Mages Vs Mundanes.

[RogueGunslinger]

I believe Laura Mars or maybe Angela Christie(Christine?) did it in around 5 days played as a test, once. Yes they were twinking. But the point was that Mundanes skill up FAR slower than mages. Even if you aren't twinking.

[Kol]

So, instead of derailing another perfectly legitimate thread with yet another argument for and against Coded power levels. Here's yet another thread for the bi-annual mage-hate.

Pretty simple, get all your gripe about mages out, or argue your love for them.


For my opinion, and it's opinion, not fact, remember this kids. No. They're not. If you think a mage is progressing too fast, put in a complaint. If you see a mage spamcasting, put in a complaint. That's what it's there for. I don't care how quickly you can get a mage to OMGWTFPWN levels, it's been designed that way for a reason, and quite frankly, I grow tired of people who are butthurt over a PC dying to a mage moaning about it. There's a reason Magic is supposed to be feared. It's fucking scary. It's powerful, there are countless ways to die in Zalanthas, and by a mage is one of them.

You want your mundane to be more powerful than a mage? Great. You can make it so. Right out t box. Your Melee combat skills are FAR FAR above what a mage could ever achieve. Want to take them on at range? Get a bow. Train with it.

No, a mage is not Op'd. Some are scary fucking death machines, yes. This is by design. I challenge anyone to run towards a burning ball of flame with a bone sword and expect to live to do so. I won't attend your funeral because you're an idiot.

In survival terms, you can expect a mage to survive much less than Malik the Ranger #2657 in almost any situation because mages have a coded limit on what they can do Magic wise. This is by design, and for a reason. Ranger Malik, however, can stay in a fight for as long as he has health and stamina. As soon as a mages Mana runs out, he's pretty much fucked.

Don't want your pretty, f-me warrior dying to a Krathi's spell, a Drovian's wiles, or becoming a Nilazi's skin-puppet, find some meatshields, play it smart. In 9 out of 10 settings, magic is more powerful than non-magic using classes/guilds in the short run, but in an extended fight, I'd bet on the fighter type class every time, because spells, mana, power, etc. RUNS OUT. Your bone sword will not unless your fucking really unfortunate. For that argument, please see the appropriate thread.

/Rant over.

Edited for spelling.

[RogueGunslinger]

I like where mages are at in the game. I wish some of the other guilds powerful abilities were as easy to attain. I don't really think mages are too powerful, in some ways I wish they could be more scary, with less overt abilities like random curses, or drawbacks that put other people in danger simply for being around magick. I want magick to be radiation, for non elementalists. I want people who are over exposed to it to see real coded impacts that back up its documented history of fear and hatred.

[wizturbo]

I like where mages are at in the game. I wish some of the other guilds powerful abilities were as easy to attain. I don't really think mages are too powerful, in some ways I wish they could be more scary, with less overt abilities like random curses, or drawbacks that put other people in danger simply for being around magick. I want magick to be radiation, for non elementalists. I want people who are over exposed to it to see real coded impacts that back up its documented history of fear and hatred.

I'd also like magick to be more scary... I think the coded spells out there now are scary enough, but they're very much known.  Too many people know what magickers are capable of...it'd be cool if new spells were added or modifications made to existing spells on a more regular basis to change things up and keep magick unpredictable.

[valeria]

I don't really love or hate mages, I just have trouble playing them.  What I would like to see would be mundane ways to replicate spells that make sense.  Krathi can throw fireballs but assassins can't mix some strong alcohols together and throw alcohol bombs.  I'd like to see mundane skills made more robust, not mage skills nerfed.

[MeTekillot]

I don't want to give stuff away but if I am correct then mages skill up about as fast as mundanes do. Mages usually have pretty high wisdom.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

Going with OP for a Reason. It's by design. There's nothing new to say in that department, so I wont.

But honestly, if we're talking PK here, class is pretty much irrelevant (unless you're a merchant). Most of the time it comes down to being prepared when your target isn't, and knowing how to play your class's strengths and weaknesses. This rule goes triple for mages because they're so worthless without preparation, and so varied with it. So what if a krathi can clear a gith clutch when he's got all his spells and macros set. Chill outside the gates at dawn and trample him before he can set up.

[Kol]

I don't want to give stuff away but if I am correct then mages skill up about as fast as mundanes do. Mages usually have pretty high wisdom.

