RE: Monks, It's like 6 am and I didn't get any sleep, but yes: they are an issue.

I think there's definitely too much ease in getting to some of the nastier stuff, and I'm not sure if the problem is that momentum is far too easy to gain, or if it decays way too slowly. I remember a wargames where Aerys and I were amp'ing, impaling tendoing Malarious and he would just tumble away and use whatever defensive method he could. Even with all this hindering, he managed to overpower us both and greenlock us when we ran out of power. Sorry, but when you offer "hinder them" as the solution to slowing down monks, and yet the worst form of hindering doesn't stop them from getting to their worst things, you have a problem.

Monks are still overpowered, and I think part of it is that the idea behind momentum is probably flawed in and of itself. So long as they are entirely reliant on their own condition and not the damage they're doing to you, they will get ahead.

And yes, you did already mention shofangi greenlocks, tahtetso insta etc. But there's also the ridiculous Nekotai severspine lock that Tarken used to get in a few combos, and the level of hindering a ninjakaari can do off the cuff that makes you want to heartstop from the beginning. I don't think monks are fine at all and I see very little evidence to the contrary.

It's true that you won't drop dead in one second because there's one in the room, but they still are overpowered to an extent.

Kiradawea:

Eh. There's a lot that can be done about org momentum. Invert conquest so you get bigger passive bonuses the fewer villages you have. Make it take longer to snatch an aetherbubble if you already have one. Remove the power bonus from controlling an aetherbubble. Remove the power bonus from Domoths or make it a personal boost. You'll still use conquest. You'll still want aetherbubbles. You'll still want Domoths.

Conquest already gives max feelings with only 1 village, so inverting it will do very little. I don't get this power = greater org momentum. I guess I'll have to check nexuses again but in the past the org with the biggest power supply was not equal to the org with the most momentum

@Villages: the problem is two fold in that you can not effectively increase feelings when you do not own a village. As you will be enemied and have to face guards and increased death penalty (possible solution, make it impossible to place guards in villages and lessen penalty for dying). The second problem is that possitive village feelings are too powerful, lessen the effect of max feelings to a point you will not be able to take a village in less then 1 cycle.

That leaves making commercial more popular but I haven't been in such a government since the last changes to it I have no idea what has to be done there.

@aetherflares: Option 1: lessen effect of bombard considerably, require a ground force.
Option 2: Allow only one bombard per org forcing 'allied' ships to fight for an advantage (but this
may seem impossible to code).


@domoths: remove ascendant domoth advantages with the exception of being able to claim a second domoth. Ascendants already have other advantages over demies.

Kiradawea:

Invert conquest so you get bigger passive bonuses the fewer villages you have.

The others I can agree with, because they're definitely excessive (you already get constructs from aetherbubbles and blessings from Domoths), but this.. this is an excellent example of 'punish x for doing well'. If things like these are implemented, then conflict will lessen extensively (maybe even virtually disappear). A big part of the reason why conflict happens is because it's nice to see your organization win and to reap the rewards of that triumph. This is basically saying, "Good, you win. Because of that, you get less things!"

Anisu:

I don't get this power = greater org momentum. I guess I'll have to check nexuses again but in the past the org with the biggest power supply was not equal to the org with the most momentum

If we're still considering Glomdoring to be the top organization (most villages, most number of Domoths*, most aetherbubbles), we only have around 3M power compared to Serenwilde's 5M something ;)

Anisu:

@Villages: the problem is two fold in that you can not effectively increase feelings when you do not own a village. As you will be enemied and have to face guards and increased death penalty (possible solution, make it impossible to place guards in villages and lessen penalty for dying). The second problem is that possitive village feelings are too powerful, lessen the effect of max feelings to a point you will not be able to take a village in less then 1 cycle.

That leaves making commercial more popular but I haven't been in such a government since the last changes to it I have no idea what has to be done there.

1) Guards are there to dissuade raiders from griefraiding villages. Also, village conflict quests.

2) Dying is a pain, but honestly with all the things that are available to gain experience (assuming that the 'penalty' you speak of is experience), it's not that bad. See: 16-year-old Demigoddess.

3) I agree with village feelings being skewed.

Anisu:

@aetherflares: Option 1: lessen effect of bombard considerably, require a ground force.
Option 2: Allow only one bombard per org forcing 'allied' ships to fight for an advantage (but this
may seem impossible to code).

