- All shard skills will have a shard cost activate. This includes passive ones that have been automatically active in the past.
Is it possible to be a little more specific about this? I looked through the list of skills and I figure Anatomy/Adrenaline/Wildlife would be the most prominent passive skills, so how is that going to work? Would you pay once a day for the skill to work? Once an hour?
Yup. Also changing the durations on a few of them.
Is there any chance we can get a list of what's customisable for the city bash instance and how it should be worded in the orgrequest? Or just point me in the direction of a similar pre-existing form so I can start dreaming properly.
Is there any chance we can get a list of what's customisable for the city bash instance and how it should be worded in the orgrequest? Or just point me in the direction of a similar pre-existing form so I can start dreaming properly.
The instance will be generated from 10 unique room descriptions that are randomly arranged and mapped. The instance will be 40 to 60 or those rooms. We currently have 5 different mobs that will inhabit the instance.
@Jeremy How are these city instance portals gonna work when generators are shared between two orgs? How are you gonna divide that up and what's to stop one org from draining the reserves. I'm not extremely worried about it, but I am curious.
@Jeremy How are these city instance portals gonna work when generators are shared between two orgs? How are you gonna divide that up and what's to stop one org from draining the reserves. I'm not extremely worried about it, but I am curious.
Currently the shards will be pulled from the generator but it will only benefit the one city. I imagine the one city should work on replenishing it, or the other org will be upset.
The more I think about the shard items, the more I really dislike the idea of them. The shard items are win-more items that will mostly be going to the already disparaging top-heavy elite of the game. It will probably discourage lowbies and midbies from going to shardfalls even further. Oh I die a lot just so when I find a 10% eqbal shard item I give it to one of our top tier pk'ers or suffer being hunted by those top tier pk'ers?
Instead of shard items the way they are, I would rather they be items that level the playing field for the midbies and lowbies. My idea are things like 0.5 artifacts. A 0.5 diadem which gives half the eq bonus of a artifact diadem. a 0.5 bracelet which is less than the level 1 bracelet. These items would help level the playing field, will give the players who would already be discouraged from going to shardfalls a reason to go and since these 0.5 artifacts would be pretty useless to the top tier, they would gladly hand it out to those who come to the shardfalls and be happy to have more people participating.
We already have temporary artifacts which are easy to get. So I don't see why this shouldn't be implemented.
edit: to clarify, you wouldn't be able to be PK'd for holding these 0.5 shard artifacts and they would have a decay timer that lasts like a week.
edit 2: just scrap the 0.5 idea, make the shard items level 1 artifacts.
After thinking about it, I agree with Iluv about the nature of these changes. Imperian is already crushingly top heavy. All these changes do is make the gap between the haves and the have-nots even larger than it already is.
And, let's face it. None of these changes will let Magick or Demonic or Demogic ride against AM and win. The power imbalance is too great(and these changes will make it worse). None of them will even make them want to try. All it really does is punish them for being in a losing position, and that just makes it more likely that they quit. I mean, let's get real here. If demogick could beat AM we wouldn't be winning 1000 credit infestation games with scores of 1000/0/0.
These changes would be good changes in a game with a vibrant and healthy PvP scene. Imperian isn't that game. Imperian's PvP scene is dead. It is basically crushed under the weight of our overwhelming artifact advantage. I haven't had a serious out-of-the-arena fight in at least three months, maybe even 4. That's 25%-33% of an RL year without a single significant teamfight. That's awful.
TL;DR: Punishing people for failing to be competitive at shardfalls is not going to make them magically better at shardfalls; it is going to make them quit.
"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."
Have to say, suddenly losing every single shard I had kinda sucked... and I didn't even have that many. Would have been nice to had the option to go "I can't use these all before they decay, let me put them in the generator at least".
Also: - Six new special shards exist. These spawn rarely, and only one shard of a type can exist at a time - while a shard exists, another of that type won't spawn.
Unless they were spawned in specifically for the start of the update, all 6 were found within 10 minutes of the update. That doesn't sound very rare.
Different meanings of rare. Yellow and green shards are of the "do not spawn often" kind of rarity. The other six are of the "only one can exist at a time" definition of rare.
