Draco's inspirathread

[Draco]

September 4th 2008:Introduction
This is the thread I am going to post all of my ideas, comments, troubles and experiences with the game.

I don't mind if you post here, but please keep it friendly and do not bash my ideas unless you have good reason to, I don't care what a lot of people think of my ideas unless it can be adjusted for the community better. I appreciate flaws being pointed out, as long as you're smart and you understand how to address a flaw.

This game has unlocked a whole of inspiration which I'm going to be putting to use in this thread.

I have edited some of the ideas, and added new ones... here is a list of the current posts up until September 8th.

September 4th 2008:September 4th 2008:Suggestion for Spell Names: Item Description edit

September 4th 2008:Account Login Trouble

September 4th 2008:Appealing Characters: Run/Walk comparison

September 4th 2008:Suggestion: Safe House Locations

September 5th 2008:Suggestion: My Unique Spell System: Edited out to new idea

September 5th 2008:My Opinion: The leveling system.

September 5th 2008:My Adjustments: Edited out some

September 6th 2008:Suggestion: Following Camera PoV

September 7th 2008:My input on Dual-Wielding weapons

September 8th 2008:Keying/Spell System: Magical Effect Bar

[thadiusofx3]

Good to have you on board. You had a lot of ideas that would have really benefited EJ if he would have listened to you.

[Draco]

September 4th 2008:Suggestion for Spell Names: Item Description edit

Decided to edit this post and null out my idea because item descriptions are being added, this should be sufficient, thanks.


After testing the game out a bit yesterday, I came up with a lot of ideas. Most of them I'm not going to post right away, as I'm going through them and researching and tweaking the ideas.

Right now I will say this.
Suggestion: Please make the names of the spells a little easier to find out while in game, most of those names are of a language that I can't remotely understand, looks like a latin twist, but nothing in there except Telemitus or w/e, is recognizable to me.

A lot of the spells EJ used in Xenimus were pretty recognizable by most players whom understood Latin roots. Much like how an expert scientist may understand what each syllable means in a health condition they've never heard before, and have never seen the name of before.

For a beginning gamers game, some people may be attracted to this mysteriousness of not knowing what a spell name means, but without a description or anything to the name thats easily memorizable, might as well have every spell name in Icelandic language.

I'm suggesting to change the spell names to things which are more appealing to the most of the population of players who understand English, which would be Kickass English.

In my book, "Dull English" would be spell names such as "Cold Shot" or "Cause Flame" or "Slash".

Kickass English would be more along the lines of "Freezing Shard", "Flame Focus" or "Arcing Slash"

-Will be back to touch up on things.

[Draco]

September 4th 2008:Account Login Trouble: Edit 09/11/08

Seems another person starting into the game got the same problem I got when making an account.
The game sometimes creates account numbers with only 5 or 6 numbers long. When this happens, the password will only work reen and hasn't been removed. If account numbers are always supposed to be 7 numbers long, something must be hiding (probably) the first number, I haven't been able to experience this problem again to test if you can drag the cursor position to the beginning of the account number line to see the full account number.

I don't know what happened with my account that still had 7 characters, maybe it tried to assign an 8th or glitched up... maybe my caps lock was on lol, that's possible...


After testing the game out, I realized after I had logged out of my account to make another character, I was unable to log back into it.

I'm posting this because my issue with not being able to log into my account may be a problem for many others.
I was able to log in the first time when the account screen issued me my account number, but after that was nothing, I can't log in unless the account number is given to me right then before logging in.

This has happened twice, but here is one of the accounts with the problem.

acc: 7922122
pw: aa
chars: 1st slot, Draco, lv5, Male, Gnome, Adept

I tested making a character with the same name, thinking perhaps the account is deleted after use... Even if the account is gone though, the name Draco still exists.

[Serenity]

I tried yours and couldn't log into it, then tried mine and could so I dunno whats going on.

[Draco]

September 4th 2008:Appealing Characters: Run/Walk comparison - Edited

Edit: Satisfied with new run animation, nice Karl

Out of plenty of the games I've played, one way to keep players entertained is with slightly dramaticized character movements.
_____________________________________________
You compare a game where you simply walk, no matter how "fast" you can "walk", it's just not very entertaining to WALK everywhere. Maybe this is psychosis to the player, making the player mentally feel they're dullingly "walking" wherever they're going, all the time.

