create spells

Posted by Infernal on 09/19

From: Harun Thursday, September 14 2000, 12:54AM I absolutely agree. There was once a decent create healing spell, cure serious. Rufus changed it to create healing, argueing that the create school should be more oriented towards actually creating tangible objects, a view with which I completely agree btw. However, when the create healing spell was introduced, the food value of the roots was low, you could eat like 50 of them from starving to full. Appearently that caused some imbalance in pkill, so after various pkiller whining - eh sorry pkiller complaints :P - the food value of the roots was incredibly increased, making the usefullness of roots limited to say the least :( I can understand that some change was necessary, but did it really have to be so drastic? As Scar suggested, let 3c create make better roots, which either have lower food value, last longer, or make better heals. What I am suggesting is restoring create healing to the equivalent of the once existant cure serious, which was somewhere between the cause cure light and cure critical. If either or several of those options were provided, I think you could also increase the mana cost for the spell a bit, if you would consider it to make for better balance. The change would then benefit mages with high mind, which I can't see as a disadvantage. After all mages -should- benefit from high mind, shouldn't they? :) Harun

From: Testboy Thursday, September 14 2000, 05:31AM The only problem before was roots lasted too long so you could prep before a fight with them or give them to others to use. As long as they don't last long and have similar mana cost to cause healing, why can't they be 0 food value?

From: Poetry Thursday, September 14 2000, 08:11AM zero fill value roots... hm. I would play my create mage ALOT. The mana to hps ratio is much better than cause healing, and now that you can prep them, spam eat them, and use ALL your mana for them.... I played a create mage 2 years ago that ate roots that were practically no fill... you want that back? that was crazy. The only difference would be that they only last 6 ticks... if you make them zero fill, you could still premake a 600HP heal that takes less than one round to spam eat. And hey... 6 ticks is plently time to do damage and take damage. Maybe imms should make 2c create roots a little more filling, and/or 3c roots a little LESS filling. Poetry

From: Solomon Thursday, September 14 2000, 09:03AM Testboy, according to Huginn's earlier posts, prepping roots for a fight is supposed to be a feature. However, given their short duration, that's not really true currently. My suggestion is to increase the maximum duration of the roots to about 50 ticks. Don't change the fill value or the healing value. Just make them last longer. That way the roots can still be prepped before a fight, but you still have a real limit on how many you can eat at once. Hm. I don't think the coders can do this, but it would be really neat if the roots had a higher maximum heal, but their potency decreased as they got older. That would be pretty cool. :)

From: Sammael Thursday, September 14 2000, 09:56AM I personally think their should be an entirely different spell for create. Maybe if you are 3rd circle you can kere jiv dyn or something and it makes a clone to give you parts or something :P I don't know, but I think 3rd circle create definatly needs beefed up.

From: Blackthorne Thursday, September 14 2000, 01:23PM Its hard for me to remain objective about roots. Being a 2nd circle mage, roots are seemingly perfect to me the way they are. Of course I am not a 3rd circle create so I can understand how you can look at the cause side of mages with envy because they have 2 different types of healing for their 2 circles. My suggestion to save my own ass is to leave 2nd circle roots the way they are, and maybe extend the tick time on 3rd circle roots, or make 3rd circle roots more dependant on mind for added mana to hp gain. A 100 mind 3rd circle create should be able to make a root that is worth more healing that a 50 mind 2nd circle create. Blackthorne de'Dannan'

From: Poetry Thursday, September 14 2000, 03:05PM Solomon, if you made roots last 50 ticks, then you could make 11 of them, or whatever the most you could eat from starving is, and the meditate up or even chalice up all your mana.... then you become a 600 mana mage with 350hps of free quick heal.... That was half the problem with roots 2 years ago. With my alt I could make 15 roots, meditate up, and then fight.... That probably shouldnt come back. Just make 3c create mages able to eat more of them.. that would solve it I think.. and a little more, not too much. Poetry

From: Myrella Thursday, September 14 2000, 05:28PM Well having endured more than a few of these constant 'balancing' as a create mage I personally think a downgrade on the fill value of roots is seriously overdue. I dont mind the duration of the roots its never bothered me, but the sheer fact that you can eat so little roots and not to mention mana or hit regen is horrible beacause you have to starve yourself if you ever expect to eat roots again. Lets for sake see at least a halving of the fill value. While I'm thinking of create spells, can we ever expect to see some spells using mrti that actually are worth casting? As it stands I find it the most usless word I've ever had the misfortune of learning. Myrella

From: Ea! Thursday, September 14 2000, 07:00PM A few comments on create mages and healing: First -- just because cause mages have more powerful healing at 3rd circle than they do at 2nd doesn't mean that create mages should. In fact, I would argue that it means that create mages probably shouldn't. The closer together that the two types of mages become, the less diverse they are. The less diverse they are, the less fun it is to play one type after you've played another. The second question I'd like to comment on is whether create mages are underpowered. I'm not sure that I'm ready to make a decision on that, but there is something that's important to remember. Most of the comments on the weakness of create mages seem to be surrounding combat -- they're not as powerful in combat as cause mages. This was, I think, a intentional design decision (I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure). Create mages have a lot more "utility" spells. As for adding new spells to mages (cause or create), I'm open to doing it as time permits and within the balance of the game. There are a few words that aren't currently particularly useful, and I'd like to improve that situation. -Ea!

