Forest Conflict

Nizaris

Slight derail in the quotes thread, and I promised to move it here, so that the quotes thread can continue to do it's thing in peace.

Derail occurred starting with @Synbios' post on this page: http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/19/quotes-33-333333333-the-quotening/p18

I will try to copy relevant quotes from all interested parties into this thread, so that we can have some context, and continue our discussion.

Please note, this is a serious thread in the Dais. Let's all please be responsible in discussion. As @Delphinus said in the mentioned thread, the point is interaction, not complete destruction of one side or the other.

ETA: I don't think that we will come to any solid conclusions in this thread, but it might be handy to have an ongoing place for discussion, and maybe small ideas or a general direction can be gleaned from our efforts.

Nizaris

Synbios said:

ANNOUNCE NEWS #3710

Date: 9/19/2012 at 0:59

From: Tecton, the Terraformer

To  : Everyone

Subj: Conflict changes

I've just made some tweaks to some of the various conflict systems

across Achaea. The goal of these are to make things a little more

balanced from both an attacking and defending point of view. We have

some plans for larger overhauls of most of these areas in the near

future, but for now, I present:

* Alchemist damage to Icons has been reduced slightly.

* The essence value of player corpses has been significantly reduced.

* Holocaust damage no longer damages forest and jungle rooms.

We'll be monitoring these changes and making tweaks or modifications

where necessary.

Nizaris

Katzchen said:

WTF, no more holocaust? Well we may as well just give up forest conflict. Or are they going to get rid of grove summon too, because with it exterminate is freaking useless.

Nizaris

Tanris said:

All good changes. Could use a toning down or removal of forest defs to complement no holo, and a reduction in essence loss to mitigate reduced gain from offering, but this fixes some of the most frustrating aspects of the various conflict systems.

Nizaris

Nizaris said:

I agree with @Katzchen on this: the @Cain Holo-train was the only way we could cause any sort of large-scale damage to the forests, when grove summon can transport us cross-continent into a completely different forest so quickly.

ETA: This one is probably for the class-leads, but I think that one (possible) way to solve this would be to make grove-summon area only. It already makes little sense from an RP perspective how a grove can eject you from one forest and into another.

Delphinus

I was utterly serious when I said it was becoming let's-not-have-this-conversation-again-y. Over the course of the past few years, we've said all there is to say.

Nizaris

Delphinus said:

@Nizaris: You guys have done wide-scale damage just fine with groups of exterminators. All holocaust did was encourage (require) us to bring huge teams against single people (since we have to kill them quickly), and encourage (require) us to sit around waiting for them, since they'd otherwise disappear to Mhaldor before we could deal with it directly.

And when we raid Mhaldor to deal with it, we get accused of time zone abuse. #AllOfMyShrugs

Mishgul said:

These changes will encourage people to exterminate off plane more often  as oppose to make the conflict more meaningful from the attitudes I see from both sides.

Katzchen said:

Delphinus said:

@Nizaris: You guys have done wide-scale damage just fine with groups of exterminators. All holocaust did was encourage (require) us to bring huge teams against single people (since we have to kill them quickly), and encourage (require) us to sit around waiting for them, since they'd otherwise disappear to Mhaldor before we could deal with it directly.

And when we raid Mhaldor to deal with it, we get accused of time zone abuse. #AllOfMyShrugs

  Done wide-scale damage just fine, what 300 years ago? Hasn't happened lately. Too many Eleusians ready to immediately go to their grove and summon you. Not much you can do with a 20 second balance regen. When @Nizaris said 'wide scale' he probably means about 8-12 rooms, because that's the most I've seen lately. And those were in direct response to Eleusian raids on Mhaldor. Doesn't take much to regen that, and you don't have to regen with forest defs hitting you, while being open pk to your enemies, and with the threat of beings summoned and slaughtered long before you even get balance back, often before your exterminate even works on the room.

Agree with @mishgul all this will achieve is we will have to go out of our way to avoid trying to exterminate on plane, or while defenders are around.

Delphinus said:

@Katzchen: No, like a few weeks ago.

I think the problem here is that you're putting the focus on "damaging the forest" and not "encouraging interaction." This might be an unhealthy attitude to carry in.

