Magic Discussion - Kinky's Notes
I would like to see piety as the 'armor' of mattack. But, perhaps I am a little biased to that point. My argument is that it provides one area in which everyone can have some slight defense against magic. If you want to revamp the piety system to be more 'fair' in this aspect, I don't have any problem with that.
@Jei - Maybe both can be done? Have strengths/weaknesses between elements and between regular combat and elements? That'd certainly be appealing to me.
@Bennie - I'm still waffling on this issue myself. One thing to keep in mind is that these skills will be used against other mages as often if not more often than against knights. But perhaps it should work differently when a mage is fighting a mage than when they are fighting a knight.
What about something like this: Armour rating vs magic = base armour rating * (PIETY/MAX PIETY). So your steel armour becomes more effective as you become more pious.
That could be further modified to armour vs magic = base armour * (0.5 + 0.5*(PIETY/MAX PIETY)). That'd make it less dramatic but still effective.
@Bennie - I'm still waffling on this issue myself. One thing to keep in mind is that these skills will be used against other mages as often if not more often than against knights. But perhaps it should work differently when a mage is fighting a mage than when they are fighting a knight.
What about something like this: Armour rating vs magic = base armour rating * (PIETY/MAX PIETY). So your steel armour becomes more effective as you become more pious.
That could be further modified to armour vs magic = base armour * (0.5 + 0.5*(PIETY/MAX PIETY)). That'd make it less dramatic but still effective.
I sort of think Piety being used is a bit silly, in my own personal opinion. I mean, piety is just that, faith. And it requires no xp to learn, nor learn master slots to take up. Its sort of a free skill that everyone can learn or advance. And its not hard.
In concept of the game itself, piety is simply faith. While I might be religious in person, i dont ever see the Lord himself come down to bestow amazing grace on things, and i never see the Lord descending from the heavens to smite his foes or grant strength to people.
Personally, i think people are really looking too far into the fact Mattack will bypass armor, and in a sense it should. If a fire mage sends fire at a knight, that armor is going to get hot. If a mage summons a bolt of lightning, your a giant conductor. Void mages, given what they represent, wont matter because they are about getting in your head. The only elements that I could see getting effected really would be earth and water, and even then I could think of legit reasons as to why there mattack would bypass armor.
Perhaps, instead of thinking of ways why mattack should NOT bypass armor, we can concentrate on the penalties that using the mattack imposes. Like, perhaps it takes more MV costs to mattack, vice swinging a sword or something.
Other than mage v mage, i do like the concept of certain elements having strengths and weaknesses within that little circle. That would be neat.
In concept of the game itself, piety is simply faith. While I might be religious in person, i dont ever see the Lord himself come down to bestow amazing grace on things, and i never see the Lord descending from the heavens to smite his foes or grant strength to people.
Personally, i think people are really looking too far into the fact Mattack will bypass armor, and in a sense it should. If a fire mage sends fire at a knight, that armor is going to get hot. If a mage summons a bolt of lightning, your a giant conductor. Void mages, given what they represent, wont matter because they are about getting in your head. The only elements that I could see getting effected really would be earth and water, and even then I could think of legit reasons as to why there mattack would bypass armor.
Perhaps, instead of thinking of ways why mattack should NOT bypass armor, we can concentrate on the penalties that using the mattack imposes. Like, perhaps it takes more MV costs to mattack, vice swinging a sword or something.
Other than mage v mage, i do like the concept of certain elements having strengths and weaknesses within that little circle. That would be neat.
@Enix:
First of all, we're going from magic being almost never used in direct combat to it now being a skill, a weapon(that bypasses armor no less) and with the added bonus of accessing more spells the higher each spell each skill is. That's a lot of bang for one skill slot, IMO.
I've heard nothing to say that mages would be at all impeded by wearing armor, which is the fantasy typical standard, though it doesn't have to be a TI standard.. and sounds like it will not be. That means, theoretically, a knight char could have a couple defenses and a weapon skill (3 skills) allocated to learn master slots, which is a decent combat build, but they also have to purchase armor (thousands of silver in value) and a weapon(if damascus, also thousands of silver).
