I think it's much too easy to get prestige to royalty, and that it doesn't give enough of a bonus. Influencing is hardly as good as bashing right now. I'm proposing the following changes:

Max prestige has the same absorption of ego damage that full plate has for physical damage.

Jewelery's effects on prestige is drastically reduced. Right now, you can get up to royalty with a handful of rings and some decent clothing. I believe that royalty status should be granted to people with:

Splendour robes and a highfashion item
or
Splendour robes and a crown,
or
High fashion item and a crown and a cloak and a set of lesser jewelery.
or
The equivalent amount of prestige in clothing and jewelery.

Additionally, I'd like to see people who derive all their prestige from one source to have a penalty. People that get 70% of their prestige from jewelery have a penalty to influencing, for looking gaudy. People with 70% of their prestige from clothing have a penalty as well, for looking tacky. Jewelers and tailors can get away with wearing just clothing and jewelery, however.

And finally, the prestige bonus from splendour should be the highest of any item. Currently, it's ridiculous.

There's absolutely no reason why a well-crafted suit of armour couldn't look like royalty-- there've been many kings who wear armour, after all!

But they look like s*** when they do Don't they only wear the armor on the field, anyway?

In fact, a lot of armor was designed solely for prestige, and to be worn only during ceremonies.

Depends. But there were *definitely* 'royal armours' that were crafted more to *look* 'good' rather than to actually provide immense amounts of defence.


Curses. You ninja'd me.

I shall get my revenge!

With my robe, coat, many rings, two necklaces and a bracelet I certainly dont look like Royalty..so your counts a bit off.. I kinda think its fine now, but meh.

I agree with this. I don't think someone wearing a huge number of rings, bracelets, etc. should reach royalty. That just looks -incredibly- tacky in real life, and I don't see how someone could look like royalty by wearing a ton of jewelry.

It's basically an idea to force people to buy more clothing if they want to influence effectively.

I'm royalty with robes, a cloak, two rings, two bracelets, a choker, and armband, and my Gloves of Harvesting. I think it may just be the gloves somehow, because I never remember being royalty before them, with much more jewelry on.

I'm opulent with shirt, trousers, cloak, and four rings.
Also opulent with cloak, robes, and four rings.
I'm royalty with either of these and a brooch.

Edit: Sure... forgers get a new Ceremonial Plate pattern, that has to have gold or silver in the design and provides half the protection.

I agree with the suggestion.

You want fullplate defense for ego for just wearing a bit of clothing and jewelry? Okay, how about no.

A bit? Do you have any idea how much great robes cost? Get a clue before you post.

I have a clue, more so than most people. Also I know that currently, influencers have NO problem tanking most things. The problem facing them most is how slow influencing gets later due to lack of criticals etc. It is about impossible to fight ultra strong creatures without armor, it is currently possible to influence strong creatures without reduction.

EDIT: Just in case you think I don't know what i'm talking about for influencing, I do. I have had a influencer. I was influencing monks EASILY with just lessons put in from neocreds. Around level, what, 40 or so?

If that's true, influencing ego damage needs to be buffed up. The limiting factor for what you can bash is how many criticals you get, your health, and your armour.

Ego damage should escalate normally for influence, but since damage caused doesn't increase with level, the max ego of mobs shouldn't escalate with level - either that, or give us influencing criticals.

Influencing, again, is messed up for MANY reasons. I got a character from level 1 to level 50 on pure influencing in FOUR HOURS. That's how messed up it is. Know how many lessons it took to do that? 89. With Shorlen, at level 78, I'm getting trivial experience, and it isn't going to go up.

Why is this? Because my level 20 character with just supplication could take out tosha monks. My level 78 character has nothing better to bash than tosha monks. They're not TERRIBLE experience at 78, but they're ABSURD experience at 20 (we're talking 30% per denizen). You just don't get better when it comes to influencing. Influence skill doesn't help enough to matter, trueheart / demesne influence / perform vagabond don't help enough to matter, nothing really changes what you can beat from my experience.

With begging, you can take out monks. With supplication, you can take out Masters. With wheedling, you can take out Quettle. Nothing else will effect a thing, as long as you have 14 charisma. Supplication means it takes 9 hits to beat a monk, 14 to beat a master, and 18 to beat Quettle (in theory). Wheedling means it takes 6 hits to beat a monk, 9 to beat a master, and 12 to beat Quettle.

That is crazy. If anything, I would have thought it would be the reverse - when you're young you apply force to get yourself ahead in the world, when you're older you use other subtleties.

Nerf lowbie influencing! Uberboost highbie influencing! Make influencing depend on more than one macro!

It does take more than 1. It takes up to 3

Whee for math! Influence balance is about every 4 seconds. With 15 charisma and adept influence, a monk takes 9 hits. At very low levels, they're worth 30%, and at level 45, they're worth 10%. Let's average that to 20% per win. That means 33% a minute, or a level every three minutes. Tosha's mob density is enough so that someone with just supplication will never run out of targets. So, conceivably, this means one can reach level 50 in two and a half hours.

However, you have to factor in the time it takes to refill bromide vials and get from one mob to the next. The time to get from mob to mob, however, isn't terribly much in Tosha due to the high density. So, it's concievable to do it in three hours if you're more efficient than I was.

Also, there's the fact that you can't start in Tosha until level 20 or so, but Estelbar mobs give 20% each at level 10-20, and you can get the first 8 levels fast enough in Newton.


Takes one for me. I call it BASH, and it cycles through my influencing styles.

Same. Edit: Only.. I call them by the influence styles - CHARITY, SEDUCE, EMPOWER, etc. Where did bash come from?

There's no chance the denizen is going to suddenly switch mindsets, throw a curly question you hadn't anticipated, or tongue-tie you with dramatics afflictions. I tap a key, and cycle through mindsets until they lose. The only real risk I face is if either Lusternia crashes or my connection does. Short of that, I'm usually guaranteed a win.