[b20] Anti-magic very much an anti-win now...

[Alpharat]

Almost every item that gives resists is powered by "Arcane Forces". Meaning with Anti-Magic you get the skills from the tree... and then can't wear anything that gives resists in the first place. This makes it absurdly difficult to get stun resist capped. Even more so though its completely unfeasible to get decent percentages of elemental resists.

A significant chunk of artifact weapons and armor are also powered by "Arcane Forces". So when you get that shiny new equipment... its unusable.

Any escort quest for a "magic user" is automatically failed as well but I'm pretty sure that was in before 20b.

All in all, anti-magic is now an added method of handicapping yourself rather than a neat alternative way of playing through the game. Less skills/stats, way fewer gear options. Anti magic is now kind of like shooting yourself in the foot before charging into battle.

[PowerWyrm]

And I hope you like pain and suffering... because after having shot yourself in the foot, you need to climb aaaaall the levels up to the surface in every dungeon. But anyway, this is gonna change in the next betas... just ignore the quest/skill tree for now. Play a spellcaster and do the alternate quest instead

[Alpharat]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the broken Rod of Recall... I just counted it as a bug and didn't think it belonged in a mechanics post.

[Grey]

What we need is more ego and artifact ideas that are nature/mastercraft based. And perhaps a review of existing egos/artifacts to see which can be changed from arcane (perhaps even with simple name-changes to alter their theme).

[Chunes]

Unless this quest is supposed to be hard mode or something, I say magic classes can't use infusions or wear items crafted by masters. Fair is fair.

Well, either that, or remove these crippling restrictions.

[greycat]

Unless this quest is supposed to be hard mode or something, I say magic classes can't use infusions or wear items crafted by masters. Fair is fair.

That doesn't really make sense thematically, though. What we need is a new class of items that only antimagic users can use. Make them be infused with... oh, I don't know... anti-arcane forces. But, y'know, with a better name.

And they either shouldn't drop at all for the uninitiated, or they should be somewhat rare, so that the 98%(*) of characters that don't learn antimagic aren't drowning in useless gear the way the other 2% currently do.

(*) Number pulled out of thin air.

[Grey]

Anti-arcane items would be good. They'd have to strictly be exclusive from arcane egos on the same item :P And they'd have to have some negative effect on casters - like cause damage when an arcane ability is used. Oh, and they'd have to be quite powerful too.

Perhaps Zigur itself should have some bonuses, like much better equipment on offer only to those that have joined it, and skills and stat trainers.

[ohioastro]

Anti-arcane items would be good. They'd have to strictly be exclusive from arcane egos on the same item And they'd have to have some negative effect on casters - like cause damage when an arcane ability is used. Oh, and they'd have to be quite powerful too.

Perhaps Zigur itself should have some bonuses, like much better equipment on offer only to those that have joined it, and skills and stat trainers.

Maybe you could cash in powerful arcane artifacts and harness their power to make items in Zigur?

[kazak]

The first post could also be read as an argument for beefing up the resists given by antimagic, which could be an interesting approach. Looking over the forums, it kind of seems (and I could be totally wrong) like most people just picked up antimagic for the passive resists, and now that it really has a severe effect on gameplay, it just isn't so attractive any more.

So move the antimagic resistances closer to the cap. You would essentially have a player that is unable to use magic items, and severely limited with regard to equipment choices and ability to deal elemental damage; however, as a trade-off the player is also largely unconcerned with elemental damage dealt to him.

I actually kind of hate the approach to resistances in tome4 (one of the very few things that I'm not crazy about in this excellent game), but that's really just me being lazy and my disdain for obsessing over number values. I still kind of prefer the earlier system of "fire resistance" and "fire immunity"--the percentage values system just...well...it just seems confusing to me (how much is good? how much do you need at a certain point? do I need to focus on maxing resistances to have any success in the late game? etc...) to the point that I just sort of tune it out and forget about it. Of course that's usually what kills most of my better characters. That said, a character that can largely forego that aspect of the game and focus on his own abilities, at the expense of all the damage and utility provided by the arcane forces--that could still be an attractive route.

I've only had a couple characters make it to the far east, and I've only done a couple of the prides, so I really don't know how this would work in terms of balance in the late game.

[greycat]

The % resistance system is way less confusing than the one from Angband. If an item gives you 10% fire resistance, you know precisely what it means -- you only take 90% of the damage from fire attacks.

With the Angband system, you had to know that (RF) meant you took 66.67% damage, unless you combined it with a potion or spell (but not another (RF) item!), in which case, it meant you took 11.11% damage. But then there were weird damage caps on different elements (chaos could do X damage, but nether could do Y damage), with variable percentage reductions on a per-element basis for the "high resists".... Basically it was unknowable without spoilers or source-diving.

[kazak]

The percentage system might be more transparent, but I don't think it's exactly simpler in terms of gameplay, which is more what I was getting at. And I was thinking of Tome2, where you could look at your character sheet with all the resists and immunities checked off, and then you could more or less stop fretting about that and focus on other things. And that's totally just me--I understand others probably much prefer the transparency and control of this system. I was just throwing it out there that, by boosting the effects that antimagic already gives, it could both reduce the aspect of feeling like you have to obsessively micromanage the resistance percentages AND make the tree worthwhile against the "crippling effects" people are concerned about.

[Grey]

Perhaps antimagic could go beyond the normal limits?

[Kemsha]

Maybe you could cash in powerful arcane artifacts and harness their power to make items in Zigur?

I think this is a good idea.
Not only it would make us still want to find those shining artifacts but it would also make sense story wise.
We'd be getting arcane powered objects and destroy them in the name of... uh... antimagicism?

[lintofdeath]

Maybe you could cash in powerful arcane artifacts and harness their power to make items in Zigur?

I think this is a good idea.
Not only it would make us still want to find those shining artifacts but it would also make sense story wise.
We'd be getting arcane powered objects and destroy them in the name of... uh... antimagicism?

Agreed, I think that's a great idea. Those highfalutin Mana junkies get an apprentice collecting artifacts to preserve, so we should get prizes for destroying arcane items