Natural Magic Room

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

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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

lern 2 reed

You can LEARN magic resistance through MES PEN, but you don't become RESISTANT to healing.
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Llama
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Post by Llama »

Great, so now we have a good way of PGING magical resistance. Get a guy to MES SPAM you and you're done.

I don't know, isn't there a rule against Power Gaming? Or was that taken out?

Does anyone have magical resistance that they didn't pg for?
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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

Quest chars ;)

But yeah pging magic res is lame.
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Velisai
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Post by Velisai »

It's not possible to gain any noteworthy resistance without PGing it for a long, long time. If you try without a friendly mage, it takes very long, you use lots of food and reach the cap very quickly. Skillgain is one of the slowest in the system too, comparable to poisoning, but harder to PG.

Any mage who trains your resistance with MES PEN deliberately is also shooting his own face, figuratively speaking and it still isn't a "good" way really, even you don't account for the bad RP.

As far as I know no currently active fighter has any resistance, which would enable him to safely own a decent mage.

It may be possible to create a magekiller type of fighter with high WILL and ESS and PGed magic resistance, but with such stats, you're better off becoming a mage yourself.
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H.Banestone
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Post by H.Banestone »

Shandariel el Lysanthrai wrote:
Quote:
However, magic resistance also counts for HEALS. So a fighter with magic resistance can't get mage healed in combat = dead.

This is completely false.

-Matt
Your "completly false" is completly false. With my other char my magic resistance got raised through healing spells casted by a friendly mage. This means healing IS affecting the magic resistance aswell. Just not if you cast it on yourself. But when other mages cast it on you.
Of course that doesnt matter if you got 60 - 80 % magic resistance and the mage casting has 90% or more in the magic school with healing spells. He is strong enough then to still cast on you
not a fact. just because healing raises magic resistance, does not logically mean that magic resistance reduces healing. it could very well be a one way influence.
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Llama
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Post by Llama »

Velisai wrote:Any mage who trains your resistance with MES PEN deliberately is also shooting his own face, figuratively speaking and it still isn't a "good" way really, even you don't account for the bad RP.
He's increasing his own skill as he does so.

The only person I know with a good amount of resistance is Dronrul, who's a mage.
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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

Replace "good" with "stupid".
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Nalzaxx
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Post by Nalzaxx »

Just because you have been left behind Alex.

All the top mages have very high magic resistance these days.

The reason it is only mages that have high magic resistance is because they are able to train it by themselves, they have the willpower to make it effective, and because it is needed to fight other mages.
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Post by AlexRose »

I was always behind. I think pging is a ridiculous thing to do and the only reason I have acceptable magic is because I have stupidly good equipment.
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Mr. Cromwell
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Post by Mr. Cromwell »

AlexRose wrote:Master fighters rape average mages. Master mages rape average fighters. Honestly, I have no idea what master mages vs master fighters is like, because I've never been stupid enough to attack Dominic (since he was strong :P). I think there's a good chance that wouldn't end well for me.
You're classing yourself as a master mage, even though the skill difference between Will and Dom is something in the 25-40 range to Dom's advantage, right (so Will's 60-75 to Dominic's 90-100)? If uncertainty over the outcome of that bout is supposed to mean that the system is balanced, then you're not really making a good case for yourself here, sorry. ;) You also know that Dom is ridiculously well equipped, as he (unlike 95% of warriors) had even drow stuff at his disposal in one point or another, which should be comparable to the stuff that Will uses.

Alright, Pell. I suppose playing a mage has sufficiently alienated you from reality of the game..
Anyway all I have to say to that that magic is not really any overpowered skill anyway, you need to learn magic for a good rl year...and that is if you just play normally and shove in a training session now and than ~and~ you have a teacher who regularly gives you lessons, a figther can be pg'ed in about well maybe a month is what I heard last...to even get all runes you allready need around 3 months for mages, if you powergamed enough skill to get the newer runes that is.
Yes, we know that teaching system is completely fucked up (sorry, no lesser term sufficiently describes the state of system where we have to tell new players that it's a waste of time even trying to become a mage, because 95% chance is that you won't be able to do that) both by design and implementation (I feel like pointing finger here at your personal responsibility to the state of affairs by keeping the academy exclusive for a long time), but since this is public knowledge there's no need to really go into this. Also, for the inevitable moaning; Just because you had to wait for years doesn't mean that it should be the case for others and if magic has too much power to be allowed freely to players of this game (as it's sometimes argued), there can hardly be a more obvious proof that the system has fundamental balance issues which should be adressed.
As it stands now a mage is jsut as usefull as his equipment, and that equipment allready costs more than any figther will spend on his equipment...2 serinjahs and a suit of armor aren't even as expensiv as one icebird..or wand..or mastermage robe, furthermore a figther is able to kill things off continously with a greater income than any mage, who will first be stuck with killing small time monster till they might be able to hunt reds. But aside from that there aren't really mages who can live over a figther attacking them, I just saw it a few times that a figther was allready in close combat, when a mage could turn the tides in the last minute, basicly a mage in close combat is death, not to mention that the new "burnout syndrom" burns away mana like nothing as soon as you cast fast and don't take any breaks.
Okay, lets adress equipment dependency:

A naked fight between a warrior and a mage; which one wins? Yeah..
While mage power is amplified by equipment, warriors need good stuff to do anything at all.

