Greater Lessers - The End of The Missing Numbers

Iesid · June 2021

Seurimas said:

Keroc said:
I could potentially cap ylem levels? This would give some breathing room for a surplus, but ensure that you never get so far ahead that foci become pointless.
I like a cap better than resets, but I think either requires more to be done with ylem, like huge, expensive city-wide buffs. Give the whole city all the orb effects (or one of the amulet effects?) "free" for a day, for example. Give the production facilities a burst of speed. Send a pulse from linked shrines to search for foci. Those sorts of discretionary spending that might add up over time, rather than fixed, daily expenditures that will never outpace income.

Random ideas I salvaged from my orrery thoughts years ago:

1. Convert X excess ylem gathered over cap to enhancement points that the Research or War minister allocates for city-wide buffs like a talent tree. The enhancement points vanish/reset when the year turns over. Maybe better to tetherize this and both orgs cooperate on choices, idk. Or just let us buy year-long points for 'city enhancements' via big ylem expenditure. This keeps us going to ylem stuff year over year IC.

2. Allow cities to spend ylem on city-wide buffs - f these amulet bonuses, let me buy 'unstable leystones' that need to be used immediately for the leystone buffs already available. Let me orgbless on a season cooldown. Let me buffs x y z research benefit via turbocharging.

I'm REALLY big on number 2, but I appreciate the constantly shifting nature of option 1 instead. It solves the "there's no reason to go"... if your org wants the enhancement point, go.

Illikaal · June 2021

I don't know if the Epicurius statue exists anymore, I think Enorian has access to the Ulgar Atlas right now. I remember when these 2 statues were new, events would happen and we'd have to fight over them. I think more rewards like this (in addition to the ylem changes suggested/planned) would help facilitate smaller-scale combat. Perhaps, once every month or two a City Champions 2v2v2v2 gets hosted and the statues/rewards get put back into rotation. I think maybe city champion 2v2's should be a bit more refined with mechanics because as it is, they always just turn into 4v4s.

I like the idea of a Dark Tournament style matchups for rewards like this too. Each city puts out 3-5 people to represent them for a tournament. You can make the rules so that either individual matchups are determined randomly, or by having each team volunteer someone in a blind matchup. You could also allow teams to draft select who they want on their team to fight whoever gets chosen. To prevent 1 person on the team from 1v5'ing their way to victory (assuming that they could), each person is only allowed 1 matchup per round. Best of 3 or 5 depending on how big the tournament determines who wins. If someone on the team loses, you have 1 reroll for a 3team or 2 for a 5team in which another teammate gets randomly (or preferably selectively) chosen to re-fight the enemy that just won that match. If the newly rolled person can beat the other person, they will score the victory for their team. This rerolled rematch can also be redone if the enemy team has rerolls of their own. If a person wins a match, and the enemy team rerolls for a 2nd try against them and the person wins again, it counts as double victories and you cannot use anymore rerolls on a match that has been rerolled once.

At the end of the tournament, all individual participants earn some minor prize (like giftbags/cryptic chests/whatever promo is going on) and select from what SHOULD be an array of city wide bonuses, like the statues mentioned above.

Benedicto · June 2021

I've had a couple of very hazy ideas whilst I'm led in my 1st dose vaccine-indused stupor and amazingly neither of them involve PK! One is essentially a ylem dungeon and one is more bashing based. Both are kind of based on this new 'twin foci' premise.

I don't know how many people remember the Terry the Tarantula dungeon, but what if there were a twin foci that was tether specific (one gateway for Spirit and one gateway for Shadow somewhere in the same area). Entering the gateway for for your tether deposits you into your tethers 'ylem dungeon'. There is a seeding period of time to allow each tether to notify their side and gather their peoples.

Once it begins, it's a race against the opposing tether to complete your dungeon as fast as possible. Taking Terry as an example, you have to defeat a big eld as quickly as possible whilst also being organised enough to cover the areas it disappears and reappears into whilst avoiding that tosser who tries to blow up the various branches of the area until you eventual get down to the last area. Failure for each tether to kill their eld results in death (which is inconsequential in ylem aura anyway) and both tethers can run out of time. However, once the respective big eld is killed, the person with the final blow gets a core and the 'dungeon' boots both tethers out.

This is just using Terry as an example, obviously it could be fleshed out to be more ylem and larger team specific (I am in a stupor as mentioned above).

The second idea is more of a tug of war or reverse tug of war type thing. Similar starting concept to above. Two tether orientated gateways in the same area. The actual mission can be more flexible though.

