Wed Jun 10 21:00:42 2009

At 2 o'clock AM, Day of Thunder, 10th of the Month of Nature
on the Theran calendar Nysildon perished, never to return.

.

I think it's really bad luck for some Mages. I can honestly say I've checked probably nearly EVERY known sienna/amber location and not found any. Sleek black requires groups for many of them, so I'm not too pissed about not finding that one.

That said, the kicker is that this stupid ABS system screws so many Mages up that few people are willing to play Mage any more, so that leaves me with many sources of limited ABS. And it's ridiculous how by exploring I've gained access to a nearly limitless amount of aura/shield, and somewhat reliable amount of barrier, ALL of which are not sleek rods.

I really think that IMMs who see long-lived, well-played chars who still have not found their sleek rod locations be given quests or told outright where their sienna, then amber, then black is, depending on quality of roleplay/pk/etc.

I think there were levels where I ranked without intending to rank, just from crazy amonts of observation/explore/commerce/skillup exp. I mean, sure I can survive without sleek rods... and I don't mind my barrier lasting only 7 or shield lasting only 5, but it is just annoying how I can find tons of limited magical protections and yet not find something as simple as a sienna/amber location... not to give anything out, but certain sienna/amber locations are just so retardedly simple it's like having shield/aura on tap if you have 4 rounds to spare zapping.

Totally agree with you there Guy. Plus, I liked your last char (:

Nonsense.

I didn't play for 3 years and for three my mages (two deleted already) I found full set of wands in 2-3 days of search. I was helped once with black rod (of course IC only).

I've had some chars where I find them all easily, without even looking.

I've had others where I don't find any.

Masigner found only sleek black, and that was a pain to get (easy but time consuming), so I stopped using it and went for limited wands instead.

My latest mage hasn't found any. Admittedly I haven't looked that hard because I know I can just use limited wands, and those I take from dead enemies.

Agreed.

There are a lot of limited barrier wands and even more - aura and shield (I don't even bother with shield wands, though).

But I never seen a mage who wouldn't find his sleek black eventually. And I know only one really time consuming sleek black, rest are pretty easy to get.

And of course there is a barrier attunement edge, which is not a problem to pick.

So, barrier really is not a problem. And for arcane mage... there are A LOT of places where you can get your barrier while duoded, and everyone else would not even bother to go there (because it would just take too much time to get to those spots without duo).

No one really cares about the wand issue anymore.

Some players already tried to note the things you have here.

Point is: No one really cares about responding to yours posts on a death thread that is 6 months old.

I'll keep it short and simple

Scion,
Tameron cool cat. Liked you all round.

Other muter-guy, name escapes me at the moment, rock out with your cock out dude. Thats all I'll say

Battle
Woldrun, mithril + db = my face.

Why did I delete?
Wands.

I probably spent 40 + hours looking for ABS. I consider that a long time considering I managed to put together a pretty sizable list in my own explorations.

Add the viel and a ton of ragers to this combination and you have a very bored duoed muter searching for his sleek black because 8 hour barrier just doesn't ####ing cut it.

The last straw was learning I was going to have to hero.. and search for my wands .. again not to mention rechecking severals spots.
Yay! No wait.. #### that ####. I'll play a caster when this #### makes more sense.
Why doesn't it make sense? The time I spend sinking into a char to be competitive as a mage I can easily invest into a steamrolling fire warrior with rows of 90%'s and have fun, even after being fulled.

>because 8 hour barrier just doesn't ####ing cut it.

What do you think the duration on barrier from a sleek black is?

About ten hours,

The best nonsleek I could get was about eight hours, on average though I couldn't count on getting that non-sleek or anything else that didn't require considerable effort on my part. Which is half the reason I got frustrated with it.

Sort of frustrated that I put that much effort into the char only to realise I was going to have to spend more time in heroing, getting more edge points then searching all of the sleek black spots I'd already hit and potentially looking at more if I somehow got unlucky enough to get yet another one I didn't know.

I realise your trying to be objective amidst all the tantrum throwing and general crap and hubub.

