Post by hello on Feb 10, 2019 2:57:20 GMT
Hi, would just like to give my thoughts on the new spells in spawns.
First of all, new spells/skills are locked behind a ritual quest in the new zone. The only requirement, to my knowledge, is to be able to enter Brannington, i.e., requiring to be arched. The demon you can kill with an alt, so no strength is really required. This basically means that all alts 28+ need to do the quest in order to acquire the necessary spells and protections. It is also, further, a requirement to increase your AK in order to use the powers and protections. This means maxing out your AK as far as possible in order to give your alt the most PvP potential. Another thing is Lab 6, which is required in order to learn two other spells. I feel like this is all bad from a design perspective, as it puts an emphasis on doing certain quests/PvE content rather than on actual stats, builds, team composition, and strategy.
As an example, 28s/30s alts will have a significant advantage if they have arched, obtained all AK possible, and completed the ritual quest. This means that they will certainly have to suicide at some point in order to not overlevel from AK/labs/quests. Same issue for spawn alts that are completed but have not done the quests. Having negs makes it difficult to change your build through indies, and the alternative is to make a new alt and have to repeat all the aforementioned content). A /noexp or /nolevel command would alleviate this issue.
A look at a few individual spells/items:
Mind control/panic - Any skill that repositions people makes no real sense to have in an arena where you have to stay positioned in place on ped. A few of the direct counters include mental protection, mind shield, and the Exkordon wizard hat. The mind shield and hat shield have a limited duration of use, so they are not altogether effective methods of negation. I have not confirmed that the mental protection will block mind control completely, and could not find any information on how it works if the one using mind control has a higher AK level. This spell is like a more annoying version warcry, but rather than having to make a build completely focused around warcry/stealth, you can just spend 12k gold or whatever and buy a spell from the NPC, and raise whatever stats you want. It also controls your actions and bring RNG into the game as your character walks around mindlessly. Suggestion: disable in spawns as it centralizes characters into using it or negating the effect.
Lightning strike - A lab 6 spell that stuns and does a significant amount of dmg based off arcane power and LF (I believe this is correct). Due to the instantaneous map-targeting nature of this spell, it takes much less skill to use than LB. It it possible to sit in stealth and cast this repeatedly on ped while the opponent has no idea where you are. The stun seems to be based off RNG, which does not help its case. If you are able to run your alt through lab 6 at a very low level, it will be extremely strong as one of the only alts in the spawn able to use this ability. Not to mention the fact that having an ability to stun on a pure LF alt is quite an insane idea. Suggestion: remove the stun in spawns, disable spell usage onto the square with ped, add indicator where the caster is, or lower cast range.
Speed items - The raw speed items which I know of are the Nook robber legs (+20), WS50 dragon weapons (+20), arena boots (+25), and possibly more. These are also centralizing in spawns since they let characters hit speed breaks quicker, as well as negate the effectiveness of frz (11 speed = 1 imm mod) and warcry (6 speed = 1 imm mod, disregarding stun). This essentially boosts your characters stats if you are able to complete miscellaneous PvE content. Every low level warr/seyan can - or should be - using the robber legs. Just about every attack warr/seyan from 30 to around 60 is going to want the dragon weapon, which can be quite annoying to obtain. I don't even want to think of having to do arena on higher leveled alts just to get that extra speed boost in order to max out an alt's capabilities. Suggestion: disable boosts from raw speed items in spawns; it's essentially like having perma access to a RS pot.
Dispel - Potentially erases the usefulness of a frz or wc alt with the press of 1 button. Suggestion: add a timer for which a dispelled person can be dispelled again, make the dispel power based off a skill like heal mod and have it only reduce - not remove - effects, or disable in spawns.
Subzero - Have not tested this one myself but I am told that it completely solidifies the opponent, preventing action. It seems that the solid effect is not based off of immunity (?). Have not seen it in action but I have to say that this just sounds extremely annoying to counter or play against.
Meteor - I like this spell but I don't really like the amount of RNG in where the meteors fall.
Flameweave - I find it kind of strong that you can use both this and fireball at the same time. Not sure if this is still the case. Also immune to FSing while FB is not. Can also be casted through players. Have not seen it since the nerf(?) today so will hold my thoughts for now.
Limit break system - I don't know too much about the proposed system but it sounds like something that should probably stay out of spawns. Unless you wanna just change spawning completely into something ridiculous.
Those are my thoughts, I would like to hear what other people think. I would also appreciate if people mentioned if they actually spawn or how many alts they have so I can get a sense of what you are basing your opinions off of. Currently I have around 10 alts from 5-68 and try to go to about every spawn I see while I'm online.
P.S. - I am not against change in spawns, but I am against centralization. It was bad enough that old world spawns were so focused on having/removing warcry. I also think that what you've done in PvE should have no bearing over how good your character is in the spawn room. This is why I liked the idea of resetting your character's stats in A3Res, as it made the game about making the best build you could rather than beating the gatekeeper or killing a skeleton with the lowest stats possible.
