New Magic System - how much does it take?!

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 3:23 am

These new "You dont understand that spell" messages are simply offensive! According to Bror, my intellect is set to 15 (only 3 points from max), yet I still get this message when going to cast a whole lot of spells. I mean, is it so bad to put intellect there? It isn't far below max, yet my magic now sucks. Does it take max to cast a couple more spells? Are elves the only ones who can cast hept kel? This new thing only encourages people to max certain attributes and leave others blank, which is not roleplaying. I filled out my attributes in a roleplaying manor, not putting 18 points to one attribute and leaving the so far useless ones with none. Now it is IMPOSSIBLE to become a good mage and even a half decent fighter. I would suggest changing this, because now most older players and middle players like myself cannot cast any hept kels and yeg kels after months of work on those, yet a newbie can cast them after only a couple of hours just because he maxed his intellect. This only makes it easier for newbies to become the PK's. These days newbies are FAR more dangerous than older players with their powergaming and maxing of certain attributes. I made my roleplaying revolve around magic and I was proud of being a good mage, but now it is either give that up or give up my character + number and make a new one. This does not seem right.

Perhaps having a lower intellect should just make it increasingly difficult to cast a spell, not IMPOSSIBLE. That seems a bit more realistic anyways.

(Edited by Astral at 8:25 pm on April 7, 2002)

Gurok · Post by **Gurok** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 8:46 am

Astral you must remember, your trying to create magick that will throw ice bolts from yourself to the enemy. Don't you think it would take an incredible mage to do such a thing?! seriously though, ask the smartest person you know to throw ice bolts from thier hands, i bet you they can't do it.

I for one love the new transition, I know my role. Im a warrior orc who can heal his good friends....usually...bror, if I could I would kiss you for this (in a non gay manner

I would. ) this is one of the greatest advances in illarion that I have seen thus far. Your doing a wonderful job and keep it up

.

Dyluck · Post by **Dyluck** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 9:57 am

How do you explain all the people who were smart enough to cast them before but not anymore now?

Not everyone knew for sure that they were going to be a mage and set their intellegence to the maximum, but many have still managed to play as a great mage none the less. Do these character roles just dissapear? Do the roles of Astral and other high level students from the Magic Academy and mages who didn't max out their intellegence just simply cease to exist?

(Edited by Dyluck at 1:06 am on April 8, 2002)

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 12:03 pm

Exactly, that's where it's heading. Many Character concepts that developed over time from a starting Character, don't work anymore.

Bojo · Post by **Bojo** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 5:30 pm

I agree.
As an Elf I have put more value on intelegence skill (I can't even remember now how exact and cannot see this somewhere), because ellves know well magic and my character is an archer who knows well magic too.
I have already thinked about to play with new character and I think that many players will do something simmilar but this is to abondon old characters and Illarion that we know...

regards,
Bojo

Sharag · Post by **Sharag** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 5:57 pm

Everybody of you knew, that this game is still in development and nobody could think about such a feature?
The argument, that good mages aren't that good anymore is gone with this.

Imagine a very old, but wise and intelligent wizard, who studied the use of the arcane arts of magic for uncounted years, in order to become a powerful wizard, while others fought battles, strenghtened their muscles and studied the art of war.
The old wizard sits most of the time in his chair, reading through his library and he will never be strong enough to fight efficient with a sword or skillful enough with a bow to be a successful hunter.
But meanwhile the warrior has mountains of muscles and reflexes, that give him the ability to wear heavy armours and struggle with terrible foes, only with his physical power.

To make it short: Most real warriors in history were just dumb. Don't refer now to great warheroes! Not the strongest or most skilled warriors get famous, but the leaders, that
think up the war strategies and even those were rarely really INTELLIGENT, but smart or clever. That's something else.

So, if you want a REAL mage, that is able to cast even the strongest spells, he has to be a person, that is physical weak, as he used his life to study. Young unskilled wizards, that still have the strength or their youth didn't have enough time, yet to study all the wisdom, an old wizard has studied.

(Edited by Sharag at 5:58 pm on April 8, 2002)

Emhyr van Emreis · Post by **Emhyr van Emreis** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 6:35 pm

Right, but what will you do about the old players? As already posted before, maybe a redistribution of attributes should be allowed. And if not, and this change is kept, I suggest (I know you people will hate me for this...) to wipe clean all characters. BUT save the old character names and passwords, and if anybody wants to create a char with a name that has already existed, he has to type the old password. This way, you can customise your chars for the role you have been playing before, and you can keep your old char name and the personality associated with it. And don't start complaining about all those lost skills and the lost silver - this is an rpg, if your skills are more important to you than the role you play, you should go play some Diablo.
Of course I'd too vote in favor of the attribute-redistribution way... but if it is not implemented, I think the character-wipe is the best one. At least the best that comes to mind right now.

