It used to be a perk of being demigod that you didn't have to go through the lengthy praying, you could just phoenix and get on with it.
Instead of being unable to phoenix for a time and often being stuck in the room with your killers and all the smack that frequently comes from it, put phoenix back to instantly taking you out of the room, but have it take time before you return to the havens, just like praying works.
Sure, I can dig it. Thanks for thinking it over just the same.
I didn't envision reworking/redesigning the current system. Instead I figured just appending that/those scripts to the existing player and/or room objects so the traditional penalties would apply first and thus the above would be in-addition-to rather than replacing. Being that as it may, yes I can see how some of this would be onerous on the runtime environent. The creation of additional fields/attributes for darn near every player object, creating a garbage collector (a garbage spider, really) to continuously crawl each instanced object to purge expired events (deaths outside the 25 hour window), etc., could be computationally very expensive.
An exponential decay function does have an advantage in that the first few deaths are no big loss, but it would take a particularly special kind of griefer to want to push things to their logical conclusion (and beyond because the penalty continues to stick once someone reaches the threshold).
So no convolutions? None? Hrmm. I guess I'd echo what others have said. While I'd prefer to goose the Xp/Ess loss and rezz cool-down on second+ death (and increasing with each additional), that would require adding and tracking a new field/attribute to all the player objects, so I guess my only suggestion would be to nudge these penalties upwards just a hair (we can always keep nudging them upwards if necessary, until the right point is found) when in Enemy Territory (and possibly Domoth Realm and Bubbles for non-challenging teams? Would all rogues be considered on the same team, or are Rogues be considered off-team?). No new variables are required, but there still remain a few queries (is character X in enemy territory? Is character part of the same faction as challenger?). I have no idea what the specifics should be, but I'm sure there are plenty of people here with some very well-thought numbers. We all know who the heavy-hitters are.
All of the 'once upon a time' demigod benefits are gone already, basically. That's just the nature of the game, as much as that might suck. I agree though, and don't like the way that the demi-death timeout is currently implemented: It's frustrating, spammy, and inelegant. Over a certain threshold of death delay, part of the time could be served while 'peaced', so that you can do other things like RP while you're waiting.
Again, I'm sure that scrapping xp loss for some other mechanic across the board is not on the table right now. We're just talking about removing the specific penalty for raiding, which is currently 2 million essence on top of all usual death penalties.
So, right. it would make sense to have a modifier attached to player enemy territory penalties that would make them amp up more quickly than PvE and other 'innocent' deaths. However, the scope of the suggestion doesn't reach to those other deaths, so the modifier is irrelevant.
@Enyalida: Sometimes my wife looks over my shoulder, reads the screen, and asks ``Oh my! Did that person just die?'' to which I invariably answer ``No. That person is still alive and well. Their character didn't die either, but was just reduced to 0 health for a few moments.'' I'm not advocating permadeath, but since the character didn't really die it's just more of a ``I got wuss-slapped'' than ``I got killed.''. Frankly I really don't want to turn Lusternia into Mud2 or Multi-player Rogue (thankfully much of Lusternia precludes permadeath as any option ever to be entertained). It's a matter of jargon for me, and yes I do slip sometimes (previous post for example) and refer to it as a ``death-penalty'' rather than a ``wuss-slapped-penalty''.
Now, to the matter at hand, I agree nuisance raiding should not be encouraged so the penalty should be strengthened a tad. I'm actually on your side here, but sloppy jargon sometimes makes things confusing. @Saesh told me one of the reasons He wasn't interested in my proposal was that it required new variables/fields/attributes, but maybe this time-out counter/ramp-up will slip through. It seems elegant and complete. Hopefully in-game fiction for the inability to return to that area won't be hard to whip-up.
Simple, just extend the peaced time. If being peaced instead of dead dead means demis on average will save 40 seconds deffing, increase the starting time by 40 seconds, or however long.
