I would be worried that random teams, whether fixed for the whole event or changing regularly, would cause problems for people's systems. I imagine that there would be a lot of saving people who were suddenly not on your team, and a lot of frustration caused by having to change things every time a fight started.
There was a time before my extended break from Lusternia that this same type of situation was happening to the other "side". There are several reasons for it. When numbers are lopsided in Lusternia then it makes for boring combat. The population doesn't really support 6 orgs, but there is no great way to fix that. I really wanted an alliance shift before I took a break, but it did not happen until after I stopped playing. I was warned, by someone that shall not be named, that a shift in alliance will likely create the same issues just on the other side, and here we are. I was proven wrong in my previous thoughts.
I believe to move forward and correct these droughts that we will need admin/mechanic intervention. I really like the ideas about making participation matter more than winner takes all. We also need a formal alliance system in order to make some mechanics work more efficiently like arena tournaments.
Also, I feel like this happens post-ascension. I think this is the glaring flaw in the game. O and admins did an amazing job with Timequakes before TQs Lusty PK was so seldom it was horrifying. Enough rambling, what ideas, bad or good, do I have to put forth?
1. Make seasons in which there are awards and rankings that reset based on scores for a 3-4 month time span. This allows a reset on interest every 3-4 months like a Diablo season.
2. Make TQ scores for orgpoints be based on amount of participation in TQs. Meaning, it isn't just a tick, but it is how much time you spend in the TQ. Award points for kills in the TQ that scales in the amount of allies/enemies that are in the TQ. This scaling doesn't have to be static. The admin could make the scaling virtually non-existent some TQs and heavily weighted some. This is to help minimize gaming. Can it be gamed? Yes. Can ikons be gamed? Yes. Can library/design entries be gamed? Yes.
3. Remove deaths tracker from the game. I don't care about this anymore as a high K/D is more evident of cherry picking, but if I were someone with a 400+ year old character with a ton of character development and history then I would probably worry about K/D.
4. Put a function into some(not all) TQ's that kick out random people of the room once a certain amount has been reached. The limit would also need to be varied and unknown. It would be nice to even fluctuate throughout the TQ and the rooms.
5. Shift to more of a focus on kills than deaths in TQ.
6. In some TQs, make deaths stuns for the duration of that anomaly or the time it takes to release an anomaly. Use the lesser time.
7. Make raiding declared. Meaning that we plan to raid at this time with these people. The defenders have x amount of time to prepare. Otherwise org territories are off limits. The raid only last x amount of time.
8. Make some (not all) villages able to be influenced to be able to be swayed to revolt. Villages would be immune for x days after a revolt. Make org's bribe the village leaders with comms/gold that is lost either win or lose.
9. Make a prestige option. Prestige a demi-character. A. Character starts off with full amount of credits that the previous character was worth. B. Each prestige makes exp cost, lesson cost, artifact cost higher. C. A honors line that says this soul has stepped through the portal x times. D. Create prestige arena tournaments that only non-demi prestige characters can join.
10. Create arena tournaments that remove all artifacts except ones that are used to cure like normal enchants, vial, pipes, etc.
11. Create function is some TQs that remove all artifacts except ones that are used to cure like normal enchants, vial, pipes, etc.
If there are typos then I apologise. I am on a phone.
Quick ideas on making Timequakes better: shorter, less frequent, or all participants of the winning side get 5 archpower to encourage more usage of research powers. Really none are ideal, but I'm not the best on ideas so hoping someone else can branch off of something.
So I know I don't do timequakes, but theoretically - in addition to these changes, what if multiple anomalies could be present/spawn at once?
Edit: Please pardon the awful formatting, ugh
This sounds like an excellent idea, IMO. The alliance with fewer people could focus on releasing anomalies in one while the alliance with more people could try to capture the lot. It could potentially divide the latter group's numbers enough that at least one location might see fiercer conflict. Or several, if the alliance with fewer people continually recommitted their forces to where there were fewer defenders.
This was the expected outcome and consequence from the admins failure at making correct decisions months ago. I honestly don't believe Lusternia is sustainable anymore and I believe it will slowly become obsolete.
Hi, guys! Take my opinion with a grain of salt, because I don't have enough Lusternia experience to do much more than give my own limited experience here.
1) You have waaaay too many factions/orgs here for the population. Obviously, this spreads the players too thin. Org population is going to be low and badly lopsided.
2) Org changes in these games have always required entirely too much time and effort when you take into consideration that new experiences keep these games fresh. Players often thumb their noses at "org hoppers", when it should be encouraged. Changing up a character is much better than losing player due to frustration and boredom.
Hi, guys! Take my opinion with a grain of salt, because I don't have enough Lusternia experience to do much more than give my own limited experience here.
1) You have waaaay too many factions/orgs here for the population. Obviously, this spreads the players too thin. Org population is going to be low and badly lopsided.
2) Org changes in these games have always required entirely too much time and effort when you take into consideration that new experiences keep these games fresh. Players often thumb their noses at "org hoppers", when it should be encouraged. Changing up a character is much better than losing player due to frustration and boredom.
