Reagents should be removed, they are a double penalty.

Yea, but how does any of that make for better balance or a better magic system? Acquiring items through gathering or purchasing isn't a good balance factor because it actually gives significant advantages to people with more free time on their hands. It also isn't an interesting way to make magic feel like you're actually doing magic. Sourcing items is not even remotely an analog to the pursuit of arcane knowledge.

 

@Aetrion,

Don't know how it can't feel like it, it was a big part of actual magic practice in history.

It does serve a balancing factor in many ways in the game from other perspectives. So for instance, if there are no reagents, then a fighter could easily pick up a few magic spells without any requirements on his part to use them. Its already this way a bit with first and second tier spells that don't require reagents. A fighter can just pick up a Heal spell and Heal spam himself during battle, giving himself another advantage. Its a bit harder if you're using heavy armor, but you're still going to be able to cast it, and not all fighters use heavy armor. So reagents make a barrier to magic for people who want to play as fighters. They can still cast magic, but they have to go through the time and effort to do so. Imo, this barrier should also exist for first and second tier spells.

The lack of balance IMO, like others have said, comes from the other end. Fireballs should be devastating. You're throwing a big ball of fire at someone, it should hurt a lot. Defensive and utility spells should be effective, too.

 

The difference with magical traditions in real life is that none of the spells in real life are something you cast 300 times in a row while exploring a dungeon. Yes, you can go into a real life magic shop and buy ingredients for a voodoo or Wicca ritual if you are so inclined, but no magical tradition has spells that you cast over and over within seconds while constantly expending ingredients. In fact if a real life magical tradition ever makes a claim of bestowing certain powers that you can use at will on you then you don't invoke them on a per use basis, but rather do a ritual to grant you that power for a duration.

If spamming a heal spells on yourself is the most powerful way to play people will do it completely regardless of whether or not it costs reagents. In the end everyone is going to simply have a stack of thousands of reagents and treat them as a monthly expense precisely so they don't ever have to actually think about them while casting spells. It simply adds absolutely nothing to the game.

 

@Aetrion,

IMO, you shouldn't be put in a situation where you cast a spell 300 times in a row... if that's the case then either the game is too grindy --- requiring you to kill one enemy after another -- or magic isn't powerful enough. Just my view on this.

Btw, if you're interested in the topic more generally, a long time ago I suggested an idea that reagents should have different potencies so a single reagent should be able to last for more than one spell before it wears down (dries up, etc). https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/reagent-potency-potion-doses.14331/ Would like to hear you're input. There was a discussion about whether a mage should be basically carrying around a pack full of 300 reagents or he should need a few that last a while.

 

You can't have magic that is so powerful that you wouldn't need hundreds of reagents and still have it be balanced though.

I mean let's assume you're going to the top of the Tower of the Shuttered Eye, you're going to encounter probably about a dozen Undead on the way through the swamp, And about two dozen more in the tower, along with a Lich. For convenience's sake let's say about 30 enemies in total. This is one self contained adventure with a quest goal, so, not really a grind. Even if your magic was so powerful that you only needed one spell per enemy, at an average 3 reagents per spell we'd be looking at roughly 90 reagents expended. Of course if your spells were so powerful that you only needed one spell per enemy you would be insanely overpowered, and would be one-shotting people in PvP all day long. So that's not exactly balanced. If we're assuming it takes maybe 3-4 spells per target, which would still be pretty damn powerful, you would still very easily be expending 300 reagents worth of magic.

That's why arrows and reagents just always get way out of hand and just become something you have to stockpile in stupid and unrealistic quantities. Replicating that idea of having a special arrow with your arch enemies name on it or gathering nightshade on the grave of a king under a full moon to use in a ritual simply doesn't hold up in a game where those items are so insanely disposable and used in such crazy quantities. That's pretty much every game though except for a few tabletop systems that emphasize ritual magic over combat magic.

Now the idea of having a reagent pouch or grimoire or even individual reagents that degrade over time like weapons do I can somewhat get behind, as long as its a true parallel system, but even that simply can't ever be considered a balance factor.



Practical balance is really the crux of the issue. In a PvP situation you simply can't have mages invoking spells that can kill someone instantly, no matter how expensive doing that is. If you put that kind of "nuclear option" into the game it inevitably leads to a point where the meta for the whole game starts revolving around using it as much as possible. That's why the whole argument of "magic should be rare and powerful" doesn't work. If something is powerful then nearly everyone will want to use it. If it's too hard for the majority of your players to get all you accomplish is piss off the majority of your players, which has never proven to be a successful business model.

So, they simply can't implement rare and expensive reagents as a counterbalance to powerful magic, they are going to have to go for disposable mass reagents for disposable mass spells, and there is just no point to even having that.

