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Re: Can we talk about consumable buffs?
If I'm interpreting the artifact cart correctly, each chocolate is valued *by the game* at 3 credits. For 8 hours. @ 5000 gold/credit, that's 1875 gold per hour, which persists through logout. That is a fantastical deal. Compared to chalice, which is 2/3rds as effective, lasts 24 hours without pausing at logout valued at 30 credits, chocolates are already phenominal. Please note, this does not account for the secondary market nor scarcity. Or the 30-40% discount from the artifact cart.
It certainly makes sense I should be able to sip the chalice and not chug the whole damn thing and get an hour or two at a time. Or nibble my chocolate and not pop the whole thing in my mouth like a monster. But buffing things that are already amazing is bad business. Would you pay more for a nibble-able chocolate? Because as is, the proposed changes would probably lose revenue for the game. Increasing the cost would be a way to preserve the anticipated revenue for the game from the consumables and allow for the proposed changes.
Now, before Lin makes a jab about me being a capitalist loving pig scumbag, I would like to empathize with the described plights. I, too, have nommed chocolates and then faced that difficult decision to RP with cool people and waste the buffs, or bash. Would the QoL improvements be awesome? Heck yeah. But the alternative means to preserve revenue via increasing consumption by buffing the buffs seems highly unlikelyin this context as we're not encouraging more chocolates to be eaten. It may be beneficial to remember Ictinus and Co are running a business and decisions can often be better understood by reframing things in that context.
Alright, smash that disagree button into oblivion.
It certainly makes sense I should be able to sip the chalice and not chug the whole damn thing and get an hour or two at a time. Or nibble my chocolate and not pop the whole thing in my mouth like a monster. But buffing things that are already amazing is bad business. Would you pay more for a nibble-able chocolate? Because as is, the proposed changes would probably lose revenue for the game. Increasing the cost would be a way to preserve the anticipated revenue for the game from the consumables and allow for the proposed changes.
Now, before Lin makes a jab about me being a capitalist loving pig scumbag, I would like to empathize with the described plights. I, too, have nommed chocolates and then faced that difficult decision to RP with cool people and waste the buffs, or bash. Would the QoL improvements be awesome? Heck yeah. But the alternative means to preserve revenue via increasing consumption by buffing the buffs seems highly unlikelyin this context as we're not encouraging more chocolates to be eaten. It may be beneficial to remember Ictinus and Co are running a business and decisions can often be better understood by reframing things in that context.
Alright, smash that disagree button into oblivion.
Wjoltyr
0
Re: Can we talk about consumable buffs?
Give trans cooking ability to cut up chocos. Make them bound to you when done.
Trans brewing for chalice.
Trans brewing for chalice.
Re: Mildly Irritating: Aetolia's Pet Peeves
Seeing all the zap-baiting lately is getting a little exhausting and, honestly, immersion-breaking. I don't really know how else to put it. It's tiresome. It very rarely seems to be a case of "I'm standing up for what I believe in, in spite of being in the face of a superior force" and more often seems to be "I don't know how to get positive attention, so negative attention it is."
edit: and I'm pretty sure I've done this in the past, and it was just as tired, unoriginal, and boring then.
edit: and I'm pretty sure I've done this in the past, and it was just as tired, unoriginal, and boring then.
Tetchta
4
The Plague of Time (Solved)
Greetings, fellow fleshbags. Straight from shadow web, I bring you the greatest realization that I have ever had in my entire life. For too long I've been trying to convert time to explain when the meeting in a RL hour is. I've tried 'pictodays', 'nanodays', but then I sound like a nerd. I tried 'microweeks' but that sounded too much like microwave, which made me hungry. I've tried using fractions and it got horrifying fast. I've tried saying 'later' and then sending an OOC tell with the GMT. But I had a revelation, and I will share it with all of you.
Aetolian days are 4 (four) hours long. Not IRL hours. No, Aetolian days are *canonly* 4 (four) Aetolian hours long. This just (blissfully) overlaps precisely with RL hours. How do I know, you might ask? How do I get my hair to do that? Is it difficult being this awesome? I'll tell you, I have no idea, and yes, respectively.
