After looking at the discussion, I'm left with one question. This is a game and the objective is the game is supposed to be fun. How did it make the game more fun? The only people I can think of is habitual battle players. It seems like it would be frustrating to everyone else. Am I missing something?

The official word is that mages don't need wands. Therefore it doesn't matter if you can't find them. The wand system is designed for two types of people. One type is those who are content to snipe kills on weak characters, never fight a villager and only fight when they've engineered an ideal situation. The other is the type who think it's awesome spending hours re-exploring the same areas with every character searching for wands. If you're neither of those people, then mages aren't for you. That's what I've taken away from the whole issue. Don't play mages unless you want to play them as support or vulture types.

The updates are too new to really critique but honestly it's not much different from the old one. It's more tedious, but also more fair in terms of not giving characters locations they can't access rp-wise.

Since i don't think making detect artifact that lets you find all sorts of cool things be any easier to get either, how about this:

At creation allow mages to choose whether they'll be able to sense either their personal aura or shield location when entering an area.

Example:

At the appropraite level if the mage has detect magic up, they will recieve a message letting them know their wand is in the area they just entered. Thats it. Once they get the message they'll know that their wand is in that particular area.

They can only choose to sense either aura or shield and would need to find the other one and barrier. This just cuts the tedium and fustration of potentially finding none a bit. Having one wand won't make anyone killers out of anyone, just allow them a chance to have a bit of fun before finding another wand or con dying.

+++++

All that said, my second biggest problem with the system, the first being the tedium, is that it isn't yet complete, is it? As in, if i am playing an outlander mage, chances are my wand could still be in a crappy location for outlanders? On top of that, it has been said below that all the old locations are still there, which mean all the set locations players have been begging to be removed for what might be years now ares still there. While it was said that the current change allows these to be fixed, with arguable less mages about its going to be harder to see what needs changing.

I also think that adding more high end limit a/b/s would be a bad idea. It practically makes all the work your doing on the current system pointless and doesn't really solve any of its problems. The original intent of the system was to prevent ooc abuse not force/tempt people into commiting more of it. BTW, unless its specifically coded that at least one of the wand location is an old spot, with my luck chances are they are all in new spots, again though things like that shouldn't be consolations.


To the orginal question though, i think all around less mages to hunt down at hero effects villagers too. Oh well, they'll always have the liches right?

>As in, if i am playing an outlander mage, chances are my wand
>could still be in a crappy location for outlanders?

Define crappy. They shouldn't need to kill anything an Outlander shouldn't kill. Beyond that, fair game.

I am thinking of the same location you made reference to in the original posting of the wand change. It was in regards to a sleek source in a protected city and how it would not make sense for tribunals to have it. While you are correct in that it is fair game for an outlander mage, it would still have to fall under my definition of a crappy location in comparison to other possibilities.

Coincidently, that source used to belong to a set which would have probably made me 'deleted delete' my character if i ever got again. It is the reason i would never bother to search for barrier. It was one of the sets i wish would be removed and i suppose i am still wishing.

Wasn't one of the benifits you mention of new the system the fact that you could balance it out a bit to avoid mages getting location which were exceedingly more difficult for them in comparison to getting other locations? I suppose in my example it is still a matter of opinion as opposed to something more black and white like the tribunal example.

Still...~le sigh~

>Wasn't one of the benifits you mention of new the system the
>fact that you could balance it out a bit to avoid mages
>getting location which were exceedingly more difficult for
>them in comparison to getting other locations?

Yes, but in general we did that by removing locations that are really easy for a character (for barrier especially) rather than remove locations that are really hard for a character.

Although there's also one or two of those that I think are a bit over the top and you might not see on a new character.

~

I had/have a really nice character concept that I hope/hoped would go far.

However, I'm not going to relearn the wand locations.

It's creative, sure, but since preps are sooo essential to this game, it's the wrong step.

That being said, I don't have the patience/tolerance to relearn the wand locations. And I learned all my locations in 3 years from IC interactions (thank you Lightmage!)

Since protection is such a pivotal part of the game, and the change decreases my chance of getting good protections, I'll echo a lot of people's thoughts - I just don't have the patience and tolerance to adhere to this new change.

Have fun.

Yes, you're missing the fact the makers of the change WANT the game to be annoying because annoyance + perserverance leads to a feeling of accomplishment. (It's similar to faternity hazing or being screamed at by a drill sergant in boot camp in concept.)

