Posts from Lungworth Auto-translated

I wasn't planning to start a discussion, but alright, for the first (and last) time I'll give a detailed answer so as not to leave any misunderstandings or hard feelings for the future. Though who am I kidding, it'll turn out the opposite.

C: I signed up for hardcore, I'll keep playing hardcore
L: This isn't hardcore, it's crap

Come on, you perfectly understand these are completely different phrases in meaning. In Baldur, it was about an unexpected change of mechanics in the middle of the game, and "hardcore" specifically referred to permadeath mode. But even so, I kept my word and removed my character from the game after a fatal injury.

Lack of balance with its accompanying minmaxing, that same punishing initiative and malicious randomness have always been there

1) In no prior expedition was minmaxing such a decisive factor. Mind you, I don't deliberately make bad characters, and on average my builds are above average, but here, to avoid wiping on the very first quest, you had to go out of your way with mechanics and avoid stacking critical failures and injuries.
2) Once upon a time, initiative and cleverness would blow up cities, not just players' butts, so this is an argument for linearity, but it's too obvious to bring up further.
3) I have nothing against randomness, but it's one thing when critical failures occur with average stats of 1-100, and another with 1-10. Here, it's partly my fault: I got really tense when Ples wrote that our chance of failure was higher than the chance of a crit, but for some reason I didn't think they'd work in such a brutal way.

just apparently like in everything else, the grass used to be greener

The grass was especially greener in the last expedition a month ago. I'll repeat, Serberia easily made it into the top 2-1 of my favorite games, and if you removed Zeno, the inquisitors, and the random generation at the start, it would have become an unattainable ideal. My point now isn't about your setting or even balance, but about the mechanics of this "hardcore" mode.

Let's take three situations:
A) A raid of a couple dozen bodies on a lich king;
B) A PvP arena at high rating;
C) Ganking level 1 noobs in the starting location;
What do you think belongs to difficult and adrenaline-filled content, and what to what I expressed?

And the argument that "ducklings quack about how it was better before" doesn't work here, because we have Serberia. In Baldur, there were exactly the same two completely unfair and poorly thought-out battles at the start of the game, when characters had no way to level up beyond starting stats. But... the first was a friendly tournament; and after the second, a forest spirit resurrected everyone with minimal "injuries."
I will never nitpick you about battles in the mid-to-late game. I might grumble in a thread, but that's the max. Elulu-suen, the inquisitors, and so on - there players had enough chances to level up and soberly assess their strength. But the start of the game should involve at least some safe zone. Even take and bless everyone upon arrival in Lungwort with Felicia's power: "for the first month, characters don't receive injuries and don't make critical failures," what's the big deal?
But here we got a pure case of option C). Moreover, we actually had to log in with our Baldur twinks (resurrecting lead tank Lok, area-of-effect specialist Alex, and healer Frag), but you yourself discouraged everyone from importing...

Well, maybe I really need to retire, because all these expeditions are turning into sessions of masochism, where you spend whole days against all odds crunching numbers, trying to keep everything in a head occupied with other things, and then all you hear is - this is WEIRD, that's CRAPPY, a third is yet another thing.

Don't twist everything in that light. You perfectly know that 90% of players give positive feedback about your work. In 8 years, I've never personally nitpicked you in DMs: no whining, no criticizing, no asking to rewind time, resurrect my characters, etc. In the rare cases when something really got to me, I always wrote about it in the general thread. Because I'm always open to dialogue, including admitting I'm wrong if it turns out I had a mistaken impression of something.

criticism is when you raise some issue, "Revan, 7 accuracy and 10% crit from one skill is way too strong, maybe this needs to be fixed somehow?" Revan says no, it doesn't. Apparently he has some thoughts on this, or maybe he's just stubborn, not that it matters

It does matter, because that's where the problem lies. Let's be honest, you don't like criticism and you highly value your own opinion and vision. And no matter how you wrap this feedback, the outcome won't change. I can understand this well, because I myself almost never make concessions in life when it comes to my creative work. Like, I'd let some random guys teach me how and what I should do, lol.
But there's an important oversight here: an expedition is not an ordinary game. You're not a developer reading the whining of soyboys from Reddit. In a sense, we're co-owners of one company. Even if the key block of shares is yours, our opinions and decisions also mean a lot. Expeditions are collective creativity. It's a story about us and for us, while the NPCs and the world are just the backdrop. It's not us who should watch the heroics of the GM's characters from the back rows; the GM's characters should watch us (and be envious).

