Lycan Packs

Amberlea

Greetings, fellow Midnight Agers!

So I am super excited about the lycan changes happening 'soon' and was talking to some of my friends in a clan. We talked briefly about things that could make the pack system a little better. I really love lycan, I love the idea of packs, and I think that most of the lycan community can agree that the current iteration leaves something to be desired. I'm sure the admin already have a plan, and this isn't really meant to try to sway whatever that is, just a fun discussion about what people think would make packs a more interesting mechanic.

I'm super interested to hear what ideas other people think would be cool/interesting, and what would make packs a more interesting prospect, beyond RP, though those delicious arpeez are pretty cool

Here are the changes that I think would be cool:

Some sort of buff for being one of the top 3 (or x) ranked packs. Whatever the buff is, have it only affect pack members while they are in their mutated form. Nothing game breaking, but a nice little incentive to actually get up there in the rankings. Maybe have a choice of different ones that the Alpha picks from for the pack. I think it'd be best to give it to more than just the top pack, to alleviate the feeling that everyone should pile into one pack to increase the odds of winning the buff. Perhaps have the strength of the buff scale depending on whether you are in first or third etc. so there is still incentive to keep going, even if your pack is in one of the top spots.

Some sort of buff for being currently involved in a challenge. Maybe change the buff depending on the type of challenge, hunting boon for quarry challenge, something else for dominance. Once again, only have the buff active while people are actively mutated. This gives people an incentive to participate, maybe even accept challenges from packs that are larger/stronger than them. Maybe extend the buff for a time for the pack that wins the challenge. I know that having buffs for being in the top packs would generally be incentive enough, but I think this would be nice for the lower and mid tier packs, which will certainly be around, so they don't feel like they have no reason to participate, not being one of the largest or strongest groups.

To prevent, or at least limit, people trying to game the system, don't give the challenge/winning buff if the challenge isn't accepted and perhaps a limit on what packs you can challenge based on their comparative rankings. I know it doesn't sound super thrilling to be limited on who you can challenge, but this would help prevent packs from perma-challenging weaker packs that they know they can beat to get a permanent bonus.

Anyways, of course, all comments welcome, and I'd be especially glad to hear about other people's hopes, ideas, or thoughts about what would be neat for packs

Arbre

Put a solid limit on the number of members a pack can have, to keep from having super-packs.

Amberlea

I'm not sure I really like the idea of a hard limit on the number of people that can be in a pack. While 'super-packs' (lol this made me laugh so hard) can be unbalancing, I'd hate to be in a position where I'm kicking people from my pack because a more talented fighter/hunter asked to join. Lots of room for hurt feelings there.

Is there something else that could be done as a disincentive to super-packing? Maybe having pack size as a factor for how much points you gain/lose from winning/losing challenges? As an example, a pack wins but is twice as large, so they get half the points they would have, or if the much smaller pack wins they get a huge bonus? Maybe have it only go off of active characters so I don't have to kick my good rp wolf friend because they have to be gone for a few months.

Ferrik

Just because I've had no other place to put this either - I am VERY excited for the (at some point) impending lycanthrope changes. I had quite some ideas about it too, although -most- of my ideas are for the crocodile class (squee). Speaking of which I would just like to put the word out there, in case my crocodile fascination has escaped anyone (Really?) - I am quite knowledgeable on crocodiles and might have some ideas for flavouring or could serve as a sounding board for bouncing ideas off of.

For pack stuff I actually had a thought; what if pack members could create a bigger den or burrow together. Nothing too big, size would be dependent on pack size. It'd give them a sort of 'strategic regrouping centre' as well as RP potential. With the caveat that it could totally be camped out too by the enemy.

To combat 'leet/popular kids' packs, why not incur some kind of activity points system. Guilds and houses have it too, though it only ever affected houses apparently. What if such a thing would affect packs too, but would include actual interaction between pack members and or fighting. - I'm not sure how good an idea that would be and how feasible however, some people would not be as interested in combat and others would be all 'how do I shot RP?'

