Most of the time, I like to think that ultimately the utility and combat skills of every guild in Lusternia are roughly equal - definitely different and varied between the guilds, but that each of these differences is accounted for elsewhere in the skill set.

However, recently I've been finding more and more examples of commune skills which are directly parallel but unequivocally worse clones of city skills, either with a lesser effect, a higher power cost, or some arbitrary terrain restriction. These are some examples from wicca versus guardian, since I have the most experience with these two archetypes:

Nature vines vs. Cosmic web - both of these skills do simple entanglement, and both are held by the same archetype (though Nature is also shared with Druids because communes have two less base skills than cities). However, vines has the additional requirement of needing to be summoned in forest terrain, and offers no benefit in exchange for this.

Wicca Broom vs. Celestialism/Nihilism Wings - Though it seems largely a flavor difference between having wings or riding a broom to fly, as a mount the broom has many disadvantages. It costs balance to mount and you are knocked off of it every time you go prone. This means that the broom is far less practical in combat, where proning occurs often.

Wicca Willowisp vs. Celestialism/Nihilism Beckon + Transmology Sing - All of these skills summon a player from an adjacent room. However, unlike the others, willowisp is stopped by distort (though in exchange it does work on prone targets). But, more importantly, both the room the target is in and the room the willowisp is in must again be forested. This means that it is largely unusable in raid situations and village revolts, where the only way to have forested rooms is to already be in control of the area, in which case summoning isn't necessary.

Wicca Toadcurse vs. Celestialism Absolve vs. Nihilism Wrack - All three of these skills are 50% mana instakills. Or rather, the last two are, while Toadcurse is instead a ticket to play a hide-and-seek minigame where the toaded victim can run around the area for two minutes, during which time the Wiccan has to stomp multiple times to get credit for their kill (and during which time the toad may be kissed to have a chance to completely negate the ability). It should be noted that Nihilism wrack has the extra requirement of being paralyzed or entangled, but they have multiple passive and active methods to do this and in turn Wrack costs significantly less power than the other two skills.


I am not writing this thread to just whine and complain or to try to get anyone nerfed, nor am I audacious enough to completely disbelieve the possibility that I'm just missing something in my analysis which balances these and other examples I have. However, I am at the point that I need to ask for help from you all - how are these skills equal, or is there a reason why they are not supposed to be which I am missing?

Don't forget the ever-lovely Laetitia, which you can chant to others to refresh their ego!

One of the most obvious things which the Communes (or at least, wiccans) have better is that their entourages are many multiple mobs, so afflicting potential is greater than Cities (or at least, old-fashioned guards).

Also, I can see this devolving into a totems vs statues thing again.

My counter-argument against the fae vs. guardian point though is... look at what the fae actually do. One steals 50 gold every 12 seconds, one only makes other ents passive without doing anything to stop the enemy from just reordering to attack, one.... is a tree. Sure, we have more of them, but compared to a debilitating list of masked afflictions which the guardian can customize for the fight, I still say the wiccans get the short end of the stick.

Your point might hold some weight for Shadowdancers, but don't forget that all three of your specialized fae attack. For Moondancers only the crone attacks, while one of the other two does health regeneration and the other poofs if you try to summon her for more than a minute. However, even this falls apart when you bring Harmonics and Transmology into the discussion, for they, like wiccans, have multiple ents/ent-like things, but their passive afflicting potential is far higher than that of even Shadowdancer fae.


EDIT: To make sure we don't get stuck on any one point and instead discuss the theme and whether there are other examples of directly correlated skills I'm missing that swing the other way, a few more examples:

Nature rain vs. Elementalism cleanse - Both wash away odors, but for some reason only the Elementalism version washes away cleanse afflictions, forcing those of communes with Nature to remain dependant on cities for cleanse enchants even when they have an analogous skill.

Nature barkskin vs. Elementalism stoneskin - Both provide DMP, but barkskin gives 18 while stoneskin gives 24. While yes, stone is harder than bark, this is actually a numerical example of a skill which would otherwise be identical but remains worse.

