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Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 09 Jul 2010, 16:49
by Acegi
Has anyone suggested the idea that:
lightning max damage * (player level+1)% = actual damage

Not sure what the exact max damage of lightning is with the best equipped outfit but let's assume 800. So someone who has just reached level 57 wearing the items that give him 800 damage potentially and can max int to 99 can only do:
800*58% = 464 damage rather than the full 800.

That means only when you're at lvl 99 can you do the max 800 damage. This actual damage is the average because you don't hit 800 damage every hit.

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 10 Jul 2010, 03:10
by Freeyorp101
Character stat effects (mainly max hp and physical damage reduction) need a lot of reworking for PvP to be fair.


---Freeyorp

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 10 Jul 2010, 03:20
by Acegi
I meant this idea for all cases of lightning not just pvp.

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 10 Jul 2010, 03:24
by Freeyorp101
PvE is already workable. There are some monsters that magi are more effective against, and some monsters that warriors are more effective against. This is done better in the graveyard and swamp than in other areas, as most mid level monsters are the former. For PvE, lightning damage is not the problem.


---Freeyorp

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 10 Jul 2010, 15:24
by meway
I voted leave it alone +1 freeyorp

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 18 Jul 2010, 19:09
by Arphetic
The spell is perfect if there is more group-based PvP, also I think with the damage mages take if they want to do a good amount of damage, it is quite fair that mages have a powerful spell like lightning.

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 22 Jul 2010, 05:13
by Big Crunch
i think pvp would be better if the arena were an open air arena that would allow the casting of kaflosh, considering kaflosh is the balance to ingrav. It would force the mages to think before just automatically casting ingrav. We might see more summons and flar then. Of course warriors would have to disarmor to some degree to cast it. It would also give archers more of a chance.

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 16 Aug 2010, 12:23
by Merlin
Lighting is very powerful.

At lvl 55 I can spec archer or warrior but I can't hit skulls. Same lvl as a mage and I hit them like a truck.
I don't think lighting it to powerful I think that warrior and archer as underpowered as a result of having to spend to many points in different fields.
I think this could be fixed with adding stat modifiers to existing warrior/archer type gear. If they didn't have to spend so many points on DEX or STR or VIT that could free them up to add more points in say AGI for faster attacks or luck for crits.

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 16 Aug 2010, 13:57
by mistergrey
I agree with that last comment: armor with slight stat boosts for warriors and archers could go a long way towards making PvE more fair to everyone. While there are no items that raise one's INT, there are a number of items that give bonuses to magic attack (ie: circlet, skull mask, scarab armlet). It might help the issue someone mentioned, how warriors archers have to split their stats further than mages, to add some bonuses to dexterity or hit%, even vitality (which would be awesome on archer gear, since vitality is kind of every archer's downfall.)

Also, just a silly opinion: It's true that mages can be rather good early on, with nothing but INT. To me it kind of balances out in a weird way though: Warriors and Archers start out not very powerful, but that is balanced by the heavy armor they can wear to block out damage (not to mention they don't need to do a quest to be able to deal damage, or spend much money lol). A mage will be able to hit hard early on once s/he's learned magic, but with limited stats armor is out of the question. At higher levels, warriors and archers gain some power/speed to their attacks, on top of them having better defense potential (though yes, archers usually neglect vit). A mage on the other hand, usually will focus the extra stat points available into luck, or vitality to fix the defense gap (since betsanc with no armor/vitality can be rather pointless).

Okay, and my brain's empty. :lol:

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 16 Aug 2010, 17:39
by Acegi
About the mages having to do a quest to be able to do lightning, this is really insignificant. Arguably to get the platebody armour or steel shield you have to do the iron ore + infantry helm -> armour "quest" or that archers have to (optionally if they don't notice the Snow Town shop) do the infinite logs quest. It's a moot point, considering most people intend to do all the quests anyway.

I still think lightning is too powerful even for player vs monster because lightning is 100% (REAL) accuracy thus monopolizing ALL monster's XP and drops if you spend even a small amount of time getting iron ores->powder etc. However since it's relatively harder to get money now and less people are buying ores so there are less pure lightning users, I am less inclined to start an anti-lightning crusade.

