Forest Conflict

Mishgul

So you guys want to be new shallam instead on an optional basis.

I still don't see what would make eleusis relevant post exterm deletion. Being solely able to attack Mhaldor sounds boring as a roleplay dynamic, and sitting around "roleplaying" sounds like a hashan thing to do.

Half these exterm changes sound useless in terms of engaging people into fun fights. Mhaldor likes it how it is. Eleusis doesnt like its capacity. Merely limiting its function seems like a fine fix.

Provide an in city Mhaldor quest that you are required to do pre exterm which fades after a minute or if you leave the mainland.

Limit the amount of times the quest is done yearly done by a single person to like 10 and every 5 after that requires an extra necromancer channeling you.

Increase essence regen by 1% per hour per exterm for said year so its worth the tedium on our side.

Our lifestyles are somewhat preserved and a lot of the grief is cut back.

Now alll you guys need to learn is how to stop getting trolled and then everyone can be happy.

On the offensive side, your classes are entirely geared to in forest melees. A lot more would have to change to make an offensive solution viable or you will need 90 more monks.

Xith

Delphinus said:

Sarapis said:

Extermination isn't going anywhere, btw. It may see some changes, but it will still be what it is now: The severe damaging of normal nature within that room. The mechanics by which that happens may see some adjustment.

Beyond that, let's just say we're going to even things out a bit and give Nature a way to be aggressive rather than purely defensive.

Events have worked out just fine for Shallam, Cyrene, Ashtan, etc. without the need for attacking their basic essence. There is no "essence of Evil" you could ever strike, as @Nizaris, the Mhaldorian player who started this thread, pointed out. Nothing that resembles the current build -- really, nothing that you'd call "extermination" as it's identified today -- will ever be balanced, fair, or worth the torn follicles.

If extermination isn't disappearing, that's just one more reason for me to go. Given how much I love Achaea, I say that with more weary honesty than I'd like to admit.

Delphinus (re)brings up a good point. Anything Eleusis is equipped with to counter extermination has to be something that can target whatever it is that Mhaldor holds dear. As far as I know, this includes:

- Strength

- Oppression/Suffering

- Sartan in general

I don't think anything about the forests can make them feel unoppressed or "unsuffer" them, but Mhaldorians respect strength above all else. So beefing the forests up in general is the indirect solution.

Apart from that, all that comes to mind is forcing them to bear witness to the overwhelming might of Nature. Turn every Mhaldorian's living room into that scene from Jumanji.

I mean I think the irony in their conflict is that Eleusis really needs to out-oppress Mhaldor, show them nature's version of Strength.

Or imprison Sartan in a flytrap, I guess.

Chryenth

Recruit the lycopods.

Mishgul

Gtfo my flowerdor

Xith

Mishgul said:

Gtfo my flowerdor

Mhalflor, the city of Treeevil

Rangor

Will turn the Mhaldor isle into a haunted forest. See if they dare step outside then!

Ruth

I like ghost forests! Give please.

Synbios

Ruth said:

I like ghost forests! Give please.

Only problem: In order to get past the Ghost Forest getting in the way between Mhaldor and the rest of Sapience, you must retrieve five sheets of papers pasted on various trees and buildings located within.

While being stalked by SlendermanTvistorman. He backstabs you once, you die and respawn at the beginning of the forest, and the paper locations will randomize.

Oceana

Dontarion

I want a Mhaldor-spirit on the isle.  I also want lycopods deleted.  I aposthate the lycopods.

Mishgul

I am also happy to suggest ideas for active abilities on the necromancers side (other than extermination) which weaken/disable forest defs but in return make forestals more potent, i.e. splash damage on flame attacks, hydra attacks hitting multiple targets, heartseed spreading to random people, trees falling on people and killing them etc.

Seftin

Sarapis said:

Awan said:

Acting as if forestals themselves are the source of the problem is incredibly unfair. 

(First, let me just echo other peoples' frustrations with how annoying it is to try and break up quotes to respond bit by bit to them.)

Forestals didn't just make this up and decide to be obsessive about protecting Nature whereas the other factions decided more sensibly to be chill about things. The game gives us a different relation to this: the forests areNature Itself, which is the thing we're dedicated to protecting, as our highest goal, by the definition of the faction itself.

