U68 Preview 1: Wild Magic & Surges General Info

[Sarlona Raiding]

Just to clarify, while Myth Drannor is still in development, most wild magic zones you should encounter will be visible, and avoidable or manageable through some mechanic.

Wild mages can make surges pretty much a 100% benefit, but for everyone else It's just dungeon mechanic, like lava, electric floors, heavy gravity volumes, etc. so it is suppose to be dangerous. Once the content hits preview everyone can gauge that risk a bit more effectively. Then you'll know your chances of being turned into a giant or a potted plant (we didn't do that last one actually....yet.....)

I think you'll find it on the mild side of some of the things you can run into in DDO.

-T

There simply might not be time, but I wanted to suggest that the magic zone introduces new more dangerous effects at higher difficulties rather than just scaling up damage and such. So for example there would be some effects that only exist at R8+. Also, Myth Drannor might be a good time to introduce a wilderness with difficulty settings including reaper.

 

[Yamani]

Because grievers are grievers and they will lie for the opportunity to enjoy their moment of causing others grief.

The LFM’s will block out this opportunity

Of course if you are running with known friends there may be some leeway, but even i have friends that use the Oops excuse and i would not trust them with a wild mage sorc.

Can only grief yourself if rule 3 holds true. Otherwise it's just buffs for other party members.

 

[PraetorPlato]

Surge ideas, rank them as desired:

• you become a single target melee dps for x seconds, kicker is the window could be shortish and do say 80% of a vistani/assassasin (very strong), with similar defenses (could use the Acolyte of Skin as template or maybe Druid Wild Shape?)
• morph into random scenery object (box, couch, lamp...or really any fun inanimate object) where you take no damage and deal no damage (could use Dreamscape as template)
• aoe healing burst
• maybe an emoticon (like clap or kneel)
• the next x spells will cast a random spell from your spell book, instead of whatever spell you selected
• send to begging of quest: if ddoor allowed, cast then take ddoor (even if you don't have spell)
• do a gold role, then drop contents on dungeon floor)

-very bad (if I'm playing a caster, I really *don't* want to become an either ungeared or dev's idea of very strong melee DPS—I'll suck at it, probably deal less damage than a caster, and it's not my goal at the moment)
-bad (should be self-explanatory, dreamscope is only good because you can time it, randomly phasing out would be incredibly annoying and will cause mobs to cluster around me).
-good
-neutral
-very bad (hopefully obvious, but a nuker's defense is cc spells and offense, if I get random spells, I'm probably dead)
-very bad (ddoor is good because you can time it+choose when to use it, randomly sending you to the beginning of quest is incredibly annoying+flat-out breaks some quests)
-good? very good? very confident this will never be implemented, because it makes the whole class financially irresponsible

 

[Shall]

I'm going to echo what other's said, the squirrel effect with the spell failure definitely belongs in the bad category, not neutral. And maybe I'm worrying over nothing, but the res and instakill surge sounds like safeguards will be required implementing it to make sure it doesn't break quest progression.

Aside from that, I don't have time to hop onto lamannia right now, so could someone that does make list of what all counts as spells for triggering surges? I assume that eldritch blasts will, but was wondering about a few other things like rune arm blasts, ki abilities, finishing moves especially when modified by the enhancements that add the rider effects on the philosophy finishers, turn undead especially when modified by domains, ED abilities like primal scream, caster mantle procs (and if so shared mantles on hirelings), summoned creatures that cast spells, druid animal form spells like shred, the wolf breath weapons, etc, and dragonmarks.

 

[Xezon]

First impression of playing with the Wild Mage is that most of the actual WMS's are fairly unnoticeable.

I said this in my post on the other thread but I'll say it here too since it's fitting for the topic. A lot of the buffs are very short term and not highly impactful, especially in a combat situation. It's a little hard to tell what is coming from a WMS and what's from Unpredictable Consequences, but it seems like most of the WMS's are small and easily missed.

