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I personally love your idea. I just want to know is there a possibility of like mastering all of the elements or is it going to be a single spell tree? I would just like to know. As for suggestions a stave recharger of sorts....using the "mana rift" you spoke of instead of the nexus is a really good idea. On another note my friends and I were thinking of doing an Ars magica let's play, and I was wondering if it would be ok. if you could get back to me I would be thankful. I support all these changes all the way!

Quote from Mortesqe

So is there like a expected release?
since my friends and i are making a new server that would include Ars Magicka and we wouldnt want to reset the server for just 1 mod ....
so we will know if we want to include it or not

This is a "Think Tank" as someone mentioned. It's not even a WIP unless mentioned by Mithion.

Mithion, I have a humble requestion that should require very little effort from you: Please allow soulbinding enchantment on spellbooks. Please? *puppy eyes*

Quote from Thunder7102

Mithion, I have a humble requestion that should require very little effort from you: Please allow soulbinding enchantment on spellbooks. Please? *puppy eyes*

Oh god... The EYES!

Quote from Chippermonkey

I would like to touch on the Ars Magica armor, if you're going to retool the whole system.

I love the idea of having mage-specific armor, but I do NOT like the idea of the mage armor being literally "diamond armor, but better." It's completely overpowered, as anything that's not from Ars Magica, or lava, can't even touch you, most of the time.

Consider the following:

Ars Magica armor offers no physical protection (no armored shirts), but, instead, offers tiered magical protection (leather->chain->iron->diamond). To gain physical protection on it, you must enchant it with the Protection enchant.

Likewise, since you can already get magic protection on regular armor, the physical defense alternative would be to use the vanilla armors. If you want magical defense on those, you just enchant them.

I think this would balance out the HUGE amount of protection the Ars Magica armor gives. Even with other mods installed, there was no reason for me to use their armors because I could fall from great heights, stop fire from burning me, get extra oxygen, and recover from near death, all while being super protected from almost every form of damage in the game, modded in or otherwise.

This was on top of the armor auto-repairing itself as long as I wasn't going through my mana like mad, which I only ever do when I am spamming augmented Arcane Bolt or any level of Blink.




Another thing I'd love is to have spellcasting not be so easy to do. Instead of an instantaneous spell, or the charging that only takes the time for drawing back a bow, spells should have a level of complexity that allows us to build them on the fly. Such as your spell book opens when you right click it and you then have to put together the effects you want to cast a spell (things like "I want a heal other spell," so you put together the target, "other," the type, "projectile," and the effect you want, "heal" and then click a cast button and your character casts Heal Other on someone).

I simply feel like the ease of casting spells just makes them overpowered beyond belief and makes the vanilla weapons almost stupid to use once you're able to cast Firebolt, toward the beginning of the game.

What I'm not asking for is a system that makes casting them a chore. I'm asking for a system that makes them take a bit longer to cast. Even, maybe, a system where you have to precast your spells and save them in a book to cast them later? I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas out there.



In essence, I love this mod to death, but I feel like using this mod basically takes away all reason to use almost anything from Vanilla minecraft. I don't feel like a mod should take away from the game, but should, rather, add to the game, on top of what's already there. Fact of the matter is, if you encounter Arcane Bolt early on, you're set for the rest of the game, offensively. You don't even need to carry a sword, and, if you're quick and aware, you won't even need to waste time on armor because it's insta-cast and has the full knockback effect of any other attack while costing next to no mana.

have you ever seen quantum armor?

even archmage armor only protects you with enchantments, that have cooldowns, and it allows to still take damage and negative effects from debuffs. i dont care how expensive quantum armor is. its cheating, because it turns you invulnerable to everything.

though i agree, that the archmage armor is a tad too strong at the moment. i like the imbue system though. i didnt try it yet, since i didnt get the enchantment, but my hope is, that i can put the flying spell on there, and it lets me fly for as long as my mana pool can support it.

mage armor could start out like simple cloth armor without any protection, like you said, that has to be imbued with spells to increase its armor value. but it should end up at least at iron tier.

