Armageddon General Discussion Board

General => World and Roleplaying Discussion => Topic started by: musashi on September 09, 2015, 11:59:48 PM

Title: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 09, 2015, 11:59:48 PM
Just some thoughts I've had recently about mages that I felt like sharing.

For context, in the 7 years I've been playing Armageddon, I've played about 7 memorable, long lived characters. 4 have been mages. I like playing mages. I think they're awesome. I left Harshlands MUD and came to Armageddon specifically because Armageddon had playable mages.

Having said that, there are two issues where I feel like the people spreading mage-hate have a valid point.




The Nil Reach

I've used the nil reach for training purposes on every mage I've had, and compared to skilling up a mundane ... I think the mage-haters are right: it's too easy.

As a warrior I have to find people to spar with, they need to be equal/better than I am, or I need to go risk my life fighting things in the wild that will kill me if something goes wrong, etc.
As a merchant I have to find the materials I need to practice crafting, if I don't have them, I can't train my skills. It doesn't have to be risky, but it does require effort to grind my skills.
As a ranger, I have to do all the stuff I just said for those first two because arrows don't make themselves and things you haven't killed don't let you practice skinning on them.
The city stealth guilds all have to face the perils of the crime code to skill their abilities up, that has unique perils all its own.

Mages are the only guilds that can sit in the comfort of whatever safe space they've found be it an isolated forest clearing, an elemental temple, or an apartment and practice their entire skill set sans component crafting without need of risk or effort. They don't have to acquire any materials, they don't have to face life threatening dangers, they just have to solo RP with themselves, and cast "practice" spells until things branch.

And given how powerful magick is, the ease and safety of acquiring it seems all the more grief worthy.

Imagine if other guilds could do this. If a merchant could "craft practice armor into practice" without needing any materials, or if warriors could just type "train bash", "train slashing weapons" over and over to grind their skills up ... it would be idiotic and cringe worthy in any other context but for reasons I honestly can't justify, people are ok with it if it's a mage.

Maybe we're just used to it. Maybe I'm missing something. But man ... I would not mind at all if the nil reach was removed and mages had to actually use their magick in order to master it.




The Economics Of Component Crafting

The very first mage I ever played was a spec-app vivaduan who was part of someone else's family role call way back in 2008. It was brand new territory for me, and I was worried that as a "not ranger" I was gonna starve to death. So in a PM I voiced some of those viability concerns to my soon to be family member's player, and the reply I got back was:

QuoteDon't worry. You'll branch a thing that'll get you all the money you need.

That player was not lying. The amount of profit one can make from the component crafting skill is in my opinion ... unjustifiable. I won't get into any IG details but I'm positive everyone who has ever played a mage long enough to branch component crafting knows exactly what I'm talking about. And if you happen to be playing a mage of the variety who can travel quickly between settlements (and thus NPC vendors), it's ... wow.

This makes no sense to me. I can see how these things would have economic value to other mages, so in a limited sense (like a merchant in the elementalist quarter of Allanak for example) I could envision an NPC shopkeeper who knows about magickal components, and is willing to pay more for something that's already attuned vs the same thing but mundane.

But why/how would a mundane shop keeper in a magick hating society do that? Before Tuluk closed you could even sell components there! Why are their spell component vendors in (I believe) every city and settlement of the game world offering top dollar for magickal trinkets?

I remember back in the day Nyr fixing some of the most egregious of these. IIRC he knocked the price of a particular component's sell value down from about 1,000 coins to whatever the much much much lower value of the raw material happened to be. But I can still find plenty of examples of inexplicably valuable components.




I think these two things together; the ease of skilling up and the ease of acquiring money; are two points on which I sympathize with people who complain about mages being "over powered". Despite the fact that I adore playing mages.

Anyway, that's my brain dump for the day.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: CodeMaster on September 10, 2015, 02:50:27 AM
I can't comment with any great depth, but the elemental mages seem to me to be "arcade easy mode" by design, due to the RP/social drawbacks they face: ostracization and fear, unwelcomeness in taverns, limited clan opportunities, and regular encounters with people who would rather kill you than talk to you.

I find my mundane characters making more money than they need as well, and I can ratchet up the wealth generator whenever I feel like it.

Nevertheless, you make a really good point about shopkeepers being willing to buy and sell these weird trinkets or poo-stained boots for absurd amounts of money, from the perspective of in-game consistency.  I agree there could be some adjustments there.  But NPCs do stupid shit all the time, shopkeepers especially -- even when the goods aren't (obvious) magickal artifacts.  At the end of the day, the responsibility is partly on us as players to make sure we don't exploit them like the robotic morons they are.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 03:26:10 AM
Quote from: CodeMaster on September 10, 2015, 02:50:27 AM
I can't comment with any great depth, but the elemental mages seem to me to be "arcade easy mode" by design, due to the RP/social drawbacks they face: ostracization and fear, unwelcomeness in taverns, limited clan opportunities, and regular encounters with people who would rather kill you than talk to you.

That may well be. But I think removing the nil reach would add more depth to mages as a guild.

A ranger for example, has some skills that are very easy to train, like forage, or hunt. But they also have some other skills that more difficult. Or skills that, while not difficult, require you to be in certain situations or get help for, and these requirements create role play possibilities.

In much the same way, it seems to me that without the nil reach, mages would have some spells that they can still cast alone in an elemental temple or in their apartment, but others that would be more difficult, or require a buddy, materials ... etc.

In my mind, needing to get out there and be part of the world in order to develop your character would add value to being a mage.

Quote from: CodeMaster on September 10, 2015, 02:50:27 AM
I find my mundane characters making more money than they need as well, and I can ratchet up the wealth generator whenever I feel like it. ... At the end of the day, the responsibility is partly on us as players to make sure we don't exploit them like the robotic morons they are.

I agree, and it's not like I haven't used the money making power of that craft skill before. I really took advantage of the component economy with my 2nd long lived mage, and when it was all said and done, I just had a bad taste in my mouth about it in retrospect. My 3rd mage never sold a single component, and I enjoyed that route far more.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
My rebuttal:

Mages in and of themselves have no other function in the game, codedly. They have no coded weapon skills, little in the way of coded defense skills, no non-magickal perception or manipulation skills and as you pointed out - the only moneymaking skill they have, they don't start with. They have to branch it. This of course doesn't include their subguild, which might be a moneymaker but that can be said for any guild/subguild combo in the game.

There are skills that a mage -cannot- use even in the safety of their own apartment, without creating enough destruction to raise the ire of animated NPCs or even alert the PC templarate. You've said yourself, Musashi, that this is the first time you've ever played based in Allanak.

So your experience playing mages north of Allanak is really all you have to go by. The weather code in the south is certainly conducive to life outside the city if you're one particular type of mage, but not for ANY of the other types. Plus the incredibly limited number of quit-safe rooms outside the city makes it doubly difficult to play a mage who lives in the south but avoids the city, just so they can practice their skills safely.

As for that component crafting issue - it's only money-making if you happen to be the lucky PC who happens to show up at the NPC when they happen to a) not already have 5 of each of the things you're trying to sell them and b) coins to pay you for the things you're trying to sell them. Obviously someone is that lucky - but the rest of us are not. I've played mages who have walked around with 30-sid items in my pockets for real-life WEEKS trying to unload just one of them off one of those NPCs, only to be told "We already have enough of those" or "Sorry, out of sids this week, try another time."

And if you do happen to be the lucky one to show up at the right time you'll unbalance the economy among mages in such a way that it basically breaks it - because you unload your 400-sid items, are able to "game the system" in a way to make over 2000 sids in a single RL day, while everyone else making a valiant attempt has nothing.

Nil is a way players can try to cast certain spells that, when cast upon themselves, will show visible results that might last a good long while - without making that happen. Imagine having to wait outside the city for over a RL hour, just waiting for the spell to drop, all because they took the nil reach away.

Then there are the destructive spells - if you have no one to cast them on, then you can't cast them at all. And - you aren't going to impose that kind of destruction on a friend in sparring, because there are no "sparring spells". You're either trying to hurt them badly or you're not.

I wouldn't mind seeing some tweaks to the nil reach, but it has its place and it'd be a significant problem if it were removed.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Synthesis on September 10, 2015, 09:04:52 AM
Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Desertman on September 10, 2015, 10:51:09 AM
It wouldn't bother me at all if magick was entirely moved into the realm of "staff event only situations and very specific role calls for specific reasons".

In my experience having that sort of power in the hands of players has added very little to the game beyond the ability to insta-gank long-lived (several months to RL years) mundane PC's after a month or two of playing your magicker.

I can think of three or four times in almost 20 years of playing that magick not in the hands of staff has added a fun element to the game for me. One of those times the PC in question was staff ran but not part of a staff event. That may or may not qualify.

I can think of a few dozens times it was used to wipe out long-lived PCs instantly with a couple of those being mine. Most of the time the magickers have been in the game for less than two RL months. Woohoo for them being the one to "put the raid boss down", but that is entirely their full contribution to the game in most cases. They seem made almost with the purpose of killing long-lived PC's and that's it.

I don't see why they are needed.

They are fun for some people and I understand that. They aren't fun for me and in my experience they serve more often to destroy the fun of others rather than add to the fun of others.

When I can count on one hand the number of "meaningful long-term interactions" I have had with PC magickers in 20 years...but I can't count on all of my fingers and toes the number of "I only ever heard about this magicker once or twice, and it was always only when they killed long-lived characters.", I think there is an issue personally.

That's my very biased and possibly entirely wrong opinion, but it is my opinion.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 10:56:21 AM
Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
I wouldn't mind seeing some tweaks to the nil reach, but it has its place and it'd be a significant problem if it were removed.

In what way would you like to see it tweaked? I wanted to ask that first so it didn't get pushed the way side in the rest of the back and forth that might follow. Anyway here's my thoughts on your rebuttal:

Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
Nil is a way players can try to cast certain spells that, when cast upon themselves, will show visible results that might last a good long while - without making that happen. Imagine having to wait outside the city for over a RL hour, just waiting for the spell to drop, all because they took the nil reach away.

I put this one first because I thought it was the most compelling. That does suck. I've always wished there was an option for mages to cancel their own spells at will instead of having to wait out the timer.

Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
There are skills that a mage -cannot- use even in the safety of their own apartment, without creating enough destruction to raise the ire of animated NPCs or even alert the PC templarate. You've said yourself, Musashi, that this is the first time you've ever played based in Allanak.

Not sure exactly what you mean here. Thought it could be one of 3 things, so I replied to them all:

1. There are spells a mage cannot use discreetly even with nil reach?  I've ever seen any spell not be completely safe and innocuous at nil. This would be surprising news to me.

2. You're talking about things like a sorcerer's gather? It is possible to employ skills like that inside the city states without being noticed. I have played secret sorcerers before.

3. There are spells a mage cannot use discreetly at un reach? Yes. That's my point. If the spell comes with a blast radius, why not have to go out and be somewhere with a blast radius?

Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
The weather code in the south is certainly conducive to life outside the city if you're one particular type of mage, but not for ANY of the other types. Plus the incredibly limited number of quit-safe rooms outside the city makes it doubly difficult to play a mage who lives in the south but avoids the city, just so they can practice their skills safely.

I agree that the desert is very harsh compared to the northern landscape, for mundanes and mages alike. But Allanak has the gemmed who are allowed to do magick inside their quarter of the city. And secret mages are not without settlement options to weather out the storms. If you are choosing to play a character who never leaves the southern deserts and never goes into the settlements because that's the type of character you want to play then yes things will be more difficult given that self imposed handicap, but that would be true of a mundane guild as well wouldn't it? Even a newbie ranger would be struggling under those constraints.

Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
As for that component crafting issue - it's only money-making if you happen to be the lucky PC who happens to show up at the NPC when they happen to a) not already have 5 of each of the things you're trying to sell them and b) coins to pay you for the things you're trying to sell them. Obviously someone is that lucky - but the rest of us are not. I've played mages who have walked around with 30-sid items in my pockets for real-life WEEKS trying to unload just one of them off one of those NPCs, only to be told "We already have enough of those" or "Sorry, out of sids this week, try another time."

And if you do happen to be the lucky one to show up at the right time you'll unbalance the economy among mages in such a way that it basically breaks it - because you unload your 400-sid items, are able to "game the system" in a way to make over 2000 sids in a single RL day, while everyone else making a valiant attempt has nothing.

It's true your mileage may vary, but my experience hasn't been a result of good timing.

I've seen certain easy to greb, easy to craft items sold out as you describe, but my answer to that was always to sell them something else they didn't have a lot of at the moment. There are so many spell component recipes available that I've always been able to get coins out of a vendor when I wanted. But I've also acquired a lot of recipes over my years of play and that no doubt makes it easier.

With the new shopkeeper code in place though wherein they restock their coins by selling to passerbys, I've found it easier, not harder, to make money off them from a more limited selection of offerings. Their coins keep going up and their stock keeps going down without the need of a reboot.

Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
Then there are the destructive spells - if you have no one to cast them on, then you can't cast them at all. And - you aren't going to impose that kind of destruction on a friend in sparring, because there are no "sparring spells". You're either trying to hurt them badly or you're not.

True. But how is this any different from playing a mul or a half-giant? You can't spar with anyone then either, but we wouldn't support special training commands to let them safely train up their destructive potential would we? We tell them: meh you just gotta go skill in up in actual combat then. I feel like the same answer applies.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 10, 2015, 10:58:32 AM
I agree with removing the ability to learn from "nil" casting and that the cost of components should be lowered significantly.

Desertman, I get that you wanna rule the roost with mundanes, but the fact is, magick is a huge part of Zalanthas and should rightfully be feared. It won't be feared if we don't have people representing it on a daily basis, something the staff just can't commit to on top of everything else they need to run and do.

You seem to keep forgetting that "instagank" options of the past are no longer an option and anything left over has defenses and ways to be circumvented. Is there still danger? Yes. Which is GOOD. Nobody should ever feel completely "safe", whether they are inside the city or outside it. Ever. The more dangerous a mage is, the higher their karma req.

I get that people don't like "losing" but honestly? Deal with it. The game will go on without your awesome long-lived PC and others will eventually rise to take their place.

Signed,
She who was instaganked by a Krathi
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 11:01:30 AM
Quote from: Synthesis on September 10, 2015, 09:04:52 AM
Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.

... fair enough  :D
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 11:09:14 AM
Quote from: Desertman on September 10, 2015, 10:51:09 AM
It wouldn't bother me at all if magick was entirely moved into the realm of "staff event only situations and very specific role calls for specific reasons".

This would bother me immensely. As I said, I left Harshlands and came to Armageddon to play mages, and for no other reason. I've grown to love other aspects of the game since then, but that was the one and only draw that brought me here to begin with, and it remains a strong one.

Quote from: Desertman on September 10, 2015, 10:51:09 AM
In my experience having that sort of power in the hands of players has added very little to the game beyond the ability to insta-gank long-lived (several months to RL years) mundane PC's after a month or two of playing your magicker.

But this, is the part that I sympathize with. I feel like the nil reach providing that ability to safely and effortlessly max out your spell tree is one of the driving factors of this experience. You simply cannot max out a mundane class in two months of play the way you can with a mage. At least not without running high risks of dying while trying.

If you would have issues with a long lived mage being able to insta-gank your long lived mundane ... then I'd basically give you Delirum's "deal with it" reply, because I think maxed out mages should be frightening. And they are.

But I think maxing out a mage should be a lot more involved and risky than it currently is. I'd like to see more parity with mundanes in that regard. It takes time, effort, and luck to max out a mundane guild. Why not mages as well?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: AdamBlue on September 10, 2015, 11:32:57 AM
The grind sucks.
The Mundane grind sucks.
The Magicker grind still sucks. It's relatively shorter, but it sucks.
I don't think magickers should be nerfed by removing nil or the ability to learn from it. Someone who gets good at hitting baseballs goes to the batting cage to practice form and swing. A warrior can toss throwing knives at a training dummy until he can nail it blindfolded in the forehead. Magickers who want to get buff are going to get buff. They'd just take a longer time if you put in that they gotta blow something up or make a bazillion fruits while they're at it that are totally useless.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Pale Horse on September 10, 2015, 11:33:47 AM
Initially, I was going to reply to musashi's points with the same arguments I've always had (based solely on my own opinion, so take it with a crystal of salt((not purplish! friggin' freeloaders)), but they've already been brought up.  I like the Nil reach, I think it's necessary for magickers due to isolation, lack of mundane skills, etc, etc.

I do, on the other hand, understand the complaints.  It is a way of skilling up that mundane guilds do not get, one that is exceptionally safe and free, two things that are worth their weight in gold no matter what the setting let alone a place like Zalanthas.

I, too, agree that the price set by NPCs for magickal trinkets is absurd.  I view it as a hold over from days-gone-by when there was not as many (or any) common methods of making cash for any guild.

musashi (or anyone else) what do you think of the idea of making magickers work for the Nil reach?  Turn it into a branchable skill that pops up only after a certain overall level of skill is gained in various spells?  Sort of a way for a magicker to know when they are attaining a more familiar understanding/better control over their abilities.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 11:37:07 AM
Quote from: AdamBlue on September 10, 2015, 11:32:57 AM
The grind sucks.
The Mundane grind sucks.
The Magicker grind still sucks. It's relatively shorter, but it sucks.
I don't think magickers should be nerfed by removing nil or the ability to learn from it. Someone who gets good at hitting baseballs goes to the batting cage to practice form and swing. A warrior can toss throwing knives at a training dummy until he can nail it blindfolded in the forehead. Magickers who want to get buff are going to get buff. They'd just take a longer time if you put in that they gotta blow something up or make a bazillion fruits while they're at it that are totally useless.

I just want to note for the record that staff will smack you hard for training throw on a training dummy outside of the few specially designed archery range dummies provided by some clans.

Grinding ranged weaponry on the sand filled dummy most clans have is a no no.

But aside from that, you seem to be of the opinion that every guild should be able to easily max their skills out. Fair enough. I disagree because I feel like that cheapens the accomplishment of achieving it ... but that's just like ... my opinion man.

At least you're consistent.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Pale Horse on September 10, 2015, 11:39:22 AM
Quote from: AdamBlue on September 10, 2015, 11:32:57 AM
Magickers who want to get buff are going to get buff. They'd just take a longer time if you put in that they gotta blow something up or make a bazillion fruits while they're at it that are totally useless.

Another worry of mine, this.

People already complain about mage griefers instagibbing.  We expect it from the mundane guilds (to a point) because we feel on the same level and have to go through the same thing.  If we remove the Nil reach and force a krathi to actually have to "cast 'wek un fireball' at someone to skill it up, wouldn't this just encourage more griefing from those players who are inclined to do so?

Yes, it adds a level of danger to the grind that "everyone else" (not really) faces, but to hijack a phrase and alter it for my own purposes: "with great power comes great temptation."  "Power corrupts."  Do we want to introduce/provide a path that would encourage easier mage on mundane ganking?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Desertman on September 10, 2015, 11:39:44 AM
Quote from: Delirium on September 10, 2015, 10:58:32 AM
I agree with removing the ability to learn from "nil" casting and that the cost of components should be lowered significantly.

Desertman, I get that you wanna rule the roost with mundanes, but the fact is, magick is a huge part of Zalanthas and should rightfully be feared. It won't be feared if we don't have people representing it on a daily basis, something the staff just can't commit to on top of everything else they need to run and do.

You seem to keep forgetting that "instagank" options of the past are no longer an option and anything left over has defenses and ways to be circumvented. Is there still danger? Yes. Which is GOOD. Nobody should ever feel completely "safe", whether they are inside the city or outside it. Ever. The more dangerous a mage is, the higher their karma req.

I get that people don't like "losing" but honestly? Deal with it. The game will go on without your awesome long-lived PC and others will eventually rise to take their place.

Signed,
She who was instaganked by a Krathi

*shrug*
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: AdamBlue on September 10, 2015, 11:53:30 AM
Quote from: musashi on September 10, 2015, 11:37:07 AM
Quote from: AdamBlue on September 10, 2015, 11:32:57 AM
The grind sucks.
The Mundane grind sucks.
The Magicker grind still sucks. It's relatively shorter, but it sucks.
I don't think magickers should be nerfed by removing nil or the ability to learn from it. Someone who gets good at hitting baseballs goes to the batting cage to practice form and swing. A warrior can toss throwing knives at a training dummy until he can nail it blindfolded in the forehead. Magickers who want to get buff are going to get buff. They'd just take a longer time if you put in that they gotta blow something up or make a bazillion fruits while they're at it that are totally useless.

I just want to note for the record that staff will smack you hard for training throw on a training dummy outside of the few specially designed archery range dummies provided by some clans.

Grinding ranged weaponry on the sand filled dummy most clans have is a no no.


Was just an example. I prefer to train my skills by brutally murdering every creature in a ten mile radius and then devouring their still-beating hearts.

I understand where you're coming from. You want to increase the gap between 'weak baby nerd' and 'swole buff dude'.
And I can totally understand that from an OOC level, because obvs new characters are gonna be weaker then older ones.
From an IC standpoint, though, some of these characters would be much better then they are. The 30 year old gruff warrior that is fresh-made ICly would have years of experience under his belt. But that 20 year old who has 50 days played would kill that gruff warrior in a split fucking second. So would the 10 days played 20 year old, or the 25 year old who's been playing for a week if the gruff guy got bad rolls.
The game is inconsistent and random in all aspects. From your character's starting stats to if you're going to survive that chance encounter with that raptor in the desert, to who in your group is gonna get royally wrecked by the incoming blindside mek.

What grinding does is lower the chances of failure and increase the chances of success, which is what makes a character live longer and ultimately have a more rich story, which is hopefully the main objective of someone playing, is to live and make a story and then die in a beautiful tragedy.
Let me tell you a story.
I had a super warrior. He was awesome and fantastic and I loved him in every way. I was hungry and I went to go get popcorn for a brief moment. When I returned, all that graced me was three seconds of my character being attacked by a dozen monsters and then the mantis screen. I was gone for about ten seconds when I trusted someone to not lead me into a deathtrap, and they did, even though they had no idea they were doing it. If I didn't decide to get popcorn at that instant, I am certain they would of lived.
My first mage, I didn't know that 'nil' raised skills. I did everything hard as hell, and it took a long time to get to even a decent level. I decided to go on a trip with another magic friend.
Reel-locked by a carru. Dead in three hits.
We all want good stories. Those stories can get stolen away in a second, ripped out of our control. The grind is the attempt to prevent the inevitable, to make a life for these characters, to improve them so that their story becomes longer, richer, and more exciting.
Would you rather have a story about a mage who got reel-locked by a carru or one who died fighting the templarite in a blaze of glory years after he arrived?

...I'm rambling, probably.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 11:53:42 AM
Quote from: Pale Horse on September 10, 2015, 11:33:47 AM
musashi (or anyone else) what do you think of the idea of making magickers work for the Nil reach?  Turn it into a branchable skill that pops up only after a certain overall level of skill is gained in various spells?  Sort of a way for a magicker to know when they are attaining a more familiar understanding/better control over their abilities.

I guess I feel ambivalent about it. I think that would make playing a newbie mage more like how I'd like to see them handled. But once they branched nil they'd finish maxing out their skill tree immediately, which I still wouldn't feel very good about.

Quote from: Pale Horse on September 10, 2015, 11:33:47 AM
Initially, I was going to reply to musashi's points with the same arguments I've always had (based solely on my own opinion, so take it with a crystal of salt((not purplish! friggin' freeloaders)), but they've already been brought up.  I like the Nil reach, I think it's necessary for magickers due to isolation, lack of mundane skills, etc, etc.

I don't feel like the isolations and RP constraint argument holds water because you can say all of that about breeds and city elves, and we don't give them an exceptionally safe and free way to max out their skill tree (unless they're also a mage, obviously).

The lack of mundane skills point seems more solvent to me but even with that ... the game has plenty of coded jobs you don't need skills to do to keep you from starving. Yes you suck at combat but so do non-combat mundane guilds. Yes you can't craft without a subguild but neither can most mundane guilds ... I'm friendly to the idea of mages having more mundane skills but I've never felt like their absence was character breaking for me. I just played Joe Blow suck at everything commoners till they became mages.

Quote from: Pale Horse on September 10, 2015, 11:39:22 AM
Another worry of mine, this.

People already complain about mage griefers instagibbing.  We expect it from the mundane guilds (to a point) because we feel on the same level and have to go through the same thing.  If we remove the Nil reach and force a krathi to actually have to "cast 'wek un fireball' at someone to skill it up, wouldn't this just encourage more griefing from those players who are inclined to do so?

Yes, it adds a level of danger to the grind that "everyone else" (not really) faces, but to hijack a phrase and alter it for my own purposes: "with great power comes great temptation."  "Power corrupts."  Do we want to introduce/provide a path that would encourage easier mage on mundane ganking?

Well let me put it another way ...

If you have a griefer who wants to instagib everyone which would you prefer?

Do you want him to have to grind his skills up on aggro mobs in the desert like most people, risking life and limb and possibly dying off before he gets skilled up enough to be able to rain on anyone's parade?

Or do you want him to be able to hide in a grove somewhere and spam cast till he's maxed out then go out and start laying waste to everyone he sees, already maxed before ever needing to join the rest of the game world?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 12:03:36 PM
Quote from: AdamBlue on September 10, 2015, 11:53:30 AM
The game is inconsistent and random in all aspects.

It is yes. But I think the onus is on us as players to not create those situations.
For example, I've only played an old character once. I knew as a starting character he would suck at everything so in his background ... I said he used to be a fighting type. But he suffered an injury, couldn't do it anymore, and now he had to learn something else hence why he was not a fighting guild. And thus ... him sucking despite his age and experience made sense.

