Forest Conflict

Froh

Mishgul said:

I don't think you understood my post

I think I did, even if I didn't express it well.  Nature is, by doctrine for a good number of people, more than "just" the essence of Gaia.
More in what it means and more in who/what is being given allegiance/service.

So, if Gaia said that extermination was cool with her (but absent some immediate need like "This harm must be borne for several years in the interest of unity with Mhaldor against even greater threat _X_"), lots of characters, particularly those who heard it only second-hand, would have good reason to doubt whether simply ignoring it was what they should actually do.  The IC reasoning might vary (Gaia is mistaken, Gaia is being impersonated, Gaia's order head who announced this and was the only witness to her statement must have betrayed her, ...) but the present religious/political situation is not simply Gaia=Nature.

It's the nature of the beast; otherwise all of the militant forestals would be in Gaia's order (or take direction from them).

 

Idelisa

@Penwize, I didn't say only, I said essentially.  And the reason it's gravitating is because people are sick and tired of it.  Some people like combat, some don't.  And the ones that sorta like combat are forced to do it non-stop, and not really develop a love for it. 

Clearly we have different perspectives based on our experiences, many people share mine. It's never going to be a perfect place for everyone, but FORCING people to do stuff rarely makes them love it and become great at it.

Mishgul

The most annoying thing about this thread is that it's going to be some sort of "look we brought it to your attention" thread, or that's what it looks like. It would be nice to see you guys trying and pull things in a better direction yourselves and act like the flavour is different, instead of being set in yours ways, so that when change does come (if it comes) you guys won't just be jerking around like Shallam was for a long time. 

Froh

Mishgul said:

The most annoying thing about this thread is that it's going to be some sort of "look we brought it to your attention" thread, or that's what it looks like. It would be nice to see you guys trying and pull things in a better direction yourselves and act like the flavour is different, instead of being set in yours ways, so that when change does come (if it comes) you guys won't just be jerking around like Shallam was for a long time. 

Last one for a while...

That's mainly the result of the responses like "RP different" or "What's the problem?"

If you question whether there's a problem you'll get posts like you're describing: arguments that there is a problem.

If you (generic you) ask "So, what would you like to see happen?" you get constructive answers like "Let minor forest damage heal itself" and "Maybe if the name of the action, description in the warning to Oakstone members, and visual appearance of the result wasn't rubbing damage in our faces quite so aggressively we wouldn't need to get so uptight about it."  The forestal-viewpoint folks posting so far seem to be quite open to doing things differently and are just saying "little help here, please".

In response to your comment about whether forestals really have to be nice, the possibility of an alliance to prevent a big chunk of nature from being paved over (new Shallam) might make for interesting bedfellows.

 

Exelethril

Penwize said:

Lots to say here ... won't get to it all, but I'll address a few key points:

@Idelisa: Honestly, @Skye was right.  That is not at all what I've been pushing for, Skye has a much closer notion of it.  Eleusis needs to have multiple separate identities, but right now it's gravitating wholly to the docile, ultra-nice and non-combative flavour than it is anything else.  That can be one facet of it, but it shouldn't completely take over Eleusis, as it slowly is right now. Aside from that, I have to honestly disagree with your stance that Eleusis rewards or praises combat only.  If that were the case, I would not have just reached CR4 like three days ago.  Seriously, @Jhui and company actually laughed at the idea that I was only CR3 when they left, and not acknowledging combatants very much was one of the many reasons they ultimately decided to leave the faction.  Most of the highest CR individuals are not combatants by any stretch.  Take a hard look at Eleusis' culture, it is nowhere near as friendly to combatants as you think it is (which is the primary reason we have so few good combatants these days, by the way.).

@Sarapis, regarding mechanically changing extermination: honestly, the biggest impact you could possibly make on RP is to have Gaia empower the forests to rejuvenate themselves the same way off-plane forests currently rejuvenate themselves.  That single move would completely change the RP view behind the forests being attacked, because now they can actually recover themselves. 

I think any city that manages to retain a fairly large combatant playerbase are usually the most successful because at the end of the day, the combatants protect the non-combatants from the arguably most frustrating part about Achaea, dying repeatedly to a force larger or more skilled than yours for hours on end.

Ashtan's combatant-centric reward system is pretty good at encouraging that sort of behaviour.

Mishgul

Never wait for mechanic changes, and never expect them, ask for them if you have to though. The things that happen otherwise are collectively in your hands.

Ashtan is a special case, not because of a combatant centric reward system, but because there is a large group of friends that love to play together. There is very little you can do in that situation, and I don't see that changing for irl years.

Penwize

Idelisa said:

@Penwize, I didn't say only, I said essentially.  And the reason it's gravitating is because people are sick and tired of it.  Some people like combat, some don't.  And the ones that sorta like combat are forced to do it non-stop, and not really develop a love for it. 

