Barring a major overhaul of the end game, the primary reason for the PvE grind is PvP. Conversely, PvP does not offer PvP benefits.

As of yet, I'm not sure how to go about working the Vernal Title thing. I'm certainly thinking about it, though. Xenthos might have more ideas, or maybe Nejii- they've got far deeper investments in this than I do.

I see no reason to correlate the two, and honestly, forcing a player to go through the PvE grind for tools that look rather necessary to be competitive to the highest level of effectiveness seems counterproductive to the idea of 'fun' for most people. There is a reason popular MMOs have reduced the level of grind required to enter, compete, and be effective in all manners/activities of their game: most people hate grinding and don't really feel like they're spending their time well. By attaching specific tools to the 'end' of the road of PvE, you incentivize it for sure - but just adding incentives doesn't really make it feel like time well spent. I surely don't feel like I spend my time well in Lusternia by bashing or influencing - or when aetherspace was as easy as it used to be, sitting on a module letting triggers do most of the work.

If people insist on attaching such things that effect the power of their characters to a grind of 1-100, then the grind should be lessened to make those tools more accessible - as the game obviously takes them in to account for balance situations. Otherwise, the tools should be made less appealing/attractive/powerful, or should be removed entirely.

Ascendants need a penalty for dying with 0 essence (beyond having to wait longer to respawn). Some people were throwing around the idea of draining power from their nexus if they die with 0 essence, which I think is a good idea.

What you should do with fearaura is make it so that the forced movement of fear does not tick immediately upon being hit with it. (That is, currently if you get hit with fearaura while on balance you will run away immediately. It should be changed so that fearaura hits, and then there is a window of 2-3 seconds during which you can compose, and then if you still haven't composed fear will take effect as normal.)

Also I think you should reduce Demigod stat bonuses from +2 to +1, but that's just me.

I appreciate everyone has strong feelings about the "endgame" and how easily or hard it should be to get to and it's helpful to hear different opinions. However, more constructive is if we can get a list of suggestions (modify divinefire, etc.) and then we can go through and address each one.

Good ideas!

Titans already gets +1 so are you thinking they should get 0? Someone put forth an idea that demigods should pay for the extra +1 per stat in essence which lasts only X period (thus you keep have to refreshing your stat with essence costs). What about if its buff points rather than hard stat numbers?

Perhaps demigods could get a few points to spend on stats as they wish, no more than +1 (over Titan, I mean) to any single stat and not enough points to make it +1 to all stats. It'd be like +1 to half your stats, and you get to choose which.

All stats don't matter for most classes, though, so everyone would just choose con and their primary stat.

Better than dropping demigod stats yet again. They already went from +3 down to +2, and I think the stats are fine as they are. I'm against lowering the stats at all, but I figured I should offer up a counter-suggestion instead of just nixing it completely.

The divinefire is the biggest issue with demigods today, in my experience.

It kind of sucks, but I think people are going to need to adjust their RP's with this mechanic change. Everybody has been under the assumption that they could basically always be vernals but that may not be the case anymore and RP will need to be adjusted thusly.

I've also always thought that cults should be an Avatar thing instead of Ascendant. The cults that I know of offhand were all Avatars as well.

In terms of the essence shop, I figured it would expand on the customization of things, like the "emanating an aura of power" enter/exit message, ascending to havens message or what your divine fire looks like. Maybe even something like, quite literally an NPC shop, sort of like Trade Bob, that sells stuff for essence. And maybe some more utility buff/artis available for very large essence costs, like permanently reducing/removing the cost of tesseract from havens, allowing one to tesseract to aetherbubbles again, ability to destroy items like when they're put into a nexus.

Sojiro got Avatar, I got the cult.

Just FYI.

Can't make everybody happy. /shrug

What about the ability to grant Karma blessings with essence instead of Karma (for yourself and others).

Maintaining one blessing might cost 1000 essence per hour, maintaining two might cost 2500 essence per hour, three might cost 5000, maintaining four might cost 10,000, maintaining 6 might cost 25,000. 7 50,000, 8 100,000, etc.

Numbers might need to be tweaked upwards a bit, but there's a continual ongoing drain of essence right there, that you could use for yourself and your friends, bypassing the whole karma requirement.