If I had wanted him to be amazing at combat because he was still on top of his game after all his years, I'd have special app'd that.

Anyway though I get what you're saying. You're in the camp of: Less skill grind = more time RP'ing and making stories.
And it seems like you wish mundanes could skill up as easily as mages can.

While I disagree, I don't think there's anything inconsistent with your opinion. Just different preferences between us.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Brytta Léofa on September 10, 2015, 12:03:47 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 10, 2015, 10:56:21 AM
Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
Nil is a way players can try to cast certain spells that, when cast upon themselves, will show visible results that might last a good long while - without making that happen. Imagine having to wait outside the city for over a RL hour, just waiting for the spell to drop, all because they took the nil reach away.

I put this one first because I thought it was the most compelling. That does suck. I've always wished there was an option for mages to cancel their own spells at will instead of having to wait out the timer.

100/100ma> cast 'sul un vivadu psiak fred'
Shazam!
You become wet and glowing.
50/75ma> affects
 <-- max mana reduced by 1/2 the casting cost
You are affected by:
 glowing wetness
52/75ma> cease glowing wetness
You release the spell.
The glowing wetness around you dissipates.
54/100ma>


Huge impractical change, obvsly, with the coding and the rebalancing.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 12:07:52 PM
Quote from: Brytta Léofa on September 10, 2015, 12:03:47 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 10, 2015, 10:56:21 AM
Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
Nil is a way players can try to cast certain spells that, when cast upon themselves, will show visible results that might last a good long while - without making that happen. Imagine having to wait outside the city for over a RL hour, just waiting for the spell to drop, all because they took the nil reach away.

I put this one first because I thought it was the most compelling. That does suck. I've always wished there was an option for mages to cancel their own spells at will instead of having to wait out the timer.

100/100ma> cast 'sul un vivadu psiak fred'
Shazam!
You become wet and glowing.
50/75ma> affects
 <-- max mana reduced by 1/2 the casting cost
You are affected by:
 glowing wetness
52/75ma> cease glowing wetness
You release the spell.
The glowing wetness around you dissipates.
54/100ma>


Huge impractical change, obvsly, with the coding and the rebalancing.

Maybe so yes ... but I do like it in principle  :)

If it worked like scan and listen work now where your proficiency in the spell made it less costly on your max mana to maintain ... that would also be awesome.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: catchall on September 10, 2015, 12:07:59 PM
Sounds like you had some vets nudging you in the right direction.  If you've ever trained a true newbie mage, you will know that many of them have a frequent and frustrating tendency to get stuck in their progression.  The difference in speed of progress between someone who knows the mechanics of the magick skillgain system and someone who does not is truly drastic, far more with magick than with mundane skills (excepting weapon skills, where only the most advanced twinkery reigns).   Knowledge of the skill trees also makes a huge difference.

You also presume some things that are not correct.  Not all elements can hole up in an apartment and hope to advance at a remotely reasonable pace.  Yes, temples are easy mode, but gemmed are easy mode, so we can't exactly base everything around the gemmed.  Apartments and the wild also both have substantial risks involved.  I mean, these guys aren't sitting in the scar room.  They're in game, with no combat skills, and some piddly pea-shooter spells.  If they're progressing quickly, they are burning through a lot of mana.  You are the risk, go squish 'em.

Skilling a solo mage in the wild is, frankly, far riskier than training up a competent thief in the rinth, and the latter can be done by a newbie with only the knowledge of the skills on their starting skill list.  I know, I did it as a newbie over and over.  Successfully training a mage in the wild requires enormous amounts of vet knowledge and the good fortune not to get murdered or eaten. With a decent hide skill, the stealthy can protect themselves better than any tier-1 spell in the game can and less cost, and they can get to that level faster than most mages can get a comparably useful spell castable, without even mana as a bottleneck.  For a skilled player (the same kind that can skill up a mage), crim code is basically a complete non-threat.  I should also point out again that progression takes mana, mana that you may like to have handy in order to not die.


I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with magick progression.  It could definitely be improved.  The reason I belabor this point is that the perception that the problem is that magick is too "easy," will lead to the wrong solutions that will just make the problem worse, like slowing the rate of progress, which would just further favor effective metagamers.

Advancing magick is not "easy."  Something "easy" is painless.  "Easy" is when progression happens by going about the normal course of satisfying your character's needs.  This is how it works for mundanes.  Most of their starting skills have functional, practical, socially acceptable applications, and raise quite nicely over the course of roleplay and adventure.  That is why mundanes are generally so much more enjoyable to play.

Despite GDB posturing to the contrary, mages can rarely develop just by using magick realistically as they need to.  For many elements, the spells they do need are hidden behind spells they don't need.  'Nil' exists precisely because advancing a mage would be far too difficult to do realistically without it.  Even as is, branching a single spell can take hundreds of casts.  Full progression takes thousands, and if you don't have knowledge of the spell trees, you have no idea where best to spend them, and you can waste many hours and thousands of mana in vain, all while potentially having to deal with NPC or PC threats.  

The problem is not that training mages is insufficiently time-consuming or risky.  In my experience, the total development time is similar to stealthy development (by which I mean all the utility skills, not combat skills for assassins).  Stealthy development also requires a lot less specialized knowledge of skill trees.  It is also plenty risky, as evidenced by the legions of dead newbie mages.  In the case of non-wilderness-bound mages, that risk mostly comes from PCs, but wouldn't you prefer it that way?

The problem is that advancing magick is tedious.  It's not especially "easy" (ultimately all classes on Arm are easy to advance), it's boring.  The minigame is not particularly interesting compared to mundane skills, so to compensate the system requires you to cast a lot to make any progress.  That is what needs to be addressed.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 12:40:42 PM
Quote from: catchall on September 10, 2015, 12:07:59 PM
Sounds like you had some vets nudging you in the right direction.

I didn't. I've played my share of mages who died early due to newbie mistakes. Not every mage I've played has been long lived. I have never been stuck in my progression as a mage though. I just kept casting spells at nil until they maxed out. I didn't know the skill trees, but that didn't mattter. I just maxed everything.

Quote from: catchall on September 10, 2015, 12:07:59 PM
You also presume some things that are not correct.  Not all elements can hole up in an apartment and hope to advance at a remotely reasonable pace.

I um ... didn't say that. I said they can hole up in whatever safe space they decide upon. Sometimes it's an apartment yes, sometimes it's somewhere else.

Quote from: catchall on September 10, 2015, 12:07:59 PM
Successfully training a mage in the wild requires enormous amounts of vet knowledge and the good fortune not to get murdered or eaten.

True, vet knowledge will make it a lot easier. But this applies equally to mundane guilds as well.

Quote from: catchall on September 10, 2015, 12:07:59 PM
I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with magick progression.  It could definitely be improved.  The reason I belabor this point is that the perception that the problem is that magick is too "easy," will lead to the wrong solutions that will just make the problem worse, like slowing the rate of progress, which would just further favor effective metagamers.

If by slowing the rate of progress you mean slowing the rate the skills improve per failure ... then I am also not advocating for that.

Quote from: catchall on September 10, 2015, 12:07:59 PM
Advancing magick is not "easy."  Something "easy" is painless.  "Easy" is when progression happens by going about the normal course of satisfying your character's needs.  This is how it works for mundanes.

I don't think easy has to mean painless, I disagree with your definition there. It's easy to shoot yourself in the foot. Or write "I will be good in class." 500 hundred times on the teacher's black board. Easy just means it's not difficult to do. And training magick with nil reach ... while possibly time consuming ... is not difficult.

Quote from: catchall on September 10, 2015, 12:07:59 PM
Despite GDB posturing to the contrary, mages can rarely develop just by using magick realistically as they need to.

I'm not familiar with people positing this but I've never thought magick was there to be realistically used just when needed. I've never thought that about mundane skills either.

If I am playing an assassin, I will put effort into training backstab so that when I need to realistically use it, it works.
Same if I am playing a mage.

Quote from: catchall on September 10, 2015, 12:07:59 PM
The problem is not that training mages is insufficiently time-consuming or risky.  In my experience, the total development time is similar to stealthy development (by which I mean all the utility skills, not combat skills for assassins).  Stealthy development also requires a lot less specialized knowledge of skill trees.  It is also plenty risky, as evidenced by the legions of dead newbie mages.  In the case of non-wilderness-bound mages, that risk mostly comes from PCs, but wouldn't you prefer it that way?

I'm fine with the rate of skill progression per fail on mage spells. That is, as you point out, about parity with other mundane skills sans the weapon categories.

My point is that they require no risk or effort. Only time, which as you point out again, can be tedious ... and I agree.

I think it would be less tedious if they had to use their magick out in the world though.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 10, 2015, 01:01:42 PM
Quote from: Brytta Léofa on September 10, 2015, 12:03:47 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 10, 2015, 10:56:21 AM
Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
Nil is a way players can try to cast certain spells that, when cast upon themselves, will show visible results that might last a good long while - without making that happen. Imagine having to wait outside the city for over a RL hour, just waiting for the spell to drop, all because they took the nil reach away.

I put this one first because I thought it was the most compelling. That does suck. I've always wished there was an option for mages to cancel their own spells at will instead of having to wait out the timer.

100/100ma> cast 'sul un vivadu psiak fred'
Shazam!
You become wet and glowing.
50/75ma> affects
 <-- max mana reduced by 1/2 the casting cost
You are affected by:
 glowing wetness
52/75ma> cease glowing wetness
You release the spell.
The glowing wetness around you dissipates.
54/100ma>


Huge impractical change, obvsly, with the coding and the rebalancing.

I've probably played about 150 magickers, including about 4 sorcerers in the years I've played, and I think this is probably my favorite suggestion as to how to change magick guilds. Un is usually preferable to nil for training anyhow, and not only allowing that more with something like this instead of a normal duration spell, it would not only encourage use of un over nil with some skills you can't currently practice that way for playability and practicality both. Not to mention being easier on casual players who might have RL weeks of playtime taken up by waiting on a mon level spell to wear off.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 10, 2015, 01:04:35 PM
Desert elves and <redacted> everywhere are snickering at the idea that practicing magick over and over again in the same little hidey hole is "safe".
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 01:23:18 PM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 10, 2015, 01:01:42 PM
Quote from: Brytta Léofa on September 10, 2015, 12:03:47 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 10, 2015, 10:56:21 AM
Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
Nil is a way players can try to cast certain spells that, when cast upon themselves, will show visible results that might last a good long while - without making that happen. Imagine having to wait outside the city for over a RL hour, just waiting for the spell to drop, all because they took the nil reach away.

I put this one first because I thought it was the most compelling. That does suck. I've always wished there was an option for mages to cancel their own spells at will instead of having to wait out the timer.

100/100ma> cast 'sul un vivadu psiak fred'
Shazam!
You become wet and glowing.
50/75ma> affects
 <-- max mana reduced by 1/2 the casting cost
You are affected by:
 glowing wetness
52/75ma> cease glowing wetness
You release the spell.
The glowing wetness around you dissipates.
54/100ma>


Huge impractical change, obvsly, with the coding and the rebalancing.

I've probably played about 150 magickers, including about 4 sorcerers in the years I've played, and I think this is probably my favorite suggestion as to how to change magick guilds. Un is usually preferable to nil for training anyhow, and not only allowing that more with something like this instead of a normal duration spell, it would not only encourage use of un over nil with some skills you can't currently practice that way for playability and practicality both. Not to mention being easier on casual players who might have RL weeks of playtime taken up by waiting on a mon level spell to wear off.

Word. This made my brain dump worth while.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 02:03:44 PM
Quote from: Delirium on September 10, 2015, 01:04:35 PM
Desert elves and <redacted> everywhere are snickering at the idea that practicing magick over and over again in the same little hidey hole is "safe".

As compared to trying to skill up any other guild against the coded world ... yes this is "safe".
Desert elves and <redacted> are nice. I've been attacked while doing my isolated mage thing before under these circumstances, but it was pretty rare in my experience.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Rokal on September 10, 2015, 03:55:32 PM
Since we're going on thoughts here, i've some thoughts too I want to share, that bring up questions of mine.

As synthiesis said here:

Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.


Why this line of thought? On my mundanes I'd rather enjoy tripping over said magicker. My character can be scared as such and solo mages that  are rogue are often dying for some sort of interaction, and its a RPI mud first and foremost.
To me this just seems like avoiding a potential interesting Rp situation - I just can't fathom why some players seem to treat the mage vs mundane situation as something that needs to -instantly- go towards coded combat or fighting. Death is common on armageddon, but I don't think it should come before some really good rp.
--
also, to desertmans post:

I actually can completely understand that sentiment as I had similar feelings towards a certain group of characters on a Rp a long time ago. Sometimes things can just be jarring to the way you see the world, and its okay to feel that way.

Look at magick in a way that isn't about the spells, look at the characters themselves, what they do, how they act.  Thats the real depth of mages, I'd like to think- that stigma against them, the fear and hatred of them, and what each individual mundane character SEEs in them. I mean, after all. We've got to remember that elementalists were all normal zalanthan people at one point until everything with gick-crazy for them.

The mundane vs gick/gemmers can have a lot of depth if you invest yourself into it, and it can create neat little plots all on its own.

I'm not saying mundanes should go and make buddies with gemmers and gicks, but I AM saying that there can be more interaction that, in my opinion - Interaction isn't necessarily association. Now of course, i'm not pointing at the mundanes preferring players in particular - i'm a NEW player to the game, 1 year a  tiny faction of the twenty years compared to desert man's. My experience with magick in the game is limited, but I think if you look beyond coded power and look at RP potential, things can be awesome.

That said it also relies on the player of said gicks to not go to coded spells first at the first sign of some conflict, as much as it relies on a mundane to not input 'kill gick' at first sight, from all my reading in the forums, all my searching through stories of the past, ect, it seems like often, a gick vs mundane encounter in the waste is treated like a hack and slash mud - but I could very well be wrong, but thats the general concesses I get.

As powerful as mages are? The best plots they can make have nothing to do with their power. But who and what they are as people - their power is simply like the extra shading to a picture and the final details. They aren't central to the character. Thats my thoughts on it. I'd like to hear what other people think on that approach to mundane/mage interactions or anything inbetween.

A mage brings to life a certain aspect to the game that can be roleplayed upon without ever typing 'cast' in a RP scene.

On the topic of griefers -- No matter what you do, griefers will grief. Its their play style, it doesn't matter if their a mage or not ,they'll find a way to grief, but in my experience in the game so far, the players kind of manage the griefers themselves very, very well, and few of them ever get very far.

-- adding-

On musashi's main topic, I'm not experienced enough with mages in general to really know if removing the nil reach would be a good thing, but my opinon so far - it'd force mages to find other means of practicing their spells, yes, and slow down their progression from that, but at the same time, I could see it having a lot of negative effects as well. Mages going around casting at everything they see, aggressive players being that much more aggressive. the Nil reach kind of tames the twinking mindset of a player - everyone has it to a degree, that desire to make a character stronger, to keep growing.

Now, the idea behind maintained/ceaseable spells? That sounds really cool.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: BadSkeelz on September 10, 2015, 04:33:33 PM
Quote from: Rokal on September 10, 2015, 03:55:32 PM
Since we're going on thoughts here, i've some thoughts too I want to share, that bring up questions of mine.

As synthiesis said here:

Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.


Why this line of thought?

We could (and have) had entire threads over why some of us dislike magick on a thematic or playability level. Not sure we need to have it here, in what's otherwise a pretty nice and clean and productive discussion on why some of their code and skill progression is bullshit questionable.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Synthesis on September 10, 2015, 04:35:46 PM
Quote from: Rokal on September 10, 2015, 03:55:32 PM
Since we're going on thoughts here, i've some thoughts too I want to share, that bring up questions of mine.

As synthiesis said here:

Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.


Why this line of thought? On my mundanes I'd rather enjoy tripping over said magicker. My character can be scared as such and solo mages that  are rogue are often dying for some sort of interaction, and its a RPI mud first and foremost.
To me this just seems like avoiding a potential interesting Rp situation - I just can't fathom why some players seem to treat the mage vs mundane situation as something that needs to -instantly- go towards coded combat or fighting. Death is common on armageddon, but I don't think it should come before some really good rp.
--
also, to desertmans post:

I actually can completely understand that sentiment as I had similar feelings towards a certain group of characters on a Rp a long time ago. Sometimes things can just be jarring to the way you see the world, and its okay to feel that way.

Look at magick in a way that isn't about the spells, look at the characters themselves, what they do, how they act.  Thats the real depth of mages, I'd like to think- that stigma against them, the fear and hatred of them, and what each individual mundane character SEEs in them. I mean, after all. We've got to remember that elementalists were all normal zalanthan people at one point until everything with gick-crazy for them.

The mundane vs gick/gemmers can have a lot of depth if you invest yourself into it, and it can create neat little plots all on its own.

I'm not saying mundanes should go and make buddies with gemmers and gicks, but I AM saying that there can be more interaction that, in my opinion - Interaction isn't necessarily association. Now of course, i'm not pointing at the mundanes preferring players in particular - i'm a NEW player to the game, 1 year a  tiny faction of the twenty years compared to desert man's. My experience with magick in the game is limited, but I think if you look beyond coded power and look at RP potential, things can be awesome.

That said it also relies on the player of said gicks to not go to coded spells first at the first sign of some conflict, as much as it relies on a mundane to not input 'kill gick' at first sight, from all my reading in the forums, all my searching through stories of the past, ect, it seems like often, a gick vs mundane encounter in the waste is treated like a hack and slash mud - but I could very well be wrong, but thats the general concesses I get.

As powerful as mages are? The best plots they can make have nothing to do with their power. But who and what they are as people - their power is simply like the extra shading to a picture and the final details. They aren't central to the character. Thats my thoughts on it. I'd like to hear what other people think on that approach to mundane/mage interactions or anything inbetween.

A mage brings to life a certain aspect to the game that can be roleplayed upon without ever typing 'cast' in a RP scene.

On the topic of griefers -- No matter what you do, griefers will grief. Its their play style, it doesn't matter if their a mage or not ,they'll find a way to grief, but in my experience in the game so far, the players kind of manage the griefers themselves very, very well, and few of them ever get very far.

-- adding-

On musashi's main topic, I'm not experienced enough with mages in general to really know if removing the nil reach would be a good thing, but my opinon so far - it'd force mages to find other means of practicing their spells, yes, and slow down their progression from that, but at the same time, I could see it having a lot of negative effects as well. Mages going around casting at everything they see, aggressive players being that much more aggressive. the Nil reach kind of tames the twinking mindset of a player - everyone has it to a degree, that desire to make a character stronger, to keep growing.

Now, the idea behind maintained/ceaseable spells? That sounds really cool.

Yes, it's an RPI, but it's an RPI where magick is supposed to be relatively rare.  A lot of us played through the days where you couldn't go a single damn login (as a ranger, anyway) without some magicker wandering by and either demanding something or wasting your time being annoying and "spooky."  Sure, I like to RP, but sometimes, I just need to kill a couple of scrabs and craft the shit into breastplates so I can pay my fucking rent.

Imagine if every time you logged in, a pickpocket stole your mount ticket.  Or every time you logged in, you had to spend 30 minutes of that time being interrogated by a templar (after which they might take all the shit you just spent an hour grebbing).  There's a point at which a particular type of interaction crosses the line from "interesting" to "fucking annoying."
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Rokal on September 10, 2015, 04:35:59 PM
Quote from: BadSkeelz on September 10, 2015, 04:33:33 PM
Quote from: Rokal on September 10, 2015, 03:55:32 PM
Since we're going on thoughts here, i've some thoughts too I want to share, that bring up questions of mine.

As synthiesis said here:

Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.


Why this line of thought?

We could (and have) had entire threads over why some of us dislike magick on a thematic or playability level. Not sure we need to have it here, in what's otherwise a pretty nice and clean and productive discussion on why some of their code and skill progression is bullshit.
I'm not sure where my question came across as asking for a rant. It was a simple question!  :) Feel free to PM about it if you want to share your thoughts on it, if you want to avoid it on this topic.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Jeax on September 10, 2015, 04:42:36 PM
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
they in thee a thousand errors see.
But 'tis my heart who loves what they despise,
who in despite of view is pleased to dote.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: The Silence of the Erdlus on September 10, 2015, 05:49:41 PM
Elves.

That is all
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 10, 2015, 09:03:15 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 09, 2015, 11:59:48 PM

The Nil Reach


As others have said, the Nil reach is sort of a necessary evil.  I would personally prefer that "un" spells have a much higher probability of offering skill gains over "nil", so that actually using a spell for a real purpose teaches more than just saying the words, but I don't view it as particularly high priority to fix.


Quote from: musashi on September 09, 2015, 11:59:48 PM

The Economics Of Component Crafting

I'd like some of the prices on certain components to be greatly reduced, and others greatly increased.  Being able to find some common material and make a component that's worth 200 sid to an NPC without haggling shouldn't be possible, but selling a rare component for 500 should be given how difficult they can be to make.  As for your comment about people who can travel quickly between settlements...I kind of think that's just realistic.  In a world where travel is dangerous, being able to do so quickly should be a source of significant wealth...just because you can do that with magick doesn't mean the magicker shouldn't be rich if they want to be as a result.  If you play a magicker long enough though, you'll quickly learn that being rich means practically nothing, because you have no political power or social status.  You can buy cool shit from the merchant houses...but they probably won't prioritize selling to you.  Good luck getting a special order...  So, in my experiences, I never really pursued getting a fat bank account as a mage.  Perhaps other people have different experiences though.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 10, 2015, 11:22:05 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 10, 2015, 11:53:42 AM
Yes you can't craft without a subguild but neither can most mundane guilds ...

False. Pickpocket is the only mundane guild that doesn't have at least 1 crafting skill other than cooking. Some have 2-3. Some have lots.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 11:24:20 PM
Quote from: wizturbo on September 10, 2015, 09:03:15 PM
As others have said, the Nil reach is sort of a necessary evil.  I would personally prefer that "un" spells have a much higher probability of offering skill gains over "nil", so that actually using a spell for a real purpose teaches more than just saying the words, but I don't view it as particularly high priority to fix.

Not having the nil reach would make waiting for spell buffs to time out rather annoying and debilitating to play. I think that was a good point, and I wish there was a way to cancel buffs you cast on yourself at will.

Quote from: wizturbo on September 10, 2015, 09:03:15 PM
I'd like some of the prices on certain components to be greatly reduced, and others greatly increased.  Being able to find some common material and make a component that's worth 200 sid to an NPC without haggling shouldn't be possible, but selling a rare component for 500 should be given how difficult they can be to make.

If the component is valuable for its mundane properties (it's made of emeralds, metal, whatever) then I agree it should be valuable. If it's a ratty pair of boots that just also happens to serve as a powerful component because magick reasons, then I don't think mundane merchants should be paying high prices for it. It may be rare and important ... to mages ... who use it for magick ... but it shouldn't come off as particularly rare or valuable to a raw materials shop keeper who is not, and won't. And if they knew what it was would probably kick you out their store.

Quote from: wizturbo on September 10, 2015, 09:03:15 PM
As for your comment about people who can travel quickly between settlements...I kind of think that's just realistic.  In a world where travel is dangerous, being able to do so quickly should be a source of significant wealth...just because you can do that with magick doesn't mean the magicker shouldn't be rich if they want to be as a result.

I agree. But I would rather the mages be transporting things more in line with the gameworld economy. I once played a whiran who made quite a bit of money air dropping spice into the rinth for example.

Quote from: wizturbo on September 10, 2015, 09:03:15 PM
 If you play a magicker long enough though, you'll quickly learn that being rich means practically nothing, because you have no political power or social status.  You can buy cool shit from the merchant houses...but they probably won't prioritize selling to you.  Good luck getting a special order...  So, in my experiences, I never really pursued getting a fat bank account as a mage.  Perhaps other people have different experiences though.

Eh ... I hear that said a lot on the GDB ... I've never found it to be particularly true. Leader types have historically been strapped for cash to make things happen and at the very, very minimum, your money buys you tolerance because you're their golden goose. But I've always found it to be far more useful than that. Again for example, same whiran ... found out there was a hit out on a friend of his. He immediately paid said assassin four times the amount, and said assassin betrayed and killed the person who put out the hit instead. I've always found far more useful applications for coin than buying mastercraft items.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 11:26:16 PM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 10, 2015, 11:22:05 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 10, 2015, 11:53:42 AM
Yes you can't craft without a subguild but neither can most mundane guilds ...

False. Pickpocket is the only mundane guild that doesn't have at least 1 crafting skill other than cooking. Some have 2-3. Some have lots.

Perhaps the context of that wasn't clear. I was referring to the economic crafting skills. Not the nitche crafting skills that go along with your profession like make lock pick/fletchery/etc.

Using those as examples of guilds with crafting skills would render the point I was making to Palehorse about mages not having any false ... because component crafting.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: FantasyWriter on September 10, 2015, 11:50:26 PM
I enjoy playing mages very much.  They probably amount to 60+% of the characters that I have played since having the karma granted to do so.

I highly support either lessening nil's ability to level-up spells or eliminating nil in exchange for the ability to "break" spells (on your own person only) for any magick guild/subguild.  I would find the later preferable.  As stated above, it seems that nil only exists for OOC convenience.  If there is a spell your PC has a damn good reason not to cast, they shouldn't be casting it, period.  Using a skill that you don't need IG in order to branch from it annoys the piss out of me, and it seems that nearly every elementalists has one or two useless spells (usually one of your newb spells) that simply isn't useful for survival, which in my opinion is what 98% of commoner PCs should be focusing on.
A certain Krathi spell that you start out with pops to my mind.  Most of my PCs would never use it, but that's what we have to work with, but I've always believed that the branches from which spells progress make a great deal or sense when you look at what the spells actually do (the effect) and how they do it (the symbols), so I don't really see a good alternative to working around this

Someone has already said it, but the way magick is viewed in the game, leaves you with little choice but to try and advance your character to a solo-survivable point unless you ICly prefer to remain as low key and involved with other PCs as possible.  When hide, die, or overpower your foes are your only choices... what's a 'gicker to do?

