PK and excessive promo items

Dyron

I've been extremely hesitant about asking about this but it has gotten to the point that I really want some public opinion.

I spend 90% of my time fighting solo. AM has people that are working on their combat for some time now but really none that are functioning fully. That's fine, I understand it takes awhile to get up and going. The issue with solo fighting is I'm getting ganked for anything I do. Once again, this is fine as well. I have no problem trying to beat the odds. The part that has finally gotten me is the fact I'm going into a slanted fight almost all the time and get chained nonstop. Apparently, some players have sunk a fortune into owning more chains than a chain factory.

My problem is this, if I know you use chains and your with help, I'm now to the point of just straight up running and disengaging in combat. This mechanic is completely killing combat and overall any of my interest in combat altogether. Professions(especially demonic) have some of the best hinder skills in the game. Why isn't this enough? Doesn't this ruin the fun for the attacker as well?

Anette

Dyron said:

My problem is this, if I know you use chains and your with help, I'm now to the point of just straight up running and disengaging in combat. This mechanic is completely killing combat and overall any of my interest in combat altogether. Professions(especially demonic) have some of the best hinder skills in the game. Why isn't this enough? Doesn't this ruin the fun for the attacker as well?

I would say this kind of stuff is as much a problem of the playerbase as it is the admin, honestly.  Win at any cost, including your enjoyment of the game or the enjoyment of others.  That said, feeding that mindset might be profitable in the shortterm but it has been hurting Imperian considerably for at least the past year I've been active.

Galt

The problem is chains become a necessity when you've got artifacts like raksha bands and flip boots.

Personally, I think the chains shouldn't exist, and escape skills should be changed - Especially when they're on artifacts.

Sarrius

Sarrius said:

From a business standpoint, it is bad for business to stop making these promotional items - at least in the short term. My business acumen is probably far less developed than Jeremy's, especially because this is his arena of expertise. However, it is my firm opinion that the policy will make more trouble for Imperian down the line. These promotional items are clearly intended to evoke a sense of urgency through exclusivity, and a sense of chasing the dragon to continue staying competitive. That's a difficult model to resist, and from the PoV of somebody that was playing when these promotions first began, part of that difficulty was in feeling like my combative viability was at risk of being taken hostage every month.

From a balance standpoint, promotional items are the 'death by a thousand cuts' for Imperian's combat. It won't happen on the first cut. It might not happen on the twentieth. However, eventually the game will bleed out due to a combination of factors - promotion fatigue, steady decline in participation, increasing barrier to entry through promotional power creep, et cetera. Because of this, I firmly believe promotional items should be the ones with the most scrutiny put towards the effect they will have on the game long term. You can release whatever powerful PvE artifact you'd like on promo, because there's no player behind the keyboard for "orc8790267", but the same does not fly for PvP items. Continuing to create these items puts us further away from a sterile combat environment, as well as putting more hoops in place to jump through if we were to try and expand our playerbase again.

Gjarrus

They're not going to stop making promos (or take ethereal filler out of them), people aren't going to stop trying to win, and a Shaman is unlikely to get a lot of 1v1s (I feel ur pain). That means the only way to move forward here is to discuss how to make the chain more palatable.

S1: Increase chain distance
S2: Decrease chain duration
S3: Decrease chain uses
S4: Increase chain availability further and add non-promo ways to acquire them.

Swale

Could just make the chain (and shackles) flat out temp cancel Raksha (from that area only, if need be) for its duration (1 min, and I think 5 min for shackle?), since it was put in for Raksha.  Could have it cancel boots as well if it was also intended to counter boots (not sure if it was), or if you can sell admin on the idea.  

This would prevent the chain being used on "normal" players (like Dyron), or just used as a "normal" way to hold someone at all.  I don't care what happens, just saying you could narrow the usage of these items to only counter the things that they were originally implemented to counter.  

If people really want that holding ability in a more general way, we definitely have it now, but I don't think it was ever really discussed... I guess the question is, do you want it or not?  (trick question, ofc, the answer is obvs that we want it when we're trying to hold someone but it's bad if I am trying to get away)

Galt

If there needs to be a promo item largely to cancel one artifact, then that artifact should probably change, though I know it's unlikely flip boots or raksha will ever change notably.

Swale

@Galt there has been a lot of back and forth on both items (Raksha and boots), and yes, they are likely here to stay.  I don't have strong feelings on boots, I guess I'd say my jury is out on that one.  There are a lot of strong holding skills in Imperian, and if you are fighting a team that has a lot of those, and that uses them efficiently, it can be frustrating, even with boots.  And if your team doesn't have a lot of strong holding skills, fighting a flip-booted team can be incredibly frustrating as well.  That said, we're all about 99.99% sure that no Raksha will ever be sold again, and only two active players own one (although there are ethereal ones that can be used occasionally), but sometimes, that's enough

Well, really just one active player  That moment when you wish a player would come back, but dread it all at once

Just saying that chains and shackles have definitely found uses well beyond the reason(s) they were implemented, for better or worse, and players have never had the discussion "well, do we want these items to have such broad use, or not"?

