The Shadow Wars

Jonners

War is virtually invisible to the majority of us non-combatants. Even with deathsight up it can be difficult to determine whether the battle is in Targossas, Eleusis, or wherever. I propose there be some sort of world emote added to note when a room (or several) is destroyed in a city perhaps with accolades being noted appropriately.

Vayne

I think that is a good idea...something like:

"A victorious cheer erupts from Mhaldor, its forces sucessfully repelling a sanctioned raid by Targossas."

"A violent explosion shakes the firmament, clouds of smoke rising from Mhaldor."

Sylvance

Jonners said:

War is virtually invisible to the majority of us non-combatants. Even with deathsight up it can be difficult to determine whether the battle is in Targossas, Eleusis, or wherever. I propose there be some sort of world emote added to note when a room (or several) is destroyed in a city perhaps with accolades being noted appropriately.

I love it and hate it at the same time. I guess if we go with the stock "It's telepathy" it's nothing anymore jarring than the names thing.

If implemented, would like to see this quite generic, such as "The City of Ashtan has suffered a serious loss at the hands of the Hashani Legion", rather than naming rooms.

Also, perhaps if this were set up as a defense, a la deathsight, it would be a good use for one of the currently useless herbs.

ETA: Damned ninja

Echald

It would probably be less jarring than those elaborate deathsights involving tritons and such.

Sarapis

Jonners said:

War is virtually invisible to the majority of us non-combatants. Even with deathsight up it can be difficult to determine whether the battle is in Targossas, Eleusis, or wherever. I propose there be some sort of world emote added to note when a room (or several) is destroyed in a city perhaps with accolades being noted appropriately.

Yeah, this is a problem I've been thinking about lately too. That's a step in the right direction for sure.

What ideal would be some way of quantifying a particular war, along with a victor. The victory may not 'mean' anything long-term, but there'd be records kept at least. For instance, "In the Ashtan-Hashan war of 712-715 AF, Hashan triumphed, forcing Ashtan to pay 7 million gold in reparations." (or whatever)

Easier said than done, however.

Wysteria

Maybe after three rooms get destroyed, it sets off a trigger with Thalos in Delos randomly shouting it out like he would a Foozle game? Or something to that accord? He able to keep track of everyone's movements Sapience wide, it's not like his seer powers would take a break during the downtimes in that respect.

and yes I know he's a player denizen but still

Santar

1. It's Tharos.

2. Tharos handles events, games, entertainment type things. He has no place shouting out about a war or battle taking place.

Ruth

I would prefer this idea to be tied in with war rework, if and when it happens. Would be nice if sanctioned raids were globally broadcast instead of just the city.

Blujixapug

A global emote when a room is destroyed could be cool. "Black smoke clouds the horizon as Eleusis is sacked and pillaged by the army of Cyrene." My one possible issue with that is that seeing a chain of that message 5 times in a row would cheapen it, because repetition = boring, so maybe there could be a pool of messages from which a random one is drawn each time.

On the war system, which probably deserves its own thread...

Literally any form of win condition would be better than the current system, where the lack of one means the best way to pursue victory is to grief the other team so hard that eventually either 1. they beg their leader to surrender, 2. they replace their leader with one who'll surrender, or 3. their leader surrenders to stem the flow of citizens quitting the city/game.

I would like to see it remain fluid in terms of win conditions, with many different types to pick from, rather than one-war-fits-all. My ideal system would have a setup where before declaring war, city leaders approach their patron and the other city leader OOC, and arrange a different, relevant win condition for each war. Or for a couple of major battles within each war. That way you can have wars be about a specific issue, and have the gameplay reflect that, rather than an Events post afterwards that makes stuff up.

Some examples:

- Ashtan and Mhaldor go to war over who controls the Sapphire Sea. One battle is a full on navy vs navy fight to the death, prearranged to take place at X time when lots of people will be logged on.

- Targ goes to war with Hashan to try and eradicate Darkness. One battle is army vs army in the entire area of Adryn's Keep, with each side trying to hold a specific room for 45 minutes to unlock and claim/destroy a token relic.

Nemutaur

Daeir said:

 If you see any ashuran monk/nemutaur choking someone to death, Ashtan is winning.

