Descent into Hack & Slash?

[Inks]

Crimcode as it is is make pc guards neccesary. But the role needs to be more appealing. Make those roles 10 year tours of duty instead of lifesworn, like a toned down roman legionary. Then they can re-join with a much higher pay if they so choose, if they live through that 10 years.

[mansa]

Crimcode as it is is make pc guards neccesary. But the role needs to be more appealing. Make those roles 10 year tours of duty instead of lifesworn, like a toned down roman legionary. Then they can re-join with a much higher pay if they so choose, if they live through that 10 years.

The legionnaire documents already implemented something similar

[BadSkeelz]

The changes to the military clans would make my old PCs roll over in their spider-infested graves, but they are definitely good ones for playability... doesn't change the fact that ten years is basically a PC life sentence (equal to what, 1.5 RL years?) nor help you be at any less disadvantage than most other serious combat roles.

The real fun of the military clans is in PVE dungeon-crawls, monster fights, and city-based RPTs. That's about all you can hope to succeed at as a mundane combat character.

[Windstorm]

Something something, culture problems:

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.

To be cleaaaar: player passivity and only playing within their own cliques is sort of a player problem and exists everywhere, everywhere there is roleplay. If a player is the kind to be risk-averse and cliqueish, I'm not sure there's a game state that's ever going to solve it!

Some people want to mostly play and exist in a very grounded comfort zone. Others enjoy the unknown, the risk, the feeling of exploring the unknown - even if that means danger and a risk of betrayal.

Nothing about the culture here uniquely creates that.

[Master Color]

Something something, culture problems:

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.

To be cleaaaar: player passivity and only playing within their own cliques is sort of a player problem and exists everywhere, everywhere there is roleplay. If a player is the kind to be risk-averse and cliqueish, I'm not sure there's a game state that's ever going to solve it!

Some people want to mostly play and exist in a very grounded comfort zone. Others enjoy the unknown, the risk, the feeling of exploring the unknown - even if that means danger and a risk of betrayal.

Nothing about the culture here uniquely creates that.

Speaking for my own experience, all of the above is true. I can plainly state that as my trust in the playerbase diminished, I began to avoid other players, I began to seek skill gain to be less vulnarable, I focused on my ooc friends clique because they weren't gonna backroom me over something stupid etc.

I know I'm not speaking just for myself.

[Bast]

Stuff

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.

Oh I agree, Did you read my first post in the thread I know it was long? Also genuinely not trying to sound condescending I know text doesn't aways convey intent well.

[Brisket]

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).

This is deeply true.



The character I'm currently playing doesn't *do* a lot.  In fact, most of the time I sit in a single room and Rp with whoever walks in to hang out with me.

You've heard of things they've put together.  You're *aware* of events they've set into motion.  I guarantee, if you're logging in, you know of at least one thing they've done.

And you're going to know more as time goes on, because plotting and scheming and setting up the dominoes, then letting people knock them down is the biggest net effect a PC can have.  They're codedly middling in combat, but its about the relationships I've maintained and the Rp I've put in to their story and the stories of the people around them that are making the waves.

If you treat Arm like a hack and slash mud, you're going to get a hack and slash mud.

If you treat Arm like an RPI, you're going to get an RPI.

[Windstorm]

Speaking for my own experience, all of the above is true. I can plainly state that as my trust in the playerbase diminished, I began to avoid other players, I began to seek skill gain to be less vulnarable, I focused on my ooc friends clique because they weren't gonna backroom me over something stupid etc.

I know I'm not speaking just for myself.

Politely, I have to suggest that it's a problem you and your clique are having, then.

I talk to no one from Arm outside of Arm. I risk and enjoy interaction with the unknown every time I play. It's not impossible. My PCs don't die daily. They live their lives. I don't know the players of any of their friends, lovers, or acquaintances. and I don't desire to.

If someone tries to backroom them or give them a mug with shit in it I'll have to fight through it.

And I like that.

That's Armageddon to me.

[dumbstruck]

Speaking for my own experience, all of the above is true. I can plainly state that as my trust in the playerbase diminished, I began to avoid other players, I began to seek skill gain to be less vulnarable, I focused on my ooc friends clique because they weren't gonna backroom me over something stupid etc.

I know I'm not speaking just for myself.

Politely, I have to suggest that it's a problem you and your clique are having, then.

