Just because something new happens to you that seems unfair, it doesn't mean that it needs to be done away with...

fyi, absolves hardly happen.

Warriors:

Lower the scaling of stats, both str/dex and weapon stats and then buff wounding as a whole. People like Ixion have the skill to avoid parry and poison properly and all of that but it's no accident that he's aslaran and tempered his weapon the way he did, I'm not saying that all weapon stat strategies should be equal or that an unspeced faeling should get very far but as it is right now demi aslaran is the standard with only a few niche races coming in second.

Fix the ratios of swings, I see that there's an envoy report that was accepted where the admin said they'd look in to it. The suggestion I was going to envoy before I saw that was making swings far more likely to hit their primary part (head for hack down etc.) if the target was sprawled, impaled or pinleged.

Druids:

This is probably not going to happen because my understanding is this defies the vision of the game (and is a really old argument) but druids really need mobility. There's some builds around that grant that. For instance blacktalon with runes have some viability outside of demesne due to double haegl and the crow insta, even then it normally requires a group. Perhaps this is due to a lack of experience fighting hartstone but I don't think they have a comparable setup. Basically this means that 90% of the time a druid is there for damage, especially in raiding elemental planes where they cannot meld and there are no trees. Obviously druids should be more powerful in demesne than out as mages are but outside of demesne a druid's ability to kill doesn't remotely compare to a psionic mage.

Monks:

I'm unsure overall how monks should be balanced, as it stands currently I steamroll many squishies (as many warriors do) and run into warriors like a brick wall (as many warriors do). One disparity that could be looked at is adding a power cost to some monk abilities. Mala has some ideas that involve this for Nekotai but I feel this could be applied in general. It's a bit unfair that a warrior is pretty much constantly dumping power in to their kill (I don't think even at the very top tier that a warrior can kill without power) but shofangi in particular don't require much of anything power wise, I arguably require power to finish a kill with skive or at least to do so quickly but I've killed particularly squishy people with straight bleeding and never had to spend power. Although now that I've said that I'm not sure what should cost power in my grapple spam shred-fest, but it's still something that should be looked in to.

Maybe if shrines are going to be adjusted, one idea that's been floated before should be considered: that a shrine work differently inside org territory of the god's allied nation than outside it. I'm not saying they shouldn't be nerfed in both places, but maybe they should be nerfed differently in one than in the other.

The single biggest change we could have in combat, and perhaps the one that would make team combat less frustrating for those who have a hard time entering it, is if some bright-bulb would finally figure out how to tie a rope around himself and his friend at the same time so they couldn't be trivially separated. But I don't see any way to do this that doesn't break a lot of guilds and a lot of skills. If we could go back in time and change things retroactively I would definitely say "don't make the ability to split up groups so common, so easy, and so necessary -- it will only make those who have a hard time getting into combat have it ten times harder, and put the brakes on so many people's involvement." But it's way too late to say that. If we could, say, make it so squads have a very high chance of staying together in a fight, how would we address those guilds whose skills depend on splitting up the enemy?

So mass web/vines spammers don't get separated? I don't look think positively at that, and the arena is there to simulate combat.

The whole "numbers are hugely important" thing is even more endemic to group combat, this wouldn't really change that. Anyway, like I said, it's too late to make it so splitting groups up isn't a key tactic without revamping almost everything; you're looking at that part far too superficially. But constantly being split off from your group is one of the biggest things that drives people away from participating in combat in the first place in Lusternia, so that if you were going to wipe it and make a new MUD it would be a big thing to do differently.

Squads already help quite a bit. One of the things that separates a good combatant from a bad one (and I don't necessarily have this totally down either) is navigating and this includes staying with your group. I don't think you could revamp the game enough to take that element out. Keep in mind that newer combatants are disoriented by things like squall which shouldn't be more than a second of disruption by itself, if people can't cope with that then having the navigation skills to deal with say infused rad is going to be totally impossible.

If the problem with war shrines is that they're put up in enemy territory to give raiding groups too strong a hold on the plane they are seeking to attack, how making it so that once a shrine is put up, one cannot sanctify the area surrounding it until a certain amount has passed, because the shrine needs to extert its influence fully at the area it is before it can spread its influence outwards.

