At the moment, there are many plain ol' every day demigods (a good chunk of the active players) who aren't feeling these changes. It would go a long way to smooth over the "step-on-your-neck" feeling of these changes if we could get our meager 50 weight points of powers without an essense cost attached, at least to start. In the alternative, ala Esano:



Not everyone is an ascendant, is getting access to cool new powers, and can purchase 2-3 times as many as anyone else. Not everyone felt (or in fact really has the time/ability/honest access to aetherhunts) to get the essence to play the game that, at the moment, seems aimed a small statistical tail of the playerbase.

So, how about it? How about, as a gesture of good will and equity, giving demis their first 50 weight points for free?

I voted yes, but the problem with this is that you could grab the really big ones for free. Such as the second trade skill and divine fire.

Which would take us common slobs to 40/50 weight points spent. I wouldn't do that. Heck, even with unlimited essence, I'll probably skip out on DF.

That sounds like an excellent noncom plan actually.

Once things settle in we can look at essence costs again, certainly. I don't think we have any problem with that.

I'm kind of curious which exactly you have problems with, in terms of essence (is it the divinefire/zap? Is it the enter/leave, look, etc?)

I voted no, because I think the real solution is to balance out the difference in power levels a bit more. 50 point to 150 points is a big gulf and frankly not necessary if we still want to worry about people saying you need to be a demigod to compete (which I never felt was true anyhow, but anyway). Now what the mantra seems to be forming is that people will being saying you need to be ascendant to compete. So I feel to head that off at the pass, they probably should decrease the point spread from 50 - 150, to 50 - 100 leaving all of the present costs the same.

If you decrease the costs for items for one group, you will only make those on the other end even more powerful and the gulf even wider.

Honestly, a fairly uniform impression I am receiving from different groups in different clans, save for those fortunate enough to have the higher weights and much wider skill options of ascendants, is not particularly a good one.

To the common demi, this represents only a loss. We've no access to neat new abilities, only ascendants see that. We have a cap on the abilities that we once had, half that of VAs and a full third of TAs. Personally, I feel a much more egalitarian system would have better served the desires of most people.

I'm 39th at the moment. I have 34 million essence. I can get a few things I need, in fact, I can, save the trade skill, which is a want. But there are plenty of people under me who are very put off by this. A good friend of mine just logged off for the night after sending me a tell saying "*sobofdefeat*". The costs are too stark, the system too harsh, and to geared at a "superfriends" concept, where a very few people will enjoy some very nice benefits- benefits that to the common player, seem often unattainable.

And nobody really wants to be in such a situation. We can't all be shuyins and fillins. But that's true even without putting an actual mechancial gulf between that level of player and the bulk of people.

This poll is about compromise. Its going to suck for common demis any way you slice this. This is only a loss of power. No free domoth abilities, no ultimate gain in power if they bash enough. Only loss. Giving them at least the ability to salvage what they want for free at the outset would help a lot of hurt feeling here. Like my friend mentioned above, like other people on other clans who are not happy with where this change has left them.

Personally, I'm a pessimist. I've been hedging my bets against this for months. I even bought regen runes during the arti package sale and didn't attach them, so that if we lost regeneration, I could attach them and not "feel" like I lost anything. Part of me going to mage from knight was a switch in focus to a more supportive role, partially in anticipation of this. So, that's softened the blow for me. But what I didn't count on was friends being so put off by this that they just log.

That's actually covered (and more than covered) by the Ascendant stuff having even higher costs, heh. Destruction and Aegis and you're down to just the Demi 50, for two skills.

I think pure RP powers having a weight is stupid. It's not like my lookmsg will contribute to combat in any way.
There should be an essence cost to purchase them sure, but they shouldn't count for the weight which is obviously meant to hinder buying PK powers.

Does anyone know what the looks and enter/exits are? I'm considering buying them, but my essence is limited enough as it is...

I'm writing above because I can read your post better that way. We're definitely willing to consider some new and interesting stuff for Demigods. Most the Ascendant stuff was in exchange for when we gutted Ascendance, and instead of a new skillset for them, we came out with those. We really hit rock bottom coming up with Demigod ideas, and (I've said this before!) we expected it to feel kind of empty and something we can revisit in the future. I'd be absolutely happy filling in some 5-15 weight abilities with less of an effect on combat as, say, divinefire.

We're also definitely willing to review essence costs and weight costs, once things settle in.

One of the figures we used to base the essence costs was that one hour of aetherbashing was roughly 1,000,000 essence. Looking at that, the costs seem a lot more appropriate (5 hours of bashing for what will probably be +1 con permanently, etc). Maybe that's just me though?

I think as things settle and we readdress essence costs/weights, with some input from players, and (hopefully!) some great new demipowers (there's a thread for suggestions!), everyone will feel happy(ier?).

Only for dragons. With trans level gunners. For gargants/elementals and stuff, which is what about half of the crews hunt, possibly more, it should be around 500-600k per hour. With high skill gunners of course. It drops to about 400k without them.

And finally, I have no idea how much Glom earns. They probably have mystic Glom magic that earns them more.

If we went with non-aetherhunting numbers how much essence can you do in an hour?

I think that's just you; costs need to not be based upon aetherbashing because aetherbashing is not an any-time sport. It requires a large willing crew. Other forms of experience income do not equate (excepting large-scale astralbashing which has its own risks).

And for those without aetherhunting... I did a check, and noticed I didn't even get 2m essence during my 24+ hour influence-athon. Sure, I'm likely not even close to the top influencer, but still...

We get roughly the same as you do. Gargantuans die much easier than dragons.

"things settle in" is a brush off that really means "once you all go spend essence on this stuff if you still have complaints then maybe we will look at it again, but we will rip you off on the refund if we give you one at all." It's also pretty insulting. Most of us are intelligent, mature enough adults (not me, but most of us) that can look at a system and tell you the flaws in it from the start.

The first flaw is in thinking that everyone aetherhunting makes 1,000,000 essence an hour, because not everyone aetherhunting does. Nor does everyone have 10 hours a day to do that. Now, I am not really concerened so much with the costs as I am with the weights and mostly in the regard that the weights for Roleplay effects are there period, because they shouldn't be.

Well, in this regard; I'm still missing 80,000,000 essence from the 'refund'.

Just to clarify, do you mean your gargant numbers are the same as mine, or the same as my dragon numbers?

All I got back from being 50% fabled was 21k essence. I guess the millions of essence I spent was really 60k essence. Given that whole 1/3rd refund and all.