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Re: Updates Post #2: Legacy Roadmap

I just want to say how excited I am to see you all pushing forward with a vision that seems to be refocused on making the game better, without the weight of the monetization handcuffing you.

Everiine

1

Re: Lusternian Divine AMA

Some people do follow Morgfyre knowing full well he's going to eventually eat them.

Kalikai

2

Re: Grimkeep: Season 2

I know you said no to new endzone, but I really do believe that any changes should be applied to a new area rather than Grimkeep.

I personally also disagree with the idea the gatecamping is boring, but that could be an unpopular opinion.

That said, the problems are:

1) There is no reason to move because mobs are too strong otherwise. They have too much health/resists that you can't kill them fast enough.
2) The area is big enough to affect mob tracking - the gate is far enough away from the otherside that staying at the gate controls how fast the mobs come to you. At least as far as I have been told. I'm not sure how true this actually is. it sure as feels like mobs will get stuck on the other side and not come to the other side until they are 'within' range.

3) Right now, the Queen boss isn't really worth it to fight because she is even stronger, has instant kills, and you basically have to do it at the very start of the run or the mobs will quickly overwhelm you. You basically can kill her or do a proper run, but not both.

So there are a few ideas:

Adjust mob strength, making them a bit weaker but probably increasing spawn rate. This could encourage people to move around as things spawn. I know this probably will take the most balancing and quick updates to the system (this idea probably isn't something that can wait months between adjustments)

Encourage moving around. Two ways this could be done: 1) every so often check that the group has moved x rooms away and give some sort of essence bonus. 2) Special bonus/Elite mobs that spawn and stay in a specific room. This mob could give a couple million essence or a similar boost. It would need to be high enough of an reward to make people go to it, and likely require the above adjusting idea as well, else people won't do it if they can't kill the thing fast enough.

Ayisdra

2

Re: Lack of Raves VI: Rave Today, Tweet Tomorrow

Gaudiguch and their camels. Y'all cute as heck.

Daisee

2

Re: Org Reduction

To respond to earlier comments, I had presumed it would be individuals deciding their new orgs, rather than something wholesale, and this could be roleplayed as usual. Whether they take up leadership positions would come about in organic roleplay also. I don't think combining org cultures/aesthetics through an admin-led effort would have a reasonable payoff (to keep or attract players) for the amount of work it'd involve.
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I think I'd like to see investable powers in the ministries similar to guild privs, so that aides may be able to fill in in case of absence. Ex. Librarians and Culture Ministers invest ability to submit for prestige. That is, allow orgs to decide how centralised or decentralised power/privs are.

Xiran

1

Re: Ascension: Shaking Things Up

From the previous years on the trials:

1. Nature, Knowledge and beauty are fine as is.

2. Death and Harmony suffer from basically the same issues:

- Don't allow people to prepare areas ahead of time (influence / killing things in advance to know when it happens )

- During harmony remove the free for all combat, only allow debating to slow people, perhaps award contestant points for winning debates

- During death, implement some mechanic that makes it harder to camp people. I remember one death challenge where, despite being third during the trial,

I eventually got camped by a squad somewhere north of 10 players of the opposing alliance so much that I ended up being below 10th place by the

end. I died a lot of times that day and couldn't even leave the havens before being immediately scried and ganked again.

=> Essentially this means the person with the biggest friend group wins. I feel death should be more about one's prowess in bashing and not about who has the

most gank-squads on their side. How to effectively fix that, I am unsure, because I feel death should be an open-pk event... perhaps only allow duels and award

the contestant for actually killing their attacker?

3. justice

- I think justice itself is fine. It needs some updating on the rules, specifically dealing with rose glasses and anything else that's not buff system

4. chaos

- similarly, chaos massively benefits from you having a group of friends who are an effective death squad, making the most popular person the one who may gain

it more likely then the most skilled one.

- I think one big fix for this could perhaps be to up the teleportation of hamster + player way more, making it much harder to track down a player holding the hamster.

- I'm sure there's better ideas to address this.

5. life

- Personally I'd love to see a completely different challenge then the current life challenge.

- It is majorly frustrating that people who have the lines of the furrikin from the previous year or are super quick at scripting have the major advantage

- Furrikin need to be unkillable and perferably also not snipable. Ideally the lock onto the first person who gives them something for a few minutes, giving that person

a chance to complete that one furrikin.

6. war

- War as a challenge is mostly fine.

- Combat balancing will make war more fair.

