I tried, a long time ago, a cloud ranger hunter villager when I had the idea that Deathblows should land pretty often with a bow as they can only be shield blocked or dodged. This was before we fully understood that hunter bearcharge is a complete waste of time. As such I would win fights in terms of beating enemies but could never quite seal the kill because of a lack of regular lagging ability. I was then told by 'An Immortal' through the Destructor, and I paraphrase here, that I need to get more kills or I will lose my hut as a berserker. I was then given a week to get 5 mage kills with my almost non-existant lag inducing build. I managed 3 and failed, got pissed off and deleted after getting uninducted because it was a failed character build.

So when I read Djetmai's PBF I was curious as to whether things have changed and standards dropped or if it just went unnoticed.

MY question is with regards to PKing ability as a berserker. It is a popular path in the village and sometimes it gets full and applicants are asked to wait or chose a different path so if we have a thief with 17 kills and 29 assists (23 of these were in 'cabal raids' based on location. The gank-o-meter then reads 'super-ganky' and this raises questions to me about the Imms/commander/Djetmai.

A berserker should be PK solid and have more than 17 PKs for 306 hours. It may be drawn into combat in cabals that get recorded as ganks as far as the gank-o-meter is concerned but if the berserker is proving to be inefectual as a solo-fighter and only shows any real use as a 'war-party' member, shouldn't the Imms/commander have a word with said berserker and, to begin with, suggest that they might consider changing paths to one more suited to them and later if the hint wasn't strong enough, tell them to show their prowess as a solo fighter more or risk losing the position of berserker forcably?

Maybe I am a little out of touch, maybe the Imms would see it as 'ruining' a character but I see it as an RP reason to hold berserkers to the higher standards within the village, therefore, an RP opportunity for the player in question to let the character evolve.

Anyway, I am not hating on Djetmai but curious as to the Imms reasons for letting the 'so-called' standards for berserkers drop.

For what it's worth, this was how I saw it, playing Djetmai-- I played aggressively in terms of attacking any perceived enemies whenever I got the chance, unless they were going to be a surefire suicide mission, and even then sometimes I'd go for it. I chased magi/nexuns whenever I could, attacked them in all cities despite the Tribunal being around, etc. I defended to the death without hesitation.

The problems I had with getting kills were largely due to my build, which was well-suited to scaring the crap out of people, defending against raids, causing confusion, etc., but not sealing kills because:

1) I had no way to stop people from running that were flying. And trip only works so well fighting solo.
2) Fighting one-on-one, I couldn't circle stab and had no real kill sealing skill to deal a lot of damage or cause bleeding
3) Being a thief (and still learning my way around), it was difficult to hunt outside of cities and roads where I could hide. People saw me coming and typically ran unless they were ready for me.
4) Often there weren't enough kills to go around. Some Villagers were very quick to call targets and the whole parity thing often left me watching others fight from the shadows.

Most fights that I "won" ended in people running or quaffing, which happened a lot. It wasn't like I just ran around in groups, just sat at the cabal, or really that I ever jumped into others fights unless it was a raid. I was almost always running around alone. Then when people did die, it was often when I'd be fighting them during a raid situation, and Salyeris or some bloodthirsting warrior would come in and blast them down with a powerful round or two. That kind of stuff happened a lot, and pushed my gank-meter to where it was despite doing what I honestly felt like was a reasonable job at a berserker. The stats can be a bit deceiving.

Regardless, having played nexuns a couple times I'll admit that the berserker warriors were nearly invincible to me. But I've also seen it from the other side and saw the berserker warriors dropping like flies in a lot of situations. As a thief with this kind of build and still learning the game, this is how it ended up as a berserker--just not that deadly and quite easy to kill for a lot of matchups. If I'd studied as a thug/binder I think it would have probably been a much different story.

As for whether being a berserker should be a reward for something, I guess I don't have a real opinion other than that if it was strictly PK-based you'd tend to be rewarding the badass PKers to be even more dominant whereas someone like me that's looking for a little boost to help be competitive is left with less options. Plus the choice in path is really supposed to be RP based, right?

There needs to be no more than 3 in the Village at any given time, until and unless either the percentage of dam redux on resist is nerfed across the board or DB becomes only a dispel prog. Relative to the rest of the Village, they should be rare and as difficult to obtain as Vindicator status (and never has been for a much smaller payoff). e.g. the culture surrounding them as elite warriors should be a vanguard-cult rather than a separate and equal path.

DB is on par with cabal leader powers (regardless of the skill level of the victim and their ability to counter with niche builds or dam redux steamroll through it), and it's high time they were treated like it.

It is a relatively simple solution that I'm surprised no one suggested ten years ago, but because the perception of how balance should be has been skewed for about that long or longer, it never will be implemented.

nt

n/t

Are you saying that people could be a scout or a defender and then be middle of the road and just wait to be "promoted" to berserker? If so, what would their compensation be for losing db?

You can be a scout or defender, then after X mage kills and good rp, you get the option of going berserker, or staying your choice and maybe get something like trophy.

It would, by sheer virtue of the added administration, certainly cut down on the pre-40 berserkers, but the rewards have, for years, been properly at the scale of a promotable reward and never have been treated accordingly. It really should be more like Maran or Empire.

It would make sense for Drillmasters at the very least to exclusively be berserkers, and then the other 2 out of the 3 are titled Berserker of the Village. Not only does it become a prestiege reward but it properly warns opponents ahead of time who they are dealing with rather than having to ask their cabalmates stupid questions about their capabilities.

Yes, there are more berserkers most of the time, but how many berserkers in the village at one time are probably truly kicking ass and not running 1-1 or losing ratios? I have to think really it's no more than 3 anyway. Usually less.

To me, I don't see the merit in saying you start as scout or defender then switching at some point like 20 mage kills. Frankly, I think more berserkers would actually want to change to scout defender once they've been around a while and experienced the drawbacks of the berserker and realize that DB & thirst won't net you kills easily against a lot of people.

DB thirst and trophy are not 100% obviously greater powers, in my opinion, then critical/discern/evasion or poultice/bandage/field dress, and that is how there is balance I suppose. Defenders give great survivability (which in the right hands translates to offensive ability), scouts give a mix of survivability and killing ability. Berserkers get pure killing potential in exchange for far greater likelihood of dying than any other path. To me it's an equal trade off and generally newer players that take berserker end up doing pretty poorly because DB really is not a win button. Most builds have a path best suited to them, and it's not always the obvious one.

But, since this was about tiered structures, how about this?
If anything, go applicant, then blooded villagers all get resist, truesight and spellbane. At five mage kills you choose a path and get 1 skill of the path. Ten mage kills total means 2, fifteen mage kills unlocks the last power.

So at 5
Scouts get discern
Defenders get poultice
Berserkers get trophy.

10
Scouts get evasion
Defengers get field dress
Berserkers get DB

15
Scouts get critical
Defenders get bandage
Berserkers get thirst

Or you get two skills at 5 mage kills and at ten mage kills you unlock the last skill.