Personally, peacing as it already exists isn't the best solution, unless that peacing is expanded to exclude you from contested areas. Personally, I think this is a good move anyways, as it prevents things like going in peaced/graced (When that was a problem) to serve as a teleport anchor.
Couldn't you exclude people from the contested area instead of peacing them? That would keep them out of the conflict while still letting them do others things if they wanted, like bashing for example.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
You could, if you also kept them out of other contested areas, but it would take a lot more work behind the scenes. Until fully realized, there would be a lot of messy mid-stages, too.
I'd be fine with the essence loss staying as it is, if we'd just remove the essence soft cap and the diminishing returns on essence gain.
That aside, could make deaths in enemy territory cost as much as normal deaths, and have all demis go into a waiting area (like ascendants) while they wait to phoenix. The wait until phoenix could extend for each death in enemy territory during a certain time period.
Would it be possible/prudent to, instead of discouraging via timeout or discouraging via exp/essence penalty, discourage by temporarily making someone easier to kill, like tampering with h/m/e or applying a sip malus in player-enemy territory per player death?
Like, Bob decides he's going to start raiding Celest. The first time he goes up and earns his enemy status, then dies. No big deal, he's earned enough XP fleecing newbies, and is a demigod by now, he just phoenixes and redefs, then gets back into the zone. The next time he dies, he does the same thing, only this time, as soon as he steps into the area, his max h/m/e are dropped by 5% until he leaves again. He can still fight, of course, but it's just a little bit easier to kill him again now. Next two deaths, he's now 15% down from max, and things are looking a lot less feasible in terms of his survival. He decides to pack it in while he's still capable of fleeing without a guard sneezing him to death, but when he gets back to the shop, wouldn't you know it, some fink players have taken the initiative to raid his shop! He declares them enemies immediately, and since he's no longer in enemy territory, his stats are back to normal, and he is able to deal with the intruders, since they eventually start having to deal with their own stacking penalties. After a certain amount of time/after the weave, his deaths are no longer counted, so he can go play on Celestia again if he chooses.
5% h/m/e loss isn't going to stop a good combatant from wrecking a hefty number of less-skilled combatants. A higher % runs into the same issue. A good deal of my older fight wins consisted of me locking the other person down before I took any/much damage at all, and I was a warrior. Just imagine what a guardian or mage or whatever can do.
I could potentially see something like rapid insanity buildup in enemy territory or occasionally getting certain affs/command denial in enemy territory working, though. Not sure we want to go down that route.
Is anything really capable of stopping a good combatant from wrecking a hefty number of less skilled combatants short of stacking stun on top of aeon on top of entangle, &c?
Not intended to sound aggressive or whiny, I'm legitimately curious as my experience tends to point the other direction.
Saferoom a-la ascendant reform spot would probably be a good idea. With increasing time spent before you can phoenix/pray and the drain of mana/exp per time removed.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Fighting in other systems is pretty lame. Can a novice, given plenty of time and a potent weapon take out a skilled veteran who stands idly by? Sure, but in those games it is about as exciting as chopping down a tree who somehow manages to dodge 85% of the time. In Lusternia the trick is stacking the afflictions (Lacerate, Break, Fracture, Amputate, ThankYou), so the fighting is not so much ``Death Of Thousand Cuts'' like pen&paper D&D, but more like the Real World match between two samurai: each might make a move or a feint, and the other might dodge or parry the other's motions, but soon a very telling wound is delivered. No one thinks ``They have 10% more HP than I do, so I should bow out'' because this isn't about HP in many cases (sure, some necromancy skills can make it an HP fight, but that isn't the normal case).
We need to keep this mechanic rather than focus on H/M/E loss (unless it was the ``lucky roll'' of a previously proposed system). We want to keep what I like: I want to raid! I want to raid any and all places. I want blood and guts and veins sticking out of my teeth! I want to raid! ... I just don't want to be a dick about it, and I don't want others to be a dick about it. No one can code ``rule X: do not be a dick''. That takes moderation from both the players and the staff, and that can prove expensive, and you can't count on 100% of players enforcing that rule. Even if staff are volunteer their trouble and headache is still a cost, and it's a cost which cannot be discounted. If the engine can eliminate any fraction of dickish behaviour (nuisance raids), then a solution must be adopted.
