I must say, from the viewpoint of someone who isn't part of any of the godrealm bashing (neither as a defender nor a raider), this change is rather... puzzling. What, exactly, is the purpose behind it? To prevent people from "perma-raiding" a godrealm? Then do what (I think Xenthos) suggested and have the mobs only repop after four hours after being killed. No invulnerability, no nothing. Frankly, my biggest concern with the invulnerability is that if only one godmob is invulnerable, then once it's at the front of the stack, it effectively gives invulnerability to the entire stack.
Another alternative is that when something is killed, it becomes ethereal. No one can interact with it except for order members, and it can't interact with anything except order members. Raiders can't hit it, it can't hit raiders, etc. The only thing order members can do is influence them, which would remove them from the godrealm just like normal, and when it returns, it's no longer ethereal and can be killed. If no one influences it, it comes back to normal four hours after it was killed. This would allow the defenders to kindof dictate the progress a bit; the repop timers would be in the hand of the defenders and not in the hand of the raiders.
These are all mechanics in the game that encourage us to remember we can do things to our enemies to keep them down and keep ourselves ahead of them.
They just haven't gotten around to removing them yet. It'll happen soon enough, probably around the time they decide weapons are unnecessary and change them all to foam fingers.
Swing Kio.
Kio turns and offers you a playful grin as your foam finger bounces off his head harmlessly. That tickles!
"But paradise is locked and bolted...
We must make a journey around the world
to see if a back door has perhaps been left open."
I can only speak for Mag gods, but I certainly know none of their Orders were getting discouraged or feeling griefed in the least bit when we were getting hit constantly. I mean, the only times it was even minor rage inducing were rare instances when someone like Lavinya would be doing Order RP in Morg's realm and Veyrzhul would pick that time to come raid. If we didn't defend it was because no one was around, not many people want to solo 3-4 people when it takes them no time to blow through 20 mobs.
This was never an issue for us in the past, as far as needing a change made, which is why I think it's a bit comical that it was made almost purely based upon a single realm being raided over and over. Which again, as stated, that's sort of the consequence of having an realm that rivals multiple COMBINED areas in both size and mob count. Believe me, if Raezon had a hundred lambencies we'd probably get raided daily as well but I'd consider it the offset for having OMG 100 MOBS I CAN GET ESTEEM AND GODESSENCE FOR *nerdgrindsqueal*
I'm all for fixing broke things regardless of if it's discovered day one or 5 years down the road, however I don't feel this was the case here. No one was abusing a cheap tactic, it wasn't creating an imbalance in conquest events, it certainly wasn't allowing for a single org(s) to capitalize on a commodity, power, blessing gain. So why do it? I could understand if realm mobs weren't meant to be farmed for XP/Gold, but if that was the case you can just make them not drop gold and have 0 xp generation(both are possible). Which would still allow us to raid them but not get any benefit other than direct conflict against that Divine.
tl;dr The game's finally hit a happy medium with some semi-level battlegrounds lately after political shakeups, I don't see why a solid conflict mechanic that isn't restricted by free plane powers preventing prolonged raids or requiring 30 demigods to kill a smob needed to be touched.
You said it yourself - the rewards have been dropped significantly. Not to mention they are super hard to kill. So it's really not much encouragement, ipso facto, no one does it.
But the rewards and increase in difficulty don't mean that it's meant to discourage raiding. It seems it's merely meant to be considered a really big deal and require you to coordinate with a large number of allies. This is why I said I think the change is a bit counter-productive. Instead of getting a very large group organized together to take the fight to the enemy, we just don't do it because the rewards were also nailed into the ground.
I'd suggest that we either increase the rewards again or lower the difficulty of killing these things. I prefer the former.
I'm actually out of town for family reasons, but I have been checking in and I greenlighted the change after some discussion. However, we're certainly open to tweaks. I'll tell you my perspective and you can weigh in.
God realms are personal projects of gods, earned through their own efforts and/or through essence accumulated. There's very little personal creative outlets or rewards for gods but god realms are one of them. So the main point of god realms is to give gods a perk for themselves and their orders and for some conflict among the various factions.
However, when it gets to the point where realms are used for a grinding bashfest over and over and over and over and over and over, 24/7, and the morale of the order is sapped to the point where they don't want to be in the order or blame the god for not 'defending' his or her realm, it makes sense to look at the situation, especially when it comes to the point where gods would rather remove their realms which really is at odds with the main intent that it was meant as a perk and a creative outlet for them to enjoy. Why should gods want to expand or make large realms if the repercussion is not an enjoyable experience for themselves and their orders?
