Honestly, the most daunting thing about combat here isn't the XP loss. Even I don't mind that, and I get terribly bored with bashing very quickly.

It's the same problem a lot of IRE has. The combat system is too complex for many players. I mean, if it wasn't for palisade, I'd be up the creek as well. Not only is there a huge investment required to break even with skills (which is part of the business model I assume), but all those lines and coding required just to be competetive is pretty daunting.

People probably don't enjoy getting crushed and outclassed on so many levels, so they just say "well, I'll be a non-combatant until XYZ", or "I'll just be a non-combatant", or "...I think I'll go install Pong."

I mean, the XP penalty isn't terrible. I wouldn't want it to be more, but what's intimidating is the raw xp required. Even if it was eliminated, I'd never be a Demi, and many others wouldn't either.

I think the stat penalty idea is neat in a way, but lets make it even more idiot proof hypothetically- lets take away any and all xp penalties for anything, ever. In fact, lets remove the two-minute time out from praying. Like, I can charge headlong to the master ravenwood tree, stag sacrifice, and immediately have a shiney new body back at the mother tree.

Even if this was the case, smaller folks wouldn't get involved with combat much more, I don't think. Because combat to them is often just "run in and get smacked down hard". Which can be fun, sometimes. But it gets old when it's basically perpetual par for the course. And yeah, they could learn to fight, learn to code, and learn to credits, but that's a lot of work, and a lot of folks aren't able to put in that sort of investment.

Ugh, I rambled. Basically, in a nutshell- there aren't many combatants because the system is complex and requires investment. Which is fine if that's what you're looking for. But if you want more people to be involved in combat, then combat needs to be more accessible to more people.

I like some of the ideas so I voted yes.


* Removing XP loss on death in non-enemy territory
I'd change it to allied territory. So if you defend Celestia for example your XP loss is minimized or removed. Non-allied territory should be fair game.
Yes, reducing bashing time so lv 80 and below can enjoy conflict is a good thing.

* Reducing XP loss in enemy territory
Possibly. Could go either way on this.

* Adding an affliction on death that lowers your stats and skills (similar to a truedisfavor)
* This affliction would last for 10-30 minutes, and be incurable
* Death mitigation skills (conglutination, vitae etc.) would reduce this time drastically (probably as much as 50-67%)

Should there be a penalty for death? Yes. Is this the right one? I'm not sure.

I like this

This wins the thread. I'd go further and say that text-based games in general are hard to grasp a hang of, but most people can do it. When it comes to combat, though, few people can get good enough to survive a real assault.

If the objective of the change is to expand the playerbase by appealing to individuals with jobs and less time to play a text mud (thus bash) then reducing the XP loss to death would be one successful method.

I might not have been the most active basher (
Also if people are hesitant because of raiding, from what I can see people in enemy territory still lose experience. And the demigod concerns, well if pheonix works as it currently does then they would lose demi and go back to 0% titan (unless I missed a change, but I've been on this call for over an hour so I have an excuse), so people who just can't not die will be loosing demi all the time where people who can manage to live... won't?

I almost voted yes cuz I thought Morgy meant PERMAdeath. If that was the case where you would die, and ressurrect as a level 1 noob with all your credits/arties etc in your inv. then hell yeah. What a way to stop the easy rise to demigod. And griefers would be lol ganked by a team of 10.

But since that wasn't the case I had to vote no. The XP loss here sucks at higher levels but it should suck. I mean it shouldn't take someone 10mins to gain a circle or anything.

And I am all for making lich cost some XP loss. As long as it is logged by Avechna. No free kills on prime for liches if they have to lose XP for it. Other than that add on a small XP loss like trans or conglute or something.

I've always been against exp loss. The difficulty in bashing to 100 should be placed in the time it takes to get there, not the difficulty of holding it against people determined to take it away. Exp loss is an inhibitor to PK, as I've said many places.

This is a great solution, and it'd have the added bonus of making death more meaningful without actually punishing people in the long run. You make death matter when it happens and then reduce the impact as time goes on. That's exactly how death should be. It should not punish a player, it should inhibit them.

If Billy Bob has 10 hours of time to play per week and spends 4 hours a week bashing, he can lose those 4 hours in a matter of minutes.. A few pray deaths and you're done. That's a week's worth of play for this guy, all because he wanted to PK. Does that seem fair?

Billy Bob needs to find something better to do than bash for four hours a week. Like, maybe play the game?

But if Billy Bob wants to actually do anything like pk then he needs to spend more time bashing not less.

If Billy Bob wants/chooses to get involved in PK. Billy Bob should man up and face the consequences of doing so.

That's been a problem in Lusternia since day 1. Everyone wants to make a choice, but nobody wants to face the consequences of making that choice. So babysitter functions get put in.

Example: Visaeris and the archways in Ethereal. He chose to stand where he could be attacked then complain about the fact he could be attacked there, when all he had to do was move/shield, choose to be elsewhere, and then before we knew it we had archways.

Person makes a choice.
Choice has consequences.
Person complains about the consequences until they are removed by some means.

Now before you say "but not everyone chooses to get involved in PK, it just happens" let me say, that is a load of crap. Plenty of people in Lusternia have never been involved in PK, or after facing the consequences of it have removed themselves from it with little trouble.

As for bashing; losing experience to bashing is most often 1 of 3 things.

1: bashing out of your league (your fault)
2: being DC'd (not your fault)
3: having aggressive mobs come in and storm you (see 1)

Smart bashers almost never die and the experience lost to bashing is minimal, even if you have to pray, which is almost non-existent nowadays.


As far as "no EXPloss won't mean more demigods." You are wrong.

