It also speaks to the uselessness of the objective.
So can we focus on making that objective less useless now, please?
I'm pretty sure if the objective was what I proposed, for example, AM and Demonic wouldn't let magick walk away with ALL THE SHARDS.
The argument seems to be "it's not worth the trouble to participate in a shardfall, and they end up dying out". I'd actually somewhat agree with that, but I don't think removing incentives is going to be in aid of that goal. If achievement hunters are that put off by the conflict, I'd suggest a more positive way to incentivize them would be to increase the reward for doing so. Other than that, I think either or both of the boon or quest experience bonus would be something that would at least make me more enthusiastic about participation in them, speaking only for myself.
The scenario I care about most is where say, AM an demonic are squaring off and one or two people are clearing the shards while they fight. Realistically, we're not going to call temporary truce and go kill them either... although it would be great if we did. And then everyone goes home far too soon I'd like less of that. It usually is the hard core collectors, too.
If people are fighting to the detriment of completing their objective, I would say that is not a problem with the design of the event, but rather, with the short-sightedness of the combatants involved.
Maybe, but they just don't. And you might consider them shortsighted but they're usually the best leaders in the game - by a lot, so we're probably stuck with them. Whatever the reason, that's how it often plays out in practice (pretty much always even). I think it's partly because you'd have to keep calling timeouts every time the one or two harvesters came back... partly because it's rather difficult to coordinate when you were literally seconds from going to try to smash the other team, and so on. So one or two random collectors might still walk off with more shards than you'd think. I mean, you turn around from a good skirmish or two and they're gone... which, as I'd said before, people -could- stick around for a bit, but they rarely do once shards are cleared. All of that said, I was serious when I said that Shou's idea is amazing and I love it.
Maybe, but they just don't. And you might consider them shortsighted but they're usually the best leaders in the game - by a lot, so we're probably stuck with them. Whatever the reason, that's how it often plays out in practice. I think it's partly because you'd have to keep calling timeouts every time the one or two harvesters came back... partly because it's rather difficult to coordinate when you were literally seconds from going to try to smash the other team, and so on. So one or two random collectors might still walk off with more shards than you'd think. I mean, you turn around from a good skirmish or two and they're gone... which, as I'd said before, people -could- stick around for a bit, but they rarely do once shards are cleared. All of that said, I was serious when I said that Shou's idea is amazing and I love it.
So suggest a fix. You keep coming back to the same argument without at all actually addressing the problem you are raising. What's to stop people from losing focus in Shou's suggestion? Absolutely nothing, I'd say. In fact, if anything, I'd think people would be more likely to lose track, because what you (well, Shou) are suggesting is more complicated than the original. Every task you add to an objective increases the chances that someone is going to lose the thread of it.
[edit]: This conversation is going in circles and just frustrating the people involved. I'm bowing out before it turns more heated, I think.
Also, the forum absolutely massacres HTML sometimes, donnit?
Let's see here. I'm going to attempt to make this thread more productive, as the issue raised is quite valid.
The original idea, a few years ago, was that by the time all the research trees are completed, there would be enough shard usage to make them not pile up much, and that the continuous need for shards would continue to drive the conflict (the very first design also included the ability to attack other circles' research as a part of Shard Warfare, but we ended up scrapping that). Unfortunately this didn't quite play out like that, and we have a surplus of shards.
As such, we have the following options:
* add (and keep adding) more shard trees - the problem here is that this leads to feature creep, which we'd rather avoid. There's still room for a couple more, but not enough to address the issue.
* increase shard costs on the more frequently used skills
* introduce a maintenance cost for the various shard skills (paid in shards, obviously, plus maybe some gold)
* a combination of the above
I'm leaning towards the maintenance cost myself, though I realize that the option may not be particularly popular.
And no, we are not removing shard-related achievements. I'd actually like to have more of those (not sure what they would be).
Let's see here. I'm going to attempt to make this thread more productive, as the issue raised is quite valid.
The original idea, a few years ago, was that by the time all the research trees are completed, there would be enough shard usage to make them not pile up much, and that the continuous need for shards would continue to drive the conflict (the very first design also included the ability to attack other circles' research as a part of Shard Warfare, but we ended up scrapping that). Unfortunately this didn't quite play out like that, and we have a surplus of shards.
