What's funny about this is that I was about to make a joke post in this thread that looks remarkably like your sincere one.

I was also going to say something about BadLuck.

I agree with Lerad about what he said about the reaction to a loss having a lot to do with people's morale after it.

I've had alts in every single org. I've gone to help defend in every single org. In some of them, the odds were overwhelming and our side lost and I died more than once. In some of them our side won (and sometimes I still died - I suck at fighting ). When losing leads to the 'leaders' of the fight going on and on about how much everyone who went to help sucks or complaining about how unfair the other guy was or making snide comments or venting their frustrations through a sarcasm fest, then, personally, I feel like crap for having tried because obviously I was worse than useless. I'm left with a bad feeling which furthers my own personal "PvP is icky/terrifying, stay away!."

However, in situations where, after losing, the 'leaders' of the fight gathered everyone up and said, "Nice try guys. We were outmatched, but you really tried and I appreciate that. Next time, don't worry about trying to do this, just stick to doing this and you'll really be more help." And then everyone who went got favors even though we all lost or sucked, then that's the org that I feel like. "Hey, I can kinda get involved in PvP even though it's crazy and scary. I can help, and here's how!"

Glomdoring is very much scenario two after losing and always has been, that I've noticed. It's one of the reasons that I made my character there my main - and I did it before Glom was a superpower, though it was on the way up. When I've been around for fighting in Serenwilde, it's usually scenario one.

That's part of your morale issue. Be encouraging and people will be encouraged even when you lose. After the raid is over, instead of standing around complaining about what jerks the other guys are and how useless it all is and berating people who tried to help because they didn't do it right, gather them all up and tell em what to do. Explain why. Make plans. Thank them for trying with a "We'll get them next time!" attitude instead of a "Even thought it's all hopeless." attitude. Even if you keep losing, that's what will keep morale from falling. I mean, if your leaders seem to have given up, how can the followers muster up any gumption?


eta: Correction. When I say every single org, I mean except Halli and Gaudi. I haven't been around for any raids on them yet.

Whee!


Ok, taking the topics that cropped up while I slept one at a time:

-Regarding Gaudis who run off to Etherwilde to defend it: I've tried to discourage this for several reasons. Foremost, I want Gaudi to be its own city, not a gordian knot of transplants and alts. To me, when an ex-member of org A runs off to defend org A, it signals to me that me that they're still more concerned with org A than what it means to Gaudiguch. Obviously, this is not a concise or fully accurate picture, politics and personal relationships make the world a complicated place, but still it stands.

Its like breaking up with someone. You don't have to hate the person, and its probably better that you don't- but you also probably shouldn't be hanging out at his apartment all the time either, if you've really "broken up".

Something else I've found amusing on the topic; Serenwilde always made a huge deal about angel and demon ents being in their territory, even in defense of it. However, I haven't heard from Gaudis that there have been complaints about multi-armed fleshmonsters from a cosmic plane of madness and chaos.

-Kick and run "derp derp" raids in general: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you are genuine about wanting this sort of "conflict", join a down org. You'll get raided all the time, and get to fight as much as you want! Actual combatants even! Jumping behind one on top and then doing these sorts of raids against the one beneath its wheels constantly is like, running in to a 5th grade classroom, punching a kid or two in the back of the head, then running away screaming "YEAH! I AM THE ULTIMATE NINJA MASTER WARRIOR!" There's a difference between wanting a fight and wanting the admin to push people out in front of your car.

-Regarding abilities: Without going into the "is this imbalanced" territory, in a more general sense- Some abilities are just brick walls to combat for the opposing side. Pre-meganerf pyromancers- nobody would want to raid Gaudiguch ever, had they remained like they were. To a lesser extent, the old ecto-spam was like this. Choke is the same way. When people feel that they're just going to get smacked around by something that will devour their reflexes whole, or at least wreck them so badly that they have no defense against a third party at all, they tend to say, "meh" to fighting. There were plenty of times when I was in Seren, well before Glom got remotely strong, when after seeing choke I would say to myself, "if I ever want to really get in to fighting, I should go to glomdoring, and then I won't have choke used against me".

The excuse I heard for the non-ban on multi-armed fleshmonsters is that they're not corrupted fae, reflecting crucial misunderstandings about both the cosmic planes in general and the reason we even have anti-angel laws, but whatever. (I got complained at when I brought that up, but I guess I shouldn't blame them, needing all the help we can get and all.)

I always found the stance of banning angels, demons and other beings rather silly. Especially since in the past Serenwilde has defended both Celestia and Nil.

I wasn't mentioning choke to really devolve this discussion to another moanfest about choke. However, I did think it was important to reference it when fully discussing the morale situation and how the raids and attacks have really affected the Serenwilde.

I doubt that it will cause this reaction since it seems the Gloms just want to beat us into submission and not even allow us a fighting chance, but they could limit their use of choke and other tactics which require near perfect curing to survive. With the numbers in place, they would likely prevail in a raid and not be so devastating on Seren morale.

