Already underpowered magic has become even weaker

[Erisnas]

War= Outwit, outlast, outlive.

Ignoring the fact that is taken from the Survivor TV series, you will always get people who do no necessarily abuse it but do use what they can!
And when all else fails there is RP an fragmented logic!  Maybe you actually did fire an arrow through a wall but you can say it went over it.  Or that the magic has the ability to go through it.  And even if you do abuse it if you win the war and get banned you can always say you won the war, downplaying the Ban.
  Another thing is that you will never be able to stop people who are really good at the abusing they do, since no matter what you do they will find a error.  But after enough training there is nothing like good old POWNAGE! 

[Allive]

ive fought in a few wars anyone remmember the sapere magi vs outlaws [and no i wasnt there at the end i was out just before the magi started to lose] and the demorian lord one [ok once again i didnt fight in the last battle bad lag and work but i was there for the end and they really didnt need me in the end]. im a mage warrior and me myself have demolished many a guild almost single handedly in those times. the one with the outlaws i used both sword and magic and i was almost the one one standing on every assualt. put simply anyone that knows how to use magic or a sword correctly can do a lot of dmg adeing them both intogether and makeing them compliment each other makes you even stronger and you just dominate more. its not about exploiting or being lame and the call that only crystal way and dark way are usefull is so wrong there is work going on to balance it more and now without energie arrow fireing from half the landscape away this just makes it more noticable that that statement is just wrong. all spells have there uses if known how to use them correctly not just one or the other even things such are defensive wind and rock armour have there place.

[zanzibar]

anyone that knows how to use magic or a sword correctly can do a lot of dmg... its not about exploiting or being lame

Correct.  It's not about using exploits.  It's about using exploits to be leet.  Without the leetness, there's no point.

[Allive]

no i see no exploits in useing magic even if it dose pass through objects andfer all it is magic and saying it being elite i would say no again. how are we suppose to know how magic works theres no such thing as magic in real life. and you will most likely find real life to be even more strange it is possible for energy to pass through solid objects even in real life its possible for a strong man to pull a firtruck along its possible to use a stalk of wheat as an arrow in real life. that being said i think you will agree real life is strange. no magic dosent exist so how strange do you think it is now and how can you even begin to think you know how magic works instead you call it exploiting wwere i have never seen it stated magic canoot do this or should not.

[Induane]

No i see no exploits in using magic even if it does pass through solid objects. It is magic after all! I would also have to disagree with the statement that it is an elite skill.  In addition, how are we suppose to know how magic really works as in real life there is no such thing as true magic?  If you examine real life you'd most likely find it to be even more strange.  Energy is able to pass through seemingly solid objects and strong men can pull firetrucks.  heck, you can use a stack of straw for an arrow in real life.  That being said, I think its evident that real life is plenty strange.  Its difficult to call its behavior exploitative considering its bizarre nature in general. 

Couldn't help it!

* Induane preps for the cursed and incoming smiting.

[Zan]

I'd like to point this issue out again ...

*Nudges Xordan*

With the new changes, especially the increase in NPC toughness, the difference between magic and weapon combat becomes even more striking and is still in dire need of balancing out.

Example:

I have 36 strength and 8 melee skill, I kill a rat in about 10 seconds without much damage to myself.

I have 90 intelligence, 76 charisma and 10 crystal way skill ... my mana runs out long before I can even kill a rat with summoning missiles. It takes me over a minute to kill the bugger, with the slider positioned so I have a low failure rate. With an increased failure rate it will only take me longer because the damage hardly increases.

Conclusion: at low levels all magic, except for the healing kind is utterly useless.

[zanzibar]

no i see no exploits in useing magic even if it dose pass through objects andfer all it is magic and saying it being elite i would say no again. how are we suppose to know how magic works theres no such thing as magic in real life. and you will most likely find real life to be even more strange it is possible for energy to pass through solid objects even in real life its possible for a strong man to pull a firtruck along its possible to use a stalk of wheat as an arrow in real life. that being said i think you will agree real life is strange. no magic dosent exist so how strange do you think it is now and how can you even begin to think you know how magic works instead you call it exploiting wwere i have never seen it stated magic canoot do this or should not.

