Dark Legacy MUD Forum

Fighters need mana for buffs? I have yet to have a triav fighter whose natural mana regeneration did not supply adequate mana for buffs.

"that leaves mana for offensive spells"....no self-respecting caster uses only buffs and offensive spells. If that's all you use on your casters, you deserve to lose fights. And, you CAN use spells without cie runes without running out of mana; just because spamming cie breath and arrow, without enchanting any mana, is the most popular strategy these days doesn't mean it's the only way to play a caster.

You scoff at 60-80k enchantment space? You have my apologies, then, I didn't realize that you were talking an epic level 1000 or so character with full emeralite/blue diamond eq and thus considered 700 damage roll or so worth of enchantment space "not much". I ingorantly spoke about balance among those of us who have characters that actually exist, I didn't realize you were talking about imaginary super-powered characters.

Erm. Last time I checked, all defensive spells were buffs, as in buffing yourself up.

And all offensive spells are designed to in some way hinder the enemy...

So what, are you talking about the other spells? Farsight? Astral? Deem? O.o

What else is there? All spells are either defensive, offensive, or informational. Certainly all COMBAT spells are either buffs or offensive.

And physical damage users need just as much buffs as magic users, maybe MORE...So you are contradicting yourself in saying that casters need MORE MANA FOR BUFFS than physical damage users do. It's close enough so that it doesn't matter.

And btw, you get 62,000 enchant for two e500 emeralite weapons. I don't think many people have access to that, for most people its probably FAR LESS. So no, I'm not talking about imaginary characters. Wheras...How much enchant space will a fighter use to scale up their damage roll just so they can DO DAMAGE to epic mobs their level? A lot more than 62k, I'll tell you that, or even a FAR more realistic 40k for that matter.

You're used up the supply of information you're going to get in return for arguing and complaining. Experiment.

As for the damage of a fighter versus that of a caster....I spin and kill an entire room of epic mobs in seconds. Quintos spams breath, killing an individual mob in more time than I take to kill an entire room. Quintos is 5 epic levels higher than me.

Well there you have it, in PvM its not balanced now is it?

And what are you TALKING ABOUT in terms of experimenting? SEMANTICS?



Spell A, whether its being used to make an elemental, take away buffs, hinder an opponent, make the sky fall on an enemy...If im in combat, and the spell in any way shape or form is intended to harm an opponent...It's...Wait for it...OFFENSIVE.

Spell B, whether its to heal me, make me faster, more resistant, regen a limb, cause my opponent to have a harder time defeating me...It's *GASP*...DEFENSIVE

The only spells that don't fit into those categories are MUNDANE, and aren't used for combat. And if the mudane spells somehow ARE used for combat, then they would fit into one of the two categories above, maybe both in some cases.

There are EXACTLY TWO sides of combat. One is called defense, the other is called offense.

Is that clear enough for you?

I see the real problem between melee and magic as being the equipment dependancy of meleers and complete equipment independancy for casters. This accounts for the strong advantage casters have over meleers while levelling. As casters need no equipment, they progress quite easily. Meleers on the other hand need a large amount of equipment to hit and do damage; at lower levels, equipment has little enchant space and cannot help meleers to become as powerful as casters.
At epic levels however, the potential does a full 360. Meleers now have an infinite amount of enchant space (compared to prior equipment). While casters also have access to this enchant space, they just don't need it. Casters can easily enchant all of their resists and basic stats at level 50. Past this, enchant is unneeded. Meleers will be able to do this, but also require AR, damroll, and other stats. This does however limit the caster. Since the caster cannot improve his equipment to do more damage, he can only gain 1 complexity point every 30 levels. In 150 levels, a caster gains the ability to add an extra Fec into his spells. In 150 levels, a meleer gains the ability to strengthen himself incredibly.
I also agree with Vogar on how antimagic shell should be balanced.

QUINTOS WINS DING DING DING. I love you Quintos.

Weems, Quintos is saying the exact opposite of what you said. You were complaining about how casters had an advantage because they don't have to enchant spell power; Quintos was saying that they are at a disadvantage because of it. Casters that lack the imagination to do anything beyond cie breath/arrow/distort + defensive spells ARE frontloaded, but the game shouldn't be designed around the simpleminded.

The way it works is fine. If you think it's wrong; good for you. However, don't whine to Cele until he changes things just because you don't understand how it works.

Vogar's antimagic shell idea is a good one, but I'd rather see a new spell that does what he describes instead of replacing antimagic shell with it. Maybe "Spell Mantle" if you don't mind copying the name as well as the idea from DnD.

