Obelisks Updates

Jeremy Saunders

Okay, here is the 20th pass at this system. We've been mulling this over for some time and I have luckily been talked to my senses on a couple of really crazy ideas. I think we are at the point we want to start coding. Initially I wanted to do more with all of the shard abilities, but I think we will do this first pass, get some feedback, and then iterate from there. I have ideas for the abilities beyond what you see below, but we will save that for later.

Please post your thoughts, comments, and concerns.

Objective One: 

Simplify the process of attacking obelisks.

• Remove the ability for outposts to protect other outposts.
  
• Outposts are destroyed, not captured.
• Reduce the cost of an outpost in order to deal with the expense. 100 stone, 100 wood, 50 sinn, 50 steel, 50,000 gold.

Objective 2: 

Remove the Efficiency Obelisks for two reasons.

1. Efficiency makes protecting obelisks too easy and unbalances the system.
2. Discourage dividing them evenly and sharing. Pansies!

• Remove the Efficiency Obelisk.
• Move SHARD COMBINE to Shard Usage level 10.
• Combine Aryana Attunement 4 and 5 as a single level 5 ability and redescribe as: While controlling the obelisk, deathsight now also allows us to discern the area where the death occurred and whenever someone is brought back to life by any means.
• Combine Moradeim Attunement 2 and 4 as a single level 5 ability and redescribe as: We now have the ability to bypass various effects that would normally prevent focusing on the power of Moradeim. This takes twice as long, and a red shard is consumed in the process. Additionally, any players following you will not move along. Syntax: FOCUS MORADEIM <target> BYPASS.
• Combine Suhdker Attunement 1 and 3 as a single level 1 ability and redescribe as: We can now focus upon the power of Sukhder at no mana cost and the effect lasts twice as long.
• Move Efficiency Attunement 4 to Aryana Attunement 4 and redescribe to: Our attunement to the obelisk now increases the life force and energy of our workers, increasing the commodity production speed.
• Move Efficiency Attunement 3 to Moradeim Attunement 3 and redescribe to: The power of Mordeim opens minds, and citizens are now able to learn three times as many lessons at once as they otherwise would.
• Move Efficiency Research 2 to Suhdker Attunement 3 and redescribe to: The violent force of Suhdker allows us to plunder caravans 15% faster. This effect is cumulative with the effect of a caravan crop.

Objective 3: 

Remove the ability to effectively have all the obelisk powers through the level 5 research skills, negating the need to fight for them.

Change all of the level 5 research skills for the following obelisks.

Nature Research

Remove the mark in an infused room or yourself. Syntax: SHARD CLEANSE [me].

True Sight Research    

100% immune to all seeking skills Lasts 60 seconds and costs a red shard. Syntax: SHARD SILENCE.

Aryana/Moradeim/Suhdker Research

Infuse the room AND the character with the power of the specified obelisk. The effect lasts 20 minutes. Costs 1 red shard.

Syntax: SHARD INFUSE [ARYANA|MORADEIM|SUHDKER]

• Any Aryana infused player in and Aryana room with have 20% more maximum health. If two player are both Aryana infused, they will suffer -20% damage from each other. 
• Any Moradeim infused player in and Moradeim room with have a random 50% resist that will change every 10 seconds. If two player are both Moradeim infused, they will strike each other with random damage types. 
• Any Suhdker infused player in and Suhdker room with have 20% more maximum mana. If two player are both Suhdker infused, they will deal +20% damage to each other. The effect will last 20 minutes.

Septus

Hmm, some thoughts:

+1 to outpost changes and efficiency deletion.

You could switch those research affects with attunement. People would capture obelisks for those, none of the attune affects are that great though. I think part of the big desirability issue with the current system is the best shard skills are the ones you get for free, not for holding the obelisk.

Gjarrus

Overall, it looks fine. I want to mull over the Moon infuses before I comment, but they're the only thing that really needs discussion IMO.

Jeremy Saunders

Septus said:

Hmm, some thoughts:

+1 to outpost changes and efficiency deletion.

You could switch those research affects with attunement. People would capture obelisks for those, none of the attune affects are that great though. I think part of the big desirability issue with the current system is the best shard skills are the ones you get for free, not for holding the obelisk.

That is a good point. I'll play with that a bit in the morning.

Jeremy Saunders

Looking for some feedback on an idea we are throwing around for the upcoming Obelisk update. 

We are considering moving SHARD WALL and SHARD DISRUPT to the attunement side of things. This means you can only use those skills if your circle has control of correct obelisk. 

This is potentially a large change, as these are some a couple of the more powerful shard skills. It would definitely make the need to hold obelisks more desirable.

It does not look like shard walls are currently used much in raids or other activities. They are probably used more in the actual Obelisk battles.

Thoughts? Are we crazy?

