Third Black Wave: Electric Boogaloo

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Comments

  • Keorin said:
    I also feel like it's worth pointing out, I think a big disadvantage that the coalition had to pull off a win was that we were -tired-.

    Like, Hashan had to fend off some raids, but that was pretty much it, and Targossas not even that. The rest of us had a -lot- of our citizens tied up trying to push back tide, organise unwindings, try and push plot angles to get access to Cyrene again, ect. Like, just speaking personally, I was really hoping we'd get an expedition to go fight Bain'maal together, but most of my energy was being put towards trying to make resistance things happen, and so it was hard to put something like that together.

    Not being in your city and having to work around it is tiring. Having to fight back the tide constantly is tiring. That's not a bad thing, but it doesn't put us in a great spot to go out work super hard to find the few proscribed ways of pulling off a 'win'. And when you combine that with all of our massive amounts of outreach to denizens, the letters sent, the attempts at talking, ect, that were going absolutely nowhere, while we watched Hashan and Targ get given new skills and get friendly chatter with admin controlled Tsol'teth while we couldn't get a peep out of a single denizen? Well, at some point, it's hard not to just accept that you just aren't supposed to have much of an effect on things. Getting complete silence doesn't exactly make it seem like we're just not finding the one right answer, after all, it makes it look like there are -no- right answers.


    I definitely sympathise with the tired part of this. I think that is something we probably could've handled better - there was a lot of pressure on Cyrene in particular, since there was no barrier analogue for a breather.

    Its the second part of this that I would like to address, however. I think people vastly overestimate the amount of interaction Targossas/Hashan got from Tsol'teth players. They just posted most of it to forums whereas most of what denizens discussed was sensitive information and naturally did not see the light of day for that reason.

  • Achilles said:
    Lenn said:
    Keorin is saying Farrah was awesome, not that she got carried.
    She was awesome, I'm saying what she did was anything but predictable and frankly shocking.
    I don't think any of the people who could've possibly won staff by the end would've been undeserving, but I don't think any of it was as clear-cut as you're making it out to be either. Dunn was never supposed to be the Ashtani candidate. He wasn't even supposed to be there for Twins and Foozle. I'm frankly still not sure how he made it to Twins. I'm not sure about Crixos but it doesn't seem like he was intended to be the Mhaldorian candidate. The "carried" aspect is a bit laughable in general. No one individual wins staff by themselves. (Well I guess if Penwize hadn't already won it, he basically would have, but that's a different issue). From the Ashtan perspective, we went into the quiz fairly certain that Farrah was going to end up winning staff unless Crixos rained on her parade, as Dunn had also bricked all his sojourn, and Quiz was not one he was going to do well on, and we knew that. It was pretty much down to hoping that Farrah choked in quiz for us (or else other non-candidate players stepped up and forced her below 7th).

    Dunn tells you, "I hate you."
    (Party): You say, "Bad plan coming right up."
  • Makarios said:

    Your final point however: you were not set up to lose to the Tsol'teth. If a coalition member had won the staff (as seemed exceedingly likely going into the final event), the coalition would have won. You can certainly choose not to believe that, but at that point we are at an impasse.
    Well, since the postmortem Q&A's happening here I assume I already know the answers, but hey maybe I'll be surprised:  are the producers/event writers of the game planning to do anything in the near future to convince the players who feel this isn't true that it is?

    Are you planning to do anything that will convince people who feel as though they had no agency in this event that they did? 

    Are you going to leave the game in the state it's in now, with two thirds of the game's population feeling ignored, dissuaded, unrewarded, and downright punished for their choices?

    Is the other two thirds of the game going to see any reward in the slightest for absolutely exhausting themselves on chasing dead-ends and being mislead (intentionally or otherwise)?
  • Cyr said:
    Makarios said:
    Penwize said:
    Makarios said:

    4. There is a fundamental weakness with the Tsol'teth's most infuriating power. This is very publicly stated in game, and this was something I personally expected to be exploited ruthlessly.
    Which one is this exactly?

