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Sect Rituals
Garryn
Member, Administrator Posts: 527 admin
Please read through the entire thread prior to commenting - some info in this post is already outdated.
While the new cult/sect system is already significantly different from old orders as far as RP/backstory goes, the mechanical differences have been rather small so far. Sect rituals are the answer, and we're now finally at the stage where I can post some more information about them.
In addition to the basic rituals that both cult and sects get (these are alredy in the game), there will be seven groups of sect rituals, each of them consisting of five rituals. Four of these groups are accessible by every sect, the remaining three are circle-specific - each sect only gets access to the group belonging to its circle.
However, there is a catch. No sect will be able to access all of the available rituals - rather, each sect will be able to pick up to three groups out of the five groups available to it, and gain rituals from those groups. Selecting each new group will come with a belief cost attached. You will be able to change your picks at the same cost, but you'll need to forgo some of your already chosen groups first.
Once the sect has picked a ritual group, the first ritual in it becomes available to all members. Further rituals are gained on an individual basis, the specifics of which are not entirely finalised yet. The idea is that to gain access the better rituals, you'll need to spend some time as a member of that sect, as well as actively contribute towards the sect belief. The primary goal here is to provide a reward for staying in the sect for a longer time (as a estimate, it's going to take about 2 months to get the highest-rank rituals).
The individual rituals are described below. The basic idea behind all of them is that they provide very powerful effects with major impact on a given situation, balanced out by their high cost to ensure that they will only be usable semi-frequently. Please note that this listing is not finalised yet and anything could change. As you'll notice, the combat-related rituals (which form the majority of what is available) are tailored towards group combat, which means that to get the full benefits, different sects within a circle will want to focus on different groups of rituals.
* Aura - An improved prismatic defence on all cult members in room, or everyone in room, that only drops when shield would (on aggro/move). 30% faith.
* Join - A more powerful bloodsworn. Split damage between the two, afflictions are received by both, curing an affliction cures it for both, health curing also splits between the two, lasts for 30 minutes or until cancelled. 80% faith.
* Sanctuary - Prevent all forms of travel into the room. Leaving can still be done freely. Lasts for a limited time. 55% faith.
* Grace - gives temporary grace for 30 seconds. 100% faith.
* Pillar of Protection - damage targetted at anyone in the room reduced by 15%
* Pillar of Travel - cult members can travel to the pillar from anywhere
* Pillar of Holding - creates a pillar in the room that prevents all forms of movement from the room except unblockable ones (tumble and similar)
* Pillar of Pestilence - everyone in the room except cult members hit by periodic afflictions
* Pillar of Destruction - damage initiated by anyone in the room increased by 15%
* Celerity - faster movement, 20% faith
* Stealth - enter/leave messages do not show the direction in which the affected player left, 40% faith
* Benevolence - +1 to stats. 60% faith
* Alertness - alertness with no drain, 60% faith
* Protection - 5% damage resist to all damage types, or 10% to a chosen one. 80% faith
* Breach - remove all obstacles in a direction, including the Sanctuary effect. 30% faith.
* Bull's Rush - ignore effects like gravehands/piety/block/etc, affects everyone in the room, lasts 10 minutes. 60% faith.
* Explosion - a powerful explosion that sends everyone in the room to random rooms all over the world (different room for each player). 80% faith
* Avatar - 25 to all stats, lasts 2 minutes, 100% faith
Circle-specific ritual groups provide two offensive ones, two defensive ones, and one commodity-related.
* Sukhder's Freedom - for 20 minutes, everyone in the room gains the Shadowbinding Waterwalking and Projection abilities (jump over walls), as well as improved celerity, 60% faith
* Decompose - A 25% damage malus to everyone in the room, lasts 10 minutes, 60% faith
* Searing Aura - user becomes immune to all entanglements, lasts 10 minutes, 100% faith
* Aeonic Flux - strip all defences on everyone in the room and afflict everyone with aeon, 100% faith
* Burrowing - everyone in the room gets the ability to burrow, lasts 20 minutes, 35% faith
* Airlift - everyone in the room gets the ability to fly, lasts 20 minutes, 60% faith
* Icestorm - invoke a storm of ice that blocks all locating skills targetted at people in the room and causes significant damage to anyone who tries to enter or leave (no periodic damage to people inside), lasts several minutes. 80% faith
* Meteor - a large ball of fire hits the current outdoors room after 6 seconds, killing everyone who remains there, 100% faith
* Holy Curse - transfer the afflictions on user to all other players in the room, 60% faith
* Angelic Grace - Periodic shield defence on either all cult members in the room, or everyone in the room, ticks every 10s, lasts 5 minutes. 80% faith
* Boost of Life - Player drains 15% health from every other individual in the room and adds that to his own health, lasts three minutes, ticks every 6 seconds, 80% faith
* Avalanche - For 5 minutes, the room becomes completely impassable and unable to be entered by any means. Everyone inside gets pushed out. Can still be bypassed with long-range travel. 100% faith
As always, all comments, suggestions, and any other feedback that you may have, are very much welcome and encouraged.
