Archive:Magic system

This proposal has been accepted

The development team has discussed the contents of this article and has decided that it should be implemented as described. But the implementation is not finished yet. You can help to bring the features described here into the game.

This is the magic system we decided to use for the new mana world server. For an overview of the magic system of the current server please refer to User:Adamaix/Magic_walkthrough.

Short synopsis: All mage equipment has runes. Every rune holds one spell. The runes are discharged when the spell is cast and has to be recharged before it can be used again. Recharge happens automatically. The recharge speed is based on intelligence. The skill levels decides what kind of runes the character can have in its equipment and thus what kind of spells it can cast. High level equipment can have more and better runes than low level equipment. Willpower is important for the damage or success chance of the spells cast.

For a game-lore explanation of how magic works see The nature of mana and magic.

Recharge bar instead of magic points

There are no magic points. Instead of that every single spell has its own recharge bar. When a spell is cast its recharge bar has to be filled again before the spell can be cast again.

The character got a constant "mana flow" that recharges its spells. The intensity of this flow is mainly influenced by intelligence but other factors might influence it, too. The mana flow is divided evenly between all spells that are currently recharged. Recharge of each spell can be switched on and off by the player. That means the character may decide to deactivate the recharge of some spells to recharge others more quickly. Advanced spells require more mana flow points to recharge them than simple ones.

Characters can have the same spell multiple times allowing them to cast them multiple times in a row (see below for details) but only one of them can be recharged at the same time. All spells have a short after cast delay time in which no new spells can be cast to avoid spamming spells very fast. The more powerful the spell the longer the after cast delay.

Available spells

The spells that are available to a character depend on the spell runes written on his currently worn equipment. Every rune represents one spell. Runes can be created by players by combining different rune syllables. For a description of the rune combination system see Rune combination. The character can only use spells when he 1. has the minimum skill level for the rune and 2. learned all the syllables of the rune by doing the quests to obtain them. When the character does not fulfill these requirements the rune is ignored.

Runes

The spells that are available for the character at the moment depend on the magic runes that are written on /engraved in its currently worn equipment.

All equipment for spellcasters (and maybe some non-spellcaster equipment) has rune slots. These slots can be engraved with runes. Every rune represents one charge of a specific spell.

Runes of advanced spells fill multiple rune slots in the same equipment piece. Equipment with enough rune slots to hold the runes of advanced spells should be restricted to characters that reached a high magical skill level and/or high magic related attributes.

The most spell runes can be written on robes closely followed by wands. Then comes headgears and then other equipment pieces (assuming that they all have similar requirements and rareness). Other weapons can usually not have runes with the exception of some special "rune" weapons (which have usually sub-par combat abilitys compared with weapons with similar requirements and rareness). That means hybrid characters will most likely wear fighter armor with a magican headgear and maybe a rune weapon.

Characters can theoretically extend their spell palette by carrying multiple equipment pieces with different runes in their inventory and switch them. But when an equipment piece is taken off all its slots are uncharged.

To write runes on a piece of equipment one needs the "runewriting" crafting skill and needs to learn the rune syllables. The success chance depends on the minimum skill level to cast the spell and the runewriting skill of the crafter. When the runewriting fails the equipment piece might be destroyed.

Example: When a character wants to have 3 charges of a flame bolt spell he needs:

• Fire Magic Skill level 25
• Knowledge of the "Flame" and the "Bolt" rune accquired through quests
• 3 flame bolt runes written on equipment pieces he is wearing

Damage calculation

The damage of spells and the success rate of spells that can fail depend on the characters willpower and skill level in the magic discipline of the spell and the targets willpower. See Damage calculation for details.

Efficiency of support spells like attribute increases (buffs in MMORPG jargon) or healing spells should not be based on willpower but on skill level alone. That way I want to archieve that the ideal attribute build of a supportive mage (cleric) is different from that of an offensive mage.

Example: A typical offensive spellcaster character with a mix of willpower and intelligence could function as a backup healer by taking some healing runes in its equipment. But it could cast its healing spells much less frequently than a character that is focused on intelligence alone. A character focused on intelligence, on the other hand, could cast offensive spells frequently but they would do almost no damage. So the character would be better of with focusing on heal and support spells that aren't affected by willpower.

GUI

Here a mockup of the OSD that shows the current magic status:

1. Firewall spell - fully charged and ready, will be recharged immediately after use.
2. Lightning Bolt spell - not charged, currently not recharged.
3. Fire rain spell - recharge in progress and half finished.
4. Three fireball spells - one ready, one partially charged but recharge currently deactivated.
5. Four lightning strike spells - two ready, one partially charged and recharge in progress.

The background of each spell icon doubles as a progress bar. The color of the icon itself indicates the element of the spell and the charge level. When the color of the icon itself is bright, recharge is activated. When the color is dark, recharge is deactivated. When a spell is fully charged and ready for use it is indicated by a particle effect on the icon.

Spell icons of the same spell are grouped in one frame and sorted by recharge level. The charge activation status of spells it the whole group is linked although only one spell is recharged at the same time.

The letters in the upper-left corner of the spell icons are the hotkeys for the spells. It should be possible to redefine those in the keyboard gui (setting a key for every spell in the game would be overkill. Instead of that keys should be defined for spell 1, spell 2, spell 3 etc.)

Controls

Mouse

Left-click on a spell icon uses the spell, right-click activates/deactivates its recharge.

Gamepad

One button opens a spell ring menu to select a spell. Another press of this button uses the selected spell. A 2nd button activates/deactivates the recharge of the spell. A 3rd button closes the menu without casting a spell.

Keyboard

Each spell has a hotkey. Pressing the hotkey casts it. Pressing shift + the hotkey toggles recharge. The ring menu can be used as an alternative casting method.

Types of spells

Effects

These are some examples of effects that can be caused by spells.

Negative

Damage

Just plain old damage to a single target.

Splash damage

Hurts the target and targets around it with reduced power.

Damage over time

Hurts the target at regular intervals

Attribute reduction

Reduction of an attribute by percentual or absolute value or affects the victim with a negative status effect. Might or might not stack.

Positive:

Healing

self-explaining.

Healing over time

A temporary status effect that heals the target at regular intervals.

Attribute increase

A temporary status effect that increases an attribute by a percentual or absolute value.

Restore

Attempts to removes a negative status effect.

Targeting modes

Different spells have different ways of determining what targets are affected by it.

Single-targeted spells

Targeted spells are spells that hit exactly one target that has to be selected when the spell is cast.

Area-targeted spells

Area spells can be cast on any position the caster has a sightline to. The position has to be selected when the spell is cast.

Area-persisten spells

Like area spells but stay active for a while and do their effect every game tick.

Untargeted spells

Spells that have a fixed damage zone based on the position and heading of the caster. They don't require to set a target.

Untargeted persistent spells

Like untargeted spells but stay active for a while and do their effect every game tick. When the caster moves the effect area moves with him/her.

Projectile spells

Spells that are cast like single-targeted spells but fly towards the target and hit the first enemy they collide with. They don't require to select a target.