On the mechanics of raiding - reflections and brainstorming

Enadonella · July 2018

Both of them have their power quest items/mobs in public areas where amnesty is easily obtained if you do choose to kill Ladantine/Lanikai. I think the kelpie also enemy depending on which are out from the Cay quest? It has been a while since I was amongst that conflict. One of the best imo within this game.

Synl · July 2018

Would it be possible to add conglutination for those two areas? Seems that you can't have it enemy properly unless you have it flip org tags under specific circumstances. Which may be doable ala Night Maeve and Moon Maeve?

Estarra · July 2018

I think this is an interesting discussion, though I urge everyone to try to be as diplomatic as possible since players rightfully have strong, passionate opinions when it comes to PK conflict. A little empathy goes a long way!

I wouldn't be adverse to looking at planar conflict. But for a productive discussion, I would recommend avoiding strawman arguments (i.e., conflict is losing players or there would be more PK if skills were balanced or because of artifacts--none of which I believe are true but regardless are irrelevant). Keep in mind overly complicated "solutions" can end up being either contrived to the point where both RP and PK are impacted. Certainly, adding quests for every planar conflict scenario could be a multiple month project and would impact things like envoy reports or some of the combat updates we hope to do.

My thinking is to look at and possibly tweak discretionary powers to help mitigate raids, rather than contemplating enormous upheavals in coding, RP or design. My other thought is that historically planar raiding ebbs and flows and doesn't always get to the fever pitch we have seen recently.

While we could remove planar conflict altogether, as many have pointed out, we would have to replace it with something. I'm more than open to considering thought out proposals!

Enadonella · July 2018

I know we are talking a lot about installing more PK events, which I want don't get me wrong. But I think new conflict events at all would be great, and we don't even need new areas or ideas. Like I said earlier having a Fate tourney or what not.

We have games like bombard, chess, fate, some other one I can't remember probably more I don't know about. Conflict quests that are on timers where each group has their own task to complete first so that PK isn't necessary are something I'd love to see too. I think if we have varying degrees of conflict open people will get to showcase their abilities in other areas and it might make them feel more confident within PK. I love battlechess so much because it was the first time I saw people that didn't PK get involved just to show off how great their tactical skills were! Also more Battlechess?

I think it would be great if we could repurpose some of the areas or in game mechanics that are maybe forgotten or underutilised. I am always finding new aspects of the game I had no idea about and with there being a barrier at times between older players and new some of that information is lost to us completely.

Anyways. I think until people -feel- good about PKing it doesn't matter what we implement. But that is a problem that can't be solved with coding unfortunately.

Kethaera · July 2018

@Stratas, you mentioned Aetolia earlier, and the war system. Not saying it's a bad idea, and I like the system myself, but keep in mind in Aetolia it's a fight between two sides, not multiple ones as Lusternia has. (Mechanically it was three at one point, but in actuality it never was). As a matter of perspective... I've heard people in Aetolia repeatedly complain about a lack of any meaningful way to "hurt" opposing cities, ie, a system much like the one Lusternia has with the smob raids. The mechanics could be tweaked, but honestly I enjoyed most of the process of fixing things in Hallifax and then breaking the entire city. Not saying it should happen every week, but it's not a bad conflict mechanism, imo. And I suspect trying to implement the same sort of war system in Lusternia would require a ton of work and be considerably more complicated if it needed to allow for three sides, much less all six.

Just, moving one conflict system to a different game isn't necessarily possible, and might not work out so well. I've spent way too much time thinking about it, and comparing both games, which is the only reason I bring it up now.

Anyway... I would love to know how to play battlechess. And to have more task-related conflicts.

Arkh · July 2018

In Achaea, there is a raiding system called sanctions. Basically, a raiding party has to kill 6 citizens of the org they're raiding while in that org's territory to start a sanction. The benefit of this is that the defending party can choose where they want to engage or not.

Maybe for Lusternia's environment, the non-smob mobs of the planes (angels, demons, ladies, daughters, etc.) can be invincible until a sanction is declared. This would prevent lolraids of hit-runners.

Nicholo · July 2018

Arkh said:

In Achaea, there is a raiding system called sanctions. Basically, a raiding party has to kill 6 citizens of the org they're raiding while in that org's territory to start a sanction. The benefit of this is that the defending party can choose where they want to engage or not.

