Fri May 1 00:22:41 2020

At 9 o'clock AM, Day of the Sun, 6th of the Month of the Shadows
on the Theran calendar Zahgrud perished, never to return.

Race:	minotaur
Class:	shaman
Level:	43
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Orderly
Cabal:	EMPIRE, the Empire
Age:	41
Hours:	98

Worst CF experience I've ever had. At the end it even drove me to whining and going OOC, which is a new low. Probably not coming back, but I hate to make promises, so who knows.

Vets should not be ganging down people who suck. It's just stupid. Gangs of 3-4 people huting a player so bad they don't have even a single PK* in 100 hours. How is that even fun for you? Is it PK stats?

I kept it up for a long time with basically no recognition at all. 30 hours as divine voice with solid donations and requisite level, dunno how many hours at the next. Constantly retrieving, fighting (and dying) to Empire's enemies, recruiting a couple oaths and trying to do proper RP. Maybe my RP was bad., but just felt like everything I did was futile.

Morius you're cool but we talked twice, maybe half a third time in 100 hours. You're a volunteer and not obligated to do anything, but I personally struggle to do an empoweree without more interaction and some guidance. Did I just suck at RP from the start? Toward the end it certainly slipped.

CF has always had the problem that nobody tells you if you're doing it wrong, you just get ignored.

I have always liked playing the underdog, but I've never had to do it with minimal encouragement while seeing elite players rewarded for chasing you around in gangs.

Couple actual goodbyes:

Deiramor you're cool. Completely kicked my ass, but would also RP. If everyone played like this guy I'd be happy to be Thera's punching bag.

Ajanfindel, I was really disappointed in you. Still shouldn't have gone OOC. Sorry.

Other people, you know who you are, just blech. You're the reason I deleted. Or maybe you want to drive people away so you can do PVE? Well, good job.

Imperials were fine, not a ton of standout interactions. Feel bad for you. Deklast, keep trucking, Grahn you were helpful and seem competent.

*Did accidentally kill an AFK guy once. Sorry about that.

Aw man, you should have stuck around. You could probably have killed me at least :P. I was hoping to have some more fights and RP with ya. I hope you do change your mind and continue playing. We all ain't bad.

Would've been happy to play with you. Probably I wouldn't have killed you, but I don't mind, you were one o the few enemies who both RPed and fought one on one.

But you can completely ignore those people. Also, what we talked about was probably going to happen.

against decked out paladins

gotta know when to sit at 40/41. gotta know when to ALT. felt bad for you

Honestly I don't even mind playing against decked out paladins I stand no chance against. I have a good time mixing it up. But when they're carrying around a pocket healer and invoker 24/7 it's like... this isn't even fun.

I am sorry your experience was so terrible. As far as venting, I do understand being on the side of not being allowed to even breathe, and I do understand what it feels like to be ignored rather than encouraged during hard times. I do not hold venting against you, and expect at some point in time an immortal will say, "I was just about to...."

I am not understanding though what Ajanfindel did that was so terrible. I know you invited me to Thar-Acacia to fight you, but I did not see it as feasible to fight my through the shapeshifters only to fight someone with bash protection, dam-redux & healing on a stick, and the ability to blind/curse/poison/plague and the ability to recall away from combat at will. And this really is the reason why no one in their right mind wants to give a shaman a 'fair fight.' Fights with empowered characters are not, generally speaking, going to end with the empowered character dying if the empowered character is at all cautious.

Take a breath, go play catch with the kids, and come back when you have a cool character concept that gives you the itch. Until then, stay healthy.

>I am not understanding though what Ajanfindel did that was so
>terrible.

You bringing three other people to fight me. Like, seriously I'm not dangerous. You don't need paladin/invoker/healer backup. You completely owned me every other fight we had, I was constantly running and rarely even landed a single commune on you before being 1 or 2 rounds from death. Every time I actually fought you I felt like I was about to die. And yet you felt like it was so important to secure your kill that you call in the cavalry. Just... why?

I would happily fight you alone basically whenever you wanted to. I even tried attack you but you didn't see me and left the area. I always came to the Fortress to fight for the codex even though it's dangerous. How is it fun for you to win a 4v1 fight against someone who gives you plenty of chances and who you dominate alone?

>I did not see it as feasible to fight my through the
>shapeshifters only to fight someone with bash protection,

You've got to be kidding me. I never came anywhere near killing you or even seriously hurting you any of the times we fought. You're 7 levels up on me, geared to the hilt, and I am wearing desert cloaks and am terrible at this game. Maybe some shamans are challenging to fight but there was never even a hint that I could kill you. For what it's worth I never expected you to come to Thar-acacia and I was never mad about that.

say I'm pretty sure I watched parts of that fight. It's
interesting to me how both of you felt you were on rough side of
that fight, 1v1. I do think Ajanfindel has some accuracy in that
unless he manages to burst-damage you (which you were worried
about), that scenario is definitely more likely to end up badly
for him in the long-run than you. What I don't get is if you
didn't like the fight (that you very definitely saw incoming), why
not just leave?