The proposed mattack seems to suggest that with a comparable amount of skill slots, a mage will skill ranks equal to those of the knight above would have a weapon free of charge, up to damascus in 'quality', and would bypass completely(or mostly, depending on how effective piety is as armor) the armor that said knight would have had to invest coin in.
That alone means that with comparable skill slots, a mage is as well equipped weaponwise as a knight or whatever who invested in high quality weaponry, has more or less equal defense to that of their opponent(even if the knight is unarmored, thanks to mattack bypassing armor) AND they would also have access to various non-combat spells, which I won't go into detail in, but I think you would know that they can easily use those spells to give them in edge in combat.
To top it off, the mage can, AFAIK, also wear armor without penalty, which means while a mage, buffed by his own spells or after debuffing his opponent, could be wearing steel(which cannot be bypassed by normal means) and would then be blasting down their opponent.
I personally don't find any of that fair. In the example above, the mage and knight have invested basically the same amount of skill slots, but the knight has invested thousands of silver in armor/weapons, and would be more or less equal to a mage who is unarmored. If the mage went on to invest in armor, said knight would be theoretically already at a disadvantage as the mage's armor absorbs 1/8-1/2 of all incoming damage, while their own 'armor' does absolutely nothing for them. Then, add in those non combat spells I mentioned, and the mage is just basically an 'I win' button, which would completely destroy the theme of the game and send it into upheaval.
I personally think that mages are getting a buttload for the skill slot investment they're putting forth. I'd like to see 'mattack' as a separate skill from whatever the other skills are, and I'd like to see 'armor penetration' as a technique for mages only. Otherwise, each skill slot the mage uses to invest in a mage related element, or whatever(I don't know what the specific skill names are, as I haven't played a mage), is doing a BUNCH more for them than each skill slot a knight(or whatever: non-mage) is getting for each skill slot they use to invest in.
In summary. Let's say the 'fire' skill is one of them, that's 1)combat accuracy/damage 2)a weapon 3) armor penetration 4) skill that unlocks other spells, all rolled into one. Whereas the skill 'sword' is just: 1) combat accuracy/damage.
It's.. just a little ridiculous. Am I the only one who feels that way?
First of all, we're going from magic being almost never used in direct combat to it now being a skill, a weapon(that bypasses armor no less) and with the added bonus of accessing more spells the higher each spell each skill is. That's a lot of bang for one skill slot, IMO.
I've heard nothing to say that mages would be at all impeded by wearing armor, which is the fantasy typical standard, though it doesn't have to be a TI standard.. and sounds like it will not be. That means, theoretically, a knight char could have a couple defenses and a weapon skill (3 skills) allocated to learn master slots, which is a decent combat build, but they also have to purchase armor (thousands of silver in value) and a weapon(if damascus, also thousands of silver).
The proposed mattack seems to suggest that with a comparable amount of skill slots, a mage will skill ranks equal to those of the knight above would have a weapon free of charge, up to damascus in 'quality', and would bypass completely(or mostly, depending on how effective piety is as armor) the armor that said knight would have had to invest coin in.
That alone means that with comparable skill slots, a mage is as well equipped weaponwise as a knight or whatever who invested in high quality weaponry, has more or less equal defense to that of their opponent(even if the knight is unarmored, thanks to mattack bypassing armor) AND they would also have access to various non-combat spells, which I won't go into detail in, but I think you would know that they can easily use those spells to give them in edge in combat.
To top it off, the mage can, AFAIK, also wear armor without penalty, which means while a mage, buffed by his own spells or after debuffing his opponent, could be wearing steel(which cannot be bypassed by normal means) and would then be blasting down their opponent.
I personally don't find any of that fair. In the example above, the mage and knight have invested basically the same amount of skill slots, but the knight has invested thousands of silver in armor/weapons, and would be more or less equal to a mage who is unarmored. If the mage went on to invest in armor, said knight would be theoretically already at a disadvantage as the mage's armor absorbs 1/8-1/2 of all incoming damage, while their own 'armor' does absolutely nothing for them. Then, add in those non combat spells I mentioned, and the mage is just basically an 'I win' button, which would completely destroy the theme of the game and send it into upheaval.
