What do YOU think Estarra and Co. should focus on once the Overhaul is finished?

Tarkenton

Just curious what other people think.

Ayisdra

Gods that have been around for a year or so (@Drocilla, @Darvellan and @Jadice are the ones that come to mind. Not sure if @Manteekan has been around enough yet) getting their godrealms.

I would also be ok with bug fixing. Last time they did a month of just that, they got a lot of bugs fixed (or so they said).

Eritheyl

I remember one Great Bug Exodus. Much joy was had by all, particularly when the changelog read something like "We fixed a bug in THIS QUEST AND THAT QUEST AND THAT OTHER QUEST AND OH YES THIS QUEST TOO EVERYBODY GETS A BUGFIX."

As this relates to my vote, however, that's more something I'd like to see happening consistently over time. When it comes to a solid Estarra and Co. forward direction, I definitely want to see evolution in systems that are somewhat antiquated given things like our current population (see: house system).

Gabriella

I agree. While I would overall, like to see quests updated, and like that they are continuing to work on the combative system, I would also very much (and the most) like to see improvements in these areas that @Eritheyl has mentioned. It's just such a huge part of the game that hasn't been tended to much (at least in my visible spectrum. If there are things going on behind the scenes, or things that I have missed, I do apologise!), and I'd like to see some tweaks made once the combat overhaul has finished having its turn.

Alic

Kill buttons for everyone!

Salome

I'm of the sort to say that all of this needs to be focused on, one thing at a time.

Tremula

I love the combat. I'll be the first to say that the reason I'm still playing Lusternia is because of how complex it is and how much I absolutely adore it. However, I'd prefer things to get developed in story arcs and non-combat places seeing how HUGE the Overhaul is effecting that particular area.

I know of a lot of cogs in the smog waiting for their arc to be wrapped up with a pretty bow, for example.

Sedanas

Please balance PvP ._. I know the Knight overhaul is going on, but some classes just simply have ridiculous ease in incapacitating people and killing them without much effort (Celestines and certain Monks come to mind) and it makes me not want to fight certain people knowing there's no other way to fight back. Maybe it's just me being a knight myself and gimping myself with the difficulty of the class, but even with every preparation in effect (A system, every curative, enchantment, etc) some fights are simply unwinnable, and going over logs shows that I'm doing nothing wrong outside of fighting them in the first place.

Just my two cents.

Saran

Mine are all over the place...

I've like tried pinning down what I want, but I keep coming to this point where I feel like things mostly exist in a vacuum at times. I guess I'd want to maybe tie organisational mechanics together a bit more closely and building a system that makes the raiders happy while also giving non-coms and younger members avenues to contribute to the wider growth.

Something that encourages the bigger orgs to go against each other, that gives multiple ways to contribue (maybe a reviewed version of families can utilise their prestige to help their org when it's in danger?).

Which draws on existing mechanics (maybe resources need to be gathered via hunting, influencing, villages, questing. Maybe getting a specific aetherbubble in a flare is what is needed to progress, maybe something can only be achieved when the spire is up or the undervault is just right)

Oh and guilds, I really want stuff for guilds, those that need the rp lovin', looking at the mechanics and potentially tying them into the above.

I know, big huge ideas, but i guess it's because I'd like to work on the purpose for all of these things and then review them based on the purpose.

Lavinya

I like the idea of looking into some systems that aren't combat related after the overhaul has been dealt with and tweaked to resemble something we're largely happy with. Family perks definitely comes to mind, revisit affinity (does it really have to be a thing? Politics are such a mess anyway, and gods while aligned with orgs are supposedly above mortal politics, wouldn't it make sense they draw followers from all over?), give our awesome gods their godrealms, look at new tradeskill designs and nouns and just....freshen those things which we all partake in, in some form, even if it's only between fights.

I would include looking at stupid buggy quests in this.

Tremula

Lavinya said:

I like the idea of looking into some systems that aren't combat related after the overhaul has been dealt with and tweaked to resemble something we're largely happy with. Family perks definitely comes to mind, revisit affinity (does it really have to be a thing? Politics are such a mess anyway, and gods while aligned with orgs are supposedly above mortal politics, wouldn't it make sense they draw followers from all over?), give our awesome gods their godrealms, look at new tradeskill designs and nouns and just....freshen those things which we all partake in, in some form, even if it's only between fights.

I would include looking at stupid buggy quests in this.

Say it louder for the people in the back.