It takes several minutes for my char to kill a single red, after which he must rest (or blow money on potions) to recover his health. Fighting golems (which are strongest monsters my character has any hope of handling) takes even longer. All of this consumes the equipment of my character, and brings him down in health. Moreover, since my character (like most warriors) is owned by NPC mages just as well as PC mages, he cannot really wander to train into places where there are actually casting NPCs (why do you think everyone camps the red at the graveyard?)... meaning that his training locations are rather limited. Moreover, I personally have seen William elderberry blast away 2 red warriors and 1 red mage, before my char was even able to walk to the first one. Also, seeing how Nalzaxx's char (for all intents and purposes) solo'ed a pirate treasure map (2 reds, a ghost and 2 skeleton mages) which resulted in Matt's PG'd warrior being insta-killed and my char driven off to forest, I call bullshit on that. Mana limits mage's ability to kill monsters indeed, but to no more than health bar and health regeneration limit the fighter's chance of killing anything. What's difference is that mages can actually fight in places where warriors can't go alone, simply because a red mage kills you in about 10 seconds (who are the ones grinding red mages for amethysts anyway? yeah. Who are the reason that magic damage had to be disabled from certain monsters altogether and spawns turned off because these ubermonsters were farmed ridiculously?). Warriors have no hope of fleeing from those NPCs especially in the open unless you're a mage. Warriors tend to die a lot more often, not the least because a mage can ultimately heal himself in seconds opposed to a disengaging warrior who (while being shot at or beaten) has to stop, arrange the freaking inventory and then remain motionless or lose the potion. Moreover, there's not really wear on mage equipment to the same degree as warrior equipment, and due to healing, teleporting, walls and uber damage, are a lot less likely to lose these items anyway.
Ultimately, it seems to me the "mage overpowered" philosophy may be due to 1. bugs mentioned in the system which may be solved with the VBU 2. how fast the reflexes are of the PO .. allowing more time between spells seems to be an answer possibly? 3. Mages who due to stats are suppose not to compete with fighters ... still don't but DO have some fighter ability...possibly giving a max of 50% as Kevin suggested would be helpful, yet if a script was in place to not allow magic a certain time after steel is used would this also be an alternative? Weakening or nerfing the spells yet again seems to me the wrong answer as mages already require so much ig time to even achieve the runes...and much more to PG them. It always seemed like a conundrum to me that roleplay was considered important for a mage char yet the PG requirements were more then most other chars....at least IMO.

As an aside... with mages having some fighter stats, isn't it likely to imagine some fighters with magic resis?
There are several problems with warriors gaining magic resistance, main one being that while mage requires a mere 3 stats for his casting (Int, Wil & Ess) a warrior presently needs twice as many stats (Int, Str, Agi, Con, Dex & Per) which means that a warrior typically has very few stat points to blow on will (considering how a lot of the top warriors were built anyway, spending around 6-8 points on will would probably qualify them as warlocks), which is the stat used by magic resistance. When facing a mage with obviously higher offensive capability, the low essence of a warrior means that his MR will help diddly squat against the mage even if he managed to enlist the help of a mage to PG his MR for months to an end. This means that unlike with melee, warriors have only an option to train MR realistically if they can get a mage to shoot at them, and this requires huge amount of time for no real tangible benefit due to limited WP vs. high ESS of a mage. So, you're better off becoming a warlock or something.

This is a stark contrast to what happens in melee; Hell, you can all try this on your own. Create a char with minimal physical stats and march him to say, troll forest, to be beaten by a troll warrior. Despite NO skills and NO stats, your char of 4 Agi and 4 strength or whatever is bound to both parry and dodge hits from the monsters every once a while. A warrior has no such protections against a NPC mage. Moreover, it's much easier for a mage to train parry and dodge on his own, further creating a disparity between mages and warriors defending against eachother's attacks. You also have to keep in mind that magic attacks are either blocked by MR or not, in which case they will hit your char without any chance to dodge or parry the attack. This means that a mage may get lucky even in melee, while the chances for similar luck for a warrior are nonexistant. I mean, why do you think Matt and Nalzaxx are saying that magic is overpowered? These guys probably know more about how combat actually works in the game than the people who write the code do ;), and more importantly (especially matt) has had chars on both sides of the fence. Of course, I did not expect anything except denial from Pell and Sammy, but that's a given anyway.

If learning magic is difficult and sucks, then this should not be an argument to retain extremely overpowered endgame for mages. If beginner mages are useless, then again this is not an argument justifying anything in the end. More focus should be on making the learning more accessible, fun, inclusive and increasing the power and usefulness of beginner mages, rather than soothing the guys who have patience to PG themselves to the top by allowing them to own everything in sight. Balance works much better and results a much more enjoyable and fun game for everyone (both prospective mages and non-mages) than a shitty little elitist club which requires you to kiss ass for months and then PG your brains out to be qualified to own people (we all know that whatever shit that is supposed to ensure that "mages are good mature roleplayers blablablaa" doesn't make them any less susceptible to abuses than any other group of long-time players...).

