Idea Box — Aetolia's Forums https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/ Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:30:17 +0000 en Idea Box — Aetolia's Forums Small Ideas - AIN'T NO COMBAT THREAD https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/20/small-ideas-ain-039-t-no-combat-thread Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:27:56 +0000 Idea Box Areka 20@/index.php?p=/discussions

Current Idea: a GODSLIST or for HELP GODS to be updated and kept updated with more pertinent information about the Gods and their Orders. It could be similar to the Houses list, in that actively-tended god roles would be marked as such, inactive roles evident, possibly have some notice of the general order size at the time being (large, moderate, small), if there's an order head active, and possibly what 'stance' the God has taken (IE Aggressive, indifferent, scholastic, etc).
]]> Revamp Class & Guild System https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4485/revamp-class-guild-system Sat, 06 Aug 2022 08:12:10 +0000 Idea Box Celas 4485@/index.php?p=/discussions Second Mining Deed, please? https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4458/second-mining-deed-please Sun, 17 Jul 2022 22:55:56 +0000 Idea Box Damonicus 4458@/index.php?p=/discussions What would you like to see in GMCP? https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/1047/what-would-you-like-to-see-in-gmcp Thu, 09 Jan 2014 22:52:04 +0000 Idea Box Oleis 1047@/index.php?p=/discussions
Already on the list: Whether a room is indoors.
]]> Let's talk about Rogue Support, Or if you prefer: Cities have too much mechanical power over players https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4363/let-039-s-talk-about-rogue-support-or-if-you-prefer-cities-have-too-much-mechanical-power-over-players Sun, 03 Apr 2022 16:17:23 +0000 Idea Box Tetchta 4363@/index.php?p=/discussions
  • Ylem mist gold!
  • Ylem orbs!
  • Ylem amulets!
  • Learning lessons 60 at a time!
  • The GRACE command that gets you an extra celerity point when you're blessed.
  • No withdraw fee from banks.
    • I'm sure there's other things I'm not thinking of. This is all before you get to people who have artifacts. I currently have L3 Residual expand, experience_field, critical_field, field_duplication, hunting_field, and improved_absorption. That's 3550 credits of artifacts that can be made instantly worthless with the snap of a finger. That's on top of a level 20 salvage gauntlet, that loses a huge chunk of it is utility, anywhere from 14-15 powers. That's another 1400-3000 credits, depending on how you value it. There's probably a bunch more I'm not thinking of, this is just what came to mind after thinking about it for a few minutes. In real dollar terms, that's $1372-$1800ish. This probably raises some responses: Why not join [insert other city here]. This is a good question, because it gets to the heart of the problem I have, and have always had, with this system, and that's that a massive number of mechanics are leveraging people to forgo roleplay. There's a whole host of people I think that would choose to go cityless, or might be forced to go cityless, because it fits their roleplay more than joining a city does. And while losing the benefits associated with a city (serving in a military, having social support, losing out on city credit sales and stuff like that) make a hell of a lot of sense, I'm not sure having to say goodbye to all these other mechanics that ostensibly have nothing to do with roleplay or being a part of a social group makes any sense. A city is a pretty big identifier for a character's roleplay, and they're all very unique. Someone who fits well in, say, Spinesreach, isn't going to really fit in well in Bloodloch necessarily, or vice versa. Why not sidehop? This is a worse version of the above question. The answer to roleplay problems shouldn't have to be "change your entire character." Not to mention this effectively multiplies the cost and loss problem. Cities have had a ton of roleplay leverage funneled into them over the years in the form of massive mechanical advantages--advantages that pretty much no other org in the game has. I think it's amazing that the administration upstairs is trying to inject a lot of nuance, complexity, and new forms of conflict into the game lately, since it's basically what everyone's been asking for. I think, however, if they're going to want people to start pressing envelopes, taking risks, and pushing challenging and complicated roleplay, they're going to have to take a look at the fundamental structure of the game's city bonuses. As it sits, every city in the game has a massive gun to the head of every player. This has created problems for lots of folk, but I think it's probably going to reach new levels of stifling if it's not addressed. Otherwise, everyone's gonna just put their hands up, sigh, and walk away from the table for fear of seeing a ton of their mechanics that they enjoy every day get flushed down the toilet. And if I hear anybody go "but muh consequences," let me just stop you right there: some mechanical consequences make some sense, and there's ways to mitigate and recoup loss in a lot of those examples. But if your primary consequence for roleplay is to see hundreds or thousands of dollars' worth of credits become instantly worthless? That ain't an appropriate mode of conflict. It'd be like if you were playing D&D and, on top of your character dying, someone went outside and smashed your car window or something. Roleplay consequences for roleplay make a lot of sense--mecahnical consequences on this scale, to me, sure as hell don't. Edit: and this is all to ignore that because cities have so much leverage and have guaranteed citizenship for all their benefits, they really have no real incentive to change their cultures at all. Combined with the envoy system, characters don't have any real leverage without massively inconveniencing themselves. This is a problem that has arisen before, (see: BL overlord drama), and I see it repeatedly coming up unless these issues are addressed. ]]>     Remove the language filter from the forums. https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3880/remove-the-language-filter-from-the-forums Mon, 08 Feb 2021 15:01:58 +0000 Idea Box Lin 3880@/index.php?p=/discussions Praenomen and Vampirism should be separated, and here's why https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3922/praenomen-and-vampirism-should-be-separated-and-here-039-s-why Mon, 12 Apr 2021 14:24:31 +0000 Idea Box Tetchta 3922@/index.php?p=/discussions The Case for Separating Praenomen from the Vampire Subrace or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Roleplay How do you do, fellow kids! Ever since @Naos posted his thread ages ago about separating Praenomen from the Vampire subrace, I’ve been thinking about it. It never struck me as a possibility until he said something, it never occurred to me that Praenomen and Vampire could be separate things entirely--and the more I thought about it, the more it seems like a good idea to me. The case I’m going to try to make in this post is simple: separating the Praenomen class from the vampire subrace is good for everyone and should be done. So let’s get started.

