Reactions to the Witch Subguilds

[BadSkeelz]

Maybe. It's hard to tell, obviously. I don't think there's that many more mages in the game now than there were before the change. The players of "hide until I've spam-casted my way to power" generally do not strike me as the kind of players who have the patience or skill to succeed at the mundane grind. A big appeal of mages was being able to be useful in 5 days as opposed to 50.

Incidentally, any "quest for ultimate power" given to mages should only become available at approximately the same time advanced weapon skills become available to warriors, circa 150-200 days played for non-twink/DElf PCs.

[Lizzie]

Maybe. It's hard to tell, obviously. I don't think there's that many more mages in the game now than there were before the change. The players of "hide until I've spam-casted my way to power" generally do not strike me as the kind of players who have the patience or skill to succeed at the mundane grind. A big appeal of mages was being able to be useful in 5 days as opposed to 50.

Incidentally, any "quest for ultimate power" given to mages should only become available at approximately the same time advanced weapon skills become available to warriors, circa 150-200 days played for non-twink/DElf PCs.

Maybe that's a big appeal to some people (being able to be useful in 5 days as opposed to 50) but definitely not me. Not even a little. Why?

1) Some of my mages weren't useful at all at first and I had to rely on either RP exclusively, or my subguild coming with the forage food skill, to survive long enough to even worry about whether or not I could be useful as a mage.

2) ALL of my mages were mages because of the fun factor. Being able to be useful wasn't even a consideration because I don't need a full skill list for my characters to be useful. I played mages because magick used to be mysterious, and neato, and sometimes creepy, and interesting, and intriguing - fun to roleplay around, and with, and against. Notice a significant lack of "because I could skillup faster" in that list of "reasons to want to play a mage."

[Akaramu]

Hah. I've never had an useful mage. Not even at 15+ days.

Being useless was so damn fun, though! 

[Miradus]

Hah. I've never had an useful mage. Not even at 15+ days.

Being useless was so damn fun, though! 

Me neither. Maybe it was my choice of subguilds, but all my spells were essentially useless and would simply get me exposed as a rogue gick and killed.

[Synthesis]

Maybe. It's hard to tell, obviously. I don't think there's that many more mages in the game now than there were before the change. The players of "hide until I've spam-casted my way to power" generally do not strike me as the kind of players who have the patience or skill to succeed at the mundane grind. A big appeal of mages was being able to be useful in 5 days as opposed to 50.

Incidentally, any "quest for ultimate power" given to mages should only become available at approximately the same time advanced weapon skills become available to warriors, circa 150-200 days played for non-twink/DElf PCs.

...I branched an advanced weapon at 12 days.

[Cind]

I play witches because I prefer to be at the bottom of the social ladder and elves are too hard for me to play. That's the sole reason, yet it is a really important one most of the time for me.

[Miradus]

I play witches because I prefer to be at the bottom of the social ladder and elves are too hard for me to play. That's the sole reason, yet it is a really important one most of the time for me.

I like desert elves, but not city elves. I just don't find the lore of the city elf very thrilling.

The thing about being at the bottom of the social ladder, and I don't mean to vague-book or cast aspersions on anyone's roleplay, but what I've noticed over the past year is some people want to make IC choices that put them low on the social ladder, but they don't want to accept the IC consequences of those choices.

"A rinthi's honor" ought to be a catchphrase in the game, seeing as how many get majorly offended when you close your pack and emote eyeballing them at the bar. Like they're a Victorian gentleman accused of theft instead of the dirty slum pickpocket they rolled up.

I don't know. Feel like I should delete this without posting but maybe there will be some interesting conversation come out of it. Like I said, I'm not trying to call anyone out on it. God knows I've got my own issues with character types.

[Narf]

I play witches because I prefer to be at the bottom of the social ladder and elves are too hard for me to play. That's the sole reason, yet it is a really important one most of the time for me.

