The other point is that not only are the loyals going to respawn but your character knows they're going to respawn. That's not meta information - they've seen it happen hundreds of times in the past. So I don't think it is poor RP to choose your battles if you're just gonna get more pissed off when you run in their solo and die. Of course, if you're one of the minority of players that are happy to accept a meaningful death, then do run in their solo and die, and absorb it into your RP.
I really do understand this point of view, but it has come up in the past where I (and others) have been made to feel bad for not defending/doing the things, or when we do, for not succeeding. I guess I'm just a person who takes things to heart, when I shouldn't. It's really easy to say "But you don't have to!" but when it's in my nature to... a bit hard to change, yeah?
The other point is that not only are the loyals going to respawn but your character knows they're going to respawn. That's not meta information - they've seen it happen hundreds of times in the past. So I don't think it is poor RP to choose your battles if you're just gonna get more pissed off when you run in their solo and die. Of course, if you're one of the minority of players that are happy to accept a meaningful death, then do run in their solo and die, and absorb it into your RP.
I really do understand this point of view, but it has come up in the past where I (and others) have been made to feel bad for not defending/doing the things, or when we do, for not succeeding. I guess I'm just a person who takes things to heart, when I shouldn't. It's really easy to say "But you don't have to!" but when it's in my nature to... a bit hard to change, yeah?
I understand where you're coming from. Not defending can have political ramifications, not succeeding can be even worse during an election in my experience. I'm also the type that usually enjoys PVP and taking on challenges... I just can't do it here.
The more likely outcome when someone makes the connection that they don't actually have to defend is that they will log out, or at least go afk in their manse so nobody can bother them. It's very easy to just tell people that they don't actually have to defend, but like the other problems with being attached to the game/character, it's what keeps people active. The onus is really on the other half of the community to realise that maybe not everyone wants to PK with them every day.
As an avid RPer, I've shared that bitter frustration so many times in the past. Ultimately, I realized that while that kind of environment really was what I wanted, it wasn't at all realistic (even within my RP fantasies!)
Upon reflection, it actually felt like this "ideal" RP was not even my choice. In indulging myself to this pretend fantasy, I lost myself to the character. She would react like I would if I was there and not her. As if I don't really have a choice, because my only choice was to pretend to be somebody else making the same choices. Things became very, very bitter for all of us in my org at the time. Like we were looking for a fantasy withinthis fantasy setting, where everything magically works out to our (and thus our characters') desires.
When I was finally able to let go, a lot of that improved, even if a lot of my attachment to Lusternia itself went away. I still can indulge my RP whims even while somebody is trying to murder Ladies just to fuck up my day. Once, I gave them the power to ruin things for me. Now, just because I know something, and I know my character should know it through character loyalsays and such, I still have the ability to decide that (for whatever reason I care to choose!) Ril just wasn't aware of it or something. I can react to it later when I hear the "news" or whatever, if I even care to follow up.
Even if it's the stuff that, to this day, tears at Ril's heartstrings, it doesn't have to tear at mine, unless I want it to. The greater part of what we get out of games like this is what we put into it, both the negative emotions involved and the positive.
The excuses/reasons we can give for our characters are innumerable and easy to be had. Our RP should be built upon and follow what we actually want out of the game, not our emotional state being affected by RP we don't even want. The idea that we must react this way (our characters would!)is a persistent commitment among many of us, but one we entirely impose on ourselves.
Mayor Steingrim, the Grand Schema says to you, "Well, as I recall you kinda leave a mark whereever you go."
It's also a loss, which is something everyone deals with differently. Even if you don't turn up the loss condition (dead aspects/lords) still happens.
I know for myself it would bring on a bunch of stuff about feeling weak, powerless, etc. No matter what route I chose, even logging out which was often dealt with by playing other games.
But there's a difference between "I just can't play this class" and "Everyone around me says my class sucks". One I can personally do something about the other is completely out of my hands except for spending real money to switch from the class I really want to play to something else.
That's also why I believe that classes need fixing before the raiding/conflict stuff is revitalised. Cause I think the other order would exacerbate the issue.
I'm planning on retiring and and leaving lusternia altogether with the release of Starmourn. Though half of it being excited for the new game, the other half is wanting to get away from Lusternia, for a few reasons. I've had to turn off most of my clans and channels in game to try to tune out the behavior of what I consider to be an increasingly caustic portion of the community. As a result, I've only really been logging on to talk to a small, and shrinking, group of people. The gold cap kind of killed most of the fun I had from one aspect of the game that used to be pretty big for me. I used to enjoy bashing, but when I stop gaining gold after 20-30 minutes of bashing, it really just turns into a daily chore rather than something I can have any fun doing. While some of the other IRE's have gold caps, the one here is more restrictive due to the higher gold generation rates and credit prices. There are other reasons, but I'll not list them here because I don't particularly want to get argued at or flamed.
I think there are several issues with saying, "If you
want to RP just ignore the NPCs." From a roleplay perspective, if I wanted
to have a role play that was strictly player to player, I could do so over
skype or any chatroom that provides no lore/history/environment for me to
interact with. I choose to do so in Lusternia because I enjoy the fact that I
am interacting with and a part of the game world, which includes those NPCs I'm
now just supposed to ignore. From a PK perspective, I imagine it can get pretty
frustrating to be dying trying to defend while everyone else just stands
around. It easily breeds resentment on both sides, which leads to the biggest
issue, that it just reinforces the idea that there should be a dichotomy
between PKers and RPers.
And yes, some people are truly 100% one or the other, but
not everyone. I'm mostly an RPer, but honestly I really enjoy the concept of
combat and the little bit I can do when supporting our top tier combatants. I'm
not likely to make the skill/artifact investment that "real
combatants" require and frankly I just don't process what's happening in
combat quick enough to effectively respond beyond some basic tactics. Still, I
suspect I would be move involved if it didn't feel like there was just no point
to trying if you can't be top tier or don't have a top tier combatant around to
support.
