We need to think about rebalancing spell effects. Some are currently too good, and lots will change when we introduce meditation, but less mana for high level mages and more for lower level ones. My thoughts on this are:
- Blind is currently too cheap.
- Strikedown is currently too expensive.
- Short-duration halts are slightly too cheap, longer ones possibly slightly too expensive. Halt improves relatively little with increased duration.
- Introducing meditation and linear mana, compared to non-regenning quadratic mana will mean that
- A 2n mana spell represents more than twice as much an investment of resources as an n mana spell. We should make low level spells worse, and higher level spells better.
- Non-combat spells represent much less of an investment of resources than combat spells. We should make non-combat spells more expensive.
- Spells that work best if cast in large numbers are more of an investment of resources than spells that work best as one-offs. Armour, weapon-buffs and touch range effects should probably be cheaper compared to zap spells. N.B. that this is not an issue I'm neutral on, though - I'm not sure how objective I'm being about that. I think it's logical, though.
- More people will take more ES rather than double-buying EP. We possibly ought to think more about spells above level 8.
--Jacob
Here is a rough attempt to rank the commoner status effects in order of how much I think they should be priced. Obviously, all the gradations are very fine, so some things will be many places out. I haven't tried to put level boundaries for either magic or spirit in. All rankings assume delivery by point-and-click, not mass, wide or by-blow, where some things will be better or worse.
- Strikedown
- Strikedown 5
- Repel
- Repel 5
- Strikedown 10
- Halt 5
- Disarm
- Halt 10
- Repel 10
- Disarm 5
- Strikedown 30
- Strikedown 60
- Halt 30
- Disarm 10
- Blind 5
- Freeze 5
- Halt 60
- Repel 30
- Disarm 30
- Repel 60
- Freeze 10
- Disarm 60
- Blind 30
- Blind 60
- Freeze 30
- Freeze 60
- I hugely disagree with some of those assessments. Strikedown 10 is a *lot* better than halt-5, blind-5 is way inferior to any of strikedown 60/30, repel-10, disarm-10, etc. Freeze-5 is similarly not as high as you put it; in fact in my opinion the whole list is rather confused. Also, I think it is probably relevant to attempt to sort out power groups of a sort, rather than just an ordered list. -TheKremlin
- Different spells in being hugely differently useful to different people shocker. (though I agree more closely with Jake's opinions) --Pufferfish
- I think this list could do with some blank spaces where you think there are biggish jumps in power. For example, I think Strikedown 5 is slightly better than Repel 5, but if this is one of those fine graduations you mentioned then it's not worth arguing; if on the other hand you think Repel 5 is massively better than Strikedown 5 then it is. Also, durationless Repel is a no-op, and shouldn't be on the list. --NT
- Where Jacob says 'we need to think about spells above level 8' I would add on to this - by ensuring they can never exist. I would like to see ES capped at 8, in precisely the same way that all the other class skills are capped at 8 (ie, you can buy more, but doing so gives you practically no benefit). If we don't cap ES in a sensible fashion similar to all other classes, we run the risk of an ES14 mage build being quite a sensible one for interactives (if not linears). I really don't want to think about what hideously powerful things you could justify having 'because they're level 14'. I for one thought this was something that was at least vaguely agreed upon last year when we got rid of the silly 'going up to ES10' system. -- Flying_O
- Actually, I'm personally quite happy with ES up to at least 12 (some of the obvious progressions haven't ended at 8, after all). On the other hand, it's numbers and I tend to err on the 'do more shiny happy stuff! yay!' side of things rather than the 'uh, don't you realise that this means they could kill the entire bar without blinking?' side of things. --ChessyPig
- It's *spells* above level 8 rather than ES 9 I'm bothered about. If people want to take more ES just for the mana regen I'm not sure this upsets me too much... --Pufferfish
- I'm kind of against having ES > 8 without being able to learn spells with it. ES's Thing is that it allows you to learn, research and cast spells of that level. It happens to have some side effects on mana regeneration, which are new and can be re-examined should the need strike us. --NT
- I still disapprove of mana regen being based on ES at all because I don't like confusion between skill skills and power skills in magical skill trees. --ChessyPig
- I'm personally against potentially very high level spells, as otherwise I think we end up with spirit becoming a poor mans version of magic all across the board. At the moment spirit is capable of achieving large effects that magic (if capped at ES8) just about can't cope with. If we let spells become ever more powerful however, I think we lose what balance there currently is between magic and spirit. -- Flying_O
- I see no reason to have spells of higher than eight level --tristan
- Effects of higher than eighth level are probably only attainable with rituals. This suits me very well. --Valtiel
- I am happy with this. Keeps it more balanced. It does mean high level wizards are just getting more mana and regen, but they can always research more level 8 spells. As a comic aside, Elemental Skill has always been about mana regeneration, it just happens to be a prequisite for Lore which is for better spells. --Taxellor
- While it has been about regeneration it has not been a power skill in any meaningful way. I worry that basing regen equally much off skill means there is only one sane mage build. --Lmm
- I believe it currently to be the case that at least one NPC with spells higher than 8th level currently exists. I do not see this as necessarily a strong reason for that to continue to be the case. --Jacob