Ibn: Are there plans to remove all skill from mage pk?

[Hubbell]

I say this because of the multitude of PKL crybabies who cry about fastcast, powercast (forcing the first war out in half the animation/time, it can be done), delay cast, circle cast, and all other skills required to PK effectively on a mage are wanting them removed. These are what makes mages fun to pk on, and even viable. If you remove them, I know that I and almost all other mages who play AC primarily to PK/PKL or to play Darktide will quit, or the game will just become melee/archertide in less than half as long as it is currently taking it.

[AzulDrakkon]

Skill is required to play on a mage? thats odd considering my mage has the easiest time killing people...even melees

Hmmm Mages-200 damage
Melees-30 on speed
Archers-30

Which looks most powerful to you Hubbell?

Only crybabies I see are the mages who can't take a nerf or an opposing template getting love, and then whine and get everyone else nerfed.

[Frank The Knife]

I play a melee why cant I have the same fun?

Fair is Fair!

Just Imagine if I could full power double hit while mashing a few select keys!

I call it skill mages will cry exploit.

See where this is going?

[smaweet]

I agree with what the author of the topic is saying in ways.

What has made AC different that other MMO's is the skill factor that is played to part in a RPG. Unfortunately, most skills for mages are exploits, some worse than others. But only the ones that are preventing other people to play need to have something done, as in the glitches where you can get a melee stuck, and FC multiple times in a row. FC is fair, if used once in a long while.

Yes, damage is outbalanced left and right, but it is how it works. Jumpspin is unfair, but can you think of another viable way for someone to get away? IMO there should always be a way, always if they are decently close enough in levels (80+), if you use your skills

[ACVeteran]

Yes, how about making run skill mean something after 320 or so. If the attacker is faster, you shouldn't be able to get away. Unless you pour xp into that run skill.

[AzulDrakkon]

And if delay cast isn't considered an exploit everyone should be able to fire two or more attacks upon mages at once...oh btw, I've seen many good mages not use exploits, my mage doesn't, darkon doesn't, and various others don't...I guess Fast cast is alright, but fastcast alone makes mages viable...I've seen wars shot faster than an archer can hit a missile def trained mage, and thats just **** to say oh well, we suck if we can't have various other exploits.

[Hubbell]

Darkon on DT doesn't? He delays/fastcasts lol. They may be 'exploits' per se, but they are the ONLY thing keeping skill in mages pvp wise.

Mages do 90-150, 200 on a crit to melees with wards + aegis.
Mages do 100-190, crits of 240 or so to archers/mages with wards.

This may seem 'extreme' to some of you, but wars are EASILY dodged. Archers can do anything a mage can attack wise with movements and such, just requires much faster reflexes/timing to do it, ie, hit attack on full speed and slide a semi circle and the arrow fires, etc. Mages give up all their DOT in 1 attack every 4 seconds. Mages in a 1on1 , which is what all of you PKL's are crying about being overpowered. is the only place they excel. In a group fight mages are rediculously easy to dodge. Melees/archers in a single fight have atleast twice the damage over the entire fight as the mage does simply because wars are easy to dodge even when fast/delay casted. You cannot speed up your casting per se, only animation, albeit the first war/spell can be forced out in half the time, but even then, you cannot cast again after that for a few seconds.

And I am NOT asking for more for mages, just that the current 'exploits' be left in because they are the only display/semblance of skill left in playing a mage in pk.

[Ivanhoe]

Only thing that needs to happen with mages is all war dmg cut in half.

[Hubbell]

War damage cut in half? Melees / Archers are already just as powerful as mages in pvp when you look at the amount of damage dealt over time. Mages get it all up front, losing most of their viability in a group fight (My FIRST TIME pk'ing on an archer was a joke last night where i was fighting on a level 76 no life archer with a rend bow vs 3 126+ mages, i was skating while shooting and it took them 5 minutes to kill me while up close the whole fight, 250 health buffed.) because of the ease of dodging wars/the warning (spellwords) which allows that ease of dodging. Archers/melees are less prone to win a 1on1 encounter with an equal mage simply because they are more balanced for group combat where 1. melees cannot be dodged per se unless you got melee d, 2. archers have no warning and therefore can 'sneak' up behind someone and chaingun, albeit archers are the most balanced group in 1on1 AND group fighting due to their flexibility (movement of a mage, moreso infact WHILE SHOOTING, and no warning of the shot).

[AzulDrakkon]

Well H the problem isn't them killing me its archers not being capable of killing THEM without a crit or lag...StH, Healing, Heal Self, Drain, Trade Health Elixers, High natural health/regen, Missile Defense being overpowered, horrible arrow tracking....I find it impossible to die on my mage against archers, who don't do enough damage to finish the job (The strafe-glitch which mages often do often means they have to be on top of the mage to hit them)

Btw, anyone can live for 5 minutes against a group of mages (yes, it is easy to strafe! wars huge damage makes up for that though), I remember when I fought Camel Wide and a friend of his at AL drop for ten plus minutes before others arrived and made him recall.

And chaingun isn't very viable on DT...

...well actually now it is seeing most players dropped missile defense when all the high level chaingimp archers changed their templates to sword or mage, and still it requires a very specific place to use it, I wouldn't mind it being removed because then mages wouldn't have any reason to complain "OMG they have a huge exploit thats almost completely useless without the proper terrain! But we're gonna say it anyways because...well OMG!"

[HeXt]

exploits are not skill, they are cheats.

[Hubbell]

Do you use Revit + S2M together to gain your mana back? Thats exploiting a game mechanic as such a continuously efficient form of mana return was not the intent of those two spells and mana conversion, atleast when the game was made. Do you slide while casting? Exploit.

Face it, they are exploits in the strictest sense of the word, but they, along with fast/delay cast, fastshot/delayshot/circleshot (circleshot is basically 'holding' an arrow while you slide in a circle around an opponent)


Chaingun means full speed, not that stupid sith drain bug that everyone learned to use for archers. S2H works once, maybe twice, if you see them winding up a revit you run in and shoot until you get a shot in during the war spell windup then powerslide away. Pk'ing on an archer is just like on a mage except for lack of spells, and the fact that it requires much faster movements to be done correctly.

[Virindi Clown]

How many times do people have to say slide casting and all that isn't an exploit. Obviously it is intended, seeing as the day the game came out over four years ago it was just fine then. They even made a casting radius, so if it was an exploit, that's all fixed. They fixed fast cast too. Honestly, anyone who says that there is "fast cast" now and that it is an exploit was not here to see the real thing.

And to sum it up, I have two words for a little comparision that shows what a real casting exploit is: god mode.

People whine that it needs to go because mages get to move around and stuff, while melees and archers basically do not. Melees actually just get dragged into people and shot, much less able to dodge things and fight at the same time.

Obviously a solution is not to take it away, it is to free up movement for everyone. People say it over and over. That's what makes mages fun to play, and it's what makes PvP exciting.

[Hubbell]

Actually Virindi Clown, there was no intent behind allowing an efficient spell only form of regaining mana originally, in the strictest sense it is an exploit because its a loophole in game mechanics from the *original intent*. Same with sliding while casting, but both are left in because they make mages fun to play.

[Virindi Clown]

The day someone figured it out, it might not have been intended, but they left it all alone for a while, made a casting radius, and now increased the radius. That looks intended to me. Little animation breaks aren't, but that's what they are now, LITTLE. They are not the original fast cast or god mode.

I'm not saying it's better than it used to be, so we just shouldn't care if it's still a problem or not, but that it doesn't really have an affect on the game. I don't understand what people get this from.

Are people saying all this stuff about all the ways to cast because they actually think someone is killing them outright with it or because their character cannot do the same thing because they are not a mage?

[Andiglo]

PK in general is ALL about not getting hit with War Damage.

- Mages use Magic D and slide
- Archers evade war spells at a distance.
- Melee's must swing faster (no full swings), and run around to time spell casting to evade.

That is PK in a nut shell.

Now there are some spins, mages do missle d (because archers can evade wars really well), and mages bane against melee's and archers). Melee's use aegis to take the edge off of the war spells when they get hit.. but basically it's all about the mage.