I mean, you (nobody in particular) have to be a real (excuse me) retard if you have failed to observe what happens in IG conflicts of any significant scale whenever mages are involved over the past couple of years: Mages kill people in droves, (typically in a couple seconds) whereas everyone else is just dying or tagging along sluggishly. Look at the conflicts. Having been in a situation where I had to assess the military power between various IG groups, it was the simplest thing ever: Look at the number of mages involved and on which side they're on. That's all you need to know.
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Shandariel el Lysanthrai
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Post by Shandariel el Lysanthrai »

More focus should be on making the learning more accessible, fun, inclusive and increasing the power and usefulness of beginner mages, rather than soothing the guys who have patience to PG themselves to the top by allowing them to own everything in sight. Balance works much better and results a much more enjoyable and fun game for everyone (both prospective mages and non-mages) than a shitty little elitist club which requires you to kiss ass for months and then PG your brains out to be qualified to own people (we all know that whatever shit that is supposed to ensure that "mages are good mature roleplayers blablablaa" doesn't make them any less susceptible to abuses than any other group of long-time players...).
I can't agree more. Thats why I am for a balancing of magic powers, and not for a one sided change like what Nalzaxx and Matt suggested. With their change it would suck even bigger for beginning mages since it will be much harder for them. And the ubermages we got now will still be able to kill anything with ease. They will simply take their high level amethyst wands and reduce casting time from 4 seconds to 2, dodge any melee attack comming in and killing anything off. While laughing about those "noob" mages who are not as mighty as them after the change cause "they simply dont know how to play a mage right".

Magic is for tactician? Pff...it is for those powergaming all skills to yellow and knowing the scripts too. It shouldn't be surprising that most of those uberstrong mages with highend skills and all belong to players who also have a better insight into scripts. Or who have good buddies telling them about scripts.

Make magic finally equal to melee so that noone pwns the other without a fair chance on the same skillevel. Make it easier to be taught and achiefed, restrict the maximum strength of spells to skills in the 90 % area and give mages finally more spells which have nothing to do with killing things. So that they can be also more then just Damagedealer. Currently the usefullness and strength of a mage is determined by his ability to kill of as good as possible npc and player chars. Nothing else. Well...also by summoning portals...and that was it.
and also make it more fair to those who don't know the scripts too. Currently the game has so many secrets and unknown stuff that anyone who is a scripter and knows the scripts gets a huge advantage over the other players cause they "don't know how to play right".
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Post by Aiwendil »

if everyone can use magic, then there won't be anything special about it at all. I'd be fine having no mages in Illarion, but not half of the players being mages, or even 10 percent.
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Nalzaxx
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Post by Nalzaxx »

Shandariel el Lysanthrai wrote: I can't agree more. Thats why I am for a balancing of magic powers, and not for a one sided change like what Nalzaxx and Matt suggested. With their change it would suck even bigger for beginning mages since it will be much harder for them.
Yes because it will be much harder for everyone. Which is the point. Currently it is far too easy for mages to destroy everything and there needs to be some way in which fighters can balance the odds. Putting aside a huge recalculation, whicht the VBU will provide anyway, doubling the casting times is a simple easy change that will curb mages destructive power. Im not saying its the best change in the world, or that it will completely fix the magic system. Just that it is a quick change that will make things better for the coming months before the VBU. Furthermore, Nitram has already once introduced much longer casting times, (about 3x iirc), however it was considered far too extreme and led to the casting times we have now.
And the ubermages we got now will still be able to kill anything with ease. They will simply take their high level amethyst wands and reduce casting time from 4 seconds to 2, dodge any melee attack comming in and killing anything off. While laughing about those "noob" mages who are not as mighty as them after the change cause "they simply dont know how to play a mage right".
What the hell? Seriously, where do you get off. Firstly, no-one is rolling in magical amethysts like you seem to suggest. They take about 100 demon mages to collect just one. Secondly, they don't reduce casting times very much at all. Even a level 3 gem takes 9 dropped amethysts to make. There is no intention to 'laugh' at noob mages. What gives you the right to even suggest such behaviour from us. Please don't spout this inflammatory nonsense when you evidently have no idea what you are talking about.
Magic is for tactician? Pff...it is for those powergaming all skills to yellow and knowing the scripts too. It shouldn't be surprising that most of those uberstrong mages with highend skills and all belong to players who also have a better insight into scripts. Or who have good buddies telling them about scripts.
Again this is nothing but insulting and complete nonsense. I would like to remind everyone that the original Samantha Meryadeles was a monstrosity of powergaming that shames even our best efforts. Your insistence that magic is all about skill and scripts just proves further your lack of experience and knowledge in the area.
Make magic finally equal to melee so that noone pwns the other without a fair chance on the same skillevel. Make it easier to be taught and achiefed, restrict the maximum strength of spells to skills in the 90 % area and give mages finally more spells which have nothing to do with killing things. So that they can be also more then just Damagedealer. Currently the usefullness and strength of a mage is determined by his ability to kill of as good as possible npc and player chars. Nothing else. Well...also by summoning portals...and that was it.
This will come with the VBU.
and also make it more fair to those who don't know the scripts too. Currently the game has so many secrets and unknown stuff that anyone who is a scripter and knows the scripts gets a huge advantage over the other players cause they "don't know how to play right".
I have never been a scripter, nor have I seen the scripts for the spells. Everything I have learnt about playing a mage I have learnt by playing a mage. Now stop with this nonsense and try to contribute something constructive other than insults and slander. I think it should be clear to anyone that it is not me and Matt that are arguing for our own vested interests.
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Shandariel el Lysanthrai
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Post by Shandariel el Lysanthrai »

I would like to remind everyone that the original Samantha Meryadeles was a monstrosity of powergaming that shames even our best efforts.
The current Samantha IS the original Samantha. I still have the same skills I got back before I went into break. My highest skill is around 80 % and my second highest around 60 %, probably. Everything else is under 30 - 40 % or not even 10 %.

And concidering that "noob" mage comment. It is what the postings here gave as an expression when you talked about "top mages" and mages who know their trade and such. It sounded as if everyone who doesn't know how to train his magic resistance and his melee skills up to godlike levels can't be concidered a true mage or even a well played mage. Thats what your postings implied. Sorry if that shouldn't be the fact.

