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Old March 2nd, 2004, 01:41 AM
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Arryn Arryn is offline
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Default Re: Annoying death magic

This issue has had numerous debates over the past 2+ months ...

As a piece of friendly advice (to both of you), might I suggest that you do topic searches before creating new threads? It helps to avoid umpteen different threads asking the same questions and getting the same answers.
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Old March 2nd, 2004, 01:43 AM

Kryx Kryx is offline
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Default Re: Annoying death magic

Oh, sorry I do tend to start a lot of threads/answer ones with few answers.
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Old March 2nd, 2004, 02:18 AM

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Default Re: Annoying death magic

I actually think it's useful to find folks start new topics on issues like this with their own words.

Because it lets the devs know that this is something for which there is a perceived need for change. And orders "don't do x" don't seem that difficult to implement to me from a programming perspective.
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Old March 2nd, 2004, 02:43 AM
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Default Re: Annoying death magic

Quote:
Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
I actually think it's useful to find folks start new topics on issues like this with their own words.
They can still use their own words in existing threads. And using existing threads avoids much confusion.
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Old March 2nd, 2004, 03:19 AM

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Default Re: Annoying death magic

The issue of Do / Don't Cast lists comes down to game balance. Mages, backed by just moderate research levels, would be immensely more powerful. The recruitment costs of mages would need to be raised proportionally to their new powers.

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Old March 2nd, 2004, 03:36 AM
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Default Re: Annoying death magic

Quote:
Originally posted by Aikamun:
The issue of Do / Don't Cast lists comes down to game balance. Mages, backed by just moderate research levels, would be immensely more powerful. The recruitment costs of mages would need to be raised proportionally to their new powers.
I strongly disagree with both it being a balance issue and with mages needing to cost more if it's changed.

It's a design flaw/oversight, technically. The devs only have so much time to create stuff, and to fix bugs. When they built the system, they (being a very small team of 2) didn't have the resources (time, etc.) to plan for every contingency and code accordingly. They implemented AI-driven combat spellcasting code that is one notch above basic. The only "frill" is a 5-order queue. Extra niceties like exclude lists, or a UI with enabling checkboxes they simply didn't have time for (assuming they had the idea in the first place). Therefore odd things happen during combat. No one in their right mind would intentionally design code that would spam useless spells. And to say that mages should cost more after this is fixed implies the system works as intended. Hardly. The devs have already stated that spell-spamming is not intended behavior for the combat AI. The current costs of mages assumes the combat AI casts spells rationally, which isn't the present situation.
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Old March 2nd, 2004, 03:47 AM
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Default Re: Annoying death magic

Quote:
Originally posted by customer717:
How bout a shadow bolt or some terror Mr.AI? No? Okay keep spamming raise dead even though I have 400 skeletons already that are stuck against a wall and being destroyed by arrows and priests...sigh.
How far from any enemies are your mages. Terror is range 25, shadow bolt is 30. They won't necessarily even be able to hit any enemies if your mages are at the very back, so they will cast other spells.

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And decay. I HATE decay. Once I have that and a raise spell, forget it, thats ALL they will do. What makes it worse is I never see decay do anything other than make my mages useless. I keep checking the numbers on the guy they are spamming, but his protection and defense stay the same.
Have you made any attempt to figure out what decay does? If it hits the target, and they fail a magic resistance check, then they will die unless they are regenerating. You mages will also cast decay if their fatigue and death skill is high to prevent them from going unconscious.

I think many complaints about spellcasting come from people that haven't put enough effort into figuring out why their mages cast the spells they cast.
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