Do you like masteries?

Share your ideas about the future of the game with other players and wizards.

Moderator: Moderators

Do you want masteries in the game?

Yes
76
92%
No
5
6%
Don't have an opinion
2
2%
 
Total votes: 83

apex
Posts: 182
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Post by apex »

and knowledge of serenity is quite easy to raise. I had mine at 50% before i left airpriests, and I was only an airpriest for like 3 weeks

According to Aralus, Knowledge of Serenity greatly improves incense and preaching-
so party ticks will do MUCH more w/ incense from high mastery of serenity.
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dunn
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Post by dunn »

Solar, that was taking the past 3 years or so into consideration.

A whiner award? I'll take it!
kraven
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Post by kraven »

masteries are here to stay...and they add very very nice flawor in the game :)
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brich
Posts: 86
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Location: Bacau, Romania

masteries are good

Post by brich »

Firstly, I'll state that masteries are extremely different from guild to guild but they are all at least needed if not pleasant/good. why? long story.
Secondly, what happened with the templar guild is an epic adventure with both happy and sad moments without a happyending. I agree with Dunn in most of the aspects. I havent withnessed all of the tunes and such but as of the conclusion- yeah templars are next to unplayable or, to put it another way, the least playable guild from the ones I tried. I greatly wish I couldve remained in the guild.... :(
p,s; these remarks could fit in another topic,yep
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aarmon
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Post by aarmon »

the (downtune,uptune,masteries,skills,spells .... ) in (put guild name i here) make the guild the worst of all.
.
meanwhile i have been on icesus for quite some time and watched quite a few tunes (in what direction ever) and i think i have read this sentence about every single guild at least once. (well not true but about lot of them).

everybody likes to play different guilds because they have to be played differently.
and i think a lot of players reinc into a guild and after seeing that they do about 100 exp less / min they leave the guild mourning about how this guild sucks.
(this is not against you birch its just something i watched on this forum and i assume in some cases i am right)

for gods sake if the guild has changed so be it.
i havent tried one guild (and i tried a lot) that didnt good exp in a
certain party/solo
with the right skills/spells
and some masteries
vs. the right mobs.

i think this way since the time i was coven where a lot players said coven sucks big time and during this time i had the best icesus time in my icesus life (and NEVER did that much exp before).
it all depends on your exp on you playing style on the playing time you have and a lot of other things.
its variable so there is no absolute rule what guild is the best and what the worst.
find you guild and just play it.
felgand
Posts: 196
Joined: Sun May 02, 2004 18:41 pm

Post by felgand »

Coven actually has an interesting story behind it since its inception. When the guild was introduced many of the higher end spells did not exist (to my knowledge) that make coven much more playable for players with higher exp totals than now. In the same hand, scourges did much more damage and since they were available at lower levels...this allowed players with smaller totals to really reap large benefits with minimal work.

So while long-term players with high totals didn't see much worth in coven in the beginning (due to poor spell choices and several other limitations), players with much smaller totals did great because scourges did so much damage in relation to the relative abilities they would have gained if they had joined another guild.

In this circumstance, how impressive or dismal the guild was depended greatly on the player's exp worth and not so much any particular playing style. Granted, since then, there have been several changes to the guild that have helped to bring higher exp worth coven players and lower exp worth coven players into more of a reasonable compromise in ability.
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aarmon
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Post by aarmon »

well no question about that its definitly true.

its just another point that has to come into consideration
what total exp you have.

but actually it were the high lvl players that did generalise the "coven guild sux", and none of them every said, except you asked, that it sucks for high lvl player.

thats just what i mean.

everybody has to find a guild that fits his character/playing style.
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draug
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Location: Rovaniemi

Post by draug »

Dunn has some valid points imho.

In most of the guilds you are required to dedicate a lot of time before you start to work. Take Dancers or Epriests for instance are totally mastery dependant even if you have gazillion exp and all skills 100% in the end it won't matter you won't get triple stabs or the infamous lich. You can double or even triple your exp rate and damage with decent masteries. Is it good that way? I think it isn't. 30% damage you get from skills and 70% from masteries, huh?

Drowsy is probably right that only few of the guilds are playable with 0% masteries. They should be the cream on top of the cake not the fillings.

