An unevenly and awkwardly implemented system being run by a wildly unbalanced, tiny playerbase has problems? What a shock.
E: I suppose I should be slightly constructive despite the hour. It would probably be best to drop the "conflict" bits from the cult/sect code until said tiny playerbase has actually built the system up adequately.
I just hit her cause I saw Gurn hitting her and assumed she must have thrown a bashcombo or something.
Whoops.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
- I consider unnecessary Godwin invocations to border on bannable offense. There's always a better metaphor.
- Criticizing someone for writing a very reasonable "just checking" issue is disappointingly exclusive. That was a responsible course of action that deserves praise.
- I don't handle issues anymore, but this situation would have been a slam dunk punishment. Choosing to kill any opponent because they're bashing, regardless of justification, is unacceptable and has been for seven or eight years. Bashing trips are an opportunity to attack, not a REASON to do so.
Probably missed something, but I'm running late. Happy to discuss further later today.
@Sarrius Why don't you try starting a war with the Primal when maybe, we have the same or more numbers then you? I'd love to see how you respond when we do something like this. I'm sure the first thing you'll do is QQ and not play this game for one year.
You pulled Juran 2, starting a war that you know you will definitely win and then blaming it on the person who didn't want the war in the first place as the reason the war started it. Congratulations. Giving your war an RP reason is hilarious.
I'm enjoying this because I enjoy PK but it kills the fun out of it when innocents like Seraphyne and Ellen get killed. They have no single contribution in all this. Its called ethics. You don't be a jerk to someone just because you can. By all means, call me to a fight or jump me/Risca/Gurn. We'll enjoy it.
It's been a few years since Dregaur was around, thankfully we got a budget replacement for him by ways of @Sarrius. Beating on bashers and making ridiculous Ihsanesque demands for conflict resolution, though ala everything else, if this carries on long enough and the odds swing from his favour, back to gate sitting/another game he will go. When you go Sarrius, here's my game suggestion for you:
@Ziat: since you made a post of at least small substance, I will point out that anytime you make jabs at any supposed cowardice, you are wrong. I am remarkably thick-skinned about repeated deaths, losses, or back and forth engagements. I am not pressing this conflict because I have an advantage. I am pressing it because it means I can keep you off secthood. It would take a lot more than losing a war or a fight to quit this game for a year.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
@Sarrius - Like how every single time for literal IRL months that I've asked you to 1v1 you've been at work? Even when you go pk 2 seconds later? (in a group of 5v2)
@Sarrius - Like how every single time for literal IRL months that I've asked you to 1v1 you've been at work? Even when you go pk 2 seconds later? (in a group of 5v2)
I cannot remember a time in history when I am not at work when you ask that, but OK (for the record, when I say that, I'm on my phone and I don't think I've ever taken a stab at shardfall combat on an Android touch screen - though for all it is worth, according to Demonic it can't be that hard as a Wardancer, right?). I'm not really sure what any 1v1 records have to do with a cult or sect war conflict, beyond my willingness to go it alone when I inevitably lose my support due to a combination of boredom, disgust, and etc. At this point, you're using the thread a platform to heckle me (which could be classified as a derail). I guess I'm OK with that, because the last time I cared about what you thought was just about never. Let's approach this topic from another angle: If the desecration ritual isn't for this purpose (and by this purpose, I mean attacking other cults), precisely what is it for? The only difference between using it now and using it on you when you are a sect is that desecration actually means something right now - it is stopping you from evolving your Charmander, for lack of better words. Is it the knowledge that I'm preventing you from moving on to the next portion of the system? Because mechanically, that is an advantage for my circle. Are you really going to say I am taking it a bit too far by stopping you from gaining distinct combat advantages in the form of sect rituals?
Or are we all just really taking offense to Ellen and Seraphyne dying for bolstering cult belief? Because from all I can see, that really seems to be the issue. Two people died, one of them asked for clarification in an issue, another copy and pasted, and then the thread lit up because I see no issue with whacking them each once for this very act. If we were really out to stomp some defenseless non-coms, we'd have broken in to Celidon (not a difficult feat with the removal of totems, or even before their removal) and done just that.
