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Three Circle to Two Circle World?

OhmOhm
edited March 2016 in New Ideas
I'm sure this has come up before and shot down before. So not really a new idea

But I feel that at this point there really isn't a population base to support three circles. Magick doesn't have a place anymore it seems. There are no combatants. There are no real objectives. They just continue to exist - towards what end? I mean even their Entities are all dead.

Has the time come to make this a two circle system. 
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Comments

  • Agree, and give hunter/druid to the 'side' that AM gets lobbed into.

    Ty.
  • I can't actually remember the last time all three sides were truely able to compete on a fairly equal footing. Its pretty much been two v one in all of the pk events in recent memory (am/magick vs demonic in the egg event, magick/demonic vs am in the plagues event, etc).

    While three circles has its perks, it does kind of suck pretty massively for whichever faction is currently the one with near zero capability to participate in most of the day to day conflicts.

  • Septus said:

    I can't actually remember the last time all three sides were truely able to compete on a fairly equal footing. Its pretty much been two v one in all of the pk events in recent memory (am/magick vs demonic in the egg event, magick/demonic vs am in the plagues event, etc).

    While three circles has its perks, it does kind of suck pretty massively for whichever faction is currently the one with near zero capability to participate in most of the day to day conflicts.

    The common problem is - it has never been Magick v/s AM/Demonic - it has never attracted that kind of population (combatant population especially). Not sure if it is the lack of interesting professions, politics or lack of RP
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  • JuranJuran Ohio
    edited March 2016
    I'll probably post far more about this topic later when I have more time, but I'm generally still a fan of three circles even if one always seems to lag behind the others at any particular point. I love how shifting loyalties and temporary alliances keeps things somewhat dynamic, and I love the conflict that arises from such temporary alliances.

    That said, the 'problems' with magick and the heart of what you're posting about right now have very little to do with magick's role. The most prolific magick class in the days of magick dominance was Mage, and that class is awful now. It's overly complicated, it isn't fun, and it probably needs rewritten again well before Diabolist or Monk are touched. There is also no perceived 'top end' bashing class to compare with the other two circles, and the player leadership in both cities is generally pretty entrenched and stagnant. This leads to a situation where people pick the greener pastures.
  • JuranJuran Ohio
    edited March 2016
    Ohm said:
    The common problem is - it has never been Magick v/s AM/Demonic - it has never attracted that kind of population (combatant population especially). Not sure if it is the lack of interesting professions, politics or lack of RP

    This is not true. That it hasn't happened in your memory does not mean there was never a time when cata mages and lament bards didn't terrorize the entire world
  • edited March 2016

    Right now, you have players split into six cities/councils. Lets assume they're evenly divided (which they won't be). At peak there's about 70~ people on. At the wee hours of the day there's usually closer to 14. Some simple arithmetic puts that to between 2 and 14 people per city. Assuming they're evenly divided.

    And, to speak frankly, to say they're evenly divided is a concession I'm not really willing to make.  When there's no one really around, people will gravitate to where there IS people around, that's just human nature.  Suggesting that organizations that no longer really serve a purpose should stick around because it is somehow their own fault as the leadership is stagnant seems counter-productive at best.  I've a few people I talk to in the magick circle - many of whom talk to Anette at all because she's the one person around when they are that will talk back - and it's not at all uncommon for them to be the only people awake in Celidon or Kinsarmar, especially come early AM american time.  For a person like me that just wants to bash in peace most of the time with the occasional side discussion maybe that's heaven.  For a more social player, however, that's hell.  To a degree it's somewhat expected that time of day, but try getting a highfavour, trying to advance in orgrank, or just get anything done you cannot do yourself when there's no one else around and you'll quickly get frustrated.

