Tales from the Discord - Magick Discussion

[Pariah]

So today the conversation shifted to Magick.

Halaster — Today at 8:51 AM
random thought.  @Kaathe did the work and looked at current numbers, came up with:
"175 players have living PCs and have logged in over the last 30 days. Of these 175 "active" living PCs, 56 (32%) are elementalists, psions, or templars. "

This started a conversation of everything from anti-magick folks to pro-magick folks.

I tend to be pro-magick for the most part, and others less so.

Eventually the conversation lead to folks saying that subguild splinter mages how they are now are MORE powerful then old school ones.

Halaster — Today at 9:15 AM
I wouldn't mind seeing them reversed.  full guild mages being the norm, the subguild mages being the specapp

So that got people into a various debate about what they would prefer, so figured that would be a good thing to share with the non-discord crew over here.

I personally am all for full mages being just karma locked and splinter'd subguilds being special app.  But I know decisions like this aren't done quickly if they are.  So discuss.

[Yelinak]

That 32% figure counts for a lot more than the number itself makes it seem. Of those 56 characters, most (probably almost all) are active, serious characters being played for real by players who are seeking to have an impact and be a meaningful presence in the game. Of the 119 mundane characters, how many were throaways never intended to do a whole lot, or visitors who only logged in once? How many are barely active, or in sponsored roles that are ill-equipped to interact with the world (i.e. nobles)? Nobody plays a throwaway templar while waiting for a better concept. Nobody spec apps a magicker without intending to make something of the character. Meanwhile, tons of mundane PCs are just filler whose number in a blind data grab counts for nothing.

On average, the player of a magicker, psionicist or templar is much more likely to be "out there" a lot, to have influence over others, and to seek out interaction and/or conflict. In terms of PCs that you actually meet and have reason to care about, whose existence is relevant to the game, that 32% figure may for all intents and purposes be twice as high, because so many mundane characters are never really part of the game to any serious extent, while pretty much all non-mundanes are in one way or another. Non-mundanes might effectively make up something more like half of the population, in terms of exposure and availability for roleplay.

[Jimpka_Moss]

Stop making throwaway chars.

[Aruven]

Mundane roles make the known go round.

I've delved into the magick code a bit in my time. By way of code, they absolutely dominate mundane classes if the mage has any idea what they are doing.

If we're coming from the angle of storytelling, plots, that kind of thing, I'm hardline in favor of mages being karma locked.

I was in favor of the split guilds for mages from a utility standpoint. Some of it just made sense. Not sure how I feel about this at present. Restriction will cause disagreement.

[Pariah]

The problem as some people see it is that if you make a heavy combat total mundane and a. Heavy combat witch subguild the witch is more powerful by huge factors.

So where before you could catch that full branched Krathi who can kill you with a single spell slipping and kill him through pure combat before he could cast a single spell.

How you got guys going up in the byn, becoming combat masters and having that same one hit kill spell.

There is no real downside to splintered mages like there was with full ones.

[Aruven]

No heavy combat mundane was killing a fully branched and prepared mage unless they were afk

[Kavrick]

No heavy combat mundane was killing a fully branched and prepared mage unless they were afk

My main issue with it all is that you get to be a fully branched mage and also you get to be a heavy combat class.

[mansa]

My preference has always been:


A coded limit of characters classes to fulfil a particular population guideline.

...And this can be designed many different ways, but my particular flavour-of-the-month is a hard limit of race/class/subclass options provided by the character generation code, doing a query into the last 15 days of active players, and to prevent the choice from being chosen during character generation until the limit has been reduced.

[SpyGuy]

Yelinak makes some good points.  Just looking at raw numbers means little if you aren't looking at activity etc.   Take out all the mages, psions, sponsored apps, witch friends and karma races and what do you have left among remaining PCs?   Distribution also matters.  I'm sure Tuluk has far fewer hidden gicks but other settlements?  Yeah.

