casting bar???

[Marchosias]

Originally Posted by auragin

Thats true, but you have to realize an archer is a ranged attack as well. With knock back a ranger can shot multiple times before a mage gets one shot off. It might be a little of an exaggeration, but I think percent cancle evens out the range classes.

There are easy ways around that... don't make the ranger cancel, compensate by damage differences between ranger and caster. I didn't play a hunter or lock/mage to 60/70 in WoW, and I just didn't talk to them enough to be able to say whether the casters had serious issues with hunters or not, but I believe it was fairly well-balanced. Hunters did have a dead zone where they were too close for ranged attacks and too far for melee, so a mage could frost nova (root) them and cast. Beyond that though, I think hunters just didn't attack fast/hard enough to knock spells back to the point overpowering them. Again, if anyone played a caster, listen to them before me, 'cause I'm speaking from very limited experience here. Oh, it's also worth nothing that hunters had pets that attacked with melee...

Now, one really important thing I think needs to be taken into account with spell knock back is power of attacks. The less powerful an attack is (the less damage it does), the less it should knock the spell back. That way, a character that's just poking you very quickly will have the same knock back effect as a character that's smashing you with a hammer every 3 seconds assuming equal damage. The difference would be that the hammer would give a larger single effect and the prodding would be many small knock backs. If this isn't the case then rangers could just pick the fastest weapons possible and totally screw over casters, as could assassins and dual wield fighters, while knights and 2-hand fighters would get Ds in their Bs.

[JunSakurada]

Originally Posted by Marchosias

That's exactly what I don't like about it... I mean, if you've got 10 people on you you shouldn't be able to get a cast off. I mean, especially in mass PvP I think you need to have that steady knock back because the mages have the outright advantage. It's pretty easy to see a big group of people coming at you, and a mage isn't going to charge straight in, they're going to start attacking from max range. That first hit is going to be a slow and then you can probably get at least one or two more hits in after that. You throw in teleports and roots and even having a chance to cancel becomes pretty OP imo.

I mean, balancing mass PvP shouldn't really be that different from balancing 10v10. Assuming both sides have the same number of players the mechanics are going to be the same. I mean yah, there's the potential for an individual mage to get attacked by 10 people at once and not get a single cast off, but then you've got 9 people on your side that have nobody on them. Chances are you're going to have a mage or two in there that's going to be completely free to nuke without getting canceled or knocked back. In the end it doesn't really matter.

I just hate the idea of a random chance to cancel. Anything that's random takes a small element of skill out of the game. I'm not saying that people are going to try to tank and cast, I'm just saying I don't want to fight someone and win 50% because I cancel that last cast right before I kill and lose 50% because I don't cancel that last cast right before he kills me. With the knock back you get consistency, which means predictability, which means you can adjust strategy based on it. Adjusting your strategy to a random event is just not a smart idea.

The % cancel is a pretty good system I have to say. The main concept for stopping mages imo though is stun and crits. Mages shouldn't be under attack at all while their casting but since their going to be within range of archers their gonna get it. Its been a long time since I've played L2 but I think it was about 1/4 times a mage was doing a big cast it failed. Stunshot and close range dagger dmg is what really did them in. Knights also since their the last taken down have a chance to run around and put pressure on mages/archers. When their getting beat on by lets say 4 players and the mage has a healer healing (lets say they ignore the healer for some odd reason)running isn't an option. The only thing that can be done is dump whatever spells you can get off and hope your party thats alive finishes it. The mage dies so fast that it makes little difference which is why its okay for them to get those spells off.

