've played, honestly, and I've been on both sides of it. I sort of think that it may just be inevitable, to some extent, given the small populations of MUDs, but that said, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be some effort to mitigate it. I think a lot of good points have been made, and I like both @Talan's and @Enyalida's ideas, though I agree with @Morkarion that @Enyalida's would allow orgs to choose windows of attack when their enemies would be weakest. Honestly, in Midkemia Online, that happens all the time with their Siege mechanic. That said, maybe the idea could be modified somehow to deal with this.
Honestly, one solution not only to numbers too easily bringing victory, but also, I think, people's complaints about the potential speed of afflictions in groups in the Overhaul, might be to institute a mechanic whereby there are diminishing returns for having multiple people attack the same target. Midkemia Online and Lithmeria each have their own spin on such a system already, and personally, I think it does a lot to improve group PVP, in terms not only of equalizing things and keeping people alive slightly longer in groups, but also of adding more tactics to fights. Lusternia's could obviously be unique as well. I realize I'm not exactly an experienced combatant here, but that's my two cents, anyway.
We've suggested a few ways to implement diminishing returns to split group zerging somewhat within the overhaul threads (which is a very good opportunity for it), but I don't think the most coherent and robust method is even on the table. At least, Estarra seemed to disavow it.
The issue with splitting up groups is of course the inherent imbalance where some classes are significantly stronger in small number situations than others.
I'll ponder on this, there's some great ideas and concepts coming out of it, certainly the focus is on meaningful. available and rewarding conflict without the need for Divines to be involved, but at the same time limited so that it's not a constant face full of boot for the side already eating the dirt. As Sidd said, bear in mind that any system will be meta'd by both sides to work as favourably to them as possible, so when considering ideas, think to yourself "how would I exploit this?"
I also want more war tournaments, as an aside. Those 3v3s were some of the best fights I've had/seen all year, tie some short term reward onto them (I dunno, culture bonus? Some other non game skewing reward that still acts as an attractive incentive?) and get people involved in PK. If a system could run itself without Divines having to organise the brackets and oversee it'd be punishment-less conflict based on even numbers and giving people a chance to learn teamwork and fighting.
Alternatively more FFA PK events on prime but that don't have a PvE bash or hamster holding element attached. Death costs nothing in those.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
We have so many CTF/KOH type situations, yet we have no arena games for practice? Part of the reason a lot of people don't participate in large scale combat is because they feel overwhelmed, and in a lot of situations people don't want to lose experience or lose in general, so they don't even try. If an organization can set up a CTF/KOH game and simulate actual combat experiences, more people might be willing to try and get some meaningful practice where they don't feel so overwhelmed.
2014/04/19 01:38:01 - Leolamins drained 2000000 power to raise Silvanus as a Vernal Ascendant.
2014/07/23 05:01:29 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Munsia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:07 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Arimisia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:58 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Lavinya as a Vernal Ascendant.
Now that @Morkarion brought up EVE, I'd like to bring up something that was implemented there which I think could possibly be used for inspiration. As there are several big alliances who hold a large part of the resources, guerrilla warfare is slowly being rolled out. This means that the 'little guys' can leech some of the resources and the 'big guys' are forced to deal with it.
To translate this into Lusternia terms, imagine Glomdoring controls all villages (not sure if mechanically possible, but work with me here). This obviously makes Serenwilde unhappy. Now Serenwilde would have access to infiltrants they can send into the villages (npcs that look and seem like villagers, but work for Serenwilde), or maybe could sway over villagers through influencing. Or maybe both options. Whatever works. This means that if one side is strong, the other side can pick away some of the grains despite being at the disadvantage. This also keeps Glomdoring from growing complacent and sit on their hands as the more villages they got the more of them they got to check to discover / weed out / sway back these infiltrants or influenced npcs.
I think that is a cool idea. I realize with the combat overhaul this may not immediately be implemented, but I'd like to here what others find of it regardless, and of the idea of guerilla warfare as a whole.
You have received a new honour! Congratulations! On this day, you have shown your willingness to ensure a bug-free Lusternia for everyone to enjoy. The face of Iosai the Anomaly unfolds before you, and within you grows the knowledge that you have earned the elusive and rare honour of membership in Her Order. Curio Exchange - A website to help with the trading of curio pieces in Lusternia.
I'm all for beggars getting feathers for their caps.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
1
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
We used to have conflict that didn't end. Players complained endlessly about how unfair it was when they were on the losing team of the endless war. Bippity boop, it was changed. Some new war mechanic isn't going to do diddly, especially considering we already have a ton of them. Many of which aren't even used. We have a whole order war system that could be perpetuated with RP, but orders don't ever feud with one another. Ever. Which is weird to me, but not the point.
