[FireStartingSnake]

This topic has been on my mind for quite sometime, and while I do love to RP in this game, the flaws appear to be growing a bit bigger each week. Before I go into each topic I'm not here to offend people, insult anyone or cause problems. This is purely from my perspective, whether I'm right or wrong, these are mostly my feelings laced with some facts I've seen over the months. Don't berate anyone in this thread, as I want this to be constructive and proper. I will try to loosely have 'solutions' for each point. 
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Updates
The first problem is the lack of updates, I know there's a new one mentioned but I still feel this will take some large time to fully be finished. The last major update we got was nearly a year ago during the Halloween Update of 2024. There hasn't been much since in regards to updates aside from minor spell additions and some reworks to classes! It's been some snacks and crumbs throughout the year, and mostly this isn't too much of a point except for one thing.
I'd just ask for more updates, and clarity on what's being updated. There's been a lot of shadow changes that make people not realize certain things. (Shadow changes also bad.)
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Tactical
I've heard a lot of things about tactical, and how people like it or don't like it. It's genuinely splitting the community I believe with many people thinking it's a good idea and will make combat 'more fair', or others thinking it will ruin the game and they'll stop playing. I've heard both sides, and seen people say they will outright quit. It seems like a controversial addition really. Me personally? I like the idea of it, and hope it succeeds!  My only concern is that so much effort is being put into this new mode that may not even be used, or accepted by the community widely. I feel this may be wasted resources, and a flop outright. I hope it's not but it might be.  I get that it wont be necessary in E4, but who's to say E5?  
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I don't have a solution for this, it's a new system being added that seems controversial, people like the old combat system and it truly is unique! But it really is furthest from RP-game combat one can get.

Applications
Recent addition, it's sad to see applications will no longer be as transparent. This is something I personally debated about in early E4, vouching for application clarity and responses. Every single player liked being able to bump and responded to soon after, and getting constructive feed back on why their apps were denied. It was genuinely awesome! It's not awesome when you're sitting there for half a month to a month in the dark, and not getting any response after in some cases you put 2-3 months of time into dev.

I would say return the ask of 'bump tickets' but have them be limited to 2 weeks minimum instead of 1. But if an appmin thinks that's too much, then I understand! I know it's hard being an appmin so having some more clarity on the process would be telling.

Powercreep

I think this is one of the biggest offenders I've seen as of late, powercreep has never been this bad in an Eternia game as far as I'm aware. Signatures are getting really common, there's insane weapons floating around with 100+ power. We have uniques upon uniques with just raw stats. This is outlandishly crazy and is really splitting the players into two common places. Those born in wealth, and those outside of it. Why spawn as a new character any more when you can just take...

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Spawns/Role Hooks/Etc

This is a personal gripe of mine. These role hooks are kinda crazy stupid. What happened to the growth of characters? Why do we even have an RPL system if everyone is just spawning at 180+? Spawn-a-Solider is the weakest offender but so many people will still take this, get their nifty little arcanium unique and play. Are simple starts not so much a thing?

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I'm going to list more recent examples, this isn't to target anyone but just show how absurd spawns have become.

The Dreadmane Pact - Arcanium Weapon + Mythical Stance on Spawn, 180 RPL.

Heralds of Finality - Unique Weapon + Potential Sig Without Application, 200 RPL.

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Solution to both Powercreep and Role Hooks? I think fluff needs more value, or funny custom abilities tied to the weapon. Of course there's people who chase said things, but it's pretty clear stats, head starts and such are becoming a thing over fluff and development. I don't like this direction personally, and I see the positives to having these hooks too as it ensures your arc/city/whatever else gets filled in, but it becomes this weird disadvantage feeling. Why start a new character from scratch when everyone around you is getting mega boosted at spawn?
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Game State

I'd like to reiterate the start entirely before I get into this section. I've opinions that people wont like.

The game was stagnant for a lot of the year, with not much happening. It was a rehash of 'fel' vs everyone with some other mixes here and there. Eventually though that ended and things are turning out more political and diplomatic. Factions v Factions are a fresh of breath air, however I think how it's being currently done is extremely forced and unnatural.

