As you all know, we staff members are about to revamp magic. We have some major priorities, some set by players through random discussions, some set by our own values/beliefs. But, before we get too far stuck into it, dare we ask what you'd like to see changed? Is there anything you definitely want 'left alone, dangit'?
Here's our priorities thus far - and let us know if you don't agree with any of them too!
- Fix anything that's obviously broken or redundant
- Add in a variety of 'approaches' to magic to give mages more control over the "personality" of mage they are. (We have thus far brushed on blood magic/demons, elementalists, and high magic/arcanists) Note: This is a place where the staff wildly differ on implementation.
- Implement a few cool things that are just fun
- Make sure that magic has broad appeal in the sense that things mages cast and do are beneficial to RP as opposed to interruptions
- Revitalize the mystery of being a mage
- Keeping a relative balance in ease/difficulty of play
The things we're concerned about:- Massively changing the magic theme
- Creating mages that are combative and trump combat skills/characters in their chosen field
Magic Revamp
Couple points:
1. It'd be nice to see at least ~2 "badass" spells in each element/moon. By "badass" I mean that it gives people a reason to fear you, and when you trigger it even the most hard-core knights run. I'm not saying it should be some sort of instant-kill spell - but it should be of sufficient power that its in the interest of any knight who sees it triggered to retreat.
Personally, I don't think there are many spells that fall into that category, and the ones that do are particularly resilient to having combat initiated against you or to being spat on. It'd be nice if these spells were more resilient to that (and the whole spitting thing needs a major nerf in general), so that if you're in the middle of casting the Epic Spell of Ultimate Destiny, people RUN. The Knights are welcome to come back and beat you down in 5 minutes once the spell is done, but at least for those couple of minutes you're the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Badass. Generally those spells should be threaded too, so you can't just twink out and capture a Knight in an instant.
2. It'd be nice to have more options for mages to capture, rather than kill people. I think in general most people would prefer kidnappings to assassination and murders, but IMHO mages right now don't really have the tools to do so effectively. To kidnap someone, you need (1) away to incapacitate/disarm and restrain/keep incapacitated, (2) a means to transport relatively "safely" back to your home base. What would be nice to see is more spells along those lines. I'd much rather see a mage turn someone into a doll and take them back to their lair or teleport them to a cell in their hideout than see them knock them down with a spell and then whack them with a club until they die.
1. It'd be nice to see at least ~2 "badass" spells in each element/moon. By "badass" I mean that it gives people a reason to fear you, and when you trigger it even the most hard-core knights run. I'm not saying it should be some sort of instant-kill spell - but it should be of sufficient power that its in the interest of any knight who sees it triggered to retreat.
Personally, I don't think there are many spells that fall into that category, and the ones that do are particularly resilient to having combat initiated against you or to being spat on. It'd be nice if these spells were more resilient to that (and the whole spitting thing needs a major nerf in general), so that if you're in the middle of casting the Epic Spell of Ultimate Destiny, people RUN. The Knights are welcome to come back and beat you down in 5 minutes once the spell is done, but at least for those couple of minutes you're the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Badass. Generally those spells should be threaded too, so you can't just twink out and capture a Knight in an instant.
2. It'd be nice to have more options for mages to capture, rather than kill people. I think in general most people would prefer kidnappings to assassination and murders, but IMHO mages right now don't really have the tools to do so effectively. To kidnap someone, you need (1) away to incapacitate/disarm and restrain/keep incapacitated, (2) a means to transport relatively "safely" back to your home base. What would be nice to see is more spells along those lines. I'd much rather see a mage turn someone into a doll and take them back to their lair or teleport them to a cell in their hideout than see them knock them down with a spell and then whack them with a club until they die.
Well, I'm not against Heir to Kingdom of Badass, so long as it's not combative. We have some of those in the form of travel spells and invisibility, etc. These things are the spells that make people want to be a particular type of mage.
I do like the points about spells to make kidnapping easier, and I can see this as well. I need to ponder it. Limitations are an issue because it takes freedom away from another player, so this type of spell would need to be well-integrated into play where it's something people welcome rather than think "Dude, you just voidtouched me for the 20th time in a row. Please piss off." I'm sure it can be done, though.
Finally, one thing about epic spells that I want to keep in mind is how easy it is to repeat epic-ness over and over again b/c the game is designed for 'you have this spell, so you have it'. I think what might be cool for Baddassery would be things where you have spells that, over time, produce a result - like making an effigy of a person and controling them (hey, could that be used for kidnapping?), but it'd be limited in its ability to just frak with someone continously with no limit.
I do like the points about spells to make kidnapping easier, and I can see this as well. I need to ponder it. Limitations are an issue because it takes freedom away from another player, so this type of spell would need to be well-integrated into play where it's something people welcome rather than think "Dude, you just voidtouched me for the 20th time in a row. Please piss off." I'm sure it can be done, though.
