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Somewhat shocking how toxic discord is, largely looking at you, Blackstar. To dispel some of the lies going on about me (and nobody really does farewell threads anymore, they used to be the norm, now they are rare, not sure why):
I hit level 42, which as a duerg meant fully in hero range, at around 215 hours. I deleted at 259 hours. There was no "can't hang in hero range" ####. I spent more than 40 hours in hero range, and dealt with plenty of pk attempts and even mobs - maybe one day I'll post the log of Pebort, Temurah, Livhne, and Ravi coming to kill me in coral palace, and utterly failing. Which was hysterical.
I had a fair amount of pks long before I got anything from the cabal, including the spiked gear. And I got the lion rings myself. I routinely just try to kill the trainer and one of the times he came back with a ring. And then he came back with one again. Someone who had both obviously died. Not so easy a fight for a mid-bie, and I almost died to pk after being impaled and someone found me in hamsah. Nobody seemed to notice the trainer following me on eastern road. Lucky.
I got the two amulets from the duerg priest myself, too. Won't lie, spiked gear helped there. And the obsidian pike was given to me, too. But I got the jade polearm, the black bardiche, and almost everything else by myself. And that obsidian pike obviously wasn't being used to real potential as I was far below its level. Still great, sure, but not like it was as good as it was when I hit hero range.
I didn't hero because it took forever to level once I got to that point (goes fast at first then really slow at the end) and while I tried to slow things down for a while, even when I asked Taivu - three different log ins - to help me level, he said no. Bad timing he said. Which I believed. But either way.
Side note: why aren't there areas for evils to level at hero range comparable to goods? Nightwalkers? Evil. Undead in Eil? Evil. Sauhagin? Evil. Sitran? Evil. Skeletons? Evil. Aran'gird? Evil. Teth? Evil. Whistlewood? Maltrakis? Evil. Evil. Don't say "storm giants on Kidanah", they aren't even remotely as good, and they clump, unlike Nightwalkers, which is pretty much where everyone goes. And the spirits? Come on, they also don't give as much xp but worse they have the weapons that will #### you up. There are plenty of good-aligned mobs to level on up to about 40 but at that point not so much. Area project for next heroimm, please.
Duerg chaotic villagers are probably the most hunted in the game along with scions. Everyone hates, from outlander to fort to empire (usually war with village) and so on. All of which was part of why I did it, I like having a target rich environment. As people will admit if they are being honest, I traveled anywhere and everywhere trying to find people. The peanut gallery likes to say ragers just stick around eastern road. Those people don't play ragers. Just one day on cabal cb and you'll hear all the places ragers find mages, or get caught by mages (or other enemies).
Skill learning is a bitch, as anyone who's played a low int race knows, and cut off and charge set are two of the harder things to learn. Took a very long time. And I knew just how hard it would be later so needed to take the time to master them. Which I did.
I also took time because I hadn't played in about 2 years and needed to get back into the swing of it, a lot of lost muscle memory. As anyone who has played a warrior (or any class, really) knows, you have to be in the right conditioned mind set to play well, your instincts have to default to your current char, and you have to have your options front of brain at all times. Unless you're Nep or Twist or some of the other silly good players who probably could type in transmuter commands and still win while actually playing a thief.
Bottom line, #### all of you who decided you knew what was going on when you knew ####, and decided to feel insulted or otherwise offended by how someone else played the game. Played pretty well, I think, played by the rules, and played with ZERO griefing. Because you know what you never mention? I NEVER LOOTED ANYONE. Not once that I recall. Other than gold, I think I took literally one thing - total. And i think it was someone's recall potions. From all corpses I made combined. I have every kill logged so if necessary I can go back and verify but I'm pretty sure it was zero for virtually all, and at worst one thing like a potion to make a statement against magic. And that only once or twice, at most. Not that there weren't things I could have taken and actually used (unlike people who looted me, like a certain tribunal shifter taking chaotic-only maces and ####, for example). People had legendary magic items that I wanted to give to Tahren. People had better gear for some of my slots, or better weapons. But I took nothing. And still you guys (and just some of you, not painting with too broad a brush) just want to feel aggrieved so you make #### up. You, the real persons, have this insane issue with the rager cabal, and so anything having to do with it is presumptively bad. Get over it. And next time, don't be so quick to judge.
As for why I did delete, well, one of the other reasons I rolled a duergar was I wanted to try a polearm spec on a non-giant size race. I'd done both mino and cloud polearm before but never human size. And even with pikeman's valor it just wasn't so great. After I had them both at 100%, and after I took pikeman's valor (which was a bit more expensive in edge points than I anticipated, btw), charge set failed about 35% of the time and cutoff failed more than 40% of the time. I was pretty surprised at how much they failed, especially after taking pikeman's and getting them up to 100. I don't know the code, obviously, so I'm hoping it's just that even with pikeman's it was size, because if not, it's a bit unfair how poorly they work, they are two of the big benefits trading off a second weapon.
