Four hours for a plague defense is so long that the next time Septus asks for help with one I am going to pretend to be AFK.
"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."
Part of the problem I have with plagues is that plagues are a personal goal that nevertheless can easily require a full-circle effort to accomplish. I mean, this is Septus' personal boneyard and 5 of us are sitting here for 4 hours to watch it? This is ridiculous.
"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'd like to know if there is any thought about the pros and cons of boneyards being able to be placed adjacent to cities. They aren't quite "on siege", since you can't hit people one room out anymore, but it does open up the threat of being summoned (or blasted) into guards, so it is the "smart" place to put them right now - which in a sense even further limits the number of boneyards that can realistically exist in the world, because it means that mechanically, there are just 6 "really good" boneyard rooms in the entire world (in theory, you could -maybe- use townes, too but I doubt it with the way towne guards are limited), and realistically, there are fewer than that (which I will get to in a second). I have been all about this being a very, very elite system from the get go, but less than 6 is a really small number. It it also going to highlight some of the political differences between orgs, and really, even circles, I bet. Some cities, at some points in their history (like present day Antioch, or Stavenn) will be perfectly on board with having a boneyard outside the gates. Kinsarmar? Or let's be honest... Ithaqua? They could surprise us, but I do think it would be a surprise. And this is all for a system that certainly does encourage a certain amount of circle involvement, but really does belong to an individual at the end of the day. So it becomes even more essential for the "I love PK" guy to cluster in the circle/orgs that are most "PK friendly" (PK friendly enough to allow a boneyard on the doorstep). So, I guess the question would be, is it better for boneyards to be adjacent (where the unwritten PK rules and mechanics allow trying for guard kills, which some people do enjoy as a "cat and mouse" game), or are boneyards going to be somewhere in the great wide open no man's land with no city defense factor in play?
TLDR: at the end of the day this is less about the pros and cons of (a grand total of 6 at most) boneyards being outside city gates, per se, than it is about how the relatively small number of people who are direct participants or supporting participants feel about them. For me, as a "supporting participant", it doesn't really matter too much which way this goes, but I do think it's worth at least looking at.
We were just having a conversation about this last night actually, and the prevailing opinion that placing the boneyard outside of gates was just a thing, but enemy congregation on top of them with rites, gravehands, and such up would be effectively "raiding", which extends the system right back into people that haven't opted in. I think that the boneyards are too immediately vulnerable and thus placing them outside of siege is the sensible move as they mechanically work right now, but that incentive is not a healthy thing.
Since they seem to be meant to be personal issue, it's increasingly difficult to think of a solution that would be sensible, but a (some?) plagues need multiple champions to bind it (them?), which really extends it out to at least a few champions in the same circle. The first thought that comes to mind is requiring participating in a kill of the owner or a same-circle champion in order to get a "pull" from the boneyard, but that would only give incentives to dogpile ganking, which isn't exactly fun generating behavior, or relies on every other champion in your circle to be able to hold their own against the other circle's best champions, which also would incentivize some really negative OOC behavior to other in-circle champions that just couldn't hack it. I don't have a bright idea or good solution for it, even though the system fascinates me and actually is making me want to get back into being a competent combatant.
I felt as though when the plague was summoned, not knowing what claiming an area meant and that it was on Demon's Pass, that I absolutely had to try and prevent it. This was a really good thing. Fear of a malus or some other very-bad-thing (tm) in the best bashing area in the game for money (as far as I know at least) did drive me to attempt to participate in the system however ineffectively, though that very desperation at potentially being punished by an opt-in system was not quite so "fun". That last bit might be better solved by having some kind of vague expectation of what it means if a champion claims an area rather than being completely in the dark. Having some kind of malus on the best hunting area(s) that makes them less optimal choices is by no means the end of the world either, especially since I'm pretty sure the underworld is excluded from the system and has decent if less optimal returns.
Just my thoughts and experiences so far relative to this system.
