Duirnorian/Bloodreach combat

Draiman

Motivation? Ez's favorite past time is beating me up, and it's for a reason. It's fun. Errybody should do it.

Xiuhcoatl

I think one of the major problems with the lack of people wanting combat is they don't understand the basics of it. It's pretty much an equation x/a+b. Effects divided by the balance it takes to use it plus your lag. The lag aspect can be negated by incredibly long balance times. IE, lag doesn't affected restoration balance as much as it would affect say mending or by intelligent systems. You know your attacks are going to go through around x seconds after you send them. So you take an estimate of time before you regain balance and fire your attack in bursts to get as close to balance recovery as possible. That would be for non-queue based attacks are people that know how to make an offense. Either or. I think teaching people the core of combat would go a long way to evening out the rift in terms of combatants and regular players. 

Also no matter how much you prepare for it, all combat eventually turns out: Warning extremely mature content, it should prompt you at the video:

Edited: I guess it's not slightly mature for most people. So warning mature content instead of warning slightly mature content.

Edit 2: Hmm, most people don't like phallic objects waving around so I'm going with extremely mature.

Ishin

@Veovis and @Ezalor : I also play Ishin in a similar manner. However, sometimes I really have a hard time distancing myself from what Ishin would do, though I've been trying really hard lately to keep separated. It's just hard, for me, considering how much I've put into Ishin, to not get invested I suppose. If you ever get Ezalor to where he's willing to talk about it, holler at Ish.

As far as Lifer/Undeath conflict...generally, Lifers will always be on the downside. The big hook for the game is Vampires, so that's where the majority of people of any kind will go. I knew a few guys who purposefully went Lifer because they liked being the underdogs, but really...most people don't like to be on the losing side.

One of the things I struggled with really, really hard back when I was CL in Spinesreach, was to pull Spinesreach away from Bloodloch. Unfortunately, a lot of stuff just seemed to crop up and get in the way, and we were constantly tossed back into the pot with them. We couldn't expect Enorian to side with us, and Duiran at the time seemed so like...I don't know. Hoity toity? Too tree-huggerish to allow for the necessities that would allow for a mutually beneficial relationship? I would really like to see that these days, with each city doing their own thing as far as leylines and other stuff goes.

Xavin

I don't think a long-term Duiran-Spinesreach alliance would ever be remotely possible, due to several factors such as several of Duiran's leaders being members of Enorian guilds, the presence of Bloodloch-guilded individuals in Spines' government and the inherent conflict between duiran and necromancy factions.

Would it be healthier for the game if all four city-orgs could stand on their own? It certainly would. But I don't see that happening under the current setup of orgs. I even have my doubts about a move to albedos fixing it, because really, people are going to stick with those they're already close to if/when that move happens.

Setne

You'd have to use a bajillion crowbars to separate me from MoireanSpinesreach.

Ishin

I understand what you mean utterly, @Xavin. I wish I could have been like, 'Okay, everyone part of Bloodloch's guilds go to Bloodloch, everyone in a Spirean guild needs to come on and be a citizen of Spinesreach. If your guildhall is outside of a city, we can talk. And vampires, gtfo and go to Bloodloch where you belong.'

I never understood why a city ravaged by Yrtez would then turn and welcome her children back. Maybe I'm alone in this line of thinking, though. I think that, with the right setup and perspectives for each city, a 4-way split would be very viable. The issue would be breaking everyone out of their current habits and making it some kind of palpable malus for that kind of thing. Maybe in the sake of fairness, having people with legacy classes not be punished for whatever reason. I've always seen Bloodloch/Enorian as the far left and far right, with Duiran and Spinesreach being more mid-line. What I'd honestly like to see is Spines being undead/living, no vamps, but I doubt that'll happen any time soon.

Moirean

One of the first things I did when I got back was to ally Spines and BL more firmly again. Maybe it was lame of me, but winning conflicts is a big part of a city's success, and after a grand total of two fights where we faced BL -and- Duiran -and- Enorian, I was like f that noise. 

If people want the cities to be separated, there needs to be a shift to the balance among them, both at the individual city level and at the organizational ally level. It does no good if Spines and BL split if both orgs still get ganged up on by Duiran/Eno together and it just encourages them to ally again. On the individual level, the cities aren't designed to be balanced at all - Bloodloch has the most native newbies (4 guilds PLUS every vampire) and Duiran is a very niche org, being forestal and all that. That kind of stuff means that every city for themselves is going to be really innately unbalanced.

Draiman

You could just all join Bloodloch and then let us beat the game.

Toz

Silly @Draiman, the Carnifex are firmly funneling everyone away from BL. We're also digging underneath the volcano in an attempt to crush you all, and we also occasionally punch vamp-babies.

