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Do you feel that Glomdoring skillsets, in general and whole, are superior to other org counterparts?
Opinion survey.
(I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
0
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
It should not be surprising that a large number of our player base participates in PvP and, ideally, enjoys doing so. However, in the past year, probably even further back, there has been a growing animosity between those who commonly compete with one another. In a community as small as ours it's unfortunate that there are some real feelings towards particular individuals and groups of individuals. While that will always be the case with games of contest, in a system as small as ours where it's not difficult to have a personal relationship with every other entity playing the game, it's upsetting that many of us, on both sides of the fence, have entrenched negative opinions about each other.
There are many aspects as to how this occurs and while the static (stale? Though I fear it's intended by design) diplomatic landscape and individual personality do go a long way to establishing those relationships in either positive or negative lights, I personally feel that a large volume of dissent is fuelled by the status quo of the PvP landscape.
And perhaps, even more importantly than that last statement, I feel that the inability of us to come together as a whole and hold civil conversations in some public forum to discuss and disclose our feelings and opinions honestly and on principle of merit has given rise to the animosity present in the PvP community.
N.B. I'm sure some people feel there are no such feelings, but I assure you, they are there and they do go both ways.
With that in mind, I would like to think that we can all work together towards reopening our community to civil and public discussion of the issues that we feel are important to creating a healthy and vibrant PvP atmosphere where villains are that in name, not recorded in history and deed as that in nature.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
There is a natural tendency - regardless of which people or org are being highlighted, or regardless of game even - to feel defensive about one's skills. After all, you know them better than anyone. You can spar against them at will. You may see weaknesses and counterplay others don't. You may look at the effort you put into practicing and perfecting your craft, and feel a discussion like this diminishes that. Again, the failure here is of language. While I answered the poll 'Yes,' defining 'superior' so that we can communicate as a community will be essential to lack of animosity, any degree of agreement, and any cooperative resolution.
I think there are (at least) three major psychological effects that hinder discussions of this sort:
1. Tendency to think 'the grass is greener on the other side.' Aka, the visible evidence suggesting the other side's mechanics are easier/faster/more powerful, often without access to full details of how they all work or what work the players put into perfecting their craft.
2. Tendency to protect one's own skills. Especially if one already experiences #1, they are loathe to consider changes to even their best skills, because 'it's all they have.'
3. Dimensional bias. 'Superior' - at a glance - seems to imply a single axis of measurement, a sort of binary judge of a class or group of classes. In reality, there are several other dimensions that often get conflated, for better or worse. Those include player skill, coding ability, artifact investment, etc. Each of those is a separate question as to whether location on that axis 'should' effect the end result, and by how much. Should every class be equal regardless of player coding ability? Regardless of player's skill in timing, tactics, perception, etc? Regardless of artifact investment? I think most people would say no on all of these counts (the last being the most divisive, I expect), but the differences are often ignored once we say 'on the whole and in general.'
Leaving aside particular skills, classes, and all that, what I think Glomdoring has going for it is very, very good synergy around a mechanic (bleeding) that is almost universally useful - it can be used as damage, or as mana pressure (or both). I don't think this is de facto a bad thing, nor anything for anyone to be defensive about. I think it's really cool. I do think, however, that both the amount of synergy and the usefulness of that synergistic mechanic far exceeds the comparable mechanics in other orgs.
I think the game would be better if MORE orgs had synergies like that, rather than less.
I think quite a few people have nailed the reasons this discussion is a non-starter. The first problem is going to be those psychological defenses and forum jingoism. Anyone who wants to argue that those are not serious (and evidenced) barriers to this conversation can do so with somebody else. I'm gonna pin my colours to the mast and say that just the title and the poll format here is guaranteed to piss people off enough that this thread won't make it to page three, and that's on the vanishingly small chance that its substantive topic is engaged by both sides on this thread. Second is the genuine issue of finding a common currency. Given that Lusternia's kits are different, it becomes difficult to decide which are superior. It's hard enough to do so in a single-player game like NWN2 (although boy am I done trying to beat it with a Bard), but gg trying to decide what's an apple and what's an orange in the paper-scissors-shotgun-virus-ideology intricacy that we have here. It is not only impossible to perfectly balance (I appreciate that nobody in this thread has asked for perfect balance) Lusty's classes, but undesirable; the differences between kits is part of what makes Lusty great. If we're just asking "Who would win a fight between a Wyrdenwood-Shadowdancer combo and a Wildewood-Moondancer combo?" it's possible to create an interesting conversation, albeit one with a whole lot of permutations. Third, not all PVPers are equal. I am not, for a second, suggesting that Glomdoring has the best players in the game which is why they're at the top in Politics and win every pvp engagement, but I am going to say that it's difficult to balance things when they're being tested by different people. Add to that that there may be systematic differences between orgs in things like ping (because nobody joins an empty org, thus orgs may cluster around timezones) and we have a further issue with testing. Plus, even if we could test with equal players, we'd have the issue of (four) numbers. What I see happening is that PVP is won by the org that can field the most people for the longest, further making it impossible to get to the crux of any perceived issue on how skills 'really' work.
