Yup, a miscalculation on our part. Won't happen again.

Just tossing out ideas:

What if for every sceptre/orb/crown held, the ascendant/demigod has their power reserve cap raised, and passively regenerates power every Lusternian day. Further, what if every Lusternian month, the home nexus passively gains some power for every sceptre/orb/crown controlled by its citizen ascendants/demigods?

Okay, so I got a sceptre so I could have some first hand knowledge of this rather than just supposition.

The first part is entertaining and appeals to the goal oriented. I enjoyed it.

The second part was exceedingly boring. Standing about for an hour with nothing to do is not interesting. However, if the assumption is that people will eventually be rallying to kill off the challenger then I am sure it will get more interesting. This is also nice as it gives non demis/ascendants an integral role I had not really considered before. I want to say it's too long but with fighting breaking out, it's likely fine in order to encourage that. Plus it's shorter for seal bearers.

The third part I have mixed feelings on. The essence hit was considerable but not panic inducing. I would definitely think long and hard before ever going for a crown though. Though the mobs coming were constant, I didn't find it to be all that interesting. It could be I just dislike timed exercises and prefer some goal besides standing about for long enough. This would likely also be more interesting with fighting going on.

One big problem I see is that in off hours, such as when I generally get up, I (and I am pretty sure other demigods of the tankier persusasion) could do this completely by myself. When the mobs get to be too much, I can just leave the room, kill them off, and then go back in. While I would need to time it properly in the latter half in order to make sure I didn't run out of time, it is quite feasible.

I am not certain if that is the intent but I doubt it. These are supposed to encourage conflict not encourage people to just do it when most other demis/ascendants are asleep. A simple solution is making the mobs harder. This would have the added benefit of generating more essence. I do not know if anyone else's experience was similar. It's possible as a Paladin I just have the ability to be very tanky.

All in all, the process itself is likely fine. The essence costs will probably dissuade most non-seal bearing demigods from aspiring to anything more than the sceptre level. Well, maybe. There are a lot of essence reserves out there. But long term it will probably boil down to that.

I do not know that the power cap being raised and passive regeneration of power would be all that useful. The org regenerating power certainly would be. But as a personal benefit I am uncertain it would be very motivating.

The dormancy periods were meant to at least partially address the off hour issue. A domoth can't be taken from scepter to crown in one go, they have to be at least staggered by the dormancy periods. I'm not sure how else you would address this.

The timed sessions are indeed so there can be a chance for opposing ascendants/demigods to challenge the challenger. In the case of the second step where the item is at an aetherspace bubble, an opposing ascendant/demigod could not only foil the attempt to claim the throne, but steal the item and claim it for him or herself--even if it's a crown!

I really don't think making the mobs harder is the answer (unless they are indeed really easy--which I don't think they are!). Remember that by crown level, they'll be coming at 3 at a time.

That's true. The dormancy period very well might help to avoid that kind of problem. Who knows if it will play out to be a problem that exists anywhere but in my head.

My personal feeling was they were really easy up until there being about 6 or 7 on you at once. But that was just me and several others have fought them so will have opinions on the difficulty level. It could just be that sceptre will be something you can manage on your own or just with one friend. And I suppose thinking about it that's not necessarily a bad thing.

You were fighting completely different mobs than I was. It probably was at least partly the fault of monk bugs, but like 2 sirens utterly -destroyed- me. 3 at once?! No way.

Estarra, maybe there is a disparity between the mobs or something...

Well, also consider I am a full plated warrior. With numen. Plus what I was fighting was doing physical damage. I assume anyway since they were skewering me with lances. It could be I'm just weird and not at all representative of what most others will face. Plus differing damage types could help mitigate this.

Bumping my own post just to see if anyone else has any comments. Some admin really like this idea and think it would encourage demis to get involved. What do the rest of you think?

I don't think you particularly need to do the org power-gain thing, unless orgs would say that demigods who participate get inf rations. It wouldn't make me any more or less inclined to care (I don't really use power all that much, as a monk.)

Anyway, we just took on Nature and the mobs were pretty easy for me. I think some are much easier than others.

I have found Life quite impossible to manage (without leaving the Chalice) with Catarin helping me at the orb level, and barely manageable by myself at the sceptre level. Leeching is really annoying, particularly because it restores them to full every time. I have not tested many of the others, but I think Life and Knowledge are both quite difficult enough.

I've just noticed this post is getting disjointed, but Catarin's note of being able to stand against 6-7 does definitely not hold true for Life, Knowledge or Nature from my experiences. Also, her point about leaving and waiting for them to track, then killing them and returning to spawn more, doesn't work very well in my experience. Not all of them seemed to track me.

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As the personal benefits, increasing the power reserve cap is quite interesting. Regenerating power is interesting also. Perhaps True Ascendants would generate their own power, whereas Vernal Ascendants would generate Nexus power.

I also liked Catarin's idea of restoring an astral node. Perhaps sceptre+orb can restore one node, or sceptre+orb+crown can restore two. You could only do one or the other, not both in order to restore three.

Regarding astral nodes, the more I think of it, the more I'm not sure if it would work right.

What if instead of personally regenerating power, you personally regenerate essence? Thus, successful control of thrones will result in recouping (or netting?) essence (but only at crown level). For example, for each crown you control, you would passively regenerate 25,000 essence per Lusternian day.

The only trouble with that is that it's regenerating something you have to expend to get it anyway. So if you didn't get it...you wouldn't need the regen. So you'd end up at the same end result if you just didn't bother. If that makes sense?

I was just about to come to this thread and suggest that it should generate essence for Ascendants at a high level, particularly given my current slow progress through Ascendance. Therefore, I do agree with this idea strongly. I have just done the maths, however, and I would suggest reducing it to 20,000.




Well, remember that the Blessing itself can still affect you. I think ignoring it entirely isn't the best thing to do, whether or not you class it as a strong benefit or not.

It is true, for Ascendants who don't expend as much essence to begin with and really need it, passive gaining would be quite nifty. Not so handy for demigods. A crown expenditure of essence would be at minimum 1.6 million for non seal bearing demigods. At 25k an hour, that's 64 hours to regenerate. Blessing lasts for 75..hmm so you'd net about 275000 from it. Well, it wouldn't be bad. You wouldn't be really gaining much but you wouldn't be losing anything either.

EDIT: And I like the idea of Vernal Ascendants somehow managing to do something to funnel power to their nexus heh

Look at the numbers, you'd end up with more essence.

Also keep in mind that when you lose the crown, the domoth moves down to orb level. Thus, to reclaim the crown, you don't have to go through the whole cycle.

Wait, confused. So if you claim the crown you get that for say 3 days. Then after 3 days it drops to orb? And you get that for 3 days? Then down to sceptre and you get that for 3 days? I'm confused.

That's right, yes.