Maybe for Lusternia's environment, the non-smob mobs of the planes (angels, demons, ladies, daughters, etc.) can be invincible until a sanction is declared. This would prevent lolraids of hit-runners.

What's the win condition for the citizens? Turtle up and not die?

@Kethaera Same, though. I never saw that many people active even in the wee hours of the night to try and block the process. Lots of people in Mag were communicating and pulling together for damage control and to raise DLs. Even ended up working together lots and helping solidify our alliance with Seren.

There needs to be a way, though, that the 'beaten' side can actively reraise and rebuild AND fight back.

I can only speak for Mag's side, but we had people repeatedly clearing Spectres so we couldn't spike our Necromentate. Since it's on Prime, unless you're enemied to Spectre Isle, we can't do anything. And that's super frustrating when we have typically new people trying to contribute this way but end up having to compete with Wonderwands and Dingbat weapons. The more experienced players are the ones crawling through Xion, Elemental, and Ethereal for essence because they're active PK zones.

I'm not saying people shouldn't be allowed to actively stop our progress, but we should be allowed the chance to chase off/fight people trying to indirectly hinder our recovery process. We just end up getting Avechna-ed.

Make territories like that post-smob raid be enemy territory for everyone except org citizens.

Enadonella · July 2018

Kethaera said:

Anyway... I would love to know how to play battlechess. And to have more task-related conflicts.

We have the ability as players to set up a game so maybe your alliance could challenge our alliance to a game to settle the score or something? Apparently everyone is talking smack on the public newsboard you could send out a challenge there!

But the gist of it is that the players become the pieces (think wizard's chess) and then basically we send our pieces to fight your pieces. The pieces can only move in traditional chess style, but once, let's say you were a queen and I was a rook, you move to attack me we spar. I think we get two rooms? I can't quite remember now. But the fights are generally quite limited because there is no where to run really. It is a great combination of tactical and combatant prowess. Definitely worth giving it a shot! The other arena we don't use at all...not that I have ever seen in my 5 years, is the aether arena! And that is something anyone can truly participate in and learn about!

Valaria · July 2018

Avechna probably need a fix that should let you declare that Spectre Isle is part of your city terrority temporary due to recovery reason. so you could enemy anyone who tries to hinders your city recovery progress on the prime plane. Maybe make it active only when one of your demon lord or more is down. just an idea to throw in there.

Enadonella · July 2018

If we are giving orgs permission to enemy prime areas where significant historical quests are where does that end?

Maligorn · July 2018

I know that personally, as it stands, I fear for the Master Crystals as they are (still probably too weak).

It is completely, 100% impossible to get all 5000 motes back on the Generator before the next week happens. Even if someone did the power quest that restores 10-12 motes per hour, that only amounts to 2016 motes (assuming 12 motes per hour). And, you know, this is considering every single hour in the 7 days prior to the potential raid. Even though I think the "shield" mechanic for each org is resurrected with a buffer (I heard Magnagora's Necromentate ressurected with 300 spikes or souls or whatever as a buffer), that's still only 2316. If all the Master Crystals were killed, the initial turn-in of the 12 cores would probably knock the Primary Generator out.

Once you get raided, if the enemy team chooses, they can keep you down with weekly raids. It's so trivial to plan out a raid every weekend if you have people that want to be there. Trust me, I've been a part of that. The grace period is either too short, or smobs just need to be buffed all across the board to fit in better with the post-overhaul world (and artifact powercreep shenanigans). Yes, they've already been buffed. My instinct tells me that Spheres and Fleshpots still need something more, though. The people that just killed Spheres would know more.

Hallifax had a late start in rezzing Spheres and I don't think we had the full 5000 motes shield but the point still stands - it'd just take a few more weeks. Defenders mechanically cannot come back from their shield being pounded on weekly unless they're somehow able to do their recovery perfectly (all the essence in the game funneled into the dead smobs without being interfered by ganking or stealing, hourly power quest, immediate response to the smobs dying (like straight up rezzing Opal while other Spheres are in the middle of dying as an example (I think that'd actually be possible if we got all or most the essence in the game). Note to self, if here for a Sphere raid, be cheeky and rezz one of the Spheres mid-raid. I'm not even sure if that would be enough to recoup the motes lost, though.

