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Upcoming Debating Rework
![[Deleted User]](https://w8.vanillicon.com/v2/8fd1f34935325836a02409d9ef24f8b9.svg)
Debating is described as a non-violent means of conflict with other players but we have heard many complaints about the system. Three in particular come up very often: 1) it is not possible to compete against players who are mechanically stronger, 2) it is not possible to make someone engage in a debate with you if they are not interested, and 3) it is just a glorified game of rock-paper-scissors with little player agency. These essentially boil down to "there is no point". As such, we are looking to rework debating entirely, changing both how the core mechanics work as well as how they currently fit into revolts, particularly when peaced. While nothing has been set in stone yet, we wanted to present our ideas to you to give you a chance to give us some feedback before we implement them.
The goals we have for this rework are:
* Make it more fun: Ultimately there is no point in spending resources on a mechanic if we don't try to make it fun and engaging for players.
* Make it more strategic: At the highest levels we want to give players more variation in what they can do.
* Keep it simple: At the same time, we recognise that one of the strengths of debating is that it is easy to get into and we want to keep it that way.
* Make it viable in peaced revolts: We understand that peaced revolts are rarely fun, with divert spam being the biggest source of conflict. We want to move the focus back towards debating.
* Level the playing field: We want to remove the advantages players who have particular classes, artifacts, or buffs currently have, so everyone can feel like they can compete.
Let's start with some of the more significant changes. Firstly, ego will no longer be the vital associated with debating. Instead, debates will feature a new resource, named "flair" for now. Everyone will start with the same maximum flair at the beginning of debates, and the goal is to get the other person to 0 flair first. With how debating works, with attacks growing stronger over time, it quickly devolves into a battle of attrition to see who can first get more lucky streaks, and second who can endure the most streaks. This gives people with a larger maximum ego and ego regeneration a significant, and potentially even insurmountable advantage in debates. By divorcing ego from debates, we will be able to start from a clean slate and ensure that players can't get significant advantages just by virtue of stacking buffs or having certain skills like Laetitia or Roulade.
Everything related to debating will be moved to its own skillset. Instead of spending lessons to learn this skillset, players will be able to "practise" and earn progress through the skillset by taking part in debates. There will likely be some limit to how quickly someone can advance through the skillset. While unlocking more skills will give players more options, as much as possible we want to try to limit them as just that; options. Instead, most of the skills needed to compete will be available either from the start or very early on. We are also exploring the option of having some skills be "perks", things players can choose between to give themselves certain benefits, allowing different players to choose between different styles. For example, one player may choose to go with stronger attacks, while another may want to be more tanky and start with a higher maximum flair.
Running from debates will now automatically count as losses. To begin a debate, a player must challenge another player in their room. That room is then marked as the debate room and after 5 seconds, if one player is not in the room then the other player will be declared the winner. All debating skills can only be used on a person a player is currently in a debate with. This means no more spamming fasttalks on other people. We will be reducing the shattered ego timer significantly, and are considering also applying the timer to the winner as well. Instead, in revolts winning a debate against a member of another organisation who is contesting the village will give points towards winning the revolt. We'll be implementing measures to prevent gaming by throwing debates to allies here, but the idea is people can choose to debate or influence, and if it's highly contested it'll probably require a combination of both to win. Outside of revolts, we may even remove the timer entirely to encourage people to try it out more.
As for the actual debating mechanics, to prevent stalling mindsets can only be changed in the same command as attacks. If someone wants to change mindsets, they will need to try to attack too. There will be a handful of new attacks and mindsets, with some that have a cooldown or can only be used a certain number of times per debate. For example, there might be an attack that will do the same amount of damage regardless of the opponent's mindset, or another one that restores a small amount of flair.
Attitudes will continue to act as passive boosts to attacks or mindsets, but we are considering adding tiers to them, with the higher levels conferring a malus in another area as well. On the other hand, fasttalk afflictions will become incurable, instead staying effective on a player for a certain amount of attacks. A maximum of one fasttalk affliction can be active on a player at any time, but this should make them more viable to use beyond just spamming them to overrun the focus enchantment balance.
All in all, we believe this will lead to a more engaging mechanic for all of you to participate in, and also gives us a good base to integrate debating into other aspects of the game.