Are the artifact shard pouches available yet? I can't seem to find them and I don't know if I'm searching wrong or if they just haven't been made available.
** Yes, we're aware of the problems. Please do NOT use any HELP files at the moment.**. ** And don't try them now just see if they're really broken. **. ** Or credit conversion. Try not to do anything much right now. **. ** Don't panic, normal service will be restored as soon as possible. For now, enjoy the wonders of conversation. **. *** We will be rebooting in about 60 seconds ***. ** Don't panic. Just...stay close to your rosaries **. ** Monetary offers for Salvation accepted. **.
You may want to consider how many of these items one person can have...or put some type of ordeal on them with the more they have the less they can stay hidden away?
You close your eyes and seek out the minute fluctuations within the Diachaim, attempting to locate the special shards. You sense an emerald cluster of crystals being held by Septus. You sense a prismatic geode being held by Septus. You sense a slab of copper being held by Septus. You sense a piece of enigmatic shale being held by Iluv. You sense a fractured macadam being held by Septus. You sense a bloody-red cabochon being held by Septus. Balance Taken: 4.20s
Or else...well I think it's say to say the drift is applied
1) Put a timecap on harvesting shards. If they're not harvested in an hour and half (something like that) after they fell, they just poof.
2) We need something to enforce 2-circle shardfalls, I think - at least try it. I thought for a long time about this, because the upside to not having shardfalls work more like obelisks is that if one side is really short on people, they can join up with the third circle, but there are a lot of downsides too (which I am sure is why obelisks enforce two circles) - and we really are trying to avoid becoming demogick again. Maybe make it something like... the game looks at topdeaths and topkills, and possibly recency of last death/kill (I have a feeling this will be a better indicator that say, PK ranking), and then looks at who is currently logged on, and creates a (2-circle) shardfall based on that. To prevent a death spiral, however, the circle that "lags" gets shardfalls with the weakest of the other two circles tossed in as well.
Re: (1), I believe unharvested shards decay after 6 RL hours if not harvested. Probably could shorten that to 2 RL hours or something (or maybe even 1 hour).
The ironic thing about stuff ingame like the special shards that could give you an edge against top-tier artifact-laden PKers is that immediately means you drop them like hot potatoes because you don't want to get constantly murdered in the face.
Ah, cool. I didn't know that. But yeah, I think the poof time needs to be shorter (at least for now). 1 hour might actually work best (better than 1.5 hours), but if they make it that short, I think that in the case of actual shardfalls (not singles), they should extend the harvest time to about 15 minutes after the last skirmish in the area (up to a max of 1.5 hours). Just because 1 hour can actually go by surprisingly fast if it's a good shardfall, but if it's uncontested or abandoned, 1.5-2 hours might be too generous.
EDIT: if nothing else, Anette, the special shards would be neat to try to grab DURING a shardfall, where you're probably going to die lots anyway. I feel you though. The special shards feel more like a buff to the already terrifying, top tier guys than anything else. I doubt they do that much harm? But I also kind of doubt they're doing much good (and possibly some harm).
---Gonna dump this, but it's still kind of first drafty
Some feedback now that we've had it a bit.
New Shards These are definitely a nice paradigm for increasing shardfall attendance. I even started doing single falls because of the chance for them. I would just say that anything besides blues and reds should have an extended harvesting channel (50% to 100% longer) and an area-wide alert that doesn't require shard awareness, or they shouldn't be harvestable til no blue/red shards in the area are unharvested.
Shard Specials The slab and emerald cluster have been contested and coveted far more than the others. They feel nice to have, and they definitely make you a target. They do highlight the push to defensive play that counteracts the update's purpose of encouraging attendance, so I'd make it so you have to charge shard items every so often by harvesting shards with them.
The B-list is the geode and cabochon. People will grab them, but they'll get discarded for the A-list or because they don't find it useful. The geode needs some benefit outside of shards to make it worth holding when the specials are missing/in the right hands, or something like more shard-based detection (passive shard watch/awareness, a counterawareness bypass, etc). It's not terrible though, if a veil user has a special. I'd trade all of that for just a level 1 veil bypass, though.
