As has been pointed out elsewhere, some organizations are disappointed with the powers of some of the constructs. Give us ideas here on how to change them! I know there's been grumblings about Angelfont and Darknest but feel free to discuss any of them. (To be more clear, we're not really looking to add new constructs but tweaking the ones that already exist.)

Just as a note before discussion starts: if you look at upgrading the darknest it's a MUST to look at rezz skills across the board, as it provides a solid but situational rezz and the complaint is that it's not useful in every circumstance. If it's not the case that rezz skills don't need to be balanced with and without constructs for every org, the darknest doesn't need looking at. (The angel font is another matter though.)

Also, is there a reason you're not adding more when Glomdoring has 2 and everyone else only has 1? Between Glomdoring's 2, it equals Serenwilde's 1 (if you equate soul resurgem with darkrebirth egg, which is shaky but the comparison holds at least) and then adds commune-wide drink on top of it.

That's true. We could just pull the Blacknest and wait to release it when we're ready for all orgs to have another one.

Or maybe all orgs should have another construct now? A stag construct for Serenwilde, another angel/light construct for Celest, and another demon/dark construct for Magnagora?

Discuss!

water/earth constructs for Celest and Magnagora

Sure! Maybe based on the Elemental Lords?

Erm, any ideas for what they could do?

Or maybe instead of a stag one, how about one that throws a bone to one of the guilds that could use one? Right now, I'd say a construct that ties into the Shofangi's spirituality and symbolism and roleplay would go down very well in the Serenwilde. (Not that the Spiritsingers couldn't use a tiny bit of aid in being folded into the Serenwilde's purpose too -- see a post I made to Plots a few months ago on that idea -- but the Shofangi need it more right now.)

It's always hard to mesh into a place when the guild was added later, with virtually no story behind it. They did much better on that with the monks. But, and I find it hard to admit, but I think the Spiritsingers have definitely gained my respect since they arrived.

But I digress...

My only real problem with constructs is that they are geared towards a certain type of person. They are totally removed from everything else in the world and, although added for conflict, are not effective because there is nothing to tie them to the orgs other than what affects we can/cannot have. They just seem... out there. I like Lendren's suggestion of giving them flavour, making them important to the orgs not because of what effects they give, but simply because of what they are.

My concern with the Angel Font is the vast majority of “benefits” it offers are extremely situational in use or of no use whatsoever to the average player. I draw a sharp contrast to the Black Crypt, which is always useful to every single citizen of Magnagora all the time (I cannot think of a reason someone wouldn’t want to have the lichseed defense in play or be a lich).

Here’s a list of angel font powers and benefits:




~ The field of protection is a nice benefit in theory, but in practice, it seems to only be a 2-3% reduction in damage (this may be modified by dmp). While it’s always better to have damage reduction than to not have it, this benefit is -extremely- minor.

~ Sacraments resurrect has ALWAYS cost only 1p to resurrect a fellow Sacrament user. Likewise, Immolate was specifically changed to be identical to Resurrect. Given the Harmony Spire construct, the benefit of being able to resurrect for zero power is in fact not a benefit at all. Sacrament users basically spend a great deal of credits to achieve a resurrection feature already available to them and the rest of all organizations for zero power (with the appropriate noted construct)

~ Sacrifice, like Resurrection, has ALWAYS cost only 1p to resurrect a fellow Sacrament user. Likewise, even though the Angel Font technically makes Sacrifice cost 0p on an angelic aura person, vitae causes a loss of 10p on death. Given Celestians cannot home conglute on a Sacrifice (which I will note is extremely unfair because it’s allowed by the Moon Altar for a “ranged” version of Sacrifice - Soul Resurgem), vitae is typically a must have.

~ Sacraments Honour has ALWAYS stacked with fellow Sacrament users. Likewise, regeneration stacking caps at level 3. While this is useful to some, it’s worthless to a lot of people. Demigods have an innate level 3 regeneration. Various races/guilds already receive lots of regeneration skills. This buff only benefits 3/5 guilds, and depending upon abilities learned, race, level, karma blessings, domoth blessings, etc. it may do absolutely nothing for them.

~ Bendiction costing no power is one of the two most useful features of the Angel Font. However, the Angel Font doesn’t give us access to Benediction. It just makes Benediction more affordable. I think this is important to note. We are not gaining something useful, we are gaining convenience to something useful we already have.