Once upon a time, it could have support this many orgs. Although some many argue otherwise about the release of Hallifax and Gaudiguch back in 2010, the admin saw that the game at the time had the numbers for more orgs. Over time people have become frustrated and left the game and that's where we are now, another one of those large outflux of players due to frustration . There have been talks about deleting orgs to even things back out since Hallifax and Gaudiguch came out and it was clear neither of them could have supported the old guild style where every org had 5. But straight up deleting an org is how you kill the game completely.
The whole game is built around conflict and a org vs org mindset. Org hopping just isn't really a thing that the game supports from an RP standpoint - all orgs have a 'take over the world' mindset. It becomes a question of Why should we trust/help this person if they are just going to leave for the enemy in a month after they get bored with us?
The fix to the Org issue is to just make three orgs each a branch of an IG alliance. Mirror the classes in order to synergize alliances rather than Org. This would solve the population issue, keep the Orgs, and take away a big hurtle in combat balancing. Mages would play like mages, druids like druids, wiccans like wiccans, guardians like guardians, etc. Mirror Celest/Mag, Seren/Glom, Hall/Gaudi even more than they are now. The only difference would need to be the flavor lines this could also create some cool options for flavor lines.
What is good for the Goose is good for the gander.
Edit: This would solve part of the population issue.
The admins have tried to push us to a standard set of alliances before. Note for instance the very clear line between "the orgs that have ties to the kephera" and "the orgs that have ties to the illithoids" that came after the release of the Undervault. But they also decided not to force alliances on the players, and sometimes the players choose to veer away from the various alliances that the lore pushes them to. Plus for every time the admins have pushed a standard alliance configuration towards us, they've also had another event that gives us reasons to ally different ways. They want us to always have alliances, but for those alliances to shift over time, which is just what's happened.
I understand that. However, just because you have an alliance doesn't mean there couldn't be a formal process that players/admin could do to shift the branches of the alliances.
A major game balance issue is that one side has most of their combatants stacked in one Org which leads to having more synergy with all the other combatants in general. To clarify my point, you would basically make mage effects (cloudcoils, allergies, etc), org effects (timewarp, tempinsanity, demon marks), etc stack with the classes of your alliance. If you mirror the classes this shouldn't be hard to do. The flavor lines would be the only unique part of a class for an org. RP doesn't revolve around PK class skills. This balances the game. This allows characters from different Org's to be useful even if they are the only combatant for their Org. Basically, you have Alliance A and Alliance B. Alliance A has Org 1,2,3, and Alliance B has Org 4,5,6. The system would track what Alliance that the character was currently in and their skills would build up that Org's synergy.
Again, this would be a step towards balancing PK to two sides while keeping politics, RP, guild, class, etc. flavors. No one could say that skill is OP because someone in your alliance would have access to the same mechanic with different flavor lines. The idea is to not overly hinder a character's usefulness due to a lack of combatants in their Org.
This wouldn't solve alliance pop issues, but it would help.
This was the expected outcome and consequence from the admins failure at making correct decisions months ago. I honestly don't believe Lusternia is sustainable anymore and I believe it will slowly become obsolete.
I disagree; the other option would just have switched the sides involved. The end result would have been the same: one side is stacked and the other is left to languish.
In fact, not all of the orgs on the 'losing side' are actually in a bad shape. Celest is remarkably active, as active (if not more so) than Serenwilde and Gaudiguch, even. And even Hallifax manages to regularly send in at least one person to contested quakes. If anything, the issues are largely plaguing just Glomdoring most perceptibly.
In any case, there is a real problem with how Lusternia approaches conflict mechanics. Losing is devastating - there's a reason why Hallifax and Gaudiguch have an OOC understanding not to kill each others' smobs. Gaudiguch even vetoed a Spheres raid because, in the end, both orgs lose out.
Villages are another manifestation of this: not having villages means you lose out on commodity production, which is a huge part of guild researches and isessential for crafters.
Wildnodes have less of an impact because of the abundance of power, but the tendency of alliances to put all their eggs in one basket diminishes the potential of this system.
Aetherflares are the one conflict system that, I think, is on the better side. This is because, even without bubbles, orgs can access at least one construct through their nexuses. Winners win, but even losers don't lose too much.
There's a lot of fixes that can be made, of course, and I look forward to discussions between players and the admins on how best to address these issues.
P.S. One could argue that Lusternia (and MUDs, in general) had already become obsolete in the 90s. They're still around because they fill a niche need.
This was the expected outcome and consequence from the admins failure at making correct decisions months ago. I honestly don't believe Lusternia is sustainable anymore and I believe it will slowly become obsolete.
I disagree; the other option would just have switched the sides involved. The end result would have been the same: one side is stacked and the other is left to languish.
In fact, not all of the orgs on the 'losing side' are actually in a bad shape. Celest is remarkably active, as active (if not more so) than Serenwilde and Gaudiguch, even. And even Hallifax manages to regularly send in at least one person to contested quakes. If anything, the issues are largely plaguing just Glomdoring most perceptibly.
In any case, there is a real problem with how Lusternia approaches conflict mechanics. Losing is devastating - there's a reason why Hallifax and Gaudiguch have an OOC understanding not to kill each others' smobs. Gaudiguch even vetoed a Spheres raid because, in the end, both orgs lose out.
Villages are another manifestation of this: not having villages means you lose out on commodity production, which is a huge part of guild researches and isessential for crafters.
Wildnodes have less of an impact because of the abundance of power, but the tendency of alliances to put all their eggs in one basket diminishes the potential of this system.