Warrior Plug:

What do you think about Focus Poisons being changed to a 1/6 poison damage effect, like RighteousArms to Divinus, as well as boosting rub rate by 20%, and have it kept as a defence? Might help close the solo tertiary gap without crazily buffing warrior group capabilities.

That's probably because only one 'side' has had all of them for so long. When we finally got one, it was absolved away as fast as possible, except for the last round, where we tried to claim it to the next level before the absolving could start. I agree that domoths need a bit of looking at. It seems like it would be a full time job just keeping one up against any sort of opposition.

Two things that I think are very important

1. Lusternia must be balanced around 1v1 PvP, yet all of the PvP that matters ends up being large group combat. Something has to be done to encourage 1v1 and small group combat outside of the arena. Otherwise, the game will never appear balanced. Anything at all would be better than nothing; player flags and exp bonuses, or maybe a discretionary power that splits up groups into small team or 1v1 fights and keeps them apart.

2. The slow balance races really got the short end of the stick during the last set of racial revamps, despite people predicting it, trying to stop it and complaining about the outcome. Something should be done about that. Racial speed bonuses were increased last time, but was it really necessary to make speed maluses worse by an equal amount, when slow balance was already a huge disadvantage to begin with?

Just because something new doesn't happen to you, and you think that's fair, doesn't mean it should be part of the game forever. (You're not helping with this, fyi. OBVIOUSLY, if we feel something is broken/needs changing, it's because it hit us, why else would we possibly want to fix parts of the game. OBVIOUSLY, anything we bring up should be discredited for being steeped in bias.)

I agree with the race thing, some races remain poor, and a few go totally and completly unused for various reasons. The only real stat dump in the game is Strength (Sucks to be you, warriors). A few of the good Str races for warriors are either cripplingly slow or cripplingly stupid, and vulnerable to mana kills (And are therefore considered unplayable). These tend to make up for it by having more Con, which is made up for by having a high Int and surging when you need health. A few of the other races have disads that outweigh their statline and ads a bit too much.

Naturally, I agree with Druids. I do have a lot of problems with trying to buff druids in some areas though, without making us too powerful (though usually it's not towards a kill I'm worried about, sap is very difficult to pull in groups now-a-days). I think I/we/someone was going to write up an overarching/thematic change to Druidry and Druid concept and slap it up somewhere, like the Malarious Report thread.

I'm still not convinced that druids are as hurting as people claim. I've sparred a few people, and most of the reasons why I couldn't stick sap was because I wasn't maintaining it and let them cure, not because it's impossible to stick.

And I say this pretty much only using ecology and druidry. Yes my demesne has more affs, but the only one that really is needed for the sap maintence is paralysis, blacklung and chill occasionally help but are more luck than anything else. You have access to a disrupt, breaking legs to keep someone prone, plus all of ecology, runes or dw, I hate to say it, but I think your issues with sap fall more on you than the class itself.

Also, as an aside, using briars + targetmoving stuff makes it pretty easy to combat brumetower (another one of your big complaints). You even have treetoss which is pretty sweet.



As far as absolves, I didn't absolve in the middle of the night, I did it at about 10am or so EST, mostly because we absolved with people around to fight the first time and we're just told we're dicks for absolving. If you aren't going to bother to fight, why should we?

This seems reasonable.

Blind is pretty great for helping sap, it's somewhat undervalued. Moving people past brumetower is possible. Doing so and hindering them so much that you get the chance to do anything before they can climb down and rebrume is not. Really, against most people one on one, I'm golden, and pretty much have guaranteed eventual kill. Against anyone who is actually of high-tier, this becomes closer to impossible and rng based. When calculated, curing out of basic sap with a druid demesne hitting takes 2 seconds, over a second faster then sap itself. Even at a higher level of lock, every second counts to maintaining sap against a good enemy (more and more out there), the four second time on reject makes that mighty hard, as do plentiful passive curing, passive shielding, and to a lesser degree unstoppable afflictions aimed at the druid that hinder them. The problem I have with the concept of druids is that we are still VERY POWERFUL against bad coders/those without resources, but how good we are is more strongly tied with the "skill" of systems then some other classes, who have some sort of attrition or more solid setup/locks. Similarly, if the enemy group lacks a sap trigger alert, you can be safe from point cleanse, but if they have a single trigger among the lot of them, your entire skill is totally invalidated, you might as well spam damage or use tertiaries to participate. Most if not all the other classes have some sort of other use in group combat. We feel very outdated as an affliction/lock class, and there are a lot of holdovers from the heyday of druids (and bad systems).