Anyway, I agree that 'nil' is too easy and should either be nerfed or removed from the game and replaced with a more IC-appropriate convenience tool.  i.e. >break glowing wetness



Components:  Foragable/skin-able  -junk- that has not required some form of effort from the component-crafting gicker should be set to a value of < 10.  Foragable/skin-able junk that has had some effort put into it through the crafting skill should have a very low value < 40-50.  Very rare or complicated/multi-step components... leave them where they are, or increase their value (some of these items seem EXTREMELY low compared to forageable rock #724).
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 10, 2015, 11:57:50 PM
Quote from: FantasyWriter on September 10, 2015, 11:50:26 PM
Components:  Foragable/skin-able  -junk- that has not required some form of effort from the component-crafting gicker should be set to a value of < 10.  Foragable/skin-able junk that has had some effort put into it through the crafting skill should have a very low value < 40-50.  Very rare or complicated/multi-step components... leave them where they are, or increase their value (some of these items seem EXTREMELY low compared to forageable rock #724).

I've never been concerned with how hard they are to make having any bearing on their value in the mundane economy. To me it's always made more to sense to just base it off what they are. For example (these are totally made up):

If you're taking a thick baobab branch, and a mantis leg, and crafting it into ... a mantis leg flopping around atop a thick baobab branch ... ... I'm thinking the shop keepers should probably give you the ole  ??? then tell you to get the fuck out of their store.

If you're crafting a purple salt crystal and a sliver of bone into a tiny bone dagger with a purple salt pommel ... then ... shop keepers should probably pay you whatever they would pay a guild merchant for making the same sort of dagger.

If you're crafting a ruby, an emerald, a diamond, and an ignot of gold into a bejeweled gold scepter of fuck yo mama ... by all means ... let the obsidian coins rain down upon you.

... although personally ... if it was entirely up to me ... I would prefer it if all of the component crafting recipes did nothing but attune an item that was already made. So a mage wouldn't craft a dagger from the purple salt crystal and bone ... a merchant would, and the mage's crafting effort would just be about turning the mundane dagger into a magickal component. Some of the recipes are like that, some aren't, I'd rather they all were but ... meh ... there's a lot in game and it would be painful to go through and redo them.

But it's just always seemed a little silly to me having to explain away awkward things like:

"So you can make knives huh?"
"Kind of yeah."
"Well can you make me a knife with some obsidian?"
"No I can make one out of bone with a purple salt crystal though."
"... Err ... how about a red salt crystal?"
">_> No. Just a purple one."
"... ... what about just the bone, no crystals at all?"
"... ... NO. Just a purple one."
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: FantasyWriter on September 11, 2015, 12:13:22 AM
That the same line of thinking I was following. A ragged piece of cloth (MON DOOM SPELLS) that you -dug up- over in Steinal should not be worth more than the diamond dildo of doom (WEK WEEWEE SPELLS) that you was actually -made-.  Also, I don't think any store in Allanak outside the gicker's quarter should deal in magick components (unless they are useful as something else such as your purple salt dagger, for example).  The shop/s that do do this make sense in some ways (mostly OOC reasons and code issues), but ICly it doesn't seem like the templarate would approve of Billy Joe Bob ranger selling the ragged pieces of cloth from Steinal  in an open market when they are known to be 300 coin-a-piece MONDOOMSPELL components.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: whitt on September 11, 2015, 12:41:27 AM
I can imagine there'd be at least one -real- good reason why the Templarate might allow a shopkeeper out the Quarter to buy up components.  Or well, maybe two.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: FantasyWriter on September 11, 2015, 12:46:43 AM
Buy, maybe... resale to anyone who happens along, not so much. ;)

More merchants should buy shady things but make it very hard/expensive to purchase them.
A certain Rinthi basement comes to mind. :D
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Majikal on September 11, 2015, 05:45:02 AM
Magickers branch fast for players that want to branch them fast. People that play the casual gick that casts only when they need to, they branch about the same time as I branch out a hard grind combat class.

I don't see much wrong with this, they can hide away and train secretly. Your warrior can hide away as a Tor guard and train safely. Hell, there's safe and secluded ways to play all the classes to badassdom if you put in the effort. Mages suck until they branch, they're damn near unplayable skillwise UNTIL they branch, this is true with all of the mage classes. Meanwhile, there are a tons of dangers and drawbacks to playing a mage, I've seen plenty enough get stomped out from pc to pc violence within hours of chargen.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Inks on September 11, 2015, 06:46:49 AM
That is an actual lie. If you have a rogue that barely casts you will branch 3rd tier within 12 days played.

A warrior will likely never branch advanced weapon skills fighting other humanoids apart from dangerous gith.


Edit: Unless you are seriously abusing the code.

But I 100%agree with you that mages are much more vulnerable day 1. But they can just hide in the temple/cave and they will be Irenicus in no time.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Synthesis on September 11, 2015, 08:16:40 AM
Quote from: Inks on September 11, 2015, 06:46:49 AM
That is an actual lie. If you have a rogue that barely casts you will branch 3rd tier within 12 days played.

A warrior will likely never branch advanced weapon skills fighting other humanoids apart from dangerous gith.


Edit: Unless you are seriously abusing the code.

But I 100%agree with you that mages are much more vulnerable day 1. But they can just hide in the temple/cave and they will be Irenicus in no time.

You don't -need- advanced weapon skills to be utterly badass as a warrior.  In fact, I'd guess that no PC warrior -ever- (who wasn't staff-modified) has actually been "better" with an advanced weapon skill than they were with the weapon skill they branched it from.

The relevant stat for warriors is how fast you can max parry...and yeah, that happens anywhere from 5-12 days, depending on your wisdom and your flavor of grind.  You can't compare grinding weapon skills to grinding any other skill in the game, because they're in a class by themselves.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Inks on September 11, 2015, 08:29:16 AM
You can't parry a one shot doom spell.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: ibusoe on September 11, 2015, 08:44:18 AM
Quote from: Inks on September 11, 2015, 08:29:16 AM
You can't parry a one shot doom spell.

I think I can help with this a bit.

For starters, would most of the players posting here agree that it's generally inappropriate for the magical classes to go around blasting 0-karma characters willy-nilly?  I feel that most people would agree that's uncool.

Next question, does this happen frequently enough to people that they consider it a problem?  This is where I'm personally unclear.  It hasn't happened to me in a while, but just because it's not a problem for me doesn't mean it's not a problem for other people.

Follow-up question, and this one will generate the interesting responses - If mages blasting red shirts *is* a problem, what is it that the magical classes should be spendibeng their time doing rather than simply PKing people?  I can imagine some people having the view that their role as a krathi is to be enforcing the will of the rich and powerful by taking hits on on some of the more dangerous characters, typically high-level warriors or what have you.  How should they be contributing to the game *rather* than murdering people?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: manonfire on September 11, 2015, 08:48:45 AM
Blasting the hell out of people is one of the most enjoyable parts of playing a magicker. It's downright orgasmic if the PC has a shitbutt attitude.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: FantasyWriter on September 11, 2015, 09:23:59 AM
I have never PKd using magick. I have never attacked another players character with magick unless attacked first.
I would have to assume that the amount of magicker on mundane attacks is greatly overshadowed by mundane on magicker attacks.

Quote from: Synthesis on September 10, 2015, 09:04:52 AM
Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.

I've tried this before, but as mentioned above, as soon as the mundanes find out about a rogue gicker frequenting a certain location, they will come after you and then bitch about it when said gicker wipes the floor with their character.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Pale Horse on September 11, 2015, 09:28:36 AM
Quote from: ibusoe on September 11, 2015, 08:44:18 AM
Quote from: Inks on September 11, 2015, 08:29:16 AM
You can't parry a one shot doom spell.

I think I can help with this a bit.

For starters, would most of the players posting here agree that it's generally inappropriate for the magical classes to go around blasting 0-karma characters willy-nilly?  I feel that most people would agree that's uncool.

Next question, does this happen frequently enough to people that they consider it a problem?  This is where I'm personally unclear.  It hasn't happened to me in a while, but just because it's not a problem for me doesn't mean it's not a problem for other people.

Follow-up question, and this one will generate the interesting responses - If mages blasting red shirts *is* a problem, what is it that the magical classes should be spendibeng their time doing rather than simply PKing people?  I can imagine some people having the view that their role as a krathi is to be enforcing the will of the rich and powerful by taking hits on on some of the more dangerous characters, typically high-level warriors or what have you.  How should they be contributing to the game *rather* than murdering people?

I can't really comment with any factual information about the number of times Mage on Mundane Pking is happening, as the game stands right now.  I think it is more lingering resentment about having had a character magickgibbed in the past without the chance to fight back that generates most of the complaints.  Again, though, I have no facts to back this up.

Some of the ways a mage could quickly kill you were a bit ridiculous, yeah.  If musashi is referencing the same whiran that I think he is, I just want to congratulate him on being one of those players who I know took their time to explore the abilities of the guild and then tell Staff what they thought was a bit on the twinkish side even for magick.  I know Staff has addressed the concern by switching around karma requirement levels, altering the parameters of spells and even putting in code to prevent some of the ganking ability from happening to a city-bound character to be more in line with IG realities.

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Synthesis on September 11, 2015, 09:30:11 AM
Quote from: Inks on September 11, 2015, 08:29:16 AM
You can't parry a one shot doom spell.

This is Armageddon, not Paper-Rock-Scissors.

Your complaint was regarding the speed at which various classes get to their useful/powerful state.

My point is that warriors and mages take about the same amount of time to get to a useful state, not that at 12 days played, a warrior will have a 50-50 chance vs. a 12 day magicker.

(Due to the way the skillgain timer works,  you -can- branch a mage much, much faster by using ONE WEIRD TRICK--WARRIORS HATE HIM, but it's kind of lame and the RL time it takes works out to nearly the same, regardless of the days' played counter.)
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 11, 2015, 09:35:16 AM
Mundanes tend to be way too black & white toward mages. It's like a dice flip between "flee;flee;flee" and "u wot m8" with very rare instances of actual nuanced interaction.

I guess this can make mages feel like they have to get the surprise jump even if the intent isn't to kill, and have the skills to not die. So it's a vicious cycle.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Synthesis on September 11, 2015, 09:47:16 AM
Quote from: Delirium on September 11, 2015, 09:35:16 AM
Mundanes tend to be way too black & white toward mages. It's like a dice flip between "flee;flee;flee" and "u wot m8" with very rare instances of actual nuanced interaction.

I guess this can make mages feel like they have to get the surprise jump even if the intent isn't to kill, and have the skills to not die. So it's a vicious cycle.

I think the issue is more like...

In order for a mage not to get reel-locked and supremely fucked up by a moderately skilled and strong mundane PC in a no-law zone, they have to do some serious prepping, or be untargetable.

So...if a magicker wants to roll up on a mundane PC in a no-law zone and pursue whatever type of interaction, they tend to be either invisible or GLOWING HUMMING COVERED IN RAINBOW SPRINKLES WIELDING A GIANT FLAMING DOUBLE-HEADED DILDO.  Which...you know...kind of makes you think that dude is there to either fuck you or fuck you up.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 11, 2015, 09:49:43 AM
Quote from: Synthesis on September 11, 2015, 09:47:16 AM
Quote from: Delirium on September 11, 2015, 09:35:16 AM
Mundanes tend to be way too black & white toward mages. It's like a dice flip between "flee;flee;flee" and "u wot m8" with very rare instances of actual nuanced interaction.

I guess this can make mages feel like they have to get the surprise jump even if the intent isn't to kill, and have the skills to not die. So it's a vicious cycle.

I think the issue is more like...

In order for a mage not to get reel-locked and supremely fucked up by a moderately skilled and strong mundane PC in a no-law zone, they have to do some serious prepping, or be untargetable.

So...if a magicker wants to roll up on a mundane PC in a no-law zone and pursue whatever type of interaction, they tend to be either invisible or GLOWING HUMMING COVERED IN RAINBOW SPRINKLES WIELDING A GIANT FLAMING DOUBLE-HEADED DILDO.  Which...you know...kind of makes you think that dude is there to either fuck you or fuck you up.

Basically, yeah.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 11, 2015, 12:15:29 PM
Why not just create an extended "no elemental magick" zone around the silt sea and Red Storm. Blame the sea, the Sand Lord, some overpowered Nilazi, or whatever.

Then all of the magick haters can have their haven where they can feel like kings.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 11, 2015, 12:18:37 PM
That would actually be really cool.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 11, 2015, 12:42:44 PM
Quote from: Eyeball on September 11, 2015, 12:15:29 PM
Why not just create an extended "no elemental magick" zone around the silt sea and Red Storm. Blame the sea, the Sand Lord, some overpowered Nilazi, or whatever.

Then all of the magick haters can have their haven where they can feel like kings.

Not really, the mindbenders or sorcerers will be the kings in that area then, instead of the elementalists.  I guess that'll be much more rare, because of the karma requirements...but there's plenty of people within spec app range of either class.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Is Friday on September 11, 2015, 12:45:24 PM
Uh. Wouldn't that make it even more awesome?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 11, 2015, 01:46:30 PM
Quote from: wizturbo on September 11, 2015, 12:42:44 PM
Quote from: Eyeball on September 11, 2015, 12:15:29 PM
Why not just create an extended "no elemental magick" zone around the silt sea and Red Storm. Blame the sea, the Sand Lord, some overpowered Nilazi, or whatever.

Then all of the magick haters can have their haven where they can feel like kings.

Not really, the mindbenders or sorcerers will be the kings in that area then, instead of the elementalists.  I guess that'll be much more rare, because of the karma requirements...but there's plenty of people within spec app range of either class.

Except we don't get repeated threads of people hating mindbenders and sorcerers and wanting them gone or nerfed into oblivion.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: BadSkeelz on September 11, 2015, 01:54:42 PM
Anything bad you want to say about Elementalists can also be said about sorcerers. It's why I prefer the use of "Magick" and "Magicker."

Mindworms also don't tend to reach the same level of world-challenging power and danger that elementalists and (old, full power) sorcerers can. They're also much harder to skill up.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 11, 2015, 02:12:43 PM
Quote from: Eyeball on September 11, 2015, 01:46:30 PM

Except we don't get repeated threads of people hating mindbenders and sorcerers and wanting them gone or nerfed into oblivion.

That's just because most people don't realize they're out there because the whole, keep your secret or die thing :)

Sorcerers and Mindbenders also don't tend to PK using their powers, because 1)  if you take a swing and miss, your cover is blown.  2)  If you take a swing and hit, OOCly you have to hope the victim keeps their experiences secret...and given how long it takes to level up either class, that's a lot to risk.  You see people willing to take that risk with elementalists because they're less time intensive to skill up, and more importantly, their magickal abilities aren't forbidden everywhere in the known.  If people learn they're secretly a Whiran, so what?  That's an evolution of the character, or...in many cases they don't bother to keep it a secret at all.  If sorcerers were permitted a single safe haven in the world, you'd see a change in the number of aggressive sorcs out there.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 11, 2015, 03:04:46 PM
Quote from: FantasyWriter on September 11, 2015, 09:23:59 AM
I have never PKd using magick. I have never attacked another players character with magick unless attacked first.
I would have to assume that the amount of magicker on mundane attacks is greatly overshadowed by mundane on magicker attacks.

Out of about... 150 or so mages and 4 or so sorcerers... about 30% of them were pked.

1 magicker used magick 1 time to kill another magicker. They were going to pk a mundane who was involved with someone they liked, but the mundane ran into the next room and got killed by an npc.

About 9 of 10 times being pked was a desert elf doing it.

The straggling odd numbers were human, mostly soldiers or templars.

I'm inclined to say that the pk numbers depend on the playstyle of the one running the pc. Because I just don't tend to pk people. If it wasn't for the 1 person being responsible for about a dozen acquaintances and so on's deaths, that person never would've died. But then you have other people who genuinely would kill someone for their shoes. And if they play magickers, their magickers probably aren't much different than their mundanes.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Jingo on September 11, 2015, 03:36:42 PM
Quote from: Eyeball on September 11, 2015, 12:15:29 PM
Why not just create an extended "no elemental magick" zone around the silt sea and Red Storm. Blame the sea, the Sand Lord, some overpowered Nilazi, or whatever.

Then all of the magick haters can have their haven where they can feel like kings.

There is stuff like that in place right now... le Find out le IC. It would be neat plot to create expansive no magick zones though.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Is Friday on September 11, 2015, 03:38:22 PM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 11, 2015, 03:04:46 PM
Quote from: FantasyWriter on September 11, 2015, 09:23:59 AM
I have never PKd using magick. I have never attacked another players character with magick unless attacked first.
I would have to assume that the amount of magicker on mundane attacks is greatly overshadowed by mundane on magicker attacks.

Out of about... 150 or so mages and 4 or so sorcerers... about 30% of them were pked.

1 magicker used magick 1 time to kill another magicker. They were going to pk a mundane who was involved with someone they liked, but the mundane ran into the next room and got killed by an npc.

About 9 of 10 times being pked was a desert elf doing it.

The straggling odd numbers were human, mostly soldiers or templars.

I'm inclined to say that the pk numbers depend on the playstyle of the one running the pc. Because I just don't tend to pk people. If it wasn't for the 1 person being responsible for about a dozen acquaintances and so on's deaths, that person never would've died. But then you have other people who genuinely would kill someone for their shoes. And if they play magickers, their magickers probably aren't much different than their mundanes.
What numbers are you pulling from here? Your own 150 magicker/sorcs?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 11, 2015, 03:48:02 PM
Quote from: Is Friday on September 11, 2015, 03:38:22 PM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 11, 2015, 03:04:46 PM
Quote from: FantasyWriter on September 11, 2015, 09:23:59 AM
I have never PKd using magick. I have never attacked another players character with magick unless attacked first.
I would have to assume that the amount of magicker on mundane attacks is greatly overshadowed by mundane on magicker attacks.

Out of about... 150 or so mages and 4 or so sorcerers... about 30% of them were pked.

1 magicker used magick 1 time to kill another magicker. They were going to pk a mundane who was involved with someone they liked, but the mundane ran into the next room and got killed by an npc.

About 9 of 10 times being pked was a desert elf doing it.

The straggling odd numbers were human, mostly soldiers or templars.

I'm inclined to say that the pk numbers depend on the playstyle of the one running the pc. Because I just don't tend to pk people. If it wasn't for the 1 person being responsible for about a dozen acquaintances and so on's deaths, that person never would've died. But then you have other people who genuinely would kill someone for their shoes. And if they play magickers, their magickers probably aren't much different than their mundanes.
What numbers are you pulling from here? Your own 150 magicker/sorcs?

There were only roughly 4 sorcerers. But yes. I've been playing nearly a decade.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 11, 2015, 04:02:54 PM
12 years, 30 characters... I can't decide if I'm doing something very wrong, or right.

Anyway, everyone's playstyle is different. I'll (try to) PK the hell out of someone who deserves it, or acts like they deserve it, or if I'm being paid, or if there's a (wo)man....

(http://dauntlessmedia.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/106-jaynestown-300x168.gif)

As long as it's motivated by solid in-character reasons, it's okay in my book. I used to be a lot more hesitant to PK, but honestly, the game gets stagnant otherwise.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 11, 2015, 04:15:24 PM
Quote from: Delirium on September 11, 2015, 04:02:54 PM
As long as it's motivated by solid in-character reasons, it's okay in my book. I used to be a lot more hesitant to PK, but honestly, the game gets stagnant otherwise.

Yeah, I have no problem with doing so when the story is improved by it, not remotely. It's more a question of how much story for each person at the keyboard, I think? There were several instances that could have ended more violently, for sure, but did not.

As to character #s... I tend to go through 2-10 characters between longer lived ones. A lot of pcs, I like the concept of it until it's time to play it, then find myself just totally unenthused about, or they wind up dying to stupid crap like hidden aggro mobs, while out exploring, and then there's ones that die to poison... a not insignificant amount.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 11, 2015, 04:57:09 PM
Quote from: Synthesis on September 11, 2015, 08:16:40 AM
... I'd guess that no PC warrior -ever- (who wasn't staff-modified) has actually been "better" with an advanced weapon skill than they were with the weapon skill they branched it from.

Yeah, but there was this one class ... that you can't play anymore ... that started with an advanced weapon skill, so you could max it before you got too buff to gain anymore ... and it was fucking amazing.  :D
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: FantasyWriter on September 11, 2015, 05:43:19 PM
So basically, in the last year, we have lost being able to play Bruce Lee, neigh invincible psions, and full sorcerers.  Two of those, I will always regret not getting a chance to play eventually, the other... good residence.

Seriously though, those who want a less supernaturally dominant game. Your agenda's gotten a lot of traction recently.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Inks on September 11, 2015, 06:19:25 PM
Okay "ONE WEIRD TRICK-WARRIORS HATE HIM" Made me laugh.

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 11, 2015, 07:00:09 PM
Quote from: FantasyWriter on September 11, 2015, 05:43:19 PM
Seriously though, those who want a less supernaturally dominant game. Your agenda's gotten a lot of traction recently.

Yup, I hope the pendulum swings a little bit back in the other direction.  I strongly believe the anti-magick sentiment is a small, vocal minority on the GDB and not an accurate representation of the playerbase.  Past survey's have hinted as much.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 11, 2015, 07:09:38 PM
Like I said, my thoughts are given in a constructive light. I love playing mages. Just suggesting stuff I think would make the experience more immersive and less prone to twinkery.

I've twinked out on mages before myself so I'm not trying to stand on a soapbox about it. But as I matured as a player blah blah blah fuck mages.  >:(


:-*
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Inks on September 11, 2015, 07:11:04 PM
I enjoy playing mages too. Especially if I don't have much time to skill up.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Narf on September 11, 2015, 07:52:05 PM
Quote from: wizturbo on September 11, 2015, 07:00:09 PM
Quote from: FantasyWriter on September 11, 2015, 05:43:19 PM
Seriously though, those who want a less supernaturally dominant game. Your agenda's gotten a lot of traction recently.

Yup, I hope the pendulum swings a little bit back in the other direction.  I strongly believe the anti-magick sentiment is a small, vocal minority on the GDB and not an accurate representation of the playerbase.  Past survey's have hinted as much.

I strongly believe some variant "eh? *shrug*" sentiment is the strongest in the general player base, which leaves the two minorities to slug it out.

(Go team muggle!)
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Feco on September 11, 2015, 09:41:33 PM
I'm happy with supernatural balance of the game at the moment.

A third of my characters have been mages, though, if that says anything about my preferences.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Erythil on September 12, 2015, 06:36:57 AM
For my money, the only overpowered magic combo in the game was the dreaded fly/invis/summon triangle.  Being able to use that to kill just about anyone was un-fun.  But combine the breaking of that triad with the new protections inside of cities and I think the balance of magic is in a fairly reasonable place.  I'd be okay with some light nerfs to nil, maybe making it so you couldn't get your last few power words without more practical experience, but to be honest, it wouldn't be hard to find low-value gurth targets to go nuke with your flamestrike up to mon anyway.  Magic isn't designed to be a long-term grind like weapon skills are.

It feels to me like people have internalized the anti-magical hate of the setting a bit much and want to enforce it from a metagame perspective.  This is a game based on D&D.  It has powerful wizards, elementals, skeletons, dragons, and shit cooked right into the basics of the setting.  It is not Mad Max with swords.  I enjoy these high fantasy elements and they're already heavily gated behind a karma grind that can take years.  Staff will not give karma to players that they do not think deserve it.  This has sometimes included myself.

I came in after the supposed dark age of the CAM and I feel like the game's collective OOC community is still overreacting to whatever horrible over-the-top things were supposedly going on then.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Erythil on September 12, 2015, 06:42:14 AM
By the way:  I would like to see the return of summon, but as a purely voluntary spell.  You must consent to be summoned.  Turn it into utility.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Harmless on September 12, 2015, 09:03:38 AM
being able to dispel your own magick without being a <redacted> constitutes a massive buff to mages' ability to hide their nature and hence a massive boost to playability. Likewise taking away nil reach will lead to some silly OOC driven behavior. the spell tree revolves around the ability to practice. Practicing is not without risk, particularly with all the <redacted> roaming the gameworld. Taking away nil without something to compensate would be a massive nerf.

I think shit is fine and see no reason to change anything except for continuing economic rebalancing. I would like the 90/100 components in game that currently serve as nothing more than trinkets to have more use somehow as well but I am not upset by it.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Nergal on September 12, 2015, 09:30:01 AM
There are a couple of caveats to the side-argument here that magickers use their power too often to grief, or to mess with mundanes unprovoked, etc.:

1) The power and potential of magickers is intentional, and has been adjusted over the years - most recently, with breaking down sorcery into subguilds. There are more changes to come.

