Extermination and Forest Defenses / Recourse Ideas

Exelethril

Extermination and forest defenses are outdated mechanics that could use some updating.

On one hand, forest defenses deal quite a lot of damage over time and can be an annoyance to deal with when hunting and in PvP. I believe there are quite a few hunting areas, mainly Annwyn, where the damage over time can influence whether a forest enemy can hunt there or not.

On the other hand, extermination is a tool that is easily open to abuse - too much grief for too little effort. The real imbalance from a faction vs faction perspective though, is the lack of equal recourse. When Mhaldor is strong, hundreds of forest rooms are open to attack and exterms can be used as an additional tool to continuously "damage" a faction's sovereignty / grief players into chore-like rejuvenating.

However, when Eleusis is strong, there's no equal mechanic to "damage" their sovereignty and punish a lack of response - from memory, most of their current older players would immediately journal/QQ/sit on guard stacks when raided or just not respond. Raiding/guard killing/shrine dropping is not an equal recourse when it's an offensive option open to both sides and all cities. Exterminating also only requires a small group, unlike guard killing.

These issues should be fine-tuned to keep the mechanic "epic" from an RP/story-telling  perspective (being able to force surrenders/defeats) while making the rivalry more balanced and ultimately, keeping the game fun. The moment this game lose the fun factor, it'll be quite difficult to retain an aging playerbase.

Ideas

• Introduce a gameplay mechanic exclusive to Eleusis where the fog around Mhaldor can be dissipated but regens over time (same period as natural forest regen) and flora grown in place that requires resources to get rid of (like rejuvenation), as an equal symbol of sovereignty damage.
• Remove the resource requirement from rejuvenation / speed up the process.
• Nerf or get rid of the damage from forest defenses.

Reyson

Given the amount of flexibility forestal classes have in forests, you'd have to tone those down, too.

Make grove summon area-only; don't let use grove users use each other's groves for any purpose at all, and get rid of forestbinding completely, since that is also an archaic skill, for example.

If that all gets toned down, I'm happy with, for instance, only being able to exterminate only a single area at a time, requiring a long channeled skill to begin it, and giving you a timeframe to accomplish it in, which is extended each time you complete the extermination of a room (exterm's time should also be cut down, but keep it channeled).

Mathilda

That does not address the issue that extermination is largely a one-sided affair where Mhaldor attacks and Eleusis defends. Remove defenses and exterminations both, completely.

Reyson

That leaves Eleusis with a massive advantage in a big part of Achaea, though? People who haven't fought Eleusis don't know how stupid it is to get grove summoned multiple areas away, have grove users use each other's groves, have to deal with enemies IN their groves, have to deal with self-soul rezz, etc. etc.

Exterminate is the only recourse against aaaaall of those things, and we can't even exterminate groves except on New Year's. Tone down groves' power and reach, and then, yes. We can get rid of forestdefs and exterminate both.

Mathilda

Trust me, I know how annoying it can be to fight groves. I don't mind at all if Eleusis keeps a certain advantage in forests, though, because that is a core component of what their faction is about.

Reyson

That's several advantages with no recourse. If we're eliminating forests as a target, I have no logical reason why they should get an advantage in forests, to be honest.

Kiet

Mhaldor's core component is they want to dominate the world, so they should get worldwide abilities as strong as groves, then. Problem solved. Targossas also looks over all of creation, so worldwide rites seems fair.

Calira

Other factions oppose Eleusis without exterminate just fine. If you're not playing around exterminating, then you don't have any obligation to linger in forest rooms for significant lengths of time. Eleusis itself has no forest rooms, and Grove Summon recently had its delay doubled by monolith sigils, to make it possible to attack forestal shrines in the forest.

That being said, deleting exterm altogether would be a shame. As flawed as the mechanic is, it's unique and has a lot of history and is clearly enjoyable to wield. I'd much rather see it tweaked so that exterminating entire forests is actually a challenge worth bragging over and not simply a numbers and patience game, and the forest enemy system tweaked so that the penalties are only active while exterminations have recently happened. It would be neat if Eleusis could reclaim Mhaldor Isle with similar difficulties, too.

