True, however that is where the one side being able to dictate the 'when' of domoth conflict occurs problem come in.
If you initiate an upgrade at a bad time and have it be stolen, then that is on you. However being able to choose when you upgrade allows you to nearly always ensure you have an advantage.
That's what Flux exists for, though. Every IC year there are at least 2 domoths that nobody is able to "choose when to do". At that point, whoever grabs and upgrades fastest has the advantage.
That's the intended purpose of flux, sure, however I disagree that orgs without domoths are limited to a once a year, 'you can now compete in X hours time be it convenient or not for you' is serving its purpose as a means of making domoth conflict equitable for both sides.
I said it on the old forums, but it's like one side being able to raid whenever they like, and the losing side only be allowed raid at a prearranged time.
Has anybody suggested putting the absolve on a timer a'la dormancy? You initiate the absolve, then x-y hours later, the stage 1 timer starts.
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Look, here's the short of it. Domoths are a competition. If your org can't compete, it can't hold domoths...and making it more obnoxious for the "winning" side to keep and maintain the domoths they have isn't any sort of solution. It's not supposed to be "equitable," in that it's not supposed to dumb down conflict to a point where both sides win evenly no matter what happens. That's not even conflict at that point. One org holding all the domoths, one race having all the blessing...no longer possible.
Hallifax is not limited by Equinox or by the rarity of flux. Hallifax is limited because Hallifax can't get a domoth because Hallifax probably couldn't fight off 2 or 3 capable Glom or Celest fighters. It's one thing to lower the ceiling, and that's been done. It's quite another to raise the floor, and a whole different issue to raise the floor to the point where it's just a burden on the winners and a losers either get things handed to them or get unlimted chances.
The nature of conflict, especially in a polarized game, is that someone has to lose. Otherwise it's a tea party or a picnic or something that generally doesn't involve killing the other attendees.
I do worry that with ikons, and curios, and all this not remotely conflict related stuff we are being burried under, Lusternia is turning into Care Bear land. That, if given enough distraction, people won't notice that their conflict centric game is no longer conflict centric. Generally I'm among the first to tell people to chill out, that conflict has peaks and valleys, and this is just a valley...but I have to say conflict right now is dead. Not a little dead, but really really dead.
Look, here's the short of it. Domoths are a competition. If your org can't compete, it can't hold domoths...and making it more obnoxious for the "winning" side to keep and maintain the domoths they have isn't any sort of solution. It's not supposed to be "equitable," in that it's not supposed to dumb down conflict to a point where both sides win evenly no matter what happens. That's not even conflict at that point. One org holding all the domoths, one race having all the blessing...no longer possible.
Hallifax is not limited by Equinox or by the rarity of flux. Hallifax is limited because Hallifax can't get a domoth because Hallifax probably couldn't fight off 2 or 3 capable Glom or Celest fighters. It's one thing to lower the ceiling, and that's been done. It's quite another to raise the floor, and a whole different issue to raise the floor to the point where it's just a burden on the winners and a losers either get things handed to them or get unlimted chances.
The nature of conflict, especially in a polarized game, is that someone has to lose. Otherwise it's a tea party or a picnic or something that generally doesn't involve killing the other attendees.
I am well aware that Hallifax isn't in any position to get and keep a domoth, nor is likely to be any time soon. I also agree that a good conflict system has to have winners and losers, or there is little point to it, but I think the point I'm trying to make is getting lost somewhere, whether
it's me not articulating it properly or it is being lost in quibbling
about absolves.
I think Lusternia's domoth system has demonstrated it has great potential as a conflict system, however because of certain aspects of it (the bias in who can control -when- the conflict occurs being my main grievance), I think it discourages the losing side from continued participation in it, which I believe has lead to the stagnancy with it now.
When I say 'equitable,' I am not asking that every org have a domoth or for an even split, I am saying that I think a system that is equitable in allowing for both sides to be able to -initiate- domoth conflict is preferable to the one that we have now. In the current setup, unless you have a domoth, you are completely locked out and so conflict can only come from one side initiating it. When an alliance controls all domoths and can choose when to upgrade? Bam, zero real domoth conflict.
Are there problems with the solution I suggested? Yes. However, saying you want more conflict while saying anything that makes it harder for you to keep a domoth is obnoxious, to me seems akin to saying, 'No, you shouldn't get to initiate conflict. You're only allowed take part when we say so!' (ie. begin an upgrade.)
I don't think anything that's been suggested really makes it "harder" to keep a domoth. I think it makes it more tedious and frustrating, because it opens the system up to basically unretaliable blows.
Honestly, I think Xenthos summed my opinions of the situation up nicely. I'm not really convinced there's some mechanic that renders it completely or largely impossible for anyone other than Celest and Glom to compete. Indeed, I can remember pretty rapid shifts in domoth holding between "sides" over the years.
Whatever is done to make domoths more accessible (if anything) shouldn't be something that enables down-trodden orgs who essentially cannot compete on even weighted footing to lash out and hurt orgs who are winning.
I suspect that, should the sides change or the downtrodden side be on even vaguely close footing, they would be able to compete pretty regularly and even win.
I don't think the mechanics need to be made more accessible by empowering weaker organizations to harass winning orgs at their relative leisure.
While being able to challenge on your own time and not randomly can cause some "domoth locking", it isn't entirely without penalty, and it's not as though domoths are never stolen when the "sides" are on more equal footing.
I kinda skipped a lot of that, but I think that conflict mechanics should actively encourage orgs of equivalent strength to compete against each other. Can't log in right now but from memory aside from one village Equinox controls everything in politics and politics aetherspace. I don't really pay attention to domoths but well the impression is that it's a similar story there.
A basic concept of what could be done to encourage this behavior would perhaps involve tracking of Org v Org objectives. It could be that claiming an objective is worth a point, or performance could be tracked and an alotment of points is awarded to everyone with a winners bonus.
Then perhaps points can be transferred from loser to winner if you are mechanically viewed as competing with someone of equivalent strength, experience level is adequate as an example. Having x points makes you a level 10 org, if you compete with level 10 orgs then you get the normal number of points, if you beat up level 2s you get maybe some or possibly nothing. In the reverse, if you take on and beat someone of a higher level, you get more. It seems likely that after getting next to nothing for months orgs might give in to the temptation of going for the nice shiny prize they've built up by helping that ally.
Maybe the reward for gaining points could be nexus world expansions, maybe a gate that is only active when you have more than x points that lets you into a new section?