[Hubbell]

Melees have to use speed attack? Are you on crack? lol that rhymed, but nonetheless. I never get hit on full speed by a melee unless its when i'm running from a gank because anyone who knows how to play a melee will hit attack and run a circle while the mages releases his war and when the charge is done make the swing, hit attack and run a circle again, rinse and repeat.

[Andiglo]

Maybe for UA's, but swords/axe/mace etc is different.

If you are being attacked and you go in full swing on a mage, by the time you hit 'Swing', and wind up, you will get hit.

I'm taking about the circle run around the mage thing too. I want for the war to fly by, then attack, but they are already winding up the next war, so you have to get in and out by the time they launch #2 or the melee will get hit.

I usually attack on half power which gives me margin, or 3/4'ths if I'm getting in good. Full power if they are not baned, because it's a 2-3 swing deal.

[Virindi Clown]

He said no full swings. Most people use around medium power. Speed is pointless.

[Hubbell]

Swords and UA's are only melees i've seen/fought in the last 3 months. They both use full power on me, or else medium power weeping crit is now 80+...

[Andiglo]

Yeah medium power crits can be 80+. I've full power crited for about 120 ish.

[HeXt]

I think mages have more than enough movement as it is, It's very annoying to fight a mage and they slide around like it's the ice capades.

[Virindi Clown]

Yeah, you sure as heck don't just give them more without doing anything else. It's player versus player, not mage versus mage. However, if mages could actually run around with some of their spells (just putting in god mode probably isn't a good idea), and then archers could atleast strafe and shoot and melees could get non-charge/sticky attacks, I think it would even out.

I kind of feel like that should have to be added since everyone has started talking about this, because it would be sooooooo much more fun and interesting.

[Hubbell]

What the hell are you people talking about ice skating and increasing radius. All I was asking on this thread that they not remove the only skill factor with mage pk, ie, variations of casting.

[Virindi Clown]

Hubbell, you can't say it wouldn't be more fun if everyone could move more reasonably. And I mean everyone, not just giving mages the ability to run cast or something.

[Hubbell]

it would be less fun if everyone could move much more freely. I can dodge any war shot at me if I slide a certain way, but it puts me outside of the movement radius. Archers can move just like mages and in fact shoot an extra arrow on full speed with certain movements. Melees can sticky and do not need any more forms of attacking while moving without reducing their damage somehow.

[Virindi Clown]

Well, ok, but imagine how less fun any other game would be if your movement was always restricted in weird ways. In an FPS, you don't stop moving if you fire a weapon. If you use something like your gauntlet in Quake, you don't get dragged around after people. You chase them and hit them when you get close enough.

AC is not an FPS, but personally, I think it would be a lot better off if movement wasn't just choppy stuff and animation breaks that usually ends up causing you to stand in one place for a bit.

[Hubbell]

Only guys who have to stand still ever are melees. EVER.

[coma_black]

fastcast/ circle cast ect are exploits of the game mechanics
it is not actual pvp skill.

the only reason this was brought into being was because by the time it took to cast a war the melee was running behind something to avoid being hit.

some of you make me laugh histericly with these claims of skill.
if you can run move out of the way and or use the terrain to your advantage without exploiting the game mechanics that is skill.

being able to exploit game mechanics delaying your casts and or speeding up the cast is not pvp skill.

[Hubbell]

Actually it is. Even with fastcasting/delaycasting melees/archers with skill get hit very infrequently, even though they don't know exactly when the war will come out. If they knew EXACTLY when it would come out it would be next to impossible to be hit if you were trying to dodge, unless you lagged. And that would be what Mage pk would become, a see who lags first fight.

[smaweet]

IMO Hold cast is fine as long as double cast is prevented, FC is not, if done correctly is compeltely unfair to all classes.

[Hubbell]

Double cast is like double shot for archers, it only works for 2 shots then it doesn't work for a few seconds, so its essentially useless because you can't do any casting at ALL for those few seconds and that can get you killed quite quickly.

[Virindi Clown]

When people learn to use it against eachother, and it doesn't give some type of instant-win advantage, I think you can classify it as skill.

I am not supporting people who say they have skill because they know some exploits. What I said does not change that they are exploits, but they are not exactly anything terrible like people seem to think. It's not gear, and it's not god mode. It's ok, you don't have to cry.

What exactly is the deal here? I don't understand where this is coming from or where it is going now. Is the problem with it just that it's not intended? I mean, it really doesn't change anything, so I don't get why this is going on.

I'm sure it could all be fixed, but they would have to redo attack and casting movements, and that's guaranteed to be practically impossible with the way the game was made and how it has changed. Not worth it.

[Chubasco]

Skill? Or simply bug exploiting?

Only Turbine can answer the question about whether this is skill and whether they have balanced the game taking this into account.

Or, whether these are simply bug exploits which are unfixable.

[Virindi Clown]

Obviously they balance around them, but they don't exactly make much difference. Everyone is talking about casting bugs here, and what do they all do? Well, they make you cast spells in the end, and how is that any different for the fight to make it truly unfair or anything to really even have to take into account for balance?

They are all kind of the results of little fixes for larger problems. If they could not fix the REAL fast cast, then it would be different and they would sure as heck have changed the came. As it is now, mages can just play a slight trick with their spells which we are ALL aware of, so it doesn't hurt anything.

If you know enough about this stuff to post about it, then it shouldn't be anything too powerful because we know they are capable of it and that's prevention enough to not be obliterated by every mage.

[coma_black]

Actually it is. Even with fastcasting/delaycasting melees/archers with skill get hit very infrequently, even though they don't know exactly when the war will come out. If they knew EXACTLY when it would come out it would be next to impossible to be hit if you were trying to dodge, unless you lagged. And that would be what Mage pk would become, a see who lags first fight.

this is exactly the state of the game now...who lags first dies

i use mind tricks to kill my opponants it works better than any exploit there is...meaning you think i'm doing one thing and i'm not and you get caught slippin

[HeXt]

Turbine is trying to put the skill BACK in PK.

[Chubasco]

Again, these are bug exploits according to Turbine. You are simply calling them skill because of your inability to see the difference.

Does it take skill to sneak a peek at your opponents cards in order to win a card game? Do you feel better after doing so? These are moral questions that vary from person to person, but within the context of AC these bug exploits are not SKILL.

The link below was posted in a previous thread, and pretty much sums up Turbines take on these. Feel free to continue to rationalize your actions as you see fit.

http://www.accmty.com/idealbb/view....68D35EC821D2B2A

[Virindi Clown]

Being able to BL melees and crappy archers doesn't look like putting skill back to me.

They have a whole world of simple problems they do not address, and just continue to toss more junk on the heap to make it worse.

Everyone talks about simple ways to fix things because they know that's the only way an idea will ever get across and be implemented. Even that is ignored. I cannot even comprehend some of the issues with this game.

[MomentofClarity]

For you o.Os out there who think they are pk professionals and dont know anything, if they got rid of fastcasting and slidecasting mage pk would become boring. Mages would never win unless their opponent lagged, a noob under lvl 10 with crappy quickness, or their opponent just plain sucks.

[coma_black]

LOL;)

[HeXt]

Originally posted by MomentofClarity
For you o.Os out there who think they are pk professionals and dont know anything, if they got rid of fastcasting and slidecasting mage pk would become boring. Mages would never win unless their opponent lagged, a noob under lvl 10 with crappy quickness, or their opponent just plain sucks.


If you don't like cheats being nerfed, there's always Quake™.

[Hubbell]

When a cheat is the only thing that makes something fun/skillbased instead of luck, then logic dictates that said cheat is not a bad thing but in fact a good thing.

[coma_black]

its the cheating and bending of the game that has tainted it.
say what you want but if ever removed i will be able to fight just as i always have and kill just as many people.

the people that rely on the cheats however won't they will be to busy trying to run or to busy collecting di's to fight.

and i don't sit there like a stick in the mud, well sometimes i do just because i don't feel like chasing some fool thats just going to recall anyway

[Virindi Clown]

They CAN'T fix it and that is the bottom line.

[WEplayer]

IF they did fix it know how many people would quit this game? A lot

[Savur-Boram]

Lol Mages own so we get nerfed =$ wussies!