Yes to requiring a ground force. Right now, it's basically bombard = win, which makes colossi mere trinkets during flares.

Anisu:

@domoths: remove ascendant domoth advantages with the exception of being able to claim a second domoth. Ascendants already have other advantages over demies.

Well, we're talking about 2M minimum power spent here to raise an Ascendant (I'm aware that I've been advocating raising power costs on discretionaries etc., but this is 2M we're talking about). The main point of an Ascendant is to play in the Domotheos Realms, so they should have advantages in it.



* Glomdoring has 3, Celest has 3, Gaudiguch, Magnagora, and Hallifax each have 1 Domoth under their control as of the writing of this post.

Kiradawea:

Eh. There's a lot that can be done about org momentum. Invert conquest so you get bigger passive bonuses the fewer villages you have. Make it take longer to snatch an aetherbubble if you already have one. Remove the power bonus from controlling an aetherbubble. Remove the power bonus from Domoths or make it a personal boost. You'll still use conquest. You'll still want aetherbubbles. You'll still want Domoths.

Some of these suggestions are very silly. I do not think that the point of competition events is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share.

I agree about the power in both instances. Power is too easy to come by anymore. However, given the doubling costs for each successive VA, power also has less value.

I still do not really understand how org momentum can be meaningfully addressed by mechanical, or even by role-play changes implemented by the administration. It seems so much more dependent to me on the players in the orgs - their motivation, and momentum gained from higher morale that follows success and visible improvement. In the past week, the "all powerful alliance" has been zerged to death in 3-4 big fights, meeting frustrating, crushing defeat -- all while having more domoths, villages, and aetherbubbles than "the other side". Clearly they are doing something right with their communication and encouraging participation -- these are not things that the admin can really influence. If you're not winning, you just keep trying and keep improving until you can get things to turn around. This is clearly possible as it is happening right now. It has been said repeatedly, but people still fail to acknowledge that this is how it works even as it is working for them before their eyes.

1) Guards are there to dissuade raiders from griefraiding villages. Also, village conflict quests.

2) Dying is a pain, but honestly with all the things that are available to gain experience (assuming that the 'penalty' you speak of is experience), it's not that bad. See: 16-year-old Demigoddess.

3) I agree with village feelings being skewed.

I knew that beforehand, however now those quests are pretty pointless as you can't really do them. Forcing player defense would allow a bit more meaningfull raiding and at the same time allow people to sneak about to increase feelings. To prevent people from killing villagers to be abnoxious you could easily adjust it to cause negative feelings. Or allow people to call village guards that only attack village enemies. Though it should be noted I am a strong supporter of more conflict on prime.

People complained a lot about the death penalties for prime enemy territories and they adjusted hunting areas because of it, I have no real problem with it either way.

Well, we're talking about 2M minimum power spent here to raise an Ascendant (I'm aware that I've been advocating raising power costs on discretionaries etc., but this is 2M we're talking about). The main point of an Ascendant is to play in the Domotheos Realms, so they should have advantages in it.

An advantage yes, but do they need so many? For example getting rid of the entire ascendants can not be absolved by a demigod on the same domoth level, would be nice.

Org momentum is always something to measure at the margin. There is a difference between consistent victory and a structural issue, but it isn't always a clear cut concept to define.

However, simple difficulty in the addressing the topic is not justification for dismissal.

The problem is difficult because you can't encapsulate the issue easily. It is further complicated when empty rhetoric has been trotted out to the tune of "don't punish winners". (Something that is done all the time, for valid and good reasons, in everything from professional sports, to industrial organization, to our tax code. The mantra of "don't punish winners" be it in Lusternia or coming from a political commentator, is misleading because it implies it is being done purely for some punitive objective. In reality, these things are done for the well being of the system, be it keeping a sport leauge competetive, keeping an industry running smoothly by avoiding deadweight loss, or by distributing a necessary tax burden in such a way as to minimize hardship.)

The issue then, is how to address a broad concept in a way that is:

-objective (in its structure, which is far easier to accomplish then objectivity of opinion)

-effective (it actually does something, rather than just giving the appearance of "doing anything", which is just wasted time and effort)

-non-punitive (action is taken for a discernable reason. We should be able to say "we do this thing to accomplish this end, and this is how the action reaches that end". Not just "we do this thing to punish".