    Their abuse of double-tap instant dictate from 100%? You said that wouldn't happen more but then it kept happening.  Repeatedly.  Bain'maal used it on me while I was down there, so I was given absolutely no reason to believe he was going to be beatable story-wise.

    Their abuse of instant god-teleport?  Canon weakness is for fulcrum to reset at dawn, but we had fights happen across dawn that saw them still god-teleport away (without using the fulcrum word, just the "leaves to the ether" god-teleport line).

    Sorry, I have to call shenanigans on this one.

    If you seriously expected the playerbase to think that bringing a fight to the Tsol'teth (especially one as canonically crazy strong as Bain'maal) was the answer, maybe the slightest indication that it was possible would have been in order.  Instead, every time the playerbase found a way to fight the Tsol'teth at all, it was SUPER CONVENIENTLY fixed the next time.  Either via configs for timed instant kill highlights so the admins could god-teleport out of harm's way, or via them just leaning harder on their insta-kill zap buttons.  It gave us the impression that we were just being railroaded to lose, and anything we did to find a way around it was circumvented via deus ex machina.  And it was.


    I'll try and break down your post.

    If I say something shouldn't happen anymore and it keeps happening, you should message me.

    If someone was fulcrumming across dawn, that should have been bugged. I can verify that fulcrum definitely was clearing at dawn for Tsol'teth, so I'm not sure why it wouldn't have in specific cases. It was not bugged however.

    As for config lethals: most of our admin do not play IRE games anymore, or have not played for a very long time. Actually getting to play again in a limited capacity was good in a lot of respects because it allowed them to say "ok, this is annoying, I need to make a bunch of triggers". Did it help them survive more? Absolutely. Would us copy pasting them the comprehensive trigger lines have been less so? Of course not. Was it a positive feature for the game? I don't think anyone could argue otherwise. Did Tsol'teth stop dying after the addition? Categorically no. The most important Tsol'teth death of the event (Hailqas'an's unravel) happened some time after this went in.

    Frankly, the idea that you were set up to lose the event is simply incorrect. Quite the opposite: we were so sure the coalition were going to win we made all future plans after the staff ceremony based around this. Jokes on us, I suppose!

    Not going to quote from everything I want to respond to but in essence, a huge amount of this feels like so much horse manure from my side for a number of reasons. Penwize has laid out a number of them, but I'll add that there were several extra things we were promised, or told that would be looked into, that never materialized. Not only did they not materialize, the denizens that were being puppetted to have those conversations with those of us in Ashtan simply stopped responding. I don't know the why, but the timing was such that it was right around when Targossas allied with the Tsol'teth, and at the very least, that seems suspect from my side. This wasn't some panic over you going AWOL, because those responses stopped coming days before your health stuff happened. I'm not sure how we're supposed to know some of these things should be bugs or messaged to you, especially when, as Penwize says, we were told they were working as intended. As another note, I wasn't here for the tide removal, but I recall it being stated that the Divine wouldn't involve themselves in what was essentially a mortal affair until Tlalaiad stepped in. So I'm not sure how the divine shouting match into tide removal fits in to all of that (if the Tsol'teth hosting the games was Tlalaiad stepping in, why didn't our divine step in sooner?). I know that tide removal chasing was a lost cause from a mortal perspective because not once did I ever get a response looking into it. From my (our?) perspective it's incredibly hard to buy into the idea that these events weren't forced in a major way, especially when it was exceedingly obvious that any time we got a kill on a Tsol'teth, it was because the Volunteer playing that Tsol'teth was feeling sporting. Several of them literally never stayed in room for more than .75 seconds, which was still enough for three attacks from them. Multiple times during larger conflicts in Hashan I watched as a Tsol'teth walked into room and simply held down Tooros until half the room was dead, and then instantly leave via the 'left to the ether' message just as headway was being made on them. 

