Can someone summarize all the 'loopholes' that people claim exist under the Avenger system? Ildaudid, didn't you have a list somewhere?

Regarding enemy status in areas, I actually like that there's a consequence for killing insofar that others can defend those areas. If you don't want to be open to PK, then don't bash in those areas! (Maybe we should make people declare before attacking a mobile who will trigger enemy status in an area?) Why should you be free to slaughter merians and ur'dead and tosha monks and kephera and illithoid without consequence? Yes, that makes limitations on bashing but that was always the intent--Lusternia would be a place that had consequence for killing.

This means you need to be careful what and where you bash. Even so, there are many denizens in areas you can bash with no repercussions, such as in Spectre Isle, Hiferae, non-dracnari in Zoaka, the broadcast center, blasted lands, nature reserve (great place for low levels), snow valley, verasavir valley, presidio, muhanlesh, not only caves in the undervault but the shark reservoir and other places, etc.

That said, we will keep an open mind for future areas for bashing areas on prime, but I am not really interested in changing the way area affiliations currently work.

most of those places you listed are for 60-80. Show some love for 90+

70+ has, arguably, the greatest bashing ground in any IRE game. You have an essentially limitless supply of mobiles (astral) that will take a fairly huge amount of effort to drain, wherein the amount of mobiles produced is dependent solely on how many players are standing there.

Bashing the viscanti in the Presidio gets you enemied, boss. You can only bash the brains and aberrants below the Presidio with impunity. Not to mention that Spectre Isle is enemy territory if you're enemied to Ladantine, and parts of Verasavir/ Hiferae depending on which faction you antagonized.

Starting to look like there's a lot less options, huh? Never fear.

If you're Magnagoran aligned, you can try the non-aligned creatures of the Sea of Despair. If Celest-Seren aligned, you can do the same to the non-aligned creatures of the Inner Sea. If a newbie needs to bash up his levels, he can even cross over to the other side and attack- the Avenger will protect him unless he's killed Ladantine or Kelpie aligned creatures.

As for changes to declare- noooooooo way. Not only is it grotesquely obvious what not to bash in a given area, but a simple PROBE will show you the loyalty of what you are killing.



There are disadvantages to the place too, not least of which are the uncurable insanity and the possibility the nodes are all drained, but hold that thought. Here's an artifact idea.

Staff of the Immanidivinus: (200 credits) If this artifact is activated, you can link to nodes and attract the attention of astral creatures- without draining the energy of the sphere you are on. Use ACTIVATE DEACTIVATE STAFF.

Assuming you can get, and then stay there.

The bolded part also breaks down if someone decides to chill out on the sphere for a bit while you're linking, causing more mobs to spawn, and then they skedaddle before dying leaving you to be torn to shreds by hordes of angry monsters. This can sometimes even be unintentional. As a lvl86 warrior, I'm only comfortable with taking on 2 linked non-super-fesixes/lobstrosities/some other things and only one scorpion at a time. Given that doublespawns sometimes occur, then add in the possibility of a quadspawn if someone wanders through, plus give that there are only twelve spheres, eleven if I want to avoid the Magnagoran one, 10 if I avoid parasites because I love my reserves, 9 because I can't handle virgins, 8 because... well, you get the point. In short, there are only 3 or 4 spheres that I can bash comfortably, and I use myself as an example because warriors tend to handle direct damage better than other classes in my opinion. Add in insanity, and a typical run can only last about 30-40 mintues. Toss in the moving spheres and I can't always get to where I want to be without a cubix.

tl;dr version: Astral isn't all it's cracked up to be. I have better luck almost everywhere else.

I think that Astral could be put on par with what you're saying if the refresh rates of the nodes was seriously upped (by that I mean double to triple what it is now, especially at the more-drained states), insanity cut down, minor gold drops (~10-20 gold/LINKED mob), and removal of shuffling spheres.

EDIT: As a quick aside, how the hell did I get distracted into talking about Astral in the Avenger thread? Someone please move this to a new thread? *ashamed plea*

She was referring to the Abberants and everything else beneath the Presidio, which does not get you enemied. Spectre Isle may be territory if you're enemied to Ladantine, but it's not for everyone else - which is fine, in my opinion. It's a great bashing ground, and its gains are greatly increased if you're a Magnagoran. Hifarae there are no enemy statuses (just checked!), and in Verasavir, while there are enemy statuses, they do not give you open PK in the valley (that is to say, yes they exist, no, they do not actually do anything).

Edit: As an aside, I also just remembered we completely left the Grey Moors out, which is great gold, great bashing, and has a good quest (though it's a bit difficult). It's also a major area for people in the "critical" range who can't bash on Astral yet - the 50s-70s, as I understand it?

