Aetherspace is fun, it's a great break from the regular gaming world. However it has problems, namely that, unless you're specially interested (like me) there's no real reason to use Aetherspace. Moneywise, it is decent, but it doesn't give nearly enough experience for aetherhunting to be worth it. I recently took someone out aetherhunting. Now, it was only two individuals there. 1 gunner and 1 commander. The gunner was fresh from the portals, only circle 4. In hunting aetherbeasts, he gained 1 level per beast to begin with, or at least that is what he said. That... isn't nearly enough. I could get that amount of experience in Newton in practically the same amount of time, but I could do it on my own. Aetherhunting should be situationally preferable EVEN for those who are 80-90. The difficulties of getting a group together, and making the group STAY together, and hunt efficiently together, should be worth it. In fact, I'll claim that you should gain more from hunting in aetherspace than hunting outside it, due to the difficulties of actually getting an efficient hunting group together.

In short. Boost Aetherhunting. Aetherspace is too fun to be overlooked.

I think you could make aetherspace a viable option for the general public.

Don't know if anyone's played Puzzle Pirates, but the idea is kind of similar. You can have a gnome captain looking for a crew for his ship as he tours aetherspace, and makes the rounds to each of the aetherbubbles. Maybe each commune/city can purchase a contract with a gnome captain, and the captain will take you to do destination you request (costing personal power, gold, or both). An alert would be mentioned on CT when the ship is departing and to where, with a five minute timer allowing for people to join the crew. You'd get experience from beasts killed and empathing, and if the ship blows up you do die and it would take a day maybe for the gnome to make it back to port and offer his services again. The captain may reward the commun/city with gold in exchange for dust gathered on the voyage.

Upgrades could be bought, and the ship could be entered into ship wargames.

EDIT: Maybe have a horn on each non-org related bubble for gnome scouter ships be able to pick you up, or have a new teleport skill in planar to get from aether to prime (but not vice-versa, and not anywhere else.)

I can't believe I didn't think aobut this ealier....


FIX RIDING!

Once upon a time, Fain posted a thread asking to make Riding more Lusternia like... whatever happened to that?

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Fain's statement

How do I put this about Aetherspace...

I was very interested when I first joined Lusternia. Now I just see it as a royal pain to even think about interacting with. Whether it's the act of God required to field a crew, the general annoyance factor of not know which end is up, the starting cost of a ship, the general overwhelming aspect of it... I mean really, I'm just bloody glad demigods tess/flashpoint and whistle, because if not I don't think I'd even bother with aetherbubbles. They are certainly not accessible to most players.

Aetherferry to known bubbles? Make it take 10 minutes so that newbies get used to aetherspace but if they want to get there faster they can buy their own ship and start down that path? I honestly don't know, I used to beg for RL hours to get someone to take me to crum for influencing.

Riding is off the table, though I should note that when (hee!) we do what we want to with riding, some people may claim it's yet another "new thing" that we shouldn't have done (le sigh).

Bring in wrangling. It could be fun. You know you wanna.

We will certainly look to make aetherspace more fun as that seems to be a recurring them on this thread. However, should newbies really be going to aetherspace beyond their collegium quest? What newbies can hunt or influence on aetherbubbles? Aetherbubbles are rather high level! I'm not very warm to the idea of ferries to bubbles. Now that orgs have ships, doesn't that help with access?

As long as it works, I can promise you that nobody will complain. Fixing riding and making it something actually worth having will not cause anyone to complain. If it does, I'll just delete thier posts!

Perhaps instead of ferries, you can set up a module that gets added to a ship which allows the ship to act like a ferry.

Sort of like auto path finding with the map command.

Not really. It's still a waste of my time. What do the aetherbubbles offer that muud/astral don't?

Gold? Nope. For the most part Bubbles pay less.
Experience? Xion's pretty good, Candyland's not bad. Muud's good, Astral's good. undervault's good.

The biggest factor is time. It takes me an investment of time to get to the aetherbubbles for relatively no benefit. I have to invest power to flashpoint there(not to mention trans commander) or I have to invest 30 minutes to fly there. Instead I can just type "wings;d;u;ne;kill" and get exp and gold that way. Why would I go to Aetherbubbles/Aetherspace?

Plus on Astral/Muud i can socialise which is 95% of the game for me these days. On the Aetherbubbles it's a lonely road.

