(Edited to add more information and provide some clarifications)

This system has been updated/revamped somewhat. This project was originally started by Valg, worked on in bits by probably a bunch of people, and finally finished up recently by Raybaer and I.

Some highlights and answers in anticipation of probable questions:

• A lot of potential sleek black/amber/sienna rod locations have been added.


• New characters may receive some of these new locations.


• Being able to get a black rod from location X no longer implies that you'll find a sienna rod in location Y or an amber rod in location Z.


• In general, shield locations are less difficult/dangerous than aura locations which in turn are less difficult/dangerous than barrier locations.


• Not all potential locations will be available for all characters. For example, one current rod location is in a protected city, where Tribunal really shouldn't get it according to their rules. Going forward, Tribunal mages won't receive this location.


• This also means that you may need to consider some potential locations that you could safely rule out when the possibilities were more universal. To use the most common example, previously you'd never need to kill a good-aligned NPC to get your wand, since with the older system a good-aligned PC could get any location. You can no longer safely rule this out in general.


• Pre-existing characters retain their previous wand locations, with this caveat: Your locations are the same, but different rods may be found in each. In particular, your amber and sienna locations have probably swapped with each other for them to conform to the above paradigm of relative difficulty. Pre-existing in this case means "rolled before the reboot that brought this set of changes in."


• Sleek black rods can no longer be discovered at a level below the minimum to actually use them.


• Detect Artifact has been updated for these changes, and may be a new best friend for many of you who never needed it before.

here are my thoughts.

If you thought the system as it stood was a good system, this is a good change.

If you disliked the original system, you're going to hate it even more now.

When implementing anything into any game, or assessing potential ideas, there are two questions that I tend to ask. Firstly, is it necessary? Is it something that is required to make the game work, achieve balance, etcetera. Secondly, is it fun? Is it something that's going to make the game more interesting and dynamic. I'm sure you guys are familiar with this line of thought so I'll continue.

Was this change necessary? Depends on your goals. If your goal is to break up OOC information sharing a bit, and make the system more dynamic, this is a good change. It's well done and well thought-out.

Is implementing this change fun? I'd have to argue no. In fact, I might even argue that the entire ABS system in general is un-fun, and I don't understand where some people derive fun out of the kinds of activity the system forces you to do. You may be dispersing OOC groups a bit with this, but you're encouraging elitism by broadening the amount of area knowledge and exploring experience a single player has to have in order to know where to look for these kinds of things. Additionally, by putting a level restriction on discovering blacks you're almost requiring people to do the same world-wide search for wands twice; once at earlier levels and again at a later level for your black, because you couldn't have discovered it before. All in all, you've probably at least doubled or tripled the amount of time a given character would have to spend finding these things. Notice, not just player, but this is something you're going to have to do with every single character. That's not fun, how could that be fun? That's time that same character could be spending interacting with other people by roleplaying or PKing. And I'm not saying this change in particular causes a lack of fun, I'm saying the entire premise of the system emphasizes spending many hours of exploring with every character, and this change only exacerbates it.

So the question becomes, do the benefits of breaking up OOC groups and adding a little bit of dynamicism to the system outweigh the consequences of adding hours of un-fun non-interaction time to an already broken system?

Well, obviously, the implementors believe they do, or this wouldn't have happened.

You know, I have a really hard time with this change, because from an implementor's perspective, I have to acknowledge that, depending on your goals, it's actually quite well-done. But I'm disappointed that the staff apparently failed to consider the consequences of making something that wasn't very fun to start with even less fun.

So now the question in my mind has to be; the work has been done, obviously we have to keep this system, there's been to much work thrown into it to simply chuck it out and start over, so how can we mitigate these consequences? I believe Mek was sort of on the right track, down below. There should be quests and skills (like detect artifact) to help you find your wands. These quests need to be implemented in such a way that they are not too easily obtainable (so that not any throwaway character can get them in hopes of just discovering and compiling a list of hints), and yet accomplishable by people with less experience exploring the game. Something along the lines of "Bring me 200 gold and these ten items and I will divine for you a hint as to where your wands of power lie." would work. As implementors of a game that tries to remain flexible as far as allowing there to be multiple ways to play the game, I would think you need to consider quests as a real possibility and alternative.

That about sums up this thread for me.

Since being a newbie pretty much disqualifies you from being an imm.

I think a lot of the Immortals now are hardened vets, and all the feedback you can get second-hand doesn't beat a true newbie's perspective in the Heavens.

PS From the few people I talk to, the main problem with the sleek set STILL hasn't been addressed. Namely that the sets differ WILDLY in tougher/ease in gathering. Finding them (especially once you've played more than two hero range mages) isn't nearly as hard as figuring how the #### to get them

example: My last Scion had a cake amber and sienna, however, my black was in a hard to reach place with tons of aggro mobs that would honestly beat my dire wolf down (well, I could kill a couple but they'd wear me down). But my first Scion had an even worse black. I mean, the worst black you could get (IMHO). Yet I played a Trib shifter recently who could get all three of his in under two minutes and yeah, the black would bring me to half health and once killed me, but that was because I killed it WITHOUT PROTECTIONS all the time. So where is the balance in that? You have one black a character can get without protections, and you have another that you literally have to ABS for and hope you fight a good fight and your gear stacks up.

Now, of course, if player's weren't such gear whores and OOC cheaters, we could just make all the sleek spots limited wand spots and the system would be perfect. Unfortunately, the real world is what it is.

I love mages and finally was beginning to know viable locations for the sleeks... now with this change, its just utterly frustrating... especially in a world where every other warrior can nearly perma-lag you (yes, cranial, pincer, lash, etc) and mages by default parry about as good as a brick wall....

With my current mage, out of all the locations I know with the exception of two blacks, I have nothing in any of the amber or sienna locations from ol... So I think to myself, where the hell do I even begin? The system is suppose to be more logical they say, but I'm still looking for some wandering mage in some weird location, etc.

In any case.. I hope something comes around to hint or direct cause I want to bang my head against the wall. I just had to vent...

EXB

Wouldn't it make more sense to reduce the damage reduction so its balanced and give it out as spells? Possibly with cast timers to make you have to wonder about when to use it?

If you did that you could treat mages like ever other class in the game and let them get exploration rewards from high end gear - not force people to go through the mandatory 'wand finding cycle of tedium'.

If that's how it worked, you can bet that the standard tactic would be to hit a cabal outer, wait for the mage to show up prepped, run off for a second and come back when you know he's on a cooldown timer and would get hosed by you. Way too predictable.

Also, this kinda of seige warfare has always been in the game, but it's only somewhat effective now as you are kinda guessing about whether or not the mage is out of preps.

Don't really see an issue with that. They can do the same thing with wands, only it makes you want to stab yourself in the face when you have to spend yet another login doing the mandatory wand whoring first.

Not everyone can be cool like Riftshadow.

Well, more importantly, they can't implement a Challen idea..:P

Farther down they asked to see logs of a mage fighting a melee class with no a/b/s. As Caebrylla I rarely used DR except rarely a shield wand. I don't want to post a bunch of logs, so here is the link:

http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?10,568498,568498#msg-568498

>Farther down they asked to see logs of a mage fighting a
>melee class with no a/b/s. As Caebrylla I rarely used DR
>except rarely a shield wand. I don't want to post a bunch of
>logs, so here is the link:
>
>http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?10,568498,568498#msg-568498

Looked up the character, you went 5 wins for 8 losses (and were a defense shifter - ie the most defensive of all the mages in the game). You're not making ABS look any less necessary to be honest.

As a mage without ABS, once you hit the hero range unless EVERYTHING GOES COMPLETELY RIGHT I feel like I don't have much of a chance against a melee class. I'll say 20% or less for sure. To me, this is the inherent problem with mage classes, but perhaps it was meant for CF to be this way.

So I guess let's look at it from the perspective of the melee classes. I feel like at hero when there's a mage his entire set (aura, barrier, AND shield) that I have basically NO chance of killing him and I have to run. My chance of beating him are less than 10%.

Now... I guess if you've taken the time to gather your entire set then you have the right to be SUPER MAGE because you've put your work in. Unfortunately this sucks for people who have already gone through the tedium of finding these wands in the first place, and now they have to learn to "re-enjoy" the game by exploring and killing and find them AGAIN. That just ####ing sucks... end of discussion. Nobody wants to be FORCED to enjoy something they already liked.

On the other hand... the NON super mage is going to get his ass handed to him. Point blank period. He might find a aura or sleek and be able to go from HAVING NO CHANCE to MAYBE HAVING A CHANCE but it still tips below 50% until he can find an aura AND a sleek. I don't think it's fair that you put the survivability of a classon their ability to find wands.

Now... here's where I #### myself...
-Aura and/or Shield should be enough to go toe to toe with most, and since these locations are fairly easy to find this change is fine.

-Finding aura/shield is no different than a melee class finding a decent weapon or piece of armor to able to deal damage, so it balances out here.

-Now the SUPER MAGE with the barrier location has probably earned it, not only through exploring but being able to kill the mob that has it. This sucks for melee classes, but it just has to be accepted because most mage situations can be prepared for through preps (stone skin, protection, resist elements, mental, etc), or even getting ANOTHER mage to hook you up (quickning, shields, etc) unlesss of you're a rager, in which case the mage probably NEEDED all three, aura barrier AND shield, to hang with you anyway.

So basically what you have, in my opinion, is a fairly balanced system. Some people will be stronger than others, and some people will be complete beasts, but isn't that how it's always been?

Really the only problem I see with the system is the fact vet players have to relearn #### they've already invested days, weeks, months, and YEARS learning, only to have it thrown away at an immortals whim. That kind of sucks... but for the rest of the game it pretty much evens everything out. As much as I wanted to bitch and moan about it when I first saw what the changes were, after looking at it, I have to commend the imms. It's not a perfect system but it's getting better, at least the way I see it.

I try to be objective, but I can't be. At the hero end, this game is all about the use of magic.

Kostyan was one of the more successful warriors (great build, good skill, and liberal use of preps) we've seen of late. On QHCF is a log where he was quickly taken out and his groupmates thwarted by an invoker. I don't think invokers are underpowered.

Shapeshifters have been refitted to accommodate their vulnerability to maladictions, but look at the recent complaints from Elleryne the "Mageslayer" and Alzhinghul. Do you have to be a RBW (giant sword or giant polearm/mace) or level sit in order to be a good matchup?

We've heard a complaint or two about transmuters and their melee and charged up antipaladins. From what I have seen, Satebos and Ahtieli seem to handicap themselves (or give the appearance of doing so) in order to get people to be willing to fight them.

My suggestions for ABS would be Option A) to limit sleeks more, so the mage could carry no more than 2 uses at a time or B) allow for multiple charges, but have it have a much shorter duration (3-6 hours). Either would prevent mages from having permanent damage reduction.

Additionally, I would strip shapeshifters of the haste and slow spells, for their art is one of changing shape, not metabolism. Let them prep like all other melee classes.

For transmuters, I suggest that shifting dimension has a greater lag associated with it and that there is a fairly steep chance of losing any and all spells, including barrier, when shifting from duo to 3-D** or vice versa.

** edited from "duo to flat" to "duo to 3-D"

An ABSd offensive shifter is going to wreck, and your chances of killing a ABSd invoker with shields, even prepped with haste, stone skin, and everything else up the ass is still going to be a near impossible fight unless you're a rager. Also I don't agree that a transmuter should ever out melee a warrior class but it happens.

