Nexus Clash

Starting in Breath 5 the dev team has decided to make the ability to create Strongholds a global toggle that will get turned on for everyone (with an announcement of the date/time in advance) at the same time. There were numerous good reasons to do this, however this has left the game with a bit of a content drought in T2 where there isn't a whole lot to do aside from what gameplay was already available in mortal. While there have been some shifts, as in Nash Technical no longer has 80 people reading on top a mound of 200 corpses, we're mostly just trying to find each other and hit each other with sticks.

I'd like to have people from the community discuss what kind of shape pre-SH faction war mechanics might take, and depending on what dev team can create in T2, it might have life in the later phases of the game. The design space is really open for this kind of thing so people should try to think outside the box, let the dev team worry about how we'd implement it. Everyone who has played through B4 can understand faction war dynamics just as well as any member to dev team, there's no hidden information or upcoming changes to how it works.

Things to keep in mind:
Anything that is created by a faction and grants them advantage should have some counter-play to take it down or mitigate that advantage (example: fortifications)
Offense needs to be stronger than defense, or the game becomes static and unfun. It's okay if a faction of 30 can consistently stonewall a 5 person raid-team, but if a faction of 10 can, that's not good (example: petmasters)
Similar to above, Large factions should have advantage over small factions, but only to some degree and possibly balanced by costs. Otherwise large factions can become oppressive

Dev team has an idea for a T2 facwar feature to implement which would be like a SH, but no structures. I could see it having utility as a secondary outpost after SH are enabled.

We have considered leaving it unmarked on the map in exchange for no defenses, but hiding things can be very strong in this game. I have been thinking of ways to make interesting counterplay on the information warfare side and I’d be interested in what other people come up with. So the prompt is: My opponent has a hidden thing I want to attack, how do I design a feature that has some limitation, but can provide hints for legitimate scouting to discover the hidden thing? Bonus prompt: how do I design things to discourage or expose meta information?

Dunno how much of a pain it would be to code but maybe you can add description modifiers that reflect SHs/bunkers from farther (10 tiles?) away. “To the north you see the banners of All Your Souls”

Or perhaps on search/reading a book something like - You find a note: “gathering at Belmont Court”. It is scribbled on the back of a letter between well-known Ridleyback Resistance Front members.

Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by meta information?

sekki wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 5:06 pm Dunno how much of a pain it would be to code but maybe you can add description modifiers that reflect SHs/bunkers from farther (10 tiles?) away. “To the north you see the banners of All Your Souls”

Or perhaps on search/reading a book something like - You find a note: “gathering at Belmont Court”. It is scribbled on the back of a letter between well-known Ridleyback Resistance Front members.

Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by meta information?

Some sort of description modifier is a great idea that I hadn't considered, but that kind of runs into meta information. What I mean by that is, people using information gained by alts to discover the hiding place. There's various times when you know something that can affect decision making in-game and having to pretend otherwise sucks, not even considering the possibility of cheating.
For instance, in descending order of how strict the mechanic could be, just off the top of my head

1. The outpost is not indicated at all inside the location, those seeking to destroy it must reveal the interior to interact with however it is destroyed
2. The outpost is indicated inside the location
3. The outpost is indicated outside on the tile itself only
4. The outpost is indicated outside in a 1 square radius (3x3 area)
5. The outpost is indicated outside in X square radius (whatever larger than 1)
6. The outpost is indicated on the faction page after Y amount of time

I'd rather have #6 than #5 because the possibility of coming across the outpost and it being "common knowledge" gets so high that you might as well make it public information based on a timer to lessen the annoyance of concealing information based on alt information.

On the balance side, there's some interesting things that can be played with. #1 is just silly restrictive, I was trying to figure a way to make interior only even worse (although it would make bat animus an extremely good scout for these). I think #2 or #3 are extremely likely to be what the mechanic ends up being, probably tied to how challenging we can make the defenses without being insurmountable by a small team (i.e not 1500 structures). #4 is an interesting choice though, and all three of these, maybe a #6 would tie into how powerful the outpost can be if we allow it to be upgraded. For example, SH now are called out on the map in a 5x5 radius and indicated on faction page after 24-48 hours, but you also have 1500 defenses to get through to the meat. What does 1/3 of that look like?

This is kinda getting beyond the scope of a suggestion thread and I might move this or c/p to a mechanics discussion because I am interested in people's opinions on what other Objectives in faction war could look like. Its completely uncharted territory since facwar has been raid rinse repeat for 15 years, so there's a lot of room for innovation.

Yea we may be moving a liiitttle far from the original suggestion but anyways:

What if each faction is only able to "seek out" the location of "hostile" factions, or if that number is too large a restricted (maybe 3) number of "target" factions. Basically with the idea of being able to see it from farther away (5/10tiles) since you're deliberately looking for signs, but not getting the signs at all if they aren't a target of your faction. If you go the limited # route you'd have to restrict how often it can be changed to prevent metagaming though (maybe like every 24h).

