I want to ask a few questions and concerns regarding Fortress and specifically the Maran power of Cry of the Phoenix.

First I feel that the Cry of the Phoenix power has run its course. It is basically a gang tool now to be able to gang anyone from any side of Thera. I have seen many times that on the cabal channel in Fortress it is not meant to used as a tool to even odds against the hordes of evil. It is instead used as some kind of bait trap. I find that this abuse of the power has went outside of its actual use. With the introduction of gang code which keeps those who are being ganged from really being ganged, this again turns into a one on one fight of evil versus good into a two on one gang code avoiding tool against the evil. The lower playerbase has made this worse. I ask that this be considered in removing and changing the power. It has gotten out of hand. The power doesn't help anything but creating gang situations when one shouldn't exist.

On top of that, Maran now is even easier to get, to the point it really is no longer that "special thing" which would keep this power out of the hands of most.

Now this brings me to the idea of a cabal limit. This is getting out of hand as the number of Fortress doubles Empire's size. In fact Fortress numbers currently triple Tribunal and more than double every other cabal. May want to check with that Fortress Imm.

----------------------------------------------------
FORTRESS |Members|Pledges|Taken |Retrieved|Influence|Coverage |Presence |
2018-05-09 |28 |9 |9 |0 |93.16% |66.85% |6.58% |
2018-05-08 |27 |9 |5 |0 |97.76% |70.23% |7.54% |
2018-05-07 |27 |9 |5 |1 |87.44% |68.11% |9.09% |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ENTROPY |Members|Pledges|Taken |Retrieved|Influence|Coverage |Presence |
2018-05-09 |7 |0 |0 |0 |0.00% |1.47% |0.21% |
2018-05-08 |7 |0 |2 |1 |0.00% |11.25% |1.61% |
2018-05-07 |7 |0 |0 |1 |0.00% |21.56% |3.08% |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUTLANDER |Members|Pledges|Taken |Retrieved|Influence|Coverage |Presence |
2018-05-09 |12 |4 |1 |1 |82.90% |68.11% |7.82% |
2018-05-08 |11 |4 |2 |0 |96.02% |57.51% |7.44% |
2018-05-07 |12 |3 |4 |1 |71.11% |54.50% |6.11% |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BATTLE |Members|Pledges|Taken |Retrieved|Influence|Coverage |Presence |
2018-05-09 |14 |1 |3 |2 |92.11% |39.29% |3.68% |
2018-05-08 |15 |0 |5 |1 |98.88% |56.32% |4.68% |
2018-05-07 |15 |0 |0 |0 |69.78% |34.47% |3.18% |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HERALD |Members|Pledges|Taken |Retrieved|Influence|Coverage |Presence |
2018-05-09 |4 |4 |0 |0 |0.00% |9.91% |2.48% |
2018-05-08 |4 |3 |0 |0 |0.00% |2.94% |0.73% |
2018-05-07 |5 |3 |0 |0 |0.00% |0.07% |0.01% |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EMPIRE |Members|Pledges|Taken |Retrieved|Influence|Coverage |Presence |
2018-05-09 |16 |3 |8 |7 |40.40% |52.83% |4.98% |
2018-05-08 |16 |3 |1 |5 |33.61% |42.63% |3.23% |
2018-05-07 |16 |3 |5 |4 |38.59% |40.47% |3.77% |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SCARAB |Members|Pledges|Taken |Retrieved|Influence|Coverage |Presence |
2018-05-09 |6 |9 |0 |3 |18.91% |33.08% |6.06% |
2018-05-08 |6 |8 |0 |1 |16.63% |17.33% |2.89% |
2018-05-07 |6 |8 |0 |3 |10.61% |15.42% |2.57% |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRIBUNAL |Members|Pledges|Taken |Retrieved|Influence|Coverage |Presence |
2018-05-09 |9 |4 |0 |1 |92.74% |60.64% |9.23% |
2018-05-08 |8 |4 |1 |1 |93.50% |44.16% |7.34% |
2018-05-07 |8 |4 |0 |2 |60.01% |20.17% |3.48% |

Just checking the ol' forums and it's amazing to see how the same old concerns keep coming up over the decades. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?

