Coded system to encourage magicker vs magicker PvP

[MeTekillot]

I've had several code ideas floating around in my head as pertains to magickers being encouraged to kill each other (and perhaps the mundanes). As it stands now, there's little to not OOC motivation (beyond group association and HATE VOID ELEMENTALIST) for players of magickers to try to kill each other. Why kill that Vivaduan if he can heal your wounds or bang out some sick fucking goodies for you to use with your Ruk spells? So, I'd like to pose an idea.

A 'sacrificial totem' or 'sacrifice' type spell that each magicker class gets, in the same vein as the 'imbue totem' spell.

When used on a magicker of a differing element, successful casting of the sacrifice spell would increase their mana. How much mana is a later point of discussion for balance; right now, I'm just setting out theoretical system bones. If used on a Void Elementalist by a normal Elementalist, perhaps this reward could be modestly increased.

If they use it on a magicker of their SAME element, they would automatically branch a number of spells. If it is a magicker of their same Element and a different type (Vivaduan Corruption vs Vivaduan Healing), the branched spells would be weighted toward the sacrifice's spell Path.

For emphasis
The spell can only be successfully cast twice at each power level. Respectively, once for an Elementalist of a differing Element, and once for an Elementalist of your same Element.

------

That is the bones of the system concept. How difficult the spell should be to set up, cast, how many spells and how much mana are gained etc etc etc is all up for later debate, but I made this thread specifically to gauge how the community would feel about such a system being implemented.

As I mentioned, there's little to no OOC (and very litte IC) motivation for magickers to not link up into little bands of Power Rangers. With this system, there would be an edge of suspicion for even the closest-knit cadres of magickers. Why is going mad with lust for magickal power something exclusive to sorcerers? I don't think it should be.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

[Dar]

I like the idea.

We can also add stuff like a shared Regen Mana Regen.  Lets say there can only be 25 mana regenerated for each element for the entire known per 5 minutes.  So if there are 5 vivaduans, they Regen 5 mana every 5 min. While they are the only ones, they'd Regen 25 every 5 min.

[Jihelu]

So what does the supposed spell do?

Unless it severely cripples the other magic user or it kills them, I can't see people not just teaming up to magic buff their friends with more mana and benefits. And if it kills them...how do we support a spell that one hit kills people?

I'd rather it be more highlander esque if we go that route but I don't think either solution or route is a good idea or needed.
Seems easier to not have it be a spell and some kind of coded action/magicker only ability.

The only thing I think we should support is anti-defiler buffs. Elementalists getting some kind of buff for killing a defiler and restoring peace to the lands.

I kinda like Dar's idea but I'd limit it to zones or even within the zones (Within X rooms or something), can only succ so much nature juice mana.

[Inks]

There already is plenty of motivation. Gemmed vs rogue rawr.

I dislike Dar's idea because it doesn't take virtual world into account. And Sorc "regen" is insane.

[Greve]

I don't think the code itself should reward killing anyone beyond the most basic notion of taking their boots. Kenny the Krathi should only kill Vivian the Vivaduan if something that happened in the game led him to do it, or if Vivian had something that Kenny wanted badly enough to kill her for it. Or if some inherent aspect of the setting compels Krathis to attempt to kill Vivaduans. That's not currently a thing, but hey, maybe it could be.

It doesn't seem to me that the game stands to benefit from features that compel players to PK for some coded power boost. All we'll get out of that is arena-style PvP ganks. It really sucks to get PKed for reasons that are not readily apparent, and given the nature of magic classes, you'd be encouraged to PK in the least satisfying manner: the one that leaves the target with no time to react. I'm talking about s;w;fireball kenny;fireball kenny;fireball kenny.

What would be more interesting is if something actually happened in the game that would nudge elementalists towards conflict with eachother. Armageddon is depressingly bereft of reasons for conflict in this day and age. Hardly anything ever happens anywhere, so people just sit around and watch time go by. It's a sad state of affairs, and one that affects everyone, not just magic classes. But to stick with those, what if something happened that put them at odds with eachother? Not a "I ding when I kill u" thing but something more like "Ruk has called to me and wants me to prove I'm greater than rival elementalists" thing. That way, there's more behind it than just the base desire to land a kill, which will lead to cheesy, twinky behavior and annoyed players. Because trust me, if you just level up from PKing, it'll bring out the worst in people on both sides.

But this is really something that needs to happen to the game as a whole, not just for elementalists. There need to be more things that pit characters against eachother. It has been painfully dull for far too long. It has become a boring game where nothing happens. While anyone can decide that they randomly hate Amos, it's very hollow if it wasn't the result of some part of the game's story (if it can still be said to have such a thing). Make Zalanthas great (and contentious) again.