That's the one part where I do agree. If you say the answer to fighting someone with ABS is "don't fight them" then you've basically said that the system is ####ed. These changes address the problem minimally, which is why I agree with them, but they definitely don't address the problem itself, which is why I agree with you.

I think some system of dam reduction has to be put in for mages to make them on par to fight with melee classes without making it so that it becomes a "wait until ABS falls" type of fight. I don't think every mage with access to wands should be as deadly as a Lich (yes I know what I just said and yes I know I'm exaggerating).

I just don't see why there's not a more limited set of wands. Aura and shield gives fairly good dam redux but barrier on top of them makes them beast. I don't see why you can't keep A/S and then make barrier some kind of wand you have to quest for (via detect artifact skill?) or just leave ALL barrier wands limited and like the other guy said have you have to kill the person with the barrier wands to get it (or find where it is before someone else does). Nobody is complaining there's only a certain set of spike toed boots or strange bracers or etched dragonscale pendants or five color mail or spirit breaker and the such. You have to go out and kill each other for these things, and they generally make you a lot more powerful. Why not have mages be the same way? Like I said you'd still have aura and shield but barrier would be that one wand that separates you from the pack. Goodies would maybe share it... an evil character would be hunter pretty nastily (as an evil power craving mage with unmatched powers should be) and neutrals would be somewhere in between. I honestly don't see the problem with this. Any other ideas?

There's just GOTTA be an answer to even the "can't not win" to "just can't win" ratio. For the pendelum to swing that hard just doesn't make sense, and really isn't fair. It kills the newbs because now they have NO chance one way or the other, and frustrates the #### out of the vets because no matter how hard they try you just can't break through 800HP doing SCRATCHES when they're dropping DEMOS on you.

I'd like to say I'm in no way a Vet or even Skilled player. However I did start playing CF Part time when you were Maple. I'm slightly older than when I first started playing CF, and always leaned towards Melee type classes. Do in part to the fact I have no OOC CF friends, my wand knowledge is from Hours of searching places, I don't use macros or triggers. I don't even keep a List of wands.

I can say some of what I've read where perhaps Imm interaction takes place to give you a Hint would be a fantasic Idea. The fact you Kept the Old locations was kosher, but what if someone only knew of 2 Barrier, 2 aura, and 1 shield spots to even begin with? As others have posted the Vets and Time Consuming players will have these spots nailed down in a matter of Months +/-, however someone like me who plays a Charcter once a year....If I have a hanckling to come back to CF and play a great mage role I've thought up....maybe I'll just spin it as an Assassin.


I think our opinions should count for how much we invest in CF, and the major point being I invest about .0001%, however this could be great/horrible based on how it's currently set up.

nt

and didn't know the sleek sets, I'm going to say that this is a good change. It's more like the system is supposed to be.

Yet I still manage to play shifters without ABS, even kill a few ragers. I tried an invoker though and without wands, shields just weren't enough. I would think a goodie conjurer would be able to survive without wands, possibly a necro with a large army, but probably not since warriors would just drive them away from the zombies. I think of transmuters as having the PK potential of healers, so mine just stay duo or teleport anytime an enemy is in the area.

Course as far as Lightmages example of a sword spec berserker, that was the first thing I killed when my last shifter got her first form, porc. I can count too. One, two, three, shift porc, flurry, dead rager. Sorry Iborren. :)

I thought about it for a bit and this is the idea i came up with.

Aura

*Allow amber rods to be requested from a mages guildmaster at level 35, there should be a timer equal to what a mage would currently have to wait before his rod reappears right now.

*Boost aura damage redux ~7-10% for mages only. (Maybe Damredux boost through wand skill and edges)

*Same stats otherwise, 4 charges at 30 game hours.

Shield

*In order to obtain shield you need to give your guildmaster the 'blood of someone worthy'. Basically this means anyone in your PK range starting at level 30 and up. A new command would be needed which everyone will have, something like:
'collect blood'
You collect the blood of DeadPlayer
inv
A small vial of bood

*If a mage gives this vial to their guildmaster, the guildmaster will create a sienna rod, there should be a ~15% chance of this failing.

*If it doesn't fail it should create a rod of 6 charges at 20 hours.

*Collecting blood can be done by anyone. For example if a thief kills someone they can collect their blood and then give/sell/trade to a mage they know. However blood can only be collected by the person that did the killing.

*Vials should rot after a reasonable amount of time, no more then a RL hour give or take.

*shield has same stats otherwise

Barrier

*Barrier rods would still require exploration. Barrier should be hidden somewhere in the world, in any of the old or new locations, maybe even in some of the old shield and aura location. Remove all current no risk locations.

*Barrier dam redux should be reduced by whatever Aura dam redux was increased by. That way should a mage get ABS, they would have no more dam redux then current mages do now.


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

I think if we had a system like this it would be fairly interesting. Shield rods would require interaction of some kind and everyone would have basic access to Aura but it still wouldn't be unlimited as if we had the spell. Since having access to shield rod will never be as easy as finding it and picking it up, I think its fair to boosted aura slightly thus limiting the need of having the other rods in more situations.

I don't see this as an improvement over the current system.

I was going to take the time to defend and justify my idea by writting on these topics which i had already come up with:

Aura

*Newbie friendliness vs current sleek and limit aura availability.
*Justify aura boost due to new challenge of getting shield.
*New no hassle aquirement vs current methods.
*Game balance vs current state

Shield

*Challenge of new sytem vs Tedium of old.
*Making it more valuable and rare:What imms wanted.
*How it might effect vet and new players and the non-mage playerbase.

Barrier

*Its the same old much loved system except reduced to one wand instead of three.

*Allows Imms to focus on locations, risks vs reward.

Overall System

*Examples how this would effect vet scion primetime mage to newbie off-peak mage.

*Possible additional barrier locations as rewards for RP oriented characters like herald mages.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My idea was a compromise of what the players wanted and what the imms reason where for the changes old system.

IMMS

*Sleeks too common even used for ranking
*No challenge or variety
*People find one and can easily find others.
*People delete until they have an 'easy' set

Player

*Tedious not challenging
*Some sleeks needed for mage to be able to be effective
*System hard on newbies
*System does nothing to stop information sharing.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Those were some of the topics i was thinking up but BLEH. Why bother arguing? I need only aura and shield to be effective in most fights, again even if i know barrier location i'm too lazy to get it all the time. I looked over my current list of aura and shield sleek locations, and added with my list of limited stuff, i'll be fine or just delete delete til i am. People have always been very generous with game knowledge, most everything was shown or told to me ingame, this change will most likely make them even more so with locations. Sure its tedious as opposed to challenging or fun but the only ones really hurt by this are going to be the newbies and i think the playerbase is still pretty decent compared to other muds. ;)

Should replace the "blood part" with something else as some goodie mages might not wish to kill or take someones blood. ^^ Even buying it from some scetchy thief might prove to much. ;)

Can't think of anything better atm though, but I'm no idea sprouter either so I leave that to you. :D


But still, the overall idea of it sounds good to me.

At least, you can get aura quite easy (though still have timer)
you have TWO ways to get your sienna - explore/asking or by making guildmaster quest and so on

Much better as for me. Current system is awful, if use it as it is meant to - travel through whole world seeking your sleeks or speaking with dozens of mages IC until you get more or less decent list.

Yes, I (and 99% of other players) will just call OOC (mostly) and IC (some) vets I know and ask from them, but this is not the way the system intented to be used.

Unfortunately i couldn't quite come up with a RP friendly idea for a proof of victory when first coming up with the idea. I agree that blood might be a bit much for some goodies but an item is needed for selling/trading/giving. I had though up of 'essense of someone worthy' but that feels worse then blood almost like soul.


An idea that would work would be something like:

Proof <playercorpse>
You pray up the the heaven for the gods to reward you for your victory.
inv
Token of the gods.

I suppose this would work maybe they can be called 'Blessing' or maybe variation depending on sphere. Also god tokens might also end up having other applications in the future, however it still feels a bit...weak.

Like i said before though, i'm not really going to bother arguing the idea so anyone who likes it feel free to take it, use it, modify it, agrue it or whatever. :)

Essentially, every mage that isn't an Outlander should have almost infinite access to an improved aura after level 35?

This system would be "interesting," but it isn't one I'd want to play in.

Not almost...they will, which the exception of a timer which can be no different then now. I am sure something RP friendly could be figured out for outlanders, i can think of almost three off the top of my head but i am sure that outlander serial players would be able to think up of even better .

Also please remember that currently, once found, people will have unlimited access to shield, and aura has always been a piece of cake to get aswell at hero. Quite a few limited aura sources requires nothing more then knowing where it is and picking it up. Even with current change this really won't change for vets minus the additional tedium of finding it. We are just making at least aura newbie friendly nothing more since a newbie mage will probably run around with nothing more then this anyways.

Aura is boosted in my idea because getting shield rod will never be as easy as stumbling across it and continuously picking it up. The fact of the matter is that idea was never designed to be 'easier' then the current one, just attempt to replaces the tedium of the old sytem with a real continuous challenge. Again because of a slightly boosted aura people will have slightly less need to seach for barrier or always have a sienna rod.

Bah. I didn't want to argue the idea anymore but i'm stuck and bored at work. At least i'm getting paid good money as i write this. :D

It doesn't take very long to repop the wands, and at least by making people go out to a location to get it requires a little bit of danger. Considering how easy it is to stop by a guild to get 2 hours of aura, this really isn't that much different than giving mages the aura spell.

I had a list of wands, now it doesn't cover all the spots. I don't want to look for new locations. This change makes the game less fun for me. If I roll a mage, I want to rank up, find wands and start owning. It's enough of a tedium to get stuff up and running anyways, this increases it. I personally would rather cut my fingers off than run around killing random (or not so random) mobs to find something that may or may not be there, over and over again.

I wouldn't really mind removing abs from the game altogether, as I think most mages are very much viable without them. The last invoker I played I was able to fight groups of 3+ without using any sleeks, due to being scion and loaded to high heavens, but being loaded to high heavens is necessary for any class for this to be possible. Whoever is in the ABS is necessary crowd, I say ####. If you are a naked mage with 550 hps, sure it can be handy, but if you are a really scary AP/necro/invoker the additional 2 rounds spent putting up barrier is too long for anyone with the (PK) sign in front of their name clear the immediate viscinity.

That said, as long as ABS is available, I don't like making it harder to find. That's just adding unnecessary tedium to reach the potential of a character. Tedium is not fun. Games are supposed to be fun. If the movie theater you like to frequent asked to carry a bag of rocks two runs around the block hopping on one foot each time you wanted to see a movie, what would you answer?

Imho, its really bad change which will just make things more tedious.

However it would be nice change if guildmaster could give some hint or quest for your set or sell for a 100 gold, for example. Then it will be interesting, yes.

The things I have always liked about CF were the enforced roleplaying, the rush of knowing you could be attacked any time, and the fact that success depended on skill and planning, and the fact that if you were overmatched you could always gang up on someone (or be that person people needed numbers to beat).

The most important thing to making all these things work was the fact that there was an even playing field.

I am a fairly casual player I don't know anyone OOC who plays CF or any out of discussion with it (aside from lurching on Dioxides occasionally), I haven't had a caballed character since summer, and I often don't have the hours and hours to put in to get a the type of notoriety or status I would like with some of my characters, but I enjoy playing them anyway.

