Mechanics, FOIG, and Lanterns

[Security_Blanket]

All I get from this is "as long as your diligent and extremely patient you can figure it out." Thank you but no thanks, some of us like playing detective and others less so, some people like to solve riddles and others find them tedious, this is where I am with many of the FOIG mechanics. I don't have the time or interest to figure out your riddles, I come here for fun, not to be irritated by something I can't grasp. The easiest solution to me is to simply not play a diviner and focus on a spell school that I can more easily work with.

[Ruzuke]

That sort of hand waving has led to people telling my fully covered elf's that their ears were showing when a hood is worn, and the ears were not in fact showing. As for books being the answer to things. There may be a blue haired hin of mine whose name is Liar that may or may not write books with completely false made-up information. If I have had this idea as a concept, it is quite possible others may have as well.

I do know when I RP D&D in RL my character's knowledge is not based on what I as a player can figure out. It is based on the stats on the sheet. I the real-life player might not know how exactly magic works; however, my knowledge arcana skill check will help my character know how magic works.

That is how the system work and how they are designed. Your fully covered elf didn’t happen to perfectly cover themselves. Maybe there was an imperfection of the covering and it was spotted. If it says elf, then that is what they see. I don’t see the issue.

I also don’t see the other issue you’re trying to bring up either. Games have had these sorts of things forever. You don’t have to engage with the system if you don’t like it or don’t want to spend time trying to learn it.

No, the system in game is designed as WYSIWYG.

Using the text messages at the bottom of the screen goes again What you see is what you get. It is why if as an elf I use -disguise and it shows pale skin because the character is exposing all the skin, despite not breaking the disguise the person can say. Drow are dark-skinned.

It is picking and choosing which system a person wants to follow at the time to "win". In both cases WYSWIYG applies, both cases the system says something different, and in both cases, players use what gives them the most advantage. That makes it a person thing.

[chris a gogo]

The point he is making is you can beat the "covered" system with enough skill.
So it is WYSIWYG.
Also covered doesn't hide race.

[Edens_Fall]

All I get from this is "as long as your diligent and extremely patient you can figure it out." Thank you but no thanks, some of us like playing detective and others less so, some people like to solve riddles and others find them tedious, this is where I am with many of the FOIG mechanics. I don't have the time or interest to figure out your riddles, I come here for fun, not to be irritated by something I can't grasp. The easiest solution to me is to simply not play a diviner and focus on a spell school that I can more easily work with.

It seems you have the matter sorted then, as your reasoning is a valid and legitimate one. I personally don't play many elves due to not enjoying the RP. This is, in the end, a game we play for enjoyment. If you are not having fun hunting for secrets, then don't. Thanks to this update to Boons, the issue of them providing an unfair PvP advantage for those who gatekeep them is no longer a concern, thankfully.

[ThisIsNotADrill]

I still have no clue what any of the diviner auras really mean, which means I can't roleplay them. I've never been able to find any documentation as to what they're supposed to mean IC to the character perceiving them. I've tried to ask both OOC and even IC (pretending that a greater diviner somehow wouldn't know) and gotten nowhere.

It's frustratingly nebulous.

That strikes me as precisely the sort of thing that ought to be explained somewhere.

There's at least one large literary collection in Andunor that has several books on the topic. From the cards to the auras. One must simply reach out IG and ask to see them. The Surface also has at least three collections with books that I know of, only one of which might be a challenge to reach for non-elves. The point is there is IG lore about the topic. You just have to put in the effort to find it or start your own RP investigation. That's kind of the fun of it you know. Meeting new people in your search for answers. Feeling accomplished when the truth is revealed. From a personal experience, it's a pretty nice high.

People keep totally ignoring the parts where I say I did ask. Thanks for reading.

The advice is always 'you just have to ask and you'll get everything you want'.

I have. I have asked. Nobody had answers. Your experience does not necessarily correspond to anyone else's. I tried to investigate, I tried to ask, I looked for books, I looked for people. Every bit of facile advice that's been proposed here, and nothing came of it. Either nobody else I encountered had any idea or they were keeping that information to themselves. It'd probably have gone better for me if I had some established server connections.

The in group is always in a rush to tell the out group that it ain't no thing.

[Anomandaris]

The boons are now basically worthless. The change is kind of sad. This is a classic “this is why we can’t have nice things,” moment.

What was a cool niche thing worth figuring out is now functionally worthless.

[ThisIsNotADrill]

Still good for clout which is 90% of true endgame

[chris a gogo]

People keep totally ignoring the parts where I say I did ask. Thanks for reading.

The advice is always 'you just have to ask and you'll get everything you want'.