Fortunately, shamans have reasonable resilience and staying power
(burst damage being a vulnerability), but shamans aren't burst-y
either, so it's hard to get a quick strike in guerrilla-style.
Definitely tough sometimes, and I've had to learn with some
characters to adjust my goals to where surviving is the win, or
force the playing field to your advantage by simply not giving
them battles of their choosing.

To this day, one of my favorite posts was Daevryn's RP post where
he comments that "good sportsmanship" may actually hurt our
experience at times. We've gotten to a point where we've set up a
false standard, compared to truly RPing the characters and
expecting these horrible, vile people our enemies are. It's
always nice to get a gentler ride, but expect the worst out of
them and be pleasantly surprised.

Unfortunately I wasn't really following your character, but
happened to randomly see that situation. Hopefully your next
gives you a better time, sometimes you just gotta ditch the ones
that aren't fun.

>say I'm pretty sure I watched parts of that fight.

I'm not sure which fight you mean, he and fought a few times. The very last time we hit each other he caught me fighting a mob, I was in a bad spot so I just worded. Other fights... I could check my logs but I don't remember every being able to land more than commune on him. And in the time it took to land it I was at half health, so I'd be approximately dead on commune 2.

I hear what you're saying about the long game being in my favor but that's only applicable if there actually is a long game. One thing that surprised me about this character is just how fast people could drop me through sanc/protecton/phys res. Maybe I'm supposed to prep stoneskin/aura?

>for him in the long-run than you. What I don't get is if you
>didn't like the fight (that you very definitely saw incoming),
>why
>not just leave?

I actually am happy to fight people I think I'm going to lose to. I generally think the game is more fun if people don't actually follow the advice of only sticking around for battles you start. Seems like a kind of stale way to play.


> We've gotten to a point where we've set up a
>false standard, compared to truly RPing the characters and
>expecting these horrible, vile people our enemies are.

I get that, and I recognize that in some sense it's better RP to be ruthless, but a game where it's mostly gangdowns and full loots is just less fun to me than solo fights and leaving whatever isn't an upgrade. People find ways to justify not looting RP-wise because nobody wants to regear all the time.

Honestly I would prefer group vs group fights overall, but there isn't generally the playerbase for it most of the time. And group vs 1 sad sack? I don't enjoy being on either side of that, so I'd rather see some sacrifice of RP in the name of making it fun.

. . . . .

I don't know the details of your fights and I don't want to know them.

That said, if your argument is that anyone who is capable of forcing you to retreat should come at you solo, then I respectfully disagree. I might agree with the modified statement: "They should bring no more than what is necessary to kill me," but most of the time that's a higher number than what's needed to force a retreat.

In the cabal wars dynamic you describe you just have to resign yourself to not having your item, avoid the gangs (*) at all costs and then look for other people to kill who you can actually beat.

(*) I realize this is easier said than done, especially for builds without stealth.

>That said, if your argument is that anyone who is capable of
>forcing you to retreat should come at you solo, then I
>respectfully disagree. I might agree with the modified
>statement: "They should bring no more than what is necessary
>to kill me," but most of the time that's a higher number than
>what's needed to force a retreat.

Necessary to kill me what percent of the time? Your argument sounds to me like nobody should ever fight solo because they won't land always land their kill.

>In the cabal wars dynamic you describe you just have to resign
>yourself to not having your item

Except if you aren't retrieving you aren't doing your duty and get anathed or at least don't rise. I was already spending dozens of hours not getting any basic promotions, doing even less seemed like a recipe for staying as Divine Voice forever. The cabal guardians are constantly reminding you what a failure you are. So sure you can decide you don't care about getting the codex but then your RP sucks.

>Necessary to kill me what percent of the time? Your argument
>sounds to me like nobody should ever fight solo because they
>won't land always land their kill.

Definitely not what I meant. It's a judgment call. I'm sure you can think of a build that could make someone flee 99% of the time but rarely land the kill. I don't fault that guy for bringing a friend.

>Except if you aren't retrieving you aren't doing your duty...

I can't speak for Empire imms, but I don't get the sense you're expected to die repeatedly while trying to retrieve from overwhelming odds.

My poor Zahgrud, I am sad to hear your experience was so terrible. I found you to be a delicious treat all the same. I don't think you were doing it wrong, and the religion is ever so transparent in what it demands, so don't feel that you did wrong there.

I hope you enjoy whatever you decide to play next.

Everyone says they like to play the underdog, but, they don't. Not really.

That's why bandwagons happen in the first place.

People like to win, or at least not constantly lose, more than they want to deal with adversity.

Everyone is playing to enjoy the game and getting PK'd constantly is not enjoyable.

There's very few players who can truly lone-wolf it is CF and not be bothered by the odds.

Only thing I can say is don't take this negative experience and become part of the problem.