Ok, just an idea.

As it is now there are very little incentives for raiding other cabals. Yes, I know your enemies lose their cabal powers and stuff (which is not always true, in fact, for cabal like Tribunals as far as I know), but considering how much easier it is to re-raid AND the fact that it is not always important to you if your enemy lose cabal powers or not (so this ranger will lose chameleon, what a big deal!), there are little incentives for many people to raid.

So what about giving some small bonuses (not only short duration morale boost) if you are holding cabal items of your foe? May be nothing too spectacular, like minor hit/dam or saves boost? And may be larger bonuses for holding the items of all the cabals you war?

I guess it could give more incentives for people to raid instead of being wusses *shrug*

There is plenty of incentive - if you're cabal has the numbers to defend. If there are a sufficient number of allies and enemies on both parts, it brings a lot to the atmosphere (mostly being war). When the numbers of your enemies is low or the number of your allies is low, there becomes less incentive to raid. For instance, why would a lone hero raid a cabal with no opposition, take their cabal item, potentially risking death against an inner guardian or some outside force, only to be taken back five minutes later by one or more lowbies from that cabal? The opposite however works just fine. Lots of allies with no enemies. It keeps your enemies down and without several, if not all cabal powers.

And for the record, Tribunal does lose several of their abilities. Deputize, shackles, the pillars. They just don't lose their main abilities like vigilance or guardcall. Vindicator's on the other hand DO lose Amost of their abilities, to include guardcall. The only one they keep is vigilance.

Any opportunity I get to take an enemy cabal's item, I do it. The benefits are there. Especially if you can hold onto their item.

As far as retrieval goes, it isn't always easy. If a cabal has enough upperhand to take your cabal item in the first place, there's likely to be several defenders. That doesn't sound easy to me. Sure, if no one is around to defend, then the item is easy to take back. But that isn't the point. The point is to strike up PVP.

I think needs some revision.

As it currently stands, one can only raid the other if they have a serious advantage in numbers. Tribunal can pretty much completely halt small groups by having a lvl 25 magistrate hanging about manacling. The way the spire is built (with the two rooms that you often flee into from the Executioner) mean that guards+manacles+sequester are a death-trap anyone can throw in with good timing. Guards loot, and it all goes into the pit. Plus you pick up a warrant and become a big 'hit me' target for future manacle madness and guard annoyance whether you succeed or not.

And Outlanders won't see a raid unless the Tribunal are either certain there is NO ONE to oppose them - or have 3-4+ characters on them. Even then the spirit is a damn nasty opponent. Like the Tribunal, people die raiding that thing even with no opponents present. Lowbies can then become loot happy and stuff the hollow.

With CF's current players, that pretty much means very little raiding between the two. And the raiding that goes on is pretty much a land-slide from one side or the other. I think the whole raiding dynamic between the two while interesting is pretty poor for cabal wars. The whole Battle/Scion/Fortress/Empire thing is great, because one decked person can raid solo. Or a good two-three man team, can take on another two and win in a raid. Even raiding Battle, all you need is a three man team willing to risk mixing it up with battle members.

With Tribunal, this is near impossible. Against Outlanders, you're lucky if you know how many are around. Let alone trying to get any back-and-forth going with the raiding.

In my opinion, raiding with either is the last thing on your mind. You're mostly concerned with either camping in your city - or camping in the wilds. I'd take the former any day for long RP hours and Outlanders mostly seem to be pk monkeys with camo.
(Disclaimer: This is in no way an insult to any past, present or future outlanders that are/were in fact awesome. There's a lot of you in that group. It's mostly a comment on the evil ones which have the nasty 'me vs world' scenario and the neutrals who are jealous of it)

Enjoy.

Yhorian.

I've seen a fair number of Outlanders raid the Tribunal solo, and come out with the item nearly unscathed. Rangers at that. I've taken the spirit solo myself. The key is knowing how to do it. As it is, it isn't impossible, just *extremely* difficult. You have to know the know how's in either situation. There are a lot of downsides to the war between Outlander and Tribunal, as you mentioned.

With the low numbers, I think there should be some sort of revision of the inner cabal guardians. Ideally, you don't ever want to raid Outlander or Tribunal alone. They are extremely stout themselves. Add into the mix an actual player defending too, and it makes it very dangerous.

Most of the other cabal wars seem to be going decently. Except the GI-normous hit the Empire took losing all its people.

>I think needs some revision.
>
>As it currently stands, one can only raid the other if they
>have a serious advantage in numbers. Tribunal can pretty much
>completely halt small groups by having a lvl 25 magistrate
>hanging about manacling. The way the spire is built (with the
>two rooms that you often flee into from the Executioner) mean
>that guards+manacles+sequester are a death-trap anyone can
>throw in with good timing. Guards loot, and it all goes into
>the pit. Plus you pick up a warrant and become a big 'hit me'
>target for future manacle madness and guard annoyance whether
>you succeed or not.

Spire is like a hornet's nest, full of angry guards defending their home. With sequester and the T at the inner, getting out can be real concern for some(though my Outlanders Frearrir and Theannian didn't generally have huge problems with this). The Tribunal's problem with defense tends to be that it is fairly toothless against the hit and run-tactic of non-warranted retrievers(unless they can heal the outer or the Outlander can be lagged well). Raiding undefended Spire isn't hard, though.

>And Outlanders won't see a raid unless the Tribunal are either
>certain there is NO ONE to oppose them - or have 3-4+
>characters on them. Even then the spirit is a damn nasty
>opponent. Like the Tribunal, people die raiding that thing
>even with no opponents present. Lowbies can then become loot
>happy and stuff the hollow.

With Outlanders, one goodie hero healer can stop lowbie/midbie(such as 3 30-range midbies retrieving or one out of range 46 warrior retrieving) retrieval effectively(is this so with other cabals too? I wonder how big factor bioempathy is there.). It generally helps when the Tribunals are already a nervous wreck when they come retrieving. People say that spirit is nasty, but I had no problems with soloing it as Agantas(cobra/vulture does well against spirit, being immune to thornheart/insects damage and having additional means of escape). Outlanders are slow to come to defend(exept healers who can do something like co gate white hare), which I used to my advantage as Agantas(if they had scales, quickly fly to refuge and a try to retrieve).

>With CF's current players, that pretty much means very little
>raiding between the two.

Both sides have strong home turf advantage, amplified by Outlander often being filled with druids and rangers.

This is pretty accurate. Since the inner Tribunal got beefed up very slightly, its just a little harder to raid solo, but I can remember some Outlanders I played who raided solo pre-40. Conversely, I can't think of any Tribunals pre-40 that could do that.

The Outlander outer is always really hard to balance because if it's at a fair toughness for dealing with Tribunal, it gets rolled as soon as the Emperor shows up. If it presents a challenge for an Empire group to raid, it pretty much kicks (most) Tribunal in the groin.