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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2016 4:17:46 GMT -5
All due respect, I don't think you have the experience with code-heavy play to really consider the implications. Have you ever played a maxed assassin? Have you felt through experience how COMPLETELY gamebreaking that would be with the addition of, say, strength and fury? And because these are subguilds, you can go through life as an assassin and just use those spells when you're actually going to assassinate somebody, making it... frankly almost completely safe. Maybe in Allanak somebody might spot you with identify, but that's about it. Get gemmed if that's a concern. Anywhere else, you can effortlessly go through life posing as a mundane. People did it all throughout the game's history even when it was infinitely easier to guildsniff a mage. Prior to this change, the balancing factor was that while magic was powerful and mages could smoke most people, they could only really do it in a way that was pretty unique to mages and therefore unsafe. An assassin who can ride off into the desert and cast his full suite of Rukkian Empowerment buffs, or whatever, and then only be at risk to somebody spotting him with detect magic on the way to or from the assassination (realistically this simply won't happen), that's going to be such a staggering increase in the power level of an assassin character that it blows my mind. It's so much more dangerous than a pre-change mage because he had to go around being a mage, and had only magic at his disposal, extended subguilds aside. This isn't just assassins, I simply started in alphabetical order. The implications of invisible muls, invul/sanc rangers, max-stealth fireballers and so on, it's patently ridiculous. Prior to this, whirans could turn invisible and fly but were not excessively deadly. Krathi were very deadly but also quite vulnerable and easy to avoid. Vivaduans were nearly unkillable but could not destroy you with ease. This has all been turned on its head. In many ways, magickers have now become infinitely more powerful because they have the full potential of any mundane plus whatever spells from any element that best complements a certain pursuit. This can be surmised even without access to the new spell lists. You can safely assume that Rukkian Empowerment contains both strength and fury (and maybe godspeed, holy fucking shit), Rukkian Protection has both armor and stoneskin, and one of the Krathi ones surely has empower. This alone is so insane on any warrior, assassin or ranger. This is without considering any of the other spells that these get, as surely each magic subguild gets more than one or two spells. It's probably even more extreme than I'm describing. A burglar with demonfire can kill anybody almost anywhere with such laughable ease, and get away again in 100% infallible safety due to maxed stealth, that it isn't even funny. Well, actually, it's hilarious. Just that one spell would create an unstoppable PK monster when paired with 90 pick and stealth. A ranger with invisibility can shoot anybody to death from his mount, and obtain an unlimited supply of peraine with little to no risk or effort. If the Rukkian Protection suite also contains burrow in addition to armor and stoneskin, such a warrior pretty much cannot die. This is not just a case of pickpockets killing tarantulas or crafters making wine. This is completely unprecedented power, because mundane skills were never designed to mix with magic in this manner, on individual characters without drawbacks. I'm pretty sure not even staff has considered this. They can't possibly have. It's UTTERLY gamebreaking. They have considered it. It's so obvious. Most of them have played the game for a long time, and know exactly what is possible. I don't deny that it is going to be a real shit-show, though. Almost every single extended 'mundane' subguild is now worse than almost every single extended magick subguild, true, but I am betting that the spells are either going to be way underpowered and either cost more mana or make them deal with a smaller pool and/or shorter duration, possibly all of the above. I'm betting on it. Every single change to magic for literal years has been to make it weaker. Why anyone thinks that there's not going to be some horrible fucking bullshit to go with this that makes it weaker in this case too (on top of the removal of real mages), is fucking beyond me. Like the ridiculous over the top city magic protections weren't enough to neuter most of the ridiculous fantasies about people using this shit to apartment pk. Isn't there literally a thread RIGHT NOW active over there talking about how those protections are too effective? And you still have people imagining all the ways someone can grief you in the dumbest way possible towards ends they could've already achieved beforehand using different tools. *eyeroll* I'd hug it out, but I'm low on chocolate. |
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t2thej
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Post by t2thej on Mar 22, 2016 4:17:49 GMT -5
Tell me again about how being reel-locked works? But it's totally not comparable, right? Because you got all that extra time to react when reel-locked? In fact, send me a log when something like this happens to you, EVER, and I will give you a public apology. Because you will have proven me wrong. Until then, you can argue your case until you're black and blue in the face, and it might change other people's opinions on it, but it's not going to alter or sway mine by the tiniest minute measurement. I'm not really sure why you're arguing that this isn't exactly what he says. He doesn't seem to be saying it wasn't possible before to do a badass mundane.. it's just much much more likely that a magick subguild boosts that potential more than any other way possible before. *shrug* |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2016 4:20:49 GMT -5
What I'm arguing is that there's not any valid reason to suddenly be worried that every single person in game is going to be killing you with a rageboner made of magick. People had perfectly good rageboners without magick, and if they're going to take one to you and kill you with it, why the fuck does it matter if it's got fire or a knife edge, because the end result is the same. THAT is what I'm trying to figure out.