One such loophole of Avenger that I am aware of is that when someone, Person A, is an enemy of the Kingdom of Krellan, and Person A is killing the servants of Krellan's Kingdom, then Person B, enters Krellan's Kingdom and attacks Person A, but Person A manages to escape the territory which is Krellan's Kingdom and dies outside, Person A still gains status on Person B and the protection of Avechna.

This doesn't make sense cause usually getting attacked in an enemy territory by anyone means you've automatic declared the other person if you do PK DECLARATIONS. Though, this might only happen if Person B were to be enemied to the Kingdom of Krellan as well. Like I said, it's hard to get really thorough testing done cause of exp loss, but I'm fairly sure there's a loophole here. Especially because there was a change in the past to prevent raiders from gaining status if they died outside of organizational enemy territory, a specific example being Daedalion raiding Serenwilde and killing a pixie and dying to bleeding in the mountains, then gaining suspect on all defenders. The change was meant to stop this and I don't think it applies to NPC territories.

Well, you don't even have to be Magnagoran.

Remember kids, it's your patriotic duty to do the spike quest!*

- except MAYBE Celestians.

I am not actively involved in this topic but in case it didnt come up..

If someone has suspect on you and you defend an ally, you still cant attack that person because of the suspect they have on you though you are protecting someone. Tgat seems buggy.

Salt/Puella/Laetitia shouldnt be offensive or require declare or some nonsense, being non aggro skills.

Estarra, most of those areas are pretty bad for higher-end characters. I don't know, I guess I just think that there's something in principle wrong with the idea that PK is only protected when you're not bashing the areas that get you decent gold/experience. Almost no deaths result in status as a result, even though it's clearly bullying. No one gives a damn about protecting gorgogs, Astral, Muud, Shallamurine etc. but these areas get you PKed for free anyway either because they enemy or because they're off-plane. Astral as -a- free-PK area I can just about buy but all the other areas doing so as well just makes the whole system only come up during group combat situations where someone starts fights in the aetherplex for no reason.

There has got to be a better "consequence" for being enemied to bashing areas than the game having no PK protection where it matters.

Anyway, that's one concern, but the other is that some of these quests still work such that the defender is the one getting PK suspects - like the broadcast centre, where doing an offensive quest does -not- result in getting enemied, but averting it does (which then means you can't bash there PK-free anymore.)

I think there should be a few more mid level hunting grounds (levels 60-80) and one other high end bashing ground (For demigods+) that doesn't give insanity. Astral/Muud are -great- but the only drawback is the insanity.

As for the avenger topic being talked about, other than the odd bugs (Like being unable to attack due to suspect even though you -are- being attacked :S), I think the avenger system is fine.

It's better than having Achaean like PK rules!!

STOP USING GEB IN YOUR EXAMPLES! HE IS IRON MAN!

the main problem of bullying, in my opinion, in bashing areas comes from Thirdeye. Could actually just get rid of the ability for who to show room names with thirdeye.

Somewhere I do, I will try to look for it when I get up. But basically most everything has been covered that I can think of off hand by people here.

• Use of defend to bypass avenger willingly, also Defending causing a chance of gaining suspect from inadvertantly defending someone who defended someone who defended someone, etc *
  
• After gaining suspect on someone. If you are attacked by them again, and you do anything other than just run, or sit there and die, you do not gain vengeance and I think you even lose suspect. **
  
• Being attacked in enemy territory and dying outside of enemy territory gives you suspect on the attacker. ***
  
• Active Demesnes causing suspect, or even being used by people to exploit and get Vengeance on the demesne holder since every one knows that demesne holders cannot sit and enemy/unenemy every second to make sure people don't take advantage of it.

(notes)

* needs to be tested by people more to try and find the exact combination in which you end up gaining status from defending another person

** This was the case maybe 2-3 months back I think, it could have been repaired though. It needed to be re-verified. If anyone tests it, make sure you check to see if the "attackeee" loses vengeance and retains suspect, or if they lose both vengeance and suspect, effectively wiping the slate clean.

*** This too I am not sure if it has been fixed. It may have because people used to run outside of villages they were raiding if they could (when they were about to die) so that they could gain suspect/vengeance of people.


Now those are just off the top of my head, I cannot remember if there were more besides anything else stated by the others here.

As for the enemy territory thing. The reason why people don't like it much Estarra is that even if the bashing area is loyal to for instance Magnagora (like Shallach is), a member from Glom/Seren or even Celest who just wants to bash lowbies, midbies, etc. and force pray or maybe even really grief them, can just sit there and kill people with no way the Avenger can protect the person getting jumped.