Packs need a 'vendetta' capability. Like a holywar, but between packs instead. They can destroy members' dens (or above mentioned 'pack den') as well as try to kill members. However they would gain bonus points for fighting in equal numbers, 1v1 or 2v2 etc. To create more dynamic, fun and equality (hopefully).

Since people are all into the idea of uniqueness, how about the top packs having some kind of special item, or effect on them. Like how there is that 'draped in twinkling starlight' goop, something else for top 3 packs. An identifying mark that they decide on or just some flavouring fluff. Pkers get to feel all speshul leet and RPers get to be all 'I'm a snowflake!' everybody wins.

That's it for now, but when poked I vomit ideas sometimes (rainbows too, on command). Trust me.

Areka

I was thinking it would be cool if Packs could claim 'territory', and dens would be built in that territory ('areas, IE, Arbre's pack claims the eastern Ithmia, Areka's pack claims Pash Valley, Ferrik's pack claims the Festering Wastes), and challenge each other over other territory. Get some sort of bonus depending on the area type/proximity to the claimed territory (similar to how certain area types provide diff comms), which would put some strategy into what areas you're trying to vie for. 

Amberlea

@Ferrik the larger den idea is a cool one. I had thought about making a house in the wilderness if I ended up ever actually having a pack to speak of. Enemies could camp it, technically, but there isn't really a reason to do this. It's not like you come up there when you come back to life, and there's no asset in the location that they can deny you, other than a location to RP at.

I'm all about accessibility and inclusion, but there are going to be packs of strong combatants and/or hunters that are going to form because they want to win. I don't think that should be discouraged. Now, I can see the downside of "My friend X doesn't want to join my pack because they want to compete and we are in it for the arpeez", but I feel like the only way to effectively remove that is to make pack competition not matter, which is sort of where we're at now.

@Areka I think the territory thing is super cool. I'm wondering, though, if there'd just be a handful of areas that were worth claiming. That is to say the good hunting areas would be worth fighting over for this, but who is going to battle over a health/mana, hunting, crit, regen, or whatever, bonus in Pash Valley? Maybe packs could gain passive points for holding territories to gain rank?

Angwe

Are having strong packs such a bad thing? It's not like guilds, I mean, you can always just merge into larger packs. And why would that be a bad thing? If having a bunch of packs with 2-5 people really any better than having four packs with 8-10 people?

Arbre

Amberlea said:

I'd hate to be in a position where I'm kicking people from my pack because a more talented fighter/hunter asked to join. Lots of room for hurt feelings there.

Shouldn't, and maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but shouldn't the pack be about an ~RP~ bond so you don't ditch people just to have better PKers etc?

Ferrik said:

Just because I've had no other place to put this either - I am VERY excited for the (at some point) impending lycanthrope changes. I had quite some ideas about it too, although -most- of my ideas are for the crocodile class (squee). Speaking of which I would just like to put the word out there, in case my crocodile fascination has escaped anyone (Really?) - I am quite knowledgeable on crocodiles and might have some ideas for flavouring or could serve as a sounding board for bouncing ideas off of.

I feel like I could pick a fight with you based on the fact that I'm now a Florida Gator.  Bring it on, crocopuny!

Ferrik said:

For pack stuff I actually had a thought; what if pack members could create a bigger den or burrow together.

I've always wished for this, but it does take away from some of the incentive to buy houses.

Areka said:

I was thinking it would be cool if Packs could claim 'territory', and dens would be built in that territory . 

That's a supercool idea, @Areka!

Amberlea

The problem with large packs is that they have competitive advantage against smaller packs. If there is a pack of 15 running around the smaller packs have no choice but to merge in order to compete. What if those packs had (or the players behind them wanted to have) RP differences that would make a merge sour?

Smaller packs means more packs means more RP diversity as you will have rival packs, ally packs, neutral packs, and new packs showing up. The opposite extreme is single light and dark packs that'd basically just be the Atabahi and Bahkatu of old.