    Diverging the RP of Vampirism away from the Praenomen Class will make vampire RP better

    My understanding under current class/guild rules is that making the hurdles to getting class too difficult is frowned upon, if not outright against the rules of the game. This means you can require people to do some work before getting GR2, but you can’t make it a huge challenge. This is good and I love it; however, this creates a problem where it is now insanely easy--and in fact, it’s a requirement that getting to be a vampire is incredibly easy. This, I think, devalues the roleplay quite a bit. It used to be that getting embraced was this monumental choice and ritual with a ton of roleplay behind it, but this is effectively against the rules of the game now. You can’t build a relationship to become a vampire over many, many weeks, because it’s compulsory that you be given the Praenomen class relatively easily. Cutting full Praenomen class from the Vampire subrace would effectively eliminate this problem. Which brings us to our next point.

    Unshackling Vampirism from the Praenomen Class will make the Dominion better

    In Naos’s post, I said that if Vampirism became separate from Praenomen, this would make the Dominion a glorified Praenomen-class-dispenser guild, but after thinking about this a long time, I no longer think this is the case, and is very reductive. A lot of guilds have incredibly immersive guild RP rewards as you move up the ranks. Carnifex has Knighting and Tainting. Syssin has the thing I forgot the name of. Templars have...don’t y’all get cool swords or something? Many guilds have their entire cultures built around these ascending rituals, where once you get past the very basic stepping stone, you get to choose to immerse yourself in the guild culture and Roleplay for more rewards if you want. Breaking Praenomen away from Vampirism will almost immediately unlock an incredibly cool guild reward for people in the Dominion to work to, and could make Vampirism something to aspire toward and work toward again without cutting people off at the ankles mechanically. You could work with a sire and get to know them over weeks and months and finally have a cool ascension ritual just like the old days. Not only would it turn vampirism into a really cool guild reward, it’d actually be one of the coolest guild rewards in the game. Most guild RP rewards (not all) have zero mechanics behind them and are simply RP rewards. Vampirism is an entire subrace, and the coolness of that reward can’t be understated.

    Making Praenomen a class independent from Vampirism will make Mirrors easier and better

    Okay, so we know that mirror-Praenomen is a thing that’s going to happen and is on the horizon. Spirit tether wants it, and it’s apparently one that @Tiur wants as well, judging by his vote in this thread. With the present set-up, this creates some problems. Currently, the handicaps associated with being a vampire (burning in the sun if your blood is too low being a major one, plus some other stats related to undeath) makes building a spirit-equivalent mechanic/subrace situation a little silly. The RP of vampirism fits things like getting burnt by the sun, being misted upon death and reforming, etc, work really well; however, I don’t think these traits moving across tether will be a smooth transition. Why are you taking damage at night time? Why do you have this weird death cycle? Why do you have to get sustenance from eating corpses? If you break vampirism off from Praenomen, these issues go away entirely. You’ll no longer be forced to heave these RP consequences onto Spirit people, and it will make forming the class image and roleplay a lot easier and give you a ton more freedom to build Mirror Praenomen into something sexy and unique.

