Casting spells without reagents = BAD

The thing that I see as a problem is that not only mages are going to need reagents, but so will alchemists and scroll makers, and enchanters. If the reagents are too hard to get then technically being a mage is really expensive.

Although if it's more of just go out and do the mining type task, then I see what you mean. For example if you can gather a reagent once a month, but you can gather a lot of if and so can everybody else who spends the time gathering it, then it isn't so rare that it makes being a mage a total crutch.

So if the goal is to get the mage going out looking for and gathering some reagents that are not insanely hard to gather, then that seems reasonable, but if it is tough to get these reagents and there aren't much to find because everybody is competing over them then that is a pain. Then some people might be able to corner the market on being a mage by camping out the spots where the rare reagents spawn and have their guild clean up the place and nobody else can be a good mage.

 

Maybe being a mage should be really expensive. In the literature, the Arthurian legends had Merlin, the Lord of the Rings had Gandalf and Saruman, but you didn't have mages by the dozens wandering about.

For gameplay purposes, mages have to be reasonably common, but there is no reason for them not to be expensive. Starting out in UO, before the game became awash in gold, mages weren't all that common for precisely that reason. It was expensive.

 

Reagents should be a lootable item though. It is a gathered material right? Why not make reagents a totally droppable loot. Where as fighters can currently ransom their weapons, reagents should not be ransomable. The mage should take care not to take too much reagents and not too little either. So as a warrior gets all his armor and weapons damaged after death, mages wear light armor and may not have a weapon, so losing reagents might be a good ballance. This can also be good or bad for a mage. Good if the mage can kill his enemies, and take their reagents. Bad if he gets killed faster than he can restock his reagents. However reagents are a great loot item, warriors and spell casters have use for reagents. A sword's value changes from person to person, but there is always a demand for reagents. It also will cause the PvP mage to think twice about how many reagents to carry with him.

*This could be a reason some people might choose not to be a mage.

 

That means there should be some kind of gathering being done. So it is not just a fixed gold value to buy reagents off of vendors. at least not the more rare reagents.

*Also we got to keep in mind that archers will also be ranged combatants. Since there will be balanced skill sets, technically speaking an archer is a ranged fighter just as much as a mage is. So in the long run if it is easier to be an archer, some of the people who wanted to play a mage just because of the ability to kill at a distance may opt to switch to archer due to it being easier to acquire more arrows (a single item rather than different types of reagents).

 

I would hope that reagents in stores would be limited or nonexistent in order to stimulate the player economy, just as I would hope that the weapons available in shops would be only the most basic ones in order to stimulate the development of dedicated player crafters.

This would encourage people to take up cultivation and/or gathering of reagents, and provide them with a living by providing a service for players disinclined to either cultivate or gather.

 

Of course. Because valuing "fun" over competition automatically makes you a whiner. How are things up on that pedestal?

I get it. You value balance and competition. Nothing wrong with that. Some of us value getting the most "fun" out of our limited play time and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT EITHER. Please stop insulting other play styles by calling them whiners. Or imply that they are whiners (if you want to get technical). It does nothing for your argument except to unite the other side against you and create further division.

 

anyway I dont want to go reagents farming before I can even start playing Im making a warrior

 

Depending upon the availability of reagents, that may be a common choice. Once established, players may then elect to take up magery.

 

I like how you use the word elect here very fitting to your posts so far

 

Welcome to Darkfall.

Here is the darkside to having reagents. What are you going to do when a group of people figure out on day 3 how to dupe the ever loving bajesus out of x,y and z and fundamentally break the reagent economy, while hording reagents for advantage in time sink to acquire and pseduo unlimited use of regents? Once the dupe is out of the bag and the items infiltrate the dba, its pretty much a done deal that can only be unwound so much.

This is why I would rather not have reagents, and use the uniqueness of the weapon being equipped when casting and take advantage of the durability mechanic. I rather see wands, staves, rods and the such have innate spell casting advantages and the durability of those items be consumed at a high rate in order to drive the economy than using reagents.

 

I gotta agree with the OP here.