Calipso

Something i learned with Muds is that any one event can flip the tables on any alliance. An event which pegs duiran wanting to save some natural area and enorian wanting to expand in the name of he light, could easily sever ties. This is only an example

I personally would love to see conflict moved away from the niche of 'light vs undeath' to other avenues that could encompass spines and duiran. For example i always wanted to develop the conflict of civilization/progress vs nature for spines and duiran, much like the idea of the old tasur'ke totem wars. I find all the elements are already there, just not yet realized. I think giving spines and duiran their own rivalry could produce some interesting elements to the game.

Irruel

@calipso
The RP for it can easily happen - and has happened in the past, more than once in fact - but it wouldn't be fair at the moment, to force that kind of thing. One 'side' would end up crippled.

Anti-civ is dead. There hasn't been a dev in favour of it for many years now. It could make a comeback, if the dev team wanted it to, and it wouldn't be difficult.

But I don't think there is much point in pushing for it without a bit of dev acceptance. It's obviously not part of their vision for the new Aetolia so I haven't tried to make anything of it.


@moirean
I don't blame you for bringing Spines/Bloch together more, anymore than I blame whoever is responsible for Duiran/Eno being together. Any attempt to split the sides without it being a comprehensive thing where all four sides are done simultaneously, is just going to end up with a smaller group being smashed by a bigger group.

Which was the point of my early rage - I just kind of feel that after all these years of playing, we should have reached some level of equality already

Xavin

Yeah, I don't think that we'll ever see the anti-civ role come back unless the undeath conflict completely goes away. I mean, at the moment Enorian makes no attempt to hide the fact that Duiran is an ally of necessity. Most of Enorian is hard-line enough to be against some of what Duiran's citizens get up to, it's just that they're a much lower priority than the Spireans who openly embrace darkness or Bloodlochians who are undead/vampires.

Jensen

Came with the territory of drawing a hard line of light vs dark. Duiran was able to not care so much about non-exterminators in the past. With the rhythm fully defining undeath as being outside the cycle, it makes anti-civ a lesser evil

Moirean

It's not even Undeath. Stuff has turned into shadow vs spirit with the tether system, so even if Spinesreach decided to completely ban the Undead, it would still be counter to Duinorian's views.

Jensen

I wrote undeath so I wouldn't have to type shadow tether

Moirean

Well but that's the thing. They aren't the same. Undeath is a very specific choice, while shadow tether just means every guild in Spines and BL, so there's no way we can make choices as players to avoid those party lines.

Jensen

Duiran leadership, when I was there, used to differentiate the study of earth, death, and elements from destruction of nature. Longer ago before tethering infernals were patroness by Haern and were part of Duiran. It was more fun that way but I guess it doesn't promote group pk balance

Xavin

I feel like the tethers could be glossed over more easily than the undeath conflict, though at its core the tethers are tied in there since the undead are simply individuals with more shadow element in their makeup. Yes, I know I'm dumbing it waaay down for that explanation.

Toz

Tethers make the game 100% 2v2. It's a clear-cut mechanical divide - everything on the left (shadow) is bad and grr and evil and everything on the right (light) is yay and awesome and good. BL/Spines can tangle freely, where you've got vamps in BL and Spinesreach, you've got everyone from all the guilds in two different cities, and it's the same with Duinorian, though perhaps to a lesser degree. If Spinesreach/Duiran teamed up, it'd mean both cities would alienate their members. For instance, if Spinesreach and BL started fighting, everyone in BL who is in the Carnifex is now going to end up fighting half the Carnifex and the leader of the guild. It's just dizzying, and it there's no point to it, and it'll never work out.

Daskalos

@Xavin - Duiran will get theirs, bunch of non-for-the-light punks. We'll get on that crusade as soon as we end Reach\Loch. Get back to you on that.

Xavin

I'm sure Enorian will be leafy and green like a forest by the time that happens.

Haven

Daskalos said:

@Xavin - Duiran will get theirs, bunch of non-for-the-light punks. We'll get on that crusade as soon as we end Reach\Loch. Get back to you on that.

So never? Cause, you know, there isn't a city that's player run that can be truly defeated. :-P

Irruel

Daskalos said:

@Xavin - Duiran will get theirs, bunch of non-for-the-light punks. We'll get on that crusade as soon as we end Reach\Loch. Get back to you on that. SoonTM

Fixed.

Daskalos

Haven said:

Daskalos said:

@Xavin - Duiran will get theirs, bunch of non-for-the-light punks. We'll get on that crusade as soon as we end Reach\Loch. Get back to you on that.

So never? Cause, you know, there isn't a city that's player run that can be truly defeated. :-P

More or less. Enorian's goal is to bring about the Age of Dawn\Enlightenment. Lanu Du and his folks work towards the Age of Ascension. Enorian recognizes that Duiran isn't exactly pro-Light, but they are pro-life, and Enorian wants to take out Loch\Reach and bring about the Age of Dawn. If the elimination of the undead threat doesn't trigger it, then they'll look at pro-life but not pro-light allies and see about that. As long as Loch is the size it is, Moirean has her following in Spinesreach, and both have more activity than Enorian or Duiran alone, keeping that alliance intact is one of the main jobs Dask has. 

