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.)
Despite people like Khizan complaining about the work they have to do, I'd just like to point out that some of us enjoy bashing and sacrificing things. Though, more bigger areas would be nice.
Edit: Let me elaborate. Bashing sucks and only mindless farmers or people who can stand that repetitive nonsense think it is fun.
<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>
Despite Gurn's distaste for debate regarding the status quo that he thrives in and results in progress that he embraces, Khizan is on to something.
There are 9 ritual points. Their cost is equal. 1 ritual point is worth 500% faith. (Lionas, 2013). To max out your rituals, that's 4500% faith. I understand the motivation for this, but that limiting factor is far to extreme and makes the entire process an agonizing drag. Doing it once sucks. With the nature of the entity system, it's likely you may have to do it two times or more depending on entity turnover. I'd honestly rather see some sort of cost per tier.
Lio also provided sacrifice values in case you think you're good with calculation.
There are 9 ritual points. Their cost is equal. 1 ritual point is worth 500% faith. (Lionas, 2013). To max out your rituals, that's 4500% percent faith.
Lio also provided sacrifice values in case you think you're good with calculation.
Percent percent?
Only 4000% if you buy a level five ritual (2 points spent, cost of one ritual unlock).
I'm such a giver.
I am the righteous one... the claims are stated - it's the world I've created
Despite people like Khizan complaining about the work they have to do, I'd just like to point out that some of us enjoy bashing and sacrificing things. Though, more bigger areas would be nice.
The problem is that there is nothing else. The problem is that if you don't enjoy bashing, you are compelled to do it regardless, because your cult needs crazy stupid high amounts of essence. You need to build it to 100% belief to go Sect, and then you throw it away. After you go sect, you need to build it to at least 60% to get your ritual groups, then you throw all that way again. Then you get to go 25% per temple room.
And, of course, to get your rituals, you need to bash up the equivalent of 45% belief entirely on your own. Or, at least, you have to offer that much all by yourself. If you're lucky, Aulani will bash up ludicrous amount of belief and funnel it all through your offering trigger(best textwife ever).
PvE in Imperian is boring, and that compounds the problem, but even if PvE were as engaging and fun as jumpshot kiting your way through solo quests in WoW, there would still be a problem with the sheer amount of it that you are compelled to do.
"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."
Well, that's your problem. The rituals aren't really the focus of sects. The RP is, and the interaction you build from that. All that is free.
Sects and cults are there that the players can more easily create their own RP and have easy admin access and support from that. Instead of the players being beholden to the admins RP, the admins now support the player RP.
Not only that, entities can give favours and highfavours that give 50% extra belief when you sacrifice. A single run of Kilathu Island with that, which will take some fifteen minutes, gives you roughly 80k belief. Go do two or three areas, spend an hour, you're going to get somewhere in the area of 150-200k belief.
Let's math.
Let's say 5 aspects in your sect. Each Aspect bashes for an hour, getting 150k-200k belief, or roughly 1.5-2% total belief. Suddenly, we're at 7.5%-10% belief in a single day.
Meaning, if we have 5 aspects bash 1 hour a day for 10 days, we're at pretty much 100% belief. Add in all the little bits and pieces from other people, and you can easily accomplish it in a week.
And if you have a crazy basher, then they can easily get 10% belief by themselves in a day. I managed 20% in a single day, with Seraphyne getting 15% in the same day.
You're basically complaining that you don't get to do what you like to get rewards that you're not entitled to.
@Gurn You're ignoring the larger picture and flashing around your anecdotal evidence' as 'the way it is.' It isn't. There are more people in this game than just you. Most of them are not as fond of poopsocking as you are.
