In regards to building boneyards outside of cities, I don't think we're going to make any changes to this for the time being. If or when we add more meaning to controlling an area, or if something new starts to happen, we may rethink that.
Jeremy is there any possibility of maybe allowing boneyards to share that prime real estate? It seems like it could get crazy if you could stuff 10 boneyards into one room, but possibly 2-3 boneyards?
There are exactly 3 rooms directly adjacent to orgs that are willing to host a boneyard right now - so 3 rooms for the entire game. That is always subject to change of course, with a hard cap of 6 if every single org suddenly said "yay, a boneyard outside the gates, sign us up". This is always going to be an extremely elite system with a pretty small number of boneyard owners, but as things stand, being able to share that real estate might help more than 3 guys meaningfully participate.
That's fine Eldreth, and I think everyone agrees that there are other issues, but people are definitely choosing to build outside the gates if they are able to do so. That said, why would you care either way?
Because in the same vein that you can't build multiple shrines in the same room, any mechanism that is supposed to encourage global conflict shouldn't be gated to the rooms directly outside of an organization. I would think that is pretty obvious?
edit: Actually, I wouldn't even mind seeing something where managing to successfully grow a boneyard in the middle of nowhere requires less bones as a sort of tradeoff to the ability to gank a thief into guards or have a much faster org response to the theft.
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
A boneyard is just a thing that exists to be defended and fought over. Multiple shrines would mean multiple sets of relics, in addition to the innate shrine buffs, so not the same at all. That said, Jeremy is not interested in allowing multiple boneyards in a single room at the moment anyway, I was just curious why you seemed to care so much.
Also, if you "have no illusions that putting a boneyard adjacent to my gates would be a theft deterrent whatsoever", why would you ask for a tradeoff that gives a buff to boneyards that are not next to cities? Location does matter, or you wouldn't be suggesting that tradeoff.
In addition, it has been drilled into my head that many top fighters enjoy the cat and mouse game of fighting near guards, so it wouldn't surprise me that in addition to the potential defensive benefits, this cat and mouse aspect is appealing as well.
As I had originally said though, I do agree that boneyards next to cities are probably problematic, because it is going to emphasize even more which orgs are super pvp friendly, and which are less so.
Because in the same vein that you can't build multiple shrines in the same room, any mechanism that is supposed to encourage global conflict shouldn't be gated to the rooms directly outside of an organization. I would think that is pretty obvious?
edit: Actually, I wouldn't even mind seeing something where managing to successfully grow a boneyard in the middle of nowhere requires less bones as a sort of tradeoff to the ability to gank a thief into guards or have a much faster org response to the theft.
Interesting idea there. I'll have to ponder that (or some kinda of variation).
I am worried that Eldreth's idea will end in "city adjacent" or "middle of nowhere" being hands down the better option, even after tweaking. It seems like exactly the sort of thing where it is really hard to avoid creating a situation where one of the options is a total sweetheart deal, and the the other is a clearly inferior option in nearly every scenario.
That being the case though, I hope that "adjacent to city" remains hands down the superior option, until and unless a decision is made to do away with city adjacent boneyards in general. That should hopefully be the case if any buff to non adjacent boneyards is very, very small.
The ideal long term solution would be something that gets the boneyards off of cities' doorsteps (because some cities are always going to be ambivalent or outright against the yards) AND has its own exciting "cat and mouse" element, AND allows owners to have a reasonable expectation of being able to react to theft attempts, but it is my understanding that for now, we're just trying to limp along a little better.
Do we really need the theft mechanic for boneyards? Can we just steer the focus towards the plagues and do away with stealing bones? I think more frequent battles involving the various plagues is more fun than battles involving stealing bones from boneyards.
As it is now, we have 3 boneyards, one for each circle. There's little incentive for people to create more because that spreads the bones out and it's tedious to guard boneyards even with these extended cooldowns to reach the required bone count. People just steal bones when possible, and it's taking forever.
I'm not denying it's possible for the committed player. However, it seems this feature caters to the 3-4 individuals who have the tenacity to summon them.
Make all kills in a shardfall area drop bones, regardless of Champion status.
Part of the problem here is that people just aren't going Champion anymore so it's very easy to stall out plaguewise.
"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."
Bone generation still feels slow and inconsistent. You can go a day without a big teamfight sometimes, and even then you only have a small number of people picking up champ(I think having to go back to the root(or equivalent) to re-up on champ every death has something to do with this). I've seen very limited 1v1 bone generation, which is likely to the fact that you have to use a shackle(or a gank team) to secure a kill on anyone semi-proficient at escaping(read: almost everybody that is willing to pick up champ). Without a stable source of bones, it can be hard to maintain the 4.8 bones a day you need to counter someone else stealing bones when they can.
That leads us to another problem. Because unlike with shrine defile and obelisk fights, both of which have rigid long cooldowns applied after failing to steal the objective in question, there is no concrete win for the defenders of a boneyard. In order to "win" a boneyard fight as a defender, you basically have to be capable of winning every single fight until the other side gets so bored that the attackers stop showing up. I don't know the solution to this, but I know it's a big reason why people stop bothering after a while.
I dunno about the one v one thing. Iluv and I have made tons of bones off each other with one v one fights.
Agree on the win condition, although this kind of exists currently with the allied get bone from boneyard thing. But I'm fairly sure that's not an intended mechanic so something better could probably be there.
