Announce Post #3061: Ascension Postmortem
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Re: supporting Choros vs Suppressing the other side. Why would Glom help Halifax icly? Part of the RP was to ensure an alliance, yes, but definitely part of the RP is to suppress the other side. This isn't a mark against the players being super spiteful or something, it's the legitimate RP. Unsure why that seems so ludicrous an idea.
For the admins, this is... Questionable management. You have made people happy temporarily, but rolling back decisions in this manner has opened you up to a lot of future losses. Essentially,any time you do not listen to players and roll back things in their favor, you are going to probably lose them. A company that shows weakness like this, well, good luck.
edit; Re: Synl, I think (and this is my personal interpretation) Choros thought that you guys did that because you genuinely wanted him to win, not that you just wanted Ixion to lose. If I were in his shoes and realized that people don't actually liked me, they just hated the other guy so much...I would similarly do what he's thinking of doing.
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This is one of the least "us vs. them" decisions/compromises that have ever been made, and it's a mentality I wish more people in the game would adopt.
We are a small community and it's really unfortunate that so many people have so much animosity towards the "other side" outside of legitimate roleplay.
And, from reading the comments of some Halli/Glom/Celest players, it does tend to read like you just supported Choros because there was literally no other choice (Ciaran was a better runner, thus, Choros was the default holder). It seems like support for him was a very small motivator in the face of Ixion stompage.
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I'm not sure why this sets any kind of precedent that in future events, all you have to be is 'close enough' to get first place? Yes, maybe if there are issues that screw up it up immensely enough, we may have to do so, but if something goes off perfectly, or even with minor issues, I don't see why that would be the case. We could sit here all day and come up with scenarios that may require this kind of action, but that's rather pointless. Things will be judged on a case by case basis and we'll make the best decision for the game as a whole. If you can't tell by now, I'm okay upsetting some people if I truly believe it's the best thing for the game. Would I rather make decisions that everyone agreed with? 100%, I absolutely do. Realistically that isn't always possible and players always think that it's the other side that we should upset.
As far as a 'special' event. I understand the frustrations and hesitations towards that. They make sense and I definitely get that. I'll talk with Aonia about it more - there's potentially a RP impact we need to take into consideration (why is he suddenly a TA?!)
There's some bleeding of ic and ooc motivations here. So definitely hard to say you should or shouldn't be upset for supporting choros vs attacking Ixion. Probably back to normal in a week or so. Personally I think it's really naive for any one from Halifax or Celest, icly, to think the Glomdoring was supporting them for the sake of friendship. Mutual enemies etc is clearly the more obvious goal? But I'm also not Shadow Court, so just thinking out loud.
Czixi, the Welkin murmurs, "Fight on, My Effervescent Sylph. I will be with you as you do."
Aian Lerit'r, Lead Schematicist exclaims to you, "A *paperwork* emergency, Chairman!
I have not read each post, even if I try to keep apprised of the forums, and I do applaud the Devs trying act to fix a situation that has led to strain relations OOC after this ascension. My feelings on who is raised, Ixion or Choros, are indifferent as I have not known either long enough to really make any comments. I do feel, however, at the moment that the people are being trampled on both sides of the line; unfortunately for this beautiful world.
This may have been mentioned before, but a few things crept on my mind that concern me greatly.
-For most of the ascension seal events, the alliance was 4 vs 2. Until Hali's betrayal of Magnagora, this is a situation that led Glomdoring & New Celest to work twice as hard to achieve anything at all. I cannot even relate the frustration that I am certain was felt whenever competitors would come within inches of grasping a win only to have it taken away by a few points. Multiple times after said losses, shouts were heard from the victors - Often Magnagora -, ruining any attempts at good sportsmanship. I was not present for every seal, but I do recall that the few I was awake for had acts like these which only further fed the animosity vs a competition that many may have viewed as one-sided by a landslide since it's beginning.