Well, Mathiu, what I see happening is more like "No way, one of our only/best PK-ers, we aren't okay with a boneyard outside the gates", and so, that guy goes "FINE"! It's yet another chance for already not particularly PK-friendly orgs to not get along with the few PK people they might have.
I don't think they are intended to be -just- a personal issue, although a lot of people do seem to be having a hard time swallowing their unique "personal, and yet, also by all means is way more awesome with additional participation" aspect.
As for the last bit, I doubt they'd actually make it do something too too horrible to DP - that said, part of why we did go to that area was not so much because it is a popular bashing area, but because it is such a popular AUTO-bashing area (again, autobashing in theory is a neutral sort of thing, but it definitely facilitates the kind of "lol, I keep DP cleared for hours" behavior that would drive people nuts whether automated or not). Also, we have absolutely no idea what it does
Honestly, I'd just like to know if it does something. I don't mind trying to figure out what, but it'd be good not to invest time into experimenting if its mostly a flavour thing, which is cool too.
Maybe consider hiding the amount of bones in a boneyard. As it is currently it's pretty trivial to know when a plague will be coming up.
"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."
Heh. Is anyone going to answer the dangling question of "so, uh, does this plague do something"? I am sort of half amused that it is still just sitting there (but the curiosity is also killing me). Can someone maybe... throw us a bone?
Maybe consider hiding the amount of bones in a boneyard. As it is currently it's pretty trivial to know when a plague will be coming up.
It IS pretty trivial, and that's how it should be, IMO. The point of making boneyards easier to find was to move away from the sort of hiding metagame involved. I definitely don't think it'd be appropriate to reintroduce an aspect of "nobody will know when are finally ready to summon this, so we can more easily do it in off-hours with nobody to contest" to the plague portion.
Honestly, I'd just like to know if it does something. I don't mind trying to figure out what, but it'd be good not to invest time into experimenting if its mostly a flavour thing, which is cool too.
It's really just a flavor/ego thing. You get your name in PLAGUES until someone else bumps you. The idea was to have a fun, but completely optional, source of pvp. The plagues obviously impact everyone until killed, but they're also designed to not attack people who leave the plagues and plague minions alone. (They will attack you, or even be aggro if you hit one of them though, or participate in the plague process).
Honestly, I'd just like to know if it does something. I don't mind trying to figure out what, but it'd be good not to invest time into experimenting if its mostly a flavour thing, which is cool too.
It's really just a flavor/ego thing. You get your name in PLAGUES until someone else bumps you. The idea was to have a fun, but completely optional, source of pvp. The plagues obviously impact everyone until killed, but they're also designed to not attack people who leave the plagues and plague minions alone. (They will attack you, or even be aggro if you hit one of them though, or participate in the plague process).
I feel like you should at least get a QHONOR or something, especially if you can get bumped off the PLAGUES list.
Could we maybe restrict the areas where you can summon/bind a plague to places where shardfalls happen? That is, areas that don't have any particular affinity? More than anything, I really don't want an 'opt-in' conflict system sitting outside my organization. For that matter, put the same restriction on boneyards.
Getting people to participate in the Champion system is great, I support that. Making people feel like they have to participate is not so great.
Well, it puts you in the position of having to say "yes" or "no" to say, Eldreth (I know his boneyard is outside of Stavenn, but as an example), so you have to decide. I outlined this in my posts above, although I consider it more a problem of "some orgs will say yes, and some will say no, and there are only 6 spots next to guards". That's especially true over the long haul and as the political atmosphere in cities changes, but I think it always means there aren't enough 'really good' boneyard spots. For the orgs themselves, the boneyards are just going to be some guy like Eldreth taking advantage of the fact that there are guards, and you can't lose those guards anymore anyway. But some orgs are absolutely going to be fine saying "yes" to that, and some aren't, and that is going to tend to create even greater divisions in orgs that aren't particularly PK friendly, or are just sort of on the fence, and that's probably bad for the state of PK in general, because it is going to tend to play at least some role in exacerbating the already strong tendency of players to cluster where they feel most welcome, and then it becomes the "no one to fight" problem.