Hey, I'm on your side in this!  Like you, I think we should do anything the game allows us to do if it gives us an advantage.

[Farren Kutter]

First off.... Alliva, how do you know there is no magic? ;-)

And now to the point...

Magic, based on its rules, technically should not be able to go through walls. Well, aside from by destroying the wall of course. Firstly, for magic to work correctly you have to know where to aim/cast, and unless you can see through walls, not really gonna be able to see the target. Secondly, the energy, if it passed through solids, would pass through your target as well. Saying it will only work on living things is total crap for projectile spells at least.

Magic should be very hard to learn and should take a long time. It should be very weak at first, but quickly get stronger. I saw some magic wand things in the PS art folder I think. Perhaps these can be made to help with different things...? Such as accuracy, strength, etc. And maybe separate ones for separate ways. Dunno, bout that part, but it is a possibility.

Also, training magic and intelligence should decrease combat skills and stats. Which also goes the other way around. Related but slightly off topic, the same should go within the combat stats. Training strength should limit your agility. I mean, big muscular guys are not going to be as on balance and quick moving, nor quite as mobile. I mean, take Arnold for example. In Conan the Barbarian I think it was, he had to lose muscle mass to hold the sword above his head

The main problem seems to be getting PP for training magic. Maybe the PP requirements should be lowered very greatly, or taken away completely for magic, at least until higher levels. Money is easily taken care of by RPing the 'master and apprentice' thing. The master would be much more powerful and be able to earn money, and spare it to his apprentice. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if they intend to include the ability for players to train other players, because right now, training with the NPC and doing the 'master and apprentice' thing doesn't work as well except perhaps with training for combat usage techniques.

[Outrageous fortune]

I mean, big muscular guys are not going to be as on balance and quick moving, nor quite as mobile.

There are a lot of big, muscular guys who are very agile and very good at balance. Balance is a skill, not a physical ability related to size (also, bigger guys tend to have bigger feet). Not so sure about kran though...

[zanzibar]

Also, training magic and intelligence should decrease combat skills and stats. Which also goes the other way around. Related but slightly off topic, the same should go within the combat stats. Training strength should limit your agility. I mean, big muscular guys are not going to be as on balance and quick moving, nor quite as mobile.

Wrong on all counts.

[Farren Kutter]

No, not wrong. Big guys who are BORN big are good like that because that is their natural proportion. Guys who aren't born that way and get that way by bulking up their natural body size have horrible balance and such.My body structure is medium-sized. If I lifted and all until I had a heavy body structure, I would have a horrible balance and speed mixture. Big bulky guys can't move as well because their arms are to big to move in certain ways. Such as my conan example

[CrazyYlian]

"Also, training magic and intelligence should decrease combat skills and stats. Which also goes the other way around. Related but slightly off topic, the same should go within the combat stats. Training strength should limit your agility."

No, I don't see this.  In fact that kind of defeats the whole point of training in the first place.  If you want that, then just define in character creation how your attributes are going to be inter-related and forget training altogether.

Some people are quite able to do more than one thing well.  The primary limiting factor is the time it takes to develop the skills. The game already handles this, since you have to train, which takes time.  No one is going to have high physical (combat) skills AND high magic skills in a hurry.  Those who have both will have worked at it. 

But back to the original topic... yes, magic seems to be underpowered in comparison to physical.  I imagine that the devs have something in mind for how this will ultimately all balance out, but currently, training in magic does seem to be much ado about very little.

[zanzibar]

Brains and brawn are not mutually exclusive.

[neko kyouran]

I believe this thread is a good spot for the following....

Since many users do not look at the change log, I thought I should point this particular fix out.  Things may be unbalanced and there are bugs, but progress is always ongoing.

- Fix bug #985: players couldn't loot when killing via a DoT spell.  The
  HP update routines don't know who the attacker is, so they can't supply one.
  In this case, it now looks in the DamageHistory for the most recent DoT entry.

As soon as this gets rolled out to the server, you all have fun using those ever so fun black clouds of death spells to torment and torture your enemy while watching their life slowly tick away until death greets them.  And now, you'll be able to loot that corpse.