2) The amount of karma you have has a direct relationship to how much staff expect you to enforce the tenets of the game world as well as have OOC consideration for others. The game world states what a magicker's place in the game world is. It is up to all players - but especially the player of a magicker - to enforce that by RPing the fear and/or revulsion that goes through people's heads. It is up to the player of a magicker to weigh the benefits of messing with a grebber for no reason (fear me!) against the drawbacks (discovered by society) and RP accordingly. Also, if a magicker player is killing PCs and RPing the reasoning and/or putting in PK reports, we look at those. If a magicker is killing multiple PCs and we don't know why, because we missed the RP that went around the kill, we might ask them to start putting in those reports to explain what's going on. The saying "with great power comes great responsibility" is especially true in this case. That is not to say that griefing does not happen, but it is exceedingly rare these days.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: MeTekillot on September 12, 2015, 02:06:19 PM
Quote from: Nergal on September 12, 2015, 09:30:01 AMThere are more changes to come.
I hope this does not mean there will be a further decrease in magickal power available to players.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Harmless on September 12, 2015, 02:08:03 PM
So do I, given how my last magicker died like a 0 day noob. (edited to add: despite having been many, many more days played than that)
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 12, 2015, 02:21:53 PM
Quote from: MeTekillot on September 12, 2015, 02:06:19 PM
Quote from: Nergal on September 12, 2015, 09:30:01 AMThere are more changes to come.
I hope this does not mean there will be a further decrease in magickal power available to players.

Ditto.  It feels like a fraction of what was available over the last 10 years already, and sometimes it feels like a very meager fraction.  I'm already starting to feel like the setting of Zalanthas has changed for the worse because of this.  Magick is supposed to be a powerful, and attainable, force in the world.  Because of that it is hated, feared, and often times hunted down to prevent it from getting out of control.

It feels like the "attainable" part of the equation is severely hampered by changes over the years.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: BadSkeelz on September 12, 2015, 02:49:25 PM
Kudos to that 1day newb. Khorne salutes you.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 12, 2015, 03:03:08 PM
Quote from: Erythil on September 12, 2015, 06:42:14 AM
By the way:  I would like to see the return of summon, but as a purely voluntary spell.  You must consent to be summoned.  Turn it into utility.

That would be easy. Just make it only work when nosave magick is on.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Nergal on September 12, 2015, 04:51:30 PM
Quote from: MeTekillot on September 12, 2015, 02:06:19 PM
Quote from: Nergal on September 12, 2015, 09:30:01 AMThere are more changes to come.
I hope this does not mean there will be a further decrease in magickal power available to players.

On the contrary. I was referring to this:

Quote from: Producer Report
Sorcerer subguilds changes. Sorcerer subguilds will be beefed up accordingly based on staff feedback.
Owners:  Adhira, Nessalin, support/collaboration with Seidhr
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: MeTekillot on September 12, 2015, 06:49:45 PM
Good. . . goooood. . .
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Dresan on September 12, 2015, 08:47:50 PM
I like mundanes, but I like the additional danger of deadly mages roaming the wilderness sometimes.

I don't think any mundane should be able to go toe to toe with any prepared mage and live....for very long.

At the same time though, I don't think a mage should be able to walk up to a 30/40 day warrior/ranger prepared or not, and be able to one shot them without any effort after only a couple days played. In the same way <blankity blank blank: edited by Delirium>, I would still love to see very high defense give a chance to dodge/block certain spells. Also certain materials should provide more protection against certain magickal effects, allowing someone with enough sid to afford a better chance to resist a spell.

Again this doesn't mean a warrior/ranger will be able to fight and kill a prepared mage, but equally it shouldn't be an easy thing for a prepared mage to find an old vet in the desert and kill him without at least a little bit more effort then your usual 1 day old grebber. That way when a mage does kill a old 50 day old warrior, then the warrior did something wrong like stay and put up a fight after being attacked, or the mage had to do something right or just get really lucky.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: MeTekillot on September 12, 2015, 10:06:39 PM
Might wanna remove some of those magick function specifics boss
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 12, 2015, 10:11:32 PM
I moderated a post; y'all should know better. Keep the magic specifics (wrong or right) out of this thread. Thanks!
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Dre on September 12, 2015, 10:44:18 PM
 Late :(
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Dresan on September 13, 2015, 04:11:16 AM
Yeah, you are right. My bad.

The idea still stands though, and who knows adding defensive abilities like that might give people the incentives to try RP that doesn't involve utter avoidance or kill on sight.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: MeTekillot on September 13, 2015, 04:49:02 AM
What RP would defense against magick for mundanes (more than there already is) add that isn't kill on sight? Only mostly kill on sight?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: BadSkeelz on September 13, 2015, 05:20:41 AM
Offer to dick them good and hard.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: MeTekillot on September 13, 2015, 05:42:36 AM
Do you not already? I've got, like, two sorcerers' worth of Elementalist mudsex under my belt.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Erythil on September 13, 2015, 10:14:55 PM
Being able to spend an inordinate amount of money on an item that would serve as temporary (and partial) protection against magic might be an interesting coin sink.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 13, 2015, 10:25:32 PM
I am squarely in Nergal (and I think staff at large)'s camp in this matter:

Quote from: Nergal on September 12, 2015, 09:30:01 AM
1) The power and potential of magickers is intentional, and has been adjusted over the years - most recently, with breaking down sorcery into subguilds. There are more changes to come.

So I'm not keen on making up new ways for mundane PC's to cancel out the dangers of magick.

Making the quest to master magick more challenging for the mages themselves however, I'm in support of.

I happen to think that in making it more challenging for mages to attain their full potential a byproduct will be less enormously powerful mages in game and that will in turn mean players who like low fantasy over high fantasy will likely benefit as they would encounter less players able to smite them in a single blow ... ... but that's not why I'm in favor of it.

I get that Armageddon is high fantasy, and I enjoy that. But to use the same D&D analogy that was used a bit earlier in this thread ...

I don't have a problem that mages are a selectable class you can play in this campaign setting ... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else? That doesn't seem right.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Pale Horse on September 13, 2015, 10:58:57 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 13, 2015, 10:25:32 PM
I am squarely in Nergal (and I think staff at large)'s camp in this matter:

Quote from: Nergal on September 12, 2015, 09:30:01 AM
1) The power and potential of magickers is intentional, and has been adjusted over the years - most recently, with breaking down sorcery into subguilds. There are more changes to come.

So I'm not keen on making up new ways for mundane PC's to cancel out the dangers of magick.

Making the quest to master magick more challenging for the mages themselves however, I'm in support of.

I happen to think that in making it more challenging for mages to attain their full potential a byproduct will be less enormously powerful mages in game and that will in turn mean players who like low fantasy over high fantasy will likely benefit as they would encounter less players able to smite them in a single blow ... ... but that's not why I'm in favor of it.

I get that Armageddon is high fantasy, and I enjoy that. But to use the same D&D analogy that was used a bit earlier in this thread ...

I don't have a problem that mages are a selectable class you can play in this campaign setting ... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else? That doesn't seem right.

I was going to post a big long post about how I find myself agreeing with the magicker changes, still have some wistful regret about not being able to play an old sorcerer, how I was first attracted to Armageddon for the blatant and unapologetic power that magick could bring, blah blah blah...

But instead, I'll just post all of that like I just said. 

I like that magick is a swift rise to power (join the Dark Side!).  It is unfair.  That there is something of reality IG to resent or seek after just makes more interesting stories, to me.

I am well aware that not everyone likes that.  I am also aware, and agree with, that the game does not get to exclusively cater to my personal brand of entertainment.  But I do like having the option open for "pathways to unspeakable power" for those who may want to take them.

More options.  Make 'em difficult, make 'em hard to get as musashi has said he advocates, but keep them there.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 13, 2015, 11:02:58 PM
Quote from: Pale Horse on September 13, 2015, 10:58:57 PM
More options.

For sure. Speaking as a player who has had a mage character receive special magickal X & Y that doesn't normally branch for anyone's standard spell list ... it was awesome.

I wish mundanes had some of that love too, like unique fighting styles for warriors or really exotic mounts for rangers, etc.

They might well ... I've played a few long lived mundanes, but never any "legendary" ones.

But the custom "not everyone gets this" quirks that can be codedly added to your character is an awesome cookie for long lived people who have done a lot.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Pale Horse on September 13, 2015, 11:09:00 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 13, 2015, 11:02:58 PM
Quote from: Pale Horse on September 13, 2015, 10:58:57 PM
More options.

For sure. Speaking as a player who has had a mage character receive special magickal X & Y that doesn't normally branch for anyone's standard spell list ... it was awesome.

I wish mundanes had some of that love too, like unique fighting styles for warriors or really exotic mounts for rangers, etc.

They might well ... I've played a few long lived mundanes, but never any "legendary" ones.

But the custom "not everyone gets this" quirks that can be codedly added to your character is an awesome cookie for long lived people who have done a lot.

Word.

I can remember drooling, as a player, over the "status boosts" that some "legendary" mundanes had in the past, with things like exotic mounts, abilities out of the norm, etc.

One of my favorite things I can recall hearing years ago with a character was listening to an old PC tell how they'd gotten a group together to try to capture and tame a "thing of unusual size."

Also, "certain-northern-riding-beasts," which I am not sure are common knowledge.  Those were pretty exciting to see, IG.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 13, 2015, 11:15:04 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 13, 2015, 10:25:32 PM
... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else?

For the same reason people constantly bitch about wanting something like it for raiders. Because people will be trying to kill you literally the moment you step out of character generation.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 13, 2015, 11:24:16 PM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 13, 2015, 11:15:04 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 13, 2015, 10:25:32 PM
... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else?

For the same reason people constantly bitch about wanting something like it for raiders. Because people will be trying to kill you literally the moment you step out of character generation.

At best that's an argument in favor of level 6, 7, & 8 karma roles but it's very hyperbolic to say of a gemmed or tribal mage.

However, we don't care that everyone is trying to kill (or capture and thus force store) a mul straight out of chargen. We chalk that up to being one of the challenges of the role. Granted muls have a lot more out the box coded punch than a mage does ... but a psion doesn't, and while I may be wrong ... I don't think they have a way to safely branch out their whole skill tree as compensation for the fact that everyone wants them dead. So I find the answer utterly un-compelling.

Edit to add: My answer to that would be the same answer I give to would be raider PC's ... apply for the skill bumps your karma can afford you to make the character as survivable as staff have given you leeway to do, and you should be good.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 13, 2015, 11:46:10 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 13, 2015, 11:24:16 PM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 13, 2015, 11:15:04 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 13, 2015, 10:25:32 PM
... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else?

For the same reason people constantly bitch about wanting something like it for raiders. Because people will be trying to kill you literally the moment you step out of character generation.

At best that's an argument in favor of level 6, 7, & 8 karma roles but it's very hyperbolic to say of a gemmed or tribal mage.


Funny that the only pc I've ever had pked by a total stranger on sight was 2 karma gemmed vivaduan.

But I'm sure your experiences aren't the same. In fact, once you get to 6 karma roles and higher, there are other, much better protections in place that dont require skilling if you have any clue what they're doing,  rendering the point about doing so more quickly kinda pointless.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Dresan on September 13, 2015, 11:56:53 PM
I do understand how some people felt when sorcerers were taken away.

My hope is that someday I can a character that becomes a kuraci Outrider. I always wanted to -earn- that role, grinding through the ranks. A truly just reward for years of dedication, finally getting to be an elite, with a lot of freedom, backing and respect. I find its a lot tougher playing something like a gritty hunter/fighter/assassin that can also get mixed up in politics while still going out and kicking ass, not always wearing silks, especially with tuluk and partisanship gone. But that's another thread.

I don't like the idea of adding a grind to mages as a form of balancing things out. If the staff won't consider buffing mundane defenses, and is considering buffing sorcerer sub-guilds, then I hope at the very least they consider making all mages part of the three year limit special app process alongside extended sub-guild. I never really consider Armageddon high fantasy, its more like low fantasy, magick is rare. I really think mage groups of significant power should be hunted down by a team of red robes.

With tuluk gone, and places like redstorm being beefed up, even I might stop seeing the point of playing a mundane when I can just roll a mage, form groups, gain status and influence and practically have it all with almost no need to grind skills at all. While sad ass mundanes are forced to join clans, get tied down with schedules and be looking at RL years of not really getting anywhere that interesting anyways.  
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 13, 2015, 11:58:06 PM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 13, 2015, 11:46:10 PM
Funny that the only pc I've ever had pked by a total stranger on sight was 2 karma gemmed vivaduan.

I don't doubt that a minority of people have experienced greifing as a newbie game.
The same way I don't doubt that a minority of people have experienced greifing by a mage as a mundane.

Quote from: Nergal on September 12, 2015, 09:30:01 AM
That is not to say that griefing does not happen, but it is exceedingly rare these days.




Quote from: bardlyone on September 13, 2015, 11:46:10 PM
But I'm sure your experiences aren't the same. In fact, once you get to 6 karma roles and higher, there are other, much better protections in place that dont require skilling if you have any clue what they're doing,  rendering the point about doing so more quickly kinda pointless.

As expected, my experiences were not the same. I've played 6-8 karma roles before. I have no idea what protections that don't require skilling you're alluding to. I felt just as helpless and vulnerable as a newbie sorcerer as I did playing a vivaduan. More so really given the utter lack of safe harbor anywhere as compared to the option of taking a gem and staying inside the walls of Allanak that a vivaduan has.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:03:22 AM
lol @ "people don't try to randomly kill tribal mages for no reason".
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 12:08:34 AM
Quote from: Dresan on September 13, 2015, 11:56:53 PM
I never really consider Armageddon high fantasy, its more like low fantasy, magick is rare. I really think mage groups of significant power should be hunted down by a team of red robes.

Given that this is the definition of low fantasy:

Quote from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasyLow fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy fiction involving "nonrational happenings that are without causality or rationality because they occur in the rational world where such things are not supposed to occur."[1] Low fantasy stories are set either in the real world or a fictional but rational world, and are contrasted with high fantasy stories which take place in a completely fictional fantasy world setting with its own set of rules and physical laws.

Low fantasy places relatively less emphasis on typical elements associated with fantasy, setting a narrative in real-world environments with elements of the fantastical. Sometimes there are just enough fantastical elements to make ambiguous the boundary between what is real and what is purely psychological or supernatural. The word "low" refers to the level of prominence of traditional fantasy elements within the work, and is not any sort of remark on the work's quality.

Why would you think that?

I mean ... granted RPG's use a slightly different definition of low fantasy compared to high fantasy ...

Quote from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasy#Role-playing_gamesFor their own purposes role-playing games sometimes use a different definition of low fantasy. GURPS Fantasy defines the genre as "closer to realistic fiction than to myth. Low Fantasy stories focus on people's daily lives and practical goals ... A Low Fantasy campaign asks what it's like to live in a world of monsters, magic, and demigods."[13] The book acknowledges the literary definition of the genre with "some critics define 'low fantasy' as any fantasy story set in the real world. However, a real world setting can include the kind of mythic elements this book classifies as high fantasy."[14]

And given that Armageddon is a game that focuses on day to day life as opposed to epic world altering adventures ... it would be true to say it's low fantasy in that regard ... ... but using the term in that sense would have no impact whatsoever on how prevalent magick would or wouldn't be in the setting.

I think you may be convoluting the two definitions together in a way they aren't necessarily supposed to be. Armageddon is clearly high fantasy in literary terms (which focus on the world setting), but low fantasy in RPG terms (which focus on the scope of the PC's stories and campaigns).
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 12:30:23 AM
Quote from: Dresan on September 13, 2015, 11:56:53 PM
I don't like the idea of adding a grind to mages as a form of balancing things out. [...] I might stop seeing the point of playing a mundane when I can just roll a mage, form groups, gain status and influence and practically have it all with almost no need to grind skills at all.

It seems like the thing you're actually against is having a skill grind, yes? I mean, you say that you don't like the idea of adding a skill grind to mages in one sentence. Then shortly thereafter, say that you might consider playing nothing but mages to avoid the skill grind of a mundane.

There's nothing wrong with not liking skill grinding. It just seems like we see the same disparity, but whereas I'm saying "make mages have to work for it like mundanes", you're saying "make mundanes not have to work for it like mages".
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:37:25 AM
It seems to me like most complaints in the thread are focused on the random rogue magicker boogeyman. To my knowledge, this hasn't really been a problem since two things have happened:

1.) Summon changed.
2.) Whirans raised to 6 karma.

Therefore, less annoying and pointless ez-mode griefing is possible.

If people are looking for something more out of playing a mage than a boring grind-fest then I do recommend that you try a clan that supports magick in its documentation. I don't really like mages, either. But I do like mages with cultural docs.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 12:37:52 AM
Quote from: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:03:22 AM
lol @ "people don't try to randomly kill tribal mages for no reason".

Given what I have seen IG, I'm guessing this comment belongs more aptly in the "how to role play desert elves" thread, slid in right in that section about desert elf players not taking into account the setting of the world in regards to human tribes they are supposed to be sharing land with.

Because ... as a tribal mage who also happened to be a desert elf ... I once fell in a hole like a moron and knocked myself out for 30 minutes ... woke up to find an elf from a different tribe (who have the mantra of die all gickers die) telling me that they wanted to slit my throat the whole time I was sleeping but since their elders don't feel like courting a war of retribution over it ... they instead watched over me to make sure I woke up fine instead ...

Your mileage may vary ... severely (and in my opinion unjustifiably) ... inside the bubble of that dynamic.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:40:32 AM
Quote from: musashi on September 14, 2015, 12:37:52 AM
Quote from: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:03:22 AM
lol @ "people don't try to randomly kill tribal mages for no reason".

Given what I have seen IG, I'm guessing this comment belongs more aptly in the "how to role play desert elves" thread, slid in right in that section about desert elf players not taking into account the setting of the world in regards to human tribes they are supposed to be sharing land with.

Because ... as a tribal mage who also happened to be a desert elf ... I once fell in a hole like a moron and knocked myself out for 30 minutes ... woke up to find an elf from a different tribe (who have the mantra of die all gickers die) telling me that they wanted to slit my throat the whole time I was sleeping but since their elders don't feel like courting a war of retribution over it ... they instead watched over me to make sure I woke up fine instead ...

Your mileage may vary ... severely ... given the desert elf/desert human issue.
I was referring to my tribal water mage achieving world-wide fame despite almost never leaving the Tablelands. (lol)
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 12:43:55 AM
Quote from: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:40:32 AM
I was referring to my tribal water mage achieving world-wide fame despite almost never leaving the Tablelands. (lol)

Yep. I think our tribal mages overlapped during that time. IIRC yours was human. Hence my reply.

I encountered my own fair share of tribe mates and other desert elves during that time coming to me in a state of panic about how we needed to go on a witch hunt because there was an X in the 'pah ... only to discover a short time later said X was a human tribal, perfectly in line with the documentation ... that probably shouldn't have warranted more than a shrug of indifference.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:47:07 AM
Both city-states had "kill on sight" orders for her and the Byn frequently pooped their pants when she Wayed them during their Tablelands missions. Get on my level, boring elf mage.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 12:51:45 AM
Quote from: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:47:07 AM
Both city-states had "kill on sight" orders for her and the Byn frequently pooped their pants when she Wayed them during their Tablelands missions. Get on my level, boring elf mage.

Um, fine but like ... Tuluk had kill on sight orders for every single gemmed mage that has ever existed.

But me saying "lol @ "people don't attack gemmers on sight for no reason"" would be pretty silly if it turned out the Tuluk thing was my justification. Because ... gemmed mages don't go to Tuluk.

Likewise ... tribal mages shouldn't be going to the city-states if they don't plan on being killed/gemmed. If templars were forming war parties and regularly rolling into the table lands to hunt you down and demanding your tribe give you up because mages ... then I'd see your point ... and also think said templars were being ridiculous and in need of a corrective slap by staff.

But if this kill on sight thing was more like how gemmers get it for going into Tuluk, my opinion switches to ... yeah dude. My tribal mage too. Everyone's tribal mage. That's what happens man. That's what happens.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:56:51 AM
Mostly tongue-in-cheek responses, but it's all kinda true, too.

Repeat: She almost never left the Tablelands.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 12:59:09 AM
Oh I know. I think your mage was one of the "OMG we have to get the spears and kill the witch in the 'pah!" panic moments I experienced ... and indifferently shrugged at before calling them all idiots and wandering off to go carru tipping.

I'm just saying:

Quote from: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:47:07 AM
Both city-states had "kill on sight" orders for her
Mine too.

Quote from: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:47:07 AM
and the Byn frequently pooped their pants when she Wayed them during their Tablelands missions.
Mine too.

Quote from: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 12:56:51 AM
Repeat: She almost never left the Tablelands.
Mine too.

What I did not experience were people forming up warbands to come track me down in the 'pah, or even people taking pot shots with arrows while I was out foraging or doing whatever. My character's right to exist was begrudgingly tolerated so long as I stayed in my area ... in much the same way a gemmer's is.

So from my perspective, the only place where I saw a disparity between your play and mine was in how the desert elves of the time were treating you (and every other tribal human for that matter).
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 01:10:28 AM
Quote from: musashi on September 14, 2015, 12:59:09 AM
So from my perspective, the only place where I saw a disparity between your play and mine was in how the desert elves of the time were treating you (and every other tribal human for that matter).
I think I have a good understanding of why things happened the way they did after talking with some other players who had contact with her. It was one of those ridiculous "this can only escalate" plots in which certain people kept prodding others to "do more do more do more" actively against my PC. All this despite my PC being something of a neutral entity. Thankfully, a majority of players were disinterested in sending out warbands to track my PC down in the Tablelands, but that was definitely ordered on more than one occasion.

It makes me kind of sad, though, because I'm pretty sure my mage would have wrecked them. A little part of me wanted them to try.  :(
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Dresan on September 14, 2015, 02:52:08 AM
Armageddon has always had a strange balance but it does have a balance.

The coded grind of mundanes is great but in exchange they can join clans, get involved in plots and achieve great things. Mages have no grind and alot of coded power but they are supposed to be isolated quiet and often boring roles. This is what the balance was supposed to be however the reality is of course different. None of the mages I've played have ever branched, and you know what, they didn't need to, their life was interesting and fun without needing extra spells. They were already cool and powerful in concept, that any coded power was secondary to the life they were experiencing.

Again tuluk and partisanship is gone, so independent life is utterly shit in terms of getting involved in plots and politics. That means I need to join a clan where I spend six weeks of my life(YES I think that is a damn long time) going through a pretty boring routine, hoping something interesting happens because my character are limited in what they can do both ICly and code-wise anyways. Just to add salt to the wounds sometimes the clan is empty and you are forced into solo RP.

It only takes one or two people to make a mage role interesting. Heck, my vivaduan had people both magickal and mundane coming to them to invite them along on their schemes. He went to fun places, talked to amazing people, got involved in fun stuff, and he never once branched. Also it seems like once you go magickal cantrip sex, you don't go back because even my mage couldn't believe how popular he was, even his other mage friends has lovers, mates and mistresses. Where as most of the females my mundane has  encountered in recent times seem to be lesbian with healthy virtual relationships.   :P

Basically I don't think adding a grind to mages will change anything. Mages are really fun to play in concept alone, and it just takes finding couple people willing to interact with you for the role to be a more enjoyable role than the average mundane independent, and in my own personal biased opinion even more enjoyable sometimes than the clanned recruit.

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 03:32:29 AM
Quote from: Dresan on September 14, 2015, 02:52:08 AM
Armageddon has always had a strange balance but it does have a balance.

The coded grind of mundanes is great but in exchange they can join clans, get involved in plots and achieve great things. Mages have no grind and alot of coded power but they are supposed to be isolated quiet and often boring roles. This is what the balance was supposed to be however the reality is of course different.

I have to disagree here. Gemmed mages are not isolated with a quiet and boring role. This is by design. Tribal mages are often isolated and boring due to the wilds not having a lot of PC density (mundane tribals are often isolated as well for the same reason unless they go camp in the cities ... which is generally frowned upon), but within the design of the world, they are also not supposed to be isolated and boring. They are quite often embraced and adored by their fellow tribe mates, and this is reflected in numerous help files and documentation.

Edit to add: In fact when I was playing my tribal mage I started out portraying them as being quite removed and isolated from their fellow tribemates and I was corrected by the tribal staff who told me that virtually speaking, if my fellow tribemates thought I was growing distant, they would be redoubling their efforts to bring me back into the fold and make me feel welcome. So ...  :-\

Quote from: Dresan on September 14, 2015, 02:52:08 AM
None of the mages I've played have ever branched, and you know what, they didn't need to, their life was interesting and fun without needing extra spells. They were already cool and powerful in concept, that any coded power was secondary to the life they were experiencing.

Then it sounds like any changes made to how magickal power is acquired wouldn't affect you at all?  ???

Quote from: Dresan on September 14, 2015, 02:52:08 AM
Again tuluk and partisanship is gone, so independent life is utterly shit in terms of getting involved in plots and politics. That means I need to join a clan where I spend six weeks of my life(YES I think that is a damn long time) going through a pretty boring routine, hoping something interesting happens because my character are limited in what they can do both ICly and code-wise anyways. Just to add salt to the wounds sometimes the clan is empty and you are forced into solo RP.

I'm still bummed that Tuluk closed as well. And I'm an off-peak player so joining clans has always been difficult for me since even heavily populated clans will often be ghost towns when I login and I end up solo RP'ing in the sparring yard anyway. It's doesn't have anything to do with mages, but I sympathize with the feelings. I've had them as well.

Quote from: Dresan on September 14, 2015, 02:52:08 AM
It only takes one or two people to make a mage role interesting. Heck, my vivaduan had people both magickal and mundane coming to them to invite them along on their schemes. He went to fun places, talked to amazing people, got involved in fun stuff, and he never once branched. Also it seems like once you go magickal cantrip sex, you don't go back because even my mage couldn't believe how popular he was, even his other mage friends has lovers, mates and mistresses. Where as most of the females my mundane has  encountered in recent times seem to be lesbian with healthy virtual relationships.   :P

That's great but, why is this an argument against making the acquisition of power for mages more challenging? It seems like this story would fit better as a response to someone saying: It's too hard to gain power as a mage and I can't do anything till I have it, so it needs to be easier.

