Magic Rules Suggestions

• They'll give new players more help with creating spells without having to bug the staff.
  
• Players will have a better idea of what to look for when making their spells, thus saving the staff time and increasing their efficiency.
  
• They'll better reflect how spells are really graded.
  
• The staff will be less likely to contradict each other when grading magic applications.
  
• The disadvantage new players have with making spells compared to veteran players will be significantly reduced.
  
• And finally:
  

Enola Gay wrote:There were recently several changes made to the magic rules and they were great, but I feel that several parts of the magic rules need to be revised or removed entirely. I'll go by the articles in the magic rules.

Article 2:

Area of Effect - This portion states, "[The area of effect spell] deals 75% of its rank in damage in the affected area [outside of the center of impact]." This part of the rules needs to be removed completely because (1) no one follows it and (2) the staff certainly doesn't enforce it. I can assure you that several mods do follow this. I can assure you that quite a few apps do follow this. So please don't make big statements like 'its not enforced by anyone and nobody uses it anyway

Duration - When this rule was made, I imagine it was created with DoT (damage-over-time) spells solely in mind. Many approved duration spells, with the exception of DoT spells like poison or burn spells, break the 150% rule. I myself have had spells that deal 300% - if not more - ranked damage over their duration. Thus, this portion of the rules needs to be revised or at least mention it only applies to DoT spells. This one I can agree with though almost all apps I approve do this. As does Thorn

Mixed - This part of the magic rules is in most need of fixing because, just like with the area of effect portion, no one follows nor does the staff enforce it... and justifiably so: no one wants to have a spell that deals 0.9 B-rank damage on one post followed by 0.3 B-rank damage on the following three posts. It greatly complicates things, especially in PvP situations in which the players already have to estimate damage by themselves. I think it would just be best to mention that a spell should be weaker if it has multiple affects. PVP is not a big thing on site so don't worry about that. The mixed bit I agree on. I do enforce it when I can, but sometimes this is hard to balance

Additionally, article two goes over damage alone whilst neglecting other categories such as healing and defensive spells. From what I've seen, the general rule is that a simple defensive spell can take 2 spell rank damage before collapsing. How is a new player supposed to know this? Same with healing spells and any other significant spell type. I realize that we as a community tend to shy away from hard rules, but they need to be changed to reflect the reality of how spells are graded. This I agree with

More than anything, I think this portion should make a mentioning of some kind that the effects of spells (damage, buffs, etc.) can be increased if they are appropriately balanced. I'm sure it's second nature to some of you by now that you can make some spells exceedingly strong by giving them good weaknesses, but a new player might not be aware of that. If any one thing in my suggestion is taken seriously, I hope it's this. Even if you give good weaknesses you won't be breaking the rules on damage. Or not on any apps I do. As otherwise we could have people hitting way above their rank

Article 3:

Lost Magic - This part is cryptic and just seems pointless. It should be removed entirely or at least have useful information.

Slayer Magic - Did you know slayers get increased physical states and damage resistance against their own element and it doesn't count as either an ability or a strength/weakness to the magic? If you're new, you probably didn't because it's an unwritten rule. In addition to that bit I just mentioned, I think the slayer portion of the rules should say there's a limited number of slayer positions and that they need to be applied for. I only make that suggestion because I've seen new players ask countless times if they can have slayer magic.

Article 4:

Health Regen - I think I'm just splitting hairs at this point, but it might be helpful to clarify if a passive ability can heal up to 5% HP per post or per thread. Never really seen people argue about this, but its always per post

Article 5:

Same thing with article four. What is the point of this?

Article 6:

Joke! There is no article six! There are, however, two article sevens.

Miscellaneous Magic Stuff:

This isn't in the magic rules, but it does regard the spell template. We are told in the template that the cooldown for a spell is typically one post more than the duration, but one (maybe two) staff member has been pointing out that spells have a minimum cooldown that gets larger with the rank, regardless of the duration. Again, new players won't know this.

