Magic suggestions

Wouldn't that be sweet?

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HumanSteak

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Here is what I think about magic:

Incredibly weak! Awfully long to train because it's so weak... and the only way to train in this, is by exploiting. And c'mon lv 16 lightning does in average 5 or 6 dmg (I noted the damages and had this result) and fire dart 8 to 10! Why bother leveling for hours and hours to get high levels in magic while a same level blunt arrow does more damage?
Wizards and mages are supposed to be feared but in msc they are a real joke so i'd like to bring some suggestions to make it interesting to train in magic more than any other skills.

Either raising damage for erratic lightning and fire dart by 3 or 4 times, or creating many more spells. Anyway erratic lighning and fire dart are getting kind of old.

FIRE SPELLS (most powerful spells but kinda slow to cast)

LV 1 Fire dart
LV 3 Firebolt (X2 dmg fire dart)
LV 5 Fireball (X4 dmg fire dart + increased radius)
LV 7 Fireblast (X6 dmg fire dart + huge radius)
LV ? Firestorm (Whatever it is)
LV ? Flame Blade (Summons a powerfull flame blade as weapon for the duration of the spell, raising Fire skill without raising sword skill)

ICE SPELLS (Generally weaker than fire but slowing effect, could use the same code as when we stun enemies with a blunt weapon)

LV 2 Icebolt (same dmg as fire dart)
LV 4 Ice spike (An ice spike flies toward the opponent at very high speed, could maybe use the HL1 crossbow bolt firing code)
LV 6 Ice lance (same as ice spike but stronger)
LV 7 Freeze (Weak damage but large radius and long lasting slow effect)
LV ? Snowstorm (Whatever it is)
LV ? Frost mace (Summons a mace weaker than the flame blade but stunning enemy on every hits)

LIGHTNING SPELLS (Generally weaker than fire but stronger than Ice but fast attacking)

LV 1 Erratic lightning (Just a little bit less erratic lol)
LV 4 Chain lightning (Hits all enemies near the target)
LV ? Thunder storm (Whatever it is)

AFFLICTION SPELLS

LV 2 Poison thorns (Same dmg as fire dart + short lasting poison)
LV 3 Poison gas (Spawns a medium radius poison cloud)
LV 5 Acid Orb (Exploding orb just like a fireball, but poisoning enemies)
LV ? Scourge dagger (Summons a fast, deadly knife dealing poison dmgs)

DIVINATION SPELLS

LV 3 Holy bolt (Only effective against undeads, very powerfull)
LV 6 Greater Holy bolt (Same as holy bolt X2 dmg)
LV 5 Rejuvenate (Should just increase XP for every HP regained or if it's too hard to do Holy bolt should do all the divination level up.)

ETC. ETC. ETC.

Summoned weapons should not act like a normal weapon, just a weapon animation with a close ranged spell. So it would be 100% hit chance but at least the char would stay a pure mage.

Also, there should be a way to delete outdated spells if there's gonna be more.

As far as I know, mages are deadly but have really low defense and HP. What a mage should do is to cast protective spells, summon a few allies and unleash his powers before the enemies can get to him but if he gets surrounded, he's dead meat and that's the way it should be.
But such as it is, it's always easier to grab a weapon and hack the enemies because spells are useless.
Pure mages should not have a lot of HP and should not wear heavy armors because he would be overloaded due to his low strengh. There would be no need to change anything on the characters system, just add some spells and that would be fine.

I don't mean to put some pressure on the devs, I know that everything they did so far is incredible and great!
 

natranr

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nice idea,
and ith the sommuning spell, you can be a necromancer, like a golem and magi skellis
 

HumanSteak

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that would be real nice but I didn't mention any summon type spells because I have no idea on how we could level it up :?
All the spells I listed there are just to make leveling possible and as simply as possible cuz all those spells are just modifications of those already existing. I'd love to have the possibility of doing it myself but I don't think Kuro would hand over the source codes to anybody who thinks he can do it...
 

Gaz

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I'd like mage cloaks, like armour, but give you more mana power instead or something similar
 

Stormshift

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It's all easier said then done.

Thoth is working his ass off on some current things, but I won't say till he is ready to do so. But there are bugs in the current magic system that needs to be fixed. A few bugs make some school not level correctly, or at all. Yes, magic is somewhat weak. But that is because none of your other skills are leveled up also.

Eratic Lightning does anywhere from 1%-200% base damage.

