The thing about that, Alianna, is I've been helping 2 nihilists learn combat who one doesn't even have full trans guild skills and like.. Level 50 and the other is a hexen and I have taught them both to sacrifice and the first has even killed the higher up fighters on his own. Takes practice and willingness to learn.

You can't magically spawn willingness in people, though. At least, I haven't made a whole lot of progress. You're powerless against a lot of things - lesson investment (that person probably wouldn't be anywhere if they were, say, a Researcher or a Warrior), latency (I guess Esano is an exception here), coding hurdles, the works.

derp ninja

edit: balls

This really just falls under the 'got to want it' thing again. Want to learn how to deal with skills? Go to the arena with someone and have them use it against you. Want to omnitrans? Go hunt kephera/other gold making machine area and buy the credits for it. The majority of my lessons and artifacts come from in game gold and in game efforts. I know quite a few people that are very much the same. It's very very possible. You can even learn to code, it all depends on how much you want to do. It it steep? yeah, definitely, but it's definitely achievable.

And again, if you are getting to the point where too many deaths are burning you out, qq for a bit, take a breather, then get back in the game and go again. I've been on the receiving end or a curbstomp numerous numerous times, some of them while Glom has been on top. I've lost levels defending against Serenwilde weakening raids (raids you were a part of, remember your ever so fancy signature?) where I literally died dozens of times. Hell, I died 2 or 3 times in that revolt yesterday. You need to stop caring about dying, it isn't a big deal. Just need to keep having fun and trying to improve. Look at the small victories, 'oh I managed to get out of that gank, or look I did such and such, which I never did before.' Again, you got to want it!

I just painted everything that was italic red.

Dying is not really the demoralizing part. Everyone dies hunting and they go back to hunting. Dying knowing you'll have accomplished nothing, learned nothing, and changed nothing, that's what demoralizes. Even if by some miracle a victory comes about, it will be followed ten minutes later by a vengeful force twice as big as your entire commune's population. The very people who are saying "don't give up" are the ones who come to make sure you know that you have to, because they will brutally punish any other action.

But that's still all besides the point. Even an infinite reserve of patience and determination, and a KFC family-sized bucket of credits, won't make someone a top-tier fighter if it's not in them. And even if it did, a few people working themselves up to top-tier won't turn around the game's intentional imbalances in favor of whoever is on top. The proof: it has never happened, never even come close to happening. That is the point. The change will come when it does, not when we do anything to make it come.

Wait for that if waiting for it is fun. Don't wait for it if waiting for it isn't fun. Sure, learn to be a better combatant in the meanwhile if you want to be (though to be fair you might well find you can do that far better by playing an alt than by taking Sidd's advice of losing a few thousand times to overwhelming numbers). But the idea that that's going to turn the game around is a fantasy that the people on top have always clung to (including Serenwilde, when it was on top) to give them a reason to feel smug. It has never been supported by the evidence.

It's not even a 'you' as in 'me' in this case, it's every little/new person that joins Serenwilde. What do you tell someone when they ask why the org is on bottom? Why you have to work with Taint? You can't really do much outside of saying "That's life", rubbing dirt in it and changing your mindset to one of simple survival lest they (newer persons) burn out and get driven from the game.

Sadie's a fighter in Serenwilde who was previously just fodder before. You're right, though, it's hard to grow fighters in a non-fighter environment (Serenwilde). However, there are more Sadie-types out there, those who have learned to fight. It's just like how Glom was, way back before Shuyin and Co. came to Glom. We had, um, Sidd, Talan, Narynth, Nienla, etc. who were all trying to Fight For Glom. Shuyin was just a coincidence, sort of like the exponent that blew things into place.

Shuyin reallllllly was not just a coincidence. Or a catalyst.

The very people saying don't give up are the very people who used to start to find some inkling of a victory against a curbstomping, just to have the rest of Serenwilde rush back in to stop it. You can sit here and call the 'lame' game, but I've been on the losing end of dying thousands of times to overwhelming numbers. This is complete crap, you can learn something with every death, if you don't, it's because you choose not to. If anything is demoralizing Serenwilde, it's your ridiculous and utter bitterness because you yourself refuse to get better.

