The Spirit/Shadow Skill Disparity

Seir

Taking seriously != agreeing with you, doing something about it, etc.

Point is, the liaison system is still inherently flawed if both sides can't acknowledge that there's balance. It shouldn't and wouldn't be this heavily debated if the game was in a state of balance.

Daskalos

Actions speak louder than any words, and this is what I see:

<7003/7003h 7705/7705m 26505e 32400w <eb> <csdb>> <100|97|100|100|73.32%> <15:36:08:764> reports savagery
******************************[ Liaison Reports ]******************************
ID    D Liaison       Skillname        Problem                                  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*******************************************************************************

<7003/7003h 7705/7705m 26505e 32400w <eb> <csdb>> <100|97|100|100|73.32%> <15:38:34:928> reports mentis
******************************[ Liaison Reports ]******************************
ID    D Liaison       Skillname        Problem                                  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1084  U Xavin         Lure             Currently the mentis skill Lure functions
*******************************************************************************

 

Xavin put in that report after he and I had a long discussion one day, and did some testing with it, angel beckon, and the like. When I tried to talk to Luna before the last liaison round, she basically told me to suck up to her to get anything.

That's just not how I operate.

 

 

 

Calipso

^ if it was anyone but you @Daskalos stating that, then it may be taken seriously.

Edit: In other words you have a knack for crying wolf and corrupted system.

Serrice

@Seir: taking serious does mean doing something about it, at least to me. Numbers get crunched and trials are set up to evaluate. Agreement/disagreement comes after we've collected all the data. And something did get done about it. We brought it up and Catapult traps and got changed to only chain 3 times instead of infinitely. Not sure which changelog, but within the 350s I think. 

As a lifer liaison, I monitor what the lifer side bitches, whines, and complains about, and I bring it up when I can. Ilyon and Luna do the same for their side. We test promptly, we get numbers, we discuss. Admin come around and take a look. As players, you rarely see any of that, but it happens.

Keep in mind though, that the liaisons can all agree that something needs to be changed, say like, on a liaison report, but the admin can do whatever they want. It's all up to them. We make suggestions, not draft changes that the admin then scurry off to implement. We can only lobby so far. We can also all disagree on something and have it pushed through regardless as well. And both of these cases have happened in the past liaison round (well okay, maybe not the second. If we all disagree, the report gets rejected).

And yes, stuff on this thread has been looked at. We can't tell you anything too specifc about what the decision was because that's against the rules, but I can say for certain that we crunched numbers and brought up our concerns as a group to the people in charge.

Arbre

I'm not really reading this thread, because it bores the rainbow out of me, but every now and then I read a few posts and see snark.  Behave.

Illikaal

Calipso said:

Daskalos said:

I love our liaison system, where issues are just dismissed out of hand because the liaison happens to have the skill. How do you defend this, @Razmael?

This is not the case, you simply see it this way because you feel your ideas of combat are not being implemented. Although as you and anyone can plainly see, your issues and opinions have -not- been dismissed by the responses -and- testing shown in this thread alone. I've also found liaisons not to be one-sided, as I had approached @Serrice once about a complaint with a sentinel mechanic and she took my opinion seriously.

Because Serrice isn't biased. Serrice is the only liaison that I know of that actively tests every single problem or concern brought up to her, rather than shrugging it off and going "Lolno." Unless of course, it's something silly like...giving cabalists the ability to afflict with uncurable impatience/stupidity/peace.  If she finds a problem with a Spirit side skill being over the top (See: Firebomb) or Shadow side alike, she'll look into it. 

Ilyon appears to be fine with approving any report that doesn't involve downgrading vampires in any way shape or form. In the very least, the guy doesn't jump on the (Insert Lifer class her) is OP Bawwfest, when the (bad)toptier combatants of BL/Spinesreach lose a fight to said class. He also appears to willingly test subject matter when its brought up. At least, afaik, when Serrice asks him to. 

I don't really pay attention to Luna or Xavin enough to know what their stances are on any of the problems that get brought up. Reason being is because Xavin barely fights these days, if ever at all. Luna doesn't either for her own reasons. At one point however, she thought there was absolutely nothing wrong with Soulthirst + epseth/epteth, and then dying 17 times at a leyline fight via soul substitute. In the case of both of these two, i'm sort of on the fence. 

I enjoyed both Borscin and Xarian, because even though they were on the Shaman OP bawwtrain, they both had no problems acknowledging that there were problems with certain things, such has hangedman + carnifex impale combo, soul erode being the only skill in the game that actively strips lyre, and so forth. 

