Hybrid-Magic System

As per Arthur C. Clarke : "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

A more mundane example would be Mjolnir in the new Marvel cinematic universe where the sacred hammer is actually an AI who determines whether you're fit to wield him or not

An interesting thing about the trees , if you start from Chaos then you can either take Life or Death then branch out from there to the others. Maybe every Avatar embodies chaos and demons are simply corrupted avatars who've completely lost their humanity.

 

Of course it's something we wouldn't want. We should be wary of any overpowering feature but let's not automagically assume such things won't be considered in balancing how scrolls might work. There are any number of ways to tweak their power, availability and use. You would not for example, stand in front of an enemy quaffing potions and expect it to do much good as you're taking damage. Neither should it be effective to rely exclusively on scrolls over a long term and no one is suggesting such.

 

Scrolls could be set effects (not skill based), have cast times, and require reagents in addition to parchment and ink to create. They still cost focus. So their "benefit" is mostly so you don't have to skill up to use them, and they can be used outside your specialization set without penalty. Their overuse as expendables is limited, but their primary use is to teach another character the spell.

 

It would be nice to have a spell book similar to how our crafting book works. But the problem is that would be very very very empty until they were able to design a great deal more spells and spell interactions. But from a magic user point of view, it would give a sense of accomplishment to fill up the magic book with all known spells through experimentation and learning. Though I think there should also be a nice negative for experimenting with spell combo options prior to learning them or transcribing them. This would also limit the wiki search for all spells a bit. You could get high enough level, and be in an area or have reagents to minimize the potential back firing... but that may just be making the system way more complex than they want it to be.

 

Consider that there are what? at least 8 schools and each one has 7-9 spells in it? And low level spells should be relatively easy to get. I don't think empty books would really be a problem.

 

However we don't know what the guy is thinking unless he explains further what he means by not having enough spells. However you are correct Bowen that there is enough spells to fill a book. I cannot think of any other way anybody would think there isn't enough spells except for the deck limitation.

 

~ @Bowen Bloodgood ~
I'm very disappointed in you...
All these years of Ultima UO Rehab and you have a set back like this and fall off the wagon...

It's like being an alcoholic ... once you are one, you'll always be one, even when that's not what you're currently drinking...

No UO Sobriety Chip for You this Week
Better luck next week !
~Time Lord~

 

Necro bump ftw. Anyway, I don't think it will be worth any effort to make this sort of chance since most likely people will only be using around 5 spells for their day to day playing.

 

Wow I had completely forgotten about this. I had to go back and refresh my memory. I still like the idea.

So? It was never about how many spells people use. The whole idea is about giving the magic system itself more depth.

 

Doesn't hurt to lay out the ideas and let the dev hand pick them in the future, I guess.

 

~Adding Depth From Our Ultima Antiquity~
The spirit of the OP I agree with, we will always need more depth the deeper we go.

~SOTA the Antique Game?~
It's close to Ultima, yet I object when it comes too close, not only from a mimicking trade laws standpoint, but because our Ultima Spirit needs to move past some things and evolve into a less "classic game gets a makeover". Rocky 1-2 through release of the same movie to Rocky XII, holds an image that doesn't play well in my opinion to the consumer that didn't see those prior movie releases and see them as a classic black and white movie screen type of situation... which our Ultima in many ways is unless it evolves into the edge of sify.

~Don't Chop Down the Trees~
I don't agree with passing our magery off from the trees we have into some book. Books are from our antiquity, yet I believe they could be used in a more scholarly fashion, by attaching their usage to scrolls, which are also from our antiquity. Yet these scrolls should become also separate from the magic we find within our trees, yet tied to our stars/planets for their usage and creation, in order for their antiquity value to have a scholarly life within our game. As some have pointed to here in our thread, such scrolls and books could then be tied to quest search for them through other books, thus becoming as magic books have always been, only collections of what any mage had learned from bits and pieces of magic they had come in contact with and found to be true. "Found to be true", leads to ideas of some searches for legendary magic becoming dead ends, or loose ends, possibly never to be discovered, or discovered with varying effects, meaning that skill base within such scroll based magic, would be entirely dependent on the discovery of it. "Yet scrolls should never become a business beyond some lower level utility based far away from any combat usage. The combat usage of such scrolls, should become limited to the scholar/player's own discovery to be used exclusively by them. This would take scroll magic out of the hands of the normal PvPer, and help motivate PvPers to become more involved with the quest hallmarks of our game.

~Regs and Scroll Base Magery in This ~TL~ Deadly Magic Insanity~
Regs for scrolls based on such a system, should be very different than those regs that our common magery depends upon. This distinguishes such scroll magery into a hunt and seek for required regs and thus continues the quest based nature of such magic. "When something is most powerful, deadly and surprising, then it's need to be unique and rare within our world is required", otherwise, it's not a surprise, it's not a sacrifice and they become common.

