[Testing] Dark Magic

[tux9th]

Hi there,
it has been long since I started asking about how to do magic. now I finally made something.

With the help of wushin, MrGrey, Jenalya, V0id and some others I don't remember I created a new magic skill. It's called Dark Magic.

At the moment it features 6 spells which you can test on the testing server - Testing world.
I only created two of that spells, credit for the other spells goes to MrGrey. I meerly tried to balance those spells.

If you want to read the code and see what I changed check out.
https://github.com/tux9th/tmwa-client-d ... /darkmagic
https://github.com/tux9th/tmwa-server-data/commits/dark

I gave those spells initial names which won't be kept if they get into the mainserver.

• #nertuq, by me
  deals AoE Damage in a certain area around the player. this spell does not take into account if the target is in view or not
• #halhiss, by MrGrey
  spawns snakes
• #halproc, by MrGrey
  spawns black scorpions
• #halheth, by MrGrey
  spans skeletons
• #phlos, by MrGrey
  Shadow strike. very powerful spell against light creatures
• #phlex, by MrGrey
  Poison dart, similar to flar, has a poisonous effect on Players only
• #helorp, by me
  spawns a wicked mushroom

Bring a lot of Root, Iron Powder, Snake Egg, Black Scorpion Stinger, Bone, Dark Crystal and Small Mushroom.

with best regards and happy testing
tux9th

EDIT:
For those who do not have the time to read through all the posts:

Spells are now Quest State dependend. This means you have to either complete the Orum Questline and after that the Waric Questline, or set the right QuestState at the Debug NPC outside the Cave at 017-1.
To learn Dark Magic you have to be on the Dark Path by killing the mouboo and cutting the tree. These quests can be done at the earth spirit on 005-1. You also cannot be a follower of Sagatha if you want to learn Dark Magic, meaning Dark Magic will not be accessible to people who already learned Astral Magic.

The spells which are currently obtainable through the questline are #poison, #darkmush and #snakes. Those will come in with the next content update, the other will be released at a later date.

If you want to test the other spells above as well talk to the Debug NPC at 017-1 and set your Quest State to 51.

Also to balance things I have added two summons to Astral Magic. Invocations are #mooo and #ginaria. Bring pink antenna, cotton cloth and root.

Enjoy testing!

[WildX]

The summoning spells already belong into Astral Magic and the other three should fit perfectly into War Magic, why create a new school?

[Frost]

The summoning spells already belong into Astral Magic and the other three should fit perfectly into War Magic, why create a new school?

Currently, the Dark magic path is inferior to the Light path. For example, it cannot learn Astral Magic. Light can learn every school of magic that Dark can.
Do you suggest that only the Light path should be able to summon skeletons?

Anyway, these spells sound fun, and I will certainly try them.
Thank you Tux, Wushin, MrGrey, Jenalya, V0id, and everyone else working to improve our magic system!

[Hysoka]

The number of snakes and scorpions that you can spawn is too low.
And the names of the spells should be different.
Thanks for everything ^^

[Avenn]

No spawn spell with little bloody Avenn's Tux ? or at least sea slimes

[tux9th]

The summoning spells already belong into Astral Magic and the other three should fit perfectly into War Magic, why create a new school?

Those spells are supposed to be for mages which killed the mouboo or let the tree die. Those have a really disadvantage in the game and they are going to get those spells. Mages who chose the Light Path will not be able to learn this magic school.

The number of snakes and scorpions that you can spawn is too low.
And the names of the spells should be different.
Thanks for everything ^^

Actually I think the summon spells are overpowered as they are. I am not sure if all of the will come in with Level 2 of Dark Magic or if we will replace the skeleton spell with something different and let this one come in with a higher magic level.
We might actually increase the base level needed from this spells from 30 to something higher because if you spawn mobs they fight for you and you get the xp they get which could be abused from low level players to level their char easily.

I gave those spells initial names which won't be kept if they get into the mainserver.

with best regards

[SudoPlatypus]

#wave
Would be better if it did not reduce players heath so much.
I used this over and over again and noticed that it just would not even touch monsters to players immediate ten-o-clock (upper-left).

#snakes
I like that they can kill black scorpions.
They kill yellow slimes like cutting through butter
They can kill skulls if you have several.

#scorp
Similar to #snakes
Of course there is going to be a bigger problem of people killing your black scorpions, then there currently is with killing your #kalrenk mushrooms. Is there a way to discourage that? Like if they attack one black scorpion then all will focus on that player, even if they are focused on a mob?

#skel
A skeleton that fights for the player. Ooo fun. But noooo! Wait! The bugger picks up loot. And when he disappears he does not drop it Hmm, could skeleton be made to drop whatever loot it picks up at the time he disappears?

#shadow
with m.attack of 485 I only got about 6 hits before having to cast spell again and using up a dark crystal. For lower levels to have worth wile reason to use this it needs to give allot more hits than that. After all the Love Triangle Quest uses 500 Dark Crystals, and players are selling or giving them to others that have not done the quest yet, and some may even sell them to NPCs for the 250gp. Also they are not all that easy to accumulate quickly enough to use for grinding on light creatures. Since it is for killing light creatures, and I read that as grinding, this could be a spell to finally give mages some hitting power for all around grinding if it maybe lasted like 60 good strong hits.

#poison
Did not have someone to test it on, but someone please write a script that makes this ineffective in Candor.
On the test server it does have a pseudo affect on Skeletons and Yellow Slimes and Mouboos at time I tried it. If you target and attack a monster it seems to give bigger hits than your equipped weapon alone would, and you see the poison bubbles, but monsters heath bar does not act like it is really poisoned.