To expand on it, the best tactical fighting is between two groups of roughly equal strategic strength and the best strategic fighting is between two groups of roughly equal logistical strength. This means that we want to encourage orgs to pair off by strength rather than by traditional animosities. While Magnagora vs. Celest, Hallifax vs. Gaudiguch and Glomdoring vs. Serenwilde is better supported by RP, it's better for the game as a whole if (to use current examples) the fighting turned into Glomdoring vs. Celest (the superpowers) and a mostly seperate threeway between Gaudiguch vs. Magnagora vs. Serenwilde + Hallifax alliance. Or Celest + Serenwilde vs. Glomdoring + Hallifax vs. Gaudiguch + Magnagora. Or some other arrangement of equitable balanced combat ability and uncurbstombitude. But for that to happen, a few things need to happen:
1. Every Org needs to have something it can do against every other org. Currently, you cannot strike a serious blow against Celest without getting Magnagora on your side to turn in the Supernals. You cannot do much more than annoy Hallifax if Gaudiguch isn't willing to help you with Project Paradox. Absolving their Domoths, stealing their cattle and freeing the other guy's slaves is fun and all, but it lacks the real punch you need for something to be the "big meaningful conflict" that people are after. I think the answer here lies in villages. Right now it's too easy to be equitable between the various villages. Split the cattle/furrikin/farmers/geomycus/spiders 50/50 down the middle and agree not to rob from eachother. It needs to be more like the dwarven villages where there's a big impressive quest you can do to make the one of the two villages a big producer and make the other bad. Suggestions include:
-Estelbar vs. Acknor: Introduce a quest in Shallach to either pacify the orcs of Acknor using Project Peacemaker (allowing the furrikin to work effiecntly without fear), or to arm them with equipment from Shallach so they can kidnap and ransom the tae'dae cubs. -Ixthiaxa vs. Ptoma: Introduce a quest in Tyrko Forest to produce a Hyfae Queen that can either be empowered or enslaved to respectively protect or control the geomycii. Raising a new Queen means going the Tyrko and killing the current one. -Rikenfriez: Rikenfriez is the odd man out here, not having any opposite. What you'd do here is have a quest that hurts Rikenfriez but gave the person doing the quest an item to turn in to a village of their choice for a bunch of commodities. -Delport vs. Stewartsville: Introduce a new captain (or reuse a current one?) who will sign on in either village to increase fishing yields significantly. Was going to go with hemp, but nobody cares about rope. -Talthos vs. Dairuchi: Need an idea here. Something to do with the Observatory vs Zoaka? -Paavik vs. Shanthmark: Need an idea here. Something to do with the Castle vs the Camp?
Note that all of these ideas involve doing stuff outside the villages in question. It's too easy for a strong org to lock down a village if they really really care to. And these are all just suggestions. Maybe villages aren't the answer and what we really want is stuff to do in the aetherbubbles to make constructs matter more. Maybe something with absolving Domoths. It's probably not going to be "Give every org 4 new conflict quests, one for every org they don't have one against" since the admin have previously vetoed that.
2. Something needs to happen to encourage alliances to break up. As it stands, Gaudiguch, Celest and Glomdoring do not want to break up with eachother because it's current 3 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1, so everyone in the 3 gets a third of the profits. If you break with the alliance it goes to 2 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1 and the 2 left in the alliance get half the profits and you get nothing. Unless you team up with another org to make it 2 vs 2 vs 1 vs 1, in which case you get a fourth of the profits and are still worse off. Nobody wants to take that bet, so you need to up the odds until someone is willing. Saran's idea might do that. But maybe not. It's something that needs an Ideas thread about it.
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Are there problems with the solution I suggested? Yes. However, saying you want more conflict while saying anything that makes it harder for you to keep a domoth is obnoxious, to me seems akin to saying, 'No, you shouldn't get to initiate conflict. You're only allowed take part when we say so!' (ie. begin an upgrade.)
That's not what I said at all. Quite the opposite. I don't think Hallifax should get to start domoth conflicts whenever they feel like it just because they are losing and their nexus is now a domoth deathstar while making Glom or Celest subject to the whims of the "losing org," Personally, I don't see any major flaw in the Domoth system. I think any further changes aren't in the spirit of genuine conflict, rather they tend to sound more like "we want some domoths, so and so has too many, alliances are OP, etc."
Frankly, we are here now because past complainers have complained so frequently and so loudly about there being too much conflict that the Admin have had to get more and more harsh on raiding, which is the main vehicle of conflict. Deaths are now wildly expensive, super mobs are now beyond brutal to take down, and anything else is pointless. Lo and behold, conflict falls off a cliff and people can't figure out why.
I think things need to go one of two ways. One, push org centric conflict. Wild nodes should not have a secondary winner, it should be all or nothing. Encourage orgs to make the choice to either suck it up and fight or get nothing. Domoths can be altered to allow only members of the org claiming, and only one person can challenge the claimer....and only members of the challenging can fight it out with the members of the org claiming. Two, push individual or small group combat. Create artifacts that benefit orgs (not individuals) with increased xp gain, increased crits, regen, etc. that have to be fought over by "champions (not the guild kind)" of the orgs. A battledome where these artifacts randomly come in to play and orgs have to name two or three members to enter and claim it. Only one org can win.
Those are idea off the top of my head anyways.
PS If you have anything worthwhile to offer other than trolling people you can't play nice with with angry disagree faces, Iasmos, feel free to chime in buttercup.
Rivius, I wasn't blaming any particular "side" for the poor state that Lusternia is in now-a-days. Players have the ability in these games to do almost anything. You are all responsible for your alliances, state of conflict, politics, etc. If the players truly didn't like the state of conflict that Lusternia is currently in, they would fix it. The admin can't do much about it without alienating their playerbase. It's small as is; they don't want to lose more players.
No, I don't know how to fix the problems you have here. No one person can. It has to be a concentrated effort by a majority of your player base.
You said that my post offended you. Rest assured that I did not intend offense. I've played IRE muds for around 10 years or so. During that amount of time, I've seen admin make changes that the players cried for, only to have them backfire on the game itself. Often times, players ask for things with no idea of how it will ultimately affect the game. This is a perfect example of that. Here, you had loud players crying over losing conflict. Conflict has been killed. Now, all you have is unexciting politics, mindless bashing, and influencing. RP, you say? Hell, I didn't see much of that. Very few players would even respond to my character.
This is what I meant when I said that Lusternia is stale and stagnant. You all loudly protested losing, claiming that players were leaving the game because they were losing the game. Conflict means that -someone- has to lose. There are always going to be losers and winners. There is absolutely no sense in pitching a fit because you are losing a game. Might as well take your ball and go home. Lose gracefully and try again another time.
People tend to have a feeling of entitlement. No org is entitled to extra bonuses that winning conflicts might provide. Win and you will receive whatever bonus is attached. Lose, and you won't. It's as simple as that.
IRL, win a ballgame and you get bragging rights. Lose, and you practice until you can beat your opponents. It's the same concept.
I don't know how to multi-quote on these new fangled forums, so fake quoting ahoy...
Eventru said:
"I don't think anything that's been suggested really makes it "harder" to keep a domoth. I think it makes it more tedious and frustrating, because it opens the system up to basically unretaliable blows."
Don't you think it's tedious and frustrating for the losing side to only be able to participate when the opposing side initiates the conflict? These are often at times when they are least prepared for it and 'losing orgs' have to immediately drop whatever it was they were doing and scramble to try establish a foothold against a much more prepared opposition.