I say give it time for new spells and tweaks, it'll get worked out.
Some of the higher spells are extremely powerful, just hard to obtain(level wise). I've had lightning storm direct hit for 50 damage, then 20-30 damage every tick after, a total of like 300+ damage. (Suck on that, granite maul)

It's just that once one bug is fixed, two more pops up.
Or once something new is added, something else decides to break.
Hellish process
 

HumanSteak

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I don't think it would be so hard to make the spells I listed here because they are almost all based on the already existing ones. Maybe I'm wrong. And the thing Thothie is working on is to fix an XP issue for poison based spells.
I'm quite sure that if the other spells are impossible to level up, it's because they're not attack spells. That's why I asked to make simple attack spells for every schools of magic.
And I knew erratic lightning is supposed to be from 1% to 200%, but why is the second hit always do 0,0 dmg then? And it seems to be nearly always the same damages for the # of hit.
 

Jelly

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Maybe even a menu where you could choose a class when you create your character. Like Warrior class and Mage class. Warrior class should have 50% spell dmg and mage should have 150% spell dmg or something like that :)
 

Stormshift

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Maybe, just keep in mind we're on the HL1 Engine here. And making those spells isn't easy, they need their own code, own animations, own damage/xp modifiers, and more that I have no clue about. Plus whenever you mess around with something, you tend to break something else :oldcry:
 

HumanSteak

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You said that already then I'll repeat myself too; All the spells I listed here are mere modifications based on already existing spells... So there should not be too much complications in copying then editing the code.
(If it is really like what I logically think it is)
 

Gaz

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If you want a robe made, or mage style armour, I'll give it a go :)
 

HumanSteak

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That would be more than I wanted but that would be really great! I have a simple question though... I'm returning to school soon and I wanna be a programmer so here's my question; would it be as simple as I think it is to create more stuff from already existing things? (i.e. spells,) By simply copying the coding of the already existing item or spell then just change a few things and change the name? Then creating it as an Item using the tome model and put it in a store? And the animation for spells is fine so I could use the same. If so, I'd love to try it out, it would give me a hand in my programmer classes. And it would be an honor to contribute to MS:C any way I can without becoming officially a dev. Just to try it out and show you what I can do and if you like it.
 

Gaz

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It all depends on how its been coded. I think it would be a fairly easy addition with scripts etc, but we'll see :)
 

Thothie

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The spell system Human Steak is suggesting sounds suspiciously like the ramped magic system I just narrowly avoided in my efforts to break the eight spell limit.

LV 1 Fire dart
LV 3 Firebolt (X2 dmg fire dart)
LV 5 Fireball (X4 dmg fire dart + increased radius)
LV 7 Fireblast (X6 dmg fire dart + huge radius)
LV ? Firestorm (Whatever it is)
LV ? Flame Blade (Summons a powerfull flame blade as weapon for the duration of the spell, raising Fire skill without raising sword skill)

Fire dart levels damage as you gain fire levels, so Firebolt seems nearly pointless... Fireball we already have (It's level 7) - and it already has a huge radius (I dun think I can make it much bigger in any useful way). Volcano is also in there.... Somewhere... Think it pretty much makes the firestorm slot... But I could make a firestorm too... Maybe meteor strike, or something... In addition we have Fire Wall, which is pretty nasty when properly applied.

Flame blade is a nifty idea, but I'm not sure if I could make it work or not. If it works like a sword, if may have to be a sword, and therefore raise sword skill. But I'll put it on the list of things to look into.

ICE SPELLS (Generally weaker than fire but slowing effect, could use the same code as when we stun enemies with a blunt weapon)

LV 2 Icebolt (same dmg as fire dart)
LV 4 Ice spike (An ice spike flies toward the opponent at very high speed, could maybe use the HL1 crossbow bolt firing code)
LV 6 Ice lance (same as ice spike but stronger)
LV 7 Freeze (Weak damage but large radius and long lasting slow effect)
LV ? Snowstorm (Whatever it is)
LV ? Frost mace (Summons a mace weaker than the flame blade but stunning enemy on every hits)

We have a Frostbolt spell coming up in the next SC.DLL which does a small amount of damage, but also freezes (or slows) your opponent. It levels damage as your ice skill raises - although it's really intended as a low level support spell.

Blizzard has all the effects of Freeze, and is, well, a snowstorm, and does a fair amount of damage. (Granted, it currently looks like a 'light snow' - gotta work on that). ;)

Ice Trolls, Polar Bears, the upcoming Snow Boars, and other cold dwelling mobs will be immune to most ice spell effects. Undead take quarter damage from ice spells, but are still slowed.

May run into the same issues with Frost Mace as with Flame Blade, etc. There is a sword called 'Ice Blade' I will be introducing soon however. (It's the one that manifests over your head when you pull out an ice scroll)

LV 1 Erratic lightning (Just a little bit less erratic lol)
LV 4 Chain lightning (Hits all enemies near the target)
LV ? Thunder storm (Whatever it is)

Actually, how Erratic lightning works, is the damage 'ramps' up the longer you hold it on a single opponent, but it resets after four bolts. I may change that to SC level or some such on the next SC.DLL patch (still playing with that, balance wise).

