New Year - New Ascension System Discussion

[ebon stratus]

I tend to agree with MW here but i get that people are interested in different things. The one thing ill never understand is curb stomping enjoyment from a simple time investment difference

[hollow pawn]

Maybe not. But I feel it’s different statements. Maybe it’s just the way I feel. I truly respect what everyone does. What AncientL said is truly mind blowing. I just feel people are so dismissive. “Small niche”. “No one likes it”. “No point in doing it”. That’s not something that I would ever say about anyone. If they enjoy what they’re doing, then the game is doing something right.

Hopefully this thread is the one that makes that positive change for everyone.

[umbral kayak]

You are putting things in quotes that I am not sure anyone has actually said.

[ebon stratus]

Genuinely want everyone to be on board here.

Wont stop till we reach some serious consensus. The closest we got so far is improve BoF and rework ALs long term

It wont be easy

[sharp pilot]

I personally love coming across people with +50AL more than me and taking them down, that’s one of the things I like the most about the game, having tools to be able to deal with them while being weaker.

But it’s true that some people can find that overwhelming, or that if they are more casual and don’t have the gear or other tools, it can be worse than my case, where I have a good build and I’m only missing the AL.

I also love the things that have been suggested for BoF, the rule changes, different seasons and all.

This

[full crown]

The problem with odie or any other dev, is they don't really play the game as us players they just make the game according to some data/or opinions from players, so my question is they really know his own creation? How you know something if you are not putting the numbers on play time.

[misty flint]

This high

[crisp fern]

You also have to consider the gear and power creep that has been introduced in those 3 years. It's not solely an AL issue. Power creep is a HUGE part

[ebon stratus]

Yeah i don't disagree

Ill say it again maybe im playing the wrong game but i just dont know many others that have a system where you can enter a pvp fight 100% stats higher from the start.

[misty flint]

I'm personally a fan of both earning more strength, and so it's displayed compared to other players, and overcoming those stronger players as the underdog.

[crisp fern]

@inner fern What's your thoughts on the topic? I know it's not necessarily easy or fast for you to beat me, but you can do it consistently on classes with basically no AL. I see you have 20 on rs now, but your beo was 2 AL.

[misty flint]

As far as fighting much higher levels for land/conquerors, I consistently take land/settlements from a player that has 249 ascension to my 48.

[crisp fern]

See, I don't think AL is the issue lol. I know your playstyle from the old live pvp and you were an absolute pita 😆. It's more a lack of players not wanting to try new stuff and giving up. S2IVI you cleared me out pretty fast even with my ALs. Given I am crap on gilga but still. If AL's were a rule all it wouldn't matter

Idk how Dosen fared

You also stalled/stopped me offensively quite often. Even if the timestamps didn't look like it, some of those fights were many turns

[ebon stratus]

Right. Im saying all of this despite that. Does that not have any meaning?

[crisp fern]

Everytime the polls have been run for AL changes in the territory world it's always voted to keep it how it is 🤷‍♂️. I don't think all of those polls are just the high AL players in there. I'm not opposed to having a separate pvp AL or a change in how it's scaled - as long as it's going to respect players time investment. The old territory was already ripped away without much respect to the time investment of the older players (regardless of it being left in the game)

[ebon stratus]

Give me a full game vote and ill change my mind. Again, maybe im playing the wrong game. Maybe I should play something else. Im willing to admit that Orna is not the game for me. But once it was, and I wont give up on that feeling of the OG area control days.

And i didn't even care about the old version numbers. It was more back 3 years ago we were all attainable ALs and the area control was legit fun

[vague tinsel]

@mystic jewel Don't hide behind a downvote, tell me why you disagree

[crisp fern]

Unfortunately every game moves past the OG days and it's not a time that can ever be brought back. There's not going to be a win/win situation at this point. In the thread I linked earlier when I brought up a discussion for a potential change in PvP AL there's some comments on it. You would have to take away/change a lot of the new gear as well if you want the same pvp experience as 3 years ago

[ebon stratus]

Yeah i don't disagree with this

[crisp fern]

The classes would actually have to be balanced well. GS still dominates offensively

[ebon stratus]

Again, I think the future of area control just isnt for me. Sad day to realize this but it is what it is

[crisp fern]

You don't enjoy the OS fighting at all? It kind of reminds me of the old days

[ebon stratus]

They are too tanky

[distant lodge]

OS are way to tanky. I cant hit a t9 OS without a VSS proc lol. Not even a def down will hit till I get the double def down with a 1400 attack weapon lol

[ebon stratus]

^

[crisp fern]

So the fights take too long or you don't like having to wait for stat decay?

T9 is rough against actual players, but I haven't had an OS zero me out past turn 1 - yet

[distant lodge]

This goes back to why all the high AL's dont want to lose their AL's lol. Fights take to long? Really?

[crisp fern]

There is an absolute beast local t3 os I can't touch though lol. But for me, that makes me want to improve my build

[distant lodge]

there is no improving. They need to put rend back on OS

[crisp fern]

No, I'm asking if the OS fights take too long or if he doesn't like having to need to use status or wait for battle decay

There is 100% improvement on the OS. I was in the same boat til I changed things. But I'm fighting actual t9s with my OS lol

[distant lodge]

Oh yeah you get run over by bungie t9 summoners lol Its so broken.

[ebon stratus]

Its not a challenge its just not balanced

[crisp fern]

The only thing that's extremely rough is summoners. But the t9 nyx I fight is beatable

[ebon stratus]

Nobody alters their OS builds like they did live in the old area control days. Its just a stagnant ultra tank that you dont really have to use ur brain to fight

[flint coral]

Which is funny, because I can think of 4 distinct T3 builds that a player would benefit from switching between.

[crisp fern]

I think part of that comes down to no loadouts for OS. I do change my OS builds. On my t9 at least. I haven't gotten around to focusing on much outside of t3 or 9

Sorry - not trying to derail the conversation here

[ebon stratus]

Its not that convenient to swap a specific othersoul

Im not not gonna quit fighting the crown to play a t5 instead though in general. I have an alt for that
Again, this might just be personal to me.

[mystic jewel]

不好意思 I tend to read entire threads before responding 🤷‍♂️

I disagree with Ascending being all there is. As previously stated, I started the game in 2018, so not some new player.

What keeps me coming back to the game is the community and finding new things to work on- at first it was proving that Deity could reach floor 400 in Endless. But ascensions trivialized such achievements not long after we achieved it. It was PvP for a while but ascensions sucked the fun out of that for me too. I hated them at the beginning and I still dislike them- ascending only out of necessity for territory and war fights.

Then it was finding interesting gear, Endless parts dungeons (RIP)

Now it's mostly for live PvP builds, coming up with off-meta stuff, researching numbers, and still because of the community and I genuinely enjoy the game Odie has created and how much the team interacts with everyone. But I feel limited in content.

I had the most fun in a while (outside of pvp) running Endless on AL0 again because it felt like an achievement to break past floor 450 with an unascended class. Same with soloing aMorri in a minute.

I disagree that ascending is the only endgame to play. I recognize that it's kept many players in, but that doesn't mean it is the only thing to do at endgame.

Secondly- capping it in PvP isn't going to "not be enough". Yeah you might have a few players complain but that feels no different to me than those who hop on every thread to say "no cap or I quit."

Third, Odie said new Anguish stuff will be a better endgame loop

Last point- these discussions started as "ALs are bad for game health and should be capped or removed" 3+ years ago and have now been left alone too long that instead of having that discussion it's "what can we do to balance ALs in PvP". Being able to keep them for anguish, Endless records, etc is already a compromise for endgame l
and people are still going "no cap or I quit" when is it okay for me to do the same thing?

Ascensions to a point make sense to me for PvP. I don't mind if other players want to scale up to infinity for PvE. Big numbers are cool.

But I feel at an immense disadvantage in the content I tend to enjoy the most:
-Coliseums: Also reward nerfed due to alt abuse
-Arena: It becomes more of a slog the longer this goes on
-Territories: I'm lucky there isn't anyone who is completely untouchable nearby but it's a bit of a slog to say the least. Again, coming from someone who does try new builds and ideas and strats. Rend/Epee isn't a magic "I win" button when someone tanks 2-3 of them minimum.

I really do recognize the amount of grind some of y'all put in. It's impressive even more so on the loops I don't find fun.

I want whatever happens to respect that. But leaving it as is ain't it, IMHO

I guess the question I'd have is- is there a healthy middle ground? What would some of yall consider fair in a rework or even a temporary band aid?

[ebon stratus]

Preach. Great write up.

What we have currently for a solution is improve BoF guild for us non AL folk to enjoy short term, and work on the AL system long term.
Im not convinced this is the best solution, but I'm willing to work with it. Theres too many people on both sides specifically in this discord. I really wonder what an in game poll would vote.

[vague tinsel]

Hey that's great you found things to do. For me orna is a game about grinding though, and if I can't do that my grind will move elsewhere. Not a threat, just a fact. Orna makes the hampster in my head keep running on the wheel, and that wheel needs to keep spinning or I get bored.

Not sure what your second point is about, I was never talking about capping it.

[ebon stratus]

As soon as you take that hampster wheel and insane ALs to pvp though, it's at the expense of others.

Which is why im choosing not to participate. Im not going to waste that time and be at the expense in this equation. Hence the spark for change here

[mystic jewel]

Ah, if it wasn't you who said that a .00001% ascension would still cause people to complain, I apologize. That was what 2nd point was responding to

Apologies if I got mixed up!

To the first part- Do you have every conceivable celestial weapon combination? Every pet? Every codex? Have you cleared 400 on endless with each class? Your perfect build only using 200%s? Guild leaderboards?

Those all turn the grinding hamster wheel too, yeah?

[vague tinsel]

I mean I put in a lot more time and effort than them so I don't see a problem with that. Losing a war match isn't the end of the world

[ebon stratus]

Then winning doesnt matter either by the same logic

Curious to hear Gurns comments. This man loves power

[distant wraith]

To be honest, I have not much idea how I get my ALs, I really fill the game in gaps in my time when I'm waiting for something and have nothing else to do...

• I do barely 1 F50 tower a day.
• Really occasionally I do couple ang50 horde dungs. (+2500 dungs in 2024, 1000 of them T1 hard for BoG farm).
• Don't farm any guild besides towers really.
• I click here and there KG raids. I usually don't raid in party. I don't WV or alt at all. I don't farm scrolls at all.
• I run 55 rafineries, but usually filling them like one or twice a week.

Yet I got AL70 > AL123 this year.

ALs feels really easy?

I really don't care much about PvP side, that's part which will take a lot of preparation and focus - BoF, arena, coliseum.

I care really only about territories in this game and as it goes for me - I wouldn't mind something like ~1/3 ALs effectiveness, cuz honestly all the things above, I do to catch up and stay on same ground with big fishes around me (and there is plenty).

[vague tinsel]

Caring about winning and being good at pvp is a personal thing, I feel like you of all people should understand this. You're not going to get kicked from your kingdom cuz you couldn't beat some guy with 100 als on you, but also if you know what you're doing then winning offense against said person is not that difficult

[inner fern]

@crisp fern tbh, beating high al players with status effects needs to be nerfed lol, I beat al 150 players' territories as a t8 just by spamming status effects, high al players should have ALOT more resistance to status effects they're not immune to

The crazy thing is I didn't even have assassin spec at t9

[ebon stratus]

Im just following your logic. I made the post bc i care

[vague tinsel]

You're trying to deflect because you don't want to discuss the effort/time put in argument

More deflecting 🙂

[ebon stratus]

This says volumes. Thank you ❤️

[unkempt nebula]

In my experience, ALs are fine for most of the game, but in PvP, they’re a real issue. There’s a player in my region who’s AL 200, and fighting can be a nightmare. The only time I can actually consistently win is during settlement fights where ALs are disabled, and we’re both treated as level 0. When we’re on even ground like that, I can easily beat him.

But outside of settlements, the AL advantage makes area control incredibly frustrating. I can sometimes hold my ground, but the gap in power means he can just consistently overpower. It’s not about being completely outmatched, I have a chance, but the grind-based advantage just feels excessive and unfair in those situations.

I know some people argue that he deserves to be that strong because he’s put in the time, but I don’t think that’s fair. Grinding shouldn’t give someone an overwhelming advantage in PvP, especially when skill plays such a big role. It’s fine if grinding gives a slight edge, but right now, it feels like it’s way too much.

I’m not saying ALs are bad, they work fine in PvE, but I think PvP needs adjustments. Maybe there could be a cap, or the bonuses could be scaled down for PvP. Right now, it just feels like the system punishes players who can’t put in endless hours grinding, and that’s not what PvP should be about.

[ebon stratus]

Love this write up. Thank you for this!

[mystic jewel]

I'll bite.

I've been playing for over 5 years. I know players with 2 or so years of experience with triple my ALs because they do enjoy the particular content that enables speedy Ascending whereas I do not. Is my 5 years of playing worth less than that person's 2? What about the person who's played 6 and is still AL0 because they don't want to ascend? Or the person who's played 1 and tried but stalled out on AL50 because they got blocked by the same 2 or 3 Mats every level?

