Extermination and Vivification

Nicola

As a rule we try to avoid modifying conflict systems while they're being utilised in a protracted engagement, but as it seems likely the current one will be continuing without a concrete end in sight we have decided it is time to make some adjustments to forest conflict. It is our hope that these changes shall make the situation less frustrating for both sides, but we'll likely need to make further adjustments as we see how things pan out.

Firstly, there is now a new ability in GROVES: VIVIFY. This ability may only be performed upon Mhaldor isle and will cause nature to take root upon the blighted soil. This status is similar to extermination (it is a channel, all Mhaldorians will see when it is initiated, and it is visible when LOOKing in a room). The impact vivify has is upon essence regeneration: as Mhaldor Isle grows less blighted, so to will necromancers grow weaker, causing them to regenerate less essence through natural means and exterminations the more rooms are vivified. Exterminate will remove vivification, returning that room to its blighted state.

Secondly, EXTERMINATE has had its base essence cost increased. Both VIVIFY and EXTERMINATE now cost more on consecutive successful uses by the same Necromancy/Groves user. This does reach an unmaintainable point. Exterminating a vivified room still only costs 1% essence: this returns it to its blighted state.

Finally, forest defences will no longer be always active. Instead, once someone begins an extermination, the forest will come to life, attacking any forest enemy that stands within that particular forest.

It is our hope that this should remove some of the more frustrating aspects of the system for both parties while giving both factions ways to go on the offense against one another.

Discuss!

Kythra

Never in my lifetime did I think this would be a thing. Thank you! We will do our best to give constructive feedback as we continue through our griefing this conflict.

Madelyne

This is pretty badass. It almost makes me wish I played a forestal character. 

Wicella

Thank you for making these changes! I'm wondering if this also affects the Open PK aspect where forestals can attack forest enemies when they are in the forest?  Will this now only be when forest defenses are active?

Tesha

You know, I think their conflict was really natural, but things just branch off into bad places sometimes like vines going all over the place. This will definitely help exterminate any ill feelings. The heated arguments could definitely be a blight on the community, and once they started it was like a wildfire. The root cause of all of this was stubbornness, but in essence, we're all friends here. Maybe it's time for rest. 

Kythra

Wicella said:

Thank you for making these changes! I'm wondering if this also affects the Open PK aspect where forestals can attack forest enemies when they are in the forest?  Will this now only be when forest defenses are active?

Not sure I fully understand but a forest enemy is a forest enemy. Will be harder to determine them now, but the moment they step foot into the forests they're considered open PK to the Rangers.

Titonus

Kythra said:

Wicella said:

Thank you for making these changes! I'm wondering if this also affects the Open PK aspect where forestals can attack forest enemies when they are in the forest?  Will this now only be when forest defenses are active?

Not sure I fully understand but a forest enemy is a forest enemy. Will be harder to determine them now, but the moment they step foot into the forests they're considered open PK to the Rangers.

Has open PK in forest rooms always been a thing? Considering the large number of forest rooms that you have to take to transverse the map this doesn't compute in my brain.

Also, can we add fog defence for when forestals start to vivify, to bring it in line with forest defs when we start exterm?

Exxia

Can there be some sort of summoning ability for Apostates in blighted rooms? Maybe some sort of transverse esq thing like grove summon

fog damage upon Vivify???

Also, would the forest defenses's just attack the exterminator or everyone in the room enemied to the Forests? If fog does become hostile, would it do the same but enemied to Mhaldor instead?

Forest rooms are very cheap and quick to rejuvenate, was there any idea to maybe increase the costs for that or maybe a limit after the exterm for the room to be rejuv'ed? 

The necromancer's weak thing is pretty nuts, was there any idea to add some sort of buff (increased essence gain etc) for us, or maybe a degeneration for grove users if let's say EI is extermed or something? 

Forest binding is ridiculous too, so could someone just Vivify the island then bind it? There's really only one exit (bridge over Gru'un chasm) that wingless people can leave the island onto the continent. 

This seems very one sided for an already unbalanced (in Eleusis' favor) war system. Can we work something out? Maybe if the island is fully blighted there's an increased essence gain?

Can Eleusians vivify a room then make it their grove to protect it?

Does reducing forest rooms weaken Eleusians?

Nicola

Wicella said:

Thank you for making these changes! I'm wondering if this also affects the Open PK aspect where forestals can attack forest enemies when they are in the forest?  Will this now only be when forest defenses are active?

We're going to leave this to be a judgement call for now and monitor closely. We don't want to explicitly pen Eleusis back into the "we can only react when Mhaldor provokes us" corner.

So, for now, forest enemies can be attacked when in a forest, by any member of the forestal orgs. Presence is enough to warrant this response.