Luna

No, Daskalos, you're getting this pretty much all wrong. You two were making complaints about soul sacrifice, and somehow you're trying to turn my saying that sacrifice isn't the OP-droid you're looking for into a statement about hammerthrows and ranged combat in general.

If you wanted to show in a log that soul sacrifice throws were being used successfully, you'd have to show a log in which you die less than 2,6 seconds after getting hit by the first sacrifice hammer, because that's the extent of the window in which sacrifice throw's aggregate damage is higher than the aggregate damage from a throw strategy that doesn't use sacrifice. Instead, you post a log in which you are not only not being hit by sacrifice hammers, which should be enough to render the point moot in itself, but in which it would have been pointless to use them either way, because the damage wasn't being delivered within the 2,6 timeframe that is required for it to be useful. But you're trying to make it part of a larger, different argument, one I wasn't making, and that's shitty. Your log was irrelevant because it wasn't illuminating anything about sacrifice, no more, no less.

As for your complaints about the liaison round, take it up with Keroc if you feel they weren't being handled fairly.

Serrice

Wait, what's wrong with firebomb.

Barda

I read through most things about the soul sacrifice stuff, and I can say I have used it very few times, not during lessers but for testing myself. It does increase damage pretty good, but it isn't a viable option considering the backdraft to it. Having an extra 3 seconds slows down offense to much, and the soul drain is bad. We can't use it back to back or we will be blacking out. We can use it once in like 5-7 seconds or something like that. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to try and organize a hammer throw squad but we usually aren't that coordinated, we usually only have one or two throwing hammers. I think I have seen us having three once or twice but not that often. 

Alexina

Okay. First of all, calling out the administration to take a stand in favour of one side or the other in a thread full of vitriol and hostility seems sort of unreasonable.

Soul sacrifice: One side claims it is too strong and synergizes in a way that it shouldn't with the other side's skills. The other side claims the skill is useless and not worth using. Is it just me or... if it is too strong OR completely useless, couldn't it just be deleted? It sounds like no one would be upset to see it go.

Xavin

Serrice said:

Wait, what's wrong with firebomb.

I second this question.

Daskalos

Yea... seriously, what's wrong with firebomb?

Also, @Luna, this thread is about the overall disparity, not just one part. And that is what I was showing, that the combination of skills is what is overpowered. If something is possible, however, it will eventually be used. You didn't play when people used to do 'vengeance' bombs. A group of Necromancers would all come in with about 300 health, we'd hit one of them, they'd all die, but the soulcage\vengeance combo would wipe out everyone in the room, and because of soulcage, they'd establish control. Or when Jianmin\Ansury would walk around and do a Kai Cripple to get an instant vivisection? Or when Luminaries could do Kai Enfeeble and get an instant absolve?

I'm sorry, but trusting the playerbase 'not' to use something that can be used in an overpowered sense is a bit shortsighted.

What skills on the life side do you think are overpowered? Personally, I think Omen is, and there's a Templar combination I've been debating playing with that could be extremely OP if it works like I think it will, but I haven't tested it yet to know. @Serrice - grab me when you're online sometime and I'll talk to you about it.

Alastair

@Daskalos - In that log, star breaks your shield. You have eq and balance. You don't get lured by malok until you are at just over 4k health, still with eq and balance, and the stun you had to eat was over with. You finally shield, at less than 1k. I'm not saying you wouldn't have died, I'm saying you could have been more proactive in your turtle against being focus fired and lived significantly longer. Definitely long enough for your team to rush or for you to escape.

E: Clarity.

E2: postscript - That's not to say it's obvious there is way more ranged offense, damage especially, for shadow. That's several really good attacks, none, afaik, sharing cooldowns so,.. (potentially) ow. Why can't your guys' admin just hotfix some shared internal cools for these abilities, most especially the damage ones, but at least limit it to one class per target

Daskalos

I was at 4k Health in 2 seconds. I'm not superman, I don't have reflexes -that- fast!. I start trying to shield within 2 seconds of being hit, as well, but at that point I was being lured...

 

Edit: "You guy's admins'?  We all have the same administration, and as far as I know, Keroc is the only person that ever touches skills. So unless @Razmael steps up to the plate, we're kind of stuck waiting for whenever a volunteer next decides to look at it.

 

Iosyne

Daskalos said:

Edit: "You guy's admins'?  We all have the same administration, and as far as I know, Keroc is the only person that ever touches skills. 