"I've put in more time, so I deserve to win." Is not a healthy argument for the game health. It weakens a bit if AL Mats were normalized but it definitely isn't a good one as things stand.

As said, I can respect it still. Whatever occurs needs to (HoC anything above a cap), maybe a special sprite, title or whatever, but there are plenty of areas you can hamster wheel grind in Orna that do not directly influence other players.

Also we are all in this thread because we care, so can we please refrain (yes this includes myself) from accusing others of not caring/wanting to discuss. 😃

[vague tinsel]

You chose to play in a way that wasn't optimal for ascension. There's nothing wrong with that. But why should someone who did put effort into ascension have their efforts be devalued? "I should have the same advantage as this other player who worked way harder for this specific encounter" is also not a healthy argument for the game. Ascension isn't difficult and neither is winning offense even against stronger opponents. If you don't like it that's fine, but you can't complain when people who did work for it want to see their efforts respected

[ebon stratus]

I really like this post
#1324777744827154534 message

[vague tinsel]

See that's the issue. Fresh players expecting to beat veterans, and it is completely fair. Besides, with a fraction of that al 200 players effort they could start winning fights consistently (on offense) if they really want to they will. If not it doesn't matter that much because territory is mostly just for bragging rights

[ebon stratus]

Nobody who has provided a counterpoint is a fresh player

Also, nobody is devaluing your time. I think the majority of counterpoints acknowledge the amount of time you put into your ALs.

[mystic jewel]

When there is a ceiling and a level ascending field, this is fine.

When there is not a level ascending field and there is not a ceiling, this is not fine.

Infinite scaling does not encourage longterm game health.

As I already said, I can respect the grind, but that doesn't mean it should just continue to be a runaway train. I've been saying this since Day One of Ascensions being added. I was laughed out of the room because people said it wouldn't get to the point we are already long past. Most of those people have quit Orna for that very reason.

And we are not discussing removing ALs. We are discussing restricting their infringement on other players' access to content/fun.

You can say "I worked harder for this specific encounter" is a bad argument, but harder by doing what? Grind the same loop over and over? Having 100% more stats? Or trying different builds out? Those are all preparing. One of them is something everyone is on a level playing field with, the other two only cater to a particular group or kind of player at the expense of many more, veteran and new players alike

[vague tinsel]

"infinite scaling does not encourage long-term game health"

The only reason I'm still here is because of infinite scaling

[mystic jewel]

Congrats. Would you like a list of all the players I've known who have quit for the same reason?

Infinite scaling is fine for PvE. PvP it comes at the expense of other players and will eventually empty the game to just those players

[storm sand]

After reading through this, I see good reasons being presented for keeping ALs in pvp and for having no ALs in pvp. We still have 2 gps-based pvp modes Territories and Settlements. Resurrect the old Territory Control mode to be the unrestricted ALs gps pvp mode. The new Settlements could be the no ALs gps pvp mode.

[ebon stratus]

You play more and grind harder, so you should be stronger.

You play more and grind harder, so content should be easier.

But, I play too. So not at my expense.

[flint coral]

I... actually really like this idea.

[mystic jewel]

That could be a healthy compromise. I forfeited all of my old territory and I'd be okay with just leaving the old system to those who want it

Would give high AL players a place to keep flexing without diminishing their efforts in any way

[vague tinsel]

So at my expense then?

[ebon stratus]

Have you seen the suggestions?

[ebon stratus]

@vague tinsel how do you feel about this?

[vague tinsel]

It's a good idea

I only really care about als being removed from wars.

[ebon stratus]

Im so confused

[sage isle]

so i read through the first few hours of the thread and didn't see this suggestion, and the choices don't seem to reflect it either, but what if ascensions simply became more difficult in a different way than they do now, like the quality of the materials per ascension are higher. say AL1-10 is all common materials, then you start to sprinkle in one or two uncommon materials, and by AL50 you're looking at all pain point materials like COrt. kinda promotes ascending other classes early on to try out since you'll easily be able to ascend to AL10, makes the grind beyond 50 harder, but keeps a difficult end game loop for no-lifers to go after.

[flat sorrel]

with "I don't care about pvp" I meant actually that with AL. in the sense that I don't care if they disable AL completely, partially, whatever. as I wrote it's a broken system vs AI and that's the problem (and I don't have a solution to that). o thought as I have high AL that indicating I don't care if it gets disabled in pvp would help ppl in that debate, in the sense that not everyone with high AL necessarily wants to be able to have that mean autowin in pvp

[flat sorrel]

have you tried celestial lute selene hands

[distant wraith]

Well, I always hoped orna will be in time more about GPS control system. That there will be more layers than just territories. Settlements are same in the core, they just replace territories and make ppl forgot them. I hope for some small scale system (settlements), medium scale (cities), big scale (provinces), continent scale ... where some type of challenge would happen, with timers, rules, etc. You could participe in the higher one, if you have enough of the lower ones. The biggest being for whole kingdoms. Each giving some bonuses to indiduals and later whole kingdoms.... etc. etc. , just bigger GPS content. In terms of those, reduced ALs make sense. Blah, blah ...you get the idea. Currently it is only territories/settlements (both same in my eyes)....

[unkempt nebula]

Kingdom controlled regions/cities sounds sick

[storm sand]

I'd be happy to see kingdom wars go. It's a source of frustration for many players. I feel bad for my opponent when I'm AL 75 matched up against a level 227. We could have Kingdom Arisen Waygate raids instead. Currently Pacifist kingdoms only lose Wars and gain nothing instead.

[fallow field]

You know what guys, all those discussions and especially votes are 100% biased because only people who are reading every single suggestion or posts in maincord will have a vote and a say into the discussion and if a friend of mine didn’t link me this post I wouldn’t have known it was a thing. So, as usual, only people watching discord all day will know what’s going on.

If Odie really wanted a discussion and a real feedback from ALL the community, he would do whatever he did for archpath and advertise in game a feedback on ascension overall and what people really think of it.

And also it SHOULD be done for different aspects of the game to have a full overview of everybody playing this game and not the same people who benefit from said system that need to be changed.

[merry pumice]

For my random input on the topic:

All I know was that once I hit level 250, got my cool gear and hit my goals with raiding and endless as a RS main, I looked at Ascensions and said "blergh" and decided to just stop there. Orna is a hell of a fun game with the challenge and grind built in. I even dipped over to Aethric to re enjoy the grind again, but quit because I just liked the gps system better.

Anguish grinding just didn't seem fun to me at the time, and that was realistically all I had left to do outside of build theorizing. So I quit. I enjoyed Orna for the great adventure it was from level 1-250. Anything beyond that just seemed like a shell of the adventure I had before.

If I got to selfishly ask for 1 thing, it'd be for Odie and the team to work on Orna 3, and just restructuring the system to make another adventure without the issue of ascensions. But that's just me.

[fallow field]

And if I have to give my input on ascension overall, I will repeat myself over and over again once more:

it is a completely dumb system because it was promoted with completely random material per character, some people can stay blocked level 30 while others can be 50 on the same mats just because one was lucky enough to not have those special Cort or whatever they lack. It should be a fixed thing to start with and the difficulty in rarity should increment with the AL levels to make it harder and harder.

Also, I’m just going to mention exactly what I read above about the dumbness of letting it getting out of hand and should have been capped long ago.
I hate this « endgame » loop.
So what, you get ALs so you can use anguish to get more mats to get more ALs to get more mats to get more ALs… come on… is that the endgame people enjoy? Really? In my perspective it’s such a lazy way of doing an endgame. Odie has proven he is very much more imaginative when it comes to creating content and quests than this dumb engame loop. Come on.

Also, like some people in comments, I got pissed off when I saw some people having 1 year gameplay, having absolutely all gear and alt playing with 80k dungeons in a year time. Now, I don’t know about you but when I see the leaderboard I smell some nice fishy things going on. But it doesn’t seem to bother people.

Shall we cater to people being able to « play for 4h a day every day for 300days per year » and doing some average of 200+ dungeons per day… I don’t know about you guys but I’ve been playing for 5+ years and I’ve got absolutely nothing to show for it because I was playing daily for those 5 years and I got disgusted by the way things are going. I stopped really playing one year again and only keep on coming back every now and then to see if it became less stupid overtime. But hey, nothing changed on AL and I see more and more people I know who were playing that simply can’t be arsed anymore about this system. They simply stopped.

[woven ledge]

I get AL. AL make me happy. I get stronger. I push my anguish. I get happy. I see big numbers. I get happy. I stomp people. I happy.

[formal wind]

More than I expected, but realistically isn't going to oneshot anyone with ~50 more ascensions as was stated; provided they have a ward turn to begin with. It's not all too complicated to have more than 13k base health, unless you're a sunmoner.

A realmshifter, the second lowest hp class, has 10k health without ascensions without items.

[crimson island]

If we can't come to a solution on how to make AL's work then should there be a non AL and AL varient of all pvp content?

Let those that grind ALs, grind and they can opt into their AL conq settlements or Kingdom wars. Let those that don't want to grind opt into non AL pvp. Other souls does not solve this at tier 10/11 with an item that goes on a timer after use.

Make the rewards/leaderboards the same.

Attrition for each mode will naturally play out - AL players will face AL (unless someone is looking for a deficit battle).

Let kingdoms choose which content to sign up for war wise - AL or non AL.

Que time and player activity will be called out as a potential issue - but if there aren't enough players to seed a mode - let's ask ourselves is it really that valued by the player base? Activity and data will show this over time.

[distant wraith]

I don't think numbers against real players will be that much different. Gilga dmg will be much lower against high def opponent, but not for Beo. And that's just my normal gear put on, not trying only min/max with full selene, only dmg amities, etc.

[prisma bone]

Not wanting to repeat everything I’ve said in this topic, I think both 0AL and AL PvP have a place in this game. IMO, kingdom wars and territory control are the place where ALs make the most sense to me. Players want to get stronger to represent their team better and to be able ton conqueror more land. I’ve suggested making a % of settlements AL0 as a way to balance the playing field and letting even lower level players have an easier time competing with the stronger players in their region. I think there’s a stronger negative feeling towards ALs recently that has been brought upon by SS builds, since high AL players can hide behind defensive stats and be one shot machines with a fixed miss chance. That will hopefully change with the balance patch and restore some more balance to it.

BoF guild IMO is the perfect space for strategic gameplay where AL shouldn’t matter. It unfortunately is super unrewarding and has the exact same rule set since launch, which means most of the player base just won’t touch it. Improving upon that would instantly draw a lot more players to it (see old territory system vs Conq Guild)

[formal wind]

Oh damn you straight up double pooman's damage

[sturdy monolith]

How about giving Leagues for PVP? League 1 (0AL), League 2(50AL), League 2 (100AL), etc. Then have a league for uncapped AL PVP.

(I'm not even 250 or 50+ AL) hehe

[mystic jewel]

Lilytu suggested Settlements being AL-less and returning the old system as it was: uncapped AL pvp for territories. How would you feel if something like that were done?

[prisma bone]

As someone that loves the old territory system, I unfortunately think it would only work if it gave similar rewards to Settlements. Otherwise, the legacy system would just be left with a minuscule amount of players.
If the reward structure were to change, I wouldn’t mind it

[pale ingot]

Threads like these just remind me how differently people think.
Do I want an advantage over other players because I've put a lot of time into the game? Heck Yes.
Do I believe that from a game design standpoint that allowing a nearly infinite advantage to exist in a competitive system is good? Heck no.
It puts too much focus on the leets and also encourages people to break the rules to gain that advantage. It's been a problem in the past, it's more of a problem now and until something is done it is just going to get worse. Or for some of you, better I guess.

I used to be on the other side of this argument, when Orn gear only gave a flat percentage, when mats were seriously hard to come by. The system was much more restrictive. It was a different game then. To be fair I don't think any of the suggestions are great and are anymore than a patch to help stop the bleeding until something better can be done. But trying to encourage people to play BoF by making it better, while a good idea in and of itself does nothing for anything else. To me that's like saying, we'll make towers better and that will solve the ascension problem in kingdom wars. It's two entirely different types of content. Fighting someone else's guided AI is not live fighting another player. The AL problem is already fixed in BoF.

I'd wager at some point that most of you will change your mind eventually, it's just a matter of numbers. What if you were a new T10 player and there are ascension 2000 players? You might think that's ridiculous right now but I've learned not to underestimate the tenacity of people. Three years ago thinking someone would be Al 200 was utterly ridiculous.

[young lantern]

As long as the current system is in place, people should be rewarded for engaging with it.
Odie has already put in a system for people who care about "competitive" pvp, and no one uses it.

[pale ingot]

So you think it's a good design for Arena, Wars, Conquest and Legacy territory to have a nearly infinite advantage based on playtime?

[young lantern]

Yes

[pale ingot]

That's a competition stifling system and I just can't agree. But it's good to know where you stand.

[young lantern]

Arena, Wars, Conquest, and Legacy aren't even pvp the way they exist today.

[pale ingot]

I agree with that.

[prisma bone]

ALs get harder to accrue over time with scaling costs. Ways to accelerate AL gains have been introduced, which allow new players to catch up.

