Idea: Increase cast times for STRONG spells

[SpyGuy]

Attacking others who propose ideas about adding increased costs to magick as 'uncreative' is unhelpful.  Sure, some ideas may be nerfs.  Mages also got buffs.  Things change. Not all ideas will be winners but I think it can be a great creative exercise to discuss how magick should come with a price.

For the record, I would greatly prefer these costs mostly be social and not coded.  I don't believe this at all works in a game built around interaction.  It completely falls apart when mages are the majority in some gameplay spheres.  To the point staff recently felt the need to code Nilazi and elementalist interactions, so I'm thinking even high karma players are unwilling to limit their RP to follow the documentation.

[LindseyBalboa]

Eventually if all that's done is 'buff XXX' we'll just be playing Superman vs Mundane Superman. It's okay to rebalance things in a game.

That being said I am not personally a fan of this idea at all.

[Riev]

To the point staff recently felt the need to code Nilazi and elementalist interactions, so I'm thinking even high karma players are unwilling to limit their RP to follow the documentation.

I think this will always and forever be an issue with Roleplay games that have a coded backstop. Unless something FORCES you to interact in this manner, the only reason to do it is for the RP. Sometimes you just aren't into the RP at the time, or you're focused on something else, or any number of justifications.

Should elementalists be wary around Nilazi? Sure. Its documented, its in all the histories. But what if you're like, a really cool Nilazi with a nice personality who plays during my playtimes. Surely its okay to play with you and not worry about how you're the antithesis of everything that makes me special, right?

[Lotion]

i think staff should commit to establishing specific setting related details about what magic is, where it comes from, and how it relates to the known

just let me officialize that zalanthas is a demiplane created by the original council of kings (who chose to embody themselves in the plane as the magick moods to preside over) but eventually shit got out of hand when echri the dragon planned to ruin everything and they sort of all just dipped. even so their presence remains in the form of the magic moods they impressed onto the world which is why we see tektolnes embody chran, sand lord embody viod, muk embody hekro/hurn (maybe he's now inrof or nikiz but i find that unlikely), the tan muark was ruled by grol, and the queen north of grey is probably actually inrof because of how curious the character was characterized at first in those stories brokkr published

[Lotion]

these basic facts around the world are necessary to be established and be immutable because they form the basis for the world itself. all life is inherently tied to magic. "mana" is literally life force! it's why defilers must destroy life already on the zalanthan plane in order to generate enough magical power to weave a spell

[zealus]

Bring Back Karma Jail!!

No thank you. This creates a couple of things:
1. Only experienced players can be Magickers. To learn, you must die a lot, and learn through it. Being allowed 1 PC to learn about magick every 1-3 months is gatekeepy at best.
2. It creates a lot of "Spend a month in the byn, then manifest" PCs.
3. It causes magickers to play thinking of Karma Jail, and thus being careful for the first few months, instead of roleplaying their PCs.
4. It causes (some) people to reconsider acting to their PCs intention so as to not needlessly cause people into Karma jail by killing that high karma PC.
5. It causes people who like magickers to just not play. Can we really afford to hemmorage players?

So no thanks

[Armaddict]

5. It causes people who like magickers to just not play. Can we really afford to hemmorage players?

To be fair, this happens in the opposite direction as well.  People who don't want to play in a world where every other person is a mage won't play.  Can you afford to hemorrhage them either?  Hence why solutions need to continue to be discussed.

[Riev]

5. It causes people who like magickers to just not play. Can we really afford to hemmorage players?

To be fair, this happens in the opposite direction as well.  People who don't want to play in a world where every other person is a mage won't play.  Can you afford to hemorrhage them either?  Hence why solutions need to continue to be discussed.

In one instance, you are taking away options for people to play.
In the other instance, people are choosing not to play because of what is around them.

Apples and oranges, mate.

[DesertT]

Bring Back Karma Jail!!

No thank you. This creates a couple of things:
1. Only experienced players can be Magickers. To learn, you must die a lot, and learn through it. Being allowed 1 PC to learn about magick every 1-3 months is gatekeepy at best.
2. It creates a lot of "Spend a month in the byn, then manifest" PCs.
3. It causes magickers to play thinking of Karma Jail, and thus being careful for the first few months, instead of roleplaying their PCs.
4. It causes (some) people to reconsider acting to their PCs intention so as to not needlessly cause people into Karma jail by killing that high karma PC.
5. It causes people who like magickers to just not play. Can we really afford to hemmorage players?

