Annoying death magic

[Arryn]

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.

[Graeme Dice]

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.

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.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
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.

This is likely true. However ...

A mage spamming Body Ethereal 6 times in a row, while within range of other spells, *is* a bug. As is a mage casting Air Shield when it is already protected with Air Blessing 10, or when there are no enemies on the field that are capable of launching missiles.

The problem is legitimate, regardless of the competency of some new (or even old) players.

EDIT: oh, and if a mage is too far for any useful spells, then the AI should simply DO NOTHING (and avoid spell fatigue) rather than cast useless spells.

[ March 02, 2004, 01:56: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[Aikamun]

Ok. Thanks for pointing that out, Arryn. I was not aware Illwinter had stated they were dissatisfied by the spell AI.

Aikamun

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Arryn:
[QB]A mage spamming Body Ethereal 6 times in a row, while within range of other spells, *is* a bug. As is a mage casting Air Shield when it is already protected with Air Blessing 10, or when there are no enemies on the field that are capable of launching missiles.

I have never seen a mage cast Body Ethereal on the same square more than once. Yes they will cast it six times in a row, but that's because it has a range of 1 and an area of effect of 1. 6 casts will protect most units that surround the mage. That's hardly a bug when the spell as a useful effect. It might not be what you consider to be the most useful effect, but I'm quite happy to have starspawn mages etherealize all the Illithid's surrounding them without me having to tell them to.

There are a few bugs with spell targeting, but most of them are not that serious.

EDIT: oh, and if a mage is too far for any useful spells, then the AI should simply DO NOTHING (and avoid spell fatigue) rather than cast useless spells.

You'd have to define exactly what a "useful" spell is in numerical terms then. Raise skeletons/dead is certainly never useless, it's one of the most powerful summoning spells with no gem cost in the game. Decay is certainly not useless if it hits a unit, and it's fairly precise for such a low level spell. A mage should never do nothing with their turn, as they will never regain fatigue unless unconscious, and doing nothing would lead to even more complaints from people who do not understand what is going on.

[Arryn]

There's another, related, problem with "Cast spells" orders. If the AI would refrain from casting spells at all if no *useful* spells were within range (useful being defined as harming the enemy or helping friendlies that have not already been helped by an earlier casting of the spell under consideration), then that's one solution. Another solution, which the devs have deliberately not coded is to have mages get closer to the enemy so they are in range of something. IW said they didn't do this to avoid complaints of mages "rushing into battle" where they might become exposed to melee. Alas, that takes the choice out of player's hands.

They could create two variations:

1. Cast Spells in place.
2. Close and cast spells.

The first order makes sure the mage never moves. The second order permits some freedom of motion to move forward to cast, as needed.

Another useful option would be "Cast spells and retreat", which would have mages flee if an enemy got near them.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I have never seen a mage cast Body Ethereal on the same square more than once.

I have. Only mage on my side, and no troops within even range 25. The mage *could* have cast Incinerate ...

EDIT: the mage could also cast Paralyze and Soul Slay, but didn't.

[ March 02, 2004, 02:20: Message edited by: Arryn ]