Demon Lords are not all aggressive on entry for enemies, for example (it would be kind of rough if they were, you have to feed Gorgulu to even be able to whack at him, and some of the others you have to split up to get into one-by-one so the first people in would always insta-die).

Avatars in particular were made to do it to stop certain people from camping at them and ordering defenders to attack their own smobs. Just given the layout of Continuum and how many spheres there are, it would also be rather silly for them to attack on sight, though I imagine if they get abused they would be changed to be so regardless of how it works out on people wandering around the plane.

I've asked around in the past to teach Hallifax about Xion. Hallifax doesn't need any help from the mobs. They need to want to win enough to actually use the incredible amount of information accessible to them to start winning.

I'm still not convinced that part is always true. I think Hallifax honestly doesn't have the active people to 'win', regardless of near all other factors.

Edit: Or ever true. Not caring when you have the resource is one thing, but you can want all day and yearn forever, but if you plain don't have the resources it won't get you anywhere.

This is true. There was way too much inaction during that raid.

From what people were saying (and I do believe Talan said this in her post on the first page), aeromancer melds weren't done up properly. Half the effects weren't hitting people so it was basically a free pass. To be brutally honest, this isn't a mechanics fault, this is player's flaw. And not a small one.

If you had given Hallifax ample warning for an incoming raid, they should have had a proper meld running with shrine effects and discretionary powers up. The fact that they failed to execute that is certainly not a fault of the Admin or even the players raiding to take advantage of that. Having players run into a room and balestone a group of people who are buffed against damage out the wazoo isn't a very good tactic, at all. Hindering is key in such situations to shut a group down.

Just as you said, I agree that balance is sacrificed at the altar of 'cool' a lot of the time (I like the way you put that!), but from looking at it from my perspective and from reading this thread, that doesn't seem to be the case here. It was a bunch of people who didn't really know how to defend properly scrambling to do something against attackers.





Less than RL month ago we went to raid Baalphegar and one person messed it up for the entire raid group and wiped us all. It might be rare but it still happens. Hitting Baal first isn't always a guaranteed win.

You're also putting way, way too much emphasis on mages staffing - Celest doesn't always have an army of mages sitting outside a room staffing people. Sure it's an advantage, but like Malicia said (and you seemed to overlook her post in general), most of us will put up a defence by actually running into the room to defeat people. And with that being said, Supernals also wipe out Celestians during attacks. You also have to realise that in attempts to kill Gorgulu, it's not a picnic. Raziela and Gorgulu both suck donkey hooves to try and kill, just in different ways.

A change in Nil could be called to order, since right now you touch the book and whoa, raiding group, whereas with Supernals you can lead a group into a Supernal alcove and take a moment to gather bearings to enact a defence. I think that would be a positive change; the way you're going about it is wrong, though.

So, I really think this is going to get me flamed, but I have to say it:

This is not that bad. This attitude in general was tiring three years ago, it's tiring now, and I'm really tired of going in loops over the same topic. You have to give a little before you can take a little; Mag has loads of great advantages over the other orgs. I know you're going to get defensive about this and say that's not true, but if you take two seconds to compare your skills, constructs, etc to others and stop with this attitude of, "Well we don't have Inquisition, 2s shield, more than 2 exits off the Megalith on Nil" etc, maybe then you'll come to appreciate the things you do have. You can't always one up every other org in every aspect of the game. I'm sorry to say it, but it's true, every org suffers some sort of big fault be it in layout of certain planes or in terms of skills and abilities. From where everyone else is standing, Mag isn't lacking, they just don't try very hard nowadays (which is understandable). All of you should really stop downplaying what you do have. It's tiring! You can still deter raiders by being vigilant - Mag has done it in the past, they will do it in the future. Same goes for Celest - sometimes we'll fail to save Supernals, sometimes we won't.

If you want to suggest a change, why don't you stop with the forum-bickering? I realise whining may have gotten us places in the past, but it sounds to me like the Admin are getting tired of that too. Sit down and have a rational discussion with some people about what things could improve Nil. Compose a letter, e-mail it to Estarra. If she likes the idea, cool. If she doesn't, chances are she'll let you know, and you can go back to the drawing table.