I personally would rather keep god realms and encourage gods to grow them rather than having a situation where they want to shut them down or keep them small. I really don't want large god realms to be known as major bashing grounds. So, what to do? We could make killing realms mobs give very little essence/experience and not impact gods negatively. We could simply reduce the number of realm mobs entirely (1 mob for every 10 realm rooms?). We could try to beef them up so their harder to kill. We could allow gods and their orders have greater powers in order to defend the realms. Or we could, as we did, make it so that being able to kill/influence them can only be done somewhat rarely.
I should point out for those who think that gods and their orders should suck it up or defend the realms better, while this is nice in theory, I will remind at least some of the older players to remember what it was like for cosmic and ethereal planes which were raided over and over and over and over, what morale was like in those orgs, how it seeped throughout the entire atmosphere of the game, and all the rest that prompted us to make raiding on those planes more difficult. I'd like to look at the simplest solution (which I thought this was) but I am open to others. Remember, though, that ultimately the realms are for the gods and their orders more than anything else and if they choose to close their realms, it is no something that I would stand in the way of.
Yes, just reduce the essence loss and experience. People raid to strike out at enemies for conflict, not really to bash. Ethereal / cosmic conflict is pretty much dead, don't kill this one too .
I think raids are a fair consequence to the benefits of having giant realms with endless mobs that can be influenced infinitely for free experience/esteem by order and city members. It makes perfect sense to want to kill the devout followers of a god that's vehemently opposed to your own god, or way of life.
I understand that realms are sorta pet projects for divine, but they're still part of the world, and the world is all about conflict. Shutting them off from the world and letting them sit there as perfect little bubbles that no one can touch doesn't really make sense to me, in the grand scheme of things.
One possible solution is to have two different types of mobs: the influence mobs and the raid mobs.
The influence mobs would be like how the fae are like in Faethorn:
- weak and gives little experience/gold reward
- doesn't cry out on loyalsays
- can be influenced for benefit by the order members.
The raid mobs would be:
- fewer in number than the influence mobs (perhaps 1 raid mob for every 10/20 influence mobs)
- strong enough to withstand a very small group (1-3 people) long enough for the order to muster a defense, but not so strong that it requires smob level of raiding
- cries out on loyalsays
- generates more negative impact than influence mobs for the god
The timing of this is rather suspicious to be honest. If this is how gods really felt, why was nothing done when Draylor/Veyrzhul/Glom (including me) raided Mag/Seren realms a ton? Were those Gods not feeling that they should remove their realms because they were bashed out constantly? This being said, I haven't really seen people go overboard bashing realms now a days, I've seen raids here and there for a bit, but nothing nearly as bad as what Mag was facing before the shakeup. I'm obviously not on 24/7, but I do spend a significant time around playing, and haven't seen people make a point of constantly griefing realms.
Gods are as much a part of this game and conflict as ethereal and cosmic realms. Shrines are used by every side in all sorts of conflict scenarios, making Orders and Gods a direct influence on conflict. A significant portion of the vocal population feels ethereal/cosmic raiding has been made far too hard, which negatively impacts the game.
I don't really understand why any changes needed to be made, Waiting for conflict via domoths/villages/wildnodes etc is far too random and chancy (not to mention that for villages/flares, you can't plan on it). If you are up for a fight, you have to make sure you have enough people that you can take shrine/nexus powers on top of any defenders. People enjoy combat, it's just a fact and reducing those opportunities because a few merians got bashed out a few times seems like a giant overcorrection.
I also fail to see how it represses the creative outlet of a God. Morgfyre's realm is quite large (I'd say close to Eventru's, with not so many godmobs), and quite creative, yet Thalkros pointed out that his realm was consistently bashed out all the time. Players shouldn't count on their Gods to defend their realm, I certainly wouldn't count on Nocht to defend his. In fact, he'd expect me to take care of it, him probably having more important things to spend his time on (ICly).
Anyway, I remember the old raids though it's been years since anything that bad has happened. Those constantly raided years were what hooked me on Lusternia, and some of my favorite memories.
In short, Godrealm raids were a way for players to engage in PvP and combat without really being overly griefy/draining on people. You could get good fights in godrealms, even if you lost, and have a generally good time with it. This change virtually eliminates that possibility, which is rather disappointing.