I'm not saying people are going to do that, or that the circumstances will be the same (what if defenders or shrines (but that loops around to attackers getting to choose the exact right time (and that is taxing on defenders who feel an onus to stick around when otherwise they'd log off))) but the fact that it is technically possible is problematic.

To wrap this up, in the interest of relieving some of the pressure on defenders after smob raids. These potential suggestions would require little modification (I would think) to the current system. Could be mixed or not.

1. Longer immunity grace period.

2. Much, much more motes/shadows/supplicants/flames/butterflies/souls generated per hourly power quest.

3. Continue to update smobs to fit in this evolved world of ours.

P.S. People are -still- downplaying how valuable and crushing it is that raiders get to pick their time.

P.P.S. I very much share @Kethaera 's sentiments about the effort regarding Hallifax pulling together to get everything back in working order (then promptly breaking it). It's the most active I've seen the city in a long time. But this would get old, very quickly.

Valaria · July 2018

Enadonella said:

If we are giving orgs permission to enemy prime areas where significant historical quests are where does that end?

Not just any areas, the only certain area(s) that could declare sanction against any organization during the recovery progress for the only limited time. then they cannot use that option for while until. for example, an A org declared that Spectre isle is Mangagora's temporary territory for 24 hours, then it becomes pk active area where Magnagorans and/or other could kill anyone for hindering their recovery progress. then they cannot use this option again as it goes under cooldown. That way it won't be abused as often as is. or that option becomes available to their organization for a limited time should all their demon lords goes down.

Deichtine · July 2018

Idea:

New plane/area. It has an entry point from every orgs plane or an easy access point somewhere.

This plane has an orb or flag or a large item of some such that if you stand in will move 1 room at a time towards your orgs home entry point every ten seconds. Will not move if another individual from a different org is standing in the room.

Think like a spiderweb style place with a road from the central hub to your home point.

Once the orb reaches your orgs home point it locks in. For 15 mins it can't be moved again. It is stuck in place. After 15 mins it unlocks but stays at that point. It can't lock into the same org again until 30 mins have passed from it unlocking.

The orb moving will give a global and CT defenseive loyal say. (probally make a specific toggle just for this to make it easier to turn on and off, config planarball on/off)

While the orb is at your orgs point (just there doesnt have to be locked in) then the org that has it gets a minor buff and a minor power charge. Eg 50 power put into the nexus every 15 mins and all org members get +1/13 damage and resistance buffs. Buffs can change just something minor.

This creates an area which is essentially an open pk zone that has a goal for you to achieve that at worst is shut down for 15 mins before you can try again. Easy to ignore if you don't care about it but gives an open arena to fight in.

Thematicly its a sort of new astral plane, conceptually like wildnodes in being a big neutral area that folks go up and murder each other on.

Deichtine · July 2018

New Idea:

Regular automatic war/freeforall tournaments.

Every other Saturday at xgmt time there is a freeforall tournament. The individual wins a one off 1000 power for their org, a special hat(laurels of victory) that resets as the new freeforall opens but is just there for being a special cool item that they can show off with.

Every other Saturday to the freeforall there is a org v org wargames. 6 Teams one per org you can only join your orgs teams. Winning team gets 1000 power for their org and a special hat for everyone who won to wear that resets on the next wargames. Orgs can effectivly ally with each other to kill off other groups if they want but there will only be one org who can win so will have to murder off the other ones.

Kagato · July 2018

Maligorn said:

-snip-

I think, given Maligorn's post, this might be a bit of a 'band-aid' fix, but it could help, given how long it sometimes takes to restore the smobs after a full raid that results in all of them being wiped out:

1. Reduce the amount of motes/flames/spikes/whatever lost every blow. While all 12 spheres were out of commission, Hallifax was losing 500 motes every time they got hit by Project Paradox. This could easily be halved - it would still pose a threat, but give the city/commune in question double the time to work with.

2. Reduce the amount of essence needed to restore an smob, or offer additional avenues to get essence that are only available when smobs are dead - No idea how much essence it takes to restore spheres or fleshpots, but it takes 200 essence for a supernal/demon lord, 333 for an avatar - so I'd be guessing it is around 80 or so for a sphere/fleshpot? In this case, I'd be leaning more towards the 'additional essence options' choice over reducing the amount of essence needed.

