Newbie Q&A

Kelliara

Firstaid will default tree for hidden afflictions.

The alternative is endgame curing, diagnosing, guessing the affliction/cure, or ignoring it and hoping any passive curing gets it.

Jaeger

Does anyone now if any testing has been done as to whether diverting or dodging mitigates more damage on average?

Aishia

the % of both is influenced by multiple factors, armor class, str for divert or dex for dodge, and trans avoidance lets you do both at the same time so I doubt most obsessive testers bothered figuring it out.

Aishia

To be more clear here's the armor chart
Armour type Dodge Divert
Full/Field -5% +5%
Splint -4% +4%
Chain -3% +3%
Scale -2% +2%
Ring -1% +1% <- ME!
Leather 0% 0%

--- Avoidance -------------------------+
Dodge Chance | 13% 16% - pure dex. (has a cooldown!)
Divert Chance | 31% 31% - mostly armor (no cooldown!)
Divert Block | 3% 3% - STR (I'm so weak!!!)

Jidlo

Help! I can't log in. Something keeps kicking me off.

Tiur

Double check that you're not logged in with another character already. A lot of times we will auto-kick if a person has two characters at once.

Rosalyn

Just joined Aetolia a few days ago and having trouble picking a class. Pretty much narrowed it down to two based on character concepts I would enjoy playing (Luminary and Shaman). I tend to enjoy roleplaying lawful characters but wanted to see what are the mechanical differences between these two classes as well as what the roleplay enviroment of the guilds are like for both of them.

To my understanding it seems that luminaries are a moderately tanky class with slow but decent damage build up. Shamans seems to be a supportive class with affliction based damage. I usually enjoy classes with complex mechanics and tend to stray towards less played classes (though will still play popular ones as well).

Any help much appreciated.

Dagun

Rosalyn said:

Just joined Aetolia a few days ago

I can't really answer your questions as I've only been around a couple of months (though it sounds like you about got the right of it) but I just wanted to say welcome to Aetolia!!! Also I know the Shaman guildmaster is pretty boss so you can't really go wrong there.

Toz

@Rosalyn if you want to pk, both are strong. Shaman is a little odd compared to other classes and that quirkiness is something to enjoy imo. You've got a few routes, it scales with arties but doesn't need them (except crown but so does Lum) for high tier. Luminary is probably OP a little right now so it'll be getting nerfed back, but it does have a limb route over Shaman.

Leana

I love shaman. I miss it so much. Great lore, fun flavor skills, lots of potential. Those who know how to fight it will almost never die to it, but in groups you'll be extremely useful. In a Forest you will be nearly unkillable if you handle it right. They are great for hunting too, thanks to their armor, audit, and spirit. You don't need artifacts, but they help. Trans skills first before everything else. 

When you're ready to buy, there's loads of advice. Greenfoot really makes the class come alive, willpower Regen let's you do more passively.

For some reason writing a post on a cell is nearly impossible.

Bramondt

I'm kind of stuck.

I graduated from the academy, and assumed I'd be able to learn more (as I'm not a novice) but I can't until I'm embraced, which requires 30 more levels. I may just be bashing in the wrong areas, but I find myself dying a whole bunch and being super bitter re: fortify and mending being out of my grasp. So I have some questions.

Is my Academy Scalemail sufficient? Would player-made scalemail provide a higher defensive boost?
Would putting some lessons into avoidance provide any benefit? I'm not super concerned about actually USING the lessons, since I can't learn any more corpus and when I finally get that sorted I'll just buy some lessons. I'm wondering if it's an all-or-nothing sort of skill.
Aside from book, moss, and boar tattoos, are there things I can do to provide a boon for myself while bashing?

Anything to keep me from continuing to pull my hair out would be great.

Toz

Use firstaid if you aren't,  make sure you are SIPping HEALTH as necessary. Nowhere a newbie hunts should be killing them though- Sehal, Lodi, etc  are great for it.

