You can't even begin to imagine how I would love to lower the credit cost to learn the skills -needed- for combat. It's so incredibly frustrating to see you get defeated because you lack one simple ability...

EDIT: or just honouring someone and seeing they are 300% your might and saying to yourself 'There is no chance in hell to kill them, no matter how awful they are fighting'. Soooooo frustrating.

EDIT2: sorry for ranting!

If you need someone who's 300% your might to beat up, call me, I'm like the worst credit whore fighter there is.

May I ask what these additional effects are? Other than lowering the drain from Succumb (a defence needed against all of -1- guild), what bonuses do I receive from transcending Magic?

(And yes, I realize other skills, like Resilience and Evasion, cannot be directly compared, which is why I left them out.)

In any case, the skills I'd really like to see addressed are Discernment/Discipline/Environment. Discipline consists of very few abilities, and even less useful abilities, but transcending it is a requirement due to focusbody time. Discernment and Environment have a few useful abilities throughout, but the main bulk is useless stuff that isn't really needed. Discipline should be removed and split up between Discernment/Environment (or some other combination); for example, having tumble and focusmind in the same skill would be greatly appreciated and help a lot of people out.

I've always been under the assumption that artifacts should give you an edge, but not be required. You compared the magic and resilience skills to artifacts, but as it stands they are required if you really want to be serious about combat. Bard damage is obscene if you do not have trans magic. As a furrikin with level 3 magic resistence and inept magic, xiel pushes almost 2000 damage against my 3.6k health. Thoros on the other hand takes 1.2k? Trans magic (I'm sure his TF accounted for a portion of that, but not all 800). Resilience is flat out needed to deal with wounds.

Unless Lusternia has been designed to "require" artifacts...I'm not getting the comparison.

I don't trust myself nearly enough to try to articulate my thoughts, and most of them just now are monk-centric, and thus irrelevant.

However, I'd like to thank Estarra for opening this thread and this discussion, and the gods in general for paying attention to the concerns and trying to address them. Far too often the players and admins go forward next to each other and assume the others know what's going on, and each is looking at something different. Conversation is good!

L'enfer c'est les autres - c'est la vie. We live on.

I've got to echo the concern for the skill requirements. I really hate that, in order for me to stand up to warriors in major combat, I have to trans Resilience so that I don't get to critical deepwounds in 1.5 swings. Ditto for magic and being toadcursed in succumb after maybe 2 ticks. For me, the added benefits of succumb/deepwound resistance just don't justify doubling the lesson investment.

That would be ME. And I don't even have a system or healing alias, so I'm that much easier.

Artifacts are required for warriors, yet I hear people complain about obscene warrior attacks. Problem is you never see any complaints about non artied warriors doing obscene attacks. While on the other hand a non artied warrior is so unbalanced compared to most any other class here.

Warriors have haters, yet it is because of the artifacts that are required to compete against tri-transed other classes. Sadly I defer alot of people from being warriors if they are young and have no spare income to throw into such things. Hell I went Moon for two reasons. One was for an RP thing which I do not wish to discuss (since sometimes this place can bleed into the game) The other was because I made a mistake in arti'n my monk weapons and lost ALOT on tradeins. So I went Moon to have a chance at competing by having a weaponaura.

I dunno, I just think if warriors got balanced without looking at arties. Afterwards you could look at the arties (because yes, the attacks will end up probably worse at first until the artifacts are brought inline to where they should be.... to give an edge/advantage to the warrior, but not needed to compete against tri-trans other classes)

Absolutely disagree with that. There are now several new death preventions for demi/ascendant. At least everyone will have access to vitae and then there's immolation and various organizational resurrections along with a the few other means to resurrect. 50k essence on death is truly laughable. I would be in favour of reducing the ascendant phoenix cost to 250,000 flat. It's a choice they have to make. If an ascendant wants to forgo cost they wait. If they want to get back into a fight, they pay essence. Admittedly 500k, is fairly high given all the previous lowerings of cost, so I would agree with a lowered cost in essence, -not- in time.

Here's my list of things, I admit some of these may not be a problem but I am very frustrated by them.

This one isn't so much a problem as a frustration. I never ever know who is on these 'special committees'. I'm also under the assumption that generally the same group of people are in these 'special committees.' because I don't know who's in them. This is very annoying to me, one never getting to participate, and two because it's the same people over and over again. Of course, if it's not the same group of people involved, then please correct me. But for the most part, I feel like certain people are always in such committees, and while I respect their views, ideas, and input, it feels like they have more say than other people.

