Remnants

Khizan

Now that the remnants are done, I think it's a decent time to start talking about this event.

I didn't like it at all, honestly. Not because of a lack of PK, though I would have loved the chance to influence matters with some good old fashioned raiding, but because I think this event puts people into a place where sticking to your RP guns mandates a major organization-wide penalty. At first I talked a big game about how I'd rather eat the debuff than see them get a bonus, but the more I thought about that, the less I felt like that was a good option.

I mean, sure, I'd eat it personally just to screw with them, that's fine for me. But I've got +3 con, +3 str, +2 int, L3 bracelets, an artifact warmask, and a reincarnate gem so I can go strong and mitigate the penalty with higher base stats. I can eat -3 con and I'll still have more health than most everybody. I can eat -3 str and still be at baseline strength. I'm in a good situation to eat a penalty without suffering any serious consequences, and the same is pretty much true of Septus and Jules and Ultrix. 

Problem is, I've got a huge city full of people who aren't in that situation and lots of them aren't in a good place to eat that kind of a penalty. People like Kryss going fighting without the artifact bulk to counter -3 con. Lots of non-aspects who would get to spend the next two weeks bashing with big stat penalties. This kind of thing really discourages sticking to our guns on this issue, because it's a choice that will directly mess with their playing experience and that's a huge problem for me as a leader. 

I could eat a penalty to the city as an organization for this, no sweat. Big damage to the city that would require a crapload of gold and comms to fix? Sure, we can take that. Kill off half of our guards? Sure, we can recover that. Devastate our townes? Same thing. If you hit the city as an organization, we can work together as a city to raise gold and rebuild. We can make a sort of event out of that in and of itself, and most people won't really mind. It'll go down as battle damage and the cost of doing business, and the city will probably be proud of sticking it to them despite the cost. The way we had it, though, a choice to stick to your RP guns on this issue is basically telling the citizens "I value screwing the enemy more than I value your playing experience, so I decided that everybody in the city is eating a stat penalty for the next two weeks." That's not a very palatable choice, and it's a choice that's impossible to justify on a meta-game level. 

I honestly don't really mind having the occasional diplomatic event that can't really be resolved through sheer PK Power, but I'd really like it if future events could avoid putting me into a position where I'm forced to choose between an RP position and the gameplay experience of my citizens. 

Juran

Khizan said:

I honestly don't really mind having the occasional diplomatic event that can't really be resolved through sheer PK Power, but I'd really like it if future events could avoid putting me into a position where I'm forced to choose between an RP position and the gameplay experience of my citizens. 

I'm thrilled that we got a chance to see this in action, for exactly the reasons you didn't. Part of being good at politics is knowing the personalities of the people involved, and you don't see much of someone until you force them to deal with a crisis.

You were given a sophie's choice, so I'm not surprised you're not 100% satisfied with the outcome.

Khizan

I'm perfectly satisfied with the actual outcome.

1. I got help to screw over Ithaqua
2. I like Alvetta more than Larkin
3. Kinsarmar doesn't have the power to actually leverage their boost in a way that would hurt us, so we take no effective penalty for it.

What I dislike is that the stat malus for holding tight to your monolith is a giant stat penalty that screws over my lowbies hard while minorly inconveniencing me.

 Overall Level: 64  (40.36%)  Bashing Level: 67  (0%)
 Quest Level  : 46  (8%)      PK Level     : 1   (0%)

 Health   : 329/329      Reserves : 5/5
 Mana     : 208/242      Reserves : 170/170

That guy, for example, is gonna be wrecked when he gets -3 to all stats. He'll have to go back to bashing lower-leveled areas and he'll bash them even slower than he did before. That's the kind of penalty that can make a lowbie quit the game. IMO, you never want the outcome of an event to be so punishing for people on an individual level that people go "nope, just not gonna play for two weeks" or, even worse, "nope, just not gonna play".  Negative outcomes should fall upon the organization at an organizational level instead of descending to the personal level of "sorry lowbie, get wrecked and enjoy your 250 health."

Maybe the RP choice is interesting on my level, where I'm actually making the decisions about this outcome, and where I'm artifacted enough to soak it without major effects. But I still don't think an event should ever carry a penalty that screws over lowbies as heavily as this one did.

Jules

This event actually went as well as it possibly could have for Antioch, in terms of people (especially unartied people) not having to eat a malus at least.  So there is that.  It easily could have gone worse.  Stavenn, a city with some fighters, could have got most of the remnants through the current "Demogick" alliance, while we ended up with one or two.  That actually probably would have been the most painful outcome at an org level.  That said... whatever happened, it was a one time thing, for two weeks.  But now we are talking about having more similar events...

If there are going to be more "diplomacy and intrigue" events with "real" consequences, the current lack of "hammers" deserves consideration.  One reason "diplomacy" and "intrigue" bother me in a game like this is because there is almost never going to be a suitable hammer if a person, or an org in general, plays a "lol, intrigue" card.  Interestingly, we actually benefited from multiple layers of ongoing "politics" and "backstabbing" in Ithaqua - not the fun kind either, it's almost never the fun kind in practice.  And Ithaqua is really a perfect example of how "politics" and "backstabbing" and "intrigue" actually play out in a game environment.  It's not the delicious RP smorgasbord people want it to be, either.  Instead, it usually seems to mean actual politics and backstabbing and intrigue, which is a lot less fun.    

