Light/Dark Keepers Discussion

[Vanion Shadowcast]

Alternatively, I'd counter with part of my proposal, being allowing people to regenerate foci up to their maximum potential by scoring using a key spell. That feels more fair to me, and could affect everyone. Perhaps you limit regenerations by domination tiers (1 regen per duel for +1 Tier, or 2 regens per duel for +3 - something along those lines).

From a perspective of having officiated DoM for eight years in various states of mind, mood, distraction, and consciousness , I feel that rules that are this conditional would be tough for an official to consistently and reliably administer. It would also be more confusing for to learn from a duelist's perspective. Making it this conditional also seems to minimalize its effect, and may make it less worthwhile to pursue.

Yeah, I'm just a fan of those sorts of ideas, as atypical as they are. They certainly cater to more advanced players.

I think that the +1 foci can work, but I do think it should be restricted to the ranks that are capable of challenging only. As I said, I think offering it to brand new characters is going to create a lopsided affect that the system just won't ever recover from.

[Esperwind]

To prevent it from being too lopsided, perhaps the +1 foci for all duelists of the dominant alignment would only take effect if one alignment had an overwhelming ( 6 or more?) domination (rather than +1 for dominating, and +2 for overwhelming). Depending on how the majority of characters vying for the spots were aligned, however, it may make it more difficult for it to go into effect. Just a thought.

[Neo Eternity]

First of all, I'm really happy to see what DoM has grown into after I went and poofed. It makes me all that more honored to have gotten to take care of it and poke its guts.

Alright, here's two cents from a has-been who is skimreading while at work, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I feel like we're trying to capture the kind of interactivity that makes DoS's title metagame so engaging. Yet at the same time, we don't want to overshadow the Archmage. And the consensus seems to be that we can't really support two more full titles just yet.

At the risk of aping DoS's title metagame too closely... why not just add light and dark alignment to the five titles we already have? The Archmage decides what they would like to align, if any. Then the Keepers align. Some might align with the Archmage, some might align against, and some might not align at all, for a whole myriad of reasons like you guys have all already touched on. Maybe they like/dislike the Archmage. Maybe they seek chaos/equilibrium. Maybe they prefer day/night. And then the boons for alignment.

I am personally not a fan of modifying the core game mechanics according to alignments, because DoM is already complicated enough to maintain and officiate since we're still using the Focus workaround in flash chat, and we have people with expendable EFs. And I'm not a fan of four focuses, because that stuff was just straight up bonkers in testing. In fighting games, a single frame of advantage means, on hit, the difference between comboing and not comboing, as well as on block, punishability and safety. In this case, a duelist with four focuses has the capability of ramping up an absurd amount of score advantage with a safety net to boot. With three focuses, they have to pay attention to their focus use and can't aquire enough of an advantage to go bonkers with it unless they hit 3.0 in round two. Like I said, it just takes one frame.

Anyways, I digress before I start gushing too much about game theory. But I am all for messing with metagame mechanics. DoS has plenty of metagame mechanics that revolve around title alignment. Maybe we could come with some of our own? Since our challenge game is accesible early (even if rank prerequisite is bumped up to Sorcerer, which I think is a peachy idea in the scope of weekly resets), adding more interactivity makes that echelon of gameplay more appealing to shoot for. I know that some of you might not want to make the challenge metagame look like too much like DoS, and I think that's perfectly understandable... but at the same time, I also don't think it'd be a bad thing if that were to happen.

So that begs the question, what kind of stuff could we add to the challenge game in order to spruce things up, aside from stuff that would be the same as DoS mechanics? In addition are there any DoS mechanics that would end up being different just on virtue of being in DoM instead? Maybe just because of the different number of titles?

In terms of purely OOC aesthetic mechanics, I think it'd be pretty cool if the apparent time of day on Twilight Isle matches the current light/dark alignment.

So yeah, there's a bunch of words. Do as you will with them.

[Shadowlord]

It looks good, Neo, but my question is, where are you getting this consensus that the game can't support two more Towers? I'm getting the opposite impression. Maybe a basic vote is in order?

[Neo Eternity]

It looks good, Neo, but my question is, where are you getting this consensus that the game can't support two more Towers? I'm getting the opposite impression. Maybe a basic vote is in order?

I think it was closer to the start of the thread? Anyways, like I said, I was skimreading due to work so my postulation could be blatantly false.

[Vanion Shadowcast]

I think that the more recent consensus (or at least the -vocal- consensus) is that we can support more towers.

I don't think that this type of system really apes DoS' alignment system. I think it's more interesting, tbh, as it has cause/consequence for the Isle itself.

