^^^...?

I think Kira's idea is rather nice from an RP stand-point, shame the admins will never go for it.

Yeah, that sounded interesting, but would likely be far (far far far) more work than just slapping on a power-debt (or power-drain, but I hope we won't get that). Perhaps something for the future though!

I don't see how it'd be more work, she floated the idea that you could specialize the ascendancy skillset into nine differant sections but that wasn't the main body of the idea, that bit's less important.

I would rather have an uphill battle in raising another Vernal Ascendant than a downhill slide in trying to upkeep another. Not to mention the nightmare that will come about for:

"Sorry X, I know you deserved VA and we all voted for you to have it, but as it turns out we can't afford to support another one and that guy over there... well his Artifacts make him a better candidate as a fighter than you. Yes, yes, he has only been here 6 months and you have been here from the start, but really he kills people faster than you and that's what being a VA is all about. On the bright side... oh wait, there really isn't a bright side."

The first "far" was for keeping track of which VA was raised with which Domoth (and specifying which Domoth the existing VAs have) and the rest of them was for the domoth-ascendancy-skills. Either way, with Sidds suggestion there'd not be another two VAs for Glom for another... 10-12 RL years or so, so the hard cap of 9 VAs isn't exactly something urgent either.

I wasn't thinking the hard cap of 9 was gonna be there as well as the dept, dunno if it was implied it would be.

That's the way I read it, at least.



Might've misunderstood and she only meant part of his idea though.

Lusternia is a strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

Except didn't Estarra say just back there she's entertained the concept of removing the combat perks being vernal provides?

Now I have to confess I'm confused. Normally I'm able to see the point behind a lot of the decisions made by the admin, even if they are unpopular. But now it's really not making sense. WHY are they being given this concept of an upkeep if you're also considering taking out those handful of skills that make them useful for combat? I was viewing it as a way of making an organisation less likely to consistantly raise people who were able to make such a large impact on the game through being even better during combat- at which point upkeep makes sense. But if they're roleplay only, why the upkeep?

I really still think the idea of another reward for roleplay 'vernals' should be considered. And no, Xenthos or whoever it was, I'm not talking about a special honours line like you seemed to think from my last post. Either vernal as is needs to be kept as a combat perk (Which is rightfully deserved in its own way) and you need to introduce the concept of having combat and roleplay vernals which are looked at seperately for costs There would be far more benefits from using that sort of system (or one similar to the one Kira mentioned earlier) than by introducing this sort of proposed change. (Which would allow some of the current vernals to be switched over to 'roleplay' vernals instead of simply being told 'thanks for all your time and effort, but hey, we have a better option now/you don't mechanically offer us enough!') OR, a look at the current vernals. For the -most- part, orgs raised people for willingness to be involved in combat in recent times. If you take that away, well. Still trying to understand that idea. Are orgs just going to strip the powers from those who only had it for combat now that it's no use to them in order to reward others? I don't really see many people being thrilled with that, either.

I think that either way of the current ideas that have been mentioned by the admin, you're saying only one type of person should be rewarded. Introducing cost and keeping vernal as is means only combatants will really be considered. Taking away the combat bonuses (and ignoring demi bonuses for the moment because that can be achieved by other means) feels like you're saying only roleplayers should be rewarded. (I'm assuming when you say making it more roleplay by removing skills you're also talking about removing the boost for domoths).

tl;dr version: wtf, so confused, this does not make sense anymore and I think you need to consider alternatives than a straight cost and forcing people to only reward one type of person. (No matter which way you move with current vernals.)

My personal suggestion for combat/RP-vernals (posted a few pages ago) was the ability to "empower" Vernals, which would open up the more combattive branch and start the passive drain. This would come with an off-switch, of course, in case someone goes dormant (so you could just de-power them without stripping them of Vernal completely). The empowering would take a fair bit of power (250k-500k or so), and the de-powering wouldn't return anything, so it's not something that would happen "just because".

I said that I think we could entertain looking at revising/replacing some of the combat benefits with roleplay benefits so it could be a little of both! I'm not sure why that's confusing. I never said it should be all combat or all rp.

