Make Sorcerers Great Again (And Elementalists)

[Lotion]

Is the Infiltrator/Scout/Soldier line actually that incredibly weak? High advanced weapon skills is nothing to scoff at, especially when a lot of people who pick Enforcer/Raider/Fighter won't cap out and it will still be enough to kill pretty much anyone else.

[Dresan]

I think staff did mention they wanted the classes to be split so not a single class was good at everything.

However this worked better with some classes then others.

For example, in my eyes infiltrator is a class that is good at nothing because the nature of the skills are so often hit or miss, either its master or its useless. Scout is slightly better off in this regard mostly because their skills aren't all pk related. Stalker/miscreant are so popular because stealth is strong. Heck, I used to pick slipknife with my rangers simply because of the master sneak/hide. I have zero interest in it now without it.

Staff already stated stealth is not in a good state so I expect to see some changes someday, whether it will help or utterly ruin some classes/game is a discussion for when those changes happen.

[Greve]

Is the Infiltrator/Scout/Soldier line actually that incredibly weak? High advanced weapon skills is nothing to scoff at, especially when a lot of people who pick Enforcer/Raider/Fighter won't cap out and it will still be enough to kill pretty much anyone else.

That's kind of the thing: "high advanced" weapons don't count for much if you're stuck at journeyman forever unless you're extremely fortunate to have constant access to a sparring partner who is a) a long-lived warrior, b) matches your playtimes, and c) willing to spar with you regularly, i.e. numerous times every RL day for probably a good two months straight. Without that at your disposal, you're unlikely to ever reach advanced at all. If you're in a sparring clan, your unarmed training days will see your offense outpace your weapon skills until you can no longer raise them. If you're trying to go it alone in the wilderness, there's just nothing you can realistically fight that'll dodge you past the midway point.

The light-combat classes master so few things that it's really hard to justify playing them. Of the few skills they do master, their heavy counterpart masters all the same ones with an even higher cap. It's hard to feel excited about scout when raider is available. A lot of the skills that the light-combat classes get at advanced are skills that are of very little value below master, such as stealth, scan and poisoning. And since extended subguilds no longer consume karma, you can just roll enforcer/slipknife every time and start with backstab which goes higher than an infiltrator's. Neither class has good enough stealth to make serious use of it, so the infitrator having better stealth counts for very little.

What does soldier get that fighter doesn't? Some very shrugworthy weaponcrafting skills. Slightly higher watch, when half the basic subguilds give advanced watch. Slightly higher forage and cooking? That's what you get in exchange for lowering the caps of almost all your combat skills from master to advanced? Parry alone is so important that giving up a level in that skill completely redefines your character's potential. Soldiers don't even get ride, which is frankly rude. Are you gonna roll up an infiltrator to play an assassin who fails to hide 20% of the time, can't rely on sneak and gets spotted by everyone with master scan even when you do succeed? And you don't even get the highest cap on backstab?

None of the light-combat classes are the best at anything. There isn't one single skill between the three of them that they get higher than anyone else. They excel at nothing and take a big hit to a ton of their character-defining skills in exchange for wishy-washy stuff that you could get with any given subclass. At no point since the new classes were introduced have I ever had a character concept in mind where it made any sense whatsoever to pick infiltrator, scout or soldier. The classes above and below them are just objectively superior. If having advanced sneak/hide, scan and stuff like that was of more use, maybe it would be different. But these skills are very close to worthless at that level.

Like it or not, Armageddon definitely has a metagame. You're not forced to follow it, but if you don't, you simply have to accept that your character isn't as codedly effective as other people's characters. Your scout might be perfectly adequate at hunting small and medium animals, but are you gonna try a dujat with your advanced parry? Are you gonna pay a thousand 'sid for a peraine gland and gamble it against your advanced poisoning skill? Are you gonna stealth your way into a dangerous area with your advanced sneak and hide? Are you excited about your master archery when every raider with 10+ days played is even better at it? And what exactly can your scout do that other classes couldn't?

When Brokkr revealed that the light-combat classes are not in fact the best at backstab and archery but rather behind the heavies, I was shocked. I had taken it for granted that infiltrators were the best backstabbers and scouts the best archers because that's the only way it makes sense to have classes whose skillsets are so impoverished. I actually thought it was pretty clever design that if you wanted to be the best at these two notoriously deadly skills, you didn't get to be awesome at anything else. It was a sensible sacrifice. But nope, enforcers and raiders are better, and they master every other combat skill on top.

