3/21/16 Update Discussion Thread

[Dar]

...those extended subguilds were all ment to be for mages to round them out.

*Very* useful for the less martial mundane guilds, too. Very, very.

Give an example that's not merchant?

[Jihelu]

...those extended subguilds were all ment to be for mages to round them out.

*Very* useful for the less martial mundane guilds, too. Very, very.

Give an example that's not merchant?

Burglar aggressor for them sweet assassination scenes.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

A raider?

[Dar]

I imagine it as theme, remember.. people had lives before they manifested their magick, this allows a player of a gick to have that option of experience of a life before gickery, its not about the coded -use- of the skills, but the thematic place of them.

That said, I don't like that the full elementalist guilds were removed - someone born into gickery from the day they could walk, having the gem from that age on, ect, and fully devoted to their element, is one such concept that now isnt really possible.

I would disagree, to a point.

It's still a totally doable role.  The idea that it isn't is a stance taken from our experiences of having a "whole" magicker skill-set instead of a "quarter mage" skill set (or 1/3 mage, as was pointed out..I just thought "quarter mage" sounded better than "thirded mage").  Who says you have to play out the mundane skills?  Your 'gicker just has only developed whatever magick skills the sub-guild gave, to this point in their life.

But on the other hand, I get what you're saying.  While I am in agreement with the argument that a skill-set =/= a character...to a certain degree, yes it does.  Capability is a large part of what makes a character and a large part of said character's characterization, and if your role was as a full-magicker..it now feels like the opposite of what the situation was, before.  You were a sterotype, all magick, no mundane.  Now, for a full-gicker, it's..2/3 mundane and 1/3 gicker.

But for the purposes of the gameworld as the documentation stands right now...it doesn't matter what your skill sheet says, you're still ALL GICKER even if you do have max archery also.

For those who don't make skills a big focus of their play, this changes very little.  For those who do, now they have other skills to use and play with while enjoying being a social pariah, instead of just spam casting in the desert or a temple and being a social pariah.

oh my god 8 new replies

That's another problem.

Before, the magickers were pretty inept as mundanes. Which allowed them to be all powerful and all. But actually rather inept when alone. Most elementalists could destroy small villages, but they still needed to eat, drink, and could not quit out in wildernesses. Which if rogue, allowed them to be trackable, findeable, ambushable, vulnerable. It also made them want to group up together for survival. Their mundane weakness noticeably set them aside. So much even that the only real mundane traits that they could've used to compete well amidst the mundanes without the use of magick, was their charisma and intelligence.

Now, they are literally not different in any way. While thematically this is very accurate. Afterall the curse of magick came randomly and just about "anybody" could turn out to be a gicker. Playwise though, it's very very ... freaking overpowered. The gickers lost all of their vulnerability. They think they're people now, see? The fact that they lost their subguilds is such a laughable small price. It doesnt even matter what spells they've got.

[Armaddict]

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.

I'm a little appalled that you can ask that, given the various threads over the past decade or so discussing the whole magicker vs mundane situation and why people liked magick being put off to the side (and didn't like it, as well, but their argument consisted of having weaknesses that no longer exist), and knowing full well that for just about every skill in the game, there is a magickal spell that can be used in the same way, but better.

But I will wait.  There seem to be some who are happy about how powerful they can get now, at least.  Me?  I'm just not looking forward to having to deal with magickal roleplay more often, nor the incoming tirades about gemmed employment now that they can do things, or...just about any of it.  The more I think about it, the -less- I see to look forward to with it, not more.

You (and many players) don't have a complete understanding of how magick worked. Just because there are threads with players discussing things doesn't mean they are correct, or the threads particularly notable. Consider the possibility that staff with knowledge of the workings of magick and mundane skills did their best to make changes while maintaining the relationship that existed between magickal and mundane skills.

...that's a complete cop out.  I didn't say those threads were filled with exact information about what does what.  I said that they pointed towards the clear idea that spells could make mundane skills very unnecessary.  If you're going to argue about that, you can start spewing skills at me and I'll start spewing spells back at you.  Inferring that I don't know some deep secret that actually makes spells -way weaker- than what I think is...really?

Likewise, consider that staff have indeed made poor judgments and decisions before, even with all this wisdom and knowledge and resources you've referenced.  The whole reason players give you feedback is for your information to let you know when things are good or bad, but when you just toss them aside they do little good to anyone.

[Thunkkin]

Give an example that's not merchant?