Clearly we have different perspectives based on our experiences, many people share mine. It's never going to be a perfect place for everyone, but FORCING people to do stuff rarely makes them love it and become great at it.

Well, alright, I disagree that Eleusis' rewards are essentially focused on combat.  Word it however you like, I disagree with it.  Again, if that were the case, I would not have just reached CR4 like three days ago.  @Jhui and company would not have left due to lack of combatant acknowledgement.  Again, most of the highest CR individuals are not combatants by any stretch.  Honestly, Eleusis does not have much of a culture of rewarding combat.  Eleusis doesn't have much of a culture of rewarding anything, really, but combat is not the most rewarded thing.

I do agree with the nonsense of forcing people to defend though.  It's gotten to the point where I can't even meditate my willpower back on my ship without being yelled at for not rushing to defend an extermination that happens while I do so.  There's just no excuse for that, and yet that's the mindset I get attacked with.  It's ludicrous.

Idelisa

@penwize I agree with you to a point. I think that Eleusis as a whole needs a makeover. But it's only really going to happen with a combined effort of a variety of skills and personalities, including us softies. :P

Mishgul

you don't need a "makeover" to produce more acknowledgements and benefits for combatants. It was a problem back when Carmain was a forestal and part of the reason I quit, and it still seems to be a problem now considering recent events.

Nakari

I totally came up with an equally grief way for Eleusis to strike at something Mhaldorians would feel compelled to defend: Make some hard to defend objective that Eleusis can attack, and each time they're successful, the admins delay Sartan coming back.

Mishgul

Stop playing forums and play more achaea gdi >( @Nakari

Prythe

Skye said:

@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. 

Skye - I'm going to have to disagree here, at least from a historical perspective.

When I was growing up as a young Druid, there was definitely a distinction made between Oakstone and Eleusis. The push was for us to aspire to "Join Oakstone" and those who wanted to become citizens of Eleusis were, after many arguments and debates, allowed to do so at GR5, but not before. More than once Conor said to me how disappointed he was when people would be promoted to that level that their response was "Yes! Now I can join Eleusis!" rather than "I can HF now!" or "I hope to get into Oakstone soon!"

There were also distinctions made between "defending Nature" (Stopping Exterms, Holos, fighting fires), "defending Eleusis" (DruidsCitizens would, in about the same proportion as all citizens do now), and "Raids." The latter was very much discouraged as "Giving rise to to an excuse for _them_ to attack Nature." Druids were always taught to be in defensive posture, and mostly only as to direct Harm to Nature.

At one point Oakstone was to be the "Forest City," but things happened, and it did not develop that way.

So, you may find it worrisome that there is encouragement that the two different entities should be considered, well, different entities, but that is the way young Forestals have been trained since the creation of Eleusis.

It will probably be that way until and unless Oakstone ceases to exist, there being no other reason for there to be two such organizations dedicated to Nature, other than having dissimilar purposes and functions.

By the way, I am not clamoring for Oakstone to disappear - as a Druid, I am rather fond of the distinctions found among the whole.

Idelisa

@carmain I love you but stop putting words in my mouth i simply said it needed a makeover. :P.

Mishgul

i'm adding words to your mouth!

Idelisa

CLEARLY my mouth needs no more words. Have you not seen my posts? Sheesh.

Kyrra

Should change forests to totem empowerment mechanics. Have people walk the forests ( like they already do ) and bond to forge temporary connections that inform through that connection that damage is being done, much like totems screech about being being manhandled if they are empowered.

Speaking as someone that usually devouts about 2-3 hours a day to totem maintenance, it's something that I generally always enjoy doing but don't always have the time for.

A totem empowerment can last anywhere between 1-3 rl days before fading for good. Adopting a similar sort if bonding between *forestals* and forests means that lower level folk wanting to get involved can, it's entirely voluntary, and can allow lines to be drawn over what's worth defending.

If the couple forest/jungle rooms on Mysia burn down due to a fire, does it matter anymore than a necro defiling the lands? The damage is pretty much the same short of a room needing to be rejuved.

Just food for thought.

Katzchen

I like the idea of having exterminated rooms regenerate themselves after an IG month. I think a few days is a bit short. Also love the idea of Eleusis being able to overgrow non forest rooms, with the plants retreating after an IG month if it's not tended. If Eleusis went all 'we are going to reclaim all land for nature' I would move my forestal alt there, and actually bother to play her.

Some of the 'griefy' issues should be sorted with Mhaldor actively fighting Targossas again. Offense split on two fronts is half the trouble for Eleusis.

Kinilan

This one time Sabiru and I sailed down to Meropis and he set the whole Daoric on fire. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Achilles

Kinilan said:

This one time Sabiru and I sailed down to Meropis and he set the whole Daoric on fire. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen read.

ftfy, text game bro.

