>>Heck, no you don't especially in the context of TM. I use my TM (and debilitation) at-level just fine casting at low preps.

If I wanted to "tickle" things yep your right. Doing that is akin to using a feather instead of a sword.

>>If I wanted to "tickle" things yep your right. Doing that is akin to using a feather instead of a sword.

I kill things just fine with low preps.

Is it possible that my TM hit does ~10 damage and yours does ~15? It wouldn't shock me. But, at the same time, while you're juggling a bag of cambrinth, harnessing, and screaming at the sky over mana management, I'm taking that time to swing my sword two or three times and making up the difference in whatever damage my TM wasn't providing for doing what you were doing.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>TM Foci isn't going to be for normal casting. TM Foci is for extra bonus special funtime casting. If you don't want to add the extra layer, don't.

Like K said its "optional". Above post were how I felt about the whole 3.1 magic business period and I have seen many incarnations of DR Magic from when I started in 1999 to now. I also love all the "your doing it wrong..." business those always help. You have your way of doing things and I have mine.

My general view of the entire magic system is that its a bit too complex. As a WM I got pathways which right now are pretty usless outside of training Summoning, foci, cambrith, various feats, verious magic scools and come 3.1 you'll also have to pay attention to intro vs basic vs advanced spells in order to train at X, Y, Z ranks. Than we are going to add Research or are those magic version of Manouvers or are Magic Manouvers on top of that? All this not a tad too complex? This is a game not something I should be using a team of scientists and a calculator to figgure out. And please spear me the "If your too "slow" to play this game dont play" business. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. It is a game and it should be entrataining and enjoyable not feel like its complex, tideous and ... work.

>I also love all the "your doing it wrong..." business those always help. You have your way of doing things and I have mine.

You're making claims about how broken things are that simply aren't tenable, and we're repeating our explanations to you at this point.

>pathways which right now are pretty usless

Some of them certainly are. At the very least three of them are quite excellent.

>And please spear me the "If your too "slow" to play this game dont play" business. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. It is a game and it should be entrataining and enjoyable not feel like its complex, tideous and ... work.

Kodius addressed this earlier; I too am not sure what you want at this point. It sounds like you prefer the game to play like GS4. A simple, no fluff D&D 1st edition style get up. I completely disagree with this sentiment, and I also don't think the game is terribly over complex as is. If you want to complain about 'systems that are too complex', you should be completely livid at melee combat. Are you?

>How do you get your Arcana and Attunement ranks?

Attunement just trains with spell casting, and Arcana I worry about with buffing when I do my Warding/Augmentation/Utility routines. For TM I generally >target minprep, charge arm, invoke arm, cast, and that works just fine, both in terms of training and damage and mana management.

>> Ohh... yes not everything is supposed to be trainable in combat you said... unles your a Barb of course.

That's a lie, any guild can train anything efficiently. This was just as true in 2.0, it's just that most people don't want to, for whatever reason. I wrote scripts for Thieves, Clerics and Pallies that did everything mine does.

There are a few very highly motivated Barbs who excel at everything, it's not a guild standard and there is no magic 'I win' button.

In other words, it's not our fault that you're entitled to being lazy.

Don't make me play my Aftermath Jackson(tm) card, not afraid to.

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IM: Dannyboy00001111

"Fool proof system do not take into account the ingenuity of fools, nor the power of numbers."

>Umm... why? I can sit there and attack attack attack all day if I chose to. When that gets boring I can throw in specific manouver if I feel like it.

And using TM is literally a two command 'mess'. TARGET [spell] [amount], CAST. How is this outlandishly complicated or tedious?

>Meele combat has become "friendlier" over the years in my opinion and more engaging not less.

I agree! Which is what I stated earlier! And what I think this is going to do with TM combat, particularly TM maneuvers, which you were complaining were too complicated and tedious!

<<That's a lie, any guild can train anything efficiently.

Gort, I have a lot of respect for you and I don't want to get into a tit-for-tat, or devolve the argument into a Guild-v-Guild argument, but I want to note something:

A barbarian is weapons prime and armor/survival secondary. That means when you're training your combat skills, you're super efficient for your time spent compared to me as a magic prime who is weapons secondary and armor/survival tert. Training efficiency goes way down. That part I don't care so much about because of the other benefits I get as a caster, until you add in that -my- primary weapon is tanked (Targeted magic spells).