~Offsetting Flower Power Magic~
I would also postulate that there needs to be an offset to such spells of death, requiring the user to make a choice as to what they are searching for. Such flower scroll magery could have only effects to growing things (farmers) and interesting blessing effects of protections to those adventurers of that scroll magic school.... yet still tied to the quest hunt for their discovery, yet not for sale to anyone who had not discovered them through quest in the same fashion as deadly ones. But I would inject here, that these regs for this flower magic, be in slightly more of abundance, through a wide based flora collection spread across in differing regions. We have often spoken of liking the idea of regional based exclusive flora. Such a spread of the needed flora, would then mimic the spirit of keeping such a hunt and seek, in the same way as the deadly scroll magic must hunt for their strange regs for scroll creation.

~Scroll Magery Tattoo~
I would also like to see such Scholars who discover such magic, to gain a tattoo with every new spell they discover through their quests. This points them out as deadly, or flowered and students of their magical ways to others, with some that can be hidden and more powerful to become on their faces & hands... because high magic shouldn't hide... and if you want tattoos in our game, then you'll have to quest for them and only through these magic's.

~Antiquity Spirit Preserved Through Evolution into Sify~
I do believe that all of the above mentioned needs to require an adept watchful eye on our planets for it's gatherings as well as usages... because of their scholarly nature.

I hope any of that made sense...
~Time Lord~

 

I'm liking this new use based skill gain thing.

 

Ultimately it's a problem of symmetry. It used to be considered perfectly normal for a mage in an RPG to have hundreds of spells with niche uses while a fighter just had the ability to attack and do damage. Eventually however this paradigm shifted to a place where fighters have just as many skills on their bar that represent different stances and strikes and shouts and what not. Weapon arts to form symmetry with the magic arts.

In many ways what I think people are missing is that sense that magic is more complex and nuanced than simply hitting things with a sword. In the old Ultima games being a mage wasn't even really a role, fighting enemies was almost always accomplished with weapons and armor. Ultima Underworld, Ultima Online and Ultima 9 are the only games in the series where playing a mage that foregoes martial skills is even really an option, and even there the ability to hit something in a pinch was pretty important.

Currently this game solves the question of symmetry in a kind of half assed way, because it's not really possible to play a non-magical character effectively because of the focus on healing and half magic combos the game has, there are far more spells than weapon arts, and magic lacks an essential driving item that serves as its equivalent to weapons in the system and instead uses consumable reagents, which I think is questionable from a balance standpoint.

So I guess the question becomes, should the game strive for symmetry and uphold the idea that you can play a non-magical character that has all the same complexity as a mage, or should it strive for the older style of distinction where a mage is far more complex in terms of systems than any fighter, but might not be entirely self sufficient without some martial abilities because the game needs a common point to balance characters on.

 

Physical spell books in Ultima came with Ultima III, Not VI.



For Clerics:


For Wizards:


Or am I missing what you were saying?


I agree that if the spellbook is in the skill tree or in a separate book visual image it will still work the same in the end with the hotbar on the bottom of the screen. Maybe that is the cool thing about it? Just Add a new key that opens a book and just put the magic skill trees in there. You find a scroll you did not have in there and pop it in. That saves 100gp and not having to talk to the skill trainer. <<< @DarkStarr what do you think?

 

I think he meant the actual in-game spellbook item that was used in U6 and U7

 

I didn't mean literally physical you hold in your mortal hand.. I meant in-game.

 

Thank you for clarifying.

But those physical books in U3 really made me feel like I was part of that world.

 

For what they were they're a special part of Ultima lore in my opinion. Though I don't think I got quite the same reaction when I played.. though technically I never actually owned an original copy of the early Ultimas so there is that. There is a lot of unexplored history there that could've been pretty interesting. Maybe some fan fiction is in order?

 

Honestly why can't they keep uo's skill and spell system it'd be so much better

 

A related question about the current magic system is about the 'gating' of spells/skills in trees: What is the game design purpose of doing that? For example, is there a game play concern about a character getting skeleton pets too soon? Or being able to AOE heal too soon? Or magical pets late in the tree to avoid mauling early content? But I can have a chest mimic to start?

With few direct damage skills in any given tree, I'm challenged to feel that getting the few spells we do have in any magic line in any order would be overpowering to the point of messing up the flow of the game. It doesn't feel like there is so much of an early game PVP competition or PVE mob overpowering issue here that would make having any one skill, regardless of tree, matter.

I'm agreeing with the 'take the UO approach' comments above. But it would be interesting to hear more experienced combat players and/or the dev team comment on this.