Mandatory Magic

Hi everyone,

I realize that similar topics like this have been discussed in the past, but I'm interested in the general design theme around the perception that magic is necessary for every character.

Right now it seems as though if you don't choose to have at least some magic you're going to have an extremely difficult time in the game. An instant self heal in the life tree is extremely tempting for everyone, and I find it difficult to imagine a character without it. If not that, then the earth tree with innate bonuses to strength, damage resistance, reflection, etc. make it extremely compelling for anyone. The death magic tree with its easy access pet is also great.

In the end it feels like these options are so easy to obtain, and with no negative impact, that there's no reason to avoid magic and in fact it becomes necessary to have some magic in your build in order to remain viable.

Warriors (as an example)
If I built a plate-wearing warrior right now I would choose a weapon, heavy armour, then have life magic: healing touch, healing ray & life attunement. I would then practice some earth magic to get earth attunement, sympathy of stone and bulwark of earth. I might be left wondering 'why can't there be versions of these skills which complement my characterization?' I would be looking for a way of healing with bandages for example, or boosting my 'battle attunement' to get those bonuses in a way that makes sense for a pure warrior. In the end I'd feel as though I was departing somewhat from the idea of the character I wanted, since there's no reason at all to avoid learning the above skills.

There are ways of illustrating this problem with tamers, archers, etc.

I think it's important to point out that being able to mix and match to create whatever you want should also be viable. Since there's a natural advantage to being able to diversify your abilities I would think that choosing to be purely one thing should have some kind of bonus attached to balance to fact that you're not going to have the other options. This is already being tried in the magic skills with the attunement stats. You can't master both life and death, or both fire and water. I think there should be a few more skills to make avoiding magic altogether a viable option, and bonuses for doing so. People who then mix and match should have combos that are compelling enough to mean that missing out on those bonuses wouldn't be that bad.

 

Correct observation in my opinion.

 

Reads as though I wrote it. I have ZERO magic as a warrior and because of this my character is at a disadvantage (albeit one with a very easy fix that I refuse to take). Sometimes I feel that healing may as well come standard to new avatars to save them the trouble of having to add it.

I actually feel like a burden sometimes because I cannot heal myself and this causes me to not be as useful on guild excursions to go kill dragons, etc. If I have a feeling that this might be an issue, I don't ask to join or decline to join. All because I want to stick to what I see my character as and don't want to press the easy button.

It's frustrating that magic - and magic school innates - are so easy to get that you'd be insane not to take that extra 6 STR from the Earth school for what amounts to 3 hours of XP. My only solace is my belief that the devs know this and it'll get addressed eventually.

I'm not seeing the downfall to having earth innates only be for earth magic users (same with all magic schools) who have and actively use actual earth magic skills. I could GM all earth innates and not have, use, or have used any earth spells except stone fist up to 10. Healing being standard also could be addressed.

 

A useful alchemy system and working potions could help as well.

 

They're much better then last release but still not the same as spamming heals that only cost focus. They're still spendy and heavy. Potions costs gold and fortunately that doesn't regenerate.

 

Yeah balance is still missing in a lot of branches of this game.
My hope is that the upcoming updates that doesn't focus that much on new content will help with that.
So far it's a mild annoyance for me. I use magic, so I admit I use the misconception to my benefit at the moment. But I can see the problems with it looming on the horizon.

 

What about making warriors (or other non-healer characters) lose the focus that they use to heal for the duration of the fight? They're not good at healing so it seems to make sense.

The focus cost of the healing spell could also be based on a tier 3 healing innate skill.

 

Moderators... can/should we move this to the R26 feedback thread? It might be a better fit there and I'm guessing the devs frequent there more than here.

 

This was also a problem in Ultima Online, especially after the advent of the bug that led to rune books. If you chose to play a character that didn't have magic, you were at a considerable disadvantage.

 

I think it would be more appropriate to say "Mandatory Hybrid", because there are also people who want to be a "purre mage" and a "pure archer" who are not happy. The devs know this is a concern, and I think they are doing what they can while trying to finish building much of a new world in the next five months. At this point, complaining harder will not make it happen faster.

Also keep in mind that you heal very fast when you sheathe your weapon. This is currently the only fast heal there is other than magic heals.

I personally prefer to go with the premise of this world rather than fight it. You were dumped here from another world, so do the best you can in it to survive. (Note that I am not arguing the for premise, just going with it.)

That forum will be gone in a week because they always nuke the release-specific feedback/bugs sub-forums every month.

 

Archive yes.. nuke no. It remains accessible to the devs for reference.

