After seeing this discussed all over the place, I guess I'm just going to throw out a thread of its own.

Given many recent changes, raiding is nearly impossible. This applies to almost any org-related plane due to discretionary powers and guards. I can understand the desire to focus on 'extra-planar conflict', but between karma/avenger/guards/exp loss/discretionary powers, all the changes lately just seem to be driving conflict as a whole into the ground. It's the exact opposite of what the playerbase wants (the way I see it, at least).

I know there's Nexus Worlds, but I still can't trust that they're working considering they haven't the past one or two times the admin have said they worked.

The following are just a few reasons that make raiding too much of a hassle:

-Bard songs prevent flying or burrowing to avoid guards and defenders.

-Currently, a lot of stun issues in the game aren't fixed, so I don't even want to think about what the greater Bard songs will do combined with guards and a statue/totem.

-Ripple, Flux and Liveforest have made off-prime raiding nearly impossible. There seems to be little point in killing off a Supernal/Demon Lord/Avatar unless you're bored, want to grief, or need some sort of morale boost.

-Guards no longer take critical hits, making them take some ten times longer to kill.

-Now that guards do multiple damage types, it's nearly impossible to stack enough resistances to be able to tank them all effectively.

-Mandatory lol because it's going to be brought up anyways- choke.

-With the 'huge' boost to experience loss while dying in enemy territory, there's hardly any reason to raid prime villages (much less orgs themselves) except to grief people.

-There's very little motivation outside of griefing. So, you're going to earn some power, maybe a little bit of gold, maybe drain the enemy's nexus. Are you going to get them below their 2 million mark? You wish.

Ripple was given a boost, which I find incredibly dumb.

Everything you said there is pretty much how I feel. I've heard the same complaints voiced by others.

Obviously there was a reason the admins changed it. Raiding guards was already pretty much impossible except to a few tricky/tanky persons anyway, so eh, not much change for 90% of Lusties pop. Gotta see if they tone it down, or if they stand behind this decision. If they do, I hope that villages really are increased in ticking.

I quite like the changes, although I agree on things like stun needing to be looked at. I guess I'm not one of the ones who's in lusternia mainly for the pvp.

/agree, conflict in Lusternia is basically dying/dead.

Conflict isn't honestly the best state for a game based on social interaction both in and between organisations.

Conflict is the spice of life. With nothing meaningful to fight over things swiftly get repetitive, just as if there was too much to fight over people would get burned out.

The trick is striking a balance between the two states, and I think the pendulum has swung over too far in the "no conflict" direction.

Lusternia is first and foremost based on conflict. Most skills only are useful in conflict. Lessening conflict means lessening the need to get those skills, which might result in lower creditsales. In really simple theory, at least.

Extremely oversimplified considering the number of artifacts and skills that don't revolve around combat.

I oversimplify your mom every night.

Feel free to toss out your own ideas for how to improve conflict in Lusternia. I would love to see some great new ideas that we can implement.

I don't think that killing guards is really a staple of conflict since it gains you nothing, so I'm skeptical of the cries that conflict is dying simply because guards are tougher to kill solo. With conflict, I'd rather create incentives for participating rather than disincentives for not participating, and I think that guard killing pretty clearly fell squarely in the latter category. It's the whole carrot vs. stick argument, and I think that we've seen a lot of decent evidence through conflict quests and other mechanisms that the stick tends to lead to burnout and a lot of player grief. I really have no interest in helping to create an environment where players can grief one another.

As a player on Lusternia and other MUDs in the past I've always been a huge proponent of conflict and slaughtering other players (probably even to the extent of being a "griefer"), but it needs to be moderated through game mechanics in such a way that players can thrive and enjoy Lusternia without participating in day-in, day-out PK slugfests.

I am not saying I agree with the administrative mentality, but I know that last we heard conflict was being pushed off prime including not only making it difficult to do, but making it less rewarding (re: conflict quests). Next, it was being pushed from 'off prime' to 'on aetherbubbles', which is yet reinforced by the advent of mini-weakenings.

Clearly there is an attempt to decrease conflict . I don't think it's all that subtle, it sounds like they're screaming, "Yeah. We're focusing conflict elsewhere."

I counter that yes, the administration knows about these issues that you listed, Furien, but perhaps it's what they're aiming for? I think a more responsive way to approach this subject would be to offer alternatives, or ways to build on what currently exists to make it more fun and conflict-y.

There's been a long history of changes being outright refused if they 'presume' to take back any other coded changes, so I think peoples' efforts should be focused on additions to code, and additions to current systems.

With that said... I've got nothing. I can't think of a single way to more Lusternia more conflicting without rolling back changes, and it's sad. I've only just started PKing (relatively), I've invested a lot of credits into it and I really enjoy the PK shakes. I have to say that sitting around, disabling the Magnagoran construct didn't give me any shakes at all.

I never raided before, and now I'll never have a reason to.

The problem isn't that killing guards needs to be a staple of conflict - it's that between the new bard guards and guard-killing be harder, village raiding is now ludicrously difficult.

The problem with nexus worlds is that you have to wait for them, and sometimes you just want to log in and fight something without having to go to the arena.

The problem with planar conflicts is that there's no point to astral conflict, ethereal planes are fortresses, and it's very difficult to raid any of the city's planes.

I understand all the concerns, and I'll see if I can find a good way to articulate a way to have conflict without burnout. The problem is...for there to be competition, you need to be ahead somehow.

I don't think anyone's saying that increased guard strength is the sole culprit for the reduction of conflict in Lusternia. It is, however, yet another step in a disturbingly aggressive pattern of administrative decisions that have served only to cut down on conflict - not even push it elsewhere, since there's nowhere else to push it to, but simply remove it.

I'd like to see ripple/flux less awful. It drives away any desire to raid, by the sheer annoyance of it.

The problem with coding in "carrots" is that there will likely be something to make the opposing groups feel like they have to keep the carrot of your hands, which is just as tedious and burn-out causing as coding in "sticks".

PK and conflict aren't high on my list of things I like about lusternia, but signing in, bashing a couple hours, and talking to people at the pool away before signing off again is starting to get dull. I can't remember the last time there was a decent raid on Celestia or Water that I was around for (and I'm around a lot), and I think I've only been on a raid once so far this October, twice if you include the time we were hunting Ixions.

People burning out and leaving is bad, but people don't want a chat room + bashing either.

increase village revolting frequency. It's neutral conflict that I feel most people tend to enjoy. Currently it's once a week. Sometimes an non peak sometimes at peak. So people are going to be missing it and getting involved in conflict less than once a week.

^ I agree with this guy.