The first law of game design states that the players never agree on anything

That being said it's clear that the majority of players don't enjoy combat, or more accurately, only enjoy fighting on the winning side, or even more accurately, only enjoy combat when it's at little or no personal risk.

I think we need more conflict, not less. My character has only ever been randomly pk'd once while out and about and I've never seen a raid from either side. He's not the violent type himself, so maybe people just leave him alone, but deathsense is always fairly quiet and there seems to be very little violence going on.

I've played games in the past where I'd gather some citymates, type WHO, and we'd work our way down the list killing every single city enemy that was on. Some days we ate the bear, and some days the bear ate us. Good times.

I had thought that generally Lusternians were a timid lot, having been coddled by the likes of Achaea, and as such village influencing was introduced to create a focal point for violent conflict. Oh well, I guess not.

They're not impossible, they're just harder. Maybe they're too hard, I don't know. Is your implication that there is no other conflict in the game beyond village influencing now? Or that there is some kind of conflict that doesn't involve violence that I haven't accounted for? It's not clear to me which you had in mind, though both seem equally inconceivable.

The wording of the poll option for non-violent influencing is also disheartening. The only reason to think that influencing should be about influencing is because "I hate violence"? I realize it's impossible to make these things perfect, and that it's not good to read too much into them, but this really seems to be trivializing and dismissing the actual reasoning involved, which does not make me optimistic that such reasoning will be given a fair hearing. It's not about hating violence, it's about balancing it with other elements in the game.

I favor the middle ground as well. Meaning, I think influencing is just fine how it is. Sanctuary and Crusade make for a great middle ground.

Violence hasn't won villages in a long, long time. Influencing wins villages. As for violence deterring the influencers who aren't skilled with using Sanctuary...well, why not? What do you really lose by dying in a open village? I'm level 93. I could not possibly care less if I die influencing in a village, and it takes me a lot of effort to get back a single %. Conglutinating in a village is approximate to losing no xp at all. The people who complain about this kind of violence are the people who just don't like fighting at all, and don't yet have the player skill to avoid it when they don't want it.

If that describes you, just stay away. Hunt, Roleplay, practice a tradeskill, do whatever you like doing. Let me do what I like doing.

If you ask me what the problem is, the problem is people pressuring their citymates to influence and making them feel guilty if they try to stay away. If someone isn't on the front lines of a battle, you need to work off of the assumption that they are supporting the infrastructure of your civilization on the homefront, and leave them be if they don't answer the call to battle...and let them know that that's okay. That may not be my RP, and that may not be yours, but that's how you keep people happy until they're ready to seek out responsibility themselves.

I want what Malicia is smoking.



Having said that, Demesnes are an issue in village influencing, but I think a middle ground would be best. Making the village completely neutral when it goes up would be one way (By dissolving any Demesne in there, and untainting/foresting/flooding all rooms).

But that'd be only a temporary fix, something to slow the process down. It doesn't take long to taint and meld a village, if you've got a couple mages.

Another thing that would help a lot, and probably be a bigger help, is if villages didn't revolt so often. As it stands, few days a village is going up, and the war begins. So you can go bash for a couple days to get the levels you lost back, and do it all over again. This will be even more true as the other communities come out (Hallifax, Gaudiguch, Ackleberry), and more villages come into play with them. Not only that, but as the population gets bigger, the wars in an open village will become even -more- bloody and confusing.

Gwylifar,
Every single post from you I have read has been complaining about, or against combat.
And raiding distorted villages is not impossible? Perhaps not, but please, go raid an enemy village before you pass judgement, and your serpent will not help you, just a heads-up.
And what other conflict is there, when people whine about being killed offplane, whine about being chased off astral, whine about being attacked?
Personally, I can't believe that you and others like yourself can not see that if the game keeps going the way it is, things will just stagnate.

And just for the record, you are wrong, influencing is not only about influencing, I am sure history has shown us that a conqueror or two punched the lights out of someone that didn't follow them.

70% experience loss in enemy territory, tons of guards, permanent distort to stop people from leaving... sounds pretty impossible to me.



Name one. (besides Faethorn, which doesn't count because it's commune-only and the cities have no equivalent)

It would also seem that was too much, given they agreed a treaty to cease the faethorn conflict.