Is the AL system perfect? Hell no, I’ve fought for it to get changed for years now. But I won’t vote in favor of bandaid fixes that disrespect players’ time investment into the game. The system as a whole needs to change

[pale ingot]

I can respect that. I too would prefer an overall change.

[spiral slate]

I see lots of good discussion happening here but I think we forgot one important thing that is asking chatgpt what we should do. Then we need to make it really angsty and then turn it into dramatic poetry to make life feel ok

[sturdy monolith]

then how can the people at the t10s have access to those things if they can't compete at people with a lot of playtime? if you get strong, the people at top get stronger. Now no one will stick around and play.

[spiral slate]

I’m ok with losing to goudine bc he has more dedication and playtime than me. It’s the nature of a non p2w game. Whoever puts in more TIME and EFFORT will get further ahead.
Meanwhile, we know that humans cant go forever like machines and may burn out or need a break.
THAT is when others catch up or pass them. How many people reading this have at one point or another taken a break or deleted the game?

Also if progression isn’t infinite, what will top level players even do? Grind for every 200% in the game? Come on. Even exp-less is finally moving up in tier because he ran out of things to do xd

[young lantern]

T10s can compete, and if they want an easier time they too can sink time into the game

[hollow pawn]

I feel the “time played” thing…is really really subjective. It seems to be the biggest point. I’ll tell you one thing…I’d dare someone to say I haven’t put in time….haha. No one in their right mind would even try that. At one point I honestly think I must have been the player with most game time on that year. Those days that I literally didn’t sleep?

The way I see it, the “time invested” argument loses value when we have to invest a long time, but only play one single way to get these “get stronger” benefits. I put in my time, and wasn’t rewarded well for it, because the system wasn’t great. So I should just have done exactly what other players do? Everyone should just play this way?

Maybe it was my mistake. But was it really? Or is it just a demonstration of how the game is completely unbalanced. I mentioned it earlier, people disregarding efforts of others. In the end it’s a “my way or the highway” approach. Play my way, or you will get left behind.

The other thread about conqueror’s guild has been talking about the rewards and how some think they are extreme or lackluster.

Could I ascend to 200 just by doing that? No.

Fishing? Nerfed. (Whatever it was, I don’t follow fishing a lot)

Staying relevant in this game means doing things a single way. And that’s just not fun. And I’d even dare to say, not what Odie seems to want. He’s usually trying to give us lot of different content to play our way.

We could say the content is not perfect. Maybe it’s not. On the other hand, maybe it’s not the content. Maybe it’s the end goal (the ascensions).

What is it that makes anguish and titan’s guild better than the rest?

[flat sorrel]

non-live PvP is broken because of first mover advantage, and because people can't lock in a defensive class + spec + pet separated from what they are currently playing. Fixing this would improve the game. Then you can bracket people by AL same as you separate t11 vs t10 in arena and coliseum. That would allow arena and coliseum to be playable for new ppl reaching t10-11. So only conqueror guild is left, but there you have the AL-eliminating item that fixes the problem. Is this a solution people who want AL to stay in PvP at least a bit would accept?

[spiral slate]

I actually agree with this. Something that im struggling with currently is how to progress efficiently in terms of ascension. I have level 1-225 down pat. But ascension?
I have nooo clue. And when people try to help, they say to play whatever content you want (but even I know that they don’t lead to equal progression).
If something had to change, I would take a hard look at if the MEANS to al were fair rather than the als themselves. To me al is simply a representation of time and effort, and all time and effort (given its not completely dumb xd) should result in a similar amount of progression.

[flat sorrel]

Best way to AL is farming as many towers as you can. So if you want to optimize you need a class that does tower from the beginning, that means GS at least at the beginning, with which you farm shards and items in dungeons for whatever other class you actually want to play. Once you have the classes you want to play and decent items there (enough to do tower till floor 50 with 0% death on that class, that's the idea) you AL that class and play that. You farm orns aggressively for early AL and to build your own towers asap (10 floor each) and do them every single day if you can. Then the game loop is orns when needed, otherwise towers, towers, towers. Event only if the drops from it make you faster at doing towers. If you want a break from the loop you play anguish dungeons or you farm mnemonics (this is actually fine for mats but capped by the diluted mnemonics which... stay with me... you get for free doing a ton of towers)

[hollow pawn]

I disagree. They would help, in a way yes. But disagree in that I don’t think it’s the core issue. And brackets by tier don’t work anymore when factoring ALs. The power difference doesn’t come from tiers anymore. And the item that eliminates AL cannot be used 24/7.

I’m curious though. Because most of the conversation has been kept to PvP. I want to think outside this. The method to actually getting “strength”. How many different way can we get there? Is it just one? PvP is the symptom of a larger problem

[hollow pawn]

Exactly. Said by a monster of min- maxing. That is extremely precise. GS first to unlock the classes, towers towers and more towers. I just hate to be forced to play “X” way. And I’m stuck. If I don’t do this, then I will objectively fall behind

[vast shore]

I don't think all time and effort should result in a similar amount of progression, else everything in a game feels high-stakes instead of there being some relaxing, care-free elements of the game. After all, why should I monetize all my hobbies instead of just enjoying some of them?

However, when all of the places to spend your time and effort have the same progression goal, then yes they should reward your time equally. They should not all have the same progression goal.

[flat sorrel]

MW not sure why you think bracketing lvl 250 people by AL every say 30 in arena/coliseum would be irrelevant.

[hollow pawn]

Oh sorry. My mistake. You did say brackets by AL. Missed that 🥲

[flat sorrel]

Brackets could even be 1-20, 21-50, 51-100, 101+, you only encounter from the population within that in arena/coliseum, at lvl 250.

[still fox]

The current suggestions have already trended the same way that they have when we have surveyed the audience in-game - which has been done a couple times. These suggestions are not showing bias

It’s clear that the playerbase is split down the middle when it comes to whether ascension needs change. When you’re at that ratio, you need to consider refinement rather than overhaul, as an overhaul is guaranteed to displease half the playerbase.

Instead, we need to focus on what smaller tweaks would make the system digestible to the other half

[hollow pawn]

Brackets by AL would be more effective than tiers. I agree. Still, a band aid. I think the problem lies in the method to get there

[spiral slate]

I really appreciate you telling me this as ive been searching for a way forward for quite a bit recently.
Im torn because this seems like a very specific way to progress. Is it wrong for me to wish for another guild like fishing for example (bot issue notwithstanding, maybe put in a quiz to test if human xd) to give the same amount of ‘progression’ as this strategy?
A big draw to orna is the grind. Lets just give more equitable options to people.

[flat sorrel]

Odie what is the opinion of people on getting AL global (At least partially)? any skew against or in favour?

[hollow pawn]

Exactly what I was saying yesterday. About respecting everyone’s opinions and trying to get to a middle ground. The issue is there. Period. And if we can talk about it and understand the other side, then we’d get closer to an actual solution. The more ALs scale, and the wider the gap becomes, the more extreme the solution will be at the end

[sturdy monolith]

Where is the survey located? I haven't seen the survey. Am I not eligible for it or is it selective?

[still fox]

I can design around the gap - we’ve got options. Anguish 2.0 is already designed to work with ascension nearly indefinitely

PvP, of course, is needing solution. But I’m sure there’s something palatable. ie:

1. blessing to disable AL in kingdom wars
2. toggle ascension off in PvAI arena
3. Make material equalization a little more accessible in conquerors

[hollow pawn]

Not a survey. A thread. The conqueror’s guild thread. Sorry I don’t know how to explain it more. I know it’s called a thread and I don’t know how to link stuff here 😅🤣

[flat sorrel]

MW you can farm towers with all classes, it's just fastest with summoner starting from tier9. With other classlines you have to just take more time ONCE (first week-month-3months, whatever that is depending on your gaming intensity) then you are on par with everyone else. Just takes longer to bootstrap in a sense. But you are still required to do towers to have meaningful progression in this game. Ofc anguish 2.0 could change that, and ofc some people hate towers so much (or love dungeons so much) that even at AL 70 or 80 or 100 they focus on A50 dungeons and not towers. But it's far slower. You unblock mats in a similar way (to a point), let's say proof of anguish and shards let you unblock with the same frequency (actually shard are slightly better) but you also get 4-5 free diluted per day with towers and the massive amount of end of floor mats + some fights drop mats otherwise not easy to farm (sandstone, broken statues, nightstone, twilightstone)

[spiral slate]

How many people do you think will really continue grinding forever? I think sooner or later, unless they are botting, they will slow down and idk chat instead of grind super sweaty.
If there are people who choose to grind 1000 als, then GOOD! It shows that they are dedicated to the game and a support for the community.

[hollow pawn]

I’m definitely in the dislike towers. I like more dynamic things. Never have I’ve been able to do more than 3 towers in a day. And that only happened once.

[flat sorrel]

3 towers in a day would easily put you in the top 0.1% (if done every day for a year). Keep in mind the 4 i do, i open them when i wake up then i do throughout the day, jumping in and out 1 min or 3 min or 5 min whenever i have time. Also keep in mind the gameplay gets a ton smoother when you are stronger, they don't feel the same chore anymore once you one-shot most targets for example

[ebon stratus]

I think good solutions exist but there will always be people upset by it. The people with high ALs want their time respected and the people who get curb stomped daily want some sort of fix. You nailed it on the head with the split down the middle, at least in discord. Ive never personally seen any polls to vote in game on ALs. Would love to give that one another try given the current state and not the past.

[hollow pawn]

🤣🤣you’re not helping. 3 towers a DAY?! Jeez. But yeah. I get where you’re coming from. I just wish other guilds provided comparable rewards

[formal wind]

For me the issue is mostly the 5-6 taps in different parts of the screen between every fight, puzzle doors nonwithstanding

[spiral slate]

All three options odie presented seem ok with me ^_^

[formal wind]

It was fine when towers were still new and fresh and exploration was warranted, but when they're basically solved, they're just unnecessary taps

[hollow pawn]

Oh yeah. His options are definitely a start

If ascensions won’t, or can’t be disabled because it’s too extreme (I kind of think it is), then we need more ways to get there.

[flat sorrel]

if i am not mistaken you can use emulator when at home or at pc in a fixed location and doing towers you previously found around (or that you built), in which case you map the keyboard arrows to move around and the location of the taps and you smoothsail close to instantly through them no?

[spiral slate]

Also this thread was a great idea. Makes the community feel heard. Makes the angry people less angry xd
10/10

[flat sorrel]

in HoA i actually ended up playing from mobile only at the end lol though, for some weird reason it's easier on my eyes

[prisma bone]

To be fair, the suggestion made after discussion here has a much more favorable ratio than all the other ones. All the other suggestions assume the AL system is staying in place, an overhaul wasn’t really polled with them imo

[hollow pawn]

A blessing to turn off ALs. lol. That is SPICY

[spiral slate]

It’s hard to balance the needs and wants of new players and old players. You want new players to keep playing and you want old players to help the new players grow xd tough tough haha

[formal wind]

That is not against HoA ToS, but it is against Orna ToS

Otherwise yes, I would've.

[flat sorrel]

ah sorry i thought that if not moving, orna was allowed. Anyway from mobile (which at the end i find more practical), if small screen phone the taps are very close one to each other, if bigger phone 2 hands do it quite well (one down for the arrows and later the fight, the other above for attacking the target and moving to next floor)

[ebon stratus]

This one has my vote
But this is probably the hardest to develop. We probably need to find something easier.

[still fox]

I wonder if it would be different if the ideas were separated. 2) is status quo, meaning 1) is the new addition, and as such, is what a ✅ would mean to me, personally

[prisma bone]

2. would technically mean a “commitment” from the studio to working on a AL system overhaul of the suggestion was “accepted” by you guys. At least that’s how I interpreted it

[ebon stratus]

Which i guess is status quo

[prisma bone]

Is it? I’ve never seen the studio say they’re interested in that, but I might have missed something

[still fox]

We did suggestion an ascension 2.0 at one point, yes

[prisma bone]

Regarding other suggestions made recently:

• removing AL in the arena: seems fair to me, makes arena farming not be terrible for recent lvl 250 players especially
• hex to remove ALs in kingdom wars: this one is tricky. It can be interesting, but I think it’d need a long cooldown (5 days?), or the higher ranked kingdom will just constantly be fighting against it

[still fox]

However - that system was meant to tackle the mat/partyplay economy, which was mostly solved via guilds

[prisma bone]

The suggestion of adding progressively harder quests to material requirements to ascend is also something I find interesting

[ebon stratus]

We are high rank but we arent high AL. I assume you mean high AL kingdoms. The two arent really the same

[prisma bone]

Fair point

[ebon stratus]

Which definitely warrants its own thread once this cools off😂

Sadly going to be out most of the day so wont be participating in here much but still more discussion to come I hope. Consensus is even split on limiting ALs. Some see it OK to limit in places and not others. Its really all over the board. So here we are again, as we are every year 😅

[ebon stratus]

This seems like the option most aligned on currently

[sharp pilot]

I wonder what the people who have downvoted it think about it

Or if they disagree with both, or just one of the two points made in that suggestion

[vast shore]

I downvoted it because relegating the change exclusive to Blades of Finesse doesn't fix anything, at least from my perspective at the moment. Putting it off indefinitely until later simply makes the issue's solution more difficult to implement. Though I do believe it needs to be a thoroughly thought-out solution and if that means it takes time, then so be it.

