Can't have your cake and eat it too.

If folks aren't wanting to fight losing battles anymore - stop. Enjoy doing other things and just let the other guy shadowbox. If they aren't willing to try something completely different to break the cycle - don't. Keep doing the same old same old. But then, getting mad cause they aren't 'winning' in a game that can't actually be won at all is silly.

And hey, if you don't think the temporarily surrendering idea is viable, try something else! You need fighters, right? Buy yourselves some! Send your Ambassador out to make secret negotiations with the top tier combatants of other nations. Heck even Glomdoring ones! Offer them a deal too good to pass up in exchange for them joining the Seren - gold, credits, unlimited power, a free manse, whatever. Not all combatants would be amenable to going mercenary like that, but some would and if you get enough, it could tilt the balance back your way.

Or come up with something else. You're only in a rut if you don't try to climb out.

Which is what the better part of Gaudi feels. We don't even want a village, because if we got one, we'd just have to put up with it being raided constantly. Since the number of defenders/fighters in the city can be counted on one hand, and of those, only perhaps two log on with any regularity, it literally isn't worth the hassle to try. Put forth a lot of effort and win- your reward is a headache.

And honestly, I'd rather have my peace of mind than a few commodities or power.

But, that then asks the question, when the rational choice (at least, as far as a good part of Gaudi goes) is non-involvement, is there something wrong with the system? Maybe, maybe not. I've only a vague idea of what Estarra is really aiming for conflict wise, in the long view of things. If it is, then things are working well in hand. If it is not, the solutions lie either in changing the system away from the raiding, or essentially forcing those not involving themselves to participate.

The latter option, as far as I'm concerned, is an awful idea. Forcing people into a situation they will not enjoy because the alternative is worse is a great way to alienate people who can freely walk away- be it to another org, general apathy nexus/manse camping, to alts on a side in less dire straights, or away from the game entirely.

I don't know. Sadie and I have publicly backed ignoring village revolts at this point, but I doubt people will listen.

And yeah, we have a higher population. You have the fighters and top tier talent, we have more mid tier people who can't scratch you, yay.

Generally, things don't seem to change as long as people are still going all-out for something (because, hey, they must really like it despite the complaints if they're willingly doing things that get those complaints).

I fully understand that it is annoying as-is; the day Glomdoring went Conquest I had a very long discussion with one of the Administrative staff about the constant raiding this could create. I was told that, in the end, this is a Conflict Game (ie, it is intended to cause lots of raiding). As that's the way Conquest gets village feelings up in opposing villages, well... it's pretty much required with the system as it is.

I'm not questioning why Serenwilde doesn't like it, I'm simply questioning why they knowingly go after it. Do their leaders feel that it's worth the headache? Are they just not thinking about it? What's the calculation here?

We go after villages because that's just what you're supposed to do. This is the first time I've ever seen a debate about whether we should or not. If we actually decide not to, there are going to be people throwing a fit. The same people that complain that we can't defend and that people won't get off their ass and fight. I sympathise with them, but you can't honestly expect people who would much rather hunt, RP, or quest to drop everything and defend 24/7. The entire commune will get along better when people understand that.

Because conquest government actually working is only a very recent thing, I doubt it really occurred to people it would get worse. Previously if they raided a village it was to kill the guards, because people were bored or whatever. We also went from no villages to 5 fairly quick and were using more power on guards for them then they were generating. And after we decided to ease up on the guards, we find ourselves with multiple raids a day on every unguarded village.

Noola, your optimisim is commendable.

It is the optimist that is really in revolt, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidial effort to prove to others how good they are- G.K. Chesteron

As much as that is a negative portrayal, I some how doubt your Sponge-bob like sense of well being will permit you to see it as such. This is a good thing.


Here's the thing though.

Seren is a political mess of egos and loose cannons to the extent that, as an outside observer now for six-odd months, any sympathy I can muster has been largely bled away or is limited to a few individuals.

Furthermore, the game, like most games trend towards, is largely dominated by cliques. Lusternia, for the last year or so, has essentially been dominated by one clique, especially since Thoros's mob has largely dispersed/stopped playing/whatever. If Estarra droped an aether-nuke on glom in a desperate bid to shake up macro balance, we'd just be down one org, and the clique would pick a new place to play from.

