Arelith

Posted: **Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:21 am**

Hazard wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:13 am There might have been a point where no one had control anymore, but it was still players who voted for the "I'm going to let monsters in." candidate. To me, that is RP and IC. That is player control.

I don't recall that being the running slogan, nor do I recall the "I'm going to hand Benwick over to Avernus" electoral speech.

Posted: **Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:28 am**

-XXX- wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:21 am
Hazard wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:13 am There might have been a point where no one had control anymore, but it was still players who voted for the "I'm going to let monsters in." candidate. To me, that is RP and IC. That is player control.
I don't recall that being the running slogan, nor do I recall the "I'm going to hand Benwick over to the fiends of Avernus" speech.

Because that would be a horrible running slogan. Don't troll me.

Posted: **Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:30 am**

But you were the one suggesting that players knew it and went along with it

Characters lie and behave unpredictably. Believing them and failing to predict the future can hardly be equated to control and player agency.

Posted: **Sun Aug 21, 2022 8:00 am**

Posted: **Sun Aug 21, 2022 3:41 pm**

I think we have strayed off topic enough yeah? Maybe let's keep it focus less the thread get locked please.

Posted: **Sun Aug 21, 2022 3:48 pm**

Seven Sons of Sin wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 4:27 am
Edens_Fall wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 1:23 pm
Tesla420 wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 9:05 am In my personal opinion the natural progression of a faction involved in a city is.

Start a nobody.

Grow followers.

Take a position of power.

Take a place in government.

Run government.

Recruit for an army.

Form an army.

????

Just feels like the end of the story. The best part. The climax. Where you take your victory over your city and you go head to head against another powerful PC who also formed a faction is completely missing? Am I the only way that feels that way? I just wish I could affect the in game world in a more meaningful way.
Your not the only one. It's why we have so many moments in the past where the staff has had to step in and force the servers political neutrality when settlements break out into war.
Yeah, so - this is just one story. The example illustrated fits within a very classic hero's story, a very faction-oriented story, and a very macho militaristic story.

At every stage of that journey, two characters could go in wildly different directions. So too could different factions.

Factions aren't all about "conquest" - to incentivize mechanics around that would be problematic, and in fact, is problematic thinking.

Conflict =/= PvP. PvP =/= conflict. Storytelling isn't linear, 1:1.

Espionage is a great example of conflict, that isn't really PvP. and UD/Surface raids are great examples of PvP not really meaning... conflict (it's just two blobs of 30s swarming each other. they're so devoid of actual narrative beyond the handful of organizers, I can't even. it's a pox on us)

That being said, the best examples of "war" are usually during DM events, where you have large amounts of PCs scattered over wide areas. In fact, I think any "war-time" scenario should be directly overseen by a DM, I think we'd be richer for it.

I agree. Having a DM led war would be fun, but I don't think the server team could handle it honestly. DMs are over worked as it is and seem to burn out or "shelve" after the initial rush of small events that mark a new wave of DM hires. Which is totally fine and understandable. It's a volunteer job, and likely stressful with little appreciation and lots of negativity. I'm a Union Steward in RL so I totally get it.

That being said, an automated war system or area of control is the only thing I can see working. One that takes the load off the staff but still allows player agency.

That or having a proper DM led war between two settlements every few RL years to keep us historians happy

!

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2022 9:55 am**

- I was playing in Benwick when Thomas Miller surrendered Light Keep to a coven of infernalists staged in Guldorand (now known as Westcliff) and I do recall him nowhere to be found after that up until the point when the keep got overrun by the legions of Avernus.

Hello! Thomas Miller's player here!

I was about. Thomas Miller was under house arrest in Light Keep, awaiting his trial. I think there was about a two(ish) week period between that and the fall of Benwick. I wasn't logged in during that actual event, but saw some of the after event.

If I wasn't about much, it was because I was rping being stuck in his house, and I mean - when you're in prison rp there isn't a whole lot of reason for you to log in 24/7. I fully expected Thomas to be tried and executed, but with everything else going on they never got around to it *shrug*.

