I don't think anyway said shrines should be removed entirely.

Vadi:

I read Iasmos saying "because Seren doesn't have active Orders, shrines should be nerfed so nobody can use them equally".

That is a vast oversimplification of the argument. More contextually, it is that "Today Seren has few active gods and many individuals in inactive orders, and the negative effect this has on their access to shrine powers is clearly evident. Tomorrow it could be any other org that faces this problem, Glom included, and it is unfair for any org to be denied access to this aspect of combat when it is so overwhelmingly powerful."

ok, so how about you put up shrines from active orders to fight with? I don't think that's too much to ask

In other words, you are saying combat should entirely supercede our character development and RP? The problem is access to shrines when many orders have inactive gods. There are many established characters who have made commitments to orders that were active back when they first joined. Should these people completely abandon their past RP just to have more power in combat? And, by extension, should orders with inactive gods just become completely closed to new membership because there is no opportunity for mechanical advancement? If we are going that route, why do these gods remain in the organization's pantheon at all - if your god goes inactive, would it not then be best to completely destroy the role so no one can "fall into the trap" of losing access to shrine powers?

Despite some mistaken opinions on this forum, Lusternia is still primarily a role-playing game, not a tactical combat game (if you need evidence, just look to Eventru's posts in the City v. Commune thread). While yes, this is working against Serenwilde's favor, the truth is it could impact any of you just as easily in the future.

The fact is you have people in active orders that can shrine and use those powers, so I feel your argument is flawed in that regard. You have access to it, I don't think there is a single org without access to a active order. That's why Mag switched from Fain shrines to Raezon shrines.

So no the problem isn't access to shrines.

Heck there are probably people with the ability to use shrine powers in those inactive orders as well.

I agree with Sidd, the availability of shrines is not the problem intended to be discussed in this report, if indeed it is a problem, which I am skeptical about.

I think the main issue here is that combat seems to have become focused around shrines in general. Shrines have become almost a pivotal role in lusternia conflict which has been seen in some recent fights. I dont think shrines should have become so dependable for lusternia combat, which I am hoping this report will eventually lead to downsizing shrines for only actual Order purposes and perhaps territorial defense (meaning the planes connected to each city)?

A new orderwar system that actually sees use mixed with a major downgrade/conceptualizing of the place of shrines in general combat would go wonderfully hand in hand. Shrines being used primarily for fighting other shrines, and removed (or their impact greatly reduced) from the wider arena of player combat.

We leave an EtherWilde raid when shrines go up because it's usually shrines + discretionaries. Then we usually head to the godrealms, where there are neither shrines nor discretionaries. Shrines on aetherbubbles, we only have to deal with one of the two.

Rivius:

Shuyin himself said you guys run when shrine powers go up in etherwilde. He said it like, yesterday.

Also, RE: the Hoaracle shrine that didn't get defended: Rathan and I were the only ones online and attentive I think and none of us have quick access to the bubble. It wasn't because we were lazing about and didn't want to defend it.

And I've seen at least one instance recently that I can recall off the top of my head where because we set up shrines and meld, you didn't bother coming back to a bubble after the first try. vOv

If you're talking about the one example that I can think of where this happened, you're misremembering the facts (and misunderstanding reasonings).

1) Glomdoring had 0 melders. We went in the first time, we found the Domoth object, and we activated our shrine prior to the enemy group arriving.
2) The enemy group arrived, we fought, we lost (oh my, we lost in shrine effects? How can this be?!)
3) We went back to try again, we found 1 melder (Haiden) who ended up getting himself picked off separately.

Sure, the Hoaracle shrine was going up and being activated at this point, but I can assure you that it was not the shrine that had an impact on our trying again. It was the numbers (especially the number of melders opposed to our lack thereof) that stymied further goes.

Xenthos:

If you're talking about the one example that I can think of where this happened, you're misremembering the facts (and misunderstanding reasonings).

1) Glomdoring had 0 melders. We went in the first time, we found the Domoth object, and we activated our shrine prior to the enemy group arriving.
2) The enemy group arrived, we fought, we lost (oh my, we lost in shrine effects? How can this be?!)
3) We went back to try again, we found 1 melder (Haiden) who ended up getting himself picked off separately.

Sure, the Hoaracle shrine was going up and being activated at this point, but I can assure you that it was not the shrine that had an impact on our trying again. It was the numbers (especially the number of melders opposed to our lack thereof) that stymied further goes.