Exelethril

I meant to suggest giving necromancers similar-ish grove utility for fog defense, to keep things balanced for both sides - was 4 am and jetlagged when I wrote the OP.

Details revolving around balance can be easily ironed out, the key idea is equal recourse.

Frederich

So.  We know how TEDIOUS AND BORING going from room-to-room exterminating is.

We know how tedious and obnoxious going room-to-room rejuvenating is.

Why don't we have rituals (akin to Rite of Dawn & Chorale) wherein Numerous Necromancers / Forestrals can gather.

They have a long channel time (depending on the forest/how many they have).  Once started, it's basically a full channel where they can do nothing.  Success, or Failure, drains Essence / Sunlight that is rather high.. but in return the people in question can quickly, and easily, rejuvenate / Burn down entire forests.

And, when I do say a long 'wind up'.  I do mean like implanting a totem with gauntlet level shit.

What does this, inherently, do for both factions?  For one, it begins to actually make it so that the conflict can be fun.  No hours tediously working away to rejuvenate 60+ forest rooms.  They can do it ASAP and rejuvenate an entire forest in 5-10 minutes.

On the flip side, this will also have to have a change, for the necromancers.  Grove summon should not be able to target them.  I don't think I have to really say why it shouldn't, but they're defenseless and can't move during this.  So, unless monoliths just flat out stop grove summon eventually (or some form of sigil does), then it will need to stop around those folks.

An area-wide emote should occur when either ritual is getting started.  A worldwide emote should occur when the ritual is completed.

Skye

The mechanic of exterming/forest defs has always been really one-dimensional for me.

Exterm because it's basically a one-sided initiation of conflict for Mhaldor with no form of equivalent recourse.

Forest defs because it reduces what Eleusis/Team Green really is to 'but what about the forests' rather than demonstrating their guardianship over All Nature (which is more than just trees).

Having been on both sides of the conflict, I can tell you that the same damn things pretty much repeat ad nauseam and it's really the equivalent of lighting a bag of dog shit on fire just to stir up trouble.

I propose the following:

• Delete forest defs and extermination
• Delete cities just kidding
  
• Introduce a new mechanic that is available to all cities so that any part of any spectrum may get involved in conflict

Members of the city military (rank debatable), is able to either conjure or revoke a room environment object that indicates their presence. For example:

Mhaldor: Red Fog
Hashan: Blue miasma
Ashtan: Yellow bog mist/some chaosy thing
Targossas: Emerald mist (it's all over their city now :S)
Eleusis: Something that looks distinct from the reclamation vines
Cyrene: Creeping frost

Let's just call it influence for now.

Cities (and maybe allied NPC villages) will always be the point of origin for Areas of Influence (AOI). Players will need to influence rooms starting from their city/village gates and spread outwards. Subverting a neutral room could take maybe 15 seconds, while subverting in an opposing AOI could be 20. There might be a time bonus or malus for subverting in NPC areas that are allies/enemies.

Rooms that are influenced need to be adjoined to similar rooms of influence in order to change it to your side, meaning you can't just walk into the middle of some super obscure place and swap influence in some hard to get room and build from there. Attempting to do so will only change the room back to 'neutral' and further attempts will tell you that you are too far from the point of origin to do so. Hence, there are some very clear borders and areas of conflict where different AOI lie. There are also no super annoying "HALP HALP SOMEONE IS SUBVERTING THIS ROOM" city alerts that makes people feel obligated to go and do something. The only exception to this is in areas that are politically allied to a city.

For the most part, rooms under influence are pretty much just ways of marking territory like peeing on trees or saying "X was here".  I do not think there should be an excessive mechanical advantage to areas of influence. Maybe a single level of regen bonus/malus or a very small damage reduction/increase.

Cooper

If you're going to make a serious thread to improve things, please don't throw insults in the OP.

That being said, most of what everyone is requesting was already put in the game through reclamation.

