Mages have to run around too much.

Tell that to the game, it was pretty easy - I just had to run around a lot, which is annoying and stupid. It also doesn't translate well to pvp.

You're missing the point of the OP.

 

Aye. Remember 2nd Ed. D&D? Wizards were glass cannons until they hit at least lvl 5 and more like lvl 7. Party up or gear up at low levels. You can go "god-mode" later.

 

Actually, 2nd Ed. D&D (which I love) never really had a "god mode" for mages. They were always one mistake away from being killed. They could do a ton of damage and they were really powerful, but they had to plan and be careful. (depending on who your DM was I suppose)

They were never gun slingers. It wasn't until 3rd Ed. that Sorcerers (and later Warlocks) began casting the same spells over and over again ala Diablo.

In my opinion, mages should stand still, blow everything up, and then leave because they're not made to just "see what happens". They're supposed to show up to the fights they can win, not randomly walk about shooting magic at everything.

I wish I had made a video of this last night. I was playing someone that was much higher level than I was. He was using Death Magic, Fire Magic and Air Magic (many from a wand). And even though I was using pure water magic and could counter the fire, I couldn't do anything against the other two schools so it was just a blood bath.

It's not right, every school should have a way to block and counter every other school.

 

That is the very definition of slippery slope, because every person's opinion on what they are "supposed" to be able to win is different. Although, a lot of good points have been made, I am still thinking that the only class that has a reason to stand still is a tank and that is only with the help of a healer.

 

It sounds like we need traps and snares. Something that lasts longer than a quick stun.

 

You're suggesting that every school have blocks & counters, like Douse? What would that look like? Shouldn't blocks & counters be universal? Otherwise, you'd have to invest points in every school to be competitive.

Not that I'm objecting. I once watched two UO PvP mages dance in real time for half an hour, exchanging Bless/Curse and every other spell/counterspell in the game. It was epic. But I'm not sure how it'd work in the current SotA setup.

We have caltrops. What else do you suggest? Blacksmith craftable bear traps, etc.? Alchemical sticky-bombs?

 

There's two ways they could do it (where it would balance).

You could take the approach that all counters are universal and everyone gets them by default (something like a Dispel Magic would work here). Or you could make people pick a lane and give counters and blocks in each one of the schools. I like this option better than just making it inherent to the combat system.

The way I see it, a Fire Mage (for example) should have ways of dealing with the other magic schools. Water has Douse to deal with Fire. But Fire doesn't really have anything to deal with water (other than the fact that water can't really match the destructive power of fire). So if we just looked at these two schools for a moment and forgot about everything else for the sake of the argument. It might look something like this:

Water has Wall of Water that BLOCKs all fire attacks. It just blocks them 100%. But this leaves the caster vulnerable to Earth and Air attacks!
Water also has Douse to mitigate the impact of fire damage after the caster has already been hit.
Lastly, Water gains Extinguish, a powerful counter spell that removes Boiling Wall and helps prevent it from being cast again.

On the flip side, Fire would now have Boiling Wall. A spell that is so hot that it literally boils all water attacks, turning them into pure steam before they ever reach the caster! But this leaves the caster vulnerable to Earth and Air attacks!
In addition, Fire has Ignite to mitigate the impact of water damage after the caster has already been hit. This spell makes the casters blood burn and causes all SLOW effects to disperse.
Lastly, Fire gains Inferno, a powerful counter spell that removes Wall of Water with the force of a thousand fires! This spell also helps prevent it from being cast again.

See how that works? You can Block, you can Counter, and you can counter the counters and blocks.

 

And they could use swords and shields.

 

Not in 2e.

 

I really don't know if its necessary to emphasize specialization that much. For fighters, for instance, I've mentioned I see no reason why a bow and a sword have to be balanced against one another in all instances. A fighter, if he wants to have a balanced combat build, might want to learn both a sword and a bow. I feel the same way about magic... its fine to have every school have its strengths and weaknesses. If people want to take all of the strengths and weaknesses of one school, that's up to them. Otherwise, they should spread out a bit.

 

Yeah, there's an understandable logic there. But what you're telling people from a design standpoint is that there's a best build. You're telling people that if they want balance then they have to find the best build, which will almost certainly require them to be a hybrid weirdo character.

That's how I see it. I get no great joy over seeing everyone run around in robes with a platemail helm (ala UO), because that's the most efficient way to play. It reduces the game to the lowest common denominator, which is what you see running around R14 right now. People with Leather Breastplates on (so they get the benefits of light armor) with plate leggings, helm, gloves and boots. This gives them the min/max "best" armor in the game (depending on your point of view). Meanwhile, they're using a wand, death magic, and whatever else they can find that will deal out the most DPS.

Forget about being immerssive, it's just stupid.

 

Well I agree with you about the separation between traditional "classes", that there have to be some barriers to mixing them efficiently; which is for example why I support hindrances on mages wearing armor, and also reagents for magic. I don't think there need to be as strong barriers for skill trees within "classes." I'm hoping for seeing different reagents for different schools of magic, but still think they should also have some common reagents, too.

As for your point in specialization, I definitely think they have to think about the efficacy of certain spells -- not necessarily balancing them equally against every school -- but at least being generally useful and making sense. If a spell is only useful against one school of magic, its not necessarily an attractive spell.