There's a difference between using a power to fall when your cabal is dominant and using it to save a comrade who is in real trouble.

Maybe the coffee could reflect that.

We don't tell Empire to stop using centurions when their cabal is doing well. We don't deactivate deathblow or resist if Battle is on the upswing. We don't turn off ToIW or Nightwalker if Scarab is pking too much.

Why would we tell Fort, who typically 10 months out of the year is getting its ass pounded, to not use their powers during the 7 week run where they are doing comparable (maybe even slightly better) than the people they are fighting.

How your perception can be skewed as a mortal. I would swear Fort has been on top, overall, for at least a year or so, except for times when the Russian perma was on and rolling people with hell gear.

I definitely think play times influence this. There is a Fort o' Clock and maybe that's what I'm seeing.

>We don't tell Empire to stop using centurions when their
>cabal is doing well. We don't deactivate deathblow or resist
>if Battle is on the upswing. We don't turn off ToIW or
>Nightwalker if Scarab is pking too much.
>
>Why would we tell Fort, who typically 10 months out of the
>year is getting its ass pounded, to not use their powers
>during the 7 week run where they are doing comparable (maybe
>even slightly better) than the people they are fighting.


Funny, actually people do complain when ragers use bloodthirst. You're right, they shouldn't, it's their only way to counter literally everything else someone who is not a rager can do, and it comes with easily expoloitable downsides. On this, you should make it clear to everyone that all cabal powers are there to be used, whenever someone wants to use them. People somehow think bloodthirst is different. It isn't.

Battle is the one cabal that is supposed to have a self-policed sense of pride/courage that frowns upon the notion that you call thirst vs a naked thief just because you can.

That being said, the staff isn't going to go above and beyond to limit the way bloodthrist works. It would sure as hell be nice if mortals were willing to "do it the right way" though.

Ragers are told not to use trophy if the battle was too lopsided.

I think my other response re: bloodthirst actually covers this idea pretty well too. Just because you can trophy said corpse of naked thief you just splattered doesnt mean that you should. Badge of honor and all that jazz.

My logic would reduce the strength of centurions when empire is dominant etc.

This happens all the time. Fortress is fine and this is coming from me who played Durnot that Drissa killed like 50,000 times.

A few years ago Maran was way too hard and it was total #### that we made players work so hard and wait so long. Damned if you do, damned if you don't?

There are currently eight Maran who were promoted at an average of level 50, 156 hours, and 14 PKs.

Right now it's probably accurate to say that Fortress tends to have more characters on at once at any given time than other cabals, but so what? Sometimes that's Empire, sometimes it's Outlander, etc. If you compare their influence/coverage/presence to Empire it's very similar, and while Fortress clearly has the upper hand it is also obvious that there's plenty of raiding and retrieving going on. At a quick glance, anyway, the system seems to be working.

As for CotP, yeah, it can suck being on the receiving end of it. Then again, so can sucking on the business end of Emperor powers. If you don't like being ganged by goodies you might enjoy one of our other fine flavors like being ganged by evils. We used to have being ganged by turncoat ass ####er neutrals but it wasn't popular so we discontinued it.

>If you don't like being ganged by goodies you might
>enjoy one of our other fine flavors like being ganged by
>evils.

I feel obliged to say this was funny.

That's probably our most popular flavor, in fact.

These numbers don't really show, and in part, show the opposite of the point you are trying to make. When there are 5 or 6 Fortress on, of which 3 are Marans, at hero level, I don't try to play, I log off. Or I simply avoid them. This kind of behavior, created by this skill, isn't healthy for the game. You want conflict. You want the underdog to at least feel he can do something. But having an insto-gate to the Maran whenever it yells or an insto-gate to any other Fortress whenever they want (within reason) means the behavior of the player, including myself, is just not to try.