-The ascension event itself, even if both sides worked extremely hard, was a culmination of all that had preceded it in its victory. Which feels like one of the main reasons people do feel cheated a bit out of the opposing team ascendant being raised. By succeeding in the battle itself, though Hallifax had betrayed by then, I feel that the competitors who had endured all the gloating that came before from the other side found vindication of all of their efforts in having done their best regardless of the situation.
-The strong stance adopted by Parhelion & Choros that fed the fire after the decision was taken by the administration. Threatening to reject people that had worked hard to see him succeed and be raised if they had a disagreement with his words or expressed their feelings of being trampled on after the work put in to stand a sporting chance from this 2 vs 4 ascension (seals included in this). Many may also have been concerned over newfound friendships both IC & OOC being affected by strained relations with Hallifax due to his words. I do wish Choros had not placed himself in such a position or shared words that were hard for many to read.
-The lag situation that needed to be addressed and the final event - ascension - that was so hampered by it that it became an unfair advantage for both sides, as bad as it ended up being. Had the opposing team held the staff in those last minutes, Glom & Celest would have been in the same situation. The northern alliance, as expected, felt cheated by the win due to how terrible it was in the last moments. Raising someone from the opposing team, however, has instead shifted the feelings of powerlessness to the side of those that won; nullify all of the efforts placed to be able to stand up to an opposition that outnumbered them from day 1 in the seals events.
-The concern, that I have found in many people, that had the situation was reversed - Cel, Glom, Halli lost & Mag, Seren, Gaudi won - the southern alliance team's ascendant would not have been raised. I find it unfortunate that I have not seen the re-assurance, perhaps I missed it, that had the winning team lost, their ascendant would have been raised just as Magnagora's Ascendant is being treated. For too many, unfortunately, it comes across as preferential treatment and I feel that is something that may need to be addressed.
I do not believe a perfect solution will ever exist for this extremely controversial event. I do feel strongly, however, that the entire ascension timeline should be considered when making the decision to essentially pronounces a tie over the ascension and take agency away from the players for the final result. Even if lag had ruined much of that control in the first place, lag evenly affected both parties. I suspect a second ascension could not be held without a repeat of the latency issues since fixing that will require an intensive amount of work.
I wish best of luck to the Devs in whichever solution they choose to uphold and find it unfortunate that so much emotional bruising has been ongoing since the ascension's end.
I do wish to ask everyone that was affected on either side to remember why they love this game and to take a moment to read the beautiful storytelling that has been woven in each of their respective orgs. From the depravation of Magnagora to the sanctity of New Celest, there is so much to this gorgeous game that raptures the mind and allows one to live their dreams. Please do not allow that beauty to be tainted from the unfortunate mess of ascension and continue to enjoy the artwork that is Lusternia & the Divine that tend to it.
Thank you for reading
-Afollia
Editing : Fixing grammar
A few things to remember, TA used to be more important than just RP before the wonderful changes that allow demi-gods access to many of the powers reserved for TAs and VAs. This is where the "keep enemies from obtaining TA" thought stems from because it created a benefit to have TA's and opening up VA slots. The importance of this has been lessened.
After returning, I have seen a lot of great changes, and some things that still need work. I really hope we cut the admins some slack here, and we remember that they are likely our friends and fellow mudders (a very small community). Since my time away, I have played several DnD/Pathfinder games because one of my personal friends is an awesome DM. My point with this is that I don't always agree with his choices and decisions in his campaign. However, I never get personally upset with him because he is doing it because he loves it, and his intent is for the enjoyment of all his players. I feel our admins are not just admins, but they are our DMs. Our characters are players. We all love the story, rp, character creation, skill theory, and combat. From what I can see, the stun was overpowered due to lag which our "DMs" have proposed several changes to resolve this. Also, I believe most combatants are more than capable of raising a shield to defend against these high power cost skills, so the lag probably made the stun from creeping seem more OP than normal (not saying the skill is op or that it is not op). I have played with and against both sides, and I know they work hard and go through several options to always find the edge.