It seems that people discuss skills in much more detail than they did a year ago when RL caused me to take a hiatus. But I'm still not sure how much I should discuss here. Suffice to say, weapon skills are very important if you engage in combat with other players, regardless of what weapon you use. Having additional weapon skills as well as disarm greatly effects certain guilds' performance in PVP.

[LauraMars]

I suspect getting that great wisdom roll is gonna be tougher than it used to be.  Esp. if you want to focus strength for bludgeoning or whatever. Fewer extremely-good-wisdom-at-minimum mages.

[BadSkeelz]

The gickers lost all of their vulnerability. They think they're people now, see? The fact that they lost their subguilds is such a laughable small price. It doesnt even matter what spells they've got.

There are high social costs with playing a magicker. It's always been their strongest counterbalance. Those remain, and are in more need of reinforcement than ever. It will be on the Sponsored roles and the mundane PCs of the world to reinforce it.

If mages become socially accepted, then there is no reason not to play them. And people will play them.

Magia delenda est

[Asmoth]

I will recommend something to everyone not happy with this change.

Make reasonable feedback, not call staff and players who are pumped about the change stupid.

Write a thoughtful, reasoned response.

If it includes things you shouldn't talk about having to do with magick, then do it in a request. (I sometimes even fuck up and put too much magick knowledge out there, hence my last moderated post).

I honestly can't believe -I- of all people am trying to show the rest of you reason.  Wow the tables have turned.

[Adhira]

...those extended subguilds were all ment to be for mages to round them out.

*Very* useful for the less martial mundane guilds, too. Very, very.

Give an example that's not merchant?

Ext Subguild + magicker guild was not the most popular of choices. In fact Ext. Subguilds are far more likely to be combined with mundane guilds. I don't wish to go in to details regarding the combinations but use of ext. subguilds adds a lot more options than just additional mastercraft options for some or options for magickers only.

[Nergal]

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.

I'm a little appalled that you can ask that, given the various threads over the past decade or so discussing the whole magicker vs mundane situation and why people liked magick being put off to the side (and didn't like it, as well, but their argument consisted of having weaknesses that no longer exist), and knowing full well that for just about every skill in the game, there is a magickal spell that can be used in the same way, but better.

But I will wait.  There seem to be some who are happy about how powerful they can get now, at least.  Me?  I'm just not looking forward to having to deal with magickal roleplay more often, nor the incoming tirades about gemmed employment now that they can do things, or...just about any of it.  The more I think about it, the -less- I see to look forward to with it, not more.

You (and many players) don't have a complete understanding of how magick worked. Just because there are threads with players discussing things doesn't mean they are correct, or the threads particularly notable. Consider the possibility that staff with knowledge of the workings of magick and mundane skills did their best to make changes while maintaining the relationship that existed between magickal and mundane skills.

...that's a complete cop out.  I didn't say those threads were filled with exact information about what does what.  I said that they pointed towards the clear idea that spells could make mundane skills very unnecessary.  If you're going to argue about that, you can start spewing skills at me and I'll start spewing spells back at you.  Inferring that I don't know some deep secret that actually makes spells -way weaker- than what I think is...really?

Likewise, consider that staff have indeed made poor judgments and decisions before, even with all this wisdom and knowledge and resources you've referenced.  The whole reason players give you feedback is for your information to let you know when things are good or bad, but when you just toss them aside they do little good to anyone.

It's also hard to take feedback from players seriously when they have not tried the change. Concerns are one thing, and certainly welcome - staff have addressed many of them, and if there are new ones I'm sure we'll continue to try to address them. But declaring how something is going to work when they haven't tried it yet is dishonest. Try it out before arguing that something is too powerful, or not powerful enough. Try it out before declaring that losing the elemental guilds was a horrible thing.

[Pale Horse]

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.

I'm a little appalled that you can ask that, given the various threads over the past decade or so discussing the whole magicker vs mundane situation and why people liked magick being put off to the side (and didn't like it, as well, but their argument consisted of having weaknesses that no longer exist), and knowing full well that for just about every skill in the game, there is a magickal spell that can be used in the same way, but better.

But I will wait.  There seem to be some who are happy about how powerful they can get now, at least.  Me?  I'm just not looking forward to having to deal with magickal roleplay more often, nor the incoming tirades about gemmed employment now that they can do things, or...just about any of it.  The more I think about it, the -less- I see to look forward to with it, not more.

