Cult/Sect Conflict

Gurn

So, Sarrius has begun to initiate Sect/Cult conflict with the desecration on the Primal altar.

One thing first. It causes conflict. Cool. I'm not upset about it at all, and honestly don't think it'll be too much of a detriment for roleplay. Because to be honest, Osila just attached, so it should be some time before she goes all Sect status.

Anyway.

I'm talking with Sarrius and watching the numbers, and they seem fairly reasonable. 35-40 minutes, about 11 people(some with faithbane on), did 6% belief damage. At the beginning of this, I was worried about late-night desecration might make these sort of battles ridiculous, but it's not too bad.

That being said, I still feel the entire thing could become the new source of player-driven conflict, hopefully incorporating more roleplay with the diversity of entities, as obelisks and shardfalls have seem to become stagnant.. Any ideas or suggestions?

Sarrius

The system seems to be designed almost to run against the player trying to make a sect. The desecration system truly matters most when the victim has no access to sect powers, because you are cutting them off from the possibility of getting them. I can't help but feel this is sort of griefy, but you work with what you've got.

Delrayne

Well, The fact that he can single handedly pretty much bash back up in the span of less than a day, what it took 8-12 people to take away in an hour and a half...the odds are in his favour. I mean this is almost as bad as waiting for an obelisk to be taken.

Gurn

I can single-handedly bash up 3-4% in a day(10-12 hours) supposing I don't have class, no one goes after me, and no one else decides to bash very much that day.

Sarrius' point is still valid though. You can claim that, but I did that when I specifically avoided conflict or dealt with it very directly so I could bash in peace. With conflict, it'll be more difficult to do that, making ascension immensely more difficult/impossible depending on how griefy you guys decide to get.

And while we're talking about my cult where it has me in it, this won't hold true for the mass majority of other upcoming cults. All the experienced players have attached themselves to a cult or a sect already. It's not going to go well for all the rest, until more superbashers show up. In fact, most cults with more members than mine and had an entity attached earlier haven't gone anywhere because it's simply very difficult to bash to 100%, as it should be. However, when you factor in cult/sect conflict in there, it suddenly goes from difficult to "practically impossible".

Bathan

I sort of felt like cult/sect conflict was fairly pointless.

A. The admin will never allow an entity to die.

B. Considering the amount of grinding that goes into them, you'll never be able to do enough to convince the admin/players to allow their cult/sect to be destroyed.

C. While with Orders you could destroy influence via shrines, all sect/cults have is altar defilement which takes forever and is only mostly pointless, except when it's basically just a means to grief people, IE, when someone's trying to become a sect and waiting on the entity to have the event ready.

D. If sects/cults aren't on par, most of the time the fighting just won't happen. Conquest went to 'war' with Flame pretty early on and Khizan was just basically like, 'Nah, we're not doing it. You have fighters, we don't.'

Sure, there's the potential for some sort of roleplay, but considering the lack of risk/reward, it largely devolves to posturing.

Delrayne

Yeah, the idea of desecrating an altar to 0% belief just sickens me. I mean we had 10 people on average as some came and went, for an hour and half desecrating until we ran out of faith and they only dropped 6% belief. Sure, with active conflict bashing isn't as easy...but you still come out way in the positive. Especially since after this little experiment, hardly anyone is going to want to desecrate ever again. The reward is to small, and like you said with the smaller cults there really is no risk.

If you want to drop a Sect/Cult belief, just altar summon and team them. It's faster and doesn't cost you any faith/belief which is a win win in my book. Unless somehow you die...which if you do, you deserve to lose belief if you die when team ganking a solo target.

Ellen

6% belief does not seem that minor to me, who hunts at 1/4 the speed that Gurn does on the best of days. It might seem inconsequential considering you had 10-13 people contributing over the course of 1.5 hours, but I'd rather err on the side of 'Desecrating does very little' than lean towards 'Desecrating can keep a smaller cult/sect at 0% belief indefinitely'.

Perhaps it would make more sense to speed up desecrating considerably, so that you guys don't waste all your time to inconvenience us, but to add in daily per-person cap to how much belief you can burn, a cap that lowers per-person past a certain number of desecrators to stop the smaller cult from simply being crushed beneath weight of numbers.

