Thanks Akariel (RE: Touched Magick Users Appeal)

[Strongheart]

"Please do not discuss magicks. This thread will be locked from here on to suppress magickal lore to a matter of 'find out IC'. If you would like to open a new thread you may, but refrain from discussing what a magicker can do."

thank you so much for making my foresight a false one! lol

Anyway, I just wanted to ask if there are plans to work on some of the current magick systems in place within the game? The dissonance that comes into play, which I have viewed myself IG and through the touched documents, is why the touched are considered full elementalists when they're clearly not. In a roleplay sense, I completely understand why touched would be treated like some of the other more realized elementalists - however, I have seen roles completely denied to someone that pertains to their specific element but because they couldn't do X then they weren't accepted in after having filled multiple other criteria.

So if I am seeing this in the proper light, is elementalism too watered down from what is used to be and should that be worked on, or as I said previously: is it being worked on?

Normally I'd put this in Ask the Staff but I'd like some discussion that DOESN'T bring up the nature of magick in-game. Instead, I would hope to see the opinions on the magick options right now. Of which could be limited or jarring or however one may see them in roleplay, and how roles for players should not always be denied due to certain limitations.

[Strongheart]

This post is in reference of the Code Discussion Thread: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,54350.0.html

That should be enough context! I am basically restating what others have said but if we are going to have this discussion, it needs to avoid the nature of magick that can be found IG and only what is said in documents provided to us all. Or at least keep it general enough for those familiar with magicks not to spoil it for others. To which end, this topic is a difficult one to discuss to begin with. At this point, should we even bother talking about it? Without the proper parameters set up by staff, I am unsure what points will be closed or not.

[Erythil]

So I'm guessing what you're complaining about is, to be useful in a gemmed role, people expect you to have certain spells, spells which the touched guilds do not have, essentially making them unplayable once gemmed, having all the stigma with none of the power perks?

[Strongheart]

Sounds about right. Although, I'm not necessarily complaining! Just asking if there is going to be some sort of adjustment. I'm not too passionate about this particular topic but it seems like there is alot of contention here.

[Strongheart]

And I am also talking about the aspects in whole: some are far more useful than others to the goals of players, whatever they may be. It is restricting to be the MAGICKER WHO DOESNT MAGICK LIKE YOU EXPECT THEM TO MAGICK.

Edited by Akariel.

[Brokkr]

It seems like your primary issue is really about character vs character interaction, which is really determined by player vs player expectations, not typically by staff influenced components (likely not docs for a House stating that Frog elementalists need the "croak" spell).

A secondary component of that issue seems to be, given the primary issue, should staff re-look at what elementalists, and especially Touched, get in terms of spells/skills? Any revision would likely to be driven by broader issues than this, but may include it.

That said, I will point you at this publicly available information:

OOC:  Rukkian and Whiran subclasses have been updated.  This may result in characters playing these subclasses gaining or loosing spells. Additionally there are mechanical aspects of magick that may not work how people are used to (which can be treated IC'ly).

[Strongheart]

Thank you, Brokkr!

[Akariel]

Yes there has been active work into magicker subclasses recently. Expect to hear more about it soon.

[Strongheart]

And thank you as well, Akariel! Can't wait to see the upcoming changes.

[Rathustra]

To join the dog pile of staff responses:

As with every aspect of the game - we're looking to develop and make the mage subguilds more than just a re-jiggering of old mechanics, simply repackaged. Over time, more changes like the ones Brokkr pointed to and Akariel hinted at will be introduced.

However, it is worth stating plainly: these changes are to reinforce the theme, to develop these OOC elements to match the IC reality. So they will likely not satisfy the complaint here, that the mage subguilds don't satisfy OOC player expectations.

The idea that a vivaduan can heal, because they're a vivaduan makes as much sense as saying that any vivaduan you meet should be able to transform into a puddle of water and hide in your sink. These archetypal spells/abilities are left-overs from how mages were and are OOC baggage. I understand and can emphasize with the difficulties going from a situation where all vivaduans could heal to one where that isn't the case, but if an element's only use is as a healbot, it's boring and probably could do with being broken down and rebuilt.

