Getting Started

Talos

Goal: Understanding the current state of the game and what makes it unique to other IRE games as well as obtaining an understanding of combat and making a class selection that will fit within my play style.

Question:
1. There seems to be a little bit more PvE opportunity here. Is there actual end game PvE and how does that work?
2. Playerbase is of huge import to me. How are you all? Do you throw a novice to the wolves? Are you able to take them under your wing and help me with the eccentricities of the game?
3. Combat balance: While I know every game will ebb and flow with balance, is there a clear imbalance in the game or are they resolved fairly quickly?
4. The reason I am making a forum post and am not just figuring it out myself is purely do to investment. When I get sick, I go to the expert (physician), so here I am coming to the experts (you). I like RP, PvE, and building, but my love is combat. Here is my situation: I will have roughly 2800 credits to start and I will purchase the no-brainer packages as well as a membership. My least favorite way of killing is easy kills or little setup. I like being able to tweak my combat and make changes to slowly better it over time, and I like being a class that isn't considered OP or easy. I like my character feeling unique and less cookie cutter. The classes that stick out to me are Sentinel, Shaman, Templar and Warfarer, and I am leaning Spirit. I could be persuaded to go Shadow though. My issue is that I do not know how combat is played in Aetolia. I do not know what I will be doing or how to even consider the skills, so my question is what classes should I consider? It would be extremely helpful to understand the class' role in group combat as well as kill methods. A list of required artifacts, trans skills, and other info that I will need to eventually at least get to mid tier combat would be appreciated.
5. Is shadow and spirit pretty even or would one benefit from another decent combatant more than the other?
6. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

I would be coming from Lusternia, so here is how I would answer question 4 for one of Lusternia's classes:

Mage will generally been extremely valued in a group, but you will never want to be on the front lines. Your job will be setting up an area and holding that area with effects. There are some viable kill methods in secondary skills, but recall that your job is not to be on the front lines. If you are a setup an area and stay back at a safe distance type of person then mage is for you. In solo combat, you will be able to hurt someone that comes into your area, but they will likely not do so unless you are able to force them somehow; however, you will be extremely potent in the area that you do prep. You will be one of the highest priorities in combat. Other than essential general combat artifacts, you will need at least a rune of demense (100 credits) and tanky artifacts rune of fitness (500 credits) to increase your tankiness because you will be targeted. If you wish to PvE then you will most likely need at least a whip (275 credits) and buff rune (300 credits) to do so with end game efficiency. In general, you will need to trans discipline, combat, and it is a good idea to get pretty high in a few others. For your class skills, you will need to trans at least your mancy skill and likely your tertiary skill to have a viable kill method. Note: There is only one mage usually needed which may require you to flex to chemantic skill from mancy skill which is an additional trans skill needed.

Edit: Fixed some minor typos and errors.

Toz

PvE is nothing exciting. There are changes coming on the horizon supposedly. Right now, don't take more damage than you have hp and keep using your bashing attack. In terms of "best" bashing, I tend to favor high audit classes- Carnifex gets a solid audit, or Teradrim, for shadow, without sacrificing much DPS. Archivist dps is insane and they're really tanky with arties because of link (50% damage to mana). I think Sentinel was top dog lifer side but the nerfs slowed it down some. Luminary might be the tank you want now, but they'll need EQ crown to come into full power in PvP (850? Cr). Mage also solid with arties, high audit and good dps, but they're revamping pretty soon here.

Both sides are good with novices but depending on your guild it might be quiet. IMO avoid vampire Houses like the plague, they tend to be the most dead (pun intended) orgs from what I've seen, though there are a few good eggs.

We do classlead rounds for pk balance on the regular and while I'm not allowed to like the admin or my heart will literally stop beating, nine times out of ten @Keroc knows what he's doing with balance and I'll never let him live down the 1/10 I'm right.