Not to mention that basically everything in Totems has been bastardized by credit and dingbat artifacts! D:

It's interesting you brought it up that way. The last time I spoke with someone about Totems having a lot of overlap with artifacts, the person I was discussing it with said "Be grateful, you get those artifacts for free." However, unless I'm mistaken, the Totems skill pre-dates a good number of those (most notably the pig nose, surfboard, and pogo stick dingbat items). So rather than it being a skill designed to give the utility of artifacts, they were really artifacts designed to offer the primary benefits of the skill without having it. I could see it as an argument going either way, but it definitely does stifle top-tier combatants when, in place of the unique abilities possessed only by members of their guild, their skill tree is full of things which "everybody" has.

In totems, however, there is another good example:

Totems Night +Nature blend vs. Highmagic Yesod - All of these skills offer the shroud defence. However, even the combination of two separate skills from the wiccan/druid repertoire is inferior to Yesod, for Night only provides the shroud defence during night and blend only provides it while in forest terrain, while Yesod is universal. Someone could potentially make the argument that this is balanced by Yesod needing to be reapplied occasionally, but honestly the low equilibrium cost and extended length that the defence remains active makes this a non-issue, even if it drops mid-fight.

I never really get into discussions about skills, but I have to echo some of Rathan's and Alacardael's frustration. This stuff can be really, really annoying, and I don't buy the fae-makes-the-balance argument, either.

Edit: I realize that my agreement alone isn't helpful, so I'll add some of my own insight:

Several of our core abilities require forest to function, including a few skills from totems, a bulk of Nature, and a lot of Wicca.

I acknowledge the similar requirements: Shadowdancer abilities also require another added element (shadows) in order to activate some of our more powerful abilities, and guardians have a consumable they need to set up in order to activate some of their key skills.

Guardians, however, can use all of their skills in every terrain, with the additional relief from having to worry about buying additional enchantments (webs, cleanse, and so on) from potential enemy organizations. Arguments from exaggerated politics aside, I still think it's staggeringly unfairly balanced that communes have to rely upon the cities for certain (read: necessary) healing utilities, but the cities have access to virtually all of the core healing consumables.

Is there anything that's commune-specific in the world of trade?

Can more commune skills make forest rooms to compensate for our handicap? Not all of us can buy a censer.

Note that I am not frustrated; it's one of the things that I have come to accept when playing Lusternia. I just like to compare and contrast things! :D

Same story for me. If I cared about having superior skills, I would have moved to one of the cities long ago (in fact, it's why I moved to Hallifax for two weeks, then realized that I care more about having a role I can live with than having mechanical advantages). For myself, I just see it as an extra challenge I have to overcome that the cities do not.

However, I think that this is a sub-text in the "org momentum" discussion that has been left largely untouched. When I moved to Hallifax, it was with a large group of other Serenwilde combatants performing a mass exodus. Part of the reason you see the certain organizations 'getting stomped' is that the combatant population is naturally drawn to orgs with superior skills. I mean not to point fingers, but I think there is a reason that the biggest names in combat tend to be joined at the hip when they move from city to city.

Rathan:

Most of the time, I like to think that ultimately the utility and combat skills of every guild in Lusternia are roughly equal - definitely different and varied between the guilds, but that each of these differences is accounted for elsewhere in the skill set.

However, recently I've been finding more and more examples of commune skills which are directly parallel but unequivocally worse clones of city skills, either with a lesser effect, a higher power cost, or some arbitrary terrain restriction. These are some examples from wicca versus guardian, since I have the most experience with these two archetypes:

It irks me when people misuse this word as you are right now.

ar·bi·trar·y/ˈärbiˌtrerē/
Adjective:

• Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
  

To your first two points, it falls directly under the realm of 'roleplay' - I would think the advantage of being able to pluck some cosmic threads together and fling them at someone, versus forcing vines to grow from the forest around you to entangle someone, would be readily apparent. It's not the same skill - directly comparing them isn't appropriate. Likewise, it makes little sense for a wicca to grow wings - they ride brooms. Part of that is, indeed, you can be knocked off of them.