Aetius is an absurdly strong faction, and to the people outside they appear to be boosted dare I say. This isn't to discredit their IC efforts, I truly do not know! But the appearance to quite a few people is it's unfair. I believe things are unfair right now, given spawns, uniques given away and benefits, alongside powerful classes tied mostly to Aetius. (of course every faction has 1 sorcerer or so by now.)
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I can't help but feel the concept of domain wasn't for 'higher stakes' but instead to kill off older PCs, as they've lived 'too long'. That has been the use of it I personally feel for quite sometime now, and that domain is a poorly designed ability.

Right now the current wars feel shoehorned, forced and unfair. A far cry from what I personally felt earlier during the older days of E4, 2023-2024. Furthermore with most of the points listed above, the game is volatile, and unbalanced. There will always be answered to solve everything, I understand that but as apps can take 1+ month depending on certain things? That answer may become outdated, or null even. Mentioning even they too can of course apply for things. Which I find concerning as the owner of the game is heavily involved with this faction. I'm not saying fact here, but it does paint a bad light to see so many with signatures, multiple stacked on each other on top of the given uniques where as other longer established characters have struggled cause they're 'too powerful'.

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As another note I'd like to mention the suddenly large amount of extremely rare, niche and powerful roles that have come into existence from fluff means. The things that should be once in a life time are becoming common.

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The gamestate is a tough one to solve, while some suggest wipes and other suggest letting something naturally flow, I believe both have their positives and negatives. I ultimately would almost suggest a mass rebalance of weapons/armors so that these OP uniques aren't as strong.

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Conclusion

I wanted to make this post about how I felt in regards to certain things and what others might be feeling. Not everyone will agree, and many will disagree I suspect but I was hoping these points could be looked over and we all come up with something to help improve the game overall as a whole. Maybe I am entirely wrong, or not. A discussion is valued always.

[BloomeForme]

I agree with much of this. They hit plenty of points that people who haven't really bothered with being vocal about. While everything summarizes how I personally feel as a player, the part that bothers me the most is the spawns/ rolehooks. We have used them before and probably will continue to do so for the above-stated reasons, since garnering interest without incentive is difficult.

However, as many others said in passing, if we knew how easy it was to start with a unique weapon, mythical stances, and/or potential sigs without application (presumably), that would have been the route taken instead of fresh spawns. It feels less rewarding to make it into a prestigious family like the Caewynns compared to groups that have popped up in the last three decades in the game, honestly. That could very well be the unfortunate luck of the draw.

On the other hand, while story-building and narrative are always key, the perception that those who existed for far less receive much more at the ground level does demotivate rather than inspires much effort. It has been like pulling teeth finding an artisan who can create your weapon, waiting for an egregious amount of time for its approval, and with the possibility that said person won't afk while the whole process finishes; instead, the optics seem like all you have to do is simply spawn in and receive something that took IRL months for those who did it the long, grueling way. Long-standing efforts feel minimized.

Not to say that Aetius and others didn't put in the work, since I have no idea what goes on over there and can't speak to anything. But being a character who has done plenty over a longer stretch of time sometimes feels unsatisfying when you watch fresh spawns come in kitted out. Maybe that's the intention, who knows? The fact that people joke about dying on their character before getting their app approved crushes the soul, as well. On top of that possibility hanging overhead, cutting off any communication towards them puts players in the dark. We don't know what's expected for us to succeed in a game that's freeform.

Being an admin is extremely hard, and they should get their flowers where due, though there might be a disconnect between players and staff, too. The powercreep, gamestate, updates, and so on mentioned above do well to explain how everything feels at the moment. Didn't exactly post this with any good suggestions in mind, but wanted to get some of that off my chest.

[ForgetTheUnknown]

Hear me out. E5 can be tactical, the setting takes place outside of Meranthe or out of universe but still in within the current 'story'. Like how a manga has a different story related to that but in a different 'timeline' or alternate reality if we wanna compare perspectives. BUT E4 can still be played. E5 will just be a different story but still takes place in Eternia but the histories both universes share dont align.