Given I don't think the cabal skills are that truly powerful, and that the intent is to really just cut back on rampant berserkers stomping ass, especially pre level 40 (which really I have never seen as a rampant problem anyway- rank sitting assassins are far more common) I don't think a high bar to all the powers really would be needed. I almost always see ragers in general ranking quick as they can. And lots of turnover in the cabal since people die so much in it.

Honestly, I'm fine with ragers getting all their powers on induction, but for discussion's sake thought I would throw out an idea. To me, the best pkers are deadliest when not playing villagers. Sure, a berserker may pull out a miracle win sometimes with DB or thirst, but for every one of those logs there are ten logs of berserkers getting stomped with nothing they can do about it but stand and walk back to their corpse. It is sort of telling that I'm not a great pker and yet Allysia PKed villagers somewhat effectively (in large % berserkers more so than any other). Yeah, power build against them, but still, generally speaking I was killing people with far more PK experience/skill than me and almost never dying to them.

Yeah, was bored since we can't log in so wrote a bit here.

x

Actually no, you don't

The only thing that would convince me berserkers are imbalanced would be if you played a 300 PK berserker. I would probably take a hard look at my assumptions if that were to happen.

#butitwon't

There really isn't enough people around to rack up those numbers without playing an excessive amount of hours. I mean, it all comes down to the argument you guys are tired of hearing. You can listen to the less experienced or less skilled players on how to make things more enjoyable, or you can listen to the player counts. I have no real horse in the race either way and haven't for over 3 years. This change would probably be ideal when (not if) Zulg's no preps switch is flipped. But that won't occur either, they are going to more or less be allowed to run roughshod over the entire MUD.

I mean, Batman on what was merely his second or third character racked up nearly 100 kills with zero area knowledge, and veteran Rager players still gave him the middle finger with the proof in the pudding. That was a thread I brought up, by the way, with the pbf to prove it.

Robdarken for example has proven to be a better playerkiller than me ten times over. I would hate to see him play a rager berserker, because not only will he rival Graatch who managed to consistently die to me on at least one occasion even in group battles with backup, but he would probably get those numbers, or at least between 200 and 250, in under 200 hours. He's played enough orcs to know how an RBW should work. Not only could he do that but he would be less of a prick about it than Jerrokrar.

Now, you personally Mal would probably boot him from Village before letting him get that far because he will probably full sac most people who mouth off to him or very rarely are ultra-conservative or an actual threat. So, as far as being a role model, he'd be terrible. But I could see him pulling Quas' numbers without too much trouble, if he could be arsed to play anymore.

But all of that, including killcounts, really is besides the main point that many Maran would gladly trade Maran powers for Rager powers. Vindicators certainly could rack up more kills with DB alone on a shapeshifter than bloody shackles and loss of wanted, they could spank the Outlander cabal which is historically one of the more difficult cabals to raid right up there with the Destructor (I have solo raided both, so I do know what I'm talking about) and the long illustrious history of their killcounts really hasn't added up to the no magic restriction when they are standing around patrolling Eastern anyway.

Bard Repertoire Clarifications:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=23735&mesg_id=23735&page=

Robdarken did play a zerker while Malakhi was leader, and was like 80-80, and then followed up with Lirad - a Mage - who was 174-42. How anyone could possibly look a those results and say Ragers are imbalanced has never made sense to me. Lirad completely owned every battlerager except me.

80-65.

I played Dotran entirely differently from Lirad. Lirad marked the beginning of a very core shift in my playstyle.

Lirad was careful. Dotran I actually suicided myself on Kyaltaru and his lifesurge at the waist healer like 5 times in 2 hours for the fun of it.

Lirad attacked anything that moved(except orcs). Dotran I wanted to be more careful than most ragers and not spend all my time picking on people who aren't enemies of the village. Dotran actually cared that who he attacked had earned it, Lirad did not. I played Dotran like a goodie in regards to pk restriction. If Dotran had been chaotic evil and less concerned about it, it'd be an entirely different story.

Lirad actually wore gear. Dotran typed outfit and pincered people.

Lirad did not own every rager except you, ragers were my biggest challenge except for paladins, I was just very eager to focus on them. 75% of the time every single rager kicked my ass. I just ate the newbies(which battle tends to be full of, which is why you think ragers suck).

The two characters don't compare.

I am quite certain there's a rager who's pulled an enormous amount of pk wins and then did badly on a mage, probably even a shapeshifter, and just didn't publish the pbf. This is a really nonsense argument.

Edit for clarification in the title, alignment comparsion, etc.

nt

>I am quite certain there's a rager who's pulled an enormous
>amount of pk wins and then did badly on a mage, probably even
>a shapeshifter, and just didn't publish the pbf. This is a
>really nonsense argument.
>


I'm not sure what argument you think I'm making. It's not an argument, it's an attack on credibility.

Scrimbul, not me, specifically used you and Batman as Exhibits 1 and 2 for why Ragers are overpowered. Moreover, the only objective bases he used from you two guys were your PK stats. (Batman's only PK stats and your hypothetical PK stats.). He also said that your rager would get kicked out.

I cast doubt on the credibility of his support by pointing out that you actually had played a solid rager that did not get kicked out, and your rager's PK stats were far less than his hypothetical ones, as well as far less than the ABS Mage that you played immediately afterward.

As for the quoted section, above, if
1. that Rager-player's ONLY Mage sucked at PK, and
2. that Rager-player claimed that Mages were overpowered,
then, yes, I think his only mage's PK suckiness is directly relevant to the credibility of his opinion that Mages are OP.

--Honestly I'm not sure if you even know what your argument is. An attack on credibility doesn't say anything about ragers.

Scrimbul, not me, specifically used you and Batman as Exhibits 1 and 2 for why Ragers are overpowered. Moreover, the only subjective bases he used from you two guys were your PK stats. (Batman's only PK stats and your hypothetical PK stats.). He also said that your rager would get kicked out.

--You said you'd only believe ragers were OP if Scrimbul got 300 on one, with no other reasonings behind it. Why is different when you do it?

I cast doubt on the credibility of his support by pointing out that you actually had played a solid rager that did not get kicked out, and your rager's PK stats were far less than his hypothetical ones, as well as far less than the ABS Mage that you played immediately afterward.

--However, he said the reason I would get kicked out is for full saccing people though, which I do a lot more now. About my rager's pk stats being significantly lower than the supposed, Dotran also isn't the supposed character in his example. PKing well was not my focus on Dotran at all. It was on Lirad.

1. that Rager-player's ONLY Mage sucked at PK, and
2. that Rager-player claimed that Mages were overpowered,
then, yes, I think his only mage's PK suckiness is directly relevant to the credibility of his opinion that Mages are OP.

