psh you know estarra's putting in a gnome feature and when ever somone raides for 1039 consecutive hours the gnome targets a missle and nukes them.

If griefing is the major problem, perhaps defenses should be looked at to selectively hinder griefing. For example, if there are issues with 3-4 hour raids, have guardian constructs cause gradually increasing debilitating afflictions that would otherwise prevent a raider from being able to feasibly stay around. If kicking loyals and cubixing is a problem, then limit the usage of cubixes in someway in enemied territory. If picking out significantly lower might people and killing them unabashedly is an issue, then institute some way to keep track of repeat/seasonal offenders for divine disfavor/review. I think there are methods to hone in on the issues behind griefing without instituting blanket solutions that take away from other parts of the game that are enjoyable.

Wha?

OMG! I didn't know ANYONE ELSE called them that.

Ohhh. Bouncy castles.

Oh man. I always wanted to go on those things as a kid- never was allowed.

These thoughts are not my own. (I don't play Aetolia, and I never seriously have.) My hunch is that Auntie 'Tarra is trying to rig up something that doesn't affect groups so much. Buuuut, since his points are valid, I'm putting them up.

-------------------------------

You may want to post that when organizational defenses reach the point that only the elite can dare survive in them, you will find an environment that fosters the elite. I had the knowledge, the experience (both IC in terms of levles and OOC in terms of my 5+ year veteran top-tier IRE combatant), credit invest (prism/cubix, gem of cloaking, transcendent skills, etc).

Part of the problem with Lusternia specifically Lusternian combat is that it costs easily double what other IRE games do to be involved and have a decent chance. Toss in the need to have an aethership, skill investment in the aetherskills, etc.

=====+=====

Aetolia has done a good job of addressing this issue. Abilities like contemplate (which are absolutely necessary for classes that depend on mana-based instant kills) are found in the guild skillset. In Lusternia, transcendent Wicca is fairly worthless until you get fabled Discernment.

There are several small changes that would make combat less expensive in general:

+ Focus Body time should not be effected by Discipline. You truly have a very faint chance against several classes if it takes you 4+ seconds to focus body.

+ Contemplate should be found in Wicca, Nihilism, and Celestialism

+ Conglutinate should be mid-way through Planar. It really sucks for people who don't have 300cr to invest in Planar. If everyone around you loses nothing when they die, what sort of encouragement is it for you to even try when you lose 10x what they do.

+ City/Commune rank should give the influence abilities at CR1, CR2, and CR3. I absolutely loathe how it takes 10+ favors for people to be able to influence the most important people in villages. Any organization that wants to maintain any sort of integrity with favoring loses big because numbers count and people need to be able to influence.

+ Liveforest, Flux, and Ripple shouldn't be reduced by constructs. Thoros can raid just fine in Flux if he wants. It isn't going to stop him from killing a Tide Lord. It does, however, stop a group of 30 mediocre combatants in about 3 seconds. The same can be said of Ripple and Liveforest.

+ Shield and Weapon Parry should come earlier in Combat.

And so on and so forth. Obviously players who buy credits should have advantages, but it shouldn't be as extreme as it is now.

Weapon/Shieldparry were already moved forward a bit because of Monks, but I love all those ideas you just said.

....What do these changes have to do with combatting the problem of one person killing hundreds of guards during off-hours?

Whatever the changes, I feel Lusternia already favors numbers too much. There many instances where raw numbers truly decide any potential outcome (Read: Avatars, Demon Lords, etc). Organizations that lack the playerbase of other organization should still be able to feasibly compete. It isn't all that legit, in my opinion, to say that "One player shouldn't be able to be an ass," but "a group of 15 players should be able to do what they want."

shield/weapon parry are also rather useless if you dont have high combat anyway.

Not a thing. Like I said, not my own, and my hunch is that the fix won't be along those lines.

There's no talk of downgrading existing defenses, though. What we have absolutely decimates groups. It's not horrible if you're going solo. Annoying, sure. Detrimental, of course. But it's not the end of the world.

So, we have some sort of change that favors group action while we have constructs that give free GroupKillX150™? That's...bad.

I agree. I can raid just fine solo on earth in flux, assuming the Magnagoran defenders aren't up to par and can't take me out that easily. I can't raid with a group there, though.

Same, if Mag has <10 defenders, I much prefer raiding alone.

...Except that 15 warriors -should- be about 15 times stronger than one person? Mathematically, it does make sense one person shouldn't be able to compete with 15 people.

I wasn't seriously suggesting Vernals, but I do think it wouldn't be at all bad to have some disaster where the nexii lose a lot of power. It would increase competition for power and at least create a little conflict without anything drastic on the part of the admins.

A lot of these comments are true, but don't really address the opinion of some of us, which is that there is no meaningful combat. So, to try and steer it back on track-does anyone have any ideas?

I had the thought of a 'battlefield' type of thing, but I couldn't really flesh out any details of how it would work or what would be the point. But, perhaps mentioning it will inspire someone else and they'll think of an incredible idea!

So, try and put your thinking caps on guys! ::needs a thinking cap emoticon::

Ever watch "300"?

Numbers shouldn't be the sole deciding factor determining the outcome of combat. Some combatants are simply better than others... either they have more skills to pull from, or better ways of using those skills in tandem, or they have better healing techniques which make them difficult to defeat. In combat, 15 is not always greater than 1. It all depends on the strategy.

Teehee, meaningful conflict, that makes me laugh a bit, honestly, what -is- meaningful conflict, how does conflict ever actually have a meaning besides beating the $#i7 out of your enemies?

Well, back before the Nexus' each had millions of power, conflict used to be over village control or other means to get more power to the Nexus, or more resources to comms shops. It meant something back then, since power supplies were somewhat limited and it was needed to be able to defend yourself.

With the massive amounts of power available in the nexus now.. not so much an issue to fight for.