Thu May 9 21:33:02 2013

At 7 o'clock AM, Day of the Bull, 1st of the Month of Nature
on the Theran calendar Indleslez perished, never to return.

Race:	dwarf
Class:	warrior
Level:	50
Alignment:	Neutral
Ethos:	Neutral
Cabal:	NEXUS, Nexus, Seekers of Balance
Age:	84
Hours:	65

I know the feeling of trying to retrieve against a full village, and trying to defend against three or four when they all come a'knockin. Generally, you do want to con-kill your hero character to learn the ropes, and I thought that you were learning. Often times, your character at hero is going to get beefed and eat death in those two or three rounds against established characters with two dozen edges and two to three hundred hours. After only 65 hours you weren't even close to hitting your stride.

Every Rhyme ever has probably told every applicant "This can be a very lonely road, and you won't have friends." Take what you can get, and enjoy the days that you have a billion BFF Islanders on. Nothing like bringing the pain with three bonded pairs, especially when you have bards and healers and trannies thrown into the mix. Good luck with your next, and stick it out.

I'm fairly new to hero (technically my first caballed hero) but have played a lot of chars over the years. I'm not a complete noob when it comes to certain things... but others I was absolutely clueless about and I think that was pretty obvious.

My delete stemmed from what came across as fair weather playing. Now I'll be the first to admit it honestly could just be peoples play times but whenever opposition showed up if things were looking bad everyone bailed IE logged off. Since I like to game for long hours at a time it was tough having 4-5 enemies and think we'd have some awesome skirmishes only to have everyone log as soon as I died or if we couldn't kill anyone right away.

Additionally I don't know if my newness turned people off but it felt like I was pulling teeth trying to get any other Nexus to help rank.

This night where I deleted I was left alone against 2+ outties and 4+ villagers and literally ran through 2 con fending them off. It may be lack of experience but when someone has my cabal item the only thing I assumed I should be doing is try to get it back and similarly if someone was trying to take it I should be doing everything I could to stop them, regardless of the odds, I guess I just don't know how to do that and not get slaughtered left and right.

I very much appreciate the fair fights offered to me by the Outlanders, they know who they were. I was surprised I did as well as I did against you guys given the reputation everyone had been spreading about your baddass-ness

The same goes for most of the Village. More often than not I felt we traded blows fairly well and was pleased I wasn't getting completely steamrolled every time we fought. However, as a player new to hero fighting two Villagers connected at the hip was disheartening. Having those same two villagers come and take the key and kill me in the process, and while still holding the key come back to the Isle to kill me again for even attempting to retrieve was just too much.

Thivirs- You were great, helpful with things when I needed it. I know you really didn't want to see me delete but I logged so many hours with NO ONE around it was hard to stay motivated when you weren't there to keep my spirits up

Thorindar- Appreciate the time we spent together, I think you were even more frustrated than I about the learning bit.

Nexus- I didn't really see much of the rest of you at all, never even met Mylene and I had a solid number of hours spread at random times over the past two weeks so that was sorta meh. The rest of you seemed to have your own agendas and it was disappointing to feel so excluded.

But your post spoke to me, so I will offer my 2 cents.

CF is full of fair weather players. It always has been. They often have two or three caballed chars and log on to whoever is winning at the time. The good thing is though, these chars never amount to much, and when they are gone, no one cares.

I would say in 65 hours you were still learning your char capabilities, but if you got stomped in two rounds each time you fought char A, B, and C alone, quit fighting them alone in the same situations if you can't think of something new to do. Cabal items are lost all the time. You can get them back eventually. Teleport potions are your friend.

If someone has your item and retrieving is certain death, go so something else for a while. If you keep trying to retrieve and keep dieing or almost dieing, that just keeps the defenders entertained and hanging around. Go gather preps for the meantime or hang out at the inn or whatever till some of them get bored and quit or you find allies.

