I have a hard time caring about shrines. The only tangible benefits are PvE bashing related, and I don't care about PvE at all. I don't know what the solution is either. Shardfalls and caravans are fun because there are tangible benefits to doing them. How do we make shrines fun / replace them with a different fun system? Something along the lines of Rust's airdrops or DayZ's chopper crash sites, where it's a temporary, randomly located point-control struggle with a piñata full of goodies (temporary artis or something?) as the reward?
Splatoon has some fun territorial control ideas too. Painting an area with Sect control points is already sort of what the shrine system is, but what if we made it reset every so often, say once a week or even daily, so that Conquest can't develop a permanent, overwhelming and unassailable network of shrines? Maybe the benefits from something that regular would have to be smaller since you could run it daily, but really anything is better than what we've got now. TO ME. I'm sure there's some people who are bananas for the current system. I just don't know a single person like that.
Getting into shrines is a bit difficult due to the pricing. Without duplicate as a ritual, you're going to dropping a -lot- of gold into each shrine, much less the amt of xp comms and sanctifying time it takes. (Thanks Zenigra for being great at this). If you don't manage to secure some sort of hunting area, and probably an idol, you're going to be having a very bad time with getting any reasonable benefits out of it.
Unspeakable so far doesn't have a lot of shrines, but the goal is to expand into less bashed areas that fit with our theme/location. I really, really don't want to see shrine conflict, because there are very little rewards (outside of the relic system benefiting bashing and QoL benefits per area) for building shrines. If a lower shrined Sect got into a fight, it would just be better for them to decide not to build anymore shrines until the conflict is over.
I don't even know how Leechwood handles it, much less Conquest.
To echo Wysrias' comments in ring (and probably here?) if you're not on the way to building shrines right now, you're going to be soooo far out of the loop.
Suggestions:
1) Relic system is weird. Perhaps just allow shrine per area to give benefits through a ritual for that area. PEFORM RITUAL AREA BENEVOLENCE (or something similar). These would fade like normal favours in a set time, would cost belief, but would be boosted by the amount of shrines per area? (Admittedly, this wouldn't solve the problem of Conquest having a big lead on everyone, but still)
2) Provide an alternate way to construct shrines outside of the 50 obsidian/10 glass/10 wood? Reduce the cost/quest length of the idol stone? Allow multiple people to burn through their faith to construct shrines versus the commodity cost?
3) Remove penalties for defending shrines, as that seems to be a major issue right now (but not one that I've dealt with, though).
Shardfalls and caravans are fun because there are tangible benefits to doing them.
This is incorrect. Tangible benefits have nothing to do with how fun those things are. I mean, honestly, how fun is a completely uncontested shardfall? Hell, we'd rather lose a contested shardfall than clear an uncontested one, so the benefits-to-fun ratio there has to be pretty low.
The thing about shardfalls and caravans is that they have no preparation and no investment. The bell rings, you fight, and the fight itself is the reward; nobody cares about shards or quartz anymore.
Shrines are never going to match that kind of thing because the very nature of a shrine system implies both investment and preparation.
"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."
Another thing about caravans/shardfalls vs shrines is that the former doesn't really have any tangible drawback if you lose them. We have townes for commodities and single shards every now and then. This isn't quite true for shrines.
currently tentatively active (may vanish for periods of time)
What about limiting the number of shrines a Sect can have in a given area? This would stop massive population Sects from just taking over everything, and given smaller sects chances to try and bring shrines into an area
* Relics can now be traded. To get rid of an unwanted relic, simply PUT it in your altar. Cult and Sect leaders and those sect members with the "relics" power gain a new ritual: transmogrification. PERFORM RITUAL TRANSMOGRIFICATION will show the syntax. This ritual allows the approved members to pull new relics from their altar. Add COST to the end of any command to see what it would cost to perform various transmogrifications. The cost is based on points that you earn by putting relics into the altar. Different relics are worth different points. You can create random relics for a fixed fee, or specific relics for higher fees (depending on the relic). You cannot take a relic out of the altar once it is put in.
I think this is a huge mistake, but time will tell.