Nizaris

Delphinus said:

I was utterly serious when I said it was becoming let's-not-have-this-conversation-again-y. Over the course of the past few years, we've said all there is to say.

@Delphinus: Hey, if you're not interested in stressing yourself out over it, I can fully understand and appreciate that.

But, I'm hoping that we can come up with something constructive that does promote interaction.

I think that both the Forest and anti-forest (I am using general terms here, because I don't necessarily think that this should become aligned strictly with Mhaldor) need to have areas of control that they are able to attack and defend. The easy solution to this, of course, is to use Mhaldor's fog, and allow for it to be spread and beaten back, but I don't want to necessarily eliminate the chance of Chaos attacking the forest as well by aligning the "anti-forest" too closely with Mhaldor.

Nizaris

To add some purpose to the fight, and also some more flavour to alchemists, areas where the anti-forest has been put in place over the forest could generate primes and minerals, instead of herbs. Of course, these rooms could be flipped back to forest again, and vice-versa.

Leighann

My sentiment boils down to "delete Oakstone" much like the Church.

Make forests just like any other room, i.e. delete exterminate.

Note, I'm biased, but I don't think it's exactly fair that I have to spend 2-3 RL years Open-PK and attacked in the forests for 15-30 minutes of exterminating Zanzibaar. Especially given that I've been trying for over half that time to get unenemied and it requires moving mountains just to get a reply on what I have to do.

With alchemy, I think there should be a similar relationship between forestals and Eleusis that necromancers and Mhaldor have or devotionists and Shallam have.

Nizaris

@Leighann: I think that the main problem with forest conflict right now is that as @Delphinus, @Silas, and @Mishgul pointed out: there's no real way for the forest to strike back. There's no point or objective to be reached. It's a one-sided conflict, which is not conflict at all.

Blujixapug

Holocaust was never balanced as a conflict thing. Exterminate has a windup, takes time, leaves a name, can be interrupted. The whole "I'm exterminating!" "oh no you're not!" *grove flow/summon* *maybe a fight* thing is what makes it conflict.

Holocaust wasn't, doesn't, didn't. There's no windup, no interrupting it. No period of risk and challenge followed by victory or defeat. You just lay a holo, run away after 5s, and the forest is dead 10s later. This isn't conflict, it's vandalism followed by cleaning up.

Holocaust was not made the way it was for "conflict". It was made to burn forests because after the sylvan class was lazily slapped together, someone realised, oh damn, holo in a grove with a totem is OP. The change meant you couldn't holo your grove without losing your grove. Mhaldor never originally had a mage guild and obviously wouldn't have been expected to use holocaust like that. Historically the only mages in Mhaldor were a couple of total outcasts who forsook all of Crystalism and Enchantment, because they lacked a MC or enchanting room.

Forest conflict has, honestly, never been properly designed. It just grew out of a few cracks, like mould. If it had been designed, the vulnerable territory forestals are expected to defend wouldn't consist of two environment types across hundreds of areas, multiple planes, islands, etc. Looking at other groups, their defendable territories are far more sane. Cities have their city, one area. Orders have their shrines, and orders can choose to place as many or as few as they want, in vulnerable or protected locations. As well, if it had been designed, it would likely be an activity that both sides could win, rather than presenting one side with abilities to attack and no vulnerabilities, and the other only with an endless defense.

IMO if you want to make forest conflict a legitimate, non-BS activity, it needs a total redesign. It needs actual design. For someone to sit down and redo it from the ground up as an activity where two sides compete, and both have opportunities to aggress and defend, and there are sometimes clear victories to be won. I don't believe this is possible with simple tweaks to the current mechanics - they lack too much.

Tiamat

I have been a forest enemy since 2003. It would be a shame to delete the whole conflict one year short of a decade perma-enemy status. (Which in the past I have tried to resolve in a calm and collected manor. Of course Oakstone told me where to shove it but that is another story.)

Sabiru

"Delete Oakstone, forest defs and exterminate" might fly if Eleusis were proactive about anything, ever.

