The Mana World Forums

When designing team-based quests, the #itenplz spell has proven to be one blocker: spawn some mobs to fight the team and you are sure there will be one mage to attract all mobs, leaving the other team members mostly safe while they can shoot the swarm.
This actually leads to poor game experience as there is not much challenge left -- except for the mage to not lag.

This spell is in fact much too powerful for what it costs:
3 mana, 1 second cooldown, no item needed, long range.

For the sake of balance and more interesting content in the future other than just run in circle, I propose to adopt the following changes:

• Cost more mana. 30?
• Increase cooldown time: 20 seconds?
• Require a component. Something cheap would be fine. Something not yet used in other spells could be interesting (we have many items without usage yet, do we?), but not required.
• The range is fine as it is IMO, considering the changes above ^
• Limit the number of mobs which can be aggravated, based on the m.attack of the caster.

Of course, if such changes happen, some content which have been designed with the existence of #itenplz in mind should be modified.
That would be Candor and the Lobby Inn level of the Illia Quest, but Cindy should be fine. (any other I forgot?)

Discussion is open

actually, I think the range is the best thing to decrease (dependent on m attack), especially since it forces the mage to balance "ability to attract mobs" against "ability to not die from attracting mobs"

o11c wrote:actually, I think the range is the best thing to decrease (dependent on m attack), especially since it forces the mage to balance "ability to attract mobs" against "ability to not die from attracting mobs"

+1

v0id wrote:When designing team-based quests, the #itenplz spell has proven to be one blocker: spawn some mobs to fight the team and you are sure there will be one mage to attract all mobs, leaving the other team members mostly safe while they can shoot the swarm.
This actually leads to poor game experience as there is not much challenge left -- except for the mage to not lag.

This spell is in fact much too powerful for what it costs:
3 mana, 1 second cooldown, no item needed, long range.

For the sake of balance and more interesting content in the future other than just run in circle, I propose to adopt the following changes:

• Cost more mana. 30?
• Increase cooldown time: 20 seconds?
• Require a component. Something cheap would be fine. Something not yet used in other spells could be interesting (we have many items without usage yet, do we?), but not required.
• The range is fine as it is IMO, considering the changes above ^
• Limit the number of mobs which can be aggravated, based on the m.attack of the caster.

Of course, if such changes happen, some content which have been designed with the existence of #itenplz in mind should be modified.
That would be Candor and the Lobby Inn level of the Illia Quest, but Cindy should be fine. (any other I forgot?)

Discussion is open

I disagree with that. These quests were designed with itenplz in mind. If ItenPlz was not as powerful as it is now Candor and Illia (including final struggle) would be impossible to complete. The best way do limit itenplz effect is to have adapted to topography (but it may increase lag) or adapted mobs and/or mob number: example Graveyard, Cindy quest, Illia house lobby, mines. There could be other ways but they would require to modify monster's AI and combat model to make players more active in the combat, such as defense actions or any of the suggestions that Frost made on this forum some time ago. The only logic modification I can imagine at the moment would be a limited time effect on the mobs, and an aggravated mob cannot be aggravated (time runs after the first aggagravation. It would be the same with spells which could slow, stone, freeze or turn them.

How about having the spell set a monster flag, like #chipchip does, and monsters with the flag already set will be unresponsive to further uses of the spell? Then you can still use itenplz to corral monsters, but once someone pulls them away after that, they stay pulled away.

if major changes are happening to it id like to see it reduced dramatically and moved to the warrior class where such an ability probably shouldve been in the first place. you could like it to rage skill or to one of the weapons or something. or have it only work if mana bar is grey. most games have aggravate on the tank class because those are the defenders after all. it honestly makes no sense for mages to even have it. my only worry here is if mags would still have a team play use

radiant wrote:How about having the spell set a monster flag, like #chipchip does, and monsters with the flag already set will be unresponsive to further uses of the spell? Then you can still use itenplz to corral monsters, but once someone pulls them away after that, they stay pulled away.

I kinda like it the way it is, however....

If you're gonna change it, I like this idea the best. In essence the spell is designed to piss off monsters - many of which are in a bad mood anyway. Once it's been used, if the monster is attacked by someone else, I could see the spell wearing off and the monster either realizing they've been duped, or they go back to their normal nature. So the spell then wouldn't work again. Or, the spell may still work on monsters who are inherently in a fould mood, but wouldn't work again on nice creatures - like pinkies, squirrels, etc....

The monster AI does need to be smarter, and that relates to what they should *decide* to do in case of #itenplz.

Unfortunately, mob AI is the *one* place in the source that I am not comfortable at all ...

Making the spell more costly wouldn't change the immediate game experience.
Only transferring it to tank-warriors would make it even worse, as the spellcaster wouldn't even have to run.
So please let it be as it is.

Can't you just make some mobs being resistant against itnplz?

Then you could keep the content made with #itnplz in mind stay the same but still make new quests where it does not have the same effect or just simply does not work.

Another solution would maybe be to make #itnplz not work on certain maps. And when a mage makes a #itnplz in there he just gets a message "The creatures here don't seam to respond to your aggrivating spells." or something in the same spirit.

That would be my solution, a complete rework of candor, illia sisters etc would take loads of time and newer players would probably feel that it is unjust for them to have to complete these quests under new conditions.

I think this would be the best solution to be honest.