The BUG feature issue that Shiri mentioned originally is one that is very annoying to me as well. It's really less of a problem now because Morgfyre is truly awesome and works hard. I bug things and I see a bug fix announce out a week later. Sometimes, the bug is even fixed days before the announce. He's really great. But sometimes, we bug things we aren't sure are bugs or that we're not sure is working right and we want a response. I suppose we could ISSUE ME but I don't feel like that's the purpose of it not to mention, you get different people playing the part of Oneiroi, Eryines, and the Norns and do get different responses from them.

This is a problem I feel is big, but you said is sort of being addressed. The constructs that allow for -free- nexus powers is absurd. This really needs to be changed and I've given some changes in the past.

Suggestion 1: Change this power to allow all citizens of the organization in which this construct is raised to conglutinate if they die on the plane that the construct is supposed to affect.

Suggestion 2: Change this power to half the cost of using nexus discretionary powers on the respective plane.

The main problem is that constructs are -not- supposed to be permanent, but they are in actuality. So the powers need to be adjusted or the design changed (which I believe you said is being worked on) Still, this power should get changed regardless.

This also exacerbates the problem which is my next topic: Ethereal Serenwilde and Ethereal Glomdoring.

Both of these are unmeldable by outsiders, Avatars are stronger than Demon Lords/Supernals, and there is free nexus discretionary powers. Glomdoring also has choke. All of this combines to limit conflict in these areas to simply killing daughters/ladies and defenders. There's no rhyme or reason to go kill an avatar because at this point it's like a suicide mission. You don't gain power for your own nexus, you merely cause the other side to lose power. There's no fae to save/convert like there used to be. At the moment, I'm out of fresh ideas for this other than making it meldable for outsiders. Druids especially are very limited while raiding these areas.

I also think the high cost of entry into combat sucks. Tumble is 423 lessons in environment. You need the same to get stance head/weapon parry. There's the general trans guild skills, fabled discipline (if not for focus mind, then at least for focus body because a 4 second focus body is absolutely horrid, especially when warriors/monks can attack faster than 4 seconds as well as everyone else attacking just over 4 but under 5 seconds. Then, while planar isn't a requirement, just about everyone else will tell you to get it. Soon, we'll be having to spend on aethercraft because it's going to be integrated into all of this. You need trans magic just to stand a chance to live longer than 8 seconds against any bard. Trans resilience is also a must. Even bits of Discernment is needed.


I feel like I've forgotten some of what I wanted to say so I'll add later as I think of more.

Its not always the same people in the comittees Krellan, just correcting you there.

I am in one, but not the other. Same with lots of other people. Although yes Catarin is in both, but that is because she was a CL at the time of one comittee which auto put her there. And I think alot of the Comittees do always have the CLs in them because well.... All in all we voted for them to run our Orgs and that is what they are doing. Other than that. No the "rat pack" is not in every comittee.

Special Committees are generally formed at our discretion. For example, the construct committee was spearheaded by Catarin as she seemed to be on the same wavelength as the admin and had a solid understanding of what we thought was needed. From there, we chose one member from each city and commune who we felt was objective and whom we could work with. This was later expanded to two members. The monk committee was formed as 5 members from each commune and city chosen by the city leaders. Any other special committee you may think of is probably just the envoys. I should note that one of the primary qualities that I look for in putting together a committee is not only someone who is objective and knows the mechanics, but also can work well with others. In other words, I refuse to work with someone who is belligerent, sarcastic, opinionated or otherwise has a history of being difficult or hostile in a group setting (and, yes, this opinion is formed from how ideas are presented on these forums!).

I would like to see Hyperactive worked so that its useful for bards and monk. Its utterly useless for Bards and kind of nuts for monks.

But I'm lost as what to do with it

I disagree with those who say that so many skills are required to compete in combat. Celina even stated it as "top tier combatant," which tells me that they will have the skills and artifacts to actually BE in the top tier. For those who aren't yet at that level, they're at the same level as most others in the game.

Personally, I would love to see more abilities added to most of the general skills. Learning so many lessons, especially at the higher end, and only seeing one or two abilities per rank can be a little depressing. It would be great to have a half dozen abilities added to skills like Discernment, Environment, Discipline, etc.