    And that’s the pitch

    There are really obvious challenges to breaking Prae off from Vampirism from a mechanical and lore perspective, I don’t deny that, but it’s definitely not impossible. There’s nothing that really says you HAVE to be a vampire to use blood magic in a world where we have pretty much every form of weird magic under the sun. Would it require major reworking of some skillsets and messages? Absolutely. That said, I think the benefits to everyone outweigh the costs, and all the hurdles can be worked around with some clever writing and roleplay. Would finding out how Vampirism fits into Prae mechanically require trial and error? Undoubtedly. But I think it’s worth it, in the end, and will make the game better from just about every single angle. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. EDIT: I also don't hope to make it sound like I think only the Dominion should be able to embrace people. I think the current sanction/bloodline system is...okay. I think rogues existing is good and will always encourage diversity. I'm just saying that I think making it something that requires RP and isn't a barrier to class is only ever going to be a good thing. If we made embracing a Dominion-only ability (when they already have exclusivity on Siring), I'd be extremely sad.]]>     The case for deleting the envoy system https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4335/the-case-for-deleting-the-envoy-system Thu, 10 Mar 2022 13:59:12 +0000 Idea Box Tetchta 4335@/index.php?p=/discussions not because of RP, but because some arbitrary mechanical system that lapsed because the guild is going through a population decline (which happens to all guilds) or god knows how many other reasons they might fail to keep their city quota. People invest a lot of energy in getting status and power in orgs, and having to possibly throw one or the other away because of some ticking clock gun that's been put to their head that was meant to force guild identity to be more tied to a "home base city" just feels like a really bad way to have a story run. And, honestly, I'll admit that this is yet another small entry in a file folder labeled "I think the game has become too centralized around cities, and cities have too much influence on players and orgs both mechanically with regards to roleplay." I understand why we have this city-focused play (sorta), and why there might be an incentive to have guilds mostly tied to the RP of their "home cities." But I'm also not entirely sure who is hurt by, idk, 50% of Sciomancers living in Bloodloch, or 30% of Sentinels preferring the weather in Enorian. I'm not sure why guilds can't transcend their home base city if they want to, and I'm not sure I've ever heard a compelling reason that didn't boil down to "if we don't hold people hostage, we won't get the org populations we want." Which, I dunno, if the primary strategy for keeping people in your org is modeled after a hostage situation, I think you've goofed up somewhere. ]]> RPWHO Improvements https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4357/rpwho-improvements Wed, 30 Mar 2022 18:27:31 +0000 Idea Box Lin 4357@/index.php?p=/discussions 1. The AFK Issue This one's huge. Most games that feature an RP finder like this one differentiate between active and inactive players - and in fact the great majority of those will kick you off the list if you go AFK. Adding a type of visible AFK status would go incredibly far in Aetolia (seriously, just make players on the WHO list dark grey, that's all you have to do), but for RPWHO it's essential. Using RPWHO and seeing two AFK vampires, probably in their havens or coffins, is a total downer and keeps people from bothering with the system. Whether AFK players are kicked off, or partitioned off to another listing in RPWHO, I think being able to tell who's there and active, and who isn't actually available, would go a long way to improving this feature.

    2. Context

    One killer feature you'll find in similar RP finder systems is the ability to optionally add your current pose. In Aetolia, the system could work like this:
    • RP ADD: adds you to the RP list as normal.
    • RP ADD POSE: adds you to the RP list, but also includes your current pose on the RPWHO listing. People who checked RPWHO would see something like: Someone stands in front of the oven, trying to mitigate disaster at a Warm, well-equipped kitchen.
    I can't overstate how valuable this is. You can use your pose as so much more than just setting a scene when someone walks in - say your character got hurt, and you want to invite someone to come help/further hurt them. Say you deliberately wanna get apprehended: just set your pose to say you're trying to case a home or pick a door's lock, and dare any nosey Syssin to come put a stop to you. Adding a pose can provide invaluable at-a-glance info not only to make your character stand out, but also to allow others to make informed decisions and answer the question "is this an opportunity my character can capitalize on, who normally wouldn't get a chance to?" Just as a fun extra tidbit: people can tell stories through these things. In another MUD I played, there was a guy who wasn't necessarily looking for RP, but told, entirely through changing his publicly-visible poses, a story of building his house - sometimes you'd see he was "digging out a watering hole," sometimes he was "hauling stacks of lumber to a half-finished homestead." It was cool to see and weirdly immersive!

    3. Hotspots

    Time and time again, newcomers to Aetolia have asked us the same question: where do you go to find RP? And there's almost always an answer! Players have organically set up hotspots over time where you can usually find people hanging out. They're not the absolute best place to find RP, but they're also by no means the worst. I propose that certain predefined locations automatically list, in RPWHO, how many people are standing there - say, the Inner Gate of Spinesreach, the stone bridge in Duiran, so on and so forth. Furthermore, allow owners of buildings, shops, etc. toggle the rooms in their property as hotspots. Show up to the Burly Chest Tavern, and you'll see how many people are there. Aetolia isn't a MUSH, so of course it's going to need to respect hidden players, people in Phase/Blackwind/etc., but even then, just having this as a resource so that newer players know where people are hanging out would be a game changer.