    This bleeds into the problem posed by novices joining those organizations.  I like wizards.  Mages are a neat class in RPGs!  Usually anyways.  So lets say I made a little Celidonian mage novice.  Now I'm usually bashing around 2-6am EST.  Whose going to be around to help me then?  Who will answer my nooby questions about the use of the profession, or do as @Jules so helpfully did with Anette and set her up with herbs and a vialbelt?  No one, that's who.  And that might be okay for me, who can power through on a base understanding of the game.  For someone new to Imperian, however, I cannot imagine that would end up very fun at all.  I'd probably lose interest and go elsewhere.

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  •  Juran said:
    Ohm said:
    The common problem is - it has never been Magick v/s AM/Demonic - it has never attracted that kind of population (combatant population especially). Not sure if it is the lack of interesting professions, politics or lack of RP

    This is not true. That it hasn't happened in your memory does not mean there was never a time when cata mages and lament bards didn't terrorize the entire world

    When claymore DSL went in the Runeguard Legion was the terror of the world.

    Honestly, one of the universal combat truths of the game is that, no matter what circle you're talking about, the more people you move into knight classes, the better you'll do. It's tanky. It's easy. It handles shield well. It synergizes with everything. More knight more good.

    That aside, you'll never see a switch to a three-circle system at this point because players are too invested in their organizations. Maybe you could see the orgs as a whole go AM or go Demonic, like Khandava did, but I sort of doubt it because then we'd have to deal with classes and which faction gets what and so forth, or we'd have magick classes on both circles and then have to balance around different team environments with them and it would generally be ugly.

    "On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."

  • edited March 2016
    Magick is the only other circle I dabble in. It is also the only circle I would -ever- consider moving my main to (although that is unlikely to happen anytime soon).  


    First, some of the bad... Magick has a rep for managing to chase off even top tier combat advisors/leaders, like Septus... or Eldreth.  These are people who, like Khizan, are generally sort of "untouchable" no matter what org they go to, so they don't personally have to worry about fussing with potentially irksome org requirements (magick seems to be mostly unfussy, yet fussy in some ways, more about that in a moment).  So they are probably either getting thrown under the bus for stuff like "brought raiding upon the city" (this happens a LOT in IRE) or got frustrated with people not being willing to fight/learn to fight to a minimum, group derp level.  Or both.  The "brought raiding upon the city" stuff can happen anywhere that you have people you have people who dislike combat (or who dislike combat that doesn't always go their way) in leadership roles.  Demonic had a bout of this last year, but they seem to have worked through it.  No org is magically immune.  It's a potential problem, period, that depends on the makeup and attitudes of the population that holds sway in the org.  So, there is a big tendency for people interested in PK to clot where they feel welcome, though, period.  People like Septus (or say, Juran) might move around as they please and be sort of above many (perhaps all) of the annoyances that will keep the average combatant from even considering a move, but even they will still move on to greener pastures if they don't feel enough people in their new orgs are willing to ultimately share in their playstyle to at least some degree.

    Some of the good... Rank promotion doesn't seem to be a huge necessity in magick so far.  That's a good thing (unless you are someone who cares about rank for its own sake).  So, in Kinsarmar, I haven't felt I a -need- to seek promotions in order to not be treated like crap.  That said, I still have no idea what the actual promotion system is about because I don't want to bother with it.  My little RG did get a "battlefield" promotion, too, so there is some awareness that it's good to reward people for just trying to do stuff like that.  

    The leadership is definitely entrenched, as Juran mentions.  It could be a lot worse though, tbh.  I get the feeling that it is a bit like old Cyrene in Achaea (before Cyrene really did get sort of fussy and cranky period, and wanted too desperately to be taken seriously) - in that Cyrene very much had a live and let live vibe and was a good place to chill and talk about whatever (and not get yelled at by some sanctimonious person), bash.  But there is no combatant voice in leadership, and if you actually got involved in the politics, I am thinking it might make you pretty sadface.    

    Magick has RG.  Drool.  A lot of its people are NOT in RG however :(  They are in fussy, squishy classes and mostly have even less combat/coding skills than I do :/  Probably not even their fault.  Class sounded cool and no one told them "no" (because there was no one to do so), or class used to be more user friendly, and isn't now.  


