<2> I could never be in nexus
<2> after all the discussions in the world
<2> I still can't ####ing understand their stance
<2> I settled for "happy ganging"
<1> Nexus could be great.
<1> But has ####ty execution.
<1> Including the stupid balance ####.
<1> Balance being based on current players.
<1> Is stupid.
<2> what gets me
<2> is when I can't retrieve
<2> because the balance is in my favor
<2> WTF?
<1> Balance it on current characters logged on.
<1> That is ####.
<2> so there's like 5 nexus circle jerking the outer
<2> of my enemy
<2> waiting for me to show up
<1> You should be able to retrieve regardless.
<2> it sounds dumb for nexus to prevent retrieval
<2> isn't retrieval an act of balance?
<3> the cabal is totally ####ed Sam, don't try to understand it
<1> More importantly restoring your ability to maintain it.
<1> Nexus needs to drop the Balance #### and go pure magic.
<1> And restore the cabal war with Outlander like Sylvan had.
<3> they don't even see that, a true nexan sees a reason for what the village does
<4> yeah
<4> nexus is jsut dumb
<3> I mean it's cool the imms went with a magey cabal, but this attempt failed miserably

Add this discussion to replies on deletions about Nexus being extremely boring and you have a Cabal screaming for a revamp of some sort.

I have no idea what could be done but something should be as is obvious.

Nexus has two major disadvantages
1) Lack of any major solo powers (vanguard is nice, but also mirrors the effects of preps, instead of giving unique abilities). Being a bonded pair is great if you have two skilled players pitched against 3+ enemies. In most other cases, I would prefer forfeiting bond to skip the limitations.

2) Missing out on group PvE action. Sure, if you have the balls to go through hell solo (like Daevryn) it's not really necessary. Most players however, suffer of SSC (small sack complex), and thus are unable to single-handedly solo every mob in the game.

So, the inherent dilemma is, you give the solo lone-wolf pk kind of players little use of the power set, and you also discourage players who enjoy exploring big areas. So all you have left are players who like to jack off to their eq while preaching their elite nexus roleplay.

I echo the solution proposed by several others. Give nexus one or two unique solo abilities fitted for pk, and I will play another one, and enjoy doing it.

P.S. I enjoyed Eqithan because I constantly had enemies to fight, and I liked his take on balance. But I couldn't help constantly thinking how much buffer my warrior would've been as maran stormie or imperial fire giant, due to cabal powers and cloud giants being vuln to roughly 80% of damage types available.

Great powers. Not lethal like scion, but really really nice.

Vanguard was fantastic. This is the kind of power I love. A lot. In fact, a hell of a lot!

I think I bonded maybe 5 times in my character's life. Would have been nice to bond more, but vanguard was enough imho.

I still loved the cabal. I didn't gank, and my enemies didn't gank me. Sure, some villagers completely wiped the floor with me (price of being an animist ranger against people with entwine and the legacy one with shadows), but they were always cool about it and it didn't ruin my experience at all.

Did I have issues with people being my enemy because I attacked them when the balance was against them? Not really, because I was honest with them beforehand, and because they knew they could call on me when they were in trouble. Plus, I didn't gank or full-loot them, whatever the balance.

The cabal, imho, is fine. If there's a problem with it, it may be the players at any one time. However, that's true of any cabal. And often, the way a cabal treats you is directly related to your own behavior, so if you find you get treated badly, consider if you are asking for it.

I have had a number of successful nexus characters. Not that any imms ever liked them or I got rewards and 1000's of kills but I was able to work well within the system of enemies one second friend the next.

The key to making the system work is to not be an asshole. I know that sounds like simple advice but its something a lot of people don't think about a lot. As a rule I was always upfront with the people I fought. Sure this ment that sometimes I wouldn't have the element of surprise in them not knowing I was coming for them but over the long haul it doesn't diminish the number of kills sealed all that much and allows you to fight/kill people and still be friends. I also made it a rule to only loot things I really needed and didn't trash talk. I mean if you go about fighting people in a semi civilized matter without ganking unnecesarily or looting heavily then you can fight one day and be friends the next. Now and then people will need a little revenge against you but take it in stride and don't turn a temporary disagreement into a life long grudge.

Put yourself in the shoes of the person your fighting, if you would say that your an asshole from their perspective then maybe you should think about what your doing if you plan on playing a nexun succesfully in the long term.

