Too Many Gickers? Let's Fix That! (WITHOUT REDUCING THE FUN OF MAGICK)

[Strongheart]

Let me just start by saying this is not a critique on fellow players or some desire to weaken magick or even lessen its impact on the world. But rather pointing out the damaging flaw to the game ever since the changes to the core magick guilds/classes being made into subclasses along with the later introduction to mundane class changes which combined is now catering to very specific character types regardless of roleplay surrounding said characters. This has been an accumulating issue rather than immediate in that magick's significance has deteriorated due to the Aspect options with the new main class choices. While I feel it's a positive change to bring more variety for mundanes and accessibility to less mundanity, this has overtime shown that everyone and their uncle is an elementalist or is friends with one.

It has watered down the stigma significantly to the point where it feels silly to hate on mages, who at the end of the day prove to be more efficient than their mundane counterparts no matter the task, roleplaying aside. Numerous times there have been attempts to force stigmas on player magickers by NPC/VNPCs and almost always this fails because ultimately player agency triumphs over all. And if players want to have their magickal and mundane characters be friendly/allied then nothing will stop that. On top of the popularity, it has basically ruined a significant part of the game which is mundanes dealing with a world that has powers beyond them. Not only that but it has also reduced player interactions for having to rely on one another.

I'd like to hear more opinions on the matter but my personal solution would be to reintroduce Full Mages to the game, removing the Aspects from play, and keeping the Touched subs as they are. Due to the difficulty to play a full on elementalist, this will organically increase the need for mundanes without nerfing magick and without leaving resentment were mages to be limited roles like psionicists or sorcerers. Not to mention this will likely be the easiest change (aside from forcing behaviors on the playerbase to follow which would be mostly negative) for staff to code into the game while retaining a space for players who enjoy magick and keeping mundanes relevant without forcing gicker stigma or reducing the power of magick.

[Strongheart]

FYI I love playing gickers and seeing gicks be played but (excuse my saltiness) not when it's basically every other character for no other reason than because it makes you an even better solo character with no contestation. Magick is enjoyable but I feel that it should come with a price at mundanity or limited to Touched because the Aspects just makes it feel like magick is just a straight up buff for the mechanical sake. It should be something that (if you've the karma) you get to enjoy and add to the world with but it ceases being special when it acts as just a boon to your mundane character without any real setbacks but loosely negative roleplay against the character. Sometimes its more stringent than that but it seems like it'd be better for elementalists to fill their niche in the world rather than be forced out of it for bearing the gem. They can be valued and brought along more when they have a purpose without overshadowing mundanes at the same time. It's not like the character would be less powerful just more powerful in a different way while not stepping on the shoes of a mundane.

GICKS ARE AWESOME JUST NOT IN CRAZY EXCESS SO BALANCING IT MECHANICALLY WILL SOLVE THAT ISSUE PERMANENTLY

[roughneck]

I think the Aspect Subclasses should be changed to Main Classes.

The Aspect Classes with one of the Extended Subclasses have all the power and utility you need, and would add gameplay balance.

[Strongheart]

I think the Aspect Subclasses should be changed to Main Classes.

The Aspect Classes with one of the Extended Subclasses have all the power and utility you need, and would add gameplay balance.

An interesting take on it because I feel like that'd be a bit too harsh! Having Full Mage classes and just Touched magick subs would be more balanced due to the fact that lesser mages could still exist while more focused ones could too. You are fairly limited as a Full Mage even with a solid mundane subclass yet at the same time for all that power a mundane would still have tools to compete with you aside from the magickal front.

[Delirium]

I love mages. Love them. However, I have definitely noticed the proliferation of subclass mages.

And I don't blame a single one of them.

What makes it tough is that when you are playing a mundane, it becomes jarring and/or tiresome when every single fucking one of your friends ends up being a secret or not-secret mage... and then you get looked down on by staff or other players if you don't perfectly tread that line you have to walk when interacting with them. You can't be too buddy buddy, and hating them is absolutely an option while still interacting with them, but anywhere in the middle gets you stinkeye from staff.