To the "toadcurse vs absolve" argument, all I have to say is this - Toadcurse is not an instakill. You're comparing apples and oranges. Both are fruits and grow on trees, but inherently they are different - I wouldn't want to bake oranges into my grandmother's apfelkuchen. Any argument that begins with "Toadcurse sucks because absolve/wrack..." is near immediately, as it always has been, responded with "Toadcurse is not an instakill. Stomping a toad is an instakill." If instead we removed the ability to STOMP toads and left it as a defense-stripper, it'd still be a useful skill - albeit nowhere near what it is today, and it'd certainly be used in differing manners from today.

It's like a Celestine complaining that Inquisition doesn't kill their target, like Illuminate does. They're two different skills that share varying degrees of similarity in required conditions to achieve different end results.

(I also wholly disbelieve that the perceived disparity between city/commune skills has anything to do with players shifting between orgs. Hallifax was regarded to have 'the' meld for a while, and the best guardians - yet Hallifax was far from 'dominating' the conflict landscape. Likewise, aside from one or two people, Pyromancer's "crazy" melds didn't lead to them 'owning' the PvP field for any length of time. Similarly, Serenwilde's skills have not much changed - in fact, in some regards, improved - since the days when Serenwilde was "top dog". I think it's disingenuous, and borderline offensive, to insinuate as you are, that certain PvPers are merely following 'the best skillz'. I've watched many excellent PvPers over the years, and rarely do they deviate from a given organization - or when they do, it's a very long-thought decision, and often carries more 'noble' means - ie, they want to be the 'underdogs'. In fact, I'd be shocked if there was any real trend related to top PvPers moving between orgs for 'broken OP skills'. While one or two shallow individuals might do this, the greater majority of them tend to decide organization not by skills' "OP" ness, but by atmosphere and how it enables their particular style of play.

To your example - Serenwilde had, for a very long time, had a pro-Hallifax movement. Everiine jumps to mind, but there were several who long desired a trill city. I doubt it was what they were expecting, culturally, but "better skillz" doubtfully played much into it. Sure, "SHINY!", but that's not what drives mainstay PvPers, as you've implied.)

Whoa whoa, I joined Gaudiguch because I decided that once my time was up in Glomdoring (who still have super omg OP skillz), I would join one of the new cities because they could use the help more. Also I was bored.

Given the current relations, it was far easier to join Gaudiguch and given the treatment I've received from Hallifax members whenever something unpleasant happens to them, I firmly believe I chose correctly.

In fact, if your argument was true, I'd have stayed in Glomdoring, given they have 2 more guilds, all of which have great mana kill synergy and they still retain super OP choke.

While I can appreciate a game design which takes roleplay into account, I do not believe that this can be done while intentionally disregarding mechanical balance in a PvP-oriented environment. Otherwise, you risk entering the territory of hyper-realism arguments, (ie: Why does food fill you up instantly? Clearly food should only decrease hunger over the course of a number of game hours, no matter the effect this would have on hunger-attrition offence).

If nature vines must only be cast in forest terrain, then it needs to get something in return in order to balance out this disadvantage. Honestly, right now when new combatants ask me what enchantments they should buy, I almost always throw web into the list 'because you can never be sure if you'll be in forest terrain, and it does the same thing as vines anyway'. If vines, while still only usable in forest terrain, also did something like cover up the target's mouth so they could not sip while entangled, then it would have a niche which gave it an application above and beyond a web enchantment. However, as it is now it's just one of many examples of something 'worse than web'.

In regards to toadcurse, if you consider it to be intentionally weaker than absolve, then I argue that it should also cost less than 8 power or work at percentages of mana higher than 50%. My argument was not simply "Toadcurse sucks in comparison to Absolve". My argument was "Toadcurse has an identical cost to the wiccan in power and setup as absolve, but does less. Another example of a skill like this is Wrack, and because it does less it has a lower power cost."

