- Changing Avatar to give +3 to stats and last 3 minutes - Changing Meteor to do significant damage (60% or so) instead of an insta-kill - Not sure what I'll do with Aeonic Flux. I think I'll swap it out for some other effect. - These will have a 3s channel, interrupting them will abort the ritual: Explosion, Aeonic Flux, Decompose, Icestorm, Meteor, Holy Curse, Avalanche. Being interrupted will not cost faith, but you will be unable to perform the ritual again for the next 60 seconds. - These rituals will be mutually exclusive - only one can be in effect at once on any individual: Join, Avatar, Searing Aura, Boost of Life
Lalitana: I'm absolutely in favour of providing more features/rituals that are not related to PK or bashing. Do you have any specific suggestions of preferences what you'd like to see included?
Sarrius: I'm not really sure what plans Jeremy has regarding champions, but we definitely want to add some opt-in mechanics for more duelling for those who prefer this style of combat. Suggestions welcome!
I suppose if you want to apply it to the cult or sect system, you could find a way to make champions become champions of 'cultconcepthere' instead of mortality. Then you can drive them to fight over something that benefits their cult (similar, perhaps, to obelisks or shards in nature). Edit: with the way obelisks turned out, maybe this idea might suck.
On the topic of miracle/ritual adjustments: can we make an approval process to change ritual messages? As for your numerical changes, I still am cautious about anything as powerful as any of these. As powers of relatively paltry cost (faith is not hard to accumulate, just tedious), all of these are a little too powerful.
If I had to rewrite this system, I would say cults selected a major domain out of a list of ten to twelve or even more (nature, water, fire, war, etc..), and then two complimentary domains. Each domain has a capstone ability, which a major domain choice provides. The two minor domains provide maybe half of their abilities. It provides almost a DNDish selection process (I.e in that game, clerics gain domains from their god for special benefits and spells, and each god has different domains, though some share with other gods).
It seems a little Forgotten Realmsy having so many domains, but it allows a wide range of concepts that cults can pick their miracles to come from. It would allow more uniqueness amongst them. Of course, that is in my ideal super balanced world.
<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>
Actually, in my 'many domains' idea.. I would make every domain a mix of abilities relevant to PK and bashing and RP. Not every ritual can apply to.every category of player, but every domain or ritual family should. Imagine this:
I select, say.. Illusion, Air, and Blah for my Rashirmir domains. Illusion is our major domain. The capstone Illusion ability would obviously be a PK or other strong skill, but a lower ritual could let us perform a glamour to change our enter/exit. It could let us travel to sleeping players. It could providr resilience to mental afflictions. Air is our minor, so we only get, say.. 3/5 of the abilities. Maybe a waterwalking def gained at the altar, etc. Maybe a ritual is strongest if it is a major domain.
I would basically like a flavorful index of cool domains that you can expand later that do what each circle ritual category does: provide something for everybody. Then each cult can mix and match to fit their themes.
<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>
There needs to be more fluff to fill in the gap. Minor rituals that help people with quality of life upgrades.
Join. Good idea, bad implications. This or defend. Putting both into a team combat setting is just bad. Defend is already out of whack, it doesn't need a partner. Heal: Needs a cooldown. Needs a limitation. Cost needs to increase per ally.
Aura: Can it be hammered? Sanctuary: Ok Grace: Ok
The favours are awesome.
Summon: or similar? Does this include mass, shield? Basically, if I don't want to die, I have to put move, drop monolith, get monolith, move into my system? No thank you. Breach: Thumbsup Bullsrush: Thumbsup Explosion: Uh, forced warp. I can see it, but it needs to not drop you into siege or some death trap area. How about surrounding areas? Avatar: Pretty cool now
Transmute: Nice idea, but random item, really? Roulette is a dumb game. Please. No. Freedom: Yay, waterwalk Decompose: Ok, I can appreciate this
Searing: Wow. Just. Wow. Aeonic Flux: Awesome but no. I'll admit it (a rarity on these forums) this is overpowered. I want it and it shouldn't be put in.
Duplicate: Awesome idea. Compared to transmute? Blah Burrowing: Entire team of Galt? Please no. Airlift: Not gonna lie, they already have bard songs. Icestorm: I don't like it with when paired with the skill sets. Way too easy to abuse (it will be abused). Yes, walls stop it. Oh wait. Breach. Shard research. Firelash. Earthquake. No. Meteor: Same with Aeonic Flux. The circle that already dominates the game with AoE damage doesn't need a high burst AoE.
Purify: Cool concept. What magickal items would they be turning into commodities? Black markets are lame. Holy Curse: What if paralysis stops it? This is what made bedevil suck. It was either the suck, or the rock. There has to be another option here. You shouldn't win by virtue of throwing a fight. Angel Grace: Can it be razed or hammered? Can it stack? Cooldown? Boost of life: Not sure I see the roleplay here. How about increased regeneration? Avalanche: This is the only balanced circle-specific concept
Ideas:
Privacy: Super privacy! To cock-block those pesky people who spend too much time spying or skyping. 60% faith Duplicate should be a global benefit, because we're all going to use it to dupe comms and inks. If this is the case, dupe needs a long cooldown.
