Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Wasn't really able to participate since I'm at work, but was watching via deathsight and what I could hear through aether chat, personally from what I discerned, I prefer the existing format of someone holding the staff for a required timeframe, rather than it being a rush to secure X number of hits on an NPC. That's just me though.
Never put passion before principle. Even if you win, you lose.
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
Wasn't really able to participate since I'm at work, but was watching via deathsight and what I could hear through aether chat, personally from what I discerned, I prefer the existing format of someone holding the staff for a required timeframe, rather than it being a rush to secure X number of hits on an NPC. That's just me though.
Interesting, and refreshing that it was new. Thank you for all the work on something original.
Concerns: - PATH FIND was disabled/did not work, but PATH SHORTEST did in fact work, which I was unaware of that until now. How are we supposed to know one syntax of IG pathing works, but another doesn't? You could get Ghani's true vnum/room via magical map of mystery and then PATH GO to it near instantly. High chance of him moving, but you still get right there in the ballpark. IMO, the lack of being able to map, coordinate, and track via at least some conventional methods detracted from the event in many ways.
- Wonder supremacy. Wonderwand portals and even more impactful Wonderwings Skydive should not have had such an impact.
- More examination of skills to level playing field.
(You can also just do scent/scry, capture the room name, PATH SEARCH <room name> to get the number and then PATH SHORTEST <number from prior step> GO. All server-side, available to anyone in the game.)
- PATH FIND was disabled/did not work, but PATH SHORTEST did in fact work, which I was unaware of that until now. How are we supposed to know one syntax of IG pathing works, but another doesn't?
There was no extra pathing code added, and path find/path shortest use the same code with a single boolean difference to disable enemy rooms. The more likely issue was how Pandaemonium is shaped (there's 3 separate sections you get teleported between as you move, and they are not connected directly in a way pathing can make use of) and your timing regarding that.
Even better. It's just poor that PATH FIND didn't work, but other things in that same IG pathing system did. It sure would have been nice for some consistency there.
Edit: @Ianir It may use same code whatever and however, but it was most not good finding out that path find did not work, but the other syntaxes did work. That was a problem, not the area separation.
Let me make it more clear: While standing in v45380 Over innards.
path find 45413
You cannot figure out how to get there from here.
Use the command LANDMARKS to see what you can speedwalk to.
You can try using PATH SHORTEST <landmark> instead to include hostile locations.
vs
path shortest 45413
Distance to 'a hill with entrails': 1 Steps.
Path: e
Use PATH GO to travel there.
That's not some area issue, or timing issue, or any other issue other than pathing yields two different results based on which syntax method was used to search. For next time, all or none, please.
I was a fan, although I'd never participated in Ascension before! It was chaotic, and I kept getting swept all over the place, but that was really fun.
Even better. It's just poor that PATH FIND didn't work, but other things in that same IG pathing system did. It sure would have been nice for some consistency there.
Edit: @Ianir It may use same code whatever and however, but it was most not good finding out that path find did not work, but the other syntaxes did work. That was a problem, not the area separation.
Let me make it more clear: While standing in v45380 Over innards.
path find 45413
You cannot figure out how to get there from here.
Use the command LANDMARKS to see what you can speedwalk to.
You can try using PATH SHORTEST <landmark> instead to include hostile locations.
vs
path shortest 45413
Distance to 'a hill with entrails': 1 Steps.
Path: e
Use PATH GO to travel there.
That's not some area issue, or timing issue, or any other issue other than pathing yields two different results based on which syntax method was used to search. For next time, all or none, please.
Doesn't this just mean you were on the edge of one area, and the other room was on the opposing side of the split?
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
On balance, it was bane. I didn't like being simultaneously frozen, having SSC spam me, having a dreambeast wail on me, and not being able to do anything OOCly that might deal with any of these things. But I really did like the initial "wtf is going on? okay, we're doing X! EVERYBODY DO X!!". That was cool.
I loved it! Even though my side didn't win. Great way to shake things up. When I perceived the geomancer demesne was Ghani's, I found that so cool. And when I saw Ghani for the first time, as a pc, wielding his barbed cane of argent majesty and his twisted symbol of almighty dominion, I was sold for this event.
