I prefer the idea of cross-circle interaction, I can't say that circles really have put a stupid high restriction on me doing it. It's more how people react to it than mechanics, in my opinion at least.
I would love to see orgs consolidated, and while this event was probably the best way to do it, it didn't do it.
Celidon has long been the 'hole' of the magick circle, so they'd move to Kinsarmar.
Khandava would move to Stavenn.
I'm not sure which way Antioch/Ithaqua would swing. Antioch is the more funded, Ithaqua is probably more stable, oddly enough.
I like cross-circle interaction. I don't like when it extends to Stavenn having Noctu and monks with Cleric support and vibes in a grove with...
And as far as consolidation, the Obelisks and shards have basically consolidated them anyways. I'd like to see an over-org, I guess. The Northern Coalition, comprised of Celidon and Kinsarmar, etc, etc. Not really to make ONE ORGANIZATION, but more a channel and a light framework, to help increase socialization and increase the chance that newbies will have people to speak to and interact with.
"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."
Now that God's don't exist, I can see the current generator and hence shard/ obelisk system to allow for cross circle interactions. Essentially, orgs should be given an opportunity to merge generators at will - at some cost.
Merging more than 3-4 generators should cause it to become extremely unstable and cost all orgs a lot (this is only for balance purposes), should it explode - potentially cause swarms of demons, horde to suddenly become attracted. Also, each nation should generate somewhat unique commodities/ or shard types - such that each is required by the other for certain advancements. So, shards collected by Stavenn could generate dark energy (lack of creative names) which is required to say refine iron ore. Or it costs twice as much holy energy. You get the point ...
This would allow cross circle allies and enemies. I don't know ... just thinking aloud.
The big problem with cross-circle interaction as it stands it that most orgs have a really damn good reason to hate the other circle forever. Stavenn occupied Kinsarmar for hundreds of years, Khandava fell to demonic taint, magick makes Ithaqua explode or something, etc. etc.
The Fourth Age might open up new relations between circles, however. Antioch's primary reason to hate magick was because, basically, magick was stealing power from the Gods and so forth. But since the Gods are dead, that's kind of a moot point. Right now, with Divine essence scattered across the world (which I assume is now the basis for devotion/fayth abilities), it's basically "The power that infuses the lands around us that we draw upon for our supernatural abilities is different than your power that infuses the lands around us that you draw on for your supernatural abilities!"
My guess is that "anti-magick" will become less "radical zealots" and more an abstinence" sort of deal, like how Ithaqua does it -- willing non-usage of magick because of its perceived dangers. You'll still have the militant folks that think that everyone who uses magick should be killed, but they'll likely remain a minority.
Basically, Stavenn is probably still going to oppose everyone due to the imperialistic-take-over-the-world shtick, the nature councils are going to try and destroy/cleanse Khandava, Kinsarmar is going to look like the bad guys for a while for their whole, let's-open-the-rift-and-then-kill-the-folks-trying-to-close-it thing, Antioch's hate-boner for magick is going to soften, and Celidon and Ithaqua are gonna keep on doing their thing.
But that's just my uneducated opinion and people are probably still gonna murder each other for the hell of it.
This is what I would like to see in terms of conflict/alliances,
The main conflict revolves around circles having a serious RP problem with the others.
Introduce similar in-game goals that will allow for temporary alliances against mob or player orgs. For example, Stavenn and Kinsarmar will occasionally work together to kill a boss that sends troops at both their cities.
Introduce more minor reasons why circles dislike each other. This will allow more RP outside of - 'I hate you because you like demons'
This is what I would like to see in terms of conflict/alliances,
The main conflict revolves around circles having a serious RP problem with the others.
Introduce similar in-game goals that will allow for temporary alliances against mob or player orgs. For example, Stavenn and Kinsarmar will occasionally work together to kill a boss that sends troops at both their cities.
Introduce more minor reasons why circles dislike each other. This will allow more RP outside of - 'I hate you because you like demons'
1. The big problem about circles having an RP problem with each other is that a lot of people don't RP. If they do, it's the base amount necessary to not get shrubbed/have an excuse to PK. Now, there are some fantastic people who both PK well and RP well, but Imperian and the other IRE games have always had a lot of folks who go light on the thee's and thou's to put it that way.
