[DirectorBright]

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 !

Okay. I'll try to make it make sense from having observed the other side of it. Here's what the sentiment was from within a lot of Goldlight- and not just them, but peripheral players as well.

It took a long time for the PCs in Goldlight to get to the stage at which they could do those things vs a spawn in that was apparently just a response to it, which many saw as disrespectful to the PCs in question since they actually had to go do a bunch of stuff to get that strong in the first place and effectively just had someone materialized to dog on them.

It took months to years of development for what was toppled to get where it was, and that was effectively just nullified immediately without any of the same investment. Or at least, not what was perceived to be the case.

You want the source of the salt, and why people are upset, that is their perception. That in a game where 'time means everything,' one side had to go through the time and effort to grow, and one did not. That is probably the biggest centerpoint of resentment that I have observed surrounding the faction, a sense of unfairness that such a person who 'could not be toppled without months of development' had to themselves take months of development to reach such a state, while their opponent did not.

Many also felt very cagey about expressing their grievances with it because - well, the owner's in the faction, and when they already feel like they're being treated unfairly they are not going to want to be vocal about it in that light because of the implication, whether or not it's even warranted.

Now as far as why Goldlight fell, that might be like... part of it, but that's not really the whole.

Goldlight had hit an awkward stage in which it was bereft of the massive champions that had made it what it was in the past and hadn't yet attained anyone on that level again. That is, as was mentioned, part of why a few people had to fight mercenaries as was said. I do love Bansai and their player but let's be real she's not the strongest fighter. There was no Garret, Kastore, etc. Sarina and Anya were pretty strong, but the nation had sunset in its strength rather heavily. Most of their soldiers didn't have much in the way of gear or sigs anymore, and a not insignificant portion weren't the best in a fight in terms of sheer skill. It was far from as invincible as people thought, and I could see the writing on the wall in the sparring sessions. A few strong characters were coming up that could've been, but they weren't there yet.

In other words, its mega murder scary-ass characters aged out, without a replacement by the time they were challenged.

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A few other good points have been made and I want to give my thoughts on each.

Empires rise and fall in like five minutes, and nobody remembers them IC and sometimes OOC because there's a profound lack of history in setting. Some things are in fact crazy expensive like synths. Rozen is right about the despair argument etc, focusing too much on things outside of your own character story or obsessing over the state of the world just gets you wound up into a ball of bitterness.

They have a point that a lot of stuff gets just obliterated in these and it just- disappears. The only characters that can tell you about the existence of something were those who were physically there when it happened. Ruins pop up in the area, but like- you should be hearing stories about the crescent island for hundreds of years after the place fell down, people should generally know what it was IC as just a basic 'common knowledge' thing. Everyone should know who Varrach was, or have heard stories about Xarxes, Jokul, Ragnarok.

Maybe part of that is a lack of wonders or significant, settlement wide differences?  Not in IC, in mechanics, as most settlements are functionally just a 'safe zone' with drip. Sometimes like with the Frontier you see a giant hole in the ground, that's cool. Other times, things just aren't written down IC in books, or they are and those are lost.

I believe it was said that these are to be reworked in a way to give a real 'reason' to be in there more thoroughly. Crafting hubs, iirc. Imagine finding a sword made with like... 'Aegisian Iron' and wondering 'wow where'd that come from.' I know I find old books and wonder. Goldlight, for instance, was just destroyed and there's people who didn't even know it existed IC right now - either due to being new players or just... well, being born after it. That plus the only way for them to find out would be an event- see above. AGAIN, it WAS hinted at that things like such expeditions would be more streamlined in the future. Resource hotspots kind of played into this when they were made from a destroyed nation, I did like those, even if a lot of the resources ended up just being eaten they were still like lore info.

I have seen firsthand that a lot of the time, the reason an old PC is in charge of a country for months on end is because there's just... nobody to replace them. Hell, a lot of the time the person in charge HATES being the settlement lead, but they don't know who to even pass it to that wont immediately crash out or AFK. Keep in mind it takes a long time to get a settlement set up but you can lose it in like two weeks.

I have rarely ever seen a spawn soldier stick around, too. I hard agree with Barnets take that a sense of progression is vital to a character's longevity. A new character having some means of climbing mechanically, and I think that is intended in the future if I'm not mistaken with a lean away from 'app for everything' and towards 'systems to get things.' Because- if you think about it, yeah, time DOES matter a lot in this game. Lets use the monster hunter example: Say I want to make a sword from a sea serpent's fang. Okay, well, I need an event, which could take months if it ever happens at all, and then after that I need to craft the thing, and then I need to app for it, and that could take months, and by then... well. Yet it seems that this is known, and it is intended to be addressed in the future systems and crafting overhauls.

I also do think that while lore being FOIC is in some ways good, after a certain point a level of objective knowledge needs to be available to a person. Things like how normies shouldn't know much about necromancy, but once you actually get the class you should. A guidebook or something, maybe not of deep lore, but of direct "It works like this" and "You can do these things." Something tied to the class.

And I still think Tactical, while it'll be rough for a bit, will long-term be helpful. Not just because of PVP but especially for PVE or raids or EC fights. It opens a lot of doors for events, both public and private, as well as other activities, and makes things a little less awkward in big battles even if it might tamp down some dramatic 1v1 showdowns. I do wish we had more... options, I guess, for buildup and conflict for characters than immediately leaping to 'death duel' as the default. It *does* make it hard to care about settlements as a place 'full of people and government and so on' when none of that is really reflected outside of a handful of PC characters and your only real option to engage with it is through those specific characters. Cycle it back to Crownforge, Mordeaux's only options ATP were to either suicide dive into the middle of the city, camp the door and wait for someone to come out, or declare a one man raid if he wanted to really fuck with them in a way that wasn't a months+ wait time approval event.

MBeasts can narrate about burning down villages or whatever but until you walk out on the map and can actually see the small town full of fire and ash and so on, there's not really any 'buildup' there. A knight who wants to go out and protect civilians or common people from monsters, but their only option for that is a full on magic beast, which is like an endgame boss fight once they get moving. Stuff like that will be easier handled, I feel, with the new system - and a few other things spoken of that are planned.

On the whole/personal experience? I have no idea, really. My main is still doing his thing just fine, the wait time for stuff does hurt but its why I've started apping for things as 'systems' or 'repeatables' or ideas with progression, both on him and the alt, so that its not just a one and done, so that once it is put in place I have something to play with and others to engage in that serves as a whole thing instead of just a single use funny or a stat-stick, and so that ideally when others come over with a desire to have some form of progression I can point them at an existing mechanical feature instead of the oft-mentioned 'hit metal 99 times.' I really, really adore the applications for 'systems' instead of direct items, be it the Rust Plague or the new things Grey has, and I intend to stay in that vein going forward because frankly it is more fun and interesting for everyone I feel. In the future I plan to try to go for the ability to just directly upgrade / create weapons or armor that are 'set' from abilities, something that isn't whack strong but follows the gimmick of the character in question and is made with the resources they IC gather up and the systems that they possess. Gives even more reason to engage and a stronger 'identity' to the group, I feel.