I was just thinking about your ideas for Mana Rifts, and while speaking with some friends, i thought about how it would be cool if, that with research of some sort, you could stabilize and step through the rift to the other side. This would be the segway for the addition of the dimension you said you wanted. In this dimensions there would be massively increase mana regen, even to the point of having full mana all the time. It could be very elemental in nature with very powerful magical boss, immune to non-spell dmg.

Quote from IStoneI

have you ever seen quantum armor?

even archmage armor only protects you with enchantments, that have cooldowns, and it allows to still take damage and negative effects from debuffs. i dont care how expensive quantum armor is. its cheating, because it turns you invulnerable to everything.

though i agree, that the archmage armor is a tad too strong at the moment. i like the imbue system though. i didnt try it yet, since i didnt get the enchantment, but my hope is, that i can put the flying spell on there, and it lets me fly for as long as my mana pool can support it.

mage armor could start out like simple cloth armor without any protection, like you said, that has to be imbued with spells to increase its armor value. but it should end up at least at iron tier.

See, thing is, I don't mind the practitioner armor, as it is, in the game right now. It's easy enough to get it destroyed if you don't play smart and get into a lot of combat and take a lot of hits. I think that's all the stronger it should be.

From what I read in the original Ars Magica topic, he wanted the mod to hold some form of challenge. Third tier and beyond don't speak challenge to me. They're too cheap and too powerful for their equivalent vanilla versions and they just... ruin the threat of death in normal circumstances.

I could compromise my idea, which was rough, anyway, with something along the lines of the practitioner armor being weaker, physically, but having more magical protection, then having two third tier armors that are opposites of each other (IE: one has more physical protection and weaker buffs but the other as stronger buffs with less defenses). As it stands, though, I'm finding myself having to play fair and not go beyond second tier if I want any challenge.

The first tier is basically useless, though. A skeleton can almost completely destroy it, by itself, if you don't have a long range skill or item to take them down.

Of course, a lot of this comes from the fact that it's too easy to just waltz into a room with an insta-cast bolt spell (Frostbolt, Arcane bolt, Ender bolt, etc) and rapid fire everything into oblivion.

Quote from Edgewalker

<SNIP>It's true that this mainly came from interaction with other mods, but in general nobody plays with only one mod, <SNIP>

*raises hand*

I do, as do many others I know. Our types don't usually post on the forums though, so I can see why you may think us rare.


Anyway, Mithion,

The Ars Magica structures and worldgen are <3. I think a lot of us, a LOT of us, would be sad to see it go if it came to that.

If it does go away though, why not release the gen as it's own Ars-compatible addon? Add some useful, but not vitally important, prize to your structures.

Your worldgen is too pretty to be treated like a redheaded stepchild.

Quote from Faranae

*raises hand*

I do, as do many others I know. Our types don't usually post on the forums though, so I can see why you may think us rare.


Anyway, Mithion,

The Ars Magica structures and worldgen are <3. I think a lot of us, a LOT of us, would be sad to see it go if it came to that.

If it does go away though, why not release the gen as it's own Ars-compatible addon? Add some useful, but not vitally important, prize to your structures.

Your worldgen is too pretty to be treated like a redheaded stepchild.

Woah, Fara rose from the IRC to the forum. o.O I don't think I've seen you here. (Tis be Noiro).

The idea about having to find a "mana rift" generated in the world is worrisome to me. Minecraft, at its core, is really about being able to build wherever and however you want. If you find a really amazing spot in the world and you absolutely must build your house there, but there's no mana rift for miles? Ars Magica instantly becomes less fun. I do like the idea of there being more to a nexus than chalk and bricks, though, so maybe the player should have to use some kind of ritual involving spells, reagents, crystals, and things of the like, in order to create a mana rift. Ooh! And with that mechanic, you could require different materials to create different kinds of nexi! Like, as part of the ritual to make a dark mana rift/nexus, you must sacrifice creatures on an altar or lead them to their doom. And to create a light nexus, you must charge a crystal with sunlight reflected off enchanted mirrors. And even if you don't include the light/dark nexi in the sequel, nexus rituals are an interesting idea to kick around. I like the idea of them spawning as part of world gen as well, so you can make a nexus a little earlier in the game, but...only with world gen? Ouch. Right now, I have a light nexus set up inside one of the gigantic redwood trees from the Natura mod. It's pretty glorious. It kinda makes me feel like a druid. I would be pretty broken-hearted if things like that were just impossible from now on. Check it:





I also really would be sad to see the world-gen go. I understand if it would make it easier on you, though. There are a lot of errors with the current added world gen. I think Faranae has a really neat idea with a separate world gen pack, but...that's just another entire project you'd have to undertake. Still, though, I think the exploration opportunities that your world gen has added has definitely made me put on my travelin' shoes, when I otherwise would have found something a little closer to home to work on

Sounds really good Mithion! Could I go as far as suggest some sort of compatibility with the Soul Shards mod (could research a Cow soul shard for example).

Instead of removing worldgen, you could add another dimension for the worldgen as we know it today? You could have a couple of worldgen buildings that require you to read a set amount of books in order to unlock and achievement, which would allow you to research portals, unlocking a world of light/dark mages, elementals, worldgen buildings, etc.


Edit: A lot of spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes fixed

Quote from Dettefin

Sounds really good Mithion? Could I go as far as suggest some sort of compatibility with the Soul Shards mod (could research a Cow soul shard for example).

Instead of removing worldgen, you could add another dimension for the worldgen as we know it today? You could have a couple of world-gen buildings that require you to read a set amount of books in order to unlock and achievement, which would allow you to research portals, which would take you into a world of light/dark mages, elementals, worldgen buildings, etc.

I'm not trying to crap on your idea, or anything, but I feel like the "alternate dimension" thing, that a lot of modders used to immediately go for, is almost a form of cop-out. It just really cheapens the effect of the mod.

This was especially apparent with mods like The Aether, where they decided to basically just re-create Minecraft using their own tools and world gen, but cleverly disguised it as an end-game mod (seriously, you had to completely remake your tools because none of the vanilla tools worked on stuff up there, very well).

A small idea but could you introduce a darker side of thing's like in thaumcraft 2 the taint and dark things to be in this. I love the lore books and think the idea of corruption or problems or being evil is quite fun especially with a friend. Also can you have a way for light mages to follow you or be summoned likewise for dark mages if you try my idea. ty for reading

Quote from TheVoidSucks

Ok, i have been playing Ars Magica for a while, and i love how it's changed and grown over the time. Your ideas on what to do for the second version sound amazing, and there is one thing i would like to add to it.
I believe that people should have a slight chance of spawning in a world with an affinity, or a slight boost to certain aspects of magic (kind of like one of the lore books has) or maybe even just give them a slight boost when learning magic of a specific type.
Anyways, thank you for making such a wondrous mod and for, hopefully, reading this post.
-Void

I was thinking something along those lines too - maybe you could choose your affinity when you spawn for the first time (the affinities available initially would be restricted so everyone doesn't pick something that is OP early-game)? Then as you develop your research through the tree (maybe the research that is attributed to the opposite affinity that you selected is restricted (high- and mid-tier stuff unavailable?)) spell costs are discounted if you are naturally affiliated with that affinity.

I think it would be cool if affinitys had levels and effects. there could be 20 or so levels and the first level would be easy to get but each level after that would alot harder to get than the last. as the affinity level gets higher it would start to affect things besides casting and would give you an affinity specific ability(with a specific key for abilitys of course).and so of the effects could be biome sensative.

i haven't had very much practice with posting stuff on forums so sorry if it sucks but please read the rest of this cause i alot of thought into these ideas

ex 1:if had a high earth affinity so affects could be that you sink if water and take more fall damage because your heavy but you would also take less knockback and less damage, you could also eat dirt/stone at really high levels and wouldn't take fall damage from falling on stone/dirt/earthy things and could mine stone/ore/sand/dirt ect. faster with your hands so eventually (about lvl 15) you could mine faster with your barehands than a gold pick.

ex 2:also if you have really high ender affinity endermen wouldn't attack you unless you attack them. other thing the ender affinity could do is make you poison resistant and make/allow you to inflict the wither effect each time you hit a mod and at exetremely high levels(18-20 or so) you could teleport to the spot your looking at by pressing the ability key or left or right clicking with NOTHING in your hand(i absolutely hate to mod that make you have to hold random stuff to teleport enderman style).also you could get night vision and teleporting really long distances could heal you a little somehow.

