Frankly combat has been an irritation for me. Due to being in college along with other stuff and a part-time job I dont see myself ever affording enough credits for a system in the future. Sure I can attack somewhat, but once I get an affliction or two i'm done. As for the whole skill investment thing I do agree it's damned hard to get the proper skills not to get lolowned by some random guy at the plex with a chip on his shoulder without a significant investment into trans skills. As for the whole hunting thing, i've been level 74 for.. a Couple months now. Having attempted to assist on raids only to get my face obliterated and losing all the hard-earned exp and going back to start or get knocked back a level. Astral is insane if you don't have a curing system it seems, two goats and you're done for. That's my two-cents on the matter.

But they're scum. Merians and guildfolk and kinsmen are the upper crust. Scum don't deserve anything. And tainted scum deserve to die. You have been judged wanting, thief! The holy light of Celestia will scourge the flesh from your bones! Though your frail mortal shell will not endure, repent and perhaps your soul, at least, shall be saved.

That's not entirely true. As a level 76 Bard I can stand my ground well enough against most opponents. I do agree that there are some out there, at the extremes who you do need to be above that threshold for, but in general you don't.

I figure I might as well share my story:

My days of combat began in post-autoclass Achaea, as an Occultist, purely manual. On Nexus. I was able to survive largely because of how overwhelming the class's offense was, but even then, as a measly Tsol'aa at 2600 health tops (I kid you not, I found bashing to be SO BORING unlike how it is today when I can trigger a faux autobasher that I never made it over level 70) I was nowhere near top-tier. (Did I mention I didn't have Aeon?)

I came to Lusternia, made a Warrior Serenguard during the time of the Seren-Celest war. I had no idea what I was doing, but I eventually left Serenguard and went to the Hartstone, where my interest in combat picked up full-swing. I learned how saplocking worked from Yini, that I should dump some lessons in Stag to get Stagstomp, that I should look into a way to time my demesne. So I did- on the forums, Shorlen gave me an autodemesner that I used up until recently when I switched to Moondancers.

So, I took some more initiative- I bought Zmud so the demesne timer would work. But I still had no system. Totally manual, with triggers to, I guess, stand when I get the generic 'you must be standing first' message, along with aliases. And then guess what happened? I got elected to Heir of Glinshari. Guild Champion in the middle of a war. My advice: don't be afraid. I was hardly level 80, I hardly had any gold, I don't think I was even trans anything at the time, but it was so unbelievably fun for me to hold melds during such massive chaos. If a warrior came at me it was 'run before they get off pinleg', which they usually did to my disappointment, but with everyone else I could usually escape with furrikin (yeah, I was furrikin druid) innate roll/tumble.

It's not until I dropped that character and made Alianna that a system eventually made its way into my hands through loads and loads of harvesting and herb-selling on my part. I was a Spiritsinger, this time, with Illusions. Just Illusions, no Glamours, because Glamours didn't exist back then. Yini (funny coincidence, she was GC here too!) noticed me taking an interest in combat, taught me what she knew, made me Protector. One day, the aftermaths of the war just caught up with her and she quit the game. I logged in to find myself maybe 50 credits richer, with her sincerest apologies and best wishes and recommendations that I take over Guardian of the Arrey Arrane. And so, without a system, I did.

I eventually did buy Palisade and, with the help of several donations (Anaria/s and Ista come to mind*) and hard work, transed Wildarrane and Ecology (still no Glamours). I became the world's first and last sleepwhore, back when Pixiedust was still in the game. I didn't do too badly. It went nowhere but up from there, to be honest, because I never stopped trying.

To clarify: I have no freaking clue how to code anything. At my best I trigger "You have recovered equilibrium." to "point cudgel @target". I have no artifacts aside from an artifact vial Rika gave me. I was also not always an Ascendant- I did a lot of my fighting before I even hit level 80. I didn't have trans Combat (now do), nor trans resilience (still don't), nor trans discipline (finally do after an IRL year).

Bottom line is, massive hurdles or not, you're not alone and it's certainly possible to learn and rough it with the best of them. Just don't stop trying.

*Edit: And Nejii/Aesyra both come to mind when they gasped 'What the hell do you mean you've gone all this time without thirdeye?!' and several other people I'm likely forgetting but still have my sincerest thanks.

Also, for those of you that just don't know where to start: Combat Rankings. They're generally regarded as useless in upper-tier, but it's a great way to find other people interested in learning combat so you can build off one another. Likewise, SPARWHO can help you find others to fight.

Okay, point conceded. My point was that in WoW/WAR/practically any other game with levels, it is assumed that the average player will get to max level, and combat proper starts at that point. There are hit and crit penalties in place that make it unfeasible to attack anyone about 5 levels over you, so it's not expected to be able to beat max level players until you're there yourself. You don't have that in Lusternia: you can fight anyone at any level, with the same set of DMP penalties applying. Thus it seems evident that you should be able to beat demis at 80, given the same level of skills and a better system: but you're still at a disadvantage as far as raw health, mana, ego and stats go. If there's one thing that's true in any online PK game, it's that people don't like to fight at a disadvantage.

