Reagents should be removed, they are a double penalty.

Then they should remove one of the systems. It's simply stupid to penalize people for preferring the superior system.

 

Then players are unhappy if they don't have the system they want.

Right now players have 3 options and that is a good thing, because how you use skills in combat is a HUGE part of how you play the game. Ensuring that as many people are as happy with that as possible is crucial. You're saying that rather than trying to balance the systems, two of them should just go away and players should be miserable. How is that better in any way shape or form?

There are a lot of players who hate locked bars and are sick of a tired concept that every other game has. They don't want this to be a clone of other games.

There are people who are familiar with locked bars and are scared of something new and they want nothing to do with the random glyph system.

There are those who want some locked skills for emergencies (a heal or a health potion perhaps) but are willing to use the random glyphs for everything else to use combos and the like.

As it is today, all the players are able to be happy. But to keep PvP fair, the systems need to be balanced, which is why the locked bar has higher focus costs.

 

And there are yet more groups of players that laugh at the joke of random skills as somehow emulating a fog of war in real life combat, while trying to diminish the "macro"-ability of static skill bars.

I take serious pause at your second to last sentence. You grouped everyone together in a happy world.

If that were so, this thread, all the combat threads, and the PVP threads, etc... would not exist with the level of strife and adversity they currently enjoy.

Of course it is silly to think that all players are able to be happy in the first place.

While it is cool and the gang to have all this philosophical back and forth, as I know R.G. likes to play on the "pathology" of the gamer base -- it is getting old, stupid even, at this point.

We, let me make that personal, I, ME <-- did not back this game to have a philosophical war every day, or even well into the thirteenth month of iteration.

Have we all forgotten it is a game? I think I already said a lot of people don't find the combat FUN.

If a game, and one of its core mechanics, are not fun, even to the tune of 30% of that population, why is the persistence to continue doing it?

I gotta say, the entire process of how this is designed is ridiculous at this point.

I am not the end all, be all of engineers. I dont even consider myself a solid programmer.

But da wut?

Who puts controversial mechanisms into any product, for months and months, beats everyone over the head, lets the community continue to debate the merits and faults (which still seems pretty well split to me -- run your own fantasy numbers all ya want) -- and in the end decides, hey, even if its a crap feature, lets keep it anyway. What is 30% or 20% or even 10% of population loss.

For this 43k of population, some of which is double and triple accounts? A lot.

I am failing to understand how anyone who thinks this project should succeed can just accept things as they are implemented, or continue to prop up some weird justification that, "Simpson's did it". If you don't get that reference, shame.

I eagerly await whomever is going to tell me how wrong I am because I don't have faith, or understand, or money, or resources, or time, or a litany of other excuses to justify whatever is driving those, whom R.G. has asked himself, multiple times, to not question the viability of the design.

MEANWHILE:!!!!!

REAGENTS -- not combat.

Cheers.

 

So the argument goes:

Locked bars are superior to random draw.
Some people prefer random draw regardless.
Therefore locked bard must be penalized.

I just can't say I agree. If you prefer to use something inefficient you aren't entitled to having everyone else penalized.

It's like if someone entered the Tour de France on a fixed gear bike and then insisted all the other riders must wear lead weights on their feet.

 

I actually used to believe this about D&D, it's a common misconception. I got put right by a friend very simply one day. I complained that all the higher level encounters listed in the books had insanely powerful innate magicks, resistances, and requirements to kill them, such that only a wizard, or more realisitcally a party that contained one or more wizards could do it. I pointed out that wizards and, to a lesser extent, clerics could just PRODUCE magick each day, but fighters and rogues never could. He responded :

"The only reason magick is rare or hard to get for fighters and rogues is because your DM is doing it wrong. The books provide clear exchange rates for magick items, and even rules for making them, including exact prices. The more modern editions literally put the entire system in the hands of the players. A rogue is actually the strongest character type, because with a decent check on ONE SKILL the rogue can access and use anyone else's magick item. No skilled wizard or cleric runs around only using their own spells at high level, they have spell storage items, and the rogue is designed to acquire those IN COMBAT, and then immediately use them."

