Just curious on the imm standpoint regarding cabal retrievals against the odds.

I'd imagine you're not going to get *rewarded* for not retrieving against really bad odds but at what point would you get punished?

1vs1?
2vs1?
3vs1?

Do you have any expectations that people will retrieve 2vs1 unless they know the people have left the cabal?

I find myself very reluctant to perform some retrievals where the chance of me getting the item back and continuing to hold it are so dramatically slim that it seems like I'm taking lots of risk for no gain.

There seems to be a certain believe amongst some cabals/players (definitely not all) that "you should always try" and I've always found this to be mostly a source of pointless deaths of my higher level cabalmates. Is there any value in trying (and ultimately failing) to perform a retrieval against a combination that has a pretty good shot at killing you?

Also what're your thoughts on being "forced to retrieve" while you're still low level and could be ranking/etc? Is it a lame thing for a leader to do?

...it's always a subjective thing. In general, though, I personally try to take odds of retrieval vs. odds of death into account.

Three heroes without their item against one lone hero defender should probably be trying to retrieve, yeah. But if that one lone hero defender might have hidden/duoed/camoed help that the three don't know about? Try not to push too hard.

I'd say anyone lower level than the outer guardian (25) gets a free pass on retrieval from an imm viewpoint (personally, again). Also I wouldn't expect them to retrieve as a leader mortal char either.

That said, if I'm leader of Battle and have 3 or more against me and there's some level 24 assassin who has nobody against him, I'd expect him to at least give it a shot, since Battle is so debilitated w/o the Head. Not against Tremblefist though.

Your point about nothing to gain is well taken, too. Let's say there are 5 Fort heroes and no Imperial heroes (or only one). As a lowbie Imperial, I (again, personally, not speaking for all the immstaff) am not going to require that level 33 necro, level 31 assassin, and level 30 warrior to stop leveling and go retrieve more than one time. I think they should go ahead and retrieve once if they have no serious opposition - you never know if those Fort heroes are going to say "Eh, screw it, we can't hold it."

But if they do go back and get it a second time? Meh. Go level up some. You're probably just putting your lone hero Imperial in danger anyways.

TL;DR - I think it's a common sense thing, and never a "you have to go retrieve every time even if you're leaving a pile of corpses there" thing.

I personally like to try one or two times. I may wait a while before I go in, just to get them to disperse a bit.


With tinwold, I would grab a construct at lower levels and charge in there no matter the odds, it was part role, part stupidity, and part testing my bounds with my character because I am generally new to PK and was trying to learn things.


Otherwise, I found that letting the villagers sit for 20 minutes or so would get them to become bored and I could run in with my alligator and finish off the giant with the pachyderm when I would have Arratok, Zadeel, and Gredoor thumping on me all at once.


I do not try to retrieve against hard odds just to get the imms to notice me. I generally like to do stupid things to see what others to against me. Just going through a suicidal phase of characters to learn my bounds.

I'm not knocking it, just trying to dispel this myth that as a non-macho flawed character you're somehow obligated to do what I equate to as suicidal things.

If you're going into it trying to see what you can do and what your enemy can do and learning stuff then by all means. The other side of the equation is that years ago it wasn't uncommon to eat a full loot on a retrieval to "slow you down". That's mostly gone now so its not as painful as it used to be.

Sounds good to me. Personally I think the "you're obligated to come retrieve even though your enemy has a thief/whipspec combo and you're probably going to die" mentality is player driven.

The big thing I'm looking for is that there's no requirement to fight against the odds or "show up just to give it a shot" when you know there's no way to do it. I'm only talking about solo btw.

Conversely are there ever times you're watching people and say to yourself, "What is he thinking? He's going to get pwnd"?

>Sounds good to me. Personally I think the "you're obligated
>to come retrieve even though your enemy has a thief/whipspec
>combo and you're probably going to die" mentality is player
>driven.
>
>The big thing I'm looking for is that there's no requirement
>to fight against the odds or "show up just to give it a shot"
>when you know there's no way to do it. I'm only talking about
>solo btw.

I'm hesitant to say there's no requirement because:
A: I'm only me, and not speaking for the immstaff here.
B: Situations vary, and I'd hate to be giving some guy crap for not retrieving and have him ask to speak with me OOC and say "You said X!"

That said, I (and most other imms I can think of) are much more likely to nudge someone over cb, something like cb Is the Key so unimportant to you, Joebob, that you leave it in the hands of those wretched Villagers? Or is there a mitigating circumstance of which I am unaware?

As opposed to "Go retrieve or I'll boot you."


>Conversely are there ever times you're watching people and say
>to yourself, "What is he thinking? He's going to get pwnd"?

Frequently. Or, more often, I'm thinking "Oh, man, that guy just does NOT know what he's getting into." and then I snoop them to watch the carnage.

On a more topical note: I've been cheered for piling up corpses, I've been berated for the same (sometimes by the same IRL ppl, just not the
same characters) I've been ordered by folks to basically go and die,
I've been ordered to leave it alone or to stop. Recently I even got a
pbf comment about not walking into a situation where either I end up
dead or barely escape with my life (from my perspective at fighting
that particular guy before) I've had comments about how I go into
situations like that too much.
It's not exactly random, more like X player playing Y character
(including an imm playing a mort and that same person later having
a different opinion when they are in character as the imm. Honestly
this is good and kinda cool.) Some players will always be the same
no matter who they are playing. Some characters will have an outlook
that is different from 'standard of the week cabal member Z', but
the player might have normally been the opposite on the side of
ret/don't.

In the end, I think you 'should' forget all that and do what your
character would do. Since it doesn't quite work that way, you do
what you think you should keeping in mind mitigating factors like
the imms and leaders of your cabal and the current outlook.

...actively getting into an argument with leadership about this point...

>>>Your point about nothing to gain is well taken, too. Let's say there are 5 Fort heroes and no Imperial heroes (or only one). As a lowbie Imperial, I (again, personally, not speaking for all the immstaff) am not going to require that level 33 necro, level 31 assassin, and level 30 warrior to stop leveling and go retrieve more than one time. I think they should go ahead and retrieve once if they have no serious opposition - you never know if those Fort heroes are going to say "Eh, screw it, we can't hold it."

But if they do go back and get it a second time? Meh. Go level up some. You're probably just putting your lone hero Imperial in danger anyways.<<<


I can't remember what cabal I was in at the time, but I remember specifically saying something like 'If we retrieve, our heroes are going to get SLAUGHTERED by the force that holds it right now'. And then I got into an argument with leadership and deleted.

Yep.