[Testing] Dark Magic

[Quinny]

That probably was my case I wasn't watching my health just playing around in the GY so I bet that is it.

I never had a problem with more spawns just the delay like in light magic.

[wushin]

We had a discussion in IRC: about Dark vs Light magic summons.

Ideas we came up with were:
Move maggots to Dark summon only
Move fluffies to Light magic only
Let both do the Spike Mushroom
Give light Magic the spell to summon Mouboo to offset snake summon
Use Cassy's new Moon Shroom as the Light Magic version of the Dark Magic Mushroom summon

moving the summons into 2 groups will give the spell schools more depth.
I say snakes might do more damage but are easier to kill.
Mouboos do less damage but are harder to kill.
That provides a good spell contrast along with mob looks summoned.

[v0id]

I also mentionned a few things about the existing spells:

1. Summons

[16:19:32] <V0id> well #skel is definitly too strong. even one skeleton is

Too strong, compared to existing light summons. If there were counterparts in similar spirit of those mentionned above (Mob of light magic less aggressive but more resistant / living longer than dark counterpart) that would be fine.
Same remark for other summons. snakes / dark scorpions and maggots / fluffies don't play in the same category.

2. #wave

This spell has an AoE. AoE spells have a huge damage potential compared to single-target spells. That's why usually AoE deals less damage than level-equivalent single-target spells, since they have the potential to hit more targets. #wave hits equivalent to ingravs (800, 900).
I'd propose:
* Set a limit of how many mobs can be hit by a wave.
* Max the damages to 200-300.
* Smaller HP loss.

3. Choice

Set a one-time option to reset the light / dark path of existing players.
Or 2 different quests to repent from a path (like killing thousands of "dark" or "light" mobs)

[Johanne Laliberté]

I don't quite get the concept of #morsa yet. Do you want a spell that protects light mages from the effects of dark magic, or do you want a spell for dark mages that protects them from the malus the spells have?

2 Both!


and losing half of health is too many IMO.

[tux9th]

I made a new particle effect for Dark magic which will be used for all of the spells now. (or so I guess)

With Freeyorps help I fixed toxic-dart spell. It now only poisons players in PvP. Just the one hit, nobody around.

Don't forget to download the latest client-data from the testing server

with best regards

tux

Edit:

As of now the Skeleton spawn spell will come into the game but it will not be usable as it isn't obtainable by quest. The spells which will come available with the next content release as currently planned are: snake summon, toxic dart and mushroom summon.
It's not yet decided what to do with the skel spell, maybe we will release this with level 3 magic.

The wave spell was intended to have enormous amount of malus and a high cooldown but a pretty rad output as well. IMO it will affect gameplay less if it's stronger but cannot be casted too often. If you have your hp cut in half this is a serious imposition on a player.
I will however agree to reducing damage output. But cutting it down to 200 max dmg with 900 m.att will lead to soley high lvl players using it. maybe because of the cost of 5 iron powder it might not be used at all.
Instead of reducing the max count of hit mobs I would rather reduce the area of effect. I don't like the idea of some getting hit by a ciruclar wave and some not.

@Johanne:
I don't see the point of a malus if you can circumvent it. Eat some potions instead .
Regarding light protection against dark: the wave spell does not work in PvP.

I really enjoy the discussion about the spells, but how do you guys like the storyline / quest waric offers to teach dark magic? I would like to release this rather sooner than later
I plan to release: summon snakes, wicked mushroom and toxic dart spell at first and the others later.

[tux9th]

1. Summons

[16:19:32] <V0id> well #skel is definitly too strong. even one skeleton is

Too strong, compared to existing light summons. If there were counterparts in similar spirit of those mentionned above (Mob of light magic less aggressive but more resistant / living longer than dark counterpart) that would be fine.
Same remark for other summons. snakes / dark scorpions and maggots / fluffies don't play in the same category.

After discussing it, and thinking about it again I agree. I made fluffies slaves as well, I added mouboos and pinkies to the spells.
You can test them ingame using #ginaria and #mooo as invocations.
read the server news for further information

have fun

[mas886]

I tested it, and i like the idea of making the dark magic useful.

[Hello=)]

In my opinion mages are too strong as it is.

I would challenge this particular statement, at least for usual TMW server:
1) No way someone can be a mage below lvl 60 or so. No, really, newb mage unable to kill enough stuff to maintain self as mage. There're no cheap/free attack spells newbies can use. So in fact no way to level up as mage at all. You have to put some stats to archer or warrior and do reset later. This is awkward and weird ways of doing things. Properly designed RPGs usally have some cheap or free attacks for low-level players. Not a case for TMW. To make it more "fun", many quests require to kill some quite nasty stuff like grass snakes which is a permanent problem for newbies so far.
2) Looks like nobody bothered self to make measurements on damage per minute, kills of monsters per minute, XP per minute, etc. If you think mages are powerful, take a look on potioned speed banshee archer with terranite arrows. Then try to outshoot this setup as mage using ANY available option. Has it workerd? And how about cost of attack per unit of damage? In fact being mage implies quite expensive attacks which are quite slow and would not outshoot potioned banshees, ever.
3) illia items. Lazurite robe seems to be least valued item on the market. Overall most of players just do not want to play as mages these days. Thanks to slow and expensive attacks I guess. Banshee on other hand is one of most valued items. Market situation suggests imbalance IS here.
4) While it's possible to hunt as mage on high-levels, its not like if it could be very competitive with warrior or archer when it comes to grinding. And no, "mages usually have warrior or archer alt" it not a proper answer to this issue. Generally full-mage setup only playable on high-levels and still haves some handicap on ability to hunt stuff because attacks are generarlly slow and expensive, which makes killing monsters slower and more expensive than for other classes.
5) It has gone so far that polite banshee users would drop free loot after candor round or cindy for everyone else because nobody can outshoot them, warranting them most of monster drops.
6) Archers could in principle use melee weapons, having option for more or less decent "free" attack because stats of warrior and archer are not completely different. Mages are generally spending points on other stats and so they're utterly bad in melee. No free hunt attack one more time.

