Hey guys! I just read Artie's article about choices that players have to make and I'd like to give y'all a quick summary (TL;DR) and share my thoughts and future ideas!
1. Overall Concept Artie talks about how players need to make "meaningful choices" in the game, making gameplay more compelling. He doesn't outright say it, but it's kind of implied that as it exists today, there's not a whole lot of real "choices" that players have. This can be improved, but there are also some places where it's great the way it is. As he mentions, "Don't fix it if it's not broken!"
2. Schools School identity has always been talked about and it seems the feelings on it from KI have gone back and forth. It's a delicate balance between keeping school's identity while also making it so "there are no schools considered noticeably weak." He goes on to detail how players should be outsourcing to other schools to cover their weaknesses. This is where I see a bit of a problem. Let's take Ice for example. Ice wizards are arguably the weakest hitting school, and that's fine in my opinion! I don't think an Ice wizard should be going to train Storm spells to deal damage for the whole game. Even if they make this possible and add masteries and what not, players who chose Ice chose it to use ICE spells. Now, with Ice keeping its identity, it would be considerably weak, so here comes the million dollar question... How do we keep school identity while making every school viable? This isn't easy to answer, but as it stands right now, Ice as the "Tank" school has nothing to do. The enemies are going to be attacking the hitters due to the current algorithms, so Ice having high health / resist means nothing. The Taunt update helped, but that didn't fix the issue. Nobody wants an Ice on the team because there's no battles in this game that require an Ice wizard. Other support schools can get a bunch of resist and health AND have their own helpful spells on top of it, so Ice can't contribute. Here's what can fix this...
A. Exaggerate the differences between identities. Right now, I can play every school pretty much the same way. Blade stack, feint, AOE for bosses, and Blade stack AOE for mobs. To switch it up, the differences between schools needs to be vast. If Storm is the damage school, they need to be able to do WAY more damage than everyone else. If Ice is the tank school, they need to be able to tank WAY better than everyone else. This would introduce a whole host of other issues with solo questing, and what spells are in game, but I think it could be interesting and fun to explore.
B. Make the identities actually help in more situations. An Example of this would be that Myth's Minion identity helps in absolutely no battles. Myth as the "Conjurer" needs to have ways to conjure creatures that help in battle and don't take up a sigil slot, otherwise nobody will want a myth on their team.
It's obvious that not every battle can require you to have each of the seven schools, and it's not easy to create 7 separate identities that work together and are viable on their own in different ways, but I think it can be done and I can't wait to see what they come up with! I'm not sure I agree with Artie's point about "once a wizard understands the strengths and weaknesses of their primary school... they may decide to pick up some spells from another school." This can be done in a good way, but I'm thinking of spells like "feint." Yes, and Ice wizard could train feint to make up for damage, but a Storm can train it too, still making Ice worse. The Rhoshambo PvP spells are very cool and I'm interested to see how they'll work out. Beastmoon is another good example of how some schools can interact and have their identity, so seeing this leak into PvE is very exciting.
3. Spellements Now THIS one I have a lot of thoughts on haha. The general concepts of making players have to consider which spell path to take with their spellements is a good one, and making players ask, "Which Spells should I improve?" is an okay one, but to me that just makes me think they're going to make more pointless upgrades, and I thoroughly believe they should make all spell's spellements worth it. The 1-pip and 2-pip spellements are perfect examples of how NOT to do it and how TO do it respectively. Right now, you have to spend a ton of money, time, and effort to get any spellements for 1-pip spells, and you need to acquire 75 spellements to have a CHANCE at doing 5 more damage another 115 for flat damage or a CHANCE at 5 more damage, 190 more for 5 more damage or 5 accuracy, and then another 305 for another 5 damage. This is awful. Spellements need to be two things... A. Acquirable Right now I think this is alright, but can be improved. Some spellements are better than others, and when Artie says in this article, "Wizards should have choices about where and how to acquire the Spellements they want." That just makes me think he's talking about paying for them vs. grinding for them. I'm not saying there shouldn't be paid options, but they need to be better than they are now. Right now, if I wanted to go farm Leprechaun spellements, I wouldn't, because the drop rates are so atrocious and I need a full team to farm skeleton key bosses. I personally have a ton of spellements from events and Scroll of Fortune, but I think they should have more free to play options. B. Worth it Now THIS is where 1-pip spellements fail dramatically. The only reason anyone would want to upgrade these spells are for the completion or the glow on max tier... there's no real reason to upgrade these otherwise. Now, other than 1-pip spellements, lots of the Beastmoon PvP spellements struggle in this area, but most other spellements are great. Important to note that "worth it" also doesn't mean upgraded spells should be significantly different, requiring players to upgrade them.
