Sects: Orders are dead, long live Orders!

Khizan

It's been a while since Sects were released, and so I've got a few thoughts on the system that I'd like to share.

Despite all the differences, the problems with Sects are basically the exact same problems Orders had. Oh, Sects are an improvement, there's no question. They've solved several of the smaller problems Orders had, mostly by ensuring that there's at least going to be a modicum of player interest in the realm of the new god, but they're still plagued with most of the same problems, and those problems really only have one source, sad to say. The volunteer.

Don't get me wrong. The volunteers are generally good at what they do and a whole lot of fun to interact with. This isn't meant as an insult to their quality. The problem is just that a ton of the fun and enjoyability of sects is entirely dependent on their ability and desire to play the game. And so when Samaos is busy and doesn't play much, there's no awesome visions and there's no moving the sect loyals around in the temple and there's no, well, no involvement.

I lead the sect, and all this really means is that I have technical administration powers like induct, enemy, and ritual selection. My other powers basically consist of the ability to emote. I mean, I can build the temple, but I can't move people around in it. I've got a mob that does an awesome ritual divination thing that I want to show off, except she's not in the right room to do it and the only person who can move her is Samaos, who's not around much right now. And so I spend a lot of time sitting around wishing my entity were active.

And on the other hand, I imagine that there's times when Samaos sits around going "Man, I wish my Sect was more active, there's things I want to do and there's nobody around." As it is, this system just doesn't really feel satisfying.

I wish Entities and Sects could DO more. Hell. The most involved I've seen the entities with the world was WHEN THEY WERE QUITTING THE GODDAMNED GAME. This is a terrible, horrible tragic flaw in this system and something needs to change. For all the presumed power and capability of the entities, they're toothless. They can't do anything. They're all bark and no bite. They're boring, and that's the worst thing that can be said about them. 

I don't mean to say that the volunteers or the characters themselves are boring to interact with, because they are not. Every micro-level interaction I've had with them has been enjoyable. But as a whole, as roles, in the big picture? They are boring, and roles like that should NOT be boring.  One of my earliest memories of Achaea was watching Twilight fight Sartan to defend Hashan(He raised this big black forcefield thing around the city and everything!). Sure, maybe it was just god emoting or whatnot, but you know what? In Achaea, I really felt like the Gods were involved in the world. Sartan with his evil legions, Twilight's plots, Eris and her Illuminati ripoff stuff. The Gods had a presence in the game and it really contributed to the atmosphere.

Outside of the Godwar, I can count on no hands the amount of times I've witnessed something like that in Imperian. That's a goddamned shame, and it needs to change.

Sarrius

This isn't to mention other issues with the sect and cult system. A week or so ago, I was ousted from my position as leader of Hunt. Now, often, I would have said I deserved it - I have been known for being a dick. After some though, I realized this one wasn't my fault for once. However, the simple truth is that I ran in to what Khizan explains: my entity, for whatever reason, was missing. Real life? Disinterested? Despondent? I set up everything I could in the meantime, but I eventually grew discouraged and simply played upkeep until she showed up. Make no mistakes, either - this was a string of long absences since before IronCon. She would make a very rare, very short showing and then vanish again after promising the same stuff. She was gone for almost an entire IRL month, with no real communication with me for closer to two. So then last weeks rolls around..

The next time she showed up was to ask me to keep doing work, and in my defense, I told her I didn't see the point when she wasn't around to take advantage of what I had given her to work with so far. What ended up happening is she removed the sole founder and writer of the sect from his position (me), refused to listen to reason, and cited MY inactivity as reason for this. I had basically just had my behavior playing standby used against me to oust me. Isra did not do it kindly. She tried to blame the sect's stagnancy on me instead of on her own considerable absence - and any sect member besides Shaheen could tell you that was the truth. was told by Jeremy upon ascension that the sect became hers, but I didn't expect that it meant she could oust the guy who footed the 1mil and written work to establish her sect.