Mechanics: Cooldowns need to be thrown in. Are you going to limit the number of ritual effects per person? An aspect bashing team can (and will) pre-game this and be running around as Juggernauts. This is not fun (unless you're the one doing it.) The people doing this will then post on the forums and say it's legit. Two days later, it will happen to them and they will post about how unfair it is
I like that you're tying the system in with bashing and forcing us to go out into the world and be exposed to be ganked. It's awesome. The problem here is there isn't a lot of filler in here for the people that don't want to meta-game exploit/dominate team(solo) pk. You need to find some ways to 'fluff' up some of the activities the non-pkers get involved in. It's a hard thing to balance, because if you let me bash faster, I'm going to refill my faith faster and then be a juggernaut more frequently. Maybe they can craft "magick" items with their faith (more lax rules on descriptions of items), etc. You'd have to ask Loosh or Lalitana what they would consider a lifestyle perk they'd be willing to bash for.
The flip side of this is that a lot of these are heinously imbalanced in team pvp. They're not going to be powerful and rare. They're going to be as prolific as hand guns are these days. I'm going to pay someone to do my bashing for me and then rush out with Lionas (who paid someone to bash) and we're going to curb stomp people who couldn't pay other people to bash. Chances are, we may even wave our e-peen at you and do this while we're crushing your cult. This is dumb. This is going to happen. People are already brewing up ways to do this. There need to be cool downs, limitations, diminishing returns. I'd even say that certain rituals need to drain from the ENTIRE pool of cult belief (especially powers that effect more than one person). The ultimate point of the cult is the roleplay. You're shifting the focus of the cult from the 'roleplay' to the 'metagame' which always ends in tragedy for everyone (except those who do the metagaming).
Well! There's not a whole lot of other things to do. What else are you interested in?
RP? Emotes cover most everything that's needed. Bashing?
Bashing? A bashing ritual would either provide less faith than it costs(being useless), or it would provide more faith than it costs(which would be used for powering combat rituals, making this a combat prep ritual). Maybe endurance/willpower regeneration or the like?
Crafting? I can't think of a way to work faith in there. Maybe extending the life of items? This would be anti-crafting in a way, though, since items I prolong are items I don't have to replace as soon.
Combat gets most of the rituals because the design space is so huge. Look over the skillsets in this game. How many of the skills only really matter for PvP? For non-combat things, the cult and interactions should be its own reward, because there's not much else to give you.
With those changes, I think my biggest problem is still that this so heavily rewards everybody piling into one cult, just for things like the faith-fullheal. I'd sacrifice favors and maybe pillars without a second thought for the ability to pop 30% faith and fullheal and clear the afflictions of every ally of mine in the 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."
In the system I outline, bashing benefits of that nature would be acceptable because they would be a major domain power - thus you would be sacrificing other major powers for higher 'energy production' for minor powers!
On another note, I don't see why Rituals reward the superChurch idea either. Multiple cults per circle exist for some reason: why do away with that fact for some needlessly overpowered combat buffs?
<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>
- Changing Avatar to give +3 to stats and last 3 minutes - Changing Meteor to do significant damage (60% or so) instead of an insta-kill - Not sure what I'll do with Aeonic Flux. I think I'll swap it out for some other effect. - These will have a 3s channel, interrupting them will abort the ritual: Explosion, Aeonic Flux, Decompose, Icestorm, Meteor, Holy Curse, Avalanche. Being interrupted will not cost faith, but you will be unable to perform the ritual again for the next 60 seconds. - These rituals will be mutually exclusive - only one can be in effect at once on any individual: Join, Avatar, Searing Aura, Boost of Life
That helps a lot. I don't think Avatar needs to be 100% faith for +3 to all stats. It should be high enough that it isn't usable twice, but being able to use it alongside a minor ritual seems reasonable.
It's about a 17% damage bonus for three minutes and about 84 health, I wouldn't put that directly up against some of the other massive point expenditure abilities.
On the note of adding new domains that @Sarrius mentioned, I totally see us adding more in the future once we get this first pass finished and polished a bit more. I am also all for adding some more flavor skills to the ones we have. Once again, lets make it through this.
As for Champions, Tomas and I have talked about adding more to them, in particular a way for Champions to fight one on one for some kind of reward. Of course... we always get stuck on the reward part.
Off the top of my head, in regards to rewards for Champion duels: There could be a list of 'Boons', which are various buffs like +1 to a stat or increased damage resistance, even more exp bonuses, reserves regeneration/increase. You gain these Boons using points earned from winning Champion duels, and I dunno, you can only hold so many Boons at once. Maybe make it so that you lose points when you lose duels? Just something I thought I'd pitch while we're slightly off-topic.
As for the sect rituals, they do seem nice, but as mentioned by many people before me, they could use a lot of balancing.
I'd just pay people to lose Champion duels to me to farm up the points.
"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."
On the note of adding new domains that @Sarrius mentioned, I totally see us adding more in the future once we get this first pass finished and polished a bit more. I am also all for adding some more flavor skills to the ones we have. Once again, lets make it through this.
As for Champions, Tomas and I have talked about adding more to them, in particular a way for Champions to fight one on one for some kind of reward. Of course... we always get stuck on the reward part.