The most important thing is, however, that the broad concept of org momentum be recognized as a source of potential problems, and that dialogues on the topic not be immediately marginalized and shut down. If the former happens, I will personally be satisfied with the forward progress that would represent.

I wrote up some specifics on the topic originally, but they were a bit, well, specific. And distracting. So I'll save it for some other time. :P

Anisu:

I knew that beforehand, however now those quests are pretty pointless as you can't really do them. Forcing player defense would allow a bit more meaningfull raiding and at the same time allow people to sneak about to increase feelings. To prevent people from killing villagers to be abnoxious you could easily adjust it to cause negative feelings. Or allow people to call village guards that only attack village enemies. Though it should be noted I am a strong supporter of more conflict on prime.

The Mountains village quests (Rockholm,Southgard, and Angkrag) involve killing village denizens (specifically, the miners). What I can see happening with this idea is raiding when the defending org has no notable defenders.

I may agree with removing free distort, but not to the lessening of the cost. Distort (especially with the new changes regarding enemies) is already powerful (too powerful, even); if anything, the costs of discretionary powers should go up along with shrine effects. Power is easy to come by - look at Hallifax and Gaudiguch, that even with all the raiding done on Continuum Spheres and Vortex Fleshpots, they managed to churn out Vernal Ascendants already.

To clarify, I didn't mean that the cost on distort should be lowered, but that the constructs would lessen its cost rather than providing it for free, as they currently do.

Monks and Warriors - To state the problem, I think since monks were introduced, warriors kinda lost their niche. Monks get the same afflictions more reliably, have vastly superior damage potential, and now with the addition of tattoo armour, are essentially just as tanky as warriors. I think it could be worth putting these two together for the report.

Warrior can be very nice once it gets going (and I love hopping on bonecrusher's stun/super stupidity/blackout/haha, no balance 4 u-train), but to get to that level of consistent afflicting can often take the length of a (timed out) arena spar, along with burning through a lot of power. Monks seem to get to the level where they can reliably give 2 or 3 afflictions each combo, more with poisons, on top of high damage, in the space of a minute. Janalon's idea of another momentum level might help this, but it might only delay the same problem, and between ka and momentum loss costs it is already difficult to judge what is 'balanced' for monks.

If we're brainstorming ideas for monks, I would like to see their stronger abilities be a bit more power intensive (outside of boost, how often do monks actually use power for their primary skill?). This would provide a natural limit to their high-momentum state, which is where I think the biggest issue lies.

The Mountains village quests (Rockholm,Southgard, and Angkrag) involve killing village denizens (specifically, the miners). What I can see happening with this idea is raiding when the defending org has no notable defenders.

Which will happen with any possible avenue of raiding, when shrines and discretionaries are adjusted it will just happen on cosmic/ethereal. But like cosmic and ethereal it is easy enough to return the favour for it to not be a real problem.

The village conflict quests are actually quite ideal, the impact of losing a miner isn't mindblowing. And the winning side still has a sense of accomplishment and a small reward.

This is basically saying, "Good, you win. Because of that, you get less things!"


Diminishing returns do not 'punish' you for winning. If you get 5 Lustybucks for holding one village, 4 for the next, 3 for the next and so on down to a flat 1 per village, holding 4 villages nets you 14 Lustybucks, which is still substantially more then an org that only holds a single village (5). You just don't have four times the resource of that org, it diminishes the value of over running (from a comparative 20, an ~30% reduction in this example).

Rivius:

RE: Monks, It's like 6 am and I didn't get any sleep, but yes: they are an issue.

I think there's definitely too much ease in getting to some of the nastier stuff, and I'm not sure if the problem is that momentum is far too easy to gain, or if it decays way too slowly. I remember a wargames where Aerys and I were amp'ing, impaling tendoing Malarious and he would just tumble away and use whatever defensive method he could. Even with all this hindering, he managed to overpower us both and greenlock us when we ran out of power. Sorry, but when you offer "hinder them" as the solution to slowing down monks, and yet the worst form of hindering doesn't stop them from getting to their worst things, you have a problem.

Monks are still overpowered, and I think part of it is that the idea behind momentum is probably flawed in and of itself. So long as they are entirely reliant on their own condition and not the damage they're doing to you, they will get ahead.