3. Increase the buffer that the city/commune shield comes back with. Currently it is around 300 spikes/motes/etc - this could be bumped up to something like 1000 - it would give the recovering city/commune a bit of breathing room while still saying "Hey, things are serious, you need to put some work into restoring your shield, pronto!"

4. Keep the immunity period at 1 week, but for 1 week afterwards, the smobs are significantly stronger, this strength bonus waning over time, until they return to their normal strength after say 1-2 weeks. This way if the opposing faction wants to try to get extra bodies in to try to take on the smobs again in their stronger state, they can do so, but it is more of a challenge to successfully do so, while after a few weeks it would be back to the status quo.

These are just suggestions off the top of my head, I'd be quite open to feedback or alterations to improve on them.

Karlach · July 2018

Enadonella said:

If we are giving orgs permission to enemy prime areas where significant historical quests are where does that end?

It ends when it's not an area necessary to an org's power quest

This only applies to Celest and Magnagora IIRC, and would only be a temporary measure while DL/Supes are down.

Xenthos · July 2018

Deichtine said:

Idea:

New plane/area. It has an entry point from every orgs plane or an easy access point somewhere.

This plane has an orb or flag or a large item of some such that if you stand in will move 1 room at a time towards your orgs home entry point every ten seconds. Will not move if another individual from a different org is standing in the room.

Think like a spiderweb style place with a road from the central hub to your home point.

Once the orb reaches your orgs home point it locks in. For 15 mins it can't be moved again. It is stuck in place. After 15 mins it unlocks but stays at that point. It can't lock into the same org again until 30 mins have passed from it unlocking.

The orb moving will give a global and CT defenseive loyal say. (probally make a specific toggle just for this to make it easier to turn on and off, config planarball on/off)

While the orb is at your orgs point (just there doesnt have to be locked in) then the org that has it gets a minor buff and a minor power charge. Eg 50 power put into the nexus every 15 mins and all org members get +1/13 damage and resistance buffs. Buffs can change just something minor.

This creates an area which is essentially an open pk zone that has a goal for you to achieve that at worst is shut down for 15 mins before you can try again. Easy to ignore if you don't care about it but gives an open arena to fight in.

Thematicly its a sort of new astral plane, conceptually like wildnodes in being a big neutral area that folks go up and murder each other on.

Not 100% on the specifics of this idea, but the general concept is a good one imo; an area that PvP is the main goal and point of, that is essentially always open, and people can go to if they are looking for an outlet. It would be an alternative place to start that is not raiding org territory.

You could also float some unique mechanics here to address some of Lusternia's other PvP issues, such as momentum. One side that is winning can often keep winning because they get a chance to set up the area, fortify it, and lock it down.

You could have it so that the losing side can "buy" buffs with a new currency (the more you wipe, the more you earn). Maybe Urlach likes you dying, or Klangratch respects you trying repeatedly against the odds. Once your team wins, the buffs / currency are wiped and the other side builds some up. Alternatively, the area could be cursed so the longer your team is in control the harder it is for you to do things (kind of like insanity), but once your team wipes that is cleared.

Basically, the goal would be to give incentive to keep trying even if a fair bit outmatched, instead of going "We can't do that, let's not even try," which a lot of PvP here ends up turning into eventually. And yes, I know there are some people who like to rush in no matter the odds, but that is kind of a small subset. Giving other people reason to keep rushing in with you is good, too. And if you are currently on the winning side, having your enemies able to mount a credible challenge seems like a good thing, too.

Deichtine · July 2018

Sound good.After you win too many times the orb starts zapping and afflicting or something.

its just a loose idea but the concept is there

Snald · July 2018

Maligorn said:

I know that personally, as it stands, I fear for the Master Crystals as they are (still probably too weak).

It is completely, 100% impossible to get all 5000 motes back on the Generator before the next week happens. Even if someone did the power quest that restores 10-12 motes per hour, that only amounts to 2016 motes (assuming 12 motes per hour). And, you know, this is considering every single hour in the 7 days prior to the potential raid. Even though I think the "shield" mechanic for each org is resurrected with a buffer (I heard Magnagora's Necromentate ressurected with 300 spikes or souls or whatever as a buffer), that's still only 2316. If all the Master Crystals were killed, the initial turn-in of the 12 cores would probably knock the Primary Generator out.