@Jeremy: The biggest difference between the currently proposed system and mine is that in mine, there is an opportunity cost required, regarding the big huge death buttons each domain gives you. Your cult can't have Avatar AND Meteor AND Grace. You can only select one Major domain, and that status allows your domain to eventually provide you the big super power. Your other two minor domains would only provide you 3/5 of the abilities. It makes cults choose which very powerful ability they want. In addition, there might not even be circle-exclusive rituals - making things circle-exclusive is cool on paper, but in effect, we've all seen how it works: one side tends to be WILDLY better than the other two. In my idea, also, each domain would have a rather neutral name instead of some obvious toolkit name like 'Offense' and 'Magick Only'. That is mostly a flavorful thing, but I'd like a lot of domains because then cults can mix and match to suit their themes. Bathan's Conquest cult might pick War (Major), Glory, and Fire - but another war/battle cult somewhere might pick War (Major), Shadow, and Steel. Those were all very basic examples (and some domains used in the example, potentially, are difficult to design powers for), but it gets the point across.
I basically just don't appreciate how this system is being used as platform to hand us a list of super powers that make team combat even more of a mess. There's no opportunity cost in the domain choices, either. You get every high powered skill in every domain you select.
<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>
Yeah, that is the problem. Trying to come up with something that does not become stupid.
The problem is that, with 1v1, there's no real good way to do that. Since the only punishments are on the individual, you can just pay the individual enough for the punishment to be worth it.
And if the punishments are too harsh for payment to be worth it, whether it be by making an organization also take a hit or just harsher personal penalties, then the system is usually too harsh for most people to want to get involved in it at all, aside from the most hardcore of 1v1 white knights.
There's no real happy medium that I can think of.
"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."
There is really no way to get rid of team combat. It will always happen. I am not really sure I see a reason to discourage it from happening in the big wide world. Team combat is fun too.
What I would like to do over the next few months is introduce systems that give people more opportunities and rewards to do one on one combat. However, that will generally always involve pulling the two people into a place where the code disallows any interruptions from 3rd parties. It can also result in people farming it as pointed out by @Khizan. However, we will come back to that after we get through this sect stuff a bit more.
That being said, most systems like that will normally result in not being used a lot once a pecking order is established. For example, why would I go fight Bob for that benefit? He can always beat me so it is a waste of time.
Anyways the whole team vs one conversation is probably good for a different thread. Let's keep this one on sect powers, which will end up being used in team combat (and one on one I suppose).
Anyways the whole team vs one conversation is probably good for a different thread. Let's keep this one on sect powers, which will end up being used in team combat (and one on one I suppose).
And my comment about opportunity cost?
<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>
Considering @Jeremy and @Garryn are probably busy with this (or asleep), I've decided to just sum up my thoughts on the current system instead of waiting on a response:
Do away with circle-exclusive prayer groups. We all know that circle-unique concepts look so cool on paper, but the truth is that so few of them exist because they often cause us a great deal of grief in combat, in roleplay, and in general comparisons of quality of life. It's just not going to work out - Aeonic Flux as it is (was?) is clearly the strongest option, with Meteor a hair behind it because Magick has a good composition for mass damage. This is not say Anti-Magick's options are bad.. just that they aren't as good (and frankly, are underwhelming).
Redesign each power, especially with exclusivity in mind. Each power's ultimate tier needs to be redesigned. Some powers need to be shuffled - immediate feedback: Holding Pillar needs to be bumped to the top of the Pillar list. In addition, we need to force cults to engage in an opportunity cost decision - they should ONLY gain access to one top rank miracle/ritual. They should NOT get three. Forcing us to make decisions and sacrifices provides a more interesting process than 'k, a b c'. Instead, we look at the options and have to analyze which we truly want access to.
Review the intent of the cult system, especially rituals. When orders died, we were assured we'd be getting something in their place. Orders were never a PK-primary tool. They gave some of us loose justification to murder people in other orders, but they never served the function of facilitating PK and making any form of combat (team or single) more complicated or explosive. We do not need nuclear arms, and that is what you are offering us: three nuclear silos per cult. Cults are meant to be something that encourages roleplay, as they are the successor of the Order system. Please let us have that and have it in great amounts - right now, the rituals system encourages having a sort of 'super church' per cult, or else you are gimping yourself. You need to limit these miracles/rituals to a per-person basis, not a 'everybody in room in your cult' basis. Forcing players to group up in to one roleplay concept for mechanical benefits is REALLY unacceptable.
Allow for more options - fill in holes that some circles are missing. Purely for example here: would it have been so bad for Anti-Magick to have a 'walk on water' miracle for 20%-ish belief?
In my ideal world, I would design a system similar to this, but without so many absolutely bogus abilities that tip the scales. I would definitely offer a wide range of ritual groups, called Cult Domains. If I needed some very bland inspiration for domain themes, I'd look at the list of dead gods (because entities are basically piles of combined god essence) - a War domain, a Glory domain, a Knowledge domain, etc. I'd probably offer a healthy list so that each cult can select a handful of them and feel like those domains suit their theme appropriately. These domains do not decide their themes - their themes provide a useful criteria to select their domain. This way, roleplay decides what the cult can do with their rituals (before you mention that it doesn't - we will always have people who make blatant powerplay decisions instead of roleplay, even when presented with the opportunity - right now, the decisions are no-brainers and have no thematic essence). This is thematic and in line with the original broadcasted intent of the cult system - to do away with how stale orders were, to allow players to invent their own ideologies, and provide continual RP with some cool mechanics behind it. In addition, each cult would designate one domain as their major domain - this would allow them to reach the upper reaches of the domain's ritual list. The other two domains would be minor, and would provide 3/5ths access. The 4th and 5th miracle should be where the truly 'dangerous' stuff goes - this way, we make cults have to choose what they want. Sure, in this system, they only get 11 rituals as opposed to 15 - but the exclusivity and the required sacrifice of some options lets us justify the strength or uniqueness in mechanic for the 4th and 5th rituals.
