- Commune totems generate power every month, while city statues do not.

- Commune totems bond on a one-to-one ratio with Stag users, city statues bond on a one-to-many ratio with enchanters.

- Commune totems cannot be destroyed and do not decay, while city statues incorporate both.

- Commune totems take a quest, three guild skills and just under a week to grow, city statues take marble commodities and can be erected instantly with a high-level common skill.

Okay, so there are the main differences (I don't think I missed anything). Recently we've seen changes that have used the passive power generation of commune totems to justify alterations to city mechanics. That's fair enough.

However, are commune totems as they are now a constant? Is there any chance they will be improved and rebalanced rather than their imbalance consistently justifying ever increasing buffs to other nations?

At the moment, two skills I have will never again be used unless new areas open in prime Serenwilde. Nut (in Nature) and Totemcarve (in Druidry) depend on new totems being created - since old totems cannot be removed in any way, they have no purpose now that we have moved beyond the first few months of the game. The inferior defence provided by fewer possible totems to statues has been justified previously by their power output, the security of Ethereal Serenwilde, and forest summoning abilities... all of which have been rebalanced or adjusted.

There is still a discrepancy between the amount of harm you can do to a city and what you can do to a commune, and unlike cities our power supply is almost independent of any coordinated effort on our behalf. They contribute -nothing- to individual players (well, maybe crow nests have some utility), and act like an imposed immutable handicap for communes as if we needed it.

Is it possible to reconsider the implementation and balance of totems and their power output?

I think you exaggerate about the so-called "increasing buffs to other nations". As I pointed out in the other thread, in actuality, the amount of power generated by influencing angels/demons only offsets some of the passive power generated by totems (and most likely not nearly as much as people seem to be thinking). Note that influencing demons/angels does not produce essence which was pointed out is needed in some quests.

The other reason for this change (and perhaps a weightier one) was there simply was no reason for citizens to enter their cosmic planes except for the occasional pacting. Now there is a reason in the form of this small quest.

Maintaining totems was always meant to take the coordinated efforts of the commune members, i.e., growing the trees into totems, bonding the totems, etc., etc.

What's amazing to me is that I still get complaints from city folk saying that we are too "pro-commune" and also complaints from commune folk that cities have it to easy. I submit that this could possibly be a situation of the "grass looking greener on the other side of the fence" syndrome.

Honestly, I am not open to reconsidering totems at this time. For one thing, we are stretched right now (unless you want to hold off opening the rest of the bards guilds), and really I don't want to open up a can of worms of a vicious cycle where any move we do causes either cities to complain of favoritism to communes or communes to complain of favoritism to cities.

Alright, but I was pointing out that this is not true, and that communes have it too easy. Not that cities do.

Should we have the totems decay upon unbonding or occasionally be destroyed by lightning? Is there a simple solution you are advocating that isn't a major reconstruction of the totem system?

Afraid not, not. I wish I could come up with something that was both simple and fair.

Maybe someone else could though!

Edit: On second thought, I guess rare lightning would be a good interim solution. Later, when more resources open up, it could even be slightly accelarated by a city quest to make naughty big storms.

Sorry, the administration is moving away from conflict quests.

Totem decay, however, would be a good idea. The totems should decay very slowly (and should initially be staggered) so that there are usually only a few totems that need to be regrown at a time. There would be a fine line between making totems a constant, tedious grind and making regrowing something people would forget about and only do once in a while, but I think it could be done.

Gah. Unless being bonded to a totem made it immune to lightning, at least natural lightning... this would have the same issue with frying nests, eggs, and so on, causing lots of power use and carrion expenditure to regrow your totem in a security area and then move back to it.

I don't see what's wrong with making bonded totems immune to the decay/destruction of lightning.

How about every summer theres a chance of a forest fire? Or a flash flood along the rivers, or an earthquake?

Or, depending on how the game moves a long...a way for the cities to cause these.

The problem with totems is that yes, they are a large source of power generation. Their power generation justfies the fact that the Elemental planes each generate more then quadruple the essence of the Etherwilde/Etherglom. They also justify the fact that influencing demons/angels gives more power than influencing fae (more than double if others weren't exagerating). It also justifies the fact that the Cone skill generates a third of the power of Starlink/Darklink for the same amount of astral spawns, and is much harder to handle and survive, causing it to generate less than a third the power of the equivilent skills.

So, the cities active ways of power generation are "balanced" by the communes passive ways of power generation. This gives commune members far less to do, and thus is, in my eyes, a bad set up.

The power may be the same, or on the same order of magnitude, but that isn't the problem. The problem is a lack of things for us to do.

Very much agreed. I could care less if the power is balanced, as long as we have enough. I just hate how they get more to do, while we don't, because we don't have to. Many of us would like to have to do something for it. Passive is boring.

Exactly!

Estarra said that we don't have time or resources to restructure and redesign the system entirely, and she's absolutely correct.

With that said, however, there has not been a single (not ONE) post to the Plots board in more than a month, and only one has been posted in three months.

Believe us when we say we completely understand your frustrations in this matter. I wholly believe in originality and activity, and I hope you all can see that from the content I've produced. With that said, we are only so many people up here, and we don't have enough ideas to keep up with NEW areas and systems while making it balanced on the whole, you'd be surprised how difficult that is. Ultimately, I'd really like to see more suggestions to the plots board, and remember it doesn't have to be only events, it can be areas, epic quests, etc.

Finally, if there is ever a town-hall meeting like we had for the Sea Quests, Faethorn and Celestia/Nil, then THAT would be the place to air your grievances about not having enough to do, though I seem to recall that yet more content was added after the Faethorn meeting. It's a give-and-take, and it always will be. Please keep that in mind.

In summary:
1) Utilize the plots board. It's the absolute best way to suggest area/epic quest/event ideas to us.
2) Realize that it is a give-and-take. Much like conflict in the realm, there are ebbs and flows, and we try to address your concerns but obviously it's impossible to achieve a true balance (and I don't even think I'd want to, that'd be wretchedly boring.)

Are we meant to be able to tell what's yours?

When I look at NSTAT I don't see a Plots board. This is something you don't see till you play a certain number of hours, right?

Correct.

Thanks Shorlen. What's the number? I want to say something crazy like 500 or something... is that right? I just passed the 300 mark needed to be a mentor... so that's not it.

Maybe if the Admin want the Plots board used more, they should thinkabout lowering the requisite number of hours? I'd LOVE to use it... but I can't even see it.

IIRC, It's 300 Hours and you have to be over Level 50.

The Level 50 Requirement Irks me to no end. I have a ton of ideas, but 'cause I don't want to bash for hours on end I can't help.

That can't be. Noola's on her way to 61 and she's got the 300 hours. It must be more.

Edit: Nevermind! I CAN see it! I just hadn't noticed it cause it's not green! My bad! Well, good. Now I'll see what my devious little mind can come up with!

I think that's fair, but my comments about communes not having a need for much concerted effort wasn't in reference to Lusternia as a whole. It was in regards to power generation only.

Again, my issue in this thread is about totems, not about all the quests and areas across the whole game (which are pretty awesome already).

I'm not sure if the plots board should be used for suggesting changes to the way totems work.