War, death, and the meaning of life.

[tessa]

Alamar's idea is nice, but one problem though is the gods whose earthly power at the current time is nearly useless. It'll be great for Taniel, Sathonys, and Asral; but since Evren, Zhakrin, Gwen, and Lilith lack clergies that actually use the earthly power, I think those followers could continue being wreckless without worry (god-wise) while the others (clergied gods) would have to tread carefully.

[isengoo]

Everything I say is how I see it and only my opinion. Please keep this in mind

Basically, right now, we have two opposing sides who are told to die over and over again for their gods no matter the cost. I'm going to be perfectly clear and name names. Crusaders are told to lay their lives on the line all the time no matter what obstacles for light and purity and all that. This is how they are designed, it's in their rules, if they don't do it it is considered "bad roleplaying" by some (not all, but still). This is also the guild that is full of, and open to, the strongest fighters in the game, and since the game is centered around combat, they will and do dominate things.

Please do not take this the wrong way. I am not whining. I am merely stating that the Crusaders have very strong fighters (do not deny this, please, just look at Rex, Adanath, Malys, etc) and the game is based around fighting and the good guys have an inherent advantage (also do not deny this, you will look silly). The odds are stacked in their favor. I am 100% fine with this.

And on the opposite side of this, in this conflict, we have the Asrals (yay, woo, we're #1, more parentheses, etc). Asral the god of war and all that. That's all well and good, except when you see the other part of Asral's definition. Taken from the main site geas.de, "Asral, God of War and Death in Battle"

What?

Surely, at this point, you must be holding your head with a look of confusion on your face, because this just doesnt make sense. We have two opposing sides fighting each other, which is fine, which is actually the point of the game as I understand it. The problem with it is, these two sides are engineered to never give up, never surrender. In fact, one of them is supposed to be given praise for dying in battle! How does this work at all in a game where you are punished for dying? Surely you must be as confused as I am by now.

So now, there is a great problem when these two forces meet and neither of them can give up and they just die over and over again, one side feeling better when they die instead of worse...it's a big mess. So, we need a solution! Aha, let's put something in code that will make these guys give up at some point, disgracing themselves and going against everything they know and have been taught when victory is just on the horizon... But then, it starts affecting people not participating in this problem, and people start complaining, etc.

So what is a better solution, you ask? Well, the first thing I would do is stop rewarding people for being powerplayers. That mentality going out the window would be a big step in the right direction. Now, I don't claim to know the code, but I do think that it's a mentality too prevalent in the game. Secondly, why are the Cruaders and the Asrals built the way they are? To clarify, why are they built to contradict the system? I would suggest someone look at their rules and histories so that people don't feel like stupid jerks oocly when they give up or lose. As much as anyone denies it, everyone has a lot invested in their characters, and it just feels crappy to play contradictory to the way you are "supposed" to play, even though it's so easy to and often the better choice for everyone.

There's probably some other things I'm missing...hmm. Oh well, I can get to them later. I'm tired. I'm you read it all, I'm sorry!

[Malys]

Eh, that's not necessarily true with the Crusaders. Yes, they're supposed to keep fighting and not give up, but they shouldn't throw away either lives either. There's times when you should fight, and times when you should back off and wait for a better moment.

When it comes to protecting innocents or good people, yes, they should defend to their utmost ability, but they shouldn't necessarily fight to the death. After all, if you're going to lose the fight, you might as well make it out alive so you can heal and try again, rather than die so you're too weak to do anything next time. There are times when saving one's own hide is indeed cowardly, but there's other times when it can actually be considered a smart move, usually the moments when you can come back with newfound strength for a round two.

It's hard to explain I guess, but the point is, Crusaders should know when they've won, or when they've lost. But the "fight for the Lord and Lady no matter what" saying applies more to "either win, or if you lose, then lick your wounds and do better the next time". In other words, it's okay to lose a battle here and there, but you shouldn't ever give up on the cause. Basically, I guess the "fight fight fight and never give up" attitude is more of a faith and devotion thing than an actual victory matter.

As for Asral Clerics, Asral is indeed the god of death in battle, but usually he praises death in battle for the acts of glory and honor. If you think about it though, dying over and over shamefully and committing suicide is not a glorifying or honorable way to go out, and therefore I don't think Asral would be too pleased with it.

I think Asral would be similar to the belief of the Crusaders I mentioned. An Asral cleric fighting for what he believes in, or fighting for Asral is one thing, but to go back and forth between Asral's temple and the battlefield being mowed down like some sort of punching bag is a different story.

