Is Magic a broken system?

Everything about Illarion that fits nowhere else. / Alles über Illarion was inhaltlich in kein anderes Board passt.

Moderator: Gamemasters

User avatar
nmaguire
Posts: 959
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:44 pm
Location: BEES BEES BEES BEES

Post by nmaguire »

Retlak wrote:I read all of that and it sounded REALLY good, the best idea yet. I like the way you took everything into consideration like the 2 runes a week thing. Excellent proposal.

-Matt
I second that! Sounds awesome!
Also, perhaps some of them should be puzzle dungeons, since I'm not sure there's that many monsters as runes.

Here are some of my crappy ideas of what could be in which dungeon:
(Only thing is, I suppose it would require a lot of map design for new dungeons and stuff to put the runes in. If there's noone to do that, I wouldn't mind helping with it.)


1.1.1 CUN - Water rune, so perhaps some puzzles with balancing scales with water or something (not sure how easy that would be to script :/)
1.1.2 FHEN - Perhaps a teleport puzzle, solved by trial and error, or a riddle at the start to show which teleporters to use to reach the rune.
1.1.3 HEPT - Since there aren't really any cold based monsters, maybe have a time limit on how long you can spend in the dungeon, and after that time you "freeze to death".
1.1.4 KAH - Food - Perhaps a riddle with a table of foods in front of you, you must pick the right one to eat, otherwise you incur whatever penalty - thrown out of the dungeon, clouded, stat penalty, whatever.
1.1.5 LHOR-Either a maze with invisible walls, or a room like the one in Irundar over water with an invisible floor maze.
1.1.6 MES - Rune of light, so perhaps a dungeon in complete darkness in which you are a given a light that extends 1 tile in front of you, and you must make your way through the dungeon avoiding traps on the floor. (should be visible in the light you are given)
1.1.7 ORL - rune of creating and materialisation - I'm not really sure for this one. Perhaps a question dungeon related to magic (as well as/instead of question at the end), with the questions becoming harder and harder as you move through the dungeon. The penalty for a wrong answer are monsters spawns of increasing strength.
1.1.8 PEN-Just have the rune in the dungeon, easily accesible, but make the dungeon quite hard to find.
1.1.9 RA-Fire elementals, or dragon. Elementals would probably be better for a level 1 rune.
1.1.10 SAV - Protection, so perhaps the hopeful rune reciever is reduced to 1hp on entering the dungeon, with no health regeneration, and his teammates must protect him from mummies?
1.1.11 SOLH-Earth, so one or two golems to fight, not many, as it's still level 1 runes.

Level 2
1.2.1 ANTH-Normal maze, but with static fires blocking some places.
1.2.2 IRA-Dungeon full of undead
1.2.3 JUS-Couldn't think of one :/
1.2.4 KEL-Some sort of puzzle thats only passable if the person doesn't stop moving-eg a maze with a strict time limit, that is quite easy to get through but requires fast thinking.
1.2.5 SIH-Poison spiders, since it's heal poison.
1.2.6 SUL-Anyone in the dungeon becomes encumbered, to slow movement, and if possible, fireballs move across the room which need to be dodged.
1.2.7 TAH-Inverse, so a maze in which you are given the opposite instructions of what to do and where to go.
1.2.8 TAUR-Panthers and gnolls
1.2.9 URA-Ogres and trolls
1.2.10 YEG-More poison spiders

Level 3
1.3.1 DUN-Simply a dungeon full of nasty things, such as beholders.
1.3.2 FHAN-FHAN is the rune of sending, bringing and giving. No FHAN spells have ever been recorded... (If no spells, nothing needed?)
1.3.3 LEV-LEV is the rune of change and transportation. It is an inactive rune which has no use. (If inactive, nothing needed?)
1.3.4 LUK- Demon skeletons/Ghost skeletons/Liches
1.3.5 PHERC-A dungeon full of traps on the floor that must be avoided.
1.3.6 QWAN-VERY strong monsters, eg. dragon, demons
User avatar
AlexRose
Posts: 4790
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:18 pm
Location: Megajiggawhat?

Post by AlexRose »

I don't think level 2 or 3 runes should be learnt through NPCs. Besides, dragons and demons before you have any spells just means you end up having to go to the temple to get them to kill everything for you. New mages can't kill dragons and demons with KEL RA. In fact, it would greatly encourage grinding and powergaming and completely remove the roleplaying aspect. Right now learning magic is completely about roleplaying and you want to change it so you hack and slash your way to magic?