The lack of a hammer is especially noticeable in Imperian with an event like this, since this game tries to minimize or even do away with most "real" consequences (which I am emphatically for).  But now, there are some fairly "real" consequences associated with "intrigue and diplomacy", and more to come, going by today's announce post.  They seem very real both mechanically, and in terms of how players tend to react to them.  Stats are a very, very big deal to most players, so it is "meaningful" in every way that matters.  Meanwhile, raiding, the tool that would almost always back up "diplomacy", and certainly "backstabbing" that has "real" consequences in this particular situation was recently gutted even more.  That gutting would have been fine in and of itself, but it feels less fine with the introduction of a "diplomatic" events that have "real" consequences  Right now, it would be pretty pointless to try to pressure a city from the outset with raiding, which I have somewhat mixed feelings on...  Obviously, admin didn't want that to be part of this event, either way.  But let's say they actually stab your org in the back by passing all of the pieces onto Stavenn so that they can complete the monolith - if someone (especially an org rather than an individual per se) does "backstab" the recourse is pretty limited.  What are you going to do to them?  Kill their guards that repop in two hours (if you are lucky and have all of the right incredibly artied people and leaders who know everything there is to know about guards, oh, except you have a malus...)?   

Finally, Demogick is a thing right now, and may be for awhile, which was true even before this event.  To a large extent, this event was very much predetermined at the outset, and easily could have gone much worse for us.  Getting together to take down the big wookie is fine, and has always happened, but events like this will almost have to encourage orgs to make more lasting alliances and to avoid actual fighting.  It also very heavily penalizes anyone who chooses to be the antagonist, a very necessary role, and the very specific manner of the mechanics here (the way they impact the unartied masses) means that the penalty is a real threat no matter how well Antioch is doing, especially now that it may not just be a one time ever thing, but something orgs will have to navigate periodically.  

Jules

Khizan said:

Maybe the RP choice is interesting on my level, where I'm actually making the decisions about this outcome, and where I'm artifacted enough to soak it without major effects. But I still don't think an event should ever carry a penalty that screws over lowbies as heavily as this one did.

And this part was definitely true.  Even as someone on the ruling council, I wasn't part of the negotiations, or even privy to them, probably because really, the more people who know anything about what is going on, the greater risk of it failing.  So the pool of players that actually gets to participate in an event like this is absolutely tiny.  Maybe that was admin's intent, as these kinds of events actually seem to be fairly popular in IRE, but if inclusion is a goal at all, this kind of event might provide "interesting interactions" at the absolute highest levels of government (or if someone on the ruling council decides to actively work against their leadership), but for everyone else, it really is "welp, let's see what happens to our stats".

Anette

Khizan said:

What I dislike is that the stat malus for holding tight to your monolith is a giant stat penalty that screws over my lowbies hard while minorly inconveniencing me.

 Overall Level: 64  (40.36%)  Bashing Level: 67  (0%)
 Quest Level  : 46  (8%)      PK Level     : 1   (0%)

 Health   : 329/329      Reserves : 5/5
 Mana     : 208/242      Reserves : 170/170

That guy, for example, is gonna be wrecked when he gets -3 to all stats. He'll have to go back to bashing lower-leveled areas and he'll bash them even slower than he did before. That's the kind of penalty that can make a lowbie quit the game. IMO, you never want the outcome of an event to be so punishing for people on an individual level that people go "nope, just not gonna play for two weeks" or, even worse, "nope, just not gonna play".  Negative outcomes should fall upon the organization at an organizational level instead of descending to the personal level of "sorry lowbie, get wrecked and enjoy your 250 health."

Khizan is bringing up exactly why I quit Aetolia here. They ran a sort of similar event that saw cities invaded and massive penalties to those that didn't defend themselves "properly" including Ashtan getting wiped right off the map, and after dying for the fiftieth time in a bashing area 20 circles below me I said, "yeah, I'm done."

While I'm not above eating a malus for something I, PERSONALLY, AS A PLAYER, did or did not do, or did poorly, punishing you for belonging to one of a handful of organizations basically everyone belongs to, seems on it's face ridiculous. (IS there anyone actually citiless in Imperian? I can't say I know anyone who is; but Anette is pretty new.)

Basically, here's the thing: Did you want to incentivize people to avoid Kinsarmar? Because if that is your aim, congratulations, you have succeeded. If not, however, then I would think this needs re-examining.  I, for one, like Khizan's suggestion of city damage, guards being killed, that kind of thing, because as he suggests, that turns it not into a frustrating status malus that stops progression, but rather gives you a new goal to achieve in rebuilding the city, and the possibility of remaking it to some small degree in an image the players participating would prefer.

Khizan

Kinsarmar's 'malus' is a huge fantastic 'bonus', I have no idea why they're calling it a malus because my Kinsarmarian has +1 con +1 str +2 int from this so-called malus.

Anette

@Khizan - Am I misunderstanding that the remnant pieces were giving them a malus?  I remember reading they went as steep as -3.  Oof.  I mean I have artifacts and that would still leave me in the negatives.

[edit] as to where I'm getting calling it a malus from specifically, uh, blame Jeremy

Date: 2/16/2016 at 17:39

From: Jeremy

To  : Everyone

Subj: Remnant Malus

What an exciting end to the monolith event!

There was a little glitch and the malus instantly disappeared from Kinsarmar, but that has been

    fixed and they will enjoy that for the next few days.

Jules

The worst part about it being called a "malus" as a blanket statement was the very unfortunate typos in the original help file, which made complete sense in the context of a "malus"  I am actually surprised it got worked out for that reason, to be honest.  Certainly surprised it got worked out fairly quickly.  

Yurii

Being citiless, I've gotta say this: It sucks, especially in imperian. No shard skills, no generator. You really lose a lot just by not being in a city, even if you're in a guild.