Aetherflares are the one conflict system that, I think, is on the better side. This is because, even without bubbles, orgs can access at least one construct through their nexuses. Winners win, but even losers don't lose too much.
There's a lot of fixes that can be made, of course, and I look forward to discussions between players and the admins on how best to address these issues.
P.S. One could argue that Lusternia (and MUDs, in general) had already become obsolete in the 90s. They're still around because they fill a niche need.
Want to chime in on a few minor points to this.
Celestian numbers are a little deceiving, I'm seeing a lot of influx of random newbies that I see a couple of days and then never again. I also see the same die hard core of celest attend most timequakes despite all odds, but that's always the same odd few people, plus whatever stragglers are around. Compared to how many people we had on a given day when I cam back, I'd say it's likely 1/3 ? 1/4? a lot less. When I came back to playing, I usually did see like at least 7 to 8 people online at any time, now there's a lot of times when I log in where am either by myself or only see like 3 or 4 people in manses and one outside. But yes, we show up more then other orgs do, maybe due to a higher original base population?
I will agree easily that one issue with lusternia's conflict is that losing is really losing, yes. Many of the conflict mechanics are "the winner takes all", which makes thing somewhat unfun if you're going 2:1 involvement ratios at some points (regardless of side). Not sure what actually can be done here.
I find Villages particularly devastating, because you frankly can't do anything without a village that is remotely involved with crafting. Some commodities are just unobtainable or so unreasonable priced that you don't even feel inclined to craft anything. Main reason I've given up running my aethershop, no one wants to by a throne for several 100k gold just because I can't buy the commodities it's made of at a reasonable price. Not to mention the impact on aether trading due to not having access to halfway okay priced commodities.
Wildnodes and Aetherflares I think are less devastating, because while losing hurts a little, it's not an end of the world type deal. Whereas the whole alliance not having a single village is a huge deal.
Personally don't think Lusternia is doomed either, I think it still got a future and it's not like the few issues we're seeing aren't fixable. Right now I think it's largely a morale problem on Celest/Glom/Halli's side, which is a kind of downward spiral. No wins for long periods of time, less people feel inclined to even try, even less wins. To lose a large amount of your combat leaders over a single event isn't helping either. We're all in this together, yes?
Personally don't think Lusternia is doomed either, I think it still got a future and it's not like the few issues we're seeing aren't fixable. Right now I think it's largely a morale problem on Celest/Glom/Halli's side, which is a kind of downward spiral. No wins for long periods of time, less people feel inclined to even try, even less wins. To lose a large amount of your combat leaders over a single event isn't helping either. We're all in this together, yes?
Yeah, and it's a difficult problem to solve. Raw numbers aren't all that matters in combat when no one knows what to do. And if you don't know how to lead, why would you want to try leading what is likely a losing battle? And if this person led you to losing last time, why follow them this time? Etc.
The whole game is built around conflict and a org vs org mindset. Org hopping just isn't really a thing that the game supports from an RP standpoint - all orgs have a 'take over the world' mindset. It becomes a question of Why should we trust/help this person if they are just going to leave for the enemy in a month after they get bored with us?
The part about this mentality that I find strange is that it always seems to be the ones most of need of more people that make it hardest for anyone to join. I've never heard of Magnagora turning anyone away or even that the requirements were that difficult for people with "controversial" pasts. Meanwhile, Hallifax is incredibly difficult to join, and Glomdoring has this habit of enemying people to everything, and putting a lot of tedious and occasionally conflicting conditions on removing the enemy statuses.
My perception of it is that the orgs with high populations don't have to worry about people "leaving in a month out of boredom". So while I can sympathize with that as a concern, the end result of following that rp logic is that the rich get richer, so to speak. Also, unless someone actively causes problems while in the org... what is actually lost if they hop somewhere else?
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
I think we can safely dispense with that as being meaningful- Glomdoring had a healthy population for a very long time, and grew it with the restrictions we have in place (which I don't think are so onerous personally, but that discussion is not really relevant to this thread). The recent state of the game has nothing to do with "how easy it is to join an organization" and everything to do with "gamemaster decisions."
The sequence of events really boil down to:
1) The administration chose to turn a blind eye to an enormous game imbalance and hoped it would solve itself.
2) They were warned thatAscension (the most important conflict of the game) would be a mess, and chose to run ahead with it anyways.
3) Ascension was a mess.
4) The results of the Ascension got overturned by GM fiat.
So where do you go looking forward from there? I can't think of anything that the gamemasters have done which has tried to reach out to the people disaffected by their decisions. I can't point to anything that says "Hey, we really want you to come back, we're going to try to rebuild trust on the conflict system." It's just looked like more... waiting, hoping that players will do something. The only thing conflict-related thing in any manner whatsoever has been SSC improvements that I've seen, but that's kind of like closing the barn door three months after the horses ran away. SSC's first introduction definitely brought people in, but now that it's already here... the benefits of improvements are still great for those who are still playing, but aren't in any way going to be an incentive to re-engage for those who were already using it before the improvements and who left due to the above sequence of events.
Is it really fair to expect the players to try to pick up the slack if the gamemasters have decided to be wholly hands-off since then? Is it really our responsibility to provide PvP entertainment if we no longer find it engaging or worthwhile? It's a whole lot easier to just accept the apparent position of the game (as demonstrated by actions taken); that Lusternia's conflict system is dead & meaningless, you should focus on the other things that still offer entertainment, and if you're here for PvP conflict you might as well just move along and find some other game.
