>Worse? As in, has more flaws?

Let's say, is overall not better than. It's not really about a longer list of flaws or strengths so much as whether the whole is better or not.

>Since the mage-crafted wands suggestion removes all of these
>problems, it would need a greater amount of flaws to be
>considered worse.

Not necessarily number. I'll keep going.

>I would honestly like to know what you
>consider the mage-crafted wands system's flaws?

I'm not going to enumerate flaws in an absolute sense so much as discuss problems I see with this system vs. the existing system, or strong points of the existing system that it lacks. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list so much as just some of the ideas that occur to me.

1 and 2) It removes all interaction from the equation.

Have you ever traded potential wand locations with another character in game? Whether a straight up trade with another mage or a trade of that piece of information for something else of value to a character or simply assistance given to your IC allies, the current system allows for all of these things. I'm not kidding myself that this is the only way any of this information gets around, but if I actually have a day with a decent amount of free time to watch mortal conversations/interactions, I will almost always see one of the above at least once.

Even experienced players who know a bunch of wand locations often do these things. Maybe I've figured out where my sleek black rod is, but my invoker can't really get it. Now I'm out trying to find some alternate barrier locations that I can handle, and existing ones that I know from other characters might not be good for specifically this character.

Your system axes all of that.

The current system has a second spot for interaction: actually getting the wands. Often I'll need or want to use a wand location that involves killing something or somethings that my mage can't really handle on his own. I had a mage last year that *could* kill the mob that held his preferred barrier wand at hero, but it took a lot of time and generally a pile of gold to heal faster or fix maledictions. Recruiting other characters whenever possible made that substantially easier.

Your system axes that kind of interaction, also.

3) Your system doesn't value exploration at all.

From the sounds of things, you really don't so much as a player either. That's okay, but we're not working with the exact same set of priorities and it is a factor on my list.

4) Your system encourages/empowers more conservative play. I feel like there's generally enough rewards for that as things stand, and while I don't want to wholesale remove all of them, I don't think we'd make a better game by adding more without good reasons.

The way this would play out seems pretty self-evident to me so I'm not going to dig into it, but if you don't see it or disagree I could.

5) Your system eliminates/minimalizes risk (and, for the most part, decisions and opportunities) around actually getting the wands.

For example, trailing someone who's getting their wand and stalking/assassinating them.

Or finding an opponent and initiating a fight with them because you've noticed they keep going back to the Forest of Nowhere for some reason (which they happen to be doing because a wand they gather is there.)

Or fighting in a way to run an opponent who has your cabal's item out of wands. Now they have an interesting choice to make: go and re-get the wands, in which case they leave the cabal HQ exposed for a brief but valuable window, or continue to fight you without wands...

A character who has to go somewhere, anywhere to get their wands is always opening themselves up to risks by doing so, no matter how slim. A character who can park inside their guild or cabal and create them can largely eliminate most of these risks.


6) Your system eliminates Veil-based decision making.

Probably, a powerful mage NPC has a wand that I want. Killing him will thicken the Veil, making my magic weaker. Forgoing the wand won't, but now I don't have a wand.

Generally, getting the wand is the right choice here... but it is a tactical choice that you're eliminating.

That's about all I have time for at the moment. Hopefully it's some food for thought.

>As for "more annoying" I can only imagine that the
>mage-crafted wands suggestion is more annoying if you never
>have any problem getting your wands anyway. You're basically
>trading not having to look for your wands with having more
>hard-and-fast limits on how much you can get them. This is
>only more annoying if you A> don't value your time B> love the
>tedium of searching for wand or C> have the ability to get
>your wands very easily with virtually no effort. This might
>work out great for you, Nep, but us mere peons really are not
>in that position.

It's not really that simple, and CF not being a single-player game annoyance has to be considered in a more general sense. For example, is it annoying as hell as a Battle thief to deal with an air major shifter enemy who will only fight me with full A/B/S and otherwise is parked far ass away from me for the other 90% of the time he's logged on? Sure is. Under the current system I still potentially have a lot of that problem, but I have the opportunity to gradually learn his preferred wand locations and turn that to my advantage. He can't just go fly up to Arial City and wait out his reuse timers on me.