Continuation of the Relic System

[Death Dealer1]

where is the option for "whatever"? in the end i don't go one way or the other...i just play by whatever is decided.

[Nemesis Revised]

why not take away relics for a week or two? so that you'd know if SL is rlly good with the relics or even without them

[lord_modred]

very very no

[Charles I]

I vote yes to remove the relic system as it curently stands for two reasons, balance and meta-gaming.
Three factions, SL, LA, AO, control all the relics 99.9% of the time. RK had all relics once. NC, TC, MA and RK seldom keep their relics for very long after a reset. There is no balance, isn't this one of the NS4 mantras.
Example: player 1 uses character 1 from faction 1 and conducts a relic raid. They take the relic to a specific spot and drop the relic. Player 1 logs out character 1 and relogs with character 2 from faction 2 and picks up the relic. The relic is then taken to the faction 2 cradle. Can you say meta-gaming? I believe NS4 discourages meta-gaming, though no real action is taken to prevent it.
I do not have a good solution to establish balance, the meta-gaming issue is easy. Any time a relic is dropped for any reason it should return to the last cradle that held it. Relics must be contained in a cradle or carried to properly maintain its' mystical energies.

[Umpa]

Ideas to change the relic system to better match what it gives:

First lets stop the relic captures from being a newbie leveling issue. This gives a strong aliance to much advantage over say one that only has 3 members on a week.

So:
1) If you are less then level 20 you recieve no bonus from the relics.
2) If you control your own relic lets say you get 5% bonus or discount for making potions or something, as a powersource it could be said having it makes crafting magical items easier.
3) People that capture the relic in the same group and have had resistance along the way, lets say 2-10 people have died that are 15+lvl, then the whole group gets some exp to split. This is a good motivator for people to actually cap the flag other then 4am in the morning when nobody is on to defend. Also it gives people a reason to actually go enjoy the CTF sport.
4) Give bigger exp for a longer run on the capture, so say SL or LA steal the relic from each other there might be very little exp involved versus one of them running to NC which is a much longer and harder in many cases cap.
5) Allow players to hire more guards, so if a there are fewer defenders let them spend 100k and put some more in the zone. And they stay there as long as a player is present in the zone. This might allow for some interesting possiblities, or only let them buy more guards if there are not many of thier faction online. Make it impossible or more expensive if there are other members of the faction online over say 2 or 3. This would be very interesting, perhaps let them pay more for a high level wizard with a solar or balor pet that can find hidden guys versus a standard guard.
6) Put a faction leader board in every city at the entrance or something so we do not have to run to avendell to see it.
7) Put a random force option in the game, so lets say there is a movement in the force and the guy with the lowest numbers of aliance members online gets all relics in thier city. Make it random to some extent though, or spread them out across 2 or 3 cities. Or even have them goto a plane holder and spawn a bunch of boss mobs around them so people have to team up to get them back. Now that could be interesting.
8 ) Perhaps let the player hire a relic raider henchman if there is only 1 of them online or the DM's feel a faction is weak let them set it up so they can get a relic raider henchman. Only let it fight if he is in an enmy zone, so we dont have people using them to kill wolves in FD. Or even tank there, perhaps have a summons token they can only use in an enemy zone and he poofs if they leave the enemy area.
9) If a relic is being raided that does not have a defender in the city make it do something funny, like port the raider to the world of ooze, or another relic location, or spawn a uber version of the City ruler to defend it.

I think removing relics would remove some of the drive for people to level and keep going on the server.

[kingfatzo]

OooOOOOOoooOOOoo

nice

[BlkMamba]

I Say keep the Relic system....you dont like 1 faction having them..do something about it. Raiding doesnt cost nearly what it use to, there's no reason that you cant get a group even if there multi-faction to work together to rob the relics from the holding faction

[TLB_Aegis]

Ok guys i voted to keep the relic system. I have decided after playing on here a few months to join a guild so here i am - but the relic system has many pluses and the only minus seems to be its real hard for TC NC MA and RK to get/keep relics.

