Magic experience - a very simple wish

[Zan]

This is something ridiculously simple but my search and memory didn\'t show me it has been talked about before. I might not have looked hard enough but I\'ll risk stating something unoriginal anyway.

I know balancing of magic is coming up but I hope it won\'t be a balancing of magic effects or training alone.

Suppose you would like to roleplay a peaceful healer or a mage that only supports his or her comrades in battle, then you have one major problem. Namely, no source of experience unless you pick up a side-job.

Simple solution: Make non-offensive spells, or maybe even all spells generate a bit of experience when cast succesfully. It only makes sense that a mage learns through every spell they cast, just like a miner learns with every thing he digs up and a fighter learns from every foe he kills.

I feel this would easily raise the effectivity of mages, maybe not by that much but it would definitely make a difference.

*waits patiently for a \"Duh!\" responce from the devs now*

[ThomPhoenix]

Getting experience from casting makes sense, you should at least get experience if you fail to cast, because you learn from your mistakes.

[Araye]

You also learn from your successes.  \"Hey! That worked!\"

As for the unoriginal thought, I just wait for DaveG or Kary to spot it and close my thread.

Araye

just teasing you two.....

[Karyuu]

:P

Healing or pacifist magic will definitely need to give experience - and not only that, I would love to have such characters actually be needed with time. There is always a demand for brute force, but rarely is there a real reason for and strong necessity of healers and supporting mages. I hope that in the future such paths will be worthwhile to pursue for those who want some of the action.

[Nikodemus]

It somethink so obvious and should definetly go ingame.
This make me wonder about normal combat. We should gain experience each hit, not after successfull kill.

But i suppose there are reasons why it has been done this way? It wasn\'t like that it the first days of CB.

[dfryer]

A key component of gaining things like experience is some measurable risk or effort.  The better we can evaluate these things (and protect against grinding exploits) the better we can assign fair experience to healers, support casters, alchemists, smiths, brewmeisters etc.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Karyuu


Healing or pacifist magic will definitely need to give experience - and not only that, I would love to have such characters actually be needed with time. There is always a demand for brute force, but rarely is there a real reason for and strong necessity of healers and supporting mages. I hope that in the future such paths will be worthwhile to pursue for those who want some of the action.

i)  Make it so that when players attack in groups, they get more experience than normal.

ii)  Make it so that you can only drink a potion every 3 seconds (or so).

iii)  Create healing spells which can be cast at distance.

iv)  Have at least one healing spell which can heal a significant amount of life in a short period of time.


That would probably do it.




On magic casters in general:

I agree that you should be able to specialize in magic.  I think that this is important to have.  I also think that learning magic should be a long term endeavor, thus requiring specialization, but it should also have huge pay offs.

That is:  It takes longer to be good at magic than it does to be good with weapons, and the payoff with magic is greater than with weapons alone.

I know there are other people who agree with me.







Karyuu, do you know where the dev team is taking magic, and how their plan and concept compares to the one I described?

[Karyuu]

Originally posted by zanzibar
i)  Make it so that when players attack in groups, they get more experience than normal.

Interesting suggestion - I rather like it.

Karyuu, do you know where the dev team is taking magic, and how their plan and concept compares to the one I described?

No idea at the moment, mainly because there are other things going on that demand more attention from the team I think.

[Zan]

Originally posted by Karyuu


Healing or pacifist magic will definitely need to give experience - and not only that, I would love to have such characters actually be needed with time. There is always a demand for brute force, but rarely is there a real reason for and strong necessity of healers and supporting mages. I hope that in the future such paths will be worthwhile to pursue for those who want some of the action.

I think a large part of the problem of healers not being needed right now is that the healing spell we have can be learned by anyone relatively easily. As long as every fighter can heal him/herself just as well as a mage can, there is no use for any \'hardcore\' healers.

This is one of the downsides of an open skill system, where everyone can become everything they want. People can also become one-man armies with a lethal fighter, stealthy thief and cunning mage all in one character there is no need for much teamwork.

[dfryer]

i) Make it so that when players attack in groups, they get more experience than normal.

Personally I prefer the \"When players attack alone, they die\" approach.   I think that rewarding certain behaviours with experience bonuses will lead to \"Hey let\'s group up for MORE EXP!!111\"  And then, if they didn\'t need healers while solo, how much more will they need them in a group?  I don\'t see the added \"experience\" that beating on the same monster with more swords would give.

I would prefer to see healing magic or potions to be something needed by anyone who is planning on being away from town for a while - perhaps encouraged by reduced or limited HP recovery, or a more in-depth body damage/malus system where you need the attention of a skilled healer in order to clear up the usual adventuring maladies (severed limbs, strange curses, the Venom Of Pure Madness, whatever).  Chugging down a potion every few seconds just doesn\'t work for me somehow (even if that\'s how the system works now)