Essentially, if you want RP to happen, it should be encouraged.
2. This definitely has recent precedent, like the whole Alliance and Hammer thing. There's certainly more ideas you could use to facilitate this, like Ithaqua and Celidon working together to try and cleanse/destroy Khandava, or Stavenn tries to take over Kinsarmar again and Antioch, hating Stavenn, sends troops to assist, etc.
3. This already happens on more of a personal level -- the orgs each have their own shtick that players can individually dislike. Stavenn's use of slaves, Ithaqua's cannibalism, Celidon's snuggliness, etc.
I would actually discourage one overarching reason for each circle to hate the other, and instead give each city/council a reason to hate every other city/council. I can't speak for demonic, since I haven't played much in it, but magick and AM both seem to have a good amount of inter-circle tension, so that much is fine. But what works in one city won't necessarily work in the other. They all have their own cultures and motivations, and those need to be played to.
Trying to force 2 orgs into one blanket motivation is just going to end up stifling one of them, or leading to one sitting out of the conflict because they don't care about the reason behind it. Pro-magick zealotry might motivate Kinsarmar decently well against AM, but Celidon isn't likely to give a damn unless they're directly threatened - so give Anti-magick a way to directly threaten either the flow of magick, or enemy territory directly.
AM really suffers in this department by not being able to do anything big. Magick can try to have some huge experimental spell that could end up wiping out half a city if it goes wrong (or goes right), and demonic can summon demons to wreak all kinds of havoc, but what can AM do? Ithaquan spirits haven't exactly been played up as a powerful threat, and the gods were so hamstrung that they were a non-entity in terms of actual impact on the world, so Antioch couldn't get Baar to blast a hole in the Celidon forest. The only thing I can think of giving them, at this point, is some kind of engineering class that can build a huge steampunkish mecha.
It would be kind of cool to see a city take over another city, but having more lands to control means stretching your resources thinner. Like maybe Stavenn's "take over the world" shtick could very well be feasible if they have the funds, resources, and the army. But doing that will stretch their army out, and they'd have to worry about rebels. And not just 'hurr durr we took your townes.' Literally incorporate all their citizens into Stavenn, but label them as slaves or some really low rank yet still give them the option to rebel and reclaim their home as their own. The script work on that, I would imagine, would be hell though.
This is what I would like to see in terms of conflict/alliances,
The main conflict revolves around circles having a serious RP problem with the others.
Introduce similar in-game goals that will allow for temporary alliances against mob or player orgs. For example, Stavenn and Kinsarmar will occasionally work together to kill a boss that sends troops at both their cities.
Introduce more minor reasons why circles dislike each other. This will allow more RP outside of - 'I hate you because you like demons'
And anything regarding how stifling and polarizing circles are for investments? One of the reasons people never take risks in RP, or rarely do, is because their investments are very tough to justify jeopardizing. If you made a Lesson Pool system - or even a same armor class or concept lesson sharing system, we might see some relief on that front.
<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 really like the idea @Khizan has about the over-org. The cities and councils shouldn't merge but having an all encompassing org channel would help to make the game feel bigger or more populated.
The diagram's a little funky online but basically there are 5 "Parent" lesson pools and then each parent-pool has two sub-categories. Skillsets are grouped by type into each of these sub-categories.
So let's say there's a pool called Summoning into which Devotion, Enslavery, Malignosis, Supremacy and Wyrmriding all fit. If I'm an Outrider and forget my three skillsets, I lose 20% of the lessons I dumped into each one. The lessons are all grouped into this Summoning pool. I decide to become a Hunter and I pick up Supremacy. Now I've only lost 20% of my investment in that skillset instead of 50%. If I want to pick up Bard instead, I have to shift my lessons out of that lesson pool into, say, the "Arts" pool, and that switch causes a larger lesson-loss because I'm no longer sticking to a similar skill.
