Descent into Hack & Slash?

[Tranquil]

-snip-

Don't want to really argue or go into it too much on here anymore, but I never meant that the thryzn are race-coded powerful, but rather that they have gotten alot of favoritism, and alot of players. For example, any other tribe or clan that's been tried to start up in a similar way was shut down or otherwise turned into a flop. A tribe having more then 5 PCs would get something animated on them to thin them out, especially if they're magickers.

The Thryzn are allowed to have 10+ PCs, along with another clan side-by-side with them having 10+ PCs.

From what I can tell, the Thryzn have ready access to any material they might want, barring some small things to 'balance' them, and they have access to a special part of the gameworld that a large majority of players don't know about or know how to get to. It's hard to get there, even if you do. This means they're allowed to mess around in there, store anything they want without risk, spar every hour, and so on. Basically another city, if lacking the templars.

They are also not bound to cultural or racial dislikes like every other 'large' clan is. Even a desert-elf tribe has alot of dislikes towards magickers, muls, HGs. A thryzn has no hate towards a free mul, or an HG compared to an average Allanaki. And yet, the Thryzn Tribes still have access to city-tier amounts of virtual and IG force. Hence their inate power.

My main complaint is not even the Thryzn being powerful, it's mainly just the massive proliferation of things that are meant to be rare or sparse in the world, becoming the majority, or the mainly-seen minority. Combining this with the new lizard-people race only makes the game's setting seem completely insanely different to what it was before. And hence, all my immersion being lost.

I would stop trying to make the special 'Armageddon Race', and start trying to improve what's truly Armageddon about.. well, Armageddon.

[Tranquil]

Also worth mentioning that it's very easy to have a skewed perspective as a staffer. As a person who's played in the cities and tribes for the last 11 months, I have seen a Thryzn or mention of a Thryzn only under 5 times.

You need to be in a very specific sphere to hear, see them, or process their existence as a new 'thing' in Arm. Seeing them come out with a force to supposedly match Allanak out of nowhere was extremely jarring.

[Halaster]

The Thryzn are allowed to have 10+ PCs, along with another clan side-by-side with them having 10+ PCs.

Nope.  They are limited the same as other tribes of around 6.

From what I can tell, the Thryzn have ready access to any material they might want, barring some small things to 'balance' them,

Not any more than any delf tribe.  And that's the issue:  "from what I can tell".  You're doing what a lot of people are doing and making assumptions based on limited facts.  I don't mean to blame you or call you out, it's human nature to do that as pattern seekers.  But it's so very often incorrect.

I would stop trying to make the special 'Armageddon Race', and start trying to improve what's truly Armageddon about.. well, Armageddon.

That's a nice thing to say and I don't mean to sound rude, but is a completely meaningless statement.  That's like saying "Hey, this thing is broken, fix it!".  One, it doesn't really tell me the problem and two, you're just expecting someone else to come up with solutions for you.  In other words, I'd be more inclined to listen to specific problems, with specific suggestions, than "make it more like Armageddon!".  I mean, in truth, I've been around this game since 93, and the thryzn have existed (albeit in most obscurity) since about 95.  They are absolutely one of the things that makes Armageddon what it is.

[whengravityfails]

I don't know enough about the lizard people to say what they need or don't other than it seems odd to me that they don't -seem- subject to any sort of racial antipathy.

The karma timer being abolished was both a good and a bad thing. It brought people back who had been waiting between playing what they wanted but now the proliferation of high powered races and classes has become fairly ridiculous. Hard cap them. Also, while the muls I have run into have largely been RPed well and by the docs, HGs are usually not anywhere near the docs. Besides a hard cap, they likely also need some kind of serious disadvantages like muls have - and coded at that. The existing ones they have are easily circumvented, either they need to be fixed or need more along with a hard cap. Anything that can one shot another player with no RP should be seriously controlled.

Same with gicks. Make a hard cap. It's kind of weird to find out every Amos you talk to at the bar is a secret gick. At this point I'm thinking a secret handshake to the society of rogue gicks is in order.

