Webbing is actually just as good a counter to rushing as it is to quickening. I know, because I've been subject to many an entanglement-whore

I think a tiny bit of my plots board post appeared in a recent event. Thumbs up to what Eventru said.

On balance I think Lusternia is doing great. Sure, we have our quibbles on things, but that's (for many of us at least) because we see something wonderful with a few smudges. If you see an ugly mess, you don't worry about the smudges, but when it's a shining work of art, the smudges gnaw on you. And there are days when it seems the smudges conspire to line up end to end and make it hard to see the rest, but then there are those other days when the shininess shines through.

Plus of course it's always easier to remember to gripe than to remember to praise, as is often noted.

The nature of a thread like this is that it encourages us to bring up the gripes. Today I think it'd be better for me not to focus on them too much.

(Edit: I'd like to register a complaint about how many metaphors I just mixed. Eeep!)

Will take note with the domoth realms.

And I wasn't trying to imply that it was an invalid fear. I just feel that it is far too pervasive (and I'm sure not innocent of it myself). It's one thing for it to prevent you from trying to do something on a massive, epic scale, and it's another when it prevents you from wanting to do anything but the most minimal improvisation.

I think it is.

I didn't highlight the non-copied. They may not have the same exact name but they do pretty much the same thing.


* = skill directly from Survival in achaea.
** = Oh look, Veil, just like the Veil of the Sphinx in Achaea! Only 5p for 5min of not being able to be detected in any way shape or form. HMMM. Because 5min is not long enough to regain that 5p. No way in hell.



I'm sure there are a few more that I'm just not connecting...

I wish half of that was accurate. We don't get phase... yank is in Ninjakari, not stealth... Ghost does what now?...

I didn't say you had phase.

Even refuting those three, that still leaves several skills that are alike.

edit: Was also comparing ghostwalk to phase, though I have to admit that can be pretty far-fetched.

They don't have evade. that's 4

Look, I made the comment about it being unique based on my own, non-other IRE playing experiences. I played Achaea extremely briefly before I decided it had way too high of an obnoxious idiot quotient to enjoy.

So, to me, stealth seems unique within the context of Lusternia in that it allows for a new dimension of things to happen- all the sneakiness and spying. Harmony is just a blob of "meh" defenses and regeneration and such. Heck, they only ever use like two combinations in the whole skillset. Harmony utterly fails at being interesting, let alone unique.

Furthermore since stealth opens up that new dimension to the game, I don't think it's a good thing that a whole aspect of actions like that is limited to two organizations. I still say, let each side steal the knowledge of the other's teaching somehow and let all monks pick between harmony and stealth. That seems like the easiest and best way to solve it. Failing that, at least let the dimension of "sneakiness" be accessible to every organization in a meaningful way.

...and now that we've totally hijacked the thread, maybe this stuff should be split off?

Yes they do. Take another look.

edit: I will help you. It's the fourth ability down.

Regarding the scope of the meeting, it is my understanding that we'll discuss whatever is brought up by the players--though I hope we don't spend too much time talking about forging!

I think there's a lot of interesting posts here and will look forward to discussing whatever is brought up at the meeting.

One thing I'm rather shocked by is that someone suggested that domoths are not integregated into the world. Did you read HELP ASCENDANTS or the recent elder war histories that frequently refer to domotheon energies?

Domoth energies are cool.

their evade is our mislead *chin*

QFT.



If that's partially directed at the bashing imbalance comments, I have to disagree. Most MMORPG's have three categories they can be divided into, PvE, PvP, and Social. I think Lusternia is doing a great job on two of those, but failing very bad at PvE, which is a third of the game. PvE is very important, and certainly part of the "state" of the game. I don't think it should be discredited as being "significant, but not important enough for this." It is, and if we keep saying that it's never going to get fixed.

What exactly is bad about the PvE? We have plenty of areas to hunt in.

That's the one thing I've complimented about it, and they did a great job of fixing that problem it seems. Back around December of last year when I was playing, there wasn't anywhere. It's pretty nice now.

What's bad about the PvE is how horribly skewed it is towards warriors and monks. They have such a massive advantage, while other classes have a massive disadvantage. Except Bards, I think bard's bashing capabilities are a nice place to balance around. Either that or buff everyone up to the level of warriors.