Other things that need to be considered when (if) revising the magic rules is duration, range, and speed of spells. There is a rough maximum duration, range, and speed for all spell ranks. I think it would save everyone a lot of time and headache if the rules mentioned what these general maximums are. If a green player creates a spell to fast, he or she is going to have to revise it. If he or she makes it too slow, the spell won't be able to compete with similar spells of the same rank (if the person grading his or her app is doing the bear minimum to help that is). The same concept applies to range and duration. I've been telling the staff this for ages, but they seem to refuse because they are guidelines and people think that people will see them as hard and fast rules

Why these suggestions need to be taken into serious consideration:

• They'll give new players more help with creating spells without having to bug the staff.
  
• Players will have a better idea of what to look for when making their spells, thus saving the staff time and increasing their efficiency.
  
• They'll better reflect how spells are really graded.
  
• The staff will be less likely to contradict each other when grading magic applications.
  
• The disadvantage new players have with making spells compared to veteran players will be significantly reduced.
  
• And finally:
  

UNWRITTEN RULES ARE NOT NEW PLAYER FRIENDLY.

Unwritten rules should never be a thing in my mind and i've told mods this before.

Enola Gay wrote:There were recently several changes made to the magic rules and they were great, but I feel that several parts of the magic rules need to be revised or removed entirely. I'll go by the articles in the magic rules.

Article 2:

Area of Effect - This portion states, "[The area of effect spell] deals 75% of its rank in damage in the affected area [outside of the center of impact]." This part of the rules needs to be removed completely because (1) no one follows it and (2) the staff certainly doesn't enforce it. I can assure you that several mods do follow this. I can assure you that quite a few apps do follow this. So please don't make big statements like 'its not enforced by anyone and nobody uses it anyway Let me scale that back then: "most people don't follow and most staff don't enforce it." Show me a magic app with an AoE that deals 0.75 rank damage in the outer area, and I'll show you two more that simply round to 0.5 or 1 rank damage.

Duration - When this rule was made, I imagine it was created with DoT (damage-over-time) spells solely in mind. Many approved duration spells, with the exception of DoT spells like poison or burn spells, break the 150% rule. I myself have had spells that deal 300% - if not more - ranked damage over their duration. Thus, this portion of the rules needs to be revised or at least mention it only applies to DoT spells. This one I can agree with though almost all apps I approve do this. As does Thorn

Mixed - This part of the magic rules is in most need of fixing because, just like with the area of effect portion, no one follows nor does the staff enforce it... and justifiably so: no one wants to have a spell that deals 0.9 B-rank damage on one post followed by 0.3 B-rank damage on the following three posts. It greatly complicates things, especially in PvP situations in which the players already have to estimate damage by themselves. I think it would just be best to mention that a spell should be weaker if it has multiple affects. PVP is not a big thing on site so don't worry about that. The mixed bit I agree on. I do enforce it when I can, but sometimes this is hard to balance

Additionally, article two goes over damage alone whilst neglecting other categories such as healing and defensive spells. From what I've seen, the general rule is that a simple defensive spell can take 2 spell rank damage before collapsing. How is a new player supposed to know this? Same with healing spells and any other significant spell type. I realize that we as a community tend to shy away from hard rules, but they need to be changed to reflect the reality of how spells are graded. This I agree with

More than anything, I think this portion should make a mentioning of some kind that the effects of spells (damage, buffs, etc.) can be increased if they are appropriately balanced. I'm sure it's second nature to some of you by now that you can make some spells exceedingly strong by giving them good weaknesses, but a new player might not be aware of that. If any one thing in my suggestion is taken seriously, I hope it's this. Even if you give good weaknesses you won't be breaking the rules on damage. Or not on any apps I do. As otherwise we could have people hitting way above their rank I was just using the concept as an example for all spell effects, not just damage. I'll admit though, I've gotten away with a spell that allows for more than 1 rank damage at a time and I can see how someone could find it completely unfair that someone less liberal graded their magic application, which is why I bring up the "staff contradicting each other" part below.

Article 3:

Lost Magic - This part is cryptic and just seems pointless. It should be removed entirely or at least have useful information.

