Group bashing needs to be encouraged more. Bashing is boring as hell, and doing it in groups is one of the few things that makes it a little bit entertaining. Lusternia is one of the only MMO's that I know that actually seems to discourage PvE in groups. It also discourages levelling any bit fast, which I find odd considering combat is now, more than ever, based on how demigod-like you are. Most PvP RPG's are like this, combat is balanced around the top level. But where other games like Guild Wars advertise how too much grinding isn't involved (cap level 20, you can even make a PvP only char starting at twenty), and other games like WoW try to get around the 'grind factor' by letting you hunt in large groups and giving you XP when you aren't playing the game, Lusternia seems to fully endorse the idea of grinding.

People don't like it. New players don't like. You already ask a lot out of people to really 'get into the game' with the massive amounts of credits required to be combat viable, or to even have interesting things to do with your character. I've tried to get a few of my RL friends to play, and there's this brick wall you hit when they find out they are either going to have to invest a ton of time, or a ton of money. Then compound that when they realize that level 100, something on the verge of being required, if it isn't already, is going to take many months of real time doing nothing but bashing.

Just my two cents anyway.

While I'm sympathetic to your two cents, there are people who enjoy bashing (i.e., a meditative exercise). Yes, we want to encourage group bashing and nothing has changed except in astral. You may not have realized that situation on the astral where there was absolutely no risk (no amount of tweaking xp in groups would have changed this) so standing around with a group of 10+ and basically turning on the xp faucet. I don't believe level 100 is "required" and I'd rather becoming demigod be something that is relatively hard to get. I suppose we could just make everyone a demigod who's been around for a year, but I don't know how wise that would be in the end.

Seriously? I wouldn't mind free demi for all. It's both more appealing to me than "spend a truly and honestly obscene amount of time bashing", or "try and get on the ground floor of the latest free XP ride before it gets nerfed." Though I understand why I need to type "t solifugid" eight billion or so times. Really!

Seriously though, since we do have to bash, I appreciate that we can do so solo. I dislike having to bash or quest in groups in order to be relatively competetive. One big reason I stuck with Lusternia is because I didn't have to rely on being in SUPERCLIQUE in order to get any decent equipment or even level.

...Yes, we should just give Demigod to every who's been here X number of years. Because that's the GREATEST IDEA EVER!
Please see included link. Not a Rickroll or porn, honestly.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/469806

I forgot the vaguely sarcastic/not really serious about this tags.

But, so did you! So you agree! woo!

Edit- but, hey, you know, I'd drop 3k+ credits on a "here's free demi" arti! The weeks of RL time I'd save would more than pay for it if I worked the hours instead.

If you give everyone Demigod I demand 25000 credits for wasted effort!

It would make demis a potentially viable choice for ascension cause then almost everyone you'd choose would be one.



I could see my manager being happy with all the over time I'd be working

I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't throwing my support against the changes done to astral, but I think that the way astral used to be was like a band aid on a problem we have. It was an unintentional fix.

Where so many other MMORPG's are trying to reduce the amount of grindage needed to be done to get your character to the top tier, Lusternia seems to move at every point to prevent anything that reduces it. The reason these other games are going this route is to be more mainstream and to bring in more players. It would seem like something Lusternia would really, really, want to do. The current method of investing obscene amounts of time (time that most people don't have), is very outdated. I can already tell you that if any IRE game were to be reviewed on a gaming website like IGN or Gamespot, they would all lose points because of the 'grindage requirement'.

Demigod may or may not be required yet, but it's on the verge of being so. More and more aspects of the game are being based around having obscene amounts of health (demi warrior), and some aspects of the game are basically unavailable unless you are at level 100, like claiming domoths for your org. And with the introduction of ascendency, it feels like everyone and their mom is a demigod now-a-days. There's been so many times that Celestia got raided by 4+ demigods, and while Celest had as many or more defenders available, you might as well kiss your butt good bye if you don't have any demigods. So it has already become a requirement in many group combat scenarios.