I have. I have asked. Nobody had answers. Your experience does not necessarily correspond to anyone else's. I tried to investigate, I tried to ask, I looked for books, I looked for people. Every bit of facile advice that's been proposed here, and nothing came of it. Either nobody else I encountered had any idea or they were keeping that information to themselves. It'd probably have gone better for me if I had some established server connections.

The in group is always in a rush to tell the out group that it ain't no thing.

Find a library check the shelves for bookcase named "schools of magic" or "divination" click on them and check the titles for anything related to divination, aura's, deck of stars and read them.
I do recommend learning it for yourself I got a lot of enjoyment talking to every character I met and learning about them so I could figure out what the aura's mean.
But if you can't do that or just don't want to then read one of the books try the elves, arcane tower, bendir, heartwood grove, cordor library.
Pretty sure the arcane tower and the elves have one elves certainly do I checked today.

[ThisIsNotADrill]

People keep totally ignoring the parts where I say I did ask. Thanks for reading.

The advice is always 'you just have to ask and you'll get everything you want'.

I have. I have asked. Nobody had answers. Your experience does not necessarily correspond to anyone else's. I tried to investigate, I tried to ask, I looked for books, I looked for people. Every bit of facile advice that's been proposed here, and nothing came of it. Either nobody else I encountered had any idea or they were keeping that information to themselves. It'd probably have gone better for me if I had some established server connections.

The in group is always in a rush to tell the out group that it ain't no thing.

Find a library check the shelves for bookcase named "schools of magic" or "divination" click on them and check the titles for anything related to divination, aura's, deck of stars and read them.
I do recommend learning it for yourself I got a lot of enjoyment talking to every character I met and learning about them so I could figure out what the aura's mean.
But if you can't do that or just don't want to then read one of the books try the elves, arcane tower, bendir, heartwood grove, cordor library.
Pretty sure the arcane tower and the elves have one elves certainly do I checked today.

Look, I'm not asking for a guided tour.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be cool secrets.

I'm saying that something I've been given automatically as a class feature shouldn't be one of them.

[Kythana]

I have. I have asked. Nobody had answers. Your experience does not necessarily correspond to anyone else's. I tried to investigate, I tried to ask, I looked for books, I looked for people. Every bit of facile advice that's been proposed here, and nothing came of it. Either nobody else I encountered had any idea or they were keeping that information to themselves. It'd probably have gone better for me if I had some established server connections.

I'll say that I have had a similar experience to this. Not necessarily in that I didn't ultimately find out, but more so just broadly speaking to other characters about these topics.

There is a trend, especially from a lot of the long-term players, to greatly over-estimate how simple it is to actually go in and discover something intuitively. Mechanics get forgotten when they're not documented, players can be wrong, the documentation ingame can just be wrong/outdated. Every single dweomercrafting book is going to be useless post update, for instance.

And like the original point that I made was, often someone that is entering in a subject that they have no idea about doesn't know the questions to ask.

It's pretty easy to claim that this stuff is easy to figure out when you've been around for yours, you oocly know exactly the spot where it is mentioned, and how to find it.

I think it's rather telling from this thread alone about how many people have said something along the lines of: 'I had no idea that was a thing' in regards to something like boons. It's easy to be dismissive when your own experience doesn't match, but we should strive to be empathetic towards other players and understand when something is objectively not communicated well.

It's a bit of a testament to how disappointing this community is at times when the reaction to someone saying they had difficulties learning something ingame is: "You're just lazy, and didn't make an effort." I think that's really reductive.

[Ruzuke]

The point he is making is you can beat the "covered" system with enough skill.
So it is WYSIWYG.
Also covered doesn't hide race.

No but the command -disguise _race does change the race shown. My drow can use disguise race to say sun elf, moon elf, wild elf, even aquatic elf.

So while the ears are covered it is: No your an elf because the text says elf.

But show some arm on a drow and the text says aquatic elf and it becomes what you see is what you get. Which led me to say it isn't about the message. It is players playing to win.

[chris a gogo]

Look, I'm not asking for a guided tour.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be cool secrets.

I'm saying that something I've been given automatically as a class feature shouldn't be one of them.

You haven't it's an RP tool added to a feat anyone taking that feat gets to use it if they want to, hell even my necromancer specialist has it from an item but I don't use it as it's not in there character.

by Ruzuke » 05 May 2024 01:39

chris a gogo wrote: ↑04 May 2024 13:37
The point he is making is you can beat the "covered" system with enough skill.
So it is WYSIWYG.
Also covered doesn't hide race.

