Magic.

[Arkadia Misella]

My two cents.

It seems that no matter the ideas, each individual here who has the ability to cast magic is highly against changing the system. I truely believe that this results from having this power for so long when no one else has. You few are now "special" compared to every other normal, run of the mill character out there.

The time to teach magic to another is far too long. Sure you can bring up the argument about it takes times, years to master, blah blah blah blah.....but if my character can make 250 pairs of shoes in a day......then I think we should not even begin to say this game represents reality.

It is obvious many players have grown tired of this elitist non-sense. Many wish to cast magic, but are completely unable to. So they sit around and wait. And wait. And wait.

Fooser's joking remark actually sounds far better than what has been happening for the past 2+ years.

Sure, Everyone will know magic. Sure, it will be over used. Sure, you few who have had magic will be upset. But in the end I think a much larger majority will be happy. And maybe then you few with the magic will know how it felt when magic was first reintroduced and many of us, myself included, watched as you few paraded around town talking in nothing but ancient to each other. Using your magic for everything you possibly could using every excuse you could to back your acts up with.

"My character is too lazy to open doors, so that is why I use magic to do it"

To end my post, I shall pull a direct quote from the Illarion homepage.

Please don't expect experience points or other numbers inside the game which reveal your skills. Just follow the role you want to play, then you will notice wether you will become a great warrior, fighting against the various evil creatures of Illarion, or the most respected master smith of the town, or even the most popular barkeeper - because practice makes perfect. Druids and magicians will cast mysterious spells with herbs and runes. In addition to all of this each race speaks with it's own language, but all are able to speak the common language of Illarion to make themselves understood.

Face it. The skills color bar is checked extremly frequently and there is truely no need for it.

Truely following the exact role you want to play will land your character in the "useless" catagory 90% of the time. What this paragraphs lacks is one last sentence "You can be all these things and accomplish anything, just as long as you are in good with the gm's, have great out of game communication with tons of players to learn all the secrets you should be learning in game, and have a ton of luck......because well, otherwise...you are better off doing anything else because you will spend most of your time staring at a pixel graphic wondering what you did with your life."


Illarion needs to drop this elitist bullshit attitude quickly. From not helping new players, to catering to a few specific players over and over and over. From taking more and more from the average player, to actually allowing a few players control major aspects of the game. Illarion is always gaining new players.....but it is also constantly losing older ones. These are the reasons why.

Illarion, go back to being a video game and stop acting like a highschool popularity contest.

[Mr. Cromwell]

- Spam deleted -

Arien

[Nitram]

The main question is how should the magic become?

1. Something special and rare, only a few ( or a certin amount of ) player can use. This is getting along with a teacher - student system as it is now. And maybe a limit of maximal mages in percent in the game. Magic of this kind can be pretty strong and kind of overpowered against physical fighting for example.

2. Something common and normal everyone can have and learn. The style of learning as it was before ( with the rune stones, where everyone is able to get spells ) would be a possible way of learning then. The amount of characters who are able to cast will increase alot. In this case the magic has to be balanced very good against the physical fighting so it does not become overpowered against.

What is the more liked way?

Nitram

[Lonor_]

The second way.

[AlexRose]

Hrm... well magic won't be used responsibly by the most, I'm guessing; everyone will make a mage character, everyone will powergame it...

Thinking about it, people sometimes want a mage char but go for fighter because it's quicker. But if magic is just as quick AND more powerful... hrm....

Maybe more mages learning, but not complete access to runes any time is the solution; otherwise the people who've just got loads of money could get all the runes, mana potions, yellow skills after a while, if you see what I'm getting at. I just don't like the idea of noobs walking in and learning magic. Magic has always been one of those things that you know people who don't rp and powergame all day will never have access to. But if they did, it might be a little screwy.

With the current system, I'd prefer a select group learning.
With the system I described, I wouldn't mind others learning magic because you'd have to select your magic strategically, everyone would have disadvantages and advantages, mages would be seen in groups together overriding the evil or grouping together to face the good factions. There could be a couple of mage guilds even, maybe who are opposed. It wouldn't just be who powergames most, it'd be who chose their type most strategically.

Discuss:

EDIT: @Lonor - Considering your forum account is about a week old, frankly I'm not surprised that you're going for B, as you can't be bothered waiting 23 months or so . Which is fair enough , but think about the consequences and not just what'll benefit your character more.