I saw sum one sayin mages hit for 200 and melee's for 30 ?
Whuts up with that you obviusly never pked before!

Since those Wards and shields its a lot less than 200 and , i have been slaped for 150+ on base al 400 more than i can count so all this bla bla bla about mages being way better than melees,,,,,

Thats all in the person behind the keys plz.:D

[Hubbell]

Ibn I know you read this as you have editted atleast 1 post on this thread, so I don't see why you won't respond unless its out of marketting fear that you will anger either side of the argument especially if it is saying that Turbine will remove animation breaks because you know full well the implications of such a statement. What I mean by implications, is the mass cancelling of accounts.

[Virindi Clown]

Lol he won't reply because there's nothing to say. They surely want to change it, but it can't happen. They've always said that about "animation break" things and they don't repeat it because they would lose their fingers from having to type it so much here.

[Hubbell]

I don't know much about coding, but I can guarantee you there is already a very feasible solution open to them, and the only thing keeping it from being done is time, which I hope is never on their side :/

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Hubbell
Ibn I know you read this as you have editted atleast 1 post on this thread, so I don't see why you won't respond unless its out of marketting fear that you will anger either side of the argument especially if it is saying that Turbine will remove animation breaks because you know full well the implications of such a statement. What I mean by implications, is the mass cancelling of accounts.

I've responded to these issues in the past. On the one hand, the level of control that players have over their in-game characters is one of the strengths of AC. The ability to move around a little while fighting or casting spells is something that most people really enjoy.

However there are some instances in which this same strength becomes a detriment, as players find ways to break game balance.

Finding a way to fix the balance-breaking issues without destroying the gameplay that so many enjoy is very, very difficult, but we are still working on it.

[Hubbell]

Just lock this thread because its obvious you won't even give a straight response. That was the most inconclusive response I've seen from you to date. You failed to say what balance breaking issues you were talking about as well as just plain beat around the bush with your answer. I give you props for your ability to come up with responses like that though.

[Flynn]

Oh, FFS, quit whining Hubbell. That was probably the most substantive response anybody could give.

Unless you've studied the mechanics of the game engine inside out, you have NO idea what effect making a change will have on gameplay. Most 'exploits' exist because the functionality that makes them possible is necessary for the game engine to handle the physics of the world correctly. Fixing potion godmoding might prevent drinking potions in combat for example, which would be a 'bad thing (tm)'. That's just a possibility though, I've no idea how the game engine works, but my point is, you don't either, and you can't guarantee anything. Ibn has said they're working on it, and nobody has any justifiable reason to doubt that. If that's not good enough for you, go play Quake.

[Helmar]

Hubbell, they've already said why you're not going to get any direct, clear answers this very second. Spend less time complaining and more time reading.

http://forums2.warcry.com/read.phtml?f=10&id=98033

[Hubbell]

All he had to say was Yes we are trying to find a feasible way to remove delay/fastcast animation breaks or No we are looking for feasible ways to remove balance breaking issues but those issues do not include mage animation breaks. It would give those of us who actually understand that without them mage pk will die within a week or 2 of it happening a chance to look for a new game to play if the answer to it was Yes.

[coma_black]

so its only mages exploits you wine about? not the jump spin 360 strafe that send everyone in thier mother 10 clicks in the opposite direction?

oh ya you probably need that to, so don't fix it right.
i'm sorry but i'd rather fight and die fast than chase some fool 50 clicks just to have them recall away.

face it there are some very real broken mechanics in pvp and something needs to change.
its not that i fear a fast cast or any of that bs, after 4 years i'm just sick and tired of having to chase someone that needs to play on a less harsh server because its very noticible they don't like to pvp.

lets get the harshness back into darktide. there is no more fear here pk logger and many other programs make it so there is nothing but loggers and macro's....welcome to Macrotide home of the pk log off

[Virindi Clown]

An easy way to fix them would be to let people have a true circular radius where they can also move FORWARD AND BACKWARDS. Then there wouldn't be weird breaks, because all you could do is slide in a circle. If mages could do it while casting, then anyone could do it while doing anything, and that's exactly what would make PvP flow better.

If it wasn't just a limited, choppy way to slide around that spawns strange animation breaks, there would be real skill to it, the problems would be solved, and there would be something to enjoy more.

Obviously, if they cannot take it OUT of the game, they have to accept it being IN the game and make it work out.

[Chubasco]

We can all only assume about the number of resulting account cancellations due to any of Turbines changes. And only Turbine and M$ actually have the numbers and statistics to best assess the reasons behind these cancellations.

With the upcoming xpchain nerf, rate increase, and hopefully addressing of these exploits they will probably be sifting through alot information (hopefully, if they have the resources and tools to do so).

It's my opinion that if people quit because a bug that they depend on was fixed, then the game will be much better without them. However, I doubt that these war casting bugs are fixable and assume that Turbine will find a way to bring them into the game "legitimately". Especially based on the assumption that the other classes were balanced (i.e. improved) taking these exploits into consideration. As for the potion bugs, I agree with Virindi Clown...Turbine should simply apply the same radius limit on potions and recall gems as are already implemented for casting.

[Auron IX]

You guys complain to much deal with it and learn how to fight. I dont see why you guys have such a hard time when everyone else is fine. To change the game because a few people cant adapt is lame. Why dont you ask him to make a patch so you guys never die. Thats what your asking isnt it help me help me. Learn how to fight thats your answer.

[Chubasco]

Auron IX,

You mean "just bug exploit because you and the people that you respect cheat", right?

You seem to lack the moral fortitude to understand and appreciate the difference between playing the game how it is meant to be played and bug exploiting.

Skill or just plain cheating?.........this is a question and a problem that Turbine has yet to answer.

[Nemesis]

there must always be SOME way for a player do distinguish himself in combat. If fastcast/delaycast is removed there must be some new thing INTENTIONALLY implemented to replace it. Otherwise people will leave the game when it's stand there and see who's template is best.

[Jess The Great]

good, so you want all the xp-chain whores to kill everyone i guess is what your saying...knowing they are the ones with 410health and maxed out skills...lets make skill NON-EXISTANCE, yay

[AzulDrakkon]

Originally posted by Savur-Boram
Lol Mages own so we get nerfed, wussies!

I saw some one saying mages hit for 200 and melees hit for 30?
Whats up with that you obviously never pked before!

Since those wards and shields came out its less than 200 and, I have been slapped for 150+ damage on base al 400 armor more times than I can count so all this (bla bla bla) about mages being way better than melees...

Thats all in the person behind the keys plz. :D

I took the liberty of changing your post to English, so people can understand how fully futile your argument is:

1. Refer to the top then refer to the bottom, great way to contradict yourself.

2. No one wears wards on Darktide anymore, unless they feel like getting destroyed by a melee, and next time you get hit for 150, bane...or stop wearing V masks.

3. My bad, mages don't hit for 200, they hit for 180, and crit...(20% of the time?) for 260.

4. Sadly mages get a damage bonus for a higher war skill, thus we only get hit for 160 by the level 7 shooting lvl 45-60. Then of course...it could be the fact they don't have weeping.

5. Mages have more ways to heal than any character, their methods of healing can damage the other player, and aren't affected by health ratio...not to mention, they have the most health.

6. Mages complain that they have more skills points to assign: techinically, yes...but...figuratively, no mages don't have to spec war no more than a melee has to spec healing or melee defense (20 points... tied for second-highest cost in the game)
...I play a non-speced war mage and he does great...I seem to remember something called...what was it, "og?"

7. Mages have more core PK skills than any character: Life magic to vuln, Magic Defense to resist, Missile Defense, due to them only needing a core magic set, nothing else.

8. Mages never have to change weapons while fighting, and although this is only a gripe for spear and missile characters ...some animations take way too long.

9. Mages have exploits: spamcast, jumpcast, wand exploits, and more casting exploits

10. Mages have no need for any attribute other than the 3 they max.

Strength (10)- Ooooo, Orbs are heavy.

Endurance (100)- Drain resistance, stamina, health, and regen...yay, count me in!

Coordination (10)- Hah!

Quickness (10)- Why raise quickness with run exploits, and a 400 run cap.

Focus (100)- Of course!