Puzzle temples are a good idea though. Lots of dungeons like irundar but themed.

But y'know.. new dungeons in general would be nice. But there seems no point in making them because of the graphical and monster limitations. If someone made things like ice walls, vine walls etc. etc. and added new monsters (And that wouldn't be hard. Just mess about with the hue and you have ice dragons and ice skeletons etc. . Recoloured monsters are better than nothing) then it would seem worthwhile to make new dungeons. Get the top of a mountain, stick an ice dungeon in, put a pillar at the end that teaches you HEPT or something, a volcano temple with RA, stick LHOR in irundar considering noone cares about the water anymore, a mine dungeon with ORL at the end, a watery themed dungeon with CUN in, a forest dungeon underground which you stumble into with YEG at the end, the ruin of a secret library with lots of switches and puzzles with KEL at the end, some sort of tower with MES in it and something completely based on riddles and puzzles for PEN.

Don't say you lack the manpower 'cause I'll do it for you and I guess other people would want to join in if we could fill this island with more interesting places to go. It'd even attract more players if they had something to do other than "well.. you can kill pigs.. or like.. go fishing". Have a mage NPC in town somewhere, a shifty looking person who if you ask him about magic he'll tell you about the basic runes, and upon asking him further he'll give you vague directions to these places like "Some say it located deep within the blah blah mountains" or whatever. But best of all it'd give diversity from the yard. There could be two sections to every place, one a puzzle filled place where you get your rune and one a place with monsters. Maybe you can stick boss monsters in that have rare drops. Just have them all worth going to at some point.

As I said, you could recolour monsters or you could even make new ones. And I know, I said the taboo thing, we don't have enough graphics artists, blah blah but come on. Is Illarion going to have the same set of monsters forever because your answer every time is that we don't have enough people? You've been saying that since I joined; if you could've just been working on monsters (and I know you work for free, so I'm not saying kill yourself but I mean just a couple of frames whenever you get some spare time) slowly whenever you could be bothered since 2005 then I'm sure we'd have a lot more monsters today.

But anyway, as I said, give me some themed graphics, doesn't have to be much, just some vine walls, ice walls, some sort of sea cave walls/floor (just rocks but with a dark blue shade, and no slow down from working on the ground) and I will make you these dungeons.

In fact, I can get started on the ones we already have sufficient graphics for if you approve the idea (I'm not starting it just to be told you won't implement it).

And also, if you find some way in which the lore does not agree with this, can't you just like.. change the lore a bit? What's more important, a better magic learning system, more activities for people to do and places in which people could write quests to go to (not much point writing quests now), more new players staying due to more activities and the opportunity to learn magic and more old players having fun because there's new places to explore, or some lore that most of our playerbase don't even know about?
Damien
Posts: 7845
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2001 5:59 pm
Location: Vanima and grey Refuge, of course.
Contact:

Post by Damien »

There are a lot of free MMORPGs around that have quests which are all about hacking and slashing ones way through a certain type of monster.
In fact, the most quests they have are based on "Fight yourself through labyrinth x to find object y" or "kill x monsters of type y" or "collect x items that are dropped by monster y at a chance of z%" or "kill boss monster x".

Those quest types are the lamest, most boring and most widely used quest types in any MMORPGs.
Sometimes, some "big" quest consists of a chain of such abovely named quests. Boredom for hours in a row !

Illarion has to do things in a different way than the standard. This game would loose its playerbase if it started to become more like the average standard MMOHSG (HacknSlashGame), and most standard game players won't play illarion because we don't have a 3d world and we don't have trainable / levelable pets and we don't have leveling, etc.

I hereby strongly discourage the idea of hack&slay NPC quests. Riddles, puzzles, exploration and stories, that's the way to go. In illa, you should be able to play with a character that has never learned any fighting skills.
User avatar
Tanistian_Kanea
Posts: 646
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2006 2:22 am

Post by Tanistian_Kanea »

Damien wrote:There are a lot of free MMORPGs around that have quests which are all about hacking and slashing ones way through a certain type of monster.
In fact, the most quests they have are based on "Fight yourself through labyrinth x to find object y" or "kill x monsters of type y" or "collect x items that are dropped by monster y at a chance of z%" or "kill boss monster x".

Those quest types are the lamest, most boring and most widely used quest types in any MMORPGs.
Sometimes, some "big" quest consists of a chain of such abovely named quests. Boredom for hours in a row !