While one can argue that players technically have the ability to create conflict, the fact that it barely ever happens is evidence that it takes more than the freedom to do so. It takes reasons, it takes building blocks, it takes something upon which to base this kind of roleplay. If one day you just go "welp, I'm going to begin killing Vivaduans from now on," it's not very interesting, and odds are that even if you succeed, other players might never know why you did it and you'll just look like you were racking up PKs for the sake of it. Instead, if it's backed by story which is propped up by the setting, it suddenly has meaning and can be reacted to by others.

Characters killing other characters is not inherently wrong, but it should be something that happens because events in the game led to it. That way, not only does it lend meaning and gravity to it, it also means that players are not just tunnel-visioning on the kill. If you ding when the dude dies, you're encouraged to just do whatever kills him most effectively, which usually sucks for him. If instead you're going after him because of some rivalry or whatever, there's the freedom to roleplay the confrontation. The fact that you don't miss out on some power boost if he survives removes the incentive to just shit fireballs into his mouth as fast as you can slam the enter key. That leads to better roleplay and fewer people quitting the game.

[Inks]

Ya'll are wack, yo.

Edit: Apart from Greve

Anything that increases mage power will be detrimental to mundanes, and increase RDM across the board, as you will have a 1/4 chance to kill a magicker if you rek some random traveller with your whiran or whatever.

This would also make people more likely to serve sorcerors.

Madness.

Give all magick a flat 25% fail rate minimum if you want less of them critters. 

Or alternatively...a 50% fail rate when opposing element is in the same room (drovian/krathi, rukkian/whiran viv/nilazi) (Sorc / any elementalist get 25% fail rate when in same room).

Just brainstorming a better plan based on your idea there, I am fine to leave as is.

[Veselka]

While I appreciate the Highlander concept, I'd almost want it to be an involuntary function of mundanes killing defilers and magickers. They stand a chance of absorbing some of their ICKY and becoming a magicker themselves.

In general, I don't think promoting PK among Magickers will solve the issue at hand of 'Power Ranger Groups'. Inks solution is elegant and simple. The more 'varying' elements that band together, the more unpredictable and awful their magick becomes.

So if you get a Cuddle Puddle of several different types of Magi, all of their magick becomes less effectual while in the same room together. Maybe chance of failure and critical failure as they pointed out skyrockets. So in that way...Going on a merry adventure with a Drovian, a Krathu, a Vivadu, and a Rukkian, will lead to almost guaranteed disaster.

That way, you literally provide coded incentive to not band together.

[Veselka]

It'd also be cool if Nilazi being in a room (in general) with elementalists made critical failures more likely, without them even having to cast a spell.

[lostinspace]

Not strictly PVP related, but coded things I would like to see in the game and could have PVP applications.

Herbs/food/beverages that are poisonous only to magickers/certain elementals.
ex: A new poison type that quickly drains mana of mundane and gick alike.
Share your flask full of nilleaf tea with someone before accusing them of witchery.

Creatures/room scripts that are aggressive to magickers/certain elementals.
ex: Salt worms aggressively attacking vivaduans that linger in the room after a couple warning echos.
ex: Vines and roots tripping up a Krathi trying to cut their way through the Grey.

[MeTekillot]

I was going more with there being a reward for engaging in magicker PVP rather than just making the world codedly shittier for magickers.

[Inks]

You can read my points above against that. My idea makes less cuddle puddles more effectively, too, since you stated that was the point of it.

[MeTekillot]

I've had several code ideas floating around in my head as pertains to magickers being encouraged to kill each other (and perhaps the mundanes). As it stands now, there's little to not OOC motivation (beyond group association and HATE VOID ELEMENTALIST) for players of magickers to try to kill each other.

[MeTekillot]

there's already a motivation for players to interact cooperatively in groups of magickers, which is to say that you get wide-ranging benefits if you can convince your magic buddies to give you sick fucking buffs and magic goodies.

this idea is a motivation for magickers to interact at odds and in the context of conflict, trading in the benefits of cooperative interaction for other benefits as a result of this adversarial interaction.

your idea simply encourages magickers to avoid each other or kill each other if they are stuck in the same room for whatever reason and that is not what I want to encourage.

[Lotion]

if you need extra motivation to murder another player character then you should play an aide, noble, templar, merchant, or other role that exists to get murdered

[Hauwke]

if you need extra motivation to murder another player character then you should play an aide, noble, templar, merchant, or other role that exists to get murdered

That's disingenous Lotion. All characters can be murderers under the right circumstances.

