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Okay, so I feel like this discussion re: malcontents is getting to a point where I should also link this comment by @Orael here.

https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/comment/192276/#Comment_192276

Let's try to address the problems we see in the context of whether or not they are problems and not based on whether the person suggesting the problem simply needs to be more positive and get good.

Re: scent, I do want to ask if the arti nose line can be customized to be removed? Even with the snobbiest of snoots, it still looks weird for a purely RP reason.

Devora said:

Noob question. Is there a particular reason to design classes from different orgs in the same archetype with mechanically different skillsets?

This seems to be common and it seems like it would make much more sense to have 5 to 8 thoughtful, synergistic, well balanced skillsets, and then just change the flavoring but give each archetype the same mechanics. If there's genuinely a different skillset for each class, that's crazy. That's up to 30 skillsets needing to be balanced within and against each other. No one can expect that kind of wizardry from a handful of staff. 

Or so I would think. But again, noob question.

It's one of the ways Lusternia differentiates itself from the other games and is, when it's working right, a selling point of the game.

For me, the real issue comes in when you then add in the unending juggling that's caused by shared skills and choices.

Because it's not just 30 classes, it's like... 26-31 potential legal combinations of primary, secondary, and tertiary available to a single org. Like... you could have something like 161 players and each of them has a unique combination of class skills, more if you wanted to include high vs low magic into it.

On the other hand, if we locked down classes to specific kits then it'd potentially be less than 30 classes worth of balancing given they're all variations on the archetypes.

Niwynne said:

The gist I am getting from the past few days on here, is that a siginificant amount of people have either left the game or are leaving because of Glomdoring's dominance. They have said so themselves. Even if this is somehow one big misconception, it doesn't change the fact that people did actually leave because they felt Glomdoring was oppressive.

And from what is going on here, no amount of 'But guys, if you actually did X' coming from Glomdoring players is going to change anything. Even if it is a valid argument, even if Moondancers really are the best class in the game people do not believe you, and you, Glomdoring players are not convincing them otherwise.

This game is slowly dying. Glomdoring neesd to do something drastic if it wants the game to continue to exist. Is it fair on them that it is at this point? Well, we could have another seven pages of argument about it and I doubt anyone will change their mind. What can you do? I don't know. I'm just a little Aquamancer who can see when people are hurting. You're the ones who are expert at combat. Do something. Anything. Anything that stops this.

I've spent time helping Serenwilde and Hallifax players understand their skillset build up and get kills with it. I'm always willing to help people understand their skillsets if they are having trouble with them. If you or anyone else needs help, if no one in your org is helping you send me an ooc message and I'll do my best to help you out. I've never turned anyway away when they ask for help.

Saran said:

Esoneyuna said:

Aramel said:

For me personally, Esoneyuna, I did what you suggested. I moved on from Lusternia and spent my time on other games. So did many players who retired. The problem here is that Lusternia, as a community, would prefer not to lose its players to other games, and this thread is, directly or indirectly, an attempt for players to give voice to why this is happening. And speaking about why you leave a game that you once loved is, by definition, negative. Policing and gaslighting people for being "negative" when they have very real frustrations accumulated over months and years is not a good way to have an honest conversation, which this game must do if there is to be a turnaround.

Here is my counterpoint to him: 

There is a difference between critique, and being consistently negative. It was also directed more towards behavior on clans, discords, tells, IG conversations etc than  it was to this topic.

I am going to leave here a post made by @Enya on the other thread, which I think is important to keep in mind before we start telling people who are unhappy with the state of the game that the problem is their attitude.
I mean, we could also dig up all the stats that show how many positive experiences the admin need to create for players to start cancelling out the negatives because, in theory, they're meant to be trying to make something people want to play and invest in.

We also do have players that are taking on the personal decisions to get more positivity in their lives (i.e they left Lusternia)

And as far as critique goes, you only get to expect that if you've demonstrated it's worth peoples time. Seriously, one of the most repeated things I've seen is players complaining, offering solutions, admin ignoring those solutions and asking for solutions which they still don't implement.

For those that took that decision good for them, I stayed away from lusty for 4 years for exactly the same reason. When you are at that, point, there is no amount of work the admin can do to make it any better at that moment in time. 

I get that that admins not responding to the ideas or doing something different is vexing. However you can not expect admins to do everything a player or certain group of players wants for various reasons going from just technically not feasible to they do not agree it is a problem to they are not allowed by IRE. So maybe they are not giving enough feedback on ideas? Should they be more open about their decision process?

I for example think it would help if they destroyed things like the envoy channel cause it gives an impression of favouritism/elitism.  (please note I said impression, do not take this as being actually so!) And in a similar vein I do not think balance discussions should be held in places like discord and instead should use a lets get together in game at the fates talking stick so we can discuss X, maybe even with everyone having a veil hiding their identity (though in general identities can be deduced from speech so that might be useless). It could even be chat channel everyone can tune in to while they keep playing.

I for example also think this entire mentality of the administration to hide statistics from us is a bad one. Statistics are vital to evaluate balance and by hiding them we often go to the 'feels like' side of things.