Also: cutoff doesn't trigger against airforms. It should. Everyone else who flees can at least be tried for cutting off. Not air forms, they just fly away without anything at all. Didn't make sense to me and I request that be reconsidered by the staff (read: Ishuli/Umiron).
the other thing is going to piss some of you off, including players, but honestly I think a lot of you are a bit suffering stockholm syndrome or, prehaps, just want to keep imms on your good side, or, also, like playing shifters and conjurers. Because the fact is, much as the imms will say they pay attention to balance, you don't. Year after year you have this constant escalation of forms and familiars. It's like the cold war, each year you have to one-up the past year, come up with new cool things. But it's become ridiculous.
Best example is when I managed to kill Kerklunken (probably spelling wrong) he literally told me it shouldn't have happened, he tanks seven people at a time and my hitting him at all was essentially a miracle. And I totally believe him. The fact that these forms now exist is absurd. They keep getting better and stronger but everyone else, mostly the martial classes, stay the same or in fact get weaker (assassins for instance). And I think it's a bit like the frog boiling, you don't notice until here you are.
It used to be that forms were terrific in one or two ways, but not good in others, and balanced. Armadillo being a great example. Utterly impregnable. And can take blows for others even when the attacker doesn't want you to. But it didn't do damage, and even when it was given a bit of damaging ability, it's not much. And no real healing. Balanced. As it should be.
How is that like, for example, the fungoid? Or that reindeer thing? Or others? That reindeer thing dodges everything so passive attacks don't work. It has that weird snow blow thing that makes active attacks miss. So uber defense. But it also has real damaging attacks. And, it is an air form! It can hunt you down. It can swoop in. It can fly away. Where is the downside?
Likewise that fungoid thing. Huge damage reduction. Huge healing. Solid attacks. Again, where's the weakness to balance?
Similar things to be said for these conjurer familiars that are just op.
Like I said, I'm sure people will say I'm wrong, but honestly I think that's because people who like shifters like being given such uber characters, and it's unrealistic for the staff to just wake up and go oh, wow, you're right. But that doesn't change the fact of it. Warriors and other martial classes are just outclassed. And that's even when they don't use all the wands and such.
Now comes the part that's not entirely fact so much as opinion based on fact. And it comes with risk because the staff has a proven trackrecord over many years of holding grudges and having player's future characters suffer consequences despite the party line that nobody knows it's you, nobody tracks, etc. But staff conduct was a large part why I stopped playing two years ago and what I was hoping had improved since. It has not, unfortunately, and if I pay a price, I'll have to live with it.
When I rolled this guy I wasn't actually planning to play him, I had just created him to look at the wizlist so I could then think about a role and religion and all that. Honestly I probably wouldn't have stuck with "Brorscht" as yeah, it sounds like borscht. So ok, my bad. But nobody ever complained and no imm came and said hey, can we rename you please or something. So, ok. I look at the wizlist and there's an imm that didn't exist two years ago, Ocaiye. Long story short, I prayed pretty much every day for almost two months. I sent notes, bot ic and ooc. I was in the shrine regularly (which I completely by luck stumbled upon btw, I had no idea it was there as I hadn't played in so long).
I never heard anything. Literally nothing. Not one echo. Not one note. Not one interaction. Zero. Total ghosting. I cannot stress strongly enough how bad that is, how rude it is, how offensive. We are adults, when we make time to play a game we are all playing to have fun, to be treated like that is disgusting. I never once broke role. I never once acted ooc or otherwise did anything to warrant such horrendous treatment. You don't like the roleplay? Then say so. Interact. You (staff) are the ones always saying you want more, not less, interaction, roleplay, non-individualized stuff. I was alone for a great portion of the chars life - the only rager online at all, and no real friends as I mentioned above. It would have been nice to at least be able to hear, every now and then, from the deity the char worshipped and begged to hear from. Evil deity, so be evil. But say why, do something so the char can improve, change, do something - if it wants! Maybe you would have asked something I didn't want to do, or didn't fit with the role, and that's ok, that's my choice. But to completly ignore and not even acknowledge the existence?
And I know you were online at least some of the time. Nobody expects constant snooping, but from Thanksgiving to last week, yeah, you were there. This was your choice. Either you thought the character was bad, or you have a problem with me, the player (which shouldn't factor into it, but we know it can), but no matter how bad you thought the character was, the point of the game is to keep players while abiding by the game rules and roleplay, and so you should have roleplayed your character and interacted with me and let me know however much you would, punish, do whatever. Silence just is not the answer, and is bad form.
