What do we do with Veilwatching?

[Wonderland_Boy 1081]

If you’ve been part of the voidal magic community over the past months or years, you’ve definitely heard about this feat, and how almost every single player in it complains about it being either useless or outright ignored. While it does grant you the ability to see visions as a voidal mage… that’s about it, the rest are mostly drawbacks for your char's mental health.
 

It’s a feat with a lot of potential, but any attempt to change it tends to be overlooked because of the idea that a magic or feat needs to have a combative ability, rather than being something that can be used outside of CRP.
 

I, for one, want to try rewriting it but before I do, I’d like to ask those who play voidal mage characters: what do you think the problem with this feat is?

[Johann 2498]

Just ******* shelf it bro

[SimonItorp 124]

Personally, as a Veil Watcher, I have had little complaints because I love the aesthetic. Do I like less that it has barely any uses? Yeah, of course I do. What I'd want to see this feat bring about is more interaction allowance with the Void itself. Obviously not as much as a Voidstalker, but enough to have the feat actually mean something to the point of, maybe, a pseudo-like Voidstalker aesthetic or subtype.

[xo31 3979]

shelf it just powergame glowing eyes

[Frisket 4538]

Veil watching is one of the most ignored FA’s in voidal magic. Considering that my characters know of their existence and uses, but doesn’t know how to make them, let alone knows how it contributes to anything besides watching out for tears. I strongly believe they need more attention, and possibly a couple additions or tweaks to their lore. 
 

as if this moment, it’s one of the many rp centric FA’s available to mages, but disallowing it to be incompatible with the other FA’s (Scion, Artif, Vstalker) makes it practically overlooked because a mage wants to be useful, outside of being a security camera for voidal tears.

 

(edit)

 

I also dislike Visions, they’re Vauge and fluffed so hard that I genuinely have no idea what the story is behind it. As someone who has another character who can witness visions.

[Johann 2498]

in all seriousness i think veilwatching suffers a fundamental issue of just being a lorepiece that doesn't really do all that much - it's lore with all sauce no spaghetti. It tries to be 'flavorful' by allowing access to veil-based prophecies but really just falls short on that fantasy when all u end up doing is waiting for the 1 void event that happens every ??? years bc void events arent real

 

It's a lore that in my view, should fill the niche that Celestialism originally filled, i.e. capturing the more benevolent aspects of voidmagic through beneficial spells, veilmending themes among other feelgood vibes

 

..instead we have galaxy eyes 

[Hawkeye_Gough 624]

Maybe mystic-scrubbing-like abilities for void stuff, such as un-enchanting or similar?

 

I'm only just starting my void understanding journey but that kind of "veil repair" seems reasonable :)

[Morigung-oog 5697]

6 hours ago, 𝕎𝕠𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕_𝔹𝕠𝕪 said:

If you’ve been part of the voidal magic community over the past months or years, you’ve definitely heard about this feat, and how almost every single player in it complains about it being either useless or outright ignored. While it does grant you the ability to see visions as a voidal mage… that’s about it, the rest are mostly drawbacks for your char's mental health.
 

It’s a feat with a lot of potential, but any attempt to change it tends to be overlooked because of the idea that a magic or feat needs to have a combative ability, rather than being something that can be used outside of CRP.
 

I, for one, want to try rewriting it but before I do, I’d like to ask those who play voidal mage characters: what do you think the problem with this feat is?

 

When I wrote veilwatching with meteor, it was meant to serve as a self-sacrificial act to monitor the veil and help maintain its integrity at the cost of painful visions and the mental toll it takes. It is a narrative tool to allow characters some extra attunement and to allow a mage to choose a more noble path. However, the majority of players took it solely for cool eyes and I immediate realised that the voidal community could not really be trusted with the feat. 

 

Ideally, I'd like to see more passive mana-sight abilities or maybe the ability to cleanse some voidal blight where needed in event circumstances.

 

I think the majority of the problem comes from the open nature of it and the void mage community. Not every feat needs to be particularly powerful for it to be valid. 

 

It needs culture but unfortunately void mages are such an ass community that culture can't be developed. It will always inevitably be ruined by bad eggs.

 

My first suggestion would be to remove the open access nature of veilwatching.

 

I did have an amendment drafted but I genuinely don't have enough faith in the community to drop it. 

 

Edit:

 

I partially agree with Johann's sentiment. Some Celestialism aspects would be lovely to see to play into the move benevolent niche. 

[Luxury 1082]

Shelf and regroup.

 

Veilwatching did its rounds, and didn’t work out. When the next magic that revolves around the Veil surfaces, we can expect it to be far more encompassing and interactive than Veilwatching ever was.

[PrimnyaQuorum 3999]

I think it has some good aspects, and some bad aspects

 

I am confident in saying I was/am the most active veil-watcher, in regards to using the lore as a fundamental aspect of my character and their RP. In time, I also believe that Voidal EPA is not a thing tied inherently to the veil, and veilwatching presents too much of a good/bad dichotomty to easily exist within voidal lore.

