Great Game: Bad Magic

I'm really enjoying R12, what little I've played so far. It's really coming along nicely and I'm excited about the future of this game.

But magic still has a long ways to go (and for that matter so does combat).

As a magic user, there's a lot left that needs to be added to the game before it will ever be "fun". There are all kinds of examples of this:

• The lack of wizard robes (we just got a hat finally, yay!)
• The lack of fully functional spell trees.
• The lack of alchemy.

But these things are understandable and part of a normal development cycle that will eventually have the gaps filled in over time. I'm not worried about any of this stuff right now.

What worries me are the following MAJOR areas that will have to be fixed for magic to ever work correctly:

• Latency. This is a huge problem still. Mages have to run around to avoid being cut in two and right now they can't really do that effectively because both monsters and people look like they're out of range with melee weapons but are actually in range. The impact of this is well, life ending. A situation that no player wants to find themselves in, but that is especially frustrating to would be mages that would like to use their spells with some kind of effectiveness.
• Range. Spells don't have any range worth talking about. The time it takes to cast a spell (A SINGLE SPELL) is also the exact amount of time that it takes a monster to cover whatever distance the spell range is that you're casting. That's asinine. There's no point in casting a ranged spell like that unless it means you can kill whatever it is you're attacking before it gets to you. Please don't tell me about game balance, I didn't design this game, you did. It's not balanced either way (too much range or not enough) which proves the initial design failed and you need to go back to the "range" drawing board.
• Reagents. I can cast everything without reagents. Using reagents doesn't have much of an effect that I can tell. I believe it decreases focus cost. It may have other effects that I'm not noticing, but that's the point. If I'm not noticing the effects and they're not obvious, then why would I ever use reagents? Those things should be expensive for a reason and right now you're not giving them any reason.
• In addition, Reagents can be used for things like summoning. The whole point of being able to summon a creature is a functionality that makes having or not having reagents pointless! If I only need a summoned creature to kite monsters for me, then I don't really care if the thing lasts a long time or a short time - I still get a summoned creature! I don't understand the concept of reagentless spells in a world where you can also use reagents. It's like you're giving people a choice between free and not free without giving people real value they can't get without choosing the free option. Come on!
• Strategic vs. Tactical. I've talked about this several (times 1000) times, but it's a point I don't want to fail to mention here. There are very few utility spells, and because of that magic has been reduced to combat min/maxing. I don't want to explain the difference and the importance of strategic spells vs. tactical spells again. More information available upon request.
• Hybrids. Everyone is a hybrid mage by design. You may not want to encourage this, but your design does. There's no penalty for using weapons and shields and casting spells. There's also no animation for a spell caster that has no weapons and doesn't want to look like a prize fighter. There should be a difference between casting magic with no weapons or staff or wand and casting magic with those things. Increased fizzle, backfire, whatever...but there MUST be a difference.
• Many of the spells (even high level ones like Death Field) work when you're running around. This is unbalanced and should be changed.
• The Healing spells in this game are encouraged too much. When you compare a pure mage to a pure fighter, there's just nothing balanced at all here. But when you add in CHEAP and EASY ability to magically heal yourself (with no reagents), the gap really gets wide quick. Realize that as a mage in cloth armor, I can't do very much damage to anyone before they can take a few swings at me. Now realize that whatever damage I do to them they can likely heal WHILE MOVING and it just becomes comical how stupidly unbalanced this is. I would challenge anyone on the dev team to a dispute this on any level. It's simply not acceptable as it is, and it honestly doesn't appear to be getting better from release to release. This is NOT something that can be fixed by tweaking damage and cool downs. (see ranged comments above for additional reference)
• Sophistication. The cooking system remains more sophisticated than the magic system. That needs to change. If it takes me multiple variables and mini-games (in future releases) to bake an apple pie, then it should take me at least that same amount of effort to cast a fireball.

That's all I have to say about this for R12. I've played a very limited amount during this release. But I'm confident based on what I've seen that mages are not going to level up and start casting 100 damage fireballs, the latency isn't going to be better this release, and that reagents and other areas I mentioned are not going to change anytime soon.

I know my post was a little on the pointed side, but it's frustrating to see magic (and combat) so unbalanced and seemingly untended to. It feels like, from my perspective, the combat and magic system are being created not for balance but instead for casual "fun" where everyone just levels up and hacks away at the same thing over and over again.

 

As a wizard character, I was quite disappointed to give up on magic (for now) and put on full plate, shield and sword and fight as a tank.

I cannot survive with mage spells. They don't do damage enough to win battles. The moment I put on plate, I lived and leveled to 20.

Please make magic more powerful...At least 3x current damage.

 

Great feedback Drocis. Thank you.

 

Again, the solution is not simply to turn up damage. What that does is it flips the unbalanced combat system on it's head and allows mages to be the alpha build and makes fighters what the mages used to be.

I can survive fine as a pure mage (against bad AI if my only goal is to level and get gold). It's just really annoying and stupid and hard to level and silly (for all the reasons I said in the OP). I shouldn't have to cast run cast run cast run....I mean come on! Why would anyone want to play a game like that? Cast run cast run cast run...good god that's stupid.

This game has been developed (so far) and designed (so far) for people wearing heavy plate and casting heal on themselves. That's great if you don't roleplay or if you just happen to like those types of characters, but it's horrible for everything else.

 

Pretty much what I have found between R1 and this release is that I don't understand why or how to make games. If I find something not fun then it is not necessarily un-fun.

In R1 I had more fun because there was no leveling, you could buy any home right away as well as find loot all over the place.

Now in R12 they are taking everything away from us (including fun) and making us do some things we don't want to... like grinding XP, breaking out weapons etc..

That is fantastic news !!