Godwin's law has already been invoked, so I doubt Choke will make things much worse.

Maybe not, but there's really no need to bring up choke. It is a dead horse that rarely needs to be brought up.

And this situation is simply the reverse of what happened to Glom when it first came out. It is not -solely- Gloms fault Seren's morale is crap. Seren needs to do their own moral boosting. While yes, having fewer raids, and less stress of it will help, Seren needs to help itself.

This.

Please make smob's not take three orgs to barely even take down. I'm all for making them more difficult. The counter attacks are fine. But smob self-heal is dumb and needs to be removed. Not to mention the DL's/Sup's need to be toned down slightly since they do have -five- of them compared to the Commune three. Buffing them all to Avatar strength is a little much.

The biggest issue with this is what we all don't have wallets the size of jupiter and the entry-level cost of getting into combat is rather high to the point that it is disencouraging for alts to participate in combat unless you're willing to put a lot of time and money into it. At that point, the alt becomes the main.

I can deal with anything in the game, except things that slow my actions (and replace actions if you do them too quickly). Glomdoring has access to all three of these such abilities, and they use at least two of them with great regularity, which I think speaks enough to how important they are to the combat. Let's replace aeon, choke, and sap with something else so we can move on to better days, burning the straw man in the process.

When it was brought up on IMC, it sounded like Sadie wanted to execute non-comms, which she definitely toned down after, but I couldn't avoid the sense of "let's punish people who can't fight for not fighting." I'd love a solution, but I don't think that's it.

Nienla, you don't need to spend the GNP of Jupiter to raid with a purpose, especially not when you have so many friends that come along or show up at the first call for help. Akui is saying that if you just want some action, there are better ways to go about it. From your behavior, however, it seems much more like you enjoy playing the villain (or bully) all too much.


I don't think anyone would seriously consider killing non-combatants for not jumping into the fray. I would seriously consider killing anyone behaving inappropriately or working against the goals of the commune, of course. We should be working more off of positive reinforcement than negative, however. Praise those who work more than you punish those who don't.

I concur, on both points. I'm sure if people saw more positive reinforcement they'd probably work harder to make themselves better combatants. "Oh hey, they told me I did a good job even though all I did was nature vines...maybe I should to better myself?"

However I think also punishing any foolish behavior needs to be done as well. It almost sounds like the leaders of Seren are parents who's many children are running/stepping all over them. Y'all need people to grow a pair or get them to give a damn, one of the two.

Lerad, the problem with kicking something to draw out defenders for a fight is that even if you get a nice 1v1 duel, if we win, Glomdoring shows up to pound us for the audacity of doing so. I put up with Svorai diverting fae I was influencing time and again and didn't do anything until she finally set her demesne on me and I killed her. Immediate raid on Serenwilde until I came up to die so they'd stop. We are not allowed to win, even small fights. Sometimes we'll end up killing someone who's been really annoying and is hanging out by himself, but it's a really short lived pleasure.

Yes, you're right, we need to punish fools. We don't need to punish people who just don't want to fight, because they'll just hide more or stop playing. If you tried to make Aubrey go be Wane bitch in a fight, she'd log off, for example. I usually come up to defend if I'm around, but I'd bail too if it came down to "Come fight now or you'll all get disfavoured/powerblocked/executed/mocked/punished."

I think that would be a bit extreme. I do think we do need to figure out some kind of incentive rather than a punishment. Perhaps reduced credits prices or increased power draws for combatants versus noncombatants. Essentially, I think that those who choose to forgo being a combatant should not be entitled to the full boons of commune or city membership.

On a similar vein and not directed at any one individual, I do view resurgem participation and leading as an important part of our defense. However, it does irritate me to no end those who will not be part of rage covens even just as a body especially since a raging coven often ends a raid outright. Once again, I don't think those folks should be punished, but perhaps they should not receive full incentives.

That must be some crazy rage coven if it'll stop a Demizerg.

Unless we switch to the Ellindel Tree, I object.

I can't help but admit, I think resurgem duty during raid defenses is direly overrated. Most people conglutinate, and if someone who has his moon totem spec and maybe a tertiary stands at the Moonhart to resurgem then that is one less valuable person for the brawl.
God knows how much I'd love it if half of Glomdoring's shadowdancers stood at the Ravenwood to just revive people instead of using choke/web/faes/whatever at any given time.
And to the healers: Do you really think healing one affliction or some damage every ~4 seconds is going to make much of a difference in any but the smallest skirmishes? If you want to use your full 'fire power' as a healer, join the fray, learn to follow the battle and use what I'd consider the healer's ultimate skill, sacrifice (single person use, 2p).
I don't mean to sound rude, but anyone who stays in the safety of the nexus guards to heal and revive and considers themselves an equal part of the defending team - you're not.
Your contribution isn't worthless and certainly better than doing nothing at all, but you should consider that actual battle and especially death is alot more of a sacrifice. People who just died might get ugly sometimes, don't take it too hard.