PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Timmothy Perriwinkle on May 31, 2009, 05:32:49 am
-
Here begins another whiner post. Enjoy.
So basically, I just got finished ranting on IRC about all the magic users in Planeshift annoying the hell out of me. So I'll just go ahead and list of the things I'm whining about.
Firstly, the obnoxious amount of types of magic. You'll just be walking about the sewers or nonsense and random character will come out and basically RP realm 4 spells in at least 3-4 different ways. Wtf, is all I can say. Magic is supposed to be just that--Magic. It isn't supposed to be a universal thing that everyone knows, nor is it supposed to be like trading cards (GOTTA COLLECT 'EM ALL GUYS).
Next, it's the age-old stats backing RP argument. Honestly, I'm completley neutral on this. You have the stats to back it, good for you. If not, I'll still take it. The key here is regarding settings. Like the above point, even moreso when you have NO training to back it, don't RP that you're a master of every way. Ash Ketchum has been training Pokemon for what, 12 years now? And his Pikachu can still get beat up in battle by an ordinary trainer. The show wouldn't be interesting if his Pikachu was level 9001 and annihilated everything all the time by knowing every attack ever.
Lastly, I'd just like to say, because everyone likes magic, it's honestly a lot of fun to RP with combat, but the point is it's supposed to be a challenge, for you especially. If you insist on using magic, learn one way. Just one. Don't say, "Oh I'll use a spell from here and there". No, just learn one, and it's even more fun finding the weaknesses and strengths of said way and creatively applying it with other combat in order to defeat the megaevils o/. Honestly, IMHO, if everyone that was megapwn in seven ways (that's right. I'm sure someone has RPd being a master of seven ways) simply downsized to being mediocre to strong in a single way, everything would be more fun.
That's basically it. The purpose of this isn't really to invoke discussion about this, it's more to just say to a few key people whom particularly annoy me with above issues. Rather than single them out I hope they read this, and most importantly, stoppit.
-
Well, according to the settings, Talad gave the people of Yliakum glyphs in order to make their lives easier. I suspect that everyone knows a little magic, even if it's simple spells like starting a cooking fire or seeing on a dark path at night. I would enjoy seeing simple spells added to the game. Perhaps even spells that have no effect save for a visual one.
I think what you're describing can be called godmoding, if they're claiming to have magical abilities that they don't actually possess. The alternative is that they're roleplaying characters who are dishonest braggarts, which is also a genuine possibility.
Hopefully in the future, you'll have to pick and choose which ways to excel in. Being limited to specific quest paths won't accomplish this since people can always buy glyphs from other players. Making training exceptionally hard won't accomplish this either since we have players who are exceptionally good at grinding levels. But I'm sure some creative solution will be found in the future.
-
Honestly, in my eyes anyway, this problem doesn't require a "creative solution". Players just need to realize that they're ruining the fun of others and most probably themselves by godmodding magic. Code changes won't fix anything with the issue of players RPing that they can do uber magics in all seven ways without any training in any of the six. It's solely on the player to fix this issue and that was the point of this post, because I'd hoped that the message would get out to a few key people who set the example that it's okay to do this to the youg'uns.
-
Here is a thought, when you are running around the sewer you are in the realm of the black flame and you mught well consider it as running into madmen. Certainly no self respecting powerful mage wanders through the muck if he can help it.
-
I thought we'd all agreed not to whine and all get along.
-
I thought we'd all agreed not to whine and all get along.
We did. In fact I think we agree to it every six months or so. :)
-
And Pikachu sucks
-
Well I hope you are not moaning about players like Janner and helpful sorts that go in there to help new by healing them, so they can get what they need faster and safer.
-
I do agree that often the magic RP can get a little out of hand, and setting boundaries makes it immensely more fun. But since there is no way to guarantee that every player will limit themselves, the only way to find people to RP with is to experiment and ignore anyone you think makes themselves too powerful. Read character descriptions as well. Some people are mages. Its what they do. They have a right to be powerful. Some are swordsman and will not be as strong in magic.