Running is something that people often understand can get them places a whole lot faster than walking, physically it exerts the person but if someone is able to RUN at full speed nearly forever, it would give a little more feeling of invincibility to the player.

Walking is dull in itself, slow back and forth steps everywhere you go, your character not showing any real action.

Running puts your character into REAL motion, moving your character around in nearly all body parts, and making the player (even if) subliminally feel more interactive with their character, thus, more fun.

If the character models are able to be changed a bit, to make the characters look more like they're running, instead of dully walking, it will most likely enhance the interactivity of players to their characters.

If running itself is increased to a bit faster than what it was in xen for both players and monsters, getting away from some monsters can pose a challenge, even if you're trying to trans away, and give players a better sense of freedom, and require players to better their skills in fighting.

As players better their skills in controlling their characters--which nearly everyone can do, even if it's to a certain extent--the players will have more pride and be more interactive with their character.

As for the monsters side too... if monsters walk at an even pace, it's like a natural dull feeling, kind of like mummy's in xen, it's kind of boring.

If monsters run at the players, especially if they run fast, it can be pretty scary, kind of like volucris'.

If a monster walks abnormally slow and uses strong spells, perhaps these monsters should have a LOT of defense/hp and be like tanks to players, this can give kind of a "oh holy crap" gloom to the monsters, kind of like the experience I had when I saw those blue caped skeleton shamans or whatever they were in this game.

[Draco]

September 4th 2008:Suggestion: Safe House Locations

To fill in the areas of the game which are kind of empty, perhaps having "Safe Houses" dotted around the map can allow players easy safe access if they need to go AFK and don't want to log off, chat, or do other activities the safe houses offer.

My idea for a "Safe House" includes just a building with some nice flora and design around the house. Inside the house would show somewhat like a unique 'safe house floor' showing it's a safe house.

Of course the insides of these houses will protect your character from anything.

Every safe house can have a portal mark that warps you to one giant safe house. Upon leaving a small safe house, the safe house location you used will be saved in your players flags for what I'm about to mention.

This giant safe house can be JUST that, just one huge safe house with nearly nothing else in it, just nice design is all. Every safe house will warp anyone to this single building.

The "Big Safe House" can have a portal X that allows players to leave back to the safe house they originally came from, thats where that saved flag comes in.

Having safe houses like this all over the game leading to one giant safe house will allow players to interact more, safe houses can be visited for player gatherings, trades, ect... this would be the true auction house, without the GUI.

Porting other players or following other players would be nearly impossible through the "BSH", aside from telling other people which safe house you used.

The big safe house wouldn't have ANY exits to the normal world, maybe some grass area outside of the big house but it'd be walled in and no-damage... purely a: link with players/trade/chat interactive area for players.

This is probably an idea to keep for a later time when towns have already been added.

Btw, I still recommend keeping safe areas not inside houses when inside of a town, that would probably make players feel restricted/claustrophobic trying to be safe in town, not being able to see whats going on outside.

[Draco]

September 5th 2008:Suggestion: My Unique Spell System: Edited out to new idea

With my new idea, and the concept of simplicity in Xen, I decided this probably wasn't a good idea for this game, at least not for the "spell" system... maybe Skills, but not spells.

The 15th reply of this thread is my new magical effect system I'd like you all to take a look at, instead of this.

Click Here


I've taken this concept from a game I was very much interested in, and changed to fit a good spell system set up I would like to introduce to you all.

I suggest this spell system to have a "Spell Level" screen of it's own specifically for increasing the levels of your spells.

Upon leveling up, doing certain quests, or using certain items, players can gain "Spell Points" they can use towards their magic spells... the primary method of getting these points would be leveling up though until later levels, and based also on Intelligence/Wisdom.

Say each time you level up, you get an amount of points approximate to (Intel+Wisd/5)+(CharLevel/2.5).