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 16 Aug 2010, 17:53
by mistergrey
While you do have a point, one could argue that while a warrior can buy a steel shield and the harder to get armor items off another player, a mage cannot buy magic level 2 and bypass all the annoying steps in between :P. Still, I agree, it's not a super difficult price to pay. There is also the constant need for more iron ore, which can cost considerably more than even a good supply of iron arrows. Really, the accuracy thing is the only argument that I can't refute totally. The way I see it, the problem isn't that magic has 100% accuracy, since an archer with high dex can easily hit anything in the game aside from jackos and skulls (especially since for a mage, missing with magic would probably equal instant death against a tough monster). The issue is more that even with 99 dexterity one can have a hard time hitting jackos and skulls, though I'm a bit fuzzy on how hard. I'll hafta check it out haha.

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 16 Aug 2010, 18:27
by Acegi
You're right about the cost of using lightning now so I've stopped complaining about lightning users now but I think what I proposed awhile ago (a few posts back) would have been more than appropriate.

Where if you're level 57 (when you can max int to 99) you can do 57(+1)=58% of the total max damage of lightning. Assuming this max damage is 800 then that means the lightning user can do around (800*58%) 464 max damage without EVER missing. This is much higher than even an archer at lvl 99. When the mage gets another level he can do more % of the 800 damage so at level 99 the mage can do 800 damage max (99+1=100%).

The similarity between mage and archer is that they're both ranged. You do not insta-die when there is a high damaging monster around and you run out of iron powder. You move to avoid getting hit, leave to get more or switch to forest bow etc. You should be aware of how many resources you have left, for example I was surprised when someone didn't think of having their arrows on the shortcut bar to see how many arrows left they had. Any mage can do the same for iron powder. My point is that mages are not completely useless without lightning, it's just their signature attack.

Something else to think about. What happens when magic levels 3-5 come out? Will they just be completely unstoppable? Lightning needs to be expensive like it is now and it needs to be nuked for whatever new uber magic attack comes out in the future.

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 16 Aug 2010, 19:34
by mistergrey
Agreed, and your idea is actually pretty good. But, if they nuke the damage of lightning, only to make the new magic lvl 3 attack into the new lightning for people to complain about, it won't solve anything to be realistic.

Ideally, a couple of things would fix this situation, or at least help: Better gear for warriors/archers to compensate for magic lvl 3 when it comes out... Tougher monsters, so that the new magic and potential gear don't just decimate all creatures instantly with no challenge (or monster rebalancing, of course)... Either way, as things stand now, lightning is pretty fair, except against jackos and skulls lol, in terms of damage vs cost/time.

Still, hopefully by the time magic lvl 3 is around to be an issue, some kind of solution/compromise will be thought up.

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 17 Aug 2010, 02:51
by Freeyorp101
Freeyorp wrote:PvE is already workable. There are some monsters that magi are more effective against, and some monsters that warriors are more effective against. This is done better in the graveyard and swamp than in other areas, as most mid level monsters are the former. For PvE, lightning damage is not the problem.
Magi are more effective against skulls and JackOs, this is intended, just as warriors and archers are more effective elsewhere.

Simply comparing effectiveness against a very restricted selection of monsters will not balance the game. Where every playstyle is equally effective against all monsters with no difference in attack then there is no point in having different playstyles.

Mid-range monsters could certainly use some alterations, but it's not as game-breakingly bad as some people try to make out.


---


For PvP, there is indeed a serious problem. I'll quote the solution here again. All other "solutions" I have ever read would indeed be faster to implement, but do not address the core problem, and quick hackfixes have a sad tendency to stick, so I must insist that this is fixed properly rather than adding another layer of hacks to an already more than unstable stack of quickfixes and workarounds.
Freeyorp wrote:Character stat effects (mainly max hp and physical damage reduction) need a lot of reworking for PvP to be fair.
Even then, it's not completely uncounterable. The barrier spell causes a massive amount of magic damage reduction (more than it should; this should be nerfed hard once the proper max hp and physical damage reduction fixes are complete and out).


tl;dr: In its current state there is an obscene focus on damage reduction. Characters need a larger hp pool so that more standard combat can occur without the insistence of reducing all incoming damage to the single digit range.


---Freeyorp

Re: Power of lightning spell

Posted: 17 Aug 2010, 11:34
by Acegi
Just read your lightning post. I'm sorry you had to repost. I did read it last time but since it was awhile I forgot about your previous response. Anyway this last post makes it much clearer about the intention for the future of the game and players having more HP is a better idea. I always did wonder why some monsters have so much more HP.