And yes, you did already mention shofangi greenlocks, tahtetso insta etc. But there's also the ridiculous Nekotai severspine lock that Tarken used to get in a few combos, and the level of hindering a ninjakaari can do off the cuff that makes you want to heartstop from the beginning. I don't think monks are fine at all and I see very little evidence to the contrary.

Acrobatics got you both, you kept using writhe based cures against an impaler. And if you recall I literaly was moving alot and powersensing to see when it would be safe. I was making careful consideration not to engage a PB at full power. That was not related to "monks" I could have done the same survival as a bard. The locks I went for when you were out of power because I knew you couldnt cure, I had time to mess with it because I knew you wouldnt be able to break it.

Best hindering is stun, if we have contort you cant entangle. You need to throw us off bal/eq or stun.

This severspine lock would be the greenlock we do, it costs 5 power to attempt.

I have survived monks for some time, there are very few instances they can take over the situation. I had to change things here and there, like enable beast for shofangi/ninjakari. There are generally minor things that everyone can do that will greatly increase their survival time. Those that have played around with combatting monks tend to do just fine, or they take psionics which EZ modes it pretty much. Like I said some of the things need adjusting but even those are usually minimal. Our regen changes have made the tahtetso insta alot harder, we have lowered damage, speed, and several other things. The main reason I feel we would expand momentum levels is to allow better use of "after X" skills, like shofangi slitthroat is 4 or higher, hard coded into the skill, and we are examining changing power costs or ka/momentum to address regen spam. However we will wait for a full topic before really getting into this.

As a Nihilist, Mage, Bard, and of course, a Monk, I have been able to fight monks. The only issues I had would be when they used hyperactive or while still learning them.

Anyway will bow out till the topic.

Ushaara:

Monks and Warriors - To state the problem, I think since monks were introduced, warriors kinda lost their niche. Monks get the same afflictions more reliably, have vastly superior damage potential, and now with the addition of tattoo armour, are essentially just as tanky as warriors. I think it could be worth putting these two together for the report.

Monks seem to get to the level where they can reliably give 2 or 3 afflictions each combo, more with poisons, on top of high damage, in the space of a minute. Janalon's idea of another momentum level might help this, but it might only delay the same problem, and between ka and momentum loss costs it is already difficult to judge what is 'balanced' for monks.

If we're brainstorming ideas for monks, I would like to see their stronger abilities be a bit more power intensive (outside of boost, how often do monks actually use power for their primary skill?). This would provide a natural limit to their high-momentum state, which is where I think the biggest issue lies.

Warriors and monks are not the same issues, cannot combine them. We use power, outside of boost, for our "lunge mod" which ups damage, wounds, and greatly improves the odds an attack hits. Otherwise most of a monks hits are to places you stance/parry if we want to hinder. Its how we get past those. That said, I totally ignore it because I cant spend power or I cant try to lock people.

Monks and warriors are still very different and fill their own niche's.

What I meant about treating them together and losing their niche was that if both are going to be looked at in the final report, warriors need to be kept in mind when tweaking monks, or warriors will remain monks' poor cousins, the pervading feeling that "everything a warrior can do, a monk can do better" etc.

After further thought, I think it may be best to drop the org momentum topic, even though it was voted as one of the top issues.

The problem is that "org momentum" isn't an issue in itself. It is a collection of issues that together result in a problem, and because of that, you cannot directly address the end result.

Aside from getting the admin to acknowledge and take into account this idea for future releases, there really is not much you can do about it that hasn't already been done.

Villages, while imperfect, (and will be talked about in its own special thread) already prevent one org from taking every village. Domoths, even with the ascendant bonuses (which will get addressed one way or another in the demigod thread), already make it mechanically impossible to control all thrones. In essence, whatever issues one can think of related to org momentum, it would probably be more fair to call it a problem of x mechanic rather than of org momentum's itself.

Let me know what you guys think.

Final List (Probably):
1. Demigods by Ssaliss - 27
2. Choke by Akui- 25
3. Shrines by Viynain - 22
4a. Druids by PM - 20
4b. Warriors by Rivius - 20
5a. Revolt/Aetherflare Capture Speed by Viynain - 19
5b. Races (not all) by Sylphas - 19
6. Monks by Janalon - 16

TL;DR: Org momentum too broad a topic, dropping it.

I agree that org momentum is something that is a very broad topic, but unless the administration recognises it is a problem, it will continue to be a problem, so I think you should at least make it very clear in the report that we feel it is a problem that needs to be considered in future releases.

