proposed 90-100 aoe nuke balance nerf

[shook]

Some of the suggestions to balance the issue of people cycling these spells have been absolutely terrible. I'm not claiming this is the end all change that needs to be added or I quit, its just an idea that I think still leaves magic very powerful but adds more strategy than just point and cycle macroed spells.

Put these spells into their own category (obviously subject to change):

Inferno
Exploding Charge
Virtuous Wrath
Disintegrate
Blizzard
unholy flames
and what ever other spells deemed necessary for balance

My proposal is this: Every time you cast one of these spells with in five seconds of each other the latter spells mana cost is doubled. This effect will stack indefinitely.

This is just a concept, I don't feel like crunching the numbers but the premise is you can use all your nukes at full power but you cant chain them thoughtlessly and indefinitely. The balance would be something like if you use 4 of these spells one after another you will have zero or close to zero mana. The 4th spell you use in this combo will effectively cost 8x more mana than usual. People could easily get away with firing 2 or 3 nukes and then waiting 5 seconds to repeat. Would those 5 seconds be enough to bring balance to pvp? Does the timer need to be longer? firing 3 spells consecutively in this system would cost the same mana as firing 7 spells in the current system... is that balanced?

Discuss.

Edit (10/16): This idea is good for the reason that it doesn't allow people to abuse having every school but still lets them use every school in the game with one character while still being effective with them. However this idea alone would be enough to balance gameplay, The mechanics of the spells them selves are over powered to where it doesn't take enough player skill to even fire one of these spells at someone. Slightly reduce the amount that all casting speed modifyers reduce casting time (the school sub skills, buff, enchants), you nerf the casting time this way so they aren't making it even harder to compete with high end characters, this will nerf it uniformly. Also shrinking the aoe radius slightly is really needed as well. It honestly just doesn't take enough skill to aim them properly. People with unsteady aim don't miss shots that they should and attempting to dodge in some situations is futile. It should always be a good idea to attempt to dodge and people should be punished and forced to get better when they make aiming. Both of these changes should be subtle and precise, you can always adjust the nerfs slightly in patches.

[McDoogs]

doubled or tripled or quadrupled cast times would be a simpler and more elegant solution imo

[Nariya]

There are lots of different ways they could go about it. I just hope they do SOMETHING.

Personally I'm in favor of much longer cast times and higher mana cost for nukes and aoes.

/Valroth (oops, posted with my gf's account)

[shook]

doubled or tripled or quadrupled cast times would be a simpler and more elegant solution imo
hmmm, that system would punish you harder for using two spells consecutivly and would make casting four or more useless. It would for sure end the issue of spamming high end nukes though.

That is if you meant using a similar system as I described above except instead of increased mana cost, it has increased casting time.

[Realbigdeal22]

And to connect it well, they should add cooldown for using potions and food. That way, these super aoe spammers will think again before they use all their mana since they will only be able to use 1 potion before the cooldown timer reset.

[shook]

I believe you can only use 1 potion every 5 minutes as is, or something along those lines.

[Arkh]

Or simply make AoE spells do less damage the farthest you are from the point of impact.

[Cunning]

I dont mind casters. I dont mind casters that use purely aoes from every school continuously. The thing that bothers me is that it doesnt take much out of a real mage. He can spam aoes until you and your buddies are dead. If its that big of an aoe, and that powerful of a spell it should take some real effort to cast. Right now those devastating spells are too cheap. I like the idea of them cumulatively gaining mana cost after each cast. Maybe not for each cast ever, but at least for the aoes.

Edit: Ie. he should only be able to cast 4-5 nukes of the high level spells and be out of mana. Just like if a warrior goes balls to the wall with polearm he runs out of stam quickly. Big hits = lots of effort otherwise the dps is unbalanced.

And btw, fix single handed weapons. I can parry uberfast when I need to with a 2hander, but if I go sword and board I have to be a fucking psychic to block in time if I am going to attack at all. So basically, if you use sword and board while not on a mount you are gimp... I bet if you pit a sword and board guy against a polearm guy in that History channel show the sword and board guy would dominate the polearm guy. Just sayin...

[bongloads]

Blizzard should not be on this list.

This list should only include good spells.

[bongloads]

And to connect it well, they should add cooldown for using potions and food. That way, these super aoe spammers will think again before they use all their mana since they will only be able to use 1 potion before the cooldown timer reset.

Major heal/stam/mana potions should be on a SEPERATE timer from all other potions.

[bongloads]

Yes, this is three replies in a row.

[McDoogs]

Again, significantly (2x-3x) lengthening the cast times of R90 nukes would greatly lower the dps of cycling them non-stop to pvp while still making them effective for longer range and siege scenarios. Now, archery's outstanding single-target dps is more a more viable ranged damage option, and actually will be borderline completely necessary for effective pvp.