Roke · Post by **Roke** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 7:12 pm

I agree it should be incresingly difficult with lower inelligence. Most players like myself didn't know what they wanted to be so they balanced their skills. While develiping a role during the game, which was my first role-playing game I became a quite powerful mage. I personally would not mind a charactor wipe, even if we could keep our numbers because it would allow me to put skills where my character uses them in the role, not all around but what happens happens.

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 7:30 pm

I definately vote in favor of attribute re-distribution. This would give a chance to old mages and keep roleplaying alive. I even wouldn't mind a complete character wipe if it meant that I could play the role of a mage again. And what will happen to older players who came to play the role of a mage without knowing it when they started playing? How would this be explained? As Dyluck mentioned, this really complicates things to all older mages. I know someone will just tell us all to get our characters deleted and start new ones, but how do you explain some people being totally stripped of their skill and others not? Would this not be MORE work than attribute re-distribution? I think that if this new system is kept in place that the old mages should be able to re-distribute points so they can keep up their role.

At least make it a bit easier! I have 80% of max intellect yet I can only cast about 50% or less of the spells! Something wrong there? Yes it is.

An even simpler way is to change it so that if you have lower intellect, it is more difficult to cast harder spells instead of impossible. This seems more realistic, as I stated before. If one devotes all their time to learning magic even though they used to be a warrior, dont you think that it could be accomplished? Yes, with more difficulty than someone who started as a mage, but still possible. Hence my proposal to make it simply more difficult, but as you grew in skill, that handicap would decrease a bit. I think that is the easier way to do things and I think that most people would support this.

(Edited by Astral at 12:34 pm on April 8, 2002)

Sharag · Post by **Sharag** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 8:12 pm

Even with the danger of being flamed here, I would vote against an attribut re-distribution.

With my above post, I wanted to say, that those, who have not the needed attributes, have bad luck. If you are not intelligent enough, you can't understand the principles of the most powerful spells.
If you balanced your character out, you are a loser in each sector (Your character of course). Someone IRL with no special knowledge in a special subject, won't get very far. That's why people have a certain profession: To be good in one subject by sacrificing others. Without this sacrifice, you aren't able to do anything very good.
There aren't many Da Vincis around.

In the beginning, you chose your attributes as you thought they would be best. One day, strength affects your handling of armours or carrying capacity, there will be other whine threads of people, that want to re-distribute their attributes again. This time, the other way round.

BTW: Bror and martin already mentioned several times, that it still is possible to make your character capable of using all spells. (Don't ask me how, I don't know it. Maybe reading books, maybe using rings? I don't know. Test it.)
I don't think, they lied about this.

(Edited by Sharag at 8:15 pm on April 8, 2002)

Zorain · Post by **Zorain** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 8:24 pm

well im a expert mage not master and not grand master but does the spells cost less mana the beter they get because i can only cast 3 mes pen at an time after that i have too rest

Sharag · Post by **Sharag** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 8:55 pm

Quote: from Zorain on 8:24 pm on April 8, 2002
well im a expert mage not master and not grand master but does the spells cost less mana the beter they get because i can only cast 3 mes pen at an time after that i have too rest

I always thought, maximum mana is influenced by Essence, the ability to cast a certain spell (now) by Intelligence and the mana cost by the skill, you have in using the particular rune.

Maybe it's not that way, but in my opinion, thats logical.

Emhyr van Emreis · Post by **Emhyr van Emreis** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 10:12 pm

Sharag, I agree with what you said about the wrong distribution of attributes affecting your life. It IS logical. But you also need to see that there are people like Astral who were master magicians and who now lost their skills. This is not logical. Now if there still is a way for them to regain their mastery, OK. If not, for the sake of continuous roleplay, either a character wipe or attribute redistribution is necessary. I mean, how would you as a dwarf warrior feel if suddenly you woke up as an elvish monk who, because of a change in the game system, can't touch a weapon anymore and can only walk around singing nice songs to the birds? That's about how I imagine Astral and many mages might feel right now, it hurts their roleplay, and if this is what it hurts, then it destroys a big part of the fun in this game. This is a roleplaying game, if you can't roleplay decently, what's left?
Just to make it clear, I'm a druid warrior, so I'm not touched by this change anyway

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 10:58 pm

What Martin meant was that YOU, as in the person playing your character
could become more intelligent without changing and attributes. That
evil Martin getting our hopes up.

