Ramping up conflict

Mishgul

Aktillum

@Aepas I've gotten the ball rolling on a few decent discussions, whether or not you agree with my attitude. It's the internet, it's a forum. We don't have to pretend to be nice to have a civil discussion. Eurulis and Alrena posted very constructive suggestions that were relevant to the topic of the thread. What the hell have you offered? "don't feed aktillum"

You're so cool, bro.

@Mishgul No wordless .gif posts We need constructive ideas for alternative mechanics to forest v Mhaldor conflict. You can use your "FUCK YOU" tone as Sylvance puts it, wear your mind on your sleeve, I want to pick your brain. You've got stuff in there, damnit.

Mishgul

The problem with extermination, like the problem with most forms of large scale conflict in Achaea, is not the mechanic itself, but the mindset of the people on both sides of the conflict. Very few people can take loss in their stride and meld into their stories. It is much more fun to win battles and it is more fun to be aggressive for the majority of people. 

Adding a mechanic where someone is -required- to defend, while not morally wrong, leads to the point where people will exploit and/or complain about it. If there was a way to make all parties happy easily it would have been implemented many aeons ago I am sure.

Sylvance

Could it be made so that the current health of the forest has a direct negative effect on the strength of necromantic skills? That way, just by defending the forest, the forestrals are fighting Mhaldor? Or am I fully missing the problem (i.e. it isn't 'We can't fight back')?

Aktillum

I think the Mhaldorians would complain that forestals had a way to directly affect their damage output, something no other faction can do. Also you'd see the rise of Tarleusis. But your idea reminded me of the old Landmarking, where each city competed to control landmarks that would effect Devo/Necro/Karma(?) gain each year. I miss it. So much. So much

Alrena

Sylvance said:

Could it be made so that the current health of the forest has a direct negative effect on the strength of necromantic skills? That way, just by defending the forest, the forestrals are fighting Mhaldor? Or am I fully missing the problem (i.e. it isn't 'We can't fight back')?

Oh please don't ever let that get implimented. That's just going to lead to even more off-plane exterms and huge exterm sprees when Eleusis lacks defenders. The problem with exterms is mostly that Mhaldor has full control over it. They decide when it starts, and when it ends. There's nothing that Eleusis can do to stop it, except try to kill them all and hope they get enough of it. The second problem being that Mhaldor sometimes gets carried away and razes an entire forest or two when no Eleusian defenders are around. (Not always, but when it happens, it sucks)

Sylvance

Good points from both. I'm genuinely stumped.

It's almost as if the whole mechanic behind this conflict is broken and nothing can fix it

Hasar

It's fine as long as people use it properly - to start conflict that you plan to upkeep for some time.

Personally, I don't see the point in trololol exterm 313523 rooms offplane or otherwise, and then just bail when someone travels to fight you.

Sure, if you exterm a couple rooms, and you have only a few people - and there's WAY more Eleusians, you don't need to upkeep the conflict. However, if you're exterming just to exterm and bail as soon as anyone comes, I don't see the point imo.

I didn't see the point fly;cast holocaust 10 x1000 either, back when you could do that.

Not sure how to fix mechanics, but I think as Carmain mentioned, it's up to how players use it.

Aktillum

Sylvance said:

It's almost as if the whole mechanics behind this conflict game is broken encourage griefing and nothing can fix it \m/

We could stop vicariously living through our characters and be more griefy to eachother  :-\"

But no, in all seriousness, don't be discouraged. Like I said in a much earlier post, shooting out 100 bad ideas is better than trying to come up with one "great" idea to end all ideas. As long as we're encouraging input, we'll find some shinola between the shit.

What about just limiting exterminate to the E. Ithmia around Eleusis?

Alrena

Hasar said:

It's fine as long as people use it properly - to start conflict that you plan to upkeep for some time.

Personally, I don't see the point in trololol exterm 313523 rooms offplane or otherwise, and then just bail when someone travels to fight you.