Now honestly, everyone knows how I fee about Avenger. I would be happy to see it gone for good. But I do understand how frustrating it could be to go bash a place for gold/exp and if someone dislikes you (IC or even OOC)'ly they could just keep killing you over and over in these enemied areas. Like that thing I read a bit back that someone (I think it was Nejii) posted about how some mage or other demesne user would meld all of Merian Island and go and kill anyone who went there to bash. That is something I don't care much for and a crappy way to use game skills to constantly attack people in places you are sure not to gain suspect.


Anyways, if anyone wants to test those things again, please post to let us all know if (II and III in list) are still capable of bypassing Avenger. The first one in the list, like I stated earlier, needs quite a few people to sit down and find out what that exact "sweet spot" is where it ends up bypassing avenger.

After touching base with Roark, he had these comments:



ROARK: I don't know how defending bypasses avenger; that should be impossIble. I need clarification. As for inadvertently getting suspect, I thought defending means you can't get suspect. I thought only DECLARE allows you to get suspect since it means you are starting the fight. Sounds like a bug if true. I would also need more details since they are a tad vague.

If you still think there is a bug, you must provide an EXPLICIT example that we can test and duplicate. Part of the problem with addressing some of these issues is that if the issue presented is too vague, and we can't duplicate the 'bug', then we can't fix it.



ROARK: This is by design. If you perform an aggressive action against a suspect then the suspect status goes away because "Avechna assumes you are taking control of your own vengeance."

• You should get a vengeance the moment a suspect attacks you. If not, it's a bug.
• You should get a second vengeance if you die and have not fought back (retained suspect). If not, it's a bug.
• If you do fight back and die anyway then you only have your first vengeance from when he started the fight (first bullet above) and you should get a suspect added back to your PK status. If not, also a bug.

I would be surprised if this was bugged as described because it's the basis of the whole avenger system and would mean no one would be getting vengeances ever.

I'm not sure what the issue is here.



ROARK: A bug if true. I thought that was fixed, similar to the problem of starting a fight on Astral, teleporting to Prime, and bleeding to death there.

I thought this was fixed as well. Again, please be EXPLICIT in telling us exactly how to duplicate an alleged bug.



ROARK: Should not be possible if the demesne owner didn't DECLARE the abuser. I need clarification on if this happens even without DECLARE. If so, it's a bug. If not, it's not an exploit; the demesne owner just needs to kill his demesne if he doesn't want it to hit someone he explicitly started a fight with or be more careful about whom he picks a fight with.

I agree that this is a little vague on how this is a loophole. Again, if you still think there is a bug, you must be EXPLICIT including exactly which demense effects cause the problem.



Shallach isn't loyal to Magnagora! Anyway, we are probably not going to change how enemy territories work so people should be warned that bashing there could open them to PK. Maybe some sort of more explicit warning is needed. Perhaps you should declare mobs who will cause you to enemy into a territory that would cause you to lose avenger protection.

Damn, you and I are always on such opposing schedules. I will review it again and respond after I get back.


As for the explicits. I have to get a few people willing to test it so I can try and get you the exact. And I totally understand how you would think defending a defender's defender's defender etc. should not happen. I think it is a quirk that sometimes happens though but it is hard to find the exact symptoms when in a heated battle.

Again I will reread this when I get back. And I will see if I can grab Shuyin, Nejii, Desi and a few others and test to try and find out where the problem seems to arise.

Another problem with the avenger system is that if you are in enemy territory and you are attacked by someone who has suspect on you, their suspect does not drop, meaning you are completely unable to defend yourself without getting vengeance and you have no choice but to run away.

This is not my experience. I had suspect on Thoros recently. He came into Serenwilde, I zapped him (no declare), and instantly lost suspect. (He didn't stick around to attack back, but if he'd wanted to, he could have.)

Personally I think it makes more sense to keep suspect, but not be stopped by it. I.e., I shouldn't've lost suspect on Thoros, but he should have been able to attack me while he stayed in Serenwilde in spite of that, without it affecting his suspect status for better or worse.

Agreed.

I believe I explained this one with my example of Krellan's Kingdom. My belief is that the cause for this bug is when both the attacker and defender are enemied to a territory. If you are enemied to a territory and anyone attacks you there, you can check PK DECLARATIONS and see that you have an automatic declaration against that person who attacked you. If two enemies are in enemy territory and one attacks the other, they both now have automatic PK declarations on the other. So if the fight moves out of enemy territory, they are now in neutral grounds but both having declared the other, death results in Status. The same applies if either one leaves the enemy territory but dies to bleeding in neutral ground, status is still gained.

I hope that is specific and detailed enough.



Are you required to DECLARE someone that you have status on as a bully to attack them? Or if you try to attack them without DECLARE first, will it still attack and then drop the status. I'm under the belief that you do have to DECLARE if you want to attack someone and drop their status, but I'm not always sure.