So sure, we have a choice. We can either drop everything to protect every forest every time it is attacked, or we can decide to play bad, hypocritical forestals who care more about our own convenience than about Nature. Maybe we could give up the whole idea that we're dedicated to Nature at all, and make protecting it just a sort of part-time hobby?

Actually, you did decide to be obsessive about protecting Nature. That's your choice.

Let's say you work for the Humane Society, irl, and that you are very dedicated to animal welfare. How many of those people, do you think, spend every single waking moment doing nothing but rescuing lost puppies? Not very many, I'd bet. Instead, they are probably whole individuals with multiple interests and cares, including but not limited to their family, their friends, their personal health, what brings them satisfaction in life, their religion (if they're a religious person), their hobbies, etc.

This doesn't make them any less of a real character who really helps animals. It just means they don't do it 100% of the time and that it is not their only priority in life to the exclusion of all others.

Or how about soldiers? The military, quite wisely, does not stick people into 24/7 battle continuously for years on end. They let people leave combat between tours of duty, and go pursue other things that are important to them. Or just recover, because it is not reasonable to expect people to be vigilant all the time and give up everything for a single goal (though of course soldiers irl actually do that sometimes, due to rl having permadeath). 

If it's your character's roleplay to have one and only one thing you care about in life, that's your choice. We all have different ideas about what good roleplaying is, but I tend to look at good roleplaying as resulting in characters that feel real, that have flaws, and are multi-dimensional. The number of folks who would be, realistically, interested in being on 24/7 guard duty in any situation approaches 0, so why would you consider it necessary for -everyone- in your faction to roleplay that way?


But no one is going to want to do that, because it would require giving up everything that is valuable about roleplaying in the forestal faction to begin with. And that's not our fault. No one else is forced into a choice where they would have to absolutely abandon the in-game ideals of their faction in order to make the game tolerable to play.

So, when the folks at the Humane Society want to go on a date rather than searching for lost puppies to help one night, that's making them absolutely abandon their ideals?

When a firefighter takes a vacation, he's abandoning his ideals?

When a military service member retires after 20 years to do other things, he's abandoning his ideals?

The administration has a responsibility to handle this situation in a way that works for us, given that we are obligated to respond to all attacks on Nature as our first priority. 

You're the one saying that you're obligated though, not us. You are not an automaton, and actually can make choices for yourself.

because i cant break up the quotws, change your analogy to that of a paramedic or police officer on call as opposed to someone who has to actively look for lost puppies. We respond to a situation and dont go looking for it. Yes you can have a life outside arresting someone, or to do your paperworkas a poloce officer, but if your colleague gets shot or youre called to a crime you cant choose not to go.

Mishgul

Stop comparing forest conflict in a game to real life situations. Forest conflict is not nearly as serious as someone getting shot irl, unless there is something secret OOC eleusis cult that is going around murdering people for not defending exterminations that I need to know about.

Idelisa

Oceana said:

I never wanna be in a forest again. brb going magi and moving to Cyrene. 

Seftin

Mishgul said:

Stop comparing forest conflict in a game to real life situations. Forest conflict is not nearly as serious as someone getting shot irl, unless there is something secret OOC eleusis cult that is going around murdering people for not defending exterminations that I need to know about.

I was making a comparison just like Sarapis was. That's all. i know its not important, yet there isn't a way you can go well w will kill you for exterminating in eastern ithmia, not blackforest, but we will for aalen but you guys can have the aureliana. i personally enjoy defending exterms, the only issue is when mhaldor or eleusis then believe they can gank for days after.

Mishgul

Thats a general achaea issue

Idelisa

Thats a general  jhui issue?





too soon?

Oceana

Idelisa said:

Oceana said:

-forest picture-

I never wanna be in a forest again. brb going magi and moving to Cyrene. 

Cyrene has a dryad ghost roaming their streets.

Oceana

Scary picture aside, I agree that the obligation to defend Nature is instilled into us forestals from the very beginning and has been encouraged and reinforced by the Nature divine in the past years. This sense of duty and service makes us drop whatever we are doing to defend Nature, whether we are combatants or not, skilled or not, whether we like combat or not. And no, it is not fun to log in after work and to defend for three hours straight, when you only have three hours to spend on Achaea. Of course, I could choose to make my player leave the forestal faction or to not play at all, except I care too much for that to be valid options.