As I said in my original post, the skill has run its course. It no longer applies in our environment. I have a similar argument against the side rooms in Imperial Lands and how dumb they are that they create deathtraps with centurions. Whoever thought of that was really not thinking clearly.

At least you finally recognized, after years, that having only one path into Imperial lands was killing the game for the underdog. This is a similar piece.

If there are skills in the game creating this kind of environment, you can wonder why the swings of power are so strong and continual.

As I said, the PK stats don't show anything other than people are avoiding them instead of coming into conflict with them. This game runs off conflict and the back and forth. Or its static and well, lame.

Thank you for a somewhat reasonable response.

Some mitigating factors:

* Fort guy can't call for help if you one-shot him.
* Fort guy can't call for help if you permalag him.
* More often than not, fort guy won't call for help even if given the opportunity.
* Other fort asked to cry in may be somewhere he can't cry from.
* ...or wounded.
* ...or might take time to prep and miss his chance.
* ...or might be incompetent enough that he can't get the command in before the fight is over.

Basically, if you're playing a combo that matches up very well against a Fortress enemy to the extent you're unlikely to die in a one-on-one encounter with that person, *and* if there are other Maran characters online, then you can't expect to engage that enemy in a protracted fight in which you lack the element of surprise, because he might call for help.

Somehow, despite having CotP, Maran characters end up dying pretty regularly.

>These numbers don't really show, and in part, show the
>opposite of the point you are trying to make. When there are 5
>or 6 Fortress on, of which 3 are Marans, at hero level, I
>don't try to play, I log off. Or I simply avoid them. This
>kind of behavior, created by this skill, isn't healthy for the
>game. You want conflict. You want the underdog to at least
>feel he can do something. But having an insto-gate to the
>Maran whenever it yells or an insto-gate to any other Fortress
>whenever they want (within reason) means the behavior of the
>player, including myself, is just not to try.

Cry or no Cry, this is fundamentally how CF is and always has been.

We could try to artificially manipulate this by policing alt characters, instituting cabal caps, and various other means. The consensus among the playerbase has always been that we don't, and that's largely why we haven't.

Ultimately, I think the core of your problem is more your fellow players than a cabal power.

>As I said in my original post, the skill has run its course.
>It no longer applies in our environment. I have a similar
>argument against the side rooms in Imperial Lands and how dumb
>they are that they create deathtraps with centurions. Whoever
>thought of that was really not thinking clearly.

I disagree.

>At least you finally recognized, after years, that having only
>one path into Imperial lands was killing the game for the
>underdog. This is a similar piece.

I'm honestly not sure what reason(s) we gave for that change, but I know I was involved and from my perspective it was more about providing an additional element of strategy and nuance to that sector of cabalwars than it was about "fixing" a part of the game that was "killing" the underdog.

>If there are skills in the game creating this kind of
>environment, you can wonder why the swings of power are so
>strong and continual.

And yet the swings seem to do their thing regardless of what cabals exist, let alone their specific powers. I don't see a correlation where you do.

>As I said, the PK stats don't show anything other than people
>are avoiding them instead of coming into conflict with them.
>This game runs off conflict and the back and forth. Or its
>static and well, lame.

I see a lot of data (some of which you can't) that tells me there is plenty of conflict, battle, bloodshed and death.

>Thank you for a somewhat reasonable response.

You are somewhat welcome.

the more players on in a cabal, the more likely it is skills fail. it dilutes the power of the item

alternatively

get rid of current raid/retrieve status quo. make smaller mobs in a cabal, 1 per cabal power or set of cabal powers. a character can kill 1, some, or all to raid for the item or set of items. outer guardian is weaker in hp, the inner mobs have more unique class skill sets but are weaker than current inner

e.g., as an imperial, i could raid and take the item related to battle berserkers before pressing on, or before killing a berserker, etc.

i'd also suggest items taken to no longer be placed in the raider's cabal but in areas spread throughout thera. for ex., a container or altar in oryx steppes would be great if i was a bedouin battle ranger and took one of the entropy items. or a trap on sea of despair as an invoker after i took outlander's windwalk reaver item.


