Conversation with Chris on skills

Its a penalty for skill advancement, but I expect if the game is balanced, high level mages will use low level spells most of the time, simply because they're easier, and because they use less reagents and mana. At the same time, all characters have an equal opportunity to get focus skills, which will raise the ability to use these spells more often. To which point, in the majority of battles between a mage with a weapon in hand and a mage without one, the use of magic won't look totally different.

Which is fine, I don't see a problem with a mage using a blade or a bow or a staff. Low-level mages have always had weapons in RPG.. from the earliest days of role-playing.

I still think requiring a hand free, preferably, or giving a penalty for not having a free hand, alternately, would add to the game. The issue isn't just about having some incentives to advancing magic over weapon skills, which I'm sure will exist, its about recognizing a separation of fighting styles, also, and not brushing over the idea that a mage wielding things in both hands and still casting spells is a bit silly.

 

Ok, first, my statement that you quoted from was entirely concerned with mechanics, and your seems to be largely concerned with cosmetics. Personally, I'm not so concerned with what it LOOKS like if it works. I'm especially unconcerned with what it looks like if it DOESN'T work.

On a side note, I've played dozens of games where hands were not needed for casting spells. Tabletop RPGs, video games, MMOs... I don't see why SotA should be held to the standard of a tradition that barely exists. Portalarium isn't trying to follow in the grand tradition of anything other than RG's work on storywriting and worldbuilding. Number of hands required to cast spells seems an odd sticking point to have.

 

The reason mages have weapons in MMOs is that gear has stats on it. And power in games is related to those stats. So if a warrior has a +5 sword, the mage need to also have a +5 whatever to show that he has the equivalent gear.

A second reason would be balancing durability. This could be done by using some kind of staff and "repairing" it by charging it reagents.

The 3rd reason would be about some auto-attack thing. And then how to scale this.

In SotA, I could see having a wand attuned to some element and then more or less treating it like another weapon. But many possibilities, the big picture is more important that one piece.

 

No, it goes beyond cosmetics. I don't know how much it has to do with balance issues, but I'm typically not focused on balance; balance I think its secondary. Its about world building and having combat feel like it makes sense. It doesn't have much to do with tradition, just common sense. If a fireball is cast out of a hand that has a weapon in it, and it doesn't heat the sword, its a bit silly. Plus, if spells are going to use reagents, there's a question of how the reagents are assumed to be used. They just magically disappear from your pack while you're occupied with your weapons, just because you say some words of power?

If we go by RG's own tradition, there isn't a clear precedent, but they had similar requirements that made magic make sense. In U6 and U7 you had to hold a spellbook in one hand, though you could hold a weapon in your second hand. In earlier Ultimas, you had to mix spells before hand, or else not be able to cast in battle. In U8 , magic was more complicated and required using things in your inventory. In any of these cases, though, there was a believable setup for magic use before a mage was to employ magic in battle.

 

Nothing wrong with mages having weapons. In particular, I'm questioning mages wielding things in both hands and still casting magic, and how that makes sense.

 

Mmm, UO style. XD

 

And, as I said, they do this in every MMO I've played. Because weapons have stats. So a 2h staff or a 1h weapon and some offhand that they're carrying. It's treated as the focus for their magic.

Actually Neverwinter is slightly different as the mage has a floating orb for stats but the hands are displayed as free.

 

Casting with weapons in hand looks fugly ... it just looks off

It would be better if they use their main hand weapon as a conduit OR if the spell effect came out directly from the magic sigil instead of the hands

 

Well, he's already stated that he'll be using reagents, and I for one don't mind pre-mixing, I expect there to be several spells that I cast an AWFUL lot, so carrying a good stock of premixes seems reasonable. How the magick works, though is extremely variable, and based solely on the developer's whim. Since in the real world there is no magick that can hurl fireballs, how are we to decide how it works? Maybe it comes from the forehead, or the mouth, or the left buttcheek. {Fear my flaming buttock of doom!} Maybe the mage casts the magick THROUGH the sword, and it doesn't become a ball of actual fire per say until it leaves it. After all, the fireball doesn't damage the caster's HANDS, so why should it damage something held in them?

I wouldn't be offended if pre-mixed reagent bundles worked like magick grenades, I could have twenty of them on a bandolier, yank one off with my offhand and throw it, and that would be the "casting" of the spell. It can turn into a fireball, or a flock of winged pigs, en route.

