A perfectly civilized topic about Holywars

Rashar

Completely down with that, @toz. Like I said, I wouldn't even mind uneven odds for 3 days over just the monotony of dealing with shrines and everything that surrounds them.

@furtum I don't really know how to reply to that. I don't think that's what anybody's complaining about at all, so kind of irrelevant.

As an aside, someone who wishes to remain anonymous even though they're a well-respected member of the community (looking at you, you!) threw an idea at me that I think has merit as well. I told her we could think about it, streamline a bit, and present it on the off chance that the administration is interested in potentially changing. Not sure their thoughts on this at all, really. @oleis? @razmael? @whoever makes these decisions?

Setne

Severn makes all the decisions.

Amberlea

While I agree with the sentiment that conflict is best when player-driven, I have RP concerns with the way orderwars are declared right now.

One group can say 'Our RP is that we love war!' and thus justify declaring war on anyone, at any point, without any lead up to that event. Did Moi and Rash have words? Sure. A discussion, between two people. While they are both OH's, it doesn't make sense to me that a disagreement between two people that happened over the course of probably a day, turns into a jihad.

One person can say 'I have personal beef with this god!' and justify declaring a war. This could maybe make sense, in certain RP scenarios, I suppose. But after you use this excuse several times to declare, and win all those times, does it really make sense to declare because of that? How many times do you have to win a holy war before you feel vindicated, or is this a free ticket to declare from now until the end of time, as many times as you want, just whenever you are feeling like you want a fight?

I'm concerned that some parties have the power to interfere with the conflict RPs of two other groups. What if the whole point of the graffiti was to stir up a holy war between chak and sly? (A war that would be justified with all kinds of event build up that has occurred.) Iosyne's order gets ants in their pants when they smell a conflict might happen and jumps the gun, to steal the war from the parties that were actually building something up, because they just wanted a fight so damn bad.

Now, I'm not mad, I wasn't here for it at all. I don't participate in shrine rebuilds (mostly because I don't think I can at my rank, or whatever, just never been called on to do it). The war has had basically zero impact on how I play or what I've done, this are just concerns I have.

I don't mean to pick on Moi, or Iosyne's order, though I can certainly see how my statements may seem that way. This is just an instance where looking at the discussion and the events that occurred has caused me to have these concerns, and it's easier to explain with examples directly from the event itself rather than try to make up some other allegory and try to convey the same message through that.

Ezalor

Conflict is good. Slyphians were -excited- about the war before it happened and Slyphe was even shouting goading things about it and how His Order had overwhelming numbers, which indicates that both sides felt positively about it before it happened. Complaining about the war didn't happen until after one side began losing.

ICly yes, Iosyne's Order is rah rah war. OOCly generating conflict like this between two huge Orders is great and a lot of fun (within reason). If Iosyne were declaring on Omei or someone similar with a tiny Order that wouldn't stand a chance, that's not fun, that's just bullying. But Slyphians were a legit threat to win this war and I know for a fact they felt that way too before it started, so I don't really see the problem with this particular instance.

Amberlea

Before the war started, or before it was declared?

Either way, I think my points still stand with regards to concerns about when war is declared. Even if everyone thinks this one was totally legit the possibility for these types of abuses absolutely still exist.

Also, whether the two sides are supposedly a good match up feels like a completely ooc reason to justify a fight in a game centered around RP. For a boxing match, sure, because that will generate a lot of revenue. If Haern vs Dhar looked like it'd be a good fight would we expect them to do it?

Trager

There is a definite difference in having a character RP'ing utmost confidence, and knowing OOC'ly you're about to get roflstomped.

Valingar

I have no idea about why the Holy War started, but hey, I had fun with it. Thanks for level 115, holy war. That said, going to admit I was a little surprised it wasn't with Chak's order. There was long buildup towards something with Her order. This one versus Iosyne came pretty much out of the blue for me. The shrine raising following a Holy War isn't as fun as the fighting, though. It'd be interesting if there was some smaller scale mechanic that allowed for a day or two of open PK or something between cities, guilds or orders. /randomthoughts.

