Free ripple and free flux thus answers your question. Destroy constructs more so you can bypass the passive movement and stun and maybe some fights will happen off plane. Fighting on prime just sucks all together because avenger gets in the way after status hits.

I remember when I started fighting with my Aetolian paladin, and when I'd get into a fight my hands would start shaking like crazy. I remember thinking to myself, "Damn it, this is absurd! It's a game!" It's been a long time since I've done that, but I also miss those days.

What's really funny is that the one time in my life I've actually had to defend myself (against two guys with a baseball bat) I had those same shakes from the moment I knew the fight was going to happen until the guy with the bat made his first (last) swing. It was the exact same feeling, and reflecting on it I have to admit how engrossed I was with combat in the game to give me those shakes.

Here's my two cents. Or four.

-We're balanced around omnitrans demigods, but the time investment to reach that point for most people is prohibitive. Personally, losing hours of tedious bashing so I can get beat up in combat just simply doesn't have any appeal to me at all. I don't think demigod would make me awesome, but I DO think that if it was more time accessible for the average person, they would be more likely to go get beat up, as it wouldn't feel as much like falling down on a treadmill. I know I certainly would be more interested in combat if that were the case.

-The "gravity" of super fighters/leaders. Thoros leaves mag, mag all but implodes. Shuyin goes Glom, and while Seren doesn't implode, the wannabe brigade files in after him, who, of course, to a person, have all been considering going glom forever but just now, conicidentally, decided to. (If my cynicism doesn't apply to you, super. I have no particular names in mind when I make such a statement.) If I ever go glom (or celest or mag, or hallifax, or whatever) I'll be blunt and honest about it, and it will sound something like this: "Everyone was doing it and I just wanted to be cool." Except for Jojobo. I'd go Jojobo out of .

The effect of this is, you can eventually wind up with severe combatant lopsidedness, while they all complain about how nobody wants to fight them, and all they can do is greef people who can barely defend themselves (and of course, have no interest in wasting their time being target practice for some dipshit's ego.)

-Crusading envoys. There's zealous representation, that I can understand. But some envoy reports seem to be like "My attack can be defended against. This is unacceptable, as even though I can win, it takes effort. This should not be. Please make it so I can destroy people with mass eq loss/passive entangles/power cure needed locks very quickly." I remember having a conversation with Geb where he talked about how if both people have really great curing and defenses, it comes down to long term strategy and general competence- but it seems like most changes try to push more towards "I mursh me ded alias hard and the person falls down. If they don't fall down, envoy buff me/nerf them. If they doo fall down, iz balance."

- The whole alliance thing is moot- it's all about the sum of individual players and who's forming into a mob with who. When Mag was on top, it was on top alone- but to me, that's not any more to it's credit than Celenwilde, because ultimately it's about number of real combatants and dedication of said combatants, regardless of where any of them are based. It is somewhat a matter of arithmatic. When this becomes lopsided in any given direction, it can be bad.

Yes but you're being completely redundant when you do it.

You have a problem with Ascendants, whether it's flawed is just a debate between you and them. There isn't an actual bug in that system.

You have a problem with Domoths, see above. I think they're too time consuming but it still isn't an incomplete system and it's not even dominated by one side to boot.

Monks are already under "special review", the more you mention it doesn't make it any more special or reviewed.

Weakenings have no bug. They could certainly be more useful but every idea on the subject so far goes into more demonlord/supernal crygrief garbage.

They should pay me to answer these, I'm sure that this is exactly what was coming.

forging

Point is, there isn't a pile of "buggy" crap aside from monks, really.

If you meant "bugs" you should have said bugs. You were talking about issues, and these are issues. Sure, forging too. Toss that right on the pile. It's far more than three, and that's just off the top of my head (one person).

Also: The strength/precision issue.

I put this very concept up for discussion at the Aetolia Town Hall Meeting and it got laughed out by the admin. Apparently afflictions = super! Given my experience in...3 IRE games now, I have to say that they have a rather perverse and inexplicable love for a deluge of affs, instead of, say, movement, cost/consequence, timing, etc in combat. I doubt I'll ever fully love IRE combat, and that's mostly because of that mindset. And the tiring headache that is keeping up with the bajillion new things that got added in with the latest "upgrade."

I missed like three pages at work and I'm not in the mood to respond to any of it but this part.