Slayer Magic - Did you know slayers get increased physical states and damage resistance against their own element and it doesn't count as either an ability or a strength/weakness to the magic? If you're new, you probably didn't because it's an unwritten rule. In addition to that bit I just mentioned, I think the slayer portion of the rules should say there's a limited number of slayer positions and that they need to be applied for. I only make that suggestion because I've seen new players ask countless times if they can have slayer magic.

Article 4:

Health Regen - I think I'm just splitting hairs at this point, but it might be helpful to clarify if a passive ability can heal up to 5% HP per post or per thread. Never really seen people argue about this, but its always per post You'd be surprised.

Article 5:

Same thing with article four. What is the point of this? The same point as article four? .-.

Article 6:

Joke! There is no article six! There are, however, two article sevens.

Miscellaneous Magic Stuff:

This isn't in the magic rules, but it does regard the spell template. We are told in the template that the cooldown for a spell is typically one post more than the duration, but one (maybe two) staff member has been pointing out that spells have a minimum cooldown that gets larger with the rank, regardless of the duration. Again, new players won't know this.

Other things that need to be considered when (if) revising the magic rules is duration, range, and speed of spells. There is a rough maximum duration, range, and speed for all spell ranks. I think it would save everyone a lot of time and headache if the rules mentioned what these general maximums are. If a green player creates a spell to fast, he or she is going to have to revise it. If he or she makes it too slow, the spell won't be able to compete with similar spells of the same rank (if the person grading his or her app is doing the bear minimum to help that is). The same concept applies to range and duration. I've been telling the staff this for ages, but they seem to refuse because they are guidelines and people think that people will see them as hard and fast rules This is my main concern as well, and I'm truly clueless as to how you could avoid that problem beyond emphasizing that they are in fact not hard rules.

Why these suggestions need to be taken into serious consideration:

• They'll give new players more help with creating spells without having to bug the staff.
  
• Players will have a better idea of what to look for when making their spells, thus saving the staff time and increasing their efficiency.
  
• They'll better reflect how spells are really graded.
  
• The staff will be less likely to contradict each other when grading magic applications.
  
• The disadvantage new players have with making spells compared to veteran players will be significantly reduced.
  
• And finally:
  

UNWRITTEN RULES ARE NOT NEW PLAYER FRIENDLY.

Unwritten rules should never be a thing in my mind and i've told mods this before.

Speed Demon Zack wrote:An extra on this we are going through a system review atm so we should be fixing more and more as we go on. You have my <3.

Speed Demon Zack wrote:Keep up suggestions like this. They are constructive and helpful. However, try to stay away from generalising with them.

Hopefully, we can get some of these things clarified or sorted in the near future.

Enola Gay wrote:

Enola Gay wrote:There were recently several changes made to the magic rules and they were great, but I feel that several parts of the magic rules need to be revised or removed entirely. I'll go by the articles in the magic rules.

Article 2:

Area of Effect - This portion states, "[The area of effect spell] deals 75% of its rank in damage in the affected area [outside of the center of impact]." This part of the rules needs to be removed completely because (1) no one follows it and (2) the staff certainly doesn't enforce it. I can assure you that several mods do follow this. I can assure you that quite a few apps do follow this. So please don't make big statements like 'its not enforced by anyone and nobody uses it anyway Let me scale that back then: "most people don't follow and most staff don't enforce it." Show me a magic app with an AoE that deals 0.75 rank damage in the outer area, and I'll show you two more that simply round to 0.5 or 1 rank damage.
On all my applications this rule is obeyed in a Damage Distribution section, however effects that equally distribute a spell (like slamming a mess of ice shards on people) I don't see how damage in the middle would be less than damage on the outside. However, I voluntarily will not argue it.

Duration - When this rule was made, I imagine it was created with DoT (damage-over-time) spells solely in mind. Many approved duration spells, with the exception of DoT spells like poison or burn spells, break the 150% rule. I myself have had spells that deal 300% - if not more - ranked damage over their duration. Thus, this portion of the rules needs to be revised or at least mention it only applies to DoT spells. This one I can agree with though almost all apps I approve do this. As does Thorn Again, I obey this rule and even circumvent it by having my spells apply instant damage instead of DoT. To be honest, I try to bypass DOT entirely as I can't calculate one and a half times a broken leg.

