If there was ever a time for a Lusternian webcast this would be it. Nobody is going to slog through hundreds of posts and a lot of the discussion is going fall on deaf ears.

Personally I would like to know what the Estarra thinks the problem is. Is the concern that there are too many VA's (thereby cheapening the honour) or too many VA's in a single org? (thereby creating game imbalances and a loop that perpetuates more VA) Is it a super-org dominating and having too much power/influence?

Obviously a number of people are very upset about this. It's like winning the Olympics only to have your medal and winnings taken away because the rules have been changed after the fact. It's hard to come up with good solutions if we can't even identify the problem.

To your edit: I feel entitled at this point.

It has worked this way for many real life years.

It was intended to work this way for real-life years.

And what this change will do is end up screwing me, Talan, Nejii, Sarrasri, etc. over. That's all it does. It's not like it makes anything more healthy to strip a skill that doesn't even have a whole lot of combat stuff in it in the first place.

Why are all the demis hurting on the free-demi aspect. That's why VA was so good- you get free demigod out of it. Not nearly as many people would want to be a VA, really, if that wasn't a part of the package (and you had to pay 2k power/weave to keep your skills).

That would be when they'd hit 0 power - which has some pretty nasty ramifications of its own. I do not believe the topic of VAs at 0 power has been brought up (I believe it would just keep pushing it into the negatives, the way it works, but I could be wrong!)

Xenthos has a fair reason to feel entitled, as do many of us. This has been something we've ended up building our characters on. I still don't get how the health of the game improves from this- backhand 7 or so people, insert revolving Demi Door mechanic?

well, if that's the case, I'd still say having VA cost dependent on the number of current VA's would be an excellent way to go. Being able to strip inactive VA's would be more incentive to stay active and keep earning your VA so the org doesn't strip you in order to raise someone else for a cheaper cost.

as I said, I'd be fine with a power debt in order to start raising VA's again (though the debt would have to apply to all orgs, Gloms would obviously be more)

I talked with Esano about it a bit, and the power increase couldn't be too drastic or it would affect the orgs with less VA's much more.

I think a good line would be like

1 million power per for the first 2 VA's (since it's seems to be agreed upon that 2 VA's is acceptable)

then maybe raise it to 1million * (# of VA's) +1 million

so for Glom, it would cost us 8mil to raise another VA ( which at our current power income at about 10k per weave, would be 2 RL years).
Celest could raise another VA for 1 mil
Mag for 4mil etc

leaving in the ability to strip VA from people who go inactive so then other more active people can fill the roles etc.

I think this accomplishes the same thing you are trying to accomplish, without overly punishing current orgs who have done well, or did well(Serenwilde) with the current mechanics and gives Gaudi/Halli/Celest a chance to catch up with VA's( Gaudi/Halli being able to raise 3 VA's for the same power cost of Glom raising 1).

This way people feel like they can still achieve this kind of monumental honour without it becoming almost impossible.

It's something that's under consideration!

It would actually be far more, if we'd have to repay the debt as well. Glom has paid 7M to raise the VAs, but would have had to spend 27M with your suggestion. So it'd be 28M to raise the next VA, which (needless to say) isn't very feasible for quite a while.

EDIT: Although far more preferred than having to boot 3-4 VAs

I'd like to point out (this is something else I discussed with Sidd, and he mentioned in his post, but I'm expanding on it) that if you implement that you need to retroactively impose thoses costs on the existing organizations, or you'll just be punishing the new or currently less-powerful organizations (most notably Hallifax, Gaudiguch and Celest, but to a lesser degree any org without as many VAs as Glomdoring) by requiring them to pay more for the same number of VAs.

My suggestion is locking existing VA's benefits and requiring that they be unlocked by paying whatever the extra cost is - for example, under Sidd's idea, you pick your first two and they get Ascendancy + faster domoths + whatever else, then you pay a few million power to unlock your next, then more to unlock your next, etc. etc. and once you've unlocked all your current VAs you can ascend a new one for the increased cost. You don't need to unlock them in the order they were raised, and you can strip VA from those who aren't unlocked (or, for that matter, are).

If you don't do this and implement Sidd's idea, then as I said before, you're basically punishing newer or weaker orgs for not doing better in the first few years of Lusternia's life (or, in Celest's case, for losing two VAs in the past year) as they're going to need to pay more to reach the same number of VAs. This would be especially unfair for Gaudiguch or Hallifax, who wouldn't have even had the chance.

Of course, while this method will also impose a softcap, it's a much softer cap than Estarra's idea. The most powerful org will still be raising more VAs over an extended period of time. Under Estarra's idea, the maximum number of VAs an org can safely support is limited by the maximum power income. A stronger org will still be able to support more, but the exponential increase will limit the difference. Someone better at maths can compare the differences between an exponential increase on upkeep and a (mostly) linear increase on creation, but I expect the former will keep the number of VAs more even than the latter.

If I may, if you really desire to have a cap upon Vernals for any organization, could I be so brazen as to suggest making that number nine? Make it so that each Vernal Ascendant an org raises requires the support from one of the nine domoths to maintain the position of VA.

Not only does this make the the cap number greater than what all orgs have at the moment, so no orgs will be forced to slap any of their current VAs down, it creates an actual RP reason for why there'd be a cap on how many Ascendants an organization can maintain. Combine this with Sidd's suggestion of increasing cost for every number of VA ascendant the org currently has up (it takes more power to locate a new vein of domothean energy and ascend someone through that) and I think you'd find the balance you desire.

Heck, this could probably even make is so that Ascendance itself can be split up into nine different Master Skills. Sure, that may seem a bit overwhelming, but I feel that it could make VA even more of a symbol than a combat perk. Especially when also combined with Ascendance not auto-demigoding you.

Sidd's idea is by far a better solution to this than the upkeep concept, which I am betting the Administration when looking at how much power an Org can make looked at Gross power and not Net power. Sure if every org powerblocked everyone for years and dismissed every guard they had, they could make power hand over fist. This isn't the case though and in Serenwilde between power drawing and guards they often have a negative net power gain each 'weave'.

You can't just base a decision off "they theoretically could..." you have to look at all the factors.

Er, do you mean we should lock up the current vernals that Glomdoring has until they retroactively pay for the cost? I'm not sure I'm following this lock and unlock business.

Y'all have jumped the shark, y'know? Seriously.

That said, continue. This is better entertainment then scrubs re-runs.

That's how I interpreted it, at least. Glom would have two "free unlocked" VAs (under Sidd's suggestion) and then have to pay 1M to unlock the next, then 2M for the next, 3M etc. Not sure I like this suggestion when compared to simply not allowing raising VAs until the power has been repaid though.

Restrict/remove current VA's Ascendancy bonuses (not just the skillset, but also domoths and such if possible) until the difference is paid. Not ... shrub them or anything like that.

I don't think that's really possible.

Just restrict the ability to raise more till the power debt is paid in each org.

^

This.

Then, according to Sidd's 10k per weave, Glom will have an advantage it hasn't really paid for for about seven RL years (25 million power at 10k power a day = 2500 days), at which point they'll have paid off the debt. The currently newer/weaker orgs will have to spend even longer catching up to an equal status, because they won't have the boosts provided by ascendants in gaining power through various means and will be fighting an uphill battle in that respect.

But anyway, off to class. I will be back to discuss this in a few hours, don't expect questions to be answered before then.

EDIT: Just to clarify, yes, I'm aware that people go inactive and the top orgs might well strip them of ascendancy at that point, lowering the time they have a numbers advantage for. It's still there.