In a sign of lessons-not-learned: They're already talking about the next Ascension while still not having dealt with the aftermath of the last one... which loops around back to one of my first points here. If they run it again, even with adjustments, while the state of the game is anywhere near this, it's going to be a mess and will just muck the game up even more than it currently is.
In an earlier post I did suggest some form of a town hall, reach-out, or something of the sort to try to see how to move forward and re-engage players they've lost. I am not aware of this happening? Maybe it's just too late at this point, anyways. It's been a long time. They should at least still try something though, because (to answer my own question earlier) it's not fair or right to lay that solely on the players. We're at this point because of the GMs' decisions, so they need to be part of any solution.
Edit: I actually have read the signup post for the anniversary wargames now, and I have to give the admin team kudos for that; it's at least an attempt to shake things up, because I didn't really expect much from wargames as they are traditionally run. To my statement earlier where I couldn't point to "one thing," there is now this one thing to point at. It will be interesting to see if they try to shake things up for Battlechess as well.
I think we can safely dispense with that as being meaningful- Glomdoring had a healthy population for a very long time, and grew it with the restrictions we have in place (which I don't think are so onerous personally, but that discussion is not really relevant to this thread). The recent state of the game has nothing to do with "how easy it is to join an organization" and everything to do with "gamemaster decisions."
The sequence of events really boil down to:
1) The administration chose to turn a blind eye to an enormous game imbalance and hoped it would solve itself.
2) They were warned thatAscension (the most important conflict of the game) would be a mess, and chose to run ahead with it anyways.
3) Ascension was a mess.
4) The results of the Ascension got overturned by GM fiat.
So where do you go looking forward from there? I can't think of anything that the gamemasters have done which has tried to reach out to the people disaffected by their decisions. I can't point to anything that says "Hey, we really want you to come back, we're going to try to rebuild trust on the conflict system." It's just looked like more... waiting, hoping that players will do something. The only thing conflict-related thing in any manner whatsoever has been SSC improvements that I've seen, but that's kind of like closing the barn door three months after the horses ran away. SSC's first introduction definitely brought people in, but now that it's already here... the benefits of improvements are still great for those who are still playing, but aren't in any way going to be an incentive to re-engage for those who were already using it before the improvements and who left due to the above sequence of events.
Is it really fair to expect the players to try to pick up the slack if the gamemasters have decided to be wholly hands-off since then? Is it really our responsibility to provide PvP entertainment if we no longer find it engaging or worthwhile? It's a whole lot easier to just accept the apparent position of the game (as demonstrated by actions taken); that Lusternia's conflict system is dead & meaningless, you should focus on the other things that still offer entertainment, and if you're here for PvP conflict you might as well just move along and find some other game.
In a sign of lessons-not-learned: They're already talking about the next Ascension while still not having dealt with the aftermath of the last one... which loops around back to one of my first points here. If they run it again, even with adjustments, while the state of the game is anywhere near this, it's going to be a mess and will just muck the game up even more than it currently is.
In an earlier post I did suggest some form of a town hall, reach-out, or something of the sort to try to see how to move forward and re-engage players they've lost. I am not aware of this happening? Maybe it's just too late at this point, anyways. It's been a long time. They should at least still try something though, because (to answer my own question earlier) it's not fair or right to lay that solely on the players. We're at this point because of the GMs' decisions, so they need to be part of any solution.
Edit: I actually have read the signup post for the anniversary wargames now, and I have to give the admin team kudos for that; it's at least an attempt to shake things up, because I didn't really expect much from wargames as they are traditionally run. To my statement earlier where I couldn't point to "one thing," there is now this one thing to point at. It will be interesting to see if they try to shake things up for Battlechess as well.
1. Rather than jumping immediately to defending Glomdoring, you could consider the observation in context with everything else. As it is, I mention it solely because someone else did. Before I brought it up, the requirements to be unenemied were in conflict. When there are a lot of people in an org, high demands to join aren't necessarily a problem, assuming that progress can be made and there are people to interact with. When it's locked behind "you must talk to this one person who logs in every third February 29th" - the waiting is more a problem, imo, than the actual requirements.
Whether that's true in Glomdoring currently I'm not 100% sure, given that I haven't attempted to join. It does appear to me that Magnagora is easier to join than most orgs, and that having enemy statuses removed is also generally easier. And this is certainly an issue in Hallifax, if only because of chronic apathy and low population.
2. My impression is that a lot of those who perceive themselves negatively affected by the last ascension will accept no result less than the outcome to be reversed. Since that's not going to happen, I don't see how this is productive or what you even expect at this point. This post was not about ascension anyway, but about how to address a problem that keeps happening in Lusternia, even when the admin aren't ruining your fun.
3. I suspect it's more of a community issue anyway. When you constantly view the other side as the enemy, you are less willing to join opposing orgs. I know that's at least part of my reasoning behind not joining SL orgs - not knowing people on that side very well, or in some cases, knowing them just well enough.
"it's not fair or right to lay that solely on the players."