Now I know the idea sounds wacky as shit...But its more of a 'trust me bro, this idea might work' opinion.

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Opinion aside. I don't want to nitpick certain topics. Each and every point typed so far sounds valid and understandable. But my issues with the game is a lot different, something I argued about for a while; but not too dissimilar to the point being made about Updates. (had to edit to make this sound less asshole-ish I didnt mean to give off that energy)

The lack of new magics: I've been seeing the same build being used by others, with a few variations. Hell, fluctuating between the same magics time to time. Except maybe earth, thats the unpopular one right now. But I digress. I can see the incentive to add more trees but they are more 'filler' and serve the purpose of letting players know the contents are within icly well known classes or magics that while appable, are still well known in a ic perspective. (medic seems to be the only appable tree that is public, besides occult and holy).

But the role hooks are the biggest offenders, except for the basic Spawn A Soldier with 190 and Arcanium. THAT is fine, because icly you want to advertise your spawn location as the go to for roleplay,. The real offender in my eyes is the sigs, the uniques, on top of that. For freeeeee...

The addition of Ink magic sounds cool and all. But I was given the wrong idea that it was public, maybe a weaker ink magic instead of the Divine version. (Missed opportunity for water or metaphysics to get another sub tree)

I like the arrival of Aetius but I HATE the domains. BUT I do know that Chance stated that wars should have more risks involved these days. So I am aware that people are tired of trading captives all day just for Papa can reunite with his Wife and Kids.

Lack of updates? Well, I agree. Besides QoL and mechanical updates? We got nothing that benefits a certain narrative. But I am iffy on this because honestly, there's not many updates one can do besides mechanical updates, with a live action combat system. Which is why I honestly favored tactical because it makes way for a LOOOOT of updates potentially. But again, unsure.

My opinion on the matter does not relate to the majority of what is told here. But I do agree, that hidden and sig stacking sounds a little too unfair. It should be the exception, not the expected. To me the sig stacking didn't happen in my pov far too many times so I've no opinion on this, with the weapons included.

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I like Spawn A Solider I want to include, I probably hit the letter cap. But to me the real offender is the sigs and mythics you can get for free, without even apping actually; without a lick of dev.

[DirectorBright]

Hard agree with OP. A lot of this is just kind of a bunch of late-night thoughts, so it might not be too coherent. Opinions on the game, though, since this is a place to discuss them.

Sorcery as a class also has another other cap modifying feature, not just Domain. Destined. Forces higher ratings. Considering that several items were also spotted allowed forced caps inside settlements, plus some of the OOC rhetoric, there was a palpable level of "fuck you for being old, die" that surrounded things - and a sense it crept into IC. Most of the time that I've seen the words "Shake things up" it's just been a euphemism for "(Thing) has existed too long, destroy it."

There was obvious 'witch fatigue' beforehand, that much was clear, people were tired of 'everyone vs fel nation' war- and that is fair. It'd been going on for over a year straight without any huge differences in the grand scale of it. Yet some of what came after almost felt driven by OOC malice more than IC buildup, or people just fighting to fight. It's not really new for players to go cause trouble for 'world presence,' we've all encountered a scenario in which someone was very obviously just trying to get a 5th danger in.

As far as the spawning in with uniques and sigs and etc. etc. some of that emerges as a result of characters undergoing major development and apping for the capacity to do that, but the notion of dying before your app is approved is real right now when it can take months to get a response for even minor things.

Of course people want to app for a stronger weapon, people want feel a sense of progression. Of course, as has been noted, you almost need them to keep even with some people these days. There is an arms race in play. Such is the nature of power creep, where 'well X group has Y thing and therefore we need to make something stronger by comparison to keep up' until you end up in statwall hell. Sometimes you did just make a really special piece of kit from rare ingredients and it was neat.

