Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages

[bardlyone]

You act like mundanes can't do the same thing? At least with merchants, you pretty well can.

[musashi]

Again ... from my first post.

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.

[whitt]

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.

[musashi]

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.

[wizturbo]

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. 

[Delirium]

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.

[wizturbo]

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.  

[BadSkeelz]

Carte blanche to be scene-stealing overpowered jackoffs.

[Delirium]

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.

[wizturbo]

Carte blanche to be scene-stealing overpowered jackoffs.

[BadSkeelz]

I always sympathized with the Koopas most.

[musashi]

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.

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.

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.

[flurry]

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.

[wizturbo]

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.

[musashi]

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.

[Fujikoma]

... 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.

[Fujikoma]

Also, drop quarter sorcs down to 5-6 karma and bring back full sorcs, at, 11 CGP... special app only. Players only, no avatars.

[wizturbo]

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.

[musashi]

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.

[RogueGunslinger]

Rebalance by giving mundanes throat-punch and neck-snap.

[musashi]

Rebalance by giving mundanes throat-punch and neck-snap.

Careful what you wish for ...

Code Select Expand

You attempt the snap the tall, muscular man's neck but snap your own instead!
Your vision goes black.

[wizturbo]

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.

[musashi]

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.

[ibusoe]

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:

Don'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.

[musashi]

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.

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.  

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.

Play a character who cannot speak Sirihish.

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.

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.