Self (100)- Of course!

Everyone else is faced with a dilemma excepting the poor abused mage, and people wonder who the real carebears are.

[lazy-dt]

hi azul

[Auron IX]

Just because i have no problem with the way the game is i cheat ? I am just saying play the game its a great fair game if you know how to pvp, but you probably dont have the skill yet to compete. And great post azul

[AzulDrakkon]

Originally posted by lazy-dt
hi azul

Hello lazy, ex-vassal extraordinare :D

[Virindi Clown]

And Chubasco, you seem to lack the ability to see that the "exploits" obviously do not affect much in the game.

If someone fast casts a spell at me, and I don't do it back, will it change ANYTHING? No. It doesn't do jack. When I play my mage it usually doesn't even occur to me to do those things, because I played mages before that stuff existed. It's just junk you can do to mess with your timing, and you can do that anyways if you just pay close attention. You can't be mashing the "cheat code" buttons and looking for all the opportunities at the same time, so it comes out just the same.

When people say spell words, you should know that sometime soon, a war is probably going to come at you. That should be enough for you there if you have any clue what you are doing.

Stuff like the REAL fast cast and god mode truly did affect the game. They were dealt with, and what we have now are the results of those fixes.

If the only way to fix the current "exploits" is to allow their true forms, then why in the world is anyone still asking for this? Gee, too bad you can't go to school to learn common sense, some of you seem to be in desperate need.

[Chubasco]

And Chubasco, you seem to lack the ability to see that the "exploits" obviously do not affect much in the game.

Virindi Clown, you've already admitted that you believe Turbine has taken these exploits into account while "balancing" the game. Unless you think that the issue of balance is of little relevance, then I have a very hard time understanding how you could begin to believe that this 'does not affect much in game.'

If Turbine has taken these exploits into account when "balancing" the game then the implication is that they EXPECT them to be used in order for the class to be competitive versus other classes.

Also, if you truely believe that they do "not affect much in game" then why are you so vehemently opposed to legitimately incorporating them into the game with hot-keys? Every other spell, attack, and control in the game uses hot-keys / icons. Why should these be different?

[Talix]

OK, I don't know about any of you melees and archers (of which, yes, I do have a few over lvl 70) knowticed, but mages deal big damage ONCE, melees deal small damage numerous times. How many of you are Xbow chars? Or axes? They deal huge amounts of damage each hit but they are slow. The difference is you can dodge the GREAT BIG COLORFUL BALL OF PURE ENERGY coming to slap you in the face for being slow. Maybe it's just me, but I think that the game is perfect the way it is.

If mages had an advantage, stop crying about it and become a mage. We DO have that capability. You know, skill sell-back and spec? If you think melees have an advantage, become melee. Honestly, if this "advantage" that you carebear crybabies complain about is so signifigant, then why not just quit Darktide or stop PKL/PK fights? If you want something that just stands there, does not fast cast or delay, GO FIGHT SOME VIRINDI!

Really, go make a mage, a melee and an archer. Try them all. Pick your favorite. Maybe I'm crazy. But, I think that anyone who has been playing AC for more thna 3 years will agree with me as well as a large quantity of newer "players". If you agree with me, please say so.

This has been a rant by your friendly neighbor, Talix :D

[Lutieus]

It's been said that the game is balanced when every class gets complained about equally, instead of one class more than the others. :rolleyes:

From what I've seen, regular fast-cast doesn't do a whole lot anymore. You skip the last bit of animation, but instead of lifting your wand up or whatever, you hop forward and stall for a second. The main effect fast-cast has is to make it slightly trickier to dodge spells. But if the person dodging knows what they're doing, it's really not that different. The ability to fire a streak at the same time as a bolt/arc is kind of icky, though.

[Jess The Great]

i agree lutious

[Archenon Haleif]

I've been playing a melee since I first logged on in AC, and yes on Darktide. So I absolutely have nothing to lose if they take away fast-casting and delay-casting and so on... or actually I have. It would be soooooo boring to fight mages who were transformed to unmovable turrets. Two things:

Where's the action? Mage is just sitting there and I'm running circle -> not funny at all.

Only realistic chance mage would have to kill me would be lag. If melee knows what he does he DOESN'T get hit by any spell cast by non-skill(non-exploit?) mage... and yes, you can hit fullpowers while evading every arc or bolt "turretmage" casts. Against most of these so called exploiters you can easily use one tick lower power. So, take the exploits away and mages are kinda free kills.

...and no, I wouldn't like to see these "exploits" added in game as binded keys. I think mages should learn them just as melees have to learn correct movement to evade wars.

I think real PvP problems currently are:

1. LAG! It has been kinda high for long preventing evasion and making melees get hits from wars they simply would have evaded without it. This is advantage for mage since as long as lag isn't really huge only effect is that melee either can't move properly or gets stuck and charges back for fun and receives free 90-180 points of damage (which is pretty much damage I get with Aegis, all wards and speced magic D). Weird thing my computer has also been doing is reloading inventory everytime I do anything... that offcourse is a real game-killer. It only happens sometimes and I have no idea where it comes. Hopefully total reinstallation I just did fixed it.

2. Damage. When mage doesn't have too good armor amounts of damage dealt in melee vs mage are good. But when mage has good armor and wards... I crit like 90 damage with weeping fullpower (Maxed out strength with major and 400+ sword base).
I can't really imagine mage who has any ability to keep himself properly recharged dying in that kind of damage due their extreme healing. I think problem works on other ways when melee is all-maxed out but... oh well, everyone just isn't.
Althought weeping already does unreasonably high damages against lower armor levels so rising damage wouldn't really help.

3. Blood Loather, Life Inept, Magic D inept, Weakness. Like too low damage wouldn't have been problem already in some cases giving possibility to BL weeping was a REAL fumble. When you add weakness to that melee can't do anything. Life Inept and he can't vuln anymore, Magic D inept him and resisting wars and getting reasonably low damage hits is just a dream.

4. Archers. Their damage is too high against melees and too low against mages (or is it good enough? I never participate mage vs archer, so I don't really know) But that's the way it is as long as bow damage isn't affected by shield at all. They need more damage to compete fight against mages (who can evade their shots while giving wars back) than against melees (who usually have problems hitting high melee D archers and cannot dodge their arrows while attacking).
Also there's this lovely skill called missile D. Wanna make archer nearly useless in most cases? There you go.

5. Melees are huge advantage to their side in mass PvP. Well, I have no idea how or why this should be fixed but it is kinda hard to tweak them up in one on one without making them absolute kings of field in mass pvp. Get one melee on you at fight and you pretty much need to concentrate on him since your health is going away rapidly no matter what you do. Get two melees and you and you don't have really much to do in case some other people go after you sametime. If you get five mages and/or archers on you same wont be true. You just need to keep evading them while your friend scalp their heads.
Mages and archers are also nearly useless in chases and when there are high run melees chasing in groups getting away is easy only with high run melees and archers. In one on one same isn't true. Melee gets sure kill only if opponent is much slower than him and still stays nearby long enough to get vulned, imped and attacked by melee. If melee needs to do vuln+imp+switch stuff rumba while opponent is running away only lowbies will be caught (and those who try to outrun high run melee instead of recalling).

Hmm... well I think that's about it. Fighting on melee against mage is funniest thing there is in AC but with inepts/BL and my current lag problems it's kinda hopeless except against some non-skill (EXPLOIT!) mages. Well, killing them wont give very much satisfaction. But making all mages to sit like them or giving hardlearned mage (EXPLOIT!) casting to them would just make it dead boring.

G'nite... Hopefully my tiredness didn't make my text incomprehensible or otherwise insane.

[Virindi Clown]

Well Chubasco, you CAN'T make them have hotkeys. That doesn't even make sense. How in the world could that work?

Just tapping up or whatever is close enough to a hotkey, so what's the difference?

I said they would balance for them because they know they exist and cannot change them.

However, they don't do jack so it doesn't change anything. They probably haven't changed anything because of it. They just have to keep it in mind, because it's there.

They won't add something if they can see that somehow a casting break is going to make it unfair. That's how it is balanced in.

Bottom line:

It CAN'T be fixed, and it is the result of a fix for otherwise unfixable EXTREMELY HORRIBLE problems SO STOP ASKING FOR IT.