~ The prayers are mostly worthless. Shakiniel’s prayer is situationally useful. It’s by far the best of the five. Elohora’s prayer is less useful all around, but still useful.

However, Methrenton/Raziela/Japhiel prayers are absolutely worthless. They are crappy versions of abilities almost every single guild in Celest gains access to

~

Problems listed! I'll be posting some ideas for changing it in Estarra's thread in the Ideas section.

General thoughts

Across the board downgrades! I only know Celest but here's what I'd suggest
- Harmony spire drops to +10% on other planes. 10p immolations
- Angelfont gives angelic aura- no power benedictions, no power rezz. Cannot be the target of Heretic/counts as a sacraments user.
- Pearl- remove "free ripples*" - only acts as a gateway from prime, maybe makes the tide lords max HP up 25-50%, allowing defenders to get there quicker

WHY?
- Lower upkeep and costs on constructs to reflect downgrade
- Only allow them to heal during weakenings (The shield around the construct prevents you from healing it somehow)
- Make it possible to remove a construct in 1 weakening IF 2 ships are bombarding it or a ship and a collosi attack it, or 2 collosi attak it (This all requires a fairly large group to pull off) Else the group can only take the construct down to 25% or so with people focusing negative
- This would prevent 3 people comming over in off hours and pwning a nexus world
- This would also prevent people from getting -too- upset if a construct dies, but I think if the costs were right, they would still be worth it.

Edit: * These make raiding way to hard

Oh new construct I think would be nice to add. It would be like "The spirit of the nexus"
for instance Serenwilde would have "The Roots of the Mother" and Mag could have "The core of the Megalith" or some such
Notes:
- This is uniqure. It is free and permanent
- If no other constructs are on a nexus world, the raiders may attack this. It dies very easily, but this is compensated because all other constructs must be down before you can attack it.
- When health is reduced to zero, the nexus heart "collapses."
- It repairs automatically within 48 hours
- While down, power added to the nexus is halved
- Maybe orgs could place guards at this?
edit #2 - power values that are halved would be rounded up.

Darknest issues:
1) It gives all Crow users Rebirth for 10 power, which removes a major limiter of the skill. This needs to be removed. Make the egg give free Crowform if you have it made, and maybe some other minor benefit, but there is no way that it should be giving Crow users this much of a free ride.
2) The egg itself has numerous issues. If you die with it in a different area, it fuses to the ground. You cannot get it back or make a new one until it decays. Solution: Make the egg last longer (this really isn't an issue, since it will go away when you die anyways like the Lich defense). It could easily last a few RL days, or even not have a decay time at all, since it *will* go away when used (like Vitae). Make it so that nobody except the owner of the egg can pick it up, and make it so that if you touch the nest again when you already have an egg made it resummons the egg to you. This fixes a lot of the various issues with the Nest without actually making the Egg itself stronger (as that part of it is actually debatable, as Shiri said).

Nightaltar issues:
The only real benefit it gives most of the Glomdoring, sans Night followers, is the ability to TELEPORT NIGHT. We can't do a whole lot with Drink as it requires shadows-- so, to use it, I'd have to order Exeryte to just follow me around to every single room I'm in and release shadows. We, as envoys, submitted something which let Nightwraiths release "lesser shadows" at a significant mana cost (I believe it was 50%, but I'm not home right now and don't have access to the envoy wiki) which would allow us to take advantage of the Construct's benefit, without us being able to release shadows that Night users can use to choke/brumetower with. Solution was agreed to by all the envoys as being balanced, as it did have some restrictions.

I'll try to get that asap, unless one of the other envoys who's able to check it out can post it?

Come on, Malicia! Stop making separate topics! Merged both topics into one.

I was wondering why my post moved out of ideas and into some Angelfont thread in General for a bit...

I didn't see Estarra's thread in Ideas before I started one.

Okay, some ideas for changing it-

Angel Font v2.0

TOUCH - Gives the angelic aura for 10 power.
Benediction placed on those with angelic auras cost no power

All persons with the angelic aura may SACRIFICE to raise the soul of a fallen ally (this works like Sacrifice currently does killing the caster). Those with Sacrifice in Sacraments may Starchant Sacrifice costing 10p, all of their defenses, and the angelic aura (20+ power to do) to raise the soul of a fallen ally (note you do not die)

Angelic aura allows praying directly to the Holy Supernals

PRAY TO ELOHORA - cures a random ailment
PRAY TO SHAKINIEL- raises a shield
PRAY TO METHRENTON - empowers next attack to cause sensitivity or set target on fire
PRAY TO JAPHIEL - surrounds target in colorful light (ie. Faerie Fire)
PRAY TO RAZIELA - grants more powerful seduction and empower influencing attacks; less powerful weaken and paranoia influencing attacks; lasts 5 minutes; prevents praying to other Supernals in that time. (not that sure about this one.)

