War in Lusternia.

Problem:

1) Anything offensive in Lusternia will inevitably happen in enemy territory
2) Risk of death in enemy territory is high
3) Experience loss in enemy territory is insane, >50% at my level
4) Magnagorans do not lose this experience.

I may appear to be biased, but I think this is a problem which needs a lot of consideration. The experience loss for death is there to discourage people from dying, putting a huge stopper onto the idea of raids. No one outside of Magnagora raids because the risk of losing this much experience is too great.

Except for Magnagora. The evidence cannot be denied. Without the fear of experience loss, Magnagora can raid as frequently as they like, putting whoever they are raiding at an enormous disadvantage. Such a disadvantage that the result of the war is inevitably a victory for Magnagora.

It allows them to be reckless.
It allows them to use offence.

Balance is a constant issue in Lusternia, and this includes the balance of power. Everyone enjoys the game more if power is split between the cities/communes, and they struggle for power between one another.

Magnagora will dominate the game until the issue of experience in PK is somehow sorted out.

Except, who cares about experience? Most Celestians don't want to die or lose experience, while most Magnagorans (during my time) didn't care if they died or lose experience.

Lich allows them to bypass experience, and the more important factor, time.

I've died with Lichdom before, when they decided to combine an eye sigil, a flame sigil and guards over the exit to the enemy territory. Add in a statue if it's outdoors and I'm really not seeing what the problem is in terms of offense.

People have to care about experience. All the best fighters are in their mid-seventies to mid-eighties.

And however practical you try to be, the fact is that experience loss is frustrating and depressing.

Compare the Lusternian to the RL employee. Employee #1 is a professional gambler. He's good at it, and regularly loses or wins five figure sums. Employee #2 is a 9-to-5 bricklayer, who earns the minimum wage per hour.

#1 is the dedicated PKer, and he isn't all that bothered if he loses some money. #2 is 90% of Lusternia, the basher-turned-casual-PKer, who after slaving away for hours to gain little bits of exp, is devastated if a great bunch of it is stolen from him.

The second case also applies to others like me, since bashing with 10 int is painful and tedious, and so is PK when most of my opponents are liches I get no exp from.

The fact is that losing experience does frustrate and upset people. It does put people off PK, especially risky PK.

Well, your own recent raid of Acknor, and Narsrim/Shamarah's raid of Angkrag, makes a lie out of that statement. Also you are ignoring the fact that Magnagora is not the only organization with escape methods. Spores and Hermit combined with vitae are quite effective. And of course there is the catacombs card that you used to escape from Acknor when we engaged you there.

What I'm saying is, with Magnagorans, as the guilds there, can bash any exp they lose back within hours. And with Astral never being emptied and the use of nodes making your own creatures, it'd go even faster.

I know the worst part of dying to me is not exp, but the time to wait to get back in there. Here's my proposal for Lichdom: be a ghost for 15 seconds, when it says "Your Body begins transforming into a Lich" you have to sit there for a minute and 15 seconds, as a ghost, no one able to scry/see you, to wait for your body to transform. Then you'll see less raids.

Firstly when I meant no one raids, I mean in general. You can get your whole city to come along on a raid, for a bit of fun, with us it takes a dreamweaver or someone (rare) with Serpent, and nothing we ever do works because no one wants to go along.

Also, note the difference between the possibility of ESCAPING and the almost guaranteed factor of NEVER LOSING EXPERIENCE.

Using me as an example, if I get attacked by a team of 10, I die and lose a ton of exp praying. If you do, and somehow die, you don't lose crap.

Please stop generalizing all of Magnagora. Razyx is a Geomancer, they don't get Lich. Most of them, however, -do not- mind dieing for the good of the city. Perhaps if the rest of the Basin showed the same dedication and resolve, you wouldn't see these issues as problems.

I am being blunt here guys.

Exp loss does affect people's willingness to take part in combat.

Read it again.

Amaru, is there any reason why you don't feel eye sigils are an option for Celest? I can see Serenwilde having economic trouble with it under certain circumstances, but Celest shouldn't have any trouble using them.

Razyx is right, not only do our geomancers not have access to Lichdom, most of the city doesnt as well. It is a transcendant skill in a relatively weak skillset. And even considering that fact, we do still die, I actually died for real last night in Southgard, that doesnt change my offensive stance at all though. But then again neither do I sulk and whine whenever I die.

Lichdom affects game balance far beyond the +2/-1 strength and intelligence.

I have been saying this for years.

And I'm saying for some people yes, but for others no. Ixion is what, level 85 when he was Champion, he died tons of times, actually losing experience, he'd just go up to Astral, spend an hour or two, get it back, come down and kill guards with us again.

Do any Celestians do that? Narsrim does that, Tuek does that. Daevos does that, Magnagora goes on group astral huntings to get lost experience back, and to defile shrines. Does Celest do that?

Totally impractical. All the actual dropping and maintaining of eye sigils, then the fact you'd have to wait around for ages for the soul to even manifest into the person again. I've done it before, but the effort makes it a useless strategy in reality.

Just the same way you can monolith everywhere to prevent hermit or spores.

Are you saying you dont have conglut Amaru? I saw you saying when you 'pray'.. to me I agree with Amaru on the fact exp loss to praying is pretty discouraging but if you got conglut you're pretty much ok I think, I don't see many people who die and got that worrying to much about the exp loss, but when I lose 50% I know it hurts me. As for Lich being to powerful.. well it is pretty damn nice skill. I don't know if the answer would be nerfing it since Necros suffer quite a bit already but, perhaps looking into the exp loss for praying.

Waiting for ages? It's 30 seconds, maybe less, and they come back with no power and 0 defenses. It's practically a free kill.

Why is dropping and maintaining them impractical? If you flame them by guards with no statue, a Geomancer enchanter has to die to disenchant it, a Nihilist enchanter has to spend 1 power plus the cost of a lichdom to get rid of it. If you flame the eye sigil with guards and a statue, it's unlikely a nihilist enchanter with lichdom can get it at all.

That said, even if you do lose them all, you could simply flame an eye at the exit of your village at the start of each raid. That costs you what, 2 reserves from a powerstone and 100 gold? I think the problem is you just don't have any combat-savvy enchanters.

It would easily backfire. It's not the case with eyes.

Monolith 40 rooms, or eye sigil 1-3. Hmm.

I am not saying it's the only reason. But power will never shift until it changes. I'm for no exp loss from PK whatsoever, but that's unrealistic.