The Game, the Cabal, and You

[Fool_Hardy]

I just wanted to start a discussion thread to stop the derail of @myrek's legitimate Idea.

I can not speak for everyone, but I would like to see some changes made to the cabals as we see them today. That said, I believe that Aabahran's history of slow and steady change trumps any massive overhaul ideas. Why? Because we often see returning players, and I always want them to have a sense of familiarity when they come home.

I remember @Celerity made a viable argument for shrinking the total number of cabals a while back. Something I have pondered a lot over the last year or so. What I personally would like to see is slow and steady progressive change. Instead of decreasing the number of cabals, we eliminate hard coded vendettas between the cabals and unite like minded individuals by altering the current capture the flag scenario.

The three coalitions would rally under new banners. Val Miran, Maelbrim, and Miruvhor. The three city-states would then battle for influence across Aabahran. Since a cabal member such as a warmaster could be from any of the three city-states, taking the nations standard would eliminate his cabal powers and army privileges. I believe with the limited number of players online in our current version of the world, this would create more opportunity for both RP and warfare.

Just something I have been considering, please discuss. Heck call me an old fool. Just discuss it here instead of derailing the other thread.

[tassinvegeta]

Doesn't your idea seem to force the cabals to care about other cities? Which doesn't coincide with alot of beliefs.

Also isn't that a much bigger change than lets say merging sub-cabals together? Merchant can join with Herald. Syndicate can merge with Nexus.

With these small changes you fix the merchant problem, allowing goods aligns and thus the allying with any cabal for protection and services. Something called freedom of rp. Also eliminates the hard-coded advantage Syndicate always seems to have with them. Knights are always against Nexus/Syndicate anyway. Maybe now with lower player caps the numbers won't always be in there favor. 

[Fool_Hardy]

Force cabals to care about other cities? People would only care about the coalition they joined.

In this scenario warmasters may be at war with other warmasters, Nexians against other Nexians. Or, this union of Nexus and Syndicate vs that union of Nexus and Syndicate.

I don't believe no goods in Merchant is the biggest issue in cabals today. Most of the players with the largest amount of time to play flocking to the same cabal seems to be the issue. Causing those with less time to feel they are being overlooked do to the inability to connect during their IMM's ussual time on.

Thus my suggestion. IMMs continue to oversee their own people, while a group of staff keeps watch on the coalition. I believe Anume would put more faith in Lloth's recommendations than the elders of a cabal for instance.

[tassinvegeta]

3 hours ago, Fool_Hardy said:

The three coalitions would rally under new banners. Val Miran, Maelbrim, and Miruvhor. The three city-states would then battle for influence across Aabahran.

 

11 minutes ago, Fool_Hardy said:

Force cabals to care about other cities? People would only care about the coalition they joined.

But I thought you said the coalitions would be affiliated with one of the city-states? 

[Fool_Hardy]

Coalitions = city-states = nations

Would be more in depth but.... Phones suck for communication. 😒

[Kyzarius]

Just seems so much more complicated than cut all auto promo times in half.  Automate promo to T. 

[mya]

I agree Kyz. I think 100 hours would be a nice time for auto promotion to T. If the player can't distinguish himself until then, let them have it for at least being online to be PKed. Just add a check to Area location so that time spent inside Cabal Area doesn't count.

FH, I myself proposed something of the sort not long ago. We don't have enough people to support so many cabals, having just 3 would be better. The only problem would be Watcher, because some of them hate cities.

I think it's best to just get rid of cabals and keep subcabals. Make cities the cabals and then allocate subcabals to them. Have all cities have a RP and separated wanted system, and a Magic and a melee subcabal. Perhaps have a fourth force, Chaos/Nature who opposes the cities. Or just have 2 cities, and Maelbrim is capture the flag (RP contest type), being chaos/nature the third force.

People being alone in cabals is detrimental to the game in my view. There is nothing like having cabal mates at the same time so make the game more enjoyable.
 

[egreir]

Time inside cabal should not count.  Great addition.  Idle at you’re own peril lol

[Venom]

I strongly believe that auto promo should be to V. T should be earned.

I really like the 10 hours promo time per rank. 10 hours are not that much of a time and if you like your character and needs to gear (at least 2 hours) and battle for example against enemies sometimes a single battle goes to 1-2 hours. It is good to understand your character and feel the idea how it will help the cabal, to feel the RP. Even when become T and/or E most of the peple are playing dozens of hours with their character, if they likes it, so 10 hours per rank is not much. 