It takes one person 12-15 seconds to clear it, provides a defense against extermination, allows for both offensive and defensive abilities, and can be used on Mhaldor's island.

I do 100% agree that changes would benefit everyone, but let's not forget about the tools already available.

Mathilda

Reclamation is tricky -- a Druid needs to be online to manage it, otherwise it fades away. I think the longest time it can be left alone is 2-3 hours, and if no Druid comes online to claim, then it all fades away.

It's far from the 12 RL days that it takes for an exterminated room to go back to normal, but in the event that there are enough Druids to keep it up 24/7, then it can potentially last a long time.

Exelethril

Well, I hope they don't plan to keep things the way things currently are. There's a reason why these threads were created and the current problem/imbalance has generally been agreed upon by both sides. It's 2017 jfc

Aethele

Extermination makes sense as a way to start a fight, like taking down a shrine or attacking guards at defendable. When it progresses to strafing hundreds of rooms, as a way to get another faction to comply, I think that becomes griefing. Every faction can make demands, but the mechanics of raiding limit the amount of damage that can actually be done. Extermination has no meaningful limitations and the recent conflict has made it clear that massive swathes of forest can be cleared in a very short period of time. 

While it would be nice for the whole system to be overhauled, I really think that just making extermination take a lot longer and add a cooldown between exterminations would help make the mechanic an instigator of meaningful conflict that allows for an effective response. 

I would also be totally fine with forest defs being nerfed or even eliminated. Grove users and allies have big advantages when fighting in forests anyway, I don't think the defs are necessary and they're a huge annoyance to a lot of players. It also seems like a reasonable thing to do in exchange for nerfing extermination. Given that the Nature faction has been basically collapsed into Eleusis, I don't see much of a point in having forest enemies that are separate from Eleusis enemies anyway. 

Rangor

Tune forest defenses and exterminate. Defenses only awaken upon exterminate being used.

Let Defenses increase their potency for each room destroyed, or cost of exterminate increases for each room destroyed. 

Tune the accepted pk behavior so we can only pk enemies in forest while defenses are active.

Solved. @Makarios

Rangor

Also. could make forest defenses more automated and delete high warden position. say... idea brainstorming here..

Reyson exterminates black forest, the black forest rises in alarm and begins attacking all who are from the same city in the forest. Only the black forest awakens. For every room the defenses become stronger. (starting with no defences)

Change the defences from being passive tick damage to have cooler effects. Such as starting with small creatures coming out of the woods to attack you (bash the bees and mosquitos), leading to branches and tree vines attacking you (bash em down!), increasing further to treekin and dryads begin roaming the woods chasing enemies. Give us denizens that spawn in defence various effects, code some of them to find eleusians and follow them, code others to set up defences at certain positions, code others to chase down enemies. If we can't defend, mhaldor may as well enjoy a good bashing challenge.

Give the other cities an equal tool for attacking the forest.

Being on the defensive side, eleusis will need advantages to use as well, such as groves having good utility stuff in forests that gives us an edge. Such as a call for help (bring in nearby defensive denizens if there are any).. etc..

Currently it just isn't fun. Exterminate 100 rooms, meh, rejuvenate 100 rooms meh. Every 10th encounter you get a good and even fight when we both have about even odds.

There's so much that can be done with this! now it's a bit meh. I'd much rather see it improved upon, than removed entirely.

For Eleusian offensive tools, reclamation could be expanded and turned into I dunno.. what if we set up outside cities or in villages and begin reclaiming them and the cities loyal to them get notified about our encroachments. Since the exterminate mechanic is something we want to keep, we should really have something similar. :P

Micaelis

Doesn't seem really 'meh' at all, to be honest. The mechanics that lead to the conflict are just the mechanics, it's the conflict itself that is the fun part. Exterminations have led to a massive conflict between Mhaldor and Eleusis, so the goal is being accomplished. The end result isn't the exterm or the rejuv, it's what comes before and after.

The fact that it's such a grief fest isn't a result of the mechanics or lack thereof, it's just a testament to the quality of the individuals involved. 

Krypton

What if Preserved rooms had no forest defences -- the forces of Nature are focused on preserving, and can't go on the offensive?