EDIT: I guess I'm trying to wrap my head around what is so absolutely offensive about this 'conflict'. We had a legitimate reason, mechanically and in context of roleplay. We saw an opportunity. We went for it. We desecrated in full force, Gurn killed a few of the desecrators, there was a scuffle at his altar a few times over two days, and Seraphyne/Ellen got whacked. I guess I'm not seeing what is so heinous about this besides the deaths of the aforementioned two Primal cultists and the implication that we would prefer to find a way to stop them from helping their cult. Is it the fact that we outnumber you? If so, precisely why do you not produce this decibel of whining after every shardfall? You don't leave half of your bullets at home when you go to a fight. You bring them all because you know you're going to be doing some shooting. That you guys have less numbers doesn't really concern me, and I don't really understand why I should be constrained by your code of 'ethics' or e-bushido on the grand scale of things. I don't think I'm going to get Juran to launch a 12 man gank party to punch Risca in the nads any time soon, of course, but I guess I don't see the problem in a larger force attacking a smaller force. Especially when I offered to waive the material price of surrender.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
I feel like the reason they're upset, really: It's like you're raiding their city and after you kill them for defending you kill them for the possibility of them defending in the future. Except this isn't a city, it's an organization that they put a lot of time and effort into creating (from scratch) and funding and fueling and fleshing out, and you -arbitrarily- (despite all claims to the contrary) decide, 'Well, magick is getting another sect, better run a train down its throat.' I don't completely understand how it's within the Great Hunt's agenda to tear down a cult that's about the preservation of nature (or whatever) by grouping up with Conquest, another very solid SECT (not cult; it has powers).
Anyway, as has been said before, this thread is probably going to continue to be about you justifying things you -can't- justify, where Gurn's been trying to actually figure out how to fix this system. I already offered a solution in an earlier post (albeit unoriginal and weak), and I haven't seen a whole lot of other alternatives offered, though that might be because the 'I WANT TO KILL PEOPLE OUT OF BOREDOM SO I'M GOING TO' posts and the responses to them have distracted me.
The problem everybody is having with you right now is that you are so focused on your 'rights', on your 'justifications', that you steadfastly refuse to look at the other side of the fence and ask yourself, "Are the people I am doing this to having fun? Or am I making the game worse for them?" Your attitude is remarkably self-centered, and coming from me that should be saying something. But selfishness by itself would be forgivable, if you didn't compound that selfishness by pretending you have every justification for doing this, or maybe it's even worse and you think you have a 'duty' to do this due to your RP and thus are absolved of any guilt (an attitude that is downright sickening no matter where you find it).
I'll admit my past deeds make me the polar opposite of selfless virtue, and have taken part in my share of unfair griefing. But I will NEVER pretend that I wasn't doing them because I can, and I sure as hell won't act like said actions were forced upon me by my 'RP' (perhaps I did in the past, but I have grown enough to recognize I was being stupid and selfish).
Something like a war system has always been discussed. Unfortunately, any war systems causes quite a bit of grief and hardships for the playerbase as a whole, with the city/council being the base organization mechanics. Leaving one is an absolutely huge choice, as leaving them can even cause circle changes.
As of now, cults and sects are not. So, instead, why don't we construct a 'war' or 'conflict' system between cults and sects? Make a rule that keeps people safe, even in the conflict, in cities and councils, so we always have a safe place and we always have a way to opt out, as it were. This allow people to freely participate in conflict but still not be forced into it when they don't want to fight in it. Power nodes, as present when this was first established, could be an interesting thing to do.
Essentially, we have these "places of power" which can "empower" entities. Basically, these are part of the "win condition" of the conflict system. They are scattered all throughout the world, forcing exploration to find them. They can also only be siphoned for a certain amount of time to draw a certain amount of power from it before being depleted.
These places of power would constantly cycle, some going active and inactive at random points, thus forcing active exploration to do. A cult/sect can only control X amount at any one time. This makes numbers helpful in order to find and capture multiple at once, but makes it so that it is not impossible for smaller cults/sects to win, if they have more dedicated explorers.
At certain times, there could be especially large places of power, either random or decided on by admins to promote even larger group battles.
In order to capture these places, one would need to get a certain item X that marks them as "open PK for opposition" as they search for these places of power. Going into a city or council will remove this item and make it impossible to get another one for X amount of time. Any cult or sect member travelling/defending the person would also be marked for a certain period of time-- Similarly, attacking a person with that item or maker would have this "open pk" on them as well. Think of it kind of like Runescape Wilderness, for those who've played that game.
