Circle Magic

[Wormtail_]

Interesting idea, but I see a problem with this. For combat magic, anyway.

No monster would allow itself to actually be surrounded, and if it werre, would go on a killing rampage. Unless the mosnter were either sleeping, paralysed, unoconscious, superbly arrogant, and so on, anyway. Or there was a method of distracting, but the \'distracting item\' may be destroyed along with the monster.

However, out of combat, Circle Magic whould be a fascinating concept. It will, however, force shy people who aren\'t that great at walking around, talking animatedly to random others, to get out of their shyness. Still, as this is a MMORPG, this is unlikely, but it can happen. Some may view this as good; others, bad. And when I think of a circle, I am thinking of ten or so mages, and of course, in a circle. If there are no nearby threats, the problem would be gathering mages. Especially if you\'re not in a guild and don\'t want to be in one, for various reasons.

I like this idea, but there are the factors of balance to be controlled. The balance issues mainly being mages becoming too powerful. Drilixers thread does this well for warrior and rogue-type characters, but why not use this in other jobs as well? Of course, this thread is based mainly on magic, so I\'ll leave things off there. I\'m rambling on and on again...

[Wedge]

Errr yeah, the mages would be vulnerable when casting such a spell, and that\'s why it would still be a good idea for them to drag a couple punching bags--- I mean warriors to distract the monsters in the meantime.  Which would also bring up an interesting point as to whether or not such spells could hit your own party members!?  And I don\'t think something like this would make mages too powerful, since it would also use much more magik then just casting a regular spell, you couldn\'t go through a dungeon and use it on every enemy, just try and save up enough mana to use it on a boss type creature.  They would probably have a period of weakness after casting such a spell that would cause a %-based cut in stats for a certain period of time.

[Drilixer]

Originally posted by Wedge
Which would also bring up an interesting point as to whether or not such spells could hit your own party members!?  

Don\'t worry aout hitting your own party members - the devs wouldnt make a loophole for PKs (especially not one that powerful)

[Abemore]

Originally posted by Wormtail_
I like this idea, but there are the factors of balance to be controlled. The balance issues mainly being mages becoming too powerful.

this is not really an issue, in fact depending on how it is implemented circle magic may serve to reduce the power of the mages because it takes away the ability of a single mage to cast powerful spells.

[Drilixer]

Abemore has a point - perhaps instead of making it so that all magic can be \'Circle Magic\' a new \'Spell School\' could be added for Group Magic - that way a character would have to use skill points invested in \'circle magic\' to properly work together with other mages ->  But the devs would have to be careful balanceing so as not to form a circle magic cookie cutter build

[druke]

i have an idea how it would work, a normal exp party would be a group but a grp limited to like 6 poepl, maybe an alternate group option for mage types onlyan alternate group  (called a circle) the circle elects one leader (the circle crator) after that the mages gather none more than 5 foot from eachouther and each standin still if they move the cicrle looses there bonus, while a circle leader is casting he draws form all other tap on the azure shard and thus empowerts his spell, a mage can elect not to give his power to the leader by mearly disbanding from the circle

[druke]

og corse there would be no exp for a crcle, its more a rare event or special need occasion

[Wolfmane]

The Circle Magic idea is good. I am also of the opinion that the balance problem can easily be solved by restricting circle magic to a limited number of high level spells that need the cooperation of between 3 - 6 mages each of a differnt one of the 6 magical ways.

It would mean that you would need multiple, highly experienced, mages who are also from more than one school of magic. That combination will not come about quickly or easily!

Also the idea of a circle magic spell significantly draining mage mana for a rather lenghty time means that the mages are comparatively weak after the casting of a Circle magic spell and would need other types of players or yet more mages to protect them.

In this way circle magic will not be used for any little combat operation but rather for well planned, coordinated quests where a specific magic circle spell(s) are required to complete the quest.

Done that way it would make for a really nice element to the game without the balance issue coming up.

[Drilixer]

Why don\'t we do this like in the fantasy series The Wheel of Time where circles can be formed among wizards but their are restrictions implied as follows:

1. Circles are very sexist... circles can reach 3-6 FEMALE mages max without MALE help.  From there the addition of 1 MALE mage doubles the number of female mages possible.  Adding another male mage would add another 3-6 possible female mages who can \'join\' the circle.

2.  Balancing act - there can never be more male mages than female mages in a circle.

There are many other restrictions possible but I\'d rather get some response before posting them

[druke]

i don\'t know bout the whole sexist idea,

but perhaps for balancing issues, all mages had to be above a certain skill to do it, and all amges have to have some skill in the desired shade

[Nitrosomonas]

hey
I think maybe a guy would start a group spell, and it takes a certain time to load up (like 15 sec.) In that time the mage would be harmless and the mages that are around him can do a support spell, so the spell gains in power, thus the more mages, the more powerfull the spell. off course there should be a max for example based on the spellcasters level. The higher the level, the more support it can receive.
When the spell is cast, all the mages that participated in the spell would lose a lot of cast points. But if the main mage gets killed in the mean time, nobody would lose spell points

[Axsyrus]

I think something like this would be an essential part of magics, in summoning creatures, normal offensive spells, defense spells, whatever. This way you could have a lot stronger spells then usually would be possible, however there would be major risks to casting powerful spells like this. If you send to much power to the person/object that has to do the most important thing he/she/it could die or worse. Also, doing something like this would require massive amounts of mana, so you can\'t do this very often.

Here\'s a screenshot from naruto where they summon some kind of big snake with this circle magic:

[elscouta]

I think it\'ll be used a lot for enchantement, peaceful magic and summoning. But this will probably be too slow to be used in battle imho.

[Wormtail_]

A little more information on the WoT series and \"linking.\"

Only female \"Aes Sedai\"(channelers) can link, and males cannot. Females can only link up to 13 Aes Sedai; beyond that, males are needed to extend the circle. While linking, there is one leader that guides the channeling of all the linked channelers combined.

Using \"Circle Magic\" in battle is feasible, in my opinion. Mages, i think, generally hang around at the back, providing support for the front. Therefore, the mages could \"link\" and create a powerful weapon to unleash.

[Axsyrus]

I think the idea of a sexist magic ring is a bit hard to realise, there are way more people playing a male character then there are female, and I generally think that it shouldn\'t matter if you\'re a guy or a girl when playing a game. This idea makes the difference between male and female a bit to big IMHO.

You can always use the circles in large scaled wars, but not so much in small battles I think. IMO it would cost a lot(maybe even all) mana, so it\'s only good for 1 attack/summon, not to just use ll the time. I see how something like this would be used to make some kind of large magical defense wall around a small city, summon some kind of really powerful creature, or casting one really powerful spell.