Sidd:

But it kind of does disprove your point.... You started it, they retaliated, they didn't initiate it. The only thing that encouraged them to raid was the fact that YOU raided first, not because it was early morning.

No, it disproves his statement about the state of off-peak raiding, not his point. The reason for any individual raid do not matter in terms of this thread.

Sidd:


But it kind of does disprove your point.... You started it, they retaliated, they didn't initiate it. The only thing that encouraged them to raid was the fact that YOU raided first, not because it was early morning.

Focus, Sidd. You like to keep playing the blame-game. Focus now, on the objective at hand, for the good of us all. It doesn't matter who did it or why, it was done, so let's figure out how we can prevent it

I have a problem with the concept that there is something massively wrong with raiding based on whether it is onpeak/offpeak - because my peak time is offpeak for a lot of people, and I am definitely not the only one (I'm GMT, I know it's worse for those towards Australia). All the comments about offpeak raiding just make me feel a bit peeved at the seeming lack of consideration for people who don't live in the US.*

Sadly, we cannot fix timezones - so I don't think worrying about on/offpeak is the right way to go, especially not whilst there are other things to be fixed.

I don't think blocking people out of a raided plane is the way to go at all, for the reasons other people have posted. I think the place to be looking for needed changes are shrine powers (some of which I know is in the special report) and discretionary powers.

Unfortunately I'm not possessed of any particularly good ideas that haven't been said before, but that's where I feel the changes need to be made.


*Not to say that people in this thread have been doing that specifically, but it's something I've encountered as an 'alternative timezone' person.

Told you guys, win conditions for both sides that lead to the same lockout. That's all we need.

Any form of a win condition that leads to a lock out means that by definition, the raid ends when one side or another does its objective.

Sure, this may or may not be farmed by the raiders, but I'm sure proper precautions can be done that will make this impossible. Lazy solution: Cap.

TL;DR:
1. Do the lockout idea, but have it start once the raider initiates something offensive.
2. Add win conditions for both raiders/defenders that will lock out the area from being further attacked for x time.
3. Downgrade shrines so their effect isn't so overwhelming
4. Review the costs of dying in enemy territory because of the improvements to defense.

.

Ack, When I was editing my post with ideas, it went to second page. I'll move them here.


EDIT: One way to have a mechanic that provides meaningful combat on the prime plane (none of the current 'conflict' on prime is meaningful, at all imo) and supports small groups runs something like this:

-Introduce some restricted resource. This resource can not be stockpiled and is only gotten/used in this system.
-Introduce something to spend this resource on as a commune. Miniconstructs are the simplest idea, or empowering existing constructs with options. These should mostly be utility/cultural power ups, not combat powerups. Have this be able to increase commodities/gold/xp gained, increase the utility of the arena, create special portals to villages controlled for easy access without paintings, allow normal citizens to transverse to city aligned planes without using portals, and so on.
-Have this resource 'spawn' from nodes randomly about the realms.
-To gather the resource, you have to play a sort of king of the hill game. You have to control whereever it spawns for enough time.
-The more people you've got there, the more nasty strong mobs the node summons. Have this be a simple progression up until a certain point, say 6 people. At that point, every additional person starts exponentially increasing the difficulty instead of linearly doing so.
-Have some way to discourage large offensive groups, perhaps by doinging something like the node energy warps the room, if too many people charge in to attack, the people who were 'camped' there (the defensive team) gets dmp/aff shrugging, unless you have a similar number of people attacking.
-Introduce different levels/types of nodes, creating a reason for non-top tier people to get involved. For instance, this is an 'essence warp' node. If you are a demi, it drains your essence pretty bad, so you want to send in lots of non-demis to do the node. It gives less resource, but every bit helps.


If this must be off prime plane, whatever. It's just that by far the prime plane is the most potentially interesting, and real conflict there would be less tedious, as you aren't (RP) 'forced' to defend your random macguffin npcs on the plane and discretionaries won't apply. Also, there is a huge lack of semi-direct, active, competition in the game. It's all adversarial, and ho-hum.

Revan:

Focus, Sidd. You like to keep playing the blame-game. Focus now, on the objective at hand, for the good of us all. It doesn't matter who did it or why, it was done, so let's figure out how we can prevent it

There is no blaming, I'm straightening out what you are saying. The objective is you think that current raid mechanics encourage early morning raiding, which wasn't the case with the example you posted. I also disagree with the general statement that they only encourage early morning raiding. We raided at 11am EST today, I joined in with Kelly, Draylor, Haiden, Calesta and Alacardael against Revan, Cauthorn, Xazlael, Walraven and Morshoth. We raided in distort (I don't mind distort at all, and I agree it's really strong). So I'm unsure why you think you can claim that it encourages early morning raids when people raid at all times of the day. You are entitled to think what you like, but I am also entitled to disagree and state the reasons why. How about instead of playing deflection, you stay on topic and address the points made.