Sure, if you exterm a couple rooms, and you have only a few people - and there's WAY more Eleusians, you don't need to upkeep the conflict. However, if you're exterming just to exterm and bail as soon as anyone comes, I don't see the point imo.

I didn't see the point fly;cast holocaust 10 x1000 either, back when you could do that.

Not sure how to fix mechanics, but I think as Carmain mentioned, it's up to how players use it.

That's pretty much what I've been saying. And I don't mind if a small group of Mhaldorians exterm, then find out there's WAY more Eleusians around than they can handle, so they fall back. But then I'd also like it if Eleusis lacks defenders, that Mhaldor backs off after 2-3 exterms, and not go crazy and do 2-3 forests. You can say what you want, but honestly, exterms are completely controlled by Mhaldor.

Dolomar

What if forestals had the ability to 'guard' so and so many rooms, or even portions of areas or full areas? Guarding them would require those rooms to be exterminated twice to actually exterminate, so they'd get that little bit of warning before it happened, and re-guarding was simply a matter of using the skill again in that room.

Doing so would increase the 'cost' of exterminating to bring it closer to in-line with the 'cost' of fixing the rooms--it would also be cool if exterminating required strategy. If, for example, you could only exterminate on the edge of a forest and had to move inward, tying each progressive one to an existing exterminate, etc. This would help make the course of the conflict more predictable and more easily defendable, and even perhaps allow the forestals to fortify those 'edges'.

Guhem

Looking at both ideas, personally feel as though Aktillum's suggestion of having a limited area would be better. You could use a portion of Mhaldor Isle to defend, perhaps close off some of the entrances into Eastern Ithmia.

With the guarding system, you'll still have the problem of exterminations all over the place.

However, @Mishgul does bring up a point in that right now, the only thing that is keeping Eleusis relevant is that they are directly opposed to Mhaldor in terms of Necromancy vs Nature. If extermination were to be deleted, there'd be a void which could either be filled by a new type of role play or the city would fade into irrelevance.

Personally I do like the system in place in forcing an engagement outside of the city, it just stops becoming fun for me when you have one person running between two different planes to exterminate. I understand running away when the odds are against you, but I don't understand exterminating, running back and coming back 5 minutes later and doing the same thing, expecting something to be different. It becomes a waste of time to respond to, but if you don't respond you can end up with the person exterminating more than just one area. Hit and run tactics make me feel like a denizen who is getting their target braziered away from them 8-|

Alternatively, if the system can't be changed, limit the number of exterminations that can be done in an Achaean month. (10, 15?) That way the clean up is minimized, the exterminations can still be used to generate conflict, but you don't have mass exterminations (Still want a way to do the same to Mhaldor).

Another way, if you want to go the route that I thought Gaia was trying to push Eleusis toward, rejuvenate returns the room to normal with plants fully there, just at Sparse. Reduce the time taken for auto-rejuvenate to happen to one Achaean month. All this is preferably done by Gaia and the leaders in a ritual to push the RP in a different direction than it is now. Land reclamation etc.

Of course, in the end they've already mentioned that something will be coming to give forestals a chance to fight back Soon™. So all this discussion might be moot.

Eurulis

Guhem said:
However, @Mishgul does bring up a point in that right now, the only thing that is keeping Eleusis relevant is that they are directly opposed to Mhaldor in terms of Necromancy vs Nature. If extermination were to be deleted, there'd be a void which could either be filled by a new type of role play or the city would fade into irrelevance.

I have to disagree with you there. I think the roleplay is there, and that extermination is more of a physical manifestation of the conflict. Not the other way around. Eleusis would not be irrelevant due to lack of extermination, simply that the two cities would have to settle for more conventional warfare.

Let's take a look at the Light/Chaos conflict as an example. Is their conflict irrelevant due to lack of obvious physical harm on Creation? No. Why? Because they have roleplay to back them up. The roleplay -is- the conflict. They don't need rooms to show physical damage to make them want to kill one another. Their beliefs are enough.

Eleusis banned necromancers for a reason. Same with occultists, though I don't know if they ever rescinded that. It's because they believed that their unique skills caused direct harm to Nature. Eleusis can roll with this rather easily! They don't need extermination to justify it.