Edit: removed a rogue "a".

Sarapis

Awan said:

Sarapis said:

Let's say you work for the Humane Society, irl, and that you are very dedicated to animal welfare. How many of those people, do you think, spend every single waking moment doing nothing but rescuing lost puppies? Not very many, I'd bet. Instead, they are probably whole individuals with multiple interests and cares, including but not limited to their family, their friends, their personal health, what brings them satisfaction in life, their religion (if they're a religious person), their hobbies, etc.

This doesn't make them any less of a real character who really helps animals. It just means they don't do it 100% of the time and that it is not their only priority in life to the exclusion of all others.

So, when the folks at the Humane Society want to go on a date rather than searching for lost puppies to help one night, that's making them absolutely abandon their ideals?

Sorry, this comparison doesn't work. Here is the correct comparison:

Suppose there is a meeting of the humane society. Perhaps someone's giving a talk about the importance of protecting animals, or perhaps they're having a ceremony to honour someone's dedication, or perhaps they're having a banquet or just taking an opportunity to relax and socialize with like-minded people.

Then someone starts beating a dog to death in the room next door. And they can hear it howling, so they know it's happening. And it's possible for them to prevent it.

The members of the humane society have to go stop the guy from beating the dog to death. If they choose not to do that, and decide to prioritize their talks and ceremonies and socializing over preventing an actual dog from being beaten to death, they are horrible hypocrites and have abandoned the ideals they claimed to have.

And yet, those humane society members know for a fact that there are starving puppies/kittens out there that they could be rescuing. I know someone who goes out at 5 am many mornings looking for strays to rescue. Everybody who claims to care about "the cause" could do the same thing, but they don't. Does that make them horrible hypocrites, or just real people? 

Do you categorically not care about starving children? (I'm not actually accusing you of being heartless, btw.) There are actual starving children in the world, right now. We know this. You have the power to prevent some of them from starving, by selling all of your possessions and donating money to feed them. You would, by doing that, actually prevent real suffering. Are you a horrible hypocrite because you don't do that, or are you a complex person that has multiple priorities in your life?

If the issue with the above two examples is that you don't -hear- the lost puppy crying because it's 2 blocks away, or that you don't hear the starving kid crying because he's half a world away that is somewhat, maybe easy to solve.

If that's so, is the issue just that you know about the exterminating? In other words, if you knew it was happening in general, but not specifically where or who (such as might be the case with starving children in other countries), does that fix the problem for you? Serious question.

Events have worked out just fine for Shallam, Cyrene, Ashtan, etc. without the need for attacking their basic essence.

Those are cities. Just like people can attack individual forest rooms by exterming, individual city rooms can be attacked by rubbling them. Of course, rubbling a city room is far more difficult and there's a cap to how many rooms can be rubble'd, and that's where the problem is for extermination in my opinion. It needs to cost more to attempt, in one or more of time, essence, risk of dying, etc.

Sarapis

Skye said:

While what you say makes sense, it's also a little unfair to push the onus onto us. As things stand now, extermination has become the round-the-clock go-to option for bored pkers because of the sheer availability of targets, ease of execution due to lack of hindrances or real repercussions etc, even the fact that it's the best way to farm experience because we're practically the only source of conflict in which the attackers can level up off swarms of rapidly discouraged midbie combatants since dying in cities now only costs exp for the raiders not the defenders. How would we say it, 'even when we don't look for trouble, trouble looks for us'? We're like the 7-11 of pk. 

Yep, understood.

The forestal community has also suffered from the sheer lack of administrative guidance in this affair. From the time I've been forestal since god knows how many years ago till now, I've not encountered any Nature-aligned God who's made any notable progress in reforming or even redirecting our efforts to something that you might perceive as 'more sensible roleplay'. 

It has to be a mutual process though, and from what I've seen in this thread, some of you insist on no possibility of change to your roleplay (see discussion above). 

Sarapis

Penwize said:

@Sarapis, regarding the comparison to forestal RP and the humane society concept:

If this is how you want or envision the forestal faction to be, then there needs to be some serious, direct and thorough rearrangement of everything in that faction currently.  I mean this completely wholeheartedly.  That is not at all how the faction has been directed.  That is not how the leaders treat it, that is not how the divine have treated it, and that is not at all how the entire history of that faction has treated it for as long as I have seen.  It's possible to steer it in that direction, but please understand that that is not at all how it is right now.