With randomly cycling places of power, it would force active movement and participation, allowing some people to opt out when they want to rest and go in when they want to. I've no good ideas for what victory would entail-- It should have a good bonus, but what it shouldn't have is a crippling defeat condition that makes people not want to play anymore.
This sort of conflict could last a week or two, maybe.
I've also no suggestions for proper initiation of said sort of conflicts. Allowing it to initiate willy-nilly would obviously cause issues.
This is, of course, a very simplistic idea with many faults and flaws. Pointing out the obvious ones is not helpful if you do not provide at least one solution. Feel free to come up with your own or build on what I've said!
The thing is... there really isn't a conflict system I can think of that can be created which isn't subject to wild abuses, or which wouldn't get boring. All I do know is, in order to be fun, the following elements need to be in place for said system to even have a chance:
1) A clear winner, preferably with an announcement of who won so everybody is clear on who the losers are. Having stats for each 'engagement' would also be helpful as you'd be surprised how much people will fight to get their numbers higher than everybody else's numbers (or not, if you have ever played an online FPS).
2) Advantage goes to the side that works together. This has rarely been an issue, but it needs to be stated that the better coordinated side should always be victorious over the disorganized rabble.
3) Fights must be fast and dirty. You shouldn't have an obelisks type situation where you're sitting around for an hour - the battle must be started and won within at most 10 minutes. Note that this should not be a hard coded limit, it should more be a question of "if both sides are almost evenly matched, it should take about ten minutes or so for the better side to come out ahead."
Or, to break it down into simple terms -
Rip off highly successful, PvP oriented video games.
- I'll admit I didn't feel like we should have attacked/killed Seraphyne and Ellen, I was actually a bit reluctant to go after Ellen but caved into peer pressure. When I saw Gurn attacking people who were essentially non-coms who were bashing I assumed at the time he was just attacking Conquest members (I wasn't there when the desecration was going on, just when he was killing people). I did realise later on that they probably did contribute to the desecration.
- Going by @Alitis 's logic, I would like to state for the record that anyone killing my character makes me really sad and I won't enjoy the game, so there, you can't attack me anymore. I don't intend for this to convey "Alitis' statement is flawed and thus I can PK whoever I want, whenever I want," but more that in a game that was (to me, years ago), promoted as somewhat PK-oriented, I accept that occasionally deaths happen (the only remotely-significant thing with that being your name on READLOG DEATHSIGHT for up to 6 days and/or a statistic on DEATHS or someone else's KILLS) and crying to everyone about it on an OOC platform wouldn't make me side with you regardless of whether I'm a neutral party or not. You'll probably just end up looking like Abigail. Not that I am implying anyone is doing this, yet.
- I didn't mind Ellen's issue against me at all, it seemed to be written calmly and I wrote a little response explaining my side of it and also asking for some clarification, no problems there.
- Current mechanics are dumb, but what other alternative is there? When @Sarrius used what I guess is 100% an RP reason (Primal being the anti-Hunt, if you will) to use a ritual everyone has access to, in the only way it can be used, everyone starts bashing on him.
I mean sure @Sarrius is a dick, no one's going to deny that, but what is the ritual for if using it the only time it actually matters is deemed to be griefing (I'm assuming the main issue here is with the desecration, not the one-off Seraphyne and Ellen deaths, else ignore this)? If anything, the problem you have should be with the rituals and cult/sect mechanics, not with @Sarrius .
But really, at the end of the day he could be a griefer as a player but if he has an RP reason to do something, isn't that the foundation of anything you do in game? Which side outnumbers which isn't really relevant in this matter anyway, I mean occasionally magick does roll up into a shardfall with 5 druids 2 hunters and a RG or two, and we try maybe once or twice and just sit that one out after getting steamrolled.
I leave you with the most insightful quote I've been lucky enough to receive first-hand:
Trachius tells you, "You must think this game is for your enjoyment."
@Garryn and I had a brief chat aside, and from what I got from it (having tagged him in this, he'll know and come correct me), is that he knows as well as all of us - me included, I hold no illusions here - that the system is broken. Do not take this to mean I will stop, but that my prime objective now is to get it over with without saying 'so the system is broken, quittin' time'.
Garryn told me, verbatim, that the desecration ritual is not supposed to be a major part of the system and really just exists as an analogy to shrine defilement. I don't blame Garryn for adding it, but in retrospect, we probably should have all seen this coming - if not from me, somebody else would have eventually done something like this. We had the chance to mention it in the sect and cult threads when development gave us an open view of the process, and we glossed it over. Next time, let's not do that.
