At this point, I simply disagree that miniskills are a good idea for Lusternia. I'm pretty adamant about that, but am willing to discuss it at the meeting. As for "cost of entry", I don't believe the general skills should be considered as must-need or "required" for new players. With some exceptions, they should be considered the last skills to be acquired and are just icing on the cake rather than have-to-have.

I don't think they're that good an idea.... cause wouldn't it mean losing the abilities the skills have in them?

No, it doesn't mean that, and all those skills had trans abilities to boot. You don't even get anything for magic/resil.


What about combining them? Discernment/Discipline becomes Focus or something of the like. Environment/Riding becomes Outdoorsmanship, and Resilience/Magic become Hardiness.

Edit: And the point about cost of entry too high is that a game balanced around having omnitrans isn't balanced around not having them, thus the cost of combat entry is high. Galvanism, for example, is "icing on the cake" and includes a skill at trans that blocks the next electricity attack. Do you need it to not implode under maul/lightning in a grove? No, but it's tough to fight without it. Not having Resilience/Magic trans is just asking to get blown to pieces here.

I think the ones people are talking about are the ones that have very few (or no) abilities in it.

Discipline, Resilience, Magic, etc.

I always thought miniskills were cool in the other IRE's. I probably would have bought credits to trans Discipline way before now if it were only 150 credits to do so rather than 300. :\\

Edit: @Estarra: I just read what you posted about combining several other miniskills from other IRE's into one skill (Resilience). I just wanted to note that I did spend the credits to trans Resilience (it was worth it) but I don't think Discipline does enough or has enough in it to do that.

I understand what you're trying to do but we're not deviating from the skilltree: There should be one general skillset per skill pool.

Haven't read this whole thread, skimmed a few posts here and there. Anyway I like how lusternia currently operates to an extent, but there are a few things that other people have pointed that I would enjoy seeing. First being new communities, new guilds, more specializations, more content. And content that his been pre-tested to an exceptable state mind you, not released in a beta version for the players to work out over ensuing months (e.g monks). What content seems to be coming down to nowadays are events, new NPC zones, immortal-PC interaction, bugfixes, minor skill releases etc. All those things are fine but just once I would like to see something a little more drastic.

Personally, I would like to see more radical game-altering events that change the game itself. Something like this happened with Ayirdion, Shuyin, and the vernals and the domoths, and thats some great content thats really appealing, but it doesn't reach everyone. The undervault was a great bunch of content that everyone appreciated, and affected the RP of lots of people and I can say the game is better off and more interesting for it. More stuff like that. I cant give you exact ideas, maybe an immortal-controled PC seizes power and alters the RP of an organization, or gods start taking more drastic attitudes in mortal affairs, maybe an asteroid is on a collision course with the basin, whatever. I would like to see more content in that vein. Progressive ideas for a progressive game.

I liked Borca's ideas of making lusternia accessible and easy to play without having to dedicate an hour+ of time to it. Thats fundamentally both a strength and a weakness I guess. Sometimes I just want to check logs and my messages, and see how my shop is doing, but if I want to bash or pvp at all I'll have to defup, draw power, etc - that takes time. Too much time, some would say. I mean the amount of deffing and upkeep the best players go through is insane. Its a big hassle.

I'm more of a "casual" player now but I still have opinions on game balance. I'm saying it with many other people that monk bashing is a little funky (sure warrior bashing at higher levels is just as good if not arguably better, but nothing will beat a monk in terms of leveling speed levels 1-90) . Also I believe the price of combat viability should cost the same ammount dollar-wise for every class, but thats just me. I think Salvation and Xavius put it nicely. I also think Glomdoring needs some tweaks to help compete with the other orgs. I dont usually agree with Xavius but I found this to be pretty enlightening:



While I dont agree that WoW is the industry standard and its model that should be applied to IRE, I do agree that there are too many boundaries in place for new MUDers to get immersed. IRE has already done alot to close those boundaries, but at the end of the day, the game is still a MUD and some people just will not be able to come to grips with that fact. I think if IRE wants its playerbase expand and its pay-for-perks model to survive, they need to work on how MUDing is perceived in the gaming world, and try to get some legitimate respect through valid sources like gaming magazines, blogs, etc.

Anyway, thats me trying to be constructive. *shrug*

Maybe they don't go with Lusternia. But they go with players, and it'd be nice to have. Speaking as a player.

I think the major hurdle of accessibility is the simple fact you have to build your own combat system or buy one from someone who has done it in order to participate in any functional capacity. If IRE decided to build some client with keybindings and an auto curing system, it would go a long way to diminish that problem.


