Hybrid-Magic System

If it's science.. it's science.. not magic. Calling it indistinguishable from magic doesn't make it magic.

So the real beef here is that reagents don't have enough depth to be interesting to you. I can respect that.

 

You could start by maybe ASKING what games I've played instead of just hands out rejecting it and trying to belittle my experience and opinions (by the way I earlier specified DDO as one of the games so if you read what I wrote you would know at least one of them). I'm not wasting my time listing them because I don't think you actually care about games that use them that I enjoy playing, as that runs counter to what you are trying to say.

I never questioned NOR disagreed with you that there are systems and games where magic is purely internal and doesn't require something. Yes, there is a lot of eastern influence on many current game designs. That does not mean ALL games are designed with an eastern influence nor should they. That also does not mean it is good game design nor good world creation. Most of those games don't bother trying to delve into why does magic work and just take it for granted that it does with the hand wave of, "IT'S MAGIC!!!" Just because something works in a setting it is designed in doesn't mean it translates well to other settings nor should always be used. I don't have light sabers for my character in SotA and this makes me sad because it works in the sci fi setting of the Star Wars universe and thus should be in this game. I want an avatar voodoo doll because it makes PvP more fun by disabling certain limbs on my opponents. Another MMO has gliders and I want them (actually this would make exploration a LOT more fun and I really do want them... but that's off subject).

That type of thing can go on all night long and is a waste of everyone's time. There are always going to be differences in every game and arguing that other games don't have a feature or restriction that ours does is pointless. They have other features or restrictions that we don't. We are not making the same game that other companies are. If the reagent system is that intolerable to you, I'd suggest focus on either low tier spells that don't have them or do a melee or ranged combat build.

Currently, gathering reagents in the world IS the primary reason I explore locations (both new and old) so it is actually rewarding my exploration, which wouldn't be happening if I didn't have a need for reagents. Yes I could just run to the nearest town and buy a billion of them (I usually have 15-20 max of each type and start searching for more in world when I drop low), but why bother when they can be found in the wild? Having reagents be more meaningful would be great and I very much agree with you on this (as I also mentioned in a previous post). As they really haven't done diddlysquat to flesh out magic it's one of those hoping for but not expecting soon type of situations in regards to reagents. Just because a base mechanic is in and you don't like it doesn't mean that is the final intention of the mechanic.

Reagents are important for lore and world building reasons. I understand you either don't understand that or don't think it is important. For many RPG players, they want to feel like they are part of the world they are playing in and like having reasons why things happen (hence the reasons books exist in RPGs and quests have cause and effect results). The complaint that it doesn't matter to anyone who isn't apart of the community is like saying being a vault dweller doesn't matter to anyone who doesn't play a fallout game. You are right, but the argument is pointless. If people don't want to play in a world with this lore and magic system, the lack of reagents won't draw those players in. Nor do I think, the use of reagents is going to destroy anyone's gaming experience.

 

True. I want to be a mage, but I like having my mage different than someone else's mage.

No other ultima has offered that... in fact I cannot think of many games that offer that.

 

That reminds me of the early Kickstarter days when we were brainstorming about magic and the distant possibility of having multiple magic systems. That obviously isn't going to happen in EP1 but it might be interesting to bring it up at a later time. Such as rune magic from Underworld or totem magic from Savage Empire..

 

Oh yeah definitely. Rune magic. Ritual magic (whatever the hell that is)... lol. Maybe there could be suplimentary magic skills that alter how magic is harnessed.

I think I'm going to like episode 2 development more than episode 1, because I know the game is going to be good already.

 

Magic from Ultima III could argueably be called ritual magic.. at least from a lore perspective.

 

And being a Jedi isn't fun if everyone is a Jedi, which, as I understand, is something that harmed Star Wars Galaxies.

For the same reasons, its also not fun to have games in which everyone relies magic, even characters who are supposed to be fighters, because it means there's nothing special about magic anymore.