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t2thej
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Post by t2thej on Mar 22, 2016 4:27:26 GMT -5
What I'm arguing is that there's not any valid reason to suddenly be worried that every single person in game is going to be killing you with a rageboner made of magick. People had perfectly good rageboners without magick, and if they're going to take one to you and kill you with it, why the fuck does it matter if it's got fire or a knife edge, because the end result is the same. THAT is what I'm trying to figure out. Ah-ha. You're not wrong. It's going to likely depend on how underpowered the spells are. I think part of it is.. it'll probably be easier and faster. Though, arguably, anyone who has karma and isn't stupid knows how to cheese up skills effortlessly, so its marginal at best. I still like it though. I think this is better than locking into one magick guild having magick be your end all (which you can still arguably do, just on a smaller scale) |
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Post by OT on Mar 22, 2016 4:41:16 GMT -5
It's a matter of the game's general power level, and of maintaining a situation where playing an ordinary mundane character is still meaningful. When literally every mage in the game (barring grandfathered ones from before the change) is also a mundane, there's going to be a LOT of especially warriors and rangers with spells. Particularly with such a big change where everyone will want to try it. It's going to the the post-Reborn magic orgy all over again, doubly so after this many years of karma creep.
I think it's entirely reasonable to predict that just in Allanak, which is notoriously underpopulated lately, there'll probably be 10+ people in the nearer future playing the new mages (long enough to become established characters, not short-lived dabblers). And I shudder to think of the Tablelands or any other place where you can much more readily get away with being a mage. After all, many buffs aren't visible to the naked eye. Some of the ones that best complement mundanes aren't visible, probably by design, so that mages and mundanes could work together in the past.
This was balanced around the fact that some hypothetical warrior with a Rukkian buddy did not just have 24/7 access to said buddy, and had to engage in very questionable roleplay to get this shit. A few of the most powerful spells are also self only and/or so conspicuously visible that they're not very safe to use for someone without stealth. Those balancing factors are completely gone now, and while they're technically tempered by the fact that no mage has the full suite of spells for their element anymore, they're pretty conveniently bundled so that you can get most of the ones that are relevant to your main guild. In many cases, it's just one particular spell that does the trick. Any one-cast-win spell on any rogue guild, for instance. Take your pick.
It's not that "every single person in the game will be killing you." It's that every single mage in the game now also has a full set of mundane skills for whatever class he felt was best, and if just a couple of those choose to go the aforementioned route of the hypothetical demonfire-burglar (or any other of the myriad crazy combiations), that's a lot of potential for some seriously wanton and near-unstoppable PKing. What would you even begin to do about such a thing, short of finding out through mindbending or staff intervention? If I could have demonfire on a burglar, I'm quite confident that I could effortlessly kill 95% of characters in Allanak unless a mindbender or admin put a stop to it. That's just the game mechanics, man. Not saying I'd do it, but do you feel confident that nobody will?
It used to be that a burglar working together with a krathi, or a ranger with a rukkian or whatever the fuck, was so wildly improbable and impractical, not to mention hugely controversial both IC and OOC, that it pretty much only happened in extreme fringe cases such as d-elf tribes. Now, every mage is effectively a mage and a mundane working in full secrecy, cooperation and coordination. This is such a staggering escalation of the game's overall power level that it boggles the mind.
I don't see any reason to presume that this change will come with a nerf to all spells. Why do you take that for granted? They've said absolutely nothing about it, and it would make no sense. They've promised that all existing magic characters will remain untouched and lose no power. Do you think they've coded two of each spell so that the new magic subguilds can get a different version from the original ones? It's a silly notion. It's a non-argument based on nothing whatsoever.