@Alacardael - how to cure crucifix, writhe from it and keep reading your scroll. Use green/gedulah if you need. This is something we've faced and overcome before, I find it hard to believe you all the sudden can't overcome it now. Oh, also feel free to focus spirit to cure omen, 25%mana is better than 66% damage increase.
I think part of the problem Xenthos wants to point out that this change doesn't just "make it so that being able to kill/influence them can only be done somewhat rarely". If you want that to be done, you could just simply increase the time realm mobs disappear for when influenced, and apply the same amount of time to them being slain without giving them invulnerability. Invulnerability is a direct buff to godrealm defenses, because you create a period of time where the creatures can continue to do damage and cannot be killed, which saps all reasons to raid a godrealm, especially when this invulnerability can be created via influencing as well.
Whether or not the invulnerability was designed to increase the defensibility of the realms is irrelevant: the fact is, the change does increase the defensibility of the realms, and what more, it is not an equal increase to all godrealms, and will benefit bigger godrealms more. While this is an incentive to gods to expand, it is also creates an inequality in a space that you, yourself, have said are supposed to provide "for some conflict among the various faction". The change stifles this conflict AS WELL AS creates an imbalance in the usage of this conflict space.
Personally, I don't mind seeing godrealms entirely seperated from raiding. My previous two posts are 100% sincere - When I get raided, I want to feel like a defender, with a defender's benefits - ie. with my discretionaries. That is not possible in godrealms. Turning godrealms into 100% influencing areas for order members and the occasional bashing area for others is perfectly fine with me, and I will continue to support this change. However, the imbalances and the contradictions of the effect of this change with what you say in your post are valid concerns for those who point them out. It would be nice if you could further address these concerns as well. Even as a supporter of these changes, I can only say that the accusations of bias raised by the other posters (why these changes were never put in for previous and similar abuses of other godrealms) are reasonable ones given the situation.
If the god realms are meant for those purposes, why not just make the realms themselves only accessible by members of their orders? Perhaps make it so that outsiders can only enter the realms under particular conditions, like sneakily following an order member in?
If that's the true reason for god realms, raiding them shouldn't be discouraged, it should be impossible. But that's just my opinion. I'd be fine if I couldn't join in on a raid of Eventru's realm. Frankly, I don't even know any of the mechanics behind it. In fact, I don't know many of the mechanics behind any of the conflict stuff because it's become so niche that only those around who understood it when it was first a big thing understand the changes it's gone through.
What I don't like, though, is that conflict outside of revolts, flares, and domoths seems to be gone. There's no reason to defend against Etherwilde raids because we aren't chopping trees (apparently that's the only big thing we can do to each other), no reason to defend raiding Elemental because oh hey, the lords will repop in an hour or so. No sense in defending Cosmic raids because, while I believe killing angels or demons drains a little power, no one's going to mass the required number of individuals for a supermod raid because the rewards are so dismal in comparison.
If the intention is for conflict to only exist within these certain events, you've done a great job at keeping it that way! However, if conflict is supposed to be a living thing that can occur when your enemies decide to bring the fight to you... well, then it's not really there any more.
The only reason I raid is because I want to learn how to fight in a group. But frankly, the two fights that happen during any given raid because there's no point in defending, even though the defenders outnumber us 2-1, are turning me away from caring. How am I supposed to breed a disdain for Serenwilde when the best thing I can do against them is take away a superfluous buff via a Domoth, village, or aetherbubble?
Conflict isn't about fighting over buffs. It's about defending against maluses (sp?). I guarantee you that if raiding Etherwilde had any sort of impact on the happenings of the day-to-day player, there'd be a lot more going on during a raid than five of us sitting at the archway for forty-five minutes waiting for someone to decide they have an idea of what to do against us. Even though pathtwist messes with us every single time.
Maybe a lot of this is the fact that the last time I played, I was in Hallifax during the "we don't see a need to defend because who cares?" mindset. And the time before that, I was a newbie in Serenwilde during the "we don't see a need to raid because everyone's scared of us and hiding in the corner" mindset (or at least I didn't know raiding was happening because I had no clue what was going on).
I want a reason to fight. I want a reason to defend. I don't want those reasons to be "oh hey, an enemy's on Faethorn so I'm gonna kill it."
