rebalance the magic teaching system

[Pellandria]

Magic is always a tricky subject, but I somehow disagree with the recent changes in the magic teaching system, so to make everyone understand what exactly the point is and not just the mage players here we go.


1.Old system.

In the old system you could teach your student on two ways, but one thing always needed to be true, you had to have 40 points alltogether in the attributs int, essence and willpower, I you had less than 40 points you could not teach anyone anything, even if you had the teaching rune and your student had to have atleast 30 points in the allready mentioned attributs.

Furthermore you could teach someone in a "teaching" room, which did not requiere any skill, basicly anyone with the teaching rune and with the teaching room could teach runes.

Another way was to teach a student out of the room, but that meant that you had to have a high skill and while teaching you sacriefied some portion of your own skill.

2.The new system.

With the recent changes several things changed, first of all now there is a skill barrier aswell as a attribut barrier. Let me first explain the skill barrier.

With the skill barrier a student aswell as a teacher need certaint skills in a school to give runes, so if some rune is clearly belonging to one school, than the teacher aswell as the student need a certaint percent of skill to teach that rune, aswell as the student needs a certaint skill to receive a rune.

Now the attribut barrier is another piece of cake, just like in the old system you need certaint attributs to teach runes, but these are now splitted, certaint runes can only be given away with high attributs, basicly all runes that make any magic char strong, without those runes he would be useless.

3.How I would do it.

While I like the idea of having a skill barrier, even thougth this reduces a mage once more to powergaming, I highly dislike the rather big attribut barrier, we should not forget that we got some people who actually dislike being the 1523'st mage with maxed up attributs. Taking my own char for example she is quiete balanced along any attribut, meaning there are no real disadvantages for her, but she met the 40 points rule from the old system.

Now what really bothers me is the following, we go away from attributs in spells, making more balanced chars possible, but at the same time we change the "root" of magic, the magic teaching, making any changes invalid, because now noone without the attributs ~can~ learn the spells, which means those who got the attributs anyway just got easier acces for the spells and those who allready play longer, but that is the death for any mixed chars, so in the end seperating warriors and mages once more..leaving no middleground.


So to summarize it: pull down the attributs needed to teach all runes back to a total of 40 points, while keeping the skill barrier, maybe increasing it slightly for those teacher and students, who do not posses the highest attributs, because honestly its strange that my char can throw around almost every spell, but she can not give away any rune, because the attribut rule changed, it further makes no sense that this suddendly changed and just results in destroyed or strange rp, because that means students of some masters have to run to other teachers to get their runes there.

[Kaila Galathil Travinus]

Honestly, I am VERY happy with the skills now in the mage system... being able to actually do some spells fairly accurately without the push to PG is wonderful.

As far as the teaching, my char has quit only having high skill in one area. However if teaching rules of the academy were changed, and a new mage char could go to any teacher to get lessons and runes, my char would be happy to teach runes with Perv as the system is now. I don't plan any more PGing for the char so figure that will be all she will teach.

[Azuros]

As a mage student, I personally dislike the "One teacher three students" rule. I think it would be much nicer and there would be some nice RP opportunities if, like Kaila said, students went to many teachers, and teachers could teach any number of students. One teacher could teach them a certain school of magic that the teacher specializes in.

Teachers shouldn't have to skill up -all- of their magic skills (some of which have -very- few spells in them) so their students can get all the runes they need. I would enjoy much more to have classroom-style teaching.

Keep the skill requirements, sure, but no more limit on students please? That waitlist of students is discouraging.

[Salhari]

Keep the skill requirements, sure, but no more limit on students please? That waitlist of students is discouraging.

please?

[Pellandria]

I personally dislike classroom teaching, aswell as people going to other masters, after all magic as a whole is one package and a teacher should be able to teach a student all about his/her "craft". Further more specializing will never happen with the urrent system, a mage as he is now can only do a few things, most of them is dealing damage and the staff seems to want to cut down the mages even more for *drummroll* more useless damage dealing spells.

But anyway that is not the discussion about, the 3 students per teacher rule has simple reasons, first of all it keeps the mass of new mages at bay, even if we allready got too many in my opinion, and we make sure that every student gets enough attention from his teacher, because in the end they will take the exam and I doubt that many would pass it with classroom teaching..

