Despite ranting, it's fine as it is.

It's the sort of thing that's left up to the players, obviously, to decide if they still wish to continue to raid when they realize the other side has little or no chance of successfully defending. Honor (or whatever) might dictate that you back off a little or find other targets.

The problem, in my opinion, is that no one wants to quit when they have the clear advantage. People aren't looking for a "fair fight." They want to win and for them it's more fun to win big or win quickly. They don't really see or care that the defenders are not enjoying the game at that point, which unfortunately further exacerbates the problem by them just signing off when they feel it's hopeless.

That's the single major issue with raiding. It's fun for the raiders, but frustrating and unpleasant for the defenders. I'm not sure it's reasonable to allow players to sacrifice the enjoyment of other players, and consider it fair because said other players can reciprocate.

The key problem is that group combat is neither fun nor stimulating in IRE games, and Lusternia requires group effort to achieve any raid or noticeable impact against another nation.

Changing when you can raid is not the answer.

Finding ways to make group combat less... horrible - that's a worthy goal.

Woo! That'll be fun!

And just so you'll know, Shirath, I happen to log in at the very earliest, 12 midnight to 4 am depending on your timezone and if you are in America. Assuming that I'm not in Glomdoring, does this means that I'll never get to raid, simply because I live on 'the other side of the world'?

I hate saying I agree with Verithrax but this is getting -REALLY FREGGIN ANNOYING-.

I log out after yelling at Dysolis, (*slaps him around in her brain some more*) only to log back in an hour or two later to a group of people on Nil yet again. In the last say.. 5 raids I've helped defend against in a group, maybe 2 of them turned out well or at least as more than just..

standing here....
waiting...
listening to moron celestians yell taunts...

Its really rather annoying that we always seem to be missing -something- or someone we need to kick their asses with.

But yes, Honor... lol Doubtful but the only solution I see happening. The people who raid Nil are usually the same people over and over and therefore they know full well who will show up if they check qw. -shrug- Guess that's neither here nor there considering I don't expect them to do so. Much easier to just go up there to no resistance, kill shit like a bashing trip, and call it a good day for annoying the bajesus out of us.

So... only two good things have come out of this *hum* I am now coding a fighting system for myself and people keep getting CFs for dealing with the morons attacking Nil -clap- Kudos

Forgive my newbieness, but what does raiding actually accomplish? Apart from the adrenaline rush and all. At least I'm assuming it accomplishes that, never actually been raiding but it sounds rather exciting.

Raiding accomplishes refuelling of inter-city or inter-commune hatred.
The Celestians raid Nil to kill the Demon Lords (or attempt to, most oftenly succeeded due to undermanned Magnagora), the Magnagorans raid Celestia, Serenwilde raids ethereal Glomdoring and vice versa.
Basically, it's one big game of war, but the rules of this game are so lax that anything goes.
It can be a lot of fun (depending on your 'style' of humour) to be on the raiding side.
It can be a lot of frustration (trust me, it is) to be on the defending side, ESPECIALLY when it's just plain obvious you never stood, never stand and never will stand a chance.
You see, if Raiders don't have a chance, they back-off and await an off-hour to try again.
If Defenders don't have a chance, they get butchered HARD and will be working on restoring what was lost for another day or so.

Something in here doesn't sound right, and I still think there should be a way of properly defending oneself from an 'unfair' raid.

Essentially, you are attempting to enter an enemy nation's territory and kill their loyal denizens. Usually this takes the form of guards, fae, angels or demons. Guards cost power to resummon, and the other creatures either consume a small bit of enemy power on their death, or provide essence which can empower your own nexus.

Occasionally a large raiding team will attempt to slay the key avatars of an enemy's guiding force, such as the Avatars of Moon and Night Spirits, the Aspects of Hart and Crow Spirits, the Demon Lords of Nil, the Supernals of Celestia, the Tide Lords of Water or the something Lords of Earth. When these creatures are slain there are certain key quests that can cause further trouble for an enemy until they are restored.

The point of raiding sometimes is just to kill defenders who try to stop them, a motivation which seems to be somewhat more common these days.

I remember a mud I was in that only X number of people could attack someone else at a time.

Now, they didn't have balance/eq in there, you just did "kill mobile/character" and it went until you fled/won, so that's not really applicable, but still the thought of 10 Vs. 10 one side all targets one person on the other, so you have a ring of 10 around one, and a ring of 10 around one, it's technically possible, but unlikely if you put line-of sight and how much area a single person needs to attack another. Ah, I'm just rambling, I doubt anything like this would be able to be installed. It's just what I've seen in other muds to balance out group combat.