Just to add, Continuum has all the ingredients necessary to be incredibly rough to raid be it for lesser creatures or for spheres probably only second to trying to take down avatars in a prepped Etherwilde meld (oh how fun those unbreakable rooms are). It's really just a matter of practice and understanding how to use the layout/mechanics of the plane to your advantage more than anything else. Keep in mind that logistics alone easily doubled the time it took to complete the raid, add in some more complications and it likely would have just ended in a spectacular defeat for the raiders.

Additionally, staffing outside of a supermob room is just silly. Out of all the (successful and unsuccessful) Supernal defenses I've taken part in, I can't recall a single instance where I thought that was a good idea.

I suggested a very simple way to fix it. I guess I could have added a please to it, may have been more nicely, but I am not an envoy, and have no other means to offer my very simple suggestion (nor do I think it's worth an envoy slot), nor do I believe making this simple fix takes away from the purpose of Nil. I understand there is going to be differences, that is ok, I understand that attacks are different and one will send us to Astral, that is all right as well. I do not believe it is to much to ask for to have us the ability to have room connecting, so the off chance that we can move an active meld in there, staff from outside, be able to regroup from outside, have tanks go in while weaklings are able to survive outside. Is that so much to ask for, just like Celestia, any of the Ether planes (I must admit, I do not know the other cosmic ones).

So tell me, is there really any other way for me to do this besides sending a really long winded email to Estarra and co that might just get lost in the shuffle? At least here, everyone else can see it and respond, crituque, provide suggestions, tell me how wrong I am. I do not believe asking for the ability to staff from a room is breaking the bank, but I have been wrong before.

Then you sir, have been a Demigod and can live through Supernal and Demon lord attacks.

Let me speak for the Aluniira's, Ranadae's and other noncombatant but wannabe defenders who are not Demigods and who do not own every single buff in the world, that means all the difference.

While true, this is the forums. I think Estarra would be more able to read it if it were sent to her in a coherent email regarding what changes you believe will be beneficial, and why, rather than saying, "Why don't you read 13+ pages of this thread to get the general idea."

You have to remember it took ages to get the UP exit from Celestia removed, all because we didn't really take any steps to get the change put in besides crying on the forums.

Just Shawshank Redemption it. 2 emails a week until there's a reply!


(just kidding though. for the most part.)

Beats the other Shawshank manoeuvre that's popular around here (crawling through for three hours).

God I hated that exit, and I barely knew wth was going on around me.

She certainly doesn't need to read these pages. Eventru has already seen it and responded to it (thought it was the same as Celestia).

So now, please, is there any realistic reason why this is an issue? If you really don't think it helps, then you need to heartstop until you are under level 80, and make sure your dmp is somewhere between 25-40% like the rest of us who hasn't had the time to bash to Demi or spend all the time in the world figuring out every single buff to survive an attack by my own Cosmic Lord, then maybe you'll be able to understand that staffing from outside the room -helps-. As Neos tried to point out, that his we 'failed' at strategy (but we couldn't), and if you really don't think 4500+ dmg a round from outside the room doesn't help Nydekion, maybe it's time to rethink that envoy suggestion you made this round and ask for this one.

I wasn't disagreeing that staffing doesn't help - I was saying if you wanted to make a change you should do it in a less whiny fashion and email Estarra rather than sitting here expecting Eventru to do all the work for you.

Nydekion is the exception to heavy staffing. He's a Champ with a level 3 magic rune and Merian with incredibly high INT (24 I think is what he gets to). It's fair to say that no other Aquamancer compares.

And if you don't want to spend the time figuring out how to stack your DMP - consider another hobby besides combat. That's how the game works. Don't like it, don't participate. You don't need Demigod to put up a good defence, though the extra hp from leveling helps. Not as if Demigod is that hard to attain either, plenty of people have gotten it through only aetherbashing, which requires no skill at all.

They have plenty of untapped resources that they aren't using. They need to start using those instead of always looking for excuses not to.

Don't forget the reason why that UP exit was created in the first place.

Like what?

Oh, god. The crying! Though at the time you could pull people off the nexus, which is why they wanted that up exit or something. Idk, I wasn't there.

But it turned and stabbed us in the back, that up exit. I'm glad it's dead and gone.

Not sure if somebody mentioned this earlier, but the avatars/demonlords/etc rooms prevent forced movement much the same way the nexus does. I know for sure tackle gets blocked on the avatars, I'm going to guess everything else does on all the cosmic lords.

Edit: Ninjaed by like a day, I suck