Aetolian Combat

Haven

@Ezalor: I agree but we're talking about two different things here. You seem to be talking about player attitudes and expectations while we're talking about combat discrepancies in population between newbie, moderate, and expert combatants.

Orus

Ezalor said:

Part of getting into combat is putting your ego aside too. You have to realize that you aren't THE UNICORNS and that there are people who will beat you. There are people who have spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on coding/artifacts. If you want to compete with them, be prepared to make a similar investment.

If you don't want to put in that investment, well, don't whine when you can't beat them. I've found this attitude to be disturbingly high tbh...people jump in, do extremely poorly (because that's what happens when you just start), then start whining or talking about OP. If you're barely Trans anything and don't know how to code a scrap, WHY do you expect to be able to beat someone who's been working on their system for years and has every arti in the book?

The problem is also partially, it starts a cycle. Once you get involved, its super hard to get out.  And lots of people really don't care beyond "hey, I can faceroll x and he hit me once a week ago. Hell yah!"

Its discouraging to be starting out and getting violated over and over again.  Its discouraging and not fun.  I can't speak for Aetolia much, I'm not active in the pk scene on any of my characters.  But I know in other games its super frustrating.  There's very little reward beyond saying "yah, I took a beating better than i did last time" or "Yah, I killed someone who was where I was a week ago."

Your argument sounds suspiciously like the casual epics arguments from WoW.  I don't think anyone is saying they expect to beat top tier.  I think people are wanting a middle ground so people don't get discouraged. 

That is fair and will get more people involved.  If I had to face an Edhain or a Haven or a Illidan every time I went out, I'd probably just say screw it and go back to spending  time bashing or RP'ing and being insular.

Ezalor

Haven said:

@Ezalor: I agree but we're talking about two different things here. You seem to be talking about player attitudes and expectations while we're talking about combat discrepancies in population between newbie, moderate, and expert combatants.

Right right, just going off on my own little tangent. Unfortunately Aetolia's population isn't large enough to be able to have concrete tier sets like most graphic games (SC2 with Bronze->Grandmasters for example). Don't know what you can realistically do about this issue.

@Orus I dunno, I feel like the learning process is all part of the fun. The learning curve here is not quite as steep as it is in DotA/LoL and you don't get mercilessly flamed and abused for learning here. I think the best mindset is just to drop all ego and get right into it - you're going to lose again and again but eventually, as long as you keep improving and making adjustments (...and dropping money on credits...), you'll win! I like to find fun in improving little by little each time; eventually that will lead to actually winning.

Orus

Ezalor said:

@Orus I dunno, I feel like the learning process is all part of the fun. The learning curve here is not quite as steep as it is in DotA/LoL and you don't get mercilessly flamed and abused for learning here. I think the best mindset is just to drop all ego and get right into it - you're going to lose again and again but eventually, as long as you keep improving and making adjustments (...and dropping money on credits...), you'll win! I like to find fun in improving little by little each time; eventually that will lead to actually winning.

I agree about the comparison to DoTA/LoL actually.  There is a reason I refuse to play either or  even bother.  I've sat on vent with  people and listened to them rage at the drop of a hat about the games.  And I've seen the stream of abuse from people.  What  it comes down to with them is you're one name in a sea of 3mil that play the game and its the internet so its super easy to be a unicorn and not care.  No one has patience for newbies and instead find it easier to heap abuse.

Aet doesn't have handicap because of the smaller community.  There's a lot of accountability because if you get a reputation for being a raging unicornhead, that's gonna stick with you.  Especialy if its in public/web.  And that's a good thing. 

And I get that the process of learning is fun. But its hard to learn when you're trying to see around the boot crushing your face into the ground forever because no one else happens to be learning at the same time as you.

Edit: That said, I do agree with you.  And I don't think there's an easy solution.  Its just the nature of the beast.

Malok

I went to bed last night after I posted that original comment. Didn't quite expect it to split off into it's own thread.

Let me explain further what I mean, and what really irritates me about combat in Aetolia.

