I win and win in this situation: slivvens vanish, and I can eventually go fool around teleporting to random aetherships of enemy cities. Count me in!

Obviously that test of willpower defeated a lot of people because pre-aetherhunting xp craziness, I'm fairly sure there were only something like 10-20 demigods. So for the first 4.5 years or whatever it was, there was a total of 10-20 demigods, then aetherhunting became great, and we're up to 90 and a lot of Titans. Sounds like the old way was doing its job fine.

Also, the administration has demonstrated their intent to bring it in line with other hunting methods. When it finally got out how retarded the xp was, they nerfed it by 50% and introduced aetherwill. I remember the thread. Estarra was basically like, "I'm getting reports of lolwut xp, is this true?" Then a bunch of people who didn't want the gravy train to end posted a bunch of bull, and others said something more resembling the truth. Of course the players bitched/said something first, because they're the ones playing the game. The administration doesn't always see how people are employing mechanics on a day to day basis and sometimes can't always foresee how players will use things. If we went with using everything as it was when the administration first put it into the game, you'd be complaining about combat imbalances galore.

Implement => observe => improve => observe => repeat. They're trying to ratchet it down without making it useless, but because most things can be automated so easily, it's a hard job.

Really though, here's the deal. If getting demi isn't difficult by hunting normally and influencing, then why aren't you doing it? You're not because aetherhunting (until now, perhaps) was a lot easier and a lot faster. From the actions of the administration, I'm guessing they never intended it to greatly outpace other means of experience gain, and that's the bottom line. Whether or not you think faster xp gain isn't a big deal from a design point is really irrelevant. If the administration thought like you did, they would've never cut aetherspace xp by 50%, introduced aetherwill, and now introduced slivvens once they originally found out about how fast people were gaining.

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They added this change because of the many AFKers they found during their checks on double xp days, not because people complained about the xp gain. So blame the people that were caught afking.

I am in agreeance that some other resolve should be found for aetherhunting afk. Frankly it is unfair to the younger players that wish to try new experiences like aetherhunting..because it is near impossible for them to survive the new creature's attacks. A couple days ago I saw a level 85 person die to one of them. Either they should be like spawns in the since they are relatively easy to kill but will kill you if you are daydreaming-especially since everyone I know has seperate regular reflexes from their aetherhunting ones-which makes it entirely more difficult or should be done away with entirely and another solution found.

It was closer to 40, only 20 or so were active however. I will have to see if I have any of my old logs but there really has not been an out of control expansion in the demigod ranks. I stopped playing for around a year shortly after the initial boost to aetherspace exp (before any changes to the skill). I was ranked 40ish at the time (I had 6mil essence). When I came back I was ranked 80ish (no change in essence), and I am still near the bottom of the demigod ranks.

So yes demi-gods doubled in a year, but really there are many other factors involved in this beyond just aetherspace. Compared to the initial game release there are much larger and better stocked bashing grounds. You also have huge exp bonuses from achievements and other special events.

Fair enough. Though achievements weren't around when aether xp was silly.

I've only been out a few times since slivven but they were at best a mild annoyance unless we had like, 4-5 things shooting us at once. They don't do a lot of damage so you can just trigger to sip health and cure afflictions on their attacks and kill them without even unlocking. And they don't start multiplying until a module has taken a lot of damage.

We're talking about how getting Demi is a test of willpower, which immediately makes me think, "Why grind here if I could play WoW instead and have much more fun doing it?" PvE is not Lusternia's strong point. If I'm going to grind for hours and hours and hours, it needs to be fun. Could I automate it and use Lusternia as a glorified chat room while I'm gaining exp? Probably, but why bother?

What's the problem having a lot of Demis? Why is max level something that should be restricted to people who have the willpower to do sit through hours of boredom? I play Lusternia for the pvp, for the politics, for questing, for things it does wonderfully well. Why is hunting stuck being something that needs to be a test of willpower?

Get rid of afking aetherhunting, sure, but make leveling up something fun, not something tedious that most don't want to bother with.