You're enjoying one of the few entities who didn't quit. What about Rashirmir, Conquest, Demonology? What if Olanre doesn't log back on? What if Samaos doesn't log back on? That's at least 30 players that all have to bash up that essence at the same time. It's hard to RP while bashing. Which, at this point, we have to accept the fact that Sects fill many roles in Imperian. Most rituals make PVE easier so you have to do less of it. You have to access them first and then keep your balance in the black with the bank. Are we really expected to bash up cult to a sect, then bash up a 45% faith to get access to rituals that we'll lose every time a flunkie signs off for good? That's dumb. That sort of change over is out of our control.
tl;dr . Take off the tunnel vision and use your grey matter. You're making all the terrible forum mistakes you villainize everybody else for.
On the subject of a sect needing a lot of belief - We have the opposite problem. We have far too much belief. So much, in fact, that people can't sacrifice to unlock rituals, because the system is stupid levels of broken in that respect.
The amount of belief several aspects bring in also isn't relevant, because that's split across several people - EVERY SINGLE PERSON that wants rituals has to THEMSELVES sacrifice 4{0|5}00% faith. If I decide I want to play around with different rituals (because it turns out offensive is boring and Fazlee keeps bugging me to get Moradeim), that's another 5 ritual points I have to bash up again.
I am the righteous one... the claims are stated - it's the world I've created
And you're just being a delightful combination of ignorant and arrogant. Not to mention, you're bad at math. There goes the batman reference I loved so much. Your basing all of your arguments on your own unique experience. We've already established that in another life you were huddled in a tupperware box Nihaoing the world and feeding your family of all male children fried rice with the sweet sweet ca-ching of e-coins sold to neck beard sporting fat american teenagers.
Khizan is asian, but he's not that asian. He's like a lot of the rest of us. He does not enjoy bashing. I'll say this again in larger font. Reread.
NO ONE LIKES BASHING
Also, let me take a step back and explain that right now I'm not treating you like people. You've got your tiny fingers in your ears and screaming lalalala. None of these people are lazy. You're basing your clearance rates on your character which is the sum of your bad decision making. Most people are looking at between 20-60m to clear an area. Depending on what they're bashing, they're not even putting a dent in their ritual bar. I got my rituals faster than Lionas and he bashes more/better than I do. Why? Because I just sucked it up and brute forced it. It was awful. I hope I never have to do it again. You know why it was awful? I had to bash 50% of my sects faith to get my rituals, twice. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. I wouldn't even subject Kliko to that crap.
The time commitment that you invest in bashing and rituals denies you:
-PK (Obelisk, shards, city raiding)
-RP (private yiffing time, guild, city, order, moon-moon best skwerl time)
-Conversing (it's just harder to keep up a good conversation when you're watching that undead bat kick the piss out of you)
Whenever you do any of these, you're increasing your time clock to next ritual. Some people (Lionas, Khizan, Aulani, Aleutia, Kanthari) actually participate in all of those. You clearly have different priorities.
To make this worse? This sucks. Most of us (you're people again now) hate it. If at any point my loving fat demon kids real life, she has a bad day and quits. I am screwed. I have to revamp my entire roleplay and spend another 2-3 days bashing to get the rituals that my order membership has earned me. See that word? Earned. I earned it. You're taking it away because a 3rd party flaked out. Now tap into your sense of entitlement and understand how much that sucks.
Edit: Also, Kanthari disagreed with you. That's a warning sign.
If the world was full of sunshine and sparkles and excessive amounts of PvE got you a series of PvE-centric rewards, that would be awesome and good and your answer would be right.
However, this is the real world, where excessive amounts of mindnumbing PvE get you rewards that are almost uniformly PvP-based rewards, which is why your opinion is 100% WRONG.
These rituals being PvP skills changes thing and it means that the rituals are the focus of the sects and the reason that sect participation is basically mandatory at some level. This is because sects provide a distinct and large mechanical advantage that you can only acquire from them, and the need to 'keep up with the Jones' means that you need a sect. The RP is nice and hopefully play an important role in your sect, but at the high end rituals are basically mandatory to be competitive. I would join the Inactive Sect of Dormant McWoWsalot to get rituals if I had to, because the ability to nuke a Sanctuary or drop a Sanctuary or even to just roll into all your shardfalls with +1 to all stats is huge.