[Mr. Cromwell]

Thinking about it, people sometimes want a mage char but go for fighter because it's quicker. But if magic is just as quick AND more powerful... hrm....

I don't know if it has to be as quick (I do think that it should be equally powerful, though) but currently it's ridiculously hard to get... As your 19 months prove. It shouldn't be a question of who is most enduring in loitering around, waiting for little crumbs and kissing ass. Everyone who "applies" and is seen fitting should be given the equal chance to learn.

I'm not personally really interested in magic or having a mage character, but I can very well see why someone who would like to play a mage really much will find the sitiuation increasingly frustrating. Want a mage? Play two years, then maybe..

This is supposed to be fun game and not a patience-contest.

As for the element thing, it makes sense to me. Considering how powerful magic is, it's only good if everyone cannot own in everything.

[Kevin Lightdot]

The main question is how should the magic become?

1. Something special and rare, only a few ( or a certin amount of ) player can use. This is getting along with a teacher - student system as it is now. And maybe a limit of maximal mages in percent in the game. Magic of this kind can be pretty strong and kind of overpowered against physical fighting for example.

2. Something common and normal everyone can have and learn. The style of learning as it was before ( with the rune stones, where everyone is able to get spells ) would be a possible way of learning then. The amount of characters who are able to cast will increase alot. In this case the magic has to be balanced very good against the physical fighting so it does not become overpowered against.

What is the more liked way?

Nitram

The 1st, obviously, otherwise it'd totally wreck the rp the way I see it.

'look, I can cast magic!'
'Big deal...'

I do not at all think that is how magic is supposed to be.... I hope you all see my reasons.


Also, Alex idea about being able to set points for magic sounds good, but still I think magic should remain limited to only a certain amount of chars.


As for a reply to Patric:
We have the exact same thing with stats, should we just dump stats too?

[Llama]

No, magic has to remain somethign special...

I don't lyke if everyone and their dog was a mage.

Its fine as it is....

[Avalyon el'Hattarr]

Well, I would agree with both of them and since this idea was already told, I'll just remind it:
-Static quests for the lvl 1 runes + low skill cap with them
-High lvl runes only from teachers.

Just my two cents

[Llama]

Does anyone honestly want a mage who doesn't know what a Moshran is, or who thinks rabbits are the guardians of the forest?

[Skaalib Drurr]

It is easy to solve the problems of good mage chars waiting. Just allow teachers to have as many apprentices as they please.

[pharse]

Does anyone honestly want a mage who doesn't know what a Moshran is, or who thinks rabbits are the guardians of the forest?

There could be a NPC Quest testing the player´s knowledge about Illarion. Only with passing it one can go further and get a rune.

e.g. a NPC says he can teach you some magic, but before you have to past a test. After this he tells you: go to dungeon A, get item B, on your way there you have to defeat monster C.

Only good fighters could make it alone, but they can never get far c.p. their attribs, so they won´t be seen as "real" mages. A "real" mage has to roleplay in order to hire some fighters.

just an idea.

[Samantha Meryadeles]

I am for Nitrams first proposal.

And by the way, fighters and mages ARE balanced. Samantha lost in the last weeks against two fighters when she had to confront them. single fighters. it is not impossible, as you can see.


p.s.

William, you realize that your proposal would need all magechars to be recreated? If your proposal gets done we all have to delete and recreate our chars so that we can contribute that points into categories of magic, and since our old magic skills wouldn't mean anything anymore. You would wipe the magechars.

And that is for me a BIG NOOOO

[Kevin Lightdot]

It's only obvious that a mage can't win everything, but I don't think it's that balanced, as two fireballs from Samantha could very likely wipe most chars out, no? Or at least, she damaged Kev over halfway when she struck him with a fireball, he had no resistance yet though.

Mages pwn at distance, only archers can really win from them at distance, and that not even always, depending on the archer's skill.

Plain fighters pwn at meelee engaments, but if they battle a mage, the mage can hit them before they're close, weakening them quite a lot already.

Still depends on success rate for magic though.


For the 2d thing:
Uh... why would we have to do that?
The char data for those few mages can just be changed manually, I assume.
It would be the same as giving higher stats to quest chars, only this time 'stats' for magic would be changed.

Magic skill, I think would still remain, but there would just be several subsections added, wich are determined in the same way as stats.

Or am I wrong here?