++draug
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drowsy
Supporting Member 2007
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Post by drowsy »

Exactly! After all...itsn't experience your experience and not your masteries?
apex
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Post by apex »

I like masteries. They reward you for staying in one place for a long time. Highbies shouldn't be able to reinc right away and kick ass just as well as the other people (at their exp) in the guild- I think it's cool to need to work your ass off to get 'good' at ANYTHING.

And once again, you don't NEEd masteries, if you don't like them, stop paying attention. no, you won't do as well as the players w/ masteries, but since when were you playing against them anyway?
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draug
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Post by draug »

Well it is easy for you to say with low worth. Example as a former mage and a newly fresh reinced Epriest with your nicely done 800m worth you will probably think that you should do well with you'r high skills and spells. Think again? You would suck with your shitty wraith and you will reinc out (at least I would) and stick to mage.

The worst mastery scenario was probably when shadowdancer quests bugged and we had 50m worth dancers killing or seriously damaging orc patrollers to VBS with one stab.

Edit. Just remove exp skills/spells and lvls to clear things out. Then we would have the ultimate mastery mud.

++Draug
apex
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Post by apex »

Draug- there are some guilds that are more doable w/o masteries then others. With guilds like earthpriests/sorcerers you really rock ass, but only after some hard work. w/ 800m would it be that hard to go crazy for a few weeks to get decent masteries? and if not, maybe a mastery-oriented guild isn't right for you.

edit: I think it's cool that icesus is so diverse. There are places to go/things to do/guilds to be for most types of players. I think saying 'hey, that's not how i like to play, so we should reformat the whole guild system so they're all the same' would be a bad thing...

Diversity=good!
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draug
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Post by draug »

I agree that masteries are good they should not be removed at any cost but tweaking should be seriously considered. Imho a mastery should not be such an important part of a guild. Ex. A 10-20% max effect on your damage is a good way to start. Relying heavy on masteries imho it is a cheap way to tune things and It doesn't work. Anyway I think a mud should be in a constant tuning session to balance things, and it looks sadly like it isn't that way now. We can argue if there is a such a thing as perfect balance but nonetheless I think it is a subject worth thriving for.

Who Sorcerer
Who Psionicist
Who Shadowdancer,

Says it all. Why do only few people don't play these guilds? You tell me.
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brich
Posts: 86
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Location: Bacau, Romania

why sorc,psi,shadowdancer

Post by brich »

Why there are few people playing sorcerer, psionicist or shadowdancer? The answer is in the complexity and less in the masteries. It's rather anoying to have to prepare alot for battle or constantly think strategy so many prefer "simple" guilds as mage for blasting or templars for all purpose tanking. You could also put in the list "who monk","who ranger" and who knows ...On the other side one must consider the fact that different guilds are made for different totals ( where are the highbie rangers? ).
I reinced from templar to shadowdancer and I felt the lack of mastery but that's it. Same for my reinc to archer. Mastering a guild is quite fun ...something to _really_ do. Masteries could even have a higher impact. Why? Why would experience made by casting fire bolts be used learn how to shoot arrows? The masteries are there to make the difference. I strongly remember HEAVY tunes on mastery effects so you can rest assured that Icesus is in continuous tunestate. Sad to see so much work get sushied or to realise that you have to work 10 times harder to get an amount of exp others got way easier...
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draug
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Post by draug »

I don't like the "newbie guild" idea at all. All guilds should be playable no matter what you'r total experience is. At least if you have a high worth a guild should be done to compensate it somehow. Imho masteries should not be the main thing of a guild.

Icesus is a hack&slash mud and there is no point to argue and debate what experience or reincing is eg. your arrow, firebolt theory? The main idea is to bash monsters head open make money and exp and have a great time doing it. Yes, masteries should make a difference, but as I stated earlier they should be the cream not the fillings.

And I can tell you one thing why noone plays sorcerers: It is because 1) they require about a half year of playing time and 2) high worth to play them. And nobody with the required amount of worth will consider reincing into sorcs because they would suck beyond recognition for next six months.

The reason why noone with high worth plays dancers is that you will get a damage cap with your shadowdancer stab when you have about 300m worth and decent masteries. For me as a former dancer it feels like waste of time to still stay in the guild because there is no more to gain.

Imho, there are only few guilds that have a great balance with masteries and your total worth.

+++draug
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