Resisting Spells

Being one who cares more about defense and getting away from PVP what about this?

Let us choose the spell we want to resist.
So if I go around getting pked all the time by Vas Flam and Corp Por then I can just start using my resist points for those spells.
That should make it a little harder to macro something if players are resisting the spells they like to use the most.

 

That's interesting. Anybody who has played a game involving a lot of PvP knows that meta gaming ("flavour of the month" skills and spells) always become rigid and hurts the variety of builds you get to see. Even though the meta changes regularly, you often feel forced to follow it for the sake of efficiency.

Now, getting a way to basically do : everybody uses lightning weakness followed by lightning bolt because it gets you down to half health in 2 skills, well I'll just train my ligtning resist.

That way, instead of the meta changes being mostly a matter of trends (as I believe it mostly is in games, but I would love to be proven wrong on this), those changes become a regular necessity, and, in our example, we might actually see half the people who used the lightning combo go towards fire, and the other half going towards water.

The example is of course a bit simplistic there, and I'm sorry I can't find a more "unusual" kind of resistance to train (against a specific spell, as suggested, or against a whole school of magic, or against certain debuffs), but I'm sure something good can come out of this suggestion.

 

I've long thought that the reason ALL games seem to favor being aggressive over being defensive is because of the way the technology of these games works. Initative is usually the most important factor of success during PVP. For example, if you hide behind a corner and jump out at someone when they're least expecting an attack, then you have a very big advantage.

So I think that any defensive resistence should proably have a "loss of initiative" effect on the attacking player. What this would do is favor a more probing style of combat unstead of just spamming powerful spell combinations at someone.

So using some of your examples above...it might work something like this:

Example: RESISTANCE
Attacker casts fire weakness at Defender.
Defender has fire resistant armor and the attacking spell has NO impact (because it is not a damage spell and let's just say that resistance to fire FULLY protects against non-damage fire spellls).
As a result of this, the attacker suffers a setback and now requires EXTRA (maybe twice as much) time before casting the next spell. This hands initative back to the defender and really helps set up a kind of "free" attack.

Example 2: NO RESISTANCE
Attacker casts fire weakness at Defender.
Defender has old ratty cloth amor with NO resistance and now suffers more damage when attacked with fire.
Attacker casts fireball at Defender and the Defender takes EXTRA damage.

Example 3: PROBING
Attacker casts minor fire at Defender.
Defender has fire resistant armor and the attacking spell has limited impact.
The Attacker suffers no setback because this minor spell is capable for use as a probing spell. The Defender now understands that the Attacker intends to use fire combinations, while the Attacker knows that the Defender is protected against fire. It becomes a bit of a chess match and initiative becomes a more balanced factor.

 

People should have a fixed number of defensive passive slots. Used to either make armor more effective or be better and dodging or resisting fire.

 

I agree, the concept of wholistic "magic" resistance is a bit overboard; resistance by magic type would make for more interesting battles. Maybe the resistance could be set up as part of your combat card deck (yes, I now, hate on the decks) whree you can choose a number of cards/skills to fill those defensive/passive slots (not random this time, just limited to 2-3 or whatever). This way, I'm not wearing my waterproof suit when I go up against a dragon that will presumable roast me, I can switch to my fireproof suit, etc.

Skill points would still have to be invested, so if you plan to be resistant to many things, you'll need to invest the points.

 

Being a card based combat fan, I approve of the Circle of Protection %179.68

 

You could go by type but I still think there is more strategy in blocking the spell you want.
PK's love to use a combo of just a few spells.
If those spells are what you resist they will have to start using something else.
Plus this could help PVE players with going to their favorite hunting spots by blocking the spells used there the most.

1. creates more strategy in pvp
2. creates a way to hunt your favorite spot better
3. creates more diversity amongst players - no more flavor of the month

It would create more work to change up your skills but I don't think many would argue against having more control of things.

 

I like the basic idea behind it, but I would point out two things.

First, having a mechanic that punishes me for attempting to cast the wrong spell on you due to my not knowing what resists you may or may not have feels wrong. I think it's messed up to punish me for attacking first in PvP, I DID get the drop on you, after all, and it feels exploitable. I suspect that someone will find a way to layer resists so that most of the spells you cast at him will trigger the retributive impair, thus giving him free stuns vs his opponents, or victims, and a huge advantage.

Second, the delay will actually work ITSELF out naturally, as follows

RESISTANCE
Attacker casts Fire Weakness at Defender
Defender has fire resistance, so the spell has NO IMPACT. Attacker doesn't get to know this.
Attacker then casts fireball at Defender, and the spell has minimal effect. This is Attacker's first clue that it's not working.
Defender has, meanwhile, had two spells cast on him in sequence giving him time to figure out what's going on, and can launch his counter attack.
Initiative transferred.

This will still lead to a probing ebb and flow to combat, as well as various shifting strategems. It will also require less doublechecks and programming checks in the process of an attack.

 

i cant wait to ebolt malak brightpalm in game