Pure and simple. Suggest a new system. I'm willing to listen and respond.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Perhaps let the Detect Artifact trigger based on being in the same area, during good veil states.

This thread has pretty much been done and dead for months. We've made the changes we saw as necessary.

That being said, I don't see DA ever giving you same area. At that point we might as well just tell you directly what your locations are (no, I don't see us doing that either.)

I'll take a shot at it! First I’d like to say that as someone who likes writing areas and putting the neat stuff that rewards players for indepth investigation with small trinkets and foodstuffs and so forth for their attention to detail, I think it’s wholly unfair to literally handicap several classes by forcing them to do this to gain these things. That being said, I think it’s well and good to reward players for doing this so I’d propose the following changes in addition to the present system.

Leave the system as is, but include the following three spells for transmuters, shifters, conjurers, and invokers.

lvl 37 Spell: Lesser Arcane Foci

This spell requires 1/3rd of the caster’s total mana when cast. Through the use of this spell the caster creates a wand of pure mana that possesses protective properties. The wand grants Aura and has 3 charges when created. The item counts as limited and the spell is on a 48 hour timer. (Creates: a mercurial silver wand)

lvl 47 Spell: Arcane Foci

This spell requires 2/3rds of the caster’s total mana when cast. Through the use of this spell the caster creates a wand of pure mana that possesses protective properties. The wand grants Shield and has 3 charges when created. The item counts as limited and the spell is on a 72 hour timer. (Creates: a glossy golden wand)

lvl 51 Spell: Greater Arcane Foci

This spell requires 3/4ths of the caster’s total mana when cast. Through the use of this spell the caster creates a wand of pure mana that possesses protective properties. The wand created grants Barrier and has 3 charges when created. The item counts as limited and the spell is on a 96 hour timer. (Creates: a cold azure wand)

Created wand details: These wands are nodrop and rotdeath. (The nodrop is aimed at avoiding dropping them to create another and then picking it back up. If there’s another way to do this then by all means.) The Goal: You cannot create a new wand while you hold a wand of that given type, hence you can’t stockpile these wands. If you die, the wands will rot away, and the various timers for each spell carry over through death. Failure to cast the spell successfully sticks the caster with 1/4th the full timer value. Combine this with failed attempts to zap yourself and so forth and it’s not too much, but takes the edge off of driving players to delete from frustration and maintains the value of the present system as well. This grants all mages the chance to have these things without locking them into HAVING to explore and fine tooth comb descriptions for these things.

Anti-Paladins
Same essential setup, but whereas the mage types above primarily gain their juice via mana/magic, Anti-Paladins are cut from darker stuff.

Rather than just mana Anti-Paladins essentially imbue a bit of their own essence into their wands, albeit temporarily.

lvl 37 Spell: Lesser Wand of Fiends

This spell requires 1/4th of the caster’s total mana/health when cast. Through the use of this spell the caster creates a wand of soul chilling darkness that possesses protective properties. The wand grants Aura and has 3 charges when created. The item counts as limited and the spell is on a 72 hour timer. (Creates: a pulsing ochre wand)

lvl 47 Spell: Wand of Fiends

This spell requires 1/2 of the caster’s total mana/health when cast. Through the use of this spell the caster creates a wand of of soul chilling darkness that possesses protective properties. The wand grants Shield and has 3 charges when created. The item counts as limited and the spell is on a 86 hour timer. (Creates: a mottled yellow wand)

lvl 51 Spell: Greater Wand of Fiends

This spell requires 3/4ths of the caster’s total mana/health when cast. Through the use of this spell the caster creates a wand of soul chilling darkness that possesses protective properties. The wand created grants Barrier and has 3 charges when created. The item counts as limited and the spell is on a 108 hour timer. (Creates: a lusterless black wand)

Obviously the times I threw in are just guesstimates, you guys would be better able to come up with what you consider more balanced. If you feel like messing with it, you could even have their creation affect the Veil detrimentally etc. Just depends on what you wanna do really.

Peace,

Jugynheim

I think it would be very interesting if there was a way that detect artifact could give you tips at times, as if you playing the "you're getting warmer" type of kids game.

Maybe once you get detect artifact to a certain %, and then on a really long random timer it will echo a message to you. The first time it ever does it, maybe it will say something like "You have a vague sense of a powerful artifact that is attuned to you, but it is very far off." Then, a really good time later, maybe 60+ hours (or hell, 600+ hours...anything would help) and then on a random chance, you might get another message that says "You sense a powerful artifact that you have felt before, but it is even more distant than before."

With this, maybe the first time you were in voralian, and the second time you were in udgaard, so that would tell you that you need to try to start looking more in the opposite direction from Voralian, and explore areas not around Udgaard at the time.

I'm not sure if there is any type of a function that can guage distance already...maybe something that can tell how many rooms away from the general area your wand could be found if going to it from the skies above Thera?


It wouldn't be a hint that would give things away like you've stated you don't want, just something that can help narrow the focus or areas to try to press into more exploring. Maybe have the three differnet types all tied to the same timer...so it compares where you were when it last fired to where you are now, and then if you are closer now than then to each type and give a separate message for each (assuming you can detect all three types already).

Right now I struggle once I have checked all the places I know of, and keep going back to areas that I don't know the specifics on, but have a hunch. It would be nice of occationally I could get a little tap on the shoulder that tells me that I'm not even close so I will know it is time to pack it up and start digging into a new area.

n/t

nt

It would also be nice, if at some set high level...maybe hero, maybe just X levels above when you could have found it, there is a random chance that can trigger if someone has not found a particular sleek that will randomly re-roll that one for them.

It can echo to them, or maybe tie it with detect artifact where the archmage send them a tell to let them know that the one they had, but never found, has shifted with changes in the veil (or some other mumbo jumbo) and will not be found elsewhere, primpting them to go back and re-search locations they may have already checked. It would not do it if a requirement has been met where they have found retrieved thier wand.

The benefits of this, are that a hero mage that can't find a sleek knows there is a chance at some point that one of the places he already knows might end up being his spot, and keep him from deleting perhaps. It promotes exploring still, since people still check places the first time, this will just have them go back to places again, and it still might go somewhere they have yet to explore. If anything, it helps the choke-point issue, as mages may go back to a common place again to give hunters a chance to catch them there where they otherwise would not have been there.

The new attunement edge will help the people that find thiers, but don't like the spot, but I could see where some people will flat out refuse to check a spot they don't like so they don't fill the trigger to stop the auto-roll...but I did say above that "and retrieved" so that may need some discussion to see if people would be allowed to leave the wand they do find sitting so that they can choose to wait for a random re-roll at some point in the future, simply because the place they found theirs is one of those places that is less than ideal for their class.

Alright my main concern with this is that I’ve already BEEN to freaking 40+ Locations wasting hours looking for wands. I've EXPLORED these places, looking at all the damn lamps, rugs, sconces, desks, drawers in desks, 2.desks, and cabinet frames.

Why do I want to do this again?

The Edges are like a freaking Band-Aid for an amputated arm.

Yes it's nice that I can blow my load on trying to find my Barrier AGAIN, but why the hell should I?

Will the ragers have to blow their Edge points to get Deathblow? No.
Will the standard warrior have to blow edge points to get that 2nd legacy? No.
Will the RNG lucky Air/Off Shifter have to use edge points to get Fly to? No.

I know I'm whining and bitching, BUT!
I've got a character that's been looking seriously for over 100 hours, checking places 2~3 times. It's not kosher when I as a Player Locate 6 sources of UnSleek wands, yet still have ZIP for Sleeks.

Even though I'm mainly a RP character player, with my Shield spell, it still hurts like crap to get 3 Oblit deathblows in 2 rounds.

