3/21/16 Update Discussion Thread

[fourTwenty]

Uhh. Mages were already better than the mundanes wherever their skill sets matched up. Now they're just a different kind of better. In some cases, losing the diversity of spells actually makes them worse at certain things than they were before...

No. They had more power than mundanes in a general kind of way, but magickers were not just across-the-board superior at very individual thing. If you wanted to be the best swordsman or archer or thief, the answer was not "mage." Now it is. Now that's the answer to the best of anything. They're now mundane+1 characters, it's pretty self-evident.

Being a mundane is now objectively inferior where game mechanics are concerned, and it also seems to have become infinitely easier to avoid the social ramifications of being a mage because it can much more readily be kept secret, so the pariah aspect of it is probably also much reduced as you can easily go through life using very little magick at times when it'd be inconvenient.

The best assassin in the city, he's gonna be a magicker. The best ranger in the region, that's a wiggler. The best thief around, it'll be a guy who's a pickpocket with an agility buff. Mages are #1 in every field now and appear to have become much easier to fit into any and every aspect of the game because they get to also be full realized versions of any given guild.

As they should be.

Okay, I stayed out of this until now because I'm super opinionated and GDB bullshit is actually what makes me quit playing every time I quit playing. But here's my piece...

I'm a magick hater. Old-school magick hater. Hated magick since I started playing this game way back when. Badskeelz doesn't even come close to hating magick as much as me. Fuck magick. If magick was removed completely from the game I'd bust a nut with sheer joy. Did I say fuck magick? Cause fuck magick.

Okay, now that you know that about me (if you didn't already) let me continue... This is how magick should be. Why can't a warrior be a mage? A ranger? A thief? Are they going to be the best in the world at that? Yep. Because they should be. Is it fair? No, and it shouldn't be. My only hope is that this actually drives an IG fear and loathing of magick. I hope because now, knowing no matter how hard you train you ain't shit against a magicker, I hope people really FEAR and HATE magick.

[James de Monet]

It just occurred to me that this change might facilitate a concept I liked but was having trouble building.


Hmm.

[MeTekillot]

Yes, I agree. Magick should be unfair. You shouldn't be a chanting cleric with a withered body just because you know magick spells. Elementalists are just random people who happen to get a link to magick. It's going to come to be that some bone-sword chopping badass gets cursed with a link to Suk-Krath, and instead of offing himself or ignoring it forever, he's going to start to dabble and become a flame-sword flinging whirlwind of death. Magickers are going to be decidedly dangerous instead of a guy you know you can catch off-guard because you know magickers have no skills besides magick. They're going to be feared. And everyone is either going to go the doc-deigned way of being afraid of the unknown in magickers and their superstitions, to a resentfulness of mages because you know that because you're not a mage, you're not as good as a mage. And you can't roll up a grief ranger to go magicker hunting to feel like it's fair. Life isn't fair, and neither should Armageddon be.

[Hicksville Hoochie]

Until the full guild revamp is in, such claims that mundane-magesub > anything else is just guessing. We really have no idea what is coming, and how it will balance things, and I believe it is very unfair to condemn staff for this move until we've seen it in action. I think if people will take a step back, lower the cynicism a little, and give it a try, then cooler heads will prevail. Some of the naysayers may even like the change after giving it a shot. We might as well be screaming about how bad the Stanley Cup is going to suck, without knowing how the games will play out.

And if this change does end in mages being a frightening force that has an advantage over mundanes, I'm honestly not going to be too torn up over it. It'd really help instill that ideal that magick is to be feared, when one knows that a mage can take your cookies and eat them while you watch. The subs are gates behind karma, which is supposed to keep such powerful combinations out of the hands of players who don't fully understand how bad they could imbalance things with irresponsible play. If they get out of line, that option won't be their option anymore.

Overpopulation is not likely to be a problem as well. It was already stated earlier in this thread that the gick population will be monitored. A lot of people will roll up mundanes as well, because it's simply their concept and what they want to play, not because they want a coded advantage to lord over the wastes. The social stigma of gickery itself is also a reason to believe that not everyone you encounter will be a mage sub.

tldr; Give it time, trust your staff and fellow players, and have fun role-playing.  

[Armaddict]

And you can't roll up a grief ranger to go magicker hunting to feel like it's fair.

Sure I can.

[RogueGunslinger]

Uhh. Mages were already better than the mundanes wherever their skill sets matched up. Now they're just a different kind of better. In some cases, losing the diversity of spells actually makes them worse at certain things than they were before...

No. They had more power than mundanes in a general kind of way, but magickers were not just across-the-board superior at very individual thing. If you wanted to be the best swordsman or archer or thief, the answer was not "mage." Now it is. Now that's the answer to the best of anything.

Being a mundane is now objectively inferior where game mechanics are concerned, and it seems to have become infinitely easier to avoid the social ramifications of being a mage because it can much more readily be kept secret.

