Mages were HORRIBLE at launch

[Jadian]

Originally Posted by soronil [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Your evidence just isn't sufficient. The post is from december and supposedly compiles a list of changes from what, launch, beta? We have no idea when any of those changes actually went in.

So, if you are actually interested in p99 implementing more classic behavior, how do you expect them to do it? They need to know approximately when the changes happened.

If you can find patch notes, or other evidence discussing a particular change AT THE TIME IT HAPPENED, then that's something that's usable by the devs to make the change, file a bug report, don't post it in general discussion. Although, posting it 2 weeks before the server opens is kind of silly, you've had 10 years to provide this evidence. At this point, it is unlikely to be changed in time.

But don't you see, he's able to decipher the INTENT of the Devs simply from a list of statistics. Basically he's being a politician.

[DMN]

If you read the those notes its fairly explicit that it's not counting beta changes. There is no "- removed umbral messenger spell". regardless of your own personal knowledge about beta or vanilla, he clearly is not referring to beta changes.


mages didn't get spells until the pets were around level 30ish in early vanilla.

I do not agree that they didn't get any pets past 20. Still pretty sure they always had at least 1 purchasable from the vendors.

[Dolalin]

Just from searching on the train, I found this thread which points to two issues:

1) Mage pets would run away from mobs more than X levels higher than them

2) Mage pets above 20 were perhaps all research only until some point (this squares with the GZ post I added earlier about mage spells only going on the vendors once enough people had "discovered" them)

5/7/99

Mitosis wrote in message <3732e4ac.6883423@news>...

>Now, I am currently playing on some newer servers, but I am wondering
>how useful a magician is to a group above level 20 or so? My lvl 8
>gnome mage on Rodcet Nife has been fun up until now, but I do not see
>that many spells which will be that helpful to the group in the
>future. I have also found that my pets will not attack mobs which are
>yellow or red to me. Thus, for all of lvl 7, I did not summon my pets
>in a group, and simply took the roll of standing back and casting
>along with the wizards.
>
>My basic frustration: My higher lvl offensive spells will not be as
>effective as the wizard, and my pet will run away from the red or
>yellow mobs my group is trying to attack. Can any higher lvl
>magicians comment on what they can do for a group? Is my coward pet
>only a problem with low level summonings? Will I use a pet with
>higher level groups?

At level 11 my pet would attack yellow creatures. I had the same problem as
you when I was level 7, so perhaps it was just our level 4 summoned
creatures. Strangely, now at 12, my pet will not attack willowisps. It will
fight them if they attack me, though.

>And no, I don't consider being the food supply for a group to be very
>exciting.

Your offensive spells aren't bad, and you can jump in and attack a bit also.
You can cast flame shield on the tanks too.

>Please help me decide on whether I should continue with my magician,
>or bit the bullet and create a gnome wizard?

Wizards do the most direct damage, but you need to play in a group at higher
levels. Magicians are better for soloing, IMO, and still contribute to a
group -- at least at level 12.

Mark Asher

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....g/FEHU2VgBCvkJ

5/7/99

On Fri, 07 May 1999 13:23:32 GMT, neme...@remove.hotmail.com
(Mitosis) wrote:
>Now, I am currently playing on some newer servers, but I am wondering
>how useful a magician is to a group above level 20 or so? My lvl 8
>gnome mage on Rodcet Nife has been fun up until now, but I do not see
>that many spells which will be that helpful to the group in the
>future. I have also found that my pets will not attack mobs which are
>yellow or red to me. Thus, for all of lvl 7, I did not summon my pets
>in a group, and simply took the roll of standing back and casting
>along with the wizards.
>
>My basic frustration: My higher lvl offensive spells will not be as
>effective as the wizard, and my pet will run away from the red or
>yellow mobs my group is trying to attack. Can any higher lvl
>magicians comment on what they can do for a group? Is my coward pet
>only a problem with low level summonings? Will I use a pet with
>higher level groups?
>
>And no, I don't consider being the food supply for a group to be very
>exciting.
>
>Please help me decide on whether I should continue with my magician,
>or bit the bullet and create a gnome wizard?
>
>Meiosis
>Rodcet Nife

Magicians are screwed up after 20th level. Our 24 and 29 level pets
are research only (good luck finding all those words), and there is no
sign of any pets existing after those levels. Plus, as we increase
in level, what we can summon besides pets quickly starts to become not
more than worthless baubles and unsellable junk. However, with a
little tuning, the class will remain great after 20th, so don't lose
hope alltogether.