Illarion has to do things in a different way than the standard. This game would loose its playerbase if it started to become more like the average standard MMOHSG (HacknSlashGame), and most standard game players won't play illarion because we don't have a 3d world and we don't have trainable / levelable pets and we don't have leveling, etc.

I hereby strongly discourage the idea of hack&slay NPC quests. Riddles, puzzles, exploration and stories, that's the way to go. In illa, you should be able to play with a character that has never learned any fighting skills.
/signed
/signed
/signed
/signed
/signed
/signed

Edit: the problem still appears to be the players, not the system. There are just not enough teachers teaching. This could even be considered an IN GAME problem.
1d20
Posts: 816
Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 6:04 pm

Post by 1d20 »

Djironnyma wrote:
MoonDust wrote: I'm one of the so-called "inactive" mage teachers (currently inactive due to being temporarily banned, but to be honest I didn't play much before that either)
What the big problem of the teaching system shows, the plan was to let good old players teach which proof that they are able to deal with a such a charge .... but well ...
Lol why don't you rage harder, just rage away because it's spilling all over my shoes, oh grand lord Djironnyma, lord of cybe-.. err, roleplayers. :roll:
User avatar
Aust
Posts: 100
Joined: Sat May 05, 2007 5:36 pm

Re: Concepts/Suggestions

Post by Aust »

Thanks for a well thought through suggestion. I do not agree with you on some points, but please don't let that discourage you. Innovation is always welcomed :D
nowitzjt wrote: On my way from college to work I was thinking about a few possibilities, and then a thought occured to me. How cool would it be if you had to take trials to earn your runes? For example, to earn the fire rune you'de have to goto the bottom of a volcano with a fire guardian, or the earth rune, the middle of a desert with giant antlions, the poison rune, the middle of a swamp with poison spitting creatures, and you'de see a giant stone with the rune on it.
I do not like this suggestion, for two reasons
1: It forces all teaching instiutions to follow the same procedure, although the procedure itself is "not a nature law" or the only logical way to obtain a rune. It is clearly some trial decided by a higher power, and as I can not see why the gods would enforce this, it would only remind me as a PO that this is a game. Its an interesting system for an Academy though.
2: This system focuses on engine fights rather than RP. The magic system already contains too much PGing, and too little RPing imo.

I don't think the GMs have time to micromanage that, "oh that person is acting more like a fighter than a mage" and the only solution would be to ban the person acting un-magelike (I know that's not a word) which is very subjective in itself.
Sadly, you are right here.
So enforcing RP is unrealistic in a way, but enforcing knowing Magic Theory? That can easily be done with a system.
Err... As long as only very basic knowledge is required. I play Illarion in my sparetime. Learning useless facts by heart I can do at school. At least they aren't (for the most part) made up. With time, I think most magic users will learn theory, at least if we manage to create a well fucntioning Arcane community ingame.
And as far as the teaching rune BHONA, once someone has 28 runes, he could apply with a GM for BHONA so it would be GM regulated and not player regulated. Whether you would get the teaching rune or not would be based on if you were a good player (RPd well) and didn't abuse the rules (mindless player killing). And if a teacher becomes one and abuses it, the GM can giveth and the GM can taketh.
Yeah, great suggestion =) Its been suggested before too, and I believe it wasn't implemented because some players thought the GMs might abuse the power, or something along those lines. I'm all for it though, as long as the GMs are active enough to hand out BHONA, and do their best to stay unbiased.
User avatar
AlexRose
Posts: 4790
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:18 pm
Location: Megajiggawhat?

Post by AlexRose »

BHONA is the 28th rune and I'm not even sure if there's active players who have FHAN and LEV anymore.
User avatar
Djironnyma
Posts: 3221
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2002 4:34 pm
Location: Berlin
Contact:

Post by Djironnyma »

i know at least 2 which have
User avatar
Aegohl
Posts: 2568
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:17 pm

Post by Aegohl »

Every time it's brought up that the magic teaching system is a tremendous failure I like to dance in a merry circle and repeat the words "I told you so" so I can watch the crew of people (and you know who you are) who became violently angry every time I and other people even suggested that this system doesn't work stew.

Now, slowly, a few of that crew are coming around, however reluctantly, suggesting it might be a failure but it shouldn't be or it is a failure but it could work, or it would be working but it's someone else's fault. The worst part of the magic system ultimately is that it was fun for the teachers who had students who tickled their egos for the abstract and nonexistent reward of learning magic (that never came to pass) while it was very much not fun for anyone else.