[sharp pilot]

Yeah, that’s true

[hybrid oriole]

I'd like to see short term "band aids" and a long term solution.

For example, there is no reason we still have random mat requirements. They've been the longest and most vocal point of contempt for like 3 years. Band aid that to either standardize them across the board, make it impossible to roll the same mat multiple times in a row, or any other "simple solution"

Then for broad changes, like customization, let it be long term

Basically, just change something. It's been a stagnant system despite constant feedback for years.

Every. Single. Time. This discussion happens the community ends up split, nothing changes, and everybody is left unhappy.

Just do something before we are back here next year having the same conversation

[serene knot]

Leave it alone. Stop screwing with people's progression and time investments. Like with conq guild. Rather than making old territory control absolutely worthless, could have adjusted it.

Stop accommodating new players so much and remember the people that got you where you are.

[still fox]

^ two comments making an absolutely perfect example of community juxtaposition 🙂

[hybrid oriole]

Juxtaposition isn't a justifiable reason for stagnation though

Orna 2020(21?) and orna 2025 might as well be different games, and the system needs to grow with it.

This seems to be the only area where community juxtaposition prevents change. It certainly wasn't an issue with monetization, conq guild, or any of the other major changes we've seen recently

Were people unhappy? Yes

But you made the change that needed to be made for the growth of the game. I feel like that applies pretty heavily to the only true endgame system we have, pending ang 2.0

[still fox]

i think it's okay to look at highlights of juxtaposition without taking them as any justification. it was just a simple observation

Guilds, as a whole, was a feature to enhance ascension. it solved what the original Ascension 2.0 plan, and we just can't ignore that. Guilds was a very active, non-stagnant effort

[hybrid oriole]

Sure, but now guilds are also at the mercy of the ascension system instead of being able to exist as their own cool thing

They exist around ascensions, instead of standing on their own. I imagine that you'd like to be able to flesh them out more without being beholden to ascension concerns with any change you'd make

[still fox]

i won't be able to comment as i don't see them limited by ascension at all 🤷

[hybrid oriole]

When ang 2.0 launches, if material acquisition is changed at all, I guarantee the community feedback is going to revolve around how ascension progression changes with the new difficulty

Look at the conversations for fishing guild when the limit was introduced. Or the conversation currently happening the conq guild thread about rewards. The guilds exist to push ascension progression

[serene knot]

They push ascension progression but aren't limited to having it.

[hybrid oriole]

My original post* was snarky.

If guilds aren't limited by progression, then BoF wouldn't be dead

Like half this thread tackles that very subject

[crisp fern]

The old live pvp was dead too tbf. That's why it was removed

[serene knot]

The reason it is 'dead' is because conquerers guild was a better way to get the specializations, or the players already have them. You do it for proofs occasionally, but once you have BoF then there isn't any real reason. If anything, ascension is keeping people going back to it.

[hybrid oriole]

Yeah, because there was no reward system 😅 which is the point. Guilds are now directly tied to ascensions, and the rewards have to exist or its immediately problematic.

Guilds exists as a system to address another systems failures. I'd rather just see the ascension system corrected, instead of changing it by changing everything around it.

But I'm diverging.

Change something in the short term, and also fix it long term

Like if Odie prevented us from getting the same mat 3 levels in a row, is anybody actually against that change?

And if so, why? Other than just being against change in general

[serene knot]

So, what you are proposing is that we need ascension to change in a way that makes guilds more meaningful and impactful? I don't see how you do that without keeping guilds ascension focused.

Ascension is the end game, anguish is the end game. How do you change it without losing the players that have sunken most of their time into ascension along the way?

[still fox]

preventing repeats means you no longer get abundant mats twice in a row. it harms as much as it helps

[hybrid oriole]

It evens the distribution, which is better for a huge number of people

[ebon stratus]

Change something short term, rehaul long term - poll the long term to make sure everyone is covered. BoF is its own problem but solves a lot of the pvp AL issues.

I think thats where we at

[hybrid oriole]

And is significantly more fair in the long term

[winter lintel]

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to not getting two in a row, but it doesn't seem necessary. No one notices when they get two shop mats in a row, and they're a lot more common than something like cort.

[serene knot]

@hybrid oriole may I ask what your ascension level is?

[hybrid oriole]

100, with enough stockpiled for like ~13 ish more if I was willing to sacrifice the pretty number

Plus like 27 in diety and 20 in gilga or something

[formal wind]

113 is a pretty number. It's a prime!

[hybrid oriole]

But what if I hit 112 instead? It'd be a travesty

[formal wind]

HoC instantly.
And then take a cold shower.

[hybrid oriole]

Sure, look at it it this way though.

Like 80% of the mats don't really matter. They are either so easily farmable that you can get them in like 2 days effort, or you just buy them. These mats can roll as much as they want and in the long term aren't really a blocker. I envy those who rolled Firestone as their main blocker.

For the other 20%, they totally skew the entire progression system. Getting cort x3 in a row is an entirely different progression track than even solarite because of the price differences in guilds

[formal wind]

Probability and statistics was never my strong suit, so I'm not sure how this changes entirely, but wouldn't disabling getting two in a row mean getting more problematic materials more often?
Since those 80% materials that don't really matter do end up often coming up twice in a row

[hybrid oriole]

I'd be willing to bet serious cash I am in the top .1% of cort requirements for AL100. This plays a large role in my loathing of the current randomness of the system

[formal wind]

Sure you wouldn't get cort twice in a row, but you could get cort every other ascension, and have it happen more often than before.

Could always just make ascensions cost X of every material.

But at that point people would always get blocked on cortanite, too

[hybrid oriole]

That is the dream ^ (or something like it)

I just want the cost normalized. Prevent the extreme outliers at a minimum

[formal wind]

That is also the dream for refinery and tower users

since they get a nice and even spread of every material, and not one that spikes above the others

[flint coral]

Yay or Nay: Normalize the effort/cost required for each of the materials by inverse tier.
Less Cort Required, but a heck of a lot more Wood?

[hybrid oriole]

I did the napkin math.

Current system is a 5% chance for cort each level.

Preventing double rolls would mean a 9% chance for each level that didn't previously roll cort

Which over a long time, prevents outliers and normalizes the distribution

[formal wind]

On the one hand, I like that idea - it would mirror the proof costs in the guilds, after all.

On the other hand, at that point you can quite literally make a translation of "every single ascension level requires 5 batches of X proofs" - so why bother have the material middle man at that point?

[winter lintel]

Id rather spend 6 hours anguish grinding than 1 hour in the grand market

[formal wind]

My beloved 77k wood block

[hybrid oriole]

Doesn't every ascension already require 5 batches of x proofs though? Just ranging from small batch to really big batch?

If it still boils down to farming dungeons until your eyes bleed, does the exact number matter?

[formal wind]

Well yes but in the new scenario, that X would be the same for the 5 batches.

[serene knot]

So, with 100 ascension levels, you would be okay with changes that could potentially make your time and effort less impactful? Rather than looking at Ascension as the problem, look at what can come from it once you keep climbing.
It seems like you want more endgame ways to play, rather than just trying to get more materials for ascending. I think ascension is good as it is now and we need to look beyond it.

[formal wind]

Which is one step closer to just getting rid of the material abstraction to begin with

I am also fond of getting rid of the material abstraction because not only does it normalize ascending, it also removes the refinery issue

[serene knot]

Why not instead of changing ascension, you change something like endless? Have a new optional endless mode that you can scale with ascension and get increasingly better rewards the deeper you go, such as exclusive weapons and armor? No proofs to earn just do the thing and get stuff.

[maiden vapor]

My wish for this topic for 2025 is the same as 2024 :

• keep improving the guild system (as it has already been done and will be done with anguish 2.0 maybe)
• remove some obvious cheese way, the so called "min-max" wich basicaly translate into allowed exploits. Having some way to cheese like refineries/alt kingdom/raids farming like crazy via multiple fishing characters or infinite loop of "party" play with yourself (and maybe more with anguish on raids ?).

[hybrid oriole]

This sounds like guilds, but in a system where they don't have to solve ascensions 🙂

[serene knot]

It's just an example of something that could be done. I am not suggesting that it is the fix

[hybrid oriole]

And to this first question, yes. I'd throw my ascensions away in a heart beat if it meant we got an improved system that was something more than a chained shield pressing, refinery spamming mat farm

[serene knot]

Fair enough, though I know a lot of people that are well over 100asc as well that wouldn't feel the same. Gotta think about others too

I see Gamblor typing for a while and I'm here waiting like

[hybrid oriole]

Which I get, I just think it's problematic in the long term.

If the game systems can't stand on their own as a fun game loop without the ascension carrot on a stick present, then I think that is an issue with the game systems

If orna has truly turned into nothing more than farming materials for ascensions, that is sad to see

[formal wind]

It's not that orna has become nothing more than that. Orna has a lot to do before you reach that point.
The issue is when you do reach the point of max level and best gear

At which point you either do nothing, or you farm ascensions.

[serene knot]

That has been what Orna has been for a long time, grinding mats for ascension. Guilds made it easier, Anguish 1.0 was supposed to make it relevant and it has to a degree, but it's the same argument. Rather than focusing on ascension as the problem, focus on building around it 🤷‍♂️

[prisma bone]

More than preventing repeats, I’d just like costs to be normalized across the board. Why should some have to grind 40k more cort than others to get AL 100 ?

[hollow pawn]

Lol. So the whole game revolves around ascensions? Is that where this conversation ended up at? People literally saying all guilds serve the purpose of ascending?

[ebon stratus]

Summarizing current issues:

• normalizing mats across ALs/players
• the state of non AL pvp

[formal wind]

I mean. Do they not?

[spiral plover]

All guilds are intended to encapsulate a mode of play; ideally the more distinct from each other the better.
The rewards for each ultimately are ascension, such that the major game progression can be achieved from whatever mode(s) of play different people prefer.

[formal wind]

Ultimately the grand objective of both guilds and the game as a whole is to be fun, but in terms of actual raw in game rewards, then yeah, the long term reward of all guilds is ascension.

[wanton saffron]

Wow that took a long time to read this whole thread.
Here is my 2 cents-

1. Normalize the ascension costs so everyone is on an equal playing field
2. introduce AL disabling hex/blessing in wars with an appropriate cool down time
3. have better matchmaking algorithm for wars so huge strength disparities between kingdoms are minimized
4. improve conversion rates of proofs to mats so all guilds have more equal conversion of time spent playing to materials purchased with proofs of that guild, as it stands the most efficient proof conversion is proofs of anguish (imo)
5. allow disabling AL in arena battles
6. remove refineries or make a grand refinery
7. Revive BOF, have seasons and rotating house rules, add better rewards/incentives to get activity up
8. i kind of like the idea of instead of each AL increasing all raw stats, players could use the AL to increase specific stats instead, which would add more diversity to players builds. HOC everyone with ALs and let them redistribute points they way they want to
9. do a better job at catching players that are botting
10. add a better system for managing your characters AI in battle, if anyone remembers the gambit system from FF12, that was an excellent way to manage AI
11. fix SS quadratic scaling with AL and fixed miss chance (i know this is supposed to be addressed in an upcoming patch), make miss chances like every other skill (dex vs dex), and since most people will cry if their SS suddenly becomes weaker hitting, then add quadratic scaling to several other skills that aren't completely reliant on ward.
12. this game is all about the grind, people who put in the time should be stronger then people that put in less time. keep ALs in territory/settlement control. the material equalizer is good to allow a non or low AL player to have a better chance for a little while against a high AL player for territory. maybe adjust duration/cost/cool down rates.
13. fix the tankyness of OS so every build doesnt rely on VSS

[spiral plover]

That's a great summary imo

[hollow pawn]

Exactly. They do. And that, in my opinion, makes me sad at least. Because that’s all it’s become. I don’t see how people defend that. That a guild is successful only based on how much it helps ascending and not on the fun or content it provides

[wanton saffron]

over 3 hours between last night and this morning to read through this whole thread

[ebon stratus]

Love all of it, but would add restore BoF guild for non AL pvper outlet. Great write up thanks gamb

[spiral plover]

I don't see it that way @hollow pawn. Each guild is successful when the mode of play therein is successful; number-going-up is ultimately kinda meaningless. I think the guild levels (and associated leaderboards) are more important than the ascension mats personally.

If anything, over-ascension/player over-power just detracts from playing the game. Not adding to it.

[ebon stratus]

Can someone pin gambs post ( and add revive non AL pvp in BoF)

[wanton saffron]

what do you mean exacly? BOF doesnt apply ALs

[winter lintel]

Ok odie get to work

[hollow pawn]

Idk. Maybe difference of opinion. I don’t consider the mining guild successful. And while conq is attracting people, I don’t know if success is the right word if players think that after a couple settlements there is nothing more to be gained. Same with BoF, grab the spec and go. Travelers guild has some people, but it’s hard to use it to further progress (I think?). It’s just towers or anguish at this point. I just don’t think it’s good for the game overall to have everything revolve around ascensions.