Nicola

We don't intend on altering the fog mechanics or adding summon or travel abilities for the blighted rooms at this juncture. This is because of the sheer discrepancy in room numbers, the isle is one small area on Mhaldor's doorstep, the forests are hundreds and hundreds of rooms.

Nicola

When forest defences are enacted (via extermination) they will hit all forest enemies within the forest bounds.

Makarios

Nicola said:

When forest defences are enacted (via extermination) they will hit all forest enemies within the forest bounds.

To Expand on that, if you exterminate in East Ithmia, you won't be hit by forest defences in the Black Forest unless you also exterm there. Its done on an area-by-area basis rather than a global forest basis.

Titonus

So, there's no alteration to the room desc when Vivify has been completed, or is it just not live yet?

Makarios

@Exxia:

We'll add looking at the ways rooms can be fixed to the list, this could probably be worth tweaking.

Incentivising extermination in a key forest like the E I is an interesting idea, we'll talk about that.

A vivified room doesn't count as a forest room, so no groves/forest binding/etc. The forest starts growing there but its not fully fledged so none of the flashy stuff, basically.

Taryius

Couple questions!

Can we get an estimate of how drastically this effects life essence regen? If all of Mhaldor Isle gets 'cleaned' does Life essence generation hit 0?

Edit: I got ninja'd with a question

Cooper

Part of what balanced extermination in the past is how much stronger forestals were in forests compared to out of forests.

What is going to be added to give Mhaldor similar strength within the fog? Or are we removing the forestal abilities that give them more abilities/utility/power in the forest?

Titonus

But there doesn't appear to be away to see what rooms have been vivified, short of exterminating every room to insure it hasn't.

Exxia

does the forest defenses in an extermed forest ever pacify or...hrm, like let's say, I exterm EI, am I going to experience forest defs every time I enter there or just everytime I exterminate and then like a half month afterwards until some sort of personal reset for it?

Makarios

Exxia said:

does the forest defenses in an extermed forest ever pacify or...hrm, like let's say, I exterm EI, am I going to experience forest defs every time I enter there or just everytime I exterminate and then like a half month afterwards until some sort of personal reset for it?

Forest defs automatically turn off a little while after the last exterminate attempt. They won't hit you in an exterminated room at all like before.

Laetetia

Exxia said:

Forest rooms are very cheap and quick to rejuvenate, was there any idea to maybe increase the costs for that or maybe a limit after the exterm for the room to be rejuv'ed? 

Forest rooms take one ice to rejuvenate, which right now is running about 110 per. May not sound like much, but when you have to do 100 rooms, which we have had to do, it adds up fast. Not to mention the time it takes to rejuvenate, and the time it takes to replant each room when there are seven plants that have to be redone. It can take 2-3 RL hours to do ONE forest.

Makarios

Titonus said:

But there doesn't appear to be away to see what rooms have been vivified, short of exterminating every room to insure it hasn't.

It should show up properly on look now, the red fog was messing with it. Sartan gets everywhere.

Titonus

Laetetia said:

Exxia said:

Forest rooms are very cheap and quick to rejuvenate, was there any idea to maybe increase the costs for that or maybe a limit after the exterm for the room to be rejuv'ed? 

Forest rooms take one ice to rejuvenate, which right now is running about 110 per. May not sound like much, but when you have to do 100 rooms, which we have had to do, it adds up fast. Not to mention the time it takes to rejuvenate, and the time it takes to replant each room when there are seven plants that have to be redone. It can take 2-3 RL hours to do ONE forest.

Can more than one person plant in a single room at a time?

Laetetia

More than one person can replant in a room, but the room has to be rejuvenated before it can be replanted. Then when you replant, you have to regain balance between, which for some classes takes forever. And, you basically have to be trans to replant everything, which limits who can do what.

Titonus

So, there are things you can replant when you aren't trans? And only certain ones need to be trans to plant, or am I misunderstanding?

Laetetia

Yes, there are things you can plant if you aren't trans and have gone far enough into the skill. Basically, if you can't harvest something, you can't replant it.

Aelyn

Exxia said:

Forest rooms are very cheap and quick to rejuvenate, was there any idea to maybe increase the costs for that or maybe a limit after the exterm for the room to be rejuv'ed? 

This is a distinctly inaccurate statement, and reflection of the vast lack of knowledge of how time-consuming and monotonous rejuvenation is. In the face of 100+ exterminated rooms, you can only use reclamation regrowth about 7-8 times before someone at dragon level runs out of willpower. Ice is a limited commodity, and rejuvenation requires a good amount of mana each use. This does not even take into account the time out of our day that rejuvenation consumes. It is not cheap or quick to rejuvenate, especially on a scale of hundreds of rooms a day. I counter with the question, why is a commodity not required to reverse vivify? Though I look forward to seeing how these changes curb that particular problem, I still fear quite a few exterminations can occur before there is meaningful balance in time/resource loss.