I'm cautiously optimistic that a TM focus could help bridge the effectiveness gap, but as it stands there -is- an efficiency/effectiveness gap and I can see why some folks are getting annoyed that any proposed fix makes it more complicated for us. Honestly the big argument we get from GameMasters is [you get DPS from weapons so we can't give you uber magic DPS or you'll be overpowered]. If that's the big problem, take away being able to swing while you're casting in a way that doesn't make it tedious and overly complicated, then sure, why not?

I'm trying to focus my point on -combat skills-, not talking about efficient training because really anyone who takes an hour two to think through their training regime can have 30+ skills moving at any given moment.

--

In memory of Lisa/Martee. Passed 6/17/2013. A friend. A sister.

While I appreciate the thought going into TM, and work being done to address this, I can't help but ask how we are in this situation....

When was the choice made to make TM a secondary attack option for everyone? Several years ago I rolled up two warrior mages, and they are now 150th circle each, but thank god I didn't pick moon mage at the time, I bet most of them are feeling quite sick about all this.

The most simple question to be asked is, how does a targeted lightning bolt not do the same damage as an aimed crossbow if its coming off the same ranks? and why can't TM be like this?

I don't want TM as a secondary option, I'm a mage, its my primary skill, I want it as my primary attack and weapons to be my secondary attack, just like my skillsets are laid out. If I have 800 ranks of TM and only 500 ranks of large edge, then I want my TM to do 800 ranks worth of damage and my large edge to do 500 ranks of damage.

I really don't think that's asking much from a game, especially when our guilds are laid out in skillsets. If all characters are going to do better damage with weapons over TM, then why would anyone ever roll up a moon mage again? Knowing that primary damage comes from weapon ranks, why would anyone want to put themselves at such a disadvantage?

My opinion on how to fix the issue is to model TM on the same system as weapons. Use the crossbow layout, if you prep the spell its a roundtime, maybe 4-5 secs for low level spells, 9-10 secs for the big spells, then you can target in the same way you can aim with no roundtime, that's where you can harness and camb, then cast works the same as fire.
This way, 800 ranks of TM works exactly the same as 800 ranks of Crossbow skill, like it should, and takes the same time, leading to the same DPS.

Am I maybe thinking of this to simple? I can imagine there are many things in the background of the system, but in a world where we are aiming for any attack option doing the same DPS, why can't this be done?

I picked the warrior mage all those years back, because although they were considered glass canons in a way, they had some great spells that did some serious damage. Now, it feels like my huge exploding rocket firework has been replaced with a handheld sparkler for kids.

I'd definitely be interested in hearing more on why magic attacks have been placed as this kind of "additional" option rather than an alterative primary option.

>The most simple question to be asked is, how does a targeted lightning bolt not do the same damage as an aimed crossbow if its coming off the same ranks? and why can't TM be like this?

Ammunition stats and amount of mana channeled into a spell. They just aren't equals, which is NOT to say that TM damage shouldn't approach weapon damage. It should.

>No version of DR ever released will beat the excitement and enjoyment that DR 2.0 had

Ugh, I think back on DR's clunkiness and silliness in years past, and am incredibly glad and thankful we're playing the version we are. Rose tinted glasses and all that man; Diablo 2 and vanilla WoW were NOT superior games to D3 and whatever incarnation WoW is up to now. 2.0 was a mess of not connecting systems and out of balance meta gamed exploits.

>>No version of DR ever released will beat the excitement and enjoyment that DR 2.0 had

That is a matter of personal opinion. I like 3.0 more than 2.0 simply because it is far more engaging and there are new fun things like the entire crafting system and more stuff is being added to give folks variety.

2.0 got very very bad where everything died in one to two sings. Most hunting areas were wastelands because they were not "swarmy" enough and PvP boiled down to first hit = WIN.

3.0 has brought a LOT of new and interesting stuff to the table. The problem that I personaly see comming with 3.1 and magic is the complexity of it is starting to be a tad much. Too much of a good thing is still too much and we are heading that way in a hurry.

Ohhh go fondle MOO1 and original Civ. Clearly people with different opinions than yours aren't true Scotsman!

>Honestly the big argument we get from GameMasters is [you get DPS from weapons so we can't give you uber magic DPS or you'll be overpowered]. If that's the big problem, take away being able to swing while you're casting in a way that doesn't make it tedious and overly complicated, then sure, why not?

This, really. I'm perfectly fine not being able to throw an axe or swing a sword while I'm preparing a spell. If I'm looking to kill something effectively I'm not prep;target;swing;swing;swing. I'm harnessing and casting spells and not spending any amount of time trying to swing a sword or throw an axe. I'm more in favor of being unable to attack physically while I'm holding a targeting matrix.