--It is simply not that black and white. Real situation: I've gone 81-10 on a fire warrior and then got 5-7 on the exact same build in one year. I also say fire sword is fairly op. What does my credibility have to do with it? When I say fire sword is op I say why, not how many kills I got on it. Scrimbul didn't use this reasoning first, you did.

You're not making much sense, or at least, I strongly disagree with your reasoning.

edit: Reread your example situation, didn't get what you were trying to say. I understand what you said now but I don't see how it makes sense. Whether or not you've played something well or more than once doesn't effect whether it's OP or not. And I just don't buy the credibility thing, I don't think it matters. Not because credibility never matters, but because we have no reliable way to determine credibility here, there is no track record, just opinions and slander. You're free to use that as your personal guideline, but I don't think it's fair or well reasoned.

Let me make this clear, there is no objective reason why your opinion is any better than Scrimbul's, no matter how many people here like the appeal to credibility. That is all I'm saying.

I just don't like how when anyone criticizes ragers it ALWAYS turns into a pissing contest. I'm not for or against anyone's stance here, but what Scrimbul was saying is way more reasonable than you saying "Well, get 300 pks on a rager, then we'll talk. BUT IT WONT HAPPEN"

That has nothing to do with anything. Sorry for a million edits, I just don't want to make the thread bigger by responding over and over.

I see it as a two step process:
1. Do you think Ragers are OP?
2. What are the bases for your opinion?

If you want to know my argument/opinion, I do not think RBWs are OP. The bases for my opinion include the following:

i. Versatility. RBWs are not versatile. They are difficult to explore with relative to other options. They can't heal themselves or others. They can't stack on DR. They can't magically transport themselves. They can't buff themselves with their friends' spells/supps/healing. They can't use locate object to find their enemies. They can't get to places that require magical means. That lack of versatility limits the upper end of their power.

ii. Survivability/evasiveness. No flee/quaff. No flee/hide-camo-duo. No word of recall. No access to healers or healing. RBWs are the only combo I can think of whose only escape option is to walk away and rely on fast healing.

iii. "Parity.". For whatever RP reason, RBWs are crippled by a parity restriction. I want to say they are the only combos in the game with this kind of drawback. So no summon gangs, no staggered lag with your buddies to take down tough characters, etc. (eta: I do not think parity is necessary to balance RBWs, I think it is just throw in restriction based on the cabal's history.)

The above combine to make for a character with limited power potential that requires a tremendous amount if cleverness to survive and be successful with. The reason why talks about RBWs come down to a pissing contest is because I do not think Scrimbul or Artificial appreciate how challenging it is to play with the above restrictions. It is hard for me to respect the opinion of someone that focuses on DB as though the power exists in a vacuum, completely removed from the attendant restrictions.

What they get in exchange is a higher power baseline than most other characters. But the problem is, other classes can achieve an even higher baseline! For example, once an invoker finds a sleek set, I think that invoker undisputedly now has a MUCH higher power baseline than a RBW.

Also, the other reason why i think Scrimbul's idea is meritless is because, as we've discusses at other points in this thread, most RBWs are not doing well. The 2 or 3 successful ones would still be getting powers under the Scrimbul system. Who cares if some sad sack 10-45 RBW gets berserker powers. Why do we have to take away his powers just because he sucks at PK when he is not impacting other players in a meaningful way. Scrimbul's idea is based on a faulty assumption that most RBWs amass 80 PKs as a matter of course. When in fact, the vast majority are doing much worse.

I consider deathblow equal to a/b/s. I got 177 kills on my first pk-heavy character (who still had restrictions on who he killed) and who spent probably at least 1/3 of his time not able to hunt due to summoning and being lazy by not using slow potions/wands as well as spending a lot of time RPing (Rindros was an RP focused, not pk focused, character).

My biggest challenge and risk was ALWAYS RBWs. I would run roughshod over everyone else, but RBW gave me problems. Especially when they were defending and would gang on me more than usual. But this is simply a preface.

Problem with the village #1: It is always advantageous to induct anything that breathes.

Because of how the veil works, more ragers able to log on the better. Also it is more people to loot magic stuff to thicken the veil, but this is to a lesser degree the issue.

As well, rbws are at their peak in the midranks (like having a/b/s in the midranks). As such, having more people to retrieve and prevent the "lol ragers are so weak without the head" issue, even if you technically can't gang with your cabal mates (as if that stops some of them).

#2: The items thickening the veil being magical is an advantage only for (poor sport) RBWs.

If I want to roll a RBW that always takes all magic from my enemies, I would be more justified than most in playing a fullsac role, since theres a mechanical and roleplay reason for doing so.

However, there is no such justification for others who kill said RBW, since giving his non magic stuff to the couriers doesn't give them anything, and they just come off as a poor sport.


Unfortunately I need to head to work before I write more. Essentially my issue is that the village encourages throwaway characters that are equal in power to those that have to spend numerous hours to gain said power. Having some barrier of entry, or higher standards for berserkers, would alleviate this issue.

Flowery words without merit.

When you and scrimbul play three rbws and see how it works from the other side, maybe we'll talk. Malakhi's being silly arguing with people who don't know what they're talking about.

Villagers are so weak because they die a lot, and can be killed solo by any class played by one armed newbies using only knee and elbow.

Once again, argument from accomplishment fallacy.

But even assuming your argument was valid (its not, its a fallacy), saying that the ratio of power to time/rp investment is much greater than anyone else isn't related to having played one or not.

nt

n/t

It used to be "play a rager and we'll talk."

Except when someone who disagrees mentions they've played a rager.

Now it's three, leads me to think none of you calling for "experience" actually care, you just flat out won't consider reevaluating your opinion, but want to shoot down the opposing stance with empty potshots.

I've played a rager with even more pk restrictions than they come with, I fought everyone I could and didn't play even half as carefully as I could have. I did not feel that many drawbacks, I played around them. I still did better than half of the people who roll ragers. That's because most of the people who often roll ragers are bad, just like Fort. Except Fort doesn't get deathblow/resist/spellbane. They're not weak, they have crappy players.

Batman also thinks ragers are strong, and easier for an average player to do well with than a mage. Compare when he played Xilia(Gnome shapeshifter: 5-108) to when he played Gulkra(svirf rbw: 117-76)

If experiences and ####ty pk stats matter, how come when someone offers it you just keep saying "well it's not enough?"

You're full of crap.

You can disagree but these dismissals are, and I quote, "just noise."

I do think that anyone making outrageous claims about any CF combo without having played said combo is being something of a douche.

Edited to add: Though I do think it takes about three shots at a given combo (for the average player) to make that combo sing. YMMV, Rob, but I wouldn't classify you as "the average player."

And logic can only be faulty, not douchey.

Disagree. Don't say "come back later and we'll talk."

THAT is being a douche, the intent is to dismiss without any reference to what the person is actually saying.