Finally, one thing about epic spells that I want to keep in mind is how easy it is to repeat epic-ness over and over again b/c the game is designed for 'you have this spell, so you have it'. I think what might be cool for Baddassery would be things where you have spells that, over time, produce a result - like making an effigy of a person and controling them (hey, could that be used for kidnapping?), but it'd be limited in its ability to just frak with someone continously with no limit.
Void touch was so prone to abuse because it could be cast from afar with no repercussions. It seems like with the policy changes it's been working well though.
IMHO if you're casting the spell in person and it takes time to cast, the risk of discovery or of your victim fleeing is enough to keep it from being abused. It's not all that easy to find a secluded enough place to do this without getting caught and still have the victim actually show up. I don't think you should fail from your victim just spitting on you or hitting you with a stick though.
And it'd be good if you could at least RP in such a way that you could RP removing the victim's weapons/possessions like the Knights do before they revert back (or after). Not much sense in kidnapping a person if you can't rp with them while they're in captivity
IMHO if you're casting the spell in person and it takes time to cast, the risk of discovery or of your victim fleeing is enough to keep it from being abused. It's not all that easy to find a secluded enough place to do this without getting caught and still have the victim actually show up. I don't think you should fail from your victim just spitting on you or hitting you with a stick though.
And it'd be good if you could at least RP in such a way that you could RP removing the victim's weapons/possessions like the Knights do before they revert back (or after). Not much sense in kidnapping a person if you can't rp with them while they're in captivity
I would also like to see more combination of spells, like different elements combining spells to garnish one effect...that would be neat. I know there is a few now, but far in between in not very effective. Some are very effective but, more would be cool.
The one thing I'm leery about with making 'kidnapping' easier is that it starts as making kidnapping easier, and unfortunately would inevitably lead to some people using it to just restrain people, lead them off somewhere where help for the kidnapee cannot arrive, then pummel them with sticks to death. This is then viewed as not an auto-kill spell, but it pretty much is. In DND you might call it a save or lose kind of spell, which is fairly unbalancing.
Mages had (maybe still have?) spells to make their pursuers or targets -suck- and be basically useless either 'temporarily', which is often a relatively long duration(plenty of time for them flee, or even get in a few parting shots) or semi-permanently. I think these kinds of spells combined with combat abilities should be enough for the person(s) to kidnap their target, or maybe they shouldn't target that particular person. With combat as it it, it's probably not hard for a couple of mages to use these save or suck spells and then through teamwork kidnap the majority of PCs if they so chose, and if they planned appropriately.
The current proposed suggestion leads me to think that this might evolve into an auto-restrain equivalent spell, which is kind of ridiculous IMO because being restrained makes you very helpless, or near helpless(or did), and if it works the same way as the normal restrain, it would make it so that it's not only automatic, but more or less permanent too(permanent until the caster decides to release them, or restrains them through more mundane means.)
I'm also more than a little leery about the idea of people being able to control others. I've seen it done in the past, and the way it used to work was powerful, but it was limited by a few things which made it balanced.
If this effigy thing is a way to do a long-range control over a person, I have to say I'm very much opposed to it. You'd basically be taking all of the issues with people abusing void touch and substituting void touch for a much more potent spell and stripping it of the balancing factors of the more potent spell (which I'm not mentioning here for the sake of keeping up the mystery, though staff I'm sure at least know what I'm talking about). Which even for an 'epic' spell, would be like over the top to an insane degree.
I do think that it would be nice for mages to have access to 'epic' spells that take a lot of actual effort to pull off, but aren't spamable just because they know them. I really don't know much/anything about the 'preparing' of spells for readiness, but maybe these kinds of spells should/could have some sort of (preferably rare/very uncommon) components, an extended 'timer'/cooldown between uses, or maybe could permanently/temporarily lower some stats, health, make them unable to cast spells for a while, etc. etc.
Mages had (maybe still have?) spells to make their pursuers or targets -suck- and be basically useless either 'temporarily', which is often a relatively long duration(plenty of time for them flee, or even get in a few parting shots) or semi-permanently. I think these kinds of spells combined with combat abilities should be enough for the person(s) to kidnap their target, or maybe they shouldn't target that particular person. With combat as it it, it's probably not hard for a couple of mages to use these save or suck spells and then through teamwork kidnap the majority of PCs if they so chose, and if they planned appropriately.
The current proposed suggestion leads me to think that this might evolve into an auto-restrain equivalent spell, which is kind of ridiculous IMO because being restrained makes you very helpless, or near helpless(or did), and if it works the same way as the normal restrain, it would make it so that it's not only automatic, but more or less permanent too(permanent until the caster decides to release them, or restrains them through more mundane means.)
