In Defence of Full Guilds (and player input)

[Mellifera]

It's important to say, first of all, that this post is not written out of anger or intended as an attack on staff. I've been completely in love with Armageddon since my first character, and that is in large part thanks to its staff and their hard work and passion. Often, I'm sure all you guys hear are criticisms while continuing to develop and push out awesome new things, and you don't get enough credit for that. I genuinely love and appreciate you guys. That being said, appreciating staff and the game they run only makes me care about this point more.

For some time now, Armageddon has been going through a major shift, moving magick and psionic abilities from full-guilds to sub-guilds, and subsequently dividing their skill trees up into separate parts. I personally think this is probably the singular series of changes that has altered the overall face and feel of this game the most, and while there have been pros and cons, I don't think there will be a positive total outcome. In my opinion, some of the sacrifices being made are too great.

I'd like to argue that Armageddon, overall, would be a better experience for everyone if both split sub-guild and completely branchable full-guild options were available for these roles.

This post especially applies to psionicists. They were the most recently changed and were, in my opinion, the hardest hit. Full-guild psionicists generally occupied a position often quite different from full-guild magickers, and I predict they will not be able to fully recover the place in the world they had before with access to sub-guild options alone, however a lot of the points raised now can apply to magickers too.

I'm not the only one that feels this way, and it isn't reasonable for staff to uncompromisingly ignore a significant portion of the player-base in favour of an amorphous, largely unknown and unspecified Vision, especially in the close knit environment that is Armageddon, where our numbers are already small, and only shrinking as time goes on.

I think the two largest criticisms of Armageddon that I have regularly seen are the disconnect between players and staff, and how little input players often feel like they have on the game, both on an OOC level, when it comes to sweeping changes such as this, and on an IC level, when it comes to agency and making lasting impact on the world. Both have driven many veteran players away from the game, and though both of these issues have improved by leaps and bounds in the past few years, I feel that this final psionic nail in the coffin of full-guilds, and the subsequent response from players and staff in turn, is a huge step in the wrong direction.

Without full-guilds, we're moving away from fulfilling probably the most overwhelming requests that players have made over the years, away from the unique appeal MUD's can offer in this day and age, and toward a scenario where players are even less capable of manipulating this shared narrative.

Sub-guild sorcerers and psionicists are still just as codedly powerful, in the sense that they are still just as good at killing players and in turn being difficult to kill themselves, the only power they actually lose compared to their full-guild counterparts is this narrative power. They lose the same ability to create huge, world-spanning plots, inspire the same level of awe and wonder in roleplay, and ultimately be remembered as epic or infamous figures for years after their demise. I don't believe there's been a single name that has stood out in the same way as Quick, the Plainsman, the Lord of Storms, White Rantarri, and many others once did since the shift to sub-guilds.

I don't think it's fair of me to make these criticisms without suggesting some alternative solutions to the problems staff are attempting to solve, but they won't be extensive or entirely complete yet, and that isn't really the point.


There have been a few reasons posited by staff for the removal of full-guilds. Clearly there is majority support for the change among staff for good reason. From what I can gather, the primary concerns are as follows:

- A lack of flexibility, survivability, and functionality as well as a vulnerability to guild-sniffing due to a lack of sufficient access to mundane skills

- An eventual power level which does not offer sufficient challenge against the rest of the playerbase to foster meaningful interactions.

- A complex, largely unplayable end-game for longer lived full-guild characters which requires too much staff input and ultimately has to end in forced storage or death.


There are likely more, but these seem to be the most commonly presented ones, and they are all very good reasons to want to change things. I still don't think giving up full-guilds entirely is a sacrifice that's worth making though, especially when other options for solving these problems could still be explored.

I do think the sub-guild options should still be there for players that desire flexibility and functionality and want to be able to employ a diverse set of focuses and playstyles. I also think that the full-guild options should be available for players that want to create characters who are entirely focused upon their non-mundane abilities, and the subsequent plots that result from them. Both kinds of players exist as significant portions of the player-base, and many would likely want to play both for different character concepts. Armageddon is the kind of game that thrives on variety, especially when it comes to what sort of characters can be created and played.

For the skill-related issues, I think it's worth trying to modify and improve the sub-guild options available to the supernatural full-guilds. Personally, I believe the extended sub-guilds alone are capable enough for a full-guild psion to get by just fine in a chosen role, but I also don't think it would be impossible to try and improve the tailored sub-guild options normally available to them so that they can still be afforded enough flexibility to survive and not be guild-sniffed, while still being relatively balanced compared to their sub-guild and mundane counterparts.