You might buy the ability to give a certain type of blessing from the Essence Shop for a large chunk of essence to begin with, too, so you'd have to do it 9x to be able to give all 9. If that's the case the upkeep numbers should probably not be excessively high, though-- remember that this would be a substitute for karma. Without having to go to the Seals.

Edit: I said Domoth blessings, obviously meant Karma blessings. Sorry!

Edit edit: This isn't so much my idea of a "replacement" or "compensation" for losing VA, but... discussing some kind of an essence shop and things we could use, that have continual costs, which would be for all Demi+s.

Demigod Stats do make a big difference it, +2 added to your base is pretty significant when the max you can add to any stat is +5 from your base

Aegis is strong because you typically can't really damage out a demi/ascendant, but aegis does nothing for instakills, if you want to break an aegis, instakill the person that is aegised. I don't remember the last time I died to damage within a big group ( I've been ganked and pinlegged/waned/locked before) but in big groups, I don't typically die to damage, I die to deathsong,chasm,heartburst etc. This being the case, Aegis isn't too ridiculous

Fearaura - Sham's idea is good, I think it's been brought up before, maybe increase time between tics or something, I don't think it's too overly ridiculous, if you can learn to move back into the room you got feared out of. People will complain about instas etc but there are ways around that (lusting, barrier, blocking,walls, etc)



I find it funny that people are bashing us VA's who feel like we've earned it (which I do btw, you can debate if I earned it or not yourself, but I think I've earned it). An org voted for me to be raised, and I've done all I can to see Glomdoring succeed. Believe it or not, I contributed. That being said, I agree that limiting the # of Vernals is a good idea, no one here has really argued against that, they've just argued against the method that was presented and presented other ideas. I think that's the idea behind these threads, is to get player input, so input I am giving, don't bash me for that.

Also, I'd gladly give up Fearaura and aegis to keep VA, the combat aspects I don't think are as significant as people make them out to be.

I thought I might add my two cents. I have not played long enough to where this issue personally affects me, but might this work?

1. Make VA's temporary. That is, once ascended, you will stay ascended for some duration. When the time is up, you will be returned to whichever level you were at before the ascension, or you can be raised again. Maybe an essence to experience conversion for when VA is stripped?

2. Scale the power cost for ascendance according to the number of existing VA's at your org. Maybe this cost could also be prorated based on the level of the ascendee.

3. Make VA's more combat-oriented, and make Demi's more RP-oriented. Note: VA's could still have Demi-level RP functionality.

4. Maybe allow current VA's to keep Demigod level and some portion of their essence.



So, comments, death threats, etc?

Also, a quick question. My understanding is that there are several essence sinks already in place: Domoths, the Demi skills, death, the Ascendence skills, and cults. Am I missing any? Not saying that there are enough, I just wanted a comprehensive list, if possible.

Yeah, I honestly don't see aegis as a significant problem. If someone's aegised you can kill the aegiser (can and do all the time), or instakill the aegised person. Aegis' main thing is hunting, in which it is really nice I will admit.

I thought demi/titan simply raised the base racial stats and didn't count against that or for buff weights. Was I wrong?

Some things to consider (from a roleplay aspect).

True Ascendants are raised through an original domoth, ie life, death, nature, etc. Vernal Ascendants are raised through a nexus domoth - pool of stars, etc.

It would arguably make sense that a variety of ascendant things are dependent upon their domoth - be it life, death, Pool of Stars, Ravenwood, nature, etc etc etc. (Edit: This may be as simple as flavour messages, or something towards skill effects - let the ideas flow! Simple is good, but just because an idea isn't doable at face value, it doesn't mean it is worthless).

I always thought it was weird that VAs reformed in the Domoth Realm instead of the Manifestation of * (like, the Manifestation of the Ravenwood for a Glom VA).

Sure it might make for lonelier reforms when you can't chat with the enemy Ascendant as you both reform, but whatever. It has been something that I've wondered about for a bit.

I read earlier that a specific replacement for fearaura would need to be death-themed, soo:

Personal enemies that die in the same room as someone with the ability active decay immediately. The power of the Death Domoth accelerates their decay and, unless conglutination/rebirth/vitae/lich/phoenix fires they must pray or reform normally regardless of other circumstances.