To delve deeper into the story:
So there'd been a lot of buildup to this, including a massive attack on Light Keep from the hells which, though eventually repelled, did leave the gate wards VERY weakened. the IMPRESSION I got from the DMs at the time (and it was only an impression, I may be 100% wrong) was that we'd officially 'lost' and that the only thing keeping LK from falling was waiting for someone to make a 'destroyed' version of it and/or for more plot to continue. I don't really know though, and there was a few months gap between that, and the eventual fall of light keep.

As for the vassalge - I've very clear memories of that. At the time
*The wards in Benwick had weakened
*Thomas's best friend was dead
*Many of Thomas's friends kept being kidnapped/tortured/killed by the Infernalists
*I think Banites had Wharftown?
*The Infernalists took over Guldorand.

I rememer standing there thinking 'what now?'. Because leaving aside anything from my own rp - and my own rp was that Thomas's mental state was deteriorating quickly for many reasons - the entire situation looked utterly dire. We were being beaten up and loosing at every. single. turn.

Then it came to me. I didn't HAVE to be the black knight, getting his limbs hacked off and yelling 'tis but a scratch!' I could do what honestly, made the most sense. Capitulate.

So I took time to get the appropriate writs from the other leaders of the Keep (Thomas was one of three. I think he got Luna Strata to sign a writ to give him permission for... something. I forgot what he said.) I tried to rp his dispair and such, to give hints (IDK if they were big enough. How do you ever?) and then he went to the infernalists, did a whole bit of rp, and vassaled Benwick to Guldorand.

His hope (and mine too to be fair) was that such an act might be interesting enough to save Benwick from destruction. That in an IC level the infernalists wouldn't want to destroy benwick. Why would they? Demons destroy, infernalists corrupt. Owning Benwick would both be a much more interesting and potentially much more lucrative opportunity than destoying it (and fair credit to the infernalist players, I think they were a little miffed at the destruction of Benwick too, when they just got something so juicey)

I also hoped that the DMs would go 'Ooh this is interesting. lets wait a bit.' or 'lets not do this and do something else.' Sadly - t'was not to be. So it goes.

As for the events that lead up to the fall otherwise? Again I've no proof. I can only go off my gut feelings, and my gut feelings tend to be over generous perhaps? But I feel that we were given a chance to save Light Keep and sadly, we were not good enough. I think - if I may let a little bit of cynicism come in - part of the reason for that was that our opponents were a close knit, ooc faction who had good communication skills and were all on at the same time, people who were used to being proactive. Wheres as Benwick was always very reactive - getting people to do things was... tricky. Our numbers and types of players also fluxuated wildly. This is not to give any aspergions on them, they were all marvelous and great fun, but in this I think that we weren't to task. Simple as that.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2022 12:18 pm**

Yma23 wrote: Mon Aug 22, 2022 9:55 am Hello! Thomas Miller's player here!

Let me lead with a disclaimer here.
What I wrote there was not meant as any form of criticism directed against you or Armenius's player and I apologize if it came across that way. We've interacted on multiple characters and it's something that I have always been looking forward to.
Nor was it intended as some salty rant about Benwick and Wharftown - those settlements had both a lot of problems and their destruction has been more than warranted.

-----
The argument was about player agency and I wanted to outline that whenever so much of it gets concentrated in the hands of so very few, there's much more to be said about the lack thereof for everybody else than how players can shape the server.
Hypothetically speaking, should the Team focus only on a handful of characters and make adjustments to the world only according to everything that these characters do, we could then still be making the claim that player agency played a great role in evolution of the server, despite having the remaining 2000+ players essentially relegated to the role of passive spectators.

There's been an OOC demand for design changes with regards to both Whatrftown and Benwick long before the events that lead to their destruction. I wouldn't say the following changes were so much a result of player agency than a "when the shoe fits" kind of deal.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2022 12:43 pm**

Dawg, it's over. Yma even goes on to say that it wasn't a handful of players but a LOT of players that led light keep down this road.

Your point isn't valid. There are OOC demands for design changes for everything from Andunor to Westcliff. What, I think, plays the largest role in area redesign is a collaborative story that affects a lot of players.