[Dresan]

Like it or not, Armageddon definitely has a metagame. You're not forced to follow it, but if you don't, you simply have to accept that your character isn't as codedly effective as other people's characters.

I agree with everything Greve said.

I just want to add that the problem with Armageddon's meta is not just in regards to how powerful your PC is coded or just about winning the game but rather that the opportunities for fun things you can be doing in the game begin to diminish  once you begin to move away from the metas.

The most extreme example i can give is playing city elves. Where even the most basic things any of the other races can do is a challenge for you. Additionally, c-elves are completely out of place and ineffective in most of the clans they can join.  Additionally staff will not be rewarding you or going out of their way to make the game more fun just you just because you playing celves. If you don't like it you can basically store and roll something else.

Since we are responsible for creating and finding our own plots it unfortunately makes the meta even more important especially when you do not have ample time to commit to the game. At the end we all have busy lives after all and can always find better things to invest our time on.

[Khorm]

and despite all of this, people still play and enjoy these classes/races. not everyone gives a shit that raider is mathematically better than scout, or that humans are easier to play than elves.

i'm a bit of a twink when i play the game, but at a certain point it boils down to what i want to play and aesthetic. i can appreciate that some people want to play the apex chad but i think the people that are able to milk the most out of the meta are probably in the minority and are going to exploit the strongest options regardless of balance.

to bring it back into the realm of magick I think a similar approach is that if I roll a sorcerer or whatever it's because I want to play that role within the world of armageddon, not because I expect to be able to punch holes in steel plates.

i don't know if i'm making a point that's worth a shit or not, but i think a balance between individual PC power and world cohesion is critically important.

[Dresan]

and despite all of this, people still play and enjoy these classes/races. not everyone gives a shit that raider is mathematically better than scout, or that humans are easier to play than elves.

There are people who RP being blind and mute beggars/mutants on the street. If that is your thing by all means feel free and enjoy.

Equally, you can't blame the people who have rolled humans, dwarves or half-elves and joined the byn who are  riding out of the gate about to have fun with a staff supported adventurer. 

Again I just chose the most extreme example, most things are in that bad of a state.

[X-D]

I still play...for the time being...I do NOT enjoy these classes..I play despite of them not for them. And if I do not find a combination I actually enjoy..I will stop playing...which is in the high probability. The only thing that has kept me even this long is the rest of the players...for the most part ya rock.

[Greve]

I still play...for the time being...I do NOT enjoy these classes..I play despite of them not for them. And if I do not find a combination I actually enjoy..I will stop playing...which is in the high probability. The only thing that has kept me even this long is the rest of the players...for the most part ya rock.

Do you mean the classes as a whole or the light-combat ones? Because overall, there's several classes that are significantly better than their old counterparts. The heavies are way better than warrior was and miscreant is a huge upgrade over both the pickpocket and the burglar. There's nothing quite as versatile as the old ranger, but that guild was really too good anyway, and instead we have raider and stalker who are better than rangers were at combat and non-combat skills respectively, so I think that's an acceptable tradeoff. The thing I really miss is something that can compare to the assassin, but staff seems adamant to separate high-level stealth and true deadliness for mundanes. Maybe that's for the best if no changes to stealth are planned.

On the whole, the new classes aren't that bad, it's just the light-combat category that falls short. Well, and the light-merch ones too, but those are clearly flavor classes meant for players who don't care about coded potential, so that's fine. Most of all I think there are just too many classes, because there aren't that many skills in the game and a lot of them only really work within a fairly narrow scope, so it feels like there was enough to get half a dozen solid classes and then the rest fall victim to the fact that they all have to be different enough to justify existing. It clearly wasn't possible to make them both sufficiently different from the rest and good enough to be balanced. Some players don't care about balance, but that doesn't make those classes balanced.

In hindsight I think I liked the old guilds better, mainly because all of them were clearly focused around a distinctive playstyle and got the full skillset to excel at it. There's a number of good classes amongst the new ones, though. Oddly, there's also a few classes now that are pretty bad at the very job that the class is named for. But apparently we're not supposed to associate the scout class with the act of scouting or the soldier class with the soldier profession, because reasons.

One big downside I've noticed, however, is when you join the Byn or something and you can clearly see that many of the PCs are scouts, soldiers and stalkers who just don't cut it for sparring. Compared to the days when almost everyone in the combat clans were warriors and rangers, sparring has taken a huge hit with the new classes. You end up spending so much time sparring against people whose skills and skillgain coefficients are just not good enough in the long term to yield continued improvement for others. The result is that everyone's progress is bottlenecked by access to the handful of players who picked raider, fighter or enforcer.