[AlexRose]

Patric, it is simple. You choose what your character is most likely to use. For instance, I doubt she'd be interested in necromancy somehow. If you put a couple of points on healing and a couple on supportive and the rest on elemental, they could then put the new types of skills on the same level as your old ones were on, e.g. if you had good commotio then your elemental skill would also be good; you'd still keep your runes, after all, there's no need to change the runes, combinations could be like KEL LUK QWAN, KEL MES QWAN, KEL CUN QWAN and the like. This way Samantha would have:

.The same amount of skill.
.All the same runes.
.Higher power on the types of magic she's more likely to use, as they would be pushed, and the types she wouldn't use would be lowered, but that wouldn't matter.

So, any more problems?

[Samantha Meryadeles]

I fear you are wrong. williams porposal woulöd mean a completly different script for magic. the old one wouldnt fit anymore. it would also mean the old skills will become useless. right now magic is divided into 4 main skills, whoch are the magic schools. destruction for all the damagespells, creating for healing, walls, flames and food, and so on. with williams proposal that has to be rearranged again. healing will get an own skill with new spells, fire and ice spells will get a new own skill, summoning creatures will get one, teleporting, walls and flames, and so on. it will all be divided new. means the old skills will be useless.

also williams proposal means that every mage has to set points into those new categories at creation of the char. our mages never done that, and there is a mass of mages ingame. alone 50 who already got runes. do you really think the staff would ask everyone who wishes what and then changes the char into that direction? do you know the work behind that?

That sounds for me like a wipe of the magechars, so that everyone starts the same in the complet new magesystem.

Also i dislike the idea of setting points in the beginning...that means your char will never be able to become better than those points you give him. He got 6 points in healing, he will never be better in it, even if he trains, and trains, and trainsa...that is in my eyes unlogically and also not well used in roleplay sense. For what does my char have int 18 and willpower 18 when he can never become better in a spellcategory than 6 or less points of 12 which you may contribute? The amount of spells and their power is already determined through attributes and skill, we don't need a third thing telling us what we can do and how. especially not when we never can change that third desicion we made.



And no. Samantha needs 3-5 of the strongest damagespell to take out a warrior. those spells have casting time, and they stop if she gets hit while casting them.
a fireball is the weakest spell and she would need 12-20 spells for a char.


p.s. and where do i chose that, william? where shall others chose that? ingame? at char creating?

Samantha currently can cast all sort of flames, walls and the storngest healing. She also can cast portals, since those belong to the same school. And she can teleport over short distance and use strong damage spells.
with your system that would change. she could never cast the portals AND strong healing AND using damage spells. Since in your system portals would need a maximum of points setted in attributes, skill AND the category of portals, which will be a complet other one than flames, walls and healing. not mentioning the damage spells.
Samantha would lose most of the spells she can cast now. Casting portals is one of the most difficult spell to learn right now ingame. such a spell will need in your system for sure more than just a few points contributed into its category. such a spell would need maximum points.

[AlexRose]

A. I never said you choose at char creation. You could choose when you start learning.

B. My name is Alex. I address you as Patric and not as Samantha, so please could you do the same?

C. Someone with 6 points in healing would have stupidly powerful healing.

9 is for an extremist who only really wants one type of magic. 7 and 8 are basically 6 with a little extra push, and are not vastly greater than 5, they are just for people who want to be masters at a type. 5 is very good 4 is good 3 is average 2 is bad 1 is dire. 5 IS STILL VERY POWERFUL!

You have 12 points so you could go:

Elemental - 5
Healing - 3
Other - 3
Summoning - 1

Elementals
9-Extremely powerful with ability to cast all spells available. The most powerful with own element and decent even with the opposite element.
6-8-Extremely strong with ability to cast all spells available and formidable spells of the opposite element.
5- Very strong with ability to cast all spells available
4- Strong with ability to cast most spells available
3- Average with ability to cast many spells available
2- Weak with ability to cast some spells available
1- Dire with ability to cast not many spells available

Healing
9-Extremely strong in all regions.
6-8-Extremely strong healing, very strong shielding
5-Very strong healing, strong shielding etc.
4-Strong healing, average shielding
3-Average healing, some shielding
2-Below average healing, no shielding
1-Weak healing, no shielding

Summoning
9-Summoning of most powerful creatures
6-8-Can summon creatures with less mana usage than ones below.
5-Can summon high level monsters and all low level
4-Can summon some high level monsters and all low level
3-Can summon a few high level monsters and most low level
2-Can summon most low level monsters
1-Can summon some low level monsters