I was complaining how the system was imbalanced, citing examples where casters have an absurd advantage as far as enchant space management goes.

I understand the system perfectly. Apparantly, a lot better than you.

No he isn't. He's saying it's imbalanced, and in many cases the exact opposite of what YOU said.

Isabelle is correct. Magic needs to be simplified. Theres too many variables to balance it currently, if ever. Magic doesn't scale up right, it gives quick bursts of power, and then it dies down. Being able to become immune or near-immune to magic does not make it balanced. That just makes it terrible for CASTERS.

The equipment is a large part of the problem, as Quintos said. Especially seeing how spells max out. Enchant rate and possible damage roll/AR wouldnt go up at the same rate even if spells WEREN'T capped. Casters get screwed in many ways, and gain the advantage in PvP. Thats not balance, if you think it is then you need to go over to webster and look up the word.

Simplification is the key. I don't think we could ever go as extreme as what Lingolas said, with going to single class, but it would be nice if we could. Magic needs to have an easier way to scale up, and physical damage users scale up far too easily, but this goes into the other thread, where I was agreeing with Isabelle on the removal of damage roll.

So you're complaining that at higher epic levels, fighter types do more damage than casters because of enchanting of damage roll?

1. In most cases, it takes a thrust or lunge to make a warrior do more damage per-hit than a caster's breath. A lunge is slower than most damage spells, not to mention the fact that a caster is likely to be faster than a warrior.

2. The warrior has limited balance; once he runs out he cannot attack until it recovers. A caster can enchant as much mana as they need, plus they have cie spells to rely on if they somehow run out of mana.

3. The caster can heal much more effectively than the fighter, and likely has a free heal wheras the fighter does not.

4. The fighter has to get within melee range of the caster to optimize his damage, otherwise he's stuck with bows, which have far less damage potential(mostly due to their low crit values and slower attack speeds). The caster, on the other hand, can run away while firing arrows/meteor/cone and other such spells.

5. Damage spells are not all a caster has available to him. Ever heard of foolishness, weakness, confusion, psionic blow, faerie fire, slow, poison, or any other debuffs? How about Conjure Elemental or Summon Faerie? Those are all very powerful and are not capped.

6. In DL, most characters are not simply "Fighters" or "Casters", nearly every character in the game has both fighting and casting classes. For example, while I focus primarily on phyiscal combat with support spells(and my classes reflect this), I have summons, damage spells, and debuffs to use against challenging opponents(ie: Vogar). Individual classes don't have to be equal, especially in a system where everyone gets three.



The overall magic system is fine. There may be imbalances in it, but those need to be addressed individually; not by replacing it with a new magic system which will have its own flaws.

As for simplicity; if you want perfect simplicity and balance, go play Paper, Rock, Scissors. Complexity is a major part of what makes a game fun and gives it staying power; just because it is beyond your metal capacity doesn't mean it needs to be simplified for everyone else.





Oh ok, I guess I'm wrong and you're right, then.

I'm not 'complaining' at all, I'm pointing out imbalanced, although I can see why that might distress you. Seeing how your eyes must be too lazy to read, I'll remind you to scroll up, maybe go back a page, and do so.



Those would be offensive spells, smart one



Anyway, yeah. The system is broken, and could use a good replacing.

I suppose that no matter how many of your whiney complaints I disprove, you're going to sprout more, so I'll rest my case with this:

If you know so much about how combat, casting, and melee work, and I know so little; why do I dominate everyone in combat(on any of my fighting characters) while you don't?

I suppose that not matter how many of your pathetic personal attacks I disprove, you're going to spout more, so I'll rest my case with this:

Scroll up, read again.

While I don't know much about the topic specifics (which is why I've kept from saying anything up until this point) I can however understand the arguement.

Melee vs. caster has been messed up for awhile now. This is far from a new topic. It used to be melee coupled with immune magic (void starsign) a player 30 could whip any caster's butt, and even some old-time melee fighters... tri-av or otherwise.

Then came the breaths. Somewhere breaths became insanely powerful and it was the only attack worth using...

What happened from there on out I don't know, but they're merely examples to show balance has been inherently f---ed since the get-go.

I've read through weems and Quintos posts. I have to say they're essentially saying the same thing to the same affect: the system is still goofy as all hell.

Nuitari, you need to can the personal attacks, however mild. In this case you appear to be wrong, so it's best advised you remain quiet.

Oh noes, King Internet does not agree with me! I'd better shut up now like he says, or he'll send the INTERNET POLICE after me! Whatever shall I do!?!?1111

Thread closed.