And personally, I don't even want ragers changed(except maybe how parity is handled). I just disagree that they're so horribly weak that they take massive skill to do correctly. I like deathblow, I don't want it taken away, someday when I pick up the game heavily again I'd like to play another RBW. I do think it's IMBA but I also think it can be dealt with(frustratingly).

But I do hate how everything a rager does seems to be justified by virtue of "how hard it is to be a rager."

When it's criticized, I disagree even more with the ideal of just saying "nope, you can't talk, go home."

I honestly think I just hate ragers so much because the people who play them do not mesh with my personality at all. When I was Dotran I hated my cabalmates except twist(but I only had Jerrokrar and some french asshole). I full sac ragers on every single character because almost all of them rub me the wrong way.

Firstly, there are a number of people on these forums who seem to consider themselves paragons of logic and delight in pointing out which fallacy any given poster has fallen prey to. That's all well and good, but the fact is that none of these people are Spock and all of them are as given to illogical thought and posting as anyone else. A few of them tend to use "logic" to try to dodge discussion. That's douchey.

Regarding "come back later and we'll talk." That's a perfectly valid request. If someone is ignorant, yet still wishes to have a discussion, there's nothing wrong with asking them to educate themselves a bit before the discussion begins.

Regarding "how hard it is to be a rager." Now, I know that the plural of "anecdote" is not data, but when it comes to these situations all any of us can do is cite our own experiences. However, I've been playing a non-Villager (non-mage) (with some pretty deep restrictions) and to be honest, it's like playing with training wheels on. From my experience it's much, much harder to play a Villager than a non-Villager.

Also, I'm not quite sure you can pigeonhole people who play ragers. With over two-thousand Village hours under my belt I can honestly say that the cabal attracts players and characters of every stripe. To assume that there's just one type of player who rolls Battle is pretty misinformed.

--The thing about the logic thing is you can do it too, and if you're being clear any of them are more than likely to accept it. The ideal behind applying logic to these kind of discussions is to refine points down until they are clearly understood and set apart from anecdote. Originally both people may be wrong, or even the one going for the logical argument, but the thing about logic is that once it actually arises it objectively gets you somewhere. Comparing experiences is a lot less valuable. It just doesn't get that far here because few accept it.

Regarding "come back later and we'll talk." That's a perfectly valid request. If someone is ignorant, yet still wishes to have a discussion, there's nothing wrong with asking them to educate themselves a bit before the discussion begins.

--But who decides? Why? And how come one day Graatch decides you need to play a rager, and then the next he decides you have to play three? What if he's just flat out wrong that you have to play one at all? You can personally require that, but if you're just basing it on your feelings you're likely denying yourself the chance to learn/reevaluate by refusing to weigh in his opinion. Artifical is not a newbie, I think he's more than capable of understanding anything about this game you do, if you can explain it. If you can't, is it so impossible that you are mistaken that he shouldn't be allowed to contest it? And why are you the exception and not him?

Regarding "how hard it is to be a rager." Now, I know that the plural of "anecdote" is not data, but when it comes to these situations all any of us can do is cite our own experiences. However, I've been playing a non-Villager (non-mage) (with some pretty deep restrictions) and to be honest, it's like playing with training wheels on. From my experience it's much, much harder to play a Villager than a non-Villager.

--Being a rbw is rough at hero because you are no longer desperately OP like in the mid thirties, and you have no escape mechanism with high expectations for aggression. It's frustrating because when you hit a wall with someone, you can't stop and say "Well let me try to get more preps" and just have to pray for deathblows. It really depends who you're up against and how much you care about not being a ####. I think average player vs. average player, villager is way easier. Being a non-villager is only massively advantageous if you're either a) not aggressive or don't like dying, or b) very good at the game to start with, as it removes the power roof and you get to pick more of your fights. But an exceptional player on a rager is not hard if you can accept that you will die sometimes when an enemy cabal is overwhelming you and you have to defend, because that is not the majority of the time, most of the time you can maintain a fair degree of control of your situation no matter who you are fighting.

Also, I'm not quite sure you can pigeonhole people who play ragers. With over two-thousand Village hours under my belt I can honestly say that the cabal attracts players and characters of every stripe. To assume that there's just one type of player who rolls Battle is pretty misinformed.

--Maybe I can't. But you have to consider I don't like many of the players who play ragers to start with. As far as anecdotes go, I seriously just don't have the same experiences with characters in other cabals regarding ####-talking, lying, and huge egos, whether in or out of the cabal. I always run into crappy attitudes from battle characters that I almost never do coming from anywhere else. And let me revise that earlier statement: I always wind up full-saccing ragers. I don't full sac them just because they're ragers(much as it tempts me).

>--The thing about the logic thing is you can do it too...

Oh, absolutely. Anyone can do it. The issue is not with applying logic to a discussion. It's that some posters choose to shut down discussion with "APPEAL TO PITY! YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID" when, in fact, very few arguments made around here are so cut and dried. A given argument may contain elements that are fallacies, but CF isn't 4chan and it isn't some Truther forum. The arguments presented here (likely because they all revolve around a common experience with limited parameters)are generally cleaner than you might find elsewhere. Also, if you're going to appeal to logic, do so, don't just point a finger and cackle. (I'm not saying that you're guilty of this, by the way.)

>--But who decides?

It's pretty obvious, from my POV, that a person who is educated or experienced in a matter can decide whether or not someone's education or knowledge on a subject is sufficient to warrant discussing said matter with them. I set up relatively complex intelligent lighting systems for a living. Frequently people I work with/for have an opinion as to how to set up these systems. If I discern during the first sixty seconds that someone has no basic understanding of the limits of the communication protocol between the console and the fixtures, I'm not going to accept an argument that they might make to "just do it this way." While everyone is entitled to their opinion, if you don't know what the #### you're talking about I'm not obligated to listen to you.

Now, regarding Artificial and his ability to grok aspects of Carrion Fields: You may be right. He may be a savant. He may be a freaking wizard, but the fact remains that he is still saying "X is easy" without demonstrating just how easy X is. This is the antithesis of his belief that claims require evidence and it's pretty annoying to observe.

As for your opinion that Battle is easier than non-Battle, I can't argue with you on that, as depending on playstyle this will or will not hold true for any given player. As far as I can tell from fighting your characters, they mostly play like Battle anyway (not prepping much, being aggressive, covering lots of ground without magic) so to each their own on that one.

And I still think you're mistakenly pigeonholing "people who play Battle." Granted, one Jerrokrar can really sour people on a whole cabal and I know people get fed up with Quas, but in my experience there are, at any given time, three or four extremely well RPed, parity-observing, kick-ass Villagers around. Anyone who can't find them may not be putting as much effort into RP as they think they are.

The amount of deaths is irrelevant to the discussion. That has more to do with the fights a player chooses to pick, only a very very small percentage of those deaths are unavoidable.

You and Graatch are two of the most disingenuous douchebags on this game, including the Imms. Really, the proof is right in front of you.

