People are just overreacting. All the orgs have, in some way, experienced a 'beat down', some obviously moreso than others. But they're just getting too tied to the game. Just QQ and take a break, honestly.

As for constructs, the 30-day downtime is extremely harsh. I realize it was raised in the first place to encourage more conflict, but now that we're seeing more Nexus World fights it's proven to be a bad idea. Lower it.

I agree it can be confusing, but splitting that vote is exactly what you want here.

If you have 50 people who vote 1 and you decide "ok we will eliminate the negative effects" then 40 of those people really just wanted it reduced (or the other way around)... you have no idea. All you did is created another thread of people ranting about how they all wanted one thing and you did the extreme instead.

If you are trying to decide what people want you can't make option 1 two options without a choice of which option they mean.

Here's my two cents...

Negative effects should not be entirely removed. Mainly because what would be the point of the quests then? We bring down all 5 demon lords and.....? Yeah? What was the point of that?

To be honest, I don't think the negative effects are that grievous, although 30 days before one can rebuild constructs is insane. The main issue with the most recent stuff (IE: The Communes binding the Supernals and Demon Lords) wasn't more that the negative effects on the cities was too much, rather, it was simple game mechanics that placed it to the status of "What's the point anymore?" If the Etherglom/Etherwilde uber guardians (Maidens and Ladies or something) were as bad as Narsrim was saying they were a couple weeks ago on the Aqua's GTS, and if the cities couldn't meld, or something, that has nothing to do with the quests. That's just mechanics hitting the wrong way. It had NOTHING to do with Negative effects.

And I have to agree with what Gregori said about the Nexus Worlds. They give a great place for lowbies to bash in which they don't have to worry about pissing someone off because you *GASP* "Killed some mob that has some manner of connection that in truth affects the org that enemied you IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM!"
Example: Merians in the Arysian Isles, Ur'Dead in Shallach. In no way shape or form do the death of those mobs harm Celest or Mag.

Back on topic...

More then anything right now, it seems it's game mechanics and the natural ebb and flow of players that's making some things look worse then others.
I have to agree with Sthai as well. Maybe instead of ditching everything or nothing, go through everything and weed out that which sucks and leave in that which doesn't suck.

There are a lot of people that play the game for conflict, I'm sure Narsrim is one of those people, Krellan, Shuyin, myself for examples. Removing conflict from a game that revolves around conflict in some form or fashion is silly and taking away from those that do like it. I can understand reducing the ill effects it brings a tad but taking it to the point that people think "Who cares, I'm just going to sit at the Nexus and ignore you all cause it doesn't matter." would be ridiculous.

At one point I might've agreed at lessening conflict and what not, but by now I really believe that it should be left as it is. Some quests that revolve around conflict need some adjustments due to the pure tediousness involved (ahem at raising 9 beacons).

When I get online I will vote.

Yes please!



And me too here.


Okay, removing penalty based conflict. This is an awful idea. What I don't understand is how people do not know what they are getting into after playing the game for a while. This entire game is based around conflict, and while I used to RP heavily, I've moved away from that and am more of a PKer these days. The question becomes, what will happen if you remove penalties. The answer is conflict will die. It will be, as Vathael said, tide/earth lords 2.0 where you might defend, you might not, in the end who cares. When conflict becomes pointless, what is going to keep me and the other people that enjoy conflict around (and paying)? Clearly, nothing. We will find another game where people don't cry over power loss one month, then when they are on top the next, tell everyone else to get over it and vice versa. Another game where conflict isn't advertised as a central theme of the game, then nerfed into oblivion because people couldn't handle it.

Nexus worlds. Why is there such a fuss over them. They are OPTIONAL PERKS. If an org is going to lose them, or can not support them, guess what? They can not raise them. The only thing that should be removed is the free discretionary powers, and that's just because they suck in general, and most combatants want them gone. The solution to Celest being unable to defend themselves for now (it is temporary, it is always temporary.) isn't remove all the constructs from everyone else. As far as game breaking things, nexus worlds are not on my list. Certainly not as game breaking as a certain M word.


edit: Desitrus mentioned this. Removing the guardian symbol/pact loss from supernal/DL deaths. That always seemed like a pointless penalty.