Level 1 with 18 Intel and 18 Wisdom would gain 7 points on leveling up.
Level 18 with 22 Intel and 30 Wisdom would gain 18 points points.
Lv 30 w/ 36 Intel and 36 Wisdom gains 26 points.
Lv 32 w/ 15 Intel and 15 Wisdom gains 19 points.

Players can save up their spell points, or use them towards the spells they have.

Instead of having the whole "Minor this" "Medius that" or straight spell names, why not put the spells into their own ranks for better customization and more things to do for players?

Let's make the maximum rank 5 for now.

Name - Rank - Cost - Level available to raise.
Heal - 1 - 10 sp - lv 4
Heal - 2 - 25 sp - lv 9
Heal - 3 - 45 sp - lv 15
Heal - 4 - 70 sp - lv 22
Heal - 5 - 105 sp - lv 30
Spin Attack - 1 - 25 sp - lv 9
Spin Attack - 2 - 50 sp - lv 18
Spin Attack - 3 - 75 sp - lv 27
Spin Attack - 4 - 100 sp - lv 36
Spin Attack - 5 - 125 sp - lv 45
Armor Spell - 1 - 5 sp - lv 6
Armor Spell - 2 - 10 sp - lv 12
Armor Spell - 3 - 15 sp - lv 18
Armor Spell - 4 - 20 sp - lv 24
Armor Spell - 5 - 25 sp - lv 30

To set keys for this, players can just go to their key setting screen, see the spell name, have 2 arrows on the left and right side of the RANK for the spell, change the rank of the spell so they can decide which rank they want to set for that specific key, and set it.

The different levels wouldn't appear in the key list repetetively... it would only show the spell name ONCE, and show the rank next to it... the rank can be changed for the key.

Spell ranks could be different depending on the classes, some classes may top out spell rank at 2 or 3... example:
A cleric would top out with a lv 5 available Heal, whereas a Warrior would only be able to get the rank 1 or 2 Heal, and a Paladin could get rank 3.

Players could choose which spells they want to be stronger with by spending the points themselves for the spells.

Some spells being maxed out could also introduce new spells like if Heal is raised to 3, then the player will get a new spell available to spend points on, but to actually gain the spell you'd have to put some points into it. Spells gained this way could have a max rank of 3 instead of 5.

Revive - 1 - 5 sp - lv 16 (normal revive)
Revive - 2 - 15 sp - lv 28 (increases more health on reviving; shorter cooldown)
Revive - 3 - 25 sp - lv 40 (increases a lot more health; cuts off cooldown by a lot)

Weapon Tactics - 1 - 10 sp - lv 1
Weapon Tactics - 2 - 12 sp - lv 1
Weapon Tactics - 3 - 14 sp - lv 1
Weapon Tactics - 4 - 16 sp - lv 1
Weapon Tactics - 5 - 18 sp - lv 1
Weapon Mastery - 1 - 25 - lv 10 (Must have tactics at rank 5 to have masteries)
Weapon Mastery - 2 - 25 - lv 10
Weapon Mastery - 3 - 25 - lv 10

As for something like the star spell, it could be:
Star - 1 - 0 sp - lv 20 (Gained at a shrine)
Star - 2 - 25 sp - lv 20 (allows 2nd cast of star)
Star - 3 - 25 sp - lv 20 (allows 3rd cast of star)

Take into consideration at higher levels, spell points could be gained through some activities without even leveling up, so high level wizards can max out all of their available spells instead of leveling up, or they can keep leveling with the spells they've already chosen and leveled, spending all of their current points... their choice.

I'm sure this system could easily be balanced... just change the cost values or levels available... no more having to nerf spells (or as much at least)!

I hope you all understand this system. I don't know if it would necessarily fit this game, but I'd love to hear what you guys think of this.

[Draco]

September 5th 2008:My Opinion: The leveling system.
I've seen a lot of people arguing back and forth about the leveling system, how it's too discouraging to have that high of experience, and how it's an enjoyable challenge to have it that high... I have my own suggestion.

Make a normal level cap, this level cap could be level 60 or so and it can be obtained somewhat easily... about the same difficulty of getting to level 50 in xen, but add a SECOND leveling system as a second stage to leveling.