On the topic of domain rituals themselves: I would make some of them single-person buffs ("You kneel before your altar and beseech (entity name here) to influence you with the power of Water. Suddenly, you feel as if you can tread water as if it were solid ground.")and maybe even cult-wide blessings ("You stand before your altar and then envision the zealous masses of the Cult of the Dream Realm. Murmuring a chant, you bestow the blessing of knowledge on the entire cult.").. but I would try to avoid stuffing every prayer group with combat skills. I would likely add a few, but not everybody in cults want combat skills - in fact, a good many probably do not. Instead, I would follow Garryn's philosophy that he took with the circle-specific ritual groups: 2 offense, 2 defense, 1 utilitarian or mercantile. Obviously, some domains might be skewed or break that mold - an 'Artisan' domain might be 1/1/3, for instance.
<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'd rather have cults be an RP tool (and of course a conflict generator) than a powerplay tool. There should be buffs to it like +1 stats, waterwalking, celerity etc. But I don't want more than utility and small small buffs - you can call them life quality buffs.
If you however insist on bringing in some big nukes through rituals, I'd limit them to altars so that you'd use them when waging war against other cults. That way we don't have to see big ultimate powers be used in shard falls and other team fights and we don't have to think about how we should balance it all out as much as we have to now.
I'm mostly amused that 15% mitigation to cult members, 15% damage to cult members, temporary grace, +3 to all stats, worldwide travel, perfect holding, nearly unbreakable walls do not qualify as 'powerful' in comparision and are mostly the uncontested parts of the system.
If it wasn't for the existence of a few "Hahaha, oh my god, they actually suggested that?" tier items, we'd be talking about how crazy some of the smallr things are, like Boost of Life. Steal 15% health from everybody in the room, every 6 seconds? So it's a passive that hits harder than sowulu and heals me? That's absolutely amazingly powerful. Against Khizan alone, they'd be stealing 100ish health every 6 seconds. Against a full team, they'd basically fullheal every 6 seconds. Get most of your group to pop that and you just won a fight.
That's ludicrous. It's absolutely insane. It only managed to pass for a reasonable ability cause it was sitting in the same lineup as Meteor, Aeonic Flux, and Joined Searing Avatar With a Pillar of Holding.
Now that the "Holy crap, they suggested WHAT? That's insane!?" has worn off, I think most of these abilities could use another pass over them, and probably take some minor-to-major nerfs.
"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."
Alright, this is the latest revision of the sect rituals. Many changes, the two most notable ones are that the circle restrictions have been removed, meaning each sect can pick 3 groups out of 7, and most defensive rituals that used to affect everyone in the room are now user-only.
1. HEALING/PROTECTIVE RITUALS * Heal - cures all health/mana and afflictions on all cult members in the room, or everyone in the room. The "all allies" option is intentionally excluded to force some strategic choice - this applies to other such rituals as well. 30% faith. * Aura - An improved prismatic defence on all cult members in room, or everyone in room, that only drops when shield would (on aggro/move). 30% faith. * Joining - A more powerful bloodsworn. Split damage between the two, afflictions are received by both, curing an affliction cures it for both, health curing also splits between the two, lasts for 30 minutes or until cancelled. 80% faith. * Sanctuary - Prevent all forms of travel into the room. Leaving can still be done freely. Lasts for a limited time. 55% faith. * Grace - gives temporary grace for 30 seconds. 100% faith.
2. PILLAR RITUALS - creation of pillars with various effects, can have multiple in room, pillars last about 10 minutes. This is the "jack of all trades" option. Each pillar costs 40% faith. * Protection Pillar - damage targetted at anyone in the room reduced by 15% * Travel Pillar - cult members can travel to the pillar from anywhere * Pestilence Pillar - everyone in the room except owner hit by periodic afflictions * Destruction Pillar - damage initiated by anyone in the room increased by 15% * Holding Pillar - creates a pillar in the room that prevents all forms of movement from the room except unblockable ones (tumble and similar)
3. FAVOURS - this basically splits the existing divine favours into several ones, removes some things, and adds some extras. A player can have more of these, and can bestow them upon others (high faith cost to balance it out). All of these last 2 hours of online time. * Celerity Favour - faster movement, 20% faith * Stealth Favour - enter/leave messages do not show the direction in which the affected player left, 40% faith * Benevolence Favour - +1 to stats. 60% faith * Alertness Favour - alertness with no drain, 60% faith * Protection Favour - 5% damage resist to all damage types, or 10% to a chosen one. 80% faith
4. OFFENSIVE RITUALS * Summoning - summon another player to the cult altar. Short delay with messages, movement, monoliths and similar block it. 15% faith (taken even if it fails). * Breach - remove all obstacles in a direction, including the Sanctuary effect. 30% faith. * Bull's Rush - user ignores effects like gravehands/piety/block/etc, lasts 10 minutes. 60% faith. * Avatar - +3 to all stats, lasts 3 minutes, 75% faith * Explosion - a powerful explosion that sends everyone in the room to random rooms all over the world (different room for each player). 100% faith
Moon-based ritual groups provide two offensive ones, two defensive ones, and one commodity-related.