Saeva

Not that i actually don't find this topic interesting to read about.. because i do! But, this morning, the only thing I am really taking away from this thread is that...
Guy A called guy B a baby for saying "just because you don't like spaghetti doesn't mean other people don't want to eat it"
And then a few posts later he said "I don't like watching sports on TV but a large percentage of people do" and so! I have drawn the conclusion that food metaphors are for babies and sports comparisons are for winners.

PK or combat aggressive means of resolution can be equally as interesting as political resolution role play depending on how involved people want to get on stories.
There are griefers about in any game, but there are also combat artists who tap into deep role play. Just like there are fascinating politicians and then dumb as rock political ventures.
Just have to try your best to be part of the cure and not the disease.

Mishgul

That's not what he meant at all.

Lilley

Aktillum said:

@Lilley

I don't understand what point you're making. Your original post was pretty much "everyone has feelings, everyone is good at something", and I elaborated my position several times since then, so you're late. Thank you for bolding something I already elaborated on several times in Sarapis' post. :-/

No, that wasn't my point. I was trying to play happy-nice-nice to get my point across but obviously that didn't work.

What I was trying to say was this: everybody is going to disagree on something. So what, some of the Achaeans hate combat? Don't sit here and complain about it. Ignore it, live with it, or go out there and DO something about it! Orrrr you can sit here and complain about it. I was trying to boost you up and help you see it through someone else's eyes for you to actually do something about it. You seemed intelligent enough to be successful with it.

p.s. Yes I am late. But I'm late because I'm busy/too lazy to read everything, which are perfectly legitimate reasons. Lol.

Aktillum

@Saeva You're mixed up about who said what, not that it actually matters since you're as late to the thread as @Lilley. Congratulations on being relevant, to the both of you.

Back on topic that doesn't involve butthurt over my exaggerated opinions on rituals:

@Guhem

"the only thing that is keeping Eleusis relevant is that they are directly opposed to Mhaldor in terms of Necromancy vs Nature"

Truth, if you count relevance as being actively involved in a faction v faction conflict. Going by that mode of thinking, Cyrene is entirely irrelevant.

Katzchen

I like the idea of limiting exterminate to the eastern ithmia. But only if forest enemy effects/right to attack enemies within the forest were also limited to that one area.

Rangor

WELCOME BACK @GERAINT, WE ALREADY DISCUSSED THIS IN LIKE 10 OTHER THREADS FOR THE LAST 5 RL YEARS.

And if Exterminations were removed, I'd go hardcore overboard on Gaia's vision of seeing the cities overgrown and retaken by Nature. Rawr. Kill all the cities!

Wysteria

Making Eastern Ithmia like Mhaldor's BlackRock in terms of crazy large defendable area could be a viable option, actually.

In terms of "guardable" areas of forests, that's what grove preservation is for, if the grove user who claims the spot is high enough in that skill.

I'll make a note here on costs: 133,125 gold for one IC year in ice. Minimum. For you dragons, that's not a lot in gold. Add in the rejuvenation time, eating of a third of mana per session, gathering cuttings for the replant of myrrh, lobelia, elm, echinacea, burdock, nuts, ginger and ginseng — it adds up to about maybe 7 or so hours of manual labour in a two week period, which doesn't seem like much until you factor in we cram this during average 2-4 hour defences. Pretty sure most rejuvies at the moment spend the majority of their playing time fixing things up and mashing the replant alias than actually attending to other matters. Like RP :P

Mishgul

Fixing stuff is RP!

Wysteria

Mishgul said:

Fixing stuff is RP!

Being a Tender in Eleusis doesn't literally mean only being a tender the whole time I just set off my rejuvenation repetoire, get a coffee and finish up by the time it's done. Can't even talk when you're doing it because you have to restart the process

Mishgul

eemote rejuvenating instead!

Tekk

Wysteria said:

Making Eastern Ithmia like Mhaldor's BlackRock in terms of crazy large defendable area could be a viable option, actually.

