Unused features of Lusternia

Ssaliss

I've been thinking about this for a while, and odds are there are plenty of things that can be done in Lusternia that simply... aren't done at all. I feel that's a bit of a shame (after all, a lot of thought went into them, so they shouldn't be sitting there collecting dust), so I figured I'd point a flashlight at two of them. If anyone else have any other suggestions for mechanics that are forgotten, feel free to chime in! The thought is that I'll open one thread per feature to collect ideas for them, and we'll see if anything happens from there I guess.

So, my two things are:

First of all, nexus guardians. Odds are some of you will go "What is that", and... well, there's a good reason they're unused: They're very clunky to use, and frankly, you don't see enough ethereal/elemental/cosmic raids to make them worthwhile. Have a look at HELP NEXUS GUARDIANS to see what they're designed to do.

Second, and one that doesn't affect me in the slightest: Order wars. The reason they're not used is that it requires a mutual declaration of war between two Orders, which while understandable, makes them far less likely to ever happen.

Comments and suggestions are welcome! I'm not looking to fix them in this thread though, as I said, so those comments can be saved until later.

Threads and queue:

Combat rankings
Order wars
Nexus guardians
Banks

Malayn

The problem with the guardians is they are for noncomms really, and raiding is a horrible idea. Raiding does not do anything meaningful, org powers are free and plentiful, and the loss for death is massive.

Order wars were neat when they came out, but they tend to be very brief or incredibly one sided. It also relies on 1) both divine being active and willing 2) Having the order members to make it worth it.

So what else is completely ignored or never used:
- Stamps / Chops
- Clan enemy status.... what are the purpose of these? Manse perms?
- TOPGUILDS
- The entire artisan skillset <.< (what we get for having freakin 2 year life on items)
- Miniatures as a mini game. Ignoring people who like to create giant groups of them to see who wins.

Enyalida

Certain types of raiding are still in full bloom, the really annoying unstoppable, hit-and-run, for-no-real-benefit-but-annoyance raids still are go. Real raids with objectives, not so much.

Stamps and Chops are used fairly often by commune/city leadership. We exchange a fair number of letters/scrolls that are officially signed using them. No one else uses them for two reasons: 1) Way too expensive for anyone but an org to bother spending gold on them, even if it's easily within range. 2) Letters and other bookbinding writables enjoy only fringe use themselves. 

Malayn

There is no such thing as raiding with a real objective.

- Smobs are stupid powerful and raised quickly.  They are worth 100 power, that's it, we gain 100 power for turning them in.

What else can you raid with an objective?

Basically a group raids to get a fight, another group might defend to remove them. That is the most meaningful combat Lusternia has raid wise.

Kagato

Malarious said:

There is no such thing as raiding with a real objective.

- Smobs are stupid powerful and raised quickly.  They are worth 100 power, that's it, we gain 100 power for turning them in.

What else can you raid with an objective?

Basically a group raids to get a fight, another group might defend to remove them. That is the most meaningful combat Lusternia has raid wise.

The mirror faction ( Celest <==> Magnagora,  Serenwilde <===> Glomdoring,  Hallifax <===> Gaudiguch ) is attacked on a regular basis until the Smobs are raised again though, which could be considered a 'benefit' - I don't know how much they lose though  (For example the Necromentate is attacked if Celest turns in the demon lords, the Flame in Serenwilde is attacked if Glomdoring turns their avatars in, etc)

Lerad

They don't lose anything until the shield drops entirely. Which hasn't happened since I started playing, even during those times when I went dormant, if I'm not wrong. To actually drop the shield takes a great deal more grief than the actual power stolen when the shields drop. If anyone puts in enough effort to do that kind of grief, they couldn't care less about the power being stolen.

Lavinya

The shield dropped and Magnagora lost the Necromentate in the last or next to last Demon Lord raid. No idea what benefit that was for Celest, but it sure was a pain for us.

Enyalida

The only raiding that really does happen (besides the sort just looking for a fight) is running in to chop totems, which is lame. Anyways, this is a bad /divert. 

One of the reasons I think Order Wars also don't happen is that they don't have any sort of unique mechanics. In an order war, you basically just carry on doing your normal combat routine. Sneak into area when no one is there or there aren't fortifications up. Apply your own fortifications. So on and so forth. You basically follow the same script you do to occupy any other location, but the defenders don't get the benefit of discretionaries, home terrain bonuses (as on ethereal and the elemental planes), or (usually) a host of defensive mobs. All this to win truefavours and epeen!

-Banks should still be on this list.

Also:

-Combat rankings

-Guards, in anything but huge clumps that don't do much good guarding places like the forests.

