3/21/16 Update Discussion Thread

[Armaddict]

Stand firm, sponsored leadership roles. Suffer not the witch to be in your clan.

This is super important.  Never forget the days when all documentation was ignored to have so much supernatural shit in one clan it literally demanded a nerf...-after- a not-small-amount-of-people lost their pc's to it.

[BadSkeelz]

The social disadvantages become nothing if the player base lets that happen - and then, the virtual world will kick in and knock people back in its place, as it should be.

Just my thoughts on this.

The playerbase as a population is weak, and will take the easy road. Consorting and "growing" to accept magickers is the easy road. It happens now, it will happen more.

It will be up to the sponsored roles and other leadership PCs in the game to set the tone, and... eh.

People play to win as often as not. And magick lets you win very easily.

Every clan's going to have a pet magicker or two soon enough, with no good way to counter them except more magickers. Or rangers. Who are also magickers.

[Armaddict]

However, the idea of these roles having a "cost" to playing them is accurate in one sense. By picking a magicker guild, you're giving up a way your character could be versatile in another manner. Bearing in mind that no guild is completely good at everything, any guild+magicker_subguild combination is going to have weaknesses. That will at least partly blunt the concern of magickers becoming overpowered, and will be addressed further during the guild revamp.

Weaknesses in what way?  Because I'm guessing that exploiting said weaknesses will get you slapped with bad notes for abusing knowledge of the game, and the promise of weaknesses to them points out the weaknesses of the mundane more than it did before: A true mundane is now truly at a disadvantage, aside from the versatility of making their own crafts.  There is magick in place to do pretty much any ESG better, which makes the subguild combinations very heavily weighted, as far as advantage, towards the magickal.  Likewise, there is the promise of monitoring the play 'like a hawk' to make sure this goes well...the monitoring going on as is isn't that great, but we're being told to settle down because of the pledge of -more- attention on it, when attention seems to already be spread thin as it is.  

I'm a little confused at what the -actual- accomplishment made here was.  Make magick ambush us harder, when it was one of the more controversial items on whether players wanted it or didn't?

Edit:  Holy shit, 7 replies I haven't read yet.

A warrior that takes a magick subguild isn't going to be able to:
- ride hands-free or trample anything
- have direction sense
- craft anything beyond cooking
- use stealth skills
- scan
- backstab or sap
- and more...

Whereas a warrior that takes a mundane subguild will be able to do one or more of these things. There are similar issues with picking a guild + a magick subguild. There is a trade-off in ways that there wasn't previously. And yet the power of a magicker is still maintained. Each aspect was designed with a theme in mind as well as playability. Yes, magickers are powerful, but fully mundane characters are still going to be desirable to play in their own right.

A warrior can now:
-levitate
-relocate
-be hidden more reliably without care of encumbrance
-pull people to them who are hidden
-and more...

Your point?

[Lizzie]

Keeping the existing guilds and ADDING the sub guilds I suspect, would have met near unanimous support I'm betting. This however, is already demonstrating that its upset/alienated a lot of players, and did so without so much as a warning.

Perhaps, but if we avoided doing things out of fear of alienating the playerbase then we would stop doing things. Instead, we saw a problem - magicker guilds weren't fully people, lacking a basic set of mundane skills that would be realistic for them to have, and the newer elements were relatively messily thrown together - and sought to correct it completely instead of getting it done halfway. A warning for a change of this nature would've caused people to apply for main-guild magickers before they were no longer available, and then we'd be forced to store everyone. We sought a way to place this change into the game more gradually.

My magickers have always been fully people. I've always roleplayed them that way. I almost resent that you think otherwise. It means I've failed in my roleplay, catastrophically. Magicker GUILDS aren't people at all. They are tools in a roleplayer's toolbox. Nothing more or less. But now you've decreed that we're not allowed to have one toolbox with all our tools nice and neat. We now have to have a few dozen toolboxes - and we're only allowed to use one per character.

I really wish you would have started with a couple of very basic questions to the playerbase, that wouldn't have tipped anyone off about anything: "Do you consider playing magick roles to be playing full people, and if not, does it bother you that the answer is no?"

If a bunch of mage-playing players weren't complaining that magickers aren't fully people, then the "magickers aren't fully people" isn't a problem. It's nothing that's broken, and nothing that needs to be fixed.

[Iiyola]

I had 1 elementalist with an ext sub approved, and 2 spec apps. Bye bye interesting roles.

[Armaddict]

If a bunch of mage-playing players weren't complaining that magickers aren't fully people, then the "magickers aren't fully people" isn't a problem. It's nothing that's broken, and nothing that needs to be fixed.

Seriously.  The solution to 'people playing mages as not real people' was to...this?!

[Rokal]

The social disadvantages become nothing if the player base lets that happen - and then, the virtual world will kick in and knock people back in its place, as it should be.

Just my thoughts on this.

The playerbase as a population is weak, and will take the easy road. Consorting and "growing" to accept magickers is the easy road. It happens now, it will happen more.

It will be up to the sponsored roles and other leadership PCs in the game to set the tone, and... eh.