 

Hey man, I appreciate everything you guys are doing. I'm not really looking for a debate. But I'd love to hear (someday, maybe in the release 12 post mortem notes?) what you agree with and don't. I'd also love to hear how the current thinking fits with your overall design. And if you want to debate the use of reagents with me in a religious fire storm of "no you're wrong!" please let me know because I'm always ready to have that conversation.

As a player and someone that's followed this game from almost the very beginning, it's a mystery to me why some things work the way they do. I appreciate that you have a lot of the answers but not a lot of time. But from my perspective, I also feel that sometimes the "numbers" are not the answer. Sometimes there are going to be more quantifiable qualitative solutions that we need to explore. But I'm always very interested to hear your point of view, even when I don't agree with it.

Yes, that's me, I'm the guy that posted that video. 1.5 seconds sounds like a big deal, but I'm still concerned about general latency in terms of positioning (backstabbing and cover) as well as being in range or out of range. When it comes to PVP, being in range and out of range is really super important because the AI is so much better. You can't really fake the funk on players the way you would a monster as a way to make up for whatever latency you may be experiencing.

Also, I often see monsters (as recently as today) that appear to be miles away from me while hitting me for critical damage.

 

I totally agree with you about not knowing how to make games. I have learned A LOT about how much I don't know by following this game's development.

When it comes to games I'm really stupid about "how to make them".

But when it comes to game design and functionality, I'm not really stupid. I'm just not faced with the same challenges as Chris and Starr. I don't have a budget, I don't have technical realities, and I don't have competing interests to worry about (I just have ME).

So my feedback is often a bit biased, as most gaming feedback is. But it's definitely a good measure of "fun" or "not fun" on a very small scale (me).

For example, I LOVE the additional challenge of walking slower, having encumbrance (eventually), having trainers all over the place that will eventually specialize and make it even more difficult to acquire skills. I love all that stuff! I want more of it! The point is, "fun" is very subjective and differs from player to player, dev to dev. And I guess what I'm trying to say is that magic and combat, for me, is not fun.

 

Yea, but that fun wouldn't have lasted very long :> Games that let you do everything you want are fun in the beginning, but then burn out very quickly. Games that require patience, planning, and preparation are maybe more off putting if you feel you want to do everything right away, but the enjoyment you get out of the game has a very long shelf life and you keep returning to it over and over.

 

spells are also too weak... I know I saw the code go in but it's just not relevant imo. Melee can 2 shot me in cloth and it takes me 6-8 spells to kill them... and each of their hits has a high chance of interrupting me (thank you for it not being 100% interrupt anymore... that was insane)

WTB VIABLE MAGES IN PVP!!! What am I paying you ask? I'll protect Lord British when the evil PKers come for his head... @RichardGarriott isn't that enough?

 

I cannot survive as a pure mage. Couldn't even handle a wolf. I noticed that it's about the armor...Plate works, cloth does not work. Spells do very very little damage...I know it's alpha so I will wait. I don't generally play a fighter as my main but as my alt I do...so I can cope...Now I got an old man fighter...

"Watch out for the old man with the long beard! He hits Hard with that sword!"

 

Yeah, I had a lot of trouble at level 5 against wolves wearing cloth too. I died a lot. Now I'm like level 13 and I still have to run around like an idiot to kill them (or anything else). So I hear you.

 

Glad i read thorugh this thread! Been trying for 2 days to make it as a mage and couldent understand why i was so extremely bad! Ill put on some plate and back to a sword then

 

Great post! I agree that the magic system needs to have more to it ala cooking etc and more strategy along with tactics.

 

I think that is a really debatable notion, indeed many games have had success with other methods of gameplay and nobody really want's a game that is too abstract either..

The games which are stated as being roled after classic Ultima and UO is also the games I would choose to model this game after.

 

Not talking about games that are too abstract :>

What games are you thinking of?

 

I think part of the problem might be PVP, because I've been doing PVE as a pure mage with no problems, it's been a fun challenge. Sure, I die sometimes, especially if I try to take on a challenge too early, that's what makes it a game I've leveled quite a bit, many levels by doing quests, you get enough experience for finishing quests that I've rarely felt like I needed to grind. And as you level you get quite a bit more powerful, as long as you use the skill tree wisely. For example, one of the concerns brought up, spell range, can go up if you get the right skill (at least in Fire, which is what I've been using for the main part). I haven't maxed out the range skill yet, but I can already hit ranged skeletons further away than their arrows can go. And make sure you put some points into more health, and it helps to have points in the Light Armor skill that makes it more effective (and the one before that that removes slugs from the deck is helpful when you have extra skill points).

As for your concerns about regents, one of the earlier updates they said the utter requirement for regents was going to be disabled for a while because regents weren't easy enough to obtain yet (and I agree with that, I've still never seen some of the regents in the wild).

 

Portal, Minecraft.

 

Is Portal replayable, or is it basically over once you've solved all the puzzles? Minecraft requires work to get what you want out of it, doesn't it?

If you want to bring this back to RPGs... one game I have is Path of Exile. I enjoyed going through it the first time, just to see all the levels and monsters and the beautiful artwork. But once I completed it, I don't want to go through it again, just because the game is just too grindy. The gem slot system was supposed to make it more interesting, but its boring. Maybe if I have nothing else to play, and am bored... but even Diablo (the first game) was much more interesting for me to replay.

As far as Ultima goes, the games became less replayable the more everything else -- like combat, etc.-- got gimped because of the focus on the story. They were great games until you finished them. But still they did require preparation and planning -- getting reagents, arrows, torches, food, etc.

 

I agree redfish. I think most games are like that, once you've done it all then it's easy to lose interest.
Hopefully Devs will update to change out stuff here and there so we don't have that experience,
and of course then the game will be a living entity and have the longevity too.