And we could say that all those guilds need fixing. That is an option. We could also go the other way, and just figure out a better way to implement ALs. Not remove them, but change them. Like Gamblor mentioned

I don’t even know the name for the mining guild. lol

[winter lintel]

I use spelunking guild basically exclusively for Orn farming as a Gilga, but prob highlights more of the anguish guild than spelunking. Travellers guild is really effective at generating materials once you have a decent team together.

[hollow pawn]

Everything gamblor said I agree with. Most things, or close variants of what he proposed. Except #12. Old territory is dead and should stay that way. All focus should be on conq guild, imo.

[spiral plover]

Way back in the day (and I'm not sure if it's still the stance), it was decided that anguish and towers were "endgame" guilds that should reward more ascension mats. It makes a little bit of sense, in that it takes more ascension to do them correctly compared to something like fishing, but at the same time it is pushed farther than it probably should be. Where people feel like they must do those guilds to ascend.

And there are still two imo major activities that aren't guildified: endlessing and raiding. The latter got a tiny hanger-on addition to monument guild, but it's not the tightest fit it could have.

Anyway -- there was some rumbling months back about a guild (and guild shop) realignment patch but I don't know what ever came of that. We got a bandaid fishing patch (daily fish cap) but that was everything afaict. The dream of "players should play their way (i.e. pick the guilds where the gameplay is most agreeable to them) and progress" is on life support and could use some fresh attention.

[hollow pawn]

I don’t mind having or not having ALs for specifically areas. It can go both ways. I see both arguments as valid. Maybe I lean slightly towards not having them. But meh.

[formal wind]

Endless should proooobably not get a guild. Or at least not one that rewards materials. I can't imagine it being all too healthy to have a one stop solution to every material ascension issue: Materials, Gold (lol) and Orns

[spiral plover]

It's been discussed before at length in here: https://discord.com/channels/448527960056791051/1257928189636771982

[hollow pawn]

Yeah. I agree. And yes, they were meant to help out ascensions back then, when it was new. Now it’s just out of control. The way people talk about them confirm that, at least to me. That they are necessary and fastest way to move forward. Almost only way. Game has definitely changed.

[spiral plover]

My comment ( #1257928189636771982 message ) should hopefully ameliorate your concerns.

[formal wind]

Oh yeah I vaguely remember.

There's also the possibility of just stapling Endless to Spelunking Guild and calling it a day though, with similar efficiency to that of running non-monuments and getting Pronuments

[spiral plover]

I think it could exist, thematically, inside of Spelunking Guild. It makes sense even though the activity is very different.
Not unlike stapling raids to monuments, circling back to that point.

[hollow pawn]

People need to understand ascensions won’t go away. Some form of it will be present. If it changes or not. For people against it and for it. New people will still be at a disadvantage. It is just fair that way. It will never be exact equal footing. But a different version would probably be best. For me, it would be the one that allows for most customization of all options.

[formal wind]

*** Deep is Deep!***

• Someone, probably

[hollow pawn]

I can still imagine solutions that address what high AL players want. To get stronger objectively. With more fun. With the knowledge that their strength will be limited in certain activities, but still have access to it for most.

[spiral plover]

At the risk of oversummarizing, I think the "never ascensions" and "infinite ascensions" people are outliers. The middle ground is that ascensions exist, take a lot of effort, and the gap between the very high and very low is kept within sensible bounds.

And BoF still exists for AL0 pvp, as a more competitive and special thing.

[hollow pawn]

But yeah. I’ll let others talk about Gamblor’s pinned comment a bit. I like it. Took him like 15 minutes to type too lol.

[ebon stratus]

Its absolutely deadsville though

The only active pvp right now is territory control but you all want ALs there. So need to revamp non AL pvp

[formal wind]

BoF's death can be attributed to a few key factors:

High time investment for low reward (once the Spec has been acquired, the only reason you'd go there is either shrines or materials, and the proof to material ratio sucks.)
Low player count in the high brackets
It's easier to grind against the NPCs, so some people even leave the player fights they do get to go back to PvE

[hollow pawn]

Yo the voting on the suggestions is CRAZY!

What a horrific thing to deal with if you’re the studio. I wonder what the people outside discord think

[mystic jewel]

Caught up again, I think Gamblor had a great write up

I think if you split the settlements into AL vs non AL and territories and/or made equalizers more accessible, it sounds even more solid.

Real cool to see more giants proposing good stuff and thanks to Odie and team for being in the discussion!

[hollow pawn]

Lol. I’d hit em all 😂

[mystic jewel]

I know it got shared on the reddit page but not sure about Facebook or, of course, anyone who uses none of the three

[formal wind]

Odie did comment on the results: #1324777744827154534 message

[spiral plover]

"What's an ascension? Dude check it out I got a legendary adamantine armor!"

[crisp fern]

It has been polled outside of discord multiple times like odie stated already. Every time, it's torn in the middle or leans toward keeping AL as is

[hollow pawn]

Ohhhh I saw that. But wasn’t aware about the voting. That’s crazy. But I’ll take small tweaks for sure.

[formal wind]

Funny.
But also exceedingly accurate if I had to guess lol

[undone sable]

this can be one solution to the BOF problems:

#💡│suggestions message

[formal wind]

Yeah I did see that

[ebon stratus]

The BoF problem is incentive even for me tbh. Live pvp is hard/exhausting and time consuming. It should be paid out as such

[prisma bone]

The game revolving almost exclusively around ascending is another reason why I’d like to see BoF changes to have seasons and a a mmr ladder. Would give us another goal to work towards that isn’t just ascending

[ebon stratus]

Exactly. Gear / build / strategy goals instead of just AL grind goals

This in addition to Gambs post and id be happy closing this out for now honestly. Really hope it's high on the list along with kingdom overhaul this year

[wanton saffron]

@ebon stratus i edited #7 in my list, this is what you meant right?

[ebon stratus]

Perfect. Great write up thanks again for chiming in

[spiral slate]

Not something I really thought heavily about but I know somw games do a ‘server level’ type thing with bonus xp given to people who are underleveled. Is this even something that should be considered in orna?

[spiral slate]

Actually scratch that its too overhaul-y. Even as I consider it, i dont like it xd

[quick frigate]

Late to the party but I'd like to weigh in on the discussion. I read a few hundred posts but missed a lot so sorry if this has been covered.

As a player on the higher end of ALs, I think that PvP needs to be improved but the current meta of SS builds dominating has to be tackled before changing the AL system. Rebalance SS as a priority and then let's take a look at the playing field. We'll be in a far better position to decide whether PvP ALs need to be left as is, capped, or changing the 1% linear progression.
.

I don't use discord often so I don't know the current state of rebalance patches and such but there shouldn't be one single build that dominates PvP. Each class should be able to use their class's innate advantages for a good PvP build. This should be what NF focuses on first before making changes to ALs in PvP.
.

For PvE, I don't see the reason to get rid of ALs but if there's a way to make the endgame more compelling, I'm all for it -- even if that means, for some reason, to get rid of ALs. If there's no reason to get rid of ALs, then keep it as is.

[ebon stratus]

Thanks for the input! I believe SS changes are imminent. The pvp portion of the AL discussion always devolves into an even split where half the people are tired of getting curb stomped and half the people enjoy the curb stomping. Its less about SS3 than it is about trying to compete in pvp with someone who spends more time than you when ALs are in all PVP (minus BoF which is dead)

So basically, if you dont like to grind ALs, you are just at a serious disadvantage. Theres not enough out there for people who like PVP but dont care for Ascensions

[jovial iron]

Great stuff, really👍
In addition to 2) imo showing the AL of the players in the war overview and adding a preparation phase to decide on which hex/blessing to pick without getting rushed would be benefitial.

[ebon stratus]

Thats a great idea. Nothing worse than being surprised by a 200 AL opponent and unprepared

[north rock]

sounds like a good idea for kingdom improvement/revamp

[fallow field]

Funny enough, maybe you could make a big announcement in game to have a poll or something and see what is the trend now, because I can’t remember the same advertisement as the archpath survey. I might have forgotten seeing it ingame, I surely remember discussions on discord though.

And also if you guys “truly” want to continue with ascension delirium, at least make it “FAIR” for everybody by revamping it the way somebody described it at the beginning of this thread and make steps with the same exact materials for everybody and progressive in rarity. So it is fair. I know it “evens out” allegedly over a long time, allegedly. But when you reach 30 and get stuck 4 times in a row on something extremely rare that will take you months while somebody will have a free pass to level 45… that’s not fair at all and can make you quit just because it’s dumb. That’s all I would ask if you really keep ascension. Think of most people that are treating this game as a game and not a primary job spending 5h a day grinding…
That doesn’t mean those people won’t pay for the game… I have been buying lots of sprites and support over the years despite not playing as much as I used to. It doesn’t mean I don’t support the game if I don’t play 5h per day.

[ebon stratus]

#📡│hype message

Quite timely

[abstract sentinel]

Totaly not something Odie worked on this weekend in part due to the conversations here

and mind you, even if it is not the case, it sure feels like he is listenning to us when he post well timed and topical hype on monday of a big thread

[distant wraith]

imagine that "60 AL" enemy at last floor

[ebon stratus]

So the least interactive pvp is now a non AL option. Progress💪

[radiant prairie]

Odie revealing a new Coliseum Mode 😅

this post brought to you by a light hearted

[sharp owl]

Honestly, I adore it for pve but only in tandem with Anguish and with super raids being hard. Gives me a way to get better, rather than ONLY changing gear or trying to grind for gear that has a .2% increase in attack.

[pale pier]

Think we should wait to see what Ang 2.0 brings in terms of ascensions in PvE. Pvp wise it kinda sucks being out up against someone with more ALs but at the same token your rewarding someone who hasn't put as much time or work in as the higher AL player. I see both sides 🤷 Sorry didn't feel like reading the whole thread if this was said already

I do like the seasons pvp idea someone said while I was reading briefly. One season say has ALs one doesn't and is locked. Or there maluses involved. It's a neat idea

[spiral slate]

Lots of veterans seem to be getting bitter. I wonder why? And if it says something about the state of the game or regular ol burnout?

[ebon stratus]

I think where my 'bitterness', or whatever you want to label it, stems from is the nostalgia from old territory control. Im talking about the 3 years ago one, where people who pass through were barely in the 20-30 AL range, and I was sitting somewhere in t10. It was competitive - you could find clever ways to keep anyone out, while also getting kept out by others clever builds. This content was the reason I logged in to farm gear every day.

Now, when someone comes through my territory, theres a couple issues at hand. Here are the typical scenarios for me (im 65 ALs):

• A local hops on board the SS3 train (solved soon, I know)

• 130+ AL vacationer steamrolls through. Can't do anything to keep them out. Not even worth trying, have given up a bit ago.

Now that I've given up on territories, Ive been trying to reinvent my enjoyment in Orna. Nothing really comes close to the same right now. And im not going to just farm to 100 ALs to keep up, because then the local competition will be super lame. Not to mention thats just an endless wheel where tons get left behind in such content.

I know I'm not alone in feeling this. Call it bitterness if you want. Just miss the good ol days

I know some of it is the result of general power creep, acceleration, and imbalances in the game, but some of it is due to some insane AL disparity.

[spiral slate]

Maybe I’m naive. When I see the al disparities, it gets me pumped. But maybe its because I haven’t really been mat blocked yet as an al 4…
This crossroads seems to be a tough situation for the devs where there isnt any ‘correct’ way out. But as long as they continue to accept criticism and feedback (note: not mindlessly), I am confident the game will continue trending in a positive direction even though it may not be the same game as it was day, months, or years ago.

[vague tinsel]

Ascension isn't that hard, if you pay attention to the advice of some of the veterans here and on orna legends you'll be very surprised how fast you can catch up to people who seem unbeatable right now. Keep up that attitude and you'll go far 💪

[spiral slate]

Mind adding your 2 cents for al strategy?

[vague tinsel]

I'd need to know your class and where you're at gear wise. Dm me and I can definitely point you in the right direction

In general though I'd focus on running monuments to farm dms and then running those on a couchable node

[sharp pilot]

Mind if I do?

[vague tinsel]

Not at all

[vague tinsel]

Waiting for that erdick novel 🍿

[ebon stratus]

Be nice😄

[mystic jewel]

I'll piggyback off of this a little-

Stuff like Endless and theorycrafting builds with the significantly lower powered gear than what everyone has now was a lot of fun. The Endless X achievement was something I felt like I earned through literally weeks of trying different builds out (mind you no amities, class specific abilities, and ALs had just been added at the time and not a lot of people had bought in) to break Floor 400 on Deity- no one, not even people with their first few ALs thought it was possible.

That achievement feels like it doesn't really matter at all anymore and Endless feels less like a "come up with the right build" and more like a tool people either use just to farm orns show off how deep their Ascensions let them climb. Even though that was an endgame loop and achievement we used to work for, it's just an optimized farming tool now- one of the reasons I would love to have an Ascensionless option for Endless.