I don't feel that Revolt/Aetherflare Capture SPEED is going to address the main problem with Org Momentum: That a single org/alliance can control virtually every village and bubble, and continue to grow stronger while doing so, establishing a double-win.

Malarious:


Acrobatics got you both, you kept using writhe based cures against an impaler. And if you recall I literaly was moving alot and powersensing to see when it would be safe. I was making careful consideration not to engage a PB at full power. That was not related to "monks" I could have done the same survival as a bard. The locks I went for when you were out of power because I knew you couldnt cure, I had time to mess with it because I knew you wouldnt be able to break it.

Best hindering is stun, if we have contort you cant entangle. You need to throw us off bal/eq or stun.
...

It wasn't the survival part. It was the "being able to build up the momentum for a greenlock despite not having a leg half the time" part. Regardless of whether or not we ran out of power, we had you at near critical wounds everywhere, and kept the pressure on, and even when we had power you were occasionally turning around and beating on us rather quickly when the other failed to catch up for whatever reason. Any other class would have been toast eventually, but you were able to make a very ridiculous turn of events. Not everyone has access to balance loss or stuns that don't detract from their offense. The level of hindering being done to you was beyond what -anyone- could feasibly put up with.

I also suppose maybe part of the issue is that we're supposed to be an attrition class against a class that thrives on not getting hindered and further, doesn't get hindered significantly by much. It makes for a bad match-up, and the only way to fix our side of the problem is to make us "ez mode" too?

Rivius:

I also suppose maybe part of the issue is that we're supposed to be an attrition class against a class that thrives on not getting hindered and further, doesn't get hindered significantly easily. It makes for a bad match-up, and the only way to fix our side of the problem is to make us "ez mode" too?

Define EZ mode please.

foolofsound:
I don't feel that Revolt/Aetherflare Capture SPEED is going to address the main problem with Org Momentum: That a single org/alliance can control virtually every village and bubble, and continue to grow stronger while doing so, establishing a double-win.

Frankly there's no way to mechanically ban alliances and neither do I want to do that. I already said that it's already impossible for one org to hold everything.

Janalon:


Define EZ mode please.

As Malarious defined it when he refered to TK mages in his post, being able to hinder to extreme amounts while keeping up your offense. (Atleast, that's what I interpreted it as?)

.. combatting monks tend to do just fine, or they take psionics which EZ modes it pretty much..

Rivius:

It wasn't the survival part. It was the "being able to build up the momentum for a greenlock despite not having a leg half the time" part. Regardless of whether or not we ran out of power, we had you at near critical wounds everywhere, and kept the pressure on, and even when we had power you were occasionally turning around and beating on us rather quickly when the other failed to catch up for whatever reason. Any other class would have been toast eventually, but you were able to make a very ridiculous turn of events. Not everyone has access to balance loss or stuns that don't detract from their offense. The level of hindering being done to you was beyond what -anyone- could feasibly put up with.

I also suppose maybe part of the issue is that we're supposed to be an attrition class against a class that thrives on not getting hindered and further, doesn't get hindered significantly by much. It makes for a bad match-up, and the only way to fix our side of the problem is to make us "ez mode" too?

I rarely had momentum actually. But Ninjakari can greenlock as of mo2. So I would not need momentum, hence the listed problem of windpipe.

As to fighting 2 people, I did that as a Nihilist (stall you both the same but I would have starleaper and hangedman and demon with ectoplasm) and then just sacrificed when the time came. A nihilist would also have puer to heal faster.

Mage could centre out. Harbinger at least could bleed you to death, a Spiritsinger could of eq you both to slow your progression. I agree it was kind of lulzy that I could survive that long and even kill someone. But I do not agree that is "power of monk" as I did this in other guilds to. So far the only monk issue I have heard is repetition, "ease of aff" is a problem for envoys unless we can address it here. But for sure we could manage a perma loop of regen affs and prone. As to adding costs, I want to lower some skills ka, add power costs to offset that, and adjust the regen affs to have reqs of some kind more so. I do not think "require wounds" is the best way to go about it, but there should be some more tangible cost.

Janalon:


Define EZ mode please.

Psionics! The strongest tangible offense I am aware of, though it does have flaws that can shut it down. It is the single most run or die skill I have ever had. And literaly takes 1 alias to kill people.