Then it just boils down to that I disagree with those who think it is serious overkill.

I understand what you mean by bandaid--I just don't see serious flaws in the system. I am open to tweaks or new ideas, however.

I don't recall the discussion in the other thread, but I am fine with the power rewards frankly and do not see them as a flaw. I don't know what Catarin suggested to replace them with, but sure we can consider new ideas.

Regarding astral, it seems to me to be easy to just locate the person who called the challenge in the first place, rendering domoth reveal irrelevant. Just follow the guy who called the object.

Celest is hyperactive in Domoths. Let me assure you that we're not hyperactive because there are no flaws in the system. Nor are we doing it because we necessarily actually enjoy it greatly. (except for chaos because the hamsters are just fun) We do it to get power for Celest.

If us using the system is avoiding it being looked at, then we can stop if need be.

As far as Sealbearers go I am just not sure where you're coming from. It seems like you're saying that ICly, Sealbearers should be accorded every honor for their achievement and with this I completely agree 100%. ICly Sealbearers are like Olympic champions. However, that does not change the fact that the advantage they gain in Domoth Battles on top of the prize they already received is overkill and flat out too much, imbalancing, and frankly - unfair.

It would not be overkill if people actually had to regain the seal every new ascension event. But you decided to give away these things permanently and I think you already saw the dissapointment of many of us when it did not even have the domoth advantage to it.

I had said we can look at what advantage they do get and are open to ideas.

Okay-- well, the biggest problem with the system that we've been experiencing is as follows:
1) The first stage is pretty much okay as-is.
2) This stage takes, generally, between an hour and ten minutes to an hour and a half with no opposition (and there's generally very little opposition here-- first time I've seen it happen in a week was yesterday). It's a long, long time. You pretty much have to take a group (or you're really open to getting jumped) and they just... stand there for an hour. And slowly drift away, heading to the aethership to QQ. Pretty tedious.
3) This stage is the biggest problem. You have 1 hour, and have to spend half of that time in front of the Throne while mobs spawn. Okay, so that doesn't seem TOO bad... until you factor in that others can come in and interfere here. One person, with hit-and-run tactics, can (and has, repeatedly) been able to completely wreck larger groups trying for the stage-- you don't have to actually *kill* the people, you just need to mess them up enough that NPCs keep spawning to the point where they can't continue / have to move away from the Throne. In fact, killing isn't even needed. Just harass them.

The overall idea was to move things to Astral, with the reveal thing. Sure, you'd see where the person went to on Astral-- but not before they had time to put together their own group and start setting up a demesne on a sphere before they actually enter that room and reveal it. It still gives the first person who sees it time to put a "claim" on the location, though yes, if you see an enemy group demesning up a sphere, you can take your own up to fight them and then wander around the sphere revealing until you find the thing. You still don't have the exact knowledge of where it's going to be. Then, for the final stage, make it so that only the person who claimed the object in stage 2 can enter the Domoth (along with those that they give permission to), to try and fix the whole bottleneck thing. This emphasizes battling on stage 1 and stage 2, before all that time has been wasted. If you hit 3 and get stopped-- you lose everything. With the current rewards, the incentive to "stop you" (not to win and get the Throne yourself, but just to Stop The Enemy From Getting It Themselves) is very, very high-- which may be what you wanted, but doesn't actually lead to a fun time for the people involved.

I disagree with some minor semantics and also disagree with the proposed solution as is to move it to astral. I gave my response to your astral idea in the other thread and I suppose I could paste it in here if need be. However I agree with your basic point.

The system encourages AFKness and doing it when your enemies aren't around because even a couple of them around can be a serious pain though as you get more proficient in it, it does take more people to disrupt you. Assuming YOU have a good sized group of demigods/ascendants helping you. If you don't, you're hosed unless you make very sure you only do it when no opposition is around at all.

That's why we added occasional guardians to pop up so there's something to do! (I think that was your idea.)

Any other idea to make it more interesting?

Right, and I love the guardians because they give much needed essence. I'm just saying it's not all that interesting for the groups you have to bring as...for some reason most non-demis/ascendants die...rapidly when faced with multiple guardians. Which is entertaining but eh. So they usually wait elsewhere. I don't know. An hour is a long time. It's hard because it's plenty interesting when someone bothers to come try to stop you. So it can't be *too* challenging without interference as then it is overly challenging with it. And again, an hour is too long without interference and fine with interference.