I'm also more than a little leery about the idea of people being able to control others. I've seen it done in the past, and the way it used to work was powerful, but it was limited by a few things which made it balanced.
If this effigy thing is a way to do a long-range control over a person, I have to say I'm very much opposed to it. You'd basically be taking all of the issues with people abusing void touch and substituting void touch for a much more potent spell and stripping it of the balancing factors of the more potent spell (which I'm not mentioning here for the sake of keeping up the mystery, though staff I'm sure at least know what I'm talking about). Which even for an 'epic' spell, would be like over the top to an insane degree.
I do think that it would be nice for mages to have access to 'epic' spells that take a lot of actual effort to pull off, but aren't spamable just because they know them. I really don't know much/anything about the 'preparing' of spells for readiness, but maybe these kinds of spells should/could have some sort of (preferably rare/very uncommon) components, an extended 'timer'/cooldown between uses, or maybe could permanently/temporarily lower some stats, health, make them unable to cast spells for a while, etc. etc.
I'd agree with Jei on the effigy-from-afar point completely.
On the "trapping" spells point though - those spells do/should take time to cast. People can/should flee before they come into effect too. Moreover, mages can only have one spell readied at a time, and it takes a decent chunk of time to re-cast a spell. And I certainly think the "evoke" (preparation) phase of spell casting should be interruptable by combat.
On the save or lose point - what do you call regular combat? Or the restrain command that lawful types get? Knights have these tools at their disposal - what's missing is the other side of the equation. My understanding is that the way combat was designed, 3 competent fighters should be able to take down anyone in the game. If there were a large group of players itching to PK more, they'd be doing it right now, and it wouldn't be as mages. What's missing are the tools to bring someone under your control without killing them. I'll agree that any restrain spell shouldn't be indefinite though. It should be long enough to bring throw a cloak on someone, bring them back to your lair, and take their weapons from them though.
A thought that struct me too is that it'll need to be a bit less susceptible to asinine delaying tactics. I played a Knight for two years on old-TI, and it was pretty rare that I encountered a suspect who actually tried to fight me or cast spells on me. What was frequent was people trying to twink the code with stalling tactics - running away while in combat, dropping stuff from their inventory randomly on the ground, etc etc. While annoying, that wasn't as big a deal because there wasn't all that much risk for me when I was dragging someone through the streets out in the open. Even if the person continued to be a real problem and abused flaws in the code, I could always speak to the staff and get things dealt with - the staff could just transfer the twink to the cell.
The difference with mages though is that these sort of stalling tactics can have a much more negative effect. If your target decides to be a bad RPer and just chuck their inventory everywhere and then go link dead, there's a decent change someone will spot you because of it. And if they keep somehow pulling off their cloak evening though they're bound and gagged, that can get you killed too. Once it gets out that you're a mage and starts spreading ICly, even with a null this is hard to stop. So I wonder if perhaps any restraint spells need to be a bit more resilient to twinks than restraint is?
On the "trapping" spells point though - those spells do/should take time to cast. People can/should flee before they come into effect too. Moreover, mages can only have one spell readied at a time, and it takes a decent chunk of time to re-cast a spell. And I certainly think the "evoke" (preparation) phase of spell casting should be interruptable by combat.
On the save or lose point - what do you call regular combat? Or the restrain command that lawful types get? Knights have these tools at their disposal - what's missing is the other side of the equation. My understanding is that the way combat was designed, 3 competent fighters should be able to take down anyone in the game. If there were a large group of players itching to PK more, they'd be doing it right now, and it wouldn't be as mages. What's missing are the tools to bring someone under your control without killing them. I'll agree that any restrain spell shouldn't be indefinite though. It should be long enough to bring throw a cloak on someone, bring them back to your lair, and take their weapons from them though.
A thought that struct me too is that it'll need to be a bit less susceptible to asinine delaying tactics. I played a Knight for two years on old-TI, and it was pretty rare that I encountered a suspect who actually tried to fight me or cast spells on me. What was frequent was people trying to twink the code with stalling tactics - running away while in combat, dropping stuff from their inventory randomly on the ground, etc etc. While annoying, that wasn't as big a deal because there wasn't all that much risk for me when I was dragging someone through the streets out in the open. Even if the person continued to be a real problem and abused flaws in the code, I could always speak to the staff and get things dealt with - the staff could just transfer the twink to the cell.
The difference with mages though is that these sort of stalling tactics can have a much more negative effect. If your target decides to be a bad RPer and just chuck their inventory everywhere and then go link dead, there's a decent change someone will spot you because of it. And if they keep somehow pulling off their cloak evening though they're bound and gagged, that can get you killed too. Once it gets out that you're a mage and starts spreading ICly, even with a null this is hard to stop. So I wonder if perhaps any restraint spells need to be a bit more resilient to twinks than restraint is?
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