Actually that makes me wonder, what happens if you lose a debate when you have forcefield up? Do you lose exp and get burnout still, since hitting 0 ego with forcefield counts as "dying"? It'd suck to agree to practice a debate with someone and end up getting destroyed by accident.

We will have to test this, because if so, it shouldn't be this way.

Not really.

And if you leave your psionic channels locked during a debate with a person or a mob and your ego hits zero, you'll still get burnout.
It's the person's fault for not being careful, and not being careful is you'd die/hit zero ego in the first place.

Being debated to 0 doesn't burnout the psionics user. I think it should, but (somehow) not make them lose exp. Granted, that's overkill so, perhaps this should burn them out if they have any channels locked only.

I ... don't think that's necessary. Burnout means forty-five minutes without using psionics. It's a very, very hefty loss.

45 minutes without psionics seems rather unnecessarily heavy, in general, to me.

Let's not forget about Healing burnout, too!

Healing burnout is pretty rare and not really doable by an attacker... debating out doesn't burnout that either.

And that's really a better solution than criticals or anything convoluted.

If it is felt that influencing is somehow too slow, then increase the raw gain from influencing.

But given that influencing is scads and scads easier than regular bashing, and esteem is generally more valuable than an equivalent corpse pile? I don't see why that's particulary necessary. Then again, I still don't understand why aetherbashing needs to be grossly better gain than the compensation given the actual risks involved in regular bashing. (Yes, I know the "someone spent a lot on the aethership" line. I simply don't buy it- at least not to nearly the extent that it seems to apply.)

I think the goal is to make it more interesting and maybe more challenging, not more profitable. Hence why my suggestions make it also harder, not just easier. You guys missed the point entirely.

You can make 100-150k in a few hours if you sell dust at the right place. Do it right, and aetherships certainly pay for themselves.

Aetherbashing is fine as it is. It was nerfed some, and I think it's fine. It does have some of the same risks as normal bashing, and in some cases is more dangerous, but the payoff is higher. I know that if I lag astral bashing, I'll be fine. If I lag piloting, we're screwed. Par for the course.

Because if it wasn't, why would you bother to aetherhunt?

Can people take damage when gusted into icewalls/stonewalls/doors? Not a lot, but at least some damage.

In Dwarf Fortress, if you fling somebody into an obstacle hard enough, it says they're 'blown to pieces'. I would approve this change if that were the deathsight line. Also, you need to scatter into you constituent body parts (two legs, two arms, one head, and... a torso? Corpse?)

If someone drops below the threshold for their section of the great hunt can they please be kept in that section. But someone can still be moved up into the next rankings.

Less of an idea, more of a request.
Could this hunt be monitored in some way? I know there were quite a few characters who intentionally died to stay in their rankings.

And one who died multiple times to be put in a lower bracket.

And what would stop them from dying a few times just before they level up?

Idea: No more ability to lose levels, instead you just go into debt. Titan (-358%). Have to get that to 0, and then to 100% after that to level up again!

Admin intervention. If someone is intentionally dying to stay in a bracket, then they'll be removed from the rankings with no chance to win credits.

This would be kind of cool.