On the flip side a lot of them are just a statstick, and I always enjoy seeing weird abilities on equipment or just abilities straight-up. Lets be real, big number weapon is kind of boring compared to 'it does WHAT' equipment. I wish more apps would be along the lines of creating wonders or making things reproducible, but the majority of them from what I know are just a stat boosted piece of kit. Even so, it smacks you in the face to see someone spawn in with one already when you have to wait for a while. Makes your own efforts feel cheapened by comparison. The wait only compounds that, a sense of 'I waited months to get this and they just have it?'

Aetius so far has been rolling everyone for a while now. I don't know all of what is going on within it. I do know that there was a very strong sentiment within the republic that the faction basically existed to blow up older nations, and I know that there've been a lot of raised eyebrows at the volume of unique weapons visible. Including the ones that allowed forced caps. Aetius ate dirt for a while in the early years, but suddenly a number of characters appeared at about the same time, all with the same batch of unique weapons, and started punching way higher than was expected for how fresh they were.

Undoubtedly no small part of the suspicion and hard stares are from a lack of knowledge of what the other group actually did or has. A lot of the salt regarding Aetius is that frankly, most people don't really know why they're so cracked in recent months. We know they have unique weapons, we know they have sigs of some kind, we know the owner is in the faction, we know they were basically founded around a new class - and there's a whole lot of OOC weight behind it regarding a lot of discourse of people bitching about specific characters or countries OOCly for existing "too long" - but nobody really knows how strong those things actually are or what they really have. Just that something is there. Speculation flows from that point on.

People see a group of guys who have weird shit and they're suddenly winning at everything with the owner standing right there and get suspicious. Nobody actually knows what they have, or how strong it is. They just know that its there, and they feel targeted. People aren't going to trust whatever the players in the faction have to say about it either. Conflict of interest. Especially noted was the feeling of bad faith surrounding it on an OOC level from, to put it bluntly, people shit-talking the targeted factions out of character for a long time.

Personally, I have no idea what is really going on. I'm just doing my thing, or trying to at least. One of the things that appeals to me the most about this game is how much the players can influence the world or setting. In theory you can come up with weird, gamechanging things that provide all manner of hooks and pulls and so on for other people to go off of. It's very cool in such a way. Sometimes, and I do feel it myself as well, I think people get too caught up in world arcs or massive picture events and lose sight of the 'role' in 'roleplaying game.' A sense of 'ok but how does that affect you specifically' needs to be kept. Some of the most fun I had was early on when the world felt small and it was just me and Mars and Rio and my full attention was centered around like 5 PCs.

Some of that I think gets fed into by the small size and relative emptiness of the game world. Because, frankly, when you can cross it very quickly and it is largely devoid of things to do that aren't centered around messing with each other, you don't run in to 'local problems.' Local issues rapidly become global ones. In some settings, you'd just ignore the superpowered faction because- well, they're way over there, you're way over here. But right now, that's not really doable- they're very close by for how long it takes to reach them, and don't really have anything else to occupy their attention - neither do you.

As for apps:

It would be nice to be able to ask for the status of a form application after a bit, because sometimes it just gets lost in the mass of files - even after being approved.

As for Tactical: the direction it wants to take the game is far more RPG centered, and there's other systems that are indev to further that along. This includes a dissolution of common item applications behind a more robust crafting system and a sense of 'world regions.' All of that is good, I think, in the long run. Very good. Honestly, hyped for what I hear is planned going forward. Obviously the launch is going to be rough, it always is, but Eternia's actual built in roleplaying game features are... very limited right now. And really, the item shift towards a material-assembly based system would take a lot of the load off of things, I feel.

As for the magic circulation:

It's really easy to slap together a 'metabuild' of just whatever's really strong right now and go fuck up most people that you run into without much answerability unless there's some huge skill or statwall. Build matters a lot, verb skill takes a very long time to cultivate, and frankly I think Tactical will be healthy for the game in the sense that it helps even things out a little. Trees are not created equal, and a lot of the time - especially for myself - I feel like I'm having to make a ton of gear just to make the weird thing competitive. And that especially scales with a few other issues. The map is, frankly, tiny (And from what I hear there are plans to fix this kind of thing with 'regions' or something which is good) and its very very easy to bump into people five steps into the woods and immediately die to whatever's simply the strongest setup right now. There have been some builds that are just crazy good and have been for a long time, and the gap is large. Tactical might help this, I think so at least. I hope so. It'll be rough on launch I'm sure.

