Leagues!

[Cristiona]

Rescinding multiple invites doesn't work; it simply rescinds the first name.

[Kinak]

Rescinding multiple invites doesn't work; it simply rescinds the first name.

Should be good now, thanks!

Cheers!
Kinak

[Satan]

Would it be possible to get the full records details in real-time? Or atleast darts thrown? That can be hard to co-ordinate because not everyone is logged on to fight VILLAIN at the same time, and there's not really a league-wide message board we can use.

[Kinak]

Would it be possible to get the full records details in real-time? Or atleast darts thrown? That can be hard to co-ordinate because not everyone is logged on to fight VILLAIN at the same time, and there's not really a league-wide message board we can use.

It was designed around giving the level of feedback it currently provides. If that requires your league to coordinate some, I'm okay with that.

Cheers!
Kinak

[Sanjuro]

Satan has sent you an invitation to join PFE.

Taklos has sent you an invitation to join Winds of Purity.

We have formed an alliance against PFE

Inviting someone named "Sanjuro" to help battle a rival gang? Some heroes have never seen the movie Yojimbo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojimbo_%28film%29

Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

[Satan]

I for one was unaware there was an alliance plotting against PFE. For the record, this is a one-sided allying against. I sent invitations to everyone in the spirit of friendship and camaraderie, but instead leagues band together to take us down? Must mean we're a threat or something :p

[Patojonas]

Its just to tease you

[Satan]

Can't believe I overlooked this. Another prestige option, every time a player retcons while in a league, the mettle gained contributes to league prestige in some manner. Could perhaps group it by tiers, like 1-5 mettle gets 1 prestige, 6-10 gets 2 prestige, 11-15 gets 3 prestige, and 1 prestige for each mettle over 15. Or something.

[Kinak]

Can't believe I overlooked this. Another prestige option, every time a player retcons while in a league, the mettle gained contributes to league prestige in some manner. Could perhaps group it by tiers, like 1-5 mettle gets 1 prestige, 6-10 gets 2 prestige, 11-15 gets 3 prestige, and 1 prestige for each mettle over 15. Or something.

Way ahead of you, Satan. Something like this would already be in place, except that multis exist.

Barring outlawing multis in leagues, we'll have to develop a completely new subsystem to handle this. Which I'm churning on, just don't expect it soon.

Cheers!
Kinak

[Hardware]

That's a pretty powerful option. In small leagues, like one or two people, it gives them a chance to continue earning Prestige when they normally wouldn't be able to handle the league boss on the first day or two of a new run. So, I can see where that would be a good thing. The problem that I'd see, though, isn't with multis, but with uber-large leagues. A league would need only one or two "boss-killers" in the ranks, and then everyone else would be free to retcon almost continuously, building up a large amount of Prestige for what basically amounts to "business as usual," since they'd likely be retconning whether it got them Prestige or not. I see the potential for that to quickly become unbalanced, and rewarding people for something that they'd be doing, anyway.

[Satan]

That's a pretty powerful option. In small leagues, like one or two people, it gives them a chance to continue earning Prestige when they normally wouldn't be able to handle the league boss on the first day or two of a new run. So, I can see where that would be a good thing. The problem that I'd see, though, isn't with multis, but with uber-large leagues. A league would need only one or two "boss-killers" in the ranks, and then everyone else would be free to retcon almost continuously, building up a large amount of Prestige for what basically amounts to "business as usual," since they'd likely be retconning whether it got them Prestige or not. I see the potential for that to quickly become unbalanced, and rewarding people for something that they'd be doing, anyway.

I don't see something wrong with rewarding them for something they'd be doing anyway. I can't think of too many examples, but there's one game that does this amazingly well. Realm of the Mad God, it's an action shooter with old style graphics and permadeath. You complete quests and kill enemies, you get xp, once you hit the level cap, this turns into fame. If you die, your character is gone, but you accrue fame. If you happen to belong to the equivalent of a league in that game, your fame then goes in equally to both (and is separate). Now, the costs to do anything with the league fame is very high, so it's balanced, and it gives people a second driving reason to play well and gain fame.

