You're right that sometimes I am not positive and can give curt, short answers. I apologize if I offended anyone. I didn't mean to!

Before the conversation continues much more, I would just like to suggest that policy questions/answers not be answered close to midnight! It can't be good for anyone

That's actually the sense of "customer service" I'm aiming for. Not all businesses seek the formal, distant form of service, just because the more personal touch can be more effective. You have your formal area with email. But this is your main area of communication with your playerbase, where we need to see and interact with you / your team. This is where the players (on a large scale) get a sense of satisfaction with the way Lusternia is going-- the difference between knowing that the problems we're experiencing in-game (and let's face it, with any software product there are going to be problems! No programmer is perfect, or can be expected to be perfect) are known and are being examined (and/or why it's a lower priority), versus no response at all, is huge.

I'm advocating more communication, not restricted / formal communication. The more of it, the better, from my standpoint. And from the standpoint of many other Lusternians, I think.

Just so you understand that I can be sensitive, prickly, and bitchy! I can also sometimes be negative and give curt, short answers!

Gah, why do you even want me to post!

This may come as a complete and total shock to the playerbase, but I wasn't given the go-ahead to develop Lusternia based on my legendary customer service skills. (But I've been learning a lot along the way and I do try hard!)

Wellll... there is some other reason for suggesting you get someone to be a PR-rep, so you don't feel like you're being dragged out into the spotlight and you can have more fun with your responses. And not have to feel like you have to post when you're feeling such.

But even without that, it's better to have some discussion than none at all. At worst it tells us you've skimmed our concerns. At best, you've read them and put together a reply (or maybe even decided to discuss / change something).

I would much rather have than .

It seems that the issue is with the geo staff, not with the aqua staff (namely that the geo staff damage seems to be increasing when the opponent has more DMP rather than decreasing as it should).

I just want to get this off my chest since I think it is grossly unfair to characterize me as spending all my time closing topics I don't like. I rarely close topics and the only reason this one drew me was because the topic title specifically (and wrongly) called out Charune for a bug.

I don't see how that is possible (in fact, I'm sure it's not possible) that one attack increases an opponent's dmp. There may be something else going on (maybe a bugged defense?), but I think I can safely say that it has nothing to do with the attack.

but...we see that soft underbelly that loves to be scratched and cuddled

It's more that I wish you would be more present in threads with merit - it LOOKS like you spend your time giving out negative, curt responses when that's the most we see. I'm not trying to garner responses to topics relevant to my interest (really), but I'll yet again use the Improved Forging thread. It's been up for a month or so now, I think - it active responses, spitballed ideas, etc. We've set e-mails, complained to Admins, asked Envoys and nothing has happened.

I just wish that you could say to us 'we've got our eye on x' or 'we'll look at y' or 'what do you think z would do?' or 'we can't do a because it would really effect b' or 'changing c would make d useless'. Just simple things that are enlightening and would give us more to work with in the topics we brainstorm changes or fixes for ANYTHING in. Topics this would especially be helpful in would be things like conflict quests, domoth/Ascendancy system, bashing, trade skills, class to class mirroring, etc. Some of the aforementioned, you have been vocal on - and I'll applaud that, as it's more than Dranor ever does or did, or old Varian ever did either. You're miles ahead of them, but human nature (Especially customer humans) is incredibly demanding and even a simple 'we know this is a problem' would shut lots of us up.

Regarding forging, there's not much we can say except to give a relatively short answer: We know some players dislike how forgng currently works but aren't going to look at it at this time. Usually, when we give answers like that, players get more upset than if we say nothing (in my experience), but there you go.

This at least gives us something to work with, so I'm in no way upset. It also gives us a gauge of the way you prioritize it so we can perhaps know if you think it's not exactly a big issue.

Then again, I dropped the trade skill and when I did, I could swore a gospel choir sang the praises when I took up something much more easy and reliable.

Woah, woah, hold on a moment, I thought you guys said months ago that you were working on fixing forging but that it was hard and taking ages.

You didn't hear that from me. Charune may have said that he wants to look at forging in the future, but it isn't something that is currently being worked on. However, if or when forging is looked at, it most likely would be hard and take ages!

Sorry if there was any misunderstanding though.

Let me modify my response regarding forging, we DID say to the envoys that we would eventually do an internal review of forging. Unfortunately, we aren't at that point yet.

I woman after my own heart.

On and off topic (I'm confused at this point), I just like to say:

1) @Estarra: Thank you for the response. I do appreciated it. I can be a royal prick at times, and I'm aware that my tone has some supernatural quality of getting under people's skin. I suppose my awareness of this should in turn promote better disciple, but for what it's worth, if anyone can understand - I think it'd be you

2) I think DMP is messed up in a lot of ways. I'm not suggesting this in a philosophical manner, but rather, I don't think it's actually working as it was designed/coded to work with fire/frost potions, tailoring proofs, and armour (armour specifically when considering physical based non-warrior attacks).

Aquamancers have always had a higher damage output from their staff damage than Geomancers to offset the fact that we do not get a passive damage effect (read: rockslide). I believe it was Geb, as Aquamancer Envoy, who got the Aquamancer Staff damage changed from 100% heat, and the compromise to keep the staff on par with others was to make it stronger in deluge. At the moment, deluge is adding anywhere from an 8-15% boost to my staff depending on the target when it used to add a flat 25%.

And then the Geomancer staff is being all funky. It seems like the better protected you are to physical damage, the more damage it does.

=====+=====

I would like to additionally point out this is exactly why people say Imperial Merian's suck. Currently, Esano has roughly the same staff damage as I do with 15 intelligence when I have 22.

Interesting thread.

Maybe deluge doesn't do anything? Because 15 int + 50% (Raise Staff) =22. Yes, I know that doesn't mean anything. But consider that when Ceren staffs me for 2k+, he has a 18-19 int + raise staff. Could that be from the game considering his Int as 27ish, because of raise staff?