The path of a Nexan is very much that of a diplomat. You'll need to be able to make peace after the balance has shifted. If you seek to approach the Balance too strongly when close to it by forceful means, the chances are that you sway it again to the other position, which too is in imbalance. Thus, the fact is that Nexus is the most successful in reaching it's goal when it evens the odds a bit instead of swinging the pendulum. Nexus needs to be able to switch allies in order to effectively do that. Assholes who stab in the bag or switch sides in the middle of a fight aren't going to be able to hold such alliances in long term.

That was what I liked about nexus. It gave me perfect leeway to take a more neutral stance at fighting. I would not hate any foe, fighting was more like a game of tennis or a boxing match. I'd fight my foes and that's it. If they wanted a rematch or revenge, I would give it, but without malicious intent. The thing required though, is your character can not be a push-over. If you are, everyone will be abusing the #### out of you. On the otherhand, if you are super-lethal, people are less likely to hold grudges and throw themselves at you to be killed the 24th time after you have told them that you don't really want to fight.

In fact, this post somehow makes me want to play a nexite again.

...the reactions from the other players. I really really couldn't handle the 'I got ganged by someone in your cabal, so even though you are someone who I have ranked/traveled with in the past, and know your motives, I'm going to kill you everytime I see you', probably I am just not a good enough player at the moment to overcome that.

No one tries to kill ravon everytime he sees them, even though they would've been ganged 6 times by other scions the day before. As a nexite, you will need this aura of 'you-probably-don't-want-to-try-and-make-me-an-enemy', or you will be hopelessly abused.

n/t

To fix these issues, the correction has to come from within the cabal. Nexus wasn't really established with any firm, permanent tenets to follow, so the cabal could adapt to changing times. It would be the leader's job to step up to the plate and keep things reasonably balanced. In hindsight, it might be better to not pounce on the scales once they tip one way or another. My next nexan will be sure to test this theory.

I tried to play a Nexus the way I always thought they should be played (though honestly IC I disagreed with Yrillbink and Bashuchak, I still think those roles are VERY VIABLE) and you know what? It was the least successful and most frustrating character I ever had.

I won't ever play Nexus again for that reason.

I have no real problem with the cabal in general, just how the players execute given the cabal restrictions.

PS Zesam and Tsyda were honestly the two best Nexuns I've ever seen.

I would measure the success of a Nexan by you being able to restore the balance while alignmented characters would still be able to trust you.

NT

It is hard enough to get a good number of good and evil characters spread throughout to ranks to ever make PK "fair". I'd say that more often than not one side dominates. So, the answer there was Nexus. Ok, I get that. Here are some reasons why it was the wrong answer.

One

Having a cabal whose sole purpose is to keep everything "even steven" means that players have to be pulled from one of the existing "sides" to power it. From a mechanics point of view it's like the cabal itself is creating the imbalance. Yeah, there are lots of players who jump on the Empire/Scion/Fort/Rager/Outlander bandwagon, but that is a natural occurance, and when it happens there are always people who select the underdog and roll up a character to be on that side. If Nexus really worked as it seems like it should, there would never be underdogs, and there would never be overly dominant cabals...yet, both obviously still exist.

Two

I do not think most players have the fortitude to play a Nexite as I think they were intended to be played. That is, it's not sportsmanlike for people to be your pal one second, then gun you down the next, and an hour later ask you to go rank with them because hey, balance just took a convenient swing. I think that the *intent* was pretty cool, but player feelings may not have been taken into consideration. Related to this is the fact that from what I have seen there are, often times, very few people in Nexus...and this is a game where a lot of "big" things need team effort. Well, therein lies the dillema because if a Nexite forges a friendship with someone, or multiple someones, and goes to explore areas or raids a few cabals, they will probably always avoid fighting those people even when, according to Nexite dogma, they should kill them. So, the other choices are to make no allies or to have only Nexite allies...either way seems impractical for the cabal.

Three

This cabal is always going to be completely and utterly hated by the majority of the playerbase. It may fill some niche, sure, but it doesn't quite mean it's healthy for the game.

Four

Nexus is just another policing cabal, like the Tribunal. And just like the tribunal they pounce on everyone and #### up the groove. I'd rather see 4 scions, 4 maran, 4 outlanders, and 4 ragers running around trying to kill each other than 3 of each and 4 Nexites trying to figure out what to do, hording gear, or ganking people down to even #### out.

It's the mom and dad cabal.