And, if you happened to read the balance article that Shiri posted a few weeks ago, you'd know how important it is for their not to be a 'god tier'.

I'm not sure how to fix this problem, astral bashing wasn't it, although it seemed to get the job done. I'm not just saying this from a balance standpoint either. I really love Lusternia as a game, but there are a few roadblocks I've hit whenever trying to get my friends to play. The first and most obvious one is that it is all in text, but that's actually extremely quickly overcame when they see the amount of depth offered. The second obstacle is that to be really good, you need a lot of credits. That's harder to get around, but when they realize that there are alternatives to spending a lot of money (becoming a guide, writing stories, drawing pictures), they're usually cool with it, and don't mind seem like they would mind dropping some initial money to get started.

There's just no good way to explain the time needed to reach the upper levels, when they can go play Guild Wars or WoW and be there so much faster, and enjoy the perks of having it.

I still want being a demi to be meaningful, but under a lot of circumstances, it's actually impossible to get. I don't know when, or if, I'll -ever- have the time. Maybe I could get it just through casual bashing over several real life years, but I may not even want to keep playing Lusternia at that point.

Making demigod much easier also requires a different threat than exp loss like guild wars' death penalty. I'm going to split this into a new thread though since it's been on Envoys long enough and it really deserves its own topic.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in normal MMOs, the "top level" is sort of the expected default, right? Like, everyone gets to it more or less predictably and quickly, and the game is basically designed around that level, with concerns before that level being dedicated to "how do people get to the top level".

If the "top level" becomes the default here, it would make sense if it were easier to get, without relying on anomalies like the recent astral bashing.

The xp loss threat is especially obnoxious as it is, moreso because it is not even a threat to established demis, so they can do impossibly suicidal things just to spite other people, and more or less walk away from it without real loss.

I mean, unless their essence is so low, and they are so griefy that they wind up drawing enough crap that they lose it. But still, much less of an impact on a demi than others.

I still say half the problem is Lusternia has a lot of low - mid level bashing mostly on Prime, but verylittle high level bashing on Prime, and most "casual bashers" don't want to risk their 2 - 3 hours of bashing to somebody ganking them on Astral. or in the Kephera/Illithoids/Muud.

So you have limited safe areas to actually bash for higher levels. Those limited areas are already over run with the brave few, and instead of looking at expansion of where to hunt for players, people complain they can't get experience fast enough.

I also note that most of those who do this complaining are doing the least amount of actual bashing to begin with.

Right, the fact death affects heavy bashers with plenty of time to spare the least, and victims who don't bash much the most, is pretty awkward.

This came up in the past, though, and the playerbase was strongly against it, leading to a balancing of rezz skills which came out much better than it was before (believe it or not). Someone should dig that up (I would before I sleep).

I don't really agree with that, since the xp penalty here is not so lenient that it makes getting to demigod any easier, especially if you don't have conglut. I think those of us with conglut often forget that it is a transcendent ability in a skill that is not a guild skill.



Do you think that being demi is more or less becoming the default for here? I think it is in a lot of situations.




Very good point. Not to mention that you get very little xp for killing a demi. So, not only does said person suffer very very little if they die, but the person who actually puts all of that work into killing a nearly divine being has nothing to show for it, BUT, if that demi beats the regular person, they suffer a lot. I have no idea why demis are worth amazing xp. The only thing I can figure out is that they are afraid people will game the system by a demi letting someone else kill them over and over for experience. But, that is basically the admin admitting that there is nothing to lose for demis who die.

And I agree with Gregori. There has always been a lack of hunting grounds in Lusternia. It's better than in the past, with several new additions like Quinotaurs to help ease the strain on upper-mid bashers, but it's still not very promising. Look at all of the bashing places Imperian has. It's ridiculous. Bashing was more fun there, not only because of Rings, but I could at least go somewhere new every time.

It also comes down to the high level bashing areas. Undervault and Astral. Astral has become VERY risky of late, and undervault, well here are the problems I've had with undervault...

