DO Pact Costs

[Jorus]

I'm starting this thread in the hopes of encouraging discussion on the costs of DO pacts.

Currently they are 2ap/hp/mp per activation up to 12ap/hp/mp at the final stage.

DO's will pay an increased cost although iirc they are not the same cost as the user would pay (please correct me if I'm wrong).

12ap..... seems harsh. Both from a user and provider perspective.

My idea is thus.... The duration of the pact is significantly reduced and when the timer runs out, the user of the pact dies without triggering any Stygian Fury or Explosive Murder skills.

[Alkasyn]

Heh, I wonder if a lot of people would actually use this version if it was a kamikaze-like button.

That said I agree the current iteration is simply poor and a giant nerf.

[SkullFace]

My $0.02 worth:

1. As it stands my IB is working with his DO to revoke pacts when they reach a cost of 8 AP. Reasoning? A loss of 8 AP from your session isn't worth it for what you get in return; none of Life/Soul Vampire, Desecration or Dark Heart are worth that. And IMO the problem will only be exacerbated in a raid scenario because a loss of 8 to 12 AP is monumentally bad for a raider. For the core Nexus raiding game, around which all game mechanics are supposedly designed, the current pact setup is broken.

2. My DO has no intention of forking over 60 CP for Scribe Pact in its current form. By comparison to any of the basic Advocate abilities it is all but useless. Their intrinsic value in delivering XP disappears once a DO is levelled. The only way to make them viable is repeated revocation, making them high maintenance.

Idle speculation:

A. The DO power set might benefit from something along the lines of an Unholy Relics ability, a dark reflection of the Advocate skill. Sacrifices can be made at such a relic, either to generate Desecration results or enable temporary T2 powers.

B. If pacts remain a mechanic, they should be in the form of a debt. As per my Discord posting the debt should be incurred after usage (think "the first one is free"), the debt must be satisfied before next usage, and be a selection from a list such as:

* Kill an angel
* Kill a transcend
* Inflict 100 HP damage
* Poison 3/4/5 victims (for those with Defiler Posion)
* Kill 5 pets (cannot be allied pets)
* Deliver 20 points of passive infusion
* Break a ward (cannot be Evil-aligned)

Debts should come overdue if they are not satisfied within a set period e.g. 666 minutes. Once a debt is overdue the debtor becomes cursed. This could be with Pact Blood Curse (-2 soak and no healing) until debt settled or with Bad Luck (tm) until debt settled (reduces hit rolls, defense, damage rolls). Every 666 minutes the overdue debt becomes doubled in effect.

Additional mechanic (optional) is that pact benefit and debt could both increase on usage e.g. a rising timescale of T2 power availability with rising debt burden.

EDIT: Another additional mechanic that might be considered is rewards e.g. at the payment of the third step debt the user is granted a Mischevious Imp, and at the end of the sixth step debt the user is granted an Ancient Gremlin.

As always, YMMV.

[Klapaucius]

Good points. I disagree in one regard: I think soul ice pact is probably still situationally worthwhile.

I don't mind the idea of that sort of incidental activity cost locking you out of the post. It's an interesting avenue for consideration.

Could an admin merge the two DO pacts suggestion threads?

https://www.nexusclash.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=7403

[Meric]

The new cost structure seems rather unreasonable. The 4th, 5th, 6th uses likely won't be triggered and it will force more admin for the DO in revoking / reissue. The attempt to disincentivise DOs from doing this by increasing revoke cost won't stop this behaviour manifesting as they would want to entice people to use their pacts as much as poss.

I appreciate it has a nice thematic twang but it unduly punishes pact usage (12hp, 12mp, 12ap to trigger a dart spell for target grinding?), increases DO admin and is actually an even larger disruption to non-factioned matching DO-pact user relationships where communication and meeting for exchange could be more challenging. About 70-80% of my pacts went to non-faction mates so the admin this breath would be tiresome if similar numbers.

On reflection most of the pacts I issued out fell into these uses: farming (SI), grinding (darts), raiding (GGE, reveal, sixth) which all have an ap/mp/hp efficiency concern, especially raiding - so heavy upfront cost just feels like the wrong approach.

Someone on discord suggested a user tax to manifest slowly after usage, like MP drain (skip every other MP tick for 4 hours). Feels a lot more inline thematically with pacts than an upfront cost and a lot more palatable for the end user whilst increasing cost vs B5.

Would also highlight that pact rewards for DOs aren't great - xp becomes worthless so quick into a breath once they max. Siphoning off other resources like AP, MP, DP even renown would be interesting.