How long does focus take, if you are trans survival? Ask any Aetolian combatant and they'll immediately reply "how did you get into my safehouse/afk spot?" A solid third will shrug and say 'Sunder', which isn't technically a number. And then the rest will tell you (eventually) 5 (five) seconds. Now, for those of you watching at home, try to keep up. It also takes five (5) seconds. *In real life* (IRL).
Pause for effect.
That means that there is a 1:1 ratio between seconds, which means (because minutes are defined as "a period of time equal to sixty seconds or a sixtieth of an hour") - there is a 1:1 ratio between a second and a minute.
PAUSE FOR EFFECT.
That means an Aetolian HOUR is equal to A REAL LIFE HOUR.
Thank you for coming to my TozTalk.
Aetolian days are 4 (four) hours long. Not IRL hours. No, Aetolian days are *canonly* 4 (four) Aetolian hours long. This just (blissfully) overlaps precisely with RL hours. How do I know, you might ask? How do I get my hair to do that? Is it difficult being this awesome? I'll tell you, I have no idea, and yes, respectively.
How long does focus take, if you are trans survival? Ask any Aetolian combatant and they'll immediately reply "how did you get into my safehouse/afk spot?" A solid third will shrug and say 'Sunder', which isn't technically a number. And then the rest will tell you (eventually) 5 (five) seconds. Now, for those of you watching at home, try to keep up. It also takes five (5) seconds. *In real life* (IRL).
Pause for effect.
That means that there is a 1:1 ratio between seconds, which means (because minutes are defined as "a period of time equal to sixty seconds or a sixtieth of an hour") - there is a 1:1 ratio between a second and a minute.
PAUSE FOR EFFECT.
That means an Aetolian HOUR is equal to A REAL LIFE HOUR.
Thank you for coming to my TozTalk.
Toz
10
Re: Talking About Tethers
As a heavy Shadow player, I would abhor the idea of breaking tethers. I like the conflict it inspires, regardless of the numbers game that so often swings back and forth like a pendulum.
Tethers aren't bad, nor is it the tethers that are making things difficult. They are a good thing. They separate the identities of each side and how each side would play. If tethers didn't exist, you'd have players who want to make an actual Shaman, Sentinel, Templar, or Luminary but want to be in Bloodloch. You would have players who want to be an actual vampire, Indorani, or Carnifex join Duiran and Enorian. Excuse me, what? Each of these classes have actual lore tied to them that specifically go against what those cities stand for. If you eliminate the tethers, you eliminate lore. You eliminate lore, you basically have no reason to PK each other because you should all be supporting each other. If you're all supporting each other, then you have successfully created a utopia and we all need to close out of Aetolia and be like "We won!!". If we don't close out of Aetolia, then we would -need- the Albedi Gods to come mess up everything. (Granted, mechanically speaking even the Albedi gods would lose because you can't have them win if you want people to continue to play the game, so even putting minds in that direction the whole thing is moot really. Unless we want Imperian 2.0, Post-God killings....)
I'm seeing a lot of commentary that bounces between tether, PK, and player interactions/mentality. So I'll expand further into that as well.
Tethers aren't the make or break of an outcome in PVP events, the players are. Spirit has a solid foundation that stands upon solidarity, unity, and teamwork which is -why- they are so successful. Sure, they have Sunder that accounts for 99.9% of their ability to form large groups when it comes to PVP (not knocking it, yall are doing awesome and I miss fighting against y'all) but they are also (from the outside looking in) generally more accepting of people who want to just be like "Hey, I have a stick. I 4 can smack people too?"
Shadow has this mentality of putting on assless chaps and being like "Come get some" and then tearing each other down under the guise of "constructive criticism". This is further seen when people decide they want to demoralize and attack people for not participating, because they cant/won't code in some support thing, or because they don't like a specific group of people. This is toxic behavior on an internal level that bleeds to other facets of the game and players wanting to support.
As a former Bloodlochian, their ideals -will never- line up with that of Spinesreach. Spinesreach isn't about subjugation, might before right, destruction of everything around them, prove your strength, or whatever other schtick you want to throw in there. Just like Bloodloch isn't about making things fair or just in their city, focusing on research/education, or just allowing people to portray their opinions without being crumpled under a boot. While I do not know much about Duiran/Enorian, I will not speculate about their general differences but I have seen them at each others throats almost as much as Spinesreach and Bloodloch have been. At the end of the day though, Duiran and Enorian -will always- work together because "Bloodloch is the bad guy! GET THEM!!!" Whereas this call isn't always made against Spinesreach because, for lack of better terms, it is a neutral city that just so happens to support the Shadow tether because of RP reasons.