Reagents is what magic in Ultima unique - having reagents automatically used instead of mixing spell was streamlining enough - removing the NEED for reagents, just makes them pointless, and makes the magic no different from any other RPG. Now I can be okay with lacking reagents if there are different schools of magic, and one of them don't require them to cast spells (Ultima VIII did that wonderfully IMO), but we need a school of magic that works just like Ultima magic so that if you don't have anymore reagents... well, though luck.

Sure it can be annoying, but I don't thing devs should balk away from having annoyed players from time to time - removing the need for reagents just feels to me like a way to haves mage players always happy and no dread to be "screwed" because they forgot to buy some Nightshade before heading out.

So basically : I don't like this.

-Sergorn

 

According to the devs...all items are maintained server side and the logs show any dependencies between what is currently in the economy and what should be in the economy. So any duping exploit would have to involve breaking into the DB and changing logs. Then also buying new accounts for $45 a pop. Stranger things have happen I guess. But it doesn't seem like a reasonable amount of trouble just so you can win some battles in PVP. I mean, if you have those kinds of hacking skills, doesn't pulling this off just tell the world how completely stupid you are because you're using your skills for such a meaningless gain?

 

The penalties associated with reagent-less casting should scale depending on the difficulty of spell - practically no penalty for cantrips, and massive penalties for high-level incantations (even to the point of requiring reagents).

Players, even if they are carrying reagents, should be given the option to cast without reagents as a means of preserving their reagents. Why blow reagents on a weak foe when you could play more conservatively?

Anyway, there's so much history behind them that it would be a shame to have them dropped for convenience.

Seriously - the thought that RG put into his spellcasting ingredients is absolutely brilliant. They're not merely there for show. They all have specific purposes.

So, yeah, the whole, "It's not fun to run out of reagents!" argument just doesn't satisfy me at all.

It's not fun to run out of arrows. It's not fun to have your melee weapon break (it is constantly taking durability damage).

*shrug* Get used to it! Bad things will happen in-game.

Keep reagents as a necessary & practical item imo.

Offer uncommon/rare superpowered reagents for those interested in truly powerful casting.

 

I actually do like the idea of no requirement of reagents.

This is along the lines of my thinking. If the more powerful spells have a better success chance with reagents then reagents will still have a solid economic value.

If reagents are fully required then the availability of reagents is likely going to be much more abundant. If they are not required but are desired then the game can have a less abundant supply.

Supply and demand where demand is by desire.

 

Bump up fizzle chance also if no reagents were used.

 

I thought of this already and came up with a solution : a specific reagent bag. That way the game will only check in this bag and won't use up the reagents in any other bag you're carrying.

And then, for your idea to work, what it takes is to have a keyboard shortcut for "empty reagents bag".

And final idea, if this bag were to exist, I would soooo love for it to look like the Ultima Underworld rune bag (but that's personal ).

EDIT : Mmmmh, it's a pretty naive solution, but I like the fact that it has "materiality" in the game. Maybe it would be far less tedious to just have a key for "reagents mode/no reagents mode"

 

As much as I love special bags, this is pretty much how I'd envisioned it, yeah.

Sorry if I'm spewing ideas people have already come up with - I'm currently working on something and threadhopping in my downtime.

 

Yeah, I mean, not using reagents should be a clear risk imo.

Losing control of the spell (targets you, targets something other than what you'd selected), possibility to sap extra mana, spell failure/fizzle, caster takes damage... anything.

Still doable, but potentially problematic.

 

Tasos said the same thing in Darkfall Online and then the player base proceeded to do exactly what he said we couldn't do. Don't ever underestimate what a griefier or a cheater will do in order to pwn other players in PvP. There are no limits to the depths Countries, yes Countries will sink to command digital commerce. let alone the proverbial basement dwelling troglodyte who will do whatever it takes to wallow in your tears.

Once the dba is compromised, and it will be compromised, because SQL is easily attacked through injecting script and the such without getting into a four page dissertation on database security. The answer once the item dba is compromised is to roll back the servers based on the logs and try and find a happy point where you can start to see unusual analytic s supporting an unbalanced economy matrix that shouldn't exist based on server side capacity to produce x and y rate.

 

Being compared to Tasos should be enough for Chris to take this seriously.

I understand what an SQL injection attack is. I've already witnessed people attempting them during Release 2.

I agree that it's a problem that should be expected to occur. I hope the devs work as hard on IT Security as they do on everything else.