I believe the DMs recognize this, and the solution of raising both is the correct answer. However, I do believe we need an RP reason that a second TA was raised. Maybe the seal Ixion held leaked and he somehow needs to fix that. One note, before Ascension is changed just remember how easily a new event can be determined by a command like path which happened in the one Ascension that was different.
Lastly, I hope if I had offended you prior to my time away that you accept my personal apology for any past wrongdoings. If you would like to grant me the opportunity personally apologize then I would be happy to apologize.
Congrats to both Choros and Ixion. You both are deserving and excellent combatants.
So, yeah. Good luck to all of you.
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But I've done the same, left all discord servers and all my clans are off. I feel like a lot of the resentment and fallout from this issue is that for a lot of people the current personal situation has amplified all negative feelings, and to enjoy the game again I think a lot of us would benefit from trying to be more IC about things for a while.
I assumed you meant responding and answering things like messages in-game, on the forums, or in discord rather than having people go through the proper channels. After discussion with Aonia, we decided that we should apply a boundary there and require players to go through official channels (such as ISSUE ME, emailing support or posting here on forums). That way we can avoid accusations of bias because everything is either done in the open (on forums) or in an official capacity where there is a record of the discussion easily accessible.
This isn't really the thread to promote the creation of an official discord so I'm not going to comment on that at this time.
To the topic at hand, I feel like we're being open and transparent. We've responded to questions and things being brought up, we've re-iterated our stance on things several times now. I really don't feel like I'm talking at you but I apologize if it does feel like I'm speaking at you and not with you, I've mentioned this before, but it's important to remember that listening and hearing you does not require agreeing with you.
Discussions are typically two-way streets, so to be honest, it's frustrating when we're told things like we are only 'attempting to appease one player.' This has never been an attempt to appease one player and it has never been portrayed that way. It causes us to feel like our attempts at being open and transparent are futile because you are going to believe what you believe despite what we actually say. Another example of this would claim that I've said 'Wyrdenwood Creeping Doom' is 100% fine and balanced. Yes, I've certainly defended it in the past and even recently( in this thread in fact), but that doesn't mean a report won't change how it functions. I've defended both monks and warriors as well and yet they both got changes pushed through in the last report cycle.
While things like this make us feel like it's futile, we still strive to be 100% open and honest and transparent about what's going on. I don't think we've done any less here.
The decision process occurred as a conversation with the rest of the admin team, volunteers, etc. We discussed the pros and cons. Yes, it was brought up that players may feel like it was a slap in the face, that we were dismissing their efforts. Yes, some admin were worried that it would look like we were buying into complaints and it would just encourage people to complain more to get what they wanted. Some admin pointed out that giving Ixion TA doesn't actually solve the lag issue (which it doesn't, but we've addressed that as well).
We considered just giving a 'present' of some sort to all the players as a way of apology, or even doing a re-do but we ultimately decided that anything short of our decision would just be considered another slap in the face by those that were already upset.
We even consulted higher-ups in IRE to get their opinion on it.
As far as players, we didn't consider asking the player base as a whole. I'm not sure why that's even being considered as a possibility, to be honest. Players are given agency in a lot of situations but I don't think this situation, or a myriad of other situations, should allow players agency in them. That's just the reality of the situation.
This situation, the biggest event of the year, was affected by the horrendous lag that had an effect on the outcome. Nobody is disputing that. Can I say definitively that Parhelion only won because of lag? No, I cannot say that. Can I say definitively say that Ixion didn't lose because of lag? I cannot say that either. We'll never know what the result would be had there been no lag. Either way we went - we would have a lot of upset players, so we disregarded that. We discussed what we think the -right- thing to do is, and we went with that.
