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Kethaera said:

Ayisdra said:

TIL, I really only saw it happening in revolts a few times (and figured it was less about denying the orgpoints and more about stopping them from getting a foothold)

No, this has happened in every conflict event. I can still remember being frustrated with Glom doing this to me every time and figuring out ways around it - when possible. 

As a fairly new character i remember being introduced to the joys of being murdered at the rift to a timequake due to my enemy status to the inner sea. Wasn't even -in- the quake. But as others told me and i will tell others, if you show up to a conflict event, there will be conflict and no one has the right to peacefully get their daily credits and wander on by.

it drives me crazy but i totally admire Azula - she will jump in, bunker down and get her dailies even if they don't have enough to compete and be slippery as hell and half the time if not more often, make it back out alive despite our efforts. Talk about will to live! Love it.

I think a town hall to help come up with ideas would be helpful to at least get the ball rolling, I would just like to see those who have stopped playing recently to also be invited. My issue with them is everything gets very chaotic, very quickly and I cannot keep up. So maybe introduce slow mode speaking wise, and kindly ask anyone who isn't providing anything helpful to leave. 

Xenthos said:

Kethaera said:

Xenthos said:

Kaikazu said:

Xenthos said:

Mending fences now is, to me, sitting down to rethink the future and direction of conflict in this game.  We're in this place now.  What can be done to shake it up and rebuild what we've lost?  That's what I am looking for in terms of a talk, and an outcome.

You've written at length about how you feel regarding what was done at the time.

What does this look like, right now? Again, is this thread not enough? What exactly will be enough? What, specifically, do you want to see?

Big old skype call? Solicited feedback forum post? Discord chat? You've used the words "sitting down" countless times now, what does it look like?

I have also stated:

1) The forums are not an appropriate place, because they are frequented by a small subset of the game's players,

2) It is probably better as an in-game thing because that is where the players are, and

3) Used the word town-hall (Orael even repeated it!).  It doesn't necessarily need to be town-hall style, but it would preferably be far more inclusive than here.

1. That was never the purpose of my thread that you're admitting to have hijacked for your own purposes. 

2. You could have sent an email/issue instead or

3. Not participated.

What it comes down to is that you only want to air the opinions you like. I'd call that toxic.

I am airing the opinions important to me.  You're airing the opinions important to you.  That's kind of how a discussion works.  Of the two of us, you're the only one who has flatly told the other to stop talking, stop participating, and go away.

I'd call that toxic.

You've repeatedly said this thread shouldn't exist at all. That's telling everyone who did participate and offer suggestions to stop talking. This isn't even a pot/kettle thing, I was perfectly willing to listen to GENUINE suggestions from you. 

Xenthos said:

Kaikazu said:

Xenthos said:

Mending fences now is, to me, sitting down to rethink the future and direction of conflict in this game.  We're in this place now.  What can be done to shake it up and rebuild what we've lost?  That's what I am looking for in terms of a talk, and an outcome.

You've written at length about how you feel regarding what was done at the time.

What does this look like, right now? Again, is this thread not enough? What exactly will be enough? What, specifically, do you want to see?

Big old skype call? Solicited feedback forum post? Discord chat? You've used the words "sitting down" countless times now, what does it look like?

I have also stated:

1) The forums are not an appropriate place, because they are frequented by a small subset of the game's players,

2) It is probably better as an in-game thing because that is where the players are, and

3) Used the word town-hall (Orael even repeated it!).  It doesn't necessarily need to be town-hall style, but it would preferably be far more inclusive than here.

1. That was never the purpose of my thread that you're admitting to have hijacked for your own purposes. 

2. You could have sent an email/issue instead or

3. Not participated.

What it comes down to is that you only want to air the opinions you like. I'd call that toxic.

I'm still appalled at the pride that people have when they say they "play to make others lose." 2020 is really something! 

And, to preempt it, no, not all viewpoints should be encouraged or respected. In fact, there are viewpoints that should be explicitly and actively eradicated, in game and in real life.