As such, we have the following options:
* add (and keep adding) more shard trees - the problem here is that this leads to feature creep, which we'd rather avoid. There's still room for a couple more, but not enough to address the issue.
* increase shard costs on the more frequently used skills
* introduce a maintenance cost for the various shard skills (paid in shards, obviously, plus maybe some gold)
* a combination of the above
I'm leaning towards the maintenance cost myself, though I realize that the option may not be particularly popular.
I'm fine with adding some quest experience to harvesting, but I don't think that it alone is going to achieve much.
And no, we are not removing shard-related achievements. I'd actually like to have more of those (not sure what they would be).
Let's see here. I'm going to attempt to make this thread more productive, as the issue raised is quite valid.
The original idea, a few years ago, was that by the time all the research trees are completed, there would be enough shard usage to make them not pile up much, and that the continuous need for shards would continue to drive the conflict (the very first design also included the ability to attack other circles' research as a part of Shard Warfare, but we ended up scrapping that). Unfortunately this didn't quite play out like that, and we have a surplus of shards.
As such, we have the following options:
* add (and keep adding) more shard trees - the problem here is that this leads to feature creep, which we'd rather avoid. There's still room for a couple more, but not enough to address the issue.
* increase shard costs on the more frequently used skills
* introduce a maintenance cost for the various shard skills (paid in shards, obviously, plus maybe some gold)
* a combination of the above
I'm leaning towards the maintenance cost myself, though I realize that the option may not be particularly popular.
And no, we are not removing shard-related achievements. I'd actually like to have more of those (not sure what they would be).
An idea for a combination of the above might be introducing maintenance costs, while at the same time also putting forward shard skillsets that enable those interested to better find shardfalls, know how much they need from the shardfall to maintain skills, and perhaps some shardfall specific combat abilities that could give those combats their own unique appeal. It's almost 6am in the morning and I still haven't slept, so my sleep-deprived brain is a bit addled as to what specifically that could be, but if you give people ways to fight that are in some way unique to shardfalls, that alone would be an appeal, I should think, as long as those abilities didn't break things or make it overly griefy.
[edit]: To clarify on 'finding shardfalls' .. something that would tell players where the current fights are would allow PVPers to easily get stuck in ... and tell enterprising achievement hunters where to avoid. That would give both "camp" an appreciable use for it. Determining where there is current combat might be the more difficult thing, from the programming end. Perhaps "if there's a recent shardfall, and someone has used targetted combat skills in this area"?
Critical skills should have keep low costs - shard vision, shard wall, shard disrupt, amongst others, should continue to have low costs.
Peripheral skills should have a higher upkeep cost; I posted two years ago the concept of requiring a limited set of artifact powers that would require low cost shard costs to activate, maintain or enhance. Simple things that have limited combat or PvE advantages are ripe for intervention - the Prism Pouch, the flower pot are easy things that spring to mind.
Introducing maintainence costs now for circles is going to hurt goodwill a little; I suggest adding minimal enhancements to some of the shard powers that require circle-wide shard donations to keep running - examples, shard clot upgrade that reduces the cooldown of the ability by 20%, costing the circle 1,000 shards per IG year; likewise with shard heal, shard attune, etc.
Please do not add more shard trees; if you do, make it mutually exclusive choices in a similar fashion to Aspect choice, and having the cost of switching being the shard cost component.
With regards to shardfalls, I would just say to @Jules to consider people who turn up for shardfalls only to harvest as bonus kills. Yes, it sucks that a lot of players assume unilateral risk; it sucks that a lot of players do not realise how frustrating this experience is - it is akin to roleplaying with people who roleplay back only when they are allowed to dictate the direction of roleplay. I suggest just accepting this and keep moving on - it isn't worth convincing these people that they're creating a harmful environment for other players (omg pk, stay away!). Just accept it, move on.
Well, if they did introduce more skills, that's also where the costs could be. "Here's some skills that are pretty neat and appreciably better, but you're going to pay for them."
One of things I was thinking about was augmenting commonly used skills with a shard cost.
