Shattered Kingdoms

Said it before, and will say it again. More than fully approve with no cons on the ^ post Sargas gave.

Oh. Like the outer guardian?

This barrier can't be crossed by any pc's unless whatever is keeping the barrier up is taken down. So, no not like the outer guardian. A relic caretaker since no pc can cross it.

I see all these suggested fixes but I'm not sure what the problem they are trying to fix is.

The main reason not "enough" PK is happening (how much is enough anyway? I don't see a lack of it) is that the game is unforgiving to anyone that dies. Jloots are the norm, justified by entirely moronic excuses nearly 99% of the time. Equipping a character all over again can take from a week to more than a month depending on a combination of wildly variable factors including priest-sorceror availability/armor availability/weapon availability/ally-friend availability to grab said armor-weapons/consumable availability etc. In terms of pure gain/cost difference, losing and getting jlooted outweighs winning. Putting countless hours into doing all that is dead boring.

With moving easily accessible armor to harder to reach locations it becomes a little worse. Yeah sure this is a social game where you have to rely on others to get some things done but in essence it just creates a bigger need to make friends with tanking classes. There are no areas that can be opened only by bards for example or navigated by bards solo that result in good armor or weapons (sacred armor and weapons excluded). What happens if a light armor priest gets stripped naked? They have to beg someone playing a tank to take them to the epic fat loot place and help them re-equip. Never the other way around.

I get why everyone playing attackers would want bounty NPCs removed. That's nonsense. The ability to know when an attack is coming is essential in defence and beyond that, it's realistic. Any place being regularly attacked would have sentries, posses, scouts and really any kind of early warning system to get defences up in time. SK is not different. Making tribunal NPCs unusable will just destroy the chronically undermanned tribunals. The Talons for example have gone without reliable tanks for months, while the Guardians barely have more than one member online at any point. Some cabals/tribunals will always have more members so the only reasonable thing to do if you are not playing a tank class and don't want to urge your ooc buddies to roll with you is to avoid PvP in empty tribunals and factions like the devil. That's already happening so making it even worse by stripping the last benefits of being in a tribunal (which are already mediocre) will kill them for good.

Word of recall becoming crap will definitely increase kills. It won't change the need for bigger groups, it will strengthen it. With everything else being as it is, no one will be willing to take any chance. And especially classes that can't or are not meant to tank. Lonely priest in a tribunal with just a pet (especially after the pet nerfing) vs any tank plus anything else, would always have to run for the hills, avoiding combat altogether. I can easily see a surge of people rolling tanks after that, and then bandwagoning all together to have the benefit of numbers. That's a horrible way to play a game and I'll just quit if I have to play in such a specific pattern.

There are two ways to solve these things. Either make death less unforgiving, making it easier to take chances without risking wasting a ton of boring "playtime" to reequip and having to use more elaborate tactics to take down OP opponents or introduce changes like those being suggested here and then have to deal with a flood of other changes needed to fix the pro-tank imbalance it will create.

I just want to say that if this is true for you, then you need to get more familiar with the PvE game of SK. Generally speaking, there's more than enough lewts to go around, and it should never take more than a few days to recover from a jloot. On my current main, I've eaten....5? jloots thus far (probably a few more, actually), and it's never taken more than a couple of days to get back to a kit that's functional in pve/pk.

Adding to OA's note:I'll agree that putting hours into recovering from a jloot gets boring, but there are plenty of circumstances where entering into PK is worth it -only- if you look at the loot you could possibly end up with.

Of course, that ignores the position of entering into PK because your RP dictates it, which is the primary reason that people should PK.

My answer to a jloot is almost always (at least in terms of light armor characters) the dragonscale armor available after you become a bonefied dragon slayer, followed by me whining to my allies to help get me a replacement weapon, then waiting for a priest to get online, eventually it happens and I get a holy symbol. Viola! Full gear.

I wouldn't mind if more decent gear was obtainable through just purchasing it in shops, even if you have to go through some elaborate quests to gain access to it. Knowing that the dragonscale is (usually) readily available makes me not worry so much if I kick the bucket.
P.S. I guess getting stuff enchanted is usually a backseat priority for me.

But I suppose I enjoy the RP of SK more so than PVP or PVE. So while other people get jlooted and spend (quite a bit of) time re-equipping themselves, I'll be enjoying myself with the arpees

The problem: a huge amount of PK right now is reduced to gate in, check inn, gank or gate out. There's practically no warning to PvP and it is super easy to just fly in and score a cheap kill. Conversely, it only ever really gets new/inexperienced/inattentive players killed, because word of recall makes it virtually impossible to kill anyone sitting behind a pet, save for a rogue being present (and there's no really good reasons to play a rogue right now).



This is being addressed -- that, getting a full suit of above-average equipment is incomprehensibly easy, and getting good consumables just takes a trip with a group to your nearest enemy warparty.



This is only a problem for characters who have painted themselves into a corner and have practically no allies. Even then, crappy silk equipment, purchaseable stat mod gear, enchant armor, magical vestments, a decent pet and the harm spell will go a long way to get a light armor priest back in business. A bard can convince practically anyone to do their work for them because bard songs are awesome to have with you and make things insanely easy. Etcetera...


Yes, and that's what putting NPCs at choke points and removing gate/teleport/rift from cities (until the 'barrier' is dropped) would help to do. Guards at gates will always warn the city and tribunal when something is going on. There would be more time to group together and mount a defense if you gather at the barrier 'point'.


Unfortunately, making them usable makes the vast majority of PK pointless: people just won't fight unless they have a ton of NPCs following them around. Tribunal NPCs would still provide a hell of a lot of utility, and they are still strong enough to be a factor in engagements -- but you would no longer be directly commanding them, or relying on them to fill your ranks.


This sounds like more of a recruiting problem than anything else.


There are a lot of ways to make tribunals attractive.


It will increase kills simply because people will have to start using their brains to get away. No more quaff -> safety. It will have to be mode run, ration moves, find a spot to fly to cease leaving tracks, potentially get to a body of water...


People already don't take any risks. Gating in two rooms away from a common gathering spot to nail ganks, or safely grinding out people's coffers are not big risks.


With these changes, when an outlaw attacks, the law would ignore crimes committed against the outlaws or attackers, so any person that joins you in defending the city would be safe from the law as long as they only attacked outlaws or criminals.


If death is not forgiving, then winning is unimportant. If you want to stop dying, you need to start making concessions IC. If your city is getting demolished and you can't see any other way out than surrendering, then you need to surrender. People often forget there's a lot of IC outs that can be taken, but they refuse to ever RP surrender/defeat.

TO NOTE: I should really post these all as nothingxs because they are, for the most part, player opinions, not anything relevant or important that IS going to happen -- I am just too lazy to log off and back on. I happen to like discussing this kind of thing (and people who remember those huge threads I used to make with ideas will remember that I would occasionally make a thread with a new idea that may or may not have had some merit, and a few pages discussing them -- lots of other people did, too) and knowing what people think.

Now under this idea would Tribs get something that would allow them to recall, or gate to the room with the crystal so that they could form up a defense if they were not in the city? Just curious what the the thinking was.

Tribs have always had the tribunal recall ability.