Part of this is what Aeldra touched on, that defenders are
the ones getting pulled away from what they had chosen to do at that moment,
but it's also that if there's any power imbalance, it's far too easy for the
raiders to just keep at it until the defenders give up and let the raiders do
whatever they want. Wash, rinse and repeat for real life days or weeks, and the
choices do start to seem limited to 1) disengage from a large part of the game
entirely unless another top tier combatant is there to counter them or 2)
constantly, consistently fail and gain nothing for your efforts.
But, I don't think it has to be this way. There are
PKers saying they want more opportunities for conflict--which is great! They're
passionate about conflict, it's what they enjoy, so let's find ways to help
them have it that work in systems we already have and that don't a)
automatically pull in people who don't want to be involved or who only want to
be involved some of the time and b) don't turn into a constant grinding down of
midbies or people who are just learning. And yes, I do think this is possible.
Just throwing some ideas out based on village
revolts/combat:
Village tributes: Between revolts, a village sends tribute
to its sovereign org X times a year. These could be at scheduled times to let
people plan for combat a bit more the way people have been asking without
making people in unusual time zones feel like they'll never have a chance at a
village. An announcement would go out the same as if a revolt is happening,
that X villages are sending tribute. A caravan of goods/npcs then makes its
way towards their sovereign orgs, and a competition begins to sway them
from their route or keep them on it. Similar to a revolt, the sovereign org
wants to influence them to remain loyal, other orgs want to influence them to
come to their org, and killing your opponent (or debating them) is one way to
stop them. Whatever org wins gets the tribute, X power and X commodities. It
would only decrease the regular gains from that village for that month if the
sovereign org loses, not for the whole period the org has that village.
This builds on existing mechanics that overall people seem
to enjoy; it has combat and mechanical benefits if the PKers win, but it's not
the most painful blow ever if there's only non-coms around who don't want to
join in; and it being scheduled means it that the numbers wouldn't always be
min/maxed the way domoths are.
Village feelings: At one point, village feelings changed if
you slaughtered the NPCs. This was naturally open to abuse by anyone with
people around at off times. What if, instead, the sovereign nation killing an
enemy player in the village raised the village's feelings for the sovereign
nation, and a outside player killing a player from the sovereign nation in the
village raised the village's feelings for the other nation? So if Bambi wants
to initiate some good old fashioned PK, he can go raid Dairuchi. If there is no
one around who really wants to engage in a fight, Bambi gets to slaughter a few
NPCs, the non-coms don't have to feel as bad as if it were
avatars/aspects/lords/whatever, and there's no major repercussions down the
road. If Bambi raids Dairuchi and Thumper is around and like, 'oh yeah, come at
me!' then they can have it out and the winner gets a bonus for their org during
the next revolt. The non-coms don't have to feel like their org is being
punished in the next revolt because they're non-coms, the PKer gets a bigger
reward for raiding when other PKers are around to fight them.
In the same vein of thinking, why not build on the idea
behind raiders slowly gaining insanity? PKers SHOULD be able to raid and raid
successfully if they do their job well. But because this is a game that needs
to stay fun for everyone, there needs to be a line that pulls them back from,
"Okay guys, we get it, we've got no one who can beat you right now so
you're just repeatedly going to burn it all and salt the earth and I might as
well just qq."
Limited Entrances: What if being enemied to a plane made
that plane itself want to reject you, so that it will only allow you entry X
times per IG day/IG month/whatever? If you try to enter more than those number
of times, the gates start refusing you and the plane itself tosses you to
Astral if you bix in. This means that PKers can scout out the area, attack, and
maybe jump back in the fight after the first death or so, but you can't just
constantly kick and run raid for hours on end, or raid, kill everything, and
keep it dead for real life days and days.
Rallying NPCs: What if, if after a certain number of members
from an org dying on that orgs' plane to enemies without an enemy death, the
NPCs there rally and grow stronger, or an extra, harder set of guards is
summoned? Nothing is preventing a raid from being started/carried out, but if
the only people around to defend are midbies who are just getting mowed down,
instead of them having no incentive to join in the first place, if they join
and try and are willing to take the deaths, eventually with NPC help they might
start getting a few kills in. An enemy death resets the count (or maybe, an
enemy death to that org/an ally? Something that hearstop can't just roll over),
so if there's actual defenders and people for PKers to fight, it's a raid like
normal. The goal isn't to hinder combat between players, but to make other
org's planes not look like bashing grounds that have the benefit of upsetting
other players if you bash there.
Just a few ideas. I'm not saying these are codable (I'm not
a coder), and I can't say how much these would work for PKers (thoughts?) or
even if all other RPers feel like this would help, but just a few ideas I've
been kicking around on the theory that at its core, Lusternia is something
great and fun, and that core is something we can nurture for the benefit of
everyone.
I think it's a shame that people have to mechanically retire before we can accept that they can be critiquing the status quo without any underhanded motives (and often not even then). One of the most toxic things about Lusternia, and one that I brought up once before with a listening admin, is that any dissatisfaction with the combat status quo gets the feedback of "just git gud, you whiner". That might be valid in a MOBA game where everyone has access to the same tools, but it can be disheartening in a game where that isn't true.
Lusternia is ultimately a game that people play for (hopefully) fun, and no player owes any game their engagement if it isn't fun. If a whole bunch of people are saying "this isn't fun for us anymore", or if it's an open secret that "welp, 3 of them just flexed into <class>, time to qq" for months and months, then there are two possibilities. Either an entire section of your playerbase are just sore losers and the admin and "winners" should tell them to quit Lusternia, or there's a problem with balance.
I also saw the IG poll, which brings out a suggestion I once made:
Consider giving every org the same 5 classes with the same skills, re-skinned for org flavour. When you propose this, see which combatants (not people who are primarily RPers, who have their own reasons besides balance for liking their skills, but combatants who have to deal with the mechanical skills) jump at the chance and say YES PLEASE and which say NO WAY. That'll give you an idea of which classes are the most underpowered.
In the current in-game poll, I'm not sure which way I'll vote. Nihilists are in a very different place than Illuminati. I'd say overall wiccans are strongest, though MD is a bit of a succumb + hexes one trick pony.
(clan): Falmiis says, "Aramelise, verb, 1. adorn with many flowers."