Once you get raided, if the enemy team chooses, they can keep you down with weekly raids. It's so trivial to plan out a raid every weekend if you have people that want to be there. Trust me, I've been a part of that. The grace period is either too short, or smobs just need to be buffed all across the board to fit in better with the post-overhaul world (and artifact powercreep shenanigans). Yes, they've already been buffed. My instinct tells me that Spheres and Fleshpots still need something more, though. The people that just killed Spheres would know more.

Hallifax had a late start in rezzing Spheres and I don't think we had the full 5000 motes shield but the point still stands - it'd just take a few more weeks. Defenders mechanically cannot come back from their shield being pounded on weekly unless they're somehow able to do their recovery perfectly (all the essence in the game funneled into the dead smobs without being interfered by ganking or stealing, hourly power quest, immediate response to the smobs dying (like straight up rezzing Opal while other Spheres are in the middle of dying as an example (I think that'd actually be possible if we got all or most the essence in the game). Note to self, if here for a Sphere raid, be cheeky and rezz one of the Spheres mid-raid. I'm not even sure if that would be enough to recoup the motes lost, though.

I'm not saying people are going to do that, or that the circumstances will be the same (what if defenders or shrines (but that loops around to attackers getting to choose the exact right time (and that is taxing on defenders who feel an onus to stick around when otherwise they'd log off))) but the fact that it is technically possible is problematic.

To wrap this up, in the interest of relieving some of the pressure on defenders after smob raids. These potential suggestions would require little modification (I would think) to the current system. Could be mixed or not.

1. Longer immunity grace period.

2. Much, much more motes/shadows/supplicants/flames/butterflies/souls generated per hourly power quest.

3. Continue to update smobs to fit in this evolved world of ours.

P.S. People are -still- downplaying how valuable and crushing it is that raiders get to pick their time.

P.P.S. I very much share @Kethaera 's sentiments about the effort regarding Hallifax pulling together to get everything back in working order (then promptly breaking it). It's the most active I've seen the city in a long time. But this would get old, very quickly.

So I was present for Spheres. We ended up going with 15 people total, 5 being ascendants. Our minimum number of raiders we were shooting for was 10 and we had a lot of people around due to @Steingrim being ascended. It was very much a spur of the moment (holy crap, we have a ton of people, we should smob raid) thing. I don't recall my health ever dropping significantly and I never died during the raid. We did use some ascendant things like aegis and some org unique skills like wyrdsong (as well as consumable/once per month buffs and astro buffs).

We had a few lower health players die but we could just rez them right there in the room and once we had aegis on the right people, that was not an issue anymore either. I don't recall at any point anyone making an attemt to defend against spheres so we could all focus on the PVE and not have to worry about players. We also have a few very high level bashers (with plenty of toys and high crit rates) so it was mostly Tarken or myself solo-ing the summoned mobs (polygons in this case) but to be honest, from my perspective (as #1 arti whore) the 15 man sphere raid was easy.

We did try and see how the spheres were the a week or so ago with a pretty small group and the three in one room smashed us. This is coming from a 3 person group (Tarken, Deichtine, and myself) being able to stand in there with a sphere and chip away at it and as long as we all stayed in the room, could do that fairly long term.

I believe that the spheres have been buffed to a point where you need a decent (at least 10) sized group to make a run at them. I agree with you that the population that most orgs currently have would make it very difficult to reraise all supermobs and repair a 5000 item shield in one week. This is partially speculation because I literally have NO idea how your power quest works but just based on ours, it would not be a breeze. This being said, I don't think it's supposed to be a breeze.

To touch on your P.P.S. thing, I do think that Hallifax did a good job with working to reraise your spheres and have to shout out to @Saz @Gero @Maligorn @Misea @Kethaera for working hard to make it happen. It was VERY exhausting from our end working to try and block all of you long enough to try and kill your shields and props to @Tarken @Romaan @Minkahmet @Rasvin and the rest of our alliance for working pretty much around the clock. I was fading fast when the Necromentate finally died and I felt I could relax (and I know Tarken was too, it was stupid late for him)

A few more shout outs to @Shango @Nicholo @Vatul @Veldrin and @Xiran @Sondayga @Sadie @Vefai for your hard work that I saw fixing what was absolutely a crisis situation (sorry if I missed anyone). My wife says that I "play to slay" and she's totally right but even though I get a little ragey sometimes, I still respect all of you and without conflict, I wouldn't love Lusternia so thanks for being a part of a game that means a great deal to me.