Bashing rewards should be bashing related. These rewards are not. This means that the system is a BAD SYSTEM.
"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'm really having a hard time being nice and tolerating how willfully stupid you're being. I'm not sure if there's a gap in your educational background or you just lack reading comprehension. Maybe on to many parkour accidents? You're not even provided any sort of logical argument outside of "memememe."
Bashing Level: 112 (50%)
I've gotten over my distaste of bashing because I had a wealth of free time on my hands this semester. Full ritual load out. That must be awkward...there goes lazy and not doing something because I don't want to...(Your arguments.)
You piss and moan because people make you do things you don't want to. You're one of the most passive aggressive complainers we have around here. Khizan is upset for a similar reason, just without the passive aggressive. Khizan doesn't want to be forced to bash half a sect up to get rituals, which require him to keep bashing. The man has a point. I've explained that this point is valid for any non-aspect who wants rituals. If you'll recall, Jeremy mentioned he didn't want aspect to become mandatory in Imperian. We've also offered scenarios to you (that you ignored) explaining the problem of entity turn over. When an entity quits, the sect dies, taking the rituals with it. You now have to re-bash up the cult 100% faith and your rituals 45% faith to get what you had that was taken away from you because of what someone else did in real life.
We're not saying sect rituals should be free. We're not trying to diminish your throne of poopsocking commitment. What Khizan is asking for, and I supported, is a more reasonable way to pay for rituals. I'm not sure where you're hearing "Give me free things."
Clearly you've not played with any of the pvp rituals.
Earlier you said "RP is the core of sects." There's no more Dianos because she quit (thank god). People will get tired of the lack of rp and migrate to sects that have entities that show up. Oops, they have to bash up their rituals again (suck!). Less people to bash to keep the faith up.
Clearly you've not played with any of the pvp rituals.
Earlier you said "RP is the core of sects." There's no more Dianos because she quit (thank god). People will get tired of the lack of rp and migrate to sects that have entities that show up. Oops, they have to bash up their rituals again (suck!). Less people to bash to keep the faith up.
Or you can go without rituals. Once again, it's your focus on rituals that makes you think everything is terrible and horrible and oh god why do they hate us so much. Yes, RP is the core of sects, and I pretty much never use rituals, but still have a lot of fun creating things and RPing and such. That should be what you do with Sects, not trying to figure out how to minmax yourself.
Clearly you've not played with any of the pvp rituals.
Earlier you said "RP is the core of sects." There's no more Dianos because she quit (thank god). People will get tired of the lack of rp and migrate to sects that have entities that show up. Oops, they have to bash up their rituals again (suck!). Less people to bash to keep the faith up.
Or you can go without rituals. Once again, it's your focus on rituals that makes you think everything is terrible and horrible and oh god why do they hate us so much. Yes, RP is the core of sects, and I pretty much never use rituals, but still have a lot of fun creating things and RPing and such. That should be what you do with Sects, not trying to figure out how to minmax yourself.
You're ignorant and bad for letting your white knight views blind you to the way the world works. People will always min-max things. Ziat does it. You do it (though you're not honest enough to admit it). Azefel does it. You will never stop these people. In your crusade to "stop the min-maxxing" you're denying people access to game content that will make their life easier.
Protective Rituals:
- Heal
Favours Rituals:
- Fortune Favour
- Stealth Favour
- Benevolence Favour
- Alertness Favour
- Protection Favour
Mobility Rituals:
- Altartravel
- Waterwalking
- Burrowing
- Freedom
Imperian is and always will be a conflict game. Everything is fair game for conflict. You even heard Jeremy say he's looking for more ways to increase sect conflict. You've really got to stop this "my way is how it is" bs. Sects, like Imperian, are multi-faceted and multi-platform. I get the most out of my sect. Mm, yeah. Lastly, you have no idea what I've created. There's that ignorance thing again. Most of the time when I write something or make something cool, I pass it off to someone else to use. I do not toot my own horn "I made this! I made this! I made this!" Yet another thing we differ on.