But we have to concider the fact that it will make the mages wihout yellow skills in their spells and their melee skills prey to any warrior since the spells will take too long. This is not about making them less powerful...but more about making them helpless. If you need a quick done change, then half the damage of stronger damage spells down and weaken the paralyze and strong healing. That would make the mages less deadly to others but also offers them still a fair chance. But doubling casting time will simply enforce mageplayers to powergame even more. And i mean powergaming dodge so that they won't be killed by any warrior crossing their path.
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Athian
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Post by Athian »

Way to get extremely off topic girls and boys. I see the topic "Natural teaching room" And i come into the same old magical nerf or not nerf discussion.

So whats going to be done about making teaching accessible?


we'll get back to that in a moment

List of dumb idea's:

Increased casting time is stupid
Mages not being able to master certain skills is ridiculous
Further damage reductions and modifications aren't needed

Things that might help:

Make magical monsters weaker so that fighters may train up some degree of resistance...(not that it will help anyway)

Problem: The problem with this is the simple fact that it is not simply the magic systems fault...pay attention now...
Stop creating warriors with the absolute minimums in the magic use attributes We can always weaken magic for npc's but the people who complain the most are the same people that are dong everything in there power to make themselves 100% vulnerable to magic based offense, then they cry that magic is too powerful. Yes its powerful but your also coming from a stand point of the absolutely weakest you can be. punishing mage players because every fighter builds his character to the exact opposite proportion is not fair. Warriors of illarion are punishing themselves by trying to have there cake and eat it too

Make healing items that are more readily available

Mage A gets into a random brawl with Warrior B. Mage A blasts warrior B with a fireball. Warrior B reaches for his healing potion (which aren't interrupted by magic blasts) only to find that because he hadn't thought ahead that there might be a random encounter with a mage and thus didn't petition one of the few and far between druids (our population is small, deal with it) to make him a bundle of ass expensive potions...he's screwed. So yes, items that help with health regeneration being more easily obtainable would be nice. Who gives a crap about the logical circumstances of popping a potion vs magic rape, Its a game.


Magical deadzone for offensive spells

This is a good and bad, since in Illarion speed doesn't really exist (only decreases in one current speed via terrain) this concept makes dealing with some NPC's a pain in the ass (Gnolls, demon skeleton, anything skirting a water tile). Thus I must state that this idea should only affect offensive spells (commotio based spells, Paralyze). To keep mages even with the NPC's they should still retain there ability to heal themselves and distance shrink (teleportation)and impede aggression (flame spells) at close range. As the mage's primary weapon is distance they should not only need to maintain distance for maximum damage output but be geared in a way that rewards staying at range and punishes up close combat (in this case by basically disallowing the use of the major offense spells within X tiles).

The classic mage will have to relearn how to battle warriors or at least be a bit more cautious in these cases. the battlemage as usual is effected less because he or she isn't created in a way that give them maximum magic damage and minimal defense ability (which can't be helped, these people who DIDN'T max there stats one way or the other always come out better then the others)

The idea could use some tweaking but i'm waay to tired right now too care


oh yea, So how about that natural teaching room? Back to topic yes pls? Kthxbye
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Velisai
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Post by Velisai »

...and give mages finally more spells which have nothing to do with killing things. So that they can be also more then just Damagedealer. Currently the usefullness and strength of a mage is determined by his ability to kill of as good as possible npc and player chars. Nothing else. Well...also by summoning portals...and that was it.
Are you serious?

Mages...
are the best damage dealers.
are far better healers than druids.
are the most mobile class of chars.
can access areas no other char can get to.
can break into any buildings with windows. (makes them better thieves than actual thieves)
can kill you from a distance and from the inside of buildings.
can paralyse, tie you up and drag you off. (only non violent way of dealing with criminals etc.)
do not need food.
can summon animals and undead.
speak the language of the gods.
can blow people over uncrossable terrain.
can fetch items via telekinesis, which is mostly useless, but still awesome. (may be used for thievery too)
can do just about EVERYTHING via ritual magic.
are often involved in all kinds of quests just because of their connection to the supernatural.
have the richest background to draw upon for roleplay.
can roleplay various abilities, which runes don't cover.

Now compare that list with a crafter's. Oh, there's no list, because they can only craft a few items and don't even sell anything worthwhile until they are masters.

Fighters? Can kill, but not as well as mages and have to raise at least four skills to higher levels than them, period.

Priests, bards, thieves have no engine abilities at all.
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Pellandria
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Post by Pellandria »

Mr. Cromwell wrote: Yes, we know that teaching system is completely fucked up (sorry, no lesser term sufficiently describes the state of system where we have to tell new players that it's a waste of time even trying to become a mage, because 95% chance is that you won't be able to do that) both by design and implementation (I feel like pointing finger here at your personal responsibility to the state of affairs by keeping the academy exclusive for a long time), but since this is public knowledge there's no need to really go into this.
Let me address this issue here one and for all, I haven't done anything to make the academy exclusiv for anyone, my char merely reacted how any sane, or as sane as Pellandria can be, person would have reacted, as I said countless times before I did not even invent the council in any way and jsut joined, but the idea was great, the academy finally took shape and we tried to do soemthing with it instead of just being an annoying bulding around a free teaching room, furthermore blaming me personally for the leaving of players is just ridicoulus, its not my fault that people leave the game or play on and off again, if I'm the last one standing in the academy, than I can't teach a thousand people a week, you should point your fingers at those who went away from the game for different reasons, not the ones who stayed and tried to kept iit alive.
Mr. Cromwell wrote: Also, for the inevitable moaning; Just because you had to wait for years doesn't mean that it should be the case for others and if magic has too much power to be allowed freely to players of this game (as it's sometimes argued), there can hardly be a more obvious proof that the system has fundamental balance issues which should be adressed.
For the countless balance problem I still don't get why people continously discuss here anyway, the staff won't change a thing anyway in a good 6 months, untill the VBU is out,so really any discussion now is jsut useless, furthermore the past has prooven that the staff does not really listen to the players anyway when it comes to the mage system.