Just ranting. Honestly, at the end of the day I won't care if the cabal stays or goes, since it has never really had any kind of effect on ANY of my evil or good characters...ever.

Agree with all of this. Nexus as an idea for a cabal isn't bad, it just does not fit into the current cabal landscape well at all IMHO. I've never seen them bring balance to anything.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

>Two
>lies the dillema because if a Nexite forges a friendship with
>someone, or multiple someones, and goes to explore areas or
>raids a few cabals, they will probably always avoid fighting
>those people even when, according to Nexite dogma, they should
>kill them. So, the other choices are to make no allies or to
>have only Nexite allies...either way seems impractical for the
>cabal.

This is pretty much the sacrifice I was always talking about as my nexan, in that to achieve balance, there must be some sacrifice.

>I do not think most players have the fortitude to play a
>Nexite as I think they were intended to be played.

Here I think is most of the cabal's difficulty most of the time.

It's hard to play a character who can have few permanent friends.

It's hard to play a character who has to constantly be the underdog.

It's hard to play a character who will have to piss off an A-P by fighting him one day, but isn't really supposed to kill him the next day, whereas on that day the A-P sure as hell still wants revenge.

A lot of people talk big on the forums about loving being the underdog or the lone wolf or rough challenges, but most of those people honestly don't have the sack to play this cabal.

NT

NT

(And it's to help. I know this cabal is your baby now, and ultimately you will or won't pull the trigger on it)


Try to get people into the mindset that repeat villager players have. That is, the "####, well, I just got killed and full looted. Ok, let's get some minimal gear, a backpack, 10 pies, 2 water skins and go kill somebody," attitude.

Why?

Well, I think the hardcore, lone wolf attitude for a Nexite needs to mirror the hardcore, lone wolf attitude of the village. However, their power structure seems co-dependent, not independent.

Maybe re-tooling their powers to focus on the solo arena and eliminating the bond would be good. I like that power, and I think it's neat and all...but it promotes buddy-buddy behavior in a cabal that is intended to be the perma-underdog and should always have a tough opponent to fight. Also, the hardass nature of the cabal means that it will (and should) always be a small group. Small groups of people in a cabal means, in my experience, that you will often be alone during your particular timeslot. Therefore, it sucks to walk around solo when your cool cabal powers utterly depend on being stuck to someone's hip (or groin...depends on the person).

Personally I've always been a fan of hard-line characters (Scion, Maran, the rare Imperial and one or two miscellaneous...my track record proves it). But, if I could make a character that was a stone-cold puppet master who didn't need or want anyone's aid, and whose sole purpose was to obtain some fleeting balance that most people would never comprehend...well heh, I would definitely give it a shot 'cause it sounds cool. What I could not imagine would be making that kind of character and then realizing that the cabal I am a part of seems totally dependent on people running around like Beebop and Rocksteady.

They've got a power that's mutually exclusive with the bond, you know.

Is it enough to provide an incentive for Nexites who end up running solo? I recall Gatusso remarking about that quite a bit.

It depends a lot on your play style.

For yours, probably not, honestly. I'm open to ideas.

This is based off of the fact that I would like to see nexite have more magical focuses since that's a lot of their history... as I know at least...

What if Vanguard of Balance offered things that the old warlocks tome would... When it was up and active(by not being in a bond):

Invokers would learn quicker in their spells and have reduced mana cost
Conjurers would get a boost to their conjurations
Shapeshifters would have a decrease to their mana consumption
Transmuters would have longer duration on their spells

As for warriors, I'm not entirely sure... but perhaps they could pull on mana to influence some of their attacts, extra damage or something?

Just some ideas to be accepted, shot down, or breed more (I hope).

EXB

Have the merchants sell detect invis potions so you can see those damned couriers.

Mage

Brew - stoneskin, fireball, faerie fog, detect invis, iceball, chain lightning, various exotic spells like chantrelles mote, mass razor chain, ball of kobold doom, vespas arc (I personally loved brew and what ever power it was that made staves and wands)

Recharge - 24-60 hour timer on success, successfully recharges non-ABS wand/talisman like the old transmuter spell. Reduces maximum charges, once its reduced to one charge that's it. Failed wand explodes and does an area attack that may or may not hit everyone in the room (depends on wand level + how bad they failed).

Melee/Rogue
Balanced Grace - Automatic - Enhanced dodge or like a reduced sure footing with trip/legsweep/lash included (note as reliable as sure footing) or reduces time lagged or Enhanced defenses that works better against what's not in balance. Does not transfer through bond.