There either needs to be a gradual sea change toward accepting that Armageddon is a more magick-heavy game and OOCly permitting mundanes to benefit from having magickal associates (with the appropriate IC backlash from the powers that be) rather than cracking down on them from an OOC perspective. There could also be a simultaneous push toward giving mundane characters coded functions that work similarly to magickal spells so the answer isn't always "send the magicker in!" Think -- grappling ropes to snatch people, code to tie people up, code to blindfold people... let mundanes do the things magickers can do, but in mundane ways.

Alternatively, adjusting or removing a few of the more obnoxious spells would go a long way as a (temporary?) fix.

While I love whirans, I fucking hate the HoW gangbang/cliff drop, just as much as I hated the summon spell. I also fucking hate the relatively risk-free spy spells, since they essentially destroy plots when the playerbase is so small and relies so heavily on information and secrets. However, you're often not given a choice to avoid using those spells. You're ordered to do it, or it's the only way to accomplish a goal because a mundane equivalent can't do it. I don't blame the PCs who resort to those tactics. I just hate the reality of the meta.

I don't have any easy answers, but I do agree on one thing... the state of magick in the game needs to be looked at. I loved the synergy of the full mage classes, and with the change to being able to use weapons while casting, they'd likely be far more workable without having to be unstoppable god mode subclasses... but let's be real... there were still a lot of magickers even when they were full class mages. It's the simple fact that players enjoy playing powerful characters.

The best solution, to my mind, is to flesh out mundane character lists and create new skills as suggested above.

I have a lot of observations on the synergy of the new mundane classes/subclasses if staff would be interested in a write-up, but I wouldn't really want to waste my time if there's no interest in making adjustments, because boy would it take some time.

[Strongheart]

I love mages. Love them. However, I have definitely noticed the proliferation of subclass mages.

And I don't blame a single one of them.

What makes it tough is that when you are playing a mundane, it becomes jarring and/or tiresome when every single fucking one of your friends ends up being a secret or not-secret mage... and then you get looked down on by staff or other players if you don't perfectly tread that line you have to walk when interacting with them. You can't be too buddy buddy, and hating them is absolutely an option while still interacting with them, but anywhere in the middle gets you stinkeye from staff.

There either needs to be a gradual sea change toward accepting that Armageddon is a more magick-heavy game and OOCly permitting mundanes to benefit from having magickal associates (with the appropriate IC backlash from the powers that be) rather than cracking down on them from an OOC perspective. There could also be a simultaneous push toward giving mundane characters coded functions that work similarly to magickal spells so the answer isn't always "send the magicker in!" Think -- grappling ropes to snatch people, code to tie people up, code to blindfold people... let mundanes do the things magickers can do, but in mundane ways.

Alternatively, adjusting or removing a few of the more obnoxious spells would go a long way as a (temporary?) fix.

While I love whirans, I fucking hate the HoW gangbang/cliff drop, just as much as I hated the summon spell. I also fucking hate the relatively risk-free spy spells, since they essentially destroy plots when the playerbase is so small and relies so heavily on information and secrets. However, you're often not given a choice to avoid using those spells. You're ordered to do it, or it's the only way to accomplish a goal because a mundane equivalent can't do it. I don't blame the PCs who resort to those tactics. I just hate the reality of the meta.

I don't have any easy answers, but I do agree on one thing... the state of magick in the game needs to be looked at. I loved the synergy of the full mage classes, and with the change to being able to use weapons while casting, they'd likely be far more workable without having to be unstoppable god mode subclasses... but let's be real... there were still a lot of magickers even when they were full class mages. It's the simple fact that players enjoy playing powerful characters.

The best solution, to my mind, is to flesh out mundane character lists and create new skills as suggested above.

I have a lot of observations on the synergy of the new mundane classes/subclasses if staff would be interested in a write-up, but I wouldn't really want to waste my time if there's no interest in making adjustments, because boy would it take some time.

Honestly, 100% agree with a lot of this. I don't think my suggestions would completely fix the issue and yes I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree that I can't blame players for playing gickers. I want them to and I also love playing them too, we really just need more reason to pick mundanes. Maybe those things could be added but I do feel my solution is the simpler one HOWEVER if staff is interested in adding mundane ways to do that (then again wouldn't mages have access to that as well? they'd still have just about as many mundane skills ) please do!