But Preservation is extended to Reclamation? RECLAMATION PRESERVE would preserve every forest room under the vine network for the year?

That way, large swaths of forest could be made immune by Eleusis to Exterminate, but in exchange, forest enemies can engage in battle in those areas free from forest def damage?

Makarios

We're aware of the mechanical issues and will be evaluating them after this conflict resolves. It wouldn't be fair to either side to change things at this juncture.

Cailin

Rangor said:

For Eleusian offensive tools, reclamation could be expanded and turned into I dunno.. what if we set up outside cities or in villages and begin reclaiming them and the cities loyal to them get notified about our encroachments. 

It would be cool to see reclamation turned into this RP thing where if it's done in a city, it represents Nature tearing down their stone walls. Like, maybe, very gradually, it turns a room into rubble. So the cities would have to remove the vines as soon as possible. Not looking for something OP or anything, just a simple RP tool where raids could turn into actually trying to return the city to Nature.

Reyson

Krypton said:

What if Preserved rooms had no forest defences -- the forces of Nature are focused on preserving, and can't go on the offensive?

But Preservation is extended to Reclamation? RECLAMATION PRESERVE would preserve every forest room under the vine network for the year?

That way, large swaths of forest could be made immune by Eleusis to Exterminate, but in exchange, forest enemies can engage in battle in those areas free from forest def damage?

Under this scheme, there's no reason to fight in those rooms, so this is basically a selective 'delete exterm' scenario. 

As to Rangor's idea: if forest defs scale with ongoing exterms, the damage/penalty from the damage sustained should be on a sliding scale as well. Pretty bad design to just make it harder on the attackers without increasing the reward for them, by the same token. 

Krypton

It's a "co-delete Exterm & Forest Defs" scenario for those rooms.

Rangor

Reyson said:

Krypton said:

What if Preserved rooms had no forest defences -- the forces of Nature are focused on preserving, and can't go on the offensive?

But Preservation is extended to Reclamation? RECLAMATION PRESERVE would preserve every forest room under the vine network for the year?

That way, large swaths of forest could be made immune by Eleusis to Exterminate, but in exchange, forest enemies can engage in battle in those areas free from forest def damage?

Under this scheme, there's no reason to fight in those rooms, so this is basically a selective 'delete exterm' scenario. 

As to Rangor's idea: if forest defs scale with ongoing exterms, the damage/penalty from the damage sustained should be on a sliding scale as well. Pretty bad design to just make it harder on the attackers without increasing the reward for them, by the same token. 

I was thinking more along the lines of.. If you want to fight Eleusis/nature, poke the forest and fight off the defenders on even footing... If you want to do a ritual and raise a shrine, exterminate a few rooms, do the ritual and we'll still be without any clear benefit beyond groves in forest.

 If you want to take down an entire forest, it'll start out on even grounds, but the longer you persist the harder it gets. (bashable denizens?)

It's the exterminating for hours when we just don't have the people to defend and get no significant advantages or tricks to play with that is a bother. Seeing as we're always on the defensive there needs to be some advantage that is scalable in some way.

City raids mechanics solve this rather well with guards and font, and if you loose, a few rooms get blown up, and the raiding city gets gold and soldiers gets army rank. Both cities can do the same back at eachother etc. Taking down guards is incredibly hard if you want to go mental on the city.

Nazihk

Rangor said:

Being on the defensive side, eleusis will need advantages to use as well, such as groves having good utility stuff in forests that gives us an edge.

This doesn't work because not all fights in the forest are fights about the forest. Twilight versus Artemis in the Darkenwood was a battle over shrine sovereignty, not a battle about the preservation of the forest. Targossas' skirmishes outside of Eleusis were retaliatory attacks because Eleusis raided us, not direct attacks against the forest. 

Accordingly, I dislike solutions that go down the "Eleusis needs to be super-buff in the forests" route because they make destruction of the forests a tactical necessity, even when your faction doesn't want to destroy the forest.