The Ascension had no bearing on the game balance. Raising two Ascendants had no bearing on the game balance. You keep bringing it up as if it affected Game Balance -- but it didn't, so you're effectively hijacking a thread @Kethaera made to address Game Balance to complain about something that you feel personally offended by.

Do you know what was disheartening for IHC? Being so close to completing it and then being stuck in a lag so impossibly bad that I would spend a literal 10 minutes getting caught up on my own commands when it had one moment of clarity. Having Wyrdenwoods lean on their chembomb alias and getting dozens of them off without being able to shield.

We got over it. Even if Zagreus hadn't been raised, we would have gotten over it. But Zagreus got raised, and toxic people from Shadowlight keep harping on what a TERRIBLE CHOICE it was to throw Magnagora a bone when we hadn't had a True Ascendant raised in Magnagora for NINE YEARS. Nine years. The last one who was raised in Magnagora was Akyaevin in 2011. In that time, Glomdoring raised 4, Hallifax raised 1, Gaudiguch raised 2 and Celest raised 1. Karlach now lives in Magnagora again, but he was raised by Glomdoring. Serenwilde raised none. Magnagora raised none.

We also worked really hard to secure Seals, and I'm really proud of Ironhart for all the work they put in.

Are we done now? We've hashed out why it was frustrating over and over again. Can we finally talk about actual game balance issues now?

Right now Shadowlight has some great combatants, but not a ton. I think a big part of where the non-balance comes from (outside of IHC merely having more people online generally) is that IHC (Magnagora especially) has more unified calls and combat awareness. A lot of Magnagora uses the same system, so it's easier to teach people how to combat; we also have a lot of older combatants who are well-skilled (Thalkros, Zagreus, Silvanus, Shango, etc).

I'm really hoping that the Outpost system helps close this gap, at least for combat awareness. That's 95% of any combat, is being combat-aware. I've also seen Celest gaining a ton of new people and I'm really excited about that! I'm hoping that Hallifax and Glom are also gaining a bunch, because once those people are trained up, it'll help even out the playing field.

With people starting to go back to work in the States, I think we'll see a lot fewer times where all the heavy hitters are online for every conflict, and hopefully that means we can be more optimistic about stuff.

Unfortunately, a lot of things that cause a skew of skill balance lies in how people interact with games: some people like to be on the "winning team" because it indicates a certain level of activity in those organizations. For instance, RP within the Order of Maylea caused a huge influx of new players into Serenwilde to join that RP because it was active and enjoyable for those participating. People come to IHC for combat because we are successful in combat. IHC has more people because people see that IHC has activity and want to be part of that activity.

This is not to say that everyone does this, but it's a trend in a lot of games that I've seen over a great many years of playing MUDs.

This partially means that one of the ways balance can be affected in a non-mechanical manner is through encouraging greater RP in the organizations that are limited. Even players can manage this, it isn't limited to our admin! Showing the Basin activity in an org will always spark some interest and increase the number of people who come join you.

So yeah. There's that, at least.

Yinuish said:

The major problem with anything that's coming from the player side is that perspectives are skewed. I hear a lot of comments about how SL should be able to compete with a certain number, etc, when our reality is that we wipe when fighting certain people all the time.

So if you're relying on an honour system, it's still not exactly going to be fair because pure numbers don't count when 80% of the peope on one side do not have the artifacts, experience, or coding that the other do. Again, because I feel like I need to keep saying this, this is NOT saying IHC needs to feel responsible, guilty, etc for this. It's just a statement of fact. Something being worked on slowly, but it does mean there is a delay between intent and result on that front. 

This is what I was saying about Random Glom Newbie /=/ Zagreus. Pitting the two against each other is not 1v1 in the traditional understanding of it. I see comments made in game about the the numbers often being roughly even - from my perspective, evaluating what I know of SKILL levels on both sides, SL doesn't have a chance in those "even battles". Which is not to say there aren't great combatants on SL's side or terrible ones on IHC's side. But overall, what Yinuish says is exactly the problem, and it's something that can't be fixed with headcounts or just adding more newbies to a given org.

Gurashi said:

Drawtober 16: I did not expect @Lantra to be the one of the TLC Divine to scare my pants off, but She did. 

It's always the quiet ones...
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