I don't ignore the answers, but, yes, ultimately, I must come to my own conclusion (with the counsel of other admin, some of whom were top combantants in-game so it's not as if I'm coming to conclusions flying blind). It's really not a pleasant situation knowing that no matter what I do, people will never be pleased, but if you look at the evolution of the changes in this thread, I think it's absurd to say I'm not listening to what's being said here.

I have to agree with Estarra. A hefty portion of changes were suggest by people here.

Out of curiosity, has any thought been given to the suggestion I made? It seems to be infinitely simpler and wouldn't destroy races and would fix all the problems.

PWEESE?! Trills need unsquishy-ness wuv

Hmm, for Trill. Maybe they should get something like a constant Lich status effect. Like, they gain stat points in the daylight, or something similar.

That sounds more like Lucidian, to be honest.

/soapboxrant

Trill will never be tanky, but I would suggest they be buffed in different ways other than just a few points of cha. Thats like an ironic slap in the face for all trill players. I'm guessing Orclach is being overlooked? No arguments there but a buff would have been nice. Mugwumps are being pooped on, but "they had it coming because they were overpowered from the start". Kephera is a bloody joke now, but certain people fail to realize it, or just dont want to (or cant). Ultimately, all these changes come down to one person, Estarra. Estarra is only human. Estarra is bound to make mistakes in these matters considering how complex the dynamics of the situation are. I dont know if Estarra thinks she is all knowing and infallible, but I hope not. I hope she realizes that despite her insane breadth of lusternian knowledge and experience, the decisions she makes can be the wrong ones. I hope the senior admin really give some deep thought to the subject, so we dont have rampant min/maxing in the continuing months after these changes. I just hope everything works out.

I think you ignored or denied every suggestion on the previous page. But, understanding that you are the one who makes decisions and it doesn't need to be added if you don't want it to, let's go over the racial changes you made that didn't need to happen in the first place! Apologies in advance for rambling, unstructured evaluations.

Kephera: Very few people except you (and your circle of administrators?) thought kephera needed to be buffed - people were still playing them more than many races simply because they were tanky, and those people were willing to sacrifice stats a tiny bit to gain that much survival potential. You are not supposed to give a really tanky race a great edge in offense, that just makes them incredibly unbalanced. You also realize, I'd hope, that a poison weakness is not a weakness at all. Let's be honest, poison damage has never been common in any venue.

Tae'dae: Very few people play tae'dae. Reducing their balance and equilibrium penalties was intended to help that, and it will, to some extent. However, making them weak to fire (more common than poison damage, for sure) and removing their sip bonus does not help. In fact, their sip bonus could quite possibly have been the difference between life and a manakill in many circumstances, and tae'dae are substantially weaker now that they don't have it. Even a level 3 sip bonus with the new code for it would have been alright, I'd imagine, because they are not fast enough, even now, to warrant nerfs. Slow warriors need to outpace curing by doing enough damage and wounds to overwhelm opponents, but that's impossible when they can't even cure quickly enough to keep up their offense. Post nerf outlook: "bad"

Igasho: Lowering the effect of the balance penalty is a nice start, but their high strength isn't much of an advantage with stat weighting and the prevalence of strength buffs. I feel they were made more viable, but not "good". Scaling is a nice touch. But the fire weakness? Why? It bumped a viable race down a notch. Igasho are another case of "did not need to be nerfed" - the few people that played them weren't exactly problem warriors, so adding in a fire weakness was kind of pointless. Post nerf outlook: "meh"

Aslaran: The speed nerf has completely ruined this race's strong point, and they've now got unfair disadvantages. Might as well play a race with decent stats and without a sip/herb penalty, now. Post nerf outlook: "bad"

Faelings: Lowering the sip strength while raising its level might or might not be bad, I don't recall reading anything about this yet. I would assume it's bad, though, because they really need to sip for a lot to keep up their health. Reducing the balance speed has also been a major blow to warriors. Post nerf outlook: "meh/bad"

Mugwumps: Went from extremely good to pretty piss-poor after the equilibrium nerf. They, too, now have unfair weaknesses. Pretty self-explanatory. Post nerf outlook: "bad"

I will say that the changes to dwarves (ignoring that I couldn't even touch Exeryte - that's probably a non-racial issue), illithoids, viscanti, and dracnari, and trill are probably for the best, but you need to be careful not to make them too good (you know this, but I might as well restate it). Yell at me if I'm forgetting something.

I would not rush to make these changes final by this weekend. They need a lot of tweaking if this many people are still voicing concern.

I really appreciate all your comments and insights, but one point is that there aren't "many people" voicing concerns but a handful on the forums.

I would say your most loyal customers and fans are the ones posting right now. We are Legion.

One solution to that would be to inform everyone via announce that racial changes can be discussed on the forums, and assume that people who don't bother commenting don't care enough to have a say. I know of a couple of people who didn't even know about the changes and test server until we talked about them in-game.

Still, there's a fair number of people posting here, regardless of in-game knowledge, and certainly this "handful" of people is significant enough to at least get a gauge of how the entire population would react. It's not like forum-goers are a different breed of player (for the most part).