In much the same way, this may give players an additional motivation to continue retconning. Large leagues with lots of active players and almost always going to be able to gain more prestige. That's just how it goes, and there's nothing wrong with that. Spending prestige is supposed to balance that out, and there will be plenty of other ways to gain prestige. Honestly, if you were able to recruit 50 people that can play actively and retcon, your league /should/ be pretty prestigious, right?

[Hardware]

If that were the case, then why not reward Prestige every time a player accepts an invite, or every time a member logs on, or every time that they level up? There's lots of ways to throw Prestige around if it's just a question of giving bigger leagues more Prestige. Of all of the options, retconning makes the least amount of sense. If you want to reward the league for having a lot of members, then give Prestige for each invite that's accepted. If you want to reward leagues for having active members, then give Prestige for logging on each day. If you want to reward leagues for having powerful characters, then give Prestige for leveling up. Leveling up probably makes the most sense, since people retcon a whole lot more than they stick around to check out the higher level material. Wouldn't that be the thing that they'd want to encourage?

Regardless, I don't think that league Prestige is going to influence a player's decision to retcon. If they're not active within the league itself (beating villains), then they're going to occupy their time playing other parts of the game just like they would if they weren't even in the league. Personally, I think that Prestige should be awarded for league participation, rather than simply being a name on a long list.

[Satan]

If that were the case, then why not reward Prestige every time a player accepts an invite, or every time a member logs on, or every time that they level up? There's lots of ways to throw Prestige around if it's just a question of giving bigger leagues more Prestige. Of all of the options, retconning makes the least amount of sense. If you want to reward the league for having a lot of members, then give Prestige for each invite that's accepted. If you want to reward leagues for having active members, then give Prestige for logging on each day. If you want to reward leagues for having powerful characters, then give Prestige for leveling up. Leveling up probably makes the most sense, since people retcon a whole lot more than they stick around to check out the higher level material. Wouldn't that be the thing that they'd want to encourage?

Regardless, I don't think that league Prestige is going to influence a player's decision to retcon. If they're not active within the league itself (beating villains), then they're going to occupy their time playing other parts of the game just like they would if they weren't even in the league. Personally, I think that Prestige should be awarded for league participation, rather than simply being a name on a long list.

Retconning takes time and effort. It's a notable accomplishment, one that should reflect on your league. Average players will usually take 5 to 6 days to complete a tier 2 retcon if they actively try and have no IotM stuff. Obviously it varies and there are plenty of examples that are 1 day retcons, but those also take plenty of effort to prepare for. So if you got 2 prestige for a 6 day retcon, I don't see how it's going to give larger leagues a terribly huge advantage unless everyone is active and constantly retconning. But maybe 2 prestige still seems like too high a number? Introduce an item that requires more than one to redeem 1 prestige and award varying amounts of them. The key is balance. But it's not so much about the reward. More so, it's about displaying a league's abilities. I don't know if you've played KoL, but over there it's a matter of pride to speed run, do lots of specific types of runs, etc. Which we can't do well if retconning is completely separate from league records.

[Cristiona]

So if you got 2 prestige for a 6 day retcon, I don't see how it's going to give larger leagues a terribly huge advantage unless everyone is active and constantly retconning.

Compare it to the other non-boss time required for prestige. 60 IOUs takes how many days? For 1 prestige? Our hypothetical lower-tier player will manage, what, 8 hours a day? 4 IOUS? So, 15 days for 1 prestige vs. 6 for 2. That's more than a little unbalanced.

Also, a simple retcon isn't prestigious. A 1 mettle retcon really isn't. If it's not even good enough for a skill, why should it be good enough for prestige? A far better metric would be to sell the keys in Nocturne's shop. Probably for 60 or 100 Mettle. That way, retcons would contribute, but it would still take a serious investment (and a foil) to manage. Either that or set the minimum value of a prestige run much higher than your examples; something in the 15+ neighborhood.