Like I said, it's insanely frustrating when I start bashing somewhere, and a Warrior or a Monk comes through and cleans out all of my kills while I'm barely getting started. I wonder what the statistics would look like if you showed all the people who got Demigod as a warrior, guardian, druid, wiccan, and mage. (bards and monks are kinda new, that data might need to be excluded).

Aha, yeah, I see that.

Bard bashing was nice. I would love it if as a Celestine I could bash as well as I did as a bard, without the huge credit cost.

Instead of buffing everyone to warrior level, why not reduce warriors and monks to bard level and raise everyone else up to bard level as well? That would seem good to me.

I disagree I used to bash with a geomancer friend of mine. and he 9x out of 10 would kill things faster then I could via staff and his crits. Even though I was a higher level his crits would do way more damage and I think he did alot better then I did in the end.

As a wiccan w/o Nightkiss and a warrior with 280 speed weapons, I bash at around the same pace.

I think the warrior/monk inequality starts to show at around 90+, when crits are more frequent.

Well, I was going to do my best to avoid this thread and wait for the meeting but I guess I will air it out now, as I'm unsure if I'll be selected to go (teehee politics).

Before I do though, on a separate note, stealth is the combination of Predation and Subterfuge/Sabotage. Period. Subt's evade may be your mislead, but your evade is EXACTLY the same as Imperian evade. Your mask is just like an Idrasi mask. Your veil is just like Obfuscate. If you cut and paste some of the best items from both Sub and Pred, you magically get stealth. Darts and dart sheaths from predation function just like blowguns. Pindown is an extended length entangle used on proned opponents in predation. Handtalk -> Whispers. The ONLY thing that I can't get from combining predation and subterfuge is deepcover, face harvesting, and rushing (hyperactive lite) Geeeeee... No surprise there, really.

Anyway, on to the issues:

1. Forging: Obviously this is still a very great concern to us, the players who forge. It is a ridiculous amount of time and it 100% forces us to break the afk rule.

2. Group Combat Focus: Like other IRE games, Lusternia gives lip service to balancing around solo Omnitrans combat. Unlike other IRE games, Lusternia is obviously a group combat game. P-e-r-i-o-d. I can not stress this enough, this game is and will be about group combat. True enemy-list Area effects are KING in this type of thing, as are giant assist trains. I honestly believe Lusternia developing in a direction that balances specifically towards group combat would be more beneficial to the combatant playerbase at this point, because it is 90% of the combat that happens these days. I'm not blowing that out of proportion, it's just a bloody fact.

3. Lock-out Crowd Control (CC) is Too Strong: This is a basic PvP MMO fundamental. In all my years of playing and consulting, there is only one thing I have seen that frustrates people instantly to the point of quitting and that is dying while not having control of their character. In the early days of DAOC there was no diminishing returns/immunity timer on Mez/Stun, meaning whoever got the crowd CC off wins, because they could LOCK YOU OUT OF YOUR CHARACTER PERMANENTLY UNTIL YOU DIED. Similarly, before early stun nerfs in WoW, rogues could lock you out until you died at their leisure as well. Nothing is more frustrating than having no shot no matter how good you are. This includes all forms of balance locking, stun locking, paralysis locking (especially bad on lusternia due to discipline focus time but that discussion comes later), and equi-locking. Anything that you are UNABLE to cure that prevents you from taking defensive action is a limiter. A limiter needs diminishing returns and immunity. Getting pushed off-balance for over 30 seconds is absurd. Getting stunned and paralyzed to the point of never having a chance is absurd. Off-eq, same thing. Uncurable conditions are not the same as locks that are achieved by beating curing. These conditions are uncurable and create a sense of helplessness that frustrates players beyond belief.

4. Bashing Inequality: Exists. People shouldn't deny it. At low levels, sure, it's not very apparent because single attacks are stronger and about the same speed as multiple atacks. At 85+ you begin to realize that maximizing crit potential outweighs attack strength. This can sometimes change if the single attack is ridiculously stronger than the multiple attack (see Destruction bashing before aggressive tweak), but on the whole it favors multiples. Monk and warrior races also tend to be hardier and have more physical soak/dmp by virtue of being a "physical class". I'm of the opinion that there are a lot of mob progs that simply hit too hard post-dmp changes, as well.