Okay, lets adress equipment dependency:

A naked fight between a warrior and a mage; which one wins? Yeah..
While mage power is amplified by equipment, warriors need good stuff to do anything at all.
I'm always confused...do you ever played a mage as it stands, or do you just look at people and say "ahh yeah hmm I guess it ~is~ so" because at times it seems you have a pretty good insight of the system...at others you complettly take of.

To the naked fight the Mage will probably loose..simply because the fist attack is so incredibly fast that most spells will just be stopped and as I mentioned, even with my 90% Char in skill and more usual stats than the most mages,who jsut min max anyway, most of my Spells are still damm weak, unless I got my equipment on, so that means that a normal unminmaxed char ~needs~ good equipment now..the same goes for figthers and mages the same, if the figthers would not constantly min max their chars they might have a better chance to live longer(see athians post for further explanation).
It takes several minutes for my char to kill a single red, after which he must rest (or blow money on potions) to recover his health. Fighting golems (which are strongest monsters my character has any hope of handling) takes even longer. All of this consumes the equipment of my character, and brings him down in health. Moreover, since my character (like most warriors) is owned by NPC mages just as well as PC mages, he cannot really wander to train into places where there are actually casting NPCs (why do you think everyone camps the red at the graveyard?)... meaning that his training locations are rather limited. Moreover, I personally have seen William elderberry blast away 2 red warriors and 1 red mage, before my char was even able to walk to the first one.
Let me address this first and than we talk about the other stuff. Red's are incredibly vulnerable to magic, reds take normally jsut three qwan spells to be killed, while normal sceletons even take a good 6 or 7 Shots to be downed, so taking the reds here is a rather good move from you, because you probably know how easy they are to down, golems on the other hand are mostly unbeatable by one mage alone and we can't forget the fact that you probably slash all those monsters with swords isntead of taking them out with hammers or staffs, of course a figther will take longer to kill those monsters, but a figther will not need to wait for ages, be carefull about mana consumption and probably running away like a sissy as soon as you see two monsters coming your way.
Also, seeing how Nalzaxx's char (for all intents and purposes) solo'ed a pirate treasure map (2 reds, a ghost and 2 skeleton mages) which resulted in Matt's PG'd warrior being insta-killed and my char driven off to forest, I call bullshit on that. Mana limits mage's ability to kill monsters indeed, but to no more than health bar and health regeneration limit the fighter's chance of killing anything.
Treasure maps are "easy" for any mages out of several reasons..first of al you can prepare, a flame or stonecage can limit the monsters that attack you, a portal out allows you to get off the grid and slowly advance to kill the mosnters one by one, in this case the mage really should take carefull planning, if you got someone who is jsut jumping in a heap of monsters than sadly you can't play a figther at all nor do you have a good mage supporter.Oh and furthermore I have seen chars beating up 5 goolems almsot at the same time...never saw a mage killing any monster that went up to them in a group of three, even the lowest enemys, mummys, could kill a mage if he has no figthing skills at all and gets butchered by 3 fast claw attacks.
What's difference is that mages can actually fight in places where warriors can't go alone, simply because a red mage kills you in about 10 seconds (who are the ones grinding red mages for amethysts anyway? yeah. Who are the reason that magic damage had to be disabled from certain monsters altogether and spawns turned off because these ubermonsters were farmed ridiculously?). Warriors have no hope of fleeing from those NPCs especially in the open unless you're a mage.
Mages have no advantage in fleeing over warriors anyway, they have a disadvantage even, because their three stats essence, will and int, limits them from placing good overall stats anywhere else, the selfteleportation is slower in the open field than jsut walking to that place, of course only when you are not encumbered, of course another advantage is that a mage can blast its enemys into pieces, before they even reach them.
Warriors tend to die a lot more often, not the least because a mage can ultimately heal himself in seconds opposed to a disengaging warrior who (while being shot at or beaten) has to stop, arrange the freaking inventory and then remain motionless or lose the potion.
The healing is nerfed down to almost uselessness, unless you use the better spell to heal you, a normal mes pen will barely keep you alive, unless spawned in a fast rate, which of course burns trougth your mana in a fast rate, furthermore Mana does not replesh or jsut on a very slow level if your food bar sinks under 50% and mana repleshes slower than health so unless you have the advantage to beat up one mosnter at a time you will b in trouble, no matter how awesome your skilsl are.
Moreover, there's not really wear on mage equipment to the same degree as warrior equipment, and due to healing, teleporting, walls and uber damage, are a lot less likely to lose these items anyway.
True the Mage equipment is not really under much stress, because as we pointed out a mage normally kills its enemy before they reach him, but that also means that there are no mosnter drops to replesh their stocks, ligthning blades and even normal useable armors are drop from monsters, atleast high end monsters, more than enough times and because the serinjahs are still the best anyways you can just resupply yourself at the spawnpoint.