The goals we have for this rework are:
* Make it more fun: Ultimately there is no point in spending resources on a mechanic if we don't try to make it fun and engaging for players.
* Make it more strategic: At the highest levels we want to give players more variation in what they can do.
* Keep it simple: At the same time, we recognise that one of the strengths of debating is that it is easy to get into and we want to keep it that way.
* Make it viable in peaced revolts: We understand that peaced revolts are rarely fun, with divert spam being the biggest source of conflict. We want to move the focus back towards debating.
* Level the playing field: We want to remove the advantages players who have particular classes, artifacts, or buffs currently have, so everyone can feel like they can compete.
Let's start with some of the more significant changes. Firstly, ego will no longer be the vital associated with debating. Instead, debates will feature a new resource, named "flair" for now. Everyone will start with the same maximum flair at the beginning of debates, and the goal is to get the other person to 0 flair first. With how debating works, with attacks growing stronger over time, it quickly devolves into a battle of attrition to see who can first get more lucky streaks, and second who can endure the most streaks. This gives people with a larger maximum ego and ego regeneration a significant, and potentially even insurmountable advantage in debates. By divorcing ego from debates, we will be able to start from a clean slate and ensure that players can't get significant advantages just by virtue of stacking buffs or having certain skills like Laetitia or Roulade.
Everything related to debating will be moved to its own skillset. Instead of spending lessons to learn this skillset, players will be able to "practise" and earn progress through the skillset by taking part in debates. There will likely be some limit to how quickly someone can advance through the skillset. While unlocking more skills will give players more options, as much as possible we want to try to limit them as just that; options. Instead, most of the skills needed to compete will be available either from the start or very early on. We are also exploring the option of having some skills be "perks", things players can choose between to give themselves certain benefits, allowing different players to choose between different styles. For example, one player may choose to go with stronger attacks, while another may want to be more tanky and start with a higher maximum flair.
Running from debates will now automatically count as losses. To begin a debate, a player must challenge another player in their room. That room is then marked as the debate room and after 5 seconds, if one player is not in the room then the other player will be declared the winner. All debating skills can only be used on a person a player is currently in a debate with. This means no more spamming fasttalks on other people. We will be reducing the shattered ego timer significantly, and are considering also applying the timer to the winner as well. Instead, in revolts winning a debate against a member of another organisation who is contesting the village will give points towards winning the revolt. We'll be implementing measures to prevent gaming by throwing debates to allies here, but the idea is people can choose to debate or influence, and if it's highly contested it'll probably require a combination of both to win. Outside of revolts, we may even remove the timer entirely to encourage people to try it out more.
As for the actual debating mechanics, to prevent stalling mindsets can only be changed in the same command as attacks. If someone wants to change mindsets, they will need to try to attack too. There will be a handful of new attacks and mindsets, with some that have a cooldown or can only be used a certain number of times per debate. For example, there might be an attack that will do the same amount of damage regardless of the opponent's mindset, or another one that restores a small amount of flair.
Attitudes will continue to act as passive boosts to attacks or mindsets, but we are considering adding tiers to them, with the higher levels conferring a malus in another area as well. On the other hand, fasttalk afflictions will become incurable, instead staying effective on a player for a certain amount of attacks. A maximum of one fasttalk affliction can be active on a player at any time, but this should make them more viable to use beyond just spamming them to overrun the focus enchantment balance.
All in all, we believe this will lead to a more engaging mechanic for all of you to participate in, and also gives us a good base to integrate debating into other aspects of the game.
9
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
Some comments I would have about the system though that would need to be considered are below.
1. How would orgs be able to help allies in revolts in this system? Currently allies can debate members of the other orgs to shatter them or can sit and monitor denizens for when they shuffle. If all debating gives points to an org then that makes debating to shatter enemies counterproductive to helping an ally. Additionally if they are sitting to watch a denizen, that also just leaves them open for being debated which they can't leave and the same consequence. In both situations allies would be getting points themselves or if they lose debates giving them to enemies.
2. Being instantly declared part of a debate and leaving being an immediate loss is something I'm very iffy on. Somebody can just spam the debate command while you're running around and you lose the debate. I think there should be some time to leave after they attempt to initiate it, but before the debate actually starts. This would put it on the initiator to catch somebody for a debate while they are influencing.