People play to win as often as not. And magick lets you win very easily.

Every clan's going to have a pet magicker or two soon enough, with no good way to counter them except more magickers. Or rangers. Who are also magickers.

That sort of negative mindset no offense, contributes to it. (And apologizes if I misread your meaning!)

I'd rather stop saying whats wrong and do everything to encourage people to do the good things.

but eh ,agree to disagree.

[Asmoth]

Everyone is totally going at this like this:



Instead of actually giving it a chance.

[Dar]

Ranger with flight. Weeeeee.

[Nergal]

A warrior can now:
-levitate
-relocate
-be hidden more reliably without care of encumbrance
-pull people to them who are hidden
-and more...

Your point?

I think my point is fairly clear: that players can choose between a well-rounded set of mundane skills or take a few magicker skills along with a slightly smaller set of mundane skills and still achieve a character that fits into the world and does what they want it to do.

[Armaddict]

Everyone is totally going at this like this:



Instead of actually giving it a chance.

Yeah.  Pretty much, that's what happens when what we will refer to as a ruling class makes a decision that no one sees as a benefit to any party they're interested in.  Mix in some unrealistic promises made, and things get pretty irritating.

[Molten Heart]

I like how the change reflects the "low fantasy" nature of the game world. Rather than having elementalism defining a character, it's more of a flavor while allowing people to have effective abilities in other areas. Though it'd be cool if primary guild elementalists were still available through special application, similarly to how extended subguilds have previously been handled.

[FantasyWriter]

If a bunch of mage-playing players weren't complaining that magickers aren't fully people, then the "magickers aren't fully people" isn't a problem. It's nothing that's broken, and nothing that needs to be fixed.

Seriously.  The solution to 'people playing mages as not real people' was to...this?!

Yeah, reading those type comments from staff, really hurt me in the feels.

[Armaddict]

A warrior can now:
-levitate
-relocate
-be hidden more reliably without care of encumbrance
-pull people to them who are hidden
-and more...

Your point?

I think my point is fairly clear: that players can choose between a well-rounded set of mundane skills or take a few magicker skills along with a slightly smaller set of mundane skills and still achieve a character that fits into the world and does what they want it to do.

Your point is to reiterate mine.  There is no reason to choose the purely mundane, because more drastic benefit comes from the magickal, unless you are wanting to craft.  That is unless the entire game becomes based on witch hunting.

[MeTekillot]

Those are some pretty specific detailings of a magicker's capabalities, Armaddict. But I guess obfuscation of a magicker's ability for the purpose of finding out IG went out the window when a bunch of people decided to make a subculture around how much they hate a game other people enjoy and I'm really too annoyed to clearly state wherever I was going with this. I like the change that allows mundane capabilities with magicker features to introduce magickers as more than just spellslingers, but I am not pleased that magickers as they were have been removed.

[Nergal]

Keeping the existing guilds and ADDING the sub guilds I suspect, would have met near unanimous support I'm betting. This however, is already demonstrating that its upset/alienated a lot of players, and did so without so much as a warning.

Perhaps, but if we avoided doing things out of fear of alienating the playerbase then we would stop doing things. Instead, we saw a problem - magicker guilds weren't fully people, lacking a basic set of mundane skills that would be realistic for them to have, and the newer elements were relatively messily thrown together - and sought to correct it completely instead of getting it done halfway. A warning for a change of this nature would've caused people to apply for main-guild magickers before they were no longer available, and then we'd be forced to store everyone. We sought a way to place this change into the game more gradually.

My magickers have always been fully people. I've always roleplayed them that way. I almost resent that you think otherwise. It means I've failed in my roleplay, catastrophically. Magicker GUILDS aren't people at all. They are tools in a roleplayer's toolbox. Nothing more or less. But now you've decreed that we're not allowed to have one toolbox with all our tools nice and neat. We now have to have a few dozen toolboxes - and we're only allowed to use one per character.

I really wish you would have started with a couple of very basic questions to the playerbase, that wouldn't have tipped anyone off about anything: "Do you consider playing magick roles to be playing full people, and if not, does it bother you that the answer is no?"

If a bunch of mage-playing players weren't complaining that magickers aren't fully people, then the "magickers aren't fully people" isn't a problem. It's nothing that's broken, and nothing that needs to be fixed.

If a bunch of mage-playing players weren't complaining that magickers aren't fully people, then the "magickers aren't fully people" isn't a problem. It's nothing that's broken, and nothing that needs to be fixed.

Seriously.  The solution to 'people playing mages as not real people' was to...this?!

If a bunch of mage-playing players weren't complaining that magickers aren't fully people, then the "magickers aren't fully people" isn't a problem. It's nothing that's broken, and nothing that needs to be fixed.

Seriously.  The solution to 'people playing mages as not real people' was to...this?!

Yeah, reading those type comments from staff, really hurt me in the feels.

But that's not what I said. I didn't say anything at all about how magickers were being played. I said the guilds themselves were lacking. Each magicker guild was a tree of spells + contact, barrier, and cooking. We didn't feel that accurately reflected the extent of what a Zalanthan was capable of doing or learning. We didn't feel that manifestation thematically meant that a Zalanthan lost almost all ability to do "mundane things".

