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  • AerekAerek East Tennessee, USA
    edited March 2017
    Washed-up combatant here. The fact that a lot of us started playing this game 10+ years ago and are still addicted but now have more pressing responsibilities is probably a large part of it, but I also admit that the sheer rate of change and the rising skill ceiling is another. 

    While constant innovation and evolution is one of Achaea's major draws for me, it also means that if you take even a month or two off, you're suddenly way behind the curve. Technically, I never even "quit", but just skipping a few classlead Announce posts quickly removed any claim I had to being a relevant combatant. It can be demotivating to have to play catch-up every time your attention is pulled away from a game for a while.

    On top of that, the amount of work required to be competitive is also climbing. The Law of Diminishing Returns is in play,  and sometimes the time and effort required to excel exceeds the satisfaction of excelling. To use an easy example, affliction tracking wasn't a common thing until a year or two ago, but now classes are essentially designed assuming people have this capability, which means you now have to code or download these complex systems in order to be effective, which can be more work than most (especially old returnees) want to invest. There are some exceptions, Depthswalker in particular is designed with "server-side aff tracking" built in that lessens its technical dependencies, but it's much more common that classes require sophisticated suites of scripting to really achieve their potential and compete in a meaningful sense. There are a lot of things I know I "need" to implement to stay competitive, but just don't want to spend the hours of work for comparatively few hours of play.

    Basically,  the same things that make Achaea awesome also make competitive combat daunting when you can't devote large amounts of time to it, especially when you used to be good at it in the past and your pride resents being a newb again.
    -- Grounded in but one perspective, what we perceive is an exaggeration of the truth.
  • I'm surprised you think downloading an aff tracker is too much effort. It's my understanding that you can download AK and setup a good aff tracking alias in less than 30 minutes. Though it probably isn't updated to have anything for some classes (not sure).

    I mean, I completely understand not wanting to use AK, but I don't think it's super time consuming to do so if you do.
  • You could do that if you know how it works, can read complex code, can choose complex aliases quickly, and know the exact attacks you need to use and in what order, and exactly what you have to stick in order kill someone.

    Not exactly plug and play for most. 

  • KenwayKenway San Francisco
    Big shift from 1v1s and 2v2s to larger group fights is a factor for some people including me. I just don't enjoy em. That and there are a few pretty core mechanics to the combat scene as a whole that I occasionally just need to take a break from.

    - Limb Counter - Fracture Relapsing -
    "Honestly, I just love that it counts limbs." - Mizik Corten
  • Playing other games gives me an appreciation for the delicate balancing act that Mak et al have to play. For instance, there is a skill on Imperian's serpent type class that you can use to specify what aff a cure type will cure last in a stack. Kelp stacks into instill kalmia = rage. 

    @Makarios can we grab this for serpent?


  • Personally, for the combat side, it's loss of interest in group combat due to mechanical stuff I don't really want to get into here. For the time aspect, I just have less time than I did before, with starting graduate school and a new job. Another part is just how many people I played a lot with just aren't around at all or as much anymore, like Aurora going dormant. She was extremely amazing and a constant joy to interact with over the last few years, and the game definitely feels different without her. That's just part of a multiplayer game though, sometimes the people you love playing with move on. I'm still in the midst of figuring out what's next.

     i'm a rebel

  • edited March 2017
    Coamenel said:
    I'd like to add that I didn't mean to complain, I'm just overwhelmed by having to catch up about 8 years of not being around. It's hard to change old habits!
    Just FYI: That wasn't directed at anyone in particular at all.  I get the feeling of being overwhelmed.   And I find myself bitching from time to time and realize it is stupid to. The game has always been changing.  It just seems more rapid because I was gone for 5 years (after 13? years of playing I guess it didn't feel like much changed.  I came back after 5 years and my entire class was different and all the miniskills and stuff I learned were gone and I had to relearn all of it)

    edit: I honestly only came back because I got a msg that @Aegis had returned.  When I left, the combat had already gone STUPIDLY to the group mentality.  Shallam was a shithole so I had moved to Eleusis finally, and gotten back into the Sentinels.     Came back, Shallam is gone.  Sentinels are gone. Combat is "gone (to group almost completely)" ..  So literally the only reason I was here was for Aegis.  I just wish I didn't take so long to catch up.   Then smack in the middle, I got a new job (posting from it now HAH) and my time got cut again, but I still MAKE time which tells me I want to play.  That is something I couldn't say a year ago.