I don't know. Feel like I should delete this without posting but maybe there will be some interesting conversation come out of it. Like I said, I'm not trying to call anyone out on it. God knows I've got my own issues with character types.

I suspect that some of this comes from emulating "scoundrel" type characters in movies who make grand displays of umbrage when they're accused of being about to do the thing they normally do.

[Cind]

I think a lot of people in Western culture associate the rinth with the extreme poverty, overcrowding and honor system of Victorian England's slums. I think this is partly because rinthis often talk like what the movies have told us those people sound like.

When I play a rinthi and the Gaj folks eyeball me, I accept it, am even proud of it. Those dirty southsiders -should- be watching their backs. I stabbed a motherfucker last week, what did you do?

[650Booger]

I would love, love all the magick main guilds to come back, as higher karma than before, and magick subguilds for the other elements that are missing now.

I agree with this. 

there are no karma options for main guild, and that seems like a missed opportunity.

[Evilone]

I think its a great idea to return full elementalists, and I think it could make quite a few people happy and maybe even return to the game. The extended subguild changes were awesome, and it's been how long now since they were implemented? The momentum seems to have died off for the new guild changes, etc?

If it's too game breaking, only return the basic ones we have for subguilds now. Vivaduan, Rukkian, Whiran, and Krathi. Do implement extended subguilds for elkrosian, drovian, and nilazi though please. Maybe a couple spells could be removed that were so damaging (a Drovian one comes to mind), but otherwise I'd be so keen to try them in the future. I always wanted to play a Drovian (had a spec app in when the changes were made, and never got the chance).

[BadSkeelz]

The lack of Drovians is a good change. They were too game-breaking. Only really good for being a near-unstoppable spy.

I miss Nilazi as an antithesis to elementalists and (supposedly) their natural predator. I would like their spell-list to be worked a little bit; they have some spells that make no sense for them to have.

[Reiloth]

The lack of Drovians is a good change. They were too game-breaking. Only really good for being a near-unstoppable spy.

I miss Nilazi as an antithesis to elementalists and (supposedly) their natural predator. I would like their spell-list to be worked a little bit; they have some spells that make no sense for them to have.

Agreed. I'd like to see one side of the Nilazi spell list be the 'Necromancer' and the other be the 'Mage Hunter'.

[Harmless]

I like the extended subguild mages for what concept variety they add. The idea of someone having some connection to a magical element, but not a full one, is a great addition. I'm not quite sure what the "science" or "lore" is behind elementalists to explain why there would be partial attunement to an element... and I'm not quite sure that the lore would have an explanation for why mainguilded mages no longer are playable either. I don't think there is explicit lore for those changes. I think that the changes were made due to perceived power imbalances, or because the way in which they were roleplayed didn't seem to fit the world, or because the way in which mages had such handicaps in other areas didn't seem to make sense to the staff. These are my speculations: the changes were at least in part enacted by some staff who either have retired/changed roles, and the feelings staff has on these things molds over time just like player opinion. I recall what was explained by staff in the original announcement as for a reason why, but I don't know if those explanations are still why the changes remain in place.

My response to posts like Badskeelz' about "game breaking" roles: modify the role, but why take it out?

My response to opinions like "The RP was over the top": a.) Modify the karma requirement so that the players given those roles can reliably roleplay the subtlety of Zalanthan magick, or b.) file player complaints, or c.) ask staff to more strictly standardize the way in which players SHOULD roleplay magick (there weren't that many standards for, for example, what actually "happens" when a "nil" reach is cast, which is an important thing to explore as "nil" reach casting is so important for practicing.. so what does it mean to practice a spell but not actually cast it? Nothing exists in available documentation to guide roleplay around this.) This is just ONE example of where there wasn't a lot of standardization, but rather the allowance of players to do as they please...which seems to lead to a lot of dissatisfaction with how some players were roleplaying their magickal characters without any standard to judge them by.