Oi! I am Ashuran!

Sarapis

Blujixapug said:

A global emote when a room is destroyed could be cool. "Black smoke clouds the horizon as Eleusis is sacked and pillaged by the army of Cyrene." My one possible issue with that is that seeing a chain of that message 5 times in a row would cheapen it, because repetition = boring, so maybe there could be a pool of messages from which a random one is drawn each time.

On the war system, which probably deserves its own thread...

Literally any form of win condition would be better than the current system, where the lack of one means the best way to pursue victory is to grief the other team so hard that eventually either 1. they beg their leader to surrender, 2. they replace their leader with one who'll surrender, or 3. their leader surrenders to stem the flow of citizens quitting the city/game.

I would like to see it remain fluid in terms of win conditions, with many different types to pick from, rather than one-war-fits-all. My ideal system would have a setup where before declaring war, city leaders approach their patron and the other city leader OOC, and arrange a different, relevant win condition for each war. Or for a couple of major battles within each war. That way you can have wars be about a specific issue, and have the gameplay reflect that, rather than an Events post afterwards that makes stuff up.

Some examples:

- Ashtan and Mhaldor go to war over who controls the Sapphire Sea. One battle is a full on navy vs navy fight to the death, prearranged to take place at X time when lots of people will be logged on.

- Targ goes to war with Hashan to try and eradicate Darkness. One battle is army vs army in the entire area of Adryn's Keep, with each side trying to hold a specific room for 45 minutes to unlock and claim/destroy a token relic.

That's unworkable as a game system. If city leaders wanted to do this now, they could, but they don't, and they won't generally.

Synbios

Nemutaur said:

Daeir said:

 If you see any ashuran monk/nemutaur choking someone to death, Ashtan is winning.

Oi! I am Ashuran!

They probably think you're playtesting a new class. Remember the early days of blademasters?

Wysteria

Santar said:

1. It's Tharos.

2. Tharos handles events, games, entertainment type things. He has no place shouting out about a war or battle taking place.

Ah that's the name, thanks. I've only ever been present for maybe I think 3 world games so never really caught the name.

Jonners

Blujixapug said:

A global emote when a room is destroyed could be cool. "Black smoke clouds the horizon as Eleusis is sacked and pillaged by the army of Cyrene." My one possible issue with that is that seeing a chain of that message 5 times in a row would cheapen it, because repetition = boring, so maybe there could be a pool of messages from which a random one is drawn each time.

That's why I added the '(or several) [rooms]' in brackets. Wouldn't want it to be spammy, just informative. I could see this energising people to actually try to help out with their city defence too. At least, that's the hope.

Jurixe

Sarapis said:

Blujixapug said:

A global emote when a room is destroyed could be cool. "Black smoke clouds the horizon as Eleusis is sacked and pillaged by the army of Cyrene." My one possible issue with that is that seeing a chain of that message 5 times in a row would cheapen it, because repetition = boring, so maybe there could be a pool of messages from which a random one is drawn each time.

On the war system, which probably deserves its own thread...

Literally any form of win condition would be better than the current system, where the lack of one means the best way to pursue victory is to grief the other team so hard that eventually either 1. they beg their leader to surrender, 2. they replace their leader with one who'll surrender, or 3. their leader surrenders to stem the flow of citizens quitting the city/game.

I would like to see it remain fluid in terms of win conditions, with many different types to pick from, rather than one-war-fits-all. My ideal system would have a setup where before declaring war, city leaders approach their patron and the other city leader OOC, and arrange a different, relevant win condition for each war. Or for a couple of major battles within each war. That way you can have wars be about a specific issue, and have the gameplay reflect that, rather than an Events post afterwards that makes stuff up.

Some examples:

- Ashtan and Mhaldor go to war over who controls the Sapphire Sea. One battle is a full on navy vs navy fight to the death, prearranged to take place at X time when lots of people will be logged on.

- Targ goes to war with Hashan to try and eradicate Darkness. One battle is army vs army in the entire area of Adryn's Keep, with each side trying to hold a specific room for 45 minutes to unlock and claim/destroy a token relic.

That's unworkable as a game system. If city leaders wanted to do this now, they could, but they don't, and they won't generally.