[Sanjuro]

In KoL, they resolved that issue with clan leaderboards. Some cleans are on the leaderboards for most ascensions, and others are on there for highest character stats (obviously, those characters don't ascend much).

BTW, I think league leaderboards at the Starboard Port would be an interesting addition.

[xKiv]

... (and a foil) ...

This.
Retconing already *is* necessary for (all (one) currently known source(s) of) non-boss prestige.

[Kinak]

For the sake of clarity, while there will be more ways to gain Prestige through Retcons, they will require either quality or quantity. Nobody's going to get a Prestige for each Retcon unless they're seriously that awesome.

Cheers!
Kinak

[Hardware]

I see that some of my points have been made before I even showed up to make them. If Prestige could be gained for simple retcons, then many players would, no doubt, be adding to their league's position without even realizing that they're doing it. They could accept a league invite, without any real idea of what a league is, and go about their daily business while still adding to the league's Prestige. Yes, KoL has clan leaderboards, but that's all that they have. Clan's don't get any other kind of benefit (certainly not something that can later be spent) just because their players chose to ascend. If Prestige is to be given for retconning, perhaps there should be a specific retcon choice that would have to be made in order for it to "count" for their league. A certain retcon path could be chosen that would be considered more prestigious for leagues, and league players would need to choose that path in order to give their league the benefit. That way, it would have to be a conscious choice of the player to take a style that would benefit his league, and almost remove the possibility of it happening simply by "business as usual" playing.

In all honesty, the keys do not "require" any retconning, other than in the past. I have 23 foils in my inventory, and have already made two keys. I'd have many more, but some went into items (13 gilded leggings, that I should probably autosell) and some were autosold. Even with my 23, though, it will be a LONG time before I've used up all of them to make keys to the city. At least one of the bigger leagues has even offered foils to players without them from older players who have plenty, so you don't even have to retcon ONCE to make a key.

Also, let's look at the (2 Prestige - 6 day retcon) situation. If a league has 15 "active" players (I'm sure that the big leagues have a lot more than that), then a league would be able to get 30 Prestige from player retcons during a six-day period. they would get the same Prestige from beating the villains each day during that time. So, if they only had one more active player, the league would be getting more Prestige from retcons than from league villains, when villains should arguably be the main source of Prestige. So, simply saying "your league gets this for your retcons" would quickly become unbalanced.

[Satan]

As I said, the problem can be fixed with balance. The numbers I threw out aren't suggested as balanced. Although compared to boss prestige, it's still less compared to what one person alone can do. Maybe tier 1 retcons don't give any at all. I'm not focused on the details. But excluding an entire tier of retcon leaves out stunt runs (which are somewhat more difficult than any tier 2 run) and low mettle non-stunt speed runs. Doing lots of retcons, even if they aren't all that special, is still something, right? A player would certainly be recognized for it, so why wouldn't a league (on an appropriate scale)? This seems like more of an issue against big leagues versus small leagues than an issue of what's deserved. In KoL, unless things have changed drastically, clans buy things with meat if I recall correctly. Something they can acquire through normal play, albeit they donate it to the clan coffer. But seeing as in TH we aren't moving chips or items through leagues, the only thing left that players can contribute that won't result in multi-abuse with this new sub system Kinak refers to is retcons. Certainly we could apply the donation idea to it. Exchange mettle with prestige, so it's not something for nothing. I simply don't like the idea of retcons going completely unrewarded league wise. Since mettle is almost completely useless once you've made all the accessories and bought all the items, it suits me just fine. Difficulty of the run is translated in because the retcon system already handles that.

EDIT: I'd like to see the argument that says league villains should be the main/fastest source of prestige. An important source, sure. But why the main one?

[xKiv]

...
EDIT: I'd like to see the argument that says league villains should be the main/fastest source of prestige. An important source, sure. But why the main one?

This isn't a bad point. In fact, I want it so that to be the most prestigious, a league must have all kinds of players - retconners, repeatable-quest-doers, cooperative villain-killers, high level achievers, filthy rich traders/farmers, people with lots (among them) of cheap items, old characters (who have stuff that new characters can no longer get), puzzle-solvers, ...

