It doesn't put a hard cap on it at all, if the raiders don't die. Every time they kill a defender, the odds of them dying gets worse, meaning they can go longer.

There's something "wrong" with people who don't bash much? :/ I guess a lot of people need to quit.

I also want to reiterate this point.

Anything that has a negative impact on character skills, stats or gains, although temporary, will only serve to make defending and playing undesirable. The current system, while requiring some time of bashing for each death to break even, does not impact your character's ability to defend territory.

Those supporting this who have in the past complained about defending only to die - once, twice, multiple times - should think about this.

Once again, you're misreading.

There's something wrong with what you're doing if you're actively trying to gain experience and you can't do that.

I'm not too fond of the idea, but that's probably mostly because I don't like the idea of no experience loss at all and the fact I'm a Wiccan. If I lost even just part of my trans guildskills, it's goodbye decent bashing/pk. I'd lose drawdown, which is defense and the good bashing skill and toadcurse, which is pretty much my only kill condition. So there goes me killing anyone at all, unless someone is honestly going to die to nature curse.

The divide appears to be between those who enjoy bashing and those that don't. This game certainly doesn't have a lack of high levelled players, who have exerted a great deal of time and energy to get there, which does add to Lusternia, in terms of activeness and so on. In spite of time constraints. There are many people with nine-to-fives or in college. Why should those who don't enjoy bashing, have things made easier for them? Is this about people who don't want to lose their precious xp when they choose to get involved in conflict? Experience and essence can be viewed as the blood of Lusternia. Nothing else quite brings about a sense of accomplishment or loss, or factors in when it comes to raiding or hunting and so on. In various situations, it does force players to display a measure of care when engaging in various forms of combat. I prefer the current way of things, though something should be done about skills that negate any loss and allow others to operate with less risk involved. The risk factor makes things more interesting.

My character could have been a titan ages ago. I just hate bashing. Those with the motivation can do it, slowly but surely. Let's not forget that praying is not a terribly huge deal. It has been softened once. It's the dying in enemy territory that hurts. That was implemented, I thought, as a deterrent or added risk for raiders/griefers.

Alright, fair points, though the novice would still be able to level up. It would be (at maximum) half as fast, but they would never be unable to try levelling up. I think that may be more of an issue related to Avenger protection within enemy territories rather than general deaths, though. I'm sorry; I don't actually think I'm adding anything new to this conversation stream any more, so I think it's time for me to stop.

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Since transcendant skill ranks are so important, often having vital skills such as conglutinate and drawdown/toadcurse/important skill x in, I think Morgfyre has already suggested that they would be open to having stats reduced rather than skills, with or without the slower experience gain I suggested.

"Once again"? I don't think there was a first time in this thread to a point you made, nor was this it. This is a slightly different point than the one I commented on, but you may just have not been perfectly clear on portraying your meaning.

The counter to this is that if you've reached an amount of experience you're comfortable with (let's say level 80), but then end up being killed numerous times in defense (or for whatever reason), you're back to bashing even if you wanted to be done with it. It's an extra timesink forced in not only on those who are trying to gain levels, but those who are just trying to stick where they are. Whereas, with this idea, their further progress would be hindered, but they wouldn't need to invest more time just to stick where they are.

There's also to remember that -only- wiccans would lose their second bashing skill as they're the only guilds where they have to trans an entire skillset to get it. Everyone else gets it at about virtuoso-mythical.

It all boils down to personal motivation and personal attitudes. We have this amazing attitude on Lusternia that is unlike anything I experienced when I played Aetolia (which had its own share of attitude problems).

WAAA I DIED ONCE!!
WAAA 3% XP LOST!

Aetolians pretty much do our equivalent of praying, ++, when they die.

So you're saying you want to be able to die repeatedly in pk and lose nothing.

I don't see why that should be the case.

To the first point: It's not like I lose a whole lot. Ever. I doubt this change would really affect me much either way (actually, I'd probably have more of a penalty under the new system than the old).

To the second: I agree with those two sentences completely.

This change really wouldn't affect me as an individual much, but I think it would be better for the game as a whole to move away from trying to punish people with experience loss (going out of my way to force you to pray, etc.) and towards other deterrents which would still keep you from wanting to die.

I pretty much already do. It's not like conglutination is really a loss at all. Read the last post I just made-- I'd probably get a higher penalty from the new system than the current one.

That doesn't change the fact that I believe it would be a good change for the game as a whole.

You think it would be good for the game to have an incredible number of level 99/100s running around as well?

A death sickness is worse than experience loss. When I die, I cast a few defenses and jump right back into battle. I'm not morally hurt by it. Sure, I lose essence. However, I'm able to attempt to defend at my near-full capacity (minus missing defs). People already don't want to die. This is worse than experience loss.

I'm just going to point back up at previous arguments that pretty much debunk this. If experience loss is truly so minimal, it won't affect this. Anyone who is actually putting in the time to bash up to 99/100 will, being killed a lot or not, under the current system. They would under the new one, as well-- but it will be slower, either way. Perfect!

I think we're ignoring the real issues, which is the norm with Lusternia. Rainydays brought up a good point in his post. Playing leadership roles in this game has allowed me to view firsthand what does chase away players, especially potential new ones. I've tried to bring over old friends from Achaea, who absolutely refuse due to the steep learning curve and coding nightmare that awaits. If you're not prepared to invest a bunch of credits and buy/code a good system, you're not going to play. What of players who've wanted to quit over crappy skill implementations or constructs? Are we going to eradicate those abominations? This change doesn't feel necessary in light of other things that should be addressed.

Must we repeat ourselves again?

They're minimal compared to what people on other IRE games deal with. I lose.. 12%? per death on Aetolia. I lose maybe 1% or 2% at level 80 here. I only pray around .5% of the time on Lusternia (pre-Titan), and even then, praying costs are low. Losses are small, but they are losses.

The new system is just going to make leveling more frustrating. You can redef and continue currently, you don't have an hour of shame to sit around and wait for your bashing ability to come back in full. You didn't have to deal with psionic burnout, Xenthos. I have a lot of firsthand experience with this.

We already die repeatedly in PK and lose nothing. Death is meaningless. I also find xp in general meaningless, except as a descriptive way to talk about old school Narsrim's griefing.

A lot of the arguments you use against the idea in other places are exactly why I think it'd be a great idea. Don't you want to be able to raid Magnagora at the peak of its online strength and still kill a Demon Lord by having better tactics and fighters? Don't you want death to mean something? Don't you want a real way to put down hit and run raiders? A system where the costs of death are only cumulative and long-term isn't very engaging. A system where the costs of death are right now and more tangible seems much better. If the cost for a failed raid is an hour doing things that don't involve PK or bashing and the cost for dying in defense is a greatly hampered ability to defend or bash for 10-15 minutes, it seems like we're accomplishing what was intended by the xp-loss system all along.

This is a much better argument, in my opinion, than the boogey-man of "We're going to have lots of Demigods!"

There are a lot of other issues as well, some of which may very well be (... are) more important in the Grand Scheme of things.

Psionics burnout means a full loss of skills. Losing a few stats is nowhere near the same thing, nor is it requiring you to sit around for an "hour of shame". It does, however, require you to be a bit more careful in what you choose to do and perhaps use up a few more herbs and health potions. Hunting something a bit easier for a time would help limit that, though.