It being a totally new
area that wasn't mapped was fairly frustrating to begin with.
Especially considering how reliant upon scent go and mudlet mapper I
was and I know a lot of other people are.
Some folk just ignored
the fight and straight up mapped the place before joining in. Xenthos
was able to globe scry the target Ghani to discover his room and with
that I could path track 123 shortest to get there. This didn't work
for me from the outer rooms, you had to manually walk or teleport
back, it only worked from the closer inner area.(Not sure if inner or outer is a good description, Ghani constantly force teleported me to a far away bit where the path track didnt work but if I teleported to ghani then path tracked when I was closer it worked.
Magnagora and
Glomdoring stealth monks had a movement advantage in that event due
to the Geomancer rubble effects. Stealth agility would let mag/glom be able
to chase Ghani quicker than non stealth users. Instant movement
effects were strong as well. Tarot empress, wonderhorn 20 from an ally,
wonderwings 20 etc.
As was anything to slow
down the enemy runner but not your own: Pits and windwalls etc worked
really well. Acrobatics hyperactivity was very useful in countering
some of these pits. I originally started off as psymet thinking I'd
be using it to outtank the enemy team with the staff but switched to
acrobatics mid fight to get the anti-pit mechanic so I could run through the area with less trouble.
Most people I think
were expecting a fight and this style of event isn't suited to that.
I made a wrong call at the start in trying to group people up to
fight while I ran. Ghani's rad meld and teleportation made it near
impossible. Tarken had the right idea in just scattering everyone and
not worrying about trying to kill anyone just ignore the fight and
focus on the runners and finding Ghani. That gave us a fairly big
advantage at the start as it looked like the enemy group tried to stay grouped
together which did let them murder me a bunch of times but the death
downtime was minimal so I was able to return to the fight and keep
scoring points while our enemies were spending their time trying to
summon me a bunch. Grouping up and spamming the summon effects wasn't
a bad concept, especially with Ghani's rad effect and the recent buff
to multi summons but I don't think it was as effective as just
scattering and going for mass hinder and confusion. Easy to say in hindsight, much harder to judge at the time though.
Overall it was an
interesting event but exceptionally frustrating, especially at the
start, there was a ton of scrabbling around testing things to see
what worked and didn't work. It really threw people, especially
considering most ascensions are heavily per-planned. Most events and things in Lusternia don't have that element of unexpected and unknown to deal with. Almost every other event and contest in the game is something people have pre planned, set up pre existing triggers, etc. That this was totally new; new area, new mechanics, etc took a lot of getting used to and forced everyone in it out of the normal comfort zone.
As a personal view on the enjoyment of the event itself: it was entertaining, frustrating and very very stressful.
I'm not sure how enjoyable it was for the non runners. You had @Xenthos basically being a scry bot, so he can comment on that. The lack of mudlet map just threw a lot of people who are reliant on it I know that stressed some folks out to the point of them feeling like they couldn't do anything to help, which isnt great because we want everts that everyone can feel part of, some had no knowledge of mapping, no way to know whats about etc which leaves them struggling. But then you had other people just running about like madmad screwing with the enemies seeming to have fun. I'm not going to speak for anyone else in that regards they can comment themselves if they loved it or hated it.
To the concept overall I think the newness and the frustrations of the map took a fair bit of from it for some people. Its a nice event overall, could do with some tweaks but I think that I would enjoy this event much much more the second time I do it, than the first time its done. Now that we all know what works and doesnt work and everyone can have a working map. I cant state how much not having a map for a while killed some peoples heads.
Ah hah, so you were using path shortest. I hadn't figured out what you were doing map-wise with the numbers, I only found about it when Ixion brought it up here. That did let me figure out how the new area worked though, when I was post-Ascension-mapping the place.
Edit: Also, if not scrying, I would have been CROW TRACK spamming. Someone can actually follow me when I crow track, and can enter the command to land;attack on the same balance. Probably would have been even better, looking back on it.