  • AustereAustere Tennessee
    Pk is all about the rush.  Every now and then I'll get in a good fight that really jingles my nerves, but after doing it so long, it's just so hard for me to care.  I think the only fight in the past year that made me jittery was a few @Mizik and I did in the arena for fun. It wasn't the fight that got me going so much as the person on the other side of the computer.  Sure, losing isn't fun, but at the end of the day, I'm gambling nothing and getting nothing in exchange.  Some lolalt kicking my ass means nothing to me just as me kicking theirs means nothing.  I think the mutual respect is what makes a fight good and the disappearance of these fighters really does a number on my person enjoyment for one on one.  

    On the same note, I've fight Jhui lately and it still equates to a meaningless fight for me.  I enter it with nothing to lose.  He kills me? So what, it's freaking Jhui.  I entered expecting to lose and despite my best attempts, if I do, I'm not hurt or bothered.  There are just so few in the relevance bracket for me that win or lose, most fights are meaningless. (Atalkez is another good fight for me.  Never know how it will turn out) 
  • I agree 100% @Austere .  I *MISS* the fight.  Which is why I'm so annoyed that it is taking me so long to return to it :D   Every time I get close something comes up or I needed to re-write because something went screwy.  Right now, it's close enough that I want to get more into it but have NO idea with the changes, what each class can do.  So.. yeah. I'm going to ask you for some meaningless fights, and then 3 hours of explaining what the hell just happened lol

  • Caelan said:
    I agree 100% @Austere .  I *MISS* the fight.  Which is why I'm so annoyed that it is taking me so long to return to it :D   Every time I get close something comes up or I needed to re-write because something went screwy.  Right now, it's close enough that I want to get more into it but have NO idea with the changes, what each class can do.  So.. yeah. I'm going to ask you for some meaningless fights, and then 3 hours of explaining what the hell just happened lol
    Which is exactly what I've been doing the past 8 hours :D
  • AustereAustere Tennessee
    Caelan said:
    I agree 100% @Austere .  I *MISS* the fight.  Which is why I'm so annoyed that it is taking me so long to return to it :D   Every time I get close something comes up or I needed to re-write because something went screwy.  Right now, it's close enough that I want to get more into it but have NO idea with the changes, what each class can do.  So.. yeah. I'm going to ask you for some meaningless fights, and then 3 hours of explaining what the hell just happened lol
    Feel free to ask anytime.  I very very rarely turn down fights because I know (hope) some people view me in the last light I view some of my heroes (for lack of better word). Just because a fight is meaningless to me, doesn't mean it is to whomever I'm fighting, and I can respect that. (Bonus, you used to beat one of my alts pretty hard back in the day, so I've been looking for a chance to enact some fifteen year old revenge) 
  • AerekAerek East Tennessee, USA
    Farrah said:
    This thread is getting depressing. I still love Achaean combat. :(
    So do I! I don't think combat is any less fun, and I still login and read the forums because no other game comes close to the rush I get here. You just can't deny that it takes more work and study than it used to, and I think that's a factor in the state of PvP.

    It's why I tend to worry about what's reasonable for the "average" player in a lot of balance discussions, as opposed to focusing first on what the most skilled guys are doing/can do.
    -- Grounded in but one perspective, what we perceive is an exaggeration of the truth.
  • KresslackKresslack Florida, United States
    I think the main factor for me is how quickly combat changes, to where if you take a bit of a break and come back, it's a lot to relearn and what was once familiar may now be completely different. I've been content for a long time now just hunting and sailing, but I'm slowly working up the motivation and interest to get back into learning how to fight.