Could it be that the concept of a gemmer as it exists IC with all its restrictions and available resources isn't compatible to a new IC situation where gemmers need to sell themselves as individuals with more focused, individual assets? Possibly. But it will likely be the role that shifts, through IC means, rather than the magick that underpins it.

[Strongheart]

Appreciate the response, Rathustra! Pretty much sums it up, especially with "These archetypal spells/abilities are left-overs from how mages were and are OOC baggage." bit.

I was expecting some more player discussion in this thread, so I guess this isn't as big an issue or complaint for change as I interpreted? Either way, these responses clearly state the stance that staff have taken which I enjoy hearing.

It's disappointing that the need for power has bled into OOC desire rather than being kept IC, however I do understand that want as I've done the very same thing before. It sounds as if these adjustments, tweaks, and changes are being worked on. Sure to excite the community and hopefully be an interesting or entertaining sight to see players experience these things with their characters!

[Nao]

These archetypal spells/abilities are left-overs from how mages were and are OOC baggage. I understand and can emphasize with the difficulties going from a situation where all vivaduans could heal to one where that isn't the case, but if an element's only use is as a healbot, it's boring and probably could do with being broken down and rebuilt.

Mages used to be versatile. This situation you're describing with the only use of an element being X seems like something that is a direct result of splitting up the guilds, with each one having a very specific niche.

What theme are the changes meant to reinforce, and what IC reality? These archetypes (Krathis throw fireballs and vivaduans make water) have been around IG for a long time. I'm having a hard time not seeing those as part of the theme by now.

[tapas]

Touched guilds should get custom crafting imho.

[Strongheart]

Mages used to be versatile. This situation you're describing with the only use of an element being X seems like something that is a direct result of splitting up the guilds, with each one having a very specific niche.

What theme are the changes meant to reinforce, and what IC reality? These archetypes (Krathis throw fireballs and vivaduans make water) have been around IG for a long time. I'm having a hard time not seeing those as part of the theme by now.

+1 to that point

[Cind]

I distinctly remember one of my mages being called 'not particularly useful' during the first times that the mage subguilds were being put into the game. I think we're getting used to how they are now, but some players check a couple of mages out with special apps and then never touch them again, giving them a limited view of what mage applications are like.


I mean, people will eventually get it, and it doesn't feel like they're less frightened of my witches than normal, which I was wondering about when the changes were put in.

[Rathustra]

These archetypal spells/abilities are left-overs from how mages were and are OOC baggage. I understand and can emphasize with the difficulties going from a situation where all vivaduans could heal to one where that isn't the case, but if an element's only use is as a healbot, it's boring and probably could do with being broken down and rebuilt.

Mages used to be versatile. This situation you're describing with the only use of an element being X seems like something that is a direct result of splitting up the guilds, with each one having a very specific niche.

What theme are the changes meant to reinforce, and what IC reality? These archetypes (Krathis throw fireballs and vivaduans make water) have been around IG for a long time. I'm having a hard time not seeing those as part of the theme by now.

The 'use of element being X' thing was what Strongheart posited at the start - that people IC only wanted mages for one particular thing and were upset when they found a mage that couldn't do that, if there's only one spell from each element that's useful, then the magick system sucks and at least having that one good spell in a subguild means less grinding to get it. If the other aspects that don't get these spells are considered unuseful, then why have those spells at all? I'd rather make each aspect useful and fun to play in its own realm of power, instead of returning to generalists, where a mage was as useful as the amount of time they had sat in their temple spamcasting.

I'm not sure we regard theme in the same way, so I can't address your second point here. If there were a tribe whose culture were that they were peerless artisans, rendering the wealth of the wastes into fine pieces of art - then they were decimated by Borsail slavers and reduced to a few diseased and fading survivors in the outer bailey of Luir's Outpost, their former tribal culture reduced to peddling crude trinkets - that is all theme. What was before is theme, what is now is theme - regardless of what was long standing, and what is assumed, the reality is what it is.

