Hi,

I'm your special report guy, this is the first of many threads.

First off, here is an edited transcript of my conversation with Estarra, I'll also be summarizing it below, in bulletpoint:

Shu and Estarra's Conversation

Major Points of the Conversation:

-Report needs to address major imbalances that have existed more or less since Lusternia's inception.
-Skills/Classes that can be envoyed may be included, but they must be a major imbalance (ex: warriors)
-No changing/repricing artifacts, no adding new areas, no trades talk.
-After I make the initial report, it will be submitted, then I will receive feedback, then I will get to submit a revised report. I will of course run it by you guys again as well.
-They're pretty busy, the report might not be addressed until 2012, provided we are not all dead.
-Org momentum may be discussed.
-Report will consist of solutions only, not a problem/solution format, i.e: delete monks.

How I Will Do Things:

1. I will create a thread (this one) to receive suggestions for said major imbalances in Lusternia.
2. I will then somehow cut down this ginormous list to about 5-?? topics (the less, the better) through a combination of forum polls, talking to envoys, and my own personal interpretation.
3. Once it's been settled, I'll open up a thread for -each- topic from #2, where everyone will get to discuss that specific issue, make arguments, and offer solutions.
4. At the end of a predetermined time, or when some sort of consensus has been reached, that topic will be closed and I'll be including what was decided on in the report itself, which I will then repeat until every thread has been addressed and the report is done.
5. I'll make another thread with the completed report, so you guys can offer any last minute suggestions and for the sake transparency.
5. This is where I submit the report and wait.
6. I'll receive feedback from the admin, relay what they said back here, and repeat the process, submitting the revised report at the end of all of it.

Purpose of This Thread:

1. This is where you get to make your suggestions on what exactly is a major imbalance in Lusternia, you can be as brief or as elaborate as you want.
2. Don't offer up solutions, that's for later.
3. Don't dismiss others' suggestions for an imbalance without providing reasonable explanation, i.e: I don't think it's an imbalance, lol.
4. No trolling.
5. I'll be updating this initial post as we go along, for ease.

My Personal Interpretation of a Major Imbalance

1. It has existed for a reasonably long amount of time.
2. It is generally acknowledged, if not agreed, by players from most/all player orgs to be an issue.
3. It has the potential to discourage people from further playing/supporting Lusternia.
4. It has the potential to prevent new players from joining/staying in Lusternia.

Have at it.

P.S. Just contact me personally through forum messages, ingame messages/tells, or post here if you've any questions or concerns.

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Suggested Imbalances:
Updated: 10-10-11, 12:30 PM PST

1. Construct Inequality by Xenthos
2. Revolt/Aetherflare Capture Speed by Viynain
3. Choke by Akui
4. Org Momentum by Akui
5. Shrines by Viynain
6. Monks by Janalon
7. Druids vs. Mages by PM
8. Races (not all) by Sylphas
9. Sap by Raeri
10. DMP Inequalities by Janalon
11. Demigods by Ssaliss
12. Warriors by Rivius
13. Bashing vs. Influencing by Kiradawea
14. XP loss by Ryleth
15. Raid Mechanics by Malarious
16. Bashing Disparity by Malarious
17. Village Feelings by Iytha
18. Devalued Gold by foolsofsound

Ok, I'm just going to compare them line-by-line in a format that is hopefully a little easier to see where we're seeing the differences.

CODE

Blacknest                                 |   Standing Stone                            |   Iron Machine
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOUCH - Sends a guardian crow | TOUCH - Sends a guardian foal   | TOUCH - Gives a Tainted Spike
for 10 power                              | for 10 power                                | for 10 power
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CROW KNOCKDOWN - Usable once per month,   | Foal makes it easier to move more rooms     | SLAM SPIKE - Once per day, spike can be driven into
your guardian crow will pull down all     | before becoming more hasty                  | the ground to cause an earthquake, which will sprawl
flyers overhead for five minutes          |                                             | everyone in the room and have a chance of stunning
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guardian crow gives very small chance of  | Very small chance of partially intercepting | Spike can be POINTed at others to cause disease
attacking when the owner attacks          | an attack                                   |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum carrion of a Crow user is         | The power of Ringwalk, Parade, and          | Spikes gives +1 sip bonus
increased (+15 carrion)                   | Ancestral Curse are increased for Stag users|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5DMP to all damagetypes                   | 5DMP to all damage sources                  | 5DMP to all damage sources
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The recent constructs are (as per the chart above) imbalanced; the Magnagoran construct offers a +1 sip bonus to everyone in the organization, while the others do not offer an ability that affects both PvP and hunting at the same time in such a degree.