 

This is entirely incorrect. 

Daskalos

Other than Razmael, who else touches skills? Raz has said on multiple occasions that he leaves the balancing to Keroc. I know Slyphe works on all kinds of cool new stuff, et cetera. I'm not by any means saying you guys are being lazy or not working, because I know that you are. Just doing a cursory look through the announce posts, only Raz or Keroc ever post on skills.

Unless you're referring to the first part of the comment, at which point I have nothing to say because I truly believe it's one team working for the betterment of the game, and not two sides each trying to set their own up.

And maybe I'm being unfair to the current administration, a lot of this is stuff that should of been handled years ago by the previous one and I realize there's probably a big backlog of stuff to do, but you really should try looking at it from the point of view of someone who has been *specifically* targeted with 'quick action' when I could do -in room- what they did ranged to me. (kill very quickly with little chance of recourse). And I was just one person with my lightning, by my lonesome. There are a ton of Carnifex\Vampires\Syssin on the shadow side which meaks the combination posted in the log above not only easy to do, but easy to get the amount of people needed to do it.

I'm not trying to offend anyone, honestly, I'm just kind of hitting the point where I go 'why should I try to help Aetolia anymore' - when it seems like everyone just turns a blind eye to issues unless the playerbase as a whole throws a tantrum. We used to have to throw tantrums to get anything done, and I've tried very, very hard to stay out of these sorts of conversations hoping that something would just be done, even if the only statement is 'we're aware of issues and looking into it'. Instead, all we've got are other players, some of them liaisons, telling the rest of us to shut up and be thankful for anything we get.

And since you guys pick the liaisons, that's the 'official' voice we have to go on. Makes me feel real welcome as a player, to be honest. It's particularly disheartening when I know how much I've spent in the last 30 days.

 

Daskalos

Rather than having player 'liaisons' to review skills, make the liaison arena open to all and put in this, from Achaea:

What happens next?:
-------------------
Classleads run in cycles: There will be a period of open submission, followed
by a review period where no new classleads can be submitted. During this time
of review, players can CLASSLEAD <#> ENDORSE <reason> or CLASSLEAD <#> CENSURE
<reason> any and all submitted reports - allowing players to add their support
to a suggestion, or to disagree with the proposal. The same restrictions apply
to endorsing and censuring as they do to submitting a report.

After this review period, the Garden and ACC will review the submitted reports
and implement those which are accepted.


Notes from Administration:
--------------------------
The classlead system is one that acts on maturity and level-headedness. Players
who choose to abuse the system, or other players based on their ideas and
submissions will face administrative punishment - up to, and including the
permanent loss of your character(s).

Seir

I second the liaison arena being open to all. It'd be easier to test things without being "blind" if it were.

Daskalos

Aye, @Seir. I got told once 'you haven't tested it' but it's fairly well known that I don't alt and don't have access to the skills I wanted to test.

Seir

@Serrice: Cool, I'm glad, but when we don't see changes to the things that are pretty blatant and staring us in the face (like 2k arrow shots) and there's zero transparency to the rest of the player base, we have reason to doubt anything is going on. We don't see comments on reports, which we should be able to like every other game. The liaison arena. We see no notes or commentary behind the changes and considering that the game has existed in a state of disparity for at least, oh, since the advent of multiclass, it's pretty clear that very little gets changed.

I'm giving to give an example:
Lure has been demonstrated time and time again to be a mechanic that is too powerful. It has been agreed upon by both sides. Vampires would not suffer from it becoming a beckon clone. In fact, it would be a buff since they'd be given the entire room summon side of it as well. So what's the problem? It's been argued against longer than neverending catapults or like... vigilance needing to detect hypnosis attempts or devil needing to cost 15 endurance to the user, or vibe proc time being decreased. The last three changes are largely inconsequential and do nothing to assist the process of balancing the game.

I'm not badmouthing the administration or the liaisons that do their part in balancing the game but considering that the group combat environment has remained EXACTLY the same and is still ripe with the same imbalances and complaints as before, I think the new process is still inherently flawed. Especially given that there's a severe lack of people that the administration "trust" in the job. I know for a fact that quite a few people applied for liaison and only one person was accepted. We don't really know what standard they're being held to or what "qualifies" a liaison. To give an example, I hold nothing against Moirean, but I've heard complaints that she was partisan in the past.

Illikaal

Or 6500 raw damage BBT's without sensitivity!

Seir

Illidan said:

Or 6500 raw damage BBT's without sensitivity!

