Best Of

I would like to preface this by saying I don't really care at this point if Ixion is TA, special or otherwise. IC, I have reasons to dislike it, but OOC he was once my father IC, and once my friend, so I rate it a big shrug from me.

Having said that...

I would like to suggest that people consider how much harm they are doing to the admins and paids with the vitriol being flung about and repeated. Aonia, Orael, all of the gods, even the ephemerals, every single one of them is a player who loved this game so much they gave up truly playing it. That is HARD to start with. The turnover rate before godhood is very high. The burnout rate as a god is pretty damn high too. 

Ascension must have eaten hundreds of hours of their collective time. Hundreds. Schedules tweaked so they could be available to help with the RPs, with the behind the scenes things. Looking on from above, hoping their favourites (yeah, we all know they have them) get what they're hoping for, commiserating from afar if they don't, cheering if they do. 

As upset as so many of you are, imagine how upset you would be if the game you gave up playing to help was throwing this at you personally. You can say it's not personal all you like - everyone who is feeling hateful, invalidated and ignored and posting here about it, you are pushing those same emotions to them too.

I wouldn't want to be one of them right now.

Sorry for double post, though I should clarify: It's totally reasonable to not feel okay. I just don't think the way we are going about not being okay is within the bounds of reason at this point.

I guess I misunderstood what you meant by back-end conversation Xenthos, I don't view our conversation with Parhelion or Ixion as 'back-end.'

I assumed you meant responding and answering things like messages in-game, on the forums, or in discord rather than having people go through the proper channels. After discussion with Aonia, we decided that we should apply a boundary there and require players to go through official channels (such as ISSUE ME, emailing support or posting here on forums). That way we can avoid accusations of bias because everything is either done in the open (on forums) or in an official capacity where there is a record of the discussion easily accessible. 

This isn't really the thread to promote the creation of an official discord so I'm not going to comment on that at this time. 

To the topic at hand, I feel like we're being open and transparent. We've responded to questions and things being brought up, we've re-iterated our stance on things several times now. I really don't feel like I'm talking at you but I apologize if it does feel like I'm speaking at you and not with you, I've mentioned this before, but it's important to remember that listening and hearing you does not require agreeing with you. 

Discussions are typically two-way streets, so to be honest, it's frustrating when we're told things like we are only 'attempting to appease one player.' This has never been an attempt to appease one player and it has never been portrayed that way. It causes us to feel like our attempts at being open and transparent are futile because you are going to believe what you believe despite what we actually say. Another example of this would claim that I've said 'Wyrdenwood Creeping Doom' is 100% fine and balanced. Yes, I've certainly defended it in the past and even recently( in this thread in fact), but that doesn't mean a report won't change how it functions. I've defended both monks and warriors as well and yet they both got changes pushed through in the last report cycle.

While things like this make us feel like it's futile, we still strive to be 100% open and honest and transparent about what's going on. I don't think we've done any less here.

The decision process occurred as a conversation with the rest of the admin team, volunteers, etc. We discussed the pros and cons. Yes, it was brought up that players may feel like it was a slap in the face, that we were dismissing their efforts. Yes, some admin were worried that it would look like we were buying into complaints and it would just encourage people to complain more to get what they wanted. Some admin pointed out that giving Ixion TA doesn't actually solve the lag issue (which it doesn't, but we've addressed that as well).

We considered just giving a 'present' of some sort to all the players as a way of apology, or even doing a re-do but we ultimately decided that anything short of our decision would just be considered another slap in the face by those that were already upset.

We even consulted higher-ups in IRE to get their opinion on it.

As far as players, we didn't consider asking the player base as a whole. I'm not sure why that's even being considered as a possibility, to be honest. Players are given agency in a lot of situations but I don't think this situation, or a myriad of other situations, should allow players agency in them. That's just the reality of the situation.