Poison...the changes are a headache. Finding someone with poison AND brew who can make a poison that doesn't suck now AND will sell it to you has reached a quest for the Holy Grail level proportions. While I agree it should be difficult, it's gotten to be exasperating.

Just my two sids.

[Tranquil]

The Thryzn are allowed to have 10+ PCs, along with another clan side-by-side with them having 10+ PCs.

Nope.  They are limited the same as other tribes of around 6.

From what I can tell, the Thryzn have ready access to any material they might want, barring some small things to 'balance' them,

Not any more than any delf tribe.  And that's the issue:  "from what I can tell".  You're doing what a lot of people are doing and making assumptions based on limited facts.  I don't mean to blame you or call you out, it's human nature to do that as pattern seekers.  But it's so very often incorrect.

I would stop trying to make the special 'Armageddon Race', and start trying to improve what's truly Armageddon about.. well, Armageddon.

That's a nice thing to say and I don't mean to sound rude, but is a completely meaningless statement.  That's like saying "Hey, this thing is broken, fix it!".  One, it doesn't really tell me the problem and two, you're just expecting someone else to come up with solutions for you.  In other words, I'd be more inclined to listen to specific problems, with specific suggestions, than "make it more like Armageddon!".  I mean, in truth, I've been around this game since 93, and the thryzn have existed (albeit in most obscurity) since about 95.  They are absolutely one of the things that makes Armageddon what it is.

The first two points are probably right; I'm not a staffer, just a player. I'm just extrapolating from recent events and what I have indeed seen myself over the last while. That's the impression I got.

As for the third point.. what I meant by it is to put more attention what makes Armageddon uniquely Armageddon. When I think of the mud and try to explain it to someone new in a summary, I don't talk about the lizard people and the half-giant peace commune, I talk about the cities and the cool backstabbing plots done between that noble and the other noble over elaborate revenge storylines. I talk about the Allanak - Tuluk conflict and the Copper War/the war before this one, not some other third faction coming in out of nowhere on a brand spanking new war that was only publicly announced 5 days before it ended, and them promptly wrecking both sides without elaboration. I talk about the Byn's escapades, and not how they were neutered to be this neutral wagon-courier service, and so on.

And yes, the Thryzn were a thing for a long time, but they were just some small flavor in a really isolated place, and maybe a subtle old-Tuluk plot here and there.

My point is that the staff should focus on the core part of Armageddon, instead of trying to blindly expand outwards to create new races and tribes that ultimately only please the people playing in the new races and tribes. The core of Armageddon is what brought us all here to play the game - and I think it's been heavily neglected. Try to focus more on the cities and the areas directly surrounding them, instead of the isolated corners of the world.

My two sids.

[Brokkr]

It does seem a bit jarring that the new faction seems to have ended up in a sort of situation that reminds in a few ways of the bad stories people have posted of the times of the Tan Muark, I was thinking its just like a running joke and we can all laugh about it, and that lessons were learned, but... Maybe not?

There have been three or four Thryzn that have died just in their home turf to NPCs.  Outside of the specific natural resources they have, it is fairly easy to tune what they have available through NPCs which is fairly limited, but for Tan Muark was basically "everything".  So yeah, lessons were learned.

[Shalooonsh]

The Thryzn (yaddayadda)

The first two points aren't probably anything --- they're confirmable and verifiable facts. 

I'm honestly uncertain how you mean we should focus on the Core of Armageddon.  The Core of Armageddon is just fine--- those cities still exist, and in fact, are being expanded on as we speak.  New features, new places, new things have been added to both cities (both due to player clan additions, which is an assumed natural fact, but also due to player effort outside of pclans as well as staff saying "Well wait, these people don't have this, and it makes sense for them to, lets add it") and are readily available to new and old players.

Can you expand on this?  What do you mean precisely by we should focus on the Core of Armageddon, and most importantly, how have we actually worked to damage this by adding things that Exploration style players might really enjoy?