You (and many players) don't have a complete understanding of how magick worked. Just because there are threads with players discussing things doesn't mean they are correct, or the threads particularly notable. Consider the possibility that staff with knowledge of the workings of magick and mundane skills did their best to make changes while maintaining the relationship that existed between magickal and mundane skills.

...that's a complete cop out.  I didn't say those threads were filled with exact information about what does what.  I said that they pointed towards the clear idea that spells could make mundane skills very unnecessary.  If you're going to argue about that, you can start spewing skills at me and I'll start spewing spells back at you.  Inferring that I don't know some deep secret that actually makes spells -way weaker- than what I think is...really?

Likewise, consider that staff have indeed made poor judgments and decisions before, even with all this wisdom and knowledge and resources you've referenced.  The whole reason players give you feedback is for your information to let you know when things are good or bad, but when you just toss them aside they do little good to anyone.

It's also hard to take feedback from players seriously when they have not tried the change. Concerns are one thing, and certainly welcome - staff have addressed many of them, and if there are new ones I'm sure we'll continue to try to address them. But declaring how something is going to work when they haven't tried it yet is dishonest. Try it out before arguing that something is too powerful, or not powerful enough. Try it out before declaring that losing the elemental guilds was a horrible thing.

This is a green-eggs and ham sort of thing, isn't it.

[Nergal]

Also, because I got page-rolled:

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".

I want to make it perfectly clear that this change wasn't brought on by what players were doing with their magicker PCs, and that any attempt to say so is dishonest. This is purely a long-standing issue we saw with the internal workings of the game that we decided to try to fix.

[Armaddict]

...all I heard there was 'Shhh, just let it happen.'

[Bogre]

Ext Subguild + magicker guild was not the most popular of choices. In fact Ext. Subguilds are far more likely to be combined with mundane guilds. I don't wish to go in to details regarding the combinations but use of ext. subguilds adds a lot more options than just additional mastercraft options for some or options for magickers only.

Probably because it has never been non-special-application.

[Vwest]

Stuff

Yep, I was golden until Nyr decided he didn't like me, too.

Wanna hug it out or something?

/derail

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

I had a Drovian approved for the longest time, waiting for my current PC to die or have sound reason to retire.

Welp.

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

Stuff.

This change canceled a lot of interesting roles people were looking forward to -- roles approved and assured to be waiting for us when our current characters were no more.

Surprise! Not only are they not waiting for us, but they're off the table forever, too.

If you don't see how that could result in someone saying 'bye bye interesting roles' with some legitimacy, you might consider a change of perspective.

[Nergal]

If you lost something you were already approved for, you can send in a Game Related Question request about it and work something out with staff. Your special app slot certainly isn't lost.

[Iiyola]

Alright alright, I cooled down a bit and I'm starting to see some upsides. I sent in a new request for my approved roles and hopefully staff will do what I -think- they have in mind.

My only concern is the cut in the current mundane guilds which will come up real soon as well.

[lostinspace]

Personal opinion: I'd rather staff force stored all the current magic guilds or worked with them to move them to a new subguild. Now if I decide to make a sub-gick and see an old gick, I'm just going to be crazy salty.

[Inks]

Magick is super appealing to me now...

Would I like to make swords? Or throw fireballs?

Hard choice.

[Dar]

Personal opinion: I'd rather staff force stored all the current magic guilds or worked with them to move them to a new subguild. Now if I decide to make a sub-gick and see an old gick, I'm just going to be crazy salty.

Kill them to absorb their power? It might work

[RogueGunslinger]

Personal opinion: I'd rather staff force stored all the current magic guilds or worked with them to move them to a new subguild. Now if I decide to make a sub-gick and see an old gick, I'm just going to be crazy salty.

And some of the full-spell magickers are going to be salty that they don't get to have a full main-guild set of mundane skills.

[Dar]

Personal opinion: I'd rather staff force stored all the current magic guilds or worked with them to move them to a new subguild. Now if I decide to make a sub-gick and see an old gick, I'm just going to be crazy salty.

And some of the full-spell magickers are going to be salty that they don't get to have a full main-guild set of mundane skills.

Kill them to absorb their power?




Okey. I'm gonna stop now.

[lostinspace]

Personal opinion: I'd rather staff force stored all the current magic guilds or worked with them to move them to a new subguild. Now if I decide to make a sub-gick and see an old gick, I'm just going to be crazy salty.

And some of the full-spell magickers are going to be salty that they don't get to have a full main-guild set of mundane skills.

Well they're all of 1 storage and 1 spec app away from getting what they want.

[Vwest]

I, too, prefer greener grass.