I can't speak for how the Divine have treated it over the last X years as I wasn't involved in Achaea for a long time, but my understanding of extermination is that there's a reason that only members of Oakstone see that extermination is happening: So that only members of Oakstone needed to feel compelled to defend. Isn't it players that are broadcasting Oakstone messages to Eleusis, thus involving all Eleusians as well in exterm stuff? If that's the case, you as players have the power to fix the problem if you collectively want to do so don't you?

I understand that there's a lot of momentum/tradition behind the current system, but if the feeling you're expressing is actually shared widely within the Nature faction, why do you need a Divine to decide to change this aspect of your roleplaying? (Keeping in mind that we're going to be making some hardcoded changes too.) You have the tools to do it.

Sarapis

Awan said:

Idelisa said:

Just to play Devil's advocate Nature is not a puppy in the other room getting beaten, it is vast and all encompassing which includes the "dirty" Mhaldorians. It can take care of itself!

I agree: I would really enjoy an opportunity to roleplay a forestal in a world in which Nature is all-powerful and can take care of itself, in which our devotion to Nature is not based on protecting it. That sounds delightful and fascinating--it would open up a whole new avenue of roleplay.

But (and I'm not sure if this is what you meant or not) that's only possible if extermination is deleted. It would be incoherent for us to say "Nature can take care of itself, it doesn't need protecting" if there was anything resembling an extermination mechanism. The forests manifestly cannot protect themselves from being exterminated, and extermination is purposely characterized as the destruction of the very Nature-y essence of a natural area. The sole purpose of an extermination mechanism is to make it so Nature needs to be protected from something.

Actually, no. The reason that extermination went in was to give Necromancers a way to harvest a game resource for their use - if they exterminate rooms that are full of plants, it's a net gain for them I believe (was originally at least). Over the years, the forestal community slowly turned this into a profane attack on the very essence of nature in terms of their roleplaying. 

Sarapis

Awan said:

If you want to change the culture, you actually have to change either the game mechanics, or the official description of what it is that the game mechanics are accomplishing (or probably both).

If extermination is defined as the actual destruction of the Nature-y essence of a place, of a sort that Nature can't prevent on its own and can't heal on its own, then we have to prevent it. We can't not prevent it and still be forestals. That really would be like the humane society sitting in a room holding ceremonies about protecting animals while ignoring the dog being beaten to death in the next room. Telling us to just go ahead to feel free and ignore the howling dog is not the solution. You have to change the mechanisms, and if you change the mechanisms so that it could possibly make sense for us not to prioritize preventing whatever-it-is above all else, then people will stop.

But that means either doing away with any true extermination mechanism, either by doing away with it entirely, or by replacing it with something that doesn't actually destroy Nature.

 Forestals take their ideology to outweigh whatever any god tells them, and they always have. 

That's really not true. Forestal culture was very tied to Gaia in the early days, and has evolved since then to include the idea that extermination is something that has to be instantly responded to 100% of the time. I don't doubt that the various Gods over the time have something to do with that, for better or worse, incidentally. The mechanics haven't really changed much though, except in small details. Exterminate is a very old ability.

If you want to change the culture, you actually have to ... the official description of what it is that the game mechanics are accomplishing

Can you explain? 

Here is the description for AB NECROMANCY EXTERMINATE, which is the official description of what it does for Necromancers:

"Using your command of the energies of death, you are able to wipe a forest area clean of plant life, replenishing some of your

essence. Be warned though, there is an essence cost to this ability, and unless there is a sufficient amount of plant life in the

room, you may lose essence using it. It should also be noted that an exterminated room is no longer considered a forest room, so

many Druidic abilities will not work in such a room."

Here's what a room that has been exterminated has added to its description:

"The land and plantlife here has been blackened and burned."

It seems like it's maybe the actual 'call to arms' message that you're talking about? Oakstone hears something like:
"Through your link with Nature, you feel a foul breach upon the natural sanctity of the Eastern

Ithmia."

That's less neutral than the others, but easily interpreted as you please. Can be changed in any case. Anyway, we take your collective points and changes are going to be made.

