Post by Amon on Jun 4, 2020 3:04:49 GMT
Hey all!
TL;DR, both Tech and Magic are being reevaluated, and Stats are being more defined in an effort to clearly define you character’s inherent abilities.
Want to read more insight as to what is going on behind the scenes and why it’s taking so dang long? Read on:
So, it seems as though things are starting to ramp back up IRL (for me at least), so updates may slow down again. However, that is not the main reason why last week's update on changes was delayed.
It is balance.
Specifically, the issue with Magic vs. Tech. More often than not, Magic with its flexibility, was more powerful and more desirable compared to Tech. When we started here in the forums, Tech was a bit...lack luster. At the time, there was only one Robotics branch, and the best that was offered was essentially the equivalent of the current Steamworks Robotics III. Changes were made to make Tech more desirable, and at that point, a difference was clear: depending on the situation that you were RP'ing, Tech did not have any limitations to uses. For example, if you were in a gun store, you would have access to all the bullets and guns in that store (or in my personal case, Amon was able to amass a lot of robots over a long period of time). Compare this to Magic, who could only cast so many times per day.
Despite this, Magic still had an upper hand: not only could you effectively disable most Tech with nothing more than a touch, but unlike Tech, you realistically have complete access to your entire repertoire of your spells, making you effectively more flexible than Tech, continuing to give Magic the advantage. After a couple of years of this, it was decided to nerf Magic's ability to essentially have access to all of one's spells. As compensation, Magic would have access to more casts per day and Tech would no longer have access to effectively infinite ammo/robots/etc.
Thus, the current Slot system was created, with skills being re-balanced around this system.
Which leads to today's current issue.
Upon another, more detailed review, it was discovered how immensely powerful the Elemental Branch was, compared to both Tech and the rest of the Magic Tree. More so when you decide to factor in the various Combination Augments and their potential, district-wide effects. It was during these discussions that it was apparent that Magic had a very clear edge over Tech, as any attempts for Tech to have any sort of similar impact as Magic would be both significantly more expensive and less effective.
And that is when we discovered Tech's strength, or rather, its closest equivalent, as well as a few other scary combinations.
See, while Magic is good at going "wide" with the breadth of its effects, Tech is much better going "tall" and building up a single juggernaut. When the Skill Trees were remade with the Slot system in mind, the intent was for Tech's parts to be relatively weaker, but its Augments (in particular, the Combination Augments, despite their inherent rigidity) would be stronger. In light of rediscovering this core concept, we are currently reevaluating both Tech and Magic.
Magic is of course going through some reworks for some of the not-as-impressive abilities, as well as a complete overhaul of the Elemental Branch, in an effort to even out its power level. Additionally, each Rank V ability (or at least, as many as applicable) will be given the ability to make it more powerful, at the cost of casting time. The intent here is to make each individual spell slightly more powerful than each individual Tech Skill.
But wouldn’t that put us back at square one? Not quite. Tech is currently getting another set of reworks and buffs to numbers to still make it viable, as well adding a potential new Augment. This Augment would make Tech more powerful, at the cost of Stats later on.
Once more, the intent is that while it is easier to feel more powerful with Magic, you are much stronger with Tech if you put in the effort. At the end of the day, if you were to pit a maxed out Tech user and a maxed out Magic user in a head-to-head brawl devoid of wit, the two would need to decide the winner using combat, as the Magic user would’ve used up all of their casts to get rid of the Tech user’s…well, tech. At least, that is the intent.
In the process of doing so, we ran into another problem: Stats. As they are now, they are not as problematic as before. Not to call anyone out, but there have be situations in the past were members attempted to RP their character doing rather impossible tasks in impossible situations. Thus, stats were another way to help monitor what your character can actually do. It was kept vague, but it still gave you a general idea of “Is he faster than me?” for example.
The issue is that it is too vague.
Nothing says that my 3 in Agility can’t outrun a car, just that I’m slower than a person with a 4 in Agility. In order to help define these values (as well as assign them to Skills to make it easier to relate to), we will need to assign real-world values. For example, a 5 in Agility will now translate to being able to run up to 25 km/h (~16 mph).
However, feats of Strength and Agility are relatively easy to quantify, but other aspects such as Health, Willpower, and Intelligence are not as simple. Stamina in particular is giving us a headache, as a reasonable time element needs to be added. This is due to the fact that that Agility speed is the approximate max speed, as if you were sprinting your heart out; you can jog all you like, but there are very few people who can ever maintain that top speed for a long time.
Not to say you can’t go “anime” on us; you get past record-breaking and near-inhuman values once you go above a certain amount. Again, the idea is to give you a more relatable idea of how your character can perform, as well as give a better idea of what these values mean when you gain bonuses via Skills.
Well…I believe that is all for now. We’ll keep chugging along, but as soon as the Stats and the Elemental Branch are taken care of, things are looking rather smooth sailing from there.
If you made it all the way down here, thank you for reading this essay and I hope it gives you a better insight as to what we’re trying to do behind the scenes. At the end of the day, Lodan is essentially a game, and we just want to make sure everyone is able to have fun, from the min-maxers down to the simple RP’ers.