Quote from: Dresan on September 14, 2015, 02:52:08 AM
Basically I don't think adding a grind to mages will change anything. Mages are really fun to play in concept alone, and it just takes finding couple people willing to interact with you for the role to be a more enjoyable role than the average mundane independent, and in my own personal biased opinion even more enjoyable sometimes than the clanned recruit.

I enjoy the concept of mages as well, and think that in concept alone they are tons of fun to play. So much so that I have and do play mages that go for more than an IG year before they manifest and do anything magickal. The anticipation of shit getting freaky keeps me going despite the fact that for all that time, I've got basically no skills to improve, and no coded power to be useful to anyone. But I can still make friends, focus on the day to day RP of life, and develop relationships with people that will then be sorely tested ... later ... when it turns out I can set things on fire with my brain.

But once I manifest ... my mage is going to go from fledgling apprentice to maxed out grand wizard in about 2-3 months. And to do that, all I have to do is have my character practice his magick for maybe one IG hour (10 RL minutes) per IG day that I'm logged in for. If I want to branch slower than that, I have to avoid it on purpose.

The one thing adding "a grind" to mages would change ... is how quickly mages go from apprentices to grand wizards.

I can see how this would bother you if you didn't like skill grinding and wanted to max out quickly whenever you played a role.
I'm having trouble understanding why this would be a problem for you if as you say, you're loving playing mages despite having never branched a single spell at all.

As I said before, there's nothing wrong with just disliking having to practice skills in order to improve them. Some table top games prefer to give out tons of experience while others are paced much slower ... and that all boils down to what kind of game the group at the table wants to have.

But it seems like you're saying that ... you have an awesome time when you play mages even though you never develop their abilities ... and that's the reason why making developing their abilities more of a challenge than it presently is wouldn't change anything ...

I'm honestly not able to follow the logic.  :(
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Armaddict on September 14, 2015, 05:55:54 AM
QuoteAgain tuluk and partisanship is gone, so independent life is utterly shit in terms of getting involved in plots and politics.

...you have such different experiences with independents than I do.  Being able to be useful to multiple groups at once instead of having an allegiance tied to one only means that I can float where-ever the fun is.  In no way, shape, or form was this affected by Tuluk closing, aside from there being less clans open to float between, which is an acknowledgement that has been discussed in many other threads, so I instead find this a shameless plug that is pretty much outright wrong.

In terms of the original post:

--Coin:  While I agree with the economy thing, I also kind of think this is a necessary evil for now.  Gemmed mages have a hard time making coin without it, there are not a lot of job opportunities, and there are no reasons for anyone else to want to support them in the current atmosphere.  The only irritating thing about it to me is that those moneymakers share shops with things that are entirely mundane and kind of a vital place for the mundane, as well.  Nothing as irritating as going on a risky expedition to make some coin and going to sell it and finding out there is no coin to be had because someone sold 3 unfinished blahs and 5 blahs for exorbitant amounts of money.

Perhaps a viable solution would be to a) Make such things somehow useful to mundanes so that they'd need to purchase them, or b) Make more spells require them so that they are more valuable to keep and there is an internal economy around it.

--Skilling up:  I agree that this is done super fast.  I haven't played a mage in a long time, though.  I do not know the ramifications of turning down this speed, but I do remember that it was purposely sped up at some point to combat some sort of problem, which might have been people not being appropriately afraid and instead hunting mages down (This is uncertain, just a recollection).  I haven't seen mages doing anything that would make me want this reversed in some time.  They actually seem...relatively tame right now, compared to what I'm used to.  I think mages for the past year or so have, with some exceptions, done a very good job.   And that's from someone who hates that this game has mages.  Heh.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 14, 2015, 06:16:50 AM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 13, 2015, 11:15:04 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 13, 2015, 10:25:32 PM
... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else?

For the same reason people constantly bitch about wanting something like it for raiders. Because people will be trying to kill you literally the moment you step out of character generation.

To make rogue mages, who start off virtually helpess, viable.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 14, 2015, 06:29:11 AM
I suspect that these players boasting of having popular mages that are invited to this and that are part of online cliques.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Dresan on September 14, 2015, 09:18:28 AM
@musashi

1. Even gemmed role are supposed to be more quiet and isolated roles compared to say being a ranger in the byn. Rogue mage even more so. Again think about it. If mages are so great, what is the point of anyone rolling a mundane? If you want coded power, you have mages, you wanted interaction and get into plots your role mundane, everyone is supposed to love you.

To a point this is true but my experience as soon as the mage whether they are gemmer or not, finds a small group to run with, this really doesn't matter one bit, it becomes more enjoyable then a lot of mundane roles currently offered.

2. Instead of making mages more shitty to play by adding a grind. Why not make mundanes more enjoyable to play and grind up? Thats my point. While mages can become grand wizards, the most interesting thing a player can sometimes become is sergeant in a clan. To make it even simpler, instead of changing the grind, why not give mundanes more interesting roles to achieve again like kuraci outriders or make getting political backing not such a rare think like when we had partisanship in tuluk.

3. I have no problem with mages, but I do prefer to play mundanes myself. Mages were given so much love for so many years though that I think they are fine. The suggestion of making them more annoying for some people to play as sounds silly to me. Instead I'd like to see more love being put the mundane experience especially since the closing of Tuluk (mundane central).

But sure, go ahead and add a grind to mages, as if making people spend ten days in their apartment instead of five, will add anything to the game other then people finding the quickest and sometimes twinkiest ways to become max level again like they sometimes do with mundanes.

@ Armaddict

My experience has been that while you can be of use to many different people, no clan trust you enough to trust you with any real information.  The things my independent was asked to do was more like "Hey are you bored enough to suicide for us yet?" kinda stuff. The world hates independents, but that kinda part of the charm. Its often a lonely existence, except with a grind and you don't get to become a grand anything.

I think I just miss how tuluk had more ways for independent to get involved even politically while still being a hunter.  :'(  
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Patuk on September 14, 2015, 09:23:25 AM
I'm pretty sure that independents being politically insignificant is a feature, not a bug.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Dresan on September 14, 2015, 09:26:59 AM
Quote from: Patuk on September 14, 2015, 09:23:25 AM
I'm pretty sure that independents being politically insignificant is a feature, not a bug.

No one said it was a bug, just saying it was not always true in  Tuluk. Now closed.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 14, 2015, 09:27:32 AM
Quote from: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 01:10:28 AM
Quote from: musashi on September 14, 2015, 12:59:09 AM
So from my perspective, the only place where I saw a disparity between your play and mine was in how the desert elves of the time were treating you (and every other tribal human for that matter).
I think I have a good understanding of why things happened the way they did after talking with some other players who had contact with her. It was one of those ridiculous "this can only escalate" plots in which certain people kept prodding others to "do more do more do more" actively against my PC. All this despite my PC being something of a neutral entity. Thankfully, a majority of players were disinterested in sending out warbands to track my PC down in the Tablelands, but that was definitely ordered on more than one occasion.

It makes me kind of sad, though, because I'm pretty sure my mage would have wrecked them. A little part of me wanted them to try.  :(

Maybe if you weren't so successful at trolling people things would go differently for you. ;)
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 09:30:38 AM
Quote from: Dresan on September 14, 2015, 09:18:28 AM
1. Even gemmed role are supposed to be more quiet and isolated roles compared to say being a ranger in the byn. Rogue mage even more so. Again think about it. If mages are so great, what is the point of anyone rolling a mundane? If you want coded power, you have mages, you wanted interaction and get into plots your role mundane, everyone is supposed to love you.

... the gemmed do not live in isolation. They have an entire quarter in the largest city in the Known and they are tools of the political elite. They are supposed to be second class citizens. Not shut ins or hermits.

I don't think balancing coded power against something else was particularly on staff's mind when they designed mages. As was already mentioned earlier in this thread: Armageddon is not rock, paper, scissors. For example, breeds and elves have all the same if not more restrictions on what they can't join without any of the coded power a mage possesses. There is no balance there.

Quote from: Dresan on September 14, 2015, 09:18:28 AM
But sure, go ahead and add a grind to mages, as if making people spend ten days in their apartment instead of five, will add anything to the game.

If you think that I am advocating for increasing the amount of skill fails it takes to branch a spell so that mages end up just sitting in an apartment for longer casting spells at nil reach ... then you fundamentally misunderstand my position and I ask that you go read the first post of this thread again to correct that.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 09:41:49 AM
Quote from: Armaddict on September 14, 2015, 05:55:54 AM
[--Coin:  While I agree with the economy thing, I also kind of think this is a necessary evil for now.  Gemmed mages have a hard time making coin without it, there are not a lot of job opportunities, and there are no reasons for anyone else to want to support them in the current atmosphere.

I don't think mages need to be entitled to a large amounts of material wealth from their main guild choice. Why do mages need to make immense amounts of money? Nearly every class of mage is capable of sustaining themselves without the need for money at all ... there are subguilds for the ones who can't ... and there are subguilds for the ones who want to also have some economically profitable abilities to supplement their magick.

I don't see the connection between magickal mastery, and economic mastery that you seem to.

Quote from: Armaddict on September 14, 2015, 05:55:54 AM
--Skilling up:  I agree that this is done super fast.  I haven't played a mage in a long time, though.  I do not know the ramifications of turning down this speed, but I do remember that it was purposely sped up at some point to combat some sort of problem, which might have been people not being appropriately afraid and instead hunting mages down (This is uncertain, just a recollection).  I haven't seen mages doing anything that would make me want this reversed in some time.  They actually seem...relatively tame right now, compared to what I'm used to.  I think mages for the past year or so have, with some exceptions, done a very good job.   And that's from someone who hates that this game has mages.  Heh.

I'm not sure about the specifics of this since it was all way before my time but I think the story goes something along the lines of:
Mage spells used to require many more fails to skill up.
It was adjusted to give them more survivability.

I'm not advocating for increasing the amount of times you need fail a spell as a mage to branch it though, so ... I'm not really in favor of messing with this correction made by staff in the years gone by.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Desertman on September 14, 2015, 11:36:34 AM
I would prefer if the ability to cast "nil" spells for "gains" was treated much the same way the "teach" command is.

You can only get gains from casting "nil" spells to a certain point. Perhaps the "journeyman" equivalent.

Once you reach a certain level with a spell, the only way to get better with it going forward is to go out and actually use it in the world at full effect.

This would make it so that certain people couldn't just sit and cast "nil" until they were maxed out in their offensive spells before going out in three to five weeks to start dropping bombs having never really risked anything for that power. I find people make smarter decisions/more realistic decisions about their characters when their power/status/level has required some real sacrifices to obtain. If you can just sit and cast "nil" to get your gains...who really gives a shit if you risk that PC? You can just make another "nil" God after if things go wrong.

(May already be this way. I don't know. I haven't played a magicker in many years.)
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 14, 2015, 12:14:14 PM
The risk/reward factor is still there for mages, but not with nil vs un.  It comes to mana regen.  Safe places tend to have shitty regen, less safe places tend (some being super dangerous) have insanely strong regen.  The differences are substantial. 
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: MeTekillot on September 14, 2015, 03:22:55 PM
Also Gemmed Seal Team Six can oust your "no risk" casting pretty easy.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 14, 2015, 05:10:51 PM
I still like an idea which was proposed several years ago. Namely that as elementalists develop, they become hugely more powerful, but their spells also more general as they lose specific control. So a really powerful Whiran could summon up a sandstorm covering an entire zone, but not individually target someone for motion any more. So it would be like they're in the background, having broad influence on the mundane world, but not ganking (or being ganked by) individual PCs outside city gates.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Is Friday on September 14, 2015, 05:16:37 PM
Quote from: Eyeball on September 14, 2015, 05:10:51 PM
I still like an idea which was proposed several years ago. Namely that as elementalists develop, they become hugely more powerful, but their spells also more general as they lose specific control. So a really powerful Whiran could summon up a sandstorm covering an entire zone, but not individually target someone for motion any more. So it would be like they're in the background, having broad influence on the mundane world, but not ganking (or being ganked by) individual PCs outside city gates.
I think this is a very interesting change. Unfortunately, that is not the way that magick is coded.

p.s. chaos mage ftw.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 06:49:43 PM
Quote from: Eyeball on September 14, 2015, 05:10:51 PM
I still like an idea which was proposed several years ago. Namely that as elementalists develop, they become hugely more powerful, but their spells also more general as they lose specific control. So a really powerful Whiran could summon up a sandstorm covering an entire zone, but not individually target someone for motion any more. So it would be like they're in the background, having broad influence on the mundane world, but not ganking (or being ganked by) individual PCs outside city gates.

Yeah, I'm skeptical about how difficult that would be to code but as an idea that sounds pretty awesome.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 07:03:47 PM
Quote from: Desertman on September 14, 2015, 11:36:34 AM
I would prefer if the ability to cast "nil" spells for "gains" was treated much the same way the "teach" command is.

You can only get gains from casting "nil" spells to a certain point. Perhaps the "journeyman" equivalent.

Once you reach a certain level with a spell, the only way to get better with it going forward is to go out and actually use it in the world at full effect.

Qualitatively, this is basically what I was thinking in my original post. Several times in this thread already people have mentioned that they are against the idea of making mage spell progression slower because spending 10 RL days locked in an apartment spam casting instead of 5 isn't going to make anything more fun for anyone.

I totally agree. That's not at all what I was suggesting.

If for example, a mage currently has to fail a spell let's say ... 50 times before it branches (totally made up) ...
I'm not saying let's change it so the mage has to fail the spell 100 times.

I'm saying what if the mage had to get those 50 fails casting the actual spell instead of the nil version?
If it was a healing spell, they would have to actually find someone injured to get the chance to use it on (like the folks who want to train bandage).
If it was a damage dealing combat spell they would have to actually venture out into the wilds and use it on something they were trying to kill (like the folks who want to train archery/combat).
And if it was a perception spell or a defensive spell ... then fine, they could (sometimes) still practice it locked up in an apartment or a cave out in the woods in relative safety (just like the folks who want to train barrier, crafting skills, etc).

I think it would make the process of learning magick a little more dynamic, a bit riskier, and honestly ... more fun.

But, as was already pointed out ... not being able to cancel buffs you cast on yourself and having to wait in your apartment or outside a city for hours and hours until they wear off is a huge kill joy, and until that changes ... casting that stuff at nil to practice is a playability thing.  :-\
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Jingo on September 14, 2015, 07:31:34 PM
I never really had a huge problem with magick until I started seeing magick candy dispensers in game.

Seriously. How do we reward players for engaging the role through spooky mystery instead of magic star pickups?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 14, 2015, 08:03:37 PM
I'd rather mundanes be able to train a nil version of their skill, with objects like obstacle courses and training dummies.

Combat progression should be nudged toward where mage progression is rather than mage progression be nudged toward mundane.

As it is you need to sink a real life year into your characters to be "badass" and throwing that investment away on an antagonist (other than a mage) feels like an exercise in masochism.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 09:34:07 PM
Quote from: Jingo on September 14, 2015, 07:31:34 PM
I never really had a huge problem with magick until I started seeing magick candy dispensers in game.

Seriously. How do we reward players for engaging the role through spooky mystery instead of magic star pickups?

Tough question. I mean you can fake it, and other people can fake the reaction. But I think that the way magick is coded just doesn't lend itself well to mystery. You have a spell list ... you know exactly what spells you can cast, and they all have help files to tell you what they do. Aside from some of the rare epic things that you don't normally branch, there just isn't much mystery to the magick system after you've rolled through it enough times.

You know when LoD and I met in Tokyo, we talked about this same thing, and he shared some thoughts about what he would like to see in a magick system to preserve that sense of peril and mystery. I liked the way he described it.

IIRC, he wanted a magick system that was skill based, not spell based.

So for example let's say instead of a mage having a spell list as a krathi, they had a Suk-Krath affinity skill, and then the mood and spheres and power levels were all also skills.

To cast a spell, you would need to open up a channel between yourself and suk-krath, and then shape and fold that energy like origami into the desired effect by using the mood and spheres in the correct order.

Every mage in the game would have access to the full spell list available to their guild from the beginning. You don't branch spells, they are all there to be cast ... ...

But you don't know what any of them are. And you never know if there's maybe still one more incantation you just haven't stumbled across or figured out yet, or whether or not a previous "dead end" wasn't really a dead end but at the time you just didn't have the magickal strength and skill to evoke the thing that was supposed to happen.

And mixed in with the proper sequence of folds and shaping that lead to awesome spell effects ... there are explosively dangerous dead ends ... and how well you can fold, shape, channel etc without causing accidents depends on how well you've developed your skills.

It sounded unbelievably awesome when he laid it out. But it seemed fundamentally different from magick as it currently exists in Arm.  :-\
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 09:38:05 PM
Quote from: Delirium on September 14, 2015, 08:03:37 PM
I'd rather mundanes be able to train a nil version of their skill, with objects like obstacle courses and training dummies.

Combat progression should be nudged toward where mage progression is rather than mage progression be nudged toward mundane.

As it is you need to sink a real life year into your characters to be "badass" and throwing that investment away on an antagonist (other than a mage) feels like an exercise in masochism.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind that too much either. Parity between the two is my concern.
I like the mundane grind (where you have to actually engage the world) ... ... so eh ... I lean more in the other direction, but I'd take either one.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: nauta on September 14, 2015, 09:44:28 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 14, 2015, 09:34:07 PM
Quote from: Jingo on September 14, 2015, 07:31:34 PM
I never really had a huge problem with magick until I started seeing magick candy dispensers in game.

Seriously. How do we reward players for engaging the role through spooky mystery instead of magic star pickups?

Tough question. I mean you can fake it, and other people can fake the reaction. But I think that the way magick is coded just doesn't lend itself well to mystery. You have a spell list ... you know exactly what spells you can cast, and they all have help files to tell you what they do. Aside from some of the rare epic things that you don't normally branch, there just isn't much mystery to the magick system after you've rolled through it enough times.

You know when LoD and I met in Tokyo, we talked about this same thing, and he shared some thoughts about what he would like to see in a magick system to preserve that sense of peril and mystery. I really liked the way he described it.

IIRC, he wanted a magick system that was skill based, not spell based.

So for example let's say instead of a mage having a spell list as a krathi, they had a Suk-Krath affinity skill, and then the mood and spheres and power levels were all also skills.

To cast a spell, you would need to open up a channel between yourself and suk-krath, and then shape and fold that energy like origami into the desired effect by using the mood and spheres in the correct order.

Every mage in the game would have access to the full spell list available to their guild from the beginning. You don't branch spells, they are all there to be cast ... ...

But you don't know what any of them are. And you never know if there's maybe still one more incantation you just haven't stumbled across or figured out yet.

And mixed in with the proper sequence of folds and shaping that lead to awesome spell effects ... there are dead ends ... and explosively dangerous dead ends ... and how well you can fold, shape, channel etc without causing accidents depends on how well you've developed your skills.

It sounded really, really awesome when he laid it out. But it seemed fundamentally different from magick as it currently exists in Arm.  :-\

Related: I was a little disappointed to find out that the spell words are pretty easily guessed.  Just making the spell words harder to brute force (make the possible combinations much bigger) would make things interesting.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 14, 2015, 09:53:12 PM
Quote from: nauta on September 14, 2015, 09:44:28 PM
Related: I was a little disappointed to find out that the spell words are pretty easily guessed.  Just making the spell words harder to brute force (make the possible combinations much bigger) would make things interesting.

I've never enjoyed the "guess the incantation" mini game Armageddon offers to be honest. It doesn't feel like I'm exploring magickal potential, it feels like I'm guessing someone's computer password. I know what the objective is, I know what I'm aiming to cast. And I know that if I don't get it right, nothing is going to happen. I'll utter some nonsense and try again. I just need to figure out which little combination will do that. Making me have to play this uninteresting game for longer would annoy me more than anything else.

As it stands, if I am playing a guild I have already played and thus have already figured out all the incantations for ... I largely ignore that game altogether and instead RP the elementalist as manifesting the new spell through some kind of catalyst, and afterwards knowing the incantation intuitively ... because seriously ... I'm not playing that mini game more than once.

The reason I liked the system LoD described is that in that setup, you'd have no idea what you were about to cast, or what was going to happen. Hard won experience earned through perilous trial and error would be your only candle in the dark.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: AdamBlue on September 15, 2015, 03:43:55 AM
Create a skillset specifically for magickers called 'artifacting'

Make a dozen items, each one that reacts differently based on which spell it is 'imbued' with.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Lizzie on September 15, 2015, 08:22:13 AM
Quote from: musashi on September 14, 2015, 09:53:12 PM
Quote from: nauta on September 14, 2015, 09:44:28 PM
Related: I was a little disappointed to find out that the spell words are pretty easily guessed.  Just making the spell words harder to brute force (make the possible combinations much bigger) would make things interesting.

I've never enjoyed the "guess the incantation" mini game Armageddon offers to be honest. It doesn't feel like I'm exploring magickal potential, it feels like I'm guessing someone's computer password. I know what the objective is, I know what I'm aiming to cast. And I know that if I don't get it right, nothing is going to happen. I'll utter some nonsense and try again. I just need to figure out which little combination will do that. Making me have to play this uninteresting game for longer would annoy me more than anything else.

As it stands, if I am playing a guild I have already played and thus have already figured out all the incantations for ... I largely ignore that game altogether and instead RP the elementalist as manifesting the new spell through some kind of catalyst, and afterwards knowing the incantation intuitively ... because seriously ... I'm not playing that mini game more than once.

The reason I liked the system LoD described is that in that setup, you'd have no idea what you were about to cast, or what was going to happen. Hard won experience earned through perilous trial and error would be your only candle in the dark.

With very few exceptions I rarely had trouble figuring out the proper combinations. Most of them made sense, and you just had to check the published public documentation on magick mood and sphere to figure it out. Some of them were -not- so intuitive, and for those, I did have to just go down the lists and try each combo til I hit the right one. And a very VERY few only made sense when you realized that part of it wasn't a normal aspect of your element at all. Sometimes that took a nudge from someone else to give you a hand on that. The only thing missing from the docs, I think, is a reminder to mage-players that their spell help files only show up once they learn the spell, and that those help files ARE indeed available at that point. I had no idea they were until after I'd played my third mage. I think I even idea'd it at one point because I thought it was broken :)

Another suggestion would be to include in certain of those spell help files, a nudge toward "not expected on your element's spell list" so that people know that their attempts aren't hitting something that's broken, they're just not looking in the right place.

Regarding nil reach (again): it's a necessary part of the game as it stands currently. But have heart - it still will take longer to get results using nil than it will using something other than nil. As far as I can tell this has always been the case. People who have an opportunity to -not- use nil, will climb the spell tree faster than those who use it.

As for how long it takes - well that really depends on how much mana you have to start off with, and how your character's particular stats affect mana regen. If things rely on failure to improve, one might think that having a LOW wisdom would propel you faster, because you're more inclined to fail with a low wisdom than with a high wisdom. I haven't experienced this to be the case, but logic dictates that if you have to suck at something in order to improve, then suckitude is the key, not success. The better you are, the longer it takes. That isn't true, or at least I don't think so, and it's all code stuff so I really don't give a damn which one it is.

But - I've never had any problem taking a long-ass time to branch. Especially when I'm newly genned as a mage, and then at some point after I've started branching. There's a plateau, at least for me.

Yes, this can be only a matter of RL weeks. But consider that you don't have certain skills your character needs to be useful AT ALL until you branch those particular spells. So that's several weeks of NOT doing things using your most useful magely skills, because you just plain don't have those specific skills yet and are spending a lot of time trying to get them.

Compare with a warrior, who can use his most useful warrior skills right out of chargen. He won't be very good at it right away, but at least he can use them, and work on making them better.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Desertman on September 15, 2015, 10:30:47 AM
I think a huge part of a roleplay intensive perma-death game is the fact it takes a serious amount of time to get "good".

One of the major points to having perma-death in Armageddon is that when it is combined with required roleplay it FORCES people to make realistic decisions about the actions of their characters out of a fear of loss.

When you are playing a new character you will often take much greater risks in my experience because if you lose a six or seven day PC, who really cares? It was a fun short ride and you aren't losing  a lot. You aren't acting out of a fear of consequences most of the time.

When you have a RL year on a character, something in your mind changes. You have a serious sincere fear of loss now. If you lose that PC (assuming you still enjoy them at this point) you are losing a serious amount of work, time, and devotion. You start making decisions about what that character does as if they were really alive and really existed. You start treating them like real people. In real life people don't do stupid shit because they fear the consequences of their actions. In Armageddon in my experience you stop doing so much stupid shit when you start fearing the loss associated with your PC.

It's for this reason that I would prefer if magickers represented a much greater time investment than mundane PC's in terms of how long it takes them to get "good". I want those characters to be the ones, above all others, to make decisions based on a true fear of risking their PC's. I feel that fear makes people play more realistically.

I know when I played a mage last I could get to the point I could do some very serious damage in less than 10 days played so I didn't care if I lost the PC doing that serious damage. Why would I? I can just roll up another and have them back to the same point in 10 days played or less which is really nothing at all. They are throwaway characters with huge power able to make throwaway decisions for the lulz. 

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: nauta on September 15, 2015, 10:53:14 AM
Quote from: Lizzie on September 15, 2015, 08:22:13 AM
Another suggestion would be to include in certain of those spell help files, a nudge toward "not expected on your element's spell list" so that people know that their attempts aren't hitting something that's broken, they're just not looking in the right place.

Actually, my thought was that we could make learning a new spell require some form of actual interaction / struggle, which would take RL time and IG effort to achieve.  For instance, you might have to seek out a higher-level mage, or even Oash or Templarate resources, to find out the words to a spell.  (I think the 'components' subgame works pretty well - there are enough of these, they are rare enough, and so on that you really -do- have to ask or spend a lot of RL time experimenting on your own.)

