To take a page out of the Terror Aspect Book in Imperian, make it so all enemies who have been slain by those bearing the abilities of the Death Domoth cannot be resurrected by most means. I'd let those with better judgment here pick what exactly that ability would go through, etc.

That's just a griefing tool waiting to be abused and complained about. I liked the idea of teleporting to a dead cult member (i.e., soul), though.

I think that's interesting, Rodngar, personally. There'd be some exceptions, though, such as probably avatar rezz, or resurrection in sacraments (though it'd require a sacrifice). Life is, after all, considered the opposition of death.

(And the reason a Fearaura replacement would need a 'death' theme is because it comes from the Death domoth. All ascendance rituals all are linked to a domoth, or most are, and they receive some minor bonus when the caster also possesses said domoth.)

Hm. In fact, you could make Ascendants (well, VAs) more tied to those manifestations. Now that Constructs are gone, those aetherbubbles are pretty much... well, not all that useful, eh?

Could give VAs things to do in these areas, like raising a personal shrine (not one that corpses / esteem can be offered at, but... well, other things could be done). A bit short on ideas atm, but hey. There are entire un-used aetherbubbles out there just screaming for a use!

Sorry, aetherbubbles are reserved for future expansions. (I'll leave it to you to wonder!)

Please no.

I do like Iasmos' idea, though, to let you teleport to a dead cult member. Would be helpful for rescuing bodies, would give cults some more utility effects, while at the same time taking away one of the OP skills Ascendants have.

LUSTERNIA: WRATH OF THE DOMOTH KING.

On a serious note though, if you make the Death Domoth do what I suggested, it would gain a situational use - and then maybe you could adapt another Ascendancy skill to be the polar opposite or bring somebody back from the dead whose soul has been marked by that specific power. Is the Life one any good? I'm mostly just throwing out the ideas here. Keep in mind that my real solution would be to do away with combat-related Ascendant powers entirely, but that is not a viable suggestion so I'm just working with what I have.

I can see that the idea, however, would be a problem: if it stopped, say, Lich, or Conglut, that would be a pain in the ass. But then, what DOES it stop?

EDIT: I prefer Iasmos' idea over my own.

Life should let you restore a soul to life, for essence.



(Yes, I realize that would trod on Avatar Rez, heh. But Avatar Rez can be done from anywhere, could make this require that you be in the same room as the soul?)

Also, I know it won't happen as it would further interfere with the soul-rez amulet, but hey. Eventru did say to bring up whatever.

This is a list of the abilities I would think 'combat-oriented', or at least 'majorly combat-influential'. I'm going to try and address each of these (mainly Ascendance) in a manner that would make it more palatable to raise a roleplayer for roleplay reasons under the new system. Feel free to chime in with suggestions, alterations, disagreements, etc.

DEMIGOD:
- Divinefire (1/day)
- Refresh Me/Power (1/day)
- +1 regeneration
- Shrink/Expand
- +1/2 racial to all stats
- Ascend to the Havens
- Zap
- Divinefire

AVATAR:
- Exalt/Wrath Aura

ASCENDANT:
- FearAura
- Destruction
- Affinity
- Benevolence?
- Aegis


Divinefire is being discussed. I don't think refresh is that major an issue, at least for group combat, but others (especially those who focus on slow attrition) might think differently. Regeneration is available through various other means, so I'm not sure if that's all that important either. Shrink/expand got a definite nerf when size was made to not affect summon resist. The stats are being discussed. Ascend is a fairly nice escape skill, but most people we're talking about have access to others (ie cubix/orgbix, that aren't blocked by a monolith and are only hindered by distort). Zap ... ? On its own, not a threat, only reaches combat levels in large groups.

Being able to Ascend only a VA would pretty much remove the "VA is powerful because Demigod is powerful" aspect, and just leave VA's stuff, which I discuss below.

Exalt/wrath aura ... I'll leave that for others to discuss. From what I've seen, it can make a difference when it tips the scale one way or the other, but most large fights are either so unbalanced it makes no difference, or both side have them available and they effectively cancel each other out.

FearAura could definitely do with a nerf, and I say that as someone who uses it frequently these days. While you say you can "just walk back in", that's not always an easy option - area movement hindering such as demesne, gravity, or aggressive mobs can all make this difficult. Those who aren't familiar with the area might not even know which way to go.

Someone was throwing around the idea for teleporting to a dead cult member, but if you're divorcing cults and VA it might be more useful to make it teleporting to a dead citizen. Could also be resurrection, but that seems more like a life-based skill (we're not going to make it undeath like Urlach granted, after all). The teleportation would be less useful in PvP as the corpse is normally gone by then after all. I don't think it's likely that people will try and use souls as scouts which the Ascendant can teleport to, especially if you make it not bring entourage. More likely to be used to grab the corpse of someone who recently died while bashing in a distant place (such as UV) or even just difficult to get to (Shallamurine, TBC, etc.). Of course, that would be more useful if we still had free immolation ....

Destruction is rarely useful in PvP, as the damage type (100% fire) is one of the most easily resisted.

Affinity ... the 5dmp isn't what I'm concerned with so much as the slowing breaking of demesne, which can make a big difference. Remove that, or perhaps replace it with a message to the Ascendant about feeling the land changing or some such, and it'll only have a negligible impact on PvP.