Mixed - This part of the magic rules is in most need of fixing because, just like with the area of effect portion, no one follows nor does the staff enforce it... and justifiably so: no one wants to have a spell that deals 0.9 B-rank damage on one post followed by 0.3 B-rank damage on the following three posts. It greatly complicates things, especially in PvP situations in which the players already have to estimate damage by themselves. I think it would just be best to mention that a spell should be weaker if it has multiple affects. PVP is not a big thing on site so don't worry about that. The mixed bit I agree on. I do enforce it when I can, but sometimes this is hard to balance100% agree, I've read this so many times and can't understand it at all. It's like a Korean trying to read zimbabwean.

Additionally, article two goes over damage alone whilst neglecting other categories such as healing and defensive spells. From what I've seen, the general rule is that a simple defensive spell can take 2 spell rank damage before collapsing. How is a new player supposed to know this? Same with healing spells and any other significant spell type. I realize that we as a community tend to shy away from hard rules, but they need to be changed to reflect the reality of how spells are graded. This I agree withI too came across this issue with my 'Spirit Barrier' but after being told I was able to apply the rule. It was hard to understand logically, but for the sake of balance it was acceptable.

More than anything, I think this portion should make a mentioning of some kind that the effects of spells (damage, buffs, etc.) can be increased if they are appropriately balanced. I'm sure it's second nature to some of you by now that you can make some spells exceedingly strong by giving them good weaknesses, but a new player might not be aware of that. If any one thing in my suggestion is taken seriously, I hope it's this. Even if you give good weaknesses you won't be breaking the rules on damage. Or not on any apps I do. As otherwise we could have people hitting way above their rank I was just using the concept as an example for all spell effects, not just damage. I'll admit though, I've gotten away with a spell that allows for more than 1 rank damage at a time and I can see how someone could find it completely unfair that someone less liberal graded their magic application, which is why I bring up the "staff contradicting each other" part below.
I agree with this.

Article 3:

Lost Magic - This part is cryptic and just seems pointless. It should be removed entirely or at least have useful information.I also agree with this.

Slayer Magic - Did you know slayers get increased physical states and damage resistance against their own element and it doesn't count as either an ability or a strength/weakness to the magic? If you're new, you probably didn't because it's an unwritten rule. In addition to that bit I just mentioned, I think the slayer portion of the rules should say there's a limited number of slayer positions and that they need to be applied for. I only make that suggestion because I've seen new players ask countless times if they can have slayer magic.I find it silly that the bonuses aren't in the rules. I only found out about it from reading a dragon slayer's magic sheet.

Article 4:

Health Regen - I think I'm just splitting hairs at this point, but it might be helpful to clarify if a passive ability can heal up to 5% HP per post or per thread. Never really seen people argue about this, but its always per post You'd be surprised.It's an argument Zack, I've read it firsthand.

Article 5:

Same thing with article four. What is the point of this? The same point as article four? .-.

Article 6:

Joke! There is no article six! There are, however, two article sevens.Simple typo, human error is natural and I didn't even notice the articles were numbered...

Miscellaneous Magic Stuff:

This isn't in the magic rules, but it does regard the spell template. We are told in the template that the cooldown for a spell is typically one post more than the duration, but one (maybe two) staff member has been pointing out that spells have a minimum cooldown that gets larger with the rank, regardless of the duration. Again, new players won't know this.
I came across the rule on this one before, but god forbid I can remember where.

Other things that need to be considered when (if) revising the magic rules is duration, range, and speed of spells. There is a rough maximum duration, range, and speed for all spell ranks. I think it would save everyone a lot of time and headache if the rules mentioned what these general maximums are. If a green player creates a spell to fast, he or she is going to have to revise it. If he or she makes it too slow, the spell won't be able to compete with similar spells of the same rank (if the person grading his or her app is doing the bear minimum to help that is). The same concept applies to range and duration. I've been telling the staff this for ages, but they seem to refuse because they are guidelines and people think that people will see them as hard and fast rules This is my main concern as well, and I'm truly clueless as to how you could avoid that problem beyond emphasizing that they are in fact not hard rules.As far as range goes, I have an issue with it as well. My alt has a SNIPER RIFLE that can only fire 15meters. She has an ice spike that goes 60meter. I can't understand why this would even be likely in any situation, but I won't argue with any GM over it because in the end, I fear the ban hammer. I know no mods will use it unless the person is satanic among satan himself, but I would rather avoid the probability all together.