Bramondt

Toz said:

Use firstaid if you aren't,  make sure you are SIPping HEALTH as necessary. Nowhere a newbie hunts should be killing them though- Sehal, Lodi, etc  are great for it.

I'm past the newbie zones, hunting in areas recommended for my level via AREAS, firstaid is on by default.

Tiur

Confused, is there a player requirement to being embraced of level 60, or did someone go and make Vinessa have that requirement?

Bramondt

Tiur said:

Confused, is there a player requirement to being embraced of level 60, or did someone go and make Vinessa have that requirement?

I think it's a player requirement? I didn't know there was a different way.

EDIT: I read about it, there don't seem to be any mechanical drawbacks to Vinessa, but it READS like there may be some in-character drawbacks, which kind of stinks, as I just want to die less.

Toz

Oh man I misread entirely. I thought you were trying to REACH  30, not get 30 more. Yah use Vinessa for now and then try to trade up for more rank once you can IMO. Your rank will be low, you can't sire, and you won't have a big blood pool, none of which matters for a newbie trying to get past 60.

Iazamat

Tiur said:

Confused, is there a player requirement to being embraced of level 60, or did someone go and make Vinessa have that requirement?

It's a player requirement. I'm not sure what guilds look like in terms of getting full class, but vamps are still, imo, requiring some pretty hefty things to get full class. I definitely understand Bramondt's pain, as without a sire, you can't learn Fortify. Add onto that the fact that Frenzy's damage is tied to Corpus skill level and it's an irritant.

If you get a sire, Bramondt, you can learn Fortify. It helps a bit.

Tiur

@Bramondt Look into Vinessa. Failing that, I'll make vampires explode until they lower their requirements.

Bramondt

Tiur said:

@Bramondt Look into Vinessa. Failing that, I'll make vampires explode until they lower their requirements.

It worked! Don't blow anyone up! They'll know it was my fault.

Mordion

I had this same problem. Vamp for bashing already stinks. Having your skills capped though makes bashing up those exp circles gruelingly painful. If you're too stubborn to go through Vinessa like I was then you're in for a not so fun experience. 

Vyxsis

Mordion said:

I had this same problem. Vamp for bashing already stinks. Having your skills capped though makes bashing up those exp circles gruelingly painful. If you're too stubborn to go through Vinessa like I was then you're in for a not so fun experience. 

i think a relevant difference between vamps and regular classes is that, with the latter, you get access to all three class skills upon graduating from the academy, and the only limitation is how many lessons you can obtain. as a novice vampire, while you might *technically* unlock sanguis upon graduating from the academy, but there are a couple of hard caps on how much of each skill you can learn - e.g. you can only get corpus to adept before being sired, etc. (i don't remember the exact levels, ok, but they're not the point). sure, you might be able to go to vinessa for these things, but that's a pretty big loss of the core vampire RP that's supposedly unique to aetolia. if you don't go to vinessa and attempt to do everything by the book, it sounds like it sucks. (vampire jokes will never get tired, ok?)

now, i don't think i believe the requirements i've heard the houses have for full membership are onerous in themselves. last i heard, they were roughly on par with (or slightly less than) what the indorani require. the issue is that unlike the indorani, fulfilling these requirements is necessary to unlock key components of the class. where everyone else gets full class access (if not permanence) upon graduating the academy, vampires have to jump through a variety of hoops. that seems unfair to me, and i imagine it's pretty discouraging to many people who dip their toes into aetolia's vampire world.

i know i've already written too much, but i want to be clear. i don't think 'fairness' is isometric with 'everything is the same'. while i may have a variety of ideas about vampires that dedicated vampire players may not love, i'm absolutely united with them in wanting the distinctive features of the vampire experience to be maintained - if perhaps improved a bit. in this case, however, starting a new vampire puts players at a distinct mechanical disadvantage that i don't see balanced out in some other way. so while i like the idea of making the process of becoming a fully-fledged vampire meaningful and somewhat difficult, i think the present system of capping skills is unreasonable. i strongly believe we need some other way of making the process meaningful, or else our little Dominion, which already has one foot in the grave, may just slip on the proverbial banana peel because the class mechanics drive new players away.