The doing it when no one around stands as for the orgs without a dedicated demigod/ascendant corps, it's just really hard to get through that third stage at any level. Sealing it during the third stage would help offset the need for your own personal deathsquad and would likely see more activity from non-Celestians and non-Serenwilders. And it would also encourage people to get up and go try to stop at the second stage more. Right now, yes, I can muster a group and go and battle it out on an aetherbubble. But..why? I can stop them with far less trouble in the third stage and claim the throne for myself in 5 hours. There aren't enough people going for orbs and crowns and trying to usurp a sceptre is just silly.

If the only opportunities to stop them are in Stage 1 and Stage 2 you'll probably start seeing more interaction at those levels. Solving the problem of Stage 2 being a bit tedious. Though it doesn't really change the problem of starting things when your enemies aren't around. But that's not really so much of a problem as who knows when people might show up? And it's also harder to get orbs/crowns if you're purposefully doing it in off hours. Unless of course you're just doing it purely off timing in which case you can get the whole thing by yourself heh.

It sounds like most of the issues are in stage 3. What if that is cut down dramatically, like to 10 minutes?

I think the same problem would exist. It would still be easier to stop them at Stage 3 then Stage 2 so people would not try in Stage 2. Now it wouldn't be AS easy as it is now because they would still have the full 60 minutes to get those 10 minutes knocked out. But the core issue would remain I think. Maybe not. Others have opinions I'm sure.

Hmm, I suppose we could just cut stage 3 out.

But Stage 3 is handy for the extra essence costs. Though without chance of interference it would be kind of trivial and ultimately unnecessary. I would be sad to see it go. Ascending the throne is kind of neat from a RP perspective.

If we do go with isolating the challenger in the domoth, how many could handle the crown stage guardians alone?

Honestly? One. If you have the timing down - and it's not hard to get the timing down at all - you don't have to fight in stage 3 *at all*. As has been said before, the timing needs to be randomized a bit Maybe not in Stage 1 as Stage 1 is fine but definitely in Stage 3.

EDIT: Oh and if randomized then would probably need 3 to 4 people for Stage 3 crown.

EDIT2: Another suggestion is that the points in Stage 3 are calculated when the mobs spawn. You get a burst of points as opposed to per second of standing there. So you can't just avoid ever spawning mobs if you want to actually claim it.

One of the biggest reasons we (Serenwilde) haven't been getting as many Domoth as we used to have is, as has been pointed out, is the ease in stopping someone in the third stage. We have to check to see if people like Thoros (as he alone can pretty much stop our progress unless we have like 4 demigods for the sceptre) are around prior to starting the challenge. Then, an hour and a half later (the time is usually takes to finish stage one and two uncontested), the number of opposition demigods could have easily changed.

I am pretty sure this system was designed to bring conflict, but right now, unless you have lots of demigods who are regularly around at the same time (Celest) with little opposition during those times, you don't really get much of a chance to bring conflict. For the Sceptres, there is nothing for us to lose, but once we get to the Orb and Crown stages, it's an all or nothing challenge, which can be even more easily stopped than the sceptre

There is no way in hell a single Demi/Ascendant can handle crown-level stage 3 alone. The only way to do this is to abuse the timing of the mob spawns and that seems against the spirit of the effort / bug.

Therefore, isolating one Ascendant only will be rough.

As an idea, what if the Ascendant/Demi was only isolated at the Throne itself, while his companions can hang around at the 2 rooms leading into the Throne.

The mobs can spawn in those rooms, and the group can do their best to stop those mobs from breaking past them and harassing the Challenger.

I am envisioning this like how the gravediggers attack the children while they're trying to disable Globglob's antenna. Maybe a 'barrier' can spring forth, ICly hence why the guardians have to break through that, once it breaks though, anyone can go in there, but the penalty for that is increased spawns or something else equally harsh.

As far as other players stopping this attempt goes, they can try to drive the protectors away by letting the guardians break through and then proceed to pwn the challenger once the barrier does break.

Right, exactly. It's how the mechanic works though so whether it's abuse or not, it's fully feasible and would need to be considered before just making it so only the challenger and friends can be in there. Expecting people to not use a mechanic simply because it's against the spirit of it all really isn't the way to go about it because we ALL know it's going to happen.

One idea to make the second stage more interesting would be to have the Domoth item move to another bubble after 10-15 minutes of someone claiming it. That would require moving around and would break up the entrenched AFK group mentality. Thoughts?

I don't like this idea. This would just make getting a Domoth more of a hassle.

And I don't see how there is an AFK mentality anymore, with creatures spawning in the second stage as well.