Coliseums were added- this was another neat challenge to try and build and optimize for but eventually got nerfed as people found out you could cheese it with lower level alts, ALs were present in addition to scaling enemies making the challenges not worth it for paltry rewards- another potential endgame piece that became a trivialized farming tool if you used alts or had high enough ALs and were sorta locked out of if you didn't

Party dungeons and group endless- things that, to me, started to really bring the MMO side of Orna out as we worked together to farm and grind and see how deep we could get together- Group Endless was removed due to issues/abuse and Party Dungeons have largely turned into over-optimized and less-efficient farming methods for materials that would likely be used for Ascensions.

The first Live PvP tournament we had was awesome. It was some of the most fun the game had in regards to pvp. But thereafter Live PvP was removed outside of direct challenges--- out of characters. 😂 hold on

[maiden vapor]

To the good old days 🍻
I still really like this game !
But to me, early 2022, at the start of party play released (it was still the time you discribed on your endless exemple here !), when party play channel were such a big happy mess, were the best orna days so far !

[mystic jewel]

Continuing- until we got blades of Finesse, no one wanted to try and do stuff with tournaments due to AL disparities growing.

PvP used to be just about strategy and builds and Blades of Finesse provides a tiny scratch on the surface of that. - tiny

I can respect the grind those with higher AL's than me have put in. They're doing content that I don't tend to vibe with- Anguish, towers and monuments amongst fishing and such. And all power to yall that enjoy those things- but as the game has become just an AL loop for so many and the random mat rolls just sucking a lot of the joy out of it for me, the other content I did enjoy, PvP included, has also become empty, unfun or put me at a disadvantage when I engage with it.

Which is all to say it really boils down to how everyone plays is what this round of discussions have shown me

From an ascension focused perspective, the proper way to play is to grind the things that get you the Mats for ascensions. You work hard and you get rewarded with a direct increase to power. This isn't the camp I play in but I can respect the point of view.

From a "have fun" way of playing you play whatever you find fun and engaging in the game and you're rewarded by finding new things to be excited about. This is the camp I fall into and the awesome community around this game keeps bringing me back to it.

Those two camps often find each other at odds of late and there are inevitably comments such as "new players whining" or "bad players not wanting to adapt" etc. which is strawman to say the least as an older player who tries out lots of content and strategies.

TLDR: Ascensions and the Ascension loop has sucked a lot of the fun, depth and strategy out of content or parts of the game I really enjoy. Y'all are a fun bunch and I want to keep enjoying the game too.

Which is why I really appreciate everyone coming to this discussion with all different perspectives. Keep being awesome, Orna Community

[vague tinsel]

Almost farmed 15 ang 50 dungeons in the time it took you to type that

[mystic jewel]

Glorious, hahaha 😅

I look forward to seeing Anguish 2.0, and hopefully more ways to engage with or have the option to choose to engage with ascensions down the road (loved the idea of quests for some)

[spiral slate]

Would ascless endless give as much as with al?

Just read the whole comment. So you’re saying the game should have more casual modes like league of legends urf to balance the try Harding and casual playing

[mystic jewel]

More engaging, enjoyable content, and balanced PvP (which is enjoyable)

Taking days, weeks and sometimes months of hitting the training cactus or bouncing builds off of kingdom mates (and recording the data) to figure out how different passives interact with each other in PvP - not to mention farming for the gear with said passives doesn't feel very casual to me but the testing and strategy feels trivialized in a lot of ways outside of Blades of Finesse.

I do look forward to Anguish 2.0 and seeing what else NF cooks up. I'm okay with refining ascensions (similar to Gamblor's suggestion) and seeing where that lands everything

[spiral slate]

Good thing i don’t enjoy pvp lol i like coop vs actual challenges

I’ve been hoping to face such challenges but the never ending grind seems to interfere with that bc in response to hardship, the answer has always been to gain more levels for me xd
Maybe while we’re talking about minimizing the impact of al for pvp, we should also consider doing the same for co-op pve.

[mystic jewel]

I'd enjoy (admittedly probably be a hassle to add) something like Group Endless or Group Event dungeons where Ascensions are/can be scaled off and there are unique bosses or raids at the end of them.

Or more Group dungeon/raid type stuff - the Beguiled Apollyon Rift events were closer than I've seen in a while

Endless runs having a "guardian" every 100 floors or something

Lots of options. But there's a lot on the NF forecast right now so I'm okay waiting on those things

On the topics of this thread, Blade of Finesse having rotating rules and seasons is probably one of my favorite suggestions

[spiral slate]

I’m glad that there are lots of options. I just hope they choose a good one haha

[pale ingot]

Blade of Finesse is fine if you are someone who enjoys PVP and I am all for making it better. However it has absolutely zero to do with balancing all the pvpai in the game. And at least in my opinion, finding balance in pvpai is impossible as long as AL's continue to just grow and grow with no end. It just becomes a grind more for bigger numbers game which by it's very nature reduces the amount of competitors who can truly join into the battle. I'm also not against rewarding play time with an advantage. But where do we draw the line? 250% stat advantage over another player? 1000% stat advantage? Personally I think a 50% stat advantage is plenty and still allows people to experience fighting up while still giving them a fighting chance. It still rewards the player for grinding more too. Maybe a floating 50 Ascension gap would be a more fair compromise for both sides?

Now, some people like that you can grind harder to absolutely crush your competition more times than not, some don't and want a more level playing field. It doesn't say anything bad about you no matter which side you are on. It's just a personal preference thing. Obviously I fall on the side of making the playing field more even. I want people to take my settlements, I want to take them back. But I don't want to hand it to them on a silver platter by removing my gear in my pvp build. It's one reason I don't use any ramparts. I want it to be challenging for them but not overwhelming. Same goes for someone rolling through 100 ascensions higher than me, I want it to be challenging for them as well.

[distant wraith]

floating 50 Ascension gap
well that's interesting

[spiral plover]

a floating 50 Ascension gap
That's a really cool idea.

If I'm understanding this right, this would be something like:

• Player is AL123 and has a settlement.
• Noob with AL5 attacks player, player is treated as AL55 for that battle.
• Different player with AL40 attacks player, player is treated as AL90 for the battle.
• Godgamer with AL222 attacks player, godgamer is treated as AL173 for the battle.

[pale ingot]

Yes, that is an accurate description of what I was referring to

[distant wraith]

Thanks that you used me as an example. 😘 But I really, really like this one.

[pale ingot]

Now, how feasible that is for coding, I have no idea.

It introduces a lot of complexity (perhaps) into stat decay calculations etc

[spiral plover]

Of everything discussed I like this second most behind stat squish/AL devaluing. (Mostly because I think player overpower in pve is also a giant problem worth addressing, and I don't think it needs to be addressed separately.)

It seems like a reasonable thing, not too big of an overhaul. Of course actual implementation details unknown.

[distant wraith]

I don't think so. Stat decay is just ×stat multipler at the end ...AL is just multipler before that.

Well I thought PvE problem should be solved with AL/ang 2.0, no? Odie saying that it will work pretty much till infinity.

[pale ingot]

Yeah, that's what he has said.

[spiral plover]

I disagree with Odie that Anguish2.0 is "the solution". Certainly willing to see what comes and am keeping my mind open, but if it's an opt-in feature then I have big doubts. Notably that the feature can be completely ignored and players can still 1shot raids for ornate non-anguish event drops in perpetuity.

[pale ingot]

But, will they want to? Of course at this point that's all just speculation and probably best discussed later. If Anguish 2.0 doesn't hit the mark, just adds more ammo for Asc 2.0 I'd think

[spiral plover]

Hence: address the problem directly. Players are far too strong relative to the environment, weaken players/strengthen environment (both are equivalent changes).

[ebon stratus]

I'm on board - but you don't need to convince me 😄

[spiral slate]

You have spent too much time becoming powerful xd
Some players are not strong haha

[spiral plover]

You are far stronger at AL0 fighting the same enemies and raids from five years ago than in the past. And ascending is much, much, much easier than it used to be.

Several comments in this thread already about "it's really easy to ascend"; believe them.

[pale ingot]

Imagine Ascension with no guilds, no horde dungeons, no parties, orn gear didn't scale with quality. That was original ascension

[spiral slate]

So basically make end game harder somehow?

[pale ingot]

I was saying it got radically easier

[spiral slate]

So more of an observation

[pale ingot]

Yeah, just trying to add some perspective in Ascension ease now vs when it first appeared.

[spiral slate]

Easy or hard, I dont think itll make much difference.
If you gave me the ‘easy’ mode for al, and acefarmer the ‘hard’ mode, I guarantee he will still out al me xd
As long as everyone is held to the same standard and has the same opportunity for progression, i cant complain

[tidal burrow]

Well, it has been easy all the time with 737638001663 refineries

[spiral plover]

It's not about competing with other players. It's about having pve combat that requires a minimum of player attention and reaction.
AL is the most visible way to obviate pve and it feeds into itself (the faster you clear content the faster you can ascend).

[spiral plover]

this is a pve topic^

[spiral slate]

Mb i was addressing something else then oops

[spiral slate]

What do you mean by obviate pve? I cant understand what youre saying xd
If im understanding you correctly, youre saying that rather than playing pve content the way its ‘meant’ to be played (which has always just been to buff stuff, debuff stuff, and spam a couple buttons), players are being encouraged to gain al instead so that they can see big numbers?
I dont see the problem with that. You said its not a pvp issue so who is it even hurting? Just tryna understand what the ‘problem’ is here

[ebon stratus]

Straight fact about stronger now than 5 years ago. Seen 0 AL Dara do endless to 450+ in orn gear. Back in the day, Deity had to completely min max best gear possible at like 10-20 ALs to hit 400 endless with some rng

Endless being the best orn income in the game, thats a clue alone to how much easier ascending has become

I dont think thats necessarily a problem though. The problem to me is - in order to have best competition possible -Im constantly forcing a sweet spot in ALs where my local rivals can enjoy trying to take areas from me while also staying high enough to consistently kill the huge AL players that come through.

Getting more ALs is easy but I dont want to just curb stomp the locals thats not fun

[spiral slate]

Does al apply to othersouls btw?

[ebon stratus]

No

[spiral slate]

Yeahh that was a dumb question lol
Thats good tho xd
Least you HAVE local rivals, its just me myself and i out here

[spiral slate]

If this is executed 70% I’ll have no complaints

[remote rune]

People seem to forget that AL disabling is already a thing in PvP (As much as I dislike it - it exists for settlements - though I think the cost should be higher, but I digress). The AL system has been fine - it starts out cheap and gets more expensive as you go. There's no guarantee a higher AL player will beat a lower AL player. There's even RNG with stuff like 2nd chance popping (sometime multiple times). Rewarding players for hard work and being competitive is what keeps the game alive and AL should NEVER be disabled for kingdom wars. If someone has only 10 AL and they go up against someone with 100 AL yeah they should be at a disadvantage in that regard because they didn't put forth the effort to grind it. I think BoF offers that good alternative for people wanting to play without AL being involved and test other classes in pvp (though BoF could use some work).

[maiden vapor]

It's assuming AL = efforts, wich is not completely wrong but sadly not as true as it maybe should 🤞

[summer harbor]

If someone has only 10 AL and they go up against someone with 100 AL yeah they should be at a disadvantage in that regard because they didn't put forth the effort to grind it
why bother matchmaking at all for kingdom wars then? might as well just go down the list when matching players, without regard for what tier they are. if a t5 ends up against a t9, well, the t9 put in more effort to grind it 🤷‍♂️

[pale ingot]

Ahh the old days

[summer harbor]

wait was that actually a thing once

[spiral slate]

Lets do it muahaha

[summer harbor]

teach me how to defeat you /s

[abstract sentinel]

pretty acurate very high AL vs low AL being different tier levels of power

I want to fight EXP-LESS
and lose

[ebon stratus]

Ss3
Until it gets balanced soon

[ebon stratus]

This nails it
Why even bother? Just have a simulator run thru the war and onto the next.

[summer harbor]

I don't have enough ward to run ss sadge

[ebon stratus]

Selene hands and 200k ward about all u need

[summer harbor]

yeah I can't get 200k without prom feet

I eat my words

apparently I can get 199k with an unadorned axe lmao do calcs before making statements challenge (impossible)

well I'll get to lose to you in exciting new ways when I fly back

[vague tinsel]

Real answer? Because 1. It gives the al 10 something to aspire to.

2. The al 10, depending on the situation can still win if they know what they're doing. Many players get a great sense of pride and accomplishment from beating higher al opponents.

3. As als increase for both players the strength gap decreases even if the al gap stays the same. The difference between an al 10 and al 100 is much greater than al 110 vs al 200.

4. Als are exponentially more difficult to acquire as you go up, so if al 10 guy is grinding the same as his opponent he's still catching up in strength as well as als

[ebon stratus]

If you want to get into it, real thoughts here:

1. aspire to what? More handicap? Easier game? Lots of hours?
2. this would only apply if you actually knew what AL your opponent was before the fight
3. thats assuming everyone has same play time abilities
4. why is everyones mentality if I grind harder I deserve to curb stomp? And if the other guy grinds as hard then he earned not to get curb stomped?
   Everyone wants to win, but I swear you all dont think about the receiving end of it when you say stuff sometimes.