RF had the right idea with balancing rangers v. mages but a crap way of implementing it due to ele resist never working well. Also rangers being stunners and not really DDs. Would be interesting to see archers getting a m.def increase to counter mages then we would have...

knights (high m.def very high p.def low attack low range)
assassins (very high p.atk low m.def and p.def low range)
archers (high p.atk high m.def low p.def high range)
mages (high m.atk high m.def low p.def high range)

then we give the healer all kinds of great debuffs and buffs like... lower attack power/atk speed, increase atk power/speed blah blah and give the attack mages only a few debuffs/buffs (healer has low dps)... I could go on about speeds of different classes, stuns, crits, knockback, ect.. but wow this post is bigger than I wanted. It should work out fairly if implemented in a similar fashion to L2, lets just put it that way. ~.~

[HomunculusMortus]

I think it would be really great to have faster casts and less spell interruption, that way, it would increase the pace of the game. Note the real reason i wanted to comment was because I saw Postiez's signature and it melted my heart: "Kyrie, Ignis Divine Eleison... <3 Elfen Lied <3

[Marchosias]

I'm just repeating myself now, but what I was saying was never that the system of random cancellation couldn't work. What I'm saying is that even if it works it's random. Leaving things to chance is a bad way to fight. Anything that happens by chance means something is happening less by skill, and when you take any element of skill out of the game it because less fun and less competitive. Standardized spell knockback is consistent. You can pan strategies around it. It's likely that 95% of the time it won't matter, but in that last 5% it shouldn't be a random chance... You should know what's going to happen so you can plan and react.

edit: since I've been quoted already I'll put the correction here, "because less fun" = "becomes less fun" and "pan" = "plan" my typing skills ftl

[auragin]

Originally Posted by HomunculusMortus

I think it would be really great to have faster casts and less spell interruption, that way, it would increase the pace of the game. Note the real reason i wanted to comment was because I saw Postiez's signature and it melted my heart: "Kyrie, Ignis Divine Eleison... <3 Elfen Lied <3

Mages are damage dealers, you make there cast rate faster to compensate for knock back and a mage would be overpowered imo

[Unforsaken87]

Originally Posted by Haeretik

I broke a keyboard over damage affecting cast time in WoW.

I seriously, seriously, beat its keys into oblivion in frustration.

gogo Aion

Holy Crap. Lol. If I played a game where the timer gets shot back up if I got hit I think I would break some keyboards as well. I never got into WoW, when I played a trial I think I went a melee ( which I normally dont do ), but the game never appealed to me. Now in Wow was it every single time you got hit the bar went back up? If so thats alittle crazy, cause that means that mages couldnt do good with multiple foes. I liked the cancel system from Lineage 2, probably because thats what I am use to. I feel that in any situation melee is going to hit mages, or bow classes for that matter. At least if they are close in level. IMO its hard to add skill to how good you are in pvp in a video game. I think that level and gear play an enormous part in this and always will. ( buffs as well, not sure if Aion had "buffers" like L2 had ) The whole Stigma system definately adds alot of spice and stragety to pvp and pve, but even with that there are limits to it. In Aion if mages get spells that root/push back/teleport this would be completely different. ( except for fighting bows ) Lineage 2 mages didnt have any spells that did these things except for slow, which I think necro was the only one that doesnt get slow, and even then most people would pop out a bow ( dracs everywhere ). All in all I dont care what system they put in for mages as long as it makes the classes as balanced as possible. Change is good, sometimes.

[Postiez]

There are easy ways around that... don't make the ranger cancel, compensate by damage differences between ranger and caster. I didn't play a hunter or lock/mage to 60/70 in WoW, and I just didn't talk to them enough to be able to say whether the casters had serious issues with hunters or not, but I believe it was fairly well-balanced. Hunters did have a dead zone where they were too close for ranged attacks and too far for melee, so a mage could frost nova (root) them and cast. Beyond that though, I think hunters just didn't attack fast/hard enough to knock spells back to the point overpowering them. Again, if anyone played a caster, listen to them before me, 'cause I'm speaking from very limited experience here. Oh, it's also worth nothing that hunters had pets that attacked with melee...