I think asking for new mechanics, and especially asking for new mechanics that encourage some fluid, never ending conflict is going down a rabbit hole much of the player vase has outright rejected in the past. Monster waste of time.
I actually like the sound of village infiltration, either to sway feelings, steal resources or both.
Considering most times people win villages and then forget about them for 2 months till they next revolt, they're horribly fire and forget. Small active conflicts or reasons for people to keep alert, as well as effective measure that small groups can achieve success with, is a more meaningful way of establishing conflict when you're horribly outnumbered, as opposed to kick-run-and hide on your nexus with guards/effects and shrine waiting for people to get lured into wanting revenge.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
The state of conflict is due to the state of the population right now. The game hasn't been growing significantly for a long time, and the population we've had, including the fighters, are ageing and moving on.
Combat itself was just fine and people could still raid all day if they really wanted. I don't get the nonsense arguments that combat was ever discouraged. Heck, as someone who put up with hours of back to back raids in the beginning of my time playing here, I can say that that argument is a load of bull. I can tell you as someone who has taken part in combat almost exclusively in this game (it was largely my reason for playing outside of friends) that combat has had its very healthy periods over the years and the only thing that ever changed was that some players came and left, sometimes due to life, sometimes due to drama, sometimes due to dwindling interests.
The issue goes right down to the players and the fact that we haven't done a good job raising many new ones. MUDs are already a very niche population with little exposure and I honestly don't see lusternia doing a whole lot to make it attractive to the new player.
Yes, yes, there ARE mechanical imbalances but I think that's distracting from the real problem.
8
EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
If we keep adding more mechanics, we aren't solving the problem--we are encouraging it. We have too many mechanics built around too many people with too many powers and buffs. We need to cut back, not add.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
It's true that the players are largely responsible for the state of conflict, but mechanics incentivize behavior. Both sides of the coin play a role.
For players, we can all make conflict more interesting by stepping out of our comfort zones and employing strategy in the risks that we take and the goals we seek. For example, when was the last time Soulforge was raised? Most wouldn't even consider because of the risk of angering every other organization. If you know that risk though, what kind of steps can you take in the present to prepare the stage for your eventual success?
Now what happens if we take that example and put it through the prism of mechanics. In a straight cost-benefit analysis Soulforge pales in comparison to Epic Quests. There's no question about it. If my memory serves right, Soulforge drains power from every nexus, and it requires an org-level effort to complete. Now depending on how long it stays active, you may approach the power gained from one Epic Quest, but there is a difference in both the risk and the reward. Epic have massive benefits for both individuals and organizations, but they don't require an org-level effort, and quests like Cay which were obviously an attempt to contain the Sea Battle to specific windows of time have just added frustration.
So with that said, let me actually offer some possibilities for change on the mechanical side.
Villages:
One of the issues raised in this thread focuses on how winning becomes a slippery slope. As an org wins, it becomes easier to win. That's natural, but we can take away some the mechanics that assist in that outcome. For example, I would like to see village feelings change. Holding a village no matter what government style employed should decrease that village's feelings for your organization, and organizations will have to actively engage in order to counteract that. For example, an Empire should have difficulty holding it all together. In compensation for this, the benefits from village should be re-assessed. Additions to the game have made them largely obsolete.
Also I would like to see the timing of revolts changed. Someone mentioned that the temporary delay for influencing has taken awhile the advantage of quick responses, but I would actually like to go further in that direction and emphasize preparation over quickness. When a village revolts, they should bar everyone from their village for a few days. This will allow organizations to muster their forces and develop strategy, and it will just build the anticipation and excitement, making the eventual battle more interesting.
Domoths:
I understand that Domoth makes Ascendancy relevant to organizations, but these battles happen too often given the fact that each Domoth has its own timer. Also the buffs involved can easily give too significant of an advantage. Personally, I would like to see them gone, but reconsidering the timing and duration is fine as well.
Epic Quests:
The rewards should be scaled down. For example, the power reward is too high. An Epic should be a personal achievement. People shouldn't be pushed through just for the benefit of the organization. Also reconsider Cay, the Sea Battle has had too many things added on top of it.
It's true that the players are largely responsible for the state of conflict, but mechanics incentivize behavior. Both sides of the coin play a role.
For players, we can all make conflict more interesting by stepping out of our comfort zones and employing strategy in the risks that we take and the goals we seek. For example, when was the last time Soulforge was raised? Most wouldn't even consider because of the risk of angering every other organization. If you know that risk though, what kind of steps can you take in the present to prepare the stage for your eventual success?
