I'm not understanding the relevance. But anyway, some demigods are trans Ascendancy and some arn't Some are vernals and some arn't, all of varying strengths.

A person who is level 20 gains the same amount of xp from killing someone as a person who is level 80 does, yet they lose varying amounts of XP.

Plus when you have the essence shop, the reward won't be the same either.

How are you not understanding the relevance? A level 80 has a -huge- amount of extra health over the level 20 (that level 20 is going to die in seconds having no health). A level 80 is, therefore, more difficult to kill and is worth more experience.

A Demigod with 1 essence is exactly the same difficulty as a Demigod with 100,000,000 essence. It doesn't add or do anything, there is no health / mana / ego bonus for it.

And the reward shop is a way to burn off excess essence, yes. With that, you really don't need a percentage curve, heh. If done with repurchasables, at least.

You can't really nerfstick griefing considering it's a conflict driven mud.

The issue system acts to deter people, Avenger acts to deter people, player policing should factor into the equation, but you can't do what you're wanting to do without either A-drastically reducing your cash flow due to the people who play for PvP getting pissy and QQing, or B-turning Lusternia into a hand-holding spectacular.

I think we're leaning more towards B.

This is an accurate prediction. If you want to prevent players from leaving, there are specific decisions you can make.

Also, Aion and the economy are two factors you cannot change.

Have you looked at the "levels" of people who have gone less active because of raiding? I mean I see some logs floating about here and there and see a "combat" ready level some LONG distance away, it's more than just the leveling.

Also for people bashing mobs twice their intended level you also need to consider how much credit investment has been in those characters. Someone who has spent an extra $20 dollars could end up quite a few levels "ahead" of their level's power curve depending on which skills they have unlocked converting to lessons. We're also talking about as time goes on that there's more of a chance of the game cannibalizing from another IRE game or it being someone's alt, which in both cases means they'd buy credits earlier than a first time player(IE: players of time past). Raising the level would be something that will only hurt your first time players(IE: me).

Of course during a heavy conflict you're also less likely to play an alt I'd imagine.
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Also worth noting that I'm mostly clueless and a first time MUD player

Well, I'm just saying. This is an IRE mud first and foremost, which means that idiots will grief the people who are here for roleplay/crafting/politics/whatever else people do on IRE muds (lol).

Lusternia is one of the most deeply (in my opinion) set up Player versus Player environments IRE has, skillwise and conflict-mechanic wise. The problem with this is that the people who take part in the conflict-mechanics of Lusternia are opening themselves up to PvP from the PvPers. So with every new fun mechanic you add to the mix, you also add in reasons for people to get ganked.

You mentioned raiding, and that all these raids are poorly influencing player perception, in turn, players are dropping out. You've already made Prime PvP a quasi-complicated feat with the Avenger. I'm not sure the exact specifics of the whole 'raiding makes people sad' business, and I'm going against my base nature to say this, but instituting some method of safe-rooming for City/Communes might help keep people safe.

Again, like I said above, between Avenger and Issues you really have done all you can do to prevent griefing. Make sure that Issues are used for what they should be used for, and are handled in a timely fashion and with proper punishments. It comes down to player policing and player attitude, because right now you're about level on the teeter-totter of conflict, people are going to whine about anything they think they can get away with.

Actually, this is in many cases, quite the opposite, with heavy combat causing players in the beaten org to alt about to be able to relieve the frustration of being sh*tted on.

Xenthos stop Xenthos'ing. You can't raid all day at 500k and keep demigod under 10 million. You have 20 deaths. People under 10 million typically don't like to bash, that's why they're under 10 million. Either you use a percentage to even out the playing field and create risk or you don't solve any problems at all. You say the risk increases with no reward increase but the issue now is that the risk is zero and the reward is easily higher than zero. So, you increase risk.