I loved the first part where there new sphere was revealed (well except for the SSC spam but that got fixed so thank you!) including the totally getting owned by Magnagora because I decided to break their meld on my own. However once the entire battle inside the heart started it was very frustrating. The fact you could not communicate with prime made it harder to get newcomers to join as they did not know what to do, I don't think cutting communication like that should be done for an event of this scale. While I like the change of pace, I don't think this event was as inclusive as the other variation which I found unfortunate
I'm a big fan of ascension being changed up, both in the events and the challenge itself. The final event unleashed some nice new areas, and everything seemed well thought out and problem/bug free.
As has obviously been a topic above, dropping a new area causes major map issues. It seems like those who were more familiar or quicker on the uptake with the new-ish pathfinding system had a big advantage. I honestly didn't even know I could use the pathfinding system to search for rooms - I've only ever used "path track" for vnums and areas. I'm not sure whether or not I think the map issues were a bad thing. The issues with path shortest were obviously unfortunate.
The thing that I disliked the most was that it was pretty unclear to me how I could effectively help the team. Maybe I should have tried to hinder enemies and call Ghani's location. Because of my mapping issues, I'm not sure how effective it would have been. I tried to upkeep a meld as an alternative.
Speaking of melding, melding that place was a nightmare. The fact that you couldn't see the bigger map, that the local map was often blocked by sandstorm or unseeable because of weird room connections, and the random teleporting were just brutal. Add that on top of the infinite-power-insta-break/meld/terrain opponent running around, it was extremely difficult. Having one's core skill be mostly neutralized is no fun. Shifting rooms and weird maps are okay in a quest area like the splinter prison, but less cool in a major conflict area.
It's not cool that max wonderitems were so effective here. (I make this statement taking as given the statement that they were very effective)
I've become pretty sympathetic to the claim that some skillsets are highly effective in these types of events, and that unequal access to these skillsets between orgs and classes is something that should at the very least be thought about. Usually, it's stealth that's the issue. Maybe today it was also acro, although I suspect acro only helped a little bit. I also will freely admit that I have no idea what to do about this.
Again, I want to really stress that I both liked and appreciate the whole process being changed up. It's clear that lots of work went into it, and it was really well done.
The wonderwand portal was key because if you got shifted out of Ghani's area it was a 100% unblockable (short of sigiling the entire area which would mess with your own team) way back to his general vicinity.
Edit: The thing that struck me the moment it was announced, and that I thought was awesome (and still do) is this: ALL sealbearers get to participate and work on accruing points, it is not cutting anyone out based on alliances or anything like that. Made the whole thing an entirely different game, which was very cool for me to see.
I really wasn't too big of a fan of this style. I always enjoyed the planning and coordination, and this one caused me to struggle to find my place in this Ascension. I know many echoed my thoughts how they did not feel like they really "participated" in this one. Thank you though for changing it up a bit, though these chaotic solo events usually aren't something I come to play.
Nah, I'm with Xenthos on this one. The event was far from perfect, and I had several sense-of-humour failures last night. The fact that it was a genuine free-for-all was awesome. In previous years some Sealholders had absolutely no chance, so +1 to anything that opens it up a little.
Comments
(I had a lot of fun ambushing sealbearers. It was incredibly frantic.)
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
Concerns:
- PATH FIND was disabled/did not work, but PATH SHORTEST did in fact work, which I was unaware of that until now. How are we supposed to know one syntax of IG pathing works, but another doesn't? You could get Ghani's true vnum/room via magical map of mystery and then PATH GO to it near instantly. High chance of him moving, but you still get right there in the ballpark. IMO, the lack of being able to map, coordinate, and track via at least some conventional methods detracted from the event in many ways.
- Wonder supremacy. Wonderwand portals and even more impactful Wonderwings Skydive should not have had such an impact.
- More examination of skills to level playing field.
There was no extra pathing code added, and path find/path shortest use the same code with a single boolean difference to disable enemy rooms. The more likely issue was how Pandaemonium is shaped (there's 3 separate sections you get teleported between as you move, and they are not connected directly in a way pathing can make use of) and your timing regarding that.
Edit: @Ianir It may use same code whatever and however, but it was most not good finding out that path find did not work, but the other syntaxes did work. That was a problem, not the area separation.