Again, I'm sure that scrapping xp loss for some other mechanic across the board is not on the table right now. We're just talking about removing the specific penalty for raiding, which is currently 2 million essence on top of all usual death penalties.
Which IMO shouldn't be removed without something to prevent off hours greifing. Grief Raiders start with the benefit of picking the time and place. Often they won't have to deal with discretionaries as there may be no one around to put them up. Often they have an easy escape route.
Reducing the xp penalty to some trivial amount even if coupled with a five minute death (which hardly makes the game exciting) only means if the undermanned org can finally manage to kill the person they can still raid all night.
Reducing the experience loss should be tabled until some other mechanisms are available handle griefers.
If the loss is removed why not drastically cut the cost of discretionaries, or implement that discretionaries auto-raise on the death of an enemy in that territory?
As a note, the harsh essence/xp loss doesn't do much to deter those that already choose times to raid when the risk is already low (no defenders, no discretionaries, etc.). I'm not really sure I follow the reasoning that we should keep the harsh penalty that, in fact, discourages prime time raiding, because it will somehow encourage more off the low risk style raiding that it has little impact on.
As a note, the harsh essence/xp loss doesn't do much to deter those that already choose times to raid when the risk is already low (no defenders, no discretionaries, etc.). I'm not really sure I follow the reasoning that we should keep the harsh penalty that, in fact, discourages prime time raiding, because it will somehow encourage more off the low risk style raiding that it has little impact on.
You're right but that's the other extreme. There are times off-peak and peak that are not about killing smobs but are about griefing an org. Given that a raider can pick their attack the deck is already a bit stacked in their favor. If the experience loss is removed then the deck is considerably stacked in their favor.
For the griefers who attack multiple times each day the stick to their carrotty griefing is if you can manage to kill them then that is negative pressure against their return. Yes, because it is experience and some have experience to waste for some who are willing to grind it isn't much of a detractor.
It wasn't that long ago that every single night Glom was being raided by Serenwilde. The only real drawback for Seren's raiding was the XP loss. There's a non-demi mag (at least he wasn't demi last I looked) that seems to raid Celest a few times a weave, the only thing slowing him seems to be experience loss.
I'm confused by the impression that the experience loss was upped to slow down Smobs raids (if that's the concern you could put in a mechanic that if you drop an Smob you don't lose additional xp for a day). Unless my memory was faulty it was put in place to slow things like City raids where the other org pretty much just moved in for hours, raids on villages on a constant basis, and fairly long raids in general.
I really hate the off-peak raiding argument. There are people who only look for trouble when no one is around. There are also people in different timezones who often can only play when no one is around. Both get lumped together. There is no set allowed raid time and disallowed raid time. Some people don't care about the XP loss (Inagin used to die over and over and over raiding Nil, but it obviously didn't bother him enough to stop coming back whilever he met with a fight), other people will die once/twice and call it quits.
If anything, a big essence loss really only discourages the people at the lower end of the demigod scale - the ones that are new to it, still have powers to buy and can't bear to lose it. Anyone else who raids goes in with a big buffer.
Having a delay in returning to life takes the steam out of raiding because a) the raiding party gets smaller or has to wait to regroup, which can be an advantage to the opposing side still living and b) it gets boring having to wait to jump into the fray, which potentially encourages people to find something new to do after a while. Theoretically.
Conflict is something we keep saying no one can avoid, and that the more people who get involved in it the more fun it is for all concerned - so make it less crippling for those people who actually need their essence the most.