3. If somebody doesn't have a debating system they might be actively hurting their org by being present in the revolt. As in point 1, if you lose a debate you are costing your org progress. As it is even newbies can come along and feel like they helped by watching or trying to influence regular villagers. If they get debated out no loss. Under this system they would be giving points to the other side.
I'd just like to say, while I'm not massively in support of artifacts for the system, I'd definitely invest credits in it if given the option, particularly if the options were in some way cosmetic or not directly interacting with the balance of the minigame.
Will there be limits or bonuses for actually using debating in conflict vs spamming it at your nexus with friends in terms of gains?
Will there be rankings of any kind? I'm thinking something like Psychodrama or maybe more like Grimkeep, perhaps a mix of both?
Will there be org flavourings for different types of debating? (Special emotes for winning a debate based on where you're from?) I imagine a Gaudiguchian debate to be different to a Hallifaxian debate, and the same for Glomdoring or Celest. I want to be a sassy bear.
Will group sizes impact on debates at all? Below question related.
Will outsiders be able to interact with debates? Previously we had Laetitia and Inspire, but that was restrictive. Will we be able to heckle or hearhear to swing debates at all?
How will debating be represented in the basin as a whole? Will there be any rewards other than villages for getting deeply involved in this system and how will it tie into other systems if at all? (Culture, Families, Orders?)
Are you going to look at the impact of debating people in a violent revolt?
Sorry for so many questions, but... NEW CONTENT.
Wondering whether you'd see strategies in those such as teams starting debates then having their allies force the targets out of the room to give themselves an auto-win, which kinda seems against the spirit of the system.
For a debate to begin, one player must challenge another player. Both players need to be masochistic - except for in peaced revolts or sanctuaried rooms in non-peaced revolts. Once challenged, there is a grace period (5 seconds for now) before the debate actually begins and they can use the debating skills. After the grace period ends, if one of the players isn't in the room they other one will be declared the winner. If neither player is in the room, the debate doesn't begin and neither party wins or loses. This should prevent the cases where someone is just walking through and getting challenge spammed.
Part of why the winner of debates also gets shattered is because it acts as an opportunity cost. We are rewarding successful debates with progress in the revolt, so there should be a cost to it as well i.e. you can't get a lot of progress for debating while also influencing half the village yourself.
We understand the concerns about shattering someone who has participated in a debate entirely. We are open to exploring other alternatives, such as reduced points from influencing mobs.
Hope we've addressed part of this above. Also, a key goal of this rework is that we hope we can provide a mechanic that everyone can feel like they can compete in. Sure, we don't expect a less experienced newbie to be able to win against the best debater most of the time, but there is no reason why they shouldn't able to get the occasional win if things go their way. One of the ideas we have for a skill that is unlocked by default is an ability that randomly picks one of the attacks and mindsets for you, so even relatively new players without a system should be able to just use that skill to some effect.
1) Rethink the whole "auto lose" part; if someone never engages in the debate, there was never really a debate in the first place after all, it was just a one-party soapbox. But you CAN do things like: if engaged in a debate, experience a village influencing malus, or take a 25% penalty to the village sway points when influencing villagers, or some similar sort of downside. Essentially, you are still progressing your org's goals if you ignore the system, but you are less effective (still better than enemies getting the influence though!).
Will outsiders be able to interact with debates? Previously we had Laetitia and Inspire, but that was restrictive. Will we be able to heckle or hearhear to swing debates at all?
At this stage, no. We want to make debates entirely 1v1. This brings a couple of advantages. Firstly, it lets us balance the mechanics of debates better without having to consider what happens if one person has 5 other people doing things to them. Secondly, it also helps players newer to conflict in Lusternia or MUDs in general by reducing the amount of information coming their way.
That said, once we have released this mechanic and fine-tuned it, we would like to explore how we can start to incorporate other small-scale group debating mechanics.
We would very much like to see debating as an alternative means of conflict, or perhaps even used in other areas, but first we need to ensure that the core mechanics of debating achieve the goals we set out so for now the focus is just on these mechanics and on how they interact with revolts.
With sanctuary campaigns it may be possible to debate people too. That said, the focus for now is peaced revolts as there are already other forms of conflict (i.e. PK) for non-peaced revolts.