- I mean, as a player, I can blame whoever or whatever I want for anything in the game. Not sure how it's unfair.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
You can, but if the state of the game is as a result of GM choices through no fault of the players', it's still not fair or right to expect players to fix the resulting mess solely on their own- and that's where we've been at since the Ascension ended.
PS: You specifically called out Glomdoring (alongside Hallifax). As such, you got a reply regarding Glomdoring. Then you got defensive when I say I think you're wrong. I don't think the observation has any merit whatsoever, it's meaningless in regards to this topic, at least from where I'm standing. Possibly Hallifax is different, because I don't have the experience there.
PPS: Your impression is wrong, other things were offered / suggested, all were declined.The GMs are well aware that there were things that could have been done- but looking forward, the question is what they are willing to do to try to step things forward.
You can, but if the state of the game is as a result of GM choices through no fault of the players', it's still not fair or right to expect players to fix the resulting mess solely on their own- and that's where we've been at since the Ascension ended.
PS: You specifically called out Glomdoring (alongside Hallifax). As such, you got a reply regarding Glomdoring. Then you got defensive when I say I think you're wrong. I don't think the observation has any merit whatsoever, it's meaningless in regards to this topic, at least from where I'm standing. Possibly Hallifax is different, because I don't have the experience there.
PPS: Your impression is wrong, other things were offered / suggested, all were declined.The GMs are well aware that there were things that could have been done- but looking forward, the question is what they are willing to do to try to step things forward.
This was not about ascension, though, as already stated. I am aware that that's all you're willing to consider at this moment - but game balance has been bad before, for completely unrelated reasons. Other players have pointed it out within this same thread.
RPS I called out the orgs I'd had recent experience with, either my own or people I know. You're still ignoring context, and the fact of your own defensiveness.
RPPS Cool. That's progress at least. The question originally posed was "what can be done about this problem". I don't believe, as you seem to, that it must be 100% on admin to fix. Or, more importantly, that there is no way to even offer solutions to them to consider. Because, ultimately - that's all I asked for. Solutions.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
You can, but if the state of the game is as a result of GM choices through no fault of the players', it's still not fair or right to expect players to fix the resulting mess solely on their own- and that's where we've been at since the Ascension ended.
PS: You specifically called out Glomdoring (alongside Hallifax). As such, you got a reply regarding Glomdoring. Then you got defensive when I say I think you're wrong. I don't think the observation has any merit whatsoever, it's meaningless in regards to this topic, at least from where I'm standing. Possibly Hallifax is different, because I don't have the experience there.
PPS: Your impression is wrong, other things were offered / suggested, all were declined.The GMs are well aware that there were things that could have been done- but looking forward, the question is what they are willing to do to try to step things forward.
It's not hard to join Hallifax. We have various levels of people joining the city and how much we oppose or don't oppose them. The following is a list paraphrasing our rules, from easiest to citizen to hardest.
1: People fresh from the portal, or people who have never fought against Hallifax 2. People who have ever been enemied to the city or one of the orders, people who a citizen opposes joining the city with a reasonable explanation, people who have been in a banned order (currently none), people who are emigrating from an org we don't have a treaty with 3. People who are emigrating from an org we don't have a treaty with AND held a leadership role in that org, or people who have a habit of joining and leaving orgs. 4. People who have a history of being extremely oppositional to Hallifax, or someone opposed by two or more of the Board of Hallifax.
Her voice firm and commanding, Terentia, the Even Bladed says to you, "You have kept your oath to Me, Parhelion. You have sworn to maintain Justice in these troubled times."
Yet if a boon be granted me, unworthy as I am, let it be for a steady hand with a clear eye and a fury most inflaming.
I think it's pretty obvious that Ascension is what shot the game as badly as it is now, and that needs to be addressed as part of a way forward. We're in a new kind of game-balance-malaise right now, one which was foisted upon us.
I think you should re-read what I wrote in my last post's first paragraph, because your bias is showing if you seriously think that's overly defensive.
Also, you're still retreading the same ground I thought we already covered like... weeks ago! Nowhere have I said that it's 100% on the administration to fix. Instead, I have said that they have to actually show up at the table and not leave it 100% on the players.
It's not hard to join Hallifax. We have various levels of people joining the city and how much we oppose or don't oppose them. The following is a list paraphrasing our rules, from easiest to citizen to hardest.
1: People fresh from the portal, or people who have never fought against Hallifax 2. People who have ever been enemied to the city or one of the orders, people who a citizen opposes joining the city with a reasonable explanation, people who have been in a banned order (currently none), people who are emigrating from an org we don't have a treaty with 3. People who are emigrating from an org we don't have a treaty with AND held a leadership role in that org, or people who have a habit of joining and leaving orgs. 4. People who have a history of being extremely oppositional to Hallifax, or someone opposed by two or more of the Board of Hallifax.
Yes, it is. Sure, I've joined more times than most people, but I'm still not the only person who's had problems with it. The problem is not the stated rules, it's attempting to get enough or the right number of people to give an answer. This has been the case every time since first leaving Glomdoring, for myself.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
I think it's pretty obvious that Ascension is what shot the game as badly as it is now, and that needs to be addressed as part of a way forward. We're in a new kind of game-balance-malaise right now, one which was foisted upon us.
I think you should re-read what I wrote in my last post's first paragraph, because your bias is showing if you seriously think that's overly defensive.
