Are you willing to give the mage system another 20-30 hours of gameplay? I’m getting a very angry vibe from all the posts. Even our guys in Nova with bare minimum specs are making it work.
Thread summary(I think):
1] Everyone openly acknowledges that some runes don’t really look like the actual drawings, probably should be adjusted, and that this would have side effects on existing shortcuts.
2] Need a feedback system ( see my post ! ) as learning is the biggest challenge. Practicing the wrong shape = a huge waste of time, stressful, and the main reason that mages complain.
3] Inconsistent casting is a mix of skill level & understanding what shape actually needs to be drawn. If someone practices a nearly failing shape, the player will have more inconsistency with their cast. This is because the spell is already really close to failure, so any additional error such as a shaky hand will tip it over the edge. Someone who practices a shape that is more successful (thus allowing more room for error), they will have more consistency with their cast. A player with excellent muscle memory can make even the worst shapes cast consistently because they do not introduce additional error.
3-A] See [2]. If someone learns what shapes are better to cast, they can reduce their inconsistency. The difference between a good and a bad shape can sometimes be extremely minor details that a player is unaware of.
It is true that learning some spells, for example, Frost 3, is mostly guessing. You slowly adjust the various lengths of the line, the angle that it takes, and eventually it just clicks. This can take hours, days, or even weeks for some. This is not ideal, far from it. It’s worse that the statue for Frost 3 is very different from how everyone I know casts Frost 3. The angle of the line for the statue is so steep, and not even slanted on the X axis. Everyone I know only slightly slants the line and tilts it slightly to the right.
As I also noted before, I can trace something like Affliction 2 or Fireworks and still fail the cast. I’ve never casted a greater affliction as it appears in the book. I don’t know how this is possible lol. Yet I have my own ways of casting them, so eyh.
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@Alu, see @Ian_L 's post. Couldn’t have said it better.
Also, your comment about specs has zero bearing on my issues, as it likely does not for many others. I’m sure some people have errors casting because of tracking spikes or frame drops. I have no evidence to suggest that I am one of those people (unless, of course, I’m not seeing the whole picture, and some kind of undiscussed lag actually IS the blame, but that’s pretty far fetched).
This is under assumption that the Runemage class is one that is for practicing art skills, or even copying symbols. One can make an argument that the Runemage class is one requiring intellectual properties requiring testing, trail and error, and honning in on what works. Heck maybe even figuring out why weird things work, stripping the symbols to the bare necessities.
(P.S. I kinda wrote it before reading all your post but then got confused to what you were trying to say 
)
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I like this quote and I think may have hit it on the head.
As for my advice: I’m not going to say ‘git gud’ or practice muscle memory, especially if you aren’t casting with a a high success, because having muscle memory when that muscle memory doesn’t work is useless. I will instead say experiment. Fail but then laugh at absurd outcomes when you succeeded but thought you shouldn’t have. But then refine and refine your casting from your successes. Find out what works for you, and be creative.
Record all your spells and look around them on the z-plane.
I’ll bet dram its you that is inconsistent.
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As a novice mage myself, I can confirm that the z plane alignment is much harder to detect while you’re casting and often is what leads to errors for me for stuff that isn’t at muscle memory level yet. Check it out next time you cast something you think looks good but fails repeatedly
I don’t think either of those are things you should be proud of.
One can make the argument that there’s no reason to have the spells on pillars or in the book, if that’s the case. Let’s just try a bunch of random things and see what happens! Wait…
You owe me some dram.
Alex come shoot some dummies with me at the mage trials sometime. I want to talk with you in game.
Edit: Maybe we should plan a day around your schedule Alex so we may help you with your casts. I can get quite a few mages out to help you if you are willing to take a few hours and practice.
I’m usually online between 8pm and 3am PST (not necessarily that whole time, that’s just the range).
Well, I have 15 hours practice now. Still never got a successful Ice Lance or Frost (on purpose, but got several while attempting various other spells)
My name is the same here as it is in the game.
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I’m not sure what his argument is or what he is trying to address entirely. I also used the looser term ‘kinda’ because before I had posted it I did read it all. Either way it was to address the quoted material, and even then it was more towards “Practicing the wrong shape = a huge waste of time” part.
For example: in 1. “Everyone openly acknowledges that some runes don’t really look like the actual drawings, probably should be adjusted, and that this would have side effects on existing shortcuts.”
Does this mean the drawings should be adjusted? Because that wont affect shortcuts. It is likely that he meant the algorithm that determines the spells should be adjusted because of inclusion of “this would have side effects on existing shortcuts.”
In two “Practicing the wrong shape = a huge waste of time, stressful, and the main reason that mages complain.” However in “It is true that learning some spells, for example, Frost 3, is mostly guessing. You slowly adjust the various lengths of the line, the angle that it takes, and eventually it just clicks.” is at odds with “Practicing the wrong shape”, for this is doing various different shapes. Further “Someone who practices a shape that is more successful” may or may not include the wrong shape, relative to the book.
In short I’m not entirely sure what Ian_L post is supporting. But what is sure is as Socrates said in his apology: “I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either.”
Yeah hold up. I can pm you more different spells that have had at least one successful cast found in discord of people trying out ‘seemingly random’ things (file size constraints you know).
The book is something like a reference as you can see in the second video.
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As I’ve said, I don’t have /nearly/ enough information about the root cause of the failures to determine a path of resolution. Maybe the runes are wrong in the system, maybe they’re being graded wrong or overly harshly, maybe I really /can’t/ drawn an M. There are too many mysteries, and not enough data to base a conclusion on. The only thing I’ve ever wanted was more feedback from the system.
You should read his post, because it’s pretty specific.
I’m not saying that random things don’t work. I’m just saying that it’s not a fun mechanic, and it’s certainly not something I want to have to rely on in the middle of a close boss battle in a group, or even soloing.
Correct me if I’m wrong but you are suggesting or want a feedback system that shows you how fix a players drawing? I’ve read Ian’s post but it didn’t change what I had to say. If anything it just reinforced it.
Also the mechanic of figuring stuff out may or may not be fun depending on who you ask.
We can discuss such feedback system however or other types of feedback systems.
I’m not sure how you could still have questions about the content of this thread. It’s been incredibly specific.
And the reason I asked you to read @Ian_L’s post was because you suggested that you didn’t know what it was supporting. Again, it’s incredibly specific. It even includes a visual example, and a detailed explanation. I’m not endorsing it per say (since I think it would be difficult to implement, and overkill for my initial idea for feedback), but it was anything but unclear.
Thinking of what type of feedback system seems hard.
Not sure if the output log has anything to do with it but I saw this string in there recently;
Coroutine couldn’t be started because the the game object ‘RuneNotification(Clone)’ is inactive!
(Filename: Line: 769)
Scanning for interest points…
(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/DebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 51)
Found 65 points
Because we know that the spells are detected by a few “interest points” of the spell this could be detecting how many were hit and then averaging to out of 100 points and at least 65+ might cast. Do note I have not tested this in game but it might explain how the system might work and can help scortcut players to find new shortcuts as it also detects failed casts if this is the case.
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Oh neat! 20 characters
Just linking this here as well, my earlier post about reprojection and supersampling is expounded on in this thread I started along with settings to alleviate the issue and a note about USB 3.0 Chipsets. Hopefully this helps some, so far it seems to have helped at least a few people on the Unofficial Discord and in the thread.
Thanks, I appreciate this (since I’m not actively scanning the forums). I’ll try it out and let you know.
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