A newbie on his second character. *second* with NO prior MUD experience, managed 117 kills with an RBW. Not even a giant sword, which would have probably gotten just as many kills as pincersvirf.

Zero area knowledge.

All the restrictions a normal RBW has.

Pincering unshifted Heralds, unfortunately for you, counts so long as your reply is 'Spend cumulatively 24/7 days for 2 years straight playing this combo that pretty much every single player playing for over 3 years understands the power and restrictions of, in an environment where the player peak is between 20 and 45 players. Have fun with on average only two potential targets in your PK at any given time, probably less.' In that case, yes, the fact that his opponents were inexperienced sacks of sh it just like him, counts.

That one example is a large enough sample size to call it, no matter how many people you claim are 10-45. That simply means they aren't aggressive enough and are also being hunted by people more experienced than them. My own killcounts would be much lower with a Rager of any kind, berserker or not, proportional to a low deathcount because I always without exception get screwed on rolling the dice on the RNG which is the basis of this game.

My personal problem with the lack of investment Ragers have is not actually deathblow, it's resist. If they could take damage, they wouldn't have the opportunity to dish it out without actually playing smart rather than just pulling Gulkras and jumping people repeatedly till DB fires, and everyone would be happy.

Balancing this game is not rocket science. It does not require the level of insight the Immstaff and veteran players consistently claim it does. I have been playing 10 years, long enough to know this and be able to point it out. The refusal to admit this is why people like me are watching the CF world burn, with glee I might add, and amusing ourselves on things like Dark Souls and League of Legends. The former will get frustrating for the same reasons as CF did (slow or non-existent response to feedback) and the latter is somehow enjoyable despite the dreck of the community because at least it's more or less balanced and has all but removed the influence of the RNG while still allowing for tactical maneuvering.

Where as CF is still stuck on Deathblow and A/B/S. I'd rather deal with the +5 lightning weapons at sub-level 20 in Dark Souls, the equivalent of facing Humansunder at level 15, thanks.

Resist is your problem? The dam redux they get is 40-50% I believe I could be wrong but that isnt much compared to what you can get relatively easy. Shield and aura are more than resist. add in prot and stone skin thats a big boost. Than add in poppy shots, and invoker shields. It isnt newbie friendly at all if they cant get their first pk NORMALLY they cannot get in. Seeing invis for an applicant can be a bitch. DB and the village are almost older than I am. if it was imbalanced dont you think the imms would of realized it or do you simply think they are all stupid?

nt

It is far simpler for a rager to keep resist up non stop then it is for a non-battle warrior to keep up dmg redux. What most smart ragers do is if they see you are preped, they won't fight. It is a smart move on their part, because they know as soon as your preps drop you are at a severe disadvantage. And also, many of the preps you listed come with some drawbacks associated with them. They may not be HUGE drawbacks, but they are still drawbacks that can bite you in the ass.

Yes, resist is not as much % redux as a non rager can get, but it is WAY simple to call resist as soon as it drops then to pop potions/pills/wands/talismans etc.

That is what we are debating not whether it is harder or not. Bottom line is fighting a berserker makes people learn to have to make others fight on their terms. Learning to fight them is like learning to fight anyone else. Any non-rager warrior is just as strong as any rager at any level. It all depends on how skilled the player is. I am done agruing at this point. There is only two people agruing the other way and I am sure the silent majority believes the village is fine.

Mostly, that the players you are mercilessly mowing down with your rager are total n00bs.

I love that everyone said mages with under-powered at ranks 15-35 and ragers were so OP at those ranks, and then I played Jindicho and mercilessly raped nearly every villager (but Ohbehb and Gaplemo's rager...who I was 1-1 against) that I came across.

I will agree with the rager haters in this, ragers are WAAAAAAAAAY less work than a comparable mage/warrior that is not a rager at those levels. But as Malakhi said, the price you pay for the easiness of "call resist;deathblow;deathblow;deathblow" is that you have a very limited power threshhold that nearly every other character does not have.

PS Completely random thought about a point you made earlier. Fire Sword is not OP, but played by an elite PK'er it can be. I think that's a key distinction. I mean ####, Shapa and Jaguab made Gnome Warriors seem OP. It's not the game, it's the player my man.

What if I petition for a gnome anti-paladin based on a neat role I write and get it? What if being a gnome anti-paladin gave me some way to harvest 3 biller souls in 2 minutes. Not a bug. Would you be allowed to call him OP since you haven't played him?

I bet you would be able to. Fortunately, I'm not the idiot that would tell you to play one before you talk.

talk about how you're vuln_blunt so its balanced.

Mostly because that character was the greatest "Hey let's charge this group of 8 EMPIRE chars with just us two" perhaps of all time.

Still loved Xilia though. Though I liked Xiu more :)

Different stories.

"Mostly because that character was the greatest "Hey let's charge this group of 8 EMPIRE chars with just us two" perhaps of all time."

Gulkra played the same way as Xilia in this regard, except with thirst/resist/spellbane/deathblow. ;)

That's obviously not the whole story but the comparison is no less silly.

NT

No, it is not the same thing because Batman is not saying defense shifters are OP.

If Batman were saying:

1. that defense shifters are OP and
2. Ragers don't have a chance against the OP defense shifters,
then yes, it would be the same thing to use Batman's superior Rager character's stats as an attack on his and his argument's credibility.

Do you honestly not see a difference? This is relatively uncontested stuff you learn in advocacy, and I don't even think it is remotely controversial compared to other advocacy tactics like suggesting someone is biased.

1. that defense shifters are OP and
2. Ragers don't have a chance against the OP defense shifters,
then yes, it would be the same thing to use Batman's superior Rager character's stats as an attack on his and his argument's credibility.

--Dotran vs. Lirad doesn't fit into this either, I never said anything close to "ragers are so op that shapeshifters don't stand a chance," or even mages. I don't think I've even said the word mages. Where are you getting all of this from? It's really incoherent. The closest thing I've said to any of this is that rbws were my toughest matchup most of the time with Lirad, you're stretching it well beyond reason.

I don't fit into the conditions you yourself put forth. It's not different from comparing Xilia to Gulkra, and, again, seriously, the conditions for your comparison don't even apply to me.

Does not compute.

But I was not replying to you when I discussed Lirad, I was replying to Scrimbul, who DID say Ragers are OP, and who DID explicitly refer to you and Batman as proof (I never even mentioned you or your characters until he did).

I'm not even sure I disagree with your opinion re: Ragers because as far as I can tell, you haven't expressed one, yet. You just don't think PK success has any relevance to whether or not a power is overpowered. I could be convinced of that, but then I don't know a better, alternative measure. Also, I do not think Scrimbul knows how to play CF and attacking his PK credentials is easier than going through his baseless assumptions like I did in my earlier response to you.

Also, as a sidenote, I will admit that it is VERY impressive that Batman made a level sitting lowbie killer with his second CF character. Most of us are trying to figure out how lag works or how to get to Darsylon at that point, so kudos to him for Gulkra's PK accomplishment. If he wants to say all of the credit for his only PK success goes to Rager OP-ness, I agree he should be entitled to do it. (and it's surprising he hasn't had similar success in the subsequent years.)