It is odd that you lost, but we can bring up another example if that is the case. It wasnt that long ago that the Chaos domoth went into play and you guys did not have the numbers to fight back. After your alliance had all descended from the domoth realm because you could not push ahead, you simply waited for the Domoth to appear on a bubble. When the domoth appeared on the bubble you arrived first and quickly put Shrine gravity, Shrine Invasion and a small meld up. Even with your enemy's numbers being far greater and the advantage being 2 to 1, they were slain with each attempt they made (which was 3 before they gave up). I think we can all agree that Shrine effects do highly impact balance in combat battles.

Arcanis:


It is odd that you lost, but we can bring up another example if that is the case. It wasnt that long ago that the Chaos domoth went into play and you guys did not have the numbers to fight back. After your alliance had all descended from the domoth realm because you could not push ahead, you simply waited for the Domoth to appear on a bubble. When the domoth appeared on the bubble you arrived first and quickly put Shrine gravity, Shrine Invasion and a small meld up. Even with your enemy's numbers being far greater and the advantage being 2 to 1, they were slain with each attempt they made (which was 3 before they gave up). I think we can all agree that Shrine effects do highly impact balance in combat battles.

I thought about bringing up that example, but I didn't, but lets go ahead and take a look at what actually happened.

First off, we activated shrines on every bubble we had one on, we just got lucky it was on Facility. Second you actually got there before I melded, and instead of trying to meld with any sort of plan, you guys kind of just sat at the entrance and died rather then work towards any common goal.

Of the three times you came back, only once did anyone even start breaking my meld, the rest of you kind of just sat in a room and let us kill you. There was no real attempt to defile, break (other than the once) or have any sort of cohesive offense. I think the numbers actually evened up during stage 2, which was a unexpected but fortunate circumstance for us. Trying to bring up an example of shrines being overpowered in a setting where you pretty obviously had little to no plan other than try and bully us out with numbers (shrines are definitely a giant equalizer in terms of numbers), isn't really an example I would point out or bring up. The issue there was teamwork and coordination, not shrines.

That Chaos battle was a coordinated death trap, so good work on locking the place down. By the time we knew what hit us, half of us were dead...

We could go back and forth for days talking about how this fight well or that fight went poorly, and it still won't change the fact that shrines need to be toned down considerably.

Zarquan:

That Chaos battle was a coordinated death trap, so good work on locking the place down. By the time we knew what hit us, half of us were dead...

We could go back and forth for days talking about how this fight well or that fight went poorly, and it still won't change the fact that shrines need to be toned down considerably.

We did the same thing 3 times in a row, so the 'before we knew what hit us' argument really just supports my point that you went in with no set plan, or if you did have a plan, it just straight up fell apart because people panicked and veered from the plan

Or the fact that everyone was being hit with Gravity and being tossed around by fearaura, squalls, scissorkick and trees? The plan to defile to remove the shrine was attempted but it was too much to handle. Also the point you stated that "we activated shrines on every bubble we had one on" also points out that you were being very dependent on shrine involvement in the conflict itself. So as Zaraquan had stated "shrines need to be toned down considerably." which is the main point here.

Arcanis:

Or the fact that everyone was being hit with Gravity and being tossed around by fearaura, squalls, scissorkick and trees? The plan to defile to remove the shrine was attempted but it was too much to handle. Also the point you stated that "we activated shrines on every bubble we had one on" also points out that you were being very dependent on shrine involvement in the conflict itself. So as Zaraquan had stated "shrines need to be toned down considerably." which is the main point here.

Not really dependent on shrines, more of a being prepared for anything. As you said, you had numbers on us in the domoth realms so we had assumed you would have numbers on us during stage 2, our best chance was to get to the bubble and prepare it first. Gravity slows you down for 1 second, I sat there and watched you sit in a room pretty much doing nothing while I sapped/killed you(by myself none the less). What you really are saying is that we did such a good job messing up your coordination that no one knew how to react and thus you all died, which really just goes to my point about having a plan, but it fell apart when everyone panicked and veered from it.

Let me clarify one thing real quick, I'm not against toning them down, I'm against them being destroyed due to domoths or flares.

I think I've finally learned what "straw man argument" means.

Sidd:


I thought about bringing up that example, but I didn't, but lets go ahead and take a look at what actually happened.

First off, we activated shrines on every bubble we had one on, we just got lucky it was on Facility. Second you actually got there before I melded, and instead of trying to meld with any sort of plan, you guys kind of just sat at the entrance and died rather then work towards any common goal.