[Keikan Hiru]

So, your character recived the short end of the stick?

What you discribe here is something that is a core principle in many, if not all, games:
Progress must be made before you reach another step of your (character-) career.
And yes, even if this means that the aspiring mage needs to venture down into the crypts and blast some zombies with his "Fireball I" away to get the needed rune to cast "Fireball II".
In other games this is done by a blunt Level Up!, which either unlocks new abilites automaticly or awards your character with feat points that can be exchanged somewhere for new cool moves/spells/whatever.

What you truly want is your "mixed" character to be up par with the "maxed" characters, not only in things like damage but also with the prestige title of being an actual "teacher" of magic.
Specialized characters will always be better in a certain aspect, that they are optimized in, especialy if this is something like magic.

Correct me if I got your complaint about your characters reduced abilities in teaching wrong.


P.S.:
Change the Academy rules!

[Pellandria]

I told you I do not care about the skill barrier, this is ~what~ I would want to keep, what I dislike is the ridicoulus attribut change, that makes the other changes complettly useless, if you base the whole magic system on the skill rather than attributs, but then you change the teaching system so noone without maxed attributs can actually teach those runes, then all the changes are futile.

Would we have a balanced magic system, than specialized chars would be possible, as the system is now, any decission made with mages is either "Do I use Ra Kel Qwan or do I use Hept Kel Qwan, to kill my enemy", because either its that or you burn your enemys with a paralyse and a nice fire or iceflame, nothing else is effectiiv.

We got around 20 spells that can deal damage, direct or indirect, from all these only a few are used and none of these few powerfull spells can be reached without having maximum attributs, thus you need to be maxed to even use the magic system ot a degree where it makes it usefull. The developers always claim that they want their engine to be used, but now they put up something as this, in my eyes there needs to be a change.

The system before was a real hassle to be honest, my char could not even produce a fireflame all the time while actually having +90 skill in perv, yet I did not "complain", because I knew that my char wouldn't be able to cast anything better, but I knew that she was going to be a teacher so the attribut fit, even if she was not able to cast everything usefull.

Now she ~can~ cast everything, but she can't teach, which makes the change overall useless in my eyes, because this just means that mages will have faster access to the bigger spells, making warlocks more usefull aswell, but making warlock teacher less usefull, because they got no way to teach higher runes, which means their students won't be able to learn the higher runes aswell, which than again makes the whole concept, which was as far as I know in favor to the non maxed chars, a failure, because now without even having the possibility to gain better runes warlocks are even less powerfull than before, unless you take the older chars like athian and pellandria, who allready posses all runes.

So in the end, we have to ask ourself what do we want, going back to maxed out chars in everything and killing any middleground, creatng the strongest warriors, storngest mages and best crafter attribut wise or do we leave a middleground, where chars are weaker, but they can reduce their disadvantages with having enough skill and putting enough work into their chars, so maybe if you are for the first one, we should actualy beginn to let people choose classskills...so they won't even dare to do anything except the class they choose.

So before you get my proposal to rebalance wrong once more, I was yet again so friendly and summarize it once more.

Keep the skill barrier, lower the attribut barrier to the former 40 points and for those who do not have maxed out attributs increase the skill barrier to an acceptable level, please no 90 skill barrier for runes or such.

[Estralis Seborian]

Drop the whole teacher-pupil approach! It is the core of all evil, not some specific skillattributemaxbarrierrune thingy .

[Nitram]

Pellandria, you should keep in mind that your character is just a warlock. Means weaker in magic in many matters. Including that there are alot of limits what you can teach. Teaching magic is supposed to be limited to the real mages at higher levels.

How ever warlocks got a few nice advantages such as a higher casting rate and a lower chance of failing while casting under attack. That remarks the offensive character of warlocks. They are good at fighting and stuff but not that good at theoretical stuff such as teaching.

The attribute limits are fine.

Nitram.

[Keikan Hiru]

I got your complaint right the first time I replied.

Let me summerize it for ~you~:
(See I am using a tilde, so you can read it easier)

Your so-so character just dropped out of the whole teaching thing, because your character is "just" a warlok,
which is another word for "medicore mage".
And now you are complaining that you want your character to be a "teacher" once again.