"I'm not really convinced there's some mechanic that renders it completely or largely impossible for anyone other than Celest and Glom to compete. Indeed, I can remember pretty rapid shifts in domoth holding between "sides" over the years."
Even if Ironhart was still together today and the sides were more evenly matched, as it stands now, there is absolutely nothing they could do to initiate domoth conflict. Being able to decide when domoth conflict occurs is solely dictated by the holders and can provide a huge advantage. Once a domoth has been stolen, sure it's on them to upgrade/absolve if they want to keep it, but when you don't have a domoth, nothing can be done.
As to the second part, I'm not sure of when you're talking about or if I was even around for it, but the only domoth shift between the sides (in months!) that I'm aware of is a single instance of Mag stealing the non-absolvable Nature domoth, which then prompted a tweet that they weren't upkeeping it properly when they let the sparkle effect drop from coltsfoot. If you're looking for things to improve, looking at why conflict outlets aren't creating conflict is a good place! "Whatever is done to make domoths more accessible (if anything) shouldn't be something that enables down-trodden orgs who essentially cannot compete on even weighted footing to lash out and hurt orgs who are winning."
I agree, it shouldn't be something that allows a lone org to grief every other domoth holder. Rather than this being a reason not to make a change though, this should become a question of the cost/difficulty/duration of what they have to do, the window of opportunity they have to do it in, and the repercussions should their attempt fail. But a way to be proactive rather than constantly reactive I think would go a long way to encourage continued participation.
"I suspect that, should the sides change or the downtrodden side be on even vaguely close footing, they would be able to compete pretty regularly and even win."
Lots of Ironhart/Equinox domoth fights were on close footing, the fights were pretty regular, and Ironhart even 'won' some. However, I would say that it is fair to say that the fights were more exhausting for one side than the other. But, this doesn't change the fact that even if you are in a position to compete, if you do not hold a domoth, you are locked out and can do nothing until the opposing side initiates the conflict.
"I don't think the mechanics need to be made more accessible by empowering weaker organizations to harass winning orgs at their relative leisure."
For there to be meaningful conflict, both sides need to be able to hurt each other, and both sides need to be able to initiate conflict. The current system only allows one side to initiate conflict at their relative leisure. Should winning orgs be near immune to having their winnings challenged?
"While being able to challenge on your own time and not randomly can cause some "domoth locking", it isn't entirely without penalty, and it's not as though domoths are never stolen when the "sides" are on more equal footing."
I don't really understand what you're saying here. What's the penalty? Who has the penalty?
Celina said:
"That's not what I said at all. Quite the opposite. I don't think Hallifax should get to start domoth conflicts whenever they feel like it just because they are losing and their nexus is now a domoth deathstar while making Glom or Celest subject to the whims of the "losing org," Personally, I don't see any major flaw in the Domoth system. I think any further changes aren't in the spirit of genuine conflict, rather they tend to sound more like "we want some domoths, so and so has too many, alliances are OP, etc."
Right, I exaggerated somewhat, but to highlight the discrepancy when only one side can initiate conflict. See above about non-holding orgs being completely subject to the whims of the "holding org." And of course we want domoths, they're worth fighting for. This is why they are a good potential source of conflict.
Frankly, we are here now because past complainers have complained so frequently and so loudly about there being too much conflict that the Admin have had to get more and more harsh on raiding, which is the main vehicle of conflict. Deaths are now wildly expensive, super mobs are now beyond brutal to take down, and anything else is pointless. Lo and behold, conflict falls off a cliff and people can't figure out why.
I agree, I also think bubble constructs giving orgs free discretionaries is too much and again discourages losing orgs from initiating conflict. This is why the domoth system has potential to be so good though. You don't have the hugely expensive deaths, there are no discretionaries, shrine influence has been reduced, it's a challenge but not supermob difficulty and while the rewards are worth it, it's not the end of the world if you don't have them, so 'losing' at domoths needn't be as frustrating as being forced to grind for X hours+ to restore a shield or whatever.
At this point though, I feel as if I'm flogging a dead horse, so for my last time: I think the domoth system, as an outlet for conflict, fails when only one side can initiate said conflict.
In regard to the current conversation, I won't touch flares or domoths.
I do have an idea for villages, however. Specifically in regard to village feelings and Conquest.
Feelings should generate more slowly for the more villages you have, regardless of governance style. This isn't hard to explain (it becomes more difficult to keep everyone pleased at once as you gather more territory), but inevitably leaves conquest in an odd spot. For that reason, I think Conquest should have regular power production upped (but not as high as religious) while maintaining the Conquest pool the way it is, then remove the passive generation of feelings. This would add a significant double-edge to Conquest in that the village produces a lot more for the organisation overall, but it would be incredibly difficult to generate feelings at the same rate as any other governance (or outright impossible in villages with many brave denizens).
Let's also create an "incumbent counter". Every time you claim a village, the counter is reduced by half. Losing the village can cause it to reduce too, but maybe by some lesser amount. Anyways, for each subsequent time you fail to reclaim that village (or its rival), a point is added to the counter. Each point increases the rate at which you generate feelings per action performed to that end. As for the exact % or whatever, that's debatable.
You'd still need to work to produce feelings, but they'd become easier to generate for the longer you go without any villages.
(I honestly hate the whole feelings system, but I feel like this works better than the current incarnation.)
I'm not sure I like the incumbent counter thing, or making Conquest generate non-pool power, but I really think passive village feelings need a change. Passive feelings gains are way too powerful. Being anything but Benign is just crippling yourself; it's not even a choice. Then you'll probably be Religious for the flavor/power or Conquest for that sweet Conquest pool (Commercial for flavor/comms isn't worth it. I wish it was. It's a tasty flavor.) Sure, you can't directly influence the feelings of a village you hold under Conquest, but a Benign Conquest government does not need to pay any attention to village feelings, because they'll be at max by the time that village revolts again no matter what. Benign is like the EZ Mode of government styles. Why would you be anything else?
I don't think Benign should get you anything more than level 1 feelings passively. With the way village feelings are now, you just have to cross your fingers and hope no one in the org who owns the village is online when the revolt starts, because level 3 positive feelings are the standard, and they're really hard to beat. If there's a concern then that Conquest would be put at a disadvantage, maybe the current "the more villages you hold, the more other villages will passively respect you" could be changed to "the more villages you hold, the more your villages trust in your power" and a Conquest government with a decent amount of villages held (3+?) could get to level 2 passively in their villages. I don't think level 3 passive feelings should be possible for anyone, under any circumstances.
(I'm not fond of feelings either. They didn't exist when I first started playing, and I liked it a lot better that way. I know they've helped Hallifax hold some villages for much longer than we would have been able to otherwise cough Rockholm cough but that sucks. I don't care if it sucked in my favorite org's favor. It still sucks! A village shouldn't feel like it "belongs" to one org like that.)