I will jsut point out somethign here.
I mean, why do you think Matt and Nalzaxx are saying that magic is overpowered? These guys probably know more about how combat actually works in the game than the people who write the code do ;),
You know the real reason why...because changing the system would do ~nothing~ against them, they probably have extremly powergamed chars anyway and changing the system to make the mages weaker will result in everyone else having to adjust to those changes, everyone except them, because their chars are simply to strong anyway and they will easiyl overcome those changes.
So furthermore is it really smart to trust on people who just seem to be into the game for skillgain and probably freaking out about every swirly? Since when do we chaange the game to mak it easier for powergame to own us all and leave those normal players behind...ohh wait..since every freaking change in the game. Anyway i still think reducing or even killing off the figthing stats for most mages would be nice..
Velisai wrote: Mages...
are the best damage dealers.
true
are far better healers than druids.
Wrong, healing potions can be sipped during figthing without any interruption, healing magic either is so low that its useless, because mage take massiv damage due to the lack of armor, or its casting time is so long that it would probably be killed off, unless you plan ahead and shove a healing in two strikes
are the most mobile class of chars.
Mages have no statpoints they can spend on agility or strength, with the new updates the walking speed is just as fast and even faster on open field than teleporting
can access areas no other char can get to.
Which would be uhh yeah useless small island with nothing in it, they can teleport to use shortcuts, thats true
can break into any buildings with windows. (makes them better thieves than actual thieves)
Not true, you need to *see* inside of the buildings, which is just not given, because most buildings have no windows at the north side, so unless the roof peels away you have no chance to get inside..and the only building I ever got inside to is the farmers union..
can kill you from a distance and from the inside of buildings.
Wrong aswell, you still need to see your target...which means you have to be standing close to a window, that magic is a long rage weapon is a give away..
can paralyse, tie you up and drag you off. (only non violent way of dealing with criminals etc.)
Paralyse is something like 5 seconds...so unless you stand close to your victim you have no chance unless you blow another para on him, which takes some seconds to cast again and of course depending how fast you switch between wand and rope your victim will be free again, not to mention that a two paralyses in such an short order normally kill about 60% of your mana
do not need food.
We actually need more food than a figther or crafter, furthermore food spells are either useless or they are taking a good chunk of your mana aaaand they have an incredibly high cooldown,so making a spell after a food spell normally results in huge loss of mana aswell.
can summon animals and undead.
Which, if aggresief, normally turn immedeatly against their caster and are mana expensiv..and don't respawn...
speak the language of the gods.
Yes aaaand..?
can blow people over uncrossable terrain.
True, but thats mostly limited to 4 or 5 tiles anyway
can fetch items via telekinesis, which is mostly useless, but still awesome. (may be used for thievery too)
True aswell, but the spell is rather long and unless you prepare for it and have it selected the others will have traded or picked up the item, before you have any chance to call it
can do just about EVERYTHING via ritual magic.
Ritual magic is very seldom used and mostly means the mage takes huge risks and most of the ritual magic just changes rp facts, nothing engine related
are often involved in all kinds of quests just because of their connection to the supernatural.
No thats mostly because many mage chars ae money grabbing bastards and hope they get something out of the quest
have the richest background to draw upon for roleplay.
Uhm we all have the same background, unless you mean the five theories of magic
can roleplay various abilities, which runes don't cover.
I have seen druids having the ability to change into a wolf ~ages~ before we had any potions to do that, if you do not think up logical abilities for your char than its barely our fault is it now

Now compare that list with a crafter's. Oh, there's no list, because they can only craft a few items and don't even sell anything worthwhile until they are masters.
Wow you must be kidding me a ~few~ items, more like almost every item in the game, hell they can even produce elemental wands that go for a good 50-60 coins...of course the pure elements you use for them are more expensiv

Fighters? Can kill, but not as well as mages and have to raise at least four skills to higher levels than them, period.
Figthers can kill crowds of enemys better, a mage facing more than two or three enemys is, almost always, lost, just look at the two inquisitors, they hacked and slashed their way to all the big figther and mages we had

Priests, bards, thieves have no engine abilities at all.

Wow is even that the fault of mages?


Furthermore isn't this topic useless now that the academy doors are open anyway...
Last edited by Pellandria on Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:18 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by H.Banestone »

Yes to natural teaching room.
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Post by Velisai »

Stop creating warriors with the absolute minimums in the magic use attributes
Let's imagine a fanatic lizard magehunter. His attributes would be the following:
Strength (12)
Agility (15)
Constitution (12)
Dexterity (6)
Perception (6)
Intelligence (8 )
Willpower (15)
Essence (10)

Now this char would fight without weapons, to be most efficient in the task he's made for. That would mean he can, after a very long and excruciatingly painful time of PGing beat about 90% of the mages without much trouble, but chars like Verdazar would probably still beat him 9 out 10 times. Then there is the fact, that in Illarion we very often have groups of mages, which means he would fail against say Temple or Bearers every single time. Okay, you can create a group of his kind to counter this, but that would be all such chars could ever hope to do with the engine, slaughter mages. Against a real fighter they'd be barely useful.
To be able to do just that alone, you'll need to powergame, obviously on monsters, since mages wouldn't help you gain the ability to kill them later. Skilling the resistance to any respectable level that way will take a year of intensive PG. Who in their right minds would want to do that?

Now let's change stats a little bit to this:
Strength (6)
Agility (12)
Constitution (10)
Dexterity (6)
Perception (6)
Intelligence (14)
Willpower (16)
Essence (14)
Now you have stats for a decent battlemage, who after about the same PG time can own anyone, heal himself, teleport and so on.