Delrayne

Ellen said:

6% belief does not seem that minor to me, who hunts at 1/4 the speed that Gurn does on the best of days. It might seem inconsequential considering you had 10-13 people contributing over the course of 1.5 hours, but I'd rather err on the side of 'Desecrating does very little' than lean towards 'Desecrating can keep a smaller cult/sect at 0% belief indefinitely'.

I can agree with that. Though when it comes to sect 1 vs sect 2 instead of AM sects vs sect 2, getting 10+ plus people to desecrate will generally be tough for either side. So your 'err on the very little' is compounded even more.

Perhaps it would make more sense to speed up desecrating considerably, so that you guys don't waste all your time to inconvenience us, but to add in daily per-person cap to how much belief you can burn, a cap that lowers per-person past a certain number of desecrators to stop the smaller cult from simply being crushed beneath weight of numbers.

I also agree that it should be sped up considerably, if the conflict mechanics behind sect/cults isn't changed. The player cap...I'm not to sure of though. Since there is no sacrificing cap, there would be no way to out desecrate a sect/cult that is sacrificing on a regular basis. And don't get me wrong, there shouldn't be a sacrificing cap.

All in all sect/cult conflict seems really meh to me personally(and I had hoped it wouldn't), and for the time being should be avoided like the plague.

Juran

It takes roughly twice as much time to desecrate as it does to consecrate, you'll be fine.

Khizan

Organized organizational conflict is never going to be a major conflict generation method, because it basically falls prey to the same thing that happened to the early idea of Conquest versus Flame. 

Conquest had a lot of people and wanted to provoke a fight, and I outright told Bathan OOCly that we would just flat out ignore him and any efforts along that line and let him win the bashing contest that is desecration, because I wasn't going to bother getting into a fight that was so clearly stacked against us.

Lionas

Ellen said:

6% belief does not seem that minor to me, who hunts at 1/4 the speed that Gurn does on the best of days.

But this isn't just you. It's your entire sect, vs their group of desecrators.

My sect regularly bashes 3-6% per day while not pushing for belief. When we were pushing to unlock rituals, it was closer to 10%. Some of them are power bashers, but a lot of them aren't.

Caelya

Well, I know these numbers aren't absolutely relevant, but it's still sort of something that you should also consider. 

Conquest        the Sect of Conquest      Bathan          Hastati         21

Hunt            the Sect of the Wild Hunt Sarrius         Isra            36

VS.

Primal          the Cult of the Primal Sp Gurn            Osila           11

The potential for one side to have people around at all times, whether it be for bashing up faith/belief or for desecrating or for fighting is vastly superior to the other side.

Numbers and the rest of that crap aside, this just doesn't seem fun at all. It would be more fun if sects (and only sects, I don't feel like sects should be ganging up on cults at all) had something to fight over, like boons or relics or something like that that would give them a boost or be able to target another sect with some sort of malus for a period of time/until it's stolen back. Unfortunately that idea is super similar to the current obelisk system, so I don't have any grand, original solution that everyone's going to like. Mostly, just cut with the griefing.

Veratyr

Game gets kinda boring when one side gets way more powerful than the rest of the world combined doesnt it.

Ellen

So apparently it's alright to declare 'war' on a cult/sect and attack members of their organization at your leisure? Azefel just attacked and killed Ellen for the sole reason that she is a member of the Primal cult and was hunting. Ellen had not done nor said anything to any member of AM prior to this event. This 'war' just started, and it's already feeling griefy.

Khizan

Would this be better, somehow, if he were able to one-v-one challenge you and lock you in the area first?

Delrayne

Khizan said:

Would this be better, somehow, if he were able to one-v-one challenge you and lock you in the area first?

Haha, I had forgotten about that thread.

Sarrius

Ellen said:

So apparently it's alright to declare 'war' on a cult/sect and attack members of their organization at your leisure? Azefel just attacked and killed Ellen for the sole reason that she is a member of the Primal cult and was hunting. Ellen had not done nor said anything to any member of AM prior to this event. This 'war' just started, and it's already feeling griefy.

War is never fun for people who care about dying.

To be honest, he jumped you because you were bashing to replace faith we were desecrating. Are you going to sit there and let somebody push your boulder down the hill if you just worked so hard to push it UP that hill?