As a former transmigrator I can say without a shadow of doubt that my rise from level 76 to 90+ in short order ( and I would have reached demigod shortly after that if I hadn't left for 2 years) was due to no EXPloss. It enabled me to bash recklessly, gaining fast exp and not caring if I died. If I ran out of power to transmigrate I bashed lower places till I could draw power again and transmigrate once more.

This change would be the same thing. People can bash recklessly, if they die they just bash lower places till the stat loss wears off. It increases the speed with which a person levels. It does this for everyone. Casual bashers, active bashers, or religious bashers.

And yes, someday there will be a lot of demigods, that is what happens when EXPloss gets nerfed so badly, due to complaints about it, but exp gains are kept constant... people level faster. So now we want to increase that percentage once more and further increase the speed with which people attain levels/demigod. Making it as "cool" as getting Dragon in Achaea. Which, as most Achaean's can tell you, is about as special as stubbing your toe nowadays.

The best post on the page, by far.

If you really want to do something that will have effect on players and their ability to cope in Lusternia, increase the number of lessons earned per level to 10 and make it retroactive.

Lusternia is by far the most lesson intensive IRE there is in order to gain an even keel with anyone in combat.


Edit:
Because it was brought to my attention I will change my above statement.

Lusternia is by far the most lesson intensive IRE there is.

Roughly speaking Achaea = 3400ish credits to omnitrans
Lusternia = 5100ish

I would say that doubling lessons gain completely(from levels and receiving bound credits at levels, but not conversion of credits to lessons) would be a far better change to Lusternia than removing experience loss.

The difficulty in hunting lay not in actually hunting but in finding something to hunt. IRE worlds are VERY small comapred to your average MUD, but hosts a lot more players. Demigods are wiping out colonies of WAY lower level mobs, and people barely out of the portal are trying to duke it out with stuff they shouldn't touch with a long pole for another 20 levels.

Exp loss isn't a serious issue, especially the lower you are. Quests more then benefit the lowbie, as some can even raise them by levels. Experience is really only tough to get for those who are way up there, and these people have learned to be cautious. Probably learn to pk and buy systems to ensure that they don't die when defending.

Exp loss and combating isn't really an issue. You're aware of the consequences, and if you're ill prepared to face them, that's your problem. Scrounge up for a system, get one of the many free ones that are available, or program your own. Learn to use your skills to your fullest.

I've done all three, and I still suck. My unique blend of temperment is just not suited to the combat world. If you are like that, accept this, and find another path. There are tons. Mine is business and cartels. Yours could be politics.

That... is a start, but wouldn't help overly much. That's a whole 83 credits at level 100. For a newbie, that's about the same as 43 (let's say they get to 50 relatively quickly), which still leaves you pretty short of getting anywhere. Really should get a fair bit more than that, skill-wise, to get sucked in-- and then, after that, you're more willing to shell out credits for lessons and artifacts.

What a load of . Seriously. What prompted your level rise was NOT transmigrate - it was that you were motivated to do so. I've been bashing with a new faeling character for the last 4 days and 15 hours of playtime and he is now L80 and well on the way to L81 without liching or any xp loss prevention apart from Vitae (I gotta admit - I do have lichseed up now, but that was a knee-jerk reaction to getting one-shotted by a Cloier) - so yes I have died my fair share of the time. It is PURELY about the willpower to get those extra levels, sure the no xp loss might have been what initially prompted it, but that was nowhere NEAR the sole deciding factor for you to gain your levels. An alternate system of punishing death to losing xp will have a more physical effect on players bashing than losing a couple of hours of bashing time at the most to gain the experience back. Oh and most of those levels - I was working on dross power + 5% reserves a month, so its not like I could just spam sip vitae either.

I think the death punishment should fall outside of extreme skill loss though - especially considering we have a wide range of karma curses or other punishments that could be considered that wouldn't immediately cripple an entire organisation on the basis of one failed defense or slight mistake.

Hunh. Well, I guess I have to agree with this one. Looks like we have agreement on both sides of this issue.

Anyways, experience loss DOES inhibit someone with less time to play far more than it does someone with a lot of time / drive. There's no other way to look at it. Saying that "Billy Bob should man up and face the consequences of his actions," when those actions are something like "Defending Earth when a certain someone litters eye sigils all over the place," doesn't cut it for me. When you've got a lot of time invested into the game, it's pretty easy to say, "Well, I could bash that up really quickly, so you can too!" without knowing a thing about that person, either their schedule or what they get from the game. That does not make it right.

Transmigrate was the main factor in how fast I gained levels. Here is some simple math for you.

Person A Without Transmigrate bashes 100 hours and dies 4 times each time setting him back 2 hours/death of bashing totalling 108 hours of bashing time.

Person B With Transmigrate bashes 100 hours and dies 4 times setting him back 0 hours for a total of 100 hours bashing time.

Transmigrate was the sole factor in how fast I gained levels, my deaths meant nothing in regards to time increase or net experience.


@Xenthos

""Defending Earth when a certain someone litters eye sigils all over the place," doesn't cut it for me."

This would be a prime example of my point.
Billy Bob is aware of what happens if he gets involved in PK
Billy Bob makes the choice to get involved in PK
Billy Bob complains about the consequences that happened to him when he got in involved in PK

If you don't want to lose experience to PK, don't get involved in PK. There are many other avenues of experience and adventure out there. If you choose to get involved and you die because you chose to get involved you have nobody but yourself to blame. No matter if you play 1 hour a day, 1 hour a week, or 1 hour a month. You made the choice to risk losing that experience.

If you're putting in 100 hours of bashing time, +- 8 doesn't exactly matter. 8% isn't really significant. Actually putting in the 100 to begin with is the impressive part.

Have you seen the number of times he dies dude?