As for the mechanics: well, that's the real sticky part for this. Everyone's suggesting a different approach here. Never-the-less, I think that a mechanic bonus of some sort, is important here to support the cause/effect nature of this idea.

As for the possibility of improving the metagame for challenging... I hadn't put any thought towards this, of course, but I will. I like the idea at its base, though I don't think that it should be anything like DoS. Whereas DoS is very political, the spirit of this idea would be more like that of an ongoing battle.

[Vanion Shadowcast]

Poke-poke, bump.

Just wanted to see if anyone of the DoM staff have come up with any consensus on bumping up the rank requirements for challenging Towers, or on the issue adding (and how to add) the two new Towers?

[Claire Gallows]

I believe the rank requirement has been changed to Sorcerer for the sake of challenging. I'm still curious about the new towers though.

[Andrea Anderson]

Probably should wait a cycle or three to see how the new changes have impacted the DoM challenges. Adding two or one new Tower when there's been a decrease of challenges might not be the best idea. I'd say wait for numbers before planning.

[Claire Gallows]

Ehh...the challenges still seem to be coming in regularly. Nobody seems to sit out of grace long before getting challenged. It's the regulation dueling that worries me. I know IFL and the holidays contribute to that, but regular DoM dueling has seemed to be drying up pretty badly.

[Andrea Anderson]

Ehh...the challenges still seem to be coming in regularly. Nobody seems to sit out of grace long before getting challenged. It's the regulation dueling that worries me. I know IFL and the holidays contribute to that, but regular DoM dueling has seemed to be drying up pretty badly.

True, true. It's been drying up even before those. It's hard trying to get duels on DoM Tuesday and those I've spoken to say they have either given up or come around on weekends. Though Friday and Sunday is much of the same. Even though there's dueling, it's harder due to DoF and DoS competition.

Also should consider how many are being challenged by alts. The grace period time between the towers, etc. There seems to be a recycling of the normal crowd of players. Would adding 2 more Towers continue this challenge style or would it slow them down? Having 4 towers being constantly competed for is a good thing, but adding two more to dwindle challenges between some would result in some keepers sitting on graces / etc. Should keep things competitive and keep it to four.

[Shadowlord]

Ehh...the challenges still seem to be coming in regularly. Nobody seems to sit out of grace long before getting challenged. It's the regulation dueling that worries me. I know IFL and the holidays contribute to that, but regular DoM dueling has seemed to be drying up pretty badly.

True, true. It's been drying up even before those. It's hard trying to get duels on DoM Tuesday and those I've spoken to say they have either given up or come around on weekends. Though Friday and Sunday is much of the same. Even though there's dueling, it's harder due to DoF and DoS competition.

Also should consider how many are being challenged by alts. The grace period time between the towers, etc. There seems to be a recycling of the normal crowd of players. Would adding 2 more Towers continue this challenge style or would it slow them down? Having 4 towers being constantly competed for is a good thing, but adding two more to dwindle challenges between some would result in some keepers sitting on graces / etc. Should keep things competitive and keep it to four.

I find that circular, because I believe the limited number of titles is also a contributing factor to less participation. In all of the sports, gaining title is the ultimate goal. The current situation makes it very hard for newer players (not just brand new, but people who have, say, tried it out for a couple months) to break into the challenge game of DoM.

Also, all of the sports have duels inflated by alts - it's certainly not just DoM.

My real point rests on this though: why not try to expand things a little? Is it going to completely break the game? And if that's one's assertion, I'd like to see a theory presented as how.

Experimenting is fun. And sometimes what's needed in times of stagnation.

[Andrea Anderson]

Could always do what DoF does. Give new Tower holders 7 days grace, 30 after if they defend.

[Vanion Shadowcast]

I think that, not just adding more towers, but creating a more dynamic and interactive challenge system would definitely help to encourage repeat business in regulation. That's what a lot of this thread's been talking about.

The dip in regulation doesn't seem too weird to me, based on the time of year and folks being involved in IFL after post-Hydra burnout.

I'm not really opposed to the idea of seven day grace periods for new title holders, either. I don't really see a downside to that, but I don't think that it affects the overall issues discussed in this thread.

There's definitely not been a lack of titles being constantly under challenge in DoM in quite a while. I know that I waited months to get one in before I was beat to it by someone else in my previous attempts.

[Esperwind]

Could always do what DoF does. Give new Tower holders 7 days grace, 30 after if they defend.

We originally did have the same 7 day period for new keepers, followed by 30 days if they defended. Someone sneaked in a change (or they changed it when I wasn't pay close attention).