The issues that come with a full-guilds eventual power level and the subsequent need to store them is definitely harder to solve, and demands more creative solutions. I think both problems would be mended if the difficulty and challenge presented to these characters increased as their age and branched abilities did, and I don't think taking power away from them is the right way to go about that, with players already complaining about feeling as if they are afforded so little. Instead, I think it would be reasonable to attempt to put more external pressure on them, especially when they reach much later stages.

For one, I think greater resources should be available to clans with any kind of military presence, especially both Templarates, for the express purpose of combating psions, sorcerers, and mages, so that they could adequately respond to full-guilds who have reached later stages, offering them a challenge and forcing them to actually be cautious and careful with their moves, to the point where coming down upon even a normal commoner out in the dunes could reveal their location and result in an eventual reckoning. For example, say a late stage psionicist isn't being suitably cautious, subtle, or quiet, instead causing havoc in Vrun Driath, making mind slaves, revealing vital plots left and right, popping the brains of nobility, and controlling a chaotic raider cult that's threatening vital trade routes to Luir's. They can't be faced by normal players just out and about, and the Templars of the city are not powerful enough yet to face them alone. Player templars and AoD should be able to call upon forces and powers greater than what they might normally be able to access in order to mount a response, and if the psion is bold enough to openly mess with the city directly or spends too much time luring Mekillots to its gates, powerful NPC's should probably not let that stand, even if the current players can't face this enemy of Allanak themselves.

Permitting full-guilds to still reach levels of significant narrative power allows them to create and pursue huge, world spanning plots which keep everyone entertained and roleplaying, and offering them adequate opposition from the outside only improves this potential and makes the end-game more exciting and challenging for them. Most of all, it offers players more chances to actually impact and influence the world with enough work, which is something that the player-base will likely never stop asking for.

Ultimately, though, these are just ideas, my main point is that other solutions do exist and could definitely be explored, and the most important request I want to make for the sake of Armageddon surviving healthily into the future is an open dialogue regarding this change (to psionics and the sweeping vision encompassing it), and the chance for reasonable compromise to be had with the player-base into the future.

[triste]

4 slimey cents:
[1] I will update my silly skill picker doohicky as much as is needed for us all to arrive at a place where we're happy w skillz n guildz
[2] As I stated before, variety is the spice of life. More options the better.
[3] The note on taking player feedback is a good one. I am not sure of the rationale for removing full guilds at all when I didn't really hear players asking for it. If it was a game balance issue in that these guilds were OP or overpowered--well, isn't that what Karma restrictions are for? If the concern is that these guilds were too specialized, aren't a lot of concepts "too" specialized like half giants being massively strong but massively stupid? Is the justification is campaign/setting driven, such as wanting less magickal/sparkly people? It would be helpful to hear from staff, again, in the past we get vague responses about game direction, so it leaves speculation like the above.
[4] If the rationale for the changes is game direction, well, I am not sure the changes recently are even fitting "the harsh desert world of Zalanthas." Zalanthas has insects as large as houses, gith from another freaking plane or planet I don't freaking know, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of  "Listless" in Tuluk. How is making guild/subguild options more mundane and flat even in setting at all? I would say keep full guilds, but make them have downsides similar to what is being discussed in Metekillot's recent thread. Make things gritty and exciting and you know... take player feedback!

[Lotion]

My main qualm with aspect subguilds is that gicks are more or less "mundane+" characters. If you told an average player many years ago one day they could make a ranger/warrior that had about a third of all the spells from any elementalist they would say that sounds absurdly powerful. When people talk about full guild mages it seems like there was definitely the big downside of you were a mage and you did magick and otherwise sucked at other stuff. Now they are subguilds which (aside from touched) don't provide skills but instead provide extremely high amounts of utility that a more combat oriented main guild can take absurd advantage of. Witches still (aside from the whiran touched) lack a lot of flexibility that can be obtained from a carefully picked guild+sub combo but the sheer utility of them simply cannot be ignored. There's a reason people make exasperated jokes about dwarven raider empowerment rukkians.

[sleepyhead]

I agree with Mellifera here. I like the guild/subguild flexibility. I like that you can't infer someone's mundane status by how well (or how poorly) they fight, sneak, or craft. I like that magickers aren't necessarily savants who are terrible at everything except magick and maybe one other thing. I like that psions are now in the same boat (on the same skimmer?) and are going to be a lot harder to sniff out. I like that the subguilds allow for more adaptability. There are a lot of things I'm really fond of! I think the subguilds have been a great addition to the game, overall. And I think that if both were available, most people would probably prefer to play the subguilds to the full guilds, because it's easier for them to blend in and survive.