Erdrick · Post by **Erdrick** » Mon Apr 08, 2002 11:53 pm

Wow, I didn't notice this until now. And by the looks of it, IT SUCKS.
Bror, why did you do this? It screwed up the whole game!
Unless... Unless he plans, to make it so our stats can drop/rise... soon...
But if he doesn't then... Well I really don't know why he wouldn't...

Dyluck · Post by **Dyluck** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 2:05 am

I think Sharag and some others may have missed the point. Sure this system is good for making players stick to one profession instead of being good at everything from now on. The problem isn't that it's a bad system, but what to do about the effects on the existing "world" of Illarion. It's not just about players in a game that get weaker or stronger, but because this is a roleplaying game it actually affects the roles themselves. Now many people can't roleplay their roles that have become part of the community in Illarion, but I don't want to see this community collapse

Over time the players have developed the atmosphere and background community of Illarion. To me, the world of Illarion IS shaped by the characters that interacted in it, and they ARE the things that make up the background of Illarion itself.

Just because this game is still in development doesn't mean the current community is not important right? Or else why did you bother adjusting shop prices in hopes of supporting the SMACC Standards? Why do you bother dealing with PKs and Non-roleplayers now anyways when they'll all be gone one day after the email application system is in?

I think you do these things because you also care about the world of Illarion that's been shaped by its existing characters and stories that have been developed, right?

If not, then I guess I should take my business elsewhere.

Well, that's the end of my speech.

BTW: About character wipes, I wouldn't want that, especially when many people like myself have been collecting much silver so that one day they can use it to build things and shape the world and community of Illarion.

Sincerely,

(Edited by Dyluck at 5:08 pm on April 8, 2002)

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 4:24 am

I think we are all in the same boat in this one. There are so many mages now that have no lives because of the new system. This cant happen, it will decrease the RP environment if all these mages suddenly lose their skills or disappear. Dyluck has clearly stated the in-game part of our argument. But this really is unfair to us!

When most of us (I presume) made their characters, they had little or no knowledge of the game and the mage/druid system. So then they picked up magic and devoted ALOT of time to it and became proficient. Time went on and everything was fine. They played the role of a great mage. But then the new magic system comes around, DEVESTATING the magic community. These great mages are forced back down to the roles of smiths and merchants. The magic community begins to be ruled only by newbies who happen to set their intellect high. The once important and great mages are near forgotten.

Is THIS what we want to see happen? I hope not. If it is, I will have to be like Dyluck and go somewhere else.

Melodia · Post by **Melodia** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 9:23 am

I want to say something but it's for the new magicsystem.

I mean you all say that you now play the role of a mastermage and something. But think of what you are saying! I mean nearly every second person says now that the role of his mastermage he became is gone! A mastermage should be one man, who studied a lot and now is master upon the others! He is the greatest! When martin and Bror say that there is a way to become smarter
then I would prefer to wait and not to fill endless topics with arguments!

(Edited by Melodia at 10:30 am on April 9, 2002)

Dyluck · Post by **Dyluck** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 10:15 am

I also find it annoying when people start multiple topics about the same thing, but I'll thank you not to be so narrow minded as to call other people's opinions stupid.

I don't recall Bror and Martin saying anything, at least not in english, except only when Martin said "everybody can become smarter" but he didn't say anything about raising intellegence attributes.

Ishans Schatten · Post by **Ishans Schatten** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 10:34 am

Bror said there is no way to cange or raise intellegence attributes (but only in german).

(Edited by Ishans Schatten at 10:51 am on April 9, 2002)

Bror · Post by **Bror** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 11:09 am

Quote: from Astral on 3:23 am on April 8, 2002
Perhaps having a lower intellect should just make it increasingly difficult to cast a spell, not IMPOSSIBLE. That seems a bit more realistic anyways.

So what you are saying, is, that every person, no matter what intelligence, is able to do anything intellectual. The untintelligent will only have to invest more time, right ? (more difficult spells=more tries until success=more time to invest)

Applied to the real life (which you are talking about, when you say more realistic), this means, if a skilled nobel price winner has found a difficult proof for a mathematical formula in 1 year of work, a very dumb person would be able to find it too, just by investing more time? In my oppinion, he wouldn't even be able to understand, what its all about, if he had unlimited time.
I am sorry I can't proove my opinion, since you only said, he will achieve the same thing in more time. I can't proof you wrong unless I had an extreme stupid person (no problem to find) and UNLIMITED TIME (don't know where to find this...). It seems this problem is only semi-decidable (semi-entscheidbar).

