New Spell System & New Bomboria

[Admins]

The spell system has been redone on Graal Kingdoms - all spells are working now and are more effective. You can cast by mouse and easily target enemies. Watch the Spells Guide for more information.

We have also redone the starting tasks, they are now taking part in New Bomboria, which is bigger now and divided into an east, central and west part. New players can directly get in contact with the existing player base and the starting tasks have been improved to work better and can be mouse driven.

As a special bonus we have also improved the effects for hitting enemies or failing (only hitting their armour).

About balancing: Most spells have been drastically modified so it's normal that some are overpowered. Also there are spells which didn't work at all before. Best is to help us to modify them, give us the names of the spells which are overpowered or still not good enough.

[Zero Hour]

Originally Posted by Stefan

)
About balancing: Most spells have been drastically modified so it's normal that some are overpowered. Also there are spells which didn't work at all before. Best is to help us to modify them, give us the names of the spells which are overpowered or still not good enough.

Just as I had anticipated you would say.

I have to say - the new spell system is very pretty, you did a great job.

[Waltz5]

Nice yes. However:

http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...ad.php?t=64336

[protozero]

Well, I really do like the new graphics of the spells. ( Except Sunspead, I liked the old fireworks ) Almost every spell is overpowerd, Ice storm can kill anyone dead in their tracks, lightning as well. Any spell I've seen seems to have a very large but invisable damaging area. I noticed when someone casted a fire ball wall, it hit a wall way across my screen, but it hurt me and I couldn't see anything on or around me except the fire ball that hit a wall across my screen. Flaming aura, Fire wall, and Fire bolt is over powerd. There's many more thta I've forgoten, or just know of.

[skyler87]

Yeah, this new system is nice, and you will get nothing but good replies from the people who HAVEN'T put thousands of hours and loads of dedication into leveling and trying to become the best. Great GFX's, but...
-You can't move at all, because of the hit gani when magic attacks you
-Magic does way too much damage...Two icestorms will kill me, with 55 magic resist and 35 cold
-Heavy rods are way, way too overpowered now. A good mage is no match for a level 1 magic barbarian who just happens to have 5 heavy rods of icestorm.
-Spells do not stop hitting you. Hell, they hit you even if they miss you. Once someone starts casting, there is no escape; you can't move because of the hit gani, and if you somehow do manage to move, the magic will continue hitting you until you die ;/
I could name a few more, but it's not worth it...I know that something will be done about all this, nerfed or w/e, but my question...Will it be nerfed anywhere near enough?

[lordbosh]

The new update is probably the most promising update we've seen to date. But with such an update will always come plenty of bugs. I agree that alot of the magic is way too strong, but dont nerf it too much, or else we will have the same old problems again.

Maybe with the round based fighting the magic wont be as effective though? I suppose we have to see what Stefan says and does though to find out whats going to happen.

[skyler87]

Originally Posted by lordbosh

The new update is probably the most promising update we've seen to date. But with such an update will always come plenty of bugs. I agree that alot of the magic is way too strong, but dont nerf it too much, or else we will have the same old problems again.

Maybe with the round based fighting the magic wont be as effective though? I suppose we have to see what Stefan says and does though to find out whats going to happen.

I'll agree with that...It truly is a promising update, one of the biggest i've seen in the history of GK, it just needs some uh...serious revision ;x
Guess i'm kinda going on a hot streak, but yeah, I think they're doing a good thing. I just hope that staff will take the opinions of the players into consideration.

[MasterNuke]

Many spells are causing stun lock on players.

[Admins]

Hmmm we have different options to make some overpowered spells less strong:
- don't freeze the player (like melee attacks do) or at least freeze less long
- reduce the number of hits the spells do (how often they attack)
- reduce the hitpoints the spells take
Say what you prefer.

About overpowered spells:
- when testing flaming aura it was not hurting more than before, also it disappears faster, why is it too powerful?
- are all bolt spells overpowered? (lightning, firebolt, manabolt etc)

About wands with charges: Should they take more time to fire the spell?

[Cubes]

[QUOTE=Stefan]
- when testing flaming aura it was not hurting more than before, also it disappears faster, why is it too powerful?
QUOTE]
It doesnt hurt at all anymore.

And just get rid of stunlock and read ed's post in the other thread I think he has a good Idea.

