Do you think this would influence Tribunal raiding Outlander more or not?

Everything is the same about chameleon but the change would be you don't disappear from the who lists (specifically who pk). You wouldn't show up on where, visible in the room, or anything, but your presence would be known while hidden.

n/t

In the last 2.5 years, The Outlander item has been taken ~1400 times, the Tribunal item taken ~1300 time.

As a comparison the Empire item has been taken ~3800 times, while the Fortress item has been taken ~600 times. The Battle item has been taken ~1000 times, and the Nexus item ~400 times.

The Outlander/Tribunal war is one of the most evenly balanced of the wars. I don't think this needs to be fixed.

I (we) should focus suggestions on Fortress and Nexus? No problem at all.

Thanks for the numbers, they're interesting.

>In the last 2.5 years, The Outlander item has been taken
>~1400 times, the Tribunal item taken ~1300 time.
>
>As a comparison the Empire item has been taken ~3800 times,
>while the Fortress item has been taken ~600 times. The Battle
>item has been taken ~1000 times, and the Nexus item ~400
>times.

Let's see:

Empire item is being taken by Scion, Battle, Fortress, Outlander

Battle item is being taken by Nexus, Scion, Empire

Fortress item is being taken by Empire, Scion

Nexus item is being taken by Battle. Nexus was also gone for a while.

Outlander item is being taken by Empire, Tribunal and Scion

Tribunal item is being taken by Outlander

Scion item is being taken by Empire, Battle, Fortress and Outlander

Herald polka-dotted underpants are not being taken by other cabals.

How does Scion sit in this figure? Care to shed light on who took whose item so we can see better how the balance fits out? I'd like to see a list on who's been taking who's item and how many times instead of just how many time item has been lost. That would be a much more interesting table.

in the last 2.5 years, ragers have been in power a few times.

And every time ragers are in power, it's some of the same players in power, and they always.....always....declare war on and start taking the Spire's item.

Rager powers are the only powers that compare to a Tribunal's on the Tribunal's home turf. In fact, even with a weakened Veil, they exceed them currently.

(Some imms would argue this means either more tonedowns for ragers with a thin veil in the grand scheme of things or a tweak up for tribunal powers for actual combat, but we'll gloss over that for now.)

Tribunals not only have mages as the majority of most effective Tribunal (most criminals apprehended) but protect mages in the cities.

Tribunals have the powers best suited to hamper a Rager from killing another mage, barring actual class abilities.

Rager defenders, Rager bards, and ragers in the PK of the Vindicator, are actually in the best position to be able to fend off the disadvantages of the WANTED flag better than Outlanders in a 1v1 or group versus group fight. In fact in a group versus group fight, I feel sorry for the Tribunal because their normally uber special guards and permahasted lieutenants get whomped like swiss cheese under a berserker or well-geared warrior. Rescue doesn't save from a bard.

There is no way to break a crime and prevent the WANTED flag from coming on your head other than no Tribunal being logged in, period. Once it's there, it's the most annoying #### in existence. The only way to prevent the WANTED flag from ever occuring is to drop the number of Tribunals.

Therefore Village has IC and OOC justifications for ripping Tribunal to shreds. OOC short story: no other cabal can do it with any reasonable speed, or efficiently fight against the disadvantages of the WANTED flag. IC: Tribs protect mages and hunt down the Village brotherhood, meddling in their war (outside of cabal raids) more than any other two cabals combined.

Finally, crap Tribunals pretty much deserve a Rager war in their faces more than crap members of other cabals just based on their ability to ruin a player's day IMHO, especially if you're actually trying to kill the Tribunal in question and he's parking it on duty in a guild. War with any cabal but Outlander forces them to move around a little.

Edit: I should finish my sentences before posting.

I think you can make an argument that's no less good for Battle to fight any cabal.

Not to say that Battle and Tribunal should never fight (I love rampaging wanted Battle as much as anyone), but easily 90% of the historical B-T wars have been started for reasons that were either completely #### or should demand that Battle war on everyone.