I would really like magic mainguilds to come back in some form, either just as they were before the changes or as new guilds with new skills/spells/rules. I really like magic-oriented roleplaying even in a low-fantasy setting. I think that some players may have "gone too far" with it, but all I can say is that I have gotten karma for my RP with magickers and my approach was always intended to be subtle. If it means making them higher karma requirement on their return, that's fine with me, not that I'm confident I'll reach those levels of karma but I could probably special-app back into at least the lowest tier of mainguilded magickers if they did have a higher requirement and that'd be more than enough for me. I just feel as if there should be a way for someone in Zalanthas to have that much magical ability. I also feel that Drovians and Nilazi were core to so many plots in Zalanthas' history that to suddenly make them unplayable is equivalent to making elves unplayable overnight. You had better believe there will be players who are "happy that elves were removed" but there'll be an equal number of players who will basically quit the game...

[BadSkeelz]

My response to posts like Badskeelz' about "game breaking" roles: modify the role, but why take it out?

Because fuck magick.

[Harmless]

That kind of response is basically your opinion. I'm pretty sure the game wouldn't exist if concepts were removed everytime anyone had a "fuck <concept>" attitude because there will be someone on the opposite side of every attitude. It's nice you have it. You're a good player; funnily enough, especially after having roleplayed a gemmed while you were an Arm Lieutenant, and having roleplayed with you several times, your personal (as a player) distaste for mages actually made your RP around magick one of the better approaches to it that I've seen over the years. Now that there are less gemmed "full" mages around, not only do we not have mages themselves but we no longer have your characters responding with vitriol towards mages. Therefore the game loses out with the removal in every way... in my opinion.

[BadSkeelz]

First, thank you.

Secondly, I haven't actually been in Allanak for the better part of six months. Maybe longer. And when I was, my character was doing his best to avoid the Gemmed. So I don't know if it is true that there are "less Gemmed" now than there were before the change. If it is true then it furthers my theory that a large appeal of playing a Magicker is that they were powerful and easy to level up. (Excepting the "Not all mages!" apologists who have already contributed to this thread, of course.) The only real check on their advancement is Social pressure and how dull the grind is, followed by some of the roleplay surrounding them.

Going back to your first post, the only solutions of yours that I really like would be adjusting the karma. Bumping the cost of all Mage Guilds up, say, a karma point may make a difference. But the other two have some shortcomings:

Filing a player complaint is all well and good, but you're still left with the smoldering/poisoned/electrified/splattered corpse of your character that, odds are, you spent a lot more time playing and improving than Amos the Cavejerkin' Wizard's player.

Trying to codify magickal practices sounds nice on paper, but I think it would get tedious and restrictive very quickly.  One of the really fun things about Magick (and Armageddon in general) is the relative freedom of expression we have. If Nil meant the same thing to every mage, you quickly enter "seen one seen them all" and "played one played them all" territory. Trying to document too much kills interest in roles and annoys players. We saw the annoyance that the Titles change drew, and I think Tuluk's lack of relative popularity had a lot to do with the over-codified nature of its character. It would be too bad for Mages to fall in to the same trap.

Before we bring back the Guilds, we should make sure the Subguilds are working properly. Maybe splitting each Guilds in to three subguilds overly diluted the spell lists. Maybe it should have been each Guild becoming two Subguilds, plus a Touched.

If it IS decided to bring Magick Guilds back, I only want that to happen after Mundane Guilds get the overhaul they need and deserve. Ideally the skills system in general would get a major update to hasten character development. If you could bring a Mundane up to decent code power in the same time you could bring up a Mage, it would go a long ways towards addressing the imbalance that existed between Mundane and Magickal Guilds.

I wouldn't want to see Drovians come back. They were a very one-dimensional Guild (spellwise) and only really good for one thing, which was spying and short-circuiting plots. Too few were anything like Corse, who actually had a character outside of his spell list.

[Jingo]

Drovians had some features that allowed them to explore some of the more unsound places in armageddon.

The problems were that exploration just isn't that rewarding and they didn't have a complete toolset to deal with what they found.