For as long as the game's been online it has been everybody else's responsibility to give the Nature faction relevance. Fix that and people might have some good faith regarding removing exterminate - because for now the obligation to defend nature is genuinely seen as the only thing keeping you from Cyrene/Hashan status.

Further, any variation of "maybe we'd actively seek to roleplay other conflicts, we just can't because Oakstone takes up all of our time/it's impossible to justify other conflicts or expansions of our role because extermination" is exactly the attitude which reinforces the above.

tl;dr: I'll campaign beside you for a removal of the forest conflict mechanisms when they no longer define your faction.

Aerek

There are about a half-dozen classleads that have been approved/denied with the explanation: "We're redesigning forest conflict".

They get it. No sense in hand-wringing on the forums about it anymore. At least until the changes go in, and then you can come post on the forums about how much you hate them.

Sherazad

Not really surprised and not even bothered. There are always new threads when there are returning players and new issues about forest conflict. It never dies. 

Maybe it will, in the near future.

Azor

I'm glad they're redesigning forest conflict. Hopefully the solution will be one that doesn't preclude me from normal use of multiple large central areas as well as any number of peripheral areas. The way things are now has internal consistency, but I agree with whoever it was that said earlier--surely nobody would've set out to design it the way it is now. Really, it would be fine if FOREST conflict (as opposed to City-of-Eleusis conflict) were pursued purely through RP. I mean, there's no hard-coded mechanism to expand or roll back the red fog, or the taint of chaos, etc. I think deleting extermination and forest defs tomorrow would be great, frankly. Mhaldor can still go after the forest through RP events, and vice versa.

Rangor

Fan of Exterminate and forest destruction and wars surrounding it.

Holocaust was not designed for a fair conflict scenario.

Summon/Flow need tuning as suggested in classleads.

Everything has been said 50 times over.

Kresslack

Turn all trees to stone, then convert all this energy into improvements for the important stuff....like ships.

Tvistor

Aerek is right, although he totally lost to Mark at CoH.

Mark.

Synbios

Kresslack said:

Turn all trees to stone, then convert all this energy into improvements for the important stuff....like ships.

But then you'll have the mineral-munchersAlchemists forming an organization to manage all that ripe edible stone, like Rockstone.

Blujixapug

Hmm so I started coming up with a little plan/proposal for a new forest conflict system, and the big obstacle I hit was regarding ways for Oakstone to attack necromancy. At present, Mhaldor = necromancy = Twin Lords, and none of them have any assets outside Mhaldor Island that could be used as targets.

The red fog, the island itself, the stalagmite, Blackrock etc are all in the same geographical area. In addition to the issue of having them all accessed through the same restrictive choke-points, having them all clustered around Mhaldor makes the activity seem like a glorified city raid.

I thought about inventing some new necromancy-affiliated assets for Oakstone to attack - as necromancers can attack the major forests, which are geographically widespread - but I don't know if it's unreasonable to expect people to care about something you've just presented to them. That was one of the problems with Icons, "Here's this thing! Defend it!"

Orklanishkal

Icons need to be better roleplayed, I wish there had been events to introduce the concept or even to introduce singular Icons. There could still be events to explain their significance I think. 

Edit: sorry for derail

Nizaris

@Blujixapug: I just want to say thank you for treating this discussion seriously. You have educated myself quite a bit on some of the more practical considerations to be considered. I really had no idea on holo's original purpose. I think that fundamentally, you and I are largely in agreement about what we would like to see in a system, were it to be implemented.

I think most importantly, however, is the point made in your last post. I think that something important to consider would be tying into the existing Mhaldorian player base that is committed to forest conflict (in this case, the OIA), and make certain that what is being proposed is going to implemented. No matter what, we're talking about the introduction of a new mechanic, and there's always going to be the presentation problem, as you note. The only way it's going to fly is to get the OIA, Oakstone, Eleusis, and anyone else dedicated to mechanic in on the deal from the get-go. But, Eleusis is already committed to defending the forests. I think that the big question is going to be what Mhaldor is committed to defending. I think that this is probably where @Delphinus probably makes a good point: does Mhaldor have the numbers for a continent wide property battle where, gasp, Mhaldor could lose?

