Pretty simple. While fizzling was tied to specific casting skills, even completely maxing the skill would still lead to occasional fizzles. As a result, players complained about it a ton and AAs were added to the game to remove fizzling for most spells.
Proposal:
Have a trivial skill number tied to the spell. Meeting this trivial means that you can't fizzle anymore when casting it. However, perhaps add debuffs (curable) that enemies can cast that can lower casting skills, potentially below this trivial skill number. Also, I believe that if your casting skill in that category (Evocation, for instance) is maxed, you should be able to cast any Evocation skill available to you by default without fizzling, unless debuffed as stated before.
Example:
Spell: Ice Comet
Skill: Evocation, 300 (300 is the trivial skill number, however this value COULD be hidden from the player, to be discovered through gameplay)
Your current Evocation skill is 240. Using (insert arbitrary calculation here, Fizzle Chance = (TrivialSkill-CurrentSkill)/2), you have a 30% chance to fizzle while casting this spell.
Your current Evocation skill is 0. You have a 95% chance to fizzle. (arbitrary hardcap to ensure that you CAN at least use the spell, although very unreliably)
May I ask what the system of "fizzling" and hit chanse for melee attacks is for? What purpose do they serve at all within the game?
Would we really miss out on anything with spells that never fizzle and attacks that never miss because of a random % chanse?
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
We wouldn't miss anything at all. It's entirely possible to do. This post was made with the assumption that Pantheon will have it because the design philosophy seems to (for better or for worse) coincide with oldschool DnD-inspired mechanics.
The reason it exists is because the early MMO genre was inspired by DnD which was largely contingent on rolls and random occurances. If the game is built around never missing and never fizzling it's entirely plausible we can do without it.
EverQuest Online Adventures, for instance, didn't have any avoidance whatsoever. Everything was designed around mitigation instead.
Youmu said:May I ask what the system of "fizzling" and hit chanse for melee attacks is for? What purpose do they serve at all within the game?
Would we really miss out on anything with spells that never fizzle and attacks that never miss because of a random % chanse?
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
Removing fizzles and misses would reduce some of the unpredictability of combat. Overall I think we would come to "miss" that unpredictability. I like the idea that, at any given level, there is a chance that I will lose to, or need to flee, or need to employ better tactics to overcome a difficult encounter simply due to a bad string of random rolls. Given your position here, I wonder what your thoughts are on stats like AGI increasing a player's chances of dodging attacks, or a stat like DEX increasing a player's chances of hitting or critting, or magic resistances that increase the chances of resisting spells in whole or in part? It's unclear where you would stop in removing random rolls from the combat system.
Gnog said:Removing fizzles and misses would reduce some of the unpredictability of combat. Overall I think we would come to "miss" that unpredictability. I like the idea that, at any given level, there is a chance that I will lose to, or need to flee, or need to employ better tactics to overcome a difficult encounter simply due to a bad string of random rolls. Given your position here, I wonder what your thoughts are on stats like AGI increasing a player's chances of dodging attacks, or a stat like DEX increasing a player's chances of hitting or critting, or magic resistances that increase the chances of resisting spells in whole or in part? It's unclear where you would stop in removing random rolls from the combat system.
I'm not answering for Youmu here, obviously.
Dice rolls are not required for unpredictability. To an extent, human error is enough to ensure a base level of unpredictability.
Agi doesn't need to increase dodge chance. Instead, Agi can increase attack speed. Dex doesn't need to increase hit/cit chance, it can increase damage with Daggers. Magic Resistance can reduce magic damage by a static %, resists don't have to exist at all. As a matter of fact, Critical Hits don't need to exist either.
These things exist as tradition in MMOs because they are all ultimately inspired by DnD-esque mechanics. However, they are not required at all.
Gnog said:Removing fizzles and misses would reduce some of the unpredictability of combat. Overall I think we would come to "miss" that unpredictability. I like the idea that, at any given level, there is a chance that I will lose to, or need to flee, or need to employ better tactics to overcome a difficult encounter simply due to a bad string of random rolls. Given your position here, I wonder what your thoughts are on stats like AGI increasing a player's chances of dodging attacks, or a stat like DEX increasing a player's chances of hitting or critting, or magic resistances that increase the chances of resisting spells in whole or in part? It's unclear where you would stop in removing random rolls from the combat system.