Lilley

^ Lol

So what? Kinilan has an imagination. Imagining things engulfed in flames is fun.

Idelisa

Don't you read with your eyes?

:-B

Well... most of us.

Ravien

Know what. No.

Blujixapug

Two points:

One is that I think it's interesting extermination has remained in existence as one of the very few "always on" conflict mechanics in this game. Landmarks were nerfed from always to I think one day out of every twelve, and then deleted entirely. Icons were nerfed from 8+ hour battles that could happen any time, to 1-hour battles that can only happen one hour per day - and Icons can and could always be opted out of by not raising one. City raids were nerfed. All those things happened presumably in large part because they caused burnout for defenders.

Two is that I think there's a problem with suggesting that people should not feel locked into always defend every extermination, and expecting that extermination still remains significant and important. It's natural that if people get burnt out over exterms and stop defending them, they start trivialising exterms as something unimportant and irrelevant, and shift org culture to accommodate this view. IMO this is a bad thing because apathy is not a trait you ever want to foster in an organisation. You really don't want forestals to stop regarding extermination as important - without any pretense of resistance, it will stop being fun to exterminate. I strongly suspect Eleusis's present "everyone must always defend" laws/guidelines are a reaction to past apathy.

Aerek

Any ideology that trumpets the ideology, itself, as "higher" than the gods who preside over it is a recipe for disaster. It means the ideology effectively cannot be controlled or changed any longer. This mindset was one of the major troubles in Shallam, where Good was "unchanging and eternal," so the gods who were trying to help the city get out of a rut were opposed (among other reasons) because they were essentially betraying their own ideology. That made them slaves to precedent just like the mortals were. This is a bad, vicious cycle, and should be broken ASAP. If the nature gods are doing it, they need to stop, and re-assert themselves as the embodiment of Nature, and the players need to shut up and go with it.

Unless the nature gods are descending from on high and requiring extermination defense, though, (and I haven't heard of that) then the players have power here. A few of the forestals here are stuck arguing in circles, "We can't change our beliefs because our gods demand them. Our gods can't change our beliefs because our beliefs supersede them." You are essentially arguing that no one has control over your ideology, and because it has been this way, it must always be this way, so any change to the situation must be external, rather than internal. That's a bad attitude. Eleusis and its Leath-ri can set policy to whatever it likes. If Eleusis doesn't like having to defend against exterminations constantly, it can rule it optional. If it doesn't want to do that, it is creating its own problems.

Now, with all that said, I agree that the extermination axis of conflict is skewed, and I'm glad that Sarapis & Co are looking into it. I'm not placing all the blame on the Forestals, but I do feel that the Forestals are waiting for outside help when they could be helping themselves while they wait.

Edit: Didn't read this, fully, before posting.

Blujixapug said:

Two is that I think there's a problem with suggesting that people should not feel locked into always defend every extermination, and expecting that extermination still remains significant and important. It's natural that if people get burnt out over exterms and stop defending them, they start trivialising exterms as something unimportant and irrelevant, and shift org culture to accommodate this view. IMO this is a bad thing because apathy is not a trait you ever want to foster in an organisation. You really don't want forestals to stop regarding extermination as important - without any pretense of resistance, it will stop being fun to exterminate. I strongly suspect Eleusis's present "everyone must always defend" laws/guidelines are a reaction to past apathy.

I think this is an excellent point, but I think it's something that should be applied at the house level, not the city level. Cities are diverse groups, and not everyone will be able, enjoy, or even be useful in combat operations like that. Cyrene doesn't mandate raid defense, but the Wardens do. We roleplay defending Cyrene to our dying breaths, because that's what our House is all about. The other Cyrenian Houses don't do this, but plenty of their members do join in, and that is encouraged and rewarded. Eleusis has the freedom to do it in exactly the same way, if they'd let themselves. If the Sentinels want to mandate it, that's perfect. That becomes their prime directive, and a major facet of their roleplay. If the other Houses don't, then supporting the Sentinels with auxiliary and civilian roles becomes a major facet of their roleplay. This allows the combat-driven players to fight all the time, and the less combat-oriented players help when they want to and not when they don't, instead of trying to push one way on everyone all the time. That significantly cuts down on the burnout.

Skye

Prythe said:

Skye said:

@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. 

Skye - I'm going to have to disagree here, at least from a historical perspective.

When I was growing up as a young Druid, there was definitely a distinction made between Oakstone and Eleusis. The push was for us to aspire to "Join Oakstone" and those who wanted to become citizens of Eleusis were, after many arguments and debates, allowed to do so at GR5, but not before. More than once Conor said to me how disappointed he was when people would be promoted to that level that their response was "Yes! Now I can join Eleusis!" rather than "I can HF now!" or "I hope to get into Oakstone soon!"