(Also, I sincerely hope there's no malice or contempt coming through - I'm lacking a bit of subtlety at the moment because I found a bottle of Crown Royal I had hidden in the closet. I mean no disrespect and there's no hidden cattiness behind the "you're doing a good job" bit. I mean it sincerely - if the goal of the admin is to move away from conflict outside of these events, you really are doing a good job, even if I don't agree with going in that particular direction.)
I haven't really seen people go overboard bashing realms now a days, I've seen raids here and there for a bit, but nothing nearly as bad as what Mag was facing before the shakeup. I'm obviously not on 24/7, but I do spend a significant time around playing, and haven't seen people make a point of constantly griefing realms.
As someone who used to be logged a lot over the past 3-4 years, I can say, that yes there were a number of people who tended to raid god realms on a regular basis. Several times a week. Did not matter if there were defenders or not. They would go in and do their best to kill everything and anything they could find. I even made it a point of leaving myself where I could keep demesne watch up and warn anyone who happened to be around during those times I was either asleep or doing various other things. If I was a person who logged everything, I could probably find multiple logs with mention of multiple god realm raids done in the span of a week.
I kinda thought that the godrealms were there expressly for conflict. I mean... if they weren't meant to be touched, the entrances would be places like directly at the Pool of Stars, not out in unguarded locations easily accessed by enemies. If a god didn't want to deal with that, they could just move the entrance elsewhere, or... just not have a godrealm at all. It always struck me as a little weird IC that they'd give themselves such a vulnerability.
But if godrealms are bearing too much of the game's conflict at present, could we possibly look at updating other venues to be more appealing? I'm not much of a raider, but even with Eventru's infinite supply of merian priestesses wandering around in deathmobs, I much preferred that to domoths or EtherSeren excursions. No area distort, no shrine effects smacking me every three seconds, no insta-porting away... and most importantly, no waiting around for an hour doing nothing because our enemies didn't or couldn't show up.
The desire for conflict isn't going to go away because godrealm raids just got a lot harder, and really, it'd be a shame if it did, given all the effort that's gone into building up the conflict in the first place. I would say that we'll need other outlets for the conflict if these changes are going to stay, because right now the options for engaging the enemy are kind of limited and undesirable.
If you Supernals right now, I am 88% sure you will succeed in killing all of them, with only a handful of deaths. There are around 4-5 people in Celest at this moment. Boom, conflict raid!
If you Supernals right now, I am 88% sure you will succeed in killing all of them, with only a handful of deaths. There are around 4-5 people in Celest at this moment. Boom, conflict raid!
With whom? The 3-5 people in Glom?
It's like you act as though we're only interested in raiding when no one's around, when we're generally raiding 5v12.
You seem to like to keep saying, "Learn more so you can defend better." That is, more or less, defeated by the fact that most raids happen when major defenders are not present (like Shuyin says, everyone raids when there's a high probability of Success; no one aims to lose), and it is usually those major defenders who can teach the new or unlearned ones how to effectively defend.
It is not easy to learn if you die within 10 seconds of engaging the enemy, and it is not likely that you will happily go in again and again to learn what the enemy group is doing right, and what you are doing wrong. Dying is demoralizing; it's more than just the experience loss, or defense wipe, or whatever numerical value. The fact that the raiding group would up and leave the moment the defenders gain an iota of advantage (discretionaries, shrine powers, person-who-has-an-idea-what-to-do) also does not help the "learn how to defend" idea.
Take stock real quick. My argument does not hinge on "lol l2p noob." I have way more respect for everyone here than that. You don't learn just by throwing yourself into the fray and dying. You learn by throwing yourself into the fray and dying and talking to others you're raiding with about what you can do better and talking to the enemies about what you're doing wrong and asking on the forums for advice on how to do it better.
I have never, once, ever seen anyone on the forums be chastised for asking questions like, "How do I deal with crucifix? Can you gust someone who's been crucified? How do I deal with choke? Can you gust someone who's choked? How do I deal with Trueheal? How do I deal with ____." Sitting here and picking out parts of what someone says to try to make you or your own side feel more privileged is utter crap.