Daganev

Tremula said:

Lavinya said:

I like the idea of looking into some systems that aren't combat related after the overhaul has been dealt with and tweaked to resemble something we're largely happy with. Family perks definitely comes to mind, revisit affinity (does it really have to be a thing? Politics are such a mess anyway, and gods while aligned with orgs are supposedly above mortal politics, wouldn't it make sense they draw followers from all over?), give our awesome gods their godrealms, look at new tradeskill designs and nouns and just....freshen those things which we all partake in, in some form, even if it's only between fights.

I would include looking at stupid buggy quests in this.

Say it louder for the people in the back.

While the gods themselves are supposed to be above mortal politics, the orders are not.  The original setup was no affinity, and I think it caused a bigger mess.

Daganev

Autocuring, cause it wasn't showing my vote.

And defences remaining after relogin if you only recently logged out/dced... (damn internet connection drops)

Leolamins

Focus on making the game more engaging and enjoyable by interaction of the admin/gods with the players.  When I say that my thoughts are the admin need to focus on regular activities, more divine interactions, just generally focus on less back end coding and more outward facing player interaction.

Rivius

Bug fixes and polishing things up to make life easier.

Daraius

Good hard look at the intro, then family stuff.

Ssaliss

Tradeskills, and the cartel system. The ability for cartels to lease designs from other cartels would be awesome.

Enyalida

I'm hoping that most classes get a long hard looking at and any necessary retools once the bulk of the Overhaul is over, but I count that as being part of the overhaul itself. At least three or four guilds will seriously need major special reports to manage in interesting, non-one-trick-horse ways.

Besides that, economy woes are bad. Retooling the tradeskill and design systems rates pretty highly on my list of "needs to be done very badly".

Xenthos

Ssaliss said:

Tradeskills, and the cartel system. The ability for cartels to lease designs from other cartels would be awesome.

I would far prefer a catalogue or similar ability added to Bookbinding which you can give to people and it allows them to search / scan the designs you can craft for a trade. The design system is so very clunky when someone wants something in general but has no clue on the specifics ("it must be black"... "well, yes, that is a black design but it is TOO black!").

Give us this and I will be much more willing to craft things for people.

Portius

I think the economy is probably the most important thing, simply because it connects to basically everything else. I'd also love to see a culture and family overhaul, but that's probably less important because it's relevant to less people. For that, I'd like to see family standing become a dynamic competition, be less tied to raw numbers, and have family honor become a spendable resource. I think stage and library systems need tweaking more than a huge overhaul, but the scoring could use some adjustment.

Ayisdra

Tremula said:

Lavinya said:

I like the idea of looking into some systems that aren't combat related after the overhaul has been dealt with and tweaked to resemble something we're largely happy with. Family perks definitely comes to mind, revisit affinity (does it really have to be a thing? Politics are such a mess anyway, and gods while aligned with orgs are supposedly above mortal politics, wouldn't it make sense they draw followers from all over?), give our awesome gods their godrealms, look at new tradeskill designs and nouns and just....freshen those things which we all partake in, in some form, even if it's only between fights.

I would include looking at stupid buggy quests in this.

Say it louder for the people in the back.

It was put in place back around 2010 when Hallifax and Gaudiguch came out. I was told that way back when Glomdoring first came out,as player org, Fain sent (or maybe the order itself decided) his order to Glom to 'take over' and get all the leadership spots. I'm not sure how well this worked out. The admin didn't want this same thing to happen so they put in affinity

Ayisdra

Ssaliss said:

Tradeskills, and the cartel system. The ability for cartels to lease designs from other cartels would be awesome.

Something I would really like if it is just to free up spaces is to have a single cartel that is able to submit any design. That you would just buy different permits for trades. So you can have a cartel with the trades bookbinding and tailoring. for example. It wouldn't even have to change that much in terms of pricing. Clan and making it a cartel can still be 500k each, with the making a cartel giving a 'free' trade as the first one. Trade permits to add more can be 1 million gold (maybe even having a free design expansion permit in that).

Tarkenton

But then they can't sell extra clan slots for 25 credits/a bajillion gold for credits off of the market!

Ayisdra

Tarkenton said:

But then they can't sell extra clan slots for 25 credits/a bajillion gold for credits off of the market!

With enough leadership/alliance clans, I'm sure you can still sell those.

Tarkenton

Too lazy to edit from phone.  For the folks suggesting tackling the economy, are there threads around to link to with suggestions on how to "fix" it?  I know I've seen multiple gold sink threads in the past, but I don't think gold sinks alone will aid in repairing what many consider to be a broken system.

