You're actually pretty off-base there. My 'job', insofar as my duties regarding Lusternia as a volunteer, is manifold. The finest intricacies of combat, however, are not wholly within my purview - my focus is on designing areas, history, quests, events and the like. Epic quests, city quests, conflict quests, pockets, areas and occasionally events - this is what I do, and I do it very well. Certainly, I don't always make popular decisions, but that's life - for as many events and areas I've been behind that have garnered criticism and complaints, there's twice as many that have earned rave reviews. While I've began the (very arduous) process of learning to code in Rapture (for someone with no coding background), I'll be the first to admit that my knowledge of combat, while perhaps more than some admin, is greatly dwarfed by the likes of Sior. Which is perfectly fine - and I've definitely made a concerted effort to start paying more attention over the past few months.

This said, I do not pay attention to clans - as patron of Celest and with just 3 guilds beneath my belt, I'm in a dozen clans, not to mention GTs, etc - half of them I leave off due to the sheer volume of spam I can be inundated with while working. Similarly, contrary to popular belief, we do not sit about eavesdropping on conversations, particularly combat clans (I've even started leaving Dawn Brigade off - as much as I enjoy watching raids, seeing 'JOE SCHMOE IS INQUISITION!!!' six times in less than a second fifteen some times during a 5 minute raid is, well, let's just say painful. Particularly when I'm working on something.

In spite of that, however, I (and most if not all admin) keep Envoys on, and listen. Estarra is probably ready to throw her heels at some of us - we see discussions, problems, complaints, etc, and attempt to address them without waiting for the envoys to bring them to our attention. It isn't always possible however, because we have a tendency to take on a lot.

I've the utmost faith in Estarra, Roark and Sior and their ability to sort through and discern what is imbalanced and what is not. Of course, I have little say in the process (here and there offering an opinion at most) - but I do pay attention. When the likes of Geb and Kalin (both have always been good envoys, Geb's even a special envoy (meaning he is an envoy regardless of whether or not he is his guild's), and readily have nerfed their own skills in the past) submit reports and there is a distinct lack of Badluck or Balestone (which I have heard complaints about them in passing, yes), I am likely to think 'Maybe it's not as big a problem as xyz person who just died to it made it out to be,' not 'They're just trying to keep themselves from being nerfed'.

I have to wonder why only a few envoys at the time had anything to say, and not one brought up these two 'horror' skills - it suggests either they're not as bad as people seem to think they are, or there is a serious problem with our envoys. When their sole purpose is to bring up skill imbalances, and if these are as terrible as people say they are (and I'm not saying they aren't, nor are), then one wonders what purpose do they serve, besides testing poor Sior's patience.

Two things could easy rectify the majority of problems with envoys. The first is information: formulas, why a skill was rejected, why a particular solution, etc.

The second one would require a bit of coding, but I think you'd see a great improvement overall: an envoy (perhaps envoy-guests too) arena where people in there can change races and guilds and are granted temporary omni-trans. It'd make testing things extremely efficient especially when you can change the variables.

And that line right there is where you lost at least half of us.

Kalins job was to fix Badluck. He envoyed such a minor change it changed the time it takes for them to use the insta in some cases and thats it. A skill that breaks combat entirely still breaks it entirely with a cost, especially a cost that low. Kalin was one of a select few saying badluck was fine when everyone else was saying no, its dodge that also can stop curing, including curing the balance lock. Badluck has to be envoyed still, it needs to be changed and I do not really see anyone denying that, even the Illuminati have it slotted right now AGAIN.

Slotted 'again', a report made by Kalin, yes, that wasn't submitted last month (because he left the guild), and is sitting unsubmitted in the queue. One which will probably address the problem fully.

This said, we're not going to give out the Rapture code for skillsets, the damage formulas, wounding formulas, etc, as I'm told has been stated several times. It's just one of those really rough parts of being an envoy they'll just need to live with.

And I suspect this is just going to be a bad conversation, so I'm going to go ahead and bow out now.

This made me think of Wolverine for some reason!

Formulas aside, the creation of an arena where envoys (and possibly divine?) could use to change race, guildskills, and level at will would be extremely useful to the envoy process since oftentimes players aren't able to put in the investment of an entirely new character for the sole purpose of trying out X skill in depth to see all the intricacies of it. As long as certain provisions were made (ie. all buffs/ents etc created in the arena are removed upon leaving), I think it would be well worth the coding time investment to create.

I know it's been said, but I think the administration really underestimates how a formula can change perspective, how it can identify problems, etc. It's just one of those really rough parts between the administration and envoys. We're supposed to be the eyes and ears, but we have no perspective. In game testing can only accomplish so much, and there's no way to isolate variables. The administration don't see what the players see, and the players don't see what the administration see. We talk past each other, and we will continue to do so as long as the rift exists.