[Chubasco]

Virindi Clown,

It seems like we need to clarify a few things.

Well Chubasco, you CAN'T make them have hotkeys. That doesn't even make sense. How in the world could that work?

Just tapping up or whatever is close enough to a hotkey, so what's the difference?

- Turbine can do just about anything that they want to, and most certainly can assign any number of actions to one key or icon. Without going into detail, this is basically called a macro. For instance, when a melee attacks a target by pressing the delete key (or whatever key they've mapped it to) or by pressing the high/mid/low icons they typically execute various actions. This may include the melee automatically turning to face in the direction of the target, then running in the direction of the target, then stopping running once in attack range of the target, and finally attacking the target....all with the press of one key. In this case, the key combinations required to perform each of these unfixable bug exploits could be mappable to one key just like every other attack and spell currently in the game (i.e. via icons).

- These spell icons would be placed on the spellbar similar to the numerous various spells that currently exist and which are assignable to keys 1 thru 9 as the first 9 spells of each bar. Of course you would have to find and learn each of the scrolls for each of the fast and delay war spell types (bludg, fire, cold, etc.).

I said they would balance for them because they know they exist and cannot change them.
- Actually, what you said was "Obviously they balance around them, but they don't exactly make much difference."

- I believe that they "balanced" the NON-MAGE classes with these casting exploits in mind (i.e. requiring mages to use them versus other now or future more-powerful classes) and that they do make quite a difference.

However, they don't do jack so it doesn't change anything. They probably haven't changed anything because of it. They just have to keep it in mind, because it's there.
- Again, this confuses me because you seemed to think that the game does benefit from them by making the game more fun. You said "I could care less if they're "exploits" or not. I don't even PK on a mage and I'd prefer they be there. Makes it a heck of a lot more entertaining than the idea of some posts stuck in the ground lobbing stuff until one of them dies."

- Hubbell and you definitely agree on the point above. I assumed that you both also agreed when Hubbell stated "...Even with fastcasting/delaycasting melees/archers with skill get hit very infrequently, even though they don't know exactly when the war will come out. If they knew EXACTLY when it would come out it would be next to impossible to be hit if you were trying to dodge, unless you lagged. And that would be what Mage pk would become, a see who lags first fight."

- I actually agree, for the most part, with both of the above posts but feel that casting-animation-breaks and movement are two seperate issues. The movement restriction on casting is already officially implemented and is tuneable. The casting-animation-breaks are not officially implemented and work in a way that is different than all other controls in the game.

They won't add something if they can see that somehow a casting break is going to make it unfair. That's how it is balanced in.
- I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

Bottom line:

It CAN'T be fixed, and it is the result of a fix for otherwise unfixable EXTREMELY HORRIBLE problems SO STOP ASKING FOR IT.
- I'm not asking that they be fixed. I asked that they be "officially" embraced and incorporated into the game. I assumed this stance would be obvious in my post to "Add Hot Keys for UNFIXABLE exploits" (http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=836)

- Also, you suggested that they dress these up with some nice animations which seems to contradict your concern about making them more predictable.

- Bottom line: I'd prefer that they be incorporated into the game and supported by the developer in a manner that's in-line with the controls of the game that have been in place since it's creation.

[Binky]

Azul your facts are VERY twisted.

No one uses wards on DT anymore? The fact that you said that leads me to believe you don't truly play DT. Then why are items with high al and major wards the most sought after on all tradeboards, save for major str/cord/resist items.

Melees can wear wards and an aegis shield, and get hit for around 100 on a normal shot and 150 - 200 (TOPS) on a crit from a mage. (even if you started 10 end, its not hard to go above 300+ health with a hematite bracelet and the knorr helm/+30 health necklace so thats 2-3 wars a WELL PREPARED melee should be able to tank)

My tinked suit buffs to 660 on the LOWEST piece of armor (that means it had 240 starting al, which is pretty darn good), and I get shot by swordsman/ua's for 100+ on a regular basis. This is with everybane on every piece of armor AND my rainment fully baned also. You also seem to forget, that ALOT of the pvp on DT is GROUP fighting.

In a group fight a mage has to almost stand completely still to cast, if we DID choose to wear uber armor (without wards) to avoid those crazy melee shots (which doesnt happen anyways even in uber armor) we also have a bunch of wars flying our way and we dont have the luxury of an Aegis shield/wards to reduce damage, hence this is offset by our higher resist/health. A melee complaining that a mage has higher resist is like a mage complaining that a melee has higher melee D and evades other melees.

You ALSO contradicted yourself with your assessment of how a mage needs to raise his attributes. Ok so orbs arent heavy, how about ARMOR, and with the DI changes that means we need to also carry ARMOR DI's such as helms/gloves. Also take into effect if we are "maximizing" our ways to heal we are also carrying Health elixers (which are heavy as all hell) AND we prolly carry 2k + more tapers than the average melee. Then you go on to say mages can have missile d, yet we don't have to put xp into cord/quickness? You DO have to get MissleD to a certain point to avoid "machine gun archers" and that DOES indeed mean putting xp into cord/quickness.

Ok so a melee hits for 30-50 a shot on quick power (the 30-50 a shot by archers is drastically underestimated, they hit for 50-80 for a more realistic number and they can ALSO, just like a mage, critt in the 200's thru uber armor). That melee can also pop the mage 3-4 times in the time it takes that mage to toss out hit war/streak or war/war combo. A good melee could easily avoid that second war, heal up, and charge back in for 2-4 more shots before the next war comes at him. Repeat this over and over again and eventually the melee WILL critt two/three times in a row and eventually drop the mage. The problem today is people want the old style melee, where you could run into AB, no one was buffed, and one hit kill 20 people before they even targetted you to counter your raid. Today melees AND Mages have to actually work for their kills and people are complaining?

So in conclusion, yes mages do need fast casting etc etc etc. (I do agree NO ONE should be able to just jump do a 360 and break a melee off him with 200+ more run than him). It does make the game more exciting, and playing a mage alot more "strategic" than just running around and casting vulns then warring until you get a LUCKY hit.

[Virindi Clown]

OMFG CHUBASCO. Why does everything I say have to be a contradiction to everything else I say?

How in the world does making them a functioning part of the game instead of an animation break make them predictable? For example, if you pressed up when you fast casted, and actually moved forward and fired your spell off right then instead of doing some weird glitch thing and making your war animation cut off, how would that be predictable? It's exactly the same thing, it just works IN THE GAME that you see.

They would still be there so wtf does that change?!?

AND THEY CAN'T BE HOTKEYED!!!!!!!!!! Explain what in the world you mean by that. You press a button and your war comes out faster? You press another one and it comes out slower? How in the world would that work or make any sense? The way they work is always altered by different things the player does. Every "fast cast" is not the same. Every delay cast is not the same. It always works differently depending on what someone wants to do with it.

They can do whatever they want to with stuff in the game? If they can do things like that, then why can't they fix things like that? Obviously if they can't fix it, they can't do much with it, so they'd have one heck of a time making them magical hotkey things that don't make sense.

[Chubasco]

OMFG VIRINDI CLOWN!@@#$Q391m11:P!1!1

Here we go again, however you're obviously so bent on simply disagreeing and trying to convince everyone that it is impossible to do anything with the situation other than what you believe, that no matter how clear I make it for you it won't matter. But it's a bit slow today, so let's keep going............

Why does everything I say have to be a contradiction to everything else I say?
- Because you're obviously so bent on simply disagreeing with my suggestion and trying to convince everyone that it is impossible to do anything with the situation other than what you say?

How in the world does making them a functioning part of the game instead of an animation break make them predictable? For example, if you pressed up when you fast casted, and actually moved forward and fired your spell off right then instead of doing some weird glitch thing and making your war animation cut off, how would that be predictable? It's exactly the same thing, it just works IN THE GAME that you see.
- Again, I'm assuming that you're talking about adding animations to fast and delay casting. Simply put, by their very nature they work by breaking the animation and release timer which causes your character to spew out a war spell regardless of the timer or animation.