>>When was the choice made to make TM a secondary attack option for everyone?

I don't think TM is being viewed as a secondary attack option. A physical weapon can just as easily be viewed as the secondary attack option depending on how you play. As far as I can tell, they're both recognized as equals, which is why they're both factored in as being used in tandem.

>>The most simple question to be asked is, how does a targeted lightning bolt not do the same damage as an aimed crossbow if its coming off the same ranks? and why can't TM be like this?

I think it's because there's an assumption that aimed weapons don't have you doing other things in the meantime. I saw the example of offhand working with crossbow before, but I think that's more an oversight of crossbow essentially being a 1 handed missile weapon than an intended situation that was created.

>>No version of DR ever released will beat the excitement and enjoyment that DR 2.0 had

I think this is a bit of a rose-colored glasses statement. As much as I think people loved being able to explode critters in one hit in 2.0, people also continually lamented that critters could do the same to them. And before that people complained about Zoha crits.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I always cast at cap.

>>The second shot has a penalty to accuracy and damage.

What if TM was given a penalty to acc and dam if you have a weapon in hand? I haven't thought it out at all so could be a horrible idea but I'm very hopeful we can get TM damage on par with weapons without the use of a focus.

Im low level compared to most (rocking about 200 tm, 300 PM/Attune), but the thought of having to throw out max mana spells to damage mobs scares the bejesus out of me. Already some of my tm spells have a potential cap of 102, harnessing/straight prep/cambrinth is not something I can afford to do for hunting purposes. I won't lie though, Ive never really seen a reason for spells to have such a large range in what can be put into them, but that is another topic I suppose.

<<I always cast at cap.>>

Same for me in PvP because of barriers and the fact that I really need every last extra bit of TM damage I can get (that's how I end up running out of mana before killing anyone). To be honest though, I don't notice much difference in damage dealt using mana from 50-65 up.

Against critters, all I use is TKS for training and cast it at 70 (cap of 105 I think). That's mostly because that's the sweet spot for a combination of decent damage, camb charge RT that matches the target time, and attunement management. It's slow casting and killing, but it trains well enough.

>>As I lack good statistics, what % of 100% of mana possible do you generally cast TM spells at? The more info we have here the better.

For PvP, I cast as close to cap as possible, or at least as high as my current attunement will allow. I almost never swing a weapon while prepping and targeting TM spells during PvP in favor of harnessing as much mana as possible in small increments to preserve my mana pool. The only exception to this rule is that I will sometimes attempt a shove just before the cast in an attempt to put my opponent in a compromising position.

For PvE, I prep at minimum, then charge my cambrinth with only as much mana as is needed to keep my arcana/magic skills moving.

Its good to hear TM will get tweaked up, it clearly needs it.

Using the crossbow example above, I'd like to think the damage range could be built around that. It was mentioned that ammo and mana put into spells would unbalance this, but why not a system along these lines, based on having the same ranks in crossbow and TM;

Standard crossbow + standard ammo + aim = average spell + low mana + target. Both take same time, both deal same damage.

You then have the additions....

Crossbow user could purchase a reduced load time crossbow, so in comparison maybe a TM user can pick a feat to reduce their times?

Crossbow user could purchase better ammo, so in comparison a TM user could harness a little more into the spell to give that same extra damage?

My thoughts are that it would be based around the level of magics a mage was at too. If I cast a spell at a mana level that's considered "easy" for my level of magic ranks, then that spell should hit with the same power as a store bought crossbow and bolt. If I cast a spell that a bit tricky for my level of magics, then it should be something like an upgraded crossbow, maybe with a middle of the road type ammo? Obviously then if I cast a high advanced spell at high levels of mana, it should hit like a top end crossbow with a top end bolt/pulzone.

With regards to mana I use, my primary magic and attunement are both at around 1000 ranks. My TM is 800 ranks.
I tend to cast my TM spells at 40 mana if I want to deal an average amount of damage, although I don't really train TM in combat at the moment.
If I cast fireball at 40 mana, in a room with power of glowing (11/21) mana, it drops me from 100% to 83% mana. That's a flat cast, not harnessing anything or using camb. If it helps, my mentals are in the low 70s across wisdom, charisma, intel and disc.
(in a freak turn of events, I actually one shot a spider with it, strange, usually takes several hits)