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
Yeah, on second thought, I'm really not for the removal of critical hits. I love juicy critical hits. What I hate is a parse that is super inconsistent on the same raid mob week to week because my hardest hitting ability got a couple lucky crits, and this week it didn't. Losing a fight to a mob that I would otherwise stomp because I got some unlucky misses is also terrible.
Yea, the feeling of NOT critting is not bad but the feeling of NOT hitting feels poopy. For you usually don't think "If I had crit that one spell I would had won" but thinking "If I (The Game) just hadn't missed that one ability I would had won" is much more common.
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
Youmu said:May I ask what the system of "fizzling" and hit chanse for melee attacks is for? What purpose do they serve at all within the game?
Would we really miss out on anything with spells that never fizzle and attacks that never miss because of a random % chanse?
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
This is just my two cents on the matter and im not sure if people will agree or not but this is why i dont mind miss chances or fizzling for example. yes when you miss that last hit you needed or fizzle it can be ungodly frustrating i wont disagree with that but when tools can be used on us they can also be used on the foe.
"Mob A is casting doom bolt of death, Mob A fizzles" the feeling of when that happens in funny as hell and makes you push back from a situation that prehaps you thought was lost, having spells that make mobs miss or fizzle can be used in this situation for a small chance of somthing lucky like a crit happening to you but it is only fair that they can do it to us.
now im a bit of a gambling man my self i have a love hate relationship with rng and would never be rid of it ( examples i like guys in games which are very random based, i dont know why i just always have the corsair in ffxi is an example of this being used.)
as i said this is only my idea of why i like this system being in and i can't talk for everyone but i hope this lets you see a light side of somthing that can seem negative at its core.
I find fizzles a BS "feature".
A) It is almost always only casters that get "fizzles". The same people who tend to have long cast times, so when they miss, it's a HUGE loss of DPS.
B) It's rarely, if ever, applied to melee DPS.
C) It's not fun. No one ever says "Wow, I loved how I fizzled 8 times in a row, while y'all killed that mob and I basically just watched because of those awesome fizzle mechanics!"
D) It doens't add anything to the game in any real sense. Sure it maybe be more "realistic". IMO, when all other things are equal, FUN should always trump REALISTIC.
E-Z) Any given spell is already going to have to go through at least one, perhaps all of these: to-hit roll, target's avoidance check, target's resists, target's mitigation, etc, etc. Why add one more hoop to jump through for absolutely no good reason?
--Gray
Akailo said:This is just my two cents on the matter and im not sure if people will agree or not but this is why i dont mind miss chances or fizzling for example. yes when you miss that last hit you needed or fizzle it can be ungodly frustrating i wont disagree with that but when tools can be used on us they can also be used on the foe.
"Mob A is casting doom bolt of death, Mob A fizzles" the feeling of when that happens in funny as hell and makes you push back from a situation that prehaps you thought was lost, having spells that make mobs miss or fizzle can be used in this situation for a small chance of somthing lucky like a crit happening to you but it is only fair that they can do it to us.
now im a bit of a gambling man my self i have a love hate relationship with rng and would never be rid of it ( examples i like guys in games which are very random based, i dont know why i just always have the corsair in ffxi is an example of this being used.)
as i said this is only my idea of why i like this system being in and i can't talk for everyone but i hope this lets you see a light side of somthing that can seem negative at its core.
Would not having to interrupt the spellcasting through stuns or something like a spell interrupt be better as an alternative, actually making you engage with is instead. For yes it can be comical sometimes and reliefing when an enemy fizzles or misses, but is that worth the frustration of that happening to oneself also? I feel like we should look to alternative ways of doing it, the problem I have is trying to define the function of this mechanic and the only plausible thought of it I've had is that it is a relic of TTRPG's and thier way of introducing "tension" into combat, something I think works much better in a TTRPG for it is slow, turn based and gives you time to see those rolls happen. If building tension is the primary function of it I think we can do better in this day and age.