Maybe your right, maybe sleek blacks last about as long as most average nonsleek barrier.
But I can't go get another non-sleek barrier after a short while without having to hope some other mage isn't going to steal it. This is cool for over the ceiling non-architype preps, like aura for a warrior or something.
But non-shifter mages without ABS get crammed pretty easily by their #1 foe the village. Especially cabaled mages.

Not really a easy to define problem beyond, I shouldn't have to go on a easter egg hunt x2 for my class basics that lot of other mages get practically gift wrapped depending on locations.
That to me is akin to rolling a sword spec and only getting the skill flurry half the time, as the other half of the time you can't find the only mob in the game that will teach you flurry.
Sure flurry isn't the end all of a sword spec, but it sure as hell is a skill I'm no fan of going without, even as a elf.

Maybe that rambling will make more sense...

I believe it's nine.

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, but I hope you can understand how I feel about someone saying that eight ticks of barrier is unplayably bad when nine is all that's possible.

I know atleast some of my frustration atleast, stems from not being able to figure out exactly what to suggest to fix the situation honestly. Otherwise I can't really pinpoint what part of neoabs killed this char for me.

Its not like I haven't had ####ty mages without ABS in the past, it certainly killed them pretty dead. But I don't think it was quite the same then, I knew I didn't know #### about the game, and looking back on it most of those chars had really easy ABS.

This neoABS thing is different, I think I did some serious exploring. Mind you, I've been to all of these areas. Time and time again, and maybe not on the whole with each char, but I think its fair to say I've killed all those mobs atleast twice in my career if not some in the #'s of 100 + times. It kinda drags on me to look at the same now double sized list and know that I have too check each of those spots if I want to compete. Not to mention non-sleek spots for temporary measures.

Mind you, like everyone else, I don't want every mage to have ABS on a stick.

A good location can make a good pker stand out, atleast in my eyes, the ability to wear wand;zap self should atleast come with some weight, but shouldn't come with thinking #### I'm going to log off in half an hour and some .. guy is going to claim my barrier.

Sure, I could probably drum up another non-sleek with enough scouring, but honestly. I'd rather just find my damn sleek and play the game instead of constantly hunting for a basic prep for my class.
Not to mention not everyone has the bizarro ability to remember a bunch of random ass items from random ass areas like I do, and even I have to wrack my brain sometimes for non-sleek barrier. (Insert that doesn't require a group or a really long time to get.)

And thank you for talking about the situation, and dealing with my wandering.

I would say I spent about at least a 10 hours looking for wands, couldn't find even my shield. This is after two very experienced people felt sorry for me and dragged me around trying to find them. Yes we looked at the mage tower, and killed all sorts of probably-have mobs. I have been playing CF since 1999 and have had about a dozen titled classes, some mages, some not, some leaders. But this was really the toughest its ever been. I can't imagine how its going to be for newbies.

This probably belongs on gameplay, but I don't think I have an account here. Coming from someone who has played tons of mages, and has every single one with full a/b/s, I think the changes are not good without a commensurate change in Veil mechanics.

I think that you'll agree that a regular warrior vs any fully wanded mage is almost always a bad matchup for the warrior, and a fully wanded mage against a villager is usually somewhere near even. Are people beating villagers without wands? Yes, but these people either have builds that are especially suited towards it, are very lucky/tricky, or enjoy the benefit of a particularly egregious error on the part of the villager. I would go so far as to say that I think a unwanded mage alone is probably 10 times more likely to die to a villager than the villager is to die to the unwanded mage. You can say the numbers don't support this, but I do really feel strongly about this.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. However, I think the problem is that many mage players are now playing villagers because they can't find wands. When there are lots of villagers around, the Veil mechanics make them much stronger. You have players like Woldrun who are able to rack up a lot of kills during many months of a magic-strong/average veil, and now they have 10-15% more damage reduction and do 1.5x damage on spellbane and spellbane better combined with a scarcity of wands. I know that you try not to make the dominant side stronger, but the two factors together really unbalance the Villager/mage dynamic.