[HeeBeeGB]

I think similar to re-roll undo, I really wish there was class/sub-class undo. I would make the class/sub-class undo within 24 hours played. It resets your skills to the new class combination, and you start over again.

I often pick the wrong combination, because it takes within that 24 hours played to understand what a role might require of you, what you will be doing with the PC, and what potentials you want to either maximize or focus on.

I really wish this was doable. I haven't played nearly any/all of the class and sub-class combinations, and find I make the wrong choice almost every time for the role the PC will be inhabiting. I play despite that, but yeah...It'd be nice.

[Spider]

Is the Infiltrator/Scout/Soldier line actually that incredibly weak? High advanced weapon skills is nothing to scoff at, especially when a lot of people who pick Enforcer/Raider/Fighter won't cap out and it will still be enough to kill pretty much anyone else.

but are you gonna try a dujat with your advanced parry?

Not sure if you have time frame stipulations here, but I have done so with a stalker, mounted and solo.  I haven't played scout, but if it is better at combat than a stalker, then this shouldn't be an issue.  I know this might be a little nit picky for the point you were trying to make, so I'm putting this out there just in case a reader wishes to accomplish such a goal with at minimum stalker potential in combat, and not as an argument against what you were trying to accomplish in your post.

Edited to add: Human Stalker.

[Hauwke]

You can totally take a stalker and kick ass. Frankly, I am embarassed for X-D, he always bragged about being incredible at raising combat skills. Just turns out it was the guilds, not the skills.

It is true that light combat is objectively 'less good' than the other groups, but you can definately also bring it to a ridiculous level. All you people do is complain and whine instead of putting a little time in.

Is a fighter of the same days played as a stalker almost always going to win? Yup. The fighter will hands down smash the stalker, but that is by design. The stalker shouldn't be engaging the class designed for straight up combat like that.

[Doublepalli]

Big lol to this newfound debate.

A merchant could kill someone, if they trained their offence and defence high enough. Also, a merchant could kill someone based off their wit and/or resources.


A stalker should never be able to handle a heavy, even light combat in a straight up fight. That said they have an ARSENAL of tools and weapons to get shit done in the wilderness, just like a miscreant does in the city.

You're only handicapped by your lack of vision, intelligence or skill. And you don't need playability to bring a character to life. It just ensures your characters success.

That said, light combats are definitely trash. Heavies got all the love, they made a PP/burg/assassin for the wilderness and city, a few flavor crafters for those who care to, and then gaslighted a tier of "light combatants" that are crappier than everyone and everything else, effort included minus smarts.

[Heade]

That said, light combats are definitely trash. Heavies got all the love, they made a PP/burg/assassin for the wilderness and city, a few flavor crafters for those who care to, and then gaslighted a tier of "light combatants" that are crappier than everyone and everything else, effort included minus smarts.

I don't think this sort of flaming is appropriate. Staff volunteers to do their jobs, take time away from their real lives, and work very hard. This sort of attitude, attacking their intelligence doesn't encourage them to do all of these things for us for free.

Sometimes, it takes a bit of trial and error when you're basically rebuilding an entire system from the ground up. While I agree that I don't think the light combat classes are quite up to par, I don't think attacking the intelligence of the architects of that system is deserved. I think we have some very intelligent people on staff, even if I don't always agree with them.

[Doublepalli]

So....it takes months and months and months of similar posts to get them to "read" them? Mm. You lost me

[X-D]

Do you mean the classes as a whole or the light-combat ones? Because overall, there's several classes that are significantly better than their old counterparts. The heavies are way better than warrior was and miscreant is a huge upgrade over both the pickpocket and the burglar.

I mean as a whole. And other then miscreant, which essentially is pp and burgler put together and so is a better class...I do not agree that say fighter is better then warrior...raider and enforcer certainly are not.

As to being able to "kick ass" With a stalker...Heh, no. Did I PK with my stalker, yes...was it more likely that I was going to have some sort of running battle across half the known if the other player even had a bit of a clue and still they would get away...yes. Is it a "strong" Class in some ways...I suppose, but that does not make it a good class or one that I enjoy. Hell, Stalker would be the closest to enjoyment I have had on a new class, anemic...very...semi-versatile...yes....good...Nah.

