Arx's Elevation Situation

[wahoo]

Literally nowhere have I said they shouldn't be able to grow.

My question is: how do we enable this without punishing others.

[Bad at Lurking]

Oh no! The peasants are rising!

(Which, given the amount of yeast cultures the average one plays host to, is hardly surprising.)

I find it it odd to see the idea of 'there are going to be too many Lords and Ladies on this Lords and Ladies game, soon!' Also odd is the idea that other people just not pursue in character and out of character goals in order to make sure another set of players have enough IC money to pursue their own goals.

It's realistic, but not fun.

[AeriaNyx]

When Kael and I wrote House Keaton, we deliberately made it a county with the intention of growing it as far as we could. From day one, out of the gate, it was all about expansion. This had nothing at all to do with our IC lieges, and while our momentum stopped due to a bunch of IC stuff happening, it's still in the back of our minds to see if we can't go for duchy (Sorry @thesuntsar ), though K doesn't think we should as it isn't really realistic to think we could grow that much in such a short period of time, despite the fact that we're sitting on a veritable mountain of resources and our army is the same size as Laurent's.

I think @Tempest is right. If there is a solid RP relationship between liege and vassal houses, it DOES add a natural deterrent to pushing for elevation, since they would be close to their liege on a personal basis. What drives the desire to rise? Wealth/prestige? Wealth is kind of a red herring -- when a House is elevated their income doesn't really change just because they get a bump in title. When Keaton became a March, we did not gain 3 counties and 9 Baronies. We just had the 3 Baronies we had while being a County. So, in terms of pure power, there isn't really a big gain beyond the acclaim granted from the achievement and the shiny new title.

To directly address @wahoo's complaint about losing money -- that should serve as a reason to negotiate with your vassals. All of this is an opportunity to RP. Try to find something to offer them instead of being released from their vows. Or, like, make them jump through hoops to buy time to court their vassals, be they PC or NPC houses.

This is all, I guess PVP in the strictest sense, but so long as there is open communication on an OOC level and people are willing to work with one another there shouldn't be a problem. I think the biggest hurdle there is not communicating OOCly. There is a stigma, I think, to approaching someone and being like "Hey, this is my IC goal. I understand there may be IC consequences and I'd like to work with you to see what kind of story we can develop." But an approach like that requires trust (This person, thus notified of my intent is not going to do everything in their power to fuck up my plans) (This person is trying to screw/manipulate me into rolling over and giving them everything), the ability to compromise (No one is going to get everything their way), and desire to cooperate and build story together. I try to do these things every time I engage some one. I play to have fun, but I also play with the mindset that other people are trying to have fun too.

As in real life, if everyone took the time to treat people the way they would like to be treated and extended the basic trust that everyone else isn't a dick looking for an opportunity to fuck you over, I think we'd all be happier.

[wahoo]

@AeriaNyx said in Arx's Elevation Situation:

I think the biggest hurdle there is not communicating OOCly.

Oh my god, do we agree?!

[Sunny]

@wahoo

I am going to disagree with this point again. No great houses are being punished. The loss of a couple of tens of thousands of silver shouldn't even be a blip on the radar. Same with the prestige loss. They are TRIVIALLY EASY when compared to the amount of work an elevation takes for the person being lifted. Inconvenienced? Sure, I'll buy that. Punished is extreme.

[Roz]

I’m really not worried about Velenosa’a lost income. Even if it weren’t being immediately replaced with the new duchy, it wouldn’t be a concern. Velenosa has had lots of work and investment over the years of just the sort @Sunny was suggesting.

Ironically, the income issue might be more of an issue for smaller houses having their vassal elevated, idk.

[wahoo]

Okay! Mea culpa - I was wrong to think this was a bigger deal for liege houses. I figured the loss would be a bit of a hit.

Maybe it is for smaller houses, as Roz said?

[bored]

@Pyrephox said in Arx's Elevation Situation:

Great Houses, in some ways, get hit harder by this than many others, because they have a severely limited number of duchies to work with, and only receive taxes from the duchies and any direct vassals they might have lower on the chain (like De Lire).

So you mean, the people who got the most free, totally unearned advantages early in the game, have less growth opportunities late in the game? This is unfair, how?