Deep PK classes are Wayfarer, which is a limb/aff hybrid nobody has optimized yet, Archivist which is mindblowingly complex to defend against and probably OP, Sentinel because resins have some insane synergy and they have a billion options, and I think Lum is really strong on paper with some depth to it. Shaman is also a lot of fun.
Wayfarer has some great damage and halt, which locks the target in the room for 10s. Good CC but melts if focused.
Archivist kills really fast in a team with good tracking,  but does not have any CC so people can just walk off.
Sentinel can lock really well and give impatience, plus traps control the battlefield.
Luminary rites make rooms into forts and they can help secure kills using affs, locks, transfix for CC, overwhelm for damage and blackout, plus kill someone with low mana. 

Spirit tends to field more people overall, and have an offense pack called Sunder they distribute for team pk. Pound for pound 1v1 or skirmish though, I'd take darkies 100% of the time. Darkies in desperate need of more bodies for the pile (though it swung our way for a change last night!) And Lifers in need of more combat leaders to lean on.

Anything +eq needs a crown to reach full potential. Tank > damage. Both sides have amazing RP depth and have great players who will take great care of you. Both sides salt the earth when they get mad. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Lifer temperament lately seems kind of touchy and they often get frustrated fast if a fight doesn't go their way. Darkie core will suicide into unwinnable fights for the heck of it, when they're around. But we also (regularly) hulk out and rage about stuff and our web absolutely roasts each other constantly both serious and non-serious, so both sides have their personality issues.

If you want RP focus and lots of groupies to roll with for PK, or want to lead, go lifer. Be prepared for salt at you or others when things go wrong,  and for mechanical struggles from some of your team- often they only do group PK for the RP of it and aren't hugely invested. More of them, but newbie mistakes more often.

If you want to paint the town red and rack up kill streaks, go darkie. We have all 3 spots on killstats regularly, there's RP around, and being the villain can be fun. We are bad at hand holding and sometimes newer players get left behind because we tend to have a soloist mindset - I'm leading the group but I need to move, group gets left behind because I'm moving. Our hangout web gets rough sometimes, there's less of us overall, and we're pretty much always furious at something because life without salt is bland.

There's my warts and all summary. I'm a darkie main, though I've played both sides and get along pretty alright with leaders on both sides (though lifers prob hate me right now).

Toz

Hm. Maybe that was too much negative.

I played a Templar for a long time and had a great story. Me and @Benedicto and @Jory lit up Chakrasul's Order for a week or two during a spat. I also 2vIndorani'd with @Dreth back in the day - @Valingar is also a god at combat and is consistently obnoxious every group fight with some new grade a cheese strategy. Lifer biggest upside winds up being that like everyone will emote at you/talk to you, and there's always something noncombat to do. The willingness of people who don't pk to show and do it anyway isn't a knock either, really - yeah they forget mass, or use the wrong skill, but hey they're there and trying and that's really all you can ask for. 

Dark side, I invited 3 to my wedding (<3 @moirean, @Xenia, @Faerah ), so I obv love the friends I made. Bickering about combat balance with @Emir and @Trikal and @Borscin is a highlight of my day, even though we probably spend more time trying to out-insult the other. Darkie biggest strength is the 1v1 scene, you can learn a lot by just asking a question in our web and then nobody  will shut up for an hour. The RP is there but you do gotta dig for it because usually we are busy ride or die'ing somewhere over something.

I've been here since 2010 and I'm grumpy, but I'm also p addicted and keep coming back.

You'll get out what you put in. Nose to the grind as a lifer you'll wind up a hero with an army at your back. Go darkie and roll in the salt with us, you'll wind up another @Trikal fanboy. Either way, so long as you show up and try to do decent by people, you'll like it here.

Vyxsis

snip snip

Toz said:

[...] Archivist which is mindblowingly complex to defend against and probably OP [...]

as someone who pretty much creams every archivist (except @Trikal), my opinion is... it's not as bad as you make out. being an aff class going against archivist - especially an aff class like indorani that is semi-random & has a lot of risk/reward mechanics - is always gonna be somewhat hard so long as RECOLLECTION (reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee). i think archi's kinda like shaman, though, in that you should basically be able to avoid death constantly but you'll never kill them, either... unless you're playing a limb class that can get away with keeping up few or no WP drains, since recollection doesn't really do anything to mitigate limb damage.

blah blah blah sorry just my $1.