I for one like the idea, aside from the things Metekillot has said, it also would allow for a higher ceiling to be reached by players in that they could have more mana, which means they can cast more spells.

You can't sit here and tell me no one wants the ceiling raised, people are constantly clamoring for that.

[Rokal]

This really feels like its already becoming a 'too many magickers!!' topic with some of the comments here. I don't know if, for example, inks was being sarcastic, but.

Give all magick a flat 25% fail rate minimum if you want less of them critters. 

Or alternatively...a 50% fail rate when opposing element is in the same room (drovian/krathi, rukkian/whiran viv/nilazi) (Sorc / any elementalist get 25% fail rate when in same room).

Just brainstorming a better plan based on your idea there, I am fine to leave as is.

Ideas like this are 'anti-fun', I get brainstorming if it was just that, and I think it should be left is, an imposed chance to fail at 25% minium is huge, and honestly crippling, lets remember that the armageddon mud, while a RP, is also a -game-, so lets not forget about the G in RPG.

As for Mek's idea.. I'm ehh on it. I agree that there should be something that can drive conflict between mages, but not this, not in this way. I really think it should be something more estoric and linked to their domain, (Ruk, krath, etc) rather than just, killing other mages.

Objectives to compete over, or overcome, when it comes to the elements.

I over all agree with:

What would be more interesting is if something actually happened in the game that would nudge elementalists towards conflict with eachother. Armageddon is depressingly bereft of reasons for conflict in this day and age. Hardly anything ever happens anywhere, so people just sit around and watch time go by. It's a sad state of affairs, and one that affects everyone, not just magic classes. But to stick with those, what if something happened that put them at odds with eachother? Not a "I ding when I kill u" thing but something more like "Ruk has called to me and wants me to prove I'm greater than rival elementalists" thing. That way, there's more behind it than just the base desire to land a kill, which will lead to cheesy, twinky behavior and annoyed players. Because trust me, if you just level up from PKing, it'll bring out the worst in people on both sides.

From what Greve said here.

[Dracul]

There can only be one...Dragon.

As far as I understand it sorcerers (defilers at least) already have a highlander like culture. Sorcery and lifeforce based magick take power from the body or from the land, and there is only so much land, most already destroyed.

Elementalists are a gift...their powers come to them, and they cannot be learned by the ungifted. They do not have to be allied, nor do they have to be opposed, but imagine worshiping the sky god and running into someone with water magic. It might be weird.




Although...I would totally be up for more weird interactions between not just magickers but their magick.

[Jihelu]

Defilers do the highlander thing, they tend to murder the shit out of each other.
Avangions tend to work together. Both from lore (There was a council of avangions and kings, plural) and from Dark Sun (They tended to team up with druids/clerics, they made lots of friends. It was one of their perks)

So defilers killing the shit out of each other works, yeah.

Defilers also had a benefit with teaming up with clerics, or perhaps it was vice versa, where clerics could make trees of life and defilers could SUCC on them.

[betweenford]

Clerics and druids could use trees of life to geta limited amount of extra spells per day. Defilers could use them as a substitute for defiling the land, weakening and eventually killing the tree if too much was done in a short time. It recovered like..... 10 1st level spellsworth of defiling a day or something.

[Lotion]

Sorcery and lifeforce based magick

All magick is based on lifeforce, even elementalist magick, because lifeforce ("mana") comes from the planes. It's just most of us use our lifeforce to y'know live.
http://armageddon.org/help/view/Magick%20sphere

The spheres are potentially the greatest piece of the puzzle of why Magick and Life are inseparably joined.

[Patuk]

People actually play defilers?

[X-D]

First....I do not like the idea.

What is funny to me though, is that there is an idea like it. Before mages got this last major nerf, The biggest enemy to a mage actually was another mage.

But before the legacy mages went away, Most the spells for mage V mage were removed from player use.
Then the mage subs went in, farther reducing mage abilities in magick while giving them many and more worrisome mundane skills.

Which is the problem with the idea and really, also why most mages tend to at the very least, leave each other alone now. When you run into that say, rukkian now...is he also a Raider or fighter? Maybe enforcer or infiltrator? Does he have master combat skills or backstab, poison?

I mean, it really just makes it not worth even bothering to take the risk, Neither your nor his spells are what is going to be relied on anyway.

And what is even more funny is the current system actually promotes mages being friendly with each other more then ever. BECAUSE of, as Brokkr stated "Focus on PC interaction and needing each other."

Used to be that a ruk and a viv might help each other now and again, but they never "needed" Each other. Now that -fighter- ruk could very much NEED that -stalker- viv and the other way around.