ANNOUNCE NEWS #2253 (Group combat and XP)

Toz

Dude that lesser this morning got straight-up exploded. It felt like calling in bombing strikes, almost. @Mazzion, @Ilyon, @Ishin flying around like my own personal A-10 squadron.

Haven

In addition to these changes, while under aura and in unstable zones, all second life skills should be disabled.(e.g. Soul substitute, Rebirth, Soulcage, starburst, etc.)

...also. You shouldn't get XP for killing yourself in these zones (masochism proc, singularities, etc)! xD

Rou

Haven said:

In addition to these changes, while under aura and in unstable zones, all second life skills should be disabled.(e.g. Soul substitute, Rebirth, Soulcage, starburst, etc.)

Toz

Second life skills are a tactical edge. You can take a risk with it, it gives you some freedom to stay in a fight longer than you 'should'. Personally? I dislike the no xp loss because it takes away the only possible downside for losing pk, and frustrating as it might be, winning is sweeter if you have a risk of getting hurt.

Haven

Second life skills are a tactical edge. You can take a risk with it, it gives you some freedom to stay in a fight longer than you 'should'. Personally? I dislike the no xp loss because it takes away the only possible downside for losing pk, and frustrating as it might be, winning is sweeter if you have a risk of getting hurt.

o.o What risk is there in second life skills?

In any case, I'd just rather the zones become more challenging and "punishing" to offset the huge buff the playerbase just got with these XP changes. If they disabled second life skills while in these zones and affected by aura, it'd make the fight and the time constraint to complete the objectives all the more important.

As far as the underlined part is concerned, I disagree. I don't believe much has really changed except on a psychological level where experience was important to some people despite the fact that the loss is damn near negligible. It'd be completely different if the loss was anything near how it used to be some 6+ years ago. However, it's not and since they have significantly reduced the XP loss in death over the years, the true downside to losing PK has become the loss of resources and (actually loss of resources can be dismissed since replacing most of them is super easy) only time.

Jensen

Prior to zero xp loss, you're being revived in a room where you're still a target but now with no defs risking losing extra xp and giving your killers more xp.

Haven

Jensen said:

Prior to zero xp loss, you're being revived in a room where you're still a target but now with no defs risking losing extra xp and giving your killers more xp.

Is the XP loss not the same? The way I understood things was this:

Normal death with no 2nd life: 100xp loss.

Death with 2nd life: 50xp loss

Death after 2nd life used: 50xp loss

Then plus whatever you lost in the Halls. Have I misunderstood?

Jensen

could be, I'm pretty nub

Toz

Pretty positive true death gives the same reward regardless of if you had a starburst/whatever up beforehand - that'd be pretty wonky to track. Die with burst and you give a % of the normal xp, then you truedie and they get 100% xp for the kill. Because...they killed you.

The thoughts of 'I think second life skills should stay' and 'I don't like the lack of xp loss in aura' were two separate ones, as well. Death isn't as bad as it was six years ago, sure - but it's still a loss of SOMETHING. This game suffers horrifically from a lack of immediate punishments for messing up/stupid actions/what have you. Want to shout an insult at a god? Lolk, what are they gonna do? Zap you? Trollolloll. Want to grief an org repeatedly? That's cool, they can't do much except pk you, no big deal. It's no secret that I feel like the game doesn't allow for enough punishment, even if I don't have a solution that would fix that - you can talk all you want about 'rp losses' but until I find someone who both falls into the first category (trollsy/griefer) and also will let you get a RP win over them, consider me unconvinced. While it's maybe slightly off-topic (as this change only applies to leyline areas), if it's going to stay this way I hope it remains only in effect in lesser areas for the future.

Teani

I agree with @Toz. I have a feeling this will make even more people adopt a "death means nothing"-attitude. Yeah, sure, we know as players that our characters return every time because it's mechanic. Some characters actually put more into an actual death than a "Shrug. I'll be back" though, as they RP out that any pass through the Halls might be their last, because lore dictates that Varian might decide to stop you from going back at any time.