Tug of war - You want to draw the big eld to yourself, but in order to do so you have to kill more eld in an 'onslaught' style area (again separate from the other tether so no PK necessarily) - because you're in the ylem 'dungeon' neither shackling nor eldcrits works. Maybe the eld are a bit more tricksy and have some additional mechanics to defeat them. The eld killed get tallied for each tether and on a tick, the instance checks the respective scores and then moves the big eld a step closer to the tether with the higher score. Once a team has succeeded in drawing the big eld, the other tether gets booted and the winning team has to then defeat big eld.

Reverse tug of war - kind of works in reverse. Eld are there but you don't necessarily have to defeat them, they're more of a nuisance if anything. Instead you're trying to solve simple quests/search the area to find certain items that you then need to take to a central location to restore something/dam something up and send the dangerous eld wave or dangerous raw ylem essence to the opposing teams camp. Again could be done on a tick (team with best defenses wins that tick in a best of 5). Winner gets a core, losers get booted. Maybe the new siege weaponry can also be used in some format to disrupt the other teams efforts so it's not just about running around trying to find items.

Just spitballing, but I kind of think cores are something that a city would love to use more frequently rather than just ylem and also events that require a bit more thought and organisation rather than let's get numbers and zerg for pk.

Seurimas · June 2021

Once it begins, it's a race against the opposing tether to complete your dungeon as fast as possible. Taking Terry as an example, you have to defeat a big eld as quickly as possible whilst also being organised enough to cover the areas it disappears and reappears into whilst avoiding that tosser who tries to blow up the various branches of the area until you eventual get down to the last area. Failure for each tether to kill their eld results in death (which is inconsequential in ylem aura anyway) and both tethers can run out of time. However, once the respective big eld is killed, the person with the final blow gets a core and the 'dungeon' boots both tethers out.

I'm actually all for a PVE-centric, competitive ylem event, if that's something PVE-centric folks would actually do. My treasure hunt idea was sort of in that vein, but leaned too heavily on the "forced team duels" mechanics. I think the ideal is simply N minidungeons (either, as you have, N=2 so one per tether; or a variable number that can be claimed and entered by a single tether at a time), which are completed or failed for some individual reward(s), on top of the city reward. There's no real reason to allow or incentivize PVP during those encounters.

Mazzion · June 2021

@Keroc Thanks for listening to our requests, this has been great so far. The twin foci has, imo, been a great add. I was wondering if two small modifications could be made.
1. Let the twin foci announce the area like Majors do. I know they are supposed to be lesser equivalent, but there was actually one that took me a very long time to even locate the twin (after one had already been extracted). It makes sense to me, being an avenue for conflict at least to streamline the location so there is a better chance to send combatants in the 4v4. This new type has a lot more coordination required, and thus setup time and finding really diminishes the actual conflict time.
2. Remove gravehands and piety affecting "enter sinkhole". If there is an instance where a group holds both twin, at least give a chance for the small group to contest the central area in the sinkhole.

Question: can one tether hold both twin? I haven't got that far with trying. Does the extracted twin emit elds (not inside the Conjuction)?
Overall, great addition. Thank you very much.

Mazzion · June 2021

Oh, as someone told me edits are for cowards. I was also thinking of a minor tweak to Orrery. Give the orb holder a big delayed movement, like that one change to celerity when you had lots of weight, it would really hamper your movement. The new strategy is for the globe holder to run like nuts and just play keep away. To me, just not very fun. There are some really great runners, no ill will to them, but it has gotten so bad that I don't even want to attend them anymore. Keep away, while a valid strategy, just takes away from the actual conflict.

Saidenn · June 2021

I wouldn't mind a moving CTF kind of thing for Orrery. A globe generates and it has to be taken to a 'flag' area and 'planted' like a CTF. After so many flags are planted for a side, the orrery moves to align to the particular side. This mixes mobility (the moving flag anchor and constantly generating globes), along with conflict as it supports groups working together to find the globe, move to and/or attempt to hold the anchor point, but discourages static camping on a singular point to charge and then infuse the orrery itself.

This also would be, hopefully, help mix things up as each side would have to hit an infused # of globes in the hour to align the orrery for that day, not allowing either side to have a 'globeholder' who is defended in all ways as the globe is constantly changing hands.

Seurimas · June 2021

I wouldn't mind a moving CTF kind of thing for Orrery. A globe generates and it has to be taken to a 'flag' area and 'planted' like a CTF.

This makes me think. What if Orrery had different, random modes, like Majors? I never got to try Scattering, but if that could be adopted to a short-form, daily midnight event, that's already a little variation to that possibly stagnant event. I think rewards are pretty good for the Orrery, it's just hard to get enthusiastic for Assimilation every time.

