Community Opinion - Fragments of Terminus Edition! What are your thoughts on the Wizard changes and are you familiar with spell weaving? #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
There isn't any context to what the changes will do to the over experience. Need to play the game in order to form an educated opinion. Anything more is just guess work and conjecture.
I have very stong feelings that I don't have an opinion at this point...lol.. but ok
The concept that woven spells take more effort is sound. The idea that restricting to one type of elemental spell saves mana makes sense in theory.
I am happy to hear that the playstyle has been changed from a builder spender mechanic. Builder spender mechanics usually lock a player into a rotation. This locked-in rotation isn't necessarily good when players are required to adapt skill usage in fights. Personally, I also find builder spender classes to be dull because the rotation is almost always the same.
As for spell weaving, this could mean one of two concepts. It could mean that you are using different spell types in between spells of a specific class. However, it could also mean you are combining spells of different types into a more powerful spell. Either concept sounds great for breaking up stagnant rotations.
I would like to see a twitch stream showing off how this new class design plays and functions when it is ready.
If I understand correctly, wizards will not critical hit with spells, as this has been determined to cause a greater than required burst of damage that is boring and repetitive when further complexity can add to the mastery of playing the wizard thus increasing the pleasure of becoming astute and skilled in playing a wizard class.
The focus on singular spell type (fire, frost, toxic, etc) during an engagement can be expanded to include the big bang of spell casting damage the wizard is known for by 'weaving' other spells or skills into a chain of the spell type???
But I am unclear how the 'weaving' is functioning....
If I cast a fire spell that will ignite and burn an enemy for 10 seconds and I 'weave' a spell to confuse the enemy will that cause the enemy to stop fleeing from the fire or stop attempting to extinguish the flame? So something like that?
The topic is interesting, but as others have said, need more info.
I was somewhat concerned after seeing the wizard gameplay and after hearing some of the discussions around it. It bothered me that there appeared to be a focus on wizards withholding their casting in order to drop major hammers at key times. Which to, sounded pretty boring.
On the weaving topic, there are different ways to interpret that. Sometimes it means cycling thru spells of different types to compound impacts and eventually reach a major conclusion. Chaining, essentially. But that risks identification of the optimal spell rotations, which in turn leads to boring.
Weaving to me always makes me picture bard songs from EQ. If that's what we're talking about... I'm all ears. The ability to start the cast of one spell, then before completion weave in a second spell for an altered outcome? That would be pretty cool. Like ingredients in cooking. "Wonder what happens if I add a little of this, and just a dash of that... "
Edit:
Fireball + Ice Bolt = Scalding Steam AOE.
Root + Water Gyser = Mud Bog (snare) AOE
From such a rudimentary explination it is hard to gather an opinion. To further advance the discussion.....
We know choices are going to matter. And we have seen some spell stacking implementation already with other gameplay videos. With this assumption i am going to surmise that there will be some beneficial spell stacking effects attached to most spells in a Wizards repetoir. So if we are in a cold climate and we use fire based spells purely... i would assume that /cast 1 leads to spellbenefit1 if /cast 2 is same element and so on so forth. Same element type would probably be a mana cost reduction boon. Think of it like there is already a fire path to the NPC and the cost to "create" fire would be less for the next spell. Now if /cast 1 was fire, but /cast2 were say wind based... this would have the potential to create a new stacking spell. Like a flame tornado as Feyshtey has laid out. This would create a spellbenefit2 which increases the base damage of /cast2 if it was cast within the correct timeframe. I am ok with this. Raid mobs would need more powerful and stacked spells to cause decent damage where daily groups would benefit more from mana saving.
Adding things such as turning a root into a snare with earth and water... that is something that i can totally get behind. And i would assume when spells get stacked they would also become more uncontrollable and would sometimes damage group members as well if they you swept up into the maelstrom of mana.
All in all i think its a more thoughtful natural progression of the spell system. I do want to see it in action, but i am liking the idea.
For me wizards are a big foggy idea. I haven't played one in any mmo. I like the knowledge bits about the Pantheon wiz. I think the elimination of critical spell damage is questionable, and seemingly unnecessary. I don't think VR has explained the reason for this change very well. ... It's hard to program...seems very weak. If melee types get critical hits....why? Is it not to hard to program? Spell weaving is an unexplored idea, as far as I know. It might be fun for those who wish to play a wiz.
For those that haven't heard about "Spell Weaving", it is a system that was part of the plan for a number of years. It was on the Wizard Class page at least as late as Aug 2018 but was gone from that page in the 2020 website update if not earlier.
An archived version from 2018 (you have to scroll down that page and click on the 2018 image link in the Gallery section. Our darn 'official' wiki won't let me link to the image directly) :
https://pantheonriseofthefallen.fandom.com/wiki/Wizard?file=Wizard_Class_Page_%2528Aug_2018%2529.png
It says:
"Spell Weaving: While adventuring, Wizards may discover scroll fragments connected to some of their core abilities. Once found, these fragments are scribed into the Wizard's Living Codex and join the core spell. Once joined, the markings become discernible and show the Wizard the secret of weaving these spells into successive, more powerful versions of themselves. In addition, Woven spells are instant cast and have no mana cost."
When Mastery Points were revealed, I like many assumed that MPs would be replacing the system of "Spell Weaving". However the Feb newsletter section about the Wizard that references "awarding bonus damage for weaving" now has players asking for clarification.
Helloooo... VR!
(wink wink nudge nudge)