Abusive Players?

[De-Legro]

Yes, I did see that, and thank the devs for making the change.

I haven't tried using scrolls with my adventurer since this change back so don't know how much different it will feel, but thank you for returning the option, with limitations and modifications.

My primary issue is in the tone of the original announcement in suggesting that some players were being abusive.  I find that to be unnecessarily prejudicial and antagonistic to the players on the part of the admins, and believe it should be moderated to reflect a more balanced and neutral tone to reflect the position I believe the admins should take.

And if they agreed with you, they surely by now would have made amends. They have not so how about letting it go.

[Chenier]

They *were* being abusive.

When planning something big, helps to stop a second and think "has anything on this scale ever been pulled off in BM before?" and, if the answer is "no", think carefully about "why", and if it should stay that way.

So think about that for a moment, "have adventurers ever been able to destroy a realm within a single turn" before? Do you really think adventurers being able to blow a realm off the face of the earth is intended behavior?

[Medron Pryde]

There was no abuse by the players who performed the attack.  They and other players had done the same general thing before on BT and other lands.  No magical attack like that can truly threaten the survival of a healthy realm, but it can certainly hurt it.

The primary difference here is that the attack in question was used on a very weak realm, pushed back to its capital, and barely hanging on thanks to the monster and undead swarms.  The attack felt devastating because it pushed you over the edge into a point where the monsters and undead swarms were going to finish you off.

Look.  I understand.  You'd been fighting the swarms for months.  You'd been pushed to the brink of collapse.  The realm you seceded from had already died and you were on the verge of following them, but you were still hanging on.  Just barely.  Then some adventurers from a religion you'd been attacking for months show up with some scrolls and leave you damaged enough that the next round of monsters are going to come in and wipe you up like an old napkin.

You didn't like that.  I understand.  It's not always nice to see all your hard work turned to naught because another realm or alliance smashes you.  But that's life in BattleMaster.  Sometimes you just get pounded.  I've lost multiple realms to the monsters, undead, and Daimons.  I've lost realms to the admins literally sinking the island I'd played on since I started PLAYING BattleMaster.  And I've lost realms to other realms.  That is BattleMaster...Sometimes you just don't win the battles.

But instead of rolling with it, you complained to the admins and they reversed the effects of the attack so you could arrest and execute the characters involved.  You got your instant pound of flesh and moral victory against the players who had injured your characters and realm.  And then the admins blamed those other players and accused them of abusing the rules.  Adding insult like that to the very real injuries already inflicted on players is an error and should be corrected.

[Chenier]

There was no abuse by the players who performed the attack.  They and other players had done the same general thing before on BT and other lands.  No magical attack like that can truly threaten the survival of a healthy realm, but it can certainly hurt it.

The primary difference here is that the attack in question was used on a very weak realm, pushed back to its capital, and barely hanging on thanks to the monster and undead swarms.  The attack felt devastating because it pushed you over the edge into a point where the monsters and undead swarms were going to finish you off.

Look.  I understand.  You'd been fighting the swarms for months.  You'd been pushed to the brink of collapse.  The realm you seceded from had already died and you were on the verge of following them, but you were still hanging on.  Just barely.  Then some adventurers from a religion you'd been attacking for months show up with some scrolls and leave you damaged enough that the next round of monsters are going to come in and wipe you up like an old napkin.

You didn't like that.  I understand.  It's not always nice to see all your hard work turned to naught because another realm or alliance smashes you.  But that's life in BattleMaster.  Sometimes you just get pounded.  I've lost multiple realms to the monsters, undead, and Daimons.  I've lost realms to the admins literally sinking the island I'd played on since I started PLAYING BattleMaster.  And I've lost realms to other realms.  That is BattleMaster...Sometimes you just don't win the battles.

But instead of rolling with it, you complained to the admins and they reversed the effects of the attack so you could arrest and execute the characters involved.  You got your instant pound of flesh and moral victory against the players who had injured your characters and realm.  And then the admins blamed those other players and accused them of abusing the rules.  Adding insult like that to the very real injuries already inflicted on players is an error and should be corrected.

So what if you did it before, to other realms? Was abuse then too, probably.

I don't really care for BK, or BT as a whole. But what you guys did, using advies as some kind of ICBM, was just disgusting.

Advies were never meant to hold that much power over realms. That's why advies were blocked from all spellcasting until another solution could be coded. That's why part of the damage you caused was undone.

Because it was abusive, and went completely against intended behavior. It's sad that you can't see that, but hey, the cheaters of Thulsoma also couldn't see anything wrong with their gimmicks back in the days, because "anyone could do it". Same with many other such blatant cases of abuse. So you obviously aren't alone in your delusion.

[Gildre]

That is quite the line in the sand you are drawing Chenier. I know you are pretty anti-magic in general, and I have to admit I personally liked BM better before the introduction of magic too, but I feel like it is biasing your judgement of player behavior.

I personally don't agree that the players were being abusive. I would honestly hope that we have played this game together enough that you wouldn't call me delusional.