We can agree to disagree to the end of time. And thats the nature of ALs at the moment in Orna

[hybrid oriole]

ALs are definitely not exponentially more difficult to acquire. They are strictly linear, and arguably experience a dip in requirements once you hit the point you can 1 tap everything, always, before increasing at a small linear rate again

[vague tinsel]

They are though? Al 100 is way more effort than two classes at 50

[hybrid oriole]

depends on how you define way more effort, but the mathematical rate at which ascensions increase is linear, and very far removed from an exponential increase. AL 100 is more effort than 2x AL 50, but not by leaps and bounds

[vague tinsel]

We can agree to disagree = please shut up and stop disagreeing with me 😂

[vague tinsel]

It's quite a lot, konq has a calculator somewhere

[ebon stratus]

Thats not what I said at all

[mystic jewel]

Can we, from all sides, agree to disagree if needed? I do not mind reading, interacting with or responding to people who have a different perspective but let's all keep subtle jabs at the opposite side out of our posts.

Maybe it's bias, but I feel like it is more common from pro-AL-leave-everything-as-it-is perspectives than any other side in the convo so far. That perspective is fine to have, and it's okay to feel like you've earned it, but there are plenty of high and low AL players, longterm and new players alike who've chimed in about what exactly they do and don't like about Ascensions in their current form. Odie even stated his ideal world for ascensions in PvP but is willing to listen to community input

Everyone here is, to my understanding, coming at this from the perspective of "I want to have fun", right? It seems like the vast majority of players liked what Gamblor proposed +/- some minor edits, so would it be so bad to start any future conversations from there? It's pinned so easy to access to start with.

Just coming to the conversation with "ALs bad" or "Low/New players stupid" isn't helpful. What do or don't you like about Gamblor's suggestions? Or other suggestions in here? If you love Ascensions exactly as they are, can you at least acknowledge that other players disliking them have valid reasons? Similarly, if you think Ascensions are an utter plague to the pvp/game in general, can you acknowledge the hard work (and luck) some players have put in? 😄

Specifying this isn't directed at any one player but a reminder to everyone (myself included) that we are all here because we care.

[spiral slate]

I like gamblors suggestions. Also what op said said about knowing the al of your opponent prior to a fight (a few comments up) might help with expectation management in wars

[remote rune]

AL is different than tiers - Tiers have access to different skills, classes, and abilities. AL is only base stats which is monumentally easier to overcome than a 100 AL gap. You have to earn your wins in kingdom wars.

Plus there's chances you'll be matched against someone lower than you too, so it's not all one sided

[vague tinsel]

To respond to your points though:

1. To get stronger. Which is the goal of the game for a lot of players, especially newer ones. It might not be yours specifically but it probably is for the majority. I dunno take a poll or something

2. So you agree? (Insert mean girls meme here)

3. I mean, life's not fair, so what? Less free time doesn't necessarily mean you can't compete with people who have more time than you or still enjoy the game

4. Never said that lol. I don't disagree ascension could use some tweaks. But when it seems like your main argument is I can't have fun because these other players grinded harder than me, it's hard for me to look at that as anything other than whining

Also while I'm at it you guys shouldn't be upvoting misinformation just because you think it helps your point. Ascension does require exponentially more effort for each subsequent level, and it does start to get pretty extreme

[spiral slate]

This is very entertaining for me. I’m upvoting everything that makes sense to me, but I’m bad at math so leave me out of that exponential linear stuff lol
Dang didn’t know gamblor is 15 global v:

[ebon stratus]

Hey good to know where you stand

[vague tinsel]

I'm all for discussing tweaks, the system itself is boring af

[ebon stratus]

Have said before and will say it again but maybe Im just playing the wrong game. Cant think of many games where you enter a fight with another player with an innate 100% stat disadvantage

Willing to admit that im lost

[hybrid oriole]

You not understanding how math works isn't misinformation.

Ascensions do not scale exponentially. This isn't an opinion thing. The requirements increase at a linear rate.

If ascensions were exponential in any way at all, we wouldn't have anybody at AL200+

[willow token]

I think the idea of having ascension in PvP capped at 50 is very appealing!
In context to PvE disregarding the ascension of high lvl players and the effort they spent to get there seems outrageous! A badge system may not be a viable option anymore ! That said however the interaction of materials and the guilds they are available in can definitely be updated ! Guilds such as monuments and spelunking seem very unreasonably priced since the time spent vs reward is quite disproportionate.
Maybe making changes to the way of achieving that currency to gain access to the materials is a better idea in my opinion ( not that it counts ) . Also having recently faced a back to back to back cursed ort block at only 40 al I honestly felt like giving up .
Maybe if the first 100 ascensions weren’t quite as steep or hard to attain it would entice more players to keep trying different guilds or different content in the game !

[hollow pawn]

Lol. “Badge”. I didn’t even get a lousy t shirt. Sometimes, gotta suck it up.

[hybrid oriole]

For math to this.

If mat requirements increased at even 1% a level, exponentially.

Take AL 100 at 10k mats. That would turn into AL 200 taking 27k of each, which it does not

At 2%? 10k turns into 72k

[vague tinsel]

How would you say it then? Because the increase may be additive but the effect is an exponential increase in effort no?

[hollow pawn]

No. Linear. Always linear.

[spiral slate]

Graphs people graphs! Make your high school math teacher proud

[hybrid oriole]

Nah, it isn't exponential in effort either.

Ascensions make the acquisition of all materials easier. They enable free anguish 50 dungeons in sub 2 minutes.

On diety, they enable 100% safe ang 30 towers.

People with AL 100 probably ascend faster than somebody at AL50 assuming equal amounts of playtime

And endless? Oh lord. Ascension diety is like a billion orns an hour

[willow token]

Exponentially means compounded bud !

[vague tinsel]

Al 100 in one class being significantly more difficult than 50 in two isn't a linear relationship?

[hollow pawn]

Yeah. It’s a soft line. Uphill. Slightly inclined lol

[spiral plover]

The aggregate resources required for ascension is quadratic. Every level takes linearly more than the level before.
The aggregate effort is not quadratic. Higher ascension increases the rate that you gather resources.

Other stuff:

• Endless rewards are quadratic, so the growing orn requirement is easily matched.
• Damage is currently quadratic in exactly two places -- SS and BP.

Definitely no exponentials happening anywhere.

[vague tinsel]

"higher al increases the rate you gather resources"

Only true to a certain point though

[hollow pawn]

That’s the thing. So hard to wrap your head around. The effort they put in for 200 ALs is not the one you think they did

[vague tinsel]

And that point happens before 100 for most classes

[spiral plover]

Since endless solves the orn problems handily, ascension is really only about material gathering. And high AL absolutely helps increase materials rate first by making ang50 boss dungeons reliable, and then later with anguished towers.

[hybrid oriole]

Probably debatable on AL 100 being the limit, but the reality is ascension 80-100 is probably easier for most people than 40-60.

I know it was for me

Heck, even AL 70 I still had to sort of pay attention to anguish dungeons. Low ward or something and I might not 1 shot a zerk.

That ain't a problem no more though

[vague tinsel]

Not disputing that but at some point it takes a ridiculous amount of ascensions just to get one more anguish level in towers

[hollow pawn]

I can’t imagine ss3 by then. 😖 If you get hit, your account is deleted instantly. Forget numbers

[umbral kayak]

I agree with this. I felt like my blocks at 35 and 60ish were so inhibiting. But by the time you are grinding through 70-100, it feels much more smooth and the randomness feels like it evens out.

[willow token]

It’s a win in my books for chatgpt san he definitely made me laugh my socks off

[spiral plover]

If ascension requirements were exponential then people would be like, AL 10-20 at the very high end. Which honestly doesn't sound bad to me, personally, but I know that I'm on that more extreme end of the spectrum where I want (base) pve to always be at least a little dangerous.

[spiral slate]

Fuximus (GS114) ‘The High Stakes Hero’

[mystic jewel]

That sounds rad to me but I think I'm also in the weird boat there

[vague tinsel]

I'm fine with pve being dangerous I just don't want it to be tedious. Like chill for the most part but whoops got one shot by something that was out of my hands

[spiral slate]

But it seems too overhauly, which is something the team was trying to avoid i think

[willow token]

I think focusing on access to materials is a much easier issue to deal with ! Especially some of the guilds like spelunking monuments felling currency seems so underwhelming!

[spiral slate]

100%

[summer harbor]

ways to get orns other than endless should probably be discussed too then

• someone who really dislikes endless

[spiral slate]

You mean other than dm’s and goblin fortress? Like they should give more orns? Or there should be new ways entirely? Maybe the conversation we were having about sources of mats being more even among the guilds should also give more orns evenly too? Idk if this makes sense sry lol

[summer harbor]

ngl I forgor goblin forts exist kek. Although I've never really gotten that many orns from them; probably a skill issue on my part though
I think dm orn gain is fine, but just endless + dms is still pretty limited options

[distant wraith]

The time you need to spend in goblin fort to get some orns is 🥱 .

You can still run Hard boss dung. Or Horde (hard) boss dung. Both the highest ang you can with full orns. The numbers are big. 🤷‍♂️

Or can run ang50 horde semi orns (like - adding 2 bogs), which in long run when farming proofs will add a lot of orns too.

So yea, there are still several ways, not just endless...

[spiral slate]

I think for ppl who arent that strong/have that many keys (aka me) goblin fortress with orn gear is decent

[summer harbor]

I can't run ang50 lol. I can barely run ang10

[flat sorrel]

you have to carefully consider your class, gear, AL, time commitment and after having done that , you simply do as many towers as you can as those are by far the most important way to AL and nothing is close, except doing mnemonics during events (like this month) but that's capped by how many diluted you have. if you want to AL do towers as much as you can and everything should be about how to do more towers faster and at higher anguish, nothing else comes remotely close to AL

[flat sorrel]

how many hours do you think it's proper we spend vs a single specific raid (not counting the hours required to farm access to that raid) in order to get a top drop from it? because if the game is built asking you on average to kill a specific raid 600 times without even the guarantee for such a drop and 15-20 such raids exist and you have to farm to get the raids as well , even one shotting every single one of them isn't being overpower at all for me

[spiral plover]

@flat sorrel

how many hours do you think it's proper we spend vs a single specific raid (not counting the hours required to farm access to that raid) in order to get a top drop from it?
Event raids, being limited to a month, should probably be "done" within about 30 hours. An hour a day of play to max out the game's content seems alright -- more than the average player puts in, but not as much as the 8hr+/day dedicated grinders. And this also ignores that events do repeat, and there are increasingly ways to get event stuff done later (notably: arisen waygates, trading raids with other players, and monument guild as a backstop/baseline acquisition rate).

So: 30 hours to kill 200 raids, give or take, would be about 9 minutes of gameplay per each summon+kill.
Seems fine by me. A few minutes to clear a dungeon to get the summoning materials, a few minutes on the fight itself.

At 400 raids that's 4.5 minutes per each summon and kill.
At 600 raids that's 3 minutes per each summon and kill.

Non-event raids like AMorri should run on a much longer timeframe. I see no reason to speed these up since they have yearly access.

---

One-shotting raids is a problem by itself. When enemies cannot reasonably interact with players they lose everything that makes them interesting. Every raid becomes the same raid, with maybe slightly different spritework. I think it should be a requirement that pve does require enemies actually getting some turns and doing some things.

If the math works out that the game is too slow to allow for enemies to take a single relevant action while still letting players obtain the rewards, then we can talk about speeding the game up or increasing the reward rate. But given that I was playing Orna 5 years ago and was doing raids that took minutes per attempt and it was fine... I think it's safest to say that it's just too fast now.

Hope that answers, I kinda ran into discord message limit. 😅

[flat sorrel]

let's address your points: 30h/event for raids. well that would be fine if raids were the vast majority of the total gameplay. even "rabid" raid killers can't kill raids more than half of their gameplay because of the need to farm to access them, and the "basic" loops which is towers/anguish dungeons. Now if raids became the only thing to do you would still need to do whatever necessary to get them. and we are already over 3min/raid for beast right now even if you one shot him (which no one can do I guess? who can kill it turn 1?) . but then the time amounts you posted should be for the SERIOUS MEDIAN GRINDER right? I suppose you aren't timing it for the absolute best minmaxer willing to at any time always play the best possible class/gear/spec/game loop caring exclusively about efficient all the time and having all top gear right? so you have a conundrum. you either make the game absurdly muddy to play for people who grind but not too much, or being absolutely perfect at minmaxing everything and willing to always play the best strategy no matter what you like, isn't going to make you much more efficient than ppl who play "only" 200-300 hours per year. but a game that is complex enough will have the absolutely perfect best strategy be a lot more efficient than everything else , necessarily right? you either have basically no building options, or if you do the absolutely fine tuned best one is a lot better than the rest.

so in order to make the game playable for "normal" endgamer (say AL 50 today with a lot of 185+ gear but not everything), it's either people who play 4-5x them and optimize do barely better than them (then you are killing the endgame and there is no reason to farm over the normal person basically) or you need to accept the actual real true endgamer will be really fast

take dungeons for AL right now. a block is 10k prangs easily at high AL. that's 600+ anguish50 dungeons. anything but instant one clicking every floor or close to it makes it basically impossible

[hybrid oriole]

Flip side is once you need 10k prangs for a single AL, it shouldn't be fast and it should be a side thing you work towards while farming raids and what not

[flat sorrel]

man a lot of actual endgamers need 15k+, Al 100 is a lot easier than 50 was 18 months ago

and Al is the only way of meaningful progression after you have the gear, and 150 to 151 is +0.4 in stat (I am working under "quadratic scaling is going away")

[spiral plover]

To be clear: 30h/event is what I'm saying is a good rough sum of both the time effort to farm the scrolls and kill the raids to finish an event in the month that it runs. Maybe there's an argument that for some events, just farming up the scrolls is the majority part of the gameplay and the raids might as well be a lootbox at the end. Or conversely that some events should trend toward easy scroll acquisition and hard fights. The two can be interchanged a bit, which seems fine.

