Knights vs Mages - Game Design

[Kinaed]

Greetings,

We've made a few changes to the tools knights have to capture mages recently. I had a couple of mages approach me recently concerned the changes make knights too powerful. The staff and I have discussed these concerns, and we feel it's appropriate to reiterate the game design principles in which TI is based, particularly in terms of the mage vs knight conflict.

Firstly, being a mage has great perks. Just at a random sampling, mages can:

• spy on people's thoughts,
• meld with shadows
• send dreams through the ether,
• teleport,
• move invisibly,
• cure diseases,
• transmogrify a person's identity
• ... and 70+ other things.

The point being, it is FUN to play a mage. If nothing else, you can do a lot of crazy shit the average character can't. But there is a price. If a mage gets caught, they're probably going to die. TI is crystal clear that this is what probably will happen to a mage upon character creation. That's right, we all know there's a huge warning sticker IN CHARGEN.

Once and awhile, when I hear these "balance" concerns crop up, it seems that people forget that the winning condition for mages is staying alive. It is not taking a knight on toe-to-toe. The biggest tool in the survival game is anonymity.

None of the tools we have recently provided knights impacts a mage's anonymity. At best, it's a bit riskier to cast in public now, but our view is that casting in public should be rare, and risky - because, again, theme. Mages should be lurking in the shadows, not flying overhead, blocking out the sun and cackling, "Run, run, as fast as you can; you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"

So, to reiterate what I've said clearly on other threads - BY DESIGN, mages defeating knights in direct, combative conflict is not the game-play intent of TI. A combat confrontation is intended to result in a knight victory.

Knowing this, mages, please re-frame what it means to be victorious as a mage. Every time you cast a spell and get away with it, you win. Every time you get a new regnant, you win. Every time you cement a new heretic contact, you win. Every time you build a coven, you win. Every time you summon a demon, you win. Every time you send someone a nightmare, you win. Every time you claw your way to the top echelons of a guild, you win. Every time you lie about what you are, and people believe you, you win.

There are endless victories for mages, all the more precious because of the danger they must overcome to seize them.

[vaxin]

I agree and understand that Knights must be able to apprehend mages or the theme of the game breaks down. The problem I personally have when Knights are too strong is that it stifles risk-taking. Mages only get caught when they take risks, when they use magic. Risks by mages drive RP for everyone. They give the Order RP, they give Physicans RP, and they make the game a more interesting place. The changes are discouraging the use of magic, and not rewarding those who are willing to gamble with the hundreds of hours they've invested into a character. The Knights have the ability to coordinate and are all strong combat characters with guards and plate and damascus. Very few people can take them toe-to-toe in combat even with magic, but these changes are also making it hard to run from them. I could play this game and never die, but that would be insufferably boring.

Why does it need to be framed as victory or loss? Victory for me is when I have a glorious death, when I have a deep conversation with an interviewing Inquisitor. I don't care that I won't be able to kill Knights, I care that I won't be able to test myself against them because the outcome will be pre-determined. The game of cat and mouse is no fun if the mouse doesn't play.

[Rabek]

Maybe it would help everyone to be on the same page if these supposed changes were actually listed somewhere. I don't see them on the changelog. I didn't see any forum post about it.

[Misstery]

Likewise, I would like to see how Knights have been beefed up and a list of all the down grades to magic to get a better idea. Also, these changes can majorly affect PCs so having them communicated would be helpful! Otherwise people find out something has been changed while they use it when it can be a life/death situation. More info please, then I'd like to toss in my thoughts.

[myarta]

The Knights have the ability to coordinate and are all strong combat characters with guards and plate and damascus.

There's three with plate, one with damascus, and two have one guard each.

[Rothgar]

As I've been able to play both sides in depth, I'd be really interested to see what those who play current-day Mages believe puts them on a disadvantageous setting. I still remember playing without even having Mattack.

I'd also be interested to see some Knights up in here talking about what they'd been given - I'm assuming that we're generally talking about the addition of certain IC items.

[Kinaed]

Um, I think any changes made are in the change log. We're not hiding anything. If something is missing, it's an oversight, not deliberate obfuscation.

Changes I know about:
- Mage ash hinders mages carrying it.
- Orbs do random, reduced damage.
- Orbs are no longer on a fixed timer.

There are other changes on the bugs board that haven't gone in yet.