If thats the biggest problem with it than its easy fixed, how bout something to help the smaller factions out for a while - maybe giving them 1.5 times the xp bonus per relic or something so they can get good xp bonus from say 1 or 2 relics?

Anyways thats how i voted.

[Daedalus]

sorry, i accidently voted the wrong thing, miss read the question.
If you can change 1 vote from yes to no. Thought it said should we keep... sorry.

[Lework]

I honestly dont like the relic system. All it does it encourage more meta gaming, ive grabbed a relic only to have 5 people relog their defending toons and kill me. No fun in that. Also it is a big pain for DM's.


NS4 had the perfect PvP lead in before relics imo.


although the xp bonus, keep that in.

[Celorn]

yeah... look at the last few days. Where LA has dominated the relics, a lot due to mamba and I constantly and relentlessly grabbing relics.

But all in all, i guess the relic system benifits those who put the dedication in... if you are on a lot and persist at it, then you reap the benefits (until a DM logs in an avatar and uses a +20 weapon and a dm-invisible token).

Perhaps when a relic is captured, the cradle gets a 1-game day boost of power so that nobody can steal anything from it until the boost wears off? but there are metagaming ways to exploit that i gez..

Or how about altering the bonuses:

1 Home relic only - 10% bonus
2 Home relic + 1 enemy 20% bonus
3 Home relic + 2 enemy 35% bonus
4 Home relic + 3 enemy 50% bonus (maximum)

[JesterOI]

As far as DM's interfering in Relic issues I don't think they should be logging in their level 35's or whatever and acting like a player.

They should do something like create a "personal guard" type mob.
This would have 3 or 4 creatures in it, the logical choice being the guard types from their faction cities.
Next make 4 levels of difficulty of this mob, one with the equivalent of cr25's, another with cr30's, another with cr35's, and finally a group of cr40's.

Then whenever they feel like "assisting" in a relic confrontation they can spawn this personal guard group to help in the battle. Of course the CR of the group spawned would be determined by the level's of the PC's involved.

[Elagneros]

As far as DM's interfering in Relic issues I don't think they should be logging in their level 35's or whatever and acting like a player.

I don't mind if the DMs use their own toons to grab relics. A lot of people complain about this, but I honestly don't see the problem. Yeah, people complain the DM toons are level 40. So what? There's at least 2 level 40 toons now in the game that made it there through hard work and leveling, and there will be more in the future. Level 40s aren't invincible either, even solo one of them can still be taken down by a skilled group of defenders. Also, not all of the DMs have level 40 toons. I know both Shelt and Zing have used toons that weren't max level to grab relics before. This boils back to a typical PvP whine around here; if a tweaked out toon can't take down a character, then that character must be a DM with cheats and uber gear! This whine is especially funny when it isn't a DM at all.

Another reason I don't mind the DMs raiding is this: it keeps the relics moving around. Back when they first went in, the DMs would hit cradles all the time and the relics circulated. After a few people complained about it they stopped — and then we settled into the routine of LA and SL swapping relics. As long as the DMs don't play favorites or interfere with raids as DMs then I don't mind if the DMs occasionally grab relics for one of the weaker factions to keep things from stagnating.

[Metis]

Slightly off topic but I have to say something. If a DM has a high lvl on and playing it bothers me to no end hearing people complain.

I will refrain from going on a rant but if any member of the staff spent half the time playing to get lvls then creating/testing/tweaking/testing again/tweak from community suggestions/test again etc they should have a dozen level 40s.

[JesterOI]

Guess I should have clarified, I never seem to do that enough... (You think I would have learned to do so since 90% of people ALWAYS resort to the negative when unsure about stuff, it gets rather sad seeing it all the time...)

From an RP point of view it would be cooler if DM's while on as a DM would dispatch an "elite" group of NPC's to help sway a Relic fight for fun or whatever, rather than relogging to do it.

If they are already on as a player and not a DM, then by all means go and start a ruckus and steal or defend a relic with whatever character they want.