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Comments
I think this would be unwieldy. What about people who become traitors and leave the Order? Is that not justification to enemy them?
To replace the meh conflict they generate, add "flags" to neutral comm shops, make comm shops give a token amount of comms to the city that controls them every RL day (1 wood/1 stone or something, for example), make the "flags" vulnerable to attack once a RL day set up in such a way that the timezones fluctuate unpredictably, prevent people from implanting totems in the area.
That way, at any time 1-2 places will be vulnerable and able to be fought over and we get rid of awful shrine mechanics. If people still want PVE-style conflict, they can still offer essence to their god at the master shrine, and the new form of quantifiable order egos can be essence.
Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
Shrines have powers right now, but other than Worldburn, how many of them actually get used? Increasing the radius substantially, and changing them to provide small benefits such as damage reduction, health regeneration, an increase to damage against denizens, etc. might be a nice way to give them some use, especially following the Battlerage/denizen changes. It would give Orders an incentive to actually maintain shrines in a lot of areas, since doing so would actively improve their ability to hunt those areas.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Waking up to the city log that followed was also insane.
I don't know what the fix is, but I hope it's something other than destroying a few dozen shrines one night and hunting up essence for a few dozen shrines the next day.
Edit : right now, I can clear the monks of judgement mountain and the migri below it in -slightly- more time than before, and they're enough essence to almost fully, if not completely, raise/drop a shrine
Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
Corpses are worth more, but they also take longer to gather. Since you brought up simple math... If every denizen took twice as long to kill as it did previously, but it was also worth twice as much essence, the amount of time you need to invest to defile a shrine remains the same; if you also double the amount of essence required to defile a shrine, then a shrine now takes twice as long to defile as before.
That's an overly simplistic view, obviously, but it does illustrate quite nicely that the increase in essence cost per corpse doesn't necessarily have to mean shrines are faster/easier to defile. They are, however, much easier to consistently defile, as Achilles said, because there's less downtime waiting for respawns.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
It also makes sense if the entire point we're rotating around with shrine conflict is to initiate more PvP.
Part One: Non-Coms, not Pom-Poms.
Perceived Problem: Patrons often seem to be a "behind-the-scenes" type of thing to newer or not-so-well-entrenched players.
Solution: Bring them to the foreground of the "shrine-wars". This suggestion weaves together a new "Patronage" system that would not replace, but merely give a face lift to city Patrons.
Perceived Problem: There are little opportunities offered towards non-combatants in term of mechanical substance. Sure, you can swing your numbers through awesome role-play, heralding the cries of despair from the denizens of the land, or weaving love stories that no one will forget. All of that relies on an audience, provides no mechanical benefit to your side, and in some cases (mostly bashing related) can see your efforts erased within minutes.
Solution: Provide non-combatants a way of mechanically impacting their faction without enforcing boundaries between them and the perceived action of the game's world. That is, put them where the action is without marking them for death. Unless it's death by terrifying torture-monster.
Perceived Problem: Shrines have no true usage other than to be annoying.
Solution: Provide shrines a renewed purpose without creating a system that would imbalance the factions in a way other than "extra" benefits. This way everyone can bitch about the fact [oppressive murder-faction] has all the extra stuff while [flowery hug-it-out faction] has none of it (even though nothing has changed in [flowery hug-it-out faction]. At all. Literally.).
Part One and a half: Delos, the Kingless City
Perceived Problem: Rogues often feel as though they have no way to reap the benefits of city-life, often sequestered to a solely Order or otherwise unaffiliated lifestyle which sees little mechanical benefit [outside of being the specialist of snowflakes].
Solution: Beetlebluef, Beetlebluef, Beetle @Bluef . Delos rules as the city without a king. It's a merchant, gypsy town full of those who share your misunderstood plight. You're not a rogue because everyone hates you, no. You're a rogue because you seek to mediate between existences uncharted by current theology, because you simply cannot accept a world in which other people might trample on your tranquil journey to find yourself, or perhaps your feet just smell really freaking bad. Whatever your reason, you have already given up a good portion of your mechanical investment in the game in pursuit of truly satisfying RP (true fact: kudos to you). It's time you bring you back to the scene. But only if you want to come.
