So. Seeing that old games become tiresome, and IRE hands out free credits and lesson for the time being. I thought it a nice time to try another one of these IRE games. I've heard good things about Lusternia, so now I'm interesting in what it has to offer, besides jerkass gods, wars over petty distinctions, griefers, great difficulty in getting good advice, lesson starvation and an F- in economical class balance.

I'm especially interested in Influence and Aethercraft. The (seemingly?) unique things of Lusternia.

So Influence is basically hunting, except it requires a special skillset dedicated to it, creates "esteem" and has a special effect depending upon the "type" of influencing. Is it worth investing in? How much should you invest in it? Up to supplication or admiration? What helps with influencing, except lessons in the "influence" skillset? What other uses does it have?

Aethercraft. What is it? Is it sailing? Hunting? Interesting? Fun? It's supposed to be something grand and unique to Lusternia, but I've got no idea what is meant by "grand and unique".

Blademastery. How does it work? How do you make it work as a furrikin? How much must be invested in it to make it useful for fighting?

Athletics. Is there anything to it for those who are starved on lessons after regeneration?

Same with Tracking/Hunting. Anything good in that set in the early part besides pathfinding?

Any help is much appreciated. Any suggestions to change race and/or skills will be ignored as I play concepts, not numbers.

As for influence and aetherhunting, I can fill you in a bit.

Influence is, essentially, hunting with words instead of swords. The various denizens have one weakness and one immunity, which means you're going to have to switch your influencing around a bit (also, you'll actually use all the various influencing abilities of a certain type, as they grow resistant to an ability the more you use it). Why use it if it's so much of a bother? First of all, you get esteem when influencing which can be used to offer to the Gods or sell. Also, you get more experience per denizen when influencing compared to hunting (and nothing prevents you from influencing first and killing them later). It's also basically the only way to get experience from villagers (unless you raid a village held by an opposing org, of course). In addition, you will need to influence villagers with certain org-specific influencings when they revolt in order to bring them to your fold.

As for aethercraft, it's essentially sailing the aetherways (of which there are several planes, just like the "normal" world). You can hunt the various beasties that show up there for a rather hefty bit of experience and siphon power, but that generally requires a good-sized crew. It's also the only way to get to certain places called aetherbubbles, and you can also dock at plenty of normal places as well.

If there are any other questions, feel free to ask!

So how much should I learn of influence in order to make use of it? Assuming I don't have much lessons to spend wherever I go. Would admiration be a good place to stop?

The thing is, unless you're influencing really easy things, you need at least two of each 'attack' in order to have a chance at success. So, I'd go for Charm as a stopping point, personally.

That'd give you two empower-abilities, which is always a perk when influencing. Most guards are weak to empower, and very few (if any) are immune to it. Learning to Charm would give you two of each kind of influence ability though, which is nice if you plan to influence a lot elsewhere (Charm being the second Seduction-ability). As with all things, the more the better, of course, so it's hard to say where to stop, but either Admiration or Charm seems like a good place to stop.

What helps with influence, besides skill in influence and charisma? And what's the possible ways to attain higher charisma?

There's all sorts of things that help with influencing.

Learning Dramatics gives you different performances that help with different types of influencing (like being a bully helps with weakening influence).
There are oils you can buy and apply that help with different influences.
Beauty enchantments help regenerate ego.
Different skills can boost your charisma.
Beauty Karma blessing boosts your charisma.
Wearing lots of jewelry and fancy clothing makes influencing easier, unless you're begging and need to look poor.
You can get a beast and train it to help you influence.
Having a throne and sitting on it helps.


Seriously, there's lots of things, I know I'm leaving out loads of them. These are just the ones that are on the top of my head.

Hrm. And which of em are cheap? And is influencing in general useful for earning gold? Getting equipment seems ridiculously expensive, so a good way to attain gold would be great.

The only influence that would help with gold is the charity one. Begging and Supplication would be the first two 'attacks' in that. You'd also need some sandalwood oil (pretty cheap) a beauty enchantment (also relatively cheap). The Beauty Karma blessing is free, you generate karma via offering at shrines, influencing, completing quests. Depending on what skills you have the abilities that affect your charisma may or may not be easy to reach. Other people can help you too, if you know an Astrologer and it's the right time of the year, you can get a Lion sphere which will increase your charisma some, depending on how things are lined up.

I made a thread to consolidate stuff related to influencing here. Tons of info there in the first post, a lot of which is explained in later posts in the thread.

Influencing seems complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's dead easy... although not quite as profitable as hunting (per minute invested) if you're selling the esteem. Right now, it takes me quite a while to find a buyer for my esteem at 5,000-6,000 sovereigns per needle, but I always do find a buyer. If you're patient enough to wait 1-3 RL days of occasionally advertising on the market, it's guaranteed money.