Now lets take a look at my first post here:
~drumroll~

What you truly want is your "mixed" character to be up par with the "maxed" characters, not only in things like damage but also with the prestige title of being an actual "teacher" of magic.

~ta-da~

Be happy for what your character just recived:
"Warloks" are suddenly useful, because they actually can cast spells and that quite efficiently.
What the teaching now requires is a dedicated mage, not a so-so character with a turn towards magic.

P.S.:
Down with the player-to-player tyranny, or what Estralis said.

Edit:
Ninja'ed by Nitram.

[Pellandria]

How ever warlocks got a few nice advantages such as a higher casting rate and a lower chance of failing while casting under attack. That remarks the offensive character of warlocks. They are good at fighting and stuff but not that good at theoretical stuff such as teaching.

Tell me how is someone going to fight with no runes like qwan or taur or any ~other~ higher class rune, try to beat any other monster except sceletons or zombies with just kel ra's or kel hepts, anything they would need to go towards a more warrior like point just means that their magic gets weaker, now they are somewhere lost in the middlegrounds, their bad figthing attributs make it hard for them to beat any mosnter and their bad magic attributs makes it impossible to learn any high class spells.

Your so-so character just dropped out of the whole teaching thing, because your character is "just" a warlok,
which is another word for "medicore mage".

Attribute wise yes, roleplay wise warlocks are far from "being just a dumber mage" and even if it goes this way, the magic system should include warlock spells and mage spells then, because there is no reason why a specific strand of magic teaching should not have its own runes, if you ~mark~ the actually spells as mage spells, then you should ceate new warlock spells that are for their strand of magic only to balance it out.

"Warloks" are suddenly useful, because they actually can cast spells and that quite efficiently.

Wrong again, I was fine with my warlock even before the change and I think Athian neither did complain about it, but now there will be no future generations of warlocks, because ~only~ the older generation of warlocks have the runes to be effectiv, no new generation will be effectiv, because of the change, so you just shot down your own argument, warlocks actually got weaker with the new update..not stronger.

Furthermore I want to know a good rp reason why my char, who allready might be one of the more activ ones, one who has higher skills and more widsome in some aspects of magic than some other mages, now has to tell her students "yeah I might know more about magic, I have more skill in it, but you need to go to another teacher anyway" this makes zero sence, this is where the engine destroys rp and does not increase it.

[Keikan Hiru]

I think aspiring new Warloks can recive all the runes from a dedicated mage, just not from you (which drives you mad).

Guess you have to do it the same way the druids did, when thier system got the boot back then and was disabled.
Give theory lessons only.

[ogerawa]

I think they just mean that warlocks aren't suitable as full-fledged teacher anymore. Warlocks can teach more than half of the runes currently, 20 out of 28 runes. But for the rest of the runes they should get it from the full-fledged teachers aka the mages. The students can still get all the runes as warlock, just that no warlock teacher can teach them. Thus the mages will have to teach the warlock students.

If the rules still the same, then they can get 18 runes which needed to graduate and ask the mage teachers for the rest of the runes? Not sure about the academy rules any longer xD

[Nitram]

bad magic attributs makes it impossible to learn any high class spells.

Learning high class spells and teaching high class spells are two different things.

roleplay wise warlocks are far from "being just a dumber mage"

Maybe you roleplay your warlock wrong then.

and even if it goes this way, the magic system should include warlock spells and mage spells then,

It has. The same spells optical but the magic system switches to the warlock mode at a given border of attributes, what makes you casting more offensive, faster and with less mana usage.

because there is no reason why a specific strand of magic teaching should not have its own runes, if you ~mark~ the actually spells as mage spells, then you should ceate new warlock spells that are for their strand of magic only to balance it out.

Well technically there are NO warlocks and there NEVER will be warlocks. Its just a hyprid of mages and fighters that get a little buff on the offensive character of the magic.

You want own spells for warlocks? Forget it. Play a real mage or get along with the light version of the magic system.
You want own runes for warlocks? Forget it even harder.

[Pellandria]

I think aspiring new Warloks can recive all the runes from a dedicated mage, just not from you (which drives you mad).

