What is it with the shameless ganking cross-cabal now? I mean, I realize that certain cabals have 'teamed up' regularly against opposition "Fortlander" and the IMM's have been trying to actively squash that - Bravo.

What I am talking about from a villager perspective, is how it seems that Nexus is simply nowadays a Scion lapdog. Also, whats with Scion/Nexus raiding..and giving the head to an Orc to down it.

Nexus, should want to control the head in order to maintain the balance.

Likewise, I'd think Scion would want to keep the head from an RP standpoint.

That being said, I whole-heartedly 100% understand why they would give the head to an Orc, mechanically it is the hardest retrieval for battle. However - from an RP standpoint/CabalWars standpoint shouldn't Nexus/Scion actually WANT to down it (Maybe give edge points for downing an item). And likewise, shouldn't it be "questionable" cabal RP to turn around to an Orc that didn't participate in the raid/didn't end up with the head and be like...Hey CHAOTIC EVIL orc, I know I'm a nexun...here have the head!


What I question is - how is this acceptable from a Cabal RP standpoint - in my eyes it isn't.

If I were to raid scion, as battle...by myself. Take the Scepter, and notice that Scion has a lowbie retriever, and I have no lowbie defender..but hey! fort has lowbie defender, so I give the Scepter to fort - in the past Battle IMM's would 100% take a huge #### on my char for this, and they damn well should.

So how about the various cabal IMM's enforce some level of actual cabal 'pride' in the joined-at-the-hip team that is nexus/scion/orc.

I may seem a bit bitter about this, but hey, I've watched this 'awesome' Cabal RP happen 6+ times in the last 7 days..

Problem solved.

Edited to add: Let them keep their recall to the orc village, so recalling orcs can bash it out to their hearts' content. Keep chieftain in play to make the politics of it all crazy fun.

In the end, village is the only cabal that needs to worry about honor, so they are in a bit of a unique postion compared to everyone else.

Does it make sense in terms of cabal mechanics?
That's worth talking about.



Is it bad RP? Without knowing the roles, motivations, and the actual conversations of those characters, it's impossible to judge or comment on.

I can say there are all kinds of RP alliances regarding passing the just captured flag, but I think another poster expanded on that better.

First off, lets be real....

Most people roll Orcs for no other reason than to kill villagers because Orcs have a mechanical advantage when fighting most villagers. This isn't to say there aren't valid RP reasons for this or that Orcs don't RP, but that is the reason Orcs invariably end up being 'Hunted By Battle' despite not having any real valid RP reason on either side to be fighting each other (outside of general orc-violence) is because there is a very non-orcish thinking mind behind that character who wants to pad their PK stats.

So on the orc side, they have every reason to wish to make their lives even easier than they already are from a Powergamey perspective by always helping 'anyone' who brings them the head or helping get the head so they can rack up even more kills against nice squishy depowered ragers.



Then you have the Nexuns. Now if you speak to the Nexuns its pretty clear (imho) especially after having played a couple that there is alot of leeway when it comes to dealing with Battle. First off 'balance' doesn't really apply in terms of 'magic' unless magic is 'dangerously' high in the realm which means Nexus is free to do whatever they want to Battle in most cases. Also being neutral they are free to side with anyone they want to barring of course there is an imbalance that would put a hold on actively grouping with a specific alignment. And after playing a Nexun, I'll tell you that things are usually close to balanced or balanced even when they seem like they should be imbalanced. I think there is some lag on how fast changes to the balance happen.

Finally you have the Scions who theoretically can do whatever they wanr. Pride doesn't even enter the picture. Scions are enemies to everyone and enemies to none. They have a vision of the world and you aren't in it. In other words, they are free to do whatever makes sense to them at the moment and if that means letting the Orcs hold onto the head then thats what it means.

Summary:

As long as there is a strong mechanical advantage present to do something and ANY weak RP reason to do something (or very weak reasons not to - like pride) then that action will happen. That is a damn near physical law of the CF universe. I dub it 'The Law of Mechanical Advantage or LOMA for short'

There are several ways to change this dynamic but none of them are likely.

1. Isolate the orcs more. Orcs typically ally with empire or Scions because it makes sense mechanically. They have common enemies and nothing but weak RP reasons not to ally with anyone between them and good mechanical advantage (see LOMA). Ruk I think is one of the few orcs I saw ever actually RP an orc as 'enemy to all'.

I think a good mechanical fix to this would be to a host of things to make orcs a flipside to CF altogether.