The issue for me is playing a non-sponsored mundane zero karma commoner that completely fears and/or hates magick has felt like the exception for years.  If you play to the docs as you should that means these mundanes (the virtual majority but mundane minority) are forced to limit and change their interactions with these magicker PCs.  So now, in a game based around interacting, I'm punished for playing mundanes that thematically should be the majority.  It is not at all fun and players like me have quit over it.

Then there's how it affects the IC environment.  I've never encountered as many sorcerers and other mages as I have since I came back in 2020.   The first two 'my friend is a hidden gick' stories I played through were fun and interesting.  They quickly lost their luster and by #5 were getting annoying.  The fact that the Byn/Garrison just became a pipeline to train up, manifest then go be a Raider or whatever was incredibly annoying to witness on an OOC level.

Staff have made the decision to expand and buff mages the past 2+ years.  The vast majority of plots revolve around magick.  Anything combat related is dominated by combat mages.  Mundanes get completely outclassed by mages solo and with so many mages the damn things start grouping up.   If you can barely find a mundane hunting partner but a mage is free to be OP and get interaction it's just a bullshit feeling.  I'm not particularly interested in playing a game dominated by mages, muls and Templars while the cities and clans sit dead.

[Riev]

Frankly, with magic subguilds, there is no reason to choose a Mundane Raider over the Raider who can also augment their stats and deal direct damage through spells in combat.

Yes, thematically, you should shun them but it doesn't happen.

As a player, going for the mundane 0karma 'regular guy' sucks out loud. There aren't plots designed around 'Eddy vs Evil', its always magick. Magick plots run the world, and as Brokkr so eloquently pointed out, mundane roles are mostly political roles which us plebians aren't good at.

[DesertT]

Frankly, with magic subguilds, there is no reason to choose a Mundane Raider over the Raider who can also augment their stats and deal direct damage through spells in combat.

I picked a karma 0 character to play a Crimson Wind Reaver. 

Scout/House Servant. 

It's called a challenge.

[Aruven]

Frankly, with magic subguilds, there is no reason to choose a Mundane Raider over the Raider who can also augment their stats and deal direct damage through spells in combat.

I picked a karma 0 character to play a Crimson Wind Reaver. 

Scout/House Servant. 

It's called a challenge.

lol noob

[Pariah]

No heavy combat mundane was killing a fully branched and prepared mage unless they were afk

That's not what I meant, it's easy to catch mages slipping, or unaware.  Then it's lights out before they get their buffs and kill spell off

[DesertT]

lol noob

I Represent that Remark!!

[whengravityfails]

My preference has always been:


A coded limit of characters classes to fulfil a particular population guideline.

...And this can be designed many different ways, but my particular flavour-of-the-month is a hard limit of race/class/subclass options provided by the character generation code, doing a query into the last 15 days of active players, and to prevent the choice from being chosen during character generation until the limit has been reduced.

You brought this suggestion up before - I was in favor of it then and I still am now. Instead of taking a stick wholesale to all magickers or races I would rather just see a coded hard cap like so. It would still leave plenty of options to play. Also, combine it with encouragements for playing mundane, needed roles.

[Yelinak]

Stop making throwaway chars.

I don't make any characters at all anymore, but people have always made throwaways for various reasons. According to the weekly data going back the last four full weeks, a total of 75 characters have been created over the course of the last month. There obviously aren't 75 new characters per month seeing serious play with a player's full intent of living as long as they're able. Making throwaways is a perfectly fine way to pass the time while waiting for an answer on a spec app, or to test something out or whatever. Point being a lot of characters don't make it to the point where they're someone you'll have any real interaction with. I'd venture to guess that possibly half or more of approved applications never turn into a real character because it's a brief throwaway not meant to last long, someone who's picky with stats and hopped in the Silt Sea, or a newbie, most of whom only ever log in once or twice before finding that the game isn't to their liking. Meanwhile, basically all non-mundane characters created get played "for real."