Also, Thomas Miller was a GOAT. Respect.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2022 2:59 pm**

Let me lead with a disclaimer here.
What I wrote there was not meant as any form of criticism directed against you or Armenius's player. We've interacted on multiple characters and it's something that I have always been looking forward to.
Nor was it intended as some salty rant about Benwick and Wharftown - those settlements had both a lot of problems and their destruction has been more than warranted.

It's all good! I was pretty sure you weren't saying that, even if it read a smidge that way! You're one of my fave players, no hard feelings at all!

But even before that post, I'd kinda wanted to state some things about my experiences with Benwick and such.

I do think that when it comes to massive changes like Wharf/Ben, there's also a big design thing/reasoning goiing down, but I think player decision also has a part in it. I think.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2022 5:59 pm**

Well, as we are on this topic I would point out (at least to my understanding) that the original plan was for Westcliff to get nuked upon the Fortress Ctiy opening. However, due to player agency and efforts, this plan was changed and the village remains today.

Let's also not forget Greyhammer was formed due to IG player efforts or how player actions effected the change of Sibayad into what stands today.

So while we might disagree on how much player agency there is, I do believe there is some.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2022 7:05 pm**

Westcliff already WAS destroyed as a result of "player agency" and that whole plot was just kind of forgotten. Archfey? Hello?

New Guld entirely does not exactly speak to communicating with the playerbase. There's likely not a single player on the server who thought merging Myon and Guldorand was a good idea. Two settlements that have historically despised eachother. Likewise with what happened to the Arcane Tower shortly before it, which pretty much killed off a faction (rip tower wardens). And there are countless other examples if I cared to list them. Some few instances of it happening doesn't make, to me, a standard. Or changes that were largely OOC decisions/circumstance that a lot of people parade as being the result of in character actions (hello, shadow wharftown).

Westcliff remains (for now), but recently buildings have just been disappearing and being relocated without much of any story. I would 100% play devil's advocate to say that players do not have much agency and Arelith is more of a sandbox with minimal direction and minimal ability for players to have any kind of lasting influence on the environment. Many sane players seem to think so. I cannot speak for the Light's Keep era, as I wasn't playing then, but I fully believe that something may have changed down the road.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2022 7:39 pm**

Please stop bickering back and forth and minor specifics on who did what and what that affected model changes. Players have agency, full stop, and we don't need to quantify who feels exactly what level of agency exists.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2022 8:27 pm**

I had an idea for an island that when you travelled to it, you were given an item that would give you a special MoD that only counted down when you died on the island. That way people would have to choose battles carefully. But the restriction is not too harsh so that nobody would ever participate. People would also still have the option to just not travel to the island, so it could reduce the OOC drama involved when people are pulled into unwanted conflict.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2022 11:40 pm**

Tesla420 wrote: Mon Aug 22, 2022 8:27 pm I had an idea for an island that when you travelled to it, you were given an item that would give you a special MoD that only counted down when you died on the island. That way people would have to choose battles carefully. But the restriction is not too harsh so that nobody would ever participate. People would also still have the option to just not travel to the island, so it could reduce the OOC drama involved when people are pulled into unwanted conflict.

This, but inside a demiplane that contains conduits of power. Whoever captures and controls these conduits of power scores benefits for their nation. Those benefits could be materials, wealth, or even unique quality of life benefits not found elsewhere.

But because it's an "unstable" demiplane, there is the risk of not coming back when you die, i.e the type of MoD that you mentioned

This way, mass scale PvP would be contained away from the actual world, and everyone within can throw hellballs and scythes without worrying about accidental murders.
If it needs to be even more structured than that, have a literal deity be the abjudicator of the tournaments.

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2022 12:55 am**

I'm not convinced by the idea of war mini-game.

If you make it too trivial then it's just going to be a silly arcade game. Players are pretty good at understanding where true value, status, relevance derives from. There will be a schism between players who want to stay "in the world" and those who want to retreat into arena mode.

If you make the outcome of the war game carry too much importance then players will optimise for it and turn Arelith into Albion Online -- a soulless circuit of interchangeable conflicts that have no meaning in a storytelling sense.