I have proven myself to be 'good' at combat in my own ways with an entirely different class on an entirely different IRE game. I basically reached the pinnacle during my time on said other game, I really enjoyed combat there, I had multiple routes to victory, and I had 2 artifacts total, the level 2 magic damage artifact and an artifact that increased your enemy list. In order to create this character, I spent a whole 600 dollars to get Tri-Trans, Survival, and Antidotes. The difference was on that game, there was a(at the time, very good) publicly available curing system. I spent a lot of time creating my offense after having this curing system, that offense and the knowledge of it was fun to get into and fun to create and it was a good feeling being able to do the things I wanted.

Now, that being said, the only reason I did as well as I did was the availability of a curing system. If everyone in this game had a good curing system, the tables would be even for the most part (Like your LoL reference). My beef is not necessarily the artifacts, those have been proven time and time again to only be bonuses. There's enough instant-death methods in this game to mitigate artifacts for the most part.

The biggest complaint I have is the fact that the Administration and Players on Aetolia keep pushing combat. You make it in Bloodloch something you have to do to advance, because god knows noone is getting cityfavors any other way, then you say 'You will never be good at this unless you spend 6 years and 1k dollars'. So what, you think people who can actually do the combat to get the cityfavors need the cityfavors, when the people in Bloodloch who have spent that much money/time are already city rank 6? The players are creating advancement systems in the game for something that the majority of you in this thread have stated takes you MULTIPLE REAL YEARS to be able to do effectively. Uh. Okay.

In the end, if I had a good curing system, I'd probably give combat in this game another shot. Right now though, it doesn't interest me enough to want to bother paying 400 cr/70 dollar to get, or spending the absurd amount of time it takes to make one. This is completely seperate from the fact that it is quite obvious some classes in this game ARE more powerful than others in combat, straight up.

I really think you all could continue to have things the way they are and they be just fine in combat as long as you don't expect people who can't/won't get into it to have to try to just to advance in the guild/house/city. You can't have it both ways. You can't have 'advancement' related to combat and also have this ridiculously high curve of entry into combat. Pick one.

Ezalor

Erzsebet is max CR and a notorious noncom. Her alt Kiralla is near there too. There are tons of noncoms who rise in rank in BL, just make yourself useful around the city! Of course combat is a huge shortcut to all that but it's not the only way to advance. There's even a defined way to get CFs; do minor foci, get to the 20k or 30k tier, and trade in your contributions for CFs.

There is a free curing system on the forums, Soulreaper. I have no idea how good it is but you can check it out in the scripting part of the forums.

Teani

Orus said:

And I get that the process of learning is fun. But its hard to learn when you're trying to see around the boot crushing your face into the ground forever because no one else happens to be learning at the same time as you.

Edit: That said, I do agree with you.  And I don't think there's an easy solution.  Its just the nature of the beast.

The best solution, if you want to get in to PK, is to find out what kind of 'tier' you are in by sparring people. Eventually you will find what people you want to be in a tangle with outside the arena that will give you a run for your money without necessarily beating you to a bloody pulp every time.

* If you get into a tangle with someone who is better than you, suck it up and move on. Raging about it will only make you look stupid.
* If you beat someone down over and over, don't go loarding it over them. Nothing good will ever come of that. Not even if the person you beat down thinks they should have won.

Arbre

Bloodloch is sort of notorious about being combat focused too.  The city of evil baddies wants to kill everything down.  That being said, I was able to gain rank entirely based on the work I did in the city - I got up to CR6 by sorting news posts, donating to the shop, working in the Bloodlochian Union, and generally being Darliea's pet unicorn.  I didn't have wolf class while I was getting to CR6, so my combat prowess makes a truenewb seem competent.

Kaeus

I never felt artifacts were a true necessity for combat. Skills definitely have a big factor in combat, but I think that cost is manageable. I always felt my main barrier was a lack of a system, which is why I gave out my old Mudlet one in it's early stages.

The biggest factor that keeps me away from investing time is the attitude of people when involved in combat. People tend to take it either way to seriously, or seem to take actions personally OOC. I can't say how the atmosphere is today, as I never got back into it fully, but that is what pushed me away last time.

Malok

Arbre said:

Bloodloch is sort of notorious about being combat focused too.  The city of evil baddies wants to kill everything down.  That being said, I was able to gain rank entirely based on the work I did in the city - I got up to CR6 by sorting news posts, donating to the shop, working in the Bloodlochian Union, and generally being Darliea's pet unicorn.  I didn't have wolf class while I was getting to CR6, so my combat prowess makes a truenewb seem competent.