I guess my question is this also, what do you really want Lusternia to be?

Personally, I like it as the alternative to Achaea (and the other IRE games) where combat and battles are encouraged. I see us slowly, but surely making our way to the exact same as all of the other realms. We started out with total chaos with people killing on highways, massive attack skills, and villages that went up every 3 minutes. That was all changed, and now we are really only dealing with large scale violence when it comes to influencing. Now, people want that changed.

So what is Lusternia supposed to be in your eyes?

I came here because I was done with Achaea, the PK restrictions there were HORRIBLE and in the end, that chased many people away. Here came Lusternia, the bastion of conflict where we had periods were there was nothing and you could hunt/bash, but every once in a while you had a warzone pop up. Are we really going to do that in as well? You can go to a middle ground, but still, I think you are slowly taking away the one thing that drew many people to this realm.

If you want everything to be peaceful, go to Achaea. I'm sorry to say that, but there are PK rules there to defend you and you can have a merry time. It's still an IRE realm, so the company loses no money, but in the end we keep Lusternia as it should be. If you want to find a middle ground in influencing, fine, but stop trying to make this the peaceful happy place.

I agree with you to a certain extent. Things has been rather bland and dull recently, for two quick reasons that I could think of (there are more, but I have to leave soon so, quick post):

1. Glomdoring was created. Although they first jumped straight into cmbat with Serenwilde, they needed a chance to get themselves straightened out. Temporary peace is a good way to achieve this.

2. Celest and Serenwilde are allied, and Glomdoring and Magnagora are allied. Let's cut the crap - it may not be officially written on a document, but please, they are allied. It's a 2 vs 2 instead of a free-for-all.

As for villages, I say keep them the way they are. The problem at hand is the lack of organization/players of some of the cities/communes during village revolts, which in turn creates chaos and frustration when they have to go win the village. Serenwilde and Celest are individually divided to a certain extent as well - they cannot define themselves as one. Magnagora knows their job, their role, and they listen to each other and agree most of the time. Serenwilde and Celest seems to have many arguments and disagreements when trying to define themselves, which creates tension, and THIS also indirectly has an impact of their performance during village revolts. Low morale from constantly losing battles against another civilization is one thing, but low morale from having internal conflicts within a city/commune is another. If the administration can keep villages the way they are, but maybe offer a little divine intervention for managing leadership in the city/commune, I think it may solve a lot of problems, complaints and frustrations many players are experiencing.

I can't remember who mentioned the idea first, but I would like to see something like this:

Each organisation has two teams or armies, one is open to violence and free to impose agressions on others. The other is a team of diplomats, so to speak, who are protected with something like divine grace so that the soldiers cannot hit them.

You would have to elect before a village went into play which team (for lack of a better word) you would like to be on and there is no switching around while you are in the middle of trying to gain a village.

So, the diplomats run around trying to influence people to their cause and the soldiers run around trying to kill the other soldiers and, to keep it fair, blocking the village denizens from being influenced by opposing diplomats.

It is such a mothering option, but I still like it and I think it would add another level of strategy to the game. Maybe.

honestly, i think none of those are the solution.

My opinion, influencing would be a better event if several things happened.

1.) If influencing didnt happpen as often. The way i see it tolerance for things is affected by the amount of exposure to any given thing. Lets take CTFs for example, a lot of people enjoy ctfs but if you had those running every week they will get old. If it was a do or die and happened a lot, then people will get sick of it. A lot of people do not like being forced to do things and people being people their likes are not very static. So a constant sourcing of influencing sessions will get on the nerves of a lot of people simply because a lot of people will sometimes want to influence but other times they would rather do something else. So one way of dealing with it would be, instead of trying to change influencing depending on the likes of the people(which will also prove impossible for the reason that likes change), maybe it would be better if there was less influencing to begin with. This would mean cities/communes hold villages for way longer. Now on the downside, that would also mean your city/commune would be stuck with the consequences of your performance during the last influencing event for a longer period of time, which could also be a problem. Though i see having smaller thifes as a much smaller problem than having to force people to do something they will eventually get sick off.