Chain Lightning is something I want to do, but I've no idea how ATM. There's no way I can figure to store creatures in an array, or make the game cycle through creatures in sight so... I dunno, I may yet figure something.

We have Thunderstorm... Or rather... Lightning Storm. ;) It's pretty bloody devastating.

LV 2 Poison thorns (Same dmg as fire dart + short lasting poison)
LV 3 Poison gas (Spawns a medium radius poison cloud)
LV 5 Acid Orb (Exploding orb just like a fireball, but poisoning enemies)
LV ? Scourge dagger (Summons a fast, deadly knife dealing poison dmgs)

We've got a poison blotter of sorts, atm. (Will be a little flying skull in the next SC.DLL) - Poison Gas was planned as Cloud Kill - suspect it'd have basically the same effect as Acid Orb though (AOE poison). Scourge Dagger, again, same issue as previous two mage weapons. Was also planning Disease and Ravage affliction spells. The latter of which would affect undead (maybe make em rot.) Currently undead are immune to poison spells.

LV 3 Holy bolt (Only effective against undeads, very powerfull)
LV 6 Greater Holy bolt (Same as holy bolt X2 dmg)
LV 5 Rejuvenate (Should just increase XP for every HP regained or if it's too hard to do Holy bolt should do all the divination level up.)

The next SC.DLL includes a Turn Undead spell (may rename it Rebuke Undead for disambiguation - although the original idea was Holy Light, and I think the script is suffering from identity crisis now). Turn Undead (or whatever it's called) does damage only to undead and demons, and some otherworldly creatures, and has a chance to make them some of them run away screaming at the higher levels (or if they are already weakened). It also stops skeletons from getting back up, if they are slain by it.

Turns out Turn Undead, in addition to being powerful at the high ends, levels like the dickens, and as it raises your Divination skill, your Rejuvenation effectiveness will increase. (Maybe too much so, I'm still looking into that).

Later I may introduce an AOE Turn Undead spell, that will likely reclaim the Holy light name.

...and I can't give XP for healing yourself - not that I would, if I could.

Also, there should be a way to delete outdated spells if there's gonna be more.

There's no 'forget spell' function on the script end, so far as I know - so unless Jester does something, I think we are SOL there. I still need to talk to Lord K about getting the source to someone else. You can just stick to Spell Book scrolls, and toss the ones you don't want anymore (some sell for a pretty penny).

I can't guarantee new summon spells will be in the next SC.DLL, but I might work it in there.

This isn't all about making your characters more powerful though. You may find some monsters have some new unpleasant surprises for you too. In addition to those, I'm also working on cutting down on the AI's lack of I. There are also already several new monsters, some of which I may find ways to work into existing maps.

I'll probably be tossing the new SC.DLL onto the beta server on Wednesday or Thursday - I wanted to be sure people had enough time to adjust their inventory systems (plus I'm out most of today and tomorrow). Hopefully it's the last SC.DLL that changes something fundamental that people will need to prepare for like that.

I'd like mage cloaks, like armour, but give you more mana power instead or something similar

If you can make a model for me based on the armor system, I may be able to work something out (mind you, keep it bulky, as I dunno how soon we are going to have a fix that makes the body stop drawing through armor - I've not heard a thing from Jester on that, and I've exhausted all possibilities on the script end.)

And in regards to the scroll/spellbook models. I'm currently using the Evil Book model for both. I seems appropriate enough atm. I intend to make new trade sprites for em though.
 

HumanSteak

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For summoned weapons isn't it just possible to put in a weapon animation, but in fact it is just a short ranged spell? (Maybe short ranged spells are kind of hard to do)
And about Firebolt, I still think it would be good because fire dart does crappy damage the whole game no matter your level and is so slow. Other similar spells with X2 or X4 damage would start to make some sense to me.
Wow I just can't wait to see that new sc.dll :) keep up the good work you're incredible :wink:
 

RED

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It's not really that impossible to get to spellcasting level 8 really. I did it before poison was out with only lightning and fire. It didn't take as long as people thought and I have all the spells now... I think... and they are very powerful. Once you're at spellcasting 7 or 8 there are more powerful spells that you can get and learn. Things work, go try them out.
 

Thothie

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RED said:
It's not really that impossible to get to spellcasting level 8 really. I did it before poison was out with only lightning and fire.

Between Ice Bolt and Turn Undead (or whatever it's called), getting to level 8 may actually be too easy now. I bumped Volcano back up to its original insane level, and put LS up a notch, but by the time you get to 6, you can level Affliction as well, and at eight, Blizzard levels you like mad, so we'll see how that all works out.

I think you and Mamuru are the only two to ever make it to level 8 on fire/lightning alone... And I was actually trying. ;) - Granted, I didn't play all that often. Most people were convinced the higher spells were bugged so you couldn't get them (which, wasn't the case - but they were bugged in that most didn't work right).
 
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