What's worse is that bugs are common, and we have no way of differentiating between an imbalance problem and an obscure bug nestled in the recesses of the code. Currently, the envoy process is like being in a pitch-black room with rotating walls. There's a dart board on the wall, and we're asked to throw a dart once a month.

Keeping players in the dark is a poor decision: keeping envoys in the dark is an even poorer decision. Information can only help. Lusternia is a great game, but I'd be lying if I said I thought the envoys were taken seriously or if the administration understood balance.

The one big nice things about envoys seeing formula's is it would probably cut down in those bugs that seem to constantly crop up where "Skill X was calculating incorrectly" as it'd give the admins more ways to cross check the formulas. Admins can show the equations that the skill should be using and envoys can return with the numbers, something they seem to love to do.

Hi guys -

If skill formulas were actually simple "formulas", it would be a lot easier to give something resembling one. Usually the damage functions, etc end up going through multiple formulas. Even as an admin, a lot of the time I find player testing (for example taking a character, swinging at someone, recording damage taken) to be a much simpler way of finding issues.

So does this mean everything posted in the Ideas forum, including great ones like this or some things in simple ideas, are never seen by anyone?

Because I get the feeling that everyone posting in that forum is doing so under the assumption that their idea is being seen. If not, maybe we should remove that forum and try to reinforce that you -have- to talk to envoy if you want something.

edit: if not maybe Lusternia should consider some kind of automated user feedback system where good ideas bubble to the top and someone just has to glimpse at it.

If that is the case would an admin be willing to step up and be "official forum reader"? I know the forums are not a good gauge for the game as a whole, it is a small group of players, but it does have worthwhile stuff to read and be looked at by the admins. Even someone to post in threads with a "cool idea, we'll toss it around upstairs and see. Don't cross your fingers though.".

Stuff like that is a moral booster and it does set Lusternia apart, most MUD admins and game admins in general are not a receptive bunch. They hate their players and make it known. Friendly listening admins make a huge difference.

I know Estarra makes a conscious effort to read the idea forums.

And I'm always curious as to what people are suggesting.

So yea, it's always getting read.

Lol not that I care what happens to badluck as I am niether Illuminati or playing lusternia anymore (I even let my elite membership drop after 5 months),but I would like to point out that if Badluck was the 'OMG NERF IT" skill that you seem to think it is why did no other envoy jump on that when I first reported it? I mean envoys, plenty of envoys, have and will jump on a skill report they deem in need of something more done to it. Also the "it's been slotted" again, yeah, that was myself who did that. That was my report to nerf it some more, and despite your comments about how you think it should or should not be, it is a nerf. I never said badluck was fine, either, I said the loudest people crying about it were people who refused to fix their curing when dealing with it and could be plainly seen having curing that was easily abused by badluck.

In fact from the moment I saw the skill I said that it would eventually need changes, but I was not going to turn it into something useless because 3 weeks after it came out Malarious cried. If they nerfed everything that made Malarious cry we would be stuck with kick and punch. On a related note, if you are the spokesperson for the monk collective I hope they find a new spokesperson. I cannot think of a worse possible person to have anywhere near something that is deemed "balancing a class" and I am thankful that the administration does not have time to pander to you.

Fleshform Sing works like wisp, but gets faster with temporary insanity.
(Edit to clarify: It's a targeted, delayed beckon. Messages suggest that walls etc will stop it.)
Homunculus balance seems to function the same way as beast balance.
Bite causes minimal temporary insanity on a 4-6 second or so homunculus balance. (Fine by me.)
Greywhispers and Badluck can be used without a power cost. 10 second homunculus balance cost. (IE, not nearly long enough.)

Just incase anyone was wondering.

Relatedly: thread plug

Is it blocked by deafness? Given what we bards have been hearing since day one of bards, it really has to be.

If I am correct the new suggestion would change it so that if you are already knocked off balance it causes temporary insanity instead of more balance loss. Does it still cause balance loss (that can work with ectoplasm) to hit when you try to focus or cleanse? Yes. Does it still have a good chance of making your attacks fail and cause balance loss? Yes. So instead of being able to heavily stack balance loss it starts to add insanity on. It can fire on focusing and gives a focus cured affliction that also cures before many other afflictions, sounds like a good way to buff it for the insta while also making it self stacking.

Badluck should be firing on less, either make it stop focusing and maybe a few cures or make it fire on attacks, but being able to fire on offense and defense both just ensures you are either constantly off balance (it wont stack, but you can still lose it everytime you get it back) or that you will end up dying from insanity.

I do not know if the issue is "fixed" so much as splitting the rapids.

The vast majority of us aren't paid. We have lives, jobs, and a great many other and more important impositions on our time. Time is a very limited quantity.

I quite understand your point of view and I understand your impolitely over-evident frustration.

But you can bang on the table, post in block capitals, and demand 'more resources' as much as you want. We have a finite number of volunteers and they have a finite number of available hours. Our job is to allocate those hours according to the needs of the game. Those needs should be determined by us, being cognisant of them, rather than you, being ignorant of them.