A starburst tattoo (as an example). Many people use it - introducing a 1-2 shard cost for it along with inks maybe enough reason for people to start caring. It need not be introduced for starter tattoos - but for high level tattoos - it maybe a good way to continue utilizing shards.
Entering the Underworld could be another area where there could be a shard cost associated (unless you have the artifact) - either pay per visit or upkeep per month.
We could also reduce the number of shards in every shardfall (or have them only during peak times) - as opposed to every hour
One of things I was thinking about was augmenting commonly used skills with a shard cost.
A starburst tattoo (as an example). Many people use it - introducing a 1-2 shard cost for it along with inks maybe enough reason for people to start caring. It need not be introduced for starter tattoos - but for high level tattoos - it maybe a good way to continue utilizing shards.
I imagine this going over about as well as the Hindenberg. Doing that kind of thing is, to me, basically holding common skills hostage for participation in shardfall (or, I suspect, more like, having a buddy who participates.)
If there are to be costs, I'm not against that, but make it for new stuff that's interesting enough to warrant it. Disrupting existing mechanics with them seems ill-advised to me.
One of things I was thinking about was augmenting commonly used skills with a shard cost.
A starburst tattoo (as an example). Many people use it - introducing a 1-2 shard cost for it along with inks maybe enough reason for people to start caring. It need not be introduced for starter tattoos - but for high level tattoos - it maybe a good way to continue utilizing shards.
I imagine this going over about as well as the Hindenberg. Doing that kind of thing is, to me, basically holding common skills hostage for participation in shardfall (or, I suspect, more like, having a buddy who participates.)
If there are to be costs, I'm not against that, but make it for new stuff that's interesting enough to warrant it. Disrupting existing mechanics with them seems ill-advised to me.
I realize where you are coming from. But a 1 shard cost for inking a starburst (which not everyone uses, by the way) could do several things:
1) People go to shardfalls themselves
2) People ask others to harvest and buy shards in shops
3) Stop using starburst for lack of shards (improbable)
See, several of these actually feel truly harsh and punitive to me. I think that it is really, really important that any "incentives" not end up effectively telling the side that might be losing more often that they should prepare to enjoy losing even harder - even beyond shard falls. Making shards scarce enough that it "hurts" and trying to essentially browbeat people into going to more shardfalls seems almost downright mean, and will make things a lot harder for anyone getting their feet wet in combat, and harder for the side that loses more period. It will tip the scales further in favour of whoever is the biggest, baddest org at the moment, and help them entrench that position. Requiring shards to use established "basic" skills feels fairly brutal to me, and making new trees (which also require more individual shard usage) does as well, as does upping cost to the shard cost for skills further. I think it is a -bad- thing to potentially put the orgs and people who are generally on the losing side of things in a place where they are going "hrm, can I really afford to use shard clot?" for example, and I absolutely do not want that to happen. Iniar's suggestions seem much milder and encourage orgs to get out there together - and, they probably don't have to win them all there, they just need to at least get out there and try.
I'm actually very against raising shard ability costs, and here is why:
You can raise the shard costs all you want. The power gamers are always going to have enough shards, and it just makes them less accessible to casual players. I didn't even notice the increased costs on most of the abilities that went up, but I'd be surprised if there are more than four-five people that now use wallsight, for instance.
Basically, there is no org wide incentive to participate. Raising the costs will incentivise individuals to participate, but these people are the ones already going to shardfalls. Personally, I'm very much in favour of shard upkeep costs. This feels like a longterm sustainable option to me.
Kind of tongue-in-cheek, but add in an achievement for shard usage. All those extra shards will be gone in a flash.
But in reality, I agree with Septus. After I quit, I logged back in to give Khizan my spare shards, which was around 3-5k blues and 300 reds. I hadn't gone to a shardfall in ages. If there is going to be an increase in cost, make it on the city side of things, not the player. I could survive using 30 blues every time I use shard (skillname), but someone who struggles at shardfalls won't be able to.
Kind of tongue-in-cheek, but add in an achievement for shard usage. All those extra shards will be gone in a flash.
But in reality, I agree with Septus. After I quit, I logged back in to give Khizan my spare shards, which was around 3-5k blues and 300 reds. I hadn't gone to a shardfall in ages. If there is going to be an increase in cost, make it on the city side of things, not the player. I could survive using 30 blues every time I use shard (skillname), but someone who struggles at shardfalls won't be able to.