Delos serves as a hub for all those who are cityless. With a "Patron of the People" mindset (and the help of a little Alchemy), Delos has created a synthetic shrine, allowing all those who are without a city to bask in the glory that is the new scaling benefits.
For use within the system, any rogue who wishes to participate must first "tune" themselves to the synthetic shrine. This is done in a quest which explains the fundamentals of how the system works in lieu of having a city to fall back on. This also creates a sense of comradery amongst the rogue community [one you can completely ignore, if you prefer the hermit-spin on roguedom].
Part Two: Welcome back to relevance, Nishnatoba
Insert world-obliterating (or perhaps just a random discovery - yea, that's probably a safe thing to suggest) event that reveals a new part of Nishnatoba, previously inaccessible to mortals because at the time it was haunted with face-melty powers. This new territory thrums with a latent energy, imbued in the very ground and ruins of massive structures. The air is tinted a rusty brown. We, being the greedy assholes we are, decide this power is waaaaaay better than the power we've been working with.
So what now? Well, it's pretty simple, actually. I'll split the system into three parts: a crude mechanical skeleton, how non-combatants can get involved, and how combatants can get involved.
===== Shake of that dust: How the system works =====
Each faction has a Grand Shrine. This shrine serves as the hub of that faction. Yes, the Grand Shrine is that of the Patron, and here's why: politics. If your faction is truly one that exists on the world stage, it's because its members have the political power in game (or your faction is governed by a terrifying tyrant of momentous proportion [or bosom]). Note that the Delosian shrine is the only one that functions for rogue, or otherwise unallied Patrons. Speaking of:
Those cities that have multiple patrons (Targossas, who would have the sole Twin-Shrine) or Patrons who choose to ally with a particular faction (like Twilight and Ourania who both care about Hashan) would see those faction pools linked, allowing members of their orders - regardless of city affiliation - to use the Grand Shrines located within the city. Truly rogue Patrons would require their order members to use the Grand Shrine within Delos.
These Grand Shrines offer attunements, which require maintenance. This maintenance comes in the form of a faction pool. This faction pool is filled in various activities on both Nishnatoba and the not-so-distant realms, but more on that later. The faction pool has no top-end cap, but daily (real-life time) drains which include diminishing returns. Because of this, the highest-available attunements require massive player dedication and constant action. There are three levels of attunements: poorly sustained, well-kept, and thriving. There are three types of attunements: experience, wealth, and ambiance.
Attunements are gained by attuning yourself to the Grand Shrine for one month. You may only have one attunement at a time. Each Serenade sees all attunements erased and the drain of faction pools by a scaling amount. A quick point about activation thresholds: The threshold for the next month is based off the ending amount of the faction pool before the decay occurs. This allows a faction to reach the level three pools only ever so often. Say the threshold for level three is 100,000 essence. Your city reaches 100,100 essence during this month. On the next serenade, your Grand Shrine's attunement level is set to level 3, and your essence decays by a substantial amount (say, 70%). This lowers your faction pool to 30,030, giving your time to fill the pool back up before the next serenade. The goal is to balance it out so that any one faction can only see the level 3 attunement every few real-life days. Activating the attunement costs nothing by equilibrium.
The attunements could be as follows:
Experience, level 1: A 1% increase to all experience gains.
Experience, level 2: A 2% increase to all experience gains.
Experience, level 3: A 5% increase to all experience gains.
Wealth, level 1: A 2% chance on denizen death to spawn one random commodity.
Wealth, level 2: A 4% chance on denizen death to spawn one random commodity.
Wealth, level 3: An 8% chance on denizen death to spawn one random commodity.