As for the updates:

From what I understand, the reason there have not been a lot of updates recently is because the current direction for the staff is based around fundamentally reworking the underlying structure of the game, in a direction that I personally think sounds really, really appealing. Eternia needs more RPG features. It is a rework that has become necessary, because as the game has grown and grown, the established framework has not been able to keep up with it. That is what I have been told, essentially, is part of the issue with response times. These things worked early on, but now it's gotten out of hand to do it all manually.

The focus also seems to more enable groups of players to be less involved with other groups and more localized - and while at first woah hey hold on less involvement is bad, right? Well- maybe not. Sometimes stories need a little self-containment, and right now with the size of the world and the relative lack of things to do in it outside of mess with each other, it almost feels like people get a little TOO involved with TOO MANY other characters.

Maybe I'm not articulating that very well... but for example, someone on the other side of the region should have a much harder time beefing with you than they currently do when they can cross the distance in like 30 seconds. Localized stories, localized problems. Things like giant evil super nation or by contrast giant good guy super nation would be much less of a suffocating presence if they weren't effectively locked in a shoebox with you and you could get some breathing room from them. If each of you had other things to do than mess with each other, expeditions, monster hunting, etc. This was spoken of a little. Tactical also helps with creating NPC enemies, too.

On the whole, I think that... there's a lot of salt flowing around Aetius due to their circumstances.
I think the way the development is aimed is intended to fix a lot of things that have become fundamental glaring issues, and that it hasn't had a major update in a while because of the scale of what is having to be done. Ground-up system reworks and creation.
I think that the game suffers mostly from an issue of globalizing every issue, which is furthered by the relative size of the map and the lack of other activities than to mess with each other. We shouldn't be worrying about what every other nation in the world is doing, but that's how it ends up being.
I think the issue of applications is well known and is intended to be mostly resolved with better crafting systems and a combat rework to eliminate most of what makes up their bulk.
I don't want to sound entirely negative about it all. I do like the game, obviously, I've been playing it a lot.
The coolest thing to me in the game is knowing that a lot of what you see has actual history of a sort behind it. It's there because someone made it. How they did that, is up to be discovered. Made for a sort of 'living world.' That is still there.
I think that there has been a building level of OOC resentment towards various groups over the past year that has boiled over into IC to an extent, too. I don't really know how to answer that.
I think the globalizing issue as above is a huge part of it. Conflict and struggle can drive stories, but right now the only main sort of outlet for that is PVP. If you want to play as bandits, cultists, adventurers, monster hunters... there's just not a lot for you to do except get in a war with like half the map really quick like and run the risk of bumping into a super strong character in a place they really shouldn't be patrolling due to distance but due to game mechanics its just... well, not that far away OOCly for them to wander.
I think that part of the reason people get so mad or so pressured over things is how long it takes to get them vs how fast they can get taken away.

I think the staff are well aware of a lot of these above issues and the development is focused around addressing them, and I think things will improve afterwards. A lot of the current state is temporary, but it will repeat for a while because it exists that way for a reason. That's not to say the game is 'bad' right now, I'm sure a lot of people are still enjoying themselves. These are just the issues that I've noticed as I see them.

Edit:

Something upon thinking it over that I also would say is my biggest spotted problem (ties into the map size). There is a lack of conflict sources in the current setup that are not life and death fights with other people. 
For example: When I was messing with Clan Crownforge as Mordeaux, I wanted to give them some sort of nemesis to deal with. The problem is that there really wasn't a lot in place to do that. My options basically boiled down to 'danger in the woods' or 'declare war.' I would have wanted to do things like raid caravans, set up dens of infected monsters, so on, eventually building up to the caproll fight as a real showdown when they finally either catch him at some bastion he's set up or he assails them with a legion of monstrosities, with a lot of plot and buildup behind it- and that just... isn't there.