So no thanks

I would point you to look at Magick on the Armageddon website here:
https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Magick

The first ten words describing magick are as follows: "Magick is a mysterious and very rare power on Zalanthas".

Yet weren't we recently told by Staff that something like one-third of players are currently playing a magicker of some type? 

I don't feel that you have to die a lot to learn magick.  Maybe some people just die a lot.  I know I did for my first twenty-some years, because I played foolishly.  Ever since Tariq, my longevity has went up from 2.3 days played average, to well over 20, nearly 30 days played.  And there are some of you who have longevity averages in the triple digits.

I feel like you could say that playing a hunter means you must die a lot.  Shoot, just PLAYING Armageddon, for a lot of people, means dying a lot.  Learning magick has nothing to do with it.  Learning Armageddon does.

My first magicker lasted over 20 days played before they were assassinated in their apartment.  20 days played.  Again, I don't feel that magick has anything to do with it.  It has to do with how you play Armageddon.

Who cares if people spend a month in the Byn before they manifest?  Real twinkers know that you DON'T spend a month in the Byn.  You spend it elsewhere first.

You can say that it causes magickers to think of karma jail while they're playing.  I call it thinking of personal well-being.  Most of us, once we've dumped 3 IRL months of playtime into a character, don't really want to just throw them away on a whim or take a random shot at someone we know we'll likely fail.  EVERYONE should be careful playing their new characters.  NOBODY should be riding outside of civilized places alone.  This is why the Byn has the rules that it does.  Same for the militias and other organizations.  This is why leaders typically don't want their new hire to go ride out by themselves.  Yes, there are exceptions.

What I notice that happens now, without karma jail, is that "some" people role a karma 3 character, take a shot at someone else's sponsored role or other long-lived PC, then when they fail, they store instead of facing IC consequences.  Then they just role another karma 3 character, come up with a different angle to take a shot at a sponsored role or long-lived PC and try again.  The lack of a "karma jail" enables this type of behaviour, which is also why there's been previous conversation about making dwarves a karma race, for some people's repeated PK attempts with a high strength dwarf targeting a sponsored role or long-lived PC.  Now, we've just enabled folks to not just use dwarves, but any karma class they want.

As to folks holding off on killing other high karma characters, that may be true, but it SHOULD be true regardless.  Killing other characters should NOT be our go-to response, regardless of the other character's potential karma level.

There are a handful of folks that sit in karma jail, waiting it out.  I don't feel they are the majority at all.  And they're not leaving.  They're just waiting.  Then what do they do?  The role a rogue gick, fight a scorpion in a dark hole with a skinning knife, and die to a scrab.  Guess what.  They are still playing.  And the only person they have to blame for losing that magicker is themselves, most of the time.  Same with all of us who die far too soon.  Again though, they play like that with mundanes as they do with magickers.  Should we further enable that by taking away karma jail?  Yes, I understand that some folks lose a karma 3 character too soon to other reasons NOT of their fault or doing, but that's typically not the case for most of us.

Also, thank-you Armaddict for your point.  Some of us who like to play mundanes are now finding ourselves almost literally surrounded by magickers, when the website says IT SHOULD BE VERY RARE.

Oh yes, and there are people who run off and grind while avoiding RP.  They've done this when there was karma jail, and they'll continue to do so.

Lastly, to Riev, opportunities aren't being taken away.  You had a window, you likely played foolishly and wasted that opportunity.  Maybe next time you'll learn and play smarter.  Got it.  There are exceptions, but those are just that, exceptions.

[mansa]

Yeah, fifteen seconds is pretty damn long - even ten would be. I'd just be happy with a guaranteed five second delay, which should in fact be enough to shove someone down or whatever. Spells as-is can be pretty damn instant.

I like this suggestion - it's basically a minimum time to cast.



So, I would say this would be my revised suggestion:

1) Have an additional line echo around the cast to show how /powerful/ the spell being cast is going to be.

The tall, muscular man starts casting a SUL water element spell.
- POWERFUL water elements seem to SWIRL and coalesce around the tall, muscular man, as he prepares his magick

The tall, muscular man starts casting a PAV water element spell.
- The water elements seem to coalesce around the tall, muscular man, as he prepares his magick

2) Increase the possible minimum spell delay for PAV and EEN by 1 game tick, and the minimum spell delay for SUL and MON by 2 game ticks.

