@Sahmiam - It sounds as though you were an envoy and have a chip on your shoulder. Fair enough. I honestly don't recall any specific interactions we may have had but if I insulted you, I apologize. I have no recollection of what your suggestions to improve the envoy system were but as we are generally satisfied with how it currently works, it wouldn't be likely that we would adjust it any more (especially if it would require significant coding). Sometimes I may be in a bad mood or in a rush and may make a flip or sarcastic comment which may grate. I shouldn't do that and, again, apologize if that was the case.

That said, I do believe in the envoy system. I know there are many who would rather 'step ahead of the line' because they are sure they know what needs to be fixed and want to meet/talk/discuss with me or the coders exactly what they feel should be done. However, it just is not doable in such an ad hoc manner--we would be in a constantly paralyzed state of responding to everyone's well-intentioned reports.

Anyway, I do think you are wrong. I think the envoy system works. I know it's not perfect but I think it does a pretty good job at the end of the day. Again, if I insulted you somehow, I apologize.

I don't play very much anymore, but ... this. I couldn't agree more. I feel like it just reflects lack of discipline and self-respect, and is really destructive (for the person sending them).

Thank you. My chip is lessened already, but I did mean what I said. There are a lot of invalid arguments, and oftentimes, I do feel as if they were listened to despite taking away from the discussion.

Said Serens do this when I spar them too... it's highly irritating, and the rest of us just have to deal with their whinging asses.

I'm like 2 days late to this thread. Maybe 3. But I want to note that, for all you guys out there saying "EVERYONE'S GUILTY OF BEING AN ASSHAT AT SOME POINT!!!" I'd like to point you to someone who has never done such a thing.

Lerad!

I've never replied to insults, (hardly even reply to tells) never hacked an elder tree, never jumped novices on faethorn and never whipped out my (e-)penis when I lose or win (except when my loincloth decayed and I haven't gotten a new one made yet)! I'd like to move myself for nomination of best player award.

------------

Jokes aside, while psychology plays a big part in individual motivation, it's certainly not the only factor affecting org health. While it's certainly important that naysayers get nay-said and morale kept high via your own motivation, positive energy doesn't translate to positive results without work being put into doing other aspects. I think it's a fallacy to insist that Serenwilde is down ONLY because they are unwilling to do anything to improve. It may certainly play a part, even a big part, in their poor performance, but it is by far not the only thing that needs improvement.

Similarly, pointing to the admins and the skills is valid, but even if you bring in a professional team of paid coders, customer service staff and other knick-knacks, the game isn't going to miraculously become balanced with everyone on every org having a blast of a time fighting fair fights and patting each other on the back OOCly with RPed (ie. not real) hatred in the game. As you can imagine, such an ideal will only be achieved when the human race evolves into a higher life-form.

Lofty philosophising aside, then, what is the best way to handle the "state of lusternia" at the moment? Self-policing is an idea, but you can't expect that to be a real solution. There's nothing to stop people from lashing out when frustrated (unless they are Lerad) and being a game that makes you immersed enough to get frustrated is one of Lusternia's selling points. You can't expect the orgs with low morale to just produce positive energy from nowhere and keep chugging on indefinitely until their players mature into the experience needed to contend with the top tier combatants. You can't expect an admin staffed by volunteers to give up all their free time into pumping out morale raising events, fixing bugs, balancing skills, handling requests, making shiny new stuff all at the same time.

We have a status quo, with in-built conflict mechanisms that are fun but which have become stale due to one side being the winning side for too long. To change that up in a big manner is a little unreasonable given the resources that both players and admin have access to. The best we can do, then, is to maintain this status quo but put in the effort to improve it slightly. Naysayers can start by being a little more positive, or at the very least, shutting up instead of putting down efforts of their own org. Winners can start by acknowledging the (few?) instances where they have stepped out of line (remember, everyone BUT Lerad is guilty at some point!) and pledging to tone it down. The admin can, as Estarra did, renew their promise to work hard for the good of the game, even pledging some extra time in the short run to fix some glaring problems with a master envoy or something or another.