-Library Cards

Karlach

Lavinya said:

The shield dropped and Magnagora lost the Necromentate in the last or next to last Demon Lord raid. No idea what benefit that was for Celest, but it sure was a pain for us.

Next to last, the last one went from 500 spikes to below 100. That was a joy to farm back up...

Ssaliss

Heh. First you don't say anything for a couple of days, and then everything at once :P

Anyway, in order (and this is just my view of it):

Stamps/Chops: I actually kinda forgot these exist, but... I think I'm relatively fine with them, from what I know about them. They allow orgs to send official correspondence, which can be proven to be sent by that org. Players can get the same if they feel it's important enough, of course, but to me it seems the orgs should be in the focus. Yes, they're expensive, but it's not as if we've got a shortage of gold anyway, so... I don't know how long they last, but that'd basically be the only thing about them I'd change if it's not enough.

Clan enemy status: I'm kindof of two minds here. On the one hand, it isn't used, but on the other, it can be used in certain situations. For instance, setting a manse perm against enemies of a certain clan would allow for a more finely-tuned (and flexible) permission list which would go beyond setting a separate fulcrux perm for each individual. I can definitely see it being used for big projects like Deepnight or... what that other aethercity is called (Sorry Sakr, but it completely slipped my mind!)

I'm not going to comment on the "Artisan is useless" comment :P Although I wouldn't mind a bit quicker decay I guess. Or more "throwaway" items.

Miniature minigame is something that comes and goes as a fad. I've seen it blossom, and I've seen it wither. Can't think of anything that would improve it either.

As for raiding, there was a pretty big discussion on that not too long ago (I think it's on the old forums though). No need to bring that up again.

Banks: Not as much "unused" as "could use some love", but yeah, I'll include it. I made a thread about them earlier on the old forums though, which was why I was hesitant to add it to the first list.

Combat rankings: Oh, definitely. Perhaps not "unused" as much as "completely broken", but I'd love to see it overhauled. I don't have any ideas myself, but it's not exactly my area of expertise either.

Guards: It feels like that's a forest problem more than an org problem/unused feature, since forests tends to have a gazillion entrances opposed to the three or four of a city (or two, in the case of Hallifax and Gaudiguch). Might warrant a thread, but it's not really part of the "unused feature" collection, so to speak.

Library cards: Don't actually know enough about them to comment on them, so... I guess that's proof enough that they're not used, heh.

Anyway, given that my current list looks like:

Nexus guardians
Order wars
Banks
Combat rankings
(Library cards? As I said, hard to comment since I don't know anything about them)

Enyalida

Library cards allow people to access categories of books in a library they don't otherwise have perms for. There are three levels of book: Standard (I forget the real name), Restricted, and Secret (super restricted). You can give out a card to any person for any given level, which unlocks all levels below that card as well (I believe.)

So, giving a non-citizen a library card allows them to read the books in your Great Library, which will be almost entirely the same as the books in that person's own national Great Library. Or a restricted card to a citizen (or non-citizen) to allow them to read the restricted books.... which aren't likely to number greater than a handful, if any at all. And so on. The 'goes unused' part comes in when you realize the number of people who read Library books at all unless pointed out a specific book they need for something. Then, think of the number of books being written but not published (because restricted and secret books by their nature won't be published), and then the ways that secrecy really work in Lusternia.

Riluna

Guild libraries have a benefit from the cards, even if the larger Great Libraries don't much. I'm only aware of a couple that actually do have restricted/secret sections, but they're an excellent RP tool all the same. Even if they are underused.

Rivius

Oh my, combat rankings do need a rehaul, yes.

Dys

The Illuminati use library cards. They're a neat way of controlling access and can be issued as a reward for progressing through the ranks. I'd guess other guilds do the same.

Ssaliss

Hmm. Given that feedback, I think library cards are off this list, at least. Not saying they can't do with some improvements, but small tweaks wasn't what I had in mind for this.

Ssaliss

I'll start by making a thread regarding combat rankings, as that one seems to be the issue most people want to see changed. Feel free to give suggestions for other features here though!

Elanorwen

Actually, chops/seals aren't expensive. The design process at the start is expensive, yes... 200k for individual, 400k for organization, but following that original investment, having the seal itself made barely costs 3k, so how long it lasts is of really no importance. Think It's about 250 months anyway.

Ssaliss

Oh. I thought each chop cost the 200k/400k, but that's nothing. Heck, I might even get one myself, for that one letter per RL year I send :P

Turnus

I'm not sure if the serenguard has ever used their chop after getting one. Which is kind of amusing after all the referendums and whatnot to pick the favorite one. I know I never used it back as GA. Also, raiding does still happen in the annoying form at least. Just ask the newbies stuck replanting elders. I don't have enough of a pulse on things to say more than that about what raiding does or doesn't occur. I'll venture a guess that much of it is on god realms too though.

