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Expansion to NPC Loyalty
Background:
I've been thinking recently about prime bashing spots that used to be fairly well guarded that folks don't seem to care about it so much anymore. For example I remember getting yelled at by Magnagorans for bashing orcs back in the day and I myself used to hunt down people who hunted kephera just as people used to hunt me when I hunted illithoid. I think part of this change is due to a general shift in attitude about these places but another part I feel is mechanical.
It now feels that more players own a gem of cloaking than otherwise. So if you want to do as Wobou wants and guard the kephera you need to lie in wait in one particular hive and hope spectacles procs or run around all the hives like a madman and scent, praying that whoever has not skunked. The only way I know around this would be to have an accurate list of who might try to come down to the hives and scry them, or purchase the farscout artifact, both of which gives folks a warning. It's very likely that I'm missing some other mechanic to catch people since I have taken a break for a few years, but that's somewhat besides the point.
Actual idea:
It would be great if leaders of various organizations (a commune, a city, a clan, an order, etc.) could do something to initiate a ritual of loyalty with a group of NPCs, which would allow them to call for help on the relevant aether channel when they are attacked. Ideally you could do this for all NPCs that grant enemy status but it would be particularly nice for those that actually place you on enemied territory. I feel like this would be a way to return some of the small PVP conflicts that used to happen all the time around bashing. It would also be something that would cause some more internal org communication. If this were implemented for example, Wobou would want the new regent of Serenwilde to perform this ritual for the kephera, others might disagree and ask for the centaurs to be protected first, and thus conflict and hilarity ensues.
Doing this should definitely not be trivial, otherwise a given city will just tag every bashing spot their enemies frequent in the hopes of catching people out. I currently have two ideas for how you would perform this ritual:
I've been thinking recently about prime bashing spots that used to be fairly well guarded that folks don't seem to care about it so much anymore. For example I remember getting yelled at by Magnagorans for bashing orcs back in the day and I myself used to hunt down people who hunted kephera just as people used to hunt me when I hunted illithoid. I think part of this change is due to a general shift in attitude about these places but another part I feel is mechanical.
It now feels that more players own a gem of cloaking than otherwise. So if you want to do as Wobou wants and guard the kephera you need to lie in wait in one particular hive and hope spectacles procs or run around all the hives like a madman and scent, praying that whoever has not skunked. The only way I know around this would be to have an accurate list of who might try to come down to the hives and scry them, or purchase the farscout artifact, both of which gives folks a warning. It's very likely that I'm missing some other mechanic to catch people since I have taken a break for a few years, but that's somewhat besides the point.
Actual idea:
It would be great if leaders of various organizations (a commune, a city, a clan, an order, etc.) could do something to initiate a ritual of loyalty with a group of NPCs, which would allow them to call for help on the relevant aether channel when they are attacked. Ideally you could do this for all NPCs that grant enemy status but it would be particularly nice for those that actually place you on enemied territory. I feel like this would be a way to return some of the small PVP conflicts that used to happen all the time around bashing. It would also be something that would cause some more internal org communication. If this were implemented for example, Wobou would want the new regent of Serenwilde to perform this ritual for the kephera, others might disagree and ask for the centaurs to be protected first, and thus conflict and hilarity ensues.
Doing this should definitely not be trivial, otherwise a given city will just tag every bashing spot their enemies frequent in the hopes of catching people out. I currently have two ideas for how you would perform this ritual:
- New influence type similar to amnesty, the org leader would have to engage in a tough ego battle. Since this still counts as easy the effect should probably not last very long.
- A quest where you have to protect a given population. This should be something difficult like stopping more than x% of those NPCs from dying over a Lusternian month. Starting the quest should give global notice so that those who wish to break this bond have an opportunity to do so. This is considerably more difficult than the first option so it should last for a much longer period of time.
1
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
This does nothing to "add small scale PvP," it just limits bashing areas further because the mechanics involved do not favour fighting and people will always know that there is someone to chase off without even having to bother to go check.
If you want to bother lowbie bashers, you should be expected to at least put in the bare minimum of effort to do so instead of having the game feed you "lowbie alert, go kill them!"
There are far better ways to encourage small scale PvP than to restrict the game's hunting areas.
I would say that there is a little bit of asymmetry in terms of what it takes to check the various areas (this is related to your "bare effort" comment). For example someone defending the illithoid can pop down and scent in one area or can stand vigilant in the prison with spectacles on, someone defending the kephera has to rotate between the hives and cannot gain full use of spectacles.
The eye of Dylara materialises in your hands and flings itself around your neck, tightening incomprehensibly until it is irremovable.
Perfectly clean, this eyeball has been wrenched from the socket of Dylara. It has been animated by some unusual force, constantly looking around itself as if in shock or fear. It is bathed in a light covering of white flames that roll endlessly over its surface. A single chain of empyreal metal pierces either side of the eye, allowing it to be worn around the neck.
PS: Last I checked there is a whole network of pathways between the hives, so with am artifact you can pop between them very quickly. Alternatively, just running around to check works... or just check a couple of them (most of the hives are pretty small, if you check just the middle bunch you will catch the bulk of bashers since that is where they will be the majority of the time).
I just disagree entirely with the notion that we need to make these areas even harder to hunt, because there is basically no good PvP that can come from being on the wrong side of Avenger (this is why almost nobody ever declares, btw) and will just end up making the risk astronomically outweigh any reward to the point that it is just not worth it.
The concept though of getting a faction to be loyal to the commune is a nice one though, not necessarily the kephera/illithoid though.
