Timequake Testing

Orael

Hi,

 We're ready to start testing Timequakes. If you are interested in helping test timequakes, please send me a quick message and I will give you the information for the testserver in which you can test them. We really want these to be a success, so any and all testing will be accepted.

If you've previously had the testserver information, it has not changed, but please do send me a message stating that you're interested in helping test.

Thank you!

Xenthos

I will probably take a look tonight.

Deichtine

Could you post a list of what each power is ment to do?

Orael

RESEARCH INFO <power>

Orael

As always - please message me with any bugs or issues that you find. Please do not post them to forums.

Orael

There is one thing that I think bears discussion in relation to the first level powers on two of the branches.

Time Wind - teleport to a the rift to bring you into the timequake
Time Sickle - harvest anomalies 25% faster (from 10min to 7.5min)
Time Fist - 10/10 universal damage buff in a rift.
Time Mind - reduced mana usage in a rift.

The first two are pretty powerful but in particular the first one. There is no indication when a timequake starts where the rift into it is located, so by using Time Wind, you can easily get to it without searching. I foresee it being the first power anyone gets, and even then it's going to make it easier for those that get it first to get future ones. Time Sickle also makes it easier to get anomalies, harvesting them faster so more appear.

I've been thinking that we need to add an archpower cost to these, 10ap to use Time Wind, 5ap to use Time Sickle. They provide enormous benefit and it forces you to choose to save anomalies for archpower or to use them to advance your research.

Thoughts?

Xenthos

I sent you a bunch of messages on the test server.

I have a question: Is the release time per-person (so if I do 5 mins, then someone interrupts me, do I get reset)?  It is a pretty long time and gust breaks it, so if it resets you will probably never get to gather when there is opposition.

Being able to see progress on your release would be nice too.

Orael

It is per person, but it doesn't reset if you get moved. You just pick up where you left off, like domoths.

I added an occasional message so you'll see you're still releasing every minute or so

Xenthos

Can there be a second message when 1 minute remains until timequake doom?  There is one at five minutes, but a final "GET OUT NOW" would be nice before getting atomized.

Xenthos

Also, I'm not really feeling the "10 AP for Timewind" ability or 5 AP to harvest faster ability.

I only ever saw 1 anomaly at a time, and it was a couple of minutes between one being gathered and the next one appearing.  Each gives you 10 AP.  So that means at most 50 AP without Sickle, or 60 with sickle, assuming no interruptions from one timequake.  Burning 5 ap in order to get 1 more anomaly doesn't seem worth it.

Did I just miss side-by-side anomalies appearing?  That is possible.  If so that would skew numbers a bit, but burning AP for slightly faster harvesting does seem a little counterproductive.

On the timewind side: You'd be burning a fifth or a sixth of your gain just for the sake of getting there a couple minutes earlier.  Instead, I'd rather see the following changes:

• The Timequake Status lists the area where the rift is located (not room name).
• Timewind should be much faster-- a minute is pretty long.

This would be more like villages; having a fast method of travel to a village helps give you an early edge, but it's not an overwhelming one.

Xenthos

Would you consider the following changes?

1) Halve the time to gather an anomaly

2) Halve the respawn time

3) Reduce the archpower from an anomaly from 10 to 5

Basically, the whole thing feels very slow.  These changes would end up with the same output, but a little more actual "things to react to".

Orael

That's my point though, you're spending AP to get an advantage. I don't necessarily think it's only a few minutes either, it could be longer depending on where the rift pops up.

I don't think we want to do the area name with the announce at this time. That would make Time Wind not really worthwhile at all and we should just replace it at that point

Orael

We can consider cutting things in half, but I want people to be able to compete. Shorter periods just reward overwhelming sides more

Xenthos

I am not talking about shortening the timequake period itself, just the anomaly release time & the "wait for the next anomaly" time.  The overall structure can remain the same, just trying to make the gathering itself a bit less... stand here for 10 minutes.

Orael

That's what I mean though, cut release times in half and now you're getting twice as many anomalies as you were before. We could potentially double all the anomaly costs as well I suppose

Xenthos

Will there be any family honour ticks for doing timequakes?

Enya

Gonna have a chance in the next day or two to test, after tonight

Orael

I didn't think about family honor, could add that.

Was planning on adding org and daily credits for it

Xenthos

Orael said:

I didn't think about family honor, could add that.

Was planning on adding org and daily credits for it

I'd like some family honour from it (and especially non-Blood-houses shouldn't lose honour when fighting in a Timequake).