Either a similar effect needs to be given to all these constructs or the sip bonus needs to be retconned and replaced with a more minor effect like the others.

I think that village and aetherflare capture speed should be looked into because of the varied complaints folk have put up about the rate by which these can be accomplished.

In regards to village revolts, I think that positive/negative village feelings should correspond with something other than influence worth or total for a revolt (village gains and denizen aggressiveness to people from an org with negative feelings maybe?).

In regards to aetherflares, consider maybe the necessity of controlling both the ground and the skies as opposed to just the skies as it currently is (need to have a colossus at the ring for bombards to work, maybe?).

Double post, but still. Shrine usage should also be addressed. I'm personally quite fond still of just toning the effects down to the locations sanctified by a shrine rather than the entire area.

I've added all previous posts so far since I acknowledge that they've been issues.

It seems people have complained about monks since their inception. Yeah, they came loaded with OP problems, many of which are now resolved through bugs and envoy (some of which still need resolution). I suggest two areas for further consideration:

1. The cost and certainty a monk can land regen afflictions... namely looping dual leg regen affs to perma prone.
2. People complain monk reach top tier afflictions too quickly. This might be an issue with the number of momentum tiers.

Not sure if these issues are still valid OR if they are what's most off balance with monks outside of the complaint that we are "more perfect warriors" who can land afflictions with certainty. Perhaps an opponent with experience against monks could better speak to these points.

I'll be adding monks and this next PM:

Although we keep doing racial revamps, Tae'dae are still screwed, and even worse. I've got a gem and changeself, so I don't care personally, but it bugs me (and others) anyway.

Furies' decision: This is acceptable.



This is more to satisfy my casual observer's curiosity: What ideas do you have (if any) about reworking Druid tertiaries? Though I've never been a combatant, I figured that TP/TK were popular for mages only because Dreamweaving was mostly ignored because it was difficult to stick sleep/punctured aura, and Runes only got picked up because someone needed to affix runes to statues. Embedding motes & runes can be useful as far as I know, but that does nothing for mobility or viability outside a meld. Reworking Dreamweaving and/or Runes (again) for the benefit of Druids might have certain unintended consequences for mages, so... would you prefer reworking Ecology/Dreamweaving/Runes or do you think a new Druid tertiary is necessary?

EDIT: Also, Malarious' point below - you'd have to consider how any changes to Druids would affect them in a meld as much as outside of one.

The construct thing needs to be reviewed with all constructs included. To me it looks like what they did was +1 sip with an attack item vs the communes skills which can provide a benefit to attack or being attacked (which you compare to point spike in the table).

Monks I imagine will definitely be needing their own topic to adjust. My main goal there is likely to be preventing mugwump syndrome. I have spoken with Janalon before about adjusting the underlying mechanics but no idea how they would convert over and how well they would be taken. We can see.

Druid melds tend to be superior to mage ones (other than maybe aeromancers). Its a bear to catch a druid in meld, its alot easier to catch a mage. So I think if they want to look at out of meld things we need to considerably look at the meld itself. When you add in a viable out of meld offense with a multi effect meld with the ability to sap you can get into a tricky spot. Imagine telekinesis with aeon!

EDIT: Races will be interesting but personally I think focus should be on like... Mugwump, minor change to Merian, minor change to Faeling (yes I looked at faeling vs aslaran and aslaran is better now), igasho/tae'dae. and if possible can we look at gaping flaw races who have like 8 int 8 cha, stats so low they tend to be useless.

What would we do for choke? Hasnt every attempt to "fix" it ended up a problem?

Unfortunately this is an issue that the gradual change of envoys can't really address though, I remember talking on a clan about the number of changes we'd need through to make a change to druids and I think I was, at least, a few months of weakening them hoping that at the end the final changes to compensate would be approved.

Sure being a druid in your meld can be awesome but it's just not fun when you generally look at situations and say either "Well they already have a druid, so..." or "Well I can't meld, so...", a situation which has remained the same for quite some time now.

Major issues:

-Making everybody viable in both 1v1 and group combat. Bards tend to be better in groups and worse 1v1, for instance, while monks tend to be better 1v1 and less useful in groups.