If you want to know how to deal with something, the absolute least you can do is ask. I'm sorry your "team" keeps dying when the numbers are stacked in your favor. I'm sorry that, for some reason, you can't seem to figure out what to do to come together as a group and overtake the other side. I'm sorry that, for some reason, I don't get discouraged when I die to Daedalion's incinerate three times in a row but instead decide to buckle down, read through my logs, learn what he's doing and how I can stop it, learn to shuffle my curing priorities against pyromancers, learn that I can outpace his wound curing while stepping outside his demesne and curing burns, learn that instead of focusing so heavily on his chest and gut while they're both at critical and I'm waiting for power for a hefted sunder into a skewer that I should be focusing on his legs and head to help hinder and work towards an alternate kill method, learn to track his parry and stance, learn to not hit rebounding so much, learn that tahtetso are crazy hard for me to kill without getting a lucky start (and learning how to stack the odds in my favor for that lucky start), learn that I can stop listening to people saying "lol l2p noob and stop running so I can kill you,"... wait, where was I going with this?
Oh yea. I don't raid when there's a "high probability of success." I raid when there's a raid to join in on. I raid when my side says, "Hey, anyone wanna fight?" I raid while I listen to my side go, "Oh hey, it's 3 of them to every 1 of us, looks like this might be fun," and frankly, I raid because even though Shedrin threw me into that timelock thing he has and then I got aeonlocked and died before I could do anything (did I mention I'm not Demigod so I risk losing precious experience and not just a stockpile of essence?) I'm willing to learn from it and ask my side what I can do to prevent it from happening again.
Frankly, I have no sympathy for this mindset that these big names are unstoppable. You guys want to raid Etherglom while no one's around so you can feel like you're winning for once? Fine. PM me for my e-mail, and I'll give you a heads up. I'll meet you guys on Ethereal, by myself, and gladly fight tooth-and-nail with no hope of winning. And when I'm done, I'll figure out any iota of a thing I could have done better. And eventually, your five-man group going against a lone tae'dae will run away screaming because I've finally figured out how to deal with you while you sit there and complain about how amazing I am.
Seriously. This is ridiculous. Shuyin, Synkarin, Viynain, Xenthos, Ixion, Silvanus - they didn't get to be the powerhouse they've become because they sat around feeling sorry for themselves. They threw themselves into the thick of things, thought of unique ways to use what they had at their disposal, and haven't stopped since. Maybe someone from your side will do the same thing and start giving us a run for our money. Maybe that someone will be you.
But it's not going to happen while you sit here and tell me how discouraging dying within 10 seconds of engaging the enemy is.
Sorry for the rant, but I really can't comprehend how much complaining is going on lately. Some of us want conflict. Those who do are finding it and trying to make sure to leave those who expressively don't want it out of the equation so they can enjoy the game, too (case in point: Elanorwen earlier mentioning somewhere that she won't attack non-comms for any reason or me always making sure to ask on CT or GT before I start jumping on people in Faethorn [and I'm glad I did, otherwise I would have mistakenly ripped apart a blind guy behind a computer screen]).
If you don't want conflict, don't sit there and complain about it. Just stay out of it and let those of us who do want it figure out a way to have it.
I think it's perfectly fine for God realms to be immune or highly resistant to raiding. The gods and their orders are right to desire a place to focus on their rp and creativity without too much external distraction.
People are also right to decry the removal of these conflict zones. God realms used to provide a unique set of circumstances that often lead to enjoyable combat. Notably... no discretionaries, and little (mechanical) repercussions for winning or losing, so things can just focus on a fun fight.
So I feel that if you are removing or highly diminishing God realms as a conflict zone, there should be something to replace it.
Various thoughts I had:
Increase the health (but not damage) of the Elemental Lords/Aspects so that a fight can actually occur more often. A lot of times they're dead before the defenders can even group up, and if not, they'll be dead after one 'round' of fighting.
Look over discretionaries and shrine powers. Personally, I'd like to remove all discretionaries except Distort (which can actually encourage fights at times, instead of hit-and-runs) and make Shrine distort affect everyone, ally and enemy. Optionally, Cosmic/Ethereal supermobs can start the removed discretionaries on their own after being attacked, that way supermob raids are unaffected in balance, while small and medium scale raids are given more of a chance to occur.
Adjust conflict quests/make more that are small in scale enough to not destroy an org(s) that lose, but give incentive enough to fight over it, and then make sure those areas are not Avenger-protected at least during the process. Further, look over current quests and adjust them to the current alliance-based political climate. Certain quests will never get done because it'll hurt your allies as well. For example, the Tainted Broadcasting Centre could be tweaked so you could target only your enemies, and then it'll actually get done occasionally and spawn some conflict.