This situation, the biggest event of the year, was affected by the horrendous lag that had an effect on the outcome. Nobody is disputing that. Can I say definitively that Parhelion only won because of lag? No, I cannot say that. Can I say definitively say that Ixion didn't lose because of lag? I cannot say that either. We'll never know what the result would be had there been no lag. Either way we went - we would have a lot of upset players, so we disregarded that. We discussed what we think the -right- thing to do is, and we went with that. 

It seems to me that the issue at hand here is that everyone agrees that lag was an issue, and that it played a part in the outcome. Nobody has said that Ixion and Mag/Gaudi/Celest didn't work hard for it or have a plan, or even 'deserve' to lose it. In fact, quite a few players congratulated them on their efforts, spoke about how well they did. That they should be proud.  Outside a few loud players complaining about the creepingdoom tactic, everyone agrees that Halli/Celest/Glom worked well together too, and put in the effort. This wasn't just limited to the final Ascension event, it was a common thing between both orgs throughout each and every event. This was certainly one of the most competitive Ascensions Lusternia has ever had, and it resulted in the final event being incredibly affected by lag so horrendous that it put a huge halt on the momentum and push forward that we've been experiencing. 

I said when I took over from Ianir over a year ago that my main focus regarding balance was ensuring that people felt like they -could- compete. Putting us in a position where players felt that they had the tools to get in there and have a chance at what they're doing.  Aonia, for her side, has been trying to free up our volunteers from being bogged down by unfun things that may burn them out and instead put them in a position where they are energized to interact and bring great events to the players overall. Players in-general have responded well to both things and we've seen a surge of players coming in and playing compared to a year ago. As we pointed out before - we had over 100 players online for Ascension (not counting the admin). We had groups of 30-40 people fighting each other. The last time we had these kinds of numbers was back in 2017. 

There are two sides here - on one hand, we have players who were incredibly upset, felt like they just wasted their time even trying, that despite all the efforts, they were undone by something entirely out of their control, and now that we've acknowledged that - the other side is making the same exact complaints. "Why should I have bothered, I just wasted my time despite all my effort due to something out of my control. "

We instead rewarded -both- sides efforts because -both- sides were effected and -both- sides did incredibly well despite a situation completely out of their control. In the past, Lusternia has let something like this go, just rolled with the result, which led to an exodus of players. We're attempting a different route here in attempts to curb that. I really do understand that you may feel like we're erasing your effort, but we're not - Parhelion is still a TA, you still are getting what you earned. We're just also giving the other side what they earned. 

This is ultimately why we're going to be re-looking at Ascension and how it functions. We won't be getting rid of TA, that's something too integral to Lusternia, but we can change how that status is obtained. The current situation just seems to encourage people to be toxic and horrible to each other. We've seen people literally wish that players on the other side die.  I know that's more likely an extreme than anything else but we want to work on erasing this kind of toxicity and hatred. 

Yes, we knew that some people would be upset about our decision no matter which way we went. I'll say this again. We knew that people would be upset no matter what we did. If we chose to roll with the result, one side is alienated. If we went the other direction, the other side is alienated. So it boiled down to what do we think the best option is for the game as a whole, knowing that we will end up with upset players. We did consider alternative options and those alternatives were viewed as unviable or not enough for various reasons. 

We made the decision that we think is best for the game as a whole.

I will note here that I've had players from every org message me in one form or another saying they support our decision and which direction we've gone. I've had a few players message and say that they may not agree but they understand why we did it. I have had angry messages too. 

I can say that one of the reasons that we didn't consult players as a whole is that we didn't want to delay this decision longer than necessary and instead move past it. I also believe opening this kind of discussion up to the player base at large would be wildly unproductive, as you've seen both in this thread and in other places it has been discussed by both sides. There are times where a decision just needs to be made, and I think this is one of those times.

As a note, I will be heading off for the night - I will respond to things when I can, but please remain on topic. I don't really want to hop on and have to delete a bunch of posts come morning.