Typing on my phone so I hope this turns out right.

I think this could be workable if the admin pushed it, similar to how events are run - and after all, isn't an inter-city war an event of its own, really? History has generally shown that when left to their own devices, player-led wars have tended to be imbalanced and typically tend to involve a win-at-all-costs method to basically 'grief' the other city into surrender, or until the winning party gets bored and goes 'k we're done with this', which is completely arbitrary.

Can players do this on their own? Yes, and in an ideal world, perhaps they should/would; however they don't for a number of reasons, including and not limited to a dislike of the opposing players, unwillingness to play on terms not favourable to themselves, distrust of the opposing side's capacity to adhere to any agreements and more. Even within their own factions, opinions can be vastly divided on how a war should be waged (see: rants) and to a certain extent, leaders have to take this into account to ensure that people aren't getting too burnt out by the war.

I don't know about the Hashan side, but I can personally say that the Hashan-Mhaldor war seems to be a lot more fun for most people on our side because of the Divine-led involvement. There is a tangible, achievable goal for both sides (at least in theory), everyone can contribute in more ways than just shrine defilements and fighting, and it is actively pushed by the patrons of both cities for further incentive. The Targossan war, largely, lacks this; it's primarily back and forth ganking and defiling, which is much less overall inclusive and seems largely to be a game of patience.

TL;Dr: I think the main problems with the current war system, beyond the actual raid part which is being talked about in another thread, lie also in that the majority of wars lack a tangible objective beyond 'grief them into submission' and is one reason why many of them tend to be prolonged long past their capacity for fun and why they slowly devolve into tactics that aren't fun for anyone - because neither side wants to admit defeat until they absolutely have no choice.

It might be sad to say, but I think a more interesting system as proposed by Blujixapug would stand a far better chance if led and defined from the start by the admin instead of leaving it to the players - however, the actual -winning- of these wars would still depend entirely on the players, so it retains that fun sense of being able to shape history without the tedium of the current wars as they are.

So I'm not completely off-topic: The idea is nice, but it would probably be better to address the problems with sanctioned raids and the war system first before worrying about how they look outside.

Sabiru

Agree.

Shala-khulia got me back into the game after 12 months or more of not logging in for longer than a few minutes. It was a terrible event for other reasons (largely the post-event handling of it, but I understand things got hectic with the sudden realisation that whoa, they weren't kidding - groves and forest defs are ridiculous), but it felt meaningful. This war system cheapens everything it touches, and it should be fixed and not extended in its current direction.

Kaevan

Sabiru said:

Agree.

Shala-khulia got me back into the game after 12 months or more of not logging in for longer than a few minutes. It was a terrible event for other reasons (largely the post-event handling of it, but I understand things got hectic with the sudden realisation that whoa, they weren't kidding - groves and forest defs are ridiculous), but it felt meaningful. This war system cheapens everything it touches, and it should be fixed and not extended in its current direction.

That's actually the first IG conflict that came to mind after I read Jurixe's post, too. 

Blujixapug

Sabiru said:

Agree.

Shala-khulia got me back into the game after 12 months or more of not logging in for longer than a few minutes. It was a terrible event for other reasons (largely the post-event handling of it, but I understand things got hectic with the sudden realisation that whoa, they weren't kidding - groves and forest defs are ridiculous), but it felt meaningful. This war system cheapens everything it touches, and it should be fixed and not extended in its current direction.

Xhaiden Dale is one of my favourite memories of playing this game.

The Occultists and the Church were simultaneously informed that there was a vault hidden inside an ancient statue in Xhaiden Dale, which held a Babelite Chaos relic (an athame or a chalice or both, I forget). So the Church rallied Shallam, and the Occultists rallied Ashtan, and both sides were fighting this huge area-wide battle to try and hold one particular room in the middle of Xhaiden Dale for long enough for someone to figure out a puzzle controlling the vault's locking mechanism. It went back and forth a couple of times with each side routing the other to hold the room. It was very intense and fun.

The story made it memorable. The win condition (open vault = win = battle over) kept it brief, I think it went for about an hour after the fighting started. The lack of advanced warning meant that while it was an area battle, there was no entrenchment before combat started.