I appear to be ignorant in said advocacy, and I am unable to understand what you were really concluding with this.


Not as an insult or anything, seriously. Your other posts sounded better.

In this one you even break it down into 1., 2. - and I STILL don't get what the argument is.




HOW DO I ADVOCACY 101'ED?



(and yes, I actually went for an unbanned IP so I could post this huehueuhe)

Sure.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witness_impeachment#section_3

Scrimbul used your PK stats and Rob's hypothetical PK stats as proof/evidence of his argument that Ragers are OP. I used Rob's contemporary Mage character for the purpose of attacking Scrimbul's credibility, not as the basis for my own argument that Ragers are not OP.

If you want, we can discuss it on the offtopic board.

I have played mages, ragers, and non-rager warriors. I kicked twice as much ass with non-rager warriors because you dont have so many weaknesses. Berserkers are vuln bash, trip, dam redux, cant use healers, cant access all places, cant word, cant teleport, vuln movement maladict, and can never travel with mages. Name one other cabal/class/race combo that has THAT many weaknesses?

I doubt you have one.

Let me use your stance:

You don't have the experience to determine what is strong because you suck. Play a strong char and get back to me.

What do you consider strong? 100-400 pks or someone who normally goes above even? I have had characters that have been 18 and 1 before I deleted. I have never even heard of any of your characters ever being strong.

Is this hard?

Best pk stats
character name
go.

If this is how you want to argue let's see you back it up.

Forid 27 and 8.
Cant remember the orc with with 18 and 1.

But see how this works?

Now I can say: "Welp, this doesn't meet my standards, you suck, go home, you haven't played a character who was 100-20 like me so you can't have an opinion here until you know what you're talking about. If you had a ever played a good pk character you would have the experience to talk, but you don't, and you never will because it's TOO HARD BRO"

I'd be okay with Graatch saying experiences matter if he'd ####ing support his opinion at all, then I'd actually even weigh in his reputation. But he never does, never has. He just says what can be summed up as "fake post." I don't understand the "I'm right, you're wrong" mentality.

Malakhi made that kind of post earlier. Then he made a really good post explaining his stance, and I can see where he's coming from a whole lot better due to that post, and while I still don't agree on some points, I think it's far more productive than just "play a rager."

Anyways. I see where your coming from but Articial has never played a villager and never experienced all the drawbacks. Berserkers arent overpowered because they have the biggest drawbacks.

Your skilled players circumvent their drawbacks by creating scenarios that minimize or eliminate them. Quicksand a problem? Look at all the arials and cloud giants in battle. Shapeshifters giving you fits? Charge-set and cutoff are your friends. People fleeing after the first round of deathblows? Open with cranial or pincer. People won't fight you? Let's go raid the island, the pit, the palace, or the Fortress. Bored? Become a criminal and go punk a tribunal.

That said, dying in situations where quaffing would have saved you does suck, and so most ragers avoid leaving the Rager Loop. The analogy to the Genie in Aladdin seems appropriate: "Phenomenal Cosmic Power! Itty bitty living space!"

The big issue regarding RBW is that if two characters are going down Eastern and have an unplanned encounter, the RBW can prep with one command, whereas the non-RBW is often best advised to prep with a potion of transportation.

In a pk-heavy mud, quaffing before combat even starts makes the e-peen shrivel.

When I come down eastern and see a RBW I quickly prep up and then charge in.

NT

You assume that deathblow is equal to ABS.

That assumption is false. Brutally, horribly false. Additionally it is an over simplification because play a non flying/concealment villager and learn how scary 2 peolpe with trip suddenly become (not even very tough people).

You seem to both akowledge the balancing factor of villagers (they die a lot) without comprehending the extent to which their restrictions truly are crippling.

Look through villager PBF's, they don't get super duper high PK totals, they do get absurdly high pk death totals compare to non villagers. If they really were OP then that wouldn't be the trend. This ain't any fallacy, it is objective performance tracking.

>malakhi makes a good post
>you feel the need to ruin what could be a good discussion

Great.

I pretty well agree with this.

It's not that you have to play Battle seriously for a while to realize Deathblow isn't all that great. It's that I've already decided Deathblow isn't all that great and I assume that if a given person really seriously puts it to the test (especially in hero range) for a while they'll understand why too, since they weren't willing to take my word for it.

...you aren't changing the minds of people who are close-minded.

It's like getting into a religion debate on the OT board. Pointless for everyone but the trolls.

x

nt

Nerf Beront.

Played by the same player.

And I think some of the perennial disconnect on Berserkers relates to skill level.

Some abilities are tricky to balance because they're different amount of good for different skill of players. Take Energy Drain, for instance. I don't recall the specifics but I recall a point some years ago when one of the better players killed a bunch of people with Energy Drain. Before you know it a lot of really terrible shamans and necromancers are going into fights just spamming it right off the bat and they're dying and dying.

It's because Energy Drain is one of those abilities that's more useful as you get better with the classes that have it. When you're not very good yet, you almost should pretend you don't even have it. When you're closer to the top end, it's a big key tool in your arsenal and it's enormous in some fights even if you don't use it at all in others.

Being a Battle Berserker Warrior is about the exact opposite. When you're really terrible at the game and it's hard for you to get a PK with anything, well, if you con die RBW you'll probably get at least a couple. When you're middle of the pack it still seems pretty good. When you're really good with a warrior, it's a terrible deal -- you for sure can run a better ratio with Empire or Nexus or Scion or probably even Fortress warrior. This is why the Graatches and Twists of the world don't think Deathblow is crazy -- for them, it's something they have on a challenge character, a character that's clearly weaker than their other options. But if you're on your second or third warrior, it probably isn't like that for you.

Dealing with Berserkers in the receiving end is pretty similar. When I first started playing all those unspeaks just seemed so insurmountable. Now, not so much.

x

...you know exactly how to #### them in the ass.

Coarse. But true words.

I wouldn't boot a level 30 berserker bard for having 2 mage pks, because I know bards are desperately limited at lower levels.

If someone decides to play a subpar build and doesn't exactly shine, who are you to judge him? I think Djetmai was reasonably successful relative to other binder/poisoner svirf thieves in battle.

I was questioning stuff that has happened to my characters in the past and asking how policy has changed or how it was overlooked. I ran with Djetmai a bit and I really liked his character. Daevryn responded below with an answer I was happy with. Depends on the Imms at the time, some are more hardass than others. You people are all so ####ing up yourselves.........*mutter* ####!

I always felt like you had integrity with every character you've ever had. Some of us saw your post for exactly what it was, questioning what appeared to be inconsistent behavior which in fact had a negative impact on your player experience. Believe me, I understand your point exactly.