Here is why I don't think abuse was involved:

1. There was reasonable motive. BK's actions and letters were hostile and unreasonable to the characters of the realms. Therefore, these players didn't commit this act with the intent of just causing destruction. There was legitimate IC reasons.
2. The act could have been carried out by nobles just as easily. It wasn't because realms and nobles didn't want to get their hands dirty. A reasonable noble thing to do in my mind.
3. The guide on Advies laid out by Tom is that they are supposed to be lower classed to nobles. Cool, got it. No where does it say that Advies can't lash out and rail against the nobility using ANY means available to them.
4. History is chock full of incidents where commoners railed and won against the nobility. It doesn't make sense that we treat Advies as simple Unique Item and Scroll farmers. They need more purpose in this game, and that has been an ongoing discussion topic for a long time. These players were able to give serious purpose to their Advies.

I will say again, I don't like magic in BM. I was drawn into this game for the role playing of a knight in a feudal medieval society. The politics. The intrigue. Not to shoot fireballs and resurrect people from the dead. However, I was very impressed with this. The amount of conspiracy, IC planning, players working together. Look at the game right now. How much of that do you see these days? We should foster that mentality, not squash it! I am not blind. All of us sat up in our seats when it all went down, saying "Hot damn Jimmy! That might be a little over powered!!" and it absolutely is, and it absolutely had to be changed. But it happened, and it happened by the collection of players working together, from different realms, to achieve a goal.

It dismays me that you would call that abusive and disgusting.

[Chenier]

Thulsoma's scheme also involved a lot of players being really well coordinated, acting together towards a common goal that was perfectly legitimate IC.

It was still 100% abuse.

1. Motive is irrelevant to whether something is abuse or not. Abuse is almost always done with perfectly legitimate IC motive.
2. Were it so easy to pull off with nobles, it'd have been done through nobles. There are a lot of reasons it was done with adventurers, and a lot of them help explain why it was abuse.
3. That's not really what's being done when nobles are handing over realm-destroying capabilities to a bunch of them.
4. I disagree, hunting rogues is all the purpose adventurers should have, just as it was when they were first created. This is essentially a slight passive defensive buff: play nice with advies, get a bit less rogue spawns. Low-scope, and zero offensive capabilities. Adventurers aren't meant to be the stuff of horror, they are supposed to inspire disdain. Because of this, the game actively hides adventurers from us on many pages. Where a noble would be spotted immediately, on most pages the adventurers will simply not be displayed anywhere at all. Combined with the fact that they don't act on turn change, this makes them arguably more powerful than the infiltrators of old, who were actually invisible from scout reports.

In any case, it boils down to a simple question: Are adventurers meant to be able to bring realms to their knees?

The answer is, and always was, clearly a resounding "no". They were meant as a side-game that nobles can and should ignore. That's always what all the official pages, Tom, and the dev team always said.

You talk as if Bara'Khur was on the verge of collapse, a single unit from dying. It wasn't. It had high walls. Lots of militia. And an army. Was it struggling? Sure, being central, all of the continent's rogues pass through BK on their way anywhere else. But BK wasn't dying, Wudenkin was solid. But what those advies did, no human army could have achieved. At that point, with the hordes being what they were, I don't think any human army could have even successfully reached BK. So not only could a noble army not have made the trek, but they'd have exposed their realms to the rogues, causing them to lose a bunch of regions. Adventurers were chosen for reasons, the very same reasons that made it abusive.

[Gildre]

Were it so easy to pull off with nobles, it'd have been done through nobles. There are a lot of reasons it was done with adventurers, and a lot of them help explain why it was abuse.

Arguably it would have been easier to pull it off with Priests instead of Advies. Advies were used so that nobles could claim innocence.

In any case, it boils down to a simple question: Are adventurers meant to be able to bring realms to their knees?

The answer is, and always was, clearly a resounding "no". They were meant as a side-game that nobles can and should ignore. That's always what all the official pages, Tom, and the dev team always said.

I just reread the Wiki on Advies. It doesn't remotely touch on the subject. In fact, what it says supports that the Advies involved were played correctly. Commoners are supposed to cater to the noble class, so if a bunch of nobles order a bunch of Advies to take a bunch of scrolls and set them off in location X, then that is exactly what they should do. You ask, "Are adventurers meant to be able to bring realms to their knees?". Absolutely not. But that isn't what happened here. A group of Advie saboteurs backed enormously by nobles brought a realm to its knees. That is a very different thing. It would take those Advies years to accumulate that many scrolls. They simply could not have done it by themselves, so your answer of "No" hasn't been broken. Advies have not been able to bring a realm to its knees, alone.

You talk as if Bara'Khur was on the verge of collapse, a single unit from dying. It wasn't. It had high walls. Lots of militia. And an army. Was it struggling? Sure, being central, all of the continent's rogues pass through BK on their way anywhere else. But BK wasn't dying, Wudenkin was solid. But what those advies did, no human army could have achieved. At that point, with the hordes being what they were, I don't think any human army could have even successfully reached BK. So not only could a noble army not have made the trek, but they'd have exposed their realms to the rogues, causing them to lose a bunch of regions. Adventurers were chosen for reasons, the very same reasons that made it abusive.

