Alternatives to Spellcasting

[dumbstruck]

I mean just from posts on these boards I've been able to tell that - unless this has changed - some Gemmed mages can't even get into parts of their own temple without pouring (probably at least tens) of hours into branching a certain spell.

The Armageddon scale of time investment into fun in this way in particular is, I must stress, not normal. I'm a little concerned that the staff not playing their own game sometimes removes this perspective.

A fighting PC doesn't need to be able to kill a mekillot before they can go out and kill scrabs. For a mage, it's almost an on/off switch in a lot of cases, and the way that on/off switch is currently functioning is behind days worth of often non-interactive spamcasting.

That element used to be my favorite guild. I'm forcing myself to log in a couple times a week a couple hours at a time in the hopes that one day I have access to what those PCs used to start with. When I brought it up as a concern I was told by not one but two different staff members (one of which was Halaster) that it wasn't a concern, it was changed because the thing it's now locked behind would have been redundant if it wasn't locked there. Locking it there doesn't make it not redundant.

[Halaster]

I mean just from posts on these boards I've been able to tell that - unless this has changed - some Gemmed mages can't even get into parts of their own temple without pouring (probably at least tens) of hours into branching a certain spell.

Sure, that's a thing.  Everyone doesn't get access to everything immediately.  I'm not overly concerned whether we're "normal" or not, but I can say that I've played countless games where access to certain areas or things of the game are gated behind "unlocking" it.  This is a fundamental aspect to many games in general, I dunno what to tell you.

[Dresan]

So what I'm trying to achieve are ways to do this.  To make it more fun for players, but keeping the powerful/skilled mages as uncommon and difficult to obtain. 

One way i can think of to achieve this in an interesting way to the all the players is to stream line learning of basic spells, making them more linear, but advanced spells would require random items scattered around the world.

As an example, we'll go with power crystals, each a different color for, each magick element. The way it would work is finding these crystals doesn't require any additional forage skill or to be in any special locations, any mage looking for components would already have a chance to find these crystals, so would anyone else looking for stuff, people would just find them randomly. You would need these easily identifiable crystals to gain skill or branch advanced spells.  Because they are found at random, RP, reputation, financial power and connections becomes more important than just searching for them yourself.

Also because it would be a random chance when looking for anything, a grebber looking for food might stumble upon them, maybe finding a vivudian crystal or krathi crystal which could be sold for a decent amount at the temple or to the individuals. Organizations keeping mages may offer their own rewards for them too.

Additionally the game would be able to modify the rate of likely hood of finding them, so if there is a lot of people the rate could go down, or if less people the rate could go up. You could also have different crystal sizes or qualities if you want further control of what the likelihood to gain or become better at certain powerful skills for certain mages. Finally, staff could also use them as exploration rewards or random finds. Perhaps killing a NPC might find one in its inventory, or skinning an animal finds one in its gut.

Unlike components, the more random flat chance the better to avoid people feeling like they have to go somewhere or do something specific all the time to find them. If anything they should just be Rping and living their lives.  Like offense and defense for fighters, the benefit here is that two mages could put in the same amount of effort and time and come out with different outcomes. At that point, the mage player can only blame their own bad luck. Each play through would be different for each mage, yet effort and interaction would still be often more rewarded.

Defilers and void mages would probably remain as is or use a different system.

[Windstorm]

This is a fundamental aspect to many games in general, I dunno what to tell you.

Okay, I have to call you on this because I can't resist:

What other game considers it an engaging function, earned by a longterm player who has proven their worth and trustworthiness to be able to unlock this role, to be standing in what is possibly an otherwise empty room, potentially interacting with no other object, repeating the same action over and over for upwards of (being completely generous in this time estimation, mind) ten hours before you get to where you can get to the part where you can just walk in the essential room where your PC is supposed to, for example, be able to sit down or log out?

Or even like.. kill a basic, low-level monster, or be useful to another PC, or do the basic things they signed up to do?

Can we, the playerbase, give you a hall pass to go play this role and see how fun this is?

[Inky]

Sequestering them into hundreds of hours of grind does not make sense.

I think you missed one of my points earlier (and maybe haven't played a full guild yet?), but this is not the case.  Magick is one of the -easier- things to gain and get good at.  Combat at least requires you to risk your life by fighting.  Sparring accidents happen, after all.  A mage can sit around in safety and just cast until they're powerful, in a reasonably short amount of time (compared to others).

