Mon Sep 21 20:40:05 2015

At 5 o'clock PM, Day of the Sun, 13th of the Month of Winter
on the Theran calendar Nuhnug perished, never to return.

Orcs can only get to 50, unless they take the Chieftain slot. This means to get your hero edge bonus, you need to take out the current Chieftain.

This now leaves you in a position of squelching them, so you don't lose the Throne, or leaving them out there as a threat. If you leave them out there as a threat, and they retake the throne, odds are you're going to wind up getting squelched as soon as they take it back.

This is frankly a sucky situation for everyone involved. I had more than enough support to take out Worthag, but it would have involved outside help. If I had taken the throne, I would have had to almost immediately squelch him, kicking him out of the clan, removing his Adaptations and neutering him, or risk his deciding to kill me and take it back, after which he would almost certainly have squelched me, which I also wasn't about to allow.

Someone's character shouldn't have to be ruined, just so orcs can get the hero edge point bonus, considering how many edges are vital for orcs. I wasn't about to squelch him like a cock, and had no intention of doing something to get myself squelched by him in retribution. Either squelch should be removed (I disagree with this) or orcs should get their bonus edge points at 50 not 51.

I didn't even know about squelch, but permanently stripping adaptations as punishment seems crazy out of whack.

You have a pretty darn big advantage as sitting chief.

It's that you run the risk that if you don't squelch, and they retake the throne THEY will squelch YOU for having taken the throne once already, just to make sure they don't lose it again by making it impossible for you to take it again. Losing the throne I wouldn't mind, but getting squelched for having taken it in the first place would suck.

I've never felt the way you feel about hero or squelch, but I can understand where you are coming from. Is it the loss of % that you are worried about (long term) since retaking with help is still possible, even if you don't have an adapt, or something else?

I'm genuinely just curious as a semi-perpetual orc player myself who would hate to see 100% masochism (for example) go to zero. Or Hack, or dirt fighting, or... *gasp* IMPROVED FLEE!

Edit: For clarity, I like the idea behind squelch, but I'm iffy on the implementation, as I've found it hard to use (ruining someone else's char is unfun) so I'm trying to put my finger on the problem.

It's not hanging onto the throne I'm concerned with, it's the skill loss. If I knew the other dude wouldn't squelch me if we had a back and forth, I'd LOVE that. But I have seen orcs take chief and immediately squelch the old chief to prevent competition, and I wasn't going to risk it with an orc who could take me later doing so, just to get my final edge points. So I got to sit forever at 50 without my final points.

Worthags powers would work much better against me than mine would have on him, since Mun-dung-doo-doo powers are much better suited to fighting goodies. I could have taken the throne, but probably not held it for long. I didn't want to risk the squelch in retaliation, so I just never got those edge points.

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It's not hanging onto the throne I'm concerned with, it's the skill loss. If I knew the other dude wouldn't squelch me if we had a back and forth, I'd LOVE that. But I have seen orcs take chief and immediately squelch the old chief to prevent competition, and I wasn't going to risk it with an orc who could take me later doing so, just to get my final edge points. So I got to sit forever at 50 without my final points.

Worthags powers would work much better against me than mine would have on him, since Mun-dung-doo-doo powers are much better suited to fighting goodies. I could have taken the throne, but probably not held it for long. I didn't want to risk the squelch in retaliation, so I just never got those edge points.

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It's like saying "if you don't full loot your enemy THEY will full loot you when they kill you."

Full loot you can bounce back from in a short time. A hero level orc who gets squelched is just done, and nothing (possibly short of being a punching bag for a long long time, trying to regain your adapts via immtervention) is bringing those skills back. Even if you got them back(eventually), odds are they would all be at 75% again. Blergh.

I wasn't about to flip a coin with my character to get my final edge points, and I think orcs have it rough enough without this being the expectation. If I wanted the throne, I had to wait till I was strong enough to make sure I could hold it, which probably meant waiting till Worthag dies for good.

I love Worthag and his player, and I doubt he'd be classless enough to pull the squelch out unless I did something especially ####ish, but I don't doubt it enough to risk my entire character over it. I'm not comfortable putting myself in a position where someone else has that kind of potential for long-term ####ing over of my character.

Full loot you can bounce back from in a short time. A hero level orc who gets squelched is just done, and nothing (possibly short of being a punching bag for a long long time, trying to regain your adapts via immtervention) is bringing those skills back. Even if you got them back(eventually), odds are they would all be at 75% again. Blergh.