I like playing mages (for some reason the academic introspective roleplay appeals to me as well as the "feel" of the mage classes). I have a pretty rough competitive streak and if I am playing something I want to take it to the top level (rank to hero be taken seriously as a threat) so I decided needed to learn ABS locations. I did it through exploration and marking likely/possible locations and eventually by bargaining with other mages and in a few cases thief information brokers, all in game. It took quite awhile and I never got a complete location list but I got a lot of them as was confident that I at least had the barter information to find a few new ones if I couldn't find my wands. Anyway this was tedious and boring for me, as was gathering but the prep heavy nature of combat made me feel that to have the type of character I wanted I needed to do it.

To me this change basically devalues the information I have spent the last 2 years of play gradually putting together and is very frustrating. I love the IMM involvment in this game and recognize that it needs to continue to grow and change but I feel that changes that lead to more time spent exploring and prepping takes away from the fun of the game for me. I feel this change gives more of an advantage to vets or people with a lot of time to invest in the game and puts new players and casual players at an even bigger disadvantage.

I think that long term you should really consider lowering the need/usage for preps rather than just making them more elite/rare.

What I would love to see.

Make all high end preps(stoneskin haste ABS whatever else you think should be limited) readily available in shops or guilds or just put them on the spell/skill list.

Then put a huge timer on each one until you could benefit from it again. (example you cast barrier on your self you get a 4 hour damage reduction and then a 200 (or much higher 1000+) timer until you could use it again.

Classes that can buff (like transmuters) or with natural access to these (like svirf's stoneskin, fighters enhanced reactions, assassins martial trance) are still valuable because they can be used much more often and are slightly different in any case. People spend less time prepping and more time killing and everyone is happy.


I know this a bit of a rant but this change really bothers me. I felt like I finally put in the time and energy to get ABS knowledge (I know some people would argue that this is "easy" to do but for me it wasn't) and now it is outdated and incomplete.

I am taking a break for awhile after this, have fun in the fields.

>The most important thing to making all these things work was the fact that there was an even playing field.

And there lies the problem. CF is designed to be an uneven playing field*. If you know more, if you spend more time, if you have more OOC knowledge, if you gather more preps, and/or if you have more experience, you win more often. In CF terms, you've earned it.

This system probably never would have been changed if only 6 mages knew where the sets were.

It was changed exactly because people like you and me (i.e. casual players) had access to these wands as often as we did and because any new mage would get that access pretty quickly as well if they talked to the right people.

If the words 'level the playing field' ever leave your mouth or keyboard when speaking of playing CF...you're playing the wrong game. This game will always attempt to keep it's pyramid structure of power where the few who spend a lot of time, have a lot of OOC info, or have a lot of skill will be better off then the majority. Area explore zones will close, quests will change and items will move as necessary to preserve that.

*Note: I'm not commenting on whether or not that's a good design. It certainly has its plusses. I'm just stating that's the way it is and pretty much always has been since first first or second age.

Enjoy your break, I'm enjoying mine.

>To me this change basically devalues the information I have
>spent the last 2 years of play gradually putting together

For the most part it sounds like all the wand locations you knew about previously are still there. You just won't know your complete wand "set" when you find your first wand. Will it most likely be harder to get a complete set of wands right away? Sure, but you still have a good advantage over anyone that previously knew nothing about wands.

We added a bunch of locations, making this list now a small part of a large picture. On the positive side, we really went out of our way to try and make wand locations make 'sense'.

Whenever each sleek type becomes usable, have it automatically entered into a character's Quest journal. Whether or not they get hints about it otherwise, I don't know, but just having it there might be a good thing for newer players.

One of the main reasons that I was pushing for this change was because of the amount of OOC info that is passed around about wands. I think that making the change you suggested would just keep allowing the same OOC circles to compile one list and share it among the 'elite'.

Possible misunderstanding.

It's not really there to give hints about finding the rod. It's mainly for people to, whenever they use the "quest" command, see something that says "You have not found your sleek sienna." etc.

There should be _some_ specific mention of the sleek sets, as they are a very unique and important part of any mage's repertoire.

Though I would go one step further and say have a mage like the arch mage of the tower give out a quest for the wands when you are the appropriate level to use the wands, instead of a guild master.

What I am envisioning:

1. Mage of appropriate level XX walks into the room and the mob progs with a quest just like Simon in the academy.

2. There would be zero hints from the mob or in the quest log.

3. The quest completes when you find the correct wand in the correct location and return it to the mob. Reward being some nominal exp or something.

The point of this would be to help new mage player’s clue into the idea of wands for one and to let people know when to start looking for each wand type since you can no longer find wands you cannot use.

I don't see this as helping people create lists or disseminate the wand info because it would work under the same wand frame work that is in place and would provide no help in the carrying out of the quest. But, I do think it would help new players in particular learn about wands.

Anyway just a thought.

Problem is, players like me will hit you, let you use your abs, back off, and hit you again a few hours later when you can't use them again.

I still like my solution. Make sleeks have short duration. Give limited wands longer durations. So sleeks become a fallback position rather than the best of all worlds.

My Master Plan:

1. Destroy all current ABS wands.
2. Make new limited ABS wands with unlimited charges.
3. Make the limits on these ABS wands correspond to their power (i.e., 4 nocharge barrier wands; 15 nocharge shield wands, etc.).
4. Put these wands in static locations on appropriate mobs. (i.e., one barrier wand is held by the Dracolich, one is held by the master of the HTOS, etc.)

Let the players compete over who gets to hold these limited ABS wands.

Why I like this:
1. No more Easter Egg hunts - everyone knows where these wands are... but chances are it's in a Character's hands and not on the mob.
2. Competition. If you want the wand, you have to hope it's on the mob, or you have to PK for it (or, if you're the Emperor, order your underling to hand it over).
3. Equal footing with other classes. I think we all reached an agreement, below, that AB*and*S is only required for a very rare few characters .. all the rest only require some combination of protections and AB*or*S. Those few characters that AB*and*S are required for generally competed for the amazing gear that makes them so dangerous. So now mages have to compete to have that same level of PK power.

I think this resolves everyone's problems with the current system.

And I also remember a slew of shapeshifters and invokers that hoarded every known wand they could find. I am talking like storage chars hoarding 15 wands a piece.

NT

I was dropping wands just to get food out of my sack, then picking them up again, worried I would lose them.

Not good.

At least, more of a problem than hording any other type of gear.

And if so, can it be "fixed" by setting the wands to crumble if more than one is held in an inventory for a set period of time?

Also, IIRC, the old system ABS wands still had charges - meaning, there was a purpose to hording them (so you didn't have to regather them and lose out if you didn't regather them in time). My Plan is for the wands to have unlimited charges - so there's no purpose to hording them other than to be ... unkind. :)

To steamroll people, yeah. To compete, especially some combos, I don't even need preps. Not only that, my lvl 16 fire giant will rape your level 20 mage 99 times out of 100. Why shouldn't mages have ABS at hero near 24/7? Can't players do exactly what you did against my bro when Adhelard and Xoregh fought? If you see the other person brought a knife to a gun-fight, just run away.

With my last three mages, I had ABS nearly all the time. And I'd daresay the lion's share of my deaths were to warriors (specifically, village or Empire ones, but I digress). That person who stated it's impossible to kill an ABS'd offensive shifter with a warrior is just stupid, since I died several times with all three up with Mjraljin.

Much like EVERYTHING else in CF, it's all about matchups and combos. Some warriors you won't even need A, B or S, some you can't even survive ten seconds without all three + stoneskin + protection.

And we're not even getting in to the aspect of hurl throat. If you make a change to the ABS system like you suggest, I'd honestly never EVER EVER fight a dagger spec with any Mage but a shifter or evil/goodie conjurer.


I don't understand why the current system is ####ty. Am I the only person who doesn't have a problem with it? I mean, yeah, getting certain ABS wands really suck compared to others, but ####, there are always limited wands around.

>Not only that, my lvl 16
>fire giant will rape your level 20 mage 99 times out of 100.

Maybe, but not mine. :)

>That
>person who stated it's impossible to kill an ABS'd offensive
>shifter with a warrior is just stupid, since I died several
>times with all three up with Mjraljin.

It's not impossible, but the shifter has to make a lot more mistakes, given most matchups, to let it happen one on one.

>And we're not even getting in to the aspect of hurl throat.
>If you make a change to the ABS system like you suggest, I'd
>honestly never EVER EVER fight a dagger spec with any Mage but
>a shifter or evil/goodie conjurer.

Flee?

Wear wand; zap self?

Granted, I've made post-hurl-throat kills one on one as an invoker, but I'm not going to pretend that's the norm or even something I could do without a bit of luck. Still, unless you're going up against dagger spec + gang, getting away shouldn't ever, ever be an issue. Whip/dagger in a cursed room, maybe, but they're giving up an awful lot of time to you to get entwine off and then the hurl throat, which isn't an incredibly accurate move -- you should generally have the fight well in hand given that kind of time in which you're not being lagged, not being otherwise maledicted, and aren't having big damage moves poured out on you.

>I don't understand why the current system is ####ty. Am I the
>only person who doesn't have a problem with it? I mean, yeah,
>getting certain ABS wands really suck compared to others, but
>####, there are always limited wands around.

I'm with you, there.

I mean, yeah, getting certain ABS wands really suck compared to others


I don't think people like the notion that they have to work a lot harder, even with an identical build to some other mage, to get the same thing. In my experience the annoyance comes with having to fight mobs that maledict the crap out of you.

Now exacerbate the situation...let's pretend a really skilled veteran, playing an invoker, has a set that's super easy for him to get. Meanwhile, in an enemy cabal there is another invoker that a less-skilled player is playing, and his set is a complete bitch. Instead of an invoker mob holding his barrier rod, it's a transmuter or a necromancer.

The quality of "life" of the second character is just automatically going to be worse than the other guy, and there is nothing that player can do about it. In a practical sense, the way this plays out is that player B isn't going to be able to compete as well as he might. He will gas out of rods in raid situations a lot sooner than he should (because he doesn't want to spend all day trying to get the rods back from a dangerous mob again). Etc, etc.

Reading the main post, it seemed like the two main reasons for this change were:

1) to address damage done by the most recent TLB (I know I'm not the only one to see his posts with wand sets) and

2) to make it easier for imms to adjust for wands that suck to get so that it is a more level playing field

>Not only that, my lvl 16
>fire giant will rape your level 20 mage 99 times out of 100.

Maybe, but not mine.

**You must know something I don't :) But that's why I said 99 times out of 100. Most of my deaths with my lowbie warriors are to warriors and assassins, with the occasionaly Necro/AP sleep kill. They are quite few though.**

>That
>person who stated it's impossible to kill an ABS'd offensive
>shifter with a warrior is just stupid, since I died several
>times with all three up with Mjraljin.

It's not impossible, but the shifter has to make a lot more mistakes, given most matchups, to let it happen one on one.

**Well, if you're trying to seal a kill on a character that tends to flee at gushing wounds, you let yourself stick around battles where your chance of loosing is greater than 50%. Could I have got away from Mharr, or Kostyan? Yeah, but I felt the pleasure I would get from killing such a powerhouse 1 v 1 would outway the bad if I happened to die.**

>And we're not even getting in to the aspect of hurl throat.
>If you make a change to the ABS system like you suggest, I'd
>honestly never EVER EVER fight a dagger spec with any Mage but
>a shifter or evil/goodie conjurer.