Why these suggestions need to be taken into serious consideration:

• They'll give new players more help with creating spells without having to bug the staff.
  
• Players will have a better idea of what to look for when making their spells, thus saving the staff time and increasing their efficiency.
  
• They'll better reflect how spells are really graded.
  
• The staff will be less likely to contradict each other when grading magic applications.
  
• The disadvantage new players have with making spells compared to veteran players will be significantly reduced.
  
• And finally:
  

UNWRITTEN RULES ARE NOT NEW PLAYER FRIENDLY.

Unwritten rules should never be a thing in my mind and i've told mods this before.

Speed Demon Zack wrote:An extra on this we are going through a system review atm so we should be fixing more and more as we go on. You have my <3.

Seikatsu wrote:

Enola Gay wrote:There were recently several changes made to the magic rules and they were great, but I feel that several parts of the magic rules need to be revised or removed entirely. I'll go by the articles in the magic rules.

Article 2:

Area of Effect - This portion states, "[The area of effect spell] deals 75% of its rank in damage in the affected area [outside of the center of impact]." This part of the rules needs to be removed completely because (1) no one follows it and (2) the staff certainly doesn't enforce it. On all my applications this rule is obeyed in a Damage Distribution section, however effects that equally distribute a spell (like slamming a mess of ice shards on people) I don't see how damage in the middle would be less than damage on the outside. However, I voluntarily will not argue it. Good point on the ice shard bit.

Duration - When this rule was made, I imagine it was created with DoT (damage-over-time) spells solely in mind. Many approved duration spells, with the exception of DoT spells like poison or burn spells, break the 150% rule. I myself have had spells that deal 300% - if not more - ranked damage over their duration. Thus, this portion of the rules needs to be revised or at least mention it only applies to DoT spells.Again, I obey this rule and even circumvent it by having my spells apply instant damage instead of DoT. To be honest, I try to bypass DOT entirely as I can't calculate one and a half times a broken leg.

Mixed - This part of the magic rules is in most need of fixing because, just like with the area of effect portion, no one follows nor does the staff enforce it... and justifiably so: no one wants to have a spell that deals 0.9 B-rank damage on one post followed by 0.3 B-rank damage on the following three posts. It greatly complicates things, especially in PvP situations in which the players already have to estimate damage by themselves. I think it would just be best to mention that a spell should be weaker if it has multiple affects. 100% agree, I've read this so many times and can't understand it at all. It's like a Korean trying to read zimbabwean.

Additionally, article two goes over damage alone whilst neglecting other categories such as healing and defensive spells. From what I've seen, the general rule is that a simple defensive spell can take 2 spell rank damage before collapsing. How is a new player supposed to know this? Same with healing spells and any other significant spell type. I realize that we as a community tend to shy away from hard rules, but they need to be changed to reflect the reality of how spells are graded. I too came across this issue with my 'Spirit Barrier' but after being told I was able to apply the rule. It was hard to understand logically, but for the sake of balance it was acceptable.

More than anything, I think this portion should make a mentioning of some kind that the effects of spells (damage, buffs, etc.) can be increased if they are appropriately balanced. I'm sure it's second nature to some of you by now that you can make some spells exceedingly strong by giving them good weaknesses, but a new player might not be aware of that. If any one thing in my suggestion is taken seriously, I hope it's this. Even if you give good weaknesses you won't be breaking the rules on damage. Or not on any apps I do. As otherwise we could have people hitting way above their rank I was just using the concept as an example for all spell effects, not just damage. I'll admit though, I've gotten away with a spell that allows for more than 1 rank damage at a time and I can see how someone could find it completely unfair that someone less liberal graded their magic application, which is why I bring up the "staff contradicting each other" part below.
I agree with this.