I'm perfectly fine with not every WMS being a winner... That's sorta the whole point of having the different levels of them. Unfortunately the most noticeable ones are the ones that are cosmetic and goofy in nature. I think they're funny and don't want to see them go away. What is needed is some scaling on the effects that ARE supposed to impact combat in some beneficial way.

I personally don't want a bunch of just generic "here's some damage" procs. I prefer ones like the Unpredictable consequences and Wild Strike Effects where you can get petrifications, sleep, confusion, etc. I think could also include ones that have short term SP restoration as well since there are some infrequent heals already.

Here's what I've found/noticed from the hours I've played.

The best:

Chaos Vortex (not sure if thats the name or not): Causes a burst of chaos damage around you doing chaos damage per caster level every couple seconds for 10-12 seconds.

Who's Dead: raise all nearby dead allies. I think the once per quest restriction can come off though cause I've only ever seen it ONCE in the 8-10 hours of testing I've done.

Regeneration: Straight forward. It cast's regeneration on you.

Lucky: +4 to Tactical, Spell DCs and saves. Awesome buff to get. Easily one of the best.

The Most Common:

Confetti
Pumpkin Head
Fireworks
Squirrels
Butterflies
Free Beer: the Sp drinks that drop are cool, and would be awesome if they could be used in quests sorta like the Evening Star Apple Ciders... Maybe with a shorter cooldown than the Ciders though
Swimmingly- A 40 swim buff for a minute. Meh. Not bad, not great. Can be handy if lucky enough to get it in the right time in the right place
Poof- The invisibility that doesn't break on casting a spell. Very short though. Only lasts a few seconds.
Sparkly- 2 buff to social skills. Pretty short though as well. Like swimmingly, has it's niche uses but often not.

Other's I've seen:

Unicorn- No clue what it did cause it lasted a few seconds and seemed to just run around in a circle.
Touch of Chaos: 1d6 added to spells. Very very weak. Needs to scale up with level to stay/be useful.
Feeling Blue?- i think that's the name that popped up. No idea. It's such a short duration that i've never actually gotten to read the description.


Overall, since WMS are kinda the whole shtick of Wild Mages, I feel like they could overall be more impactful (at least for the ones that are supposed to be combat oriented). Since the Wild Mage is all about getting them to proc more often, there should be a good incentive to get as many as possible. Right now, they're sorta like a gag. They're fun to see go off, but long term they're going to need some more oomph to keep the gag from getting stale.

 

[Tilomere]

People are grossly overemphasizing how negative effects will be discriminated against. My sorc currently kills on average one other player character per dungeon with Enders, and no one freaks out about it.

If Wild Mage increases that to two persons per dungeon, I think it would be pushing it, but if it was only one other person per dungeon it would be ok.

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

I love the idea of inserting chaos into the game. I feel it has become too rigid, too mathematical, too predictable. Unleash the wild magic!

 

[zandoe]

"This will be the end of DDO!"

Irl no one is forcing you to play this or even a caster. Looks like fun. just add more chaos spells, maybe slas and randomness and effects into it. Game will not be broken if have something like BOOM on it that is 0,1% chance of 100k dps or similar on the dps side of things

 

[Erork07]

Squirrel! - You conjure a pack of chittering squirrels! These can confuse nearby enemies (50% chance, no save) but they also really annoy the caster making it difficulty to cast spells for 4 seconds (50% spell failure chance)

I think a 50% spell failure chance is going to be very frustrating for a neutral effect when you can't use the core enhancements tree to rid out off.
A really strong negative effect with a very mild positive one, that only works on said "nearby mobs" (I don't know the range of it).

 

[SpardaX]

Maybe take some effects (or all of the effects) from the Chaos balls already in the game, like whats in The Xorian Cypher as ideas for some more effects? They always basically felt like wild magic to me.

 

[Thwart]

Awesome! Now I probably start joining groups!

 

[axel15810]

For surge ideas, I would suggest please make some where you get turned into a monster. Sort of like the snowman or taken from the cookies. Perhaps when a snowman you get a bonus to cold resistance and a penalty to fire resistance. Something like that. I love the transformation effects, it would be fun. Add ones beyond snowman and taken if you have time.