Gjarrus

A long duration wall with a limited counter (well, more limited than a shard check) sounds like an awful idea to me. If I could wall without counter, I'd just canopy all the rooms around an objective and throw up walls. GG, you just lost 25% of your raid timer at minimum. It'd absolutely make the obelisks more desirable though, for that reason (and maybe even the cabochon!).

The main reason we don't use walls in general PvP, at least for Demonic, is flipping. Better to use more controllable 'walls' (block) or alternative movement blockers. We definitely use walls in raids, but moreso icewalls since the longer duration of a Moradeim wall isn't needed and desubs are more economical.

E: Also, Moradeim and Sukhder are both fairly strong already, IMO. If AM wasn't banking on an auction arti to get into raids, Sukhder would be immensely more useful with the limited number of global mono bypasses and walking in the front door for a raid being a death sentence since they still have insta aggro.

Eoghan

Yeah, the long duration wall with a more limited counter was a concern. It is somewhat (but not totally) balanced by the walls being also limited (to a single circle, who would then have an advantage). We've also considered the walls being moved but disrupt staying, but I personally feel that general access to disrupt makes shard wall less compelling, to the point it isn't worth moving unless we move both.

The other concern we had was the reduced general availability of walls and counters causing a shift in the meta to have wall availability. Desublimators and incinerators would mitigate that quite a bit, obviously, at the cost of requiring you to continue to win shardfalls to power them. Part of me thinks a change to make team composition with respect to walls is a good thing, as it gives more variety and a slightly shifted meta, but that would require changes to those two engineering items that we aren't prepared to make right now.

With respect to infiltration and sukhder, we also considered making some changes and/or shifting shard mark/mark seek for that reason, but ultimately I think there are enough travel skills that can already couple with sukhder that mark/mark seek isn't as compelling a skill.

Septus

Disrupt is really the concern I think, yeah. Shard wall being limited doesn't matter if disrupt isn't limited (stonewalls are almost as good as shardwalls with disrupt out of the equation). Disrupt being limited would definitely change the meta a lot. Not really sure if for better or for worse - personally I'd be fine with it, but I'm also fine with the status quo in regards to wall availability.

A thought if they did become obelisk bound: it may be worth making them both red shard exclusives. Red shards are actually somewhat bad now (I actually value blueshards more highly, my pouch is full of reds I never use) since you burn through blues with leylines and such. Making wall/disrupt red shard exclusives and unique I think I'd be mostly fine with, as with shard decay and such you'd not be able to spam them endlessly as you would be able to if they remain blue due to the number obtained per successfull shardfall. Shard combine would potentially pose a problem still, though.

I suspect shardwalls in raids would be offset by cannons auto breaking them. Of course people could just opt to have 0 cannons and shardwall, but I think that'd be a pretty bad trade. If people did go that route class composition would become more important, since you'd want someone who can leap/flip over walls to follow. Again, good or bad, depending on your preference (all hail our new berserker overlords).

Agree shard mark isn't worth it, for the reasons you stated.

Gjarrus

I would personally be fine with limited wall/disrupt if I had flipboots.

One in-between possibility would be shifting the shard wall cost if you hold the obelisks, so no Moradeim == red shard cost, with Moradeim == blue shard cost. With disrupt untouched, it'd at least boost the desirability of Moradeim. Like I said, though, it's definitely valuable as it stands. Focus moradeim is nice, as is the faster shard harvesting.

Mark/seek as an alternative entry wouldn't help the potential issues I'm talking about with raids. Walking in the door is suspect af with guard piety, even if no one sets up there to stop you. If Septus/Cyr had been successful in stopping my backdooring in the last raids, it would have been as detrimental as a full raid wipe. I dunno how Magick will manage it without Alv rolling Renegade and using her ring. That's kind of getting off the topic though, and it hasn't *actually* been an issue yet so it's just me chicken littling.

Naruj

Eoghan said:

Yeah, the long duration wall with a more limited counter was a concern. It is somewhat (but not totally) balanced by the walls being also limited (to a single circle, who would then have an advantage). We've also considered the walls being moved but disrupt staying, but I personally feel that general access to disrupt makes shard wall less compelling, to the point it isn't worth moving unless we move both.

The other concern we had was the reduced general availability of walls and counters causing a shift in the meta to have wall availability. Desublimators and incinerators would mitigate that quite a bit, obviously, at the cost of requiring you to continue to win shardfalls to power them. Part of me thinks a change to make team composition with respect to walls is a good thing, as it gives more variety and a slightly shifted meta, but that would require changes to those two engineering items that we aren't prepared to make right now.

Shard wall, as you said, can easily be adjusted to a single circle without major implications to balance. Every side has access to stonewalls, and icewalls are easily acquired with Engineering. However, also as you said, Disrupt is critical and should not be limited by winning an obelisk.

What I would do instead is adjust the cost and balance. Make Disrupt cost a red shard, or 2-3 blue shards, and require 4s eq unless you're attuned to Sukhder. This would still allow for a tactical removal of shard walls as needed, but the advantage would far and away remain on the side holding the obelisks.