We are not currently stuck with this system only because of lack of scripters. I and several others early on started brainstorming alternatives, but we were very actively screamed at by those few who had a stranglehold monopoly on magic. Over time it became the least rewarding system to work on as a result, well, one of them, at least.
User avatar
Mr. Cromwell
Posts: 1876
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: All over the place.

Post by Mr. Cromwell »

I'll just quote a player whose intelligence and insight* never ceases to amaze me (namely myself) here.
Mr. Cromwell wrote:Players are too unreliable, too ignorant, too selfish and too unaware of (and indifferent to) the externalities which their character's actions cause to be trusted with the administration of an entire aspect of the game.
*who is so vain and arrogant that it :wink: EDIT by Mesha

P.S. I agree to a certain extent. They can be partially in control, for my part anyway. But allowing players full control over an entire aspect of the game is insane.
User avatar
Aegohl
Posts: 2568
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:17 pm

Post by Aegohl »

Well, most of all, it would be one thing if the players truly were in control, after all, what makes the players so different than the staff or the developers (other than responsibility)? But ingame they're not only playing characters with separate drives and goals, but they can get in trouble if they don't. It is like giving the keys to your car to a child or a madman. You can't even be angry at anyone but yourself, because it was obvious they weren't in control of themselves.

I won't even get into some of the ridiculous arguments I've gotten behind the scenes when I've asked the simple question: "Do we treat the magic academy like an ingame organization or like an ooc organization?" You can't account for a group until you have the answer of what kind of group it is, but this group avoids oversight as well as labeling.
User avatar
Aust
Posts: 100
Joined: Sat May 05, 2007 5:36 pm

Post by Aust »

Crommy has a point, but you guys are like politicians in opposition. You complain about how things work, but do not have ANY suggestions on how to improve things.

Perhaps you should start by discussing what you want magic to be like in Illarion. If it suddenly becomes available to everyone, there is no way the current power level can be defended, nor the flashy effects.


P.S.

Although Crommy is disguising it as a joke, he is, and almost everyone else is, aware that he is one of the smartest people in this community. Sooo... Prove it by coming up with a good system, old man:P
User avatar
Aegohl
Posts: 2568
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:17 pm

Post by Aegohl »

Aust wrote:Crommy has a point, but you guys are like politicians in opposition. You complain about how things work, but do not have ANY suggestions on how to improve things.

Perhaps you should start by discussing what you want magic to be like in Illarion. If it suddenly becomes available to everyone, there is no way the current power level can be defended, nor the flashy effects.


P.S.

Although Crommy is disguising it as a joke, he is, and almost everyone else is, aware that he is one of the smartest people in this community. Sooo... Prove it by coming up with a good system, old man:P
I agree with this man except where he strokes Crommy's ego, at which point I say to Crommy: "Yeah, show your stuff, dumb dumb" =P

My suggestion from the very beginning was a combination approach:

Some runes could be found in books in the library. Some could be bought from NPC's, some in town and some in rare, hard-to-get-to places. Some you would have to solve mystical puzzles to get to and some you would find at the deepest of the deep, deep dungeons.

Of course, some of the rune combos might have to be switched around so that one can cast at least a small assortment of spells just with a few easy-to-find runes.
User avatar
Mr. Cromwell
Posts: 1876
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: All over the place.

Post by Mr. Cromwell »

I'd more or less go with what Velask suggested. I mean, that system is quite genius and my sincerest compliments to its inventor, you rock. ;)

1. To play a mage, you need to make an application. The applications are checked by the staff, and upon approval the approved character gets the ancient-book.

- This removes one of the current system's greatest travesties, where individual players become the RP-police who judge others and arbitrarily decide who can or cannot play with them. Everyone who has been playing for a while knows that our staff is not unknown to making mistakes, but at least a certain degree of unity and fairness in the rp-quality-control is ensured.

2. Studying magic = Studying magic

- Runes are gained through studying books in libraries (perhaps as a function of stats+library research+ancient), quests, battling monsters and searching hidden dungeons. Moreover, they are mainly found in pieces which you copy down (except for ubermonsters which have a chance of dropping a whole book, or monsters which drop ready pieces) giving a function to parchment and ink. Each rune book is made up of minimum five pieces, and the more advanced the rune, the more progressively harder they are to find. This ensures that advanced magic takes long time to learn.

-This means that instead of locking themselves in Academies or building barriers around teaching rooms, prospective mages and even (more so) advanced mages must scour the island for hidden secrets, explore dungeons, visit libraries, shrines and battle magical monsters for their secrets if they intend to learn more about magic.