Useful feedback looks like this.

maybe none of what is suggested will be used

That's exactly why over the years, useful feedback has been replaced by more straightforward nitpicking. I remember I used to love writing a big post with analysis and suggestions at the end of each expedition. But what's the point??? It doesn't work and helps in 0.1% of cases. But now I wrote once about how everything is "crap" and look what a discussion I've achieved.

I learned from my mistakes during this fight, but "feedback" in this game is definitely that very thing from under the horse.
Nitpicking (instead of constructive criticism) about mechanics, quest design, or NPC motivation is like reading someone's quest and saying "why isn't it like Tolstoy's, and here a comma is missing... Hmm..."

Here you're exaggerating and wrongly comparing mechanics to quests. As the guys correctly wrote, nobody expects perfectionism from you. But in my opinion, there's been more than enough feedback over the years; you just find some remarks stupid and far-fetched, others as player stupidity, and still others you simply ignore.
And so, if you have feedback for your fellow players about the quality of quests, post formatting, etc., don't hold back...

to meet the (increased, by the way, over the years) expectations?

And that's actually normal. The players have also gotten much better at roleplaying over the years, the quality of quests has improved, and overall in RP everything is just great now. I'm throwing likes on almost every post. We're growing, and you've also leveled up tenfold in a GM sense, so the evolution of expectations is quite logical. I mean, you first win Olympic gold, and then you're surprised that people expect a high level from you...

Perhaps only drawing artifacts and writing musical accompaniment is missing, and even then there would probably be something about crooked anatomy or unmelodious tunes.

Well, don't try to reduce everything to "bad players don't appreciate me." I've already written, and you perfectly know that's not the case; everyone loves and respects you.


Well, and yeah, I'll comment a bit on Nebk's post.
I don't think that when playing in others' expeditions (or running your own), you deliberately did something, but I really liked his argument about demotivation.
Where does this demotivation come from, and from it irritation, and from it criticism? It comes from situations where players can't make the right decision because they think any path can end in failure with equal chance.
Shoot at Zeno - wipe. Don't shoot at Zeno - he approaches and explodes - wipe.
Kill the inquisitors - the countess gets offended for her son - wipe. Spare the inquisitors - they steal the tear - wipe.
Eat the fruits - get poisoned - wipe. Don't eat the fruits - miss out on imba buffs - wipe.
And the saddest part is that no matter how much "feedback" you receive about each of these situations, they're still "good," "well-thought-out," etc. to you. And what kind of criticism should it be to make you doubt the logic of these "cozy" quests?

But let's dig deeper and think about why such quests appear at all. They appear because, subconsciously or not, you like to overpower and test the players. Otherwise, nothing like this would exist at all. Sometimes, of course, like with the inquisitors, you soften up towards the end, but overall there have been enough such situations already. And this is hardly a "things were better before" case: this thing originated back in the times of Laust (or whatever his name was) from Shabbet, who overpowered us.
I'm not calling you a sadist or a villain, but please don't try to deny that your characters and plans always turned out to be above and better than the players. And even when players tried to protect themselves from potential consequences, it didn't help. For instance, the fruits would just start ignoring all immunities. With Zeno, you first provoked us with a maximally trolling situation, and then got offended that we reacted incorrectly, even though you yourself eagerly rushed to take an aggressive action.
Wouldn't it bring much more pleasure to reward people for their cleverness, rather than tripping them up and shoving them in the dirt?