Also, sorta on topic. I have tried 3 magick subs...one of them I would put in the horrible category...mostly because it has spells that sucked with the legacy class...at least one of those spells should have been removed from the game more then 20 years ago since it was put in when Halflings, gith and mantis were still playable and even then only had marginal use. Another sub I would rate as...Meh...not horrible but still not worth ever using. And another that I would say is OK...but you are likely to have more fun just playing a mundane.

One of my biggest problems with the new mage subs is that, You have a very reduced number of spells...and so, every one of those spells should be at least somewhat useful on something or they are a waste. With legacy mages that did not matter as much. You have 22 spells and 4 are worthless well, you still have 18 spells...not to mention there was better synergy. But if you get the same worthless spells AND lose any synergy with the rest it turns into sure my list has 12 spells on it but 4 are the same old useless ones 1 is a new worthless one and another plus a skill I would have needed with the legacy class I don't with this one because it does not even have the spells that would require it. Yeah, 5 maybe useful spells is what you are trading who knows what more useful skills and the hatred of the world.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Just a question to staff if they care to answer:

Are these discussions useful to you guys? I know we've seen you state that magick and the classes are in a state that, for the time being, is acceptable and unlikely to change. Is this feedback helpful, as it appears like griping and arguing over what is the best way to handle something that's already been essentially decided on doesn't seem useful, especially if there is not intent on you guy's part to make these sorts of changes within a year or two of this thread.

This is a weird question and not meant to be offensive, but are threads like these primarily just the "opium of the people" here? Where everyone dumps their opinion and it's not helpful and nothing changes (in a manner informed by this thread)? Because that's how it appears to me and I'd be completely fine just being told how it is so long as I know that's just how it's gonna be. Like the community doesn't get a say in the direction of triple A games they just get to decide if they like it or not and at the end of the day it doesn't really matter what they thought about the DLC or whatever.

How far are we in the hash marks of gripes about current magickers threads? 4? 6? How about gripes about content that's been changed/removed? 10? 20? I'd prefer to hear a hardline answer stating we can stop making these discussions and retreading well trodden ground.

[Greve]

I mean as a whole. And other then miscreant, which essentially is pp and burgler put together and so is a better class...I do not agree that say fighter is better then warrior...raider and enforcer certainly are not.

I don't understand how you can say that. The heavies get basically everything warriors got plus some other stuff on top. The only exception is the branched weapon skills that have been discontinued, but if we're being honest, these were nearly unusable. Almost nobody ever got a chance to raise those to a level where they were worth using over the weapon skill they branched from. With the changes made to skillgains in recent years that have invalidated things like gortok dens and encumbered sparring, almost nobody would be able to branch them at all anymore.

Enforcer gets master backstab and sap. Not just master but the highest cap of all, above infiltrator. They get climb for free, which is really nice. They get several ranged skills at master, warriors didn't get any. They get low advanced stealth skills which, while not exactly great, do have some niche uses such as sneaking past guards or hiding from soldiers in city streets. As far as I can tell, the only thing they don't get that warriors got is journeyman forage and bandage, which... let's be real, who cares. And of course razors/pikes/etc.

Raider gets the highest ranged combat skills in the game, higher than scout and much higher than warriors did. They get climb, advanced ride for free, advanced direction sense, low advanced stealth which really helps in hunting autoflee animals, they get advanced scan which may be useless for spotting players but will help you in hunting animals that hide. It's a wilderness warrior that doesn't cost you a subclass like the old warrior did. Playing a wilderness warrior nearly required that you take outdoorsman or hunter or something so you could climb out of pits and get through a sandstorm.

And I think fighter is the worst of the three heavies precisely because it's very close to the old warrior. Hack and riposte just aren't that good, but they still get the full warrior package as well as master ranged skills. I don't see what this class gets that brings you to rate it higher than enforcer and raider, but the fact remains that aside from the branched weapon skills, it's just a better warrior. It's pretty much exactly a copy of the warrior but with master ranged skills.

And in place of the special weapon skills, which really weren't anywhere near as significant as people tend to believe due to the prohibitive difficulty of raising them even to journeyman, the heavy-combat classes get a higher cap on their weapon skills than warriors did. The special weapon skills had a higher cap than the basic ones for warriors, and Brokkr has revealed that the heavies now cap their weapon skills at that level, higher than warriors did. While this is unlikely to matter for most characters, it's still a thing.