It'd be neat if the "paths" that new spells follow from would just randomly change every few years.



Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 15, 2015, 01:15:10 PM
Quote from: nauta on September 15, 2015, 10:53:14 AM
Actually, my thought was that we could make learning a new spell require some form of actual interaction / struggle, which would take RL time and IG effort to achieve.  For instance, you might have to seek out a higher-level mage, or even Oash or Templarate resources, to find out the words to a spell.

In other words, knowledge would be hoarded and most mages would never have access to those spells. Just like it was with certain other magickal knowledge, which has now disappeared entirely from the PC population.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Fujikoma on September 15, 2015, 01:21:34 PM
As neat as finding a mentor is, there's not enough players in the game to really support it as a necessary thing, not to mention they eventually either die or get stored. It's fun when it happens, but nothing that should be counted on. The idea of actually being able to FIND a senior mage of your element, or having to go to Oash, is significantly slanted to the gemmer population, which, is already kind of easy mode magicker, from what others are saying.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 15, 2015, 01:35:16 PM
Quote from: Fujikoma on September 15, 2015, 01:21:34 PM
As neat as finding a mentor is, there's not enough players in the game to really support it as a necessary thing, not to mention they eventually either die or get stored. It's fun when it happens, but nothing that should be counted on. The idea of actually being able to FIND a senior mage of your element, or having to go to Oash, is significantly slanted to the gemmer population, which, is already kind of easy mode magicker, from what others are saying.

I don't see why staff couldn't  animate NPC masters of an element for this purpose if no PC is available, except I doubt that is something they want to support.  I personally feel that elementals should play a role in the advancement of elementalists...but again, requires staff support.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Fujikoma on September 15, 2015, 01:43:58 PM
Quote from: wizturbo on September 15, 2015, 01:35:16 PM
Quote from: Fujikoma on September 15, 2015, 01:21:34 PM
As neat as finding a mentor is, there's not enough players in the game to really support it as a necessary thing, not to mention they eventually either die or get stored. It's fun when it happens, but nothing that should be counted on. The idea of actually being able to FIND a senior mage of your element, or having to go to Oash, is significantly slanted to the gemmer population, which, is already kind of easy mode magicker, from what others are saying.

I don't see why staff couldn't  animate NPC masters of an element for this purpose if no PC is available, except I doubt that is something they want to support.  I personally feel that elementals should play a role in the advancement of elementalists...but again, requires staff support.

... theoretically, staff could animate, yes. In practice, it is quite different. There have been times, in my personal experience, where wishing up for an animation to explain something encountered in the game world, or to sort out a particular situation, has had favorable results. Other times, there simply isn't the time and/or resources, I'm assuming, to have the mysterious old man explain exactly what this flag is supposed to mean. This would lead to some people, the less patient among us, wishing up repeatedly, which would likely be quite frustrating when they're trying to sort something else out. I don't view making animations necessary for some points in character development as a positive change, as it detracts from other areas where storytellers could be focusing on plots that you don't know are going down right now.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Harmless on September 15, 2015, 02:16:24 PM
if the requirement to cast at 'un' to improve were applied selectively to certain spells that it would be reasonable to expect a player to practice with them at un, then it's okay with me. But there are a few spells where you aren't going to see many opportunities at all to practice them that way, and funnily enough the heal spell is an example of that. When you enforce this requirement it might work for gemmed vivaduans but much less so for ungemmed ones. In the end I think it'd just be a pain in the ass.

If you want mages to interact more with others, forcing them to practice more in the open is one way, but thinking of interesting plot devices that would encourage them to come out and interact is probably more fun for everyone than removing a coded feature.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 15, 2015, 03:51:44 PM
Quote from: Fujikoma on September 15, 2015, 01:43:58 PM


...the less patient among us, wishing up repeatedly, which would likely be quite frustrating when they're trying to sort something else out.

The notion of allowing any characters to wish up and expect anything is silly.  I meant scheduled stuff via the request tool, or out of the blue animations where they might catch a PC off-guard with the interaction.  I think the later is much, much more likely than the former, as these are inherently chaotic beings in the case of elementals.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Marauder Moe on September 15, 2015, 07:19:46 PM
Moe's thumbs up/down on various points skimmed from this thread:

I'd be OK with removing the 'nil' reach if combat evocations could target objects  In theory you should be able to shoot most of these spells at the sky, and the need for a N/PC target is a code limitation.  Otherwise, though, training/branching evocations is both excessively dangerous and destructive.  Sparring with evocations also seems terribly stupid without precautions that may not be readily available.

I'm against making the spell words more randomized.  Brute-forcing of spell words is already pretty silly, what would making that process longer really add to the game?

Likewise, forcing spells to be taught would be frustrating enough for gemmed mages, with the usually low gemmed population... how then could rogues or nilazis EVER reliably find a mentor?

I REALLY like the idea of making the spell tree more random, though.  Better still if some spells were "rare" and you weren't guaranteed to branch them at all.  Give mages some uniqueness.



Though some of my mages have done a lot of study/theorizing of spell words and their meanings, I think I would remove them entirely if I were re-doing elementalism code.  Elementalism is documented and usually roleplayed as an inherent, intuitive power.  Heck, lots of people play as though their power is barely contained and might spill out if they're not careful (though this is not supported by code AT ALL). 

I'd just make it "cast '<spellname>' <strength>", where strength could be a number (1-7) or a descriptor (weak, average, strong, max).

If we want to mix things up, maybe each strength has a random chance of being bumped up or down 1-2 levels in power (in addition to the possibility of outright failure).
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 15, 2015, 08:39:02 PM
Yeah, people tend to play elementalists as D&D Sorcerers ... and Sorcerers as D&D Wizards. I think it fits well with the setting and I've always played them like that.

Practicing combat spells on other mages in a training environment the way that warriors can spar with weapons seems possible to me in some cases, depending on the kind of elementalists involved. I could envision it happening in some of the temples of the gemmed quarter.

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Feco on September 15, 2015, 11:17:00 PM
Quote from: Desertman on September 15, 2015, 10:30:47 AM
I know when I played a mage last I could get to the point I could do some very serious damage in less than 10 days played so I didn't care if I lost the PC doing that serious damage. Why would I? I can just roll up another and have them back to the same point in 10 days played or less which is really nothing at all. They are throwaway characters with huge power able to make throwaway decisions for the lulz.  



I've always felt we've had twisted views of a "long time" in Arm.  10 days played is 240 hours.  That's a long fucking time.  
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 15, 2015, 11:18:54 PM
^ that. Once you have adult lives and jobs and college (that you actually care about getting good grades in) the timesink of Arm becomes a Real Problem.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Dresan on September 16, 2015, 12:27:40 AM
Quote from: Feco on September 15, 2015, 11:17:00 PM
Quote from: Desertman on September 15, 2015, 10:30:47 AM
I know when I played a mage last I could get to the point I could do some very serious damage in less than 10 days played so I didn't care if I lost the PC doing that serious damage. Why would I? I can just roll up another and have them back to the same point in 10 days played or less which is really nothing at all. They are throwaway characters with huge power able to make throwaway decisions for the lulz.  



I've always felt we've had twisted views of a "long time" in Arm.  10 days played is 240 hours.  That's a long fucking time.  

A can't agree with this sentiment more. When you die, all the associations of your character are gone. Their friends, lovers, enemies. That hurts. However since alot of skills in arm are basically crap before the advanced/master mark, really does take a long time for your to build up the character to a point where they are decent at doing interesting stuff.

As I said, I love mundanes but I rather not see mages go down the path of mundanes cool or having to begin to find ways to twink their skills. I think they are fine.  Instead I want to continue to see the mundane experience be improved from what they can accomplish, to what they can experience. Not to say there haven't been steps taken towards this goal, for example, allowing players to create their own clans. Also,for the record I think combat is fine in this regard, you can see the difference between a 1 day old character, a 5 day old character, a 10 day old character. Its the other skills I wouldn't mind seeing improving a bit faster or perhaps just see wisdom buffed a bit more. With work and other responsibilities, its takes months to begin doing cool things with my character and then it dies to something silly. :(
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 16, 2015, 03:47:44 AM
Quote from: DresanAlso,for the record I think combat is fine in this regard, you can see the difference between a 1 day old character, a 5 day old character, a 10 day old character. Its the other skills I wouldn't mind seeing improving a bit faster or perhaps just see wisdom buffed a bit more. With work and other responsibilities, its takes months to begin doing cool things with my character and then it dies to something silly. :(

???

Really? I'm very surprised by this. In my experience "the other skills" (read: not weapon skills) improve as quickly as spells do.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Fujikoma on September 16, 2015, 03:54:40 AM
I had a mage once. Once his mentor pointed out to him the proper way to train spells, he started branching like crazy. Up until then, though, I was sitting there wondering "Why's my skill at max, but I'm not getting anywhere, surely I must be able to do more than my starting spells?", but, it goes QUITE quickly compared to my experience playing mundanes.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Lizzie on September 16, 2015, 10:58:43 AM
Quote from: Fujikoma on September 16, 2015, 03:54:40 AM
I had a mage once. Once his mentor pointed out to him the proper way to train spells, he started branching like crazy. Up until then, though, I was sitting there wondering "Why's my skill at max, but I'm not getting anywhere, surely I must be able to do more than my starting spells?", but, it goes QUITE quickly compared to my experience playing mundanes.

This here is what concerns me with the whole thread. The "proper way" to train spells - implies that there's only one correct way. To me, that further implies that you're talking about the coded min-maxing that some people focus on, because they identify their characters first as a set of coded skills, and only secondarily as living breathing characters in a fantasy world.

I think this is why there are some people who have complaints about this or that being too easy/hard. Because there exist some people who will use their knowledge of the code to train new players in the "way of the code" which solves any possible mystery of exploration.

For me, I'd rather have people guide me toward the general direction of things - and let me explore those mysteries myself - than have someone "teach me the proper way." With few exceptions - like when I outright ask for syntax, I don't want an IC lesson. I want the syntax.

Once you have been "taught the proper way," you can't unlearn it. So for people who are looking for the exploration, it's basically ruining the game for them. Mystery solved, game over - therefore this game sucks because it's too easy.

Maybe that's why I don't have any problem with the speed at which my mage characters improve: because I never understood the code, and never really cared overmuch about it. And - when people say "Oh no, PC, you will learn a new spell a lot quicker if you cast your first spell at yuqa, twice an hour, and only between the hours of high sun and dusk" - that just ruins it, when they're "teaching me the code." Now - if they're spouting IG mythology/rumor/superstition, that's great. But when it's obvious that it's a player who is trying to teach me the code, that's when I feel like they're wrecking the whole thing for me (especially when it's obvious they're practically reciting something they read somewhere else and it's very likely that what they read isn't even accurate).

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Fujikoma on September 16, 2015, 11:23:38 AM
I think it's important to note that my mage's mentor sat him down and had many detailed explanations, not only of the individual words, but of why the strategies for growth made sense from an IC perspective (and he reccomended some actvities that I knew OOC were codedly counter-productive to advancement, but I sook them out anyway because it kept the story interesting), and wasn't just, if u do this u branch and then u get the monies. In fact, if it had never been explained to me, there's a great chance I NEVER would have branched a single spell. And if you think I play my characters like a list of skills, this is wrong. I play my characters as realistically as I am able and spend more time interacting than anything else.

Do I wander off and engage in semi-twinkish behavior from time to time? Yes, because, someday, I want my character to, you know, actually be able to DO something, without setting themself on fire somehow trying to carve a crappy bone knife, so when the situation requires it, my character will actually be useful for something besides comic relief. I don't think it's strange and I don't think it's out of line.

Sure, if you think the "proper" way to train up spells is to go stare at a chair and contemplate its construction and stability, then that's great. You can solo RP the crap out of that chair. It just won't be the "proper" way for anyone looking to be able to use their spells effectively, but how you play your character is up to you. Personally, when I say "proper", I mean, effective, as in, I'm not clutzing about due to some code mystery and now the path to advancing is open to me, should I choose to take it, and yes, there IS ONE proper way there. If I don't want to take that path, I can choose not to. Meanwhile, all "sekritz" as far as such obscure code quirks regarding advancement do is artificially increase the gap between veterans who know it, those who don't, and newbies.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Desertman on September 16, 2015, 11:41:15 AM
Quote from: Feco on September 15, 2015, 11:17:00 PM
Quote from: Desertman on September 15, 2015, 10:30:47 AM
I know when I played a mage last I could get to the point I could do some very serious damage in less than 10 days played so I didn't care if I lost the PC doing that serious damage. Why would I? I can just roll up another and have them back to the same point in 10 days played or less which is really nothing at all. They are throwaway characters with huge power able to make throwaway decisions for the lulz.  



I've always felt we've had twisted views of a "long time" in Arm.  10 days played is 240 hours.  That's a long fucking time.  

*shrug*

I don't know what to say about that. I don't even really feel like I've started playing the game until I've hit the five day mark usually.

Ten days is just getting started.

I don't feel like my character is alive and rolling usually until the 20+ day mark.

Maybe that's just me.

If I can jack up any spell to mon in less than five days played (and you can, easily), even the starter spells, I don't even see the point in not just starting them at mon.

Just start them all at mon if you can master them in less than five days played casting nil. What's the point? It's not like you are working for it anyways.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Desertman on September 16, 2015, 11:46:28 AM
Quote from: Delirium on September 15, 2015, 11:18:54 PM
^ that. Once you have adult lives and jobs and college (that you actually care about getting good grades in) the timesink of Arm becomes a Real Problem.

For some people I guess.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Fujikoma on September 16, 2015, 11:58:56 AM
Dman, if you're maxxing your mages in 5 days played, then you need a sidequest. Doesn't matter what, just something.

EDIT: One of the funnier things my breed Rukkian's mentor told him was that exploring intense and pleasurable feelings was key to mastering the elements, and to go spend LOTS of time with his mundane human girlfriend... which, he did, religiously. I knew he wasn't going to skill up, but he didn't know that.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Dresan on September 16, 2015, 12:33:04 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 16, 2015, 03:47:44 AM
Quote from: DresanAlso,for the record I think combat is fine in this regard, you can see the difference between a 1 day old character, a 5 day old character, a 10 day old character. Its the other skills I wouldn't mind seeing improving a bit faster or perhaps just see wisdom buffed a bit more. With work and other responsibilities, its takes months to begin doing cool things with my character and then it dies to something silly. :(

???

Really? I'm very surprised by this. In my experience "the other skills" (read: not weapon skills) improve as quickly as spells do.

Right. I was saying it within the context of what I quoted though. As in 5 to 10 days isn't that 'quick' at all. Its actually a lot of fucking time to those of use with responsibility in our lives. That said, by the five to ten day mark, already excluding combat skills, some of my mundanes are beginning to reach the point where they can branch (of course some skills training quicker then others).  Again I'm someone who hasn't branched any of their mages anyways but I've heard some of them are maxed out by then. But I dunno.  

It could just be I don't train my characters as efficiently as others. :)
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Feco on September 16, 2015, 01:59:04 PM
I want to be careful and say that I don't think people who can put in a lot of time don't have responsibilities or something like that -- that wasn't my point.  I just don't think 240 hours is trivial *at all*, and I think our tendency to think in "days played" in way very particular to this community has really made it seem like mages are easier to play than they really are.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 16, 2015, 02:03:01 PM
Yeah, I'll rephrase: responsibilities that don't allow you to spend 4+ hours playing Armageddon every day.

Sometimes you work in IT or as a hotel clerk and it's Armageddon City, baby, and that's totally okay. And I'm a little jealous.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Desertman on September 16, 2015, 02:05:00 PM
Quote from: Feco on September 16, 2015, 01:59:04 PM
I want to be careful and say that I don't think people who can put in a lot of time don't have responsibilities or something like that -- that wasn't my point.  I just don't think 240 hours is trivial *at all*, and I think our tendency to think in "days played" in way very particular to this community has really made it seem like mages are easier to play than they really are.

Oh no, in terms of games 240 hours is a serious amount of time.

Then again, I think most of us can agree that Armageddon is easily the least forgiving most demanding and immersive game with the highest risk vs reward emotional investment that any of us has ever played.

240 hours is a lot for any game....but Armageddon is a game where someone dropping 1,200 hours on a single character isn't unheard of. I've done so more than once. I've dropped 2,400 hours on a PC and still felt like I had things to do....like I hadn't "won" or "made it" yet.

When you think about Armageddon in the context of a "game" you have to compare it to other games I think. On that front I don't think anyone would compare 240 hours in Armageddon to 240 hours playing Call of Duty as anywhere near the same sort of investment in terms of accomplishment.

You can win Call of Duty several times in 240 hours. You can get started on some characters in Armageddon in 240 hours.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Desertman on September 16, 2015, 02:06:39 PM
Quote from: Delirium on September 16, 2015, 02:03:01 PM
Yeah, I'll rephrase: responsibilities that don't allow you to spend 4+ hours playing Armageddon every day.

Sometimes you work in IT or as a hotel clerk and it's Armageddon City, baby, and that's totally okay. And I'm a little jealous.

Yeah I wasn't trying to shrug off your comment. My "For some people." was geared towards the mindset of, "Some people have a lot of time to truly get into Arm and some people are more casual players by circumstance.". With that being said, I don't think Armageddon is the sort of game where we want our karma classes and their advancement centered more around the casual players than the non-casual players.

I think we should find a happy medium...I can't say I'm smart enough to know what that would be. I'm obviously pretty hardcore in the corner of, "It should be hard.".
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Feco on September 16, 2015, 02:45:18 PM
I already think it's the right amount of hard, in terms of progression.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Desertman on September 16, 2015, 02:46:28 PM
Quote from: Feco on September 16, 2015, 02:45:18 PM
I already think it's the right amount of hard, in terms of progression.

Fair enough.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Harmless on September 16, 2015, 04:39:12 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 16, 2015, 03:47:44 AM
Quote from: DresanAlso,for the record I think combat is fine in this regard, you can see the difference between a 1 day old character, a 5 day old character, a 10 day old character. Its the other skills I wouldn't mind seeing improving a bit faster or perhaps just see wisdom buffed a bit more. With work and other responsibilities, its takes months to begin doing cool things with my character and then it dies to something silly. :(

???

Really? I'm very surprised by this. In my experience "the other skills" (read: not weapon skills) improve as quickly as spells do.

if you're going to remove nil based on the grounds that a.) it doesn't promote player interaction and b.) has no risk in exchange for the gain of more spells, then by the same logic, we must:

- remove the ability for stealth skills (hide/sneak/sleight of hand) to improve unless another PC is present for the skill failure
- remove the ability for burglars to practice lockpicking inside the safety of their apartment, and only from the other side of the door
- remove the ability to practice bandaging on yourself
- change scan so that you can't become a master scanner by repeatedly (failing to detect) the same hidden person/creature over and over, instead force players to detect hidden players or try to, or to increase the variety of what they detect (no more master scan from the same mob in the same city)
- change archery and throw so that it only trains up to a certain level on stationary targets, and cause that code to trigger aggro mobs to approach you and cowardly mobs to flee as soon as the first miss


etc etc. In other words, there's no reason in my mind to apply the logic of a) and b) above unfairly to magickers without also slapping similar nerfs to training and playability to all the other mundanes. And in the end, we all know the grind sucks, and we all know that magickers aren't even that difficult to deal with. So as I said in my first post 4 pages ago, I say we leave everything as it is, and focus on adding new things to make the mundane life more enjoyable.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Desertman on September 16, 2015, 04:53:02 PM
The idea that some things are easier for mundanes so they should be just as easy for high-karma required skillsets is fundamentally flawed as a whole in my opinion.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Harmless on September 16, 2015, 06:56:59 PM
karma has nothing to do with 'easy to play,' it is about trust staff has in a player to roleplay a role consistently and realistically to the gameworld. I don't see the connection you're arguing for.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Inks on September 16, 2015, 07:59:00 PM
I agree with Dman.

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 16, 2015, 11:21:27 PM
Quote from: Harmless on September 16, 2015, 04:39:12 PM
if you're going to remove nil based on the grounds that a.) it doesn't promote player interaction and b.) has no risk in exchange for the gain of more spells, then by the same logic, we must:

- remove the ability for stealth skills (hide/sneak/sleight of hand) to improve unless another PC is present for the skill failure
- remove the ability for burglars to practice lockpicking inside the safety of their apartment, and only from the other side of the door
- remove the ability to practice bandaging on yourself
- change scan so that you can't become a master scanner by repeatedly (failing to detect) the same hidden person/creature over and over, instead force players to detect hidden players or try to, or to increase the variety of what they detect (no more master scan from the same mob in the same city)
- change archery and throw so that it only trains up to a certain level on stationary targets, and cause that code to trigger aggro mobs to approach you and cowardly mobs to flee as soon as the first miss


etc etc. In other words, there's no reason in my mind to apply the logic of a) and b) above unfairly to magickers without also slapping similar nerfs to training and playability to all the other mundanes. And in the end, we all know the grind sucks, and we all know that magickers aren't even that difficult to deal with. So as I said in my first post 4 pages ago, I say we leave everything as it is, and focus on adding new things to make the mundane life more enjoyable.

I think you're being a little over dramatic to be honest. And those are not the grounds upon which I was suggesting to remove it.

My issue with the nil reach is not that it allows you to train "some" skills in the safety of your apartment, it's that it allows you to train your entire guild's skill set from the safety of your apartment.

If the nil reach was done away with there would still be plenty of spells that you could train while locked away in solitude. And that's fine, other guilds have skills you can easily train in solitude as well.

But ... just like the mundane guilds, mages would then have "some" skills that require them to get out and do things in the world to advance.

And that's the point.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: MeTekillot on September 17, 2015, 12:37:19 AM
Mages do have a skill that requires them to go out into the world. That one skill they can get mad dosh with due to the odd tendency of shopkeeps to appraise things magickal at a higher price.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 17, 2015, 03:37:38 AM
From my very first post:

Quote from: musashi on September 09, 2015, 11:59:48 PM
Mages are the only guilds that can sit in the comfort of whatever safe space they've found be it an isolated forest clearing, an elemental temple, or an apartment and practice their entire skill set sans component crafting without need of risk or effort. They don't have to acquire any materials, they don't have to face life threatening dangers, they just have to solo RP with themselves, and cast "practice" spells until things branch.

I know dude ... I know.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 17, 2015, 09:13:44 AM
You act like mundanes can't do the same thing? At least with merchants, you pretty well can.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 17, 2015, 10:24:20 AM
Again ... from my first post.

Quote from: musashi on September 09, 2015, 11:59:48 PM
As a merchant I have to find the materials I need to practice crafting, if I don't have them, I can't train my skills. It doesn't have to be risky, but it does require effort to grind my skills.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: whitt on September 17, 2015, 10:40:10 AM
Quote from: Lizzie on September 16, 2015, 10:58:43 AM
To me, that further implies that you're talking about the coded min-maxing that some people focus on, because they identify their characters first as a set of coded skills, and only secondarily as living breathing characters in a fantasy world.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 17, 2015, 11:26:26 AM
Eh. The implication that mages, all else being equal, don't skill up significantly faster than a mundane ... and that the perceived imbalance must thus be that the vast majority of people who play mages are just really good at min-maxing (but somehow not able to pull the same trick off when they play a mundane in the same amount of time), looks ludicrous on its face to me.

You don't have to twink a mage to level them quickly. People who play mages have karma, and are trusted/monitored by staff to minimize that in the first place.

When I played a whiran before, I remember having a member of staff sit me down to ask me why I had used the "cast" command several hundred times on my character, but the "emote" command significantly less so. The matter was resolved once I asked them to check the "semote" command as well since my character spent a lot of time being invisible ... the point is they are watching for people who spam cast. That isn't the driving factor behind why mages skill up so quickly.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 02:47:34 PM
Mages level quickly because they prioritize wisdom more often than other classes, and their skills require less environmental conditions in order to train.  You don't need a sparring partner, a thing to climb, a thing to skin, someone to be watching you, etc.

The only real difference is that some mage skills can be used in combat, whereas mundane combat focused skills advance more slowly than other skills, and they tend to reach a plateau where it becomes much more difficult to advance them.  Given that using magick in-game comes with enormous disadvantages, and mundane skills can be used freely, I think that's a fair trade off for a karma role.

As for people thinking its unfair that a magick using class can kill a 50+ day mundane combat badass...you really need to rethink what setting you're playing in here.  Magick is the dominant force of the world.  It might be relatively low fantasy, in that you don't see people flying around on flying carpets, but that's because it's a world of haves and have-nots and 99% of the population is have-not.  Those with magick are higher up the food chain than those without...even if socially they might not be.  That's why they're hunted, that's why they're feared, because they can kill your badass soldiers by speaking a few arcane words.  Magick is quicker route to violent power than conventional means.  If it took an elementalist as much time and effort to become as dangerous as a 50 day warrior, than they wouldn't be scary, they'd just be a different flavor of the warrior. 

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 17, 2015, 02:50:11 PM
Quote from: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 02:47:34 PM
Mages level quickly because they prioritize wisdom more often than other classes, and their skills require less environmental conditions in order to train.  You don't need a sparring partner, a thing to climb, a thing to skin, someone to be watching you, etc.

The only real difference is that some mage skills can be used in combat, whereas mundane combat focused skills advance more slowly than other skills, and they tend to reach a plateau where it becomes much more difficult to advance them.  Given that using magick in-game comes with enormous disadvantages, and mundane skills can be used freely, I think that's a fair trade off for a karma role.

