Research! Research! Research!

Ahkan

So, we have this research system which gives you 'perks' based on the amount of shards invested. Apparently, we didn't learn our lesson from the aspect system and we charged head long into Obelisks with the same mentality. I get that Obama was elected and his platform was "it's time for a change" but I'm not sure Sukhder can take this shit for four more years (Think of Isadarr!)

Without further ado:

Level 1 Research: (it's color coded, red is terrifying, green is like life, inefficiency is bland and change is purple) Snark and commentary will be in italics.

We now have an ability to restore 10% of willpower and endurance at the cost of a shard and equilibrium. Syntax: SHARD REPLENISH.
That's neat, I guess. Hopefully I don't see this again. (protip: we do. Dead horse is jelly)

The decay time of all citizen-crafted items is improved by 10%. This is automatically in effect. 

This was a problem? Nah, I paid people to redo my vials. Thanks though, I guess.

All citizens can now use the Kohdon fear gaze racial skill. Kohdons who already possess the ability can now recover equilibrium much faster when using it. Syntax: GAZE <target>.
Aww yeah. A single command cure I can't combo with. This is amazing for arghpee. Lemme, guess, the other level 1 powers aren't pvp.

We now have the ability to recover some health and cure one random affliction  on every player in the room (including enemies). The effect is doubled if a red 

shard is used. This ability has a moderate cooldown. Syntax: SHARD ROOMCURE  

[RED]. 

Holy crap. Level 1 power. Man, this is pretty awesome compared to the other two. You'll notice later, this mimics (I see what you did here)

 level 2 life (but with more awesome).

Level 2

We can now restore a portion of health and mana at the cost of a shard and equilibrium. Using a red shard restores more health and mana. This ability has a moderate cooldown. Syntax: SHARD HEAL [RED]

Well, 150 health is nothing to laugh at. Sloppy seconds are rude. Simply, rude.

All citizens now receive more experience for delivering caravans.
You know, this is kind of sweet. I'm really digging the lack of pvp impact here.

We are now able to instantly destroy any wall of ice or stone, as well as walls of focused Moradeim energy. This ability is faster if we are controlling the obelisk of Sukhder, and has no balance loss if a red shard is used. Syntax: SHARD DISRUPT <direction> [RED]
Not much to say here. This is hot shit.

We can now use a shard to alter the affinity of the current area randomly.  Syntax: SHARD AFFINITY. 

Bypass a huge game mechanic at level 2? Sign me up.

Level 3

We can now instantly restore all lost health and mana at the cost of a red shard and equilibrium. This ability has a long cooldown. Syntax: SHARD FULLHEAL.

We wasted another level of research to get an upgrade to a skill. If only this was the paradigm for the other moon/obelisk

Lionas thought efficiency was lame. So he didn't research level 3. Sorry.

We now have the ability to stabilize a location that has been disrupted with the power of Sukhder, at the cost of a shard. This ability has a short preparation time, which is eliminated if a red shard is used. Syntax: SHARD STABILIZE [RED].
Your filler is showing. This is lazy. How bout, I don't use a shard. I'll just sit 30 guards here.

We are now able to utilise a shard to summon a wall of Moradeim energy at a  chosen exit, which acts as any other impenetrable wall, but cannot be destroyed 

by the usual means. The wall lasts much longer if a red shard is used. Our  research indicates that the only way to destroy such a wall is by concentrating 

the energy of Sukhder upon it, assuming that one has sufficient knowledge about the workings of the obelisk of Sukhder. Syntax: SHARD WALL <direction> [RED] 

Holy shit balls, mom! It's a stone wall that's not destroyed by anything but research! There's no delay and your team can spam it at no cost!

Already, we've hit the mark where change is bestowing vastly more useful and pvp oriented boom than the other research trees. We'll ignore the fact that moradeim walls are dumb. It can't get much worse, can it? Oops. It can.

Level 4

Our research now grants us an ability to mark a location, and later return to it instantly. A shard is required both to place the mark and to travel to it.  This mark lasts 3 minutes, or 15 minutes if a red shard is used. Monolith sigils and similar effects in the target room do not block the travel
Given all the complaints about raksha band, this sounded like a good idea? Blue shard = 2000c.