I've seen it repeated several times that playing a Barony-level PC is the least attractive option in the entire game, as you get none of the swag commoner market abusing code options and your house is probably tiny and poor. Do you have literally no empathy for other players or any sense of fairness? It's really mind boggling how greedy the atttitudes being expressed recently are, in contrast to the perpetual claim of universal, benevolent positivity on Arx. Really, all the complaints just seem hugely entitled.

[mietze]

I'm with Sunny on this one.

There are many many more NPC houses than PC houses.

Liege lords are under absolutely no obligation to provide their vassal houses with any plot or personal interaction, and many (frankly) do not. If a house moves from barony/county to county/march, they don't switch liege lords and in theory the liege lord should probaby receive more income off of them as well, to reflect the enrichment of those lands, ect. Could be easily negotiated during the process of discussion. This kind of protects higher level nobles more than it harms, so I don't understand the OOC animosity towards it--you're not required to ever do anything for the folks under you ICly unless you feel like it (kudos to the people that do!), and your position as a <whatever level you are> is safe regardless of what you do/n't do ICly or OOCly barring getting excommunicated or going to war.

It's a little disheartening how oocly snide many people are publically EVERY time there's an elevation. I've rarely heard the first thing be congratulations, or even if it is, there is immediately passive aggressive or aggressive commentary about it. Even carving out a barony or raising a county takes sacrifice and work and saving up.

And I think because there's not a real lot of pressure put on the higher ups to need to collect more $$, resources, from those underneath them (again, I understand and appreciate the thought behind this, to not penalize people who can't be 24/7 active), there's often not a lot of incentives give either to give your treasure/time up the chain.

I think that a lot of people get very stressed when they think that someone getting something closer to what they have because they think that it will mean more competition, but the way things work now I'm not sure that is a founded worry.

From what I have seen, plot giving out rarely seems to happen MORE with higher ranking PCs, they're no more or less likely to be given stuff from staff. They really don't seem privy to more special goodies. People think raising their social rank/title will open doors to more specialized plot or people will suddenly want to talk to them more, but honestly I'm not sure that it really does. Nobody is required to come to the defense of a vassal (in fact there are reasons given where that would not be the case at all). I assume that no vassals are ironclad required to respond to their liege's banner call (though that's rather disappointing if that's the case, maybe that's not true and I've just read into things incorrectly).

I think the only way to keep people down, which seems to be the desired outcome here?, is to have a more dynamic system where you can LOSE status as well, if you are not continually investing--but I don't know if even some of the same people who really dislike how "easy" it is to get elevated would appreciate having to keep fighting for what they have. So taken all together, I don't really care if people can continue to improve/enrich their lands and status. Eventually a system will go in for domains, and we'll have to see how it shakes out. But when you have a system that doesn't require anything to maintain the status quo of one's rank and status but does allow for growth potential, it seems pretty logical that yes, there are going to be climbers.

I still do not think it's "most" people even doing this though. People seem to freak out about every single one, but even looking at all the houses on the game, it's a pretty small number for the amount of time and resources that can just be stockpiled since there's not much else to spend them on.

I just wish people were a little less snarky about it towards the people who work towards elevation.

[peasoupling]

I didn't realize Apos was forcing people to play in Baronies. That sucks, shame on him.

[saosmash]

@mietze Vassals are bound to respond to a call to banners. Vassals refusing to do so has been retconned in the past because it was a way bigger deal than they realized.

[WildBaboons]

Maybe instead of being elevated it would be better if the lower ranking house just crushed their liege by force and took their spot?

I made a house with some friends once and was offered Count position. Said no thanks and went with Barony to avoid these shenanigans.

[Auspice]

Since @Wizz came back to Gaston, we've been talking about making duchy. It's something I've always fancied the idea of, but without having had an inter/active Gaston previously, was something I largely put on the backburner in favor of building income/resources and getting plot for people in the house.

For Blackram, it makes sense. It's nothing against Telmar. It's the fact that Blackram is written as being so isolated (the Cloudspine is way out there) that they largely govern themselves anyway. ICly, why wouldn't they want to take that step up and make it 'official' in a sense? I mean, they're a March in the Oathlands whose physical closest neighbor.... is Farhaven.

So storywise it makes sense for them to look around and go 'you know what? we've supported ourselves for this long. Let's take that step and make it official.'