Regarding the ethereal realms, we made a HUGE number of tweaks during the past event to help level the playing field (mechanics to allow mages to meld, dramatically reducing how many daughters/ladies stand by avatars, changing the archways, etc.), so I'm not sure what else you want.

Regarding nexus worlds, we are talking about the construct/colossi conflict system, not the actual worlds themselves. As I said, I have continually been disappointed in the system as special committees and continually tweaking the mechanics hasn't seemed to help.

I've argued this elsewhere before.

Remove most negative effects inflicted on the target of conflict quests. For example, the Wyrdling, Avatars, Supernals and Demon Lords should all repop after a certain amount of time. Keep the power drain associated with certain quests (say, from losing a construct).

Add positive effects that work as bonuses for the attacker. For example, killing an Avatar, Supernal or Demon Lord grants a blessing to the winning group that, say, increases all essence gain by 50% for 24 IG hours. Or gives a 25% bonus to health/mana/ego. You get the idea, more personal benefits, less forced work.

I think people are misinterpreting what this referendum is. I don't read it as removing conflict. I'm interpreting it as adjusting the penalties so that organizations still have the ability to retaliate without being severely hampered.

After you raid 4-5 times and bring down their org protection/constructs/discretionary powers, the loser is severely hampered in the ability to defend/retaliate.

I think you can still have conflict while lessening the penalties. The PKers will still PK.

From my point of view, the system has not proved to be the interesting or dynamic system that we had hoped they would be. The mechanics are complicated, not everyone understands what's going on, the construct powers become viewed as obligatory rather than optional, actual battles where multiple sides participate are rare, tweaking the mechanics hasn't seemed to solve anything, etc. As much as I liked the concept, I am just leaning towards chalking it up as a failed system.

@Jozan
1. Reduce or eliminate negative effects from conflict systems.

You remove the negative effects and people won't feel it necessary to bother with whatever form of "conflict" is occurring at the present time thusly removing conflict.

Correct. It's not about removing the conflict systems (except maybe the nexus world system!) but removing or reducing the negative effects.

1. Reduce or eliminate negative effects from conflict systems.

No penalties, no reason to defend. No defending, no conflict.

Nothing about the current penalties (it's pretty much all power loss) hampers retaliation.

I don't want to eliminate negative effects either, but I think they need to be brought in line to keep all organizations competitive.

The argument would be that if the other side benefits from doing the quest (or whatever), then there is incentive to stop the other side from benefiting (if they are your enemy, you don't want them to benefit).

And when you drain all our power? A lot of these quests are repeatable with massive amounts of power loss.

Also, as you keep doing these quests and gaining power, you gain more ascendants for your demigod train army.

Lopsided power balances also kills conflict.

Aren't you one of those people that avoided conflict and did nothing but influence guards at the nexus to Demigod?

I think the major problem with the whole construct/colossi ordeal is that getting into Aetherspace is a huge ordeal.

Ships are expensive as all hell. A one room ship is 600,000 gold (350 for the Fulcrux, 250 for the Egg). Now, let's tack on an additional 4 rooms (bare minimum) for 3 turrets and a grid, as without any, you won't last any decent amount of time in a battle. That right there is another 1.125 million. That's not pocket change, and it doesn't come easily. I think more people would get involved in Aetherspace and Nexus world fights if ships weren't so damn expensive and crews so hard to get. The biggest issue with hunting in Aetherspace is finding a crew. There are a few more important things to trans out before Aethercraft.

To be honest, I think the system is just premature. The game would probably need a couple dozen more players, then it might look better.

People who want to fight, fight. Do you really think anyone went up to fight 3 Mags on Celestia because they were worried about Supernals? Angels don't mean snot, they can just ninjaraid them if they want them. Give me a break, the "conflict" you're describing is zerg on zerg NPC slaying.

Not sure why influencing to demigod has anything to do with org conflict. They're an easy source of XP.

^^ What Desitrus said too, PKers will continue to PK.