I just put 90% of my sect's relic collection into the altar, and didn't have enough to make one random of a type we wanted. It seems like the system was set up to keep larger sects from just instantly making whatever they want.
The thing is, Shou is gonna win this transmog design, period. No matter what. So punishing smaller sects by never letting them transmog for useful things is just mean.
Also, I don't think Aegis should be allowed to be transmog'd for. It'll just further compound the problems of larger sects vs smaller sects
Why did you bring me up in this? Does everyone just think I should be punished for going out and getting stuff done? I fail to see how it is my fault others don't have relics.
Why did you bring me up in this? Does everyone just think I should be punished for going out and getting stuff done? I fail to see how it is my fault others don't have relics.
I have no desire to punish you for your actions. You are Shou, the Endless Hunter.
I just don't think the rest of us should be punished for your actions. You're gonna make these transmogs faster than anyone else, period. Doesn't mean the costs should be set on your level, and not a more reasonable one.
I think this is a huge mistake, but time will tell.
Here's the thing: something that is overpowered is overpowered regardless of rarity. This stuff is ridiculously stupidly amazingly over the top overpowered, but it would be that way regardless of accessibility.
Right now this is so utterly overpowered that it basically breaks the game. It absolutely destroys the entire combat system to the point where there is no real point in fighting in any shrine area anymore.
"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."
I think this is a huge mistake, but time will tell.
Here's the thing: something that is overpowered is overpowered regardless of rarity. This stuff is ridiculously stupidly amazingly over the top overpowered, but it would be that way regardless of accessibility.
Right now this is so utterly overpowered that it basically breaks the game. It absolutely destroys the entire combat system to the point where there is no real point in fighting in any shrine area anymore.
My meaning is that if it's a bad idea to give us reliable access to a thing via the tradein system, it is a bad idea to give us any access to the thing at all via random drops. "It's rare" is not a balancing condition.
Also, these relics are horrendously overpowered.
"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."
Relic Yours Shrine Room ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- citadel No Ascending the Parade of Rathad citadel No Rotunda of Reverie citadel No Solid ground amidst the wastes citadel No Within a thick copse of petrified trees citadel No a tiny bronze altar atop a sandstone dais citadel Yes Deep meadows *******************************************************************************
This is while standing in my council. I am not sure if broadcasting worldwide shrine location is an intended effect? Citadels only work if I am in the room with the altar...why provide me a map of potential targets?
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
My meaning is that if it's a bad idea to give us reliable access to a thing via the tradein system, it is a bad idea to give us any access to the thing at all via random drops. "It's rare" is not a balancing condition.
Disagree. Rarity is the balancing condition upon which many aspects of this game are built. There is quite a difference between "random rare drop bad", and "buy my way to the relic bad".
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
1. re: the change to immunity shrines. Will idols still keep their immunity, provided the 15-room same-sect shrine conditional, even if there is an adjacent opposing shrine? 2. For the purposes of reducing immunity effect, is "opposing" simply defined as a shrine from another sect? So for example, if you have a Arcanus shrine next to a Primal shrine, would someone defiling from AM or Demonic be able to take advantage of the immunity reduction effect? 3. Always active "penalty" effects are terrible ideas, even if they cut both ways, but will something like reducing my balance 20% or giving me zero resistances impact bashing within the influence as well? ps - Letting anyone buy Bulwark relics will spell an end to the conflict aspect of the entire system. For only 20 relics per Bulwark, I am sure by now Conquest has ensured their entire network will be impervious to any future damage.
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
The most common complaints before was that relics offered no benefit to PvP, that limiting to a room made them useless, and that the activation/cooldown mechanic made things useless. We're trying something different to address those. Could it be too much? Sure. But as you discovered with Antioch's little Urzog adventure, it can be fun to try something controversial to see how it shakes out.
Even if arguments on past mechanics to PvP utility (somewhat disagree), room limitations (agree), and CD mechanic (disagree on CD mechanic itself, maybe length) necessitated change, tweaking all three at once swings the pendulum too far in the other direction.
And the kicker is that, even if we could justify the existence of these extreme relics, they were gated at least by their level of rarity. Now that we have effectively turned relics into a currency, the original plan to stratify relic availability has been obviated.