    4. Anonymity

    I appreciate the thinking behind forced anonymity in RPWHO - you don't want people picking and choosing who they strike up for roleplaying. I really don't think this works in Aetolia. It is trivial to check someone's location on RPWHO and see who it is. I would understand if there's no interest in changing this, so I propose yet another flag, something like RP ADD VISIBLE. All this would do is change your listing from an anonymous entry to your name. You still have the option to appear anonymous, but those of us who don't mind being seen, visibly soliciting attention, have the opportunity to do so! Here's an example of what the readout could look like with the suggestions in mind: Thanks for your consideration! If anyone else has any ideas for how to improve this system, let us know here!]]>     Gender Neutral/non-binary Vamipire Peerage! https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4041/gender-neutral-non-binary-vamipire-peerage Mon, 19 Jul 2021 00:41:14 +0000 Idea Box Tetchta 4041@/index.php?p=/discussions Primus Emperor/Emperess Prince/Princess Grand Duke/Grand Duchess Duke/Duchess Count/Countess Marquis/Marquess Earl/Earless Viscount/Viscountess Baron/Baroness Baronet Dominus/DominaI think it would be helpful to have ideas of what actually to add so, if the administration ever did get around to it, they weren't just flying in the dark. So have at it!]]> Stockrooms and Exploration https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4328/stockrooms-and-exploration Wed, 02 Mar 2022 01:20:24 +0000 Idea Box Lin 4328@/index.php?p=/discussions Hi! I'd like to talk about this feedback. Stockrooms are:
    • Private property, owned either by a single player or an organization,
    • Intrinsically kept under lock and key,
    • Filled, by design, with a player's hoarded and/or crafted valuables.
    Stockrooms are not equal, either. While most of them can be accessed with the Burrowing racial, Bloodloch's stockrooms are stashed away behind solid rock. The only way to get into them is to ask the owner of the shop in question to let you in - or sneak in through less-than-honest means. This isn't easy even when you're not enemied to the city. If I burrow or sneak into the Syssin guildhall, I might be able to pluck up any non flame-sigiled goodies they've left around. I can probably kill their tutor and cause a bit of a nuisance. I really can't do all that much to them. No matter how we like to prop up the fantasy of defending our homeland, once invaders have gotten into it, they can't really do an awful lot. So with all due respect, I believe stockrooms could not be more different from org-only areas!]]>     Artifact ideas https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/62/artifact-ideas Sun, 02 Dec 2012 07:15:12 +0000 Idea Box Alistaire 62@/index.php?p=/discussions ]]> Make Syssin RP more robust https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4095/make-syssin-rp-more-robust Tue, 14 Sep 2021 13:07:56 +0000 Idea Box Lenoriel 4095@/index.php?p=/discussions utterly hamstrung by things like APIs. With systems automated to spit out someone's guild, even the youngest Syssin with zero reason to be known as such is treated with suspicion and avoidance. That's metagaming, folks. I've run into it overtly- people greeting me as a Syssin when I'm in Archivist, a shimmering orb, no indications of guild or class- and less overtly. When you know someone is a spy, you're going to be far, far more closelipped as a player because you don't want your character to be the one who gave something away.. even if your character has absolutely no reason for that suspicion. To make matters worse, our espionage abilities have been nerfed into the ground by unblockable and prolific defenses against phase and eavesdropping. When an entire guild's RP and gameplay abilities can be utterly derailed by a novice quick-wielding an eye sigil or one single person in a city with a bracer, there's a problem. I know this is going to be unpopular. No one likes being spied on. But let's be realistic.. with the ability to inline a command to run into the room, quickwield and throw an eye, and begin attacking while they're off balance? There's *nothing out there that can stop it from happening, and that's just plain unrealistic*. These are highly trained, Severn-shaped operators, and they should be able to see someone pulling an eye from their belt and evade away with the same speed that someone can inline doing so. Since eye sigils, inline commands, bracers, and APIs aren't going anywhere, let's talk about ways we can make Syssin RP more robust for both the guild and individual Syssin as a whole. Some suggestions to discuss: 1) Let's get this one out of the way, since it's the one that's going to piss people off the most. Sanctioned Syssin should have a way to avoid being pulled from phase. Phase Anchor. Give it a painfully high drain like Phaseveil to will/endurance and mana, so that it's impossible to have it up as a standard defense. But a skilled operator will be able to assess the riskiest moments if they are staying properly alert, and put it up for short periods. 2) Slightly less controversial, but.. historically, espionage has collected as much or more information from newspapers than from individual conversations. Make a newsroom in each city that gives anyone standing in it permission to see the city's public posts.. even make it so you need to be unphased to NSTAT them. But make them accessible. And this can be harnessed by -anyone-, not just Syssin. 3) Make something like nacreous windchimes a researchable ylem upgrade- that the city entrances will have a phase chime. It wouldn't give information on who it was, and someone would still need to be there to see it, but it's a realistic extra layer of defense that will force Syssin spies to be more cautious (which they should be) and give cities an additional resource. 