I'd have gotten the royal smack down as Iborenn, I would have gladly declared war on the world, trust me! Well.. maybe not outlanders since my best buddy was oddly a woodie bard =/

Battle generally does not have to *think* to attack a Tribunal on home turf and land a kill or raid their cabal or outlast them in a war of attrition.

Neither does a charged up AP.

Other than those two things, every other cabal/character requires some thought to attack Tribunal. They have to deal with manacles, or think about how to separate them from special guards, or flush a Tribunal with Hide out to permalag them, etc.

Battle doesn't have to think about any of these things. Their damage reduction, and on occasion bandages, bloodthirst, deathblow, and the bard class itself with resist layered on top of resisting, is letting them go '#### you, I'm taking your item whether you #### around with your guards and manacles or not.'

Every other cabal including Outlander is hampered by those abilities. Battle, if they choose to go to the route of the non-dex heavy artillery tank, is not.

That's why it's fun to go fight Tribunal, because you know as any other character if you want to kill a Tribunal, it's going to be a huge ####ing headache both in the killing of the Tribunal and the consequences afterward. Battle chars just laugh until they meet a nice 8 on 1 gang prompted by duo'd muters, air shifters and healers gating to find them.

>>In the last 2.5 years, The Outlander item has been taken
>>~1400 times, the Tribunal item taken ~1300 time.
>>
>>As a comparison the Empire item has been taken ~3800 times,
>>while the Fortress item has been taken ~600 times. The
>Battle
>>item has been taken ~1000 times, and the Nexus item ~400
>>times.
>
>How does Scion sit in this figure?

Scion item has bene taken ~1000 times

>Care to shed light on who
>took whose item so we can see better how the balance fits out?

Not data we've really been tracking and I don't want to dig through the logs to find out :P

>I'd like to see a list on who's been taking who's item and how
>many times instead of just how many time item has been lost.
>That would be a much more interesting table.

I'm working on something like that for the cabalwars command, to track the weekly "who is taking what".

One small improvement to this would be two tracked figures for influence and the who's taking what. One would be the weekly figure and one would be an all time figure(helpfile would state when the tracking has started). Over time, the all time statistics would show the difference between the "average" situation and the current one.

For cabal items taken(who's taken what list), the total figure would #number of that taken overall(or a weekly average of all weeks)

For numbers and influence, it would be the influence over all time(in other words total infuence = (previous total influence*n+total ifluence)/(n+1), where n is the number of previous weeks measured into the previous total influence).

Shouldn't be hard to implement and it would give people some figure they can compare the stats given by cabalwars and would the command some context for its figures.

>One small improvement to this would be two tracked figures
>for influence and the who's taking what. One would be the
>weekly figure and one would be an all time figure(helpfile
>would state when the tracking has started). Over time, the all
>time statistics would show the difference between the
>"average" situation and the current one.

The "all time" is tracked, but is immortal data only. The weekly resets available to mortals is in my opinion ideal, so that it doesn't really sway the bandwagon folks. Honestly...with the access to the data (I provided for the last 2.5 years), it's not really that interesting at all. The weekly dynamic is far more interesting. The total data rarely moves unless one side is in power for an extended period of time.

Battle did that a whole load.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a good few Outlander raids have been purportrated by the Emperor and co.

Tribunal and Outlander tend not to fight if someone else is on, but will jump straight in if there's no defenders.

I still think Nexus/Battle is headed toward the same as Tribunal/Outlander. One of the better balanced fights I enjoy is Fortress/Scion. Both sides have good advantages in enemy territory - but not as good a one as their enemy. How it should be.

Tribunals walk over to Outlander and not only lose advantages, but some classes even move into 'disadvantage' territory. Like thieves. Same with rangers/druids raiding Tribunal. Yuck.

Yhorian

Yeah but that data is largely meaningless. If I'm around to retrieve seven times, I'll have '8 losses', whereas if I'm never even able to retrieve it at all, I'll have '1 loss'. Likewise it doesn't say for how long the item is missing or who took it.

While I think its better than nothing probably, it seems like in a statistics sort of way its not really worth much.