While the new cult/sect system is already significantly different from old orders as far as RP/backstory goes, the mechanical differences have been rather small so far. Sect rituals are the answer, and we're now finally at the stage where I can post some more information about them.
In addition to the basic rituals that both cult and sects get (these are alredy in the game), there will be seven groups of sect rituals, each of them consisting of five rituals. Four of these groups are accessible by every sect, the remaining three are circle-specific - each sect only gets access to the group belonging to its circle.
However, there is a catch. No sect will be able to access all of the available rituals - rather, each sect will be able to pick up to three groups out of the five groups available to it, and gain rituals from those groups. Selecting each new group will come with a belief cost attached. You will be able to change your picks at the same cost, but you'll need to forgo some of your already chosen groups first.
Once the sect has picked a ritual group, the first ritual in it becomes available to all members. Further rituals are gained on an individual basis, the specifics of which are not entirely finalised yet. The idea is that to gain access the better rituals, you'll need to spend some time as a member of that sect, as well as actively contribute towards the sect belief. The primary goal here is to provide a reward for staying in the sect for a longer time (as a estimate, it's going to take about 2 months to get the highest-rank rituals).
The individual rituals are described below. The basic idea behind all of them is that they provide very powerful effects with major impact on a given situation, balanced out by their high cost to ensure that they will only be usable semi-frequently. Please note that this listing is not finalised yet and anything could change. As you'll notice, the combat-related rituals (which form the majority of what is available) are tailored towards group combat, which means that to get the full benefits, different sects within a circle will want to focus on different groups of rituals.
1. HEALING/PROTECTIVE RITUALS
* Heal - cures all health/mana and afflictions on all cult members in the room, or everyone in the room. The "all allies" option is intentionally excluded to force some strategic choice - this applies to other such rituals as well. 30% faith.* Aura - An improved prismatic defence on all cult members in room, or everyone in room, that only drops when shield would (on aggro/move). 30% faith.
* Join - A more powerful bloodsworn. Split damage between the two, afflictions are received by both, curing an affliction cures it for both, health curing also splits between the two, lasts for 30 minutes or until cancelled. 80% faith.
* Sanctuary - Prevent all forms of travel into the room. Leaving can still be done freely. Lasts for a limited time. 55% faith.
* Grace - gives temporary grace for 30 seconds. 100% faith.
2. PILLAR RITUALS
Offers creation of pillars with various effects, can have multiple in room, pillars last about 10 minutes. This is the "jack of all trades" option. Each pillar costs 40% faith.* Pillar of Protection - damage targetted at anyone in the room reduced by 15%
* Pillar of Travel - cult members can travel to the pillar from anywhere
* Pillar of Holding - creates a pillar in the room that prevents all forms of movement from the room except unblockable ones (tumble and similar)
* Pillar of Pestilence - everyone in the room except cult members hit by periodic afflictions
* Pillar of Destruction - damage initiated by anyone in the room increased by 15%
3. FAVOURS
- this basically splits the existing divine favours into several ones, removes some things, and adds some extras. A player can have more of these, and can bestow them upon others (high faith cost to balance it out). All of these last 2 hours of online time.* Celerity - faster movement, 20% faith
* Stealth - enter/leave messages do not show the direction in which the affected player left, 40% faith
* Benevolence - +1 to stats. 60% faith
* Alertness - alertness with no drain, 60% faith
* Protection - 5% damage resist to all damage types, or 10% to a chosen one. 80% faith
4. OFFENSIVE RITUALS
* Summon - summon another player to the cult altar. Short delay with messages, movement, monoliths and similar block it. 15% faith (taken even if it fails).* Breach - remove all obstacles in a direction, including the Sanctuary effect. 30% faith.
* Bull's Rush - ignore effects like gravehands/piety/block/etc, affects everyone in the room, lasts 10 minutes. 60% faith.
* Explosion - a powerful explosion that sends everyone in the room to random rooms all over the world (different room for each player). 80% faith
* Avatar - 25 to all stats, lasts 2 minutes, 100% faith
Circle-specific ritual groups provide two offensive ones, two defensive ones, and one commodity-related.
5. DEMONIC RITUALS
* Transmute - Convert some amount of commodities into random other commodities, faith cost depends on amount* Sukhder's Freedom - for 20 minutes, everyone in the room gains the Shadowbinding Waterwalking and Projection abilities (jump over walls), as well as improved celerity, 60% faith
* Decompose - A 25% damage malus to everyone in the room, lasts 10 minutes, 60% faith
* Searing Aura - user becomes immune to all entanglements, lasts 10 minutes, 100% faith
* Aeonic Flux - strip all defences on everyone in the room and afflict everyone with aeon, 100% faith
6. MAGICK RITUALS
* Duplicate - duplicate a stack of riftable items, faith costs depends on type/amount, some (moonwort) are excluded* Burrowing - everyone in the room gets the ability to burrow, lasts 20 minutes, 35% faith
* Airlift - everyone in the room gets the ability to fly, lasts 20 minutes, 60% faith
* Icestorm - invoke a storm of ice that blocks all locating skills targetted at people in the room and causes significant damage to anyone who tries to enter or leave (no periodic damage to people inside), lasts several minutes. 80% faith
* Meteor - a large ball of fire hits the current outdoors room after 6 seconds, killing everyone who remains there, 100% faith
7. ANTI-MAGICK RITUALS
* Purify - convert a magickal item into commodities, faith costs depends on type* Holy Curse - transfer the afflictions on user to all other players in the room, 60% faith
* Angelic Grace - Periodic shield defence on either all cult members in the room, or everyone in the room, ticks every 10s, lasts 5 minutes. 80% faith
* Boost of Life - Player drains 15% health from every other individual in the room and adds that to his own health, lasts three minutes, ticks every 6 seconds, 80% faith
* Avalanche - For 5 minutes, the room becomes completely impassable and unable to be entered by any means. Everyone inside gets pushed out. Can still be bypassed with long-range travel. 100% faith
As always, all comments, suggestions, and any other feedback that you may have, are very much welcome and encouraged.