As a note, the harsh essence/xp loss doesn't do much to deter those that already choose times to raid when the risk is already low (no defenders, no discretionaries, etc.). I'm not really sure I follow the reasoning that we should keep the harsh penalty that, in fact, discourages prime time raiding, because it will somehow encourage more off the low risk style raiding that it has little impact on.
You're right but that's the other extreme. There are times off-peak and peak that are not about killing smobs but are about griefing an org. Given that a raider can pick their attack the deck is already a bit stacked in their favor. If the experience loss is removed then the deck is considerably stacked in their favor.
For the griefers who attack multiple times each day the stick to their carrotty griefing is if you can manage to kill them then that is negative pressure against their return. Yes, because it is experience and some have experience to waste for some who are willing to grind it isn't much of a detractor.
It wasn't that long ago that every single night Glom was being raided by Serenwilde. The only real drawback for Seren's raiding was the XP loss. There's a non-demi mag (at least he wasn't demi last I looked) that seems to raid Celest a few times a weave, the only thing slowing him seems to be experience loss.
I'm confused by the impression that the experience loss was upped to slow down Smobs raids (if that's the concern you could put in a mechanic that if you drop an Smob you don't lose additional xp for a day). Unless my memory was faulty it was put in place to slow things like City raids where the other org pretty much just moved in for hours, raids on villages on a constant basis, and fairly long raids in general.
There were several changes added including insanity gain, smob buffs, and smob invincibility timers along with the increased exp gain that aimed to address a variety of issues raised regarding raiding.
I wasn't in the Havens when it was implemented, obviously, but I can make the educated guess that the essence loss was not implemented to address the long term fortress style raids form years ago, namely because once the raiders were set up, the defenders died at a much higher frequency than the raiders did. These tended to end on the raiders terms, not the defenders. Insanity and removing shrines on the cosmic planes were geared more towards addressing that particular issue.
The increased exp loss seems to be a very specific solution to a very specific issue, which was that there was no way to legitimate "repel" defeated raiders. They would just return endlessly and tie up the defenders time even though they accomplished virtually nothing. They couldn't successfully grief (for lack of a better word) with deaths, so they griefed by consuming the time of others. My feeling is that the people that did this also weren't particularly dissuaded by exp loss pre or post XP loss changes (some of the more notorious names known for this even lost demigod, got it back, and repeated the process. I believe there was even an Ascendant who raided himself to 0 essence and kept on trucking) and it has ultimately done more to dissuade the "casuals" than the hardcore PKers and avid raiders.
Self named "griefers" are a very specific subset of the PK community, and while not universally the same, XP loss tends to be of little importance other than not losing Demigod (aka griefing ability). Considering the ease at which XP is gained these days, it's not overly time consuming or difficult to obtain and maintain a sizable buffer.
How difficult would it be to implement something that counts deaths in enemy territory and lets them decay after a certain amount of time? because a thought occured that the easiest way to deter grief-raiding/extended "just died, but I'm coming back to keep at it" raids might be to start hitting raiders where it might hurt a LOT. For each death in player-enemy territory after a certain number, start stacking 'disfavour' style debuffs on their skills. True, those with a lot of truefavours won't feel it as quickly, but when you start losing access to your trans skills, I'd think you'd start paying attention to the idea that maybe enough is enough and it's time to call it for the night.
It could even be flavoured like, "your recent deaths weigh heavily on your soul, and you feel your memories slipping from you" or "The Fates are displeased with your poor performance. You find yourself branded with their (True|High) disfavour."
The increased exp loss seems to be a very specific solution to a very specific issue, which was that there was no way to legitimate "repel" defeated raiders. They would just return endlessly and tie up the defenders time even though they accomplished virtually nothing. They couldn't successfully grief (for lack of a better word) with deaths, so they griefed by consuming the time of others. My feeling is that the people that did this also weren't particularly dissuaded by exp loss pre or post XP loss changes (some of the more notorious names known for this even lost demigod, got it back, and repeated the process. I believe there was even an Ascendant who raided himself to 0 essence and kept on trucking) and it has ultimately done more to dissuade the "casuals" than the hardcore PKers and avid raiders.