For my own character, I made him a weapons expert, so I decided that since he trained with blades most of his life, his magic should not be godlike. So while he could probably outmatch most with a sword, he is not gonna use Dark Way to obliterate you. But since magic is practiced to some degree by everyone, I figured he might know some crystal way at least to heal himself after a battle. Again, not a crystal way expert, but just enough to serve his purpose. As a smithy, he knows a little red way, but again he's not going to win a battle solely with fire spells.
So for anyone RPing magic, think how it fits in their lives and see the degree they'd use each way. And its ok to be a master magician with super powerful spells, but be fair...if you've studied magic that much you should not also be a master axeman.
And one final suggestion that I found made things fair as well...if you do use magic, it takes time to charge, so depending on the power of your characters spell, make a rule for yourself that if you are gonna pull out the SUPERDEATHRAYHADOUKEN spell, it may take a few seconds to charge up, giving your opponent the opportunity to either duck, dodge, counter-attack, or become a deer in headlights and shout "OH NOOOOOOO!!!!" before a messy and painful death.
-
Magic in PS is like Tools in real life. They are exactly that in PS, Tools. Each Glyph or Glyph combo does a certain thing, like a tool. Yes, you can use a tool for something it is not intended for, like using a screwdriver for a prybar, but it is still similar in nature.
So, why compare glyphs to wrenches and hammers? Just as with tools in real life, anyone can pick up a basic glyph (as compared to a power drill or impact hammer) in PS and learn to use it with a little effort. Magic is nothing special in PS. Many are just simple tools. They have a purpose. Pick one up and pull the trigger and they power up and do what they were designed to do.
Combining glyphs makes more complex spells, just as combining tools makes more complex machines, like lawnmowers, guns, and cars. Almost any person can be taught in time to use more complex machines. The same goes for glyphs. But the same rules apply. Once you 'start' the spell, it does as it was intended. Daemion Arrows makes arrows that always fly out the same, a car drives when you push the peddle. Same concept, same dangers if you do it wrong.
Higher level magic can be compared to more an more complex machines. CNC lathes, Space shuttles, VCR clocks, etc. But they still only do what they were designed to do. A n-th level Dark Way master can't make a Glyph do other than it was intended any more than a Shuttle pilot could reenter orbit in a way the craft was not intended, or use it as a micron microscope.
In the same respect, without the tools that make a Craftsman a Craftsman in real life, he can not do his craft. A Mage without his glyphs has NO power. You can not pound nails with your bare hands. You can not fly into orbit without a Shuttle, no matter how good a pilot you are.
To sum up: You can not do magic without the glyphs. You can not do magic the glyph was not specifically designed to do. Magic does not make your eyes change color or glow, especially red.
-
Hehe can i post now?
Magic/Magery is hard sought, hard earned. Only a few true mages. The balance is right. in terms of magery. Some of the spells are being worked on to right the wrongs.
But essentailly Mages are Contrite & arrogant - They can be.
-
Hehe can i post now?
Magic/Magery is hard sought, hard earned. Only a few true mages. The balance is right. in terms of magery. Some of the spells are being worked on to right the wrongs.
But essentailly Mages are Contrite & arrogant - They can be.
Hmm. How does it follow that one should be arrogant? I'm not saying you're right or wrong, I just don't see how you got from A to B on that one. RPing an arrogant character has caused me trouble in the past so I tend to avoid it these days.
-
As far as Kaerli goes...she is a generalist when it comes to magic, albeit not a great mage. Her goal is this: know at least one offensive spell in each Way...she's already two-thirds of the way there! And, dealing with Glyphs and other things:
a) if magic outside the realm of the Glyphs doesn't exist, why is it illegal?
b) Kaerli (for more reasons than one) tends to be somewhat resistant to the effects of spells (she's not immune to them naturally, it just takes quite a bit of work to bring her down). Between that and her VERY aggressive (you'll see this in RPduels mostly, due to the b0rked-ness of combat WRT PvP atm) fighting style, she can bring down a mage by disrupting most of his casts and taking or dodging what few slip through.