Their character will stay level 60 in the normal world, but after that, players can get "extra levels" that only matter in another world.

These extra levels can be the harder ones to get, but add better bonuses to your character, maybe even every 2 levels you gain something small and special for leveling.

These "extra levels" can go up to say level 30, but the only place they matter is in the "harder" world... this harder world could be something like a whole dungeon-server setup with towns and dungeons.

This will keep everyone a little more balanced at an equal maxed level everywhere in the normal server, but still allow the greater challenges to give you advantages in a separate server.

[kelchy]

Some interesting, well thought out Ideas so far. I'm not sure about having a level cap though...that's one thing that I enjoyed about xen; that there's no end to the power. What made xen appealing to begin with was the simplicity of items, character builds, levelling. I think if this game were to be made more complex, it would lose it's appeal and turn into every other mmo type game. If I want to play a game with an intensely detailed spell system and levelling system, I'll go play pretty much every other mmo out there. I'm not saying this game has to be exactly like xen...just as long as it has the same simple principles as old xen.

I believe that's one thing EJ never realized. He didn't realize that the simplicity and never ending power that can be gained is what made the game appealing and have good replayability. So, in turn he added the new spell system, propping, and possibly that durability crap he was talking about. A lot of people have left the game due to those things he implemented.

*EDIT* I agree with Cagen's point on your spell system idea too.

[Cagen]

Spell Names: The spell names are fine, it adds a but of mystery and fantasy to the game. Spell descriptions are being added so people will know what is what. The alternatives you provided are boring and overused in my opinion.

Movement speed: There are items in the game that increase your movement speed, increasing your agility will most likely increase your movement speed as well. The monsters also have differing speeds, if you go to the 2nd half of the 1st desert you will see a drastic increase (currently too high but it shows that monsters move at different speeds).

Safe houses: No risk to the game and no way to lose items/pk if everything (trading, talking, transfering etc. etc.) is done in a no kill zone which is easy to get to and leave from. With no risk, this game is boring.

Spell system: People disliked the "new" spell system that was implemented on Xen, yours is very similar except you have to spend points to get the ranks. People wanted the old spell system, this is far too a like to the "new" spell system.

Level cap: No.

[Draco]

The level cap would only be for the NORMAL world, where players will be more evenly matched, this is where all the new players will be at and how new players will fair against other higher level players. Imagine the "extra level 30" being equivalent of level 75 in Xenimus... how many people are actually going to reach that? This is for convenience, players who want a fair fight with many many other players their same level can go PVP and fight in arenas on the normal server, and those who want to take advantage of their superb power can go hunt around for other people, PVP, and use advanced arenas.

The safe houses would be a small touch to the game where players aren't unconviently being left vulnerable, and where--yes--I do believe trading and talking with other players shouldn't give players that big risk, losing gear can be easily done otherwise in dungeons... I don't believe players should be at risk of losing their equipment 24/7, this just WOULD NOT attract other players.

A majority of the MMORPG players seem to like level caps, and like having the security to know their character is safe at a time that's convenient to them. In all actuality, there is no level cap, considering you can still further advance your character... I'm just saying cap out a players normal strength in a world that new players are going to see first, allow advancement later on.

My spell system is obviously misunderstood, I personally don't think it's anything like the Xen's spell system. You could have every old spell you wanted, but this way you can advance your character leveling up those spells and having a choice in which spells you would like to have. For a slightly better look into the idea, play the game Star Ocean: Second Story; PS1 game.

I'll be fine with the spell names as long as the descriptions are put in, but that doesn't mean new players will be fine, new players will probably look for a way to not make it show up like that, which should be available at least.

I'll change my idea a bit, change the spell name system so it can show up two different ways, one is the basic way how it is now with the description to cover it, and have an option in your options screen that allows you to show spell names in English.

Again, I'm being misunderstood badly when it comes to the run/walk comparison. I'm not talking about speed, I'm talking about animation, I'm talking about how well the players can interact with their characters by way of how they can make their character be put into animation.

It doesn't matter if the characters move at the same speed for both of these, the animation of running would be more appealing than an animation of walking.

I'm being extremely misunderstood here.

