Disabling Mages

Llama · Post by **Llama** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:42 pm

Note: Mages refers to characters and creatures
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Currently there is no way to 'disable' mages. For as long as the mage has mana in his/her/its mana bar, it can continue to cast on you. Even reaching the mage might result in a (higher level character) mage teleporting away (or using a spell to blow you away).

I suggest 3 ways of lessing this.

I) Make mages possibly unable to cast if taking damage. If a mage is casting a spell, and takes damage, the spell may fail (still takes mana), depending on the difficulty of the spell, the damage taken and (inversly) to the willpower of the caster and the skill.

Advantages: More 'realistic'. Reduces mages to a point where they can be beaten, but still retain their powers. While hunting, it might become important to protect the mage to allow casting - a nice challange.

Disadvantages: Missile weapons. A mage swarmed by mummies is as good as dead. A low level fighter can easily take out a mage if he reaches him.

II) Dodging

Some spells should be able to be dodged, reducing damage taken (or the effect)

Advantages: Requires training on the part of the fighter. 'Realistic'

Disadvantages: Most fighters have good dodge. A good mage will get chewed up by a fighter most of the time.

III) Magic resistance

Magic resistance should increase each time the body resists magical energy, including from an NPC cast spell.

Advantages: Requires 'specialised' training on the part of the fighter.

Disadvantages: It WILL be powergamed to a horrible extent were people will chug potions while allowing people to cast at them (or FIREBALL/HEALING spell cycles).

Discuss.
Do you think this is needed?

Taeryon Silverlight · Post by **Taeryon Silverlight** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:48 pm

No. The spells a mage can cast to take away energy from someone before he reaches about 50% of either Commotio or Pervestigatio are allready useless. I take away about 1/30 of a normal warrior with KEL HEPT, while he needs 5 hits to kill me. Also

I) We allready have that

II) You can't dodge a flame that shoots after you. You can't dodge a lightning, you shouldn't be able to dodge wind, and so on. Mages are weak enough, yet. If the fighter reaches the mage, the chance for the mage to teleport away is pretty low. Also, the stronger spells take more time to be casted, which reduces the chance to actually be able to cast them sucesfully when you get attacked by a warrior.

III) You can train Magic Res from getting hit by PC-magic. That's enough.

Kevin Lightdot · Post by **Kevin Lightdot** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:58 pm

NPC's already teach magic res now I think... Though I assume it is limited by someone's 'mage stats' (eg, a pure warrior with 3 int, will and ess would be able to get virtually no magic resistance)

I don't think any of this is needed. Sorry Headrian.

Taeryon Silverlight · Post by **Taeryon Silverlight** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:59 pm

Anyway. We don't need that. The mages are too weak, not to strong.

Kevin Lightdot · Post by **Kevin Lightdot** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:02 pm

Yeah, I agree, people think mages are uber strong, Samantha was, because she had some of the BEST equiptment ig and likely pwnage skills.

Have you all fought any regular mages one on one?
I mean, hey, I'm not sure, I just know that a mage without good equiptment, or with any armour on SUCKS.

Pellandria · Post by **Pellandria** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:04 pm

Just can sign what Taer and Kevin said, mages as they are now have huge disadvantages allready, we don't need another "lets kicks the mages ass again" thingie, normally the cyrcel goes like this Mages kill Warriors, Warriors kill Archers and Archers kill Mages, its allready hard enough for a Mage to kill a figther without powergaming untill hept kel qwan can be casted.

AlexRose · Post by **AlexRose** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:04 pm

Taeryon Silverlight wrote:No. The spells a mage can cast to take away energy from someone before he reaches about 50% of either Commotio or Pervestigatio are allready useless. I take away about 1/30 of a normal warrior with KEL HEPT, while he needs 5 hits to kill me. Also

(he has 16 con too; William can take 1 hit from Dom if he's not wearing armour and he dies thanks to the DoM)

I) We allready have that

Yep, for spells with casting times you can not cast them if you are hit. e.g. sometimes it's hard to get away in the graveyard with mummies about cos their first hit always is fast, so you may have to gust them, which has no casting time (BUT ENORMOUS MANA USAGE)

II) You can't dodge a flame that shoots after you. You can't dodge a lightning, you shouldn't be able to dodge wind, and so on. Mages are weak enough, yet. If the fighter reaches the mage, the chance for the mage to teleport away is pretty low. Also, the stronger spells take more time to be casted, which reduces the chance to actually be able to cast them sucesfully when you get attacked by a warrior.

