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It is now abhorrence.
I'm prefacing this writing with:
I've only ever written one other discussion post and that was due to a very large OOC issue that happened regarding what should have been an IC happening.
My current issues regarding the Lusternian community stem from a vast majority of sources now. Organizations, players themselves, and producers as well.
Let's start small and build from there up.
I've only ever written one other discussion post and that was due to a very large OOC issue that happened regarding what should have been an IC happening.
My current issues regarding the Lusternian community stem from a vast majority of sources now. Organizations, players themselves, and producers as well.
Let's start small and build from there up.
For as long as I have played, the issue system has been present. It has been a useful tool at times for de-escalation and escalation where needed for problem players and actions that have needed to be addressed. I've valued the system for what it was, a third-party mediation tool so that the admin team could assist in finding a resolution or stating that a certain player was out of alignment with their RP.
Since the start of 2021, the issue system has been abused by all different players as an "I don't like this person so here, have an issue that I could solve in RP/IC but because I don't like you I want OOC consequences for you." The amount of issues I personally have seen stemming from newer players is quite frankly disgusting. And oft directed towards the more veteran players who have the knowledge and framework for why they said or did what they said. At some point, the issuing system has become the complaint hotline and it's gross to see.
But to add to this, the issuing system cannot handle the out-of-character harassment that players are now receiving. Discord is the biggest issue. The biggest perpetrators of this within the time span that I have been near the Lusternia discord are [names redacted by moderation for breaking forum rules]. The reason that I have never spoken with the admin and hiked my own shorts up to deal with this is that I have heard repeatedly from several others "The admin won't do anything because Discord is not Lusternia." Players stop playing because they are harassed about in-character actions or words and decide "Yeah, this is pretty toxic. I need to stop because clearly, they won't."
Next problem: Organizations and Toxicity
It is not a hidden fact that many players have seconds or alts in other organizations. Generally speaking, once you find a community in an organization you resonate with you tend to play and spend the most character time there. I'm guilty of it as well, having bounced between Serenwilde, Celest, and Magnagora. It's truly great that we are allowed to have seconds so that you don't have to go rogue each time to find the organization you fit best with. In most other games, you'd have to restart a new character to join another faction.
But to add to this, the issuing system cannot handle the out-of-character harassment that players are now receiving. Discord is the biggest issue. The biggest perpetrators of this within the time span that I have been near the Lusternia discord are [names redacted by moderation for breaking forum rules]. The reason that I have never spoken with the admin and hiked my own shorts up to deal with this is that I have heard repeatedly from several others "The admin won't do anything because Discord is not Lusternia." Players stop playing because they are harassed about in-character actions or words and decide "Yeah, this is pretty toxic. I need to stop because clearly, they won't."
Next problem: Organizations and Toxicity
It is not a hidden fact that many players have seconds or alts in other organizations. Generally speaking, once you find a community in an organization you resonate with you tend to play and spend the most character time there. I'm guilty of it as well, having bounced between Serenwilde, Celest, and Magnagora. It's truly great that we are allowed to have seconds so that you don't have to go rogue each time to find the organization you fit best with. In most other games, you'd have to restart a new character to join another faction.
My issue with organizations is that the sheer disgust for a videogame organization carries over into real life. When you receive threats because your character belongs to a videogame organization and somebody doesn't like that? Absolutely vile. It's a fair reason why a small minority of players have decided to stop playing. The toxicity that oozes from organizations into Discord. Or into forums. It's a videogame, yet some people can't mentally handle or separate the two and it is a large problem.
Last Problem: Balancing of Classes and sneaky changes.
I understand that reports are the chances for players to say "Hey, I think this is too powerful right now." or "Hey, this has no usage because it does too little".
The last round of reports that were sent out had the 5 admin reports as well to state and fix key points of the game in terms of conflict that are underwhelming or overwhelming. I'm happy to see that there were a lot of positives and negatives stated by everyone in the game (that I've spoken to from all organizations.)
My issue with the balancing is that it was stated "Hey, reach across the aisle and work with others to achieve what you think is a reasonable solution." Using the Holyfire reports as an example (and yes, I know I am slightly biased here), I collected data. I sent data to someone who I know can be more objective than I. That someone worked with a person of Celest to reasonably tone down how the affliction was built. Cool, we're working together to make the game more fun for everyone involved with it, yeah?