#darkmush
It would make more sense it these attacked players only. But only in areas that are already pvp. That would be dark.

Edit:
LOL my account on the testing server is so old that I can turn pvp on and off. Also I spawned a Luvia. I turn myself in

[tux9th]

#wave
Would be better if it did not reduce players heath so much.
I used this over and over again and noticed that it just would not even touch monsters to players immediate ten-o-clock (upper-left).

#skel
A skeleton that fights for the player. Ooo fun. But noooo! Wait! The bugger picks up loot. And when he disappears he does not drop it Hmm, could skeleton be made to drop whatever loot it picks up at the time he disappears?

#shadow
with m.attack of 485 I only got about 6 hits before having to cast spell again and using up a dark crystal. For lower levels to have worth wile reason to use this it needs to give allot more hits than that. After all the Love Triangle Quest uses 500 Dark Crystals, and players are selling or giving them to others that have not done the quest yet, and some may even sell them to NPCs for the 250gp. Also they are not all that easy to accumulate quickly enough to use for grinding on light creatures. Since it is for killing light creatures, and I read that as grinding, this could be a spell to finally give mages some hitting power for all around grinding if it maybe lasted like 60 good strong hits.

#poison
Did not have someone to test it on, but someone please write a script that makes this ineffective in Candor.
On the test server it does have a pseudo affect on Skeletons and Yellow Slimes and Mouboos at time I tried it. If you target and attack a monster it seems to give bigger hits than your equipped weapon alone would, and you see the poison bubbles, but monsters heath bar does not act like it is really poisoned.

#darkmush
It would make more sense it these attacked players only. But only in areas that are already pvp. That would be dark.

In general you complain that the spells are too weak. Do you want all of these spells to be overpowered and even stronger and better than ingrav and stuff?
In my opinion mages are too strong as it is. those spells should just reward those who don't have astral magic a little bit more.
Making the #wave with lower cooldown and less malus would make it possible to just stand anywhere covered from all mobs and just cast it all the and kill an infinite number of mobs. (remember that it doesn't regard if there is a collision tile between you and the target).
What kind of malus would you suggest?
I cannot reproduce what you described regarding not hitting the mobs next to the player. It works for me.

I cannot change the way summoned mobs behave. This would fall into the cateogry of o11c's work.
The poison status effect only works on players as it isn't applied correctly on monsters. You will see the poison sfx but it won't hurt them at all. (I am investigating how to change this though). Making poison work on mobs is also something I cannot realize. I can merely try to not make the spell show the poison sfx on mobs.

When I balanced the #shadow spell I tried not to break the balance to other spells. It is weaker than ingrav but it is faster. It deals about 1/3 more damage on light creatures. I will check the number of charges again but I am convinced that 10 times the charges will break the balance.

with best regards

[WildX]

The summoning spells already belong into Astral Magic and the other three should fit perfectly into War Magic, why create a new school?

Currently, the Dark magic path is inferior to the Light path. For example, it cannot learn Astral Magic. Light can learn every school of magic that Dark can.
Do you suggest that only the Light path should be able to summon skeletons?

Anyway, these spells sound fun, and I will certainly try them.
Thank you Tux, Wushin, MrGrey, Jenalya, V0id, and everyone else working to improve our magic system!

Meh, sorry, I thought he was suggesting a new school of magic (like Astral, War, etc.), Light and Dark were so irrelevant (Light was basically the only option) when I did those quests that I completely forgot they existed.

Btw, is it possible to change path whenever we want?

[GARRETTtheGREAT]

I had this idea, but never got far with it. Maybe this would help make dark magic more interesting?

http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... =2&t=17516

[tux9th]

Btw, is it possible to change path whenever we want?

changing path is not possible.

I updated the server with a new version of the poison dart. now the poison works in pvp only. It worked in pvp only anyway but now the mobs don't have the sfx of being poisoned anymore.

I'll look at the other changes which were suggested above later today.

[Frost]

Btw, is it possible to change path whenever we want?

changing path is not possible.

There's not currently a way to change your magic path. This can be added with an NPC or a quest. It could have a wonderfully dramatic storyline. For story reasons, I'm not sure it makes sense to be able to change characters between Good and Evil at whim.

[tux9th]

I don't see why this should be possible. This should have been able for a long time because at the moment people who chose dark magic are pretty much f***ed. Now that there is different type of benefit I don't think it is remotely fair to make the change possible.

Change and more change:

I just started to write the story and questline to get Dark Magic into the game. This will come in with the release of Waric and Orums continuation. I hope I will be in the testing phase of this qust within a few days.
When writing the quest I came up with the idea to nerf light spells for dark mages. Hence this changes to:

• #inma:
  Dark Mages will lose 1/20 of their max hp when casting this spell but their cooldown is cut in half
• #lum:
  When Dark mages cast this spell they'll have a 2 second window where they cannot be healed and don't start to be healed by the spell
• #joyplim
  casting this spell will cut the hp by half of max hp. Since there are quite good plans for a death penalty which are going to be realized I don't see this as troublesome, that you can kill yourself with this spell

These edits are on my github already but not on the testing server. check here https://github.com/tux9th/tmwa-server-d ... f9affa2e23

[WildX]

I chose Light magic just because I knew Dark was useless and has been useless for 3 years since I did the quest, since this is changing I (and everyone in the same situation) should have another chance to choose.

[tux9th]

and those who chose it by accident were stuck with it for the last 3 years. they should be rewarded.

the quest at waric is on the testing server now. for further info read the news of the testing server.