This. No-one ever complains that the average merchant is a master tailor or somesuch by 10 days played because those NEEDLES OF DOOM and the SEWING KIT FROM DROV are about as scary as a clutch of puppies.

[Gaare]

Yes, they are. They are much much powerful than mundane. Of course they are not unbeatable, but well... extremely powerful.

Actually I don't see any problem with it. That's one of the main reasons why I like this game setting. There no real equality between classes and races. Some of them are plain much better then others. Though I think number of magicker PCs, NPCs can be an issue.

PS. Even mundanes have very high stats then your normal Zalanthian considering they have mostly above average stats, but I don't think its same with magick ability.

[chrisdcoulombe]

Mages have their weaknesses.  I feel like any class can be overpowered if you put in the time.   

[BleakOne]

They are powerful, and they should be.

[Lizzie]

I don't think they're "over" powered. That would imply that they have more than they should. I feel as though the majority of "bad rep" about mages comes from their victims, and if those victims had stopped RPing their characters into situations where they'd be enemy to a mage, they wouldn't have much to complain about.

Yes, the HRPTs tend to be mage-heavy. But the REST of the game play is mundane-heavy, so it's nice that mages have something significant to do when the shit hits the fan. This is a fantasy game. Just like when I watch a fantasy movie, I want to see fantastical special effects during the fight scenes. In playing Arm, my most memorable moments occurred when mages and psionicists were doing freaky things. And, even though I now know what those things are, I still look forward to them happening either to my character, or by my character.

Anyone can die to scrab #4779991. But you have a better shot at having a fun death when there's a mage or a mindbender involved in it.

[roughneck]

Definitely not overpowered. If anything, there are some mundane skills that are unrealistically effective.

Mages can be quite vulnerable. If I was a mage I would never take a shit, because I would never know when some fucker with a knife is waiting to shank me when my pants are down.

[Delirium]

I don't really love or hate mages, I just have trouble playing them.  What I would like to see would be mundane ways to replicate spells that make sense.  Krathi can throw fireballs but assassins can't mix some strong alcohols together and throw alcohol bombs.  I'd like to see mundane skills made more robust, not mage skills nerfed.

Exactly this. Mages aren't OP - Mundane skillsets just haven't been given enough love.

[Down Under]

That sort of implies that it was out of negligence or oversight -- I think that Mages should be quite powerful against a mundane. A Mundane facing a powerful magicker should feel like David Vs The Goliath. Sure, it's possible for David to win against the Giant, but it's going against all odds.

Every guild in Armageddon has its achilles heel, Magickers among them, and it's a matter of figuring that out and exploiting it. The most obvious one is every Magicker (just like every witch and every monster) has a cave/sleeping spot. There are less obvious ones that can be figured out IG/IC.

I wouldn't want to see Magickers aligned with Mundanes in any sort of power-equalization. What appeals to me, at times, with ArmageddonMUD is the gaps between power structures -- Commoners/Surif/Templars, Magickers/Mundane, Sorcerers/Magickers, and so on. They can sometimes be compared, but often, are in a class of their own. I like that, and that feeling is what separates ArmageddonMUD in my mind from WoW or other MMORPGs that always look to 'balance' as a key feature of their games.

I could stand to see some more mundane skills, and even new utility magick that isn't combat related. But I wouldn't say they haven't been given enough love. In the last year alone, sleight of hand and other sneaky skills have seen 'more love' than i've seen in the last few years.

[Delirium]

"historically"

I should have added that word to my sentence.

The recent updates aside, which were great, mundanes have way less problem-solving ability than many mages and their skillsets do.

90% of the fun of the (original) sorcerer skillset was, for me, the ability to approach an issue in many, many different ways due to the sheer variety of spells.

I'd like to see the same be true for all classes - the skills don't necessarily have to be more effective/powerful - just to present options that we codedly lack.

Road blocks, traps, crude bombs, tying someone up, blindfolding them, the list goes on.

[BadSkeelz]

My main beef with magickers is thematic, not code, though the latter does feed in to the former.

In my experience, powerful magicker PCs tend to turn in to black holes where every plot is revolving around them. This is true whether that magicker is actually dangerous or not, or should even realistically be on a given clan's radar. Plots between real people become a secondary focus to fighting the X-Men or Voldemort or whatever the hell's skilled up in the last few weeks. It's more justifiable when that Magicker is being a twat to the rest of the player base, but that's not always the case. Some mages become targets simply because they're powerful, which in the absence of threatening behavior seems nigh suicidal on the part of the hunters. As someone who doesn't actually believe any of my mundanes have a shot at taking out a prepared magicker, I don't appreciate unnecessary suicide missions; better to ignore the PC if they're ignoring you. If you really want them gone, better to just wait for staff to kill them, or maneuver the mage in to a place where you can sic the crimcode on them. Either way it's a gimmicky distraction.

