Skills "outside the box"

In the games you've played consider skills and spells that did something different than:

* direct damage
* damage over time
* buff/debuff
* heal
* pet


For example:
Summoning a stone wall (I would have liked to see this one enhanced) teleportation, gate, remote viewing, stealing, snooping, hovering, flying, sentry towers, a bag of holding, breathe underwater, breathe in smoke/fire, walk on lava, alter weather, plane travel

An activated item like an enchanted wand or ring could trigger them, it could be a spell, innate ability or learned ability magical or non-magical.

These spells and abilities added challenges to the game where you often had to re-position yourself to get around an obstacle or work out a problem, and made you think about where you were going and how you would get there. Often they would create choke-points which made for interesting scenarios, and gave the players who possessed them a unique ability to travel somewhere others could not, or even crippling those who depended too heavily on those abilities if they were suddenly lacking.

 

Wall of stone was super under rated in UO. A few WoS's and a fire/poison field was clutch.

 

How is it balanced?

I get it in a single player game where anyone can use any skill or something like Ultima IV-VI where if you need a spell and you don't have one, you can just take control of your mage companion and cast it.

It seems like a disaster to balance in a multi-player game.

 

Balance on effects is the job of the Dev's. Maybe the wall spell has a duration vs cooldown issue that prevents even two casters working in perfect tandem from boxing you in completely. Maybe the wall has low enough HP that a good dps can hack through it, perhaps some players will be able to climb it, to jump it...again, up to the dev's.

I'd much rather that Portalarium included effects like these from the get go.

I will re-iterate however that one spell/power/effect that I'd like to never see again is the hard stun: Anything that can utterly lock a player character in place, turning off their controls, preventing them from taking any action is bad. First and foremost, it will have to be countered and neutralized SOMEHOW, and then you've got a war between the stuns and the escapes. That war will constantly force the devs to adjust the balance, each and every time a new tactic is worked out by either side, because too much stun leaves players screaming bloody murder about being helpless in PvP, and too little stun (or too much escape) leaves builds that use stuns pointless, thus stuns are pointless, and why have something in the game that doesn't work.

I would much rather see every single effect have SOME sort of counter or escape inherant to it. Perhaps I am slowed, but I can still use defensive moves and wait it out, perhaps my character is blind, but I can still run in a straight line and hope there are no barriers. It's when all control is lost that I have a problem with it.

 

To me all these things are very important as it sets the game far from a cookie cutter type game. It gives one that sense of awe and power that sticks with you for a long time. Case and point, even though it was decades ago I still remember the rush I would get in Asheron's Call every time my character opened up a teleportation portal in the middle of the town square. I felt a sense of awe when my EQ Druid was able to turn off the rain with one spell. These things add a depth to a game that is immeasurable and unforgettable. If you want a game to last the ages then they have to have this feel to them. BTW Asheron's call started in 1997 I think is still going strong with outdated graphics because of this very thing. Also the game is classes less and you can pick any skills you want to learn. I hope this game will end up being similar in its freedom and depth of what you can do.