Also worth mentioning that it's very easy to have a skewed perspective as a staffer. As a person who's played in the cities and tribes for the last 11 months, I have seen a Thryzn or mention of a Thryzn only under 5 times.

You need to be in a very specific sphere to hear, see them, or process their existence as a new 'thing' in Arm. Seeing them come out with a force to supposedly match Allanak out of nowhere was extremely jarring.

It's also very easy to have a skewed perspective as a player as you literally can't see all the facts.  Yes, this may have been jarring, but to those in game who know why and how it happened it made complete sense.

[Master Color]

The problem isn't the new stuff getting added, I think it's all various flavors of fine.

The problem is that player-player conflict is a complete shit show and always has been. This is a problem that's barely acknowledged by players and staff while mature players that don't want any part of the toxic garbage dump that is armageddon pvp will just wither away.

[BadSkeelz]

I will say that the cities are pretty moribund, especially when you put them in direct competition with literally anyone. I certainly wouldn't want to be playing a soldier PC in a clan of 3 when my chief opponents are a dozen-plus karma boosted roles, on top of the usual opposition of criminals and super-rogues.

[BadSkeelz]

Though as a flipside to that, it's also very hard to compete with certain city roles unless they step (or are forced) outside their crimcode-shielded comfort zone.

PVP is a shitshow.

[Halaster]

The problem isn't the new stuff getting added, I think it's all various flavors of fine.

The problem is that player-player conflict is a complete shit show and always has been. This is a problem that's barely acknowledged by players and staff while mature players that don't want any part of the toxic garbage dump that is armageddon pvp will just wither away.

This is another meaningless comment without actual suggestions and pointing out -what- you think is wrong.  "PvP is a shit show" does nothing to help staff understand what you think the issue is.  If you genuinely want it to change, then explain the issue and even offer suggestions for fixes if you have any.

[Bast]

I really think we have this exact same conversation every time there is a big combat and one side gets wiped.  It's just the nature of the way combat works on Arm. I know it's hard to try and be objective when you're on the losing side or when you don't understand why things may have turned out like you want but this current group of staff is, in my opinion, one of the best groups of ST's up to admin and producers we have ever had. They are tremendously fair and have been trying very hard to be as open and honest with the player base. They see a lot we will never be aware of. Maybe just trust them to run the game without bias?  Maybe ask if you think the situation was unfair or
If you're hurt because it wasn't the victory you were hoping for?

I for one think most of my big feelings with the deaths that bothered me come from the combat system just not being good at facilitating rp.. but I posted about that already. It's okay to take a break too, if you need one. Also remember some players enjoy tribal play more than city play.  Their enjoyment is just as valuable as yours. Their goals for their characters matter to them as much as yours do to you. Playing nobles, or GMH leaders, or Templar don't make your objectives  more important than other groups even if your PC might feel they are indeed more important than everyone else. That doesn't extend to the player on the other side of the computer screen.

[Master Color]

The problem isn't the new stuff getting added, I think it's all various flavors of fine.

The problem is that player-player conflict is a complete shit show and always has been. This is a problem that's barely acknowledged by players and staff while mature players that don't want any part of the toxic garbage dump that is armageddon pvp will just wither away.

This is another meaningless comment without actual suggestions and pointing out -what- you think is wrong.  "PvP is a shit show" does nothing to help staff understand what you think the issue is.  If you genuinely want it to change, then explain the issue and even offer suggestions for fixes if you have any.

I'm not talking about any recent events or RPT happenings or whatever. Large scale RPT combat is a different sort of shit show.

To put it succinctly I think there is a cultural problem among players and staff where low-faith, low-effort player killings are rewarded with little care or attention given to players who engaged their role in good faith and who keep losing because of it.

A bit of the game dies every time I witness a locked room murder, a myopic templar just offs someone for some inexplicable reason, someone getting hands of winded into a pit or just plain getting ganked while semi afk and foraging.