Truth be told, I don't see any compelling changes you can really make to the Aetherbubbles to make me want to go there. Why invest resources in the form of power or time when the alternatively is just as good and free?

Edit: The point I"m trying to make is that, if anything, you should be moving away from Aetherspace and bubbles in general. Focus on the Basin. New areas there, expand outside the Basin, whatever. Space has too much against it to make it worthwhile. Just accept it as a novelty and a gee-whiz feature you can sell to newbs that nobody really cares about. Focus on the planes and prime.

-Nihilist hexists and Celestine healers dont have any synergy
-This might be personal, but this basically means guardian without aeon doesnt work
-Blackouts can be long term
-Without aeon, afflictions dont stack well, or some other form of unmonitored stacking (tail, curse scroll, something you cant predict) would need be possible or at a higher rate
-Incredibly high stat targets are problematic (as in 7k health and 7k mana, what do you do? If they can cure aeon with any real precision you have very diminished chances to land the kill)

Theres a few things, and you know if you wanted to bring up guardians/wiccans you just have to poke me Esty

We are the only class reliant on getting aeon, every other class can fight without aeon or some form of it, and thus only guardians/wiccans have a focus on sticking aeon via things like anorexia, but you are often out paced at this point (wiccans are a little better off because they have aeon in their guild skill while guardians have to get it in their tertiary). The best way to fix this would be to alter how ents work for them as planned afflicting is the only reason guardians can use aeon.

I think the major problem with warriors, which is largely dismissed is that the class can override adjusted balance by purchasing artifact runes, but no other class can really achieve a similar outcome. Why? How is that fair? Why can't I buy a rune to make my staff do 33% electrical damage?

Then of course when someone points out a problem (example: there are Axelords out there with big nasty artie axes that can sweep for a knockdown and hit me again during the lengthy stun in turn almost killing me from full health instantly by use of an ability that require no existing wounds or afflictions), the reply is always: It's not that Axelords are overpowered, it's that he or she has artifacts

I'm not so much opposed to the pay-for-perks scheme, but I really think it should be available to everyone.

Why not just buff the spheres?

1. All specializations need to give some benefit to the solo pilot.

There is a very large disincentive to take a skill that requires other players to make it useful. I think that each specialization should have an affect on basic piloting and solo craft handling. I would even go so far as to say that the empath and combat specs should allow you to use the empathic grid and a gun respectively while solo (no clue how much coding effort this would be to support). If that could not be done then each spec should be given flashpoints and fuse (and perhaps silent running). Perhaps give commanders a minor whistle affect to compensate (only can summon ship to one dock, requires you to bond with it somehow taking a lot of power/time to making switching uncommon).

This still forces solo pilots to use aetherspace for nothing more than transport (and exploring), I honestly think that for aetherspace usage to greatly increase you would need to allow for solo fighting of both players and npcs.

Group activities should be added on to a solo base, not the other way around.

2. The XP/Hour/Person of aetherspace hunting should be greater than the possible XP/Hour/Person of normal hunting

There needs to be a strong incentive to get a 4 man crew together. Right now people who get groups together go to Astral or Muud they do not bother with aetherspace. If aetherspace already allows for more XP/hour/Person then this needs to be advertised.

3. There should be some kind of simplistic map available for aetherspace. It would just show a very general location, each character on the map could represent like 10-20 of the "normal view screen" areas. It could not be used for exact navigation but it would allow you to quickly see your relative position to landmarks. I understand the desire to keep a strong exploration mentality to aetherspace but it is seriously a huge barrier to entry for new players.

4. Sitting still should be far safer. Right now I hate moving around in aetherspace because if someone comes up in the real world and I need to step away from the keyboard for 5 min I can't. If there are no aether beasts on your screen and you are not moving you should have an almost 0 chance of having any beasts spawn around you. Even better would be if the vast majority of aetherbeasts where made to be non agro and a special symbol was created for the very rare agro beast. Again the extreme ease of getting killed is a huge barrier to entry for the beginning pilot.

5. Aethership death should cost less power. I hate having my ship implode more than I can say. Not only do I personally lose experience and power but my ship loses all flashpoints and all power. This is beyond harsh and should only be reserved (if it is even allowed at all) for PvP losses. The basic power drain of flight should be plenty of a "cost" for aetherspace.