- How can you reason that adding any animation to them wouldn't make them predictable? After all, having a delay cast animation would defeat it's own purpose unless the end of the animation is controlled by a button press or release (but again this would be different than any other spell or control currently in the game).

- But I agree with you, if they're going to incorporate them into the game, then they should do it right. Having animations for each of them would make them more in-line with the rest of the spells in game (as would one-button-press controls). I would assume that Hubbell and other "exploit purists" would want them to stay exactly as they are and not have them be at all predictable with any sort of animations applied to them.

They would still be there so wtf does that change?!?
- Well by their very nature bugs and their exploits may cause other problems and unexpected results. Legitimately and purposefully incorporating them eliminates (or at least reduces) the potential for other side effects and makes their affect on game balance addressable.

- Again, it would also bring them in-line with the controls that currently exist in game. And yes they would still exist for those "exploit purisists" who would prefer not to use them, and to avoid the preidictability or penalties that I previously suggested (http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=836&perpage=15&pagenumber=2 at 4:42pm)

AND THEY CAN'T BE HOTKEYED!!!!!!!!!! Explain what in the world you mean by that. You press a button and your war comes out faster? You press another one and it comes out slower? How in the world would that work or make any sense? The way they work is always altered by different things the player does. Every "fast cast" is not the same. Every delay cast is not the same. It always works differently depending on what someone wants to do with it.
- See the link mentioned above and my post above this one.

- Let's pretend that we are not talking about PC development here, and that multi-button presses, timers to within a mili-second, and Turbine's programming abilities do not exist.....OK now it might be impossible to programmatically reproduce fast and delay casting (with fixed timers). Turbine could still add slower and faster war spells with animations and everything else just like every other spell in the game, similar again to what I described in the link above.

They can do whatever they want to with stuff in the game? If they can do things like that, then why can't they fix things like that? Obviously if they can't fix it, they can't do much with it, so they'd have one heck of a time making them magical hotkey things that don't make sense.
- Actually, they could fix them if it made fiscal sense to re-write their animation, client-server, and god only knows how many other engines. They could actually entirely re-write the whole game from scratch using entirely new code / libraries / tools / etc.

- However, fixing them without "throwing the baby out with the bath water" is the dilema that we're talking about here. In reality, they must hack around these bugs if they're to attempt to change or patch them. I feel that my suggestion is the easiest and most fair way to everyone to address this issue.

- Yet again, they don't make sense because.?.?.?.? Because you feel better about them just knowing that the person on at the keyboard on the other side of the internet is actually pressing multiple keys instead of one? Why do you care how they are executed?

- [Edit] So you do believe that they can apply animations to them, but nothing else?

[Virindi Clown]

Let me rephrase what I mean by animation. If you were actually moving different or something when you did a different type of cast, yes, that would be predictable.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a new, real movement to go with it that comes out different than anything else. I mean something that fills the void of anything that occurs when someone breaks the animation.

Basically, if you fast casted, it would be something implemented into the game so that when you perform the EXACT same thing that normally causes it, you would simply cut your charge off and quickly stick out your wand and cast your spell.

No animation exists for what people do when they delay cast or fast cast or whatever, and that is why it is an animation break. The game doesn't have ANYTHING to do, so you don't really see anything.

If the game just knew your char was supposed to stand there and stick out your wand really quick to cast the spell when you fast cast, then it would override the break because something now exists that the game is told to do in that situation.

There cannot be hotkeys, because the original keys have to be used to completely override the break.

However, what COULD be done is that the true forms of the "exploits" are fixed in this manner, and then a new version of them that mimics the actions with hotkeys (but not by breaking the animation and covering it up) could be added.

Ok I just thought of that right there. With that in mind, it's actually even easier to just make up something entirely new that makes the alleged "exploits" obsolete. Then you can forget about the animation breaks, because there will be no point with something intentionally added to the game to work better. It could have hotkeys and everything. If it was built from nothing, anything could be done with it.

[Kane86]

War Magic is 28 skills to Specialize, that is why it does x2 on crits than a sword crit.

[Mage_of_Dereth]

ok this is the bottom line
im a mage obviously and i think im decent at it
first off jump spin:
IF u eleminate jump spin u will see nothing but massive melees getting kills cause no other character can get away from 3 melees. Why should melees have this advantage? I agree melees are pretty much rendered helpless with not much chance of catching up if they are broken unlike archers and mages. But if the person thats running away knows what they are doing mages and archers arent gonna touch them either. I think the stam loss thing was a good solution. U cant do it to many times if you try to recall with low health u will get killed. You cant s2h with no stam and if you do ur in more trouble.

Now more mage based things and Mage vs Melee and Mage vs Archer.
Delay cast if fine in my opinion with wars but when mages start delaying BLs with item magic it becomes ****. I dont bl weapons unless im EXTREMELY desperate which isnt very often lol.

Melee and Mage is just about even i think...
A mage's stats wear away as he fights most mages just cast bolts which are easily avoidable if the melee knows what he is doing. I have 335 health and if im fighting a melee as soon as im crit im just about done. Crit for 150 and im not at full health=in trouble. Melees with maxed str+major and high magic d with aegis melees dont even have to try they can just sit there and tank. Not to mention wards from sharded gsx.

Nerfing fastcast would be a big mistake. Its not hard to learn but it puts yourself at risk. It is much harder to dodge something while your fastcasting than not. Are you willing to compromise? Its a personal choice. Personally I mix up my cast so I become unpredicatable which works for me.

The one thing that desperately needs to be fixed is
A) melee d bonus on weeping bow. I know a sword char with maxed out str, coord, and sword and with 420+ missle d buffed and she still gets owned by archers cause of melee d bonus. The solution i can think of is adding missle d bonuses i suppose.

Thats my input lol. Ya its kinda long to read but those who know me know I know of what i speak... well sometimes maybe... anyway lol



Mage of Dereth
lvl 105 (ya i solo raid and come up white A LOT)
Darktide
Adnan

[Virindi Clown]

Mage said it.

Kane86 didn't.

Everyone gets every magic and mana con, except war. The definition of a mage is pretty much when a char also takes war.

Now everyone else goes and gets their attack skill, healing, melee defense, who knows what. Those skills do not work or are not needed when you are always in magic mode.

You don't look at the cost of the one skill. You look at what the ENTIRE CHARACTER that uses that skill does with everything.

War costs so much not because it should always win everything, but because number wise, it beats everything else out.

Therefore, the balance is that with war magic specialized, you cannot get as many other skills.

It's just so things work differently. What would be the point if every main form of attack cost the same amount of credits and everyone used the same set of basic skills past that?

[Phat-DT]

First of all, most melees on DT still use GSC. gsc wards + aegis = dead melee. some mages use wards still. take wish-bone for example. mage with a 9 piece suit of armor al 300+, full wards, with last 2 pieces other majors. he has 409 hps. it is very very very very hard to kill him as a mage in 1v1. he isnt even a great pvper.

Mage vs sword is very close 1v1.

Group fights melees still dominate. I dont see what people are complaining about mages for still. its not like the cheat casts really work anymore. all you can do is throw timing off, it doesent speed them up anymore.

[Virindi Clown]

People complain about mages because for the entire existance of AC, they have always dominated everything, hands down.

For a while, comp bows and AR bows made archers do enough damage to show a mage up since they could also move around while keeping their distance and have enough attribute points and skill credits for the magics to debuff.

Melees always had dinky hollows for sooooooooooooooooo long.

Now melees get a powerful weapon, aegis, and wards (which we all know are really to protect against war).

Melees jumped up like two steps and archers stayed where they were. Mages are still the top power wise, but a group of melees is obviously the best way to make sure someone dies.

With that in mind, people led themselves to believe melees are too powerful because their position has recently changed.

[Mage_of_Dereth]

I just dont think it should be the goal to have a player have absoluetly no chance what-so-ever thats what is great about pvp system u always have a chance somewhat wether its getting away or killing ppl

[Phat-DT]

LOL @ Chabusko(misspelled?)