Nah. My 10 day mage is still going to get bodied by a zero day stalker.

[Kavrick]

I also kinda have to agree with Windstorm here. I don't understand why players should have to 'earn' access to their starting clan building, seems a little weird. Also, 'earning' is always such a weird things in games like this. In most games, earning access to a new area is usually done through a feat of skill or otherwise effort. A lot of stuff in Armaggedon is merely a grind that's time-consuming more than anything else, and I don't really think gating stuff behind 10+ hours of doing not particularly interesting gameplay is the best way to go about things.

Hunters have to 'earn' the ability to go to difference places in the world because their combat skills directly correlate to being able to survive different areas. This is usually a fun experience because hunting is very dynamic and will provide you with things like hides, meat, horns, bones and stuff that you can then trade with other people for more material progress and interactions.

I played a full-guild for a short while, and I've played my current character far longer. I'm nowhere near finishing skilling up on my current character, but it's been far more enjoyable because the 'grind' is actually fun. Mages have to stand in a room casting for 100+ hours to branch/skill and there's nothing else to it.

Nah. My 10 day mage is still going to get bodied by a zero day stalker.

Also this, mages are fun, have cool spells and generally enjoyable to play outside the grind. But I really don't think full mages are strictly more powerful than mundane classes. I will always be far, far more terrified of any class with good stealth and backstab than a gick. Also gicks are denied most opportunities to 'gang up' unlike mundanes. Three dudes on mounts or with good bash will absolutely wreck a gicker.

[Halaster]

Okay, I have to call you on this because I can't resist:

What other game considers it an engaging function, earned by a longterm player who has proven their worth and trustworthiness to be able to unlock this role, to be standing in what is possibly an otherwise empty room, potentially interacting with no other object, repeating the same action over and over for upwards of (being completely generous in this time estimation, mind) ten hours before you get to where you can get to the part where you can just walk in the essential room where your PC is supposed to, for example, be able to sit down or log out?

Lol of course I cannot say another game does that because that's an absurdly specific scenario you've cooked up to prove a point that could only be our game, and does not at all reflect the point I was making.  My point was much simpler:  "access to certain areas or things of the game are gated behind "unlocking" it".  Which is a common thread to games.

[dumbstruck]

But does the changing things to gate things that they used to not because the thing was redundant to start with improve or make poorer the experience of playing that thing. Does it add to anything? Other than the skillups required and time sink required to access a room that those very people used to access without grinding?

And I think that it's important context that this is in a thread you yourself made about ameliorating the grind for mages some. Why did adding grind that didn't exist happen? What did it benefit? What was made more fun? Especially in the context of this is now a 50+ post thread on how to do /the exact opposite/ yet it's not a problem when people point out that this is a choice incongruent with stated reasoning and goals? And it's not just me. It's a lot of people. Most of whom have played gemmed in 'Seasons', which I assume you have not?

[Halaster]

But does the changing things to gate things that they used to not because the thing was redundant to start with improve or make poorer the experience of playing that thing. Does it add to anything? Other than the skillups required and time sink required to access a room that those very people used to access without grinding?

And I think that it's important context that this is in a thread you yourself made about ameliorating the grind for mages some. Why did adding grind that didn't exist happen? What did it benefit? What was made more fun? Especially in the context of this is now a 50+ post thread on how to do /the exact opposite/ yet it's not a problem when people point out that this is a choice incongruent with stated reasoning and goals? And it's not just me. It's a lot of people. Most of whom have played gemmed in 'Seasons', which I assume you have not?

It's OK if you don't agree with some of our game design decisions.  We can't please everyone.  It sounds like your specific feedback to this thread is "Fix it so that that one particular room is more accessible":  noted!  I'll have the staff who oversee that temple where that room is located look into it and if they think it should be changed, they'll change it.

Do you have any other feedback to the larger questions in the thread?  I'm hoping you have more.

[dumbstruck]

But does the changing things to gate things that they used to not because the thing was redundant to start with improve or make poorer the experience of playing that thing. Does it add to anything? Other than the skillups required and time sink required to access a room that those very people used to access without grinding?

And I think that it's important context that this is in a thread you yourself made about ameliorating the grind for mages some. Why did adding grind that didn't exist happen? What did it benefit? What was made more fun? Especially in the context of this is now a 50+ post thread on how to do /the exact opposite/ yet it's not a problem when people point out that this is a choice incongruent with stated reasoning and goals? And it's not just me. It's a lot of people. Most of whom have played gemmed in 'Seasons', which I assume you have not?