I think Karamelle and Lemuria spells are a fantastic example of the best way to do both A and B. For future spells, they should follow this example and have players have to go back to old worlds in order to upgrade them! When we reach level 200, we will still need to go back to Karamelle for those spellements, and likewise we could have Dragonspyre drop level 48 spells, Zafaria the 68, and so on... I know they've said that they don't want to introduce spellements to brand new players, but I think around 50 or even earlier would be a good time to do it. Another amazing way to make ANY spell worth it would be spell skins. I've talked about this before, but in general, adding a way for players to spend 75 or so spellements to give a spell a different color / hat / other affects, would make spellements a lot more desirable.
4. Gear Honestly, I think this is an example of "not broke." Players already have a lot to consider with picking their stats and there's no "best gear setup" that is universally better than all others. Players are best off upgrading their gear every 30 levels, but they can choose to make small upgrades in between and can sometimes choose to not upgrade for a little bit longer. I don't see any issues here, and with the stat changes, this is an area where "choices" are already a big part of being successful.
5. Smart Monsters Now this is exciting! I would LOVE to see this happen! Smart monsters allow for school identity, harder combat, and variety of spells! Right now, AOE spells are probably used at 42x the rate of single target spells. I think some way to fix this would be to have boss battles have an equal amount of enemies relative to how many wizards, making a 1v1, 2v2, etc., rather than 1v2. This would make a solo player use both single target AND AOE spells for bosses and mobs respectively. Having smart monsters would allow for 1v1 battles to be more difficult therefore allowing this spell choice variety to happen!
6. Conclusion I'm super glad that Artie posted this article and it gives amazing insight into the thought process behind new updates. This game has changed a ton in the past couple years and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us!
Hey guys! I just read Artie's article about choices that players have to make and I'd like to give y'all a quick summary (TL;DR) and share my thoughts and future ideas!
1. Overall Concept Artie talks about how players need to make "meaningful choices" in the game, making gameplay more compelling. He doesn't outright say it, but it's kind of implied that as it exists today, there's not a whole lot of real "choices" that players have. This can be improved, but there are also some places where it's great the way it is. As he mentions, "Don't fix it if it's not broken!"
2. Schools School identity has always been talked about and it seems the feelings on it from KI have gone back and forth. It's a delicate balance between keeping school's identity while also making it so "there are no schools considered noticeably weak." He goes on to detail how players should be outsourcing to other schools to cover their weaknesses. This is where I see a bit of a problem. Let's take Ice for example. Ice wizards are arguably the weakest hitting school, and that's fine in my opinion! I don't think an Ice wizard should be going to train Storm spells to deal damage for the whole game. Even if they make this possible and add masteries and what not, players who chose Ice chose it to use ICE spells. Now, with Ice keeping its identity, it would be considerably weak, so here comes the million dollar question... How do we keep school identity while making every school viable? This isn't easy to answer, but as it stands right now, Ice as the "Tank" school has nothing to do. The enemies are going to be attacking the hitters due to the current algorithms, so Ice having high health / resist means nothing. The Taunt update helped, but that didn't fix the issue. Nobody wants an Ice on the team because there's no battles in this game that require an Ice wizard. Other support schools can get a bunch of resist and health AND have their own helpful spells on top of it, so Ice can't contribute. Here's what can fix this...