Ellen

Sarrius said:

Ellen said:

So apparently it's alright to declare 'war' on a cult/sect and attack members of their organization at your leisure? Azefel just attacked and killed Ellen for the sole reason that she is a member of the Primal cult and was hunting. Ellen had not done nor said anything to any member of AM prior to this event. This 'war' just started, and it's already feeling griefy.

War is never fun for people who care about dying.

To be honest, he jumped you because you were bashing to replace faith we were desecrating. Are you going to sit there and let somebody push your boulder down the hill if you just worked so hard to push it UP that hill?

Absolutely. Declaring 'war' on an organization, especially one who has not accepted your declaration, does not give you license to kill them. It really sucks for you that we're able to hunt to replenish what you take away and undo your desecrating, but that does not mean that you can kill us for hunting. Seraphyne, who you recently slayed for the same reason, did and said nothing against you, Antioch, Ithaqua, Conquest or Hunt outside of shardfalls. I have not spoken or done anything to Azefel, Antioch, Ithaqua, Conquest or Hunt... ever.

Azefel used as his reasoning 'returning the favour' for Gurn striking out at people who had directly attacked us. That's between him and Gurn. Gurn's actions do not give you the right to attack people who aren't Gurn and had nothing to do with those actions. Neither does the attempt made by Gurn, Ziat and Risca to defend against attacks on the altar.

This is blatantly fishing for reasons to kill anyone, and it's unacceptable.

Azefel

I never even desecrated the altar

Just Gurn/Risca/Ziat tracking to Conquest's altar to attack (and Gurn's running around attacking other people bashing earlier) that made me do this.

Sarrius

Ellen said:

Sarrius said:

Ellen said:

So apparently it's alright to declare 'war' on a cult/sect and attack members of their organization at your leisure? Azefel just attacked and killed Ellen for the sole reason that she is a member of the Primal cult and was hunting. Ellen had not done nor said anything to any member of AM prior to this event. This 'war' just started, and it's already feeling griefy.

War is never fun for people who care about dying.

To be honest, he jumped you because you were bashing to replace faith we were desecrating. Are you going to sit there and let somebody push your boulder down the hill if you just worked so hard to push it UP that hill?

(snip snip) - This is blatantly fishing for reasons to kill anyone, and it's unacceptable.

No. I can come up with way better reasons to kill people. I also could just go play a different game - I have plenty to play, replay, etc. Hell, I've got a Monk to level in World of Warcraft. To assume that I did this to have a 'reason' to kill any of you is giving all of you too much credit.

The reason I did this was because Wild Hunt has a justifiable reason to do it, and Conquest is their ally so they joined in. I did it because you guys acquired an entity and you are in all likelihood close to ascension. Why would I give my enemy circle another sect, when I have the opportunity to tell you 'no'? That makes no sense.

All of you are welcome to cease bashing until you hit 0%. You can just let the cult get pummeled. If we were fishing for reasons to gank you, we'd have not offered you a mechanically and sentimental surrender option - we are giving you a way out. It is not our fault that your cult leader won't agree to them, especially considering one of the terms is immaterial mechanically - we are asking for something personal from your entity surrendered to Hastati, and another surrendered to Isra. Isra personally hasn't told me what she wants, so who knows, but this is giving your cult the opportunity to form another point of contention with each of ours. Instead, you want to use the forums as a vehicle to complain about conflict in a game whose only other source of combat requires you wait for 2 - 3 hours, and then is often a short-lived 10 to 15 minutes.

Dying is immaterial, especially off an altar. Why not stop caring about the 0.02% you lose and actually enjoy a few fights?

EDIT: And if it truly upsets you so, might I suggest Lusternia? I am to understand their Avenger system is exactly the kind of security you are looking for - killing people for legitimate reasons there got me peaced and killed, after all!

Juran

A sect called Conquest needs to occasionally go to war, or we're seriously not doing our job.

Ellen

I'm sorry, but you do not have the right to initiate an organization conflict (one where you have all the advantages), attack the organization (which does not attack yours back), and then look at the members of that organization (that have not involved themselves in the conflict at all) and say 'You can't hunt, or I kill you'. This is so far over the line that it's insane that you're defending it. This isn't 'conflict', this is forcing unwanted combat on people who have shown you no interest and given no reason.