4) Make a skill that cloaks you from bracer detection while in phase. Make it only last for a few seconds and give it a crazy cooldown, so that it can't just be used to hop in and out of an area willy nilly. Once per several hours, or even once per day. Sell artis that reduce the cooldown. 5) Be more diligent as players about separating what you from what your character knows. If your character has no reason to move a public conversation away from a Syssin they don't IC know is a Syssin, don't do it. If your character hasn't learned IC that someone is a Syssin, try not to be more close-lipped than you would have been if they were not. In short, metagaming kills RP. Try to be more consciencious? ]]> Greater Lessers - The End of The Missing Numbers https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4009/greater-lessers-the-end-of-the-missing-numbers Wed, 09 Jun 2021 22:46:15 +0000 Idea Box Seurimas 4009@/index.php?p=/discussions
  • Accessibility is the goal of any team event. No one should feel like they cannot participate because they are bad at combat, or that unskilled participation drags down the rest of the team.
  • Numbers should improve your chances of success, but not overwhelmingly so. No one should feel like they have to participate or they are letting their side down. Also, the strategy of the participants and the execution of that strategy should be the greatest factor of success.
  • Team events should be exciting and interesting. A stale meta will get old fast and it will be incumbent on the playerbase to keep engagement up against boredom.
  • Team events should have clear winners and losers, while winning and losing should not be the only fun to be had. Something of value should be gained, possibly even for the losers.
    • Now, how well do Lessers, Majors, and Orrery fare with each of these criteria?
    1. All current events are very accessible. No one should ever feel like they cannot participate because they will just be a detriment to their team. The only point against accessibility is that there is a requirement to have some sort of leader calling targets. No leaders? No contest. No fun. A-
    2. Numbers improve your chances of success, but Lessers do little to nothing to get smaller groups any sort of chance to catch up. It is, ultimately, up to the participants to try to eke out a win. The various modes of Majors do some things to help with this, but steamrolling with a large group is still the dominant strategy when numbers. Orrery benefits slightly from having some non-group strategies ("keep away" with the orb), but those are not very fun to play against and there's nothing to do with a small group if the large group has the orb. D-
    3. Majors handle this well enough. Two contentions of four or five different types is pretty good. Lessers and Orrery are very samey. The different circumstances and class mixes create some novel encounters, but they are mostly bash fests. B-
    4. Gateway Majors and Orrery do very well with having clear winners and losers, but Lessers and other Majors do not. All events value the losers only to the extent that people can earn a lot of experience. However, if you don't get kills, you don't get anything. C-
    As promised, my idea for a new team event is similar to King of the Hill, which I envision will be a new type of foci battle called Greater Foci:
    • Found similarly to Lessers, they show up as a node in a room on LEYLINES, and spawn randomly alongside minors.
    • Unlike Lessers, their room is not a room within that area. Instead, they exist in a separate, instanced area (the "hill"). To get to the hill, you will use a new refining ability, Attuning. Simply REFINING ATTUNE [SPIRIT|SHADOW] anywhere from the Greater's area to begin an uninterruptible 5-second channel to teleport to the hill instance. Only 3 players per tether are allowed on the hill at a time. Neutral players can choose which tether to attune as. As long as only one tether has players on the hill, the Greater is being extracted by that tether. Otherwise, it is contested, does not progress, and may end before being completely extracted, similar to Majors running out.
    • This splits participation into two different modes: 3 players on the hill, and everyone else. Everyone not on the hill will be able to help their tether by slaying eld that spawn in the area, similar to Onslaught. Slaying eld while your tether is also controlling the hill speeds up extraction. Conversely, slaying eld while not extracting denies those eld to the extractors. Overall, your tether will need to be in control of the hill the entire time or slay a decent number of eld to fully extract a Greater.
    • These are not totally separate modes of play, however. The people on the hill may take channeled and directed actions to help those at the Greater, a few examples will be provided below. Ultimately, the goal will be to give the advantage to the tether controlling the hill while not improving the ability to control the hill too much. These actions will only be available while the hill is uncontested. There also exists the slight ability for those in the Greater area to protect the hill, in the form of the Attune time. This should be a minor factor, however.
    Example hill effects. All actions require your tether to control the hill (i.e. the hill must be uncontested to start a channel or to take an action). Channels may be continued while the hill is contested, if you think that's wise. Note, "allies" refers to those of your own tether, and "enemies" refers to those of the opposite tether, not your own personal allies or enemies.
    • channel to increase the eld spawn rate;
    • channel to increase the Attune time to 10 seconds;
    • channel to create a 3 second movement delay across the entire area, for all players;
    • channel to give all allies in the Greater area perfect out-of-room stealth;