I personally think that mages are getting a buttload for the skill slot investment they're putting forth. I'd like to see 'mattack' as a separate skill from whatever the other skills are, and I'd like to see 'armor penetration' as a technique for mages only. Otherwise, each skill slot the mage uses to invest in a mage related element, or whatever(I don't know what the specific skill names are, as I haven't played a mage), is doing a BUNCH more for them than each skill slot a knight(or whatever: non-mage) is getting for each skill slot they use to invest in.
In summary. Let's say the 'fire' skill is one of them, that's 1)combat accuracy/damage 2)a weapon 3) armor penetration 4) skill that unlocks other spells, all rolled into one. Whereas the skill 'sword' is just: 1) combat accuracy/damage.
It's.. just a little ridiculous. Am I the only one who feels that way?
I am all for an armored mage receiving a penalty of some sort, but in retrospect, an armor bypassing attack that has possibly DOUBLE the mv costs as per se a swing of the sword I would feel is quite fair. The way the combat code works, is your defense gets worse with the drainage of MV's anyway. So no, i really dont find the concept that out of place to have mattack bypass armor. I also dont think any of those other skills should be implemented either, not yet at least. Combat isnt even technically finished, per se. No techniques and such yet aside from protect.
A mage is required to learn master magic slots in order to be effective anyway, so your forgetting that a mage, must dump alot into wis and int for learn master slots. This in turn takes away from the other core stats such as str, dex, con. While you may be worried they have such said attack, one of two things are going to falter, in thier HPs, MVs, or something else. Thats just the way I see it, personally.
And i do agree that certain defenses should be strong against certain elements, the only element I dont see this effecting is Void, because thats all mental, and maybe just have Void with the weapon equilivant to a steel weapon, rather than a damascus steel or somthing. I dont know. Just thoughts.
A mage is required to learn master magic slots in order to be effective anyway, so your forgetting that a mage, must dump alot into wis and int for learn master slots. This in turn takes away from the other core stats such as str, dex, con. While you may be worried they have such said attack, one of two things are going to falter, in thier HPs, MVs, or something else. Thats just the way I see it, personally.
And i do agree that certain defenses should be strong against certain elements, the only element I dont see this effecting is Void, because thats all mental, and maybe just have Void with the weapon equilivant to a steel weapon, rather than a damascus steel or somthing. I dont know. Just thoughts.
I would also like to add that, if a Mage is 'well-prepared' then he/she should in even terms win a fight, or escape one. The element of surprise has always worked in everyone's favor, ever since i have been playing here. So if its a coordinated effort, well planned out, and everything is prepared in the sense that it should be, then yes. A mage should def be able to take down a knight. And even more so multiple mages, for that matter.
I think too, multiple mages taken by surprise should be able to defend themselves effectively.
One thing to consider - if mages can't wear armour and their attacks ignore it, that is in and of itself balanced. I'm not sure that's the direction to take, but something to consider.
On the void point - doesn't the void include cold too? So physical attacks still work there. And entropy too (ie decay).
One thing to consider - if mages can't wear armour and their attacks ignore it, that is in and of itself balanced. I'm not sure that's the direction to take, but something to consider.
On the void point - doesn't the void include cold too? So physical attacks still work there. And entropy too (ie decay).
Hehe, I've obviously been off and not reading the forums with my usual gusto. :)
Some notes to touch on points people raised in all of this:
- The current "quality of the weapon" increasing over skill level is exactly in-line with hand-to-hand's progression, actually (as I wrote it when I submitted it to Az awhile back). I shouldn't have said damascus - did I really? I apologies for the offhand exaggeration - as hand-to-hand doesn't quite get up that high, but it does do enough damage to be a viable, dangerous weapon.
- Yes, mattack is a "free" weapon. This may be cheaper for those characters silver-wise, but I don't really see that as being a great issue. What's more important to me is that the math works out reasonably when two people using differing strategies step up to a fight. Everyone in the game has equal access to most combative things, and a mage can come wielding a damascus weapon as easily as a knight can (well, maybe less so given that the Knights Lithmorran actually have a decent treasury, but the Manus... well... let's say they're poor).