I rarely overreact to changes, but this cumulative decision is a real head-scratcher.
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
There's so many other problems that have been brought up repeatedly, though. The relic powers themselves wax and wane between overpowered and completely useless, and this has barely changed. I can't think of a single positive post about the powers being offered because they really just seem like random ideas slapped together into a pile where we're supposed to experiment with them. I'll name a few examples:
Nullification: This power is ridiculous and has been complained about in each iteration of this system. Please stop trying to force artifact negation into a core conflict component of the game - a component that can (and does) extend to other conflict systems. See: shrines in contested areas, shrines on top of monoliths, shrines at boss rooms.
Obtuse: What possible use is there for blunt damage relapse? What profession tries to damage someone down with blunt weapons? Is this blunt damage as a whole, considering that the number of professions even using blunt damage is incredibly limited and mostly tied to one faction?
Mayhem: This has to exist just for hilarity's sake, because sharing all afflictions can't be something you'd possibly balance around.
Lethargic: Permanent balance debuff for everyone non-sect in an area is roughly equivalent to just making bashing 20% slower for balance-using professions in an area.
Hellfire: See Lethargic, except now it's just being lit on fire. That's okay I guess, but it's just going to make people go "huh, that's kind of annoying, let's defile these shrines".
Acute: Everyone gets 1 affliction back every 10 seconds? I can't imagine a context where this would be useful. A single affliction relapsing for all players is at best negligible and at worst will work against the user.
Absorption: Speeding up herb balance permanently for everyone in the room could potentially be advantageous, if you could lock a fight into that room specifically.
Defiance: A perfect way for front-loaded physical damage classes to one shot people, and for momentum offenses to fall apart because now they can't survive one round let alone two.
Reciprocation: This is a great way to completely kill all affliction offenses, full stop. Best paired with Defiance so that we can just autobash each other to death.
I could go on and on about some of the other ones, like Trequartista (which I will never spell properly without looking up), Rejuvenation (or Rejuvination? It's listed as both in the help file), etc. The powers are just bad. I've listed several possible ideas in other threads/posts, and I'd be happy to fish them out myself if you'd like, but no amount of painting over the system is going to fix the underlying issue where there's just too many relics that are no more than a waste of space.
That aside, I really don't like that you can outright purchase the exact relics you want. Some sects spent several months farming up pools of relics, probably in anticipation of something like this - at best, it should be a random re-roll, not a grind-until-you-buy system. If you're going to balance powers around rarity, properly make them rare.
I pictured the ideal use for Mayhem would be to use in conjunction with one of those artifact paint brushes, and I could make a sign that said, Kryss Wytch Welcome Here!
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
ps - Letting anyone buy Bulwark relics will spell an end to the conflict aspect of the entire system. For only 20 relics per Bulwark, I am sure by now Conquest has ensured their entire network will be impervious to any future damage.
Why would we do that? We WANTED the fights, that would just be a waste of points.
And @wysrias, the only thing I can say with some of these relics is that it's similar to class skills... not every single one is going to do 1000 damage, every other one isn't a instantkill. While defiance is definitely an issue (and could probably use a change to like... just be a 10% malus), others are just fine to me.
From those you mentioned, Obtuse, Lethargic, Hellfire, Absorption, and Acute are all just... OK. Unless you have a dedicated blunt damage dealer, obtuse is just a little extra damage. Lethargic is a double-edged sword, and since people like their speed (myself included) I don't see this being used. That's fine though, It shouldn't be 100% everything everywhere all the time. Hellfire is meh, Absorption is meh (possibly a better pve benefit, honestly) and acute isn't a big deal.
As for reciprocation.. How is this an end to every single affliction offense ever? Do most affliction offenses target every person in the room? Do you expect me to see Septus get paralyzed so I hit myself with cigua and cure it for him? Or do you have 5 affliction fighters NOT focus on the same person to ensure an easy kill? I don't understand.
Because both sides are probably doing high priority afflictions to one another, unless one side is capable of ignoring afflictions entirely. If I am delivering ciguatoxin and someone on my team is hit by someone else doing ciguatoxin, either of them curing it will cure the other. This means affliction stacks on both sides will fall apart unless the affliction pools are completely separate from one another. The roughly equivalent option would be to have health sips heal everyone in the room, which would again be a hilariously bad suggestion.