I would be a lot more interested in seeing the distribution of characters that have logged in at least 5 times in the last 30 days, put in at least 10 hours of play across those sessions, and have more than 5 days played in total. For the purpose of discussing how prevalent magic is on the playing field, those are the characters that matter--and if it's possible to get that kind of data, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that non-mundanes equal or maybe even outnumber mundanes. It certainly feels that way in-game where it's almost surprising when you get to know someone who's playing a concept that might get involved in any form of conflict and you find out it isn't some sort of mage.

[Patuk]

Is anyone really surprised about this, any more?

The mundane subclasses have seen no work in years; mages got elkrans, elkran touched, drovians, psionic subs, and new sorcerers added. The biggest successes of the PClan system we still have around were founded by mages. Staff opened up a COOL NEW THING LOOK YOU CAN RULE THE MUL OUTPOST and made it into Mage Haven. They opened a noble role call meant for a specific plot, and made sure to include a mage.

Buuuut you can play a mundane character in Tuluk, and get killed off when staff makes three of you fight fifteen magicked-up wastelanders. You can play one in Allanak, and be overlooked by the powers that be: why hire mundane nobodies when gemmed are more loyal(the gem) and stronger? You can play a mundane in the wastes, and be the guy who can make wooden chairs or chests while hanging out with the guys who can turn invisible or bring about earthquakes.

Genuinely: what's the draw any more? What's a player who just wants to do stuff to get up to? I'm tired of just how prevalent magick is, too, but I really can't blame the people playing all these PCs, when it's not them that shaped the environment the MUD is in.

[Riev]

Honestly, I'm going to go ahead and kind of agree with Patuk here. I don't have any actual SOLUTION for the issue, but a mundane human FEELS like it has to put in a whole lot of extra work, playtime, and reporting in order to reach the same political/coded power as one who simply has use of the Fireball Spell.

You can't make mundanes "stronger" without tipping the boat the other way, but I DO feel the changes in the poison system complicated it enough to the point that it actually weakened mundanes further. Poison is kind of an ultimate level to the playfield, but if it decays after taking 3 RL weeks to find it in the first place... and you needed it to MAYBE kill a witch that takes another 2 weeks to meet up with...

I don't know. I don't know how to fix it, but it makes Magick play feel a lot better. I don't know how to create Mundane plots that aren't romance or politic related, and most of the 'big' plots rotate around sorcery anyway.

[Pariah]

The only way I can see to curb magickers being more powerful is via a superman type trope of Kryptonite or something.

Something that hurts mages.

[roughneck]

You can't make mundanes "stronger" without tipping the boat the other way, but I DO feel the changes in the poison system complicated it enough to the point that it actually weakened mundanes further. Poison is kind of an ultimate level to the playfield, but if it decays after taking 3 RL weeks to find it in the first place... and you needed it to MAYBE kill a witch that takes another 2 weeks to meet up with...

Complicated and less effective. It's very, very cool and creative, but fuck, it's a lot of work in a game that is already a lot of work

Prior to the change in poison, and the change to how mobs reacted to archery, it was a little too easy to make a 5-day ranger perraine monster. Now, it's maybe swung too far the other way, where you don't have much to worry about from the vast majority of scouts/stalkers unless you're afk and get pumped with arrows because you weren't paying attention.

[Patuk]

Poison is a bit of a red herring anyhow. In 2014, sure, that full-classed mage can't do anything if you shoot him. In 2023, that mage is as good a poisoner as anyone else is - if anything, he's likely to be better at it. Gathering that poison and working it all is something that comes a lot more easily to a stalker/mage than it does to a mundane stalker.

[Pariah]

Poison is a bit of a red herring anyhow. In 2014, sure, that full-classed mage can't do anything if you shoot him. In 2023, that mage is as good a poisoner as anyone else is - if anything, he's likely to be better at it. Gathering that poison and working it all is something that comes a lot more easily to a stalker/mage than it does to a mundane stalker.