A. Give orcs their own language only they (and goblins) can speak. Basically this would make orcs unintelligable to everyone else. Literally making them by default a choice for players who only want to PK and speak to other orcs (and goblins). This would have an additional effect of strengthening the orc-goblin bond while giving goblins a role of translator/ambassador to other cabals/players who want to ally with the orcs.

B. Create more orc villages with differing (evil) philosophies so there is more competiton not only between orc villages but also in terms of who they ally with. When orcs first appeared I created an orc applicant to Battle. How times have changed right. There is no real reason why an orc wouldn't run with the villagers as allies outside of LOMA.

C. Give orcs something to gain and lose by fighting everyone.

As another poster mentioned, orcs have nothing to lose in the cabal wars. Part of this is because they aren't technically speaking a cabal they just happen to have some communication features like a cabal and can hold cabal items. I propose this: For every cabal item the orc village(s) hold they gain some sort of benefit relating to that cabals item. This would provide mechanical incentive to raid every other cbaal as well some actual decision-making on the orc chief's part in terms of the relative pros and cons of allying with a particular cabal. It would also give them something to lose.

2. Make the Nexun system for changes to balance happen faster/more dynamically so that there are fewer opportunities for them to ally with evils when alot of evils are around already (i.e. orcs and scions at the same time yet things are still balanced)

3. Have the Neexun Imms be a bit tighter on 'balance' when it comes to 'magic' so that Nexuns can't sit their and thin the veil to just above dangerous levels just because they want to raid the village. This is a perfect example of LOMA right here. One village death right after you thinned the veil to just above dangerous levels makes sense mechanically but from an RP standpoint you just risked the entire world for an easier time PKing a villager.

4. Here is the easiest fix of all - just make the cabal items undroppable. Meaning whoever gets the item HAS to bring it to their cabal HQ. Or let themselves

I have logs of who lists etc...when the current Nexus/Scion/Orc party comes to bear. It is clear (just from looking at the who list) That evil tips the scales.

My experience has been this:

When it comes to Nexus raiding battle - RP is out the window PERIOD, they aren't doing anything for the 'balance' they are simply blobbing on to WHOEVER (regardless of darkness tipping) to gain any advantage they can - and its pretty sad from an RP perspective.

You'd think that strengthening an Evil cabal, or Village (GSV) (By allowing them to down the head, as technically downing the head is affecting their strength) when Evil is OBVIOUSLY swaying would be worthy of reprimand.


Also: Does it not strike you as "Out of Whack" that the 'cabal' that downs the head the absolute most...isn't a cabal at all?

Although there have been a few powerful ones lately, very few orcs even end up with a positive PK ratio.

I understand about there not being many orcs...but that actually plays into the idea...


For one...I think 'isolating' them actually creates more incentive to play them for certain kinds of players who don't care that much about RP in the first place and just want to go around killing people. Second;ly via the other idea about adding powers for taking cabal items...depending on the powers this would create alot of incentive for more people to play orcs. Here are a few benefits I though of for each cabal item held by Tremblefist:


Holding Battle's magi head:

All orcs gain 'pride' which gives -10 svs permanently while holding the head. You feel deep pride in defeating 'Thera's greatest Warriors' and feel you can fight magic as well as they can!

The orc chief gets an additional effect which grants a toned-down version of resist. (like resist during a thin veil)

Holding Fort's Orb

All orcs gain 'Darkheart' which gives all orcs a slight measure of resistance to light-based and holy attacks while holding the orb.

The orc chief gains an additional significant resistance to fire-based atatcks and a small chance to be healed by fire instead of hurt.

Holding Scion's Scepter

All orcs gain 'Aspect of the C'culgra' which would be an auto negative morale effect which sometimes effects anyone fighting them (like that bard edge) as well as a chance of instilling 'fear' into mobs they are fighting.

The orc chief would gain in addition to this 'Blood Vision' which would send the chief 'visions' of people they recently fought as well as giving them a slightly higher chance to evade any physical attacks of those they have recently fought (think of it like sharingan for orc chiefs)

Holding Empire's Codex

All orc's would gain 'Martial Horde' granting all orcs +5 hit +5 dam +5 dex

The orc chief would also gain something similar to 'imperial tactics' allowing certain orc skills to fire automatically.

Holding Outlander's fetish

All orc's would gain 'savage' which would grant them improved movement and healing rates in wilderness areas.

The orc chief would gain 'animal senses' which would allow them to see camo.