And my last point is related to a change in perspective. You're rarely, but occasionally, also in the shoes of an ordinary mortal player. And notice how proud your characters often are. At the slightest disrespect or attempt at humiliation, they bravely die from any obstacle. It's very strange that you haven't drawn any parallels between this and the "troubles" players face in your expeditions. Perhaps you need to be given more of that corresponding "game" experience, dunno.

And finally, something not too constructive... You say you don't like it when players wipe and all that... But it feels like these emotions arise after the fact... Kind of like when as a child you broke your favorite toy soldiers and got sad, even though you were just throwing rocks at them to simulate being under artillery fire. It's the same here: first you get upset when you miss and place the soldiers closer to yourself, and when you finally hit and smash them to pieces, you suddenly get sad that things turned out this way...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes, I haven't seen such a detailed overview of one's psychological portrait as on the last pages of this thread. I want to apologize to Fragment... There's often a circus in this section, but usually on a much smaller scale, so please don't think this is normal. And sorry for the premature closure; the rest should be used to this pattern by now, but it's still sad that few games reach a logical conclusion.

You mean, like a circus? Just a normal conversation between men...

I want to open the window, but it's even more stifling outside.

Attachment 66388

Yeah, everything's fine. In general, everyone had a chance to play a bit, so there were some interesting moments and ideas, and of course, we should thank everyone who contributed to that. I don't really want to discuss who was right or wrong, I just think we should put aside negative thoughts for now and relax.

When we went on a quest to kill small groups of goblins,

This is what everyone thought it would be like:


This is what actually happened:

Good after-game reports, I liked them. It’s a pity I can’t write anything myself from my phone.

It seemed to her that everything was correct and well-thought-out. That her subordinates were ready for a fight and would move with her in a harmonious waltz, bringing death to their enemies. Just as it had been back then with the folks from Baldr. That was a mistake. First, Veritta found herself in the path of an unfortunate shot from Mr. Kayoshi, then Gai ended up in an unexpected position and took Gulveig's spear to the eye, and then Vega herself was flying headfirst into a rock after a kick to the back. The only question in her mind was: "Mother, why?"
A night sky dotted with stars, wind, and fresh air. Just moments ago, it seemed like something stank terribly, but now not a trace of that smell remained. Instead, there were smells of smoke, and also a bit of that characteristic, electric scent — before an approaching thunderstorm.

Gulveig looked around for the source of the former and soon found it.

— M? How... Honestly, I didn't expect to see you, — she admitted, surprised but with sad resignation.

— Oh? Who were you waiting for then? — Corsen sat on the ground, roasting a lamb on a spit. — By the way, it'll be ready soon, you should take a piece, there's too much for me alone.

— Mother, of course. Isn't she supposed to see me off? Or, perhaps, someone from those who are no longer with us... Father Gungnir, Aunt Emilia? Röhei, Veserod, Alessia? Won't they meet me? I feel like they should.

Corsen wasn't looking at her, but at the roasting meat.

— Asterion, Gai, and Veritta... — Vega recalled. — I would have liked to go with them. They must be very scared, I don't want them to be separate! Even if not all of them are Arterians, but... Is that really so important here and now? And perhaps even... That my teacher... Might also be waiting for me.

The firelight danced on the girl's wet cheeks.

— Your problem is that you're too fond of rushing things, Gulveig of Baldr. By the way... I wanted to compliment you, that was a great performance! The personal one, I mean. A true Nakirian dance, fierce yet graceful. If you ever shed that shell of yours, it'll be even better.

— But the team dance fell short, of course... What, strangers aren't like your brothers and sisters, right, Gulveig? They don't want to obey, they don't want to feel you? You had to yell at one five times to finally get him to retreat from battle, and it's better to do everything yourself, isn't it?

— ...