    As far as the games go, I don't have too much I want to say, but I do note that it was mentioned by admin that the bug in the bashing event only changed the score for one of the people in the top 10 of the event. This was a huge reason for me not using the last of my time as I felt it was exceedingly unlikely that I would be able to make top ten with my remaining time, as a result, I went to bed. When I woke up at least two other people's scores had been adjusted to a point that I would have actually had a shot at top ten obviously it wouldn't have mattered for staff, but it did cost me credits and potential final placement. (as a side note, I bugged this and mentioned it directly to you the day of the second bashing window, and then heard nothing until 7 hours into the third bashing window...) 


    I can't do more than tell you that the Targossas alliance was irrelevant where other plotline attention was concerned. You can choose to believe that or not, but the only people who suffered in terms of interaction from said alliance were Hashan (because the people handling the Tsol'teth shells had to then split time between the two orgs).

     I am unsure why your denizens fell silent if they'd committed to plotlines, you can message me with specifics and I can look into it and see if there is an answer available.

    I will tell you that no part of the event was written more than three days in advance. You can believe that the events were forced, but you are simply incorrect. Make of that what you will.

  • You sound surprised.
  • Most of my interaction with the tsol'teth was as a rogue, aside for one or two brief responses to TELLs from very obviously active 'teth.
  • My question that's a lot less heated!

    What other special deathsights existed? With Hal getting unravelled and that special global message, were there ones for being Unwoven or killed in a particular way? 
  • Penwize said:
    Makarios said:

    Your final point however: you were not set up to lose to the Tsol'teth. If a coalition member had won the staff (as seemed exceedingly likely going into the final event), the coalition would have won. You can certainly choose not to believe that, but at that point we are at an impasse.
    Well, since the postmortem Q&A's happening here I assume I already know the answers, but hey maybe I'll be surprised:  are the producers/event writers of the game planning to do anything in the near future to convince the players who feel this isn't true that it is?

    Are you planning to do anything that will convince people who feel as though they had no agency in this event that they did? 

    Are you going to leave the game in the state it's in now, with two thirds of the game's population feeling ignored, dissuaded, unrewarded, and downright punished for their choices?

    Is the other two thirds of the game going to see any reward in the slightest for absolutely exhausting themselves on chasing dead-ends and being mislead (intentionally or otherwise)?


    If you think I am lying to you there is no answer to your questions that I can give that will convince you otherwise. That's unfortunate, but if you don't trust our word then you don't trust it.

  • Makarios said:

    I can't do more than tell you that the Targossas alliance was irrelevant where other plotline attention was concerned. You can choose to believe that or not, but the only people who suffered in terms of interaction from said alliance were Hashan (because the people handling the Tsol'teth shells had to then split time between the two orgs).

     I am unsure why your denizens fell silent if they'd committed to plotlines, you can message me with specifics and I can look into it and see if there is an answer available.

    I will tell you that no part of the event was written more than three days in advance. You can believe that the events were forced, but you are simply incorrect. Make of that what you will.

    I don't claim to know the why, just the timing. I'm fully willing to believe that's not the reason why. But that is the timing. I don't really claim that the event was forced even, but given the ways certain things were at the very least nudged from our perspective it absolutely feels like it. None of this answers how we were supposed to know to message you/bug things when you responded to logs of things in questions saying 'working as intended' only it turns out, it actually wasn't. 

    Dunn tells you, "I hate you."
    (Party): You say, "Bad plan coming right up."
  • Makarios said:

    If you think I am lying to you there is no answer to your questions that I can give that will convince you otherwise. That's unfortunate, but if you don't trust our word then you don't trust it.

    I don't think you're lying to me, but I think there has been some severe miscommunication, failure to deliver, and unintentional overlooking that have left people feeling the way I described.

    I'm asking if you intend to address that, or just handwave it and hope it goes away by just ending the event.
  • Vika said:
    My question that's a lot less heated!

    What other special deathsights existed? With Hal getting unravelled and that special global message, were there ones for being Unwoven or killed in a particular way? 


    These were all custom. They were created in situations where it was appropriate. Nothing pre written, if that's what you're asking.

  • Makarios said:
    Vika said:
    My question that's a lot less heated!

    What other special deathsights existed? With Hal getting unravelled and that special global message, were there ones for being Unwoven or killed in a particular way? 