I have been hoping/wishing for some soul to be quick enough and strong enough to do all of the following at once:
Release Soulforge
Release the zombies
Release the spawn hoards
Release Goloth
Release Globglob
Release the Gorgogs
Repair the Tainted Broadcast Centre
If one individual from one org (or just one org working hard together) could pull all these off at once, it would be great for the sake of RP, no less conflict. But almost every org has almost all of these banned, except for maybe Magnagora.
If one individual from one org (or just one org working hard together) could pull all these off at once, it would be great for the sake of RP, no less conflict. But almost every org has almost all of these banned, except for maybe Magnagora.
I am pretty sure only Celest and Serenwilde ban quests.
If one individual from one org (or just one org working hard together) could pull all these off at once, it would be great for the sake of RP, no less conflict. But almost every org has almost all of these banned, except for maybe Magnagora.
I am pretty sure only Celest and Serenwilde ban quests.
Edit: Also GlobGlob/TBC are the same.
@ your edit: shows how much I know.
And while some orgs don't ban quests, there is a heavy aura of "You're going to get into some serious *beep* if you do some quests and your org will make you regret it forever if you do them." Like Soul Forge. Or the hai'Gloh.
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You'd get people bouncing to a friendly org for a month and a half before going back home.
You essentially create a dead org for that time period. It's one thing to have an org go quiet during ascension because they allow a "why bother" attitude to fester in, it's another to mechanically kill off an org by saying "We're having fun, but you sit it out this year." Hell, the person who TA'd might have moved, how's that fair on the people they left behind?
Not to mention people who rolled a character since. We've had people join Glom as fresh newbies since last Ascension, and they're participating in the games for their first time. What kind of experience would it be to tell those people "Ok annual big event that the story has lead up to this last 12 months is starting but you can't play."
Ascension isn't a 1 1/2 month event, people work all year round (and some even longer) training up, honing skills, finding ways for each seal events, studying, questing etc. Kira winning Knowledge is the prime example of this, For some people the entire year of gaming in various fashions and manner leads up to this one event. Your suggestion wouldn't fix the problem you're hoping for, all it will do is create a short term instability while people mechanically wrangle the system.
Because that's what this game encourages, it encourages people to meta, to min max, to play for the small gains, because when you add them up together it makes giant gulfs. If you want to fix the imbalance, the biggest base would be to change the mentality of certain organisations. There are places where knowledge isn't shared, or it isn't being pursued, people are dying and complaining that they were killed by unreasonable damage then you find out they barely make use of mitigation. There are people who lose with numbers on their side and blame x/y/z ability rather than the fact they decided the best thing to do would be rambo in and spam damage attacks with no focus fire.
People don't learn their abilities because they're either not taught or they don't care to learn. The same mentality issues brings itself about in some orgs where people don't want to do, they just want to benefit, not just in combat but a whole number of ways. The few people who are being depended on for a, b and c eventually burn out and move somewhere they're not only appreciated for their passion and commitment, but they can rely on others to work with them, not just cheer on from the sidelines and reap the benefits.
There's some places where the organisational mentality makes things counter productive, adjust, reinvent, refocus, take the same core principles and move in a different direction. One of the biggest issues is delegation and those who grab power and fail to utilise it. There isn't a single organisation in this game that doesn't have people on its inner council who get the main voice on matters they know nothing about, combat or otherwise. Not one. The fact that these voices hold more weight than the people actively involved in various manners is one of the most simple ways to burn people out. Power shouldn't come from an elected position within a group of 3-5 people when it affects an organisation of 30+, power should be given as a responsibility to those who know what they're doing.
The biggest issue in the state of conflict is that mentality, when the last split happened just over a year ago (Happy anniversary!) one organisation went into it with the mentality it was the right choice, that they were the powerhouse and they'd cut the dead weight. Within a month and a few hard losses, they crumbled. The rambo esque tactics weren't working, there was infighting and political drama for months after that's up on pastebin for everyone to enjoy still, with people burning out from that, and others giving up because they had the mentality of "We're losing, why bother." and simply quit playing.
That last bit has reared its ugly head time and again, and become a self fulfilling prophecy, where many fights that could have been a victory through their participation, teamwork, preparation and focus, became one sided masochistic poundings (thank you OMF 2097 for that perfect definition) simply because they couldn't raise numbers.