[Delirium]

Returning mages to full guilds and giving mundanes a lot more tricks seems like the best way to go, IMO.

Especially now that you have extended subguilds that give really decent (if specialized) combat skills.

[Strongheart]

Returning mages to full guilds and giving mundanes a lot more tricks seems like the best way to go, IMO.

Especially now that you have extended subguilds that give really decent (if specialized) combat skills.

Agreed!

[X-D]

While I agree with strongheart, I do not, on the suggestion posts agree with Delirium. As most the spells in complaint ARE removed from elementalists. And I certainly do not agree with Roughneck as Almost none of the aspect subs are even close to viable as a main. Some of them are barely viable as subs.

I have played 4 of the aspect subs and interacted with most of the rest along with some of the touched. Of the 4, the 3rd one I consider Meh, alright, all the rest sucked, Of the ones I have interacted with, it makes me happy -I- did not play them as I would likely have hated them as much as I hated guile.

So, I agree, get rid of the aspect subs, bring back full elementalist, Keep touched.

[th3kaiser]

Honestly, I just find it difficult to want to play a filthy hard working plebe when we do that all day in the real world, y'know? My escapism is just better with magick and super-powers. I think the best choice here would be to lessen a bit of the ridiculous we hate all witches thing that doesn't actually play out that fun IG when it's hard to meet people as is. I only care about the fun, everything else should be secondary.

If/When I make a new PC and decide to play again, it's 99% percent likely going to be a mage.

[Strongheart]

So, I agree, get rid of the aspect subs, bring back full elementalist, Keep touched.

[Strongheart]

Honestly, I just find it difficult to want to play a filthy hard working plebe when we do that all day in the real world, y'know? My escapism is just better with magick and super-powers. I think the best choice here would be to lessen a bit of the ridiculous we hate all witches thing that doesn't actually play out that fun IG when it's hard to meet people as is. I only care about the fun, everything else should be secondary.

If/When I make a new PC and decide to play again, it's 99% percent likely going to be a mage.

The solution I suggested means mundanes are elevated, mages remain as powerhouses but more exclusively to magick rather than being literal super soldiers that completely outshine mundanes in essentially every way. This would not disrupt power fantasy at all and may even make it more enjoyable if I'm being honest to have a mage who is completely connected to their element. This change of getting rid of the Aspect subs, bringing back Full Elementalists, and keeping Touched would balance things out while retaining mage awesomeness. This solution would minimize resentment while keeping our beloved mages around (along with their current accessibility) and not reducing their power just focusing on the magick while the mundanes take care of the mundane stuff!

[Harmless]

I assume the reason that so many people are picking Mages now is just still because the sub classes are new, they work well, the main classes are really good also, etc etc. It is just overall too tempting for people only a couple of years after they were introduced and even less time since they were just fixed (the expansion of spell lists in a few key mage subguilds was a good fix), so it would make sense to me that they remain popular right now.

I hope that it kind of rebalances later, and I would love to have a second look at some of the mundane sub guilds, or to have more synergies between the sub guilds in the main guilds for mundane people so that there are further benefits of being mundane only. Another way to say mostly agree with delirium, I wouldn't want that sub guilds for Mages to go away, but I would love for the main guildmages options to come back.

Some examples of things that could stand to be improved are the Wilderness kit sub guilds, the possibility of adding specialist fighting skills such as riposte to some of them, the expansion of some skill caps that didn't make sense to me ( such as any skill that is capped at a level of journeyman, which for some skills, like stealing, is nothing more than an elaborate form of suicide) or giving Minstrel a more useful kit, or giving bard the ability to make their own instruments, even adding cultural Flair abilities such as languages or language acquisition abilities to more of the sub guilds, Etc. there are so many reasons why I would want to fix some of the subguilds.

Before I think they were just meant to be like a taste of something added to a character, but just like how the new subguild mages are very functional as mages usually, I would want the most of the mundane sub guilds to also be functional. That should greatly enhance their appeal read aloud true hybrid classing for mundanes. Yeah it might contribute to some power creep, but we've had power creep already.

[X-D]

Heh, I assure you, my next PC will be full mundane, and if the magick subs stay around just the way they are (other then touched) It is unlikely I play another...Well, other then the single one I think is alright, but even that is not a near future thing. But do I think things will rebalance player wise to a more mundane side...Um no. Not with current metrics.