Sorry for the rant, but I really can't comprehend how much complaining is going on lately. Some of us want conflict. Those who do are finding it and trying to make sure to leave those who expressively don't want it out of the equation so they can enjoy the game, too (case in point: Elanorwen earlier mentioning somewhere that she won't attack non-comms for any reason or me always making sure to ask on CT or GT before I start jumping on people in Faethorn [and I'm glad I did, otherwise I would have mistakenly ripped apart a blind guy behind a computer screen]).
If you don't want conflict, don't sit there and complain about it. Just stay out of it and let those of us who do want it figure out a way to have it.
This is impossible. Lusternia was built to be organization-centric; every time you raid Ethereal Serenwilde, even the most non-combatant-iest Shofangi will be obliged to defend. Even combatants from New Celest and Hallifax would be obliged to defend; otherwise, when their own territories are raided, they would expect less help from Serenwilde. You cannot "leave those who expressively don't want it", unless we're talking about a rogue.
Lusternia's combat system does not give us the luxury to "stay out of it". CONFIG LOYALSAYS OFF, <channel>OFF does not make you immune to being raided. Yes, we can always just give up defending and let you have your way in a raid -- then, we'll start getting taunts and leers about how we're terrible players for not being IC and defending our IC territories (it has happened before).
With all that said, I'm definitely glad I won't be suffering from 1-6pm raids for a few years.
Sorry for the rant, but I really can't comprehend how much complaining is going on lately. Some of us want conflict. Those who do are finding it and trying to make sure to leave those who expressively don't want it out of the equation so they can enjoy the game, too (case in point: Elanorwen earlier mentioning somewhere that she won't attack non-comms for any reason or me always making sure to ask on CT or GT before I start jumping on people in Faethorn [and I'm glad I did, otherwise I would have mistakenly ripped apart a blind guy behind a computer screen]).
If you don't want conflict, don't sit there and complain about it. Just stay out of it and let those of us who do want it figure out a way to have it.
This is impossible. Lusternia was built to be organization-centric; every time you raid Ethereal Serenwilde, even the most non-combatant-iest Shofangi will be obliged to defend. Even combatants from New Celest and Hallifax would be obliged to defend; otherwise, when their own territories are raided, they would expect less help from Serenwilde. You cannot "leave those who expressively don't want it", unless we're talking about a rogue.
Lusternia's combat system does not give us the luxury to "stay out of it". CONFIG LOYALSAYS OFF, <channel>OFF does not make you immune to being raided. Yes, we can always just give up defending and let you have your way in a raid -- then, we'll start getting taunts and leers about how we're terrible players for not being IC and defending our IC territories (it has happened before).
With all that said, I'm definitely glad I won't be suffering from 1-6pm raids for a few years.
Actually, over all the years I've played, I've never once been yelled at for not defending. Not once have people tried to coerce me into raiding with them. Not once tried to convince me to join a domoth challenge. I'm pretty much living proof that it's not impossible.
Actually, over all the years I've played, I've never once been yelled at for not defending. Not once have people tried to coerce me into raiding with them. Not once tried to convince me to join a domoth challenge. I'm pretty much living proof that it's not impossible.
You play in Glomdoring, though, which has enough hands to cover the combat bases if needed. Other organizations do not have this happy privilege, and when you're being raided day in and day out, you're going to start to feel really resentful towards people who do not bother to defend.
Actually, over all the years I've played, I've never once been yelled at for not defending. Not once have people tried to coerce me into raiding with them. Not once tried to convince me to join a domoth challenge. I'm pretty much living proof that it's not impossible.
You play in Glomdoring, though, which has enough hands to cover the combat bases if needed. Other organizations do not have this happy privilege, and when you're being raided day in and day out, you're going to start to feel really resentful towards people who do not bother to defend.
I played Glomdoring when it was constantly stomped by Serenwilde, and I've never been reprimanded or punished for not defending when I didn't feel like it. Numbers don't make any difference when it comes down to it. If you assume that other people are going to ostracise you for not defending, then it is merely your own perception that is forcing you to defend or raid, not your fellow organisation members or the raiders.
Comments
Another alternative is that when something is killed, it becomes ethereal. No one can interact with it except for order members, and it can't interact with anything except order members. Raiders can't hit it, it can't hit raiders, etc. The only thing order members can do is influence them, which would remove them from the godrealm just like normal, and when it returns, it's no longer ethereal and can be killed. If no one influences it, it comes back to normal four hours after it was killed. This would allow the defenders to kindof dictate the progress a bit; the repop timers would be in the hand of the defenders and not in the hand of the raiders.