I treat rogue mages in the same way I treat sinkholes: something that's almost certainly fatal to encounter, so memorize where they are and go out of your way to avoid them. Because at the end of the day I just don't find magick to be that exciting or interesting a concept.

[BadSkeelz]

And for the record, I voted "Yes, for a reason." Mages have a place in the game world. I just don't usually want to be sharing it with them.

[Armaddict]

I don't generally have problems with their power.  Their power makes sense.

I only ever have problems with -how many- of them there are.

[CodeMaster]

I only ever have problems with -how many- of them there are.

Yeah, it would be cool if their documented rarity ("very rare" per the magick helpfile) matched their OOC rarity.

I would have imagined seeing an elf riding a beetle around should be more common than the number of spells I've seen cast with any of my characters who live for any appreciable amount of time.

[wizturbo]

I only ever have problems with -how many- of them there are.

Yeah, it would be cool if their documented rarity ("very rare" per the magick helpfile) matched their OOC rarity.

I would have imagined seeing an elf riding a beetle around should be more common than the number of spells I've seen cast with any of my characters who live for any appreciable amount of time.

This is one of those things where the PC representation is always going to be larger than the VNPC representation.  If people want to play magickers, it isn't fun or healthy for the game for there to be some long ass queue in order play one to keep them rare.  I think the CGP system will help with this a lot though, if it acts a currency to buy character guilds/races, that'll naturally improve the rarity.

[tiptoe]

I don't think magic is overpowered. I don't think mundanes are underpowered. Each, in their own right, can grow to be powerful and scary if played correctly. Mages progress faster, which is one of the reasons it requires karma to play them.

I think what needs to be remembered is that classes are not equal. A nilazi is not supposed to be equally scary as a ranger. They don't have to be. Should a character that requires 6 karma to play be EQUAL to a character that requires 0 karma to play? Probably not.

[rodic]

I voted yes, with a reason.
I like that witches are scary and codely powerful.  I Feel as if some one abuses their mage power, staff would ensure that player no longer had the karma for it.
Not to mention they have many RP options taken from them, so I think it works out.  I'd rather have more options to role play than to WTFPWNBBQ some one as a Krathi.

To play Devil's advocate on the number of mages. I feel there really shouldn't be a "cap" or enforced "rarity" players make up such a small percentage of the virtual population, I think its ok for them to fall more onto the rare/exception range of people.  But personally I've never been one to believe forcing players in or away from roles, areas, and the like is every really going to solve the problem, and only further alienates players who may like a certain type of role.

But thats... just like my opinion man.

[wizturbo]

Here's my perspective on this recurring topic:

A player who knows how to maximize their coded advantages, and knows the mechanics of the game inside and out has much more potential coded life & death power playing a mage than a non-mage guild.   However, the amount of scrutiny and expectations to play fairly using a mage guild are significantly higher than a mundane.  I would argue, if you created an expectations-to-power ratio, magick using guilds are burdened with much more expectations to play fair than they are power. 

If a mundane guild kills another player using a clever use of game mechanics, or outright dominates them due to having higher trained skills or stats, we rarely hear any moaning about it on the GDB.  In fact, that character and/or player may be viewed as "skilled". Whereas if a magick using guild kills another player using clever use of game mechanics, the default response I've witnessed is finger pointing and cries of abuse.  In fact, I'd say if a magick using guild kills another player under most circumstances, without even doing anything particularly clever, the default response is cries of abuse.

I know as a player, I'm far more nervous about killing on my mage PCs than I am playing a mundane.  I think that's good.  There should be a greater sense of responsibility when you're given a larger coded toolkit to work with.

TLDR:  If there were no rules or roleplaying expectations behind mages, they would certainly be codedly overpowered compared to mundane guilds.  But, those rules and expectations exist, and with them in place I'd actually say mages are very well balanced relative to mundanes.

[Brytta Léofa]

I believe Laura Mars or maybe Angela Christie(Christine?) did it in around 5 days played as a test, once. Yes they were twinking. But the point was that Mundanes skill up FAR slower than mages. Even if you aren't twinking.

Hymwen.