I do think higher-order conflict needs to be organised better and abstracted away from the individual. PvP as we know it should be for feuds, assassinations, interpersonal conflicts, brawls, etc. Actual military conflict should be a more impersonal experience than getting bashed over and over again. The problem is, how do you give players the opportunity to escalate conflict in a healthy way without creating a system that itself takes precedent over the more important factors of storytelling that we are all here for. In real life, war and conflict is as much about culture, economy, governance, as it is about blowing people up.

Personally I don't think this conversation should even be framed as a "war" thing to begin with.

Most conflict I see on Arelith is really an internal clash over governance, truth, culture. I think we could promote better conflict on Arelith first by investing in the settlement system and working toward a place where oppositional politics, impeachment, crime, gangs, espionage, cabals, etc, are easier to bootstrap and are an expected part of the ecosystem instead of something the incumbent power can easily expel, ignore, or metagame. That would cover like 90% of player conflict that currently has no way to manifest except by messageboard slander, OOC toxicity, and of course killbashing, but which should not be mistaken as an actual desire to play out a game of Total War.

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2022 5:41 am**

So, i've been thinking about this thread alot. A few people have suggested a "pvp island" or something.... but i don't think a random space of the world where people go for "consequence free pvp sessions" is a great solution.

I do however, think there is merit in the idea of funnelling pvp content into specific areas which come with specific objectives/goals that give those in control of this content some form of meaning with regards to the factions/settlements that "win"/control it.

When i think of something like this, in the past i'd have thought its not really possible, but now with the amazing changes already implemented by the team, i think alot of the ground work has already been laid and it wouldn't be a stretch to implement something (although from area design and balance etc it would still be a massive amount of work).
The idea i have in mind comes from Guildwars 2. Possibly the best MMO i've ever played. It has a game mode called World versus World, which is essentially server vs server in a large mass pvp focused area, where there are keeps, towers and camps in which you capture to earn points for your team.
I don't think something to that scale is possible, but it has some interesting ideas you could borrow from around the idea of conquests and capturing keeps/objectives.

When i think of this idea in the context of arelith, unfortunately it leads me towards a surface vs underdark type setting, rather than an area in which all settlements could "wage war" against each other....
Where though? And i think its been answered in the minds of any/every underdarker who existed before they caved in the stairwell between the two servers.... old stonehold. There are too many underdarkers to count who at that point in time wanted to set up a militant base in old stonehold as a staging point for attacks on the surface (which i'm sure is part of the reason the transition between UD/Surface at old stonehold was removed)

So, with the theme and the location set, how would you make this "world versus world" from guildwars2 at stonehold in arelith?

Introducing....
Stonehold keep (think stonemist castle fromg gw2):
Ok, theres a keep... and we already have 3 of those (darrow,gloom, the spires) Whats special about this one? It can be captured...A capturable keep which can be reinforced and upgraded by whomever is in possession of it (either a surface settlement or andunor settlement)
This re-opens the pathway between surface/UD at stonehold, and has a keep for whomever is in control of it to defend/control.... I suppose this is not dissimiliar to the portal at light keep in a way....

About the keep:
I'd envisage the keep having 2 rings/walls/areas on either side of the "throne room" which must be assaulted/breached before assaulting the throne room..... And having staging areas between each wall. These would function visually as barracks etc. and supply storage areas.
UD Outer Wall <--> UD Staging <--> UD Inner wall <--> Keep main/Throne room <--> Surface Inner wall <--> Surface Staging <--> Surface Outer wall.

The outer walls could potentially have multiple ways to breach it (i'm thinking 127 DC Locks which grant individual access only (Think the watergate at helms deep), 100+DC climb spots), which once breeched give access to the "Staging areas" which provide an area to stage offense/defence and contain supply depots*
The inner walls would need to be destroyed to gain access to the main/throne room where the boss is, for capturing the keep