Sarrius

Flip boots and Raksha never should have been made, and they are probably the prehistoric examples of lacking forethought in Imperian design. I mean that as no offense, as hindsight is 20/20; at the time, I thought Raksha was kinda cool and acrobatic boots were setting an interesting precedent. They shouldn't exist but, frankly, IRE is going to lean towards protecting an 'investment' like that rather than pissing that one customer off or giving a refund. Why, I could never tell you, but I think that inability  probably stems from my belief of greater good being the sole winner in game balance and not for lack of actual reasons. I don't make design changes in to business decisions.

I think that the sheer volume of times this topic comes up is indicative that something needs to change. Death by a thousand cuts it might be, but the final cut is the final cut for a reason - continuing this course, I see the potential for any one of these to be too deep a cut. That sounds dramatic, sure, but it isn't an unrealistic fear at all.

Swale

The boots are complicated by being a class ability as well.  If you actually take the step of say, deleting the boots because the ablity to flip is considered THAT strong (I mean, it is definitely strong), you either have to remove it from Berserker as well, or consider it a very large "tradeoff" for the class (which is hard because you'd probably end up truly gimping them in an important area).  

EDIT:  boots are actually another prime example of the extra scrutiny abilities get when they are widely available, ala the concept of neutral classes, for example (and that is a good thing)

Sarrius

Swale said:

The boots are complicated by being a class ability as well.  If you actually take the step of say, deleting the boots because the ablity to flip is considered THAT strong (I mean, it is definitely strong), you either have to remove it from Berserker as well, or consider it a very large "tradeoff" for the class (which is hard because you'd probably end up truly gimping them in an important area).  

EDIT:  boots are actually another prime example of the extra scrutiny abilities get when they are widely available, ala the concept of neutral classes, for example (and that is a good thing)

Classes that are slippery are slippery at the expense of something. The true problem presented by the acrobat boots is when you introduce those skills in to a kit that has not been designed to take that in to account. I don't necessarily believe Berserkers need to lose it, but I base that on the fact that they don't have much going for them aside from providing Haste.

Swale

For sure, mostly just saying I do kind of look forward to more and more classes (and thus abilities) having all three circles looking at them from both sides of the fence.  It should make it easier to buff a class that really is a bit in the toilet, and anything that is kind of "gross" should get lots of yelly shouty attention in short order.

Laeka

Make chains 1 use only, like their counterparts, shackles. 12 chains per chain is insane. 

Naruj

Laeka said:

Make chains 1 use only, like their counterparts, shackles. 12 chains per chain is insane. 

Just delete them completely, and reimburse a credit or two per shackle. Defensive class balance considerations is a careful balance of damage mitigation and mobility, and shackles/chains let someone pay credits to remove half of that equation.

This results in defensive class balance being based exclusively on armor values, and not how 'slippery' the class is to pin down. Classes with lower than average mitigation are then forced to Classlead for more defensive tools, because in a world with no escape or affliction hindering they have no other choice.

Aodan

Naruj said:

Laeka said:

Make chains 1 use only, like their counterparts, shackles. 12 chains per chain is insane. 

Just delete them completely, and reimburse a credit or two per shackle. Defensive class balance considerations should be a careful balance of damage mitigation and mobility, but shackles/chains let someone pay credits to remove half of that equation.

This results in defensive class balance being based exclusively on armor values, and not how 'slippery' the class is to pin down. Classes with lower than average mitigation are then forced to Classlead for more defensive tools, because in a world with no escape or affliction hindering they have no other choice.

Along that same note then, flip boots and things like it need to be destroyed as well. I'm pretty sure that's the major reason these shackle and chain items exist to begin with, because classes that shouldn't be hard to pin down are with this item. 

Naruj

Aodan said:

Naruj said:

Laeka said:

Make chains 1 use only, like their counterparts, shackles. 12 chains per chain is insane. 

Just delete them completely, and reimburse a credit or two per shackle. Defensive class balance considerations should be a careful balance of damage mitigation and mobility, but shackles/chains let someone pay credits to remove half of that equation.

This results in defensive class balance being based exclusively on armor values, and not how 'slippery' the class is to pin down. Classes with lower than average mitigation are then forced to Classlead for more defensive tools, because in a world with no escape or affliction hindering they have no other choice.

Along that same note then, flip boots and things like it need to be destroyed as well. I'm pretty sure that's the major reason these shackle and chain items exist to begin with, because classes that shouldn't be hard to pin down are with this item. 

I'd agree with that too.

Flip boots should never have been made a generally available artifact. A small handful available as auction exclusive items were fine (increased incentive to team the people who had them), but once everyone started to get them the game shifted toward the opposite problem. Combat -should- be somewhat voluntary, but unless you're a class balanced around mobility it should carry at least some element of risk to flee.

That said, the ship on both of these decisions has probably sailed. With afflictions no longer hindering, and mobility no longer possible, the only thing left to do is tank.

Sarrius

Flip boots are different*, though!