**Let me quantify this statement. I've played dagger specs that owned mage classes horribly WITHOUT hurl throat. Ask Kadsuane. I'd actually focus on these things when fighting specific mages with dagger specs: Trannies: Art, flee, hurl chest, flee and hamstring(for bleeding only) Shifters: Hamstring, art, stab, stab, MAYBE flee underhand APs: Artery all day baby, and then depending on power either switch to dagger/shield and whittle with stab, or dual daggers and land non-spec skills Necros: Artery all day baby, and hurl throat maybe when he's gushing Invokers: Only class where I actually WANT them to flee, so yes, hurl throat to open so I tend not to kill invokers with my dagger specs (though I have, but mostly pre-shields when I could open with hurl throat and usually lag them before they realized they couldn't cast).**

I'd be more than happy to see this in. One thing CF rarely sees is mage on mage action. That's hot but rare.

You lose the wands when you quit out and they then repop on the respective mob. That way, someone at all time (unless on the mob) has the wands circulating in game. There is no hoarding. You want it? Kill the dude that has one.

I also like the idea of having them rot when held by a non-mage character, similar to a cabal item.

So you could find out who had them. I'm not saying I endorse this idea, but it would be necessary. The mobs would probably have to match up with mage classes i.e. a shifter/voker/necro/conjie one (as in most easily gathered by those classes).

I don't think this idea will ever fly though.

dontcha think?

I see most of these getting nabbed by explore characters; some ####ing conjurer who wants them for ####s and giggles and can get them from just about any non-inferno mob solo, god damned gnome shapeshifters who just amass gear like cesspools amass #### (yes, I just compared gnome shapeshifters to big tanks of ####), etc.

The current system at least allows anyone and everyone to have a crack. Your system would lead to (not all the time, but I believe quite often) a horrible scenario. Mages would be more freaked out about dying than ever! They'd just hold onto that wand for dear life, even breaking RP to do it.

You gotta think dude, this would make every mage's death (every mage with these wands, that is) about as punishing, equivalently, as a lich's death currently is. That sucks.

Couldn't that be fixed by flagging the items as "hidden"?

As for the other... honestly, everything you say could be true, and I still like this system over what we have now. I agree, noobs wouldn't hold on to these items for very long - just like noobs don't often get their hands for very long on, for example, the strange bracers. I agree, losing these things would suck - but aren't the stacked characters already ultra-conservative, anyway? Aren't more than a few of them already rage deleting when they lose their sets? Is this really adding that much more fuel to their ego driven fires?

I don't know when we decided that using "hidden knowledge" was a good idea as a balancing tool in CF, but I think we all agree there are big problems with it and the jury is still out on whether it works beyond the short term. Whereas we KNOW that using limited items and PK/Player Competition as a balancing tool has worked for over 10 years driving CF and our collective interests forward.

And beyond all the "game balance" points, I think it would be good for the MUD as a whole to shut up the vocal "easter egg hunts suck" people once and for all. If that means those vocal people will now complain about cowardly gnome shapeshifters that don't risk losing their barrier items enough... I'm OK with that. I prefer that. Give them what they want, and if they suddenly realize they should have been careful about getting what they wish for... start tweaking the items a little (crumble when in a rager's inventory for 24 hours, crumble if you have 2 of them, flag them hidden, etc.) if the IMMs realize the items aren't being put into play enough.

t

You give the example of trib mages not getting locations that are on mobs in protected cities.

How does that happen? I guess wand locations are no longer assigned at character creation? Or do they get "re-set" at the point when the character joins a relevant cabal?

>You give the example of trib mages not getting locations that
>are on mobs in protected cities.
>
>How does that happen?

All Trib or would-be Trib mages have something in common which is known at character creation.

What about my CE dark-elf mage who finds the Corrlaan, gives up his evil ways, and turns to protection and light. and joins the Tribunal? Whatever will I do when I can't get my precious sleeks!?

Heh, sorry. Couldn't resist.

You won't have the ability to use wands, and you will most likely delete before ever getting that back, so it's moot ;-).

I recommend making sleeks cast spells at lower level than most of their limited counterparts (depending on the level of the limited wand).

That this topic ended up going slightly off track with the how viable is no ABS at hero arguement.

Truth be told yes there are still some fights you will be able to win without taking any damage let alone using ABS, in right situations, esspecially if the planets are aligned, and the position of the moon is correct. These fights of course are rarer and personally not as much fun as fights where i need aura, shield and luck inorder to barely win or at the very least survive but hey thats once again beyond the point.

Now inorder to enjoy a wider range of fights, i am being forced to go through this tedious (as in increasingly boring and annoying) process. It was fustrating to have to search for these wands, it was annoying to have to have to retrieve them. Even if i knew where barrier was I wouldn't use it because more often then not it was a pain to get. The solution to leviate some of this was to compile sleek set lists but thanks to this change, its no longer possible.

The really funny part is no one is arguing this, just saying 'hey its okay if you find the system tedious, fustrating or boring, you don't need ABS anyways'. In the end there is really no point in arguing any of this or airing out concerns, it won't change anything and chances are its only being seen as whining. I honestly don't think any of the imms want to take the time to code something which is thought of as tedious or purposely fustrating, i am sure they want people to have fun in this game. The current sleek system sucks ass, i am sure that they know that, but no one has thought up of a better way yet. I know i have no good solutions myself and giving us any of the spells is indeed a bit overpowered.

In closing i will say one positive thing about this change. It attempts to ensure everyone, new and old players have an equal shot at being fustrated and annoyed when attempting to find their rods. Sure, some people will still oocly exchange entire location lists but there is still a chance that it will be pointless. In the end of the day, everyone being subjected an same amount of tedium is only fair. And for that, this change is praise worthy, thank you. :)

I don't think it ups the annoyance as much as you suggest. At least, not in the long run. Initially it will require some people to do some more exploring. Sure. But once a given mage player assembles a "list" of known locations, it's not all that much trouble to go check them.

Before this change it was trivial if you knew the various "sets". If you knew sets #1 through #4, all you have to do is check the aura/shield locations for these sets, in order, until you find one. Then you can stop, and you know the locations of all your wands for that character. That's silly.

This still does not fix the problem, people will still attempt to create lists and share them.
To fix this problem, I would suggest a few things.

1) Make requirements for having wand locations.

Suggested requirements:
Shield: level 30
Aura: level 32
Barrier: level 36 + 2000 Imm exp

This would enforce good roleplay to get a powerful mage.
(Or rather make it easier, because you can still potentially kill others for them).

2) Lower detect artifact level, but make it a more useful spell.

Detect artifact Requirements: lvl 30 + imm xp + observation xp + detect magic %

This can be done by making a progression in its level %.
As the % increases, it is possible to find new wands upon entering the room.
Also as the % increases, Upon entering the AREA a wand is in, you
will get a small echo detecting "a strong magic aura in this area".
Example:
Shield req: 75%
Aura req: 85% + Echo upon entering the area your Shield wand is in.
Barrier req: 95% + Echo upon entering the area your Aura wand is in.

3) Perhaps make some quests.

Maybe your guildmaster sends you on a quest to find your aura or shield wands.
"I heard of a great artifact in the north east, past the mountains.
Find it and return it to me for closer inspection."


Your basic wands (aura and shield) should be relatively easy to get
as a mage, but require a quest. Barrier on the other hand should be
quite hard to get (powerful mobs, no help finding it but Detect
artifact will help in that room). It would all be hard to code, but
I believe it would be a good thing for the mud in general.

While it is more wise to fix the root of the problem.

1) The main way for newbies to find wands, in the past year+ has been to ask cabal mates/friends/barter things for locations. Then, once the first is found, someone tells them where the others are.

This change makes finding your sleeks non-interactive, but still tedious.

2) It won't stop OOC dissemination of locations. Sooner than some IMMs think, I think, lists with the new locations will be compiled. These lists will be more tedious to take advantage of than old ones, but will still do the same thing. (Echos of spam-prac here. Spam prac has never been made impossible, it is just more time consuming than it used to be.)

3) It will prevent some people with limited CF time from playing certain mage combos, regardless of how neat their role might be. As a for instance, I was contemplating an evil conjurer (a hard class to look for wands under the new system with) or perhaps a muter. A muter still looks viable, conjie less so.

4) It will make veterans reexplore areas that they have explored a thousand times.... Again. Echos of exploration/observation XP here. I have seriously considered making a macro for getting the HToS XP, because every character of mine does it at some point, and it is just as tedious each time.

5) The bad locations will still be debilitating. Getting, for instance, the one next to a certain coveted potion will still be an utter pain in the ass, and be debilitating vs. having a location that is relatively easily soloable by most classes.

6) Detect artifact will be usefull....... Yay?

7) Playing a mage will be more time consuming than it was. Sounds like... Any number of other changes.

Lots of good stuff in the game in the last few years, but this one just seems silly.

It doesn't STOP people from getting their sleeks, it just ups the hours required.

Maybe something like the way Shifter emote access works. A combination of IMM xp, Obs XP, Explore XP and generally feel-good about the character would result in some IC character giving you hints at where your sleeks are.

Anything other than something that is still 1) Brute-forceable, 2) Might still result in you getting shafted on a location, and 3) Is more time consuming.

>3) It will prevent some people with limited CF time from
>playing certain mage combos, regardless of how neat their role
>might be. As a for instance, I was contemplating an evil
>conjurer (a hard class to look for wands under the new system
>with) or perhaps a muter. A muter still looks viable, conjie
>less so.

Depending on your strategy, I disagree with this. A devil conjurer doesn't have a great need for ABS wands.

>5) The bad locations will still be debilitating. Getting, for
>instance, the one next to a certain coveted potion will still
>be an utter pain in the ass, and be debilitating vs. having a
>location that is relatively easily soloable by most classes.

It's a lot easier to adjust those, now. Probably the easiest/hardest locations will get phased out at some point.

Aren't people are still going to compile wand location lists and use those lists in OOC groups and across characters. Does this really affect the people who exploit the system now?

IMHO, the ABS has always been flawed and 10 years of tweaks hasn't done jack.

how long did it take the ooc groups to compile the current list? We added quite a few locations. Maybe this covers us for only a couple years. Then we can switch it up again. Lots of mages in the game.

Maybe this covers us for only a couple years. Then we can switch it up again.


Why bother? Sure, people are going to compile lists which will make their searching a lot faster, but why is that such a bad thing? Ultimately, switching up locations really does one thing: it pisses off the people who play the game by making things more tedious.

There is no need to change things up because the process of getting wands is tedious and, at times, quite dangerous. Let that be the challenge. Mages need those wands to compete with melee classes (I'm not arguing this - it's true and everyone knows it. Put any mage up against any melee class I make, deny him wands, and I will wreck his ass). Sure, there are people who can wade into battle with a non-abs'd mage and be fine, but in the hero range against veteran players...no, you need it.

Now contrary to what you might be inferring, I like the idea behind the system. However, I think there should be some hard-coded help (in addition to Detect Artifact) along the way. For example, at level 35 the guildmaster could give you a hint for your sienna rod's location. At 40, the amber rod. At 45, either repeat that or do a mini-quest to get information as to its whereabouts. Obviously, the hints are given quite a ways past the level where the rods can be utilized, which gives incentive to early exploration. However, if you are really stumped you can always rank up and hit up the guildmaster for some help.

