View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0007707 | Valley 1 | Suggestion - Spell Ideas | May 10, 2012 10:28 am | May 11, 2012 1:06 am | |
| Reporter | vadatajs | Assigned To | |||
| Status | considering | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | 1.013 | ||||
| Summary | 0007707: Damage over time spells, in general | ||||
| Description | Characters should have available damage over time spells with high mana cost. They don't have to do more DPS than the direct damage spells (and they should probably do somewhere around 2/3 the dps as a sustained direct damage spell would do), but the damage over time spells should be able to stack, with both other damage over time spells and themselves (with the expectation that the high mana costs will limit the player's ability to spam the spells). They should last probably 4-5/ish seconds. This would give another option for low health characters with high mana pools to perform hit and run attacks. These spells could also have some kind of secondary effect, such as: Earth: Acid Corrosion - perhaps additionally causes the monster to take more damage from other attacks (or only other earth-based attacks) Entropy: Eating Rot - perhaps additionally jumps to another nearby monster if the current monster dies while affected (or only has a chance to jump) Fire: Incineration - perhaps additionally does a smaller area of effect damage to surrounding monsters | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Internal Weight | Feature Suggestion | ||||
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To add ideas for this, Enemies like fire espers have a DoT death attack. It actually does damage in several ticks if you stick around. However it's an area attack spell. DoT spells and area damage spells I think should have a higher cooldown forcing the player to use them in conjunction with normal spells. Already we have a few area damage spells though, spells like Fireball. However the area of effect on these spells is so small as to be negligible. Maybe it can be enlarged a bit as well. Finally remember any spell that pierces has the same effect as producing an area of effect when balancing. Any spell that can do damage to multiple enemies should either have a higher cooldown or lower damage. Any spell that provides a DoT effect should have a cooldown reflecting the time it takes to do the damage, thus discouraging the player from using only it. Note though that I do not support DoT spells having higher mana costs. In fact it should be quite the opposite. With a direct damage spell you do all the damage up front. Enemies will die on hit. With a DoT you do the damage over a period of time. Enemies could kill you before you finish them off. I instead suggest the mana cost be proportional to the damage, but with perhaps a 20% discount to encourage use. |
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My reading of this is you still only need one "hit" - it then puts a status on for the next x seconds (like currently with the player character being set on fire). I don't see why they need to all be high mana cost though; low mana versions would be fine, since they'd do less damage anyway (and probably less damage per mana put in.) |
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I imagine this working like a swarm of butterflies that you can aim. |
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BenMiff I do not understand why you would do less damage per mana. After all instead of doing all your damage up front, you are instead doing it over time. This puts increased risk on you the player. If you did less damage per mana, or even equal damage per mana, there is no reason to even bother with the spell. The hit and run tactics described by the OP could equally be done with direct damage spells regardless of whether they continue doing damage. After all the enemies do not heal. You the player just have to be patient. The only reason to use a DoT spell in the game as it is would be an increase of the damage per mana ratio of the spell. Nothing else would make sense. Why would I want to shoot and hide and wait for a spell to finish taking effect when instead with a direct damage spell I could pop out whenever it was safe to shoot again? |
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You'd want at least equivalent damage per mana as the direct damage spells. If you also want equivalent damage per second as the direct damage spells, and the damage over time spell lasts 5 seconds: you'd want it to cost 5x as much just to maintain parity. This means that a single damage over time spell would cost 200-400 mana to maintain parity with direct damage spells. (Which, if I'm not mistaken, would be considered high cost spells) If you cut that to 2/3 the damage per second of a sustained direct damage spell while maintaining the damage per mana, all of a sudden it's a lot more feasible to shoot off 2 damage over time spells and retreat; or alternately, to shoot one and to stay close and fire a regular direct damage spell at the same time. The problem with low mana cost damage over time spells is that they'd do terrible damage per second if the damage per mana was maintained. I was really trying to think of spells that could benefit a character with low HP and high mana pool: because as the game stands with direct damage spells, it encourages you to get a high HP character so that you can make more mistakes while staying close to monsters to maintain dps. |
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Cthon: Fair point; I was thinking more that the damage over time meant you could be "hidden" for most of time it was dealing damage. (I think I might have confused myself.) Vadatajs: Yes, the damage would be terrible. However, you could say that about pretty much any low mana spell. |
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The whole point I see of a DoT type spell is to be able to use it for some cheap damage and then hammer them with other spells while it burns. Alternately being able to stack 2 or 3 different DoTs on a target would be nice as well, but never more than one of the same DoT. As far as equal mana efficiency, if you look at what is there now not every spell has equal mana efficiency. Short range spells or spells that don't pierce, follow walls, etc. tend to have better mana efficiencies than spells that do. I'm simply saying that for example if it does 200 damage over 10 seconds, and another "direct damage spell with normal range" does 200 damage up front for 50 mana (4.0 mana efficiency) then lets say the DoT has 2x the duration of the direct damage % or 20% better mana efficiency, in this case 42 mana at 4.8 mana efficiency. If the spell instead had a 20 second duration to do 200 mana, then it would have a 40% better mana efficiency on average or 35 mana at 5.6 mana efficiency. On the other hand, effective refire rate would be 1 second (you could spam it) but it overwrites itself on the same target, only resetting the duration back to 20 seconds if you hit the same target twice. Instead you hit a target with it, then use another spell while it works, or hit another target with it to burn 2 at once. Different abilities on the spells should affect the overall efficiency up and down due to balance. Shorter range should increase the efficiency to offset the danger involved in using it. The ability to hit multiple targets, or track along walls, or faster speed should come with a cost in efficiency. DoT should be on the side where it gets a bonus based on the length of the DoT because you don't do your damage immediately, it takes time. Plus while I pulled the 2xduration% out of my butt, it does seem like a good starting point before balancing I think. If you want to have one with 5 second duration that's a 10% bonus or in the example 45 mana instead of 50. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 10, 2012 10:28 am | vadatajs | New Issue | |
| May 10, 2012 11:02 am | tigersfan | Internal Weight | => Feature Suggestion |
| May 10, 2012 11:02 am | tigersfan | Status | new => considering |
| May 10, 2012 12:27 pm | Chthonic One | Note Added: 0023962 | |
| May 10, 2012 12:28 pm | BenMiff | Note Added: 0023963 | |
| May 10, 2012 12:32 pm | 7foot_sativa | Note Added: 0023964 | |
| May 10, 2012 12:56 pm | Chthonic One | Note Added: 0023971 | |
| May 10, 2012 2:29 pm | vadatajs | Note Added: 0023977 | |
| May 10, 2012 4:37 pm | BenMiff | Note Added: 0023987 | |
| May 11, 2012 1:06 am | Chthonic One | Note Added: 0024014 |