They just haven't gotten around to removing them yet. It'll happen soon enough, probably around the time they decide weapons are unnecessary and change them all to foam fingers.
Swing Kio.
Kio turns and offers you a playful grin as your foam finger bounces off his head harmlessly. That tickles!
"But paradise is locked and bolted...
We must make a journey around the world
to see if a back door has perhaps been left open."
-Heinrich Von Kleist, "On the Puppet Theater"
God realms are personal projects of gods, earned through their own efforts and/or through essence accumulated. There's very little personal creative outlets or rewards for gods but god realms are one of them. So the main point of god realms is to give gods a perk for themselves and their orders and for some conflict among the various factions.
However, when it gets to the point where realms are used for a grinding bashfest over and over and over and over and over and over, 24/7, and the morale of the order is sapped to the point where they don't want to be in the order or blame the god for not 'defending' his or her realm, it makes sense to look at the situation, especially when it comes to the point where gods would rather remove their realms which really is at odds with the main intent that it was meant as a perk and a creative outlet for them to enjoy. Why should gods want to expand or make large realms if the repercussion is not an enjoyable experience for themselves and their orders?
I personally would rather keep god realms and encourage gods to grow them rather than having a situation where they want to shut them down or keep them small. I really don't want large god realms to be known as major bashing grounds. So, what to do? We could make killing realms mobs give very little essence/experience and not impact gods negatively. We could simply reduce the number of realm mobs entirely (1 mob for every 10 realm rooms?). We could try to beef them up so their harder to kill. We could allow gods and their orders have greater powers in order to defend the realms. Or we could, as we did, make it so that being able to kill/influence them can only be done somewhat rarely.
I should point out for those who think that gods and their orders should suck it up or defend the realms better, while this is nice in theory, I will remind at least some of the older players to remember what it was like for cosmic and ethereal planes which were raided over and over and over and over, what morale was like in those orgs, how it seeped throughout the entire atmosphere of the game, and all the rest that prompted us to make raiding on those planes more difficult. I'd like to look at the simplest solution (which I thought this was) but I am open to others. Remember, though, that ultimately the realms are for the gods and their orders more than anything else and if they choose to close their realms, it is no something that I would stand in the way of.
Gods are as much a part of this game and conflict as ethereal and cosmic realms. Shrines are used by every side in all sorts of conflict scenarios, making Orders and Gods a direct influence on conflict. A significant portion of the vocal population feels ethereal/cosmic raiding has been made far too hard, which negatively impacts the game.
Anyway, I remember the old raids though it's been years since anything that bad has happened. Those constantly raided years were what hooked me on Lusternia, and some of my favorite memories.
I think part of the problem Xenthos wants to point out that this change doesn't just "make it so that being able to kill/influence them can only be done somewhat rarely". If you want that to be done, you could just simply increase the time realm mobs disappear for when influenced, and apply the same amount of time to them being slain without giving them invulnerability. Invulnerability is a direct buff to godrealm defenses, because you create a period of time where the creatures can continue to do damage and cannot be killed, which saps all reasons to raid a godrealm, especially when this invulnerability can be created via influencing as well.
Whether or not the invulnerability was designed to increase the defensibility of the realms is irrelevant: the fact is, the change does increase the defensibility of the realms, and what more, it is not an equal increase to all godrealms, and will benefit bigger godrealms more. While this is an incentive to gods to expand, it is also creates an inequality in a space that you, yourself, have said are supposed to provide "for some conflict among the various faction". The change stifles this conflict AS WELL AS creates an imbalance in the usage of this conflict space.
Personally, I don't mind seeing godrealms entirely seperated from raiding. My previous two posts are 100% sincere - When I get raided, I want to feel like a defender, with a defender's benefits - ie. with my discretionaries. That is not possible in godrealms. Turning godrealms into 100% influencing areas for order members and the occasional bashing area for others is perfectly fine with me, and I will continue to support this change. However, the imbalances and the contradictions of the effect of this change with what you say in your post are valid concerns for those who point them out. It would be nice if you could further address these concerns as well. Even as a supporter of these changes, I can only say that the accusations of bias raised by the other posters (why these changes were never put in for previous and similar abuses of other godrealms) are reasonable ones given the situation.
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"But paradise is locked and bolted...
We must make a journey around the world
to see if a back door has perhaps been left open."
-Heinrich Von Kleist, "On the Puppet Theater"
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