You guys know what I'm trying to do here? Help this game become a great game which HUNDREDS of players will want to play, with plenty of things to do, a LOT of versatility, and great game features.

Old Xenimus may have had a couple hundred, but that is all it had, and partly because of Xenimus' graphics. The rest of why Xenimus didn't advance is because there was only a very small community of people who actually liked the things Xenimus had to offer, what with the whole OMG IM GONNA DIE, GAMES SO FAST, SOOO SCARY, THIS IS HARD.

The game won't get many people if it's just like old xen, the new age has shunned games such as Xenimus, and no matter how hard you try to get the game running successfully as Xenimus' used to be, it's not going to be successful, I am really sorry to say that... trust me, I used to love the way Xenimus used to be, but there just wasn't enough versatility to keep hundreds of players from joining.

[Draco]

September 5th 2008:My Adjustments: Edited out some

If everyone likes the simplicity of old Xenimus, fine, I'll change my ideas around a bit to better comfort you and help you understand what I mean more like in lay mans terms...

September 5th 2008:The Leveling "OMFG CAP"

I had a feeling people would flip out upon hearing "level cap" and instantly say NO NO NO without even knowing where someone is going with it.

I'm really sorry to say: You can't fix the problem of leveling being really hard and yet still give people good benefits to look forward to, it's just impossible... you'd have people grinding away at leveling thinking it's all pretty much the same exp to level just a little bit more per level, and leveling being too easy... it's just not going to fix the problem. You'll have players way too high up there or giving up right away.

Leveling was too hard in Xenimus in my opinion... not too much to look forward to, and not very motivating.
In xen, leveling started out hard even at level 1... it took a while for a newb to hit level 2 and much less 3. That drove away new players.

If leveling is made easy, like other games, such as being able to kill 3-4 monsters and leveling to 2, then about 12-14 more to level 3, and gradually got harder, to the point where leveling from 59 to 60 would be like level from 51 to 52... that would be our "normal cap"

Thats when leveling gets HARD... I'd like to debate with a few people interested in this system about whether characters topped out at 60 and higher should be able to still gain EXP from "normal" places and not the "advanced" places in the other server. Seeing as how this is a possible way to separate hunting grounds and allow players to hunt places they should be hunting. It would also force players level 60 and higher to hunt the places in the dungeon-server where there's other players much stronger than they are. There's an added difficulty and exhilarating experience for ya.

Characters at level 60 can level further still, but thats where it gets a lot harder but much better benefits for leveling, and still gaining normal-server benefits as well as dungeon-server benefits, with a few extra benefits on the side.

After level 60, there can be about 30 extra levels which every 2 levels the players gain something special... A character at "Extra level 30 or i.e. level 90" would be the equivalent of a level 75 in Xenimus... honestly, who the f- is going to get that far?

In all actuality, my idea for this has not much more of a level cap than Xenimus already does, so don't go flipping out saying "NO LEVWL: CAP{S OMFG!!!!!1"

September 5th 2008:Run/Walk comparison

I'm still holding strong on this, some people may not understand what I mean by this, but I'm just saying RUNNING model animations would be more appealing than WALK animations, and can do more to the game than many people may think.

September 5th 2008:Spell System adjustments: Edited out to new idea

I have a new spell effect idea on the 15th reply of this thread, please take a look.

I honestly didn't think my spell system would be sooooo much different than Xen's old systems, the ranks would be barely noticable... one of the only things to run through a players head would be "hey, I can easily make my adgredi stronger so I can blast stuff cheap for fun, and if I level it up to 3 or so, I can blast like 2-3 shots at once, and at 5 it turns into a VFV omg!" or "if I save all my spell points, I can make my beam a lil faster and stronger and really whoop some bum"

VERSATILITY VERSATILITYVERSATILITY VERSATILITYVERSATILITY VERSATILITY!!!!

As for xens old skill system... oh god... considering in order to gain skills you had to spend at least 25 points in the skill for it to do anything, and other skills came from that, but if my idea would seem too much trouble for the "spell" system, maybe this would be better for a similar "skill" system... you guys have to agree adding 25 points into a skill you wanted, no more, no less, in order to gain something was pretty f-ing pointless and boring. I'm taking it to the next level.