I wasn't about to flip a coin with my character to get my final edge points, and I think orcs have it rough enough without this being the expectation. If I wanted the throne, I had to wait till I was strong enough to make sure I could hold it, which probably meant waiting till Worthag dies for good.

I love Worthag and his player, and I doubt he'd be classless enough to pull the squelch out unless I did something especially ####ish, but I don't doubt it enough to risk my entire character over it. I'm not comfortable putting myself in a position where someone else has that kind of potential for long-term ####ing over of my character.

Are we seriously having the discussion about removing squelching because of EDGE POINTS??? Like...honestly. I have never, once, in any of my 6 or 8 orcs have ever thought of challenging the Chieftain because of EDGE POINTS. Pretty certain that every orc I've ever had has plotted it so he can *be Chieftain* and get that awesome Horde, leadercon, etc. I truly think you're playing the game wrong if you just let a character auto because of edge points.

However, that SAID...I've definitely been on both sides of the squelching game, and can't say I enjoyed it, either. I've got a few ideas that I'll try pitching towards some people as to their feasibility. No promises, though.

And the edge point thing isn't why I autoed, all of my chars autoed at the same time because I couldn't play. I was biding my time to take the throne, as any orc worth his salt should. I just said I think it sucks that to get your edge points at hero you need to become Chieftain, that was my point.

IMO, squelching probably is too powerful / too impactful. It seems weird, from a thematic standpoint, that the chieftain would be able to magically rip knowledge out of the orc's brain - that guy trained to be a Mamlauk or whatever, is he really going to refuse to whomp because some chieftain (that he might hate) told him to?

Well, whatever. That's just fluff, so you could argue either way - maybe adaptations are some special gift, powers that flow directly from the chief. Let's talk mechanically instead: mechanically, I can't really see a reason for it, and like Vlad was saying, the chief is incentivized to screw over any character that is a threat.

I'm probably not saying anything you don't agree with, so I'll get right into my ideas (maybe they're in line with some of the ones you've had)

1) Squelching doesn't remove powers, but makes the orc village hostile to you and you use clanchat. This makes a lot more thematic sense to me - you're basically being booted from the village. A sort of more-temporary orcish version of Anathema, if you will. This is WAY cooler to me if the booted orc comes back and beats the tar out of the chief to prove his dominance and become the new chief, he has to fight his way through opposition. Neat image.
2) Some softer version of the above, if that seems too harsh. Maybe the merchants of the orc village refuse to do business with you, etc. Maybe your 'enslave' ability gets temporarily nerfed a little - thematically speaking I could see orcs npcs, for instance, being less likely to serve you if you have developed a reputation where the clan doesn't have your back.
3) Remove squelching entirely? Probably not your ideal solution, but it doesn't seem particularly necessary.

Otherwise you have zero way as Chief to enforce your will on lower level orcs. You would have level 16 orcs who are out of range telling the Chief to go #### in his hat, with no recourse. Squelch is important. I just think orc hero edge points need to be moved to 50, which neatly and completely resolves my issue with it entirely. My only problem was the absolute necessity of becoming Chief to get those points, when there are so many make or break edges for a hero level orc to compete in PK.

Otherwise you have zero way as Chief to enforce your will on lower level orcs. You would have level 16 orcs who are out of range telling the Chief to go #### in his hat, with no recourse. Squelch is important. I just think orc hero edge points need to be moved to 50, which neatly and completely resolves my issue with it entirely. My only problem was the absolute necessity of becoming Chief to get those points, when there are so many make or break edges for a hero level orc to compete in PK.

then why do you guys keep nerfing them?
Why can't we have nice things?

I want to play another bard with 31 edges. I don't want to play a schmuck with only 10. They are not game-changing, you all said it many times, so LET ME ####ING HAVE THEM!

It would be the wand system, closely followed by edge points. The former could be fixed by making the locations less ridiculous (imo, they should all be soloable with little risk to a hero - risking mob deaths to get your wands is frankly ridiculous, since wands are simply not optional in high level PK against people who aren't total newbs).

The edge solution would be a little more complicated and probably require removing some stuff entirely. There are so many things wrong with it. Basically it feels like it's trying to do a variety of things that are at odds with each other. Are edge points supposed to be a reward for being a well-balanced character that contributes to CF? If so, why is 90% of it a huge grind?

I've seen Ralt post here and there about this, specifically in regard to edge points, that you should try not to think about it that much and instead focus on your character's RP, etc. While I genuinely think this is pretty cool advice, it doesn't change the fact that edges really can make or break a character (moreso for some classes than others.) So if I'm focusing on my RP, and Bob the PK Man is focusing on grinding out edge points pre-30, he gets an often tremendous edge (hue) in PK over me.

