Refusal, An Explanation.

[Lauriert]

As some of you are aware, I made my intentions clear that I will not be roleplaying with order members in any capacity until that guild is hit with a serious nerf. I have nothing against the players of Order characters personally, I'm simply protesting the state of the game's mechanics.

Before anyone tries to tell me they're balanced, just don't. I have heard and seen horror stories of the Order's absurd power. The most egregious of which was 2 new characters getting the Order buff, and standing up to Luminier. I probably don't need to go further on why that's a problem. Luminier far and away should not be challenged by 2 newer characters. That's just ridiculous. The Order buff seems to make characters perform 5x better in combat. This is just absurd, and awful from both a gameplay and storyline perspective. I'll discuss both seperately.

From a storyline perspective, who wants to write or read a story where one side always wins and the other always loses? That's antithetical to a good story. Where's the drama? Suspense? Excitement? Anything? And why should anyone on the losing side go along with it? Who wants to see their character, whom they may have attachment to, fail with no possible way to succeed? Remember, the world we live in IRL is not a very good place generally speaking. GEAS can provide an escape, but if your character constantly loses with no chance of winning, how is this any better? Why keep playing?

From a gameplay perspective, why bother trying to improve your character when there's a guild that makes you win automatically? You're either order and you win, or you oppose them and lose. I personally feel like even if I grinded to mythical STR, AGI, and CON, I'd still lose. If grinding a char is futile, why bother?

GEAS offers mechanical depth and roleplay opportunity unmatched by most MUDs.I have many story lines spanning multiple characters and I'd hate to quit over something like this. I do know one person who did, and several others who are contemplating it.

I will respond to some things I expect to hear.

"The order is balanced."
See paragraph 2.

"You're a sore loser."
If I had an Order char, I'd shelf them once I found out until it was fixed.

"The Order has ways in the game's code to weaken them."
If this is true, great. It would make for a fantastic storyline but I still think they need toned down.

Anyway, that's my rant.

[Delia]

You do not need to be an Order member to be a combat monster. Any light fighter that outlevels you is pretty much a death sentence. I do not know if the Order is balanced or not but I know that something appears very easily as unbalanced if someone just is much stronger than you, even without any possible guild buffs.

[roxvod]

I find it poor play to ignore the existence of anyone and deny them roleplay because of some perceived inferiority.

A worthwhile effort would be to seek IC means to strengthen yourself for the PVP economy and improve your character, as well as weigh the pros and cons of your build against their pros and cons.

Strength doesn't always come from stats.

In short; get good.

[Delia]

A simple "get good" does very little in alleviating frustrations that are very common in this game. Power balance shifts rarely and usually it only shifts when the winning side becomes bored and stops to play. It is most often only then when the other side can start increasing numbers and skills and generally gain in power. The cycle has continued for over 15 years now.

[roxvod]

Ignoring people doesn't de-escalate anything or solve things, either. Protesting some obscure mechanic by punishing the players begets only one type of reply, this is only my personal opinion without meaning to be insulting.

Another worthwhile effort, then, might be reaching the guild-members who are the source of said frustrations and learning more about what this stems from in the first place, and if there can be any collective effort to make it fun for everyone.

Beyond that, a "get good" is the only viable reply to address issues of incredible power gaps because there is little else that can be done. If there was anything a rant over the forums would fix, it'd be fixed 15 years ago.

[Delia]

Yea the issue has been discussed to death and the bottom line is, if players with powerful characters want to prey on players with smaller defenseless characters, very little can be seemingly done. Only option for those with weaker characters is to make the process as unappealing to the powerful as possible in order to be avoid being targeted, just keep at it and slowly increase skills and literally die dozens of times and not care about it as it is temporary. Many just quit however.

There is also the fact that pvp at high levels is not that much fun either as it is more or less a joyless sudden death proposition and just chasing for initiative and maximum advantage. It however, could be fun if we all make it fun.

[ferranifer]

Agree about poor play.

Express your concerns in an unbiased and informed way (a lot of what you said about the Order is either hyperbole or completely unfounded superstition and you'll get wrecked by any and all high level light fighters). Be frustrated or mad about losing, bring the topic of unbalance to the admin, but unilaterally breaking the game for others just because you're unhappy with how things are is selfish.

When you are in a room with other players and express that you're going to blatantly break the rules of the game just because, you're also tying the hands of the other players, and that's not your prerogative.

[Delmon]

@Delia,
The issue here isn't about Laur as a char dying alot or older chars preying on younger chars. He did and still has plenty of "outs" as a player for his character. It was his choice as a player to play out his character the way he wants, and I told him explicitly what the results of that would be. His chars niche position is "super tough guy never feel pain never care about dying" and OOC we agreed I would not pull punches but honor his RP (which is in theory just fine for me). I have played out multiple discussions IC on his char to try and add flavor.