This culture leads to a number of problems including:

1. Player passivity for fear of getting murdered the moment they switch lanes.
2. Low interactivity among players outside of their cliques.
3. Skill grinding and fishing for crazy stat rolls to absurd degrees.
4. PvP tricks that defy any sense of realism such as ye olde shitmug.
5. Me screaming into an uncaring void about this issue for 10+ years.

[Veselka]

Bast; Not necessarily true. The 'Battle of Ten Serak' where like 30 PCs died, people were SCREAMING FOR JOY and happy they died, for the most part. It was that fun, and that crazy.

I don't know anything about this most recent IC Stuff. My guess is based on Staff Apology and what went down, it was a bit rigged from the start, Staff communication breakdown and some PCs walked into a death trap, people were upset by that (probably rightfully so) and now there is some biased discussion.

As an outsider looking in and knowing nothing of what happened, I can definitely say Mass Combat RPTs are pretty bonkers, the game isn't really designed to handle them well, and it's been an ongoing issue for as long as I can remember. It's hard to navigate people being able to do things like 'kill templar' in a war-field, and all gang up on one target, unit NPCs, combat spam, and so on.

I wouldn't say PvP is a shit-show. It's a text-based game. There's only so much elegance we can expect. But I am sure combat/PvP/PvE can be improved, it's just a matter of considering options, coding what makes sense, etc. I don't think it's helpful to just say 'it sucks it broken bye'.

[Tranquil]

Combat and even mass combat is reasonable, at the minimum, when there aren't massive strength PCs around.

My main complaint was never the Thryzn as the thread kinda derailed into, though I do have minor complaints there as I've said, but the large amounts of karma races and subguilds around which makes playing a Mundane make you feel like a chump.

Unfortunately I've been very fed up playing a chump, as I don't enjoy karma races/subguilds very much.

But to continue with the derail..

I'm honestly uncertain how you mean we should focus on the Core of Armageddon.  The Core of Armageddon is just fine--- those cities still exist, and in fact, are being expanded on as we speak.  New features, new places, new things have been added to both cities (both due to player clan additions, which is an assumed natural fact, but also due to player effort outside of pclans as well as staff saying "Well wait, these people don't have this, and it makes sense for them to, lets add it") and are readily available to new and old players.

Can you expand on this?  What do you mean precisely by we should focus on the Core of Armageddon, and most importantly, how have we actually worked to damage this by adding things that Exploration style players might really enjoy?

I think BadSkeelz put it best. The cities are the 'main' part of Armageddon, and if you're in a city you're constantly getting shit on. Now, that's a right and proper theme, but I mean, even the Templars get shat on. There's a reason why so many players prefer tribal play nowadays, because city play has become genuinely unpleasurable. Simply adding 'new things' doesn't mean they're getting fixed. A player clan is often not very complex past a simple hunting company. It's what I was saying earlier -- slapping new things onto something that is rotten from the inside won't fix anything, it'll just make the problem more complex and seem 'active' in the short-term. When in reality, it's just not fun.

If you are keen on knowing what I would change regarding that, here's a small summary:

I would probably start with the mainstay clans such as the AoD/Legion, or the Byn. That's usually where the bulk of players often are, and barring this recent war that ended in a week, you usually have absolutely nothing to do unless you are incredibly creative or satisfied with the smallest bits of mundane solo-rp. Prioritize animating things for them, give them freedom to do more things on their own, create coded things to occupy them. For one example: the Templarate/AoD used to have a small mission they could do that would add flavor to their patrols. This being, escorting 'groups of slaves' from one point to another. This is removed now, for reasons I don't know.

The Byn (the gritty mercenary clan) have suffered most from being neutered. The last time I played a Byn character, 90% of the contracts were escorting a wagon back and forth. When the Sergeant wanted to do anything outside of these mundane patrols and escorts, they would get slapped by 'the Brass' and told to keep to the neutral, boring contracts instead of daring to side with anything as gritty mercenaries tend to do.