At the cost of a shard, we are now capable of scaring all creatures from a location instantly. If a red shard is used, players are scared away as well. Syntax: SHARD TERRIFY [RED].
Your ratting and fishing pet? Gonna scare the piss out of it. Good thing compose is hard to spell and isn't in G-bot.

Level 5

At the cost of a red shard, our members are now able to attune to the obelisk  of Moradeim and obtain its benefits, including the Attunement ones, for one
Lost obelisk? S'cool. Let me use my research to make a pocket obelisk. We don't need a conflict system to super power conflict anyways.

Spoooooky.

Attunement:
Controlling the obelisk of Aryana now also allows us to regenerate willpower and endurance at a higher speed.
Man, this song needs a new verse.

We can now focus upon the power of Moradeim at no mana or willpower cost.
There's the new verse we were looking for. ARYANA HAS THE MONOPOLY ON WILLPOWER AND ENDURANCE. Oh wait, change has no definition. Plagiarists.

The control of the obelisk now allows us to better utilise obelisk energy - each corpse placed into the generator provides twice as much.
This was a problem?  (It wasn't)

We can now focus upon the power of Sukhder at no mana or willpower cost.
Aryana is still feeling ripped off.

Level 2

Further enhancing our regenerative abilities, we can now recover endurance and willpower at a significantly higher rate while sleeping.
Again? What if you never sleep? (See: Everyone above level 80)

We now have the ability to bypass various effects that would normally prevent  focusing on the power of Moradeim. This only works when the target is a mutual  

ally, takes twice as long, and a red shard is consumed in the process.  Additionally, any players following you will not move along. Syntax: FOCUS   MORADEIM <target> BYPASS. 

Through research, we are able to duplicate the effect of the sukhder obelisk. Looks like we don't need conflict for this conflict system.

Our studies of better transport techniques now allow us to move caravans 20% faster. This effect is cummulative with the effect of a caravan crop.
Thanks for the non pvp upgrade here. Seems sort of level 1 to me. 

Each player can now focus upon Sukhder in two rooms at a time.
This would be awesome if change couldn't do this with these hard to find shards.

Level 3

When focusing on the Aryana obelisk, we can now optionally specify a location to arrive to. Valid locations include all destinations of the Charon's ferry. Syntax: FOCUS ARYANA <target>.
Thanks for the quality of life upgrade that requires me to die. Sadly, I could walk back to my city in my two minutes of grace. Seems pretty level 1 to me. At least it's not endurance/willpower regen while emoting (I was worried)

The daily obelisk energy limit is increased by 15% while controlling the obelisk.
Could double tap with it. Can double tap without it. I'm sure someone will say this is the hidden gem of the obelisk system (Sorry, JA-twist)

We can now harvest fallen shards faster while controlling the obelisk of  

Moradeim. 
How efficient of you! (See what I did there)

The effect of the Sukhder now lasts twice as long.
This would be awesome if change couldn't do better than this passively. Great. My/Your guards have to stand there for twice as long.
Level 4
Lio stopped researching because he was underwhelmed. Who could blame him.

We are now able to bypass the various protections even if the target is not a  mutual ally. All the other restrictions (no followers, longer time, red shard  

consumed) remain.
Your not-sukhder-obelisk is cooler than our obelisk -and- our research. Global prism, pah.

We are now capable of ordering tamed pets around with improved efficiency, just like a Transcendent tamer would, regardless of personal skill.

Excuse me? What? Why? Ordering pets is scary? Maybe because it's tyranny? I have no idea. 

Level 5

Our attunement to the obelisk of Moradeim now allows us to focus upon its power without alerting the target about this. This cannot be combined with the protection bypassing effect, consumes a red shard, takes twice as long and does not bring the entourage along. Syntax: FOCUS MORADEIM <target> SILENT. 

How terrifying? (there it is, again!) Your not-so-sukhder obelisk is WAAAAAAY cooler than our obelisk AND our research.

After we learned that pet tyranny was level 4. We wept.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I like the progress. It's good for the game. Why can't we go back through the changes and polish them up a bit. The shard research trees are clearly skewed with banal filler concentrated into a few trees and freaking awesome dosed into another. 