One big point I
think everyone needs to take to heart though is that a game like
Lusternia is only as good as the player base. Keep it classy, try and be civil with everyone and even if you don't agree or don't like someone don't slander and don't backbite or insult in public forums.
There are discord and other OOC channels
where known figures have accused admin outright of cheating, bias and
destroying the game. We've had a true newbie to the game tell me
about how their first experience of joining Lusternia discord to ask
some questions was met with homophobic, racist death threats from
certain known members of the community.
It's a horrible
experience for a newbie to come in and hear this kind of stuff.
@veyils I'm very interested in having more information on this. I've pinged you on Discord and now here as well so that I can take appropriate action as necessary. Apart from a specific individual who has been reprimanded as appropriate for something vaguely related to this concept, I'm aware of nothing that constitutes a, 'racist, homophobic, death threat,' having taken place on the server, let alone from multiple members. Again, please message me with information.
As to the rest, regarding admin bias or cheating... yes. Absolutely those discussions have taken place on the server. I think it's important that those conversations did indeed take place, because it allows a very candid look at how many players are feeling. The lack of a filter can be alarming at times. In fact it can hurt feelings very deeply - given that nobody present expects their exact wording to be delivered to the Administration of Lusternia, (Or, to be honest, that those complaining even realize which admin may or may not be involved in anything whatsoever. The way one presents their complaint will absolutely change depending on who they think they're making that complaint about and to whom) but being able to express discontent and mold it into something useful to bring back to others is a very vital piece of the community puzzle.
I'm aware of Glomdoring's current disenfranchisement with the playerbase and understand that's why most of you have your own situations worked out, as well as how it influences your opinion of the Discord community as a whole, but a vast chunk of the overall Lusternian community is *still* on the Discord server every day. Yes, it's not nearly as filtered as the forums and contains some bombastic language at times, but the few other admins and myself do make effort to keep things within appropriate boundaries. I've only been personally contacted once to resolve an issue, and it resulted in an individual losing chat privileges for about a day with a 'strike,' on their record noted for future incidents. However, I would say that the *comparatively* loose restrictions are why the server is as populated as it is to begin with. It is a place where folks can let loose and vent on game topics, meet with debate on said topics, and then calm down and end up in a constructive dialogue let's say... seven times out of ten. Some people just need to get their frustrations out. For the rest, we have an ongoing combat channel where all manner of disagreements and salt-infused dialogue are allowed to take place with very little restriction or supervision. There are items such as a craft channel, general gaming channel, rants/raves channel, coding support channel, etcetera. There is even a *no-restriction* channel available as well, within Legal Boundaries, and is opt-in only - Needing to be cleared by an administrator for access. Any user can essentially pick and choose which aspects of the community to immerse themselves in or ignore. Think of it as a rapid-fire Forums for the game in simple chat form.
An appropriate Third Place is a necessity for many communities, real and virtual, somewhere 'offline,' where people can be more free with their gripes, complaints, and hopes. A place to unwind and share in others who are seeking such a thing as well. For a lot of people, Lusternia *is* their Third Place. For others who are heavily invested in the game, Discord is something similar. A Third Place within a Third Place, so to speak. Others simply view it as an extension of the community. The fact is, the Discord community IS the Lusternian Community. I do my best, alongside my other two admin, to keep things running smoothly.
My only real regret is that there's yet to be an administrative... I don't know, official reaction to the server. It just exists. Some Lusternian Admin may have been present at times, maybe, but as far as I am aware there's no community manager taking the things that are said and whittling them down to bring back to the administration of the game as to make improvements or critiques. There's no official Community Representative distilling player commentary to actionable points of improvement to the game to clue Lusty-Admin into. It's pretty self-contained. If I had one wish for the game as a whole, it would be to better utilize this space of the community in that way. Perhaps that's something that can even be looked at for the future - I'll probably draft up an email on that topic shortly, or a separate forum post, and see how people feel. I'll explore that option. Maybe people will feel it's best to have that space untapped, I don't know.
My end statement here is simply this: We're all in it together. Whether we are embittered or optimistic, whether we are complaining on the forums or complaining on the Discord, whether we express ourselves through art, or vitriol, or poetry, through whatever method we can create our personal language... everything comes from an intense desire to love this game, this community, and see it succeed. Everyone here wants Lusternia to be the greatest it can be. The fact that we are arguing over how best to make that a reality is a net positive, and I hope people remember to carry forward with that thought in mind.
(Magnagora): Thax says, "My truest favour to the soldier that brings me the weave of Neos."
Just out of curiosity, does anyone use nexus guardians? They were meant to be the answer for those to help defend against raids without needing any PVP skills. You basically get to control the guardian, a beefy mob, to track down and destroy intruders. If people don't use them because they're not effective, we could make them stronger, more powers, etc. See HELP NEXUS GUARDIANS
Just out of curiosity, does anyone use nexus guardians? They were meant to be the answer for those to help defend against raids without needing any PVP skills. You basically get to control the guardian, a beefy mob, to track down and destroy intruders. If people don't use them because they're not effective, we could make them stronger, more powers, etc. See HELP NEXUS GUARDIANS
Too expensive to create, not useful enough to use.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone use nexus guardians? They were meant to be the answer for those to help defend against raids without needing any PVP skills. You basically get to control the guardian, a beefy mob, to track down and destroy intruders. If people don't use them because they're not effective, we could make them stronger, more powers, etc. See HELP NEXUS GUARDIANS
That reminds me, to let the new Serens know about this feature too. I do think it needs looking into to be stronger. To be frank, if you have demigods or demigods with toys+divinefire methods to bypass guardstacks of 20+ and in a case I witnessed to bypass guardstacks of even 40+a shrine at the nexus, to survive them AND still dust a shrine tells me something is clearly not right with mechanical functions revolving around guards off-plane. I find it personally an abuse and a form of trolling the purpose for guards and with them being limited to only the nexus if off-plane and like saying "ha ha guards are meaningless and I can get away with it". Anyway, this would help the younglings who wish to defend in some way without having to have pvp knowledge/code knowledge(or yet to have the knowledge)
Every time guardians have been remembered that I’ve seen they’ve been dismissed quickly because of the limitations on who can use them and general uselessness.