(Replying to multiple posts separately = awesome for my post count.)

Skye

@Sarapis

1) This probably sounds more snarky than intended but under what circumstances did you ever imagine you could empower one faction with the ability that so obviously encroaches upon the territory of another faction without it escalating to (un)declared acts of sacrilege and/or war. Or that those acts wouldn't eventually escalate to the monster it is today? Your faith in humanity > mine.

2) I find it worrying that you seem to imply that Oakstone and Eleusis should be considered separate entities by the playerbase. We had the same problem between Shallam and the Church/Citadel whatever, so much so to the point where even the attempt to forcibly weld the two together wasn't enough to rectify their difficulties.

One would have thought that Administration would have realised the mistake of allowing the playerbase to establish distinction between multiple organisations of the same alignment. One of the biggest roleplay favours administration could ever do for the forestal faction would be to dispel such notions and assist the leadership in uniting the stubbornly disparate organisations such as the Sylvanic red-headed stepchild of the forestals. 

Kazu

@Sarapis Going to try and respond to some of the questions and points you brought up.

The forestal faction basically does hear every exterm through Oakstone, as you mentioned. The members them spread it to the community because it's honestly common sense. Eleusis is listed as the org that protects Nature. If someone is attacking, it's only natural that you tell the defenders. I'd be willing to bet that most members of Sartan's order would tell Mhaldor if I went and defiled one of their shrines. Expecting there to be no spill over to related orgs isn't really reasonable.

Next point, Nature before all else, including Gods. I can testify that we have been encouraged to put Nature before our gods in the last hundred years at least. I'm not too sure about circumstances before that. However, general world events lend to the idea that Nature is more lasting than the gods anyways. We've had numerous disappearances and deaths of nature oriented divine. However, the overall health and well-being of nature didn't really change.

Exterm has always been classified as destroying the very essence of Nature to us. I'm sure you can understand why we become a little testy about that, as it is our previously stated objective to defend Nature above all else. You said it yourself that the ability was added to give necromancers a source to harvest essence. It's perfectly reasonable for forestals to view the act as a profane attack on Nature's essence, because it is. It completely destroys all plant life in the area, and nothing else will grow unless we actively go out and fix it.

If you want to actively change the culture of the forestal faction, you are going to have start by basically rebooting from the ground up. There's realistically very little room for any other form of conflict at the moment due to the way that the faction's goals are wrapped around a physical, tangible thing. Every other org focuses on more of an idealistic philosophy that they try to advance. Therefore, they cannot be attacked directly like Nature can.

Honestly, I rather like Gaia's new goal of reclaiming the wilderness from the cities. However, it simply can't become anything more than an ideal, because we have to first protect and remove the current threats to Nature before we can consider moving on to a hardcore reclamation.

Mishgul

I do think/agree condensing the forestal faction would be a good first step towards any end goal right now. Oakstone itself is a horrid name. Have I mentioned it's a horrid name?

Sarapis

Skye said:

2) I find it worrying that you seem to imply that Oakstone and Eleusis should be considered separate entities by the playerbase. We had the same problem between Shallam and the Church/Citadel whatever, so much so to the point where even the attempt to forcibly weld the two together wasn't enough to rectify their difficulties.

Well, I'm just stating a fact: They are, actually, two separate entities as far as the game code is concerned, right now at least. Some people are part of one and not the other.

Sarapis

Kazu said:

 I'm sure you can understand why we become a little testy about that, as it is our previously stated objective to defend Nature above all else. 

That is actually what I don't understand: I'm an American. But when there's a threat to our country, I don't run out to defend it - that's not my role. The President, whose job it is to protect this country, doesn't run out and personally respond to threats - that's not his role. Does that make him less dedicated to protecting the country? Imagine a 70 year old President. Would he even be useful physically attacking the enemy? No, of course not. We also don't send people who aren't equipped to fight to war (well, in the modern day Western world at least). In fact, in the US, only volunteers go to war currently.

Similarly, why send someone to fight that isn't equipped to fight? Why does everyone need to be playing the exact same role? Can't someone contribute, for instance, by bashing to earn gold to pay for city expenses that let the active defenders of the forest be safer? The insistence that everyone in an entire city has to be the same is what I don't understand.

Talonia

It is so freaking great that Sarapis is back and active.