I'd LOVE to see a drovian touched subguild that looked something like this.

:sight in darkness spell
:climb + agility buff
:two room ethereal spell (ability to move only two rooms while ethereal before corporealizing)
:detect ethereal
:cantrip spell


Note THAT ONE spell is absent.

[Harmless]

Badskeelz, I don't really disagree with a lot of your posts. I do think that player complaints are a good solution to the problem of asshole players who do rather unsatisfying PKs for.. unclear reasons. I don't think this was the norm by any means among the various examples of both rogue mages and gemmed mages I've seen. I don't think that even the current changes do much to reduce the possibility of such players abusing magic... etc. I think maybe I haven't played characters enough to be the target of such trolls enough times, or I haven't been friends with victims of such mages enough to think this is common. We likely have a different sum of experiences with the game because we have different preferred roles.

I like your suggestion to focus more on "fixing" subguilds than to bring back the mainguilds and think your ideas on how to do that are on the right track for sure. Other people have posted that the selections of spells don't make a lot of sense or don't work well with each other. I do hope these types of changes are considered.

I should correct the tone of my post to clarify that I'm actually OK that the mainguild mages are still gone... for now. I may get impatient at some point, but for now I have enough concepts I want to try with the current system that seem fun and interesting, and I go through concepts pretty slowly. I hope that people similarly wishing for more magic options can try to be patient also.

As for hating on any one element... I get that a lot of abuse/plot destruction/changing occurred as a result of drovians. The idea of shadow being very separate from Nilazi is a little weird. But the idea of elements having "opposites" and also "sub-elements" is something in the canon. I.e. Krok and Ruk, stone and earth, an easily accessible example, or Krathis disliking Drovians, i.e. both being a state of "light." Light could be a combination of "krath" and "Elkros" as it has properties of energy and heat... Elkros itself could be a combination of Wind and Fire perhaps, as both involve transferring of energy and storage of energy. These types of concepts are a part of the lore STILL, but just suddenly some aspects of this lore, which isn't publicly well documented because a lot of it is "find out IC," don't and can't just go away suddenly. Krath still has an opposite, and magickal energy itself can either be present/abundant or absent; elements should compliment each other and oppose each other. All elementalist energy and all magickal energy really comes from Life itself, which is perhaps what Nilazi abuses as well.. but so does sorcery and defiling.

The bottom line is that as long as the magick in game has represented all of the core concepts and elements above, I'm happy. I don't care if the guild "drovian" exists, but I want there to be negative/shadow/anti- elements and quasi/pseudo/sub- elements. How exactly staff chooses to make this system is up to them, but if they take out entire swathes of this system, it punishes the variety and intrigue that magick generates, which is and always has been a balance of power, a cold war of supernatural activity. If you take away the tension that existed in the magick system you've kind of broken the potential for it to make magickal roleplay interesting at all.. just being able to shoot elemental sparks isn't enough for it to be worth ROLEplaying. (as opposed to just gaming)

[Lutagar]

It felt like this had to happen. The changes to crime code with magick meant you had to be a mundane (or one particular high karma subguild of magick that's notorious for FUCK YOU ohk spells with huge range) if you wanted to be pull off a PK inside of a city and get away with it. Ever since that change it always felt like rangers/assassins were the new mages with the coded power they held.

Now the mundane+magick synergy actually makes them dangerous in places that aren't the wilderness.

It also felt very well balanced. I know for a fact some of the lower karma 'gick guilds are some of the more feared ones. A+ change.

[Harmless]

I care less strictly about balance and more about variety and character development. As such the removal of whole classes of concepts will always be a downer. Nothing positive in terms of who kills who and who can spy on who is going to justify complete removal of roleplaying concepts.

To every poster who says that "things were bad before, now they are better in terms of balance and playability, therefore changes are good."  I will say this: "Yes, things may be better in that respect now, but was complete removal the only way? Couldn't changes have been made to lead to similar consequences? Couldn't we have tried additions without removal?"