TL;DR - There are too many places to hide in this discussion for it to be productive or meaningful. If it needs to be had, it needs to be had on Envoys and not on forums.
Further, I more than disagree with the notion that any conversation regarding the state of combat should be held behind the locked doors which is the envoys. It is the restriction of dialog to the microcosms of our player base, and the censorship of dialog and information, which give rise to player disenfranchisement and animosity between player entities, so I feel.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
Overpowered orgs and players will get bored eventually and come around less. Then envoys from other orgs will take advantage and start unbalancing classes in a different direction... or the admin change things that result in similar circumstances.
This sort of thing is pointless to discuss, as eventually it will be the same discussion over again but about a different class or org. All that happens after the "fix" is the people who still care about combat (the whales) move on to the next "effective" org/class and start wrecking face there and Lusternia makes extra profit if said people need to purchase lessons/credits to learn their new skills.
The whole mechanic of PVP revolves around profit IMO. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to keep my Iron Elite subscription and use it to enjoy the rest of the game mechanics. The aspects of the game that don't take hundreds of hours AND dollars to participate in. Which skills you have barely matter when it comes to questing/bashing/designing. It's the part of the game us non-whales can enjoy and I've come to accept it.
If the reader wants to keep churning the PVP/skillsets pot and keep the money flowing, go ahead. I recommend anyone who isn't a whale just ignore the whole spectacle.
I've been around a long time. This is the same problem this game had at the beginning and it's the same problem that will be had when the game eventually ends. Chances are good whoever is reading this will not be the person who brings a workable balance to Lusternia's PVP.
ETA: Describing Envoys as a locked door is not a useful analogy. At worst, it's a closed door with a dedicated team of (volunteer) receptionists manning the desk. If you feel Envoys is contributing to the animosity you describe, I think that's a more productive place to stick an oar.
This is a huge huge aspect to it for sure. I'm jealous of how much synergy succumb has with dreamweavers for sure. I'm jealous of the damageskull/damagethroat combos that other monks can do. Im jealous of the easy group access to aeon that every org but my own has for sure. Jealously wise the thing I am most jealous of is aquamancer vs blacktalon meld for sure.
A big thing people dont factor in is that well with Glomdoring right now is that a lot of the time they are pointing at Tarken and me when saying how overpowered something is but really you put us two in any org and people are going to be complaining about how quick we kill people. Honestly Tarken with succumb would be a nightmare. Tarken with Inquisition would be the scariest thing around. You've seen Tarken meld a little as well think how scary he would be with an aquameld and a working instant kill or even how often he kills with deathsong solo and think how easily he'd be killing you with chasm and mage tricks. Or as an illumanti or if he had access to shofangis head ice stack/greenlock potential etc.
I honestly don't think that anyone comes close to Tarken in game right now with the level of individual timing, skill or awareness for sure. Add on he's got any and every artifact that any class he plays needs.
I totally agree that some classes don't work right now, Gaudi/Halli monks(more so for gaudi) need more choices and arm actions for sure. Their "instant kill" is a bit iffy as well and could do with some adjustment work as well. Nilhists need something to let them counter furrikin and acrobats etc.
That's how I'm feeling anyways.
The animosity and inability to negotiate solutions, at least from the side I typically land on, comes in to play when those advantages or individual classes are overblown or advantages of others are downplayed. Often times, as is evidenced by this poll, there is no discussion of middle ground or complexity to the discussion or solution. It is presented as black or white, it's a false choice. Balance across 6 orgs and 30 classes is not an either/or conversation.
Rightfully so, when you make balance a single issue argument (bleeding/mana synergy), the other side isn't willing to meet you at the table if that's all you're willing to discuss. If you want to talk about Glomdoring, you have to talk about Blacktalon as much as you talk about Shadowdancers and Harbingers, which in my experience has exceedingly rarely been the case.
And don't say Aeon - since the nerf, Aeon is really not very scary at all, and the mechanics of Aeon-dependant classes haven't really adjusted (Tessenchi possibly aside - I think it still works for us pretty well 1v1 in the current state, but it is not the '0 cost on demand' Aeon you speak of).