Thanks for the reply.
My viewpoint is based on being old enough to remember MUDs where I'd be dead for hours waiting for a cleric to show up to see the change over time to more modern MMOs where there is virtually none (have to put up a handful of buffs), to minor discomfort. The reasons given tend to be to make the game more 'fun', 'exciting', 'encourage raiding', 'get people back into the fight', etc. Most of these games tend to have common raiding areas, rather than raiding other people's home territory (yes, Lusternia has both and other types).
@Lavinya I'm not trying to ignore the Oceanic family. If anything I'd like to see some of the ascension competitions be random around the clock. There is often a point about 4 AM EST or so where one of more orgs has very few players. To some extent it is seasonal, but it does exist.
Self
named "griefers" are a very specific subset of the PK community, and
while not universally the same, XP loss tends to be of little importance
other than not losing Demigod (aka griefing ability). Considering the
ease at which XP is gained these days, it's not overly time consuming or
difficult to obtain and maintain a sizable buffer.
It isn't, which does kinda argue there's no great need to reduce it until there's time to implement a much better solution. Even though some have suggested it is a cost you have to make up, I am sure you understand it is also one you can pay in advance. I think you may be underestimating the psychological carrot that you may cost the raider something of significance. You may not kill that raider all the time, but when you do you want to do something significant in return.
In by far the vast majority of cases the raider has to plan poorly or be willing to stand their ground to even have a significant chance of death. It doesn't seem unlike a game of chess where the raider gets to go first and while your moves are concede or hope for a victory. On the other side the raider starts out with a symbolic victory (they're there, they may already have killed a denizen), and they can usually cut and run should the tides change.
One of the things I would like to see in Lusternia is being able to use some of the areas themselves as defenses. If each area had a number of limited resources to help rebuff raiders then in low numbers of raiders the resources would be more significant than in higher numbers.
Example: Nexus Trebuchet (just an example). A nexus construct. Can be fired by a single person at an attacker. Allows a non-com or lowbie to mount some offense against an attacker, however not going to be greatly effective against a group.
Example: Denizen guards. When I was in Celest it always bugged the hell out of me that the Elemental Water Lords just sat there. I always wanted them to do something, even if it required an Aquamancer to prompt them. Think demi/avatar/ascendant powers. If each Elemental Lord could only give a power to one person, then at four defenders the bonus could be capped. On Celestia: It could be the ability to have one (two if security) non-Smob denizens follow and fight with you.
Example: Curse aura. With each attack the defender gets a chance to deliver an additional affliction when attacking.
I'm not saying these are the best solutions, they're certainly not the only solutions. I am asking that if you make it easier to raid that some balance of some sort be given to defenders and if possible some reward.
Different suggestion: Something like armor endurance in other games. You have a number, let's call it body integrity for the sake of giving it a name, and with each death a piece of this gets removed. Maybe more or less depending on where you die. You can repair this up with gold / xp / whatever. However, the more you repair the more expensive repairing becomes, though this is not linked to number of repairs but rather total damage in a period that you have repaired. This would reset after a while though, so you're not permanently punished.
This allows you to go back in a fight, but not do so endlessly, makes bashing deaths less of a horror, but with a limit.
Edit: Forgot to add, once your body integrity reaches 0 you are hit with a very severe debuff of some kind that will make going out in that state no fun.
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@Saesh said: I have heard chatter regarding EXP loss, specifically the past changes to enemy territory loss, and am opening this thread to approach possible changes to these mechanics. We need to retain some sort of "punishment" for dying in enemy territory to curb excessive raiding which the last changes did successful accomplish. That being said, I've heard a common theme that the exp loss might be excessive so I'm opening the floor for proposals, comments, or ideas.