Upgrading the keep / Supply:
Whomever is in control of the keep can upgrade it assuming the right amount of supply is available.
EG, 10,000 stone upgrades the walls HP - can be done 3 times.
EG, 10,000 food upgrades the npcs guarding the walls.
EG, 10,000 metal upgrades the weapons of npc guards to +5
Supply comes in the format of stone/wood etc from the trade czars of each settlement - however i'd envisage it must be carried like a warded package (no TP/fast travel) to get it to the keep once you're in ownership of it.
Supply depots are used to store supply within the keep. A party laying seige can sap the supply from the keep once per 24h to remove the supply by 1/3 of current reserves. Perhaps this can be done via climb/open lock check (see above) to bypass the first wall to sabotage the defenders before an assault.
Supply is intentionally used in this fashion as a gold sink to make co-operation between settlements a must to share the financial burden (or rich player factions can fund this)

Consequences of ownership:
I thought about this one... and, i wasn't sure what to put here... but the first idea is that the conesequence of owning the keep is..... UD players/groups cannot do surface settlement raids unless they are in control of the keep. This is specifically settlement raids, not "surface raids" of surface dungeons/content.
This incentivises the surface to man and defend the keep when they are in control as it "holds teh darkness at bay" (again, parralells to light keep keep coming in here)
This incentivises the UD/Andunor to work together as if they want to have any ability to impact the surface they need to get through the keep first.

Laying seige and Method of capture:
Seige is laid with similiar mechanics/cannons from the sailing system.
these cannons are setup to lay seige to the walls. Doing so triggers the npcs to hostile anyone in the area outside the wall who does not belong to the owning settlement.
Depending on the upgrade level of hte wall, would impact the amount of cannons/damage required to break it down. Of course, this can be offset by more cannons etc but this requires more peopple and investment on the assaulting force to speed the process up.

Method of capture has to be a sustained effort by a large group to inflitrate the keep, and beat a boss npc of some form (equivalent in strength to other epic dungeon bosses) and hand its head to an npc in the keep to transition ownership - The person handing in the head must be a member of a settlement, at which point that settlement takes ownership.
7(14?) day lock after capture - prevents this being an eternal war zone. Once captured, the losing settlements (UD/Surface) cannot lay seige to the keep for 7 RL days. (Supply sapping available after 4 days)

The idea is it should take a relatively coordinated/organised/funded force to take the keep, and equally so to hold it.... taking the keep should not be easy. Not only that, it also allows for allegiances to be made to the evil players in surface settlements, who may sabotage defenders should there be an assault.... but all of this should be generating large amounts of roleplay.

Thanks for reading my stream of consciousness.

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2022 6:06 am**

godhand- wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 5:41 am So, i've been thinking about this thread alot. A few people have suggested a "pvp island" or something.... but i don't think a random space of the world where people go for "consequence free pvp sessions" is a great solution.

I do however, think there is merit in the idea of funnelling pvp content into specific areas which come with specific objectives/goals that give those in control of this content some form of meaning with regards to the factions/settlements that "win"/control it.

When i think of something like this, in the past i'd have thought its not really possible, but now with the amazing changes already implemented by the team, i think alot of the ground work has already been laid and it wouldn't be a stretch to implement something (although from area design and balance etc it would still be a massive amount of work).
The idea i have in mind comes from Guildwars 2. Possibly the best MMO i've ever played. It has a game mode called World versus World, which is essentially server vs server in a large mass pvp focused area, where there are keeps, towers and camps in which you capture to earn points for your team.
I don't think something to that scale is possible, but it has some interesting ideas you could borrow from around the idea of conquests and capturing keeps/objectives.

When i think of this idea in the context of arelith, unfortunately it leads me towards a surface vs underdark type setting, rather than an area in which all settlements could "wage war" against each other....
Where though? And i think its been answered in the minds of any/every underdarker who existed before they caved in the stairwell between the two servers.... old stonehold. There are too many underdarkers to count who at that point in time wanted to set up a militant base in old stonehold as a staging point for attacks on the surface (which i'm sure is part of the reason the transition between UD/Surface at old stonehold was removed)

So, with the theme and the location set, how would you make this "world versus world" from guildwars2 at stonehold in arelith?

Introducing....
Stonehold keep (think stonemist castle fromg gw2):
Ok, theres a keep... and we already have 3 of those (darrow,gloom, the spires) Whats special about this one? It can be captured...A capturable keep which can be reinforced and upgraded by whomever is in possession of it (either a surface settlement or andunor settlement)
This re-opens the pathway between surface/UD at stonehold, and has a keep for whomever is in control of it to defend/control.... I suppose this is not dissimiliar to the portal at light keep in a way....