I agree very much that a replacement for Riding would be a welcome thing, too. I've got a great eagle that I pretty much just carry around all the time. I bought it for flying, but Kaervas just killed it in a few hits and then I was out of the skies until it came back to me. (110k gold and 250 credits just for a pseudo-pet now.) I don't need the blocking (got it in Athletics) or the mountjump (Totems Horse leap) or the trotting (Stagform and Winged Sandals) or the galloping (sprint in Athletics). Basically, it's just for trample, which I don't use because I can never stay on my mount for more than 10 seconds in any fight.

I also agree that aetherspace should be more user friendly. The experience isn't worth the trip. Once you board a ship, you're usually out there for an hour or more and have to stay with them until they're all ready to return home. I can't always dedicate such a chunk of my time to one activity, so I decline to join crews often for fear of not being able to logoff in a safe place.

EDIT: Also, you seem to have ignored my complaint about the BUG system. Did you just miss that when quoting the post or is there a reason for that? (or did I miss a subsequent post that addressed it?)

I'm sorry, but that's not true. I have a shield rune + Customization's that I have to remove if I switch guilds.

And you pay 400 credits for that. A warrior pays 2900 credits to have weapons fully artied. (2 +15% wounders 600+600, 2+15 stats 600+600, 2 elementals for the damage weapons 250+250 = 2900 credits)

A while back, Geb beat Thoros in a duel using a katana that didn’t have any artifacts on it. I know Ceren has beaten most of Lusternia as a BC with no artifacts. Why are artifacts required again? I realize they do make things easier, but they are certainly not required. Celina had it quite right: warriors can buy artifacts to beat people they otherwise could not beat without them. This is as much a reflection of the personal skill of the warrior than it is the class being “underpowered.”

My point, however, is that no other class has this sort of advantage. As a geomancer, if I spend 1600cr and get an artifact rune that adds 15% to my magic source damage (read: staff or mindblast) am I suddenly going to overwhelming the curing potential of people who otherwise could tank me fine and dandy? No.

Let's say I do 1500 damage (which is absurd, I don't come anywhere close) per staff cast on target X. If I do 1725 damage per staff cast, is the target doing to go down significantly faster? Probably not. However, if I throw on a 500cr rune that changes 33% of my damage to say lightning... I bet you I'd be doing a lot more damage overall. I could also take advantage of elemental weaknesses (not many decent races have electrical resistance, but a lot of them like merian have electrical penalities).

I feel if artifacts exist to override balanced skillsets, they should be equally available. I just don’t understand why the administration allows (and refuses to comment) on why it allows one archetype and one archetype alone to be -drastically- skewed by artifacts, but largely don’t offer that to the others.

If there is a solid reason, let’s hear it!

Estarra said they "would be happy to address concerns" or something to that effect so maybe we can start a new thread for warrior things. Munsia is quite correct, by the way - when you talk about artifacts being equal to all archetypes, you are talking about artifacts that make demesnes tick every 6 seconds instead of 10 (or even psi balances take half time to recharge), or artifacts that make aeon take 1.5 seconds to get out of instead of 1. Sounds insane? That's because they are. Yet these are the attack modes of the classes that use them, not point staff over and over.

EDIT: The line was "could look at concerns", to avoid misrepresenting her

Between top tier fighters it is an arms race. Any advantage will be purchased/aquired and used. For a top tier fighter to compete they need all the gear too.

This is true the sword had no artifacts, but Geb is artied in every other sense as well, was he wearing his +15% h/m/e rune? Was his stupidity pet in the fight (I doubt the pet was), and any other rune that may give him a small advantage? Yes Geb does try and fight with his unartied weapons if asked to do so, but he doesn't always think to remove every single artifact he may have on at the time while fighting. And these things add up in duels. Sprinting sandals (and no I don't know if Geb has the Winged Sandles), while some may think it isn't combat related, it can very well be combat related in some fights where you are running all over the arena trying to keep up with the other. This is just one small artifact that, while minor, should not be overlooked in the whole of things.

In summary, you should not use Geb as an example. Unless you strip him to nothing but his plate and helm. Use someone more like Desitrus who has only a few arties and not like Geb, the Pimp of Lusternia with more "bling" than Terentia could ever dream of.