Sidd, seriously, do you really think you were on the bottom? Do you really think you've taken the beating that whoever is on the bottom takes? Seriously? Boy, Sidd, I can't wait until you realize. Going to be a lot of hurt when you find out.

For the record, I'm not blaming anyone. I've been in the top organization more of my career than the bottom. I take no credit and no blame for either, as should be pretty obvious. If you don't like the observations I've made, disprove them, because the fact that I'm not a top tier combatant has nothing to do with their validity, nor does where I happen to be the minute you hear me say things I've been saying all along, including when I was in the top org.

^This



Sadie's an example of someone who was handed a good set of tools and managed to use them to become competent. Which is good, because once people get competent you start having a better chance to win. But I don't think I could manage to code nice things for totally free distribution. At least, my one attempt at it has seen mixed results.

And even then you're at the mercy of timezones and who is logged in and when. We aren't all 16/7'ers like Shuyin. Numbers and learners aren't really worth much if they can't be fielded, and they definitely don't seem to be fielded anywhere near as reliably.

Edit: And yeah, there's bitter elements.

Woah now. Lendren zaps people from the sanctity of a pile of guards at their nexus on any raid he defends against. That deserves some credit, right?

Edit: sadie is a monk. Pk on training wheels.

What makes you think I haven't?

We all do what we can! That's all anyone can ask, right?

I haven't done that since I got non-satellite Internet almost a year ago. Every raid I've been in the defense for since that day, I've done on the front lines (if there were any), and I've died at least a hundred times since then. And for the record, I've lost far less essence in all those deaths than I did zapping. Sidd's doing better than you at the ad hominem game.

(I didn't even buy zap back, in fact, since I hadn't used it in more than six months...)

I've got everything I need to be a great top-tier fighter, except time and a willingness to cross that line.

And, Lendren has hit the nail on the head again. Anything that is done to reclaim our place in the world is often responded to with a large amount of violence in return. Glomdoring has at least as many allies as Serenwilde, if not more, at times.

Also, I regret ever releasing a free combat system that now probably more than half of Glomdoring uses. I may regret that a little less when you all switch to m&m...

You can always go the killswitch route.

Just for the record, I am one of those people who is not discouraged by dying. I have died countless times defending Mag or being part of a raid, and when I die, I def up and jump back in, die again, etc. I lose levels. It's not a big deal. Fighting is part of what I enjoy about the game. And if someone in Mag said, "Let's whip ourselves into a Glom-eating machine," I'd sign up and have a blast, regardless of success or outcome.

However, I don't have illusions about the outcome.

Mag doesn't get beat down as badly as Serenwilde, so I have the luxury of being less frustrated, but once again -

Org dominance is only secondarily (if that) about attitude or skill balance or any of those other things. It's about where most of the good fighters are, and if you wait long enough, they rotate around, and then that org is on top.

I guess in theory you could skew this pattern by raising a sizable crop of terrific fighters, and that'd be really cool to see. I hope someone does it. It would be cool to see an org get on top by means other than migration. It just hasn't happened yet, and I'm not sure that there's a good reason to assume that all these -other- things people are mentioning are actually going to affect the situation.

A large issue is Lusternia has lost the plot on what makes an Org successful. There was actually a time where orgs didn't feel the need to hold 50% of the villages to call themselves the winner. An org could of really been 2nd or 3rd in terms of tiers and be satisfied with itself because it had things that it still did better. The winning orgs also usually had some decency to stay out of conflicts that didn't involve them. Not all the time, obviously. But you had events that didn't get crapped on by those it didn't involve. When Glomdoring was on the bottom, the basin's bitch of a bottom, they lauded themselves for having some of the best RP in the game.

But the whole game attitude has shifted to where the only trait that is important is how much ass you can kick and bubblegum you can chew.

And I'm not sure if I have a point here or any solution. Mostly that things suck and I'm a player who liked parts of the past better. I think if the admins are listening it is time for divine conflict that screws up the status quo and make things more fluid. Lusternia would benefit more fluidity, keep any one org from being on the top for long and allowing things to cycle and flow. The biggest thing Glomdoring does benefit from is the stagnation and lack of moral in other orgs. They won't always be on top but they will be on top until their internal order changes, outside forces attacking them probably won't change things. Start throwing in things that keep things a bit consistently shaken up and make the playerbase expand their definitions of what makes an org sucessful.