Spells, mostly flux...

[MudHunter]

Well, I finally have been doin some playing, and I noticed something thats fairly important. The spells dont reset when you recast them. Like with flux. Say I set mega to recast flux til I get a tick of 15. First cast gets a 9. Everytime I recast it, it stayed 9. I let it wear off, and recast, to a 3. I gave up then. I'm not sure if the spell itself works correctly (seems to) but we need to have spells reset when recast... or flux is completly useless...

[The Crazy Animal]

This is from how we had decided to code recasts... Rather then having an actual recast which would result in giving you a new instance of the spell and ending the old one the current method just resets the timer on the spell. So on a spell like flux if you get a bad tick rate you do have to wait for it  to wear off. Once it has worn off it will re-roll that random variable range and give you a new tick rate. Then once you find a tick rate you do like all you need to do it keep casting it to recharge the timer. Both methods do have a trade off in game stratagy but in this case if you are lucky and land that 12 tick you can keep it around much longer.

So this is not really a bug however if this is something that really bothers people we could look at changing it back to the other method, putting it up for a vote or some such thing...

[Vitoc]

This is from how we had decided to code recasts... Rather then having an actual recast which would result in giving you a new instance of the spell and ending the old one the current method just resets the timer on the spell. So on a spell like flux if you get a bad tick rate you do have to wait for it  to wear off. Once it has worn off it will re-roll that random variable range and give you a new tick rate. Then once you find a tick rate you do like all you need to do it keep casting it to recharge the timer. Both methods do have a trade off in game stratagy but in this case if you are lucky and land that 12 tick you can keep it around much longer.

So this is not really a bug however if this is something that really bothers people we could look at changing it back to the other method, putting it up for a vote or some such thing...

Hmm...

I see your point that it could be seen as a non-bug, but after thinking about it, I think every time you cast a spell by definition you are peforming a new roll.  IMO the new roll should probably replace the old roll in addition to resetting the timer.  At least that's the way I would vote at this point.  Otherwise someone would find the maximum tick and just make sure they kept casting it before it wore off; it would kind of be abusing the system.

[The Crazy Animal]

It really depends on the spell if its abuse-able in either method...

Many spells just give you a static rate of a bonus - In those cases it's a timer issue only
In the few spells that give a random rate of what ever - In these cases it could go either way depending on the spell.

In the spell flux the issue really comes down to:

Old method:
Is it more fair to be-able to instantly undo a bad roll by just recasting the spell? Only your manarng and current mp amount stops you from casting it untill you get a good roll. When it runs out your back into this loop cycle....

Current method:
Is it more of fair to let a player use their mana to extend a good roll? You either lucked out with a good roll but your still going to pay the full amount of the spell to keep the bonus there. Only your manarng and current mp amount can regulate that. When it finally runs out, which you know at some point it will better blow the dice for that luck agin...


I don't really have a true stand point on this to which one is better for all of the content at this point. At some point in the future I know I would like to address the issue of how to deal with overcasting a spell at the ability level anyway - More V2 stuff  ;D. So I'd assume if its better for clone purposes just cut out the current portion of code responsible for this behavior and save it for later use and replace it for now with one that gives a full re-roll on recast. Then when it gets time to get into improving functionality on the content side we have the old code snippet sitting around at least to refer back to.

[Vitoc]

Good counter points.

I'm open to leaving it the way it is.  How does everyone else feel?

[MudHunter]

Leaving it as it is would make mages a bit weaker, really. Tho, I dunno if I woulda thought about waiting for a good cast and just recasting it forever like that.....

[The Crazy Animal]

HEHE thats why I could have been a contender....

[Krusty]

I'd chime in on leaving it as is.  Mana is always at a premium.  Let's see how this rolls...

[Krusty]

actually, really fwd thinking if chsu works the same way - I'm actually against this...

[The Crazy Animal]

Snicker...

[Winterhawk]

Another factor in this debate is that it affects other spells as well ...for example...if a druid casts barkskin which changes ac by 5..then casts stoneskin the ac change stays 5 instead of changing to 10. Granted this is a rare instance but it gave me fits when I changed my bless spell from barkskin to stoneskin the first time..I assumed the spell was broken. I am also going to chime in on the flux issue. Since I can't get to lost city yet due to the bridge being out of service I have not gotten nature tap to see for myself how it works, but if I understand this right this will cripple scripting ability for mages and druids . The spell comes with both a mana cost and an element of risk of a negtative effect not just a poor roll, that seems like payment enough to allow recasts to reset the spell.

[The Crazy Animal]

if a druid casts barkskin which changes ac by 5..then casts stoneskin the ac change stays 5 instead of changing to 10. Granted this is a rare instance but it gave me fits when I changed my bless spell from barkskin to stoneskin the first time..I assumed the spell was broken.

That is a little diffrent, casting two individual spells effecting the same ability should give you a new roll so I'd say that is an actual bug...

This is purely related to recasting the same spell....

I am also going to chime in on the flux issue. Since I can't get to lost city yet due to the bridge being out of service I have not gotten nature tap to see for myself how it works, but if I understand this right this will cripple scripting ability for mages and druids . The spell comes with both a mana cost and an element of risk of a negtative effect not just a poor roll, that seems like payment enough to allow recasts to reset the spell.

Its a good point. Like I was saying it's hard to define the intentions of the origional content creator. Its just hard to say if they intended it to be a risky spell to cast or something someone could cast over and over again. We certainly don't want to cripple a classes scripting ability but we do want to improve on many of the poorer engine design faults. To me this is one of those examples of why it is important to define a recast effect for each spell since they all will have varying effects on gameplay.

[Ian]

if a druid casts barkskin which changes ac by 5..then casts stoneskin the ac change stays 5 instead of changing to 10.

Stoneskin should remove barkskin first.  I'd guess the removespells ability isn't in yet.

[The Crazy Animal]

Stoneskin should remove barkskin first.  I'd guess the removespells ability isn't in yet.

yep missed that the first time...

[ms233]

just out of curiosity...how many people expressing opinions on how flux works actually use flux while playing a mage?

To me, flux is not useful in its current form so my vote would be to revert the behavior or remove the spell completely.

flux was one of the major things that made playing a mage worth while.  Of my 3 chars, my mage is the highest level and by far the weakest.

Mithrax