I don't think this makes sense at all. Yes it is powerful, but it's power is completely nullified if they move. As Nep said, I'm more worried about the Outties that have Camo, not chameleon.

On a side note, the power is not the same as hide, camo, duo, etc because as soon as you move, you can be seen on who, where, etc, making it sufficiently "nerfed" in my opinion.

>Do you think this would influence Tribunal raiding Outlander
>more or not?
>
>Everything is the same about chameleon but the change would be
>you don't disappear from the who lists (specifically who pk).
>You wouldn't show up on where, visible in the room, or
>anything, but your presence would be known while hidden.

Why would this make sense to change? You're hidden in the forest...but people know you're out there. That's a BIG part of the power.

Step back and think about it from more than just chameleon, which is likely how a change like this would be made. Does it make sense to be able to find folks on the who list if they are hidden, invis, improved invis, duo, camo'd, etc?

The Outlanders I'd be most afraid to raid against most likely have treeform or camouflage to use instead if they needed to.

So should chameleon be on par with those powers, specifically camouflage? I'd rather see it as a weaker version, hence suggesting a change.

You have it backwards. That isn't an "Exactly" statement, that should be an, "Oh, I see your point." statement.

I know exactly what Nepenthe meant and I responded precisely how I wanted.

I could see that... if we gave all Outlanders an additional seriously good PK power to compensate.

Personally, I don't think it's necessary. Druids and rangers remain king of the jungle even though, on paper, the cabal's powers don't play to them as much. I'm happy with the status quo in this case.

Don't stick to the status quo... no no no noooooo... follow your dream and goooo....gooooo...gooooo-ohhh.... gotta live, gotta grow, oh no...

Sorry... I'm currently doing a production of High School Musical in seattle and... yeah....

EXB

Cheers

.

In my opinion, ignite was one of the best new skills added. Vandalize can really be awesome too sometimes. Subvert guard can really be nice.

I guess the only improvement I could suggest would be to have beast call beasts assist you when you're fighting. However, I think that would make them a bit overpowered, too much like Scion, and not really make any sense. Hmm.. maybe shorten the timer on failed subvert guard?

>In my opinion, ignite was one of the best new skills added.
>Vandalize can really be awesome too sometimes. Subvert guard
>can really be nice.
>
>I guess the only improvement I could suggest would be to have
>beast call beasts assist you when you're fighting. However, I
>think that would make them a bit overpowered, too much like
>Scion, and not really make any sense. Hmm.. maybe shorten the
>timer on failed subvert guard?

How about swapping the timers for failure and success. Never did make sense to me that a failure meant you couldn't subvert for longer than a success did. Also, make it in combat possible. Please?

Does make much sense to me. "I am hitting you with my sword and fighting the Tribual as well, but I'm going to try and convince you to join my cause." Maybe in the movies that could happen...

If it doesnt exist already..

Trials of subversion: Having become adept at the art of subverting guards to their caller (insert good name) a dark outlander can not only become more forceful (higher sucess rate AND the chance to subvert both guards (1/30 chance) but also gain a small decrease in the time required to give the subversion their full attention

Maybe make it so that if an Outlander passes through a city, or anywhere a guard visibily sees them, it's 'known' to be on the look out and relays that to the other cities that dislike Outlander (and Tribunal). So for 48 gametime hours the Outlander can be chameleoned but it is known that they're around via the who lists.

You can justify it however you see fit. I just want to facilitate more raiding, not less, and it's pretty apparent that for a lot of the game Outlander enemies are unlikely to raid or retrieve because they're wimpy. I just recently finished playing an Outlander, at that, and have had a few Sylvans in the past. I'm not posting this as Habitual Imperial or anything.

It makes no sense. Typically speaking, if you see an outlander who is vis for a moment, your common sense is going to make you think they are still there. You don't need to nerf something to compensate for common sense.

Outlanders raid for the scales way more than Sylvan ever did. And the fight has never ended either. Outlanders are supposed to be the power in the woods and Tribunal is supposed to be the power in the cities. Both are supposed to warrant caution when raiding the other.

In no way does this 'nerf' chameleon. Surely you're not that daft.

