Ziggurat Zagger
Posts: 6454
Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06
Remove 1 MP Spells
1 MP spells are such a smaller percentage that it's hard to balance the difference in power between them and the other spell levels. For example, 1MP spells are half the cost of 2MP spells, this means you can cast twice as many, but they are rarely half as effective, in order for that to be true, you'd effectively have to double your power going from level 1 to level 2, which isn't (and probably shouldn't be) the case. The difference between cost and power jump gets smaller, but it's always present, until you get quite late into the game it's useful to keep a level 1 spell around to kill popcorn, just because of the MP efficiency.
What I propose is fairly simple. Take all spells and add 1 MP to their cost, add some extra MP (base, gained, and max) and MP regen to compensate (And adjust channeling sources etc.)
Probably other MP-consuming abilities should follow suit to keep them inline.
This has a few effects, going from level 1 to level 2 spells now is only a 50% increase in cost, which is much more reasonable to balance, power wise, a level 9 spell now is only 5x more expensive rather than 9x more expensive, and a solid level 5 attack spell is only 3x more expensive, rather than 5x, and a level 3 spell is only twice as expensive making using mid-tier conjurations for general attacking use comparitively much less of a problem efficiency wise.
I think spell costs going from 2->10 fits the power curve of spells a little more closely than 1->9, and it would reduce the awfulness of the balance between spells somewhat.
It also allows increments *below* that of 1 spell's worth, for both cost and healing which opens up new feature and balancing possibilities. For example searing ray's channel cost could remain at 1 MP and it's damage could be reduced to compensate, and it would be still be inline with it's MP cost. Another was the proposed "reduce spellcasting cost by 1MP" race which was completely broken in a lot of ways, but could be made less so if fractional spell cost reductions were possible (I still don't think it would be a good idea as a race, but it would at least be more possibile).
It also allows for abilities which are "weaker than a level 1 spell" which still have a cost.