Also, you're still retreading the same ground I thought we already covered like... weeks ago! Nowhere have I said that it's 100% on the administration to fix. Instead, I have said that they have to actually show up at the table and not leave it 100% on the players.
At this point all I can say is that if you want to talk about ascension or why Glomdoring's laws are perfect, start your own post.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
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EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
Ascension was by no means the beginning of the problem. Heck, this started all the way back when combat was retooled with buffs and vitals on a 1-10 system, which sounded awesome--until the very next announcement was the release of a plethora of artifacts to circumvent the balancing being done, leading to yet another Pay-to-Win scenario. The growing imbalance since then hasn't been addressed. I'd already given up on combat by then, but could still pop in to do something useful in raid defenses or villages. Can't survive anything now.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
I think it's pretty obvious that Ascension is what shot the game as badly as it is now, and that needs to be addressed as part of a way forward. We're in a new kind of game-balance-malaise right now, one which was foisted upon us.
I think you should re-read what I wrote in my last post's first paragraph, because your bias is showing if you seriously think that's overly defensive.
Also, you're still retreading the same ground I thought we already covered like... weeks ago! Nowhere have I said that it's 100% on the administration to fix. Instead, I have said that they have to actually show up at the table and not leave it 100% on the players.
At this point all I can say is that if you want to talk about ascension or why Glomdoring's laws are perfect, start your own post.
I believe I already stated that I felt the Glomdoring discussion was not really relevant to this thread; I have no interest in starting my own thread on it, I was simply replying to your continued raising of the topic. I'm happy to let it go too!
To the other matter though, the state of the game post-Ascension is a critical component and completely on-topic. Attempting to /ignore it means that you're not going to see any improvement whatsoever. If you're serious about addressing the game meta-balance, we're going to have to have buy-in from everyone, including the administration, to actually sit down and see what can be done to mend fences.
Ascension was by no means the beginning of the problem. Heck, this started all the way back when combat was retooled with buffs and vitals on a 1-10 system, which sounded awesome--until the very next announcement was the release of a plethora of artifacts to circumvent the balancing being done, leading to yet another Pay-to-Win scenario. The growing imbalance since then hasn't been addressed. I'd already given up on combat by then, but could still pop in to do something useful in raid defenses or villages. Can't survive anything now.
This is a huge thing. I'm fine with the artifact rune being something that can push you to 13/13, this part is fine as long as it is within the system. It is something anyone can work towards and it caps everyone else.
But now we have handfuls of buffs outside the bodyscan system. We have perks now that raise the limit to /16.
The combat overhaul was suppose to reduce the number of affs (I know the original plan of 40, 10 per cure, might have been too few given how many skills there are, but now we are creeping back into too many.
Things need to go back to the original vision of the combat overhaul - simplifying combat (ie limiting how many affs exist) and capping buffs (ie everything in the bodyscan system of 1-10 with 11-13 being artifacts.). Every major promo seems like it is adding some new thing that goes around these ideas.
I believe I already stated that I felt the Glomdoring discussion was not really relevant to this thread; I have no interest in starting my own thread on it, I was simply replying to your continued raising of the topic. I'm happy to let it go too!
To the other matter though, the state of the game post-Ascension is a critical component and completely on-topic. Attempting to /ignore it means that you're not going to see any improvement whatsoever. If you're serious about addressing the game meta-balance, we're going to have to have buy-in from everyone, including the administration, to actually sit down and see what can be done to mend fences.
We're not ignoring the Ascension debacle; it definitely pushed things further. But the issues with the game's conflict philosophy have existed before it, so it shouldn't be the be-all end-all of the discussion.
Furthermore, it should be noted that players were not without fault; after all, it was players who chose to maximize the poor way that the game's engine handled group effects (via bard songs and chemwood bombs). As you have said, the players warned the admins about these issues, implying that the players knew of them. Yet, despite this, players still exploited these issues and thus fulfilled the prophecy.
If you are adamant in revisiting the administration's response to Ascension, then maybe we could ask for a more radical approach. This could be by publicly reprimanding the specific players who intentionally exploited the lag issues, at the very least. But I don't believe that will be conducive to the game, at all. Hence, it is my personal opinion that instead of refocusing on Ascension, we turn our attention to the larger conflict philosophy and systems in place and how we can change them to be better for the game as a whole.
Players on both sides took advantage of the issues- including Ixion (the lag locking down our team for the first half is the only reason he had such a long unbroken streak holding the staff, he was left alone with just one/two friends for long periods at a time when nobody could get to him because we were all frozen in place while your team was dead).
If you really want to just shrub the whole game, then feel free to push for that. But it's not about the player choices here since it did impact us all equally, it's about the administrative response and decision to change the direction & goal of the game from that point forward. If they want to shift it again, they're going to have to take steps to do so - and, again, they're going to have to engage with the playerbase more directly than they have been.
Do you honestly disagree with the need for them to engage and have a more lengthy, direct discussion with us about the direction of the game and what improvements can/should be made? Because that is what I have been pushing for throughout my posts in this thread.
Rehashing ascension and the decision made is beyond flogging a dead horse. We've heard it all by now several times. Can we avoid the dreaded A word for now?
Rehashing ascension and the decision made is beyond flogging a dead horse. We've heard it all by now several times. Can we avoid the dreaded A word for now?