I agree Daevryn answered it pretty well too, because its accurate, and explains how things happen the way they do.

Just wanted to make a quick add that Djetmi had 10 Mage PKs, which wouldn't place him in the bottom third of berserkers at any point of my time in the cabal. Mage PKs, not total PKs, is the rough measuring stick mortals have at their disposal. Which is to say even in your scenario, the Djetmai level of mage killing wouldn't realistically get cut.

10 mage kills isn't the bottom 30% (generally 7 people) of the cabal?

*tear*

Not during my time in it, no. That many kills would put Djetmai at the 2nd tier of rager badasses. At least a third of the cabal inhabited the lowest tier. They didn't buy PBFs, and seemed solid enough so you'd have no idea, but they weren't racking up a ton of mage kills. It's the same way with Fort, where 10 evil PKs would be Adekar's baseline for marination.

You're easily in the top half of Pkers on CF, and this game is built on self delusion and ego, so it's hard to keep perspective unless you are looking at the actual performance.

nt

Quas isn't misestimating his skill. He's expecting that *other* players are more skilled than they actually are.

Additionally, he actually is one of the best PKers in the game.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

but I guess that I discount really short lived villagers when I think about it and there are a lot who flop out fast.

Personally I think of it less in terms of # of mage kills to judge villager goodness and more in terms of % of overall kills that are mages. The average I think is about 30% mage kills I think pretty good villagers keep it around 40%. Not too many villagers manage to both have 30+ kills and keep their mage kill % high.

I'm a mediocre PKer at best, but with Mauz I fulfilled Bolzhor's request that I get one skull from each type of mage before he'd give me his recommendation and I had one Thug applicant who got nine mage kills before being inducted.

Now, I know that a lot of the applicants I've interviewed have only two or three mage PKs, but I figured that on the whole most characters aren't getting inducted with five mage kills and that number should triple quickly after getting full powers from the Head.

Guess I don't know as much as I think I do. (but that's still not the Dunning Krueger Effect at work)

oh snap! :P

"You're easily in the top half of Pkers on CF, and this game is built on self delusion and ego, so it's hard to keep perspective unless you are looking at the actual performance."

The Dunning-Kruger effect swings both ways. Those who are on the bottom tend to overestimate their ability (those are the self deluded and egotistical ones), whereas those on the top tend to underestimate their ability (someone not realizing they're one of the best).

Edit: The top tier people who underestimate their ability may be doing so not on an individual level, but as a comparison to the whole. That is to say, someone who is at the 80th percentile (where most people think they are), may measure themselves around the 50th, because they assume others are just as good as they are.

Quas knows he's one of the best PKers in the game.

He underestimates the abilities of others, not himself.

It feels like you're trying to shoehorn this effect into the discussion for reasons unknown.

It doesn't really apply.

was specifically for the egotistical and delusional bads. It also fit somewhat for him.

...only like 6 of 30 people were BLOODED or whatever the second tier was.

And only Elgroth, Flaaayin and me were at the 2nd highest level for at least a month.

And I only had like 50 mage kills.

Just saying.

Is there some kind of policy that you have to be good/efficient at PKing if you want to be a berserker? Also, are berserkers not supposed to play siege with other battleragers?

I am asking this since we have Abernyte, a Battle veteran, complaining about Djetmai, a berserker who died to con loss at 306 hours, so obviously, Djetmai tried.

There are times when battle gets full and during those times imms/leaders might start creating additional requirements like being deadly/active to keep your spot. Likely Abernyte was referencing one of those times. It's really not much different than when any cabal gets full and you start being more selective about applicants and pay more attention to the qualities of current members.


There are also times when mortal leaders believe PK ability is part of being the greatest warriors in thera and may incorporate that into the way they run the village but its not a "tradition" so to speak that a player must be a good PKiller to be a berserker.

To begin, I think it would be terrible for any cabal to have a PK skill requirement. That's just bad for the game to limit what people can try their hand at playing because they are not extremely PK skilled. It would also discourage people from trying weaker PK builds.

Think about it, what would you rather see, nothing but sword spec giant berserkers, pincer svirfs, and arial dagger/mace, or people trying less played but more interesting builds as berserkers? One may get more kills than another, but still, I like seeing people trying builds that aren't cookie cutter. Battle is already limited in who can join, so I kind of like seeing people trying new things- and thieves are one of the more customizable options for Battle.

Regardless of that though, if you were to go around booting people from Battle berserker for lack of PKs, I have to think it would have a net negative impact on the cabal, since I can think of no cabal that has any similar requirement once you are inducted.

If a guy wants to try a berserker and is new, he is going to get booted. Battle is both newbie friendly and quite punishing. Any identical character will have more survivability just by virtue of not being in the Battle cabal than they will by being in it, just by virtue of healers and potions.

I think for a guy on his second hero, Djetmai did perfectly fine with his build and should get credit for trying something interesting instead of being used as a poster board for saying Berserkers need PKs.

(Besides, it's easy to just get PKs by indiscriminate or questionable killing, but you don't want to encourage that wrong sort of behavior by putting PK requirements out there.)

>To begin, I think it would be terrible for any cabal to have
>a PK skill requirement.

For the sake of discussion, I'll point out that Abernyte isn't wrong about what has happened historically; Ordasen, for example, threw out berserkers who couldn't PK to his standards more than once.

But I'm not sure if anyone else ever did.

I don't know how to objectively measure PK skill, I've seen lots of vets make silly mistakes, but that doesn't mean they don't know their stuff. I've also seen good players have crappy PK records cause they tried a new build that did not work out.

I've only played (debateably) 1 PK successful char ever, but I'd like to think I could do a berserker and not get booted even if I did my usual 10-60 Pk record if I had a good presence and did some enjoyable RPing with others and made a real effort to try and be a decent Battlerager.

To me it usually looks like most cabals have maybe 1 or 2 elite PKers at any time (who usually end up as leaders), except for maybe scion who attracts more. The majority are around average, and then there a couple of newer ones that are basically dying a lot- but are learning as they go. I don't think I would want to have an elite PKer telling me what to do when all the time- or being able to punish me for not playing as they think I should (I'm not saying breaking policy- just a strict you didn't dirt there when you should have, or you should have cranialed or whatever). It comes off as very OOC to me, and quite honestly annoying as hell to listen to.

I just think a char like Djetmai should be getting encouraged for the effort he made going to con loss is all, instead of someone saying how were you still a berserker with only X amount of PKs. I am a firm believer that consideration should be taken for the player behind the char to a degree (i.e. we don't mutikill, we don't go OOC, we don't full loot just to be an ass, we try to handle our losses with some poise, and we don't boot from a cabal absent something major- which is why empire and demotion is awesome- you can punish but it's not all or nothing). I think for berserkers, RP should be even more important than PK really, given the general rules they have. Otherwise, you get murder-all RBWs and everyone complains about those builds far more from what I have seen than chars like Djetmai.