[Cubes]

I just found a Bug where you can cast in the water and thats straight up lame.... All you do is double click and it will cast

[Waltz5]

Originally Posted by Cubes

And just get rid of stunlock and read ed's post in the other thread I think he has a good Idea.

The stun part yes. However also the part where as long as someone locks on you and your in the same level you get hit. I think the spell should actually have to hit you or have a couple pixels around depending on the spell to do damage.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Hmmm we have different options to make some overpowered spells less strong:
- don't freeze the player (like melee attacks do) or at least freeze less long
- reduce the number of hits the spells do (how often they attack)
- reduce the hitpoints the spells take
Say what you prefer.

-freeze less long
- reduce the hitpoints the spells take.

And btw: New Bomboria: there should be a mine for trials!

[Cubes]

Originally Posted by Sam

And btw: New Bomboria: there should be a mine for trials!

Yeah then I don't have to walk to bum**** eygpt to get a peice of iron

[Draenin]

Originally Posted by Sam

-freeze less long
- reduce the hitpoints the spells take.

Yup. That's all that needs to be changed. The multihit thing is nice for spells, because if a player wants to dawdle in the spell area, they deserve to continue taking more damage. However, the hurt gani is making it impossible for a player to escape the spellcloud. The character should only get the hurt gani if they get hit, and if they linger in the spellcloud for more than 5 seconds or so, which is plenty of time to escape.

[Cubes]

just remove the stun lock and make it so it does a LITTLE less damage but they can move to get out off it

[Googi]

Make it so that if you get hit by a spell or by a physique attack you get hit away and flash for a while while you can't be hit as is default on the client. That would prevent stun-locking that's caused by both magic and phys attacks.

[protozero]

Originally Posted by Googi

Make it so that if you get hit by a spell or by a physique attack you get hit away and flash for a while while you can't be hit as is default on the client. That would prevent stun-locking that's caused by both magic and phys attacks.

That's so Megaman like!

[MasterNuke]

Originally Posted by Sam

- reduce the hitpoints the spells take.

No. It may hurt players a lot because of stun lock and many repeated hits, but spells actually deal less damage to monsters now.

The spells need to hit less, but deal more damage. This will allow players to get out of the way when getting hit by it so they're not taking the full effect of it.

[Admins]

So it should freeze less long, or you should only be able to be hit once 2-3 seconds, or it should only freeze once 2-3 seconds (so people at least not walk through spell effects and wonder why they loose hitpoints) ?

[Sam]

Originally Posted by Stefan

So it should freeze less long, or you should only be able to be hit once 2-3 seconds, or it should only freeze once 2-3 seconds (so people at least not walk through spell effects and wonder why they loose hitpoints) ?

If you cast lightning e.g. the beated player freezes. In the meantime the caster casts again and again and the beated player have no chance to escape or defence and dies.
So it must be made so that they have a chance to escape or can defence.

[MasterNuke]

But the freezes are related to the hits. If you decreased the hits that dramatically, the damage dealt would dramatically decrease. To compensate for it, you would have to raise the damage per hit as well as decrease the hit repeat rate.

Or you could spend extra time developing different hit effects... like being by icestorm would do a cold hit effect and instead of stunning, just occasionally freezing them in a block of ice that makes them invulnerable but stuck.

[Skyld]

Originally Posted by Stefan

As a special bonus we have also improved the effects for hitting enemies or failing (only hitting their armour).

[Admins]

Ok I have checked the freezing code, it's not really easy to decrease the freezing / push effect since it's only 0.2 seconds anyway. The problem is more that the spells attack too often. So there are some options:
- Let the spells attack less often, but take more hitpoints
- Let it only freeze/push the player once in while, like in 20% of the hits
- Let it only freeze the player sometimes (10% or so) and introduce new effects:

- being unable to use weapons for some seconds (would be good for lightning which only affects metalic weapons or so)
- slowing you extremely down for some seconds
- setting you on fire (like a fire 'illness' which drains hitpoints and can also be transferred to other players, similar to the fire on Zone)
- freezing you like ice, which stops you for some seconds or until someone casts some fire spell effect on you

[Cubes]

Originally Posted by Stefan

- Let it only freeze the player sometimes (10% or so) and introduce new effects:

- being unable to use weapons for some seconds (would be good for lightning which only affects metalic weapons or so)
- slowing you extremely down for some seconds
- setting you on fire (like a fire 'illness' which drains hitpoints and can also be transferred to other players, similar to the fire on Zone)
- freezing you like ice, which stops you for some seconds or until someone casts some fire spell effect on you

I like this one, But what about 15% because that seems really low

[Draenin]

Originally Posted by Stefan

- being unable to use weapons for some seconds (would be good for lightning which only affects metalic weapons or so)

Paralysis would be better for the lightning effect, and would put the stat to use. (Paralyze) A character could be stunned every 10 seconds or so out of the spellcloud, but not damaged. And if that's too much, electricity could just affect people in the same way that fire would, but they would have to be wearing metal stuff like weapons, armor, etc.

Originally Posted by Stefan

- slowing you extremely down for some seconds

The 'Slow' attribute. Really should've been implemented by now, but hasn't really. I think that dievels have been able to for some time now, but people can't really do it to each other a lot.

Also, it'd be nice to see stuff this:

Confusion: Where a player would hit themselves when attacking or casting a spell with the effect still on. Casting a spell would create a big explosion where the character is standing that would damage them. But that effect would depend on how much resist they have.

Blind: The player's screen gets shrouded in a dark fog coming in from the edges. It would be clientside, rather than serverside. Also, lowered spell and attack accuracy could be another option. It's better than 'drastically lower AC / WC'

Acid: Acid affects the brain, so why not make it affect Mana? XD But seriously... The acid effect could continually drain the Mana of the person affected, unlike the spell magic drain, which drains it only once.

Fear: Weaken the enemy's AC / WC by a small amount.

Turn Undead: Changes the character to undead status, giving them all the horrible natural diseases you can get, such ad spitting out teeth, diarrhea, etc. But nothing like typhoid or anthrax.

Ghosthit: Reverses directional controls, perhaps? Maybe it drains mana? Your guess is as good as mine. We don't really have anything at all that uses ghosthit.

Drain: Continual miniscule drain on HP.

Fire / Ice: The ideas for those are fine. Perhaps fire could burn longer on people wearing wooden stuff, and ice could for organics.

Just some of my thoughts.

[MasterNuke]

That last option sounds really neat :o

[lordbosh]

I vote a yes on the last option

[Admins]

Originally Posted by Draenin

The 'Slow' attribute. Really should've been implemented by now, but hasn't really. I think that dievels have been able to for some time now, but people can't really do it to each other a lot.

The slow spells is working now and slow downs enemies to 50% of the normal speed, it works at least on monsters.

[Admins]

Ok I guess a temporary fix for the freezing problem is not freeze the player with each hit, and then we can add some special side effects for the different attacks with the time.

[Draenin]

Huzzah.

[Cubes]

Also anyone with a rod will own anyone because they cast uber fast and they just hityou over and over with them and it's just lame

[Googi]

What happened to having it work like when you take hits on servers that don't have special bodies/HP systems?

[OasaTor_PK]

Heres what I propose.

If you cast fire, the actual spell does little damage, but it ignites the player on fire for a certain amount of time, causing health degen.

if you cast ice, it slows the player 50% for a couple seconds, and for you who understand "OMG FROSTSHOCK"

lighting - causes "ceizureness" making the player stop for an certain ammount of time, or gets paralized.

Make the spells less powerful, but also give a mage a chance against a melee'r. Its obviously going to happen if the mage cant escape.

Also, flaming aura needs to be restored to being PKable with, its unfair. ALL the other gods get a spell to pk with, but why not balor? All balor is to me now is magic resist, which isnt that good.

[Cubes]

If you have th eknock back im going back to being a fighter because I love classic type sparring. but yeah

[D4rKv310c1ty]

Yeah, I logged on for a bit to try the new effects out.

Is it using the new particle engine?

[Admins]

Yes its using particle effects.

Ok now that freezeing has been modified, are the spells still overpowered?
Is lightning too strong or is it ok?
Do the heavy rods need special animations or so to reduce how often you can cast with them?

[Draenin]

The casting animations for charged wands should really be a little longer than the normal casting animations, since the rods don't drain MP. (Which is sort of debatable, though, since the charges are limited.)

[CidNight1142]

Lightning was too strong before, I don't know yet if you've changed it. But if you have not changed it at all, then yes, it is probably still too powerful. Wow that was confusing, I hope you follow lol.