Army Powers

edited February 2019 in North of Thera
Greetings, Achaea. 

Before you read the following argument, I want everyone to know that I'm not targeting any players for their opinions or actions on the current AR-system that has been emplaced.  I simply think that the army powers have been laid out ineffectively, and the promotions system which is awesome and rewarding for longtime service has been cheapened by this inefficiency and perhaps the lack of some of the cool stuff that could exist for soldiers! 

I'm in the mindset that if you can be killed on sight for sanctions, then you should have the ability to disarm, regardless of who is online at the time. I think that at AR1, any person who has signed onto the military ought to be immediately able to disarm enemy tanks in the city. I don't understand any arguments other than perhaps "Learning how to disarm tanks via interacting with them". My proposed fix is that there is an introduction of an RP trainer. Perhaps you have to do a 'cutting the wires' quest with a city denizen (spark keepers?) to learn how to disarm tanks. Ultimately, I think powers should be separated from the current rank sets, so that the MoW be able to assign specific powers to specific ranks as he or she chooses, to give them some more flexibility over the army.

Now, pretending that I'd magically get everything I want in a forums post, I think it'd be nice to have some sort of city-unique item for army members that changes based on army rank of that member-some sort of free item that is nondecay, resettable for army members. If you do challenges or hit certain benchmarks, it changes and can be customized? Perhaps a ceremonial sword, like the dawnblade. Perhaps something as simple as an 'soldier card' where one can see his or her 'soldier stats and experience', listing achievements, times detonated in a city, etc. It'd be nice to know 'how close' one is to the next AR rank as well.  

Let me know if you disagree or have other cool army ideas! There's very little salt here, I just felt like it'd make a bit more sense to have some changes with the new mechanics of retal raids and the ability to slay soldiers in sanction. Then I got excited about talking about ideas and threw in something I think would be cool to add. Thanks for reading!
The Divine voice of Twilight echoes in your head, "See that it is. I espy a tithe of potential in your mortal soul, Astarod Blackstone. Let us hope that it flourishes and does not falter as so many do."

Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
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Comments

  • I suspect that (part of) the reason disarm is a high-rank power is so that cities are forced to have at least some high-rank soldiers, rather than keeping people as low in rank as possible so they contribute less towards enemy tanks.
  • Astarod said:


    I'm in the mindset that if you can be killed on sight for sanctions
    You can't do this.  You are not permitted to kill just for a sanction, even if they're army members.  In order to kill for a sanction, you need to have an RP reason to kill that person.  Some cities use bounties, some cities wait until they are engaged upon.  Either way, you need to have a reason.  If people are killing senselessly for sanction, they should be hired on or issued if it's a repeated offense and IC means are not working.

    Astarod said:
    I think it'd be nice to have some sort of city-unique item for army members that changes based on army rank of that member.
    I think these sorts of items are better being House specific, really.  Either way, many of these sorts of house-specific or city-specific items are player additions.  Active, reputable players with good ideas have reached out to their patrons will well thought out ideas and preparations.  If I recall, Targossas has a marque system, where you earn tokens for active participation and can spend those tokens on city-specific items.  I also recall Atalkez being the one who organized this.  I'm not sure if it's still in use, though.Astarod said:
    Perhaps something as simple as an 'soldier card' where one can see his or her 'soldier stats and experience', listing achievements, times detonated in a city, etc.

    How about a line on one of the SCOREs?  It makes perfect sense for that to be a stat that's tracked similar to kills/deaths.

    As for army experience, it is indeed really slow, but I think that's necessary.  The higher your rank, the faster you charge the tank when you die.  Because of this, people who can disarm tanks are inherently worth more to charge the tank.  I think this is good balance; if everyone could disarm a tank, there's not strategy in targets - if you miss even one person, raid's dunzo.

  • edited February 2019
    Riell said:

    You can't do this.  You are not permitted to kill just for a sanction, even if they're army members.  In order to kill for a sanction, you need to have an RP reason to kill that person.  Some cities use bounties, some cities wait until they are engaged upon.  Either way, you need to have a reason.  If people are killing senselessly for sanction, they should be hired on or issued if it's a repeated offense and IC means are not working

    Hmm, I wasn't clear. As an army member, once a sanction has been declared, you can be killed for no reason, on sight, within the bounds of the city. Apologies for the confusion. I'm saying that once a sanction has been declared, and people have been highlighted for imminent attrition by the enemy raid party, that they have the ability to disarm the tank/lead a defense if no one over AR3 is present because of timezone conflicts. 

