It was a change requested in the envoy demigod report we received. Forren's bug report started a discussion in the Havens about it. Obviously, people felt that the trans skills should help the demigod in some way or it wouldn't have been in the report in the first place. Not everyone agrees that "the benefits far outweigh any loss" or that it is inherently unfair that these skills benefit demigods so lets not state that as a fact but an opinion.

My suggestion was for a compromise.

Est thought it was working like all the other abilities and not providing any lessening of essence. And now it's obviously known that it's a bug, and looked into.

I don't get that impression at all. I get the impression it was submitted as a change, was accepted and changed and then someone filed a bug report on it and it sparked further conversation.

Ohh how about having lich, transmigrate and egg not cost the demigod essence but making them in general only usable once per rl day or so? That way you still get the bonus of the skill or construct but can't whore it and raid 24/7 without any loss even after your 100th death.

Whee a nerf to lichdom/transmigrate/rebirth? Go on, go on!


Teehee

Edit: That's how they should have worked at the start, I think. Does Achaea's 'soulcage' ability come to mind? Necromancers can only cage once every 12 hours. Really helps it.

Should just be able to acquire them without having to die, that's my only gripe at all about Demi.

There is no such suggestion in the Demigod Report as viewed on the Envoy Wiki. Shouldn't this also have been announced?


They have helped the Demigod - they helped the Demigod get to that level much easier than one without that skill. As a Demigod, I feel that no additional skills are necessary to curb essence loss. I've been from one million, to eight million, to seven hundred thousand, up to near five million essence again.

Oh, I got it at first, but seeing Est's post above mine obviously states that it was intended, so...just go in with this thread. I don't care one way or another about the essence loss.

Naah. That's overdoing it.

Okay, so four separate questions.

1: Should any skill completely avoid essence loss for demigods? Answer: no. Done.

2: Should death costs for demigod be higher than they are? Answer: probably yes. Seems to be a consensus there.

3: Should death-cheater skills be balanced across nations? Answer: yes. Duh.

4: Should death-cheat skills have any use for demigods at all?

That's the one where too many of the answers were really answers to the previous three questions, or swayed by the idea that the answers to the previous three were not settled or obvious to all right-thinking people. If we assume that the previous three questions are settled, and those things will be implemented, then what's your answer to question 4? That's what I want to hear.

My answer is yes, they should, but maybe it should be a lot less than "halves essence loss" (like maybe it should only be 20% off? or Aesyra's idea is interesting too). Letting the answer be "no" is tempting, particularly if the first three questions aren't settled, but once they are, I think it becomes clear that a "no" answer here actually creates the kinds of problems we're encountering. It's just a bad game design decision to have expensive and valuable skills suddenly become worthless.

Forren's point makes this point best: lich and darkrebirth have non-death-cheating values, but transmigrate and resurgem and sacrifice don't. Any attempt to balance those skills for demigods will unbalance them for non-demigods, and vice versa, so long as the death-cheating part (and only the death-cheating part) is eliminated for demigods. So limit their value to demigods as seems right, but don't eliminate it entirely.

I am thinking they are fine as is.

EDIT: And, to go to your fourth question: Lich and Transmigrate provide other boni next to the no-exp-loss. I think they should somehow be useable by Demigods without having to do the death-part of acquiring them, that'd be fine then, in my oppinion.

Ever read half the rants in the idiots forum? They are about how some people won't ever lose exp and some always. I'm not entirely sure about transmigrate but lich definitely has other benefits besides the no-exp loss death. Reducing that to not losing essence / exp only once every x hours seems reasonable to me as long as you can still get the other benefits at leisure.

The consenus was actually that it's fine as it is now. The issue is with skills reducing the essence loss -further- or entirely negating it.

Yes, but you seem to forget Resurgem and Sacrifice in that equation.

I have to agree here. These skills definitely make it a LOT easier to get to demigod and some of them still have benefit outside of their death applications - namely lich and dark rebirth.

Conglute is of no use to me now as a demi. Honour in sacraments is not either and hallowedground is a lot less useful. And if I sacrifice for someone, I still lose essence, quite a bit depending on where they need to be sacrificed from. I can no longer be ressurected or immolated to reduce my essence loss as I could be before to reduce my xp loss. The benefit of no power cost to sacrifice or resurrect me are gone as well. There are probably others I am missing as well. Everyone gives up some utility of skills when they choose to become a demi. That's just how it is. But making essence loss unequal is just flat out unfair as that was the one equalizer to demigod. Everyone was in the same boat.

I don't see one for Transmigrate. Phoenix already gets you to a safe place, so Transmigrate has nothing else to offer besides death-cheating. In fact, Transmigrate offers a huge liability the others don't: that once you use it, you have to throw away several other skills in that skillset because it's too dangerous to let your familiar out of its hiding place.

But the point is, as long as some death-cheat skills offer other values and some don't, the imbalance is inevitable if you remove only the death-cheat part from demigods. Doesn't matter which ones are the "with" and which are the "without".

A change to lich etc was never suggested in the demigod envoy report.

Lichdom has been key in the amount of titans/demigods Magnagora has. Some may attempt to deny this, but dying without losing experience is huge. HUGE. In every sense of the word. For hunting, for pvp, being able to exit a situation (after dying) without losing experience is a big deal. I've heard countless players rave about how great lich is, simply for the no-xp loss aspect. It's been an incredible support ability for most raiders. I'm not even discussing the other benefits of lich. I believe that in all of IRE, only Lusternia has abilities that a player may reuse over and over, at the cost of some power and defenses, and never lose experience. That, in itself, is ridiculous. The creation of the Crypt is what caused a lot of Celestian players to passionately go after it, to destroy it.

For transmigration, it's awesome simply because when you reform to the bonded animal, it pulls you out of enemy territory. Unless I'm wrong. Transmigrate and dark rebirth aren't anything to scoff at either.

You seem to forget that both of those do cost essence / exp, neither negates the loss entirely and although I've never been soul resurgemmed I was told at least that the loss is still steep (possibly more than vitae although someone else would need to confirm / bust this).

Perhaps let them still transmigrate, egg, lich, darkrebirth to avoid praying but only have it entirely negate exp / essence loss once per x hours?

Actually nerfing the skills across the board seems outside the realm of demigod fairness hehe.