[Dar]

Hey, Nergal.

I am in no way hurrying you. But I currently have no character and I'm not really in a "greaaat" hurry to make one. Still struggling with a concept to make one and busy irl. So I got a question.  Any 'looose' idea when will the subguild revamp as whole be complete?  What I'm asking is if it'll take say ... a month. I'll probably wait for it. But if it can easily be half a year before the rest of it comes out, I'll probably create some throwaway meanwhile.

[Asmoth]

A warrior can now:
-levitate
-relocate
-be hidden more reliably without care of encumbrance
-pull people to them who are hidden
-and more...

Your point?

I think my point is fairly clear: that players can choose between a well-rounded set of mundane skills or take a few magicker skills along with a slightly smaller set of mundane skills and still achieve a character that fits into the world and does what they want it to do.

THIS!

Do you want to play a game where everyone has the option to be what they want to be.  Or a game that never changes, and you have to learn every mechanic and every way to skillup your onehand skill till you unlock razors or whatever?

Think about this, there are people who have wanted this change for a while, but they have endured playing in a game world where they had to be a mundane and strong and combaty, or a mage and be immensely powerful, unless they got jumped...

Let people play the game they want to, and you play the game you want to.  If you wanna play a warrior with every character and your sole goal is to branch pitchforks or whatever the elite weapons are, do it.  But stop shitting on everyone elses parade just because they may knock you off the top of the mountain of PVP Elitism.

[dravage]

I've spotted a basic trend when reading threads like these.

First page filled with amazing feedback, people shitting the bed with excitement.

Subsequent pages filled with people shitting the bed with rage after actually reading the announcement again.

[lostinspace]

Don't worry BadSkeelz, at least we know there will still be one group of people that can't be gicks. I'll see you in the Mul Outpost my friend!

[MeTekillot]

I'm not annoyed about the change, mind, I'm annoyed for different reasons. I missed a bus and had to walk five miles and a bunch of other things, but I still am not wholly supportive of every aspect of the change.

[BadSkeelz]

I've spotted a basic trend when reading threads like these.

First page filled with amazing feedback, people shitting the bed with excitement.

Subsequent pages filled with people shitting the bed with rage after actually reading the announcement again.

Welcome to the GDB, dravage. Try not to read it too much.

[LauraMars]

I had 1 elementalist with an ext sub approved, and 2 spec apps. Bye bye interesting roles.

That's....probably a knee jerk response to something that has shocked you. But if you think you can no longer play interesting roles because some skills got moved around, I'm not sure what to say. Skills are cool, but they are only a small fraction of what makes an interesting role or character interesting.

Some of the most dull and uninteresting characters I've encountered have been fully maxed sorcerers and mages.  Some of the most interesting roles I've seen have used a bare minimum of whatever their skills were (to this day I still don't know what guilds most of my favorite characters have been, because their characters were so strong and so fully realized and so awesome it overshadowed everything else.)

There's nothing wrong with using skills, or wanting certain skills, or being powerful and strong in the code. But geez, the thought that an "interesting character" relies on a skill sheet and without that specific skill sheet you have nothing just really gets my goat.


wow, what is this, why am I posting so seriously about this? is this passion? what's going on inside of me

[Asmoth]

I had 1 elementalist with an ext sub approved, and 2 spec apps. Bye bye interesting roles.

That's....probably a knee jerk response to something that has shocked you. But if you think you can no longer play interesting roles because some skills got moved around, I'm not sure what to say. Skills are cool, but they are only a small fraction of what makes an interesting role or character interesting.

Some of the most dull and uninteresting characters I've encountered have been fully maxed sorcerers and mages.  Some of the most interesting roles I've seen have used a bare minimum of whatever their skills were.

There's nothing wrong with using skills, or wanting certain skills, or being powerful and strong in the code. But geez, the thought that an "interesting character" relies on a skill sheet and without that specific skill sheet you have nothing just really gets my goat.


wow, what is this, why am I posting so seriously about this? is this passion? what's going on inside of me

I have no idea, I too have been avoiding going to dinner simply to interject in this thread.

I feel a need to defend this change, why? I have no idea, I am currently in a character that's probably going no where fast, but I just feel the need to defend it.

I should just go get dinner.

[Nergal]

A warrior can now:
-levitate
-relocate
-be hidden more reliably without care of encumbrance
-pull people to them who are hidden
-and more...

Your point?

I think my point is fairly clear: that players can choose between a well-rounded set of mundane skills or take a few magicker skills along with a slightly smaller set of mundane skills and still achieve a character that fits into the world and does what they want it to do.

Your point is to reiterate mine.  There is no reason to choose the purely mundane, because more drastic benefit comes from the magickal, unless you are wanting to craft.  That is unless the entire game becomes based on witch hunting.

What makes magick-casting more drastically beneficial than a solid set of mundane abilities? Only if you're treating magick purely as a way to increase your character's power would you come to a conclusion like that. Bear in mind that playing a magicker in general comes with severe inherent disadvantages.