No warlock would go to a mage to get their runes unless their teacher abadonned them and they had no chance to learn from them, which was the case with my char, but that was just because I needed 2 more runes and bhona as far as I can recollect.
The fact still stands, there is no and I repeat ~no~ rp reason why someone should suddendly loose the ability to teach something, but go ahead tell me what reason there should be.

Guess you have to do it the same way the druids did, when thier system got the boot back then and was disabled.
Give theory lessons only.

There is a difference between a system that was deactivated and a system that was changed.
Fat chance someone will say "Hey I'm a warlock, in theory I could kill you and your family, but you have to play along with me, because the engine forbids me to use any spells..so sorry...die now please?" and that counts for good rp then, because you said it would be allright hmm?

I think they just mean that warlocks aren't suitable as full-fledged teacher anymore. Warlocks can teach more than half of the runes currently, 20 out of 28 runes. But for the rest of the runes they should get it from the full-fledged teachers aka the mages. The students can still get all the runes as warlock, just that no warlock teacher can teach them. Thus the mages will have to teach the warlock students.

Thats the problem, it does not ~fit~ into a warlock rp to learn under someone for most of their time ~graduate~ and then running to another master asking for runes, that is simply not fitting with rp, its that easy.

Learning high class spells and teaching high class spells are two different things.

Indeed, because a teacher does not teach spells but runes, would the system change and we say a student can just cast ~spells~ he learned than this would be a complet different topic.

Maybe you roleplay your warlock wrong then.

You are free to give me an advice, because I'm sure you are an expert of warlocks in Illarion

It has. The same spells optical but the magic system switches to the warlock mode at a given border of attributes, what makes you casting more offensive, faster and with less mana usage.

Well somehow I do not see the effects of this mode, mages cast just as fast as my char and cause more damage.

Well technically there are NO warlocks and there NEVER will be warlocks. Its just a hyprid of mages and fighters that get a little buff on the offensive character of the magic.

technically there are no knights, paladins, priesters, medicos, bartenders and so on, your point is?
Coming with the technical aspect is a cheap shot and I think you are aware of that, further more as far as I know the "battlemage" class is still in the game, so technically there is a warlock.

[LifeWonder]

I would contribute to this thread but I think it'd be blatantly inaccurate since my character got all his runes before this new system came in place, except LUK.

But now that I'm trying to learn LUK which is a truly "fun" rune and otherwise pretty useless (it can only be used to summon weak monsters), I'd say that I'm noticing SOME runes might need "exceptions" and have the amount of skill required to teach and learn them lowered a little ... such as LUK.

I find myself needing to powergame my ass off to eventually be able to learn LUK now, which is as I said, rather useless.

I wonder if it's the same with other runes too. *shrug*

Either way, I already spoke to Nitram about that.

[Avalyon el'Hattarr]

You can powergame your ass as much as you want, but show me a teacher with 80 (?) desicio that can give you LUK, lol.

But you are right.. unless we get some nice summons, LUK is just for innocent fun.

[Dantagon Marescot]

If you are suddenly claiming there are no warlocks in illa then you better has hell be giving my magic user a raise in magic attributes to compensate. She was supposed to be more skilled in magic anyway, but so is the fault you have when you work a blank slate character and allow her to become what she becomes before you worry over an attribute change.

Even though my character has all my runes, if you are suddenly going to change the system on people who actually taught and taught well (no, poof here is your runes, go kill shit), then at least change the system. Go back to having specified teachers for certain area's. If normal teachers suddenly can't teach, at the very least have them teach classes of students in theory and have those few "privilaged" who are unlucky enough to be the ONLY ones allowed to teach, to give out runes. Therefore leading to teacher favoritism and a whole lot of crap ig.

But, eh. Don't listen to me. I have nothing useful to say in your eyes anyway.

[Athian]

Hi guys

okay let me toss some facts around from actually playing a warlock with the new system. Just to boost my own ego and to get rid of the usless notion. ^^

Okay firstly as too the "hybrid mage". The current magic system is the best thing that ever happened to our perky little warlocks. In sheer terms of player vs enviroment (monsters/terrain/movement) there is nothing that tops out over a good hybrid magic.

We have the abilities to deal damage of a mage, well somehwhat weaker but we still drop red skeletions in less then 5 seconds.