I guess my issue is that the sect system is barely a step forward for Imperian. We still depend on Gods/entities to do everything for us, and on their attitudes as people to ensure we can get things done. In addition, Jeremy made plenty of promises about the sect system and how it would have a conflict system attached. It has been a year and all we have is two dead entities and a sect defilement ritual that leads to players crawling up on crosses when it gets thrown at them.

The system isn't any better of a vehicle for RP because it depends on players being clever enough to write a concept an entity wants and the players want. This leads to one of the three parties not being happy, more often than not.

The entities need more to do to bind them to Imperian, because right now it just .. isn't working.

Ragnar

That... really sucks @Sarrius . Shame on you, @Isra , that's not how you're supposed to treat the people who helped make your position possible, least of all the initial designer of it.

I'm sorry you got the raw end of the deal, @Sarrius

Sarrius

Happens. She offered me the job back under the pretense of a 'second chance' and I refused, citing that it was blaming the victim. To accept it would have been admitting she was right and she isn't. Apparently a sect member told me that she says I never detailed what any sect position was for - when I had expressly told her that each position served the same function with a different title to tie things up in a flavorful manner. (I believe this was Cordilia, who was one of many who flew off the handle the night I was removed) - it was either that or something about sect ranks.

I wrote a ton of things to enrich the sect environment, and it pains me to know it will sit there untouched - or worse, used in ways I have no hand in - because of this situation. I wrote a fair amount of stories and designed half the temple, wrote the ascension event, and was waiting on more materials and gold and faith for more temple work. I kept myself busy waiting for her to hold up her end of the bargain and got ousted for it. It taught me a valuable lesson about the sect system and one I hope aspiring cult leaders can learn from without this kind of mess.

Edit: not to mention the tremendous trust issue there. She ousted me from my position based on lies - it would have only been a matter of time before she did it again.

I think the sect system has so much potential, but it requires a lot of communication - starting directly at the charter stage - to go anywhere. It needs refinement.

Azefel

Wow, didn't know that happened. Dick move, @Isra.

Personally, I'd have to say @Sarrius put in more effort into trying to get the whole Sect thing to work more than anyone else I've seen. The amount of time he had invested in it, all the writing, the RP, the number of times he has had to stand up for Isra when she was MIA (which is to say, all the time).

Pretty much all my "interactions" with Isra, and they don't even qualify being called that, are basically just Sarrius trying to defend her absences. I'm sure I'm not the only one, not by a long way, either. I feel bad for Sarrius because, like I said, he actually put in a really solid effort into HIS sect, basically almost entirely his own work, and then Isra decided to to pull a Shukron (see: Shukron's attempt at Conquest, Saboteurs) and fuck Sarrius over.

Sarrius

One of my biggest complaints about the system is that it demands that you invest 1,000,000 gold on an idea and if no entity likes it, you are boned besides as a gathering place for the people who wish an entity will take pity on you. This leads to an unhappy volunteer who, despite being awesome, quits (see: Hastati - her sect died with Bathan, and she was powerless to stop it from what i saw-) There is zero communication before this fact.

There's nothing for the sects to do to each other. There's no potential for holy war. You can duke it out as sects, but why would you? Desecration is useless and a waste of time. What are you going to fight over? And with what mechanics? I just hate how toothless sects are, in addition to their entities.

Edit: also, most entities make for fantastic volunteers and memorable characters. My experience with Hastati, Samaos, Svorai, and even Zaimael has been amazing or were amazing. Each of them are generally memorable and interesting characters - its just that they have no agency in the grand scheme of Imperian.

Ragnar

I'd say this is the sort of thing that needs to be discussed with the Volunteer pool, @Jeremy

I can get behind the idea of a God being in total control of their Order. Gods get placed in that position by the Administration directly.

However, it's different for Cults and Sects. I don't really feel it's fair that something like this can happen to the person that created the Sect, funded it, spend most likely dozens of hours of their time coming up with an origin story and writing lore for it, along with rituals and temple design - only to have it taken away from them in a fit of pique by a Volunteer.

Negatively impacting your biggest supporter and the entire reason you have a position as Entity is not acceptable in my book.

Bathan

To be fair, Hastati and I tried to do a lot of amazeballs stuff with the Conquest sect, and I personally thought we got stonewalled constantly.