I'm thinking something along the lines of a constant open village revolt? Org member kills 1 = -1 to loyality score. Org member commune influences +1 to loyality. Loyalty decays to 0 over time + benefits for the orgs with highest lowest loyality.
Random ideas and concepts in my head, practical issues like xenthos said but I like the direction your thinking.
I'm sure more than just the shadowdancers care about Daughters
I'd be all for that but that's technically providing a permanent exception to avenger on prime which is probably a hard sell.
In such a setting, allowing orgs to constantly keep watch over an area and react to it the same way an org can react to, say, a village raid (that is, in great numbers and force and with every combatant in the org alerted to the basher's presence) is simply not reasonable - not unless you lift Avenger mechanics for as long as that area is under "protection". Which the admin is understandably reluctant to do except in special cases like world events etc.
I don't think this will really be a good idea.
With the new crown of mastery artifacts, though, an org could invest their banked resources to give one or two people in their org access to the "detection" effect afforded by those crowns. With all such artifact sponsorship things, though, it's always a case of trust, which may or may not end well. But I guess it's a possibility you can explore if you adamantly want to protect an area as an org.
I'd like there to be more ability and incentive to defend certain bashing areas so that when I bash them, there's more risk to it. This introduces more spikes of excitement to the grind, and creates an atmosphere of danger for when you venture into a lot of areas, which is cool and immersive.
However, the avenger mechanics as mentioned by everyone get in the way. If I'm ganked bashing illithoids for example, and I kill my attacker, then the next time they attack me, I can't fight back. Adjusting avenger mechanics would help here. If someone initiates an attack on you, you should be able to fight back, no matter the area.
Tangentially, even if Avenger mechanics were removed, I don't feel a lot of draw to bash in those types of areas anymore. I usually only bash an hour each day at most (often not even that) due to my lack of need for gold or essence, and there's more efficient areas for that (such as the gutter zombies) without the same risk.
This could potentially set it up where an enemy of the hives could be attacked 'avenger-free' but still defend themselves without risk. The same enemy could not attack a non-enemy first without declaring though.
But I agree, if we want to make NPC territories a smaller PVP area - a change to avenger is needed.
Then don't bash in enemy territory and you won't be attacked! This proposal doesn't change anything about the inherent risk of bashing in territories that you are enemied to. I could right now attack you avenger-free if you're hunting in enemy territory. It's entirely up to you if you want to risk it or not.
If this proposal (which is flawed because of Avenger mechanics) ends up not being implemented, it still won't lower the risk you face when you bash in enemy-territory bashing areas. The risk has always been there, and will likely remain there. Bashing in enemy territory = constantly potentially under attack.
I'm not taking any sides here, really, just pointing out that it will make bashing enemy areas more risky (assuming there are orgs listening in on them).
Teach me how to bash (I don't know where the gutter zombies are)
I agree that there would have to be increased reward in there to make this at all compelling. What I'd love is something that scratched some of these itches:
Other than my 3rd point about prime locations having some increased attention to prime areas, some sort of event with automated wargames with rewards would go quite a long way. And now I've entirely derailed myself from my original (flawed) idea.
This helps keep the separation between independant npc orgs and player orgs, but if you've proven yourself a hero to that group, you can become an 'honorary member' or something.
This is a terrible idea. There's nothing particularly skill driven in this proposal. The orgs (or Alliance because, let's be real, we know it'll just be announced over alliance clans) with dominant population sizes and spreads will just monopolize high value bashing areas. This won't encourage any new or interesting conflict, if you're a big target you'll get ignored unless they can zerg you (neither of which is interesting). If you're a smaller target, you'll just get ganked by people who are comfortable with their ability to beat you.
Ganking happens, I'm a proponent of it, but if you want to gank then do the work. Look for people, scout areas, live the griefer life. I don't encourage mechanics that just spoon feed this to you though.
We already know the results of this idea: go kick a moon lady and see who shows up.
I see absolutely nothing interesting or engaging about a mechanic that alerts people as to when you are grinding.
I'm assuming you meant that you would be free to be attacked under avenger as well? I like this because it would encourage the area quests as well, although the issue here is it's balanced for 1v1 but in reality what could happen is if I receive an alert that kephera are being attacked, I could alert on CT. Which means avenger still messes this all up because my commune members that did not do this ritual would still be protected by avechna but the folks hunting would not be. I think the ritual would have to free up the whole area to PK in some way to get around the avenger issue.
Because... I can see people getting amnesty in order to be able to do a ritual that lets them murder people Avenger-free (getting enemied to an area doesn't undo your honour achievements) or even just taking advantage of someone else doing it.
I really just don't feel that trying to expand these areas to be mini-PvP zones is going to get what you want, there's a reason Avenger is the way it is and hasn't changed. The moment you start trying for work-arounds, you open it up to all kinds of "creative abuse".
Well, my inclination is to go for something less permanent, something similar to unpeaced village revolts work. Technically those are an exception to avenger and as far as I know haven't been abused recently.
That's the risk that comes with bashing in enemy territory - you're assumed to be the aggressor automatically, if the person who attacks you is not enemied.
Your not enemied to the illithoid so anyone who attacks you gets normal avenger as in if you'd been on prime. Same with me I have no worries in the Illithoid prison.
But I have killed kephera which means if im in the kephera part and someone jumps me I'm fair game with no cover.
I'm guessing you are similar to myself maybe the person who jumped you didn't understand that the prison and the hives are different areas and thought you were not defended in either? Not sure just guessing?