edit to add: i think it's also worthwhile to consider how gating access to skills behind largely unsupervised player approval systems has incredible potential for abuse. don't like a player? think BabbyVamp69 is an alt of that person who spurned your mudsexual advances? revel in the rush of exercising the whims of petty tyranny? great news, you can make that person's experience incredibly difficult by just refusing to allow them to have a skill cap removed... er, wait, no, that's bad. seriously, why is this a thing...?

Elliot

I think shifting some of the 'core' bashing skills up the list in terms of how soon the skills are learned, while moving some of the fancy flavour stuff into a more expensive area, might be a reasonable solution. Doesn't handicap you as much, but still gives you a feeling of being an 'incomplete' vampire until you've been properly sired and embraced.

Vyxsis

Elliot said:

I think shifting some of the 'core' bashing skills up the list in terms of how soon the skills are learned, while moving some of the fancy flavour stuff into a more expensive area, might be a reasonable solution. Doesn't handicap you as much, but still gives you a feeling of being an 'incomplete' vampire until you've been properly sired and embraced.

unfortunately, i think it would be hard to do this without just making corpus a miniskill except that masquerade is a 1736-lesson trans ability. in which case - why bother? if i could get away with only learning half a class skill because the rest was flavor abilities nobody uses (masquerade??? we all know who the vamps are, what does this even do anymore???), you better believe i wouldn't bother. from a business and class balance perspective, this seems like a bad move. there must be alternatives to skill-capping that we haven't hit upon.

Toz

The current system of sires is set up to encourage backstabbing, literal power plays etc for a more powerful sire and, thus, higher rank. Starting at Vinessa is appropriate and fair- players in the House are incentivized to get you sired ASAP because you don't count as their House bloodline until you are sired by one of them.

Iazamat

What incentives are there for the House? Are there mechanical incentives or is it just a matter of "siring them keeps them around and makes the House active"? Because from my limited experience, if the latter is the case, anyone willing to get sired via Vinessa probably did so because no one in the org lined up with their play schedule. Houses also don't seem to care if someone's been sired via Vinessa, either, as there are no drawbacks for the House.

Beyond that, these orgs' players are so thoroughly entrenched and no one wants to rock the boat and potentially lose work that I doubt anyone is playing political intrigue with siring in mind. The only bloodline shakeups seem to come from a House leader (or anyone higher up) falling inactive and being replaced.

Toz

You don't "count" as a member of the bloodline, but I'm not sure what effects that has other than 1) making a House look bad and 2) you won't get primus buffs.

I maintain deleting Houses is the way forward, but..

Iazamat

Ahh. Point 1 doesn't seem to bother Houses (that I've seen) and 2 is unfortunately completely on the individual player rather than the House. IC, we have warnings (re-siring is "difficult", you might be looked down upon) that deter people from Vinessa, but there are otherwise no incentives for Houses.

And with siring being part of gaining full class and skill progression, it's hard to do much with it. You ask to get sired, you get it, there's no meritocracy around it until after class has been gained (I'm a grand duke and I've done nothing to earn it) and even then it's almost entirely reactionary -- don't embarrass me or I might sever you, etc. It's a lot of antiquated flavour that, while I like some aspects of it, doesn't amount to much because of the way mechanical class is currently handled.

Leana

I just kinda addressed this in my post, part 1. These are valid points that require more discussion but probably not in newbie questions.

Stine

Not sure of the possibility of this, but - for Wayfarer newbies, can we give them an option to pick what guild they want to go into? Right now they have to double trans or double virtuoso their class skills just to join a guild, and that seems like a negative thing.

Leana

Wayfarers are wanderers who don't play by anyone's rules, not even their own.