It seems to me that the issue at hand here is that everyone agrees that lag was an issue, and that it played a part in the outcome. Nobody has said that Ixion and Mag/Gaudi/Celest didn't work hard for it or have a plan, or even 'deserve' to lose it. In fact, quite a few players congratulated them on their efforts, spoke about how well they did. That they should be proud. Outside a few loud players complaining about the creepingdoom tactic, everyone agrees that Halli/Celest/Glom worked well together too, and put in the effort. This wasn't just limited to the final Ascension event, it was a common thing between both orgs throughout each and every event. This was certainly one of the most competitive Ascensions Lusternia has ever had, and it resulted in the final event being incredibly affected by lag so horrendous that it put a huge halt on the momentum and push forward that we've been experiencing.
I said when I took over from Ianir over a year ago that my main focus regarding balance was ensuring that people felt like they -could- compete. Putting us in a position where players felt that they had the tools to get in there and have a chance at what they're doing. Aonia, for her side, has been trying to free up our volunteers from being bogged down by unfun things that may burn them out and instead put them in a position where they are energized to interact and bring great events to the players overall. Players in-general have responded well to both things and we've seen a surge of players coming in and playing compared to a year ago. As we pointed out before - we had over 100 players online for Ascension (not counting the admin). We had groups of 30-40 people fighting each other. The last time we had these kinds of numbers was back in 2017.
There are two sides here - on one hand, we have players who were incredibly upset, felt like they just wasted their time even trying, that despite all the efforts, they were undone by something entirely out of their control, and now that we've acknowledged that - the other side is making the same exact complaints. "Why should I have bothered, I just wasted my time despite all my effort due to something out of my control. "
We instead rewarded -both- sides efforts because -both- sides were effected and -both- sides did incredibly well despite a situation completely out of their control. In the past, Lusternia has let something like this go, just rolled with the result, which led to an exodus of players. We're attempting a different route here in attempts to curb that. I really do understand that you may feel like we're erasing your effort, but we're not - Parhelion is still a TA, you still are getting what you earned. We're just also giving the other side what they earned.
This is ultimately why we're going to be re-looking at Ascension and how it functions. We won't be getting rid of TA, that's something too integral to Lusternia, but we can change how that status is obtained. The current situation just seems to encourage people to be toxic and horrible to each other. We've seen people literally wish that players on the other side die. I know that's more likely an extreme than anything else but we want to work on erasing this kind of toxicity and hatred.
How was Equinox rewarded in this situation?
Edit: changed what I called our alliance
The one thing that really separates Ascension from the seal trials, imo, is the utter pinpoint focus in it. The sealbearers have no way of all trying to make progress at the same time, as participants in the seal trials do - they just have to make loads of choices and go through their arguments with their allies before they even go up, then deal with enemy contention on top. Everything pivots entirely on who is going to try to hold the staff long enough, and any significant competition between more than two parties would just reeeeeeeally drag it on.
I feel like just letting everyone have a better shot together might go a long way in producing a tonal shift - how to accomplish that in a compelling manner that is balanced between parties, on the other hand, would be quite challenging to map out.
Parhelion - True Ascendant of Justice
Yeah, we get that, that's our problem to tackle though. I really think we can do so though.
I've sat and sat and sat today trying to figure out how to word my feelings over everything that happened over the past few days.
YES, people are upset. They have a right to be.
(Shall we get the parts out I'm nervous about saying before I duck out of it? I mean, its silly I should be so nervous about sharing a simple personal opinion, right?)
A group of people and I have been chatting almost all day about how many things are done specifically for a certain player here. Rules ignored, or simply changed. Requirements dismissed, and now this. I read the response to war. Its the same scenario. There was an issue game side, it effected BOTH sides. But the seal went on, no changes were made to the event. Our side worked hard and still won in the end, however they were made to work harder for it. My confidence that the same outcome would have been done if say Malarious would have been in the same boat have dwindled. Our side doesn't complain half as much through losses, I hardly ever see anyone of them accuse the other side of cheating (bug calls aside) and yet its constantly being thrown in our faces. Its demoralizing over time.