So it is with magick, what people IC may have thought all mages of an element could do may persist, regardless of what the new IC reality is. Ongoing changes will develop on this current situation - either through work on the subguilds themselves to make them more than just three subsets of a former whole, or through development of in-game roles such as the gemmed as the game world changes to accommodate the new nature of elementalists.

[ABoredLion]

I spent an hour writing up a post to address some of the points in here, but just decided to delete it and say this.

Back when the changes first came out, it was said that these changes were OOC and not IC. Claiming now that things are changing because they changed 'thematically' through organic gameplay is a step in the opposite direction. There was an outright statement that they were not 'lesser' elementalists to elementalists then. I want to stick to that, because anything else leaves a foul taste in my mouth.

The goal was to make mages 'people' as much as they were mages. They should have kept 3/4 of their spells at least, and then been moved to a subguild. Cutting them into three was a mistake I think. As it is, people don't really fear mages. I've seen it firsthand across a couple of different PCs. I don't think the game should be built around gemmed mages, as they're thematically the least 'responded to' mages. They're not the enemies. They're not the ones struggling to survive every day. They're not that distant power everyone knows about, that someone's going to really address soon.

If the goal was to nerf 'some' magickers and 'boost' others if they went with semi-specific builds, resounding success. Krathis suffered the worst for the changes that were all implemented at the same time. Rukkians and Whirans got the most out of it. But I guess we're just talking opinions at this point really. Every single magicker subset still has their 1-2 things they're clearly 'meant' to do to be effective to any degree, and people know what they are, and react like it. Of the 2-3 staffer PCs I know of in the last year, 1 was a wizard, 1 was a touched HG, and one I've had really rather readily leapt out to one v one the first magicker they found with the crappier set up and kill them with zero regard for the 'supposed' virtual danger involved. I kind of wish every single krathi (instead of none) got to hum, and every single viv got to turn your blood to death. Maybe things would be different then.

My opinion? Either vastly change how the spells of all of them work, or bring back the full-guilds as subclasses. They lose nothing for being 'people' that way, which was the original point of the struggle. Even the types of magickers who 'cast' to deal actual direct damage are weak without committing to the same extreme twinking as a mundane. Which to me, that's odd. Even those spell types were designed with the 'other' spells the mage would have had in its list to help keep it alive while those damage dealing spells went off.

I can't really get into the specifics that I'd like to here, addressing a lot of the individual underlying struggles that I've encountered over the last couple years with these changes because of the secrecy stuff, but I felt something had to be said.

Side note, if someone comes in with the whole, 'What about non-combatant of any kind mages' let me invite you to the theme of this game that I get reminded every single character report. 'Murder....corruption....betrayal.'

All of those lead to violence. If you avoid it, totally fine. I love flavor roles for mages. If you're a combatant mage and you don't do flavor things with your magick, you're doing it wrong. I just think that we should never write off that what makes things 'dangerous' is their ability to do something 'deadly'. Mages are supposed to be monsters of the Known.

[Cind]

EDIT: I'm going to take staff's advice and just shoot this through requests.

[Cind]

By the way, I promise to be quiet from now on about stuff like that.

[Rathustra]

I spent an hour writing up a post to address some of the points in here, but just decided to delete it and say this.

Back when the changes first came out, it was said that these changes were OOC and not IC. Claiming now that things are changing because they changed 'thematically' through organic gameplay is a step in the opposite direction. There was an outright statement that they were not 'lesser' elementalists to elementalists then. I want to stick to that, because anything else leaves a foul taste in my mouth.

This is a good post and I'm glad you made it, despite the frustration that lead to it, because it is really at the cutting edge of a fairly severe case of communication break-down and project mismanagement - somewhat on most side, but as a staff member it is only fair to state what staff did poorly.

