Since no one really opened a fresh topic.

What are new ideas for it?

how can it be fixed that someone can't get to level 50 in 24 hours with it, while still being valuable to higher levels

HOW CAN I GAIN FROM INFLUENCE AT LEVEL 82?!?

You know, the big questions.

I gain around .8 for monks with Harmony blessing, and around 5% per hour. I influence for esteem though, not experience, so...

I alternately influence and bash (I bash when someone got to Tosha first). I influence for esteem, I hunt for experience.

I'm influencing at 84 and usually end up with as much exp as I would if I bashed. Aetherbubbles with Harmony/Autumn/Human bonus/Bloodrage/Favour are your friend.

The only problem with influence is that those with under 12 charisma are under a great disadvantage than those who have more than 12 charisma. I think the speed/damage bonus for having over 12 charisma is fine, but I don't think having under 12 charisma should suffer a speed/damage penalty. I.e those with 7-8-9-10-11 charisma should have the same debate/influence speed as someone with 12 charisma.

The simplest way would be to make it a better parallel to hunting.

• Double experience loss on losing influence.
• Provide a skill at/near trans Influence that reduces that to what it is now.
• Provide a new tradeskill product (like vitae, but not a potion) that does the same thing.
• Create influence criticals.
• Allow denizens to do special influence attacks that do extra ego damage.
• Let denizens give debate afflictions. Make them also play a role in denizen influence, not just debates.
• Or replace the last two with some new influence afflictions.
• Create a few areas where there are larger numbers of influenceable denizens, or where you can "spawn" them, at a price.
• If you kill something I can't influence it, but if I influence it you can still kill it. Address this somehow -- maybe make a bunch of unkillable but influenceable mobs?

Just because it's the simplest way doesn't mean it's the best way. Maybe it'd be better to come up with something that was more different from hunting.

Just wanted to point out that an influence loss is the same xp loss as a full death. It's not like burnout.

Adding influencing afflictions would go a long way towards making influencing more interesting and scalable. As would...most of Gwylifar's ideas, excluding the first and last.

Why? They have a lower charisma, so denizens shouldn't be keen to listen to them like with someone with 12 charisma. If we do the 7=12 equation you proposed, this could happen:

Illithoid with 16 dex, 14 int, and 7 cha
Human with 12 dex, 12 int, and 12 cha

Illithoid: "Haha I'm faster and smarter than Human yet I even influence as good as him. Maybe even better with Performance on."

I have almost 7k ego. How much do you have?

Around 6,000, with a Beauty blessing. I guess it's because of the ego thing with illithoids?

I think Estarra or someone like that needs to explain why they don't want influencing to be as similiar as bashing (i.e. no crits, no afflictions etc) and then it would be easier to come up with sollutions for making influencing past level 80 more similiar to bashing past level 80.

I don't think new areas are needed.

I would really like new areas that would work like Newton caves when I was younger where I could influence then bash them, that would be shiny

Well technically you could still do this. Only if you don't have Amnesty you couldn't influence the leaders.

FYI, adding new areas are huge projects and we are backed up probably for over a year with what's currently on our plate. (Some areas take literally years to complete.)

The idea to "make a bunch of unkillable but influenceable mobs" is never going to happen. How would you justify that in a roleplaying sense? Nor do I really like the idea of spawning influence mobs just so there are more denizens to influence. Even if you could justify all this, I think it is too artificial and forced to make influencing parallel combat. Influencing is never going to parallel combat nor do we want it to. You can only influence sentient denizens and that's how it should be. Yes, for those who only want to gain xp through influencing, you are going to have a tougher row to hoe. However, you will not gain enemy status (opening you up to PK in affiliated areas, as well as closing some quests). No, it's not fair, but that's basically how matters are going to stay--not everything is equal and expecting it otherwise is unreasonable.

Regarding the mechanics of influencing, it is completely different from combat. The longer you influence a denizen, the stronger they resist, and the stronger they resist, the more ego damage they do to you. Also, they resist less, the more you rotate your influence attacks, i.e., attacking with one attack over and over will cause the denizen to build up resistance much more quickly than if you rotated through multiple attacks. I don't believe criticals would work well with this system--already my observation is that influencing is a bit easy. However, I'm open to making influencing more interesting and involved (maybe with 'debate afflictions' or whatever), but you really need to think outside of the box and not try to create analogues of combat.

Ok, so it sounds like the problem with level 80 influencing is the amount of xp gained., vs the number of mobs available to influence, in comparison to bashing.


So here is my suggestion.

Instead of criticals, which do more damage, perhaps when you win, you get a "critical" in terms of xp gain.

At level 80 you have 1% chance of getting X2 xp gain when defeating a denizen, etc etc. If these numbers are too high, then make them lower so they fit.

Basically like this:

The child admits defeat, digs into his pockets and pulls out some gold.
You have scored a DEVESTATING vicotry over the child's will! (gain x2 exp)

(mob reset time could also possibly take longer to reset as thier will is so demolished)

Anyone else agree with this? I have never measured it, but everyone says it's comparable to a vitae death, and this is often -- including quite recently by a number of people -- cited as a reason why influence shouldn't be worth as much as hunting, since it's lower risk.


Yeah, I don't like that idea at all. In fact, I don't like the whole approach I enumerated. It's just making influence "bashing but not". Like I said at the bottom, it would be better to find a more unique-to-influencing way to make influencing an equally viable means of advancement. So it seems like we're saying the same thing.

That said, I don't have a proposal. I enumerated the bad solution in hopes that, spelling it all out would make people believe it was a bad solution, and come up with a good one. But I don't have one. If I did, I'd post it.

Influence "death" is equal to a death with praying. As far as I know

"Lower risk" means "if you actually have reason to find out how much an influence loss costs, you fail at mudding."

Group influencing.

'nuff said.