And if Miniskills are not a viable solution to abrogating the cost of combat entry what ARE other alternative you'd consider Estarra?

And I perfectly understand how to a certain extent I'm advocating butchering a source of credit/income to lusternia.

Let us all take a moment of silence as we wait for the great Sham to speak.

You can rectify that by not having skills such as focus body max out at trans, and instead of some other cool ability at trans. (like maybe decrease the mana cost of the skills)


Seriously, Keep Magic, Resilance and Discipline.


Add skills to the skillsets. Take the ability that you get at trans, and move that ability to master. Give added benefits to getting trans in those skillsets. (for example, maybe trans magic allows you to teleport faster, or resilance lets you need less food, or whatever)

This way you get your "miniskills" without ruining the integerity of Lusternia's design.

Not necessarily. For example, I was |-this-| close to buying credits for my alt, but then I added up everything I'd need to be minimally capable at existing in the combat world (things like shield parry, diagnose, reasonable amount of guild skills, etc), and I decided against it. So instead of spending $40 or $80 to get the basics for my character, I decided to spend $0 rather then spend money and still be nowhere close to approaching where I'd need to be. I can't possibly be the only one who has done that.

I have to say, I'm not sure why it's such a problem to make miniskills. Discipline, resilience, etc are practically -essential- for combat survival. They are in no way, shape or form "icing on the cake". This, in turn, makes the price of combat ridiculously high compared to other IREs and frankly it's not fair to the consumer. that's my 2 cents

I agree with this completely, I've had the same thought process.

Roark and I have just been discussing this and it doesn't appear that we are "ridiculously high" compared to other IRE games when you look at what is needed for combat survival between Lusternia and other realms. Maybe Discipline and Reslience are important for combat but what about Art or Influence or Dramatics or Aetherspace, etc.? We've counted up and contrasted Lusternia to other realms (again, in terms of what's needed for combat) and we may fall on the higher end of skills needed, but I think people are grossly exaggerating the situation with such statements.

That said, we are discussing the matter internally and, as I said, I don't mind discussing this at the meeting!

Resilience and Magic are not optional if damage is balanced around them. The game simply breaks if it isn't. Demigods and artifacted warriors and such are NOT uncommon. You simply can't skip Magic and Resilience.

If you won't make them miniskills, at least add abilities to them. Even if it's nothing but abilities that say things like "You know take less damage and shrug poisons", it makes it feel like you're getting something, instead of throwing credits into a black hole.

Combat, resilience, magic, discipline, planar (mainly conglut) all trans, fabled environment, one to three guildskills transed (let's go with guardians/wiccans for 3), and possibly discernment to something like fabled also depending on your class.

That's eight trans, two fabled. Now that is the high end of "low end" here, but that is pretty damn harsh.

I don't suppose they are worthless. But when it's widely held, that if you can't trans resilience, don't bother putting any lessons into it? That's what bothers me.

That makes no sense. Each resilience lesson is worth the same, no matter your skill level. There isn't any exponential growth, it's just a flat line.

Yeah, that would be a "common fallacy".

My opinion:

Skills needed for combat- Resilience, Magic, Combat, Discipline

Not necessary but really help- Environment, Discernment, Low/Highmagic, Planar

Resilience/Magic- Prevent you from being killed by hard-hitters. Still one of my biggest weaknesses to date.

Combat- Investment here varies by race. For me, with 10 dex, my Expert-rank Combat does squat, but I still need it to parry in the few occasions I can.

Discipline- Focus body time. Can go with Focus Mind, too, those are really all there is to it.

Helpfuls:

Environment- Tumble. That's it, really. With Lusternia being about group combat, tumble is the only way you're able to run out alive through all the spam.
*Edit: Chop, as unfortunately high as it is. Saplings > Illusions. If you're a mage without chop, good luck breaking any demesne.
*Also, Tracking is reliant on it. Ouch.

Discernment- Thirdeye and (for melders) Illusions. Hard to fight what you can't see, and if you have to go and break a mages meld on your own you're screwed without illusions.

Low/Highmagic- The starting buffs (Yellow, Netzach) are okay. You'll eventually run into the need of Green and Highmagic-equivalent. For people with access to Lowmagic that aren't warriors, you really need Serpent to survive group fights.

Planar- Conglutination. All there is to it. You don't conglute, your exp gets sucked down the drain, rezzing you becomes a pain in the arse. Mandatory Trans for most kinds of combat. I had to trans this before my guild skills.

This isn't even counting guild skills, which varies (wildly, often) between the archetypes.