Already underpowered magic has become even weaker

[Under the moon]

1 tria = about $0.50 (by my very rough figures)

But why the super high cost in money? Putting yourself through medical school for 10+ years in RL does not even cost one million. There is no reasonable reason I can discern for such outrageous costs for training.

Giving a real life Sword trainer $230,000 to train you to half of what you need to be considered a master is...

But as to the complaint, magic should be hard to learn (not high cost, though), and it should be hard to keep up. At anything below high levels, it should  be unreliable at best, and at low levels, be downright dismal to try to use.

On the other hand, if it does work (and you don't kill yourself) it should be very powerful, but always with a cost.

[ThomPhoenix]

Because I need to make progression better (020 I hope).
If you wanted a technical reason, it's because magic requires more 'book learning' and less 'practise learning' than sword.

Well, wouldn't that mean that magic would be more expensive than sword training money wise but cheaper PP wise? As you would need to spend lots of money on buying expensive and rare magic books. You would need less PP because as you say there's no need for "practicing with wooden swords". The PP requirement is still 3 times bigger than swords though.

You do say that you're going to make progression better though, but how are you planning to do this?

[Xordan]

PP is used for 'training' from trainers, which apparently is the same as book learning according to the powers that be.

As for making it better... hopefully I'll be able to overhaul it somewhat so it looks quite different to today. Not saying what's possibly planned yet though. I'll spill some secrets once I'm sure

[ThomPhoenix]

* ThomPhoenix is excited!

[zanzibar]

I tried to use an energy arrow spell today... and it wouldn't work. At first I thought the server had just crashed again. I mean, it had been up for a good 10 minutes and was due. But then I moved a few paces closer, and then the spell worked. It appears that the previously long-range, higher level Energy Arrow spell now must be fired from a very close range. What used to be one of the few useful spells is now moved to the pile of useless ones.

Advice to those new to Planeshift: don't waste your time training magic. Just power-level your sword and armor skill if you want to be a good fighter. Also, if you want to be a miner or craftsperson, train sword and armor too, because you'll need to kill lots and lots of monsters to get better at mining or crafting.

--< AC >--

You are correct.  Magic in PS has always been horribly underpowered or horribly abused with little inbetween.

Trying raising the power slider. You'll find that the spells' range and power increases.

No.  If you do that, the spell fails so often there's no point to it.

[Elvicat]

Trying raising the power slider. You'll find that the spells' range and power increases.

No.  If you do that, the spell fails so often there's no point to it.

actually if you stay under the level you are it works, say you have...  level 50 in crystalway you can put the bar at 40% or even 50% and it seems to hold

[zanzibar]

actually if you stay under the level you are it works, say you have...  level 50 in crystalway you can put the bar at 40% or even 50% and it seems to hold

I'll give you a moment to figure out the flaw in that.

[Elvicat]

say what you will it works so...
if you don't understand it thats your problem hmpf

[zanzibar]

say what you will it works so...
if you don't understand it thats your problem hmpf

What I understand is the game should be fun from the start, we aren't supposed to be able to max out our characters as quickly as we can currently, and a skill should be useful long before level 50.

[Elvicat]

wasn't trying to say that, what i was trying to say was that if you had level 50 and this is a example, and did't go any higher on the bar than 50% the fail rate usualy is less but go to 60% and it will fail more often
short version: stay 10% under your level in some magic and it should't fail, not very often anyway

[zanzibar]

Right.  Which means the slider is not a good solution.

[Mhyrage]

I think it's taking forever to max out anything on mine. I mean, sure, it can be easy to make money. Take a trip to the Oja gold mine. It can be easy to get PP, if you know the right monsters. If you consider how not everyone likes to do that constantly, and I will testify it does get quite boring after a while, it takes a decent amount of time to max characters if you ask me. I've been at it for maybe 2-4 weeks. I find it hard to believe I can make 100K, and then blow it in 10 minutes, and barely have raised a stat any more than 10-30 levels. 100K should be worth a lot more...I realize maxing isn't the point of the game but just the basic training shouldn't cost so much. It takes at least 200K to max the "easy" basic stats. I think when you're a newb that's a bit harsh. There's not much motivation to do much else for now. RP is fun, yeah, that's about it though. I want do some of everything, and with the quest system being so unpolished and magic so weak, etc, etc. It's kind of hard to do it without leveling up some stats/skills.

[Lanarel]

I met a poisoned carkarass last week. Hit it with a freeze spell. A fire ball, and another one. And another one. Did not hurt it that much so I thought I would use that powerful energy arrow. It only tickled it. So I put the power slider to 100%.  Tried again. It failed, but cost me at least as much mana. Tried again. Tried again. All my mana was gone soon, but the beast was still at 50% health or so, cause level 33 is clearly not enough to cast that spell with increased power. I took my frosty short (about level 30 in that too), it is worn to only 4/50 quality left. Hit the carkarass once. It died. I wonder if all the mining I am doing lately and those trips to the bronze doors (40 minutes one way) are worth it.

I am all for making magic somewhat exclusive, but isn't this exaggerating things a bit?

Mhyrage posted in the mean time. I think maxing a stat in 2-4 weeks should not be possible, even if you spent most of the time in a gold mine that gives you 12k in 10 minutes (not including trip to merchants) or nearby monsters that give 3000 pp in an evening of powerleveling (yes, I do that sometimes, while watching TV).  But when the 30k or so you spend on two levels in one of the 6 ways give you no feeling of progress at all (and the several levels before that neither) makes you wonder if it isnt better to not bother, and wait until magic is changed. I did search for Xordan's message of one year ago, that last summer magic would really change a lot. I could not find it, but I got a bit careful with getting hopes for big changes.
Not that I think Xordan is not doing enough, but I do not think magic changed much in a positive way in the last year.


 

[Mhyrage]

Oh no, I'm fine with it taking longer than 2-4 weeks. After all it is MAXING. I just think the training system sucks. I mean honestly, when you first start out with your measly 60-110 strength...it shouldn't take much to train it. When you get to 125-150, it should take a decent bit, and maybe at 175 area it should start to become ridiculous. On the other hand, when you start out with 0-12 in a weapons skill, it's already quite ridiculous. It goes from 10 to 80 PP to train it, that's not that bad. Except for you're till quite weak with it shouldn't take that much. Still, not that bad. 10 to 80 though can be a lot when weapons training is expensive. If it keeps going at that rate it will be quite annoying.They should tone down the exponential rate of skills just a bit, and add/tone up some stats exponential rates. I hope they make things trained by use in the future. Aka intelligence from reading, endurance from getting hit too much etc. Honestly does it make more sense to pay a personal trainer 20,000$ a month, or just stay at home and do some push ups? Would you rather go to a boring private school for 15,000$ a year or would you rather read an interestng book? Would you rather study swordplay and get good that way, or study in the beginning and then start fighting? It doesn't make sense to pay/use PP for everthing. So it shouldn't take 2-4 weeks IMO. Especially when any older players are completely maxed with high armor/weapons levels. Also, MMOs should be about fun not about taking 1-6 months to "max" your character.

[zanzibar]

You shouldn't have to max out your character before you're able to play the game.