Jaamir · June 2021

These are great ideas honestly and I would think these would welcome interesting changes in the dynamics and mechanics to have orrery events a great deal less boring or uneventful ninety percent of the time. It puts a mindset to me as "Let's lock the room down and sit here until completion." I mean heck, I even nearly fell asleep irl just sitting at an orrery lol. I think I played Aetolia on and off throughout the years at a few intervals and the mechs are pretty much the same each time I gave it a shot. That is not to say there hasn't because I haven't been bothered to search the news for anything of the sort, but again, these ideas are great to take into consideration and provide stimulation for more in-depth strategies to employ.

Keroc · June 2021

Mazzion said:
Oh, as someone told me edits are for cowards. I was also thinking of a minor tweak to Orrery. Give the orb holder a big delayed movement, like that one change to celerity when you had lots of weight, it would really hamper your movement. The new strategy is for the globe holder to run like nuts and just play keep away. To me, just not very fun. There are some really great runners, no ill will to them, but it has gotten so bad that I don't even want to attend them anymore. Keep away, while a valid strategy, just takes away from the actual conflict.

I can probably make it so holding an orrery globe reduces celerity. Makes sense to me.

Seurimas · July 2021

It's been a while, but I wanted to share another idea, based on some chatter I've heard in the past month: Deep Ylem Mines!

In the middle of non-Orrery seasons (i.e. 10th Arios and 10th Niuran), special secondary shafts open at all the city ylem mines. These secondary shafts all converge on some sort of exposed central leyline, spanning all the cities. The goal is to quickly bash your way through eld and environmental hazards, intended for a group of 2-3 people, and extract that central leyline for your city. A few details:

These shafts are instanced and do not have an Open PK aura. Some of the chatter that prompted this idea is about how non-PVP people are never going to be roped into a PVP event, which is true! This is a competitive but purely PVE event!
A new set of secondary shafts open at noon every day between the 10th and 25th. 16 rounds (and therefor possible points) in total. Each city has their own "set" of shafts (i.e. any number of instances can be spawned).
You may invite 1 or 2 allies into your instance, but may not enter a deep ylem mine if you helped with an extraction earlier that day.
Each city is in a race for First Extractions. Multiple shafts may be extracted per day (by different people), but the important bit is who gets a day's First Extraction. A First Extraction would a boost a city's production facility, instead of the Orrery's gift of commodities.
The tethers are still intrinsically linked in this endeavor and the final score is combined by tether. Each First Extraction is worth one point. At the end of the month, the points of each tether are compared against one another, much like the Orrery, and boons are granted to each city based on the difference. A score of 8-8 would be a wash, with neither tether having been able to secure any long-lasting benefit. A score of 10-5 would be great for the winning tether, conferring bonuses to their pylon such as: a free Transmute charge for every citizen; the ability to gather some residual ylem from the Cities' pylons; or a special modification only available from the Deep Ylem Mines.

That's the basic idea. There are some extra things that could be added to make the competition interesting, such as:

After a first extraction is made, other cities have a chance to up the ante by "delving deeper". Higher depths increases the eld power level and the environmental hazards very quickly. Speed becomes less important, in favor of bashing power. It could be required to go deeper each day, so, by the 25th, you are 16 levels deep, if 15 First Extractions had been made already. Otherwise, each day could have its own minimum depth, keeping speed paramount and not locking out people who can't complete a 16-depth mine.
As you delve deeper, you could see signs of other cities making their own runs. Manipulating the ylem of the mines, you could draw eld into enemy mines and make their runs harder.
A difficult to navigate, chaotic map. There may be no way to tell if you're getting closer to the extraction point, save for stumbling on it with Detection on, and environmental hazards make running through without killing eld impossible.

Naerthan · August 2021

Seurimas said:
It's been a while, but I wanted to share another idea, based on some chatter I've heard in the past month: Deep Ylem Mines!