A mage's skill makes their magic basically always fail unless it's high with decent spells anyway. Only really good mages can cast things that will do you harm, and I think one with a wand can do this. Plus anyway, if you don't have a wand it's incredibly easy for a warrior to manually dodge.

III) You can train Magic Res from getting hit by PC-magic. That's enough.

Yep, and I doubt people would chug potions like this because I can't think of any mage who would think this is good rp and would do it.

If they got it from mage npcs, it'd be pretty silly, considering mage npcs would work like this: You powergame MR from them and then they do nothing to you. Likewise if every good warrior got a large amount of magic resistance over the time, it would render magic useless. Mages would end up killing themselves all the time on these yellow magic resistance fighters.

Beldir · Post by **Beldir** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:32 pm

I propose to do some RP, mages have to speak for casting, don't they? And they are not that strong.. and the players of them are usually NO bad RPers... So if you know what I think of

.

Taeryon Silverlight · Post by **Taeryon Silverlight** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:36 pm

I'm sorry, but I will never ever try to emote more then #me raises his hand in a fight. Last time I tried to RP "the starting of the battle" with some emotes, I was down to half of my health before I realized I'm already being attacked, because I was conzentrating on the emote and had the speakers out.

Beldir · Post by **Beldir** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:40 pm

I wanted to say:
Put your hand over the mage's mouth and he/she is defenseless.
But this requires a bit RP.

Taeryon Silverlight · Post by **Taeryon Silverlight** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:48 pm

Completly wrong. The magic you need to talk for isn't the only way to cast magic. If you want to do it with RP, the mage can do what a mage actually would able to be, not weakened by the engine. And putting a hand onto my mage would most likely hurt your warrior a lot.

Mr. Cromwell · Post by **Mr. Cromwell** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:56 pm

You can't dodge a flame that shoots after you. You can't dodge a lightning, you shouldn't be able to dodge wind, and so on.

I've never really understood this argument, honestly. Why the hell not? If you can dodge an arrow or javelin which is coming at you, why not a fireball then? What about say, raising a large shield to block the fireball?

Completly wrong. The magic you need to talk for isn't the only way to cast magic. If you want to do it with RP, the mage can do what a mage actually would able to be, not weakened by the engine

1.) What? 2.) What are you smoking?

Beldir · Post by **Beldir** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:57 pm

Pff... I thought mages have to speak for casting their spells. If not.. ok, then there really should be done something.

Taeryon Silverlight · Post by **Taeryon Silverlight** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:07 pm

Mr. Cromwell wrote:
You can't dodge a flame that shoots after you. You can't dodge a lightning, you shouldn't be able to dodge wind, and so on.
I've never really understood this argument, honestly. Why the hell not? If you can dodge an arrow or javelin which is coming at you, why not a fireball then? What about say, raising a large shield to block the fireball?

Completly wrong. The magic you need to talk for isn't the only way to cast magic. If you want to do it with RP, the mage can do what a mage actually would able to be, not weakened by the engine
1.) What? 2.) What are you smoking?

I ment that in RP, the mage would be able to do what a mage is actually able to. He won't be decreased to rediculous weakness then you know?

I mean.. a fireball that hits you in your damnit face should hurt more than the one apple you ate too much for lunch.

abcfantasy · Post by **abcfantasy** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:17 pm

Taeryon Silverlight wrote:I mean.. a fireball that hits you in your damnit face should hurt more than the one apple you ate too much for lunch.

If you come to that, then a dagger that hits you in your damnit face should hurt more too. xD

Executor · Post by **Executor** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:24 pm

Well, I dont think we should make it even harder for mages in one one one "duels" I was already surprised how quickly Grivijak took out Duchan...

Mr. Cromwell · Post by **Mr. Cromwell** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:32 pm

Taeryon Silverlight wrote:
Mr. Cromwell wrote:
You can't dodge a flame that shoots after you. You can't dodge a lightning, you shouldn't be able to dodge wind, and so on.
I've never really understood this argument, honestly. Why the hell not? If you can dodge an arrow or javelin which is coming at you, why not a fireball then? What about say, raising a large shield to block the fireball?