This is why fighters don't choose the magekiller class.

Warrior B reaches for his healing potion (which aren't interrupted by magic blasts) only to find that because he hadn't thought ahead that there might be a random encounter with a mage and thus didn't petition one of the few and far between druids (our population is small, deal with it) to make him a bundle of ass expensive potions...he's screwed. So yes, items that help with health regeneration being more easily obtainable would be nice.
A potion that both heals completely and neutralises poison, is one of the least complicated to make, but the required herbs are not always available and it costs 125 copper + herbs to produce. I cba selling them for less than 4 silver a piece, because gathering the herbs and then sorting out the useless ones(clickfest) is making my hand ache and is so boring, I can barely bring up the motivation to supply my own char's need. Also in the time it takes to gather all the needed supplies, I can make more coin in the graveyard, killing demon skeletons. Or I could just fish for maps which is the most lucrative job in the game, requires a minimal amount of clicking and only one tool.

Edit: I've trained quite a lot of alchemists over the last few months by the way, but none of them make you all loads of cheap potions, probably for the above mentioned reasons. Some even gave up completely.

Now I have really drifted off, so on topic I can say that especially after the opening of the academy, a natural teaching room would solve nothing at all.
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Post by Faladron »

An observation I made:

The academy has opened up to the public more in the last weeks than it did in the last 6+ months.
Allowing other characters entrance (like the lizard that will talk about lizardness next week I suppose) further revitalizes the place
and gives characters (teachers, students or whoever) more reason to log-in and Roleplay at the Academy.
Freelance teachers are now, after talking with Kadiya most likely allowed to use the teaching rune for their teaching in almost all cases,
further attracting people to the Academy for Rp.

This also means more people have a fair shot at learning magic now, further discussion about a "Natural Teaching Room" is forfeit imho, as the recent changes pretty much achieve the same effect.

If you want to play an evil mage / mage teacher I'm fairly sure you can come up with one lie or another to now easily gain access to a teaching room because the Academy isn't used as a leverage to force other magic characters into a code of conduct (morally or politically).

All of this seems to be a change for the better at first glance, but it now needs a month or two to realy show whether these meassures have had an impact and might change the public view about learning magic which was up to now "Don't bother it takes ages."

I have also observed that all these changes are closely related to removing / stepping down of one of Pellandria's characters from a position of power.Turns out to be untrue, see post below, it was just a coincidence then and I drew the wrong conclusions.

A character that was very strictly and well played but would only allow the most peerless of students worthy to even consider applying to learn magic.
While the concept was well played, one can't denie that many of the people that received a response to their application that completely crushed their ambitions might have thought all mages are as strict as this, lost interrest and motivation and turned their back on the game.

If you realy checked hard you'd most likely find a flaw in everyones Rp around here one way or the other, and actually noone of us, if you only applied high enough standards to compare against, would be able to properly roleplay a fighter/druid/crafter/mage/whatever.

If somebody has high standards and principles applying to their own roleplaying that is good but you can't compare everyone else to the flawless and excellent role-model, nobody is perfect.

There will always be "average" roleplayers and "outstanding" ones.
But by thinking something should only be worthy for the "outstanding" ones
you create a grudge because people dislike being judged and deemed unworthy.

The now applied changes will help more "average" roleplayers to experience what it's like to play a mage,
while that on the one hand means there will be less mages out of those on the streets that know all runes,
their meaning and the complete history of Lor Angur by heart which might offend some of the "outstanding" mage roleplayers...

It will also mean there will be more people on the streets in total and thus more opportunity,
diversity and fun in the game in total.

You can only help people to improve if you allow them to actually play to get better,
and I think the re-opened Academy will help this cause greatly,
because it gives "average" roleplayers a bigger chance to prove their worth.

Only teaching people that already excell and know everything somewhat negates
the concept and purpose of "teaching" in the first place.

And if a student realy smiles up and does stupid things there are still GM's that will correct that behaviour one way or the other.

Despite my error in picking a wrong example, I think the rest of the post still adresses a mayor point as to why people are acting up about magic every other day, and that the recent IG changes will have a positive impact on how the general public perceives magic.
Last edited by Faladron on Mon Feb 01, 2010 2:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Pellandria »

Actually me leaving had nothign to do with the opening up of the academy to be honest, the plans to kill off the council and opening the academy for everyone would have been against my chars viewpoint of course, but she would have been overruled in the election to this decission.
We had plans for a system like this allready uhm..months ago, when I had a talk with Damien how to get the mage academy back on track, but the christmas session came into the play and we set this all on halt, the plans included to teach mages and warriors alike, if they wanted to and as far as their abilities go, but didn't include a complet opening of the academy as such.

The leaving of my char was caused by the actions of her students, mainly acting just downright dumb all the time and running around with a dunce cap, of course this was just one of many reasons she left, but lsiting them all is jsut too much work..so yes leaving or not leaving the academy would have opend up anyway.
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Post by Faladron »

:oops:
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Post by Llama »

Protip: I'd put ideas somewhere where they can easily be read. Like bullet points after the text, or bolded or something.

Currently I'm just skimming through most, because I'm seeing the usual fight - and I am sure that THE MAJORITY of people who can actually make a difference are like that.

So help the devs help you ;)
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

I would also appreciate a summary. I cannot stand reading these kinds of posts, sorry.