I wasn't proposing 'oh Conquest just takes over a place', either. Most of the ideas were, 'let's have a skirmish with another order, and whoever wins could get to 'claim' the area with maybe some toothless NPC loyals, or at least a flag or something, and I got shutdown all the time. I didn't know going into the creation of sects that it was just going to be a tremendous resource grind for powers, basically. If I had known that, I would've chosen a less progressive concept, but eh. I loved Hastati, and she was great at what she did. We just had nowhere to go once we got past the prologue of our sect story and I didn't enjoy the pressure of being a sect leader because people were basically 'WHAT ARE WE DOING BATHAN?'

My answer was like 'uh, oh you know, shardfalls and ????'

(also whatever your issues with Isra, I'd like to not see this thread become about bashing her, because there's totally room for intelligent discussion on some of the design flaws of sects)

Mathiaus

The most RP I've done in a long while was with Dianos and his/her views on how leadership, chaos, and order all tied in together. It was glorious. It had me involved more. I had reasons to work on scrolls and ideas centered on dreams, lucidity, and nightmares.

Now? Bash stuff so the sect stays alive. There was a good reason why it needed to happen, I completely understand, but now I have very little motivation to upkeep on something that has a good chance to die.

Selthis

Pretty much what Bathan said as a footnote to his post.  Bashing entities in that manner creates an  attitude of  "why bother" among the volunteers. Especially in a situation where if they reply (if they even wanted to) it very much becomes a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario.

 If you've got complaints about avolunteer, take it up with the administration privately.  Don't call it out publically, especially uninvolved parties who just know one side of the story.

Lalitana

Khizan is correct in that sects solved one or two smaller problems - and I guess they're supposed to solve the "god lobotomy" problem, although killing off entities runs the risk of killing off the sect entirely if no one wants to conquest or do...whatever was going on in Rashirmir.

However, cults and sects have created additional problems beyond those that they didn't solve.

One of these is that sects/cults don't seem to have any place in Imperian. While one can argue over the role of Orders, there was a certain "fit" to the Gods' roles - Antioch was closely tied to a number of AM Gods, and whether you liked what they did or not, on a whole the Gods played at least some role in the grander scheme of things. Sects don't. A sect seems to serve as a gathering place for players who find that player-created concept interesting, but to Bathan's point, that concept has no impact on or relevance to the rest of Imperian. Sects don't even have any impact on one another.

The volunteers I've interacted with are fantastic behind the scenes and have very patiently helped me spruce up Antioch. But in-character, entities seem to have little to no agency, and if we weren't supposed to rely on the gods for our roleplay anymore because sects fix that problem, well - sects didn't fix that problem because the only special stuff a sect leader can do is if they pre-program the altar and then manage to get a bunch of interested parties to stand at the altar, read, and interact with the pre-programmed messages. Don't get me wrong, the ability to program the altar is nice - but without an active entity it's not going to keep most people going for very long.

I have no idea what entities are permitted to do; but somewhere between "animating mobs on CT to support your favorite player's opinions" and "not doing anything that influences anything" there has to be a happy medium.

Merelii

I'm not in a sect, nor am I a volunteer, so I'm no where near a authority on the matter but, from the outlook of the sects being toothless and not effective, maybe that's where some of the volunteers are coming from too? If they don't feel like they can really do anything cool, they're less likely to play. Likewise for sect members. Mobs should be able to be controlled by sect leaders, and volunteers should have a bit more imput in the lore and such after the sect is created. Imagine playing a charecter that someone else dictated every step of the way. The lack of personalization would be discouraging.

I don't know how reliable that is to the situation, but that's what I've gathered so far from reading around.

Khizan

Bathan said:

Most of the ideas were, 'let's have a skirmish with another order, and whoever wins could get to 'claim' the area with maybe some toothless NPC loyals, or at least a flag or something, and I got shutdown all the time

What I was actually offered was the chance to get into a war with Conquest when my sect's roster of fighters consisted of "Khizan, Aulani", and it was a 100% losing proposition for us. We were basically being offered the chance to get worked over like a punching bag so Conquest could conquer something.