So let's say there's a pool called Summoning into which Devotion, Enslavery, Malignosis, Supremacy and Wyrmriding all fit. If I'm an Outrider and forget my three skillsets, I lose 20% of the lessons I dumped into each one. The lessons are all grouped into this Summoning pool. I decide to become a Hunter and I pick up Supremacy. Now I've only lost 20% of my investment in that skillset instead of 50%. If I want to pick up Bard instead, I have to shift my lessons out of that lesson pool into, say, the "Arts" pool, and that switch causes a larger lesson-loss because I'm no longer sticking to a similar skill.
An interesting idea, but understandably it wouldn't apply here without modifications because we don't have the standardization / lazy concept coding thing that they did on Lusternia.
Lusternia is, IIRC, also a terror of a credit trap with 5000 different skills to make people learn. Learn a skill to cure paralysis, learn a skill to travel to bashing areas, etc, etc.
"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."
The point is that it is a workable model to help people recover lessons easier to class swaps - you would just lump it out so most class swaps that make sense could recover at least most of 2 of 3 skills.
<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>
If anything I'd be in favour of leaving orgs as they are and removing how strictly they're bound to circles. Being forced to work with Celidon simply because you're in the same circle can be frustrating at times.
I think this Event showed that we're not as locked into each other as much as we think just because we share a circle together. At the beginning of the Event, Celidon actually betrayed Kinsarmar by siding up with demons. At the end of it, they went with their Alliance of demoners and anti-magickers against Kinsarmar again. Which I thought was pretty cool that they RP'd outside the box and didn't force themselves to play nice with us just because of a circle. Added some spice to the game and some interesting inner-circle conflict.
With a steady hand, Aosoth batters you with an orb sigil. You say, "Ow." You say to Aosoth, "Bitch." Aosoth blinks. You exclaim, "That hurt!" Lord Aosoth, of the Thirst says to Caelya, "I bring out the best in people."
Why not just lobby to have the "forget" penalty reduced?
Well, yes, you could just argue for that too, though it would probably "cost" more in terms of lost credit sales if people only lose 170 - 220 credits instead of 400+ when switching from tri-trans.
If anything I'd be in favour of leaving orgs as they are and removing how strictly they're bound to circles. Being forced to work with Celidon simply because you're in the same circle can be frustrating at times.
I think this Event showed that we're not as locked into each other as much as we think just because we share a circle together. At the beginning of the Event, Celidon actually betrayed Kinsarmar by siding up with demons. At the end of it, they went with their Alliance of demoners and anti-magickers against Kinsarmar again. Which I thought was pretty cool that they RP'd outside the box and didn't force themselves to play nice with us just because of a circle. Added some spice to the game and some interesting inner-circle conflict.
..and then we forget that ever happened and go back to being one happy circle again.
Yeah, probably not going to be any big changes with how many lessons you get back, changing classes, etc.
It also does not have as much to do with the topic this was about. This is about the role play and dynamics between circles and how to make them more interesting.
I think the best way to do it is, basically, if you're enemied to all orgs in a circle, forgetting your profession refunds most or all of your lessons back. This'll let people who get screwed over have a chance to start anew elsewhere without being gimped but prevent circle-hopping.
The problem with changing how you switch circles comes down to things being easily gamed. In the current form, basically you only have Khizan's method of, Knight's of the Round, being able to game it. If you start opening it up to enemy statuses etc... Then there is nothing stopping me from contacting all the orgs of my circle to enemy me so I can get most of my lessons back when I switch circles, which in turn causes IRE to lose money. And that just isn't in their business plan. They seem happy with just Knights being able to bounce around nearly willy nilly. As @Jeremy already pointed out, I wouldn't look for a change in this design anytime soon. If ever.
If you start opening it up to enemy statuses etc... Then there is nothing stopping me from contacting all the orgs of my circle to enemy me so I can get most of my lessons back when I switch circles, which in turn causes IRE to lose money.
Sooo make that shrubbable. Also on the topic of knights, turn a Templar's Chivalry skill into Zealotry, like Deathknight's is Brutality.
