spells and balance

Today, somebody asked if shock type spells worked on everything... and this got me to thinking. Does shock just hit most stuff well, or is it that the spell produces so much damage that one something is slightly resistant to shock, there is enough left over damage that the user can't see it, because they are all dead anyhow?

I guess in either case, the end result is the same. If you want to make running a sorc a bit more challenging, you need to tweak resistances or damage output for spells. In traditional-- you had to learn who to freeze and who to burn and who to shock. Here it is just shock and shock and shock. I hardly ever cast cold spells -- because I don't have to.

For healers... some of the same logic applies. In NN and Cyber1 versions-- if you cast power at larger monsters (for example) you get "attempt failed." Here you get killed one and some damage to a second. Sunnies and Spectrals (in the other two games) presented a problem for healers -- touch of draining would get sunnies but not spectrals and WoD would get spectrals and not sunnies. So when you ran into a DK/DQ mixed encounter-- you would WoD and clean up the royals and then have to come back for the sunnies. You had to know what you were doing, and then make a choice. Casting touch first, would get you killed-- here, everything seems to work against everything. I can even harm the royals for damage.... which makes running smart sort of non-essential.

In fact-- this game's implementation of healer spells makes them essentially equivalent to sorc spells. If I can cast harm at every thing and damage it, or power for that matter, why not just run a healer and a wiz and cast harm, harm to clean up everything? Perhaps there is a dynamic that I am not seeing. But so far, this implementation of spellers seems to be "dummied down" to the point we all might as well be just pressing "f" instead.

Thoughts anyone?

For the next few days, I have almost no time... so quickly--

Yes. You are right -- we have done a poor job in this area. There are many reasons for it-- and most sound like excuses so we can go over that later-- if you wish.

It's on my list of things to do. I'll get back to you in a few days when time allows.

Thanks for the report.

I agree.. it's more fun when you have to think. Traditionally <(there I go again) each monster type (undead, demon, devil, lycanthrope, insect, serpentine/reptillian, dragon etc.) had good defense or immunity to one ore more types of spells or attacks while at the same time were more vulnerable to a specific type of attack (various spells or fighting) which made them easier to defeat if you discovered what their weakness was.

As promised, I am starting to work this issue. This is not an easy issue to adjust-- not just the twiddling a dial or two to make it come out right. It is pretty complex.

1) Jude is gone for a few days. When he gets back we are going to work on spells--both total damage output and the progression of spells as the character increases in spell level. We hope to start work next weekend, and maybe have something ready for production by the following week.
2) In the meantime, the other piece of this puzzle is setting meaningful values on the monsters to represent their resistance/susceptibility to the various forms of magical attack. It appears that I did a really bad job of this so far, as most monsters just don't have any values stored on them at all, except the obvious hot/cold mobs. Expect to see some changes coming thru soon. There are a lot of monsters, and a lot of values to store on each one. Patience and feedback are going to be important. And keep in mind that until we reduce the values of max damage generated by most spells -- many of these modifications may well turn out to be transparent to the caster. On this note-- it has been many years since I was a serious player of avatar, and my recollections of what spell type is supposed to work against what monster is a bit rusty. So If anyone has a list they want to share-- now is the time. Otherwise, I will create a system that makes sense to me and hope to keep the crying and lamentations to a minimum!

Overall the largest change is going to be curtailing the total damage output from a particular spell. Right now you can cast shock instead of fire against a cold based monster and it will clear it -- because the spell does so much damage per group. My goal is to install resistance numbers that allow you to do extra damage when you cast the correct spell, and reduce the total damage for the spell. IE if you cast correctly-- you will do about the same damage you are doing now. If you do not -- your damage output is going to fall dramatically. I don't know if that is clear or not... so here is an example.

Currently -- if you cast electricity against "Ice Dragons" you will do lose 33% of the damage total. But since the spell you are casting will hit each group for 1200 damage total, you are getting 800 effective damage per slot-- more than enough to kill 5 ice dragons. What I want to do is turn that same spell down to 600 total damage. And allow you to get double damage if you cast FIRE against Ice Dragons. If however you choose to cast electricity, you will lose 1/3 of your damage -- only doing 400 damage per slot and leaving a few dragons alive to breathe on you. Make Sense????

As I have stated before , I have played many if not all the versions/updates/upgrades of avatar which were on CERL/Nova-Net from 1979 to 1993 (and the avatar95 version which was on Nova-Net after they went public over the internet). This only makes me knowledgeable, not an expert. Would you want a list of monster types with their specific defenses/weaknesses posted here? Or possibly emailed to you to compare with what others have learned from their in game experience? There is at least one person playing here who never played avatar before, and while I'm perfectly willing to share information in the game (or possibly in a wiki), part of the fun of the game has always been discovering more efficient ways to defeat monsters (especially the Studs, who usually drop the best loot).
I'm willing to do either (post here or email) Consensus?

email me is fine.

thank you

Aw, shucks. Where might be a logical place to exchange/share knowledge to the less experienced? Seems like this forum is the replacement of the original notes file. Or should we look to the players forum?

what the players discuss in the player's forum is by its very nature... up to the players.

.

All,

I went thru the original monsters and added some values. These are not set in stone-- and comments are welcome. Be advised that the spells are still "overpowered" so some of the lesser values I put in for resistances may well be invisible at this time.