First of all, new spells/skills are locked behind a ritual quest in the new zone. The only requirement, to my knowledge, is to be able to enter Brannington, i.e., requiring to be arched. The demon you can kill with an alt, so no strength is really required. This basically means that all alts 28+ need to do the quest in order to acquire the necessary spells and protections. It is also, further, a requirement to increase your AK in order to use the powers and protections. This means maxing out your AK as far as possible in order to give your alt the most PvP potential. Another thing is Lab 6, which is required in order to learn two other spells. I feel like this is all bad from a design perspective, as it puts an emphasis on doing certain quests/PvE content rather than on actual stats, builds, team composition, and strategy.
As an example, 28s/30s alts will have a significant advantage if they have arched, obtained all AK possible, and completed the ritual quest. This means that they will certainly have to suicide at some point in order to not overlevel from AK/labs/quests. Same issue for spawn alts that are completed but have not done the quests. Having negs makes it difficult to change your build through indies, and the alternative is to make a new alt and have to repeat all the aforementioned content). A /noexp or /nolevel command would alleviate this issue.
A look at a few individual spells/items:
Mind control/panic - Any skill that repositions people makes no real sense to have in an arena where you have to stay positioned in place on ped. A few of the direct counters include mental protection, mind shield, and the Exkordon wizard hat. The mind shield and hat shield have a limited duration of use, so they are not altogether effective methods of negation. I have not confirmed that the mental protection will block mind control completely, and could not find any information on how it works if the one using mind control has a higher AK level. This spell is like a more annoying version warcry, but rather than having to make a build completely focused around warcry/stealth, you can just spend 12k gold or whatever and buy a spell from the NPC, and raise whatever stats you want. It also controls your actions and bring RNG into the game as your character walks around mindlessly. Suggestion: disable in spawns as it centralizes characters into using it or negating the effect.
Lightning strike - A lab 6 spell that stuns and does a significant amount of dmg based off arcane power and LF (I believe this is correct). Due to the instantaneous map-targeting nature of this spell, it takes much less skill to use than LB. It it possible to sit in stealth and cast this repeatedly on ped while the opponent has no idea where you are. The stun seems to be based off RNG, which does not help its case. If you are able to run your alt through lab 6 at a very low level, it will be extremely strong as one of the only alts in the spawn able to use this ability. Not to mention the fact that having an ability to stun on a pure LF alt is quite an insane idea. Suggestion: remove the stun in spawns, disable spell usage onto the square with ped, add indicator where the caster is, or lower cast range.
Speed items - The raw speed items which I know of are the Nook robber legs (+20), WS50 dragon weapons (+20), arena boots (+25), and possibly more. These are also centralizing in spawns since they let characters hit speed breaks quicker, as well as negate the effectiveness of frz (11 speed = 1 imm mod) and warcry (6 speed = 1 imm mod, disregarding stun). This essentially boosts your characters stats if you are able to complete miscellaneous PvE content. Every low level warr/seyan can - or should be - using the robber legs. Just about every attack warr/seyan from 30 to around 60 is going to want the dragon weapon, which can be quite annoying to obtain. I don't even want to think of having to do arena on higher leveled alts just to get that extra speed boost in order to max out an alt's capabilities. Suggestion: disable boosts from raw speed items in spawns; it's essentially like having perma access to a RS pot.
Dispel - Potentially erases the usefulness of a frz or wc alt with the press of 1 button. Suggestion: add a timer for which a dispelled person can be dispelled again, make the dispel power based off a skill like heal mod and have it only reduce - not remove - effects, or disable in spawns.
Subzero - Have not tested this one myself but I am told that it completely solidifies the opponent, preventing action. It seems that the solid effect is not based off of immunity (?). Have not seen it in action but I have to say that this just sounds extremely annoying to counter or play against.
Meteor - I like this spell but I don't really like the amount of RNG in where the meteors fall.
Flameweave - I find it kind of strong that you can use both this and fireball at the same time. Not sure if this is still the case. Also immune to FSing while FB is not. Can also be casted through players. Have not seen it since the nerf(?) today so will hold my thoughts for now.
Limit break system - I don't know too much about the proposed system but it sounds like something that should probably stay out of spawns. Unless you wanna just change spawning completely into something ridiculous.
Those are my thoughts, I would like to hear what other people think. I would also appreciate if people mentioned if they actually spawn or how many alts they have so I can get a sense of what you are basing your opinions off of. Currently I have around 10 alts from 5-68 and try to go to about every spawn I see while I'm online.
P.S. - I am not against change in spawns, but I am against centralization. It was bad enough that old world spawns were so focused on having/removing warcry. I also think that what you've done in PvE should have no bearing over how good your character is in the spawn room. This is why I liked the idea of resetting your character's stats in A3Res, as it made the game about making the best build you could rather than beating the gatekeeper or killing a skeleton with the lowest stats possible.