This allows your characters who actually care about the location to be able to stumble over it more easily but essentially make it invisible to your alts who don't care about that kind of information, especially the unfactioned ones. Yes you may have alts in different facs with the same target but some argument could be made that targetting the same faction implies either an alliance or an alliance of convenience (like even if Fac A isn't allied with Fac B, if they both hate Fac C then perhaps it would make sense for a member of Fac A/B to tip off the other fac if they found it).

Though probably everyone should be able to see it if they literally walk into it (that is seeing it on the inside-only)

We could make territory a little more explicit as well.

You can “claim” pieces of land for your faction by planting mini-faction standards on them provided it is sufficiently infused to your alignment. This costs some amount of renown to set up and it passively infuses the square (spilling over to adjacent squares). The mini-standard cannot be taken while defenses exist (barricades). Your faction is notified when the mini-standard is destroyed. You gain renown when destroying the mini-standard of a hostile faction.

Edit: The mini-standards are placed outside and are quite visible.

Edit2: This notably drops the whole idea of “reclaiming” standards. They just get destroyed. No reclamation.

I really like the idea of having some mechanic which encourage people to be online in the same place. There's so many skills/builds in the game that really only have a use in actively defended raids, which are pretty rare.

My suggestion is a triggered battle, where a faction can set a time/location, and 24 hours from that time there's an event which is resolved through glorious combat.

The essential idea doesn't require SHs. Attack and defense are both critical, and a mix of the two would probably be optimal for both sides of the battle.

My initial idea for the implementation:

- Any faction can spend renown to plant a flag in any non-SH location on the map, inside or outside. This probably costs a good amount of renown/resources
- All(? or just a subset) enemy and allied factions are notified of the time and location of the flag (Or alternatively, don't publish this info and have it be something that needs to be detected. Given that it only lasts for a day, it should probably show up on the 5x5 map)
- After 24 hours from the time of planting, the first time one of the two teams has no representatives on the tile, the battle is completed and the team remaining on the tile wins

Winner gets a big chunk of infusion, some renown, and whatever else

Some of the interactions this would encourage:
- strategising: factions working together to come up with a coordinated approach
- hunting people who are resting near the battle site in advance of the battle (particularly while we don't have SHs)
- tanky characters and defensive style abilities
- debuffs that work on enemy attack capability
- healing (I think healers are having a very rough time at the moment)
- glorious combat

Some of the ways the idea would fall down:
- limited RP, as it would probably be a bit too fast paced for chatting

I like the idea of any semi-SH war mechanic benefiting all parties in the faction with everyone having a role and stake in the space.

Hmm, to tackle massive meat-shield issues NW had an option to capture an SH flag that was directly tied to infusion strength.

Some suggestions, just spitballing - Outposts and Orb Carriers. Both of the ideas give people reason to be outside their SH when they are formed which would be a good thing.

Outposts

Factions can spawn outposts which is an in-door flag. It can only be placed on a tile infused to your faction alignment. Faction members get a notification when an outpost is planted and where. Possible to have multiple outposts with the first one being free and every additional one costing 5 renown x (number of existing outposts) or a daily fee. The outpost generated can give a moderate skill buff to those on the tile (+1soak / +10% defence) and beneficial effects bleed out to the surrounding 8 tiles (+5% search / +5% hide). Obviously only their faction benefits but they could for renown spend also a) spread it to the 24 surrounding tiles and b) gift the perks to others of the same alignment in the area. There is no ward, no cades, just the flag and its shield. Every day the Outpost is up and running generates 2-3 renown. It could also generate 1 free high value resource item from each of the 8 resources tiles around it which are either dropped by the flag or deposited into the faction safe. So if 2 hospitals were by it it would produce 2 FAKs. The outpost allows access to faction footlocker.

The flag has a shield around it that is directly tied to the 24 tiles around it (the 5x5). With each tile infused to that alignment boosting the shield strength. Uninfusible tiles give a nominal 1/2 strength. Each tile could give the shield say 30hp so a maximum defensive shield of 720hp (25 x 30) from infusion. Gives the infusers something to do. Each faction member present boosts the shield by hp (10hp x their tier. So T2 gives 20hp). Each faction member not idle passively provides an extra 10hp regardless of location. Capped at 1000hp. So you are looking at a shield strength of between 40hp to 1000hp. Factionmates can see shield strength but not outsiders.Gives defenders something to do

Psychometry allows users for 1ap to detect flags in a compass direction which is boosted by proximity. I.e 3 tiles away from one - you feel the weak pull of a evil flag to the West. 1 tile away - you strongly feel the pull of a good flag to the North-west. Give psychers something to do

The shield can be damaged and has a slow regen of 12.5hp / game tick (50hp an hour). The shield can be boosted by any char transferring MP (1xp/2mp) / or by applying repair skills (2xp/1.5ap) / or by straight-up engineering (2xp/1.5ap) / or by applying a salve of any potion (10xp / potion used) / or a non-mortal heal skill (Heal self, heal others, lay on hands, <something demon-y> for HP (1xp/2hp). Gives crafters, engineers, healers and alchemist something to do.