It's late, the wind is shaking my windows and I can't sleep. Apologies if my disgruntled state and blunt opinion offended anyone while I merely speak my mind.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
When the activity level of one of these opposing alliances drops for an extended period, conflict essentially evaporates and things get stale. The ‘winning’ side is starved of an enjoyable PVP outlet, and the ‘losing’ side struggles with morale, low population, lack of leaders, etc. Without the resetting action of an alliance shift or a few prominent org-hops to even the sides, the dominant side are left twiddling their thumbs waiting for the other side to pick themselves out of their slump, while the subdominant group face a lengthy period of rebuilding.
Together with the CTF/KOH setups of domoths, wildnodes, and even villages/flares, I think the -unchanging- opponents imposed by static alliances compound the low level of conflict problem. Every resource can be shared within a dominant alliance in a “We get X, you get Y, We’re all winners!” arrangement. While there may be some disgruntlement, there is little to no incentive for alliance members to compete with each other (at least until boredom gets to an intolerable level), and rather the alliance maintains the low conflict status quo of shared dominance.
Now while I would love to see more fluid alliances and for each org to act more independently, sadly without each org’s population taking a dramatic jump, static alliances will likely remain the norm. So instead, we could look at tweaking or adding to the conflict systems to encourage a smaller org vs org conflict outlet, within the larger alliance vs alliance conflict systems of domoths, supernal/demonlord raids, and ascension.
Wildnodes, I think, could easily be altered to encourage an org v org, rather than alliance v alliance setup. When there is no alliance opposition, nodes are typically shared by the dominant group, and everyone gets free power, though it becomes a failed outlet for conflict.
I posted a suggestion to the Facebook group last time this came up proposing that rather than planted nodes build up your own org’s points, planted nodes instead drain points from ALL other organisations. So every org starts at some maximum, and the more planted wildnodes you control, the faster you drain every other org’s tally and the slower your own tally is drained. Wildnodes then only ends with a single winner/reward, when all other orgs are at 0 points. So even if there is no alliance opposition, a single reward removes the “we’re all winners!” arrangement and there is incentive for a solely org-centric approach.
Summary? Wildnodes would become purely org-focused, its reward is not so critical that losing is demoralizing, eliminating the free power reduces the glut of power in the game, dominant alliance members have an outlet for conflict against fresh opponents, subdominant alliance members hopefully have more opportunity to play against more evenly matched sides. Wildnodes gets more wild!
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Conflict in Lusternia is different, and it largely stems from Estarra's philosophy. I became aware of it when I saw the interview he did on Youtube. In that interview, he talked about the motivation behind the creation of revolts, and the big thing that he emphasized is how the conflict had a beginning and an end. Conflict that goes on and on is an issue that he perceived from Achaea, and he wanted to address it in Lusternia. That was the start, but it didn't stop there.
After villages came wildnodes, nexus weakenings, domoths, and after that aetherflares replaced weakenings. Add on top of that the epic quests that require conflict as well. It all adds up to an immense amount of forced and routine conflict. Each of these conflict systems are self contained. They have a beginning and an end. That is the appeal on the admin side, but combined they have the effect of incentivizing the thought that conflict is only something that happens through mechanical means, and with that a lot of the unique appeal of MUDs is lost. Also they focus attention on the moment rather than the flow of events.
For example:
It's a revolt! Go! Go! Now! Now! Whew, good job. Or bah, we suck. Conflicts happen outside of the control of the players in large part, and there is both IC and OOC pressure to participate, and then shortly afterward there is a climax, and the result matters more than anything else.
In such a system tactics are valued over strategy because the lack of control makes luck more important than preparation. Also the amount of conflict systems is incentive to value fleeting accomplishments over lasting contributions.
EDITS 1-4: Damn forum quotes.
Let me briefly explain how that works btw, in EVE Online when you want to take over a system, you have to kill the control unit which is usually hosted within a player owned station (or POS for short).These stations are filled with a fuel charge that allows the station to go into reinforcement mode when you strip the shields and armour and knock it into structure. Reinforcement means they get a 99% resist to all, and means if you want to destroy it, you'll have to spend the entire next 24 hours shooting at it.
Alternatively you come back when the tower is due to exit reinforcement, 24 hours later.
Now the metagame to that, is that if you're fighting an alliance that is based in Europe, you'll strike roughly late evening American west coast time. That way everyone's asleep, or getting ready for work the next day and resistance will be minimal. You metagame the timing of your strikes to not coincide so much with your best numbers, but their worst. Why? Because you have a limited time window to do it, so you maximise your chances of success.