I’d guess that they may have only seen use when this hasn’t been told to people who got the priv
Nexus guardians are dead useless, even with the effective zero cost they have now to use. I've summoned one a few times and toyed around with it, and they're so limited and weak that there isn't any point, and even a novice is likely to be much more useful in combat spamming one-two class skills at random.
Anyways (and more to the topic), the very best way to defend your plane - that is, to remove raiders from your territory- is to bore them into going away. Even with a larger defending force that can kill them off, many raiders will just come back and harry the plain until they get bored anyways, as there isn't anything stopping them. The ostensible way this is balanced is via boredom tax, that is escalating requirements to do the repetitive and boring task of grinding xp to break even. So at some point the excitement of participating in active combat (or lack thereof) for the raider is outbalanced by the time they have to spend grinding and they go away. As a defender you often can't affect the grinding time side of that equation, as the raider can simply attack when you can't easily kill them off repeatedly. You can always change the excitement part by not engaging though! You "win" the raid by making it as boring as possible for the aggressors. That is: Log off.
One reason I haven't left is that your recent quests have been on point. Whoever you have making quests needs to keep making quests. Please keep at them even while you're working on improving on other areas.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
One reason I haven't left is that your recent quests have been on point. Whoever you have making quests needs to keep making quests. Please keep at them even while you're working on improving on other areas.
Thanks so much for saying this! I've always wanted to make sure quests are involved, lore based and not just where you go to "bash" (though granted some areas better for xp bashing than others, but there's still a story behind them). Orrery/Pandaemonium is the latest offering by one of the best builders out there. It's quite hard but the rewards are quite high too.
One reason I haven't left is that your recent quests have been on point. Whoever you have making quests needs to keep making quests. Please keep at them even while you're working on improving on other areas.
Thanks so much for saying this! I've always wanted to make sure quests are involved, lore based and not just where you go to "bash" (though granted some areas better for xp bashing than others, but there's still a story behind them). Orrery/Pandaemonium is the latest offering by one of the best builders out there. It's quite hard but the rewards are quite high too.
Honestly, there are many reasons to love Lusternia, but its quests and the consequent sense of immersion I feel in its areas go well beyond anything I've experienced in any similar MUD, so kudos!
One reason I haven't left is that your recent quests have been on point. Whoever you have making quests needs to keep making quests. Please keep at them even while you're working on improving on other areas.
Thanks so much for saying this! I've always wanted to make sure quests are involved, lore based and not just where you go to "bash" (though granted some areas better for xp bashing than others, but there's still a story behind them). Orrery/Pandaemonium is the latest offering by one of the best builders out there. It's quite hard but the rewards are quite high too.
I'd still like to see there be a substantial gain to XP for completing a quest (perhaps only the first time when getting honours, or just for pre demigod) to help encourage questing as a valid levelling route over bashing/influencing/pretending to not be afk on an aethership. I know I raised this point in a thread a couple of years back and people were keen on the idea.
Coming from someone with a traditional MMO gaming background, levelling by quests is far more fun than levelling by endlessly watching scrolling text as you repeat the same action ad infinitum.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
I had a half-gestated thought. I'm not convinced it's a good one because I don't know how Lusty's inner workings work, but here it is.
I have never directly spent money on Lusternia. I have handed some bardic credits to people to have them buy me lesson packs, though. There just aren't many artifacts that I can use beyond convenience things as a noncom. I feel like that's probably a decently common situation. And I think the combat people would rather there were less new combat artifacts. I think there's a partial solution to these problems.
Maybe have people look into pledging for specific content releases? Like, take designs. There are only so many patterns, and designers generally want more. My understanding is that it takes a decent but not huge amount of dev time to make those, so it doesn't happen often. What if you allowed people to pay to have new ones added? Make it a pledge system so that a bunch of people can throw in a couple bucks instead of funding it all out of hand. I'm guessing there are a lot of designers who would be willing to contribute.
Or maybe let people ask for reskins of the class bashing weapons the same way? Or new weapon types added to existing warrior specializations? And so forth.
Could do something similar with quests. List a few possible areas, have people pay to prioritize building those. I know that there are areas of Lusty that I find more interesting than others and would be willing to shell out a few dollars to promote.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
I had a half-gestated thought. I'm not convinced it's a good one because I don't know how Lusty's inner workings work, but here it is.
I have never directly spent money on Lusternia. I have handed some bardic credits to people to have them buy me lesson packs, though. There just aren't many artifacts that I can use beyond convenience things as a noncom. I feel like that's probably a decently common situation. And I think the combat people would rather there were less new combat artifacts. I think there's a partial solution to these problems.
Maybe have people look into pledging for specific content releases? Like, take designs. There are only so many patterns, and designers generally want more. My understanding is that it takes a decent but not huge amount of dev time to make those, so it doesn't happen often. What if you allowed people to pay to have new ones added? Make it a pledge system so that a bunch of people can throw in a couple bucks instead of funding it all out of hand. I'm guessing there are a lot of designers who would be willing to contribute.
Or maybe let people ask for reskins of the class bashing weapons the same way? Or new weapon types added to existing warrior specializations? And so forth.
Could do something similar with quests. List a few possible areas, have people pay to prioritize building those. I know that there are areas of Lusty that I find more interesting than others and would be willing to shell out a few dollars to promote.
A quest kickstarter! I think that's a fabulous idea but there's more work involved than you may imagine. (I've seen areas and quests take a year or more to complete.) But it's a very neat idea and maybe more doable for other aspects of the game (design, etc.). It's an idea I've never heard before and will give it some more thought.
Nexus guardians are dead useless, even with the effective zero cost they have now to use. I've summoned one a few times and toyed around with it, and they're so limited and weak that there isn't any point, and even a novice is likely to be much more useful in combat spamming one-two class skills at random.