- evoking spells during combat is not possible and probably never will be.
- invoking spells during combat (as someone mentioned as preferable to mattack) may be eventually be possible. In any regard, this will all have to wait for a magic revamp, and is definitely not in the near-term cards.
- There are three combat techniques in game, not "only one": dual wield, protect, and backstab.
- I take some of Jei's points, though I do think he's overstating the issue to the extreme. Reading his posts, I gather he believes 'knights are totally undermined and not viable' if mattack bypasses armor. Bypassing armor will not, in and of itself, make a knight a sitting duck. 1) Knights can take piety easily enough (as someone mentioned, it's ridiculously easy to get it, and it is an immediate nerf to mattack), 2) it doesn't cost silver the way armor does... which means whilst mages are getting a free weapon, knights (and everyone else) are getting a 'free defense' to said weapon, and 3) the damage mattack does isn't crazy, insane awesome - at its extreme highest levels, it's still constrained to that of a quality weapon).
- I agree mattack should bypass armor because of what it is and how it would present itself in play - yes, we're talking about fireballs, lightning strikes and the like. I can't see how a tin can is going to protect someone against that, and it seemed like a fun twist to throw in, so that's why mattack bypasses armor. Mattack isn't about unbalancing the game, it's about giving a nod to players that magic is dangerous and can be used destructively. That it never could in the past was solely because there was no way in-game to create a decent, streamlined code integration of magic into combat.
- Piety, given that it's not hard to get, and almost anyone can easily have it (and knights especially thematically would probably be of this persuasion culturally), making piety armor against mattack means that the people most vulnerable to mattack are OTHER MAGES as mages are unlikely to be highly pious. From a 'behind the scenes standpoint', I beg to differ with the opinion that this would be out of theme, though my reasoning on this is something kinda buried in staff pockets for some time and not fleshed out to the pbase, so I can understand people having differing views. In short, we've put forth very little guidance about how magic works and what it is under the hood. The most anyone knows for sure is 'moons and elements are part of it'. We also have an astral plane and demons to consider. How these things interact just isn't described to players. They're all 'newly discovering' with each character, hypothesising.
- The issue of whether or not a knight or mage has to spend the same number of skills to "be viable" (where did this come from?) is a bit left-field to me. Combat skills are not synonymous with a knight character concept, I think that's simply a represenation of Jei's perspective on how he views his character. Combat skills are skills that any player can have in any measure. The negative to playing a mage is that you have less skill slots available to combat than a non-mage. There is no commandment that knights, by having selected to be a combat heavy character, should somehow be better than anyone else in combat field, nor are they guaranteed a 'win' any fight.
- The above said, I firmly agree (and design the game so) that players with serious combat skills should ALWAYS beat characters without in, well, combat. Eg, I would expect a mage to lose a direct confrontation involving sharp pointy things unless they had overall better combat skills than their opponent. I know mages hate this, but it's fair given that mages can decide to simply be combat whores if they want as much as a knight can - it just means their magic will suffer. If I thought mattack was the 'auto kill button' previously mentioned, it absolutely wouldn't go in. ANYTHING that is an 'auto-kill' should not be in game, on any side of any equation. (That's one of our biggest struggles with designing poisons, by the way... making it fairish, feel okay to play, when someone is poisoned).
- I don't think certain physical defenses will be weak or strong against various elements. I just don't really see any IC justification for it - it's more of making combat a more 'game-y' system than an RP system, and there's some value to that, but not a great deal. I'd rather add to theme by making some elements stronger against others or something in that vein.
Thanks for listening to my wild opinions!
Some notes to touch on points people raised in all of this:
- The current "quality of the weapon" increasing over skill level is exactly in-line with hand-to-hand's progression, actually (as I wrote it when I submitted it to Az awhile back). I shouldn't have said damascus - did I really? I apologies for the offhand exaggeration - as hand-to-hand doesn't quite get up that high, but it does do enough damage to be a viable, dangerous weapon.
