(Hopefully) Final comments and suggestions regarding magic review
Posted: July 30th, 2021, 8:22 pm
Hello,
As magic review is coming to an end, I’d like to give a few suggestions of things it would be nice to see before wrapping everything up. I don’t have all spells, so I can only comment on those I could test.
Overall : Looking forward to the re-enabling of resist-modification spells. With the addition of spell penetration, I don’t know that there is still a reason to have those disabled.
Auras : I would recommend lowering the duration AND cooldown of auras to 10 seconds. 20 seconds is too long, and being unable to turn them off is a pain in the ass. Having a shorter duration also imposes more rotation.
General arcana is in a good state regarding balance. It’s more about some spell tweaking.
Newchain-lightning system is a bit of a letdown because of the delay. If you use it on an enemy that dies, it will not bounce. That being so, it rarely ever happens. Enabling it to work even when enemy dies, and making it happen faster would make it tremendously better.
Dispel : Dispel has 2 purposes right now -- dispelling summons, and removing Magic Reflect. It would be nice if Dispel could be used to remove buffs, either on enemies or ourselves. For instance, if you could remove someone’s Shapechange, Bless, Cunning, Arcane Empowerment. This would also help solve the whole “having to wait for buffs to expire before putting them again” issue.
Energy Field : Mana could be lowered a bit. I can’t seem to find the difference between that spell and the epic version (Divinus Contego), which requires 90 skill but cost 4 times less mana.
Sanctuary (currently disabled) : Not sure if the spell was being abused, but it having a fixed duration instead of mana drain over time would solve the duration issue.
Magic Trap/Untrap (currently disabled) : It would be nice to have those work as basic UO functions. No need to overcomplicate things by implementing a subterfuge temporary skill buff equivalency like there is for Unlock. Having even a small trap is a useful deterrent against snoops.
Feather : It would be nice if this worked on stacks of heavy items such as heavy stone, lumber, etc. Its counterpart, weight, currently works on stacks.
Enchant : I’ve reported in-game that Enchant (30% random weapon enchant) currently lasts shorter than Curse Weapon ((40% life leech). They are not cumulative, which is fine. Right now, once the enchant expires, the weapon keeps the tag “(enchanted)” which prevents you from using it again. It seems broken. Tag and buff should last the same so it can be renewed. Would also be a great improvement for possible hybrids if this spell allowed you to choose which enchant to get. Right now, it’s really a giant gamble and I can’t imagine someone using this spell over Curse Weapon.
Curse : Supposed to reduce a character’s strength and magical resistance. Currently reduces strength by 1 and nothing else (although repeatable). Not sure why it’s not simply the usual OSI Curse reducing stats by 10% or so. Otherwise, earlier comment regarding Resist-affecting spells apply.
Archmagic
New mechanics are really fun to play with. I do believe Shatter needs a bit of a nerf on the double damage when frozen (maybe 20%) as it can give some pretty crazy numbers right now. That spell alone makes or break the whole school, and having it makes it so someone could run around with nothing but it and own faces.
Mana Vampire (epic spell) could use with either a mana cost reduction or an increase in mana vam..pired? Right now, any caster (i.e. those with mana) will make it so it costs more mana than you get back. Seems silly to cast this spell on squirrels.
Evil Omen is supposed to “curse a target so the next harmful spell” hurts worse. In reality it temporarily reduces Arcana Resistance by 1 point. Arcana resistance gives 1% dmg reduction per 4 skill point. So in truth, this spell increases spell damage by .25% (assuming you cast a basic spell with no spell penetration). I think it would be fair if the spell worked off either Intellect or Archmagic Arcana. Something like reducing Arcana resistance by Int/3 (max of -50; i.e. +12,5% dmg) or Archmagic Arcana /3 (max of -40; i.e. +10% dmg). Would seem about fair.
Divine Arcana
Not much to say. New system (Heat Stacks) is nice to play with, but may require some setup. Truth be told, it’s still not enough to make it on par with other schools who have virtually infinite mana. Maybe the new moriums will help with that.
IMO, it would be nicer if the heatstacks system was a 1-2-punch instead of a 1-2-3-punch. In a long battle, it would make sense to keep it like that. But most fights in UO are super short. The issue being right now that when you cast the Crit spell, you immediately get 1 stack. Would it be possible to make it so it is 1-2-punch and any spell cast on the punch does not add a stack (maybe locking it to 0 for a sec?).
That is all.
Thanks for the magic review. It is hard to say where mages are now compared to where they were before. They are still very powerful, but it requires a lot more to be so (and especially, more spells).
(Just to give a general idea, the Thunderstorm battle against the wolves was done using an uncommon spell of the General Arcana (Holy Lightning). Right now, Strength mostly comes from Epic spells, which benefit from spell penetration. Those do not come as easily. That being said, I did some sparring today and got 1 shot (almost 200 dmg). So there is that.)