If you start opening it up to enemy statuses etc... Then there is nothing stopping me from contacting all the orgs of my circle to enemy me so I can get most of my lessons back when I switch circles, which in turn causes IRE to lose money.
Sooo make that shrubbable. Also on the topic of knights, turn a Templar's Chivalry skill into Zealotry, like Deathknight's is Brutality.
That wouldn't matter, all knight classes are considered "close enough" to keep skills when you switch.
I am the righteous one... the claims are stated - it's the world I've created
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My only gripe is that I wouldn't mind a little more cross circle interaction and role play. It's a little too rigid for my liking.
But as Khizan said, seeing Monks and Noctu at work against me in unison reminds me why it was, ultimately, a good thing.
I like cross-circle interaction. I don't like when it extends to Stavenn having Noctu and monks with Cleric support and vibes in a grove with...
And as far as consolidation, the Obelisks and shards have basically consolidated them anyways. I'd like to see an over-org, I guess. The Northern Coalition, comprised of Celidon and Kinsarmar, etc, etc. Not really to make ONE ORGANIZATION, but more a channel and a light framework, to help increase socialization and increase the chance that newbies will have people to speak to and interact with.
"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."
Now that God's don't exist, I can see the current generator and hence shard/ obelisk system to allow for cross circle interactions. Essentially, orgs should be given an opportunity to merge generators at will - at some cost.
Merging more than 3-4 generators should cause it to become extremely unstable and cost all orgs a lot (this is only for balance purposes), should it explode - potentially cause swarms of demons, horde to suddenly become attracted. Also, each nation should generate somewhat unique commodities/ or shard types - such that each is required by the other for certain advancements. So, shards collected by Stavenn could generate dark energy (lack of creative names) which is required to say refine iron ore. Or it costs twice as much holy energy. You get the point ...
This would allow cross circle allies and enemies. I don't know ... just thinking aloud.
Trying to force 2 orgs into one blanket motivation is just going to end up stifling one of them, or leading to one sitting out of the conflict because they don't care about the reason behind it. Pro-magick zealotry might motivate Kinsarmar decently well against AM, but Celidon isn't likely to give a damn unless they're directly threatened - so give Anti-magick a way to directly threaten either the flow of magick, or enemy territory directly.
AM really suffers in this department by not being able to do anything big. Magick can try to have some huge experimental spell that could end up wiping out half a city if it goes wrong (or goes right), and demonic can summon demons to wreak all kinds of havoc, but what can AM do? Ithaquan spirits haven't exactly been played up as a powerful threat, and the gods were so hamstrung that they were a non-entity in terms of actual impact on the world, so Antioch couldn't get Baar to blast a hole in the Celidon forest. The only thing I can think of giving them, at this point, is some kind of engineering class that can build a huge steampunkish mecha.
The diagram's a little funky online but basically there are 5 "Parent" lesson pools and then each parent-pool has two sub-categories. Skillsets are grouped by type into each of these sub-categories.
So let's say there's a pool called Summoning into which Devotion, Enslavery, Malignosis, Supremacy and Wyrmriding all fit. If I'm an Outrider and forget my three skillsets, I lose 20% of the lessons I dumped into each one. The lessons are all grouped into this Summoning pool. I decide to become a Hunter and I pick up Supremacy. Now I've only lost 20% of my investment in that skillset instead of 50%. If I want to pick up Bard instead, I have to shift my lessons out of that lesson pool into, say, the "Arts" pool, and that switch causes a larger lesson-loss because I'm no longer sticking to a similar skill.
Introduce an artifact 'Second Chance' which costs ~200 credits and allows you to get a 100% lesson refund on one profession.
An interesting idea, but understandably it wouldn't apply here without modifications because we don't have the standardization / lazy concept coding thing that they did on Lusternia.
"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."
You say, "Ow."
You say to Aosoth, "Bitch."
Aosoth blinks.
You exclaim, "That hurt!"
Lord Aosoth, of the Thirst says to Caelya, "I bring out the best in people."
the claims are stated - it's the world I've created