Yeah, the only other player I consistently talk to is the one I married before I ever started playing this game.

[Mellifera]

Speaking for my own experience, all of the above is true. I can plainly state that as my trust in the playerbase diminished, I began to avoid other players, I began to seek skill gain to be less vulnarable, I focused on my ooc friends clique because they weren't gonna backroom me over something stupid etc.

Are you straight up saying that you have a group of OOC friends who you know the in-game characters of, and who you intentionally seek out in-game to play around because you feel you can trust them due to your OOC friendship and out of game communication? Am I missing something here?

[Master Color]

Speaking for my own experience, all of the above is true. I can plainly state that as my trust in the playerbase diminished, I began to avoid other players, I began to seek skill gain to be less vulnarable, I focused on my ooc friends clique because they weren't gonna backroom me over something stupid etc.

I know I'm not speaking just for myself.

Politely, I have to suggest that it's a problem you and your clique are having, then.

I talk to no one from Arm outside of Arm. I risk and enjoy interaction with the unknown every time I play. It's not impossible. My PCs don't die daily. They live their lives. I don't know the players of any of their friends, lovers, or acquaintances. and I don't desire to.

If someone tries to backroom them or give them a mug with shit in it I'll have to fight through it.

And I like that.

That's Armageddon to me.

And this is what I get when I try to talk about the problems this game has. "The game has no problems, you are the problem."

[Windstorm]

I'm not saying you're a bad player or trying to rile up a witch hunt here, but I'm saying, you're choosing to play in a certain way that's maybe counterintuitive to the experience Armageddon, at least to me, is supposed to be, and then sort of blaming it on game culture that's not really affecting the experience of at least myself at all.

Have you tried playing without these sort of.. guardrails? Just role playing and playing your PC to interact with other PCs organically?

I honestly sort of respect your being upfront about it myself but I feel like you're maybe self-creating a problem and assuming it's everyone's experience.

[Master Color]

Have you tried playing without these sort of.. guardrails? Just role playing and playing your PC to interact with other PCs organically?

I have and it wasn't always a bad deal. But I've been burned enough to know not even to waste my time.

Here. Let me put it another way.

If I could play in a way in which I could go on a dungeon crawl and fight some npc nasty magickers and maybe die to something cool? I would play every night.

If I'm playing in a way that's mostly about tiptoeing around other players, I'm just not interested. I'd rather waste my time on Genshin Impact.

[Brisket]

I think your somewhat paranoid overreaction is coloring your view of the game.

Just play the video game, you'll have fun.

[Master Color]

Nevermind.

[Tuannon]

The changes to the military clans would make my old PCs roll over in their spider-infested graves, but they are definitely good ones for playability.

Well, two of them. The remaining military clan in the Byn.

Who shouldn't be concerned with anything other than completing contracts.

Actually, I think I missed a bit of context here, was this in relation to law enforcement? If not my apologies.

On the subject of PC bodyguards, your bodyguards are not there to prevent you getting Player Killed, they are there to provide depth of authority and assistance if you get attacked, need something carried (NPC bodyguards should be last resort porters) and a number of other things not related to 'guard mans'. Yes, they can protect you and it might actually make a difference, but in general an assassination attempt carried out with serious intentions (and preparation) will almost always take your noble out regardless of what you do to prevent it at the time.

[najdorf]

Although not fanatically, I tend to be okay with most of OP's suggestions.

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

- Problem is not Strength, but Strength's association with a specific type of weapon wielding style, which is breaking the balance. This has been addressed many times before.

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.

- I have also seen a heavy shift towards magick culture being normalized. When 1/2 of player population are magickers, this is the unfortunate reality we should expect. Coded penalties do not work, but benefits to mundanes might. Give them higher caps on non magicker subguilds like Mansa suggested in another post. It would be a great balancer improvement.

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.

- To the same extend, closing of Tuluk would serve towards the same goal as you suggest, but it did not. What you address might be a problem, but solutions are not penalizing desert roles, but giving benefits to city codes. Just like instead of nerfing some classes a year ago or so, staff did a great job by improving others. And everyone was happy. You can make things like regeneration / hunger / thirst / security / job opportunities / npc benefits (like if a citizen, you can get training from Mercenary Amos on slashing weapons). These kind of benefits would have a positive shift towards cities, at least for me.

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.