This extends to characters like demons, bandits, beasts, and cultists. It is very difficult for them to do their thing, because their only real options are fighting another PC immediately and possibly running into super strong guys very fast as the word gets back and the map is a funnel for such things. People really, really need other methods of engaging with each other that prompt some kind of buildup and have some growth and rivalry beyond IMMEDIATELY leaping into the final showdown or beating each other up in the woods over and over. If you want to play a bandit or a thief, who are you stealing from? Other PCs. And if its something valuable? War time. There's not a lot of options for both heroes and antagonists to 'build up' off of environmental actions and lower-level engagements. If you want to play a monster hunter you're pretty much SoL as far as doing things goes.

[Velkor]

I will throw my hat in here why not. I some takes here and there. Some cold some hot. Also note this is not calling people out or throwing shade but just a view point from me. Everyone is here to have fun and do their best to build a story.
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Updates are fine. Slow but usually pretty decently big for the game. Could they be faster? Yea I mean it would be nice but the games free I'm not going to get mad that they are taking time with the updates.
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Tactical is a train wreck in my eyes...not as in it will be bad to play but as in bad for the community. There are a lot of people that like the combat as is many will leave i imagine once tactical comes out because it becomes like most other rp games on byond which is the bad thing. The real time as is since its actually smooth in most cases and feels good compared to most other games i played with this type of combat means your getting rid of one of its best things and making it like most other Rp games. The other big ones that are polished are already tactical in most cases. Sigrogana legends 2, Tower of fable and more that I'm forgetting but most are turn based and are usually the other popular ones that are played that are meant to be RP games. Its fresh, allows for outplays and comebacks in ways that most other games don't allow. You think its a number crunch now wait till tactical. Numbers become king in a turn based game. That's why in most other rp games that have tactical there is the meta combos. Best weapons in slot and so on. It takes away the skill of the game and more or less turns it down to more a thinking game or build game. Right now You can do a non meta build and win. It comes down to what build they have and your level of skill in combat or how your builds interact. Turn based removes the skill really and replaces it with purely build based. With some mind games possibly. But my other thing is it also makes the game take longer. Fights will start to drag on in most cases longer than they do now. And there are more issues that i really don't want to go into. Like balance as a whole and so on. 
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Apps are a point where I'm in the middle. I like apps. I think they let you show off your story and get rewarded for it. Not every joe deserves a sig. Getting one Sig is fine sure most people can with work (mostly custom stance). That's fine. But I see some people with two or three and I'm like the fuck? Or i see people i never heard of with sigs that I thought needed heavy plot relevance yet I never even seen them once. I often chalk that up to me just being blind or not really paying attention but its annoying when I put in for a custom stance and get denied saying i need world presence (for a custom stance mind you) When I lead was one of the leaders in a war versus one of the biggest factions at that time.  I think apps can work and allow for a lot of freedom in what the players can do. Which i love. But the system needs adjustments. getting rid of them is stupid. It takes away from the players as there is not really a way i see them adding in the ability to make like grand weapons or cool fluff abilities or to get sigs and so on.  I also don't want to make sigs a normal thing you can get in the world. That just means they become a thing you go for, for power. Which they are now but its at least gated somewhat by making them have to push a story and plot.  If they become a thing we can just work towards with no story it makes not special for one and basically moves them to slightly harder to get masters if its something you can just get through normal rp and leveling up.
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Powercreep i think its not much a issue as there just needs to be very clear set in stone caps. Like for the weapon that was 100+ power that was a special case from what i understand which fair ok that's fine. But it also wildly crazy how far above most other weapons are. Most cap out at like 60 - 70 power enchanted. That's the highest i ever seen personally and even then they had like +3 power to element 1 and +3 to element 2. But i have heard of some being like 80-90 power with like 10 elemental power or something wild. I think there just needs to be a set celling. Or a average at least. I can understand giving someone a 100 power weapon and so on if it had like 5 A+ grade mats in it or something but otherwise it should be say 60 power and 7 elemental power or something. Something stronger than the base rare weapons but not crazy strong. 
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I cant say much on the spawns. The goblins were the same and so on. its usually for paid for races or something and that's cool get them going.  The Dreadmane I'm pretty sure are like goblins in they have a mythic stance but that's all as far as racials go. if its not a racial then well shit. Nuke them i guess lol. You shouldn't get a mythic stance and arcanum weapon on spawn unless that stance is a racial and that's all like the goblins.  Heralds no idea. I don't really care for these spawn in with strong shit and get more shit for leveling up naturally no apps needed type things. I can get it if its a racial thing for a new race that will be able to be played normally. But if its just a thing for your little group then no. That shouldn't be a thing unless you apped for that stuff and put in ic work for these kids to spawn with that.
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The game state itself is mid. The aetius stuff came out of no where i will admit it felt forced/a little ooc driven and backed by the owner. Is it? Hell if i know. Its just that feeling you get when you see someone or something weird happen and the owner is attached to it. Its very likely they didn't do anything and was just there due to their characters IC but that alone kind of draws side eyes from people when you have people with strong weapons strong sigs sometimes more than one all coming out at once out of no where with mostly no involvement icly with the world as far as i know. People complain about the Fel but honestly I liked having a big bad in the world. it helps stir the story some. People talk about political intrigue this and that yet the thing is like 70-80% of the people that play a character unless they are directly involved in politics will never see it or hear it. Is that bad? No but it does mean that most of the people are sitting around and twiddling their thumbs for something to happen or seeking out stuff to do or happen. 
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Now. My own personal twist on this. Being a villain is sorta ass....ok its not but its rough and honestly I seen a lot of villains get curb stomped killed or treated dirty on a ooc level and just stop playing or stopped being a bad guy.
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Ranging from seeing gank squads show up to a bad guys door and them  breaking into their home just to cap kill when they were small time. To a small villain afk doing something else get walked up on dangered with a cap 1 capped then killed on the spot. Being a villain should be hard sure and it should be a up hill battle with death always being a possible outcome. But if you want a villain to actually play the game they should at least get to a point where they can cook. I will get some people who will argue this point or something probably but generally speaking. The bad guys kill less people than the good guys. I seen the big bad's let people go one after the other yet the moment i see a good guy capture a low level goon its likely over for them. And that's not a joke.  It became a meme at one point for me and some others to just joke about 1st cap kills. Aw your a low level undead doing stuff for his master? not even 200? Get capped your dead. I remember someone told me that exact thing happened to. 190ish undeads caped and killed. Not much story really built out. I have been told before as well they are not meant to be 'real' characters by people. that's kinda telling when the player base kind of just says a certain race is not a real character. Not even talking about people who have told me while i was capped by them that their last character was a undead/demon/bad guy and was cap killed or died super early without really doing much and so on. 

