Based on feedback, I think I'm going to adjust Time Wind and Timequake Status as well.
We'll have timequake status reveal the area that the rift is in, but Time Wind will cost 5ap and instantly teleport you to the rift. (Edit: ok not instantly, but in 2 sec)
This way people aren't looking forever endlessly, and there's a cost to gain the advantage of Time Wind.
Is there anything to keep an overwhelming, opposing org from shutting you out of this?
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Not at all, they can forcibly keep you from harvesting the one anomaly that is present and get it for themselves, then repeat the process until it closes.
The areas are smaller than bubbles and have only one entrance, so... it is going to be rough to contest them.
Was hoping this would get addressed, but I should learn that just doesn't happen. Let us know what all the research projects look like since we can't even get a foot in, yea?
Make sure to put enough extra in there for the upkeep.
The upkeep itself is 1,000 comms per org for each type of research. So if even 3 orgs pick Nature, that's 3,000 silk needed for upkeep every year. I just don't see how this is feasible. Same with Harmony.
Knowledge at least uses gems, death has meat, both of which are a fair bit better to grind for... it's still a lot of work, though.
Changelog 1685 isn't going to help the situation. Placing us in a random room only splits up any collaborative effort with your own people. Idea is in the right place, but there needs to be a method of limitation so that people can even engage in the new event, rather than feel pointlessly shut out. A reminder that most of the playerbase spoke against the implementation and we were told, "Too bad, it's already in production." So now we have yet another conflict event to remind us how much it sucks being the lesser populated alliance.
Before we panic over upkeep prices - there is currently over 2million silk stored in both active and reserve stock for all orgs. Even if each org picks up Nature, that's enough silk to last 10+ RL years of upkeep. There really isn't a silk shortage.
As far as competition in PvP mechanic goes, there really isn't anything that can be done to limit population numbers mechanically, without overhauling how combat works. Even overhauling wouldn't have the effect that people really desire, it just changes how the game works and numbers will always have an advantage.
I'm always up to listen to ideas though. Otherwise, we'll keep trying to battle this perception that you can't compete and try to change it to a feeling that you can compete. Next up is Mages (and we're not pushing it back any further), so if there's ideas that can be intertwined with them at the same time, now's the time to suggest them.
Before we panic over upkeep prices - there is currently over 2million silk stored in both active and reserve stock for all orgs. Even if each org picks up Nature, that's enough silk to last 10+ RL years of upkeep. There really isn't a silk shortage.
As far as competition in PvP mechanic goes, there really isn't anything that can be done to limit population numbers mechanically, without overhauling how combat works. Even overhauling wouldn't have the effect that people really desire, it just changes how the game works and numbers will always have an advantage.
I'm always up to listen to ideas though. Otherwise, we'll keep trying to battle this perception that you can't compete and try to change it to a feeling that you can compete. Next up is Mages (and we're not pushing it back any further), so if there's ideas that can be intertwined with them at the same time, now's the time to suggest them.
Do we have a timeframe as to how often these pop? Few an irl day, once every few hours?
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
The perception is based in fact, that when any kind of conflict happens, there is an actual overwhelming number of participants from the Celest/Glom camp. Even if everyone that was logged into Mag tried to help, they'd still be heavily outnumbered, and I'm counting the novices in that Mag total. Maybe if these timequakes stay off twitter people have a chance at sneaking them, but realistically speaking, if you're not getting the rift type you want in those possibly off-hours then it just feels extra grating. I'll sit out and let the side that can even contest them test the waters. Let me tell you how much fun it is to sit in an Aquamancer meld with multiple Gloms just effortlessly killing someone is!
We can follow suit of the other games this was very clearly inspired from, and limit who can enter a rift. Make it so that if your org successfully harvests an anomaly, that org cannot enter a different rift for lets say, 24 hours as an example. It rotates stock slightly and makes it more competitive because if Glom harvests Desolate, their now sitting out for say Past that spawns in a few hours.