But then there are sneaky changes included in changelogs from producers. Or changes that weren't discussed with someone who has ANY relevant knowledge of how a class functions. Case and point: "Monks are overpowered." which has echoed throughout the game.
The last round of reports that were sent out had the 5 admin reports as well to state and fix key points of the game in terms of conflict that are underwhelming or overwhelming. I'm happy to see that there were a lot of positives and negatives stated by everyone in the game (that I've spoken to from all organizations.)
My issue with the balancing is that it was stated "Hey, reach across the aisle and work with others to achieve what you think is a reasonable solution." Using the Holyfire reports as an example (and yes, I know I am slightly biased here), I collected data. I sent data to someone who I know can be more objective than I. That someone worked with a person of Celest to reasonably tone down how the affliction was built. Cool, we're working together to make the game more fun for everyone involved with it, yeah?
But then there are sneaky changes included in changelogs from producers. Or changes that weren't discussed with someone who has ANY relevant knowledge of how a class functions. Case and point: "Monks are overpowered." which has echoed throughout the game.
Ok, cool, so what can you do to ALL monks to bring them in line with how you'd like to see them played out?
Have you asked any of the current monks within your organization?
Do you have at least a basic understanding of how they have to build their kill conditions?
Easy examples of monks that I know of that understand the class (that are still present in-game): Zagreus, Thalkros, Ulkhar, Vayelle, Freja
If you don't understand, maybe try the test server to try the class out. Or an alt. Monk is significantly far more difficult to build and achieve a kill condition on than any other class in the game. So yes, when properly executed they are extremely deadly and can be thought of as overpowered. But if you miss a single piece of how to reach what you need, then you'll never achieve a kill. How many monks do you see in-game, compared to any of the other classes faction wide?
Warriors and Guardians are much less forgiving and Guardians themselves are nearly game-breaking with how fast their leveled afflictions can build.
Warriors and Guardians are much less forgiving and Guardians themselves are nearly game-breaking with how fast their leveled afflictions can build.
How many times have we now seen Pulp kills, even though they were supposed to have received a large debuff? Several, and that is a good sign. Because it means that while it was balanced down, it is still viable.
Having written all of this above, I actually find myself killing time now in Lusternia with daily credits or gold farming and have jokingly called the game a retirement simulator because if you do anything conflict related you receive OOC backlash and I simply don't care anymore. I've lost too many friends over the span of two years who enjoyed the game to OOC harassment and toxicity which spills.
Discord was the worst move for this game hands down and I'll retire on that fact.
Having written all of this above, I actually find myself killing time now in Lusternia with daily credits or gold farming and have jokingly called the game a retirement simulator because if you do anything conflict related you receive OOC backlash and I simply don't care anymore. I've lost too many friends over the span of two years who enjoyed the game to OOC harassment and toxicity which spills.
Discord was the worst move for this game hands down and I'll retire on that fact.
4
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
You shouldn't have to put up with that but we can only police what occurs in the game or official game sites (such as forums and the official discord server). It's fair to dislike that stance but please do use the tools at your disposal to protect yourself from such activity.
And if you are the players that are sending those messages, even though we are not able to police those things directly, know that those kind of things that are brought to our attention will be used as evidence against you should something we can act on be brought to our attention. If you are partaking in sending nasty messages, you are a bad person making this game worse - and you should feel bad for doing so. If you're acting like that, kindly retire and leave and don't come back.
I'm not quite sure what is meant by 'sneaky changes in changelogs.' By definition, that isn't sneaky - announcing that we're making changes. That's why we post them in discord too, in their own unique channel, to ensure people see the changes. It isn't our intention 'sneak' in changes or nerf classes because we want to stomp on people. I just had someone complain to me on discord the other day that I didn't take their opinion from discord the other day and instantly make changes based on their comments. They complained that saying 'feel free to report it the next cycle' was not enough and they shouldn't have to wait that long for changes. We don't just make changes to please people and quell complaints. We make them because we believe they're the right changes to make. They're also usually made by a group or a few people. As far as combat goes, I have an ultimate say, but I've made changes that I personally didn't think were needed or should be made because I was outvoted. Some of those changes turned out to be good changes (the concentrated warrior style is one that comes to mind). We do this because I realize that I'm not perfect and it does work out. Any changes made though, whether they pan out or not, are made because they are viewed as overall best for the game as a whole. Not to nerf someone or give in to public outcry. I mean, Pits are still a thing for goodness sake.