Talos

A couple of things to add. I want to completely build my own offense from the ground up. I may grab stuff from others, but I love building it my way. I also want my defense to be as automated as possible. I love setting and forgetting my defense as much as possible. I do seem to fit more with dark in that I will fight unwinnable fights. Not saying I don't want defense. I just want to be able to ignore it as much as possible. I definitely want to be an affliction class I think if it is viable in Aetolia combat.

Toz

Strictly aff classes, for your perusal:
- Archivist*
- Ascendril [changing soon]*
- Praenomen*
- Sciomancer [changing soon]*
- Sentinel
- Shaman*
- Syssin

Aff route with limb options:
- Carnifex
- Indorani
- Luminary*
- Templar
- Wayfarer

* means EQ based or want a crown for pk

Also almost everyone automates offense and defense here. Everyone top tier does. 

Eowyn

Enorian, Shaman primary, Ascendril secondary. Have been on both sides, prefer spirit-side now. Here are my answers to your questions:

1. PvE can be pretty boring unless you really enjoy watching numbers tick up. There were advances to try to tweak a few zones to throw in some new variety, but it's not been touched in a while. You get to choose three different races at 100 which are all identical besides their rp-flair. You'll want to get it, and a lot of people will be glad to help you get it.
2. Depends on the time of day, really, for there to be more people around than not. I won't really get into which cities/orgs to avoid for quiet and more focus on the fact that our community is glad to help out anyone who is wanting to get involved.
3. There isn't really any super imbalance. Maybe a few things that need tweaking, but we do classleads pretty often that allow the playerbase to point out changes that could help and they get completed pretty quickly. And if there is a super-serious issue? Definitely gets an eye on it. @Keroc is the man.
4. Primarily RPer/PvE-er here, but I'm trying to help out in the PvP field more because - regardless of what is said - we don't have the numbers for PvP that seems to be thought that we do. We have lost a lot of our active, serious PvPers to various reasons, so on -average- we have less PvPers. We have people, sure, but that doesn't translate to PvP. Expected for the 'good' side. There is ebb and flow obviously, but typically lately we have been getting our butts handed to us if we try anything beyond small skirmishes. It's a good chunk why our side had been steadily PvPing less and less, besides other issues as well (frustration/lack of coordination - working on these). For a while there, we were on top - Jory had created Sunder, he was able to explain how to use it to people, and it was golden. Now, it's dwindled away while he's busy with work and we're on the quiet end again. Maybe it'll pick up again once we start getting some fresh bodies again, which is definitely needed and has been happening. If you look at KILLSTATS, other side is on top in all things. Two months ago? Sure, we were on top. Now, on DEATHSTATS (people who died) we're on three of those most deaths.
4a. Shaman. It's a great class, both for 1v1 and group. Only bad thing for 1v1 is that it can be very slow to build, so it is a class for patience and determination, I think. You have great healing capabilities for yourself so you can be pretty tanky. You can shield people in groups, heal allies for minimal amounts, put down hinder, put up no-fly, prone, writhe, specify venoms to use without rags, pets for a variety of useful abilities, etc. Int-based, so limits your secondary class unless you plan to get a thing to switch out your statpack on class switch.
4b. Shaman will require crown. I'd also recommend the greenfoot arti and wp arti. Tri-trans. Besides this, most people look to get the trifecta for artifacts - con2/siphealth2/enhance2. And you'll probably want to trans out all audit related minis, probably avoidance. Definitely some great skills in other places (survival, vision, tattoos for a few more slots).
5. I've already covered this one. I'd really just decide on your desired gameplay.
6. Think I've been verbose enough, but I hope you find what you wish to do! If you want to chat in-game, I'm on for a good number of hours throughout the day ET. We're glad to have another transplant around.

Talos

I believe Wayfarer offers a chance to explore some options. I worry about being squishy.


 Toz said:

... almost everyone automates offense and defense here. Everyone top tier does. 

Are we talking one button click and the system guides itself or are we talking a few alias that may change depending on variables and situations?

Example:
In Lusternia, my alias and keys may be complex, but it is ultimately me guiding the system. 
My alias will shift from one method to another based on conditions. 