@Laur,
So to me this sounds like a balance complaint, but your complaint is just, as Ferranifer put it, hyperbole and not really based on anything concrete. I suggest you consider the conceptual aspect a little more and if this stems from your 1v1 encounters, ask why should a guildless weaker char have a great "chance" (meaning 1v1 "kill <char>" with use of specials no other tactics used) against a guilded char (designed specifically for maximum 1v1 dmg and face checking teams)

[Arsicas]

I believe there are direct IC ways to influence the Order’s power. Also, I disagree that being in the Order is an automatic win. People have said that various guilds are OP over the years, but a lot of the time they’re just witnessing the actions of some very huge characters. It seems you’re mostly upset about not being able to go toe-to-toe with a very huge character? As a guildless character, you don’t have any of the advantages that those in guilds have. And some builds are just better at 1v1 fighting. If you do think there is a balance issue, you can bring it up with the admin, but I think your expectations may just be a bit skewed.

[Lauriert]

I have already responded to the "Sore Loser" argument. I would shelf an order character if I had one because just winning by default isn't fun to me just as losing by default wouldn't be either.

I would have preferred it if nobody tried to tell me the Order was balanced, but I should have known otherwise. Listen, this is nothing against Delmon the character, but there is absolutely no way possible he should even think about rushing Ceinna, Lauriert, Skragna, and Ram head on, much less defeat them at the ease in which he did. Yes, he had a deathpriest there, but they did very little besides provide some Darkness at the very beginning of the fight. Everyone there who witnessed that or heard about it knows or should know this issue is undeniable. Want more proof? During the encounter and others like them, Delmon has scored more deep hits or better in every encounter I've seen since he joined the Order than hits that failed to deal damage for any reason (I'm only talking about standard attacks here, not specials.) This is quite similar to the stories I hear about Nadie one shotting people with ease, despite the fact that Darkelf STR is actually lower than the average (that being human).

As for the weak character argument, regarding my own character, I'm not usually one to show off my character, but I will in this case.

Strength : You are halfway to advancing to epic Strength.
Dexterity : You are very close to advancing to nimble Dexterity.
Agility : You are halfway to advancing to epic Agility.
Constitution : You are very close to advancing to athletic Constitution.
Intelligence : You are very far from advancing to brilliant Intelligence.
Wisdom : You are far from advancing to wise Wisdom.
Discipline : You are halfway to advancing to courageous Discipline.

He has 100 skill in sword, medium armour, knee, and acrobat. He has 97 parry, 90 heavy armour, high 80's in all his attack skills (smash, thrust, swing). 88 shield (admittedly lower than you'd expect, but I stopped grinding with shield once it got in the 80's). I don't think my character's strength is the issue.

In fact, while I never fought Delmon before he was Order, all signs point to Lauriert being stronger than him, not weaker. Just two and a half years ago IC, Delmon got owned in a spar with someone who was, at the time, equal to Lauriert in terms of caliber of fighter. And since then, I've done lots of training and questing. Delmon would likely not have caught up to him in just two years given that, especially not to where he could not only kill him, but 3 other chars of equal or greater level to him simultaneously.

There have been quite a few Order members over the years, but the ones I've noticed that the ones the public know about off hand (Besides Delmon now) have been Nadie and Mogwai. Mogwai is a powerful enough character that people could actually believe he's that strong when he buffs. People just assume the same for Nadie. It's ingrained into people's minds that the Order are demigods and nobody now questions it.

[Brand]

Lauriert is not a small character, but please bear in mind that when compared to a character that has 100 in swing, thrust, primary weapon, armour type, fencing, acrobat, defence and primary special he is fighting an uphill battle. All random rolls being equal, this high level character when compared to lauriert and other characters like him will come out on top Every time. I know for a fact that the order character in question has high skills because their in game time is equal to or higher than Brand and Brand has whats listed above. Sorry, man, I get your frustration but this is a straight up inequality equation. Brand cannot stand toe to toe with any order characters and has all near epic stats.

[Lauriert]

Lauriert is not a small character, but please bear in mind that when compared to a character that has 100 in swing, thrust, primary weapon, armour type, fencing, acrobat, defence and primary special he is fighting an uphill battle. All random rolls being equal, this high level character when compared to lauriert and other characters like him will come out on top Every time. I know for a fact that the order character in question has high skills because their in game time is equal to or higher than Brand and Brand has whats listed above. Sorry, man, I get your frustration but this is a straight up inequality equation. Brand cannot stand toe to toe with any order characters and has all near epic stats.