"You" was used not used in place of "Ahkan", but rather a second person pronoun.
There was, and is no accusation on what you, Ahkan, have made, nor have I boasted about anything I've done. I apologize if it seemed that way. There's no need to get so worked up about it and throw words in my mouth and call me white knight this and passive aggressive that.
Simply, it boils down to my belief that just because it's there doesn't mean you're entitled to use it.
Similarly, why do I enjoy it being hard to get? Because I enjoy the feeling of having worked hard for something.
We believe different things. This does not make me, or anyone else who comes onto the forums who disagrees with you ignorant, a target for pitchforks, or stupid.
Similarly, why do I enjoy it being hard to get? Because I enjoy the feeling of having worked hard for something.
Point: If your entity goes afk/dies/qq's, you have to 'enjoy working hard' all over again. Which is why I don't care to bash for some entity to piss all over my 'hard work'. No thanks.
What makes you ignorant is the whole "lalalalalalala" approach you take to it. Then you called Khizan and I lazy. Then you called people who don't want to bash 14 hours for rituals lazy. Then you insinuated that people who bash for rituals are min-maxxers and abusing the purpose of sects.
That's why you're ignorant. Just thought I'd clarify that for you and deny you e-martyrdom.
Then the argument here should be on the proper transition of cult/sects, whether it be by leaders leaving/changing hands or entities leaving, correct? Everything recent seems to be based around that fear, or how it is to hop between cults and sects.
There are a few things I'd like to get out there. First of all, yes, I am one of those insane people that doesn't mind bashing. I even like it some times. I've bashed through the cult/sect/my rituals/Khizan's rituals/ritual changes x3-5? I have two Aspect characters who had full rituals. When I've had only 3 hours of sleep and Becca refuses to stay asleep for more then 2 minutes, bashing is about all I can mentally handle. So don't dismiss my arguments with stop being lazy, go bash.
Secondly, there is only one Svorai, she is active and awesome. The other entities work hard when they can, and I don't blame them for RL>volunteer work, but none of them is even half as active as she is. Not having an active entity makes a huge huge HUGE difference to RP enjoyment. I shudder to think of how many hours I spent designing items and the temple, trying to interact with sect members, pushing the visions and portents (Including doing them myself for people at the altar.) only to have my entity go missing in action. And with that I gave up, I won't put that sort of effort into something in Imperian that can be taken away so easily again. (Sorry Kanthari, I'm there to bash and follow the leader, that's all.)
As for the favours/highfavours to help with ritual gain. We're back to having an active entity and even then it is dependent on them. I was -the- basher in Flame and I was favoured maybe three times. Others were favoured if Khizan or I poked and said, 'Hey favour this person, they deserve it.' A solution to this may be that the Leader is able to hand our favours(not high favours).
The Sect system, while a marginal improvement over Orders, is still very broken and it is a huge investment of time leaning heavily on the players devotion. I don't see a problem with providing other ways to gain belief, sacrificing gold/comms, certain quests, etc.
And while you say, 'it's not hard for an artifacted aspect to pull in 10% belief in a day, stop being lazy'. What about that level 80 Bard who is pulling 20dps and is squishy as all hell? Yet they are super active in the RP of their sect/guild/city and enrich the enjoyment of the game for everyone else around them. Don't they deserve the reward from the sect? Without having to spend a crazy amount of time bogged down in bashing and not making the game fun for others? (Though I believe the answer to this is everyone non-aspect become Druid/RG, won't that make the game so much more diverse and fun!)
And while you say, 'it's not hard for an artifacted aspect to pull in 10% belief in a day, stop being lazy'. What about that level 80 Bard who is pulling 20dps and is squishy as all hell? Yet they are super active in the RP of their sect/guild/city and enrich the enjoyment of the game for everyone else around them. Don't they deserve the reward from the sect? Without having to spend a crazy amount of time bogged down in bashing and not making the game fun for others? (Though I believe the answer to this is everyone non-aspect become Druid/RG, won't that make the game so much more diverse and fun!)