But wouldn't it be amazing if every once in a while there was a magickal or psionic talent that, while lacking the versatility of the average non-mundane, excelled in all things supernatural? They're delicate and vulnerable, yet they have untold power in their fingertips or minds. It means you can't assume anymore that just because someone has spell X that means you'll never have to worry about them casting spell Y. It means that every non-mundane you encounter is more potentially dangerous, more mysterious -- more of a wildcard. I'm excited just thinking about the prospect of supernatural subguilds and full guilds existing alongside each other. I think it'd be better than either option on their own, because you never know what you're going to get. Make the full-guild magickers 3 karma + special app only if need be, just like psionicists and sorcs except without the hard cap.

Now, that being said, I understand why full sorcerers were removed. I understand that their power was so absurd that staff needed to step in to end their stories, which created an awkward situation for everyone. I've never played a sorcerer of either variety, so I can't really speak on that.

I have, however, played psionicists, and I've had some of my favorite RP with (and alongside) those characters. Having seen their list of powers, or probably 90% of it anyway, I have my suspicions about how the new subguilds have been divvied up, though I can't speculate too much here due to the rules. If it works like I am fairly certain it works, this change is going to make some of those amazing RP opportunities a thing of the past. Yeah, they'll still be scary, but it's a different kind of scary. Which brings me to my next point:

1. A guy who can read your thoughts and bend your mind to the breaking point with untold, nearly unlimited power over your psyche is scary.
2. A guy who can break your limbs with a etwo club is scary, but it's a different kind of scary.
3. A guy who can break your limbs with an etwo club while also having a few mind powers is scary, but it still doesn't scratch the same atmospheric itch as #1. In the end, the main danger is still the club. The other things are just supplementary threats. It's not even half as spooky.

An abomination living in a cave who can scarcely relate to others because her mind and her psychic prowess are so unfathomably powerful...is a very different feel from Joe the Bynner who can kick your ass and also has some psionic tricks up his sleeve. It's just not the same. There's nothing wrong with Joe the Bynner's concept. It's scary, and it has a place in the world. I just miss the strange and uber-human abomination, and the spooky feel they brought to the game. Even if those roles were difficult. Even if not many people wanted to play them. Even if most didn't succeed at getting there. The fact that they could and did exist made them feel so big and intimidating, larger than life. There was a mystique that I don't feel is there anymore, and I don't think it's just because I've now been playing long enough to get jaded.

The bottom line is, I think if Joe the Bynner and the cave-dwelling abomination were allowed to coexist, it'd make BOTH of them scarier and spookier, and it'd make the world feel a lot more mysterious.

Please rethink the policy towards shrinking the supernatural side of the game. I'm all for limiting how many non-mundanes are around. I'm all for encouraging people to play mundanes. But there should always be a place for the character that ascends beyond a mere knack for a few spells or powers alongside their primary skills. I mourn for the loss of that certain kind of horror -- the horror of far-reaching forbidden power.

[HavokBlue]

Last time I participated in the full guild magicker debate a staff member said that being a magicker should not define a PC - they're a person before they're a fire mage.

The thing is, they're a person before they're a craftsperson, a trader, a bodyguard, a burglar, etc. If full guild magick is causing people to play their characters unrealistically, I feel as though that's an issue to adjust through roleplay, not elimination of the guilds.

If the issue is that full guild mages very often end up playing the role of "full guild mage" I would argue that that's... perfectly fine. Nobody has an issue when a burglar (or whatever the current incarnation is) burglarizes, or when a ranger gets very good at archery.

I know there are technical and other issues that make bringing back main guild mages more difficult than we make it out to be on the GDB but I still contend that their removal was a net loss. The subguilds are great, and I appreciate the effort that went into and continues to go into them. I just think that players who were around for full-guild mages are almost always going to lament that loss of choice.

[Inks]

Hasan was the last legendary Sorcerer. It is more how they tend to be played whether or not they are full class or not. That was like 10 years ago.

There has never been a legendary psi apart from Quick who was legendary for using the class mechanics until they were nerfed maybe, if you mean Qoria she was a legendary stagnater and plot killer.

But pls no.

[Jihelu]

I found being a full guild mage very, very boring.