Idealistically, in the current conflict, it would be best if the losing side made a sort of cease fire to end the conflict. Okay, let's face it, almost every occupational guild in the game right now would taking losing sorely, but in every war, someone's going to have to do it, and it's common sense to back out of a bad situation if it's not going to be better, rather than sit there in a limbo state never accomplishing anything.

[Vargrahim]

I think it is pretty simple. If you keep fighting after dying over and over then you are not roleplaying, and that is the problem. The simplest solution is to simply boot those don't, if it is a RP enforced MUD. I don't see the point a new system every time there is some aspect of RP which the players don't satisfy.

[vurdijak]

I also like Alamars idea. It is original and makes complete sense to me that a deity would get pissed at having to spend energy bringing back the same follower again and again. Tessa also brings up a good point, though. Those who follow gods with no clergy care less for earthly power because their clerics aren't getting weakened with each of their deaths. So what are some ways to use Alamar's idea and account for these differences?

1. Change the way earthly power influences clerics and followers.
--NPC clerics, whose deities are low on earthly power, can only provide
resurrection services. If the situation is dire, maybe the NPC clerics can
res followers but with a long delay. Maybe 10 minutes or so?
_<NPC> furrows their brow in consternation and continues to beseech
<deity> to return you to a body_
--NPC clerics begin failing to resurrect, because the deity doesnt answer
their prayers. You are forced to wait until NPC cleric manages to
succeed in a beseech
--If earthly power is already rock bottom AND a player dies repeatedly,
all the followers suffer some statloss....would open to sabotage I
guess.
2. Make clergies for all the gods------>hell of a lot of work
3. Use a combination of Alamar's idea and some of the other ideas listed
above. This way, the loss of earthly power is not the only penalty for
dying repeatedly. Since skill loss seems too severe to some, why
make that 5th death both really piss off the deity AND the
imms make a slight adjustment to the game

All this being said, Alamars idea is still a good solution as is. The guilds who are designed to be at war much of the time also have clergies who represent them. For those who choose to follow a god with no clergy, they would have the benefit of not caring as much about earthly power but also the disadvantage of not having an active clergy of their god.

[tarlon]

It would be cool if it´s possible to cripple cities or guilds a little with a war. What do i mean with it. A city that gets raided alot what will happen to it? yeah. There won`t be enough money to get new guards. shopkeeper won`t take the risk to carry precious wares in the city. It would be cool if a city suffers if it`s guards die constantly. The overall guard strength should be reduced with every successfull attack. shopkeepers can`t offer all their wares if the constantly get killed or stuff gets stolen out of their shops. after some time more beggars could be added and some might even try to steal because they don`t have enough to eat.
And now to the guilds. raids and constantly dying could cripple guilds in some way. they could loose guild items because the guild can`t effort them anymore. the trainers and shopkeepers might not be able to work because they are busy defending the temple and the guildguards could be weakened du to weaker equipment and vitality penalties. This would realy cripple them and help to realy end a war or satisfy the enemy by making a real strike on the guild and perhaps their city. Some of this penalties could be just regained paying large bills for repairs and aquiring new guild equipment.

Olaf po Tarlon

[kaspars]

I like Alamars idea, too.
Just addition - as priest I can tell that it is hell of work to try to keep EP at more or less normal level and I will be really displeased if I`ll have to do even more just to keep EP in the same level

It would be cool if it´s possible to cripple cities or guilds a little with a war. What do i mean with it. A city that gets raided alot what will happen to it? yeah. There won`t be enough money to get new guards. shopkeeper won`t take the risk to carry precious wares in the city. It would be cool if a city suffers if it`s guards die constantly. The overall guard strength should be reduced with every successfull attack.

It will only lead to situation that cities/guilds having less defenders will be destroyed/disabled.

[Naga]

Casual regard for death works both ways, by victims as well as by those who risk themselves. You can talk about people not fearing death, but victors have the problem of not regarding a kill as a big deal. We have seen, even recently, folks hunted down almost immediately after resurrection from a previous kill. If death is a big deal, then killing should be a major victory in itself and not an advantage to be pressed on an enemy who is now weaker.

[jezz]

Hi there

About option 4. Noone should die 4 times in 4 days. The "I die, go to get back my equipment, die and come back again to die" is not valid, it just shows a lack of intelligence or a overplus of stubborness. Both cases deserve what it was discussed -> permanent skill loss

I think 99% of those "heroes" who say "ha! I don't care if I die" would think twice if that death would make their loved 100 skill at "put a weapon here" goes down to 95, and even to 99.

