charmane wrote:

I think this system weakens casting classes because gaining skills is harder and slower than gaining realms.

I disagree completely. There are two barriers to raising magic skills - the number of spells you know in the school (known issue), and the difficulty of raising magic skills. Your claim that magic skills are hard to raise is unfounded - they are set to be easier to raise than normal skills. Huk, Plu and I looked over this before the system went in to make sure it was appropriate.

The fact that some schools lack a variety of spells is precisely why your skill in non-combat schools currently means absolutely nothing. I don't have the ability to quickly add new spells to the game, which is why your skill level in non-combat schools is currently cosmetic. This will change once I put more spells in, but I've only coded 1/3 of Lumin's spell list. The building time it takes to add new spells to the game is what is prohibitive, and I don't have a building staff to assist me.

charmane wrote:

Does a skill of 400 = 100% realms? If it does, that means a level lich with 200 fire skill can only cast as hard as if he had 50% realms, when a lich or a mage before can probably get close to 90 in realms by level 20 before.

Have you even tested this? The damage between the two systems should be nearly identical. In fact, the new magic system increased damage by an average of 1 or 2 points. I tested several characters at various levels between the new and old system. There should be no noticeable difference in damage.

charmane wrote:

As casting classes become weakened by this, i also think non-casting classes have benefited. They can keep gaining magic skills at the same pace as a caster, even though they it should be slowed down significantly compared to a casting class. This makes it easier for a non-caster to gain magic skill, to cast spells harder than they should.

This is also incorrect. This is not the "final version" of the magic system, which is precisely why I've been calling it the "magic foundation". Non-casting classes will have their magic skills removed when the magic system is complete. Your statement that it is easier for a non-caster to gain magic skill is utterly false. Non-casting classes have, by nature, less MP than casting classes, which makes gaining magic skills more difficult.

I've looked at the statistics of characters of non-casting classes. They do not cast anywhere near the number of spells that a casting-class does. Exactly how is it easier for them to raise magic skills?

charmane wrote:

That's true. However, when realms was exp based, I can choose to allocate all my effort and exp into 1 realm. I can put 100% of my exp into fire, giving it a large advantage over other types of magic. In a sense, I can "specialize" in fire. There is still no cap, I can still keep gaining realms all the way up to 0 tnl and beyond.

You are misguised about the nature of the exp-realm cap. Take this example: you have 10,000 experience, which means you have 10,000 points to distribute across the 6 realms. You put them all into Fire and you are "specialized". This equates you to 25% Fire (or whatever it turns out to be).

In the new system, your 10,000 exp puts you at, say, level 6, which gives you a cap of 60 in skills. If your fire and evocation at at 60, you would do the same amount of damage as a caster with 25% Fire. However, you are allowed to gain 60 in the other 5 realms. This means your character has the ability to get what formerly would have been 25% in ALL realms, which would have required 60,000 experience previously. This is huge - your other realms are no longer penalized.

The statement about formerly being able to gain realms all the way up to 0 tnl and beyond is incorrect. Once you stop gaining experience because you are halfway to level, you also stopped gaining realms.

charmane wrote:

Now with the new system, we can no longer focus on one magic type in order to make it stronger than the others. We have to spread it out the casting evenly because each magic skill has been capped. And I think the magic specialization was something great about the mud, and allows each char to be more customizable. A mage with focus on fire vs a mage with focus on water would play differently and each be unique. But now that flexibility is gone. Instead of having a super strong immolate, and have other spells be weak, we now have to be , at best, mediocre across all magics.

Giving your characters the ability to choose what realms they want to raise does not mean you are required to. Nobody is forcing you to spread out your realms over all your skills. You keep repeating this, so let me say it again: all magic realms were ALREADY capped. In my previous example, I demonstrate how the cap was MORE severe than it is currently.

I don't understand how you believe that the skills system, which allows your characters to be infinitely more customizable than before, somehow makes them less customizable. The skill system ADDs flexibility, but you claim it makes things less flexible.

Your statement about being mediocre across all spells is incorrect. As I said earlier in this post, the difference in damage across the two systems is unnoticeable. Have you tested casting immolate? Do you notice a different in damage? If so, then we have something we can discuss and try to balance. Going back to the previous example - yes, the wizard with 25% fire and 0% everything else had strong immolate and weak everything else. If you want to claim that the current wizard who spends more time gaining 60 points (the equivalent of 25%) in everything is "mediocre" in everything, you are distorting the fact that this mediocre is as strong as the previous wizard's best.


If you really want to get into the mathematics of it, the old realms system used a logarithmic scale to determine damage bonus - the more exp you put into a realm, the less you got out of it. The new magic system uses a linear scale, meaning what you put in is exactly what you get out.




I'm sorry if I came off sounding defensive in this post. When coding the magic foundation, I looked at all the flaws in the old system and attempted to correct them, but your post claims that I've made all the flaws worse. Naturally somewhat disconcerting

I feel like you are evaluating the update to the magic system as if it were the end of the line - no more updates - I now consider mages balanced. I want you to realize that it is not the end; I purposely did nothing to change the fact that level differences are accounted for in physical attacks, but not magical attacks. This foundation is what was needed to get started and I tried very much to make it as similar (in damage) to the old system.