Anyways (and more to the topic), the very best way to defend your plane - that is, to remove raiders from your territory- is to bore them into going away. Even with a larger defending force that can kill them off, many raiders will just come back and harry the plain until they get bored anyways, as there isn't anything stopping them. The ostensible way this is balanced is via boredom tax, that is escalating requirements to do the repetitive and boring task of grinding xp to break even. So at some point the excitement of participating in active combat (or lack thereof) for the raider is outbalanced by the time they have to spend grinding and they go away. As a defender you often can't affect the grinding time side of that equation, as the raider can simply attack when you can't easily kill them off repeatedly. You can always change the excitement part by not engaging though! You "win" the raid by making it as boring as possible for the aggressors. That is: Log off.
To which I wholly agree, and also to what I have done since this month of March, as some may or may not have noticed-that it's wise to just step out of pk, as yes, they'll eventually kill a few loyals(whoopti doo!) and go away as to how I see it-only to provoke a response. I mean, if you do defend, all the more to you, but not for me unless there's going to be an rp event revolving around that in some fashion or another. Otherwise, no-I've more important things to focus on.
You should defend if you find defending fun - you shouldn't if you don't. There is a difference between intensity and lack of enjoyment: the former is good and too often the latter is mistaken for it. Emotional investment is important because it can make day-to-day situations feel like they matter (even if they don't). However, if you are regularly doing something you don't enjoy in any game - regardless of your emotional investment in said game, I personally feel that is a mistake. There is a singular driving principle behind any form of entertainment: fun.
You should defend if you find defending fun - you shouldn't if you don't. There is a difference between intensity and lack of enjoyment: the former is good and too often the latter is mistaken for it. Emotional investment is important because it can make day-to-day situations feel like they matter (even if they don't). However, if you are regularly doing something you don't enjoy in any game - regardless of your emotional investment in said game, I personally feel that is a mistake. There is a singular driving principle behind any form of entertainment: fun.
Ignoring NPCs makes me sad, and staying out of things makes me sad. If people choose not to defend, that choice is valid and I wouldn't begrudge them for it. However, this argument seems lacking. If things are regularly happening in a game that I find no enjoyment in participating in(or that make me sad when I don't participate in them)- why am I playing that game? The idea that the NPCs are real and their lives matter, too, is a huge part of being able to pretend the world is real. Those lines of code and strings of text matter to me once I see them walking around a city I 'live' in. If I stopped pretending they matter, the game would be a lot less interesting... so, either way...
And I do like defending, most of the time, and I log out when it doesn't seem like fun. That's not really a solution though, and it would be more effective to find ways to make it fun for both sides.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
I feel there are two parts to your argument here: the first that if things are regularly happening in the game that you don't like why are you playing the game, and the second that denizen lives should matter to your character. Let me address them separately.
First: there are many aspects to Lusternia. I would be very surprised if everyone likes everything - at least, I know I don't. The beauty of having a lot of different aspects to a game is you can choose to partake of the ones you do enjoy while mostly opting out of ones you don't. Naturally you can't completely divorce yourself from parts you're not so keen on, that's part of the world. But if you don't like something you can pretty convincingly opt out while still being a major actor on the Lusternia stage.
Second, I don't disagree their lives should matter to your character. That said, not everyone has to be a soldier for the glorious cause or what not: being a preacher or scholar is just as valid. From a meta point of view we all have the mechanical capability to be elite warriors, but there's no reason your character needs to be one, or indeed, have any aptitude for martial activities at all. There's also no issue saying "we are presently lacking the force to combat this incursion, we will avenge our <insert mobs here> when the time is right."
Speaking for myself as someone who does raid and jump into raids that get started by other people, hitting the mobs is a fairly standard test to gauge interest (entirely from a mechanics point of view). IC, obviously it has the standard meaning: we hate these mobs and they must die, blah blah blah.
Obviously, this is all just personal opinion. I definitely appreciate not everyone sees things this way.
First: there are many aspects to Lusternia. I would be very surprised if everyone likes everything - at least, I know I don't. The beauty of having a lot of different aspects to a game is you can choose to partake of the ones you do enjoy while mostly opting out of ones you don't. Naturally you can't completely divorce yourself from parts you're not so keen on, that's part of the world. But if you don't like something you can pretty convincingly opt out while still being a major actor on the Lusternia stage.
Absolutely. That's why I don't sell vermin. I think I managed to kill about 1000 of them total to gain some mechanical benefit, and that's about all I can stand for the next 10 years of play time. Something about is just magnitudes of boredom worse than bashing or standing in one spot influencing for hours.
But there is a difference to when it comes to raiding: I can choose whether or not to kill a rat, where I can't choose whether or not to be raided. I have to consciously do something about it, even if the choice is 'do nothing.'
Second, I don't disagree their lives should matter to your character. That said, not everyone has to be a soldier for the glorious cause or what not: being a preacher or scholar is just as valid. From a meta point of view we all have the mechanical capability to be elite warriors, but there's no reason your character needs to be one, or indeed, have any aptitude for martial activities at all. There's also no issue saying "we are presently lacking the force to combat this incursion, we will avenge our <insert mobs here> when the time is right."
Speaking for myself as someone who does raid and jump into raids that get started by other people, hitting the mobs is a fairly standard test to gauge interest (entirely from a mechanics point of view). IC, obviously it has the standard meaning: we hate these mobs and they must die, blah blah blah.
I agree with you to some extent, I think it's absurd when players attempt to roleplay something that they obviously can't do, mechanically. And I'm not sure it is the case everyone has the same mechanical capability to be an elite warrior, even if we were all using exactly the same system and skills. There will always be a degree of knowledge and possibly superior typing skills involved. (Beside the point, though)-
The thing is, pk is a significant part of the game, to an extent that preaching and scholarship is not. And being the aggressor in pk is more interesting/less of an imposition than being a defender. I like pk, more or less in the mid-range of general interest in it- but 90% of the time I don't log in order to defend aspects, *again*. That doesn't mean I never want to participate in conflict, just that if I can't choose the time when it happens, I want it be worth my effort to get involved. And defending isn't, most of the time. Even when I've been on winning defending sides, the only fun part of it is usually raiding them back, because, well, aggressor > defender. If it's not possible to completely balance the fun level between those positions(and it probably isn't), we should attempt at least to make defending suck less, imo.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
I agree with the general argument that folks need to take care of themselves first and not engage in parts of the game that aren't rewarding, but I also feel like it's valid to point out what things aren't enjoyable. A lot of these arguments stem from an unspoken assumption that things can't change and so therefore players need to change around the game as it is. While I don't think it's too likely that something as old and core as planar defense is going to get dramatically changed it's not an impossibility. I think there are multiple problems with both raiding and defending that most folks can agree on and I'm sure somewhere out there is an idea that solves things on both sides.