The spells I'm referring to are the large splash, large damage spells with low 12ish sec cds:

Exploding Charge
Unholy Flames
Disintigrate
Inferno
Virtuous Wrath

[Lord Zeb]

Wouldn't be enough, and would be a non-systematic and artificial rule application.

Do this instead: Mage Specialization Functions (http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=211907), and know that one still need to do this as well: Reworking the Magic Damage System (http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=211908).

[Sanshi44]

u do know fireball does more dmg : P cept for maybe VW and UF, and arrows have more single target dps than the big nukes aswell

[shook]

I've come to the conclusion that this is a great idea but alone it would not be enough to nerf magic enough. Slightly reduce the amount that all casting speed modifyers reduce casting time (the school sub skills, buff, enchants), you nerf the casting time this way so they aren't making it even harder to compete with high end characters, this will nerf it uniformly. Also shrinking the aoe radius slightly is really needed as well. It honestly just doesn't take enough skill to aim them enough properly. People with unsteady don't miss shots that they should and sometimes attempting to dodge is futile. It should always be a good idea to attempt to dodge. Both of these changes should be subtle and precise, you can always adjust the nerfs slightly in patches.

It makes me sad though because there are so many of these threads with really stupid ideas and this diamond in the rough gets unnoticed because nobody wants to read another shitty tldr post on changing the way magic works completely. Or a brainless nerf that the devs have already obviously thought of or read a million times.

[Bloodgloom]

Just put all the parallel spells from each school on the same cool down (ie unholy flames/virt wrath/disintegrate ect.) cycling spells to escape the cool down (and the need to use the ray spells and lower more aim dependent spells) is a bad mechanic.

One other thing is that there should be some slight randomness to the number of casts needed to "surge" a spell and it shouldn't be readily visible to players when the next cast will surge. Players can too easily "pre-surge" spells from multiple schools and, even with a shared cool down, cause insane damage in ridiculously little time.

[MikeJT]

Major heal/stam/mana potions should be on a SEPERATE timer from all other potions.

Agreed. Right now a mage can convert health-to-mana, mana-to-stamina, and stamina-to-health to do a little balancing act with each. Yes a person in armor can still do this as well but their spells as less effective. They use more mana to produce the same amount of stamina, and more stamina to produce the same amount of health.

Not to mention that a melee specialist will most likely not be carrying the best staff unless they want to increase the value of the stuff they're carrying again. So the mages heal spells and conversions are more effective in that regard again.

If they put mana potions on a longer cool-down than health and stamina, this would be great, especially considering the mana regen rate is alot faster than the health and stamina regen rate.

[jamie1414]

longer cast times and much larger mana costs would be just as effective and 10x simpler. Making those spells good in seiges or a small Burst of damage but not nearly as effective as the bolt/lvl 50 aoe spells.

[Gray Fox]

Or simply make AoE spells do less damage the farthest you are from the point of impact.

This.

Edit: And also add that mana multiplier combo thing.

[wormw00d]

Shared cool downs seems the simple solution to me. If some player wants to have all the schools for buffs and what not, I say go for it. However, I imagine the cooldowns are present because spamming these high lvl spells was considered at development to be OP.

The grind previously was prohibitive to having 3 or 4 schools at 100, but now, especially with well funded grind sessions, its only a matter of a few days...literally. Even the semi casual player that I am (4 days a week tops) I've been able to get 3 schools at or over 75, with out having a huge gold pool or even a secluded hunting ground.

[puckleboy]

omg

stop moaning. magic is overpowered cuz its magic dipshits. if the gods didnt invent magic to be OP'd then why would they bother in the first place. if you want a balanced game go to wow and suck on the balls of blizzard

[shook]

Hey, if you have a shitty idea about how to nerf magic go make your own thread, oh wait, you did, and nobody posted in it because its a horrible idea that any retard can think of.

Nothing needs to be done besides making them slightly harder to aim and not possible to base your entire offense on spamming them. Thats it, most of you are just terrible and will still think its over powered when its not.

Is it really that hard to discuss things in their corresponding threads instead of making every thread an advertisement for your own idea?

[xpiher]

Major heal/stam/mana potions should be on a SEPERATE timer from all other potions.

Agreed, the negating status affect pots being on a sperate timer would do wonders for balancing.

[xpiher]

Wouldn't be enough, and would be a non-systematic and artificial rule application.

Do this instead: Mage Specialization Functions (http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=211907), and know that one still need to do this as well: Reworking the Magic Damage System (http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=211908).

the only problem the game has in terms of balance is the ability to chain high end nuke and aoe skills, and really that is only a problem at range.

[Teilean]

This mana thing is a retarted idea.

Easy magic fix that wouldn't destroy it, Global Cooldowns and Make it so the farther you are from the source of a aoe the less damage it does.

Also 75% of the ppl who posted on this forum so far just seem to be Noobs crying b/c they got there ass's handed to them and dont understand the game mechanics.