The whole point of CF (and honestly every MMO like WoW, EQ1&2, etc) is 'the person who puts in the most time, and goes through the biggest slog has the most advantages.' The person who found the most preps, gathered them, played the most classes, learned the practicing tricks, learned the best hunting techniques, learned to RP the sphere of their immortal the best, is willing to sit through annoying intereviews, etc, etc gets the most rewards. This is Rule #1 of CF.

This is the same reason why they restrict OOC information so much, and why they close zones when info gets out, or move locations. This is why Hell was closed for a couple years, and Silent Tower is now closed, and some stupid vine in a jungle I never even heard about was moved. Because having information available to everyone violates Rule #1.

Sleek wands were easy to get. Even my sorry ass mage with no knowledge of locations found his aura and shield wands very quickly because several helpful people (some of them not even playing mages) basically force fed me locations without me having to even ask. Don't get me wrong, I was 100% grateful, I felt it made me competitive without having to do a lot of work. Again, the exact opposite of Rule #1.

This change is entirely consistant with the vision of CF I have seen over the past...10 years? Whenever preps became seriously used. Do I like it? Hell no, it makes me not want to roll any more mages. Do I think it's bad for the game? Yes, I think the playerbase will shrink as a result. Do I expect them to change it back? Nope, not unless there's a sudden coup and half the Imms leave.

I'm okay with the change, in the end. I don't agree with it, but they have a vision for the game and it's consistant so I give them props for sticking to it. Me? I'll stick with games where I get the choice to do the quest by myself or just open up a web browser and find a walkthrough.

>Yes, you're missing the fact the makers of the change WANT the game to >be annoying because annoyance + perserverance leads to a feeling of >accomplishment. (It's similar to faternity hazing or being screamed at >by a drill sergant in boot camp in concept.)
Please speak for yourself, mr. psychologist

Annoyance has nothing related to fun and achievement and the "putting a lot of time in it" should be fun or people just leave. Maybe you like to rank to Hero alone or you like that one, who (as he said) printed all area list, explored them all, killed all mages and so on. If I should do such things, I will leave CF for sure.

I know that was a lot of text so maybe you stopped reading before I said that I stopped playing this game because it isn't fun for me and I'd rather have a game where I have the choice of IC or OOC means of aquiring knowledge. Such a game fits into my life much better than this one that goes out of it's way to create an uneven playing field by rewarding the people with the most OOC knowledge from playing the same game over and over and over again. (Ironic, no?)

I'm pretty sure I'm on your side on this one. Deep breath.

All I was saying is, there are some people who find this fun (primarily among them are the Imms who made this change), and that this is the way the game has been going for years, so this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

Let's just give up. It doesn't matter do anyone like this change exept Imms or not. The change is done and there is no way back. Too much work was implemented to just drop it. Just deal with it. Anyway this system is quite the same as before. Just wait a year or two before OOC sleek spots lists would be completed and then either get them or ask in game. Ah and something positive about the change. Now people would delete their mages at 36 not at 30 if they are screwed with bad barrier spot.

To say this "Now people would delete their mages at 36 not at 30 if they are screwed with bad barrier spot."

I am fine with this change, I just think the things could be (and should be) easied a bit. Maybe make detect artifact a bit more useful, maybe mix 'new' spots into the sets with 'old' spots, so the mage can hope to find at least one of the wands as a bare minimum and have a good odds on finding 2nd. 3rd wand could be hard to find, its possibly to leave without it, even without barrier.

We didn't remove any old locations. I think this was stated very clearly. We added locations. If an old location was an aura and was easy to get it was probably switched to a shield and vice versa. There are no more sets.

I got it.
I just disagreeing about the abovementioned statement.
It is not a problem of "how to get easy barrier" and "all this whining is because some players cant to know their barrier spot when they hit 30th", its a problem how to get at least a/s sleeks.

At least so is my experience with playing/interacting with about 5 different newborn mages. Of course, all of them searched a lot. Maybe its skewed, but so it is.

Maybe (just a guess) when you implemented this, 'old' spots were filled, while 'new' were empty (no mages for them), so all new mages got their sleeks right in those new locations. And it needs some time before you can have your amber in old place, sienna in some new and black again in some old.