If you feel your character has been significantly weakened in comparison to the old system, then there's more work that needs to be done. If you think this update was meant to balance casting classes with fighting classes, then naturally you're going to find that it isn't. I really do appreciate it that you went out of your way to make a forum account so you could give feedback! It's easy to code new things but it's hard to balance them, which is exactly why I need feedback. If you're interested, I can contact you to help with testing the upcoming changes to the magic system. I have a lot of spells coded that need balancing before I can unleashed them upon the public.

^ So there!!!

Hi Dom,

Dominus wrote:

The fact that some schools lack a variety of spells is precisely why your skill in non-combat schools currently means absolutely nothing.

I'm referring purely on combat skill strength here.

Dominus wrote:

Have you even tested this? The damage between the two systems should be nearly identical. In fact, the new magic system increased damage by an average of 1 or 2 points. I tested several characters at various levels between the new and old system. There should be no noticeable difference in damage.

I have tested this now. Magnavox, at lvl 10 with 84% air was casting up to 70s cyclone on chosen golems, with a 78 high which he often reached. Now, at lvl 11 with 92 air skill, he casts mid 50s-low 60s, 65 maximum.

I know fighters are eventually losing their magic, but this is also another good example because it's based on the same system. Serena, lvl 19 fighter with 93% air, was casting 47-58 whirlwind on chosen golems. Now, with 190 air skill, she casts low 40s-low 50s, with a 52 maximum.

Dominus wrote:

I've looked at the statistics of characters of non-casting classes. They do not cast anywhere near the number of spells that a casting-class does. Exactly how is it easier for them to raise magic skills?

I say this because in the previous system, it was nearly impossible to gain 20% realms or higher if you were not a casting class. Often a non-casting class would stay under 10% in realms all their lives. Now, casting rumble every once in a while during combat will allow a non-caster to keep their magic skill at a max level.

Dominus wrote:

In the new system, your 10,000 exp puts you at, say, level 6, which gives you a cap of 60 in skills. If your fire and evocation at at 60, you would do the same amount of damage as a caster with 25% Fire. However, you are allowed to gain 60 in the other 5 realms. This means your character has the ability to get what formerly would have been 25% in ALL realms, which would have required 60,000 experience previously. This is huge - your other realms are no longer penalized.

What you don't address here, is how much skill have you gained from the same 10,000 exp you are referring to? It may very well still be just 60 in fire alone, since skill raises seem to raise randomly, by chance rather than by exp. You cannot say that gaining 60 in all magic skills is as easy as gaining 25% in realms in the previous system. I know these numbers were not meant to be exact, but the logic still applies.

However, I don't doubt that it's easier and faster to gain skill rather than realms, but I'm saying that I had the option to put all 60,000 exp into 1 realm before, but now I it is useless to do so, because may have already capped on my fire skill by 10,000 exp already. At the same time, this ease and quickness to gain magic skill has spread to non-casting classes as well. And I don't see how realms were penalized before. It took less exp to gain 0-20%, more to gain 40-60%, so so on. if someone wanted 80% in all realms, they had to earn it. I thought it was a very balanced system.


[quote="Dominus"]

charmane wrote:

all magic realms were ALREADY capped. In my previous example, I demonstrate how the cap was MORE severe than it is currently.

Magic realms were capped before based on exp only, which was hard and impractical to max out. In a sense, it was uncapped for most practical purposes. This is why casters can raise realms easily, but made it very impossible for a non-caster to do, which achieved a balance that made sense.

Now, magic skill is capped purely based on level alone, without regard to how much damage is being done (or exp gain) or what class the player is. This means I can max out my fire skill and still have 1/2 of my exp tnl, but I can no longer keep practicing on fire skill even though I have so much exp to go. If the spell damage remained high in the skill system, then this is not a weakness. However, as in my examples above, spell damage is significantly lower, which means that this skill cap weakens the character, preventing it from achieving the strength it could have in the realms system.

I hope this makes sense. Please let me know if you want anything clarified. Thanks.

Quote:

I say this because in the previous system, it was nearly impossible to gain 20% realms or higher if you were not a casting class. Often a non-casting class would stay under 10% in realms all their lives. Now, casting rumble every once in a while during combat will allow a non-caster to keep their magic skill at a max level.

I just wanted to mention that I used to raise my realms through wands and scrolls, as a non-caster. I have noticed that it is not possible to raise skill like this now. It does make sense since skill should be raised by actual spellcasting... but I just wanted to check if this is intended, for this does make a slight difference when MP is taken out for some classes.

As far as the damage disparities go, is this maybe a problem with + magic mobs? Or perhaps a difference due to level? I didn't notice any difference between Plu's casting, but I tested this on "normal" mobs. Of course, she's also level 40, if that even matters. Also, this will have to be verified by Arsenal, but he did mention that he casts for way more now on chosen golem. Cyclones up to 100s? I haven't tried this yet, but I know he's also a character with no intelligence. Agrias, on the other hand, has reported that he casts lower on them now. So, I can't say I know what the deal is with that until I test it out myself.

Just wanted to update that I do cast about 10-15 points higher in + damage rooms. I've also noticed Plu's skills budging a bit, and at level 40, that awesome compared to some of my other skills. Perhaps there is some problem with the scaling at lower levels? Everything seems fine on my end =/ I will test further with my lich, who is a lowbie.