Your exactly right, a hunter can push back spells but not to the point that he just owns casters. What you(you as in everyone) have to realize that in WoW(and Aion too from what i have seen, ill explain a little later) it is NOT beneficial for casters to cast spells while someone is beating on their face, there are many ways to break contact and get a spell off, and these spells do a lot of damage, but aren't always easy to get off. For example, top end mage vs rogue duels the mage will usually never cast a spell, relying completely on instants. The reason i feel Aion will have the same sort of contact break system that WoW has, is from something Jamie translated, a mage frost spell that has a 30 second cooldown, is instant, and knocks the target back. If it goes the way i see it to be going, there will be a few of these contact breaks, all on semi-short cooldowns, which will allow a spell to be cast. There will probably be some sort of counter to these as well, if you know wow, some sort of intercept type move, which is basically a dash at your opponent that is followed by a short stun. But all of this is just my guesses based on very limited information, so it could be completely different.

Now, one really important thing I think needs to be taken into account with spell knock back is power of attacks. The less powerful an attack is (the less damage it does), the less it should knock the spell back. That way, a character that's just poking you very quickly will have the same knock back effect as a character that's smashing you with a hammer every 3 seconds assuming equal damage. The difference would be that the hammer would give a larger single effect and the prodding would be many small knock backs. If this isn't the case then rangers could just pick the fastest weapons possible and totally screw over casters, as could assassins and dual wield fighters, while knights and 2-hand fighters would get Ds in their Bs.

However, this I don't agree with. Having a slow hammer that attacks every 3 seconds will have high burst, thus being the advantage to having a slower weapon, also if the instant attack system is anything like WoW's is, slower is massively better than fast. The only advantage to having fast weapons is the spell push-back, look at wow, faster is more spell push-back but you cannot afford to lose the burst, making it like this would only make faster weapons even more useless. The only situation i could see doing it your way would be if instant attacks were not weapon speed based whatsoever, then it would also have to still have the advantage in favor of the fast weapons slightly otherwise I would see a situation like this...

Mage casting a 3 second spell, 2.5 seconds into the cast.
1) You run up to the mage and hit them with a 3.0 speed hammer and knock the spell back the cast 1.5 seconds, the spell casts 1.5 seconds later.
2)You run up to the mage and hit them with a 1.5 speed sword and knock the spell back 1/2 of the hammer's knock back being .75 seconds, the spell casts .75 seconds later.

I wouldn't see a reason to use a fast weapon ever if it didn't have an advantage knocking back spell casts.

I'm just repeating myself now, but what I was saying was never that the system of random cancellation couldn't work. What I'm saying is that even if it works it's random. Leaving things to chance is a bad way to fight. Anything that happens by chance means something is happening less by skill, and when you take any element of skill out of the game it because less fun and less competitive. Standardized spell knockback is consistent. You can pan strategies around it. It's likely that 95% of the time it won't matter, but in that last 5% it shouldn't be a random chance... You should know what's going to happen so you can plan and react.

I completely agree with this.

Holy Crap. Lol. If I played a game where the timer gets shot back up if I got hit I think I would break some keyboards as well. I never got into WoW, when I played a trial I think I went a melee ( which I normally dont do ), but the game never appealed to me. Now in Wow was it every single time you got hit the bar went back up?

I explained my responce to this earlier in my post, It doesn't work like that unless you are pulling 15 mobs at once. And when you do pull that many, mosts casters have instant aoe damage that will kill them more efficiently than trying to single target them down.

EDIT: wow this seems to be my longest post ever lol, I took a page from march's book

[Marchosias]

Originally Posted by Postiez

However, this I don't agree with. Having a slow hammer that attacks every 3 seconds will have high burst, thus being the advantage to having a slower weapon, also if the instant attack system is anything like WoW's is, slower is massively better than fast. The only advantage to having fast weapons is the spell push-back, look at wow, faster is more spell push-back but you cannot afford to lose the burst, making it like this would only make faster weapons even more useless. The only situation i could see doing it your way would be if instant attacks were not weapon speed based whatsoever, then it would also have to still have the advantage in favor of the fast weapons slightly otherwise I would see a situation like this...

