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Flubb

Personalising global cast favor

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A last attempt on something constructive in this regard.

 

The main problem with the current goal to cast a global spell lies in the fact that all actual work being done is public domain. This causes anxiety over the availability of the cast, and resentment for not being part of it when it would have been possible, and all other sorts of conflicts. There's basically a misalignment between the idea of a "personal goal" and the work that is to be done for it.

Other suggestions, including the one to allow linking to count, too (Though I still think that was a neccessary step, because even within the framework of the following suggestion it would cause conflict), are only bandaids to cater to this specific goal, but would be inconsequential to the Rites actual benefit and mechanisms.

Let's identify another problem: The charging process. It's basically sermoning and praying all day long. Mostly praying. It basically demands gameplay that tethers you to an altar all day long for weeks on end - a contention that was also raised with the "70 prayer" goal. In counting the prayers and seeing when a rite was ready, I noticed that a lot came from my alts. No, this isn't a brag, but it seems as though, unsurprisingly, people don't really care to pray all day long. The charging process doesn't feel worthwhile or meaningful to engage in, even for the followers who'd benefit of this no matter who casts in the end.

 

This is suggestion is a rehash of a previous one-off post I made back when the goal came out and everyone predicted this kerfuffle. All concrete numbers are not set in stone, so please refrain from comments like "This would be OP though, -1" or anything when another number would seem reasonable to you. Similarly, more finely detailed processes are also subject to discussion.

 

Basically, don't make the favor pool public domain, but make "Diety Favor" a seperate character bound value.

This resolves the issue of having the cast effectively taken from you, without neccessarily subtracting from it's rarity/making it more available or making piggybacking on other peoples work easier as other suggestions on their own would do.

 

Right now, from my understanding, 1000 points have to be gathered for a Rite. Each sermon listener counts as 1 point, each prayer as 0.01 (Thus the "100k prayers"). I vaguely recall this from post from @Sindusk back in a VI thread(?), would be great to have a clarification on this.

 

The point system could be simply maintained just like that, and a priest can store 25-30k "Diety Favor" of his own, making a cast with 4 people still possible as it is neccessary now just from the normal favor cost - but encourages linking with more priests to get it done sooner. Also a nice side effect for the goal.

The rate at which these points are gained can be lowered if that would make casts available too soon. A cast would burn off all your Diety Favor though, regardless of how many points your group is over the threshold collectively.

 

A Rite spell furthermore would have a 1 week cooldown, so that followers and priests have a chance to burn off the SB and it cannot be spammed.

But won't that also cause congestion?

To a degree it will, but I think that's inevitable. But in the very least, you can definitely still do it next week - and the people who just blocked you put themselves out of competition for another month or two at least, as that's how long it should take a dilligent priest to mentally prepare for the Rite.

On a sidenote, the 24 hours after the cast could be exempt from the cooldown without any further effect - just like Gwyn suggested. They're not competing suggestions at all, but I think just letting the gravy train stay for another 24h is "incomplete".

 

How will followers charge the Rites then?

This is why I didn't post this back then, because I wasn't sure how to work that in. Or was too lazy. Or forgot. Meh. I think it was the middle one because I wanted to see how things pan out first.

Either way, apart from being sermon listeners and thus giving points to the preacher, followers would also store points from praying like priests do. These points can be "extracted" from a priest by listening to their confession - yes, that's a mechanism that exists already, most readers are probably scratching their heads right now. It's a way of gaining alignment in your respective direction for both participants, but that's a terribly moot stat mostly.

To give followers a further incentive to have their confessions taken from them, giving a certain amount of points could grant a small reward. A refresh, a temporary affinity, a gem, one of the praying buffs like "No fall damage" etc. for a significant amount of time, you name it.

This would bring some communal aspect to priests who would now go around taking confessions, or have people come to them. The incentive for the priest is obviously reaping those juicy diety favor points. So there's mutual incentive to engage in this system and fosters interaction between players. This will ultimately benefit bigger communities, but even speaking as a hermit, I don't think that's a bad thing - you still have your own prayers to rely on that noone can take away. Only delay your access to the Rite, but not indefinitely, as the competition basically disabled itself.

 

 

This is a sidenote and not quintessential to the suggestion, but I think it fits in here nicely.

There's still the gripe with the encouraged gameplay of "being an altar boy". Or being 15 altar boys and slowly going mad from carpal tunnel.

To address that, I propose that Diety Favor points are only granted for gaining faith, AKA the 5 prayers done in 20 minute intervals. Priests and followers at max faith could get more points for their "continued dedication", whereas priests get a greater bonus because they're at a whooping 100 faith instead of 30.

And only premium characters ought to be able to generate these points, because obviously this would be more "alt-abusable" than the current system already is. Ideally, this system is more fun to engage with and makes alts obsolete, anyway, because spamming prayers no longer gets you there, but consistency in praying, just like meditation relies on consistency.

 

Overall, this aims not only to make the drama around the goals less pronounced and adversarial, but also make the charging progress itself less tedious and more interesting by giving intermediate incentives and discouraging repetetive, crippling gameplay.

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I like this idea, it also opens up the possibility of other abilities linked to this pool of deity favour.

 

Although, the limitation aspect would be a bit annoying, especially given how much "fun" meditation is.  Wallet warriors with sermon ALTs would just abuse this into the ground.  Far better to just add diminishing returns; after 100 prayers gain becomes negligible till the day ticks over.

 

If you wanted to have more active play, maybe give large bonuses for prayer during eclipses.

 

+1 anyway

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14 hours ago, Flubb said:

Each sermon listener counts as 1 point, each prayer as 0.01 (Thus the "100k prayers").

If this is true, that would means a sermon with 5 listeners would replace 500 prays?

