Shattered Kingdoms

Many battles in SK are decided by which side is able to bring the most NPCs to battle to soak up and deal damage. PvP between just a few players can result in a battlefield riddled with any combination of charmies, tribunal guards, store-bought pets, tames, elementals, dominates, controls, and animates. While both Snuffles and Conan have at one time or another claimed to have coined the phrase "NPC wars," there is no debate over the relevance of the term to the SK pvp scene. The term "NPC wars" refers to the prevalance of NPCs and their importance in pvp.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss the following questions:
1) Is it a bad thing, on principle, to have NPCs play such an important role in pvp? While many SKers have expressed disdain for this quality of pvp in SK, esteemed players such as Jhorleb (who as of yet has never been wrong about anything, ever), have argued that gathering and controling NPCs adds an increased element of tactics to the game, and allows certain classes such as priests to be viable in solo pvp.
2) If "NPC wars" is indeed detrimental to the game, what is the best way to go about lowering the efficacy of such tactics?
3) If NPCs become less useful in pvp, in what ways will this affect game-balance? Are these changes good or bad?
4) If the changes to game balance mentioned in (3) are bad for the game, what changes should accompany the change mentioned in (2) in order to compensate for these effects on game-balance?

In a later post, I may offer my own answers to questions 1, 3, and 4. However, I will start by mentioning a possible answer to question (2), which is a suggestion that was oringally made by Edoras and supported by Ardith in a recent thread: Make it so controled NPCs are automatically on stance neutral and cannot be ordered away from that stance.

OR, lessen the AC bonus of mood defensive, which is another reason that NPC wars are so successful. I seem to recall a point in time at which NPCs (and PCs) used to land over 25% of their attacks on players, and it was more important to soak damage and have high HP than it was to avoid damage via "misses." Now, you can join a tribunal or charm a NPC, give them a shield, armor, haste, and set them defensive, and you've almost always got six or so free rounds until he dies: Experienced players can do a lot in those six rounds.

My point? Armor + mood defensive + high AC armor is too buff right now in my opinion. Even NPCs on mood defensive with a shield, haste and armor will dodge 75% or more of attacks from NPCs and most PCs, including bashes.

Of course, barring that MUCH farther-reaching change, setting all NPCs (tribunal and charm NPCs included) to stance neutral and making stance unorderable would greatly handicap the tactic of using NPCs to soak damage.

Fixed.

Ok, first of all, awesome thread title.

Second, I'd gladly give up my claim of ownership of the term "NPC Wars", if we could somehow alleviate the issue.

Now onto the questions:
1) I would agree with jhorleb to an extent - NPCs in pvp do add a tactical element to the game and certainly ease the playing of some classes (priests included). The question we need to be asking is whether the current impact NPCs have in pvp is too much or not. I claim, and will attempt to prove with my arguments and examples, that some classes and in some instances NPCs provide too much of a boon which simply cannot be ignored.

Example: currently a deep-elf sorcerer in the Midnight Council can bring 3 very powerful melee NPCs to a battle together with a store-bought pet which can be used to perform a rescue last minute save. Now, if we disregard the fact that this particular race/class/organization combo is a unique occurrence which is more powerful than other combos using the same class, we need to decide whether it is balancing to have a single player wield such power. I say it isn't, and no matter what any nay-sayer might say (some of which may include that tribunal scouts rape sorcerers, charms can be dispelled, we can do tripple walk-in holy words, sorcerers are usually fighting unfavorable odds, charms can be dispelled, guard NPCs lured away, etc.), the fact remains that this single player is stronger than most other lone players he may encounter. That, to me, is not class balance, it doesn't even come close. In my opinion, there is no excuse or justification which allows a state of presumed (and I assume desired) class balance in which some classes are capable of fighting several other players on equal, if not stronger terms, and that the situation is considered normal because sorcs being overpowered is something we're all used to.

Example: a "squishy" priest finally comes equipped with a proper tank (and a store bought pet), which is very cool for priests who were always considered by the majority of players to predominantly be healers and not too capable in solo PK. Is it ok to take something like that away and make priests even less powerful in pvp (assuming that they actually were such)? I will answer that question by saying this; the fault that priests are (presumably) incapable of solo pvp isn't the fault of removing powerful tribunal NPCs, it is the fault of poor class design and overall balance between classes. I'd definitely like to see priests (as well as any other class) fight on equal footing with any other class, and the victor would mostly be decided by player skill and not overpowerness on either sides. (One dares to dream.)

3) 4) I'm skipping two. If NPCs were indeed wimped, it would affect pvp in SK vastly and because of that this change should be done very very carefully and it should be accompanied with several other class balancing changes which would ensure a fairer and more interesting pvp scenario to all parties involved, regardless of class or NPC availability. I would rather have a self-reliant class which isn't completely dependent on NPCs to survive or prevail in pvp, but merely uses them as a boon to boost their power.

I'm beginning to delve into very complicated and most likely impossible territory here because in my vision of SK I imagine sorcerers who wouldn't die to two hits from a barbarian when found in a situation where they have no NPCs. My mantra for this whole affair is - More power to actual players and less to NPCs accompanying them.

(That was way longer than expected.)

I hate NPC wars. I loved it when there were no such things as tribunals and you had to get a swashie friend up front to take hits rather than Chirk the amazing respawning GM mercenary. A day when you depended on other people or yourself rather than the HP pool of some random NPC.

NPC wars was born with Tribunals, that my friends is the root of the issue.

Sakhul, a human sorcerer can charm two npcs as well. And if he's in the Midnight Council he can take advantage of [adhesive medical strip] to [adhesive medical strip]. So he can bring three npcs to the fight as well. I liked the idea that Edoras gave though about making it impossible to change a NPC's stance to defensive or aggressive. As it stands now, a sorcerer and definitely a necromancer don't require association or help from other pcs because they can charm two npcs and set one to defensive (probably Lathron since he has innate sanctuary and haste), give him a shield and let him tank and then let another NPC be aggressive for damage output with a good damage weapon.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't stance added for the benefit of melee classes and not for spellcasters? A sorcerer, necromancer, and even tribunal members can take advantage of this feature, and it grossly weighs things in the favor of those that use npc tanks. What happened to the idea of promoting interaction with PCs? Why roll a mercenary or barbarian when a sorcerer can have the same abilities as those two classes and outclass them with spellcasting on top of it? Something just doesn't seem right here. I don't even want to get into how much better a necromancer is at melee than actual melee classes. But just imagine having a defensive Varloch, with 5 aggressive barbarians by his side. It just seems to me that stance buffed spellcasters more than it did melee characters. Just make it so that stance cannot be ordered and all npcs fight at neutral stance that a PC can control.

I also still don't think that store pets should have more than 2-300 hps at most. I've seen some with upwards of 700 hps, which is just crazy.

Varloch tank would be hilarious against any paladin.

I'd actually use a different control if I was going after a paladin.

With the new update, I'd say that the NPC wars issue has been addressed and taken care of. Good idea, Edoras, and thank you, IMMs!

It is certainly a step in the right direction, now whether or not it will fully resolve the issue remains to be seen.

And I'm planning on testing it pretty soon.