Mage guild "split"
 

I thought I'd post this to spark up some new conversation about the mage guild specialization possibilities I thought up when I was bored. I'll start off by throwing out ideas how it could possibly be done, feel free to criticize and post your own ideas (my ideas are rough and need help with balancing). The main factors I will be using is the "opposing" element setup currently used in the game (example: ring of fire magic gives +1 fire and -1 water), and balance in combat situations.

I see 2 ways it could possibly be done. Specialization branches for the main four elements (fire/water/air/earth) OR all 8 of the elements. Either way, all of them get the same +1 meditation per level and +5% SP per level that the guild currently gets as well as all negatives in weapons.

The first four are pretty basic and straightforward:

Fire: +1 fire magic per level. -20 water magic upon joining. May cause unbalanced issues with armorsmithing.

Water: +1 water magic per level. -20 fire magic upon joining. May cause unbalanced issues with armorsmithing.

Air: +1 air magic per level. -20 earth magic upon joining.

Earth: +1 earth magic per level. -20 air magic upon joining. May cause some unbalanced issues with armor/weapon enchanters.

The trickier part that I had a lot of difficulty with:

Life magic: +1 life magic per level. -20 death magic upon joining, -20 FW upon joining. The balance issue here is that with +10 life magic, everyone will go life mage so they can actually be a fire/water mage and not have to train any life magic to cast resists. To balance this, I'm thinking -20 FW would have to be equal to 0FW (it won't reduce damage) and is there simply to reduce damage output of a life mage (making it impossible to effectively outtrain the -20 FW) and direct them towards healing and resisting by allowing them to retain all elements for casting resists.

Death magic: +1 death magic per level. -20 life magic upon joining. Having the potential for some very powerful instant kills and decent healing with vampire blade, I figured it'd have to be balanced by restricting the ability to resist. It could be argued that they should be given some sort of undead-esque abilities such as resistance to death magic or petrification.

Spirit magic: +1 spirit magic per level. -20 mind magic upon joining. This would be an interesting one to try, you could use the spell charging to charge wands as a good offense. May cause some unbalanced issues with armor/weapon enchanters. No ability to self cast mana shield, but many newer mages I see don't use it anyways.

Mind magic: +1 mind magic per level. -20 spirit magic upon joining. No ability to self cast mana shield, but many newer mages I see don't use it anyways.

Please don't tell me that earth is opposed to air. I screwed up my character really bad and only got one chance to fix him for cheap (the 10 year anniversary) and if that's true then I just messed him up again.:cry:

I wouldn't worry about any of this affecting you in the near future. It was an idea tossed around a long time ago and I wouldn't be surprised to not see it implemented until 2023. Plus you could always be a water, fire, or spirit mage and gain free points in those while retaining no negative to earth or air. If you want to make a good air+earth mage you can always ask me for advice when the game comes back up, I'll help you out.

The way you have it, these specializations have to have an extra fee to join them, otherwise they're just giving away free (and very potent) skill points.
I was thinking that, if implemented, the specializations would be something included in the original 100,000 that you pay to join, in which case the different classes would have to have way more negatives to be balanced, assuming they'll still be getting the extra mana and meditation from leveling up as a member of the mage's guild.

For fire:
+1 fire magic every other level, +1 evocation every other level, -10 enchantment, -15 water magic, -10 incantation (not sure about this one), +1 death every other level (both types of magic cause some form of destruction)

For water:
Same as fire except for the obvious reversals, and maybe +1 life magic every other level instead of death magic?

For death:
+1 death magic every level, +1 conjuration every level, -20 life magic... ok, nevermind, the way this is gonna end up is just like the conjurer's guild, lol.

For air:
+1 air every level (not every other, no ball spell to abuse it with, and air has more of a mix of damage and utility), +1 life magic every other level, no arts negatives, -15 earth magic, -5 fire and water magic (maybe you'll want to train through it for the other goodies, make a weird potpourri mage)

And of course, each specialization will only get xp for killing monsters using the element they're specialized in.
The other elements I don't feel deserve their own specialization or don't have enough spells to make use of one, unless they wouldn't penalize fire and water magic too harshly upon joining them.
More ideas to come.

@Sergano: Those are EXTREMELY heavy penalties. It'd be better off for the mage not to specialize simply to stay viable.

EDIT: I also find the negatives and positives in the OP to be extreme as well. With the penalties listed specialization in the guild would be a severe nerf to mages rather than a benefit.