Divine
Unbalanced Life or Scourge of Balance - Decays HP (steady decay similiar but opposite to shifter regen) The more a person is out of balance, the faster it decays. Short tick timer, secondary timer to prevent recasting for a while. (fireball blindness weaken *snicker* *snicker*)

You forgot the poison for the divine spell

One thing that would get me to try Nexus again would be xp bonus when killing what's in power.(Probably already in)

The Second and much more important would be solo powers. I think the powers should be based on who is in power at the time and be a counter to them calling upon their opposing pillar(Nexuns still talk about the Pillars?). Since Nexuns represent magic they always have that anti-deathblow power.

Random Ideas for Balance Keeping Powers:

Pillar of Order - When Chaos is in power calling upon this pillar puts the Nexuns mind and body in perfect order. Allowing them to regenerate quicker and their sharpened mind will help them resist distortions to reality(minor resist to bard songs, forget, things of this nature)

Pillar of Chaos - When Order is in power calling upon this pillar allows the Nexun to tap the endless possibilities of Chaos. Can be called based on a random tick timer 1-24 hours. When cast with no target area spell with random malediction attached to it. When cast with target bestows random boon.

Pillar of Light - When Darkness is in power calling upon this pillar cloaks the Nexun in a holy aura. When fighting evil random cure serious and curses have a chance to be reflected on their caster.

Pillar of Darkness - When Darkness is in power calling upon this pillar fills them with venom of corruption. Any physical attack they make has a chance of inflicting a poison that erodes the enemies moral and reduces healing to the afflicted.

I'm sure you guys can come up with better, but just some ideas.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

When nobody is around, let them create a mob that represents their generic complement, and bond with it.

i.e., mages get a tanky sort of warrior mob, warriors get a magey mob.

Not a new power, but an extension of bond.

I don't necessarily dislike that idea, but it'd be a stupid lot of code to make work right with the way the bond was originally coded.

>I don't necessarily dislike that idea, but it'd be a stupid
>lot of code to make work right with the way the bond was
>originally coded.

so, I imagine there is a line of code in do_bond where you check if the Nexxan is grouped?

<pre>
if grouped(ch) {etc.} else {return FALSE}
</pre>

so, instead of returning FALSE, you {do_singlebond(ch)}

then, leverage either the familiar code, or the conjie code, or the merc code, whatever your preference.

..

all you have to do is whip up like.. two new mobs. One for mages, and one for warriors.

This is retarded, I am sure the bond code has to take into account the other PC not NPC skills/spells. Which would make this much more complicated. Either way, I could be right, you could be right, or we both could be wrong. Point is, you can't call #### if you can't see the ####ing code.

Gabe

the code *has* to check, at some point, if you are grouped with a nexxan, otherwise you could call bond by yourself.

SOOO

when that check FAILS, you skip the bond code altogether, and use different, existing, appropriate code. It's not BOND, it's a dumbed down equivalent.

A warrior would get a mob that cast ice shards and gave him stone skin, etc. etc.


you're right, the code definitely takes into account the other PC, but you can definitely simplify that if you don't have another PC.

Point is, you can't call #### if you can't see the ####ing code.

That's correct. I happen to agree with Nep that this would be a large project.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

There's a lot more to it than that.

Getting you bonded is the EASY part of the bond code. Kind of like how conceiving is generally the easy part of seeing one of your kids graduate college.

Again, I'm not saying use the bond code, other than to launch a do_singlebond sort of function. (see my reply to Gabe).

You're telling me, that loading a restrung familiar is a major project? I think you must've misunderstood me. I'm pretty sure I could copy/paste the code snippets in a few hours from scratch.

It's fair and obvious, that making a mob that mimicked a real player well enough to plug into the bond would be a pita. But if you give the solo nexxan warrior a wimpy mob that grants 'shield' or 'haste', and the solo nexxan mage a mob that could tank a little and a hp boost, you'd have the foundation in place - you can always add nuances to those mobs' behaviors in the future, but for <i>right now</i>, you're addressing the shortcoming in a way that's consistent with what's already in place.

And shame on you, for playing the "Oh, I know something that proves you wrong, but I won't tell you what it is" card, followed by the witty analogy/reference which implies the poster is completely nuts. I could write a nepenthebot to churn out your forum posts. Maybe you are a robot already.

Anyhow, whatever, it's your game.