About the keep:
I'd envisage the keep having 2 rings/walls/areas on either side of the "throne room" which must be assaulted/breached before assaulting the throne room..... And having staging areas between each wall. These would function visually as barracks etc. and supply storage areas.
UD Outer Wall <--> UD Staging <--> UD Inner wall <--> Keep main/Throne room <--> Surface Inner wall <--> Surface Staging <--> Surface Outer wall.

The outer walls could potentially have multiple ways to breach it (i'm thinking 127 DC Locks which grant individual access only (Think the watergate at helms deep), 100+DC climb spots), which once breeched give access to the "Staging areas" which provide an area to stage offense/defence and contain supply depots*
The inner walls would need to be destroyed to gain access to the main/throne room where the boss is, for capturing the keep

Upgrading the keep / Supply:
Whomever is in control of the keep can upgrade it assuming the right amount of supply is available.
EG, 10,000 stone upgrades the walls HP - can be done 3 times.
EG, 10,000 food upgrades the npcs guarding the walls.
EG, 10,000 metal upgrades the weapons of npc guards to +5
Supply comes in the format of stone/wood etc from the trade czars of each settlement - however i'd envisage it must be carried like a warded package (no TP/fast travel) to get it to the keep once you're in ownership of it.
Supply depots are used to store supply within the keep. A party laying seige can sap the supply from the keep once per 24h to remove the supply by 1/3 of current reserves. Perhaps this can be done via climb/open lock check (see above) to bypass the first wall to sabotage the defenders before an assault.
Supply is intentionally used in this fashion as a gold sink to make co-operation between settlements a must to share the financial burden (or rich player factions can fund this)

Consequences of ownership:
I thought about this one... and, i wasn't sure what to put here... but the first idea is that the conesequence of owning the keep is..... UD players/groups cannot do surface settlement raids unless they are in control of the keep. This is specifically settlement raids, not "surface raids" of surface dungeons/content.
This incentivises the surface to man and defend the keep when they are in control as it "holds teh darkness at bay" (again, parralells to light keep keep coming in here)
This incentivises the UD/Andunor to work together as if they want to have any ability to impact the surface they need to get through the keep first.

Laying seige and Method of capture:
Seige is laid with similiar mechanics/cannons from the sailing system.
these cannons are setup to lay seige to the walls. Doing so triggers the npcs to hostile anyone in the area outside the wall who does not belong to the owning settlement.
Depending on the upgrade level of hte wall, would impact the amount of cannons/damage required to break it down. Of course, this can be offset by more cannons etc but this requires more peopple and investment on the assaulting force to speed the process up.

Method of capture has to be a sustained effort by a large group to inflitrate the keep, and beat a boss npc of some form (equivalent in strength to other epic dungeon bosses) and hand its head to an npc in the keep to transition ownership - The person handing in the head must be a member of a settlement, at which point that settlement takes ownership.
7(14?) day lock after capture - prevents this being an eternal war zone. Once captured, the losing settlements (UD/Surface) cannot lay seige to the keep for 7 RL days. (Supply sapping available after 4 days)

The idea is it should take a relatively coordinated/organised/funded force to take the keep, and equally so to hold it.... taking the keep should not be easy. Not only that, it also allows for allegiances to be made to the evil players in surface settlements, who may sabotage defenders should there be an assault.... but all of this should be generating large amounts of roleplay.

Thanks for reading my stream of consciousness.

A lot of that sounds really cool!

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2022 8:43 am**

godhand- wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 5:41 am Laying seige and Method of capture:
Seige is laid with similiar mechanics/cannons from the sailing system.
these cannons are setup to lay seige to the walls. Doing so triggers the npcs to hostile anyone in the area outside the wall who does not belong to the owning settlement.
Depending on the upgrade level of hte wall, would impact the amount of cannons/damage required to break it down. Of course, this can be offset by more cannons etc but this requires more peopple and investment on the assaulting force to speed the process up.