If so, then Conquest should be given a way to build positive feelings actively. A good part of the village mobs are immune to weaken influencing, thus making that a really terrible way to get feelings. Make it weaken or paranoia.
Also, I think the flux aspect of domoths does well to make sure it's not completely one-sided. The fault lies with the players - some don't bother enough to participate, even when it becomes viable. Heck, I took the Death Domoth alone after it fluxed while Akyaevin and a bunch of Seren demigods were online.
One of the ideas presented was "rent artifacts for gold.". I can see why this might not go over well. However, over the past couple of days I have been kicking around an alternate idea; a variation on "rent to own".
What if there was an alternate way to finance artifact purchases?
Some rough numbers I have been considering: A cameo costs 1000 credits. You can pay half-down up front (500 cr) and you get the cameo for a week (or possibly longer after the first big deposit). Eventually you have to start paying in the rest of the cost, however. Every week you would pay 50 credits. The purchase would thus be paid off in 10 weeks. If you miss a payment, you lose access to the artifact until the smaller weekly payment is made, then you have access to it again for a week. Once fully paid down, the artifact is permanently yours from then on.
It is a kind of loan that players cannot do (we can't repossess artifacts), it gets people into artifact purchases just that bit easier, and it does not cost the administration anything in sales. It might even encourage some more if players don't have to pay as much up front, but can chip away at the remainder... while already being able to use & enjoy the artifact.
It is not something I would use personally but it does seem as something that might be beneficial to those who are less of a hoarder than myself.
PS: You would not be able to do this for the one-use artifacts (lips, dagger, bubbles, etc)
Ok, so I know I'm going to get slammed for this cause I know I'm in the minority but the combat and conflict systems drive me nuts. Mostly because the conflict system leads to combat. I hate combat in these games. Its a fine system and a lot of people love it and have fun with it but for me its just one big headache I'd rather avoid. For someone like me, I would have to either memorize what -seems- like 50,000 different afflictions and cures and how to counteract each one, then know which moves work and how to implement them while all this crazy text flies across my screen and before I can even comprehend it I'm dead.If I don't do that I have to figure out how to code a system that is like a foreign language to me so I can at least get a few pitiful knee-jerk reactions of "spam hunting move because I have no idea whats going on and my brain shut down within 1.5 seconds of wall of text" and die quickly. So yeah, not a fan. Not fun for me.
That being said I love the rich story (Lusternia has the best IMHO), the interactions with the world, the quests, the family system, the social dynamics, the people and yes I love a lot of the little mini-games that you all have implemented. I still have Bombard! parties and I love them. You guys have a lot of good things going here and I would be very very sad if it was made into just another KOHBAAT! If-you-can't-fight-get-out MUD.
So thank you, thank you to our wonderful admins with their wonderful imaginations and ingenuity to add something extra to the people that are in it for something more than "I Killed all UR dudes cuz U suck and I rok!"(disclaimer: not saying if you're a combatant you're like this but I'm sure you've met one or two in your time.)
So yeah keep up with the awesome story. I love it and ultimately those things are what draws me back into this vortex.
I think it is apparent that no one wants to die repeatedly and lose most of their experience, and then have to bash for hours later. We all love bashing, but the penalties can get very big. Someone told me that the loss for enemy territory is 2 million essence or so a pop, and the only reason I can see for that is to discourage people from fighting in it. That sort of mechanic is boring.
I would like to see if people are more willing to fight if the loss were just double (example- normal Prime: 250k, double: 500k), instead. It doesn't better the game to force people to bash several hours regularly if they want to fight an org, and enemy territory functions well enough as a free-PK zone. People can still grief their favorite organizations, it just means that they run away from fights or stick to harassing the god realms that no one cares about.
And I still think it would help if Avechna was loosened up a little. It's crazy that two people can manipulate you into Vengeance status with careful strategy. Just make Vengeance status kick in upon three deaths in the same RL day, if people really need it. If someone dies in Imperian or Aetolia and use the vitae-like defence to be resurrected, then it is almost certain that they are going to die once more. If you fear double vitae deaths, then just don't use vitae. Alternatively, you could do that, but also make a sort of timer and have it tick down "deaths" slowly.
Regarding Vengeance, I really am not on board with changing it. I'm really not on board with making PK on prime any easier or less costly than it is. We could look at xp costs off-prime but, again, they are there for a reason (if no one remembers) because of the devastating effect conflict had on some orgs. I know people say they want more conflict, but our experience has been that the reality is often somewhat less productive than what we may imagine.
Regarding Domoths, I'm really not sure that's where the focus should be on conflict. That said, we could make it more difficult to upgrade Domoths by having them go into play 1-6 hours (or 1-3 hours or whatever) after it is initiated, though it would make upgrading Domoths more difficult for casual players.
Regarding village revolts, maybe someone could start a thread with specific suggestions on how to tweak it to make it more fun/fair.
I took a wrong turn into a stack of Gaudiguch guards that killed me for 2.3mil essence. Wasn't pretty. I wouldn't mind a new look at the loss figures!
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
The effects were never devastating. Serenwilde's self destruction was devasating, and 90% about their attitude. Orgs before them had to much worse, and they managed. The cost raiding had was always overblown by the "loser." That being said, I don't really care if the cost of death is lowered, I won't change anything.
I also feel domoths are fine, and don't see any reason to keep changing them. They are already extremely monotonous as is.
I believe the real reason raiding died is because there is no point anymore. Defenders rarely defend anymore because they've OOCly decided that it serves no point so scew it. That and super mobs are freaking brutal and 6 million essence to take them down for minimal cost to the "loser" is just not worth it.
I think the best conflict mechanics give boons to the winner without overtly punishing the loser. That being said, as long as people have stank attitudes about losing, there will always be folks trying to nerf combat into nonexistance.
Nobody is trying to nerf combat into non-existence, and the fact that you and others can't seem to get past this accusation is why this discussion is not going anywhere.
I think we know perfectly well that any successful conflict system will have winners and losers. I think for the past two years we definitely have kept up a fairly admirable effort with what we had. If you want to pretend that things have been the way they are for two years is because an entire half of the game has a terrible attitude to losing, then you probably fall into the category of player I made reference to earlier. I don't think anyone minds losing, but when most of what you face is crushing defeats and deliberate demoralization for two years, you eventually getexhausted. There's just no enjoyment to getting swept left and right for such a long period of time. I think you've lost sight of that after 'winning' for so long and look back on the days that were supposedly worse than now as if they were nothing.
Yes, it's true that organizations can get better with hard work and determination but if the other side has that much more winning power despite all those efforts, the only thing that's going to cause a change is a shift of the status quo. That's what ironhart tried to do. They tried to force a sort of musical chairs to see if maybe we could get things to be even, or for the love of god, perhaps different. If you wanted to save conflict so much, you could have taken up on that over the past few months and done something. Instead you staunchly kept to your alliance and kept beating on the people you already know you can beat into the ground instead of breaking up as we did and trying to change things around.