For the cabochon, it's more the lack of walls being used currently than the lack of power in the item. Maybe make it not require shards for the disrupt, but put it on a short cooldown. Or maybe make the cabochacha disrupt cost eq but have it disable everything impacting the exit (blocks, walls, traps, etc) for a couple seconds instead? Something to make it stand out.
The shale and macadam are blah. The shale feels too situational to hold onto it over other options, and that's largely due to the channel. In PvE, you'd be better off just using prismatic. In PvP, you're not likely to keep that channel going for too long, but it could grant some funny wtf survival moments. If you want to keep the macadamia as a random hp/mp set, the range needs to be something like 1%-200%, not 1%-100%. It really seems like there's untapped potential for something fun there, though, like SHARD METRONOME (target).
The ironic thing about stuff ingame like the special shards that could give you an edge against top-tier artifact-laden PKers is that immediately means you drop them like hot potatoes because you don't want to get constantly murdered in the face.
if I find one, I absolutely will not hold on to it for that reason, given that I'm still not level 100 and out trying to hunt. I already die hunting enough as it is, I don't need people hunting me down while I'm hunting. Plus most of them aren't worth it to me. The faster eqbal time would be nice, or the resists, but in the end I can't make progress in my level if I'm constantly playing defensive and having to look over my shoulder, which is what I would be doing while holding these.
The ironic thing about stuff ingame like the special shards that could give you an edge against top-tier artifact-laden PKers is that immediately means you drop them like hot potatoes because you don't want to get constantly murdered in the face.
if I find one, I absolutely will not hold on to it for that reason, given that I'm still not level 100 and out trying to hunt. I already die hunting enough as it is, I don't need people hunting me down while I'm hunting. Plus most of them aren't worth it to me. The faster eqbal time would be nice, or the resists, but in the end I can't make progress in my level if I'm constantly playing defensive and having to look over my shoulder, which is what I would be doing while holding these.
Likewise as an aspect who hunts recreationally (because I'm a mad person who enjoys bashing), they become a liability for me much more than they are an asset, so I avoid them.
Comments
The rooms and the mobs can all be customized.
Instead of shard items the way they are, I would rather they be items that level the playing field for the midbies and lowbies. My idea are things like 0.5 artifacts. A 0.5 diadem which gives half the eq bonus of a artifact diadem. a 0.5 bracelet which is less than the level 1 bracelet. These items would help level the playing field, will give the players who would already be discouraged from going to shardfalls a reason to go and since these 0.5 artifacts would be pretty useless to the top tier, they would gladly hand it out to those who come to the shardfalls and be happy to have more people participating.
We already have temporary artifacts which are easy to get. So I don't see why this shouldn't be implemented.
edit: to clarify, you wouldn't be able to be PK'd for holding these 0.5 shard artifacts and they would have a decay timer that lasts like a week.
edit 2: just scrap the 0.5 idea, make the shard items level 1 artifacts.
And, let's face it. None of these changes will let Magick or Demonic or Demogic ride against AM and win. The power imbalance is too great(and these changes will make it worse). None of them will even make them want to try. All it really does is punish them for being in a losing position, and that just makes it more likely that they quit. I mean, let's get real here. If demogick could beat AM we wouldn't be winning 1000 credit infestation games with scores of 1000/0/0.
These changes would be good changes in a game with a vibrant and healthy PvP scene. Imperian isn't that game. Imperian's PvP scene is dead. It is basically crushed under the weight of our overwhelming artifact advantage. I haven't had a serious out-of-the-arena fight in at least three months, maybe even 4. That's 25%-33% of an RL year without a single significant teamfight. That's awful.
TL;DR: Punishing people for failing to be competitive at shardfalls is not going to make them magically better at shardfalls; it is going to make them quit.
"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."
Also: - Six new special shards exist. These spawn rarely, and only one shard of a type can exist at a time - while a shard exists, another of that type won't spawn.
Unless they were spawned in specifically for the start of the update, all 6 were found within 10 minutes of the update. That doesn't sound very rare.