When I suggested that, I also wondered why we don't hook family honour into the dailycredit ticks for villages and domoths and wildnodes and aetherflares.  Would be nice to do a hook for them, but that's probably more of a report thing.

Makai

Perhaps we can do family honour tics based on a few things:

House of Honour:
Major bonus to honour gains while harvesting anomalies during a timequake

House of Blood:
Moderate bonus to honour gains while harvesting anomalies during a timequake

House of Letters:
Moderate bonus to honour gains while harvesting anomalies during a timequake

House of Culture:
Minor bonus to honour gains while harvesting anomalies during a timequake

Balanced those around what they already offer, as Honour really doesn't have much of a conflict generator outside of defending territories. Blood needs something conflict-wise other than kills, Letters really only has publishing and influencing, so needs a conflict. Lastly Culture has a ton of conflict stuff, so can be alright with a minor.

Edit: @Xenthos since you seem most active on it so far, can you get me rough estimates on times? How long it takes to harvest without the power, how long the timequake lasts, etc? I sadly don't have the time this week to dedicate to testing things out myself.

Xenthos

I forgot that Aetherflares actually does give honour for bombarding and villages give (almost none, this needs to be buffed, but at least something) for influencing NPCs.  So it's wildnodes that are left out, and Timequakes should mimic the other ones (you are awarded for killing and have a second family honour hook for participation).

It seems like: 10 minutes to harvest (gotta be in the room with the anomaly for 10 minutes, only one person can do it).  Apparently it's 7.5 minutes with the power.  Timequakes last 60 minutes total.

Makai

Ewww....maybe 5 minutes base would be better like you said, and even with that, anomalies should still be at the full 10 archpower value.

5 minutes base time, thus 3.8 minutes or 3 minutes and 48 seconds with the power. Considering there is going to be some chaos on release. I would also like to possibly advise limiting how many an org can claim in a timequake. I think four is a fair number to limit to, as with what seems to be the norm, would allow someone else to actually claim one as well for contesting for that long.

Deichtine

Is there ment to be only 1 anomaly to pick up in each timerift?

If its just one it sort of feels like a pretty small reward for an individual to grab. Unless i'm missing something.

Orael

You're missing something, a new anomaly spawns every 15 mins as long as there isn't one already

Xenthos

So if you are fighting over an anomaly and two different people have 8 mins on it, you miss the 15 minute tick... someone finishes, and then everyone has to wait 13 minutes for a new anomaly?

This would explain why sometimes a new one felt like it took so long to form, I probably started releasing a bit before the respawn tick and then had to wait for it to come around again.

That should change too.  Either every fifteen minutes a new one forms even if one already exists, or start a timer from when one is harvested that does and RNG 1-3 minute window at which point we get a new anomaly spawn.

Deichtine

Ahh ok. How does the timer on that work. Is it on a straight 15 min tick or it is 15 mins from when the last anomaly gets eatten?

Makai

Perhaps one becomes available for spawn every 15 minutes, but will only spawn if there is not one present. That makes it current system, however, make it spawn 30 seconds or so after one was harvested. So if there's a long fight over the first one, two more could be 'ready to spawn' and do so quickly.

Orael

I've cut the release time in half, the spawn time in half, anomalies now give 5 archpower and each level costs twice as many anomalies now.

This will make it feel overall faster, but the rate at which people can accumulate archpower and research levels should remain the same. Hopefully that's better to work with.

Kalnid

So Orael's mentioned this and I've mentioned it to him but it bears repeating: The fact that there's zero indication for rift location outside of the teleport power is nuts. Searching all of prime is slow as hell to the point where I think people who can't teleport in (or get told the location of by someone who can) will absolutely not bother. I thought that TIMEQUAKE STATUS would show the area the rift had spawned in, but it actually shows the kind of timequake it is which is not nearly as helpful.

Second, the way anomalies work right now is that you have to stay in room for five (or with a certain tier one, 3.75) minutes, and if you leave that room for more than a split second you have to start over. This is super vulnerable to disruption, since someone can just for example poke their head into the rift once every four minutes and gust you. Changing this to the way domoth ticking works might be one solution.

The above being said, the spawn rate and release time both do basically feel good now.

Orael

You shouldn't have to start over if you leave the room, it should just be 5 minutes total. 

Kalnid

Oh heck you're right. I thought I tested this but I went back to verify and yeah accumulated time stays. That's good then.