My last issue is wars. They are dangerous despite what some people seem to say or think I don't think they need to be any more dangerous. Let the ic be the decider. Not every war has to be some fight to the death or high cap or something like that. It just pushes more into the meta builds as people will start to use them more and more as stuff gets more dangerous. Right now wars are fine. Cap 1 maybe 2 or three if the IC determines it. Like if I have been having people fight in the wilderness from my side fighting some other nation and we officially go to war with each other and start like fighting them for the dev mat spawners (forgot the name) and then maybe a raid on their town or something sure. I can see like a cap 2 or three. But if its like aw straight to a war on their settlement not many fights before hand between the nations or its people it feels weird to have high caps. Also destruction should not be a one time event. That should be like multi stage sieges or something. Or at least have them have to raid one another once before a full destruction to destroy defenses or something. (if they do indeed have to do that then cool I am a little behind on what the rules for wars are or how they work since every time i hear them it seems to have something changed or I was wrong or someone told me wrong before lol)
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Anyway My rants over. None of this was meant to be pointed at people or calling them out or anything. Just wanted to give my thoughts and bring some stuff to attention. Hope everyone has a good night (Its 4am at the time of writing.)

[Chance]

There are several good posts and points in this thread and I appreciate it. I'll write a full response soon, in the meantime if anyone else would like to chip in, by all means!

[Vanai]

Okay, Ill chip in.