**this is a cf i would play, more guerrilla warfare and spread out over the landscape of thera. as it is, way too low to be engaging. most cabals wait for people to log off or a lowbie to retrieve an item.

In the past 6 months I've seen Empire and Outlander with similar numbers.

First, you aren't being ganked. It's almost impossible to be ganked in Carrion Fields. There is anti-gang code and PK level limits that prevent this. Ganking is using underhanded/unfair mechanics to kill your target without the chance for retribution or defense.

Gangs. Yes, you could say you're being ganged down. By that whole two people makes you look like a cry baby, but technically it's still a gang. Welcome to a roleplay intensive PK environment. You are at war with your enemies. You aren't having a friendly boxing match. Do not expect your enemies to play honorably or to live up to whatever silly standard of behaviour you expect. Especially when you would no doubt turn around and try to win by any means necessary yourself.

In short: Just because you lose doesn't mean something is broken.

Is this Grord's alternate forum handle?

I have a name you know.

Short answer is: no, that's silly










Long answers is:


Fort cabal numbers and powers you don't like.

There are 21 Brigade Members and 7 Golden Sun members in Fort.
So let's remove those 7 who don't have the power you don't like.
21. Right, that breaks down to...
13 squires 8 maran.
8 players who all have a power you don't like and are not usually online at the same time.

Let's talk about how one becomes a Squire to Maran.
There is a double interview and pk requirement for squires while there is only an interview and much, much quicker induction process for scribes.

For maran, there is a huge hours and pk requirement. You really have to hit both or have just crazy huge numbers in either department of pk/hours to get promoted. If you're a butt kicker(certain large number of pks) and have solid presence in the cabal(many hours accumulated), congrats - you're a Maran.


As you said,
>On top of that, Maran now is even easier to get, to the point it really is no longer that "special thing" which would keep this power out of the hands of most.

Which to me, I find hilarious. Because only imms(or smart people who know how to read a PBF) know my requirement thresholds(it's not easy) and you seem to think it's not special(it is) for the current players that have already hit those thresholds to be undeserving of the powers they earned. Plus, you also said that there's a smaller playerbase, yet all of these players somehow managed to hit this above average pk threshold... Odd!



I only give maran or acolyte to players who have earned them. No one gets a free ride on 'Mr. Bones Wild ride'. Maybe you should try to earn either and see for yourself and maybe figure out how the power works. You might learn something about it!



As for cabal number limits: There is no cap on Fortress Members, nor will there be. The cabalwars numbers do not represent current max number of fortress players on at one time(or even ones with cry). All of the members have NEVER been on at the same time, nor will they be.



And finally, on how Maran USE the power to hit an evil character and instantly cry to come kill that evil character together. If I were you, I would learn where cry doesn't work and if you know they're going to use it against you try to bring a friend if you can't manage to prepare for two at once! Nothing better than making a trap backfire, right? And as always, have an escape plan. Maran are trained to eliminate evil. If you've been killed by more than one maran, ya done goofed. This is not a new concept.



Moral of the story. Get gud.

n/t

As when to expect some Maranation action.

n't

Thought things would be different. Instead I get a meme fulled lame answer that doesn't actually address anything I said. Back to not posting. Thanks for the cake. Solid work being the usual internet persona.

But I agree with you that the response is poor form and a negative impact on the game.

nice work : )

He will delete and roll DL A-P soon so everyone will roll Empire instead.

He will delete and roll DL A-P soon so everyone will roll Empire instead.

The day someone complains about Fortress powers being overpowered.

Seriously, though, the cabal is intended to be one of the easiest,
newbie-friendly cabals to get started with. I mean...the basic rules
amount to *don't kill good align stuff* (which, how did Fortress
become SO godawful bad at that lately?).

Yes, the cabal has 26 people. 18 of them have only minimal cabal
powers. We're talking about as many people with this power as the
Imperial Council, which are generally considered some of the best PK
powers in the game. Also, we're talking about a cabal that has
*consistently* killed themselves with their own cabal powers, and is
notoriously known for being the worst gankers in the game. To the
point that the joke is ganking just gives you more people to kill,
not that you're going to die.

