Duirnorian/Bloodreach combat

Arbre

This discussion was created from comments split from: Ankyrean Anguish - Aetolia-based RAGE.

Haven

Noooooooo. Down with Bloodreach!

Toz

Duinorian first.

Irruel

I typed this out, then deleted it for being a derail.
Now I'm typing it out for being a legitimate rage.

Duiranorian and Bloodreach are impossible to get rid of because so long as one exists, the other has to as well.

Alexina

Re: Irruel

Eh, I disagree with that. With the absence of a war system, there is nothing that necessiates alliances with other cities; quite simply, there will be no conflict on a big enough scale, with big enough losses/gains that makes a Bloodloch-Spinesreach or Duiran-Enorian alliance absolutely necessary.

There really is no incentive to create conflict between Bloodloch and Spinesreach or Duiran or Enorian. There are no ideological differences (or at least not any worth taking up arms for) and there is no competition for resources.

Daskalos

Duiran-Enorian exists because even together, we still get 3 to 1 ratios in most combat situations because of the sheer number of people in Bloodloch. I'm almost to the point I wish they'd make Duiran unable to participate in war and go back to the anti-civ roots, blow up Spinesreach, and then we'll have 1 on 1. Unfortunately, that just makes Loch even bigger, and thus, still not a good idea.

Lin

Alexina said:

There really is no incentive to create conflict between Bloodloch and Spinesreach or Duiran or Enorian. There are no ideological differences (or at least not any worth taking up arms for) and there is no competition for resources.

Uhh, there's the fact that two of the cities harbor walking zombies who are blights upon nearly every religious belief the other two cities have.

Daskalos

I think she was referring to the fact that Reach\Loch don't have much conflict, just like Enorian\Duiran.

Seir

The day that vampirism isn't the main hook of the game and we all move to Albedos and get new organizations so the population (and newbie population) isn't mostly squared away in Bloodloch is the day that conflict may actually become interesting. As it stands, I can probably safely assume that most lifers are probably tired of getting zerged down. I know I was. As time goes on, this issue becomes increasingly exacerbated to the point where more lifers quit. It doesn't matter how good the roleplay is in Aetolia when fighters can go to other IRE games for a more level and equal playing field. 

Edit: And realistically, Team Red vs Team Blue seldom ever splits. While I don't always agree with him, Daskalos is correct in that Duiran and Enorian oft have to team up just to be able to field as many as Loch can at times. Core issue being that you took the hook concept of the game and based it mostly out of one organization.

Aishia

I know I get pretty demoralized when I show up to an even fight then 3 more people pile in on the other side.

Haven

To be honest, Duiran and Enorian (hell, even Spinesreach when I was over there still) both could field the numbers to compete against Bloochloch separately. Unfortunately, unlike Bloodloch, the majority of their active citizens aren't interested in combat for one reason or another. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at cwho (or clwho for that matter... The clan for PKs!) and see the numbers but few with the interest in wanting to participate.

Which is well within their right, really. We all play to enjoy ourselves and I'm against forcing peeps into doing stuff. That said, I wonder how we can attract more PKers to the Light side, especially since we have the best combat synergy in the game regardless of the popularity of the class, or even how to interest our current population.

This is not to say Enorian, Duiran, and Spinesreach have the same population as Bloodloch. We don't. Bloodloch is the largest as far as I can tell. However, the interest in combat ratio are vastly different across the board and I'm not entirely sure why but it makes me cringe. For Bloodloch, I'd say the ratio is 2:5, hell I'd dare say 3:5 citizens though 2:5 is more realistic, are interested in combat or at least willing to participate while Enorian or Duiran's ratio floats at around 1:5 or worse (maybe 1:6 or 1:7 would be more accurate).

Ezalor

From time spent on my lifer alt, I've actually found (at least at that time, it's been a while) that both Duiran and Enorian's raw citizenship numbers were larger than Bloodloch's. Bloodloch, however, has a much higher number of active PKers despite those numbers.

There were a couple of days when Enoduiran rallied 7-8 people at every lesser and won them all. Not sure why that stopped abruptly.

I'd guess the different atmospheres and focuses play a part in that. A large part of BL sits in an OOC web and discusses PK strategies and such a lot of the time. There are lots of tips, coding help, and brainstorming being thrown around. I don't think the lifers have this kind of support system going on currently.

Seir

I can safely say that you'd have a lot more lifers interested if they could get a fight where they weren't grossly outnumbered half of the time. People can deal with losing, but it's also a matter of people getting into a fight and then others finding ANY reason or excuse to join in. In regards to lessers, we pretty much found ourselves outnumbered most of the time. 