I'd say the first priority, now that timequakes have been released, should be combat/skills balance and trying to mitigate the effects of population spiral on conflict. When the problem (or the perception of the problem, if you insist; I'm not here to argue about that) is that the state of conflict is demoralizing, then another conflict mechanism just feels like one more thing to add to the demoralization pile. I enjoyed the roleplay aspect of the timequake release events, but I think the fairly muted response of some orgs to the actual timequakes speaks for itself.
As to ideas and suggestions for timequakes, I agree that some kind of lockout system, similar to Domoths, would be suitable across the board. Currently, with domoths, there is still a fight to get the "best" domoth, but no orgs are 100% locked out.
As to ideas more generally, I don't believe that there is a silver bullet. I do think that, pertinent to the other thread about new envoy reporting, that a long hard look at the state of skillsets is warranted. I'm fine with this being primarily an admin process instead of a player-driven/report driven one, but for people to feel at all invested in conflict, then they must be able to feel like they are working with a level playing field, rather than against an overwhelming advantage in either mechanics or numbers.
(clan): Falmiis says, "Aramelise, verb, 1. adorn with many flowers."
I'd say the first priority, now that timequakes have been released, should be combat/skills balance and trying to mitigate the effects of population spiral on conflict. When the problem (or the perception of the problem, if you insist; I'm not here to argue about that) is that the state of conflict is demoralizing, then another conflict mechanism just feels like one more thing to add to the demoralization pile. I enjoyed the roleplay aspect of the timequake release events, but I think the fairly muted response of some orgs to the actual timequakes speaks for itself.
As to ideas and suggestions for timequakes, I agree that some kind of lockout system, similar to Domoths, would be suitable across the board. Currently, with domoths, there is still a fight to get the "best" domoth, but no orgs are 100% locked out.
As to ideas more generally, I don't believe that there is a silver bullet. I do think that, pertinent to the other thread about new envoy reporting, that a long hard look at the state of skillsets is warranted. I'm fine with this being primarily an admin process instead of a player-driven/report driven one, but for people to feel at all invested in conflict, then they must be able to feel like they are working with a level playing field, rather than against an overwhelming advantage in either mechanics or numbers.
I'd say that combat/skills balance should be started with the melder overhaul.
They're a known upcoming factor and the territory control mechanics can have significant impacts across the board for conflict objectives. You can do it the other way but it just feels cleaner to get melders done and then tune all classes rather than tune the other archetypes, then do the melders stuff, and then potentially have to tune archetypes again.
Sure - I wasn't disputing that at all. I just mean that melders shouldn't be the only thing looked at, and other classes should be looked at again in the context of group combat also.
(clan): Falmiis says, "Aramelise, verb, 1. adorn with many flowers."
Timequakes and research seem to be working right so far. No isssues with the mechanic side of them atm. Havn't been able to test all the powers obviously though.
@Orael I think the point Xenthos is getting at in terms of resources is some of the resources are not easily generated and easily farmed.
Eg Glomdoring right now has 5 villages. Generating an average of 79 silk a month. 948 a year. So with the current set up it wont be hard for Glomdoring to farm that last bit of silk to have our upkeep. But look at orgs with no silk generating villages now they have to somehow generate 1000 silk a year and thats just not doable. Someone would have to be farming tol and the spiders nearly non stop to get close to this target.
But this does mean we are putting all our silk production into the upkeep, Not going to be generating any for people to use for tailoring etc.
It's an assumption but if your looking at the socks and not the generation then I'm assuming the high upkeep costs are designed to help try and wipe out the stocks? If thats the idea then thats all well and good but it does mean you'd need to be planing on lowering the upkeep at a later date. Even if that later date is 10 years away.
I'd be more of a fan, if your trying to nuke the stocks to just make the upgrade cost insane, 10k silk for level 1 etc. But then lower the upkeep cost down to what an org could reasonably farm.
It would be cool if we could focus on making sure lower population orgs are able to get anomalies before we make sure the higher population orgs are able to afford higher research.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Before we panic over upkeep prices - there is currently over 2million silk stored in both active and reserve stock for all orgs. Even if each org picks up Nature, that's enough silk to last 10+ RL years of upkeep. There really isn't a silk shortage.