Until next time!
- Amon
TL;DR, both Tech and Magic are being reevaluated, and Stats are being more defined in an effort to clearly define you character’s inherent abilities.
Want to read more insight as to what is going on behind the scenes and why it’s taking so dang long? Read on:
So, it seems as though things are starting to ramp back up IRL (for me at least), so updates may slow down again. However, that is not the main reason why last week's update on changes was delayed.
It is balance.
Specifically, the issue with Magic vs. Tech. More often than not, Magic with its flexibility, was more powerful and more desirable compared to Tech. When we started here in the forums, Tech was a bit...lack luster. At the time, there was only one Robotics branch, and the best that was offered was essentially the equivalent of the current Steamworks Robotics III. Changes were made to make Tech more desirable, and at that point, a difference was clear: depending on the situation that you were RP'ing, Tech did not have any limitations to uses. For example, if you were in a gun store, you would have access to all the bullets and guns in that store (or in my personal case, Amon was able to amass a lot of robots over a long period of time). Compare this to Magic, who could only cast so many times per day.
Despite this, Magic still had an upper hand: not only could you effectively disable most Tech with nothing more than a touch, but unlike Tech, you realistically have complete access to your entire repertoire of your spells, making you effectively more flexible than Tech, continuing to give Magic the advantage. After a couple of years of this, it was decided to nerf Magic's ability to essentially have access to all of one's spells. As compensation, Magic would have access to more casts per day and Tech would no longer have access to effectively infinite ammo/robots/etc.
Thus, the current Slot system was created, with skills being re-balanced around this system.
Which leads to today's current issue.
Upon another, more detailed review, it was discovered how immensely powerful the Elemental Branch was, compared to both Tech and the rest of the Magic Tree. More so when you decide to factor in the various Combination Augments and their potential, district-wide effects. It was during these discussions that it was apparent that Magic had a very clear edge over Tech, as any attempts for Tech to have any sort of similar impact as Magic would be both significantly more expensive and less effective.
And that is when we discovered Tech's strength, or rather, its closest equivalent, as well as a few other scary combinations.
See, while Magic is good at going "wide" with the breadth of its effects, Tech is much better going "tall" and building up a single juggernaut. When the Skill Trees were remade with the Slot system in mind, the intent was for Tech's parts to be relatively weaker, but its Augments (in particular, the Combination Augments, despite their inherent rigidity) would be stronger. In light of rediscovering this core concept, we are currently reevaluating both Tech and Magic.
Magic is of course going through some reworks for some of the not-as-impressive abilities, as well as a complete overhaul of the Elemental Branch, in an effort to even out its power level. Additionally, each Rank V ability (or at least, as many as applicable) will be given the ability to make it more powerful, at the cost of casting time. The intent here is to make each individual spell slightly more powerful than each individual Tech Skill.
But wouldn’t that put us back at square one? Not quite. Tech is currently getting another set of reworks and buffs to numbers to still make it viable, as well adding a potential new Augment. This Augment would make Tech more powerful, at the cost of Stats later on.
Once more, the intent is that while it is easier to feel more powerful with Magic, you are much stronger with Tech if you put in the effort. At the end of the day, if you were to pit a maxed out Tech user and a maxed out Magic user in a head-to-head brawl devoid of wit, the two would need to decide the winner using combat, as the Magic user would’ve used up all of their casts to get rid of the Tech user’s…well, tech. At least, that is the intent.
In the process of doing so, we ran into another problem: Stats. As they are now, they are not as problematic as before. Not to call anyone out, but there have be situations in the past were members attempted to RP their character doing rather impossible tasks in impossible situations. Thus, stats were another way to help monitor what your character can actually do. It was kept vague, but it still gave you a general idea of “Is he faster than me?” for example.
The issue is that it is too vague.
Nothing says that my 3 in Agility can’t outrun a car, just that I’m slower than a person with a 4 in Agility. In order to help define these values (as well as assign them to Skills to make it easier to relate to), we will need to assign real-world values. For example, a 5 in Agility will now translate to being able to run up to 25 km/h (~16 mph).
However, feats of Strength and Agility are relatively easy to quantify, but other aspects such as Health, Willpower, and Intelligence are not as simple. Stamina in particular is giving us a headache, as a reasonable time element needs to be added. This is due to the fact that that Agility speed is the approximate max speed, as if you were sprinting your heart out; you can jog all you like, but there are very few people who can ever maintain that top speed for a long time.
Not to say you can’t go “anime” on us; you get past record-breaking and near-inhuman values once you go above a certain amount. Again, the idea is to give you a more relatable idea of how your character can perform, as well as give a better idea of what these values mean when you gain bonuses via Skills.
Well…I believe that is all for now. We’ll keep chugging along, but as soon as the Stats and the Elemental Branch are taken care of, things are looking rather smooth sailing from there.
If you made it all the way down here, thank you for reading this essay and I hope it gives you a better insight as to what we’re trying to do behind the scenes. At the end of the day, Lodan is essentially a game, and we just want to make sure everyone is able to have fun, from the min-maxers down to the simple RP’ers.
Until next time!
- Amon