As magic review is coming to an end, I’d like to give a few suggestions of things it would be nice to see before wrapping everything up. I don’t have all spells, so I can only comment on those I could test.
Overall : Looking forward to the re-enabling of resist-modification spells. With the addition of spell penetration, I don’t know that there is still a reason to have those disabled.
Auras : I would recommend lowering the duration AND cooldown of auras to 10 seconds. 20 seconds is too long, and being unable to turn them off is a pain in the ass. Having a shorter duration also imposes more rotation.
General arcana is in a good state regarding balance. It’s more about some spell tweaking.
Newchain-lightning system is a bit of a letdown because of the delay. If you use it on an enemy that dies, it will not bounce. That being so, it rarely ever happens. Enabling it to work even when enemy dies, and making it happen faster would make it tremendously better.
Dispel : Dispel has 2 purposes right now -- dispelling summons, and removing Magic Reflect. It would be nice if Dispel could be used to remove buffs, either on enemies or ourselves. For instance, if you could remove someone’s Shapechange, Bless, Cunning, Arcane Empowerment. This would also help solve the whole “having to wait for buffs to expire before putting them again” issue.
Energy Field : Mana could be lowered a bit. I can’t seem to find the difference between that spell and the epic version (Divinus Contego), which requires 90 skill but cost 4 times less mana.
Sanctuary (currently disabled) : Not sure if the spell was being abused, but it having a fixed duration instead of mana drain over time would solve the duration issue.
Magic Trap/Untrap (currently disabled) : It would be nice to have those work as basic UO functions. No need to overcomplicate things by implementing a subterfuge temporary skill buff equivalency like there is for Unlock. Having even a small trap is a useful deterrent against snoops.
Feather : It would be nice if this worked on stacks of heavy items such as heavy stone, lumber, etc. Its counterpart, weight, currently works on stacks.
Enchant : I’ve reported in-game that Enchant (30% random weapon enchant) currently lasts shorter than Curse Weapon ((40% life leech). They are not cumulative, which is fine. Right now, once the enchant expires, the weapon keeps the tag “(enchanted)” which prevents you from using it again. It seems broken. Tag and buff should last the same so it can be renewed. Would also be a great improvement for possible hybrids if this spell allowed you to choose which enchant to get. Right now, it’s really a giant gamble and I can’t imagine someone using this spell over Curse Weapon.
Curse : Supposed to reduce a character’s strength and magical resistance. Currently reduces strength by 1 and nothing else (although repeatable). Not sure why it’s not simply the usual OSI Curse reducing stats by 10% or so. Otherwise, earlier comment regarding Resist-affecting spells apply.
Archmagic
New mechanics are really fun to play with. I do believe Shatter needs a bit of a nerf on the double damage when frozen (maybe 20%) as it can give some pretty crazy numbers right now. That spell alone makes or break the whole school, and having it makes it so someone could run around with nothing but it and own faces.
Mana Vampire (epic spell) could use with either a mana cost reduction or an increase in mana vam..pired? Right now, any caster (i.e. those with mana) will make it so it costs more mana than you get back. Seems silly to cast this spell on squirrels.
Evil Omen is supposed to “curse a target so the next harmful spell” hurts worse. In reality it temporarily reduces Arcana Resistance by 1 point. Arcana resistance gives 1% dmg reduction per 4 skill point. So in truth, this spell increases spell damage by .25% (assuming you cast a basic spell with no spell penetration). I think it would be fair if the spell worked off either Intellect or Archmagic Arcana. Something like reducing Arcana resistance by Int/3 (max of -50; i.e. +12,5% dmg) or Archmagic Arcana /3 (max of -40; i.e. +10% dmg). Would seem about fair.
Divine Arcana
Not much to say. New system (Heat Stacks) is nice to play with, but may require some setup. Truth be told, it’s still not enough to make it on par with other schools who have virtually infinite mana. Maybe the new moriums will help with that.
IMO, it would be nicer if the heatstacks system was a 1-2-punch instead of a 1-2-3-punch. In a long battle, it would make sense to keep it like that. But most fights in UO are super short. The issue being right now that when you cast the Crit spell, you immediately get 1 stack. Would it be possible to make it so it is 1-2-punch and any spell cast on the punch does not add a stack (maybe locking it to 0 for a sec?).
That is all.
Thanks for the magic review. It is hard to say where mages are now compared to where they were before. They are still very powerful, but it requires a lot more to be so (and especially, more spells).
(Just to give a general idea, the Thunderstorm battle against the wolves was done using an uncommon spell of the General Arcana (Holy Lightning). Right now, Strength mostly comes from Epic spells, which benefit from spell penetration. Those do not come as easily. That being said, I did some sparring today and got 1 shot (almost 200 dmg). So there is that.)