Over the course of time I have spent on Lusternia, I have noticed that organizational conflict really has greatly decreased that is most recently underscored by the creation of guardian constructs and free discretionary powers. The opening blurb on the official website talks about organizations barely surviving by capturing meager amounts of power into their respective nexus of power. Over the course of three years, nexii have grown to two million or more power, meaningful conflict was first taken off prime with the advent of the Avenger system and then even further quenched with discretionary powers that greatly disrupt a raiding party (such as flux and liveforest), and most organizationally relevant quests have been reduced in effect to mere annoyances with only residual roleplay-related reasons to care about at the very best. In essence, I believe that much of the excitement and "danger" that populated the initial world of Lusternia has now been lost or muted and may possibly be affecting the quality of the experience.

I am not saying that we should return entirely to a pk-free environment as some changes to limit conflict are admittedly beneficial to player enjoyment and I do understand that some players may prefer a less conflict-oriented environment, I believe some changes may be put into place to find a happier medium between two possibly diametrically opposed mindsets.

Guardian constructs: I believe that the free discretionary power benefit for these constructs should be removed entirely while increasing the insanity effect. The level 3 regeneration, easy ability to move to other planes, and power benefit are sufficient reasons to build the construct(s) already. Conflict should be on planes other than prime and having free discretionary powers greatly disrupted this balance.

Nexus world weakenings: I believe mini-weakenings should be done away with. In its place, opposing organizations would be able to weaken a construct at any given time to disable it for x hours. In addition to this, constructs as a whole need to be more frail than they are now. In its current state there is little reason to bother participating in a weakening as the effort and resources used do not justify the potential rewards.

Avenger system: While by and large a reasonable system, several changes should be made when defending an ally should be possible even when the person you are defending the ally against has suspect against you.

Divine Grace: Players under divine grace should not be able to enter any territory they are enemied to or areas of active conflict. This would include, but not necessarily limited to, such things as village revolts and wildnode events. Grace would have to be rejected outside of the boundaries before one may enter.

Organizational quests: This truly has been reduced over the years. While, I don't wish to go back to to collecting 1000 demonfish or golden squid under a time limit, there should be more ways to meaningfully affect another organization either positively or negatively. In addition, there should be more than one way to meaningfully fix the actions of others (unlike the 1000 demonfish or squid situation). I think this is an area of a lot of potential if done correctly as it is something that can require teamwork and builds relationships as players need to work together for a common goal.

Nexus power: Either reduce automatic nexus power input or increase the output...power inflation greatly dilutes any potential conflict over power, culture, wildnodes, village input, etc.

While this is not an exhaustive list, I really just wanted to get the ball rolling to see what others thought on the matter and hopefully bring about some change. I also appreciate the work the administration has put into breathing life into Lusternia and making it a place many come to enjoy.

Can we raise some Vernal gods or something? The excessive amount of power in the nexii make power meaningless. One of the things I enjoyed back at the start was the scramble for power and the desperate need for it.

I miss the danger of losing the star and necro. Its impossible now.

I agree with all your post, and especially with the constructs since it has a dear place in my heart when I predicted the result of their implementation.

I would definitely like to see some form of organizational conflicts re-introduced. While I'm afraid I don't have any brilliant ideas on what or how to do that, I would like to second that exhaustive collecting isn't very fun, but killing things isn't so bad. Even better is killing people! But, I think the biggest hole in this section is giving worth to it all. What would actually be worth-while to fight for?

Perhaps unique items could be granted to the winnning organization. Power and gold is nice, but it's probably a little too intangible for the player-base to get excited over.

Can't think of anything else right now, but I'll continue mulling over it and if anything pops in, I'll add more.

I'll just note that nothing was implemented without a reason. A lot of people seem to forget that there were reasons why constructs offer free power, reasons why we implemented mini-weakenings, and reasons why organization quests were toned down. It wasn't because we were bored and had nothing to do--it was because the conflict was driving players away. Even now, we are having to -- again! -- look into upgrading defenses as certain players don't know when to stop and are graphically showing us how effortlessly it can be for one person to unbalance the system. It'd be nice if players could monitor their own which would encourage us to implement more conflict systems, but alas that isn't the case.

In any event, as pointed out before, any suggestions for conflict systems we would entertain would be focused on other planes, preferably on the nexus worlds, preferably through the construct system, would not be amenable to constant griefing another organization (i.e., no pounding on another org 24/7), and would not include implementing any conflict quests (because of the nature of implementing such things).

Personally, I'd have hoped you could have just policed those few players that're causing all the grief instead of completely altering the field for everyone else due to that one person or group.

As for Vernal..please, no. I don't want to see a Ms. Lusternia Pageant for people wanting to become Vernal.

Heh, we had tried that but were crucified by the playerbase (or certain parts anyway) with accusations of favoritism, incompetence for allowing systems that could be abused, and impeding legitimate roleplay. Also, we just don't have the staff to oversee everything effectively.

As much as the idea of Nejii becoming a vernal () appeals to me, it would essentially be a popularity contest that costs power, or else an event like the Ascended god thing (that largely pulled a good candidate through luck rather than by design.) And it wouldn't help any problem we're facing right now.