5. SUKHDER RITUALS * Transmute - Convert some amount of commodities into random other commodities, faith cost depends on amount * Waterwalking - for 20 minutes, user gains waterwalking, 35% faith * Decompose - A 15% damage malus to everyone in the room, lasts 5 minutes, 60% faith * Sukhder's Minion - summon a powerful mobile loyal to the user, disappears after 10 minutes if not killed before then, 80% faith * Searing Aura - user becomes immune to all entanglements, lasts 5 minutes, 100% faith
6. MORADEIM RITUALS * Duplicate - duplicate a stack of riftable items, faith costs depends on type/amount, some (moonwort) are excluded * Burrowing - user gets the ability to burrow, lasts 5 minutes, 35% faith * Moradeim's Freedom - user gets the ability to fly, lasts 5 minutes, 60% faith * Icestorm - invoke a storm of ice that blocks all locating skills targetted at people in the room and causes significant damage to anyone who tries to enter or leave (no periodic damage to people inside), lasts several minutes. 80% faith * Meteor - a large ball of fire hits the current outdoors room after 6 seconds, causing 80% fire damage to anyone who remains there, 100% faith
7. ARYANA RITUALS * Purification - convert an item into commodities, faith costs depends on type, specifics and applicable items to be determined * Aryana's Curse - transfer the afflictions on user to all other players in the room, 60% faith * Aryana's Protection - Periodic shield defence on user, ticks every 10s, lasts 5 minutes. 80% faith * Aryana's Life - Player drains 10% health from every other individual in the room and adds that to his own health, lasts three minutes, ticks every 6 seconds, 80% faith * Avalanche - For 5 minutes, the room becomes completely impassable and unable to be entered by any means. Everyone inside gets pushed out. Can still be bypassed with long-range travel. 100% faith
These rituals are mutually exclusive - only one can be in effect at once on any individual: Join, Avatar, Searing Aura, Boost of Life
This doesn't answer our concerns over the fact that the cult ritual powers are outrageous. In addition, it doesn't answer the concern of how top tier rituals should be mutually exclusive.
There is still no decision making, no flavorful connection (I.e this system does NOT resonate with cults, it could just be a bunch of shard powers), and definitely no opportunity costs. What precisely are you trying to achieve with this system? There is nothing about it that makes it really related to cults besides your shoehorning it in.
Why were barely any of our discussed feedback taken in to account?
<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>
Nevermind that you are still shoving a ton of PK tideturners in to a primary RP system - the figurative equal of giving out nuclear arms at a peace rally.
Edit: even if not all RP is peaceful, I am implying that there is no need for any of these absolutely powerful buttons.
<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>
Unlike Sarrius, I don't mind cults being powerful organizations with a strong influence both in and out of combat. Being a RP organization is fine, but there's nothing in that inherent to being toothless. Worldburn was a potent ability, but it didn't define Orders.
Aryana's Life likely stacks to extremes with multiple people in the room, the commodity powers seem wrong for their moon types, and 5 minutes of flying seems overpriced at 60% faith. All in all, moving closer.
I'm not huge on Aryana's stuff, but probably because it's less point, click, dead than the other moons. I'll mull it over some more though before I start offering feedback. I appreciate that my concerns were addressed though. Like Juran said, moving closer to a good spot.
‘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.”
Comments
Some changes:
- Changing Avatar to give +3 to stats and last 3 minutes
- Changing Meteor to do significant damage (60% or so) instead of an insta-kill
- Not sure what I'll do with Aeonic Flux. I think I'll swap it out for some other effect.
- These will have a 3s channel, interrupting them will abort the ritual: Explosion, Aeonic Flux, Decompose, Icestorm, Meteor, Holy Curse, Avalanche. Being interrupted will not cost faith, but you will be unable to perform the ritual again for the next 60 seconds.
- These rituals will be mutually exclusive - only one can be in effect at once on any individual: Join, Avatar, Searing Aura, Boost of Life
Lalitana: I'm absolutely in favour of providing more features/rituals that are not related to PK or bashing. Do you have any specific suggestions of preferences what you'd like to see included?
Sarrius: I'm not really sure what plans Jeremy has regarding champions, but we definitely want to add some opt-in mechanics for more duelling for those who prefer this style of combat. Suggestions welcome!
Right? Where's my holy excalibur sword laser instakill?
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
On the topic of miracle/ritual adjustments: can we make an approval process to change ritual messages? As for your numerical changes, I still am cautious about anything as powerful as any of these. As powers of relatively paltry cost (faith is not hard to accumulate, just tedious), all of these are a little too powerful.