    Riell said:

    As for army experience, it is indeed really slow, but I think that's necessary.  The higher your rank, the faster you charge the tank when you die.  Because of this, people who can disarm tanks are inherently worth more to charge the tank.  I think this is good balance; if everyone could disarm a tank, there's not strategy in targets - if you miss even one person, raid's dunzo.

    I'm not saying army experience needs to be changed. Promotions exist, that can be used to fill a gap that needs filling. Anyways, I think that if you miss a target, that is on you, not on the people who are defending. You can't initialize a disarm while an enemy is in the same room, and if you don't check who is present in the room when you try to re-trench, the raid's probably dunzo anyways. 

    Riell said:
    I think these sorts of items are better being House specific, really.  Either way, many of these sorts of house-specific or city-specific items are player additions.  Active, reputable players with good ideas have reached out to their patrons will well thought out ideas and preparations.  If I recall, Targossas has a marque system, where you earn tokens for active participation and can spend those tokens on city-specific items.  I also recall Atalkez being the one who organized this.  I'm not sure if it's still in use, though.

    Yeah, Targossas has some stuff that's pretty cool, but I just think it'd be nice to have some sort of tangible reward for army members who may or may not be in the combat house for their city. I mean, once you're AR5, sure- you can disarm, put, detonate, etc. Been there, done that. However, there's so much more to combat than simply disarming and detonating. There's all these cool, intricate features that make raids so fun for some of the playerbase. I think an item for soldiers to flush that out wouldn't hurt the situation at all. 

    How about a line on one of the SCOREs?  It makes perfect sense for that to be a stat that's tracked similar to kills/deaths.

    Yeah, that works. We can agree here!

    The Divine voice of Twilight echoes in your head, "See that it is. I espy a tithe of potential in your mortal soul, Astarod Blackstone. Let us hope that it flourishes and does not falter as so many do."

    Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
  • Riell said:
    Astarod said:


    I'm in the mindset that if you can be killed on sight for sanctions
    You can't do this.  You are not permitted to kill just for a sanction, even if they're army members. 
    Says the person who soulspears w/o sanction anyone who she just thinks is planning to defend
  • As it stands right now, a lot of cities are keeping people either 1) out of the army or 2) low-level in the army. Yet they defend/raid etc. So changing that aspect would make raiding even worse. 

    I haven't been able to detonate a level 2 tank in over six-months cause of the above mentioned tactic. I think if someone is going to raid/defend, they should be forced to join the army instead of doing the "you can't touch me unless I touch you cause I'm not in the army" BS after a sanction, even though they are raiders. 
  • Antonius said:
    I suspect that (part of) the reason disarm is a high-rank power is so that cities are forced to have at least some high-rank soldiers, rather than keeping people as low in rank as possible so they contribute less towards enemy tanks.


    That's right, this is the reason we set most powers fairly high.

    As for promotion, generally if you're leveling via auto promotion you should've been promoted already.

  • Syndra said:
    As it stands right now, a lot of cities are keeping people either 1) out of the army or 2) low-level in the army. Yet they defend/raid etc. So changing that aspect would make raiding even worse.
    I have seen the former claim approximately zero times, and have heard of it happening an equal number of times. Dunno who you're raiding/defending against but it certainly isn't any city I'm aware of in Achaea.

    Syndra said:
    I haven't been able to detonate a level 2 tank in over six-months cause of the above mentioned tactic. I think if someone is going to raid/defend, they should be forced to join the army instead of doing the "you can't touch me unless I touch you cause I'm not in the army" BS after a sanction, even though they are raiders. 
    Even if that is the case, it might do some good to inspire conversation and see if there is a personal in-character reason for it, rather than assuming it's bullshit.
  • edited February 2019
    Dupre said:
    Riell said:
    Astarod said:


    I'm in the mindset that if you can be killed on sight for sanctions
    You can't do this.  You are not permitted to kill just for a sanction, even if they're army members. 
    Says the person who soulspears w/o sanction anyone who she just thinks is planning to defend
    I’m sorry, who are you again?

    eta: To be more constructive, I was addressing the OP’s mention of killing. I’ll soulspear whomever the fuck I want. If they have an issue with it, they’ll take care of it just fine without you.
  • Vinzent - I'm not sure if you played Achaea before your current character, but Syndra's claim about people staying out of the army has happened in the "recent" past.

    I don't think it is something any city has actively enforced or really encouraged (there is one city that it happened a suspicious number of times).

    It was more of an individual person thing. 