September 5th 2008:Safe House adjustments

Changing my idea a bit to fit the classical feel of xenimus a little bit more.

If safe houses exist, even if players don't use them, it can still give somewhat of a secure feeling to players that safe houses DO exist, and they can use them in case they need to.

I'm adding this to my suggestion:

In order to actually be safe in a safe house, you must be ALIVE in the safe house for at least 30 seconds... THEN you'll be protected and also be allowed to use the teleport to the big house.

If you're in Battle Mode and you run to a safe house, you must stay there until at least 30 seconds after you're out of battle mode to become protected and use the teleporter.

No evil characters are safe in a safe house, and no evil characters may enter the big safe house until they've re-aligned.

If you log off while you're already protected in a safe house, then you will be protected when you log back on.

Here's another question for you guys: Do you really think the game should be so unfriendly, it shouldn't allow any players to gather at one neutral ground to chat, trade, ect? Why should new players have to deal with the trouble of finding people? Especially in a small-commute game... a lot of people agree the auction house was probably the best addition to Xenimus, others disagree and say it was better when people hand-traded items, this is mixing both worlds.

[Draco]

September 6th 2008:Suggestion: Following Camera PoV

It seems the camera system is a little glitchy and jumps around when you choose new directions.

EJ's system was pretty solid and you were always focused in on the position of your character.

I've had experiences with this kind of problem before, and it was often because the camera updated BEFORE your character had moved... then your character moves, then the camera does its glitch.

I solved this problem whenever I came across it by making the position of the camera focus AFTER the command to make the player move (in the scripting)... this gave the client a constant updated view.

I don't know much about that, but I'll continue with my suggestion.

Seeing the camera glitch like that gave me a little inspiration: Have an option in your options screen to make the camera follow the player... like when you click a new spot, your character will begin moving to that spot but the camera will stay nearly still for the first millisecond and then start following the player to the new location... kind of like a delayed camera follow.

When your character is moving fast in a bunch of different directions, your camera will be following your characters new location only, not just tracing the path you lead... you can put a limit to it so the camera can't follow behind too slow, and will always keep up.

It's difficult to explain, but for anyone able to understand what I'm talking about, post your opinion on this please.

For more information on this kind of system, go download Graal Online and log into the "Classic" Server, and press the View key to change your camera view mode, a camera view mode similar to what I'm suggesting will activate. Test it by moving around.

The view mode is actually kind of fun, and really smooth.

[Draco]

September 7th 2008:My input on Dual-Wielding weapons

I for one have to agree with EJ's point of view on Dual Wielding... here's my view.

1. it's overused
2. it's cheesy and uneffective
3. it's kind of dull and repetitive
4. doesn't make too much sense, not enough anyway.
5. mainly it's been for looks and fun in other games.

If there's to be a Dual-Wielding class, I don't think it should be where the player alternates between the weapons they're using, attacking with one, then the other... just doesn't make sense, why not just attack constantly with your best weapon?

Gaining more damage or speed at the expense of your defense sounds great and all, but it would become way too repetitve and unbalanced... it would bring cause of abuse among a lot of players, I think...

If dual wielding is allowed, here is my suggestion on it:

When using 2 weapons at once, you will still mainly attack with your primary weapon, except you gain special skills for your secondary weapon. These skills can be used in the middle of combat for a special action/effect, here is an example.

Primary Weapon: Rockin' Scimitar
Secondary Weapon: Frozen Sword
- Secondary skill: Freezing Strike
- - 8% Chance of freezing the target

Clicking to attack will cause primary weapon attacks all the time...

Choosing the skill will make the player attack using their secondary weapon, doing that weapons damage only once, but make the damage less considering you ARE using it with your opposite hand. Also make all secondary skills have like a 4-20 sec. cooldown before the effect can activate again.

While the cooldown is going on, you can still attack with the weapon and do whatever normal properties/effects the weapon already has, but the secondary skill just won't be used for that attack.

When the secondary weapon hits, it gives whatever the special skill is, from the secondary weapon... which for example...

Freezing Strike can give a 8% Chance of freezing the target for like a half of a second.