As for people thinking its unfair that a magick using class can kill a 50+ day mundane combat badass...you really need to rethink what setting you're playing in here.  Magick is the dominant force of the world.  It might be relatively low fantasy, in that you don't see people flying around on flying carpets, but that's because it's a world of haves and have-nots and 99% of the population is have-not.  Those with magick are higher up the food chain than those without...even if socially they might not be.  That's why they're hunted, that's why they're feared, because they can kill your badass soldiers by speaking a few arcane words.  Magick is quicker route to violent power than conventional means.  If it took an elementalist as much time and effort to become as dangerous as a 50 day warrior, than they wouldn't be scary, they'd just be a different flavor of the warrior.  



Everything this guy said.

Also, I don't get the attitude that you can't be extremely dangerous and skilled without having come by it in legitimate and well-roleplayed means.

Or that somehow being a skilled character and being a well-roleplayed character are mutually exclusive. They aren't.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 04:50:44 PM
Quote from: Delirium on September 17, 2015, 02:50:11 PM

Also, I don't get the attitude that you can't be extremely dangerous and skilled without having come by it in legitimate and well-roleplayed means.  Or that somehow being a skilled character and being a well-roleplayed character are mutually exclusive. They aren't.

There is no "legitimacy" in an elementalist's power.  There are no roleplaying hoops that any magicker needs to jump through in order to now be justified in their destructive power.  They were born dangerous.  That's all it takes.  The very same day a fire elementalist manifests their power they can incinerate a well trained uber warrior according to the lore of the setting.   That's why they're feared and hated, they have this enormous power and they did absolutely nothing in order to get it.  They won the lottery, and the world hates or pseudo-enslaves them for it.  

Going out and emoting how you're practicing the fine art of incinerating things with the power of Suk-Krath is just properly bringing the world alive for anyone who might be watching, and establishing your character's philosophy when it comes to wielding magick.  What a character chooses to do with that power is where the roleplay comes in, not the acquisition of said power, the acquisition happened when your character's app was approved.  

That's why magickers require karma, they're born more dangerous than mundanes, and that kind of power needs to be held in check OOCly.  Sponsored roles are the same way.  
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: BadSkeelz on September 17, 2015, 05:04:02 PM
Carte blanche to be scene-stealing overpowered jackoffs.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Delirium on September 17, 2015, 05:07:14 PM
I'll use a Krathi as an example.

There is definitely a world of difference between a 0 day and a 20 day Krathi.

My point is more that flinging accusations that the power a 20-day Krathi has accrued was somehow acquired by duplicitous means is just... silly.

Or that the one time a Krathi actually gets to do what he's made for instead of be shunted off to that dark corner of the gameworld, they dare to glory in it a bit.

Mages are powerful. Deal with it. That's one reason why, as wizturbo pointed out, they are high karma.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 05:29:04 PM
Quote from: BadSkeelz on September 17, 2015, 05:04:02 PM
Carte blanche to be scene-stealing overpowered jackoffs.

(http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/3e/3efaa8f85c0289ca41f4f8a5a3cbf760c0d9f405206924132a52c39eab1606f6.jpg)
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: BadSkeelz on September 17, 2015, 05:31:48 PM
I always sympathized with the Koopas most.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 17, 2015, 06:29:47 PM
Quote from: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 02:47:34 PM
Mages level quickly because they prioritize wisdom more often than other classes, and their skills require less environmental conditions in order to train.  You don't need a sparring partner, a thing to climb, a thing to skin, someone to be watching you, etc.

Exactly.

Quote from: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 02:47:34 PM
The only real difference is that some mage skills can be used in combat, whereas mundane combat focused skills advance more slowly than other skills, and they tend to reach a plateau where it becomes much more difficult to advance them.  Given that using magick in-game comes with enormous disadvantages, and mundane skills can be used freely, I think that's a fair trade off for a karma role.

Wrong. The real difference is hat you already mentioned. Their skills require less ... actually ... there skills require no environmental conditions in order to train. Fail for fail, spells skill up about the same as any other skill sans the weapon groups. But the fact that you can train them anytime anywhere without the need for any conditions to do so is an enormous difference.

Quote from: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 02:47:34 PM
As for people thinking its unfair that a magick using class can kill a 50+ day mundane combat badass...you really need to rethink what setting you're playing in here.  Magick is the dominant force of the world.  It might be relatively low fantasy, in that you don't see people flying around on flying carpets, but that's because it's a world of haves and have-nots and 99% of the population is have-not.  Those with magick are higher up the food chain than those without...even if socially they might not be.  That's why they're hunted, that's why they're feared, because they can kill your badass soldiers by speaking a few arcane words.  Magick is quicker route to violent power than conventional means.  If it took an elementalist as much time and effort to become as dangerous as a 50 day warrior, than they wouldn't be scary, they'd just be a different flavor of the warrior. 

While some people may advocate for a balancing of coded power between mages and mundanes, that's not at all the point I was making in the OP.

I want it to take the same amount of time and effort for a mage to max out as for a mundane to max out.
I do not want the two classes to have equivalent levels of power once maxed out. I'm comfortable with mages being immensely more powerful, the point of contention is just about how much time and effort ought go into getting there.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: flurry on September 17, 2015, 06:42:51 PM
As usual I've waited far too long to reply, but I'll throw in a few thoughts anyway.

As for the 'nil' reach issue, while it's nice to imagine a well-designed spell system without it, I think it's pretty clear that we couldn't just remove the 'nil' reach and have something that works well. I don't have an extensive knowledge of every spell, but one comes to mind pretty easily that would be totally impractical, as well as highly disruptive, to train that way. When you consider all the conditions necessary to cast at 'un' and you look at this spell by spell, I think it doesn't take long to see some real problems.

The bottom line for me is that I don't think magicker progression needs to be slowed down, nor do I think we need to seek any kind of balance between mundanes and magickers. Magickers are overpowered, yes, but that's what they're meant to be. That doesn't excuse poorly played magickers, of course, but I don't think that's fixed by weakening the classes.

As for the component thing, I think it's only of many issues with the economy. I've never had a rich magicker. I'm not sure I see the point of that and to me it's a weird archetype, but to each their own. There are shops and items that seem to be open faucets pouring obsidian into the player economy. I don't like that either, but I think the problem goes well beyond component crafting.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 06:58:36 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 17, 2015, 06:29:47 PM

I want it to take the same amount of time and effort for a mage to max out as for a mundane to max out.


Well, I guess that's just personal opinion.

My personal opinion is elementalists should start out with more spells, but take a bit longer to branch other spells as a result of that.  If they start with 4 spells, and eventually gain 20 around the 20 days played mark under "normal" circumstances...I'd rather they start with 10 and get to 20 around the 30 day's played mark.  The main reason for this is some elementalists are basically gimped and useless until they branch X, and that's never fun to play.  It involves basically sitting in a cave or temple, and training until you can actually play for real.  Some elements are much better than others in this regards though.  Adjusting the starting spells and granting some of the more iconic ones up front could help with that though.

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 17, 2015, 07:17:30 PM
Quote from: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 06:58:36 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 17, 2015, 06:29:47 PM

I want it to take the same amount of time and effort for a mage to max out as for a mundane to max out.


Well, I guess that's just personal opinion.

My personal opinion is elementalists should start out with more spells, but take a bit longer to branch other spells as a result of that.  If they start with 4 spells, and eventually gain 20 around the 20 days played mark under "normal" circumstances...I'd rather they start with 10 and get to 20 around the 30 day's played mark.  The main reason for this is some elementalists are basically gimped and useless until they branch X, and that's never fun to play.  It involves basically sitting in a cave or temple, and training until you can actually play for real.  Some elements are much better than others in this regards though.  Adjusting the starting spells and granting some of the more iconic ones up front could help with that though.



It does basically come down to personal opinion. I'm just finding that by page ... what is this 6? ... mine is being straw manned a bit. Probably unintentionally as a result of people jumping in without having gone back to read the prior stuff, which is to be expected in a thread that goes on for awhile. So I keep re clarifying.

I'm not adverse to your idea there.

I've also thought about all the elementalists going the route of the sorcerers, wherein their over all spell trees are trimmed down, but their elementalism becomes a subguild and they're given a full mundane guild to work with, and the higher spells are kept as cookies to be given out to the long lived accomplished magi.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Fujikoma on September 17, 2015, 07:47:33 PM
... I honestly think giving a subguild based on a main guild to magickers would be AMAZING and significantly lower the possibility of guild-sniffing. As it is, I can always smell a magicker, I usually don't say though because it sucks the fun out of the story.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Fujikoma on September 17, 2015, 07:49:58 PM
Also, drop quarter sorcs down to 5-6 karma and bring back full sorcs, at, 11 CGP... special app only. Players only, no avatars.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 07:53:00 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 17, 2015, 07:17:30 PM

I've also thought about all the elementalists going the route of the sorcerers, wherein their over all spell trees are trimmed down, but their elementalism becomes a subguild and they're given a full mundane guild to work with, and the higher spells are kept as cookies to be given out to the long lived accomplished magi.

I like this a lot, but realistically, they'd probably be more powerful than sorcerers unless they severely gimped the spells you get, which would require their karma levels to be adjusted to put them out of reach of most players.  Most of the elementalist guilds have really nice packages of spells, add a mundane guild on top of them, and I'm nearly certain they'd be better than sorcs, at based on what spells I assume sit within each Path of sorcery.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 17, 2015, 08:00:39 PM
I have no idea how powerful sorcerers are after the change but I doubt staff have let them become less powerful than elementalists.

But yes at any rate it would take some re-balancing for sure.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: RogueGunslinger on September 17, 2015, 08:12:16 PM
Rebalance by giving mundanes throat-punch and neck-snap.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 17, 2015, 08:13:31 PM
Quote from: RogueGunslinger on September 17, 2015, 08:12:16 PM
Rebalance by giving mundanes throat-punch and neck-snap.

Careful what you wish for ...

You attempt the snap the tall, muscular man's neck but snap your own instead!
Your vision goes black.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 08:36:21 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 17, 2015, 08:00:39 PM
I have no idea how powerful sorcerers are after the change but I doubt staff have let them become less powerful than elementalists.

But yes at any rate it would take some re-balancing for sure.

If I were to guess where certain spells fall in the sorcerer's paths of power, I actually believe elementalists probably have more coded power than the current quarter-sorcerers.  Clearly, they're not as versatile, because they dont have a mundane guild to work with, but I think about half of the elementalists guilds have more raw potential for devastating power....especially given the fact that being discovered to be an elementalist (excluding Nilazi) isn't nearly as bad as being discovered to be a Sorc.

Functional groupings of spells have inherently less utility than elemental groupings.  Elemental grouping tends to come with a mix of offense, defense, and utility.  Functional groupings have built in redundancy, because all of the spells are grouped around the same purpose....and sorcerers are obviously more complex.

Of course, we're sort of talking about who would win in a fight between various superheroes... so it's kind of moot discussion, especially considering the fact that karma level for a guild doesn't directly correlate to coded strength, just the complexity of the role.

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 17, 2015, 09:14:03 PM
Quote from: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 08:36:21 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 17, 2015, 08:00:39 PM
I have no idea how powerful sorcerers are after the change but I doubt staff have let them become less powerful than elementalists.

But yes at any rate it would take some re-balancing for sure.

If I were to guess where certain spells fall in the sorcerer's paths of power, I actually believe elementalists probably have more coded power than the current quarter-sorcerers.  Clearly, they're not as versatile, because they dont have a mundane guild to work with, but I think about half of the elementalists guilds have more raw potential for devastating power....especially given the fact that being discovered to be an elementalist (excluding Nilazi) isn't nearly as bad as being discovered to be a Sorc.

Functional groupings of spells have inherently less utility than elemental groupings.  Elemental grouping tends to come with a mix of offense, defense, and utility.  Functional groupings have built in redundancy, because all of the spells are grouped around the same purpose....and sorcerers are obviously more complex.

Of course, we're sort of talking about who would win in a fight between various superheroes... so it's kind of moot discussion, especially considering the fact that karma level for a guild doesn't directly correlate to coded strength, just the complexity of the role.



Since I think neither of us has actually played a sorcerer under the new rules, let alone all four, we're probably both just speculating out of thin air but ... the staff did say they beef'ed up the sorcerer paths to make them more formidable. I imagine those paths of magick now have much larger spell trees in them than before.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: ibusoe on September 17, 2015, 10:38:07 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 09, 2015, 11:59:48 PM
Just some thoughts I've had recently about mages that I felt like sharing.

For context, in the 7 years I've been playing Armageddon, I've played about 7 memorable, long lived characters. 4 have been mages. I like playing mages. I think they're awesome. I left Harshlands MUD and came to Armageddon specifically because Armageddon had playable mages.

Having said that, there are two issues where I feel like the people spreading mage-hate have a valid point.




The Nil Reach

I've used the nil reach for training purposes on every mage I've had, and compared to skilling up a mundane ... I think the mage-haters are right: it's too easy.

As a warrior I have to find people to spar with, they need to be equal/better than I am, or I need to go risk my life fighting things in the wild that will kill me if something goes wrong, etc.
As a merchant I have to find the materials I need to practice crafting, if I don't have them, I can't train my skills. It doesn't have to be risky, but it does require effort to grind my skills.
As a ranger, I have to do all the stuff I just said for those first two because arrows don't make themselves and things you haven't killed don't let you practice skinning on them.
The city stealth guilds all have to face the perils of the crime code to skill their abilities up, that has unique perils all its own.

Mages are the only guilds that can sit in the comfort of whatever safe space they've found be it an isolated forest clearing, an elemental temple, or an apartment and practice their entire skill set sans component crafting without need of risk or effort. They don't have to acquire any materials, they don't have to face life threatening dangers, they just have to solo RP with themselves, and cast "practice" spells until things branch.

And given how powerful magick is, the ease and safety of acquiring it seems all the more grief worthy.

Imagine if other guilds could do this. If a merchant could "craft practice armor into practice" without needing any materials, or if warriors could just type "train bash", "train slashing weapons" over and over to grind their skills up ... it would be idiotic and cringe worthy in any other context but for reasons I honestly can't justify, people are ok with it if it's a mage.

Maybe we're just used to it. Maybe I'm missing something. But man ... I would not mind at all if the nil reach was removed and mages had to actually use their magick in order to master it.




The Economics Of Component Crafting

The very first mage I ever played was a spec-app vivaduan who was part of someone else's family role call way back in 2008. It was brand new territory for me, and I was worried that as a "not ranger" I was gonna starve to death. So in a PM I voiced some of those viability concerns to my soon to be family member's player, and the reply I got back was:

QuoteDon't worry. You'll branch a thing that'll get you all the money you need.

That player was not lying. The amount of profit one can make from the component crafting skill is in my opinion ... unjustifiable. I won't get into any IG details but I'm positive everyone who has ever played a mage long enough to branch component crafting knows exactly what I'm talking about. And if you happen to be playing a mage of the variety who can travel quickly between settlements (and thus NPC vendors), it's ... wow.

This makes no sense to me. I can see how these things would have economic value to other mages, so in a limited sense (like a merchant in the elementalist quarter of Allanak for example) I could envision an NPC shopkeeper who knows about magickal components, and is willing to pay more for something that's already attuned vs the same thing but mundane.

But why/how would a mundane shop keeper in a magick hating society do that? Before Tuluk closed you could even sell components there! Why are their spell component vendors in (I believe) every city and settlement of the game world offering top dollar for magickal trinkets?

I remember back in the day Nyr fixing some of the most egregious of these. IIRC he knocked the price of a particular component's sell value down from about 1,000 coins to whatever the much much much lower value of the raw material happened to be. But I can still find plenty of examples of inexplicably valuable components.




I think these two things together; the ease of skilling up and the ease of acquiring money; are two points on which I sympathize with people who complain about mages being "over powered". Despite the fact that I adore playing mages.

Anyway, that's my brain dump for the day.

Musashi,

Thank you for the interesting read.

I think your analysis is a bit off.  Making the magic grind steeper would simply remove the ability of the weaker players (like myself) to play medium powered mages, in essence to play elementalists  as a viable power class.  Perhaps more importantly the primary effect of what you're recommending would be to take the more prominent elementalists and simply require them to grind more.  Would they, in your opinion, be better *earning* their powers by grinding more?  What specifically would additional grind requirements add to the game?  

What I'm saying is that if the magic grind seems easy to you, then you have a very phenomenally gifted ability to twink.  I admire this.  I enjoy twinking myself, I simply have only a fraction of your ability to do so.  

What is your end goal?  

For me, I see the role of elementalists in the game, besides providing atmosphere and providing a target for newer players to aspire to (karma wise), they provide a target for zero-karma characters to attempt to PK.  In my opinion, a zero-karma character should never need to apologize for PKing a karma based character.  By contrast, under staff moderation a karma-based character will have much more limited ability to retaliate.  

Where elementalists may serve as a target for zero-karma players, what you might wonder, do the elementalists get out of this?

A challenge.  

As an elementalist, you're trying to survive in a world where your conventional combat skills are underpowered relative to the desert and the no-law zones, where you will be unable to find favorable employment, where you will be unfortunately viewed as a rival by both Templar and criminal alike, where your spells will require potentially illegal magic components, where other mage guilds might be gunning for you and where there is an entire massive city state who's primary motive is "Let us Band Together to Kill the Witches."  

Indeed, wasn't the entire goal of the Zombie Survival guide to teach people to survive in a world where everyone was trying to eat you?  For a mage, Zalanthas would be worse.

And if this is too easy for you?  Take it easy, Killer.  You're doing something wrong.  It's not the game that's broken.  The problem is you - you're too much of a hardcore survivalist for Armageddon.  Congratulations.

There are any number of ways you can make this more difficult for yourself.  Play an ungemmed.  Play a character who cannot speak Sirihish.  Play a character with an unreasonable spice addiction.  & etc.  You will find that you are limited only by your imagination.  

To be honest, where I think a player of your caliber would truly shine would be to play a mage who would spend considerable time harassing zero-karma characters, and then see how close you can come to letting them kill you before effecting your escape.  You should be playing the Joker or Lex Luther.  Make the Byn and the Templarate earn those paychecks.  

The idea of restricting the income potential of mages by closing a couple of loopholes is likewise ill-advised.  You'll simply shift the twinking model slightly.  This will comically have the effect of increasing not decreasing twinking.  Money is not meant to be the primary motive for mages, conventionally meant to be a bit morbid and preternatural.  Their motives are different from mundanes.  Food, clothing, shelter, power and a paycheck are not what keep them up at night.  Want to play a broke mage?  Please do so.  Staff monitor for abuse.

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 17, 2015, 11:36:33 PM
Quote from: ibusoe on September 17, 2015, 10:38:07 PM
I think your analysis is a bit off.  Making the magic grind steeper would simply remove the ability of the weaker players (like myself) to play medium powered mages, in essence to play elementalists  as a viable power class.  Perhaps more importantly the primary effect of what you're recommending would be to take the more prominent elementalists and simply require them to grind more.  Would they, in your opinion, be better *earning* their powers by grinding more?  What specifically would additional grind requirements add to the game?  

What I'm saying is that if the magic grind seems easy to you, then you have a very phenomenally gifted ability to twink.  I admire this.  I enjoy twinking myself, I simply have only a fraction of your ability to do so.

About this "you must be super twinking if your mage is advancing quickly" line of thought.

If you go look at past magick threads on the GDB you will see people lamenting that when they try to slow down their mage's rate of growth deliberately as a gemmed mage, templars and fellow gemmed get upset with them for not having all their spells yet. This is because the general mindset is that mages branch quickly.

To fully branch a spell tree inside of a couple of RL months ... take 10 minutes out of every time you log in to practice casting your spells at nil.

That's all you need to do. There is no secret method of twinkery, it's just easy. And that involves less time spent training that a typical clan with a training schedule so it more than meets the criteria for realistic play.

Granted lots of people feel like: Well ... ... come on man ... I like that it's super easy ...

That's cool. That's a totally legit opinion to have. But I think we all know better than to posit that the quick pace of development for mages is due to twinkery.

Quote from: ibusoe on September 17, 2015, 10:38:07 PM
What is your end goal?

To have the act of mastering your magick be its own reward with challenges and opportunity for interaction along the way, like mundanes have it, instead of just something you do alone in an empty room for a couple months until you're maxed and ready to go interact with the game world.  

Quote from: ibusoe on September 17, 2015, 10:38:07 PM
There are any number of ways you can make this more difficult for yourself.  Play an ungemmed.
I just wanted to reply to these for fun ... I have, for the record, never played a gemmed.

Quote from: ibusoe on September 17, 2015, 10:38:07 PM
Play a character who cannot speak Sirihish.
Did it. He never stepped into a city either.

Quote from: ibusoe on September 17, 2015, 10:38:07 PM
Play a character with an unreasonable spice addiction.  & etc.  You will find that you are limited only by your imagination.
Did it ... I also had a mage who refused to eat and kept himself so starved he only had about 20 or 30 max HP at any given time for about an IG year.

But I think that's all beside the point, because as I said above, quick mage development is not limited to me. Powering up quickly is a vanilla common experience among people who play mages.

Quote from: ibusoe on September 17, 2015, 10:38:07 PM
The idea of restricting the income potential of mages by closing a couple of loopholes is likewise ill-advised.  You'll simply shift the twinking model slightly.  This will comically have the effect of increasing not decreasing twinking.  Money is not meant to be the primary motive for mages, conventionally meant to be a bit morbid and preternatural.  Their motives are different from mundanes.  Food, clothing, shelter, power and a paycheck are not what keep them up at night.  Want to play a broke mage?  Please do so.  Staff monitor for abuse.

I don't posit that people who are selling spell components at the moment are twinking. I think they're just using what they have available to make money. If it were corrected, I don't posit that they would start twinking either. I don't think the majority of mage players are twinks. I imagine that people would gradually select more crafting subguilds if making money was key to their concept ... and if it wasn't they would make poorer characters and live in the gemmed quarter where they already have discount housing available to them -- or live off the land or out of Red Storm the way the ungemmed already do.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 12:48:32 AM
It's kind of a dick move if you spend all your time totally alone and grinding to mastery. And I've never seen someone who did this that played a mage like a person, with complex, layered personalities. And probably 4 of roughly 7 years playing this game has been spent playing mages who spent time primarily around other mages. I've also had the ability to know exactly what is internal and hidden in more than 200 mages played by others. I have some level of insight on this. It's not meant to be a judgement because different people have different playstyles, and play what they like, how they like to play it. I guess what I'm saying is: Yes, you can grind your mage up very quickly if you sit alone all the time and do nothing but cast. If you spend time being a person and sometimes go 2-3 IC days of login time at a time without ever casting because you are doing other shit, there is no way in hell you will branch fully within the time frame you are talking about. Even with AI wisdom. Again, I've seen the play, I know personally. While you can advocate for shifting a mage closer to what a mundane is as progression goes, you probably don't realize that it WAS that way, and mages were so weak and pked so much and so often right at the start, that they were ruled as nearly unplayable and the number was reflected in guild choices, and agreed on by Halaster, who's the one who's responsible for the changes made. They start with their very first magicks at 2-3x the levels a mundane does, but after that, you start out at roughly the same place as a mundane, and it's on you how quickly or slowly you go as a result. And frankly, the templar expectation is in place because people often enough play to it that it's reinforced itself into an expectation. It's also possibly worthy of a complaint, considering the fact that this "widely known knowledge" is very metagame. A templar is not an elementalist, and while they may come to know their abilities, only pcs are guaranteed to be able to access all those spells. Many npcs with magick reflect the part in the documentation about only knowing a little, so expecting pcs to learn them is not only not an accurate representation of the game world it is also very meta. Magick is supposed to be mysterious, and there are aspects of it that the code can't or doesn't reflect. The elements are capricious, and when you get into high magick animations, that's often reflected.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 18, 2015, 12:59:33 AM
Quote from: musashi on September 17, 2015, 06:29:47 PM
Wrong. The real difference is hat you already mentioned. Their skills require less ... actually ... there skills require no environmental conditions in order to train. Fail for fail, spells skill up about the same as any other skill sans the weapon groups. But the fact that you can train them anytime anywhere without the need for any conditions to do so is an enormous difference.

So what about half-giants? Where is all the bitching about those? They don't even need to train at all, just subdue, then murder.

How about templars? Why don't we hear crying about how all they need is the 'order' command from day one?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: CodeMaster on September 18, 2015, 01:17:00 AM
I don't think musashi suggests that mages necessarily be "harder" to grind up.  Maybe he would be happy if they were twice as easy to grind up, but required actually 'using' the skills (on a living, evasive target, or whatever) to get the required experience with them.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Jingo on September 18, 2015, 01:25:03 AM
I'm in favor of the make mundanes easier to grind up. Seriously guys. Get a job.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 01:52:17 AM
Quote from: Jingo on September 18, 2015, 01:25:03 AM
I'm in favor of the make mundanes easier to grind up. Seriously guys. Get a job.

I'm in favor of this as well. People favor easier progression, and it's better for casual players. Not to mention, it would cut down on turnover of squishy new characters, allowing longer and more intricate stories to unfold.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 18, 2015, 03:26:50 AM
Quote from: CodeMaster on September 18, 2015, 01:17:00 AM
I don't think musashi suggests that mages necessarily be "harder" to grind up.  Maybe he would be happy if they were twice as easy to grind up, but required actually 'using' the skills (on a living, evasive target, or whatever) to get the required experience with them.

Thank you. Yes, my point is not about how much time is takes to grind a mage up. It's about what you're doing while you're doing it.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Lizzie on September 18, 2015, 07:26:58 AM
Quote from: musashi on September 18, 2015, 03:26:50 AM
Quote from: CodeMaster on September 18, 2015, 01:17:00 AM
I don't think musashi suggests that mages necessarily be "harder" to grind up.  Maybe he would be happy if they were twice as easy to grind up, but required actually 'using' the skills (on a living, evasive target, or whatever) to get the required experience with them.

