So, yeah. This probably should be reviewed just a bit. Four Constructs dead in a fair bit under an hour, and they can't be raised for 30 RL days. The real issue is how long it takes to raise them again.

Would be nice if it took 7 days to get them back. Also give them an "invulnerability shield" for the 30-day period starting from when they die (so if they are raised immediately after the 7-days, they have 3 weeks of invulnerability. The longer you dally or don't raise them, the shorter the invulnerability time left). So this is some more encouragement to raise them immediately, despite the... nastiness that comes along.

And I am too tired and feeling a bit too griefer-y to discuss the combat aspect at present, so maybe someone else can. :/

What Xenthos said. All four would have not fallen if even one person had got into each construct, but this still seems like a bit much. 30 days is a -very- long time considering how reliant people have become on constructs.

Constructs are not necessary. People are just spoiled. 30 days without them is fine.

I agree about them being unnecessary, but the power loss suffered from their being destroyed is pretty huge. That, at least, should be limited in some fashion.

They lose power in drips and drabs during the attacks on the constructs by the colossi, but they don't lose those huge chunks when the constructs are destroyed. They will however need to spend power to rebuild them, if they rebuild them. If it works like the Night Altar - it's more than the amounts awarded for destroying them.

It works the same way.

These things are expensive.

Right, but they're not necessary. If we disabled a construct that let people sip health, then we'd need to change the time or whatever else.

The only thing that needs addressing, if any, is being able to drop them in one weakening (which personally, is a stretch to me anyway).

they did not defend them. Grace and teleport construct allow one or even 2 people to save constructs. Not hard. Basic commands for it are simple. Die, get grace, go in a construct. If you do not give the effort to defend, you don't deserve to have them. These things are perks that have been taken for granted too long. They are not necessities and never have been.

There's one that gives free immolations (which is generally mostly helpful to newbies). There are the ones that give free discretionaries (okay, fine, these ones should probably be destroyable for 7 RL days and not have any immunity so they can be re-destroyed right after). And there's the bigger construct that, again, generally helps lowbies more than established people. Though covens are very good for Glom, I guess.

They may not be necessary, but they make things a heck of a lot easier for people trying to get used to Lusternia (try to do the Collegium quests without Teleport Night, for example). Or having your phial to play with. Or getting penumbra as a little Harbinger trying to influence. And on, and on. This does end up making the things "necessary" to help the people you want to stick around enjoy the game. So you feel like you have to burn a huge chunk of power... which will then just get destroyed right after.

Observation!


People who express sympathy above also are people who have been part of an org during a period it lost a construct.

People who express none, lets face it, have never really been on the losing end.


Either way, I hid far away from the whole thing, so I can't really make judgement here.

Eh, just because comfort is wanted doesn't mean it's necessary. Ships have always been what newbies 'should' use to get to bubbles to get them familiar with aetherspace. Teleport night, bubblixes, etc just makes it easier. Phials are neat and help bashing, but it's certainly not as important as sipping health. Penumbra is also helpful but not having it certainly won't make it impossible to influence.

Comfort =/= Necessary

We'll probably just agree to disagree, though.

I'm guessing we're going to have to. I just find it a lot easier to overcome not having these things as an experienced player than most newbies do when they start playing, have these things, and then suddenly they're gone.

For 30 RL days.

I mean, I never had them for most of my game-time so I'm used to doing things without (my main use for the NightAltar is prodding you to give me a Gloomtide now and then, I avoid Penumbra), but it's a completely different story for the people we're trying to get hooked on Lusternia. And that is an enormous chunk of time.

We knew this would happen. We were told "constructs are not necessary, they are optional", but for many the advantages the constructs grant really are too good to lose.

Taking down a construct is something of an all or nothing proposition.

It's sometimes hard to coordinate enough people to go on one at a time you won't just get indefinitely stalled by defenders with demesnes and shrine effects all over the place. If you do, you then have to COMPLETELY clear the ground, drop your constructs and maybe a beacon (beacons aren't even usually that helpful because they dump you in a random, probably unsafe spot) and finish the thing off in one go - which is hard if someone actually defends it at all from inside (Xavius solo came into a weakening like 1/3 of the way through, and only lost to a colossus and 2 bombarders by like one minute). There is a cheesy way that stops them getting in, but it hasn't come up yet and you shouldn't have to rely on that anyway.

If you can't do it in one go, you then have to do it all again on the next 1-day period in like 4-6 days time or whatever it is, or it'll've healed back up to max.

So it's very much something you can only do if you're dominating people.

I'm in the 30 days is slightly too much camp, though.

EDIT: Incidentally, it would be a lot easier to stomach trying to make incremental damage on it if you couldn't heal constructs at all so your efforts over time would actually do something.

i can agree that 30 days is too much. I'd even be fine with 0 days. What I'm not fine with is grace periods. I'd even be fine with reconstruction immediately costing half cost. But the one thing I firmly disagree with, is sheltering people from this. No one's even ranted a storm yet. There's always a two to three big raids a real life year. That is a lot of time for a couple of significant raids to happen. But really, it is extremely easy to defend constructs. Make it so all citizens/members can operate or make it so people can be appointed to privs to operate. Have operating training sessions It is easy to make a colossus and train against your own. It is even easier to tell someone two to three syntaxes to alternate between.

Grace periods aren't necessary if the power cost is brought down significantly (such as 20k to build the Font, and 20k to the org that destroys it. 10k for the Discretionary construct(s). 5k for the Immolation constructs. And the power cost doesn't change over time). There should be a minimum 7-day window when it's un-rebuildable though-- which is, in the grand scheme of things, relatively minor. Work around it for 7 days + the rebuilding time, and it's still a large chunk of power on the table.

Just not 125,000.

Maybe a year.

I've been less active than usual lately, did glom lose it's constructs?

Serenglom took out all 4 of Celest's at like 5AM today. Even though none of them bothered defending, it's still a bit harsh to lose all of them for 30 days in addition to the gigantic wodges of power on either side.

This sounds more reasonable. Still worthwhile to the raiders, not quite as punishing as a whole IRL month. I think the issue was that in the beginning, it was so not worth it to the raiding parties that all the cool weakening battle stuff was grossly underutilized, so they lengthened it. An org's apathy should be punished, but there's nothing else in the game that punishes an entire org for so long.

And if I recall correctly (and I rarely do), collegiums and constructs came out within like a year of each other. Newbies having to get to bubbles (or equally dangerous planes) is really the big annoying thing that almost requires a construct power to finish their Planar quest (to how many newbies are Crumkindivia or Astral useful places?). I think cutting bubbles (aside from their nexus world) out of this requirement would make a lot of players feel like constructs are indeed "optional perks".