So my mediocre PK skills, stacked against others with the fact that I'll have to use my Edge points to go look in places AGAIN, mean I’ll get zip edge points from PK. Vicious cycle if you ask me.

Maybe it's time to Delete Delete even though I thoroughly enjoy the character, because without PK you're only play 1/2 the MUD.

I honestly don't expect ANY reponses from anyone,
Because in truth this is nothing more than a whinefest, in addition to the fact that screw all reply to any threads I make on the officals.

S to the eil Clavin

Would you consider lowering the super secret requirements for the Archmage quest for detect artifact? As a hero character I don't have the requirements needed to trigger the quest so I can look for wands.

Just explore a few exploration areas and look at everything.

~

I always write out 'look' or use 'exa', if I wish to use the kill command I write out 'kill'

n/t

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

asf

nt

Currently playing a mage right now, I have a pretty good feeling for how things are.

My idea is simple:

- Keep the current sleek system the way it is.

- Make the new mage shield substitute spell compatible with shield, but incompatible with barrier.
**This will make some of the "harder-impossible" barrier locations do-able, as well as take away some of the tedium of not being able to find your said barrier, since you'll have that extra little boost of DR, while not quite up to par with barrier. This will also not completely cheapen sleek sienna rods, while only slightly cheapening sleek blacks.

- Make Detect Artifact 100% fire on sleeks.
**I know this has been said many times in this thread and keeps coming up, but... I really don't see this taking away from it much. Sleeks are suppose to be crazy magical, it should detect it all the time... Limited ones can be faulty, but having it not fire on sleeks is just wrong, especially when you have been running around areas you've already explored many times prior on other chars, etc...this just makes you wanna rip your hair out.

I think this pretty much sums it up.

Can I at least get a thumbs up or thumbs down for this idea?

I honestly think this would solve all the problems here...

I feel it would make me play mages none stop. Therefore making their new protection spells incompatable with only barrier might be a bit too powerful. I think it might work better if it were a level 51 edge or something.

Still I really like these ideas.

What if mages were able to write their own A/B/S scrolls via something similar to the pen skill?

I'm thinking a high failure rate and also a fairly quick item decay - this would prevent writing and hoarding the scrolls. It would also enable other classes (thieves) to steal them, similar to the wands.

Writing these scrolls should be a pain in the ass, mind you, and the effects would vary based upon the mages' level and skill.
Also, various paper/pen types could alter the spells durability and power. This would preserve the need for exploration - you have to find them and test them.

Keep the current sleek system.
But have weaker alternatives.

Shield as a spell which all mages learn.
With some or all of below weaknesses.
1. Can be dispelled.
2. Have chance of failing. If fail, no DR.
3. Does not work against spells.
4. Uses mana every tick to maintain.
5. If DR kicks in, mana will be used. i.e. instead of subtracting from hp, subtract some % of the original damage from mana.
6. Does not stack with the real 'shield' spell.

Mage cannot have it up all the time (Pt 4 and 5)
Enemies cannot use hit-and-run easily (compare to timer-based idea).
Since they do not know the amount of mana used.
But if they hit the mage hard enough, the shield will fall.

Aura as automated quest reward.
Once player reaches some rank, the guildmaster will give randomly pick a quest from a pool. If quest completed, weaker aura wand will pop for the mage at some known location. Mage can gather the wand as per the normal sleek.
Wand has some or all of following weaknesses.
1. Can be dispelled
2. Shorter duration
3. Fewer charges
4. Prevents recall and teleport
5. Cannot be cancelled
6. Does not stack with the real 'aura'

So if mage uses it, he has real risk of unable to escape if fight goes badly.
Enemies can exploit the known movements, as mage has to gather more frequently.
Quests should be designed to guide mages the proper skills of exploring. (e.g. look at non-obvious places, fight tough mob.) So that they can find the sleeks themselves, instead of relying on the weaker versions or OOC list.

Barrier remains as sleek-only.

So player who cannot or will not find their sleeks for whatever reasons have alternatives and feel less frustrated.

Make detect artifact not effected by the veil, and never fail when up.

Viola, you are done with wands.

If the Veil is halfway normal, detect artifact always works.

If the Veil is completely in the ####ter, detect artifact still works most of the time.

I don't really have a problem with the way it is.

>If the Veil is halfway normal, detect artifact always works.
>
>If the Veil is completely in the ####ter, detect artifact
>still works most of the time.

For sleeks.

For non-sleeks it's worse, but...

>I don't really have a problem with the way it is.

I don't either.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I don't mind if it works most of the time for the non-sleeks, so long as it is mentioned in the helpfile (more than just putting "THE VEIL" in the see other section).

But, when it comes to the sleeks, I really, really think it should fire no matter what. Why? I am just imagining running all over the map trying to find my wands and then passing by it when the damn thing DOESN'T fire, and I'd have no idea. Again, for non-sleeks I'm like "whatevah," but sleeks are basically a must. And this probably would be 10x worse for a new player who is trying to step out into magedom for the first time.


So to sum it up:

A) Increase the transparency in the DETECT ARTIFACT helpfile.

B) Make the detect of sleeks 100% if you encounter one with detect artifact effecting you.


P.S. When I suggest these things, the thing I am thinking about is "if CF had a completely new set of players, would they be able to figure these things out with the information available?" And I've said it before elsewhere, but I'll say it again: it seems like ABS-related stuff is half-in-game and half-ooc. Since they are a special case and really are a necessary part of the relevant class' repertoire, there shouldn't be any miscommunications or omissions in the related helpfiles.

That be all.

nt

Maybe even if there were some kind of a warning later, like as part of discuss, where it tells you if it didn't fire when you walked by something it could have. Then you might at least know you need to retrace yours steps instead marking a place off the to-do list completely.

change detect artifact to lower levels? Heck, if shield is generally the tougher one to get because it is on a mob or in a locked container by one, have shield be available at 30, aura 37, and barrier 42. Even barrier at 42 means a tough time exploring and difficulty in getting.

I've always felt that there should be some kind of automated progging once a mage hits the first eligible level for the sleeks (sienna at...25? 30 now?) This is pretty much entirely for the new players who may be going about their business with little contact with this site, and possibly none with Dio's.

Basically, things tend to make sense when you call up your class' skill, spell, and commune list. It's easy to grasp the idea that mages can use scrolls, talismans, and wands from looking at the available skills. Yet, without OOC research new players are probably going to be clueless.

Something as simple as an echo, upon the appropriate level gain, directing the player to the helpfile for sleek rods.


Additionally, and probably of much less importance, if someone could come up with a cool backstory to the unique nature of the sleek rods, I think it would be a good thing. Hell, aside from sheer nostalgic familiarity I don't really care too much for their names. I'd actually be willing to submit a piece of literature to flesh this out, if there's interest. If not, I'm won't waste my time.

As stated elsewhere, mages get aura & shield as spells, barrier as a spell with a cooldown of 48 hours. Or invokers don't get barrier and the cooldown is 20 hours.

There's enough gear, unique or otherwise, in the game to give incentives to explorer. Let mages stand toe to toe with other classes without wasting time hunting down wands.

Since this whole post got glazed over let me explain more and possibly we can discuss what (to me) is the core issue - beyond the system that is in place and talking specifically about the disconnect between myself and Nep/etc.

There is a general desire of imm staff and players alike for there to be rewards for exploration and that there should be incentive for mages to explore.

The fundamental disagreement that I have with the immortals is that I do not believe there should be a mandatory exploration requirement for a class to be *balanced* against another class. To put it in perspective, to me suggesting a mage requires finding wands to be balanced with a warrior is like saying a warrior must perfect all fighting skills from every spec to get their next spec and their legacies. That doesn't add value to the game. Warriors also have enough incentive to explore due to their heavy reliance on gear.