6. Gliding is great but you should be able to stop mid glide. I would be fine with this causing you to overshoot a bit but honestly flying would be so much easier if it did not require the constant key pressing (though this is also caused by the extreme danger you are in if you stop for even 10 seconds, see #4)

7. You should have the ability to check the area around a dock before launching. Some high traffic areas become infested with aetherbeasts which turns launching into a very risky experience.

8. There should be a "newbie" area in aetherspace. This should be a place with very few aetherbeasts (none of which are agro) and very easy to navigate around. You could add in some NPCs that do basic tutorial type quests for this area (fly to point A and back, kill X beasts, do a basic trade, etc).

9. As a compromise between extreme isolation and giving aetherspace a "different" feel you should allow broadcast centers to be buildable on bubbles. These would allow normal aetherspace communication from that room for everyone, and perhaps extend communication to a wider area for the org that controlled it. A ship addition that drained power when on but allowed for communication would also be nice. Of course everyone just gets around this with messages (which is a different issue) but I think it would be a nice touch.

10. You should add honors lines for things like killing big aethership baddies or perhaps for successfully flying (without fusing) to out of the way places. This is a very minor thing but it is just one more incentive to use aetherspace.

11. More events should be held directly in aetherspace, not on the bubbles. Anything from scavenger type events to sponsored battles in the arena to who can kill the most NPCs in X time.

I think I will stop with 11

This one goes to Estarra specifically

We tend to note things that are wrong but dont do anything with them for lack of slots. I know most attempts to request a report would be denied because I can already see the sheer number of slots involved in JUST ideas that have been brought up so far. Why ask for a mountain of coding when most of the time you are all busy on something? Go by class for special reports and you can probably fix up alot if given enough slots.

Hexes are far from comparable to tarot Esty. Tarot is alot of utility skills and has aeon, which no guardian guild can work without (wiccans dont either). Thats the first and most immediate problem with hexes. I can have 6 hexes, but its 6 seconds to fling them all, which isnt hard to keep up with (allheale + focusmind + normal curing will keep up with most if not all of this reliably) if we burn 2p per fling to give 6 afflictions in 3 seconds we dont have enough power for most things and in about 4 seconds you can have cured everything we just did. Without a lock condition by the last hex we are in trouble. Compare this to aeon reliance, at least aeon has a chance to hold them for 4 seconds and you can hope you can do something before they cure out (4s is curing aeon and anorexia while they have stupidity if stupidity tics twice, hence my concern with our guild and aeon).

If I could be entirely honest, and I entirely expect a gasp or cuff upside the head or something, I imagine I have quite literaly said Guardians could use a new specialization of their primary skillset, by losing controlled afflictions aeon loses its use, and the primary should be made to synergize to any tertiary (I have multiple ideas on this one, including 4 full skillsets, not all of which stem from Cosmic though). I would adore glamours but that would honestly just be insanely powerful for us in most cases, quickening would make it rather scary, though no aeon and controlled afflictions give a very small delay.

At this point I would go as far as to say a bard is a better Nihilist than a Nihilist in concept (good damage, powerful affliction potential, and varied conditions though manabarbs and such). If you gave bards an kill condition outside of damage (in case of those super tanky 11K truefavoured, omni trans, high resist people for instance which is why I adore mana kills, surged people suffer for trying to be super tanks, while it is still controllable to cure mana if your health isnt taking large amounts of damage).

Give cacophony a mana or ego based kill and see the evil I can give. Their damage is extremely powerful, I am just a fan of alternative conditions because of people like Thoros, Ixion, Geb, and Shuyin and their insanely high health that would be a righetous feat to take down entirely especially with ghost/trueheal/serpent at their disposal.

Hope that helped

EDIT: Yes powerspikes MIGHT be able to kill them if they tried any of those. Though it isnt too hard for them to survive a 3p skill, while a 10p one might be nasty.

I'd personally like to see the collegium quests tweaked out a bit, in particular the Planar quest.

