Anake's Elbow/Jeramun

Azor

To be quite clear, I'm not in favor of just eliminating this new locus of conflict around Jeramun and the sparks. I like that there should be some objective-based combat that isn't in the cities.But I've heard some discussion on OOC clans of how to make it more dynamic and less dependent on hours and hours of camping out. 

One thing that occurred to me is putting a tunnel, or above-ground path I suppose, between Istar Jungle and the Vents of Hthrak area (or the Jeramun site specifically), similar to what already exists between Istar and Riagath. This would allow an approach to the area that isn't a wilderness exit. Some reconfiguration to make things more conducive to LoS might also be welcome.

Florentino

I've been thinking about this a bit as well. Instead of reforming the Vents of Hthrak and Jeramun, I think you should just create three or four new means of acquiring "sparks" (and they don't necessarily need to be sparks or flame-related aesthetically anymore with this revamp). Options include solving non-repeating puzzles or minor riddles (i.e. generating a new sudoku puzzle/riddle each iteration, which has to be solved within a time limit as opposed to one quest which is always the same and is easily automated with aliases/triggers once you know what to do...obviously not sudoku, but something like that) or offering enough essence/necromancy essence/gold/devotion/karma/corpses to a object/denizen that will then grant you a spark.

If someone actually wants to deny someone else the power to raid/destroy, they then have to do much more (ideally across four far-flung locales) than the system currently requires (i.e. make your 12 active dragons camp one denizen).

Silas

I think it's better to fix the underlying problem of city destruction. If it didn't so heavily favour massive stacking of the odds in your favour, or raiding empty cities, nobody would need to camp Jeramun to stop the silliness.

Santar

I agree with Florentino's post. I will turn my morning sudoku and coffee ritual into a spark gathering exercise.

Nemutaur

Meh, I'd say fix it so that there's more than one option to get a spark as well. But if worst comes to worst, who cares about city destruction. Right now there's no point to it other than a little bit of experience, getting a tiny bit of gold for your city and griefing some poor citizens out of their time by having them repair.

So I'd rather just invade and kill everyone, at least that way they don't waste time repairing later.

Sothantos

Azor said:

To be quite clear, I'm not in favor of just eliminating this new locus of conflict around Jeramun and the sparks...

As someone who was primarily responsible for the camping during the Targ/Mhaldor war, I can confidently say that if any of the proposed changes so far were made to Jeramun, then we may as well scrap killing him as a mechanic altogether unless significant changes are made to how acquiring sparks works.

I think most people are somewhat underestimating just how much effort it took to get the Jeramun spawn under my control, and how easily someone could have disrupted it if they'd actually bothered. The advantage already lies with the team that needs sparks, since they only need one person, and a single moment of Jeramun being alive to fill their tanks. Multiple spawns or ease of access would alone make it impossible to secure it at all, so it would effectively be the same as deleting the ability to control him (which I'm not opposed to).

The more important issue, I think, is fixing city destruction and organizational conflict to favour PvP over PvE so that this isn't even a problem at all. The Jeramun camping was a band-aid solution to a bigger problem -- I'd rather the underlying issue be addressed.

Azor

Well, I'm not a combat leader, but although it might have been easy, yet every effort I participated in seemed to encounter difficulties.

I don't grudge anyone doing what they can for their side, but I'm dubious about the rationale of a "band-aid" for asymmetrical lameness.

Anyway, the other thought I had was that Jeramun himself might have some rp-event reaction to constantly being killed. That could still be cool. He's the reason for a steamy jungle in the north, yes?

Kyrra

I want the honours line someday

Arditi

Azor said:

Well, I'm not a combat leader, but although it might have been easy, yet every effort I participated in seemed to encounter difficulties. I don't grudge anyone doing what they can for their side, but I'm dubious about the rationale of a "band-aid" for asymmetrical lameness. Anyway, the other thought I had was that Jeramun himself might have some rp-event reaction to constantly being killed. That could still be cool. He's the reason for a steamy jungle in the north, yes?