-As players have two or more portions, they can add them together to make an unfinished rune book. Then, upon discovering more secrets, they can simply add the new discoveries into the book until it is finished. As the finished book is read (requires ancient) it is consumed and the rune is learned.
(So techincally, this is like "crafting" a rune book, where portions Ra-A, Ra-B, Ra-C, Ra-D & Ra-E are required to complete the item).

-Books, quests, NPC's and dungeons give clues and riddles regarding where runes can be discovered.

-Rune portions and books can be freely traded, sold or given away. However, for obvious reasons no copies can be made of the information, so there's no rune production, only discovery/bartering/purchasing.

-Moreover, all this makes studying mainly the responsibility of the player of the new mage, just like with any other skill. This is only fair and reasonable.


3. Teacher-Apprentice Relationship based on desire to RP together instead of obligation or quota of teaching, or forced apprenticeship.

-The relationship between teachers and apprentices is completely voluntary. There is no need for anyone to have an apprentice, or a teacher, ever. This enables those who are interested in playing such things to focus on the actual RP and enjoyment, while also removing the bottleneck to Magic-access which is created by the number of teachers.

-Teachers best serve their apprentices by telling them where runes or their portions can be found, where they should study and by acompanying them to the deep dungeons. This of course requires the teacher to have useful information regarding the locations/availability of runes, instead of just testing others about theory that someone else made up.

4. (Optional) Mild technical assiting capability for teachers

Teachers are able to assist their students by providing them the first part of every rune they know. This means, that the students have only to find 4/5 (or how many parts..) of the remaining portions. However, I'd use the rune categories here, meaning that the student has to know rune A before the teacher can help him with rune B. This simulates 'teaching'. No lame exclusive teaching rooms are required, rather just ink and parchment (and quill?).

5. You now have a system where responsibility of a character's magic-learning lays on each individual player. They can learn and study and RP how they want, instead of having to whore themselves to other players or having to obey someone else's schedule and whims. At the same time, having a teacher makes life just a little easier. This system makes it pretty easy to ensure that magic won't be learned in a week, no matter what.
User avatar
Kaila Galathil Travinus
Posts: 539
Joined: Sat Dec 16, 2006 9:50 am
Contact:

Post by Kaila Galathil Travinus »

This system sounds wonderful if there is a balance between the "fighting monster/dungeon quests" and others.
User avatar
Tanistian_Kanea
Posts: 646
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2006 2:22 am

Post by Tanistian_Kanea »

not bad idea, though i still like the way it has to be learned.

I do find it to be bad form for monster to just drop a piece of a book. In the first place a monster needs a reason to have the piece, also, these will become VERY common pieces as fighters will get them randomly while killing. Solutions? either make it so these only drop if a mage is in the area. or b)create a monster that only drops that one item, an offshoot of normal mobs only prospective mages will be trying to find, perhaps they are locked in a room require anc "Open" to get in or something.

Next part. This is a long, well thought out idea. However, it will take an age and a half to script. In the meantime, why not (as I have suggested before) create a NATURAL teaching room, be is someplace on Gobiath where magic is "Naturally strong" that enables the person to teach magic. Have it out of the way, but not particularly dangerous (safer the better) This will take away a few characters stranglehold on magic (Pella, Dji from what I can see) and let many other teachers actually teach if they want to (Athian, Verdazar). This is an easy, quick, simple solution that would increase the number of people learning magic.
User avatar
Pancho
Posts: 35
Joined: Wed Jun 17, 2009 12:38 am

Post by Pancho »

I agree with Mr.Cromwell, except for his points 3 and 4.

Why not keep the current system as a second option?

You don't have to wreck a (in theory) working system.

A character approved after writing his application and being accepted to play a mage can either look for a teacher that'll do pretty much the same thing like he does now or if he does not find/ is not accepted/ridiculed/mutilated/ @$$raped and smiled over by prospective teachers can try this other system to learn his magics.

That'd create a somewhat "soft" monopoly of power instead of the current "If I don't like your shoes you can't learn magic" hard monopoly the teachers have.