Now. Lag, yes that was the issue. Both sides had it, both sides fought through it. One side won in a huge upset. Things happen. I have to look at this the same way I look at sports because seals are competitive in nature. You want them in order to get to Ascension, you have to earn them. In American football, do they change the outcome of a game because a player slips on some ice and breaks their ankle? No. In some way, that is what has been done here. We all went to the Super Bowl of Lusternia, and it was a GREAT game. But one side lost, the other side won. However, they've both been given the rings. The side that "lost" will now be given a special event in their honour and the player they "supported" will now be gifted a unique TA title, while the guy the "winning" side supported gets treated like every other Joe Smith that came before him.
Do I feel that both sides should be compensated for putting up with a clear cut issue- yes. However, rewarding the side who did in fact "lose" with the grand prize while leaving the side that did indeed win here the same prize and a fist bump for doing so well doesn't seem fair or reasonable. As it was put (last night, was it?) it is a huge slap in the face, however unsurprising in the end. I mean, this is the same side who persistently remained calm in 4x2. This same side who took being told to "shut up and stop guilt tripping us" on the discs about it on their shoulders. We still won quakes, we still participated in villages, heck we did pretty alright given what we had. I mean, for heavens sake Glom's epic was bugged for how many months before it got noticed? What quest had been openly talked about being borked, but remained unnoticed until Glomdoring was able to benefit from it?
Guys, we get it, most of us can take a hint.
There is one thing that everyone who participated in this event spent that we can't get back. Time. Ironic as that is. Time figuring out a plan, time figuring out how to best use skills in order to get a decent shot at things, and time implementing them and ensuring everyone knew what to do. Not to mention the countless credits / essence spent in order to acquire anything that would help our side out. Are us everyday people in the end the ones who benefit from winning? No. But as with what is unraveling in the world around us- every day people make the world run. Perhaps instead of rewarding the two, "winner" or "loser" a reward should be offered to those who helped make the event happen.
Edit: I found a typo!
Some of you 'persistently remained calm' regarding the 2v4 alliance. Others did not. Very loudly did not. Again, you did, others did not.
Again, accusations of bias and doing this specifically for one person. How many times have we heard these same accusations regarding Glomdoring and Xenthos in particular? We didn't favor Glomdoring and Xenthos back then and we're certainly not favoring Magnagora and Ixion now.
I'm sorry that we're not perfect and we're not omniscient about every issue that occurs so we can jump in and fix it right away. I'm sorry Glomdoring's epic quest was bugged and not fixed. I'm sorry that we did not realize there was a quest that could be abused and fix it sooner. We strive to make things even and fair for all parties but we're limited. We're doing the best we can, and we'll continue to strive to do the best we can.
I'm sorry that we wasted your and everybody else's time by allowing the lag to occur during the Final Ascension trial.
Gaudiguch's epic quest has been (still is) broken; specifically, two items are not functioning at all. Furthermore, Gaudiguch's power quest is bugged wherein there are times that Drachou does not accept stones at all (and prevents us from topping up on butterflies). Yes, there are already pending reports on them (29625, for example). Quest bugs are not unique to Glomdoring and to insinuate that Glomdoring, specifically, is being ignored is uncool.
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As with what has been a separate topic entirely, what is evident to one person is not always such to another. One side you see of a person isn't always the same side another sees. The same can be held true with complaints.
We're all human, or as much as we can be sending little tid-bits of info through a computer. I understand that its a frustrating experience to be dealing with, and I do not evny you or any of the crew.
re:Xenthos - I'm not talking about his special event, I'm talking about historic accusations that we are biased towards Glomdoring and Xenthos in particular. Accusations that have happened since I've become Asst Producer.
I just wanted to isolate this real quick. This attitude is how Glomdoring got into a 4v2 situation.