From: LadyAce Thursday, September 14 2000, 08:03PM concurring in part and dissenting in part - I look at roots from a slightly different angle. On the one hand, it seems pretty straightforward -- make a magic thing, eat it, be healed. But in practice, we convert mages into an unhealthy state -- where they have to starve to heal, and the starving hurts their ability to heal while they're waiting to heal. It's a contradiction that manifests itself as the pain you've described. The solution to this, in my mind, is to make the healing qualities of the food more incidental to their function -- mor more filling roots, with less +hp value, and provide healing in a different fashion. - A few ideas for this alternate healing....'aura of healing' -- boosts yo regen rate (and perhaps a little of your group's rate as well if 3rd circ? ...make healing elixers which rely on your drug counter rather than your thirst/hunger counter....well ok, two ideas :) but this is the direction where I think the solution lies, not in trying to find the exactly right hp value/mana cost/fill value of roots. -LA

From: Myrella Thursday, September 14 2000, 08:06PM Well thinking on the mages I play, I cant say that as a create mage I cast more than about 20 or so of the 87 spells in my spellbook very often. If we even get more detailed I probably only cast about 10 spells often. So if we are looking at making spell more used I guess atleast half need work :P I know for certain there is at least 10-15 spell I haven't cast since learing them. So a good look at the spell lists and it shouldn't be too hard to tell what needs improving. As for words that need more spells, Mrti for create mages and Kala and Anna for cause mages come to mind very quickly. Anyways I'll ramble more at a later date Myrella

From: Feisal Friday, September 15 2000, 01:21AM Ea!, the way I see it the whole point of having two mage schools is that they -should- be different but also of equal worth as a whole so to say, so that you always in every situation should hesitate which one is better as a total. If we for the sake of reasoning accept your assumption that cause mages being better in combat was the intention of the original design, then I think it was also part of the original design to make create school more self-sufficient. Cause mages had more powerful combat spells, and create had cure serious, partly to compensate for that I guess. Then the cure serious spell was replaced by create healing and of course one wonders about the reason. If it was to orient the create school towards actually creating tangible object - which makes perfect sense, at least to me :) - and the possibility of prepping constitues a balance problem - then why not just lower the duration of roots? Me, I wouldn't mind if they decayed after 3 ticks - even 2 - if the food value was considerably decreased. If the reason was to actually provide the possibility to prep for healing then we immediately run into the problems Poetry mentioned, not to mention that with today's root food value it doesn't work so anyway. Finally if as LA says low filling value on food is illogical - I admit it's hard for me to understand, we have lots of low filling value food on the mud, so why not roots? - then maybe another healing spell -is- an option. Why not use mrti for that new spell, would give mrti some real use even for creates - something like ksi vya mrti ex or ksi anna mrti ex or maybe even ksi mrti rudh ex if it has some extra power. Also, if the create schoold would follow the design intention to be self-sufficient they should be able to be -decent- fighters. So the damage made by create spells should be increased IMHO. I wouldn't mind the spells like flamestrike or etheric void costing more mana if also the damage was beefed up. Or maybe another damage spell using mrti, to give mrti another use. Something like kere vya mrti ex or kere mrti rudh ex? Sorry, I didn't intend for this to be quite so long :) Best of greetings Feisal

From: Testboy Friday, September 15 2000, 04:47AM 3c's stun is already better, I don't think it should be, nor should other spells, they get a bunch of bonus spells only available to them and while 2c generally go for lower mind, they're both pretty much the same as far as fight skills go. It's always a 3c's option to go low mind too, base spells on mind if you have to but not circle.

From: Archmage Friday, September 15 2000, 05:43AM Uhh...what are you talking about testboy?

From: Scream Friday, September 15 2000, 05:39AM ok I think create mages are underpowered by a long shot. and for them being able to do things by themselfs you can do everything a create can do and better with a create except for preseve and better with a cause I was trying to say. I think roots fill value should be dropped not to the point of 50 roots. Im gonna test with my creates to find out how many you can eat now and what not. Improve creates please they need it a whole lot and I can prove it -scream

From: Scream Friday, September 15 2000, 05:46AM umm testboy I dont know if 3rd circle stun is better than 2nd circle stun. Ive had a 2nd circle mage with 90s mind and he wfwed just as good as a 3rd circle mage with same mind Its the mind that makes the diff not the circle level of the spell -scream

From: Testboy Friday, September 15 2000, 07:06AM actually both do, and i was responding to someone that said create roots should be better for 3c than 2c Archmage.

From: Christopher Friday, September 15 2000, 08:39AM Create mages -shouldn't- need a heal spell. Considering the main power of a create mage in a combat situation is to create charmies charmies that can carry eq and weapons and generally (probably) have more HP than the animated counterparts of the cause mage, these charmies are supposed to be the ones taking the brunt of the damage for the create wizard. Personally.. I don't see how you can 'create' healing upon someone.. unless you create a potion perhaps there could be a higher value potion that heals more hp. Something you couldn't necessarily brew. I think LadyAce mentioned something in her post like that. Chris who hasn't gotten into the 3c range yet who likes to post on things he really doesn't know anything about (like PK)

From: Infernal Friday, September 15 2000, 04:22PM Umm chris the cause charmies that cause makes have more hps than the create ones, and some can carry items and gold etc, and with animating swords they can hit harder too, and cause can make a whole crap load of 500hps charmies and decimating swords. -infernal

From: Testboy Friday, September 15 2000, 09:44PM That reminds me, another MUD I play has zombies/skeletons too, the difference is although they keep the original mobs name in its desc when animated, the original keywords aren't used. Much easier that way, you gotta screw around a lot more here to ensure you don't hit your own charmies.

From: Nothing Tuesday, September 19 2000, 02:48PM Yeah, I know I'm not here anymore, but anyways... I like LA's ideas, but for the aura of healing, to implement that, how about create spell that makes a shield or helm that either gives a faster healing rate, or reduces damage. Not reduces as much as old sanctuary, but more like 10-20% less. With the downside being giving up the stat/ac bonus for that slot. It could be so that you can't drop/give, and timed of course, just trying to throw ideas into the random mumblings.