Posted by Cethern on January 24, 2000 at 11:14:21:
In Reply to: Growing Carrionfields Imbalance posted by Bimpie on January 23, 2000 at 10:01:51:
I'm putting this up here, in case some (or all) people stop
reading this post before the end. Does anyone else get the
impression that there are not enough players on CF at a given
time to really fill out all the class/race/cabals at once, which
is one source of the imbalance? As a hero, how often do you find
more than two cabals well-represented in who pk? The problem is
compounded by the tendency of many people to play whatever cabal
has the edge that night, but I think we'd need more people to do
a lot of these wars justice. I seldom see sylvan, battle and master
heros all at once. If we did, non-mage sylvan would be more likely
to at least stay neutral with the village (rather than group killing
us with sylvan mages every chance they get) so that the village would
help them when they are outnumbered. If wood-elf ragers start appearing,
I'd not be surprised if this happens, and the master-empire bond will get
even stronger in response.
Frankly, in all my time on CF, I've never had a low level
warrior character (sub 25th or so) where nearly everyone
I group with wants to be a rager. I think the reason is
the same reason I tried to get into battle with my second
or third char: Their powers are impressive and obvious. The
powers of a master are more subtle, the powers of empire lie in
numbers and show up at higher levels. It only takes an idiot
to see a warrior his level obliterate and decide that'd be
nice to do.
However, if you play a warrior, instead of a mage, and group
with a lot of those "village hopefuls" you find that many of
them are idiots, and lots others have no idea how to get into
the village. I grouped with one decent warrior who wanted to
be a villager (unknown to me) and then after half an hour of
grouping with a cleric, he asked me why I wouldn't accept
communes from the healer. I've also run into many healers who
tell me I'm an idiot if I think I can't accept communes and be
a rager. I don't know if they're smart players who would just
be amused to make a hopeful sin or what, but it's very prevolant.
I'm sure masters get questions from equally stupid mages. It's
nothing new to the game. It's part of the reason most good players
don't like hanging around any level below 35th or so. There's little
reward to it.
As far as how selective the village is, I hope everyone notices this
balance of non-villagers complaining about how easy it is to get in
and stupid hopefuls bitching about how hard Takashimi is to get ahold
of. Ignoring when Taka was gone over winter break, I see nothing wrong
with the amount of time he was present when I was playing. Any hopeful
worth taking is doing things like raiding with members, grouping with
members, talking to elders and such things. Ones that aren't worth
accepting sit around complaining that they can't find Takashimi, or he
won't talk to them when he is around. He's not your bitch, and you
shouldn't expect him to be.
I can think of lots of "village hopefuls" that end up imperials because they
get killed and oath for their armor back, or get tired or trying to get into
battle and decide to just join imperials. Good riddance.
At higher levels, I think battle needs a high numbers of players that are around
consistantly. The village has virtually no allies, and because of this, if they
are the least bit outnumbered, even non-enemies will join the hunt for us, as we're
often the prey you're most likely to find and to kill in the open. The way many
people play CF now, whatever cabal has the edge at hero will find more and more of
their people showing up. It's far to obvious to blame on luck. And I think that's
true for EVERY powerful cabal. (master, battle, empire, even sylvan to a lesser
degree)
That said, I would like to see cabals be harder to get into. Unfortunately, whoever
makes that first step is going to suffer serious beatings in the beginning, because
my impression from interviews (and gripes on here) is that a lot of players are not
willing to put in the time to really work their way into a cabal. They expect to be
able to do it in half an hour once they see the leader. I'd like to see people playing
fewer characters at once, so you could somewhat rely on showing up without scouting and
not being all alone if you don't have powers, or finding 11 heros the next night. I'm
pretty sure many of us thought the "no lame names" and "rping is REQUIRED" policies that
came up right after the purge were hopeless attempts by the imms to improve the game, and
that most players would still talk ooc on cabal about football. But it has improved a lot,
because the players came to expect it of each other. The same could happen for cabals and
people quitting when odds are bad. I think the imms need to be more involved to prevent
the power swing that happens as soon as the orb or head is taken. Both by punishing those
who always seem to need to go when things sour, or rewarding those people who always tough
it out. Perhaps some kind of skill success modifier that could be changed by high enough
level immortals. IE, A villager who never tries to get the head back, drops link when odds
look bad, or quits every time we lose the head would have a 10 or 15% higher chance of failing
a skill. One that always sticks it out or just has exceptional RP might have have skills
succeed 10% more often than your average joe. It's my impression that the immortals have a very
good idea who the good and bad players are, and could be reasonably impartial.
If I'd become the leader of battle, I would have forgiven every non-mage who had ever raided or
attacked villagers. From some set point on, everyone would be in our good graces unless they
did something to earn our disfavor. I'd be hard on people who kill anyone they see with a potion
of return. My approach would be destroy mages and the tower, and the potions will cease to exist,
and warriors will see the benifits of purity over magic, and join our cause. Those that still
refused would be easily killed off without the masters and mages to protect them. Very much the
same approach (in theory) that the sylvan warders have in help sylvan. It would give Battle the
ability to have more allies and have fewer people that would turn on us every time the odds were
against us. Likely battle would end up with almost the same enemies as before, but if villagers
really followed the policy, no non-mage could reasonably complain when killed by one of us. At this
point it's a kind of chicken or the egg problem with many village enemies.
I think I'd get rid of parity to some degree as well. The simple fact is most classes do not have
the spells/skills to keep someone in a fight until death in a one on one battle. Ragers are the only
cabal that makes any effort to fight at such odds. The result is that ragers die and lose armor and con
when we're at bad odds, and when we've got the advantage we can't keep our enemy around long enough to
kill them.
However, this approach only works if we have numbers. If there's only one or two battle
heros around at a given time, and 10 or 12 heros that don't care about the village, half or
more of which are mages or cabalmates of mages, it makes a lot more sense to shun the villagers
than the rest of who pk. I think right after the purge things were somewhat like this. Battle
reguarly got whipped by master and shadow, but we also had scattered shadow allies and neutral to
favorable policies with entropy and knights. But back then, it wasn't that common to find a mage
that wasn't a master, so it was easier to ally with other cabals. Master powers were just so ungodly
in comparison, it didn't make sense to most people.
I actually think a purge would be really nice. Empire would (or should) quickly be the largest cabal
in the beginning, with many players turning to them for protection and the lure of fast leveling and
a shot at all that great armor just waiting on the mobs. Gold for centurions wouldn't be a trivial
thing, at least for a bit of time as well. Also, it'd be interesting to see how alliances formed fresh
with the new cabals in play. It would give all the cabals the chance to induct slowly, looking for really
good players, rather than taking questionable applicants out of a need to keep numbers up to avoid getting
whipped each and ever day.
Cethern