Post edited by Garryn on
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Comments
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"everyone in the room" refers to the room where the ritual is being used.
Not sure yet on a cult/sect conflict system, depends on how the whole system plays out.
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
Meteor - Just too huge. All that Magick cults can have it. Make it a summonable holo globe.
Avatar - It's a neat concept, but as has been pointed out the counters are very much limited in scope. I'd just go for something like person has double HP/Mana, does double damage. That's still a huuuuge advantage, but people can try and turtle it out and no one besides Ju$tu$ will be instakilling people.
Aeonic Flux - Have an in-room cooldown on how often it can be done?
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
I don't like that this provides more abilities to waste time on balancing in classleads. I don't like how bold the lines between each circle are, for special powers. I don't like how it emphasizes the Mob instead of the Individual. I thought using our cult altar would make for a foreshadowed mechanic involving champions. Instead, we got.. what? A stockpile of new things to make team combat even more of a mess. We need less of that, not more.
In general, I am thoroughly unimpressed with this step. The one thing I do like is that we select 'ritual groups', which is a neat roleplay idea.. until you attach tangible benefits to it that may outweigh other groups.
One thing I'd like considered is raising the amount of faith each person can have. Maybe by two or three times what it is now. As it is, I can refill my faith a dozen times a day without much effort at all.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
These things seem helpful if you're following a combat-based cult, but there are others out there who don't really have the motivation to add ANOTHER form of conflict to the already-overwhelming amount they have to contend with every day just to get a minute amount of other projects to inch forward. I'm not saying abolish the system in any way, I'm just terribly disappointed at the lack of anything useful if you're not already planning to spiral headfirst into even MORE combat. The repetition of which is getting really boring.
Change Meteor to...
Inferno - Channel a raging inferno, causing X damage every second to everyone in the room, or half that to everyone in an adjacent room. Goes through shield. Channel up to twenty seconds. 100% faith cost.
I would just like to see things that are helpful for more than just combat, also. Lalitana has it pegged. Sell us on why this is better than all the other combat-related systems that have been thrown at us over the last two years. Why should I care about cults, now?
Khizan has a few good points too. Part of the reason I think orders took a back seat in the world of everything except crooked politics is because of the fact that all the combat-related things were either much too powerful and burned bridges far too quickly, or else weren't of any use outside the bonuses that were already gotten elsewhere. They were excellent as a roleplay resource, but the limited interactions with the deities made it incredibly frustrating for those RPers. And since Arpee Helper is of limited use if there's no one listening in (A frustration I've had since he inception) we're back in the same boat we had before, and we're only going to make things slide in the worst possible way with things set up to move as we're going. As of this moment, not a single RP-heavy, or RP-exclusive individual is going to see merit in the combat-heavy portions of the sects and cults. (I'm still not sure the difference between the sects and cults, so I'm throwing them in as just cults from now on.)
@Aislygn: While I'm not sure if it's still used, you can RPT (instead of tell ARPEE) and send a message out, but I have confirmation from the last docent lead that the docent program is dead, so I don't know if the divine have an ear on that channel anymore or not.
I am also very tired of touted RP systems evolving in to more team combat tools. This happened a lot in Lusternia.. quests became necessary for combatants to get a free artifact. Orders played a huge role in sieging other planes, because their shrine powers are unbearably powerful.
I like Sarciossis's idea, too, of limiting at least the most powerful of the rituals, at least, to the altar room. Still leaves them a little out of control, but in that way significantly less.
Personally, I like the comm rituals, but that's cause I'm magicker and that seems like a greedy harvester's wet dream! :P
Maybe nerf that about.... oh... a lot.
My only hope for the cults, at this point, is that at least the entities would be capable of affecting the world and helping work with cult leaders to create RP for the cults themselves, for the members within. If that LEADS to conflict with another cult (Which it should) then the rituals are great. I just fear with having so many cults, so few entities, and how the combat-cults are going to chew everything up and swallow cults whole, that there's going to be a lot of RP-based cults with nothing to do because the entities are siding with combat-based cults.
Beyond that point, we just don't need more things that speed up or muddy team PK, or encourage team PK. I just don't get why we need these.