Even when playing touched/subguild mages, which was the best way for me to probably be a mage in my playstyle, I found the grinding of magic to be very boring. Even more so than mundane crafting. I would probably lose my god damn mind if I had to play a full guild.

Should they be an option though? Yeah probably. I like PCs getting big pp power. I think if they brought them back though each full guild should get a mini overhaul and get mundane skills added. You can go flavorful with them if you want 'Rukkians get clubs! Krathis get swords!' type shit, or you could just give them a very very basic 'I can do most things at apprentice level so I don't suck at fucking everything and get SNIFFFFED'.

[Patuk]

I'm with Lotion here. Are full guild Rukkians stronger than raider rukkians are? Are full guild Vivaduans better than scout Vivaduans? I have no idea. The difference, though, is in character identity and what people can do. Old full guild mages could do a ton of stuff, but mundanes still had their niches: warriors could still go toe to toe better, rangers were better archers, assassins got backstab, and so on.

Right now? Mages are better at mundanes at everything and anything. I hate it. I'd support the return of full class mages just so mundanes aren't outclassed at everything by their magickal counterparts, as long as it meant subclass mages might be removed. Absolutely.

I have no strong opinion on sorcs and psions, so. Meh.

[betweenford]

Though I've never really played the full guild elementalists or sorcerers or psionicists, I think it would be nice for flavor purposes and for the sake of variety for the option to be selectable, with some small work done to their basic skills so they're not as dated in comparison to the modern classes. A limited implementation for role applications to clans which could feasibly have these roles would be awesome, as well, like for tribal roles, or role-apped noble house Mages; roles that have essentially been their role(shaman/mage) first and being a person second with a focus on magic.

It has kinda lead to the situation(despite subguild mages having some crossover of spells) where it has been easier than ever to classify one kind of elementalist over another, and where the vernacular surrounding the mages has some bleedthrough in game. Staff might insist a Viv is a Viv is a Viv but this Viv only knows healing spells so he's a healing viv :/

As far as complaints that I had heard surrounding the full guild psionicists being really dated and jank, I think the subguild psions are pretty nice but that the option for the old guilds should still be available, with the full knowledge given to the player they're kinda meh at everything else and a decent tweak to their available subs so they're not as easy to pick out or bad in general. Options, options, options!

[Maso]

There has never been a legendary psi apart from Quick who was legendary for using the class mechanics until they were nerfed maybe, if you mean Qoria she was a legendary stagnater and plot killer.

I guess you mean Gin.. since Quick was.. was.. er.. something else entirely.

[Patuk]

Ooh. Nevermind. I do have a strong opinion on psions.

if you mean Qoria she was a legendary stagnater and plot killer.

I agree with this fully and never want to see it happen again.

[Strongheart]

+1 to all the posts here (except for Inks and Patuk )

That being said, these are some beautifully written posts that I feel people wouldn't type up if they weren't seriously motivated to. And it's actually quite the handful of player responses too. I also feel that full guilds should not be taken out of the game as they have been though aside from that, I'm still of the opinion that mundanes need to be more appealing no matter what. As they exist now, I only choose mundanes so that non-mundanes feel special upon encountering. I do RP them accordingly but it does bring me down when a mage can accomplish more solely from their being a mage.

I guess that's what I liked about old classes (not to say I don't love the work you guys have put into the new ones and continue to modify) in that no one could do what a burglar could. In fact, Miscreant completely changed the apartment game when the new classes came out when all of the sudden, no rental was safe from sticky fingers! It got to the point of ridiculousness that I saw every Gaj apartment open on a regular basis. But anyway, my arguments have been stated time and time again, I mostly just wanted to support those above me with a resounding: please consider allowing full guilds back (at least for sorcs and psis) so that they may be that creepy, powerful abomination again with the caveat of reaching that point be a challenge.

I can't speak on whoever Qoria is. If they were a legendary stagnater and plot killer then either kill them, player complaint if it seems to be too heavy handed on them to do so (stagnation and plot killing can be just as bad as overt PK), ooooor I dunno maybe Qoria's character should have been receiving some virtual world attention. nvm

[Strongheart]

Ooh. Nevermind. I do have a strong opinion on psions.

if you mean Qoria she was a legendary stagnater and plot killer.

I agree with this fully and never want to see it happen again.