[Strongheart]

Heh, I assure you, my next PC will be full mundane, and if the magick subs stay around just the way they are (other then touched) It is unlikely I play another...Well, other then the single one I think is alright, but even that is not a near future thing. But do I think things will rebalance player wise to a more mundane side...Um no. Not with current metrics.

I agree completely. It's been magick-heavy for three or so years now? Likely longer than it ever was with full mages.

[Incognito]

I'll start off by saying that I agree with Strongheart - it really would be great to have the full mage classes back while retaining the touched sub-classes.

I also whole-heartedly agree with other posters in this thread that having aspects as sub-classes just takes away from the uniqueness and utility of mundane classes.

On the matter of increased mage presence, IMO, there are several things that need to be factored in (per my thinking of course) :

1) Aspects are sub-classes now, with full mundane classes to support them - so they're not as likely to die as a full mage with one of the older sub-classes.

2) The Karma system was revamped from 8 points to 3 points, thereby opening up a much larger portion of the playerbase to opt for magick full classes, and possibly why it was decided to shift full mage classes to aspect sub-classes.

3) Although the idea was to move Arm towards a "low magick" theme, the combination of change in the Karma system and the introduction of aspect sub-guilds, has ironically thrust the game into a far more magick-prolific scenario.

I don't think the re-introduction of full mage classes will be practically feasible without moving back to the older Karma system, or an entirely new yardstick altogether.

All things said, if full mages are being brought back, lets get all 7 classes back please!

[X-D]

I would rather have just the first 4 but with the spells stole by the other 3.

[th3kaiser]

Never mind, just rambling. I'll leave this to people who are playing.

Edited

[Jarvis]

We have enough gicks. We need more gick killers.

[Alesan]

I would like to see a reduction in mage characters as well. How that is accomplished isn't really important to me, it's just jarring for me playing a mundane character as I feel like instead of encountering a mage being an actual big deal, it feels more like "Oh great, so-and-so is yet another mage I need to avoid." Nevermind that it feels like it greatly reduces the number of characters my mundanes can interact with.

People who play mages maybe don't feel like this is a big deal, and maybe some of them want or expect more interaction from mundanes than they should, but for some people who play only mundanes, this issue is a BIG DEAL. It's a bigger deal depending on where you play. It's gotten to the point where I'm reluctant to even let my characters befriend people because every other new person is probably yet another secret mage.

[mansa]

On one hand - we want players to be able to play and enjoy the game with whatever character type they want to play.  (within reason, world scope, etc)

On the other hand - when the appearance is that there are too many of one type of character type in an area of play, it tends to wreck the worldbuilding experience and why we play.


Currently, there's the "karma regeneration" system in place that helps limit the number of consecutive magicker characters a player can create.  This is one way to limit the volume of magickers - by having a rule we all agree to and has a time gate to it.



In my opinion, the playable stories we allow magicker characters to take part in tend to pigeonhole their progression and we prune off potential storylines of these characters.  It's like we funnel their creativity down and force them all to play a certain type of character in a certain area of play.  ...which leads to the feeling that there's too many magicker characters in a certain area of play BECAUSE we've forced their players to pivot their characters into that area of play.  Why do I only find Travel magickers in the middle of the wilderness and why do I only find Darkness magickers in the dark tunnel systems.  Why are dwarves always Empowering Magickers who are fighters in the Byn?

I think it's both an imagination problem AND a systemic 'where can play be found' problem.  A potential solution would be to open up more areas of play to magicker characters.  Another potential solution would be a hard limit of characters in game on the subclass choice itself, so that there can only be something like 5 travel whirans alive at any point in time.

[Narf]

I wonder if giving some toys to mundanes to play with might shift the balance a bit. Maybe allow mundanes to learn mundane skills faster, or increase the skill caps for mundane skills used by mundanes a bit, or give mundanes a small boost to one or more attributes.

Though I don't know, maybe that wouldn't actually motivate people to play mundanes more. Maybe people just want extra toys to play with more than they want increases to their existing abilities.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I will say this. I don't think redoing the magick system or classes available yet again will do anything helpful for the game, on it's own, and I do not want to reduce the number of people playing because of some mage cap (I used to be in favor of this, and still am for clans, but not for magickers anymore).

