Idea for new AM skill

[Seven_of_69]

While thinking about the once tried remote maxing ability (which I'd love to see brought back), I got the idea for a similar ability: remote magic. AM can't always drop their weapon to magic someone else's or the other player might have a negative so why not remote magic it? There could be a couple levels:

Level 1: Costs 20(?) stat points. Requires 100 adren (same as MWM).
Level 2: Costs 15(?) stat points. Requires 250 adren (same as MWM + maxing) and maxes the new magic enhancement.

Problems: malicious altering of other players' weapons or accidental if AM's wrong artifact is activated when selected. Solution: ?

FWIW remote maxing doesn't have any negatives that I'm aware of.

[Seven_of_69]

Problems: malicious altering of other players' weapons or accidental if AM's wrong artifact is activated when selected. Solution: ?

It's not actually a solution but a message should be broadcast to the chat console like "{Player 1} applied remote magic to {Player 2}'s {weapon}." That way no one can do it silently or deny doing it, and it advertises the ability. There could also be an undo feature but that would add complexity. :sdoh:

[DW_Ant]

That may encourage griefers to roll people's weapons. Maybe someone may get upset of linkers, so the adren master rolls their infinite link guns to something else.
The Undo could be done, but I don't think griefers would want to use that.

The MWM + Max sounds good, but it can very costly to their adrenaline. Usually you want to max the weapon after you found the right magic modifier rather than maxing a magic weapon you're about to roll.

[Seven_of_69]

That may encourage griefers to roll people's weapons.

Well that falls in with my concern about "malicious altering of other players' weapons". Options would be to force the receiving player to acknowledge or even initiate the change. However given UT2004's UI, I can't think of a simple or clean or unobtrusive way to implement a solution.

Maybe the ability to enable (not buy) the skill would depend upon an AM's level (200+, 250+, 300+, ???) or even require DW to enable it. Someone who's invested a lot of time into earning their levels is probably not looking for an easy ban for abusive behavior. :swink:

The MWM + Max sounds good, but it can very costly to their adrenaline. Usually you want to max the weapon after you found the right magic modifier rather than maxing a magic weapon you're about to roll.

True, but the intent is just for a one-off use, e.g. when a player has for example a rage or flight mp5 and will be satisfied with the first thing rolled. Or maybe WM has flight mines and there are no mines on map so they can't simply drop them to pick up something else. Remote MWM to the rescue! :ssmile:

[DW_Ant]

True, but the intent is just for a one-off use, e.g. when a player has for example a rage or flight mp5 and will be satisfied with the first thing rolled. Or maybe WM has flight mines and there are no mines on map so they can't simply drop them to pick up something else. Remote MWM to the rescue! :ssmile:

Until you rolled a Flight MP5 to a Rage MP5, or from Flight Mines to Petri Mines :P

[Seven_of_69]

True. But that's where an undo ability would be useful. The player can choose the lesser of two evils. If the player doesn't like the new magic they can either live with it, discard it, or undo it.

I'm not sure if the undo ability should be skill level 3 or be up to the receiving player.

Anyone who's too fussy and demands too much remote magic would become unpopular really fast. :stongue: There could also be a limit like only one remote magic weapon made per AM per player per wave.

Overall the idea is to make a single remote magic weapon here and there, not roll the world. If a cursed weapon is rolled into an even more cursed weapon, well, that's MM RPG for ya. :sbigsmile:

Other useful scenarios for applying remote magic are for items which can't be dropped such as another player's slow-mo trans or vorpal shield gun.

[DW_WailofSuicide]

To do remote rolling, I'd probably want the targeted player to have to acknowledge in some way. And that'd mean maybe a UI window? Which in itself could be used to bug other players if they're busy trying to survive and all of a sudden a window pops up. I guess you could level restrict it as you say.

[Seven_of_69]

That's the thing, how do you make a clean UI implementation without annoying the player with a confirmation window, requiring key binds, etc.?

What about using artifacts since there is already a well defined interface for selecting and using artifacts? When the AM's activates the skill (using their own artifact), it immediately costs them the predefined amount of adren and the receiving player gets a single-use temporary artifact. A message should be broadcast to the chat console like "{Player 1} gave a remote magic artifact to {Player 2}." That helps to advertise the ability to other players and also allows logging the event.

The receiving player would then use the new artifact on their current weapon as per any other weapon artifact and it breaks/disappears after use as per inf maker and reloading maker. If the player didn't request or doesn't want the artifact, they can toss it as per other artifacts but it's destroyed upon tossing and can't be picked up. If the receiving player doesn't activate it within a certain amount of time, it could optionally be destroyed since the idea is to use it immediately.

As for restricting by player level, instead of hard coding a predetermined level, what about requiring advanced prerequisites something like "Must have ghost level 1" (even thought it's not related) just to ensure that unproven low level players won't buy the ability? Or would the introduction of the "receiving player also gets an artifact" idea be enough to prevent misuse?

[killacookie]

A little idea i got while playing, from this.

There seems to be people saying there will be greifers etc, but how about, just Remote Maxing. Or like a Max Blast (medic blast but instead of healing maxing all weps in the area or inventory) It would have to cost a bit (300+ adren) but it would help alot instead of a AM having to do 150 for each max. And sometimes people want about 10 weps maxed, which can be annoying.


And as for the idea of 1 use per wave, how about like 5uses then it breaks, until you die, and make the undo for the receiving players, or an "invitation" so it wont do it until it has been acepted.Because it seems the only thing people are worrying about is the fact that people will just go up to people and change their weapon. Because yes it is a good idea, it just needs protection from greifing, which doesnt seem that dificult.