---

the time amounts you posted should be for the SERIOUS MEDIAN GRINDER right?
What is a SERIOUS MEDIAN GRINDER to you? Is 200-300 hrs/year a lot for a video game? That seems pretty normal, especially for an MMO. I'm not sure if this is a "mobile games should be tiny" perspective or what, but I think that's a perfectly good baseline to talk about.

And on the flipside, this whole topic starts with assuming a player wants high quality ornates of every drop in an event raid ("top drops") -- that requirement already selects for a much smaller, much grindier subset of the playerbase. The true median Orna player isn't in this thread because they don't know or care about ascension at all, and when events come around they would be happy just to get some of the drops instead of flawless ornates. It's incongruous to go back and forth between "top drops" and "won't someone think of the people who log in once a week for a few minutes". 😅

In general I think that pve should be tuned expecting that players minmax. And that there are restrictions on how much power a player can actually get by doing that. You mentioned "4-5x" but a very high ascended player with the best gear and using the best strats is way beyond that when compared against a low-ascension, low-gear player using a Keith build.

If all your farming gave you ascension 20, that's already a 1.2x effect. Perfect gear maybe another 1.5x effect. Perfect strats maybe a 2x effect. Then we'd actually be talking about a 4-5x difference.

[flat sorrel]

ok but then what about the very best of the best who play with efficiency as their first or only priority? if you setup things so that "serious amateurs" do it in 30h, what is the top 0.01% of the field going to take? because I think that is where we are at

[flat sorrel]

yes it's 200-300 expected for endgamers, so what do you do to avoid those playing 1300 hours do be a lot more efficient than those people you are building the endgame for (the 200-300 hours ones).

[spiral plover]

Serious amateurs doing 30hrs in a month get some decent ornates from the event.

People that have even more time than that can hunt for truly perfect drops and of course spend time on other things like perfecting their endless, getting into pvp, and slowly working toward the next 1% pve increase.

Let me put the question to you: how much power should players be getting from ascension? After 100 hours, after 1000 hours, after 10000 hours? How much of a bonus should this one multiplier be?

Or to get back to my question on raids: should it be possible for players to 1shot any existing raids? Given any amount of time and effort.

[flat sorrel]

my answer is that the quadratic scaling was actually fine and having as a goal actual oneshotting a Morris was nice (taking maybe 3-4 years). i mean first turn one click killing not one shotting after buffing. as I said of course it should be possible to one shot raids, especially if you need to kill 4k cerus to have ornate stardusts in all your gear (and I am not talking 200 stardusts, I am talking 170+). or 1000 kingdom titans for a titanium block or the like, just for a small improvement.

[spiral plover]

Yeah, then we're just at odds, and NF can't satisfy both sides simultaneously.

of course it should be possible to one shot raids
vs.
One-shotting raids is a problem by itself. ... I think it should be a requirement that pve does require enemies actually getting some turns and doing some things.

[flat sorrel]

and for example anguish 50 towers being doable wouldn't be bad? at most increase anguish to 100 or whatever (or do 2.0 as they are doing but we are waiting since June)

if you want 2 min fights for uber-top endgamers you need something like pity timers for every ornate drop and ornates 1/50 or something like that

[spiral plover]

Can also start by reducing player power at the high end so that it's not 100x or more that of the lower end. So the uber-tops are playing something kinda sorta like the same game as everyone else. 😅

Ultimately it just makes me wonder what "the game" is. Is it interacting with enemies and the world, or is it making a number go up? Here those two desires are in conflict and I'm saying I would rather the number not go up as much or as fast if it means that I can preserve the gameplay of interacting with enemies.

When I login and play, I want to actually experience something different from an idle clicker. I would like a dungeon to sometimes end badly from a string of unlucky events that I could have maybe planned around a bit better, a raid to surprise me and require my attention more than tapping one spot on the screen while watching TV.

... But that's not for everyone.

[flat sorrel]

well fact it though that you can always self-handicap yourself for a challenge as much as you think it's proper in order to find the level of challenge you prefer. our king just recently hocced at 0 staying same class (heretic) to prove towers and the rest are doable fine at al0

[hybrid oriole]

I think requiring players tie both their legs together and their hands behind their back to find a challenge is a bad way to approach game design.

And at that point, people are better off just finding a different game that meets their expectations

Doesn't mean it can't be the direction of the game if that is what people want (which it seems to be trending that way) but I'm certainly against the philosophy of having to completely gut my character to get the game to take more than 3 turns to do anything

[summer harbor]

some of the most fun I've had in this game was as an omnimancer trying to beat towers just to prove that I could

[hybrid oriole]

The single most fun I've had in Orna in the past several years was when anguish first released. Realmshifter bosses had permanent mystic feather, parting remarks didn't exist, and everybody was constantly at risk of dying no matter the AL or gear set up

The dungeons would find ways to kill you, like or it not, and it was wonderful

[flat sorrel]

I mean right now anguish towers are tough if you want a non-self-created challenge

[prisma bone]

As long as you consider not using dursa a non-self-created challenge

[mystic jewel]

Give me Group Endless where everyone has to be the same tier and is AL 0 for it and a leaderboard 😀

I want to see the Cleric, Chronomancer, Assassin and Bard going going for the record!

[spiral plover]

It's the ever-shrinking amount of challenging pve that concerns me. Yes, anguished towers require paying attention. That used to be true of solo dungeons (not even anguished ones, let alone horde or endless) and raids (not just super raids).

Why should those not remain interesting?

[flat sorrel]

because the game also wants to provide stuff which is "only" a time sink with a modicum of attached rewards because that's what keeps a significant portion of the player base actively in the medium-long term. but I mean anguish 2.0 is coming, our problem is it was mentioned (and hyped!!) in June and we live in a world where 3 months would already be an incredible long wait (from hype to implementation) and we are at 7. right now we should be discussing details of a2.0 and how to fine-tune this or that to keep longevity in the game and satisfy both the mindless timesink farming needs and the challenging needs. instead we have a system which was fairly ok 18 months ago and already a tad outdated early 2024 still going

[flat sorrel]

how many people can do anguish 50 towers with dursa? I know one at al 200 and 198+ gear and incredibly good at minmaxing. do you know any? i recently hocced to deity , al 156 , and i do anguish 25

[ebon stratus]

Isnt high ALs just Approaching idle clicking?

[crisp fern]

On the otherhand it took a hell of a lot of clicking (if done legitimately) to achieve an AL of being able to idle click

[maiden vapor]

Some would answer something like 0100001011011010101010010101

[pale ingot]

From the very first week I played this game, I only played any of it to support taking Territories/Settlements. Every dungeon I've done, every raid I've ground, every proof. All just for one small part of the game.

[spiral plover]

My argument (that ascension affects pve badly; that pve should remain always at least a little bit challenging) is that no amount of clicking should enable idle clicking. It's the dream and the thing that people reach for, but it's just that little bit out of reach at all times.

[maiden vapor]

You re really precious* to this community ! Always good to read

[spiral plover]

Yeah waiting on ang2.0 has been painful.

My biggest concern (which I already spoke to ITT) is if ang2.0 is going to be opt-in or not.

• If not, then it sounds great to finally increase pve challenge in a modular and scaling way.
• If so, then I worry it makes all non-anguish pve content dead in the endgame. Giant loss of past efforts to work on the new shiny thing.

... But there's no details to talk about. 😕

[pale ingot]

Man I hope it's opt in. If it's not I'm probably just going to t7 alts till classic

[ebon stratus]

Same

[flat sorrel]

if it's clicking it's not idle

[flat sorrel]

my counter is that if that is true for the most avid clicker, everyone else necessarily has too rough of a time playing (or the game caps progress very soon)

[hollow pawn]

Lol. What did he find out?

[opal pagoda]

Random thought, instead of each AL increase 1% all stats, make 1% A random stat (with a cap, lets say 10% per stat) and max AL where each % is maxed (70ish i guess)

Then make every tier AL stack Per Class path , thus making Max AL 700ish amongst all tiers (i know theres 2 choices in some tiers And god/elysian have 3/4 tiers only ).

That would make basically a AL 700 an AL 100 of today but the gap between ALs isnt that bad

Or keep the 1% all and put a cap each tier*10 :p

Anyways back to sleep ZzzZzz

[spiral slate]

Then what motive would endgame players have to continue playing? At a certain point those last couple %s arent going to be worth it esp if theres a hard limit … im not expless 🥲

[opal pagoda]

Yeah i didnt think too much about it, just a random thought tbh

[spiral slate]

Im a huge fan of random thoughts and i think its a shame that sometimes ppl like to shoot things down without fully considering it. Sorry if it came off that way :/

[mystic jewel]

Endless records, Anguish 2.0, PvP, Raids, new content! Not saying that that random thought needs to happen, just that there's other content/hopefully more on the way! 😄

But, yeah, hopefully more engaging content in all areas for all players coming soon! Balance Patch/Mage Patching hype!

[spiral slate]

Oh those are good points. Ive been single minded in level level level. And help a few ppl level level level xd. Also i dont even like pvp so i ‘ostrich head in sand’ed that whole part of the game xd
Hypeeeeeeed for MAGUEEE

[junior thunder]

Seeing some of the posts here as someone with moderate ascension(having stat boosts from each LVL with major boosts every 5/25 LVL and the use of guild proofs feels interesting especially given that the major bonuses are likely to be like Amitys but per clas(line)(let me get my super tanky pet protect/parapet build)) and possibly having rearisen lower tier enemies be unlocked via a leveling anguish/ascension would be cool
And using guild currency as an extra cost to ascension feels fine? The one worry I have with it is that people with mobility related disabilities might not be able to complete any travelers guild ones and that would need to be taken into account

The pet protect build at the moment is two 7% pet protect Amitys a living arch armour and call of jord 2 with 200k ward and a bunch of defensive buffs it's really hard to hit through and a great stall tool

[spiral slate]

I tried making a suggestion regarding making dungeons spawn more frequently if moving at a walking speed but that got shot down by the community lol

[tribal trellis]

If I could add my 2 cents to this then why not make the whole ascention System a point buy shop thingy.
Like have AL be 1 point that you can invest in different aspects of your character.
Line a 1% stat increase of your choosing up to 100% per stat, maybe a little questline around the AL system that opens up different gear slots to increase also. Like have 1 point be a 1 or 2 percent increase for all stats of the Item in the slot up to 20% or whatever.
Maybe make the cost for a level lower like 1/2 or something like that
Transitioning this should be more smooth then, no? Like "we nerfed the system a but but you'll double your AL"

I think the points should also be refundable, like make the cost to refund one point either rise by the amount of points put into the system, or Rose by the amount of points refunded that day, resetting every day or maybe only every other.
This would enable strategic engagement with the system.
I myself don't have many AL right now, but was a bit underwhelmed by the mechanic as a whole, like a flat 1% boost to ALL stats seems a bit uninspired, I would have wished for something to engage with my class a bit more, the whole game revolves around grinding to advance your class, taking other classes on the way to gain their skills and move up the class tree, so a system where I could put the dot on top of my i was something that would have felt more natural, making a system where I can Grind out points to strenghten the strong points of my "final form" or compensate that which I feel lacking (maybe enable us for 50 points or so to add one skill of another class to our repertoire)
And the ability to refund points would not only enable me to put thought into different playstyles for different content, but also give those really high level players something to sink gold and orns into.

I hope I could add something to the discussion.

[opal pagoda]

I think you get 7% per AL? Like Hp, Mana, Atk, Mag, Def, Res, Dex

If i can allocate per stat with "7 points per AL" i would go super glass canon, because AL 30 is 210 points All going into Mag >:D

[spiral slate]

Im adding this comment for two new players who aren’t active on discord (t9s). They would like to see more options for stat point distribution. Ie at each level, you can distribute stats so that even at same classes, there is more freedom of choice of build.

[ebon stratus]

Yes see the pins. This is in Gamblors suggestion. I love the idea and I think others do too

[tribal trellis]

Whoops I should read the Pins, even used the 2 cents line too 🤣