Mages aren't completely independant of gear either - even if you talk about shapeshifters. Less reliant perhaps but there is certainly a world of difference between a 400hp mage and a 1000hp mage - unique and highly limited "mage-style" gear is just as competitively fought over as warrior gear.

Therefore my suggestion is that any items that require exploration for mages be as they are for every other class - value-adding rather than mandatory. This can already be accomplished within the existing quest/unique item systems in the game. Quest forms and the becoming are two examples of incentives to RP/explore that are not required for balance purposes but add value as an incentive to put in the extra effort. Same can be said for the conjurer unique books lying around.

That in my mind is where this should lie. Even if you kept the wand system as is but only for say, shield wands specifically - giving mages barrier & aura as class spells - you'd be at a system that is fine by me. We all agree that mages don't need aura, barrier & shield but I think we also all agree that they underpowered without any of those three.

I have explored a lot. I have explored so much with various characters that I can tell you that the style of areas have changed over the years, and what sort of area features certain creators like to have, etc. It is a skill I developed purely from exploring like crazy in all sorts of weird places.

I manually and obsessively type examine EVERYTHING when exploring. Singular, plural, compound words split into basic words, secondary objects within first description, etc. If players are as obsessive as me, then they'll still find it. But from what I see most players are not like that.

I suggest this change, with regards especially to wands and in particular sleek rod wands. The sleek rods system is not a bad system at all. What it needs to do is encourage exploration, because mages are meant to be scholars who know stuff. You can't have a level 51 Grand Master of Magery who doesn't even know where the Consortium/High Tower is. I am fine with exploration requirement.

Suggestions:

Make detect artifact a permanent skill that works 100% of the time. It should be available to all Mage types at 30, and all non-Mages at 51 and with enough exploration/observation exp. This is so that playing your warrior will actually teach you wand locations, and encourage people to try mages after they've gotten really good with warriors.

You enter a room with a possible protective wand/scroll/talisman:
You barely notice the strands of magical energy in the air. OR
You barely notice the strands of magical energy emanating from Mob X.

Now make it work this way:

You enter a room that has no wand because it is maxed out -
You barely notice the strands of residual magical energy in the air.

Detect artifact SKILL should work 100%, fire every time, and be completely independent of the veil. It should have no mana cost or cooldown, and should pretty much be up all the time for all characters.

It should fire when you enter a sleek location that is NOT YOURS. So that you know that it is a possible sleek, and you are rewarded for taking the time to explore.

It should fire when you enter a limited protection source that is MAXED OUT. So that you know that it holds a protective device when it is not maxed out.

What is the purpose of all this? This is to ensure that people who managed to get to all the rooms, who do all their examines, who take the time to painstakingly comb through at area with a fine-toothed comb, are rewarded.

This is a meaningful change that I wish to see. I have absolutely nothing to gain from it, trust me. I know so many wand locations that I don't need this boost.

This is not for my benefit. This is for all the people out there who are going to put in the sort of slog-work that I did, who may not have a memory / reading speed like mine. I found nearly all the things in Thera either by exploring, or through IC connections. I do hear things OOC, but it is not all that much.

I really think de-mystifying CF is a good thing. I'm sorry that it is going to penalise the people who put in huge amounts of effort to contribute to the game and become IMMs, but I, too, am penalised. Just to a smaller extent than, say, Nepenthe and Sebeok. By all means, let the IMMs who worked so hard have their advantages. But please let the work ordinary players put in count for something. As it stands, I have absolutely no freaking idea how anyone can figure out how to do a certain quest in Nyathl, how to do a certain quest in Ysigrath (before it was made easier), and even Kteng's while possible is insanely difficult. The first I've yet to find out, the second and third I was spoonfed it.

I think a perfect example of de-mystifying is the Ysigrath quest for -those- sleeves that everyone's been complaining about. Now it's actually possible to do the quest, if you read something else in the Lyceum + read the description of certain mob and act on it.

Feel free to edit this if it's giving away too much info.

Please consider this, Zulgh/other coders. I've done this the hard way, and I stand to gain nothing from this change I propose. I did exactly what you have told players to do, to roll characters and keep figuring things out, to keep researching. We don't want this to turn into a game where you just can't get certain bits of information if you don't get spoonfed it. You guys have put in a lot of time into the game, and this change doesn't seem like it will take a lot of time to do. Just grab all the rooms that can fire on 'detect artifact' for any char at all, and make them fire all the time. Change detect artifact to a passive, universal always-up skill.

As a serial warrior player I keep considering to play a mage each time one of my warriors dies. But I just feel that I know to little for it. (And yet I've been in every explore area there is, it's just Yzekon I haven't really examined.) And well, I can't honestly say that I know hell that well either...

I suppose I know about 15 black, 20ish siennas and 20ish amber locations. With the few mages I've played, I've never found my sienna even. heh

(Though I know ALOT of limited locations, maybe enough to sustain any mage I'd play, but I have no clue on how often they're in, as I've never rechecked the places.)


Great idea Humbert! Go you, old man!

Yeah, it's really easy to fall into the trap of just playing warriors because you learn quickly how to gear and prep a warrior, and warriors are very powerful if you know how to pick your fights.

You should try a mage sometime... though you'd be far weaker than a strong spec/legacy warrior unless you are able to use ABS for those fights when you just want to overwhelm the enemy (1v1 someone at their inners, raid solo, raid multiple defenders solo, etc).

I've played mages, they just didn't do all that well. It's funny how quickly I picked up warrior tactics/preps/gear. I'm reasonably sure if I roll up another typically powerful warrior (elf stsf spear/mace or dagger/mace, fire giant imperial sword or pole or exotic, arial RBW dagger/mace, etc) I can do well in terms of pk.

My dream is to play a really powerful invoker one day, but I'll need a lot of practice in magehood before I can pull something like that off Chrichuk, Haratzi, Darascus, etc.

I haven't been around very much for the last couple of months but i came back to look around the forums and noticed this, so i'm giving it another shot.

My idea is to make mages viable without the absolute need to go out and explore every nook and cranny. In order to do this i propose a new spell, lets call it 'magical protection' for now.


*********************************************
*********************************************
Magical Protection.

-It is granted to all mage classes at level 35.

-At level 35 it will RANDOMLY grant either aura, shield or barrier.

-No matter what protection spell the player recieves it only last 8 hours. However it is cast at the characters level. (ex. lvl 51 mage might get a level 51 aura which only last 8 hours)

-The spell would have a varied cooldown timer of 12-16 hours.

-At level 40, there would be a 20% chance to recieve 2 protection spells.

-At level 45, it would be 60-70% chance to recieve 2 protection spells (Sorry APs)

-At level 50, you would get 90% chance with an addition small chance to get all three spells cast.

-The spell would not cast over or be influenced by exsisting protective spells. In short if you already have aura cast on you at level 51, the spell might still give you aura and barrier. The barrier would go through but the aura would not since you already have it on you.

-You can cast additional protective spells after using this spell. For example, if you cast 'magical protection' and get aura and shield, you can still use another limited/sleek source to get barrier aswell.

***************************************
***************************************

The pros and cons on giving mages castable a/b/s have been discussed before. I know the idea of giving mages 'shield' with a significant delay timer was a possibility in this thread but even that doesn't quite cut it. All it does is mostly cheapen 'shield' from limited/sleek sources slightly without relieving the major tediums. Its a varied cooldown timer so its makes it a bit tougher for timed hit and run tactics but at the same time not impossible.