    These were all custom. They were created in situations where it was appropriate. Nothing pre written, if that's what you're asking.

    Yep, what I was asking! Can I ask what possible deathsights you think could have come up then? Or would have been cool to see in relation to the Meld?
  • edited June 2019
    Makarios said:

    I definitely sympathise with the tired part of this. I think that is something we probably could've handled better - there was a lot of pressure on Cyrene in particular, since there was no barrier analogue for a breather.

    Its the second part of this that I would like to address, however. I think people vastly overestimate the amount of interaction Targossas/Hashan got from Tsol'teth players. They just posted most of it to forums whereas most of what denizens discussed was sensitive information and naturally did not see the light of day for that reason.

    Obviously I can't say this wasn't true, but I think it's also fair to say that Hashan/Targ got more interactions as a -group- than the rest of us (and also more cutsey/fun interactions, which can go a long way in stressful events). Like, I got sent several different records of Tsol'teth conversations with people in Targossas (Icly, not posted to forums), for instance, casual and otherwise, and Hashan got to interact with them during crusades and before and after, ect. Just speaking for Cyrene, on the other hand, we had the event with Hycanthus, and that was it for the entire event.

    So I can't deny that there may be things I wasn't aware of, but I know that just speaking personally, I had more Targossian meetings with the Tsol'teth that Cyrenians spied on and reported to me than conversations with denizens that I had any knowledge of or part in. That's all just to say, I think that if there had been any more public animations of denizens that we could have been a part of, it would have changed people's perception of things a -lot-. Only having sensitive meetings does little for the bulk of the faction that can't be a part of them, after all.

    Alright, I've done my ranting, so real question here:

    How could the first Battle for Cyrene have been won?

    And is there any chance you could get some important denizen to very loudly explain to everyone that it could have been, because the number of people who have decided it was inevitable is one of the most frustrating things coming off of these events.
  • With the Tsol'teth being a major player now...

    Are Tsol'teth hybridizations a possibility on the table for existing players? I don't expect it to give much of any benefit, but just cool flavourful meld messages, etc.

    Will Hashan get to keep the Destruction Terminus to themselves, or will that be taken away (if it hasn't already? I wasn't here for sublimation).

    What were some of the major War goals for raiding Targossas? Font/Sov/Guardian seemed to be a major goal, but I don't know how that plays in for people who's guardian was already processed.

    Was Blu processed? I think the answer was summarily 'yes' due to some IC interactions. How did he survive, if so?
  • Was it at all possible to prevent font destruction?

    It felt like Ashtan and Mhaldor basically fended their respective invasions off, but that part still happened.
  • Lenn said:
    Was it at all possible to prevent font destruction?

    It felt like Ashtan and Mhaldor basically fended their respective invasions off, but that part still happened.
    Mhaldor held out against Hashan.

    Ashtan was doing okay against Targossas (with us down Gattan'bahar), but I think there was some major leaning on "murder an entire room of enemies" that occurred at some points.

    Then we went to Mhaldor to help Hashan, and it was kind of done-and-sealed.

    I think interrupting them during their thing would have potentially caused a Chrono Boost Doom backlash, and probably murdered the Tsol'teth in question.
  • I keep reading of "going to Hycanthus" and "consulted with Hycanthus" and "Tried to get Hycanthus to help". I really am curious...why the Coalition thought he was the best to go for advice in Tsol'teth matters...
  • Ashtan definitely did not fend us off the font aspect. We took the font quickly, and asked for nearly 10 minutes for the TT to do their thing. We even lost the room while waiting and took it back during the next exchange.

    They absolutely defended their shrines though, so the full invasion didn’t happen. That damn worldburn was such a pain in the ass, then the Tide spread to the room and we couldn’t even go in anymore because of Tide creatures.




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • Asmodron said:
    I keep reading of "going to Hycanthus" and "consulted with Hycanthus" and "Tried to get Hycanthus to help". I really am curious...why the Coalition thought he was the best to go for advice in Tsol'teth matters...
    An excited wizard is a lot cheaper to pay than one who doesn't frankly care if the whole continent gets processed, to be fair.
  • Keorin said:
    Makarios said:

    I definitely sympathise with the tired part of this. I think that is something we probably could've handled better - there was a lot of pressure on Cyrene in particular, since there was no barrier analogue for a breather.