['tarako]

Honestly the only wait I really disagree with is wm inductee. 10 hours of getting g absolutely tossed by pretty much anyone who wants a piece. FL pk drills basics into you. Don't fight without buffs being the key one. It basically means don't bother getting eq, you're gonna get repeatedly banged for path of deceit power, malforms, gear, and then you're on the hook for warfare where most of the time you can't win because of invisibility. I can understand years ago when pk easy less sweaty try hard, but now something as miniscule as flesh armor can't be ignored. I'd be completely in favor of letting them select their subcabal at inductee. I can't tell you how demoralizing it is to have every wm having a contest to see who can hit you the hardest while you're inductee, and there is nothing you can do or say or you're running around being called a coward. Sucks

[mya]

Are you sure it's 10 hours and not 10 challenges?
I never had any trouble with Warmasters challenges. You don't lose lives, and if you ask nicely you can even convince people to not use sanctuary.
I think I won half of mine on a zerk.

[egreir]

It's 10 hours and 8 challenges.

[Fool_Hardy]

(Smiles)

YW @myrek.

[f0xx]

This idea of shrinking cabal spots keeps coming back.

Do everyone forget that we did try this already and it failed miserably? Why do we keep suggesting dumb utopias like player run cabals and lower numbers when we know for sure it wont work?

If anything, cabals should have no limits.

There are other ways to fight disbalance in cabal numbers than forcing people to roll something else because the cabal they wanna join is "full".

[Anume]

Ppl keep forgetting, f0xx. Same with lowering rare count. We've tried that twice both with a terrible result and a lot of bitching. We've tried limiting cabal numbers to 5 or 6 per cabal. Same, terrible whining / bitching, unhappy players.

 

[Kyzarius]

14 hours ago, Venom said:

I strongly believe that auto promo should be to V. T should be earned.

I really like the 10 hours promo time per rank. 10 hours are not that much of a time and if you like your character and needs to gear (at least 2 hours) and battle for example against enemies sometimes a single battle goes to 1-2 hours. It is good to understand your character and feel the idea how it will help the cabal, to feel the RP. Even when become T and/or E most of the peple are playing dozens of hours with their character, if they likes it, so 10 hours per rank is not much. 

10 hours to M, 10 hours to V.  17 days for T. 

It is a ridiculous time demand for ANY game just to reach end game power levels.  A lot of us see T as getting to the end.  The game BEGINS when you hit Trusted.  It is the final piece to nearly any build.  The real pinnacle.

Should be 5 to M 5 to V and 10 to T.  All automated.  With checks for challenges/quests/collections etc. Based on the cabal.

Let us play.  Stop making it about imms babysitting cabals.  Heck lots if times I never even speak to the imm, and if I fight the boredom hard enough I just get T eventually, usually while not online. 

[f0xx]

14 minutes ago, Anume said:

Ppl keep forgetting, f0xx. Same with lowering rare count. We've tried that twice both with a terrible result and a lot of bitching. We've tried limiting cabal numbers to 5 or 6 per cabal. Same, terrible whining / bitching, unhappy players.

It's always like that, it's what politicians thrive on.

PB: Lets lower rare numbers cause everyone is decked and new chars can't compete!
IMMs lower the rare number
PB: Rares are never on, how is my new character supposed to compete?

PB: Lets lower cabal spots, we can't even fill the cabals with this small PB!
IMMs lower the cabal spots.
PB: Been waiting for 2 months to get into a cabal! This game sucks, I am quitting!

PB: Lets make cabals player run!
IMMs make cabals player run.
PB: These two guys keep voting no on my promo/induction app! Punish them!

PB: Lets get rid of rules on ganging!
IMMs get rid of rule on ganging.
PB: Zrothum's ranger avatar and Kyz's psi keep ganging me!

And soon to come:

PB: Lets revamp gear, mages to weak, saves too available:
IMMs revamp gear making saves more scarce.
PB: Mages to strong, what's the point of playing a melee when mages can kill you with a practice weapon and a shield.

[f0xx]

12 minutes ago, Kyzarius said:

It is a ridiculous time demand for ANY game just to reach end game power levels.  A lot of us see T as getting to the end.  The game BEGINS when you hit Trusted.

I've killed Leaders, Elders, decked characters and every sort of "powerhouses", uncaballed. I had to collect 4 characters with Kotrag just to apply to Syndi. 1 Leader, 1 Elder, 2 Trusteds. One of those actually killed a Trusted syndi before Anume sent me after him to "prove" myself. And I know I'm not the only one. I know for a fact that you've done similar feats.