Let's check out what I posted in the (hastily thrown together) magicker FAQ when the subguilds were released:

What is the IC explanation for these changes?
These changes are only being marked OOCly. Nothing monumental has changed in the game world - there will be no spectacular shift or RPT to mark this change. Whether or not your PC notices any change should be down to what they encounter IC and based on their IC knowledge of elemental magick. You are free to have your character respond in a way consistent with the IG world and their individual personality if they notice anything.

This is the poorly worded point that every clumsy attempt to realign stems from - here, in the first 7 words it seems to explicitly state that "This is an OOC change". From this a lot of confusion has arisen:

~ That this was a retcon of all previous magick.
~ That going forward, everyone IC was expected to act as though the new subguilds were unremarkable - that the change wasn't something different and should be accepted as being "the way things are".
~ etc.

I go on to try and clarify what the actual situation is with subsequent sentences - but by this point you'd be forgiven for trying to interpret them through the lens my first sentence sets you up with. Indeed the bit about there being no RPT seems to reinforce it, when read from the perspective of this being a retcon or a new status quo! So, at the end there where I say that people should react to the changes IC based on their character's experiences with magick, it just seems like a non-statement.

However that first sentence is stating that there was going to be no world-shaping RPT, it is the OOC opener for the second sentence. The subguild change wasn't going to be marked, or ushered in via an RPT. There wasn't going to be a storm of elemental energy, or an alignment of planets to mark the change - no sudden eventuality that people could point to as 'when magick broke' or whatever. The final part of that FAQ point leaves the door open for the change to be remarked upon, explored, pondered and struggled against IC - my point was that, unless your PC was magickally inclined (a mage themselves, a Templar, an Oashi, etc.) then the degree to which these changes mattered or were noticed IC would vary.

Which is to say that the reduction in spells, the fact that mages could only reach particular 'aspects' of their element - these have always been IC things. It has always been IC to do what PCs have already done - to try and find out the truth, the root, the meaning behind this change. This position, at least for me, has never changed. That is an important caveat, too - because the miscommunication that has sown continued confusion, disillusionment and frustration among players has also caused confusion and doubt with staff, due to the way the project was introduced and deployed.

You can check my post history (if you can stand all the shitposting) to see where I try to push this line of thinking, not really stopping to understand that maybe there's a fundamental misunderstanding. Here are some choice ones:

2017: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,52079.msg975072.html#msg975072 - I try to provide an overview of previous posts detailing how the changes are IC.
2017: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,52079.msg975081.html#msg975081 - I decry the fact that things IC haven't happened - having not realized yet the disconnect.
2016: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50863.msg935953.html#msg935953 - I try to reinforce that we've not retconned the drov/elkros temples in Allanak, and if people go check them out, they will observe things IC.
2016: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50863.msg935531.html#msg935531 - another from the Q&A immediately following the change, I explicitly state that the changes are IC.
2016: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50863.msg935398.html#msg935398 - So it doesn't appear that I'm just fishing out my best posts - here's one where I'm trying to keep to the line that we're not delivering these changes via a big IG RPT, but likely muddy the water by making it seem that the changes have just happened and were now understood to be wholly the status quo. It's also worth mentioning that the person I'm replying to has a good point about "why is there no RPT" and the answer to that is: 'because we wanted the change in as soon as it were ready and felt the changes were occurring at such a high level thematically that they'd better be delivered through a more diffuse animation effort' - only, staff never did that 'diffuse animation effort', so people were left confused.
2016: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50863.msg934974.html#msg934974 - another post in the sake of fairness, here I say "we should adapt gemmers to fit the new situation" - which I repeated in my post above - only it's been 3 years now, why haven't you done this, Rathustra?

The goal was to make mages 'people' as much as they were mages. They should have kept 3/4 of their spells at least, and then been moved to a subguild. Cutting them into three was a mistake I think. As it is, people don't really fear mages. I've seen it firsthand across a couple of different PCs. I don't think the game should be built around gemmed mages, as they're thematically the least 'responded to' mages. They're not the enemies. They're not the ones struggling to survive every day. They're not that distant power everyone knows about, that someone's going to really address soon.