Well, you can't just have "fire" mages running around throwing around blizzards and frost waves, that's just silly. I also wanted to capture an RP feel to all of it, where the specializations are kind of like cults and the opposite type of magic would be shunned or something like that, same way paladins give a large death magic penalty.
There's no point in letting fire mages use water magic to any degree, and doing it for the sake of "viability" is a poor justification; these mages would still be perfectly playable, their resists to the opposite element would just suck, and that's not as big a factor for mages as for other classes (as mana shield is still on the table for any specialization, or just buy a damn resist scroll like the rest of the classes in the game lol).
The arts negative may be a bit extreme, maybe tone down both to just -5, but I stand by the fact that there have to be a lot of negatives to justify the positives. Other possibilities of negatives are maybe -5 strength or a decrease in total health (sacrifice-type RP element).

I disagree. I do not think they would be viable at all.

Fire is one of the elements that is most strongly resisted by monsters, followed by cold.

You would also be destroying the ability of any resist mages to do their jobs properly. They would NEVER be able to resist anyone thanks to the heavy negative in echantment and the inability to adequately resist the two most common elemental attacks. Healing would also be out of the question.

And WHY is it silly to be casting fire and water spells together? Heck, there's a spell that uses both elements!

The whole point is you're specializing to be a fire mage, not a resist mage. If you want to be a resist mage, then don't specialize.
And you're not supposed to resist every element perfectly, definitely not when you're specialized into a magic-specific part of the guild.
Are you trying to say that mono-element mages don't work?
And yes, I forgot about firefrost, but that's a single case. Definitely not a reason to throw fire and water specializations out the window lol.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Mono element mages do not work. Not well.

Mages already have enough negatives in the physical aspect of the game. They don't need their own guild nerfing them even further.

With your changes an unspecialized fire/water mage would mop the floor with a specialized fire or water mage any day of the week.

Also sandstorm is another element where two opposing elements are thrown in to a single spell, meaning these changes would nerf two spells to nothingness.

And resist mages may not be able to resist everything perfectly, but they never could. This change would make them obsolete.

As it is the unspecialized guild is would be more powerful than the specialized guild even without bonuses.

Easiest way to specialize in the guild? +1 every other level in a chosen element, period. Don't mess around with arts, and don't give negatives in the opposing elements.

Mono mages do work well, sure you'll never train purely in one element because you'll be training in life/air/mind magic for utility, and some other elements to buff up your resists. But mono fire is completely legit. I don't have any references for mono water or air.
My consideration for these specializations was to make mono mages even more effective at what they do currently and differentiate them from the boring fire+water mages running around (or that used to run around :( ).
Sandstorm wasn't considered because I already said that I think that some elements don't have enough spells to merit a specialization.
Resist mages, if trained properly, can resist most magic to an extent that makes them extremely hard to hurt, coupled with mana shield. This change wouldn't make them obsolete, you just wouldn't specialize if you wanted to be a resist mage.
The physical negatives from mages guild are inconsequential; you're not supposed to use melee as a mage, that shouldn't even need an explanation.

That's kind of the point, to nerf mages (specifically fire+water mages). Mages have area of effect damage and even when used on 1 monster alone it rivals that of melee's damage even when the monster is quite resistant to elemental damage which doesn't really make sense to me. Most of this damage is coming from the combined use of fire + water. My idea would counteract this to an extent while making a resist mage a much more viable option. It would encourage more unique mage builds that are often neglected. If you can come up with something better that isn't just a biased idea that directly buffs mages then feel free to post it.

Sergano has the right idea, but the proposed positives/negatives seem messy and hard to follow (especially with the arts thrown in).

What mage are you referencing that does so well with a single element (fire)? And did this mage ever try beating Orcus?

And why would you nerf mages? Because they're the only class that does AoE damage?

If you look at the buffs they had the mages guild was weak. Extra mana and meditation. Hooray~. Axemen? Weapon skill, healing, strength, find weakness, and some hurled for the giggles. Not to mention extra health for survivability.

What (direct) survival tactics do mages get? Hope you trained mana shield! :D

Mages were also nerfed (in case Dracco is unaware) so that they can only cast a single ball spell of one type, and its damage was reduced as well. Spray spells are the only ones that do real damage against tougher enemies anymore.

The Mage's guild is the only guild that doesn't provide a direct buff to its member's offense.