If I had to rewrite this system, I would say cults selected a major domain out of a list of ten to twelve or even more (nature, water, fire, war, etc..), and then two complimentary domains. Each domain has a capstone ability, which a major domain choice provides. The two minor domains provide maybe half of their abilities. It provides almost a DNDish selection process (I.e in that game, clerics gain domains from their god for special benefits and spells, and each god has different domains, though some share with other gods).
It seems a little Forgotten Realmsy having so many domains, but it allows a wide range of concepts that cults can pick their miracles to come from. It would allow more uniqueness amongst them. Of course, that is in my ideal super balanced world.
I select, say.. Illusion, Air, and Blah for my Rashirmir domains. Illusion is our major domain. The capstone Illusion ability would obviously be a PK or other strong skill, but a lower ritual could let us perform a glamour to change our enter/exit. It could let us travel to sleeping players. It could providr resilience to mental afflictions. Air is our minor, so we only get, say.. 3/5 of the abilities. Maybe a waterwalking def gained at the altar, etc. Maybe a ritual is strongest if it is a major domain.
I would basically like a flavorful index of cool domains that you can expand later that do what each circle ritual category does: provide something for everybody. Then each cult can mix and match to fit their themes.
Join. Good idea, bad implications. This or defend. Putting both into a team combat setting is just bad. Defend is already out of whack, it doesn't need a partner.
Heal: Needs a cooldown. Needs a limitation. Cost needs to increase per ally.
Sanctuary: Ok
Grace: Ok
The favours are awesome.
Breach: Thumbsup
Bullsrush: Thumbsup
Explosion: Uh, forced warp. I can see it, but it needs to not drop you into siege or some death trap area. How about surrounding areas?
Avatar: Pretty cool now
Transmute: Nice idea, but random item, really? Roulette is a dumb game. Please. No.
Freedom: Yay, waterwalk
Decompose: Ok, I can appreciate this
Aeonic Flux: Awesome but no. I'll admit it (a rarity on these forums) this is overpowered. I want it and it shouldn't be put in.
Duplicate: Awesome idea. Compared to transmute? Blah
Burrowing: Entire team of Galt? Please no.
Airlift: Not gonna lie, they already have bard songs.
Icestorm: I don't like it with when paired with the skill sets. Way too easy to abuse (it will be abused). Yes, walls stop it. Oh wait. Breach. Shard research. Firelash. Earthquake. No.
Meteor: Same with Aeonic Flux. The circle that already dominates the game with AoE damage doesn't need a high burst AoE.
Purify: Cool concept. What magickal items would they be turning into commodities? Black markets are lame.
Holy Curse: What if paralysis stops it? This is what made bedevil suck. It was either the suck, or the rock. There has to be another option here. You shouldn't win by virtue of throwing a fight.
Angel Grace: Can it be razed or hammered? Can it stack? Cooldown?
Boost of life: Not sure I see the roleplay here. How about increased regeneration?
Avalanche: This is the only balanced circle-specific concept
Ideas:
Duplicate should be a global benefit, because we're all going to use it to dupe comms and inks. If this is the case, dupe needs a long cooldown.
Cooldowns need to be thrown in. Are you going to limit the number of ritual effects per person? An aspect bashing team can (and will) pre-game this and be running around as Juggernauts. This is not fun (unless you're the one doing it.) The people doing this will then post on the forums and say it's legit. Two days later, it will happen to them and they will post about how unfair it is
The flip side of this is that a lot of these are heinously imbalanced in team pvp. They're not going to be powerful and rare. They're going to be as prolific as hand guns are these days. I'm going to pay someone to do my bashing for me and then rush out with Lionas (who paid someone to bash) and we're going to curb stomp people who couldn't pay other people to bash. Chances are, we may even wave our e-peen at you and do this while we're crushing your cult. This is dumb. This is going to happen. People are already brewing up ways to do this. There need to be cool downs, limitations, diminishing returns. I'd even say that certain rituals need to drain from the ENTIRE pool of cult belief (especially powers that effect more than one person). The ultimate point of the cult is the roleplay. You're shifting the focus of the cult from the 'roleplay' to the 'metagame' which always ends in tragedy for everyone (except those who do the metagaming).
Why are most of the changes combat based?
Well! There's not a whole lot of other things to do. What else are you interested in?
Combat gets most of the rituals because the design space is so huge. Look over the skillsets in this game. How many of the skills only really matter for PvP? For non-combat things, the cult and interactions should be its own reward, because there's not much else to give you.
With those changes, I think my biggest problem is still that this so heavily rewards everybody piling into one cult, just for things like the faith-fullheal. I'd sacrifice favors and maybe pillars without a second thought for the ability to pop 30% faith and fullheal and clear the afflictions of every ally of mine in the 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."
On another note, I don't see why Rituals reward the superChurch idea either. Multiple cults per circle exist for some reason: why do away with that fact for some needlessly overpowered combat buffs?
I'd just pay people to lose Champion duels to me to farm up the points.
"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 basically just don't appreciate how this system is being used as platform to hand us a list of super powers that make team combat even more of a mess. There's no opportunity cost in the domain choices, either. You get every high powered skill in every domain you select.
The problem is that, with 1v1, there's no real good way to do that. Since the only punishments are on the individual, you can just pay the individual enough for the punishment to be worth it.
