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Nexus Clash :: View topic - Territory, stronghold spacing, and the outer planes
Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 11:28 am Post subject: Territory, stronghold spacing, and the outer planes
From my observations, the distribution of of strongholds and factions has changed significantly from prior breaths. There are areas where three or four strongholds are clustered adjacent to each other or only separated by 1 tile, which I can never recall seeing in prior iterations of the game or in NW classic.
I would attribute this change to the removal of the infusion mechanic. I support removing infusion, since it was a thankless and tedious task, but infusion was also the sole means of claiming and enforcing territory. As of now the only way to drive someone away from a location is by repeatedly raiding them every time the set up a SH, but with the culture and etiquette that has developed around raiding this is regarded as griefing or harassment.
The other consequence of this change is that there is no very little incentive to set up shop in the planes of Paradise and Stygia. Not being an admin I can't see how many factions or characters are on each plane at a time, but personal experience has shown these planes to be essentially deserted. Factions have little incentive to establish their strongholds off of Valhalla, since transcended members will spawn on Valhalla and can suffer planar damage on other planes. Essentially the only reason to venture to Paradise or Stygia is to get rare alchemy ingredients or search for Lore.
My question is if these results are intended or desired. Do we want to have some kind of territory mechanic? Do people actually care about the outer planes? Should there be some change like preventing someone from setting a SH if there is one already standing within X tiles radius?
EDIT: For example, 5 strongholds in a 5x5 area, as seen below
I'm not sure I'm inclined to blame this on infusion. The benefits of it in Breath 3 were fairly minor, and a lot of factions didn't bother with it. Yes, it was more valuable in Nexus War and Breaths 1 & 2, but those were both quite a while ago.
Most else I'd say is spot on. Resource management is only relevant for crafting and alchemy, and crafting quickly ceases to matter (though the changes described for Breath 4 means this will no longer be the case) while alchemy is obviated either through rolling the dice until you get a good recipe or picking up Alchemical Transmutation. Lore and exploration badges are pretty much the only things in the outer planes, and that's kind of a bummer. (I think that potion & spellgem find rates are much higher out there as well, but that's not a tremendous incentive as far as I can tell.)
I do think that building out the faction/territory game would be a very valuable change (and have floated ideas in the past), and something to make the outer planes more valuable would be lovely. For the latter, giving angels and demons bonuses similar to the Adamant Kinship while on their home planes might help some (although demons would benefit more, since angels are less inclined to hunt their kin). And frankly, Stygia and Elysium could probably be smaller, or even be different neighborhoods in a shared outer plane if we're feeling particularly punchy.
Last edited by MerlintheTuna on Mon Nov 02, 2015 1:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
Also possibly relevant: I flipped through some old posts, and some of the map numbers are interesting. From Breath 3 to Breath 3.5, Valhalla dropped from 1117 land tiles to 970. (Not sure if pocket spaces were counted.) So although Elysium and Stygia actually grew in size (they're now 40x30 instead of 40x20), we're dealing with a smaller prime and no Purgatorio. In light of that, a higher density of strongholds is pretty understandable.
That's not to say whether the current setup is ideal or not, just that there are other factors at work beyond the decision to jettison infusion.
Perhaps take a hint from the Nexus War approach? Increase the Planar Guild bonuses (or step up a level) for those factions based in Elysium and Stygia? And only whilst on home plane? _________________ Cheers,
From Breath 3 to Breath 3.5, Valhalla dropped from 1117 land tiles to 970. (Not sure if pocket spaces were counted.) So although Elysium and Stygia actually grew in size (they're now 40x30 instead of 40x20), we're dealing with a smaller prime and
Yeah; Elysium and Purg are way too big. The portal system is cool, and very AP-efficient, but there's just not much of interest in those large empty lands.
I don't really have issues with allies being able to SH near each other but when you see 8 strongholds clustered together and half of them are raiding each other...and well setting again on the same place...something must be there to keep them in the same place with their hostile neighbors. And yes it's probably the resources, Factories, Hospitals, and Libraries clustered together or any combination of them just mean everyone wants to be there. What's a few respawns every now and then when you are saving about 10ap per resource run on each members.
With no Ley Lines at all on Stygia/Elysium, compounded with no search bonus and still being in easy raiding distance, why bother setting up there?
Shadok and I (finally) got the ley lines made, which took way too long to do. Sorry about the wait.
As for the search bonuses... Uhh... The search bonuses should only exist in Stygia and Elysium (given to Demons and Angels respectivly). Like, you shouldn't be able to get a search bonus in Valhalla. I tried to confirm everything and figure out how it works, but nobody is actually that certain how it works and Windrunner will have to look into it a bit to figure out how that part of the code works.
Long, long ago the "nighttime penalty" was supposed to have been removed from Stygia. At the same time, angels and demons were supposed to have been given a bonus on their own planes. Lights are actually only supposed to negate the nighttime penalty, not give a bonus in day. But this was supposed to have been done so long ago, Bob was still writing it. So who knows if it actually got done that way or not.
We'll get back to you once we figure it out. _________________
Joined: Aug 15, 2010 Posts: 3955 Location: Gehenna (Earth Branch)
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2015 4:20 am Post subject:
There was an idea tossed around late B3 that if you set up a stronghold close to another, the two shields would erode and weaken over time. So things like the 8-stronghold cluster would be protected better by tissue paper than their stronghold wards.
We never found a way to ensure it'd not be used to grief although, so it was tabled. _________________
"Oh, sorry, thought I was in a Vault of Enlightenment, not someone's booze cabinet." -Kharn
We never found a way to ensure it'd not be used to grief although, so it was tabled.
Perhaps it would only apply when setting up a faction within x squares of another, encouraging the takedown of the nearby stronghold before setting up so as to incur no penalty. Neat territory wars. _________________ hi
I don't know, that's sounds like a decent start, although I wouldn't implement it just like that. You can inconvenience another faction and put pressure on them to move by setting up nearby, if they don't like it they can raid you every time you set up -- so far, so good.
I don't like the idea of the penalty being perfectly symmetrical, though, or that it's just "nobody within 8 squares of each other" -- something like a naturally spreading infusion depth which flows outward from your SH tile and which grows faster or slower based on some kind of player contribution or metric might be better.
On the other hand, neither idea gives you any control over the bounds of your territory, which is unfortunate, because that can open up a lot of inter-faction diplomacy. I really think some form of territorial tile control and benefits to go with it are necessary, though, just implemented differently than last breath.
There was an idea tossed around late B3 that if you set up a stronghold close to another, the two shields would erode and weaken over time. So things like the 8-stronghold cluster would be protected better by tissue paper than their stronghold wards.
We never found a way to ensure it'd not be used to grief although, so it was tabled.
Something like this might be workable, but for that I think we'd also need a thing somewhere that tells us the maximum HP of our faction's ward and gives reasons why it's at whatever value it is (if not a complete breakdown of the formula for it). In the last breath you could tell how strong your ward was if you had Psychometry, but now you already have to do a bunch of math based on the people in your faction and their levels, so if factions nearby started factoring into it then that would get awfully complicated.
We never found a way to ensure it'd not be used to grief although, so it was tabled.
Perhaps it would only apply when setting up a faction within x squares of another, encouraging the takedown of the nearby stronghold before setting up so as to incur no penalty. Neat territory wars.
I really like this idea, but unfortunately you can't take down theirs without setting up yours first. Maybe an overhaul of how factions and raiding work fundamentally would be good though, nothing drastic, but playing about with the mechanics of it a bit could make things far more interesting. _________________ My Characters
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