In short, having to explore thera over and over again just to be able to survive, whether it be twice or even once is just not fun. To be honest, if anything it should be a castable barrier putting mages on par with assassins and to a lesser extend those with sanctuary. ( This by the way would have been my original suggestion)

Again the hope behind the idea is that it allows players to play mages without the need for exploration. A player running around at hero with 2 protective spells allows them to compete, they would not be the strongest out there but definately have some fun without any tedium or fustration involved. At the same time, players who SETTLES for this would be seeing 2 protective spells most of the time, which fits the IMMs wish of not having everyone running around with A/B/S all the time. That said having once had a mage with A/B/S practically on a stick, i still got my ass kicked and ragers would still kill me easily, you still need skills to win and to seal kills.

The ones looking for a challenge still have the incentive to go out and search for limited/sleek A/B/S. The system is random in the protections you get and there is a significant and random cooldown. However at the same time the system allows some relief from the tedium of constantly collecting limited/sleek. This makes collecting that sleek black from that explore area with your group of friends a little more tempting since you know it might last you a bit longer. This system basically still makes use of the hard work put into the current system however it also makes it not as 'nessisary' to go through as it is currently.


All that said, i'd like to 'Thank you for Listening'. While i might not want to come back and play a mage (i'm mean seriouly, sleeks in area explore? Bleh!), the fact that you take the time to listen to your player base makes me want to come back and play something at least. Again thanks for your time, it is appreciated.

I'm sure exactly what the DR is on aura, shield, and barrier, but I'm guessing it's something like 15, 15, 40, respectively.

I say even out the DR these give you making them all even, making them all be like 20-22 or so... so they're all separate spells stacking up to 60%-66% redux.

Then all mages would 90% of the time have around 40% DR which is nearly perfect, and leave sleeks in the game with all the locations in tact as of right now. And the small chance to have all three spells at hero being around 15-20% chance.

Sounds like a pretty nifty system to me while keeping in tact the searching for wands so that you can attempt to have all three up all the time if you so wish to put in the time to search for your sleeks.

The only thing that would need a solution is the abundance of non-sleek abs perhaps if the imms think it's too abundant to fit into this system or not, which I'm not really so sure about from a balanced IMM perspective.

... The IMMs WANT you to explore for it! Other than that, it's a good idea.

>Again the hope behind the idea is that it allows players to
>play mages without the need for exploration.

Which, if you've been reading this thread, is something we specifically said we didn't want.

While this idea significantly reduces the NEED for exploration there is still a very large incentive to actually do so.

While some players can SETTLE for this, others will be greatly rewarded by finding and having sleek/limited sources. Again most of the time at hero this spell will provide a random 2 of the 3 possible protection spells and of course there is the delay timer so having found some sleek or limited sources will only aid you.

Something about forcing people to go out and explore just to make their character survivable (not powerful just survivable) takes the fun out of exploration. It ends up making something that usually fun very tedious and fustrating.


========================================
I really think this idea fits all the criteria the staff and players wanted doesn't it?

-People won't be running around with A/B/S all the time unless they've taken the time to explore and collect some stuff and even then the system is random that they might not be able to.

Ex. Say a player found a limited/sleek barrier wand, this spell might provide you with barrier/shield on use thus forcing the player to fight without aura that during a raid.

-Reduces tedium and fustrations of both searching and continuously retrieving A/B/S sources.

-As mentioned before there is still a large incentive to explore. Some might settle for just relying on the spell, many other would take the time and effort to search out sleek wands but both characters would still be competitive regardless.

============================

It was never broken to begin with... I'm assuming the main reason it was changed is because you heard about the OOC lists. But like I said elsewhere, weather there is an OOC list or not... you pull it off IC and help people and show them where you found. No matter what in 2-3 years people will of found every location barring EVERYONE just gives up on mages, and it will start all over again. I don't want people to give up on CF and move on, we need to preserve what we have here as a community. CF is a txt based game in an era where games are getting way better. But it's still magical to me, and I play for fun, but doing this sucks the fun completely out and it's going to drive away the only thing that makes us alive.

In addendum, the old spots were perfectly balanced. These area explore spots just for amber are plain ludacris. They were perfect before, now even with lists people won't even want to play mages cause getting abs is way too hard. And a full abs mage isn't overpowered in the slightest. It's now where mages have to gang strong people to even have a chance. A full abs mage against one, or two is a LOT less lopsided than a no abs mage against one.

I say go back to the exact spots there were before. But remove the sets, make them all single like they are now so one spot dosen't tell you the other two. And ta da... exploration, hard work to still get wands, and happy playerbase. Please please please Zulgy.

The fact is that the sleek system works, to a degree. The problems with it are largely recent. For example, not being able to regen almost at all with any combination of damage reduction up. This is a huge problem because it forces each mage to use a charge for every fight. If the fight starts to go bad, they have to flee, wait out the rest of the duration of their current redux, and THEN they'll start regenning. Having it affect healing, and regen bonuses in forms etc I see as fine, but ####ing the already piss poor base HP regen of a mage makes them into all or nothing fighters.

Next, I think some math needs to be added to the sleek locations so that their difficulty is a little less arbitrary in comparison to each other. I'll explain what I mean with a bit of an example: Sienna X is in a container location. This by default makes it fairly easy, unless there are no-pass doors and an area of aggro mobs between you and said container. Now, amber Y is also in a container location, however there is only a single aggro magetype mob guarding the container.

While Sienna X isn't specifically guarded, its veritably impossible for a mage to get into the room with the wand. This essentially goes for a bunch of the non area-explore locations, and all of the area explore locations. Is X still easier to obtain than Y? I don't think so.

I'm not a programmer, and in fact I'm pretty bad at math. So, I'll just state the idea: Assign each character a maximum difficulty value for their wands at creation (maybe this is constant, maybe its class/race/align dependant), and assign every location a difficulty value. The idea of this part of the system is to ensure that values for barrier > aura > sienna, and still not have a "set" as it was.

My last gripe? Keep aura and shield sleeks out of explore areas period. These are the dam redux staples for mages, and to my mind should always be obtainable solo (I'm also not against it taking some work solo). The other part of this is that it is easier to track and figure out a mages locations against him if they aren't hidden in obscure explore areas that only a handful of players have ever really been in.

Thanks guys. Keep up the awesome work.

So after reading my imm comments and realizing the imms hated me, I thought I would redeem myself.

My understanding is this, ignoring idiots wanting extremes:

Players:
semi-instant gratification, that is, dont wanna look for 40 hours
dont want spots "too hard"
feel too weak without abs

Imms:
exploration, searching
Dont have them 24/7
Risk
Dont want to homogenize everything
Competition

Now then, my suggestion:

Create -wand fragments- placed in the sleek locations that everyone can see.

These will be new items that are essentially sleek wands, but have only a fraction of the duration (1-2 hours), and only one charge. What this will do is allow you to go to a spot, grab the fragment, and then if you meet arial dagger/mace berserker #783732 on eastern, you can zap yourself with it and have a full shield or barrier etc for a short duration. That satisfies both exploration and instant gratification.

Now then, as you say to yourself "thats too easy to farm!" theres a catch in that the respawn on each fragment is pretty long, and everyone can grab them, so people will camp the easy spots, leading to competition, risk, etc.

Moving further, you can save up a couple wand fragments and combine them into a sleek wand. These sleek wands will be the same as they are now, maybe with a few more charges. However, once you have a sleek wand, you cant collect any more wand fragments of that type until you use it up. This satisfies not having it 24/7.

What all this will do is prevent mages from hitting 36 and saying "lolz demon didnt have my black, peace out lolz," while still making people use every wand location in order to have a supply of fragments.

Thats about it. Detect artifact would still be useful in the sense you can know if X mage has a fragment.

In keeping with the recent "go post it on the wands thread" stuff from gameplay, specifically regarding the post about how paladins, healers and shamans get sanctuary...

Give all mages a built-in dam redux spell that scales in effectiveness as they increase in rank.

