You can bet there'd be MASSIVE numbers of complaints if the artifacts people bought with RL money were stat-weighted.

I was more speaking if they were to release them here now. I'm sure they'd be released with fair warning of how they'd end up weighing out or whatever

Even if they weren't weighted, for me a level 3 strength artifact that actually added 3 full strength would likely add less than 100 damage with my claymore.

For me, adding 3 strength would be pretty darned significant.

I think it would help to move essential skills like conglutinate, tumble and so on down from near-trans. Particularly with certain key utility skills, it might even be better to have them learned at very low levels, and then improved as your skill increases. For example, be able to tumble almost immediately, but have a massive endurance cost at first, work only in certain environments and have a fairly long timer. Then as you increase your environment skill you gradually lose the cost, then add other environments, then decrease the time to use. And likewise for other combat-essential skills.

The other thing that I'm not sure about, but seems to me the obvious answer to issues with combat being too programmable is server-side reflexes. What if you could purchase a limited amount of curative 'instincts' in-game, that required no scripting but functioned the same at a much higher cost? All defensive, obviously offense should be all about player skill, but wouldn't that make combat much more equitable and strategic? I'm cautious about suggesting it, but it does intrigue me. Something along the lines of:



I guess there would have to be a limit on that, and it might need to be activated/deactivated with a willpower drain to reduce server computational load, but it would be interesting to see how much combat really is about skill and not lag/programming knowledge. Maybe a soft limit, on second thoughts, that works like x gold for the first instinct, 2x gold for the second, 4x for the third, 8x for the fourth, etc.

Server side reflexes would be overly complex, imo.

Why not just develop a team to create a very very very basic trigger set for nexus that gets loaded on default characters?

Complex in what way?

As described, I see them as fairly simple... they would never come close to the utility of a proper external system, but they would be great for casual or young fighters.

You're asking them to code in the very basics of a combat system into Lusternia itself. It would probably be a coding nightmare and a waste of time.

Why form an internal system that wastes server processing and coder manpower when we can just use the current system already in place (ie the Nexus Client) and see if we can formulate a very very basic newbie system? I'd be up for helping to code it, and I don't even know Nexus's language at the moment.

The thing with systems is there is no such thing as a 'very very basic newbie system'. You either make a decent one, or you don't make one at all. And with Nexus, the latter is so much more viable than the former.

Autosipper, writhing, focus body.

I'd call that a newbie system!

That's as good as not having a system...

Not if you're bashing as a newbie.

I didn't have a system til level 65. I didn't use a bashing alias til level 92ish.

EDIT: If they want a system that will cure more than a few afflictions, they can pick up Mushclient (free) and a copy of Ethelon's old free system. They could also buy CMud (worth it) and get Catarin's free system.

WTF? You typed "point staff at lobstrosity" every time?

control-x, control-v, and the enter key are your friends.

You don't need to a system to bash.

Anyway, this is all besides the point, because this about the cost of combat, not the cost of bashing.

I thought this basic novice system Forren was suggesting was for combat, and not bashing.

Right, and then he said focus body, writhe and whatever would be better than no system if you're bashing as a newbie.

I would love to see periodic in game credits sales that don't go through organizations. They are sold directly from admin to players. The number of credits would be restricted of course. The lessons you get from leveling alone just don't get you very far. They won't even get you to staff in Geo/Aqua if you spend all of your lessons there. 2000 per perhaps, and only x number can be bought per IG year. After you buy so many, you are no longer allowed to buy them. Could be a way to give those interested in combat a much needed boost without having to rely totally on OOC credits.

*edit: Oh and sell them as Bound credits, so they can't re sale.

Why is this even needed? Lusternia has extremely low credit costs relative to the other IREs.

That may be, but there definitely needs to be a larger amount of initial lessons to help get people "hooked" on their skills, instead of staring at the total number of lessons required with a stunned expression.

And then never coming back.

That, or merge some of the skillsets / make them mini-skillsets that take fewer lessons.