Advice to mages: 1) don't be suprised if people pick on you while you are trying to get a spell off :)
2) don't use an ub3rspell, because such things often don't turn out to be so ub3r after all :p
3) You shouldn't be able to tell that someone is a mage by looking at them, unless they are one of those crazy folk who put their Glyphs on display...
-
The other gods have magic, and they were using magic before Talad made the glyphs. So glyphs without magic must be possible on some level, even if it requires that you are a god. Unless the gods are using glyphs as well.
-
3) You shouldn't be able to tell that someone is a mage by looking at them, unless they are one of those crazy folk who put their Glyphs on display...
I beg to differ. Mages always have ways of being noticed. Whether carrying a staff rather than a weapon, wearing simple or elaborate cloaks rather than armour, a notable amount of literature hanging out of a pocket or backsack....
There's always the tell-tale wand too.
-
3) You shouldn't be able to tell that someone is a mage by looking at them, unless they are one of those crazy folk who put their Glyphs on display...
I beg to differ. Mages always have ways of being noticed. Whether carrying a staff rather than a weapon, wearing simple or elaborate cloaks rather than armour, a notable amount of literature hanging out of a pocket or backsack....
There's always the tell-tale wand too.
You sure as heck would completely overlook Alliva then! He's one of the best mages Kaerli's ever known, that's for sure!
That...and what I meant by "putting your Glyphs on display" encompasses what you mentioned too...in a metaphorical sense that is :)
Translation: Mages can stand out like sore thumbs if they want to, but they sure as heck don't have to. Alliva wears full plate and carries swords and axes with him...no big stack o' papers, either. Maanhar can be spied with papers and parchments all the time, but he sure as heck isn't a magic wielder! (He's a cartographer, actually)
-
I kind of question the use of the word mages in all of this... to me, a mage is someone who would specialize in using magic. But every advanced magic user I've met is also a master of arms.
-
Thats because its very difficult to be a mage with out first being a person who uses weapons to fight (warrior) or anything else for that matter you have to be a warriot to become anything else, even if for just a short time.
-
I agree from game mechanics point of view; simply because you literally can not kill anything with magic in the beginning (correct me if Im wrong). That means; I simply can not become a mage without having used (not advanced in) a weapon or melee.
Apart from game mechanics I'd welcome mages who are not so talented in 'bodily' fighting.
Sen
-
Unless the concept of mana is going to disappear from PS...I think it's unwise to have a pure magic user anyway for one simple reason: What'cha gonna do if all you can do is cast spells and yer outta mana?
-
drink a pot or 50
-
drink a pot or 50
Well...guzzling mana pots is one option...albeit not a pretty one.
/me looks at the mess on the youthful mage's shirt.
-
With a low level mage there are a few key problems 1) You cant kill anything with any effectivity. You are better off attacking with level 0 melee than magic 2) You run out WILL run out of mp. Mp drains faster than Physical Stamina does when fighting. A spell takes more Mp than an attack takes Stamina and it does less damage, mp also regenerates slower. 3) if you are a mage you will have a low End and Str at the begining of the game. This makes most armor useless and also makes it hard to kill things 4) magic is expensive it cost alot and does not repay you till much later. Like i said low level magic cant kill anything well so you will be training in somthing that will be useless for a while.
Correct me if im wrong on any of these points
-
I suspect that magic will be radically different in the future. Mana might even be eliminated from the mechanics.
-
3) You shouldn't be able to tell that someone is a mage by looking at them, unless they are one of those crazy folk who put their Glyphs on display...