Maybe I'm pretty off base here but I'm assuming that this (at least the monk complaint) is being driven by the Ninjakari Constrict report (Report 458/484) as that report was the only monk report that nerfed a specific monk class, particularly one that Mirae would use, as the only other monk reports are improving stancing odds (Report 451) (which does affect all monks) or the improvement of Shofangi Gore from slickness to asthma (Report 455). If I am off-base, then ignore the following.
First off, it's a bit disingenuous to make a statement that any writer of a report is not 'someone who has ANY relevant knowledge of how a class functions.' You don't know who wrote it, and you don't know who commented on it. For all you know, someone you just listed as being knowledgeable actually wrote it. People are also able to comment on reports and give their opinion on things, and some of those players are incredibly knowledgeable about monks. We always take all comments into consideration. Sure, some get dismissed if they obviously don't know what they're talking about, but quite a few of them do. The ninjakari report, in general, had bipartisan agreement that the blackout was too strong, some stating that only when people were moving between surge and killer stances, some saying the effects were too strong on monks in general etc. Given that players from all orgs (both players that fight with it AND against it) were saying it was too strong an effect but the given solutions were not great, we went the route we did. It should be noted - that despite having the chance to comment on the follow-up report, only one player did. Not sure why more players didn't take the opportunity to voice their opinion there.
I don't believe that removing blackout is going to significantly hurt Ninjakari - especially given that other side of the comments were along the lines of 'just use AC GUESS/Diagnose' etc. If it was so easy to counter, then removing it shouldn't be that big of a nerf. If it is strong, then it should be changed. I could be wrong though, it's not unheard of.
Anyway - we are also making other changes to all monks with the stancing report.
I know there are some negative things associated with discord, but I also believe there's been a lot of positive things that have resulted from discord as well, and I do think the positive has generally outweighed the negative. I think it's definitely been overall positive change. We could definitely improve some things though and clarify some rules.
2.
3.
The desire for anyone to comment on follow-up reports after having seen what was approved and disapproved is due to morale.
I'm generalizing here, but with such a wide amount of support for how ridiculous holyfire was/is, seeing a fraction of what the solutions offered were approved is highly demoralizing. At the very least, a reconsideration of some of the reports, and opening those which were highly contested/invested in comments to the public might have held better for everyone involved to see.
While I am mentioning that, I understand, reports are a highly volatile time. There are comment wars back and forth, it is tiring I am sure. I do sympathize with the admin team on that and understand the justification as to why comments were privatized this time around.
4.I don't believe that removing blackout is going to significantly hurt Ninjakari - especially given that other side of the comments were along the lines of 'just use AC GUESS/Diagnose' etc. If it was so easy to counter, then removing it shouldn't be that big of a nerf. If it is strong, then it should be changed. I could be wrong though, it's not unheard of.
Essentially, blackout which was useful was swapped for recklessness which is absolutely worthless for Ninjakari.
I know that I partially wrote about Discord above in frustration because I have been on the receiving end there, and I have seen others as well. It really does suck the life out of you to have fun in the game, then get blasted after you've logged out or are doing something else IRL on Discord.
2) You say 'bipartisan comment' - I'm saying 'bipartisan comments'. There were multiple comments from your own side saying it was strong and agreeing with some of the solutions (not all of them). There were comments that did not agree, but there were multiple that did.
3) I know that you think holyfire is strong - but we've reviewed your logs and made adjustments that we think are appropriate. We've reserved the right to make further adjustments. I've been pretty vocal that I prefer incremental changes rather than sweeping ones and I believe I've been consistent overall when it comes to making incremental change decisions on reports. Maybe it's not enough at this time, but we'll make further changes, we just need to see more than 'holyfire is still crazy!' comments to act on.
4) I understand that it's a nerf and where you're coming from, but again - based on the comments and the report, we felt this was a change that was good for the game. Not to mention the fact that you had a chance to give input on this report and -nobody- did. I'm not sure it's really fair for you to complain about the outcome when you didn't take advantage of speaking up before we made a decision.
5) I get that being on the receiving end can be bad and negative attitudes can be draining. Trust me, I bear quite a bit of the brunt of people's negative behaviors and complaints. It can be hard to keep motivated to make changes when no matter what you do, someone is going to shit on you for it.