*: They aren't different. They should have never been released either. This is just another example of wanting a quick buck as opposed a healthy product.

E: constructive comment - we won't see flip boots taken away because they had tons of credits invested in them during auctions, etc. Chains I could see going, and @Naruj has the right idea in that regard. Chains are one of the big examples when I say that promos are sentencing Imperian's PK environment to a death by 1000 cuts. In this line of thought, chains are an example of a deeper than usual cut.

Lartus

1000 cuts turn carbon into 100 diamonds

Naruj

Sarrius said:

E: constructive comment - we won't see flip boots taken away because they had tons of credits invested in them during auctions, etc. Chains I could see going, and @Naruj has the right idea in that regard. Chains are one of the big examples when I say that promos are sentencing Imperian's PK environment to a death by 1000 cuts. In this line of thought, chains are an example of a deeper than usual cut.

I understand that IRE games need to run promotions anymore to keep people spending money, I just don't regard the chains as particularly well balanced.

If you turned them into an uncurable aeon-style slow for travel or a rubble-type effect that worked on any single room movement skill, you'd still make them worth using - but it would feel less like buying a death sentence at the expense of class balance.

Cassius

Just make them nullify artifact (and maybe shard) escape methods (boots, raksha, earrings...). So the person is left with the class abilities. 

Caelya

An alternative would be to limit the number of flips per x amount of time, or some similar compromise to lower the boots' ridiculous effect on the battlefield without removing them altogether. I feel that even having multiple but finite flips is still well worth the price that people are paying today, but it's obviously hairier with those who bought it through auctions. A price reduction and difference between today's price and the new price could be offered to all boot owners. No part of this is an ideal solution, but the consensus is clearly that something needs to be done.

If nothing is done, then people who get into combat will continue to feel the need to buy super expensive (but still OP) escape toys to keep up, which aggravates the have-nots either into not engaging or into relying heavily at all opportunities upon fairly easily accessible promotional items that are a hard counter to all but the most skilled/tanky/lucky combatants (flippers or not). The latter result is similarly reductive of people on the battlefield, but that fact is not going to stop people from using it, just like it's not going to stop people from buying and using flipboots. 

Dimitri

Welp, looks like we got us a Imperian stand off here, folks.

https://youtu.be/FLXerVcygWc

Owyn

I see a lot of hate on the boots from circles that have a gravehands/piety. Intredasting. How dare people be able to escape you with an artifact, right?

As for the chains, reducing the number uses seems fair enough. Chains and shackles though have been around for a long time, and everyone has used them. I  just question why it's suddenly an issue now. They're used in all kinds of situtions; not only offensive. There are defensive uses for things like shackles. Shackles are also pretty scarce now; I think the last time I was shackled by anyone was @Septus and that was quite some time ago.

Boots already punish you for escaping from piety/gravehands. If you don't know what that punishment is, I'm sure you have a pair of ethereal boots lying around because no one uses them for some reason. Do FRONTFLIP <dir> and see what  it does for yourself.

Naruj

Owyn said:

I see a lot of hate on the boots from circles that have a gravehands/piety. Intredasting. How dare people be able to escape you with an artifact, right?

The catch on Gravehands is only ~60%, same with Piety. Neither is a reliable method of control against an opponent determined to get away.

NONE of these issues are new - people have been posting complaints against boots and chains since they were released. You are simply starting to see a consensus now, likely due to the relative smaller scale of conflicts.

Owyn

@Naruj saying it's "only 60%" is like trying to convince someone that if they try to move 3 times, getting knocked off balance 2 times, that the third time they will have a higher probability of escaping the next time. The "it couldn't possibly happen 4 times in a row" fallacy. It's a 60% chance to fail every time.

EDIT: Pretty sure it's a 4/5 failure rate, which would put it closer to 80%.

Naruj

Owyn said:

@Naruj saying it's "only 60%" is like trying to convince someone that if they try to move 3 times, getting knocked off balance 2 times, that the third time they will have a higher probability of escaping the next time. The "it couldn't possibly happen 4 times in a row" fallacy. It's 60% every time. Which means that every single time, you are 10% less likely to move than not move.

I understand statistics just fine, thanks. Neither is a reliable form of catch against an opponent determined to leave.

Owyn

@Naruj then don't say "only 60%" as if it's no big deal. It's a huge deal.

Swale

I mean, in my experience, 60% of the time, it works every time

Ozreas

Lartus

Did someone say pie?

Kyraic

Owyn said:

@Naruj then don't say "only 60%" as if it's no big deal. It's a huge deal.

First, I am fairly sure it's 66%.

Second, it's not a huge deal because there's a pretty good chance of escape there.

You walk in, you throw down piety/ghands, they immediately try to run.

1. ~33% of the time, they get out on their first attempt.
2. ~56% of the time, they get out by their second attempt. (.66*.66= .4356 chance to fail both moves, meaning ~%56 chance to escape.
3. 0.66*0.66*0.66=0.287496 chance to fail three moves in a row. ~%71 chance to escape by three moves.