Not to be too much of a Shou fangirl here, but the achievement idea is -brilliant- and really would help.
One of the big problems with future shard content is just how goddamn huge the shard stockpiles are. I mean, between the two of us alone, Ultrix and I have something like 15k shards. If a skillset like beacons came out right now, we could fund up to L4 just between the pair of us without harvesting a single shard or relying on shards already in the generator. Just the two of us.
The big mistake was in letting shard amounts build up so high, because there's no reasonable level of shard costs that can account for the stockpiles without being unsustainable once the stockpiles are gone. This means that the answer is ultimately going to involve reducing the ability to stockpile shards.
So one thing I'm pondering is giving generators a maximum shard capacity(10k 5k?) and making shards decay when outside of a rift or a generator. Maybe even reducing the capacity of personal rifts so that people can't build up such huge personal stockpiles? I mean, the small vorpal shard gives me 3k shards in my rift, which means I'm carrying around something like 30-40 shardfalls worth of shards all on my own, with another 2k and change in my pack(because they don't decay and don't drop).
Don't increase costs-per-ability, decrease the amount of shards we can store. This will have many positive effects. Existing players are likely to spread their shard stocks around the have-nots, since they'd be losing them anyways. When I can only carry around 300 shards, a shardfall is now a significant fraction of what I can carry and a fight could use up a significant percentage of my personal shards, which makes restocking more valuable and thusly improves the value of a shardfall.
Most of the problems are caused by "We have so many shards that costs have become meaningless". The best answer to this is just reduce the storability of shards.
"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 agree that stockpiles are a significant problem when it comes to that. Maybe make how many you can carry a function of a percentage of rift capacity so that the vorpal things are still some value, but aren't going to break things as badly? It would be my first inclination anyways.
I actually assumed that shard decay was a thing, but if it isn't when they're "in the wild", I'd agree it should be, with the caveat that I'd let unharvested shards sit around, I think.
I'm in probably a small minority here, but the only thing I want solved by this shardfall business is 'where is this volcano?' and 'why can't they just fall from the sky like the old moon shard event did?'
Hi, semi-old casual player here and I hope I'm not late to this thread. What if the shards could be collected towards some kind of annual org-based competition with a choice of rewards at the end. I say annual as just a basis, since its just a theory. But I imagine it like this: Org A and B have an eff-ton of shards, but Org B and C are better at PvP but Org A and D are more organized and strategic. Think of it like a chess game, I guess, and in order to have all your pieces you need shards towards it. So your orgs get shards and once this triggered event comes around, orgs have the option to participate in some badass and impressive event, and the winning org's leaders gets a choice between rewards for their city (ie badass key to a super elite bashing place, or access to an awesome weapon/toy of some kind, or some kind of RP relic thing granting some defense of some sort) . This would stimulate a new need for shards as well as let them remain as they are now, while also stimulating org roleplay and what not. Just an idea, it would be nice to see people moving around and doing some immersive roleplay and taking PvP seriously. (then again I live in Celidon, probably missing something over my long time away)
You can probably knock two birds with one stone if you introduce shard skills which help locate, take down and increase the rewards for caravans. Does anyone do them anymore at all?
I would like to see more group oriented things like this, such as:
1. City/Circle with most shards by the end of the Imperian year gives everyone in said city/circle 1-5 credits (or another type of small prize, like gladiator betting tickets) to anyone who put in 100+ shards for the generator for the year in the winning city/circle.
2. Create a place specifically for shard winners/champions/whatever combat incentive thing you have that has cool things you can win and do (kinda like how you have yeti pelts to get low level artis such as white goggles.)
3. Mainly would like to see more reasons for people to get involved into fighting in Imperian again. The fighters you have generally stay in small groups and fight each other occasionally (mainly for testing or practice). Shardfalls were a great place for new people who wanted to try fighting without much investment or feeling pressured to know a lot about coding.