In the premises, the ivory tower is a necessity.

Most of what people say about combat is (a) skewed by rage, (b) affected by bias, © someone else's opinion, and/or (d) unsupported by empirical evidence. That goes for a lot of the ranting on OOC channels and it goes for many of the posts on this forum. A minority of people know what they are talking about: the Gebs and Sintors of this world, who rarely say anything (about combat) unless they have thought about it scientifically and preferably tested it a bit as well. Hopefully, the envoys are composed of that minority, because the administration does not have the time to wade through great quantities of sludge in order to pick out the occasional nugget. Like many things about Lusternia - guiding, crafting, some building - where we can, we pass on jobs to competent players in order to help us out so that we can focus our time elsewhere. The envoy system in Lusternia is, I think, one of the best of its kind across the IRE games. It's not perfect, but show me an equivalent that is.

If you want to improve things, volunteer at the next ephemeral call. You've obviously got the passion, if not the dispassion.

I don't know, my biggest issue is that I really have no clue what the motivations of those balancing the game are most of the time. On the part of envoys, I can usually just ask them, but I cannot tell if there is some overriding reason certain things aren't being looked at while other things are.

I had long assumed that the reason Institute/Illuminati weren't doing reports on Harmonics/Transmology was because they were going to get a Special Report, and had my thoughts confirmed by a few envoys. However, looking at the reports that came out, I could not help but feel extremely frustrated and annoyed. It seems to me that many of the issues that I have seen essentially across the board (even talking to people who benefit from said issues) were skipped over, and both classes were all around boosted.

Talking to members of both guilds, I realized that they both do actually need boosting in some ways, but as they stand, Illuminati and Institute are all around far stronger then any guild I have ever played, played against, or studied. Reading the forums more then I have in a long time , I see that the idea for the Institute for example has long been in the works, and that the idea was that they have good 'harmonic' synergy with each other. However, if you ask pretty much any group to go up against two or three Institute members, they will lose. If all three people just use balestone on their balance, the entire enemy group will probably die, or large portions of it. Balestone aside, if they take turns doing shockstone, or malfactgem, or even just targeting you with their masked afflicting gems, any fighter or any group, of most sizes and skill levels will have major issues. A lot of the same goes for the Illuminati on different scales because they can completely shut down your offense with their high ability for 'miss' type chances and cleanse cured afflictions.

Looking at the overpowering issues with the guilds, I don't understand where a lot of the special report descisons were made. A few of them were obvious fixes for a few of the aforementioned problems, and attempts to bring the timewarp and insanity mechanics to the fore some, which I like. The majority of them were minor to decent buffs or skills that if not stacked on the already powerful skills would have been awesome. I cannot understand however why any buffs at all were being done before the crippling few issues were fixed, and I cannot see how by any stretch of the imagination a very few of them (read: 0 power badluck and the timewarp buff+shockstone) are appropriate at this time. In the future, sure, cool ideas... just not now.

I'd hate to just blather on and not have any suggestions, but much of what I would suggest has been suggested already either here or elsewhere. ("Fixing the Illuminati" for instance) Some things I think are fairly easy patches that can be added until something serious comes along, like restricting diamond to cloud terrain, to make it somewhat comparable to wyrdsong, or slapping power costs to homunculus casting (if not just removing it for the time being and leaving them with the damage/insanity attack).

Alllll of that said, I do understand feel some of the issues that admin/envoy must have with all of this. For instance, I have always thought that druids need some major boosting or reworking, because my druid has exactly two tricks to kill at this point and in the forseeable future (This being trans in all guild skills) that don't always pay out. I can do sap/statgstomp then damage kill, or spam cudgel for bleeding, wait for max tired, and try for eternalsleep. The first does not work on most high tier fighters at all: I fought someone for bordering on 10 minutes, in my demesne. At one point, I had them sapped, hit with my demesne, narcoleptic, daydreaming, max tired and falling asleep, prone from paralysis and broken limbs, and eq loss but they survived, cured out and eventually beat me due to my own personal error. This is an extreme case, but more and more people are either able to get to this point via external means like curing systems or through passive in-game healing and hindering. I want to either get buffed or reworked but have no idea where to go that will help without becoming massively OP or needing an entire change and realize that much the same must be happening throughout the entire game to varying degrees.

I just want some way to submit my ideas and make it known that I (and everyone I know, across multiple orgs) think specific things need work and know that they are at least heard and the fabulous (no sarcasm) envoy system dosn't really do it. I think that, if possible, more of the reasons behind the rejection of reports will help some, and perhaps some system that simply pings you when your IDEA has been read or glanced at.


And Fain, I totally would volunteer on staff, if it didn't mean I had to give up being a player! Some day, I will give it up, but not for a long time, I fear.

I think this may have gone too far with badluck but we will see.

Shockstone seems like it is a pretty normal change.

I tried to remain all positive, but then I tested it out. Totally not worth three power.