Vaults Vanquisher
Posts: 463
Joined: Monday, 20th July 2015, 04:01
Wednesday, 2nd November 2016, 17:42
Make charms into permanent buffs
Please at least read the following section on how this would affect the game. I highly doubt this will get passed but I think there's potential for something new and interesting, so please give this a chance and let me hear your thoughts.
How this would affect the game
The good:
- Solves many, many tedium problems while creating very few, if any.
- Is balanced so as not to allow players to break the game using potions of brilliance + wizardry.
- New charms can be added without giving the devs a massive headache when they think about the game's design philosophy.
The bad:
- Not intuitive with respect to other spell schools. However, it isn't as though other spells have never been changed. The player simply has to relearn a few things as with spells like Ozo's after the nerf.
- While certainly not a hairpullingly large amount of work, requires a significant overhaul that could easily produce quite a few bugs.
- Could have a lot of unseen corner cases (I already tried to either cover or reduce the possibility of quite a few, but who knows what’s left).
- Casting noise solution is slapped on. Suggestions would be welcome.
The proposition
Charms buffs should be made permanent. I suggest something similar to how RMsl and DMsl work but with a few changes. The specifics are below.
Affected charms:
- Will be charms that are direct buffs (not spectral weapon or battlesphere) and can be properly converted (not ddoor or swiftness). Other charms are unchanged.
- Are active as soon as they are cast.
- Have infinite duration. Cases like Ozo's and Song of Slaying with detrimental effects outside of combat are addressed below.
- Can be cast normally, but are dormant (grey text) unless the spell is cast at a white-colored failure rate that is also at or below a certain threshold (somewhere from 10% down to 4%). Sif's miscast protection can be used to meet the first requirement. If these conditions are for some reason not met while the spell is already active, it immediately becomes dormant, regardless of whether or not another casting was attempted.
- Can be ended by an action command similarly to the Flight effect.
- Have twice their MP cost subtracted from the player's maximum MP. This happens even while dormant. The actual MP cost of the spell is taken first, so it is possible for a player at max MP to cast a charms spell and stay at max MP.
- Are automatically ended if the spell is forgotten.
In addition:
- Any countdowns attached to affected charms cannot be circumvented by ending the effect and recasting the spell. Nor can they be reduced by causing the charm to go dormant (such by equipping heavy armor or removing a ring of wizardry). The countdown stays and in addition only decrements while the spell is casted and active.
- Whenever an affected charm is ended by the player, the player's max MP is restored and the player receives half of the MP from that charm, back, intact (the other half is taken as the casting cost and is lost). For example, casting Infusion takes away 2 max MP. Ending infusion restores 2 max MP and 1 actual MP. Players may recover a sizable portion of MP simply by continuously ending charm effects mid-fight, but whether or not that is a good idea is the choice of the player.
- Casting noise is made when the spell is cast but not while the charm is active (except for Song of Slaying and Ring of Flames). This overall buffs Charms which I think it certainly needs after the Haste removal.
- Getting hit with an antimagic attack that would reduce MP below 0 immediately makes all charms go dormant, as does wielding an antimagic branded weapon or being silenced (via the Silence spell or an effect like Mennas’ Silence aura). They are restored upon reaching full MP again or when no longer silenced. Eyes of Draining, Ghost Moths, and Mana Vipers suddenly got a lot more interesting to the avid charms user.
- Spirit Shield works normally, using the player’s current max MP. There is no dormancy caused by MP hitting 0 as the result of Spirit Shield activating.
Changes to specific charms
L1
Infusion - Permanent.
L2
Repel Missiles - As it is currently, but the effect decreases in effectiveness as it blocks attacks and increases back overtime. This is accompanied by color changes (purple -> blue -> green -> grey). If out of sight of an enemy for a brief period (100 auts), RMsl comes back all at once.
Shroud of Golubria - Permanent. If destroyed, the shroud is restored automatically over time (100 auts?).
Song of Slaying - The song automatically starts at the first sight of an enemy. If there is a monster still in sight when the effect ends, the player must manually start singing again (action command "Start Singing" or just "Sing"). Song of Slaying's ending conditions are otherwise unchanged from the current spell.
Swiftness - Unchanged. Permanent swiftness would be absolutely busted anyway.
L3
Ozocubu's Armour - Reduced movement penalty is only active while an enemy is in LoS and player speed is restored after 100 auts out of combat. Functions like icemail when hit by a fire attack. This one is tricky and definitely isn't finished.
Regeneration - Permanent. Since this is a flat bonus, make L4 or L5.
Spectral Weapon - Unchanged. This is a summon so any problems with it are outside of the purview of this thread.
L5
Iskenderun's Battlesphere - As Spectral Weapon.
Excruciating Wounds - Permanent and to reduce tediousness, now stays between weapon changes. To reduce tediousness even further, gets a sizable buff in that any enemy that resists the effect (via rN+ or the like) is attacked with the weapon’s original brand, as though the spell had not been cast at all. Immediately turns off Warp Weapon and vice-versa.
(Kiku gets shafted somewhat but the existence of this spell already diminishes the usefulness of his 6* gift now so this isn’t really an issue.)
Warp Weapon – As Excruciating Wounds, although the chance of the player having this spell while worshipping Lucy is far less, as is the possibility of the player attacking a distortion immune enemy (yay blink frogs).
L6
Deflect Missiles - As Repel Missiles.
Haste - RIP Haste. Your gamebreaking effect will be missed.
L7
Ring of Flames - Permanent? I do not know whether or not the player would want this to be cast nearly every fight as I have never used it. It would be otherwise unchanged.