Ssaliss

Xenthos said:

Tradeskills, and the cartel system. The ability for cartels to lease designs from other cartels would be awesome.

I would far prefer a catalogue or similar ability added to Bookbinding which you can give to people and it allows them to search / scan the designs you can craft for a trade. The design system is so very clunky when someone wants something in general but has no clue on the specifics ("it must be black"... "well, yes, that is a black design but it is TOO black!"). Give us this and I will be much more willing to craft things for people.

Or, we could get both. A catalogue would definitely be nice to have, yes. I basically send out a letter with all the designs I can make when people ask, which is relatively clunky (but far better IMHO than pastebin, even though I can totally understand why people use that).

Cyndarin

You know these polls always end up heavy PKers vs not heavy PKers. 

Tarkenton

They sure do!  But, it's interesting to see what systems people think need fixing.

Enyalida

Tarkenton said:

Too lazy to edit from phone.  For the folks suggesting tackling the economy, are there threads around to link to with suggestions on how to "fix" it?  I know I've seen multiple gold sink threads in the past, but I don't think gold sinks alone will aid in repairing what many consider to be a broken system.

There have been several threads about the cartel and trade systems, tangentially about the economy, like this one. EDIT: To be clear, I absolutly do not endorse or agree with the suggestions in the first post of that thread. I do (however) hash out a rough form of one of my own ideas for the trade system in that thread.

The basic problem with the economy is that there isn't any real reason for gold to move around or fall out of circulation that isn't painfully forced. Just throwing in an (over)expensive widget you can buy with gold doesn't work, and if you make it mandatory it only hurts newer players who have less access to free gold. Honestly, the changes to the way gold drops are handled way back are a big problem, as they penalize gold production for 'staple' midbie bashing areas and pump up the gold gained from high-danger, big target bashing in locations that are inaccessible for many players. Changes to the way esteem is handled also makes it easier for those who already have gold and a powerful influencing setup/circuit to dominate the market, penalizing new and 'casual' esteem gatherers - so most of the gold the high powered bashers get, they keep. Both of those changes went in at once, creating a strong supply stock that the economy never recovered from. This screws the market all kinds of ways, as they can undercut others when providing services (as they need no gold) while simultaneously pricing less established players out of new goods, as those goods are priced with them in mind, with prices getting pushed higher by available gold stocks. The economy is almost utterly stagnant and totally inflated at the same time. Stagflation, been warning about it for years, got laughed at because of the stag pun.

Malayn

Combatants have historically been the main source of credit sales, and we do not have a real influx of new ones at the moment. 

- Focus on balancing skills once overhaul is done. Some skills are intentionally ignored right now, while broken, citing "only overhaul reports" as the reason.

- I am sure things will be broken once overhaul is done. Things like sacrifice, sap, etc will likely need changes.

- Adjust the chems/woods to have an active implementation rather than a passive heavy prayer system (pray the skills work )

- Raiding is incredibly opposed mechanically, huge costs, free powers, and the powers are insane. Try moving 20 people  with a 3s off eq that tics randomly on different people.

- Create some conflict systems that can be done properly.

- Sea battle needs to be fixed, with a number of imbalances in how it was implemented.

Yada, yada yada yada.

I do not know why we need to only do one thing. Most of PvP would be envoys, admin would need to fix discretionaries and such but most of those will be changed to existing code, not making new code. I think we could pretty easily split the bill to work on multiple things.

Great Houses should never have resulted in mechanical  gains (influence bonus for instance) because it just leads to gaming the system, rather than keeping the robust history and politics they had associated with them.

Manteekan

Just to throw a little perspective into all of your ideas (and maybe to help you come up with others!), the majority of the admin are not, in fact, coders at all. We have little to do with all of the coding of the overhaul, and would have little to do with the coding of any systems after it is completed as well. 

The bug stomping, issue chasing, event running, area building, and roleplay you get is what the majority of us work towards, and even then, this is only a portion of our day (I myself work full time Monday through Friday, and then there is life outside of Lusternia that gets in the way of me stalking you all more than I'd like!)

While all of your coding ideas are great, and will surely be considered by the admin who do code, feel free to throw some other ideas into the mix! Just remember, each of us does something different, so try to diversify your ideas as well!

As for god realms, know that we are working towards them, but also know that it takes A LOT of work to get one, all of which is behind the scenes, and that is just to earn the right to make one. Then you have to put in all of the work to actually build and release it, which could take just as long as the work leading up to it. We want a god realm just as much as you want us to have one, and it is something we all strive for.