CF has reached maturity. It's not a question about whether the skill could be coded fast or not. It's not even a question on whether the imms are time swamped or not. Hell, I could code something like this an hour I'm sure. And I'm a very amateur coder. But coding on an established mud like CF is different. It's not ok to enter something half finnished. Just imagine if every single quick fix was pursued and coded fast, then introduced to the game. We'd have a lot of stuff constantly changed back and forth. Even though it comes with the pace of slow change, and presentation deadlines pushed into the distant future, I think it's a good thing that things are thoroughly researched, before the preferred choice of action is taken. First it needs to be evaluated, whether this change is the one that they want. Remember if bondmobs are introduced, and they suck, it's really hard to turn tail, remove it, and try something else. So, the immstaff will be committed to figuring out improvements or tweaks to it. So, the project is larger than you think. Also, the mere addition of a wimp mob that gives minor perks would not be all that interesting, would it? It needs flavor, and distinct quality. Tribunals get special guards, outlanders get beastcall and scions get nightwalker. This one would need to be different. That's what we as a playerbase expect the immstaff to provide us. The expectations come with a price.

That said, I think the way this is articulated could use some polish.

Actually, I think what Nepenthe is saying, which I'm not sure is meaningful to an amateur programmer but may be is that:

The code for CF, due to the programming language it uses and time period from which it comes, along with the skill levels and time commitments Imms have had over the years, has resulted in copy & paste coding.

There are no interfaces. No facades. No classes or abstractions or unit tests or regression tests or inheritance base/abstract classes. Just lots and lots and lots of inline functions, pointers and probably a fair share of badly snaggled, dailywtf-worthy "nested if statements" that'd make a lesser group of maintainers laugh and quit. When you make an edit, you need to do find & replace in 60 other areas where something similiar but not exactly the same happens.

Of course, that's just my gut impression and I may be making some assumptions based on bad past experiences I've had professionally which have traumatized me.

You probably couldn't come up with a more accurate assessment of the state of the CF code if you had the source to work with.

You're lucky if someone had the knowledge and foresight to factor reused code into a method. Nearly all of the newer CF code does this where appropriate, and a lot of the most horrific bits of old code have been replaced over the years, but...

I mean, just the fact that CF is written in C means no classes and nothing that's evolved out of OOP. I think C is a great language for anything that has to run on limited resources (i.e. embedded programming) or anything that has to run very high performance (i.e. modern graphical game programming, where losing framerate is a mortal sin), but if I had to write something like CF today I wouldn't pick it. Even something like the finer points of string manipulation can be a fight working with the CF code.

I've thought more than once about trying to rewrite the whole thing nearly from scratch 'right' in a modern language, but when you really come down to it, that doesn't sound like something I'd do after a full day of work to relax. It's the kind of "hard work, but interesting challenge" task I seek out professionally when I can, but my career provides as much of it as I really want.

Yeah, I was thinking about that in terms of C#. I even spent a few hours setting up a simple server object that would let you "log in". Then I lost interest when I started thinking about the sheer amount of boring stupid logic statements to make something like weapons work in a way that makes sense.

That's probably why you see tons of muds adapted from some code base or another but almost none written in modern languages with modern techniques.

I can't even get up the energy to finish an item search.

No way!..heh...Embedded Perl all the way man..

Gabe

>You probably couldn't come up with a more accurate assessment
>of the state of the CF code if you had the source to work
>with.

Is there a do_familiar function? A do_angel/demon function?

Is there a "check if person calling the bond is grouped" loop?

doubleyou tee eff.

Remember, the original response was, "oh, this isn't bad, but it would be way too hard to code".

So I pointed out a very easy way to code it.

"Even though it comes with the pace of slow change, and presentation deadlines pushed into the distant future, I think it's a good thing that things are thoroughly researched, before the preferred choice of action is taken. First it needs to be evaluated, whether this change is the one that they want. Remember if bondmobs are introduced, and they suck, it's really hard to turn tail, remove it, and try something else."

What is so hard, exactly, about putting something in, and changing your mind and trying something else? We're talking about commenting out a line.

And how .. are they researching it? By having hypothetical discussions on a forum? Researching it would be.. sticking it in, and seeing how it played out.

And please.. mister, "I speak for the playerbase", don't speak for me.

Sometimes, the reason everyone thinks you're wrong isn't because they are "faithful parrots". In this case, it's because you're wrong in a way that is obvious to everyone except you.

