Here's something that I thought up to possibly fix the problem with ABS. NO idea the coding, or how it might be implemented.

Make ABS spells like inherant abilities. Something akin to the forgecraft for dwarves.

Here's the deal:

All mage classes get an ability when they roll up that is akin to the forgecraft inherant that dwarves get. Call it "WandCraft" for now just to be generic.

In the shops inside guilds you put wands in the color of the wands that you have now. Amber, Sienna, Black. However, these wands are empty and are only vessels that you can use to infuse each with a particular DR spell. Finding a magical location (laboratory, wand shop?) you get the chance to use the tools there to infuse your own mana into the wand ( mana cost can be determined depending on the spell) to create the DR spell you are looking for. In order to keep things interesting, you make it so that each wand that you create gets a number of charges dependant on your level, your skill in "wandcraft" and probably INT (if a stat is needed to base it off of). So, 75%? you may only get one or two charges. %100? You may get a lot more.

In order to regulate this, you put in level requirements for each type of spell. So...aura at 35, barrier at 45 and shield at 51, again using them as generic footmarks to give an idea of what I am talking about. And, if you want to make it harder, force people to have to pay to use the laboratory, or to have someone (random NPC) watch them to make sure they don't blow up the guild. Like...5 gold or something per try. Not impossible to get but will force people to have to go out and look around for cash.

Put a long timer on it to keep people from just sitting there spamming 'create wand shield , with a chance that the wand that you bought may also just explode forcing you to wait till the next time you can try and you're golden.

You could also keep the random locations out there with a few pre-made wands, but these should be more difficult to get to/harder to find.

Plus, if you wanted, you could make it so that wands gotten from higher level areas will give you a higher chance to get the spell made. Buy your black wand from Galadon? Rougher materials and harder to infuse. Get your wand from the ultimate-magus archwizard lord of magic that he keeps in a special chamber under his bed designed to help him infuse wands at a later date? Much easier time.


Thoughts?

And you're not alone.

There are two things you (and anyone else) must keep in mind when making a suggestion:

1 - Mages cannot have all dam redux, all the time. The shield spell recently given is the only step that's going to be taken in that direction. More would simply mean mages would fight when they have their spells up, and sit and wait when they don't. They would virtually never fight without the full damage reduction complement, and that's bad for the game. That's why you'll never see the other dam redux spells as class abilities or inherents or anything else of that nature. Some will undoubtedly point out that once someone knows their spots, they do have all dam redux, all the time. But that's not necessarily true. There will always be that period of time between obtaining rods, gathering them after using, etc. A small window perhaps, but it's there. And it comes as a result of having "earned" them by finding them.

2 - There must be some risk involved in mages obtaining the full complement of damage reduction. It can't be simple or easy, and there must be inherent risk involved.

The discussion can proceed in regards to how much risk, how easy to obtain, a method for providing it to them that involves risk, whether certain spots are too risky or not enough, and, perhaps most likely to raise hackles, whether or not someone in fact "earns" by finding, or just gets lucky. That's all up for grabs. But any discussion needs to be within the bounds of the above two criteria. No solution will be found if you ignore these two.

Right, they would have a window, just like my idea suggests. In fact, I even mentioned in there that if such a system would be put into place that you would have to have a timer on it just to make sure that the people who wanted to SPAM create wands would have to wait a long time before being able to try again. Thus, you still get your new system, and you still have the opportunity for risk. Especially since, just like things like forgecraft, you are stuck in the middle of the actions that your character must complete in order to try and finish the prodcut you are working on.

There's your window. Catch them when they are trying to create the wand. or bash them down once they finish completing it. Catch them when they are making the run for money, or trying to find better wands to infuse with magic or searching for limited pre-mades.

I see no reason why mages, if they put in the time and the effort with getting gold, and finding the best components, and using the skill (or, in game terms, refining their ability to create wands) and using their own magical energies, can't have a full compliment of reduction.

This way you encourage exploration of more places to find better wands. You encourage people to go out there and still PK for the better material components (IE the particular type of wand you want to infuse that some other jackass may be carrying). And mages have a chance to get a bit of damage reduction without having to go out and kill themselves all the time.

I mean, you did say it yourself, that the one spell each class was given was a big step in the direction of permanent DR. But why only one step? If you balance the numbers right, make the creation process harder for the best DR and easier for the least (like the DR spells that are in place now) you can get rid of some of the bitching because all of the components would be in place and there would be no excuse to not try for your DR spells.

>I mean, you did say it yourself, that the one spell each class
>was given was a big step in the direction of permanent DR. But
>why only one step?

Becuase not everyone gets everything. The system in place has risk, has reward, and IF you put in time you have potential to become powerful (and there are ways for people to rob you of that power). Not everyone IS powerful...but everyone has the potential.