They get the spell at rank 20. At that rank it provides approximately half the benefit shield or aura do now. On the order of 10% dam reduction.

At rank 35 it's like shield or aura.

At rank 45 it's like barrier is now.

Give it a decent sized cool down timer. Maybe the duration is six hours but you have to wait a full twelve (or more) before you can use it again. The goal here is to force people to use it tactically, as opposed to a healer or paladin who can keep sanctuary up almost indefinitely.

Get rid of all barrier wands, sleek or otherwise.

Modify aura/shield such that each is half as effective when the mage is affected by this new spell. This effectively reduces the "high end" of damage reduction that mages can currently achieve. Which makes sense since we're now giving them "barrier on a stick".

On the other hand, it also retains the motivation to explore/etc., since having sleek amber/sienna on hand allows you to account for those times when you're prevented from using your built-in spell (e.g. when it just wore off).

Key points:

1. "Power up" to the "base" mage, sans preps.

2. "Power down" to the "optimal" mage, e.g. a+s+b.

3. Inability to keep built-in spell up 24/7 so encourages tactical use.

4. Retains current "exploration/knowledge" benefit, but the magnitude of that benefit is reduced.

Is that now the villager hits your guild guard, you spell up, he runs away for 8 hours, them comes running back, knowing you are now without your best protections.

If you leave the barrier source still in in wand form, then this is not as likely to happen. I would make Barrier completely incompatible with the built-in spell. Maybe make Aura/Shield work like they do today with barrier, but like you suggested, have aura/shield less effective with the built-in spell. This would also be a incentive to explore to find your barrier source.

So, I guess what I am saying is I like the build up spell idea, but to encourage exploration I would keep ABS as well.

My problem with your changes is that they'd just be a massive powerup for mages. They'd have A/B/S just like they do now, except they *ALSO* have a built-in "barrier-like" spell for those times when barrier isn't available. That's a little too much, IMO.

Under the system I proposed, the point of aura and shield is to account for those times when you're stuck in the "cooldown" timer from the barrier-like spell.

Aura + shield approximately equals barrier.

So, the days of a mage having full a/s/b would be gone. However, a mage would be guaranteed to at least have the equivalent of barrier on tap at all times (subject to the cooldown timer). If he also used aura and shield wands, then he could have the equivalent of barrier (i.e. either the built-in spell or aura+shield) up for a very long time, such as during a raid situation.

I have read this kind of idea before, and the one huge problem I see is that when it comes to cabal wars, mages are going to get ####ed. People will exploit weaknesses, and they will do hit/run until they know the protection is gone and the timer is up, then they will steamroll. I know I would. With rods it is a gamble for them too because they don't know how long you can sustain your protections. Granted that, it's very common for people (ragers especially) to walk up and smack an outer, get into a skirmish, flee, let your protections dissolve, and then attack. That's fine. That's smart. But, this would make that a lot more effective and, as I said, #### the mages.

nt

Ok, here goes. This will be rambling, if something needs clarification, sorry.

1) Get rid of sleek black wands except the ones on the mobs that hold a full set of sleeks.

2) Get rid of limited barrier. Replace limited barrier locations with a very low limit limited shield AND aura wand in the same spot.

3) Up shield and aura dam redux to something the IMMs are ok with. I'm thinking A/S at hero would be about 33% better than the current difference between just A/S and full A/B/S. Keep the "extra location" sienna/amber edges. Possibly make shield and aura the dam redux they are now at 35, and scale up to the hero dam reduc level as you gain levels.

4) Any current sleek black location is available to ANY mage. (This is important, and I'll get to why).

Instead of spawning sleek black wands though, they spawn a random assortment of scrolls, wands and talismans. These are new items, that don't exist now. They have a big mix of abilities at a very high spell level. Examples would be Greater Enlivens (2 charge wands). Wither (Scroll). Champions Stand (Scroll). Windwalk (10 charge wand). A -- paired item set of Summon Demon and Dark Bind, 1 scroll each. Corporeal Softening (5 charge wand). A 5Xrefresh scroll. Etc etc etc. Go crazy with the ideas, make them fun and cool and make enough of them that you won't be able to "farm" any one ability. Single scroll of all invoker shields. 3 X Scroll of 3 invoker shields. You get the idea. Fun, random, really tough stuff, offensive, defensive and utility.

Make these items useable at level 51 only, so you can't abuse lowbies with them.

Make it so that only pure mage classes can use these items (give APs something to compensate, I don't know what). No thieves running around with this stuff.

Make it so that these items crumble on logoff (so farming these doesn't become something people do).

Allow access to all locations so that mages run into each other lots going to get these, adding to fights.

You can make edges related to these. Edge for goodies so they don't get "evil" themed items. Edge to make you more likely to get offensive abilities. Edge to make you more likely to get defensive abilities.

This makes being a mage MUCH cooler, in so many ways, it decreases the amount of total dam redux mages have while increasing the readily available dam redux. It forces a tactical decision, "Do I use this omfgwtfbbq scroll now or save it for later in my log on?". It gets rid of the problem of mages who ONLY fight under barrier. It opens up billions of tactical opportunities. It makes mages less survivable, and more deadly.

I think this is a horrifically bad idea.

nt

"New payment options w/ Iron Realms"

Make all sleek spots have limited wands.

Change them all up. Make half the barrier locations be aura or something. Make half the aura locations shield. Make half the shield locations have stoneskin/protection or something.

Make some of the barrier spots be unique barrier wands.

Make some of the barrier/aura/shield spots be level 30. Make some level 51.

That's the best solution I got.

You're great and I love you but this change really didn't address any of the complaints the playerbase has with the wand system. This just seems like a band-aid to settle the grumbling down for a short while, a way to placate the masses.

I think some great ideas exist in the posts below. Maybe not as stand-alone replacements but that's fine, damage redux doesn't need one be-all, end-all system. A lot of complementary and supplementary ideas could be taken and implemented to give a more dynamic and diverse system.

Reinventing the wheel isn't a bad idea but I definitely see the discouragement it could bring to you guys to have to code up something entirely new. I understand.

I hope you guys reconsider the system. It doesn't work as is.

Thanks for the game. Best ever.

>You're great and I love you but this change really didn't
>address any of the complaints the playerbase has with the wand
>system.

Which complaint?

>This just seems like a band-aid to settle the
>grumbling down for a short while, a way to placate the
>masses.

I see it as an improvement over the current system, if that's just a band-aid, it's still an improvment.

>I think some great ideas exist in the posts below. Maybe not
>as stand-alone replacements but that's fine, damage redux
>doesn't need one be-all, end-all system. A lot of
>complementary and supplementary ideas could be taken and
>implemented to give a more dynamic and diverse system.

So make a suggestion. Honestly, this post is useless. Nut up and design a complete system you think will work. I agree that there are some interesting tidbits here and there, and I also think a bunch of it is just crap.

>Reinventing the wheel isn't a bad idea but I definitely see
>the discouragement it could bring to you guys to have to code
>up something entirely new. I understand.

I'm not opposed to reinventing the wheel, but there are things we have specifically designed into the system (like having to take a bit of risk to actually get some damage reduction, having discoverable patterns your enemies can take advantage of, having a way to get rid of someone's dam redux like a thief stealing your wands, etc). A lot of ideas really boil down to "just ####ing give it to me".

>I hope you guys reconsider the system. It doesn't work as
>is.

I'll say it one more time...Honestly, this post is useless. Nut up and design a complete system you think will work.

>Thanks for the game. Best ever.

You're welcome.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Dallevian is the same as Forsaken. My bad on that, I didn't realize I was still logged in after posting on one of the protected forums.