Comments
The argument seems to be "it's not worth the trouble to participate in a shardfall, and they end up dying out". I'd actually somewhat agree with that, but I don't think removing incentives is going to be in aid of that goal. If achievement hunters are that put off by the conflict, I'd suggest a more positive way to incentivize them would be to increase the reward for doing so. Other than that, I think either or both of the boon or quest experience bonus would be something that would at least make me more enthusiastic about participation in them, speaking only for myself.
Maybe, but they just don't. And you might consider them shortsighted but they're usually the best leaders in the game - by a lot, so we're probably stuck with them. Whatever the reason, that's how it often plays out in practice (pretty much always even). I think it's partly because you'd have to keep calling timeouts every time the one or two harvesters came back... partly because it's rather difficult to coordinate when you were literally seconds from going to try to smash the other team, and so on. So one or two random collectors might still walk off with more shards than you'd think. I mean, you turn around from a good skirmish or two and they're gone... which, as I'd said before, people -could- stick around for a bit, but they rarely do once shards are cleared. All of that said, I was serious when I said that Shou's idea is amazing and I love it.
The original idea, a few years ago, was that by the time all the research trees are completed, there would be enough shard usage to make them not pile up much, and that the continuous need for shards would continue to drive the conflict (the very first design also included the ability to attack other circles' research as a part of Shard Warfare, but we ended up scrapping that). Unfortunately this didn't quite play out like that, and we have a surplus of shards.
As such, we have the following options:
* add (and keep adding) more shard trees - the problem here is that this leads to feature creep, which we'd rather avoid. There's still room for a couple more, but not enough to address the issue.
* increase shard costs on the more frequently used skills
* introduce a maintenance cost for the various shard skills (paid in shards, obviously, plus maybe some gold)
* a combination of the above
I'm leaning towards the maintenance cost myself, though I realize that the option may not be particularly popular.
And no, we are not removing shard-related achievements. I'd actually like to have more of those (not sure what they would be).
(Ring): Lartus says, "Then it exploded."
(Ring): Zsetsu says, "Everyone's playing checkers, but Theophilus is playing chess."
I'm actually very against raising shard ability costs, and here is why:
You can raise the shard costs all you want. The power gamers are always going to have enough shards, and it just makes them less accessible to casual players. I didn't even notice the increased costs on most of the abilities that went up, but I'd be surprised if there are more than four-five people that now use wallsight, for instance.
Basically, there is no org wide incentive to participate. Raising the costs will incentivise individuals to participate, but these people are the ones already going to shardfalls. Personally, I'm very much in favour of shard upkeep costs. This feels like a longterm sustainable option to me.
But in reality, I agree with Septus. After I quit, I logged back in to give Khizan my spare shards, which was around 3-5k blues and 300 reds. I hadn't gone to a shardfall in ages. If there is going to be an increase in cost, make it on the city side of things, not the player. I could survive using 30 blues every time I use shard (skillname), but someone who struggles at shardfalls won't be able to.
One of the big problems with future shard content is just how goddamn huge the shard stockpiles are. I mean, between the two of us alone, Ultrix and I have something like 15k shards. If a skillset like beacons came out right now, we could fund up to L4 just between the pair of us without harvesting a single shard or relying on shards already in the generator. Just the two of us.
The big mistake was in letting shard amounts build up so high, because there's no reasonable level of shard costs that can account for the stockpiles without being unsustainable once the stockpiles are gone. This means that the answer is ultimately going to involve reducing the ability to stockpile shards.
So one thing I'm pondering is giving generators a maximum shard capacity(10k 5k?) and making shards decay when outside of a rift or a generator. Maybe even reducing the capacity of personal rifts so that people can't build up such huge personal stockpiles? I mean, the small vorpal shard gives me 3k shards in my rift, which means I'm carrying around something like 30-40 shardfalls worth of shards all on my own, with another 2k and change in my pack(because they don't decay and don't drop).
Don't increase costs-per-ability, decrease the amount of shards we can store. This will have many positive effects. Existing players are likely to spread their shard stocks around the have-nots, since they'd be losing them anyways. When I can only carry around 300 shards, a shardfall is now a significant fraction of what I can carry and a fight could use up a significant percentage of my personal shards, which makes restocking more valuable and thusly improves the value of a shardfall.
Most of the problems are caused by "We have so many shards that costs have become meaningless". The best answer to this is just reduce the storability of shards.
"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."