This post now has no context, so I'm snipping it as well.

Take it to PMs you two. Catarin, if you feel you have real grounds to allege bug abuse and you would like us to pursue it, please ISSUE.

- Fain

I know my opinion doesn't count for much, but the change to make domoth guards appear when claiming a sceptre/orb/crown seems very poor. Granted, it can be boring when nobody shows up, but stealing the chaos crown and subsequently defending that position, isolated in the remote depths of aetherspace, was some of the most enjoyable PK I've ever experienced in Lusternia. I haven't tried it since the change, but, from what the announce post sounds like, stage 2 is going to be pretty much just like stages 1 and 3 (prohibitive to PK because of the ease of ganking someone who's trying to fight a swarm of mobs) except that non-demis can participate.

Of course, with a team of bored mortals to kill the swarm of mobs it's a lot easier than stages 1 and 3, which rely solely on demigods.

The PK point is valid, but it seems like you wrote it all wrong. Prohibitive to PK? It enables PK way too much because of the ease of ganking someone who's trying to fight a swarm of mobs. People don't really have any outs to that.

EDIT: And it shouldn't be PK-orientated even without that factor.

Sorry, I meant meaningful PK.

Ah, fair enough.

I'm also not a fan of guards spawning in the 2nd stage. I haven't experienced it firsthand yet, but are they coming at the defender in full force?

Nah, they're pretty spread out. I think it's randomised, sometimes we were getting 2 with 15-30 seconds in between, sometimes 2 in a few minutes.

Right, it's much more random and much less severe than stages 1 and 3. Even so, especially when going after the Orb and Crown, it may be a good idea to take a few trusted friends (who of course needn't be Ascendants or Demigods) to help you out.

Even though I'd love to be able to participate in the domoth things as a Titan right now, I agree that it shouldn't be opened up to Titans as it is with both demigods and Ascendants currently because of the aforementioned bit of it somehow losing some level of special-ness. Right now, it's what's pushing me to hunt even more to get demigod faster because I want to achieve that level and partake in something that IS worthwhile and challenging. Just my two cents.

Agreed.

I've not been keeping up with events here at all, so all I think about when someone says Domoth is this:

This advantage that seal bearers have in the domoth battles is pretty major. It seems kind of unbalancing that an hour's worth of work at some point in time will forevermore translate into a huge advantage in a gamewide system that is meant to spark some conflict and sustain interest in the game for those who have "maxed out". Especially considering seal bearers already get a cubix quality artifact for their win. It is a nice idea RP wise but the way it plays out mechanic wise isn't all that encouraging.

What if instead of the seals giving an automatic bonus that cannot be matched by anyone who didn't happen to get a seal, it was more an attunement matter. You tune yourself to a particular domoth. This would involve a quest of some sort. Perhaps quests similar in nature to the battles for the seals. You can only tune to one domoth, you have to refresh it from time to time. Instead of nullifying any effect, seal bearers would have the attunement last longer.

If you go for the domoth you are attuned to, you get the bonus only sealbearers currently get. True Ascendants who raised through that seal would still get the double bonus. It is also a good RP opportunity to incorporate the domoth you are tuned to, to yourself.

All right, my thoughts on the whole thing now:

First of all, it's designed in such a way that people who are normally great folk feel that they need to Win (note the emphasis. Not normal winning, as would be expected from this game, but flat out Win. Any cheap tactics, any way to stomp the opponent as quickly as possible so they just can't participate). This certainly doesn't make for a fun and exciting opportunity for people to participate in. Please note that it's not only myself with this complaint, but Kaervas as well. I've also noticed both Thoros and Ceren seem to have pretty much given up on the whole concept as well. This is due to both the mechanical implementation, as well as the rewards: When your opposing organization is getting 500-1000 power a day for a successful challenge, you want to Make Sure They Do Not Get It. At whatever the cost.

Thus, for something that is supposed to encourage high-end conflict/participation... it seems to be pretty effectively killing it off as soon as it starts.

Problems/Solutions with each of the three stages:
Stage 1: This one actually seems the most balanced (and most fun!) of all the three stages. There's no significant time expenditure-- it's just trying to kill off thirty critters. You have to get the kills yourself, so it's tough to actually ask for help-- but for the sceptre at least, asking for help isn't really even necessary. There's an issue here in that if you're alone, you can pretty easily be stopped-- but at the same time, it doesn't only count if you're standing in front of the throne, so you can run around a bit against one opponent and try to get a few NPC kills with criticals.
Solution: Nothing's coming to mind at the moment. This one may not really need changes.

Stage 2: This is the worst of the lot. If you go alone, it's an exercise in tedium. If you take a group of people... they all get bored out of their minds. You stand there for an hour, occasionally killing a few NPCs. This was so exciting that half the group I took with me just went back to the Aethership we flew in on and typed QQ. Long trip, no easy way back for them, no ability to communicate-- just an hour of sitting around. Hooray. If you do end up fighting and dying, well... again, it's on an aetherbubble. Long trip, much QQing involved.
Solution: Just ditch the whole Aetherspace idea for this part. Use Astral. Make it so that the item needs to be DOMOTH REVEALed (new Domoth ability, costs 5 power)-- they see a room location on Astral, they walk there and reveal it. Now the item shows up and can be fought over normally. As it's on Astral, the time expenditure can be significantly reduced-- far easier to put together a group and go up to participate. You're completely right that reducing it lower than an hour on Aetherbubbles would make it difficult for competition to come in at this stage, so... switch it. Use this system, make it a half-hour base or 15 minutes with the Medallion. You've got time while the person first makes their challenge to put together a group. The moment they complete the challenge, pop up to Astral. When the Challenger shows up, you can either run over to that sphere, take control, and have your own Demigods/Ascendants go around it doing Domoth Reveal until they find it (at 5p a pop, you're not going to do all of Astral this way to find the thing), or wait for them to reveal it themselves and fight.