Unless you equip a weapon as a secondary weapon, or if there are extra right-click details on items, the secondary skills shouldn't show up on the item details.

Here are some other secondary skills from weapons referrenced in Xen for better examples (All of these cooldowns would be invisible to retain simplicity and mysteriousness)

Diabolic Rapier
- Secondary skill: Lethal Poison
- - +5% Increased chance of lethal hit upon secondary weapon's attack
- - +10% Increased acid damage upon hitting
- - Cooldown to use Lethal Poison again: 12 seconds

War Hammer/Battle Hammer/Earth Hammer/ect
- Secondary skill: Bash
- - 20% Chance to stupify target
- - Cooldown for Bash: 5 seconds

Blood Rapier/Sword of Blood
- Secondary skill: Pierce Vitality
- - 50% Chance of this effect: the target will now increase all HP Steals attacked on this target by an additional +3 for the next 6 seconds, meaning if someone attacks this monster with a weapon of +5 HP Steal, it will give +8 HP Steal instead for the next 6 seconds.
- - Cooldown of Pierce Vitality: 14 Seconds

Dagger of Speed
- Secondary skill: Speed Rasp
- - 25% Chance to steal some of your targets MP and convert it to a Speed buff on yourself without having to cast the spell.
- - Cooldown for Speed Rasp: 10 Seconds

Dirus Sword/Axe
- Secondary skill: Dirus Strike
- - Using the skill shoots a star projectile in a chosen direction. Upon contact of the projectile, all of the normal properties the Dirus Sword had like HP Steal, +10% Damage, ect... will still be active in the attack, only this attack reduces the melee damage done by 15% and the attack is considered a projectile attack, so reflective gear may affect the attack.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

All of this is suggesting an idea to add more versatility to the game, allow players to play around with special effects, spice up hunting even more, look cool, better their skills with their character, and spice up items a bit.

If a weapon is left with no special secondary skill, then the player can just attack with the weapon anyway using "Secondary Strike" or something, with the weapons normal attacks only with a 15% Decrease in damage or what-not... Steals and attack speed would still be effective so I mean it could still be useful depending on special properties.

[Draco]

September 8th 2008:Keying/Spell System: Magical Effect Bar

This would be something to suggest in place of my original spell system idea, this is much more simple and easier to use.

When you're setting a key for a spell, make it so you can right-click the spell after it's set, that will cause a little window to pop up almost like an item description, with a horizontal drag bar on it... the default setting would be all the way to the right (100%).

0% - - - - - - - - 50% - - - - - - - 100%
<=========================(=)>

This would resemble the spell's power, the default 100% would be the spell having full effect for the characters level... but if you drag the bar to the middle, the spell will only be half as effective.

This would allow people to use spells at different effectiveness, whether it be to do less damage to a monster, cast a weaker armor spell on themselves to hide their egg or w/e, ect.

Doing this would also lower the MP cost of the spell accordingly... so if you set it at the halfway point, it would only do half damage, but also require half of the MP cost.

This would take a lot less work than my original Spell System idea, and be more fun.

Dragging the bar all the way to 0% would still show the spells effect, but do absolutely no damage/effect and cost no MP at all, it would make that key cast the chosen spell just for visual effects, playing around, or w/e.

If this causes a problem and seems to be meaningless, maybe make it so the MP cost can only go down to 25% of the full spell cost, while the spell effectiveness can still go to 0... this would help prevent people from constantly casting the spell.

[Karl G.]

I like the idea about being able to set spell power--so here's one that I was thinking of implementing:

"magic" and "melee" could each have their own 'tuning' triangles. On each vertex would be a label, and one could move a dot around in the triangle's area. Moving the dot toward a corner would increase that property's emphasis while decreasing the others.

For physical:

• Speed
• Damage
• Accuracy (affects hit %)

For magical:

• Casting Rate
• Power
• MP Cost

What do you think of that?

[Sankt Pauli]

That's a very good and unique idea. I like it alot and i see it working out very good. :J

[Richard. UK]

I personally think yet again, another unique comment from a definitely unique concept on ideas!