Like I said, it's annoying and my conclusion (not saying this is or should be anyone elses) was to leave Aetolia and go to games with relatively even population spread. It really has nothing to do with coding, nor is it the presumption that 'we're all bad and clearly need help' (which is somewhat implied by posts in the past). I was pretty much tired of always being the underdog, always being outnumbered, and back then: having less in our kits than shadow in a group scenario. That isn't saying that the kit situation has changed, I just haven't been keeping too informed as to mechanics. 

The reason Bloodloch gets more fighters is largely due to the fact that they'll generally attract more fighters as a "dark" organization. That's true of all IRE games, really. Also, since they house the hook concept of the game, their newbie influx is greater and thus they have a greater chance of attracting more PvP'ers. Not to mention, they're "different" in the IRE sense. I know that when I first tried Aetolia, I played a vampire first because Reanimation was different than the same old herbs you ate everywhere, vampires were a unique class found nowhere else, Bloodloch was a relatively original concept, etc. 

In all honesty, the main hook concepts is that Aetolia is pretty similar to White Wolf's World of Darkness (in terms of how some of the supernaturals are treated conceptually) and most people from the outside looking in will recognize vampires and werewolves before they recognize Sentinels, Shamans, and Luminaries. They'll recognize Templars and the Paladin concept, which I'm pretty sure is why the Templars have had a huge population in the past. However, if one sees: "Hey, I know what a vampire is and hey, vampires and werewolves are on the same side too!" They're more than likely to go with what they know. 

Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make is: The population and class concept thing is something that will likely only be changed by Albedos and a re-imagining of the organizations. Not to mention, it'd be nice if Spirit finally got the hook class that we were promised a long time ago. However, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what it could really be since most of the big WoD archetypes are already in the game and the biggest one is claimed by Shadow.

Aarbrok

@Seir I can attest that you would not have alot more lifers interested.

Because the lifers do not care to participate, they just are not interested in general in that sort of thing.

Or really doing anything for that manner, or so was my experience in Duiran.

So rather than us digging our claws into pages and pages of victimization on how the odds are unfair, perhaps those who can make a difference should come out of dormancy and help contribute to the numbers evening out instead of making assumptions thats how it works. I exhausted my unicorns trying to get people involved when I was in Duiran.  The population in Enorian and Duiran is much larger, it just comes down to one thing.

Can't make others do something in a game they do not want to do.

Seir

@Aarbrok: As someone who tried to motivate folks before I went dormant and asked them as to why they didn't get involved, it's generally due to frustration and apathy. I'm going to cite an instance as an example:

I had one young, but aspiring fighter of a Duiranite get attacked for little reason by a person in Shadow who was known for such acts, but will go unnamed. They wanted to go after the offender for retribution, but when they tried? Three or four completely uninvolved individuals came out of the woodwork, for little reason save "defending a citymate" (the real reason being that they just wanted a fight), and killed him.

I know the population of Duiran and Enorian can get involved and do things because I've been a part of two wars that proved that, even a losing one where Duiran was bleeding Loch's troops pretty hard despite how little we had. I'm fairly sure that people don't get involved now for the same reason as it was then: they're tired of losing all the time. Tired of showing up to a lesser, perhaps even making it an even fight, and then more shadow folks come out of the woodwork. Astoundingly, I do not have this issue anywhere else across IRE. The concepts, classes, and pretty much everything else are pretty equal in terms of hook concept, what they offer, synergy, and more. While the fighter population plays a large part, they're pretty much otherwise equal in every respect. This issue, as far as I've seen, exists only in Aetolia.

Edit: In any event, agree to disagree and all that stuff. I, like others, will generally go to a place where there is an even playing field and I'm going to go do so now. Hopefully, something constructive can ultimately come out of the discussion and I apologize for taking up Rants with it. Probably needs its own thread.

Piper

I'm going to throw an outsider's point of view but lately there have been a lot of new/returned fighters that have been doing great jobs in getting better at combat as well as having good PK etiquette. Well, not entirely outsider's POV but I've heard people saying similarly about each other.

Aishia

I feel a bit guilty being all down on the other side fielding more people. I understand how silly it is to expect people who want to participate to sit it out. Just kind of wears on you to get steamrolled more often than you face even odds.

Idk if people just don't hang out with @Valingar and I enough but we're in web talking about FIGHTING all the time. We even let @Haven in sometimes. Or @Daskalos, or other people who I am being neglectful not mentioning. If you see us hanging out in one of those sparring rooms in Duiran or Enorian we're not going to mind if you wander in and start goofing around testing and practicing with us!

