Bringing Back Full Elementalists

[Akaramu]

If anything, gemmed are more dangerous than they used to be.  They can fight now, in addition to melt your face - even at baseline 0 hours played skill levels.

That some players have decided to play to the game's theme and treat gemmed like dirt (honestly this has always happened, I'm not sure how you didn't notice in the past) should be applauded, if anything.

Except all the good opportunities to learn how to fight are exclusive to mundanes, and the only way for gemmed to train is to be a hunter, which is a kind of role that doesn't appeal to every player all the time. And starting as a newbie hunter, with a visible gem, out of Allanak is ultra hardmode compared to joining a clan, or starting in Tuluk (which isn't a thing anymore).

Which is why in 4 real life months, I've seen three gemmed hunters (who actually hunt) survive for any amount of time. Three. Everyone else is a merchant or died very, very early on. That's not exactly a lot of coded power to make gemmed feel scary and dangerous. Also, what of gemmed burglars and pickpockets? Should everyone pick guild_ranger or guild_warrior now because that's the minmax combo?

Power potential does not equal actual coded power when most PCs never achieve it.

Mundanes or hidden mages get to spar every IC day in a clan, can attend sopcial RPTs, and find easy interactions pretty much any time of the day. Also, and they don't have targets painted on their necks. There's a big imbalance there.

[seidhr]

Are gemmed really supposed to be treated like dirt? I thought they were supposed to be treated like monsters and abominations. That's a little different. Breeds are dirt, elves are scum, and magickers are horrors. All are treated badly by ordinary Allanaki humans, but in different ways.

Treated in different ways but equally dirty, in different ways - I think you're on the right track.

Except all the good opportunities to learn how to fight are exclusive to mundanes, and the only way for gemmed to train is to be a hunter, which is a kind of role that doesn't appeal to every player all the time. And starting as a newbie hunter, with a visible gem, out of Allanak is ultra hardmode compared to joining a clan, or starting in Tuluk (which isn't a thing anymore).

Which is why in 4 real life months, I've seen three gemmed hunters (who actually hunt) survive for any amount of time. Three. Everyone else is a merchant or died very, very early on. That's not exactly a lot of coded power to make gemmed feel scary and dangerous. Also, what of gemmed burglars and pickpockets? Should everyone pick guild_ranger or guild_warrior now because that's the minmax combo?

Power potential does not equal actual coded power when most PCs never achieve it.

Mundanes or hidden mages get to spar every IC day in a clan, can attend sopcial RPTs, and find easy interactions pretty much any time of the day. Also, and they don't have targets painted on their necks. There's a big imbalance there.

Then don't take the gem from day 0 - manifest later, or join Oash, or band together with other gemmed and train up in some IC realistic way.  Here's news for you:  90% of full guild elementalists died wandering a few rooms from Allanak to a scrab or something, too.  If anything, even moreso than they do now, because they couldn't fight for a damn - no matter how much they trained.

[Molten Heart]

Playing a gemmed elementalist can suck because of the isolated aspect, but the gem also gives certain advantages. Allanak is the only place in the game an elementalist can play without being hidden and have the same protections from the law that everyone else enjoys. For an elementalist it's probably the least dangerous situation to play in.

[Riev]

Just a question related to all this:

Arm of the Dragon used to, occasionally, take on a Magus as both a consult and/or as a war mage for out-of-city excursions.

Is this a thing that staff has seen still happens? Does it happen less now that the full guilds are fractured? Without putting on your Staff-shoes, is this something Templars WOULD still be doing now that certain magicker skill sets may not be what they require?

[Silteyes]

And starting as a newbie hunter, with a visible gem, out of Allanak is ultra hardmode compared to joining a clan, or starting in Tuluk (which isn't a thing anymore).

This is only ultra hardmode if the levels of difficulty are:  Tuluk/clan, ultra hardmode, Red Storm and Extreme ultra mega hardmode.

The gem gives gemmed newbie hunters the very real, and very powerful, advantage of being able to actually use their magick outside the gates for killing, survival, travel, etc.  From day one.  Without regard as to whether someone knows whether or not they are a magicker.  This is a significant advantage over rogue magickers, or even less savory types, who may be essentially permanently restricted from effectively using any magick that is visible to someone else.

Unless they are okay with living with a big target on their back.

[Synthesis]

In my experience, having a gem actually dissuaded more people from fucking with me than encouraged them, compared to my mundane hunters.

Once you get a giant neon sign that says "DON'T MESS WITH THIS GUY OVER HERE," the only people who will even get close enough to look at you are idiots and sorcerers.

[Feco]

I'm straying into off topic, here, but I'll often have a PC not notice the gem, particularly if the gemmer in question has a lot of other gear around their head/neck region.  So, acting all chill around a magicker isn't always a sign of "oh is just magicker i don care"

[Akaramu]

Then don't take the gem from day 0 - manifest later, or join Oash, or band together with other gemmed and train up in some IC realistic way.  Here's news for you:  90% of full guild elementalists died wandering a few rooms from Allanak to a scrab or something, too.  If anything, even moreso than they do now, because they couldn't fight for a damn - no matter how much they trained.