Luce · July 2018

Spitballing here, but what about a zone-control style demiplane thing spawned from the arenas getting too big for their britches. Basically a micro-basin that's PK free with a bunch of little 'territories' of 5-10 rooms each that make up a big hexagonal-ish map. One territory or another is always in play, orgs need more points to cap a territory the more they already control, and the demiplane periodically spits out power, resources, or culture based on who owns what. Score points by twiddling your thumbs a-la domoth claims, or by scoring kills. Heck, give it an arena-style queue and response system where it makes an announcement, gives everyone time to join teams (first citizen or communist on each team determines what org that team is going for, and each org is only allowed one representative team), and throws them at one another.

Heck, if we really, REALLY wanna make it count, have each territory that maps to a real (non-village) area also cause them to treat the controlling org's enemy list as an addon to theirs.

Dys · July 2018

I like the alternate conflict suggestions. Sphere and Fleshpot raids are fun as an attacker but leave the attacked org with a lot of not very interesting cleanup. It'd be good to speed that up if the shield isn't going to fall or recovering it after it's fallen. I don't know about the other orgs but it takes Gaudi a month at perfect speed to go from 0 to 5000 butterflies. 10 each time, every 75 mins as you've got to wait for the mobs to shuffle after they return. Halving flesh and crystals in the supermobs is a pain too, though generally we've got stockpiles from the time with few raids.

I'm happy to have a go at defending but I'd prefer to lose the slooow recovery afterwards. I feel guilty making others do that.

Maligorn · July 2018

Dys said:

I like the alternate conflict suggestions. Sphere and Fleshpot raids are fun as an attacker but leave the attacked org with a lot of not very interesting cleanup. It'd be good to speed that up if the shield isn't going to fall or recovering it after it's fallen. I don't know about the other orgs but it takes Gaudi a month at perfect speed to go from 0 to 5000 butterflies. 10 each time, every 75 mins as you've got to wait for the mobs to shuffle after they return. Halving flesh and crystals in the supermobs is a pain too, though generally we've got stockpiles from the time with few raids.

I'm happy to have a go at defending but I'd prefer to lose the slooow recovery afterwards. I feel guilty making others do that.

You guys get halved of flesh? We definitely didn't lose that many facets on the Spheres.

2018/07/07 00:10:28 - The Opal Sphere of Symmetrical Accord was slain by Yendor, causing a loss of 7535 opal crystals.

There are 15070 facets upon the surface of the Opal Sphere of Symmetrical Accord

So 7535 out of 22605 is...33%.

But yes. The cleanup from smob raiding is intensely boring. Raising the smobs themselves and the team effort is fun, but power quests are really a 1 person job (except spectres which I could see being a good 2-3 person hunt).

Dys · July 2018

It might have halved. The probeable Fleshpot flesh count doesn't update until you harvest, then you see it halve. Spheres could be the same.

So the 15070 could still be the pre-raid total but you'll only see it drop to 7535 when someone harvests or adds facets.

Moi · July 2018

As someone who IS familiar with Hallifax's epic/shield recharge quest, let me say that Maligorn's numbers are entirely correct and even if the shield repair quest worked correctly, it would not physically be possible to recharge the Primary Generator from zero to full (or even zero to half) in the one week minimum between sphere timeouts. The stuff for the quest just doesn't respawn fast enough for that to happen.

Xenthos · July 2018

Moi said:

As someone who IS familiar with Hallifax's epic/shield recharge quest, let me say that Maligorn's numbers are entirely correct and even if the shield repair quest worked correctly, it would not physically be possible to recharge the Primary Generator from zero to full (or even zero to half) in the one week minimum between sphere timeouts. The stuff for the quest just doesn't respawn fast enough for that to happen.

Nobody can recharge their shield entirely in one week.

This is intentional.