    • channel to give a returning-like defense to all allies;
    • action to permanently "shrink" the hill, reducing the max number of players per tether to 2;
    • action to reverse this "shrink", only usable by the tether that did not shrink the hill in the first place;
    • action to revive an ally in the Greater area, as long as their corpse is still on the ground;
    • action to swap places with an ally in the Greater area (they get pulled into the hill and you're out in the Greater);
    • action to give all enemies in the Greater area hidden shyness (untethered are unaffected).
    As this is already a large post, I will leave it up to others to consider how well this event idea handles the criteria at the top. I also had another idea for a sort of treasure hunt mode. I think this Greater idea suffers a bit in terms of accessibility. I think the ideal of accessibility would be if you could show up alone or un-webbed to a team event and get something for yourself and your tether, and I have some ideas on that. In addition to this new mode, I also suggest a new drop for eld at team events: ylem motes. When you slay an eld at a Lesser, Greater, or Major, you have a chance of receiving a ylem mote. These motes may be traded in at the pylon for a ylem shard, or used on another eld, slaying them for no experience, but causing them to drop one extra guaranteed mist. These would be very valuable to crafters and people without Shackle. A shop or other uses would also be great. The 3 players on the hill should also be able to collect a handful of ylem motes as a Greater collapses.]]>     Gold sinks and you https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4054/gold-sinks-and-you Mon, 09 Aug 2021 19:06:49 +0000 Idea Box Rhyot 4054@/index.php?p=/discussions Prizebags - For the love of all things that are holy, please fucking fix these!!! The premise of these are nice, but they could be updated. a) Change the pull amounts to the following: bronze gets 1 (15k gold), silver gets 3 (50 gold), gold gets 5 (75k gold). This has already been accomplished with varying amounts of success in terms of prizes with stockings and such. b) Add in a few other relic items like carvings, flairs, etc. Remove the hearts/eyes and throw in iterators and style scrolls. Doing this gives players an opportunity at getting at minimum 8 credits or more if they get some lucky pulls (compendium pages, chocolates, etc). 2) Cryptic chests or "Prosperity Chests"- I understand why Cryptic Chests were removed as a gold purchase, especially as one of the people responsible for causing such extreme measures. However, there is a way to bring them back without having the same situation that was abused to arise. a) Since Cryptic Chests are ever changing due to their constant use in promotions, create a new form of chest. Let's call them Prosperity Chests. These Prosperity Chests would have the same functionality as Cryptic chests, but with a much more limited and less expensive, diverse series of prizes. Cryptic chests can get some very hefty credit prizes in the forms of fireworks, general credit prizes, discount tokens, hunting boon tokens, upgrade tokens, various artifacts ranging from stats, to rebirth necklaces, to custom artifacts. Very, very hefty and could result in some very hefty losses for IRE as a whole. So Rhyot, what would you put into Prosperity Chests?? Well Tiur, I'm glad you asked!!! As stated previously, Prosperity Chests would function very similarly to Cryptics, just with a reduced prize pool. The prize pool could be as follows:
    Main prizes: - Credits (no more than 25 credits on a low probability chance: Cryptics gives about 500 if lucky enough) - Iron Coins (no more than 5-10 coins: Cryptics have given up to 25? I might be wrong, but this is open for admin views) - Artifacts (pick from a list of artifacts that are worth no more than 50 credits when purchased normally as on tradein they would be worth 33 credits. This could be hefty over time, but you could have these set as a low probability anyway. That or people find an interesting use for them) - Minipets/Mounts (ALL minipets/mounts from creation to now. It's a large pool, yes, but oh so fun to play collector. Aetolia even made rankings for them!) - Chocolates (all 8 types because we rarely get to see the newly made 4 and why not? Could be fun) - Compendium pages - Stealth crystals - Talisman carvings (The talisman is nice and the benefits are paltry, but there is absolutely no way to get environment carvings EXCEPT during very specific promotions. Blasphemy I say!) - Relic pieces - Shapeshifter Pelts - Herbs/Curatives/Commodities - Torch of the Underhalls (sure, these can be traded in for 5 credits apiece, but they are typically also used too. Receiver's discretion, really) - Grimstim pills/Bull's eyes/Phoenix hearts
    Now, before you argue the whole premise of why Prosperity Chests can't be a thing due to the fact that IRE still has to make a profit, I would agree on the profit part but wouldn't agree that they can't be a thing. Here's why. IRE has adapted to allowing people to get 20 credits a day, which is roughly 600 credits a month ($200). So they're already eating $20,000/month in revenue ($200*100 players), so it's already become an accepted loss. Adding Prosperity chests won't change much for the negative. In fact, this could actually end up working IRE's favor because if you have a full list of minipets, mounts, chocolates, compendium pages, talisman carvings etc available... more people might be inclined to buy credit packages to get said items. At worst, people occasionally get some credits from cheap artifacts to trade in. Hell, more people might buy credits just to sell them for gold for these chances to get previously released minipets/mounts that they were not around for but might want oh-so-dearly. Additionally, with commodities as difficult as