Also, how long has it been since you've actually played, Dracco? And who exactly do you play, Sergano?

@Morwen
I stopped playing sometime in early-mid 2009 to answer that question.

I'm aware mages were "nerfed", but I highly doubt it's as bad as everyone has made it out to be, it's just people unwilling to adapt and use the proper spells. No one said that retaining the current mage guild stats was off the table, it could be an option to have no specialization, the intent of this thread is to come up with ideas on how it could be done in respect to balance. As for survivability, melees have to run into danger to deal damage and when comparing a mage and a melee, each with no one supporting them, the mage has far higher survivability with almost equal damage output. I feel mages should be rewarded for choosing to specialize in one element. It just seems wrong that 90% of the mages are fire/water. I was under the impression that when a high amount of players are using the same strategy/build/what-have-you, something is wrong.

The problem with the concept that players using a certain type of build above another is that the build is often used because it makes sense.

Warriors train strength and their weapon skill as high as possible. This build isn't considered "wrong" in the sense you just said because it makes sense for a warrior to build strength to increase his damage. Some will even throw in FW to make it even higher.

Archers build their weapon skill and max FW. It is the core of an archer's attack power, and not building it often decreases your general power. Every other skill is optional.

Fire and Water is used by mages because it is the most common damage type encountered (monsters and players alike). It also allows you to damage things when one element will not work.

Actually, the secondary element a mage trains is almost always because they need to have something to harm what their primary element cannot. The reason Fire and Water are most often chosen is because of an easily accessible AoE spell.

And a mage has higher survivability against... what? Creatures that happen to be the elements they've trained for? Run into something that they don't have resists for and it's game over. If they're grouped for that exact purpose, they can't make full use of their range to stay away from the monster if they want experience.

Also: Melees do far more damage than a mage. High level warriors will always outdo high level mages in damage output.

"1. Players seem to be doing something over and over again. Perhaps it's visiting a certain area, or using a certain spell, or carrying a certain object around."

This is one of the main two, although old, warning signs that something is wrong with balance. I feel from this perspective if the majority of mages are fire+water mages then something is definitely not right. The fact that these are opposing elements also raises question.

After the previous statement, I'm done arguing my point to you because we have both made up our minds on the subject and I don't see either of us changing our minds.

Actually, I agree that there is something wrong with focusing entirely on Fire/Water, but likely for different reasons. Most other elements lack the raw offensive power of fire and water, thus the reason those two elements are so prevalent throughout the entirety of the game.

Ciao.

Well it's been said that the other elements are intended as support with small offensive abilities (earth magic can use sandstorm, and summon golem for some good damage) and it seems like they will not be given anymore offensive spells. So I'm trying to figure out a way to make the other elements more enticing and used the previously suggested mage guild specialization idea to do so. I really don't know how to fix the issue with fire+water mages without giving the other elements a couple more offensive spells. :confusion:

We do not need another clone of fire/water. Air and earth are built for support mainly. I guess the reason we have 2 offensive elements that pretty much mirror each other is for versatility.

The reason people tend to choose fire/water (aka full offense) is because the benefits of training earth and air aren't as great for a solo player. That, or they dislike playing support characters in general and would rather go full attack.

I have a full resist mage myself that utilizes all of the elements (except death and spirit) and I think air and earth are fine how they are right now. Of course, in return, my firepower isn't the best in the world but that isn't the purpose of my character.

I think summon spells and defensive spells will be the way of the future.
The balance of fire/water mages can be tipped by adding new monsters, the blood imp (that's what they were called, right?) being a rudimentary example - something very fast that can bypass the safety afforded by ball spells, but that can be dealt with in other ways, like making an earth wall to stall it or paralyzing it. Maybe a new monster could be added that has extreme, glimpse-like sight range and extreme speed, but not with extreme damage, that would pester mages and be able to hunt them down outside of ball spell range, but be weak to...I don't know... mind or air spells for example, promoting the use of the elemental shield spells.
Summons are another area - they draw aggro, which should definitely be something that a solo mage should consider instead relying on the passive and safe gameplay afforded by the range of ball spells.

there are a lot of things thats wrong in this thread that Morwen pointed out.
If anything, mages should be able to pick their poison, but they cannot be nerfed too much. I believe that a mage should have the ability to pick 2 or 3 main specializations. The mage should also have the ability to change their specialization for a fee.