Eventru:

Similarly, Serenwilde's skills have not much changed - in fact, in some regards, improved - since the days when Serenwilde was "top dog".

I feel that this is a rather near-sighted argument. While yes, Serenwilde has had few reports explicitly targetting their skills since the time when they were 'on top', this itself bears little relation to the relative power of their skills when contrasted against other organizations. Yes, Serenwilde has lost little, but they have also gained much less than the organizations around them. Because of this, they are in a relatively worse position, since the game as a whole has been trending towards more powerful abilities while one of the oldest organzations has had little improvement in their abilities since their initial design.

Eventru:

To the "toadcurse vs absolve" argument, all I have to say is this - Toadcurse is not an instakill. You're comparing apples and oranges. Both are fruits and grow on trees, but inherently they are different - I wouldn't want to bake oranges into my grandmother's apfelkuchen. Any argument that begins with "Toadcurse sucks because absolve/wrack..." is near immediately, as it always has been, responded with "Toadcurse is not an instakill. Stomping a toad is an instakill." If instead we removed the ability to STOMP toads and left it as a defense-stripper, it'd still be a useful skill - albeit nowhere near what it is today, and it'd certainly be used in differing manners from today.

It's like a Celestine complaining that Inquisition doesn't kill their target, like Illuminate does. They're two different skills that share varying degrees of similarity in required conditions to achieve different end results.

Considering that both Absolve and Toadcurse require 50% mana to work + 8p to cast (I am not sure if Absolve still consumes 8p when it fails, but Toadcurse does), and that death strips defense + puts someone out of the fight for x amount of time, then I do not see why Toadcurse is not an instantkill like Absolve is. Now this I am frustrated about.

Similarly, I am okay with lessening the power requirement needed to toadcurse. Mmm, less power-heavy things.

Eventru:

To your first two points, it falls directly under the realm of 'roleplay' - I would think the advantage of being able to pluck some cosmic threads together and fling them at someone, versus forcing vines to grow from the forest around you to entangle someone, would be readily apparent. It's not the same skill - directly comparing them isn't appropriate. Likewise, it makes little sense for a wicca to grow wings - they ride brooms. Part of that is, indeed, you can be knocked off of them.

People probably use arbitrary because they don't like the idea of admins systematically making their skills worse with intent. It looks like what Rathan is talking about isn't just making vines work anywhere, it's more making them somewhat better (though his suggestions is OP) in forest to make up for the fact that it's a CP skill with a mixed in big disadvantage. Also, isn't the message vines flying out of your talisman/cudgel?

Eventru:

To the "toadcurse vs absolve" argument, all I have to say is this - Toadcurse is not an instakill. You're comparing apples and oranges.

That there is precisely the issue being brought up here. No one is trying to compare them as instakills, because toadcurse isn't one. Why isn't Toadcurse an instakill? Just have the message be you pointing at them, turning them into a toad, and stomping them to death all in one go.

Eventru:

I also wholly disbelieve that the perceived disparity between city/commune skills has anything to do with players shifting between orgs... ...but by atmosphere and how it enables their particular style of play.

Yes. Rathan and others have agreed with this, I don't think it's anything anyone disputes. In his example, he went to Halli for the skills then decided the style of play in Hallifax wasn't for him so he gave those up to move back to Serenwilde. Though, on the other hand... back when pyromeld was hilariously OP, there was a huge migration to their guild (ask Munsia), of people who wanted to jump aboard the burntrain. After burns and pyromelds were changed, suddenly there were far less pyromancers.


I generally agree that city parallels of commune skills are generally superiour in some fashion. Most of the time it's not a hugebig deal, some of the times it's just a silly little thing I wish was changed for the sake of not being pointless copypasta (see the Gate skill of Nature), but sometimes it is a major problem that is recognized from multiple sides and isn't something that can really be dealt with as an envoy.

I'm never sure, do communes still have a monopoly on lorecraft? I don't think we do.

Enyalida:

Yes. Rathan and others have agreed with this, I don't think it's anything anyone disputes.