He then proceeded to make a fighter, equip him with items built from a fraction of the other players' gold reserves, and demonstrate near invincibility.

The point, that magick is only rare because the DM is doing it wrong, took me a while to digest. It makes sense though. WHY should magick be rare? What mechanism is limiting it?
Access to the power? (There are thousands of "New Britannians" running around using magick as I type, there doesn't seem to be a limit there.)
Punishment for use?(No anti-mage political or religious movement has shown it's face as far as *I* know of.)
Limits of it's power?(Since magick is the motus operandi and deus ex machina to almost every odd event IN New Britannia, as well as OLD Britannia, I don't think it's power is very limited.)
Consequences of using it?(Again, thousands of "New Britannians" are using magick as I type, with no apparent side effects, no weird cancers or fertility problems, birth defects, kidney issues, cardiac arrhythmia...)

There is no reason that I know of to consider magick RARE in this game. In fact, if this game world were truly allowed to evolve right now, as it is, there should be cottage industries springing up right and left that use magick as a basic building block. Fire mages at the bakeries and smithies, water and earth and sun mages in the farms, wind mages arranging transport and communication systems between cities... there's nothing to stop it.

So why should we call magick rare?

 

OP is pretty much as incorrect as anyone could feasibly be. If anything, there needs to be more consumption and destruction of assets and money, in general, if there is to be any semblance of an economy.

 

You call it rare depending on the type of world/universe.

None-
Low-
Mid-
High-

Are effectively prefixes for the word Magic. D&D is definitely a HIGH magic universe, however, within it, there are pockets of low and mid level magic worlds.

Something like Middle-Earth, believe it or not, is considered low magic. Same for GoT aka the Seven Kingdoms.

Ebberron is an excellent example of high amounts of low level magic, and that is within a D&D universe.

The question is really: What is Novia considered to be? High? Low? What about the continent we start on? etc...

None of that has been explicitly defined, per se, the book does a healthy dose to put it squarely at MID for now --

 

Unfortunately, that's exactly the kind of vague sophistry that causes so many people to think that giving +1 items to a 5th level adventuring party is unreasonable. The only prefix of those you've suggested that MEANS anything is none, (also the one that cannot be used as is without arousing the dire vengeance of the grammar-nazis).
Low-magick could mean ANYTHING, depending on your personal definition of low. Likewise mid and high are subject to interpretation. It all comes back to the DM, GM, Ref, Storyteller, Shaman, Computer, Devs, or whatever else you are calling the guys in charge. What do THEY think should be the magick level of the universe they are running?

Once again, for a standard of reference relevant to SotA, I use SotA. We have budding mages running around EVERYWHERE. Every single player has Focus and Talent Points, the fundamental ingredients needed for spellcasting. If reagents are needed at all, then they generally GROW OUT OF THE GROUND, unbidden even! So in New Britannia, the potential for magick is everywhere. Why then should we arbitrarily declare it to be rare? Every new player character introduced increases the already abundant supply of fireball hurling, dead raising, air-shield making, would be wizards.

Once again, I submit that SotA is not a world in which magick is rare!

 

Fair enough; however =p

I did give example realms/worlds, and those are considered to be solid exemplars of what its means low or high magic.

Of course that requires said DM/GM to actually want to read, and employ those mechanics.

As you said, it is really up to the creator of the "universe" to decide.

Which just re-emphasizes the question as to what R.G. has decided this world is in terms of magic. I agree, it sure as heck don't feel like a low magic world when everyone is flinging light sources and personal protection shields all over the place.


That should be echoed in the cost of reagents and the true power of magic.

Of which I think the power part sucks (currently) and the reagent part should only be augmentation given the existing focus invocation magic that abounds.

I thought R.G. had said verbal components would exist at some point.

We certainly have a broken material component (reagent) system already and no one ever does somatic well.

Here is another one for yas: Are we going to have dweomer for items? Will we be able to see such auras?

