Current State of the Meta

[RyuRitsuka]

Hi. I try not to do this often, but after a small problem last night, I feel the need to address a major issue I have with the way the game works right now. Specifically, the meta (or, the status quo of sorts. The way people assume things have to be.) The current meta is "kill/win at all costs". RP fights have just become people trying to one-up the other and get a free/instant kill or major injury. It's become a battle of "I Win" buttons and people trying to claim everything they have as being such. It started with things like explosive tags, kawarimi abuse, and generally just arguing your opponent down until he gives up and lets you win... but as those types of people get stronger, it becomes things like Iaido, or god forbid, Sharingan Genjutsu. If people don't get their way, they whine for their favorite admin to come rule in their favor, and if the ruling doesn't go that way, they whine for Crazah, who is typically too busy to give much of a shit and, in my experiences, just reverses the ruling. And the current admins don't try to defend their own rulings, which basically means whoever can argue the hardest wins any fight.

This is wrong. This is so wrong. I get that a lot of people like the gritty realism type of RP that SSO introduced and that Era has picked up, but trying to apply Shounen attacks and techniques to gritty realism just results in all this arguing. We've seen people capable of lifting swords the size of buildings, in Naruto, and yet people still try to use things like explosive tags as an excuse to instantly kill their opponent, then claim they win because they are "more clever"...? It's bullshit, I say.

What finally pushed me over the edge to make this kind of topic was a fight that I, Senju Kenshin, had with Seimu the night prior. I'll be quite honest, when I logged in to find him at the temple, I was ecstatic. I love high-tier fights, and I felt like it was almost drawing comparisons to Hashirama vs. Madara -- arguably the strongest Senju (myself) vs. inarguably the strongest Uchiha (Seimu) has the potential to be absolutely devastating and amazing... a major event in its own right. I thought it would be a long, drawn-out affair with both of us showing just how truly terrifying we are.

It wasn't. Seimu chose to stand right in front of me, challenge me, and, when I attempted to use iaido (Not to kill or instantly win the fight, mind you -- more as a flashy starter. I even informed him that he was easily able to escape any major injury, and would likely only take a cut from it, which we all know means very little in a battle of titans such as ourselves.), he somehow instantly activated his Mangekyo, trapped me in Tsukiyomi, and -- get this -- instead of using it to torture me (as Itachi did to KAkashi, which was what caused Kakashi to pass out, NOT the jutsu itself), he used it more in the way Itachi did to Sasuke, to play out a fight then reverse it all. The fake fight itself was great fun -- lots of give and take, both of us showing our unique styles... but then at the end, Seimu completely let me down. When he revealed it was a Tsukiyomi (which itself I did not mind. I don't think his Mangekyo should have activated that fast vs. a Commissioner using Quick Draw, but he didn't use it to one-shot me so I wasn't inclined to argue.)... he then RPed Kenshin being instantly KO'd. When I asked how, he said "oh i used another genjutsu". Now, I am a Commissioner -- that's a Vet Jounin -- with T2 mind. I am, by all rights, a Kage level combatant. "another genjutsu"... I don't think that's enough to one-shot me, not at all, especially after only taking a single second of Tsukiyomi that wasn't even torture, so it couldn't have caused much damage. I don't think either Seimu or myself shoudl be able to one-shot the other like that. I understand that it was an interesting scene, and Seimu is trying to set himself as a big bad... but he already has. When he walks into my own faction base and challenges me to a fight, exposing himself to my most powerful trump card right away... why is he allowed to walk away, unscathed, and claim that an unnamed genjutsu is more than enough to instantly KO me so that he can do so? I'd gone in expecting a nice, interesting fight that we could both walk away from, some character development, but it was just massively disappointing.

After the fight, I was contacted by an admin who will remain unnamed, who told me "That was bullshit". Yeah, it kinda was. It was an extreme disappointment. It's true, Seimu showed restraint and didn't maim, injure, or kill me, but... that kind of thing simply should not happen. It's detrimental to the fun, and the fun is what this game is supposed to be about. Why stick around and RP if it is not fun at all? Why is this kind of thing allowed? Normally I would just contact Seimu over an instant messaging program and talk this out with him personally, but I was urged to make a topic to air these complaints out to the public.

[Ende]

[Angrypanda1]

At this point, Era is just becoming SSO v2. The game's degraded to being a playground for admins and their close friends. Unless you're one of their buddies, the chances of having a fair and fun fight is low, even more so if they dislike you. Seimu for example, has gotten away with a ton of bulljive, like when he used "lesser izanagi" to negate someone's finishing blow without losing an eye, and then proceeded to flee from an entire village along with Xerif by getting admins to back him up. I could go on and bring up a lot more examples, but I'm sure you get the point. The quality of the game is just getting worse, Crazah even stole SSO's plot. The fact of the matter is this. If you aren't an admins friend the game won't be fun for you. Because of this, the quality of RP has been dwindling. Those of the players that are on the positive side of the admin bias will disagree with me, but as for those of you that don't deep throat them. I'm sure you've noticed too.