That sounds really cool

[Cagen]

That sounds good Karl. Draco's spell power idea to me seems to have no purpose at all, I would never want to do less then maximum damage just to reduce its mp cost.

[Draco]

Just because you wouldn't like the idea Cagen, doesn't mean other people wouldn't as well.

There's plenty of people that use a low MP cost, low damage spell for...

1. In xen, it was often for MP Steals.

2. They have low MP to begin with, and the spell they want to use takes up way too much MP and it's too powerful for what they're hunting anyway.

3. Their regens cant keep up with their spell.

4. For fun, showing off spells casting them infinitely because of their regens.

5. In xen, people could dress up as newbs, and use weak spells to fool other players, this lured pkers and made the pkers think they could kill the fake-newb... attacking them then the fake newb attacks back with spells at full power.

6(to be nulled). In xen, this could also be used for powerleveling... go and attack a strong monster with enough spells to lower its HP down to nearly nothing, then a newb comes along and finishes them off, gaining the exp... however I have an idea to suggest here to help prevent powerleveling like this in this game if Karl wishes.

7. Knowing that you can do this in the game for WHATEVER reason, whether for it to be any of the reasons above, or for any of your creative ideas maybe like hunting with a handicap, lowering the power of your spells to be equally matched with someone lower than you, or WHATEVER... my idea would add this versatility and give more freedom to the players.

I like your idea Karl, it would retain the suggestion I have but add even more versatility to the game... It should be only to a certain extent in my opinion though, considering someone could move their magic gauge all the way to full damage and pick off other players or monsters one by one, with damage already being so extreme and fast in the game.

I say about 10-15%... but this still wouldn't allow players to lower their MP costs or damages to nearly nothing or anything... Karl's idea can't be allowed too much power... maybe put the two together?

Making a spell cost 50% more and take 50% longer to cast would seem a very sufficient sacrifice for 50% more damage... slaughter... but even still with this, people can't choose to use spells that are weak for low mp cost... even with a 20% variance, it would allow spell costs and damage to go only 20% lower?

I'll work on an idea to balance this if Karl wants some help with it, unless he thinks his idea is fine... anyone else have any ideas?

Even if my idea IS added to the game, it shouldn't affect anyone who doesn't want to take advantage of it considering you'd have to right-click the spell after setting it to make any changes to it... all spell keys would be set to 100% upon being set in the first place... Anyone like Cagen wouldn't even notice it's there. Only the players who like this idea would have to go out of their way to take advantage of this.

Question: How often do you right-click a spell key after you set it? Not very often considering there's no point, it does nothing, even in Xen.

Bottom line: Karl's system could be fine-tuned so it won't be easily abused, but please consider my idea still.

[Cagen]

I never insinuated that my opinion speaks for everyone. It is just that I personally do not like the ideas you are bringing forward. You had some decent ideas for Xen over the years but I do not agree with these ideas for Evidyon.

The only point you made for lowering mp cost/damage/effectiveness that I can see a reason for, would be for power leveling newbs, which shouldn't even be encouraged. I am not sure how Karl's "triangle" idea could be abused though, obviously putting it to max power wouldn't allow you to kill everyone in the game in 1 hit, though newbs would obviously die.

[Karl G.]

Just because you wouldn't like the idea Cagen, doesn't mean other people wouldn't as well.

6(to be nulled). In xen, this could also be used for powerleveling... go and attack a strong monster with enough spells to lower its HP down to nearly nothing, then a newb comes along and finishes them off, gaining the exp... however I have an idea to suggest here to help prevent powerleveling like this in this game if Karl wishes.

The system I've implemented for parties&party-leveling will take care of this as soon as it's implemented

The basic structure is:

• monsters give their exp to the party which deals to them the most damage
• "unpartied" players are considered to be members their own party (with 1 member)
• players in parties get EXP according to a formula that I came up with which rewards players for hunting monsters above their level, but splits experience according to each person's level. The net result of this equation is that (1) a level 52 can party with a level 2, hunt level 52 monsters, and the level 2 will only get EXP at a rate as if they were hunting low-level monsters (slightly better than hunting alone, but not much) and (2) a group of 4 level 8's can party together, go hunt level 16 monsters as a team, and gain great EXP.