  • Sobriquet said:
    If if I was a new player now and saw the likes of Cooper, Aegoth, Jhui etc fighting I wouldn't look up to them as something my character could be, I'd see a whole amount of time investment that I just wouldn't be able to comprehend doing, and quit. I guess this is also the downside of constant development and keeping currently players happy though, and it's not an easy thing for the admin to deal with. 
    I agree with everything you said except this part. I've been playing just over a year, and when I started, I saw those people (maybe not Cooper as much) fighting and thought "hm, that's the level I want to be at." This isn't as true anymore, because I've grown tired of the 'automate your locks or lose' thing that seems the priority, but even now I'll fight this level of player every now and then just to see how I stack up, and to see if I'm progressing.
    Omor Ceberek - Targossas

    got gud
  • Sobriquet said:
    Aerek said:
    Farrah said:
    This thread is getting depressing. I still love Achaean combat. :(
    So do I! I don't think combat is any less fun, and I still login and read the forums because no other game comes close to the rush I get here. You just can't deny that it takes more work and study than it used to, and I think that's a factor in the state of PvP.

    It's why I tend to worry about what's reasonable for the "average" player in a lot of balance discussions, as opposed to focusing first on what the most skilled guys are doing/can do.
    This really strikes home to me. We've got a situation where Achaea (and IRE) has such a small player base that a majority of us that are here have been playing for 10-15yrs. This means that those that pvp a lot know everything inside out, which can be a good thing when it comes to balancing but the flip side of this is that those balances are extremely nuanced. There might be one strategy against one class using one prio which is deemed as a little unbalanced but where the majority of average players would just have no idea it even existed. I have countless posts where I see " If you do X and someone else does Y, you can drop this prio and you then have a .3 second window to do Z," This means pvp balances have been put in place with top tier input and top tier players in mind (even the lead producer now was arguably one of the best pvp players we've seen). This totally pushes the new players and average pvp players deeper into obscurity. This, coupled with those same players having 15yrs worth of artifact / talisman investment behind them makes it VERY hard to even get anywhere close to being able to play with them without significant time (or money) investment. 

    As I've said before, talismans became the decided factor for me in finally giving up playing with any great interest as I see them as extremely unbalanced, maybe not in isolation, but in the overall context of the game and it's player base. 

    If if I was a new player now and saw the likes of Cooper, Aegoth, Jhui etc fighting I wouldn't look up to them as something my character could be, I'd see a whole amount of time investment that I just wouldn't be able to comprehend doing, and quit. I guess this is also the downside of constant development and keeping currently players happy though, and it's not an easy thing for the admin to deal with. 

    I think the frequency you need to do anything that specific is exaggerated, to be honest. If you can get a good offense going, you can fight most people without much thought to defense. And most people even at the top tier aren't really doing those prio things.
  • MishgulMishgul Trondheim, Norway
    Typical response to weed the casuals out. 

    -

    One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important

    As drawn by Shayde
    hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae
  • Farrah said:
    This thread is getting depressing. I still love Achaean combat. :(
    As a new player, I also want to confirm that this thread is really depressing and making me unsure whether to get into combat anymore.
  • Farrah said:
    Sobriquet said:
    Aerek said:
    Farrah said:
    This thread is getting depressing. I still love Achaean combat. :(
    So do I! I don't think combat is any less fun, and I still login and read the forums because no other game comes close to the rush I get here. You just can't deny that it takes more work and study than it used to, and I think that's a factor in the state of PvP.

    It's why I tend to worry about what's reasonable for the "average" player in a lot of balance discussions, as opposed to focusing first on what the most skilled guys are doing/can do.
    This really strikes home to me. We've got a situation where Achaea (and IRE) has such a small player base that a majority of us that are here have been playing for 10-15yrs. This means that those that pvp a lot know everything inside out, which can be a good thing when it comes to balancing but the flip side of this is that those balances are extremely nuanced. There might be one strategy against one class using one prio which is deemed as a little unbalanced but where the majority of average players would just have no idea it even existed. I have countless posts where I see " If you do X and someone else does Y, you can drop this prio and you then have a .3 second window to do Z," This means pvp balances have been put in place with top tier input and top tier players in mind (even the lead producer now was arguably one of the best pvp players we've seen). This totally pushes the new players and average pvp players deeper into obscurity. This, coupled with those same players having 15yrs worth of artifact / talisman investment behind them makes it VERY hard to even get anywhere close to being able to play with them without significant time (or money) investment. 