I was mostly thinking of four years ago (wow, that long?) when I was playing my first hero mage, and it seemed to me that sleeks were a thing to be coveted. They were important things to loot from a corpse and keep in cabal pits and when mages logged on people were like OH hey I found a sleek!! It wasn't common knowledge where all the locations were. Now, you kill a mage and all the darn sleeks in the corpse are geting in the way of your get all corpse. I want things back the way they were 4 years ago when having a sleek wasn't just another routine day of collecting them and asking your buddies either via IM or thinly veiled RP where locations are. I really believe that at hero ranks mages don't necessarily NEED ABS.

Is that mages DO need ABS. You're an Imm, so you can watch and see what mages do and don't use ABS for their fights.

At hero, how often can a mage fight a veteran player (note, not a badass, just relatively skilled) without ABS and expect to win?

Now, let's say that mage is fighting a veteran villager (which they will be fighting, a lot). That mages chances just went from poor, to ####ty.


Honestly, if you want to make ABS something exceptionally rare, that's groovy. But some kind of rebalancing or tinkering needs to be done. The easy solution to me is to make A and S fairly easy to be found (kind of like how they were a couple days ago), but barrier to be the uber wand that everyone covets. Seems like a nice enough compromise, no?

You haven't been paying that much attention.....

It will be a bump in the road for list-compiling, and thats about it.

On a non-scion mage without ever using any ABS of any sort at hero. Please post logs when your done so i can learn to be a better mage as you rack up all those kills. Even invoker using stoneskin and protection is fine.

Majority of mage classes, combos, definately will need ABS to be viable. Maybe not viable when compared to newbie, uncabaled, melee classes, or Heralds, but agaisnt any prep-using, battle, skilled foe, wands are nessesity.

In response to Mekantos: All this change will do is make the majority of vets have to put in hours of area searching before they can jump in and enjoy the game. Realizing most people 'hanging on' to CF for the glory days, probably won't want to do this...it will probably have a negative effect.

Just keep doing what I do. Every single mage character you meet, give them every single wand location you have learnt so it becomes common knowledge. There is nothing elitist or special in hoarding knowledge. If you can make the game fun and on even terms for everyone, then we might do something about these crappy numbers and the trend for people to quit playing CF.

Things like making practicing/learning rates harder, getting rid of preps or making them limited, mixing wands up, are cool I guesss, but again they don't really add to the fun factor of playing a text based game.

When you say mages "need" ABS to be viable, do you mean A, B, or S; or that every mage "needs" A, B, and S?

I see that being said a lot, and I'm curious which of the above people like you, Iza, et al. are talking about.

And also, when you say "viable," do you mean 50/50 shot at taking down a skilled warrior foe, or do you mean a 70+/30- shot at taking down a skilled warrior foe?

Thanks

I would say its more of a 60+/40- shot in most non-rager departments. Most run ins with a battle rager and especially berserker require you to have (in my opinion) ABS (aura, barrier AND shield). Plus, stoneskin and protection (if applicable) to make it 50/50.

Even still, the problem with the above scenerio is that we're mainly talking about against their rager's damage output in question. Deathblow, while isn't reliable is definitely potent. If you don't have that damage reduction, one or two deathblows could kill any non-ABS mage.

Against non battle ragers, it's relative to what kind of prepping the other class has at it's disposal. Who know's what the even percentage is going to be at that point.

I'm at least optimistic with this change, and am willing to play with it before casting my own judgment.

On the side and since this change can be "dedicated" to certain class combos, can we potentially expect familiar's to be able to "see" sleeks now in any fashion (even if it's only with detect artifact being up?).

Every mage that wants to fight on even terms and have a chance of having a positive PK record agaisnt skilled foes will need use ABS.

Some classes can get kills without ABS, ie) evil devil conjurers or invokers exploiting vulns, transmuters vs non-village/non-prepped foes, etc.

I can not think of a single successful mage in the years I have played that has not used wands while fighting tough competition.

I have fought mage chars played by Nepenthe, Twist,hell every immortal. Every single one of them used wands (ABS). Hell I even struck at Cabdru a few times pre-hero with my Justiciar healer, and yes, ABS came into play pretty quick. Probably was a bit of overkill but regardless.

As an aside....we need to mix up the wand system a bit to keep things fresh. I don't mind the change at all.

Absolutely wrong though for anyone to suggest mages don't need it. Try fighting a battle berserker sword spec. with stoneskin.

ONE round, Two rounds, Three Rounds....will he make four.....nope...dead.

> Every single one of them used wands (ABS).

And when it's available, why wouldn't you?

Yet every one of those characters (mine, anyway) has also PKed people with no wands, or partial wands. With less or no wands, they definitely don't try fighting 5 people at a time, but most of my non-mage characters can't ever do that, either.

That being said, I've come to realize that this is an argument that can't be won with the "you must have full ABS to seriously fight anyone" crowd (not necessarily Lightmage in particular). There's always some reason why a non-ABS PK "doesn't count". It's a gang, or, the mage used one of his powers to get the drop on a weakened opponent (think transmuter or air shifter or improved invis invoker or some stealthy shifters), or, this particular mage has too much class-inherent DR (think archon/devil conjurer), or the necro/a-p led with sleep and it worked, or the mage got a sanctuary from someone, or, look how many heals they bought, or, whatever.

So far as I know no one has yet tried to make some kind of challenge statement by refusing to use damage reduction wands at all, although these sound like interesting flaw ideas now that I think about it.

I've played most of the classes in the game over a decade or so. ABS is part of the balance of the game. If you removed ABS, mages would be so gimped its not even funny.

I don't think a mage needs aura + barrier + shield for every single fight. I do think they'll get face raped though if they don't use ABS. Its not exactly like many of them can slaughter groups of 5 non-retarded enemies with a full set of ABS as it is outside of stoneform invokers and liches of the kind we haven't seen in like 5 years.

Want to know an argument that is impossible to win? After this many years you still can't concede that the ABS system doesn't do anything other than add unnecessary tedium while giving strong incentive to cheat.

This post sounds harsh but man, the games been running for like 15 years now, how many successful mages have done so without ABS? Its annoying to get - if it wasn't that big of a deal people would just forgo it like I've forgone practicing defenses for many years.

Why should they be balanced? Should squire thieves be balanced against your Scion shapeshifters?

Most of this game is about exploiting bad matchups or bad situations, which is why you see so many people playing air shifters, rangers, assassins, and thieves.

The chief perq of shapeshifters is they are a melee class with haste and slow, access to the best damage reduction in the game, and have a great deal of utility out of form in addition to whatever they get in form. Oops, that's more than one perq, and I didn't even mention how this melee class can pk naked better than anyone else.

>Every mage that wants to fight on even terms and have a
>chance of having a positive PK record agaisnt skilled foes
>will need use ABS.
>
>Some classes can get kills without ABS, ie) evil devil
>conjurers or invokers exploiting vulns, transmuters vs
>non-village/non-prepped foes, etc.
>

First, thanks for responding. Your explanation is different from how I was interpreting your/Iza/Grudan/etc.'s variations of "ABS is necessary for mages to compete."

So if I'm understanding you correctly, you are saying that you need to have A,B, and S ("ABandS") to defeat someone of equal skill that also has ABandS in a scenario where neither of you is going to flee or can take advantage of surprise/clever-type tactics.

Re: Mages - I haven't played an invoker for several years, but my recollection is that you are correct - I was at an extreme disadvantage with ABorS against an invoker that would never fight without ABandS.

Re: Warrior types:
Here, I disagree. My feeling is, that ABandS is an *extreme* challenge to beat as a warrior. As in, you will *not* beat an ABandS mage *unless* you are able to take advantage of surprise/clever-type tactics. Basically, clever/surprise-type tactics put your warrior a little closer to "equal footing" with the ABandS mage (assuming the ABandS mage doesn't use some clever/surprise-type tactics of his own). Even then it's unlikely you'll actually PK the ABandS mage on your own. Have you played a warrior against ABandS mages? Do you concur?

Furthermore, the only non-rager warrior-types I think you would "need" ABandS to have "equal footing," IMHO, are the ultra-conservative-and-very-skilled Dwoggurd/Fatfrumos's warriors, maybe Hunsobo at his prime, too (though he wasn't as conservative as the other two). I'm talking about the type of player that will not put his warrior into play unless it has an extreme amount of DR. I can see how you might need ABandS to PK these guys in a "catch mage" scenario where you can't take advantage of clever/surprise-type tactics.

But again, it's pretty easy to avoid these rare warriors. In fact, if you recall everytime you fight them and they're prepped, eventually they'll start leaving when they see you - because they're not going to want to waste their time-consuming preps and they're not going to want to risk fighting you without their time-consuming preps.

So really we're talking about 2, maybe 3 players in the game who you would need ABandS when fighting their warrior types.

Re: Communers:
I think it's the same as warriors, only ultra-conservative communers are easier to escape from.


>Absolutely wrong though for anyone to suggest mages don't need
>it. Try fighting a battle berserker sword spec. with
>stoneskin.
>
>ONE round, Two rounds, Three Rounds....will he make
>four.....nope...dead.

Well, this is why I was asking. Because I think it's feasible to fight the RBW with one or two of ABS, but not all three. And, given my poor exploration skills, limited OOC connections, and time commitment, I think it's feasible for me to get 1 or 2 of ABS, but probably not all three. So I could definitely take on this "challenge" of getting a positive PK ratio with 1 or 2 of ABS. I'm still not clear, though, on what it would take to refute you guys. What constitutes "success"? 50/10 with an evil mage? 80/10? Also, I will definitely have to use some clever/surprise-type tactics.

-Pull that off with a shifter using no-wands. Hell even go air and pick off convulsing people from raids to boost your numbers.

-Pull off that with a transmuter who does not avoid villagers.

-Pull that off with a non-evil conjurer. (Goodie you will not have enough enemies to get close.)

-Invoker would be doable. Outlander, improved invis, quicksand, explit vulnerbilities, etc. Would still be tough to pull off 75-25 though.

Seems pretty doable for any player playing warrior-type classes to pump out ratios that would produce this. Hell I got 25 quick Pks with a ranger that I didnt even focus on Pking with, pre-hero. (For me that was good cause I never PK pre-hero)

ANyhow, consider this a challenge to anyone that disagrees with ABS not being needed. Its fine to disagree (Not directed at you Adehlard), but man I have been playing mages hard for my duration with CF and I can't do it. Nepenthe or some superior player, prove me wrong.

AGain< I am not overly good at PK. I just play and have fun. But when it comes to winning fights I kinda know what I am saying. I hope by now.

All 75 kills have to be at hero? Man, I don't think I have the attention span to rack up 75 kills with ANYthing anymore.

Heck, I can't think of a lot of transmuter characters period that don't avoid Battle, except when they're ganging Battle. Even the ones with ABS out the wazoo. (Note: I don't agree with this mindset, but it's what I typically see.)

That all being said, consider this:

I don't know who most of your characters have been, but occasionally I can pick some out. When I've fought those characters, I don't think they've ever killed me.

Why? Usually I notice right away that you're toting a LOT more DR than I am and I clear out immediately.

Sometimes you want to let people trip or bash you. Sometimes you want them to see you getting beat up enough that they think they have a prayer of killing you. These are how you kill people who aren't locked in a room with you.

I just 75 Pk wins would show some semblence of a good PK record. (Considering we have warriors/Ap's putting out 400+ records during the past few years.)

I am not going to respond to anymore on this post. I think I agree with 99% of what you are saying. I am just being bullheaded in my belief that mages need ABS to pull off good PK records.

I got sidetacked again. Point to this whole thread was the ABS changes. I still think they are somewhat needed. The sets and instantly knowing and telling someone where their wands were was kinda weird.