No, the downed orgs won't suddenly grab half of the domoths and repel retaliation with their sudden combative prowess. They'll still get raided, no doubt. Novices will still get jumped. But if the game atmosphere improves slightly, it's a step in the right direction, and something that every player can work toward in their own way.

(Damn, I should take on a job as an inspirational speaker.)

I think Seren's biggest issue is that a lot of people love Serenwilde's history and what it could be, but we have a ton of people and they each have their own slightly different outlook. Sometimes I kind of think that if we had had half the population throughout the years we'd have turned out better. But I know that personally, at this point in time, I'd rather not play than move Sylphas. Not because I hate Lusternia or hate Serenwilde, but because it gets frustrating sometimes and I have other things to do with my time. There are times I've thought of moving to Glomdoring, and if it was a more faithful Unseelie thing I'd be all for it, but that's not the way things played out and I just can't do it. So I play League of Legends and World of Warcraft and Minecraft and I keep an eye out for when I'll get the urge to come back and play again.

What?
Clarification? Some people enjoy complaining so much that not only will they yell about the opposing side and how crappy losing makes them feel over IC org channels for minutes at a time, they'll even snap during friendly bouts between communemates, and then blame "the other side" and getting raided when they're told to calm down. It is confusing, irrelevant, and ijustwannahavesomethingtopostok?

I don’t really understand where the bold part is coming from, elaborate? (I’ve made this accusation in non rage-induced seriousness only once, personally, and it was valid but it had nothing to do with city vs city conflict or skills at all, and was hashed out between me and the divine in question afterwards which actually led to interesting RP buy I digress)

Outside of that, I agree with the dullness remark. Mag doesn’t lack for total number of players, nor does it lack solid skills that work pretty darn good either. Mag’s problem (that I’ve pointed out to what remains of our combatants) is essentially we bet all our chips on Ceren and Esano without ever planning for a future where we had neither of them to rely on.

At best I’m a mediocre mid-tier combatant, but I do try to go out of my way to help noobs to combat in the city as best I can with the skills I’ve had practice with. That right there is pretty much what sandbagged Mag’s power; we had zero replacements for the types of people we lost and only recently have some of us been actively trying to teach people. Reminds me of a discussion I had with Enyalida and Morbo over the state of our alliance’s combat forces, like I told them… I can’t wave a wand and summon an army of Fillin’s, no matter how hard I may want to. That’s pretty much the only problem I think Magnagora really has, in a nutshell. See, an internal observation that had nothing to do with ‘zerging’ ‘badluck’ ‘choke’ ‘war shrines’ ‘pits+demesne’. Shocking, I know’s.

It’s actually depressing ME seeing some of the depressing comments made here, and I tend to sleep pretty good at night. At the end of the day guys and gals, it’s a game. You play games for a mix of finding a challenge and having fun, if neither is happening and a game is depressing you… go get some sunlight, throw a frisbee with some friends, relax with something not the game that is depressing you. You’ll live a healthier life.

None needed. That's just my general reaction.

Whee, late reply time. Thalkros said part of what I wanted to say a few posts ago, so that saves me some time.

Honestly, there are always going to be ups and downs. "This too shall pass" was posted on page 1 and applies very well (and just happens to be one of my favourite quotes, too). That, and in the end orgs are made of of human beings, who are prone to making mistakes and bad calls, and this is a gaming environment where the responsibility factor isn't as high as the real world. It's a different ballgame and you have to play it by its rules.

I've always been of the opinion that if you want something done right, and it isn't already being done, you have to go and do it yourself. Or at least try, before you have the right to mope about it. And even then! Some of the greatest achievements in life are made after a great series of failing. The secret is to not give up. And yes, this is a game, and you play it for fun, but unlike life, you can also choose to quit if it doesn't work out for you and come back later if you feel the urge to play again.