Eve said:

Do I feel that both sides should be compensated for putting up with a clear cut issue- yes. However, rewarding the side who did in fact "lose" with the grand prize while leaving the side that did indeed win here the same prize and a fist bump for doing so well doesn't seem fair or reasonable. As it was put (last night, was it?) it is a huge slap in the face, however unsurprising in the end. I mean, this is the same side who persistently remained calm in 4x2. This same side who took being told to "shut up and stop guilt tripping us" on the discs about it on their shoulders. We still won quakes, we still participated in villages, heck we did pretty alright given what we had. I mean, for heavens sake Glom's epic was bugged for how many months before it got noticed? What quest had been openly talked about being borked, but remained unnoticed until Glomdoring was able to benefit from it?

Synl said:

 Personally I think it's really naive for any one from Halifax or Celest, icly, to think the Glomdoring was supporting them for the sake of friendship. Mutual enemies etc is clearly the more obvious goal? But I'm also not Shadow Court, so just thinking out loud.

I just wanted to isolate this real quick. This attitude is how Glomdoring got into a 4v2 situation.

As the days have gone from Ascension I felt angry, discouraged and now sad. I understand both sides are upset, I understand both sides feel like they were unjustified. What's done is done, in a way. Despite the lag, the hard work and even all the complaining and crying, I still had fun at the Ascension.  I can feel the salt coming my way now, about the Ascension being fun. Granted, I didn't fully participate in Ascension, the seals were not my goal but helping my commune/allies was my goal. However, from my point of view it was a great RP experience. Groups of people coming together and working together as a team to fight for the one goal. That one goal either being the most competitive part and winning ascension or completing the sealing away of Kethuru (for now). Either way, everyone from both sides came together and worked together to do what they thought was best at the time. I'm not sure where exactly I was going with this.. I guess to just say I understand both sides and I wish everyone could see and understand everyone's side (by no means am I trying to say everyone should). I deal with a lot of rude/ungrateful people at work, and it makes me sad to see a community I enjoy be so upset and angry at each other. I don't think everyone has to be friends with everyone, but damn it we have to work together if we're going to keep Lusternia alive. 

Snald said:

Orael said:

We instead rewarded -both- sides efforts because -both- sides were effected and -both- sides did incredibly well despite a situation completely out of their control. In the past, Lusternia has let something like this go, just rolled with the result, which led to an exodus of players. We're attempting a different route here in attempts to curb that. I really do understand that you may feel like we're erasing your effort, but we're not - Parhelion is still a TA, you still are getting what you earned. We're just also giving the other side what they earned. 

How was Equinox rewarded in this situation?

Edit: changed what I called our alliance

Parhelion - True Ascendant of Justice

Jolanthe said:

Orael said:

We won't be getting rid of TA, that's something too integral to Lusternia, but we can change how that status is obtained. The current situation just seems to encourage people to be toxic and horrible to each other.

This is going to be an issue with any mark or status with this particular degree and depth of prestige. It's also certainly why I ended up exerting no IC desire to really invest towards that end goal, despite having various people suggest such to me. It just doesn't really feel worth going through the trouble to try to usurp every last other option and conceptually just feels selfish over sacrificial.

The one thing that really separates Ascension from the seal trials, imo, is the utter pinpoint focus in it. The sealbearers have no way of all trying to make progress at the same time, as participants in the seal trials do - they just have to make loads of choices and go through their arguments with their allies before they even go up, then deal with enemy contention on top. Everything pivots entirely on who is going to try to hold the staff long enough, and any significant competition between more than two parties would just reeeeeeeally drag it on.

I feel like just letting everyone have a better shot together might go a long way in producing a tonal shift - how to accomplish that in a compelling manner that is balanced between parties, on the other hand, would be quite challenging to map out.

Yeah, we get that, that's our problem to tackle though. I really think we can do so though.