 

I agree with this thread. I have wanted to play a paladin since before R1. And I love how it works right now, including searing ray for undead. What I am much less pleased about is that nearly every warrior has the same build because it is currently the most viable "fighter" build.

I would like to see other healing methods, like bandages and worthwhile potions, but I have to ask, what stops every warrior from being a paladin build that swills potions and wraps rags too? And, if we have attunement issues between bandages and heals, doesn't that hurt pure healers?

 

Unfortunately, I don't think this issue will ever be fully resolved in a classless system where any combination with enough time and effort is allowed. There are two problems as I see it.

1. Magic is simply too accessible. Especially if reagents aren't always required. Problem is, pure mage builds also need to be viable. I just wish that most pure mages would also prefer other mage-like pursuits such that magic feels truly earned with significant effort. So this issue just isn't going to go away.

2. Human nature. I would venture to say most players don't care so much about pure this or that.. whether or not magic is special or overly common etc.. They don't want to care. They just want to have fun and whatever build A. Suits their play style and B. Is most convenient for them so they are having fun. Is what they're going to do.

Problem.. making a non-magic build more viable becomes that much harder to do while keeping everything well balanced. If you buff fighters.. those fighters still have no reason.. (in a classless system) to not add a little magic and we haven't really solved anything.

In context of the original idea as I understand it here.. a non-magical attunement would apply to stuff like non-magical healing.. I'm not sure I would quite take that approach as implied.. but, if we had such attunement.. and we could perhaps split it up into something like weapon & armor attunements.. then just like magic schools providing a negative for opposing schools.. such non-magical vs magic attunement could perhaps do the same thing. So pure non-magical types might be incentivized to stay away from magic.. as going hybrid would mean various attunements might cancel each other out.. and while not necessarily significant in the grand scheme of things might be something that can be balanced for the desired effect.

This would be the only approach I can imagine that might fit the current thinking in SotA. It should come down to the player having to decide whether or not they will get more benefit going hybrid vs specializing

Another challenge is healing must remain readily accessible. I hate to say it's just good design in general.. but I will add that it doesn't matter whether that healing is magical or not but both should be relatively equal and accessible at the same time. Non-magical options have long been planned so we will get them sooner or later..

Then we come to magical fast travel.. even as a one shot crafted item.. everyone is going to expect everyone else to have them.

To complicate the issue further is Richard's usual design direction where the main character is pretty much expected to be a hybrid. It was that way with Ultima I & II.. then parties were introduced so you could technically have a fighter class with no magic but you always have magic users in the party.. then Ultima started leaning to a classes system and you HAD to use magic in some cases to progress. So while magic was not something readily available to the world.. it has always been so for the player.. and even required in single player in some cases.

Don't like it myself but that's how it is.. the only thing keeping you from mixing it up is you. For me personally, Bowen couldn't cast his way out of a paper bag.. and that's how he's going to stay.

 

bandages are the most unrealistic thing ever. I hope they never return as a uber healing mechanic that Insta heals when in reality it takes days to heal with them (natural healing of the body).

Thank you for the clarification Bowen on:
It was cool that in Ultimas that magic was needed for
Healing. UO kind of bastardized it.

 

Ultima had bandages too. You just needed more of them.. but of course they didn't require reagents.

 

I won't lie, I -LOVED- bandages in UO. They were incredibly OP at times, especially when your buddy was about to get owned

 

Extra like.

 

I like bandages for warriors. I don't agree to everything having to be totally realistic. It's a game. I vote for bandages and think we should have them to allow warriors to not have to go down magic trees as well just as one reason, but also because to me it feels like a something missing.

 

Yes, magic is basically mandatory. I don't like it. I've argued against it from the beginning. I think this is part of the "classless system" that the dev team seems to champion. I think the classless system has no class, and although it's probably great for people that like that sort of thing, it's horrible for people like me that are more fantasy purists and expect mages to be mages and warriors to be warriors. I'm ok with some form of hybrid use, but that should be very limiting and result in being less effective over all. The way the devs have it set up, players can literally get every skill in the game, they just might not be very good at all of them. But this ignores the fact that you don't have to be very good at making light because you still get light! You don't have to be very good at summoning an Ice Elemental because you still get something that can tank for you. So yes, magic is basically mandatory be design.

 

I vote for more options and variety. So, if non-magic skills would make more different play styles a viable options for those who want it, don't really see anything wrong with it.

Doesn't have to be immediately available though - as long as they have it on their drawing board somewhere along the line. First, hope they get the things already in working all correctly.