So, the question for a role-playing game that is trying to keep some distinction between classes, and to keep magic special, is how you limit magic and keep it special. Fixed character classes with fixed skillsets are one way to do this. Some characters might have control over their ch'i and others might not; that's understandable. But if we don't want a fixed class system, reagents are one way to do this. And one reason I think they're important. Its why I think even low-tier spells should be tied to reagents, so fighters in plate armor won't use Heal spells as a crutch, instead of their defensive skills, or healing potions, which become useless when everyone has magic. And so not everyone will use Light spells as a crutch, and actually go out and use torches and lanterns. Because reagents create an incentive to use non-magical ways of doing things.

If you're about the viability of playing a pure mage, I don't think it was important in single-player Ultima games, since they were all party-based games. You often had pure mages that were supports in your party. For playing a pure mage in SotA, its why I suggested that staves and wands be able to cut down reagent use, which I'm glad to see the devs are implementing with the Attunement system. Staves/wands should be a pure mage's way out of relying on reagents, while fighters who wield swords and shields would depend more on them. You want magic to be easier: buy a staff.

In trying to avoid tying low-tier magic to reagents, the devs have also been trying out another method: which is to nerf magic skills if you don't have a high Attunement, which is now tied to progress in the skill tree. But that's more annoying than reagents, IMO. I mean, lets talk about what you described in the Gothic games. Healing for 5 hp at a time is annoying, whether its done through consumables, or through skill nerfing having you repeat the same skill 20 times because the skill only heals you for 5 hp.

Being able to have a stack of 500 health potions in your inventory, which you're referring to, is also a horrible mechanic, and the problems you're complaining about wouldn't exist if you could only carry a few at a time -- and the same thing could be said about being allowed a stack of 500 reagents in your inventory. Also, making food function like potions is a horrible function for food, btw.

We've had these conversations before on the forums; I just think you're casting your net at the wrong problems. The problem isn't reagents; its all the other mechanics around them designed to make grinding easy that creates problems.

 

They just didn't get jedi right then. The jedi had lots of different strenghts and weaknesses. For example Ive noticed Obi Wan is a stealth jedi. He always sneaks around and manages to disappear or hid in closets etc. He stealthed through the death star, hid on amidala's ship he is a jedi ninja. Anakin is nothing like obi wan in that way. He would just kick in the door and take over the ship, and he was a fantastic piolet. All the best jedi had totally unique strengths. There was no cookie cutter jedi. Every jedi was different in some way eventhough theyvhad a similar basic training.

SotA magic is already more diverse than the jedi. However I can see the diversity increasing as the episodes progress, building upon the basic schools of magic developing unique spellcaster tallents.

Clearly the archer mage, the mystical polarmsman, the enchanted swordsman, and the wand/stave mystic have their own way... not to mention the mage who keeps both hands free for less fizzle might deserve a enhanced karate action being better better at fist spells???

Like someone said ultima magic was never separate from weapons. It was about the person not a class.

 

I wonder if the skill decay/skill pool will already act as a limitation. If magic is channeled through the person or from the person then it isn't like memorizing spells like D&D it is sort of like a sorcerer from D&D that thinks it and draws the power to make the spell they need. Although I'm not opposed to a spell book either nor would I advocate agaist it unless it was the only way to cast. Perhaps it could become a personal preference type thing with its own benifit and drawbacks in a later episode. Then maybe limitations on how many spells might be offset by an enhanced casting of the spells you bring with you. ???

 

No, actually there were always distinct classes in the Ultima world, the Avatar just got to transcend all those classes, 'cuz he was the Avatar. Fighters, Mages, Bards. Dupre didn't use magic; Mariah did. If you tried to have Dupre cast a spell, he couldn't; he'd fizzle every time. Even though he was a Paladin, he couldn't cast heal, because Paladins didn't use magic in the Ultima universe. At any rate, the fact that there was variety of classes in the game's lore helped flesh out the game world better.

What you're describing to me I would say actually harms diversity, by watering everything down and making every character similar. If everyone casually uses both magic and weapons, everyone starts looking alike. Its a problem a lot of MMOs have. So you get tank-mages and stuff like that, which not only harm diversity, but also harm gameplay with overpowered builds. In the current game, I still think its OP that fighters in plate with a sword can rely on healing magic.

I think someone should be able to mix archery with magic, or mix blades with magic. But there should be a reason why someone might not do that, and might prefer to play a pure fighter, or a pure mage. So you have to put trade-offs in, a cost barrier, and that's where reagents serve a purpose, and where things like staves serve a purpose in making magery easier. Currently, there's not enough reason to not use magic, when talking about low-tier spells.