Kephera and Illithoid... great experience, Illithoids are a little harder then Kephera, but Kephera are horribly spread out, so kind of makes up for it. They are also kind of fun because they are hard enough you have to pay attention, but 9 times out of 10 you will win if you do. Problem, both of them are watched like hawks by people who just want to be mean/pk for the sake of pk, so players who are not good at hiding, or fighting, are going to get ganked often enough that they may not benefit to much from it.

Tunnel trash... is VERY boring. The fishers hurt way to much for way to little gain, and everything else has to little challenge. 70 plus, as long as someone is sipping health, nothing but adoraths, fishers, and maybe the occasional lucky beetle, is going to kill anyone in the Undervault. Now the experience on tunnel trash reflects that, which makes me believe that tunnel trash is meant for people in the 60's. but then we need to explain fishers and adoraths which are more then capable of quickly wiping out the average 65 with little effort.

The thing tunnel trash has going for it is that there is always more. You can not bash it out, which is good.

I leave out muud because that has largely become Demi bashing it seems.

I also agree that 100 takes way to long in Lusternia. It makes since in the other games that it is so hard, but here where so much community activities require being able to take 2000 damage and consider it a flesh wound, or where some people are so well defended that you have to have the demigod stats to even make a dent, where as in the other games, 60 is the lowest level one is really capable of being good, with 70 and 80 being the average level of combatants in my experience. From what I saw of Imperian, Achaea, and Aetolia, it is a rare fighter who makes it to 100. Here, it has become a requirement for the fighter to get there.

The question is how to fix the problem without spitting in the faces of those who had and put the time in to get demi, or how do we bring the focus of combat back to the 70-80 range.

I think a little of both would work great.

First, increase the amount of experience earned by all mobs slightly. This makes bashing a little more rewarding. Change autumn from lasting X time to an on/off defense that slowly drains willpower. Allow for better sharing of experience in web-like or ring-like groups. Do not give them a private channel, they should be in the same room to cordinate bashing anyways, and tells would always work, but when the group kills things, experience should be (x+1/2x)y/x where x is the number of people in the group and y equals the amount of experience earned based on mean party level, and y is calculated by taking the mean level of the group, and applying it to the current experience chart. Then limit group size to four. So if Bob, 77, Sally, 92, and Joe, 60 go hunting together, the formula would look something like this: (3+1.5)y/3+4.5y/3 with Y being whatever the experience awarded to a some one of level 74. Bob and Sally end up making a lot less, but Joe gets a pretty big bonus. This allows for people to help or give boosts to their lower leveled friends, but means they have to give up their own gain to power level their buddy. But if you take a group of same, or close level people up with you, you actually end up getting more experience per individual then you otherwise would.

As to lowering the level of combat, reduce the amount of damage high level mobs are capable of dishing out, and put a health cap. No matter how high your constitution is, or how good your surge is, health can not exceed X amount.

So why then, are we trying to make it easier for even -more- of our players to get up there?




Health Caps would be harsh, since people will actually manage pure Damage-kills, Warriors especially (...and yes, Warriors still win the majority of thier fights, but they also recieve a new nerf every few weeks.), and as far as I've heard most everyone is against people being able to do that against other thier own level.

So, decrease the EXP of Mobs, lighten up the serious workload of hunting, organize the Prime hunting a bit more (to cut on the upper-hunting playerkilling) and then Demigod really will be the rarity that they should be.
Well, aside from our pile of oldbies that have it from thier past years of work.

@ Deschain. Well, you have a bit of a conflictual message going on, it's too hard to get Demi, yet we have a pile of them running around? Yeah, they are the ones dedicated to leveling, who have more freetime, and a scope of the newest OP EXP gains. And that gives them the advantage of... Doing more work than the rest of us. If anything, getting Demi is at about the right difficulty. The only surfacing problem, is that Lusternia is getting older, and the Demi's are finding little reason to -stop- being Demi's, and are beginning to show in numbers more than they have in past years.