Org stockpiles are... not super relevant to any discussion here. In no game ever does someone say "Hey, we have large stockpiles, so it doesn't matter if we hemmorhage comms edit: resources forevermore." Now, sure, if there was a "This is a temporary thing, you're investing a lot now in the hope for gains later" that's different, but that's not what we're talking about here. Further, comm stockpiles are not distributed equally. Orgs don't share comms with each other, you can't go "steal" another org's silk if yours is low; you live or die on your own org's current stockpile and income.
The net effect of adding a huge drain to an organization's stockpile isn't to make comms trade better, it's to make orgs lock down their comms further and try to prevent their usage so that they have the comms available for the org's needs. This encourages artificial scarcity (perhaps not actual scarcity) as orgs try to ensure that stockpiles are kept on-hand.
This is further exacerbated by people buying out whatever comms are still being sold in bulk to try to convert to other comms they need with crucibles (which is likely to begin happening more when they go in the ashop). It really seems like you guys are going "Hey, we want orgs to have no way of maintaining comm levels and be in a permanent downward trend," which to a player's mind means "eventually things are Going To Get Bad, we need to staunch the bleeding sooner rather than later."
@Shaddus we're discussing the upkeep cost here, so this is the cost everyone pays whether you're at level 1 or level 5 of research. If you get 2 anomalies and start it, you have to pay this upkeep every year. So we're not talking about "affording higher research." If you fail to pay the upkeep you lose whatever level you're currently at and have to pay the upgrade cost again (which isn't as bad at lower levels, but does get worse as it ramps up).
I think that not paying for your upkeep needs to just inactivate your research until the upkeep is paid. If it goes another year unpaid after that, then it can start dropping levels. But whiffing for one year is a super expensive mistake.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Glomdoring has the population, it can afford to fail a time or two.
So you're going to approach this from a partisan view instead of thinking about the general game view? That's a great way to balance systems.
I'm approaching it from a partisan view because some unspecific orgs are approaching it from a partisan view. If some specific orgs are going to lock out other orgs from ever being able to participate, don't be confused when the second mentioned orgs are salty.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
And frankly, it's not really partisan to think that it's acceptable that the top org occasionally fail at something it can't just pour money into. If you forget to upkeep something because of human error, you deserve it.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Glomdoring has the population, it can afford to fail a time or two.
So you're going to approach this from a partisan view instead of thinking about the general game view? That's a great way to balance systems.
I'm approaching it from a partisan view because Glomdoring and Celest are approaching it from a partisan view. If you're going to lock out other orgs from ever being able to participate, don't be confused when they're salty about your First World complaints about running out of silk.
You're not locked out from Timequakes. They are a conflict event, so you do conflict for them. They occur every 5 to 7 hours. Any org which wants anomalies is going to get them, it's simply not possible to lock them down forever for just a couple. What confuses me is this insistence that somehow because you didn't get an anomaly from 2 quakes that you can't be bothered to think about how the negatives of the system as designed will impact you when you inevitably do get anomalies.
I just don't it's unreasonable to ask for org-only anomalies. The only real reason to oppose this is because the person opposing it don't like the idea of something the person opposing it can't get.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
My initial thoughts are the level prices are too high. Some of them may be nice, but not 500K - 1 million gold/5-10K comms nice. More so if you assume some years an org is going to fail with the upkeep. I would say basically all the level 4 and 5 powers don't give enough (some are better than others. (this isn't that the powers are bad per se, it is just the cost is not something I personally would ever pay with the chance it can be lost.) for such a high cost. I would even argue half the level 3 powers would be too high (Harmony 3, Death 3, maybe Knowledge 3 depending on a few things).
Looking at the power list again, I don't see why everyone isn't just going to go Nature(village influence buff, sparkle effect), Death(3/10 damage buff), Harmony (faster anomaly releasing).
I just don't it's unreasonable to ask for org-only anomalies. The only real reason to oppose this is because you don't like the idea of something you can't get.