Now I am not saying that losing org X or Y isn't trying. I can only speak for Mag, and I know people are trying to pick up the pieces. I've seen people who never did combat before go work on it, and that's inspired me too. I'm probably going to die a thousand times, but the only way forward is through repeated failure and learning the lessons from it. Nobody is going to hand you a victory because they pity you.

As for morale, successful people surround themselves with like-minded individuals. I don't care that person A or B are your best buddy, if they are constantly spouting negative commentary then this will eventually start to affect you too, no matter how strong your willpower is. If you want to win, you need a winners mindset, and a winners clique. Newer players are excellent for this, as they are not yet affected by the bitter veteran syndrome the old guard may be suffering from, though thank goodness they are old players who are still full of optimism.

As for investing in top-tier combatants, it's always a risk. There is no signed contract that player Z has to stick with his org after being raised to VA and what not. And yes, it fucking sucks when they do it. But it is also their rights to enjoy the game, and they may just have a very good reason, or maybe they are just an ungrateful bitch. Heh, that's life, and if you want to avoid that pain then your best bet is not to put all your eggs in one basket.

Lastly, I'll add that from my experience, too much victory by one side eventually leads to people growing complacent. Especially if the opposition all but gives up and decides to stick it out. Cracks will start to appear, slowly but surely. Guaranteed victory is about as boring as guaranteed defeat. And then there will be a revolution, and things will get swapped around. I feel fairly confident this is just how it will be in Lusternia as well, because the victory and defeat does not appear to be based on game mechanic imbalances. Yes, some things are OP and others are UP but the general lines are pretty good and outliers seem to get addressed sooner or later.

I think this is a really interesting subject that applies to IRE games more than anything else I've seen on the internet.

I think there are two paths: either you take things as they come and deal with them as they are, or you single out things that frustrate you - choke, domoths, conflict quests - and try to get them changed. There are shades of grey in between of course, and most people will vary between the two to some degree.

Why is it like this? The forums. Envoys. Input is directly solicited and acted upon. It creates this mindset that your opinions matter, and campaigning/complaining is a valid course of action - because it really can achieve results.

Personally I found that once I decided to take things as they were, my experience got a lot better. I completely disregarded any possibility of my class being buffed or enemy skills being nerfed, and instead set myself to learning to take advantage of everything existing that was available to me. While waiting 12 months for some envoy issue to be pushed through might eventually see results, it's really drawn out and frustrating if you resign yourself to waiting.

I warn, this is going to be long because it is difficult to explain the synergy in multiple classes worth of skills.

This is going to be kinda a tangent but I think Hallifax will always be behind other organizations until there is greater synergy in their skills even with the possible additions of bard and monk.

Currently, Hallifax has no unique instant kill that is feasible (Beyond what is present in TK, and TP and available to every city) and it has no quick ability to hinder. These issues are compounded by the fact that our skills (Institute, Aeromancer, Sentinels) are among the best in single combat formats. Most organizations have an instant kill that the group can work towards in order to kill, this primarily is seen in a vitals instant kill, usually mana. Generally every class can help with this directly (draining mana) or indirectly (damaging health, hindering curing, hindering movement). This fundamentally is what group fights are about. Due to our mages having our only instant kills (except as mentioned later) it makes them absolutely the first target with the combination of being the meld target. If they die, our group then has no meld, and no instant kill so the choice doesn't come between meld and something else (for instance the choice between targeting a choker and targeting a druid)

Hallifax has one instant kill outside of mage tertiary which is timequake. This isn't something anyone outside of the institute can contribute to due to the variable nature of timewarp, and the fact that two active (timechant timewarp) skills can be cured by a single focus mind. There are two means for the institute to achieve this instant kill which is to have multiple people stack rubies, then have one researcher shatterplex, and have another one timequake and hope you beat latency and that none of the essential people involved got hindered or hit badluck. The other is to do soft aeonlocks, and essentially try to achieve the same thing through stopping their curing long enough for one person to shatterplex, and then timequake. (I will clarify at this point that a soft aeonlock is a lock that requires multiple different cures to get to the aeon being cured.