    Like Juran (I think), I like temporary alliances, but very likely from a somewhat different point of view.  I want them to be pretty clearly temporary, both in how the characters treat them, and in actuality.  I mean, the game's mechanics are balanced around three fairly separate circles, not two.  Alliances that become more formal and drag on are a problem in my view.  


    @Anette, I have a certain mindset when it comes to newbies that is perhaps a bit different than a lot of people's.  I like to watch newbies a little bit from afar.  I will say hi, but I actually want to see if you'll stumble around a bit.  I am pretty sure that is what I did in my first ever MUD (Achaea).  I am also definitely looking for anyone who might be a retiree or veteran from another game.  But I am slower to "grab" newbies than a lot of people.  When they announce blah blah newbie tasks on CT, I say hi there, and that's about it.  I kind of want to see if if you're actually interested and independent minded enough to maybe stick around.  So I will farsee the newbie, and see if they're moving at all, or seem to be actually doing -anything-.  If they aren't, or already have a friend, I leave them sit for a bit (and look again later).  If they seem active and engaged at all after a few hours (or better yet, the next evening), then I try to get a hold of them and say "hey, guess what, I have some gear you might like" and set them up a bit.  This feels less draining and pointless to me (because I am not trying to grab literally every throwaway newb that might be coming down the pipeline).  But of course, someone does need to be around to do -something-, yeah.    
  • Jules said:
        

    Magick has RG.  Drool.  A lot of its people are NOT in RG however :(  They are in fussy, squishy classes and mostly have even less combat/coding skills than I do :/  Probably not even their fault.  Class sounded cool and no one told them "no" (because there was no one to do so), or class used to be more user friendly, and isn't now.  
        
    Whats the point of having so many classes if one class makes or break the entire circle. All classes should be playable and have access to bashing and basic pvp. If classes are not playable they should be fixed to bring them up to a level with RG. Its not that they cost any lower from lesson or artifact perspective. 
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  • edited March 2016
    I don't disagree!

    EDIT:  part of the problem as I understand it is that some of those profs are "supreme" 1 v. 1 classes that don't translate well into groups and are harder than most to code for.  Some of them may be legitimately "weak" all around, but some are just not good in groups, and/or too fussy for most players (especially magick's players) - and yeah, I think the goal is for all classes to be more well-rounded.  The two strong, more easily playable group combat classes in magick are RG and Druid.  
  • Juran said:
    Ohm said:
    The common problem is - it has never been Magick v/s AM/Demonic - it has never attracted that kind of population (combatant population especially). Not sure if it is the lack of interesting professions, politics or lack of RP

    This is not true. That it hasn't happened in your memory does not mean there was never a time when cata mages and lament bards didn't terrorize the entire world


    He speaks truth. I still have @Eldreth surrender message saved because I was so happy Celidon finally won a war. I will cling on to this forever.


    @Ohm Also, magick is plenty powerful and would wipe things out pretty handily if anyone actually bothered to do anything. Unfortunately, I think the biggest problem is that as we've grown up with this game, most of us have, well, grown up. We've all picked up more responsibilities than we've had 10 years ago, and we can't spend 14 hours per day on the game, staying for those 7AM raids and all that fun stuff we used to do. While part of me says yes, consolidate the population into two circles, that would be very boring and bring on even more of a stagnant conflict. That's not good for the game in any respect. 

    I think a lot of the problem just boils down to people not being able to devote the kind of time that they used to, and we're not bringing in a population that can, either. I got into this game because it was free and I had a crappy computer to play on. It was this, Urban Terror, and a couple of other strange free things here and there. Now that the market is saturated in freemium games, it's hard, especially for a non-graphical niche game like this, to be able to find a younger audience. I'd say that's the biggest problem with the current state of things.
  • Honestly, attracting a bunch of teenagers and/or people with nearly unlimited free time could bring its own problems.  Those people tend to be very, very unforgiving of more "casual" players (like nearly all of us now).  
  • Jules said:
    Honestly, attracting a bunch of teenagers and/or people with nearly unlimited free time could bring its own problems.  Those people tend to be very, very unforgiving of more "casual" players (like nearly all of us now).  