    As I've said before, talismans became the decided factor for me in finally giving up playing with any great interest as I see them as extremely unbalanced, maybe not in isolation, but in the overall context of the game and it's player base. 

    If if I was a new player now and saw the likes of Cooper, Aegoth, Jhui etc fighting I wouldn't look up to them as something my character could be, I'd see a whole amount of time investment that I just wouldn't be able to comprehend doing, and quit. I guess this is also the downside of constant development and keeping currently players happy though, and it's not an easy thing for the admin to deal with. 

    I think the frequency you need to do anything that specific is exaggerated, to be honest. If you can get a good offense going, you can fight most people without much thought to defense. And most people even at the top tier aren't really doing those prio things.
    I can't argue too much as you have a significant amount of combat experience over me, but I don't find this to be the case. Different prio's for Apostates, Alchemists, Depthswalkers, Occies, not to mention limb damage and pre-applying seemingly offered as a genuine counter to things. 

    I -really- don't want to come across too negative as I've really enjoyed combat in the past in Achaea, I just feel that while SS curing was a great way for people to get into the game without any coding, it leveled the playing field so much that these tiny little nuances are becoming more of a requirement just to fight at any decent level. In essence, SS curing has actually had the opposite effect and widened the gap between newbie and top tier, imho of course. I'll caveat that by also stating I've been out of the game for a while, so I could well be wrong.

    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • People really over estimate (and over complicate) what is necessary to fight.

    Most of the complex stuff that people write 50 lines of code for can be handled with a simple alias, or just aren't necessary in 99% of fights.

    You also don't need artefacts at all for any class. Artefacts do open more choices for classes, but the really aren't any classes you have to have X artie to be able to kill someone.

  • @Sobriquet SS curing has built in curing lists. I forget how many you can have (5? 7?) but once you make each priority list once you can swap to it instantly at any time with a single command - nothing complex required.

    Svof actually has that built in too, and I think it works with SS curing.

    Yeah it will take you a while to make each list, but that is part of combat that is fun - figuring out how to counter strats that killed you.

    I'll also say I don't do any of that, and I can't remember the last time I used my priority swap aliases. I don't fight 1v1 that much, but it's not necessary in groups.

  • That's why I always carry a gun. Duh

  • edited March 2017
    @Makarios re: pre-apply - Sylvan heartseed setup, and druid/sentinel embrace (whatever the 4 limb break one is). These have been classleaded before, but have been rejected. As far as I know, pre-apply is the only way to defeat these set-ups (if they're executed well). Enlighten me, sempai

    edit: oh, also auto-SnB DSB. Grr.
  • You can defeat SnB with proper tumbling and torso management.




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • Aegoth said:
    @Makarios re: pre-apply - Sylvan heartseed setup, and druid/sentinel embrace (whatever the 4 limb break one is). These have been classleaded before, but have been rejected. As far as I know, pre-apply is the only way to defeat these set-ups (if they're executed well). Enlighten me, sempai

    edit: oh, also auto-SnB DSB. Grr.

    You'd have to tell me what setup you're talking about there. Class is also a factor in that - sometimes agnostic answers are inferior to class specific ones. Though for the record, if someone tries to nerf an instakill in a classlead, if there's not a detailed explanation of the problematic setup it'll probably be rejected. They're the most important aspect of a class so I'm generally of a mind its better to have slightly too strong ones than too weak ones.

    Some recent examples might illustrate this better. One of these got rejected previously, the others got approved the round after. They basically say the same thing but one fails to address the specific case where problems arise.

    Pummel is too strong because you can throw handaxe/pummel for guaranteed sensitivity on the hit, adding a guaranteed 33% additional damage to the pummel damage value. That's good, isolates the specific issue with why pummel was too hard to avoid.

