I want to start this topic now, because if it's made right after a peaceful village revolts, it will be seen as a rant.

I simply do not think the debate, influence and campaign systems are good enough for peaceful villages to exist. They have a thousand problems, and as such, the outcome of a village under a peace spell can hardly reflect the effort/numbers/strategic skill of the players involved.

The reason peaced villages went in is because of a vote in which many people took the so-called 'middle ground'. Firstly, making game-affecting decisions by vote is misleading and inappropriate; secondly, I bet a lot of people voted that way because they felt DEMESNES were a problem in village influencing, and not combat overall.

I don't think that the current system is an acceptable solution to this problem. The issue needs to be addressed, as it has a negative impact on overall game balance.

Finally, I predict that there will be even more of an uproar when the next round of villages revolt, if some are peace-enforced. The system is simply not good enough. Combat is, influence isn't.

Before campaigning was introduced, sanctuary was seen as an extreme move. Now it's generally accepted, but the system is definitely not immaculate. As for forcing peace over an entire village, this is simply absurd.

Not accusing you of anything Amaru, but were you at least present in the peaced village revolts as an alt? Because I definately don't remember seeing you in any one of them, and I think it would be unfair if you made this claim without giving it a go atleast once.

Ironically enough, we've done worse with the villages peaced. It was the demesnes that I had a problem with, but I've come to realize that there's nothing that can be done about that without hindering each participating druid/mage whenever a village revolts.

I wasn't sure what a middle-ground would entail exactly, but I do appreciate the efforts the admin have put into trying to even out the influencing grounds.

A quick thought on debating and peaced villages. It's just so crazy and random and if I'm shattered, I'm out of the fight for nearly 10 minutes. That's devastating. I can't do anything. Can't divert, can't fight, nothing.

They should do peacing or longer conglutes when you die in unpeaced villages. *nod me*

Technically you can do comm quests, but I know that doing that is kinda crappy. I hate being out for 10 minutes too, although trying to think of a better punishment for debating is rather difficult. It wouldn't be fair if you lose a debate can be still active, but it still sucks to have shattered ego.

Not the reason at all, that was simply a gauge. Generally with these votes we already have a good idea of what we believe the best course to be, and just want to check there isn't some massive player rejection of the idea.



Even more of an uproar? This is the first thing I have ever heard against the system, and several villages have already fallen under it.



Why is it absurd? I don't think I've actually seen any reasons in this post other than "combat is better than influencing". One has to also take into account that you are well-known for fighting, but even when a village is in-play you are generally not seen influencing a great deal, choosing instead to take on the martial role. This is fine when a village is in-play and not peaceful, but perhaps you're simply annoyed that your traditional role isn't useful all the time, in which case I suggest you start training yourself to influence and debate well.

I certainly appreciate that there is good reason for a system alternate to combat, but I think that in the basic form it's currently in, the influence and campaign system lacks the balance, complexity and depth which is constantly pursued in combat.

I actually like this idea. Right now, if you die in an unpeaced village, you're basically back in the game immediately, so killing your opponents helps only oh-so-much. If the cards are played out right, that oh-so-much can turn the tides, but let's face it, the chances of that are pretty rare. This goes back to the 10 minute timeout from debating though. Being peaced or having a longer conglute sucks.

It isn't from any personal annoyance. Through observation, I've seen that debating seems to be heavily reliant on sheer luck. I've also been told many, many times since my return of the frustration people feel in a peaced village, with the debate system making them helpless for long periods, and repeated divert making influencing almost obsolete in a room with opposing parties (this is something I've experienced myself plenty of times in sanctuaries).

I agree with Amaru that the debating system specifically is not sufficiently developed to support peaced village revolts. It is simply too random, ironically enough considering the method and precision required in real debate. An overhaul is probably a long way down the road, but things would be helped a great deal if debating were taken off of game theory and modeled after simple Charisma/Intelligence calculated damage and defense.