ex 3:air affinitys could affect all kinds of thing like you would naturally get lighter so you take less fall damage and eventually stop taking it all together while at the same time being able to glide. you would also be weaker and take alot more knockback(but less damage) than you normally would. you would be to weak to wear any kind of metal armor and could hold a sword whitout getting tired easy(weakness,mining fatiuge, and slowness) but while it the air you would have regeneration and would only take knockback and not damage.mining with a pickaxe would be slower but theres a spell for that.

ex 4:fire would be a little overpowered at times because at higher levels you wouldn't take damage from fire and eventually it would start to heal you instead and being in lava would give regeneration and you could eat blaze powder but to counter the overpoweredness of all this there would be drawbacks... like water damages you like lava used to, you begin to understand why blazes and endermen hate the rain so much, and drincking water makes you take damage. the fire ability could be like a built in flint and steel. but the best part of the fire affinity would be that you could smelt item in your 2x2 crafting grid at the price of hunger.

ex 5:water would be kind of op because drinking water bottles could restore hunger/health and actually being in water would at lower levels grant rengeration/mana regen and slowly feed you and you would have water breathing and be able to see properly enableing atlantis like citys and "towers", at higher levels you would be invincible and would pretty much have infinite mana but as with fire there would be serious drawback like at higher levels being out of water would give you slowness and mining fatigue and you would need to drink water or be in it every could of minutes or you would start to take dehydration damage(starvation but from the lack of water). DESERTS=DEATH

I know some of these things seem a little overpowered but that could be balanced out by drawbacks i mean would a survival atlantis server be cool or being able to grow plants mana free with the press of a button.
most of these would be op at first but by the time you get all the way to level 20 they should be overpowered
because level 20 would be extremely hard to get to like you would have to build a sort of shrine structure with at least four fully charged light nexi with diamond tops, four beacons, and the enderdragon egg.

these are just some ideas that i would really love to see in ars magica 2

ps: placing a monster focus should stop endermen from teleporting because ABSOLUTLY no other mod allows you to spot them from poofing out of your enderpearl generator.

The various aspects of Ars Magica for myself have been an interesting one. I'm not a fan of mods in general and the few that I try I end uptossing after a day or two but that hasn't been the case with this one. I wish to go over the different aspects of this mod and explain my position on each of them, even though I do enjoy the mod as a whole.

World Generation
The buildings are often so far apart or so close together that it makes some places seem like no one has ever been there, while this isn't an issue it becomes noticeable when you wind up finding 4-5 differently spawned buildings all within 200 blocks of each other.

The puzzles are enjoyable, even though the Illusion block was a pain to begin with, I figured it out after breaking some of the blocks and noticing the other rooms and remembered one of the spells I had retrieved would seem to work for it.

This all said, the buildings need to have a lot more randomness to it. There are a few types of buildings that are generated each with the same puzzle, same layout, etc. Having slight variations, even if it was the blocks themselves or interior flipped, lacking a few of the blocks normally seen (such as the brewing stand...never went to the nether, have a stack of those)

The amount of chests in each building is reasonable considering how few items are in each, but there should be only one or two chests max in any given building with a max of 3 different items, preferably these chests should be well hidden to help give the illusion of it being secretive enough to be stashed away somewhere safe where looters and other people cannot get into without knowing the magical secrets, such as the illusion block being very useful in this case and a very valid idea.

Spells
Requiring runes of various colors and amount is a great way to create spells, and would hate to see this type of creating failing. It is one of the reason why I chose this mod over the others. This said, there are quite a few combinations that could be done if the runes could simply "stack" on each other instead of requiring 3 slots for 3 of the same rune type.

There are quite a few balance issues with some of the spells as well, at magic level 24, I was able to spam firebolt doing virtually nothing damage wise and became a worthless spell to me since my diamond sword could just take care of the issue faster, there is nothing keeping me to that spell due to the lack of damage at higher magic levels.