Istarion freezes over, massive army of Tsol'dasi and spiders invade the killer's city.

Mostly the spiders. Oh god, the spiders.

Kyrra

Arditi said:

Azor said:

Well, I'm not a combat leader, but although it might have been easy, yet every effort I participated in seemed to encounter difficulties. I don't grudge anyone doing what they can for their side, but I'm dubious about the rationale of a "band-aid" for asymmetrical lameness. Anyway, the other thought I had was that Jeramun himself might have some rp-event reaction to constantly being killed. That could still be cool. He's the reason for a steamy jungle in the north, yes?

Istarion freezes over, massive army of Tsol'dasi and spiders invade the killer's city.

Mostly the spiders. Oh god, the spiders.

This looks -exactly- like the spider that tried to ambush me outside my bedroom door at 2am this morning. >_<

Mishgul

Its so cuuute

Halos

Did it also cause epileptic fits

Nemutaur

Halos said:

Did it also cause epileptic fits

No, but scared the crap out of me. Spiders belong in the spider thread!

EDIT: Can't spell cause spiders are horrible.

Bambizlo

Sothantos said:

As someone who was primarily responsible for the camping during the Targ/Mhaldor war, I can confidently say that if any of the proposed changes so far were made to Jeramun, then we may as well scrap killing him as a mechanic altogether unless significant changes are made to how acquiring sparks works.

As the proposal is just to add one or two tunnel connections from nearby areas to Jeramun, I disagree with your assessment that significant changes would need to be made beyond that to encourage conflict. As it stands right now, camping Jeramun discourages conflict as the area can only be accessed via a wilderness entrance (and hence, cannot be infiltrated into without tripping mindnet), which makes it quite easy (albeit utterly boring and monotonous) to camp out safely. The primary method to combat a tactic like that would be to have someone else with mindnet sit in the area for a similar period of time to wait for a respawn. It becomes a point of conflict but one that is both tedious and ultimately uninteresting as it encourages turtling behind runes/rites/gravehands/harmonics/vibes/whatever and very early detection of any interruptions.

By adding tunnels, there are at least methods that can partially circumvent the amount of turtling possible and encourage conflict that can be fought over reasonably - essentially a neutral battlegrounds that gives some advantages to the party that is present first but not an overwhelming one as it is now. Also, it adds a degree of danger to any single person camping the area with mindnet - which honestly should have been a part of the design in the first place.

In essence, tunnels (2 additional tunnels into the area would be quite enough, I think) would end up being a fairly simple change to adequately address this part of the issue behind city destruction and should be handled irregardless of whatever else is being considered with the other aspects of city destruction anyhow.

Silas

This is backwards. Jeramun isn't a point of conflict. The conflict generated by Jeramun should be in city destruction. Fix that to become an actual conflict mechanism and you completely eliminate the need to camp Jeramun.

ETA: That is to say, we didn't camp Jeramun to stifle conflict. Mhaldor raiding when we had no people around generated no conflict. All it did was perpetuate a silly back and forth trading of room destruction that dragged out the war longer than was ever necessary.

Bambizlo

If you don't feel Jeramun is a point of conflict, then adding tunnels to the area shouldn't worry you at all.

Silas

It wouldn't worry me, but it distracts from the actual problem. Propping up a broken game mechanic with band-aid fixes isn't a good use of limited resources. It's far better for them to spend the time examining ways to make city destruction a fun and interesting mechanic that actually generates conflict, or coming up with a new mechanic entirely.

And that's completely discounting the fact that getting sparks is laughably easy, given what you need to do for it, compared to camping an area to kill a denizen.

Bambizlo

I disagree. As evidenced during the war, camping Jeramun ends up being part of the problems surrounding city destruction and should be addressed in addition to any other changes being considered - essentially it ended up being some players changing their sleep schedule to camp the location for hours, which while it shows dedication, it's also something that the city destruction mechanic was partially geared to reduce in the first place. Additionally, creating a few extra rooms to connect an area without any major mechanical changes requires pretty minimal usage of resources for a fair bit of useful gain (better avenues for potential counterplay). (more potential conflict at Jeramun - it was a neat move overall to limit retribution via city destruction by killing Jeramun but right now the odds are stacked too far in favor of the group that turtles at the location first).