What I'd like to see is the Veil become less prohibitive in certain ways and more prohibitive in others. Specifically, fixing the level of damage reduction resistance does, giving spellbane more tactical options (based on the veil, calling it in battle can make the mage unable to cast on himself (including teleport/word) for a hour or two, becoming more likely to suceed as the mage becomes lower in hp, having the chance to create a no-magic area for the tick (but also prevents the ability to deathblow), or having it fully reflect the next spell cast on you, (e.g. a sucessful spellbane of disrupt organ would end up disrupting the caster), as long as that spell was cast in the next 2 combat rounds.

I think this makes the game better for everyone and fixes a lot of the issues. Also, I'd like to see the top hardest to find location from each wand side removed, but that's a bit different to.

The Veil already works more like you say it should work, than the way you think it works.

Nice Nepenthesque comment to a serious discussion. I'll remain civil in the interest of sparking discussion. Of course you know how the Veil works better than I do. You're looking at the code.

<<What I'd like to see is the Veil become less prohibitive in certain ways and more prohibitive in others. Specifically, fixing the level of damage reduction resistance does, giving spellbane more tactical options (based on the veil, calling it in battle can make the mage unable to cast on himself (including teleport/word) for a hour or two, becoming more likely to suceed as the mage becomes lower in hp, having the chance to create a no-magic area for the tick (but also prevents the ability to deathblow), or having it fully reflect the next spell cast on you, (e.g. a sucessful spellbane of disrupt organ would end up disrupting the caster), as long as that spell was cast in the next 2 combat rounds. >>

<<The Veil already works more like you say it should work, than the way you think it works.>>

My assessments of the Veil, in the post before.

As magic grows weaker, rager resist is more effective. Is that true or false?

As magic grows weaker, spellbane is more effective, and does more damage. Is that true or false?

As magic grows weaker, the skill deathblow is more effective. Is that true or false?

I do know that the thing I described with spellbane is somewhat similar to something already in place, however, what I'm suggesting is a greater shift from the former passive boosts to more often boosts of activated skills. The reason I suggested it is because I know spellbane already has a chance to do something similar.

Do you have a stat on how many times the "called spellbane in battle while veil was thick" prog has triggered? I have never seen it in my life (although it may be more prevalant in recent weeks as Village numbers have surged). Under my proposed adjustments those things would become a significant bonus of why a thick Veil was bad for a mage, and might actually cause some mages to hoof it during really bad times than try and word out.

Another one could be that bloodthirst has increased effectiveness based on how many people have recently hit you, IE if your gank-o-meter would record this as a 5v1 gank if you died right that second, you would get extra boosts to fighting, incentivizing villagers fighting groups even while magic is weak (which would usually mean that many villagers are on), instead of having 1v1's with 2 or 3 other villagers following waiting to attack anyone who jumps in.

>As magic grows weaker, rager resist is more effective. Is
>that true or false?

False. It does get a longer duration.

>As magic grows weaker, spellbane is more effective, and does
>more damage. Is that true or false?

It's marginally more effective. It can do a bit more damage.

>As magic grows weaker, the skill deathblow is more effective.
>Is that true or false?

False.

>I do know that the thing I described with spellbane is
>somewhat similar to something already in place, however, what
>I'm suggesting is a greater shift from the former passive
>boosts to more often boosts of activated skills. The reason I
>suggested it is because I know spellbane already has a chance
>to do something similar.

I haven't personally seen most of the cool things it can do in combat happen yet.

>Do you have a stat on how many times the "called spellbane in
>battle while veil was thick" prog has triggered? I have never
>seen it in my life (although it may be more prevalant in
>recent weeks as Village numbers have surged). Under my
>proposed adjustments those things would become a significant
>bonus of why a thick Veil was bad for a mage, and might
>actually cause some mages to hoof it during really bad times
>than try and word out.

I don't. I should start logging that.

Especially since saves are what helps you spellbane so much.

And you honestly have me wondering what in all the RNG emcompasses by saying resist doesn't get better (except in duration) when my experience does not bear that through.

My experience does. I've had resist up against the exact same mobs when the veil was very thin and very thick. Took exactly the same damage.