I've recently discovered psychodrama to be a joy and I'd love to see something similar to that system *but far less RNG and no gacha element* if that's at all possible. While I understand there are only so many resources and so much time that can be put into this, I've kind of set myself up for hoping for something expansive and with a bit of depth from how things have been described so far.
I'm not really sure how I feel about the winner being shattered. It feels a bit... Kamikaze? I feel like the progress towards winning should be more significant than I originally thought it would be in this case, or the shattered period for the victor needs to be about half of the loser, perhaps.
I'm imagining an option of DEBATE FOR *ORG* so you can help out allies. Is that going to be a thing?
Will there be essence gains for having meaningful debates? Karma gains? ESTEEM gains? They're no longer tied in with influence/dramatics but they feel adjacent to that system of non-violent conflict.
Wondering whether you'd see strategies in those such as teams starting debates then having their allies force the targets out of the room to give themselves an auto-win, which kinda seems against the spirit of the system.
While slowing down the minigame is definitely something we want to do as we believe it would make it accessible for more players, we also have to balance the fact that this will be used as a key mechanic in a conflict system which necessitates it also being resolved in a timely fashion. We'll consider this more as we fine tune the systems.
We agree with the concerns about a full shatter equivalent being too much of a deterrent for both the winners and losers so we will alternatives that don't remove someone from participating entirely.
This is an interesting idea that would help alleviate the concerns some may have about allies not being as helpful. We will consider this, although if something like this is done it will likely not be as effective as if someone is debating for their own organisation.
By making it so that leaving the room of a debate is a loss, you make it so that players are no longer able to strategically prioritise the stronger debaters/influencers on the other side. Instead, they must debate the first person to challenge them, no matter who that might be, and will then be locked out regardless of the result.
By making it so that you score points by debating, you add to this even further by ensuring that allies can no longer tie up enemy debaters - rather than it being based on the size of each alliance, it is reduced to org size while also making it so that the organisations that are not after the village are unable to participate. While in some cases there would be other villages for them to attempt to claim, there is also one revolt where there is only one village up for grabs.
We hope we have addressed most of this above. One thing we do want to clarify is that we don't intend for an organisation to be able to win a village purely by winning debates. Debating should be supplementary to the primary goal, which is to influence villagers.
We don't think it is a fair assessment. Debating will still very much rely on an interactions between what both sides choose for their attacks and mindsets, as well as some RNG (though to a much smaller degree than what it is today). We think a better comparison would be a competitive card game, where multiple decks may be seen as "meta", but those decks all have counters both inside and outside of that set of decks. We want to see the same with debating, where some strategies and specialisations through a perk-like system may lend one strategy to being very effective against another strategy, but weaker than others.
We also want to clarify that we don't expect a character who invested the time and effort into maxing out their debating skill will be on the same level of a character who is just starting out. Our goal is to make it so that the one just starting out can compete against the maxed out character, but being able to compete doesn't necessary mean that they will be just as powerful. Options inherently provide the user power, even if the options are numerically equal.
As with anything, what we release may not reach the level of balance we hope to see, but we hope this clarifies what we intend for debating to ultimately become.
We are introducing other forms of attacks, including one that acts as a heal, or one that will do some damage regardless of mindset. Stalling will still be a viable mechanic, but the reason for making mindsets attached to attacks is that this allows us to design around the idea that mindsets can only be changed at most once per attack, rather than multiple times by either using attitudes or fasttalks which are on a shorter balance (or by not doing anything at all). We do not think we are limiting the current options with our plan, but rather opening up other, more balanced possibilities.
We are considering whether attitudes will still act as one-off shields against fasttalk afflictions. We are also considering whether attitudes will also have a limited duration. We disagree that this is a nerf to fasttalks in their current state, though. Even today, unless someone did nothing but spam fasttalk they would not be able to realistically stick a fasttalk, let alone one that they can really use.
Mechanically the same obviously, but like maybe guilds can request a full skin like demichoices for teleporting, or idk... maybe some of the actives have the character saying a phrase like...
"As the Ancestors teach us..." Saran begins as he pontificates at you.
Where it kinda... blends the rp into an otherwise standard line for system builders.
I know this is unfortunate, but when it comes to volunteer coding projects, I would rather allow them a shot to move forwards knowing that there's a risk it may take a while or be put on hold for a time. I don't want to prevent them from beginning something in fear that it won't get finished. I hope you all understand and hope that one day this will be completed.