In terms of "guardable" areas of forests, that's what grove preservation is for, if the grove user who claims the spot is high enough in that skill.

I'll make a note here on costs: 133,125 gold for one IC year in ice. Minimum. For you dragons, that's not a lot in gold. Add in the rejuvenation time, eating of a third of mana per session, gathering cuttings for the replant of myrrh, lobelia, elm, echinacea, burdock, nuts, ginger and ginseng — it adds up to about maybe 7 or so hours of manual labour in a two week period, which doesn't seem like much until you factor in we cram this during average 2-4 hour defences. Pretty sure most rejuvies at the moment spend the majority of their playing time fixing things up and mashing the replant alias than actually attending to other matters. Like RP :P

This post is what hits me the most. In a two week period I will have about 20 hours of play time. If 7 hours goes into rejuv, 7 into defense, that's over half of my play time to dedicate to something that is boring really fast. I don't spend money on games that are boring. It's that simple. I'd rather give WoW my $15 a month and call it quits. Even now I see myself drifting away because this subject, forest conflict, is the main focus of my character's organizations and it sucks.

Saeva

Would it be realistic to think that if someone were to exterminate an area, that there could be some sort of death curse bound to them (by the power of nature that is being attacked, if a proper blessing of sorts was put into place) for x amount of minutes (15 minutes after any exterm? more or less?) So that the people who want to go cause problems for Eleusis are going to walk away with a tangible penalty.
The curse could be some sort of attack on constitution or a retardation or something that would give Eleusis a chance to chase down the aggressors and at least attempt to lay down a little hurt for causing them grief?
Maybe nobody is around to defend, or maybe they are defenders. Either way, you just messed with them on their home turf and there's going to be a price to pay for it.
Then you'd have at least some form of penalty for marching in for the exterminations other than a town griping and being "mad at you".
You'd also have an aid for the city/players that aren't so hellbent on PvP, but would up and defend their city if they felt like they had SOME means of an "even playing field" in combat.
Oh you screwed with our forest? Now you're vulnerable. PvP ensues. Everyone got to dish out a little aggression.

@Aktillum I know you said you like to use blanket statements for a cause; and you to try to evoke ideas out of people to be discussed and what not. I think the problems people might have with hashing out ideas with you seems to be, you make statements that attempt to reflect how open-minded you are to a lot of ideas - then you talk about how ritualistic RP is a circle jerk and how weak-sauce roleplay is. You degrade a whole sect of players in the gameworld.
If it's not a PvP solution, you don't seem to want anything to do with it.
That's okay. That's your motivation. But you're not really encouraging solutions - you appear to be encouraging people to think of solutions that suit your inclination to PvP.
It's just the flip side of the coin to people who want nothing but emote solutions.
 
edit spelling.

Mishgul

Extermination is an excellent mechanic PvP wise, it brings people out of well defended territories and forces people to have to fight with a good combination of abilities rather than sitting on guards/totems (unless that goddamn erato gets involved).

The issue is people who don't want to fight being forced into a fight by a staggered progression of different people who do want to fight over a period of ridiculous hours.

What there needs to be is an opt in clause for defenders to choose when to fight, which means a change of flavour on the meaning of extermination and defending exterminations.

Tekk

I kind of agree with that, but not 100%. When guards were broken and the Jinxsta/Jhui raids were happening, we seen a change in guards to prevent that. How is this different?

Mishgul

this is different because the problem is time being wasted, not things being overpowered.

Kyrra

Saeva said:

Would it be realistic to think that if someone were to exterminate an area, that there could be some sort of death curse bound to them (by the power of nature that is being attacked..

Reminds me of some Canadian zombie movie where the hippie protestors started spiking trees to deal with loggers.

Saeva

Kyrra said:

Would it be realistic to think that if someone were to exterminate an area, that there could be some sort of death curse bound to them (by the power of nature that is being attacked..

Reminds me of some Canadian zombie movie where the hippie protestors started spiking trees to deal with loggers.

I've seen weirder things in Achaea. Like waterweird. Blobs of beings that carry you over water..