Anyways, what he and I eventually reached as a conclusion is that he said he's cool with implementing a light-weight sect versus sect conflict system - but if the idea ends up getting too big, he won't be able to implement it because he has just too many projects as is. The idea I ran across him involved something like monoliths and obelisks (only in the reward - a sect controlling a 'sect monolith' would grant their circle a small bonus, and the sect a larger version of said bonus) that can somebody interact with group conflict (a mob of believers) and chosen champions (a bone thrown to those 7 people in the game that want a 1 vs 1 'system). Instead of doing what I was going to do, which is brainstorm a system, run it by some smart people, tweak it, and repeat until we have something streamlined..
Why not take this thread and just brainstorm the system right here? He said 'standard disclaimers apply' (basically: do not get your hopes up, they reserve right to change any aspect of it upon implementation, etc)
Keep in mind that my idea isn't what we have to build off of. I offered Garryn the 'audience' classifications (groups and chosen champions) and my rough idea and that was what spun off the idea of making something more concrete.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
Let's do less affirming of why the current system has issues and more of what we can do to create a good one.
You could .. Convince some of AM to go Demonic? Get the administration to rebuild the system to be more intuitive? The standard solutions to something like this are about the same as they are for any of the other issues that are not Garryn related: grit your teeth and take it or log out.
‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
So wait, Sarrius douches out and causes a huge fuss over being a dong, then turns around and whines at Garryn and comes to us trying to supplant Gurn as "Lets fix the system guys?" God, this smacks of Anthe and Andrea abusing achievements to show us how bad the system was, while making a heap of credits on the side. Just, wow.
Building a white knight system around anything is a pretty bad idea right now. The game isn't balanced. It's probably not going to be balanced. Your champions are all going to cluster around a few chosen professions: Bard, Saboteur, Outrider/Cleric/Wardancer. (Isn't that weird?) Why? All of these classes are power houses that can steam roll you and you really don't have a way to stop it. Never mind the fact that glass cannon demonology will run into a wall of Conquest Artifacts every 1v1. Yup, smells like fun.
-The devil's advocate in me wants to green light this, watch it come to pass and then cut/paste Sarrius' ideas after Khizan druid spanks him. One hit, two hit, three hit...floor. /Ragepost.
Sects won't provide a lot of enjoyment when we can't pick balanced teams. It's like the Denver Broncos show up with 25 dudes, The Redskins show up with 75 and the Giants show up with 180. Looks like it was a close one. You will never churn out a balanced system out of this. AM will never solo you. They say they will, but look at the derps in charge of their sects. The moment Conquest or Hunt look like they're on the ropes, someone's accidentally going to get involved. The only response for the rest of the world is to break role over a sect slap fight. Khizan would say ok, I'd say ok, Lionas may say ok depending on if he has indigestion and Gurn would probably rp martyr and overrule this idea.
Actually, you're not going to get any kind of fun pk out of the game right now because AM is a fat kid hording all the derps because it's training wheels up in there. It's the magical theme park where zeroes go to heroes. (Overstatement, but it rhymed). Like I made a joke in another thread, you always think you did well until Scum-bag AM tags in four to five people who used to be on your side but bandwaggoned on you. (in demonic's case, these people suddenly stopped sucking)
Interesting ideas to toss around: -Shifting roster caps. 4v4, 5v5 (sadly, there's a certain clan out there that will decorate their own pants to game this) (wetwipe)
-Area dominance was a cool issue, but it needs to be a not 100% of the time thing. (This idea sucks right now because AM has population and time slot coverage.)
-Instanced bashing areas. Go bash for phat lewt (not gold) maybe temporary artifacts if you control x, y or z (AM ruins this)
--Shards need more developing. Shards are untapped roleplay.
-I'd even throw in a controlled NPC entity who fights us for shards. Magick and Demonic roll up to a shard fall and bump into Onkassus. Whelp, shit have hitteth the fan. Suddenly, Khizan's not looking like such a prick anymore. BFFs, let's kill orcs.
-Obelisks These need a ground up redesign. No one likes these. Most people suck at poker. Most of us hate pretending to be at the keyboard. 90% of people are like, "What's a node?" Two people like to soap box about how much they know about a text game to afk people. Bring your spiral and a pen, we're obelisking!