Bloodloch is different now, and for the most part is governed by inactive people with proven biases.

Serrice

@Arbre: I was new to Aet! But I cut my teeth for years in Lusternia. And that DOES THINGS TO YOU.

Ezalor

Malok said:

Arbre said:

Bloodloch is sort of notorious about being combat focused too.  The city of evil baddies wants to kill everything down.  That being said, I was able to gain rank entirely based on the work I did in the city - I got up to CR6 by sorting news posts, donating to the shop, working in the Bloodlochian Union, and generally being Darliea's pet unicorn.  I didn't have wolf class while I was getting to CR6, so my combat prowess makes a truenewb seem competent.

Bloodloch is different now, and for the most part is governed by inactive people with proven biases.

I'm not entirely sure where you get this idea. A lot of them are inactive, yes, (and they're up for replacement which is already in process). I started rising up ranks in the city as soon as I started making myself useful; applying to be a Ministry Aide, actually doing the work in those Ministries, helping out with city defense (which doesn't really require combat skill at all), scribing projects and posts, all that good stuff.

You can't exactly expect people to hunt you down to give you things to do to get CFs. You have to actually throw yourself out there and seek those opportunities yourself. Show people you are useful and you'll rise.

Toz

As far as systems go, get Earthshaker not Soulreaper IMO - I don't know quite what it is, but Soulreaper had more issues for me than Earthshaker. Even if I do want to strangle @Kaeus sometimes, it's free - free is hard to beat!

As far as 1v1 goes, my own interest it is somewhat diminished because of what it requires. If you aren't willing to lose->go fix system stuff->lose->go fix system stuff->win->go fix system stuff, then you're not going to get very far. On the one hand, I understand why it is the way it is, certainly. On the other, it's going to be a long time before I can bring myself to invest the amount of energy taken; that's entirely on me, though. I guess what I'm getting at is that there's a tremendous investment required to get good at PK, but no one does it all at once. You have to do things at a steady pace, and be willing to get roflstomped while you're learning. Otherwise, for folks like me, there's always group PK.

Malok

Nah. It's not about random fun like it used to be, it's all about money/time investment. Since that's the case, I'd rather go find more enjoyment in 'PVP' by playing Call of Duty or League of Legends. The next time I see someone on the forums whining about noone wanting to fight though, I'm going to pull my hair out. There's reasons for it, is all I'm saying. Valid reasons, reasons that can't be fixed because noone wants to fix them. /thread

Seir

I can understand being upset about the money investment bit, but time? Really?

You have to practice at something to get better at it. You can't just traipse into Aetolia combat, or any of IRE's combat for that matter, and just instantly be good. People practice, learn what other classes can do and take the time to formulate strategies to best systems and other players. The same logic even applies to one of the examples you mentioned in League of Legends.

Malok

Seir said:

I can understand being upset about the money investment bit, but time? Really?

You have to practice at something to get better at it. You can't just traipse into Aetolia combat, or any of IRE's combat for that matter, and just instantly be good. People practice, learn what other classes can do and take the time to formulate strategies to best systems and other players. The same logic even applies to one of the examples you mentioned in League of Legends.

I generally find winning and losing both in my stated examples to come with a measure of chance and fun, and both games also match you against people of similar time investment. PVP isnt like that on Aetolia.

Ezalor

Right, and that goes back to population issues. There just simply aren't enough people to have a very diverse, encompassing PvP scene.

The only thing they can realistically do is to lower the PvP skill ceiling mechanically but that's a slap in the face to everyone who has spent so much time perfecting their systems. It could be something worth looking into though; it's the same sort of DotA vs LoL paradigm, where DotA's skill cap is insanely higher and the game is much more complex but LoL has become more popular due to its casual nature and relative simplicity.

Orus

Ezalor said:

Right, and that goes back to population issues. There just simply aren't enough people to have a very diverse, encompassing PvP scene.

The only thing they can realistically do is to lower the PvP skill ceiling mechanically but that's a slap in the face to everyone who has spent so much time perfecting their systems. It could be something worth looking into though; it's the same sort of DotA vs LoL paradigm, where DotA's skill cap is insanely higher and the game is much more complex but LoL has become more popular due to its casual nature and relative simplicity.