Easier said than done. Slivven was their attempt at it.

And I'm glad this game isn't like WoW, thanks. If you like it better there, I'm not sure why you're not.

Because that costs money.

Dealing with AFKers via mechanics is... eh, at best. Any messages can be coded against, meaning it rather defeats the purpose of it all, and you're back at square one. Unless, of course, you make it so it takes multiple AFKers to deal with something - but again, you're back at square one and now it's just become dull, annoying work that no one will be interested in.

XP gain in WoW is better, but WoW does rather poorly in incorporating RP and other fun things along that line. Sylphas isn't saying WoW is better because XP gain is better, he's saying if he's playing purely for getting the top level, he'd rather play WoW because while you're levelling in WoW, sure you're grinding, but you're moving around, doing different things that are part of a story quest (most of the time).

Lusternia, and I suppose you can pop a few other IRE games here, just feels more alive than something like WoW.

WoW has its own charms. And it has RP servers. To each their own, etc, etc.

The IRE games seem less limiting then.

Well, I'd say the other players make Lusternia feel alive. Based on just the game itself, I'd say Wow does a pretty damn good job with some of it's quest chains getting you involved in the world and story.

The only sure way to deal with AFK people is by player interaction. This is covered in all other high end bashing areas as they are all open PK (I get jumped all the time even with a gem). In aetherspace you will basically never encounter another player, thus it is ripe for afk abuse.

A second way to limit AFK abuse is from complex systems. In theory you could code a system to automate aetherspace piloting but in practice it is just not worth the effort. The same is semi-true with normal bashing in that any auto system would need to move and deal with damage spikes and running out of cures and other things. So the ease of movement is made up for in other complexities.

So if you want to address AFK people in aetherspace you need to introduce players or make the system equally complex for all positions, while still keeping it as a worthwhile activity so it is used and players have an incentive to invest in the massive gold/credit sinks that aetherships are.

My two joke solutions did just this, the first made everyone a pilot, the second made everyone open to pk. Obviously neither would work but rather than just complaining about Slivvens it would probably be more productive to come up with solutions or tweaks.

Aetherspace is hard to balance though. You have players isolated from everyone else in the game. With access to unlimited enemies, and with wildly varied responsibilities ranging from the skill required in a pilot to the braindead scrip needed for a gunner. Honestly I do not think there will ever be a perfect fix and we will all just have to live with something that is "not terrible".

I'm more concerned with the fact that level 85 players have apparent difficulty handling slivvens (they do in fact hit for quite a bit in addition to, as I said, using room-wide aeon, room-wide damage attacks, healing themselves/leeching health, and giving afflictions), and that these new creatures (designed to do whatever it is they're designed to do) make aetherhunting an exercise in frustration. I don't particularly care about being a demigod "quickly" (if I did, Aoife wouldn't be level 85 at 90+ years of age), but prior to the existence of slivvens I found aetherhunting and related activities to be fun and, more than bashing and especially influencing, social.

I'm glad everyone read my entire comment and didn't just jump to "OMG HE SAID WOW."

Games shouldn't be tests of willpower, full stop. It's crappy game design to say "Hey, this sucks to do, but you'll be rewarded!" Things can be challenging and still be fun. Sitting at a screen pressing enter over and over (or having a script do it for me) isn't my idea of fun. Since I have absolutely no clue how'd you spice it up without fundamentally changing the way IRE games are made, cutting down the crazy grind is the other route to it. The only reason you make getting max level take forever is if you don't have anything left to do in your game afterward; Lusternia doesn't have that problem, so why make it so difficult?

I read your full statement. Mechanically how is grinding different in WoW? From what I remember from playing it was hit tab to target, hit 1, hit 2, hit 3. Dead. Repeat. The only thing that made it entertaining was the fact you had flashy graphics, but they get old after a bit, too. I'm just not seeing your point.

Sylphas is going on 180 and might hit 78 tonight because I have a 75% exp bonus. I'm not looking for quick demi, just demi that isn't soul-crushingly boring.