Phoenecia

Speaking as someone who primarily RPs and only really dabbles in PvP in groups, if you're into building your own system from scratch, you can't really go wrong playing either Shadow or Spirit since both sides have prominent PKers that write their own stuff or build on existing systems. @Toz already listed off a bunch of classes that you might be interested in, but it should be noted that Monk, Wayfarer, and Syssin (some of the most versatile and most desirable classes in the game) can be played on either side because of their neutral tethering, but if you pick Monk or Syssin in the intro, you'll be shuffled into Duiran and Spinesreach respectively automatically unless you pick a different class/city and decide to multiclass after.

Shadow side tends to be more fighty in general, but also VERY individualistic, so you may find yourself on your own a lot, and PKers are sort of expected to be able to fight on their own. Not to say team stuff isn't as much of a thing, but when they fight in groups, they tend to be tough.

Spirit side, on the other hand, does seem to have more people, but not as many experienced combat leaders. Group combat tends to be challenging because if you take out the main callers, things can fall apart quick. And because a lot of people simply dabble, sometimes silly things like getting killed because you forgot to put up a crucial defense happens. There can be a lot of growing pains and frustration, but if becoming a combat leader is something you want, there's definitely a lot of openings there.

What I think it will come down to in the end is what you want in your character. People on both sides are usually more than happy to help a new player out. In terms of RP, I can't really speak for Shadow side, but I've never found a shortage of RP Spirit side. Thematically? Spirit tends to be the underdog, trying to stand firm against a constant tide of big, horrible things happening. Shadow...not so much; you tend to be the one instigating things or accumulating power without really caring about much of anything beyond personal goals. You have a lot more freedom to do whatever you want on Shadow, but it really is a lot more individualistic. So again, a lot boils down to what you want or what themse you'd find more interesting as a character.

Toz

Talos said:

I believe Wayfarer offers a chance to explore some options. I worry about being squishy.


 Toz said:

... almost everyone automates offense and defense here. Everyone top tier does. 

Are we talking one button click and the system guides itself or are we talking a few alias that may change depending on variables and situations?

Example:
In Lusternia, my alias and keys may be complex, but it is ultimately me guiding the system. 
My alias will shift from one method to another based on conditions. 

I pick my mode and turn on my bot. You can perfectly track affs here, so I let the computer do it until I need to manually intervene to run/change strats/interrupt to do something special.

Talos

Is Mudlet or Mush the system of choice?

Mjoll

Mudlet, for sure.

Toz

Talos

If I play 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM EST mon-fri and more during the weekends. Can I expect getting in a decent group fight once a day, two or three times a week, once a week, or once a month? 

Toz

That'll vary wildly based on lessers and orrery being up, but there's usually not fighting if nothing is going on to fight over. Laaaaately it is daily but we're running people down a lot.

Xenia

Talos said:

If I play 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM EST mon-fri and more during the weekends. Can I expect getting in a decent group fight once a day, two or three times a week, once a week, or once a month? 

As for the daily, in terms of trying to start fights or instigate them. Basically if you play on the shadow tether it's highly unlikely any fights will happen that you didn't start or weren't instigated by conflict mechanics like Lessers and Orrery.

If you join shadow side and try to instigate fights, you'll see participation from the enemy about 1/10 times. You'll pretty much always have a team at your back. Also this will also be accompanied with a tarnished reputation as someone who is harmful to the game (sometimes).

If you join spirit side and instigate fights, you'll see participation from the enemy 9/10 times you try. You will either have a huge force at your back or will be flying solo. It will also come with a higher chance of being targeted by more aggressive, shadow players.

Talos

Is the firstaid system good enough to use or should I plan to get another curing system?

Xenia

Firstaid is pretty good, it offers tools like ELEVATE and PREDICT that allow you to handle priority changes on the fly. It maintains general defences from salves, elixirs and pills. It does not handle class curing and any defenses linked to skill/enchantment use. The most successful firstaid users use client-side logic to utilize elevate and predict as well as maintain the defs and class cures firstaid doesn't cover.

Nils

Hi welcome! I'll do my best to answer some of your questions from a bird's-eye viewpoint, being a Celani, which I think you call Ephemerals or something.