Jurixe

One thing I neglected to add and that has been said above, but is worth echoing: a battle without a story is nothing. People don't care/remember, fifty years from now, how many noncoms were ganked or how many shrines were destroyed or how many totems were implanted. (except when people need facts to justify some other conflict.)

In the long term, what wars will he remembered for is what they -accomplished-. The battle on Nishnatoba during Bal'met would have been completely miserable if not for the sense that we were doing this for a reason, to accomplish a grand objective and to save the day. The war system right now, just alone, is kind of like the fighting part without the epic story to make it worth it.

Sherazad

I agree, man cannot live on tears alone.

Echald

Deucalion once gave a TF to everyone that was in the room being destroyed. This epic narrative element will be remembered for generations to come and probably slipped through the cracks to be made into an events post.

A system as suggested in this thread might be interesting, but I don't think it would help much with the Hashan-Mhaldor war as I don't believe Hashan managed to use up a tank yet and are busy sharpening up that raiding powah. The part about Ourania and the fog-sucking meteors was interesting, and it would likely be better if the Mhaldor-Targossas conflicts had that kind of Divine interaction, but I think the Good Gods will be busy building up Targ for quite a while yet.

But, yeah, at least a worldwide message when a room explodes would give a better sense of grandeur to the whole thing, it is the big point of being a city soldier under the current system.

Sarapis

Blujixapug said:

Sabiru said:

Agree.

Shala-khulia got me back into the game after 12 months or more of not logging in for longer than a few minutes. It was a terrible event for other reasons (largely the post-event handling of it, but I understand things got hectic with the sudden realisation that whoa, they weren't kidding - groves and forest defs are ridiculous), but it felt meaningful. This war system cheapens everything it touches, and it should be fixed and not extended in its current direction.

Xhaiden Dale is one of my favourite memories of playing this game.

The Occultists and the Church were simultaneously informed that there was a vault hidden inside an ancient statue in Xhaiden Dale, which held a Babelite Chaos relic (an athame or a chalice or both, I forget). So the Church rallied Shallam, and the Occultists rallied Ashtan, and both sides were fighting this huge area-wide battle to try and hold one particular room in the middle of Xhaiden Dale for long enough for someone to figure out a puzzle controlling the vault's locking mechanism. It went back and forth a couple of times with each side routing the other to hold the room. It was very intense and fun.

The story made it memorable. The win condition (open vault = win = battle over) kept it brief, I think it went for about an hour after the fighting started. The lack of advanced warning meant that while it was an area battle, there was no entrenchment before combat started.

But that's not a war system. That's a custom one-off event, and we will never, ever be able to pull those off to a satisfactory level on a reliably repeatable basis. They can happen as and when we have the resources to make them happen, but as much as we'd like to have them available or happening constantly or in quick response to player actions, we don't have even near to the resources we need to make that a possibility. 

Those are the kinds of things we can do as events, but not that often at all.

Azor

What @Sarapis mentioned earlier would be very nice, but there'd have to be some innovative way to avoid its going the way of previous attempts to hard-code some parameters and rewards for extended mass conflict. With both the old landmark system and the House icons, parameters for winning and losing are set. There is a flurry of rather enjoyable conflict. But eventually, as with anything else with big consequence, all sides optimize their tactics, and you end up with a situation where the superior force is always (or almost always) winning, and the other almost always losing. 

With landmarks, this manifested itself as a long run where all landmarks were controlled by Good, a score of 9-0 cycle after cycle, which, along with the repetitiousness of the tasks, was the death of the system.

With Icons, almost all the Houses initially put them up, and then there was a lot of skirmishing and "wars," but over time it's become clear that Ashtan has the superior force--or at least superior enough that city leaders aren't willing to risk the gold and, more importantly, the demoralization, of mounting an Icon effort only to fail. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the status quo is that only Ashtani Houses have Icons, plus whatever other Houses Ashtan will suffer to have them. The recent Druids battle was tied to revocation of the Druids' favored status. So, it was good while it lasted, but I see only sporadic Icon battles in the near future.