Completly wrong. The magic you need to talk for isn't the only way to cast magic. If you want to do it with RP, the mage can do what a mage actually would able to be, not weakened by the engine
1.) What? 2.) What are you smoking?
I ment that in RP, the mage would be able to do what a mage is actually able to. He won't be decreased to rediculous weakness then you know?

I mean.. a fireball that hits you in your damnit face should hurt more than the one apple you ate too much for lunch.

Ridiculous weakness? No, I actually do not know.
Mainly because you aren't making any sense.

That's hardly a constructive answer. I can assure you that a mace in the face could be less painful, but more lethal than a fireball. Simply because you die before you feel the pain.

I dunno if it is really worth the trouble to argue with you about these things, PO Taeryon. I don't know if you understand, but the main issue here is not the fact that "mages are not unable to fly and shoot lasers from their eyes", but rather a very important concept called game balance.

It has already been established that high level mages = pwn. If a warrior manages to start whacking a mage, that should be it for him unless he manages to escape somehow, simply because that is the bread-and-butter task of the warrior: Hitting things very hard from close. Just ask how many people Silas killed in the Everyone-Vs-TB conflict? Was it, six? If we increase the strenght of magic any more, that would just breed more of the antisocial mages who completely lack respect towards anyone. Now, I understand the power which entitles for such behaviour to be given for grandmaster-level mages, but not really for some semi-novices.

Things are pretty alright now, I think.

AlexRose · Post by **AlexRose** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:51 pm

Taeryon Silverlight wrote:Completly wrong. The magic you need to talk for isn't the only way to cast magic. If you want to do it with RP, the mage can do what a mage actually would able to be, not weakened by the engine. And putting a hand onto my mage would most likely hurt your warrior a lot.

Lies.

You need both your arms free and your mouth free to cast spells. e.g. you cannot cast with your hands tied or gagged.

Llama · Post by **Llama** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:55 pm

Executor wrote:Well, I dont think we should make it even harder for mages in one one one "duels" I was already surprised how quickly Grivijak took out Duchan...

Grivijak can take out most fighters very quickly...

Add a low dodge and no armour.. and you get a massacre.

Taeryon Silverlight · Post by **Taeryon Silverlight** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:14 pm

The system is unbalanced indeed. It's unfair for mages. And Will, that is crap. You don't need a formula and your hands for every kind of magic. You're relaying on enginespells only.

Ps: Silas has 100% Commotio-Skill +pushes from his equipment. That would be like saying it's unfair that Arameh could kill a fairy

HolyKnight · Post by **HolyKnight** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:15 pm

Like some have already said, some of these proposed ideas are already ig and sorry but I dont want to see any of the others IG if your only advantage is Realism, because this has been discussed over and over again and IMO if realism makes the game more fun then sure! But I dont see these things being fun for any mage or any warrior that is allied with a mage. The whole time I have been IG I have only seen three mages pwn someone, Sam, Ava, and Silas, and they had warriors protecting them. The one time I saw Sam face Dain one on one, she got pwn in just a few swipes. Hadrian do you have a mage character?

@ I.) If you want to talk about realism, what keeps a mage from saying a few simple words and moving one hand while being attacked? And honestly who else IG should be able to pwn warriors, they typically have low ess and low will...... so going off what Pella said make it where archers can kill a mage and we have a reason to have them IG.

@ Cromwelll & II.) A warrior should not have a chance against a skilled mage at a distance IMO. Dodging a KEL RA or KEL RA QWAN ok! Dodging RA IRA ANTH QWAN

I dont think so or even HEPT ANTH QWAN. Because these are not projectile fire (unnatural) and ice, it is actually causing the desired area around you to burst into flames or Ice not possible to dodge with a wand pointed at you. And correct me if I am wrong but we arent talking about fire balls the size of an arrow or javelin but roughly the fireball Will boy casts could engulf your entire body. Not to mention I know the lightning spell is not that good but it comes from the sky is that where you look when you fight Crom?