I also believe, in general, smaller packs will be more closely knitted, making for deeper character relationships.

Oleis

Lots of ideas here that are already included and a few more that need to be.

Killien

Amberlea said:

The problem with large packs is that they have competitive advantage against smaller packs. If there is a pack of 15 running around the smaller packs have no choice but to merge in order to compete. What if those packs had (or the players behind them wanted to have) RP differences that would make a merge sour?

Smaller packs means more packs means more RP diversity as you will have rival packs, ally packs, neutral packs, and new packs showing up. The opposite extreme is single light and dark packs that'd basically just be the Atabahi and Bahkatu of old.

I also believe, in general, smaller packs will be more closely knitted, making for deeper character relationships.

So, wait, are you agreeing that smaller packs (which, if you want smaller packs, a hard limit would, in theory, need introduced or else people will do as they do and congregate into the "win button" packs), or arguing against them? Little confused on that point.

Amberlea

A neat way to add flavor to packs would be for the leader to give it a name that would show up on the rankings.

Maybe some syntax like PACK SHOW <packname/leadername> so you could see who was the leader, who was in a particular pack, what type of lycans they were etc.

Amberlea

Arbre said:

Amberlea said:

I'd hate to be in a position where I'm kicking people from my pack because a more talented fighter/hunter asked to join. Lots of room for hurt feelings there.

Shouldn't, and maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but shouldn't the pack be about an ~RP~ bond so you don't ditch people just to have better PKers etc?

No, I agree entirely that there should be RP bond, and that's why I don't think we should be put in a position where I have to make a choice between who gets to be in my pack and who doesn't because of some magic number. There is a downside if the points scale down for being larger, but that's something that can be overcome with additional effort.

Amberlea

Killien said:

Amberlea said:

The problem with large packs is that they have competitive advantage against smaller packs. If there is a pack of 15 running around the smaller packs have no choice but to merge in order to compete. What if those packs had (or the players behind them wanted to have) RP differences that would make a merge sour?

Smaller packs means more packs means more RP diversity as you will have rival packs, ally packs, neutral packs, and new packs showing up. The opposite extreme is single light and dark packs that'd basically just be the Atabahi and Bahkatu of old.

I also believe, in general, smaller packs will be more closely knitted, making for deeper character relationships.

So, wait, are you agreeing that smaller packs (which, if you want smaller packs, a hard limit would, in theory, need introduced or else people will do as they do and congregate into the "win button" packs), or arguing against them? Little confused on that point.

I think smaller packs are better for the system for the reason you mention, the "win button" factor. To expand on what I mentioned earlier:

Assume most packs are 5 members, but there is one 15 member pack. The 15 member pack will have a distinct advantage in any competition. However, if they get 1/3rd of the normal victory points for all of their wins, and the other packs are getting the full amount for their wins against each other, the 15 pack will have to work pretty hard to hold onto the top spot, even if they are constantly challenging and winning every time.

That's just a supposed example of the concept, whether the scaling is linear or there is some more complex formula is up to people who have more experience testing and building stuff.

Rashar

Completely agree with @arbre in the RP thing.  In my mind, a pack would be something that would pretty much trump every other tie you have. The main reason why I haven't joined a pack, really. 

Sure, it'd be great to have people who were good at hunting/pking/whatever, but I'd be pretty disappointed if that was the reason behind any choosing.

Toz

How are they going to work with regards to which lycan you choose?

Amberlea

If anything, the hard member limit idea does more to restrict RP than anything. You have lots of lycan children you've raised and made into great hunters. New addition to the family! Ooops, already have 10 kiddos, this one doesn't get to join... or do you kick out one of yours that hasn't logged in a while to make space? What if they come back? A set number of who can be in the pack is what makes you choose, not whether or not you want to RP or if you want to optimize your ability to compete. There's a lot of people who will want to do both. If the system is working the way it should, they shouldn't have to choose which they want to do.