 

Reagents are something I actually like. They make you work for your fancy spells (granted spells should be tweaked though).

Let's face it:
In most of nowadays MMO rpgs mages are by faaaar the easiest class to play and master. Developers realized that eveyrone likes running around with tons of burst-dmg and overpowered crowdcontrol. So they let them have their way to grab money from the casuals.

I remember days where running around with fancy magic was powerfull but took you months to get there. Jedi in SWG pre-cu was such a thing. If you grind your class with such dedication you earned it. If you are not willing to do the least bit of farming you do not deserve to play a magician overlord.

I must admit, playing a mage in this game is tempting but I do not want it to become the easymode pewpew it is in many other games. They will adjust the numbers for mages as they have mentioned and it will be fine, but please keep the reagent system. If you want to do the same damage as melee from a distance and have appropriate ways of kiting and crowdcontrol it should come with a cost. The cost is reagents.

 

Sorry, but the whole idea of the rare but powerful mage is just never going to work.

The Jedi system in SWG is a perfect example of why it's a terrible idea, because a system like that is simply not sustainable. Sure, people remember the days when there were a few Jedi in the game and everyone still had hope of joining them fondly, but SWGs meltdown that followed was the direct result of how completely unsustainable a system like that is. As people figured out what it took to become a Jedi it tore their community apart. The people who wanted Jedi to be rare and powerful and work hard to get to be exceptional were pissed off because Jedis were getting more and more common, the people who didn't have a ton of time for the game got pissed off because they felt like they were deprived of a chance of ever playing a Jedi. They couldn't make being a Jedi more difficult to keep them rare without the segment of the community that was upset about the difficulty becoming the majority, so ultimately the only way to cut their losses and stop the discontent from spreading was to scrap the whole system and eventually go to NGE. Their whole game imploded because they tried "rare and powerful", which is an absolutely toxic combination for MMOs.

Everyone just ends up thinking that the exact amount of effort they are willing to put in should be the cutoff point for who deserves to be special, and ultimately that means you can't make anyone happy.

 

Ok, Jedi might be a little overdone as an example but dont you think powerful magic should come at a cost?
The reagent system makes me feel like I "earned" something. Since this game will not have full loot it gives you a good feeling running around with a bag full of reagents to make the world explode for the next few hours (if the spells are normalized).

I kind of like that.

Just take a look of nowadays MMO rpgs. They have more customers swg or uo ever had but are they fun? They do not reward you with those precious moments you had in older games when you prepare for a battle and the plan worked. Farming the proper reagents belongs exactly in this category.

 

You mean to say COMPUTER RPGs, right?

I got a ton of RPGs in the last 20 years, TABLE TOP, that have regent requirements in their systems.

While I agree, the system currently sucks at balance, much like 1 arrow costing 1 gp (should be more like a dozen for 2gp, etc...) it needs to be tweaked ALOT.

But eliminated?

 

When all combat related skills are in and 100% functioning and crafting/gathering is 100% functional, and magic cost is still unbalanced as it is now, then I'd say it might be time to evaluate removing reagents. I personally am very much in favor of the idea, and it's not like reagents are the only thing that's out of balance in terms of cost. Let's wait and see what the picture looks like in a few releases, it's far to early to condemn the system right now.

 

I never had any issues using regs in UO......in fact when I started to play, I started withs swords so I could raise the money to train magery. Difference was, magery was balanced and very diverse and made it worth the hard work. Also reagents were about 2-3 gold each (compared to 20).

Reagents were also nice to loot in PvP........I am still holding out they they make consumables lootable.

I see no valid reason why reagents should be removed.

 

I couldn't disagree more. I know there has been a lot of game who have gone with the thinking that the balancing the use of magic is by lowering the cost through by a lack of regeants and dumbing down the skill it takes to be effective in combat, but for me that completely goes against the idea that the use of magic is not something easily attained or perfected. The use of magic should come at a higher cost and player skill with a reward of great power. Regeants are an important to that line of thought, much less the tradition of the use of magic in Ultima itself.

 

Should not be "in the game", I would say no, reagents belong in Ultima. On the other hand, I think that at the rate MMO players will be spamming their spells, we'll wind up needing (wanting) to carry 99 stacks of 99 of every reagent, and that gets corny. If the point of reagents is to make magick special, they should do so, and be somewhat rare. Of course, the flipside of making magick special is that all non-mages become non-special.

As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, putting in a system for some characters to wield the 'special but rare' power is very bad in MMOs, everyone wants in, all other character types become discarded fodder, played only by hardheaded die-hards and no-nothing noobs. If magick is truly going to become stronger than swordplay on an ability for ability basis, then the FIRST thing that should be changed is talent point costs. No spell should cost 1 talent point if it is intended to be special and more powerful than a 1 talent point hammer swing.