You also say that people have made an OOC decision to stop defending. I'm not sure how true that is of other orgs, but I can tell you, that despite how tiring it is, whenever you kicked a lady or a group of people came to raid, we kept coming back to try to stop you and even chased you into faethorn at times. If that wasn't the case, it was either because the people online at the time were the kind inexperienced in what to do, or they simply were not paying attention. I think at this point, you're just mischaracterizing people and that's unfair.
It wasn't executed very well. Yes, Ironhart broke up and Serenwilde and Hallifax both declared neutrality. Neither, however, went into actual negotiations with Equinox (not as far as I'm aware, at least). Diplomacy doesn't work that way.
PS: Neither enforced 'neutrality' very well, either. See: Nicholo, Aeden, Leolamins (although this one's a Mag).
I can assure you Nicholo has not been raiding as long as we had broken off from ironhart. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was only doing that somewhat recently, making it even more irrelevant. The attempts at neutrality were immediately met with a middle-finger to the face and the same three orgs continuing to raid at the same frequency until conflict slowly died out to what it is now.
Could it have been executed better? Perhaps. But I even recall OOC conversations where players of equinoix claimed that they did not want to change the political scene and that they were comfortable where they were (which is what I suspected would happen when the plan was originally proposed).
@Alacardael Magnagora made NO decisions to split, for the record. We were told we were on our own. No big deal. Not sure why you'd include Leolamins in your list of people who are poor at neutrality. No one stopped raiding us, we made no decisions to stop raiding. Mag has never been (and I highly doubt ever will be) an entirely neutral org.
I have to agree with Rivius. I know plenty of people who not only stopped defending, but have stopped logging in entirely. Why? No one likes losing all the time. And not just losing, but being embarassingly crushed day after day. It's supposed to be a fun game, not a chore. Roleplay should be fun! But only the most masochistic would willingly keep playing a game where their roleplay almost entirely consists of "We're being raided again, damn we don't have the numbers to stop them, damn, must defend our loyals anyway! (even though it's pointless and we will all die trying. Again.)
I don't think there is a coded solution to the problem (though maybe some tweaks with things like village feelings as per the other threads), but perhaps for the health of the game as a whole, various admin could use their awesome roleplayedness and see if they can't help provoke a change. Not force it, or people will cry, but if there is incentive and encouragement in an RP manner to shake things up and ultimately bring some equality back across the board, it may just happen. (And who doesn't love divine RP?)
It wasn't executed very well. Yes, Ironhart broke up and Serenwilde and Hallifax both declared neutrality. Neither, however, went into actual negotiations with Equinox (not as far as I'm aware, at least). Diplomacy doesn't work that way.
PS: Neither enforced 'neutrality' very well, either. See: Nicholo, Aeden, Leolamins (although this one's a Mag).
While I was never even remotely a supporter of the neutrality thing, I really have to cut in here and say that it's completely untrue that no attempts to talk to members of Equinox were made. Hallifax spent some time trying to talk to Celest about even just a non-aggression agreement. That went nowhere, because despite there being an agreement to a ceasefire while we hashed things out, their citizens that disagreed still attacked us constantly. They could attack us because they couldn't control those citizens, but we could do nothing in return, and we were supposed to just be like "oh shucks, oh rats, please keep talking to us"? Hey man. Diplomacy doesn't work that way. We kind of just got tired of it and gave up. Wouldn't you?
I'm fairly sure the many statements regarding how Celest or Glomdoring will not break up equinox are all still there on facebook. I believe there are things like "They did something rl years ago so we're never going to ally with them" leading to the only possible configuration being the current one.
But the ones that are always going to be awkward are the ones revolving around "There's no benefit and possible detriments".
If the strong orgs start to fight each other, they might *gasp* loose some of their mechanical benefits. Why would you do that when working together provides the greatest benefit to your org?
As Phoebus said, though we came close to it, Celest rejected our offer of non-aggression. As best I recall, I left the negotiations saying "Hallifax still wants this, so when you're ready come talk. In the meantime, since Celest has continued to attack Hallifax during these negotiations, you can expect some resentment and following people are likely to retaliate now negotiations are concluded." Celest said fine, that's understandable. Ball is still in their court there in my opinion!
Celina as Glom Ambassador sent us letter saying 'nope, not happening, rawr rawr, Morbo is the devil, you should depose him, rawr!' so on receipt of that, we figured trying to negotiate with Glom would be pointless and we'll just stick to Celest. Again as far as I think the Hallifaxian Board should be concerned, that's still Glom's stance and again, the ball is in their court if they decide they want to correct the only official word sent to Hallifax from Glom.
Lasting non-aggression with Gaudi was never going to be realistic, so that wasn't pursued.
So with Celest rejecting our offer of non-aggression, Glom saying 'not on the table,' and neither Hallifax or Gaudi really wanting a non-aggression, why would Hallifax restrict its members from fighting against orgs who chose to continue to see us as an 'enemy.' Stance since negotiations ended has been 'we're not taking an official stance or declaration until things change, you can help who you like, just don't bring a shitstorm back on us.'
Breaking up Ironhart then expecting Equinox to do the same was a strategically terrible move. A for effort, though. I will say that from where I stand, ex-Ironhart are trying their best to change things once more, and this time, both Celest and Glomdoring are playing ball.
While we're at it, there's nothing wrong with alliances remaining because of the benefits, both mechanically and morale-wise. It's boring, but that's not the fault of alliances. A lot of the posters here seem to blame the alliance for every little thing.
I won't go into the lack of conflict, since that's well-trodden ground. Suffice to say, a lot of it really boils down to normal raiding being too punishing, big gigantic smob raiding being too hard, conflict systems being skewed, and player attitude.
Btw, Ironhart wasn't exactly getting curbstomped into the ground, they were doing quite well for themselves for a serious amount of time. It's like the year when Esano won, Fillin was unleashing, and Hallifax's balestone army didn't happen or something. IMO, it only really went downhill pretty much exactly at the moment Hallifax declared neutrality. So I would hazard to say that 2 years of constant curbstomp might be a bit exaggerated there.
I was under the impression that this was a suggestion thread for Lusterna's future... not a thread to discuss the political states of individual orgs. Maybe we can talk more of the admin-changeable mechanics and less of the actual politics?
Libraries:
I've said this before and I'll say this again: Please change books so they are in descending order (newest books first) when browsed. No library or book store has all their old stuff up front. Other than used book stores... if I go into a book store or library I do not want to go through all the old stuff first to get to the new books. If I have to do this I'm going to a new library/book store.
Families:
Allow clans/cartels be deeded to major families so that if a family member becomes dormant all the clans/cartels don't become obsolete.
Newbie Stuff:
Lusternia isn't the easiest place to get into. The introductory quest could be worked on a bit to be more exciting, but the really big problem is when a character starts actually playing. They usually get a greeting and a crap load of help scrolls thrown at them. It is fine to have someone read scrolls, but if you have them right there to talk to, then really they should be talked to first and then left to read the scrolls afterwards. The biggest problem we have with newbies not sticking around is the apathy that established players have towards them. Yes, you are going to get people that are slow learners and sometimes people that make you want to shove you head through the computer screen, but this is not a reason to ignore new players.