I do agree on one point, though, killing a Demigod give almost no Xp, why? I understand the minimal loss on the Demi's part, you don't want someone losing thier hard work over a simple mistake, but why not give the other players a momumental gain for managing to take one down? Yeah, a demi could just let a friend beat them a few times to meta-game through the levels, but I'm sure someone could think of a system to protect from that sort of thing happening. It's beyond me on how, but there's defenitly wiser minds out there than mine.

While I understand and respect the majority of your points, the "endgames" involved aren't comparable. There is no other goal but max level in WoW, before max level. Rep grinds are anything if not just as hideous as the Demigod grind. Gear grind? Raid grind? Honor grind? If you want to look at a game where leveling grind is comparable check out any Korean MMO, they are wildly popular over there. Mostly due to the fact that Koreans play the majority of their time in Cafes, so the more "mindless grinding" a game involves, the better it is so that they can chat and grip+sip while they play.

Here, you can arguably play the game at level five. Try a roleplaying server in WoW... heh. Just remember that games who rush you to the end of leveling don't actually count leveling in their "content" very much. I sit in Geb's manse about 70% of the time I'm not fighting, just because there isn't really an "endgame" I can just go dick around in. I'm not constantly running heroics or bg's on some points system where I grind out "phat purpz", etc.

Anyway, like I said, mostly agree, but comparing those games to this leveling scheme isn't entirely fair.

@Morhgor: It has nothing to do with Demigod loss and everything to do with exp->essence conversion. Titans are worth piles of exp, but demigods aren't because of an equation.

...I realize that, it's just a side-note I thought of during my tangent.

The reason I suggest making it easier to get demi is because it is far far far to late to remove demigod as a requirement.

Unless we have a massive retirement of current Demi's and Ascendents.

And before we get into massive linguistic arguments, I never said demi being accessible to more of the player base is a bad thing.

People who have jobs and families that consume a lot of their time and attention should have the same opportunities as the average unmarried player as well. This of course is a very common debate now a days as the gamer community gets older and is forced to decide between family and games. We want to play games, but at the same time we have children, and or a spouse to take care of, and can no longer commit the attention the games demand to 'succeed.'

But when you make it possible but challenging for the casual player, it becomes far far to easy for the hardcore player. So a decision has to be made, and the gaming community is starting to realize there is more money in the casual gamers because, well there are a hell of a lot more of them out there. It is why Guild Wars is doing so well, and it is why Age of Conan has a lot of appeal. Neither are exactly casual friendly, but they do have a lot of things for a casual player. Sorry, guild wars PvP is very casual friendly. You can do well and compete in Guild Wars PVP logging on only once or twice a month for a couple of fights. I do it to this day, lot of fun every so often. Age of Conan, there is a lot you need to do in groups, but a lot you can do on your own. Of course in AoC I play a class capable of taking out four to five equal level critters with little to no effort when done right, so I might just be lucky in class choice there.

I do not mind leveling slower then the hardcore players, but from 81 to 90, I am looking at my schedule and calculating estimates, I am not going to be 90 until about this time next year, because half the time I am on, it is only going to be for a few moments, or I am designing something, or I am trying to find someone I want to bug while I am taking care of something else. I also enjoy roleplaying and hanging out with some of the other players, and so as a result bashing is not a priority to me, and I could take groups bashing, but that only results in dealing with someone dying, and a decreased experience gain for me meaning I am better off doing it alone, so it cuts into RP time.

That being said, IRE games are already very casual friendly if said casual as disposable income. Without that income though, casual gamers are almost completely blocked from anything but light hearted bashing, and roleplay.

I'm not even reading past Callia's first giant post because the majority of you people don't have a CLUE what you're talking about. You want the rewards without the effort. If you say Undervault tunnels are meant for level 60's you're a complete moron. I bashed nothing but Undervault tunnels from level 85-100, and I never stepped foot in the Illithoid Prison until I was level 96, and until you hit level 98 it's still ridiculously good experience.

There are PLENTY of places to bash in Lusternia, you just want places where you can sit and hide where you don't get killed. If you want the rewards you have to take risks.