A. Exaggerate the differences between identities. Right now, I can play every school pretty much the same way. Blade stack, feint, AOE for bosses, and Blade stack AOE for mobs. To switch it up, the differences between schools needs to be vast. If Storm is the damage school, they need to be able to do WAY more damage than everyone else. If Ice is the tank school, they need to be able to tank WAY better than everyone else. This would introduce a whole host of other issues with solo questing, and what spells are in game, but I think it could be interesting and fun to explore.
B. Make the identities actually help in more situations. An Example of this would be that Myth's Minion identity helps in absolutely no battles. Myth as the "Conjurer" needs to have ways to conjure creatures that help in battle and don't take up a sigil slot, otherwise nobody will want a myth on their team.
It's obvious that not every battle can require you to have each of the seven schools, and it's not easy to create 7 separate identities that work together and are viable on their own in different ways, but I think it can be done and I can't wait to see what they come up with! I'm not sure I agree with Artie's point about "once a wizard understands the strengths and weaknesses of their primary school... they may decide to pick up some spells from another school." This can be done in a good way, but I'm thinking of spells like "feint." Yes, and Ice wizard could train feint to make up for damage, but a Storm can train it too, still making Ice worse. The Rhoshambo PvP spells are very cool and I'm interested to see how they'll work out. Beastmoon is another good example of how some schools can interact and have their identity, so seeing this leak into PvE is very exciting.
3. Spellements Now THIS one I have a lot of thoughts on haha. The general concepts of making players have to consider which spell path to take with their spellements is a good one, and making players ask, "Which Spells should I improve?" is an okay one, but to me that just makes me think they're going to make more pointless upgrades, and I thoroughly believe they should make all spell's spellements worth it. The 1-pip and 2-pip spellements are perfect examples of how NOT to do it and how TO do it respectively. Right now, you have to spend a ton of money, time, and effort to get any spellements for 1-pip spells, and you need to acquire 75 spellements to have a CHANCE at doing 5 more damage another 115 for flat damage or a CHANCE at 5 more damage, 190 more for 5 more damage or 5 accuracy, and then another 305 for another 5 damage. This is awful. Spellements need to be two things... A. Acquirable Right now I think this is alright, but can be improved. Some spellements are better than others, and when Artie says in this article, "Wizards should have choices about where and how to acquire the Spellements they want." That just makes me think he's talking about paying for them vs. grinding for them. I'm not saying there shouldn't be paid options, but they need to be better than they are now. Right now, if I wanted to go farm Leprechaun spellements, I wouldn't, because the drop rates are so atrocious and I need a full team to farm skeleton key bosses. I personally have a ton of spellements from events and Scroll of Fortune, but I think they should have more free to play options. B. Worth it Now THIS is where 1-pip spellements fail dramatically. The only reason anyone would want to upgrade these spells are for the completion or the glow on max tier... there's no real reason to upgrade these otherwise. Now, other than 1-pip spellements, lots of the Beastmoon PvP spellements struggle in this area, but most other spellements are great. Important to note that "worth it" also doesn't mean upgraded spells should be significantly different, requiring players to upgrade them.
I think Karamelle and Lemuria spells are a fantastic example of the best way to do both A and B. For future spells, they should follow this example and have players have to go back to old worlds in order to upgrade them! When we reach level 200, we will still need to go back to Karamelle for those spellements, and likewise we could have Dragonspyre drop level 48 spells, Zafaria the 68, and so on... I know they've said that they don't want to introduce spellements to brand new players, but I think around 50 or even earlier would be a good time to do it. Another amazing way to make ANY spell worth it would be spell skins. I've talked about this before, but in general, adding a way for players to spend 75 or so spellements to give a spell a different color / hat / other affects, would make spellements a lot more desirable.
4. Gear Honestly, I think this is an example of "not broke." Players already have a lot to consider with picking their stats and there's no "best gear setup" that is universally better than all others. Players are best off upgrading their gear every 30 levels, but they can choose to make small upgrades in between and can sometimes choose to not upgrade for a little bit longer. I don't see any issues here, and with the stat changes, this is an area where "choices" are already a big part of being successful.