Keep in mind that my headbutt (for instance) is slower then your writhe. Also, treetoss has no stun involved. Also, blocking, and distort/bonds.


EDIT: ANYYYYYWAAAAYS, like I said, trying to work on craeting a druid specific 'special envoy' to try and strive towards in reporting month to month... somewhere else. I think that mages vs. druids as far as mobility and demesne use is in the scope of this though.

Supernumerary and Ephemeral Powers

Does anyone ever use the non-permanent variant? For the same cost and weight, you can get a permanent one instead, and if you feel that you don't want a specific power, you can just remove them from your selection - it's rather impractical. What if we could buy a bonus X to the maximum weight that we could choose to pay each year instead? What if getting the non-permanent variant allowed you to go a little over the maximum weight? As it is, really is rather impractical and confusing. People might mistake one for the other! Imagine the grief from spending 70-million essence on the temporary version by mistake! I know it only impacts the end-game portion of the playerbase, but I thought I'd add them here, too.

I'd like to toss something out there that I am still formulating into specifics but want some input on as I do that:

One of the biggest problems I see, hands down, is the ability of the side with momentum to retain momentum. There are literally no penalties for holding every village, holding every domoth etc.

Now, while I do understand the "to the victor goes the spoils" mentality, I am wondering if people would be amenable to some specific measurable changes to how Org conflict goals are handled to help break up monopolies and open up strategic options.

The idea here would be to create more exciting and fun conflict by making it possible for people in weaker positions to re-take some ground. I am also keeping in mind that this would cut every org equally. Yes it might help Halligorawilde get Domoths today, but hold them long enough or miss certain criteria and Celedoringuich takes them using the same methods.

Before I spend a lot of time writing out a bunch of specific point by point considerations...is this something people would like to see? Or would there be a lot of gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts on this point?

It helps the health of the game I think if we lessen the impact of grinding down the other side into oblivion until conflict isn't fun anymore.


What do you guys think?

These aren't really issues, your facts are wonky.
Temporary powers don't eat up weight. If you spend on the temporary, you can upgrade to permanent for no cost, the weight just kicks in.

The issue here is that you are talking about "sides" in the aspect of alliances, and not individual organisations. It's already ridiculously hard to keep up opposing villages for one org, now far more so than ever before (to the point where it doesn't really happen outside of the mountains revolt), and it's already outright impossible with domoths, the exception being aetherflares.

If you draw lines with alliances, how does this account for changeability of alliance lines? Are we going to cement the current ones for forever, or do we expect the admins to code in varying exceptions/penalties for each potential org alignment?

I feel that a competitive environment should be fostered, even if that means artificially handicapping a faction that wins repeatedly. Territory control is most fun when the territories OFTEN change hands, and the leading team isn't always the same.
A game only remains fun as long as it is competitive, which I simply feel it isn't right now.

THAT SAID, I feel that alliance lines should be something that can shift around, and that admins should not get involved in politics, merely making sure that the game stays competitive.

Mea Culpa....I was discussing the current environment without consideration which was my mistake.

I have no desire to balance this around alliance lines...I would actually rather see it be balanced on the conquest points themselves. Basically, regardless of who holds a village, domoth, aethersphere...or other point that I have yet to consider there would be a tick kept for when you capture it. The next attempt to capture it would be slightly harder for you but not impossible and if you do win, another tick would be added. Call it the price of up-keeping an empire, or call it the natural unrest of a subjugated people or what have you.

The fact is, this probably *wouldn't* prevent a more organized alliance from stomping a less organized alliance and it shouldn't! What it would do however is give a group that is trying to get themselves together a chance instead of fostering the current environment, where it is entirely possible to maintain a stranglehold on every village and domoth repeatedly.

Again, I'm not looking to consider alliances. If those change, then you just have to organize your groups differently is all.

Edit to Add: Let me also say that while i know in theory it is impossible for one org to hold certain villages and in practice it is impossible with domoths, the fact remains it is currently equally impossible for the weaker side to break the hold and has been for some time. I don't want to cement the current alliances or force hardcoded exceptions but something does have to give in the current situation.

What I'm looking at is specific ways to address that piece of it that won't require sticking to these current alliances. I'm very much right now in the tossing out ideas stage of this thought process.