Here's another idea that seems so obvious that someone has probably thought of it before me: converting essence into personal power reserves?

Just tack on eq loss as well - like 5 seconds for every 1% converted at once.

And make it non-forceable, obviously.

Personally love the idea of a essence shop. Lots of people have mentioned pretty much everything im bout to say, but...The essence shop could be something like:

**Permanent after buying** --- These could be a couple or few million a piece since there permanent
Zap
Able to personalize zap message
Ability to Refresh Power
Ability to Refresh Me
Ability to DivineFire - Which in my opinion shouldnt be changed, I think its a great skill that isnt toooo overpowered. Maybe make the once a hour cooldown longer?
Able to customize shout message
Stat Modifiers - Buy one at a time, only able to buy one of each.
Maybe buy regeneration level one at a time, or just give demi's that upon reaching...not really sure.
Also like Shamarah's power idea, maybe another ability called channel or something that lets you *CHANNEL (AMOUNT) POWER and it sends like "You channel (amount) essence into your body, which surges with newfound power" -- Not sure what the price per power could be though.

Also think the ability to go to the Havens should come with reaching Demi, and if you would have to buy it, should be cheap.

**Last 24 hours of ONLINE time** --- Like a million essence per at most in my opinion.
I personally like the idea of being able to buy karma blessings with essence, but i think if that happens then it should be slightly better than the ones you buy with karma. Such as if life gives you 300 more health regularly, it should give you 400 if you buy it with essence.

And even though I HIGHLY doubt it would ever happen, someone mentioned being able to "rent" out artifacts for a essence cost...I like the idea, but know why the admins wouldnt. Maybe just make trade artifacts available or something? Or maybe the more RP type artifacts (dolls and such).

As far as the ascendant thing goes, I like the idea of increasing the price per to raise better than the upkeep cost thing suggested by the admin. But it shouldnt get too outrageous too quick. A org should be able to raise up to like three or four before it getting too out there to consider.

Also, when a city strips an ascendant i dont think they should lose the (vernal ascendant) part of there honours. They should remain ascendants and just lose the skillset with a 2/3 or 1/2 essence return for what they had invested. But they should keep the cult stuff (if they had a cult). Maybe even add like a major and minor aspect to them, such as Major Vernal Ascendant so that people know they have the combat skills, and then the stripped ones would be Minor Vernal Ascendant...Thats my two cents...which prob isnt worth two cents heh.

All I want to see, as mentioned previously, is the possibility of being allowed to Ascend as an RPer/PvEer rather than a PvPer. Even for the Ascension events, the last people to compete do so in PvP, don't they? :\\ It doesn't really seem fair that only PvPers get rewarded for that sort of thing.

Maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture and just complaining too much, and maybe I'm getting really off-topic. I just don't like feeling like my thoughts have gone completely unheard or ignored.

Oh, that odd comment about essence for bonded beasts oddly gave me a wee little idea - what about essence for item customizations? No, not resetting or permanentizing, but would that be too much to personalize things with essence?

Regardless of what the combat benefits are, as long as they exist, why would a city/commune that is playing to win (so to speak) ascend someone who is bad at PVP? What are you going to do, emote them to death? I don't think there's really anything that can be done about this.

Here's a rough idea on the direction we will most likely go in regards to the new demigod/ascendant system. I'm posting it here for information only. At this point, we're deciding things internally and aren't looking for a big discussion over our direction (so while you can give your opinion, don't expect us to engage in a debate to justify where we're going--if your opinion has merit, it will be quietly discussed among ourselves).

I will reiterate that we really do need more solid, specific ideas for actual skills and abilities! It certainly can be RP ideas! While we're not looking for OP pvp abilities, we won't be adverse to including a few pvp skills/abilities.

Avatars and Cults

• Ascendants can be made Avatars for free.
• Cults can be purchased and maintained for Avatars only

Cults will have the 'Veneration' skillset (which is mostly all the current cult powers).

Demipowers
Demigods and Ascendants can purchase demipowers at the cost of essence. At the time of purchase, they can select their demipower to be supernumerary (which is permanent unless specifically removed) or ephemeral (which lasts one game year).

Supernumerary Demipowers

• Demigods can have supernumerary demipowers of a weight of 5 or less.
• Ascendants can have supernumerary demipowers of a weight of 15 or less.
• Vernals (ex-ascendants) can have supernumerary demipowers of a weight of 10 or less.