-It seems that a lot of classes are based on damage-kills, 1v1? Which was more viable back before 'everybody' was a demigod (Octave's help scrolls from a few years ago say to assume a strong enemy has 5k health, which has changed). Damage-kill guilds (Bards, Monks, some guardians?) have trouble in 1v1 actually killing people, especially when they lack expensive artifact runes. Hindering, sure, but actually causing death is an issue for any class that kills with damage. Not entirely sure how to fix this, but it's certainly a major issue that affects all orgs to some extent or another.

-Active Divine. The time Magnagora was strongest was when Fain was most active; likewise, the rise of Celest has corresponded to Eventru being visible and flashy and Terentia returning. With the decline of Lisaera, Viravain, and Elostian, their respective orgs have gotten weaker. Might be coincidence, but it seems to me that active divine -> more active players -> stronger org. Along these lines, 'strong' divine (Fain/Terentia/Lisaera/Viravain) seem to do more for the combat balance than do 'weak' gods (Maylea/Hoaracle/Lyreth/Elostian), although all play a part. Might be beyond the scope of this report, but I do think that one way to address the 'org momentum' problems is to increase or decrease Divine presence.

I would like to see racial imbalances addressed. The way I see it, a race can have 3 fatal flaws:

1) Race has a significant Balance/EQ penalty. Combat is very much speed-based in Lusternia; a player has to be able to outpace the curing (to an extent) of his foe. A race with as much as a 21% increase in Balance/EQ time simply cannot compete.

2) Race has a very low INT score. The prevalence of Mana kills and the relatively few effective defenses against said kills makes very low INT races too risky to play, especially considering that low INT races are SUPPOSED to be warriors... who have an important buff that halves their max mana.

3) Race has the Human problem; in which the race is too un-specialized to be a viable option. Basically, a problem exists with 'jack of all trades' races: there is ALWAYS a better option for whatever archetype you happen to be playing. Aslaran make up for this by having a very useful special ability (EQ/Balance speed boost), but Humans don't really (evolution isn't sufficient to make the race attractive; the only Human players are Humans for the bashing bonus, which I feel is problematic.)



In addition, unlike the low Int races, low Con races can essentially negate their low health issue with Force Field. This means that a Faeling mage suffers NO penalty for his low Con, and is in fact quite tanky.

I'll add races, but I feel like not races as a whole, just one or two, most probably centered around the furries. We'll see



That's pretty much the crux of the problem. You don't want to overly buff runes/DW because it will mean that mages will get unbalanced. So what you're stuck with is reworking Ecology or just buffing Druid specific things in general.

Also that whole sap issue.

A new tert isn't necessary, I feel, just because the admin dislike doing that.



Who knows, I think all of the things you mentioned have been around for a very long time now.

1. I feel like this is already the case on average. I disagree with bards in general being not as good 1v1, though. Barring certain crazy skills, of course.

2. I believe this is more an issue with DMP as a whole, where certain damage types (like magic) have more DMP protection compared to others (like psychic). Someone should probably put this up as an issue if they agree.

3. I'm afraid this might be beyond the report's scope. I don't think we should force volunteers to take up god roles they don't want to do anyway. Approaching the org momentum thing from an angle that isn't this one would probably be best.

I agree with this. I think people would be content to see the unplayables brought up to being at least somewhat viable instead of trying to make everything perfectly balanced (again, for like the fourth time).

Well, at this point I would like to see that Strength point come back for Shadowlords, because right now Aslaran are better than the Glomdoring specialization race.

That, or Aslaran lose a strength point (though I'd prefer the first).

This really falls beyond the scope of the report. Asking 'active' divine to be less 'visible' because x, y and z orgs have less 'presence' is strange - rarely does 'winning org momentum' have anything to do with where ephemerals go with new god roles, besides. Ideally every org would have 3 or so active, very visible gods - but alas, we lack those resources. More or less, this suggestion reads as, 'X org is winning, so their gods should be less active than Y org that isn't, who should be more active than anywhere else'.

There's nothing to be done except people interested apply, and ephemerals have an interest in the lacking orgs.

I understand your point, but every time you make it, I mentally replace "less active gods" with "pretty much non-existent gods". I know you guys are volunteers and all, and that's it not your fault you're active and the others aren't, but it still stings to see Celest have someone like you while Serenwilde has nothing.

Asking active gods not to be active or have fun with their order, city, etc. would discourage them from being around so it would create an unproductive vicious circle. RPing their god is the big perk of being a volunteer.