What does this have to do with your suggestion? It's exactly the same thing, You've a short window every five days, you'll do it at the absolute perfect moment to benefit you by removing your enemies, you as the offensive are in complete control of the time window and can dictate when this essentially glorified PvE bash takes place. It doesn't create conflict, it will sadly be meta'd to sidestep it entirely.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of creating ways to build up to conflict and at the same time make powerful objectives both reachable and limited in their frequency, but I'm sat here playing Devil's Advocate while I can't sleep and that's the first problem I see with such a system.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
I'll ponder on this, there's some great ideas and concepts coming out of it, certainly the focus is on meaningful. available and rewarding conflict without the need for Divines to be involved, but at the same time limited so that it's not a constant face full of boot for the side already eating the dirt. As Sidd said, bear in mind that any system will be meta'd by both sides to work as favourably to them as possible, so when considering ideas, think to yourself "how would I exploit this?"
I also want more war tournaments, as an aside. Those 3v3s were some of the best fights I've had/seen all year, tie some short term reward onto them (I dunno, culture bonus? Some other non game skewing reward that still acts as an attractive incentive?) and get people involved in PK. If a system could run itself without Divines having to organise the brackets and oversee it'd be punishment-less conflict based on even numbers and giving people a chance to learn teamwork and fighting.
Alternatively more FFA PK events on prime but that don't have a PvE bash or hamster holding element attached. Death costs nothing in those.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
You have received a new honour! Congratulations! On this day, you have shown your willingness to ensure a bug-free Lusternia for everyone to enjoy. The face of Iosai the Anomaly unfolds before you, and within you grows the knowledge that you have earned the elusive and rare honour of membership in Her Order.
Curio Exchange - A website to help with the trading of curio pieces in Lusternia.
I think asking for new mechanics, and especially asking for new mechanics that encourage some fluid, never ending conflict is going down a rabbit hole much of the player vase has outright rejected in the past. Monster waste of time.
Considering most times people win villages and then forget about them for 2 months till they next revolt, they're horribly fire and forget. Small active conflicts or reasons for people to keep alert, as well as effective measure that small groups can achieve success with, is a more meaningful way of establishing conflict when you're horribly outnumbered, as opposed to kick-run-and hide on your nexus with guards/effects and shrine waiting for people to get lured into wanting revenge.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
I would start with mechanics that raise the ceiling further like curios, consumable buffs, health buffs like the throne and whatever else.
For players, we can all make conflict more interesting by stepping out of our comfort zones and employing strategy in the risks that we take and the goals we seek. For example, when was the last time Soulforge was raised? Most wouldn't even consider because of the risk of angering every other organization. If you know that risk though, what kind of steps can you take in the present to prepare the stage for your eventual success?
Now what happens if we take that example and put it through the prism of mechanics. In a straight cost-benefit analysis Soulforge pales in comparison to Epic Quests. There's no question about it. If my memory serves right, Soulforge drains power from every nexus, and it requires an org-level effort to complete. Now depending on how long it stays active, you may approach the power gained from one Epic Quest, but there is a difference in both the risk and the reward. Epic have massive benefits for both individuals and organizations, but they don't require an org-level effort, and quests like Cay which were obviously an attempt to contain the Sea Battle to specific windows of time have just added frustration.
So with that said, let me actually offer some possibilities for change on the mechanical side.
Villages:
One of the issues raised in this thread focuses on how winning becomes a slippery slope. As an org wins, it becomes easier to win. That's natural, but we can take away some the mechanics that assist in that outcome. For example, I would like to see village feelings change. Holding a village no matter what government style employed should decrease that village's feelings for your organization, and organizations will have to actively engage in order to counteract that. For example, an Empire should have difficulty holding it all together. In compensation for this, the benefits from village should be re-assessed. Additions to the game have made them largely obsolete.
Also I would like to see the timing of revolts changed. Someone mentioned that the temporary delay for influencing has taken awhile the advantage of quick responses, but I would actually like to go further in that direction and emphasize preparation over quickness. When a village revolts, they should bar everyone from their village for a few days. This will allow organizations to muster their forces and develop strategy, and it will just build the anticipation and excitement, making the eventual battle more interesting.
Domoths:
I understand that Domoth makes Ascendancy relevant to organizations, but these battles happen too often given the fact that each Domoth has its own timer. Also the buffs involved can easily give too significant of an advantage. Personally, I would like to see them gone, but reconsidering the timing and duration is fine as well.
Epic Quests:
The rewards should be scaled down. For example, the power reward is too high. An Epic should be a personal achievement. People shouldn't be pushed through just for the benefit of the organization. Also reconsider Cay, the Sea Battle has had too many things added on top of it.
I am pretty sure only Celest and Serenwilde ban quests.
Edit: Also GlobGlob/TBC are the same.
Vive l'apostrophe!