Okay, just figured I'd get a quick poll about what direction skill development should go in. Since people are always interested in new things, what would you guys like to see from the development team.

As for "Miscellaneous skills" for the second poll, I'd love to see a form of technology skill added to Lusternia, with possible branches--things like mechanical stuff like Dwarves use and the more Crystal-type stuff Lucidians are fond of.

EDIT: Hmm...well, when I edit this poll it seems to delete the results. I'll stop that

Assuming that the last option really means "add more abilities to existing skills," I voted for that one. There are many skills that could/should be filled out with more things to make them more useful and/or fun. In the case of Riding, it should be almost completely re-written to provide some synergy with other skills in Lusternia, rather than just a straight IRE-port of the skill.

To be honest, I'd like certain skills to be looked at and made more 'enjoyable'. Forging would be a prime example.

EDIT: And possibly herbs.

How would I like to see new abilities released?

I'd like more spontaneous skill-tweak-related-mini-events. I'd like RP explanations provided for significant changes. I like announce posts lots, but when you find that your demesne is only 25 rooms not 200 and you have no IC explanation, you have to thrash about a bit to avoid immersion being totally screwed over every time someone in your guild asks why they can't meld Angkrag and unthinking guild members give OOC responses.

Forging. Oh, dear heaven, forging.

Also, riding as per Zarquan.

And Aiakon's point about RP explanations where possible. Think of the saplings!

I'd like more things which newbies can enjoy with little-to-no investment, particularly things which "scale up" and are enjoyable to players of all experiences... whether they're skills or not.

Pfh, Forging is fine.


And I want Racial skillsets! Don't know how they should look, but I bet the admins would come up with something great.

Hey Johnny Credits, try to make a living as a forger, not just one forging weapons for yourself.

Pfh, I bash for a living. Maybe you should try that too.

If Lusternia had a martial arts skill...

Excuse me, I need to go change into another shirt.

Lusternia will have everything eventually, and we all know that Lusternia does it better. I mean, Achaea has been hoping for ships years now, and I personally doubt their ships will be cooler than ours.

I'd love to see more focus on balancing out the skills we have right now before more are added.

I would love for riding to be looked at.

It would be great for forging to be looked at, but it would also make me sad and jealous.

Yes riding needs looking at.

But I also think it could be fun to have specialized tertiary.. like psionics for other people. Took up astrology? Would you like to go the way of the healer? Destroyed? (offensive and defensive obviously). Illusions .. bard mage which is in works was noted when bards came out I believe. Hexes, for a bit of variety, maybe new ails lose others, for instance oh no you lose sleep and doublewhammy but get aeon?

Mmmm, battle type Alchemist anyone? The sludge you get from mixing in wrong ingredients can work as sap, frost will probably give a small chance to strip fire, strip and shivering and strip and become frozen, fire will give huge amounts in damage, strip cold and probably leave someone to burn and lots of other uses. Requires vials and of course the potions to work.

Mmmmmm....

i'd rather have things looked at before new skills are introduced. But i also would like to see racial skills more. i know a few races are sapposed to have a skill but I've never seen it used. I.E. it says Viscanti can breath posion but i've never seen it done and i don't even know how to do it.

I think it's just BREATH POISON, or BREATH GAS. Something like that. It makes the same cloud that the Geomancer's demesne does, and makes you hungry. It doesn't last very long, as I remember, but I'm kinda surprised people don't use it more.

By Racial Skills, I either meant Racial Skills one could excel at based on race (maybe special martial arts for Tae'Dae, for instance), or some general skill only certain races could get. For instance, Maybe Dwarves might get the ability to set traps or do stuff in Constructed or Natural Underground.

Looks like people are waiting for the "stealth archetype" to come out.

Utility Magic might be interesting. Wonder what mythology could be used for it. Akashaic Memory? Summoning Jungian Archetypes? Aportropism? Accessing the Eighth-Circuit model of consciousness? (Boy, that would be scary!) Minor Tarot (as apposed to major tarot)? Forms of Divination (which might give you random bonuses or random penalties)?

Ultimately, I'd love to see more skill choices to either make it so no two players are alike. Maybe add a fourth skill to archetypes. One thing I think might be cool is to open up a "secondary skill", to allow others access to non-opposed items. For instance, open up Pyromancery and Aeromancery, even if the cities are back, and let the mages "minor in it", having the ability to get half of the full skillset. Disallow opposite elements or cosmic influences, so while Celestians couldn't summon Demons, they might summon Vortex or Continuum creatures, or Mages could do the same...but then again, isn't Fire the opposite or water, not Earth? (Not sure how it would work with the Wiccan/Druid stuff). Or maybe get the ability to summon other elemental or non-aligned cosmic beings, such as Geniekind or a generic type of summoning?

Aiakon, while I understand more "event-driven" changes could be explained, not every envoy update deserves that. It would take away from more intriguing plots. Perhaps just have Estarra come down from the sky and say "I'm doing some fateful changes"...

And while I understand bug fixes are important, like Estarra said in the past you can't devote all the resources to that. It doesn't work like that. So I'm hoping this poll helps show what the playerbase is most interested in.

Giving mages/guardians parts of the other skillsets would either be useless or hideously imbalancing, depending on how it's done, and would be a bad thing in general.

I would like to see some of the current skillsets being fleshed out. They are pretty empty as it is. Discipline for example. It doesn't have to have combat usage, utility would be nice.