First, I said nothing about BK's state. I think you might be mixing someone else's reply up with mine. Furthermore, again it would have been easier to accomplish with Priests. Advies were chosen for IC reasons, not for game mechanical reasons.

[PolarRaven]

This attack could have been accomplished with nobles.
Clearly the problem here is not the advies, it is the magic.
The actions of the Devs point towards this as the first action taken was to remove scroll casting ability from advies until it could be "fixed".
The "fix" that was designed makes it harder for "advies" to cast scrolls.

Has this "fix" really addressed the real problem?
I do not think so.  It is still possible for a group of people to get together, gather up a bunch of scrolls, and "bomb" a realm.
Lead off with a couple of advies, priests and/or infils for initial damage to "sensitive" areas, then follow up with a group of nobles loaded up with the balance of destructive scrolls.  Not one soldier needed to "kick a realm when it is down". 

How could a realm that is not in good shape hope to defend against this?
There is no real defense against magic.  An advie can be arrested at any time for any reason to prevent their actions.

[Gildre]

All good points Polar.

[Medron Pryde]

I agree with Polar's points as well.

I don't know what the fix is.

Is it removing magic as was done in East Continent?

Or is it in reducing the number of scrolls any one person can carry?

I don't know.

There are numerous issues with magic, and while it can be fun, it can potentially be too powerful as well.

I would like to see a game that relies less on magic and more on force of arms and nobility.  But the magic element is certainly interesting and I have used it very much.

Granted, until very recently I've not used it against player realms.  Especially on BT where I play a character who believes in supporting all of humanity against the Daimons.

But the "Walls of Wudenkin" post I published a week or three ago heralded a change in her policy there.  Considering Wudenkin's fall to Daimon worship, my character now feels free to....ahem..."dispose" of harmful scrolls in their backyard.  ;)

And as one of the oldest priests in the game, with real life years practicing the art of using scrolls against the Daimons, she turns out to be rather good at scroll magic.  :)

In short though, I don't think it would hurt the game to lose at least some of the magic scrolls.  As we've seen both on BT and in other lands, large scale magical events can cause...great angst amongst those who are the....recipients of said events...

[Nosferatus]

The problem with magic generally seems to be that many scrolls can be cast after each other and all by a single caster(with the highest spellcasting).
If I am not mistaken, casting difficulty for nobles has also been increased, basically every casting was successful with a regular untrained spell casting skill.
Now even if it becomes more difficult, having more scrolls will always beat that.
To solve that we could have cooling down periods or a mana pool that gets depleted and generates more slowly after a scroll is cast.
This could limit a single noble to casting only 3 scrolls at once max and prevent further casting for a certain period right after.
The amount of mana in pool and how quickly it generates could be depended on the casting skill.
unskilled casters could be limited to one scroll at a turn every few turns and only close to 100% spellcasting characters can cast several scrolls in a single turn every 2 or 3 turns.
Unique items could give spellcasting bonus or even direct mana regen or pool bonuses.
Magic energy per region could also influence mana regenration rates, if lots of magic has been used somewhere not long before, it could slow down mana regen in that region or better, the whole area.
This also prevents all magic to be unleashed in a single area not long after each other.

[Medron Pryde]

These are all interesting ideas.  They might be difficult to code, but I like the discussion.

For myself, playing a character who has used magic scrolls for real life years, my priest character is up to the point of two in three scroll uses normally working.  If I have five scrolls that I'm about to use, I generally assume that two of them are not going to work.  That's my experience with a well-trained character.

When I first started using them on my adventurer, the failure rate was significantly higher as I remember.

If characters are using large numbers of scrolls without failures, they are probably not beginners in spellcasting.  Of course...the RNG could also just have been really favorable to them that day.  ;)

[Gildre]

I think one of the big problems is simply the fact that any Region Lord on BT just gets given scrolls randomly. That is how they accumulate so quickly, and how such a large number were able to be used against a target.

If we got rid of that feature so that only Advies could make scrolls it would cut down drastically on the number of scrolls floating around.

It would also change the type of scroll floating around. Advies generally make boon scrolls because they sell better. No one wants to buy a Summon Undead scroll from an Advie, but people will jump on Magic Weapons or Healing. These scrolls are incredibly beneficial to the individual character, but can't really be used in broad effects.

I think that is the solution.

[Nosferatus]

No one wants to buy a Summon Undead scroll from an Advie, but people will jump on Magic Weapons or Healing. These scrolls are incredibly beneficial to the individual character, but can't really be used in broad effects.

Sounds logical, having to get scrolls from advies only also increases comunication between characters to get scrolls.

[Chenier]

The devs said: had this kind of thing been done with priests, then something would be done about that too. It'd still have been abuse in the devs' eyes.

That said, I completely disagree that it'd have been just as easy with priests. Because priests take a noble slot, and those realms NEED those noble slots for troop leaders that defend the realm from the hordes. Turn all of those nobles into priests, and the realms would lose a bunch of regions.

Also, priests, unlike adventurers, aren't invisible.

And finally, pretty much everyone in BK has said that they'd have been pretty much fine with it had it been priests or other nobles, anyways. The most objectionable part was always the use of adventurers.