This still wouldn't explain how Delmon took on Ceinna, Lauriert, Skragna, and Ram, and made it look easy. Besides, if such a character as Lauriert or Brand can be trivialized by an Order member, not just beaten, but beaten as badly as a troll beats a newbie, don't you think that's an issue anyways?

[ila]

Halfway to epic is not exactly top tier.

[Lauriert]

On the other hand, recently the aforementioned order member and his death priest companion, I'm told, encountered Ceinna, Brand, Sverker, and a priest neither I nor the informant knows the name of. I'm told he got absolutely routed. This is pretty surprising considering what happened with the much stronger party at Elvandar's gate. I'm sure element of surprise was a factor, though I myself wasn't there. But this is a pretty stark contrast and the only explanation is that he had something near the gate that he didn't have there, probably the buff.

[Zehren]

stats and skills

That's a pretty decent midbie char.

[Lauriert]

This thread wasn't about my experiences in pvp with an order member. It's about the absurd strength shown by order members, well above their actual abilities, experienced by myself and others.

[ceinna]

On the other hand, recently the aforementioned order member and his death priest companion, I'm told, encountered Ceinna, Brand, Sverker, and a priest neither I nor the informant knows the name of. I'm told he got absolutely routed. This is pretty surprising considering what happened with the much stronger party at Elvandar's gate. I'm sure element of surprise was a factor, though I myself wasn't there. But this is a pretty stark contrast and the only explanation is that he had something near the gate that he didn't have there, probably the buff.

That situation was 100% different from the other. I know because I participated in both. In the first, there was no organization, no discussion, no understanding. We literally were sheep waiting for the slaughter - and it happened.

In the second one, you were dealing with a group of people who hunt and fight together often, know one another, have trained for how to handle things, were talking on orb links, and there was differences handled in both directions IC. The characters involved actually had a pretty good chat about it all in OOC after - which was awesome

The two fights can not be compared at all because the dynamics were 100% different in them.

(edit: and for the record - Delmon never died in either one)

[Delmon]

It's not possible the order member is question has far greater stats than Laur and the character is definitely, without question, weak sauce. The char has also not been getting any stronger and just sits around talking at fountains, because that's generally the type of char that gets attracted to the evil side. That player definitely cheats with min-maxing using no tactical opportunities afforded by multiclass skills that help that character survive and cause lots of dmg. It wouldnt be possible that the worthless cleric, providing worthless team combat bonus, somehow buffed someone's stats even more using some obscure, cheat code miracle before the fight. Bc that would be cheat code worthy and should be nerfed immediately so that guildless chars have a chance. And everyone that got beat up in the fight described was well- prepared and ready for defending with miracles and specials and good team row chemistry too. Ultimately my conclusion is this specific character should be creatively forced to use a wooden club in all PVP encounters. Wait, that has an advantage against plate!

Also, its not possible in the past evils have quit because they thought that the goodies had advantages that were OP, or that darkelves complained about how miserable it was to be a darkelf and how they lost access to so much of the game permanently...

[Lauriert]

Wow, it's like everyone is just magically ignoring two new characters taking the order buff and standing up to Luminier and would rather tell me my character sucks.

Why do I even bother? Everyone always misinterprets my argument and says something basic and dumb. How, pray tell, is this even about Lauriert specifically? It wasn't until everyone just told me my character sucks. I could literally get all my stats to mythical and still lose and that's my problem.

For the record, I've appraised and scanned Delmon many times with 100 appraise skill. He's weaker at base, and less sturdy, but faster. Which is how every elf ever compares to him

[Brand]

This isnt an attack on Lauriert. This is simply a debate where some other players are willing to acknowledge that there are characters in this game that are very well honed, are operated with very good if not exceptional tactics, and are able to decimate teams that are composed of non optimized characters who may or may not be using good team tactics.

In response to this character being able to walk right over Brand, it frustrates me, yes. But I also recognize that Brands skill list and more specifically his stats are far from optimized. Brand was always meant to be a jack of all trades / RP focused character. I am able to use good tactics with some other characters and that has kept brand alive in some cases where he should have died. With that said, I do take solace in the fact that Brand is able and has scored some really good hits on the order character in question!

The fact is that two experienced players running high and medium level characters, using good tactics and maximizing the combat settings will be able to do some incredible damage to teams comprised of greater numbers. As far as the newbies who had the order buff, I would ask to see character names and/or some kind of context about that encounter before I chime in on any discussion about that scenario.

In the end, if there is a question in your mind about balance, send the question on to admin and ask for a spoiler free explanation on why it is or isnt an imbalance. If there is a question about a player exploiting a bug or somehow cheating, send the logs on to admin and ask for their take on the issue. As players we can debate it all day long one way or the other and it will only ever succeed in ticking people off, offending others and driving people away from the game.