I joined Oash. In an IC year I had the opportunity to spar once. Overall, I don't feel 'join a clan with a life oath' should be the answer to anything.

If 'we recommend that you don't take the gem' is an official staff recommendation now, you should add that info to the approval email for new mage PCs, and maybe make an announcement post about it. So players know what to expect.

I know a lot of full elementalists died early. I've been playing this game, on and off, for 14 years. Lots of mundanes have very short lives, too. The thing is, there isn't enough gemmed PC fluctuation to compensate for those early deaths anymore. The elementalist quarter feels like it's dying. Many people don't want to play gemmed anymore - for good reason. I certainly wouldn't want to try another. Is this really what staff wants? That people don't play gemmed anymore? That everyone is now a hidden or rogue mage who stores when they get gemmed?

All of this, and more, is in the feedback request I sent to staff a few days ago.

And starting as a newbie hunter, with a visible gem, out of Allanak is ultra hardmode compared to joining a clan, or starting in Tuluk (which isn't a thing anymore).

This is only ultra hardmode if the levels of difficulty are:  Tuluk/clan, ultra hardmode, Red Storm and Extreme ultra mega hardmode.

The gem gives gemmed newbie hunters the very real, and very powerful, advantage of being able to actually use their magick outside the gates for killing, survival, travel, etc.  From day one.

They don't need the gem to cast spells outside the gate if they just avoid being identified and reported.

And when 80% of your gameplay is mundane skills, casting spells openly isn't as great as an advantage as it used to be. 'Being able to train mundane skills with others' is far more advantageous.

[Synthesis]

Maybe gemmers aren't hanging out in the Quarter because they're out doing cool shit, and maybe you should figure out what that cool shit is and get involved.

[Akaramu]

Maybe gemmers aren't hanging out in the Quarter because they're out doing cool shit, and maybe you should figure out what that cool shit is and get involved.

That's a lot of untrue assumptions all at once. Wow.

[sleepyhead]

If anyone cares about my opinion...

I like the elemental subguilds. I like the flavor of them and how they open up new and exciting ways for someone's connection to their element to manifest. I briefly played a really disgusting gemmed 'rinthi corruption Viv and it was a lot of fun, and a nice break from all the unnaturally flawless and beautiful Vivaduans I'd seen (and played.) I'm not criticizing anyone who played them that way; it made sense as a sort of elemental cantrip. But now it's more nuanced and varied, which I love. I also adore that mages have mundane guilds (soon to be classes!) now; that's especially great for tribal magickers, who can do a lot more to contribute now.

I understand the reasoning as far as why main guilds were removed. Nergal & co. say that the magickal subguilds reflect that magickers are normal people with mundane skills who ended up, by some accident of the cosmos, being blessed/cursed with magick. They had lives and jobs before manifesting--sometimes after manifesting. And yes, (this is me talking now, not Nergal & co.) it was always super lame when everyone would assume, rightly or wrongly, that you were a hidden magicker because you had a job or background that did not rely on coded skills particular to one class or another.

That said, I don't agree with the fact that main guilds have been entirely removed. I think it would be great to make them special app only. Make them all high-karma if you want. Keep 'em rare. These are the magickal savants. These are people who found their true calling when they realized they could use magick. They're scarier but also more heavily reliant on magick. They are connected to their element in a way that is fuller and deeper than most mages could ever imagine, but their feet don't tend to be on the ground (or perhaps they are TOO on the ground in the case of Rukkians.) Such mages have more of a tendency towards insanity.

I'd LOVE that. Just a few full elementalists sprinkled among the partial elementalists. Right now, the fact that you can assume if you see someone cast X, they're the "flavor" brand of Y elementalist and you don't have to worry about him as much is...upsetting. The presence of full elementalists, however rare, would nip that in the bud while ALSO protecting against the old "he's a mage so he almost certainly sucks at combat" problem.

This solution adds unpredictability and variability to the mix and to me, it's realistic. There are going to be people who are mostly ordinary folk but have just the slightest stirring of magick within them (touched.) There are going to be people whose otherwise normal lives were shaken to the core when they found they were connected in some mysterious way to an aspect of an element (subguild magicker.) And there are those rare people who represent a tenuous balance between their, um, humanoidity, and scarcely contained elemental power (full guild elementalist, special app only.)

I guess I don't understand why this is off the table because I think it would satisfy a lot more people than either rolling back the changes altogether or continuing to maintain a hardline no-full-guild-elementalists-ever-again policy.

[Lizzie]

As I said - I didn't vote because the option I would vote for, isn't on the list. I would vote for "I want elemental full guilds to return, and the subguild elemental options to cease to exist."

I don't want elemental guilds to exist in addition to the elemental subguilds. I also don't want elementalists to cease to exist at all. I also care, very vehemently. So none of the options applies to me. That is the only reason I didn't vote. But if it'll help, I'd cast my vote for the first option. I don't think it's helpful though because it isn't true for me.