As Kaspars said, keeping EP at weak level is a living quest for sathos. Making it even harder to mantain would only make us forget completely about it. I think it's a great idea, but it should wait until there is a larger playerbase (more clerics to do rituals and such)

About crusaders and asrals having to fight until death I say what I always say: "WHAT?!" From my beggining playing Geas, _players_ have reshaped it quite many times. It's up to the _players_ to model the rules and adapt them, so hiding behind "good RP is dying 100 times" is no excuse. Crusaders don't have die, nor asrals, and I can think of quite a few reasons why a mighty warrior of taniel shouldn't spend his life as a ghost.

[tessa]

1. Change the way earthly power influences clerics and followers.
--NPC clerics, whose deities are low on earthly power, can only provide
resurrection services. If the situation is dire, maybe the NPC clerics can
res followers but with a long delay. Maybe 10 minutes or so?
_<NPC> furrows their brow in consternation and continues to beseech
<deity> to return you to a body_
--NPC clerics begin failing to resurrect, because the deity doesnt answer
their prayers. You are forced to wait until NPC cleric manages to
succeed in a beseech
--If earthly power is already rock bottom AND a player dies repeatedly,
all the followers suffer some statloss....would open to sabotage I
guess.

The only problem is, that still doesn't really affect non-clergy gods. I mean, how many Gwen followers are there? Lilith followers? Not a lot. I can only think of one Gwen follower (moi) and no Lilith followers in the game right now. And most of the gods only have one NPC priest, and some are nearly useless besides resurrection/fixing bones/etc. (for instance, satho npc can only cast one miracle, which is hard to find an effective situation for anyway).

Not to mention, almost everyone (bar satho followers, and possibly lilith followers) can just go resurrect at a different temple (there are 6 other gods to choose from) if their own god is too weak.

Lastly, what to do with godless warriors? Sure, the new system forces most everyone to choose a god, but some people manage to squeak by without a god. What to do with those people? For instance, if a godless char and a god char died 50 times to each other, only the god char would suffer.

I'm just trying to find a way that is useful for everyone. I mean, it would prove to be a disadvantage for religious guilds if suddenly the god-guildless and godless chars could suddenly participate in the wars without suffering like the others would. I think it would be a bit weird if Sathos ran in fear from Tessa because they had something to lose from death and she didn't. :P

About option 4. Noone should die 4 times in 4 days. The "I die, go to get back my equipment, die and come back again to die" is not valid, it just shows a lack of intelligence or a overplus of stubborness.

I've known people who have gotten killed 2-3 times in a day or two by the same guildmembers due to lack of information. Add that with the occasional accidental death or two (lucky hit by enemy, find out you're outlawed in a city now, learn the location of an elemental, etc., which happens to everyone), and you have someone suffering not because of stubbornness or lack of intelligence, but because of bad luck and miscommunication on the killers' parts.

And what happens if you die and reboot is coming, or you have to leave soon, and the room you died in has the only exit trapped (ogre cauldron drum), or the npcs in the run auto-attack (gate guards, asador scrag)? Sometimes multiple deaths aren't as harsh as losing all your equipment, but IMO, no death should be designed to make people choose between skills or equipment.

I think 99% of those "heroes" who say "ha! I don't care if I die" would think twice if that death would make their loved 100 skill at "put a weapon here" goes down to 95, and even to 99.

And while this would be effective, I still think the punishment would vary too much for different characters. For instance, losing 100 <weapon> to 99 for a warrior might suck, but if they're a pure fighter, it won't take long at all for them to recover it. Drop Tessa's 55 knife or so to 54 (or 50 since 55 isn't considered "high"), and likely I won't see 55 again until summer or possibly later. So basically, this would hurt old/diverse characters far worse than younger/specializing characters.

[ryan]

About option 4. Noone should die 4 times in 4 days. The "I die, go to get back my equipment, die and come back again to die" is not valid, it just shows a lack of intelligence or a overplus of stubborness. Both cases deserve what it was discussed -> permanent skill loss

I would limit that to PVP. There might be situations in which you die that often. Just last week for example we died like 3-4 times to monsters trying to recover some player items. And just as we recovered everything a group of Crusaders showed up at that place and killed us all. And none of us was playing "heroes" and the Crusaders didn't know we just had died 3-4 times within 20 minutes.

[Delia]

Some areas are indeed that rough, that when the healer or main tank bites the dust the rest of the team also stands good chances of following promptly. Having full set of customs or somesuch left behind because of death is not appealing, going in to reclaim them results in easier time dying again...Then there are some nasty special attacks that usually/easily result in death. It would ease the vicious circle a bit if the "insane-monster" areas would have slower respawn times or something?

[Vargrahim]

I never understood how someone can value equipment more than her/his own life. It's just not RP.

Let them die.