Haven

Daskalos said:

Haven said:

Daskalos said:

@Xavin - Duiran will get theirs, bunch of non-for-the-light punks. We'll get on that crusade as soon as we end Reach\Loch. Get back to you on that.

So never? Cause, you know, there isn't a city that's player run that can be truly defeated. :-P

More or less. Enorian's goal is to bring about the Age of Dawn\Enlightenment. Lanu Du and his folks work towards the Age of Ascension. Enorian recognizes that Duiran isn't exactly pro-Light, but they are pro-life, and Enorian wants to take out Loch\Reach and bring about the Age of Dawn. If the elimination of the undead threat doesn't trigger it, then they'll look at pro-life but not pro-light allies and see about that. As long as Loch is the size it is, Moirean has her following in Spinesreach, and both have more activity than Enorian or Duiran alone, keeping that alliance intact is one of the main jobs Dask has. 

You do realize, that if you -really, really- wanted to, you could put the 'Age of Dawn' arc on pause to pursue other arcs, right? The same way Enorian put BL on the back burner to chase Juxa, Kerrithrim, deal with the egg incident, the Ekksten trials, or really any event ever, is the same logic Enorian can use to apply to the BL/Spinesreach arc.

The fact of the matter is, you guys just don't want to. Period. For what reason? I'm not...entirely sure. You claim it is due to Bloodreach but when there was a long period where Bloodloch and Spinesreach fought, Enodui still chose to stay together and say "lol, look at them fight." So I don't buy the Bloodreach excuse.

Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying that you guys shouldn't/can't have the right to team up. But what I am saying is that your excuse to never change the storyline for Eno because Bloodreach exists is just plain BS.

Areka

Only to a point. 

The polarization of orgs and the whole purpose/place of Enorian is so entrenched upon Undeath and Shadow being the biggest threat/problem outside of the imminent threats presented by events that it just isn't reasonable to expect the polar extreme of Light to just say "but today we're going to focus on lesser issues and pick fights with our only concievable allies"  because that makes everything that we've preached/worked for/focused upon for the last centuries doesn't hold water IG let alone the OOC knowing that it's fruitless. 

Haven

Areka said:

Only to a point. 

The polarization of orgs and the whole purpose/place of Enorian is so entrenched upon Undeath and Shadow being the biggest threat/problem outside of the imminent threats presented by events that it just isn't reasonable to expect the polar extreme of Light to just say "but today we're going to focus on lesser issues and pick fights with our only concievable allies"  because that makes everything that we've preached/worked for/focused upon for the last centuries doesn't hold water IG let alone the OOC knowing that it's fruitless. 

You would instead say, "Today, we're going to focus on the issue that's in my face." That is perfectly reasonable and wouldn't undermine any past RP whatsoever. It's one thing if Bloodreach were raiding or readily attacking Enorian assets or something while there was an arc going on with Duiran or preparing to begin but for a long time that hasn't been the case.

Xavin

Thing is, any perceived issues with Duiran, from Enorian's perspective, aren't really all in their face. So they venerate spirits instead of angels. For most people that's not enough to spur on a conflict. Enorian and Duiran follow largely the same group of gods with, perhaps, a little bit of emphasis that differs between groups. The only thing that I could see that most people would object to is the fact that Duiran doesn't really feel it is a needed thing to go out and protect those that Enorian would call "Innocent" because if something happens to them it's part of the rhythm. And even that isn't really something most people would get -that- up in arms about.

Arbre

So Haven burnt the world down and I was the bad guy for making the relationship between Eno and Duiran bad.  Not just ICly, but OOCly.

Haven

Xavin said:

Thing is, any perceived issues with Duiran, from Enorian's perspective, aren't really all in their face. So they venerate spirits instead of angels. For most people that's not enough to spur on a conflict. Enorian and Duiran follow largely the same group of gods with, perhaps, a little bit of emphasis that differs between groups. The only thing that I could see that most people would object to is the fact that Duiran doesn't really feel it is a needed thing to go out and protect those that Enorian would call "Innocent" because if something happens to them it's part of the rhythm. And even that isn't really something most people would get -that- up in arms about.

Inherently? No. You're absolutely right that there aren't many if any issues pressing or otherwise that'd constitute a direct attack or aggressive stance between Enorian and Duiran. The case is the same between Bloodloch and Spinesreach. However, the players can and do roleplay arcs that would cause conflict between the two normally allied forces from time to time.

Again, it's perfectly in your right to want to be buddies all the time and never separate. Do I agree with the stance? No, but if that's what's fun and engaging for you guys then by all means, enjoy yourselves. However, to say that you cannot change because Bloodreach exists or it might undermine your previous RP or whatever is a lie. The option to change does exist. The option to pursue other avenues, no matter how temporary or longstanding, are there. You just don't want to engage in the other avenues, it's been proven by history time and time and again.