Spell Creation
Spell creation for me was underwhelming and not very intuitive without having some outside instructions on hwo to make the thing work with some spells not even showing being added in any shape or form or a fail animation showing it failed to be added. Most of the time I noticed this with beam spells or shield-based spells.

Essence Power
The power system is very interesting and useful to me, I would hate to see it be moved to separate mod even if it did integrate. The Magic Fabricator, Arcane Reconstructor and Calefactor are my main means of using the essence to do things efficiently. Yes, there are balance issues but I would rather not waste time farming more materials to do something with just because these items are removed or nerfed to the point of being worthless.

For example, I hardly found gold ore in my world and not for lack of trying. I was attempting to create a new base elsewhere, and wanted to connect the new location and old with a minecart rail system. Since I couldn't create the powered rail itself off of the Magic Fabricator, I ended up creating Gold Ingots, which may be more work but it felt right being able to do that and then making the powered rails I needed, an indirect balancing concern.

This said, the foci items need to be improved, with more being added. There is no real information on these foci in-game and what their purpose is. While I enjoy fiddling around figuring out things, it's painfully slow trying to guess items.

The way you could do this is make use of those generated buildings including notes about certain foci (Foci Chronicles?) that may include hints or direct recipes on how to create some.

Some new foci that I would of liked to see are foci to increase essence capacity. Foci to increase yield of items. The existing foci could have various tiers of themselves as well each with their own bonus and being required as a base item to create the next tier. Making foci more useful and less dependant on some base 3 foci to create every single foci available.

The power system also needs to be able to "converge" to a single point where power sources can be combined, there are so many contraptions that could be created with the current blocks if only there was some way to converge power sources into a single point.

The individual nexus' need some revamp as well, as a prior poster mentioned, having continuous power generation without outside manipulation would be a wonderful change for the mob/item nexus as you either need to have a large farm for the item nexus, or a mob spawner and trap to get enough power to be worthwhile.

The mana buffs off of the nexus are nice but requiring 10% outright for all three of them is amazingly unbalanced. It takes so long for the mob nexus to gain 10% for the same effect of the item nexus that outside of the massive storage it offers, gives no other reward seeing a few natural nexus' will create enough power to do most of the things you need to, with an item nexus being a "power plant" that runs off of trash.

Ars Magica Wiki
The wiki needs a lot of work, I have been personally working on making the current wiki better and can only do so much work on my own, there is a lot of information that is missing or designed completely differently from page to page. I have been attempting to consolidate template designs but the lack of pre-created templates or templates failing to work from other wikis due to the different wiki software has caused some issue for me.

One of the sources I look for information is the changelog. The changelog on the wiki itself lacks a lot of information and most of it fails to provide all details, the most noticeable one being "Added ___ block/item/spell." and other such small tweaks to anything that exists. Some of the changelog doesn't make sense either in some cases.

Note
Busy doing other things and this post is incomplete but it does show quite a bit of my view onthe mod itself, I do wish to say I love the mod the way it is,there are some tweaks I would like to see but I haven't had any other mod keep me entertained this way even if it's not perfect.

i have an idea. you could make a research station to research materials or study books or other bits of information or strange materials etc. and from the items you research you get more insight on the materials or knowledge of sorts and you can get recipes on how to make certain spells or items and such. kind of like thaumcraft but it doesnt give you the whole recipe. and you might have to research the specific items. maybe you have to make alchemic circles or something to summon a creature to get materials or more information.

the reason im going on about alot of information is because from what i understand wizards use alot of information because they are scholars of sorts.

Edit: sorry im saying use something like thaumcraft its just they have a pretty good research system. what i mean is like make those journal fragments useful for progressing in magic.

OOOH!!!! and maybe also the ability to recruit apprentices or other npc mages. or being apprenticed. i dont know its your mod but i have ideas

Going with the affinity update, I think it might be a fun idea if one were to battle a mob that's harder than normal mobs, ie. End Dragon, Wither, etc, for there to a be a chance to drop a special item, that when researched through gives one a super affinity. This affinity could be just a buffed version of the normal affinity it relates to, or could be a completely new affinity, like adds the agility and feather fall boost when sprinting with a __ second cool down.

I Really like the fact that you are changing the research process, I can't wait to see what else this mod might have in store. Excellent job!