*Sacrifice and Raziela prayer cannot be forced

Oh, you bolded it. Hmm... so if you don't have Sacrifice, you still do the whole death thing?

Doesn't actually seem too overly powerful to me. I'm more concerned about being able to consistently give your next attack sensitivity, but as truehearing does kind of nerf that... overall, looks like a decent fix.

Edit: You really need to stop editing clarifications in while I'm asking for clarifications! *grump*

I cannot help feeling there is a disconnect somewhere in what constructs have become and their connection to nexus battles. It's possible this needs to be its own topic altogether...

What is the purpose of the constructs? Are they there as a power and gold sink? Are they there to have something that others can come in and destroy, thus creating conflict? Are they meant to be extremely desirable to have?

I am not certain but I do know one thing - they're supposed to be optional.

The Crypt is obviously extremely desirable to have. I would say it quickly reached a point where it was an "expected" benefit for Magnagoran players. It seems to have skipped the optional stage altogether. At the time this had some good side effects. One, someone actually built a construct. Two, someone actually wanted really badly to tear down a construct.

However, it also had some negative consequences, and this is the same with the Serenwilde construct. People had an expectation that their construct was going to be on par. And when they weren't, it created a great deal of resentment and frustration.

It is my adamant belief that constructs should NOT ever be as powerful as the crypt or Serenwilde's construct are. This is because it moves constructs away from being nice optional little benefits (like the spires or planar constructs) to being things that you would have to be insane to not build. When you feel obliged to build a construct because it's just that good, then you also feel obliged to defend it. If you cannot defend it and it gets destroyed, you consider that to be something wrong with the system itself. That you should just not build the construct if you can't defend it does not seem to enter into the equation. Of course you have to build the construct.

Now, we can go ahead and make constructs that powerful anyway but there has to be a clear understanding that if you choose to build it, you are also choosing to possible lose it and the system is not unfair, stupid, too easy, etc. if it happens that this does indeed occur.

So my question is this. Are we trying to make all the orgs major constructs on par with one another? And in attempting to do that are we planning on changing Glomdoring's and Celest's so they're on par with Serenwilde's and Magnagora's? Or are we planning on changing Serenwilde's and Magnagora's to be on par with Glomdoring's and Celest's?

Yes.

Hey, if you guys want, we can have one player who is objective and balanced to make all construct decisions and proposals on behalf of the playerbase.

Catarin, are you up for it? You've always struck me as levelheaded!

Uhh, having ONE player do construct things, especially one as biased as Catarin, isn't a good idea. If anything, it should probably be one rep per org.

Edit: to clarify... it doesn't matter WHO you pick... any one person will always have a natural bias. It's the way we humans wok. It is a fallacy to believe that players can be truly, 100% objective and balanced because the way they are exposed to the game generates these feelings of loyalty or bias. So thusly, it is far wiser to have org representatives if you want to go down that route.

Wait.

Wait, wait.

Celest/Glom constructs are getting upgrades to be on the same level as Seren's and Mag's constructs?

Really?

Truly?

It likely wouldn't be fair for me to make those kind of decisions. But I don't mind helping and heading up a committee or something if needed. I'm sure each org has at least one level headed person.

Here's a suggestion for taking the Crypt down a few notches, but leaving it useful: (Not my idea)

The Black Crypt raises a target as lich at the crypt. This is an instant process (the target does not gain the resurrection feature). Liches are immune to ectoplasm, can touch a person to cause freeze, mana regeneration at night, +2 strength/intelligence at Night, -1 strength/intelligence during Day, ability to influence undead, can breathe contagion for 3p (which cannot be gusted away if a lich is in the room), immunity to Dread Lord plague. Those with lichdom can become archliches (same as now)  As an added bonus, those with lichdom will clot bleeding 2x faster, gain 10dmp to cold damage, and have a 25% natural resistance to liniment/choleric afflictions.