Some people like to shout "I'm the best, nener nener, you suck" after they do things like that as well. So, ego boost, adrenaline rush, or just trying to even the odds. The objective is either to hurt other players (for ego) or hurt their denizens (for the other two).

A large enough raiding party can take out the Demonlords/Supernals/Avatars which take a large amount of effort to restore, and each one dying drains 1,000 power from the respective nexus. Power is sort of like score these days - losing 1,000 when you have 1,000,000 doesn't mean much, but since many people consider the org with the most power in their nexus to be the strongest, 1,000 is a fair amount.

Supernals dead also mean the Celestines lose some of their skills, and that Magnagora can attack the shield of New Celest (the Star). Demonlords being dead also means that the Nihilsts lose some of their skills, and that Celest can attack the shield of Magnagora (the Necromante). Avatars being dead mean moon/shadowdancers lose some of their skills, and cannot collect Fae from Faethorn. The shields of Serenwilde and Glomdoring are currently unattackable (the Flame of Glinshari and the Drums of the Dead).

If a shield takes too much damage, it falls, resulting in some power drain from Celest's nexus to Mag's or vice versa. Also, the shield is what keeps you from being summoned out of your home territory. If it's down, you can be summoned out of Celest/Magnagora/etc.


Raids are also there to kill guards. Killing guards means the org has to spend more power and gold to restore the lost guards. Also, dead guards appear in the org's log, readable by anyone in the org. Having a page of guard deaths in the log is demoralizing. Which brings us to the real point of raids - the psychological factor.

Really, there is NO way to win a war in Lusternia. There is no war system in Lusternia. There is no culmination or climaxes to conflicts that aren't pre-scripted. A "war" involves griefing the other side until either they get sick of it and offer a ceasefire, or both sides gradually get bored of it and people stop fighting each other, and eventually forget they were in a war. In such a situation, the best and ONLY victories are psychological. The only ways to win become, "Get more people of the other side to quit the game than quit the game on your side," "Trick members of the other side that your side is better and get them to convert," and "Grief the other side into the ground such that they are having so little fun with the game, they acceed to your demands just to make the game stop sucking so much."


Now, that said, the real reason people should raid often is that it's really, really fun. For you. Not for others though.

You all made great attempts at defining Raids (Shorlen in particular), but haven't really mentionned ways of making them 'more fair' (with the exception of Wesnin). I'm sure there has to be SOMETHING we can cook up that would actually work?

Please crack some heads over it... Those Nil Raids are sturting to bug me out both IC AND OOC

I mean, I'm sure all raiders are having a great time kicking everyone's ass around their own bloody plane, but getting -ed every time they even give half an effort just is pretty up...

Unfair raids suck, and I hate them, but they're part of the game. Deal with it. We don't need Auntie Estarra to hold our hands so we don't cry to keep the game fun.

By my definition of a raid, a "fair" raid defeats the entire purpose of the raid.

Tangentally, I don't mind Lusternia nearly so much now that I've become accustomed to the fact that combat in Lusternia is munchkiny hack 'n slash. Not the entire game, just the combat bits. RP really doesn't factor in to the combat at all. It's all just "Team A is here to kick team B's butt. Succeed or fail, it doesn't matter, there's always tomorrow."

Why don't the leaders of both sides of the war OOCly plan a time, and then all get together to hit each other instead of the loyals? Sort of like an arena wargame, but out of the arena?

You know, like team A gets to team B's area, stand outside and make lots of taunts, and then both fight it out outside of friendly territory. Since this has been pre-planned, there should be enough people on both sides to make it fair. If you die, you can't rejoin the battle, so the winning side would be the first to eliminate the other team.

Then if the 'raiders' win, the losing side transfer a sum of gold or credits to the winning organisation, so that there is incentive. If the 'raiders' lose, they transfer some golds or credits to the winners as compensation.

In other words, plan a battle of your own instead of relying on in game mechanics.

Because the IC basis for that would be incredibly shaky, and people get more out of it, emotionally, the way it is now. If they win.

I think you won't find this to be true any more, since (as far as I know) Glomdoring's nexus has the most power.

Psh, everyone knows glomdoring doesn't count.

edit: and my two cents
I don't think we need to find a way to discourage off-hour raiding, just a way to encourage raiding when there are more people around. Not making it easier or harder, just more rewarding.
edit2: although, I don't know what would make it more rewarding...

It's not like everything that happens in Lusternia is IC-responsible already...
Let's face it, the RP levels in Lusternia could be way higher.

And pretending you don't have to try to keep them up is not the way to go.