Sakr

So we ahve

Nexus guardians
Order wars
Banks
Combat rankings
Library Cards

I would agree with the artisan skillset. It lasts too long on some things, and not long enough on others for the cost.

I would also put in sewers. I think it would be an excellent place separate from rats to farm for gold, by turning in crabs for instance. Though this may be particular though to people with the sewers skill.

But for skills, other than artisan I think that poisons could use some additional love. Or how with each skill has an all around transcendent skill that benefits everything, aethercraft has one in specific to turreting. But these ideas should go into a different thread.

Marcella

I use a library card for Hallifax!

Ssaliss

Yeah, I won't make a thread for library cards. They seem to be used in certain situations, and their design and usage seems to be pretty much spot-on. And frankly, I can't think of any ideas for changing them (nor do I think it's needed).

I updated the OP to include links to the threads though.

Silvanus

What I would like to see is an expansion of various arena games. The few that we have are boring. Ones that are more scenario based could be a lot more fun.

A few ideas:

-Capture the Node(Flag)

-Zombies!

 * You know like the Halo version, 2 players start as zombies, the others are all survivors. Zombies have infinite respawn, and any person they kill becomes a zombie. Last survivor wins.

-Wargames but with two Captains that pick the teams. Probably infinitely more fair then what there is now in people waiting for the right team.

Thats all I got.

Siam

Library Cards are useful for rogues. In my entire reign of terror as Librarian, I've only ever given out 2 library cards. And then there's always the Restricted Section(these two words will forever remind me of Harry Potter 1).

Rivius

CTF would be interesting but there's things that would mess it up. It's far too fast to get from one place to the next, so you'd need to make the flag have a timer before it counts as captured. And then there's things like gpent that make it tricky to balance.

Zombies would be amazing though

Riluna

Backgrounds. Has anybody actually written one?

Zouviqil

Riluna said:

Backgrounds. Has anybody actually written one?

I was thinking of it, but then I noticed nobody has one, and changed my mind.

Kyair

I'm sure things have change immensely in Aetolia regarding family and histories but when I played long ago, backgrounds were super popular. It's what a lot of vampire houses looked at when thinking of enthralling you. You start out as a mortal and work your way into being of the night.

 

Anyways, Lusty. The vague general problem I see with backgrounds in Lusternia is that 1)You step out of the portal and 2) You get sucked up by a family and bam, there's your background and your history. The idea of family in Lusternia has become lost in what I've seen(and I'm guilty myself) as to now a competition of who can breed the fastest for whatever reason: political power, family honour, etc. Some people collect for the sake of collecting. If backgrounds were going to become important again, it's likely something guilds would have to include in requirements alongside descriptions.

Aerdiya

I remember lots of people having backgrounds in Aetolia. It was always very interesting to read since it told you some background information about the character.

It's been a while since I played Aetolia but I remember guilds doing exactly what you said. Advancement tasks usually involved a lot of writing and in most cases (at least in the vampire houses) you had to write a background in order to progress. Maybe one could differentiate between the meaning of vampire houses and that of families since the former are usually a family of choice to which you must appeal before being accepted and the latter are mostly decided on birth. 

However, I still find it possible to write a background even though yours is already set by your family. Instead of describing how your character lived before becoming a thrall, you could narrate some adventures from your childhood or retell certain events like weddings from your viewpoint for example.

That way, backgrounds could also serve as a way to understand characters better and maybe provide some funny anecdotes. 

Lavinya

The Nihilists still have a requirement that has you write any memories you might have from before the portal. Understandably though, most are vague, because who wants to presume what their childhood/family was like before actually finding them in game?

Riluna

The thing is, the way the system is set up, a 'background' isn't necessarily about your pre-Portal days, and seems rather designed to be written as you go. For many of us who have been playing a long time, even the Portal and the events that follow are ancient history. Although at that time when you're just emerging from the Portal, a background does seem counter-intuitive, since the Fates wipe your memory at that point anyway.

So to be a foundation for you to build your character's RP, as its intent seems to be, just calling it something other than background might help. Something generic like "information", even, since we all start with a "background" that's an empty slate. It has potential, but it's very much a completely unused thing, and could use some tweaks perhaps to make the system as a whole more attractive or just encourage it. Because things like that really can be fun to read! Guilds could really use it. Orders could use it, to help the Divine understand and interact with characters. Heck, players could use it to interact with characters.

A lot of shyness comes from not knowing anything about the other person. And in a community of the socially awkward, showing some of that up-front could help overcome that hurdle.