I have concerns about the limitations placed on forest defenses. I believe forest defenses should begin when a forest enemy (not everyone just enemies) lashes the vine network, which is obvious preparation to exterminate. What about initiating gravehands and other room-affecting actions that sets the room up to give forest enemies the advantage before even setting off forest defenses? Will forest defenses continue to work through exterminate, if they are given such a very short time span to actually be set off before the extermination process will complete?

Thank you to administration for acknowledging this more than a decade long problem. I hope that you continue to work on the balance and borderline harassment issues we've had with extermination for years.

Titonus

Ok. So, hypothetically, you could have someone who could harvest, say, bellwort, replant the bellwort in the room, someone else with I don't know, other plants higher up, plant those, and so on, all at the same time after the room is rejuved, and it would take considerably less time?

@Makarios - @Nicola : You guys said Necromancy -doesn't- get anything in line with forestbinding, or was that not addressed? 

Wicella

Correct @Titonus
Harvesting:

Harvest              The ability to harvest plants for Remedies.

Ginseng              An herb that may purify the blood when eaten.

Ash                  A swamp-dwelling tree with bark that restores sanity.

Echinacea            The purple-coneflower that grows in the forests.

Ginger               A low-lying forest plant.

Burdock              A dark root of the burdock plant.

Myrrh                A sticky bush that, when eaten, increases scholasticism.

Planting             Planting herbs and plants in new locations.

Bellwort             A wildflower that counters the effects of altruism.

Sac                  The venom sac of a snake.

Lastharvest          The ability to see who last harvested in a room.

Bloodroot            An underground root that can cure paralysis, among others.

Hawthorn             The berry of the hill-dwelling hawthorn bush.

Kuzu                 The fast-growing jungle vine.

Skullcap             This downy plant has an interesting effect when smoked.

Slipper              The lady's slipper plant is found in the Savannah.

Goldenseal           This Savannah-dwelling plant restores harmony when eaten.

Valerian             A mountain-dwelling plant with smokeable properties.

Bayberry             A hill-dwelling tree with valuable bark.

Cohosh               The curiously white plant that induces insomnia.

Lobelia              A beautiful scarlet wildflower with therapeutic properties.

Pear                 The fruit of the prickly pear cactus.

Weed                 The mind-altering cactus weed.

Irid                 Iridescent moss growing underground.

Sileris              A lush, berry-bearing plant which grows in valleys.

Kelp                 The grass of the sea. It has strengthening attributes.

Feathers             The feathers of various birds.

Sidewinder           The powdered skin of a sidewinder.

Kola                 The nut of this jungle tree can keep you quite alert.

Elm                  Slippery elm from the red elm tree.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gathering:

Fruit               Delicious and juicy edibles.

Grain               Wheat, rice, corn, maize, barley, oats, rye...

Vegetables          Healthy food to help you grow big and strong.

Eggs                Boil 'em, fry 'em, put 'em in a souffle.

Milk                It does a body good!

Nuts                Crunchy garnishes for your meals.

Olives              Versatile fruit grown in fertile soil.

Sugarcane           Sweet-tasting plant that rots your teeth.

Lumic               Blue moss growing underground.

Cacao               Cacao pods that can be refined into chocolate.

Refining            Turn ordinary items into something extraordinary.

Dust                Valuable diamond dust gathered underground.

Butchering          Select the choicest cuts of meat from your prey.

Bolded abilities needed for forest exterms. Italicized for Jungle exterms.

Edit: You need the planting ability and the plant ability to plant that plant. For example, someone cannot hand you elm and have you plant it. You need to have the elm ability to plant elm.

Reyson

I think this was asked but not answered: will necromancers get advantages for fighting on the isle? 

Titonus

I'm not being an asshole, I'm just trying to understand from your perspectives, and maybe give ideas on expediating the process. Also, 

Listing all Ice commodities:

Commodity                           Price                    Quantity Available

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ice                                 110gp                    840

Ice                                 115gp                    7

Ice                                 115gp                    110

Ice                                 117gp                    200

Ice                                 118gp                    665

Ice                                 120gp                    461

Ice                                 124gp                    100

Ice                                 128gp                    449

Ice                                 130gp                    275

Ice                                 135gp                    1000

Ice                                 140gp                    200

Ice                                 181gp                    2400

I removed the stupidly priced ones, but, ice doesn't look very limited.

Laetetia

@Titonus

The 2-3 RL hours is with several people rejuvenating and replanting an area about the size of the Black Forest. If there was just one of each, it would take far longer.