they are to get these days (ice/ash/metals/stone) the Prosperity chests would be a minimal manner of accruing this over time too. At least until Mining and the third Production skill is released. By all means, I'd be glad to hear everyone else's thoughts. Maybe things will change and we'll get more gold sinks. ------ Captain Rhyot, signing off. ]]>     Do endgame bashing zones need a rebalance? https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4043/do-endgame-bashing-zones-need-a-rebalance Wed, 21 Jul 2021 17:48:45 +0000 Idea Box Tetchta 4043@/index.php?p=/discussions just on the cusp of an area I'd call bashable, but you can still get totally boned due to RNG. No skill, no manual bashing, just bad RNG and mob stacking and you're dead there. The main issues are, as I see it, from my perspective, skills/debuffs that totally remove player reactionability. In my case, it's all the grapples/impales. You can get writhelocked in a ton of areas just because of RNG, which makes bashing there an unattractive prospect, because you just end up losing XP for pretty much no increased reward. I've not played in the other areas, but I've heard some complaints as well. If this is an attempt to curb or complicate autobashing, I get the intention, but it's not actually the solution. There's no coding around writhe locks. If you get locked in tens of seconds of writhing, it's over, period. Is there any possibility this can get looked into at some point? 'cause as it is right now, the new areas aren't actually expanding the available bashing zones for most people by much, if at all. **edit: I'm hearing a mix of reviews for this area so YMMV]]> Ylem Aura Toggle On/Off https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4026/ylem-aura-toggle-on-off Tue, 29 Jun 2021 07:11:13 +0000 Idea Box Fyrren 4026@/index.php?p=/discussions Limitate the Mutate (in arena/sect) https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4013/limitate-the-mutate-in-arena-sect Wed, 16 Jun 2021 22:08:29 +0000 Idea Box Saidenn 4013@/index.php?p=/discussions Delete Insight https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3976/delete-insight Mon, 17 May 2021 03:15:26 +0000 Idea Box Saidenn 3976@/index.php?p=/discussions The Midnight Age? https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3965/the-midnight-age Wed, 12 May 2021 08:11:13 +0000 Idea Box Jhin 3965@/index.php?p=/discussions Multiclassing & RP https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3964/multiclassing-rp Mon, 10 May 2021 19:50:25 +0000 Idea Box Jhin 3964@/index.php?p=/discussions I Hate Apothecary https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3929/i-hate-apothecary Fri, 16 Apr 2021 00:41:10 +0000 Idea Box Maldoror 3929@/index.php?p=/discussions Events? https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3903/events Wed, 31 Mar 2021 18:20:32 +0000 Idea Box Rasani 3903@/index.php?p=/discussions Minipet Requests https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3757/minipet-requests Thu, 19 Nov 2020 15:46:32 +0000 Idea Box Brax 3757@/index.php?p=/discussions OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: Dropping a minipet idea here does not by any means guarantee it'll actually make it into the game, or that you'll receive it. OTHER DISCLAIMER: We also cannot help it if Tina acquires said new minipets before you do. Sorry. ]]> Warhound Breeding is Hell: we need to fix it https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3884/warhound-breeding-is-hell-we-need-to-fix-it Thu, 11 Feb 2021 16:31:04 +0000 Idea Box Tetchta 3884@/index.php?p=/discussions ton of complicated factors that go into warhound breed in the Carnifex class, but with MirrorCarnifex on the horizon, I think it's time that we take a look at how absolutely bloody broken breeding mechanics are. We're about to have an entirely new group of people hitting the breeding mechanics with literally nothing to start with, and it's going to dramatically show off the warts of this process. Also I would've made this a classlead but someone decided that we should get only one classlead submission after waiting six months. For PVP, breeding isn't a huge issue because, worst case scenario, you can Soul Pact your hound. This makes them unbreedable, but you can freely retrain their abilities to tweak them if you get a hound that's near-perfect (although this does cost gold). Being transcendent in Warhounds is a requisite of this ability, however, and so it's not open to everyone directly out of the gate. The problem comes to establishing a breeding pool with the right traits initially, especially when it comes to hounds that are meant for PVE. An important part of Carnifex guild culture is to give away a perfect hunting hound to novices. The correct combination of traits in a hound is a dealmaker for bashing as a Fex, and can greatly increase your survivablilty. Hounds that are bestowed are naturally disobedient, but this is not a problem for PVE hounds because all the abilities are passive, not active, so obedience isn't a problem. Getting even one breeding pair, however, is presently a task that is so phenominally stressful that it's frankly amazing that it's been untouched for so long. I've been trying to establish a new strain of hunting hounds with a unique coat for...well, off and on a year, but I think I've sunk about one IRL month into this endeavor and accomplished almost no headway for weeks. I've not produced one viable hunting hound in the entire experiment. As I understand it, here's how the mechanic is supposed to work:
    • If the dame and sire have matching traits, those traits have a high chance of being passed on to the next generation of pups.
    • If the dame and sire have a mismatched trait, it has a 50% chance of being passed on.
    • If traits are possible, but unlearned due to not being levelled up, that's a malus on the chance of that trait getting passed onto the next generation.
