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[AbstractTraitorHero]

Is it weird that when i think of milno your profile picture is always what i think he looks like?

If I recall correctly, that is what Milno looks like. Approximately. Likewise my avatar is what Ulrich is supposed to look like.

Okay good so i haven't been wrong all these years.

[Radio Controlled]

Every time I stop following the OOC thread for a while I return to odd reading material. I'm not sure whether that whole thing was flattering or dangerous.

And yeah, Milno isn't a space magic god or anything like that. Surprise, lucky shots, explosives, magic or plain overkill, you name it.

I'd take it as the former, because people who are serious about making an attempt on Milno's life probably wouldn't be advertising how they'd do it openly in the ooc (at least not if they're competent enough to actually be a danger). Now, the person(s) who brought the topic up, and/or subtly sollicited people to post their ideas however...

Syv, NJW, I suggest you start running.

[piecewise]

The arbiter of peace encounter was rather disappointing... only one permadeath, the team gets saved by Hand of God, pretty much.

It's a problem. I get a lot of whining when I start wiping characters. About "fairness". But unfortunately with powerful vets there's only two ways to kill them: Overwhelming force or "Guess the weakness" style things which keep coming unless you figure out what kills them. And what happens is that they usually throw a few newbies into the combine harvester and then run away.

I mean, is it any fun to fight an enemy that just shrugs off all your attacks? No. But how else are they gonna fight you, since the standard procedure is just for everyone to all shoot at it together until it dies. I suppose numbers works, just spam you with too many to fight all at once.

The point I'm laboriously getting to is that it is hard to kill vets in a reasonable way. A way that isn't "Rocks fall and you die" random or super harsh consequences for something silly. And then we have people like Sy who are always doing their damnedest to weasel their way into being able to go on missions without actually physically being there and in any actual danger. Doing it all through remote control. And I can't really complain about that. While Sy seems to be trying to game the system, he's doing it in universe, and it's really nothing but a natural extension of Milno's "Poke it with a stick" style of cautious interaction.

I'd like to run it like I run Infinite heavens, where the body count is high and death is common. But I feel the salt would be immense.

[piecewise]

I have an idea! How about for christmas we work out a weekly posting schedule and we try to figure out a way I can murder more of you and get rid of this horrible power gap between immortal vets and infinitely squishy newbies?

[Radio Controlled]

Just do tinker all day everyday.

Maybe, like, non-ER on Monday, missions on Tuesday, on ship and tinker  (and whatever else) Wednesday. Repeat for Thursday-Friday-Saturday, Sunday resting day as usual. I dunno, would that work? Or is that too much?

[piecewise]

And monster eggs in the armory

[NAV]

The only way I can think of to give newbies and vets proper challenge is segregation. Have some noob missions without any veteran babysitters, and have some veteran missions without any newbie tagalongs. Not sure if that can be justified IC though, or if it would be fun. Of course keep some mixed missions too.

And monster eggs in the armory

[Radio Controlled]

One option would be to make characters npc's once they reach a certain power level/threshold, but I don't think that'd be a popular solution, to say the least.

What I do think might help though, is make a clearer distinction between 'vet missions' and more newbie missions, where there are level/power caps for missions. So if you are too veteran, you can't go on certain missions, in order to herd the more powerful chars into certain missions which can then be much harder and lethal without just grinding a ton of newbies into paste. Newbies are still free to join every mission, but with the explicit knowledge you will not pull punches and that said mission is not meant for the weak of heart or those without a metric ton of armored codpiece.

So, like in some online games, prevent high level chars from stealing all the thunder on newbie missions, and make sure missions for vets are adequately difficult.

Ninja'd by nav, with the difference I wouldn't restrict newbies from joining vet missions if they really want, but they should be very aware that they are in over their head, and shouldn't complain if they die 2 turns in because the enemy doesn't pull any punches.

This might mean more deliberate planning on your part though, pw.

[Nunzillor]

Didn't we have that with M22?  Some newbs got sent anyway, I believe.

[Toaster]

Hey PW, you might like this:

http://imgur.com/gallery/tIfk9

HMR stands for Hazardous Materials Requisition, not Horrible Massive Ruination, though I can understand how one could get confused.

I see I need to fit something new into my sig now.

[syvarris]

I'd like to say that I don't have much of an issue with ER's lethality.  I do dislike when people get to survive things they really shouldn't, like the nuke door incident, but I also dislike unreasonable things like that happening in the first place.  And, as my big statistics post shows, vets do die; there's just far fewer vets than newbies, and the vets are somewhat more resistant to death, so it's comparatively rare for them to die.

Heck, I'm constantly in fear for Saint's life, despite being perhaps the most cautious player in the game.

...Also, while I do try to not take unnecessary risks, I've been accepting that I don't get mission levelups for it.  If you decided that Saint has to actually go into an alternate dimension to get a levelup, he would do so.  If my playstyle gets too annoying for you, tell me, and it'll change.

[Hapah]

Burn it all to the ground!

[Lenglon]

Um, just to point out, not all vets are as immortal as others. Lyra's still plenty squishy, +0 End, +1 Will, and no suit upgrades at all. Dex doesn't help against things that can't be dodged. And there's a lot of those.

May I recommend segregating based on suit class? have some missions that require flight (meaning MK3 / battlesuits), some that require extra armor (meaning battlesuit / Avatar / robobody), some that require cramped spaces (meaning no battlesuits or avatars), and so on? honestly, it seems to me that the defining difference between immortals and non-immortals is how much armor they routinely have between themselves and threats.

[NAV]

I like Lenglon's idea.

[Radio Controlled]

Well, the holy trinity of armor, mobility and firepower really.

For the record, the biggest killer around here is stasis dementia. If we were to kill of anyone who hasn't posted in half a year, woo boy, the killcount would skyrocket!

Edit: separating on suit might make it more difficult to make 'surprising' missions though or otherwise kinda spoil things in advance.