This thread isn't going anywhere. Locking time.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>You're telling me, that loading a restrung familiar is a major
>project? I think you must've misunderstood me.

I'm telling you that every bit of bond code in the game (examples: a check in the haste spell to see if you're enlivening it and can share it with your bondmate, a check in parry to see if your bondmate can parry for you, etc. probably in the neighborhood of 50-100 times) assumes that your bondmate is a PC and will crash the MUD if they're not, and the changes to each of them to make that not true are not a five minute fix... each.

Welcome to working with C, a procedural codebase, and ~14 years of custom development, much of it by people (and I include myself in this) who weren't able at the time or interested in providing the kind of extensible architecture or professional rigor you'd expect from a professional developer.

Additionally, consider that the bond is cast in terms of powers you give to your bondmate. Consider that if your bondmate is a dumb mob shifter, they're probably never going to shift into lion and enliven haste for you. No, making them a familiar is not an easy solution, not the least of which because it'd be incompatible with an actual familiar and it'd break 50 more things with actual familiars. Again, welcome to C, non-object-oriented design, etc.

I don't get why, if I tell you something isn't a trivial implementation with what we've got, you'd assume I'm an idiot or lying to you. That's more the height of arrogance than anything I've ever said, and I can be one hell of an arrogant prick.

You should make this a helpfile so you can just wittily reference it down the road. Or archive it.

Good post , I feel your pain.

>It depends a lot on your play style.
>
>For yours, probably not, honestly. I'm open to ideas.

Could it be as simple as retooling the idea of the bond. Make it so the Nexite could create a bond with anyone. This would give the Nexite more interactions with the underdog at the time and maybe make playing them tolerable.

Gabe

Basically that bond only requires one nexite.

That is a great/cool idea.

However, the coding needs to be done so, that the Nexan may offer join to other people and the non-nexan (or nexan) may accept it. The join would have to be restricted in a fashion, that offering bond is not possible when the other person isn't of a class you can normally bond with or the Balance sways to direction where you shouldn't bond with that guy.

That's right. I really like Gatusso's take on Nexus and balance. The roleplay side of that interested me a whole lot and I was excited to give it a whirl. I even had the whole paladin-hating aspect down to limit my interactions with goodies. Unfortunately, the absolute boredom of the cabal at that time was too much.

Until Kiraan magically appeared at level 40, I never really had anyone to run around with. I bonded once with a shapeshifter and got one level. And to me, the neat part of being in nexus is getting to see what all the bond can do. I really anticipated raiding and defending against big groups of opponents as just a lone, bonded pair.

And I play central evenings. We had a meter chosen that I had never even heard of. Even Rayihn commented on that to me over the cabal channel. It was mind-boggling how alone I was in Nexus and I had never experienced that before in a cabal.

So having these restrictions on a character while not having the resources available to do a whole log...yikes, man. Delete;delete, please. Vanguard was good but I'da dug a few other bond-independent powers to help with the daily activities.

Will I play another Nexite? Unlikely. I just didn't find the cabal all that engaging, even though it very well could be the bomb.

And you killed me a ton. Guess I really suck. Mutter.

>It's hard to play a character who can have few permanent
>friends.
>
>It's hard to play a character who has to constantly be the
>underdog.

Sure. And this detracts from the fun factor of it.

>It's hard to play a character who will have to piss off an A-P
>by fighting him one day, but isn't really supposed to kill him
>the next day, whereas on that day the A-P sure as hell still
>wants revenge.
>
>A lot of people talk big on the forums about loving being the
>underdog or the lone wolf or rough challenges, but most of
>those people honestly don't have the sack to play this cabal.

Who cares? If the majority of your game isn't having fun with the cabal, you might want to consider a revamp considering that it shouldn't be about how big your testicles are, it should be about how much fun you have.

At least, that's why I started playing CF and that's why I left CF, the fun factor dropped out of it. No disrespect meant, you run a highly intricate and involved game, but somewhere the fun stick dropped out of place and you might want to reconsider where that's at.

I don't really care. I saw this because I read your boards from time to time, that's it. I had the most fun when the Battle-Master war was going on, even with the anti-magic in the battle cabal at that time. Take that information as you will.

You can also add to this the inability to really explore places like Hell - with Vadante I remember getting down to the 5th circle to have two Nexuns get busted because the balance changed...and we were forced to kill them. As you said, they have no permanent friends and that kills a lot of the "fun" aspect of doing something besides ganking anything that moves.