And who knows, maybe being a Duchy (if/when we get there) with the ability to add marches beneath us will be appealing to incoming players wanting to make their own house, because no one's had an interest in being a county or barony.

[mietze]

@saosmash Well in that case, I dunno, yet another thing that a higher rank PC doesn't have to worry about. If your people are advancing, presumably they'll have even more troops that they can be obligated to muster for you, or resources, ect, and you still are not obligated in return.

[Tempest]

On the topic of people putting in work/etc.

It has been pretty clear for a while that High House players are not at ALL invested in growing their house or building it up.

Why would they be? Up until this point they have 100% been able to coast on “Well theme and staff say we’re the biggest most important house, so we as players get to spend all our time/rp/resources/money on anything we want and ignore our house!”

Like...Comparing Pravus’s work/score to Velenosa’s is honestly almost laughable.

Almost everybody in Velenosa is invested in side orgs and other stuff. Almost none of them even run the @work command under Velenosa.

[Pyrephox]

@bored I don't particularly care about fair, to be honest - I was simply responding to the idea that a Great House that has a duchy break away doesn't lose anything. It does, even if it's 'only' tens of thousands of silver in taxes. Which, while it may not be an OOC concern, should definitely be an IC concern. Playing a game with an ostensibly feudal theme should come, I'd hope, with an understanding that nothing about it is ICly 'fair', and it really shouldn't be.

If you're playing a political game, that is. If you're playing a game where every house is entitled to eternal expansion and inflation and the idea is just how you gather the resources to do that, then no, it's not a particular concern. That's not a theme that particularly interests me, and never did.

The reason I originally logged into the game was this, from the front page: "The common people of Arvum wouldn't really call the last thousand years a 'golden age'. Since the founding of the Compact of Arvum, the five great noble houses of the realm have schemed and warred against one another, locked in a millennium-old struggle for dominance kept only in check by the occasional powerful monarch. But even as the fragile peace frays with the latest dynastic crisis, creating courtly intrigues in the capital city of Arx, ancient foes that took mankind to the brink of extinction a thousand years ago stir once more."

It's not something which, to me, really jives well with "and you get an elevation, and you get an elevation, and YOU get an elevation". But that's fine - I rarely even log into the game anymore, and it increasingly doesn't do things that I'm interested in, but which many many people manifestly are.

[saosmash]

@mietze Technically lieges do have some obligations towards their vassals as well, per the lore expectations files and the laws of Limerance. I think the ways these come about in RP are a little loose and attenuated, in part because a lot of players just don't really understand how feudalism works.

[mietze]

I think this is just going to be one of those things that until the systems catch up (like domain) people are just going to have to OOCly deal with as far as maybe new people will catch up to them (at least momentarily) in IC house stats. If staff does make domain something that is more dynamic, I feel pretty sorry for them in many ways, because my experience is when you implement dynamic systems into a game where they weren't there before, you have to deal with a lot of angst when people have to maintain power. I'm not sure how that will fit in the "no harm/no foul" for amount of activity/sharing that's expected on the game that /does/ help a great deal with not only rewarding people who are on the most or have the most ooc know how, ect. But I'm betting they're discussing it and are sensitive to that as well.

[Wizz]

@peasoupling said in Arx's Elevation Situation:

If everyone is a Great House, no one is.

This is like, the majority of the stink over elevations in my opinion and TBH it grinds my gears a little because it
A) Would not even be remotely true, PC houses aren't the majority in each realm
B) It has such a flavor of "stay in your lane" in it that really does not sit well with me.

As long as Dominion brings in mechanical representation of NPC vassals, honestly what genuine reason would anyone have to be so upset over PC houses elevating?

Honestly I would be absolutely thrilled about the potential to elevate everyone to an even playing field politically. Alliances would be that much more important, big massive changes we saw like the Compact having to pick sides with foreign powers would have been that much more intense and involved for everyone, internal wars between PC Houses would suddenly gain a lot more weight and risk and be that much more interesting.

What is so godawful about it?

[mietze]

@saosmash It's been a while, but a distinctly remember a very clear staff directive that liege lords were NOT obligated to interfere in things on their vassal's behalf. Maybe I'm just misremembering though.