Sure, if they have certain magicks to help with that thing, travelling easier and such.  But I'd say where they gotta grind cast their spells over and over to branch it, that's time my stalker mundane has to be travelling the world plundering all the poisons and herbs he can find.

Magick > Mundane, this is an uncontested fact.

I don't know exactly what to do to change that?  Some folks have brought up maybe new magick hunting classes would be the thing.  Like a race/class that has some ability to negate magick maybe, but until/if that happens, the guys who can throw fireballs are always gonna be better than the ones swinging bone swords.

[Patuk]

No, it's just time to stop pretending 'magick is supposed to be that strong and this is intended!' is good design in 2023.

In 2013, sure, with active city militaries and mage classes having glaring drawbacks, that's totally valid. It's just no longer the game we're playing.

[Lotion]

it would be really funny if they fixed it by giving mage subguilds a significant malus to KPC

[Riev]

No, it's just time to stop pretending 'magick is supposed to be that strong and this is intended!' is good design in 2023.

In 2013, sure, with active city militaries and mage classes having glaring drawbacks, that's totally valid. It's just no longer the game we're playing.

I think this worked WHEN there were fullguild mages only.

They were MEANT to be glass cannons (for the most part) and powerful if left to their own devices. I once rolled a VERY decent strength Warrior back in the day and nearly killed an established Sorceror with magick weapons. I was less than 1d played and they were pretty damn low. If the flee code granted attacks of opportunity back then they might have died.

These days, the same sorceror has my offense/defense gain and similar weapon skills (yes they've been adjusted, but you see the point).

[Patuk]

No, it's just time to stop pretending 'magick is supposed to be that strong and this is intended!' is good design in 2023.

In 2013, sure, with active city militaries and mage classes having glaring drawbacks, that's totally valid. It's just no longer the game we're playing.

I think this worked WHEN there were fullguild mages only.

They were MEANT to be glass cannons (for the most part) and powerful if left to their own devices. I once rolled a VERY decent strength Warrior back in the day and nearly killed an established Sorceror with magick weapons. I was less than 1d played and they were pretty damn low. If the flee code granted attacks of opportunity back then they might have died.

These days, the same sorceror has my offense/defense gain and similar weapon skills (yes they've been adjusted, but you see the point).

Yes, subclass magick was a mistake.

[Pariah]

No, it's just time to stop pretending 'magick is supposed to be that strong and this is intended!' is good design in 2023.

In 2013, sure, with active city militaries and mage classes having glaring drawbacks, that's totally valid. It's just no longer the game we're playing.

I think this worked WHEN there were fullguild mages only.

They were MEANT to be glass cannons (for the most part) and powerful if left to their own devices. I once rolled a VERY decent strength Warrior back in the day and nearly killed an established Sorceror with magick weapons. I was less than 1d played and they were pretty damn low. If the flee code granted attacks of opportunity back then they might have died.

These days, the same sorceror has my offense/defense gain and similar weapon skills (yes they've been adjusted, but you see the point).

Yes, subclass magick was a mistake.

There is a conversation of potentially making them spec apps and full the new norm.  Maybe they will do that?

[DesertT]

It would help people NOT get overlooked if they actually played a hireable character and lived a couple of OOC weeks.
Your breed, rinther, northron in Allanak, or mutant half-giant with horns are all going to have limited options.

People who can't stay alive longer than two weeks, same deal.

[mansa]

it would be really funny if they fixed it by giving mage subguilds a significant malus to KPC

What does the acronym KPC stand for?  I've never heard that before.

[Riev]

It would help people NOT get overlooked if they actually played a hireable character and lived a couple of OOC weeks.
Your breed, rinther, northron in Allanak, or mutant half-giant with horns are all going to have limited options.

People who can't stay alive longer than two weeks, same deal.