I think giving mundanes things they can do that mages struggle with is an exceptional idea. Actually ... what if nothing changed but for the fact that mages couldn't be great at their main class anymore? Just a simple check, the same one that triggers whether or not someone can look at you and know you're a mage? When that triggers, you're half as good as you can be at your main class skills?

There's things like more materials offering magick resistance, or more materials reducing mana, or more locations that are anti-magick fields, or the planes bleeding over to restrict mages from accessing certian locations, etc, that would all help create a mundane/mage dependency.

What we're wanting to do is make playing a mundane not seem quite so useless in some cases (I will say this, though. A proper group can make mundanes and mages mesh pretty well, so at least some of this is players getting players to buy into the lore and stigmas a bit in order to create a certain environment.). I've never really felt like that, but there have been times when I've come close to feeling like that, and I understand the feeling.

Realistically, the most ideal situation from a game design perspective would be that there is one part of the game that mages deal with, and another part that mundanes deal with, and then a third part they both deal with. Create dependencies between the two, as well, and you can have this tense "I don't have to like you, but I need you" relationship that is really what we're trying to go for with both parties.

[Fernandezj]

I think there are several trains of thought here that are irreconcilable. There are players that will not play mundanes, or play period, while their karma is regen-ing. Its possibly this segment of the population added to those that are actively playing magickers (by staff accounts 1/3rd of the population in a random snapshot) that are better served by more playable, self-reliant, buffed up magicker characters.

A slow creep of magickal related plotlines, and a seemingly more magick-forward world, is the logical outcome of a 1/3rd of the playerbase playing magickers - and players basically saying (by their playstyle and character choices) that the magickal aspect of the game is the only thing that keeps them coming back. One anecdote was "after playing the game for 20 years, playing a regular warrior is boring", or as thekaiser said above, he wants to come to play a superhero. It would be a hard press to appease those players, while also addressing the gripes of mundanes of having to deal with too many magickers. And so any sort of depowerment at this point is likely a nonstarter.

The outcome is a sacrifice of realism. More magicker PCs at a given establishment than mundanes makes its hard for the mundane to implement the realistic social stigmas. And as someone else said, it becomes exhausting as a player when there's a 50/50 chance that anyone you interact with regularly is going to end up being a magicker after maxing all their mainguild skills in the Byn, or some other noble or merchant house.

The suggestion would "be the change you want to see", like create more mage-hunters, play up that social stigma yourself. But this is exhausting, and likely if you formed a mage-hunter group, by the time you were trained up enough to actually hunt mages, one of your buddies would manifest, or you'd just be a severe power-gap. 

Its not fun that the onus is on the lower-karma, no-karma to enforce how the world should react to magickers; magickers with 3 karma are supposed to have the trust, responsibility, and world-know how to make the game more engaging, create plots, and keep things going. The best suggestion (Delirium's) is that maybe there just needs to be a "change toward accepting that Armageddon is a more magick-heavy game".

[Narf]

The best suggestion (Delirium's) is that maybe there just needs to be a "change toward accepting that Armageddon is a more magick-heavy game".

The problem with that is that the role playing limitations are, currently, the only advantage a mundane has to a magicker. If you remove those rp limitations you leave mundanes in the dust in every way that really matters. A lot of people say that Arm isn't balanced, but honestly that's not the right way to look at it. Arm has /some/ degree of balance. Heavy crafters will never fight as well as heavy fighters, and vice versa. If you're the best at one thing, you can't be the best at something else... At least as far as mundanes go.

But casters don't have this limitation. The only thing holding back a caster from just being better, all around, than a mundane is that using magick has in world consequences that might be detrimental.

I'm fine with, and am even in favor of, changing how casters are treated in the world to reflect the reality of what players want to play. What I'm not interested in is just leaving mundanes in the dust along every axis. This would have two repercussions; Everyone that could would play mages. Anyone that couldn't (because they're a new player with no karma, or an old player that spent their karma and died unexpectedly) would just have characters that couldn't do nearly as much, likely through no fault of their own.