Are you saying that NO new mages have found ANY sleeks? Cause that's silly. How would you even know that?

Sorry for bad English.

I am trying to say, that according to my personal experience (which may be skewed) I see that mages are underdog now. Because the best result I've seen so far is one sleek. Some mages found nothing. Of course searched the whole list of old places, I think they are quite well known.

Also I add some info (again, my personal experience) that its not so easy to get 'simple' a/s wands. I know 5-7 of each, but still cant afford to use them in every battle as I could with sleeks.

Thats why, I am, based on this personal subjective experience _think_ that it would be better to easier things, make them not such tedious.

If other mages are all happy (though from these topics it does not looks so), then its just my experience. If they are not happy too, _maybe_ you should think about it. This is your game and I do not demand anything, but I write about things that makes game less fun and would like to hear your opinion about my thoughts at least.

Thats all.
So, something like "well maybe maybe we will see how things will go"
or "no, we are completely happy with this change" or "oh, sorry! where could we put your sleeky friends, dear Dervish" (just joking, of course)

I don't see the way the current system is set up changing, but if if it's really difficult an easy solution is to add more high limit ABS locations.

>Maybe (just a guess) when you implemented this, 'old' spots
>were filled, while 'new' were empty (no mages for them), so
>all new mages got their sleeks right in those new locations.
>And it needs some time before you can have your amber in old
>place, sienna in some new and black again in some old.

Nope, that's not how it works.

Odds are, if you create a mage, at least one of your locations will be one of the old ones.

Yay, sure you can live without one wand spot. Even without two. People can live without many things. Just all you'd be potent to would be mudsexing in the Inn or Fort. In PK you'd be limited to ganking or droping on those who are already at serious disadvantage. If that's fine for you - exelent. As for me that change only means that I would stick to melee classes before I'll get totaly bored and then quit for good.

After all, you've only been playing for what, 4 years? Sheesh.

Does it mean that I can't have my opinion?

We've heard from a lot of the people that dislike it. Who has enjoyed the change or felt that it was positive?

You are asking to return to a system similarly welcomed by the playerbase this early in it's implementation.

Have I got it right, that once long ago when Zulg said "Guys, I made for mages so called sleek rods, so now you can have more rods", all players said in one voice "Boo, thats terrible feature, we dont need it"?

When the wands went from being the same as any ordinary limited item to the current sleek system, the hue and cry was deafening.

Can you tell more about that change? Seems that was before I came to CF, though first three years I did not know about sleeks at all.

Originally everyone was using purple potions. This was the first age if I remember correctly. At the beginning of the second age mage classes were divided into necromancer, invoker, and arcane/shapeshifter. This is when the rod system initially went into place. At that time there was no sleek system, but there were three different kinds of wands. A few years later it was changed so that each character had a set of wands that were always available. This wasn't a widely known fact for years. Most people during those years complained about the fact that it was readily available.

What are people missing about today's cf compared to then? Today warriors get hp bonus, legacies, and better spec skills. The amount of damage reduction gained from wands has been reduced. Saves are much easier to gain from gear. Mage spells and affects have been toned down numerous times. If you have two equally skilled players with two very nice sets, the warrior will beat the mage almost every time. Exceptions of course being the lucky sleep necromancer or anti-paladin.

Mage classes have become much better to play in the lowbie-mid ranks. This is a HUGE improvement over the old system. Just didn't want you all to think I didn't notice.

I didn’t start the post to complain or whine about wanting the old system back. The intent of the post was to discuss whether or not we have the best system. My personal feeling is no, however I used to play a lot of mage classes. My experience with warriors is very limited, so my perspective could be skewed. That was the intent of the post

I don't know where you read that in my post. My question was in the new system better. If it isn't better then it still needs to be improved.

Intentional or not, it came accoss as a loaded question. You may well have simply posted "the wand change sucks, make it the way it used to be". Looking at the responses, I don't think I'm alone in interpreting the intent of your post to be such, but I'll be happy to be wrong if you were simply looking to make improvements upon the new system..

Hope the new post clears that up.

Sleeks are explorer perks meant as rewards for people who enjoy exploring. The system were the sleeks were gathered as sets wasn't sensible, as you could, if you knew the set, deduct the location of all if you knew one. This was a bad design and now it's changed. There are now new, more magey and more personalized locations that make more sense than the old ones. Overall, it was a great change although I can understand that powergamers are whining about how their powergaming got more tedious as the use of their OOC/previously obtained information was devalued in the process.