Aelysia

I'm not really sure what sort of alternatives you want to have in place. There's still muds where a death means 2-3 hours of bashing to regain lost experience, or that your enemies can loot your corpse of all your items, or that you have to wait for 15 minutes to return to life. People do care a lot more about death, but I personally do not think this is a good direction to head towards at all.

If player deaths give a small enough loss for it to be noticed by endgamers, maybe it won't matter super much if it's changed so lower level characters don't feel it as harshly either.

Toz

Yeah, that's why I said I don't really have an answer/solution, just a vague, uncertain sort of dislike. I have a permadeath MUD that I play on and off to get my fix of risk, I suppose.

Amberlea

@Teani Death really does mean nothing, though. Like less than a percent for 100+ people. It only results in substantial, tangible loss to lowbies and midbies, and was thus a barrier to entry to become involved. Now they can get started earlier, feel like they are contributing, and maybe be more inspired to push to 100 anyways. People can RP death being meaningful at their discretion, but considering the number of deaths any character has probably accrued and the 100% accuracy of Varian giving them the thumbs up, I'd say it is an entirely legitimate RP path to shrug and say "See you in a couple of minutes," because it makes total sense to be jaded and take it for granted at this point.

@Toz XP was never the real loss from losing lesser battles. The real risk at lesser battles is resource acquisition/denial. If you lose you are denied resources/allowed your opponents to gain resources. Also morale, but that's not exactly quantifiable and we've def walked away from some losses with big smiles on our faces on a few occasions.

Ashmer

Man that would be a wicked RP arc, to have someone just become jaded about death - groundhog's day style. Existential crisis called WHAT IS THE POINT OF LIFE IF I CAN'T DIE

Or, conversely, go hog wild and do really dangerous shit like cliff-diving, drinking heavily and having sex with strangers, and partaking of the time-honored tradition of Yudhisthira-baiting, because hell. Can't die. Like @Ingram.

Aishia

Alright! Let me VIOLENTLY EXPUNGE my opinion. Incentivizing PK is a wonderful thing. There are already somewhat limited windows of exploitation(No NONSTOP exp free deaths, lessers every few hours). The verrrry tangible gains create a great impetus for involvement! The fact that even getting one kill means a decent exp chunk for your group, and that dying repeatedly at lessers doesn't make you Haven down a few levels, means any damn person can see a clear personal advantage to getting involved.It's something that hasn't really existed in PK recently. It's great. We're in the process of reversing a long and TURRLBE mentality where you had to "bash to endgame to get involved in pk" Now participating in pk can be a great way to advance.

OK ALRIGHT. I've been both ways on this opinions. I'm bi-opinional. But I think what I've come to believe is people have more fun when they're not scared of dying and losing exp. I think that consequences and reputation as being the very best like no one ever was are perhaps more weighty things than having to bash for a while to recover from getting ganked. I think EVERYONE, has more fun when the other team has that extra impetus to take another run at you instead of folding so as not to die again.

LISTEN I'll make points all over the place, and it's all words I love to use. DELICIOUS WORDS. I looked at Ashmer yesterday and it really freaked me out. SO I THINK HE PROBABLY HAS OPINIONS THAT WE SHOULD BE TERRIFIED OF.

In closing, lets all enjoy the sweet taste of fighting times with much enjoyment of perfect deathings.

Lin

Ashmer said:

Man that would be a wicked RP arc, to have someone just become jaded about death - groundhog's day style. Existential crisis called WHAT IS THE POINT OF LIFE IF I CAN'T DIE

Or, conversely, go hog wild and do really dangerous shit like cliff-diving, drinking heavily and having sex with strangers, and partaking of the time-honored tradition of Yudhisthira-baiting, because hell. Can't die. Like @Ingram.

Wow you suddenly justified years of my RP.

Ishin

Just died to eld in fracture. Zero xp loss.

Irruel

Remember, it is only with aura, which is just an excuse for a few daily team fights. None of it is actual meaningful combat.
Normal pvp, the kind with rp behind it, still involves xp loss.

Ishin

Actually, with a chalice I'm getting around 1k xp per eld, so...it's essentially free bashing, and all I ever have to worry about is getting lolganked while bashing or getting swarmed by a big-ass group of eld if I'm not paying attention. Either way, I still lose NO xp, and still gain pretty good xp. Essentially free bashing.