It's OK if you don't agree with some of our game design decisions.  We can't please everyone.  It sounds like your specific feedback to this thread is "Fix it so that that one particular room is more accessible":  noted!  I'll have the staff who oversee that temple where that room is located look into it and if they think it should be changed, they'll change it.

Do you have any other feedback to the larger questions in the thread?  I'm hoping you have more.

I do. I posted them even. You must have missed them. Firstly I agree with everything Down Under has said. I love AdamBlue's idea, but my main one was 'make fails on qntlz actually have a chance of increasing the skill' unlike 'nil', you're not trying to 'not cast the spell' so why reduced learning on it? (If you gain at all, I've never seen a qntlz fail result in a skill gain).

quick edit to add: If you are talking to people about the temple in question being more accessible that is awesome and appreciated. I still don't get why you're locking the thing behind spam then looking for how to get alternatives to spamming but I don't suppose it has to make sense to me.

[Halaster]

I do. I posted them even. You must have missed them. Firstly I agree with everything Down Under has said. I love AdamBlue's idea, but my main one was 'make fails on qntlz actually have a chance of increasing the skill' unlike 'nil', you're not trying to 'not cast the spell' so why reduced learning on it? (If you gain at all, I've never seen a qntlz fail result in a skill gain).

BTW, Talos and I just took at look at the temple in question, and have made an alternative fix.  The issue, if I recall, was that a new temple member didn't have access to a Safe / Save room.  We made one of the rooms that all members have access to to be safe/save now.

[Windstorm]

Lol of course I cannot say another game does that because that's an absurdly specific scenario you've cooked up

Ahhhhh but your counter here was that "other games do this," and then when called out, you confess that other games.. do not do this?

Also, I didn't 'cook it up.' You did. You have a player right here that's experienced it telling you about it. It's not even the first time.

Listen, I know ArmageddonMUD's historical solution to problems being called out is to dig in heels and insist it's not a problem, but I have to go on to point out here the utter hypocrisy and the way you've painted yourself into a corner in this conversation string. This is a problem. ArmageddonMUD is alive today because we did a 180 on the old ways and actually addressed some problems. Let's please not repeat the past in this way. It didn't help us then and it won't help us now. If something's a problem, it's okay to admit it and backtrack. We can do better than what almost killed us last time.

This isn't an isolated issue with one type of mage or one building, either. It's emblematic. But it took me coming out here to drag you over the coals to address it. That shouldn't be the case. I'm glad something's been done, but all the same.

[dumbstruck]

I mean, that was part of it. It was also that it's the wind temple and 1 room, which requires climb or <magical means> to access, is the only room in the entire temple that even has access to 'the wind'. It's the top room. The one that requires climbing or that thing that you no longer start with. How can you 'immerse yourself in your element' in your temple if the only room that accesses it is one that falls still behind requiring climb or branching to reach.

[Halaster]

Ahhhhh but your counter here was that "other games do this," and then when called out, you confess that other games.. do not do this?

Maybe you don't understand what I'm trying to say?

My point was much simpler:  "access to certain areas or things of the game are gated behind "unlocking" it".  Which is a common thread to games."  That's it, that's the only thing I was trying to point out.  The simple concept of gating things behind an unlock is common to many, many games.

Your scenario was much more involved and specific to a single person.  You are absolutely right, other games do not do that specific scenario you laid out, that is totally absolutely unique to us.

I'm a little confused by what you think you've "caught" me in, rather I think it's a misunderstanding between what we're each trying to say.  Dumbstruck was talking about one specific case, they even had a Request about it a few weeks ago, which we have now looked into.  Which of course you wouldn't know that.  If there's some bigger conspiracy, I'm failing to see it.

To reiterate the point of this thread:  I'm trying to solicit feedback from players about alternative ways to gain skills than just spam casting.  Not sure what you're on about.

[Dresan]

Trying to keep it more on topic, I want to add something to the idea. Found here 

For the idea to work:
1. Basic spells would need to ensure mages are fun, survivable and useful.
2. Advance spells would give mages abilities to make them obscenely deadly, or buff someone to be obscenely deadly.