Edit: Quiet, Balizard.

We are Lusternia. We shall add your technological and biological individualality to our own. You will be assimilated.

What does it matter whether I consider Demigod free or not, when we are discussing whether Ascendants have an upper hand on the Domoth realms? What I am pointing out is what you received is free, and it is something few others can gain access to. It is not like Demigod, which anyone with the time and desire can gain, since Ascendants are limited by the once a year event and by the 1 million power that a city/commune (not a person, and especially not you alone) invests.

Apparently my suggestion has been lost in the other posts, so I'll restate.

It seems much easier to remove rushing and hyperactive and the speeding up of forms over time to eliminate the problem of stun and grapples being too quick. Ashteru pointed out that stun and grapples are essential to monk combat, and I agree. However, in it's current form it happens too often and too quickly, which is part of the reason for the changes.

Also, lowering the ceiling and raising the floor for knight weapons seems to be the best answer to demigod warriors which have spawned the idea of lowering demigod stats. As Nydekion pointed out, removing +3 to stats to +2 would hardly effect his wounding. It's not the stats of demigod, but the weapons that seems to be the problem in these rare cases. Lowering stats would have the effect of hardly effecting demigod warriors while drastically effecting non warrior demigods.

Rather than have huge, negative effects to all races and having to balance and change other races in turn, this seems to solve the problems without upsetting the delicate balance. I think we can all agree that it is not races, but the new addition of the guilds that have changed the balance (which is fine, and even expected). But, no one would say that faeling was too powerful before given to a monk with rushing or hyperactive.

Desitrus is fleshing out a rather nice proposition, Talkan, s we're gonna see how that happens

Actually, you weren't discussing the Domoth realms at the time. You were discussing what was gained 'for free,' beyond the Domoth realms.

"It is a major benefit, when no one else has access to it but the few. Are you ungrateful for what you have received (for free mind you)? I would consider an extra skill-set a great boon, considering the fact that it actually gives a person a reason to gather more essence."
It seems like this is specifically talking about the skillset that "no one else has access to but a few". If it's talking about more than just that, then fine-- but in the more limited aspect of the skillset, it seems to take as much hunting (if not more) than Demigod. Hence the question, asking what you considered 'free'.

I don't personally consider the time investment both before and after to be free, whether it was spent hunting or doing other things which ended up being significantly appreciated (and for that, I definitely am grateful).

We're definitely standing pat on the balance/equilibrium changes. Other issues that may crop up will be dealt with separately. As Revan mentioned, monks are being looked at already.

Hello, folks. Some of you may know me, some of you may not. Long (-ish, I guess) time player, first time forums poster.

Since we're talking about changes to races, I have an idea that I think would be VERY cool. It's not directly related to stats, but hear me out.

NEW RACIAL ABILITY FOR ILLITHOID AND KEPHERA: MINDTALK

o Can mindtalk upon reaching level 50. MSAY TO to send them an anonymous, psychic say while standing in the same room as them. They would reply by normal says or tells, or, if kephera or illithoid, they could choose to MSAY back. Similar to Dreamspeak in Dreamweaving, but it's easier to identify the speaker due to skills like Scent, Thirdeye etc. which are much more common than Indigo and other methods of seeing dreambodies. However, you can only MSAY to a person, not a whole room. The main difference between mindtalk and dreamspeak is that you can modify mindtalk with emotes like regular says. For example, MSAY TO BOB Your lutes are superb. would result in Trader Bob seeing something like "A contented voice ripples across your mind, "Your lutes are superb." On the other hand, adding :@ might cause "An angry voice throbs in your mind, "Your lute gave me dysentery."" These would appear in the normal cyan color of regular says. I think it's important for it to be initially anonymous (i.e., no "throbbing head veins" messages when Leiliadhe msays) to keep in with the mysterious/stealthy nature of the Undervault races.

What are everyone's feelings on this? I think it would be a very exciting and cool little addition to kephera and illithoid, who are described as very psionic in the RP, but whose abilities don't really reflect this. Obviously it wouldn't be balanced to have us all shooting Cthoglogg psi-beams everywhere and razing cities, but I don't think my idea is unbalanced. I sent a message to Estarra about this after the opening of the Nekotai, but never got a response. I understand things are very busy and not all messages can be replied to, so I don't hold it against you. And I apologize if you DID read it, and just didn't say anything because you thought my idea was dumb, and I'm making you angrier by bringing it up on forums. >_> ANYWAY.

Thoughts?

Edit: Oh, and I'm excited about the proposed changes in stats for illithoid. As one of Lusternia's few consistent illithoid players, I really appreciate the attention!

It sounds neat, but you should probably make it a seperate Idea thread, since this big string of posts is for stat-based racial considerations.

• Male Kephera: DECREASE: Dexterity : 16
• Kephera: ADD BACK: Are susceptible to fire, level 1.
• Kephera: ADD BACK: Are susceptible to cold, level 1.
• Aslaran: REMOVE: Heal more slowly from elixirs, level 1.
• Mugwump: DECREASE: Are susceptible to fire, level 2.

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