[Hardware]

In KoL, unless things have changed drastically, clans buy things with meat if I recall correctly. Something they can acquire through normal play, albeit they donate it to the clan coffer.

You are absolutely correct, though you prove in your second sentence why the comparison has nothing to do with getting Prestige from retcons. The clans in KoL benefit from meat and items that players CHOOSE to donate to the clan coffer. It isn't something that just pops out of their inventory automatically just because they're in a clan. It's not a tithe. It's a donation. If the player just continues with business as usual, and never visits his clan to share the wealth, then they never benefit at all from him being in the clan. He is nothing more than a name and a number. So, if you want to compare KoL and TH, then this goes into the "no Prestige for retcons" side of the argument, and understandably so. A league shouldn't benefit from a player whose involvement is solely as a name and a number. He is playing for himself, not the league. (Kinak has already said, though, that Prestige won't be given *just* for simple retcons, so this argument is almost moot.)

If you really want to tie Prestige with retcons, though, then have the players donate Mick drops as league trophies, earning a small amount of Prestige with each item so donated. If a player wants to give up his Blue Chip to benefit the league, then I see no problem with that. He is actually CHOOSING to give something to his league from his retcon, not simply benefiting them passively. Large leagues will still benefit more from this, since some of the older players probably have a healthy supply of some of these items. I don't know how the idea that this was anything about "big leagues versus small leagues" ever even came into the picture. Big leagues will ALWAYS have an advantage, simply because they'll have more people (assuming that they're also active) to perform the various methods of Prestige earning. There is a difference between an advantage, though, and an unfair advantage. Again, if people can benefit a league simply by being a name and number, then it qualifies as an unfair advantage.

I'd like to see the argument that says league villains should be the main/fastest source of prestige. An important source, sure. But why the main one?

Well, I could either tackle this from the TH angle, or the superhero angle. TH has already established villains as dominant over other existing forms of Prestige. You can either spend one day fighting a villain to get five Prestige, or several days of getting IOUs and the expenditure of a gold foil to get one. Obviously, there is ample room for debate that the designers intend for villains to be a focal point of groups. On the superhero angle, though, heroes are known primarily for fighting villains. That's what they do, and that's what they gain fame or notoriety for. Who would know who Superman is if all he ever did was fly around and cater dinner parties? If anything could compete with fighting villains, it would be rescues. Since there's no mechanic for rescues, though, villains seem like the way that leagues would typically gain the most prestige. The fact that we even REFER to keys to the city as a "non-boss source of Prestige" paints the picture that we think of fighting villains as a league's bread and butter. Again, though, my above suggestion of allowing Mick drops to be donated at league trophies could address part of this, since the Mick is definitely a villain, and beating him should probably be prestigious.

Plus, if I wanted to be TRULY literal about the game, then a retcon is exactly that, a retcon. Your character goes back in time to do things over, so no one would remember what he or she did before. So, from this perspective, it could be argued that leagues should LOSE Prestige when one of its players retcon, since all of that player's exploits are not lost to the temporal haze.

[Cristiona]

As I said, the problem can be fixed with balance. The numbers I threw out aren't suggested as balanced.

Yes. And now the discussion has moved to balance.

EDIT: I'd like to see the argument that says league villains should be the main/fastest source of prestige. An important source, sure. But why the main one?

Really? You need to ask this?

Leagues are about teamwork, not individual achievement. Go watch the last 20 minutes or so of the Avengers. The final battle wasn't about personal glory, it was about the group saving the city. League bosses are the big invasion that can only be repelled by a group of heroes. Iron Man kicking Mandarin's ass raises his personal prestige, but it doesn't raise public opinion of the Avengers. Repelling a space invasion does that.

[Satan]

As I said, the problem can be fixed with balance. The numbers I threw out aren't suggested as balanced.

Yes. And now the discussion has moved to balance.

EDIT: I'd like to see the argument that says league villains should be the main/fastest source of prestige. An important source, sure. But why the main one?

Really? You need to ask this?