[Ende]

1. I'm a genjutsu specialist, I'm going to use gen, get over it. That's like me bitching about you using a sword. Believe it or not, I actually can't contend toe-to-toe with a samurai without it.

2. I don't get admin bias, majority of admins dislike me.

3. If whatever admin thought what I did was "Bullshit," then they should have told me to RP differently. Otherwise, I was just trying to go with the flow and just get it over with because again, believe it or not, I don't enjoy what is almost always tedious fighting past 12am.

4. Don't try to pull the "Metagame and desire to win," card on me, because I was never going to lay a finger on your character and coming from a samurai that, supposedly follows the Code of Bushido, that joined up with 10+ ninja to hunt down and gank Seimu, I just don't want to hear it.

5. You made all of this OOC, and in doing so, you've soured whatever RP that could have happened down the line.
________

1. I didn't choose my Mangekyou technique, I was given "Lesser Izanagi," for whatever reason. Believe me I'd have much more preferred the standard shit, but I got that. Am I not supposed to use it?

2. I got away from "A whole village of people," because of a bunch of people RPing a thousand things every RP for what felt like a thousand RPs. It got to the point from where I was attacked at 10pm, and was still fighting an endless stream of alts that log on to try to get the final hit at 6am.

3. Again, almost all admins dislike me as far as I know, and I wane from dislike to neutrality. I don't talk to 99% admins outside of the game, and that 1%, isn't me asking for what you people call bias.

4. Honestly, if Seimu didn't exist, WHAT would you do? Sunagakure would still be standing, the world would be the same as it was when the wipe began, and to spice things up, you'd probably be having some shitty Chuunin Exam with no basis or a one day war of the same likelihood. You bitch when nothing's happening, but focus all lasers of hate and frustration and shit on the subject of conversation at whatever time. So pretty much it's a "Damned if I do, damned if I don't" situation.

5. It's clear that everyone would like it better if I were just an inactive Jounin in whatever village. --But wait, if I do that, I get bitched at too.

All in all.. I genuinely want you to eat my ass.

[Angrypanda1]

Your argument is "admins hate me, i didnt even wunt to start a fight late at night which is why i went in at 10pm knowing it wud last forever, admins totally hate me even though they let me get one of the most OP things in the game, and was allowed to live when i was supposed to die 9999 qq. luk wut i did, i destroyed sungakure and that made RP didnt it? qq"

First of all, you destroying Sunagakure and killing their only jounin didn't start RP. It made a lot of people quit, and got a lot of people killed down the road when they were leaving the village and got ganked. They were also hunted after the TS for that, so it didn't really start RP. It started two massacres. Your entire argument is stupid, and it just proves my point.
You know what, Ende? People wouldn't have a problem with eating your ass if you weren't GRIMY AS FUCK all the time. (Nohomo, it was a response to the post ok)

[Ende]

But uh yeah. If you're going to look at it that way, then I'm not going to try to change your view because really I don't care.
What I do care about is deliberately mucking up people's OOC rep by having public dick measuring contests, and shit flinging from one side to another.
If you haven't noticed, what lessens a game's quality is almost never the fault of "Admins" or their "Bias." What lessens a game quality is players constantly seeing things from the: "Oh wow I didn't get to have a big, bad ass fight at 12am like I wanted to," point of view when really, you could have just had cool dialogue like the last time to build tension for what could -actually- be a bad ass fight, instead of a random skirmish in front of the temple.

Or the: "Wow he killed our Jounin now who will teach us," point of view when really, that and the destruction of your village was /supposed/, key word /supposed/ to send a bunch of individual plot lines of characters in motion, to make them more ambitious and in turn shape the game more. Instead it turned into people that just went to camp out in the nearest village.

And no my argument is stop taking things at face value. Of course the side you hear the story from will put them in the light of purity.

[Angrypanda1]

So you destroyed an entire village and killed the only jounin there, assuming people would "shape the game"? That's stupid, you blaming this on your victims isn't helping your case. I'll stop responding now, because you're one of those people who assume stuff. People weren't mad because the jounin couldn't teach them, people were made because the jounin were the only strong people in the village that had the authority to lead, and protect them. Progress was being made in the village, and you stopped that in one night. When you learn how to look at things from more than one angle, then you won't look as dumb and dickish. Like I said, this argument isn't going to get anywhere since we're just going to repeat what we believe to be right over and over again until the opponent decides to give in. So I quit for now, and hopefully more people will respond so we can see what they think about this subject.

[RyuRitsuka]

Ende, I didn't make this topic to attack you, and I don't understand why you're being so hostile. I made it to complain about how most people in the game, not just you, are just so focused on winning and killing. Yeah, you're a genjutsu spec, that's great -- if you want to take this as an attack, though, then maybe you should learn how genjutsu works and what it's for, before insisting that it OHKOs anyone you fight...? But seriously, this topic is for people to air their distastes with whatever and how the atmosphere of the game is currently being presented, not to attack you or anyone else in particular. I really think you need to calm down.