3) Introduce a 'quickcast' spell reach, available for everyone, that reduces the minimum spell delay and has a higher chance at critical casting pass/fail - but not allowing the spell to fail with 'you lose your concentration'.

[dumbstruck]

Yeah, fifteen seconds is pretty damn long - even ten would be. I'd just be happy with a guaranteed five second delay, which should in fact be enough to shove someone down or whatever. Spells as-is can be pretty damn instant.

I like this suggestion - it's basically a minimum time to cast.



So, I would say this would be my revised suggestion:

1) Have an additional line echo around the cast to show how /powerful/ the spell being cast is going to be.

The tall, muscular man starts casting a SUL water element spell.
- POWERFUL water elements seem to SWIRL and coalesce around the tall, muscular man, as he prepares his magick

The tall, muscular man starts casting a PAV water element spell.
- The water elements seem to coalesce around the tall, muscular man, as he prepares his magick

2) Increase the possible minimum spell delay for PAV and EEN by 1 game tick, and the minimum spell delay for SUL and MON by 2 game ticks.

3) Introduce a 'quickcast' spell reach, available for everyone, that reduces the minimum spell delay and has a higher chance at critical casting pass/fail - but not allowing the spell to fail with 'you lose your concentration'.

As a tick is 4 seconds, that's still 12 seconds, which is damn near the 15 seconds you were on about initially?

[whengravityfails]

It's still a terrible idea, and especially because it would affect magick across the board - not just in combat. This makes it far more than just 'bringing it in line' with other combat changes as it would slow down casting in every case, in combat and outside of it. Come up with something better if you think there's such a massive problem with magick in combat, one which doesn't gimp it outside of combat as well.

[dumbstruck]

It's still a terrible idea, and especially because it would affect magick across the board - not just in combat. This makes it far more than just 'bringing it in line' with other combat changes as it would slow down casting in every case, in combat and outside of it. Come up with something better if you think there's such a massive problem with magick in combat, one which doesn't gimp it outside of combat as well.

I really just added emphasis in places because the wording so encapsulated my feelings that I agree with every word.

[Riev]

Lastly, to Riev, opportunities aren't being taken away.  You had a window, you likely played foolishly and wasted that opportunity.  Maybe next time you'll learn and play smarter.  Got it.  There are exceptions, but those are just that, exceptions.
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I'm going to need to know what this is in relation to, as its at the very bottom of your post.
Currently, I am able to roll a krathi die, and then roll another one.
The suggestion of "bringing back karma jail" (which itself shows you know its a FUCKING punishment) means you want to TAKE. AWAY. MY CURRENT. OPPORTUNITY.

I understand you disagree, but you're wrong about what you have said. If the suggestion is to return to spending karma on roles, it will be taking away an opportunity I have, now. Full stop.

[DesertT]

In one instance, you are taking away options for people to play.

Nobody is "taking away options".  You still have the option to play what you want utilizing spec apps if you really so desire.

The option isn't taken away.  It's just more costly (spec app), or you have to save-up, put that character idea on layaway. 

The option isn't taken away though.  Just because you don't want to spend a spec app on a repeat character, doesn't mean it was taken away.

And I use the term "karma jail" because that's been a humourous description of it.

[RheaGhe]

In one instance, you are taking away options for people to play.

Nobody is "taking away options".  You still have the option to play what you want utilizing spec apps if you really so desire.

The option isn't taken away.  It's just more costly (spec app), or you have to save-up, put that character idea on layaway. 

The option isn't taken away though.  Just because you don't want to spend a spec app on a repeat character, doesn't mean it was taken away.

And I use the term "karma jail" because that's been a humourous description of it.

I think if I were to be told, when I had a strong concept of what and how I wanted to play and it weren't a spec app situation, that I had to wait a near month or more to play it. That I would make intentionally shitty characters or characters intended to be temporary, and then kill them or store them LITERALLY the moment my karma was back.

[whengravityfails]

Considering how many people started playing again when karma jail was removed I'm not sure why anyone would think it would be a good idea to reinstitute it. All it would do is ensure a good amount of people would not play while waiting out their karma timer. I imagine the problem would be worse now with delves capped since that wipes out 1 karma roles (save the soon to be extinct extended subguilds).

[Armaddict]

In one instance, you are taking away options for people to play.
In the other instance, people are choosing not to play because of what is around them.

Apples and oranges, mate.

