Truely epic/heroic skills

You're admitting here that balance is not your highest priority.. and early that 'epic' options for non-magic users are limited. The whole point of balance is that everyone can compete. Otherwise you break the system. You don't think that if "epic" spells are more powerful than swords that people will lean towards magic rather than non-magic?

So yeah.. what I'm saying is.. there is no way to balance this. Either everyone needs the same relative amount of power.. including non-magic users.. or it's not balanced. What is the alternative? Having the most powerful magic not be over powering. There's a reason this isn't done in MMOs.

Now.. I don't know if it would interest you or not.. BUT.. if your epic spells were NOT combat related. If they were part of scripted events such as part of a quest.. that you could work with. The question is.. what would that possibly be?

I suppose it really boils down to what will satisfy your definition of "epic". I'm a bit unclear on that.

 

you are mixing two issues.
forget about my personal opinion about balance. as i said its my opinion/

you keep dodging the quesiton. why? just take part in the discussion.

here it is again so its clear.

"How can something like epic spells be implemented and balanced. what can we give warrior classes?"

seriously man all you are doing is bringing up the obvious issues. the point of this thread isnt to talk about the obvious issues its to talk about how to make it practical.

im guessing you have not played the game dragons dogma.
there IS a way to balance it and it HAS been done. open your mind a bit

here is a simple example.
*mage summons firestorm* (firestorm is a standard DOT spell effectively, but in exchange for a huge radius and cool graphic, they must spend a lot of mana and channel the spell)
*rogue ganks mage*
balanced.

here is an example. make earthquake have a much much larger radius, a little more damage and stun. then give warriors optional resistances against stun and earth spells. make spell require reagents and mana appropriately.
then make the graphics feel more like youve summoned an actual earthquake.

it is possible to create an epic feeling spell that isnt overpowered isnt it?

 

isn't the practicality.. or lack thereof.. an obvious issue? When you disregard balance you're leaving an impression.

You should perhaps be more clear on your definition of "epic".. as what you're describing now is just a small power boost and showy effects. That isn't such a big deal. But how is that different from other high level spells apart from going a little overkill on the fx? There's a difference between epic feeling and epic power.

Before I can even think about how to implement what you want.. I first have to understand what you want. If it's just "epic feel" that to my mind is a lot different that epic arch mage of mass destruction.

 

well thats essentially it. sorry if i wasnt able to describe it better.

spells should have a greater area of effect, and more showy graphics.

when i cast earthquake, i want to feel like i actually casted earthquake

 

Well I can certainly understand that. It's not much of an 'earthquake' if you can't feel it 10 meters away is it?

So with this, balance is a non-issue. Essentially, what we want is for at least 1 or more spells from each school (preferably more) to be a bit over the top showy. In many ways you could argue that it should distract other players for a second (I mean what's the point otherwise right?) . I think the only real concern then is that they shouldn't be so huge that it blocks the player's field of view..

 

yes exactly.

watch this video its only 2 mins



dragons dogma was on the right track. you wont be dissapointed

perhaps i should have started this thread with this video and said "look see, this is how mages should be!"

 

Unfortunately I have data limits and this week has been particularly bad. I don't allow myself to watch streaming video at home. I'll take your word for it though. I think we're finally on the same page here.

 

Incidentally, I'd change my vote to definitely if I could.

 

bummer. you are missing a show for sure

glad we finally united

 

Epic spells and abilities do not necessarily have to do epic damage. Why not ramp up the animations, such as beheading the creature, making the screen shake while blowing dust up in the air for earthquakes, and many other things besides these paltry few. The game can be made to feel epic without necessarily destroying game balance.

 

did you watch the video i posted? great example of how a game did epic spellcasting well

 

Would like to see an animation where creatures eyes bug out and they poop themselves when they see a powerful character coming at them. I don't think that would ever get old.

 

yeah but I'd hate to leave a breadcrumbs of poop and dead bodies behind me

 

Wolves running away with their tales between their legs.

But they're not running from you, Budner, because you're powerful, its because you creep them out in other ways..... :-"

 

Yeah i agree that the skills are not so epic/impressive for the moment i hope it will come. But something i would like more to see about skills is a system like in Guild Wars 1 where you had a build creation (like in SOTA for what i've seen) with independant skills you can take from various fields. But something really good that was implemented was the "Elite skills" basically these skills can be considered as your ultimate spell/attack, there were the possibility to put one of these on your build and honestly it was really awesome because it allowed to create a lot of build around this elite and to elaborate a real strategy based on it. The system to get these elites was to unlock them to specific merchants or to capture them on some world boss, i would like a lot to see a system inspired from it in SOTA

 

A) Polearms are epic, i fear they will be nerfed

B) Make it an spell an LvL 80 can cast once in "life"....

 

Thus far wizards cannot do anything epic...I support this thread!