And telling our side to 'get over it' by saying this means the game is just going to stay the same. The decision has wrecked our side's trust in Orael/admin. It has killed a lot of people's motivation to sign in, while raising your sides motiviation, and has led to the current numbers imbalance.
And telling our side to 'get over it' by saying this means the game is just going to stay the same. The decision has wrecked our side's trust in Orael/admin. It has killed a lot of people's motivation to sign in, while raising your sides motiviation, and has led to the current numbers imbalance.
None of this leads to a solution to a problem that has occurred for years. Some of those who left were likely to anyway, given that they only started playing again right before the a-word. Some others, like myself, likely gave up on your side due to the constant bad attitude and refusal to move forward, among other issues. I'm sure the admin could have done some things differently, but so could you.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
I didn't say get over it, but it feels like a great way to get a thread locked rather than a productive argument to find a solution.
I have a genuine question - what would help the shadow light side of things feel incentive to stick out and keep trying rather than escape a timequake without engaging, for example. Not talking numbers, let's say it's even or in your favour, what is it that would help you -want- to stay and fight or keep trying? Maybe if we can really pin point what is disheartening and or frustrating, or incentive, we can find solutions.
Comments
I believe to move forward and correct these droughts that we will need admin/mechanic intervention. I really like the ideas about making participation matter more than winner takes all. We also need a formal alliance system in order to make some mechanics work more efficiently like arena tournaments.
Also, I feel like this happens post-ascension. I think this is the glaring flaw in the game. O and admins did an amazing job with Timequakes before TQs Lusty PK was so seldom it was horrifying. Enough rambling, what ideas, bad or good, do I have to put forth?
1. Make seasons in which there are awards and rankings that reset based on scores for a 3-4 month time span. This allows a reset on interest every 3-4 months like a Diablo season.
2. Make TQ scores for orgpoints be based on amount of participation in TQs. Meaning, it isn't just a tick, but it is how much time you spend in the TQ. Award points for kills in the TQ that scales in the amount of allies/enemies that are in the TQ. This scaling doesn't have to be static. The admin could make the scaling virtually non-existent some TQs and heavily weighted some. This is to help minimize gaming. Can it be gamed? Yes. Can ikons be gamed? Yes. Can library/design entries be gamed? Yes.
3. Remove deaths tracker from the game. I don't care about this anymore as a high K/D is more evident of cherry picking, but if I were someone with a 400+ year old character with a ton of character development and history then I would probably worry about K/D.
4. Put a function into some(not all) TQ's that kick out random people of the room once a certain amount has been reached. The limit would also need to be varied and unknown. It would be nice to even fluctuate throughout the TQ and the rooms.
5. Shift to more of a focus on kills than deaths in TQ.
6. In some TQs, make deaths stuns for the duration of that anomaly or the time it takes to release an anomaly. Use the lesser time.
7. Make raiding declared. Meaning that we plan to raid at this time with these people. The defenders have x amount of time to prepare. Otherwise org territories are off limits. The raid only last x amount of time.
8. Make some (not all) villages able to be influenced to be able to be swayed to revolt. Villages would be immune for x days after a revolt. Make org's bribe the village leaders with comms/gold that is lost either win or lose.
9. Make a prestige option. Prestige a demi-character. A. Character starts off with full amount of credits that the previous character was worth. B. Each prestige makes exp cost, lesson cost, artifact cost higher. C. A honors line that says this soul has stepped through the portal x times. D. Create prestige arena tournaments that only non-demi prestige characters can join.
10. Create arena tournaments that remove all artifacts except ones that are used to cure like normal enchants, vial, pipes, etc.
11. Create function is some TQs that remove all artifacts except ones that are used to cure like normal enchants, vial, pipes, etc.
If there are typos then I apologise. I am on a phone.
What is good for the Goose is good for the gander.
Edit: This would solve part of the population issue.
A major game balance issue is that one side has most of their combatants stacked in one Org which leads to having more synergy with all the other combatants in general. To clarify my point, you would basically make mage effects (cloudcoils, allergies, etc), org effects (timewarp, tempinsanity, demon marks), etc stack with the classes of your alliance. If you mirror the classes this shouldn't be hard to do. The flavor lines would be the only unique part of a class for an org. RP doesn't revolve around PK class skills. This balances the game. This allows characters from different Org's to be useful even if they are the only combatant for their Org. Basically, you have Alliance A and Alliance B. Alliance A has Org 1,2,3, and Alliance B has Org 4,5,6. The system would track what Alliance that the character was currently in and their skills would build up that Org's synergy.
Again, this would be a step towards balancing PK to two sides while keeping politics, RP, guild, class, etc. flavors. No one could say that skill is OP because someone in your alliance would have access to the same mechanic with different flavor lines. The idea is to not overly hinder a character's usefulness due to a lack of combatants in their Org.
This wouldn't solve alliance pop issues, but it would help.
In fact, not all of the orgs on the 'losing side' are actually in a bad shape. Celest is remarkably active, as active (if not more so) than Serenwilde and Gaudiguch, even. And even Hallifax manages to regularly send in at least one person to contested quakes. If anything, the issues are largely plaguing just Glomdoring most perceptibly.
In any case, there is a real problem with how Lusternia approaches conflict mechanics. Losing is devastating - there's a reason why Hallifax and Gaudiguch have an OOC understanding not to kill each others' smobs. Gaudiguch even vetoed a Spheres raid because, in the end, both orgs lose out.