 

Excepting that classes were effectively done away with in game mechanics by Ultima VI.. stats were pretty simple and you could work any of them by training up any character.. though I think magic was still limited to certain characters, it was less of a class restriction and more of a job. Katrina in Ultima VII for example wasn't weak because she was a "shepherd".. she was weak because she starts at a high level with artificially low stats.

In terms of lore.. there's no such thing as character classes.. only what characters choose to do which can be described as a fighter or a mage or whatever.

 

In terms of lore... and not gameplay... what do you suppose a character class is ? In games like D&D, its based on the idea that you train into a skillset before a game begins; ie you spent some time in your youth as a mage's apprentice learning the arts, grew up, and when you start the game you've graduated and have become a mage. In AD&D, characters can become dual-class, have minor classes, or even change class. Its a flexible idea. In Britannia, we would suppose, Dupre went to serve as a paladin at some young age after being drawn to the call of Valor, and learned the ways of paladinry, and not magery, and became a paladin. Shamino learned the ways of being a ranger, etc. There were distinct lines of training/apprenticeship that NPCs went into in the game. Classes are essentially the same thing as professions. There's a difference between "no character class" and "no fixed character class."

With later Ultimas, they did make it easier for you to train those kind of skills on characters of different classes, but for the most part there wasn't incentive enough to change a characters course; to make Dupre the mage and Mariah the fighter. Also, you could make Sherry the Mouse super strong and wear plate armor.

 

At this point though I wonder if there are already enough skills that it makes sense that not all players will be the same because of time and effort to aquire skills.

There is no law stating that they won't release a new fully developed skill or two a year or so after the final wipe. In which case by the time players begin to start looking similar hhe new added skill tree (s) might cause people to diversify again either to continue specializing in what they had already or branching out into the new skills or letting go of an old skill to take up a new path.

That's possible. Besides we are all avatars from beyond the shattered moon or something like that which makes us unique to new Britannia but similar since we originate from earth. General Zod was like superman... except that he trained all his life to be a warrior and superman grew up on a farm and had no combat experience with people of similar physical ability (which clearly gave superman the advantage).

 

~The Last Time We Saw Sherry the Buffed Up Mouse~

~Time Lord~

 

Love this idea

 

A job? A chosen profession? Perhaps even a life style. Something not based on stats with predetermined limits on ability. D&D and other games may be flexible but they're still highly restricted. You can't just change willy nilly cause you have a mid-level crisis.

 

A path! A calling!

Yea, but of course D&D had more restrictions; I'm just speaking about what conceptually a class is supposed to represent. I think computer games have been a lot freer in abandoning class mechanics in favor of a skill system, because there's no paperwork you have to fill out for a character sheet.

Anyway, my point wasn't really about what you want to call them, whether they're classes, or professions, or callings. Just making the point that the fact that there were distinct kinds of callings in Ultima games helped flesh out the world better. Only some people were mages, only some people were fighters, etc. These callings were tied to the virtue system; people who became paladins were those called to the virtue of Valor; mages to Honesty. This was a good aspect of the Ultima world and Ultima lore. If everyone in the world is a mage and everyone is a fighter etc. the world becomes a lot more boring IMO.

 

Sorry to nitpick.. I'm word sensitive. Speaking of which.. Paladins = Honor.. Fighters are Valor.

 

Yea, I mean don't get me wrong, my beef with reagents isn't that there are reagents, it's that they are basically just magic ammo that doesn't even have the benefit of in depth crafting like weapons do. I don't care for consumables purely for the sake of consumables. They have to do more and mean more than that.

That's not really a good reason to count them thought is it? I mean in D&D basically every single spell has a material component, and if you care to read deep enough into the lore it's explained why that is and what exactly they are and so on. However, the system simply has an item called your component pouch that is assumed to contain all the material components you need, may have to be refilled periodically if the DM deems it necessary, and you only have to actually count out individual reagents for spells that have a cost listed.

Personally I would find it a lot more interesting if the game spent some amount of time explaining how magic works, and even better, requiring ME to understand how it works, than simply having an ammo counter for my spells.

 

OP +1