- Similarly, this could be another aspect of benefits as I mentioned above. Having more imm animation towards city would be sweet -if- that is the goal.

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.

- Giving Byn a Levy like flexibility with a less strict following guidelines would be my solution. You want to go out and travel to the other end of the known? Sure, you can do that, we don't care. Just be here when you want. Whoever wants to hang in barracks should do. It should serve more like a veteran soldier's socialization club.

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.

- Yes, I didn't see this when I wrote above. This and other benefits, once inclined, one can find many solutions. Another I can think of is a straight +2 to wisdom for citizens. "You have been enlightened by the presence of city culture". There you go.

[Wday]

Maybe if we didn't try to zip past the GRIND and used that time in character to build up. Conflicts would seem more balanced, We may if got involved more in game and plots we all know who and why things went on. Or make sense and not seem overly clan powerful?

I am not saying the players are not doing that!  I don't know your characters!  Just saying we have a ton of stuff in game now. So much new things we can add to our characters to really flesh them out.  I feel it is more fun to grow into the character before just starting out as the SLAYER, but as I read the GDB seems like no matter what is done we want to flip flop codes and bypass the build up of characters.

Get out there and build your characters and have fun! If PVP is your thing that is great!  Make it one of the best stories you can not just a body count.  If you focus on your story the game world really does come alive with fears and happiness.

[FamousAmos]

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.

I haven't read all the comments because I'm a bad reader, and my opinion will likely be the complete opposite of someone elses.

But some suggestions to focus on some "Core Armageddon" things:

* Luir's is still in shambles after Krath knows how long since the war. PC's have tried to restore it but either died, stored or whatever happened that kept Luir's in ruins. Have the Merchant Houses clean the rubble, update the tavern, which in turn can provide for PC's to create an event to celebrate the "new Luir's".
* Focus more on public "events" in Allanak and Tuluk, not only driven by PC's. In example the Senate meeting which, back in the days, allowed for Red Robes to mingle, do business and bribe their way up the social ladder and involve PC's in it. This can involve any kind of PC, high or low status.
* Have small NPC criminals engage more with PC's - have a hunt to sniff out the perpetrator, involve PC's
* The Grind. Its just very, very tedious and unmotivating to start a new PC from scratch. Give Players the opportunity to gain... I don't know... XP with long lived characters and use those XP to add a dot here and there on their new skill sheet.
* Focus on existing clans, such as Jaxa Pah (sadly closed), human tribal clans, smaller elven clans
* Initiate RPT's outside of Tuluk/Allanak, with a planned herd of raptors/gortok/scrab/gith where people can show up and do their hack&slash, which admittedly CAN be fun at times. RP can happen before, after and maybe even in between.

Example: Staff posts Mini RPT outside Allanak at so and so time, brief rumor board post about culling of the scrabs. New PC's can join the older ones and get some skills up, hunters can practice their skinning, gicks can get their gick on, PC's can engage with each other (positive or negative), because no clan needs to be excluded.
Let it be a weekly thing. It doesn't always need to be staff run, it could also be an automated spawn thingy at a certain spot.

Also, I have seen.... no mutants in cities, despite the options being there thanks to Shalooonsh amazingly... lets say.. colorful descriptions. No thryzn in cities. When will we see them?

I guess I'm just rambling at this point, but there are so many little things that could make Arm even more appealing and less frustrating, when focusing a bit more on what currently exists and with a little TLC can grow into so much more.

[Delusion]

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.

While I'm not the original poster, I am a long-time player, if somewhat on and off, with very particular views on this. Personally, I hate PvP. I have successfully managed to avoid it for the most part.

PvP in cities comes down to a few types. The most common seems to be getting templar'ed. Templars are a great motivation not to play commoners in cities. I agree with another poster that the game would be better off without PC templars but I won't dig further into that.

Thiefy sorts are basically inventory elementalists. Being on the receiving end of that isn't ever really fun or engaging. For some characters, it's a nuisance, for others, it means hours of grind to regain lost stuff.

Assassins mostly seem to come down to trapping people in a locked apartment and stabbing them there, using the skills they have taken enough time to grind.

Another aspect to PvP is that, outside of the city politicking, such as it is, wilderness PvP, and gameplay in general, heavily rewards people who commit a great deal of time to grinding. That grind is by far the worst aspect of Armageddon - I don't even try to keep up with it. The idea of spending weeks and months grinding a character only to have them be beat up by someone who did the grind for even longer and rolled absolutely incredible strength isn't much fun either.