5. Smart Monsters Now this is exciting! I would LOVE to see this happen! Smart monsters allow for school identity, harder combat, and variety of spells! Right now, AOE spells are probably used at 42x the rate of single target spells. I think some way to fix this would be to have boss battles have an equal amount of enemies relative to how many wizards, making a 1v1, 2v2, etc., rather than 1v2. This would make a solo player use both single target AND AOE spells for bosses and mobs respectively. Having smart monsters would allow for 1v1 battles to be more difficult therefore allowing this spell choice variety to happen!
6. Conclusion I'm super glad that Artie posted this article and it gives amazing insight into the thought process behind new updates. This game has changed a ton in the past couple years and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us!
Cam
Hi Cam!
Check out the Dev Roundtable video linked in the article. They speak to almost every point you make directly. Including spellements-they know that it's currently a little lackluster and they are looking into ways to revamp it-including potentially having more spells on a spellement system like Karamelle and Lemuria.
I agree that each school should have a role in PVE. I concur entirely that Ice is definitly at the bottom of the heap in terms of desirablity in Team PVE, and that shouldn't be the case. I also concur that Myth having an ability to have a "minion" in 4v4 situation would make them more desirable. I have proposed previously if it used the original shadow tech in that you have a "shadow creature" that has likes and dislikes, but perhaps this could be a minion of the same sort. I don't think Storm needs to much better in terms of PVE, it already is WAAAYY at the top.
I also think player choice is extremely important and I appreciate what KI has done in Lemuria to help instigate that.
Spoilers! (Fairly minor)
The final fight, has cheats so that it encourages exploring different strategies. You can do your typical alpha-strike strategy, but that definitely is not the most effective way to do it. (For example you can blade, but all of your blades will get converted to half power). So it is possible to do that, but it might be better to try some other strategy.
Another excellent example is when you go into the room to search for the Golden Lion. It presents you with you can go into one of three other rooms. You can barge into one and see if you have to fight some extra mobs or you can talk to the NPCs to figure out which room it is and avoid an extra fight. This allows explorers and less-combat happy wizards to have an option to do something else, while at the same time allows those combat-ready wizards that don't want to play "mind games" to just blast in and power their way through. It was an excellent opportunity! I hope KI adds more of those in the future (especially if they can add something where the answer isn't necessarily always the same.) I'd much rather piece together a puzzle or talk to NPCs than do another fight, but I know other people might be the exact opposite.
All in all, I think they are on the start of the right track, generally speaking!
This update note was great to read Artie clearly has played a lot of MMOs like me, which is why me and him seem to have reached same conclusion LOL, because I agree with basically 100% of what he wrote.
Replying to CAM- I can see your concern about ice being useless, but remember ice has the most powerful tool in the game in the form of frozen armour. Frozen armour if they allow you to use bulwark or idenminity would be the most over powered utility in the game. Here is how I would fix the spell, also ice armour
-30 per pip frozen armour, + 70 per pip frozen armour, + 70 per pip frozen armour. Aka it gives 3 shields to self Ice armour: does the same thing as frozen but the values are /4 for aoe.
By doing this, ice becomes very powerful and useful for teams. Since they can shield the entire team from everything outside of drains. Do not underestimate this.
But what about pve questing? Look at my second half of my spell changes in my post, changes ruin pvp. I edited all spells on game. What I did for ice in my proposal is to have ice attacks put shields on the ice. Most notable ice giant putting a 30% shield on player, and snow barrage giving a 10% shield on ice.
Overall I think it is do able with careful planning. The thing I would prioritize first is the gear audit and spell audit. The difficulty and the ai can wait for now.
Well said! I believe the most game-changing feature they introduced was the 4v8 system, which can help accomplish such goals.
2A. I agree that school identity is hard to keep while making all schools viable for adventuring. However this can be solved with spells that focus on boosting a school's identity. For example, as you said Ice is a tank school but hitters and healers get all the aggro; shadow-enchanted spells also aim at whoever has the lowest health at the time.A good spell to help resolve this issue is a "bluff" spell where Ice would deal "aggro damage", which only affects aggro and does nothing to actual health points (should be able to damage enchant). AoE spells also start to destroy the real need for a tank, which comes this insane idea...