The admins don't hate you. Way back in the first TS, I stuck my neck out for you, and Rei, and pushed very hard for you both to get jounin. I pushed for your sharingan to get upgraded. You did a lot of work for the village and it was fantastic. Now you're a villain and that's great -- sure ,yeah, destroying Suna brought about some RP to the world, but right now the entire world has their eyes on you and everything you do is going to be perceived as a slight, whether it's legit or not.

As for you ot wanting to fight after 12 pm... why did you show up in my base of power, stand right in front of me, talk about me killing you knowing full well that yes, I had been hunting you since you are ~IN BED WITH DEMONS~, which it is kind of my sworn duty to take care of. You provoked a fight with a kage-level combatant and then want to bitch about it taking a while?

And in any case, I was only using you as an example because it was the most recent thing I'd personally been involved in. I'm sure you had your motives and they may sound great on paper, but all I can do is look at what I'm presented with and act on that. Maybe try to respond a little more maturely and we can have a civil discussion, instead of posting rude pictures and angry lists.

[Washout]

Right, from someone who hasn't been directly involved in the Seimu conflict, I'm going to take a moment to try to add an outsiders perspective to the situation. From what I've seen, Seimu's Group has a tendency to sneak around, attack at opportune times when stronger individuals aren't available and generally make life unpleasant for people who have no means of defending themselves. Now, I think this is a problem because ultimately, when people are continuously attacked and ganked and opportunities are constantly exploited, nobody wins. Stories don't develop when characters are killed off before they can accomplish anything. Stories don't develop when everything a persons character cares about is stripped away from them constantly.. Well that's not true. Stories do develop, just the same old tired ones.

I ultimately feel it would be better if people focused less on the need to kill one another and maybe stopped and realized what their actions are going to have on others. People have an astounding lack of empathy for one another and little respect for what's actually good for the story, and frankly this can apply to both sides of the debate. While Seimu's team has sparked activity, it's questionable whether it's been good activity or just activity based around not wanting to lose what they've worked on because they fear running into people with a 'Kill At All Cost' mentality. Honestly, it's also part of why I'm dreading the upcoming Demon event..

Era is not a forgiving game to face death in.

A lot of people have no concern for taking stuff other people have worked toward and tearing it up and throwing it in their faces.

Frankly I just wish people would take a moment to consider others a bit more before they act certain ways. The point of Role Play is to tell a story. If you're playing with the singular goal to win at all costs and live forever, you're probably doing it worng. If you're playing just to see how many people you can ruin the day of? You're doing it for the wrong reason. I don't understand the desire to end every battle in one move and then argue endlessly when someone dares to to question your characters ability to utterly destroy everything or dares to question your abilities. It's not fun. Nobody can honestly say that the arguments and problems that come from this play to win mentality are fun so I really do wish that everyone on every side would take a moment, step back and consider for a moment what's good for everyone instead of behaving selfishly and making the game about inconveniencing others by whatever means necessary..

[Xerif]

What's your point? Don't kill people?

[Washout]

I'm implying that it should maybe be done with a little more restraint. This whole tendency of killing whoever people can whenever they can isn't good for story. It's really just getting off on making life bad for those around you. I've got no problem seeing people die but honestly I just wish there was more motivation behind the acts or that alternatives to killing became more common. Placing seals on people, severely injuring them, or just taking prisoners as hostages would be better than leaving a trail of corpses in a village. There are other options available that don't shit all over other players. It wouldn't be half as distressing if the people doing most of the killing also weren't the ones clinging to lives and complaining to admins when things don't go there way and taking the cheap way out of situations. It seems like those that like to do the most harm to others are the least willing to give any ground to anyone else. I think everyone needs to take a few steps back.

[Xerif]

I'll kill anyone willing to kill me. Is that wrong?

[Felix Wind]

Probably not to bring up severe injuries or kidnapping, considering what happened to the last person that was severely injured -and- kidnapped.
But yeah, you guys should be more considerate villains rather than an extreme homicidal person. And being scared of the public 90% of the time isn't working out in your favor it seems either. Ende's done a good job of that kind of already, like when he showed up in Konoha with everyone there and kidnapped Junama for like... 2 minutes and ran off. No one died, there was action, maybe there wasn't a lot of development but it was something.
Not necessarily a shoutout to Xerif either, who should probably shut up.

...And it isn't wrong to show lethal intent to someone who shows it back, you'd look a lot better if you didn't though, not that you seem to care -- you seem to want to kill everyone anyway.

[Xerif]

No. I'll kill anyone that tries to kill me. I don't appreciate walking away as Ende does, and having my opponents get up and attempt a cheap kill-shot from behind. Anyone remember Endou? Neither do I appreciate letting people live, to have them create threads like this. Letting people live results in things like uh, Jess. Maybe you should ask her how she died.

And at the same time, it's still sometimes worth letting others live. The moral of the story is: When it comes to sparing lives, only specific people are worth it. And very few of the player-base are that specific person.

 

[Crazah]

All of you need to learn how to take a breather. Stop being children.

[Galion]

[SlayerthePhlegmatic]

Grrr grrr spiteful angry player must kill all villains and potential villains grrr grrr bitch on forums grrr

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