Reyson

In fairness, his original point did state that only extermination or whatever equivalent skill is in place to damage forests with makes forest defs activate, which would make non-forest-damaging engagements not afford eleusis any advantages bar groves and thornspray and such. 

Sobriquet

Cailin said:

Rangor said:

For Eleusian offensive tools, reclamation could be expanded and turned into I dunno.. what if we set up outside cities or in villages and begin reclaiming them and the cities loyal to them get notified about our encroachments. 

It would be cool to see reclamation turned into this RP thing where if it's done in a city, it represents Nature tearing down their stone walls. Like, maybe, very gradually, it turns a room into rubble. So the cities would have to remove the vines as soon as possible. Not looking for something OP or anything, just a simple RP tool where raids could turn into actually trying to return the city to Nature.

I like the idea of city tanks having slightly different effects. Eleusis could wreath an area in vines until it gets repaired, Mhaldor could have the room filled with red fog etc. Would add a neat twist to things. 

Rangor

Nazihk said:

Rangor said:

Being on the defensive side, eleusis will need advantages to use as well, such as groves having good utility stuff in forests that gives us an edge.

This doesn't work because not all fights in the forest are fights about the forest. Twilight versus Artemis in the Darkenwood was a battle over shrine sovereignty, not a battle about the preservation of the forest. Targossas' skirmishes outside of Eleusis were retaliatory attacks because Eleusis raided us, not direct attacks against the forest. 

Accordingly, I dislike solutions that go down the "Eleusis needs to be super-buff in the forests" route because they make destruction of the forests a tactical necessity, even when your faction doesn't want to destroy the forest.

Good point, perhaps such advantages only be activated when the forests have been attacked alongside forest defs.

Skye

Sobriquet said:

Cailin said:

Rangor said:

For Eleusian offensive tools, reclamation could be expanded and turned into I dunno.. what if we set up outside cities or in villages and begin reclaiming them and the cities loyal to them get notified about our encroachments. 

It would be cool to see reclamation turned into this RP thing where if it's done in a city, it represents Nature tearing down their stone walls. Like, maybe, very gradually, it turns a room into rubble. So the cities would have to remove the vines as soon as possible. Not looking for something OP or anything, just a simple RP tool where raids could turn into actually trying to return the city to Nature.

I like the idea of city tanks having slightly different effects. Eleusis could wreath an area in vines until it gets repaired, Mhaldor could have the room filled with red fog etc. Would add a neat twist to things. 

Me in 2013 when they first introduced city destruction:

Skye said:

On a different note, what is the destruction scene like? Same as before?

I'm wondering if it's possible to have separate 'flavours' for each city's tanks / destructive capabilities. Like uh...

Mhaldor: Seeps out fog followed by an explosion of magma (Tank: Ironwrought lamp)
Ashtan: Blackhole-type deal like a mass opening of a pit (Tank: Pitchblack orb)
Hashan: Mass meteor shower type destruction (Tank: Fallen star)
Eleusis: Plants tearing up the streets etc (Tank: Some kind of seed or sapling)
Targossas: CHARGIN UP MAH LAZERZ (Tank: Some kind of brazier)
Cyrene: (lol) well okay... blizzard + cold snap that shatters glass and rock. (Tank: Dragon egg)

If anything so things look interesting and leave's a city's distinctive mark instead of leaving a load of generic rubble.

But they ignored it and made us sad

On a related note, we can't even add modifiers to the player-forged tanks so we can't charge up glorious glorious tanks or lovely pink tanks.

Asmodron

Bring back Maelstrom to Druids

Bring back setting forests on fire

Introduce 'chopping' trees in survival

Introduce 'planting' trees in survival

Reintroduce werewolves to protecting nature. They will assault those harming the forests

Make the buckawns assist with forest destruction


Let's really mix shit up.

Nazihk

Asmodron said:

Introduce 'chopping' trees in survival

Introduce 'planting' trees in survival

Fuuuuuuuck that. Been there done that got the t-shirt.

It's like "What if you took extermination but made it more boring and let everybody in the world do it whenever they wanted to provoke you?"