As for not being able to bind to an area that is adjacent to an org, I am absolutely 100% against that. That is almost certainly a "come at me bro" in the face of the org's Eldreths, but going by what Dec said, it shouldn't be anything more than that. It doesn't "damage" anything in a meaningful way. At worst, it could mean a small amount of wounded pride. And hey, free bashing (if you want, since nothing is even aggro by default).
You're wrong. When someone is sitting outside my organization for four hours defending a plague or screwing around with a boneyard, it has nothing to do with pride. It's basically declaring that area a PK zone, one where people who don't want to participate will get caught up in it. And once again, it's meant to be an opt-in system; it is not a circle-wide conflict mechanic. I'm only asking for there to be some really simple restrictions to keep it from becoming one. There are a TON of conflict systems in this game already, and we fought hard to do away with the grief-tastic 'raiding' business. If you want to randomly sit outside a city and 'ring the doorbell', there's still that extremely obnoxious option, but let's be clear. It's obnoxious. Let's not push a perfectly fine system next to orgs so that it becomes yet another obnoxious raid-like.
And before you post another eight paragraphs defending the poor PKers, please give an actual reason how plagues/boneyards sitting outside cities and councils adds to the overall game, and then how restricting it hurts the overall game.
I am not keen on boneyards outside city gates either, if you would read my posts. I just have a slightly different rationale for why I think it's not a good idea for them to be outside city gates.
The plague itself is almost -never- going to be anywhere near your gates, even if it is in the area outside your city. Actually, it would probably just never be outside your gates period unless we got very, very unlucky. Also, a plague only happens when a guy like Septus or Eldreth manage to get 100 bones. Just how often do you think you are going to see a plague at all, much less absolutely -have- to deal with all of those "grief-tastic" PKers?
Also, let's get something straight. I came from a game where someone like me couldn't PK at all, because I would have been griefed into oblivion, just by virtue of not being nearly "gud" enough not to be. I would have been that cow being lowered into the velociraptor pen. I get what Imperian offers, believe me. Imperian does favor opt-in systems, and it also has an incredible amount of things that limit your "actual" losses in any given risk scenario, both of which are important to players who aren't going to always end up on top. And even this system, as it stands right now, fits that model already. But that is still not enough for you, and I admit, I find that awfully entitled.
Plagues are not hostile to anyone unless you hit them. If you hit one you have opted in. If you have not hit one, you are not opted in. Just being in the area where a plague has been summoned does not opt you in. It does not make the area a PK-FREE zone.
I'm okay with camping an area outside of a city. It's one of the very few ways for a player to thumb their nose at rival organizations and it's one of the very few ways left to make any sort of aggressive overtures towards another organization.
Raiding is useless and dead. Obelisks might as well be. There are very few ways as it is to take a swing at another org, and I don't think we need to remove another one. I mean, at this point, we're not even really enemy cities. We're more like rival sports teams, only fighting during major events and in the shardball arena.
We need more sources of potential organizational conflict, not less.
"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 can concede that it's not a PK zone in theory, sure. The issue is that things tend to get out of hand with certain individuals who are more about winning at any cost (I'm not pointing fingers here, they're on every side). And I'm overall wary of those individuals having such a conflict system so close to my organization.
On the other end, I also recently tried to help in one of these boneyard things outside a city. It was terrible, because if you're unfortunate enough not to have two people blocking, you're going to die. I don't think there's anything stopping the same people who plant a boneyard outside the gates from leading their plague to right outside their own gates.
If people are doing silly things with the plague/boneyard systems because there aren't enough good spots or it's so hard to defend, then maybe the system needs to be adjusted.
And sure, let there be organizational conflict of some kind? But this as it currently is shouldn't be it.
