I know that right after the A/B/S change-over there was a huge debate, with tons of 'ideas' on how to "effectively re-do" the A/B/S system.

While this post may not get much attention, I have an idea on how to 'revamp' the A/B/S system in a very CF way.


Would you guys consider changing out the 3 static locations per char method with a quest driven method?

I envision the following:

3 quests mobs that reside in the HTOS/Consortium (what better areas for mages?) One for each 'color' of sleek Amber/Sienna/Black

These guys, will give mages quests for a corresponding wand type.

Example: Shifter gets to lvl 30. At this point, the Amber mage quest guy will start talking to the shifter, and offer a quest. Sienna and Black mage quest guys would start talking/offering quests at appropriate levels.

The quest might be "Go and retrieve XYZ from this caster and return it to me" Or, it could be "Go and gather your wand from this dude:" style quest. The quest would have a 'completion' timer of 3 days, you would have 3 in-game days to complete it, or it expires.

You could use current Amber mobs/locations etc as the actual quest objectives

These quest objectives would be random, and repeatable. There would be a 'group' of quests for each tier based on race/align/ethos just like A/B/S spot selection is now.

The quests would be repeateable every 24 hrs in-game (or however long it takes current sleeks to repop..48 hrs? I dunno) But, it should be designed so that the "Failure" timer is longer than the "Completed" timer.

You can only get a 'new' wand quest by either completing it (shortest time) or by waiting for the quest to expire (longer time)

The advantage to this system, I believe would be that there would be many less people considering their mage 'ruined' by bad locations. Because sure, while it may suck that mr amber mage just handed your offense shifter an under-water location...it isn't permanent, and you can roll the dice on a 'better' quest in a 'couple days time in-game' So yes, while it will suck to have to wait longer for a wand you can gather...it sucks infinitely less than being STUCK with a ####ty underwater spot as mr offense shifter.

It would also promote people to explore places they might not normally (not that the current system doesn't, but this would keep mages more mobile, and less predictable)

I believe this solution addresses what I consider to be a huge barrier to mage fun. It gets rid of getting 'stuck with' ####ty wand spots..due to sheer bad luck. While still preserving difficulty in obtaining sleeks.

Whatcha think?

(It should be noted that my 3 day/2 day etc timers are completely adjustable, as I do not know the exact current timers on sleek retrieval etc)

1. A few days in-game time (or even a few real-life days time) between questions would be very little deterrent to people just repeating the quests over and over until they get an easy location they like. Particularly for veterans who will immediately know the level of difficulty involved in "Go kill supermage XYZ". The new in-game norm would be people repeating the quest until they get what they want, and then you have all the veteran players farming the three or four "easier" locations for a given wand. In a game where characters can last >500hrs, even a few real-life weeks between quests would not be much of a barrier.

2. There would also be incentive for people to repeat/farm quests at the earliest level until they get an easy location, so they can get their ABS to pk with at a lower level. Anti-paladins came to mind first, but any mage (conjurer, transmuter, etc) would benefit like this if the player is pk-minded, cabaled, etc.

3. The Imm's have mostly already covered your main complaint/the biggest annoyance with the old system: getting stuck with an impossible location. This is now covered by being able to use the edges to attune to an additional amber/sienna/black if you want. If you find your wand and it's a terrible location, re-roll a second location with the edge. If you've searched everywhere, asked around in-game for possible obscure spots, and still can't find it- re-roll a second location with the edge.

4. Adding something like a lifetime limit of 3x quests for each wand would solve the issues raised in this post, but then you basically have the same system we already have today. If people feel it's not fair having to spend those edge points, that's a different argument and we should just be discussing whether those edges could maybe be made cheaper.

5. The only thing I might change about the current system: add in an edge (or a quest) where you can get some guidance on where your wand is located. I don't think it would unreasonable to be able to spend some edge points to find out your amber is located "Somewhere in the Forest of Nowhere". That would probably help new/intermediate players more while being less exploitable by min/max'ing veterans. And it could still leave you with a potentially difficult location that you decide to spend more edge points to attune a second, so I don't see how it would unbalance things.

They way I read it he wasn't proposing infinite quests to change "your" location but doing away with individual locations completely, i.e. every time you wanted a wand you'd have to do the quest and be sent to a different location, so it would sometimes be easy, sometimes hard.

Of course this does mean that a determined A-P would eventually get barrier at 35 but it would be an extremely scarce resource for him and not something he could use for most fights like if he lucked out under the current system. And it would also mean that heroes wouldn't get stranded without barrier and turn into punching bags.

I never have access to those edges. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Those edges also don't actually address the real problem with ABS. The real problem with ABS is that until you have a list of all the locations its ridiculous. There's really not much rhyme or reason to the locations. And if you're a newbie who doesn't want to "cheat" and actually wants to find all of them, well good luck to you, you have to kill basically every mob you can think of with every mage you play until you build your list.

Sarien's suggestion is much better. Even if you try to "farm them" you're rate limited to one wand per quest. So spending 120 minutes waiting on a new quest, multiple times, trying to get an easy one, is dramatically time consuming. You also have guidance on where to go, which is good for a newbie and resolves the whole, "I don't want to cheat but I don't have a 40 location list yet" issue.

I like this idea a lot. I really do.

One other way to implement this system while keeping the old system would be using these mobs as hint givers so to speak. Once a mage speaks to the mob, the system reads a set variable given for that mage's wand location, the mob then spits out a riddle or hint as to where the mage's wand is. I feel like this would be a relatively easy addition to the game based on the idea that I assume our characters are assigned numbers for wand locations anyway.


Less work, keeps the edges in place for extra spots and such, and adds in a hint for those who may be newer to mages and daunted by a/b/s searching.


Just my 2 cents.

I would be happy to write the dialogue for the wand locations I know about, if that would be helpful.

n/t

People camping the quest mobs for free mage kills

Dude..

Most of my mage kills come from knowing where mages 'spots' are. Once you know A/B/S system pretty well...you can figure out where someone's spot is generally by seeing them there once.

then I _know_ you have to go get your wand there, and I will totally camp that spot to kill you (If I am some sort of char that can hide from you)

The current A/B/S system where you can 100% know where someone's spot is, is much more "Camp ready" than a quest system where someone gets a random task out of 30 or so...you can't camp 30 spots all at once (and the person would get a random one each time)

You COULD camp the quest givers, I guess...but that could be solved by using guildmasters as the quest givers instead of HTOS/Consortium mobs w/e..

Guildmasters might be a problem for characters that are wanted a lot.

But on second thought I quite like the idea of HTOS and the consortium getting an increase in mage traffic.

That's fine though. As long as there are at least 3 quest givers and each one is more than 20 paces from the Village, you have ample opportunity to either avoid a camped quest giver or use it to your advantage and kill the guy who is camping it.

The same thing happens now btw, woe is the mage with a really hard and really well known barrier location.