Put it this way. If Demigod were as easily obtainable as 80 in WoW (1-2 months of casual play), and didn't require a mind numbing amount of bashing to achieve, do you think people would be content with fighting at 80-85?

I think that balancing out the level gap is -one- way of encouraging more combat.

Most players in IRE are not cut out for PvP. I know it doesn't seem profound, but when you look at the overall playerbase and their respective cognitive functions.. very few have the head for it, the mind for it, or just really the will for it.

This is why fighters are a more valuable commodity to communes/councils/cities/villages whatever the hell you want to call them in whatever game of IRE you play. IRE has a high cost ceiling, a heavy requirement of a time sink for some classes or for system building/tweaking/configuring, and some classes have a learning curve that very few people can really look at and say 'this is easy'. You do not need a PhD in Rocket Surgery to fight in Lusternia (or Imperian/Aetolia/Achaea), but very few people have the patience or the know-how to start learning or preparing. A lot of people who play have difficulty with stress, reading speeds, processing tons of information in split seconds, or making very very very quick decisions. All of these things are an obstacle to actually learning to fight. Not only this, but the sheer magnitude of information 'looks' daunting (it is not daunting at all, in reality).

Combat in IRE, depending on class, is either very linear or based on ever-shifting concepts. Some classes have to switch directions on the fly to eek out a win - this is another level that some people cannot reach.

Some people do not like losing EXP.

In the end, roll up all of these points and you get why the PK community in IRE is very hard to 'break in to'.

Not 1-on-1, but it sure is in group.

I'd also argue bards really need to be demigod to compete.

I would argue that level 80 is the bare minimum to compete within combat:

a. Hunger gone besides artificial inflation (skills that cause hunger)
b. Sleep gone besides artificial inflation (skills that cause sleep dep)
c. High health, mana, and ego
d. Several levels of evolution as Human

It is also the last time you get Neocredits (or is that 70?) - which are a good small boost of lessons unless you buy credits anyways.

I'm not, nor have I ever been much of a combatant, but I think it'd be nice to at least make a comment.

Essentially, I want to echo everything (And I do mean EVERYTHING) Furien said. Combat is hard, it's true. But I've found that if you show your older peers that you have the desire, they'll teach you all sorts of things that work even against stronger opponents. I admit that I gave up on combat for a while, but after killing a certain someone with egovice in group combat tonight (you know who you are) I've begun to think I might be missing out. Either way, I do still recall the days of going toe-to-toe with Iasmos in the arena, even as I was a good bit weaker and a lot less experienced than he was.

I think we sometimes get too caught up in this "best" mentality that gets pushed around. Combat can be fun without being Demi/transing everything/having artifacts if you let it be. I'm not great at it myself and never have been, but I still get a kick out of it.

Also...second post on the forums ever.

Hi guys.

Bang for buck. If I'm fighting as a class, I want the most effective, clear, and proven path to victory. I will gladly play an underdog spec, but even with an underdog spec, I will maximize every single portion of it to ensure I am that much closer to winning. The 'best' mentality is what makes people feel like their money is well spent. Combat is fun and you can have fun with it on any level - but I think being effective is more fun than losing or making futile attempts.

Yes, winning is MUCH more fun than losing about fifty times straight.

Ok, after doing some sparring I've realized a large reason of why I don't constantly spar to get better at fighting:

Sparring in the arena costs me power. If I'm fully deffed when I go in and I lose, I lose all of my defs. Sure, I can go back in and def up for free, but that doesn't help me when I'm ready to go off and do something else. I caught myself turning down a spar the other day simply because I was low on reserves.

So: Idea: when you leave the arena (win or lose) all of your defs are restored to you. This would be much more convenient for those of us still learning (and constantly losing) and also allow for less time between spars as neither person would have to def back up at the start of the next one.

This I support.

Also, Zaralesis come back and fight me. I just needed to defup before I could start.

I always wondered about that, actually- why do they make it that way? I go in to fight someone, I come out with 0 defenses and now I need to spend...40 more power to put them up? Again? Joyous day!

This comes up periodically. There are technical reasons why "restore all your defenses" isn't nearly as easy as you'd think, and isn't actually practical. Hajamin posted about this in some depth and I think Roark did once too.

but.... it already does.... if you win....

No, you just keep your defenses, because you didn't die.

I still don't buy the "because it's hard" argument, especially given my massive irritation over ignoring forging completely.

You reserve a spot in memory for an array of current defs and log them when anyone goes into the arena, then when they exit the arena you parse that array and grant the defs back. There's no way it could be impossibly hard, even with a hacky code job for how defenses work. It's still, at root, just a flag on the character namespace, right?