Even if someone did summon a "friendly" plague and tried to leave it adjacent to their own gates, it wouldn't really matter. If you aren't down for that, you can just wait a little bit, because they won't be able to keep it there long term. Even then, it only really matters to people who raid or skirmish outside a city, which you consider "grief-tastic" anyway. Except when you are doing it, but then it is still "terrible" because you died to guards once.
What admin seems to have had in mind is, for four hours people on Team Yay! Plague are (probably) going to defend the plague from attack, so... if you attack it. To be fair, people on Team Grr... Plague will almost certainly want to eventually go kill the plague, even if they couldn't or wouldn't in the initial 4 hour window - especially if it is in an area that matters to them, like outside their city (although I bet there might be some situations where it could be fun to leave it).
Luckily, the system seems to also be designed so that you can do that pretty easily after all of the horrible griefers have collapsed in exhaustion, and the whole end result is that the plague guy got a little plague plaque that says "Septus'ssss Plague Waz here".
To be honest I don't really mind the boneyards outside city gates. Personally I do this because it definitely makes it easier to defend, but it mostly comes down to sheer response time. I've had no trouble stealing from everyone else who does it, even with heavy resistance. Its pretty easy to account for these days with the number of forced movement lockdowns and such. At the end of the day though, I feel like this is one of those things where its better just to handle it on a city wide level; just noting that please build your boneyards somewhere else so these jerks stop cluttering up the front lawn is probably the all around best way, assuming that the primary concern being that boneyards are attracting undue amounts of conflict around city borders. Personally I wouldn't be sad to see it go, but then I also think making it harder to defend boneyards than it already is probably won't get more people building, which could be sad.
I like the being able to claim outside cities, because I think it gives a tangible motivation for people to become invested in summoning plagues. I'd be pretty surprised if someone didn't put their foot down and contest Ravana for instance, given its geographical significance. That said, its not a case of absolutely needing to, because at the end of the day its an entirely intangible benefit. All it really adds is bragging rights, which while awesome (let's be real, they're what really matter), don't really impart a sense of great urgency to counteract like say, a permanent stat debuff or the like would. I think that's a good thing. It let's people work up over time to take back what is there's without making people feel like its some crazy obligation that they're going to start bleeding citizens over, etc, and doesn't turn it into a system you really can't afford to lose at every so often.
Caelya does not want to have to publicly say "no, I don't want a boneyard outside Khandava gates" (because cities absolutely can do that). Kinsaramar or Ithaqua would likely just say "hell no" and be done with it (unless Juran worked some magic, maybe), but this is a bit different. It is more like "we don't want to lose face (and very possibly annoy one of our better PK-ers) by coming straight out and saying 'no boneyard', so pls just make it so we don't have to by making it so boneyards can't be next to cities" - or we wouldn't be discussing that part at all. There is also a real potential political issue if an org is sort of evenly split between people who absolutely hate the idea, and people who are pretty okay with it - which actually could be at least part of the issue for Khandava (but I definitely think there is an unwillingness to lose any face, too).
Either way, there seem to be exactly 3 boneyard friendly spots (at the moment). I do think that dealing with guards and such is exactly the sort of thing that generally appeals to the people who are most invested in the system (the Septuses, the Eldreths, the Iluvs), but only 3 orgs are friendly enough ("enough" because Celidon suprised me) to permit boneyards outside their gates right now, which seems super limited, and of course, mechanically, people can "build anywhere", but hrm. I actually don't know what the answer should be.
I have no problem telling people 'no,' but I don't have to because my people realized it was a dumb idea to build boneyards outside Khandava back when siege still shot outwards. You know, after the initial awfulness. Instead, they do it outside Stavenn, or something. I honestly don't see how anyone would be upset about being told that, either. It's convenient to set up outside your org, sure, but it's also pretty transparently lame.
My entire issue, which I did state from the get-go, is that I feel that the Champion system is meant to be a personal conflict generator. It requires you to become one to get the benefits of the exp bonuses and it opens you up to being killed by anyone else. The plague system is turning that on its head by still requiring you to be part of this personal conflict generator system, but then allowing you to set up shop outside an organization, POTENTIALLY (and pretty likely, but not certainly) turning it into an organizational conflict thing. I get how this appeals to people, but I disagree with this particular system being the outlet for that.