As soon as I read "the staff does not listen", I cease listening, you know :lol:. So, what are your big ideas to improve magic?
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Post by Korwin »

This is probably going to be pretty unpopular, if anyone bothers to read it, but I think mages should be a 'support' class, rather than a 'combat' class. Rather than trying to have fighters and mages have the same offensive capabilities, they should have different areas of expertise. All fighters really have is the ability to kill things, so it doesn't seem reasonable that mages are able to do it better, while doing all these other interesting things.

However, if the mage has combat ability scaled back, I think there's a need to increase its usefulness elsewhere. Certainly mages have a decent bag of tricks right now, but I think it's obvious that right now, the combat aspect is emphasized. What's bothered me recently is that druids have potions with all these interesting effects that mages simply can't do. Despite being a magician, there's a great deal of things my mage needs to buy potions to be able to do.

Of course, it wouldn't be fair if mages could do everything druids can do, while still being better at combat, but if the combat abilities were scaled back, and there were more 'druid-like' spells, I think an empty niche would be filled.
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Post by Athian »

Velisai wrote: Let's imagine a fanatic lizard magehunter. His attributes would be the following:
Strength (12)
Agility (15)
Constitution (12)
Dexterity (6)
Perception (6)
Intelligence (8 )
Willpower (15)
Essence (10)

Now this char would fight without weapons, to be most efficient in the task he's made for. That would mean he can, after a very long and excruciatingly painful time of PGing beat about 90% of the mages without much trouble, but chars like Verdazar would probably still beat him 9 out 10 times. Then there is the fact, that in Illarion we very often have groups of mages, which means he would fail against say Temple or Bearers every single time. Okay, you can create a group of his kind to counter this, but that would be all such chars could ever hope to do with the engine, slaughter mages. Against a real fighter they'd be barely useful.
To be able to do just that alone, you'll need to powergame, obviously on monsters, since mages wouldn't help you gain the ability to kill them later. Skilling the resistance to any respectable level that way will take a year of intensive PG. Who in their right minds would want to do that?

Now let's change stats a little bit to this:
Strength (6)
Agility (12)
Constitution (10)
Dexterity (6)
Perception (6)
Intelligence (14)
Willpower (16)
Essence (14)
Now you have stats for a decent battlemage, who after about the same PG time can own anyone, heal himself, teleport and so on.

This is why fighters don't choose the magekiller class.



Now I have really drifted off, so on topic I can say that especially after the opening of the academy, a natural teaching room would solve nothing at all.

Actually your example of a Battlemage and your magic hunter are absolutely terrible, and anyone using that formula is going to suck massively...don't post things you don't understand, you'll just confuse people pls. And Verd isn't that tough, I can take him :wink:

Your complaint that you have to train for a year etc is absolutely no different then what i said before. You want to have your cake and eat it too. Of course you have to train, so do most those battlemages you mention whom need a minimum of 70% skill in Commotio, Pervestigatio, Magic resistance, dodge, parry, Weapon skill, tactics before they become effective. And of course no one is going to be effective against a group of anyone, not a mage not a battlemage, not a warrior or an archer. More people=Winning the conflict that all there is too it.

As someone who has done this myself I don't see the problem except with peoples laziness. If you don't want to train your character to survive against mage's even though its possible (and can be made more so) then why should the system bend so that people don't have too? Its not as if someone purposely designed something impossible, it just requires work and those whom don't work for it will recieve no reward. Everyone makes the characters as they please and thus you choose your own strengths and weaknesses accordingly. Its time people stopped blaming the system at every turn when a good 60% of it is their faults as well.

~~~~~

Aside from this, i'm still for some sort of natural teaching room. The Bearer and the academy are fine and dandy if you want to join a faction. But this game is about more then these particular groups of people whom for the longest time have had this massive technical advantage and used in both ig and ooc as a means of controlling the who and how of mage's being played. That isn't something any players should be in charge of, because ALL players are bias both oocly and in character. The fact that these teaching rooms have been allowed as they have for so long has only increased the bottleneck these groups create as they fight tooth and nail to protect there exclusive access to the teaching rooms, which to me shows that they care alot less about the game and other players and a lot more about themselves and there accumulation of virtual personal wealth.

I call for an end to this insanity. Pretty please
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Post by Retlak »

I'm going to win regardless the outcome.

-Matt
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Post by Faladron »

http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... 829#609829

"Each teacher, who wishes teach at the Magic Academy, can contact me and he or she will be granted access. "

Postpone the discussion to a later date, once you can see whether this offer was accepted
and changed something regarding freelance teachers and bottle neck situations?
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Post by AlexRose »

Mr. Cromwell wrote:You're classing yourself as a master mage, even though the skill difference between Will and Dom is something in the 25-40 range to Dom's advantage, right (so Will's 60-75 to Dominic's 90-100)? If uncertainty over the outcome of that bout is supposed to mean that the system is balanced, then you're not really making a good case for yourself here, sorry. ;) You also know that Dom is ridiculously well equipped, as he (unlike 95% of warriors) had even drow stuff at his disposal in one point or another, which should be comparable to the stuff that Will uses.
A. Dom never used his drow stuff.
B. Dom had maxed skills. Drow stuff won't raise your skill above 100.
C. My combination of equipment and skill level is pretty much maxed as far as mages can go apart from my magic resistance.

Dom could kill Nalcaryos easily.
Retlak wrote:I'm going to win regardless the outcome.

-Matt
Exactly, and we're going to lose if mages are nerfed. You aren't.

Alright, Pell. I suppose playing a mage has sufficiently alienated you from reality of the game..
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Post by Retlak »

Dom would not kill Nalcaryos easilly.
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