In the current environment, they have a tiny few adept PKers, which
is highly unusual for the cabal, and evil's actually taking the
occasional beating. I'm highly unlikely to be convinced that a cabal
power that's been around for what...10? 15? years needs changing
because - as best I can tell - one, maybe two characters is
actually good.

I did not say the skill is overpowered. You are not reading what I am saying. I asked for a discussion regarding this power in the realm of a lower playerbase and the ultimate need for this power.

It is whatever except when there is an overwhelming amount of one side, this power is a gank machine. In fact the Fortress (Including you Drissa) use it not as a way of saving someone from overwhelming odds, but to create bait traps to sucker people into fighting you one on one. That goes against the spirit of the game I feel, and also continues to punish the underdog.

As for a few adapt Pkers, I am not worried about it. Take it as feedback, but apparently objective thought is lost on this forums when it comes to discussing the merits of the presented item.

8 is a lot bigger than 5 (that 5 is actually 2 at the moment as well let's not forget).

In fact, 8 is exactly half the *total number* of Empire players at the moment.

The fact that the cabal is known for nubs is completely irrelevant and a distraction from what the poster is trying to discuss.

> I'm highly unlikely to be convinced that a cabal
power that's been around for what...10? 15? years needs changing
because - as best I can tell - one, maybe two characters is
actually good.

Case in point: Glikhardiz and Emperor powers. Time to think a little more progressively. The nerf bat swings both ways, doesn't it? Oh you're right, it doesn't.

To the OP - just do what Yanni admitted to during the Bakrmarr reign, play a different character. I know it's not a real solution but it is what it is.

Emperor powers were "nerfed" to make sure Glik actually kept a close to full council if I recall correctly, so that's really a different issue.

8 may be greater than 2 but would you seriously take Maran powers over even Elite Blade powers for PKing against good players?

I think not... Blade of the codex is strictly better than zeal. Almost all mantle and lightforge do can be replaced with preps and having weapons (easy), brand is rarely used in PK due to 2 round lag/having a save attached to it, so I'd probably trade all of those powers for imperial training. I think shove and cents are better than cry and eyes, personally. You?

I'm not going to downplay Empire powers, you really shouldn't do the same to Maran powers. The OP brings up a legitimate argument and I haven't seen a good counter argument yet.

And the Emperor power nerf was to counter the Jormyr position of:
"I'm highly unlikely to be convinced that a cabal
power that's been around for what...10? 15? years needs changing"

But you knew that already.

It’s fair to point out that the Emperor powers were not changed, as would be necessary to compare the two situations without creating a false equivalency. There were restrictions placed on their availability, but the powers themselves were not changed. Maran powers, too, have restrictions upon their availability.

I don’t have a side in the greater conversation, but it seems like the discussion has reached a point where hairs must be split, so I just want to chime in so that we are splitting all the hairs.

>It’s fair to point out that the Emperor powers were not
>changed

Lol that's #### again. Emperor was nerfed A LOT, period.

Let's be prescriptive about this instead of purely critical. How do you think it should work?

Ground rules: nothing changes about how Empire powers and promotion work. Staff retains the right to nerf emperors who refuse to appoint a council.

Open questions:

1. What should be the criteria for promotion to Maran?
2. How many Maran should be allowed to exist at any given time?

Should it matter if some number of existing Maran are dormant and play very infrequently?

Should the cap on # of Maran be "floating" in some way, e.g. based off the # of characters "council or above" (or possibly "elite or above") in Empire?

In terms of Maran promotion, if I had to make up criteria I'd do something like: 10+ ePKs, rank 35+, 7
+ RL days as a squire, 20+ game-hours as a squire, 50+ total game hours. I'd be open to tweaking some of those numbers up or down.

Here are stats on some prominent recent Fortress characters at the point they were promoted to Maran. The only one that sticks out as having been promoted "too quickly" is Hunsodin.