Rashar

To be fair, @ezalor, we did pretty good about not complaining about the roflstompage. All of my posts were comical, I've been up way too long on a work night posts. If you recall, the real arguments didn't start until after, when certain individuals tried to justify it with something silly, and give another silly reason why you put it on pause. But really, that's done and argued out at this point. @trager is right. IC confidence does not mean we weren't like, this is going to be rough but I think we can maybe make a good show of it, at least. @valingar is right about the smaller scale conflict. It's better with less tedium. @amberlea is right. I -did- put the graffiti there for chak's order, looking for a bit of that small scale stuff. Bottom line, it was great fun. Then it wasn't. Such are Holy Wars. Apparently my phone doesn't like spaces.

Ezalor

On our side we thought -we- would most likely lose, so I can say we weren't expecting a roflstomp at all. Although I did end up staying up almost the entire night for it rather than going to sleep when I had planned to.

As far as IC, that is Iosyne's whole RP. Look at us wrong we'll punch you in the face. Drown the world in blood, etc etc. If we're going purely by IC the war was completely justified, hell it'd be justified if Moirean woke up one day and thought "I wanna war EVERYONE." OOCly sure maybe the reason was a bit shaky but it promised to be a fun fight so I didn't think it was that out of line.

This is not me just blindly side defending either, if you recall I was (OOCly) probably the person most vehemently against the last war Iosyne declared on Slyphe because at that time it -was- just going to be a full roflstomp.

All said and done though I fully agree with @Rashar that shrines should be easier to raise after a Holy War as that is truly the tedium of it. Shrine energy is pretty much unlimited so I don't think there's really a hugely lasting impact beyond the drag of raising 75 shrines.

Jensen

Trager said:

There is a definite difference in having a character RP'ing utmost confidence, and knowing OOC'ly you're about to get roflstomped.

This statement confuses me. Are you all RPing your pride and ego's to be > logic and tactics? If you are, kudos for sticking to the role; because I'm assuming your knowledge of the roflstomp about to happen is from you and your characters knowledge of combat which is usually one in the same.

Rashar

@jensen I think it's more that the last thing you want to do as a leader is let your soldiers know you think you're about to get whacked.

And Ez, that's cool. Pretty sure yall don't need to find a justification in some graffiti. Can't be like "Oh that's our rp we like to murder" after you've already tried to justify it as a retaliation for a bit of magic paint and some vague notion of teaching those 'bullying Slyphians' a lesson.

I just want you to come PK my face and not even give a reason. Just because you CAN! I can dig that.

Ezalor

@Rashar oh I'm not really giving any justification of it (I'm still not 100% sure what caused it in the first place) just giving my take on why ICly and OOCly I didn't think it was a griefy war and was totally cool with it.

Rashar

I don't think it was griefy either, fwiw. No more than the war system itself is griefy with shrines etc.

Aishia

I think it's got that same lameness the war system has tho, the ticket to victory shouldn't be staying up all night.

Jensen

Staying up all night wins you (holy)wars, great hunts, hunting/ylem/essence contests, ect... Only way to avoid that is reduce engagement times to X hours where X = a reasonable time to test ability and not push too hard on players ooc employment/lives.

That being said, it won't happen.

Rashar

Idea coming soon, but the gist is maybe a system where certain criteria have to be met before an engagement begins, and instead of one big stupidfest maybe have multiple smaller engagements broken up.

Dunno how it'll be received and it's not really my idea, though it has merit.

Jensen

A series of couple hour engagements would be interesting. Assaults/defends of monoliths that last a certain time frame starting at the howling of each month. Hurt the monolith by destroying shrines in the area of it, after % shrines near by it, the monolith can be attacked. When a certain number of monoliths go down, you lose.

Draiman

Pretty much any idea is going to fall through imo, just due to play times being sporadic and people being from all over the world.

Not saying I like the way it is now or that your idea sucks already. Just sayin', I can't even begin to think of a way to have it balanced and let everyone take part.

Toz

In Achaea, they had icon battles. Icon was vulnerable 1 hour out of the day, and the org could set that time themselves, and change the time every week. So you identified the Icon's vulnerable phase, planned for a week or so in advance so you got all your people together, then you had a massive 30v30 on a whole different plane, where you tried to destroy it/they tried to defend it.