So I haven't played in a few weeks but this idea has been stewing in the back of my head for a few months and I don't think it would be all that hard to implement since the ability already exists.

One of the tough thing about cabal wars is the perception or the actual need to have cabal powers to effectively fight/survive your enemies. Some cabals/builds this is more true then others but there is a noticeable difference in cabal numbers when a cabal is without their item.

As part of the declining playerbase there is not always as even a distribution of players online across all the cabals leading to perhaps one or two cabals having nothing to do but raid their empty enemy cabals. This often leads to one lone member of that cabal logging in, getting dog piled a few times and logging out. Sure some vets take this as a challenge and relish it but there are far more people who simply don't bother with such an uphill battle.

My idea would be to give itemless cabals a bonus. Specifically give each inner guardian a version of the tribunal skill conscription (change the mobs to be more cabal apropriate like sentinals for empire, nightwalkers for scion, etc) while they do not have their cabal item have the inner keep calling this skill on the enemy cabal till the item is returned.

This will give defending cabal players something to do and the relatively low level of the conscriptions means even mid and low rank players could participate in these kind of defenses. It also increases the chance that if someone takes the scepter at 11PM it might be back in the scion cabal when someone logs on 8 hours later to play. I would keep it going even if there are players logged in to defend the cabal as extra help to retrieve.

I can just imagine empire sitting there with all the cabal items fighting off wave after wave of conscripts and I think that would be more fun then sitting next to a black circle behind centurions with 5 guys waiting to summon gank the one guy stupid enough to wander in solo and all of the other crazy situations.

Hopefully this will pull PK away from being just inside and right outside of cabals at the hero level.

I think one of the issues is there are fewer caballed folk these days so the imbalances are bigger. I think it would be much better if getting into cabal was extremely easy(except maybe Scion and Scarab) but getting kicked out was easier. Would be ideal if at level 15 you could pledge a cabal and any member of that cabal could then basically give you the thumbs up and you are in. Then leaders would kick anyone not pulling their weight, you'd see cabal wars pick up alot more.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

The induction process is typically controlled by morts, the imms simply
cap the number they are allowed to induct overall. So it would be up to
them if they wanted to induct someone based on someone saying "your good"
and then that person gets a place. From the many times I've been leader
or been in a cabal I always noticed that people who did this filled the
positions rather fast and then half those folks wouldn't ever log in "ever again"
and this made it harder to field good players in cabal wars. I always
saw the more lengthy induction processes as a detour to just that.

Also I believe that Battle would be helped the most by something like
what Laxman is suggesting just as you may have eluded to... not that, that
is a bad thing.

Yes, and I'm saying take it out of the players hands to induct and just have uninduct. Set the caps high, auto kick players who don't play more then an hour every two weeks and let the rest sort itself out.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

I'm sorry but who's hands do you believe the induct should be in, something
like pledge=your in? The only thing I can really see happening if this
is allowed is that people will exploit it by, using WHO...= enemies...
= log in another char in big cabal. Not to say this doesn't already occur
but the level of rp should be somewhat higher from someone who works and
earns their spot than someone who wants and gets it.

The two week limitation I think is rather flimsy and hardly enough time
to have any kind of rp experience that CF is supposed to be.

Also back to the original point that cabal #'s may be lower, and I may not
have the #'s either but they look about the same when I type cabalwars
as what I used to see 5 or 6 years or more ago when I was battlin it out.

Again these are only my opinions and insights, take them for what they are.

If you loosened the induction process, it'd be nice to have some way to make it to where you could only have one caballed character per player.

I think that proposed solution is impossible to enforce or code, but without that, it seems loosening the induction process is only going to hurt cabal wars more than how it is right now.

The pbase was instrumental in this entire looting issue. People may now be complaining about one or two items, but it's better than players complaining about getting fullsacced. I think the pbase now needs to hold themselves to a standard in terms of caballed characters. One is enough, keep the other uncaballed.

More uncaballed characters in this game would be HUGE. That's why I've always pushed for more incentives for them, because right now, if you create a character without the intent to join a cabal, you're gimping yourself right off the bat.

I cosign that entire post.

My recent leader wasn't told to do anything. I kept an eye out and didn't over-do anything and I was also able to trim it down, maybe cutting out some legit members but my cabal IMM(s) had no problem with anything.

Only way to solve cabal war problems is playerbased. People just need to stop selectively logging on. This is where not talking too much OOC about who you're playing would go a LONG ways. But I feel like I'm on the losing end of that argument these days.

It's like, everyone wants everything to be fair, but everyone wants that OOC advantage over everyone else as well. And you can't have both.

The problem with easy-in, easy-out is that unless you force the Immortals to bear the burden of following through with it, you need to rely on two things:

1) Mortal leaders can sustain some level of consistency in determining what merits booting someone, and;
2) Mortal leaders who will kick people out.

I see #2 as being the problem. The Immortal have quite a bit more experience with, and are probably more comfortable (compared to players) with kicking people out of their cabals and the conversations which that entails.

My observation has been that most mortal leaders are very, very soft and forgiving, sometimes even when it doesn't necessarily make sense given their cabal or personality. We, the players, don't want to be the bad guy.

I remember a few years ago talking to a player over a game on Xbox and having him say something to the effect of, "If any of my Forts ever make Marshall/Captain, I'd run a tight ship and boot people for all the stupid #### that gets willfully ignored these days." -- Of course a couple months later it happened, nothing was different, and afterwards he basically said, "Yeah, I should booted Soandso and Whatshisname, but I didn't have the heart."

What we really need is an army of cold, emotionless T-1000's to handle cabal human resources.

It's more that when you don't have your item you feel obligated to retrieve and depending on the quantity of enemies in your way that tends to lead to dying. Increasing powers wouldn't help because it has to do with number/quality of enemies you have to fight rather than the powers that allow you to do it.

Ragers are the exception to this since they really do rely on resist and spellbane.