The best assassin in the city, he's gonna be a magicker. The best ranger in the region, that's a wiggler. The best thief around, it'll be a guy who's a pickpocket with an agility buff. Mages are #1 in every field now.

Magickers were not just across the board superior at every little thing and I didn't say that. The best guild at melee was never guild_warrior though. Not even a little bit. The best in melee were ALWAYS Krathis/rukkians. The best Assassins were always vivaduans/nilazi/drovians. The best burglar/spy will always be a whiran/drovian or a psionicist. And all of these classes would make for utterly devastating assassins.

Truth be told? The best "assassin" in the city is going to be a player who knows wtf they're doing and is going to have nothing to do with skill power and everything to do with meta game knowlege of how skills work. Also roleplay. For instance, a Templar would make the best assassin. And after all your warrior/krathi can be butt-fucked by a rangers arrow just like anyone else.

Objectively inferior where game mechanics are concerned? That's an absurd statement because there are WAY too many factors in what determines superiority. One thing might be great at or against something else, but entirely useless in other contexts. I would take a warrior/slipknife over a warrior/invis mage any fucking day. Why? Because mundane stealth code is powerful as fuck, and there's a slew of interesting skills that come with them.

You seem to be upset that your ranger/slipknife can't compete with a ranger/vivaduan. But your ranger couldn't compete with a full vivaduan either.

[MeTekillot]

And you can't roll up a grief ranger to go magicker hunting to feel like it's fair.

Sure I can.

You can, but you can't KNOW that the magickers you're plinking after are totally unable to detect you because you know that Vivaduans don't get detect_hidden. You're always going to be wary, like you should be.

[little chicken woman]

I think there will be a number of people checking out the new subguilds, like how there was a rash of drovians when they dropped two karma, but I think overall the numbers will eventually settle down, like they did with drovians.

[Molten Heart]

Rogue mages, once they are discovered are probably alone. If they're not alone, but make a group of two or more magickers, the Powers that Be will likely feel threatened when they find out. There's sure to be some kind of plot to follow to deal with the mage or mages, which probably isn't going to end well for magickers.

The largest drawback of playing a mage was always the isolation. Sure there are niche roles for mages in Allanak with Oash or other clans however being a gemmed mage is still isolated and excludes mages from most clan roleplay in some way. Sure they'll be powerful but they'll also be less involved than other characters, rogues hiding their power and being fearful of their secret getting out that others will shun or try to kill them because they are a mage.

Sure they'll have a lot of coded power to be the best but they won't be utilized for this, they'll be demonized.

[Armaddict]

And you can't roll up a grief ranger to go magicker hunting to feel like it's fair.

Sure I can.

You can, but you can't KNOW that the magickers you're plinking after are totally unable to detect you because you know that Vivaduans don't get detect_hidden. You're always going to be wary, like you should be.

...from a pvp perspective, this doesn't really change much, so the above isn't real, nor sensible considering guild-sniffing will be just as easily performed as before.  From a setting perspective, it potentially changes quite a bit.  I say potentially because there is the possibility that everyone does everything properly and this really changes nothing.  However, I see risk that it changes the frequency of magickal interaction and less possibly, makes it -even harder- to sustain the documentation on the attitudes towards magick.

You insist it will make people fear magick more.  This community, however, for the past while, has shown great reluctance in engaging in player versus player mentalities, even when those mentalities are not taken the point of actual killing.  You can visibly see some players trying to be the change to counteract that, and they get treated pretty harshly.  I think there will be more apathy and more overt friendliness.  Not in the short term, when everyone is hyperaware, but the long term, after everyone has settled and said 'Nope!  No problems caused, back to business as usual!'.

What it comes down to is that I see very limited benefit to the game at large due to it.  There is benefit, but it's not a huge one (yay, magickers get to hunt with swords now? Yay, assassins can use sleep instead of sap?).  The potential loss to me isn't worth it.  It's a risk/reward paradigm, and for the sheer size of the change, the benefit just doesn't justify it.  Perhaps this would be different, if there were consistent examples of staff stepping back from changes to say 'We changed our mind, this isn't work well', but that's not even happening with player made tribes or anything.  Even systems organized for players to do things, which still require streamlining, are pretty much lost at this point.  So knowing that the 'This isn't working, let's put it back how it was' is unlikely, the risk vs reward viewpoint becomes a larger service to have.

[Asmoth]

The only negative I can see that might be an issue with this change outside of pvp is...

If the current no magicker in anything but Oash is maintained, while people are taking touched and shards of elementalism or whatever the official term is, the clans are going to thin out because they are like eww magick, or every clan is gonna be full of rogues like half elves who hide as humans.

That's my only concern.

But I still hold faith that documentation will be changed away from total avoidance to social stigma, meaning that magickers will not be super liked but not exempted either.  More of a balance versus circling the drain constantly.