Excessive essence loss deterring raiding as a whole is not as much as deterring certain PKers who tend to be targeted first like people who die fast and classes who need to be eliminated first for better results( Like melders and maybe certain bards and aeon users). Most suggestions I read here also does not solve this problem. Whether it be power loss or essence drain or extended timers on Phoenix and stuff, it is more likely to affect the ones who will be picked up first.
PS: I am not a regular on the forums and I hardly go over a few threads when I do see the forums. I even skip posts when I do read posts in a thread. Please do not expect me to be knowledgeable on every thread or post when I make a post. Sorry.
@Saesh said: I have heard chatter regarding EXP loss, specifically the past changes to enemy territory loss, and am opening this thread to approach possible changes to these mechanics. We need to retain some sort of "punishment" for dying in enemy territory to curb excessive raiding which the last changes did successful accomplish. That being said, I've heard a common theme that the exp loss might be excessive so I'm opening the floor for proposals, comments, or ideas.
Excessive essence loss deterring raiding as a whole is not as much as deterring certain PKers who tend to be targeted first like people who die fast and classes who need to be eliminated first for better results( Like melders and maybe certain bards and aeon users). Most suggestions I read here also does not solve this problem. Whether it be power loss or essence drain or extended timers on Phoenix and stuff, it is more likely to affect the ones who will be picked up first.
PS: I am not a regular on the forums and I hardly go over a few threads when I do see the forums. I even skip posts when I do read posts in a thread. Please do not expect me to be knowledgeable on every thread or post when I make a post. Sorry.
Such is the risk you take when playing certain classes. Any system we put in place or change will affect everyone equally, as with all the systems we have in place. What we don't want to do is incentivize people to play in certain guilds with things like xp loss cushions. Ultimately, what guild a player is in is entirely up to the player (as it should be) and if not being targeted first is a priority for the player, it should factor into their decision as to where they want to play. We won't be giving melders and aeoners perks to account for player decisioning any more than we will give perks to players who pick up rarely used tradeskills. Sure, there are inherent perks/maluses outside of the code for being in a specific guild or picking a certain trade, but that is part of the player built fabric of Lusternia and I think it's best for it to stay that way.
Bunp. What are your thoughts on these ideas, @Estarra@Baelor .
The Overhaul's main goal to reduce afflictions is nice and all, but I'm pretty sure one of the secondary objectives is to improve novice retention. I think that looking into XP loss would be really productive towards achieving that goal.
0
EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
How is it that we retained plenty of novices back in the day when XP loss was an actual thing?
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Comments
Instead of being unable to phoenix for a time and often being stuck in the room with your killers and all the smack that frequently comes from it, put phoenix back to instantly taking you out of the room, but have it take time before you return to the havens, just like praying works.
I didn't envision reworking/redesigning the current system. Instead I figured just appending that/those scripts to the existing player and/or room objects so the traditional penalties would apply first and thus the above would be in-addition-to rather than replacing. Being that as it may, yes I can see how some of this would be onerous on the runtime environent. The creation of additional fields/attributes for darn near every player object, creating a garbage collector (a garbage spider, really) to continuously crawl each instanced object to purge expired events (deaths outside the 25 hour window), etc., could be computationally very expensive.
An exponential decay function does have an advantage in that the first few deaths are no big loss, but it would take a particularly special kind of griefer to want to push things to their logical conclusion (and beyond because the penalty continues to stick once someone reaches the threshold).
So no convolutions? None? Hrmm. I guess I'd echo what others have said. While I'd prefer to goose the Xp/Ess loss and rezz cool-down on second+ death (and increasing with each additional), that would require adding and tracking a new field/attribute to all the player objects, so I guess my only suggestion would be to nudge these penalties upwards just a hair (we can always keep nudging them upwards if necessary, until the right point is found) when in Enemy Territory (and possibly Domoth Realm and Bubbles for non-challenging teams? Would all rogues be considered on the same team, or are Rogues be considered off-team?). No new variables are required, but there still remain a few queries (is character X in enemy territory? Is character part of the same faction as challenger?). I have no idea what the specifics should be, but I'm sure there are plenty of people here with some very well-thought numbers. We all know who the heavy-hitters are.