I've kind of lost track of my point. Perhaps it's this: if you have a system that can result in 7 million gold paid as "reparations," you have to watch out to make sure that one group can't establish clear superiority and then repeat the procedure again and again until the enemy's coffers are entirely empty. The sanctioned raid system is successful because it piggybacks on what players were already doing, which is taking advantage of fleeting conditions of superior (or equal) defensive and offensive forces to have a battle with limited, but real consequence. The fact that defensive forces lose nothing for dying but can gain something by getting kills adds an incentive even if you're on the losing side.

Blujixapug

Sarapis said:

But that's not a war system. That's a custom one-off event, and we will never, ever be able to pull those off to a satisfactory level on a reliably repeatable basis. They can happen as and when we have the resources to make them happen, but as much as we'd like to have them available or happening constantly or in quick response to player actions, we don't have even near to the resources we need to make that a possibility. 

Those are the kinds of things we can do as events, but not that often at all.

I understand. The same things that made it fun are also the reasons why it couldn't happen on a regular basis, and couldn't be coded into a self-contained system. I was just giving an anecdote of a war-like event I enjoyed, and why I enjoyed it (story, brevity, and without the usual entrenchment of city/Icon raids).

One argument I would make is that war is extremely infrequent in Achaea. There have been maybe 3-4 wars in the last 5 years. A battle scenario is something much smaller in scope to prepare than something like the Bal'met event. Although if wars were fun, people might start declaring war much more often, so that logic would no longer apply...

Jurixe

Blujixapug manages to say what I'm thinking better than I can and is probably not typing on a phone, so just assume I agree with whatever he says.

I was going to say the same thing - in general, proper "War!"-type wars aren't frequent at all, as far as I know - we're not saying for every random raid or extermination to need a grand event.

On my side, I was talking more about the Divines of the respective cities providing more clear objectives for winning the war, and perhaps spearheading the conflict themselves - it seems to make much more sense story-wise, as well as giving it that epic feel and does a lot motivation-wise to see your God rally you to battle. It would also mean that city leaders wouldn't be able to declare war as they pleased without admin approval and clear guidelines for victory, which honestly I can only see as a good thing in this particular situation.

Vayne

I think the recent divine players(Ourania, Duecora, Sartan) have been created a good precedent for establishing more interesting, consequential, and significant conflicts. The have orchestrated little events relevant to the cities, as well as their various sub-factions, and their philosophies in the conflicts between both the refugees and Mhaldor and Hashan. It does give some legitimacy to the conflict, encouraging players to get involved just to be a part of the bigger story going on, and that's a good thing. I think it's the adventurer players, namely the leaders turn to step up and follow the gods lead!

Mazoth

Jurixe said:

Blujixapug manages to say what I'm thinking better than I can and is probably not typing on a phone, so just assume I agree with whatever he says. I was going to say the same thing - in general, proper "War!"-type wars aren't frequent at all, as far as I know - we're not saying for every random raid or extermination to need a grand event. On my side, I was talking more about the Divines of the respective cities providing more clear objectives for winning the war, and perhaps spearheading the conflict themselves - it seems to make much more sense story-wise, as well as giving it that epic feel and does a lot motivation-wise to see your God rally you to battle. It would also mean that city leaders wouldn't be able to declare war as they pleased without admin approval and clear guidelines for victory, which honestly I can only see as a good thing in this particular situation.

I think this sounds great.  I understand the Divine are busy and have many things to manage and do, but even just a setup that requires defined sets of guidelines for warring would be fantastic.  We (humans) like tangible, defined goals that are reachable and setting goals in a war system would not only help balance some griefing that exists in all pvp games, but give players a tangible point to aim toward, which would likely increase morale and ease burnout. That being opposed to what others have said the current system is, which seems to be 'attack until they give in'.

Jonners

Ok everyone, that's enough derailing for one thread. I know the war system has problems but those problems deserve their own thread. Lets keep our comments to the visibility of war and how to improve it or change it.

Sylvance

Jonners said:

Ok everyone, that's enough derailing for one thread. I know the war system has problems but those problems deserve their own thread. Lets keep our comments to the visibility of war and how to improve it or change it.

I... thought that's what folks were doing?

Jonners

Everyone is going on about how to improve the war system in general, I made this thread about a specific issue and the Bluj went and made a nice derail where he apologised for derailing, and then everyone went on about the derail rather than the OP.