There were also distinctions made between "defending Nature" (Stopping Exterms, Holos, fighting fires), "defending Eleusis" (DruidsCitizens would, in about the same proportion as all citizens do now), and "Raids." The latter was very much discouraged as "Giving rise to to an excuse for _them_ to attack Nature." Druids were always taught to be in defensive posture, and mostly only as to direct Harm to Nature.

At one point Oakstone was to be the "Forest City," but things happened, and it did not develop that way.

So, you may find it worrisome that there is encouragement that the two different entities should be considered, well, different entities, but that is the way young Forestals have been trained since the creation of Eleusis.

It will probably be that way until and unless Oakstone ceases to exist, there being no other reason for there to be two such organizations dedicated to Nature, other than having dissimilar purposes and functions.

By the way, I am not clamoring for Oakstone to disappear - as a Druid, I am rather fond of the distinctions found among the whole.

Well, obviously Oakstone and Eleusis are different in as far as the hardcoding goes. And the distinction would have been felt more acutely by you as you were a Druid.

As I understood it, the Druids as an organisation refused to join with Eleusis, leaving Eleusis with two Houses and all the ingredients for a terribad powerstruggle. (s'right, I blame you guys >:P)

Whatever the case and however the circumstances, they're now a part of Eleusis and I think those distinctions are going to be felt less. With the entire forestal community adhered to Eleusis, it makes little sense to keep Oakstone apart. I don't doubt that persisted insistence of the distinction 'Eleusis is Eleusis, Oakstone is Oakstone, Nature is Eleusis and Oakstone, but Eleusian territory is political' is a pothole that is going to repeatedly shoot us in the foot. It becomes a sticking point for individuals who still believe they are in a position to go off and do their own thing or become stumbling blocks in the city's road to progress to protect their own comfort zones. It is the prelude to factional division in the worst sort of way.

Idelisa

I wonder at what point Eleusis moved from being a gathering place to might-as-well-be-oakstone?

I would assume that Eleusis would have been built as a HAVEN rather than an obligation.

Aerek

I've tried not to weigh in on Oakstone, because I'm not very familiar with all its details, but it does seem very redundant and unwieldy from the outside. Now that all the Forestal orgs are under one roof, the two should probably be merged, Shallam/Church style, and we can move on with our lives.

Kyrra

Eleusis is the city that forestals get to join if they want to be in a city. Which I always assumed was different to Oakstone which I only really know of as that org which dictated refill prices ten years ago

I think Eleusis and Mhaldor, and somewhat *Shallam were all pushed toward combining organisations because there is so much that ties these cities together.

Shallam had the Church/Citadel because of the Devotionists. Mhaldor anything centres around the will of Sartan first and foremost. Eleusis is all about nature and care taking the forests.

I can kind of see where it may be a good thing to push everything together because *most* of the time, getting involved in one aspect inevitably leads to joining the associated organisations because it's the natural process and it's been reinforced on several levels for quite a length of time.

I'm genuinely curious about the reactions of actual forestal class people though. If exterms weren't such an extreme and draining thing to deal with all the time, would you push to have orgs distinctly separated again or is there a present convenience that some are reluctant to let go of?

Skye

Probably around the time autoclass led to the cessation of herb bans and exterm bans, thereby forcing forestals into doing something instead of nothing. If anything previously all the Nature-y matters may have been construed as just Oakstone's responsibility while everyone was free to sit on their laurels (not to say that Oakstone wasn't sitting on some mad laurelz themselves).

Long time ago, forestals barely needed to fight or get involved in anything. The totems and forest defs handled most intruders and the herb bans took care of the rest. With the loss of that, we wound up 180'd into needing to fight all the time and getting involved with too much. We used to lose players to overly stringent and ridiculous requirements because we wanted to maintain a monopoly on curatives, that was already the brain drain for us. now we lose players to everything else. Persistent raids, bickering, Veldrining.

Only a matter of time before admin sinks Eleusis into the sea mud. >_>

Idelisa

As a Sylvan I feel like we are significantly different than the other two houses, or at least we try to be. The way I see it is the Druids are the Cyrenians of the Treehuggers (okay, not really but they just joined Eleusis so I actually have limited interaction with them as an org), Sents are our soldiers, and Sylvans are the Scholars and I would love to see those strengths built on.  I mean making Sylvans fight are like making TY into soldiers. :P  (Don't get me wrong, we've got a couple)

One thing that I do fear though, is I know that we bitch a hell of a lot about all the exterms and the combat, but it does give us something to do.  -I- will always have something to do, but I fear that some people have lived that life for so long that they would feel like they lost a part of their identity unless focus was actually shifted to something else.  

To be honest, I'd like to see more Nature damage and destruction that required team-work without it being combat oriented. Moar fires please!