Yeah, I don't think we want to be working towards that; that's not 'fixing' raiding, that's killing it.

You can only raid for supermobs and nothing else.

When was the last supermob raid?

Closing the place off entirely is extreme overkill.

Perhaps instead of closing off the plane, making it so that the lesser denizens of those planes aren't vulnerable except during one of these times. (Though I fear that would just lead to people coming in every ten minutes to light fires, drop flame-sigilled panties, yell infantile bouts of 'cha cha cha choke', or any of the other things that you wouldn't believe people would actually do if they weren't doing it all the time.)

Again, the "close off a plane" part is just a detail of a specific off-the-cuff idea that I knew wasn't perfect -- the goal was just so you'd see what I think the problem is, by seeing what I think a solution might look like and how it differs from dharma (which seems to me to be just another set of domoths, in practice) so you could see what I mean about why dharma's not iet yet. I really hope you do find a way to make dharma be it, if only because I want to be able to laugh at the Dharma Initiative being the name for it.

Xenthos:
When was the last supermob raid?

Totally irrelevant, if this would change what a supermob raid was, and make it practical again. That was the point of something I said earlier: we neutered smob raids almost to impossibility because they were being abused, rather than fixing them so they could still serve the role they could have served. What we've done with smob raids (with discretionaries, shrines, scaled attacks, beefing them up over and over, etc.) would be undone as part of a change like this.

Lendren:

Totally irrelevant, if this would change what a supermob raid was, and make it practical again. That was the point of something I said earlier: we neutered smob raids almost to impossibility because they were being abused, rather than fixing them so they could still serve the role they could have served. What we've done with smob raids (with discretionaries, shrines, scaled attacks, beefing them up over and over, etc.) would be undone as part of a change like this.

It's not irrelevant at all, because the two types of raids serve completely different purposes. One is organizational (or multi-organizational at this point) and aimed at the enemy orgs as a whole, whereas the other is looking for a fight / smaller scale scuffle.

If you make super mob raids easier again, it goes back to super mobs getting camped by whatever side is best able to put together the forces. At this point they're probably too hard, but if you overhaul them and make it a fair bit easier to take them out, no matter what timer you put on it, they're going to get harvested by people wanting to 'drop the shield' and see what happens when their conflict attack drains power.

If you try to tweak that to make that less likely, you're removing the conflict mechanic between orgs... especially since the harder it's made to drop the shields, the more regularly the smobs must be raided in order to successfully do so.

Make smob raids easier. Or power up Elem lords somewhat and have them be the replacement for the current raids.

To closing people off planes, I agree it would be a bad idea. Instead, if you are caught on the plane by one of that plane's aligned org members, they can run into your room and boot you. Anyways, I like that sort of idea a huge amount, though it may need tweaking.

Honestly, I think Planar Resistance goes a long ways to solving a lot of the concerns with hit and run raids, etc. Closing down the planes or making all mobs invincible (i.e., making it impossible to raid a plane) strikes me as overreacting but, again, I understand why that may be an attractive solution to some people.

I'm trying to wrap my head around whether it would be possible to have the Dharma Initiative be triggered by some sort of method decided by players. I'm having trouble coming up with a way where one side wouldn't have a tremendous advantage. Maybe the org can decide when they want an initiative which would trigger randomly some time in the next 24 hours OR an opposing org could somehow trigger another org's initiative (again, which would trigger randomly in the next 24 hours).

Xenthos:

whereas the other is looking for a fight / smaller scale scuffle.

I thought this was exactly what we were trying to stop? Just coming and kicking ents for no reason but to start fights. I feel like if you want to start a fight, you should hang around faethorn. Heck, it would be kinda cool to have some sort of elemental void type area that served as Faethorn for cities to brawl on. No druids can meld there, tada!

@Est I'm not really sure what to say except that I like the idea of this kinda thing better than the dharma idea. It accomplishes the goals that Lendren stated (that I wholeheartedly agree with) in a much cleaner fashion. Sure, the other org can pick the most advantageous time for them to hit you (they can already do that) but they can't do it repeatedly and they can't harass you in the mean time. Just introduce a smaller version of it for attacking aspects/elemental lords that is easier and has a much faster cooldown.

Enyalida:

Make smob raids easier. Or power up Elem lords somewhat and have them be the replacement for the current raids.

To closing people off planes, I agree it would be a bad idea. Instead, if you are caught on the plane by one of that plane's aligned org members, they can run into your room and boot you. Anyways, I like that sort of idea a huge amount, though it may need tweaking.

I'm not a fan of making killing the avatar mobs be the goal of the Dharma Initiative, though whether they should be easier in general is a separate topic.

I'm not sure (but by no means discount) the idea of allowing orgs the ability to boot players out of their plane, though part of me likes the idea of beefing up nexus guardians so they'd be used more. I guess what it comes down to is how much 'child proofing' is needed to protect orgs from raiding. Do we need something extreme to, in effect, completely shutdown raiding or will Planar Resistance offer enough middle ground? I completely understand why some would want a more extreme solution but I'd rather see if the middle ground might not be enough first.