Article 3:

Lost Magic - This part is cryptic and just seems pointless. It should be removed entirely or at least have useful information.I also agree with this.

Slayer Magic - Did you know slayers get increased physical states and damage resistance against their own element and it doesn't count as either an ability or a strength/weakness to the magic? If you're new, you probably didn't because it's an unwritten rule. In addition to that bit I just mentioned, I think the slayer portion of the rules should say there's a limited number of slayer positions and that they need to be applied for. I only make that suggestion because I've seen new players ask countless times if they can have slayer magic.I find it silly that the bonuses aren't in the rules. I only found out about it from reading a dragon slayer's magic sheet. Same.

Article 4:

Health Regen - I think I'm just splitting hairs at this point, but it might be helpful to clarify if a passive ability can heal up to 5% HP per post or per thread. Never really seen people argue about this, but its always per post You'd be surprised.It's an argument Zack, I've read it firsthand.

Article 5:

Same thing with article four.

Article 6:

Joke! There is no article six! There are, however, two article sevens.Simple typo, human error is natural and I didn't even notice the articles were numbered... Mhm, I just had to add this one cause it tickled me so much. xD

Miscellaneous Magic Stuff:

This isn't in the magic rules, but it does regard the spell template. We are told in the template that the cooldown for a spell is typically one post more than the duration, but one (maybe two) staff member has been pointing out that spells have a minimum cooldown that gets larger with the rank, regardless of the duration. Again, new players won't know this.
I came across the rule on this one before, but god forbid I can remember where. I only found out about it when Zack pointed it out.

Other things that need to be considered when (if) revising the magic rules is duration, range, and speed of spells. There is a rough maximum duration, range, and speed for all spell ranks. I think it would save everyone a lot of time and headache if the rules mentioned what these general maximums are. If a green player creates a spell to fast, he or she is going to have to revise it. If he or she makes it too slow, the spell won't be able to compete with similar spells of the same rank (if the person grading his or her app is doing the bear minimum to help that is). The same concept applies to range and duration.As far as range goes, I have an issue with it as well. My alt has a SNIPER RIFLE that can only fire 15meters. She has an ice spike that goes 60meter. I can't understand why this would even be likely in any situation, but I won't argue with any GM over it because in the end, I fear the ban hammer. I know no mods will use it unless the person is satanic among satan himself, but I would rather avoid the probability all together.

Why these suggestions need to be taken into serious consideration:

• They'll give new players more help with creating spells without having to bug the staff.
  
• Players will have a better idea of what to look for when making their spells, thus saving the staff time and increasing their efficiency.
  
• They'll better reflect how spells are really graded.
  
• The staff will be less likely to contradict each other when grading magic applications.
  
• The disadvantage new players have with making spells compared to veteran players will be significantly reduced.
  
• And finally:
  

UNWRITTEN RULES ARE NOT NEW PLAYER FRIENDLY.

Personal Recommendations:
Perhaps a set of guidelines for all moderators who review magic would be useful. I find that every mod has his or her own way of approving magic, and it makes it kind of a gamble. To be honest, I prefer Aedre over Hika reviewing my stuff because Hika makes magic to convoluted and frustrating. That's how my alt has a sniper that you have to shove down a guys throat. Aedre however will help me balance my stuff and ask the annoying questions that need to be asked. She prevented me from making an underpowered spell, and made sure to not let me make an overpowered one as well.
This preference is my own example of moderator favoritism. And there are some mods that allow spells to be ridiculously over powered for a certain rank. Example: Kateri Ice Spell-D Rank-> Ice Spike has a distance of 60 meters. That's 180 feet, and I didn't even realize how OP that sounded at the time. Re-reading it now, I scrapped it by making it into a C rank AoE, and dropping something else in that slot.
If we had guidelines for mods to follow, like a check list, then all mods would grade similarly.
I understand the amount of variable are ASTRONOMICAL but it is possible. I don't know if the staff have guidlines or if they just use their best judgement, so I'll just refrain from comment on this one.