There's a chilling effect to people opting out of defense because it's not enjoyable, eventually everyone will be "smart" enough to not do what I do and run into a horde of enemies and when that happens raiding will be glorified bashing, which I suspect it already is in many cases. Some people on the attacking side might enjoy no resistance but I think most folks want to actually fight. Without some kind of change I see this eventually leading to a place where it's not rewarding to attack or defend. I've noticed in this last week or so since I've started playing that PVP has dramatically fallen off, and this includes the wildnodes yesterday.
It's odd, because on the one hand I totally agree with you that what most raiders want is a human opponent. On the other hand 95% of my experience of Lusty pvp has: Person A enters Forbidden Area X and attacks mobs (or sets fire to things) until the very second anybody from Group B arrives, at which Person A nopes out. The situation in which two groups turned up and wanted to fight was vanishingly rare, and even then what tended to happen was that after the first wipe there would be a declaration of something being 'king OP and then the battle would take place in yellow. Anyway. That experience of chasing people around the map to Benny Hill music - people didn't want to fight Versalean, but instead wanted to piss Versalean's player off - is what killed pvp for me. To put it another way, it was the attitude of players, not the (admittedly imperfect) intricacies of game balance, that made me give pvp the middle finger for quite a long time. ETA: I guess it could be argued that the reason for the attitude is the balance. I'm sure that's true to an extent!
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Upon reflection, it actually felt like this "ideal" RP was not even my choice. In indulging myself to this pretend fantasy, I lost myself to the character. She would react like I would if I was there and not her. As if I don't really have a choice, because my only choice was to pretend to be somebody else making the same choices. Things became very, very bitter for all of us in my org at the time. Like we were looking for a fantasy within this fantasy setting, where everything magically works out to our (and thus our characters') desires.
When I was finally able to let go, a lot of that improved, even if a lot of my attachment to Lusternia itself went away. I still can indulge my RP whims even while somebody is trying to murder Ladies just to fuck up my day. Once, I gave them the power to ruin things for me. Now, just because I know something, and I know my character should know it through character loyalsays and such, I still have the ability to decide that (for whatever reason I care to choose!) Ril just wasn't aware of it or something. I can react to it later when I hear the "news" or whatever, if I even care to follow up.
Even if it's the stuff that, to this day, tears at Ril's heartstrings, it doesn't have to tear at mine, unless I want it to. The greater part of what we get out of games like this is what we put into it, both the negative emotions involved and the positive.
The excuses/reasons we can give for our characters are innumerable and easy to be had. Our RP should be built upon and follow what we actually want out of the game, not our emotional state being affected by RP we don't even want. The idea that we must react this way (our characters would!) is a persistent commitment among many of us, but one we entirely impose on ourselves.
It's also a loss, which is something everyone deals with differently. Even if you don't turn up the loss condition (dead aspects/lords) still happens.
I know for myself it would bring on a bunch of stuff about feeling weak, powerless, etc. No matter what route I chose, even logging out which was often dealt with by playing other games.
But there's a difference between "I just can't play this class" and "Everyone around me says my class sucks".
One I can personally do something about the other is completely out of my hands except for spending real money to switch from the class I really want to play to something else.
That's also why I believe that classes need fixing before the raiding/conflict stuff is revitalised. Cause I think the other order would exacerbate the issue.
Though half of it being excited for the new game, the other half is wanting to get away from Lusternia, for a few reasons.
I've had to turn off most of my clans and channels in game to try to tune out the behavior of what I consider to be an increasingly caustic portion of the community. As a result, I've only really been logging on to talk to a small, and shrinking, group of people.
The gold cap kind of killed most of the fun I had from one aspect of the game that used to be pretty big for me. I used to enjoy bashing, but when I stop gaining gold after 20-30 minutes of bashing, it really just turns into a daily chore rather than something I can have any fun doing. While some of the other IRE's have gold caps, the one here is more restrictive due to the higher gold generation rates and credit prices.
There are other reasons, but I'll not list them here because I don't particularly want to get argued at or flamed.
I think there are several issues with saying, "If you want to RP just ignore the NPCs." From a roleplay perspective, if I wanted to have a role play that was strictly player to player, I could do so over skype or any chatroom that provides no lore/history/environment for me to interact with. I choose to do so in Lusternia because I enjoy the fact that I am interacting with and a part of the game world, which includes those NPCs I'm now just supposed to ignore. From a PK perspective, I imagine it can get pretty frustrating to be dying trying to defend while everyone else just stands around. It easily breeds resentment on both sides, which leads to the biggest issue, that it just reinforces the idea that there should be a dichotomy between PKers and RPers.
And yes, some people are truly 100% one or the other, but not everyone. I'm mostly an RPer, but honestly I really enjoy the concept of combat and the little bit I can do when supporting our top tier combatants. I'm not likely to make the skill/artifact investment that "real combatants" require and frankly I just don't process what's happening in combat quick enough to effectively respond beyond some basic tactics. Still, I suspect I would be move involved if it didn't feel like there was just no point to trying if you can't be top tier or don't have a top tier combatant around to support.
Part of this is what Aeldra touched on, that defenders are the ones getting pulled away from what they had chosen to do at that moment, but it's also that if there's any power imbalance, it's far too easy for the raiders to just keep at it until the defenders give up and let the raiders do whatever they want. Wash, rinse and repeat for real life days or weeks, and the choices do start to seem limited to 1) disengage from a large part of the game entirely unless another top tier combatant is there to counter them or 2) constantly, consistently fail and gain nothing for your efforts.