I think the second is an important distinction this season. It is not that mages can't have defenses or deterrents but some buffs are more dangerous than the old 'energy beam'. This is especially true with the expanded social roles of mages. So certain mages, people and organization may have a vested interest in ensuring magick users become 'more' useful to them by acquiring the items mages need to grow...by any means necessary.

It also occurred to me, that one more sinister element could be added. What if defilers, like templars could produce a strong crystal from the corpses of sufficiently powerful dead mages (PC only, not NPCs). I am not sure the game the game would want to go that direction, but does make things interesting, asking what are players willing to do to pay the cost for power.

Unfortunately, for off-peak users, this would mean isolated mages without a network or people to support them would likely end up weaker than those with more RP opportunities. In this scenario, the strongest mages are probably the ones with the most interesting interconnected RP.

[dumbstruck]

My other suggestion which I forgot a bit ago, was simply reverse how skilling works across the board for everyone so it's the inverse and you get skillups from successes rather than failures (not just for mages, across the board), then you're not doing something you're ostensibly pretty damn good at 50 times trying to fail it which if we are ever talking about realism has always been an issue with both skilling in general and the branching system more specifically.

[Down Under]

Lol of course I cannot say another game does that because that's an absurdly specific scenario you've cooked up

Ahhhhh but your counter here was that "other games do this," and then when called out, you confess that other games.. do not do this?

Also, I didn't 'cook it up.' You did. You have a player right here that's experienced it telling you about it. It's not even the first time.

Listen, I know ArmageddonMUD's historical solution to problems being called out is to dig in heels and insist it's not a problem, but I have to go on to point out here the utter hypocrisy and the way you've painted yourself into a corner in this conversation string. This is a problem. ArmageddonMUD is alive today because we did a 180 on the old ways and actually addressed some problems. Let's please not repeat the past in this way. It didn't help us then and it won't help us now. If something's a problem, it's okay to admit it and backtrack. We can do better than what almost killed us last time.

This isn't an isolated issue with one type of mage or one building, either. It's emblematic. But it took me coming out here to drag you over the coals to address it. That shouldn't be the case. I'm glad something's been done, but all the same.

...It's a game...

You haven't 'caught' anyone or 'raked them over the coals'. C'mon. I don't think we need to dial up the heat of the rhetoric in an attempt to get a point across.

You have some great ideas (here and in other places) but you dilute your arguments and great points by your word choices and heated approach. You aren't going to get anyone (particularly Staff members, and probably particularly Halaster) to agree with you with these methods.

If your goal is to enact some sort of change, or make suggestions that are taken seriously, i'd recommend a different approach.

[zealus]

All right, let's get this thread back on topic. I suggest we all take a few steps back, and make this a little less heated <3
I don't like locking threads when they are productive, so let's get back to being productive, yes?

Thank you

[Roon]

I think the solution is simpler, and incidentally could apply just the same to all skills, not just magick (and it's arguably more needed for mundane skills where you don't have a temple designed for risk-free practice, or the option to dry-cast purely for practice):

The longer it has been since you last raised a skill, the more you gain next time it goes up. Obviously set a cap so it doesn't shoot up from novice to advanced if you haven't used it for a month, but maybe one point per six hours of play or something (and perhaps longer for skill groups that have an inherently longer wait), up to a maximum of five points in one go. If the goal is to alleviate the need to split your time between roleplaying and raising the skills you need for your character concept, that should satisfy both those who prefer to spend as little time as possible on grinding and those who find it satisfying to work on their skills (and can raise them faster than you could by waiting).

Is it realistic that you learn more the longer you didn't use a skill? Eh, not exactly; but most facets of this game are steeped in unrealistic malarkey that we ignore and play around. As long as it's not the fastest way to improve, it'll be fine. Most importantly, the unrealistic nature of this hypothetical feature does not tarnish or interfere with roleplay, gameplay or PvP balance in any way. Nobody else will notice. Nobody's gonna say 'wow, that guy is roleplaying so much that he benefits unfairly!'

While I'm not a fan of the thing some MUDs do where you just gain RPXP from emoting and spend it on skills, it does undeniably steer players away from obsessive skill-grinding that replaces interaction. I think the above would be a reasonable compromise that both makes it possible to improve without excessive grinding, makes it possible to improve faster by grinding for those who enjoy the dopamine hits from solving the game, and makes it impossible to improve without ever doing the thing that raises a given skill. You'll still need to steal (and fail at it!) from time to time if you want to become a master thief. I think that part is especially important.