I agree with most of what has been stated, but one of the biggest gripe I have with playing this game - as someone who does not have a discord, and does not intend to ever join any game-related discord-

Is how spread out the information on the world and topics are, and the difficulty in finding correct information.

The wiki is out dated, so is the forums, and apparently so is the discord, and I have been re-directed several times in regards to wanting to learn about Faith and how it works socially. Information on fatih history, etc.

Things that are played around in game based on *some* understanding from *somewhere*.

Or the information on signatures, and it's grade? I had to ask and get linked to an obscure google sheets document that I cannot find anywhere else than through getting a ticket replied to by a mod who happened to have the link.

This makes the game difficult to approach for people who do not want to be on discord- and I assume, even for people who are.

[Dandeli]

the way to save the game state is to have a giant event, perhaps call it extinction, where we destroy all but 3 settlements to fix the sparseness of PCs and have them instead amass between 3 areas hence fixing the character density . my hamster told me this . i call this Character Density Theory . 

this is my diagram:

[catttdusss]

Not writing an essay, just giving a bit of clarification since people are requesting transparency. 
So, here it is!
( Note, this is going over the latest raid matchups, and what each party had at the time. )



 Kyran - Dream Magic, Pandemonium Drive. Opponent, 1 signature.
Brynn - Nothing. Opponent, 1 signature.
Bink - Nothing. Opponent, no signatures.
Silus - Nothing.  Opponent, 2 signatures. Fortuna/Aether.
Svpana - Ink Magic.  Opponent, no signature (?)
Eulias - Not Aetian.
Cardan -  Stance/castbuff. Opponent, 1 Signature.
Marlon - Nothing.  Opponent, no signature.
Clara - Not Aetian. 
Tyr - Not Aetian
Kreita - Ouroboros ( 5% AP, 20 crit ).  Opponent, 1 Signature.
Akasha - Dream Magic, Fortuna.  Opponent, no signature.

Truth is, save for one or two debatably iffy matchups, the grand total of fights devolving between Aetius and their most recent enemies aren't showcasing large discrepancies within signature count or otherwise abnormal/app only abilities. Sometimes, the adverse being the truth, as seen with Silus' matchup against a PC with a far greater mechanical advantage than himself, or my previous matchup against said PC, prior to my obtainment of a minimal stat increase.

Speculation and, in some cases, outright slander against our fellow players isn't promotive of a collaborative roleplay environment. 

Aetius PCs generally aren't as 'chance-boosted' as one might believe, greater mechanical skill constituting to a great sum of their wins, this also being taken into account in cases where they're pitted against PCs of a higher caliber to equalize these settings. 

Two of the characters here are from the initial spawnwave, that being Cardan and Kyran. The rest being freshly spawned in or being 180 RPL/Soulbound weapon Arcanium spawns.

And in the case of the specialized spawn ins, they themselves a response to the obtuse powercliffing of older factions and or PCs that could otherwise NOT be toppled without months to years of developments in a game where time means everything.

So, Chance made a decision!

He equalized the playing field, as much as you'd like to deny or reject this possibility. 

Aetius isn't some faction with ubers ready to gun down any who oppose them; they're all individually beatable, but because they've actually bested the enemies set out before them it's a problem now?

... Where Goldlight did the same thing for ages?

Make it make sense, friends !

I'm willing to discuss this topic with anyone. Through DMs, public, etc. My tag is anonempyrean. and that is all I have to say for today.

( PS - Cardan and Kyran, two faction LEADERS getting put up against mercenaries is absolute lunacy, and we, ourselves, didn't agree with.)

This is a game, and we're collaboratively writing a story.
They aren't meant to last forever; they aren't meant to prematurely halt and continue at random.

They are meant to end.

Sporting jealousy, or lies, or any other detriments against your fellow players isn't pretty.

[Valterak]

i feel like i'm gonna be the odd one out and say that i like the current game state.

granted, my experience is vastly different from what the majority see, but i still feel like at least one person should share that they're having fun.

if i could complain about anything, it would just be to document more things for new players. that's all! i like the direction things are going, i like the stories that my character gets to interact with, i am simply having fun.