It is hard to get people to hop cliques, especially when they are comfortable. Most people don't without a truly compelling reason. And while there are plenty of people willing to hop on the gravy train, there are very, very few that are both willing and capable of building up a down org- even moreso with the current state of things.

There's no real easy solution, other than a hands off approach, but even taking a "free market" approach to org strength has its pitfalls.

This is one of the problems with the new system... it's designed in part to force turnover, as neutral feelings have an advantage over negative feelings (only earned by holding villages) come revolt time. Unfortunately the result of this is that they now have villages they are forced to defend, that maybe they wouldn't have had otherwise, and which we have every incentive to raid.

I think one of the issues is that the raids themselves are quite obnoxious. I think every time you hit a denizen they are screaming out OH MY GOD NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! on ct, multiplied by 40ish depending on the village. Despite the fact that we all know that these are little text mobs that are going to respawn in an hour - despite the fact that it doesn't matter that much even in the context of the game - these messages are designed to evoke a response from defenders, and they are effective. The only way you can conceivably ignore them is to turn loyal says off - which is pretty much negated by 1 person not having them off. And yes - we're not there to fight you. We can't really, because of avenger. Our only goal is to kill denizens and try to leave without dying, but even if we do die, as long as we killed some denizens, it doesn't hurt our cause.

I think it might be useful to look at some of the suggestions for organizing these raids into specific, limited time frames (maybe tied to weakenings, or sun signs?). We're not doing these village raids to try to 'grief', but to try to boost village feelings. It would probably be more enjoyable for everyone if these raids could play out like mini-games in their own rights.

Are the benefits from not having guards (power) outweighing the penalty (villagers calling for help & dying)?

The majority of Glomdoring I have no issue with OOC. I could name a few that I think are just bored and griefing, but that's not the issue, really.

I still don't understand how all the other methods of conflict got routinely nerfed because they were obnoxious, but a system promoting nearly constant raiding was deemed ok. It boggles my mind that Estarra sat down and said "Eh, we stopped nexus conflicts, we stopped the sea conflicts, but this, this is wonderful!"

I was just thinking about this again, and I'd like to include an addendum.

One of the reasons for this is that admitting defeat means you need to let off of hating whoever was your most bitter adversary and find a new avenue to direct your frustration in whatever manner is most alleviating. Generally, this results in targeting the people you disagree with in your own org (and if you are doing poorly, there are bound to be some of these).

Pretty sure that's what happened in Celest.

I think it's more a matter of "this, this is new." They've been letting it run, and they're now getting the feedback that there are serious flaws.

If we can keep this a constructive thread on the village system, I'd like to throw out that one of the reasons we're staying conquest at this point (and why pretty much anyone who at any point goes conquest will stay conquest), is because once you're enemied to places, your options are quite limited. If you switched to religious, you'd basically be forced to raid enemy territories and then... influence, which takes longer, and can be thwarted by any person punching the denizen, etc. As commercial, you're not able to do commodities quests at all. Conquest governments are creating a problem, but there's a considerable disincentive for abandoning them.

Everybody should just go Conquest then everyone can raid everyone else all day long and we can be one big happy raiding family. The other two systems pretty much fail in comparison to Conquest. As Talan, I think it was Talan, pointed out even if you die after killing 2 or 3 denizens you have gained in Conquest.

In agreement with Akui, I personally promote not getting villages in Gaudiguch. It's a horrible idea for us right now. We barely have people who want to get off their butts and help up with peaceful ventures in Gaudiguch, there is no way we could handle chasing out Conquest raiders 24/7.

That's not the real problem: the real problem is that most of the things I'd like to do when loyalsays are off involve all the other people who a) are too busy fighting to participate, and b) if they know I'm around they're going to bitch at me to join in, understandably, since they're taking a beating.

Ultimately, no pat comment about not letting other people decide how you spend your time really holds up. We're playing a multiplayer game. We have all elected to, to some extent, let other people influence how we spend our time, by choosing a game based on that premise. But it needs to be in balance. I should be able to choose what to do with the majority of my time, while other people should be able to influence it the rest. But for many months now, almost all of my time is up to other people, and what little is left is almost entirely taken up on obligations -- influence up village feelings, generate enough esteem to make up for affinity, replace watchers every five minutes, teach novices, etc.


I've actually been trying to think of a way to suggest this for a few weeks but never felt I could get away with it. We should have three, maybe four tops, and that's it.