[Vargrahim]

I guess it happens that someone also gets killed over and over for other reasons. Back a while ago, I knew one character who was hunted and killed many times by the same guy. It will have then the reverse effect. The one who was killed alot will be penalized. And like someone said, it would not even have to be by the same person. All in all, I think such a change will put even more focus on having a strong hack'n slasher kind of character.. which is elitistic and boring.

[Delia]

I never understood how someone can value equipment more than her/his own life. It's just not RP.

Well, there are few select items one COULD consider much more important than the risk on your or your fellows life and limb. Normal eq/guildeq left to too hazardous areas, who cares, unless they are considered holy or something(geez, I lost my shao-sandals there...)?

Customs are bit more problematic as YOU requested for them and they were made in the game as extra tidbits because you asked for them. The reasoning is not IC/RP, but somehow I as a player would rather see custom items used by someone, than them left lying behind hundreds of killer monsies, destined to abyss due to reboot and left as an unused file on the server harddrive...Having a capable character means its not a biggie to lose customs(atleast for me), you can have them back with work and dedication, but would it be ok to spam 100x mithril weapons over time, as a ludicrous example?

[Vargrahim]

Customs are bit more problematic as YOU requested for them and they were made in the game as extra tidbits because you asked for them.

I can understand this, but still I dislike the idea that there are "exceptions" to RP just because there is some OOC wish to have the weapons more than the life. It's just not realistic. I also understand that such reasoning doesn't actually solve the problem for a player who lost his 20-days-of-mining-mithril-sword, but it is a very isolated problem which cries for its own solution (perhaps custom weapons should be somehow easier to get back). Otherwise, only new problems are introduced as a result of this inconsistency. So if this equipment-hunt is really the problem to why people choose to commit suicide so often, I think a solution dedicated to exactly that problem should be introduced.


PS. It is of course a different thing if the item has some kind of IC value, say someone just stole the holiest of the holy book from the temple. Then it makes sense to make good efforts (at some point later) to get it back (but still with love for your own life).

[Blizt]

I still think number one is the best option.

A small example: The admin notices the Asral Clergy raiding Elvandar and the Taniel Temple alot. The Taniel Clergy can and does not defend their areas to the best of their ability (Taniel followers *not just priests* refusing to fight, always getting destroyed, etc....) So the admin could arrange something with the Asral Clerics that on the next raid they take a heap of oil and torches to Elvandar, splash it on all the buildings and burn it to the ground.

After all, the consequences fit the actions perfectly. Its something that would logically happen. It would add more RP to the mud, because people would realize that every action has some type of re-action or consequences and it would keep the enviorment new and entertaining.

[Delia]

People should also start making sure they post when they die or kill someone, atleast during wars. Other option would be to have coded guild commands that would show death and kill lists, like

shkills
# name kills Time
1 Delia Friendly, Unsuspecting Male Dwarf 10.6.1100

shdeaths
# name killer Time
1 Delia Homicidal, Raging Female Dwarf 11.6.1100

Perhaps even with the ability to make comments.

In the end...too much trouble for little gain. Just try to make those posts, eh?

[vurdijak]

While I agree with Tessa's criticisms of my earlier post, I still believe Alamars idea is valid and can be combined with one or more of the other ideas listed originally by Abharsair so that everyone would be EQUALLY discouraged from repeatedly dying.

One possibility is to have a difference between priests and non-priests.

If a priest dies repeatedly in PvP, earthly power goes down. This would also lessen the threat of sabotage from someone who is just a follower, dying again and again to intentionally drag down earthly power.

If a non-priest dies repeatedly in PvP, I vote skill loss. We already have stat loss in the game, and it is coded so that the stat loss is not permanent and, as I understand it, you can never permanently lose stats no matter how many times you die. Could something similar be designed for skills?
Suddenly not only your stats are rock bottom, but so are your skills. You are a newbie now, however the stats and skills are not really gone, just suppressed temporarily by a multitude of deaths.
(NOTE: This second idea for non-priests could also just be applied to everyone, including priests, so that priests suffer in both ways.)

EDIT: Tessa brought a good point about skills and how its harder for some characters to learn new skills than others, because they are more diversified. The second option above would alleviate this problem, because the skills would not permanently be lost. Lets say your knife was at 55(55). You died for the fifth time in PvP. Now your knife is at 45(45), but it will increase in increments of 5 over the next few days as you recover. You might even get fully skill improves during this time and when it is full recovered you find it is now 56(56).

[jezz]

Not to mention the favourite statement of heroes after they get ressed and come back to their fellow friends:

Yugi-Ho @says: "Heheh, now that I'm weaker my skills will go up as crazy. Thanks to Jezz... hahahaha pwned"

Another myth players took as truth? Who knows...