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
Youmu said:Would not having to interrupt the spellcasting through stuns or something like a spell interrupt be better as an alternative, actually making you engage with is instead. For yes it can be comical sometimes and reliefing when an enemy fizzles or misses, but is that worth the frustration of that happening to oneself also? I feel like we should look to alternative ways of doing it, the problem I have is trying to define the function of this mechanic and the only plausible thought of it I've had is that it is a relic of TTRPG's and thier way of introducing "tension" into combat, something I think works much better in a TTRPG for it is slow, turn based and gives you time to see those rolls happen. If building tension is the primary function of it I think we can do better in this day and age.
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
Hmm, i dont disagree that there might be a much better way to do it like you said and am personally open to other ideas. I just happen to love the werid and random personally and thus even when fizzling i would enjoy it. A sort of laughing frustration, however i may be a sadomasochist for this kind of stuff.
just focusing on things like stuns and interupts can open up a whole can of worms in itself, which classes get these skills how they group and if it means one class is needed in every single group instead of just the role. for example you can't give these skills to everyone or it will trivialise certain content and make it redundent but give it to too few and everyone has to have that class. The random factor of having spells or skills that might make mobs fizzle or a built in mob fizzle chance lets everyone enjoy somthing cool every so often like a crit, yes it can be frustrating when it happens to you but isnt it just as frustrating when a mob crits you and tanks you in 3 hits yet in most games it is expected that if you can crit so can monsters.
what im trying to say is a little bit of rng is a spice for some people, take it away and things become more of a data game allowing people to plan things out without any sence of danger because they already beat the situation by knowing what everything can and can't do.
I am not sure if i explained this right, it is kind of hard to explain in words but i hope i got the point across.
Edit
Something i totally forgot, fizzling and how it is balanced is unknown at the moment with it being connected to skills and can be used to make the game more intresting. Take for example you have two spells, firebolt and fireball, both of these spells are in the fire DD line of a class.
Fire bolt is cheaper and was gained at a lower level and at the current level of player if they have maxed evocation skill it will never fizzle, fireball however was just gained at the players last level and thus deals much more damage for its mana cost but to balance the spell has a 20% chance to fizzle or fail at least untill you level a bit more and get more evo skill. Basically this make casting fireball more or a risk to do but if it works has much more of an oopmh when used. this makes a caster think if they can aford to try and be risky to kill the mob sooner or safer and kill it slower but with less chance of mistakes happening.
it all ends with the simple idea of risk vs reward.
Gnog said:Removing fizzles and misses would reduce some of the unpredictability of combat. Overall I think we would come to "miss" that unpredictability. I like the idea that, at any given level, there is a chance that I will lose to, or need to flee, or need to employ better tactics to overcome a difficult encounter simply due to a bad string of random rolls. Given your position here, I wonder what your thoughts are on stats like AGI increasing a player's chances of dodging attacks, or a stat like DEX increasing a player's chances of hitting or critting, or magic resistances that increase the chances of resisting spells in whole or in part? It's unclear where you would stop in removing random rolls from the combat system.
I like unpredictability in combat but for a caster to fizzle doesn't always make sense. Mage perhaps mishandles something or says the wrong word due to laziness, forgetfullness or tense combat sintuations. Clerics fizzling though? This seems more like an on/off switch - either you are in the favor of your diety or you are not - and the diety should have gained enough power to not fizzle theirs. :)
I'd rather see variations in power which could be either a mage or clerics inability to properly channel, be a conduit for, the full strength of said spell. This could be over or under channel and just remove fizzling.
For melee folks its pretty simple, change miss to block or dodge by the other creature and no one knows the difference. Martial combat has almost been more about the target than the person swinging - more ways to avoid damage than cause it. Why do I miss? cause the other guy wasn't where I swung...
Since fizzles and melee misses are byproducts of skills that are under developed, I don’t think it’s something that should be removed from the game. Keeping disparate skills maxed out is part of horizontal character development, and removing that mechanic lessens the depth of developing your class.
Each class should spend time raising their skills if they want to be proficient in any given discipline, or spend points at a trainer to raise their skill. This includes learning the different disciplines from different schools of magic (evocation, conjuration, etc..) as well as all the weapon types (1 hand blunt, long bow, 2 hand axe, etc…) to avoid fizzles and misses.
A character that never uses a school of magic should not be proficient in it, just as a warrior who never uses a specific type of weapon should not be proficient with it. If you want to be able to use a 1 hand axe at level 40, but you've never picked one up, you'll need to spend time, and/or points at a trainer, to level it up.