General complaints: -I'm so over shards being tied in to obelisks.
As I mentioned, shifting area dominance, followed by a cap on how many points you can take at once could help. Makes it so size can help, but won't necessarily win you anything if your people suck and can't find anything/defend themselves.
EDIT: It also really does bother me that Sarrius has suddenly decided to go, "Hey guys, I'm trying to fix the system, that's why I'm doing it!"
I dunno, when you start adding three more people and up, their ability to do damage and toxins (which is everyone in AM) starts to out pace people's ability to heal. There's no skill requirement to that.
I dunno, when you start adding three more people and up, their ability to do damage and toxins (which is everyone in AM) starts to out pace people's ability to heal. There's no skill requirement to that.
Well, the idea is this: They can hold these points with a lot of people at one point, or they can move around and get multiple points, but have to split their number to do it. Because it's multiple points between multiple areas that are cross-world, it puts it in a way that it's not just about who has more people, but who can divide their force properly.
For instance, suppose there are 9 nodes in the world, spread all over. Every hour, they change to a new, randomized place(that's outdoors, everyone accessible area, etc, etc).
To capture a node, you have to have a certain boon from your altar. Makes you open PK, and anyone hanging around you will also be open PK, and people who attack you will be as well.
Each sect/org that is involved in the conflict will attempt to capture these nodes. If you have 10 people and sit them all in one place, then you can do that, but you'll lose nodes. If you have 3/3/3 spread out between three nodes, then you can defend them like that, too, but it allows a smaller group to be able to take on those 3 people.
Numbers always help, of course, but having split places will make it so smaller groups have a chance to win through better thought out tactics and management, and forces each individual to be more proficient, rather than the "Use 1 bash move/pindown the entire fight because we only have one objective to focus on" sort of thing we see now.
They'll just island hop you, only more efficiently than WW2. They won't need to split up.
*Yes these are obelisk powers. This argument is pertinent because without the bandwagon you had what, one obelisk? Obelisks success was not 'strategy' it was 'population explosion' (modified by lolpindown).
True. I have to say I was basing it off how the meta changed when Mechwarrior Online introduced Conquest as opposed to assault. Multiple points, regardless of wand of portals(monolith) or pet track(dropping lagul) will make it more difficult for a team to control. The more objectives, the more split up the teams have to be, and the more individual ability is helpful.
Realistically, it'd do a lot for Cults/Sects if some sort of risk/reward mechanic was put into place. It couldn't be too steep because of population/class imbalance, but maybe even just something that could be roleplayed out. Tired, but I'm just brainstorming.
‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
So wait, Sarrius douches out and causes a huge fuss over being a dong, then turns around and whines at Garryn and comes to us trying to supplant Gurn as "Lets fix the system guys?" God, this smacks of Anthe and Andrea abusing achievements to show us how bad the system was, while making a heap of credits on the side. Just, wow.
Nah, it began as me approaching him how desecration is intended to
work
in the system - mostly so I could understand if the design intended for
my 'griefing'. He said 'minor, not really a big aspect', I said 'oh ok
is there a conflict system?', he said 'make one' for lack of better
words (I can dig out the messages on his end, probbo). I guess I'm confused again - you want a thread to fix the system, I tell you that Garryn told me that desecration was an experiment to see how people took the system and that he said to pitch him something lightweight and cool to replace how 'lame' the system is, and because I share this, I am trying to 'upstage' Gurn?
EDIT: I also never once in my life stated I was doing this to 'fix a system'. I'm doing it to make sure Primal doesn't become a sect, because it fits my sect's RP, and because unlike demonic, Gurn and crew are all naive enough to let me get a rise out of them - which subsequently gives the sects some fights. Or, if you are following Gurn's martyr script, Alitis' analysis of my personality, and Caelya's accusations prior, I'm doing it because I feel like it, I was bored, and I could.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
EDIT: I also never once in my life stated I was doing this to 'fix a system'. I'm doing it to make sure Primal doesn't become a sect, because it fits my sect's RP, and because unlike demonic, Gurn and crew are all naive enough to let me get a rise out of them - which subsequently gives the sects some fights. Or, if you are following Gurn's martyr script, Alitis' analysis of my personality, and Caelya's accusations prior, I'm doing it because I feel like it, I was bored, and I could.