Benevolence ... I don't know how much of a problem it is. People brought it up earlier as a small group of VAs being able to support a larger group of demigods with impunity, but the essence still has to be earnt and such. If anything, it seems more useful to have this on someone who bashes but doesn't really raid.

Aegis? It can make a big difference in combat, but it's highly situational - useful for protecting a weaker but crucial member, such as a low-level melder, by effectively giving them the health pool of someone else, plus the sipping and such. Not sure how to keep its usefulness for PvE while reducing its usefulness of PvP - perhaps make it drain mana as well as health? Not stop when you hit 0 mana, but at that point you're wrack/absolve/toad/bleedbait in PvP while fairly OK in PvE. If the aegiser isn't with the aegisee, chances are the aegisee is separated from the main group anyway. It could also always drain aegisee mana as well.

Aegis IS useful, but not game-breaking, most often used to protect melders, sure, but it's easy enough to pull off an insta on the aegiser if you've got a big enough group to be killing the melder anyway.

Only had it used on me once from what I remember (By Sidd), had no idea I had it untill he died and was like 'OMG WHY DO I SUDDENLY ONLY HAVE 500 HEALTH?!), scareh, point is killing the aegiser can be like two birds with one stone, too, so it does have its weaknesses.

Edit: I thought this was the other thread!

Maybe just nerf the stats, or the powers, or cap HP etc. gain at level 90 or something.

This is similar in a way to what ToP is doing with Divine orders and priests, they have a basic skill that a god type can modify slightly to suit their role play.

It would be quite nice as true ascendants could end up slightly unique from each other, unless people keep winning with the same seals.

I also would like to see cults looked at, originally they were separate from elder gods and could have feasibly become mini-orders representative of their org which could have allowed for org based group abilities. Personally I would have rathered a sort of... permanent-coven/hematurgy hybrid minus actual combat application. Depending on the actions required you could extend these actions into a longer ritual even if the actions required are just...

chant odik sota kelo izuto elnur nusa
paint etpod on with blood of

EDIT: tl;dr version

Divorce Cults from Gods - Another original intention of the system that players wanted chaged because vernals did not want to have to give up their place in their orders. Plus just imagine if Elostian created a cult with a Celest Vernal way back when.

Improve Cults - Right now they're... a group the ascendant can use certain powers on, it would be more interesting if they could perform services for their org.

Cults were never, and it has always said never will be, separate from orders.

Some people said that was what they wanted, and the administration was quite adamant against it.

Not actually true, when first envisioned / discussed they were separate from Orders.

That was the main reason for the arguments against it, because we had already gotten used to / enjoyed the idea.

Still not sure why cults are tied to Ascendence and not Avatar, though.

Because Ascendants are a higher level of 'quasi-divinity' than demigods. They are closer to godly beings (though still denied the divine spark), therefore able to maintain the bond avatars can't.

And cults are worthless without the Ascendance skillset, which we aren't giving to demigods, heh.

Avatars and cults are not exclusive, however. An ascendant can be an avatar!

Benevolence isn't really a combat thing mainly because you lose 50% of the essence transfered

if I transfer 999999 essence to a demi, they get 499959 or something like that, it'd be easier just to take them bashing or aspacing on dbl xp weekend

Except that an Avatar has their Spark empowered by their Divinities own essence, making them more than just a step above demigod in an RP'd sense. Also, there really is no sound reason other than "I dun wanna" that cults and the relative skills can't be given to Avatars.

Just so I'm clear on the consensus at this point...
* Definitely limiting the amount of VAs that can exist in an org at any time
* Downgrading some abilities in ascendance
* Downgrading some demigod abilities

Could people maybe repost more of their ideas for different directions from the other thread, as right now this is just reading like nerf demi+, which while it may be in order in some cases is hopefully not all that will be resolved.

The idea of having to buy all the demi abs with essence is interesting, coupled with a rp-flavorful essence shop it could let people decide what kind of demi-being they want to be. Ascendants, and perhaps ex-ascendants, could keep these existing ones all inherent, while others would have to rebuy them. One way to soften the blow if you're nerfing everyone would be to give these ex-ascendants a leg up in that process.

Another idea that came up briefly earlier, kind of a play off Kiradawea's ideas from the other thread... what if there can only be 9 total vernal ascendants in the game, and these are all tied in some ways to the seals. Orgs would then have to sort of 'bid' on the power of the seal with power to control it, and the powers associated with that seal would be imbued in the ascendant. They would share many of basic abilities and cult things, then an ability or two associated with each (I know, I know, this would require coding) that really would be unique. Things like death and war, might contain the choicest combat abilities, and be the most contended over, thus cost the most (a cost determined by players). These could have similar limitations to domoths, to prevent one org from holding opposite seals. Just brainstorming, if that sounds interesting at all I will put more thought into it.

As stated, you have this backwards.

Originally Ascendants weren't even allowed in a divine order regardless and it was going to be either cults OR able to join divine order, there was player whining along the lines of "But I'm avatar, I shouldn't have to give that up to be an Ascendant" "I want to be able to choose between cults and being in an order" etc and suddenly it changed to the stance you now represent.

Again, I do not see why Vernals who are raised by the City/Commune to serve it, must serve under a god as well except because people whined.