But I think the intent of the game designers is that we're supposed to want more villages. They're supposed to be profitable to have, in some way or other. That we really have to stop at three suggests there's a problem that needs adjusting. Of course, I could be wrong, they could be intending that we don't want more than three.

The problem with letting off on villages is that we HAVE been getting them. It's nice to win at something now and again.

And yeah, you're right about the getting snagged into defending. You know how often I wish my gem worked on gwho/cwho?

Or, game design has changed so that having more than 3-4 villages is really infeasible. And while it might be aspired to ICly, it should be understood OOCly that you won't get there without hours of mindnumbing work and grinding. This appears to be the intent to me, much like what was done with domoths to try to foster more orgs being able to hold maybe one or two, instead of all of them being held by one org. It's just that in the case of villages, there isn't a hard mechanic in place so much as a noticeable plateau, and people are interpreting that plateau as something to overcome instead of saying, "Well, this looks like a good place to stop and ease up".

As I've said since day one - we're happy to look at it after seeing how things play out, and we've made several adjustments since their return. Frankly, on the grand scale, I think village feelings is working fine - I think commercial and religious governments are operating pretty well, and Serenwilde (who's grinding very hard it looks like) is managing to maintain positive feelings in two opposing villages. Commercial may or may not need a slight bump, we'll see how it plays out a bit longer.

Conquest gov't seems to be the greatest complaint - particularly on that it is encouraging too much raiding, and that the passive gains are too high. We'll discuss (we usual talk about village feelings once or twice a week, and try to keep a hawk's eye on revolts), see what and how we can change things, under the presumption we agree anything needs changing. That's a call that sits a bit over my head to make.

in terms of groups and organization, Serenwildes getting better. That's an immensely good start and what that small group needs i.e. Kolm & Lehki is support. People willing to go out and gank someone in faethorn. Even if you feel bad about it, the deathsense your org will see, might put a smile on people's faces. It does help the morale out. Maybe even raid more than once every two years as a group or a small group. Something like yay we killed daughters is cool for people. Even Yay we killed them and lived! Doing it late night is fine too, but that's usually just one or two people and the people who won't benefit from those morale boosts. They just do it as part of upkeep (mostly). But the point is to get people involved. Doesn't even have to be people, just start with a person.

After that much, there will still be the challenge of improving organization and adapting. The tactics are always changing.

It doesn't hurt to have people take the unpopular specs either. They have incredibly useful tactical capabilities as you've guys have already seen. The spring/pit to guards is always nice for a good laugh. There are other unpopular specs and combinations of skills people can take to help in various situations.

Conquest needs some severe tweaking here... if I'm getting tired of the hit and run raids on the attacking side, I'd imagine that the people who come out to defend must be just frothing by now. I think the Conquest Squads mechanic with a timer has some merit, especially if it comes with temporary Avenger immunity so we can actually stand and fight for once, but mostly because constant one-man attacks aren't going to actually do anything. Maybe Serenwilde can try some of that "sleeping" stuff again. There's no reason people should be avoiding villages. Not being able to get them is one thing, not wanting them is just kind of counterintuitive, especially since village revolts are something that the younger and weaker players can actually get in on.

Unfortunately, if Conquest goes completely out the window, which I'm guessing is the quick fix we'll see here shortly, it's going to be back to Lady attacks, since we're about out of other conflict mechanics. What was the matter with nexus weakenings, anyway? I wasn't around for those.

Random suggestions:
Instead of raiding, in order to get conquest points, create an occupation mechanism. One person will have to stand in the village with a flag or symbol of their city (doing so will give a message to the controlling org) and for every they stand there, it will be a gain on par with killing 1 denizen, for a limit determined by the number of denizens in the village per go.

Something like this would eliminate a lot of the current problems with the glorified kick and run raids we currently have. It would force people to have to fight to hold a location (in my mind, avenger will not be in play during this), require larger groups (so no 10 people chasing 1 person around the village), eliminate the denizen spam, making them feasibly ignorable, and have a defined stopping point. This could also be tied into recurring time windows to ensure it's not just done at off hours.

Another alternative would be for there to be a lot more mini-revolts, where all the thresholds are considerably lowered, and where if the winner were a conquest government, they would get some points for that... putting the burden more on conquest governments to participate and win, and less on the controlling orgs, who can try to thwart them if inclined, or simply let them take the positive feelings for that round.