Our casting is prone to fail less and cast faster meaning that we can do this nasty little timing trick where you drop a spell inbetween attacks such as healing magic or the godly fast "lightning bolt of doom." a trick that works on both npc's and Player characters.

Need food potions? no

Need healing potions? no

Can make walls to hide from players and monsters? yes

Teleport? yes

Portal? yes

Access to every high spell mages have to some degree? yes ^^

ability to get away with all this S*** while wearing some amount of protective armor and carrying weapons which are limited only by a slight failure rate? Oh sweet god yes ^^


figthing system wise there won't be many monsters that will kill you on the map unless they are in a good sizd group. Athian easily takes on 2-3 gnolls with a mace and shield in leather armor taking maybe(and often much less) half his life in the process which might i add he can almost entirely heal at the end of the fight by pickng up his wand and casting one spell (overpowered? yup )

If your warlock can't kill a from zombie,ogre,goblins,thieves,troll,gnolls,wasps and a bunch or things in melee (several at once for some of these monsters) then you suck. End of story , Y O U S U C K. and anything you can't kill with Melee will probably die to magic anyway.

PVP wise also nothing to worry about. fighter gets blown up (damage is less then a mage but people with no ess/will won't know the difference). At ten paces a warlock is as deadly as any mage, at close range we lose some effectiveness but already have potential of greater survivability in melee.

As to mages while they can cast all those nice spells probably won't kill you fast enough with those slow cast spells while you melee them and heal your wounds inbetween there casting time, if not just contantly interupting them anyway and casting damaging spells right back at them.

So whats the problem? A high skill hybrid can pretty much (thanks to our lovely Dev's) do almost anything ig alone with no need for potions or food or backup if careful. sooo if you think about it currently a high skilled warlocks have the potential to be some of the toughest characters ig. And i Looovveeee it ^^

For the record i will state now that Athian has no completely maxed skills anywhere (though they are between 70-90% melee and magic) and his attributes, well....lets not talk about those ><. And yet with those small downsides still easily one tough cookie.

Any current warlock player should not complain, EVER. just be patient good things come to those who wait. For all the down sides of not being a pure class and being able to do pure class things, there is a nice silver lining of extreme versatility.

Honestly i feel like slapping anyone whom says this little hybrid class is weak. Its far far the oppisite, a good warlock is like a goddamn cheat code. The Dev team could not have done us a bigger favor and to whine and bitch at them is frankly intolerable (please don't nerf us, i'm having so much fun ^^ )

-------

As to the teaching issue i've never thought of Warlock's as characters who were smarter then the convential mage. instead they are savy, fine tuned, witty and crafty with a good amount of finess to boot.

There intelligence comes from battle experience, knowledge of tactic's and earning to survive as a hybrid in a world of mostly one kind or the other. Those kind of things are what warlocks should pass down to one another.

This is not to say your warlock is stupid, far from it. they are very intelligent and capbale of understanding respeaking and utilizing classroom learnings. But with all the training they must do there is simply no time for them to sit on there behinds listening to lectures.

They shouldn't sit in classrooms discussing theory overlong and instead be in nature hardening there students on concepts of battle and reinforcing the understanding of there unqiue nature. if your doing it any other way or behaving like a mage the as far as my character is concerned you are nothing but a mage.

Teaching high runes is simple, make it a quest for your student. After he has recieved all runes you can give them he is sent off to hone his skills and prove himself worthy of greater power. He must therefore seek out a mage whom is able to give him this power. a deal can easily be established between warlocks and mages dispite there little dislikes for one another. And no two warlock teachers need do things entirely the same. what they veiw as a worthy student can vary from achievement to achievement which allows them to still have the final word on how there student is raised.

IF absolutely no mage ever in the history of illarion will help your warlock student learn his more powerful runes I'm sure some of our helpful staff can come up with something, either static (rediculously long and such) quests or perhaps a quest for your students with GM support (another reason it might be good not to take 100 students here)

Your student will still need to practise his spell craft and fighting skills anyway, so the role of teacher is still very important to the student, because this hybridy class of ours will suck for a good portion of time (in low skills) without proper training.


So in closing

If you think warlocks are weak you out of your mind. (alittle hard work will go a long way)

There are plenty of ways to teach magic (role play and technically) without a big change in the system.

okay someone now tell me i'm wrong so we can argue ^^