I don't like the idea of combining severedspine and paralysis, it's like fracturedskull and stupidity, same type of affliction with different cures, severspine being a regen cure and paralysis being a focus cure, severspine plays a big part in nekotai combat and currently causes a loss of 2mo, which is huge, changing that to just be the same as paralysis would significantly change that skill.

I think it'd be easier to deal with if it gave a unique failure message, different from the paralysis fail-to-act message. Same deal with hemiplegy vs. broken arm. They're distinct, (usually) unmasked afflictions that are cured in distinct ways, but trying to code (or even manual) for them is a pain because they give the exact same failmessages.

Regarding shroud hiding shield dropping and cubix-type exits, there really isn't a mechanism to flag some actions "shroudable" and some actions not. I'm not sure how worthwhile it would be to create a whole new message system just for shrouds in order to pick and choose what actions should be shrouded and which ones are not. Thus, I'm leaning towards just allowing shroud to, well, continue to shroud actions as it was meant to.

You can either make melds smaller or not. I personally don't care as that's hardly going to change anything, if at all. Where you ought to be looking is at two specific skills: saplings and illusory terrain. Delete them, nerf them into dust, or change their function into something completely different. Demesnes are balanced only so long as they are contestable, and the sole function of these two skills is to undermine that. A tract of demesne you need to break to break the room where the action's at will take nearly twice as long to clear through if you have to chop/realitycheck every room as you go. That, along with the melder being able to spam these skills at the breakpoint itself to prevent a break, makes demesnes far more static and frustrating than they need to be. Very easy fix though, thankfully.

I didn't e-mail a report, and the reason is primarily because I expected the sort of response I got here. I simply don't have the time and energy to list all the possible ways in which I think things are overcomplicated, and if I don't, I get the "we don't know the etc" response.

Basically, I'm not suggesting that these afflictions be combined to make life simpler. I'm just pointing out several concrete examples (despite the ... in my post) of why Lusternia is three times more complicated than the other IRE games. Many of these afflictions and other hindering effects should never have been considered for addition in the first place. We just get carried away with the envoy reports, and everyone wants their own unique version of everything to avoid simply copying the other guy (and the other guy would just whine that you copied him, anyway).

I think afflictions that "generally do the same thing" should be combined into single afflictions. Those afflictions can then gain extra flavor text when they happen to seperate them on an RP level. (such as slit throat and crush windpipe... why not just call them "silence" ? Why not make "sap" and "aeon" and "choke" the same thing? Meaning, make both Aeon and Sap cured by the same mechanism, call the affliction "slowed". When the skill is used, you can say "you've been sapped and slowed" or "you've been aeoned and slowed" )

I think a helpfull way to think about this , is perhaps to think of "afflictions" as "non-linear states". A person is slowed, or silenced, or rightArmimpaired, or leftArmimpaired, or scared, or wrapped etc. When you think of "what state would this affliction put a person in?" instead of "What ailment does this person have?" perhaps it will simplfy combat just by the very nature of the question being asked.

Zarquan, do you still maintain an updated system? Maybe you can go through your system and find all the "outliers" and or redundant parts of code that you think were just silly that you had to actually program for those? Maybe coming up with a list of those triggers/events/conditions could make the situation more concrete for the admin?

(or anyone who's made a robust system that other people use could do the same thing)

That would completely ruin the skills and balance. If I could aeon instead of sap, I would never be able to kill anybody ever, I just have no way of keeping somebody stuck in aeon like I do sap. And I imagine that Moondancers or Tarot users with Sap would be incredibly, incredibly OP.

Obviously things would have to change. I thought I made that clear, sorry if I didn't.

I'm not sure why you didn't like the response--I was open to combining some of the things you mentioned!

Anyway, if you don't have the time or inclination to help us out, that's fair enough! This was meant to be a collaborative effort with the players who we were hoping would point out those issues they felt could help streamline combat (like combining ailments). As for the "etc.", we aren't mind readers! We really need to see exactly what is meant rather than leaving us guessing what the inferences are.

I don't think completely re-working the offense of some classes just to condense similar afflictions is at all worth it, or even close to the intention of this report.

Considering the only time I have been toaded is in groups, I would say my system handles you just fine. This doesn't change the fact that toadcursing is as simple as watching passives and then hitting the curse. Everyone knows this and denying it only makes you look stupid.