No but the command -disguise _race does change the race shown. My drow can use disguise race to say sun elf, moon elf, wild elf, even aquatic elf.

So while the ears are covered it is: No your an elf because the text says elf.

But show some arm on a drow and the text says aquatic elf and it becomes what you see is what you get. Which led me to say it isn't about the message. It is players playing to win.

Right you didn't explain that too well the first time you just mentioned being "Covered" not disguised and the covered system is beatable and doesn't hide race, the whole I can see your ears thing is in fact valid, maybe the hood pressed against the characters head when they looked around showing the imprint of it's pointy ears, or maybe just because your character has the build and look of an elf because it is one.
I do understand the point your trying to make I just don't agree with it your character still looks like an elf because it's an elf once covered is beaten they get the flash of skin or something so they know what kind of elf.

[AnselHoenheim]

All I get from this is "as long as your diligent and extremely patient you can figure it out." Thank you but no thanks, some of us like playing detective and others less so, some people like to solve riddles and others find them tedious, this is where I am with many of the FOIG mechanics. I don't have the time or interest to figure out your riddles, I come here for fun, not to be irritated by something I can't grasp. The easiest solution to me is to simply not play a diviner and focus on a spell school that I can more easily work with.

It seems you have the matter sorted then, as your reasoning is a valid and legitimate one. I personally don't play many elves due to not enjoying the RP. This is, in the end, a game we play for enjoyment. If you are not having fun hunting for secrets, then don't. Thanks to this update to Boons, the issue of them providing an unfair PvP advantage for those who gatekeep them is no longer a concern, thankfully.

Just dig between hundreds and hundreds of books until you find what you want, easy right?

Btw, this is sarcasm

[Security_Blanket]

I certainly have tried to figure it out, I didn't just look at it once and throw a fit because I didn't get it. I examined everyone, trying to take in any little detail about their suspected class, race, and apply it to these auras, on top of the four elements, then life and death, there are other unique "auras" you could see that would only serve to baffle me. I've combed over any book that seemed like it may lead somewhere based on the title, still I got nowhere. Over time I learned to stop leaning on divination because the school isn't given the support it ought to have. Unless your end goal is Scry or you already know the secrets behind auras and the Deck of Stars, just don't bother, make an illusionist or something.

Is it worth it to play a diviner? Find out in game.

[Anomandaris]

The last diviner I played didn’t care for reading auras. That said usually there are at least a handful of PCs around at any given time known to be proficient diviners and readers of auras. I have made introductions IC to several looking to learn. From there it’s up to the rp to earn the knowledge.

It’s not that hard. Ask around. Post on the boards, reach out to know diviners. You will find someone.

Also auras can be used to facilitate some meh rp, by just “knowing things” looking at someone. I’m glad it’s not widely known or would be more problematic.

IMO things like this are better when less common. Or everyone knows everything or can do everything, making nothing special, which is unfortunately kind of the state of the sever. If aura secrets were on wiki it wouldn’t be special or unique anymore.

[Eyeliner]

I've actively tried for months to find this out on a wizard character, and to look into rituals as well, but didn't have any luck. Even going to Arcane Tower classes and asking around. Just finding people in the Arcane Tower who are invested in helping each other is difficult. Hell just finding someone friendly enough to talk to a stranger can be impossible some nights I play.

Not really a complaint, I mean I know things take time, but I get the frustration. It should be a chore but if you're not connected it can seem impossible or at least not worth spending many many hours on. Maybe it would help if players who are in the know, or failing that, even DMs, could make a point to seed knowledge on occasion. If FOIG knowledge is meant to be spread like a virus there need to be an adequate number of hosts.

[Hobojoe]

The boons are now basically worthless. The change is kind of sad. This is a classic “this is why we can’t have nice things,” moment.

What was a cool niche thing worth figuring out is now functionally worthless.

Hard to figure out when you've no idea it even exists in game as a possibility.

[chocolatelover]

This. Been on the server 18 months and didn't know anything about these.

[Edens_Fall]

All I get from this is "as long as your diligent and extremely patient you can figure it out." Thank you but no thanks, some of us like playing detective and others less so, some people like to solve riddles and others find them tedious, this is where I am with many of the FOIG mechanics. I don't have the time or interest to figure out your riddles, I come here for fun, not to be irritated by something I can't grasp. The easiest solution to me is to simply not play a diviner and focus on a spell school that I can more easily work with.

It seems you have the matter sorted then, as your reasoning is a valid and legitimate one. I personally don't play many elves due to not enjoying the RP. This is, in the end, a game we play for enjoyment. If you are not having fun hunting for secrets, then don't. Thanks to this update to Boons, the issue of them providing an unfair PvP advantage for those who gatekeep them is no longer a concern, thankfully.