If you have literally no other source of -save, then yeah, -15 is pretty significant -- but such a character is probably still going to be raped by a decent mage.

I've worked the math on the whole thing. I think marginal is pretty fair.

Don't mages cast at a lower level when the Veil is thick? Does this make spellbane more likely to deflect these spells? What about shifter forms? Do they do less damage when the veil is thick? There is a very real boost in power to the Village when the veil is thick. I'm curious as to what it is, and if it's something that needs to be adjusted.

I know that bloodthirst lasts longer, spellbane gives higher saves, discern works worse, mana regenerates slower, conjured minions are lower level, magic spells sometimes fail. I assumed that mages cast at a lower level all around.

Believe me, I'm not a villager hater, I know how bad they have it in many situations and have played my share of them. I just feel like when the pendulum switches to magic-time that a couple strong ragers can turn things around totally, whereas the reverse is not true, that when the veil is very thick that ragers are just incredibly dominant. I realize that the lines between cause and effect are blurry but still, I think it bears further scrutiny.

I felt like I could do much less damage through resist when the veil was strong. I'm very positive of it in fact. I guess I should hvae logged the fights since typically the veil was thick ro extremely thick when I was on with the horde of villagers.

I guess you're welcome to your opinion, but the code doesn't back it up.

But the other aspect is, they had to have SOMETHING, and at least 80% of the time, they had a bard on, so ugh. Bard resisting + rager resist = Unfair.

I didn't even think about the bard thing...and I am glad I took the strong veil edge which I think helped me keep some descent damage levels going.

...doesn't mean a MAGE wouldn't do less damage with a thick veil...

But support the rich getting richer argument

Were it not for the case that the downtrodden magi can pretty quickly make the veil thin again.

I think your suggestions sound WAY more powerful than the existing powers.

No matter how hard a rager hits me, I can still word. Give him the ability to curse me because I tried to cast a spell at him, and odds of escape just dropped drastically.

Protection is always a huge huge huge huge huge thing. In AR - purple potions. I used to spend a long time collecting purple potions, especially since you can dispel them easily.

In FL - sanctuary. Important as hell.

In CF - ABS. Sleeks was and still is an important part of the system.

I just hope this change, wherein you guys anticipate will help with future creative juices, is well worth the hassle and grief you're getting.

Yeah, playing Scion as a transmuter is one of the hardest thing to do, especially if the Village is powerful. Finding a good barrier wand source is absolutely necessary, and even then, fuuuuuuuuuck.

My favorite tactic was to stalk a Villager, cast buoyancy on myself, wand myself up (can't do this while duo anymore so bleh, pop out in an adjacent area and do it?), then rush in and do the disrupt organ while clasping your hands in a brief prayer as you hope that it lands. Flee when hurt, try again.

All in all, you're really pretty screwed against Villagers, unless they're much lower level, which means your #### goes through spellbane often.

>Yeah, playing Scion as a transmuter is one of the hardest
>thing to do, especially if the Village is powerful.

Playing a scion transmuter is the easiest pick out of all other transmuters.

Only thing I would say is more difficult is Nexus, simply because Scion/Nexus are the two cabals constantly at war with the Village. So what if your Fortress Transmuter can't stack up against the Villager? You aren't trying to retrieve from them 24/7.

You're also talking cabal powers here, when Village is in power, Scion rarely has its powers, so no despoil love for you.

NT

The best power a muter specifically, but most any char that wants to rack up kills can have is alignment : evil.

Sheer buffness doesn't matter much when you have few targets.

"New payment options w/ Iron Realms"

I suggest you try animist ranger vs ragers some time!

Sorry to see this, I was really looking forward to our next talk. Was also working on getting my final tat prog together so that I could give it to you. Would have been the first! Oh well, maybe another time.

Good luck on your next.

I was actually really suprised you took the time to interact with me considering our previous interactions.

I really enjoyed Merg's RP. You hit the nail on the head and honestly I had to struggle to play on the level that you were handling things.

Really enjoyed the religion probably have another follower in the works before too long now that I realise more of what your after.