The end result is not the same. The end result is completely unprecedented. Outside of the fairly recent sorcerer subguilds which nobody played because they cost 8 karma and you have to be a fucking sorcerer who's kill on sight across the world, and then heavily restricted roles like templars, mundane characters have not had access to magic of their own before. It's completely uncharted territory, but there are patently gamebreaking possibilities even at first glance, without any real scrutiny, just from knowing how spells work and deducing what can be done with then in conjunction with mundane skills.
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t2thej
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Post by t2thej on Mar 22, 2016 5:01:15 GMT -5
It's a matter of the game's general power level, and of maintaining a situation where playing an ordinary mundane character is still meaningful. When literally every mage in the game (barring grandfathered ones from before the change) is also a mundane, there's going to be a LOT of especially warriors and rangers with spells. Particularly with such a big change where everyone will want to try it. It's going to the the post-Reborn magic orgy all over again, doubly so after this many years of karma creep. I think it's entirely reasonable to predict that just in Allanak, which is notoriously underpopulated lately, there'll probably be 10+ people in the next couple of months playing the new mages (long enough to become established characters). And I shudder to think of the Tablelands or any other place where you can much more readily get away with being a secret mage. After all, many buffs aren't visible to the naked eye. Some of the ones that best complement mundanes aren't visible, probably by design, so that mages and mundanes could work together in the past. This was balanced around the fact that some hypothetical warrior with a Rukkian buddy did not just have 24/7 access to said buddy, and had to engage in very questionable roleplay to get this shit. Many of the most powerful spells are also self only and/or so conspicuously visible that they're not very safe to use for someone without stealth. Those balancing factors are completely gone now, and while they're technically tempered by the fact that no mage has the full suite of spells for their element anymore, they're pretty conveniently bundled so that you can get most of the ones that are relevant to your main guild. You could be correct, but you don't know for sure. You don't know what -any- of the behind the scene changes are, most likely. Main guilds are also getting overhauled. If what you suggest is correct, isn't it just going to be the case of augmented warrior vs augmented warrior? You can't say everyone is going to be doing it and then say it's going to happen to a handful of mundanes who don't have their own empowerment. This isn't much different than a Krathi/Slipknife, or a rukkian outdoorsman. It's not a 'staggering escalation of overall power', for sure. Will it fall on better side? Will there be more powerful combos? Possibly. But I don't really see as likely. They said nothing about changing the guilds, either. I think they can easily say 'subguild aspect of whatever' has this cap, has this mana cost, and make them roll a smaller mana pool, absolutely. This isn't any different than how any other skill works. It only makes sense because.. you know... that's how every other fucking extended subguild works in relation to the mainguilds comparative skills. Non-argument? It's not based on nothing. It's not unprecedented.. you just literally gave the precedent. The end result is the same. Dead is dead. How you got there, and how easy/quickly remains to be seen, but I think this is being blown wildly out of proportion. |
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Mar 22, 2016 5:12:45 GMT -5
This isn't much different than a Krathi/Slipknife, or a rukkian outdoorsman. It's not a 'staggering escalation of overall power', for sure. Will it fall on better side? Will there be more powerful combos? Possibly. But I don't really see as likely. Did you just compare the coded power of outdoorsman and slipknife to the coded power of assassin and ranger? That. Is. Silly. |
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Post by OT on Mar 22, 2016 5:15:10 GMT -5
It's a world of difference from those things! How can you not see this? How can you not see the difference between mages having skills that cap at high master or the jman/advanced levels that the extended subguilds give? You're speaking from a lack of experience. Do you know the difference between advanced hide/sneak, and the highest hide/sneak possible? Or the difference between advanced and max-master backstab? You really don't do your argument any favors.
Pre-change mages had some powerful combinations of spells, but the fact that they were actual mages with a bunch of limitations and weaknesses meant that their ability to actually apply these powers to the game were quite restricted. Giving every mage the full skillset of any given mundane class creates a whole new dynamic that is, as I said, unprecedented.
Basing your whole opinion on the entirely unfounded presumption that every spell will be nerfed is... well, I won't use insults, but it's frankly warranted.