    Its the second part of this that I would like to address, however. I think people vastly overestimate the amount of interaction Targossas/Hashan got from Tsol'teth players. They just posted most of it to forums whereas most of what denizens discussed was sensitive information and naturally did not see the light of day for that reason.

    Obviously I can't say this wasn't true, but I think it's also fair to say that Hashan/Targ got more interactions as a -group- than the rest of us (and also more cutsey/fun interactions, which can go a long way in stressful events). Like, I got sent several different records of Tsol'teth conversations with people in Targossas (Icly, not posted to forums), for instance, casual and otherwise, and Hashan got to interact with them during crusades and before and after, ect. Just speaking for Cyrene, on the other hand, we had the event with Hycanthus, and that was it for the entire event.

    So I can't deny that there may be things I wasn't aware of, but I know that just speaking personally, I had more Targossian meetings with the Tsol'teth that Cyrenians spied on and reported to me than conversations with denizens that I had any knowledge of or part in. That's all just to say, I think that if there had been any more public animations of denizens that we could have been a part of, it would have changed people's perception of things a -lot-. Only having sensitive meetings does little for the bulk of the faction that can't be a part of them, after all.

    Alright, I've done my ranting, so real question here:

    How could the first Battle for Cyrene have been won?

    And is there any chance you could get some important denizen to very loudly explain to everyone that it could have been, because the number of people who have decided it was inevitable is one of the most frustrating things coming off of these events.


    It was basically shrine conflict. Gaining and holding sovereignty was what mattered to the Tsol'teth for this, but they're constrained by the same limitations as players. I'm told Mhaldor countered this well in their raid (but second hand, alas). It was definitely harder for Cyrene since they didn't have the one order bonus going for them, but there were also a lot of people who saw what was going on and I think just didn't communicate (either unintentionally or intentionally, its hard to say). If Cyrene could have locked them out of sovereignty though, that would've been game over. Anyone who thinks it wasn't an uphill battle is definitely kidding themselves - the litany was very much a huge dynamic shift and probably through people completely off their stride, but we did go in knowing we could fail if people realised what was going on and started aggressively raising shrines in other parts of the city.

  • Astarod said:
    My only qualm is that it seems like there’s no point. Our side did a lot of work with arguably a lot skill and didn’t get anything while a bunch of people who got Tsol’teth defenders and  interactions were rewarded handsomely.

    Now, make no mistake. I don’t mind that any of this happened, but the absence of reward, direction, help, or literally any goal at all other than to try to surpass the seemingly Omni-present mute button hovering over our heads feels like you intended to directly punish our side of things for not doing what you wanted us to.

    My only advice would be to consider both sides of events because all you’re doing is getting people who normally try to drive things forward, just saying, “meh” which kills a lot of the event for a lot of people. A little denizen interaction, a goal, and balanced pace for both sides goes a -long- way.

    Good job, Coalition. I know it’s not much but you did a really good job at holding fragments, killing tsol’teth, securing tanks, and simply bashing tide. I appreciate what you all did, and I hope that you can what you accomplished and developed in your characters during all of this.

    Targossas wasn't really 'rewarded' like Hashan was.  Not in the sense that we got cool new class skills. Just more that we didn't have to deal with the fucking tide anymore (which made me cynical. Ty @farrah )
  • Makarios said:
    Penwize said:
    Makarios said:

    Your final point however: you were not set up to lose to the Tsol'teth. If a coalition member had won the staff (as seemed exceedingly likely going into the final event), the coalition would have won. You can certainly choose not to believe that, but at that point we are at an impasse.
    Well, since the postmortem Q&A's happening here I assume I already know the answers, but hey maybe I'll be surprised:  are the producers/event writers of the game planning to do anything in the near future to convince the players who feel this isn't true that it is?

    Are you planning to do anything that will convince people who feel as though they had no agency in this event that they did? 