I do agree with Liav on his point relating to avoiding fizzle and miss chance once a character is at skill cap, especially as a character gets higher in level. I can see the algorithm having a higher chance to miss when capped at lower levels, but once you get in the 30-40 level range, misses and fizzles, at max skill, should start to become rare. A maxed skill on a max level character should not miss. Although, mobs should trigger their their defensive abilities regardless of player skill cap, but that a little bit different of a conversation. Higher level mobs, I'm guessing, are going to dodge, parry, repost, resist, etc... more based on the level gap.
I would be HAPPY to have fizzling if instead of just making you waste mana and not do anything that they would basically be the character messing up the incantation, adding unknown elements to the spell making your spell act unpredictably. Maybe your fireball explodes on the mob setting EVERYTHING on fire or it explodes on your face and sets the ground underneath you on fire. The chaos spells (I think it was called that) from D&D basically or maybe it was Magic Plague?
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
Youmu said:I would be HAPPY to have fizzling if instead of just making you waste mana and not do anything that they would basically be the character messing up the incantation, adding unknown elements to the spell making your spell act unpredictably. Maybe your fireball explodes on the mob setting EVERYTHING on fire or it explodes on your face and sets the ground underneath you on fire. The chaos spells (I think it was called that) from D&D basically or maybe it was Magic Plague?
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
are you talking about wild magic? (i love this thing from dnd)
but i think it might make people more frustrated point blank self casting fireball then losing the spell and a % of the mana haha
It could still hit enemies near them xD
Maybe you could master it and become the kamikaze fire guy.
And all the effects wouldn't have to be negative imo.
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
Katalyzt said:Since fizzles and melee misses are byproducts of skills that are under developed, I don’t think it’s something that should be removed from the game. Keeping disparate skills maxed out is part of horizontal character development, and removing that mechanic lessens the depth of developing your class.
Each class should spend time raising their skills if they want to be proficient in any given discipline, or spend points at a trainer to raise their skill. This includes learning the different disciplines from different schools of magic (evocation, conjuration, etc..) as well as all the weapon types (1 hand blunt, long bow, 2 hand axe, etc…) to avoid fizzles and misses.
A character that never uses a school of magic should not be proficient in it, just as a warrior who never uses a specific type of weapon should not be proficient with it. If you want to be able to use a 1 hand axe at level 40, but you've never picked one up, you'll need to spend time, and/or points at a trainer, to level it up.
I do agree with Liav on his point relating to avoiding fizzle and miss chance once a character is at skill cap, especially as a character gets higher in level. I can see the algorithm having a higher chance to miss when capped at lower levels, but once you get in the 30-40 level range, misses and fizzles, at max skill, should start to become rare. A maxed skill on a max level character should not miss. Although, mobs should trigger their their defensive abilities regardless of player skill cap, but that a little bit different of a conversation. Higher level mobs, I'm guessing, are going to dodge, parry, repost, resist, etc... more based on the level gap.
The problem is that even completely maxing a skill in EQ still resulted in fizzling, missing, etc. That's the entire point of my post.
Liav said:The problem is that even completely maxing a skill in EQ still resulted in fizzling, missing, etc. That's the entire point of my post.
I prefer fizzles. It gives meaning to your spell skills. Once you max your spell skills in EQ, fizzling was really not an issue. Sure you may fizzle one out of a hundred times or whatever, but did anyone ever really notice it late game?
The only time I really noticed fizzles in EQ, was when I was trying to cast a high level spell with low skill. Then you'd fizzle like crazy. It was funny.
Also, through AA's in EQ1, you could eliminate fizzling completely, at least on the lower level spells. That is something Pantheon could introduce in future expansions.
Wellspring said:I prefer fizzles. It gives meaning to your spell skills. Once you max your spell skills in EQ, fizzling was really not an issue. Sure you may fizzle one out of a hundred times or whatever, but did anyone ever really notice it late game?
The only time I really noticed fizzles in EQ, was when I was trying to cast a high level spell with low skill. Then you'd fizzle like crazy. It was funny.
I mean, my entire post isn't about fizzles vs. non-fizzles as a mechanic. My post actually puts even more emphasis on giving meaning to spell skills by rewarding you with something additional when you max it out.