[nauta]

Hope this doesn't get lost in the noise (aka Asmoth and Badskeelz):

In the help file on Krathi, 'agony' and 'suffering' are used synonymously, but I don't think that's intentional -- it should be 'Agony' throughout:

http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Krathis

See, for instance:

On Zalanthas, Suk-Krath is expressed through the aspects of Devastation, Suffering and Guile.

[...]

Suffering
    The Aspect of Agony describes Suk-Krath as an oppressor and antagonist of life and of the toil and exhaustion its heat instils. Krathi who are aligned with this aspect of their element are capable of inflicting all manner of suffering onto their foes - from driving life-giving water from others to engulfing their targets in flame.

Kind of hard to make clear in a quote, but I'm sure you'll see it when you go there.

Cool helpfiles by the way.

[Asmoth]

Hope this doesn't get lost in the noise (aka Asmoth and Badskeelz):

In the help file on Krathi, 'agony' and 'suffering' are used synonymously, but I don't think that's intentional -- it should be 'Agony' throughout:

http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Krathis

See, for instance:

On Zalanthas, Suk-Krath is expressed through the aspects of Devastation, Suffering and Guile.

[...]

Suffering
    The Aspect of Agony describes Suk-Krath as an oppressor and antagonist of life and of the toil and exhaustion its heat instils. Krathi who are aligned with this aspect of their element are capable of inflicting all manner of suffering onto their foes - from driving life-giving water from others to engulfing their targets in flame.

Kind of hard to make clear in a quote, but I'm sure you'll see it when you go there.

Cool helpfiles by the way.

Why are we the noise?  Because we fall on different sides of the debate?

[Dar]

Dont let it ruin your day. Just continue your own train of thought guys.

[Dan]

Dont let it ruin your day. Just continue your own train of thought guys.

I've always appreciated your opinion Dar. This is no exception.

[Jingo]

Question: Would staff consider letting a player pick two aspects and a mundane subguild? If it's a special application?

Edit: For clarity.

[shadeoux]

Question: Would staff consider letting a player pick two aspects and a mundane special app? If it's a special application?

Superhero's incoming to Nak!

[Asmoth]

Question: Would staff consider letting a player pick two aspects and a mundane special app? If it's a special application?

Superhero's incoming to Nak!

Nah, they are all going to red storm because that's where the tailors are to make sweet suits...duh

[hyzhenhok]

If something is being removed because it was decided it doesn't fit the game's theme, it doesn't make sense to immortalize its removal as part of the setting's history. We didn't need a magickal calamity to explain why sandwiches were removed and can no longer be made. We didn't need a momentous natural disaster to explain why spikey wristwraps that slash your opponent automatically vanished into thin air. We didn't need an HRPT to mark the removal of sunslits with glass lenses. We didn't need a mysterious, global epidemic disease to explain why people can no longer create explosive traps or search for hidden doors. If it's decided that something shouldn't exist and should never have existed within the game, you retcon. You don't immortalize.

I'm not sure where you are going with this?


A magick class =/= Sandwich.

Are you saying we don't need an ic reason because it was retconn'd? Because it wasn't retconned and from what I read they don't intend on retconning.

"Mages now have less diverse spell sets but are also now able to gain skill in mundane areas" is not something that will ever make IC sense for an IC event to be the IC cause of. Guilds are OOC constructs, and altering the guild/subguild schema is an OOC event. Of course it's a retcon. Trying to hang a lantern on such a change would be a mistake.

Some of the changes going in might be OK to explain with IC events. But if I ever hear "you know, magickers used to be more powerful. But then X happened and now they can learn to fight good or hide real good instead" I would immediately quit OOC and never return. If staff have to create some bizarre IC justification that never actually reaches the players so they can avoid calling it a retcon, fine. But I hope I never encounter it, because it would damage my suspension of disbelief far more than accepting a retcon.

[seidhr]

Question: Would staff consider letting a player pick two aspects and a mundane subguild? If it's a special application?

Edit: For clarity.

You can't have two subguilds, nor can a subguild be put in as your main guild.  It's a code thing.

[Jingo]

Any word on touched subguilds?

[Centurion]

I'm not going to read 18 pages on my phone, but I just wanted to add my two cents...

Im shocked, but only at the removal of certain elementalist guilds, not the fact that elementalists were changed to be subguilds. The elementalists lacked many mundane skills, and now they can be more fleshed out and have a lot more versatility and will be very scary. I like that. I just wanted to play the drovian, and someday try a nilazi tho. So I'm more sad than happy cause it seems to be more taken away than gained, for me at least that's how it feels. Fingers crossed some option similar opens up soon.

[seidhr]

Any word on touched subguilds?

I'm not sure what you are asking.

[Desertman]

Any word on touched subguilds?

I'm not sure what you are asking.

Come on baby, just tell me about the touching. Tell me....

(I really would like more details in regards to what being "Touched" gives you. An example might be nice. As of now, it's very vague, but I'm sure that is intentional.)

[CodeMaster]

Doubly excited after seeing these options on the creation menu.  Guys, this is going to be fun.