EDIT: I also never once in my life stated I was doing this to 'fix a system'. I'm doing it to make sure Primal doesn't become a sect, because it fits my sect's RP, and because unlike demonic, Gurn and crew are all naive enough to let me get a rise out of them - which subsequently gives the sects some fights. Or, if you are following Gurn's martyr script, Alitis' analysis of my personality, and Caelya's accusations prior, I'm doing it because I feel like it, I was bored, and I could.
'Feeling like doing something' and 'being able to do something' are the basic pre-reqs for doing anything. It's not a personality analysis so much as it is a basic fact.
The shardfalls are, by far, the most successful conflict system I've seen implemented in one of the IRE games. Why?
The semi-random timing makes them impossible to off-hours attack and impossible to game the numbers when choosing your time.
They're entirely opt-in. You do not get punished for missing out on shardfalls, except that you don't get cool stuff that shardfalls open up. There are some very important things, like Hood, but its not like Landmarks were; losing shardfalls doesn't cripple you.
They're quick. A shardfall isn't a 'clear a few hours tonight, everybody' kind of fight. I can count on one hand the amount of shardfalls I've seen get close to an hour.
They're PK-isolated. I can get people out to fight in shardfalls because they know that they're not going to die for it later.
Everybody can contribute. Got a lowbie who shows interest? Bring him along! Maybe he'll get the killing blow against an aspect and get the Level Spam of Awesome.
These are the kinds of things that any cult/sect conflict system should strive to emulate. If you're going against the grain you should have a really good reason for it, because shardfalls, unlike monoliths/obelisks/landmarks, actually WORK and get people out and involved.
For example, I've seen a few references to limiting numbers(4v4, 5v5, etc). This isn't a very good idea, and it's not a very good idea because you're creating a situation where the best thing certain players can do to help their sect is "sit this one out." This is basically impossible to avoid, and it's divisive. Hey, lowbie. Glad you joined Conquest to help us take the fight to the magicker scum. Now go sit on the bench, please. We can only run four, and you're about 5000 credits too short for this ride.
You also have to account for how you handle the circles. If you're going to let same-circle sects work together, you might as well just make it outright based around the sects of the circle. Otherwise, you'll get the same thing you get in the city v city CTFs: Circle v Circle fights where only one half gets a reward.
I'm unsure as to specifics on an idea, but any idea should really aim for these kinds of things.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Sects won't provide a lot of enjoyment when we can't pick balanced teams. It's like the Denver Broncos show up with 25 dudes, The Redskins show up with 75 and the Giants show up with 180. Looks like it was a close one. You will never churn out a balanced system out of this. AM will never solo you. They say they will, but look at the derps in charge of their sects. The moment Conquest or Hunt look like they're on the ropes, someone's accidentally going to get involved. The only response for the rest of the world is to break role over a sect slap fight. Khizan would say ok, I'd say ok, Lionas may say ok depending on if he has indigestion and Gurn would probably rp martyr and overrule this idea.
Eli Manning, even with two super bowls is to up and down for me to count on him reliably. He's just as likely to throw five interceptions as he is to throw three touchdowns Damn you New(AM)York Giants. Also I'm down for soloing 90% of the time for anyone that asks, even if I'm in the supposed power house outrider class. (read: Not everyone is Azefel)
Each sect/org that is involved in the conflict will attempt to capture these nodes. If you have 10 people and sit them all in one place, then you can do that, but you'll lose nodes. If you have 3/3/3 spread out between three nodes, then you can defend them like that, too, but it allows a smaller group to be able to take on those 3 people.
This won't work, because of moradeim travel and the various other options, and the fact that most AM fighters that will win you a fight have access to a gossamer anchor and focus aryana, putting them back in the fight before you can maintain control of that node.
Comments
E: I suppose I should be slightly constructive despite the hour. It would probably be best to drop the "conflict" bits from the cult/sect code until said tiny playerbase has actually built the system up adequately.
I just hit her cause I saw Gurn hitting her and assumed she must have thrown a bashcombo or something.