@Toz it is my presumption that the type of lycan you are doesn't matter except that the posts made on the issue so far seem to indicate that, internally, packs will have to be of the same type.

Arbre

The system will -never- be working the way it should.

Toz

That's sort of what I'm getting at. If everyone has to be the same type to join a pack, that'll limit itself pretty handily I think. Not everyone is going to all want to be werebears, for instance. It also sort of seems like an odd limit to make given that you're taking a small portion of the playerbase and dividing it into fourths instead of halves - that'll just fragment packs further and make it harder for group stuff to happen.

Areka

There are still going to be larger clusters - wolves will still be the largest, and there will be more supply with the existing packs. There will hardly be even division of fourths. 

Ferrik

Only other option I can think of then is to make the pack rankings like the combat rankings, insofar as that you can opt in or out of them and that it the point shifts scale perhaps. Although that will create, quite obviously, the same problems for packs as do the current combat rankings.

If only there were a way to both make it fun and rewarding for people who PK and those who RP, though that would be the deus ex machina of Aetolia in general. The only thought I would have is a way to somehow also involve NPCs and some non-PKable way of 'gaining points' for doing something. However that would require a lot of Admin/Divine help and possible coding which is not going to happen due to resources.

Despite that all being said, I anxiously await what lies ahead and applaud all the work done by the admin so far.

Saybre

Ferrik said:

Just because I've had no other place to put this either - I am VERY excited for the (at some point) impending lycanthrope changes. I had quite some ideas about it too, although -most- of my ideas are for the crocodile class (squee). Speaking of which I would just like to put the word out there, in case my crocodile fascination has escaped anyone (Really?) - I am quite knowledgeable on crocodiles and might have some ideas for flavouring or could serve as a sounding board for bouncing ideas off of.

For pack stuff I actually had a thought; what if pack members could create a bigger den or burrow together. Nothing too big, size would be dependent on pack size. It'd give them a sort of 'strategic regrouping centre' as well as RP potential. With the caveat that it could totally be camped out too by the enemy.

To combat 'leet/popular kids' packs, why not incur some kind of activity points system. Guilds and houses have it too, though it only ever affected houses apparently. What if such a thing would affect packs too, but would include actual interaction between pack members and or fighting. - I'm not sure how good an idea that would be and how feasible however, some people would not be as interested in combat and others would be all 'how do I shot RP?'

Packs need a 'vendetta' capability. Like a holywar, but between packs instead. They can destroy members' dens (or above mentioned 'pack den') as well as try to kill members. However they would gain bonus points for fighting in equal numbers, 1v1 or 2v2 etc. To create more dynamic, fun and equality (hopefully).

Since people are all into the idea of uniqueness, how about the top packs having some kind of special item, or effect on them. Like how there is that 'draped in twinkling starlight' goop, something else for top 3 packs. An identifying mark that they decide on or just some flavouring fluff. Pkers get to feel all speshul leet and RPers get to be all 'I'm a snowflake!' everybody wins.

That's it for now, but when poked I vomit ideas sometimes (rainbows too, on command). Trust me.

Ahem..

Report #1451
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Submitted by: Saybre                        Status      : Submitted
Skillset    : Lycanthropy                   Skillname   : Den
Creation Date:  2013/12/08 02:22:20
Submitted Date: 2013/12/18 18:10:25
[ ]Archive
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Problem:
In current incarnation, Dens tend to magically vanish upon changing out of the Lycanthrope class. This seems unnatural, besides persistently annoying. Den's are purely a Quality-of-life roleplay addition, and most if not all who seek the Lycanthrope class for roleplay purposes seek to utilize Dens as part of their personality. Why then should it magically vanish because the person decided to hoist the sword for the day?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Solution #1:
Keep Dens active provided the player has the skill in Lycanthropy, whether actively in the class or not.
Solution #2:
In addition to #1, allow Pack members to link their Dens together, creating effectively a 'pack den'. This could be contingent upon linking off of the Alpha's Den and working outward. BURROW DEN <dir> (allowing only the primary cardinal directions. I.e. no In/out or up/down.).