Yeah, I mean... Really. We've had these severe outlier numbers like these existing in archery for at least a month now and it's pretty clear that artifacts are scaling too high. It gets debated between five people while the entire player base is left in the dark and not given any explanation save "we're working on it, trust us guys."

Illikaal

Seir said:

Illidan said:

Or 6500 raw damage BBT's without sensitivity!

Yeah, I mean... Really. We've had these severe outlier numbers existing for at least a month now and it's pretty clear that artifacts are scaling too high.

Actually, when Alexina was doing them years ago, there were complaints about it then. But I guess IRE has to make money, somehow. 

Seir

Evidently, to become a liaison, none of the other liaisons can voice disapproval. Nothing personal, but that is one of the least intelligent or productive ways of going about it. Qualified individuals can be rejected on the grounds of personal reasoning that have no bearing on the qualifications of an individual, rather their personal relationship with the current liaisons. Good to know that our liaison process is left up to a popularity contest rather than individual qualification.

Daskalos

Pfft. That's not the case, I don't spend Alexina's level but they had no problems nerfing flails or lightning within a week of me destroying with it. And don't get me wrong, both were overpowered and needed it, but the quickness at which I was nerfed compared to stuff that is still sitting out there is what drives me into a frenetic rage.

Serrice

Seir said:

Evidently, to become a liaison, none of the other liaisons can voice disapproval. Nothing personal, but that is one of the least intelligent or productive ways of going about it. Qualified individuals can be rejected on the grounds of personal reasoning that have no bearing on the qualifications of an individual, rather their personal relationship with the current liaisons.

Not sure who told you that, but we're not even privy to that decision.

Daskalos

When I complained about some of the previous liaisons (including one who was fired almost immediately for throwing a rage fit on the liaison channel) I was told that they look at if the players can get along, and if a current liaison has had a known problem with an applicant the applicant is not considered.

 

Serrice

Be that as it may, they don't ask us about it. In fact, I (and Luna and Xavin and whoever else was online then)  have been told during the recent call that they'll choose who they choose and that we're to work with them. They might consider our past interactions - again, we're not privy to that decision. We're not given a list of candidates and told to submit our opinions about them.

Alexina

Illidan said:

Actually, when Alexina was doing them years ago, there were complaints about it then. But I guess IRE has to make money, somehow. 

 Okay, you need to think about what you actually write in your posts. I never BBT peopled for over their max health. When I was monk, most of the complaints were directed at kai choke and mind crush, both of which since has been severely nerfed. Then, just now for the first time in ages, someone BBT'ed for massive damage. Rather than working with the liaisons or bringing it up in a constructive manner, you go into the rage thread to cry unfair, then you come here and start with the whole IRE-credit-conspiracy-thing. You can't seriously believe that the administration of Aetolia would refuse looking into a skill that hits for more than peoples' max health because you need credits to scale that high?

I think this thread has ran its course. It's just so full of hostility right now and nothing positive is really coming from it anymore.

Daskalos

Well, that's refreshing that that has changed. I just hate being told 'you didn't test this' when I don't have the -means- to test something. I mean, I was told for 4 liaison rounds that 'overwhelm is fine' before I just sent in a ton of combat logs of people tanking tons and tons of overwhelms. Overwhelm got a buff (and no one has been griping that it's overpowered!) and I'm pretty happy with the Luminary class. I wish Devotion wasn't suck, because so many skills have been ripped out over the years it's a tiny skillset, but that's the shakes.

That being said, players are going to be considered on sides of the game, and while you have Shadow\Spirit you also have 4 cities.

Bloodloch has 1 liaison.

Spinesreach has 2.

Duiran has 2.

Enorian has none.

Luna I'll never approach ever again after she told me to thank her for approving a report, because I'm sorry, while I appreciate the gesture of it getting approved, and actually would normally -say- thank you, being -told- that i should express gratitude is a major turn off. Ilyon has been cool when I've talked to him, though the thing I brought up last I haven't seen anything on (Sire Recall, which isn't stopped by anything and is like deliverance on steroids) and Moirean is great at finding bugs, but she and I have a long history and I wouldn't go to her. I next to never see you, Serr, though I'd talk to you and Xavin and I talk quite a bit.

I realize I've been too openly critical of the liaisons and the administration to be considered for the position (after multiple applications, I give up), but surely there's -someone- in Enorian you'd be willing to go to, so that the players in our city have someone to talk to that they feel comfortable with?