Of the three times you came back, only once did anyone even start breaking my meld, the rest of you kind of just sat in a room and let us kill you. There was no real attempt to defile, break (other than the once) or have any sort of cohesive offense. I think the numbers actually evened up during stage 2, which was a unexpected but fortunate circumstance for us. Trying to bring up an example of shrines being overpowered in a setting where you pretty obviously had little to no plan other than try and bully us out with numbers (shrines are definitely a giant equalizer in terms of numbers), isn't really an example I would point out or bring up. The issue there was teamwork and coordination, not shrines.

Actually, we did go in with a plan, which was to get a move on dropping the inevitable shrine before anyone got there to activate it. To that end, I and a few others immediately went off in one direction to break it, having scented and not seen a huge group, others went to break from the other side and were stopped by gravity/invasion.

Regardless of what happened in this situation (Which is majorly derailing and definitely an ad hominem attack), the fact that both sides have said that not being able to drop a shrine plays a very large part of combat (you say that our big failing was not dropping the shrine first), and that application of a shrine is all the preparation you felt you would need to combat a larger group reveal problems with shrines. I've used a shrine in conjunction with a group splitting effect (like rad), and marveled at how even the best combatants take several seconds to group back up. Add to that all manner of other hindering or moving mechanics and things can get out of hand so easily.

As a druid, I do recognize that climbing up/down from tree terrain in gravity is long enough that I can totally smash groups to bits with treelife/treebane. Oh, let me go runes and throw in rad. Let's look at aquamancy. The aquamancer can split a group pretty easily and well, but the big complaint is that they don't have any movement hindering (except leaving their room) so those splits don't change much as the enemy just comes immediately back. Not so in gravity! Let's throw in rad again, and run around to split their group around the entire area. Then, phantomsphere the bigger combatants. Skills such as squall or scissorflip that split groups up in some fashion are partially balanced around the amount of damage that typically does to a group. Squall's balancing point is that it moves your group around as well. Of course, in gravity, that's a non-issue. Your group moves back instantly, the other group cannot. Same with scissorkick, it costs 5p because it depends on a particular amount of hindering/splitting involved that is exacerbated by gravity. Pits and springtraps, whirlwind, fear aura, treelife, currents/whirlpool, treetoss, scissorkick, squall, pathtwist (though you can ENTER PATH), Rad, spook/caw, phantomspheres, melds in general and probably more are all effected strongly by gravity. Really, instead of trying to balance everything with gravity in mind, it would be easier to limit, change, or remove gravity in some way.

Changing shrines so that their effect only hits within their borders and changing some of the effects/effect calling mechanics will help alleviate these problems, because the majority of areas have either multiple entrances and/or entry rooms that can essentially always be broken. In that situation, (as with demesnes) there is more area control strategy involved. Situations like Facility (which is generally hard to assault after someone gets entrenched no matter what) won't change much, but not having up distort and wrath and invasion and gravity will help.

Sidd:


Not really dependent on shrines, more of a being prepared for anything. As you said, you had numbers on us in the domoth realms so we had assumed you would have numbers on us during stage 2, our best chance was to get to the bubble and prepare it first. Gravity slows you down for 1 second, I sat there and watched you sit in a room pretty much doing nothing while I sapped/killed you(by myself none the less). What you really are saying is that we did such a good job messing up your coordination that no one knew how to react and thus you all died, which really just goes to my point about having a plan, but it fell apart when everyone panicked and veered from it.

Let me clarify one thing real quick, I'm not against toning them down, I'm against them being destroyed due to domoths or flares.

Your argument of me standing there seems to be missing a large section of what happened. The group was broken up from being tossed around in random rooms (which I had already mentioned). There were members of the group dying to invasion, other members being taken down in much smaller groups and having constant aeon from the gravity shrine, meaning any chance of fighting back was declined significantly. When you caught me by myself I had actually been Realitied away, (another ability that was being used to break the group). I actually had been realitied away twice because it seemed several rooms close to where we appear by bubblix had had reality placed beforehand.

So yes with me already afflicted by the meld and my Sap curing needing some obvious looking at I admit, I died to 3 hits of your 100% poison cudgel attack (which did around 2.9 k damage by the way, with me having a poison resistance tat). So I think we can exclude your "standing around aimlessly in a room" point from the convo now? :/

I'd like to point out that the only thing that contributes to any group splitting in an Aquamancers demesne would be if they resisted the pull of currents, and to a lesser extent whirlpool. If no one in the group doesn't resist, or even if they're following one person, and that person gets pulled, the entire group is moved in one direction, and then will most likely be pulled back immediately by whirlpool.