Example: The Refresh Demipower will cost 15M essence to learn. At the time of learning, you can choose to make it either a supernumerary demipower in which case it is permanent (unless you forget it) or an ephemeral demipower in which case you will lose it in 15 RL days. If it is supernumerary, Refresh has a weight of 2 so you will be able to have additional permanent power(s) up to a weight of 3. Using Refresh (whether supernumerary or ephemeral) will cost essence.

Vernal Ascendant System

NOTE: The Ascendance skillset will be removed.

Raising costs:

• First Ascendant - 2M
• Second Ascendant - 2M
• Third Ascendant - 4M
• Fourth Ascendant - 8M
• Fifth Ascendant - 16M
• etc.

Special for orgs with current vernals--figure out how much power should have been raised and thus the org will "owe" that much power, i.e., if they have 5 vernals, they should have spent 32M power rather than 10M (thus the org owes 22M). They have one week to decide to strip vernals to reduce that cost. However many vernals they have after the week grace period will be what the org permanently owes. If an org owes power, they will be drained 50k power a day until the owed cost is paid.

Stripping:

• Vernal Ascendant status can be stripped
• All demipowers stripped

Ascendant Demipowers

These are powers only available to Ascendants. They work exactly like regular demipowers, they can be supernumerary or ephemeral. We are aiming for 9 ascendant powers, each relating to a domoth. True Ascendants will get the ascendant power relating to their domoth for free.

Ex-Vernal Ascendants

• Always have the word "vernal" as their race, i.e., vernal demigod, vernal faeling, etc.
• If a vernal demigod, has access to 10 supernumerary demipowers (instead of 5)
• Can maintain one (and only one) ascendant demipower (so long as they maintain demigodhood)

Well, at least I'm not gonna be stripped of all +demi stuff, I guess that's livable.

So... hang on. If you go from Demi to Vernal, serve for a while, and get stripped... you can kiss any demipowers you had before, and any you grinded out along the way, goodbye?

I mean, I guess that's good if you want a power reset, but it seems kinda crappy if you don't get to keep anything.

Sounds fine, as long as the RP/utility stuff is worth 0 points to make permanent.

Shortlist of stuff that includes (off the top of my head, so there's probably more):

-Custom shout
-shrink/expand
-stat bonuses
-ascend/seek

powers (and potential costs):

-Zap (1)
-Refresh (1? 2?)
-divinefire (2?)


Add more, but that seems like a good place to start. Am I understanding the idea correctly?

Also, what would this do to the extra-tradeskill idea?

I approve of this system heartily. It combines some of the best of the systems proposed by both immortal and mortal.

Granted, I ain't an Ascendant or anything..

I don't think demigods should lose any of their currents powers if they choose to use them. Sure, charge them essence to purchase their current powers, but make it possible for them to buy all the ones they currently have without having to drop any because of weights.

Estarra, do you have any timeframe planned for these implementation changes to occur? Sort of in the process of raising a Serenwilde Vernal...

Otherwise I relatively like the changes, depends on the number for essence costs that are decided on, of course.

Question: Demipowers, do they include the stat bonuses...?

I'm really surprised you're still going through and not putting it on hold.

I like it.

A question though:



This math doesn't make sense.

We'll take Glomdoring as an example, since we have 7 VA's, going by the math, we were supposed to pay 128 million power total, but since we've only technically paid 7 million, we will still owe 121 million, correct? Your example says 10M, but from what I understand, it seems you meant 5M, given that 5 ascendants right now = 5 million power total, 1M each, not 2M.

P.S. we're totally gonna have to chop :S

P.P.S. Oh god I did the math, no one's going to want to owe more than 2 VA's worth of power.

I'm gonna try to think of neat ascendant and cult powers when I feel inspired.

Oh also:



Will this count weighted in a TA's 15? Cause I'd like it to be 0 weight for us >_>, my own selfish request.

Otherwise I understand if it is.

:clueless:

She meant your VA election.

No one's going to be able to upkeep 50K power drain per day and somehow manage to build enough power to pay off the debt. It is mechanically impossible.

So that means everyone is going to have to trim in such a way as that they incur no debt at current, if I am not mistaken. No?

I, too, like the proposition, but the math doesn't work out for me either. Also, I know there will be a drain until the debt is paid off, but will the VA's we do keep still incur a drain on their own? I'm guessing not with the escalating price of new VA's made, but double checking doesn't hurt.

And yay, time to think up of more ideas. I also really, really, REALLY hope we can buy a second tradeslot.

I think the idea is that the majority of VAs are supposed to get trimmed away, with the concession that the EX-VAs will get extra... supernumeracy things. More than demi, less than ascendants.