Last I checked, RP things generally meant non-combat things in Lusternia. So, thanks for making a huge post to agree.

I think the implication is either that:

1.) Not everyone has equal access to efficient aethercrafts and crews (why astral is even mentioned is beyond me).

2.) Not everyone who bothered to bash to demi and settled in will have the dedication to keep on pushing for more. Which makes sense - the difference in ranking gaps at the bottom of the demi-rankings compared to the top make this rather obvious.

Because, as a practical matter, the down orgs will never be able to generate the essence to buy them anywhere near as efficiently as glom. There simply isn't the playerbase to do it with. Glom has a lot of organization and infastructure that is just not an option for a lot of other orgs. I'm not trying to knock glom with this, but if you want any sort of healthy player base outside of it, its a crap idea.

Honestly, after my meandering, stumbling road to demi, that just might kill it for me. I like being able to actually do some things now, and am slowly learning how to fight and build wounds. I have a little less than 8 million essence. I don't have the options for any of the big essence building stuff.

I don't overly care for grinding endlessly. Throwing up essence cost barriers isn't balancing. It just is a grind for a grind's sake, with the same end game. You stave off the current state of things by some factor of time, but you don't accomplish anything.

I am also against any argument that is based off of "But it won't affect Glomdoring that bad" because balancing players in the game should not = "glom needs the nerf stick" unless we are talking about Choke. Nerf Choke.

Put your balancing caps on and leave your bitterness in the other threads.

Everything I have read so far to counter the needed Ascendant nerf is from Ascendants or would be Ascendants who say "Keep me at my current level of strength but nerf Demigod." It is a shame that admins are even looking at these suggestions that somehow pretend to be fair.

I like the essence-shop idea, but yeah, keep SOMETHING for simply reaching demigod. Ascend to the Havens, Seek, Nerfed divinefire, perhaps, in addition to the racial buffs?

That'd leave you buying tradeslots, damage-types, custom enterances/teleports/ambients... Mrh.

I like Shuyin's idea in theory, but I'm not quite sure how many of the abilities should need to be purchased. Also, Vivi's prices seem a bit high. 15M to learn how to ascend... Yowch.


So, my suggestion-compilation-thingy:

-Essence shop with everything not mentioned below/added in the future
-Demigods start with: racial buffs, ascend/seek, nerfed (PvE/no-affliction-curing) divinefire, and a custom shout. Zaps, regen, other combat buffs would be essence-shop-based.

I like the idea of demigods purchasing their buffs with essence, and of modifying divinefire as has been previously mentioned.

As a non-demi learning combat, I don't see demigod as being amazingly difficult to attain, nor have I found the lack of it to be outright debilitating in battles. There are plenty of ways to be useful without being a demigod - it's merely a bonus for those who wish to work toward it. Increased damage, increased survivability, sure, but definitely not essential to usefulness in group situations.

What Gregori said. Throwing out the idea because 'hey Glom might do it faster than us' is an odd stance to take. The essence buffs will come to the person/group willing to put forth the effort. If it's only Glom willing to do the work, then yay for them.

Again, as I've said, I am in favour of adjusting the stats or whatever it is that makes you think demigod is needed for pk. That way, the grind will be purely for cool/utility/RP things only.

That is what it should be for, really. That's the big reason I'm advocating removing stats or giving the stats to everybody in the system I included in my last post.

Heh, in what way? My proposal nerfs everyone and even reduces the number of ascendants with OP fearaura/aegis to 6 (excluding TA's). I know you love your divinefire, but I agree that demigod is way too sweet as it is and needs to be adjusted.

No, it's a practical sense to take. I put forth a ton of effort for gaudi in a lot of ways. But saying "you do it too", when org balancing is the way it is now? It's like saying to Haiti "Geez, why are you so poor? Work harder."

The resouces just aren't there. Playerbase wise or otherwise. I didn't fault glom for what it has accomplished above, but using them as the bar for everyone else is purely asinine.

Leave demi as is, or change the abilities themselves. No to this purchasing nonsense.

From a non-demi's point of view, the problem is mostly with Divinefire. It's really, REALLY annoying to get somebody, esp. a kick-and-run raider, to near-death, only to have them divinefire and run away safely. Nerf Divinefire, and demi seems fine as-is to me.

And that is far simpler and direct a solution.

Part of me wants to agree with this, but another part wants to say you're giving us way too much credit in regards to these things, and not giving our lack of sanity enough consideration.

How many times have we sat in Ilosia, waiting 20-30 minutes for someone willing to siphon/slivven/whatever to come, only to take off later and have to stop to get someone who has been online the whole time and only just got the message, or disassemble just to result in new people logging in asking about an abash, or, or...

Xenthos and I are almost always a part of these things now, too, and we don't even have any remaining uses for our enormous essence stocks as is. Seriously, dear god, why?

But I'm not using them as the bar for anything heh. Everyone has the an equal chance of attaining what they want, it's up to them to actually do it. There is no actual way to make anything fair the moment the idea of teamwork comes into play.

And yeah, I'll be the first to admit that Glomdoring's teamwork isn't anything extraordinary, we're just nerds.

Xenthos and Rag are definitely outliers.

No, my essence costs are not final (they're just there to look pretty, mostly), and I know I wouldn't mind seeing Divinefire just being deleted. In fact, I have an envoy report for it, but I'm hoping I wouldn't need to submit it in light of this opportunity for a demigod overview instead.

Just because Glom has a clot does not mean the change is unfair. I am not even in Glom and I agree with the buy buffs, it makes demigods even across the board. Every player has the ability to gain essence as a demigod. It is a matter of how much effort you put into doing it. It's not like aetherbashing is a complex affair these days and Gaudiguch has access to ships. We just don't go out cause we are lazy buggers.

The idea of stripping demigods and charging essence costs for their abilities has been thrown around a lot of up here. Unfortunately I don't really think it actually achieves anything beyond the temporary delay of when you reach what some people perceive as being 'overpowered'.

What if demigod abilities could be bought for a set period of time (say you spend, I don't know, 15m essence and get the ability to use your demizap for 15 or 30 RL days)? You could buy your stats individually (that'd have to be re-bought every now and then), buying whichever abilities you want/feel you need.

Eventually the cost would become prohibitive - no one would be able to spend the essence to upkeep what they have currently all the time except by bashing 24/7. It seems to me like it would help balance out demigods (possibly the price per stat would scale?), removing a few of their fangs without removing them from play entirely. One of my personal favourite aspects of it is that you'd be able to sort of 'custom build' your demigod - ie you could go for con/intelligence and divine fire and avatar rezz and take on some lighty airs and go the route of being an entity of light and healing, etc.

It's a pretty rough idea that we'd need to refine a lot, but is it sound in principle?

And as a note, I don't really foresee custom enter/exit/teleport (someone has to review them, and it's always nightmarish with shouts/zaps as is), though I could see a broad preset selection.

This, by any practical measure of things, just isn't true.

If gaudi had the resouces to regularly do the sort of aetherhunts glom is known for, I'd be all over it. But we simply don't have the numbers for it. Even the ones we did were often abortive and always adhoc. With slivvens in the picture, they straight up have died. I can't make people want to go, and even if I could, we don't have the ships to reliably do it.

I can run around and bash, and probably do better than most doing the same just by virtue of archetype and toys. But to say that everyone has a fair shot at it? That goes back to the US vs. Haiti example.