Method of capture has to be a sustained effort by a large group to inflitrate the keep, and beat a boss npc of some form (equivalent in strength to other epic dungeon bosses) and hand its head to an npc in the keep to transition ownership - The person handing in the head must be a member of a settlement, at which point that settlement takes ownership.
7(14?) day lock after capture - prevents this being an eternal war zone. Once captured, the losing settlements (UD/Surface) cannot lay seige to the keep for 7 RL days. (Supply sapping available after 4 days)

The idea is it should take a relatively coordinated/organised/funded force to take the keep, and equally so to hold it.... taking the keep should not be easy. Not only that, it also allows for allegiances to be made to the evil players in surface settlements, who may sabotage defenders should there be an assault.... but all of this should be generating large amounts of roleplay.

This has been suggested in the past. It's... not a good idea and here's why:

Ship system works because the way it is set up it ensures that every ship "in the game" is fully crewed with players subscribing to play "the game".
What you're proposing there is running a "ship" that can not only be sunk when it's "moored" and its PC crew is offline, but even taken over.

Timezones are a thing and I don't think that there's even ever been a faction able to sustain a 24/7 presence on Arelith. The proposed system would REWARD figuring out and taking advantage of the time window when your opponents are offline.

Players are clever and the AI is not - you could have these be another Lost Bastille with a dozen of Paushes patrolling the hallways and a moderately sized PC party would still be able to capture it with little to no effort.

Also the lockdown would get abused by allied settlements that'd keep taking over each other's castles in order to lock third parties out.

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2022 10:24 am**

You could just go to a Colosseum and fight there if this is what you truly want out of the server, challenge your enemies and go fight in one of the many arena's the server already has for exactly that sort of thing, plus you can do it over and over and over again until you are totally bored to death with it.

But making A place that allows PvP combat to have a direct effect on the server would not be good for the setting.IMO.

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2022 12:45 pm**

godhand- wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 5:41 am So, i've been thinking about this thread alot. A few people have suggested a "pvp island" or something.... but i don't think a random space of the world where people go for "consequence free pvp sessions" is a great solution.

I do however, think there is merit in the idea of funnelling pvp content into specific areas which come with specific objectives/goals that give those in control of this content some form of meaning with regards to the factions/settlements that "win"/control it.

When i think of something like this, in the past i'd have thought its not really possible, but now with the amazing changes already implemented by the team, i think alot of the ground work has already been laid and it wouldn't be a stretch to implement something (although from area design and balance etc it would still be a massive amount of work).
The idea i have in mind comes from Guildwars 2. Possibly the best MMO i've ever played. It has a game mode called World versus World, which is essentially server vs server in a large mass pvp focused area, where there are keeps, towers and camps in which you capture to earn points for your team.
I don't think something to that scale is possible, but it has some interesting ideas you could borrow from around the idea of conquests and capturing keeps/objectives.

When i think of this idea in the context of arelith, unfortunately it leads me towards a surface vs underdark type setting, rather than an area in which all settlements could "wage war" against each other....
Where though? And i think its been answered in the minds of any/every underdarker who existed before they caved in the stairwell between the two servers.... old stonehold. There are too many underdarkers to count who at that point in time wanted to set up a militant base in old stonehold as a staging point for attacks on the surface (which i'm sure is part of the reason the transition between UD/Surface at old stonehold was removed)

So, with the theme and the location set, how would you make this "world versus world" from guildwars2 at stonehold in arelith?

Introducing....
Stonehold keep (think stonemist castle fromg gw2):
Ok, theres a keep... and we already have 3 of those (darrow,gloom, the spires) Whats special about this one? It can be captured...A capturable keep which can be reinforced and upgraded by whomever is in possession of it (either a surface settlement or andunor settlement)
This re-opens the pathway between surface/UD at stonehold, and has a keep for whomever is in control of it to defend/control.... I suppose this is not dissimiliar to the portal at light keep in a way....

About the keep:
I'd envisage the keep having 2 rings/walls/areas on either side of the "throne room" which must be assaulted/breached before assaulting the throne room..... And having staging areas between each wall. These would function visually as barracks etc. and supply storage areas.
UD Outer Wall <--> UD Staging <--> UD Inner wall <--> Keep main/Throne room <--> Surface Inner wall <--> Surface Staging <--> Surface Outer wall.