Not directly, no, but it does need to be taken into consideration that that will be how it's treated by players. Plus if you simply play around a little bit but still keep them mostly as is, it'll still be used as a primarily combat related reward. I -know- that's not what you intend, but when it comes down to it, that's what will happen.

I've been trying to get my name down as a potential candidate for it for a while, and it's always 'after the combatants' or 'if you keep working on learning PK' or things to that effect. I know Magnagora isn't the entire game, but that is the feeling that pervades most of it. Most orgs have raised people for purely combat related concepts.

I do think both types of people should have equal chance to be rewarded for what they do. I unfortunately think the only way that will happen is if thought is put into two distinct rewards that put people on the same 'level', but are useless to the other 'side'. I do have a few vague ideas, but I do honestly think sometimes that for all the admin encouraging people to submit ideas, there's a certain feel of resistance to them in the end because no one wants to look at them in a level-headed way, especially when already upset by this proposal.

Would it really hurt anything to share them anyway? I really do hope I have a reputation of taking player ideas and running with them--at least I know I've done it before! On the other hand, ideas that are complex (difficult to understand) or complicated (i.e., require a lot of coding) can be difficult to push through, and I admit I often am tepid on coding-heavy ideas--especially when we are in the midst of high priority projects (like new guilds!). The simpler, the better is often the case.

While his post was confrontational, I'm kind of curious if Desitrus' post was at least looked at to some extent before it went poof?

I realize it doesn't add anything to the discussion, but... yeah. He really is saying what a lot of us are thinking, though we're trying to be civil about this. :/

I don't think we need posts that do nothing but trash me and are completely unconstructive. Sorry you feel that way though!

I'm not talking so much about the trash-talking aspect as the... it feels like it's pretty much set-in-stone. This is The Vision™ and we'd better learn to like it, y'know? Which is also part of the depression-making aspect.

PS, it's not just me. Nejii and I had a rather longer talk than usual as a result of this thing last night, I'm sure you could find discussions of it in clans if you wanted to look (though odds are you don't really want to).

I do appreciate listening to Sidd's idea, but it's been kind of a rough 24 hours at this point.

I am quite keen on finding out what will happen to all the essence invested into Ascendance by our becoming-ex-VA's too.

I think a lot of people feel upset and frustrated because they think that they weren't listened to in recent changes and that's made a few of the individuals I've spoken to hesitant to make any comments on this at all. However, I really do feel that people should be coming up with alternatives rather than stressing so much and feeling just outright punished with no options.

I mentioned earlier that the idea of two types of 'vernal' would really be the best solution to this sort of issue. Alternatively, Kira's suggestion about tying them to the nexus and to the seals has potential, though as you say, coding intensive is bad. I imagine having two types would cause less coding- you could use many of the same ideas. Have them set up in the same basic way. Only where combat vernals would have fearaura and other skills that help them, roleplay vernals could have other slight bonuses. I'm sort of sketchy on that idea, but there were a few thrown around- have anything they put in culture wise count for a little bit more, a bonus to influence, or give some small buffs or 'assistance' to members in their squad or through their version of their rite with the downside of providing such a bonus being effectively peaced for purposes of combat but still able to hunt (though raiding might be problematic in those instances. I have no idea if it would be possible to make them unable to raid for things such as smobs and such. If not, another downside would have to be thought of.)

The differences wouldn't have to involve coding of an entirely new reward system. A few skill changes, and the invention of a downside to using the 'important' abilities would mean that both types of people would have the option to be rewarded for hard work. The idea of peacing or significant cost to onesself should act of enough of a deterent that combatants wouldn't want to be rewarded with one, and non-combatants usually don't want the expectation of assisting in raiding and combat related to the current vernals.

The only other thing with this sort of suggestion is that the two types should probably be evaluated seperately cost wise. You could have one of each type free before costs were invoked, rather than just one vernal. The costs may have to be evaluated to bring them in line. Or maybe be unable to raise numbers that are too uneven- you can't have too many combat vernals without roleplay vernals to 'support' them. Though that is likely getting into the realm of being overly complicated.

I know the ideas are really rough, but there are plenty of people here who have more experience in designing things than I do. I have hope someone might be able to work it into a more palatable format.

I would also like to know what you have in mind for the essence that was spent in the ascendance skill for those who may have to be stripped of VA.