[wizturbo]

I think the subguilds are cool, and are one of the best additions to the game in 10+ years.   There would've been nothing but three cheers for staff and happy players if they were added without purging the full elementalists along with them.  Lizzie might be the exception there, this is actually the first time I've heard that particular opinion...  But I can sort of relate.  I value the full elementalists higher than the subguild elementalists, even if I think the subguilds are super cool.

From that perspective, it felt like this change was 2 steps forwards, 3 steps back.

[Armaddict]

I guess I don't understand why this is off the table because I think it would satisfy a lot more people than either rolling back the changes altogether or continuing to maintain a hardline no-full-guild-elementalists-ever-again policy.

I don't either.  I'm not heavily invested into this discussion at all, because as I've noted...I didn't...ever find the magick classes particularly troubling, aside from one or two.  I found the social atmosphere around them troubling, which only required more world reinforcement.

Mostly, though, I keep piping in because I generally give staff the reins.  This game isn't a democracy.  At all.  It never has been.  But there's been several iterations of very drastic changes over the last decade that were presented with the hopes of one change (or insistence that the working model that was indeed working needed changing for a 'new era'), but in turn they've brought about other similarly drastic side-effects that players have in varying degrees found undesirable.  I dislike the idea that because someone took the time to roll out the change, or write the code, it's -there-.  Evaluation of changes needs to occur, and be taken into account, and either scaled up, scaled down, or rolled back; expecting perfect frameworks of these kinds of things and just moving on to a new project is...not generally a good design.  When large amounts of players either don't feel strongly about it or dislike it or struggle with it, that is indeed the feedback.

I don't know why it's such a big deal to keep things as they are, but allow the occasional full mage still.  I just don't.

[sleepyhead]

I don't know why it's such a big deal to keep things as they are, but allow the occasional full mage still.  I just don't.

Yeah. It'd be a big deal to a lot of people who love that role, and surely it wouldn't hurt the people who disliked full mages all that much, since they'd be quite a rare sight. And their presence, however uncommon, would help mitigate some metagaming issues.

[Molten Heart]

With all arguments about Zalanthas being high magick or low magick, aside (I think it's a lot higher magick than staff claim because sorcerer kings/templars/etc), which is one of the reasons for the change, I enjoy it better now with the subguilds.

I like that elementalists can now fit into mundane society without having to create a special situation where a character got by on soft skills alone, not having to depend on coded skills to fufill a mundane role and not have people say "I think he's a magicker." And while it's stupid because it's based on a lack of evidence of mundane skills, a great example of guild sniffing. But despite that, it still happened, it happened a lot.

I like that elementalists are now subguilds because elementalists can actually do other things. They can be in the Byn and actually fight. They can work for a merchant house and be good at it. They can fill many roles that they couldn't before and still be elementalists.

Magick isn't everywhere, yet magick is everywhere, or is? I don't know because it's hidden.

The main guilds were cool, able to be very magickal but not much of anything else, and this gets boring, especially when the staff focuses more on mundane stuff. I think the world only has room for full guild elementalists as niche roles, they should be sparse. Main guild elementalists are a perfect fit for sponsored roles and special applications.

[Lizzie]

I could get behind that Armaddict and Molten Heart. While I still do not -want- elementalist subguilds in the game, I accept that they're here to stay. And because of that, I wouldn't want to see full-guild elementalists around at the same time. The whole magick thing has been diluted - every ranger and their brother can be a mage now, it's lost its specialness, the spark that made me say WOAH, which I maintained all the way up until the full guilds were fragmented and Nilaz/Drov/Elkros was made unplayable.

But I'd be much more optimistic about the game as a whole, if I knew that it were still possible to special app a full-guild mage, or that the staff put out occasional role-calls (or secret roll calls) for them once in awhile.

[Synthesis]

Every ranger and their brother can be a mage now, so it's lost its spark?

What?

That doesn't even make sense.

Let's turn this on its head, though:  WOAH, now every mage and his brother can be a RANGER.  That's frickin' awesome.

[lostinspace]

I don't really care what happens with the subguild gicks, but I think I understand what Lizzie is trying to say. Before the subguilds, gicks WERE different, they weren't skilled with weapons, they weren't master assassins, and they weren't master crafting. Admittedly, this line was somewhat blurred with the introduction of extended subguilds. It's not wrong to want that, however it does seem to be the polar opposite of staffs desire to make magick more commonplace, and at odds with what probably draws players to the subguild mages in the first place.

[Nergal]

The related thread is starting to tread toward dangerous territory in a few areas:
1) Respect for fellow posters
2) Discussion of magick mechanics
3) Speculation on psionic/magick mechanics
4) Beating a dead horse
5) Clan forum alts voting in the polls (apparently for all options)

I'm going to lock this thread now, and the related thread on bringing back Drovians/Elkrans/Nilazis. Thank you for your opinions and the overall discussion - all options will be considered going forward, but at the moment staff have a number of projects to focus on right now.