Just throwing this out as an idea. Please tell me if I'm out to lunch.

I've been thinking about why influencing guards is so popular, and I conclude that it's a risk vs reward thing - you can stand at your own nexus and influence for next to no risk (excluding big lag spikes) and influence high-level mobs one at a time. There are very few people who would/could bash these same guards. Just ignore for a moment that they are org loyals, and think of them as a group of high-level mobs that would defend one another if attacked. Not a very appetizing prospect from a risk vs reward standpoint, unless you can isolate them and deal with them one at a time, the way influencing does.

The idea would be to give a bonus to denizens of the same loyalty in the same location, something along the lines of what we gain with an influencing bonus. It could show in analyze like: "His confidence is boosted in the presence of his peers." I don't know appropriate numbers, but maybe 10% harder per loyal denizen?

i.e.
1 centaur hunter = 100% (normal difficulty)
2 centaur hunters = 110%
3 centaur hunters = 120%
etc...

Sounds all right to me.

Interesting idea. Would they also be worth more as a result of that boost? If so... guards would become even more appealing to good influencers, but now out of reach to lower influencers, which might make the problem even bigger.

Except, think of all those poor influencers, where guards are they're -only- source of decent exp. And of course, the fact that all guards are spammed in one location. It'll be more likely to be that each guard will be 200-300% tougher than it is now, for all 10-20 mobs. That's an increase of toughness of 1000%-4000% in total for a room. Once again, I ask you to think of the poor influencers.

One tiny question. Is there anything wrong with influencing guards being popular? In fact, I would think that it should be almost compulsory. Think of it this way, you gain experience for strengthening the defenses of your organisation. Why should that be discouraged?

Lastly, influencing guards gives us zero to negative gains in terms of money. (Bromides, beauty charges)

Unless there is some way to balance all these issues, I don't feel that this is a good suggestion.

Wouldn't that make guards into the kind of super influencing that folks are always complaining there's not enough of for higher leveled influencers?

Of course, if the exp gain is boosted along with the toughness, I have nothing to complain about.

EDIT: Although, wouldn't that go against the original proposal? To lower the incentive to influence guards?

EDITEDIT: Actually, I realised that that is what I'm arguing against, the discouraging of influencing guards. I've always loved the fact that influencers can help 'defend' against raiders in a supporting role, and that is through empowering guards.

Is it? I thought it was just to make super influence mobs.

That's what the original post sounded to me. He mentioned something about risk-reward being too much in influencing guards' favour. So I assume his suggestion is to increase risk, lower reward. Doesn't that mean lowering the attractiveness of influencing guards?

Which...lowers the incentive to influence guards.

@Caerulo: while I really don't think it should be nerfed, since it's just as well there's exp gains you're not just going to get jumped for trying, you don't come out behind on gold because of esteem.

Ah, yes, I totally forgot about selling esteem. Caerulo has some rule about selling his esteem to people. Doesn't feel right to him. Ehem, ignore the part about losing gold then.

I would suggest that they be worth the same. A guard is a guard is a guard. And for exactly the reasons you mentioned. The last thing influencing needs is a shift towards requiring superbuff demigod++ (i.e. benefiting the people who are already at the top).



Not in itself, no. You're right in that improving the defenses of your city/commune should be encouraged. I'm just suggesting it's a tad too easy in terms of the risk you incur. Influencing is a very on/off thing - either you can do it for a given mob for zero risk of losing, or you cannot. This would introduce just a bit of thought, as you'd have to consider how strong the thing would be given how many peers it has.



Like I said, I don't know how to do the numbers quite right. I think 10% per mob is probably on the high side. But it could be curved to taper off (say, tangentially approaching 200% or something).



The same is true of many high xp areas. If you get good xp, don't expect good gold (and vice versa). Except maybe on Astral...



I don't subscribe to the "poor influencer" school of thought. Like I said, there is next to no risk involved in influencing - why should the rewards be commensurate with riskier activities?

You're right, it is too easy. Simply because almost all influencing is targetted at lower levels. Imagine if the hardest mob you can bash are the krokani/aslarans. The analogy isn't perfect, but I'm sure you get what I mean. If the admin introduce influence-able mobs that are of high-level, with high risk/high reward, then sure.