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4 hours ago, Rocky said:

If this is true, that would means a sermon with 5 listeners would replace 500 prays?

 

Yep. Mind that a toon with a 30s praying timer can outdo "their" contribution in an hour, about 120 prayers. For throwing in an occasional boost to the charge, it's a pretty expedient way though as opposed to power praying. I reckon sermon groups must play a large factor in charging, though. Appearantly not. Must've been something lost in translation.

 

16 hours ago, Etherdrifter said:

Wallet warriors with sermon ALTs would just abuse this into the ground.

 

It's a system that relies on the contribution of many characters, however we try to reinvent it. I think alt abuse comes with the territory. I also had to "alt abuse" out of the wazoo to charge RoS in 2 weeks. Granted, currently it works with free alts, but this shouldn't neccessarily be encouraged. If they are premmed up...at least they pay for that advantage, as alts can give you in many ways if you can afford it. It's a valid concern but I think the issue is rooted deeper. And in the end, with this system...it's their progress, not mine. No more skin off my nose, at least in my opinion.

 

Diminishing returns sound like a good complementary measure though. Gives some leeway to "walk the extra mile" without it changing the viable meta. So why not both? Points for all prayers, small bonus for sporadic prayers (5x a day), further bonus for doing these at max faith. And the bonus points for the sporadic prayers should be guaranteed obviously. The reason meditation is so tedious is the RNG in gaining ticks, I think most people would not complain about the timewalls if it wasn't mixed with a random chance to have it paid off, at least I often heard so. But, different topic...it's a sidenote that's supposed to tweak encouraged gameplay anyway, the main suggestion can do with or without it.

Edited by Flubb

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18 hours ago, Flubb said:

Right now, from my understanding, 1000 points have to be gathered for a Rite. Each sermon listener counts as 1 point, each prayer as 0.01 (Thus the "100k prayers"). I vaguely recall this from post from @Sindusk back in a VI thread(?), would be great to have a clarification on this.

 

That's not correct. The rites were standardized to 100,000 "deity favor" to cast. Furthermore, deity favor is now pooled into the template deity for each spell, even if you're praying or holding a sermon as a priest of a player god.

  • Prayers grant 1 deity favor. No conditions. You don't need to gain faith, adjust your alignment, whatever. A successful pray grants a deity favor.
  • Sermons are a bit more tricky. They grant 1 favor per person who affects the faith of the player holding the sermon. Think of each 0.02 faith gained as a prayer in this scenario. Furthermore, the rarity of the altar will add an additional deity favor per rarity level. +1 for rare, +2 for supreme, +3 for fantastic.
    • In a situation where you hold a sermon for 6 subjects and obtain 0.12 favor, you would be adding 6 deity favor to the template deity.

Before the priest rework, the deity pools worked a bit different. Each deity had their own pool and the rites were much more tricky to calculate the deity favor costs for, since it would modify based on how many players were on the server and similar.

 

With that out of the way, I'm indifferent on the aspect of your suggestion overall. I believe some aspects are ideal - such as making it so only the 5 daily prayers count towards the deity favor - but have trouble grasping the full benefit of the system. From my understanding it's to allow players to actually cast the rite themselves instead of getting the bonuses from people who cast it when it's available. However, that entirely contradicts the point of the rites in the first place. They're meant to be a global bonus that occurs infrequently. This doesn't scale very well when each player can have that impact as an individual. I can see a lot of abuse cases by putting these casts on players instead of on the community at large.

Edited by Sindusk

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Thanks for clarifying, seems I got the sermon part wrong somewhere. Doesn't help that none of this information is properly documented, or so it would seem...

 

9 minutes ago, Sindusk said:

From my understanding it's to allow players to actually cast the rite themselves instead of getting the bonuses from people who cast it when it's available.

 

People get the bonus when it's available to priests with enough stored diety favor in total, who can then cast it with the same effect it has now, with the same minimum amount of priests required. In practice, it would still be an infrequent global bonus, so I don't see the contradiction there exactly. I do concede the point about scaling to some extend though, but priests aren't exactly supposed to achieve this "individually", strictly speaking. Not within reasonable time at least. They ought to "collect" the favor of followers, being a proxy for them effectively. So the "community at large" is still required for the overall effort. This is why I proposed the limits, or would at least like to see a soft cap like Etherdrifter suggested, so that priests are more like proxies for the followers they listen to.

31 minutes ago, Sindusk said:

I can see a lot of abuse cases by putting these casts on players instead of on the community at large.

Coming from the notion of my last sentence, this is the sentiment I have trouble grasping - what's exactly the difference between putting it "on the players" and "on the community", which consists of said players? "The community" is a pretty spongy and vague concept in this context. Is it because followers' points have to be physically extracted from a single priest, putting the onus of delegating their efforts to the overall diety favor going around to individuals ("the players"?) rather than just putting it in a "public fund"?

This might indeed be a thing that can also backfire in applied practice, but confessions are just one conceivable vehiculum. And, the cast itself is still on the players as it is now, it's the process of charging that is taken out of "the communities" hand and given to the priests semi-individually.

 

But you're raising a valid point that I hadn't considered. I can see people demanding money for either taking confessions for the little proposed bonuses the followers get or wanting to be paid or otherwise compensated for participating in a Rite - though I'd think that getting the SB and characteristics is enough of a reward. Maybe that estimate is way off, but what I take from your objection is, speaking more generally, that priests would be able to gatekeep contributions and/or hold them "hostage" for whatever reason? That's a troublesome aspect, admittedly.

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question: did I understood it correct that a rare altar doubles my prays for charging up the global spell?

so if I do 1000 prays per day it counts 2000 in the pool?

Edited by Rocky

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Uh, no, the altar rarity was a point for sermons. Prayers are 1 point, always. Even for free alts.

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