You make valid points in your post, but this is a bit disingenuous; you got shutdown early on because you were offering a deal that basically consisted of "Hey, let us punch you for a while so we can feel good about winning." 

IMO, they never should have let Conquest last as a cult. They should have basically told you "Hey, you'll probably want a concept redesign; there's nothing there to conquer."

Ahkan

So, on the topic of mortals having super npc powers. I'm both a fan and not a fan. There's a certain level of responsibility that a player with that power is going to have to have. Most of us are capable of it most of the time. Then there's those days when we're bitchy or emotionally compromised and then things are going to get stupid. Someone is going to end up going full Kliko on someone else and it's going to be a breach of roleplay and a giant drama bomb. Then of course, you realize this sort of power assignment is a slippery slope. Entity isn't here, give sect head powers. Sect head isn't here, give sect first officers powers. Sects were meant to preserve consistency, and if you started allowing more and more people to represent that roleplay you're going to directly controvert one of the core ideas behind sects/entities. Not to mention, some of the people involved here, "It was a lonely day in the temple when the order mob put on her robe and wizard hat..."

Olanre is one of my favorite people in the game. Olanre is also notorious for having attendance issues. This isn't a really big deal for me because I have nothing in the pipe as far as development goes. I realized she was getting ready to poof and stopped working on things before she couldn't show up to do it. Lio, Loosh, and Kanth had things that were pending months ago that are still pending today. It's really getting to the point that I imagine we're going to start tossing around the idea of subbing out Olanre. To me, that's a KB to leechwood. Sure, we can argue away Olanre's replacement as "experiment 1 was a failure", but we'll have to think longer term. How many failures are we going to accept that are really just cover ups for volunteer turnover? It ranks up there with Conquest, how many not-fights are we going to not-fight before we realize we can't conquest? At the end of the day, your volunteer turnover rate is mind numbing. We invest gold, hours of writing, hours of brainstorming, hours of bashing for rituals, and some people sacrifice a lot of emotion building a role. When that role can't be filled because entities are people to, we just eat it as a loss after months/years of stagnant boredom.

It's also important here that I don't fault Olanre at all. She's still the best fat kid ever.

Bathan

EDIT: Unholy formatting issues going on here.

Bathan

Khizan said:

Bathan said:

Most of the ideas were, 'let's have a skirmish with another order, and whoever wins could get to 'claim' the area with maybe some toothless NPC loyals, or at least a flag or something, and I got shutdown all the time

What I was actually offered was the chance to get into a war with Conquest when my sect's roster of fighters consisted of "Khizan, Aulani", and it was a 100% losing proposition for us. We were basically being offered the chance to get worked over like a punching bag so Conquest could conquer something.

You make valid points in your post, but this is a bit disingenuous; you got shutdown early on because you were offering a deal that basically consisted of "Hey, let us punch you for a while so we can feel good about winning." 

IMO, they never should have let Conquest last as a cult. They should have basically told you "Hey, you'll probably want a concept redesign; there's nothing there to conquer."

I was actually not addressing our non-existent skirmish with you. The majority of what Hastati and I brainstormed involved 'conquesting' small, neutral townes or sprawling zones, and again, we were down to lose fights. We just wanted something. We didn't need to win, we were happy to lose, we just wanted the ability to do anything, and yah, the cult should've probably never been approved if there was never going to be any support for it.

Ambrose

So, I'm going to try to keep this coherent, because I've pretty consistently run into organizational issues with Ambrose over and over again and I haven't been able to tell if it's a personal thing or an organizational thing...