Leagues are about teamwork, not individual achievement. Go watch the last 20 minutes or so of the Avengers. The final battle wasn't about personal glory, it was about the group saving the city. League bosses are the big invasion that can only be repelled by a group of heroes. Iron Man kicking Mandarin's ass raises his personal prestige, but it doesn't raise public opinion of the Avengers. Repelling a space invasion does that.

That would be fine. Except several of us have to hold back against the villain just so others can get a chance to fight it. <.<

[Cristiona]

That would be fine. Except several of us have to hold back against the villain just so others can get a chance to fight it. <.<

For now...

[Hardware]

Also, a good way to work the league forums could be to have a certain cost for a "basic" forum, and then additional costs to add extra forums or subforums. It would be an extra expenditure for a league that wants more places to post and have their threads separated into categories or themes, much like this forum is.

Speaking of this forum, how about a forum space here for leagues? I think that it would be nice to have a place to go to specifically to talk about league ideas, and maybe to plug our own leagues.

Also, I'm going to put together some ideas for the "municipal league" idea that I suggested before, and maybe make a sample writeup and suggestions for how it could work without being overpowered.

[Hardware]

As promised, I spent a good portion of the day at work putting together my ideas for the “municipal protector” idea that I had for leagues. Obviously, this was a much better way to spend my time than working. Still, it's a little rough, since I could only work on it for a few minutes at a time, and only will be doing minimal editing while I'm typing this up.

Municipal Hero Contract

Congratulations! Your league has been granted the esteemed honor of being named as official protectors of Twilight City. That should at least be good for a few Freezies at the Happy-Mart. The growing list of enemies of the city could be a serious damper on your free time, though.

When purchased, the Municipal Hero Contract appears in the league's trophy case, though not Prestige is gained in the process. Each day, instead of a single boss battle, the league members may face one instance of each league villain in the pool of those currently available. Each battle is at the full difficulty for the respective villain, and requires the same amount of resources to complete as normal.

Only the first villain defeated in a day will grant the full rewards for a victory. Each additional villain beyond the first will give less than full rewards. They will still yield one league trophy, as normal, as this currently does nothing more than look pretty in the trophy case. However, these extra victories would yield only one Prestige apiece.

Additionally, extra league bosses would yield only one item drop, chosen randomly from that villain's available drops. The base chance for any particular item to drop would be based on that item's normal drop rate, divided by the number of drops that the villain normally gives upon defeat.

For instance, the Orwhal normally has four drops. Three of those are 100% drops, so the helmet, suit and ultrataffy would each have a 25% drop rate for this purpose. The fourth drop is randomly chosen from three separate items, so each of those items would have, approximately, an 8% drop rate under these circumstances.

Items which are conditional (like the onesie, or multiple taffies) would never drop. Alternately, meeting the conditions for a multiple drop could increase the base chance for that item dropping, but would still never yield more than one item under any circumstances.

A league should not be able to face a second villain until the first has been defeated, and so on. The first villain should always be the normal villain for that day or event, rather than a choice that the league makes. This prevents the league from having too much control over item drops.

The Prestige cost for such an option should be reasonably high, since it does ultimately add another source of Prestige. Currently, even if VILLAIN is added to the lineup for this (which I'd like to see happen), it would only be one extra Prestige per day. Still, that's 365 extra Prestige in a year. Once more villains are added, it will just add up faster. I'd say that 1000 Prestige would be a good starting point, but it would ultimately depend on how many league villains are going to be added, and how quickly.

Other than determining the Prestige cost, though, I think that this idea is largely balanced as it is. A league would have to dedicate a lot of resources to fight a bunch of villains each day. The Orwhal is probably a bad example, since it can be defeated in a few turns by a high-level hero, but hints have been dropped that future villains won't be defeated by a single hero. VILLAIN would be hard, too, since the item necessary to make it an easy fight will quickly become rare and costly without access to Inner Cyberspace. Newer heroes won't be able to fight him at all if they joined after the sub was available. Future villains will likely produce similar hurdles of their own.