Estarra:
Honestly, I think Planar Resistance goes a long ways to solving a lot of the concerns with hit and run raids, etc. Closing down the planes or making all mobs invincible (i.e., making it impossible to raid a plane) strikes me as overreacting but, again, I understand why that may be an attractive solution to some people.

Oh it definately would help with those, no question. The issue is though, that it is also going to have a not insignificant impact on all off prime raids, which may be overkill.

I don't think that it should completely shut down raiding, but I do think that there should always be a cool down. Have different levels of dongle that do different things.
If you want to raid an Smob, fine but that has a long cool down.
If you want to kill elem/aspects go for it, that's a faster cool down.
if you want to scuffle around and be annoying fine, it has a similar cool down, but is easier to get.

Then, make it so that getting any of the above just stops you from getting another right afterwards, so you can't chain them. If you feel like having a raid fight, you can get your planar talisman but you can't turn around and grab the smob one right afterwards.

Estarra:

I completely understand why some would want a more extreme solution but I'd rather see if the middle ground might not be enough first.

That's fair enough. I feel that the central complaints to be addressed are 1) Raids don't have a cooldown, and 2) Raids don't end until the attackers get bored. Planar Resistance might help with problem 1, but I feel 2 still needs to be addressed in some way.

I like the Dharma idea, though I feel that it needs to in some way replace old raiding, not be introduced in addition.

Enyalida:


I thought this was exactly what we were trying to stop? Just coming and kicking ents for no reason but to start fights. I feel like if you want to start a fight, you should hang around faethorn. Heck, it would be kinda cool to have some sort of elemental void type area that served as Faethorn for cities to brawl on. No druids can meld there, tada!

@Est I'm not really sure what to say except that I like the idea of this kinda thing better than the dharma idea. It accomplishes the goals that Lendren stated (that I wholeheartedly agree with) in a much cleaner fashion. Sure, the other org can pick the most advantageous time for them to hit you (they can already do that) but they can't do it repeatedly and they can't harass you in the mean time. Just introduce a smaller version of it for attacking aspects/elemental lords that is easier and has a much faster cooldown.

I thought we were trying to stop people hitting and running (walking in, kicking something, leaving, and continuing ad nauseum for many hours at a time).

Not actual fights.

Hence the idea of 'planar resistance'...

I'm all for beefing up nexus guardians to actually be worthwhile. They obviously shouldn't be better than a fighter, but it would be nice for non-combatants to be able to contribute in defense beyond standing at the nexus.

Also, Enya's right on about an elemental equivalent of faethorn. Its infinitely more enjoyable to fight in neutral ground than to feel like you're being forced into a fight. Though a new area is probably not likely and this is heading off the topic of dharma, but encouraging neutral zone fights that people can opt-in as opposed to feeling forced to fight will ease a lot of e-bitterness.

I don't know, I'm up for stopping pointless "I come back no matter what infinitely until you stop fighting back" raids also that occur for no actual goal achieving other than pissing off/grinding down/demoralizing the other side. As was said, adding in a once-in-a-while purposeful raid or planar resistance won't do anything about that.

Enyalida:

I don't know, I'm up for stopping pointless "I come back no matter what infinitely until you stop fighting back" raids also that occur for no actual goal achieving other than pissing off/grinding down/demoralizing the other side. As was said, adding in a once-in-a-while purposeful raid or planar resistance won't do anything about that.

Planar resistance, by the description, isn't designed to stop that... unless the individual intentionally leaves, instead of dying.

I feel like you guys are asking for something above and beyond what's being suggested at this point, which goes a bit too far into stifling conflict more than it already has been by all the defensive enhancements.

Which, frankly, are nice to have... but there needs to remain an outlet.

Faethorn doesn't cut it.

Yeah? That's why I was saying that I like this other sort of idea better, and that it achieves the sorts of goals that I and Lendren (I assume) have in mind.

Xenthos:

whereas the other is looking for a fight / smaller scale scuffle.

Enyalida:

I thought this was exactly what we were trying to stop?

I think this is where we are having communication problems and talking past each other. It seems one side wants to completely stop smaller scale scuffles and the other side wants to curb them. (And I suppose there's another side that wants to increase them but I don't think that's the consensus). I lean towards the side that wants to try curbing them.

Enyalida:

Yeah? That's why I was saying that I like this other sort of idea better, and that it achieves the sorts of goals that I and Lendren (I assume) have in mind.

It's not the goal that I have in mind.

Ideally:
1) Reduce hit & run capability, thus reducing the ability for multi-hour groan fests.
2) Add in more fighting with 'goals' on a regular basis (villages, wildnodes don't satisfy this); while there may be an individual in each organization that wants to fight outside of that, a lot of people tend to be satisfied with a bit of fighting in a day. Those individuals who want to do more? Well, they're going to be locked out by #1, and not able to continue the pestering.

So I'm pretty happy with both a dharma initiative creation as well as the planar resistance, as long as things are put in place to deal with certain aspects (such as forcing someone to touch a *bix).

Along with the final implementation of the dharma thing; that implementation will be pretty important as well in creating an 'outlet'.

I agree with the statement above.

Adding neutral grounds (or anything where the solution is to add an area) is not something that's on the table. Adding content like areas is in a whole different ballpark and not something I'd do on a whim and, again, could take months to design/implement.