Please point out anywhere that I opposed it. Please. I would really like to know where you're coming from, because what I want are improvements to the system whereas you just seem to want to snipe.
I didn't really take part in the time quake discussions so I can't answer these myself, but -
A better general question might be: it is reasonable to expect this system to be maxed out at all times? What are the general expectations for how many projects should be managed at once? Is the system intentionally designed so that there's no way you can sustain churning out everything constantly? If no, what's the "happy medium" choice point where you decide what you really want and cut out/disregard the rest?
Much like with stockpiling comms in general, and considering what is a reasonable degree of hoarding, I think there could be a lot of different answers to these questions across the pbase and will certainly influence discussion whether they are brought to the forefront or not.
I didn't really take part in the time quake discussions so I can't answer these myself, but -
A better general question might be: it is reasonable to expect this system to be maxed out at all times? What are the general expectations for how many projects should be managed at once? Is the system intentionally designed so that there's no way you can sustain churning out everything constantly? If no, what's the "happy medium" choice point where you decide what you really want and cut out/disregard the rest?
Much like with stockpiling comms in general, and considering what is a reasonable degree of hoarding, I think there could be a lot of different answers to these questions across the pbase and will certainly influence discussion whether they are brought to the forefront or not.
Upkeep costs are universal, so if you can maintain 3 different research projects you might as well keep upgrading them as you get the resources. You can sustain everything at level 5 just the same as sustaining it all at level 1.
Comments
We'll have timequake status reveal the area that the rift is in, but Time Wind will cost 5ap and instantly teleport you to the rift. (Edit: ok not instantly, but in 2 sec)
This way people aren't looking forever endlessly, and there's a cost to gain the advantage of Time Wind.
As far as competition in PvP mechanic goes, there really isn't anything that can be done to limit population numbers mechanically, without overhauling how combat works. Even overhauling wouldn't have the effect that people really desire, it just changes how the game works and numbers will always have an advantage.
I'm always up to listen to ideas though. Otherwise, we'll keep trying to battle this perception that you can't compete and try to change it to a feeling that you can compete. Next up is Mages (and we're not pushing it back any further), so if there's ideas that can be intertwined with them at the same time, now's the time to suggest them.
We can follow suit of the other games this was very clearly inspired from, and limit who can enter a rift. Make it so that if your org successfully harvests an anomaly, that org cannot enter a different rift for lets say, 24 hours as an example. It rotates stock slightly and makes it more competitive because if Glom harvests Desolate, their now sitting out for say Past that spawns in a few hours.
As to ideas and suggestions for timequakes, I agree that some kind of lockout system, similar to Domoths, would be suitable across the board. Currently, with domoths, there is still a fight to get the "best" domoth, but no orgs are 100% locked out.
As to ideas more generally, I don't believe that there is a silver bullet. I do think that, pertinent to the other thread about new envoy reporting, that a long hard look at the state of skillsets is warranted. I'm fine with this being primarily an admin process instead of a player-driven/report driven one, but for people to feel at all invested in conflict, then they must be able to feel like they are working with a level playing field, rather than against an overwhelming advantage in either mechanics or numbers.
They're a known upcoming factor and the territory control mechanics can have significant impacts across the board for conflict objectives. You can do it the other way but it just feels cleaner to get melders done and then tune all classes rather than tune the other archetypes, then do the melders stuff, and then potentially have to tune archetypes again.
I'd be more of a fan, if your trying to nuke the stocks to just make the upgrade cost insane, 10k silk for level 1 etc. But then lower the upkeep cost down to what an org could reasonably farm.
A better general question might be: it is reasonable to expect this system to be maxed out at all times? What are the general expectations for how many projects should be managed at once? Is the system intentionally designed so that there's no way you can sustain churning out everything constantly? If no, what's the "happy medium" choice point where you decide what you really want and cut out/disregard the rest?
Much like with stockpiling comms in general, and considering what is a reasonable degree of hoarding, I think there could be a lot of different answers to these questions across the pbase and will certainly influence discussion whether they are brought to the forefront or not.