But, I don't think it has to be this way. There are PKers saying they want more opportunities for conflict--which is great! They're passionate about conflict, it's what they enjoy, so let's find ways to help them have it that work in systems we already have and that don't a) automatically pull in people who don't want to be involved or who only want to be involved some of the time and b) don't turn into a constant grinding down of midbies or people who are just learning. And yes, I do think this is possible.
Just throwing some ideas out based on village revolts/combat:
Village tributes: Between revolts, a village sends tribute to its sovereign org X times a year. These could be at scheduled times to let people plan for combat a bit more the way people have been asking without making people in unusual time zones feel like they'll never have a chance at a village. An announcement would go out the same as if a revolt is happening, that X villages are sending tribute. A caravan of goods/npcs then makes its way towards their sovereign orgs, and a competition begins to sway them from their route or keep them on it. Similar to a revolt, the sovereign org wants to influence them to remain loyal, other orgs want to influence them to come to their org, and killing your opponent (or debating them) is one way to stop them. Whatever org wins gets the tribute, X power and X commodities. It would only decrease the regular gains from that village for that month if the sovereign org loses, not for the whole period the org has that village.
This builds on existing mechanics that overall people seem to enjoy; it has combat and mechanical benefits if the PKers win, but it's not the most painful blow ever if there's only non-coms around who don't want to join in; and it being scheduled means it that the numbers wouldn't always be min/maxed the way domoths are.
Village feelings: At one point, village feelings changed if you slaughtered the NPCs. This was naturally open to abuse by anyone with people around at off times. What if, instead, the sovereign nation killing an enemy player in the village raised the village's feelings for the sovereign nation, and a outside player killing a player from the sovereign nation in the village raised the village's feelings for the other nation? So if Bambi wants to initiate some good old fashioned PK, he can go raid Dairuchi. If there is no one around who really wants to engage in a fight, Bambi gets to slaughter a few NPCs, the non-coms don't have to feel as bad as if it were avatars/aspects/lords/whatever, and there's no major repercussions down the road. If Bambi raids Dairuchi and Thumper is around and like, 'oh yeah, come at me!' then they can have it out and the winner gets a bonus for their org during the next revolt. The non-coms don't have to feel like their org is being punished in the next revolt because they're non-coms, the PKer gets a bigger reward for raiding when other PKers are around to fight them.
In the same vein of thinking, why not build on the idea behind raiders slowly gaining insanity? PKers SHOULD be able to raid and raid successfully if they do their job well. But because this is a game that needs to stay fun for everyone, there needs to be a line that pulls them back from, "Okay guys, we get it, we've got no one who can beat you right now so you're just repeatedly going to burn it all and salt the earth and I might as well just qq."
Limited Entrances: What if being enemied to a plane made that plane itself want to reject you, so that it will only allow you entry X times per IG day/IG month/whatever? If you try to enter more than those number of times, the gates start refusing you and the plane itself tosses you to Astral if you bix in. This means that PKers can scout out the area, attack, and maybe jump back in the fight after the first death or so, but you can't just constantly kick and run raid for hours on end, or raid, kill everything, and keep it dead for real life days and days.
Rallying NPCs: What if, if after a certain number of members from an org dying on that orgs' plane to enemies without an enemy death, the NPCs there rally and grow stronger, or an extra, harder set of guards is summoned? Nothing is preventing a raid from being started/carried out, but if the only people around to defend are midbies who are just getting mowed down, instead of them having no incentive to join in the first place, if they join and try and are willing to take the deaths, eventually with NPC help they might start getting a few kills in. An enemy death resets the count (or maybe, an enemy death to that org/an ally? Something that hearstop can't just roll over), so if there's actual defenders and people for PKers to fight, it's a raid like normal. The goal isn't to hinder combat between players, but to make other org's planes not look like bashing grounds that have the benefit of upsetting other players if you bash there.
Just a few ideas. I'm not saying these are codable (I'm not a coder), and I can't say how much these would work for PKers (thoughts?) or even if all other RPers feel like this would help, but just a few ideas I've been kicking around on the theory that at its core, Lusternia is something great and fun, and that core is something we can nurture for the benefit of everyone.
Lusternia is ultimately a game that people play for (hopefully) fun, and no player owes any game their engagement if it isn't fun. If a whole bunch of people are saying "this isn't fun for us anymore", or if it's an open secret that "welp, 3 of them just flexed into <class>, time to qq" for months and months, then there are two possibilities. Either an entire section of your playerbase are just sore losers and the admin and "winners" should tell them to quit Lusternia, or there's a problem with balance.
I also saw the IG poll, which brings out a suggestion I once made:
Consider giving every org the same 5 classes with the same skills, re-skinned for org flavour. When you propose this, see which combatants (not people who are primarily RPers, who have their own reasons besides balance for liking their skills, but combatants who have to deal with the mechanical skills) jump at the chance and say YES PLEASE and which say NO WAY. That'll give you an idea of which classes are the most underpowered.
In the current in-game poll, I'm not sure which way I'll vote. Nihilists are in a very different place than Illuminati. I'd say overall wiccans are strongest, though MD is a bit of a succumb + hexes one trick pony.
@veyils I'm very interested in having more information on this. I've pinged you on Discord and now here as well so that I can take appropriate action as necessary. Apart from a specific individual who has been reprimanded as appropriate for something vaguely related to this concept, I'm aware of nothing that constitutes a, 'racist, homophobic, death threat,' having taken place on the server, let alone from multiple members. Again, please message me with information.
As to the rest, regarding admin bias or cheating... yes. Absolutely those discussions have taken place on the server. I think it's important that those conversations did indeed take place, because it allows a very candid look at how many players are feeling. The lack of a filter can be alarming at times. In fact it can hurt feelings very deeply - given that nobody present expects their exact wording to be delivered to the Administration of Lusternia, (Or, to be honest, that those complaining even realize which admin may or may not be involved in anything whatsoever. The way one presents their complaint will absolutely change depending on who they think they're making that complaint about and to whom) but being able to express discontent and mold it into something useful to bring back to others is a very vital piece of the community puzzle.