This also completely kills tracking I assume, unless there's a 3P message notifying everyone when someone's cure managed to cure another person.
EDIT: On the plus side, I guess it would be a pretty good counter to the definitely-not-ridiculous hypothermia/deepfreeze shenanigans going on with outriders right now. All of that caloric in the room should clear up any potential shatter nice and quickly.
And @wysrias,
the only thing I can say with some of these relics is that it's similar
to class skills... not every single one is going to do 1000 damage,
every other one isn't a instantkill. While defiance is definitely an
issue (and could probably use a change to like... just be a 10% malus),
others are just fine to me.
This statement speaks volumes.
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
Disagree. Rarity is the balancing condition upon which many aspects of this game are built. There is quite a difference between "random rare drop bad", and "buy my way to the relic bad".
Rarity might make something overpowered more tolerable but it does not make it balanced. It can actually even work the other way around where rarity makes something overpowered. Track pets are a good example of the latter, here; while they were always at least slightly overpowered, the rarity of the track pet is what made them unbearable. When everybody has something that's a bit overpowered, meh whatever, but when the other side is the only side with it, it's a different story.
Defiance clusters and such would not be somehow more bearable if Conquest was the only side that had the potential to set them up.
"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."
Comments
This is incorrect. Tangible benefits have nothing to do with how fun those things are. I mean, honestly, how fun is a completely uncontested shardfall? Hell, we'd rather lose a contested shardfall than clear an uncontested one, so the benefits-to-fun ratio there has to be pretty low.
The thing about shardfalls and caravans is that they have no preparation and no investment. The bell rings, you fight, and the fight itself is the reward; nobody cares about shards or quartz anymore.
Shrines are never going to match that kind of thing because the very nature of a shrine system implies both investment and preparation.
"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."
(may vanish for periods of time)
Here's the thing: something that is overpowered is overpowered regardless of rarity. This stuff is ridiculously stupidly amazingly over the top overpowered, but it would be that way regardless of accessibility.
Right now this is so utterly overpowered that it basically breaks the game. It absolutely destroys the entire combat system to the point where there is no real point in fighting in any shrine area anymore.
"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."
How many relics did you all actually have? The highest cost for a specific relic with a random type is just under 80k.
You put 21 relics worth 83848 points into the altar of the Sect of Conquest.
*also to note: random type is more of a 'median' cost for that relic. The most common type of a specific relic costs less to make.
My meaning is that if it's a bad idea to give us reliable access to a thing via the tradein system, it is a bad idea to give us any access to the thing at all via random drops. "It's rare" is not a balancing condition.
Also, these relics are horrendously overpowered.
"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."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
citadel No Ascending the Parade of Rathad
citadel No Rotunda of Reverie
citadel No Solid ground amidst the wastes
citadel No Within a thick copse of petrified trees
citadel No a tiny bronze altar atop a sandstone dais
citadel Yes Deep meadows
*******************************************************************************
This is while standing in my council. I am not sure if broadcasting worldwide shrine location is an intended effect? Citadels only work if I am in the room with the altar...why provide me a map of potential targets?
2. For the purposes of reducing immunity effect, is "opposing" simply defined as a shrine from another sect? So for example, if you have a Arcanus shrine next to a Primal shrine, would someone defiling from AM or Demonic be able to take advantage of the immunity reduction effect?
3. Always active "penalty" effects are terrible ideas, even if they cut both ways, but will something like reducing my balance 20% or giving me zero resistances impact bashing within the influence as well?
ps - Letting anyone buy Bulwark relics will spell an end to the conflict aspect of the entire system. For only 20 relics per Bulwark, I am sure by now Conquest has ensured their entire network will be impervious to any future damage.
Even if arguments on past mechanics to PvP utility (somewhat disagree), room limitations (agree), and CD mechanic (disagree on CD mechanic itself, maybe length) necessitated change, tweaking all three at once swings the pendulum too far in the other direction.