In the middle of non-Orrery seasons (i.e. 10th Arios and 10th Niuran), special secondary shafts open at all the city ylem mines. These secondary shafts all converge on some sort of exposed central leyline, spanning all the cities. The goal is to quickly bash your way through eld and environmental hazards, intended for a group of 2-3 people, and extract that central leyline for your city. A few details:
These shafts are instanced and do not have an Open PK aura. Some of the chatter that prompted this idea is about how non-PVP people are never going to be roped into a PVP event, which is true! This is a competitive but purely PVE event!
A new set of secondary shafts open at noon every day between the 10th and 25th. 16 rounds (and therefor possible points) in total. Each city has their own "set" of shafts (i.e. any number of instances can be spawned).
You may invite 1 or 2 allies into your instance, but may not enter a deep ylem mine if you helped with an extraction earlier that day.
Each city is in a race for First Extractions. Multiple shafts may be extracted per day (by different people), but the important bit is who gets a day's First Extraction. A First Extraction would a boost a city's production facility, instead of the Orrery's gift of commodities.
The tethers are still intrinsically linked in this endeavor and the final score is combined by tether. Each First Extraction is worth one point. At the end of the month, the points of each tether are compared against one another, much like the Orrery, and boons are granted to each city based on the difference. A score of 8-8 would be a wash, with neither tether having been able to secure any long-lasting benefit. A score of 10-5 would be great for the winning tether, conferring bonuses to their pylon such as: a free Transmute charge for every citizen; the ability to gather some residual ylem from the Cities' pylons; or a special modification only available from the Deep Ylem Mines.
That's the basic idea. There are some extra things that could be added to make the competition interesting, such as:
After a first extraction is made, other cities have a chance to up the ante by "delving deeper". Higher depths increases the eld power level and the environmental hazards very quickly. Speed becomes less important, in favor of bashing power. It could be required to go deeper each day, so, by the 25th, you are 16 levels deep, if 15 First Extractions had been made already. Otherwise, each day could have its own minimum depth, keeping speed paramount and not locking out people who can't complete a 16-depth mine.
As you delve deeper, you could see signs of other cities making their own runs. Manipulating the ylem of the mines, you could draw eld into enemy mines and make their runs harder.
A difficult to navigate, chaotic map. There may be no way to tell if you're getting closer to the extraction point, save for stumbling on it with Detection on, and environmental hazards make running through without killing eld impossible.

Admit it, you've been playing Stardew Valley too much lately.

Rhyot · August 2021

I mean.... who doesn't???

Between Farming and the soon (tm) release of Mining.... who ISNT devoting a bunch of time into Stardew Valley??

Seurimas · August 2021

I'm gonna necro this thread (at least) one more time with another idea: Foci manipulations!

We've been MANIPULATEing PYLON for all these years, and didn't even realize we could MANIPULATE FOCI as well! Doing so will allow you to evoke various effects in the foci room (including minors, normal lessers, minors/lessers at Majors, and the main Twin foci room). These differ from fortifications, in that they affect and are usable by everyone, not just individuals from a particular city/tether. Additionally, they cost residual ylem. Some effects could include:

MANIPULATE FOCI FOR ELDSWARM - For 10% residual, forces a big wave of eld to spawn. All currently shackled eld are freed, as well. There is a foci-based cooldown and a portion of the lesser's ylem is lost in the process, decreasing it's % left, but not giving the extracting city any ylem. This speeds things up slightly at an obvious cost (increased danger of being overrun, and losing out on ylem for your city).
MANIPULATE FOCI FOR CRYSTALIZATION - For 40% residual, everyone in the room gains an effect which raises everyone's resist audits by 20%. This lasts 5 minutes, and also affects people who enter the room during that time.
MANIPULATE FOCI FOR ALACRITY- For 40% residual, the room gains an effect which increases their balance/equilibrium recovery (on a scale similar to the noon/midnight Orrery buffs). This lasts 5 minutes, and also affects people who enter the room during that time.
MANIPULATE FOCI FOR ABSORPTION - For 20% residual, residual ylem recharges from eld kills and ambient ylem at double the normal rate. Residual reserves recharged this way top at 10% higher than normal (110% max without artifacts, 220% with L3 residual arti).
MANIPULATE FOCI FOR IRIDESCENCE - For 80% residual, ylem mists are spawned on each eld kill for the rest of the foci. Double mists spawn if slain by someone with the eld glyph.
MANIPULATE FOCI FOR FLARING - For 30% residual, the foci is super charged, producing extra eld spawns and ylem for cities. The foci location is announced across the world. Can only be used when the foci is at 95% or above.
MANIPULATE FOCI FOR PURIFY - For 20% residual, a target is cured of all afflictions and brought to full health/mana. Cannot be self-targeted.
MANIPULATE FOCI FOR STASIS - For 30% residual, a target is locked into stasis for about 8 seconds. They have a perfect shield, but cannot communicate or act in any way. Cannot be self-targeted.

These are just some ideas. They could be tuned for whatever wants to be done with foci. Clearly, some of these help against "damage is king" while others try to help mitigate the alpha-strike on first targets. A lot of these are about making lessers more fun (more eld, big buffs, mist drops).