Oh.... Qoriya was a Lirathan Templar. That is not in any way comparable to a full-guild psion lol psionic templars are very much a terrible idea. In no way is a psionicist revered and in a position of safety and immense power within a city-state, they are hunted by the world with extreme prejudice. It's a dishonest argument to even compare her to them.

[Maso]

I personally wouldn't bother playing another full guild Psi, not in the context of the current game. By which I mean, you couldn't pay me to play one.

[triste]

I personally wouldn't bother playing another full guild Psi, not in the context of the current game. By which I mean, you couldn't pay me to play one.

Could you elaborate on this a bit? It's jarring to.read this as someone who has never had the chance, I'd like to know what's so bad about it. Without detail reading this statement is like reading "You couldn't pay me to own a private island in the bahamas" because as someone who doesn't own such an island it sounds sweet to me.

[Halaster]

I think Brokkr gave a very good series of responses when you brought this up before in this thread:  https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,57292.0.html

Here's what he said:

Yes.  However, we aren't going to get into that, as it involves some in-depth discussion of specific code mechanics. 

Ultimately, Armageddon is dynamic.  Things can and will change.  Sometimes it is just change, sometimes it is additional and sometimes it is a subtraction.  We are not a content oriented game like WOW that survives by continually adding new content but keeping around the old content.

The vision for the game was set to be shared main classes between mundanes and mages/psionicists, with the subclasses filling in the magick and psionic pieces.  With the exception of Templars.  It has been the vision for multiple years now.  We appreciate that some folks may not like that vision.  However, it is and continues to be the vision.  I may be interpreting things incorrectly, but this line of questioning seems like "justify your vision to me".

I wasn't on Staff when the original formulation of the vision occurred.  I can only speak to where I come from in supporting the continuation of the vision.

My goal is to keep characters playable.  In the case of fully branched main guild sorcerers, truly advanced elementalists and high ranking templars, they could get to a point where they were unplayable. There is no end game for such characters.  Without sufficient challenge, interaction with the rest of the playerbase becomes less meaningful.  It then falls on Staff to represent the proper response from the game world, an inflated sense of that character's importance in the game world to either the player or worse the playerbase, and other pitfalls that happen when a character gets to a certain level of coded power.

Psionicists were much less than ideally playable in other ways.  Some is around how some players react to psionics, and some was around code.  We've taken a crack at code issues.  It then comes to looking at what we have done for sorcerers and elementalists, and make sure there is some parity for psionicists.  Not making them the new thing that is unplayable at the high end.  Not making them substantially more powerful than the sorcerer or templar options.  Making sure that interaction with the rest of the playerbase is still meaningful and challenging.

[Mellifera]

To the people talking about Qoriya:

She was a Lirathan, who occupied an incredibly different position in the world. Templars were permitted to use their psionic abilities openly without repercussion, and were already given the task of hunting down criminals, traitors, and other undesirables. Full guild psionicists never occupied that kind of position, considering they were hunted down if ever discovered and reviled by every organisation and almost every person. They didn't end plots like that, they never could.

I'm glad to see Lirathan's gone, they should stay gone, I was only talking about full-guild psions outside any templarate.

[Inks]

There has never been a legendary psi apart from Quick who was legendary for using the class mechanics until they were nerfed maybe, if you mean Qoria she was a legendary stagnater and plot killer.

I guess you mean Gin.. since Quick was.. was.. er.. something else entirely.

I meant Gin, sorry.

In regards to full guild magickers, have nothing much against it as long as they don't get Sleep, and Summon etc back.

I prefer things as is though.

[Mellifera]

I think Brokkr gave a very good series of responses when you brought this up before in this thread:  https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,57292.0.html

I also responded to these responses:

Yeah! I am asking for staff to justify their vision to the players. I believe that's a reasonable thing to ask. I'm doing it with more specific questions as to why things were done, since they don't currently make sense to me, but yes, ultimately, I want to understand this vision.

Armageddon is a collaborative experience where the aim is fun and creativity. I don't think its playerbase should just be subject to an amorphous vision of the powers that be without justification, and I can see that's understood, and part of the reason we're getting more of these meetings and Q&A's.

I appreciate all the hard work and passion you guys constantly put into keeping this game alive and fun, but I also think it's important that there's proper communication between staff and players and that everyone has some kind of input. If a portion of the playerbase is unhappy with something that could harmlessly be resolved and staff's penultimate reasoning for continuing with it is "because we said so" that will rub some players the wrong way.

I'm personally invested with this change since psionicists have been my favourite part of Armageddon since I started playing, and it breaks my heart to see psions with full access to psionics leave the hands of players, but I think any sweeping vision like this should see a lot of transparency and back-and-forth between staff and players.