Time will tell if this adds to the fun factor for the game. Either way, I am sure I will be about in some form or the other, time permitting.

As a slightly related aside: I have tried a few AP's over the years and each time, I was given a retarded wand set that was damn tough without allies to obtain. (Probably easier at hero.) I threw away a few good roleplayed chars just because of that. I don't think I would ever be able to pull off a super-AP but, with my play-style (ultra-conservative) I am pretty confident that I could have had a few decent ones. Ironic that it came down to good wand choice.

Are their any barrier sources non-sleek, usuable for pre-40 chars? I dont think I have found any. ALl the ones I have come across are 46 and up.

Later

NT

But that's because I do something stupid like forget to shift into mongoose, or spam a two-round lag spell instead of a one round lag spell etc.

I've definitely fought people with one or none of the ABS up and got them to let themselves risk a death, since they had a good chance to land the kill.

But, as I said, you'll find not a lot of people are willing to do this. Time constraints and looting issues mostly.

Sometimes you want to let people trip or bash you. Sometimes you want them to see you getting beat up enough that they think they have a prayer of killing you. These are how you kill people who aren't locked in a room with you.


I always played with that notion in mind, but one thing I noticed is that the class you play has a lot to do with it. For instance, when I played my invokers (Urden and Darascus) most people wouldn't take any chance unless they had some perceived advantage, even if I didn't fully prep.

Now, when I played as Drezen, Iramath, and Mekantos, people were a lot more likely to stick around and box, though technically I think they were in a lot more danger of getting killed due to the abilities of those characters. It has something to do with power-builds. ABS Invoker (of any kind) is something that scares people, and rightly so. But odd-ball arial AP with aura and shield most of the time? Nah, not a big deal. A duergar warrior? They just bring vuln-exploits and think it is the key to winning. An elf dagger spec Maran before StSF was hot, and before the dagger craze? Just eat some iron (admittedly, I posted a log of Gakken one-rounding me with a super flurry to encourage some people to fight me ;-))

Yeah right I never once fought Darascus without barrier. Even when I got the "drop" on you you were prepped out the wazoo. :P Oh how I hated Darascus. Iceneedles sucks my balls


heheh :P

Stoneform, the lengthiness of aura, protection and full shields for that buddy. :P

Since you always brought someone to bash :( on you!

I always brought someone to bash?

I'm a solo kinda guy unless there is some pressing need to have more people. Who were you?

You realize that:

1. NO good conjurers have come close to 75/25 at hero.

2. Only *1* transmuter has managed 75/25 at hero: Llorenz (100/19)
- There are two other transmuters that tallied more than 75 PKs at hero, Izuhlzin (89/28) and Runaktla (75/52), but both died >25 times.

3. Only 2 shapeshifters have managed 75/25 at hero: Pissudin and Kharnial.
- Again, 4 others managed >75 hero kills (Morasfenmire, Hyzin, Akscerah, and Lezra, but all died >25 times).

So basically you're asking me to create either:
1. The most successful goodie conjurer, ever.
2. The second most successful transmuter, ever.
or
3. The third most successful shapeshifter, ever.
(Ironically, I don't think even your shapeshifters managed to accomplish your task.)

That's ridiculous. The point isn't to be the biggest badass with the class, the point is to be "viable" with 2 or less of ABorS. You're creating a challenge that Iza/Grudan/Java/you/etc. can't even accomplish using ABandS. That's not really fair.

Anyway, you're right, I don't think I could be the most successful transmuter, ever, with or without using ABandS. But seriously, if you want to propose something remotely reasonable I'm game :)

PS - Thanks to Gabe for his PBF analyzer, without which the above analysis would have been impossible.

That is kind of my point.

75/25 is not that great of a PK record when compared to other classes that are pumping out 400+ PKs.

My point was, all the mages that come close or beat that mark use ABS.

I have a few mages that have around approx. 50 PKs with 0-3 losses. Usually delete before putting in crazy hours. Thats with full wands and stuff.

The question you need to ask yourself, "Why are mages (exception Liches, Power-AP's) unable to match or come close to PK records of non-mage characters? (They have ABS which is overpowered so therefore they should win lots.)


I think the only way to measure PK success is to have somewhat high goals. Marcus type warriors would laugh at a 75-25 benchmark.

This is definately my last post. Peace.

>That is kind of my point.
>
>75/25 is not that great of a PK record when compared to other
>classes that are pumping out 400+ PKs.
>

Mages (excluding necros and APs) don't come close to the pk records of many melee classes, not because of a lack of ABS, but because the class skills are such that they are much harder to land kills with. Melee classes in general all have much more/better kill sealing options from bash, trip, snare, entwine, etc. You won't find many paladins or healers reaching 75+ pks either for the same reason.

The inability to land kills has nothing to do with ABS and everything to do with the general make up of the class skills.

Ability to land kills has "a little" to do with ABS. Having that much damage reduction extends the set of people you're ~capable~ of killing. Without that damage reduction there are some folks you just won't be able to kill outside "ambush while convulsing" type situations.

The question is "how much difference does ABS really make, when your main problem is not being able to keep people in combat?"

For instance, let's say we made sanctuary twice as effective for shield paladins. How many more kills would a given shield paladin get? Probably a few. And they'd probably die a bit less. But I don't think it would make a huge difference.

Now let's say you took away sanc altogether, and prevented them using stoneskin or shield. I'm thinking their kill counts, such as they are, would decrease, purely because the set of character they're ~capable~ of killing would be significantly reduced.

While I agree with you that ABS does allow mages to try more situations then they might otherwise not, I doubt it actually increases their kill totals by a significant amount in the general case.

There is a bonus for the fights they could not otherwise have taken, and land kills in but then there is also the loss for anyone that will not fight them but instead flees at the first sight of an ABS mage. Non-necro/AP mages being in general the easiest classes to flee from. I don't think there is a way to know for certain which effect is greater.

Just to clarify, I am not saying non-ABS mages are on an equal footing with all other classes, just pointing out, that I feel ABS does very little on average to provide additional PKs for a mage.

*Excluding necros and APs which I feel are signficantly different from the other wand using classes.

Yeah. And in this crazy thing I like to call balance, being gimped at landing kills means you should be strong defensively. As in - shield paladin. Etc.

Not for nothing but kills vs losses is the only way to measure balance by anything resembling objectivity. If you want skilled mages to be ok with 50% pk ratios (and btw, 75 and 25 is a walk in the park) knowing full well they can easily attain 90% with a melee class - why would they ever play a mage? Basically you just want them to be crippled.

nt

An AP or offensive shifter has a 0% chance of dying when they have ABS up. If the 'take down' is a measure of success, it really comes down to the skilled warrior realizing the mage is fully protected and running. It doesn't matter how skilled the warrior is, they wont win.

This isn't quite true, that is, it's not 0%, but given a good player and a one on one fight it's pretty close in a lot of cases.

Though it is closer to 0% than 100% that's for damn sure.

~

>In response to Mekantos: All this change will do is make the
>majority of vets have to put in hours of area searching before
>they can jump in and enjoy the game.

That only applies to mage classes. The flip side is that they might enjoy non-mage classes ~more~ since now they'll have an easier time fighting mages.

In the end, even if you do think a mage doesn't need ABS...that's not really enough. Even if it's true, that doesn't mean it's for the best.

If enough people think this makes the game less fun, and more frustrating, then it's going to have a greater negative impact on the game then the benefits you see from this change. So I hope you're sure on this. I know it's your party and we're just guests and all, but parties should still be fun.

And in closing, I don't care what the context is, in game or out, any change that relies in part on 'Going back to the good old days' as justification is usually doomed to failure before it even starts. You can never go back, only forwards.

I just want to pull from the above statement a bit, since this seems to be such a hot topic. Ray mentioned sleeks were so rare and important, but now they're so common people don't even bother to loot them from a corpse. I've tried out at least one hero mage in the past year, and I've played a couple other classes as well. I've seen, and I have participated in using sleeks while doing things such as ranking. Ranking! When sleeks have become so easily acquired, and readily available to use them while ranking, I think there's a problem. They've just become something that's not special anymore, and they should be special. Hopefully this change in locations will bring back that sort of specialness. Thieves selling sleeks in market square anyone?

Whats wrong with a level playing field for people not 'in the know'?

All mage classes, to varying degrees, are built with an innate "flaw" because they cannot handle physical damage as well as melee classes (again, note the underlined text above - I don't want anyone citing armadillos and fully shielded invokers for christ's sake). Perhaps not everyone views it this way, but it's definitely a way to look at it.

This defensive weak spot can be patched up with wands, and they even have the ability to go the extra mile and gain a temporary spurt of vastly superior damage reduction. The second part is what's special. The first leg of it is necessity.

However, because of the existence of deathblow and the uncommonly hard-hitting characters that pop up, barrier DOES become a necessity as well. I've played many mages, and yeah you can do alright with lesser protections half the time, but you really do need barrier to go any distance against the tougher characters. Sure, the damage looks minuscule when it's not being done in ***CAPS***, but that doesn't mean it isn't adding up to a truck-load of pain in a short amount of time.

Bottom line: sleeks shouldn't be treated like rare and wonderful Christmas gifts. They are a key component to the success of any mage - the equivalent of gasoline in a car.

>However, because of the existence of deathblow and the
>uncommonly hard-hitting characters that pop up, barrier DOES
>become a necessity as well. I've played many mages, and yeah
>you can do alright with lesser protections half the time, but
>you really do need barrier to go any distance against the
>tougher characters. Sure, the damage looks minuscule when it's
>not being done in ***CAPS***, but that doesn't mean it isn't
>adding up to a truck-load of pain in a short amount of time.
>


What do you say to the fact that there are very few "tougher (melee) characters" in the game? For example, Darascus with ABandS completely steamrolled Kostyan - so even a warrior with 400+ PKs wasn't one of these "tougher characters." I'm assuming you're talking about a Hunsobo/Dwoggurd massive-Damage Reduction and Damage Output-type. Does it seem balanced to you that every mage can easily obtain "vastly superior" damage reduction to be on par with those 1-2 "tougher characters"?

Doesn't that mean that every mage with ABandS is now "superior" to anyone less tough than those 1-2 "tougher characters"?

And if so, shouldn't ABandS be as rare as "Christmas gifts" so that only a handful (i.e., 1-2 mages) are as tough as those 1-2 "tougher characters"?

I guess what I'm saying is my solution to the mess would be to make ABandS wands like limited gear. They don't disappear after a certain amount of usage, and their limits are respective to their power. So, for example, there would be 4 permanent barrier items and the mages would compete for that "vasty superior" toughness that lets them compete with the handful of melee characters that had to compete just as hard for the limited gear that makes them a "tougher character." (and there'd be like 10-15 shield wands, etc.)

Try using any mage without BARRIER against any decently damaging or lagging opponent, or ANY rager.

Barrier is probably the real issue here and it both IS and IS NOT necessary. There is no good solution.

Oh and I'll add that making it so that mages can't heal for #### while wanded up probably has the inverse effect of making them prep EVEN MORE THAN THEY WOULD HAVE BEFORE.

Why?