I beg to differ. Mages always have ways of being noticed. Whether carrying a staff rather than a weapon, wearing simple or elaborate cloaks rather than armour, a notable amount of literature hanging out of a pocket or backsack....
There's always the tell-tale wand too.
True and if a mage wants to be noticed then there are ways to do that. There is a Red Way spell that makes you very noticable. And to go back to the origanal topic it takes alot of work to be good at one way much less all of them dont roleplay what your not. If you do have all the ways mastered then great feel free to roleplay that you do. but if yuo only know the most basi spells then dont pretend to be a master mage, its just stupid to do so,a and keep in mind your character can and more likely thant not will. change
-
Lets asume the magicuser is wearing normal clothes keeps his study material at home and only has a glyphsack under his clothing.
Magic desn't need a wand or a staff so how do you recognize one? How do you know he isn't simply a scribe working for the octarchy?
As for the magic user being useless at low levels I agree, but isn't that realistic aswell? I think it would require more study to effectively use how to focus your energy then how to swim your sword.
-
Discussions about how to realistically implement magic are kind of odd when you think about them. :)
-
hmm depends how you clasify realistic. If magic would exist it would have rules. The reason a lot of fantasy novels fail is becuase the magic doesn't make sence. If magic is all powerfull one minute and can't do anything the other minute it's not realistic in my eyes.
Same goes for novels where magic is so powerfull that every problem gets solved with it. You start to wonder why they just didn't use magic earlier and why they made such a fuss over something that is sollved so easily.
In PS the setting tells us a bit about how magic works, also ingame we know how hard it is to train and what the effects are. That means magic in PS isn't something anymore where everything is possible.
-
Realistic magic? Anyway almost everyone will know SOME magic even if its just a Cyrstal way healing spell. I hope that there ae more non-combat spells added. Like magic light, or create food, or anythign like that would be great.
-
The problem with magic is that we see it as just that - magic. People in Yliakum, however, see magic as an everyday part of life, almost. We, as players (and I suppose as Yliakumites, too) don't know the limits of magic - what you're "allowed" to do, and what you're not...where your boundaries are, how far you can go with it, what you can do with it. If there was a glyph to make someone explode from the inside, it would seem perfectly natural for the people of Yliakum, but for us, it isn't realistic in the least.
Where's the problem I mentioned earlier? The problem is, glyphs seem to have no real limit. They can do anything that they're designed for, but there's only a "line" that can't be crossed because there may or may not be a glyph for the desired person-exploding effect. Therefore, people create their own spells outside of the glyphs in order to get their desired effect. Is the effect realistic? To them, yes, to us, no. In order for magic to seem realistic, there needs to be more of an explanation, more of a design scheme, than just "it's a glyph, it's a tool, you use it, no more questions".
What I'm saying is, when people are limited to just glyphs, they feel like they should be able to do more, therefore...they do. They create their own rules to make up for the lack of rules ingame so far, and try to explain to people "my character can create a hole in the ground by using mana to..."...hope you get my point.
Edit: Now that I've read a few posts... :P
To implement magic, you need to quit looking at it as magic. To us, like I explained earlier, magic isn't realistic. To the people in the world where you're trying to implement this magic, it is. Therefore, instead of calling it magic, call it something else, and give it rules where "okay, you can create a fireball, but you can't make your eyes turn red", "okay, you can make the sky rain fire, but you can't condense someone into a tiny ball of flesh".
"Magic" needs rules and limits in order to work logically in a game, especially a roleplaying game. I really don't see many rules for Planeshift's magic; it seems to be able to do everything, but only if there's a glyph. Glyphs themselves don't have much explanation, since Talad suddenly creates all of these weird little objects that can make thorns stick out of your skin or water circulate your body...why? And something else I noticed with PS - when questions about magic are asked, they're answered with "it's magic!" (see Levrus); if that's the case, magic seems even more unrealistic to the people of Yliakum than it does to us, and if that's the case (with no real effort being made to understand it), then that's...well, fail.