Ingram

Ashmer said:

Man that would be a wicked RP arc, to have someone just become jaded about death - groundhog's day style. Existential crisis called WHAT IS THE POINT OF LIFE IF I CAN'T DIE

Or, conversely, go hog wild and do really dangerous shit like cliff-diving, drinking heavily and having sex with strangers, and partaking of the time-honored tradition of Yudhisthira-baiting, because hell. Can't die. Like @Ingram.

Don't tempt me.

Amberlea

@Ishin Eld bashing the fracture isn't terribly great xp, honestly. It's not as good as Tiyen or Xaanhal. The only real plus of it might be that the eld respawn pretty quickly.

There is much more usefulness in the ylem which you gather. You are in a conflict area; Your complaint shouldn't be that you are losing nothing from dieing, it should be that, despite there being zero xp consequences for the fights which take place there, nobody has bothered to come contest you for such a valuable resource.

Ishin

idk I also have the eld glyph, so like uh....mist farming ftw?

Xavin

Ishin said:

idk I also have the eld glyph, so like uh....mist farming ftw?

Might have to get me one of them glyph things.

Zsadist

Ok. After finally having been in a lesser battle with this new implementation in place, I have to say it makes lesser battles alot more fun and alot more interesting. I agree with @Aishia that I have alot more fun coming at groups multiple times just for the sake of a leyline. Granted, at my lvl, pk loss didn't really mean much for me (30k xp at truedeath and about 10k xp at starburst = 15 Xorani kills). However, when I was being killed 4/5/6 times at a lesser battle, it does add up, which ultimately made me not want to do them. So while some may dislike the idea of no xp loss at a lesser battle, I think it adds more fun to it, cause I can just keep running at you and maybe get a lucky potshot kill.

Moirean

This change would be nicer if you also didn't lose buffs when you die. It's easy for newbs to dogpile in now, but for us endgamers, the xp loss has always been minimal. Going to lessers is an investment of time and energy (and patience, if it's a big group of new/littles you are leading) and a potential sacrifice of buffs. Given that buffs can cost quite a bit of money and resources, you're basically facing a losing situation - newbs can get a few levels off you, and you lose your buffs, whereas if you kill a few newbs, you get pretty much nothing. You'd get more xp bashing for 15 mins. I find myself a bit less interested in going, now that I have to face 8-10 people with really nothing to gain.

Daskalos

Eh, combat shouldn't be -completely- free.

Zsadist

@Moirean: What buffs are you so afraid of losing that costs money and resources? As far as I'm aware, the only buffs that aren't skills are the ones given from the mist orbs.

Also, I don't mind losing buffs as its seriously simple to get them all back. I agree with @Daskalos though, pk should not be completely free. You die, you lose your defenses.

Moirean

But that's what it's being made for the newbies. Somedays, being altruistic is tiring, and I feel like how I posted above. IRE in general kinda runs off established players helping out new players and doing things for the good of the game and all that, but sometimes it gets tiring. If I'm going to go be xp fodder for newbies, don't make me pay for the privilege of it.

Daskalos

So don't come. Combat supplies are relatively cheap, and you run a ton of shops, so I'm sure money isn't an issue. If you're complaining about my so-called newbie army, you're not cannon fodder. These are kids who showed up and said 'we want to PK'. It's no different than how you hooked @Xenia years ago using lesser and such. IRE does things for the good of the game, which is what this is. It's brought people back who had given up (@Zsadist), has helped out established players who couldn't stay above 100 (@Haven) and has helped bring newbies into combat (@Nyssa, @Solarian, @Tecume, @Alee). This is a good change. You would of used the supplies either way.

Ashmer

Public service announcement reminder not to make this personal.

Also, @Moirean, I think the really big one is just Book tattoo, which is getting addressed in liaisons, as far as buffs are concerned. You could also be talking about Carnifex defenses' relationship with Souls, which seems pretty silly when I hear about it sometimes, but that's getting address in the Carnifex revamp. Are there other defenses and buffs you're talking about that present a significant cost?

Edited to add: Above comment is as a peer, not trying to sound like admin. I'd just like not to see the thread closed. <.<