Edit : Fool, he was backing up his point using an example that didn't follow up his point. Why the reason may not matter, the reason for an example you are using to defend and back up your point definitely does matter.

I agree completely with what you're proposing, Shu, In fact I think it'll help a lot. I'm still stuck, though, on giving raiding more of a purpose than ruffling the shrub for bugs, and implementing some sort of reward (granted crushing your enemy is also a reward in and of itself, but something less open-ended)

RE - Offpeak Raiding:

Okay, here's the only point I care to make about that:

Offpeak Raiders tend to be opportunists looking to pick on an org when there are no defenders. It is hardly, if ever, a raid done because the fighting force is composed of Europe/Asian players. If I had to make a ratio, it's about 80/20 in favour of opportunists.

We should drop this though.

Edit:

P.S This resource idea that Enyalida is proposing should have a cool name, maybe ylem.

Enyalida:
I don't like the suggestion in the first post. You don't have any reason to go to a plane, leave, and come back short of being killed.

Not quoting the rest for some reason, but that's basically the node thing from Aetolia?Achaea? Idk which.

I agree wholeheartedly that raids should have some object, something you can DO for a reason, that you can't do forever, and that is possible to defend against. I'd say that there just is zero point to raiding right now and very very close to zero point in defending. Some territories there literally is no point to even trying (moon/night bubbles).

EDIT: Yep, it's similar to Aetolia's Ylem. I think it's a fabulous system that addresses a lot of key problems and includes an amazing way to have a POINT to all the fighting. It's not to accrue meaning less commodities, meaningless power, and meaningless gold, it's to accomplish preset and potentially neverending minor upgrades to your org, and absolutely everyone in the game can participate. I rolled a character, and two days later was helping out capture ylem, and through my bashing was accruing ylem mist to help fill my org's quota. Right out of the gate, I was a useful and productive member of my org in a clear, mechanical way. I seriously can't say that about Lusternia.


EDIT: To be clear, I don't want to try and copy their system. The basic tenants though, of a truly limited resource that doesn't gimp you to not have, attainment of that resource in a way that does not actively hurt other people in any way except depriving them of some of it (it doesn't reduce their stocks in any way), and that promotes small group combat in a method accessible to lowbie and midbie players, are all things that can be applied to a unique Lusty conflict mechanic. I'd like to note that the second part there isn't possible on any of the planes besides prime...

Not a fan of the lockout idea, be it through death or leaving of your own accord. I know I've left a plane by my own volition before it ended so I could redef a few things and to get back to the group without risking death.

I agree that that lockout should begin on an agressive action rather than just entering.

EDIT: Like 8 posts went while I was typing on my phone, nvm this part.

I'm not sure if Shuyin's idea for a win condition is perfect -- there should probably be a win condition for each side, and I'm not sure if his proposal means there is -- but I definitely think having a win condition, and then tying it to a certain time during which the area raided can't be raided again, is what is needed. But a win condition alone doesn't stop people from coming in to just attack random pointless mobs over and over, and not go for the win condition. So I think we need some combination of the win condition approach and a can't enter/can't leave thing.

I love the Ylem idea, actually. A friend of mine who plays Aetolia never stops talking about how awesome it is. Good show, Enya

Lehki:


@Sidd: Does it really who started it lately? There are unscrupulous people on both sides who can and have done stuff in the past, and two wrongs still don't make a right.

Yeah, we are all guilty of it in one form of another. Shooting snide remarks on previous posts is really not conducive to fixing the problem. Let's get back to discussing the issue at hand rather than bickering, eh?

Edit: Not directed at Lehki, by the way.

Btw we already have our own ylem system, it's called domoths.

While the system isn't perfect, I'd much rather alter it so that more people get to participate there.

I'm not sure why people are picking this thread to try and push through their well known, obvious agendas (Nerf shrines, make raiding more rewarding, ect), when that's not what this thread is about. Oh well.

Personally I'm not sure why the requirement of hostilities is being discussed, if you're there to raid and get chased off before you get the chance then fair play to the defenders, they shouldn't have to deal with your nonsense again in five minutes. If you're not there to raid and you get chased off before you get the chance to do whatever it is you're doing, then the same applies, you're not wanted and you've missed your chance. Deal with it.

I like this idea immensely.

Because accidents have actually happened where people with cubixes accidentally walk into the wrong plane and immediately cubix out, as an example.

You think that them being locked out for an hour from there is fair? I.E. Punishing them for a slip of the hand?

That's why it should start on aggressive action.

Btw, the agendas are pretty obvious: no one likes making conflict unbalanced for either side (raider or defender), we're all equally entitled to our "fun".

Indeed. Some of us like to do more than camp prime nexus :P