No.  It is a constant tug of war of 'playing the game I want to play'.  Some people enjoy a low-magick setting, where it is rare, where it is powerful, where it is as it is described in description of the world.  You can make that into semantics, but it is ultimately people determining that the way they want the game to be played is how it should be because it's what they want, and it's ultimately unproductive to use the basis of people leaving as a basis of argument for why things should be more for players A than players B.

Which is why I brought it up; not as a counter-argument, but as a 'stop using this as an argument'.  It isn't one.  It's a perspective.  You get to say 'It's their choice to leave if they don't want to play around a lot of mages.'  I get to say 'It's their choice to leave if they don't want to play a lot of non-mages.'  They are not apples and oranges, they are the same.

[SpyGuy]

Considering how many people started playing again when karma jail was removed I'm not sure why anyone would think it would be a good idea to reinstitute it. All it would do is ensure a good amount of people would not play while waiting out their karma timer. I imagine the problem would be worse now with delves capped since that wipes out 1 karma roles (save the soon to be extinct extended subguilds).

Just as a counter point, one reason I quit and stayed away from the game was removal of karma jail.  Magick was already so common before the removal and it was one more act of staff catering to and buffing mages and the people who play them constantly. No decision will make everyone happy.  What I can safely say is the state of mundane play is in a bad spot and has been for years.   Mage mud just doesn't interest me.

[betweenford]

In one instance, you are taking away options for people to play.

Nobody is "taking away options".  You still have the option to play what you want utilizing spec apps if you really so desire.

The option isn't taken away.  It's just more costly (spec app), or you have to save-up, put that character idea on layaway. 

The option isn't taken away though.  Just because you don't want to spend a spec app on a repeat character, doesn't mean it was taken away.

And I use the term "karma jail" because that's been a humourous description of it.

I think if I were to be told, when I had a strong concept of what and how I wanted to play and it weren't a spec app situation, that I had to wait a near month or more to play it. That I would make intentionally shitty characters or characters intended to be temporary, and then kill them or store them LITERALLY the moment my karma was back.

The deviation from the topic from "magick should have increased timers" to "magick should be rare" is a derail isn't it?

Also: what is this nonsense with alternate sizes and fonts, it's a ridiculous attention-seeking behavior.

[eska]

Back on the real topic.

Armageddon is supposed to be harsh for everyone. If your lame mundane char gets killed by a magicker murderhobo, you see the mantis head to remind you that you are playing in Armageddon.
You might feel bad about it. So let me remind you the oldest phrase I've known about this game: Welcome to Armageddon!

Magick is hated by everyone. That's why Allanak puts gems to the elementalists to keep them in line and rush out to kill those who refuse to wear a gem. We have had so many magicker murderhobos in the last 20 years I have been playing. It only added to the game as more plots.

Unless trained specifically for it, your mundane hunter/fighter/rogue should be scared shitless when he/she saw a Krathi tossing fireballs from his/her hand not push forward to kill that Krathi.

IMO this suggestion will not improve the overall playability.

I still miss the days when I took my hunters outside with the terror of the idea that a whiran could summon them up in the air anytime. Let things stay as they are.

[Inks]

Yes. I think increased casting time would be great. Combat skills have a signifigant post delay that spells don't share. They can be chained one after the other.

[BadSkeelz]

Instead of increasing casting time of whatever, just give every spell a 1% chance of just killing its user (and maybe everybody else in the room) when cast at a sufficiently high level.

[Armaddict]

Instead of increasing casting time of whatever, just give every spell a 1% chance of just killing its user (and maybe everybody else in the room) when cast at a sufficiently high level.

That is so evil xD

[dumbstruck]

I don't see how that's not basically just putting a new ceiling on what power levels are "actually accessible". And possibly trying to find a way to get gemmed outlawed in Allanak or something. I can't imagine any sane person would go above the power level that /won't possibly kill them/ so you're basically just making a glass ceiling for no reason. Or are you telling me you would (and feel you reasonably expect others) to just reasonably take a chance on dying every time they cast and don't expect behavior in such a way as to /just get around/ whatever portion will instill that level of risk? For people who want magick to be powerful and cool, nothing says 'I'm powerful' like 'You know this main function of my magick? I have to get half up the scale before I can even get it to work on a normal sized human for more than a single tick. And yet, if I go up more than two thirds of the scale I might kill everyone around me including myself, so no, I won't even see if I can do that, sorry, even though it would reasonably be and has been within my ability historically for my entire life so far since learning the thing, by the way, the scale is 1-7, you do the math'.