When attacking the flag you have the option to infuse the shield down by taking out the surrounding tiles or bashing the shield down (1/4th damage in xp). Having defenders doesnt block the shield attack but killing them will drop it by 10-30hp depending upon level as above. The amount of defenders could also passively provide 5% defence to the shield (max 20% for 4 defenders). The shield would likely be possible for a minimum 3-5 person raid team of T2s.

Once the shield is down and the flag grabbed the outpost is destroyed and all benefits stop. The flag is captured (but not stored) and the taking faction gets a few renown (faction rank of attacker vs faction rank of defender moderated). Alternative (the attackers need to take the flag to their flag thus creating the possibility for the defenders to intercept and reclaim). Raiders having contributed damage to the shield get a few bonus xp. The faction losing the outpost doesnt lose renown but would lose the initial investment to set it up.


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Orb Carriers

Each faction has a number of Orb Carriers equal to their faction level x 1. So RRF would currently have 7. Each Orb is a magical item that grants +1 soak / +10% hide / 40xp per 18hours. Each Orb Carrier holds the Orb once it is granted to them by a faction leader. Players can refuse to carry an Orb.

Each faction designates a sacred site (infused to their area). They can also only deploy Orbs equal to 50points of infusion at the site. So 4 Orbs requires the site to be 200 deep regardless of faction size. Orb carriers can go there and drop the Orb off for no cost. They cannot be found by anyone other than those in the faction. Any Orb actively held by someone in the field (not in SH) generates the faction 1 renown every day (/or 18 hours). Smaller factions than the maximum faction level in existence get a bonus renown for every 2 levels below the top they are. So a level 4 faction would get an extra renown a day right now. If a scared site gets infusion flipped the faction has 1 day to lay another or face a renown loss. Enemies can use Psychometry for 1ap to detect sacred sites in a compass direction which is boosted by proximity. I.e 3 tiles away from one - you feel the weak pull of a evil site to the West. 1 tile away - you strongly feel the pull of a good site to the North-west. Being directly on the site and having psychometry tells you who the site belongs to. Other than being a drop off/storage place for Orbs the site serve no function.

Upon killing an enemy faction player you have the option to complete a search of them for 5ap. A successful search yields the Orb if they were holding one and you have stolen it from that faction. Or: you can complete a touch attack to see if someone holds an Orb / Or: it could be on the personal description.

The opposing faction is notified that their Orb has been taken and is given a neighbourhood of where it happened. They are always informed of which neighbourhood the Orb is in. The stealer of the Orb has to get it back to their factions sacred site. However, carrying it impacts a heavy toll of 1mp (and/or 1hp) per ap spent moving. The Orb can be passed to your faction mates at the cost of 3ap. Once back at the sacred site you can claim it for 5 renown and it is returned to the enemy faction. The aggrieved lose 2 renown for every orb captured.

Killing an stolen Orb carrier nets bonus xp to the killer if they are the aggrieved faction. You can search the carriers body to retrieve the orb for your faction as a standard search action. You can go over your Orb limit by doing this but again will inflict a toll until you have returned at least one to your sacred site. Carrying more than one orb inflicts a toll.

If someone happens to kill a stolen Orb carrier who is not the aggrieved faction then the Orb stays on the corpse until discovery or until the corpse is removed and it is returned to the factions sacred site.

For something a little less grandiose/faction focused (but encourages folks to congregate) what about magical boosts to resources?

For example every so often there is a message like (X, Y) is overflowing with goods! This boosts the search chance by like +40% for the tile (gotta make it big to make it worth trekking out for).

What about something with outposts that mirrors the Crystal Guardian/Crystal Constructor vibe of the end of last Breath? Factions can construct a number of outposts (perhaps level/2 rounded up?), and while they have an outpost up it's harder to just raid their stronghold directly due to additional bonuses (higher soak, higher ward HP, etc., alternative options welcome).

Stick in a limit on how soon you can re-establish an outpost (something on the order of days or a week) and you've got a reason to fight over outpost regions before going for the big prize.

What if outposts let you set up teleporters between outposts and your SH? (Maybe needs structural engineering or a lot of mp or open wormhole or something to activate?). Kinda like wormhole but more expensive/more permanent.