    This is what we think the mechanics are, but this is not the experience I'm having. This is my latest batch of puppies, wherin two breeding pairs were perfect hunting hounds (meaning I should have at least gotten one viable hunting pup with no negative traits), and the rest were unideal combinations, but still should've had a chance of losing a negative trait: None of these things happened--negative traits down the board. And keep in mind this is basically what I'm met with every howling, for the past several weeks. Either something's broken, we're mistaken on the mechanics, or I'm extremely unlucky to a level that's bordering on absurd. The thing is, I've been hammering at this for weeks, dealing with the disappointment, while I already have a decent pool of hounds to draw traits from. Meanwhile, Spirit is about to get MirrorFex out of the gate without this benefit, which means we're about to have a dozen(dozens?) of people trying to get viable hunting pets and getting extremely and, frankly, justifiably frustrated at how it works. This really should be addressed. As it is right now it's basically a reverse gacha game, where instead of being an addictive and rewarding kind of randomness, it's completely frustrating and maddening, with each day becoming less and less fun as your results are slow and unrewarding, and as far as I know there's no other class that has to lock itself behind this hellish grind in order to enjoy the very basics of their class. Proposed fixes:
    • Let one trait be swapped per puppy generation without having to pact.
    • Sell an artifact(s) that speeds up the time between generations.
    • Increase the chance of a negative trait being overwritten by a positive one after breeding.
    Seriously, guys, this is bad. Please fix it. ]]>     What RP Skills would you like to see added to your favorite class? https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3867/what-rp-skills-would-you-like-to-see-added-to-your-favorite-class Wed, 27 Jan 2021 18:45:26 +0000 Idea Box Tetchta 3867@/index.php?p=/discussions A Comprehensive Request Thread for new Aetolian Items (starting with the best one!) https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3866/a-comprehensive-request-thread-for-new-aetolian-items-starting-with-the-best-one Tue, 26 Jan 2021 18:38:22 +0000 Idea Box Tetchta 3866@/index.php?p=/discussions word itself is pretty solid given the game's setting in general. This is solidly about why we need an entirely separate item type. My argument for Katanas-In-Aetolia (KIA if you will) is simple: we don't have a good way to describe this type of weapon. Yes, we have curved swords already (scimitars and sabres), and we already have longswords, but these conditions are limited. Specifically, the appearance, the most-seen, and arguably the most important line for any crafted item, has a 50 character limit, and devoting this to lines that really sell the aesthetic of the crafted item is going to reduce crafting creativity. Examples:
    • a single-edged, curved longsword (64% of the appearance character allocation)
    • a thinly-forged scimitar (48% of the appearance character allocation)
    • a sabre that's kinda not a sabre but is straightish but still curved (136% of the appearance character allocation!)
    vs:
    • a kituna (a mere 16% of the appearance allocation!)
    I'm actually total butt at naming things (please do not name it a kituna) but that's the crux of my argument. A katana is a distinct weapon from a sabre, and while it is arguably comparable to a longsword, it really could serve as either its own item type, or as a reference for longswords, simply because it gives people a lot more freedom for customization and crafting. That's my main argument, and honestly I think that alone is pretty compelling, but I'm sure others have better ones, or good ways to tell me why I'm wrong and stupid and a weeb, even though I've only watched, like, three animes. EDIT: Made this thread more broad to be about items you'd like to see in Aetolia that are currently a huge pain in the rear to design. I think I made the solid case on why having specific names is good, so now it's time: come up with your own weapons and other items that have no Aetolian counterpart! Also please come up with a better name that kituna.]]>     Sect v3.0? https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3868/sect-v3-0 Thu, 28 Jan 2021 06:41:01 +0000 Idea Box Jhin 3868@/index.php?p=/discussions
    To my surprise players actually plan Sect matches with friends for practice. From my understanding this isn’t what the Sect arena is for. City arenas are perfectly capable when friends would like to spar for practice. 

    But within Sect whoever places a challenge should be prepared to fight any warriors ready to step forward. In order to improve the integrity of the rank system, I thought of a very simple idea that should be easy to implement.

    A Sect Pool. Whenever a challenge is placed, a 30 second to 1 minute timer begins. During this time anyone can accept this challenge and when the time runs out. BAM! RNG kicks in and places you with a random player from the pool. 

    This small improvement would get rid of the possibility of planned Sect matches. Eventually multiple Sect instances could be made as well.
    ]]>     Do old houses have a heaven? https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3864/do-old-houses-have-a-heaven Sun, 24 Jan 2021 21:59:19 +0000 Idea Box Aloli 3864@/index.php?p=/discussions Perfumery Scent Additions https://forums.aetolia.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3849/perfumery-scent-additions Wed, 20 Jan 2021 14:20:01 +0000 Idea Box Elene 3849@/index.php?p=/discussions [Oil] Cherry [Primary] mouthwatering [Secondary] sweet-sour [Base] fruity [Oil] Myrrh [Primary] piney, bitter [Secondary] resinous [Base] medicinal]]>