STOP UPGRADING CRAP. Every few months it's some massive change to Lusternia and lo and behold, we spend months jacking with it so it's not pissing everyone off. See:Monks, bards, beastmastery. Even the new skills are being envoyed already. Sometimes it feels like there is this hidden city called "Balancetopia" buried under a mountain of crap. We, the players, through the envoys and occasionally forums bitching/email/etc. are chipping through the mountainous crap with miniature shovels, and every now and again Estarra or whomever backs up a dumptruck and drops a brand new pile of crap, albeit shiny crap, on top of us.

I get it, this is a business, and new stuff makes money, but oh my god. We did not need beastmastery. Or monks. Or bards.

And for Desitrus: If I were not insta slept/stunned, the first thing I'd do is call out the choker, then tumble. They would drop like a rock. Hey, I might die too, but it's not any worse than being instaganked by a TP squad or chokemense or 1500 per combo stun train demi warrior or super ceren's pollute/staff/demesne, etc. etc. etc.

I think we did need Beastmastery, and there's nothing inherently wrong with new archetypes except the see-saw balance that the current system supports. You can't blame monks for the process that existed long before monks. You should've seen warrior "balancing" in the early parts of the beta. I still grin thinking about it.

I was a big fan of two hit assault behead that went through Serpent. /memory lane

I was a fan of Crow Squall throwing people out of their comfy little Serpent into guard piles.

I'm pretty sure Vathael can do that, anyway. Don't ask me how, though. Especially since he's a BC.

I don't think there's anything wrong with regularly updating Lusternia to have new stuff. It does make the game interesting to have a world that is constantly changing. I just think a bit more beta testing should be involved before it's released.

I do, however, wish they'd stop for a moment and look at already broken systems (FORGING) while they're at it and get them fixed.

Beastmastery has been nothing but a pain in the butt, and I can't see how lusternia is any better with beasts than it was without. The very idea that beast web ever existed makes my eye twitch.

There's a lot inherently wrong with monks. They have contributed nothing but headaches to everyone that isn't a monk since their conception. Two, TWO massive overhauls to monks, and the worst part...before momentum was released, everyone was saying "this is going to be ugly." Bards, if they were given all the attention monks have gotten, would be fine. They are unique in the sense that they provide a new play style and new afflictions. They have balance issues, but they aren't sever or unmanageable. Monks were given second hand everything with word vomit names. Bards can stay, but the time consuming void that is the monk archetype should have been burned at the stake a long time ago.

Absolutely we need new stuff. We needed new classes at SOME point. Just adding new areas alone makes the game stagnate eventually. Xavius nailed the balance thing too.

Useful new stuff. The stuff we recently got that really changes a lot concerning city/commune reliance is great. I can't say that about a lot of things, however.

edit: And if you have checked topguilds...ever...within the past year, it's kind of hard to say we "needed" new classes.

I'd like to see monks replaced with either true assassin, or true martial artist, guilds. The ninja crap is overdone.

Problem with that, of course, is that the other IRE games all already have these, and Lusternia wants to be different.

I, for one, have always wanted to see a swordmage archetype in an IRE game. Essentially a warrior who specializes in enchanting his weapons for specific (strong) effects that leave him weakened in another manner. If it was done the way I'd like to see it done, there would be different categories of magic (shadow, divine, elemental, poison) which all had specific strengths and weaknesses, and combat would be far less about the weapon than it was about the enchantments.

Earlier than that! First, warriors were a bit below average. Then warriors complained that all the defs in the game gave cutting/blunt resistance, so a ton of defs were moved to other damage types and they got a damage boost all at the same time and I started dying to one swing (not combo!) of Daevos' ur'Broadsword of Celestine Harvesting. Then they got put back to I swear the same place they were before and given more powerful wound affs. Warriors complained that they couldn't accomplish any of these, so they revamped the whole weapon thing and introduced precision. I think Glomdoring was out at that point, so we're pretty far into the game and still working on this issue. The free stat point realignment was some scary . These custom-made weapons then became standards for the entire warrior community and forging got out of hand. Anyone remember Ixion's old broadswords? Lol 3000 damage combos. Then they capped weapon stats. Then they redid def and stat weighting, mostly because of the highly stat-dependent warriors, plus a few ridiculous mage outliers. Then they capped weapon stats better and actually removed all pre-cap weapons. Then they introduced DMP. Then they redid stats again. Warrior balance is still questionable at this point, but for the first time ever, they're playing in the right ballpark.

Bards got a semblance of balance in much less time, but they only play with one number (health), and not health/wounds/speed. The track record is not good for anything that involves balancing multiple variables at the same time. Monks will be on the see-saw until 2011, which is going to suck both for monks (for probably having to relearn strategies every major patch, plus risking getting nerfed into the ground with each one) and for everyone else (for having to redo systems every major patch, plus risking monks still being massively powerful.)