Just dig between hundreds and hundreds of books until you find what you want, easy right?

Btw, this is sarcasm

LOL fair. I am a bit bias due to my own RP when it comes to IG writings and literature collections. Do try to forgive that "character" flaw if you would.

See what I did there.

[Ruzuke]

Look, I'm not asking for a guided tour.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be cool secrets.

I'm saying that something I've been given automatically as a class feature shouldn't be one of them.

You haven't it's an RP tool added to a feat anyone taking that feat gets to use it if they want to, hell even my necromancer specialist has it from an item but I don't use it as it's not in there character.

by Ruzuke » 05 May 2024 01:39

chris a gogo wrote: ↑04 May 2024 13:37
The point he is making is you can beat the "covered" system with enough skill.
So it is WYSIWYG.
Also covered doesn't hide race.

No but the command -disguise _race does change the race shown. My drow can use disguise race to say sun elf, moon elf, wild elf, even aquatic elf.

So while the ears are covered it is: No your an elf because the text says elf.

But show some arm on a drow and the text says aquatic elf and it becomes what you see is what you get. Which led me to say it isn't about the message. It is players playing to win.

Right you didn't explain that too well the first time you just mentioned being "Covered" not disguised and the covered system is beatable and doesn't hide race, the whole I can see your ears thing is in fact valid, maybe the hood pressed against the characters head when they looked around showing the imprint of it's pointy ears, or maybe just because your character has the build and look of an elf because it is one.
I do understand the point your trying to make I just don't agree with it your character still looks like an elf because it's an elf once covered is beaten they get the flash of skin or something so they know what kind of elf.

No it is not valid. To use the -disguise_race command a character has to be covered. Otherwise On Arelith a person cannot alter the race the system says it is. No the reason why your comment is not valid you assume the disguise is broken. The way it works on Arelith is when a disguise is broken there is an OOC notification which states it is broken and it is an OOC notification. But even if the disguise is not broken it will say a person wearing a hood, helmet, no ears showing is an elf.

No continuing this line of thought the elf, human, hogoblin, or whatever around the same size fully covered, wearing warrior helmets, not showing a bit of skin doesn't have their ears shown. It is immersion breaking to claim Elvis the Elf's helmet which is at 100% is not worn properly/and or broken enough to see a gap within it and power pose stating his eats are shown. It is an attempt to win and metagaming. My characters cannot see through hoods, helmets, to see what people are looking like underneath their helmet.

That said if we are going that route if my drow uses -disguise_race and becomes a sun_elf. Even if skin shown he can use the line for BG: Dark Alliance II of being a sun burnt elf. I am saying people cannot have it both ways. Either we either follow the OOC message of are race X ignoring "what you see is what you get" or we don't. But picking and choosing when the race is shown actually counts or not is an attempt to win at RP. Some of the reasons why many of the mechanics are hidden and not discussed. Sadly, that like the FOIG culture is very much tilted to people playing to win and not just telling a story.

[Xerah]

It is immersion breaking to claim Elvis the Elf's helmet which is at 100% is not worn properly/and or broken enough to see a gap within it and power pose stating his eats are shown. It is an attempt to win and metagaming.

Take this elsewhere. This is not true on Arelith. It does not work that way on Arelith. It has nothing to do with attempting to win or meta gaming so don’t accuse your fellow players of cheating. It is not cool.

[silverpheonix]

A big problem I see sometimes is with the bug reporting side. I know a few UD players were testing rituals, which were intended to be heavily FOIG. Which, sure, fine. (That there's just a bunch of rituals suddenly that lots of PCs know exactly how to perform, what material components, compatible languages, and school of magic are required but absolutely nothing at all about what they do is weird, but ok).

Blightful Presence was noted to last for a very very long time. Over an IG year. Nothing anyone did could remove it. Not even another ritual. No naturewalker could fix what had been done. So four months later someone decides "this probably is a bug" and reported it. Even the staff didn't know if it was a bug and had to ask the dev that designed the ritual if this was intended behavior. Which to me is, honestly, an inexplicable lack of documentation whether in code or in the dev areas. What if they had left?

[Cthuletta]

A big problem I see sometimes is with the bug reporting side. I know a few UD players were testing rituals, which were intended to be heavily FOIG. Which, sure, fine. (That there's just a bunch of rituals suddenly that lots of PCs know exactly how to perform, what material components, compatible languages, and school of magic are required but absolutely nothing at all about what they do is weird, but ok).