Because the amount of XP you lose has nothing to do with how much health you have. A tae'dae does not lose more xp than a merian. It's based on your level and how much experience you have. Demigods get that exerpience converted into essence, so its then based on how much essence you have. You don't lose more experience just becase you have more artifacts either.
You are also forgetting that a person loses experience when they die to mobs, which get 0 reward for their kill against you.

But you are increasing the risk unequally. Which is my point. Even if you don't like bashing it is a heck of a lot easier to recover from a smaller amount, so... the risk is extremely skewed with absolutely no difference in the reward. And yes, you have "20 deaths"-- each one of which takes a fraction of the time to recover from and get back to where you were.

Actually, supposedly IRE mobs get stronger the more people they kill, heh. And, what? Levels are the base indication of how difficult a person is to kill. Race plays some factors, but a tae'dae has very weak mana and thus dies to mana kills easier, etc. Higher level == more reward == stronger person == more experience lost on death (and more from killing them).

Essence does nothing of the sort. It's a completely different beast.

I agree with Xenthos. If we assume 1 million essence takes an hour to bash back, why should one level 100 person have to bash 5 hours to recover from a death for a 5 million essence loss and another level 100 person only have to bash 30 min. for a 500k loss? That punishes the people that have put time into the game doing non-raiding activities (because no one has gained that much essence from pk).

Why not scale it to number of times you've died in enemy territory in the past, say, week? This way people who don't raid much/at all don't get punished as much as those who do, even if they have more essence.

Each time you die in enemy territory, one point is added to a counter. After a week, it poofs.

Each time you die in enemy territory, you lose 500k + .5% of your max for each 'point' you have (yes, that's point five, not five, percent). Having an extended time period (possibly longer than a week?) would mean that it's less "I got my three deaths done today! I'll be back in twenty-four hours."

Numbers can be adjusted as necessary, of course.

If I could be bothered with the time, I could bring numerous examples where some peolple are more powerfull than other people but the xp loss is not relevant to thier compared power.

Trans skills vs no skills, artifacts vs no artifacts, high collective stats vs low collective stats, specialized race vs unspecialized race. Combatant with experience vs influencer with no combat experience.

None of these things are any indication of XPgain or xp loss. The ONLY factor in how much xp you gain or lose is how much xp you currently have.

Are you absolutely sure it is based on how much experience you have, and not your level? If that's the case, a level 99.99 person should be worth far, far more experience than a level 99.0 person. Also, a level 98.99% person would be worth essentially the same as a level 99.00% person. If, however, it is based on levels (and differentials in strength), the two 99s would be worth the same, and a lot more than the 98.

Other things are buffs, sure, but the very base underlying thing is level. Such as people getting told, "Don't even try to get involved in PK until level 80," because before that, no matter how many artifacts and skills you have you're a paper bag. Possibly even after that, but if you don't have the underlying levels to support them, you're not going to survive. That's just how it is, here.

I still absolutely and totally disagree that I should have to bash for 7 hours should I raid, whereas Ethelon gets to bash for 1 hour. Seriously, which of us do you really want to be discouraging from raiding? The person who hunts and doesn't really attack much, or a constant raider?

I hope this is just a for instance because it takes me something like 10 times that long.

That is just a "for instance" Certain forms of hunting can make it much faster, but they have time limits and number requirements.

Just to let you know where I'm at, I'm thinking of implementing two things through this discussion:

1. Lower cost of nexus guardians in half and double the time they last (i.e., 200 power for 2 days). I really want to see these used more and thinking about upgrading them with more powers, I think I'd like to see what simply making them cheaper will do.

2. If a demigod/ascendant dies in enemy territory, they lose 500k essence or 5% total essence, whichever is greater--however, I'm thinking of maxing that out at 2M essence.

1 seems fine.

2 appears unreasonable. The purpose for attaining demigod is to be powerful enough to PvP. This is a strong disincentive for demigods to engage in raids, forcing them to do more bashing. Some will view this as a waste of time.

With my stated (established) bias as a non-combatant.

But, do what you want.