 

I think the bones and frame can be kept and expanded upon; however its CORE function as it stands rn is to gauge for concentrations of voidal magic, and weakpoints within the veil [for ill or good intentions]

 

I totally dont have a rewrite for it atm

[Morigung-oog 5697]

Would totally be down to help people rewrite the lore as long as they're not stupid tbh

[PrimnyaQuorum 3999]

36 minutes ago, Frisket said:

Veil watching is one of the most ignored FA’s in voidal magic. Considering that my characters know of their existence and uses, but doesn’t know how to make them, let alone knows how it contributes to anything besides watching out for tears. I strongly believe they need more attention, and possibly a couple additions or tweaks to their lore. 
 

as if this moment, it’s one of the many rp centric FA’s available to mages, but disallowing it to be incompatible with the other FA’s (Scion, Artif, Vstalker) makes it practically overlooked because a mage wants to be useful, outside of being a security camera for voidal tears.

 

(edit)

 

I also dislike Visions, they’re Vauge and fluffed so hard that I genuinely have no idea what the story is behind it. As someone who has another character who can witness visions.

veilwatching is compatible with all voidal feats. im not sure what you mean

34 minutes ago, Johann said:

in all seriousness i think veilwatching suffers a fundamental issue of just being a lorepiece that doesn't really do all that much - it's lore with all sauce no spaghetti. It tries to be 'flavorful' by allowing access to veil-based prophecies but really just falls short on that fantasy when all u end up doing is waiting for the 1 void event that happens every ??? years bc void events arent real

 

It's a lore that in my view, should fill the niche that Celestialism originally filled, i.e. capturing the more benevolent aspects of voidmagic through beneficial spells, veilmending themes among other feelgood vibes

 

..instead we have galaxy eyes 

also just to be clear i feel like [not you] ST/squak has taken a massive stance against anything to do with the veil. tears cannot be mended beyond breaking the frame [the most violent method of "fixing them" with the most overt, worst side effects], MArts &lore submissions aimmed around dealing with tears any other way are heavily discouraged/denied as they have been for the last 2 years, and anything to do with tears has been focused around buffing them, to make them more enticing to make without any sort of effort into making them better to interact with any other way. the single best method is to hope 5 druids are willingly to do seal around it, and that some ET/LT will actually let them given its a ET only thing [?]

 

Right now there is no veil lore, nothing interacts with the veil except tears. I think personally players could totally do more with veilwatching even as it is, and that would help figure out a direction to move it but frankly most people just see its a feat with 0 interactions and just keep the eyes. 

 

However, I stand by firmly that anything Celestialism should be its own MA/FA. A vast majority of Voidal MA/FA/CAs are devoid of the usual clear morality problems other MA/FA/CAs have, with the notable exception of celestialism. to add something that has a clear alignment and gets some parts of it feels more like it would kinda conflict with celestalism rather then act more like it

[Stag 3229]

I think it has served as a bridge piece between when we lost Celestialism to when we next get a viable rendition of it. It keeps the heart of the lore ideas I presented back in 2015/2016 and in my absence allowed our community to still interact with the Veil in some capacity.

 

The goal with the Veil in the future is to better define ways of interacting so that character growth does not rely solely on event roleplay being spoon fed to them. 
 

I am sure to most it must be pretty obvious that I want to take steps towards reintroducing Celestialism to LotC. Many of us who roleplayed it found it to be an incredibly unique take on mage roleplay and that niche has yet to be filled in its absence. This reintroduction will, of course, take an exceedingly long time to produce. In the meantime developing Veilwatchers into a viable feat that covers more of those concepts isn’t a bad idea but it needs tangible abilities outside of events. (Edit: it doesn’t lock you out of other voidal feats).
 

The questions we need to ask are:

 

What abilities can we give this feat to further the story direction?

What core concepts do we want to emphasize about the Veil?

How can we balance its abilities between active vs reactive?

—

 

Or do we shelf this and say it served its purpose? One key issue with how magic lore evolved post-celestialism is that many of its core abilities were parceled out to the various feats already. This left veilwatching with basically just the forum roleplay aspects of the magic i.e. prophetic messages. 

[squakhawk 14038]

i don’t think anyone who doesn’t have it wants to interact with it, the metagame aspect of it has just been so lame each time it’s been enforced because it’s anti fun, anti consequence, anti rp - one guy knows vaguely where a tear was created and has rp reasoning to effectively just metagame it and destroy it without issue, taking away any of the actual trouble all the people who put work into making a tear put into it. When that aspect of it is removed (that everyone on the server has to adhere to this one random feat lore), and no longer enforced, the main attractor for a lot of people went with it because metagame radar was its core aspect 

 

 

i was against it personally from the beginning because i foresaw the above being a problem and it inevitably became a problem, particularly when it’s free, consequenceless, and so easy to get with zero upkeep or notice that you really even have it. 

[Stag 3229]

1 minute ago, squakhawk said:

i don’t think anyone who doesn’t have it wants to interact with it, the metagame aspect of it has just been so lame each time it’s been enforced because it’s anti fun, anti consequence, anti rp - one guy knows vaguely where a tear was created and has rp reasoning to effectively just metagame it and destroy it without issue, taking away any of the actual trouble all the people who put work into making a tear put into it 

 

 

i was against it personally from the beginning because i foresaw the above being a problem and it inevitably became a problem, particularly when it’s free, consequenceless, and so easy to get with zero upkeep or notice that you really even have it. 

 

This is a good point. Imagine if we gave the ability to instantly find spook lairs the moment they were built or anything in that same vein. That isn’t counter-play. It’s sabotage.