It's in Estarra's thread on this same subject, that this one was split from (the "too much griefing" thread).

It's no lie demigod is almost a requirement nowadays to survive in large scale group combat easily, but nowadays demigod doesn't require as much time as it once did to achieve. Even if you had minimal time to play, if you put some of the time you were around to bash you would get to demigod eventually and in good time. Squads + 8 person astral bashes is insane experience, and the way aetherbashing is nowadays everybody is getting demigod (the experience is still disgustingly awesome and the nerfs didn't have too much effect)

Would you play any game that required a hundred hours of work in order to have any ability to access its features?

What you're saying is fine for someone like me, who's been a top fighter in the past and might pick it up again someday. Or for someone like you, who lives by the sword so to speak. Anyone else, that's just a brick wall.

Edit: And remember, we're not even talking about survival ability yet. We're talking about the consequences of the inevitable multiple deaths that result in combat, and how they're very very high for people who don't have the cash to invest in trans Planar or who don't have Demigod yet, which includes pretty much everyone who is just joining the game and might be interested in staying for the combat but won't because they're massively gimped in every imaginable way.

Demigod doesn't take that much time anymore, really...if it did take hundreds of hours, imagine how many hours most people put into the game anyways, and most of those hours can be used to get closer to demi if they want it. If you're going to learn how to be good you might as well take the time to get demigod.

I don't think you're getting my point.



This, for example. As you said, it's no lie that Demigod is considered very nearly a necessity for someone to be any good in a fight.

Newbie: Hey cool, the fighting here looks pretty fun. What do I need to get into that?
Me: Oh, well, it depends on how serious you want to be.
Newbie: What do you mean?
Me: Well, if you want any real chance at ever being a top fighter, you're going to need about 2100 credits or so, and need to level to Demigod.
Newbie: Cool, how do I get credits and Demigod?
Me: You can get two thousand credits for about six hundred dollars, and Demigod depends on how serious you are about boring npc-bashing. Couple hundred hours of it, maybe less.
Newbie: rofl lame

Newbie QQ's.



I'd do the same exact thing, and I think you and pretty much everyone else in the universe would too. Ever notice how incredibly rare it is for a new top fighter to show up who hasn't been playing IRE for years?

I know, but it's the sad truth.

And you know, people talk a lot about reducing entry requirements, but I don't believe that's the real problem. I think the real problem is the massive difference between the potential of a noob and an artiwhore/demigod.

Obviously no one would play or pay if there weren't solid benefits to having more. It doesn't need to be so extreme, though.


Way back when, I remember getting myself into a duel against a Templar's falcon, and losing horribly. I was level 25 or so, and this was years before I ever bought credits. A few weeks later and I got up to level sixty or so and got in some practice, and while I still lost I was CAPABLE of giving the Templar a run for her money, even with the falcon.

Things like that are what made me such an avid fan of combat in IRE until recent years. So many times I made characters that were only blue belts in Tekura or somesuch, and just wtfpwned my way into notoriety, sometimes even transing out long after my reputation made people run from me at a moment's notice.


Great times, and completely impossible to recreate in Lusternia as is.

There are people who barely transed guild skills that gave fully artied "top tier" a run for their money. I believe that it's entirely possible in Lusternia though limited to certain guild and tertiary combinations.

Edit: Strictly 1 on 1 though. There is not much you can do if you have 3000 health and are the target of 8 people in a raid or defense.

And I gave omni-trans top-level fighters a good beating from time to time with characters that were usually around Gifted in their main guildskill.

Before I bought credits, before neo-credits, before the credit market. Before any of that, I actually managed to compete against top tier or at least top skill/level fighters with hardly more than my newbie lessons.

Granted, that was after I'd gotten very good at fighting, but the point is that I got that far because I wasn't so incredibly overpowered in every single confrontation I ever had that there didn't seem any point in trying anyway.

My experience in Lusternia has shown me even a level 79 human with trans resilience/guildskills can be one-shotted by a demigod warrior who didn't even have arti weapons at the time, if I remember right. If I were just getting into the game, and had put that much into becoming a one or one-two punch for someone else, I'd never log in again.