Made a new thread, idea to equalize mechanics across archetypes: https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/3573/idea-to-equalize-mechanics-across-archetypes/p1?new=1

Based on @Xenthos's earlier comment in this thread: https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/comment/192404/#Comment_192404 and @Synl's point: https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/comment/192309/#Comment_192309

If Glom's synergistic model is working super well, why not give everyone a chance to have just as effective mechanics?

That's a few good points Eso. It just brought something to mind. One thing that I notice a fair few other IRE games have is regular town hall meetings where everyone can talk to the admin sort of face to face. I think it really engenders a better level of trust not just between the admin and players but with the players as well.

If the admin think scent is a vital skill everyone should have then remove the artifact and put scent in as a common skill.

Vatul said:

Magnagora has a small population that still actually cares about combat. And therefore, there are only so many people who can encourage this desire to fight against very heavy odds.

I realize your numbers dwindled. Gaudiguch has been getting more interest from people who want to fight, but at the same time the combat leaders and the experienced combatants have been a lot more sparse due to real life stuff. I have been trying to get Gaudiguch to go solo, or just with Celest depending on who is around to domoth. I have been having 3 issues with this.

1. I can not work out a valid kill strategy as illuminati (with tarot) nor as pyromancer (with runes or dreamweaving). Which requires me to bring atleast 1 person that can kill in 1vs1 which often means bring a Gloom.
2. Tables get turned on us and we get overrun by more and better combatants which results in Glom coming to our aid.
3. I have been around far less due to volunteering, work and evening classes.

Vatul said:

We have with Serenwilde and Hallifax tried to encourage them, and they us when it comes to combat as a whole. Magnagora has assisted Hallifax and Serenwilde when their populations were low when claiming things have been difficult. Again, Mag now has only a small population that cares about ALL -conquest- mechanics, that includes pvp events.

I sympatize, and while I do not agree that this is due to glom players specificly, I do hope things get fixed so all orgs get players again.

Though I also believe part of that fix is to reduce number of orgs and possibly just start over with 2 or 3 new orgs in part to get rid of old issues, in part cause I think we have far to many orgs, classes, sub classes to be able to balance things.

Vatul said:

The rest will not respond to a lot of initiation on the opposing side, simply because of a sense of hopelessness and other things listed on the forums.  You would consider them 'non-coms' and opposing sides will label them whatever they like, because they no longer run to the call of a demon attacked on Nil, or an Aspect struck. It depends on who you ask as to how they feel about this. This conversation as you've seen no doubt are cyclical.

I know the feeling. I have played in an undersiege celest, an undersiege Serenwilde, an undersiege Hallifax for long periods of time. One thing I like about Gaudiguch is that our stance is vortex entities are not important, go defend if you wish but if they die the party goes on.

Vatul said:

Before when we were allied it was even smaller, Magnagora was even less populated. Our population grew, but that didn't change anything about our combat mechanics, or how people felt. There were a bunch of new people we tried to encourage, but they didn't stay. We can't force them to make a choice to step up for pvp, especially in this climate.

Please don't ever force anyone to pvp, even in different climates.

Vatul said:

One person disrupted the alliance, and it led to this reputation of Mag not treating their alliances properly. This has been mentioned before.

We have never thrown our weight around for as long as I've been playing to my knowledge. Whatever you call it, there's no big bad wolf energy in Magnagora, and there hasn't been for years IRL.

Our relationship with Glomdoring before that pivotal moment seemed cordial, but there were a lot of OOC factors that broke the RP involvement which seems pretty common nowadays.

One person disrupted your alliance with Glomdoring yes, Magnagora's council and citizens decided to let that person do it though so it does not result to just one person being responsible.

Long before that Magnagora was always we have the most fighters we'll take this village, wildnodes, insert stuff here even though it was prearranged to go to Gaudiguch. Though I rather have those discussions IC as having them here might seem I blame players for that rather than the IC argumentation for chosing an ally that it is.

OOC going IC has been an issue on all sides.

 And now I'll break out a pet peeve I have had since the beginning of this topic and it is not directed to the person I have been quoting or anyone in particular. It seems from this topic people seem to think that bitter is not toxic, and you are free to think so of course.

But bitterness, being consistently negative, exposing new players who should be full of wonder while utterly confused at the same time to that negativity is harmful. Worse of all if you put multiple bitter/negative people together they will work in on eachother and become even more bitter and/or negative. I say this as a person that is predominantely negative about the state of this game and who has fallen victim to this.

I am very lucky I have people I interact with who point me to positive things, like quests, fun people to interact with but even those people will get worn down in the end if you don't adjust you mindset now and again.

And don't get me wrong, I get the frustrations, I get the feeling of hopelessness and the feeling that other players are out to grief you and whats not. I can only suggest to you when you get that feeling of hopelessness, take a break. And I mean a real break where you stay away from the game, the forums, the discord and don't talk with friends about the game. Play other games, go out and do stuff whatever you enjoy. And when you can truly say wow I want to try out Lusternia cause of the good memories, rather than thinking about the bad, try it out again without looking at the forums, discord or whatever else ooc channels you have.

And once again that is not to say things don't have to change, things do have to change, but you don't cause change by being negative, you repulse people that are motivated to cause change (like new volunteer admins).

edit: sorry the layout got totally ruined cause I fail at these forums