    Pummel does too much damage and needs to do less so people with under 4000 health can survive: that'll be rejected - it doesn't state the root cause of the problem. If the person submitting the classlead doesn't know the root cause, they don't know how to reasonably resolve said problem.

    The unmodified component of pummels damage is too high, overly punishing people with lower health compared to people with higher health: that's good. Its similar to the bad one, but it states a specific cause for some people being overly impacted by pummel compared to others.

    Etc.

  • edited March 2017
    Sobriquet said:
    Farrah said:
    Sobriquet said:
    Aerek said:
    Farrah said:
    This thread is getting depressing. I still love Achaean combat. :(
    So do I! I don't think combat is any less fun, and I still login and read the forums because no other game comes close to the rush I get here. You just can't deny that it takes more work and study than it used to, and I think that's a factor in the state of PvP.

    It's why I tend to worry about what's reasonable for the "average" player in a lot of balance discussions, as opposed to focusing first on what the most skilled guys are doing/can do.
    This really strikes home to me. We've got a situation where Achaea (and IRE) has such a small player base that a majority of us that are here have been playing for 10-15yrs. This means that those that pvp a lot know everything inside out, which can be a good thing when it comes to balancing but the flip side of this is that those balances are extremely nuanced. There might be one strategy against one class using one prio which is deemed as a little unbalanced but where the majority of average players would just have no idea it even existed. I have countless posts where I see " If you do X and someone else does Y, you can drop this prio and you then have a .3 second window to do Z," This means pvp balances have been put in place with top tier input and top tier players in mind (even the lead producer now was arguably one of the best pvp players we've seen). This totally pushes the new players and average pvp players deeper into obscurity. This, coupled with those same players having 15yrs worth of artifact / talisman investment behind them makes it VERY hard to even get anywhere close to being able to play with them without significant time (or money) investment. 

    As I've said before, talismans became the decided factor for me in finally giving up playing with any great interest as I see them as extremely unbalanced, maybe not in isolation, but in the overall context of the game and it's player base. 

    If if I was a new player now and saw the likes of Cooper, Aegoth, Jhui etc fighting I wouldn't look up to them as something my character could be, I'd see a whole amount of time investment that I just wouldn't be able to comprehend doing, and quit. I guess this is also the downside of constant development and keeping currently players happy though, and it's not an easy thing for the admin to deal with. 

    I think the frequency you need to do anything that specific is exaggerated, to be honest. If you can get a good offense going, you can fight most people without much thought to defense. And most people even at the top tier aren't really doing those prio things.
    I can't argue too much as you have a significant amount of combat experience over me, but I don't find this to be the case. Different prio's for Apostates, Alchemists, Depthswalkers, Occies, not to mention limb damage and pre-applying seemingly offered as a genuine counter to things. 

    I -really- don't want to come across too negative as I've really enjoyed combat in the past in Achaea, I just feel that while SS curing was a great way for people to get into the game without any coding, it leveled the playing field so much that these tiny little nuances are becoming more of a requirement just to fight at any decent level. In essence, SS curing has actually had the opposite effect and widened the gap between newbie and top tier, imho of course. I'll caveat that by also stating I've been out of the game for a while, so I could well be wrong.
    I have very few prio swaps that I use. Most come up so rarely that I was "top tier" long before I had the swap but one day happened to die to it and was like fk this and made a swap.

    Realistically, if you set up a good default prio list but no prio swaps whatsoever, you could run around beating all but maybe 5 active fighters. Then you just decide whether you're ok with that or whether you want to beat those 5 too. If you want to beat them, you start looking at your losses and figure out ways to beat them specifically. And adjust what you need to to beat who you want to beat.

    Don't aim for a theoretical perfection because it's not necessary and literally no one is there. Most situations can be addressed in simpler ways than prio swaps though, like run, fly, touch shield, class active, battlecry/kai cripple, etc.

    Also, my only "automatic" prio swap usually is for darkshade, and I used to do that manually too. I guess I have something for paradox too, but I'm not sure if it even works. You can get by with just aliases. Never been in a situation where I had to swap something in a .3 second window.
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