    Right. I'm not saying that it's something that should necessarily happen, but rather that it's what makes the Imperian of today so different from Imperian of 10 years ago.

    Which I guess brings up the question, should MUDs now be targetting a more casual audience than the niche hardcore players? Is our whale credit purchasing behavior enough to sustain the games in the long term? Credit prices are absolutely ridiculous compared to what I could get for my money in other games. I guess I'm going off on a tangent here, but I feel as if the entire two v three circle argument is rooted entirely in player numbers and player activity.
  • Ohm said:
    Whats the point of having so many classes if one class makes or break the entire circle. All classes should be playable and have access to bashing and basic pvp. If classes are not playable they should be fixed to bring them up to a level with RG. Its not that they cost any lower from lesson or artifact perspective. 

    All classes do have access to that stuff.

    The problem is that all those classes take more skill and more coordination. Most magick players don't have much of either to start with and they don't want to work to acquire any. And then a lot of them get offended when you tell them that they're doing things wrong and that they should be focusing on maximizing damage in groups. So you get a couple of your guys basically doing their own bad affliction strategies or whatever, and everything basically goes to crap. 

    "On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."

  • edited March 2016
    @Gurn, I think we do want to rope in some of those players (younger, more free time, will hopefully stick around as they grow up and have more discretionary income), but we don't want them to be the main force in the game (or at least I don't).  I mean... we don't even want them to be the main force in a major org (which could happen by default, because free time).  That's how you get threads like one over in Aetolia right now where some dude is complaining that people who only play 20 hours a week (20!!!) are "casuals" and basically don't deserve nice things :/  Grab them and use their enthusiasm for good things, but if they get too pushy... there need to be like 5 "casual" people around to tell them to knock it off.  
  • I'm not young by any stretch of the word, but I work from home, I can play this thing as much as I want, I just frankly don't see much of a reason to get involved in conflict and a lot of reasons not to.  I get very little out of it personally (rankings/bragging rights mean nothing to me) and the detriment is dealing with a bunch of griefy PVP; and the buy in is spending a tremendous amount of time tweaking code when I could be writing code I get paid for and is probably less difficult to generate.
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  • First the good, Runeguard and Druid are two of the top 5 classes in my ranking for being successful at Imperian combat without a large investment into artifacts. They're strong individually, and absolutely dominant in groups. If you wanted to see magick get laughably powerful overnight, give me groups of Runeguards and Druids that want to fight.

    Next the bad. The defensive paradigms have shifted in the past decade, and what used to be the norm no longer is. Way back in Imperian's history, combat balance looked kind of like this:

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    Classes that were not 'tanky' were able to afflict, and classes without strong affliction offenses could compensate with above average defences. Killing a Priest was a chore, because the class could do nothing to stop your offense except survive it. Wytchen were wet tissue paper, but after 5-6 fashions you could consider the fight over if you weren't already well ahead.

    Modern day, you get classes like Mage and Bard that are neither disruptive nor particularly well protected. Both can situationally do very high damage, but neither are in a position to leverage that damage because they can't survive to reach their timing windows. Inversely, the knight classes seem to be high on both metrics, with both a disruptive offense and high damage resistance. You could make a Mage work in group combat with liberal use of Defend, but I find it hard to see a situation where it isn't more advantageous to simply have both people on knights.