And the kicker is that, even if we could justify the existence of these extreme relics, they were gated at least by their level of rarity. Now that we have effectively turned relics into a currency, the original plan to stratify relic availability has been obviated.
I rarely overreact to changes, but this cumulative decision is a real head-scratcher.
Nullification: This power is ridiculous and has been complained about in each iteration of this system. Please stop trying to force artifact negation into a core conflict component of the game - a component that can (and does) extend to other conflict systems. See: shrines in contested areas, shrines on top of monoliths, shrines at boss rooms.
Obtuse: What possible use is there for blunt damage relapse? What profession tries to damage someone down with blunt weapons? Is this blunt damage as a whole, considering that the number of professions even using blunt damage is incredibly limited and mostly tied to one faction?
Mayhem: This has to exist just for hilarity's sake, because sharing all afflictions can't be something you'd possibly balance around.
Lethargic: Permanent balance debuff for everyone non-sect in an area is roughly equivalent to just making bashing 20% slower for balance-using professions in an area.
Hellfire: See Lethargic, except now it's just being lit on fire. That's okay I guess, but it's just going to make people go "huh, that's kind of annoying, let's defile these shrines".
Acute: Everyone gets 1 affliction back every 10 seconds? I can't imagine a context where this would be useful. A single affliction relapsing for all players is at best negligible and at worst will work against the user.
Absorption: Speeding up herb balance permanently for everyone in the room could potentially be advantageous, if you could lock a fight into that room specifically.
Defiance: A perfect way for front-loaded physical damage classes to one shot people, and for momentum offenses to fall apart because now they can't survive one round let alone two.
Reciprocation: This is a great way to completely kill all affliction offenses, full stop. Best paired with Defiance so that we can just autobash each other to death.
I could go on and on about some of the other ones, like Trequartista (which I will never spell properly without looking up), Rejuvenation (or Rejuvination? It's listed as both in the help file), etc. The powers are just bad. I've listed several possible ideas in other threads/posts, and I'd be happy to fish them out myself if you'd like, but no amount of painting over the system is going to fix the underlying issue where there's just too many relics that are no more than a waste of space.
That aside, I really don't like that you can outright purchase the exact relics you want. Some sects spent several months farming up pools of relics, probably in anticipation of something like this - at best, it should be a random re-roll, not a grind-until-you-buy system. If you're going to balance powers around rarity, properly make them rare.
And @wysrias, the only thing I can say with some of these relics is that it's similar to class skills... not every single one is going to do 1000 damage, every other one isn't a instantkill. While defiance is definitely an issue (and could probably use a change to like... just be a 10% malus), others are just fine to me.
From those you mentioned, Obtuse, Lethargic, Hellfire, Absorption, and Acute are all just... OK. Unless you have a dedicated blunt damage dealer, obtuse is just a little extra damage. Lethargic is a double-edged sword, and since people like their speed (myself included) I don't see this being used. That's fine though, It shouldn't be 100% everything everywhere all the time. Hellfire is meh, Absorption is meh (possibly a better pve benefit, honestly) and acute isn't a big deal.
As for reciprocation.. How is this an end to every single affliction offense ever? Do most affliction offenses target every person in the room? Do you expect me to see Septus get paralyzed so I hit myself with cigua and cure it for him? Or do you have 5 affliction fighters NOT focus on the same person to ensure an easy kill? I don't understand.
This also completely kills tracking I assume, unless there's a 3P message notifying everyone when someone's cure managed to cure another person.
EDIT: On the plus side, I guess it would be a pretty good counter to the definitely-not-ridiculous hypothermia/deepfreeze shenanigans going on with outriders right now. All of that caloric in the room should clear up any potential shatter nice and quickly.
This statement speaks volumes.
Rarity might make something overpowered more tolerable but it does not make it balanced. It can actually even work the other way around where rarity makes something overpowered. Track pets are a good example of the latter, here; while they were always at least slightly overpowered, the rarity of the track pet is what made them unbearable. When everybody has something that's a bit overpowered, meh whatever, but when the other side is the only side with it, it's a different story.
Defiance clusters and such would not be somehow more bearable if Conquest was the only side that had the potential to set them up.
"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."