Alitis

This isn't about right or wrong, this is about what you're doing to do to stop them.

I'll give you a hint - whining on the forums won't stop them.

Sarrius

Ellen said:

I'm sorry, but you do not have the right to initiate an organization conflict (one where you have all the advantages), attack the organization (which does not attack yours back), and then look at the members of that organization (that have not involved themselves in the conflict at all) and say 'You can't hunt, or I kill you'. This is so far over the line that it's insane that you're defending it. This isn't 'conflict', this is forcing unwanted combat on people who have shown you no interest and given no reason.

I am sure Polland and France said the same thing.

Ahkan

Ellen, I love your textual face.

I'm sorry, but you do not have the right to initiate an organization conflict (one where you have all the advantages), attack the organization (which does not attack yours back).

This is anti-magick in a nutshell right now. Everything is in their favor. They're on the top of the balance stick. They had a HUGE population migration to their circle. They're pretty much the easiest mode in Imperian. After 8 years of being the red-headed, downypottamus step child, they're cashing in. Is it shitty? Yes. Can you blame them? (the five of them left) (who haven't jumped ship..once, twice). Not sure (probably not). Are they handling it with class? Absolutely not. Why? It's the internet.

Actually, this doesn't apply to Sarrius. That meatbag is a dyed in the wool band wagoner.

I also included a visual aid to demonstrate what Ithaqua and Antioch look like:

Lionas

From HELP PK

- It must be noted that roleplay reasons must encompass actual actions by the individual being targeted. In practice, this means that if someone is insulting you repeatedly or attacking a member of your city, you have a good reason to be attacking them. If you declare war on their city and they happen to be a leader of said city, that is NOT a good reason for attacking them, as they have not pursued any individual acts warranting such an action. Be conservative in your application of this principle: The administration isn't stupid, and you will be punished for seeking to kill people for trite reasons.



Attacking someone solely because they were bashing to offer for essence was never permitted under the old system. Raising a shrine or defiling certainly was, but raising a shrine isn't a thing anymore. That leaves defiling.

This seems pretty cut-and-dry to me, and it's no surprise who is in the wrong.

Ahkan

Oddly, it's important to point out, that most of the 'trolling' Anti-magick experienced was at the hands of some of the dudes who lead anti-magick and are also their front line pkers. 

Sarrius

Lionas said:

From HELP PK

- It must be noted that roleplay reasons must encompass actual actions by the individual being targeted. In practice, this means that if someone is insulting you repeatedly or attacking a member of your city, you have a good reason to be attacking them. If you declare war on their city and they happen to be a leader of said city, that is NOT a good reason for attacking them, as they have not pursued any individual acts warranting such an action. Be conservative in your application of this principle: The administration isn't stupid, and you will be punished for seeking to kill people for trite reasons.



Attacking someone solely because they were bashing to offer for essence was never permitted under the old system. Raising a shrine or defiling certainly was, but raising a shrine isn't a thing anymore. That leaves defiling.

This seems pretty cut-and-dry to me, and it's no surprise who is in the wrong.

We could split hairs all day - technically, a 'roleplay reason' is present, and that reason is 'The Wild Hunt has declared war and has made demands'. People have gotten away with flimsier reasons, and the whole 'try to resolve it' thing supercedes that nonsense 99 out of 100 issues. Seraphyne, and presumably Ellen (considering Seraphyne copy and pasted Ellen's issue to Azefel, to me), made no shot at resolving it in character. No retaliation. No 'why?'. Nothing.

Lionas

"They were bashing" has never been a valid reason. It was not valid while gods existed, and there's no reason it would be valid now.

EDIT: And the bit I pasted specifically mentions war?

Delrayne

Ahkan said:

Actually, this doesn't apply to Sarrius. That meatbag is a dyed in the wool band wagoner.

I also included a visual aid to demonstrate what Ithaqua and Antioch look like:

I'm curious is Dias the guy walking beside Antioch, since he's always getting kicked out of the bus?

Edit: It's also pretty baller that we are rolling in mercedez!

Sarrius

Lionas said:

"They were bashing" has never been a valid reason. It was not valid while gods existed, and there's no reason it would be valid now.

EDIT: And the bit I pasted specifically mentions war?

'They were bashing' is a highly simplified 'they were working against my efforts to blow up their altar'.