Aspects and conflict

Galt

The topic of Aspects came up in the bug day questions, and I've always found the system interesting - But as a conflict driver, it's largely dead because of the permanent monoliths. Whilst it's important to allow some bonuses for hitting 100 for those who don't fight, I feel like the system has swung too far in favour of grinding up gold and xp to grab more monos/powers.

So what are peoples thoughts on Aspect? Should permanent monoliths be removed entirely, and what other changes would be good for Imperian's level 100 system?

Cassius

I would like them to only work if you personally hold a mono - but that would exclude it for non-pkers so probably not a feasible solution, but would at least make holding one desirable. 

Krysaliss

Not a fan of further limiting the usefulness/attraction of being level 100 for non-PKers. It's already too much effort to get gaze travel. :< 

Swale

Could make it so people can't have/use permanent monos outside of the set of powers of their currently held aspect set.  So, if I am Terror, I can't have Life regen, even if I have the perma-power, unless I get a friendly life aspect to go grab it for me (and I might go help him do that).  At the same time, would just leave the perma monos for your currently held aspect alone.  If I decide to go life, and I have perma monos, they're still there, but I have to bash up the XP to switch so I can't just do it willy nilly to game the system (more the XP than the gold, really) to switch (could raise this if needed, because power bashers).  

EDIT:  to me, this tries to kill two birds with one stone.  There is probably a little bit of power creep within the aspect system due to power bashing ALL of the worthwhile powers across all of the aspect tiers and getting all of the perma monos needed to power them.  But at the same time, it prevents a situation where "hurr durr best PK-er/currently most powerful circle in the game is even more powerful".

Septus

My personal preference would be something like:
- Swap all tier 1 and tier 2 powers across the board, so gaze is always the tier one power for each aspect type.
- Make it so you can only have one of each permanent monolith type.

If you can get the good powers off of permanent monoliths, the system will never be relevant.

Anette

Septus said:

My personal preference would be something like:
- Swap all tier 1 and tier 2 powers across the board, so gaze is always the tier one power for each aspect type.
- Make it so you can only have one of each permanent monolith type.

If you can get the good powers off of permanent monoliths, the system will never be relevant.

I feel like the perma powers are much more damaging than the perma monoliths, personally, in that respect.

But really, I have been of the mind of with the exception of Inhume (which will probably be getting nerfed anyways), none of the higher tier Aspect powers are really worth the effort and investment.  I'd rather just replicate their affects with artifacts and have 100% less fuss, which you can generally do.

E: Also, as a Sukhder aspect, please for the love of the god don't change things in such a way that the aspect with the critical mass of players is the only one worth being.  The aspect perks is basically the only thing that makes Sukhder tenable as is in terms of actually being able to use anything.

Naruj

I still like the idea of making the Rank 5 Aspect powers unlinked from the number of monoliths being held, and then only grant them to the people currently holding monoliths regardless of aspect totals.

This would also allow you to make them better. Want a super powered Aspect perk? Put yourself at risk and hold a monolith.

Ryc

Honestly it might be worth just paring down/redesigning aspect powers some. (especially since if you're getting rid of permanent monoliths, with the reduced population it becomes harder to hold any of the aspect powers). One possibility would be to make gaze baseline, and then reduce each aspect to 3 powers each. so Terror would be Inhume, Absorb, and Terrify. Change would be Reincarnation, Modulation, and Warp. Life gets completely reworked because all of it's powers other than regeneration are garbage and honestly I'm not a huge fan of aspect bonuses being passive (although that's a personal preference). Realistically you probably also have to reduce the number of monoliths available to use from 7 to 5 to prevent 2/3 aspect trees having their full trees. 
E: as a sidenote if you get rid of regeneration you should maybe take a hard look at modulation too, given that it's also a passive bonus

Kyraic

Holding a monolith should give you access to all of your powers regardless of how many other people are holding monoliths. That makes it possible for anybody to get access to all of their aspect powers regardless of who else is an aspect of that type, and it adds a reward that's worth being free PvP 100% of the time. 