And bashing isn't? Baring the occasional lag spike, isn't it very clear if you can bash a mob or not? You obviously do not bash Astral if you cannot handle it. Also, bashers get a wider range of mobs in terms of difficulty. If you can't handle Astral, go Catacombs. If not, go gorgogs/merians. Furthermore, bashing=/=influencing. Yes, mobs can be aggressive, and group up. However, so can you. You can gather a group to kill mobs. Influencing does not allow for that.


So basically, you don't want people to influence guards? If you lower the experience give, this means that empowering guards is targetted at lower level influencers. If you boost the toughness and experience, then this means that this is aimed at the higher level bracket. But if you boost the toughness while maintaining its experience gain, you just don't want people to do it.


So why should bashing get exceptions, while influencing don't? Where are the good gold plus good exp and high risk influencing areas? Crumkindivia? I remember it being nerfed in some way or other in terms of influencing.


I wasn't entirely serious when I used the phrase.


I'm just curious, has the exp gain for empowering guards been boosted while I was gone?

Alright, I had another idea while I was out walking the dog. I think it gets around some of the valid problems with the initial presentation that Caerulo has hilighted. And I think it's an interesting idea, at least. Let's bat this one around...

Instead of messing around with the difficulty of the individual mobs in a group, let's give a very, very small chance for a denizen of the same loyalty as the one you're influencing to team up on you. It would go something like this:



This way, you'd still have to consider the number of loyal denizens in the location, because you sure wouldn't want a lot of these teaming. You would have recourse to flee if it got too heavy, or, interestingly, you could have an influencing team (I know people have been wanting ways to do this) where you have someone follow you who is in charge of analyzing and diverting/engaging the mobs who come to help out.

This is a bit of a brain fart, so if you can think of ways to improve it, go nuts! And if you disapprove (it is again, making guards harder to influence), go nuts too!

Indeed, it is more interesting than simply buffing the toughness of guards.

Although, I foresee one problem. Lets say you've been influencing the centaur hunter and the frost hag leaps to his defence. But luckily for you, you brought along a fellow influencer who can divert the frost hag. Now comes the problem. Which hag should the friend divert if you have 10+ hags?

Also, said friend would be pretty bored waiting for guards to gang on his friend. And if he chooses to influence a guard of his own, how would he divert the other guards?

And yes, you can run away from the room, but most guards are clustered together, effectively restricting you from a large portion of uninfluenced guards. And what if said ganging happens at the nexus?


There was a similar suggestion to this, which I feel is better in a few ways. The other guards would reassure the guard being influenced, healing his/her/its ego.

I don't think that influencing should be harder. There are many people who don't want to hunt, and taking away any bonuses from influencing is forcing them to go hunt. This says to people that influencing is not as important as hunting. I still go hunting myself, because hunting is usually a lot better and less tedious to do. It might not take me any time to kill something (especially when hunting with someone), but it seems to take forever to influence. It also seems that charisma doesn't effect the time a whole lot, which is annoying.

I find the periodic minutes long brain wracking nexus spam unbearable and rage filling personally.

That's why I don't hang out at the nexus. There's always somebody deffing or someone influencing mobs.

Guard influencing is fine as is.

Just don't stand at the nexus.

Divert doesn't consume ego or equilibrium if the denizen is not focused on influencing. You could just run through the whole list of them until you got the right one.



That's part of the strategy decisions that make this more interesting than solo influencing.



Again, a risk you take when working against a large group of mobs. How would that be different than avoiding the large cluster of 5 cave-fishers? It's the same kind of exception you have in bashing. If you take on a lot at once, expect to have trouble. And you can always have someone else go in and divert a few while you're not there.



How is that different from the original suggestion of buffing the guard difficulty without any change in exp?



At the risk of destroying my credibility by exposing a motivation... I agree.

Guard influencing is fine. It's not like anybody is shooting to Demi because of the easy XP from influencing guards. The only levels where it is really good is like, 55-70, after that, it's sub-par to bashing. If you don't like nexus spam, don't sit at the nexus.