Hardcore "permadeath" SG recruiting

Looking for a challenge in your gameplay? Consider joining "Blade of Justice," a new SG on Virtue with a twist: permanent* death!

Background

BoJ is a collection of outsiders and vigilantes with a heroic bent. However, they operate outside of the law and are not formally registered with Paragon City's law enforcement structure. This has several important ramifications:

* they have no access to the teleportation system, hence -- no trips to the hospital
* they cannot undertake missions from the police scanner or any Longbow operative.
* with few exceptions, they cannot trade at Wentworth's.

Mission Statement

BoJ exists to provide a challenge to longtime CoH players who are looking for a challenge in their PvE gameplay and who wish to get back to the basics of the game -- teamwork and storyline. To that end, rules have been created to create a framework encouraging mutual dependence and interconnectivity.

Rules

* All character ATs and backgrounds are allowed. Each player should have a reasonable backstory explaining why his character is operating as a vigilante. Upon the release of "Going Rogue," the SG will likely allow villain AT members.
* Members can only team with other SG members.
* Members cannot solo after level 1 and must join the SG by level 2. More experienced characters cannot become members. They must start, survive, and grow within the SG.
* Members defeated in combat must be deleted (i.e., "permadeath") unless they can be resurrected by the use of a self-rez power (e.g. Rise of the Phoenix) or by another teammate using a rez-other power (e.g., Resurrect, Resuscitate, Howling Twilight, etc.). Awaken inspirations cannot be used and must be deleted when acquired. Members may not use the hospital and no base medical bay will be built. Temporary self-rez powers from events or other rewards may never be used.
* Members may not use any booster pack powers, veteran rewards powers, or vet reward respecs of any kind. Only powers (including story arc temporary powers) and respecs earned in regular gameplay may be used. Tailor tokens and costume-related veteran rewards may be used.
* Members can buy salvage and costume recipes at Wentworth's. No other transactions of any kind are allowed at Wentworth's.
* Members can buy or sell any item at a store or university, including enhancements, inspirations, and generic IO recipes. Members may get a free IO from the University tutorial.
* Because the SG has no access to outside IOs and Recipes (other than drops and those earned with reward merits), Members are encouraged to craft all IO recipes in their possession and place all unusable IOs in base storage for use by other members.
* Members must run in SG mode through level 25. After level 25, it is at the player's option. Members with an excess of cash are encouraged to convert the excess into SG prestige.
* Members may never participate in police radio/scanner missions, bank safeguard missions, or enter any PvP zone as these areas are all controlled by police and/or Longbow operatives. Furthermore, for story continuity purposes, AE missions and Ouroboros (both the zone itself and missions obtained there) may not be entered by Members.
* Members are encouraged to run contact missions, story arcs, and task forces. Due to the inability to acquire recipes from Wentworth's, reward merits will be critical in acquiring key IO recipes.
* Because the SG is barred from using Paragon City's teleportation system, the base may only be entered at Steel Canyon, the location of BoJ's secret headquarters. Note that members may have personal teleportation powers for travel and transporting teammates and enemies, but this does not give them access to the "grid."
* Upon the death of the Leader, Leadership shall pass to the next highest level surviving member. In the event of a tie, the member with the most prestige shall appointed Leader as the final act of the deceased Leader prior to deletion.
* SG members may freely trade any commodity amongst themselves. SG members may not trade with any non-members whatsoever, including non-member alts controlled by the same player.
* SG members may participate in costume contests and other non-SG social functions but never accept any influence or commodity of any kind as reward or gift. Similarly, members must reject (if given the option) the application of a buff power upon themselves by a non-member.
* Each player may have multiple alts in the SG, at his or her option.
* While survival is the main goal, members are encouraged to "push the envelope" in terms of mission difficulty, either by adjusting the number & level of enemies or by (e.g.) disallowing the use of inspirations during Task Forces.
* I will be working on setting up a Ventrilo channel and its use will be encouraged.
* Members should be mature, familiar with the game, and able to get along with others. Roleplaying (either verbal or typed) is welcome but not required.

The SG Leader (for now!) is Greymace, a Shield/Mace Tanker level 10. I soloed him to level 10 and he has not been defeated yet. He will not be played further until new players are added to the SG.

I look forward to hearing from you and welcome your comments. I am generally on in the evenings (Central Standard Time) and weekends.

So you want folks to stick there stuff in base storage for use of anyone else?

-looks around-

Hrmmm...


JJ

yeah, gl with that buddy...i'm @BL00DBATH and i'm usually on virtue, send me a tell if you get this up and going, i'd be willing to throw a lowbie in it for a try, but the whole deleting of a character thing if u die, you might have to allow wakies if u want ppl to join.

The fact is, accidents happen, you die due to lag or some other stupid thing, especially here on Virtue.

Good luck, I suppose. :/

Quote:

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler you *******!!!!

I like it. Sticks to canon without some lame excuse about 'hacking' into the teleportation grid. I may have to come up with something. After I spend a week or so going over the rules...

I'd agree on the "no teleporting to hospital" thing, but no awakens seems overly restrictive. As someone says, things happen due to lag, computer issues, etc. You need some kind of plan to cope with that. Awakens seem only fair.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

I'm all for hardcore or permadeath, but the rules seem a bit restrictive. Plus I see no way for you to enforce at least half of them.

I'd be interested in seeing if this ever takes off. There are too many rules for my taste, and most of them would be hard to enforce. Plus there is nothing stopping the new leader from saying "Enough of this. New rules!"

I can see the future of this group already.

All the characters get together one day for a nice round of missions. They're lowbies still and things are kinda rough going. They get like, I dunno, Vahzilok.