You have a cabal like battle ragers in existence. If it weren't for that cabal, mages would not typically be forced to use a/b/s to go toe to toe with most of their membership roster. Period.

I was optimistic about this change, but having spent 45+ hours in exploring alone right now and coming up nill? Not so optimistic anymore.

Think about that way. Why would I as a mage ever fight berserker without full abs and better with stone skin at least if even that often not enough? I personaly wouldn't. I would just avoid them thus all the fights they would get would be catching someone by surprise. And those fights you know just not entertaining at all. One-two rounding someone without getting any risk=no fun, at least for me. I suppose they would be slowly dieing of boredom.

And have them be limited wands.

Sure the easy spots would be farmed CONSTANTLY. But A) Mad potential to rape mages running to get their sleeks in the easy spots B) Hard spots would almost ALWAYS be in, so therefore, if you have no luck, just go try and get a hard sleek black.

Seriously. Is this idea bad for any reason? Hording? Anyone?

There are a number of limited ABS wands in the game.

Aye, most of them non in their place so its almost like it was no such wands at all and way far from the having found your own sleek set.

A good number of the limited ABS stuff is in right now.

FYI.

I am sure that some uber elite player can gather full abs set in minutes.

But most of players are newbies or simply experienced.

As for me, I know 5 spots of aura wands (lets just talk about one protection)
1 has align/ethos restriction
2 and 3 - never saw on the place at all, trying to check time from time (they are easy)
4 - getting about 1 time from 2 attempts, keeping close to my heart and so on
5 unable to get on midranks, not sure if its in or not.

So, I have aura just time from time and can not afford my self to use it in every battle, dont speaking about keeping it up for ambushes even.

Shield.
I know 5 places, maybe 6.
1 never saw in, possible to get on midranks, but might be hard for certain classes. For invokers mostly.

2 is a scroll, quite expensive. Not all mages can use scrolls.

3. Never saw in, quite easy to get.
4. Saw in a few times, maybe 1 of 3 times I check. Very easy to get.
5. Has align/ethos restriction. Quite hard to get too.

So, now in my life I have shield wands time from time. Use them for really hard battles.

And. I dont fight berserkers alone. Ever. Without exclusions. If they have much less rank I can try to sleep but then I flee anyway.

And, as I said, I am not a newbie. If its the way you intented it to work, then okay, but as Xanth, I cant see who has fun from it except you.

>Not all mages can use
>scrolls.

How do you figure this?

Anything else to respond?

...but honestly, if our positions were reversed, I wouldn't do it if I were you (somehow in my mind that makes sense)....BUT, if you are feeling squirrely, mind telling me of that 'good number' how many are aura/shield (personally, I'll always be rocking aura/shield with my mages since you are right, they are in MOST times) and "nigh impossible" barrier (thinking of a certain nasty area that has a barrier wand, of course, it is goodie only )?

Like I said, I personally wouldn't waste me time if I were you, but I can see how such info MIGHT calm the playerbase.

PS: I totally had Rynald on Eastern Road. At least that's what I keep telling myself

I admit I haven't searched for new wands in a year or two. From what I have on file almost all of the limited barrier wands started at much higher levels than the sleek version. I believe I knew 2-3 exceptions to this.

I deleted my first mage and thinking about deleting second due to this change.

The IMM argument "there are a lot of other abs wands" does not work - whole magish community tries to get them now.

Interacted with some of the new mages - they either found one or none of the wands.

Theoretically speaking...

1. It was supposed to remove some of the advantage of ooc-info-sharing vets, who knew where to get barrier-on-a-stick before even rolling a character. For a total newbie, finding wands is theoretically easier now (with detect artifact) than ever before.

2. Attaching more "effort" to getting wands means mages are less likely to have a/s/b up for a given fight. Or, if they insist on having it up for every fight, they're going to spend an inordinate amount of time just gathering wands, which is less time spent kicking some poor shmuck warrior's junk.

At least, that was my understanding. So, while the changes may make the game "less fun" for a vet who already knows a ton of wand locations and plays mostly mages, they theoretically make the game "more fun" for non-mages and for the players of mages who don't already know a ton of wands.

This of course presumes that wands are only a bonus, not something mages were designed around.