5. Organizations Require too Many People for New Communities: The Nexus structure discourages rogues and the number of positions in a city are quite nice, however, having SO MANY OF THEM needed to run a city limits the ability to add new cities and create diversity. Look at what happens if you open Hallifax/Ackle/Gaudi/etc. A new source of conflict, but also you need 3x NumberOfGuilds in leader/admin/champ, Ministers, CL, and plenty of people to feed power to the Nexus. Let's be honest, Lusternia isn't sucking in 200 new players a year. No MUD is, MMO's have simply become too accessible to the common man. This means that new guilds and orgs are going to cannibalize population. I'm willing to bet quite a few established Glomdoring members would try a new city. Then what happens to Glomdoring? How about if primary combatants from the main orgs leave but their opponents don't? Massive face-crushing and demoralization ensues.

Conversely, we need more than four points of conflict, two of each being similarly aligned.

6. Lack of Actual Hunting Areas: I'm sorry, but there really is a lack of GOOD, high yield, exp per hour places to hunt. Especially considering that Astral and Muud disable your character after an extended time there. I can list about 15 areas off the top of my head in Imperian that ONLY support level 80+ hunters, and none of them give you uncurable stupidity. Personally, I hate Astral Insanity, it's another form of uncurable loss of character control that is only remedied by TIME. Frustrating.

7. No Miniskills: Environment, Discipline, Discernment, Magic, Resilience. None of these need to be full-cost skill trees. Especially considering your ability to cure paralysis and not get completely shut down by it is dependent on a full cost skill. Yet, combat is balanced around having them? Good grief. Before I pushed my Discipline up, I might as well have just walked away from my computer if someone started using mantakaya.

8. Cost of Entry to Combat is TOO MUCH: This has been reiterated a hundred times over. While people with Level 3 weapon artifacts aren't absolutely, ridiculously overpowered (level 3 glaive, level 3 sitara, level 3 broads, level 3 scims, level 3 cleric clubs, etc etc etc); you are required to spend nearly enough to have a 1600 cr artifact in just the skills needed to survive the onslaught of a player who has no artifacts. This ties in with 7 as well.

9. Planes Encourage Cubix Abuse: Unlike wings in other IRE games, Planar travel emphasizes the insanity of having a cubix. This should really be addressed insofar as kick and run raiding and constantly moving off Planes as someone literally has no chance to catch a player who warps between planes instantly.

10. Escape is Too Easy: This is pretty much an IRE thing in that players who really don't want to fight YOU, will tend to get away. No, I don't want something that disables them or something that instantly kills no matter what I do. What I do want, and I feel others do too, is that a person caught in a PK situation has to fight or can't flee forever, etc. Movement points, flee lag, etc are all used in Circle/Rom to limit fleeing. Bash makes flees unsuccessful. This doesn't mean every newb jumped on prime can never get away, but neither should someone just POOF every single time they get into a PK situation if they are opening themselves to the risk.

11. Defend/Declare: Is still abused and particularly not fun. I still advocate a flagging system. Killing an unflagged player gets you status. Attacking another player REGARDLESS OF WHO ATTACKED FIRST should signal that you are WILLING TO ENGAGE IN PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER COMBAT and thusly be open to attack without consequence. The current system is just asinine in that you get to watch people who declare get gang banged by people who defend. If Pharamon hits Jigan and Vathael hits Pharamon, Vathael is looking to PK. It doesn't matter if he defended, he is willingly engaging in PvP combat and should thusly be able to be engaged in return without consequence.

I have more, but I will save some of it for the meeting at least. If not selected I will surely post it here for your enjoyment.

Unique to my post is a list of hot, sassy, sexy things about Lusternia:

1. Dev Turn-around, IRE Best: Best communication, best development time turnaround. Bar none. Envoy system, new bug list system, etc. Much Kudos.

2. Deep Wounds: Pretty much the whole reason I fell in love with Lusternia. Another dimension to already-deep combat.

3. Communication: May have mentioned it earlier, but the immortals here keep the pipelines open and are actually listening.

4. Artifact Weapons Don't Cover up Terribads: I can't go buy an EQ circlet or a level 3 weapon and just flat out kill everyone. No 90% truenames, no hitting for 3/4 life and just pointing to the credits. Recently we hit some rocky damage water, but that got taken care of.

5. No Stock IRE Monks: Anyone who knows me, knows my loathing of Stock IRE monks. Hate.

6. The Imm Staff Cares: More than just on a budgetary level, I feel like the staff here cares about the health and growth of the mud as a whole, and that is a very good feeling.