Thaedan: 8 PK, rank 43, 16 days as a squire, 64 hours as a squire, 96 total hours
Hunsodin: 3 PK, rank 37, 3 days as squire, 9 hours as squire, 52 total hours.
Talimor: 11 PK, rank 31, 7 days as squire, 29 hours as squire, 46 total hours.
Koidel: 15 PK, rank 51, 9 days as squire, 92 hours as squire, 106 total hours.
Zurra: 35 PK, rank 33, 43 days as a squire, 63 hours as a squire, 111 total hours.
Lithodora: 23 PK, rank 42, 23 days as a squire, 100 hours as a squire, 134 total hours.

Out of curiosity I checked some Empire characters to see how many RL days it took for them to go from Bloodoath to Elite. Unfortunately it's not possible to pull stuff like hours, etc. from the data in the PBF posts.

Glikhardiz: 7 days
Arbrarn: 23 days
Hetherian: 5 days
Hokrur: 12 days
Vasidi: 10 days
Bakrmarr: 7 days
Kijar: 20 days
Kirohn: 3 days
Glaunm: 15 days
Tchakabum: 23 days
Kotu: 14 days
Faldeikso: 8 days

Maran powers are sweet, no doubt. I do stand by that I said re: Elite Blade powers.

My point re: the emperor nerf is that it was addressing a different issue than "the powers are imbalanced in the current state of the games." As I asked below, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I think there are legit counter arguments directly to OPs point scattered throughout the thread. Namely, getting ganked is part of CF sometimes. The other often full cabals have means to do it well, especially when in raid situations, too (centurions summon trap, chameleon/insect camping). Of course, cry is a dynamic, flexible power, and it sucks to be on the receiving end, especially as a villager. But I don't think it's nearly the funstick ruiner that OP makes it out to be.

A cap on # of maran isn't a crazy thing to suggest... But I think it'd have to be at least 10 to be fair, and that wouldn't do anything to the current situation. Which is about to get worse when I return from my trip abroad. *roar*

>Emperor powers were "nerfed" to make sure Glik actually kept
>a close to full council if I recall correctly, so that's
>really a different issue.

Lol that's ####. Thanks for posting it though, I almost choked on a cookie.

Emperor it's certainly still the best set of powers, or maybe second if you really love tower of iron will, I think?

I was positive he was engaging in Perma activity, and I wrote a note about it and nothing came from it, so I stopped.

But, of course, you knew this. You just decided to take a cheap shot when you saw the opportunity.

do you?

Nt

There is no crack pipe here and you cannot misdirect the purpose of the discussion with this lame attempt. You know better than anyone that you use it as a gank skill as you call on the cabal channel that you are about to fight x and to cry of the phoenix when you say.

It further hurts the underdog, where if they finally get someone alone, 2 to 3 people can be anywhere in the mud at any time (with gate restrictions) to help whoever.

Then on top of that, it is an easy gate back to the Maran too (or the Watcher) when people raid. So you don't even have to worry about that, and the poor underdog again has to deal with the inability to retrieve because the swarm can be there at any time.

Its anti-fun, not overpowered. I don't really care either way. I can handle the little horde. It is more for simply the fun of the game for others.

The first time I used cry to gank, and every single time since I have, or someone else has announced they were about to fight. It's a great power, but it's being used as intended. And Ya it sucks to think you're getting the drop on someone and getting bat;bat;bat;/nova;nova;nova/stab;trip;trip etc... But thats just the way it is.... Some things will never change... That's just the way it isssssssss Ahhhhhhh yeah

> Its a good discussion and you are guilty of using it inappropriately

[citation needed]

>You know
>better than anyone that you use it as a gank skill as you call
>on the cabal channel that you are about to fight x and to cry
>of the phoenix when you say.

That is within the scope of its intended use.

Over all my Fort characters I've only rarely seen anyone use it excessively.

With respect to retrievals, it doesn't seem that much worse than, say, centurions, given the way Imperial Lands are designed. Or the guards outside the Grinning Skull village.