But anyway, I suppose it's not really an issue unless someone reinstates that policy. I just hope nobody ever does for my sake. :)

I have now stated a few times and thought that the apology to Djetmai in the title and the fact that I did not post it in his deletion thread bight have let objective realise that I was questioning policy from a curiosity PoV based on past experience and what can/could have happened to Djetmai in this instance.

You then finish with:
'I think for berserkers, RP should be even more important than PK really, given the general rules they have. Otherwise, you get murder-all RBWs and everyone complains about those builds far more from what I have seen than chars like Djetmai.'

Note that in my experiences, recently with Tontik and less so with the cloud ranger hunter that it WAS MAGE KILLS I was required to get. I am not a Jerrokrar murder all enthusiast.

I know you weren't attacking Djetmai, but he is just the example used so it gets stuck with for the sake of discussion.

My intended point was more of this: If you mandate mage kills, murder all types can sort of spawn from that. Jerr killed a bunch of mages as Lohakahn wihtout a doubt, but he also jumped any mage he saw no matter when he saw it and what they were doing by most all accounts, unless he knew he was being watched.

I do think all Battleragers should want to have mage kills and should go after them, within the proper RP bounds is all. If they are a duerg RBW who spends all day attacking fort pallies instead of mages, or getting flagged and than going after every trib who isn't a mage by just egging them on while they are on duty, boot them. But if they are making that genuine effort to follow Battle policy, I'd think it is alright for them to stay even if they are not having great success in mage hunting.

I know my view is probably not as harsh a stance as Battle may have had in the past (before I even played CF), but I think there is more an element of not intervening with the funstick to a degree that has to be considered in the discussion.

>For the sake of discussion, I'll point out that Abernyte isn't
>wrong about what has happened historically; Ordasen, for
>example, threw out berserkers who couldn't PK to his standards
>more than once.

Pretty sure I would get kicked out of the cabal in this example.

I was asking for clarity as to policy due to experiences I have had and evidence from Djetmai's PBF!!!

Even as Dugruon, recently, I was asked by Tontik to pick a number and that number ended up being how many mage kills I had to get in the same number of days because I wanted to be a berserker.

>Is there some kind of policy that you have to be
>good/efficient at PKing if you want to be a berserker? Also,
>are berserkers not supposed to play siege with other
>battleragers?

There isn't any set rule about PK ability in terms of 'zerkerness.
You could make an argument during one of the more 'full' times, that
restrictions should be placed (and they are - for number of 'zerkers)
but now isn't one of those times. In fact, my guess is that if you
pit current berserker stats against Djetmai's and factor in total
hour difference, they'd all be about the same (or maybe worse) than
his.

>I am asking this since we have Abernyte, a Battle veteran,
>complaining about Djetmai, a berserker who died to con loss at
>306 hours, so obviously, Djetmai tried.

And I think this is key - why we need to punish people for at least
trying something outside the box and RPing (which let's face it, is
sometimes hard to come by beyond BASH KILL MAGE), I just don't
get. I would rather boot people who lack integrity* than people who
are clearly trying to do something new.


*Insert lack of cabal oversight accusations here - we're trying to
be better.

Well, Battle *is* the most pk-oriented cabal. Interviews and entries depend on a pk, cabal area is designed with pk in mind, selection of leaders is based partly on pk ability, powers are for pk-related purposes. If you want your name on the pillar, pk usually is a major factor.

But to be part of (any) cabal, the point is not so much being good at pk, as getting involved in cabal affairs. I used to reward the 'ok rp, super pk' characters, but if they wanted more than that baseline reward, rp is the biggest factor at the end of the day. I wouldn't punish a Berserker for trying hard. I would kick one out for ganging, and would kick anyone out for frequently hunting non-magi.

Note: This is my pov as a dead imm, unrelated to those of current Battle imms. :)

A single example from "a long time ago" as the standard for judging anything, never mind a cabal with evolving and changing policies.

As far as how many PKs a berserker "should have" I don't think that's for anyone other than a Battle IMM to judge. Is 17 low for a 300 hour character? Probably. Can we judge that it's "not enough?" No.

Age mature, 318 years old (306 hours)

Total PK Wins 17 (12 at level 51)
Total PK Losses 67



So he PK died every 4,5 hours. It makes him good berserker from any RP point of view, even if he only won 1 PK in 306 hours.

Standards of the village rise and fall with what active imms are watching battle.

Might explain why some people seem to "get away" with things that others have been punished for in the past.

This basically is it.

Battle, like most cabals, has had a lot of imms over the years, most of which never talked to each other and even less of which would probably agree with each other's exact interpretations.

It's just one of those things.

Thinking about this more got me musing about the different perspectives of the players vs. the staff in general.

I mean, it's obvious to me that Boltthrower had a slightly different take on what Battle should be vs. Nimbus vs. Holtzendorff vs. Kasty vs. Thror vs. Ordasen vs. Iunna etc. and I don't at all expect those visions to be completely consistent, but now that I think about it I can also appreciate that from a pure-player perspective it's easy for all of that to blend together into "the Battle Imms want X" and then to also be taken aback when they now seem to want Y instead.

It's also interesting to me, as a historian of the game, how this happens with respect to things done in terms of rules enforcement or by an anonymous immortal, except in that case it seems like there's always one imm at any given time who gets the credit or blame for all of it.

For a while, if someone busted on you or called you an idiot, it was obviously Rahvin/BT/ShaidarHaran. Then it was Cador. Then it was me. Then Valg. Now it somehow seems to be Baer. I don't get it.

I do remember this one time, Cador was back around for a while after being not around too much for a while. I saw someone mouthing off to (wizi) him in the Realm of the Dead, I don't even remember what the broken rule in question was but probably passing gear, and the guy's going on about what an asshole he is and how he's busting him for no reason and how he's always stalking his characters and ####ing with him. Cador, still used to being "that guy" asks the guy just who he thinks he is, and when he answers "Nepenthe" he raged and I about bust my gut laughing. Good times.

>For a while, if someone busted on you or called you an idiot,
>it was obviously Rahvin/BT/ShaidarHaran. Then it was Cador.
>Then it was me. Then Valg. Now it somehow seems to be Baer.
>I don't get it.

It's the easiest thing in the world to fix. Just be visible when punishing someone. I to this day don't understand why imm's rarely admit to their mortal characters and don't go visible when enforcing the rules.

Ironically, for this instance, I was vis the entire time and thus clearly not the person liable, but was still blamed.

It is what it is, I wouldn't have done anything different than the imm who handled it did (Well, if someone named "Scrotar" gives me trouble about a rename, I'll prolly drop the deny), so.

n/t

n/t

>I to this day don't understand why
>imm's rarely admit to their mortal characters

I, specifically, usually don't because when I do the players punished me for it and eventually I gave in and let them have their way.

Do you want to read people bitching about something one of your characters supposedly did before they even started playing the game, but didn't actually do, ten years after the fact? I got tired of it.