Holding the Tribunal Scales

All orcs would get 'Bully' which allows them to goto any shopkeeper in a protected city and 'Bully' the shopkeepers for items. If successful the shopkeeper would hand over the item free of charge. I'd throw some lag, only one item at a time and a timer between attempts to keep this from being overly abused.

The Orc chief would gain the ability to use manacles outside of combat.

Sounds OP right - thats the point. A very small OP group of isolated monsters fighting everyone. I'd think you'd have to start restricting numbers if they did this to orcs.

Manacles for the chief would be too strong, how about a better version
of the shopkeep looting ability (fast timer, can grab multiple items, good
success rate).

The better powers should come from the orcs holding items they normally
wouldn't try to hold.

Scepter and codex should give the best powers.
Fetish, scales and orb next.
The head last.

That should spice things up and fix the orc-battle asymmetry.
When one sees every successful hero orc preying on villagers for
the majority of his kills, one should start thinking about fixing
something that's broken.

It would also disincentivize orcs becoming scion/empire lackeys which
makes little sense, for both cabals.

certain kinds of players who don't care that much about RP in the first place and just want to go around killing people

If this is what you want to do, I'd say air offense unaligned shifter is better suited.

If orcs did get additional powers, my idea would be give them something like a boost to fury of the clan when they held their item (maybe like +4 hit +4 dam, and some additional stat boost above what it does right now) and enter them on the cabal wars chart. Something like that would be enough of a boost to make orcs want to keep whatever it is, but nothing that really alters the way they play either way. It would be something to give other cabals a way to retaliate though.

The stealing cabal power thing sounds like it would be a nightmare to code and not necessarily worth the effort based on how many people play orcs.

Yeah, I'm not a coder so I'm unsure of how hard it would be to do, though I'm thinking of it like a 'lightswitch' whereas Orcs are set opposite all the other cabals meaning orc 'powers' are off when the cabal has their item and on when the orcs hold it.

Also part of the problem with orcs are they are a massh-up of a class/cabal which from what I've seen is meant to be isolated but nobody ever thought to go all out with it. I mean orcs get extra benefits for grouping with each other which shows the Imms meant for them to be a 'horde'. Everything about orcs screams 'us against the world' but falls short on the mechanical end of things and solely depends on the RP of the folks willing to play orcs which as mentioned will always fall short due to LOMA.

I believe something like this would not only appeal to PKers but also to folks who want to expirament with their RP....there could be interesting RP angles for the whole orc/goblin thing there. Maybe throw in having the orc chief being able to speak orc and speak common.

so you'd have the orc wars thing on top of everything else. However when they first came in, the could join cabals as freely as everyone else, so you could be the orc chief, but in a cabal as well. There were some really good entropy ones.

Goodies in Fort for instance generally won't have a problem handing the Codex to Outlander. Scion imms generally don't want you to hand it off, but if you can't defend it...well its better that they don't have it rather than have it right? Empire imms don't want you to hand it off period from what I can tell. Tribunal doesn't really care, neither does Nexus (from what I can tell).

And that's fine, different cabals have different beliefs.

I personally think retrieving from the orc village should be in line with all other cabals. I actually don't really understand why at all they need to fight a shaman mob to retrieve from orc village. Seems a bit out of whack considering retrieving from anywhere as a rager can lead to multiple deaths.

I'll add here that I don't really view it as a game balance thing, considering how one-sided an orc vs villager fight can be given unique orc mechanics of retreat + bash + cheap shot.

Now, on the cross-cabal raiding thing...if I'm a villager and I see Scion airforms and Nexus people roaming around and one of the Nexus people has snare or there's summon involved...the last place I'm going to be is in the Village Cabal HQ unless there's enough ragers to kill them when they raid. Sitting there and waiting to fight 4vs1 is suicide and ragers aren't obligated to be suicidal.

That being said, I apparently am the minority.

I've now heroed (lvl 49) an Orc, taken the head, and been on the "winning" side of that coin

And, I've been battle lowbie retriever #1099 that has 0 chance killing tremblefist

Orcs participating in cabal mechanics without BEING a cabal is 100% retarded, period.

They have nothing to lose item/cabal wise, this is akin to me walking into a casino with LIMITLESS funds, while everyone else has a chance to 'lose' something

Completely stupid, I agree...but its "by design"

So, now I am approaching it from an RP perspective. There should be 'Motiviation' for your 'Cabal' to win 'Cabal Wars' no?

then everyone would be happy.