If people don't fear mages, we will make people fear mages. Unfortunately, this will take time and is part of the 'changes' Akariel hinted at and which I elaborated on above. I agree with you about Gemmed mages. We don't want the game to adjust to make them valid, when I mentioned adjusting to make Gemmers more viable, I meant within their niche.

If the goal was to nerf 'some' magickers and 'boost' others if they went with semi-specific builds, resounding success. Krathis suffered the worst for the changes that were all implemented at the same time. Rukkians and Whirans got the most out of it. But I guess we're just talking opinions at this point really. Every single magicker subset still has their 1-2 things they're clearly 'meant' to do to be effective to any degree, and people know what they are, and react like it. Of the 2-3 staffer PCs I know of in the last year, 1 was a wizard, 1 was a touched HG, and one I've had really rather readily leapt out to one v one the first magicker they found with the crappier set up and kill them with zero regard for the 'supposed' virtual danger involved. I kind of wish every single krathi (instead of none) got to hum, and every single viv got to turn your blood to death. Maybe things would be different then.

This wasn't the case (recent changes balancing options). We can't help it if people react with OOC knowledge to what mages can do - it happened with main guild mages, it was just instead a case of "how spamcasted is this mage?" which, I'll gladly admit makes for a scarier bit of arithmetic than 'what kind of viv is this'. I agree that every subguild should instill fear. I just disagree that every subguild within an element should instill the same fear.

I don't know what you're trying to say with the staff PC thing.

Side note, if someone comes in with the whole, 'What about non-combatant of any kind mages' let me invite you to the theme of this game that I get reminded every single character report. 'Murder....corruption....betrayal.'

All of those lead to violence. If you avoid it, totally fine. I love flavor roles for mages. If you're a combatant mage and you don't do flavor things with your magick, you're doing it wrong. I just think that we should never write off that what makes things 'dangerous' is their ability to do something 'deadly'. Mages are supposed to be monsters of the Known.

Sorry, I disagree fundamentally. We have a large number of non-combatant PCs and they pull a massive amount of weight. Violence and death are certainly cornerstones of the game, but the idea that magickers should simply be means of bringing about death and destruction is wrong. The only interpretation of this I agree with is that OOCly, people only care about their character dying, because that is the only "lose case" in the game - so it's hard to make something "scary" that doesn't kill your PC. However, as drovians once showed, being able to know everything about your PC can be scary too - it's just that people tend not to interpret it as a scary thing, instead feeling its OOCly unfair or annoying.

[Jihelu]

That's a really good post Rath.


Drovians when?

[Lizzie]

Rathustra for President!

and I'll collect the funds to lobby for the restoration of full elemental guilds, OR a "pick two" elemental subguilds of the same element, plus a mundane main guild.

[gotdamnmiracle]

I'm really impressed with staff's response to this. I think this hammers out a lot of the issues we had prior concerning understanding the state of magick and it's facets of recent.

[ABoredLion]

I don't know what you're trying to say with the staff PC thing.

In this instance I was highlighting how even the staff PC in question reacted like the mage in question was absolutely not a threat under any circumstance due to the fact they obviously weren't capable of the more dangerous things particular builds of their given element would have done. I gave an example where 2/3 (of the PCs I knew to be staff played) were either A) So powerful nothing in the game made them hesitate, or B) Entirely willing to ignore the implied 'virtual' danger 'feeling' toward magick in general. It was a fairly off the cuff remark that this behavior is even exhibited by fantastic roleplayers who have clearly earned the trust and nod of the game's administrators on the highest level. Certainly, it can't be expected by comparison that if they fall for these things, the rest of us wouldn't at times.

Side note, if someone comes in with the whole, 'What about non-combatant of any kind mages' let me invite you to the theme of this game that I get reminded every single character report. 'Murder....corruption....betrayal.'