For one thing, they very much indeed said that they were changing the entire guild system. Then, after presenting their new magic system in extensive detail, they said absolutely nothing about nerfing spells. Your argument most certainly is based on absolutely nothing. Not only have they said nothing to indicate that they've nerfed the spells, it also wouldn't really make any sense for them to do so. You've basically said that this change is balanced if they've nerfed the spells, but nothing suggests they have. Many spells wouldn't even have any real purpose if they were capped at the levels that mundane subguild skills are.
You cannot compare the lowered skillcaps of extended subguilds to magic subguilds which are now the only source of magic. The fact that outdoorsman has lower skillcaps than ranger does not in any way indicate that shifting magickers from main guilds to subguilds also comes with a nerf to all spells. Sorcerer spells were not nerfed when they did this very thing to sorcers. There's absolutely no reason to suppose that they're going to blanket nerf all spells. That's some seriously weird shit to assume when literally nothing indicates that it'll happen.
Unless you're going to also make the baseless assumption that the changes to warrior, ranger, assassin, burglar, merchant and pickpocket will somehow not affect characters with a magick subguild, and are enormous power increases to mundane characters to such an extent that the game's entire difficulty model needs to be overhauled and every mob re-tuned, etc... that makes no sense.
In all likelihood, they're going to be changes along the lines of combining pickpocket and burglar, and making it so that warriors branch advanced weapon skills earlier. Stuff of that nature. Whatever the case, this hypothetically improved warrior guild will just make someone's hypothetical warrior/krathi EVEN MORE POWERFUL.
Because of their decision to make magic a subguild-only thing, they've forced their own hand in ensuring that whatever changes they make to mundanes will also affect mages. If they make mundane guilds better, mages similarly become better. On the GDB, staff has already indicated that there's not going to be some grand mundane-only set of powerful classes. Their stance is that the difference between mundanes mages is that mundanes can take extended subguilds. They've indirectly stated that whatever changes they make to the mundane main guilds will equally affect mages, because mages are now subguilds using the mundane main guilds.
I don't think you even understood most of what I said.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2016 5:23:04 GMT -5
This isn't much different than a Krathi/Slipknife, or a rukkian outdoorsman. It's not a 'staggering escalation of overall power', for sure. Will it fall on better side? Will there be more powerful combos? Possibly. But I don't really see as likely. Did you just compare the coded power of outdoorsman and slipknife to the coded power of assassin and ranger? That. Is. Silly. Actually, I got the impression that the comparison was: A ranger with a handful of spells versus a fucking REAL krathi with very real ranger skills only less of 'em. I could be wrong. |
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Post by vintrius on Mar 22, 2016 5:31:00 GMT -5
This change moves armageddon in line more with what we were trying to achieve with AthasMUD and actually moves arm a bit closer to darksun instead of it's own creature. It's a shame that Nilaz is going away. It was one of my favorites. They can call it mismatched all they want, but having played many of them, their spells were very balanced and progression was limited.
We were discussing having magick being subguild based with a main guild being that of a mundane fighter/trader/etc.
I personally feel like this is a push against armageddon's own unique systems and more towards what we are trying to accomplish but maybe that's just me.
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t2thej
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Post by t2thej on Mar 22, 2016 5:36:49 GMT -5
It's a world of difference from those things! How can you not see this? How can you not see the difference between a mages having skills that cap at 90ish, or 70 or whatever the extended subguilds give? You're speaking from a lack of experience. Do you know the difference between advanced hide/sneak, and the highest hide/sneak possible? Or the difference between advanced and max-master backstab? You really don't do your argument any favors. Well, see, what I did was use english and math. You're just throwing out numbers, too. I know the numbers. I understand that at the very very tail end, 95 is better than 70. That Krathi will also have fully enchanted rings, pushing his stats into the absurd. He'll also have his elemental weapon, dispel magic, and shield. The other will /not/ have all these things. Maybe some of them. -Very Likely- not nearly as powerful. Oh, and they can cast in combat because they don't have mundane weapons. There's a ton of variables here. You really don't seem to be doing much favor, either. You're speaking from a lack of big picture and comparative analysis, but hey, let's not get snippy. Uh, pretty sure I can compare them, and the answer is ultimately, we don't know. I'm pretty sure i've said that, too. It's not 'seriously weird', it's a possibility. I'm not really sure how you think you know if they were or were not changed without someone directly telling you, but sure. Maybe. It doesn't really change a lot of the other points I've made. Full, high-karma mages played by capable people are extremely deadly. If they're the same kind of people who are playing pk-happy people, this really isn't that different. I'm not sure why you cannot see that, maybe you're not familiar with the potential spell power they have, but all this is really doing is giving some potential for slightly strong/faster pk potential on the mundanes than before. Maybe. Glad you skipped most of the point here, too. That warrior krathi is going against another warrior krathi, or assassin/ruk, or whatever. When two powers increase, they kinda void each other out. Karma roles have always been stronger and better than non-karma roles. If anything, -this- is a literal non-argument. Ditto. |
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jesantu
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Post by jesantu on Mar 22, 2016 5:38:46 GMT -5
The moment it's known you're a caster you cannot join any clan and probably will lose whatever allies you had as well. You could do some serious damage to your enemies as a closet caster but once you're discovered, you're toast. And not a lot of people want to take those risks. So instead you can expect to spend your days running around the scrubs as an indie playing cowboys and indians with whatever other indie you encounter.
