I figured I'd field this since I'm one of the more active envoys.

The reason we don't screw with riding and discernment is because they're largely irrelevant in the grand scope of things. The most pressing balance issues are the main guildskills, followed by the secondary guildskills, followed by the tertiary skills. Our goal is to work towards a modicum of balance, which is an ever-shifting scale as everyone knows. Some utility skills in discernment will always be that: utility. They are not combat skills, and they're not a priority.

Good. I'll sleep better tonight knowing that.

Okay. So you're saying that individuals that I've rarely ever seen or heard about fighting -at all- are qualified to speak on this matter as if it affects them directly? That's retarded.



Last I checked, I wasn't a griefer. I fight in raids, but I leave people alone on prime for the most part. And the raid I was speaking about was when Xanon raided us, died multiple times and suffered no penalty for it. Hell, he even raided us on prime and died twice without losing a damn thing. Does that seem fair?

Not sure I understand this correctly. If by saying that you mean that my actions and words both in game and out have engendered more hatred towards myself and Celest...then....what?? I've always been fairly cordial when dealing with people, even people that I'm constantly fighting (read: Krellan, Ildaudid, caedryn, others...).



What nerf? I myself can't recall a time I was directly nerfed. But way to interpret things incorrectly.

As an example why I'm unhappy with the current envoys: I suggested to the paladin envoy to put forth an ability for blademaster head jab afflicts. Envoys responded that they already have pinleg, which is the end-all for blademaster combat, and thus the additional afflicts weren't necessary. I was trying to steer blademaster combat away from being so reliant on the pinleg, as well as making their behead kill slightly more viable through allowing jab afflicts. I am not a blademaster, this change would affect all organizations, and I think their refusal, citing pinleg as the reason why blademasters were fine as is, was silly.


I don't even know why I'm bothering to respond to you. Much of what you said was uninformed and merely seeking to piss me off.

If we want to go about why everyone wants the blood of Celest we would need another thread.. but, you can ask why some of the Celestians left Celest to Magnagora

Either way, what the admin was off in how to come up with a construct... if you wanted to have some balance you should've asked the playerbase or at least the envoys that can bring a construct to an unbiased construct. If you think about it, power is crap since you can easily hunt water for 20 power so you can put the aura up and trueheal.

Trueheal is too much because it heals you up of something that can cost a lot to set up. And while I'm not a big fighter I know how Trueheal works and I can easily think of many strategist that can involve wearing down a target without power as a warrior and wait for them to waste enough power to trueheal and comeback again. This is a slow process but it's possible. I've fought as a warrior without power and while it sucks it's possible to shift around bodyparts easily and slow them down.

A Mage in a fight.. it does drain some power, but most Mages work better in group combat and hailstorm doesn't cost power.. a Mage is better for support with damage... Runists don't use power.. Telekinetics barely use power... Telepaths I cannot say anything about them... Dreamweavers are really power extensive.. but, there aren't many dreamweaving mages around... a Mage with Trueheal means a mage that will constantly hailstorm a group in battle far longer than they should and if they are cornered they can trueheal and escape

Celestines do use a lot of power, but they got Trueheal to begin with.. now they can use it... so I cannot argue this point

Bards don't count because no one plays a bard lolololol


So... want an option? Well, Sacrifice doesn't need a corpse, now does it? Sacrifice for 0 power is fair and it's alright as it is... Resurrect for 0 power is also a great deal... Let Ablution and Lustration be a permanent blessing and let sacraments user spread them to the population.. cut down the cost for honour... keep the construct how it was but cut the trueheal part... give Trueheal more health and mana when used.. give Dazzle to the masses... you have a decent construct there that lets you soulrezz everyone at the cost of someone's life and that people may want to keep (I think 20% more max health and mana is good for everyone to have)

I can understand that, but I still don't believe they should be simply swept under the rug indefinitely. Correct me if I'm wrong, as I don't even have the ability, but weathersight doesn't even see through weather effects as it should? If I'm wrong, then okay. But besides that...it -should- see through duststorm. It's a damned trans ability.

This is patently inaccurate and it's unfortunate you're spreading misinformation.

I'm looking at the envoy discussion regarding a head jab wound and pinleg was brought up only three times, by the Paladin envoy. Quote "There is a common misconception that pinleg removes parry/stancing". No one else even discussed it.



I have, at present, a list of approximately 10 things requiring my attention. Envoys receive two suggestions a month. That's 5 months of stuff.

Most envoys are in similar boats. There's just not enough room to deal with stuff like weathersight when there's more pressing issues.