Clearly if Aet pvp was like LoL all the top tier combatants would bash for an hour before every fight.

Rivas

Malok said:

Now, that being said, the only reason I did as well as I did was the availability of a curing system. If everyone in this game had a good curing system, the tables would be even for the most part (Like your LoL reference). My beef is not necessarily the artifacts, those have been proven time and time again to only be bonuses. There's enough instant-death methods in this game to mitigate artifacts for the most part.

The biggest complaint I have is the fact that the Administration and Players on Aetolia keep pushing combat. You make it in Bloodloch something you have to do to advance, because god knows noone is getting cityfavors any other way, then you say 'You will never be good at this unless you spend 6 years and 1k dollars'. So what, you think people who can actually do the combat to get the cityfavors need the cityfavors, when the people in Bloodloch who have spent that much money/time are already city rank 6? The players are creating advancement systems in the game for something that the majority of you in this thread have stated takes you MULTIPLE REAL YEARS to be able to do effectively. Uh. Okay.

...

I really think you all could continue to have things the way they are and they be just fine in combat as long as you don't expect people who can't/won't get into it to have to try to just to advance in the guild/house/city. You can't have it both ways. You can't have 'advancement' related to combat and also have this ridiculously high curve of entry into combat. Pick one.

If you explained that, I missed it...how exactly do you feel like the Administration, specifically, is pushing combat...other than providing avenues for more -opportunities-, as opposed to making it a necessity like the Bloodloch people you mentioned?

Malok

Rivas said:

If you explained that, I missed it...how exactly do you feel like the Administration, specifically, is pushing combat...other than providing avenues for more -opportunities-, as opposed to making it a necessity like the Bloodloch people you mentioned?

The last 2-3 months I've been playing again, I've noticed you have the Leyline system now, then you have Sect of Blades, then you have Delosian Brawl, then you have Liasons. It's great. It's obvious they(because the players seem to want it) want to push combat. If you're going to have this whole combat thing be successful, or at least better than it is now, some things really should drastically change. You can only do so much with the population the game has. It's just funny because the people who keep putting stock into combat and pushing combat are the ones who already have multiple years worth of experience(and a vastly better curing system than 90% of the playerbase) and thousands of dollars of artifacts. 'Keep trying, little buddies! We need someone to kill!' is basically what I get from the 'Good Combatants' on this game. It's not like 'Keep trying, so our competition is better' its more 'I need more people to kill so I can show off my 6+ years system and artifacts and look cool'.

One of you guys with all this investment need to come down off the mountain and realize that not everyone starts at your level, and if you don't want things to get stale you have to make changes to the way things work. The only reason the Administration do any changes drastic, or not so drastic, is because the vocal minority of the 'elite combatants' say it's a good idea to. And hey, if you guys don't think it's a good idea to change the way things work, then don't complain about a lack of new blood in the system.

Seir

I didn't start at a "huge" level and I don't have "thousands of dollars" of artifacts.

I started as a Sentinel, procured a system thanks to Lanira and Sibatti, and practiced, practiced, practiced at every opportunity that I could.

I was a Level 86 muscular Sentinel when I started PvP'ing. While I had a lot of experience in PvP in other areas of IRE, I wanted to ignore it in Aetolia initially because I had come for the roleplay and initially only planned on staying as an alt when I needed a break from Lusternia. Dhuriv had recently been released and I loved the idea of double-bladed spears. However, I quickly changed my tune when I was getting bullied by people like Clouser and Ellenia because I was bashing the Lich Gardens and they (incorrectly) said that it was an act against the Infernals guild. Completely ignoring the fact that neither of them are in the Infernals but pretty much, they were looking for a reason to attack me and bully me. To a lesser extent, I dealt with some petty harassment from Exzuryx and Xiuhcoatl so I had pretty big motivation to get better at least defending myself.