PvE is okay! I would argue it gets better later on as some harder areas have more advanced tactics involved like shielding mobs, counter-attacking mobs, and various others, all very complex. Fun to code for, at the very least.

I may be biased, but Aetolia has the best novice experience of the IRE games, the vast majority of the time, no contest. Having played all of the games, recently at that, Aetolians go out of their way for novices far more often, I've found, and we're constantly updating and maintaining novice requirements and new player experience to streamline it and make it as fun as possible.

Combat balance has been covered by others - we actually just finished one of our quarterly classlead rounds run by the impossibly handsome @Keroc and occasionally, if something is in dire need of a look, it gets tweaked out-of-season.

I'll let others try to sell you on their classes - but I definitely have my favorites, and like all the IREs, we are fairly lenient with letting people dip their toes into the waters of each class before having to make a hard decision. Don't be afraid to shop around!

There's an ebb and flow to combatants on shadow and spirit. This question is pretty impossible to answer, it's best to go with the one where you feel happiest and make due. For example, if I were to answer that Spirit is in desperate need of combatants (it isn't, but hear me out) and you made there, but you REALLY fell in love with Teradrim and wanted to be Teradrim so badly... well, you'd be outta luck.

For other advice: REACH OUT. We have a full team of very helpful Celani who are usually watching Newbie channel in-game, but also an absolute army of helpful players - even our curmudgeonly players have been seen going out of their way to be helpful to novices and typically, anyone who's mean to a novice realizes their mistake very quickly as the rest of the game comes down on them. We LOVE new people and try our best to make them comfortable and happy. And honestly, if you're ever in a bind or just can't find the help you need, MSG me or another helpful volunteer in-game and I'd be happy to help.

Vyxsis

i mean, if we're gonna give sales pitches... indorani hands-down best class, but difficult for many to get their heads around. luminary begrudgingly placed as second-best class, but v respectable. monk is -10000 respect, only play if you just want to be stupidly op. templar if you want things to be ez.

hi, i have opinions. (i also joke sometimes.)

to fully answer your questions:

pve is ok, yeah, but it's mostly a grind. i had the benefit of being (at the time) probably the strongest bashing class in the game (woo sentinel), and i had one of the most prolific bashers power level me to ~85 in my first two days. if it weren't for having some company and chatting as we went, tho, it would've been a hella boring experience. i occasionally get a bug in me to go bash, but there's really no reason for me to at this point, so it's both boring and pointless. imo.

we def have better novice stuff than the other two IRE games i dipped my toes into. aetolia is/was my first ever MUD, and i'm glad for it. achaea's novice system is... needlessly long and complicated. lusternia kinda doesn't have one, it felt like? anyways, yes, people are around and helpful. even the admin. go figure.

combat balance is largely fine, as folks have said. the only admin bias is against players.
jokes aside, i can say with absolute certainty that keroc's not biased toward either faction (he's destroyed* my two favorite classes, which are on opposite tethers).

in terms of classes and number of fighters, etc.... both factions have pros and cons. shadow definitely has more cowboys, but we're slowly improving in that regard -- when i switched to shadow side, i had a hard time finding help, but now? i could easily rattle off a list of people who are consistently active and willing to show folks the ropes. ultimately, i'd echo Nils's advice: you gotta go where you feel happiest. things are much more tied to city/faction here, so if you like your class but hate your tether, you're gonna have a bad time. therefore, unless you're absolutely dead set on something for some reason, i'd take advantage of the flexibility of our novice system to jump around a bit, get to know people a little, test the waters. definitely keep in mind that both sides go through waves of winning, losing, having tons of people, having no people, etc., so the current population density isn't something i'd use to make any decisions.

... and i think that's all i can really say here. i'm definitely happy/willing to share other thoughts and observations. whatever you decide to do, have fun!

* nerfed in ways that made me sad

Mimotesh

The Sciomancers is an incredibly fun guild with people who are both pk and rp interested. Big thumbs up for them!

Toz

Maybe Shadow has more, but Spirit side has the best cowboy @Vyxsis

Vyxsis

my bad, tozzle, my bad