It's a nice idea, but it doesn't solve any of the things I see as problems. Namely, the fact that it doesn't stop diverters from diverting. At all, in fact, given what you have there.

How so? As soon as you start engaging in an influence battle, you're hitting for ego, meaning they won't be able to divert.

If you win, they lose the ability to divert. Just as it is now.

Ego regen is absurd - being able to lower their current ego has nothing to do with their ability to regen it faster than you can harm it, thus making it impossible to stop someone from diverting, or a team of diverters.

You never mention stopping divert anywhere in the post.

What, you expect me to be able to read? Your standards are too high.


EDIT: It's 9:26am. I've been logged into Lusternia for 12 hours longer than I intended to be. Leave me alone

You're so going to win the online time awards now.

Deabting and infulencing in a peaced villiage just dosnt seem that interesting or fun at the moment, its all luck in the debate and diverters mean that one mob gets bounced around so much they refused to be debated making things like a nine hour delport fight long drawn out and boring. Debating seems fine at the moment infulencing the mobs should be made quicker some how or divert changed I think.

Avaer:

I kind of like it actually, if by 'without loss of the skillset' means you can still influence others. I state that because the system gives a MAJOR benifit to Charisma, since faster hitting means it's faster to find their weakess and pound them with it.

I say, though, remove the delay to switching and make it unaffected by balance. If you do, you'll make it similar to Parry, which makes warrior on warrior fighting VERY skill based. Just don't have hitting the 'defense' result in a major ego hit for the attacker. Then both people will have to focus on the fight: The defender WILL NOT be able to just kill with just defense, while the attacker can't just find the weakness and win.


As for the ego hit upon leaving? Make it equivlant to a half a hit(say, if the max ego damage you do is 1000, them leaving costs them 500 ego). ALOT of people seem to think that Debate is like Combat, where you can 'jump' people and beat them. Debating is NOT meant to do that. What is IS meant to do is to stop people from diverting or influencing a challenged villager. You find a person influencing Monique, you debate them down to stop it. You find a diverter getting in the way of your influencing and you debate them away. If you see someone just walking around, now is NOT the time to debate. If someone runs away and stays away then you're one step closer to gaining the villager, which is the real point of the matter.

The ego hit will stop people from stepping outside and instantly rushing back in and out and in and out. Chasing them if they don't run far becomes a good way to remove them. If they run completely away, then just leave them be and go back to influencing.

Oh,

Charity: You siphon ego from yourself to others at random.

These suggestions are in addition to Avaer's suggestions.

I suggest that you only be allowed to influence one mobile or player at a time. Also, diverting will not cause the mobile to stop debating with its target. It'll just start debating with you. Thus, if you're engaged in an influence battle (with a player or another mobile) you cannot divert, as it would cause you to be stuck in two.

Running from an influence battle, whether from a mobile or a player, will cause a steady ego drain as you curse yourself for the mistakes in your arguments. This loss will be inflicted on the person who did not argue last.

Finally, mobiles will attempt to influence you back at a rate dependent on their charisma bonuses, rather than on a timer based on your last influence attack. This is to make PvP and PvE influencing more comparable in terms of difficulty.

It's a pretty poor idea. Functionally speaking, at least. Aesthetically pleasing, insofar as is possible for a hack job, but I don't think it's a sound solution.

You know, the first part sounds pretty neat. Instead of having to sit there diverting until someone shows up, you can just Divert then get to work. It also stops the "debate/shatter/egokill" act that results in xp loss (which doesn't NEED to go, but I approve of losing). Meanwhile, once you get a second person in, you can have yourself Divert to grab the villager, then have the other debate to keep it.

It'll make numbers more important, but if you can knock out your debater quick you're back in the fight.


The second part I don't approve of. What if you're running by and slip a quick attack on you as you pass? If you're following someone, you may not even notice the effect.

Leave off. Random acts of debate is not and shouldn't be a viable attack tactic. Strike where it counts: at the villagers and those fighting you for them.

Lastly, the last one will work if the first part is added.

The original debating was a good thought in theory, but in practice I think it is implemented in such a way that it actually detracts from influencing, making the event frustrating and repetitive. You're right, this isn't a full submission to the administration of something that should be implemented as is, it was a quick idea that I thought might be able to spark some more interesting mechanics for village conflict.

If you have a less spontaneous, less "hack job" idea that could improve village influencing, please feel free to share it.

* Fix the time it takes for a denizen to go from smug -> available for influence. It currently takes a long time
* Fix whatevers causing Denizens to become ultra resistant due to too much diverting
* Change, somewhat, the logic that dictates when a village is "won" based more on denizens converted and less on rate of conversion, as the 'standard' i see is "big rush initially" followed by "trickles of the occasional denizens as they come up for reinfluencing" - ie, the latter rate of conversion is low

In essence, fix the reasons why influencing is now being drawn out. The admin did change things to try and prevent 8 hour influencing runs; perhaps more is needed now people have a clue.

This is perfectly fine as is. There are ways to deal with it. We found them, so can you

We did? Wtf! Tell me!

EDIT: Oh, that one. Okay.

Lose on purpose, but thats seems a bit tacky.

No, that actually hurts your org (we think.)

Make the other side lose. It explains the mass of smugs wandering around.

Honestly, though, I think that was a major reason the battle took so long in Delport. At some points I'd see 4-5 named villagers all smug and, thus, not influenced.


Oh another idea, simple but helpful I think: shorten the time that a villager takes to become laidback, perhaps half it even. Right now it's easy to wait 5-10 minutes before ANYTHING shows up again (rough estimate: I know there's probably something quickly taken, but you get the idea I hope). More changes to influence means more action, more fightings, less big pileups on the one villager that's free, and probably a faster revolt session.

Change it so that instead of having 2/3 attacks do basically nothing (the 'neutral' one doing like 200 ego is a load of crap) have the neutral one do a significant amount of loss to the person hit with it.

So it comes to two attacks win and one loss?

Blah. Then it becomes too nasty for people who are debated while trying to influence. I know I would rather sit next to a villager and Shatter anyone who tried for it than to influence them myself.


Now what I can see is to make it Win for a big hit, Draw for almost nothing, and Loss for a SMALL counterhit. Right now the damage for the counterblow does more damage than winning!