Shattered Kingdoms

hi

i know it's not comin back and i have not been in a tribunal ever

but ordering guards to cast spells used to be cool

sanctuary bolt of glory etc used to add flavor to the game

now it's just extra layer of meat shield

and the meat shields aren't equal, some are better than the others

maybe they can be standardised at least

I disagree. Now, you know what you are up against. If your enemy is a barbarian, you he isn't going to come in casting holy word (with a guard NPC). You can prepare for your enemy as a barbarian, not as a plethora of guard NPCs he may or may not bring.

It has previously been brought to the attention of the staff that while CRS is balanced via HQ templates, mercenary spawns all being equal, and inner/outer guardians being the same for all factions - no such effort has been made for tribunals.

Instead of a template being established for tribunals, the builder (or kingdom director) for each kingdom ultimately decided what was balanced and that is why we have ended up in a situation where the Guardians and Hand get access to cowled guards, Yric Torquil, the Trio, and an air elemental while the other tribunals get the short end of the stick with rogues, hellions, and low level mercenaries that are vulnerable to dying in pairs to one recite due to sharing the same keyword.

The answer that was given was something about flavor, which didn't seem to matter for cabal HQs but it is somehow paramount when it comes to tribunal guards. Shattered Kingdoms: Where roleplay and tactics collide (if you join the Hand or Guardians)!

lulz

While you may have some valid points, I can tell you from first hand experience that bitching and whining won't solve your problem.

It is also noteworthy that some of the named tribunal guards, like Lazeran, are flagged no summon while others are not (like Gallenen). This dovetails into a few cities that have gate anchors a few steps away from their inn (Exile, the Moot, Menegroth, Sith'a'niel), while the gate anchor near the Rumbling Zakami in Nerina was made no gate.

There doesn't appear to be any sort of balance consideration, overarching scheme or reasonable justification for these sorts of discrepancies between kingdoms/tribunals other than the kingdom director for a particular area decided that it should be that way.

I have posted the problems with tribunals, so now I will present the solution(s):

1. Create a template for tribunals and then apply the template to all the kingdoms. The guards can be described/skinned differently in order to maintain flavor and theme, but mechanically they should be equal. This would likely require a lot of time/resources and has the drawback of exacerbating NPC wars, which most players generally dislike.

2. Remove leadership from tribunals. The benefit for joining a tribunal should be law immunity and the advantage of attackers having to deal with guards and bounty hunters, if they attack your home turf. Give death mark back to tribunal leaders to deal with problematic characters (and players that skirt the law code) - the staff can monitor to make sure it is not abused. This solution has the drawback of death mark needing to be monitored, but effectively puts an end to NPCs wars.

Opey has confused sarcasm with bitching.

But Finn u iz crazy. How is I am supposed to PKz without first no tribunal spellz now no guardz??

Actually, Finney's solutions sound pretty good to me. I'm not sure I am entirely on board with removing leadership, especially if you are going to apply a template across the board on all tribunals. If everyone has their legionnaire captain equivalent, that seems fine.