All of those lead to violence. If you avoid it, totally fine. I love flavor roles for mages. If you're a combatant mage and you don't do flavor things with your magick, you're doing it wrong. I just think that we should never write off that what makes things 'dangerous' is their ability to do something 'deadly'. Mages are supposed to be monsters of the Known.

Sorry, I disagree fundamentally. We have a large number of non-combatant PCs and they pull a massive amount of weight. Violence and death are certainly cornerstones of the game, but the idea that magickers should simply be means of bringing about death and destruction is wrong. The only interpretation of this I agree with is that OOCly, people only care about their character dying, because that is the only "lose case" in the game - so it's hard to make something "scary" that doesn't kill your PC. However, as drovians once showed, being able to know everything about your PC can be scary too - it's just that people tend not to interpret it as a scary thing, instead feeling its OOCly unfair or annoying.

I'm sorry. I'm reading your post and other than you saying you disagree fundamentally, I'm not sure where you actually have. I said what makes mages dangerous is that they're capable of doing something deadly. I said murder, corruption, and betrayal all eventually lead to violence. You don't murder without violence coming from somewhere, even if it's not you (someone else is doing it). The thing that made Drovians deadly was their knowledge, if not their ability to pop out of thin air practically with two big-back-up buddies ripped from Drov to help murder you. It doesn't change that again -- they were deadly. Mainly deadly because if they didn't want to be found, they were ridiculously hard to be, while making your life utterly hellish. Whirans got the best of both worlds there.

Let's kind of refocus on some points though otherwise. When I said I think every Krathi should hum so hard 'The Hobbit' dwarves were jealous (paraphrasing obviously) I was being partly facetious, and making it a point that I think it's better that they were all feared for the same thing than having 1/3 feared for 1 thing, while the other 2 aren't generally worried about. (Contrary to what some people think, no, the code advanced players do not care about catching a fireball to the face when they know their 3-4 rounds of combat following are going to kill you before the 2nd or 3rd cast will). I don't ever want to hear a PC say to mine, 'Yea, we can go kill that Rukkian. He's not good with a sword.' -- that's what I feel has sort of come about with these changes. In many ways, the potential of some mages (in particular whirans/rukkians) have been raised with the caveat to their design that it's if they join in with mundanes and become dangerous in the way that mundanes are dangerous. It's almost like somewhere along the line people said, 'Hey, <insertdamagespellhere>'s just basically a master-level kickx2.5, with a delay timer that's different, and it can be interrupted.' What if we made it where they were warriors that did this?' And that's all well and fine. It's just that the old mages were balanced (I think) in a way that their weaknesses and such were fairly covered (except for scan, you poor bastards) and the split didn't do that well for many of them.

I don't know well how to articulate my issue with it here well without again getting into some specifics I wouldn't want to post on the board, but I suppose I feel like there wasn't some accounting done for certain builds, and the changes forced others into a niche that really drew away from a thematic danger to 'all' mages.

Your post about the suggestion that, 'if they don't fear them, we'll make them' gives me hope, for sure. But another part of me thinks it's easy to buy into that a 'design' is good, because one or two people have wielded it well. You give Majikal a damn grandfathered merchant guild PC with 'thief' as his subguild and he'll find a way to butterknife a templar to death, and that shouldn't be the metric for measurement. You know what I mean?

[number13]

There was an old tabletop RPG called Paranoia, where one the goals of the game was to expose other player characters as commie mutant traitors. The joke of the game was every PC, including yours, was a commie mutant traitor.

That's what being a magicker in Arma feels like. It's basically impossible to be surprised that new PC Amos turns out to be some variety of elementalist, because that's the default.

Which is fine. Everyone wants to play an elementalist. Whatever. But since probably over 50% of us are playing elementalists, sorcs, or templars, you're just going to have to adjust to the idea that magick isn't really going to be scary for over 50% of the PC population.

The alternative is to make elemenatlists very rare, which would just piss off the 50% that likes playing some variety of magic-user.