You have no idea how often I hear (Celest): Novice says "Can someone take me to Astral?" followed about 15 seconds later by Novice has been torn to shreds by a monstrous lobstrosity, or Novice has died to the insane winds of the Astral plane, or Novice has died in some other gruesome fashion. Ditto for aetherbubbles. Do they -really- need to know about these areas? Not yet, no. Also, a lot of novices ask to be taken to, for example, the Earth Plane or Nil or somewhere else they shouldn't be, and then end up getting enemied as a result. This really isn't fair to our novices, since the collegium quests feel rather like a "requirement". I understand that the admins/people who designed the collegium quests didn't want them to be too easy, but the way the Planar quest is right now is just a tad ridiculous.

Suggested change: Make it an exploration rather than planar quest. Remove Astral/Aetherbubbles from the list, instead add a number of Prime locations of significant cultural influence that they really -should- know about (eg Avechna).

Responding to all the whatever about warriors and class rebalancing, I think that overall mages/warriors/guardians are fine. People keep pointing to so-and-so who is an extreme case and cry nerf. These three classes are the oldest, have been hashed over the longest, and I personally can stand a chance against an average player from any of them, just as they can stand a very good chance against me. That's my definition of balance. Bards are even rapidly approaching that point for me, though Maelstrom is still the deciding factor in 99.99999% of the bards that I spar. No maelstrom = I pwn, maelstrom = they pwn. I don't think the problem is bards, I think the problem is maelstrom and the sheer amount of passive abilities a bard can rack up, coupled with abilities to force you to stay in the room, and then throw on active attacks on top of that and... blargh. But this section is unfocused and should be ignored.

Monks, the problem is the speed at which they can hurl seriously hindering afflictions. Grapples = can't use limb (and with irongrip, these don't miss. Ever.) and then throw in break/stun/paralysis mods, and the victim can't do anything unless they can gain the clear advantage within the first 6 seconds (or however it takes a monk to get to the necessary wound state). 2s stun + 2s paralysis (being amazingly generous here. Best I've heard of is 3s though I'm probably wrong) + 3s to a form (I think they get even faster later) = overlapping hinders that, even with the stun immunity, make it impossible to attack/move/anything. That's a Bad Thing. I don't stand very much of a chance against -any- monk, flat out, and that's my definition of imbalance.

Regarding Aetherspace, the change to fusion that makes it impossible to fuse across planes really frustrated me. Getting to Xion takes easily half an hour now, when everyone except the pilot is like "ho hum, so f***ing bored" and the pilot is like "well balls, spam" and can't even socialize. It used to be flash over, flash back, woot. The biggest problem with Aetherspace is that it's so.... BIG, and thus takes forever to get anywhere. If it were possible to speed up aethertravel and/or automate it, I have a feeling more people would be willing to use the bubbles. I'm thinking that it should take no longer than about 2-3 minutes to reach any bubble for it to be appealing, because that's about how long it takes me to get to the Broadcast Centre from the Aetherplex, even with terrible luck and needing to kill gravediggers, and that's the outer limit of how long I'm willing to spend to get to an activity area.

I guess I mean "midbie" rather than "newbie", in this case. I don't consider xion particularly hard, or influencing crum as the right race. Just need something to make it accessible really, and the cost should be time, I believe.

One of the main issues with aetherspace and covens is just getting consistent people together and having them hold still. It's like grind groups in old Everquest. I don't want some guy who will join and leave in ten minutes.

As a small aside directed at Tervic, you do not need to complete every collegium task. It maxes out in the amount you're allowed to reduce, so you have to spend 3 or 3.5 hours (I forget which) as a collegium student (guild advances alone can negate this). If there's a lack of people to help with the planar quests, push them towards another one.

Warrior issues almost need their own forum, let alone thread. Nobody else has to spend days hoping for a random number generator to be kind to them, just to get something vagely approximating an offense. At the same time, if you get a good weapon, and spend the credit equivalent of $700+ US dollars on it, you're suddenly a walking drama generator.

It's compounded by the problems with the specs. Axelords and Bonecrushers can positively whore knockdowns and stuns. Axelords in particular have most of the really nice stuff from pureblade, minus sever tendon, plus their knockdown effects, and a much, much, nicer trans skill. So you make a change that effects all warriors in order to bring axelords or BCs or whatever in to line, and what does that do to Pureblades? Do you boost pureblades or blademasters up in some way to compensate them for not having all the obnoxious knockdowns and stuns of axelords and bonecrushers? With crack elbow not working like it should, there's very little reason for a pureblade to even go for the arms, unless you deperately want to sever one for some reason.