Heck sometimes its not WORTH being alive for 2 weeks because you chose an area that doesn't have enough interaction.

2 PCs seen in a 6 hour play session in a "civilization center" kinda sucks. Out loud. With a bullhorn

[Patuk]

Just for clarity's sake, this is a post from the thread that spawned after magick became subclass-only:

Speaking of caps...

I vaguely recall staff saying they monitor the number of magickers in the game. Will this still stand? I'm not overly intrigued by the prospect of running into dozens of magickally gifted PCs trying out the new digs.

This will remain the case. We will put breaks on magickers if it gets stupid. Such breaks will be temporary and we will try to focus on people playing multiple magickers in a row to give as many people as possible chances to try new stuff.

Hi. What are you going to do, and when are you going to be doing it?

[Pariah]

it would be really funny if they fixed it by giving mage subguilds a significant malus to KPC

What does the acronym KPC stand for?  I've never heard that before.

[Riev]

it would be really funny if they fixed it by giving mage subguilds a significant malus to KPC

What does the acronym KPC stand for?  I've never heard that before.

Key Performance Criteria

Give magickers shitty performance.

[Patuk]

Just fyi:

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59259.0.html

Nerfing mages' mundane classes is the most workaround shit in existence, though. Easier and better to admit they shouldn't be strong at mundane stuff at all and revert to fully-classed magick.

[Pariah]

it would be really funny if they fixed it by giving mage subguilds a significant malus to KPC

What does the acronym KPC stand for?  I've never heard that before.

Key Performance Criteria

Give magickers shitty performance.

They had that, in full magicker guild/class.  Could blow your head off with a fireball but couldn't fight toe to toe to save their life.

I think we should go back to full magicker with all their drawbacks

[Pariah]

it would be really funny if they fixed it by giving mage subguilds a significant malus to KPC

What does the acronym KPC stand for?  I've never heard that before.

Key Performance Criteria

Give magickers shitty performance.

They had that, in full magicker guild/class.  Could blow your head off with a fireball but couldn't fight toe to toe to save their life.

I think we should go back to full magicker with all their drawbacks

Just fyi:

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59259.0.html

Nerfing mages' mundane classes is the most workaround shit in existence, though. Easier and better to admit they shouldn't be strong at mundane stuff at all and revert to fully-classed magick.

Look at this, we agree, who would have thought!

[mansa]

it would be really funny if they fixed it by giving mage subguilds a significant malus to KPC

What does the acronym KPC stand for?  I've never heard that before.

Key Performance Criteria

Give magickers shitty performance.

Are you sure it doesn't mean "Karma PC"?
Or "Killing Player Characters" ?

[DesertT]

It would help people NOT get overlooked if they actually played a hireable character and lived a couple of OOC weeks.
Your breed, rinther, northron in Allanak, or mutant half-giant with horns are all going to have limited options.

People who can't stay alive longer than two weeks, same deal.

Heck sometimes its not WORTH being alive for 2 weeks because you chose an area that doesn't have enough interaction.

2 PCs seen in a 6 hour play session in a "civilization center" kinda sucks. Out loud. With a bullhorn

Sounds like you need to go play a rogue gick in the wild.

Be part of "the problem".

If you can't beat 'em....

[Synthesis]

I think the subclass magick is fine.

It never made any sense that a magicker character was basically useless at every other life skill.

The problem is that there's too many magickers out there relative to the mundane PC population.

The solution is limiting the number, plain and simple.

Magick is supposed to be scary as fuck. Magickers are supposed to be badass, but rare-ish.

The only clans that should be able to field multiple PC magickers are AoD, Sun Runners, and ATV...and I dunno, maybe that whatever-the-fuck mutant clan y'all invented in the meantime.

[mansa]

My preference has always been:


A coded limit of characters classes to fulfil a particular population guideline.