— Tell me... Do you want to do everything yourself, or do you still need friends, followers, and helpers? Do you like having them, does it give you strength? Did you like the way they looked at you today, despite your mistakes?

The girl thought it over, and the images of that day stood before her as if alive. Her comrades perceived everything as some kind of game in the first few seconds, but with each moment, with each new unexpected and terrible turn, uncertainty grew within them. They were all different, some held on, some were afraid, some didn't care... All of them were united by one thing — they looked at Gulveig, and she was the only thread connecting them all to hope. They watched as the goblins, those dangerous, numerous, nimble, and cunning creatures, spawn of Darkness, turned into bloody mush from the starlight of her spear. As long as the spear shone, everyone was ready to continue the fight, no matter what. That feeling of pride and responsibility... It wasn't there back then, in the solo fight with the wolf monsters. Perhaps it was the first time in her entire life. Too bad it ended this way; from that point, one could truly believe that the proud title of Valkyrie was not far off.

"Forgive me, guys, for letting you down. And forgive me, Mother, for letting you down."
Vega, as in the old days, felt terrible fatigue again. She just wanted to fall asleep, think about nothing, do nothing. Never again.

Corsen, with a sharp motion, tore a leg off the lamb and tossed it to the young Serberian — no matter how lost in thought she was, she still caught it instinctively. Though she had no appetite. None at all.
— I told you, I won't eat all this myself. Eat.

The girl didn't argue and reluctantly took a small bite, while the Nakirian continued.
— So then, I have a red she-wolf among my shepherds; I'll send her to you soon. Of course, I can't compete with your Arteria in gift-giving, but when I said I'd help, that was the honest truth... If you want, consider that she put the idea in my head, or maybe she did. Don't you dare lose heart or kick the bucket on me, I won't forgive you for it! After all, according to our agreement, I am your first follower, remember?

A predatory grin appeared on the shepherd's face, and then he laughed his trademark nasty, wolfish laugh. Soon, neither Corsen nor the plains of Nakiri remained before Gulveig's eyes, but that laugh still echoed, somehow unexpectedly and frighteningly morphing into indignant shouts, sounds of blows, and the hissing of meat burning on the fire.
Finally, the day was coming to an end, and Gulveig of Baldr allowed herself to sit on a bench at the edge of the village of Ephemeria and doze off a little. In the second raid on the goblins, only a handful participated besides the Arterian herself, and even then only after lengthy and persistent persuasion of their leader. For Eyr, there wasn't even that option — the leader of Dracena was grateful to her sister but firmly insisted that their main task had to be completed independently. Not that it was a great feat; after a horde of small goblins and a couple of champions, a few clumsy hobgoblins and shamans with nearly depleted mana were easy prey. Much more difficult was clearing the unexpected blockage at the cave entrance and pulling out Gai, who had somehow gotten inside (what happened there, and why the villagers disliked Gai enough to torment him like that, is a matter for a separate investigation). Also completed were important reconnaissance tasks (Harold successfully found out that the elder was not involved in the betrayal, and there was no need to fear returning) and the elimination of an escaped goblin (Lester tracked it, and possibly with the help of Garret, who was sent after him, the creature of darkness was eliminated).

— I'll... Ask the elder to set up a bathhouse for us girls too... In due order, after the rescued captives, maybe tomorrow, — Vega wiped a two-layer crust of stinking goblin blood from her face. A sauna was absolutely necessary here; this blood smelled amazingly nauseating and truly unique, unlike any beast or human. But, as mentioned repeatedly before, the main victims had been imprisoned in the goblin caves for long weeks, and they required the most attention right now.

Finally, Gulveig gathered her strength and stood up to say more than a few words to her comrades for the first time that day. There was something proud and solemnly sorrowful in her figure and face.