  • AchillesAchilles Los Angeles
    Level 2 tanks have always been rare, you have to clobber the other side a few times to get to a level 2 tank, usually the other side will give up if they get wiped 2-3 times which is understandable if they can't add more defenders why would you reasonably expect the outcome to change each subsequent time.
    image
  • See: Eleusis, Hashan, and Cyrene. The former two have active raiders who aren't in the army. 
  • Level 2+ tanks are a pain in the ass, but even if people did enlist fully and ranked up it still makes no difference to what makes them garbage. If city’s don’t want to have enforced enlistment and defending that’s perfectly reasonable, though I would like to see something like the weakened effect only give bonus damage for enlisted soldiers or something.
  • Makarios said:
    Antonius said:
    I suspect that (part of) the reason disarm is a high-rank power is so that cities are forced to have at least some high-rank soldiers, rather than keeping people as low in rank as possible so they contribute less towards enemy tanks.


    That's right, this is the reason we set most powers fairly high.

    As for promotion, generally if you're leveling via auto promotion you should've been promoted already.

    @Makarios are all 5 ranks achievable through dets etc? 
  • Syndra said:
    See: Eleusis, Hashan, and Cyrene. The former two have active raiders who aren't in the army. 
    This isn't true of Hashan in my experience

    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • Sobriquet said:
    Syndra said:
    See: Eleusis, Hashan, and Cyrene. The former two have active raiders who aren't in the army. 
    This isn't true of Hashan in my experience
    At least from what I've experienced in these retal raids, or just simply hashan raids, most if not all the raiders are soldiers. Can't speak to the non-ashtani defenses though. 
    The Divine voice of Twilight echoes in your head, "See that it is. I espy a tithe of potential in your mortal soul, Astarod Blackstone. Let us hope that it flourishes and does not falter as so many do."

    Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
  • Yeah, I haven't raided with any non-army members and I don't understand the boohoo about non-army defenders.
  • I've been trying to think of any consistent defenders in Cyrene who aren't in the army beside myself. Most of the time a few random people show up because they have the time, or the interest to defend in that moment.

    I try to participate in any defense that I can attend, trying to learn enough to be conscripted, though I think I'm still a far cry from being up to snuff.

    I've never minded getting the crap kicked out of me while defending. I hope not being in the army hasn't discouraged anyone from taking a shot.  :#
    "Alas. Alas for Hamlin. The Mayor sent east, west, north, and south. To offer the Piper by word of mouth. Wherever it was men's lot to find him, silver and gold to his heart's content. If only he'd return the way he went."
  • I'm not sure I could name any specific names right now, but it something that happens semi-regularly with people in Cyrene. Not sure about other places, maybe a few people in Eleusis. I don't think either city is inherently enforcing the idea of keeping people out of army or low-ranking, it just is a side effect of having people being able to opt in and out as they please.

    Also it really depends on the type of raid too, whether or not non-army members join in. If you're having a small skirmish with people odds are only those interested in, or regularly fight will join in. Larger, usually roleplay motivated raids draw greater participation and people who wouldn't regularly defend enough to consider joining the army will lend a hand. It can be frustrating, needing to survive 2-3 rushes to blow a tank, but it is what it is and its hard to balance around.

    Personally, I kinda wish you didn't lose any of your army xp when you quit, or at least don't lose it all. And also that disarming tanks and defending gave more army xp. 
  • Taryius said:
    I'm not sure I could name any specific names right now, but it something that happens semi-regularly with people in Cyrene. Not sure about other places, maybe a few people in Eleusis. I don't think either city is inherently enforcing the idea of keeping people out of army or low-ranking, it just is a side effect of having people being able to opt in and out as they please.

    Also it really depends on the type of raid too, whether or not non-army members join in. If you're having a small skirmish with people odds are only those interested in, or regularly fight will join in. Larger, usually roleplay motivated raids draw greater participation and people who wouldn't regularly defend enough to consider joining the army will lend a hand. It can be frustrating, needing to survive 2-3 rushes to blow a tank, but it is what it is and its hard to balance around.