I haven't even seen any ash out in the wilderness since sorcerers got nerfed. Haven't seen any sorcerers either. Do people even play them? I think aside from magick subguilders taking the gem, it's gonna look the same as the sorcerer situation does now.
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t2thej
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Post by t2thej on Mar 22, 2016 5:50:04 GMT -5
The moment it's known you're a caster you cannot join any clan and probably will lose whatever allies you had as well. You could do some serious damage to your enemies as a closet caster but once you're discovered, you're toast. And not a lot of people want to take those risks. So instead you can expect to spend your days running around the scrubs as an indie playing cowboys and indians with whatever other indie you encounter. I haven't even seen any ash out in the wilderness since sorcerers got nerfed. Haven't seen any sorcerers either. Do people even play them? I think aside from magick subguilders taking the gem, it's gonna look the same as the sorcerer situation does now. This is also a good point, though not really different than before for the magick guilds, except they were far more likely to stick around afterwards, seeing as they were always gickers first. Plus with full spell lists they could actually /be/ powerful gickers. Now they can't, they'll be just as ostracized, and only have a handful of spells. At least they'll also be able to survive as a ranger outside more easily! |
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Post by OT on Mar 22, 2016 5:53:32 GMT -5
I maintain that you simply don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Your argument suggests that you straight up do not understand how these skills work. Like you don't seem able to comprehend that master sneak/hide pretty much cannot fail and, with a few +stealth items, becomes literally undetectable. Or that maxed backstab more or less cannot miss and, with even what few buffs we can safely surmise will be included in something like the Rukkian Empowerment subguild, will largely guarantee that every backstab is a one-hit kill. These combinations of previously mundane-only skills and previously mage-only spells are going to create characters that can do stupendously gamebreaking things. Even something as simple as knowing what max stealth can do, and knowing what damage a certain spell can do, proves that this will be the case.
You're the one whose arguments are completely bereft of any kind of analysis or any actual examples that point to the mechanical realities of the game, and simply assume that everything is fine because of some supposition with no basis.
How the hell is this an argument in any capacity? So if, hypothetically, we were to say that every weapon now does five times the damage it did before, just for the sake of argument. Not saying that's the actual nature of the changes, but it illustrates this point very adequately. According to you, this change cannot cause any problems because every weapon does it and so your dude killing everything in two swings is up against other dudes who does the same, ergo nothing bad can stem from this state of affairs? Because that's the same principle. And you make no sense. It's mindblowing nonsense.
I can only conclude that you're one of those GDBers who must compulsively disagree with everything, and will fabricate utter nonsense in order to construct an opposing view. Whatever the case, I'm done trying to discuss anything with you.
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jesantu
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Post by jesantu on Mar 22, 2016 5:59:37 GMT -5
If I had to guess Id say players seldom roll up sorcerers anymore. There may be a period where everyone wants to test out these new subguilds but then reality hits them and they move on and their population begins to match the sorcerer minority. It's just going to be people running around the scrubs mostly and not affecting anything big. Though that isn't to say there aren't some pretty scary, arguably imbalanced combinations now....I just don't think they'll have a chance to sink their teeth into anything worthwhile.
Does kurac even hire magickers these days? Last time I played in the clan the official answer was no but maybe the secret archives still operate (doubt it).
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