You are supposed to have to do multiple SMob wipes to drop shields, if you could recharge fully in a week it would not be possible to do this.

Magnagora's shield only fell this time because they stopped raising Demon Lords to raise spheres instead. Hallifax went from 10 spheres down to all up. During that time, Magnagora went from 3 DLs down to 2. Even with that their shield only just BARELY fell and it did not even start out at full. If they had just pegged Hallifax's shield as a lost cause they probably would have kept the Necromentate with at least 1500 spikes on it. Serenwilde did this with two of their Avatars at least (the last one did stay down until about half the spheres were up, but they were still picking away at it).

Hallifax suffered from both not being full to start and from having almost all of their spheres down so long. By the time they were getting focused on, it was way too late.

And the only reason any of them took this much damage was that three orgs were competing for resources and not really having great coordination to start in terms of what was being raised and in what order, plus extensive interference with essence gathering.

Theoretically, the best route is to spread out the raising (focusing all essence on one smob at a time). Raising 1 Avatar is huge (it drops the drain by 33%!). Raising just one / two spheres is not so much of a difference. If you have no converters, your own essence type is incredibly important. You need every single mote. The forest orgs can take all the stuff you can't convert in order to get a head start on Avatars, but you cannot let them get any of your essence or you are shooting yourself in the foot. And if enemies take it, you are in a lot of trouble.

PS: Hallifax / Gaudiguch can raise a sphere with just 3 sweeps of Air essence. Magnagora needs 6! clearings of Earth (but if they manage to get Xion it can be done a fair bit faster than that). Lacking a converter is a huge penalty.

Xenthos · July 2018

Also, one other thing not mentioned there: Depending on moon phase, if one forest loses its shield they might never get it back again.

The forest conflict quest has another step. When the shield is down, doing your org's prophecy quest empowers Hart/Crow to kill their counterpart in the other org.

Re-raising the Drums or the Flame also requires doing (part of) that quest, so it is also limited by moon phase.

In order to raise the Drums / Flame, Crow / Hart must be alive, but you can get caught in a spiral of: Raise your SMob on your moon phase, other side kills again on theirs. Repeat until they get tired of "free" power from doing a quest every 16 hours. This makes getting at least 1 Avatar up asap super important to diminish overall damage taken, because if your Forestal shield falls you are facing a huge amount of trouble.

Maligorn · July 2018

Xenthos said:

Also, one other thing not mentioned there: Depending on moon phase, if one forest loses its shield they might never get it back again.

The forest conflict quest has another step. When the shield is down, doing your org's prophecy quest empowers Hart/Crow to kill their counterpart in the other org.

Re-raising the Drums or the Flame also requires doing (part of) that quest, so it is also limited by moon phase.

In order to raise the Drums / Flame, Crow / Hart must be alive, but you can get caught in a spiral of: Raise your SMob on your moon phase, other side kills again on theirs. Repeat until they get tired of "free" power from doing a quest every 16 hours. This makes getting at least 1 Avatar up asap super important to diminish overall damage taken, because if your Forestal shield falls you are facing a huge amount of trouble.

I kind of get the sense from your original argument that you somehow think "intentional" is "okay". So...facing a huge amount of trouble and work is intentional and therefore okay.

I'm sorry for the word twist but that's clearly not fun for you, and if that gets fixed, so should the potential "always keeping the Primary Generator down".

Xenthos · July 2018

Maligorn said:

Xenthos said:

Also, one other thing not mentioned there: Depending on moon phase, if one forest loses its shield they might never get it back again.

The forest conflict quest has another step. When the shield is down, doing your org's prophecy quest empowers Hart/Crow to kill their counterpart in the other org.

Re-raising the Drums or the Flame also requires doing (part of) that quest, so it is also limited by moon phase.

In order to raise the Drums / Flame, Crow / Hart must be alive, but you can get caught in a spiral of: Raise your SMob on your moon phase, other side kills again on theirs. Repeat until they get tired of "free" power from doing a quest every 16 hours. This makes getting at least 1 Avatar up asap super important to diminish overall damage taken, because if your Forestal shield falls you are facing a huge amount of trouble.

I kind of get the sense from your original argument that you somehow think "intentional" is "okay". So...facing a huge amount of trouble and work is intentional and therefore okay.