As I've posted before, I like the transform idea of taking a limited magical item from anywhere and being able to transform it (similar to despoil but instead of hp you get dam redux). Having the spell available at 30 means every mage can get some sort of dam redux, even if it is only 10%. The more powerful items that give longer lasting and more reduction take some difficulty in getting. You'd have to kill a pretty tough mob. Plus, they might be items that people actually wear so there is competition in that, too.

One reason you said you disliked the idea was because of the abundance of magical items. Well, if you make the majority of them give only minimal redux, what's the problem with that? It still takes some work in going out and killing appropriate mobs to gather/farm them. And it'd only work with limited items so it isn't like I have a bag full of 50 necklaces worth 15% redux.

Exploration is still involved. Mages would have to go out and gather, test, and find what works efficiently for them. They'd be vulnerable as they kill that mob or gather a key to unlock a chest.

But redux is now accessible and it doesn't take shared ooc knowledge or re-exploring the same area for the 10th time hoping to find your sleek wand finally there.

The transform idea would also reward long-lived characters because it'd be hours based and % based to a small extent. It would also take the veil into account, which is a great addition but often ignored by non-nexuns and battle.

And depending on the nature of the item, you might even throw in some possible goodies. A magical item from coral palace might grant water resist or water breathing or shield of waves from a unique, hard to get item. Something from kiadana might make you heal faster in a burning area, give channel heat, or a random wall of fire prog to a weapon.

Can you point out the flaws you see in something like this so we can discuss it?

>As I've posted before, I like the transform idea of taking a
>limited magical item from anywhere and being able to transform
>it (similar to despoil but instead of hp you get dam redux).
>Having the spell available at 30 means every mage can get some
>sort of dam redux, even if it is only 10%. The more powerful
>items that give longer lasting and more reduction take some
>difficulty in getting. You'd have to kill a pretty tough mob.
> Plus, they might be items that people actually wear so there
>is competition in that, too.

Ultimately, there is zero risk to this solution, and one of the reasons I'm not a fan of it. Taking away a cabal skill and tossing it out to every mage is another reason I'm not a fan.

>One reason you said you disliked the idea was because of the
>abundance of magical items. Well, if you make the majority of
>them give only minimal redux, what's the problem with that?

So define the scale. There are ~20,000 objects in the game, let's just assume 33% are magical. Tell me what your thoughts are for balancing that across ~7000 items.

>It still takes some work in going out and killing appropriate
>mobs to gather/farm them.

And you can do that in relative seclusion with minimal risk (or just full loot your kills so you've got an ample supply).

>Exploration is still involved. Mages would have to go out and
>gather, test, and find what works efficiently for them.

Exploration is involved, risk isn't.

>The transform idea would also reward long-lived characters
>because it'd be hours based and % based to a small extent. It
>would also take the veil into account, which is a great
>addition but often ignored by non-nexuns and battle.

Why? Again...define a complete solution here.

>And depending on the nature of the item, you might even throw
>in some possible goodies. A magical item from coral palace
>might grant water resist or water breathing or shield of waves
>from a unique, hard to get item. Something from kiadana might
>make you heal faster in a burning area, give channel heat, or
>a random wall of fire prog to a weapon.

If I'm not going to build up kits for shamans based on their sphere, I'm sure as hell not going to build up something based on where an item came from.

>Can you point out the flaws you see in something like this so
>we can discuss it?

There ya go.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

You haven't completely shot it down? I'll spend some time better fleshing it out if you're interested. Otherwise, I'll probably actually work tomorrow when I'm at work instead of doing this.

I'd rather do this, though.

It discourages info sharing. The better items to transform, since they're limited, mean I don't want to let my buddy know about it since it reduces my chance of having it.

Thieves can steal them (though some might be flagged hidden on purpose).

They're competitive since they're limited and in high-demand from all mages with the wand skill.

Some are obvious but really hard to get (as in, better gather a group).

They're functional items that people use/wear. Again, competitive.

They have diminishing return (if you don't in fact make them one time use) so the first transform is the best, the subsequent two lesser, before the item finally poofs.

Patterns still form. Some builds will find some items easier to gather. This is observable.

It requires going out and doing something to get an item.

Anyone knew to the mage class has accessible damage reduction.

No more abs at 36 (Cabdru, anyone?). Damage reduction is more likely to scale accordingly to level and knowledge of the player.

It doesn't take making a hero character to explore all possible locations to then make a second character and take advantage of that. It levels the playingfield more than the current system but still has reward and value for deep player knowledge.

No more non-obvious locations or tricky key words (unless you decide to throw a few easter eggs out there by placing a tranformable item there).

>It discourages info sharing. The better items to transform,
>since they're limited, mean I don't want to let my buddy know
>about it since it reduces my chance of having it.
>
>Thieves can steal them (though some might be flagged hidden on
>purpose).
>
>They're competitive since they're limited and in high-demand
>from all mages with the wand skill.
>
>Some are obvious but really hard to get (as in, better gather
>a group).
>
>They're functional items that people use/wear. Again,
>competitive.

I honestly don't see this today with transform in the game today, so I'm going to disagree with you. Even tripling the number of mages that have it online at any given time isn't going to dramatically change the dynamics of this.



>They have diminishing return (if you don't in fact make them
>one time use) so the first transform is the best, the
>subsequent two lesser, before the item finally poofs.

Transform is one time use.

>It requires going out and doing something to get an item.

Not necessarily. I can just go pit loot my cabal, or grab something from a corpse of the dude counter-raiding (this is probably my favorite...cabal of mages defending against whomever, someone dies gets fully stripped and they all transform using his gear, Yay!).

>Anyone knew to the mage class has accessible damage
>reduction.

Also solved by giving out shield or some equiavlent to all mage classes.

>No more abs at 36 (Cabdru, anyone?). Damage reduction is more
>likely to scale accordingly to level and knowledge of the
>player.

Why not? I'll just get my buddies to hand me over some good pieces of gear and whup your ass.

>It doesn't take making a hero character to explore all
>possible locations to then make a second character and take
>advantage of that. It levels the playingfield more than the
>current system but still has reward and value for deep player
>knowledge.

Until you define for me how the spell determines what level of dam redux/hit points you get, I can't comment.

>No more non-obvious locations or tricky key words (unless you
>decide to throw a few easter eggs out there by placing a
>tranformable item there).

Detect artifact will help with that...

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Howsabout this.

Have each location have something like a 15% chance of being yours, not predetermined.

As you check locations, the chance goes up 2% or something.

Once you actually see a sleek, that is your location.

Some people will get lucky and hit their first loc, most people won't, and it is hard to abuse the system to get the loc you want, because you might well get one of the ones before it.

nt

nt

>Have each location have something like a 15% chance of being
>yours, not predetermined.
>
>As you check locations, the chance goes up 2% or something.

How do you determine that you have "checked a location"?

If you check a location & didn't find it, is it off the list?

How does detect artifact play with this?

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

>>Have each location have something like a 15% chance of
>being
>>yours, not predetermined.
>>
>>As you check locations, the chance goes up 2% or something.
>
>How do you determine that you have "checked a location"?

Exploree/Observation points probably already exist in most, if not all, current wand locations, in addition to wand holding mobs being "unique". So, if you hit the explore/observation point for a wand, or kill the mob that could hold one, it counts as checking.

>If you check a location & didn't find it, is it off the list?

Yes, I think this is the only way that makes sense, though of course if you took edges...

>How does detect artifact play with this?

Same as now, in that when you hit your "spot" and the wand actually pops, you get the detect artifact echos, otherwise not.

Obviously this isn't my idea, but I do like it, and this is how I would implement it.

Tac

"Checked a location" == Looked in the container/killed the mob. I'm not sure under what circumstance you can check "your" location and not see the wand, but I believe this happens if the wand is in a container, and someone grabbed the wand, and there hasn't been an area repop since then. I am sure that there is a simple coding solution for getting rid of that problem, but I don't know the exact mechanics of the system, nor am I a coder so if that is false, sorry.