EDIT: Failed to finish a sentence, sigh

While I agree that some things drive players away, it's much easier for those who wish to stay out of fighting to go take a nap in their manse, or help in a pacifistic way (bring food, grab bodies, etc) than it is for those who want to fight since there are so few options and the 'best' ones rely on time or the position of the moon instead of being able to mount impromptu scuffles.

I also agree that it shouldn't be possible for one person to disrupt entire systems of defense, but perhaps there is a simpler way of working around that by investigating personal or racial attributes (perhaps not, I don't know the in and outs of coding).

I also agree and applaud your innovation and ability to tie and twist everything into everything else. The world that has been created here is real and believable (in a fantasy sense) not to mention original in its application and worth playing. I can clearly see how each thing is important and necessary to the world (aetherships, nexus worlds, aetherbubbles). But, Nexus battles shouldn't be the only option as far as large scale, meaningful combat go.

As Nydekion pointed out, the cost of going on the offense is large, time consuming, un-gauranteed for lack of participation or ability to create the necessary materials or access them(which isn't a fault of the system, but never-the-less adds another large hurdle).

And, furthermore-I think all of us who are interested in combat are willing to wait, sweat, think and work out any obstacles that would arise should the opportunity come to change or augment the current system, given the chance.

Thank you for your reply, Estarra!

One thing that was also brought to my attention is that the extra experience penalty to dying in enemy territory is rather unnecessary and should probably be removed. On prime, the defender already has the advantage as they entirely circumvent the need to declare hostilities, on other planes conglutination already greatly lowers the cost of death.

I would tend to agree. With organizational stuff like that it tends to get one sided very quickly when people use RP to 'want to crush the other side into oblivion" without care for their game. YOUR RP SHOULD BE DYNAMIC PEOPLE CHANGE IT. Back in the days of Mag crushing celest, Valek and Daevos and myself would often give little reprieves against combat to allow the other side to not be totally crushed.

Players need to alter their RP at times for the benefit of the game. An example was when narsrim and tuek would constantly raid magnagora's mines with amaru and a host of others, and then they would spore out and there was literally no way to stop it, no monolith's village distortion and it was instantaneous. We had to basically rally and seriously consider quitting magnagora to get the problem fixed, why did it need fixing? Because one or two people were consistently using it to grief. Same reason flow was nerfed, same reason wisp was nerfed.

It was also the same reason lich and ghost were nerfed, and why village distortion was introduced along with the rippling and fluxing of planes. It's all because people of certain orgs don't know when to stop, or how to negotiate a truce. For the love of all that's unholy drop your stupid RP when it's called for and make the game better. If you're getting your ass handed to you make a bloody truce and stop being so damn stubborn. It really gets my goat when players stick to their rediculous RP that no-one really cares about when it's clearly not for the good of the game. Case in point, Glomdoring.

Ok that's my rant done.

I feel the opposite - defenses already give too great at advantage to the defending side. Free flux, liveforest, and ripple have decimated most raiding. Some people will actually wait til security logs off just so they can raid free of discretionary powers.

As for certain players not knowing when to stop - they're only getting away with this at odd hours where hardly anyone is on. Given any regular playing hour, it's pretty easy to stop a smaller group in your own territory without much effort. It's really the fault of the player - raiding when the best defender doesn't even have a functional system, at 5 am, is quite lame.

I think that would be unwise. I'm not a huge fan of conflict, and even I'm getting rather stir crazy. My daily activities are down to bashing astral, and sitting into Celest until I can bash astral again. Flux and liveforest are free and disturb any chance of a decent raid on those planes, and ripple isn't *terrible*, but its still annoying and discourages a lot of raids. Constructs are nearly impossible to destroy, and killing supernals and demon lords is only a morale hit because power is worthless and the star and the necromantate (sp?) can't be felled, because the demon lords and supernals can only be killed once every 5 real days. In what I see, any combat that happens now is purely just to do something, with no goal in mind.

Make me avechna's personal avatar, promote me to god status, i'll be orgless and beat down people who have no self control

Oddly, that strikes me as a better option than upgrading defenses again.

We will be increasing defences. The decision has been made, but we haven't implemented it yet.

It has nothing to do with other planes per se, but rather responding to the ability of one person to kill guards over and over and over again, ad nauseum. As for how we will be dealing with that ... wait and see!

(Again, we wouldn't do anything if we didn't feel there was a need. In this case, there is a need and we will deal with it.)

EDIT: Before you get paranoid, I think 99% of you will be pleased with the upcoming changes.

It feels here like you missed the point.

You seem to be aware that players being arseholes is the problem, and not the system per se. But it also sounds like you disagree with the idea that the system has to be adjusted to compensate in response. Estarra's already mentioned that admin can't spare the resources for various reasons to deal with each individual problematic player, and that players can't/don't monitor each other/themselves. So the only option is to upgrade the defence mechanisms to stop problem players, even if the system itself isn't at fault per se to begin with.

That part scares me... as players dont always see eye to eye on things...

*gulp*

You're finally introducing moonbounces to the world of Lusternia?!

Gulp