- Yes, mattack is a "free" weapon. This may be cheaper for those characters silver-wise, but I don't really see that as being a great issue. What's more important to me is that the math works out reasonably when two people using differing strategies step up to a fight. Everyone in the game has equal access to most combative things, and a mage can come wielding a damascus weapon as easily as a knight can (well, maybe less so given that the Knights Lithmorran actually have a decent treasury, but the Manus... well... let's say they're poor).
- evoking spells during combat is not possible and probably never will be.
- invoking spells during combat (as someone mentioned as preferable to mattack) may be eventually be possible. In any regard, this will all have to wait for a magic revamp, and is definitely not in the near-term cards.
- There are three combat techniques in game, not "only one": dual wield, protect, and backstab.
- I take some of Jei's points, though I do think he's overstating the issue to the extreme. Reading his posts, I gather he believes 'knights are totally undermined and not viable' if mattack bypasses armor. Bypassing armor will not, in and of itself, make a knight a sitting duck. 1) Knights can take piety easily enough (as someone mentioned, it's ridiculously easy to get it, and it is an immediate nerf to mattack), 2) it doesn't cost silver the way armor does... which means whilst mages are getting a free weapon, knights (and everyone else) are getting a 'free defense' to said weapon, and 3) the damage mattack does isn't crazy, insane awesome - at its extreme highest levels, it's still constrained to that of a quality weapon).
- I agree mattack should bypass armor because of what it is and how it would present itself in play - yes, we're talking about fireballs, lightning strikes and the like. I can't see how a tin can is going to protect someone against that, and it seemed like a fun twist to throw in, so that's why mattack bypasses armor. Mattack isn't about unbalancing the game, it's about giving a nod to players that magic is dangerous and can be used destructively. That it never could in the past was solely because there was no way in-game to create a decent, streamlined code integration of magic into combat.
- Piety, given that it's not hard to get, and almost anyone can easily have it (and knights especially thematically would probably be of this persuasion culturally), making piety armor against mattack means that the people most vulnerable to mattack are OTHER MAGES as mages are unlikely to be highly pious. From a 'behind the scenes standpoint', I beg to differ with the opinion that this would be out of theme, though my reasoning on this is something kinda buried in staff pockets for some time and not fleshed out to the pbase, so I can understand people having differing views. In short, we've put forth very little guidance about how magic works and what it is under the hood. The most anyone knows for sure is 'moons and elements are part of it'. We also have an astral plane and demons to consider. How these things interact just isn't described to players. They're all 'newly discovering' with each character, hypothesising.
- The issue of whether or not a knight or mage has to spend the same number of skills to "be viable" (where did this come from?) is a bit left-field to me. Combat skills are not synonymous with a knight character concept, I think that's simply a represenation of Jei's perspective on how he views his character. Combat skills are skills that any player can have in any measure. The negative to playing a mage is that you have less skill slots available to combat than a non-mage. There is no commandment that knights, by having selected to be a combat heavy character, should somehow be better than anyone else in combat field, nor are they guaranteed a 'win' any fight.
- The above said, I firmly agree (and design the game so) that players with serious combat skills should ALWAYS beat characters without in, well, combat. Eg, I would expect a mage to lose a direct confrontation involving sharp pointy things unless they had overall better combat skills than their opponent. I know mages hate this, but it's fair given that mages can decide to simply be combat whores if they want as much as a knight can - it just means their magic will suffer. If I thought mattack was the 'auto kill button' previously mentioned, it absolutely wouldn't go in. ANYTHING that is an 'auto-kill' should not be in game, on any side of any equation. (That's one of our biggest struggles with designing poisons, by the way... making it fairish, feel okay to play, when someone is poisoned).
- I don't think certain physical defenses will be weak or strong against various elements. I just don't really see any IC justification for it - it's more of making combat a more 'game-y' system than an RP system, and there's some value to that, but not a great deal. I'd rather add to theme by making some elements stronger against others or something in that vein.
Thanks for listening to my wild opinions!
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