Iunno about the rest of you, but once I loaded Treant and spent a day writing a targetting script, I was 'in' on combat. Not quite so sure where this 'huge' entrance gap is. I mean, I don't even have really high skills; just tri trans, and trans planar and discipline, and I didn't even get the trans discipline until quite recently. I've been mostly sparring warriors, but if I run into someone else, I'll just log the fight and go over it after I'm horribly deaded.

Tritrans, trans planar and trans discipline are high skills.

Transing five critical skills is by no means low. I'm neither trans planer nor discipline, for example.

Oh. That explains it I guess.

Now isn't that the whole problem? That if you want to fight and build your own system, you have to spend a small eternity on coding. Even if you learn how to code, you most likely don't want to. When learning to fight, you want the prework to be over and done with quickly so you can start practicing.

I enjoy the challenge of coding my own system, even if losing constantly as a result is very frustrating. In the end, I believe someone who has written their own system has a greater level of understanding regarding the workings of Lusternia.

Plus, my first couple of scripts took weeks to write because I didn't start out simply: I started by writing the entire foundation for my system. Most people will not start this way.

The way I see it, I think it's very frustrating to lose to people who are weaker than you, simply because they bought their system rather than putting in the work themselves.

I picked up LUA waaaay faster than I picked up zScript.

Treant also makes coding even easier, come across an aff you've never seen before add a trigger line that goes something along the lines of:

Blahblahblah

Click the regex button.

In the send box, change it to script and write affs:has("lulwhut") and Treant will cure it for you.

That's not to say some herb queues and other stuff don't need a bit of tweaking, but Treant is a lovely little system for those who don't want to make there own and is pretty easy to get to know, and learn how to tweak, took me about 10 hours total after switching. Wish I could figure out how to make it do more stuff during blackouts though.

Learning the layout of MUSH is a bigger pain in the ass, it was designed by people not used to thinking in terms of ease of use

EDIT: Herb queue tweaks which I'm about to learn I hope.

For me, the problem is - I only just get to play 10 hours a week - I don't like combat enough to spend all of that coding - I don't know how to code in MUSH so that would also be another couple of weeks spent learning.

Anyway, that's not my main problem. My problem is that I really like group combat. I like being able to just jump in and enjoy. I'm really bad at it, but I enjoy it. But because I don't have the skills, on either character (definitely not on Tacita, she's a squishy little ball of goo when it comes to combat) - and because group combat usually means coming up against the demisquad at some point - I just die and wonder why the hell I bother.

I'm aware that it's as much my defeatist attitude as issues with the game itself, but I enjoy other things more so don't see the point in wasting my time working towards something that I just like a bit now and then.

Eh.

If you're going to do combat, you're gonna have to put in the time and work. That's just how it is. You can't become an Olympic gold medalist overnight, etc etc.

Yes, because being a mud player who is good at text-combat and a gold medal olympian are totally in the same category.

That's Shujiro's way of making himself think he has won an Olympic gold medal.

Lusternia has its own special version of the olympics.

Apart from the obvious differences, the Olympics have the entire world as a pool. We have maybe 300 people at any given time.

I think my point was missed.

Even though I agree mudding is quite an achievement, like my multiple PHD's, bid for presidency come year 2020, my upcoming trip to Jupiter, and my numerous martial arts blackbelts.

But hey sure!

I read through the whole thread briefly and I think the following wasn't covered at all: the inversely proportional replies to any combat situation. It doesn't have to hold true in all situations but I have seen it happen few too many times to discard it. Using hypothetical names and organisations:

Shamarah jumps a Celestian on Prime in a neutral territory because he didn't like him. Celest cries bloody murder and chases Shamarah all over the Basin. They pk off any Magnagoran they find on their way to him too as revenge. If they don't catch him, they will likely raid Nil.

Shamarah goes to brew a storm on Celestia. Celest goes OMG and pounces on the lone Shamarah in a group of ten, including some Serenwilders. SHRINE powers go up, Celestia ripples, lets throw in a distort and Shamarah goes down.

Shamarah participates in a revolt against Celest! Enemy him to Eventru, Terentia, Celest, Celestines, Cantors, Paladins, etc etc and their uncle! He is now the evil embodied and must be chased down on any occassion!

Basically, one person/group does something minor and the reply is to utterly STOMP them and their whole org, if possible, into the ground. Reminds me of an argument I had with Romero like a month ago where he wanted to go raid Supernals as training and because we had the numbers, and I was tearing my hair out (I'd be tearing his hair out instead if I could) already seeing the Necromentate fall as a result (whether we did succeed or not). Because I knew it would be seen as: Ohhh, so Magnagora can handle it huh? They're attacking us huh? DIEEEEEEEE DEMON LORDS OVER AND OVER!!! And I knew that if at that moment we reversed back to having to raise the Necromentate a few times over AGAIN, even I would lose it and just throw my laptop out the window.

Scale. Your. Responses.

And stop using shrine powers for raids. Seriously. Stop. It's just beyond me to activate those for anything short of Avatar/Demon Lord/Supernal raids and somehow I do NOT remember them being used in the past so off-handily. Raise the essence cost to stupid levels if you have to to fix that but do it. Morgfyre was always telling me to use his shrines as I see fit but never did it cross my mind to hit the powers because Narsrim shows up.

Would love to, and I do. The trick is to scale your responses without being called a traitor, being disfavoured or kicked out.

Nobody has ever been called a traitor, disfavoured, or kicked out for not fighting or not going hardcore with retaliation.

It's amazing how on one hand we have Everiine complaining about getting disfavoured for scaling responses, and then on the other hand we have Vhaas complaining that we allow people to be promoted for doing cultural contributions instead of fighting. Misinformation keeps getting stated as fact, or even premises (I'll let you decide which is which...)

Nariah: relatedly, consider how often willing combatants get jumped in situations where they can fight back against their solo aggressor as compared to unwilling random midbies with the misfortune to get enemied getting ganked by teams or top-tier fighters while bashing in enemy territory. Some conflict is self-perpetuating and makes people want to give up, and some just makes people want to give up. (and then there's some that's neither, of course)

Ah good, I'll just assume then it was misinformation when I was specifically called a disgrace and a traitor (both words were used) for not wanting to gank up on an enemy in what I considered a "cheap shot". Not bitter about it, since it all worked out, just pointing out that it -does- happen, and that more often than not you are criticized for not being hardcore and ruthless.

Anyway, scaling responses and favouring for doing something besides fighting are not even related... trying to see how they are being compared.

Gotta love revisionist history and misinformation.

You were called that for not wanting to kill an enemy who was in the Serenwilde.

The circumstances of how he got in the Serenwilde are a moot point as it was his choice to enter the Serenwilde.