L8
Death's Door - Unchanged. This spell generally isn't repeatedly cast. In the case that it is, chances are the situation is interesting enough that it can hardly be described as tedious.
How this would affect the game
The good:
- Solves many, many tedium problems while creating very few, if any.
- Is balanced so as not to allow players to break the game using potions of brilliance + wizardry.
- New charms can be added without giving the devs a massive headache when they think about the game's design philosophy.
The bad:
- Not intuitive with respect to other spell schools. However, it isn't as though other spells have never been changed. The player simply has to relearn a few things as with spells like Ozo's after the nerf.
- While certainly not a hairpullingly large amount of work, requires a significant overhaul that could easily produce quite a few bugs.
- Could have a lot of unseen corner cases (I already tried to either cover or reduce the possibility of quite a few, but who knows what’s left).
- Casting noise solution is slapped on. Suggestions would be welcome.
The proposition
Charms buffs should be made permanent. I suggest something similar to how RMsl and DMsl work but with a few changes. The specifics are below.
Affected charms:
- Will be charms that are direct buffs (not spectral weapon or battlesphere) and can be properly converted (not ddoor or swiftness). Other charms are unchanged.
- Are active as soon as they are cast.
- Have infinite duration. Cases like Ozo's and Song of Slaying with detrimental effects outside of combat are addressed below.
- Can be cast normally, but are dormant (grey text) unless the spell is cast at a white-colored failure rate that is also at or below a certain threshold (somewhere from 10% down to 4%). Sif's miscast protection can be used to meet the first requirement. If these conditions are for some reason not met while the spell is already active, it immediately becomes dormant, regardless of whether or not another casting was attempted.
- Can be ended by an action command similarly to the Flight effect.
- Have twice their MP cost subtracted from the player's maximum MP. This happens even while dormant. The actual MP cost of the spell is taken first, so it is possible for a player at max MP to cast a charms spell and stay at max MP.
- Are automatically ended if the spell is forgotten.
In addition:
- Any countdowns attached to affected charms cannot be circumvented by ending the effect and recasting the spell. Nor can they be reduced by causing the charm to go dormant (such by equipping heavy armor or removing a ring of wizardry). The countdown stays and in addition only decrements while the spell is casted and active.
- Whenever an affected charm is ended by the player, the player's max MP is restored and the player receives half of the MP from that charm, back, intact (the other half is taken as the casting cost and is lost). For example, casting Infusion takes away 2 max MP. Ending infusion restores 2 max MP and 1 actual MP. Players may recover a sizable portion of MP simply by continuously ending charm effects mid-fight, but whether or not that is a good idea is the choice of the player.
- Casting noise is made when the spell is cast but not while the charm is active (except for Song of Slaying and Ring of Flames). This overall buffs Charms which I think it certainly needs after the Haste removal.
- Getting hit with an antimagic attack that would reduce MP below 0 immediately makes all charms go dormant, as does wielding an antimagic branded weapon or being silenced (via the Silence spell or an effect like Mennas’ Silence aura). They are restored upon reaching full MP again or when no longer silenced. Eyes of Draining, Ghost Moths, and Mana Vipers suddenly got a lot more interesting to the avid charms user.
- Spirit Shield works normally, using the player’s current max MP. There is no dormancy caused by MP hitting 0 as the result of Spirit Shield activating.
Changes to specific charms
L1
Infusion - Permanent.
L2
Repel Missiles - As it is currently, but the effect decreases in effectiveness as it blocks attacks and increases back overtime. This is accompanied by color changes (purple -> blue -> green -> grey). If out of sight of an enemy for a brief period (100 auts), RMsl comes back all at once.
Shroud of Golubria - Permanent. If destroyed, the shroud is restored automatically over time (100 auts?).
Song of Slaying - The song automatically starts at the first sight of an enemy. If there is a monster still in sight when the effect ends, the player must manually start singing again (action command "Start Singing" or just "Sing"). Song of Slaying's ending conditions are otherwise unchanged from the current spell.
Swiftness - Unchanged. Permanent swiftness would be absolutely busted anyway.
L3
Ozocubu's Armour - Reduced movement penalty is only active while an enemy is in LoS and player speed is restored after 100 auts out of combat. Functions like icemail when hit by a fire attack. This one is tricky and definitely isn't finished.
Regeneration - Permanent. Since this is a flat bonus, make L4 or L5.
Spectral Weapon - Unchanged. This is a summon so any problems with it are outside of the purview of this thread.
L5
Iskenderun's Battlesphere - As Spectral Weapon.
Excruciating Wounds - Permanent and to reduce tediousness, now stays between weapon changes. To reduce tediousness even further, gets a sizable buff in that any enemy that resists the effect (via rN+ or the like) is attacked with the weapon’s original brand, as though the spell had not been cast at all. Immediately turns off Warp Weapon and vice-versa.
(Kiku gets shafted somewhat but the existence of this spell already diminishes the usefulness of his 6* gift now so this isn’t really an issue.)
Warp Weapon – As Excruciating Wounds, although the chance of the player having this spell while worshipping Lucy is far less, as is the possibility of the player attacking a distortion immune enemy (yay blink frogs).
L6
Deflect Missiles - As Repel Missiles.
Haste - RIP Haste. Your gamebreaking effect will be missed.
L7
Ring of Flames - Permanent? I do not know whether or not the player would want this to be cast nearly every fight as I have never used it. It would be otherwise unchanged.
L8
Death's Door - Unchanged. This spell generally isn't repeatedly cast. In the case that it is, chances are the situation is interesting enough that it can hardly be described as tedious.
- For this message the author PowerOfKaishin has received thanks: 3
- Cimanyd, Seven Deadly Sins, VeryAngryFelid