As an end note. I'd love to see tethers get expanded upon with a true neutral city. A city that doesn't really push any goal other than "We exist" that is NPC ran to avoid every amount of political input that could sway it from one side or the other. If players want to join, then they can be any class they want, support any organization they want, and nobody can tell them not to because "You do you, boo-boo". This would eventually cause a bit of conflict when you see a Shaman giving away Dendara secrets to the Archivists, when you see a vampire openly feeding in Enorian (not that they'd allow it still, but the thought is entertaining), or when you see a Templar fight alongside a Carnifex. The upside of this would be that there is no organizational conflict because there's no organization to war against, putting all the onus on the player(s) that got involved. A literal definition of picking and choosing your battles.
This would no sway on the current build up of the cities either due to an actual city having far more content/RP available to them than a neutral city such as: guilds, clans, credit/gold reward systems, political intrigue, ministry positions, etc. The only thing a neutral city would have access to is a pylon that allows the players to continue to use their ylem powers, of which they'd need to kill ends or run minors. Then again, you could just make the neutral city be Delve and have infinite ylem so they didn't -have- to do that, but could if they wanted to.
Tethers aren't bad, nor is it the tethers that are making things difficult. They are a good thing. They separate the identities of each side and how each side would play. If tethers didn't exist, you'd have players who want to make an actual Shaman, Sentinel, Templar, or Luminary but want to be in Bloodloch. You would have players who want to be an actual vampire, Indorani, or Carnifex join Duiran and Enorian. Excuse me, what? Each of these classes have actual lore tied to them that specifically go against what those cities stand for. If you eliminate the tethers, you eliminate lore. You eliminate lore, you basically have no reason to PK each other because you should all be supporting each other. If you're all supporting each other, then you have successfully created a utopia and we all need to close out of Aetolia and be like "We won!!". If we don't close out of Aetolia, then we would -need- the Albedi Gods to come mess up everything. (Granted, mechanically speaking even the Albedi gods would lose because you can't have them win if you want people to continue to play the game, so even putting minds in that direction the whole thing is moot really. Unless we want Imperian 2.0, Post-God killings....)
I'm seeing a lot of commentary that bounces between tether, PK, and player interactions/mentality. So I'll expand further into that as well.
Tethers aren't the make or break of an outcome in PVP events, the players are. Spirit has a solid foundation that stands upon solidarity, unity, and teamwork which is -why- they are so successful. Sure, they have Sunder that accounts for 99.9% of their ability to form large groups when it comes to PVP (not knocking it, yall are doing awesome and I miss fighting against y'all) but they are also (from the outside looking in) generally more accepting of people who want to just be like "Hey, I have a stick. I 4 can smack people too?"
Shadow has this mentality of putting on assless chaps and being like "Come get some" and then tearing each other down under the guise of "constructive criticism". This is further seen when people decide they want to demoralize and attack people for not participating, because they cant/won't code in some support thing, or because they don't like a specific group of people. This is toxic behavior on an internal level that bleeds to other facets of the game and players wanting to support.
As a former Bloodlochian, their ideals -will never- line up with that of Spinesreach. Spinesreach isn't about subjugation, might before right, destruction of everything around them, prove your strength, or whatever other schtick you want to throw in there. Just like Bloodloch isn't about making things fair or just in their city, focusing on research/education, or just allowing people to portray their opinions without being crumpled under a boot. While I do not know much about Duiran/Enorian, I will not speculate about their general differences but I have seen them at each others throats almost as much as Spinesreach and Bloodloch have been. At the end of the day though, Duiran and Enorian -will always- work together because "Bloodloch is the bad guy! GET THEM!!!" Whereas this call isn't always made against Spinesreach because, for lack of better terms, it is a neutral city that just so happens to support the Shadow tether because of RP reasons.