— Today, you all saw, and those who already knew before could remind themselves, what mercenary work is like. One small mistake, a couple of unpleasant coincidences... You fail to account for something once, forget the constant risk that outside forces might interfere with your work — and everything goes haywire. Frankly speaking, we failed today, — Vega unconsciously repeated the words of the Elheim baron once spoken to the Baldrians. — We were close, the greenskins fought desperately, but they could never have counted on victory, even though their assault caused injuries to our comrades... It was when Arteria herself turned away from us, when our opponents became people from this village, and the bones of fate, that we tasted the bitterness of defeat. But that was only to strengthen us, for just as Arteria left us in the heat of battle, so she took pity on us afterward, allowing Shanaz, Kayoshi, Erich, Atarax, Garret, and Harold to overcome the goblins pursuing them. And granting me, Veritta, and Gai salvation in the form of my sister from Baldr, the formidable Eyr von Walravn, a magnificent saber-wielder and master of the fire path. Without her help and sudden rescue, today's victory would have been impossible.

— I would also like... To thank all of you for your work. Including those who received serious injuries today. I think they, and everyone who remains, will now have to work twice as hard to save up for recovery from their injuries. It's possible, although it comes down to large sums of money.

"Truth be told, I wouldn't have minded spending our rewards on recovery elixirs right now, but such a decision can't be made alone in a group of mercenaries."

— However, if anyone doesn't want to keep risking and seeking adventure with "Dracena," I won't blame them. I only want to point out how today ended for us. There are two sides to mercenary work. The one I've mentioned, and the one that appeared when we returned to the village with the captives. Apparently, no one expected us back alive. But all the greater was the surprise in these people's eyes when we did come. You yourselves saw what a ray of hope we became for them, as well as for the rescued women. They are still depressed and sad; it's not certain they'll recover from their experiences, but if the old joy of life does return to them, you'll know who made it happen. That is certainly worth something. To those who are indifferent to others' happiness or sorrow now — well... Then I'll put it differently. What we went through today is the first step on the path to our glory! Surely you can't be indifferent to that?

— Finally, let us remember our fallen comrade, Asterion. I knew him only briefly, but he was a reliable travel companion, a good conversationalist, a strong fighter... It was he who inspired the creation of our mercenary band. But, unfortunately, he did not have time to realize his true potential. Let us honor him with a moment of silence. May he find peace in the next life.
In the following days, Gulveig told Eyr absolutely everything, except perhaps the most naive parts of her plans and thoughts, and some too embarrassing incidents. In turn, she hoped that Eyr would also share valuable stories, and perhaps some experience... Both sisters were probably surprised by the radical changes in each other, how much more mature, stronger, and, well, more feminine they had become — how could that be missed?

Catching Eyr's glances during the conversation wasn't difficult. Maybe, of course, the Arterian imagined it, but probably not; her sister wouldn't overlook such an important detail.
— Yes, it is, — Gulveig confirmed. — Your gift fits my current style perfectly; I've slain many enemies with it, and I've spoken of you fondly. I think I should give it a special name, after everything that's happened... "Heartseeker." That's what I'll call it.

One interesting question remained, strangely troubling, though Vega didn't dare voice it aloud. Back then, during the battle, how had Erich exactly reproduced the short monologue of the void mage Zeno?! What other surprises did her squad "Dracena" have in store for Gulveig?

Well. Perhaps everything will be revealed later. Live and see.

— I would also like to... thank all of you for your work. And especially those who sustained serious injuries today. I think they, and everyone else who remains, will now have to work twice as hard to save up for recovery from their injuries. This is possible, although it requires large sums of money.

How heartless this Gulveig is, after all.

But if I said, "Let's pool our resources to pay for the treatment of the injured," they would accuse me of greed...

Let Gaia heal him, since she was the one who blinded him.

Revan, do the Mirai samurai practice Shudo?

(I liked Revan's tradition, I'll continue it a bit, although in my own way)

I completely forgot...

Revan's face when players say, "We'll manage the first in-game quest involving goblins somehow":

Title

Gullveig, after personally clearing out the goblin cave and stumbling upon frightened goblin cubs:

Title