The point here isn't about Outlander raiding way more than Sylvan did. It involves caution, sure, but the subject is something more along the lines of promoting raids and retrievals more, not from Outlander's perspective but from the other cabals'. Remember, more was the keyword. More. Not less. More.

And heck, I'd encourage limiting Tribunal's powers when they don't have the Scales, as well. Give them a reason to go and retrieve, too.

Outlander vs. Empire is pretty good, but Outlander vs. Tribunal is just a few rounds of full loots and boring stand-stills waiting to happen.

>In no way does this 'nerf' chameleon. Surely you're not that
>daft.

I stopped reading here...because surely you're not that daft to think this doesn't nerf chameleon.

You're acting like an ass now.

What you are asking for would make raids suck. Why? Well, Tribunal could see with far more accuracy the people who are there to defend, and plot accordingly, whereas now there is always a potential risk because you just don't know who is waiting to ambush you.

Ever seen The Last of the Mohicans? When the indians ambushed and slaughtered the retreating British forces, do you think the Brits had a list of who was going to be raiding them? No. You just don't know. That is the point.

>In no way does this 'nerf' chameleon. Surely you're not that
>daft.

If you honestly believe this, you're an idiot and I'm never taking any of your posts on game balance seriously again.

I don't think you do, though. I give you more credit than that.

be at an impasse. ;) Thanks for the responses.

Justiciar can see camou/chameleon while inside the city limits, I believe. Imperial shadows and the Emperor can see Outlanders in the same room and as someone on where. That negates the power, somewhat. That's huge, considering you can't negate the power of manacles, wanted, piercing gaze, bloody shackles, imperial training, etc.

Pretty soon, some more Imperials and Tribunals will rise to hero and offset the Outlander numbers. Will they be wimpy then? Look at Vargblot, Taqutin, Odrirg, Cabdru, Khargulin, or Hunsobo who would all raid Outlander solo without knowing how many Outlanders were on at the time.

Playing one Outlander is not indicative of how things are at any time. It is one of the most difficult cabals to play because:

A) It is so vastly complex that no Outlander, including the Imms who've played mortals, has every figured out all of the secrets
B) It is basically a solo cabal, unlike Fort or Empire who thrive in the cities, you're alone in the woods most of the time. Not to mention the big restrictions on grouping (The exclusion of three cabals, five classes, and five races).
C) Being a cabal comprised of classes that are at optimum performance in the wilds, they lose a lot of their power by coming out to raid.

Numbers will dwindle, because they always do, and Outlander will start getting raided constantly, again. Changing one of their main powers so that cabals like Tribunal can decide whether or not they want to raid is a bad idea.

You - are not looney. And while I disagree on some aspects, thanks for the response. I already -know- everything you mentioned, however, and still feel that more incentives should be in place to encourage raiding and more disincentives should exist to not retrieve (namely for Tribunal).

Alas.

>A) It is so vastly complex that no Outlander, including the
>Imms who've played mortals, has every figured out all of the
>secrets

True, and not for lack of trying, either.

I'll get it one of these days! *fistshake*

I'm really hoping someone someday will get it. There have been a couple of closies, but no one has completed it yet (according to PBFs, I suppose).

I think I equate this to Tony Hawk doing a 900. Once he did it, everyone else could too.

I like the current system.

The only reason Outlander is being raided constantly right now is because they have the numbers at the moment.

When they don't, they get raided by Scion, Empire, Tribunal, orcs, and occasioally Nexus regardless if they think someone is on at the moment.

What I also don't like about this is that Tribunal can then immediately warrant any known Outlander any time they feel. Chameleon sometimes prevents this, which is a good counter to the current warrant system.

It adds value to being a ranger in outlander number one.

It does not diminish the concealment abilities truly just the who ones. If you want to be crafty make it like tears that you got a chance to spot them on who but still none in the area. I mean yeah your online but there are tons and tons of wilderness areas and nobody can tell if your sitting in the tree or in the past.

It would help the cabal dynamics involving outlander become more interesting I think. They might look bad but you put 2 competant players in the cabal at hero and people just leave the tree alone cause of the uncertainty.