Ambiance, level 1: An message which only you see, triggering once every so often. Example: Mhaldor: A haze of red overtakes your vision for a moment, reminding you of your duty to the Master.
Ambiance, level 2: A change in your description to adopt the ideals of your faction. Example: Targossas: He is marked by a faint halo of flame.
Ambiance, level 3: A room-emote which fires in your location once per achaean day on a random timer. Example: Delos: As a small gust twirls about the location, the sound of jingling coins swirls about Bluef.
===== I'm a lover, not a fighter. =====
All this is good, but how do we contribute? Let's start with the less PK related ways, of which there are two.
The first is everyone's favorite: bashing. Yes sir, no big change here. Denizens and adventurer bodies from our every day world can be taken to the faction's base (which is a peaced territory) to add their essence to the faction pool.
However, disturbing remnants of the past plague this part of Nishnatoba. Your faction's base camp stands guard of a group-centered hunting ground. The creatures in this hunting ground only aggro when attacked, do not patrol, but do chase. The further into the hunting ground you go, the more difficult it becomes. These creatures are worth far more essence than any you've hunted before... but beware: they also pose far greater risks than you have witnessed in your time.
The second is questing. Each faction base has a quest-giver. The quests given will cycle about, with some being removed and some being added as time goes by. The most rewarding quests involve sneaking into another faction's base to steal an artefact. Some will have you return to the daily world and assist the denizens there in quests you've most likely done before. Either way, completing this quest will earn your faction more essence in the faction pool.
===== I bash players, not monsters! =====
Heck. Yes. Time to show just how badass you are. Why? Because the essence rewards from PK scale with diminishing returns according to how many people of your faction are currently engaged in Nishnatoba. This encourages small-group combat, but if that small-group is a whopper and likes to fight to the bitter end (Hi, the topiest of top-tier fighters! This is where you shineeeeeeeeeee), they can still be thwarted by a group of trouncing defenders.
How it works: Outside of every faction base is a tether to the Grand Shine. Players of other factions (including rogues - remember, Delos) can connect to this tether and syphon essence from another faction's pool to theirs. For each person on Nishnatoba at the time the tether tics (which is at a high rate with a low transfer), the energy transferred suffers a diminishing return to the certain floor at say, ten people. Being attacked is the only thing that will interrupt the tether. It doesn't even have to kill or hinder you. Any attack will do.
However.
If you are killed in this place, a bit of the essence which binds you to your faction is lost from your faction pool and placed in the killer's faction pool, scaling with your might. If you're 30% of my might, then I lose approximately 70% of the base transfer (scaling to 10% - nothing is lost at that point). If you're 150% of my might, then I gain 150% of the base transfer. This is to encourage cities to include the smaller folks.
If you're fighting, expect it to be on for a while, folks. You may not enter the peaced base camp (which just so happens to be your only means of returning to daily world until you have been out of combat for sixty seconds. Or you die.
Speaking of death, all experience loss from player-killing is suspended on this plane. Yes, you will still drop those things you normally drop on death. Outside of base camp (that includes the hunting grounds), it's free-PK, baby. The only exception is that faction may brand you an enemy and put a bounty on your head if you choose to rob them of their goods.
Ending remarks
Could something like this be put into place? I have no doubts about it. There have been crazier systems of mechanically-driven conflict in the IRE realms. Do I honestly expect us to get such a massive addition to in-game conflict? Probs not. Our lovely admins are already doing a metric poop-ton for us, and such a thing would be on the tail end of a pretty long laundry list.
These things are super fun to think about, though.
My suggestions:
- Allow only one person at a time to defile
- Increase balance time on defiling
- Add a cooldown to defilements
This gives defenders more time to respond to the defilement and may discourage hit-and-run defilements.
[ SnB PvP Guide | Link ]
I think it's a mistake to regard something in Achaea as "pointless" just because it relates to reputation/RP/ego - in a very real sense, reputation is the single most important Achaean asset. Once you accept that premise, then something which is "quantifiable ego" is the very opposite of pointless.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important