I never adopted a defeatist attitude when I was learning. People warned me to not try to go after Mazzion because he was artied to the teeth and a "big bad". I never cared about artied mages in other games so I went after him anyway because I looked at it as a chance to learn, develop new strategies, and a chance to prove Seir's worth to Enorian at the time. The point that I'm trying to make is that since the community is smaller, there really is no avenue for tiers. Everyone, and I mean everyone, starts at the same place when it comes to learning about combat. I have never once discouraged someone from learning combat and have helped quite a few people develop their abilities by sparring or answering any questions that they've had. What does bother me is when people adopt a defeatist attitude like you're currently doing and start blaming the system and the state of PvP instead of proactively attempting to better themselves before casting judgment. Have you acquired a system? Have you exhausted the means of obtaining abilities in the game? I'll point out that many people have obtained credits without purchasing any. Mortal building, newbie guides, liaisons, artisanals and bardics, organization sales. There are so many means of obtaining credits for lessons which is the only real, required entry cost to get into combat besides endgame. Artifacts, by no means, are a requirement for combat. I am not trying to gloat, but I am proof of this.

Toz

I'm honestly curious - what is it you are trying to say, with being good at combat? I mean, you sound like you're upset at them for wanting to beat you in a fight, but...isn't that the point?

Ilyon

Malok said:

One of you guys with all this investment need to come down off the mountain and realize that not everyone starts at your level, and if you don't want things to get stale you have to make changes to the way things work. The only reason the Administration do any changes drastic, or not so drastic, is because the vocal minority of the 'elite combatants' say it's a good idea to. And hey, if you guys don't think it's a good idea to change the way things work, then don't complain about a lack of new blood in the system.

Um, do you really think that we don't know this?

Serrice

I have one year of experience in Aetolia - I was a mid-tier PKer in Lusternia for maybe a year or two.

I have three artifact pipes, a couple hundred credits worth of utility arties, and another hundred or so iron coins worth of utility. The utility artifacts, zephyr, and the pipes are all nice but not integral. 

I don't have any trans'd minis, though my Generals are trans'd. Transing the minis wasn't necessary, nor was Weaponry, or Tattoos. As Syssin, I wouldn't have needed to trans Venoms (though that sure was nice), and as Sentinel I wouldn't have needed to trans Toxicology. Avoidance is nice against weapon using classes but that too wasn't 100% needed.

My system is effectively an updated Soul Reaper/Earthshaker/ksys base that's been updated by the fellow that sold it to me, and came with, most important for a venom using class like the ones I had, an affliction tracker and a smart envenomer. It got the job done, if crudely, but fell apart in an alarmingly large amount of situations and was missing such things like working parry and prerestoration. Over the past year I've tinkered and worked at it, fixing the curing where I can, tweaking the offensive stuff, and adding in my own hacks. I'm still firstaiding Teradrim and Shaman because I can't be arsed to gather lines.

We're not all Illidan's or Daskalos's or Mazzion's. And even against them we can compete, we don't feel overwhelmed, we can WIN. Ask Illidan who keeps making Lanira tweak Citadel. Ask Daskalos who beat him in the last Delosian Duel.

Some of us - most of us I'd even dare say, aren't on a mountain.

Haern

Serrice said:

Ask Daskalos who beat him in the last Delosian Duel.

And Meltas as well.

Xiuhcoatl

Little bit off topic, but I do notice that 90% of the artifacts people buy are defensive or misc based. Am I the only one who buys artifacts based sheerly on offensive potential and the cost v benefit of it? I know tanking is good and all, but my mindset has always been if I kill the other person first what does it matter if I'm always always half health or next to dying. A win is a win. 

Also am I also the only person to think that the cost v benefit of ALL the artifacts is screwed to the point I don't want to buy credits unless it's one of these giftbag deals? Artifact weaponry are now next to useless due to the nature of weapons, at least from the perspective of someone without bonus strength. 

Calipso

Im too sleepy to actually go through all the comments, so i'll just post my own against the topic title.


It isnt Aetolian combat that I, and I think others, were focusing on in their original posts. My main point was the PK in Aetolia and the avenues in it. Like my first post said, out of the IRE I feel Aetolia has the most fragile setup here that seems to instantly lead a player to the idea that Aetolia is "troll-central". This is what I want focused, the PK system, not just the combat system.