Every system I've seen described wants everyone to BE powerful.

>If you balance the numbers right, make the
>creation process harder for the best DR and easier for the
>least (like the DR spells that are in place now) you can get
>rid of some of the bitching because all of the components
>would be in place and there would be no excuse to not try for
>your DR spells.

The balance is...take away the ABS spell from the game, leave the class specific spells (maybe buff it up by 5% DR), and call it good. Then everyone gets the same thing and you don't have to worry about balancing potential vs. risk vs. exploration, everyone is on the exact same ground.

>Becuase not everyone gets everything. The system in place has risk, >has reward, and IF you put in time you have potential to become >powerful (and there are ways for people to rob you of that power). >Not everyone IS powerful...but everyone has the potential.
>
>Every system I've seen described wants everyone to BE powerful.

Ahhh, ok. I understand this.


>The balance is...take away the ABS spell from the game, leave the >class specific spells (maybe buff it up by 5% DR), and call it >good. Then everyone gets the same thing and you don't have to worry >about balancing potential vs. risk vs. exploration, everyone is on >the exact same ground.

Ok, yeah, that makes alot of sense. Though, then people may bitch about never having the potential to be UBER but I suppose that's not really your problem now since the game would be balanced.

However, this leads me to wonder if removing the current system for something like you described is even an idea that you want to entertain? With everyone being on the same playing field, you may have folks complaining about stagnation and that you can never be 'UBER', or get the leg up on the other people.

Or is that where other preps like stone skin and what not come in?

In an ideal world there would be nothing wrong with the current system. However the world isn't ideal, and people are petty so what happens when people can't find their wands while at the same time noticing that their mage buddy got lucky with an easy set?

Delete;delete.

Reroll. What their black is in a tough place instead of an easy place they could get lvl35. Well maybe they can up their game and settling for limit souce? No. Delete;delete.

This will happen until they decide to try a non-mage class or they take a break for a while or worse just quit.

Personally, i've come to the conclusion mages in this game aren't for me. I don't have the patience or the willingness to spend 50+ hours searching for a prep inorder to survive battles when i can just jump into the fray with some other classes with basic preps i know.


There are two divides here:

One is exploration which Imms seem hell bent on having with their system. Two is randomness, some mages will find wands and on a easy mob for their class and some won't. Its not even a matter of people wanting A/B/S on a stick as i see it.

So honestly, taking away A/B/S from the game would work for me.

GO for it! Even if mages are nerfed, damredux wise, i'd still be happy being on the same ground as every other mage out there. Or get rid of the sleek system and maybe put more A/B/S limited wand sources in the worlds. Ever mage has to fight for the same rods, sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't but everyone is on the exact same ground.

>Or get rid of the sleek system and maybe put more A/B/S
>limited wand sources in the worlds. Ever mage has to fight for
>the same rods, sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't but
>everyone is on the exact same ground.

This would just play out the same as we have today (I couldn't find X/Y/Z ever, I'm going to delete). Not an option.

I don't. Right now people delete;delete in an attempt to get a better wand set when they know that the POTENTIAL to find a good set exists. If you got rid of the POTENTIAL people wouldn't have that particular reason to delete. With limited sources you could probably monitor the system alot easier, with locations risks and increasing or decreasing the respawns depending on the population.

It would be no different then deleting a bard or ranger because i couldn't find aura scrolls/talisman. Unlike these classes though mages often NEED that dam redux so its just a matter of making sure they can find at least a bit to keep them going.

I agree with zulg. I think that a system based on limited wands would be more ####ed up than ABS.

At the very least, a system based on limited wands would accomplish one thing that the current system has failed to do and that is prevent people from having ABS all the time.

Why?

Because again when people do find their wands in good locations they keep their mages while those that don't delete;delete. This means that most if not all mages at hero that remain will have abs on a stick all the time, which is what the IMMs were hoping to avoid. Again the current system is nothing more then a lottery. A tedious one that can take up quite a few hours before you find out whether you won or lost.

####ty or not, with a limited wand system at least everyone would be on equal grounds. Your friend or enemy doesn't have a better deal and delete;reroll won't give you a better set. Today you might have barrier and aura, tommorrow you might just find barrier. On top of everything you won't be using it like cheap candy.

When i played my last mage months ago, i settled for a limited set because the search got tedious, some days i had everything, some days i didn't but i didn't delete over wands. However that set won't work for ever mage/race/align and the idea of spending any time searching pretty much kills mages for me.

Is that this is essentially the system in place at one point, and it didn't actually work out in play the way you're saying.

Maybe I will be proven wrong, but I think I come at this from a different set of assumptions. Mainly two: 1) the staff aren't retarded, and 2) many players are lazy and stupid.

