Unseen Studios

For Warriors spells, what is the difference between Whirlwind Attack and Vortex Attack other then Vortex Attack looking more flashier? They both give the exact same description of the spell. When testing on the skeleton, they both have the same range and I don't notice a damage increase. The Vortex Attack takes about 3x the mana to cast though.

Is Vortex Attack an unfinished spell?

whirlwind attack will most likely stop accruing damage increases.

Also you should experience a speed increase with the attack. Allowing you more DPS

Do you know this for a fact or is this pure speculation? The damage of Whirlwind has been scaling linearly ever since I got it as low level. It has always been around the same damage as my melee hits.

As for increase speed with Vortex Attack, I just don't see it compared to Whirlwind.

Whirlwind is based off weapon damage, so if you've been using daggers your whole time then your WW damage will be about the same.

Speculation, but I can only think of a handful of advantages a spell increase can have.

Increased damage- Since whirlwind is based off of weapon damage and scales based on weapon, and there is no current dmg difference, then we can assume that there is no dmg increase with Vortex.

Increased Speed- Typically at the first level this is not noticable, see if that changes in a few levels. There might be a significant difference in attack speed.

Increased Steals- Whirlwind and Vortex never seemed to be related to steals, especially since there is Rage available for steals and speed

Increased Defense- See if you can be hit as often during Vortex attack as you can be attacked in whirwind.

Vortex seems to be also based on weapon damage. It scales the same as Whirlwind when I change to different weapons.

No difference in speed, even when I use a 2 handed weapon and spin really slow, there is no difference in speed between WW and Vortex.

No difference in steals.

I thought you could hit everyone 100% and that monsters could hit you 100%?

Morn pretty much got it -- Vortex Attack will continue to get better as you get higher levels; whirlwind attack does not continue to improve past a certain point.

Karl G. wrote:Morn pretty much got it -- Vortex Attack will continue to get better as you get higher levels; whirlwind attack does not continue to improve past a certain point.

Well that's kinda pointless. So its basically Whirlwind with an additional graphics affect. Atleast make the graphics affect mean something. Let it do 50% of your damage outside of the spin radius but within the graphic circle it creates.

I haven't personally seen the vortex graphics, so I dunno, but that sounds like a pretty cool idea.

That is, though, how every spell in the game is though. Every spell gets a massive MP cost upgrade every so often, it has a higher dmg cap but has to be leveled up from the previous spells range. Added effects of these higher spells would be cool, but that bears creating added effects for other classes too. I'm not sure how much extra effects you could do with spells since the Devs are not fond of status effects.

But isn't that going against the attempt to recreate old school xen? I mean, people really liked the old spell system because you get new spells are higher levels, as oppose to basically getting all your spells at low levels, then just getting better versions of the same spell (which is what seems to be happening with spells on this game)

Well, right now the only spells in the game are leveling focused with a balance for pvp. I think that this is probably the bare basic spell packages for all the classes. So far EVERYTHING in the game is redundant. Monsters increase in strength in predictable patterns, Even when you go from pure melee monsters to ranged monsters (going from leveling at trolls/kobolds to leveling at skeletons/archers) there is not an adjustment in strength for the ranged advantage. Gear increases every five levels with hardly any difference in difficulty to obtain. Rare gear gives minimal advantages (necessary with the current limited power system.) With the current basic system, gameplay is without a doubt redundant and eventually boring. The only variety comes from dungeon design (which I absolutely love how much thought went into designing the map and I look forward to an exploration heavy game.)

It's fustrating when you want to have a sense of accomplishment that you reached 40 and all you are is a flashy, hard hitting version of level 1. It hardly makes for customization of characters (as builds are pretty predictable at current as well.) The bright side of all this is that the current leveling system is a strong and solid foundation for what looks to be a very promising and exciting game, a good thing to see in a beta.

Things that are on my wishlist for spell/ability content:

The current Elemental system being added to the game for Adepts (It would be interesting if Adepts started off summoning iron daggers to launch at the enemy and leveled up to steel, fire, exploding stones etc)
Sorcerers getting more effective and less flashy. It seems like you tried to give them insidious and subtle spells and then gave them really flashy effects to announce they were doing something destructive.
Archers could attack with status effecting arrows. Poison tips, Hallucinative, Explosive tips that push your opponent back.
I really liked the idea of the vortex attack doing 50% dmg beyond weapon range. Attacks like this and special attacks meant for specific monsters types. If you built your character to be especially effective against dragon-type monsters, a warrior would want dragon specific weapons, and attacks that are extra effective against flying monsters.

I have talked to Karl about different arrows and quivers for the Hunters. The thing is that there will need to be new code and models created then added to get this to work, but yes we are working on it.

As far as items go, I have been modeling a few non tier related weapons so that there is a little more option when equipping a character (I still have problems texturing them.) I have also seen the rare items and how weak they are. I just have not changed their stats because they are in fact rare, and since no-one had the rare items I did not change their stats. I have seen a couple rare items in game now, so I will change those stats to make them usable.

For the spells, I understand that some of them on all classes are very weak (i.e. fireball, multi-shot, spread shot.) Karl had asked me not to mess with spells when he gave me the game files, now that I have an understanding of what I am doing maybe I can get him to explain the workings of the spells an how to modify them.