So it's dumb to say "Game starts at T".

Game starts at level 1.

The sooner you accept that fact, the sooner your induction/promos will come.

Just because someone thinks he deserve T after spending 2 days in the cabal doesn't mean IMMs should comply.

Just because someone wants to reach their strongest phase in 2 days doesn't mean that is how it should be. You guys are really inpatient. There are mobile games out there that require 5 months of 24/7 grinding just so you can fully build one character out of your 5-character-team. And you call FL demanding. It's not.

FL has its problems, time consuming and demanding are not one of those though.

[Magick]

15 minutes ago, Kyzarius said:

A lot of us see T as getting to the end.  The game BEGINS when you hit Trusted.  It is the final piece to nearly any build.  The real pinnacle.

Yesterday, the game started at 50.  Now, the game starts at T.  Tomorrow the game will start at E.  The day after, L.  Then what?  I want my Immortal now!?

 

7 minutes ago, f0xx said:

So it's dumb to say "Game starts at T".

Game starts at level 1.

This guy gets it.

[Kyzarius]

The sooner I accept? I've played this game for 20 years.

Hell Foxx, didnt you like proudly point out you dont even play currently just a few weeks ago? 

You shouldn't of had to do any of that to access game content.  Your list sounds ridiculous because it is. 

And no magick, it's not a sliding rule.  It is about access to content for enjoyment.  You guys seem to think the game should be a chore.   The current system imposes ridiculous requirements for cabals, and quest class/races. 

Why is players wanting promotions labeled as greedy, and frowned upon.  Fuck us for wanting to play right.  It's a GAME.  It should be fun, not a tedious waiting challenge where you don't have any clue if anyone is even paying attention to you or not.

But hey, it gets harder to want to roll something everyday.  With all the really awesome AAA titles there.  

20, 19,...

 

[Anume]

I think it's the attitude to have entitlement to get things for no big effort that makes it a chore to you. There is no reason not to rp and play the game at V in a cabal. There is no reason to do so uncaballed. 

I think it's a rediculous demand to feel entitled to get T for sitting around idle for 10 hours, doing nothing. Logging off when enemies come on bc you are at work for example. How do you rp when your boss might come look over your shoulder any moment? How do you pk? You do not even really play, you just grind hours. Why should anyone get a promo for that? And you already get promos up to V for this.

T means you do your job in your cabal. You defend in wars, you do your cabal duties (challenges / bounties / captures), you rp being part of the cabal. Sitting around idly is not doing that.

As to qrace demands, you've got that one completely wrong. Requirements have never been as lax as they are now. People have never gotten multible chances like they do now. Failed the quest? Roll a new char. This is what it used to be. Now you get up to 3-4 chances if you rp it right.

Even the one kill requirement can be rped around if you rp enough. If you rank up to 30 and then start rping you shouldn't be astonished it takes more time. Remember Martineius? He started rp at level 1. We knew already he was going for vamp long before he hit 30 and send an app in. Bc he did not hurry through the ranks as fast as he could, he took the time to rp and to immerse himself in the game. To actually develop a character as opposed to some throwaway characters you roll up, pinn in one day and delete the next week. Why should the staff invest into rping with that? If you do not invest in your character by actually developing some personality, why should anyone else? If anything, ranking is too fast these days.

[Mmm Coffee]

Ranking is definitely way too fast and Hardcore characters have contributed to the throw-away culture as well as the "It takes too long..." mentality.  Because nothing takes long with hardcore EXCEPT cabal promotion.  I've been guilty myself.  I don't know what the best answer here is.  Hard-coded vendettas do not seem favorable to any current player, so maybe that needs to be looked at first.

[f0xx]

1 hour ago, Kyzarius said:

Hell Foxx, didnt you like proudly point out you dont even play currently just a few weeks ago? 

I don't remember when I last said that, but I am certain that I said it with no feeling, be it of proudness or shame, attached to it.

And are you really trying to counter me with "You don't play, so your opinion doesn't matter"?

You're an intelligent person that runs a big business, I am sure you can do better than that.

[Celerity]

@f0xx, @Anume Lowering the number of cabals is NOT the same as lowering the slots in each cabal. Not even close. A gross misunderstanding of the suggestion AND problem.

Of course having the same number of cabals with less slots will not be an improvement. The whole point is to have fewer cabals (maybe with MORE slots/subcabals).

[Anume]

This was not addressed to your suggestion, Cel. I know what you proposed. Others proposed lowering slots available, which we did try maybe 3 years back or so.