    Demonic used to have a lot of these same restrictions, but their circle has done an admirable job in the past few years of negating them via Classleads. Magick has not had anyone leading that crusade.
  • edited March 2016
    Part of the problem seemed to be that people wanted to keep all of the existing aff output -and- be tanky.  A lot of the rebuttals (when you were still dormant) said essentially that.  Still.  Sometimes, if you are convincing, I think you can get away with stuff like that!  Also, if your circle isn't the one that is ultimately pulling the lion's share of the wins (or perceived to be), I think admin is sometimes willing to tolerate a bit of extra cheese, and hey, if it gets people to taste blood and get into things, probably worth it.  Magick didn't have any combat leadership for a long time, and leadership seems to be far more crucial to wins than having the strongest classes (although of course you don't want to run out with a team of predators... or renegades).  
  • OhmOhm
    edited March 2016
    I sincerely hope that come this round of classleads someone looks into magick in more details to provide much needed facelift. It might bring back combatants to the circle and generally cause a shakeup in the scheme of things recently.

    Here's another thing,

    Switching to a knight class is very expensive for someone who plays mage/ bard. All your artifacts suddenly become useless (Diadem, Sash, Collar) - your statpack needs to change. All in all you make a lot of sacrifices to switch which I shouldn't have to make
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  • edited March 2016
    Making some of your classes more user friendly would be great, and can't hurt, but it's definitely not what is keeping combatants out.  I had a -great- time trying to defend Kinsarmar one night, but I was seriously sadface at the reaction of most Kinsarmarians who were around at the time.  It was really, really depressing.  It was total and complete apathy with a large helping of passive-aggressiveness.  You are not going to attract combatants that way, and having Juran around (and ideally, at least one more guy like that) is probably going to help you way more than any classlead will.  There have to be enough people willing to be good followers though, and that seems to have been a consistent problem in magick when they do manage to score a Juran.  
  • Ohm said:
    I sincerely hope that come this round of classleads someone looks into magick in more details to provide much needed facelift. It might bring back combatants to the circle and generally cause a shakeup in the scheme of things recently


    Okay, let's be 100% honest here. Any combatants can take any of the magick professions and kick everyone else's ass with it. It's really not an issue of "magick has bad profs" but rather "magick has a terrible attitude". All I hear ever is whining about how our professions are clearly the reason why we're losing(nevermind that no one tries to git gud), and clearly what magick needs to do to get better is to enforce even more exclusionary policies. It's ridiculous how magick loves to victimize themselves instead of going, well, maybe it's not them, maybe it's because it's ME who sucks and I should really do something about that.

    For all the complaining I hear almost every day I'm logged on, I've never seen someone furiously tinkering away at all the different ways you can kill someone, and then go sparring and dueling, and most importantly, losing a helluva lot. I've only seen one person do this, and she doesn't even fight actively, she just really likes coding or something I guess, and from that, I can guarantee that anyone who actually uses a magick prof to its full extent can, and will be able to fight in the top tier without a problem. 
  • Gurn said:

    I can guarantee that anyone who actually uses a magick prof to its full extent can, and will be able to fight in the top tier without a problem. 
    On the other side of that coin, I can give someone an alias they can hammer as a Summoner that does maybe 75% of the things Eldreth would do in a fight as Summoner. You generally want your inexperienced fighters to be able to get their feet wet and contribute without first either 'really liking coding' or 'furiously tinkering away'.
  • Gurn said:

    Okay, let's be 100% honest here. Any combatants can take any of the magick professions and kick everyone else's ass with it. It's really not an issue of "magick has bad profs" but rather "magick has a terrible attitude". All I hear ever is whining about how our professions are clearly the reason why we're losing(nevermind that no one tries to git gud), and clearly what magick needs to do to get better is to enforce even more exclusionary policies. It's ridiculous how magick loves to victimize themselves instead of going, well, maybe it's not them, maybe it's because it's ME who sucks and I should really do something about that.