You can still find yourself a teacher and hopefully be accepted and if you fail finding one you can always try to research on your own.
User avatar
nmaguire
Posts: 959
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:44 pm
Location: BEES BEES BEES BEES

Post by nmaguire »

Tanistian_Kanea wrote:. I do find it to be bad form for monster to just drop a piece of a book. In the first place a monster needs a reason to have the piece, also, these will become VERY common pieces as fighters will get them randomly while killing. Solutions? either make it so these only drop if a mage is in the area. or b)create a monster that only drops that one item, an offshoot of normal mobs only prospective mages will be trying to find, perhaps they are locked in a room require anc "Open" to get in or something.
Not if it's a really low drop chance, and I would assume the higher level decent runes would be very hard to find. I doubt mummies are suddenly going to drop 6 or 7 whole books as they die. And if the fighters get the books, then surely that's going to make it easier for the mage, instead of having to go "Randomly killing" they can just negotiate (which, zomg, involves RP!).
User avatar
AlexRose
Posts: 4790
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:18 pm
Location: Megajiggawhat?

Post by AlexRose »

Again, it's great that you can solo really powerful monsters but new mages can't solo MUMMIES, they don't have any money and I doubt they'd get any donations of pages from powerful characters unless they're like your friend on an alt character or something. We all know that type of thing will always happen. "Oh hello random stranger, I don't give a damn who you are", "Oh greetings there other random stranger, WANT TO JOIN MY GUILD?!"
User avatar
Mr. Cromwell
Posts: 1876
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: All over the place.

Post by Mr. Cromwell »

Pancho wrote:I agree with Mr.Cromwell, except for his points 3 and 4.

Why not keep the current system as a second option?
Balance. Having a high-level rune given to you would be incredibly easier than (under the suggested system) finding it yourself. Besides, like I said: I find it fair and reasonable that development of magic abilities and gaining them is brought on the same line along with other skills.

@Tanistian
Well, I don't know if warriors finding parchment is a horrible thing. As those have no real value for a warrior, there's no reason why he wouldn't sell, give or trade it away. However, if the devs deem that to be a problem of somesort, they can always make knowledge of ancient the requirement of knowing the exact contents of the parchment (so that warrior can only make refined guesses: If it was dropped by a skeleton mage, it might not be that valuable, if by demon, it might be quite). The monster-drops would not be extremely common, as Nathan guessed. However, the more advanced runes you're after, the more likely they would be dropped by monsters (eg. the uber-runes would be dropped by demons, dragons, liches.. at a chance. Those would be easier to gain through applied magic (combat) rather than studying).

@Kaila, Alex

The way I see it, the most basic runes can be found from the main libraries of the island, without any need to solo mummies or whatever for them. Thus, the mages would already have basic arrangement of spells at their disposal when it comes time to wrestle some more advanced parchments away from magic monsters (which would be preferably the source of magic parchments, meaning that mummies do not drop them but skeleton mages do). It would be possible to find a lot of runes without battling monsters or exploring monster-infested dungeons, however: It would be impossible to find them all on your own without actually applying the studied theory. So you can be a mage, but unless you get skills and get your hands dirty, you probably won't become an archmage.
User avatar
Llama
Posts: 7685
Joined: Sun May 29, 2005 7:02 pm
Location: The VBU is awesome
Contact:

Post by Llama »

*reads Cromwell's suggestion*

Cromwell is awesome.
User avatar
Taliss Kazzxs
Posts: 605
Joined: Sun Jun 04, 2006 7:47 am
Contact:

Post by Taliss Kazzxs »

Hadrian_Abela wrote:*reads Cromwell's suggestion*

Cromwell is awesome.
User avatar
AlexRose
Posts: 4790
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:18 pm
Location: Megajiggawhat?

Post by AlexRose »

I think rather the warriors will keep the parchments and learn runes themselves just for the sake of it.

And you're also saying in order to get any decent runes you need to pg loads. The worst part of magic. The pging is far worse than the teaching system.

You know it takes a human with low commo but maxed mage atts about 50 kel ras to kill a pig? And QWAN is probably considered the rune which should be hardest to obtain with this system? i.e. they'd have to take on the strongest monsters for it?

Catch 22, you need QWAN to get QWAN.
User avatar
Orioli
Posts: 319
Joined: Mon May 11, 2009 12:38 pm
Location: In between.

Post by Orioli »

I like this *Crommy* "if anyone cares". It would relieve the need to beg and make that less of an occurance in illa. The high mages would still retain their positions and Rp could still bring them alliances. They could see whom they wanted that with, from how the young mages handled the lower magic and their lifestyles.
With out some aid, the harder runes would still be difficult for a young mage to obtain. I think this way should come, as well as keeping the ability for teacher mages to impart the runes to chosen apprentices. Also It leaves a chance for everyone to get access to small amounts of magic, as long as GMs agree it can be fun. Like anything else, it can be given and taken.
User avatar
AlexRose
Posts: 4790
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:18 pm
Location: Megajiggawhat?