As an end note. I'd love to see tethers get expanded upon with a true neutral city. A city that doesn't really push any goal other than "We exist" that is NPC ran to avoid every amount of political input that could sway it from one side or the other. If players want to join, then they can be any class they want, support any organization they want, and nobody can tell them not to because "You do you, boo-boo". This would eventually cause a bit of conflict when you see a Shaman giving away Dendara secrets to the Archivists, when you see a vampire openly feeding in Enorian (not that they'd allow it still, but the thought is entertaining), or when you see a Templar fight alongside a Carnifex. The upside of this would be that there is no organizational conflict because there's no organization to war against, putting all the onus on the player(s) that got involved. A literal definition of picking and choosing your battles.
This would no sway on the current build up of the cities either due to an actual city having far more content/RP available to them than a neutral city such as: guilds, clans, credit/gold reward systems, political intrigue, ministry positions, etc. The only thing a neutral city would have access to is a pylon that allows the players to continue to use their ylem powers, of which they'd need to kill ends or run minors. Then again, you could just make the neutral city be Delve and have infinite ylem so they didn't -have- to do that, but could if they wanted to.
Rhyot
3
Re: Talking About Tethers
Yikes what a shitty attitude.There is not really a relationship issue. Unless we are talking about this event specifically, which the whole premise of the thread was to not, but even then Spines, outside a small handful of players, has been a non-presence on the field since I started. They really just only have a handful of people that will PK.
If you care about it, you should help fix it. If you don't, well I guess keep blaming the game instead of yourselves for not taking action, and helping to mend the issues like Enorian and Duiran both took steps to.
I did not mention Spines specifically in my original post and this whole thing is moving into tribalism. We are purposefully taking my words in the most uncharitable way and it is derailing the thread. My point does not change, Tethers artificially tie a city success to another. So I am really missing how the observation is a 'shitty' attitude.
edit for clarification
Kurak
3
Re: Talking About Tethers
I have heard over and over that Shadow tends to not be so good at helping new people learn, focusing on a culture of self reliance. Maybe part of your problem is calling your tether's other city 'dead weight'. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, or so hard, to help that other city move in a more positive direction.
And maybe, just maybe, it would be a better idea to fix the problems in your back yard instead of pointing at people who have -done- that work a long while ago and shouting 'this is what's wrong with Aetolia'.
For reference, not counting newbies/neutrals/people I don't have cataloged in my namedb, there are 10 people from bloodloch, 20 people from spinesreach, 13 from duiran, and 16 from enorian online at the time of this posting. There may be times of the day where Spirit truly does outnumber Shadow. But usually the numbers are close, and there are definitely times where Spirit is outnumbered. If y'all can't work together, that really strikes me as a you problem.
And maybe, just maybe, it would be a better idea to fix the problems in your back yard instead of pointing at people who have -done- that work a long while ago and shouting 'this is what's wrong with Aetolia'.
For reference, not counting newbies/neutrals/people I don't have cataloged in my namedb, there are 10 people from bloodloch, 20 people from spinesreach, 13 from duiran, and 16 from enorian online at the time of this posting. There may be times of the day where Spirit truly does outnumber Shadow. But usually the numbers are close, and there are definitely times where Spirit is outnumbered. If y'all can't work together, that really strikes me as a you problem.
Xavin
1
Re: Talking About Tethers
Yikes what a shitty attitude.
If you care about it, you should help fix it. If you don't, well I guess keep blaming the game instead of yourselves for not taking action, and helping to mend the issues like Enorian and Duiran both took steps to. Fixing the problem isn't down to one city, and nobody said it was.
If you care about it, you should help fix it. If you don't, well I guess keep blaming the game instead of yourselves for not taking action, and helping to mend the issues like Enorian and Duiran both took steps to. Fixing the problem isn't down to one city, and nobody said it was.
Akrios
-5
Re: Talking About Tethers
The cities do have independent RP, though. If you think that everyone in Enorian cares about everything Duiran does and the other way around...well, that's just not the case. But there has been a lot of roleplay and working together that has built up the relationship that Duiran and Enorian have. I understand that that relationship leads to frustration at the moment for people in Spinesreach and Bloodloch, but - at the risk of sounding callous - that's not a -tether- issue. If Bloodloch and Spinesreach have a strained relationship, like Duiran and Enorian have had to some extent in the past, then maybe work needs to go into strengthening that relationship, and it's not something that will just change over night.It is a tether issue. Really think about what you just said, why should another whole city have to 'fix' a city being dead weight? That is absolutely an issue with tethers. A cities success or failure being that intimately tied to the success/failure of another is a tether issue.
Kurak
5