I would also consider removing the limits on everything mundane and in the city. Let a noble hire fifty servants (if they can somehow find fifty servants), let them hire into their sub-clans like the Scorpions, let the Templars promote and demote the soldiers, stop putting a boot on every GMH Merchant's throat, and so on. Giving leaders freedom instead of rail-roading them into every decision will create more unique plots and interactions that will shake up city play. I guarantee, the Templars would be too occupied to harass random people for little reason.

Finally, I would give city clans more advantages over desert clans. One has been already implemented with the NPC trainers, great, but they should be allowed to take out some limited NPCs (especially the Templars), perhaps consider giving city clans special abilities or skills, and so on. Let the desert people have their own quirks and boons, instead of being undeniably better in every way.

[Windstorm]

It feels a lot like being a schemer and influential character is not enough on its own. At the very least, you need the help of someone who has done the above--unless, of course, you're a templar or a soldier with authority to arrest. And then you're still limited to targets who are in the city (an ever-dwindling flock, it seems) and who you can justify arresting. Nobles seem like they might as well not even exist, having practically no presence or noticeable influence on anything, so political measures are usually futile. You or someone doing your bidding needs to check one of the aforementioned boxes in order to get anything done. You can't Little Finger your way into anything on your own. People will simply detect that you have no tangible clout.

I feel for some of the ails people are describing, but I just cannot let this sit without saying, this... the above quoted, is just utterly false from top the bottom.

Broad, sweeping, wide-ranging impacts are being made by politics, schemers, and schemes. It's creating roleplay, conflict, and situations across literally the entire world and its playerbase if you're interacting with almost anyone.

Some people aren't seeing what strings are being pulled because that's the nature of these things, but  you're seeing the results. You just don't know they're the results.

You Don't Have All the Facts(tm).

[Bebop]

Stuff

I think this kind of invalidates that what happened IG recently with this clan warranted a staff apology.  Also a new clan that was on the cusp of being wiped out being given an npc military force to rival a city-state that has the largest army is more than questionable. 

What happened was a failure on a few levels and in order to fix that from happening again we have to engage with what the problems were slash are.

These aren't just big feelings from losing established PCs.  It's a lot more than that and deserves a serious look.  Reducing it to hurt feelings is a touch condescending.  There's a reason there was a staff apology.  Ignoring that and sti excusing it away as fine isn't fine.

Let's be real an in game war should not be over in under thirty seconds.  Among the other issues I posted before.  This warrants a serious look at many angles.

And some of the people complaining here weren't even in "that" engagement.  I'm not interested in pointing fingers but just dismissing clear issues isn't going to fix um.

[Tranquil]

Let's be real an in game war should not be over in under thirty seconds.  This warrants a serious look at many angles.

And some of the people complaining here weren't even in "that" engagement.

I can confirm. I have not been involved in that at all.

Infact, I've been getting fed up about all this since before this war even came. The "war" was really just insult to injury.

[Master Color]

I think players whining about the outcome of RPT's is about as Armageddon as gith.

[BadSkeelz]

As is conversations spiraling in to saltiness and "too soon" territory and forcing a thread lockage. There's a lot I can say about recent events and how they've highlighted some problems I've observed with the game, but give some of us some time to articulate our response to Halaster for why we think PVP is a shitshow and what we might be able to suggest to change it.

[Inks]

I sure was expecting the war to drag on like he last war when Tuluk reopened. That was a big ol' war. But what happened (apart from the one mistake) including the de-escalation was all player driven and I kudos imms for allowing players to do things.

I know the larger side in that skirmish was expecting their opponents to be NPCs and there must have been a genuine human error somewhere. If you weren't there you need to stop commenting on it. People make mistakes.

[BadSkeelz]

Even the mistake was probably for the best, since it removed some big impediments to player interaction (not the least of which was the war itself).

[whengravityfails]

Stuff

And some of the people complaining here weren't even in "that" engagement.  I'm not interested in pointing fingers but just dismissing clear issues isn't going to fix um.

Exactly. I wasn't anywhere near it but as facts started to leak out about it it broke the dam that had been holding back a number of issues recently festering in my mind.