As for the "toad in groups" comment. Umm hello? Everything is easier in groups. If you couldn't toad in a group I would be worried.

Thank you, have a nice day.

Severedspine does have an iconic place in monk combat as one of the most expensive moves we possess for essentially paralysis that is cured via regeneration, which is what makes it so good since it is a hindering skill using a cure balance that has a long downtime. I personally wouldn't be against changing it to make it much more distinct from normal paralysis or giving it a new independant effect, but Sidd is right that changing it to a simple focus body cure would result in the total disuse of the 400 ka, 2 momentum strike. We already have normal paralysis in another form for much cheaper.

You know, axelords do have severspine as well.

Combining afflictions isn't really going to work in most of the cases where things are overcomplicated. This streamlining is so overdue that entire class strategies would have to be rewritten to work with a smaller set of afflictions and effects to really make this as streamlined as possible... and that's not going to ever happen.

How about simply making some of the more hindering afflictions a little less hindering and a little more synergistic, if that's possible? Maybe the ancillary balancing changes would be less in that case, maybe not. For example, having a pinned leg is ridiculously hindering, in my opinion. (Why is the only thing I can think about freeing my foot, when I can have a slit throat and open gut but still act more normally than this?) Nerfing the Pinleg ability might mean boosting or adding something else to compensate, but at least that one affliction wouldn't be so nasty.

And, yes, Crucify is key to a Necromancy offense... because it's just too good to be true!

The discussion above about making potions etc. cheaper will address part of the problem of equipping a character - the cost.

I think there is another part to the problem - knowing exactly what and how much equipment is necessary for combat.

Guild scrolls are good at listing what's needed but the bewildered newbie then has to manage ii, ir, potionlist, magiclist and probe to get the information. Then, they will need to have decent coding skills to record this in variables or scribble what they have/need down on a bit of paper. If someone is involving themself in out of arena combat (something we want to encourage) they will have to go through this process after every fight.

My suggestion is to allow guild tutors to go through players' inventories and tell them what they do not have. This would give newbies (and older players returning after an hiatus) an easy way of knowing what they need to buy.

I don't intend for this to replace the need for skills such as magiclist and potionlist. All the information that the guild tutor gives could be found out by someone with inept skills using ii, ir (ok they need rift in planar), probe and a lot of scripting.

"Running low" could correspond to < 25 sips/applications/charges and there would be a separate message for something not being there at all. This functionality is not usable in combat as it is only available in one location.

Having been crucified in CHAIN as a Glomdorite, 5 times in the same room in fact, and still escaping... Crucify is not as bad as many of you make it out to be. Yes I had to fight it, yes I have used it, and yes I dont have it now. Crucify has a specific place.

Again, change healingscroll, yes people will whine about how they need it to live but back in the day we didnt HAVE healing scroll and we did ok. Make it act like sparkleberry that heals the lowest thing the most for equilibrium.

Ceren has a good point that was well overlooked, pacifism and peace are very different and should remain indeed.

Afflictions that stop standing (iirc):
-Amputated
-Paralysis
-Entangles
-Asleep
-Stunned
-Unconcious
-Tendon
-Pinleg
-Crucify

Anorexia type effects:
-Anorexia
-Scarab
-Throatlock
-Homeostasis

Those are the ones I recall anyway.

Hope that helps esty

Please enlighten some of the rest of us then? Either the crucifiers were not following up properly, or you have better escape abilities than I have, or it's just a big secret that no one's told me.


You didn't enumerate all the things that prevent standing. Left out broken legs, mangled legs, impaled (any form), entanglement comes in several forms (entangled, roped, trussed, shackled, clamped, transfixed), severed spine, pierced leg...

They weren't following through properly, really.

Also, the pierced leg is just a % chance to fail at standing.

'Back in the day' is a god-awful reason to change something.

'Back in the day' didn't have all the changes that have been made since then. 'Back in the day', demi-god wasn't a requirement for competition at a high level. 'Back in the day', there weren't 50 demi-gods running around. There weren't all the people with arties running around. It's a stupid argument, and one that has no place here.

Unfortunately, a lot of the things suggested/argued against have had stupid reasoning anyway.