As far as using it to thumb your nose at an org or to rile people up for further conflict, let Champions who claim an area write a certain number of messages in the area that don't clear until they change it, or the area gets claimed by someone else, or an admin deems the message inappropriate. This suggestion is made, obviously, with the understanding that the areas just outside organizations would be off-limits. That way, you can still get your digs in at whoever and pull in people easily-offended or whatever, but it's also not on anyone's front porch.
Ultimately, though, the system is going to be what it's going to be, and we'll deal with it. I just voiced my opinion and made suggestions, not to cripple any particular group's fun, but in an effort to improve the overall game.
I have no problem telling people 'no,' but I don't have to because my people realized it was a dumb idea to build boneyards outside Khandava back when siege still shot outwards. You know, after the initial awfulness. Instead, they do it outside Stavenn, or something. I honestly don't see how anyone would be upset about being told that, either. It's convenient to set up outside your org, sure, but it's also pretty transparently lame.
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Ultimately, though, the system is going to be what it's going to be, and we'll deal with it. I just voiced my opinion and made suggestions, not to cripple any particular group's fun, but in an effort to improve the overall game.
Your posts say differently... It is good that "your people" all agree with you though. The "I am just doing this for the Greater Good of Imperian" is a nice finishing touch. Anyway...
Could we maybe restrict the areas where you can summon/bind a plague to places where shardfalls happen? That is, areas that don't have any particular affinity? More than anything, I really don't want an 'opt-in' conflict system sitting outside my organization. For that matter, put the same restriction on boneyards.
You're wrong. When someone is sitting outside my organization for four hours defending a plague or screwing around with a boneyard, it has nothing to do with pride. It's basically declaring that area a PK zone <more good stuff about grief-tastic PK-ers and a fun personal insult to wrap things up nicely>
Also, going straight to opening your posts with "You're wrong" when someone responds to your initial post with something other than "great idea, Caelya! Let's get that put in immediately" is always a good way to have a civil discussion about pretty much anything. If they don't respond well to that you should maybe try saying something like 'Try to remember the old adage, 'To assume makes an ass out of you and me.' to smooth things over.
The good news is that now you have publicly said you don't want boneyards in front of your organization and so you can stop worrying about boneyards outside your front gate - because you are one of the few people who can make a decision like that and solve the problem before it even exists! And I bet those horrible griefers probably won't try to park a plague there either (because they know that they can die to guards too and it is 'terrible').
Comments
"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 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 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 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."
To be honest I don't really mind the boneyards outside city gates. Personally I do this because it definitely makes it easier to defend, but it mostly comes down to sheer response time. I've had no trouble stealing from everyone else who does it, even with heavy resistance. Its pretty easy to account for these days with the number of forced movement lockdowns and such. At the end of the day though, I feel like this is one of those things where its better just to handle it on a city wide level; just noting that please build your boneyards somewhere else so these jerks stop cluttering up the front lawn is probably the all around best way, assuming that the primary concern being that boneyards are attracting undue amounts of conflict around city borders. Personally I wouldn't be sad to see it go, but then I also think making it harder to defend boneyards than it already is probably won't get more people building, which could be sad.
I like the being able to claim outside cities, because I think it gives a tangible motivation for people to become invested in summoning plagues. I'd be pretty surprised if someone didn't put their foot down and contest Ravana for instance, given its geographical significance. That said, its not a case of absolutely needing to, because at the end of the day its an entirely intangible benefit. All it really adds is bragging rights, which while awesome (let's be real, they're what really matter), don't really impart a sense of great urgency to counteract like say, a permanent stat debuff or the like would. I think that's a good thing. It let's people work up over time to take back what is there's without making people feel like its some crazy obligation that they're going to start bleeding citizens over, etc, and doesn't turn it into a system you really can't afford to lose at every so often.