Whoops.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
It's been a few years since Dregaur was around, thankfully we got a budget replacement for him by ways of @Sarrius. Beating on bashers and making ridiculous Ihsanesque demands for conflict resolution, though ala everything else, if this carries on long enough and the odds swing from his favour, back to gate sitting/another game he will go. When you go Sarrius, here's my game suggestion for you:
NSFW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJHrmliVQw
"You're telling me Kabal's the reasonable one and Arlith is the griefer? Whaaaat *samurai RP*'
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
Let's approach this topic from another angle: If the desecration ritual isn't for this purpose (and by this purpose, I mean attacking other cults), precisely what is it for? The only difference between using it now and using it on you when you are a sect is that desecration actually means something right now - it is stopping you from evolving your Charmander, for lack of better words. Is it the knowledge that I'm preventing you from moving on to the next portion of the system? Because mechanically, that is an advantage for my circle. Are you really going to say I am taking it a bit too far by stopping you from gaining distinct combat advantages in the form of sect rituals?
Or are we all just really taking offense to Ellen and Seraphyne dying for bolstering cult belief? Because from all I can see, that really seems to be the issue. Two people died, one of them asked for clarification in an issue, another copy and pasted, and then the thread lit up because I see no issue with whacking them each once for this very act. If we were really out to stomp some defenseless non-coms, we'd have broken in to Celidon (not a difficult feat with the removal of totems, or even before their removal) and done just that.
EDIT: I guess I'm trying to wrap my head around what is so absolutely offensive about this 'conflict'. We had a legitimate reason, mechanically and in context of roleplay. We saw an opportunity. We went for it. We desecrated in full force, Gurn killed a few of the desecrators, there was a scuffle at his altar a few times over two days, and Seraphyne/Ellen got whacked. I guess I'm not seeing what is so heinous about this besides the deaths of the aforementioned two Primal cultists and the implication that we would prefer to find a way to stop them from helping their cult. Is it the fact that we outnumber you? If so, precisely why do you not produce this decibel of whining after every shardfall? You don't leave half of your bullets at home when you go to a fight. You bring them all because you know you're going to be doing some shooting. That you guys have less numbers doesn't really concern me, and I don't really understand why I should be constrained by your code of 'ethics' or e-bushido on the grand scale of things. I don't think I'm going to get Juran to launch a 12 man gank party to punch Risca in the nads any time soon, of course, but I guess I don't see the problem in a larger force attacking a smaller force. Especially when I offered to waive the material price of surrender.
The problem everybody is having with you right now is that you are so focused on your 'rights', on your 'justifications', that you steadfastly refuse to look at the other side of the fence and ask yourself, "Are the people I am doing this to having fun? Or am I making the game worse for them?" Your attitude is remarkably self-centered, and coming from me that should be saying something. But selfishness by itself would be forgivable, if you didn't compound that selfishness by pretending you have every justification for doing this, or maybe it's even worse and you think you have a 'duty' to do this due to your RP and thus are absolved of any guilt (an attitude that is downright sickening no matter where you find it).
I'll admit my past deeds make me the polar opposite of selfless virtue, and have taken part in my share of unfair griefing. But I will NEVER pretend that I wasn't doing them because I can, and I sure as hell won't act like said actions were forced upon me by my 'RP' (perhaps I did in the past, but I have grown enough to recognize I was being stupid and selfish).
1) A clear winner, preferably with an announcement of who won so everybody is clear on who the losers are. Having stats for each 'engagement' would also be helpful as you'd be surprised how much people will fight to get their numbers higher than everybody else's numbers (or not, if you have ever played an online FPS).
2) Advantage goes to the side that works together. This has rarely been an issue, but it needs to be stated that the better coordinated side should always be victorious over the disorganized rabble.
3) Fights must be fast and dirty. You shouldn't have an obelisks type situation where you're sitting around for an hour - the battle must be started and won within at most 10 minutes. Note that this should not be a hard coded limit, it should more be a question of "if both sides are almost evenly matched, it should take about ten minutes or so for the better side to come out ahead."
Or, to break it down into simple terms -
Rip off highly successful, PvP oriented video games.
- I'll admit I didn't feel like we should have attacked/killed Seraphyne and Ellen, I was actually a bit reluctant to go after Ellen but caved into peer pressure. When I saw Gurn attacking people who were essentially non-coms who were bashing I assumed at the time he was just attacking Conquest members (I wasn't there when the desecration was going on, just when he was killing people). I did realise later on that they probably did contribute to the desecration.
Garryn told me, verbatim, that the desecration ritual is not supposed to be a major part of the system and really just exists as an analogy to shrine defilement. I don't blame Garryn for adding it, but in retrospect, we probably should have all seen this coming - if not from me, somebody else would have eventually done something like this. We had the chance to mention it in the sect and cult threads when development gave us an open view of the process, and we glossed it over. Next time, let's not do that.