If you check a location and don't find it, yes it is off the list. Otherwise, you could just check the location you wanted over and over.

Detect artifact plays with it like this. If you cast detect artifact, and whatever factors go into if detect artifact fires or not work out, and the result is a positive, then detect artifact triggers the "15%" check. If you fail the 15% check, detect artifact gives a negative result. If you make the 15% check, detect artifact gives a positive, and that location is now yours.

If the detect artifact explanation isn't coherent, I might be able to phrase it better.

Once again, I think this system would closely prevent abuse. If the numbers (15% vs 20% etc) aren't public, it would be VERY hard to figure out how to statistically maximize the chance of getting the wand loc you wand, and even if you do maximize the chance, you will still fail to get that location a good chunk of the time.

Also, this system rewards "real" exploration MUCH more than the current, in that if you don't have a wand, you know you have a decent chance of finding your sleek if you go exploring, whereas with the current system you have a relatively low chance of finding your sleek.

>Once again, I think this system would closely prevent abuse.
>If the numbers (15% vs 20% etc) aren't public, it would be
>VERY hard to figure out how to statistically maximize the
>chance of getting the wand loc you wand, and even if you do
>maximize the chance, you will still fail to get that location
>a good chunk of the time.

Actually I think this turns it into, "I know these 10 really easy ABS locations, so I'll go check all of those, and if I don't find my stuff there I'll delete and bitch about it", and many of the more difficult slots will never trigger on anyone becuase people will intentionally avoid them.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

How is that different from now?

What if you find your barrier spot in an "easy" location, but your shield and aura don't pop, are you still going to delete? What if you stumble across your wand in a spot you wouldn't have looked at before you even go "exploring"?

>How is that different from now?

Many of the more difficult slots will never trigger on anyone becuase people will intentionally avoid them.

>What if you find your barrier spot in an "easy" location, but
>your shield and aura don't pop, are you still going to delete?

Don't know, I've never deleted due to ABS. Ask someone else.

>What if you stumble across your wand in a spot you wouldn't
>have looked at before you even go "exploring"?

Depends on if you even noticed that it popped.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Theoretically, there shouldn't be some slots that are significantly more "difficult" than others. That was the idea behind the previous ABS overhaul. If it turns out people are all avoiding specific locations, that might be a flag to the staff that that particular location should be checked and compared to the difficulty of others.


An alternative would be to adjust the chances of getting any given wand, depending on how common it is. So if no one else has that spot, you might have a 5% chance better of getting it. But if EVERY mage has the same spot, it might lower by 10%.. or whatever numbers you want to throw in there. That could be automatic based on the raw numbers, or just adjusted by the Imms as they see trends.

nt

Well, we had an old system where people could do the same - check 10 easy spots and delete if unlucky - but noone did. We have a new system where people bitch now, so this wont be WORSE in this certain point.

Also you can set different chance for different spots so easy spots will have a bit less chance to give sleek than a 'hard' spots.

For me this looks like certainly better system than current: it forces to explore but it gives pretty good chance that you get your precious even if you dont know all 60 locations.

>Well, we had an old system where people could do the same -
>check 10 easy spots and delete if unlucky - but noone did.

You're kidding, right? That happened constantly.

Edited to add:

In fact, this is the exact reason we did the last 'revamp' such that sets were split up -- people would power to 30, check for one of their wands (let's say aura) from one of a couple sets they'd find acceptable, and delete if it wasn't there.

Upon character creation, each mage has 1000 points of "aura loc", 1000 points of "shield loc" and 1000 points of "barrier loc".

Each point corrosponds to a location. One location per type is guarenteed to have 100 points. That is your "normal location". The rest of the points are distributed randomly among the rest of the locations of that type.

So lets say Location 1 is my guarenteed location it would look something like this.

Location 1 -- 100%
Location 2 -- 31%
Location 3 -- 2%

Etc etc etc. Beyond that, the system would work out as outlined in my earlier post. When you "check" a location, if you pass the % check, that is now yours, and all other locations go to 0% chance.

The above system I think might be a cool hybrid. LOTS of randomness, 100% impossible to abuse, encourages "real" exploration, makes your wands more accessable.

A system of this basic form substantially decreases the advantage of OOC info sharing. Knowing 20 locations might well in effect be just as good as knowing 40, and once again this encourages "real/organic" exploration, I.E is MUCH more newb friendly than the current system, while not really making it too easy for vets.

My understanding of the sleek system is that your sleek won't "pop" until you're in the room or whatever, right?

So.. if you do whatever would currently make the wand spawn (be that enter the room, kill a mob, whatever), instead it marks it as the location being checked.

Sure, that might mean that you miss your wand because it spawned somewhere you didn't even realize. But that's where detect artifact would come in. I would envision it working pretty much exactly the same way as it does not.

And yes, once a location has been checked and is NOT your location, it will never be your location (unless you pick one of the edges).

Mages get really screwed getting abs spots that don't line up well with their class, and there's always times people get a location that bewilders them and they can never find it, especially for newer players.

I say just give every mage class two locations for aura, shield, and barrier from now on instead of one. They will have a much better chance at finding their spots and it would be more readily available for all mages because we all know full abs at hero is necessary most of the time.

This would be the easiest thing to code of all suggestions and our mages would have abs more often. And it would keep in tact the whole abs system you guys have worked so hard on and still keep the exploration factor that I think is necessary to balance it. Overall I think abs isn't overpowered one bit, and this solution is far from giving all mages abs on a stick. I'd be totally happy with this scenario.

>Mages get really screwed getting abs spots that don't line up
>well with their class,

This is a non-issue in the current system...

>and there's always times people get a
>location that bewilders them and they can never find it,
>especially for newer players.

Detect artifact...

>I say just give every mage class two locations for aura,
>shield, and barrier from now on instead of one. They will have
>a much better chance at finding their spots and it would be
>more readily available for all mages because we all know full
>abs at hero is necessary most of the time.

I disagree that full ABS at hero is necessary most of the time.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

This might be more work than it's worth, but I think it's a different direction for ideas anyway.

Step 1: Keep the wand system as is in terms of exploration. (That's the easy part.) Maybe go ahead with the detect artifact/edge changes anyway.

Step 2: Add a 'challenge' system to the game for mages.

At various levels, say 35 for Shield, 40 for aura and 50 for Barrier, mages can go to a specific zone (Tower of High Sorcery or other mage specific area) and accept a 'challenge' or 'test' if you will.

This 'test' would in it's simplest form be a direct 1v1 fight versus a very difficult mob for the entry level. Probably a member of the same class as the caster, geared for the level of the test. (So, in short, this would require creating 3 mobs for each mage class, at levels 35, 40 and 50) It would require multiple preps, sound tactics and perhaps a good amount of luck to win. Make the fight a fixed 1 person only affair, maybe the old Knights Force Duel code is still laying about, but expand the battlefield to a 3x3 'zone' or something to allow some form of fleeing/reprepping. Make it hard, we're talking Nep level of hard here. Let him go nuts with it.

Dying is normal costing you 1/3 a con and xp as usual, to avoid people just continually beating their head against them until they get a lucky set of saving throws.

If you like make it a moderately steep cost of entry. Say 100 gold to take the test. There's lots of ways to tweak this.

The prize for winning said contest, the guardian would then just flat out tells you where your wand for that test is.

The possible benefits I see from this:

1) It gives you the 'mage killing choke point' you guys seem to like. Battleragers know mages of various levels will go to this zone for tests, and what better time to jump them. Let the villagers kill the quest giver or something too if they want, or say the tests can't be taken if the veil is very thick.