Let me make it more clear: While standing in v45380 Over innards.
path find 45413
vs
path shortest 45413
That's not some area issue, or timing issue, or any other issue other than pathing yields two different results based on which syntax method was used to search. For next time, all or none, please.
Edit:
Thank you @Ianir
It being a totally new area that wasn't mapped was fairly frustrating to begin with. Especially considering how reliant upon scent go and mudlet mapper I was and I know a lot of other people are.
Some folk just ignored the fight and straight up mapped the place before joining in. Xenthos was able to globe scry the target Ghani to discover his room and with that I could path track 123 shortest to get there. This didn't work for me from the outer rooms, you had to manually walk or teleport back, it only worked from the closer inner area.(Not sure if inner or outer is a good description, Ghani constantly force teleported me to a far away bit where the path track didnt work but if I teleported to ghani then path tracked when I was closer it worked.
Magnagora and Glomdoring stealth monks had a movement advantage in that event due to the Geomancer rubble effects. Stealth agility would let mag/glom be able to chase Ghani quicker than non stealth users. Instant movement effects were strong as well. Tarot empress, wonderhorn 20 from an ally, wonderwings 20 etc.As was anything to slow down the enemy runner but not your own: Pits and windwalls etc worked really well. Acrobatics hyperactivity was very useful in countering some of these pits. I originally started off as psymet thinking I'd be using it to outtank the enemy team with the staff but switched to acrobatics mid fight to get the anti-pit mechanic so I could run through the area with less trouble.
Most people I think were expecting a fight and this style of event isn't suited to that. I made a wrong call at the start in trying to group people up to fight while I ran. Ghani's rad meld and teleportation made it near impossible. Tarken had the right idea in just scattering everyone and not worrying about trying to kill anyone just ignore the fight and focus on the runners and finding Ghani. That gave us a fairly big advantage at the start as it looked like the enemy group tried to stay grouped together which did let them murder me a bunch of times but the death downtime was minimal so I was able to return to the fight and keep scoring points while our enemies were spending their time trying to summon me a bunch. Grouping up and spamming the summon effects wasn't a bad concept, especially with Ghani's rad effect and the recent buff to multi summons but I don't think it was as effective as just scattering and going for mass hinder and confusion. Easy to say in hindsight, much harder to judge at the time though.
Overall it was an interesting event but exceptionally frustrating, especially at the start, there was a ton of scrabbling around testing things to see what worked and didn't work. It really threw people, especially considering most ascensions are heavily per-planned. Most events and things in Lusternia don't have that element of unexpected and unknown to deal with. Almost every other event and contest in the game is something people have pre planned, set up pre existing triggers, etc. That this was totally new; new area, new mechanics, etc took a lot of getting used to and forced everyone in it out of the normal comfort zone.
As a personal view on the enjoyment of the event itself: it was entertaining, frustrating and very very stressful.
I'm not sure how enjoyable it was for the non runners. You had @Xenthos basically being a scry bot, so he can comment on that. The lack of mudlet map just threw a lot of people who are reliant on it I know that stressed some folks out to the point of them feeling like they couldn't do anything to help, which isnt great because we want everts that everyone can feel part of, some had no knowledge of mapping, no way to know whats about etc which leaves them struggling. But then you had other people just running about like madmad screwing with the enemies seeming to have fun. I'm not going to speak for anyone else in that regards they can comment themselves if they loved it or hated it.
To the concept overall I think the newness and the frustrations of the map took a fair bit of from it for some people. Its a nice event overall, could do with some tweaks but I think that I would enjoy this event much much more the second time I do it, than the first time its done. Now that we all know what works and doesnt work and everyone can have a working map. I cant state how much not having a map for a while killed some peoples heads.Edit: Also, if not scrying, I would have been CROW TRACK spamming. Someone can actually follow me when I crow track, and can enter the command to land;attack on the same balance. Probably would have been even better, looking back on it.
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
Edit: The thing that struck me the moment it was announced, and that I thought was awesome (and still do) is this: ALL sealbearers get to participate and work on accruing points, it is not cutting anyone out based on alliances or anything like that. Made the whole thing an entirely different game, which was very cool for me to see.
I have some envy of that honours line, though!