Sort of in the "affixes" vein, you could have to sense 2-4 available foci manipulations at each foci. So, one foci may have ELD, IRIDESCENCE and FLARING available and be great for getting mists. Another may have ABSORPTION and PURIFY available and become very focused on keeping whoever's getting targetted on your team alive against anything that gets thrown at them. If this is the avenue, it could be fun to have another: MANIPULATE FOCI FOR UNTETHER - For 30% residual, send a normal, untapped lesser foci to a new spawn location (similar to its timer running out). At its new spawn location, it has new, random manipulations available. As such, you could reroll until you get the ideal combination of foci manipulations.

Saltz · August 2021

Seurimas said:

MANIPULATE FOCI FOR PURIFY - For 20% residual, a target is cured of all afflictions and brought to full health/mana. Cannot be self-targeted.
MANIPULATE FOCI FOR STASIS - For 30% residual, a target is locked into stasis for about 8 seconds. They have a perfect shield, but cannot communicate or act in any way. Cannot be self-targeted.

Please no to these two specifically. You can go up to 400% reserves and sustain forever too with receptacles. Do we really need 30x arti checked, class-independent full heals or banishes available in a single round of fight? If you want to detach abilities from classes, please consider suggesting them to be once/rl day or something relatively tame like that.

Sryaen · August 2021

Personally, I am against adding more manipulations that make it more difficult to break entrenching (the proposed increase to audit, stasis, purify, and eq/bal recovery). But the others seem fine, especially eldswarm and double mists.

Ideally, I would like to get away from the template of 'go to lesser, gain control, hold it against attackers'. I would like to see more objective-based lessers so that way it promotes moving around a bit. I know I'm going to hate myself for even suggesting this but what about hotspot lesser that jumps around in the area?

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Twin Foci (Sorry @Saltz I know that's your baby), because it's essentially a more annoying lesser. Yeah you can have 4 people inside, but it just promotes the rest of the squad camping the gateway and if you don't have a solid 4's group, it devolves into pretty much murdering the defenders at the gateway and then just camping the people inside. The idea is good, but it seems like it just falls a bit short in actually being a worthwhile thing to fight over.

Seurimas · August 2021

Sryaen said:

entrenching (the proposed increase to audit, stasis, purify, and eq/bal recovery).

To be clear, I am suggesting that attackers have access to all of these manipulations as well. Additionally, big buffs would affect everyone in the room, and people who enter the room later. These shouldn't be a tool for entrenching, per se.

That said, perhaps there could be anti-entrenchment solutions as well, like MANIPULATE PYLON FOR SHARD - For 60% residual, forces everyone in the room into a copy of that room (similar to Claw). Late arrivals are also forced into the copy room. Rites/traps/etc are left behind, and anything that gets dropped on movement (i.e. shields and maybe defends?) obviously drop. This lasts only 2 minutes, after which point everyone returns to the original room. Because of the short duration and losing control of the foci (due to movement by the extractor), it seems pretty impossible to use this meaningfully for entrenchment.

Edit: Just based on your "more objective-based" lesser, perhaps MANIPULATE PYLON FOR DELVING - For 50% residual, spawns a personal instance of a copy of the lesser area. The lesser area is filled with eld, including a mini-boss eld. Bash to your heart's content. If you defeat the mini-boss eld, you collect some of the ylem of the lesser for your city (reducing the lesser's % proportionately, thus speeding it up). If you fail to complete the instance before the end of the lesser, you are killed as the energies of the instance collapse upon you. Others may not join you in your instance, but the foci room is the entrance to your instance and you may be WRESTed from it there. This creates an opt-in objective for defenders to do. You could not exit the instance early without dying, meaning that you may be stuck out of a team fight if attackers show up (if WREST is not a channel, it would be in this case, so your friend in their instance is indeed inaccessible if attackers show up). This might be a good way to thin out huge groups, while not enforcing any sort of strict tether parity.

Jaamir · August 2021

Saltz said:

Seurimas said:

MANIPULATE FOCI FOR PURIFY - For 20% residual, a target is cured of all afflictions and brought to full health/mana. Cannot be self-targeted.
MANIPULATE FOCI FOR STASIS - For 30% residual, a target is locked into stasis for about 8 seconds. They have a perfect shield, but cannot communicate or act in any way. Cannot be self-targeted.

Please no to these two specifically. You can go up to 400% reserves and sustain forever too with receptacles. Do we really need 30x arti checked, class-independent full heals or banishes available in a single round of fight? If you want to detach abilities from classes, please consider suggesting them to be once/rl day or something relatively tame like that.

BIG BIG NO on the stasis imo specifically.

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Categories

In this Discussion

Greater Lessers - The End of The Missing Numbers

Comments