That said, I don't mind if getting sparks had a short, interruptable channel time (somewhere on the order of 2-8 secs) in order to be able to obtain one in addition to the tunnel changes so that an individual must have control of the area surrounding Jeramun to obtain sparks.

I don't feel the city destruction mechanic is fundamentally flawed, however, though I do agree there there should be more incentive to raid during a time when both sides can put up a good fight - hence my previous suggestions to limit invader rewards for attacking when there are few defenders and defender bonuses when able to rout out attackers before a sanctioned raid party is able to destroy the maximum number of rooms.

Silas

Except both sides have an equal chance of getting there first. Both sides have an equal chance of controlling the area. It's already significantly easier for the attacking side, since they only need one person to open five boxes and then gtfo.

The fact remains, though, that Jeramun wouldn't need to be camped if city destruction wasn't such a backwards conflict mechanic, in that it actively discourages conflict. It's not a coincidence that we never camped Jeramun against Ashtan, even though Ashtan are infinitely more likely to push our shit in than Mhaldor. The very fact that we had people around to get their shit pushed in made that conflict considerably more fun, win or lose, because there was actual conflict instead of just logging in and repairing rooms every three days.

Nemutaur

How is the 'attacker' supposed to get in and get 5 sparks if they don't know the respawn time and you see them hit mindnet as soon as they enter from wilderness? You can't even send a phased serpent to evade in because of wilderness I think.

Bambizlo

Nematur's hit the nail on the head. Mindnet ends up being infallible due to the single wilderness entrance and ends up making it too easy to turtle in the area.

Arditi

Nemutaur said:

How is the 'attacker' supposed to get in and get 5 sparks if they don't know the respawn time and you see them hit mindnet as soon as they enter from wilderness? You can't even send a phased serpent to evade in because of wilderness I think.

They're not, which is why Targossas wants to keep things the way they are and blame the system itself, rather than their ability to game it.

Antonius

The important part is WHY it's being gamed, not the fact that it can be. Go ahead and add extra ways to get to Jeramun, just don't pretend it's going to really fix anything.

Jovolo

The problem being raided at inopportune times for you all?

Antonius

The problem being a system intended to promote conflict that does completely the opposite. I thought that had already been covered.

Kyrra

Personally never had trouble checking for Jeramun or filling boxes when he's up.

I actually got some rather nice interaction on my last trip there instead of just getting killed like I anticipated.

Carmell

Kyrra said:

Personally never had trouble checking for Jeramun or filling boxes when he's up. I actually got some rather nice interaction on my last trip there instead of just getting killed like I anticipated.

We held off on killing you until we figured out why you were there. Mind you it was almost 6 am so I just wanted to go sleep.

Kyrra

Carmell said:

Kyrra said:

Personally never had trouble checking for Jeramun or filling boxes when he's up. I actually got some rather nice interaction on my last trip there instead of just getting killed like I anticipated.

We held off on killing you until we figured out why you were there. Mind you it was almost 6 am so I just wanted to go sleep.

My box needed filling and I wanted to fraternise.

Silas

The problem with this thread, aside from it not addressing the actual problem (that being that city destruction is a conflict mechanism that discourages conflict), is that most of the things being thrown out as a reason to change things are also woefully misinformed.

The idea that the admins should "fix" something when you can't even be arsed figuring out how it works is ridiculous.

Kyrra

I just figured Targossas was doing their group thing and hunting honours mobs for fun?

Carmell

Kyrra said:

I just figured Targossas was doing their group thing and hunting honours mobs for fun?

Nope that was the Jeramun kill team.  We had just got done with an epic raid on Mhaldor now it was time to get our sparks and kill Jeramun.  He just took forever to come back so I went to bed.  I don't even know what time they finally got him.