So, this is obviously a rough idea, since I don't have any clue what plans the designers have for leagues or what programming problems this may bring up. Still, it's some thoughts that have been rolling around in my head about how to make it work.

[zatade]

I do realize it is a bit quick to start whining, but on Dec 8th there was a news post saying new monsters had appeared in addition to the Orwhal. I log in with high hopes I will get to help fight a new monster, and the Orwhal is still ruling the roost. I am trying not to sound whiny, but is whatever loads the new monsters either a very low percentage or possibly needs its coffee to get started?

[Kinak]

I do realize it is a bit quick to start whining, but on Dec 8th there was a news post saying new monsters had appeared in addition to the Orwhal. I log in with high hopes I will get to help fight a new monster, and the Orwhal is still ruling the roost. I am trying not to sound whiny, but is whatever loads the new monsters either a very low percentage or possibly needs its coffee to get started?

Yes and no. It's not a sure thing, but the horde needed to get their morning joe as well.

Things should be working properly tomorrow.

Cheers!
Kinak

[Cristiona]

Starsday's Attack
Your league didn't defeat an attack Starsday.

Starsday's Other Heroism
Added MechaGelt to your League Vault.
Added MechaGelt to your League Vault.
Added sugar water cooler to your League Vault.
Added jumbo jawbreaker to your League Vault.
Added jumbo jawbreaker to your League Vault.
Added MechaGelt to your League Vault.

Since it's possible to get pinata loot without actually stopping the horde, would it be possible to still get partial results? It would help with bookkeeping.

[The Leopard]

Will there be an official addition to the FAQ or Manual regarding Leagues? I get the general idea, but a little more information might be nice. Things like:

Can I be in more than one League?
If I join a League, can I leave it?
What are the benefits/drawbacks of joining a League?
What is a League?

etc.

Just a little more information to let people know what they're getting into with this whole "League" thing.

[Kinak]

Will there be an official addition to the FAQ or Manual regarding Leagues? I get the general idea, but a little more information might be nice.

Honestly, I think you might be the only person who's ever looked in either of those places for that information. The manual is tragically underused... a trait it shares with basically every manual ever.

The best source of information about Leagues, along with the best source of Leagues, is probably other players. Which doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the manual, anything to do with the manual just ends up on a back burner.

That said, let me give you some answers real quick:

Can I be in more than one League?
If I join a League, can I leave it?
What are the benefits/drawbacks of joining a League?
What is a League?

You can't be in more than one League at the same time, but you can move between then freely.
Yeah, you can leave whenever.
Benefits? Access to the league's chat channel and league-related content. Also, warm-fuzzies from defending the City of Twilight from various threats larger than a single hero can handle.
Drawbacks? None, unless you hate people. Then, well, access to the league's chat channel.
There's a better definition in the in-game dictionary as I recall, but a League is basically just "a group of superheroes." Like a gaggle of geese, but with more capes.

Cheers!
Kinak

[xKiv]

I think it might be slightly better (at least it would better answer whatever question I think I should have been asking) to say
- you can be (invited) member of any number of leagues, but you can only be active in one at a time
- you cannot reject your invitation, but you can freely choose in which league you will be active, if at all, at any time, any number of times per day
- what Kinak said
- cloud of capes?

[Patojonas]

Any developments in the retcon adding prestige to the league thing?

Looking at the discussion above the current non boss source of prestige indeed takes long to get compared to a run....so what about every 15-20 mettle worth of runs all members contribute with adds 1 prestige to the league? (takes less time to do a 1 painfull 15-20 mettle run than 15 or 20 1 mettle runs so that's balanced )

Also, between passively gathering 60 IOU and doing a 15-20 mettle run, which do you think is more troublesome?

I for one think the run is more expensive overall, since you can collect IOU regularly and be high level enough to take out league foes, whereas people in the retcon level range can perhaps kill one of the smaller pinatas or maybe straf the orwhal in a good day and have someone else do the rest.

[Kinak]

The temptation is always there to just put a trophy item in Nocturne's, but I'd rather do something a bit more interesting. I'll put a bit more thought into doing both.

Cheers!
Kinak