    Personally, I kinda wish you didn't lose any of your army xp when you quit, or at least don't lose it all. And also that disarming tanks and defending gave more army xp. 
    Yeah the same in Eleusis. Not like we keep people low rank for a purpose. But rather people come and go and some dont want to progress at all. If we were selective we would only have a short number of people in the army which doesnt do anyone any good. It's the drawback having a pseudo combat city
  • Riell said:
    Dupre said:
    Riell said:
    Astarod said:


    I'm in the mindset that if you can be killed on sight for sanctions
    You can't do this.  You are not permitted to kill just for a sanction, even if they're army members. 
    Says the person who soulspears w/o sanction anyone who she just thinks is planning to defend
    I’m sorry, who are you again?

    eta: To be more constructive, I was addressing the OP’s mention of killing. I’ll soulspear whomever the fuck I want. If they have an issue with it, they’ll take care of it just fine without you.
    curious. So the OP is expected to follow regular combat convention, but you can "soulspear whomever the fuck" you want?
     <3 
  • Mathilda said:
    Riell said:
    Dupre said:
    Riell said:
    Astarod said:


    I'm in the mindset that if you can be killed on sight for sanctions
    You can't do this.  You are not permitted to kill just for a sanction, even if they're army members. 
    Says the person who soulspears w/o sanction anyone who she just thinks is planning to defend
    I’m sorry, who are you again?

    eta: To be more constructive, I was addressing the OP’s mention of killing. I’ll soulspear whomever the fuck I want. If they have an issue with it, they’ll take care of it just fine without you.
    curious. So the OP is expected to follow regular combat convention, but you can "soulspear whomever the fuck" you want?
    You can't do this.  You are not permitted to kill just for a sanction, even if they're army members.  In order to kill for a sanction, you need to have an RP reason to kill that person.  Some cities use bounties, some cities wait until they are engaged upon.  Either way, you need to have a reason.  If people are killing senselessly for sanction, they should be hired on or issued if it's a repeated offense and IC means are not working.
    She covered this, she’ll soulspear whomever she wants, but is fine with taking what comes with that territory. It’s not allowed, but if riell wants to spear people, and then get hired or issued, it’s on her. There is *no* problem with people being attacked, non com or not, *repeated and frequent* doing so is not. 
  • Pretty clear difference between poking someone, and outright killing them, anyway.

  • edited February 2019
    Mathilda said:
    Riell said:
    Dupre said:
    Riell said:
    Astarod said:


    I'm in the mindset that if you can be killed on sight for sanctions
    You can't do this.  You are not permitted to kill just for a sanction, even if they're army members. 
    Says the person who soulspears w/o sanction anyone who she just thinks is planning to defend
    I’m sorry, who are you again?

    eta: To be more constructive, I was addressing the OP’s mention of killing. I’ll soulspear whomever the fuck I want. If they have an issue with it, they’ll take care of it just fine without you.
    curious. So the OP is expected to follow regular combat convention, but you can "soulspear whomever the fuck" you want?
    It’s not regular combat convention; it’s what the admin have told us numerous times both on the forums and in IG newsposts.

    We’ve already hashed out the soulspear thing in another thread. For whatever reason, Dupre is ignoring everything that occurred in that thread in order to make a jab at someone as usual.
  • So you would harass, spam or scam people just bc 'you're willing to deal with the consequences' too?

    what an example you set for america's youth!
  • Dupre said:
    So you would harass, spam or scam people just bc 'you're willing to deal with the consequences' too?

    what an example you set for america's youth!
    @Mathilda, see what I mean? I literally have never had any interaction with this dude except for hate-jabs on the forums.
  • edited February 2019
    Riell said:
    Dupre said:
    So you would harass, spam or scam people just bc 'you're willing to deal with the consequences' too?

    what an example you set for america's youth!
    @Mathilda, see what I mean? I literally have never had any interaction with this dude except for hate-jabs on the forums.
    I'm just glad that took INCINERATE from Sentinels, because I was walking around conflagrating little kids that mouthed off.  I almost got one of my own.

    (edit: In all honesty, the youth of this country could use some personal accountability,  so if you teach it to them by impaling people with the bones of the deceased, in a fantasy RP game.. so be it.)

  • Dupre said:
    So you would harass, spam or scam people just bc 'you're willing to deal with the consequences' too?

    what an example you set for america's youth!
    Tossing a soulspear at someone in a text game makes someone unfit to teach the young. Jeez no idea what caused your tooshytantrum, but this is levels of mad the internet has yet to deal with.
  • I think if you did it enough times, even as one-offs, it would be noticed and dealt with accordingly. In either case, there are pretty clear, concise, and available reasons available through the HELP system (and elsewhere) as to why nobody should be randomly throwing spears at people, no matter if they are okay with accepting the consequences.
  • Dupre said:
    So you would harass, spam or scam people just bc 'you're willing to deal with the consequences' too?

    what an example you set for america's youth!
    *Other countries are available.

    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • Dupre said:
    So you would harass, spam or scam people just bc 'you're willing to deal with the consequences' too?

    Pretty clear difference between all three of these things, and just throwing a soulspear at someone as well. Nice strawmanning broheim.
    You really do make an extended effort to post increasingly moronic things, don't you?

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