There's a very real problem in this game where many skills can only really be raised at a relevant rate if you use them for the express purpose of raising them, even though you have no real IC reason to do whatever it is that raises them. Not all skills, but certainly quite a few. If you try to play a character whose primary mode of aggression is backstab (just to pick an example) but you use backstab only when you have a legitimate, rational IC reason to try and murder somebody, you're never getting anywhere with that skill. As such, the game itself requires that you "twink" by using it just because you want it to go up. And then you see that you were rewarded for doing that, so your lizard brain tells you to do that more. And you shouldn't, but then again, you can probably get away with it, right? Who's gonna notice?

That's the big flaw of Armageddon's skill progress system. If you play fair, you lose out. If you spend most of your time talking to people, planning plots or otherwise "doing the right thing," your character falls behind in the invisible arms race and becomes irrelevant compared to those who only grind, or know how to balance grinding and interaction in order to check both boxes sufficiently.

Many aspects of this game are simulationistic. The new 'learn' feature was ostensibly an attempt at solving the issue outlined above, and simulate what your character is learning from the life they're living even when you're offline; but we all know that one point per week is completely ineffective when it comes to meaningful progress in any given skill. If instead you could make, say, half the progress of someone who grinds hard, so long as you do use the skill in question at least enough to qualify for a gain every 24 hours played or thereabouts, I think it'll satisfy those who prefer to interact and socialize and plot while not undermining the satisfaction of those who derive a lot of enjoyment from the feeling of building up a mechanically effective character.

I think that's a lot more palatable and a lot less goofy than the oddly gimmicky and formulaic "go to the stone pillar and pretend to pray so that you branch Spell X."

[Inky]

Do you have any other feedback to the larger questions in the thread?  I'm hoping you have more.

I think you should look at the common pain points and address some of those before you start working on the baller mage quests you're cooking up. This might actually mean compromising on your vision for mages to make the game enjoyable to play.

Me? I actually don't care where my character sits on your power gradient. I just want a few simple things.

- Fix Nil. There's no reason for it to be like that. It's just another gameplay trap.
- Not to lose my character in a sparring match gone wrong. I've already put in a request related to this.
- To not have to engage in hours of brainbreaking grind.

[Dresan]

I think that's a lot more palatable and a lot less goofy than the oddly gimmicky and formulaic "go to the stone pillar and pretend to pray so that you branch Spell X."

I don't think the idea of going somewhere is bad to be honest.

But the problem is without any random chance or risk added to the mix you are basically supplementing one form of spamming for the other or just linearly extended the time required to cap.

Tying it back to the idea I had, instead of separate colored crystals, it would be just one blank crystal which required mages to find sources of power to fill. During this time a mage would have to find an appropriate location, and would find themselves vulnerable as the fill the crystal with power, putting them at serious risk of being attacked, knocked out and robbed.

In this way, the random chance requirement would be filled by acquiring a crystal, but the risk would come when trying to to fill the crystal later, going to a potentially dangerous location, where your mage friend could be waiting to jump you to steal that crystal. Maybe mages sensing when these crystals are being used, just by being in the general vicinity. Again even in this scenario, more RP-oriented interconnected mages would be likely to advance by being able to hire people to watch their back.

[helix]

So it seems this thread has diverged a bit from what I intended, but I don't mind.

Here is a a very broad list of criteria, or design elements, we want to see for any mage in the game (for this context mage includes Nilazi, Elementalist, and Sorcerer and does not include Templars):


1. The powerful/skilled ones should be uncommon
As it implies, the people who make it to the top end of their 'magickal career' should be uncommon.  Not everyone is going to become the MacDadddy spell-caster.  This works out because a lot of characters simply get killed before they reach this point.  I expect it will be a little easier on Season One since there's a ton more gemmed than there used to be, but even gemmed aren't immune to going out in the desert and dying to a scrab or something.  But more importantly, it should be uncommon because it is difficult to reach.

The subguild aspect mages are generally 'more powerful' on an individual level because mixing things like heavy combat with magick, as we have found out, is very strong.  This is partly why they're specapp only, to keep them much more uncommon.

2. It should not be easy to get powerful
We want to avoid having a lot of very powerful mages wandering around the world, as that can make it less fun for the non-mages sometimes.  Plus, that's just the "vision" of the game overall, powerful beings are not common.  This also means that when someone does become powerful, it's a bit of a big deal and special.