    I can see complaints with Mage, it really seems quite fiddly, but say .. runeguard? There's no excuse you can't at least get in at the bottom with any of the three knightly classes. I have no doubt Anette could compete quite well with Templar if I wanted to put the time in .. I just don't. But I have a lot of respect for those that do, like Khizan, Septus, et al, because it involves a lot of commitment to playing with the code/scripting that I just don't care to put in presently. But I do agree that by the by it largely comes down to attitude. Demon circle has people that are willing to throw down. So does AM. Magick, though, from all I've seen and heard, basically almost penalizes people for it.
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  • SalikSalik Da Burgh
    Ohm said:

    Switching to a knight class is very expensive for someone who plays mage/ bard. All your artifacts suddenly become useless (Diadem, Sash, Collar) - your statpack needs to change. All in all you make a lot of sacrifices to switch which I shouldn't have to make
    Maybe not as much as you might think. As least for Deathknight, many of the enhances are based off of int damage. My collar has an impact on my damage as a DK - as well as a Defiler. There are a lot of clever DKs running around. I don't know how well this compares to Runeguard, as I've never seen an RG's enhances in action.
  • edited March 2016
    Robynn is seriously wiping the floor with most of the game in FFAs right now.  Talk about zero to hero.  That is proof of what can be done there.  I seriously want to know "what is her secret"?  Anyway...
    Juran said:
    Gurn said:

    I can guarantee that anyone who actually uses a magick prof to its full extent can, and will be able to fight in the top tier without a problem. 
    On the other side of that coin, I can give someone an alias they can hammer as a Summoner that does maybe 75% of the things Eldreth would do in a fight as Summoner. You generally want your inexperienced fighters to be able to get their feet wet and contribute without first either 'really liking coding' or 'furiously tinkering away'.
    Juran, that is why it is so important to have someone around to say "God.  Another Renegade.  The best class for Renegade is Runeguard" to new people.  And of course it is ultimately their choice, but there is someone around to make it really, really clear what they'll be up against if they do.  I mean, at least until that glorious day when all of the profs in all of the circles are solid choices for anyone.  
  • Anette said:

    Demon circle has people that are willing to throw down. So does AM. Magick, though, from all I've seen and heard, basically almost penalizes people for it.
    This - I mean - nobody in magick actually wants to fight or teach you. I've been trying to do a few things, tinkering around. @Linslet has been the most helpful of all thus far. @Theophilus has been willing to go a few bouts. Magick - hardly anyone. 
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  • Ohm said:
    Anette said:

    Demon circle has people that are willing to throw down. So does AM. Magick, though, from all I've seen and heard, basically almost penalizes people for it.
    This - I mean - nobody in magick actually wants to fight or teach you. I've been trying to do a few things, tinkering around. @Linslet has been the most helpful of all thus far. @Theophilus has been willing to go a few bouts. Magick - hardly anyone. 
    I'm useless in a fight because I'd just bash combo, but I never mind being a test dummy, fwiw!
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  • SalikSalik Da Burgh
    Ohm said:
    Anette said:

    Demon circle has people that are willing to throw down. So does AM. Magick, though, from all I've seen and heard, basically almost penalizes people for it.
    This - I mean - nobody in magick actually wants to fight or teach you. I've been trying to do a few things, tinkering around. @Linslet has been the most helpful of all thus far. @Theophilus has been willing to go a few bouts. Magick - hardly anyone. 
    I'm happy to give a few fights, though I do a lot of things online so the time isn't always there. 
  • As one of the few people Magick had that was pretty steadily involved in PK while active in Magick, there were a handful of combat leaders in Magick for a while. Problem is, morale has to come from every side. If there is no excitement for pvp among the soldiers, the leaders are eventually going to get tired of leading. Then you see the leaders go to places with more excitable soldiers. Unfortunately, these leaders were the only way that this circle could sustain any kind of real pvp force, and they're all in Demonic or AM.

    At this point, barring a mechanical change, the only thing I could see reinvigorating Magick would be either the rise of one or two solid leaders from within the circle, or a large injection of combatants(with a leader or two mixed in) from AM and/or Demonic. Either way will require the low-mid tier people to show actual interest in pvp, or else this same lopsided dynamic will pop up again.
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  • I hit things.
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