The quickest soft lock that the institute can do is to get aeon up, and while the person is still in aeon to malefact gem anorexia, and then beast spit chansu (asthma). The issue with soft aeonlocks is it takes MANY afflictions to get a soft aeonlock to stick for more than a few seconds. For instance the aeonlock I described above can cure the anorexia immediately with focus mind, so I'd need to add impatience or timewarp, and then continue to apply those taking all of my balance, However the target is able to cure two or so afflictions for every application I am able to put down so they ultimately are gaining ground on me so it requires multiple people to keep a soft lock up. The classic and most well publicized example of another org having better single person hindering ability would be the classic choke. Choke is not effected by truetime, and can only be cured by movement. However, Glomdoring also has a slew of abilities to hinder movement (p5th, hindering in the demesne) You see how the synergy works there, one person takes themselves out of the fight to take another target out of the fight, and then other people work to secure that and get the kill within it. However, soft aeonlocks require more people to establish (due to aeonfield being unusable in groups against any organization other than Hallifax, or Gaudiguch, I can't tell you how many times I tried to use aeonfield only to be instantly toaded)

Beyond our ability to hinder curing, and our lack of instant kills there is an extreme lack of movement hindering. Aeromancer demesnes are the worst for hindering movement (druid demesnes webbing on movement, pyromancers/aquamancers stunning, Aquamancers forced movement, geomancers rubble) The institute only have temporal bonds which hits less often than it doesn't. I will say this issue will be resolved if bards or monks are ever released as each provide significant movement hindering ability so I believe this issue will be resolved in time. However, for the time being, rubies are cured by running. This lack of movement hindering allows for anyone who might be targeted by a timequake kill to simply move about the area quickly (on average needing to make 14 room changes, which takes 7 seconds assuming the full amount of rubies are on them). Often anyone targeting by rubies will run even in a group, until they are dropped which is not difficult to achieve. So this negates our ability to do anything other than aeonlock-mage instant kills which will not work against a group intelligent enough to know to kill the mage first.

The strong nature of our skills in single combat inclines envoys to vote heavily against any organizational synergy buffs and the 1 report nature of envoys stops from there being any sweeping balances within the skills. There are a lot of ways these issues can be addressed, but very few of them can effective be addressed one at a time due to the fact that each of these guilds are not "underpowered" individually, but only when seen as a part of the whole of Hallifax can it be seen that their synergy is less than every other organization.

N.B. I am reminded we have other instant kills, which I've just automatically not included for various reasons which I will cover below

Soulless: Long prep time, only one person can prep it
Cloud Coils: Only one person can prep it, takes a logn time to get 6 coils, and easily cured
Astrology: Only researchers can prep, not a true instant kill
Behead/similar skills: Only sentinels can prep, RNGod.

I believe that this synergy used to exist in Hallifax in the form of damage kills (Balestone, chain lightning, sentinel weapon damage) However has subsequently been nerfed by the envoy system and no synergy replaced it.

I would also just like to say that I have several ways to address these synergy problems, however removed them from the post due to Estarra's previous message about how everyone thought they knew how to fix it and so forth. I am simply trying to establish that the synergy problem exists in my previous post, and if that becomes an accepted premise will discuss how to resolve them

Does shatterplex respond to other people's rubies? If so, can't you get multiple researchers to quicken and stack them? Bedevil might really help in setting people up for those locks. I'm sure someone spamming web or hangedman wouldn't be too bad. Pretty sure with enough of them, quicken+balestone could still kill off quite a number of people.

Sentinels are warriors which is poopsy if alone, but multiple warriors = most synergy in the game.

Despite what you say, aeromancer demesnes are pretty rough to fight in, and the prone+pierced limbs can work really well with warriors with chansu+senso and hack down spam.

While it's true you don't have a nifty instakill or really easy hindering like lolshackles or lolchoke or bards to hold people down, I still think you're not as severely lacking in skills. The problem to me sounds mostly like you don't have enough of you guys, which is a population problem.