Mage casting a 3 second spell, 2.5 seconds into the cast.
1) You run up to the mage and hit them with a 3.0 speed hammer and knock the spell back the cast 1.5 seconds, the spell casts 1.5 seconds later.
2)You run up to the mage and hit them with a 1.5 speed sword and knock the spell back 1/2 of the hammer's knock back being .75 seconds, the spell casts .75 seconds later.

I wouldn't see a reason to use a fast weapon ever if it didn't have an advantage knocking back spell casts.

I see your point here, and you're probably right... especially if they have attacks that are independent of the attack speed (I don't know specific examples for warriors, but I know there are attacks where they can hit with an ability without resetting the cooldown on their auto-attack). But yah, I see what you're saying and you're probably right.

Originally Posted by Postiez

I explained my responce to this earlier in my post, It doesn't work like that unless you are pulling 15 mobs at once. And when you do pull that many, mosts casters have instant aoe damage that will kill them more efficiently than trying to single target them down.

Yah, just expand on this, mages (and I guess locks (that's warlocks for those not familiar with the abbreviation) could, too) were the AoErs in WoW. Meaning if you had a large group of enemies it was primarily the mages who would go in and spam their instacast AoE while healers kept them up. So even with spell knockback mages are the most effective class when it comes to killing a number of opponents.

Originally Posted by Postiez

EDIT: wow this seems to be my longest post ever lol, I took a page from march's book

*****, that ain't yours! *backhands Postiez and takes his page back*

[Unforsaken87]

Originally Posted by Postiez

Mage casting a 3 second spell, 2.5 seconds into the cast.
1) You run up to the mage and hit them with a 3.0 speed hammer and knock the spell back the cast 1.5 seconds, the spell casts 1.5 seconds later.
2)You run up to the mage and hit them with a 1.5 speed sword and knock the spell back 1/2 of the hammer's knock back being .75 seconds, the spell casts .75 seconds later.

I wouldn't see a reason to use a fast weapon ever if it didn't have an advantage knocking back spell casts.

This answers my question about the casting bar question I had. I never got into WoW like I said, so I didnt know how they went about doing it.

Probably shoulda watched some more recent Aion videos before making my previous post. ^^ I just saw quite a few Closed Beta Aion videos with mages. The casting system seems fair, definately due to the fact I saw a mage rooting someone. I saw a casting bar as well, and spells being just outright canceled. I dont think I was paying close enouph attention to the casting bar to see if the bar went back up if hit.

Originally Posted by Postiez

I explained my responce to this earlier in my post, It doesn't work like that unless you are pulling 15 mobs at once. And when you do pull that many, mosts casters have instant aoe damage that will kill them more efficiently than trying to single target them down.

AOE never really crossed my mind. >< Which is quite stupid of me cause thats how I leveled up my sorcerer before I rerolled to a necro.

[Niteo]

Originally Posted by Marchosias

I'm just repeating myself now, but what I was saying was never that the system of random cancellation couldn't work. What I'm saying is that even if it works it's random. Leaving things to chance is a bad way to fight. Anything that happens by chance means something is happening less by skill, and when you take any element of skill out of the game it because less fun and less competitive. Standardized spell knockback is consistent. You can pan strategies around it. It's likely that 95% of the time it won't matter, but in that last 5% it shouldn't be a random chance... You should know what's going to happen so you can plan and react.

edit: since I've been quoted already I'll put the correction here, "because less fun" = "becomes less fun" and "pan" = "plan" my typing skills ftl

I can agree with you on this but the main problem is how would you imploment something like tha in te game... the reason why its 5% or 8% i because the stu ability has a chance to stun them not it will stunn them 40%of the time. I can understand how you don't believe that leaving everything to chance kind of distroys the skill in a game, but like i have allready said how would you imploment something that is pure skill. In my opinun you still need some stuff in combat to stll be based on chance. you can't expect a mage to be casting and have no chance in begin intarupted, i assure you if you were casting a spell and i stabed you in the back theres a good chance you'll stop wat your doing.


I guess all i have to say is I like your idea about basing everything on skill but at the moment I do not see a feesible means in putting it in a game, let alone making the game a casual user game.