He does, however, make it very hard to discern that he feels the same:

Rathan:

Part of the reason you see the certain organizations 'getting stomped' is that the combatant population is naturally drawn to orgs with superior skills. I mean not to point fingers, but I think there is a reason that the biggest names in combat tend to be joined at the hip when they move from city to city.

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This kind of argument has been going on since the beginning of Lusternia, blah commune skills suck vs. cities, wah city skills suck vs. communes.

Totems vs. Statues

Web vs. Vines

Trueheal/Lich vs. Drawdown/Nightkiss

Moonbeam vs. Via

Rubeus vs. Wolf

For every skill that the communes complain about in comparison to cities, the cities have something equally valid to complain about as well. This will just go nowhere.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but do Wiccans not have access to significantly better Mana drain in the form of Lash and especially Succumb that do Celestines/Nihilists?
Keeping in mind that Wiccans can more easily pull off their "instakill", should it not be weaker than the comparable guardian kills?

Amissio actually drains enough mana to be comparable to lash, and leech improves along with deathmark. For all intents and purposes, they're similar.

Communes do have a monopoly on Lorecraft, so cities still depend on them for the more exotic potions. While in an ideal world no one would be reliant on people who were potentially their enemies for necessary supplies, I think the two factions are balanced enough in this regard that I didn't include it in the list.

And yes, I was aware that my vines bit was horrendously unbalanced, I was just sitting with the post written and a blank space there for a few minutes, so I decided to throw in the first example that would show a similar skill should get something in exchange for losing something. However, to answer your question, it is ambiguous as to whether the vines are shooting forth from the item or from the undergrowth:

You point (item) at $=(target$) and vines shoot forth, entangling $=(him$) in a thorny embrace.

Sojiro, from that list you provided, it appears that not a single example you provided was one of a commune having a stronger skill than a city:

Totems vs. Statues - while people constantly debate about which is better, the truth is that there are clear advantages to each. Totems have only limited windows of vulnerability and generate power, but enchanters can bond more than one statue and they are easier to maintain. Because of this, a direct comparison is hard.

Trueheal/Lich vs. Drawdown/Nightkiss - These two sets aren't similar at all, so a direct comparison is difficult. Trueheal is an active ability, Lich is a resurrection skill with a smattering of offensive benefits, and the primary function of Drawdown/Nightkiss is as the top-tier bashing attack with some nice resistance and regenerative benefits. I'm not really sure where this comparison was going, or how one even could determine which was the best.

Moonbeam vs. Via - Like totems v. statues, this is an example of two similar skills with different benefits. Moonbeam works anywhere in the same area, via works on any road in the same continent. While you could argue that moonbeam will see more use because it works off-Prime, the fact is that again they are very different skills with different intended purposes. Via is great for getting to villages during revolts, moonbeam is great for getting back to a group you got separated from in a raid. Different skills, but both useful.

Rubeus vs. Wolf - Wolf is partial blockage of the fear affliction and the SCENT command. Rubeus is immunity to a nice range of mental afflictions (including lust) that must periodically be re-raised. Again I do not think these are similar enough skills to make a direct comparison, but if they were, I would say Rubeus even comes out on top if only because it stops lust.

My greatest frustration is this: why is Toadcurse not an instakill when it has the same requirements for Absolve? Why not lower the power and add an option of TOADCURSE PERSON STOMP which instantly kills someone for 8p, the same eq loss and the balance loss equal to stomping a toad at present?

That's not the point at all, all I did was raise up comparisons other people have made here on the forums and ingame about similar city vs. commune skills. I can assure you that while you think none of the examples I listed are ones where the commune skills are superior, I can point out a lot of people who think otherwise.

For instance: you missed the important part of rubeus vs. wolf when it comes to a skill that you see way more use of instead of lust: fearaura. Against that skills, wolf being unstrippable is what makes it heads above rubeus. Another one is via; no you can't just use via to travel to villages, considering you need a target to via to, they are both travel skills and moonbeam just beats it down like an angry night user upon a gaggle of serens.