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6/30/2022 at 23:35
Ictinus, the Architect
Everyone
Conflict Events & Attitudes

Hi folks,

I think it's time we talk about attitudes a bit, especially as it pertains to conflict events or PK scenarios. Aetolia is an RP game and PK game and good conflict is essential to both. Without it, none of the events we have matter, nothing has any stakes, and the world becomes a stale, boring, safe haven with everyone in harmony. This isn't what the game was founded on and isn't the direction we've been taking it since I took over.

PK remains the pre-eminent method of conflict resolution between players. There's never going to be a city org vs city org event where there isn't some sort of PvP involved in it. That's just the nature of the game. If your org isn't in a position to back up their RP responsibilities with the required action to do so, that is a problem with the org that needs to be solved, it's not a flaw in the game or event design.

We've put a great deal of time and effort this year into bolstering org identity and themes and that work will continue. These sorts of high stakes, tense scenarios are important parts of that, and acting like you're being persecuted, bullied, mistreated, or griefed (we've heard all of these in the last 48 hours or so) is the wrong attitude to have, especially if you're in leadership or another position of responsibility. That attitude trickles down to the rest of the players in your org and actively dissuades others from participating in things.

In what is intended to be a grim dark / horror themed environment, expecting to be safe or otherwise indifferent to the perils of the world at large is not reasonable. Disaster is going to strike. Bad things are going to occur to your characters that are often outside of your control. Sometimes you are going to lose. When you join an organisation, you are making a choice to buy in to their themes, motives, goals, and ideals. That character choice is always in effect, not only when it's easy, and these difficult-choice situations are rare enough that it's not something that has to be dealt with or endured every single day.

If you have a problem with an event, another player, or an admin, then esteem is not the venue for your complaint. I am. The whole team sees these and if the extent of your feedback is to tell the people going out of their way to create content for you that they're wasting their time, then you can send it to me instead.

This post isn't only aimed at the current events in Sterion, and it should be pointed out that this event was entirely player initiated. We chose to facilitate that conflict with mechanical and RP support. I've noticed this prevailing attitude across the board from all orgs when it comes to conflict, and I want to go on the record now and remind you that it's immensely discouraging to everyone on my team when people treat these situations like they're some sort of conspiracy to ruin the game experience. They're not.


Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 11th of Midsummer, in the year 503 MA.

6/30/2022 at 0:00
Ictinus, the Architect
Everyone
The Battle for Sterion

Hi folks!

Approximately 24 hours from now at the next Howling, we will be pushing live a mechanic that we've prepared to resolve the ongoing conflict over Sterion between Duiran and Spinesreach.

Duiran will attempt to lay siege to the gate of Sterion from a newly built camp in the mountains, while Spinesreach will attempt to lay siege to the gate protecting said camp.

The mechanics will require troops and work as follows:

Syntax: ORDER <division> SIEGE <target>

* This command is restricted to Spinesreach and Duiran only for this war.

* Once you initiate the siege, you can't order them to stop.
* However, divisions will auto-flee to their previous room if they fall below 20 units.
* Any fortified troops in the location will block you from initiating a siege, unless they are your own.
* If enemy troops attack your troops that are sieging, your troops will stop fighting and attack the enemy troops instead.
* The division will slowly whittle down the gate's health until they are forced to flee due to lack of numbers.
* The gates have a lot of health, so it will take several divisions to completely destroy them.
* The division will take damage each time they attack the gate, however they won't take damage just for being in the room.
* Fortified units cannot siege.

* Once one side's gate has been destroyed, they will lose the logistic support needed to be able to siege and thus will lose the war.

There will be a few global emotes in the run up to this to give you fair warning.



Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 5th of Midsummer, in the year 503 MA.

6/29/2022 at 14:48
Keroc, the Starborn
Everyone
Big Changes

Hey folks,

We're making some pretty major changes to somewhat tone down venom-lock routes.

The long and short of it is that we're doing away with the Renew skill from Hunting and putting Fitness in its place, along with some changes to help balance out its initial introduction. For now they are mostly targeted at the immediately obvious issues, such as class specific lockbreakers, but the finer tuning of classes will be dealt with over time.

The hope is that it'll provide a more varied combat field for you all to engage in, making it easier and more valuable to stack lesser afflictions in routes that don't necessarily block cures and reducing the power of bruteforcing a lock without some kind of class-oriented skill to back it up.

To quell any worries- I don't realistically see venom-lock classes struggling too harshly despite the addition of Fitness to everyone. They often fight against classes with lockbreakers as is and can generally still succeed. But as always, I'll be keeping a close eye on this over time.

You can find the changes below. Thanks!

Afflictions
==============================
- Frozen balance recovery malus reduced to 0.6 seconds, down from 1.

Arcanism
==============================
- Countercurrent proc chance lowered to a 2% base rate, down from 6%.

Assassination
==============================
- Shrugging will now cure a random venom-type affliction.
* The affliction does not need to be sourced from a venom.
- Shrugging balance recovery time lowered to 2 seconds, down from 3.

Corpus
==============================
- The second affliction cured by Purify is now delayed by 2 seconds.
- Purify equilibrium recovery time increased to 3 seconds, up from 2.

Desiccation
==============================
- Scour no longer cures slickness and the cooldown is removed.

Hunting
==============================
- New Skill: Fitness.
* All versions of Fitness in across various classes has been removed.
- Removed Skill: Renew.

Illumination / Tectonics
==============================
- Cleansing / Thermics cooldown increased to 25 seconds, up from 20.

Purification
==============================
- Zenith no longer cures a random affliction.

Shamanism
==============================
- Elder Shaman proc chance lowered to a 2% base rate, down from 8%.

Shapeshifting
==============================
- Removed Skill: Shedding.

Tarot / Hyalincuru
==============================
- Fool / Fire cooldown increased to 20 seconds, up from 18.

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 2nd of Midsummer, in the year 503 MA.