Other
9-Can cast every spell with low mana usage
6-8-Can cast every spell, and can cast most with low mana usage
5- Can cast every spell, some with low mana usage
4- Can cast every spell, few with low mana usage
3- Can cast every spell with high mana usage
2- Can cast some spells with high mana usage
1- Can cast a few spells with high mana usage

Okay? So you have 12 points to spend, and consider this: Samantha probably won't summon, correct? So 1 point in there, you still have 11 points to spend. Say you put 5 in elementals, you'd be very efficient and have 6 points left, say you put the other two on 3 points then that wouldn't matter too greatly as you'd be able to do all the spells you'd want to I imagine, maybe with a bit of mana usage, but I'm sure you have a decent supply of potions, no?

Any MORE complaints?

[Estralis Seborian]

The main question is how should the magic become?

1. Something special and rare, only a few ( or a certin amount of ) player can use. This is getting along with a teacher - student system as it is now. And maybe a limit of maximal mages in percent in the game. Magic of this kind can be pretty strong and kind of overpowered against physical fighting for example.

2. Something common and normal everyone can have and learn. The style of learning as it was before ( with the rune stones, where everyone is able to get spells ) would be a possible way of learning then. The amount of characters who are able to cast will increase alot. In this case the magic has to be balanced very good against the physical fighting so it does not become overpowered against.

What is the more liked way?

Nitram

Something in between.

3. Something well known and present ingame. The style of learning is a mixture of simple actions like buying a rune in a shop or doing a simple static quest, more advanced tasks and the current p2p-system. The amount of characters who are able to cast spells is high, however, the amount of characters who are skilled enough to cast spells that might overpower mudane fighters is low. Simple spells are common, advanced spells are even more uncommon than now. An average character should be able to learn very simple spells within less than ~10 hours online while more advanced runes should take lots of.

Commentary: Note that there will be druids, priests and bards as well - I strongly suggest to make them comparable in all means with arcane magic.

@AlexRose: Nice ideas, but it is extremely unlikely that the magic system will be redone completely. Better spend the time for developing priest magic, devs! I also had the idea to change the magic system to a pure 5 fold system, with 5 skills representing the 5 old gods and letting the mages perfom elemental spells only. I mean, healing spells are something for priests, no?

[pharse]

The problem if Magic becomes a common thing:
Chars that were thought to be very good mages will disappear in a sea of spellcasters.
Many (good) chars would lose importance and not be taken for serious anymore, because magic is something common anyway.

Therefore: Option 1 is my choice

RL example: there are uncountable musicians in every style, nevertheless there are a few very well known and important trend-setting musicians.

I even think that the opposite will occure: many players will experience how difficult magic is, consequence: more chars will admire powerful mages (at least more than now)

[Keikan Hiru]

Keep in mind, that your characters are playing in a world full of fantastic things.
Elves, Gnomes, Faries are arround you everywhere.
You are fighting undead creatures, creatures who are only "alive" because of a magic infusion, on a daily base.
Every seasoned fighter is running arround with either a magical longsword or a magical serinjah sword.


Saying that magic is not a common thing in the world of Illarion is ignorant.

[Samantha Meryadeles]

For me it is okay if more mages can cast easy spells, but just few should be really powerfull and learn the most powerfull and difficult spells. but to balance THAT will be a hell of a work.

[AlexRose]

For me it is okay if more mages can cast easy spells, but just few should be really powerfull and learn the most powerfull and difficult spells. but to balance THAT will be a hell of a work.

And lemme guess, you're one of the 2 or 3 people who have this honour?

Now why would this not surprise me?

[Kevin Lightdot]

Patric, I do not see why it would require a completely different script.

I don't know the script, but I do not think it would.
You would simply duplicate the current magic skills, into the seperate ones.
Then, just input those points for one skill, wich adjusts the total possible skill level, and speed of skillgain.

If the total skill of one thing is to high already with a current char, simply lower it a little.

Ofcourse, hey, I don't know the script, at all, but thinking logically, I doubt it would require a whole new script, just some modifications. Those modifications may take some time, but no endless ammount of it.
Again, anyone may correct me here if I'm wrong.


Also, on your second point:
If you don't put a limit to skills, we will eventually get uber mages who know every type of magic perfectly.
Wich would basicly be the same as those uber fighters I recall you complaining about. I may recall wrong, tell me if I do.
+ as I stated before and was left unanswered, should we just dump stats like str, int and all that too? People can grow stronger too, but without such caps ingame we will get chars with 250 str eventually.