2.) Influencing shouldnt be so randomized really. I honestly do not understand why it is the way it is, but if influencing was scheduled more i think people would be able to plan things more as well and in the end tolerate it more. More planning, more strategy, and if you fail then the problems in your campaign could be addressed. You wont come up with scenarios where you have 3 city/communemates and you look at qwho and you find 141413431 enemies. As a Mag it's tolerable but i can imagine for the other cities which depend a lot more on their numbers will start dreading when villages come into play. It becomes something like a presentation, but instead of giving a specific day which you plan for in advance youre told it can be any day and so you end up getting stressed out if it will land on the day that is good for you.

Influencing generally is fine to me, there are some imbalances which should be addressed but besides that I dont think anything should be changed really. Having to customize it to the mood of the current playerbase will only end up with having to customize it to the mood of the playerbase a month or two from now, this whole thing is not fixing the so-called root of the problem.

While I disagree with the basis of Alger's point, as there are definite problems, I also have the feeling that what he's saying is as viable a solution as anything else, which gives me the impression that it's a good idea since two different viewpoints on the subject (Magnagora - Violence isn't a problem!) and (Seren - I hate all my friends getting burnt out!) are producing the same result.

If, for whatever reason, that isn't an option, I suggest demesnes be toned down. We've been through this issue a bazillion times but when it comes down to it, if a class is balanced for solo combat like mages are (apparently) intended to be then they should not have such a gigantic effect in team combat AS WELL. And because it does, and it's such a large scale effect, it makes things difficult for everyone if they're in an enemy demsne to an extent that really shouldn't be...the case.

What I find most interesting is that the Seren crowd seems to be the most vocal anti-violence group. Could one of you take a day or two to track the violence taken against that commune? It could just be that they're getting hit pretty hard in other places. I know Celest and Glomdoring didn't have any serious problems with raids, which is why I personally get frustrated at the idea that combat in village influencing would be curbed.

Er, if I get ninja'd, sorry, I forgot I had this window open.

Recently, we haven't actually been raided, AFAIK. It's been pretty quiet in the last few days. Maybe I'm just around at the wrong times?

We're probably pretty lucky at the moment in regards to violence directed at us, but we have had more than our fair share over the months so I am sure that has a lot to do with our vocalization.

Also, and I can only comment on Serenwilde in this, we have a heck of a lot of interior roleplay going on, especially in the Moondancers (again, only my perspective), so perhaps we just want some time to focus on that and build up who we are a little more.

I don't want to take away another aspect of combat from combatants, as it is the primary means of character interaction across the board.

What I would like to see is influencing being about influencing, and war about war. (Otherwise let's start being honest and call it 'village fighting' or 'village conflict', not village influencing.) Mixing non-violence equally with violence can never work, because violent actions will always dominate over those who don't have as much power to disrupt the other team. I also believe that influence is supposed to be one of the attractions of Lusternia - an alternative to slaughter, not a supplement.

I'd prefer to leave village influencing to influencers - make the villagers hostile to any organization who starts picking fights in their village (they are harder to influence, occasionally they will barge out characters from an aggressive org, they drain small amounts of power from the org's nexus with their ill will). There is no forced peacing or prevention of any specific skills, the mechanics simply make it an action which provides negative return. Then all we need is to have those nation vs nation quests/battlegrounds adjusted to be just the right balance so that both sides can fight for an organizational advantage, but it isn't essential for the nation to possess it (or perhaps, it isn't detrimental not to have it). I assume these could include Faethorn for commune vs commune, Gorgogs for a commune vs a city, and the Catacombs for city vs city (?). That way you have combat dependent questing for your organization (that isn't going to exhaust non-combatants), and influence dependent questing for villages (that doesn't leave combatants feeling useless).

Edit: Missed half a sentence, somehow.

War? What war?

War is player created mostly, I'm sure you've been here long enough to have seen a few.

It seems to have all gone away recently.

On that note...

CHANGE BACK DISTORT! That'll allow focus on combat outside of influence.

I like the way influencing is now since i go to fight and since i dont lose much experience when i die it makes it fun for me. I cant really say much on the demense thing since im never really enemied to a magi but to take the combat out of village influencing will make it boring.