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State of Conflict: Risk vs Reward
This is something I've seen talked about some in the past, and I'm honestly concerned about the lack of attention it's received. In the past we have always framed this discussion in the light that it was not worth the risk of raiding for the reward of successfully winning. It made sense, in some lights, that raiding shouldn't be made too easy because of griefing worries, and that those who wanted to raid for personal enjoyment should put more on the line than defenders because that helped to promote even team situations.
The truth of the matter is that this has created a situation where raiding is 100% pointless. The power gains of slaying an enemy's cosmic (or ethereal) SMobs is less than a good astral ur'Bash. Additional concerns of off-hour raiding vs counter off-hour raiding provide an additional deterrent, as parties are willing to maintain the status quo so long as everyone else does too.
Community and admin both, I'd really like to have a discussion about what can be done to create an enjoyable conflict experience. The idea of offense/defense across the planes has always been one of the core concepts to conflict here in Lusternia. While revolts and domoths provide their own unique, strategic challenges, I feel the essential removal of planar raiding has removed an interesting part of the game.
Is it abusable? All the big orgs group up to bash the small orgs ents over and over? Technically possible. That can still happen in villages and domoths too. SMob invulnerability time can be adjusted up to limit the negative impact possible. It just seems crazy to me to see a group of like half the people online astral bashing as a team, the other half offline, but hear that killing SMobs isn't worth their time.
The truth of the matter is that this has created a situation where raiding is 100% pointless. The power gains of slaying an enemy's cosmic (or ethereal) SMobs is less than a good astral ur'Bash. Additional concerns of off-hour raiding vs counter off-hour raiding provide an additional deterrent, as parties are willing to maintain the status quo so long as everyone else does too.
Community and admin both, I'd really like to have a discussion about what can be done to create an enjoyable conflict experience. The idea of offense/defense across the planes has always been one of the core concepts to conflict here in Lusternia. While revolts and domoths provide their own unique, strategic challenges, I feel the essential removal of planar raiding has removed an interesting part of the game.
Is it abusable? All the big orgs group up to bash the small orgs ents over and over? Technically possible. That can still happen in villages and domoths too. SMob invulnerability time can be adjusted up to limit the negative impact possible. It just seems crazy to me to see a group of like half the people online astral bashing as a team, the other half offline, but hear that killing SMobs isn't worth their time.
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(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
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If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
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If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
At the moment, the closest to a healthy conflict mechanic we have are domoths. A clear start and end, unique benefits which are significant enough to motivate participation, and prescribed cooldown periods where it doesn't get over the top with constant, never-ending, forced participation. The downside is that the domoths are gameable - there are clear windows where domoth conflict can be made to be one-sided by simply starting it when there is no opposition around. It would have worked way better if we had a huge population in every org at all times. But unfortunately, that is not realistic.
To make raiding viable, you need to change some of its fundamental factors: just increasing the reward (or reducing the difficulty) doesn't change the toxicity of it "forcing" players to defend, and of it not having a clear and pre-set "end" point. It goes on for as long as the raiders have the essence and motivation to continue raiding. In order to make raiding a conflict mechanic which people can take part in at frequent enough rates without burning people out, you need it to have a pre-determined duration, like domoths or villages/flares. It cannot go on forever - at one point, the balance must tip and make it end, and once ended, it cannot be restarted on whim. Yet, then, this makes it another village/domoth/flare clone. Why do we need another of these?
I see raiding as a part of a larger "threat" conflict. The threat of getting killed, jumped on, ambushed or ganked whenever you step out of a "safe" area is a constant, and consistent conflict mechanic that doesn't have a start nor an end. The moment you step out of Avenger protection, you're free game - and that builds atmosphere and immersion. Raiding itself, that is, bringing this threat into previously "safe" or ideologically important areas, is a thus a conflict mechanic that represents an escalation of the constant, atmospheric conflict that defines the game itself. I am opposed to any more "rewards" for raiding. Your reward for starting a raid is the threatening or desecration of areas that are important or should be safe for your opponents. The moment you bring threat into their realm, you are experiencing your reward, end of story. For as long as your are indulging your reward, you are at risk of losing even more - enemy area essence/exp loss. The "obligation" that people feel to defend is a part of your reward - you are making people's game-lives uncomfortable. To imply that there should be even more mechanical, numerical rewards (power gain or whatever) on top of that would be unreasonable.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
the above
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Reducing the headache of SMobs being dead by having them auto-regenerated instead of people fighting to grief essence drops would remove the possibility for people to try to ultra-grief the situation (though the fact that there is way more essence to be farmed these days than there used to be points towards this not being as painful as it used to be). Increasing SMob immunity periods also reduces the ability for orgs to be griefed. There's lots of things that can be done to reduce the pain for defenders who have lost without removing the mechanic all together, or making it so impossible that it is basically removed for all intents and purposes.
Conglut is very easy to get nowadays, and should be a priority investment for anyone looking to be involved in conflict. The issue is newbies tend to go deep instead of wide. Meaning they are encouraged to trans a skill instead of meeting thresholds in a variety of skills. Like conglut.
Leveling is also extremely easy, and has gotten easier and deaths have meant less and less over the years. You don't have to be at the meta to be proficient as bashing. See: the 250+ demigods. People (like myself) bashed to demigod long before the days of all these xp bonus stacking, influence buffs, aetherbashes, and 15 person astral hunts. It's really not hard by any definition of the word, it's simply time consuming. Don't be distracted by the meta. You're not "bad" at gaining xp because you aren't an artied, destruction wielding ascendant. You're just bad by comparison, which isn't really bad because the meta is just stupid right now. In context with the rest of Lusternia's history, you're actually fine, and much better off than the piles of demigods that did what you're doing before it was quite this easy. It goes back to a willingness to have fun.
I'm just saying, I've sat at less than 3 million essence for RL years as a demigod and remained among the most active PKers. I never actually hit zero (other than that one time a long, long, long ways back where I accidentally dropped to Titan) and I bashed the absolute minimal amount to stay in the positive essence range. Anyone who makes a reasonable effort to gain levels is going to do so, even while dying in pk.
At the end of the day, a lot of pk is about mindset.
As for smobs raids, that ship has sailed. I don't forsee anything being reversed as far as that goes. The complaints that went in to this change were some of the greatest examples of hypocrisy in Lusternian history, yet they were still taken seriously and hardcoded into the game. This tells me that the smobs are no longer intended to be a focus of conflict. So I think we have to focus on things that are less org specific. Like domoths. Nodes. Whatever.
You have received a new honour! Congratulations! On this day, you have shown your willingness to ensure a bug-free Lusternia for everyone to enjoy. The face of Iosai the Anomaly unfolds before you, and within you grows the knowledge that you have earned the elusive and rare honour of membership in Her Order.
Curio Exchange - A website to help with the trading of curio pieces in Lusternia.