As for the pet running away - it's always a problem at the cusp
levels, but decreases in severity as you level - it's awful at 7th,
bad at 11th (they'll start attacking some red cons then), better at
15th... 8th and higher pets seem to almost never run from yellow cons
at the cusp levels at least. In higher level groups, your pet becomes
an invaluable, powerful DoT spell (weaker than necro's pets in
practice, which is ridiculous given all else necros get, but not
dreadfully so), an extra tank to absorb damage, a personal bodyguard
to keep the baddies off you when you start to burn etc.

I love being a magician, and would never even consider being a wizard.
If you are not sure, try both, see which you like - it was easy for
me, because I knew I wanted a magician before I even began playing the
game. Now, I still want to be one, I just want to be a magician and
still be viable after L20.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....g/FEHU2VgBCvkJ

[Erati]

Pets classically should “misbehave”

[DMN]

Would be pretty weird if all mage pets were research only after level 20. A lot of necro pets 20+ were research only but still a decent amount of them were purchasable. You almost never went more than one spell level without a vendor-buyable upgrade, and I can't imagine why mages would have been different.

that said, necros got pets at level 1 and mages not till level 4. A bit of a headscratcher in and of itself for class concept consistency.

Originally Posted by Dolalin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

2) Mage pets above 20 were perhaps all research only until some point (this squares with the GZ post I added earlier about mage spells only going on the vendors once enough people had "discovered" them)

Where is this from? I don't see it in this thread.

[Dolalin]

Another one about pets running away, post-fix. Fix seemed incomplete and they would not run away anymore, but would still refuse to attack.

5/20/99

2 notes based on a couple posts.
To Jeff K:

Magicians can't heal, but they can summon bandages and Bind Wound. Granted,
it's not all that great, but it's something (at least it isn't for me, but
my skill is only at about 15), it's cheap, uses no mana (assuming you've
summoned plenty of bandages when you first logged on), and is fairly fast.
The downside, of course, is that it will only heal up to 50% of your max
HPs, but it can certainly speed up the total healing time.

To Phred:

I also read where the pets no longer run away, and that's great news. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] I
was disappointed to find that he wouldn't ATTACK anything he used to run
away from either. Well, to modify that statement a little....

I found a /con white wisp at lvl 9. I told my lvl 8 pet to attack it. He
ignored me (the bastard! <g> ).

BUT, (and I'm not sure here...it only happened once so far and I lose track
seeing all the battle commentary in the same color) I'm PRETTY sure my pet
didn't help me in another /con white fight until after the critter was
beating on me AND I told my pet to do its job (/pet attack).

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....w/tJHVkCYcyJMJ

[Dolalin]

Originally Posted by DMN [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Where is this from? I don't see it in this thread.

I might have jumped the gun a bit. It's from the summoned items section.

There are also several hidden spells out there, waiting for players to find. Once a certain number of these have been found, they will be available from magician vendors. I'm not saying where they are or what they are… but they are nice…

[mattydef]

Sounds like OP is making a mage on green and wants less competition.

[Dolalin]

Another one that at least some magician research was buggy and or broken. But no details on what.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....s/DLzsA2Zg9z8J

[Dolalin]

Ah I got a good one. Originally mage pets were research only it seems?

6/10/99

David Schrank <david....@webline.com> sez:
>the problems are four fold.
>Our pets at higher levels become research spells, though they seem to have added at
>least one pet per circle now

Yep. That's a complaint that no longer has any validity. At
least ONE pet (sometimes two or three) is available for purchase from
vendors at each circle.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....s/2XI-lRaLJqQJ