For you, experience might not have worth. Does everyone feel the same as you, though?

And remind me of Estarra's original idea?



That's very easy to say for you guys, being that you were given a construct that was obviously superbly beneficial to the city as a whole. True, you weren't given the opportunity for input on the matter, but I can't see how you'd be upset over it. As well, if you had kept the train of thought from my post together rather than cutting up the paragraphs in quotes, you'll notice that my viewpoint is that the Crypt is overpowered and thus, worth constructing and defending. So therefore, it seems reasonable for all organizations to have similarly overpowered initial constructs. As far as I can tell, Estarra really wants to shift conflict into the nexus worlds. To do this, she has to engender enough interest to ensure it. To do that, she has to provide very powerful constructs that are worth building, maintaining, fighting for, and dying for. Is it a flawed way to approach combat balance? I don't know.

And as far as I've heard, Celest wasn't the only org that gave input. I may have misinterpreted things heard over OOC clans in game though.

Losing 0p trueheal is a small price to pay for the slightest chance of getting my own cherub to abuse.

The cherub/deva/angel idea came up in one of the brainstorming sessions, and was rejected. On coding grounds, I believe, so I wouldn't expect that to be the solution.

No one seems to have much of an issue with the benediction/aura/honour/sacrifice/ressurection parts, and they are nice benefits, though not large. And constructs do need to have benefits to match their cost.

I do wish that we could think up something that had RP significance similar to that of Lich for Magnagora, but I haven't managed. As Ixion said - he'd pay just to be undead, and the lich bonuses are just icing on the cake. If we could find something that perfect for Celest... that would be worthwhile. I can't speak for Serenwilde, and their construct is another thread, but I don't think that the Moonchilde Aura has the RP heft of lich either.

It is difficult to separate the discussion on whether Sacraments Trueheal is too much from whether Angelfont Trueheal would be too much, and this does seem to have poisoned the discussion on the construct. I do not see construct Trueheal as being qualitatively worse than Sacraments Trueheal.

Just because the thread has been... vehement, I'd like to note that I was quite favorably impressed by Malarious' call for things to work on as an envoy. For my part, my first thought as a citizen of New Celest on hearing about the Black Crypt was that it was, in a word, awesome. And so it is, and so it should be.

My second thought was that we were going to see more raids, and so it was - but that is by the by and, besides, pretty much as it should be.

I would also like to second Nico's account of the brainstorming process - we did look all over the map for things to do before Trueheal came up.

The crypt is good, thus worth constructing and defending. Not overpowered.



I agree 110% and I look forward to working with the other Envoys to come up with a similarly overpowered initial construct.

Whew, I'm glad we settled that, thread over.

Again, nobody cares about experience loss but you. I think you're pretty much the only fighter who feels cheated when opponents aren't penalised by experience loss when they die. Experience loss doesn't add to the game significantly; it only generates an incentive for players not to die in ways which are coherent with the game world, so as to avoid wanton recklessness. The ability to lich partially removes that incentive, in a way which is consistent and coherent in-world. It doesn't hurt the game.

That was the information I was given when I asked as to what happened with my suggestion with the BM head jab afflicts. I was told that the other envoys responded that pinleg was already powerful enough and blademasters didn't need head afflicts to add to their offense.




I know, I used to be an envoy months and months ago. The reason I feel envoys aren't operating fully bias free is partly because of that, and partly because I know myself and general human nature. It's virtually impossible to be unbiased when discussing skills that would affect us directly. I was unable to. Most other envoys I dealt with at the time were unable to. I don't mean to trash you directly, Visaeris, in my comments about the envoys as I don't know how you operate with them. But in general, my faith in them is not very high at this time.

Well I'm glad I could clear that misunderstanding up. It wasn't about pinleg.



They do a good enough job that Estarra keeps the system going.

I really hope you guys will talk about the regeneration effects when discussing constructs. The viscanti, merian, faelings, elfen, loboshigaru and trill are all inferior choices if you plan to PvP largely in defense, if the regeneration the constructs give on the various planes doesn't stack with racial regeneration, and those races would be inferior all the time if you're Celestian and the honor thing doesn't stack with it. Maybe it does stack and I'm worried for nothing, but the fact that they termed it "level 3 regeneration" makes me think it wouldn't. It might even be better if it was a set regen rate and not the racial style if it's a coding issue... we have so many cool races and so few of them are actually used as it is.

I really need an ORLY owl pic right here.