As in terms of ability to kill stuff in general, earn XP and items for lvl 90+ I would rank it like this in most cases: warriors < mages < banshee archers.
For lower the level, mage tends to be weaker than other classes. Say, lvl 60 mage nearly useless and would have trouble even to maintain self. Cant anyhow compete with others in grinding/XP gaining (unless backed up by strong alt which is "cheating" and does not counts).

Warriors are the worst in PvP as they nearly have no chance of retribution now. This makes PvP unbalanced. Though at least their attacks free and warriors are good in grinding weak monsters for items with nearly zero cost to do so. Archers are fast on killing stuff, even at range. And mages... well, most existing mages are "cheaters", backed up by some strong archer or warrior alt and running out of stuff without grinding on alts using other classes. I dont think that mage gameplay should look like this. Other games have far more pleasant gameplay for mages to my taste. Btw, as one idea to make warriors more competitive in PvP: what about making all ranged attackers to stop for some time when they performing their ranged attack?

[tux9th]

t3st3r you have valid points in what you say. I cannot disregard what you say but this is offtopic.

I thought about a noob spell which is free but up until now I didn't come up with something usable. I'm still working on this.

Currently wushin is working on a rebalance and things will probably be more fair in the future.

I've talked it over with V0id and Wushin, the current scripts seem to be fine and will come into mainline and into the main server soon.

with best regards

tux9th

[Crush]

Conclusion from t3st3r's post:

-Banshee bow should be nerfed
-Magic needs to be more powerful and economically feasible on lower levels

I dont think that mage gameplay should look like this. Other games have far more pleasant gameplay for mages to my taste.

By the way, I am currently developing an MMORPG where every player and mob is a mage based on some of the concepts I made for Manaserv.

[v0id]

t3st3r forgot to mention how often you need to heal when using the banshee bow, which is quite a malus.
In fact, there's a similar share between Bull Helmet warriors and Banshee Bow archers.
Checkout a good build for a bull helmet (speed or raging) warrior with pots, and you'll see the warrior has no reason to be shy against an archer.
On that point, the existing differences between (standard warrior, forest bow archer) and (bull helmet warrior, banshee bow archer) have a similar scale.

[wushin]

First let me say I've looked at the bow and it deserves discussion.
http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... =2&t=17664

Second, Making Magic viable at lower levels should be doable, but will require more spells and balance.

Third, The Dark Magic looks fine.

Fourth, thanks for testing.

[tux9th]

invocations have been updated. checkout first post for further information

[SriNitayanda]

I chatted with V0id a bit in game and he said that in his opinion life magic should be restricted for light mages only, which kind of makes sense if they are supposed to be the evil side of mages. so few idea's came up i thought of making an opposing school to life magic, which will be hmm... death magic?.
spell can also be opposite to life magic spells, like instead of healing spells, death magic can have life leaching spell or spells.
a spell that makes 100-200 dmg and heals this amount to the caster hp. it can have a longer delay than inma or other healing spells maybe even have a weaker version which requires blood stone that is made of something with red blood like bat wings.
the other spell i thought about is an opposing spell to asorm, dark mages really suffer from not having this spell, so why not make a spell that gives the target more spell vulnerability rather than make the target or caster more resistant to magic. the vulnerability doesn't have to be big something like -20 -30 to m. def, it can also be shorter than asorm and also have delay.
Npc's that can teach this spells can be demons like Goblenez. or other characters from gy inn (yeah can be learned only after level 60).
The general idea is to really divide the two types of magic, give them more character, meaning if dark mages are more altroistic healing players etc.. then dark mages should be more egoistic sucking the life of others and taking advantage of them.
yeah most mobs you fight in tmw are undead so it doesn't make sense to suck the life out of them cause they are dead, well it can be said something like "life force" or whatever to make more sense to it, i dont think restricting it only to living creatures would be satisfying and also i think it is probably harder work restricting to only some kind of monsters.
I have no idea about scripting coding pixel art etc... so i really dont know how i can contribue to it other than throwing this idea to the air and if someone will like it s/he can work on it. i know most ideas are being pushed to game by making more active steps with them i wish i had the tools to do more.

[Crush]

the other spell i thought about is an opposing spell to asorm, dark mages really suffer from not having this spell, so why not make a spell that gives the target more spell vulnerability rather than make the target or caster more resistant to magic. the vulnerability doesn't have to be big something like -20 -30 to m. def, it can also be shorter than asorm and also have delay.

The role of asorm is to defend against enemy mages. When death magic is supposed to fulfill the same role for evil mages as life magic does for good mages but in an "evil" way, then how about making the evil asorm-equivalent a debuff which decreases the enemies magic attack?