Ahkan

 If you really want to make an ongoing, dynamic conflict system, you should go back and make all of the research trees and obelisk powers worth wanting. 

Juran

Your opinion when it comes to assessing the value of powers is weird.

Ziat

Damn, Moradeim is nifty. 

Sarrius

All rocks mined up can't be diamonds. You are slightly or even grossly undervaluing some of the powers - and even entire options by whining over the fact that you have to spend shards to get bad powers to proceed to getting good powers. While I agree that certain ones - i.e Pet Tyranny - should likely not have been invented or put so high in a tree related to raiding or PK, it happened, so dig in to the next level and see what is at the TOP of the tree before making complaints about its entirety.

Sarciossis

I think it's a fair assessment to say when you look at what we've researched so far versus what has been shown from the other obelisk trees it's a bit of a disadvantage towards Sukhder Obelisk. Some things probably need to be looked at.

Khizan

Sukhder's got some things that are quite frankly amazing. After we get around to taking it from you, I'll show you what I mean.

Sarciossis

Or you could just explain now instead of being silly.

Khizan

There's no profit for me in telling my enemy how their skills work.

Bathan

And make no mistake. It's not just in-game enemies. We're all Khizan's enemies IRL.

Sarciossis

It's not like anyone would use this information ICly.. right? right?

Azefel

I'm assuming everyone having shard walls and magick not having shard disrupt isn't a secret :S

Juran

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aluq4txuIMhEdGxNSnRvbFROdDZ3cnI5NlhwTkN2REE

On second thought this is a much better thread to post a spreadsheet on shard research.

Juran

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aluq4txuIMhEdGxNSnRvbFROdDZ3cnI5NlhwTkN2REE#gid=0

Newly updated with information on the details of every available shard skill! Highlight over the name and read the note to discover what's there. The people that matter should already know this information - so I'm basically just helping out everyone else.

If your city still has a bad or non-existent shard research chelp file, feel free to use this information to fix it.

Kalon

So... now that you've got all the powers, what are you supposed to do with shards? I suppose there's still the tiny drain from using shard-powered skills, but honestly harvesting at one shardfall should give you enough to do that for days if not weeks. When the system came out, I thought it was billed as having enough powers to last for years and years...

Selthis

Kalon said:

So... now that you've got all the powers, what are you supposed to do with shards? I suppose there's still the tiny drain from using shard-powered skills, but honestly harvesting at one shardfall should give you enough to do that for days if not weeks. When the system came out, I thought it was billed as having enough powers to last for years and years...

It has lasted a bit over a year I believe.  And honestly, in that year one faction has been largely dominant.  Its just not something you can plan around beyond adding more stuff to it.  But adding more stuff to it has to be done carefully or it gets dumb or overpowered.

Tying it to obelisks with no natural way to change up ownership of obelisks semi randomly on occasion just accelerates that problem because then the stuff that prevents the dominant faction from researching everything as fast as possible is removed. 

Its a flawed system with no easy answer, but I'm hoping after  they do the summoner/mage revamps are live  they'll take a look at obelisks and  shards and put some touches on those while they prepare to do classleads a month or two later so any sort balance issues can be resolved with the class revamps.  It seems like a logical progression.  Time will tell though!

Edit: Just notice I originally typed prefer rather than prepare.  Who knows.

Garryn

Kalon said:

I suppose there's still the tiny drain from using shard-powered skills

The intent has been to provide enough shard-using skills to make the system self-sustained, even without more skill unlocking. If this is not the case then we may need to look into alterations, once the other two circles are mostly done with skill unlocking as well.

Khizan

That will be on approximately the fifth of never, thanks to the retarded requirement to control 5 of 6 obelisks to learn Obelisk attunement 5.

Juran

Kalon said:

So... now that you've got all the powers, what are you supposed to do with shards? I suppose there's still the tiny drain from using shard-powered skills, but honestly harvesting at one shardfall should give you enough to do that for days if not weeks. When the system came out, I thought it was billed as having enough powers to last for years and years...

I don't expect to ever have a problem spending shards, I can get into a lot of trouble with excess red shards.