All this comes as a surprise to me because if I recall, you don't see the point of stacking herb cures in your offense. The only way people get good at offense in this game if they do not outright overpower targets is to understand curing, something most of the playerbase is lacking.

I can trans Druidry and dump 300 lessons wherever else I want and ostensibly 'kick butt'. The catch is that I'm going to be banking on my enemy's incompetence to realize that I have several weaknesses- such as no parrying or stancing, lack of a system perhaps, a 3 second paralysis cure time, no focus mind, no conglutination. Yada yada.

For your average newbie, the prospect of transing even one skill is daunting.

Of course not. I never fought here. I haven't been a serious or even mid-level fighter for several years now.

I participated in raid defense and made a half dozen forms for auto-kata Gahtirak'sho before I went inactive. That's pretty much it.

Edit: Wait, herb cures? Why would I give a crap about herb cures?

Combat isn't all that hard to get into. Most people don't know but I actually did the history/lore requirement of my guild first and actually went into combat for lolrp reasons that Luciphage says to perfect everything (and I 'beat' the history path). From there, I started summoning people who were around my might, 'noncoms' basically for what people would say. I would summon or teleport on prime and kill whoever I could get to or wouldn't run till I had 14 suspects, then I got a secret cheat code that got me invited into Jhagar. I did this without buying a single credit. I learned what I could off my crappy skills and killed as best as I could. Then I wrote bardics, an awesome thing which IRE does for people who don't buy credits but contribute something to the game. I also bought from every guild sale or city sale the game would throw at me. I even bought 100 credits or so off Desitrus once which he kindly let me pay him over time for. I have a character who isn't omnitrans but has about 8 or 9 trans skills and have spent about 700 creds on other arties. I didn't spend money. I played a game as much as I would play any other MMO. I think people who learn combat without the credit surge of just buying do far better because you slowly get one or two new moves to improve yourself at a time (probably not true since most combatants are credit whores but eh, I liked learning that way). Since you learn to function without them at first, you slowly build your aresnal and know how to use everything to your advantage. But bleh, this post actually made sense in a thread of lols. That sucks.

lol Nihilist guild reqs encouraging griefing, hax.

(I was actually reading that as Melville posting since I haven't slept in awhile, boy was I shocked at first. )

1) lolololol owned

2) There is no such thing as "off prime" if defenders are around. And there were, as I got reports of mags bitching and blaming eachother for not defending.

3) Karma is a filthy bitch, isn't it?

4)I'm pretty sure few people (if anyone) have bitched about "off hour" raids besides Romero. Actually, that wasn't even the original complaint (which was endless raids with no defenders, regardless of what the clock said/greatpent killing daughters as a "raid") You and some others just tried to turn it into that because that is what we (yes, we. mags love to act as if they have forgotten I know everything you guys have said in the past) used to bitch about.

5) 8+ mags waited until I left to attack glom guards at 4 in the morning central time. Amusing, as I also know where most of mags fighters live. Baww off hours bawww.

6) As others have pointed out, it wasn't even "off hours" if such a thing existed. Owned again.

edit: Consider yourself trolled.

Thread of lols? That's exactly how I got into combat, and I agree that it's the best way to learn to fight -well-.

Despite that, I would never do that in today's atmosphere, not in a game or game format that I was new to. Never, and I have a similar background.

That just makes you the freak example of the exception to every rule.

(Well done, by the way. Our kind rule )

Someone raided Water at 5:27 AM EST time.

That someone was Forestal and a Demigod.

Just saying, not making any judgements.

It's like.. 5:30pm his time. Should he wait til it's 5:30 am his time so it's suitable for you?

It's already been established by city players that you can't raid water/earth. There is nothing meaningful to raid there. Lords are just bashing mobs. So by this reasoning there was no raid. People can bash anytime they want.

Hey, maybe you can take the advice: ignore RP because, technically, you don't lose anything with Lords being killed. And yes, being Asian, I am cursed with lag and GMT+8.