Post by AlexRose »

You'd be begging the temple to give you pages instead.
User avatar
Estralis Seborian
Posts: 12308
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:14 pm
Location: Sir Postalot
Contact:

Post by Estralis Seborian »

Taliss Kazzxs wrote:
Hadrian_Abela wrote:*reads Cromwell's suggestion*

Cromwell is awesome.
Such a learning system offers most degrees of freedom and also encourages scripting lots of interesting NPCs, encounters, quests, books,... I hope all of us will do their share to realize this.
Last edited by Estralis Seborian on Sat Sep 05, 2009 1:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Mr. Cromwell
Posts: 1876
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: All over the place.

Post by Mr. Cromwell »

AlexRose wrote:I think rather the warriors will keep the parchments and learn runes themselves just for the sake of it.
Why? First of all, 90+% warriors would be unable to read the runes, let alone make any use of those (if you assume that Ancient is required to read). Secondly, I doubt that many warriors would bother studying something which ends up in 99% failchance for them due to absolutely lousy magic-stats and tendency to be clad in steel, which only makes a bad initial setup utterly ridiculous. Lastly, if those 10% who might have stats for the runes want to become battlemages, that's their choice. Period. Full stop.
And you're also saying in order to get any decent runes you need to pg loads. The worst part of magic. The pging is far worse than the teaching system.
Wait, what? Wasn't the whole point of defending the current system the "We need to make and keep magic rare since it's so insanely powerful"-gospel (at least some people seemed to think (??) like that)? Besides, that's not what I said at all. Once the handing of runes is done by the game instead of the players, this is something which can actually be tweaked with few changes of commas or % here and there in the scripts.

By the way, considering that Will is already an archmage, you might be a little biased when it comes to determining the worst part of magic. Those guys who try to find a teacher for months might disagree with your assesment. ;)

Furthermore, I fail to see how the "to get decent runes you need to pg loads" is so different from the current "to be a decent mage you need to pg loads anyway".
You know it takes a human with low commo but maxed mage atts about 50 kel ras to kill a pig? And QWAN is probably considered the rune which should be hardest to obtain with this system? i.e. they'd have to take on the strongest monsters for it?

Catch 22, you need QWAN to get QWAN.
That sounds like shitty design in genera, if magic is pointless before you get a single rune (though I'm a little sceptical about this). It's you guys who should bring these balance issues up and not depend on others to think for you. After all, having a mastermind like myself around should not be taken for granted. :P

After the Fighting system is pimped, it might be that the magic system needs a bit more in-depth overhaul that goes beyond teaching.

Lol @ the temple comment

You are making rather heavy assumptions about a system which actually, when it comes to dependability, fairness and the ability to balance the system at will is by all imaginable yardsticks superior to the current system.
User avatar
AlexRose
Posts: 4790
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:18 pm
Location: Megajiggawhat?

Post by AlexRose »

Offensive spells (Commo):
KEL RA/KEL HEPT (At a high skill level you still need to fire 10s of these to kill stronger monsters).
KEL YEG/YEG PHERC (Do basically nothing, and PHERC is level 3 and YEG is level 2)
JUS SOLH DUN ORL (Need pretty high skill to use it and it does rubbish damage and uses too much mana for it to be worth casting)
JUS PHERC QWAN (Pretty weak and it has QWAN and PHERC in it)
JUS SOLH DUN ORL QWAN/JUS PHERC DUN QWAN (These are decent but they're very high level and need QWAN)
KEL RA QWAN/KEL HEPT QWAN (These are the mainstream BEWM spells that people use to own stuff. They need high skill (like 60 base w/o equipment) to be able to use them for decent damage, though, because at first everything resists them or they do negligable damage.
KEL RA DUN QWAN/KEL HEPT DUN QWAN (These are the area versions of those spells and you need like 80+ skill base w/o equipment)

Healing (Pervy):
MES PEN (This is easy to get and it works well)
MES PEN DUN (DUN is one of the harder runes to get and this spell is pretty useless because by this stage it's more efficient to just MES PEN SIH all the people you intend to heal)
MES PEN SIH (SIH is a harder rune again. You need decent skill to use this)
MES PEN SIH DUN (Rather a high level spell for area max healing)
ORL KAH (For food. Not many people use this spell because it's pretty inefficient and you have to walk around lots for it to be worth using)
ORL KAH QWAN (Requires QWAN, this is the only decent food spell)

