I was thinking more of Serenwilde's "dead wood", although Ashai was definitely up there. Glom's just going to need to pick the green, fresh wood to chop away from the tree ... ouch.

I also find it odd that we're given the power to strip Vernalhood away and get power back now that this is being put in, when the main reason it was wanted was to raise more (active) vernals! I mean, Glom/Seren are suddenly going to have an extra million or two (unless the numbers are harshly adjusted) and nothing to spend it on!

Honestly, I've been wanting to do this for a very long time but for one reason or other, it kept getting put off and rolled over. However, I think we need to bite the bullet and implement it sooner rather than later.

Just pointing out that the jump from one to two ascendants, and two to three ascendants are equal. Shouldn't it go, 0k, 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k etc etc.

Having said that, if the numbers were reduced by a factor of four or five it'd be more palatable.

Serenwilde can strip Gregori, Alianna, etc. and get down to a reasonable amount relatively quickly, yeah.

I mean, I'd say that both of these people earned VA in their time, too. I'm not entirely sure why they're getting punished at this point, either.

If you're going to bite it, shouldn't it at least be at a level that doesn't punish organizations / players because it was put off, without being informed about it as we were... using the mechanic as intended? :/

I think that is the point of the change. I'm sure the admin are aware of how much upkeep orgs can afford so the levels they've set give us an idea of how many VA/org or VA total they think is right.

Edit: Deleted the bit about essence loss - I may have misunderstood and don't want to confuse things.

Honestly, I'm not so sure that they do know how much upkeep organizations can afford. I mean, look at that list. 32k, 64k, 128k are listed as upkeep numbers.

None of those are sustainable power upkeep totals. The highest sustainable one would be the 16k, if and only if that organization owns all villages, wildnodes, Culture Center, etc.

Was there a mention of a 50% loss for losing VA? That would just be another harsh hit. Currently, what we have is regaining 50% of the power spent (ie 500k) per vernalhood stripped.

So maybe they're saying they don't want there to be more then at most 4 vernals in an org, eh?

We don't expect orgs will want to have 3 or 4 vernals active at any time. Orgs need to figure out how much power they want to spend to upkeep vernals. At a certain point, the upkeep will eat into past passive power gains which they'll probably want to avoid. (Yes, we looked at out how much passive power some of the orgs are generating!) Part of the aim is not having endless numbers of vernal ascendants.

Of course, this isn't meant to "punish" anyone but rather to make a course correction now rather than later. However, maybe we can have a special honour or something for ex-vernals. Ideas?

A power drain of 0, 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k, 32k would be more palatable. Then orgs can reasonably sustain 4 VA's if they so chose.

You know what would be a cool special honour? Grandfathering the current VA's.

Currently an Ascendant loses 100% of their saved essence, plus the entire Ascendant skillset, when they lose VA.

That only happens when they are kicked out at the moment, but would need to be addressed when it's stripped from someone...

Also, Sidd re-suggested the other side of this; that you make it more expensive the more VAs you have. Which does not punish anyone, and you'd still want to clear out some of the dead wood now and then to bring the cost down... but you're not punishing active players.

You can still make the cost prohibitive enough to keep the total number from going too far (10 million essence for an Ascendant is going to take for-ever to reach, for example.)

It'd also be nice if, at the same time, a prorated cost to bring people up to vernal based on level was implemented. This is going to make even worse the argument that anyone who can earn demigod the (comparatively) hard way is excluded. But I suppose that's moot because what this really means is, if you don't have VA now, you won't have it, ever.

I can see how it was always the intent that the game shouldn't have a perpetually-escalating number of VAs, and this will institute that. By the same token, it means those who already got it, got it, and no one else ever will. Which is probably better for the sake of the game, but a bit of a bummer generally. I think it's going to make a lot of people feel dead-ended. VA was a prize people used to get but if you weren't there in time you're forever excluded. The exception (someone's gone so inactive we're willing to strip them for it) is so narrow it only proves the rule.

Really, all this does is kill VA's

you'll have people who will come get VA, play for awhile then quit, and the org will strip it and someone else can be raised I guess but in reality it's going to be tougher to earn VA now

I think a better alternative would be to make the power cost to raise a VA dependent on how many VA's an org already has, leave in the ability to strip it, and then based on how many VA's an org has, they can raise another one for X amount of power per VA already raised.

that would give incentive to strip people who are inactive and still give newer players a chance to get it, because the costs wouldn't be so ridiculously high if you stripped it from inactive people.

a 4k upkeep per weave is way way too high, I think

The more I think about it, the more I like the raised essence cost for extra VAs idea, really.

You can stream the numbers so that you have a cap (I have difficulty seeing any organization paying 5 million for a VA at current power income rates. Much less 10 million+).

You aren't punishing current players.

Organizations that are over it will, over time, slowly prune down the inactive people in order to make way for active (remove 2 inactives to raise 1 active at a high power cost, repeat again later) until equilibrium is restored.

Organizations that are under can work their way up relatively easily.

And, again, you're not screwing over people who got raised based on the way everyone thought the mechanic was supposed to work.

What will the reimbursement be for skill in ascendance once we're stripped of VA?

You know you can say it's not meant to be a punishment, but as someone who just lost 66% of my essence getting raised, and was raised more for RP than combat reasons, thus will likely lose VA in this change, it sure as hell doesn't feel like that.

Well arguing that this will be "tougher to earn VA now" justifies doing it!

Anyway, I'll think over the idea of increasing the cost of power per VA.

Although clearly that would be a huge benefit to Glomdoring over the organizations being they've raised so many at a flat cost.

This is long overdue. The game is already swollen with Demigods who didn't work for it and even some Ascendants who just were mediocre long enough that their org gave them their dues. Given time every major fighter or noncom that an org could muster would be ascended. ++++ review from me. Power costs are abit intense but that is the way this game goes. Play soft with people and they will just find ways around it. Besides, orgbix power is generating tons these days.

Sidd's idea is far better if the intent of the change is to curb the number of VA's.

Otherwise, changing the amount of power taken to 0k, 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, etc. wouldn't be so bad either. Hell, 0k, 1.5k, 3k, 6k, etc. will get you the desired number of VA's you seem to wish without completely curbstomping an org's power.

But really, Sidd's idea first.



That can be said of any change. The domoth change was a huge benefit to Magnagora, Celest, Serenwilde, and Gaudiguch, since they can own domoths now, and it's been a disadvantage for Glomdoring, powerwise.

There's already been precedent that mechanical changes tend to occur when an org does "too well".

I'd be down with a bone being thrown once in a blue moon.