I'd like to start a discussion here instead of the other thread if that's alright, the issues I seek to resolve are wizard specific and I feel they might get lost in the muck of the main thread found here: http://forums.play.net/forums/19/213/2285/view/3401


I'd like to first restate the requirements:

Requirements

225 - no lore requirements to target characters intra-zone.

325 - no lore requirements to target a room intra-zone, they can also take a group, the group is not subject to the interception chance of 80%, only the caster.

930 - 75 ranks of water lore to unlock the ability to "travel" to another intra-zone location. Removal of all of the other features provided by 920 (find, look, watch, emotes). 33% increase in difficulty to open a portal. Each individual person is subject to the interception chance of 80%.

A gold ring is required to mitigate the interception chance of 80% for all spells.

Questions

I'd like to understand why the first 2 spells DO NOT have any lore requirements to unlock their intra-realm ability, but wizards require 75 ranks? Also, why is there a difference in the group interception of 325 vs 930 as well?

Suggestions/Requests:

Travel should be allowed at 0 ranks, since 225 and 325 don't require any additional lore requirements to unlock the base ability of intra-zone teleport.

The increase in difficulty to open the portal should be removed. 930 is already a difficult spell to cast when you learn it, and I don't find it a reliable spell until at least 60 ranks of wizard spells. The other spells, 225 and 325 don't have an increase in difficulty either. I still occasionally fail at cap, with fairly good training.

Only the caster should be subject to the interception chance.

We should also be able to retain the features provided by 920: find, watch, look, emotes.

Alternative Suggestions/Requests

If those requests can't be agreed upon. I'd like to suggest that 930 be split into CAST and EVOKE options.

Cast would be used for a wizard only portal, intra-zone.
Evoke would be used for a group portal, intra-zone.

If you want to require lore ranks for the group portal, even though 325 doesn't have those requirements, I would find that more acceptable. I personally gain no benefit from 930 allowing a group to move through it, but I still pay the cost for the spell having that ability. So separate that ability, and allow us the option to train for it.

930-Related

Somewhat, but not specific to 930, I'd like to be able to anchor to any room. The particular room I'd like to anchor to is in my private property, but it's not my noded room. I'd like to see anchor available at 25 ranks, with an option to anchor to any room at a higher lore threshold of 50 ranks.

Justifications!

I know Estild likes justifications for things, so I'll do my best to provide what I can.

I assume a lot of work went into these updates, but as they stand with regard to 930 the requirements are excessive if you want that work to be enjoyed. I assume you want to provide reasons to train in water lore, I myself have 95 ranks, because I see the benefits that water lore provides, but I don't feel 930 has to have such high requirements to add an incentive to train in it. Especially considering that 225/325 have no lore requirements, just wear a gold ring and go.

Gold rings are going to gain value now, and be more than something you toss at the chronomages for credit, and that's great. However, for 5k you can have instant teleport to any intra-zone city, and it lasts for 24 hours. So not only can you get there instantly, for cheap (just toss that gold ring to them) you can get back instantly for free.

A wizard would need to cast 920, tell their familiar to travel to the other town, wait for it to get there, and then successfully cast 930. That's a lot of effort, time, and added risk when you can just spend 5k or throw down that gold ring. Why would any wizard choose to use the new teleport option?

If all wizards could make use of travel (just like all empaths and all clerics can make use of their spells), I think these new teleport updates would be far more likely to be used. That ring wouldn't just be tossed to the chronomage because it would now be needed to mitigate the interception.

Making travel available to all wizards also retains the incentive to train in air lore (to reduce the travel time). Keep the water lore requirement for group travel if you want to add an incentive to train in water lore, but it shouldn't be required for solo use.

Yes this is so true. I would even prefer it be any lore not if you have a req not just water lore. I don't think I should have to be a water wizard to use the upgraded form of the wizard travel spell. This is a highly underused spell as is and this is going to do much to make it more desirable.

Fyrentennimar


Quote: "Jaynah says, "This is more fun than rolton tipping and blood eagle ridin combined.""

I think wizard lore benefits are currently well balanced i.e.:

Elemental Lore - Air...............| 160 60
Elemental Lore - Earth.............| 140 40
Elemental Lore - Fire..............| 150 50
Elemental Lore - Water.............| 150 50

With this setup Askip is getting 90% of the benefits of all four (I just made that number up but there are few major plateaus unreached).

I appreciate the balance.

I would hope that fifty ranks of anything, be it lore or spell, would suffice.

Then again I feel the same for flares too, and they are not "learnable" as are spells and lores.

Please rethink the 75 water ranks.

:D

<Sorcerers can teleport cross realm already. Lore with the phase 2 version gives them an improved version. And their is true cross realm anyway, so they still have a huge advantage over everyone else in the travel department.>

Sorcerer's def aren't losing anything with the change, but I'd hesitate to call it an improvement. It depends on how much risk the individual sorcerer is willing to take to get between two towns they could run to almost as fast in most cases to save a little silver on chalk.

With Necro lore being a full 1x or don't bother skill for most of it's desirable benefits and ensorcelling being such a huge income generator for sorcerers, I don't see too many getting enough Demon lore to train off the risk completely. With 100 demon ranks, you're still looking at about a 25% risk of potentially deadly failure... I'll just walk or spend the extra 29k to give myself a negligible failure rate (cause I'm raking in so much with 735 it's gonna take a lot of trips before I notice the lost silvers).

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.