Thanks again for looking over my ramblings.
Now, to the matter at hand, I agree nuisance raiding should not be encouraged so the penalty should be strengthened a tad. I'm actually on your side here, but sloppy jargon sometimes makes things confusing. @Saesh told me one of the reasons He wasn't interested in my proposal was that it required new variables/fields/attributes, but maybe this time-out counter/ramp-up will slip through. It seems elegant and complete. Hopefully in-game fiction for the inability to return to that area won't be hard to whip-up.
Like, Bob decides he's going to start raiding Celest. The first time he goes up and earns his enemy status, then dies. No big deal, he's earned enough XP fleecing newbies, and is a demigod by now, he just phoenixes and redefs, then gets back into the zone. The next time he dies, he does the same thing, only this time, as soon as he steps into the area, his max h/m/e are dropped by 5% until he leaves again. He can still fight, of course, but it's just a little bit easier to kill him again now. Next two deaths, he's now 15% down from max, and things are looking a lot less feasible in terms of his survival. He decides to pack it in while he's still capable of fleeing without a guard sneezing him to death, but when he gets back to the shop, wouldn't you know it, some fink players have taken the initiative to raid his shop! He declares them enemies immediately, and since he's no longer in enemy territory, his stats are back to normal, and he is able to deal with the intruders, since they eventually start having to deal with their own stacking penalties. After a certain amount of time/after the weave, his deaths are no longer counted, so he can go play on Celestia again if he chooses.
Just spitballing an idea pre-coffee and work.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
We need to keep this mechanic rather than focus on H/M/E loss (unless it was the ``lucky roll'' of a previously proposed system). We want to keep what I like: I want to raid! I want to raid any and all places. I want blood and guts and veins sticking out of my teeth! I want to raid! ... I just don't want to be a dick about it, and I don't want others to be a dick about it. No one can code ``rule X: do not be a dick''. That takes moderation from both the players and the staff, and that can prove expensive, and you can't count on 100% of players enforcing that rule. Even if staff are volunteer their trouble and headache is still a cost, and it's a cost which cannot be discounted. If the engine can eliminate any fraction of dickish behaviour (nuisance raids), then a solution must be adopted.
Reducing the xp penalty to some trivial amount even if coupled with a five minute death (which hardly makes the game exciting) only means if the undermanned org can finally manage to kill the person they can still raid all night.
Reducing the experience loss should be tabled until some other mechanisms are available handle griefers.
If the loss is removed why not drastically cut the cost of discretionaries, or implement that discretionaries auto-raise on the death of an enemy in that territory?
For the griefers who attack multiple times each day the stick to their carrotty griefing is if you can manage to kill them then that is negative pressure against their return. Yes, because it is experience and some have experience to waste for some who are willing to grind it isn't much of a detractor.
It wasn't that long ago that every single night Glom was being raided by Serenwilde. The only real drawback for Seren's raiding was the XP loss. There's a non-demi mag (at least he wasn't demi last I looked) that seems to raid Celest a few times a weave, the only thing slowing him seems to be experience loss.
I'm confused by the impression that the experience loss was upped to slow down Smobs raids (if that's the concern you could put in a mechanic that if you drop an Smob you don't lose additional xp for a day). Unless my memory was faulty it was put in place to slow things like City raids where the other org pretty much just moved in for hours, raids on villages on a constant basis, and fairly long raids in general.
If anything, a big essence loss really only discourages the people at the lower end of the demigod scale - the ones that are new to it, still have powers to buy and can't bear to lose it. Anyone else who raids goes in with a big buffer.
Having a delay in returning to life takes the steam out of raiding because a) the raiding party gets smaller or has to wait to regroup, which can be an advantage to the opposing side still living and b) it gets boring having to wait to jump into the fray, which potentially encourages people to find something new to do after a while. Theoretically.