Static things (Pervy):
RA IRA ANTH QWAN/HEPT IRA ANTH QWAN (static flames: Needs high pervy and needs QWAN)
YEG IRA ANTH QWAN (Poison, requires even higher skill and it's pretty useless)
RA IRA ANTH DUN QWAN/HEPT IRA ANTH DUN QWAN/YEG IRA ANTH DUN QWAN (All require very high skill)
SOLH SAV ANTH DUN QWAN/RA SAV ANTH DUN QWAN/HEPT SAV ANTH DUN QWAN/YEG SAV ANTH DUN QWAN/Portal spell (Require massive skill)
SOLH ORL QWAN (For making walls, requires QWAN)
SOLH ORL DUN QWAN (For making a wall row, decent skill needed)

Interaction (Desicio):
SUL SOLH QWAN (Paralysis: Needs QWAN)
JUS QWAN (Wind pushing spell: Needs QWAN)
JUS TAUR KEL (Teleportation)

The other spells are for things like extinguishing magical flames or campfires (putting out multiple of those or putting out portals requires QWAN btw), bringing things to you (the big ones require QWAN), summoning creatures (of which the aggressive ones require LUK, which would be a harder rune to get), curing poison (Which requires SIH), curing paralysis (Requires QWAN), teleportation, illusions and opening/shutting doors. But none of these things would be required to obtain pages.

Also note that KEL used to be a level 2 rune. Meaning if we still had that you'd have no attack spells at all.

So really, what you can do without the level 5 runes: PHERC, QWAN, SIH, LUK and DUN is:
Teleport (Though TAUR is a level 2 rune)
Make single burst illusions.
Make single static illusions (although this requires a level 2 rune) and extinguish them.
Weak healing
Bring really small things to you. (But this requires a level 2 rune)
Really bad food healing
Open/Shut doors (Although ANTH is a level 2 rune)
Do really, really bad poison spells
Summon docile creatures (Requires 2 level 2 runes)
Put out campfires (But SAV is level 2)
Weak fireballs and iceballs and completely crap poison spells (and the poison spells require a level 2 rune).

QWAN governs everything.

And it took me 18 months to get magic and lemme tell you: It's a damned good job it took that long so people knew who I was. I got lucky that I had fighters to go to the yard with to train my pervy, which also led to us getting a lot of good equipment so the only skill I ever had to sit and powergame was commo (Since the pervy got up through healing people while they fought reds and stuff, which led to me getting great equipment so I could already teleport so I didn't need to pg desicio and the other two skills are nearly useless). I only had to pg commo to green and I was suicidal by the end of it. Especially since, unlike mining or fighting or whatever you have to input each action yourself, if you don't want to have to click the ground too after every action you have to target monsters, but at first even pigs reflect your spells if you successfully catch them and it comes back and hits YOU and you take damage, you can only do a few actions before your mana bar is depleted, your mana bar regenerates slowly from your foodbar and doesn't seem to regenerate at all once your foodbar is under 50%, which also saps to your hp bar every time pigs reflect your spells (which happens a lot at the start with KEL RA), and this was with max int ess will. I can say 100% that the 18 month wait and the crap I had to go through (bugging Silas every week on msn for hours because he never wanted to teach, going through with his tasks (e.g. collect 250 mana potions, had to sit every day at greenbriar buying 5 at a time because then the npc was sold out and spent 125 silver on them) was not as bad as the powergaming of ONE skill for 30-50 points.
Retlak
Posts: 1775
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2005 11:20 pm

Post by Retlak »

Alex wrote:was not as bad as the powergaming of ONE skill for 30-50 points.
Bullshit, I got 40% in one day when it was raining outside. I even had a friend who got 40% with me that day, who Arien caught and slapped his bollocks untill he couldn't cast anymore.

-Matt
User avatar
AlexRose
Posts: 4790
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:18 pm
Location: Megajiggawhat?

Post by AlexRose »

Yeah it's fine for Mr. Pro Powergamer, some of us don't like casting for hours on end.

As I recall you were impressed that Dale managed to get his commo to 50 within a day and still had 2 hours left over when he was caught.

So, if you have 22 hours time to sit all day powergaming, you can have your commo up pretty quick. If like the rest of us 22 hours of powergaming would take you well over a month that's not so good, is it?
Locked