So unless you care more about the branched weapon skills than most players ever had a reason to do, the heavy-combat classes are objectively superior to warriors in all other ways.

[Greve]

I do miss the old elementalist and sorcerer main guilds, for sure. The subclasses would have been a fine addition to the game but are a poor replacement. Magick just doesn't seem noteworthy anymore because its wielders are 90% raider (or whatever) and 10% mage. The spells are a sidenote to characters that depend primarily on their mundane skills, and the spell selections aren't deep enough to live the life of a mage. You just get one or two neat tricks and a few largely useless flavor spells.

The spells with the biggest impact now are the ones that buff your stats and combat skills. I miss the days when you'd meet mages. It was just more interesting to worry about possibly having to fight an elkrosian than to worry about fighting an enforcer who can cast Strength. Magick has become a dull affair that doesn't have enough of a presence on the playing field. If we'd kept the old spellcaster guilds, I'd have been perfectly happy with the subclass ones, but it's not a swap I'm satisfied with.

[Saellyn]

The only difference between Warrior and Fighter, fundamentally, is Warrior got skinning and Fighter did not. Fighter, other than that, is superior to Warrior in just about every way.

Hack and riposte are exceptionally good if you know how to use them, as are most skills that are combat related. It's in the application.

[Hauwke]

Fighter also gains off and def significatly faster than old warrior did.

[Brytta Léofa]

If you want people to avoid magickers, like truly avoid them, then you need to make magic have some kind of actual unpleasant consequence.
...
For bonus points make all curses and unintended unpleasantness only apply to mundane PCs. Other casters are immune.

This is a dynamic worth exploring (rather than rehashing mundane guild balance, guys, c'mon).

Laura, you said "for bonus points;" but to me that caveat (casters are immune to each other's side effects) is what makes the whole thing viable. Or--for bonus bonus points--perhaps the most opposed elements (suk-krath vs drov, whira vs. ruk, whatever) are susceptible to each other's ailments.

Here's a version that is fairly easy to code:
- Add another coded disease.
- Give non-magick PCs a small chance of catching it whenever they're in the same room as a magicker.
- Symptoms could be coded however you want...lame, freaky, mildly annoying, debilitating.
- Any magicker is immune, except nobody's immune to nilazis and defilers.

Bonus points:
- Reduce the chance of catching it in crime-coded areas inside Allanak. (Yes, I am specifically trying to support gemmers in bars while punishing the mundanes who want to jump their bones. )
- Anyone wearing a metal ring is immune.
- Moderately contagious before symptoms begin (thanks for the idea, Covid!).
- Removable by Vivaduan spell.

[Dar]

I love the idea of magick having some kind of an effect on those nearby. But wearing anything metal makes you immune and cures it.

Touching the dragon statue would cure you from the magical ailments. Tribes that have mages have either learned to live with the curse, have all been mutated a bit due to it in ways unknown to others, or have a metal relic that they periodically touch.

[triste]

I love the idea of magick having some kind of an effect on those nearby. But wearing anything metal makes you immune and cures it.

Touching the dragon statue would cure you from the magical ailments. Tribes that have mages have either learned to live with the curse, have all been mutated a bit due to it in ways unknown to others, or have a metal relic that they periodically touch.

Interesting idea. The way in which high born types that tend to possess metals are already protected and immune to things like this is incredibly frustrating, but of course, in keeping with the setting and the theme. Part of what is poignant about plagues is how it can take the lives of the rich just as it can take the lives of the poor. But thinking about how to make this further unique and tied to the setting is great, certainly I would welcome superstitions about metals curing things if nothing else.

[Hauwke]

It almost seems fitting that Hthe Highborn would come with innate protections from the nefarious curses that the lower down witches posses.

It's almost like they knew about it and those that matter get protected.

[zealus]

Maybe app in an Oash and make this your project

That being said, I believe that magickers already have a distinct social disadvantage. No need to add a coded one too. I've semi recently been in a position that showed that yes, codedly, they are powerful. No, that doesn't matter in a gameworld which, in most locations, treat you like a pariah. Power or no.

I personally like the fact that most the superstition about magick is based upon paranoia. How else are you going to keep the magickers in check but to spread rumors and fear?
Fear, after all, is a powerful tool in Allanak.

That being said, like I said above, I'd be all for someone making a magick hating PC and this their pet project. Crazy Oashi? Stern Templar? Who knows, maybe a Nilazi who just wants to cure the world of magick. Fear of the unknown can be a fun plot device