Conflict is something we keep saying no one can avoid, and that the more people who get involved in it the more fun it is for all concerned - so make it less crippling for those people who actually need their essence the most.
How difficult would it be to implement something that counts deaths in enemy territory and lets them decay after a certain amount of time? because a thought occured that the easiest way to deter grief-raiding/extended "just died, but I'm coming back to keep at it" raids might be to start hitting raiders where it might hurt a LOT. For each death in player-enemy territory after a certain number, start stacking 'disfavour' style debuffs on their skills. True, those with a lot of truefavours won't feel it as quickly, but when you start losing access to your trans skills, I'd think you'd start paying attention to the idea that maybe enough is enough and it's time to call it for the night.
It could even be flavoured like, "your recent deaths weigh heavily on your soul, and you feel your memories slipping from you" or "The Fates are displeased with your poor performance. You find yourself branded with their (True|High) disfavour."
Corrolary question: Would this actually work?
Thanks for the reply.
My viewpoint is based on being old enough to remember MUDs where I'd be dead for hours waiting for a cleric to show up to see the change over time to more modern MMOs where there is virtually none (have to put up a handful of buffs), to minor discomfort. The reasons given tend to be to make the game more 'fun', 'exciting', 'encourage raiding', 'get people back into the fight', etc. Most of these games tend to have common raiding areas, rather than raiding other people's home territory (yes, Lusternia has both and other types).
@Lavinya I'm not trying to ignore the Oceanic family. If anything I'd like to see some of the ascension competitions be random around the clock. There is often a point about 4 AM EST or so where one of more orgs has very few players. To some extent it is seasonal, but it does exist.
It isn't, which does kinda argue there's no great need to reduce it until there's time to implement a much better solution. Even though some have suggested it is a cost you have to make up, I am sure you understand it is also one you can pay in advance. I think you may be underestimating the psychological carrot that you may cost the raider something of significance. You may not kill that raider all the time, but when you do you want to do something significant in return.
In by far the vast majority of cases the raider has to plan poorly or be willing to stand their ground to even have a significant chance of death. It doesn't seem unlike a game of chess where the raider gets to go first and while your moves are concede or hope for a victory. On the other side the raider starts out with a symbolic victory (they're there, they may already have killed a denizen), and they can usually cut and run should the tides change.
One of the things I would like to see in Lusternia is being able to use some of the areas themselves as defenses. If each area had a number of limited resources to help rebuff raiders then in low numbers of raiders the resources would be more significant than in higher numbers.
Example: Nexus Trebuchet (just an example). A nexus construct. Can be fired by a single person at an attacker. Allows a non-com or lowbie to mount some offense against an attacker, however not going to be greatly effective against a group.
Example: Denizen guards. When I was in Celest it always bugged the hell out of me that the Elemental Water Lords just sat there. I always wanted them to do something, even if it required an Aquamancer to prompt them. Think demi/avatar/ascendant powers. If each Elemental Lord could only give a power to one person, then at four defenders the bonus could be capped. On Celestia: It could be the ability to have one (two if security) non-Smob denizens follow and fight with you.
Example: Curse aura. With each attack the defender gets a chance to deliver an additional affliction when attacking.
I'm not saying these are the best solutions, they're certainly not the only solutions. I am asking that if you make it easier to raid that some balance of some sort be given to defenders and if possible some reward.
This allows you to go back in a fight, but not do so endlessly, makes bashing deaths less of a horror, but with a limit.
Edit: Forgot to add, once your body integrity reaches 0 you are hit with a very severe debuff of some kind that will make going out in that state no fun.
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The Overhaul's main goal to reduce afflictions is nice and all, but I'm pretty sure one of the secondary objectives is to improve novice retention. I think that looking into XP loss would be really productive towards achieving that goal.
Nowadays, we have had far too many games where death doesn't do much except send you somewhere else to respawn. So people don't want xp loss anymore.
I don't know what the answer to this is though.