Edit:

However, if you're using Charity to influence, as well as selling your esteem, you might turn the same profit as you would hunting.

The one problem with influencing comes once you get near level 90. At level 90ish, bashers get tons of critical hits, but there's no such thing as "critical influence." That means you'll be able to gain XP much faster bashing or aetherbashing.

If you catch Felicia online, send me an OOC tell and I'll answer questions in real-time, though I'm no expert.

Oh yeah! I forgot about selling esteem. Cause my girl always offers it.

Technically, charity influences are the only ones that get you immediate gold. However, all influencing generates esteem which is sellable. So, it's all good for gold.

Beauty enchantment and oils are cheap, and karma blessings are free, imbueing esteem into items gives karma and you can sell each 100% imbued item for 5000 gold each, which is decent gold. Also if you find mobs you influence with charity attacks you can get gold that way. Bashing is a little faster at earning gold it seems though. Eventually to get the best influence gain in gold you will want transcendent, as the ability reduces the time influence dramatically. With just selling esteem you can get it transcended and use it to help you transcend other skills. It is really easy though, not much fun but it's productive, if a little more mindless than bashing. The good part about it is you don't have to worry about anything if you have a system to influence and it's a good time to write things for contests, (Not that I'd ever do that Siam) or personal things for guild related stuff.

Influence, by the way, is primarily supported by Discipline, Dramatics, and Beastmastery. Discipline helps regenerate Willpower, which is slowly consumed as you influence denizens. Dramatics allows you to Perform, and there's a specific Performance mode for each ego battle type (Paranoia, Charity, Empower, Weaken, and Seduction) that reduces your ego consumption while you're influencing.

Finally, Beastmastery supports Influence because beasts can be trained to 1.) regenerate your ego, 2.) regenerate their own ego, and 3.) enhance any of the five ego battle types.



I personally have transcendent Influence, enough lessons in Dramatics to use every Influence performance mode, and around ~1,000 lessons in Discipline. I soon plan to buy Beastmastery up to the point where I can train beasts to do all the things I mentioned above.

Number one priority is trans Influence (for CharismaticAura), then enough Discipline to make yourself comfortable (I have never been in danger of running out of Willpower, ever), then Dramatics performances, and finally Beastmastery. My opinion, of course.

Willpower is generally a non-issue unless you use CharismaticAura. Every influence "argument" takes 5 willpower, which is quickly regenerated. CharismaticAura is, however, a constant drain, and even with my ~33k willpower I can only last about an hour and a half, unless I switch it off between denizens.

Trans Discipline, keep it on forever!

Whoa, an hour and a half? Good point to bring up, then.

I can leave CharismaticAura on continually and experience far, far less Willpower drain when influencing than when just bashing. It takes me about ~40 minutes to influence 100 guards in Glomdoring, and I think I could do that at least ten times before running off to the library to TOUCH BOARD, even if I don't regenerate at all in between groups of 100.

Do you have some other defense or ability that also drains Willpower? On the other hand, I'm a Shadowsinger Faeling. That may have something to do with it.

I think CharismaticAura drains ~10 Willpower every five seconds or something like that.

Whoa, an hour and a half? Good point to bring up, then.

I can leave CharismaticAura on continually and experience far, far less Willpower drain when influencing than when just bashing. It takes me about ~40 minutes to influence 100 guards in Glomdoring, and I think I could do that at least ten times before running off to the library to TOUCH BOARD, even if I don't regenerate at all in between groups of 100.

Do you have some other defense or ability that also drains Willpower? On the other hand, I play a Shadowsinger Faeling. That may have something to do with it.

I think CharismaticAura drains ~10 Willpower every five seconds or something like that.

Hmm. Checking the willpower drain right now, and it seems to be 10 willpower every 4-5 seconds'ish. Which'd mean 120 willpower per minute or 7200 willpower per hour without regenerating at all. Odd, could've sworn it used to drain far far quicker (I know, for instance, that I had to touch the chessboard during my influence-athon, so I could keep it up for roughly 12-15 hours when switching it on and off)... Ah well. And I'm a Shadowcaster, so we should have the same willpower.

Don't forget Influence works off charisma, and how fast you influence depends on that. Equilibrium bonus wont do anything for it.

With ~1,000 lessons Discipline, I regenerate Willpower somewhat faster than CharismaticAura can drain it, with no defenses and not doing anything else (i.e., standing around in the Aetherplex).

At some point I will go influence a few stacks of guards with all the usual influencing-related defenses and abilities activated, and measure how much Willpower I've lost over X number of minutes.

Hmm... while CharismaticAura doesn't cost anything to turn on and off, if you switch it on and off very frequently, perhaps its tick occurs more frequently than usual. Maybe switching it on and off is hurting you rather than helping?