On  the combat system, I actually like it. Aetolia isnt as heavily focused in Arties and certain items and skills like other games. Per example (and yes I know it is taboo to mention the others, but I need to in order to make a point), Lusternia has an -extremely- annoying and complex Combat system that makes you want to tear your hair out, and ti seems to just keep on getting more complicated with each month. Or take Achaea, it seems if you want to be a combatant, you have to have the latest system and tier 3 artifacts, if you dont, you cant compete, period.

I thing I detest  in the creation of skills is the gimick of "until trans, you wont be good". Per example, skills that suddenly get a massive advantage added to them upon reaching trans, such as Numerology (upon gaining the Spheres ability you can then utilize all numerological abilities simultaneously). For future skills, I would very much enjoy  to simply see the idea of perhaps stronger or simply added abilities to an already skill as one learns, rather than "get trans or bust".


Edit: Oh also another issue with combat is how 'smaller' or new players (or even non-combants) cant compete or defend themselves against the average PKer. This is perhaps  the main reason behind my first point of "fragile PK system". Players find themselves helpless and with no avenues to go in order to seek their rights, feeling themselves in an environment that is uncaring if not unfair. In the past one could 'hire' someone to take someone out for them,  but that was later disallowed, so now where does that leave us? Simply players getting fed up and leaving.

Areka

Rambling cents: Aetolia isn't even remotely close to the levels of 'Troll Central' as Achaea or Imperian are. The thing that Aetolia requires, and offers more support for, is policing and accountability. The major discrepancies come up in communities (social value placed on combatants/wiggle room combatants are given when it comes to org laws and playerbase expectations), but actual abuse/griefing will be addressed, if you run your mouth you'll get slapped, etc.

IRE in general has a high learning curve (it can be exceptionally daunting, and comes down to teaching code, or teaching concept, and you need both unless you're buying an offense and just need to know what buttons to push),the lack of balance or representation in populated tiers as @haven has pointed out. For an example: I have mostly utility arties, and survivability, I can produce fairly high damage, but I have nfi what I'm doing outside of spamming my bashing macro. This puts me between tiers (combat knowledge low, credit investment high). wooooo dsw dsw dsw sacrifice everywheeere.

 I know I personally get super overwhelmed with combat speed and trying to juggle the learning curve, the puzzles that are classes and coding, and so on. I also have not invested the time to practice and figure those out beyond the basic knowledge I have, so I do not expect to compete with Daskalos or Illidan.

There's a purpose to having better skills higher up - but this doesn't mean that you can't do anything without being tritrans/omnitrans. You just have to compete within certain spheres (and the lack of those again, is what makes it more of a contrast). This was something I'd brought up a while ago, the one of the largest issues being the 'win' mentality. There's been cases when fairly non-coms (especially at the time, despite their levels - level != combat ability), and opposing sides will send out larger forces or heavier-hitters to win the objective. An example: Clearwater, Aisling and I were in Iernan Fracture, and Tyrak and Mazzion came and pretty much curbstomped us. Yes, it was 2v3, but that doesn't mean it was a balanced fight for a 2v3.

I lost track of my thoughts. Back to doodling.

Ezalor

Xiuhcoatl said:

Little bit off topic, but I do notice that 90% of the artifacts people buy are defensive or misc based. Am I the only one who buys artifacts based sheerly on offensive potential and the cost v benefit of it? I know tanking is good and all, but my mindset has always been if I kill the other person first what does it matter if I'm always always half health or next to dying. A win is a win. 

Also am I also the only person to think that the cost v benefit of ALL the artifacts is screwed to the point I don't want to buy credits unless it's one of these giftbag deals? Artifact weaponry are now next to useless due to the nature of weapons, at least from the perspective of someone without bonus strength. 

Defensive artis are just better all around IMO. +str and +int are great, for example, but if you have say Praenomen and Sciomancer classes, just having +str is useless when you want to go to Scio form. Whereas +con, +sip, enhance, etc are great for all classes.

I think there's also a skill factor perception involved; the thought that "I can kill you through superior coding and affs as long as you can't autobash me to death."

Eleanor

Belated and tangentially related, you can be ludicrously artied out (let me show you my stats sometime) without dropping much money at all. I think I bought 100 credits about twice when I was 16 and that much money was a big deal, and I've bought... probably under 30 giftbags total in my time here.

The rest was earning ingame or with art or other things!

Not entirely relevant because I don't PK, but if I did you can bet I'd hit like a truck.