Villages are another manifestation of this: not having villages means you lose out on commodity production, which is a huge part of guild researches and is essential for crafters.
Wildnodes have less of an impact because of the abundance of power, but the tendency of alliances to put all their eggs in one basket diminishes the potential of this system.
Aetherflares are the one conflict system that, I think, is on the better side. This is because, even without bubbles, orgs can access at least one construct through their nexuses. Winners win, but even losers don't lose too much.
There's a lot of fixes that can be made, of course, and I look forward to discussions between players and the admins on how best to address these issues.
P.S. One could argue that Lusternia (and MUDs, in general) had already become obsolete in the 90s. They're still around because they fill a niche need.
Explorer (80%), Achiever (53%), Socializer (53%), Killer (13%)
Bartle Taxonomy
(test yourself)
Yeah, and it's a difficult problem to solve. Raw numbers aren't all that matters in combat when no one knows what to do. And if you don't know how to lead, why would you want to try leading what is likely a losing battle? And if this person led you to losing last time, why follow them this time? Etc.
The whole game is built around conflict and a org vs org mindset. Org hopping just isn't really a thing that the game supports from an RP standpoint - all orgs have a 'take over the world' mindset. It becomes a question of Why should we trust/help this person if they are just going to leave for the enemy in a month after they get bored with us?
The part about this mentality that I find strange is that it always seems to be the ones most of need of more people that make it hardest for anyone to join. I've never heard of Magnagora turning anyone away or even that the requirements were that difficult for people with "controversial" pasts. Meanwhile, Hallifax is incredibly difficult to join, and Glomdoring has this habit of enemying people to everything, and putting a lot of tedious and occasionally conflicting conditions on removing the enemy statuses.
My perception of it is that the orgs with high populations don't have to worry about people "leaving in a month out of boredom". So while I can sympathize with that as a concern, the end result of following that rp logic is that the rich get richer, so to speak. Also, unless someone actively causes problems while in the org... what is actually lost if they hop somewhere else?
Whether that's true in Glomdoring currently I'm not 100% sure, given that I haven't attempted to join. It does appear to me that Magnagora is easier to join than most orgs, and that having enemy statuses removed is also generally easier. And this is certainly an issue in Hallifax, if only because of chronic apathy and low population.
2. My impression is that a lot of those who perceive themselves negatively affected by the last ascension will accept no result less than the outcome to be reversed. Since that's not going to happen, I don't see how this is productive or what you even expect at this point. This post was not about ascension anyway, but about how to address a problem that keeps happening in Lusternia, even when the admin aren't ruining your fun.
3. I suspect it's more of a community issue anyway. When you constantly view the other side as the enemy, you are less willing to join opposing orgs. I know that's at least part of my reasoning behind not joining SL orgs - not knowing people on that side very well, or in some cases, knowing them just well enough.
"it's not fair or right to lay that solely on the players."
- I mean, as a player, I can blame whoever or whatever I want for anything in the game. Not sure how it's unfair.
RPS I called out the orgs I'd had recent experience with, either my own or people I know. You're still ignoring context, and the fact of your own defensiveness.
RPPS Cool. That's progress at least. The question originally posed was "what can be done about this problem". I don't believe, as you seem to, that it must be 100% on admin to fix. Or, more importantly, that there is no way to even offer solutions to them to consider. Because, ultimately - that's all I asked for. Solutions.
Actual rules are here
1: People fresh from the portal, or people who have never fought against Hallifax
2. People who have ever been enemied to the city or one of the orders, people who a citizen opposes joining the city with a reasonable explanation, people who have been in a banned order (currently none), people who are emigrating from an org we don't have a treaty with
3. People who are emigrating from an org we don't have a treaty with AND held a leadership role in that org, or people who have a habit of joining and leaving orgs.
4. People who have a history of being extremely oppositional to Hallifax, or someone opposed by two or more of the Board of Hallifax.
Furthermore, it should be noted that players were not without fault; after all, it was players who chose to maximize the poor way that the game's engine handled group effects (via bard songs and chemwood bombs). As you have said, the players warned the admins about these issues, implying that the players knew of them. Yet, despite this, players still exploited these issues and thus fulfilled the prophecy.
If you are adamant in revisiting the administration's response to Ascension, then maybe we could ask for a more radical approach. This could be by publicly reprimanding the specific players who intentionally exploited the lag issues, at the very least. But I don't believe that will be conducive to the game, at all. Hence, it is my personal opinion that instead of refocusing on Ascension, we turn our attention to the larger conflict philosophy and systems in place and how we can change them to be better for the game as a whole.
Explorer (80%), Achiever (53%), Socializer (53%), Killer (13%)
Bartle Taxonomy
(test yourself)
The decision has wrecked our side's trust in Orael/admin. It has killed a lot of people's motivation to sign in, while raising your sides motiviation, and has led to the current numbers imbalance.
I have a genuine question - what would help the shadow light side of things feel incentive to stick out and keep trying rather than escape a timequake without engaging, for example. Not talking numbers, let's say it's even or in your favour, what is it that would help you -want- to stay and fight or keep trying? Maybe if we can really pin point what is disheartening and or frustrating, or incentive, we can find solutions.