Hotkeying fastcasting? LMAO. there are decal plugins that basically do this. guess what...THEY SUCK. why do they suck? because a program that monitored where every person on the radar is, and dodged accordingly, while fast casting would take FAR to much computing power to run. You speak of fastcasting like theres 1 way to do it...there isnt. theres the basics, but you have to constantly modify little turns here and there while dodging if you want to actually be able to dodge and cast at the same time. if you had a program that fastcasted straight up, i could kill it w/o fastcasting..why? because i could probably get my 2nd war off before you stopped the cast and s2h. and since you werent dodging both wars would be gaurnteed to hit.

[Ivanhoe]

i dont think sword vs mage is "Very close"
Unless having a 10% chance to be able to come close to killing a mage is considered "very close" and add in the BL's which mean 0% chance.


And please stop saying "melee vs mage" when its Sword vs mage
All other melee's have no chance vs a mage.

[Phat-DT]

If it wouldnt take months i would convert my mage to sword right now. and yeah when i say melee i mean whatever the best melee template at the time is. melee with 370 hps(mid range for a high melee) + full wards, and aegis, and with good resist will get hit for 100 a pop. with the ability to tank 3 wars before pulling back and healing, he can VERY VERY easily wear off any mages mana. Critical hits as a mage are what will kill someone like that, but a sword char will crit knorr helm(very popular) for up to 219(highest ive seen on full bufefd knorr helm). I know mages are better 1v1 in general than melees, but not by half as far as they used to be, and in group fights melees are godlike.

[Paraduck]

Originally posted by Phat-DT
If it wouldnt take months i would convert my mage to sword right now. and yeah when i say melee i mean whatever the best melee template at the time is. melee with 370 hps(mid range for a high melee) + full wards, and aegis, and with good resist will get hit for 100 a pop. with the ability to tank 3 wars before pulling back and healing, he can VERY VERY easily wear off any mages mana. Critical hits as a mage are what will kill someone like that, but a sword char will crit knorr helm(very popular) for up to 219(highest ive seen on full bufefd knorr helm). I know mages are better 1v1 in general than melees, but not by half as far as they used to be, and in group fights melees are godlike. 219? Fully buffed helm? What about prots? I have never hit for that much on a Knorr helm. Try ~170. This is with maxed and Major Str.

As for getting hit for 100 -- yes, if you're lucky to catch the low-end of the mage's damage. Most of the time, it's 140+.

[Ivanhoe]

exactly im specd magic d on my lvl 160ish sword char 100 focus 60 self 1 point from maxed out magic d.

With ageis and ward i get hit all thetime for 140++
100? ive never seen it happen. i suppose it could happen 10% of the time vs a maxed out template like mine or vs a lvl 50 mage.


A mage in crappy armor then the 90% win percentage for a mage changes to about a 60% chance. all depends on the 10% crits from the sword guy.


As for 370 hp??
im lvl 160+ and i only have 315 hp. If you consider having to be lvl 180 with maxed out all stats across the board to even start to have a decent chance (anything higher then 10%) vs a mage then thats not exactly what i call balance.


The low lvls (60-126) fighting should be balanced as well.
And it is 100% in the mages favor
.There is no arguement that anyone can make to state otherwise.



ALL fighting that is being talked about above is with 140++++ melees/SWORDS guys VS a lvl 126+ mage. And yes the mage still has 90% chance to "win" the fight.

Unlike his 100% chance vs melees under lvl 140.

Only AFTER a melee (who has made his template a mage fighter with spec magic d/high magics/u cant vuln u cant touch a mage)
And reaches super high levels THEN he will start to have the 10% chance i talk about vs mages.


There is nothing anyone can say to show otherwise.
When i talk about melee fighting i am talking about lvl 160+ sword guys.

[coma_black]

pvp balance today is much like it was on shadowclaim test server.

non exsistant.

everyone wants freedom with thier chars which is why there is no balance and never will be, no matter what turbine does.

this is supposed to be an MMRPG...BS
i won't even get into my thoughts on this since only about 5% would even know what i mean.

and hubbell before you go flaming think before you spew out something that you obviously know nothing about.

[CouchAttack]

im willing to bet Hubbell knows more about pk than you ever will, any of you o.Os.

[Phat-DT]

Coco Chanel just killed 3 mages in 1v1...0 problem. he wasnt even trying to dodge, just tank 3 wars, step back 3 elixers, heal(full health now) and repeat. as soon as the mage was out of mana he was dead.

[Hubbell]

I played AC since jan 02. I played MT for TWO WEEKS after getting AC and wanted to quit cause it effing blew. I moved to DT with my RL friend who had been playing for a month longer than me, and we stayed there for 2+ years. I quit DT 4 months ago cause it got to be utter BS ganging 24/7 nothing else. My highest in AC is 109 war resist on DT. SC = 106 bm with 405 buffed war and 330 health with my majors on. I pkl atleast 3 hours a day at AB LS against anyone who will fight me. I know what I am talking about.

[Ivanhoe]

"Coco Chanel just killed 3 mages in 1v1...0 problem. he wasnt even trying to dodge, just tank 3 wars, step back 3 elixers, heal(full health now) and repeat. as soon as the mage was out of mana he was dead."


Try fighting mages who have a clue about pvp.
a mage who runs out of mana in a 1v1 is a complete noob.

and might want to get more input about pvp to. The game shouldnt be balanced off of a noob who doesnt bane or a mage who doesnt use stam to mana.

U have 3 classes and each class should be able to kill 1 other class.
This is perfect balance imo. And this is not what ac is.

its mage killls melees and archers
melees kill archers

Archers cant kill a mage. And has no chance vs a melee who spends only 6 credits on missle d.

Mages easily kills 2 classes while the other 2 classes only kill 1 class each with archers only having a chance against non missle characters.

Its so obvious that something needs to be done and im really wondering what this "vision" of pvp the devs have. Because as it is now with loather in game. pvp is complete **** and Yes it all comes down to ganks due to jump spin and 1v1's r so lopsided towards mages no none mages wants to 1v1 a mage.




I would have no problem with melees vs a mage IF
archers had a 90% chance to kill a mage.

You simply make a melee to kill archers
a mage to kill melees
and a archer to kill mages.

Instead archers have 0% and melees have 10% vs mages

nah i dont think there is even a hint of balance right now.

[Lutieus]

I played AC since jan 02. I played MT for TWO WEEKS after getting AC and wanted to quit cause it effing blew. I moved to DT with my RL friend who had been playing for a month longer than me, and we stayed there for 2+ years. I quit DT 4 months ago cause it got to be utter BS ganging 24/7 nothing else.

Whoa, it's May already?

[Hubbell]

Lol, ok dude, pick apart what I said instead of replying to the thread. Its easier to say 2 years than 1 year and 9 months or some bs like that

[Virindi Clown]

Although I don't agree with a straight circular balance, it would work.

If one killed mages, people would play it. Then, people would play the char that could kill mages. It would balance out.

However, there should ALWAYS be the chance that you can win against anyone. One should just have an ADVANTAGE over another.

And honestly, if a mage is powerful enough to be matched against a completely maxed out melee, then they will NEVER run out of mana if they know anything.

My mage had 320 buffed mana con when I speced it at level 70. A level 126 mage with it trained can have WAY higher than that and it will be like no xp whatsoever to them. I very rarely run out in a fight now, and I sure as heck don't get killed just because I had to cast stamina to mana.

I've seen people capable of firing FIFTY war spells without stamina to mana.

[Phat-DT]

Originally posted by Ivanhoe
"Coco Chanel just killed 3 mages in 1v1...0 problem. he wasnt even trying to dodge, just tank 3 wars, step back 3 elixers, heal(full health now) and repeat. as soon as the mage was out of mana he was dead."


Try fighting mages who have a clue about pvp.
a mage who runs out of mana in a 1v1 is a complete noob.

and might want to get more input about pvp to. The game shouldnt be balanced off of a noob who doesnt bane or a mage who doesnt use stam to mana.

U have 3 classes and each class should be able to kill 1 other class.
This is perfect balance imo. And this is not what ac is.

its mage killls melees and archers
melees kill archers

Archers cant kill a mage. And has no chance vs a melee who spends only 6 credits on missle d.

Mages easily kills 2 classes while the other 2 classes only kill 1 class each with archers only having a chance against non missle characters.