Stage 3: You have one hour, during which you need to stand in front of the Throne for 30 minutes (half the time). Mobs spawn consistently throughout. Add in even one person using whatever cheap tactics they have at their command, and... well, you're not getting it. Period. This stage is designed to be an easy chokepoint, which, after a full hour and a half's investment (challenging, flying to a bubble, standing there being bored out of your skull) is pretty darned frustrating.
Solution: Really, I'd prefer that the time when you're supposed to stop it is the second stage. If you're going to keep the second stage at an hour, make that the only stage where you can interfere. For example, let's say Sojiro has successfully completed the second stage. He goes to challenge for the Crown of Death. Nobody can enter the Death Domoth without his permission-- it's him versus the Guardians for a final challenge, instead of him vs. Guardians vs. me spamming web on him (or holding Nejii in a pin, or whatever).

The way it is now, however, is just... nasty. The rewards are too high, as has been complained about consistently. It encourages people to use the mechanical implementation to discourage opponents from even bothering to try.

And sure, I could spend half an hour just webbing a challenger, but really-- how is that fun? For anyone?

Or Glomdoring could start sending its Demigods to Choke the Throne during the last stage. And nobody wants that!

My only objections, as someone who is unable to actually take part, are the large amounts of free power (they should be halved, since people dislike the idea of them being removed entirely) and the second stage being stupidly boring.

That is one of the things I mean by "cheap tactics," yes.

Agree. You want as many thrones for yourself as you can get. It is not even so much so that you can get power (as the only usage for the extra power coming in is to raise more Ascendants who can then be throne into the system to ...get more power) but to stop your opponents from getting power so they can raise more Ascendants than you can and thus get even more power.

While at some point you really want to just say "This is silly" and get off the hamster wheel, you NOT participating will result in other orgs outstripping you in power i.e. in rate of Ascendant acquisition.

People are not going to change. An org is not going to just decide to let their mortal enemies go ahead and claim that throne. It is not "fun". It is work you feel obligated to attempt. The fix needs to be in the system itself.

So I agree that power is an effective incentive, but at this point I'm going to have to say it's not a *good* incentive. Reducing the power generated is not a good solution as if they're reduced too much, it's not worth it to participate and if they're not reduced enough, it's the same situation now. Power should be removed from incentives and replaced with more personal incentives that do not have an org wide effect. Or just change it altogether so it is not such a zero sum game. Which would basically be removing "ownership" of the thrones so that others can challenge them as long as they're not dormant.




Not all demigods/ascendants HAVE seals/cubixes. So how are they supposed to get to the sphere it's on if it doesn't happen to be connected? For 15 lessons anyone can learn how to pilot a ship to anywhere an item is likely to pop up and most orgs have publically available ships. If you don't have an item that can take you to any sphere you need to be at, you're then dependent on only challenging thrones when someone is around that has one of the aforementioned items.

While I dislike Stage 2 intensely, just moving it to Astral without change to the process does not seem the way to go. I'd rather see something like it pops on an aetherbubble, you retrieve it, you then need to imbed it at an Astral node (any node and everyone has acess to at least one sphere) for a period of time. This is because you have to siphon off energy from the item before you can truly claim it. (In the process, it could charge that node some amount!) The mobs popping could either be nixed altogether, or it could change to being mobs native to the sphere you're on that pop up. After your 30 minutes or 15 minutes, you claim the item and go on to Stage 3.



Once you get the hang of these battles, you against the guardians alone is not exactly...challenging. But I completely agree that stopping someone in the final stage is just stupidly easy and is a disincentive for even bothering to complete the first two stages. I know if an enemy is claiming a throne, I would not bother going after them in Stage 1 or Stage 2 (unless it was an orb/crown). Not when it's so easy to stop them in the final stage. I'd agree with the change of sealing the Domoth IF the spawn patterns of the creatures was randomized for Stage 3.



I disagree that the rewards are "too high". I don't think they're that high at all actually. I can spend an hour and get 500 power from aetherspace with much less hassle than claiming a sceptre! But I believe the nature of the rewards is inappropriate as it is a "You get it or someone else will. And if someone else does, their org has an advantage over your org"

Best pun I've seen all week!

Although I generally agree with you, you answered your own question right there.

You hop on an Aethership and pilot your butt to the correct node- they all can be docked at just as easily as an Aetherbubble. A Cubix is still a hell of alot faster, true, but it's still the truth that a ship can be piloted there. I don't know if that's fair, but it is something to keep in mind with a complaint like that.



A much more annoying issue is actually people (well, Mag) currently draining all of Astral at the wee hours of the morn in huge groups to prevent anyone from being able to hunt there. It's mind-bogglingly frustrating, and yet again makes me wonder why I bother trying to hunt, much like leading up to the Death Challenge, when people did the same to make it easier. No one can stop them, since they can't lose anything- Lich, cubix, rinse, repeat, forever. When you're overlinking that hard, it's not really a problem to keep burning the power to keep lich up.

It's not as if anywhere is remotely comparable to Astral- Illithoids are mind-blowingly boring, Aetherbubbles simply don't offer enough, and the Catecombes are insane if you don't have magical lich ability to prevent experience loss.

Can War Champions please be looked at. They break limbs far far far far too often.

Oh and idea for adjustment to harmony crown blessing. Could the limit for dross be doubled as well? So instead of stopping at 15 stopping at 30?

15 lessons doesn't get you to transverse, which is necessary for aetherpiloting to Astral but not to 99.9% of the aetherbubbles which are all in PrimeSpace, with Xion being the only exception I know of.