I'm going to pick on the Aquamancers because I love them the most. I noticed a lot of ignoring of novices within the Aquamancers. Don't get me wrong, many of the Aquamancers make it their life to get people integrated into our society, but there seemed to be a ton of people slipping through the cracks. On several occasions I'd come online to find a novice that hadn't been spoken to when there were several ranking Aquamancers to help them out. It's completely unacceptable that so many people are being ignored when they first start playing. It is every established player's responsibility to help the new people out, especially if you want any changes being made to Lusty. New players are what allows us to have new areas to explore and neat new things.
Here are some suggestions that I have for new players. the first is for players but the others are for admins:
1. If you have an ALT don't waste too much of your guild member's time as far as training goes. Train yourselves so that the novice trainers don't have to waste their energy training you.
2. If possible please take more admin action in encouraging people to interact with new players . If it's not to much to ask, please give more warnings/punishment to people who treat new players badly. I know that this is done already to a wide degree, but when I've seen people being ignored or given a hard time I hope that more can be done.
3. More detailed help scrolls. There are a lot of great help scrolls out there, but I always seem to find a ton of things that I can't find information about. Sometimes I can find general info, but not the details of how to do something. I usually ask someone if I can't figure something out, but if there is no one a new player trusts they are just going to call it quits. There are also a few things that have been released with the information of said thing only being in the news (and once the news is buried it's tough to find information again). It would be helpful to have a scroll of these new items before they are released.
Comments
Look, here's the short of it. Domoths are a competition. If your org can't compete, it can't hold domoths...and making it more obnoxious for the "winning" side to keep and maintain the domoths they have isn't any sort of solution. It's not supposed to be "equitable," in that it's not supposed to dumb down conflict to a point where both sides win evenly no matter what happens. That's not even conflict at that point. One org holding all the domoths, one race having all the blessing...no longer possible.
Hallifax is not limited by Equinox or by the rarity of flux. Hallifax is limited because Hallifax can't get a domoth because Hallifax probably couldn't fight off 2 or 3 capable Glom or Celest fighters. It's one thing to lower the ceiling, and that's been done. It's quite another to raise the floor, and a whole different issue to raise the floor to the point where it's just a burden on the winners and a losers either get things handed to them or get unlimted chances.
The nature of conflict, especially in a polarized game, is that someone has to lose. Otherwise it's a tea party or a picnic or something that generally doesn't involve killing the other attendees.
I do worry that with ikons, and curios, and all this not remotely conflict related stuff we are being burried under, Lusternia is turning into Care Bear land. That, if given enough distraction, people won't notice that their conflict centric game is no longer conflict centric. Generally I'm among the first to tell people to chill out, that conflict has peaks and valleys, and this is just a valley...but I have to say conflict right now is dead. Not a little dead, but really really dead.
I think Lusternia's domoth system has demonstrated it has great potential as a conflict system, however because of certain aspects of it (the bias in who can control -when- the conflict occurs being my main grievance), I think it discourages the losing side from continued participation in it, which I believe has lead to the stagnancy with it now.
When I say 'equitable,' I am not asking that every org have a domoth or for an even split, I am saying that I think a system that is equitable in allowing for both sides to be able to -initiate- domoth conflict is preferable to the one that we have now. In the current setup, unless you have a domoth, you are completely locked out and so conflict can only come from one side initiating it. When an alliance controls all domoths and can choose when to upgrade? Bam, zero real domoth conflict.
Are there problems with the solution I suggested? Yes. However, saying you want more conflict while saying anything that makes it harder for you to keep a domoth is obnoxious, to me seems akin to saying, 'No, you shouldn't get to initiate conflict. You're only allowed take part when we say so!' (ie. begin an upgrade.)
Honestly, I think Xenthos summed my opinions of the situation up nicely. I'm not really convinced there's some mechanic that renders it completely or largely impossible for anyone other than Celest and Glom to compete. Indeed, I can remember pretty rapid shifts in domoth holding between "sides" over the years.
Whatever is done to make domoths more accessible (if anything) shouldn't be something that enables down-trodden orgs who essentially cannot compete on even weighted footing to lash out and hurt orgs who are winning.
I suspect that, should the sides change or the downtrodden side be on even vaguely close footing, they would be able to compete pretty regularly and even win.
I don't think the mechanics need to be made more accessible by empowering weaker organizations to harass winning orgs at their relative leisure.
While being able to challenge on your own time and not randomly can cause some "domoth locking", it isn't entirely without penalty, and it's not as though domoths are never stolen when the "sides" are on more equal footing.
I kinda skipped a lot of that, but I think that conflict mechanics should actively encourage orgs of equivalent strength to compete against each other. Can't log in right now but from memory aside from one village Equinox controls everything in politics and politics aetherspace. I don't really pay attention to domoths but well the impression is that it's a similar story there.
A basic concept of what could be done to encourage this behavior would perhaps involve tracking of Org v Org objectives. It could be that claiming an objective is worth a point, or performance could be tracked and an alotment of points is awarded to everyone with a winners bonus.
Then perhaps points can be transferred from loser to winner if you are mechanically viewed as competing with someone of equivalent strength, experience level is adequate as an example. Having x points makes you a level 10 org, if you compete with level 10 orgs then you get the normal number of points, if you beat up level 2s you get maybe some or possibly nothing. In the reverse, if you take on and beat someone of a higher level, you get more. It seems likely that after getting next to nothing for months orgs might give in to the temptation of going for the nice shiny prize they've built up by helping that ally.
Maybe the reward for gaining points could be nexus world expansions, maybe a gate that is only active when you have more than x points that lets you into a new section?
I agree with this sentiment.
To expand on it, the best tactical fighting is between two groups of roughly equal strategic strength and the best strategic fighting is between two groups of roughly equal logistical strength. This means that we want to encourage orgs to pair off by strength rather than by traditional animosities. While Magnagora vs. Celest, Hallifax vs. Gaudiguch and Glomdoring vs. Serenwilde is better supported by RP, it's better for the game as a whole if (to use current examples) the fighting turned into Glomdoring vs. Celest (the superpowers) and a mostly seperate threeway between Gaudiguch vs. Magnagora vs. Serenwilde + Hallifax alliance. Or Celest + Serenwilde vs. Glomdoring + Hallifax vs. Gaudiguch + Magnagora. Or some other arrangement of equitable balanced combat ability and uncurbstombitude. But for that to happen, a few things need to happen:
1. Every Org needs to have something it can do against every other org. Currently, you cannot strike a serious blow against Celest without getting Magnagora on your side to turn in the Supernals. You cannot do much more than annoy Hallifax if Gaudiguch isn't willing to help you with Project Paradox. Absolving their Domoths, stealing their cattle and freeing the other guy's slaves is fun and all, but it lacks the real punch you need for something to be the "big meaningful conflict" that people are after.