I've never forced someone to pray after killing them on prime, rarely as I do that. I've thrown corpses back to the megalith. Hell, I even resurrected a young magnagoran that got caught in the conflict accidentally. I don't grief.
On the other hand, there are several occasions I can quote where Magnagorans have actively -tried- to force a celestian to pray on prime, utilizing eye sigils to block them in.

In combat situations I'd much prefer for both sides to be assuming the same risks inherent in combat, the most noticeable of those being experience loss. If you're being a nuisance raiding us when I'd rather be off doing something else, I'm going to want it to cost you if you die.

Less next time, Verithrax.

I think leveling the playing field a bit between races is a good thing. Merians for example don't have level 3 regeneration, nor do they have it all the time, so it doesn't hurt them; it just helps them less compared to other races, meaning the other races become more playable.

I am also of the opinion that citywide Trueheal was an overpowered idea, but I also feel citywide Lich is overpowered too. That joke I made about me having Trueheal was born out of me first stating that city wide Lich was insane.

Anyhow, I personally feel that the best way to resolve this problem is to give out generalized bonuses that are not tied to any skillset. The abilities could be made as powerful as needed to make the constructs worth having, without anyone being able to complain about one community having a better power than the another.

It doesn't truly even the playing field, since races with regeneration abilities are balanced around that. If one considers human and merian to be even when defending Celestia for example, and then you give the human level 3 regeneration (3 levels up from what they had), and the merian level 3 (1 level up from what they had), the human is undoubtedly better. Look at a race like loboshigaru which has as its prime trait the level 3 regeneration, and then a race with slightly better warrior stats like taurian which has no regeneration, and give the taurian level 3 regeneration too.


I would hate to see this done. There are enough general powers in the game already, which are never very interesting. A construct like a giant crypt should give death related powers, and more than just in the flavor text or you're getting boring again.

To be perfectly honest I am severely disappointed by the general tone of the reactions perceived in this thread and the scope at which they imply Estarra's incompetence and bias towards Celest. I am not claiming AngelFont is balanced, frankly I don't understand enough about combat to have a solid opinion on this, but as some of you might be aware the Admin team consists out of actual humans, who also make mistakes and are in fact allowed to do so.

Estarra is one of the most hardworking people I've ever met in any mud, and I am still regularly blown away at the rate at which bugs get fixed and updates get created here in lusternia. Estarra pretty much lives up here and spends an incredible amount of time trying to get things to run as smooth as possible, something I have yet to see happen in the muds that used to be my playing ground before I was invited to come here. I wonder if some of you are not becoming blind to how valuable your producer is when compared to most of the other Muds out there (and granted, I don't know all of them by far, but I've seen a fair few.)

Estarra has poured her very soul into Lusternia, and she works harder than most of the rest of the admin team combined, I want everyone to know just how much of a gem she is among administrators.

Even if she does sometimes have slightly poor judgment, but then, I have yet to meet someone who doesn't.

I wouldn't say the human is better. From the restricted point of view of regeneration, they're identical; they both have level three regeneration. From a more general point of view, the Human is closer to being as good as the Merian, but not quite there. What you're saying is basically that a Merian outside water is worse than a human, which is not true. Races without regeneration benefit more, but that's not a problem; races without regeneration tend to be the less used ones. Anything that makes Taurian, Igasho, Orclach and Dwarf characters more viable is a good thing, and I don't think they really threaten the viability of a powerful race like Loboshigaru.


I'm sorry, but if Estarra's actions in the past have consistently been perceived as demonstrating the characteristics which players are, as you say, ascribing to him, them maybe there is some truth to it. I don't see why you should be disappointed at players for having an opinion of the administration's actions; the paid administration ultimately answers to the players, and the forums are the place where all of the meaningful dialog between administration and players goes on. If they are filled with comments which imply that Estarra is being biased or consistently and repeatedly making mistakes (I don't see so many in the forums, but there certainly are players who feel that way) then the obvious implication is that the players don't feel happy with Estarra's decisions, not that the playerbase is unappreciative, ill-intentioned or spiteful towards the administration. A segment of the playerbase - a segment that includes a lot of players which are part of Lusternia's backbone of experienced, mature, contributing players - is disappointed at the administration's decisions; being disappointed back is unlikely to resolve the issue.

There are a good portion of us who aren't ready to string her or any of the rest of you up for any decisions you make that we dislike. Personally I defend the admins when I see non-constructive criticism of them. I have done so since I got here and will keep doing so.

I'd like to believe that you guys don't take things to heart when people here get nasty, but I know some of the criticisms must get through the armour from time to time. Sorry for that, honestly. I'm sure most people don't mean the harshness of the things they say.