Someone jumps over a mob, pulls aggro.

Team wipes.


The entire SG is now dead.

SG is closed.

All of you are absolutely correct --

* accidental death is possible. It's a dangerous place, whether we are speaking of running into a high-level ambush in a low level zone, a lowbie getting nailed by a sniper in founder's falls, the Winter Lord appearing and ruining your day, etc. That's part of the challenge. And yes, it's entirely possible that a bad pull wipes the party and a good part of the SG.

* the rules are on the honor system. There is no "enforcement." This is all about trust. If you join, and play with a group of other players who are primarily interested in survival and challenge, then the rules are not an issue.

* the rules are designed to provide challenge and are based on another permadeath group for another MMO. The idea is to "de-loot" the system and make the SG members self-sufficient and interdependent. And frankly, rez/self-rez powers are not that hard to come by. I imagine that a typical group would ideally have 2+ rezzers to prevent team wipes. Suddenly, powers like phase shift seem pretty darned useful ... get me outta here so I can save my fallen teammates!

* Awakens are simply too common especially since they can be crafted on the fly with other inspirations. Allowing them would be more than just an asterisk on "permadeath" and would defeat the purpose, IMO. Again, if this idea repels you, I understand. This SG is not everyone's cuppa tea which leads me to ...

* This SG will not appeal to 95%+ of CoH players and I have no expectation that it will ever have more than 10-15 regulars. I know the idea of investing time into a character and then losing it does not appeal to many of you. But I think it is both a challenge and truer to the genre ...

Let me paint a few pictures for you:

* The SG members enter the sewers as lowbies -- stuck in a sewer with no way out but to but to defeat hordes of dangerous vahzilok and lost. No easy "death train" out. One way in, one way out. Makes you think twice about going in at level 2, doesn't it?

* The SG has a mission to defeat Frostfire in the Hollows. The team is level 9. They have to traverse a dangerous hazard zone just to get to FF's hideout. Getting there is a part of the challenge.

* The SG is on the Synapse TF and Babbage spawns outside their mission door ... fight or flight?

The point here is that all gameplay will change significantly when members get over the idea that death is cheap. And I imagine that for some, the idea of going back to regular PvE gameplay will seem like 'easy' mode.

I am completely down with this idea and would love to put a toon in the SG. I will hit you up in game soon. I am not sure what type of toon I will make but I think the idea is great. Personally I love a challenge.

by the way, my global handle is @Arcbolt. Feel free to PM me or send me a global tell.

Me and a few of my friends actually tried something like this before. It's LOADS of fun. I managed to get myself to level 14 without a single death until my friends kindda just let go.

There is no need to enforce anything. People who join the SG are joining to provide themselves with one and only one thing: Challenge.

If they start to cheat or try to get around the rules, then they're limiting their own fun and cheating themselves.

And about the Awaken thing; honestly, in my group, we didn't even allow teammate/self resurrection powers!!! It would defeat the purpose of the challenge if you allowed awakens. That is what makes the whole thing fun!!!

Regardless, I'll be happy to give this a try. I'll try to remember to contact you once I'm off from the break (I can't join before, since I don't have access to CoH).

There is, or was, a group on Justice playing Hardcore style for over a year. They are Iron Eagles and I once got a character to lvl 17. Their twist was you couldn't take debt, so any "deaths" before lvl 10 was just a sever beating by your foes. There is a high value for bringing ice/sonic/bubble defenders as the extra defense can be critical to keeping a team alive. Scrappers seemed to do the best and Topdoc actually got a character to 50!

Good luck with this.

Even though I'm not a vet, and there's plenty left in the game for me, this sounds interesting.

Buuut...
One of the rules I find overly constricting and would keep me from joining (if I were to join. As I said, not a vet, still have plenty to do).

Ok. Makes sense. Thanks for the quick reply.

Waaaaaaaay too Hardcore for me.

Just out of curiosity... How do the RWZ and Cimorea play into this?

Neither of their hospitals are run by law enforcement, and neither Vanguard nor the Midnight Squad are really buddy buddy with Longbow...

Plus I'm pretty sure Levantera would forcibly slap a beacon onto you the second you took a mission from her...

...Or laugh, otherwise.

I mean, there's nothing to stop you from extending the rules there, It's just a canon loophole I noticed. XD

So. Consider me morbidly fascinated by this. I may go along.

My sincere best wishes to you.

One small piece of advice:

"Permadeath" guilds have been around in gaming since forever. They are loads of fun. I like them.

However, they usually flare up and then sputter for one reason: people want exceptions to the death rule. What happens is, those who take permadeath seriously, start to get envious of those who seem to be able to whine/weasel their way out of it by crying "lag", "no fair" or "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah". Or worse, have members die and then try to hide the fact.

So my advice is: stick to your guns. Keep the rule as simple as possible. If you die - you die. Make another character and move on with your life. If you stick to that basic rule without exceptions - your guild will last. If you break that rule from time to time for "special cases" people will lean on that crutch all day, and your real hard core participants will grow resentful and leave.

I saw this exact thing happen in permadeath guilds I was part of.

I'd join your guild if it had more of an RP angle, and if I was extremely active in this game (which I am not right now).

I hope it works. Permadeath guilds are a blast, if the people who join them can "man up" and actually abide by the rules, rather than whine their way out of it.

i like the concept. id be willing to put a lowbie in ( i have a new controller illusion/cold dom) hit me up @cienfuegos ill be on after 530 pm pacific

i have a little thing about the rules. they seem okay but was hard to read wall of text and fully grasp maybe take it as it comes to level 20? see what works and what doesnt