Essence Costs

[balewind]

I was kinda surprised when I searched for another thread about this and didn't find one.

 

Are you a spellcaster who is finding they spend most of their time making the tonnes of essence they need to cast spells and not much actual casting? When you go out hunting with magic do you find you hardly have enough room for food because your pockets are so weighed down with essence that you know will last you only a couple of fights? I am! In my mind essence should only be needed to focus our spell casting efforts to achieve the desired effect. Material components are usually in the realm of a bit of fur or spark of fire to give the spell some substance, not an entire cow or a forest fire worth of flames to get even the smallest effect. The one spell the readily springs to mind as costing way too much to be worth it is the harm spell. Seems like such a minor spell that could be usefull but considering the cost and time worth of essence needed to put in it I feel my time would be better spent pulling out a bone and whacking the creature to death... ad nauseum. Looking in the encyclopedia I can only imagine the frustration of the higher level mages. The time and effort it takes to achieve the level requirment to cast spells is high enough, stacking the essence costs on top of that makes it seem futile to me. What do other people think?

[jamincollins]

Many of the spells become rather powerful at higher levels. Harm is a prime example. There are a few players that can cast a harm for nearly 80 points a cast. That's rather powerful if you ask me. There needs to be a limit not only on how easily this can be done (level requirement) but also on how many times (essence cost and EMU) before the caster must go restock.

[LadyReni]

Strenght of some spells (combat and healing spells) is based on magic lvl, so .. eh be patient and you'll see the difference when you reach 60-80 magic lvl.

 

 

edit: Eh BT was faster

Edited March 15, 2007 by LadyReni

[pennifuin]

but for the lower level mage, its a hard (too hard?) life.

 

Perhaps there could be a increase in meterial costs the more powerful a mage you become...?

[sithicus]

uh.... magic is expensive and hard to level, so it is good if there is a few benefits of having a crazy high level. Or did you mean it would be nicer if there were simply spells of higher level doing more damage than low level spells scaling up?

 

If they would add another hundred (ok, ten) spells, so much the better if you ask me. I would like to be able to blast creatures with magic instead of just healing yourself while doing the whacking the hard way, thus birthing the mage character class as a damage dealing type.

[balewind]

I reffer only to the essence cost. The mana cost alone is enough to make most mages stop to take a regeneration break after only a few fights. The essence just forces us to sit and do nothing but mash ingredients for hours at a time. It would make sense to me to use only one essence of one kind in a spell. ie: once you have the essence of death in your harm spell, why would you need more? You are already activating death in the spell, more just seems like a way of making us eat through more essence for no reason than to make it cost more gold. Magic is ethereal and appart from the material plain but the cost makes it an area strictly for the rich and not just the dedicated.

[Atlantis]

I think it's been discussed before, but I think that essences should be able to be made into a "pre-spell" thingy, ex: you mix 6 AE to get a mana drain "essence", which is used instead of the AE when you cast MD, and it only weighs 1 emu. So the ess amount is still the same, but the emu is less

[LaNora]

The essence just forces us to sit and do nothing but mash ingredients for hours at a time.

 

 

but its not 'doing nothing' you are also gaining alch exp...and harvest xp....

or you could just keep me in business!!

[Pyewacket]

The essence just forces us to sit and do nothing but mash ingredients for hours at a time.

 

 

but its not 'doing nothing' you are also gaining alch exp...and harvest xp....

or you could just keep me in business!!

 

not to mention OA exp

 

oh thats right, you didnt

[sadarar]

OK, so then it should be cheaper also to manufacture items. Take a look at how much is involved in manufacturing something even relatively simple like an iron sword. OK, you can buy the ingreds, just as a mage can buy his, but most manufacturers will be making their own bars.

 

In truth. manufacturing, crafting, magic, summoning - if they are approached in isolation are incredibly expensive skills to develop. The reality is that most people spend most of their time on alchemy and harvesting, targetted towards making the ingreds to develop their chosen skill.

 

Of course a mage would like to work his skill with no essence cost. and the manufacturers would love to make an armor set with no ingredients, and so on and so on.

 

All of these skills require that you spend a little more thought than simply ploughing through the increasing spells/items as they become available. You need to use a little sense and pick and choose the spells you wish to use to level. shield gives decent experience at little cost, so why waste money/essence on more expensive spells when there are more efficient ways?

 

likewise, why kill a rabbit with a harm spell, when a quick hit with a bone is faster and cheaper?

 

Most people will level magic naturally, with mostly healing spells, and maybe later some mana drain etc, where the cost is more acceptable. By choosing to work magic in isolation you choose a very difficult path through the game. Having said that, you also choose a path that will make you a very powerful player in the long term if you follow it through. Just in the meantime you will be relatively weak. You just need to be extremely determined to work through the hard part!