Zoraroth · Post by **Zoraroth** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 2:52 pm

Yes, Bror, you are right, as far as extremes are concerned.
But reasonable intelligent persons can in every case *understand* what the nobel-price winners work is about.
So: inventing new magic, learning nearly unknown spells must be rewarded to those, who both have the intelligence, then the skill and finally the time for it. I think this game should have hidden features, to be found only by few. It is in deed not realistic, having a game with dozens of Master-Mages per 100 inhabitants.
But those spells, which are available at the shop or easy to find in the library, characters with at least more-than-average intelligence should have the chance to learn.
But you're right as well - there is no solution for each problem. See the simple example of charisma. I do not know my characters charisma, but i suggest, i put it quite low, because i do not need it. Zoraroth has fortunatly not only the character's charisma, but also my personal skill of "sweet talking" and by this good chances to get special offers here and there...

Bror · Post by **Bror** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 4:30 pm

Quote: from Zoraroth on 2:52 pm on April 9, 2002
Yes, Bror, you are right, as far as extremes are concerned.
But reasonable intelligent persons can in every case *understand* what the nobel-price winners work is about.

I think I can give away almost any of my mathmatics scripts, that I have taken down during my university study and 95% of the people here won't understand even what it is about.

Zorain · Post by **Zorain** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 4:47 pm

what is average is that 14-18 or 10-18 or 16-18 or what?

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 7:36 pm

Yes, I do mean that all mages CAN cast hard spells, but ones with lower intellect find it ALOT harder to learn and preform. If someone studies alot, they do become smarter. Dont tell me that this is totally wrong in real life.

So you are saying this:
(ex) There is a student who must pass a math test. That student studies for days on end, but because he doesn't have high enough intelligence, he can never pass no matter what.
Do I read this correctly?

(Edited by Astral at 8:15 pm on April 9, 2002)

(Edited by Astral at 8:16 pm on April 9, 2002)

martin · Post by **martin** » Wed Apr 10, 2002 8:42 am

basically: yes.

but math-tests usually do not require the same level as highly specific math.
and yes: there ARE people who never pass some math-exams, even if they try. if you want to, you can come to vienna and have a look at the technical university.
about 50%-70% of all students who begin to study physics (these are the ones who believe that they are skilled in math!) do not pass the math-exams and therefore quit studying.

martin

Dyluck · Post by **Dyluck** » Wed Apr 10, 2002 8:47 am

I think I can give away almost any of my mathmatics scripts, that I have taken down during my university study and 95% of the people here won't understand even what it is about.

Does this mean 95% of the people here will never be as smart as you? I think many people here can understand your math scripts too after they study math at the university for some years.

martin · Post by **martin** » Wed Apr 10, 2002 10:19 am

i'd say:
* smartness and mathematical thinking are two different things. they may depend on eachother.
* about 1/4 is able to understand it if they'd invest erveral years of hard study. 3/4 wouldn't.

however, in several years, your char may be able to do so as well. however, we talk about an intelligence which is supernatural (in illarion). math != magic.

martin

Bror · Post by **Bror** » Wed Apr 10, 2002 10:22 am

Quote: from Astral on 7:36 pm on April 9, 2002
If someone studies alot, they do become smarter. Dont tell me that this is totally wrong in real life.

So you are saying this:
(ex) There is a student who must pass a math test. That student studies for days on end, but because he doesn't have high enough intelligence, he can never pass no matter what.
Do I read this correctly?

My definition of "smart" is intelligent.
Its my personal opinion, that you don't get smarter by your studies. What you gain is practice and knowledge, but not intelligence. I think a little child has the same intelligence, as it will have when it is grown up. You gather more and more knowledge over the years. You combine the things you have learned with your intelligence to get results. The older you get, the more facts you have learned that you can combine, so the results you get become greater and greater. The intelligence that you use to combine them stays the same all the time.
Note that this is my PERSONAL OPINION. Everyone defines intelligence a little bit different and even if all would have the same definition, it would not be possible to make real statments about it.

Does this mean 95% of the people here will never be as smart as you? I think many people here can understand your math scripts too after they study math at the university for some years

My point was not to point out how intelligent or stupid I am, my point was, that either you have the minimum requirements to understand something, or you don't have it and won't have later.
I have seen people at university, that had the formal requirements to attend the university (i.e. the correct school education), but failed to pass the studies. One of them learned after the lectures with me, until he went to bed, and the whole weekend except the cooking or eating times. He didn't pass after 1 1/2 years of learning. He wasn't even able to understand what most stuff was about. He could calculate some of the exercises, after I have told him how to do it, but he didn't understand what it is about, that he calculates or tries to proove.

Hobbiton · Post by **Hobbiton** » Wed Apr 10, 2002 10:29 am

Well Bror that fault of teacher if he could not understand after long time of learning... Like wise mand said "There are no bad students. there are bad teachers"