    Are you going to leave the game in the state it's in now, with two thirds of the game's population feeling ignored, dissuaded, unrewarded, and downright punished for their choices?

    Is the other two thirds of the game going to see any reward in the slightest for absolutely exhausting themselves on chasing dead-ends and being mislead (intentionally or otherwise)?


    If you think I am lying to you there is no answer to your questions that I can give that will convince you otherwise. That's unfortunate, but if you don't trust our word then you don't trust it.

    Like Penwize, I don't think you're lying either, but I don't think obfuscating the intent of the question is painting anything in a better light.

    There are players, myself included, that feel like the event was very much railroaded and that this final bit of the event was more or less an attempt to sweep it under the rug to try and carry on as usual. The problem is, there isn't an option to carry on as usual anymore for a lot of us. This event has changed and impacted a lot of the player base, and it did so in a way where several of us felt we had very little means to influence it.

    You talked about how every event has a couple of win/loss conditions associated with it back when I first started being critical of the event. I think showing that documentation here to show where all the paths could have branched off would help. If you have to blackbox some of the outcomes for future events, fine, but showing the various outcomes will indeed show that there were options and might better guide players like myself to finding alternatives in the future to avoid this sort of conundrum again.

    If there were player events or interactions that helped shaped those outcomes, throw them in too. Transparency really won't hurt here, will it?
  • Asmodron said:
    I keep reading of "going to Hycanthus" and "consulted with Hycanthus" and "Tried to get Hycanthus to help". I really am curious...why the Coalition thought he was the best to go for advice in Tsol'teth matters...
    Because he was the only conclave member, and one of the only denizens, who would -ever- give us the time of day. We reached out to way, way more than him, but if he's the one who wakes up and says he has a plan to retake Cyrene, gotta do what you gotta do.
  • Asmodron said:
    I keep reading of "going to Hycanthus" and "consulted with Hycanthus" and "Tried to get Hycanthus to help". I really am curious...why the Coalition thought he was the best to go for advice in Tsol'teth matters...
    We didn't, we had lots of other things going as well. He just was key for a specific goal (basically he was our bombmaker) it turned out that one thing that happened and one thing that didn't but has been brought up here hinged on him.

    Dunn tells you, "I hate you."
    (Party): You say, "Bad plan coming right up."
  • Atalkez said:
    Ashtan definitely did not fend us off the font aspect. We took the font quickly, and asked for nearly 10 minutes for the TT to do their thing. We even lost the room while waiting and took it back during the next exchange.

    They absolutely defended their shrines though, so the full invasion didn’t happen. That damn worldburn was such a pain in the ass, then the Tide spread to the room and we couldn’t even go in anymore because of Tide creatures.
    The siege was so messy, and I actually compiled a report to submit to the Tsol'teth as to where they should adjust.

    I honestly just took as "bullshit happens" and the fact Maka wasnt there and they were down someone.

    In the end, the main objectives got completed and we all had fun, so it's good.
  • Adrik said:
    With the Tsol'teth being a major player now...

    Are Tsol'teth hybridizations a possibility on the table for existing players? I don't expect it to give much of any benefit, but just cool flavourful meld messages, etc.

    Will Hashan get to keep the Destruction Terminus to themselves, or will that be taken away (if it hasn't already? I wasn't here for sublimation).

    What were some of the major War goals for raiding Targossas? Font/Sov/Guardian seemed to be a major goal, but I don't know how that plays in for people who's guardian was already processed.

    Was Blu processed? I think the answer was summarily 'yes' due to some IC interactions. How did he survive, if so?


    Not something we're considering at this time - why would they? They are ultimately a very selfish people.

    Destruction terminus was a temporary gift until the Wellspring could be unlocked. For good or for ill, it is once again no longer in the hands of players.

    It would've been the same as Cyrene, a very aggressive push to claim sovereignty since it'd be a territory claim more than anything else. The litany would've probably been employed in some form (though Targossas had dismissed most of their guards in preparation, so this would've been to limited effect). There were a couple of other cards to play, but that was the general outline.

    You'll have to find out that last one in game.

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