> What their black is in a tough place instead of an easy place they could get lvl35. Well maybe they can up their game and settling for limit souce? No. Delete;delete.

My assumption is that the spots are more or less even, since the staff aren't retards and it wasn't their aim to design a lottery like system where some mages "strike it rich" and others don't.

This would imply that the people complaining about "easy" vs. "hard" are, in fact, exaggerating. Maybe I will turn out to be wrong on this one. We'll see.

> I don't have the patience or the willingness to spend 50+ hours searching for a prep in order to survive battles when i can just jump into the fray with some other classes with basic preps i know.

My assumption is that it won't take all that long to find stuff, and that people who are complaining about it are either relying too heavily on outdated lists, or they're not doing sufficiently "targeted" exploration. Again, we'll see if my mage experiment bears this out.

You should Immort, you would fit right in.

...but you're completely and utterly wrong here.

There are certain locations a delf trannie can get without any problems whatsoever, and other locations that would ruin that same trannies day.

Is it possible dark-elf muters aren't assigned that location? I'm not saying that's the case, just wondering.

I'll freely admit that I haven't played a mage in...a long damn time. That post was just laying out what my *assumptions* are based on what I know of the staff. They may turn out to be totally wrong.

At least trannies overall can. And quite frankly, there are quite a few barrier wands that trannies, if they get them, can just walk to with close to 0% risk at all. I've recently spoken with two trannies who can do just that, walk in, farm their black sleeks in a few minutes. (Well, one of them might have to walk a bit, but it's just walking with 0 risk.)

Is this only an issue for transmuters since they get duo dimension?

Or are there also spots that are "very easy" and "very hard" for, say, an invoker? Necromancer? etc.

Seems like the difference between spots for non-transmuter mages has to be less drastic than for the transmuter class.

There are barrier spots that are way easier for invoker, others for shifters and others for invokers. BUT, transmuters can FIND their sleeks WAAAY easier than any other class thanks to duo. And some of the locations they can just duo, walk in, vis, pick up, duo, walk out where other classes have to fight/flee their way to it.

On the other hand, there are other locations where invokers/necros/shifters would have a waaay easier time killing the mob that holds the wand than a transmuter who basically NEVER could kill it solo.

Not sure if it's balanced out in the big picture, but it feels kinda bleh that some transmuters can just walk up to their barrier, pick it up, and walk out when none else can do that.

Anyways, mail sent to Daevryn with a list of a few locations like that.

I'll remove them as possibilities for transmuter wand locations to try to help bring locations to a more even keel.

(We'll pretend you didn't so no one mails you anthrax.)

N/T

It still requires exploration if you want damn redux on a stick, but it removes some of the randomness of the current system that seems to drive people crazy.

And that base timer I was thinking for creating sleeks would be like 10 game days, modified down by the observation experience they'd get if they were a mage exploring for their wands at level 35+.

Making the mage go to a laboratory to make their wands is an improvement on my idea.

Frankly I hate seeing wanded mages in pk situations. For my damroll deprived characters, I get to inflict scratches while I'm eating annhilates and unspeaks. Do away with barrier and I'd be a happy camper--but I realize that doesn't balance with the 100 DR berserkers.

What's so terrible about everyone being powerful? I don't understand. <3

Cheers,
Jhyrb

>1 - Mages cannot have all dam redux, all the time.

His system could be tweaked to achieve this.

Add a limit on how many instances of each type can exist that are attuned to the person trying to infuse a new one.

If you try to infuse a sleek black rod and there already exist two sleek blacks that are attuned to you, then you fail with a special echo.

Whenever a mage picks up a sleek rod, it automatically attunes itself to that mage. If a non-mage picks one up then it immediately crumbles.

Or you could go with whatever system is currently in place to account for the situation when a mage has his sleeks looted. I'm assuming when the looter touches them they're no longer attuned to the original owner. That is to say, their existence doesn't prevent new sleeks from repopping for that person.

>2 - There must be some risk involved in mages obtaining the
>full complement of damage reduction.

Two things here. Much of the risk incurred in the current system is due to the possibility of being PK'd while getting your wand. The mobs themselves typically aren't so much dangerous as they are "time consuming". The system he's proposing still has that to some extent in that it requires you to gather gold, and gathering gold usually exposes you to PK.

You can (and probably should) argue that this is a lower level of risk than what the current system involves.

To account for this we could tweak his system to require more gold (with the thought that more gold = more risk), or possibly require a high level magical item like despoil. Alternately we could make the "infuse" process have substantial lag similar to request. In this case we'd want to allow "infusing" inside guilds, since otherwise hiding classes would just camp at the "infuse" spots. Subjecting yourself to request lag while inside a guild is fairly risky.

Infusing could also cause significant damage to the mage similar to how "imbue weapon" damages rangers.