Thank you. Yes, my point is not about how much time is takes to grind a mage up. It's about what you're doing while you're doing it.

If you want to live to tell about it, you're not doing much.

Once you're already up, it's easy to go hunting. But until a certain point - you will be only as good a killer of things and defender of yourself, as a warrior fresh out of chargen trying to ride a mount with a weapon and shield in each hand. In other words - he ain't budging til he puts both weapon and shield down, thus leaving him SUPER vulnerable. Imagine a warrior who could do horrific damage to a mekillot in a single shot - but he can't wield his weapon and attack at the same time.

A mage who doesn't have powerful attack skills from the get-go, at a high enough power level to do actual damage, is like that warrior. And then - when you're still new - how many times can you cast any given spell before you run out of mana? Remember -  this is on a new character, not one who's had a chance to max up the 6 starting spells.

A new character fresh out of chargen *cannot* survive by casting only at the "active" version of his spells, by casting them on critters, unless he is someone whose player knows the code and is prepared to "cast-spam-flee-runrunrun rest stand east cast spam-flee run run run rest stand east cast spem-flee" over and over ad nauseum. Sort of like how some assassins practice backstab. From what I've heard, that's not held in the highest regard by either staff nor players. So no, I wouldn't want to encourage that by restricting anything that mages do now.

I'd rather see more oversight and general guidance from the staff - a staffer who has, perhaps, a temple senior NPC for mages in the gemmed quarter, and a tribal somethingorother shaman for non-city mages. Who would "randomly" show up and express an opinion on the methodology, in an IC way.

"You're trying too hard, padawan. Slow down, breathe. There is no try. There is only do. If you don't do, take a day off. Do the next day instead."
"Stuck again on that one I see? Here's 20 sids. Get an ale at the bar. Relax for the day. Tomorrow night go back to the temple and focus more energy into the shadows.  Channel more than you have been, but not too much more."
"Aha, I see you've been working on propelling a magic missile! Great choice, one of my favorites. Took a year to figure it out. Here's a tip: the missile is fueled by fire, not water. You're a vivaduan. Your power comes from water - but the missile's power does not. You need both, for this weave."

I agree with the templars - and others - trying to push their players' OOC knowledge of the spell lists in game being jarring. Very jarring. I recall playing a krathi, and someone of a completely different element decided that I needed help skilling up, so they started telling me how, in game. They changed a few words around  - "weave" instead of "spell" and "horn" instead of "power" but otherwise it was nearly word for word from the help file. I don't remember if I put in a player complaint on that but every single time that person tried to "teach" my character how to be a krathi, I cringed, and mostly just avoided RPing with him entirely. Pro-tip: a vivaduan who hasn't even branched all his 2nd-level spells yet, shouldn't be knowledgeable enough about magick to be teaching spell combinations to a krathi who has maxed out everything except 2 spells.

And - if I'm going slow, and not expressing frustration due to ignorance of the element, then maybe I'm going slow because my *character* is slow-going. Maybe I, the player, am NOT trying to rush.  Maybe I'm trying to RP things in a more believable way, and intentionally avoiding the grind.  Personally, I'd rather have a random chance of branching even if I haven't achieved "branchable status" yet. It'd take a whole lot away from the grind frustration.

In addition - I've noticed a whole lot of people who - the second they branch - just automatically know that they've branched, and know why, and know what the new spell is, how it works, how to cast it, what components are needed for it, the conditions needed to cast it, whether or not it's crim-safe, etc. etc. How does your character know all this? I mean okay - some characters grew up in the temple, or their mother was a krathi just like they are and taught them everything they know and they studied for years before they ever manifested. But it's like - there's no guesswork at all. You want to slow down the grind, those of you who know everything and can branch in an hour? Then roleplay needing some guesswork. Roleplay NOT knowing that yuqa follows wek. Just because you, the player, see it on your spell list when you type "skills" doesn't mean your character knows it. How much of your skills your character knows about, is up to you.

You want to slow it down, then slow it down. Don't impose a forced slow-down on the rest of us who DON'T know all of this, just because you know so much and can branch faster than the rest of us.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Fujikoma on September 18, 2015, 08:27:19 AM
I didn't even read your whole post, Lizzie, it sounds like you were RPing a newb, and got the newb treatment. If you don't like it, stop RPing a newb, or maybe try a breed or sharp, nobody likes those. If you want ignorance, it's easily obtained, in fact, I'd wager it's quite firmly in your grasp right now.

... that said, after reading your entire post, I agree. Don't raise the bar unexpectedly on newbie magickers.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 18, 2015, 10:31:03 AM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 12:48:32 AM
If you spend time being a person and sometimes go 2-3 IC days of login time at a time without ever casting because you are doing other shit, there is no way in hell you will branch fully within the time frame you are talking about. Even with AI wisdom. Again, I've seen the play, I know personally.

Yes ... if you routinely go for multiple IC days of login time without ever training a single skill you will not branch quickly. I personally know this as well.

Most of us however, be us mage or mundane, use our skills every IG day that we happen to be playing. Most clans you join have this built into the schedule they expect you to follow. You are describing something outside the bell curve of typical play.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Dresan on September 18, 2015, 11:10:45 AM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 01:52:17 AM
Quote from: Jingo on September 18, 2015, 01:25:03 AM
I'm in favor of the make mundanes easier to grind up. Seriously guys. Get a job.

I'm in favor of this as well. People favor easier progression, and it's better for casual players. Not to mention, it would cut down on turnover of squishy new characters, allowing longer and more intricate stories to unfold.

Not to mention motivate people to take more risks and suffer more consequences, making the overall game more interesting. Instead of people feeling the need to playing cautious because they don't want to risk losing their characters, and time investments.  
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: ibusoe on September 18, 2015, 01:02:43 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 17, 2015, 11:36:33 PM
About this "you must be super twinking if your mage is advancing quickly" line of thought.

If you go look at past magick threads on the GDB you will see people lamenting that when they try to slow down their mage's rate of growth deliberately as a gemmed mage, templars and fellow gemmed get upset with them for not having all their spells yet. This is because the general mindset is that mages branch quickly.

To fully branch a spell tree inside of a couple of RL months ... take 10 minutes out of every time you log in to practice casting your spells at nil.

That's all you need to do. There is no secret method of twinkery, it's just easy. And that involves less time spent training that a typical clan with a training schedule so it more than meets the criteria for realistic play.

Granted lots of people feel like: Well ... ... come on man ... I like that it's super easy ...

That's cool. That's a totally legit opinion to have. But I think we all know better than to posit that the quick pace of development for mages is due to twinkery.

To have the act of mastering your magick be its own reward with challenges and opportunity for interaction along the way, like mundanes have it, instead of just something you do alone in an empty room for a couple months until you're maxed and ready to go interact with the game world.  

Did it. He never stepped into a city either.

Play a character with an unreasonable spice addiction.  & etc.  You will find that you are limited only by your imagination.
Did it ... I also had a mage who refused to eat and kept himself so starved he only had about 20 or 30 max HP at any given time for about an IG year.

But I think that's all beside the point, because as I said above, quick mage development is not limited to me. Powering up quickly is a vanilla common experience among people who play mages.

I don't posit that people who are selling spell components at the moment are twinking. I think they're just using what they have available to make money. If it were corrected, I don't posit that they would start twinking either. I don't think the majority of mage players are twinks. I imagine that people would gradually select more crafting subguilds if making money was key to their concept ... and if it wasn't they would make poorer characters and live in the gemmed quarter where they already have discount housing available to them -- or live off the land or out of Red Storm the way the ungemmed already do.
[/quote]

You make some very compelling counterpoints. 

I think there are several problems here none of which you will be very happy to hear.

For starters, you're far too cool for us.  Were you really able to achieve all of those things in game?  If so, you have a level of awesomeness that most of the rest of us will only fail to keep up with.  If you want to be fully engaged, other than in the roleplay sense of things, you're going to need to find a bigger pond with bigger fish.  We just can't keep up with you, and it's nobodies fault. 

You mentioned that you want to play a mage that faces actual challenges?  That's not really what Armageddon does.  Armageddon is not a puzzle game, is not a quest game, is not in the conventional sense an adventure game.  It's a combat simulator stapled to a PvP simulator stapled to a competitive commerce simulator stapled to a statecraft simulator.  It sounds like what you want to is closer to playing the Legend of Zelda, only you want to play a mage instead of an elf and you want to bring along two or three other people.  Which is a very cool thing to want, except that Armageddon can't currently support that.

Sometimes I feel that the game is on the verge of evolving into what you want it to be, and there are exciting possibilities now that we're approaching a critical mass of experienced players and that the staff intellectual capitol is improving. 

Neither of the things I've brought up though, are the heart of the issue, because what you're presenting as supporting points are really a series of gripes, and your series of gripes don't support what you're politely representing as a thesis.  I don't think you have a thesis.  I think you have angst, or maybe malaise. 

You're bored, dude.  Bored with mages.  You want to like mages, because there's something about them that expresses you.  They suit your aesthetic.  But you need a break.  If you need to play a mage, and you need to play that mage in Armageddon, and you want to be *challenged* in the way that you're suggesting, maybe play a mage who's a leadership character?  Then organize some HRPT.  Then people will engage you, preferably in the way that you're asking them to. 
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 18, 2015, 01:17:54 PM
 ??? ??? ??? ??? ???

It's almost always ill advised to tell people what they think.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Narf on September 18, 2015, 01:40:08 PM
Quote from: ibusoe on September 18, 2015, 01:02:43 PM


Neither of the things I've brought up though, are the heart of the issue, because what you're presenting as supporting points are really a series of gripes, and your series of gripes don't support what you're politely representing as a thesis.  I don't think you have a thesis.  I think you have angst, or maybe malaise.  

You're bored, dude.  Bored with mages.  You want to like mages, because there's something about them that expresses you.  They suit your aesthetic.  But you need a break.  If you need to play a mage, and you need to play that mage in Armageddon, and you want to be *challenged* in the way that you're suggesting, maybe play a mage who's a leadership character?  Then organize some HRPT.  Then people will engage you, preferably in the way that you're asking them to.  

What he's saying is actually really straightforward and has almost nothing to do with any of this. At all.

He's saying three things:

1) Mages have the ability to practice spells without world interaction by canceling the effect of their own spell as they cast it.
2) Removing the ability to cancel the effects of a spell as it is cast would force some mages to interact at an earlier point in their play.
3) Mages interacting with the world at an earlier point in their play would make the game more fun.

Seems to me there's pretty good consensus that point 1 and 2 are accurate for those they pertain to.

Most people that disagree are just arguing against point 3.

I don't know what you're arguing about, but it seems to be deeply entrenched in some sort of personal supposition about Musashi's character and psychology. In being so focused on such things I really think you're missing the point.

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: ibusoe on September 18, 2015, 01:49:46 PM
Quote from: Narf on September 18, 2015, 01:40:08 PM
Quote from: ibusoe on September 18, 2015, 01:02:43 PM


Neither of the things I've brought up though, are the heart of the issue, because what you're presenting as supporting points are really a series of gripes, and your series of gripes don't support what you're politely representing as a thesis.  I don't think you have a thesis.  I think you have angst, or maybe malaise.  

You're bored, dude.  Bored with mages.  You want to like mages, because there's something about them that expresses you.  They suit your aesthetic.  But you need a break.  If you need to play a mage, and you need to play that mage in Armageddon, and you want to be *challenged* in the way that you're suggesting, maybe play a mage who's a leadership character?  Then organize some HRPT.  Then people will engage you, preferably in the way that you're asking them to.  

What he's saying is actually really straightforward and has almost nothing to do with any of this. At all.

He's saying three things:

1) Mages have the ability to practice spells without world interaction by canceling the effect of their own spell as they cast it.
2) Removing the ability to cancel the effects of a spell as it is cast would force some mages to interact at an earlier point in their play.
3) Mages interacting with the world at an earlier point in their play would make the game more fun.

Seems to me there's pretty good consensus that point 1 and 2 are accurate for those they pertain to.

Most people that disagree are just arguing against point 3.

I don't know what you're arguing about, but it seems to be deeply entrenched in some sort of personal supposition about Musashi's character and psychology. In being so focused on such things I really think you're missing the point.



I missed the point?  Hah, probably.  I was not aware that we were arguing.  It's actually pretty rare that I argue with people, I am more of an agreeable sort of person.  My intention was to give advice for getting more out of the game (in terms of having FUN!!) but I'll concede that Musashi knows *much* more about mages than I do.

Given that I admit that I'm unqualified to pontificate about mages, I was attempting to be more of a *role play coach*, LOL.  I still think the solution to Musashi's problem is spiritual, rather than policy based.

Regardless, it was not my intent to offend.  Please rest assured that I was not arguing, Musashi is one of my favorite posters.  Every time he posts it is a good read even when, no *especially* when I disagree with him. 
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 03:43:42 PM
Quote from: ibusoe on September 17, 2015, 10:38:07 PM

And if this is too easy for you?  Take it easy, Killer.  You're doing something wrong.  It's not the game that's broken.  The problem is you - you're too much of a hardcore survivalist for Armageddon.  Congratulations.


This is the essence of what's going on here. Musashi, you've played magickers who've not only been more powerful and quicker to "level up" than other mages, and you've also experienced magickal plotlines that are so high magick most of the playerbase hasn't had a similar experience. I can tell you this as someone who knows it and for a fact. I've watched you play and seen the notes on the subject. Just like dozens of other players I've done the same with who do not have a similar experience. Given the starting abilities of a mage the change you're advocating for would require them to not only regularly get into combat situations but also survive them right out of the box with their starting skills without any improvement. Even though none of the magick guilds bear that out as sustainably a way survive at the levels you start them at. None of them. You do not, even with the most damaging of the starting spells, have the ability to seriously harm even small npcs outside of the city - the one place you'd be able to practice it. You also lack the offense/defense and weapons skills to survive the encounter when you top out at being able to cast it twice on average at the levels it starts at. And that's to say nothing of the multiple magick guilds that start with 0 ability that allows them to damage anything or escape it. Just because you think it would make it more fun for you does not mean it would do anything but make it basically unplayable for 80% or more of players. Because that would be the effect.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 03:46:32 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 18, 2015, 10:31:03 AM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 12:48:32 AM
If you spend time being a person and sometimes go 2-3 IC days of login time at a time without ever casting because you are doing other shit, there is no way in hell you will branch fully within the time frame you are talking about. Even with AI wisdom. Again, I've seen the play, I know personally.

Yes ... if you routinely go for multiple IC days of login time without ever training a single skill you will not branch quickly. I personally know this as well.

Most of us however, be us mage or mundane, use our skills every IG day that we happen to be playing. Most clans you join have this built into the schedule they expect you to follow. You are describing something outside the bell curve of typical play.

That's not actually the case with all mage pcs, but with a plurality at best, and usually the numbers drop off after they branch 2-3 things they consider necessary to survive. It's correct with the majority of mundanes, but not the majority of those playing mages, at least not as of 4-5 years ago, though I can't admittedly speak for the current time. Most people would tend to suggest that mages now twink and grief "less" than they did though, so I'm assuming it's the same, if not even more true.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 18, 2015, 04:48:48 PM
Quote from: Narf on September 18, 2015, 01:40:08 PM
What he's saying is actually really straightforward and has almost nothing to do with any of this. At all.

He's saying three things:

1) Mages have the ability to practice spells without world interaction by canceling the effect of their own spell as they cast it.
2) Removing the ability to cancel the effects of a spell as it is cast would force some mages to interact at an earlier point in their play.

Seems to me there's pretty good consensus that point 1 and 2 are accurate for those they pertain to.

I don't see a consensus. If you force gemmed to use 'un' all of the time, they're going to be stuck in their temples waiting for spell effects to wear off, all of the time. If you point out the way that can be abated, then either (1) the gemmed won't have enough coins (efforts have been made to shut down their former regular source), or (2) they will have enough coins (in which case eliminating 'nil' doesn't matter).

For rogue mages, it simply makes them more vulnerable to have to wear visible spells for RL hours on end.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 18, 2015, 10:21:10 PM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 03:43:42 PM
This is the essence of what's going on here. Musashi, you've played magickers who've not only been more powerful and quicker to "level up" than other mages, and you've also experienced magickal plotlines that are so high magick most of the playerbase hasn't had a similar experience. I can tell you this as someone who knows it and for a fact. I've watched you play and seen the notes on the subject. Just like dozens of other players I've done the same with who do not have a similar experience.

This seems to quite heavily imply that you are/were on staff, in which case I find the assertions you're making puzzling. For example:

Quote from: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 03:43:42 PM
Given the starting abilities of a mage the change you're advocating for would require them to not only regularly get into combat situations but also survive them right out of the box with their starting skills without any improvement. Even though none of the magick guilds bear that out as sustainably a way survive at the levels you start them at. None of them. You do not, even with the most damaging of the starting spells, have the ability to seriously harm even small npcs outside of the city - the one place you'd be able to practice it.  You also lack the offense/defense and weapons skills to survive the encounter when you top out at being able to cast it twice on average at the levels it starts at. And that's to say nothing of the multiple magick guilds that start with 0 ability that allows them to damage anything or escape it.

You wrote this, but this is an account note left on one of the first mages I played:

Quote from: Account NotesRoleplays his ass off while out hunting. Great thinks and emotes where <REDACTED> spell is concerned.

I was 0 days played, in the wild, unfamiliar with the magick system, on a guild that lacks an ability to damage anything or escape it with their starting spells, and I was successfully hunting, and at least one member of staff did take notice and thought to leave a remark about it. That PC was stored, not killed by an aggro mob.

I've likewise played mages who do not manifest their magick until after an IG year of play. I trained their O/D up while waiting. Could they solo carru? No. Could they hunt small game and flee large game? Yes.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 18, 2015, 10:35:34 PM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 03:46:32 PM
Quote from: musashi on September 18, 2015, 10:31:03 AM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 12:48:32 AM
If you spend time being a person and sometimes go 2-3 IC days of login time at a time without ever casting because you are doing other shit, there is no way in hell you will branch fully within the time frame you are talking about. Even with AI wisdom. Again, I've seen the play, I know personally.

Yes ... if you routinely go for multiple IC days of login time without ever training a single skill you will not branch quickly. I personally know this as well.

Most of us however, be us mage or mundane, use our skills every IG day that we happen to be playing. Most clans you join have this built into the schedule they expect you to follow. You are describing something outside the bell curve of typical play.

That's not actually the case with all mage pcs, but with a plurality at best, and usually the numbers drop off after they branch 2-3 things they consider necessary to survive. It's correct with the majority of mundanes, but not the majority of those playing mages, at least not as of 4-5 years ago, though I can't admittedly speak for the current time. Most people would tend to suggest that mages now twink and grief "less" than they did though, so I'm assuming it's the same, if not even more true.

Granting this would still mean that:

Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 18, 2015, 10:38:11 PM
Quote from: Eyeball on September 18, 2015, 04:48:48 PM
I don't see a consensus. If you force gemmed to use 'un' all of the time, they're going to be stuck in their temples waiting for spell effects to wear off, all of the time. If you point out the way that can be abated, then either (1) the gemmed won't have enough coins (efforts have been made to shut down their former regular source), or (2) they will have enough coins (in which case eliminating 'nil' doesn't matter).

For rogue mages, it simply makes them more vulnerable to have to wear visible spells for RL hours on end.

For what it's worth, I did concede this point on the very first page of the thread.

Quote from: musashi on September 10, 2015, 10:56:21 AM
Quote from: Lizzie on September 10, 2015, 08:08:29 AM
Nil is a way players can try to cast certain spells that, when cast upon themselves, will show visible results that might last a good long while - without making that happen. Imagine having to wait outside the city for over a RL hour, just waiting for the spell to drop, all because they took the nil reach away.

I put this one first because I thought it was the most compelling. That does suck. I've always wished there was an option for mages to cancel their own spells at will instead of having to wait out the timer.

I wouldn't want the nil reach to go away unless a way to cancel one's own defensive buffs was jointly implemented.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 10:56:58 PM
I HAVE been on staff, but am not currently, and yes, there are SUBGUILDS that modify your ability to do things in the wild that your guild does not allow for. A merchant/archer and a vivaduan/archer are both going to be pissloads better at hunting than a merchant or vivaduan. Same with a few other subs. None of which have anything to do with crafting, which if your assertion about components is to be taken seriously, would be out of the range of what would be chosen, given that these pcs would still need to support themselves somehow. And no, granting that wouldn't mean what you're saying it would. If you prioritize wisdom with any guild, you are going to learn and skill up more quickly. If you don't, you won't. Pretty obvious and right there in the help files.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 18, 2015, 11:05:58 PM
Quote from: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 10:56:58 PM
I HAVE been on staff, but am not currently, and yes, there are SUBGUILDS that modify your ability to do things in the wild that your guild does not allow for. A merchant/archer and a vivaduan/archer are both going to be pissloads better at hunting than a merchant or vivaduan. Same with a few other subs. None of which have anything to do with crafting, which if your assertion about components is to be taken seriously, would be out of the range of what would be chosen, given that these pcs would still need to support themselves somehow.

The aforementioned character was subguilded as a scavenger. He had no combat abilities beyond what the base mage guild would give.

Quote from: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 10:56:58 PM
And no, granting that wouldn't mean what you're saying it would. If you prioritize wisdom with any guild, you are going to learn and skill up more quickly. If you don't, you won't. Pretty obvious and right there in the help files.

I'm sure the wisdom stat affects a mage's skill progression. But I would contest it isn't the only factor. I would even go so far as to say it isn't the most relevant.

Quote from: bardlyone on September 18, 2015, 12:48:32 AM
They start with their very first magicks at 2-3x the levels a mundane does, but after that, you start out at roughly the same place as a mundane, and it's on you how quickly or slowly you go as a result.

Quote from: wizturbo on September 17, 2015, 02:47:34 PM
... their skills require less environmental conditions in order to train.  You don't need a sparring partner, a thing to climb, a thing to skin, someone to be watching you, etc.

It would seem to me that there are other factors at play as well. I've said multiple times in this thread that I don't have an issue with the rate at which spells skill up per fail (the thing wisdom has an effect on). I'm focused on the other factors.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Fujikoma on September 18, 2015, 11:06:26 PM
Fuck it, spec apping a magicker just to store them so I get badass points.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: musashi on September 19, 2015, 01:13:54 AM
Quote from: ibusoe on September 18, 2015, 01:49:46 PM
Neither of the things I've brought up though, are the heart of the issue, because what you're presenting as supporting points are really a series of gripes, and your series of gripes don't support what you're politely representing as a thesis.  I don't think you have a thesis.  I think you have angst, or maybe malaise.  

You're bored, dude.  Bored with mages.  You want to like mages, because there's something about them that expresses you.  They suit your aesthetic.  But you need a break.  If you need to play a mage, and you need to play that mage in Armageddon, and you want to be *challenged* in the way that you're suggesting, maybe play a mage who's a leadership character?  Then organize some HRPT.  Then people will engage you, preferably in the way that you're asking them to.  

To clarify isbusoe, I'm not bored with Armageddon, or mages. I recently started playing again after a year and some change, and I'm enjoying myself. As the title of the thread implies, I'm just sharing some thoughts I've recently had with everyone for the sake of discussion.

And I feel like some good has come out of it. I really liked brytta's idea for how to handle protective buffs (I liked it so much I idea'd it in game). I had overlooked the playbility issues with waiting for said buffs to wear off in my initial critique of the nil reach as being superfluous, and I'm glad that was brought to my attention (credit to Lizzie).

I heard things that I didn't think were accurate, and contested them.

And of course, there were also differences in simple preference and opinion as well.

All in the realm of friendly discussion.

I can assure you, I'm enjoying the game man.  :)
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Inks on September 21, 2015, 07:13:15 AM
I have leveled several mages. I have never used nil.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: The Silence of the Erdlus on September 21, 2015, 12:05:48 PM
I stored every mage but one, and that one died to a mekillot in the Outer Circle.

Eventually I just get bored with them. Mundane guilds is where its at.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 21, 2015, 03:01:55 PM
It would be interesting to see the percent of gemmed who get stored vs. the percent of mundanes as a group who get stored.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: nauta on September 21, 2015, 05:24:23 PM
Quote from: Eyeball on September 21, 2015, 03:01:55 PM
It would be interesting to see the percent of gemmed who get stored vs. the percent of mundanes as a group who get stored.

Why?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Alesan on September 21, 2015, 05:54:36 PM
Quote from: nauta on September 21, 2015, 05:24:23 PM
Quote from: Eyeball on September 21, 2015, 03:01:55 PM
It would be interesting to see the percent of gemmed who get stored vs. the percent of mundanes as a group who get stored.

Why?

Why is anything interesting?
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Eyeball on September 22, 2015, 02:17:01 PM
Quote from: nauta on September 21, 2015, 05:24:23 PM
Quote from: Eyeball on September 21, 2015, 03:01:55 PM
It would be interesting to see the percent of gemmed who get stored vs. the percent of mundanes as a group who get stored.

Why?

Don't know about you, but if something like 90% of mages store and about 25% of mundanes store, it says something about being a mage to me. Not something good either.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: BadSkeelz on September 22, 2015, 02:19:25 PM
I suspect overconfidence and crimcode slipups are the biggest killer of mages. Likely in equivalent numbers to mundanes.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: The Silence of the Erdlus on September 23, 2015, 02:03:06 PM
I store most of my mundanes, too, to be honest. Something out of place has to happen for them to die anymore, which happens more often than you think.
Title: Re: Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages
Post by: Fujikoma on September 23, 2015, 03:00:51 PM
I have a happy compromise that conveniently merges with another thread, perhaps add a virtual baby as a component for using the nil reach.