I was addressing Aspects, really. As far as personal faith and ritual points go, it should be done by levels, I think. Easier and faster to get them at lower levels. I mean, lower level folk would benefit more from the rituals anyway, since they generally don't have the amount of artifacts the higher levels do.
Similarly, why do I enjoy it being hard to get? Because I enjoy the feeling of having worked hard for something.
It's not hard to get, though. There is nothing about this that is difficult or challenging in any way, shape, form, or fashion.
It's just tedious to get. It takes a lot of time but requires no particular skill or capability. Anybody could get it if they put enough time into it.
It is not a "reward for something hard to get", it's a merit badge for putting X amount of time into the slot on the machine
"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 not hard to get, though. There is nothing about this that is difficult or challenging in any way, shape, form, or fashion.
It's just tedious to get. It takes a lot of time but requires no particular skill or capability. Anybody could get it if they put enough time into it.
It is not a "reward for something hard to get", it's a merit badge for putting X amount of time into the slot on the machine
That's easily said about just about everything in the game, though, even PK, since it's group combat with shared experience and 90% of people use high damage attack and nothing else.
The heart of it is a system that employs volunteers (with approaching zero contractual obligation or responsibility) to fill a permanent position. The more involved with real life (haha) a volunteer is, the more likely they are to capitulate. (Svorai is an outlier. Just sayin') This is why a recurring persona is more apt for a volunteer position than a permanent one (as I have mentioned previously). A paid position would have the contractual responsibility to represent the company on an ongoing/consistent basis (no matter how they feel personally). The longer we abuse ourselves with the notion that the next new thing would solve this issue, the longer we'll be satisfied with volunteer appointments.
The other main issue is that as Khizan points out, there is no other alternative (to faith, to exp, to whatever). The problem simply put is a one-to-one relationship. Experience (as an analogy) should be gained in a variety of methods, rather than kill (bashing), kill (pk), quest completion (quests). In an ideal world, faith likewise would be gained by 'acts of faith' which would include (but not be the sole province of) bashing. I'd rather we generate ideas about how to work around this rather than complain about it. For example, PK experience is now granted on killing blow, or being in-room. Where is the reward for actual skill, or intelligent play? Why not give a touch of experience for a successful parry? Why not compound that experience on successive parries? Why not reward someone who stops an insta-kill? Similarly, are there no other ideas for faith generation?
At the end of the day, it's an administrative/policy issue: minimal obligation/contractual obligation, volunteer/paid position, temporary/permanent. One-to-one relationship/multiple methods. Arguing the semantics (rituals, their cost, etc.) will not solve this unless we're (as a community) willing to accept that we will have to work hard, and at any time, it's ok for it to be at risk.
NB: I have nothing against volunteers. I think you're all great. Mostly.
Comments
Edit: Let me elaborate. Bashing sucks and only mindless farmers or people who can stand that repetitive nonsense think it is fun.
Only 4000% if you buy a level five ritual (2 points spent, cost of one ritual unlock).
I'm such a giver.
the claims are stated - it's the world I've created
The problem is that there is nothing else. The problem is that if you don't enjoy bashing, you are compelled to do it regardless, because your cult needs crazy stupid high amounts of essence. You need to build it to 100% belief to go Sect, and then you throw it away. After you go sect, you need to build it to at least 60% to get your ritual groups, then you throw all that way again. Then you get to go 25% per temple room.
"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 and cults are there that the players can more easily create their own RP and have easy admin access and support from that. Instead of the players being beholden to the admins RP, the admins now support the player RP.
Not only that, entities can give favours and highfavours that give 50% extra belief when you sacrifice. A single run of Kilathu Island with that, which will take some fifteen minutes, gives you roughly 80k belief. Go do two or three areas, spend an hour, you're going to get somewhere in the area of 150-200k belief.