When I see hallifax, I see one active researcher, maybe two at most. I see a couple mages, and I see one bonecrusher warrior. If you have a healthier population with more variety and everyone knew what they were adding to the group, it would feel less like you had a skills synergy problem.

I'd just like to add: you don't even have to necessarily celebrate just victories (big or small) - celebrate the mere effort put in to try and achieve something. Revolts, for example, where you didn't get a village but tried hard and fought hard to gain a foothold should be favored just as much as winning the village. "We may not have gotten a victory, but we sure gave xyz a good smacking! Good work, next time we will take the trophy!" This goes for Domoths, aetherflares, wildnodes, the rest.

Synergy isn't having 10 researchers. Yes, we could kill people if we had 10 active researchers, but synergy is having group strategies in which everyone can participate like with mana IKs. Also, quickening doesn't work for any Harmonics skill because they are balance. Shatterplex does work with rubies from multiple people (as I stated in my post), but have the same weaknesses as stated (only people that can participate are researchers, running curing, no ability to stop the run) Yes, population is one of (if not our biggest issue) but I specifically didn't comment on that because it isn't something that can reasonably be resolved by anything other than adding guilds causing a better distribution of the overall population of the Basin. However, I know this is a futile arguement so I'd like to address what can reasonably be address, organizational synergy.

We've been trying to do that, and I do think it makes a difference. After every fight, whether we did well or not, we ask, "What did we do right? What did we do wrong? What should we do different next time? What did each of you learn?" If anything, it lets people know that there is an effort being made.

As refreshing as it is to not have to worry about mana-kills when fighting Gaudi, the lack of one for Hallifax and Gaudiguch do put us both on the back foot in larger group fights when other alliance members come in. Hallifax and Gaudiguch simply cannot secure their kills as quickly as the other city/communes, where health and mana are typically being drained simultaneously, and choosing to heal one usually means death by the other. Fighting a Halli/Gaudi group on their own is a case of tank the damage and avoid being deathtarot'd/timequaked/illuminated (which does make for very enjoyable fights actually).

With regards synergy, as expressed by Morbo, at the moment Hallifax does seem to lag further, in comparison to the awesomeness of Paradigmatics Reality + Pyro's Mirage say. But that said, I do think it is premature to change anything too much, without seeing what bards/monks bring, as if they work like existing bards and monks, either could be lethal with things like octave/p5th + timewarp/rubies, or gem draining + harmony deathtouch.

If the admin think that there is still a ways to go before bards/monks will be released to the two cities, then yes, I would agree that we're lacking synergy and suggestions to improve it are needed.

Our lack of population argument is also somewhat valid, but as Morbo said, more people != synergy, and see Reality + Mirage's potential for example of excellent synergy.

Well, I wasn't aware rubies took balance, but I guess that makes sense. When I say you need more people, I didn't mean you needed more healer researchers or more telepathic mages or more bonecrusher warriors. You need more people for the variety they bring in choosing different terts and having everyone contribute in unique ways. Therein, you might find the synergy in your skills. As for stopping people from running, you could gamble a tk barrier, or keep on them with empress, or have a dedicated webber, or have a blademaster pinleg/impale. Carcer+temporal bonds does actually help too, moreso when you're being grouped on.

I still maintain that you can try to find some synergy among yourselves and the afflictions you give individually to lock a single person down. I know Morbo did a good job damaging me alone to the point where I started worrying about it, and I don't doubt if you threw another researcher into the mix, you could insta-gank a demigod (maybe one other researcher to be sure?). Have a warrior hit with ibululu and you might be set. I also think giving you a mana kill is sort of dangerous since Hallifax and Gaudiguch both drain mana a lot through the need for focus mind (but that's my opinion anyway).

While I know there's a strong desire for bards and monks, it's sort of difficult to imagine the current population being able to sustain new guilds. Infact, Gaudiguch's and Hallifax's current populations are probably a testament to the fact that you should wait until Lusternia shows some growth.