I'm looking at the Water Magic school right now. I don't understand, from a RP point of view why Ice Wall should be better against Fire Magic than other attacks. Fire would melt ice I would think? But ice can be pretty hard and resist other types of attacks.

Heat and boiling attacks seem more the province of the Sun school right now -- ie Searing Ray. I definitely think there should be a way to either chill or heat air, maybe a combo with Gust, creating spells like Chilly Wind, Heat Wind, Fire Wind.

 

All the spell trees seem odd to me.

I assume that Celestial Blessing (once implemented) from the moon tree will give players something that will reduce the impact of death magic. But why nothing in the Life school? Furthermore, does that mean that if you have no magic you'll just get owned by anyone that has death magic? None of it makes sense to me, there are many other examples like this.

 

at level 30-40 you can easily get your DoTs to tick for over 10-20 damae. sometiems critting for over 30. The biggest DoT crit i have heard of was a 60ish damage DoT crit from Firey Decay.

The DoT's, and magic damage, scale with intelligence. I took 20 sampels from ice arrow at level 20, 29, 30, 39, and 40. Your magic damage onyl increases every 10 poitn sof int you aquire (10, 20, 30 etc Intelligence)
My numebrs showed a roughly 4 point increase in ice arrow damage, on average, for every 10 poitns of intelligence.

Also, the average numebr of crits per 20 hits (fromt he "Stillness bonus") was 3.

There is also craftable armor now that can either increse your itnelligence by up to 6 points, and/or increase damage directly by an average of 1 to 3 points over 20 hits, dependign on which amor bonuses you craft. Even with all of this damage is still very random, and stacking spells only seems to increase the maximum potential damage for spells. which emans if you stack, you mgiht still hit for very low damage.

It also seemed like, in your videos, that you were still at a low level.

 

I was level 13. But I was fighting a single Kobold. Really the same thing happens if I fight wolves (I have to run around).

Even at higher levels though (now I'm 30) I still have to run around. In PVP, you don't get an option to "not run" unless you want to die. And that's my point, the option to stand your ground just isn't there. PVE and PVP are designed very well for melee, but not so much for ranged, although I'd argue that Archers seem to have an advantage in the movement department with the ability to use the crippling shot skill.

 

There are many spells to aid in a mage's ability to Kite, including msot of the Ice spells. Thier slowing effetcs work great now. ALso speccing into light armor for the speed bonuses are a tremendous help.

The fire tree has a passive for increased range (and is also rather lethal to boot) which helps with kiting, and the air spells have 4-5 second stuns attached to them now, as well as Blink.

This says to me that, to play a character that sacrifices its survivability to gain more damage potential, you will have to activly avoid being hit as much as possible.


Tanks, ont he other hand, are built to take a beating. Ice and Earth spells are both mage trees that are useable with enough armor to be able to stand your ground. (there are exceptions in every spell tree, I.E. earthquake, root, and crystal shield have greater fizzle than other earth spells)

 

1. I don't think "kiting" is something we should want to design into pve or pvp. I would think that we could do better than this.
2. I don't mind sacrificing damage output for damage input (or vice versa), but the game doesn't care about either when it comes to running around - you have to do it regardless. (assuming you're fighting someone that is the same level that you are)
3. The idea that you have to be a Tank vs. a Dexter, or whatever other labels you want to put on all this, bothers me greatly. I understand that's how MMO's have been made, but does that make it right? Does that make it fun? Not for me. I would like to see active counters that allow players to forget all those labels and instead rely on their ability to make good choices at a tactical (in the moment) level, not who has the best build.

 

Unless there is a perfect balance there will always be a "best build".

But Theres alot mroe use out of varying builds in team situations. Which could provide tactical ways of dealign with other teams of pure "best builds"

As far as everyone havign to run aorudn in PvP, i personally would find comabt rather boring if i didnt have to avoid people, or use the environment to my advantage.

 

Concerning movement...there's no reason that players can't move in and out of "locked" positions. This would help latency, it would help make the game more competitive, and it would be fun.

One of the problems with combat over all is that the more you move the harder you are to kill. That's great and all, but the internet doesn't handle that well. So I would think we'd be looking for a solution that allows players to have the thrill of moving and escaping without allowing them complete control of their character, jumping around, moving through their opponent and generally taking advantage of the technical limitations of the game.

 

even if there is a "best build" there will always be somebody who wants to use another style. For example there's a lot of people who like the lighting and air magic. Maybe that is good in PvP I'm not sure because I haven't had more than one fight in R14, but when it comes to fighting groups of creatures I rather have a good fireball. Maybe that's my personality??? Either way when I have a group of spiders all comming towards me and I drop a fireball in the middle of 7 spiders and keep moving... that seems more useful to me than lighting. The damage over time is useful against the ones you aren't fighting at that time. A few fireballs and death fields and then a bunch of those spiders die off in groups.

Although I've noticed that I have a better survival rate doing that in SPO instead of Multiplayer Online. I must have had a slight bit of lag in Multiplayer because I kept getting killed when I had a group of 7 red spiders following me. I couldn't time the death field so well. Maybe it was just that particular isntance (could have been hosted by a person in Australia or something). However in SPO I almost never die from a group of spiders like that. That's how I've leveled for the most part.