I'm sorry for the word twist but that's clearly not fun for you, and if that gets fixed, so should the potential "always keeping the Primary Generator down".

You're incorrect! I have never found tedious grinding to increase a number to be entertaining. I've had to 'grind' to build up the Drums many times and not once have I found it to be a fun way to spend my weeks.

Stating that something is intentional does not imply support, it is a statement of fact. I like to convey facts in these discussions, people can then make their minds up as to what they think about it after that, but it's way better that everyone knows the fundamental. I interpreted Moi's post as conveying an expectation that organizations (or at least some organizations) can raise their shields quickly, but it simply isn't that way and has never been intended to be that way, from the design standpoint.

Maligorn · July 2018

Xenthos said:

Maligorn said:

Xenthos said:

Also, one other thing not mentioned there: Depending on moon phase, if one forest loses its shield they might never get it back again.

The forest conflict quest has another step. When the shield is down, doing your org's prophecy quest empowers Hart/Crow to kill their counterpart in the other org.

Re-raising the Drums or the Flame also requires doing (part of) that quest, so it is also limited by moon phase.

In order to raise the Drums / Flame, Crow / Hart must be alive, but you can get caught in a spiral of: Raise your SMob on your moon phase, other side kills again on theirs. Repeat until they get tired of "free" power from doing a quest every 16 hours. This makes getting at least 1 Avatar up asap super important to diminish overall damage taken, because if your Forestal shield falls you are facing a huge amount of trouble.

I kind of get the sense from your original argument that you somehow think "intentional" is "okay". So...facing a huge amount of trouble and work is intentional and therefore okay.

I'm sorry for the word twist but that's clearly not fun for you, and if that gets fixed, so should the potential "always keeping the Primary Generator down".

You're incorrect! I have never found tedious grinding to increase a number to be entertaining. I've had to 'grind' to build up the Drums many times and not once have I found it to be a fun way to spend my weeks.

Stating that something is intentional does not imply support, it is a statement of fact. I like to convey facts in these discussions, people can then make their minds up as to what they think about it after that, but it's way better that everyone knows the fundamental. I interpreted Moi's post as conveying an expectation that organizations (or at least some organizations) can raise their shields quickly, but it simply isn't that way and has never been intended to be that way, from the design standpoint.

Alright then - sorry for assuming you're okay with it.

Xenthos · July 2018

Maligorn said:

Xenthos said:

Maligorn said:

Xenthos said:

Also, one other thing not mentioned there: Depending on moon phase, if one forest loses its shield they might never get it back again.

The forest conflict quest has another step. When the shield is down, doing your org's prophecy quest empowers Hart/Crow to kill their counterpart in the other org.

Re-raising the Drums or the Flame also requires doing (part of) that quest, so it is also limited by moon phase.

In order to raise the Drums / Flame, Crow / Hart must be alive, but you can get caught in a spiral of: Raise your SMob on your moon phase, other side kills again on theirs. Repeat until they get tired of "free" power from doing a quest every 16 hours. This makes getting at least 1 Avatar up asap super important to diminish overall damage taken, because if your Forestal shield falls you are facing a huge amount of trouble.

I kind of get the sense from your original argument that you somehow think "intentional" is "okay". So...facing a huge amount of trouble and work is intentional and therefore okay.

I'm sorry for the word twist but that's clearly not fun for you, and if that gets fixed, so should the potential "always keeping the Primary Generator down".

You're incorrect! I have never found tedious grinding to increase a number to be entertaining. I've had to 'grind' to build up the Drums many times and not once have I found it to be a fun way to spend my weeks.

Stating that something is intentional does not imply support, it is a statement of fact. I like to convey facts in these discussions, people can then make their minds up as to what they think about it after that, but it's way better that everyone knows the fundamental. I interpreted Moi's post as conveying an expectation that organizations (or at least some organizations) can raise their shields quickly, but it simply isn't that way and has never been intended to be that way, from the design standpoint.

Alright then - sorry for assuming you're okay with it.

I could definitely have made it more clear.

I was writing that on my phone and thus trying to stick to just-the-facts to save on screen typing. It turned into a long post nonetheless.

I don't like screen-typing.

On the mechanics of raiding - reflections and brainstorming

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