Sigil Spots: ( -> -> -> ) ( -> -> -> )
Inc. Damage modifiers (in order): (+0% -> -5% -> -10% -> -15%) Out. Damage modifiers (in order): (+0% -> +5% -> +10% -> +15%)
This way tanks ( & ) receive all the damage while hitters ( & ) receive less damage and deal more damage. Just having someone act before you will have benefits. As well since there is no changes to the first spot, this does not affect how much out. damage is dealt when soloing. Summoning minions would also provide them benefits. Though this in itself is likely to cause some balancing issues.
2B. I agree, the Roshambo spells are starting to further school identities which is awesome! However as you said Conjurers need to have ways to conjure creatures and not take up a sigil slot. With the new 4v8 system I believe something can be done about this, be it a separate "side" for Minions or simply having a 5th sigil slot for "Minions Only".
3. I do love that was done with the Karamelle and Lemuria spellements, it is a great system. If they are worried about low ranked players accessing these, the best option would be to add a level lock. This way you need to at least be level "X" to upgrade the spell. For example the Karamelle spells, you need to be level 130 to obtain/upgrade them; Lemuria would be 140.
4. Someone already mentioned there are not enough support gear for meta players. All the hats and rings do not have resist, and all the wands are designed towards hitting. Only the robes, athames, and amulets are defensive; the boots are mainly statted for hitting.
Exp613 Thanks! Yes, I did watch the PvE roundtable, but I wrote my initial post before that, but yeah I'm glad they addressed some of these points! Choices are important. Yes the shadow creatures is a great way to do Myth minions in 4v4 and I'm not sure I agree about the Storm thing. It's not like they need more damage, but I don't think it should be neglected. Although I totally agree about the new Lemuria battles and quests. Super fun!
LukeSkyWalker1313 Frozen Armor is a good defensive spell sure, but the problem with Ice is that PvE is setup in a way where defense is pointless. Why would I want an Ice on my team to single frozen armor me for 2,000 absorb, which costs them 11+ pips, when I could have a Life who can heal the entire team for more than 2,000 with only 4 pips. I'd say even an Ice with Life mastery would be more helpful... And that's for the toughest of the tough battles... most of the time as long as your hitters have some resist, you are able to take out the opponents way quicker than they take you out. Adding more and better shields to ice isn't going to solve anything unless PvE itself changes, but it's tough because you don't want to require each team to have an Ice either.
John HawkStone Your response to 2A sounds a lot like the old Taunt spells. Those affected aggro only, which only gave a CHANCE that the enemies would hit you. Nobody ever used these... The new Taunt forces the enemies to hit you, which is nice, but you can't use it every turn at 3-pips. I could see an Ice rocking full pip-conserve and resist to Legion Shield -> Taunt -> Repeat, which would be a decent strategy, but as I pointed out to Luke... the sad thing is it's simply not necessary. The sigil idea is neat, but if this were implemented, wouldn't that make Ice even less relevant? The ice wouldn't even have to try to tank, it'd do it automatically. They need a more ACTIVE way to play defensive.
For 2b, I don't think 4v8 is the answer since that'd require that these mechanics be used in every battle in the game, and as you see in Lemuria, they need extra battle space for this. It'd be more trouble than it's worth to implement that. Minions don't have to be player sized. There could be a pet-sized minion that walks around your feet, a shadow-like creature behind you, or even a creature that you could cast on the opponent's team.
For 3, it's not that they want Spellements to be locked for low levels. After all, if you farm 500 spellements for Fire Cat and don't have a Fire yet, they'd want you to be able to upgrade that spell on a new character. The point is they don't want brand new players to be burdened with so many mechanics, thus they wouldn't implement the Karamelle / Lemuria system for Wizard City quests or anything like that. For Karamelle and Lemuria, it's impossible to obtain them anyways unless you're in the world, so I don't think that's an issue.
For 4, yes, this could possibly be fixed in the gear audit, but I understand why it is this way. They are making this gear for players questing on their own, and everyone needs to hit.
another 115 for flat damage or a CHANCE at 5 more damage, 190 more for 5 more damage or 5 accuracy, and then another 305 for another 5 damage. This is awful. Spellements need to be two things...
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