<a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.lusternia.com/banner/minkahmet.jpg">https://www.lusternia.com/banner/minkahmet.jpg</a>I’d guess that they may have only seen use when this hasn’t been told to people who got the priv
Anyways (and more to the topic), the very best way to defend your plane - that is, to remove raiders from your territory- is to bore them into going away. Even with a larger defending force that can kill them off, many raiders will just come back and harry the plain until they get bored anyways, as there isn't anything stopping them. The ostensible way this is balanced is via boredom tax, that is escalating requirements to do the repetitive and boring task of grinding xp to break even. So at some point the excitement of participating in active combat (or lack thereof) for the raider is outbalanced by the time they have to spend grinding and they go away. As a defender you often can't affect the grinding time side of that equation, as the raider can simply attack when you can't easily kill them off repeatedly. You can always change the excitement part by not engaging though! You "win" the raid by making it as boring as possible for the aggressors. That is: Log off.
One reason I haven't left is that your recent quests have been on point. Whoever you have making quests needs to keep making quests. Please keep at them even while you're working on improving on other areas.
Coming from someone with a traditional MMO gaming background, levelling by quests is far more fun than levelling by endlessly watching scrolling text as you repeat the same action ad infinitum.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
I have never directly spent money on Lusternia. I have handed some bardic credits to people to have them buy me lesson packs, though. There just aren't many artifacts that I can use beyond convenience things as a noncom. I feel like that's probably a decently common situation. And I think the combat people would rather there were less new combat artifacts. I think there's a partial solution to these problems.
Maybe have people look into pledging for specific content releases? Like, take designs. There are only so many patterns, and designers generally want more. My understanding is that it takes a decent but not huge amount of dev time to make those, so it doesn't happen often. What if you allowed people to pay to have new ones added? Make it a pledge system so that a bunch of people can throw in a couple bucks instead of funding it all out of hand. I'm guessing there are a lot of designers who would be willing to contribute.
Or maybe let people ask for reskins of the class bashing weapons the same way? Or new weapon types added to existing warrior specializations? And so forth.
Could do something similar with quests. List a few possible areas, have people pay to prioritize building those. I know that there are areas of Lusty that I find more interesting than others and would be willing to shell out a few dollars to promote.
<a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.lusternia.com/banner/minkahmet.jpg">https://www.lusternia.com/banner/minkahmet.jpg</a>Ignoring NPCs makes me sad, and staying out of things makes me sad. If people choose not to defend, that choice is valid and I wouldn't begrudge them for it. However, this argument seems lacking. If things are regularly happening in a game that I find no enjoyment in participating in(or that make me sad when I don't participate in them)- why am I playing that game? The idea that the NPCs are real and their lives matter, too, is a huge part of being able to pretend the world is real. Those lines of code and strings of text matter to me once I see them walking around a city I 'live' in. If I stopped pretending they matter, the game would be a lot less interesting... so, either way...
And I do like defending, most of the time, and I log out when it doesn't seem like fun. That's not really a solution though, and it would be more effective to find ways to make it fun for both sides.
First: there are many aspects to Lusternia. I would be very surprised if everyone likes everything - at least, I know I don't. The beauty of having a lot of different aspects to a game is you can choose to partake of the ones you do enjoy while mostly opting out of ones you don't. Naturally you can't completely divorce yourself from parts you're not so keen on, that's part of the world. But if you don't like something you can pretty convincingly opt out while still being a major actor on the Lusternia stage.
Second, I don't disagree their lives should matter to your character. That said, not everyone has to be a soldier for the glorious cause or what not: being a preacher or scholar is just as valid. From a meta point of view we all have the mechanical capability to be elite warriors, but there's no reason your character needs to be one, or indeed, have any aptitude for martial activities at all. There's also no issue saying "we are presently lacking the force to combat this incursion, we will avenge our <insert mobs here> when the time is right."
Speaking for myself as someone who does raid and jump into raids that get started by other people, hitting the mobs is a fairly standard test to gauge interest (entirely from a mechanics point of view). IC, obviously it has the standard meaning: we hate these mobs and they must die, blah blah blah.
Obviously, this is all just personal opinion. I definitely appreciate not everyone sees things this way.
First: there are many aspects to Lusternia. I would be very surprised if everyone likes everything - at least, I know I don't. The beauty of having a lot of different aspects to a game is you can choose to partake of the ones you do enjoy while mostly opting out of ones you don't. Naturally you can't completely divorce yourself from parts you're not so keen on, that's part of the world. But if you don't like something you can pretty convincingly opt out while still being a major actor on the Lusternia stage.
But there is a difference to when it comes to raiding: I can choose whether or not to kill a rat, where I can't choose whether or not to be raided. I have to consciously do something about it, even if the choice is 'do nothing.'
Speaking for myself as someone who does raid and jump into raids that get started by other people, hitting the mobs is a fairly standard test to gauge interest (entirely from a mechanics point of view). IC, obviously it has the standard meaning: we hate these mobs and they must die, blah blah blah.
The thing is, pk is a significant part of the game, to an extent that preaching and scholarship is not. And being the aggressor in pk is more interesting/less of an imposition than being a defender. I like pk, more or less in the mid-range of general interest in it- but 90% of the time I don't log in order to defend aspects, *again*. That doesn't mean I never want to participate in conflict, just that if I can't choose the time when it happens, I want it be worth my effort to get involved. And defending isn't, most of the time. Even when I've been on winning defending sides, the only fun part of it is usually raiding them back, because, well, aggressor > defender. If it's not possible to completely balance the fun level between those positions(and it probably isn't), we should attempt at least to make defending suck less, imo.
There's a chilling effect to people opting out of defense because it's not enjoyable, eventually everyone will be "smart" enough to not do what I do and run into a horde of enemies and when that happens raiding will be glorified bashing, which I suspect it already is in many cases. Some people on the attacking side might enjoy no resistance but I think most folks want to actually fight. Without some kind of change I see this eventually leading to a place where it's not rewarding to attack or defend. I've noticed in this last week or so since I've started playing that PVP has dramatically fallen off, and this includes the wildnodes yesterday.