Conversely if spells are going to be awesome, then they need damage output that is congruent with that, and right now spell damage output is pathetic.

As if locked slots need ANOTHER disadvantage? If Locked slots don't get BUFFED before final release, I for one will be out. I've tried the random draw, and I hate it. I have better things to do in my free time than wrestle with a video game UI. The locked glyph system is supposed to placate players like me, allowing us to play the game without having to fight the UI. As it stands, it has INSANE penalties, and needs heavy rebalancing. If part of that was to add a reagent cost to my SWORD SWINGS, even if that cost is just increased durability loss... sorry, internet Hearts is more appealing.

With this I agree completely, and I think it might be the solution. There should be a simple toggle, a hotkey you can press while casting, combined with a checkbox in game settings: Default unchecked, the hotkey makes you USE reagents when casting, when checked, it makes you SKIP reagents when casting. When reagents are used, the spell gets major oomph, and/or much less focus cost, when reagents are NOT used, you are hardcasting straight from your own inherent mystic energies, and oomph goes down and/or focus cost goes up.

This would allow mage players to conserve their 'ammo' when farming wolves, and still be able to ramp things up when jumped by a random add or PvP opponent, and would give good flexibility to the UI.

I propose that the magick be made inherent to all characters, but how it MANIFESTS be based on how our talent points are spent. An Avatar of New Brittania who uses only swords isn't devoid of magick, they just have sword-based magicks.

Reagents would be like weapons, it's not the reagent that is the power, it's the caster, but the reagent forms a channel to get more from the spell, just as a sword user with a mystic attack will cut much deeper using an imbued iron longsword than they will from a rusty cutlass.

An odd offshoot of this thinking is that when someone has sword, shield, or armor GLYPHS, but the actual equipment is broken, they could still channel their innate magicks to block, absorb attacks, or make a cutting swing, but with much less effectiveness. The magickal edge would remain after the steel one had broken.

 

What a good thread this has been so far! Good discussion, civility, and contrasting opinions are all so rare in threads that have anything remotely to do with PvP.

 

Reagents are already out of the game. You can cast any spell you want without a reagent. Using a reagent only lowers the focus used by a spell, which is not a big deal if you're playing a pure mage (because you have tons of focus to spare in any battle).

Reagents should be in the game, and actually mean something, and should be used for every spell....period.

 

I think at this stage that the magic system hasn't really got the love that some of the melee skills have....I think we will see a release coming up where they overhaul the magic spells to actually make them worthwhile/worth the cost/regeantable(tm).

 

That would be nice.

 

If they are just "ammo", then it's as fun as having ammo in any game where you shoot things. Now that I think about it, almost all games where you shoot things have ammo, so it must be fun.

But apart from that, and what Redfish rightfully said, you could use them to concoct potions, or for cooking (garlic is also a reagent), or for other crafting-related purposes.
I also like the gathering part, plus in online mode this encourages player interaction if you can get huge stacks for a cheap price from player vendors. I for one would like to run an alchemy shop.

On the other hand, as Isaiah said I think we need an option for a lesser, weaker, reagent-free magic. I didn't play a pure magic user in R12, but it seems that all low-level spells are reagent-free. If that is the case, I'm already happy with that.

 

In shooters the ammo you expend drops from the enemies you kill or is found in the environment as you clear the level. It serves as a limitation to how much shooting you can do while going through a specific part of the game. That's a fundamentally different use of ammo as a mechanic than simply charging you for every time you shoot at something and making you buy giant stockpiles of ammo.

I find that in game design it's good practice to simply say: If the players reaction to any consumable is to acquire so much of it that they don't need to count it then the game probably shouldn't bother to count it either.

The top tier spells that currently list reagent costs are not in any way stronger than the low tier spells by the way, nor would it make sense if they were, since then we'd essentially need a second "powerful" version of every low tier spell. Like if Healing Ray doesn't use reagents, should that simply mean that there isn't a powerful long range single target burst heal in the game? That's would not make a lot of sense and leave the lineup of spells extremely incomplete.

 

This is my opinion even though I will probably not dabble too much with magic in game, at least at first. Every spell should require reagents. Someone commented on wanting lower level spells that don't use reagents, that is where a wand comes in. I think a wand should be loaded with certain number, 100 for example of a low level spell. It should take reagents to load the wand, but once loaded you wouldn't have to carry around an extreme amount of reagents for a low level attack spell. Yes, I agree reagents are too expensive at the moment and too difficult to gather in useful numbers out in the world. Reagents should be relatively cheap and in great abundance. Gathering in general regardless of what resource you try to collect is sparse at the moment, I am hoping that changes before launch.