You're not the first, other imms have done this, too, and was part of why I took the 2 year break. I'm sad it's still happening.
To the extent it was not about me and you really were away (though again, I know you were online several of the times I was online), or you didn't want to play Ocaiye, you (and this goes for all imms) should move the imm from active to dormant. Keeping a name on the active list when it's not really active just leads to disappointment, frustration, and anger. Again, the playerbase is older. People have jobs, kids, obligations of all sorts. Time is the most valuable commodity. It's just basic courtesy, let alone best practice to keep and grow a player base, not to mislead and give false hope.
Finally, the other issue which again makes me think maybe it was staff dislike of me the player: staff members on discord and here over and over and over talk about how they want to reward things when they actually happen, when they do good things in-game. Well, there were a couple/few times when I really think something should have been done. The best example is when, as usual, I logged on and was the only villager. This time the head was with the spire. I faced Ehra and Yenelevor or whater the vindicator's name is. They could (and did) perma lag me. I could have hid and done not much for half an hour, avoiding them pretty easily, and then log off. Or I could have just logged off immediately. I did neither.
Instead, because I believe people play for fun, and people want the fights, and, most important, people should accept the consequences of cabal membership which sometimes comes with high risk, I went to galadon and tried to retrieve. Tried, and succeeded. Took seven or eight run-ins, hit, couple rounds, flee, and each time came close to death when the rake and throw perma lagged (and it lagged me out even when they didn't time it, but did it right after each other in the same round). The last time I went in I killed the captain but died, and then again. So I died twice but got the head back, against two hero defenders (I was not a hero, of course).
Nothing. Honestly I figured I'd get one of those 25 immxp moments, or someone switched into the Destructor just saying something nice on cb. Just a pat on the head. Something to encourage what I did because that's what everyone says they want. Nothing. Not then, not ever after. Don't play for constant validation and don't be needy, but at the same time we all know the value of imm good will (not to mention immxp), and you guys keep saying how much you want to reward actual good roleplay and general playing itself, and here was a great opportunity. I'm sure I'll get a reply saying well, nobody was on at the time, sorry. But honestly you all see what happens later and someone my next log in could have commented or noted or whatever. So, yeah. Things like that are dispiriting. 260 hours and not even the last name. As someone once wrote, Le sigh.
I thought I was a really good rager. I'm hoping someone can get my pbf (I'm not allowed, long story, talk to my wife) and you'll see I had very few non-mage kills compared to mage kills. I suspect that in my two months, I gave as much or more in items to Tahren, and I focused on thickening the veil for everyone as well as hunting mages. I helped other villagers - I showed Brumbistle, obviously a newbie, where to find some spears, including a poison spear, and when he lost it I got it for him again. Little things like that. Honestly I envisioned becomes a leader at some point but obviously that didn't work out (through nobody's fault, I deleted, I get that and it's on me). If people have comments or CONSTRUCTIVE criticism of my ragering, I welcome it as it's my favorite cabal these days.
And last, separate from everything else: this wasn't my first rc win. And I agree it kinda sucks when someone deletes. In the past (I think I've won six or seven over the years) my last couple were just miserable, like one or two not particularly useful edges, and so I was a bit bitter. But this was a legacy. Nobody can say a legacy is not a solid award. But it was fires of adversity. I've had it before, and then with Brorscht I tested it out both in pk and against mobs and it pretty much did nothing. I'm sure an imm will come and say my testing wasn't long enough, or whatever, and I say again, it's a legit rc win prize. But it wasn't not helpful to the char, did not really provide the benefit I think the giver intended, and so it wasn't a reason to stick around. Thank you for it. I mean that. And if I ever am lucky enough to win an rc again I will try to play a long time after (I have both age-died and con-died chars before, so it's possible!). Just wan't one that worked so much for Brorscht.
Oh, I did forget something. I'm not going to accuse anyone, but I had some of the worst hp gains of any char I've ever had. I was getting 22, 23, 24 through my 40s. And I maxed my con at levelups almost every time. 22 con for a warrior and I was getting 12, 13, 14 hp (with the +10 for 40s, of course)? Happened far too often to really be random. And yes, I know, you'll tell me it could happen 1000 times. Even so, something felt off. I didn't pray about it, didn't complain about it, didn't ask for anything, but here I'm commenting. It was weird and noticable.
Ok, even for me this is tl;dr. My promise is I'll read anyone's replies, no matter how long. Only fair.
Brorscht's player
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