If we go the red fog route, I think that the fog needs to be personified in some way. Because as it stands, as a Mhaldorian, the fog is just kind of there for me. I have no attachment to it. It's not something that I see as being in need of defense. It just "is". I'm willing to role play conflict for it, and get my butt kicked over it if need be, but I definitely would like to see a well-thought out rationale put into place that fits into Mhaldorian culture.

Alright, so, I'm rambling, and I apologize. But, thanks again for approaching this seriously, Bluji.

Blujixapug

Nizaris said:

I think most importantly, however, is the point made in your last post. I think that something important to consider would be tying into the existing Mhaldorian player base that is committed to forest conflict (in this case, the OIA), and make certain that what is being proposed is going to implemented. No matter what, we're talking about the introduction of a new mechanic, and there's always going to be the presentation problem, as you note. The only way it's going to fly is to get the OIA, Oakstone, Eleusis, and anyone else dedicated to mechanic in on the deal from the get-go. But, Eleusis is already committed to defending the forests. I think that the big question is going to be what Mhaldor is committed to defending. I think that this is probably where @Delphinus probably makes a good point: does Mhaldor have the numbers for a continent wide property battle where, gasp, Mhaldor could lose?

I'd have to say the opposite. Having done the classlead thing before, stuff like this does not have a strong chance of going into the game, and an even weaker chance of going in in a state closely resembling an initial proposal (for whatever reason - maybe the idea flat-out sucks, or it won't work due to factors that weren't known, or it can't be coded efficiently or w/e). Anything I write up, I know it's unlikely that anything will come of it. Getting people "involved" and getting them excited about discussing and formulating a proposal is only likely to cause disappointment and frustration when either nothing happens as a result, or when it is changed considerably prior to implementation.

Your point about Mhaldor's current numbers is a good one. But I think Mhaldor has always been a hardcore, underdog organisation, and this has been a large part of its appeal for the people who join. If they got a cool new conflict system that would probably serve to reignite that appeal. I also don't think you can design a system like this around too rigid an assumption of one side's strength/weakness or playerbase size, when a factor like that is so variable.

Delphinus

@Blujixapug's point is one of the exact impasses that led me to believe, some time ago, that the system's just better off gone. As @Nizaris points out, Mhaldorian culture really has nothing of inherent and inalienable value -- no idealistic "top priority," let alone anything in a physical form. Necromancy is simply a tool, a weapon granted by Sartan, and that's the extent of its worth to Evil.

So long as a Nature-style priority target exists, it will be used and abused as constant leverage. An attack on literal, pure ideology should rest -- as it does with Shallam and Ashtan, to great effect -- on the pillars of god-sustained events.

(This thread is good background for the uninformed, but otherwise, it's kind of irrelevant. As @Aerek said, the planned solution needs to make it off the whiteboard before we can bring it to the message board.

Zeon

Game mechanics shouldn't be balanced by the current state of a faction. It would be like nerfing cata because only ashtan has enough magi for a cata and ashtan is op. If you don't have enough people or members of a neutral class, well sucks for you.

If a new form of conflict were introduced for forestals, it certainly would not be balanced around mhaldor being small. That's something that you need to take care of in game.

Also @Blujixapug totf was your idea iirc.

Nizaris

@Delphinus: I'd say that we have an idealistic top-priority (strength, and more specifically perfection in it). The problem is, that's not physical, and therefore cannot be attacked. Indeed, Mhaldorian theology would hold that attacks and even defeats only serve to strengthen us -- we're that metaphysical. Whereas, Eleusian top-priority is physical. It's able to be attacked.

Ok. That makes sense. It's unfortunate, but Mhaldorian ideology doesn't really lend itself to reciprocal forest conflict.

And now I'm having a minor identity crisis for Nizaris. Damn.

Aerek

Tvistor said:

Aerek is right, although he totally lost to Mark at CoH.

Mark.

@Tvistor I was playing with Greg!

Greg!

I suck, too. That might have something to do with it.

Tvistor

If Mhaldor wins it is Strength, if we lose it's Suffering, if we lose then win it's Vengeance.

Synbios

@Tvistor: If you win, then lose, then that means yet another child added to your bloodline.