And yes, I ramble on a lot. I type what comes to mind, so I hope it's legible.
-
There do need to be rules, otherwise people run around casting Ubersuperultradeath spells on people and expecting them to just /die
-
Try casting /ignore :sorcerer:
-
Let's equate 'magic' in PS to a few things in modern times.
A: Gravity. There is no doubt that gravity exists, and people use tools designed to utilize gravity with the push of a button. However, there is not one single person on this planet who actually knows what gravity is. There are guesses and theories, and many things that say "gravity does this", but nothing that says for certain "gravity IS this". In modern times, gravity is our magic. People use it to make tools, but no one can make gravity.
B: Computer programs. This one is a little closer to how magic works in PS with your characters. Think of Glyphs as an installation and program disc (needs the original disc in the machine while running). Without a computer to install to and run the program, or without the original disc, it does nothing. The Races act as the 'computers' in this case, activating the program and running it. Note here that your characters are like old computers with hardwired hardware, and you would exist as ONLY that computer. You can 'upgrade' them to a certain point through software upgrades (training), but only to that certain point. Once you are to that point, your computer is maxed, that is it. No hardware upgrades (unless you want to try to 'power down and unplug' ((kill)) your character and have a god try to install new hardware ;D ). You may also not image the disc to your HD, as no matter how much you upgrade your computer/character, it will not have enough 'memory' to hold the image. The disc is always needed.
Once you have the glyph/disc/program installed, it does what it is intended to do, no more, no less. The program disc is unhackable/unchangeable. Flame Spire is hardcoded to surround you with flames. It will not surround anything else with flames. Arrow is hardcoded to fly from you to a living enemy. It can not be used to break down doors.
As just a character/computer, you do not have the ability to produce the Glyph/discs. You are not designed to do so. You need to be something with far more power, such as a production factory (aka, a god) with the tools and ability to create the discs.
You may not cast the Ubersuperultradeath unless you have the factory made Ubersuperultradeath disc and your software has been upgraded to that disc's level.
As to understanding what magic is and why it does what it does, go back to example A: Gravity. Why does magic do magic? Because it is magic. Why does gravity affect things the way it does? Because it is gravity.
-
The resdents of Yilakum know that magic exsits. They dont know what its is. They dont know why it does what it does. But they know it does. If they use a gylph they know that it will always be the same spell, 100% of the time. Example: they know that a Cold gylph will never cast a Fireball spell. Just like we know that gravity will work 100% of the time. They dont know the how, or why it does but they know it does.
-
Must... restrain... urge... to... discuss... electrogravitic theory... but UtM is spot on with that description. Gravity is magic.
-
The resdents of Yilakum know that magic exsits. They dont know what its is. They dont know why it does what it does. But they know it does. If they use a gylph to cast a spell the know that it will do whatever its supposed to do everytime, unless they are out of mana :D, 100% of the time. Just like we know that gravity will work 100% of the time. They dont know the how, or why it does but they know it does.
Never got a "You failed to cast <spell>" System Message before?
-
True True ;D you got me there. But it should wokr about 80% of the time at least at 0% it does hit most of the time
Changed the comment :thumbup:
-
As a new PS player, whose magic extends as far as 'giving a rat a light toasting', I ask -
Does this Ubermegadeathwotsit spell actually exist?
If it does - no worries - my character will suffer at the hands of a great magic user. Kudos to him/her.
If not, then surely he has met a Looney who runs around shouting 'Zap! You're Dead!' This person can then be ignored/hit with a sharp stick etc.
-
I think #3 is the closest ... Basically people who make roleplay difficult or unrealistic for others by seriously overstating their characters magical abilities. Zap-your-dead-guy would certainly fit into this category.
I think its worth mentioning that perhaps some level of tolerance/compromise/correction should be exercised - especially if dealing with less experienced players (like myself ) who are likely to make some mistakes as they learn.