Jensen

I think it's more of an attitude problem. Frontline and dion never really inspired a healthy, friendly, or brotherly attitude toward one another. I left frontline as an active life pker from that and eventually quit duiran partially because of that. Bottom line was it wasn't fun to be one of you

Veovis

Honestly, I'm just not feeling a lot of conflict in Aetolia in general right now. Even though I've only been back a few months, I'm starting to lose interest again. There are a couple of classes I'd like to pick up, one of which won't give the class to undead/vampires (despite being neutrally aligned). The other class requires that anyone who wants it talks to the guildmaster, who's rarely on when I am.

Kind of makes me wish they'd make multiclassing something handled by an NPC. There's no reason to make it this difficult to pick up new skillsets. There's no fun roleplay involved in it, it's just the old Aetolian "let's make it hard for no reason" thing rearing its head again.

Haven

While I agree that a fresh start in Albedos will go a long way into helping out the game in a multitude of ways, I'm not sure that is the practical option. Who really knows when Albedos will be fully up and running? It's not something I'd want to rely/bank on at this point.

In any case, the blame game isn't going to work. Instead, I want to look for ways to attract more PKers to the Light side and or ways to interest the current crowd into participating more (or in some cases at all).

------------

@Jensen: I agree it was a problem in the past. I left frontline for a long, long time (nearly a RL year now, maybe even two) because I just didn't want to deal with the ooc drama. However, since I've been back (as of...last week I think?) Frontline has drastically changed. If anything, it's dead silent except for like trigger notifications for Fracture or lessers being tapped.

Aishia

I feel like the negative people are not around anymore, but I don't play during primetime so maybe I miss drama.

Daskalos

The negative people pretty much aren't in Front Line anymore. I've pushed a lot of them out and don't generally tolerate it.

Jensen

@haven I remember that, I quit frontline right after you did. The point is that while frontline has changed, the consequences are still here. Enorian and Duiran are not the same strength they were after the war system ended. Too many players side hopped or retired and its going to take some work to repair that hole

Alexina

Lin said:

Alexina said:

There really is no incentive to create conflict between Bloodloch and Spinesreach or Duiran or Enorian. There are no ideological differences (or at least not any worth taking up arms for) and there is no competition for resources.

Uhh, there's the fact that two of the cities harbor walking zombies who are blights upon nearly every religious belief the other two cities have.

I meant that there is no incentive for conflict between Bloodloch and Spinesreach and there is no incentive for conflict between Duiran and Enorian, which Irruel's post was referring to. Sorry if my post was unclear.

The game could easily be designed as 1v1v1v1 instead of 2v2, but, as people have pointed out, that would cause all sorts of balancing issues with the main issue being numbers of combatants available in each city. If we get conflict mechanisms that do not rely on PK (such as the new Steelhew bands), this might actually change. I just doubt that either the administration or players are interested in pushing the game towards a free-for-all mode; I know that I personally like a lot of people in Spinesreach and really have no interest in making them my enemies unless there is a fundamental shift in ideologies for a lot of organizations (including Divine, guilds, houses, etc that accept people from both cities).

Ezalor

@Veovis I actually find there can be a lot of conflict, it just depends how you react to it and embrace it. I regret my knee-jerk response to @Ishin about the Syssin treaty, for example, but the insufferably cocky way I had Ezalor react to it pretty much killed the possibility for me to revisit that without seriously back-pedalling, which doesn't really fit with my character's agenda. I have no intention, IC or OOC, to actually back down from my stance but I could've at least had some negotiating or RP come out of it rather than blowing him off immediately.

It's something I've resolved to work on; I play Ezalor as a very in-your-face, cocky, king-of-the-world personality, but I've found that sort of hard-line stance right off the bat really kills interesting conflict because it doesn't give it a chance to develop. And I know it's not just me like this either, I think you really have to draw a clear line of separation IC and OOC when conflict arises (something I have had a lot of trouble with in the past) and make an effort to react in a more reasonable, developing manner rather than going with the first reaction. For myself, I leaned heavily towards nuclear deterrent to nip conflict in the bud (and have had the actual resources to crush it in such a manner) but I want to make a real effort to develop actual story lines before moving to squash conflict. I suppose it's my next step in growing as an RPer!

This is kind of a derail, but just wanted to give my two cents as this is a topic I was actually giving a lot of thought to last night.