2) It rewards players who know the game without having to reexamine every nook and cranny for the 100th time. If at level 35 you're capable of scrounging up enough preps/gear/healing to take on a very tough fight 1v1, then congrats you get your shield location handed to you. If balanced right, this could be minority of people who pull this off at the initial level.

3) It allows newbies to get a taste. Maybe I can't beat my level 35 shield guardian until I'm level 50, but at least I'll get a shield location and hopefully learn a bit more about how to play my class in a tough fight. And besides telling me 'Your aura wand is being held by XYZ in zone ABC' means I still have to find it and that mob, and kill it.

4) Hopefully it encourages mages to talk to each other about being mages. "Wow, that guardian is kicking my ass, any tips how to beat them?" These, I feel are better conversations to be had then "Wow, any ideas what rocks I can look under for magic sticks?" Although, those conversations can happen also since people can still randomly explore to get theirs.

Potential downsides:

1) Not sure how you handle twinking. Do maran mages get it easier since they can likely find someone willing to sanc them before going in? Perhaps dispel everyone before they zone into the test, not sure.

2) As I said, it might be a pain to create 15 new mobs for these tests. Balancing them going forward might be difficult too, not sure. Could a dark-elf AP and a Fire Giant AP be expected to fight the same mob? Can all shapeshifter focii be epxected to fight the same mobs? Are water/water focii screwed? (Maybe you can make the shapeshifter test mobs so they mirror the forms of the testee, not sure on that.)

Anyway, even if no one likes the idea, maybe it'll give different directions to ponder in.

My feedback on the edges, by the way.

I don't like the idea of +1 location edges because it widens the gap between people who gets lists OOC and people who explore on their own two feet. Now, not only does having an OOC list get you your wands faster, but it now also potentially saves you a lot of edge points.

The people who need to use those edges, are really the last people who can afford to put themselves in a hole like that. Just my two cents.

So this boils down to. I'll spend some coin, you let me fight a mob 1:1 and if I win, you tell me where my wand is.

I honestly don't see how this balances out well. The fight is likely going to be extremely difficult, at which point it's not necessarily going to be viable.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

>So this boils down to. I'll spend some coin, you let me
>fight a mob 1:1 and if I win, you tell me where my wand is.
>
>I honestly don't see how this balances out well. The fight is
>likely going to be extremely difficult, at which point it's
>not necessarily going to be viable.

Well, yeah, that's basically the idea. If you're so good at this game or if you've spent so much time and effort that you can get enough preps on your own to beat a really, really tough 1:1 fight, then you shouldn't really have to go play 'needle in the haystack' through all the same zones again.

OR it you're not so good, but you're willing to risk several con and time on a very hard fight to get the perfect saves, luck and whatnot then maybe you get lucky as an alternative to looking everywhere including places you can't even imagine.

The idea was to give an option without making it easy. Even if an option is incredibly difficult, the fact people have a choice tends to make them at least feel like they have some sort of control rather than just jumping through hoops mindlessly (which really is wand gathering). Even if only 5% of the mud could beat these fights, it would probably keep 25% of the complainers off your back.

Anyway, thanks for reading the idea. Good luck with the changes. I'll go back to mages when the locations are common knowledge again or you find a better system.

This is message 1 of 2. I wrote too much for the forum to let me post it, so breaking it up into two posts.

You asked so here's my idea. This would be in line with the 'scrap the old system completely, rework the whole idea of dam redux' line of thinking.

All mage classes are given unique, dam redux spells. All spells are immune to 'dispel' and 'cancelation' All a/b/s wands disappear. Potions, pills, and talismans stay (edit: sentence added). There are three types of spells:

Level 20 - 25% - 12 hour duration - 24 hour timer
Level 40 - 33% - 6 hour duration - 24 hour timer
Level 47 - 50% - 6 hour duration - no timer

LOWER TIER
The level 20 spell has no drawbacks. It is a basic dam redux spell with a 50% uptime per day.

MID TIER
The level 40 spell is also a utility spell. It has a 4 round cast time and offers differing effects per mage class:
Invokers - physical attacks against this shield have a 33% chance to trigger a reactionary effect, turning 25% of damage dealt back to the attacker. Shield dissipates after 6 reactionary charges have been expended. This is put into the lightning path.

Necromancers - physical attacks against this shield have a 25% chance of triggering Mistform (edit: accidentally named this Wraithform), a one-round chance to mitigate 33% of auto-attack melee damage. Dissipates after 6 charges.

Transmuters - physical and magical attacks have a 10% chance of triggering Rapid Reflexes, a skill that increases parry chance by 25% for 1 round. Fades after 2 rounds.

Shapeshifters - physical and magical attacks trigger a unique effect based on majorfocus. For offense - a riposte. For defense, increased dodging/minor heal. Et cetera. Fades after x charges based on what effect is triggered.

Conjurers - physical and magical attacks trigger the Shimmer effect. Similar in scope to Mistform for necromancers from above. Fades after same amount of charges. Further edges can refine this spell based on alignment and morallity, giving further bonuses such as increased healing/spells/rescues from servitors. If this spell is forcibly removed, servitors become unhappier. Devils no longer cast aura.

MAJOR TIER
The level 47 spell provides the greatest amount of dam redux, and carries the biggest amount of risk. This spell is also the easiest to dispel, however it can be recast without any downtime. It has a 4-round cast time and carries a base 25% mana cost. Additional mana can be funneled into the spell to offset some of the side effects. Additional utility of each spell is triggered based on every damage attack or spell. Multi-hit attacks such as iceneedles and flurry count as one chance to trigger these effects:

Invokers - Each elemental path has one of these spells. There is a 10% chance to autocast the following spell based on path: windwall, fireball, geyser, avalanche, vitriolic stream (dissipates if another spell is cast), improved icicle (more damage and hits multiple people), chain lightning. Using elemental damage weakens this shield regardless of immunity to said damage. When 100% of the invoker's base hp has been dealt in elemental damage (bypassing all dam redux), this spell is forcibly removed and delivers damage to the invoker.

Necromancers - 10% chance to cast vampiric touch. If there is a suitable corpse in the room, the necromancer attempts to auto-animate regardless of any timers. Holy damage equal to the necro's base hp shatters this spell. When shattered, the resulting blast from the Negative Material Plane damages all undead in the room. Graveyards amplify positive effects by an additive 10%, and reduce the holy damage done to this spell by 50%.

Transmuters - 10% chance of restoring 10% base mana and triggering 0 ticks of anti-magic shell. This spell is removed when an enemy deals the transmuter's base hp in elemental or 'magic' type damage. When this spell shatters, the transmuter has 0 ticks of a magic malison effect that worsens saving throws.

Shapeshifters - 10% chance of triggering a unique effect based on majorfocus. For offense, riposte-like attack. For defense, increased dodging/healing/damredux. For air, a wingsweep type effect. Et cetera. This shield is shattered when the shapeshifter's base hp is dealt to them via slashing or piercing damage. When this spell is shattered, the shapeshifter has a random chance of triggering the following effects: haste removal, stone skin removal, or forced revert (lower chance, influenced by Veil, and increased as the shifter's mana supply is lowered)

Conjurors - 10% chance of triggering the 'conjure minor elemental' effect. When triggered, a random minion is summoned and auto-bound to the conjuror that deals damage similar to a necromancer's lesser golem. This minion disappears once combat has ceased, can be dismissed, and cannot turn on the caster. This spell can be shattered when opponents have dealt the conjuror's base hp damage in blunt damage. Archons and devils no longer cast sanctuary and barrier. When this shield is forcibly removed, the conjurer's minions become unhappy. In addition, every minion has 'dismissal' cast on them as though the conjuror was casting it with no additional mana. If a minion is dismissed in this way. Conjuration and binding timers are halved per successful dismissal.