Arelith

Not mechanical balance, but this Balance.

A number of areas spread across Arelith's servers have NPC populations which will expand over time, if not kept in check. When a population expands, it will begin to replace the spawns normally found in nearby map areas. An unopposed population will continue to expand, which can cause hostile NPCs to spawn in settlements.

This mechanic makes the world much more lively, and it is very cool when it works, but unfortunately it's an extremely, extremely rare occurrence due to Arelith's large playerbase just destroying PvE content everyday, not to mention Druids being able to easily reset things with the -balance command. Is there anything that can be done about that, to make balance go wild more frequently? It has so much potential.

I love this mechanic. I have only seen it work once. There was a time hop on the server side and all of the server jumped forward like a month. Everything was out of balance. It lead to amazing RP.

I also love the idea of creating imbalance by dumping purchased food and supplies in an area. I want to leave a dumpster full of food and have were-trashpandas totally overrun the neighboring city.

Some ideas:
1.) Increase the rate at which things get unbalanced.
2.) DM's could use it more to just mess with the map.
3.) Give certain classes the ability to unbalance an area. I think this is in the suggestion forum somewhere, maybe by me, but using "balance' as a search term there is a fools errand. Perhaps Shaman could set off the balance. Or some of the Warlock classes like Unseelie, Night Hag, Abysssal (Chaos aspect) etc, as a class feat.
4.) Make it easier to leave supplies around and create an imbalance.

Perhaps some (random) areas could get a big bump on every reset (adding to the randomness, so there's no fixed time for it happening).

Omg I was expecting a gigantic essay about a different kind of balance. This was a pleasant surprise!

Long term I have some changes for this balance planned (including unbalance like Archnon mentioned), but they're not going to be anytime in the near future as they require some other big systems I need to create first such as ritual magic, which I haven't even started on.

This talk about the balance mechanics reminded me of a pretty neat but unfortunately under looked event in the Arelith timeline, and that is the movement of the ogres, giants and ettins into the Minmir cave that was once ruled by gnolls, and those same gnolls being forced to go into the Arelith forest.

It would be nifty to see Balance affect some areas (perhaps dungeons even) where if the balance of a certain region is left unchecked for too long, then such would have a direct impact on the ecosystem of the nearby areas. (To use the example above, if gnolls population is unbalanced, said gnolls will expand and begin spawning in the nearby regions like the Arelith forest and the Minmir region.)

Perhaps that could be a step into dynamic dungeons where enemies aren't always the same, avoiding a stagnation in that spectrum of the gameplay and keeping people more immersed with their surroundings.

TBH I think that this awsome mechanic might need a little review.

Let's lay out the two most common scenarios here:

A) the area offers a good challenge/reward ratio, players grind it like crazy - the population never gets the chance to get out of balance ever

B) the area does not offer a good challenge/reward ratio, players dismiss it - the population gets out of balance which snowballs into even worse challenge/reward ratio and even greater disregard from the player base

-XXX- wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 4:59 pm TBH I think that this awsome mechanic might need a little review.

Let's lay out the two most common scenarios here:

A) the area offers a good challenge/reward ratio, players grind it like crazy - the population never gets the chance to get out of balance ever

B) the area does not offer a good challenge/reward ratio, players dismiss it - the population gets out of balance which snowballs into even worse challenge/reward ratio and even greater disregard from the player base

This is answered by this:

Eters wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 4:35 pm It would be nifty to see Balance affect some areas (perhaps dungeons even) where if the balance of a certain region is left unchecked for too long, then such would have a direct impact on the ecosystem of the nearby areas. (To use the example above, if gnolls population is unbalanced, said gnolls will expand and begin spawning in the nearby regions like the Arelith forest and the Minmir region.)

which is already in place. So the idea is with enough effort, you could get spawns to move down the mountain to, basically the gates of say Brog. However, I don't think there is a single area on the server that gets so little traffic it moves out of balance. However, you could counteract it in the long run by increasing the tick rate of an area based on player traffic. or, when an area hits a cap (within highish level range for the local fauna sort of) then remaining imbalance spills equally into all areas around that area, causing additional imbalance there. Something like that.

Also:

garrbear758 wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 4:02 pm Long term I have some changes for this balance planned (including unbalance like Archnon mentioned), but they're not going to be anytime in the near future as they require some other big systems I need to create first such as ritual magic, which I haven't even started on.

Ritual magic ... now you are just being a tease. This sounds awesome and I'm glad this is being considered.

Archnon wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 5:07 pm Ritual magic ... now you are just being a tease. This sounds awesome and I'm glad this is being considered.

Seriously don't expect it anytime soon or even soon(tm), as I have other systems I need to put into place before I can even consider it, but when it happens Balance is definitely one of the things I plan to do a small overhaul for and incorporate into it.

That sounds really cool. Even if it's not on the table right now it's cool knowing it's an idea.

if balance is on a 0 to 100 scale, the balance command should push it to 50 while killing takes it towards 0 and unbalance to 100.
This would allow dynamic responses instead of generic "oh no, x is spreading".
0-10: predators go further a field for food
90-100: opportune foul entities take residence.
Anything then in between.
Balance also ideally wouldn't just auto undo any changes, atleast not by one person. I remember when balance went in, it generated a huge spike of rp, it'd be nice for it to have more use like this.

It's definitely something that needs an overhaul. I just don't want to do it twice which is why I'm doing the ritual system first. Yall inspired me though so I'm starting to work on the ritual portion sooner than planned, but still no promises on a timeline.

garrbear758 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 2:58 pm It's definitely something that needs an overhaul. I just don't want to do it twice which is why I'm doing the ritual system first. Yall inspired me though so I'm starting to work on the ritual portion sooner than planned, but still no promises on a timeline.

Heck yeah!

This kind of thread is the reason I love to come and scrutinize the forum as much as I can!

I can be patient for ritual magic

garrbear758 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 2:58 pm but still no promises on a timeline.

you mean Soon™

I remember the week that balance was initially added with much fondness!

Blackguards of Ghaunadaur, a very difficult enemy in those days, were flooding out of the slime temple and murdering all the new characters in the peninsula and outpost.

It got tuned back a little obviously. Hopefully we don't end up with that again but underneath it all there's a really cool dynamic thing just waiting to be polished.

Skibbles wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 6:52 pm Guanadar

Ghaunadaur (pronounced: /ˈgɒnɑːdaʊər/ GON-ah-dowr or: /ˈgɒnɑːdʊər/ GON-ah-door)

Thanks I was on mobile and got sick of battling autocorrect