Besides all this are people's apparent motivations: killing people is sometimes a first recourse for some over any sort of slight or perhaps just because they felt like it. Yeah, sure, life is cheap on Zalanthas, but players' time isn't.

Anyway, my two cents. It's obviously not an aspect of the game I participate in if I can help it at all, but that's why and my view as, if nothing else, an observer and sometime third party.

[Harmless]

The PK seems way lower than back in the day, and the willingness to roleplay higher. I definately do not want a rollback of poisons though. I usually play assassin type pcs and from what I have seen of the poison it is less guaranteed one hit kill but still very dangerous. And more interesting.

I am supportive of this feedback thread.

I don't play as often as I used to at all, mostly because real life (the dreaded R.L.) continues to dominate my life more and more each year, not less. There however was thrown out there in a few posts things about poison, and as someone who has played both on the "magickal" side of the conflict and the "mundane" side (which does really benefit from poison to achieve the goals of PvP conflict), I also want to say I do not want to roll back the new poison code, but I will say I think it needs some significant future tweaks to help players understand it better.

I think the reason the poison/mundane side is underpowered in this conflict right now is the disjuncted release of it in development after new poison capable classes were designed. the poison/brew skill combo is only available to a few classes, and now with shorter lasting poisons, the synergy between poison and brew is more important than ever. The spoilage of poison cures means if you don't brew you're highly dependent on your brewing buddies to be a good poisoner, and poisoning is harder with poison spoilage on top of it. Two essential nerfs to the mechanics, and no real way to reconcile that if your brewing buddies aren't available when you need them or if they die. Meanwhile, a solo witch has their kit ready to go at all times and their magickal components don't degrade, and their abilities are perfectly predictable. The poisoner has to be a hardcore player of the game (trust me, I am aggressively beta testing this new poison system), to get shit done. It feels like the dial was turned back too far as a retaliation to the dominance of poisoning assassins for the longest time in this game's history, making certain origins that used to really benefit from the poisoning mechanic really struggle to dominate in this era of the game's changes.

That may be harkening to the original post, that the pace of development means there are unintended consequences left and right in the game. Yes, Badskeelz is right, this is not a great PvP mechanics wise game. It is an RPI, and I enjoy the possibilities of PvP, but most of PvP now requires "logging on" and they who log on regularly will inevitably still win. I thought it was cool in the old days that you might be some old, wrinkled assassin type who barely logs in, but then shows up now and then to ice someone and then disappear for a long time. Someone though must have really hated that capacity, and inevitably that was nixed. It could come back though, if they account for the casual login style more in their code mechanics and allow someone who doesn't have time to constantly restock and reapply poisons to still have some impact someday when that conflict moment finally comes. my 2 sids.

[Windstorm]

I thought it was cool in the old days that you might be some old, wrinkled assassin type who barely logs in, but then shows up now and then to ice someone and then disappear for a long time.

I would be kind of glad for this not being a thing.

If I was around and some assassin PC that almost never exists only appeared to get some uberpoison and murder an active PC that was in the middle of a dozen plots and driving roleplay, and then assassin PC just casually disappared and rarely logged on after(conveniently preventing things like related roleplay, revenge, retaliation or investigation), I think that would really suck for both the game and a lot of the players and activity that PC was connected to.

If that's a side effect of the new poison code I hope it stays just like it is, personally.

[Halaster]

I thought it was cool in the old days that you might be some old, wrinkled assassin type who barely logs in, but then shows up now and then to ice someone and then disappear for a long time.

That actually sounds awful and unfun to me.

PvP now requires "logging on" and they who log on regularly will inevitably still win.

If you want to be a good assassin you have to log on to train your skills, gather poisons, etc.  Being able to assassinate someone should require work.

Alternatively, you could pay someone for the poisons, and let them do all the work for you.

[Miradus]

I would like poison murder to be an 'event' that the whole crew gets involved in (gathering, brewing, striking, etc) rather than "let me pull a leaf out of my bag that some desert elf gave my clan in 2015 and I found in a bag in the HQ."

[Patuk]

There are, like, three people online when I play, and five of those people are not gonna like me very much. 'The whole crew' is maybe me and one other guy and I absolutely hate how much has been gated around playing at 3 am over the years.