EDIT: Not to rag only on warriors. Dwarf Moondancers were pretty hilarious for a while too.

I am not a non-combatant. I am an anti-combatant.

I have a paralyzing fear of being jumped while hunting, I have hidden or logged off when a cosmic/elemental raid was occurring, and I have gone to such lengths that I try not to anger Magnagoran or Glomdoring characters in any way. I've constrained the areas where I bash to the Nexus World of Celest, the Water Plane, and occasionally moose in the Razines and sharks in the Inner Sea; I've only been down to the Undervault once to bash cave fishers, and Astral three times to bash lobstrosities. I've paid 20k in fines to Magnagora and Fain with no intention of ever joining either organization (which is, from my observation, the main reason why org enemies pay fines when they would not do so otherwise). That may not seem like much when I've heard of players bringing in several hundred thousand in one session, but I acquire gold at a very slow rate: gathering 20k took me about five real days. I still derive some enjoyment from Lusternia, which is why I don't quit (I'm guessing some of you might suggest this to me after reading my post), but all of that enjoyment comes from just being sociable and involved with the Aquamancers. However, this irrational(?) avoidance of combat comes from a very long, admittedly very negative, history of experiences with Lusternian combat.

I wanted to go into detail about how I ended up in the state I am in today (a nearly reflexive avoidance of combat altogether, and hesitation to take part in non-violent conflict), but the post would end up being very, very long. I'm afraid that it would sound like whining, which is not what I want to convey. I'm also wondering what I could possibly say that another non-combatant hasn't already said. I'm at the point where I have no interest whatsoever in becoming a combatant anymore and I've burned most of my bridges that would help me take that route. I came into Lusternia not wanting to spend a single cent on credits at all, and that's not going to change... especially now, when I'm financially in a much worse place than I was when I started playing. And, to echo Noola:



I feel exactly the same way, and Shamarah's reassurances to Noola have not convinced me in the slightest.

I would love to be sport for you once I got my offense up and running, but...

- Lusternia has a mere four city states. This seems to make the 'clots' of PK-masters somewhat more concentrated, which means hellish vengeance for crossing them. Stacked on that are the alliances, which define themselves very strictly and result in two static forces. With all of the playerbase on one of these two (even just four would be bad) sides, the actions of an individual acting against one have overwhelming consequences. This somewhat appears to relegate non-consensual combat to raids.

- As someone mentioned before in this thread, players are teamed for jumping members of an enemy faction. After reading through some of the city and guild helpfiles, I have found that the organizations here encourage such counter-tactics.

In Imperian, a Lorekeeper squire (the last time I checked) is not supposed to call for help in one-on-one combat; it is dishonorable. A Diavlous soldier should NEVER flee from battle, cowardice is intolerable. Furthermore, some knight guilds there have "buddy-programs" where they assign young combatants to defend sister guild members/non-combatants, and require them to stand and fight to the death as escorts. Lusternia mechanics (the Avenger, city enemy-ing for using half the bashing grounds available), and roleplay (We're stalwart soldiers- oh, but you don't have to fight if you don't want to and can still be promoted, for writing books of all things)- appear to me to discourage conflict. The players are at fault for enemy-ing fighters so freely.

As a Kinsarmarian, I was open game to anyone outside Kinsarmarian territory, as long as they did not target me or my city mates consecutively. The wilderness is no man's land, you enter at your own risk. I think that to some degree, Lusternia could do with this attitude.

Of course, certain mechanics do encourage it to some degree, but then it's relegated to rare and dull, routine events like village uprisings.

The game could also do with some imagination. Ever started a war to claim new territory, even if there wasn't a mechanic for it, city leaders? Ever hold a banquet for your allies, then declare war because you felt insulted?



My assessments may not be accurate, but food for thought.

I used to do just fine before I was Demigod or Titan, the fact that I can kill you quickly means you've not really practiced as much as you need to. Anyone can go kill noobs and call it practice but you need to practice against the people that count. The amount of wounds/damage I do doesn't change from one target to the next, it's consistent unless you have weaknesses to elementals. That being said, your healing needs worked on and your offense needs worked on. Use your offense to hinder your opponent giving yourself time to heal. That's what knockdown is for, that's why I used hemiplegy and collapsenerve as a Blademaster. Without a solid offense and defense you can't really say you are doing the best you can do and I still steam roll you because that would then be a false statement.