...And this can be designed many different ways, but my particular flavour-of-the-month is a hard limit of race/class/subclass options provided by the character generation code, doing a query into the last 15 days of active players, and to prevent the choice from being chosen during character generation until the limit has been reduced.

To expand on this:

There's two checks or filters for the NEW CHARACTER APPLICATION flow:
a) Separate the classes/subclasses/races into groups.   These groups have a total "active" population group limit based on the percentage of characters that fit into it.
e.g.  Mul and Half-Giant races combined cannot exceed 15% of the total active population.

b) Within these groups, have limits also of the particular subgroup type.
e.g.  There cannot be more than 10 active half-giants in the game.

c) "Active" is defined as logged in once within the past 15 days.   If a character hasn't logged in within the last 15 days, they aren't considered "active" characters in the calculation.
e.g. There are 10 half-giants in the game, and 1 of these half-giant characters hasn't logged into the game in a while.  When it hits day 16, the game considers them "inactive" and their spot becomes open for a new character to take.

Downside: You have the potential to go over the limit when inactive characters become active characters again.   This actually doesn't matter, since the game will allow these characters to continue to exist - it just prevents NEW characters from entering into the game until the population goes below the threshold limit.

d) Sorcerer remain special application only, but psionicists don't require special applications anymore.


Here's a basic grouping I'm throwing out there for an example.  Numbers, Percentages, groupings are all subject to feedback:

Group 1
Psionicists - 3 max
Nilazi - 5 max
Elkrian - 5 max
Drovian - 5 max
- this group ALSO cannot be larger than 10% of the total population of active players.

Group 2
Whiran - 8 max
Krathi - 8 max
Vivaduan - 10 max
Rukkian - 10 max
- this group ALSO cannot be larger than 25% of the total population of active players.

Group 3
Mul - 5 max
Half-Giant - 10 max
- this group ALSO cannot be larger than 15% of the total population of active players.

[Armaddict]

It never made any sense that a magicker character was basically useless at every other life skill.

I don't particularly agree with this, because that wasn't their state ever since extended subs went in.  Extended subs are actually quite good, you just have to be very sure to play around that sub rather than having the full range of options of a full class.

However, I'm mostly in agreement with the rest of it.  Rarity is best.  Tweaks to not necessarily power levels, but other parts of the magick component could be examined to make tradeoffs and involvement.

For example, and only as an example despite me using it as a basis for discussion several times:
-Full-guild restriction based on being gemmed/sponsored:  I know everyone hates that idea right off the bat.  But it makes sense that the city provides enough to explain the lower emphasis on survival skills and specialization became available via temples.
-Mage-subguild restrictions are much looser, but their spellset, while powerful, makes them specifically vulnerable towards other mages.  Only make transition from subguild mage to full mage possible with gem/clan sponsorship over time.
-Try to create a balance where most rogue mages end up being subguild-type, specifically using their magick to try to build things either in the wilds, or in secret.  Full-guild mages have the impetus to find them via their sponsorship/gemmed status.

It doesn't have to be exactly that.  Like I said, an example.  Try to create as much built-in conflict via role itself as possible.  Create expectations (i.e. things to do) of the roles themselves.

That's assuming we don't want to get rid of subguild mages altogether.  Previously, the power/vulnerability dynamic of full-guild mages made solo-survival and total concealment of it much more difficult, and fostered interactions as a result.  I'd look for some way to implement built in necessity to what the role needs to fulfill glaring weaknesses, or making them fulfill a role that creates as much interaction as possible as naturally as possible.

ETA:  Would be a great time to implement some change to conform a little closer to documentation, as well.  Merchant houses probably make limited use of Vivaduans.  Not for hunting party #168, but for their large operations and travel and estate upkeep.  Military noble houses probably have a selected few war mages.  Things of that nature.  Create the possibility of limited comfort among their mundane peers, but only in that clan-involved setting.  It gives them a way to mingle while still allowing the overarching distrust.