I don't see how it presumes that.

The statement that it makes it more fun for non mages is that presumption.

The way in which you are equating it is that since mages will be easier to kill (since they will either not bother to gather wands, or they will spend all their time gathering wands) the non mages will have more fun.

The problem with this is that mages are designed around the potential to have wands, which suggests they start out with a lower potential (by virtue of being a mage) than non mages (this is where the arguments stem, exactly how much weaker, etc.)

So basically, making X class (weaker/more time consuming) makes the game more fun for everyone except X class.

I don't really like seeing that type of mentality.

>The statement that it makes it more fun for non mages is that
>presumption.

Not really. Suppose mages with chronic a/s/b are "overpowered". Making it so that it's no longer feasible for mages to have chronic a/s/b and thus be "overpowered" doesn't imply that mages must have chronic a/s/b to be competitive.

I agree with you that a mage who never has a/s/b will not be competitive. What I'm saying is that this change (theoretically, at least) was supposed to create a scenario where mages use their wands "selectively".

>The problem with this is that mages are designed around the
>potential to have wands, which suggests they start out with a
>lower potential (by virtue of being a mage) than non mages
> this is where the arguments stem, exactly how much weaker,
>etc.)

And this change wasn't intended to make it so mages never have wands.

Creating a list of every single wand location, and will share every wand I discover in game, with any mage I come across. (All in game, all legit, only stuff I verify or info I trade in game)

After a while it should be common knowledge again for everyone.

Wand searching is tedium.

Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man.

It won't really solve anything and eventually create more problem in the long run. The system will still suck and the game will suffer as a result. Newbies will get the shaft and ooc knowledge sharing will continue. Frankly even if i knew every possibly location, just the fact i have to go everywhere searching for each one would tick me off. It makes the entire thing pointless and irritating.

I myself have not started a new mage since the change and probably will not either. The tedium isn't worth the amount of fun i get. I can't help but think that if mages become as popular as healers currently are then the point might get across but either way it currently is what it is...

To Isildur: The new system prevents mages from having an entire set of wands but for all the wrong reasons. Being a fan of both assassins and transmuters, lets just say that I'd trade my super easy to get barrier source for martial trance skill on my transmuter any day.

>It won't really solve anything and eventually create more
>problem in the long run. The system will still suck and the
>game will suffer as a result. Newbies will get the shaft and
>ooc knowledge sharing will continue. Frankly even if i knew
>every possibly location, just the fact i have to go everywhere
>searching for each one would tick me off. It makes the entire
>thing pointless and irritating.
>
>I myself have not started a new mage since the change and
>probably will not either. The tedium isn't worth the amount of
>fun i get. I can't help but think that if mages become as
>popular as healers currently are then the point might get
>across but either way it currently is what it is...

I'm with LM. If he has the information (and he's one of the rare players anal enough and cunning enough to get into the Imms heads when they go hiding wands) let him bust the info wide-open ICly. He may as well start sending notes to all or note to cabal. None of those methods break rules and while the locations will be moved and have to be found again, it'll continue that way until either the sets are put back in, the wands are completely removed from the game or it's entirely rebalanced some other way.

For instance I'm really partial to thieves and bards even if I'm not yet really good at either. But I'd like to actually make a real go at a conjurer. Given how much I hate exploration due to the mix of old and new areas, generic tedium, and Detect Artifact still being level 51, that's not going to happen anytime soon. Instead I'll just keep picking up tidbits from whatever mage allies I get who still have sleeks.

You have three locations out of ####ing potentially 50 or 60 in the entire game even removing the locations your ethos will prevent you from getting. Those are ####ing terrible odds no matter how simple/complicated each individual location is.


Bard Repertoire Clarifications:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=23735&mesg_id=23735&page=

1. Can't agree. As a newbie it was way easier to get your barrier before the change. All you needed was just ask few mages around. That's how Ikbe got his sleek set. Now even if I would know all sleek spots I probably won't even bother trying to help someone to find his sleeks as it would mean running through ####load of places all around Thera. Also it still benefits ooc-info-sharing-hoarding vets as now limited abs sources became of greate value and I for example would think thrice before showing someone limited abs spot.

2. All that would lead only to mages acting like thiefs in PK, ganging or droping on unpreped/badly beaten opponents. Sorry if I fail to see how that makes game more fun for anyone.