Here's why: Since they know they can't rely on a hit-and-run tactic where they could go into a battle with less preps, flee, heal at a healer, return, etc., mages now just prep to the ####ing hilt and do as much as possible. Then they run off to a cabal or a remote location, have a long down-time, and then try again just as prepped. This hurts the game in general because if this is, let's say, a cabal item retrieval we're talking about it means that the defenders are pinned to the cabal for this long ass duration, and the battles are more lop-sided. Ganging is also more viable because the defenders will try to overcome that sickening preppage somehow. Ultimately, the longer down-time results in the defenders logging off because their time has run out, and then feeling sour that they didn't get another crack at the guy (or they just think he's a wuss and won't try again).

Yes, there's a lot of opinion there, but it's well-informed and based on observation.

Personally, as either mage or melee class I'd rather let them heal like they use to and be more likely to come in without all the super preppage. Why? Because I'd have more of a chance of killing them with my own damage+lagging abilities before they managed to flee.

>Try using any mage without BARRIER against any decently
>damaging or lagging opponent, or ANY rager.
>
>Barrier is probably the real issue here and it both IS and IS
>NOT necessary. There is no good solution.
>

You don't think protection/stoneskin/Shield is enough? Or protection/stoneskin/Shield/Aura is enough? Or protection/stoneskin/Barrier? Etc. There are lots of combinations that don't involve AB*and*S, and IMO these are enough to defeat "any" rager, "decently damaging" or "lagging" opponent. Do you disagree?

And all of those combinations (including, if you're skilled enough, AB*and*S) are possible in my New Master Plan. Without the easter egg hunts. Without the cheat lists. All you need is to find the nocharge talisman on the mob, or PK the person who has it.

...you are going to regularly fight people who are extremely hard to land spells on, who dish out tons of damage, and will mow you down unless you go the extra mile with adding a sick layer of protection. I'm not saying a mage always should or always will, but I am saying that basically the heights of protection they can reach are needed (albeit not as much as commonly seen).


With every mage I've ever played, I've had plenty of times where I've prepped up the wazoo and still got handled. All it does is buy time, but often the opponent can outlast you by absorbing your own damage, stunning the crap out of you, dishing out more than you can take, etc. No one can predict when these kinds of fights will occur and so the option to be prepared has to be on the table, because without it you are ####ed when they come a'knockin.

For example, Darascus with ABandS completely steamrolled Kostyan - so even a warrior with 400+ PKs wasn't one of these "tougher characters."


Seriously, how did everyone let this guy get a record like that? I'm not saying he was crap or anything, but damn that build must have been broke (I realize this has been discussed), because while he was good I never imagined him being 400+ good. That's nuts.

And yes, I realize I've not been shy about calling the guy an asshat as a person - this has nothing to do with that.

>>However, because of the existence of deathblow and the
>>uncommonly hard-hitting characters that pop up, barrier DOES
>>become a necessity as well. I've played many mages, and yeah
>What do you say to the fact that there are very few "tougher
>(melee) characters" in the game? For example, Darascus with
>ABandS completely steamrolled Kostyan - so even a warrior with
>400+ PKs wasn't one of these "tougher characters."

I think we're getting a little anecdotal here. Are "really buff non-mages" fairly rare? Somewhat. But then, there are always a few of them around logging regular hours. People tend to focus on the Kostyans and Hunsobos of the world, but there are also lots of "really tough non-mages" who didn't rack up quite so many kills because their builds aren't optimized for kill-sealing.

You've got the stand-out non-rager warriors. The Kostyans, Hunsobos, Igbahs of the world. You could also include folks like Throkk, Folsa, Kadsuane's empire fire giant HPM warrior whose name I can't remember, etc.

Then you've got the ragers. Take a rager who isn't terrible and give him decent gear. He's now pretty difficult to kill w/o wands, ignoring necromancer sleep and amped up anti-paladins.

Then you've got tough assassins. Ktaar. Maybe Mizfara. On at least one occasion I beat a wanded offense shifter. Heck, I fought what's his name, the duergar AP, to a draw once when he was already semi-buff and was wearing hell gear. I would have won handily if he hadn't had wands.

Then you've got the occasional tough paladin. Niheriva, etc. And the occasional tough ranger.

I'm not saying you can't get kills as a non-necro/ap mage w/o using wands. I'm just saying that, without wands, you're unlikely to kill the upper echelon of non-mages unless its in a "caught him already writhing" situation.

Well, without going into whether any of those "upper echelons" have more than a 5% chance of actually solo PKing an ABandS mage without an "already writhing" type of situation ... are we agreeing, but talking a matter of degree here?

Meaning, we agree that there is a distinct, fairly rare set of dangerous non-mage characters that a mage would "need" ABandS to fight on equal footing?

But we disagree that this set is limited to, say less than 5 characters at a given time?

I disagree that ABandS is necessary to fight those guys (AB*or*S, yes, but not AB*and*S), but I'm OK with that :) Because my new plan, really, is to place mages in the same competitive field as those "upper echelon" non-mage characters. Basically, the mages have to compete with each other over a limited set of permenant ABandS talismans that have unlimited charges. The more I think about it, the more genius it sounds. What makes the characters you listed "dangerous"? Larely their skill, of course, but also their limited weapons and gear. Only two people can have that Defiance. Only two people can have that Humansunder. Etc. So put mages into the same equation -- only 4 or 5 mages can have that nocharge barrier talisman. (And probably put a crumble flag on it if it stays in a Rager's inventory for too long.)

I can't believe no one has thought of this before.

Think about it. No more easter egg hunts. Everyone knows the 4-5 mobs where these nocharge limited ABandS talismans come from. You just need them to be "in" on the mob, or you need to PK someone to get them. And once you do, you're capable of being one of the most powerful characters in the game, with full ABandS.

Kidding, but it's an inherant flaw to your system.

Would your system work in ideal conditions? I'd like to think it would.

I was surprised you'd include me in that list. For the record though, Folsa was something like 2-9 vs. Scion mages and 1-6 against Pissudin (that one was a 2v1, too).

I'm not sure whose argument this supports, but I always have a tough time against hero mages with my melee classes.

When you pick a dodgy high dex warrior whose strong point is maledictions rather than brute strength and lag.. you see where I'm going with this? An invoker who has a boatload of hp and sick damage reduction, pumping up big damage and laughing at maledictions is obviously not a very good matchup against dagger specs and what have you.

...mages being powerful at the high levels?

They are basically in the ####ter for the first 2/3rds of their progression, power-wise. I'm not saying you, Nivek, but it seems like people think they should have just as much of a fight (or lack thereof) against hero mages as they do pre-hero. I just don't think it adds up.

At what point should all characters be totally self-reliant? In almost every D&D-based game, which CF draws a lot of basic design, mages tend to be fragile, but very offensive. Why else do they *ALWAYS* have warriors around to protect them? Why else is it *ALWAYS* such a huge tactic to target the mage? Sadly, I've watched low to mid level mages slaughter ranges due to the damage they can dish out. Hero range? I can see where a certain, mild amount of damage reduction is almost required. However, I find it to be required with almost EVERY class. As a huge fan of orcs...I still watch my 1200 hp vanish in two or three rounds.

That being how mages and warriors generally fit into the overall genre. The biggest difference I could come up between CF and pen and paper games as well as most other non-text based RP video games is the idea of distance. In almost all other games whether they are single player video, multi-player online, or pen and paper games, mages tend to fight from a distance or make use of distance to over come their fragility. In CF there is no such thing as being in combat but out of melee range thus mages need something else to over come their lack of melee prowess.

>I really believe that at hero ranks mages don't necessarily NEED ABS.

Outside of a few exceptions (like armadillo shifters, debatably LG conjies, etc), this statement only indicates to me that you've never played a non-mage that has PK'd a lot of people. PK'ing as a mage without any ABS wands is without a doubt 'hard mode' compared to just about everything else in the game.

Sorry, for mages to be *balanced* with other classes they need some amount of aura, barrier or shield. That's why I never understood why the ABS system existed. Its not optional. You'll get rocked six ways to Sunday against anyone even remotely competent (including other mages who choose to use it).

I am no Pk number guy, but regardless most of my mage chars have semi decent numbers. If I play a shifter hard out, I can usually manage 50-60Pk wins with 1 or 2 losses thrown in there, during a 200 hour or less stretch before I delete.

ABS on all of the wins, and all at hero. Without it I don't even bother fighting berserkers or the like.

How many times have you died to a solo non-mage melee-type enemy while you were using ABandS?

n/t

I mean if I am losing a solo fight which happens alot. I usually recognize that its not going well and will recall or move off. I don't usually stand toe to toe with a melee char until death. I might get caught with some freak flurry before I can recall, but that is very rare.

Reading through this massive thread a few weeks ago, I think it's clear that everyone is on board with the idea that you need some combination of ABorS.

The dispute is (1) whether you need ABandS to be balanced with other classes, and (2) whether it's feasible to find at least one of ABorS with minimal exploration under the new system.

Nep: A lot of potential sleek black/amber/sienna rod locations have been added.

Me: Awesome! I can still find limited wands fine, but anything that makes it a bit easier to grab these is great.

Nep: Being able to get a black rod from location X no longer implies that you'll find a sienna rod in location Y or an amber rod in location Z.

Me: So basically, all the locations are still valid, just the combos are mixed up? Not bad, not bad at all. Stops the list from being a solve-all when it comes to the Sleek system but hey, I can't complain because I have my own home-made list that works for damn near all of my mage characters. I'm sure I'll get the worst possible set next time I roll a mage though. Decent change.

Nep: In general, shield locations are less difficult/dangerous than aura locations which in turn are less difficult/dangerous than barrier locations.

Me: Sweet! I can think of at least one set I had where the sienna/amber was the hardest one to get. Well, hard in a comparative sense.

I think in general this is a decent change, and I have to believe that you are moving in ways to continue to adapt this system.

BTW what did this part mean? I'm high and mildly-dense.

"This also means that you may need to consider some potential locations that you could safely rule out when the possibilities were more universal. To use the most common example, previously you'd never need to kill a good-aligned NPC to get your wand, since with the older system a good-aligned PC could get any location. You can no longer safely rule this out in general."

Well, I think when people searched for wand locations before they would say "I'm OBVIOUSLY not going to even try and look in this place that has good or even neutral mages because the system just wouldn't allow a good mage to need to be killed for a sleek". We have changed this. Now, a good mage won't get a wand location on a good mage mob, but that doesn't mean that this location isn't one for someone NON good. Same with some outlander friendly mobs, same with some Trib friendly mobs, etc etc.

NT

Try it out and see if it's really as bad as it seems. I believe the ABS has been quite an issue since I first played CF. I'm sure the Imms have put a lot of thoughts into it. The last thing they want is to take the fun away. I know it's going to increase the exploration times, etc.

Just like ranger, thief, prcs, APs, etc. The Imms have heard our rants and grunts. So they have listened, putting in many hours to test and tweak it.

So be positive about it and see how it goes. I'm sure those vets will in no time find the ABS locations.

I can understand why this change was needed, it wasn't that difficult for me to be shown different aura spots. After i found i found one, i could be simply told the other locations and go have some fun. Now it will be harder if not impossible to be helped. This is true for even for those with knowledge of old location since new spots will now exsist.

Sadly, I'm not too sure how this helps in regards to enjoyment of the game. I'll spare you all my rant on the nessesity of at least aura and shield for mage at higher levels since i am sure everyone knows. However now they are more time consuming to find, on top of still being just as tedious to continuosly get. Given all the challenges a mages faces through its life, this just doesn't add up.

I cannot help but feel mages will need to be thrown a bone of some sort before i am able to play them. There is a mage class i particularly love in this game but i just don't have the time and patience to be spending looking for a rod so it can simply survive more then two rounds. I don't even being given 'detect artifact' at level 30 would help since it doesn't kill any of the tedium after finding the wand anyways.