It's certainly possible to do both (and that's what I end up doing on my characters) but it takes a LOT of window out of my sails when, for instance, I realize at 29 that I have to grind out a bunch of obs and explore exp or get screwed out of a ton of edge points that will help to make my character viable in PK. The whole 5-10-15 PKs at various level tiers thing is sort of in the same boat - whoever put that in had their heart in the right place ("motivate people to play at every level") but the side effect is that it motivates some people to get PKs in "unsportsmanlike" ways (multikilling, taking kills that might be slightly outside of your RP, etc.) I realize the bonuses at 10 and 15 kills per tier are (supposedly) small, but honestly I'd probably just give them all at 5 kills if I was in charge - it makes more sense, especially with CF's current playerbase numbers.

In general, I find that rewards you can't "go back and get later" are a bad idea in games. It encourages people to play differently than they otherwise would, which ultimately doesn't really make the game more fun or interesting for anyone, but makes it less fun for people who have different playstyles. The PK thing in particular rewards classes that hit their swing early (assassins, etc) and heavily penalizes classes that really can't reasonably participate in PK til the midranks or beyond (shapeshifters, etc). I know someone is going to pipe up and be like HUR DUR BUT ANON THAT'S NOT TRUE I PLAYED SUCH AND SUCH CLASS AND GOT SO MANY KILLS PRE-30 - listen, I'm aware there are exceptions, but I'm talking about a person of average skill. A person of average skill on almost any mage isn't going to successfully participate in PK until they are in their mid 20s, minimum. And if they do, it's still going to be worlds apart from what an assassin or warrior can do at those ranks.

So: is it intentional that these classes get penalized in edge points? If not, consider that this is an unwanted (or at least unexpected) side effect of giving edge points for PKs at various level tiers. And no, I don't think mages really have any sort of one-up on melee classes in the late game that balances this - and even if they did, I think that would be indicative of poor game balance.

There's also the fact that some edges are hilariously useless, and some are hilariously powerful to the extent that they are always taken. Immortals recently upped the ante and made some of the always-taken ones more expensive, but is that really the solution? "Hey, too many people have this cool thing - let me double down on how grindy the edge point system is and make it harder to get this cool thing." I posit that this is not really the ideal solution. I remember some discussion, when edge points first came around, that these sorts of things would simply be folded into the class when discovered. What happened to that idea?

Finally, the fact that some edges are "immlocked" is ridiculous and should be removed. I have a burning hatred for basically any powerful PK reward that is reliant on getting lucky with immteraction, and this falls in that category. By its nature it cannot be fair, because on a long enough timeline sycophants will make sure to game the system, get consistently overrewarded, and so on while the vast majority of players see almsot no imm exp ever. I mean, for the love of god, according to the wiki there are edges that are gated at TWO THOUSAND imm exp. When's the last time you got that much on one of your characters? I don't think I've ever gotten even half that much on a single character, and I like to think I'm an above average RPer. I liked CF back when, if you were a non-empowerment class, you could basically pretend the imms don't exist and not suffer much for it. Now you are increasingly likely to face a legitimate PK power gap if you play this way. They even doubled down on this by making it so role exp doesn't count as imm exp! Why does literally every recent change to the edge system seem to make it MORE ####ty and grindy? Where does this road logically lead?

Basically: edge points need work.

EDIT: This post is pretty meandering. Let me spell out my ideal solution right here: get rid of special requirements for edge points altogether. Make edge points like thief points: you get a certain amount per level. Simple, clean, effective, fair. My character shouldn't have a PK edge on yours just because I know which rooms count as explore points and you don't.

Edges are either extra power, versatility, or convenience, and MOST edges are the latter. The "extra power" edges are going to be taken anyway, so what has been accomplished is taking away the convenience and taking away versatility.

So my characters now have less options and are less convenient to play (more downtime, more grind, more juggling preps).

"Edges are either extra power, versatility, or convenience, and MOST edges are the latter."

There are classes where a way bigger portion of them then average are 'extra power.' There are classes where not choosing certain edges makes you clinically insane unless you just don't care about having PK power. I don't know anything about bard edges because I've never played one to hero, but I'm willing to bet that it might not be one of the classes I'm describing.

In my perfect world, overpowered edges (certain muter edges come to mind) wouldn't exist, no-brainer edges which aren't overpowered would be simply rolled into the classes, and convenience/versatility edges would be the only kinds of edges that exist as edges.