Let me preface all the following to say, maybe it's just me not having enough patience, but everything outside of cities and circles seem to almost be a poorly executed afterthought - when I first re-joined Imperian a few months back, I wanted to be an Ithaquan, because I was kind of a Harker fanboy when I was (much) younger and the RP that surrounded the founding of Ithaqua and the Wardens was legit. I picked a class based on recommendations from people on the forums, and I found myself as an Ithaquan Sentinel. Which essentially meant I was an Ithaquan and had a guild that was mostly a function of what class I picked. Long story short - I ended up leaving the guild because it was just weird - it didn't really fit with Ithaqua much, the fewer number of people in the guild made it easier just to go to the whole council as a newbie instead of a limited number of people whose interests and goals largely differed from mine in the game, etc. (and after getting talked into joining the Idrasi only to find out that the current GM is a figurehead and vehicle for a Shukron alt to do what Shukron does, probably going to be the same situation here). So how this relates to sects/cults - largely, I see a similar problem. The conflict (and largely as such, the story) of the game turns on the basis of magick or not-magick - when I used to play way back when this usually meant Stavenn vs. Antioch and Kinsarmar/Celidon were Swiss afterthoughts (I never used to interact with Khandava much, so I'm not really qualified to speak much on that). This is where things get tricky - when you start expanding tension and conflict into other areas that are disassociated from a city/council things get messy, because it doesn't feel coherent. I joined Hunt because Sarrius' writing for it was pretty badass, and after talking with him about it, I was pretty excited to see how it was executed, only to find out that basically it was a vehicle for a few game mechanisms mostly. And while I don't blame Isra for everything because I get that life happens, game mechanisms aren't enough to build steam on their own. And indeed, if it weren't for Sarrius' writing, it probably wouldn't have kept Ambrose's interest as long as it did. And I think this will be the case as long as you have organizations that such ephemeral ties to a city/council which are the primary organizations behind circles that drive the conflict in the game forward. I get the RP aspect behind some of these other orgs, but, then I have to ask, why do these really require a whole separate org to handle?

So there's the afterthought problem. Another problem I THINK that might fuel this is how leadership is handled, and this gets to why I mentioned Ambrose's guild history earlier. Cities have failsafes if a leader goes inactive or someone derpy manages to get into power - you can vote their butts out. And, because the council is elected too, you REALLY have to be doing it wrong to make your city a hellhole because you have to elect 4-6 derpy people to have it go bad. A guild, where the entire power of the guild is held essentially in the guildmaster and who they want to delegate to, means one person can ruin a guild. Similarly, with a Sect, it only takes 1-2 people being inactive or derpy (or in some cases, both) to ruin the whole thing. And really it can all crash and burn with one person.

Khizan

Ahkan said:

 She's still the best fat kid ever.

Dunno, man. Selthis is still pretty awesome.

Ahkan

Olanre has laser eyes and breasts.

Your move, Selthis.

Sarrius

Selthis would just link something supposedly fascinating, prompting Olanre to click it with eyes closed.

Nobody clicks a Selthis link with eyes open.

Jeremy Saunders

We are actually meeting on Sunday to discuss cults/sects and making improvements/changes to them. Funny you make this post today. I will report what we are planning after that.

Iniar

1) Lack of coherence -> central planning issue

2) Lack of continuity -> general 'volunteer' issue

3) Lack of interaction -> player dissatisfaction, player loss

1) -> 2) -> 3)

Sarrius

I just want to go out of my way to say that the issues presented here are about the sect system, not the volunteers. While I have my 'differences' with Isra that highlight issues with the sect system, most of this is related to sects, not the players behind them.

I have never had a poor interaction with any entity besides my aforementioned issue. The one true success of the sect system is that it creates a memorable, amazing character in the ascended entity - Hastati, Olanre, Svorai, Samaos? They are way better characters than any god, and the players behind them are a massive reason why.

Gurn

I'd just like to say that not all sects/cults are dead. The Primal Sect is active and does a bunch pretty often.

EDIT: I should expand on that, so it doesn't sound like I'm bragging or something. What I mean to say is that the current system works if both players and entity alike are active. However, as it's always difficult to be getting people active on one end or the other, players should have some ability to be able to keep things going. Allowing leaders and people with the privs to set ambient messages and create illusions within the temple would allow some more things to happen, I think.

Sarrius

The argument isn't that they are dead, it is that the sects besides yours are burdened with any number of issues. An entity with limited time or an inability to compromise - or both. A poor cult concept. Lack of tools to achieve the role of the sect. These are why the system fails.

