Best Of

This is getting of topic again, let's try to bring it back. Thank you

Apologies were already given and admin have already acknowledged they believe they may have been able to handle it better.  There is not much farther this can go and people are feeding a cycle.

So, I will say something new.

I came into Ascension on the assumption of a loss, because seal holder count wasn't the most important factor, skills would be. People can say planning, which we did a metric ton of. People can say organizing, which we also did. You have bonds, we do not, so only one of us has to plan around that. We have to acknowledge we cannot reliably break a group the same way the other side can. We found easy ways that there would be almost nothing we could do to stop creeping as currently functions. The only counter is shield, so you need to stop the group and shield, a guarantee stall. You could also use creeping and just start removing shields, even if we try to shield, people will get hit. If everyone attacks, it'd be a sweep from creeping.

The fact Ixion lived as long as he did is because we had to give up the standard bunker setup, because you could not reliably act in the lag. Organization became impossible and some people were backed up considerably. If you died, disconnect and reconnect to clear backed up information. Attempting to engage in the opposite, as some of you noticed, if the two groups got to the same room............ it was a total lag out. Organization didn't matter when no one could move. We would have the attack commands prepped and somehow they would never fire, instead being hit 9 times and dying before the command that was already sent went through.

I am not belittling the point. I firmly expected people to use something with no real counters in a group based event. I do not even fault Admin that it was allowed to continue that way, because if they did change it, it would look biased. I think both sides did well in their prep, but no one can deny that the lag greatly changed how every fight could have gone. 

It was a good run, you have an ascendant, we are getting an ascendant in recompense to acknowledge the issue. You have not "lost a victory" or had it diminished. The only way you feel you lost something is if your goal was to avoid an ascendant, not to raise. If you are playing to avoid other people, especially at an OOC level, you need to rethink things. 

The alliance shift made things interesting, but the abruptness came off as being OOC motivated. It has been acknowledged that this was OOC motivation for the sudden swap. Much of the discussion was not even in game about it. People wanted to make it interesting, that is fine. Although last year, I did it in character, during ascension, not back channel out of character. 

Put down the torches and pitchforks, acknowledge both sides WORKED (not just played) hard, and consider that admin are not perfect but are trying to make it better. The real equalizer would be to redo the event, but then you'd lose the ascendant. This gives everyone a win.

I'm really tired of being told my motivation for moving Hallifax was OOC, just because I didn't immediately answer any and all questions from someone my character was not particularly close to. I'm also tired of being told that the entire event was OOC. You can disagree all you like, but I had to sit and discuss the event in detail with another Board member before the raid could even happen, and the dissolution had already come up previously, IC. 

Quit assuming other people's motivations on me, please. It's getting old, and it very nearly made me leave the game entirely as well. 

Xenthos said:

I think if you focus on addressing that, maybe we can get somewhere here.  I guess it fundamentally comes down to the feeling that one party's concerns were rated as more valid than the other's.  One set of concerns got explicitly, publicly addressed, and the other... just wasn't.  Can you see how this comes across to us, from our standpoint?  You've now acknowledged that it was at least considered, but we still don't know anything more than that.  Nothing else was, to our knowledge, done to address our concerns, though they were raised before the decision was made.  We have exactly what we had before this announce post was written, but also all the feelings that came with the post which undermines the achievement of what we managed to pull off despite all expectations (by everyone).  Nobody thought we were going to win this thing.  The fact that it happened was incredible... and then we got hit with this post.

 Any failure on our part to address the concerns of the winning side in our post was simply an oversight. Again, we're not perfect here, so I apologize for that. We should have considered it and we did not.  I don't know that there's really any more to say here. We did consider your side when making this decision, very thoroughly.

Tarken said:

If the admin can honestly tell us that if Ixion had won and Choros had lost that Choros would still have been raised even though this was the expected result, I think that would put a lot of minds at ease among whatever they're calling the Glomdoring/Celest/Hallifax coalition now.

 This was one of the first things that was brought up when we discussed it. We said that had Ixion won while Choros was still at 700ish points, it was unlikely we would have offered him this same opportunity but had Ixion won after Uzriel grabbed the staff, and they were both at 3300 points, we would have certainly considered it, and likely done it. The closeness of the contest was a major factor in our decision. 

@Ciaran and the rest of Equinox - I understand your frustration here better than most. I personally know what it feels like to have all your efforts, planning, preparation, rallying the team, planning for contingencies and how to combat specific strategies, etc, all thrown out the window and your win attributed to lag. We're not trying to push some narrative that you didn't work hard or that you wouldn't have won without it. The issue is that we simply don't know because the score was too close. It's quite possible that the only reason Ixion got within 4 minutes was entirely because of the lag just as much as it's possible that Choros did win because of the lag. The issue with the level of lag that you faced in this situation quite possibly did affect the outcome. That level of lag starts putting much more emphasis on luck than it does on skill. Ciaran even says himself that in the end, it was more about who was closest than who was fastest.

I am disappointed that we're losing anyone over this, but we are looking at losing people whichever way we decided.


The last point I want to address is this. This was not Parhelion or Ixion's decision to make, the decision was solely our decision. This isn't on the other admin who participated in the discussion or any of the players. The responsibility for it lies squarely on our shoulders. We did consult Ixion and Parhelion and consider their input, but they didn't make this decision. We did.
 


 

Ayisdra said:

Doing this, even if you are changing the events for 2021 and onward, soils it and the trust in the admin. Why not just reward the first place prize in all contests to first and second then? This decision sets a precedent for all future competition (be it Seal, Ascension, or otherwise) that getting close enough in second place means you should get rewarded top prize as well. This decision was arrived at with consulting only 2 people. That's not the game. That's not even the major leaders on both sides. If more than just Choros and Ixion were consulted, that would be fair. Of course Ixion is going to say yes. And Choros is put in the tough spot of either being the person who says 'no sorry, you can't share this with me' or 'sorry team, I know most of you played to stopped Ixion, but we now share the win'. It is a lose-lose question. All this shows is that if you want to be rewarded for being on a losing end, just complain enough until the admin cave and give you want you want.

Ayisdra said:

It has been said that Ixion will get TA and a special event to go along with it. This is just more salt to the wound. It will be even worse if he is claimed as a TA of Time like it seems like it will be. Even if there are no domoth powers to Time, having him be the first and only TA of Time would be an insult. Could I be wrong? Absolutely, but any sort of special TA-ness is just wrong and makes Ixion seem like the actually winner over Choros.

Where is it stated that Ixion would receive the TA of Time? As for what I know, he was the Sealbearer of Chaos. Considering that this Ascension has been particularly chaotic, it would make sense that Ixion would receive TA of Chaos instead.

I think that's part of the issue - that it's become an issue of which narrative we're following. That we're somehow taking one side's narrative and ignoring the other because they complained less. That we're promoting the 'complain for change' procedure, and that's the furthest from the case. 

The 'narrative' we're following here is one that both sides have acknowledged as an issue - that the lag played a major part and it all but certainly had an effect on the outcome. Both sides have acknowledged that it affected their ability to perform, Both sides have acknowledged that it pushed things more towards luck than skill. This isn't us taking the 'pushed narrative from one side', if that was the case, we'd be nerfing chemwoods yesterday. It's us considering all sides and making the decision we feel is best for the game overall.

I, unfortunately, do not have more time this morning to respond to more - but I will monitor throughout the day and respond this evening when I have some time.