 

Magic users that cast with weapons in hand or armor on, can't perform the precise movements needed to properly cast spells. So more weapons in hand should add penalties to casting time, fizzle rate, and backfire rate (like like armor does).

 

Just saying they would want to implement something that feels right and makes sense, no matter how they decide to do it. I do think it would add to the game if acting as a mage meant you had to adapt to a fighting style than a pure warrior, which would mean you'd forgo an armed use of your second hand. Someone who was a mage-fighter mix would have to find ways to creatively balance the handicap.

Having a staff or other focus to channel the magic might also work the same.

 

Staves and Wands might serve a particular purpose. But just going two hands only should be the least restrictive and most flexible use of magic.

 

And, as I pointed out, wearing armor or wielding weapons which you were not skilled with would be a massive liability, filling your action bar with blanks. Speccing far enough into the appropriate ability trees to negate THAT would then strip off points from the magick schools, making you a much much weaker mage.

See, here's what I'm going for: I don't MIND a pure mage being more magickal, and I don't mind him having to give up weapons and armor to get there. But what about people who don't WANT to play a pure mage? Must they walk around dressed like one or have the points they spent in magick be worthless? What about Paladins and Spellswords, Clerics and Arcane Archers, Templar Knights and Mystic Assassins? Why can't they have practiced a form of magick that allows for using weapons, shields, armor, AND magick at the same time?

 

I know there are no plan for Ritual Magic in Episode I (at least, the last I heard). But eventually, I hope ritual magic makes its way into SotA, and at that point a skill cap (or at least something that makes people pick a lane) becomes very important. Ritual magic would lose a lot of it's value and importance if everyone could do it. And this is the argument against "no skill caps" as well. If everyone can perform everything, then why is it special for anyone?

I want to see Fire Mages. I want to see Knights with Plate Armor and large weapons. I want to see Archers that are unmatched with a bow. I don't want to see 100 hybrids that are just changing out decks all the time. "Oh wow, we're going underground? Let me get my stealth deck. Oh were in the desert now? Let me get my water deck."

That's not fun. It feeds the min max beast and kills roleplaying.

 

Why do you need a hand free to cast spells? Why can't it just be some sort of chant or spoken spell? Are you guys mages in real life and know that this isn't possible?

 

What if you could

• cast free handed
• cast through a focus like a wand or staff
• get synergy with weapons training to use that weapon as the focus

This would of course create the need for more animations, but it would be another level of complexity to the way different spells and skills interact. There should be secondary and tertiary effects to possessing different combinations of spells and skills.

I feel that some lower level spells should cap out on damage, rather than always increasing with level. I hope at least that, for most spells, we're not looking at dmg x lvl - in rapid leveling games, I think it's better if something like the basic flame spell doesn't increase dramatically with every experience level.

 

I don't have a problem with people casting spells with both a sword and a shield in each hand. I just want there to be a clear penalty for doing that.

It's just like when you do anything, ANYTHING, the more stuff you're doing at the same time the less effective you are. People don't multitask well (this is a scientific fact), they just think they do.

 

@Drocis I'm not sure I agree about the skill cap there, but you could have certain skills that lock you out from others. I think Richard has brought this up before. So maybe to be a master necromancer you have to do something to your soul that prevents you from being able to use anything in the sun and life spheres, just as a random example. These could be quest decisions as well.

That could also be a way to add skills and spells that exist outside of the trees we know of, or go deeper in them. Likewise, there could be adjacent hidden skills that become available through a quest that involves ritual magic.

 

The design seems to expect mages to wield weapons, though. I would agree wielding a heavy, two-handed weapon would probably be a liability on its own if you aren't using armor... since it would make you a lot slower, and if you're slow at attack, you want good defense (heavier armor). I would think a large shield would count as heavy armor, too, and impact the mage's deck. Though, I think there are other issues.

I do fully support the idea of mixed classes, I just would like to see them creatively managed by the player, or at least built logically in the game. Lets say you have some guy who always wields a sword and shield with medium armor that also uses fire and water magic occasionally. What build is that? Its just a fighter who happens to have some magic. Which is okay, I guess, just it would make sense for him to put down his shield to use magic. I think there's a difference between logical builds and odd chimeras.

 

I would love to see quests that made you pick a lane. The Master Necromancer example is a perfect one, assuming it precludes you from being a hybrid armor wearing bow shooting death mage.