In comparison, I would much rather try to teach Shofangi novices to fight than Tessenchi novices, because it is much more accessible and any arguable marginal gains at the 'skill ceiling' of Tessenchi don't, in my opinion, do much to offset that rise in complexity.
If I were to say "bleeding is off the table for discussion because its value is uniquely dependent on how the target responds, unlike direct mana or direct health damage," I don't imagine you'd feel like the conversation was headed in a constructive direction.
That goes back to my comment about some classes not quite working right. Gaudi/Halli monks really should get a bit of a quick special report to get their stuff tweaked up I've said before. It really wouldn't take much to tweak them up to a good level, a few more affliction options, maybe an adjustment to the damage formula for their instant kill or make their burst a delayed effect so that they can take full advantange etc. They got released with a few clear issues and then well the report freeze has left them kind of stuck sitting waiting. One or two months of good reports could get them sorted out for sure.
As to helping newbies help out in group combat well every class can be effective with a single button to spam. Chemwoods probally more so than any others for sure. Cast dreambeast/focus fumes/attack from a pyro/aqua/aero chem is bigger vitals drain than almost any class outside of a bard can pull. Warriors and monks you can just give a single combo button to press and thats them set for the fight. Bards maybe require a bit more cordination and such for sure but even a newbie bard just spamming their damage chord or power ability (disrupt/stun/blackout etc)is really really useful. Myself and others are more than happy to help any newbies out from any organisation as well, Ridetta set up a combat learning clan thats for everyone as well if anyone wants an invite, it didn't really pick up very much but I spent a good while helping out a few seren novices get the handle on their skills.
Have to disagre on the aeon part. Aeon is still the most important affliction in group combat. The aeon nerf basically didnt really effect how aeon works in group combat much. Ok you can attack during it when you couldn't before but if your being focused are you really going to be attacking? We get a lot of kills from correct usage of aeon. Its part of my grass is always greener part. We'd be greenlocking people in aeon quicker and easier if we had an aeon that we could use in the opening strikes of combat.
EDIT: And yes, Blacktalon is the worst meld right now. Funnel some of the power that Nekotai/Wyrdenwood/Shadowdancers have into them, pls.
-Nonpublication of individual responses. If other people will be told how respondents answered, those respondents will frequently feel socially pressured to give the socially 'correct' answer regardless of their true feelings on the matter.
-Proctor blinding. If people know what the survey proctor thinks (and they do in this case; Yarith posted an in depth opinion directly after the poll), they will be biased to answer in a manner which agrees with the proctor.
-It is rarely useful to know how many people in a population agree with some proposition without also knowing how each demographic varies in agreement. A more useful poll would have divided respondents up among current organizational affiliation so that we could see (for example) how responses from people playing in Celest vary from people playing in Hallifax, whether opinions correlate with frequently of PvP, whether opinions correlate with playing particular archetypes and so on and so forth.
-Likewise, it is rarely useful to have a simplistic answer where you could instead have a nuanced answer. It seems extremely likely that there is variation within Glomdoring skillsets; a useful survey would address this issue and attempt to discern which skillsets are the problematic ones.
-Even more so, there is no good experimental data without matching control data. Without a similar survey to assess Celest's skillsets, Serenwilde's skillsets, Gaudiguch's skillsets, etc. it becomes impossible to discern how much (if any) of the result is due to some Glomdoring-specific trait and how much of it is people from other organizations always saying that other orgs have it better (ie. 'the grass is always greener') regardless of which organization is being discussed.
A poll is like a torch in the darkness, serving to illuminate or to bludgeon at whim of the one wielding it. Given that this poll is guaranteed by its construction to shed no light into this controversial issue and is in fact covered entirely in verbal barbs, I can only conclude that this poll was designed as a rhetorical weapon and only later disguised as an attempt to enlighten.
Can't argue with that logic.
If you, and the larger community, leap at every discussion and attempt to bring talks about combat, and the status quo down on premise instead of content, then you are merely enforcing the current situation in play and are part of the problem.
Yes, maybe I'm being a demagogue just a little, but that simply means that the platform I'm working on is not unfounded.
Also, I hate to do this but this is really screaming at me and I really can't ignore it:
You can't use the words 'experimental' 'control' and 'data' there. I know it sounds smart, and like, that's great and all, but it's not correct.
In any case, I think the discussion here has largely been progressive, and are a good way forward to open further dialog. It would be even better, if people didn't continually detract from the conversations at hand.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
What issues do you see with Glom skills that need to be addressed?