@Septus You and Iluv dueling is sort of the exception to that. How many people in each circle can you think of that will choose NOT to run away if they think they're potentially going to lose a fight?
@Septus You and Iluv dueling is sort of the exception to that. How many people in each circle can you think of that will choose NOT to run away if they think they're potentially going to lose a fight?
There is a difference here between "potentially lose a fight" and "absolutely positively without a doubt going to lose this fight. Lots of people will stick around for the first one because "potentially lose" also means "potentially win". Very few people will stick around for the second one because it means "Stand there while they whip me."
And, yes. Losing is how you learn, blah blah blah. The thing is, there is not a lot of learning you can do when they outgun you so significantly. How much can you really learn when Iluv or Septus or Sevhn three-shots you?
"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."
@Septus You and Iluv dueling is sort of the exception to that. How many people in each circle can you think of that will choose NOT to run away if they think they're potentially going to lose a fight?
There is a difference here between "potentially lose a fight" and "absolutely positively without a doubt going to lose this fight. Lots of people will stick around for the first one because "potentially lose" also means "potentially win". Very few people will stick around for the second one because it means "Stand there while they whip me."
And, yes. Losing is how you learn, blah blah blah. The thing is, there is not a lot of learning you can do when they outgun you so significantly. How much can you really learn when Iluv or Septus or Sevhn three-shots you?
You say this, but you try to get us to fight Iluv and Sevhn. I don't get where you are coming from sometimes, unless you literally just mean arties. But what about skill?
A guy who is competent enough to run from the best, but doesn't know how to think about doing better at fighting the best, is definitely going to start picking the option that isn't "always lose" pretty quick. Someone who isn't competent enough to run will very quickly learn not to be Champion at all.
There is a hell of a lot of shame in losing unless you're constantly getting better - like Sevhn levels of improvement or gtfo. I doubt running away feels great after the initial "haha, I got away neener", rush. It's just better than getting blasted out of the water, probably. Admin can get rid of tangible disincentives like XP loss, which is a big help, but we're all on our own from there.
So the game is probably going to need an additional source of bones for the system to really move along nicely. I also think you have to be really careful about not creating real, tangible disincentives for group fights. You do not want to create the following kind of decision: "well, if we go fight, we are probably going to lose, and they will get a bunch of bones, and if we stay home, nothing gained, nothing lost".
Tbh I think one of the best things that has come out of the bone system is that its something to do outside of shardfalls. Its definitely been responsible for generating a good number of fights outside of that system recently.
Just something to keep in mind, I'd personally be sad to see another system tied to that three hourly opportunity window rather than promote doing stuff between those milestones.
You say this, but you try to get us to fight Iluv and Sevhn. I don't get where you are coming from sometimes, unless you literally just mean arties. But what about skill?
Yeah, I basically mean artifacts and levels here honestly.
Somebody without heavy artifacts is in a position where they can't even pretend to put up a fight. It doesn't matter how good you heal when Septus drops you in 3 axe shots, and it doesn't matter how good your offense is when your damage class doesn't have enough artifacts to break through my tank. No amount of experience can really make up for that, and so that fight is pointless.
You and Owyn and Laeka, though? You've got the raw power to win, you just don't have the skill/coordination/strategy. That comes from experience, and there's only one way to get that experience. Fight, lose, change something. Repeat until you get it. Winning honestly teaches you less than losing. If you're winning all the time you should be picking more challenging fights.
"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."
The "change something" part is pretty key there though. It needs to be at least one good, solid change that you think will get you at least an inch or two closer to not being annihilated. Sometimes I feel like people want C-team to repeatedly mass suicide ourselves, changes or no changes, just so A-team won't get too bored.
I feel really sure that what someone in my position -should- be doing, is staying mostly logged out for at least a couple of months (other than to test fixes), and doing nothing but try to code for things I find in my notes or going through logs. It is just really hard to do - but being logged on and going to fights is actually working against me, because then more things happen, and that means more logs to look through, and more things I need to fix.
That would just clear out some of the things where I have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done (but am probably grappling with how to code for), but it would be a good start.
For actual strategies, I am always sort of floored when a particular team setup is totally amazing. There are usually very, very specific details as to why THAT particular setup, and usually ONLY that exact setup, works. Change a single thing about a lot of these strategies, and they not only aren't amazing, they'd frankly look like a dead end. In short, I still have no clue what the actual method of discovery in these games is supposed to be.
But anyway, I think losing (a lot, and very, very badly) when you know for a fact that you have the raw power is actually way harder over the long haul, because you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is completely your fault. So those people are going to definitely avoid fights sooner or later too, until and unless they think they can do better.
Comments
"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 dunno about the one v one thing. Iluv and I have made tons of bones off each other with one v one fights.
Agree on the win condition, although this kind of exists currently with the allied get bone from boneyard thing. But I'm fairly sure that's not an intended mechanic so something better could probably be there.
I wish plagues can be sent to fight one another. We could have Pacific Rim some really awesome content.
"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."
Tbh I think one of the best things that has come out of the bone system is that its something to do outside of shardfalls. Its definitely been responsible for generating a good number of fights outside of that system recently.
Just something to keep in mind, I'd personally be sad to see another system tied to that three hourly opportunity window rather than promote doing stuff between those milestones.
"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."