TL;DR

=> make challenges more towards favouring the participants and less towards the large roaming squads of people supporting one person. Gaining Seals should be a personal achievement, not a "I am the most popular" achievement.

veara

3

Re: Ascension: Shaking Things Up

I hope the Admin continues to do the wargames before the big major show of Ascension. Even though I think it was mainly to test lag, I feel it would still be a good idea to give people a chance to remember the craziness that happens and to show first-time participants what happens.

I don't believe Ascension is winner-takes-all. I've been on the winning side and the losing side throughout the years in Lusternia. However, Ascension is primarily PVP, I don't think it would be fair to completely take that away from the people that enjoy PVP. I do think that there should be a little something included for the PVP'ers and the RP'ers.

During Malarious/Malayn's Ascension, I enjoyed traveling to different nodes on Astral. It gave the other alliance a chance to get the staff without being fortressed on a node with the team never moving. The beast on prime that gave points was a good attempt for people who didn't want to be in the scuffle of PVP. I'm not sure how much of a benefit of the beast vs staff time balances. One thing I have noticed is the prep work of the different alliances. For example, Magnagora is very combat driven. There is always room to improve, different ideas get talked about and executed. If this continues to be a high PVP event, people need to practice, strategize, and know their skills. That can't be avoided, things can look great on paper but unless it is tested and executed you can't assume it will work. Ascension is the most significant event where the strategies are put to the test, literally. That won't be everyone's vice, but for some, it will be. Not everyone is going to be happy and that's okay.

Freja

1

Re: Org Reduction

Luce said:

The biggest counter-argument for this is that for every character willing and able to relocate, there's at least one who isn't. Closing any of the six orgs we have is going to result in a hit to the game's population that the game might not be able to weather.

Not lagging far behind is the sheer logistics of who gets cut, and what happens to the characters there. Is the org just temporarily disabled, or exploded? Do the cut orgs need to be paired? Should current alliances be taken into consideration with that?

Then there's the fact that you're asking players to either start over fully from scratch by retiring a character and moving their assets to a newbie, or asking the remaining orgs to essentially make a whole slew of exceptions for refugee characters to allow them to settle into the org and take over leadership positions in guilds/orgs that they have no roots in, and hoping that nobody who does so feels less gratitude than spite.

My point being, we're feeling the bite of the low population, but I don't know that closing orgs would solve more problems than it introduces.

I agree that it would be detrimental to some players if orgs were deleted. I balance that with the very apparent need for bold steps forward in order to save the game overall. Yes, I would hate to see Mag or Celest deleted after I invested all of my time there. However, I’m also sure every Imperian player hated watching their game get shut down. If we are looking at bolstering our population, we have to view it from a newbie standpoint. And a newbie logging in to see 2-3 players online in their city, 1-2 of whom are probably AFK at this point, doesn’t do the game any justice.

I think we have to admit the fact that we don’t live in Lusternia’s glory days anymore, sadly. Having our standard 18-20 people who are consistently online spread over 6 orgs is… terrible. To the point of the idea always being suggested by people whose orgs would not get deleted, I echo Freja in saying that I would give up my most beloved city to keep the game open and alive. Because being forced to move or retire one person in a game I love is better than being forced to retire them all and move to a game I know nothing about.

Kennian

1

Re: Org Reduction

The biggest counter-argument for this is that for every character willing and able to relocate, there's at least one who isn't. Closing any of the six orgs we have is going to result in a hit to the game's population that the game might not be able to weather.

Not lagging far behind is the sheer logistics of who gets cut, and what happens to the characters there. Is the org just temporarily disabled, or exploded? Do the cut orgs need to be paired? Should current alliances be taken into consideration with that?

Then there's the fact that you're asking players to either start over fully from scratch by retiring a character and moving their assets to a newbie, or asking the remaining orgs to essentially make a whole slew of exceptions for refugee characters to allow them to settle into the org and take over leadership positions in guilds/orgs that they have no roots in, and hoping that nobody who does so feels less gratitude than spite.

My point being, we're feeling the bite of the low population, but I don't know that closing orgs would solve more problems than it introduces.

Luce

1

Re: Question about Systems

(grain of salt, as I'm a non-combat)

One thing to recognize is that the PvP meta on game is usually team-vs-team based. Position awareness, as well as being able to identify friends and foes is key to PvP.

Getting a NDB (name database) can be a gamechanger here. It will let you highlight names of players based on their org. Other things to consider are anything to assist with your position awareness; being able to track allies and enemies, and trying not to get seperated, while tracking enemies who do. Scent and go is useful for this; as a new player you'll likely want to be using Totems skill Wolf as part of this.

There is a copy NDB 3.0 it on Ashira's repo: https://github.com/ashira104/Lusternia-Packages

Huskii

1