Farsee is returning --> You appear to have caused an untrapped error in the code. Please don't execute this command
again right now.
** And don't try them now just see if they're really broken. **.
** Or credit conversion. Try not to do anything much right now. **.
** Don't panic, normal service will be restored as soon as possible. For now, enjoy the wonders of conversation. **.
*** We will be rebooting in about 60 seconds ***.
** Don't panic. Just...stay close to your rosaries **.
** Monetary offers for Salvation accepted. **.
You close your eyes and seek out the minute fluctuations within the Diachaim, attempting to locate
the special shards.
You sense an emerald cluster of crystals being held by Septus.
You sense a prismatic geode being held by Septus.
You sense a slab of copper being held by Septus.
You sense a piece of enigmatic shale being held by Iluv.
You sense a fractured macadam being held by Septus.
You sense a bloody-red cabochon being held by Septus.
Balance Taken: 4.20s
Or else...well I think it's say to say the drift is applied
Would it be possible to make these a little more "fine tuned"?
Such as blueshard(10) redshard(10)
Or when removing one, it'll display how many you have left within your shardpouch
You take a glowing red shard from a wyvernskin shard pouch. Remaining: Red(1) Blue(5).
1) Put a timecap on harvesting shards. If they're not harvested in an hour and half (something like that) after they fell, they just poof.
2) We need something to enforce 2-circle shardfalls, I think - at least try it. I thought for a long time about this, because the upside to not having shardfalls work more like obelisks is that if one side is really short on people, they can join up with the third circle, but there are a lot of downsides too (which I am sure is why obelisks enforce two circles) - and we really are trying to avoid becoming demogick again. Maybe make it something like... the game looks at topdeaths and topkills, and possibly recency of last death/kill (I have a feeling this will be a better indicator that say, PK ranking), and then looks at who is currently logged on, and creates a (2-circle) shardfall based on that. To prevent a death spiral, however, the circle that "lags" gets shardfalls with the weakest of the other two circles tossed in as well.
EDIT: if nothing else, Anette, the special shards would be neat to try to grab DURING a shardfall, where you're probably going to die lots anyway. I feel you though. The special shards feel more like a buff to the already terrifying, top tier guys than anything else. I doubt they do that much harm? But I also kind of doubt they're doing much good (and possibly some harm).
Some feedback now that we've had it a bit.
New Shards
These are definitely a nice paradigm for increasing shardfall attendance. I even started doing single falls because of the chance for them. I would just say that anything besides blues and reds should have an extended harvesting channel (50% to 100% longer) and an area-wide alert that doesn't require shard awareness, or they shouldn't be harvestable til no blue/red shards in the area are unharvested.
Shard Specials
The slab and emerald cluster have been contested and coveted far more than the others. They feel nice to have, and they definitely make you a target. They do highlight the push to defensive play that counteracts the update's purpose of encouraging attendance, so I'd make it so you have to charge shard items every so often by harvesting shards with them.
The B-list is the geode and cabochon. People will grab them, but they'll get discarded for the A-list or because they don't find it useful.
The geode needs some benefit outside of shards to make it worth holding when the specials are missing/in the right hands, or something like more shard-based detection (passive shard watch/awareness, a counterawareness bypass, etc). It's not terrible though, if a veil user has a special. I'd trade all of that for just a level 1 veil bypass, though.
For the cabochon, it's more the lack of walls being used currently than the lack of power in the item. Maybe make it not require shards for the disrupt, but put it on a short cooldown. Or maybe make the cabochacha disrupt cost eq but have it disable everything impacting the exit (blocks, walls, traps, etc) for a couple seconds instead? Something to make it stand out.
The shale and macadam are blah.
The shale feels too situational to hold onto it over other options, and that's largely due to the channel. In PvE, you'd be better off just using prismatic. In PvP, you're not likely to keep that channel going for too long, but it could grant some funny wtf survival moments.
If you want to keep the macadamia as a random hp/mp set, the range needs to be something like 1%-200%, not 1%-100%. It really seems like there's untapped potential for something fun there, though, like SHARD METRONOME (target).
Give Slab to @Jeremy