My questions are still essentially "Are there any reasons having both options wouldn't solve all the issues we're presented with?" Which isn't to say I think Armageddon should only add and never remove, but I do think removing this doesn't appear to help much on its own.

Anyway, truly love you guys and what you're doing, I just want to see Armageddon with a happy playerbase, communication from staff, and all of us working to make the most memorable, awesome stories we can. No ill will meant, and in the end I would like to be wrong and understand otherwise if I am

[Mellifera]

I personally wouldn't bother playing another full guild Psi, not in the context of the current game. By which I mean, you couldn't pay me to play one.

Could you elaborate on this a bit? It's jarring to.read this as someone who has never had the chance, I'd like to know what's so bad about it. Without detail reading this statement is like reading "You couldn't pay me to own a private island in the bahamas" because as someone who doesn't own such an island it sounds sweet to me.

I won't make assumptions for Maso, but I will say that a lot of people didn't enjoy playing full-guild psions because of their severely limited, underdeveloped sub-guild options. That's why I'm suggesting full-guild psions come back with new sub-guild options (or access to extended sub-guilds)

[Brokkr]

Sometimes it seems people take that we haven't shifted back to full guilds as not being interested in feedback.  We are.  However, in allowing back full guild magickers/psionicists, we disagree.  Ultimately, it is up to the Producers to decide overall direction questions such at these.  It may be a stark, hard-to-swallow truth, but there it is.

We appreciate your feedback.  That does not equate to changing our decision.

[Rokal]

I do personally think full guild elementalsists should be an option, but as Brokkr said, its been decided not, but.. I've to comment on this.

The 'Mundane +' comments, of the magic sub guilds + main guilds.

I find these comments to be extremely short-sighted. Armageddon MUD is a roleplaying game, a game still, but a roleplaying one and one of the best ways to 'enforce' roleplay is to enable the mechanics to represent the setting.

Mages are people with their own lives, their own skills and knowledge before they manifested, with full guild elementalists, I legitimately struggled with explaining my character's past, or abilities on more than one occasion.

As far as I'm concerned, they're supposed to be mundane + in a way, but they also get limited in ways as well, their ONLY mundane skills are their main guild, this means for mundane needs, they're far less versatile in some ways, and NEED other characters, unless, they've chosen a subguild that covers some of those needs (Which, normal subguilds can also do)

At the end of the day, its a matter of perspective - people can consider magickers Mundane+, but at the end of the day, they -were- mundane people up until they manifested, and in the elementalist culture help file, its even stated that most of them don't even mess around with their powers much, either if its out of fear of them, or other reasons.

Elementalists are just another denizen of Zalanthas, they have strange magic powers, but that 27 year old hunter who spent all their life hunting the grey forest or the plains of the north that was an excellent shot with a bow wouldn't suddenly be a complete slouch with one the moment they manifest.

the only way I can reasonably explain a full guild elementalist as a character is that they were born to other elementalists, possibly born a gemmed, etc (So rare, and a big exception) and raised up to master those skills in particular.

I support having multiple options, and that includes full guilds, but as someone who really, really enjoys playing magickers, and doing my best to enable others to experience it in a fun way in RP, it really grinds my gears to hear some people consider it 'Mundane+'

The scout that picks up a magic subguild, loses out on other mundane skills that could help, and through their magic, they become a social pariah, there is RP consequences for just -being- an elementalist that aren't even considered here that mundanes don't suffer.

Theres always a give and a take. Look at all perspectives.

[Jihelu]

This is kind of the basis for me hoping that if full guilds ever came back, they'd have usable skills across the board to help supplement their magic.

[Halaster]

This is kind of the basis for me hoping that if full guilds ever came back, they'd have usable skills across the board to help supplement their magic.

That would be reasonable, if they ever came back.

[Mellifera]

This is kind of the basis for me hoping that if full guilds ever came back, they'd have usable skills across the board to help supplement their magic.

Yeah, I mentioned that I think supernatural full-guilds would need either redone sub-guild options or access to the extended sub-guilds. Though redone special sub-guild options would probably give full-guilds a wider array of usable skills, I do still think that the extended sub-guilds are enough to be more than sufficient for plenty of different character concepts, and for people who want to create characters that have a wider array of mundane skills while still having access to some magick/psionics, the option could still be there for them to play a mundane full-guild and a supernatural sub-guild.