I guess I get super paranoid about being constantly watched or that I was under some sort of imm microscope once I hit hero range. I didn't really consider NOT retrieving as an option

If you constantly quit everytime you lose your item, this might get noticed. If you take your time looking for a tenable opportunity to retrieve, you look like you know what you are doing.

Honestly as long as I don't get the impression that you couldn't care less that the cabal is being raided or that the Key is gone I'm not going to bust on you for it, and I'm probably the biggest hardass in the Island about that kind of thing.

That being said...

When I was a new player I did things your way... and I died. I died a lot. But it also helped me to improve fast.

But when Iklahn was Rhyme he said that islanders lives were more important than the key, which was just a tool.

I had an assassin though so I got to kill Jerry's svirf a few times which felt good. It's taken me half a dozen (mostly con dead) heroes since then though to feel somewhat competent at PK, this game is not forgiving. I think I still wouldn't stand a chance against a villager as a warrior in any other cabal, that's a power gap that stone skin + protection is barely going to impact. Your big 'advantage' against a villager is going to be the ability to q return/q teleport.

Yeah, in general, I'd agree that things have been somewhat slow around the Isle lately, really since Urgraj and Ursetra have been gone. But there's some good people still kicking around and some younger ones rising up now that have a lot of promise. These things tend to go in waves, and if you stick around for a while you'll find the next wave comes along and things can get much better fast. A couple strong characters and suddenly the whole dynamic is changed.

The many enemies thing is a mixed bag, for sure. It can be boring to have no one to fight, but overwhelming to have a ton of enemies that want to beat you down as a gang. And really a lone village warrior can be extremely tough to deal with in a 1 v 1 situation, depending on the builds. A few of them together against you can be downright hopeless, depending which builds you are up against.

Sorry our times didn't cross more. Would have liked to show you some things and run around a bit more but my family life realities lately makes my times chaotic and shorter than I'd like. But real life takes priority. I know I had to quit a time or two when you'd have liked to adventure but that's just how it goes. I don't see many people being wussies or quiting against the odds without fighting a bit first, but that does happen for sure.

With regard to getting cabal items back or defending, giving it a solid effort doesn't have to mean dying. Sometimes the only real option is to show up, test the waters briefly, and then run away...then wait it out a while. Or find some "friends" (or their shared enemies) to help you out. There are times when you're just not going to be able to retrieve alone and then the best option is focusing on something else for a while, like tending to the Veil, and then retrieving once they get bored of waiting around for you.

If you die, going back into the same situation to repeat is not a good plan unless you have a different strategy or you were really close to winning the fight and want to test if luck might go the other way. The one thing you have going for you over the Villagers always is a much better ability to get away using potions, and some ability to cover lag vulnerabilities (flight potions, bond-related bash protection, etc.). The best way to deal with Village raids is often to let them get hurt (softened, slowed, etc.) at the Abolisher and then move in. Timing is everything.

Good luck with your next go.

The absolute best things you can do with your first hero is to not care about dying and make sure to con-die.

Also, 65 hours is not nearly enough time to put into a character like this and expect to see the results you're looking for.

I'm sure being a Dwarf in Nexus right now sucks, but there are things you can do to make it suck less.

1. RP at the Outlanders. Not every member of the Tree is going to prioritize a Nexus Dwarf with Imperials and Tribs around. There were plenty of Dwarves who Jawn Foote left alone after some RP (mostly Heralds, but still.)

2. Avoid fighting Villagers on their terms! The good news is that Village enemies are very good at engineering situations where the fight is NOT on Village terms. Do this! Going to get the Key back against multiple defenders (while you're not even a hero yet) is usually going to go poorly (unless you are certain classes or specs.)

3. Make friends with Heralds.

4. Actually hero. You get a bunch of edge points when you hit 51. These help.

5. Most of the time, if it's a death sentence to retrieve or defend, depending on your religion/rp, you might not be "required" to die. Get out if you have to.

The fact that Nexus was down during your time with this character is just a trend. If you had played another 100 hours you might have found that everyone was bitching about how powerful Nexus had become.

Everything cycles.

Now you need to Hero a Villager.