Fizzling was always an issue. Having a tank die because you fizzled a heal due to a 1/1000 dice roll isn't good gameplay. I want to reward players even more for maxing out their skills.
Wellspring said:Also, through AA's in EQ1, you could eliminate fizzling completely, at least on the lower level spells. That is something Pantheon could introduce in future expansions.
I addressed that in my OP. The logic being that introducing a casting skill-based mechanism to eliminate fizzling completely will negate the need for AAs later to circumvent it.
Liav said:Pretty simple. While fizzling was tied to specific casting skills, even completely maxing the skill would still lead to occasional fizzles. As a result, players complained about it a ton and AAs were added to the game to remove fizzling for most spells.
Proposal:
Have a trivial skill number tied to the spell. Meeting this trivial means that you can't fizzle anymore when casting it. However, perhaps add debuffs (curable) that enemies can cast that can lower casting skills, potentially below this trivial skill number. Also, I believe that if your casting skill in that category (Evocation, for instance) is maxed, you should be able to cast any Evocation skill available to you by default without fizzling, unless debuffed as stated before.
Example:
Spell: Ice Comet
Skill: Evocation, 300 (300 is the trivial skill number, however this value COULD be hidden from the player, to be discovered through gameplay)
Your current Evocation skill is 240. Using (insert arbitrary calculation here, Fizzle Chance = (TrivialSkill-CurrentSkill)/2), you have a 30% chance to fizzle while casting this spell.
Your current Evocation skill is 0. You have a 95% chance to fizzle. (arbitrary hardcap to ensure that you CAN at least use the spell, although very unreliably)
Sorry, Liav, I think I contributed to this thread's rapid divergence from the OP. To give a response that is actually on point here, I think your suggested system for calculating fizzle rates, and phasing out fizzles based on casting skill level, makes a lot of sense.
Gnog said:Sorry, Liav, I think I contributed to this thread's rapid divergence from the OP. To give a response that is actually on point here, I think your suggested system for calculating fizzle rates, and phasing out fizzles based on casting skill level, makes a lot of sense.
Not at all. I thought your reply was perfectly relevant, even if I disagree with some of it.
Liav said:Fizzling was always an issue. Having a tank die because you fizzled a heal due to a 1/1000 dice roll isn't good gameplay. I want to reward players even more for maxing out their skills.
Personally, I disagree. I think it is a good mechanic. It adds some randomness to combat, which I think helps to keep combat from becoming boring and stale.
Alternatively, from a role playing viewpoint, even at max skill, you shouldn't be guaranteed success on spell casts. Magic is difficult to control. Even the best wizards can fail on occasion when casting a spell.
Wellspring said:Personally, I disagree. I think it is a good mechanic. It adds some randomness to combat, which I think helps to keep combat from becoming boring and stale.
Alternatively, from a role playing viewpoint, even at max skill, you shouldn't be guaranteed success on spell casts. Magic is difficult to control. Even the best wizards can fail on occasion when casting a spell.
I don't want to get super deep here but realistically, people don't fail at tasks because of randomness. They fail because there's a variable they didn't account for. Obviously in practice, it is impossible for people to control enough variables to have a perfect outcome every time they perform an action. Even so, that isn't really random.
Here's an example:
Extremely challenging scripted raids exist. However, occasionally you wipe. Maybe a healer missed a curse cure. Maybe you didn't bring enough tanks and you couldn't rez/buff them fast enough to tank swap. Maybe your DPS were lazy and didn't burn the adds fast enough.
Except now, that same raid has a 1% chance to instantly one shot your tank. You did this raid 20 times and it never happened, this time it did. You wiped.
You don't need randomness to make a game challenging and players prone to failure. You can achieve that already just due to the imperfections of human nature. Manufacturing failure is just unnecessary, in my opinion.
Youmu said:May I ask what the system of "fizzling" and hit chanse for melee attacks is for? What purpose do they serve at all within the game?
Would we really miss out on anything with spells that never fizzle and attacks that never miss because of a random % chanse?
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
A fizzle is a caster's way of missing just like a melee character missing when swinging. You wouldn't ask them to not include melee character missing, would you? As melee, you need to practice to increase your skill in order to hit ever increasingly difficult monsters just as a caster needs to practice to increase skills to cast ever increasingly difficult spells.