And if the punishments are too harsh for payment to be worth it, whether it be by making an organization also take a hit or just harsher personal penalties, then the system is usually too harsh for most people to want to get involved in it at all, aside from the most hardcore of 1v1 white knights.
There's no real happy medium that I can think of.
"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."
And my comment about opportunity cost?
- Do away with circle-exclusive prayer groups. We all know that circle-unique concepts look so cool on paper, but the truth is that so few of them exist because they often cause us a great deal of grief in combat, in roleplay, and in general comparisons of quality of life. It's just not going to work out - Aeonic Flux as it is (was?) is clearly the strongest option, with Meteor a hair behind it because Magick has a good composition for mass damage. This is not say Anti-Magick's options are bad.. just that they aren't as good (and frankly, are underwhelming).
- Redesign each power, especially with exclusivity in mind. Each power's ultimate tier needs to be redesigned. Some powers need to be shuffled - immediate feedback: Holding Pillar needs to be bumped to the top of the Pillar list. In addition, we need to force cults to engage in an opportunity cost decision - they should ONLY gain access to one top rank miracle/ritual. They should NOT get three. Forcing us to make decisions and sacrifices provides a more interesting process than 'k, a b c'. Instead, we look at the options and have to analyze which we truly want access to.
- Review the intent of the cult system, especially rituals. When orders died, we were assured we'd be getting something in their place. Orders were never a PK-primary tool. They gave some of us loose justification to murder people in other orders, but they never served the function of facilitating PK and making any form of combat (team or single) more complicated or explosive. We do not need nuclear arms, and that is what you are offering us: three nuclear silos per cult. Cults are meant to be something that encourages roleplay, as they are the successor of the Order system. Please let us have that and have it in great amounts - right now, the rituals system encourages having a sort of 'super church' per cult, or else you are gimping yourself. You need to limit these miracles/rituals to a per-person basis, not a 'everybody in room in your cult' basis. Forcing players to group up in to one roleplay concept for mechanical benefits is REALLY unacceptable.
- Allow for more options - fill in holes that some circles are missing. Purely for example here: would it have been so bad for Anti-Magick to have a 'walk on water' miracle for 20%-ish belief?
In my ideal world, I would design a system similar to this, but without so many absolutely bogus abilities that tip the scales. I would definitely offer a wide range of ritual groups, called Cult Domains. If I needed some very bland inspiration for domain themes, I'd look at the list of dead gods (because entities are basically piles of combined god essence) - a War domain, a Glory domain, a Knowledge domain, etc. I'd probably offer a healthy list so that each cult can select a handful of them and feel like those domains suit their theme appropriately. These domains do not decide their themes - their themes provide a useful criteria to select their domain. This way, roleplay decides what the cult can do with their rituals (before you mention that it doesn't - we will always have people who make blatant powerplay decisions instead of roleplay, even when presented with the opportunity - right now, the decisions are no-brainers and have no thematic essence). This is thematic and in line with the original broadcasted intent of the cult system - to do away with how stale orders were, to allow players to invent their own ideologies, and provide continual RP with some cool mechanics behind it. In addition, each cult would designate one domain as their major domain - this would allow them to reach the upper reaches of the domain's ritual list. The other two domains would be minor, and would provide 3/5ths access. The 4th and 5th miracle should be where the truly 'dangerous' stuff goes - this way, we make cults have to choose what they want. Sure, in this system, they only get 11 rituals as opposed to 15 - but the exclusivity and the required sacrifice of some options lets us justify the strength or uniqueness in mechanic for the 4th and 5th rituals.On the topic of domain rituals themselves: I would make some of them single-person buffs ("You kneel before your altar and beseech (entity name here) to influence you with the power of Water. Suddenly, you feel as if you can tread water as if it were solid ground.") and maybe even cult-wide blessings ("You stand before your altar and then envision the zealous masses of the Cult of the Dream Realm. Murmuring a chant, you bestow the blessing of knowledge on the entire cult.").. but I would try to avoid stuffing every prayer group with combat skills. I would likely add a few, but not everybody in cults want combat skills - in fact, a good many probably do not. Instead, I would follow Garryn's philosophy that he took with the circle-specific ritual groups: 2 offense, 2 defense, 1 utilitarian or mercantile. Obviously, some domains might be skewed or break that mold - an 'Artisan' domain might be 1/1/3, for instance.
If it wasn't for the existence of a few "Hahaha, oh my god, they actually suggested that?" tier items, we'd be talking about how crazy some of the smallr things are, like Boost of Life. Steal 15% health from everybody in the room, every 6 seconds? So it's a passive that hits harder than sowulu and heals me? That's absolutely amazingly powerful. Against Khizan alone, they'd be stealing 100ish health every 6 seconds. Against a full team, they'd basically fullheal every 6 seconds. Get most of your group to pop that and you just won a fight.
That's ludicrous. It's absolutely insane. It only managed to pass for a reasonable ability cause it was sitting in the same lineup as Meteor, Aeonic Flux, and Joined Searing Avatar With a Pillar of Holding.
Now that the "Holy crap, they suggested WHAT? That's insane!?" has worn off, I think most of these abilities could use another pass over them, and probably take some minor-to-major nerfs.
"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."