I'm a huge admirer of the IRE combat system, and I see so little actual combat in Lusternia. The villages are the only real opportunities for armies to clash for a cause. It would be a shame if this fades in favour of what is, in my opinion, a badly designed and overly simple system which can already override the actual combat system by means of sanctuary.

Seriously? Because I can almost at any given time find a fight going on, and I could swear there were a hundred threads on these forums about how there's too much conflict.

If its based off of game theory, luck should really have nothing to do with it.

What I heard was a problem was people would (win/win/win/win/lose) and then just outright die from that last loss, as if every win still hurt them enough to get one loss knock them out completely. Thats just not a balanced Mechanic.

I've seen that the way it works is +1 0 -1, however it seems like it works more like -0/-2 -1/-1 -2/-0 And for some reason the -0 adds up enough "strength" so that when the -2 hits it knocks out all ego.

I mean combat which draws all people out of their holes and makes whole cities clash. This is what keeps a world as interactive and global as Lusternia moving, and creates an atmosphere of epic fantasy and scale.

Influence is just so full of little problems;

Laetitia a debater, and the debate becomes basically void.

Two people who want to influence a mob, both with divert. Pointless.

Get a friend to debate you - bang, you're immune to enemy debates for a few minutes.

It's basically a system which either needs a lot of work to sustain the important role it has in the game, or needs removing in favour of a combat-based system which relies on the essentially well-evolved and more balanced PvP combat system.

Edit: And I know balance > realism, but come on, I swing my 700 pound mace at a guy and somehow, since some dumb furrikin farmer cast a peace spell on a whole village (which historically makes no sense), the mace cannot hit him, instead he debates nothing with me and wins, therefore I can no longer convince villagers to follow my organisation. It just doesn't work for me, regardless of its flaws..

Hmm, dunno... I enjoy peaced villages a lot personally, no stress since there's no demesne to worry about, just walking around and influencing, a little debating here and there.

I enjoy peaced villages more than others, since I enjoy debating and influencing more than walking around in an enemy demesne while sanctuarying every room I move to not get wisped or demesne summoned into a closed down room with 25 enemies for certain death.

Heh. Some people are never happy.

There was an option in that poll for those who felt demesne were the problem, so they would not have chosen the peace options, as alleged, if they just thought demesne were the problem. Despite that, it still had strong support for peace vs. no peace. My impression has been that the majority of the people either like the change or at least do not dislike it (neutrality/ambivilence). Even those that prefer the violence have the violent option most of the time, which keeps most of those sorts of players happy.

The arguments against debating remind me of the arguments against bashing, yet bashing is still a major thing for some types of players even if it may seem utterly dull to many others. Both are methodical, uncomplicated, repetative, and often times luck based (unless you bash/debate things severely below your level). Even though IRE games orient the majority of their skillsets around violent combat, there is still a need to provide bashing grounds for those sorts of players. I see an analogy here for those that want to help their homelands with villages but do not go for the PK. Most of influencing right now is for the violent bloodbaths, but there is an occassional outlet for those who like methodical and less stressful activities.

The only problem I see with peaced villages is that campaigns have been disabled in them. I think that should be changed. Otherwise, peaced villages add a bit of diversity to influencing and am happy with the change for the most part.

It's just that.. it sometimes seems like actual combat has a smaller role in the overall balance of power than it did at Lusternia's creation. One of the things which attracted me and others to Lusternia was the chance for combat to not just be a bit of fun, or something fake and simulated in an arena, but to have a real, gritty, bloody effect on the game's politics.

It now feels like it's being phased out so that 'people who don't want to fight' have more input, and while this isn't so bad for some, it leaves those of us who've spent hours and hours of our time and £££s on our combat wondering why we didn't just tap a few keys on Astral, grab a sanctuary and debate instead. Debating now arguably has a stronger effect on politics than combat.

Because of the beauty and physics of our incredible combat system, it seems like a pretty bad exchange to me.

Slightly off topic but I found this funny coming from someone who plays a character that uses purely spells and spiritual power to fight people who swing 700 pound maces and beats them.