Shadowbeat's NightshadeBlues. An increase to mana damage dealt completely skews the careful thought put into mana drain classes. Twist has values that are the way they are because they're meant to enable a difficult, but achievable solo Toadcurse. NSB throws this out of the window, along with all the other mana kills. NSB also gives an unfair advantage to the Music setup, given more manabarbs damage will be rolling out.
Night's Twist. With the implementation of new Highmagic Hod, and some better visual cues (because all Twists look alike), this could be balanced better. The third twist aeons and bypasses quicksilver (and mindclock), and synergy with Hexes and Astrology make it especially heinous. Is it Astrology or Hexes that need looking at? That's a fair question as well. The seventh twist is like a beefed up Crucify (tradeoff is set up time) in group combat: if you make it out alive, the enemy team really miscalculated.
Wyrdenwood's Noose. No class should be able to entangle, do respectable damage, bleed and spew out two Runes afflictions (or a haegl if they feel like it) in one, repeatable balance.
Nekotai's Angknek. Free parry drop upon damaging a limb that's already damaged would be a slap in the face to me, knowing that I (if I were a monk or warrior) have to use clumsiness poison (opportunity cost) to drop parry. And, of course, damaging 2 limbs at base stance is wild. Even if you parry the most likely limb to be attacked 100% (left leg, let's be honest), there's a chance that they'll go through parry anyway and damage the leg, and for sure they'll damage your right leg, since that's generally how the forms go. If a Nekotai made a form that attacked rleg twice, it would be bye parry for most people because it's not really possible to upkeep the mindgames. Do they double lleg, double rleg, or lleg rleg? They even have the luxury of being able to try and drop parry every single form. And, as mentioned, parry sometimes fails anyway in the opening bout.
And then, there are already reports that are ACCEPTED but not COMPLETED that would also alleviate issues. The rest of my angst falls on artifacts, primarily, and I hope to address some when reports become available again.
You have legitimate grievances and your feel that your platform for airing those grievances is being unfairly snatched away. But your platform has, through no fault of your own, been constructed entirely out of matchsticks in the middle of a field of dry bushes and gas stations. Part of that is simply a flaw of the medium - asynchronous mass communication via faceless text messages invariably bring out the worst in arguments and arguers. Part of that is the community itself - there is a reason why the forums aren't allowed to have a Rants thread anymore. Part of that is the topic itself - no matter how tactfully you put it, saying anything at all about 'the other side' makes the topic into an us vs them argument by definition. That these flaws are an unavoidable part of talking the issue out on the forums does not necessitate that we embrace the flaws and go ahead. It necessitates that we have the discussion through some other medium which lacks those flaws.
There is a reason why, whenever I go to solicit other people's thoughts on envoy-related topics, I do so in tells, over envoys or on the Discord. The real-time, one-to-one, ad-hoc nature of the conversation neatly dodges the flaws which make forum discussions go up in flames. I won't say that it's strictly impossible have a cool-headed conversation about game balance on these forums, but I will say that doing so is needlessly difficult and that a poll posing a rhetorical question about a minority of the community while calling out that same minority as the villains of the conversation is absolutely the wrong way to frame things, if you're aiming for light instead of heat.
Again, if you have concerns about Glomdoring's skills, I am more than happy to hear them. If your concerns are with merit, I will do my best to see that changes are made. If I disagree, I will politely inform you so. But I won't do any of these things over the forums, because the forums are the absolute worst place to have a conversation free of incendiary rhetoric.
In regard to NightshadeBlues I do agree that increasing Mana damage throws things off. It might be better suited to affecting Mana by reducing the effect of Mana Regen/sips.
Twist is a whole different story. That is nuts, almost entirely because of the effects of the final. I'd be curious to hear your suggestions for improving it while keeping it viable. I also do think that both hexes - due to the inability to prepare more than 6 for rapid firing - and astrology - just too variable to be reliable, though deadly when it is. Uh, not counting meteor - are in decent places right now.
Angknek's ability to do what it does is strong. The fact that it doesn't prone anymore was already a nerf. I think that the ice stack is Nekotai's best at the moment for actually being productive. I've not got a lot of experience with modern monk though. I do think that any change there has to be careful. Maybe move the parry break into centre stance, keeping it on angknek? Or would moving it weaken the ability too much?
Then there is noose. I didn't think noose could double haegl. I imagine it could be nasty with memoryloss motes too. Woods/Chems have always been in a weird place though. I plan to play with them a little after I finish getting myself set up for Druidry...which isn't really far off at all.
It feels like we always talk about Glomdoring but there are five other orgs out there to discuss and talk about.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it