Its so obvious that something needs to be done and im really wondering what this "vision" of pvp the devs have. Because as it is now with loather in game. pvp is complete **** and Yes it all comes down to ganks due to jump spin and 1v1's r so lopsided towards mages no none mages wants to 1v1 a mage.




I would have no problem with melees vs a mage IF
archers had a 90% chance to kill a mage.

You simply make a melee to kill archers
a mage to kill melees
and a archer to kill mages.

Instead archers have 0% and melees have 10% vs mages

nah i dont think there is even a hint of balance right now.

HELLO they were fair pvpers, ive seen them win more than there share of 1v1. THEY RUN OUT OF MANA BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO SPEND EVERY SPARE SECOND HEALING. 1/4 of there wars were resisted, the rest did arround 100 dmg a hit.

Circular balance is lame.

Archers own melees. yeah thats right an archer with a decent template OWNS MELEES.

I have lots of melees who are willing to 1v1 me. maybe 1/4 of them win.

Loather is kinda lame but very easy to fight against. just get a 2nd weeping. in 1v1 Loather is really really lame tho.

archers are under rated. there almost as good as sword in group fights. atleast tank archers with melee D are.

[Ivanhoe]

"However, there should ALWAYS be the chance that you can win against anyone. One should just have an ADVANTAGE over another."

Ya of course.

Lets give this 10% that a melee has to all classes.

so all classes would have a chance to kill all others
but vs that 1 other class you would have a nice advantage .


So while on paper

mage > melee
melee > archer
archer > mages

But a archer could still have a chance (say 10% ) to kill a melee
a melee would have its current 10% chance ot kill that mage
and mage would have 10% chance to kill archer

That is the balance that Me,myself and I am looking for in mmorpg
There was very nice balance when i played uo(97-99) and i havent seen or played a balanced mmorpg since then.

AC seems to be going in circles with no clear path.

[Ivanhoe]

phat,
once you have a taste of high lvl pvp come back and give input please.

Me along with a ton of people i play daily with (close to 20) all say very similar things about whats right and wrong with pvp.

If circle balance is lame to you thats fine.
I dont care.

I do care what the "vision" of pvp that Turbine has. Which we have ZERO clue about.

Dont worry i know nothing i want to happen will happen in the game but that is where I am coming from when i mention and talk about a balnce for pvp in this game.

When you have played all char types to high ass levels 24/7 pvp on dt you have a lot more insight from all angles then someone who hasnt. Its just a fact.


If you have an idea for your kind of balance thats great. share it with us.

[Virindi Clown]

Why base it on percent chances at all when it could be based on skill and HAVE to work out balanced?

And wtf are we even talking about? We're all going on and on (even me) about killing THREE people with a character. THREE FREAKING PEOPLE WHOOPDEEDOO!!!

Look at the average of melees against mages all over DT. Not one guy in 3 cases when there are always like 800+ people to run into.

Oh yeah, and the mages that complain melees are too good, well, go play a melee. They don't dominate everyone outright all the time, they just kill people outright in ganks so they look all powerful.

You think you just kill mages like that when you run into one in a town? Yeah right.

It's not fun to gank people, anyways, so I could care less. I play a melee because I happened to level one a long time ago higher than my other characters, not because he's a gank machine now. I don't gank. People can play how they want, but that doesn't change the fact that it involves no skill to sit at a drop and mash delete alone until your target dies. I think EVERYONE would agree it was more fun to go out and play instead of ganking if they would just all do it, but that obviously won't happen.

[Phat-DT]

CIRCULAR BALANCE IS B O R I N G. all it does is make solo pvp non existant and makes it so nobody will run arround w/o a group of 3 people, 1 of each class. Fights these days are 100x more balanced than they were 3 yrs ago, but what was funner. nothing compares to ab wars, or blood v gen in kara, or blood v tg on ae. those fights were better for 2 reasons 1 purely the fighting, and the other a little more expansive.

The fighting was far more exciting because of runcast.

The wars were funner because we had something better to fight over than XP which is meaningless these days.

[Phat-DT]

<Skully{GB}> not even a fair chance
<Skully{GB}> swords doing 150 a hit
<Skully{GB}> with full banes and major ward
<paraGOD> skully got an extra set of gsa could use till i get a set of my own?
<Skully{GB}> and they run around
<Skully{GB}> (censored)

[Ivanhoe]

ya it shouldnt be based off % that is just a guide.

Sure if you have more skill and are smarter about pvp youll be able to have a higher chance to kill people as it should be.


Compare it to todays Sword vs mage pvp. Where the Melee's Crit % is the only % that matters in the fight

If he can crit 2 in a row he has a nice chance to kill that mage (not with jump sploits though)

But for the most part i think the numbers are you only crit 10% of the time? no matter your skil lin sword. So on paper that means you got a 10% chance to win vs a mage.

actually even less because you really need 2 crits in a row or VERY close togther to get that mage into defensive mode to be able to kill him.


Then armor comes into it and equipment etc that can help both sides. Wards,aegies,tinkered up **** etc etc all should play a SMALL part in the fight. etc etc.

The have majors +wards vs the have nots swings the fight slightly to the other side. etc


We all know nothing we say here makes a difference. But the best dev team is the one who Plays the game and listens to player discussions/feedback.

I do not think turbine does this. Thats just my opinion.

[Ivanhoe]

circle balance is boring?

huh?

Thats called balance.


Mages r runnign around right now vs 10% chance melees.

That means mages really do have 90% to win every fight vs a melee


And you like this as a mage dont you?


Why not give the 2 other classes the same type of fighting vs a class?


melee 90% vs archer
archer 10% vs melee


Archer 90% vs mages
mages 10% vs archer?



Nothing boring about that

[Virindi Clown]

I'm not so sure fights really were unbalanced back in the day. Remember how many people used gear and client hacks?

Spin jump didn't exist, there were no people carrying hundreds of elixirs to god mode, and a hollow could hurt someone. People who were good at melees back in the day really could own a mage. Drains were nasty, but you could atleast get out of range if people just casted a million of them, so most people didn't actually do that to kill someone off, and they didn't heal very much, anyways. There were no arcs or streaks, so that all worked out fine.

Until buffing programs came along, the people who got smart and made melees and archers that were good at magic could really own mages.

[Ivanhoe]

banes really killed pvp.
the pvp back in the day consisted mostly of the ones who werrnt baned

Or if they were baned only with 4-5s :)

I think lvl 7 banes hurt even more.

I mean at least lvl 7 imps/vulnd had lvl 7 armor and pros to offset them

But there is nothing to offset banes other then a NON baned person.

Meaning it all comes down to the weapons the dev gives the non mages to break through banes.

sucks.


Ive played dt since nov 99 and it did seem to be balanced WAY back then when no one baned and hardly anyone exploited (yea yea jumpheals etc etc and soon to become rampant godmode)
but as more and more **** has been added to the game i think its getting farther and farther away. there were a few months here and there where it looked like some kind of balance was here.

Kind of like most recently with weepings.
added them then effectily killed 1vs1's with loather the next month?

bleh

[Virindi Clown]

We could technically still be using all the old stuff that worked, but the problem was that we got more health so we needed stuff to do the damage capable of killing someone.

Our problems arose from the ARMOR also getting better along with our health in like 9 thousand ways. Banes+better armor+tinkering.

That left a very wide gap in the middle of good baned armor against unbaned people.

The only time people baned was when there was a huge raid on something like a guild ls and the attackers were all using the same element.

Seeing as we aren't getting anything to make buffs just go faster, banes need to return to their original usage, but it doesn't look like that will happen because they would just have to be made weaker and monsters and people would all have to do less damage.

An ideal way to make banes work now would be for them to have a very low effect, like 50% at max, not something that just multiplies the armor level. The 2.0 mod cap should then be lifted so that the bane cantrips would have as much of a use as the wards.

That puts a purpose into using banes solely for extra special preparation and places value on cantrips we throw out and get pissed off about finding. Of course, that would probably be a pain in the butt to lower all the damage of everything in the game. There would also be a point to using tinkers other than steel on armor.

But honestly, why should I even be wasting my time going into this stuff. Just make buffs stop winding up! Streaks don't do it, wtf do buffs?!?!?!?!?!?

[Ibn]

This thread is being closed due to personal attacks.