@ III.) You dont want this IG, right now it is fine to have magical resistance only coming from PCs because no mage in their right mind would want to teach a warrior magical resistance. Also, if you didnt know learning skills from the Arcane skill set is nothing like a warriors. I will give you an example: When a warrior just starts out he can get 5(rough guess) swirlies in each: dodge, parry, tactics, and desired weapon before Skillcapping which makes sense to me because he is training motor skills which requires repetition. Now on the other hand! I have a warrior that never gets a skillcap less I were to PG for several days without getting off line (exaggeration) and I went to fight a golem with the assistance of a mage who used MES PEN I got two magical resistance swirlies and was skilled capped. As I see it that is great! because you are requiring your character to use his or her mind to learn, something which will get you mentally tired very quickly (skillcap). IMO unless you are playing a Paladin magical resistance will be uber hard to train and less effective anyway without some desired skills in will or int.

Avalyon el'Hattarr · Post by **Avalyon el'Hattarr** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:18 pm

Wtf? Another "let's make the mages more worthless than they are"?
I didn't even bothered to read all posts, cos' i know it's full of crap.
Please lock this useless post.

P.S: magic resistance is what shows how well your own essence has addapted at resisting "outside" essences. This skill is only for mages! Warriors' essence is next to shit.

Fin.

ogerawa · Post by **ogerawa** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:35 pm

From technical point of view, the only thing that should be "dodge-able" is KEL RA (fireball) and KEL HEPT (iceball). Maybe some sort of random failing rate. The reason is that the other spells has casting time, which means as long as someone interrupt the casting, the spell will be stopped (not so sure, since i never tried it). Failing should be rather low probably 1 in 10.

But then... the new magic system is being made (or so i read from the general forum)... so probably such proposal is rather useless for the time being.

Kaila Galathil Travinus · Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:39 pm

I see no need to "disable" mages any more then they already are. A fighter has a better chance now of training their skills to be able to effectively fight at least low level NPC's then a mage does as it is.

On the technical side, if a mage char has been ig long enough to actually be a little effective, IMO that is something admirable, there are not too many fighters ig that long.

Taeryon Silverlight · Post by **Taeryon Silverlight** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:43 pm

Besides, at takes at least five times longer for a mage to master a single skill then for a warrior to master a weapon type + dodge + parry

Mr. Cromwell · Post by **Mr. Cromwell** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:52 pm

Realism about magic, lol.

Holyknight, indeed: That is why it's not about realism, but about game balance. If mages were really supposed (intention of the devs, and not just the imagination of some people) to be as powerful as some have said here, then there probably would be some harry potterian torture-death spells implemented on the server side, without any possibility of countering that by the victim. Now, sadly maybe for some, the mages require the cooperation of their victims for such things.

Why would it not be possible to dodge with a wand pointed at me? Same thing as with sword or any other thing: If he points or aims something at me, all I have to do is to move. Failure to correct the position of the wand in a manner which matches my move would mean that the wand would no longer be pointed at me, right?

At no point did I say that if "will would engulf my body with flames" I would be able to dodge. However, if he shot a fireball or an ice bolt at me and I had a large shield, I suppose that those 'would' be parryable. Just for the same reason that one stab in the gut doesn't kill you in this game. Not that block-ability should be implemented, but I sort of like Ogerawa's suggestion of random dodge for the spells which require no cast time.

Having said that, I still think things are pretty good at the moment, and the devs better just ignore the "nerf mages / boost mages" talk and focus on some other, more important stuff. Move along children, nothing to see here.

Warriors, comparatiovely stronger at the beginning, weaker in the end.
Mages, comparatively weaker in the beginning, stronger in the end.

Warriors, strong in close combat, moving punching bags at longer range.
Mages, punching bags in close combat, strong at longer range.

HolyKnight · Post by **HolyKnight** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:20 pm

Well the wand being pointed at you doesnt actually shoot a projectile flame at you with a spell like RA IRA ANTH QWAN or HEPT ANTH QWAN what it really does RP wise is the desired area burst into flames or ice so you really cant block that spell because everything around is fire or ice, the mage is actually using the mana field surrounding your character invading its essence and causing damage to you and the environment, now obviously these are very advanced spells and would take a good mage to preform them and like Will said they have a fail rate but as for blocking/dodging when everything around you is a flame or ice... and nothing is actually being shot at you

Executor · Post by **Executor** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:34 am

I think mages should be more powerfull than warriors, and that Illa should not be about ballance. Speaking about realism in the same sentence as magic is just bull though.