Maybe a year or so has passed since the changes, and my sentiments on the above haven't changed at all since then, despite the positives, for the essential reason that removing something isn't the only way to "fix" it if it was imbalanced. You can.. fix it. "nerf" it if you will. At least I will still get to roleplay that concept or hope to someday, and others will and those roles will be represented to add flavor to my magick themed low-fantasy witch-hating RP.

[Synthesis]

Personally, I think being a magicker is a WHOLE LOT MORE FUN now, which is really all that matters, quite frankly.

[Kalden]

Personally, I think being a magicker is a WHOLE LOT MORE FUN now, which is really all that matters, quite frankly.

+1

It sucks to be pigeonholed into small category.

[Comfortably Dumb]

Personally, I think being a magicker is a WHOLE LOT MORE FUN now, which is really all that matters, quite frankly.

I haven't had a chance to play a subguild mage yet, but this pretty much sums up my thoughts.

[AdamBlue]

I think full karma elementalists are balanced as they were for years by being basically just that; a magic battery with a subguild. With the subguilds we have these days, they're solid, in my opinion.

A magicker/gladiator is basically a mini warrior, but you can be a warrior/magicker that is an absolutely different playstyle.

It really depends on preference, and no one guild is inherently stronger than the other. Sure, that full-blooded Krathi may be able to OTK you, but so is that half-giant with the big fucking club, or that legendary hero who you decided to piss off. Either way, you're fucked against magic or mundane in terms of balance, because you're gonna get swooced.

The full elementalist option allows for someone to play a more risk/reward long game. It takes a long time, (unless you're a twink) to go from 'absolutely useless' to 'game-breakingly broken'. Not to say mundanes cannot do the same; Every time I play a warrior that lives past a few days, they end up becoming some kind of known-reknown hero/villain that drives RP, all without a lick of magic.

It's sorta like...

Mundanes are a slow progression of skill over time; They start marginally useful before becoming the backbone of whatever organization they're in.
Magickers start basically useless. Wow, fireworks? Neat. Oh, hey, now you can make a few sparks to burn some dudes?
After a long period of training, they can literally unleash the dragon's fire on fools and incinerate them with the force of the gods.

They go from 0-100 real fuckin' quick, while mundanes get their slower, but steadier, and are much more likely to live. The subguilds take away from their utility in the mundane front, but they achieve an even balance of being useful while also having some extra potential to go apeshit late-game with some kind of magickal fuckery, that, when combined with their mundane finesse, makes them even more powerful than their fully mundane or fully magickal counterparts in some circumstances, but weaker than others.

I mean, even with water mages, a warrior that can heal himself back to full health when you've nearly slain him? It's a god damn nightmare!
What about a FLYING ranger?
A merchant who, out of god damn nowhere, basically becomes a fucking half-giant in terms of durability and strength when someone tries to assassinate him?
An assassin who can LITERALLY TURN INVISIBLE.
A burglar with enough RANGZ to literally STEAL YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING -HOUSE- and then BURN IT TO THE FUCKING GROUND
An enterprising water witch who takes over some abandoned place and turns it into an outpost of food, water, and shade using their skills!
You people need to think bigger and better in terms of utility. It's not all limited to 'lmao fire sword warrior'.
Perhaps you're a caravan merchant who really doesn't wanna play the Byn fee. Why walk when you can poof your way there?
If we ever get the other guilds back, perhaps we'll finally see the dawn of some really hilarious stuff.
You thought elven archers were bad? Try an elven ranger who can ROLL AROUND AT THE SPEED OF SOUND.
A dwarf who's entire focus is to create a Necropolis, and uses his necromancy to create an army of corpses to, instead of killing, they do unstopping labor to mine and build his sprawling outpost brick by brick!
A half-giant who randomly shows up somewhere new every week and makes brand new friends!
A regular human who decides to explore the rest of the Known, hurling himself into the darkness to find out the secrets of the universe!
THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS