So some changes are needed with domoth battles. I have no real idea if the admin are already looking into this or not but it needs to keep being discussed until it's fixed.

Problems:

1. It's extremely easy for a coalition of two orgs (or even one org) to maintain a chokehold on domoths. The only thing that stops a monopoly is player burnout. Why? Because of two factors:

- Once you have a crown, that throne is only going to open up again if you burnout, get hit by a bus, or get absolved.
- If your org or your allied org holds the opposing domoth not only do you never have to worry about getting absolved but even if another org manages to wrest the crown from you during the second stage, they will simply be absolved by your ally.

As more orgs raise Ascendants along with their standard growing stable of demigods, it becomes easier and easier to do this. Celest, Serenwilde, and Glomdoring have already raised two. Celest and Seren will likely be able to raise another soon enough given the current chokehold they have on Domoths which just exacerbates the problem.

2. Ascendants/Domoths are a vicious cycle. You raise Ascendants to give you a better chance in Domoth battles. You want Domoths primarily because of the power. You want the power primarily to raise more Ascendants. Which you want for Domoths. Which you want for..yeah you get the idea. This remains true as long as Ascendants primary use is Domoth acquisition and/or Domoths primary use is power gain.

3. There is not enough opportunity for actual conflict for Domoths once a situation as described in Problem 1 arises. There is no point to usurping a domoth due to the existence of absolve and the chances of a domoth actually opening up (for taking a sceptre) is extremely low. And even if it does, again, you're just going to get absolved.

I have some suggestions but I won't bother with that as for all I know others see the problem pretty differently.

Sounds about right.

I agree on all points but I have a few more to add.

1. The mechanics of stage 1 and stage 2 are identical. I am not sure what I was expecting but I was disappointed when I saw how similar they were. You get a group together and everyone attacks the mobs as they come out. I have yet to see any PvP in stage 1 but I assume it would be similar to stage 2, just only with demis/ascendants. I have not given much thought to how you could make the statges feel different, but I think it would be a nice goal to have.

2. Demigods have no incentive to claim a Domoth. With the number of ascendants active currently (or shortly as soon as Mag raises one) it is more than possible to claim every domoth without using a demigod. Perhaps this is the way it should be, but it would be nice to have a reason for demis to claim one and not just act like PvE bots. This would not be so bad if there was a path for a demi to become an ascendant but as other threads have pointed out once you are a demi you will most likely not become an ascendant because you can already participate in the domoths.

3. I have not experienced stage 3 myself but multiple others who have (please chime in!) have stated that the non warrior classes have a very hard time with some domoths to the point where it is almost impossible for them to claim the crown. There should not be this class disparity between the domoths, I realize this is a side affect of the disparity in PvE tanking of the classes but it would be nice to see it addressed in some manner.

4. I have been involved in a few state 2 fights and they can be a blast, but they also can become a huge drag. The issue is of course that they always boil down to one huge group vrs one huge group both fighting over one room. I would love to see some kind of mechanic that forced the groups to split up so you would have smaller battles rather than the same old huge group fights. I think the domoths would be a perfect test bed for that kind of mechanic which could then be applied to other events, leaving the massive group vrs group fights for the raids, rather than having every single instance of PvP conflict devolve into them.

Likewise, I agree with all of Cat's points.



1. As far as I can tell, Stage 1 is regarded as 'Demigods can interfere' and Stage 2 is regarded as 'everyone can interfere' as far as claiming the domoths go.

2. True. Though, we raised Sarrasri yesterday and Rika said she was keeping the Life Domoth, and nobody had a problem with that.

3. Stage 3 is..annoying, for the most part. I've seen Nejii constantly have to abuse Serpent against some domoths (Like Nature). Other domoths are grossly easy in comparison, like Chaos hamsters. They're basically virgins that do psychic instead of physical. I don't even want to think about the ones that blackout. I haven't seen a throne claimed by anyone that isn't either a dual-wielding warrior, a monk or a bard. I don't know how Sarrasri will do, being Wiccan, but she's got Astrologer MD tankiness. I'd laugh if a Druid or Mage went up there.

4. Being the one who usually melds for this sort of thing, there's rarely a whole lot of actual push-and-pull fighting when it's two large groups. Remember that one time on Frosticia? Because its Aetherdock is located -right in the middle-, all I had to do was meld several rooms all round it and it was unbreakable. It'd take the Magnadorans a few minutes of flailing around just to find a suitable demesne end, but we'd already zerged them before they ever had an opportunity.

In contrast, I remember a -very- fun fight in Crumkindivia. They'd managed to set up two-room demesne (Though Kilbis isn't a great melder so that didn't last long :S), and everyone eventually got locked in a room with 6 sirens and almost never got their equilibrium back. We lost people, they lost people. We got some reinforcements, and so did they. They eventually lost because of the demesne, though. It still felt like a real fight.


Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, being the Druid melder in Domoths sucks arse. The corpses I get from it? 10. One of our Demigods? 60. If I saplock someone, a random Demi is going to come in and finish off the kill before me (assuming I don't get ganked mid-lock and have to run like hell). At least it pays good!

Add in the impracticality of the whole absolving mechanic plz.

Those are good points, Catarin. There was a time when Magnadoring had all of the Domoths, and now Celenwilde has them. And honestly, there is little to no chance of us reclaiming even a single Domoth any time soon.

Some of the Domoth spawns need to be looked at as well - primarily when off-eq attacks stack (sirens). Aeon can also get nasty with 3+ spawns.

Agreed on everything.

I'd also like to add that - going by what I heard at least - domoths give a huge power boost. I wouldn't be surprised if we were swimming in vernals fairly soon. This too I would like to get looked at, as vernals -should- actually be fairly rare. Additionally, the whole "raise demigod to vernal" issue should be addressed as well.

I still agree.

Sorry but nooooo, chaos hamster stage 3 is worse than war champions stage 3 now that everyone has a 5s writhe time, they all do about 150-250 bleeding per hit, and they are awfully fond of insta-entangling you right after you get out.

We hates the hampsters.

It's kind of scary how much everyone agrees with Catarin on this one. Simply removing the power boost from each throne would massively drop the incentives people had to constantly work on Domoths. Turning in into a wildnodes/ nexus worlds issue would be problematic. So: what is to be done?

Maybe add a Stage 2 mechanism into absolving? So that the entirety of an organization, and not just the Demigods, have a chance to participate in these battles? Of course, that's already not working right now: either it becomes a massive battle between both halves of the game, or almost no one shows up to them.

Perhaps Arena brackets could be a solution for the people that enjoy conflict in Lusternia? It's a shameless theft from World of Warcraft, but the population imbalance between the Light/Dark aspects (a gross oversimplification, I know), combined with the excessive amount of time involved in keeping all nine domoths in a state of occupation, makes it really boring for some people. Boring enough to even make 500-1000 power a weak incentive. It's a shame, really, because the Domoths are an excellent avenue for conflict when players really get into it. There's just... too much, I guess. Yes, no, maybe so?

Make a city/commune wide quest that is specific to each org with the difficulty level of raising the star / necromandate to absolve a throne. Can be done from the respective city / commune and like the star / necromandate quest enables lowbies and newbies to participate and as such help with domoths.

At least that's how I'd find it interesting. I've not figured out yet how to have it make sense that domoths can be absolved from prime though. Maybe the final step should be in the domoths or some such.

But raising the Necromentate/Star isn't exactly 'fun.'

Oh, I never noticed that hamsters entangled. Nevermind. Most Domoth mobs that aren't lost souls are annoying, then.

(Also, make the War mobs drop gold, please!)

Raising the Star is not fun. Not fun at all.

Bug #25 Resolution: Your bug has been fixed. Thank you for reporting.
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war champions in domoths don't drop gold but definitely cost the most in mending etc, all the other mobs drop gold

I don't know exactly how massive these domoth bashing groups get, but if they are really that big, perhaps ascending to the place where you fight over them would require claiming a link with one of the domoths.

Example: It's time to fight for Domoths. So Desitrus ascends through a link to War. It doesn't matter who controls it, it's simple a kind of channeled path to the Domoth area, and perhaps it even gives him some kind of boost to damage or something. So he ascends, and the War path is locked, no one else can use it.

Aison wants to join in. All the paths are taken, though, except Harmony. He's annoyed because he has to take it, and the boost for Harmony is lame in comparison to others, maybe a Chuuti effect (Harmony defensive ability that gives attackers the peace affliction).

Revan wants to go kick butt now, but all the paths are locked. He has to wait for someone to die or descend and their path to unlock.

If something like that would be worthwhile, it would be pretty easy to change IC. Some event to make the Domoths more distant or harder to reach or something.

Edit: Plus, having slight/flavor boosts from each Domoth would be kinda nifty. I think so, anyway. :/

Plus those classes mentioned as having extreme difficulty tanking all the stages might see some hope in this, too. Some Domoths could have strong PvE benefits, and they could try to claim those paths first.

One more thought on that idea. Claiming the Domoth channel could take a short concentration period, about the same as teleporting. Then if someone else tries to channel it at the same time, you might have a few possible ways to fight over the link.

A straight decision by who has more health/essence/etc.

Both are teleported to a dueling room halfway to the Domoth and have to fight it out, or one has to step down in the case of allies claiming the same link.

Both become the target of a whole bunch of the NPC's particular to that Domoth teleporting in and kicking butt. The survivor wins the link.

I don't really have any idea what you're talking about, Moiraine.

Agreed on LOWERING the power costs, you don't need to reduce them to 0 as a lot of the blessings are seriously not worth it and the crown essence isn't that useful for demigods.

Not to be obtuse but.. what exactly is this change supposed to solve? What does this even do?

I'd like something really cool and expensive for demigods to pour their essence into, even if it's just for flavor.

Someone else can think of something, though.

The point would be that there are twelve Domoths, right? Ascending to fight for the Domoth requires linking to one of them, just like teleporting really, making it a maximum of twelve people involved in the Domoth conflicts since only one person could hold one Domoth link at a time.

Like I said, I don't know how big those groups get, but this seems to be a common complaint, and that would limit them. I'm pretty ignorant about all this, I'm just throwing ideas out there.