It would be nice to see something along the lines of mages getting taught aura and shield spells (on longer recast timers) should they find their amber and sienna rods and give it to their guildmaster. Then they can continue to search, gather or die trying to get their barrier rods so they have a chance to word out after a couple of deathblows.

Or increase spell damage/decrease lag to match what melee classes can do to you should they lag you unprepared for two or three rounds.

If not that then at least boost up the dam redux of rods currently give mages to compensate how much work we have to put into finding them. I've had aura/shield/barrier at the same time and some people still manage to do capital damage on me.

It's not that hard out there for mages. It's just not.

I can believe it's that hard for you, but the experience of better mages doesn't hold what you're saying to be true overall.

That doesn't change the fact that i think the new system is now more tedious then the old does it? Whether i found it hard or not before didn't change the fact that til now i still found it relatively fun and worth while to play a mage. Your right though given my limited pk, area, and gear knowledge its sometimes very hard to keep my mage alive as opposed to those 'better' mages. It will take alot more time, patience and effort to achieve what i have now at least won't it?

I can only ask myself is it worth it? I guess I'll have to see.

***It would be nice to see something along the lines of mages getting taught aura and shield spells (on longer recast timers) should they find their amber and sienna rods and give it to their guildmaster.***

Speaking as someone who HAS the shield spell, I can testify with confidence that this would be overpowered. Having only ONE of the three for me to cast any time I wish has made things considerably easier for that character, I had a very easy shield location to begin with. Just the fact that I don't have to mess around with carrying them means that I can use the spell with zero consideration of conserving my wands for important times. Even adding a recast timer would not be a good solution. I would seriously pity any melee class if all magi were able to learn to cast these spells.

Besides making it so that obvious rp-breaking situations don't come up, I don't quite understand what the intended consequences are.

The sucky barrier locations still exist. Vets will still get sleeks quicker than newbies, as they know off the top of their heads where appropriate potential locations are. It will just take longer. The "set" aspect always seemed silly to me, but it seems that this won't actually change balance, but rather just make it slightly more tedious to find your sleeks. Sort of like how the practicing changes didn't really stop people from spamming things up, it just made it less effecient.

It sounds more sensible now, and maybe that was the entirety of the intended change?

As an aside, since nothing was taken out, there are still a few spots where 1) it really sucks to get stuck with your sleek black, 2) detect artifact won't help you as you have already done the hard part getting to the room where it is. Which spots these are should be pretty obvious (and I am sure that there are ones I don't know about from before).

>It sounds more sensible now, and maybe that was the entirety
>of the intended change?

Mostly that's it, plus adding more variety, plus buffing up the infrastructure to potentially let us do more with the system easier down the road.

For example, it's now very easy for me to say: "Barrier location X is too hard or too easy compared to the others; no new characters will get it."

Or: "We didn't really think of it when we picked this location, but getting this wand can force an Outlander to compromise their RP to get their shield wand. We'll make sure they can't get it anymore."

Or: "This location is pretty fair for most classes, but it's way too easy for transmuters. Rather than remove it transmuters just won't be able to get it."

I also have an idea for an interesting handful of edges around the wands that I've laid some of the groundwork for. For example, being able to pay to gain a second aura location. Note: I'm specifically not promising edges of this kind will ever materialize, it's just an example of the kinds of possibilities I wanted to see more workable.

I think it's also now less trivial to power to 30, check to see if you got an 'easy' set of wands, and then continue on or delete accordingly.

>I think it's also now less trivial to power to 30, check to
>see if you got an 'easy' set of wands, and then continue on or
>delete accordingly.
>


This will only change things for as long as it takes people to figure out the new wands. Wand locations make or break a mage at this point that is the inherent flaw of the wand system. You'd be better off trying to fix the flaws the flaws instead of trying to fix the ways people try to cope with said flaws. But hey its your show now :)

It doesn't change the form, really, just the content.

More locations and non-associated locations doesn't change the fact that eventually, people will know most/all of them, and act accordingly. *shrug*

It is sort of like when I make a melee guy now. I still do defenses, but it just takes longer than it did a couple years ago. Not a big deal, jusy irritating.

Sounds the same with sleeks now. Just more time, not more tought/difficulty.

My recent fire AP found his sienna at level 30 by very happy coincidence of being grouped with a guy who had the same sienna location.

That guy (also level 30) told me, immediately after, where both my amber and my black would be.

That won't happen with this new system.

Just an example.

And see this person probably thought he was saving you from dozens of hours of annoying searching and/or barganing with any person you can get your hands on once you get desperate.

Fortunately we've stamped out such niceness. :-)

Now he'll just list off 5 random places for you to search to be helpful, probably spoiling it more than before.

-Grudan

It is kinda poor RP when I help someone in game. Usually giving them hints toward their missing wand or wands based on the one they have.

Personally I think its good to mix it up a bit, but in reality will just make things tougher for the newbish mage players, or semi-newbie players where they had some knowledge previously.

I still think you guys should consider giving all mages ABS but on some kind of timer system (reduced with edges, IMM xp, age of character.) New heros might get ABS once every 24 hours lasting for 7 - 8 hours. As they get more experienced, etc like I mentioned, this could vary.

I don't know if that would even work, and am sure you can find fault with it.

Just for you own info: People I talk with about CF, 2-3 of them, OOC stuff, are probably not going to play mages now as redundant area searching is not for them. The Focus to make game more realistic instead of a quick fun source is having a negative effect on the playerbase.

I personally like it and am usually the type of player that has lots of downtime to do stuff like that.

>It is kinda poor RP when I help someone in game. Usually
>giving them hints toward their missing wand or wands based on
>the one they have.

I am a casual player which by any standards makes me a perpetual newbie in this game even though I've been around for quite some time. I also have no OOC connections with people related to CF in any way, which puts me even more out of the loop from many things that might be considered common knowledge.

Why do you consider it to be bad RP if you're helping a mage of the same align? All the sleek locations I know of (which are not all that much but at least my last mage found the whole set), and most of the limited ABS locations, have been shown to me by other players in game. If it wasn't for that I am not sure if I'd be inclined to even try a mage character at all.

And amen to almost all you said here and in other posts in this thread.

It is bad roleplay (in theory) to have a mage tell me, I just found a sienna wand on a travelling mage in so and so....and for me to turn around and say...."Head to the Octogonal Tower and look in the basket on the right for a barrier. "Now head to High Tower of Sorcery and look in the garbage pile for your amber rod".

Just meant, how the hell should my mage char know this stuff?

I usually try to drop hints or suggest we go exploring together and come across them.

To me, that's the question every imm should ask each time a change is made.

I guess it remains to be seen if making everyone who wants abs to reexplore Thera will tip the scales towards "fun."

Usually I agree with you but, I feel you all are way off base here. Show me a single mage that can go toe to toe with a warrior without wands. It just isn't possible the way cf is built these days. Yes, you may knock off the #### geared warrior every now and then. For the most part though you just won't be successful without wands.

I don't think I made any comment about mages going toe to toe without wands or anything like that...I just said it was silly that my groupmate, having seen where I had one wand, was able to tell me where I'd find wands that wouldn't even work for me yet.

No and looking back I can't figure out what I was responding to.

>This will only change things for as long as it takes people to
>figure out the new wands.

I respectfully disagree. }(

I'm sure it looks like a small thing in terms of effort gone in and actual effect it will have on balance, but it's done amazing things for my sanity already :)

Thank you for your work.

Yhorian

How do you get this spell? It is an Edge or something? If it's questy just tell me to shut up.

Syntax: cast 'detect artifact'

It is rumored that the Archmage of the Tower of Sorcery has completed her
research and unlocked the ability to differentiate between certain strands of
magic, allowing for the easier detection of specific powerful objects.

See also: 'DETECT MAGIC' 'THE VEIL' 'OBSERVATION'

This will help you out in case you are getting frustrated.

Need to be a hero.
Need to have a decent amount of Observation/Exploration XP
Need to bring the archmage something he will request.
You will know when you are ready as the Archmage will talk to you.

Imms: Please delete if you don't want this posted.

As a part-time player who spent years bartering information and scouring the areas for the old wand locations I don't want to have to invest the same huge amount of time in finding new ones because I have not got that time to do it anymore.

So my question is this:

Is detect artifact changed to be obtainable at a lower rank, say 30, rather than the high rank that it has been?

Reason being that a rank 30-40 mage with no wand protection is going to get munched by most martial classes and this would make mages a purely high level class to play, which I know is not the desire of the immortals.

-----Abernyte

P.S. Like Parv said, I am not sure if I like this or not but I will reserve judgement until me next mage when it actually means something to me.

I wholeheartedly agree detect artifact should be much easier to get at a much lower level.

I've acquired what wand knowledge I have over 300-400 or so hours on 3 mages recently, almost entirely by trading information with other mages. None of my charatcers ever made it to get Detect Artifact.

With no detect artifact, no desire to search every room, nook and cranny and kill every mob in every zone...again, and some spots that I'm guessing no current mage knows, it's entirely possible any new mage I run won't stand a chance of finding my wands until they become common knowledge so I can trade for info again.

I'm sure someone can respond that I should know how to play a mage without wands...but yeah....I've tried it and it's just me getting squished over and over.

I 100% applaud the changes such as making it so Tribunal's don't need to kill mobs in protected cities. That's very welcome. But the addition of spots with no way to find them right now just makes me want to stop rolling mages for a while.

I think you said that characters may know one location at generation.

So, maybe detect artifact could enable them to locate the other one of either aura or shield at 40, and barrier at 51.

Don't forget, guys, that there are still the limited wands/staves/scrolls out there to use at rank 30-40.

I think it serves its purpose in that it can give you a massive boost to actually finding your sleeks, and any other regular types of ABS out there if you want to invest in a character. I'm not going to go ahead and give it out to all mages, or make it really easy to get.

1 sienna, 1 amber, 1 black per character, or do characters have multiple locations now?

Did any locations get removed?

It is still 1 per each, the "sets" were just de-setted. No locations were removed.

Pre-existing characters retain their previous wand locations.

Not sure when the code kicks in, but if you have a rank 25 mage kicking around, will that qualify as pre-existing char? Or does the generation of wand location kick in when the wands become usable?

Just asking as I look forward to finding the new locations...

>Pre-existing characters retain their previous wand
>locations.
>
>Not sure when the code kicks in, but if you have a rank 25
>mage kicking around, will that qualify as pre-existing char?
>Or does the generation of wand location kick in when the wands
>become usable?

It's determined at character generation, so any character rolled after the latest reboot is new.

If wands location is determined at character generation, and nep said that tribunals shouldn't get wands they can't really use, does that mean wand locations can change later? Otherwise, not sure how it would be possible to know at char generation which is a tribunal (or some other issue that might nix a certain set of wands)?

If that's the case, probably want to let people know that, so if they happen to join tribunal or whatever else might trigger a rod change after level 30 or so, and thus might have gotten used to their current locations, they don't gripe when those locations change.

>If wands location is determined at character generation, and
>nep said that tribunals shouldn't get wands they can't really
>use, does that mean wand locations can change later?

Nope. Everyone who is, was, or will be Tribunal has something in common, which is known at character generation. :)

(Logically, this also means that some characters who won't be Tribunal also won't get that location. It's okay, there are lots now.)

You and Baer sure are changing things up though. I see double imp household in the very near future. Happy days! :)