I think the answer here lies in villages. Right now it's too easy to be equitable between the various villages. Split the cattle/furrikin/farmers/geomycus/spiders 50/50 down the middle and agree not to rob from eachother. It needs to be more like the dwarven villages where there's a big impressive quest you can do to make the one of the two villages a big producer and make the other bad. Suggestions include:
-Estelbar vs. Acknor: Introduce a quest in Shallach to either pacify the orcs of Acknor using Project Peacemaker (allowing the furrikin to work effiecntly without fear), or to arm them with equipment from Shallach so they can kidnap and ransom the tae'dae cubs.
-Ixthiaxa vs. Ptoma: Introduce a quest in Tyrko Forest to produce a Hyfae Queen that can either be empowered or enslaved to respectively protect or control the geomycii. Raising a new Queen means going the Tyrko and killing the current one.
-Rikenfriez: Rikenfriez is the odd man out here, not having any opposite. What you'd do here is have a quest that hurts Rikenfriez but gave the person doing the quest an item to turn in to a village of their choice for a bunch of commodities.
-Delport vs. Stewartsville: Introduce a new captain (or reuse a current one?) who will sign on in either village to increase
fishing yields significantly. Was going to go with hemp, but nobody cares about rope.
-Talthos vs. Dairuchi: Need an idea here. Something to do with the Observatory vs Zoaka?
-Paavik vs. Shanthmark: Need an idea here. Something to do with the Castle vs the Camp?
Note that all of these ideas involve doing stuff outside the villages in question. It's too easy for a strong org to lock down a village if they really really care to. And these are all just suggestions. Maybe villages aren't the answer and what we really want is stuff to do in the aetherbubbles to make constructs matter more. Maybe something with absolving Domoths. It's probably not going to be "Give every org 4 new conflict quests, one for every org they don't have one against" since the admin have previously vetoed that.
2. Something needs to happen to encourage alliances to break up. As it stands, Gaudiguch, Celest and Glomdoring do not want to break up with eachother because it's current 3 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1, so everyone in the 3 gets a third of the profits. If you break with the alliance it goes to 2 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1 and the 2 left in the alliance get half the profits and you get nothing. Unless you team up with another org to make it 2 vs 2 vs 1 vs 1, in which case you get a fourth of the profits and are still worse off. Nobody wants to take that bet, so you need to up the odds until someone is willing. Saran's idea might do that. But maybe not. It's something that needs an Ideas thread about it.
Rivius, I wasn't blaming any particular "side" for the poor state that Lusternia is in now-a-days. Players have the ability in these games to do almost anything. You are all responsible for your alliances, state of conflict, politics, etc. If the players truly didn't like the state of conflict that Lusternia is currently in, they would fix it. The admin can't do much about it without alienating their playerbase. It's small as is; they don't want to lose more players.
No, I don't know how to fix the problems you have here. No one person can. It has to be a concentrated effort by a majority of your player base.
You said that my post offended you. Rest assured that I did not intend offense. I've played IRE muds for around 10 years or so. During that amount of time, I've seen admin make changes that the players cried for, only to have them backfire on the game itself. Often times, players ask for things with no idea of how it will ultimately affect the game. This is a perfect example of that. Here, you had loud players crying over losing conflict. Conflict has been killed. Now, all you have is unexciting politics, mindless bashing, and influencing. RP, you say? Hell, I didn't see much of that. Very few players would even respond to my character.
This is what I meant when I said that Lusternia is stale and stagnant. You all loudly protested losing, claiming that players were leaving the game because they were losing the game. Conflict means that -someone- has to lose. There are always going to be losers and winners. There is absolutely no sense in pitching a fit because you are losing a game. Might as well take your ball and go home. Lose gracefully and try again another time.
People tend to have a feeling of entitlement. No org is entitled to extra bonuses that winning conflicts might provide. Win and you will receive whatever bonus is attached. Lose, and you won't. It's as simple as that.
IRL, win a ballgame and you get bragging rights. Lose, and you practice until you can beat your opponents. It's the same concept.
Eventru said:
"I don't think anything that's been suggested really makes it "harder" to keep a domoth. I think it makes it more tedious and frustrating, because it opens the system up to basically unretaliable blows."
Don't you think it's tedious and frustrating for the losing side to only be able to participate when the opposing side initiates the conflict? These are often at times when they are least prepared for it and 'losing orgs' have to immediately drop whatever it was they were doing and scramble to try establish a foothold against a much more prepared opposition.
"I'm not really convinced there's some mechanic that renders it completely or largely impossible for anyone other than Celest and Glom to compete. Indeed, I can remember pretty rapid shifts in domoth holding between "sides" over the years."
Even if Ironhart was still together today and the sides were more evenly matched, as it stands now, there is absolutely nothing they could do to initiate domoth conflict. Being able to decide when domoth conflict occurs is solely dictated by the holders and can provide a huge advantage. Once a domoth has been stolen, sure it's on them to upgrade/absolve if they want to keep it, but when you don't have a domoth, nothing can be done.
As to the second part, I'm not sure of when you're talking about or if I was even around for it, but the only domoth shift between the sides (in months!) that I'm aware of is a single instance of Mag stealing the non-absolvable Nature domoth, which then prompted a tweet that they weren't upkeeping it properly when they let the sparkle effect drop from coltsfoot. If you're looking for things to improve, looking at why conflict outlets aren't creating conflict is a good place!
"Whatever is done to make domoths more accessible (if anything) shouldn't be something that enables down-trodden orgs who essentially cannot compete on even weighted footing to lash out and hurt orgs who are winning."
I agree, it shouldn't be something that allows a lone org to grief every other domoth holder. Rather than this being a reason not to make a change though, this should become a question of the cost/difficulty/duration of what they have to do, the window of opportunity they have to do it in, and the repercussions should their attempt fail. But a way to be proactive rather than constantly reactive I think would go a long way to encourage continued participation.
"I suspect that, should the sides change or the downtrodden side be on even vaguely close footing, they would be able to compete pretty regularly and even win."
Lots of Ironhart/Equinox domoth fights were on close footing, the fights were pretty regular, and Ironhart even 'won' some. However, I would say that it is fair to say that the fights were more exhausting for one side than the other. But, this doesn't change the fact that even if you are in a position to compete, if you do not hold a domoth, you are locked out and can do nothing until the opposing side initiates the conflict.
"I don't think the mechanics need to be made more accessible by empowering weaker organizations to harass winning orgs at their relative leisure."
For there to be meaningful conflict, both sides need to be able to hurt each other, and both sides need to be able to initiate conflict. The current system only allows one side to initiate conflict at their relative leisure. Should winning orgs be near immune to having their winnings challenged?
"While being able to challenge on your own time and not randomly can cause some "domoth locking", it isn't entirely without penalty, and it's not as though domoths are never stolen when the "sides" are on more equal footing."
I don't really understand what you're saying here. What's the penalty? Who has the penalty?