[Tasker]

I'll start by saying that Knights are defiantly not overpowered in the slightest, I don't know where this idea may have come from because Knights seem to lose almost all of the engagements they enter into. The only advantage Knights have over Mages is that they are able to work in public, in the open... but in recent times, so have Mages because we just have no legitimate countermeasures that we can rely on. Especially now that the Manus is back, and they can act in an organised group.

Currently, the Knights only have two main combatants, one of which is now out for the count - and please remember, steel and weapons are not just limited to Knights. Most of the Mages who actually cause trouble from what I've seen, are decked out in steel also and are formidable fighters even without Magic. I'm not saying that Mages should not be allowed to be fighters, but again that negates our advantage of being trained 'Elite'.

In my time on TI, being a Knight and the Earl Marshal; We've only caught a very small handful of Mages, and only the weak/new ones who don't really know the mechanics and tricks of the trade (And we more or less bumped into them by accident, one of which logged in right as we were searching his hideaway.) To capture a Mage who is played by someone who knows all the code mechanics, all the tricks and how best to use all the spells... is just impossible without some major luck. They have so many ways to beat and overcome us I really do not see how anyone can complain, even with the new changes it's not really going to make it any easier for the Knights to actually beat the powerful Mages. In fact, I would say they should complain that the Knights are much too easy to beat. I know I would be bored if I were a mage, and every engagement I got into I knew the result right off the bat.

On the Mage side, if they really want to find someone and kill them... there isn't really a lot that can be done to stop it, eventually they're going to be able to do it. They could kill the entire Order if they wanted to, one by one.

In answer to Rothgar's question about the items, still very few and very limited in their use. The only new item I'm aware of are the wax balls, but we were not given specific answers to what they actually do. Mage ash already existed in its state of having questionable use and almost impossible to get without RPA, or burning a Mage... which to do so probably requires Mage ash during the arrest unless we'd get very lucky, so that's a bit of a catch 22.

I'm not having a go or anything, I just want people in this thread to understand the view from the other side. I'm not suggesting that Knights should become bamf demi-gods able to dispel all with a glance, and merely gaze upon a Mage to win the encounter. It's just, when you've a character on the front lines it does get very frustrating and very hard to adhere to the theme of Mages being the hunted and persecuted; where as gridwise it is the total opposite.

[Noobus]

Knights do have countermeasures against any and all mages they meet--> Ashes. I don't know if those using them do realize this but Ashes are basically a default 'I caught you' regardless of what type of mage you are facing. Now a mage can set up all they want, all you need to do is dust them and get past their defense roll to strip them of any and all spells they have evoked and that 'emergency' spell for when things go wrong. So it really doesn't take any major luck but a bit of planning and refusing bait. Again, a powerful mage is one who most likely relies on magic for success whether you see the spells being invoked before you or not and the ashes, one simple dust, can shatter past all that and this being just one function of the ashes. I was fine with this until the output of ashes was increased.

The complaints Kin got were probably changes regarding the Randomizing of the timer on Watermelons and the fact that you couldn't invoke long distance spells on someone who had ashes in their inv(Tested this yesterday, I could not cast on someone who was online, visible and not link dead), though another test recently using the same spell had some results so I am unsure of what was happening there. As for Randomizing both the timer and damage, the former does not sit well with me since magic has been mostly about careful planning and timing, this change takes that away and you have to imbue the stuff and pray that the seed value is high enough to actually let you do what you want to do.... unless the watermelons were meant to be unpredictable in the first place. I am not really concerned with the latter.

I am beginning to feel as if there is this conception that playing a mage is really 'easy' and you get to 'win' by default and I can say that having played a few mages now, it is not as easy as it seems. It takes a LOT of time and a LOT of risk to actually reach that point. A mage's worst enemy is most likely their friend as opposed to any knight and they need those friends to become powerful. It isn't without risk.

PS: Catching a 'powerful' mage really takes secrecy above all else. You will never catch a mage who knows you are coming for them, they will come for you instead. I say this because in one of my mages, I had always known I was in trouble and I always picked it up on the street. Which really boils down to in game decisions than mages being actually elusive, WTF powerful mages have been caught before and it will happen again. So no, capturing a mage who knows all that doesn't take luck but being prepared.

PSS: Knights are not too easy to overpower. It has been more mages getting away than actually mages getting away while leaving unconscious Knights on their wake as was the case before the mattack change. 1v1, that is an even play field and anything above that has not and will never be even.

[Voxumo]

the fact that you couldn't invoke long distance spells on someone who had changes

Can you elaborate a little on this? The way I'm reading this is you can't cast on anyone who isn't in the immediate room, but that can't be right?