 

Absolutely spot on. We're already putting the economy at a massive disadvantage with flagged-PvP and random loot. We don't need to put the nail in the coffin by removing a key mechanism like reagent consumption.

 

Reagents aren't at all an effective method of removing resources from the economy.

They come from an NPC and are purchased with gold. So the only thing they remove from the game is gold, which effectively means if players simply got less gold to begin with you'd end up with exactly the same effect. On top of that, reducing the gold supply in a game does nothing to regulate the player economy anyways, since prices adjust with availability of currency.

The primary mechanic for taking gold and resources out of the economy should be the housing system, and if PvP was to play a more major role in it then it should be over some kind of sovereignty system where your conquests actually allow you to rule some land.

Spending resources should be about progress, not upkeep. Excessive focus on upkeep just turns an MMO into a job.

 

I would LOVE to see this, as it increases options for character design. It allows those who want to be completely physical to compete in environments that require certain magicks.

It's worth noting that if the devs want to maintain a certain game balance then allowing the players to enchant their own equipment with dweomers, whether permanent or temporary, will be a HUGE issue. It should be considered ASAP, and integrated well in advance of finalizing what the spells actually do.

Adding on item enchantment after the game system is mostly or completely balanced will have DRASTIC impact.

 

Personally I enjoy the reagents, the cost is way to high to buy them and arrows. Once again I refer back to UO, 2 gold per reagent and a few closer to 5 gold isn't bad but 20 per is insane. Also the cost of arrows should be dropped significantly

 

My thought, is than they want to make the combat more realistic and immersive. A high level mage build should have a lot of focus, so FOR ME, is meaningless still complaining about 7 of focus cost plus 50% than is 10/11 of cost... Try to imagine yourself in a real combat... if you don't have practice, you try something you know spontaneously, is hard to keep focus when adrenalin boiling on your blood, but when you get experience, is easiest to maintain that focus on many things you know how and when use... We are getting an opportunity to test something new, maybe we should see how it goes with the long of time.( sorry for my english )

 

Seriously... people are so eager to make things "fair"... For me all this complaining is just a matter of try to equalise strength for all because someone can't learn how to use well that system, than is very interesting, immersive and realistic. Law of nature my dear mates, if you are good, you will be well done, if don't, you can get better or change game. I'm loving how depends of you to be good on this game, unlike many others poor games than those people who are so unhappy with that system could like.

 

As far as I'm concerned immersion and realism are only meaningfully achieved through interactive systems. Clicking a button to cast a spell isn't any more or less real depending on whether it eats mana or drains some resource. Shooting a gun in an FPS feels real and engaging because you have to aim it, lead the shot, compensate for recoil, manage reloads. It's this constant tapping into the players skill, reaction, spacial awareness and precission that makes the activity engaging and fun. In order for magic to feel real it would have to create a constant challenge to the players concentration, knowledge and creativity. That simply can't be achieved by simply adding a number to how many spells you're allowed to cast.

 

You call it penalizing, I call it challenging. A challenge that is far more satisfying.

What you want is your basic entitlement MMO. You want players able enter the Tour de France on the first day they learn to use the bike instead of actually learning, training and mastering competitive bike racing.

 

I guess I just don't find buying things from a vendor challenging in any way. The only quality someone needs to acquire a big stack of reagents is not having anything better to do than grind for them.

I'd much rather have a system where getting good at magic actually requires some skill and knowledge, but I guess as long as people see buying items as a valid substitute we can't have that.

Also, I want an entitlement MMO? You're the one who wants to pin all the depth of magic on a system that you can't actually get good at.

 

For magic, I want all of the above including whether you pay a premium to purchase reagents or become skilled at farming/collecting them. Also it means more JOBS for players who are adept at farming/collecting reagents.

 

I honestly can't think of a single MMO where a heavy emphasis on farming materials does anything positive for the game. All it ever does is swamp the game with botters and gold sellers while turning away a lot of people who don't want to spend their limited time in a game with doing menial labor.