Edit:

Additionally, having this pack buff thing for wins/etc, would kill the focus of tight-knit group and just create PK groups and such, which would really kill the fun. The top ranked Pack at the moment is certainly not a High PK group (I'm one of two 'PKers' in the pack). But we can take on other packs for Hunting challenges easily enough, if a PK challenge came we could probably do it, but we're not ridiculous. If the super-win pack thing came in it'd be mega-ultra-super-lame imo.

Ferrik

Fantastic! I don't read liaison reports because I have never done that nor believe myself to be one!
Agree button's right below the croc!

I've been blabbing about ideas like that ever since I heard and read about crocodile class coming!

Aarbrok

Yeah I really REALLY REAAAAALLY want to be a Werecroc.

So, I am still waiting.  Anxiously.

Irruel

Toz said:

 Not everyone is going to all want to be werebears, for instance.

Hehe! Thinking back to how disappointed everyone (almost everyone?) was when lycans were introduced and we learned that half of us had to be bears. You made me lol.

I'm sure some people like bears, and I'm sure someone, somewhere, will want to be a pig?

I'm guessing there will be plenty more wolves than the others, though

Amberlea

Saybre said:

...

Additionally, having this pack buff thing for wins/etc, would kill the focus of tight-knit group and just create PK groups and such, which would really kill the fun. The top ranked Pack at the moment is certainly not a High PK group (I'm one of two 'PKers' in the pack)....

I disagree. It might become more competitive overall because people will have incentive to participate beyond bragging rights (something that, anecdotally, I've always found the pk crowd to value more), but since the option still exists to do quarry challenges I fully expect there to be groups that specialize in just that. There will surely be groups that do both types of challenges, those that only want to do the dominance ones. There will be groups that only like packs for RP and don't do challenges at all. All of the diversity for pack use would still exist. The bonuses mentioned included options for quarry challenges, and surely the options available for top ranked packs could include some that would apply to hunting instead of fighting.

I feel like "Look at us, we're number 1!", while novel, is just not a great incentive on its own. It's something that only a small portion of the community will ever experience, or even truly be in the runnings for. There needs to be stuff in there for everybody else to feel like they are doing something other than sitting there; to want to participate even if they know they aren't going to be #1. In the current situation there are a couple of front-runners that are way ahead of everyone else, both in terms of pack-size and overall prowess, and little incentive for anyone else to try to form any new competition. It would take a fairly concentrated effort, in a system which I feel like should be much more organic and reward players for having fun, rather than make it feel like a chore.

@Ferrik An option to opt your pack out of rankings would be really handy, where you could opt back in with your points reset to 0. This way you don't have every new pack spamming challenges to the RP-only groups for a quick initial boost, and those groups then wouldn't have to feel bad about the technical RP implication of having forfeit a challenge to an 18 year old, 0% might, lone wolf pack.

Oleis

Packs are currently clones of webs, mechanically speaking, with a little extra stuff thrown in in the form of challenges. Post-revamp, packs will be more difficult to form, likely through a quest of some sort.

As the Atabahi and Bakhatu will be dissolving, so will the concept that you "have" to be any specific type. Packs will be homogeneous, as someone above me suggested, but existing Lycans will be able to change Shapeshifter types. We'll never get an even distribution by any means, but it's going to much easier to simply play what you enjoy most.

Saybre

Number one thing I'd love to be in place in packs (if it won't already be) is an actual position of Beta. Presently, we utilize the * invite ability to denote the Beta, but it'd be nice if it had an actual place, higher responsibilities, etc as like second Alpha, and that invite ability to be given to trusted Omegas instead.

Of course Pack Names I would love. 'Super claw claw happy fun Pack' will be number one! (That won't be what we go with..Roux won't let me.)

Ezalor

Damn, I totally thought by Beta you meant this one dude who was basically assigned to be the whipping boy.