There should be limits I think, but I'm not saying they should be really low set.




And pharse, you have a point there, didn't really look at it that way yet.

But I still do think Magic would be a little harder than Music, don't you?

You still made a point though, very basic magic could perhaps, be learned without a teacher, but with the help of books one can buy, pretty much like the books that teach ancient, only giving far less skill. Then a few runes you would have to accuire in some way, wich should, take some effort I think, more effort than going to a music shop and buying a guitar.



I'm not very sure anymore right now, does everyone agree that no magic should be possible under total magic stats of 30?


So yeah, option 3 more like it now.

[Estralis Seborian]

But, I'm not very sure anymore right now, does everyone agree that no magic should be possible under total magic stats of 30?

If you refer to INT+ESS+WIL, I disagree. Those stats are just average. Wether magic with such stats should be effective or not is a different question. A char with dump stats in INT and such might be able to learn runes and cast spells, but the effect might be low, the rate of success also low and the damage dealt just a scratch. I would refrain from introducing technical limits like minimum attributes, we had this and it was removed for a reason.

[Samantha Meryadeles]

No, there should be NO magic for those who have less than 30 in intelligence, willpower and essence. They are simply too stupid to understand magic. it would make magic a joke if someone who has int 5, not enough to write your own name right, is able to understand magic wlel enough to cast a spell.

i DON'T want to see every warrior running around with runes, if they are now strong enough or not, but that should NEVER happen.

[Avalyon el'Hattarr]

Patric what the heck? If a warrior chooses that he wants to spend his time and try to understand at least the basic magic, why whould you stop him? As Estralis said, those are the average, not minimum.

[Samantha Meryadeles]

Since the warrior is simply too stupid. magic is a higher mental art. someone with intelligence, willpower and essence under 10 each is simply not smart enough to understand and learn that higher arts. and if he can still learn and cast magic it would make magic a bad joke. "look, magic..whatever...i know a warrior who cant count until 3, he casts aswell spells. magic sucks"

[Estralis Seborian]

From my very first days of Illarion: I created a char with somehow average stats. Not knowing what attributes do what, this char was ment to be nothing special, but I planned to do at least some basic magic. I learned my first runes and found out how to cast a spell and... "You are too dumb to cast this spell.". What did I do? I deleted the client.

One of the problems I have with minimum attributes are that you create classes, something that is not part of the game principles of this game. One could argue wether those principles are reasonable or not, but they are what we have.

It is good that opinions differ, this is a prerequisite for a non-fruitless (fruity ) discussion. My opinion is that everybody should be able to do everything, but that the effectivity depends on attributes and skills. Somebody with INT 5 should suck major at magic, regardless of his skill. But limiting magic to "maxed" chars is nothing I would recommend or like. I have no problems with many chars being able to cast a fire bolt, deducting 1% of your HPs. But I'd have a problem with a majority of the chars being able to deduct 25% of your HPs with a single spell - this power should be limited to the "elite" of mages with fitting attributes and skills as well as enough time spend in quests / tasks to aquire the necessary runes.

[Arameh]

Since the warrior is simply too stupid. magic is a higher mental art. someone with intelligence, willpower and essence under 10 each is simply not smart enough to understand and learn that higher arts. and if he can still learn and cast magic it would make magic a bad joke. "look, magic..whatever...i know a warrior who cant count until 3, he casts aswell spells. magic sucks"

(I didnt really read much of the topic, I just want to comment on this)

Stop trying to make the game like you want it to be Patric, this really gets annoying. Warriors are not all stupid and most people agree that they wish to play their characters how they want it to be played, and not by their attributes. There are tons of warriors with 3 intelligence but I could not name a single one that acts as such and I can clearly see why, else every mages would be genius demi gods and warriors would be stupid and useless sword swinger (even though thats how it is technically..we dont want it to be intelligent wise). RP wise, currently there are a lot of mages that are played as less intelligent than a lot of warriors, simple reason being you cant make a character more intelligent than yourself, I would 'seriously' put Samantha in that category.

[pharse]

oh please! This goes far too off-topic and please don´t start a flame war!

If you have to provoke and offend each other do this via PM or any IM!

back to topic now...

There are enough arguments which show that magic already IS common. So everybody should have access to it, but only few can master it. I think we can all agree to this position (and sorry if one or two cannot, we have to think utilitarian)
The powerful mages would remain special, nothing to complain about.