Despite what Daevryn says, I don't think it's around people not having "the balls" to play the hard cabal - it's that no one thinks it's fun.

>Despite what Daevryn says, I don't think it's around people
>not having "the balls" to play the hard cabal - it's that no
>one thinks it's fun.

That's just 'cause you don't have any balls.

nt

Balls or not, I had a fantastic time playing a character in Nexus, and will probably try it out again sometime.

One, your premise is false. I was Trewyn, Leader of Battle, when Nexus was created and I assure you that was NOT it's reason for being created. From a purely mechanical point of view, the Warlocks and Scions had been created but you had a buttload of nuetral masters that were just listless and wandering so they made Nexus for them. (Not that they didn't have it all planned out. There was about two months of prelude to it) At the time if you were a master and wanted to be in a cabal, were a mage, and were neutral, you could join the Tribunals or what ever they were called then or be a Herald. You could NOT be a Sylvan because they hated you. (And personally I found the Nature vs Magic to be dull and boring and completely stupid. That's a PERFECT approach for a Villager.) But to remove one archaic and dying cabal (all though it was cool as hell, sitting around spaming spells as a requirement sucks and transform and scourge rock) and then replace it with another just like it is retarded, redundant, and the CF staff is much too smart for that bonehead move. Although with the time spent away, a new cabal for magic would be interesting but I don't think new cabals are what CF needs. If you want to master your magic, you don't have to be a part of some club.

ONE

See above. The idea of the Nexus cabal stands on its own. It's not dependent on other cabals or other people.

Two

If you can't cut it, don't swing it. How many Maran do you know? How many Maran do you see on line at one time? How many Scarabs do you know? I was around when there were four Scarabs, the Eye, voice, blah blah and what ever. Aside from that one time, I've NEVER seen more than two alive. Quantity doesn't overshadow quality. I spent half my life in Nexus alone and the other half with 8 or so hero allies so I don't know what you're talking about here. We went exploring, killed all kinds of stuff and did stuff I haven't ever done before in my previous six years of play. And there's nothing wrong with Nexus role play in picking your favorite light walker to kill and your friend that you try not to kill.

Three

Your opinion. I personally love the nexus role. I just think it needs one more solo power like create flower basket to give it some extra flavor. Brew and recharge could be interesting powers to add to it that haven't been seen in ages.

Four

It is a policing cabal. But it's dynamic in that the leaders have direct control over policy. That's why they regularly hold re-elections. Tribunal leaders have ZERO say in policy.

>Your opinion. I personally love the nexus role. I just think
>it needs one more solo power like create flower basket to give
>it some extra flavor.

I actually have another (as yet unseen) power in mind for part of the cabal, and have since before Nexus' reintroduction. I was planning on running a set of quests around it around a month into the new cabal's life, but I didn't count on how badly doing the questy/interactiony stuff that brought the cabal in probably 6 nights a week for a few months would burn me out on that kind of stuff.

Someday, maybe!

><1> Balance it on current characters logged on.

Done as of... before the cabal came back in.

Everyone always thinks they're the underdog. The numbers don't lie.

If seven level one drow log in, the balance is shifted, even though they can't do a thing in the cabal wars (unless its not like this, I just always took it for that.

I think the balance should be on a scale...
cabal range hero's have the most points in affecting the balance.
30-40ish have the second most points
hero range has the third most points... etc etc

You see where I am going with this?

Basically the more influence an actually character can have, the more he affects the balance.. so some random lowbies don't shift it when they really can't do a thing to it.

Of course the lowbies would have some impact, it would just take a hole hell of a lot.

If this is how the codes already set up, well then I am a fool and ignore me.

merry xmas one and all.

>If this is how the codes already set up, well then I am a fool
>and ignore me.
>
>merry xmas one and all.

I'll wish you a Merry Christmas first.

Q

>If seven level one drow log in, the balance is shifted, even
>though they can't do a thing in the cabal wars (unless its not
>like this, I just always took it for that.

It's not like that.

>I think the balance should be on a scale...
>cabal range hero's have the most points in affecting the
>balance.
>30-40ish have the second most points
>hero range has the third most points... etc etc
>
>You see where I am going with this?
>
>Basically the more influence an actually character can have,
>the more he affects the balance.. so some random lowbies don't
>shift it when they really can't do a thing to it.

Yup. Coincidentally, that's not all that far off from the way I went.