3. There should be a 'cost' to being a mage.
How much of a cost has changed with Season One, but there still is a social cost, particularly for nilazis and sorcerers who are illegal.  The other cost is that you're weak in other areas such as combat.  Also... more to come [redacted].

I think this post from Halaster got buried in the shuffle, because I don't see many people responding to its points.

If I could boil the problem down though, @Halaster, the 'cost' of magic seems to be the main issue. Right now the costs can be summarized as:

• Combat Class: Risk of injury and/or death.
• Crafting Class: Money and/or materials.
• Magic Class: Time, and Social RP

And I realize that mages are faster to skill up - having played one, years ago, I was amazed at how quickly my spell tree filled out. The social RP aspect has been reduced in Season One (which I, for one, appreciate), but other balance is time. If a mage wants, they can sit in their apartment and spam cast until they're fully branched.

I interpret your statement of your criteria as:

* A gating function that signifies a beginner mage from an intermediate mage, from an advanced mage.
* That gating function should be dangerous enough that not all who get there can pass it.
* The gating function should require other people to complete, thereby hopefully being more interesting than spamcasting.

I might be off in my interpretation, but now I see why you mentioned things like places of power/words of power.

An idea in this vein, rather than making it 'less grindy':

* Have a script the randomly selects a room in-game as a place of power... for that particular magicker. Each magic class gets a spell to sense the direction of this place of power - they have no idea where it actually is, just a general direction and distance. They have to go there and perform a ritual.
* The ritual is a spell, which must be cast with a new reach - the wild reach. The mage unfetters their power in hopes of ascending to the next 'tier' of mage, and there's a real chance to lose control of the magic, here. Bad things happen if control is lost. Doing this in a group of people is better. Doing it in a group of similarly-aspected mages is best, as they can help control things.
* The ritual is cast, a new tier is ascended to - new spells open up. If the progression was from beginner to intermediate, then a new random room is selected, and the race begins anew.

I have no idea how difficult something like that would be to code. But I think it means the cost of being a mage is kept such that it's a rare mage that could put together all the required people, time and resources to move themselves up to the highest class of magick. I don't even know if this is a good idea, I'm really just trying to figure out if this kind of idea actually is the direction you want to go more into?

[Nao]

So - after thinking about this, I think any alternate way to gain spells needs to work

1. Without staff intervention - reasons are in my earlier post

2. Interaction with other players should be encouraged by the system, but shouldn't be required. I'm saying this because mages should stay playable even when numbers are low, you play when there's 5 players online, or you want to play the stereotypical cave/sewer mage. Or even just a rogue who doesn't know any others.

There's also one positive aspect of spam-casting for gemmed that hasn't been brought up yet. The temples become a gathering spot because you need to cast a lot of spells and this is best done in the temple. There's a lot of socializing and RP happening in there with characters that have nothing else in common and probably wouldn't interact anywhere else, but here the rinthi elf will spend time with the Oash circle member. Remove the need to spend a lot of time at the temple and that goes away.

It would be cool if some alternate way to gain skills could maintain the temples as spots to RP with other mages, or introduced alternative spots.

I like the idea of learning from other mages as an alternative to spamcasting. Maybe we all just need to use teach more often?

You could learn from watching other PCs cast, possibly even (v)NPCs, as long as you're thinking, talking and/or emoting and not just idling. I'm sure you could put some timers on that so it doesn't get easier or faster than spamcasting, and doesn't work to make your spamcasting more efficient. Or make it PCs only. Maybe you can even learn from mages of other elements if their spells are 'similar' (same mood/sphere).

Or lets use components for spells that otherwise don't need them. Using a component gives you a chance for a skill increase without a skill fail, with more powerful components giving you a higher chance. This would make components more useful, too.

[Usiku]

Magickal pilgrimage stuff!

This is a cool idea! 

[titansfan]

If we do locations or items or whatever is going to funnel into the same argument of experienced players knowing more things and wanting it all public which then would lead to people just metaing it and doing that grind. They're are still people that won't rp that because they want Ice Ball on their spell list.

I also don't think staff having to oversight it is the answer either as staff can't always pay attention to everyone on every timezone.

I could see giving some automated bonus to those who use emote, feel, think and such but again people will likely game that system too because they just want that spell because it hates them from killing horrors. And darn it,  things shouldn't be gated.