[Celebrity]

Let's say cancel of a spell isn't random bad lucky, everytime you get hitted there is a chance of your spell stop of being casted. It makes a lot more sense to me then the push back system, what happens to make you cast slower when you get hitted? You mage forget words of his magic? Your hands move slower? It's strange... mages need to avoid hits not being there being hitted all the time becouse they know the magic will comes out anyways (offcourse unless there is more then 1 guy hitting).

[Marchosias]

Originally Posted by Celebrity

Let's say cancel of a spell isn't random bad lucky, everytime you get hitted there is a chance of your spell stop of being casted. It makes a lot more sense to me then the push back system, what happens to make you cast slower when you get hitted? You mage forget words of his magic? Your hands move slower? It's strange... mages need to avoid hits not being there being hitted all the time becouse they know the magic will comes out anyways (offcourse unless there is more then 1 guy hitting).

If you're insistent on a story-based explanation, the idea is that your concentration is broken and rather than just casting the entire spell you stutter a bit. You slow down, because you're not as focused on what you're doing. How many times have you been trying to say something, get a little distracted, and trail off a bit... You're still talking, you're just talking slower and not making as much sense.

I don't understand how you're justifying the cancellation system in this sense. I mean, you're saying that you can have people smacking you 3-4 times as hard as they can and 1/4 of the time on each hit you're going to completely forget what you're doing and the other 3/4 it won't affect you at all? It's a black and white kind of system that just doesn't actually exist... the knockback is a gray area system.

Niteo, the the knock back system does exactly what I was saying. Rather than a random chance to cancel you have a consistent, predictable knock back. You know what's going to happen and you can plan accordingly.

[Ecronyte]

I don't like random chance systems either.

I hate sitting back and letting a roll of the dice decide who wins and loses. I agree with Niteo that chance will always play a part battle. But I just don't want chance to make or break victories. Simply contribute to them.

It makes sense for ranged classes to have issues at melee range, and it makes sense for a group of people beating on a mage to hamper their spell casting. But I hate when reality gets dragged into these debates. Its a game, and it needs to be enjoyable (and not so frustrating you destroy your keyboard) first and foremost. It should try to make sense, it should try to approximate reality, but not be a slave to it.

Along with spell pushback, I would prefer that melee classes have skills to master to shut down casting (like kick for rogues in WoW). So that they have to stay on their toes, and proactively stop spells. And not just sit and hope their next swing interrupts the cast. Likewise, skilled mages should be able to keep melee at a distance.

Basically I think PvP should be like chess, and less like chutes and ladders.

[Gensoku]

I play WoW a large amount, (I just stumbled onto this forum by accident) and I've got a 70 mage so far and I'd have to say everyone is making out spell pushback a lot harsher than it actually is. If you use everything that's given to you as a mage 90% of your spells cast just fine. Besides in PvP you'd want to use instants anyway. In both PvP and PvE slowing, snaring effects/kiting prevent almost all of the pushback.

It takes practice to get better and those players that expect their mages to play like fighters/knights should just reroll! However if pushback was implemented in Aion I'd expect some forms of escape like slow (frost spells maybe? chill effects?) or snares something like that. I read something about teleport, basically a ripoff of Blink from WoW but a skill like teleport would really be useful.

About the multiple enemies thing, you could always use AoE spells...I'm not sure about Aion but in WoW, mages are AoE King.

About that 30 second cooldown knockback frost spell thing, never heard of it?!

[aznkenshin]

Yes, I would prefer a slowdown, but particularly the interrupting feature as done in Guild Wars. It relied solely on skill and timing, in addition to how experienced the interrupter is.

Oh, and did any of you notice this: During the early videos (E3 2006) of Aion, the casting bar shows words that are written from left to right in a foreign language instead of a progressing bar. In other words, it's meant to look like the caster is saying something to cast. Well, in recent videos, I don't see that anymore -- instead, it's replaced by a colored bar with the faint words still there.