>Of course the lowbies would have some impact, it would just
>take a hole hell of a lot.
>
>If this is how the codes already set up, well then I am a fool
>and ignore me.

Nah, I think a lot of people have misconceptions about it, it's cool.

the balance is calculated by the totalled levels and align.

so you got 2 35 goodies and a 15 and 51 evil you get

good 70 (2 x 35)
evil 66 (15 + 51)

light is slightly tipping.

but ehh even if thats not it, its close enough.


The only gay thing is when you gotta wait for balance to be more then slightly tipping to be able to do anything other then gear horde. I know this thread is about nexus being too active but as a player I often got sad that there wasn't enough people to fight at any given time in my own range at hero. though mornings are very hero light which accounts for this.

The system accounts for the fact that three level 20 guys don't outgun a hero.

The original post is a good illustration of why Internet cliques spiral downhill so badly, though. That unique blend of e-peen posturing plus anonymity plus misinformation is good for getting the pitchforks and torches going, but there's not much in that post that makes a bit of sense.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

You find the solution to your question. In the mean time, me looking for the same answer found out three things I didn't already know. So while we achieved the same goal, I somehow came out ahead.

Is it just me or did Ravon logging on screw up the balance or was it just because whenever Ravon logs on it is always followed by the logging on of several other scions for various reasons most likely dealing with leaders inducting people in the same times they play.

There were LOADS of times when there would be one or two hero paladins and then the 35 and below ranks would be solid evil and it will still be tipping light or at least balanced. What I never could figure out is what happens if an evil kills another evil. Does that help the balance or does a Nexun have to kill them? Or does it balance because one evil loses and one evil wins?

>Is it just me or did Ravon logging on screw up the balance or
>was it just because whenever Ravon logs on it is always
>followed by the logging on of several other scions for various
>reasons most likely dealing with leaders inducting people in
>the same times they play.

Could be either/both. Not even all heroes are equal in the sight of the balance code. A 'titanic' evil character like a Ravon and a handful of absolutely terrible goods logged on might still be darkness winning, though absent other factors it might well be in the 'balanced enough' zone.

>There were LOADS of times when there would be one or two hero
>paladins and then the 35 and below ranks would be solid evil
>and it will still be tipping light or at least balanced.

Could be! Higher levels do count for more. Additionally, characters more/less likely to impact the cabalwars (taking my best guess in a lot of cases, of course) tend to count more/less.

>What
>I never could figure out is what happens if an evil kills
>another evil. Does that help the balance or does a Nexun have
>to kill them? Or does it balance because one evil loses and
>one evil wins?

If evil's winning, that'd push the balance closer to even.

The balance also shifts somewhat slowly. I hated the case for old Nexus where Nexus'd be grouped up with a bunch of good characters, then one more good guy logs on and suddenly they're supposed to change sides. With modern Nexus, there's more 'balanced' terrain in between one side or the other tipping so one logon is unlikely to shift things that much, and even if they did, odds are very good that things will be balanced for a while in between.

It doesnt take into account cabal mechanics. I would be the lone Scion logged on, up agaisnt a large group of Empire, semi-sized neutrals and evil Outlanders, one or two fortress. I then had to contend with the few Nexuns who would go for the easier out and pursue me (the lone Scion) instead of focusing on the powerhouse Empire evils.

The try to be your friend one day, backstab you the other, just doesnt work with a small playerbase.

Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man.

In that case, both darkness and order would be tipping. Hitting Empire would be the most parsimonius solution, not scion.

>It doesnt take into account cabal mechanics.

It does, actually. But:

1) It's not perfect, and

2) Nexuns really are as prone to seizing on low-hanging fruit as anyone else, and don't always make the best priority choices. (i.e., ganging down that Scion mage probably also hurts magic, which might not be doing so hot... or might be.)

"The original post is a good illustration of why Internet cliques spiral downhill so badly, though."

internet cliques are doing pretty good? #dangeroom numbers are basically.. higher than ever. So, to be fair, I call #### on that statement.

and here's the paragraph that probably gets this deleted - though I mean it as an out-of-the-box suggestion, not a pitchfork: Is it really so crazy, if we are all just sooo off base, to maybe just post a snippet of code that shows how the balance is calculated? Is it not just a per tick function or something?

I just mean - if we're all bitching, but wrong, it would shut people like me up pretty good. At the cost of.. ? I just don't see the massive downside to keeping the code so secret, and insisting that we're all totally misinformed.

cheers,

j