Veovis

Ezalor said:

@Veovis I actually find there can be a lot of conflict, it just depends how you react to it and embrace it. I regret my knee-jerk response to @Ishin about the Syssin treaty, for example, but the insufferably cocky way I had Ezalor react to it pretty much killed the possibility for me to revisit that without seriously back-pedalling, which doesn't really fit with my character's agenda. I have no intention, IC or OOC, to actually back down from my stance but I could've at least had some negotiating or RP come out of it rather than blowing him off immediately.

It's something I've resolved to work on; I play Ezalor as a very in-your-face, cocky, king-of-the-world personality, but I've found that sort of hard-line stance right off the bat really kills interesting conflict because it doesn't give it a chance to develop. And I know it's not just me like this either, I think you really have to draw a clear line of separation IC and OOC when conflict arises (something I have had a lot of trouble with in the past) and make an effort to react in a more reasonable, developing manner rather than going with the first reaction. For myself, I leaned heavily towards nuclear deterrent to nip conflict in the bud (and have had the actual resources to crush it in such a manner) but I want to make a real effort to develop actual story lines before moving to squash conflict. I suppose it's my next step in growing as an RPer!

This is kind of a derail, but just wanted to give my two cents as this is a topic I was actually giving a lot of thought to last night.

To be honest, I play Veovis in a similar fashion. It's very much a "my way or the highway" thing with him. It's not easy to back down from that kind of thing and still maintain the essence of the character.

As far as your current conflict goes. You have an ambassador. Spinesreach has an ambassador (maybe). Use them.  

Ezalor

Right. I think I'll reconcile that sort of character by bringing in the idea of playing with your prey before eating it. I'm hoping it makes conflict more fun and less conflict-y, if that makes sense.

Riluo

I had this issue for a long time @Ezalor, I too am trying to change it up. Perhaps, it is time we started an AA group!

Antagonists Anonymous  

In terms of the conflict thing, I play a lifer that I refuse to name as I do not want it associated with Riluo. In all honesty the "lifer" side is not small it is very big, but it is hostile a lot of the time. In fact if it was not this way they could crush everyone with their skills as they just mesh perfectly. I seen this twice in 48 hours where three people could crush four of us without breaking a sweat. Did we win in the end. Yes. Because we practice in our web, exchanging ideas, assisting each other and in general are just more incline to help one another. In frontline if I said how do I do this with my lumi I would get shoot down and ignored. Perhaps by starting there first some people might get more involved.

Jensen

You could always start an ooc clan that accepts fighters from all sides and use it to set up ranked and balanced ciem events. IE enorians top 5 vs bloodlochs, or do entry level vs entry level. Only use it to set up battles and agree on terms, from then on out its ic. You would be able to keep up some level of fair conflict this way without discouraging a side from giving up. I know some people will disagree to this idea, but we're already playing in a realm with bad odds fighting so why not try it out in smaller context

Valingar

I don't think it's particularly productive (or true!) to claim lifer combatants practice pk any less than anyone else, or to attribute losses to some inherent hostility. Unless all this drama on the Frontline happens when I'm not around, heh, it's really not there at the moment. Practice is done pretty consistently, a lot of us actually enjoy it. When I'm not RPing, or being idle, I'm usually bashing someone or myself in the Lumi training room. Have to stress that people are welcome to join in. But, most of it is kept to webs. Frontline is left pretty much to leyline announcements these days, because people started tuning it out, when there were lenghty combat discussions there.

At the end of it, though, there are a lot more pkers on the 'darkside' of things right now! I don't think there is any way to call the lightside 'big' at the moment. CLWHO for Frontline doesn't often show more than 6-8 people and half of these will have the channel off. These things tend to even up with time, and have in the past when class balances change, but at the moment, numbers tend to be a little skewed.

Things aren't all bad, though, I like to think we get plenty great pk still. One thing I remember when Lightside was dominant was that it got boring as hell. Lessers became a chore where you sat on your thumb for 10 minutes. Being the underdog gives you a lot more chances for fights.

Haven

We need to figure out how to get more people interested in participating for the Light side. I was going to suggest offering credits but after crunching some numbers.... Currently, while Enorian's reward system is waaaaayyyy better than Bloodloch's reward system, Enorian is super duper poor.

Bloodloch almost has triple the amount of city credits available than Enorian does and -one- of Bloodloch's ministries has more gold than the entirety of the city of Enorian. Let me repeat that. A single branch of Bloodloch's government is richer than Enorian as a whole.  I... There's just no words. So, offering large rewards isn't really an option right now for Enorian. Unless their playerbase is feeling really, really generous which I'd rather not force upon them. So what are some ideas to get people motivated to fight in Enorian?