And if you have a crazy basher, then they can easily get 10% belief by themselves in a day. I managed 20% in a single day, with Seraphyne getting 15% in the same day.
tl;dr . Take off the tunnel vision and use your grey matter. You're making all the terrible forum mistakes you villainize everybody else for.
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
The amount of belief several aspects bring in also isn't relevant, because that's split across several people - EVERY SINGLE PERSON that wants rituals has to THEMSELVES sacrifice 4{0|5}00% faith. If I decide I want to play around with different rituals (because it turns out offensive is boring and Fazlee keeps bugging me to get Moradeim), that's another 5 ritual points I have to bash up again.
the claims are stated - it's the world I've created
Khizan is asian, but he's not that asian. He's like a lot of the rest of us. He does not enjoy bashing. I'll say this again in larger font. Reread.
Whenever you do any of these, you're increasing your time clock to next ritual. Some people (Lionas, Khizan, Aulani, Aleutia, Kanthari) actually participate in all of those. You clearly have different priorities.
Cool, got it.
But, if you don't like bashing don't expect to get the rewards for bashing.
"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."
Also, Rashirmir's faith still remains high and they're still a sect. It drains pretty slowly.
Also, potentially do it like Lionas -> track on deathsight, pick up free corpses.
Imperian is and always will be a conflict game. Everything is fair game for conflict. You even heard Jeremy say he's looking for more ways to increase sect conflict. You've really got to stop this "my way is how it is" bs. Sects, like Imperian, are multi-faceted and multi-platform. I get the most out of my sect. Mm, yeah. Lastly, you have no idea what I've created. There's that ignorance thing again. Most of the time when I write something or make something cool, I pass it off to someone else to use. I do not toot my own horn "I made this! I made this! I made this!" Yet another thing we differ on.
Point: If your entity goes afk/dies/qq's, you have to 'enjoy working hard' all over again. Which is why I don't care to bash for some entity to piss all over my 'hard work'. No thanks.
That's why you're ignorant.
Secondly, there is only one Svorai, she is active and awesome. The other entities work hard when they can, and I don't blame them for RL>volunteer work, but none of them is even half as active as she is. Not having an active entity makes a huge huge HUGE difference to RP enjoyment. I shudder to think of how many hours I spent designing items and the temple, trying to interact with sect members, pushing the visions and portents (Including doing them myself for people at the altar.) only to have my entity go missing in action. And with that I gave up, I won't put that sort of effort into something in Imperian that can be taken away so easily again. (Sorry Kanthari, I'm there to bash and follow the leader, that's all.)
As for the favours/highfavours to help with ritual gain. We're back to having an active entity and even then it is dependent on them. I was -the- basher in Flame and I was favoured maybe three times. Others were favoured if Khizan or I poked and said, 'Hey favour this person, they deserve it.' A solution to this may be that the Leader is able to hand our favours(not high favours).
The Sect system, while a marginal improvement over Orders, is still very broken and it is a huge investment of time leaning heavily on the players devotion. I don't see a problem with providing other ways to gain belief, sacrificing gold/comms, certain quests, etc.
And while you say, 'it's not hard for an artifacted aspect to pull in 10% belief in a day, stop being lazy'. What about that level 80 Bard who is pulling 20dps and is squishy as all hell? Yet they are super active in the RP of their sect/guild/city and enrich the enjoyment of the game for everyone else around them. Don't they deserve the reward from the sect? Without having to spend a crazy amount of time bogged down in bashing and not making the game fun for others? (Though I believe the answer to this is everyone non-aspect become Druid/RG, won't that make the game so much more diverse and fun!)
It's not hard to get, though. There is nothing about this that is difficult or challenging in any way, shape, form, or fashion.
It's just tedious to get. It takes a lot of time but requires no particular skill or capability. Anybody could get it if they put enough time into it.
It is not a "reward for something hard to get", it's a merit badge for putting X amount of time into the slot on the machine
"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."