Blightful Presence was noted to last for a very very long time. Over an IG year. Nothing anyone did could remove it. Not even another ritual. No naturewalker could fix what had been done. So four months later someone decides "this probably is a bug" and reported it. Even the staff didn't know if it was a bug and had to ask the dev that designed the ritual if this was intended behavior. Which to me is, honestly, an inexplicable lack of documentation whether in code or in the dev areas. What if they had left?

I remember this on the side of the folks trying to 'fix it'. At one point we thought it was a DM event thing but nothing more ever came of it and we didn't know which DM it was or how to progress it. We just looked around the area every so often trying to find 'clues', only there wasn't any!
... It's a bit funny to know now it might've been a bug, but it does highlight the issue with some FOIG stuff being open to being bugged and nobody even knowing it for a really long time. Makes me wonder if a ritual I did recently that had some finicky mechanic behaviour was intended because it was a partial or also a bug now. Rituals by and large have been hard to get information about, even when you're the one doing them.

Courtesy of the Wiki: "Once a Ritual is complete, the success ratio will be calculated via the system's own black box mechanics. This means even if you have a 100% successful Ritual, you may not gain all the benefits from it as some things are hidden mechanics for that specific ritual."
I've seen theories bounced around both IC and OOC about why a ritual wasn't fully successful, from items we aren't told we need to specific ESFs from the Ritualists. It's very daunting to keep going, trying this thing, that thing, sometimes repeatedly with expensive/rare components only to continue getting that dang partial. Having this particular veil lifted but still keeping what they do vague would probably help a lot in terms of characters figuring out the rituals ICly.

[silverpheonix]

A big problem I see sometimes is with the bug reporting side. I know a few UD players were testing rituals, which were intended to be heavily FOIG. Which, sure, fine. (That there's just a bunch of rituals suddenly that lots of PCs know exactly how to perform, what material components, compatible languages, and school of magic are required but absolutely nothing at all about what they do is weird, but ok).

Blightful Presence was noted to last for a very very long time. Over an IG year. Nothing anyone did could remove it. Not even another ritual. No naturewalker could fix what had been done. So four months later someone decides "this probably is a bug" and reported it. Even the staff didn't know if it was a bug and had to ask the dev that designed the ritual if this was intended behavior. Which to me is, honestly, an inexplicable lack of documentation whether in code or in the dev areas. What if they had left?

I remember this on the side of the folks trying to 'fix it'. At one point we thought it was a DM event thing but nothing more ever came of it and we didn't know which DM it was or how to progress it. We just looked around the area every so often trying to find 'clues', only there wasn't any!
... It's a bit funny to know now it might've been a bug, but it does highlight the issue with some FOIG stuff being open to being bugged and nobody even knowing it for a really long time. Makes me wonder if a ritual I did recently that had some finicky mechanic behaviour was intended because it was a partial or also a bug now. Rituals by and large have been hard to get information about, even when you're the one doing them.

Courtesy of the Wiki: "Once a Ritual is complete, the success ratio will be calculated via the system's own black box mechanics. This means even if you have a 100% successful Ritual, you may not gain all the benefits from it as some things are hidden mechanics for that specific ritual."
I've seen theories bounced around both IC and OOC about why a ritual wasn't fully successful, from items we aren't told we need to specific ESFs from the Ritualists. It's very daunting to keep going, trying this thing, that thing, sometimes repeatedly with expensive/rare components only to continue getting that dang partial. Having this particular veil lifted but still keeping what they do vague would probably help a lot in terms of characters figuring out the rituals ICly.

Some IC information that doesn't rely on:

1) Someone eventually hitting the correct parameters and noticing; AND
2) Sharing that information ICly

Would be amazing.

Heck, make it so PCs have a scaling chance to discover more detail about the ritual based off their Spellcraft and how many times they've performed it.

FOIG without any IG information on a mechanic kinda hurts things. When rituals first came out, I was expecting there to be books added in too that give hints or some general information on them.

Another example: Cometfall. I've done this ritual a number of times. Supposedly you should be able to bank the Comet for later use. I don't seem to be able to do this. Is it a bug? Is it because mystery mechanics haven't been met? Is it because I'm not seeing something simple or don't know there's a specific mechanical way to bank the Comet? Who knows! Do I waste staff time by submitting a bug report, forcing someone to dig into the code, and then tell me "it's working as intended"?

[Beary Nice]

Rituals being as they are is awful for player feedback and rarely does it feel worth it to gather the expensive materials and also specific people that meet the criteria for the specific thing you need and want to do

I agree entirely with the above post, if you get a partial success, it should say what you're missing and by how much