1. HEALING/PROTECTIVE RITUALS
* Heal - cures all health/mana and afflictions on all cult members in the room, or everyone in the room. The "all allies" option is intentionally excluded to force some strategic choice - this applies to other such rituals as well. 30% faith.
* Aura - An improved prismatic defence on all cult members in room, or everyone in room, that only drops when shield would (on aggro/move). 30% faith.
* Joining - A more powerful bloodsworn. Split damage between the two, afflictions are received by both, curing an affliction cures it for both, health curing also splits between the two, lasts for 30 minutes or until cancelled. 80% faith.
* Sanctuary - Prevent all forms of travel into the room. Leaving can still be done freely. Lasts for a limited time. 55% faith.
* Grace - gives temporary grace for 30 seconds. 100% faith.
2. PILLAR RITUALS - creation of pillars with various effects, can have multiple in room, pillars last about 10 minutes. This is the "jack of all trades" option. Each pillar costs 40% faith.
* Protection Pillar - damage targetted at anyone in the room reduced by 15%
* Travel Pillar - cult members can travel to the pillar from anywhere
* Pestilence Pillar - everyone in the room except owner hit by periodic afflictions
* Destruction Pillar - damage initiated by anyone in the room increased by 15%
* Holding Pillar - creates a pillar in the room that prevents all forms of movement from the room except unblockable ones (tumble and similar)
3. FAVOURS
- this basically splits the existing divine favours into several ones, removes some things, and adds some extras. A player can have more of these, and can bestow them upon others (high faith cost to balance it out). All of these last 2 hours of online time.
* Celerity Favour - faster movement, 20% faith
* Stealth Favour - enter/leave messages do not show the direction in which the affected player left, 40% faith
* Benevolence Favour - +1 to stats. 60% faith
* Alertness Favour - alertness with no drain, 60% faith
* Protection Favour - 5% damage resist to all damage types, or 10% to a chosen one. 80% faith
4. OFFENSIVE RITUALS
* Summoning - summon another player to the cult altar. Short delay with messages, movement, monoliths and similar block it. 15% faith (taken even if it fails).
* Breach - remove all obstacles in a direction, including the Sanctuary effect. 30% faith.
* Bull's Rush - user ignores effects like gravehands/piety/block/etc, lasts 10 minutes. 60% faith.
* Avatar - +3 to all stats, lasts 3 minutes, 75% faith
* Explosion - a powerful explosion that sends everyone in the room to random rooms all over the world (different room for each player). 100% faith
Moon-based ritual groups provide two offensive ones, two defensive ones, and one commodity-related.
5. SUKHDER RITUALS
* Transmute - Convert some amount of commodities into random other commodities, faith cost depends on amount
* Waterwalking - for 20 minutes, user gains waterwalking, 35% faith
* Decompose - A 15% damage malus to everyone in the room, lasts 5 minutes, 60% faith
* Sukhder's Minion - summon a powerful mobile loyal to the user, disappears after 10 minutes if not killed before then, 80% faith
* Searing Aura - user becomes immune to all entanglements, lasts 5 minutes, 100% faith
6. MORADEIM RITUALS
* Duplicate - duplicate a stack of riftable items, faith costs depends on type/amount, some (moonwort) are excluded
* Burrowing - user gets the ability to burrow, lasts 5 minutes, 35% faith
* Moradeim's Freedom - user gets the ability to fly, lasts 5 minutes, 60% faith
* Icestorm - invoke a storm of ice that blocks all locating skills targetted at people in the room and causes significant damage to anyone who tries to enter or leave (no periodic damage to people inside), lasts several minutes. 80% faith
* Meteor - a large ball of fire hits the current outdoors room after 6 seconds, causing 80% fire damage to anyone who remains there, 100% faith
7. ARYANA RITUALS
* Purification - convert an item into commodities, faith costs depends on type, specifics and applicable items to be determined
* Aryana's Curse - transfer the afflictions on user to all other players in the room, 60% faith
* Aryana's Protection - Periodic shield defence on user, ticks every 10s, lasts 5 minutes. 80% faith
* Aryana's Life - Player drains 10% health from every other individual in the room and adds that to his own health, lasts three minutes, ticks every 6 seconds, 80% faith
* Avalanche - For 5 minutes, the room becomes completely impassable and unable to be entered by any means. Everyone inside gets pushed out. Can still be bypassed with long-range travel. 100% faith
These rituals are mutually exclusive - only one can be in effect at once on any individual: Join, Avatar, Searing Aura, Boost of Life
There is still no decision making, no flavorful connection (I.e this system does NOT resonate with cults, it could just be a bunch of shard powers), and definitely no opportunity costs. What precisely are you trying to achieve with this system? There is nothing about it that makes it really related to cults besides your shoehorning it in.
Why were barely any of our discussed feedback taken in to account?
Edit: even if not all RP is peaceful, I am implying that there is no need for any of these absolutely powerful buttons.
Unlike Sarrius, I don't mind cults being powerful organizations with a strong influence both in and out of combat. Being a RP organization is fine, but there's nothing in that inherent to being toothless. Worldburn was a potent ability, but it didn't define Orders.
Aryana's Life likely stacks to extremes with multiple people in the room, the commodity powers seem wrong for their moon types, and 5 minutes of flying seems overpriced at 60% faith. All in all, moving closer.
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”