The outer walls could potentially have multiple ways to breach it (i'm thinking 127 DC Locks which grant individual access only (Think the watergate at helms deep), 100+DC climb spots), which once breeched give access to the "Staging areas" which provide an area to stage offense/defence and contain supply depots*
The inner walls would need to be destroyed to gain access to the main/throne room where the boss is, for capturing the keep

Upgrading the keep / Supply:
Whomever is in control of the keep can upgrade it assuming the right amount of supply is available.
EG, 10,000 stone upgrades the walls HP - can be done 3 times.
EG, 10,000 food upgrades the npcs guarding the walls.
EG, 10,000 metal upgrades the weapons of npc guards to +5
Supply comes in the format of stone/wood etc from the trade czars of each settlement - however i'd envisage it must be carried like a warded package (no TP/fast travel) to get it to the keep once you're in ownership of it.
Supply depots are used to store supply within the keep. A party laying seige can sap the supply from the keep once per 24h to remove the supply by 1/3 of current reserves. Perhaps this can be done via climb/open lock check (see above) to bypass the first wall to sabotage the defenders before an assault.
Supply is intentionally used in this fashion as a gold sink to make co-operation between settlements a must to share the financial burden (or rich player factions can fund this)

Consequences of ownership:
I thought about this one... and, i wasn't sure what to put here... but the first idea is that the conesequence of owning the keep is..... UD players/groups cannot do surface settlement raids unless they are in control of the keep. This is specifically settlement raids, not "surface raids" of surface dungeons/content.
This incentivises the surface to man and defend the keep when they are in control as it "holds teh darkness at bay" (again, parralells to light keep keep coming in here)
This incentivises the UD/Andunor to work together as if they want to have any ability to impact the surface they need to get through the keep first.

Laying seige and Method of capture:
Seige is laid with similiar mechanics/cannons from the sailing system.
these cannons are setup to lay seige to the walls. Doing so triggers the npcs to hostile anyone in the area outside the wall who does not belong to the owning settlement.
Depending on the upgrade level of hte wall, would impact the amount of cannons/damage required to break it down. Of course, this can be offset by more cannons etc but this requires more peopple and investment on the assaulting force to speed the process up.

Method of capture has to be a sustained effort by a large group to inflitrate the keep, and beat a boss npc of some form (equivalent in strength to other epic dungeon bosses) and hand its head to an npc in the keep to transition ownership - The person handing in the head must be a member of a settlement, at which point that settlement takes ownership.
7(14?) day lock after capture - prevents this being an eternal war zone. Once captured, the losing settlements (UD/Surface) cannot lay seige to the keep for 7 RL days. (Supply sapping available after 4 days)

The idea is it should take a relatively coordinated/organised/funded force to take the keep, and equally so to hold it.... taking the keep should not be easy. Not only that, it also allows for allegiances to be made to the evil players in surface settlements, who may sabotage defenders should there be an assault.... but all of this should be generating large amounts of roleplay.

Thanks for reading my stream of consciousness.

I'm thinking this idea is terrible and mostly one sided, as there is no keeps in Andunor that could affect their writ footage, they could just siege with no consequences against their own settlement, along, with forcing the narrative of pvp combat to people who are not part of any faction / settlement just by locking down writs. Is this what we really want to Arelith now?

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2022 1:03 pm**

Arelith: Full Loot PvP, Permadeath Edition.

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2022 2:09 pm**

Heh people couldn't handle losing a weapon by disarm. So much so that it was changed.

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2022 2:41 pm**

Nekonecro wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 2:09 pm Heh people couldn't handle losing a weapon by disarm. So much so that it was changed.

I used to carry around 5 mdamasks for this.

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2022 2:56 pm**

With Darkness and Silence wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 2:41 pm
Nekonecro wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 2:09 pm Heh people couldn't handle losing a weapon by disarm. So much so that it was changed.
I used to carry around 5 mdamasks for this.

Samesies. But 3 keened mdamasks.

Arelith

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