[Riev]

I sure was expecting the war to drag on like he last war when Tuluk reopened. That was a big ol' war. But what happened (apart from the one mistake) including the de-escalation was all player driven and I kudos imms for allowing players to do things.

I know the larger side in that skirmish was expecting their opponents to be NPCs and there must have been a genuine human error somewhere. If you weren't there you need to stop commenting on it. People make mistakes.

I was going to say similar. Staff admitted to making some mistakes in communication. Both sides thought they were fighting NPCs.

There was an apology about the whole thing. I know I'M not dismissing anything, but it was noted that there was a mistake made, and concessions offered.

PVP is shit because of some group-dynamic issues, and a prevalence for "three karma characters" not knowing as much about the code and combat of Arm as 1k people.

[BadSkeelz]

The problem isn't the new stuff getting added, I think it's all various flavors of fine.

The problem is that player-player conflict is a complete shit show and always has been. This is a problem that's barely acknowledged by players and staff while mature players that don't want any part of the toxic garbage dump that is armageddon pvp will just wither away.

This is another meaningless comment without actual suggestions and pointing out -what- you think is wrong.  "PvP is a shit show" does nothing to help staff understand what you think the issue is.  If you genuinely want it to change, then explain the issue and even offer suggestions for fixes if you have any.

The principle problem with Armageddon PVP is that advantages in it derive overwhelmingly from two sources: character generation and grinding. Most of the simple code advantages that make it easier to Kill a PC - ability scores, skills and the values of them, magick, crimcode access - are determined by what we choose at character generation. Some of them can be accessed via skill grinding, which requires time and metaknowledge to properly leverage, both of which are out of the reach of many players. The end result of either are PCs that are largely untouchable on their favored terrains, unless they run in to someone who happened to roll better or grind harder or is just a bit less scrupulous with the code than them.

Engaging in PVP without one of the above advantages is tantamount to suicide. People who want to be antagonists know this, and typically fall back on punching down at player characters with even less advantages than them. PCs who don't even want to do that have little recourse but to engage in avoidance tactics and wait for the advantage to die or store from boredom. This drives down player interaction and eventually makes the gameworld a state patchwork of PVP fiefs.

I think one potential solution is to smooth out the advantages available to PCs. Raise the floor of ability scores, so that everyone feels sturdy enough to maybe survive and flee a couple of hits. Reduce the "onboarding" time of new characters, so that the sting of losing them is lessened by their replaceability. Reduce the number of mechanically advantaged roles both magickal and racial, or reduce their mechanical advantage over baseline mundane (human and elven) characters.

Seriously reconsider the role and value-add of Templars to the game. I've been skeptical of them for a long time, and am increasingly convinced that Templars and the power they wield over their particular turfs and the PCs in them have been detrimental to player engagement in the traditional hubs. They might as well be Staff PCs for all the handholding and supervision a good Templar requires. They should be more readily killable, particularly when we get a hamfisted badly played one (as most of them have been for the last decade or so).

The same can be said for Sorcerers in the hands of players. Any role that can virtually guarantee PC death within a 1 room radius is not one I would trust to players, even if players are a little more vulnerable than staff avatars because they can be found AFK more often.

Maybe look in to how many characters can engage with a given target at a time, and whether some characters should be better or worse at defending against multiple opponents.

After everyone has been buffed or nerfed, remove crimcode. Raise the stakes of sponsored roles making enemies in the game world and make city guard roles valuable and necessary. Make it so that even staff avatars have to be worried about starting a fight, because anyone can be killed anywhere by anyone.

Rework the world into a level-field death match arena where strength comes more from who you know and where you are (And you are not invulnerable in any one place), rather than what code you know and how long you've ground away at it.

And all this said, I still don't know if I'd be satisfied with Armageddon as a PVP game. If I want to sword fight or wargame, there are much more satisfying venues. I killed at least twenty PCs on my first character. I've seen what hamfisted Templars or Raiders or Tribes can do to tank an area's playability and interaction opportunities. These days I'd rather work with players towards some shared goal that wasn't showing off how high or skills and stats were at the expense of another's time.