The leader or entity can pour in all the time they want, but if both aren't pulling, your sect is at a disadvantage in terms of its narrative and goals. Especially if the entity is the one not pulling their weight. I wrote everything I could for Hunt according to the way the sect was envisioned to be in terms of atmosphere. You can ask any member of the sect. Without Isra the Huntress, the Hunt sect was just a loose collection of mechanical benefits and bashers bound by my writing and RP.

Bathan

At the high point in the lifespan Conquest, we had a star-studded roster of Azefel, Juran, Septus, Hastati and I were both around ALL DAY ERRY DAY and we still kind of fell apart because Hastati and I would be like, 'this is an awesome idea, let's try this' and the response we got was always a definite maybe, or, perhaps in the future. And, again, we had scenarios where we could win, where we could get our butts kicked, and between the two of us, I think we had some decent enough writing skills to where it would've been appealing for all parties involved, be it just our people, or other sects.

A lot of my frustration stems from the fact that I thought sects were an answer to a stale narrative that frankly no one seems to be at the helm of, but instead they've just kind of been resource grinds, and what made's it even more draining is that a hand full of players really spent a lot of time constructing the backstories, lore, et cetera. I will say though that, the construction of the cult, gathering of the initial troops, all the stuff with summoning Hastati was some most fun I've ever had in Imperian. It gave me quite possibly my favorite character arc ever, and that's impressive considering how much I enjoyed going all berserk on retardation mode Keijima. The problem is, once I realized it had nowhere to go with Conquest, it just drained my will to play, and I sort of disappeared on Hastati, which was a dick move on my part.

I'm glad the administration at least let a couple of characters be killed off, but it would've been nice if, prior to that ever happening, Entities were allowed to duke it out on their on terms, possibly kill each other off, or just get in the game more. The ideas we wrote up felt like they belonged in a world where the pantheon had just been destroyed and mortals were scurrying around trying to find meaning, but the actual Entities themselves just never did for me.

Ambrose

Bathan said:

I'm glad the administration at least let a couple of characters be killed off, but it would've been nice if, prior to that ever happening, Entities were allowed to duke it out on their on terms, possibly kill each other off, or just get in the game more. 

Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times over yes. Hastati and Svorai both were/are WAY too awesome, active, and around to be as passive in world events as they seem to be bound to be. You've got some potential for some great character depth - I mean, basically you could potentially be looking at gods being born and growing up - how can you bind the hands of those kind of characters to be - "Here, sit there and look powerful." While I get that killing off entities on too regular a basis leaves the sect leader up the creek without a paddle and adjustments should be made for this, player/volunteer involvement is a GOOD thing.

Sarrius

Jeremy said:

We are actually meeting on Sunday to discuss cults/sects and making improvements/changes to them. Funny you make this post today. I will report what we are planning after that.

So, @Jeremy, I know you posted this and all - but do you have any personal thoughts on the system that you might want to share? Or about anything we have posted here, even? Any expectations or what you feel has been done right or what really needs work? I can't imagine you sit at your desk and not ask yourself what did or didn't do well in any system you introduce to the game. It just strikes me as maybe something to talk about here.

I guess I just wonder what you are taking away from this thread and how you are going to use that information - if at all.

Svorai

HI guys. I know you're all waiting to hear about the meeting about Sects. Unfortunately a few things came up and the meeting has been rescheduled. Do not think we are not super concerned about things, or that we are avoiding this subject. We are not. We will keep you posted!

Khizan

So, hey, any word about this?

I went with Kanthari's new cult charter when I switched circles, so I'm pretty excited about this.

I mean, I'm going to get the chance to mindlessly bash for weeks to build up our faith!!!!!!!! Then I'm going to get to throw all that in the garbage and do it all over again! I can't wait! I mean, I've got months of mindless bashing that I get to do! This is gonna be awesome!

(this is stupid. bashing is stupid. make more aspect level bashing areas that don't require me to burn an hour or so swatting pointlessly tiny crap minions please. More Iaat Valley, less Demon's Pass.)

Iniar

Do it like Kanthari -> get scrubs to bash it for ya.