Anyways, what he and I eventually reached as a conclusion is that he said he's cool with implementing a light-weight sect versus sect conflict system - but if the idea ends up getting too big, he won't be able to implement it because he has just too many projects as is. The idea I ran across him involved something like monoliths and obelisks (only in the reward - a sect controlling a 'sect monolith' would grant their circle a small bonus, and the sect a larger version of said bonus) that can somebody interact with group conflict (a mob of believers) and chosen champions (a bone thrown to those 7 people in the game that want a 1 vs 1 'system). Instead of doing what I was going to do, which is brainstorm a system, run it by some smart people, tweak it, and repeat until we have something streamlined..
Why not take this thread and just brainstorm the system right here? He said 'standard disclaimers apply' (basically: do not get your hopes up, they reserve right to change any aspect of it upon implementation, etc)
Keep in mind that my idea isn't what we have to build off of. I offered Garryn the 'audience' classifications (groups and chosen champions) and my rough idea and that was what spun off the idea of making something more concrete.
You could .. Convince some of AM to go Demonic? Get the administration to rebuild the system to be more intuitive? The standard solutions to something like this are about the same as they are for any of the other issues that are not Garryn related: grit your teeth and take it or log out.
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
Actually, you're not going to get any kind of fun pk out of the game right now because AM is a fat kid hording all the derps because it's training wheels up in there. It's the magical theme park where zeroes go to heroes. (Overstatement, but it rhymed). Like I made a joke in another thread, you always think you did well until Scum-bag AM tags in four to five people who used to be on your side but bandwaggoned on you. (in demonic's case, these people suddenly stopped sucking)
Interesting ideas to toss around:
-Shifting roster caps. 4v4, 5v5 (sadly, there's a certain clan out there that will decorate their own pants to game this) (wetwipe)
These need a ground up redesign. No one likes these. Most people suck at poker. Most of us hate pretending to be at the keyboard. 90% of people are like, "What's a node?" Two people like to soap box about how much they know about a text game to afk people. Bring your spiral and a pen, we're obelisking!
-I'm so over shards being tied in to obelisks.
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
Nah, it began as me approaching him how desecration is intended to work in the system - mostly so I could understand if the design intended for my 'griefing'. He said 'minor, not really a big aspect', I said 'oh ok is there a conflict system?', he said 'make one' for lack of better words (I can dig out the messages on his end, probbo). I guess I'm confused again - you want a thread to fix the system, I tell you that Garryn told me that desecration was an experiment to see how people took the system and that he said to pitch him something lightweight and cool to replace how 'lame' the system is, and because I share this, I am trying to 'upstage' Gurn?
EDIT: I also never once in my life stated I was doing this to 'fix a system'. I'm doing it to make sure Primal doesn't become a sect, because it fits my sect's RP, and because unlike demonic, Gurn and crew are all naive enough to let me get a rise out of them - which subsequently gives the sects some fights. Or, if you are following Gurn's martyr script, Alitis' analysis of my personality, and Caelya's accusations prior, I'm doing it because I feel like it, I was bored, and I could.
The shardfalls are, by far, the most successful conflict system I've seen implemented in one of the IRE games. Why?
These are the kinds of things that any cult/sect conflict system should strive to emulate. If you're going against the grain you should have a really good reason for it, because shardfalls, unlike monoliths/obelisks/landmarks, actually WORK and get people out and involved.
For example, I've seen a few references to limiting numbers(4v4, 5v5, etc). This isn't a very good idea, and it's not a very good idea because you're creating a situation where the best thing certain players can do to help their sect is "sit this one out." This is basically impossible to avoid, and it's divisive. Hey, lowbie. Glad you joined Conquest to help us take the fight to the magicker scum. Now go sit on the bench, please. We can only run four, and you're about 5000 credits too short for this ride.
You also have to account for how you handle the circles. If you're going to let same-circle sects work together, you might as well just make it outright based around the sects of the circle. Otherwise, you'll get the same thing you get in the city v city CTFs: Circle v Circle fights where only one half gets a reward.
I'm unsure as to specifics on an idea, but any idea should really aim for these kinds of things.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
This won't work, because of moradeim travel and the various other options, and the fact that most AM fighters that will win you a fight have access to a gossamer anchor and focus aryana, putting them back in the fight before you can maintain control of that node.