Cassius

It's funny this conversation is happening while a new monthly auction started selling ALL THE MONOS. 

Wyll

Cassius said:

It's funny this conversation is happening while a new monthly auction started selling ALL THE MONOS. 

Monthly auction items never change, so that has been going on for awhile. I think it was asked if the monthly items could switch up and was told no, they are remaining the same for some reason or another. I'm too lazy to dig it up.

Dec

Monthly auction items were meant to be repeated. I wouldn't say they will never change, but the idea was they were artifacts that you could buy for a month and then someone else could get and use for a while.  If you didn't have them repeat people wouldn't get the chance to try them out later if they didn't win the first time.  

Not to mention that coming up with artifacts that are interesting, useful, people want and yet are not completely destabilizing is not trivial.  (Always open to new ideas there. No you can't have a Raksha band.)

Galt

Isn't the monthly auction mono a solitary monolith?

It's not exactly a problem in the way perma monoliths are.

Gjarrus

Rewards and Advancement

Throw in some iteration on both arti perks and aspect perks, remove cross-moon access to perma powers, remove perma monos. With my capture changes below, there won't be any unheld monoliths, so the likelihood that you won't have access to at least t1 is low.

Battles and Monolith Capturing

Unlock one monolith every weekend. Each monolith will have a unique 'battle' or choose from a battle list at random, options including:*
Team FFA
Team Bloodbath
Familiar Battles (pick one, battle til lose, last moon standing wins)
Hot/Cold (Shadow lovers?)
Gemhunt
"Great Hunt" 
Summon mob hunt
Trivia
Gambling games where you get booted once you lose X amount of gold at the table.

The winning moon locks the monolith into their possession until the list cycles through again (so ~2 rl months).

Effectively, this makes monolith battles recurring weekend events.

*If you want to be lame and lazy, it could just be PvP arena events in Monolith arenas that pop up a little before it starts, but my idea allows more general participation and we need more familiar battling.

Siphoning

This is basically 'holding' a monolith as now, with a reskin and changing it to the full 5 to the holder, -1 from the other moon, as well as the +1 to your moon sisters. Time to siphon successfully scales down with the number of monos your moon holds. The aggressiveness makes it more sensible as a 'come kill me whenever' action, and it keeps the system from being static outside of the battle windows.

Powers
Some are godawful (Res, clearsight), others are lackluster (mimic is okaaay? Terrify is not the worst but there are plenty of fear skills for players and more for mobs), others are awesomely crazy. I'm also not particularly fond of passives for something like Aspects, so lesse what garbage I can come up with. 

T1 - Travel skill (Gaze) + add a high-level bashing and questing area on each moon
T2 - Failing on this one, so w/e gimme ideas.
T3 - Mob-based skill, 1m cooldown on all. AoE terrify (S), AoE peace (A), AoE disruption and amnesia (M)
T4 - Movement skills. 2-5m cooldowns on each.
    Moradeim - Fracture (dir) - Blink in the direction, leaving behind a decoy that fully transfixes the first person to attack it.
    Sukhder - Impact (dir) - Charge in a direction, breaking through walls and movement blockers and causing AoE fire damage and stun.
    Aryana - Embolden (target outdoors in area) - After a channel, fly to the target on a beautiful moonbeam and give them a significant health and mana heal and cure 2-3 random afflictions in the process 
T5 - Epic skill - Warp as is, Inhume nerfed to 2m duration /5m cd, Resurrect buffed to instant use and a 5m cd

Oystir

^This sounds awesome

but dont take away my tempo reinc plz so much the roleplay

Naruj

Monoliths were always the small group / spontaneous combat option - no matter what happened, anytime aspects fought over something you'd have the potential for monolith battles afterwards. I don't think I'd throw this out to turn them into another organized fun sandbox.

Gjarrus

IMO, that's what Champions should be, but Siphoning is also effectively everything that generated conflict for monoliths

E: I also don't think steady conflict that circumvents circle lines is necessarily the best thing, but it's great as an occasional thing that might get people talking with people outside their city.