Celina said:
"That's not what I said at all. Quite the opposite. I don't think Hallifax should get to start domoth conflicts whenever they feel like it just because they are losing and their nexus is now a domoth deathstar while making Glom or Celest subject to the whims of the "losing org," Personally, I don't see any major flaw in the Domoth system. I think any further changes aren't in the spirit of genuine conflict, rather they tend to sound more like "we want some domoths, so and so has too many, alliances are OP, etc."
Right, I exaggerated somewhat, but to highlight the discrepancy when only one side can initiate conflict. See above about non-holding orgs being completely subject to the whims of the "holding org." And of course we want domoths, they're worth fighting for. This is why they are a good potential source of conflict.
Frankly, we are here now because past complainers have complained so frequently and so loudly about there being too much conflict that the Admin have had to get more and more harsh on raiding, which is the main vehicle of conflict. Deaths are now wildly expensive, super mobs are now beyond brutal to take down, and anything else is pointless. Lo and behold, conflict falls off a cliff and people can't figure out why.
I agree, I also think bubble constructs giving orgs free discretionaries is too much and again discourages losing orgs from initiating conflict. This is why the domoth system has potential to be so good though. You don't have the hugely expensive deaths, there are no discretionaries, shrine influence has been reduced, it's a challenge but not supermob difficulty and while the rewards are worth it, it's not the end of the world if you don't have them, so 'losing' at domoths needn't be as frustrating as being forced to grind for X hours+ to restore a shield or whatever.
At this point though, I feel as if I'm flogging a dead horse, so for my last time: I think the domoth system, as an outlet for conflict, fails when only one side can initiate said conflict.
What if there was an alternate way to finance artifact purchases?
Some rough numbers I have been considering:
A cameo costs 1000 credits.
You can pay half-down up front (500 cr) and you get the cameo for a week (or possibly longer after the first big deposit).
Eventually you have to start paying in the rest of the cost, however. Every week you would pay 50 credits.
The purchase would thus be paid off in 10 weeks.
If you miss a payment, you lose access to the artifact until the smaller weekly payment is made, then you have access to it again for a week.
Once fully paid down, the artifact is permanently yours from then on.
It is a kind of loan that players cannot do (we can't repossess artifacts), it gets people into artifact purchases just that bit easier, and it does not cost the administration anything in sales. It might even encourage some more if players don't have to pay as much up front, but can chip away at the remainder... while already being able to use & enjoy the artifact.
It is not something I would use personally but it does seem as something that might be beneficial to those who are less of a hoarder than myself.
PS: You would not be able to do this for the one-use artifacts (lips, dagger, bubbles, etc)
I would like to see if people are more willing to fight if the loss were just double (example- normal Prime: 250k, double: 500k), instead. It doesn't better the game to force people to bash several hours regularly if they want to fight an org, and enemy territory functions well enough as a free-PK zone. People can still grief their favorite organizations, it just means that they run away from fights or stick to harassing the god realms that no one cares about.
And I still think it would help if Avechna was loosened up a little. It's crazy that two people can manipulate you into Vengeance status with careful strategy. Just make Vengeance status kick in upon three deaths in the same RL day, if people really need it. If someone dies in Imperian or Aetolia and use the vitae-like defence to be resurrected, then it is almost certain that they are going to die once more. If you fear double vitae deaths, then just don't use vitae. Alternatively, you could do that, but also make a sort of timer and have it tick down "deaths" slowly.
Regarding Domoths, I'm really not sure that's where the focus should be on conflict. That said, we could make it more difficult to upgrade Domoths by having them go into play 1-6 hours (or 1-3 hours or whatever) after it is initiated, though it would make upgrading Domoths more difficult for casual players.
Regarding village revolts, maybe someone could start a thread with specific suggestions on how to tweak it to make it more fun/fair.
The effects were never devastating. Serenwilde's self destruction was devasating, and 90% about their attitude. Orgs before them had to much worse, and they managed. The cost raiding had was always overblown by the "loser." That being said, I don't really care if the cost of death is lowered, I won't change anything.
I also feel domoths are fine, and don't see any reason to keep changing them. They are already extremely monotonous as is.
I believe the real reason raiding died is because there is no point anymore. Defenders rarely defend anymore because they've OOCly decided that it serves no point so scew it. That and super mobs are freaking brutal and 6 million essence to take them down for minimal cost to the "loser" is just not worth it.
I think the best conflict mechanics give boons to the winner without overtly punishing the loser. That being said, as long as people have stank attitudes about losing, there will always be folks trying to nerf combat into nonexistance.
I have to agree with Rivius. I know plenty of people who not only stopped defending, but have stopped logging in entirely. Why? No one likes losing all the time. And not just losing, but being embarassingly crushed day after day. It's supposed to be a fun game, not a chore. Roleplay should be fun! But only the most masochistic would willingly keep playing a game where their roleplay almost entirely consists of "We're being raided again, damn we don't have the numbers to stop them, damn, must defend our loyals anyway! (even though it's pointless and we will all die trying. Again.)
I don't think there is a coded solution to the problem (though maybe some tweaks with things like village feelings as per the other threads), but perhaps for the health of the game as a whole, various admin could use their awesome roleplayedness and see if they can't help provoke a change. Not force it, or people will cry, but if there is incentive and encouragement in an RP manner to shake things up and ultimately bring some equality back across the board, it may just happen. (And who doesn't love divine RP?)
I'm fairly sure the many statements regarding how Celest or Glomdoring will not break up equinox are all still there on facebook. I believe there are things like "They did something rl years ago so we're never going to ally with them" leading to the only possible configuration being the current one.
But the ones that are always going to be awkward are the ones revolving around "There's no benefit and possible detriments".
If the strong orgs start to fight each other, they might *gasp* loose some of their mechanical benefits. Why would you do that when working together provides the greatest benefit to your org?
Celina as Glom Ambassador sent us letter saying 'nope, not happening, rawr rawr, Morbo is the devil, you should depose him, rawr!' so on receipt of that, we figured trying to negotiate with Glom would be pointless and we'll just stick to Celest. Again as far as I think the Hallifaxian Board should be concerned, that's still Glom's stance and again, the ball is in their court if they decide they want to correct the only official word sent to Hallifax from Glom.
Lasting non-aggression with Gaudi was never going to be realistic, so that wasn't pursued.
So with Celest rejecting our offer of non-aggression, Glom saying 'not on the table,' and neither Hallifax or Gaudi really wanting a non-aggression, why would Hallifax restrict its members from fighting against orgs who chose to continue to see us as an 'enemy.' Stance since negotiations ended has been 'we're not taking an official stance or declaration until things change, you can help who you like, just don't bring a shitstorm back on us.'
I've said this before and I'll say this again: Please change books so they are in descending order (newest books first) when browsed. No library or book store has all their old stuff up front. Other than used book stores... if I go into a book store or library I do not want to go through all the old stuff first to get to the new books. If I have to do this I'm going to a new library/book store.