 

[Cmecu]

Aww No Nuking your own party with a fireball?

Or grease the entire area , no save , everyone continues to slip and slide Or everyone is blind for 20 seconds cant be removed ... mischievous stuff. Or everyone is turned into sheep for 30 seconds..

 

[Cmecu]

Well good luck - I have not seen wild magic implemented well in any video game ever and that includes arguably the best rpg ever let alone one based on D&D (BG3).

The reality is RNG is frustrating to players getting a bad surge at the wrong time during a raid wastes everyones time (think getting rat when soloing an elemental in PN or getting rat when trying to coordinate kills in DW). I see this being more frustrating than fun.

Easy solution, Raid leader asks no wild magic in raid. If you happen to be one, then no soup for you ...

 

[The Narc]

Easy solution, Raid leader asks no wild magic in raid. If you happen to be one, then no soup for you ...

Yep this is the future for sorcs

 

[AMess]

-very bad (if I'm playing a caster, I really *don't* want to become an either ungeared or dev's idea of very strong melee DPS—I'll suck at it, probably deal less damage than a caster, and it's not my goal at the moment)

above is response to:

• you become a single target melee dps for x seconds, kicker is the window could be shortish and do say 80% of a vistani/assassasin (very strong), with similar defenses (could use the Acolyte of Skin as template or maybe Druid Wild Shape?)

I was hoping that in addition to giving you a ton of DPS it would also give you a ton of defenses. I want this to be a very good, where you get evasion, 45% dodge, displacement/incorporeal, 250AC, improved saves....etc...I think we already see this increase to defense/offense in the Druid Wild Shapes....anyway, assuming you could step into an R10 capable rouges body, where would you rank it then?

 

[PraetorPlato]

above is response to:

• you become a single target melee dps for x seconds, kicker is the window could be shortish and do say 80% of a vistani/assassasin (very strong), with similar defenses (could use the Acolyte of Skin as template or maybe Druid Wild Shape?)

I was hoping that in addition to giving you a ton of DPS it would also give you a ton of defenses. I want this to be a very good, where you get evasion, 45% dodge, displacement/incorporeal, 250AC, improved saves....etc...I think we already see this increase to defense/offense in the Druid Wild Shapes....anyway, assuming you could step into an R10 capable rouges body, where would you rank it then?

I still wouldn't really want it, because I'm trying to play a caster, not a rogue, and if I wanted to play a rogue, I'd be playing a rogue. Neutral-bad. The bigger issue is that either the alternate form would be scaling on my gear (which would be bad, because I'm not wearing melee gear), or it wouldn't, and it would have preset values that are either incredibly underwhelming for well-optimized players or overwhelmingly strong for more casual players.

 

[DBZ]

These wild magic zones should brake all magic gear too randomly spread that fun right right

 

[FuzzyDuck81]

These wild magic zones should brake all magic gear too randomly spread that fun right right

Disjunction traps that temporarily suppress the magical effects on gear already exist as a thing in at least 1 of the inspired quarter traps so it's possible they could be dusted off.

 

[Rull]

Some feedback on the surges since I read the chance on a certain category can be influenced.

If it was all random it doesn't matter much, stuff just happens and it is up to the player to decide if they are happy with it or not... but if a player can spend enhancement points to improve the odds of getting a 'better' category effect, then the categories should be somewhat correct.

Very Good:
Unicorn! - You summon a powerful unicorn ally who will fight by your side for 30 seconds. This creature has an aura that heals and buffs. (aura not in this build and unicorn is a little more keen on stabbing faces then helping friends as of yet.) This one can be very bad or reasonable nice depending on the situation. In general 'no minions' is the default in most groups I'm in, since they can pull packs of enemies that the group is not ready for yet. This fits the 'wild' theme, but the right category for an ability like this would be between Bad and Neutral, depending on the AI of the summon. I'd rather never get it.

Neutral:
Squirrel! - You conjure a pack of chittering squirrels! These can confuse nearby enemies (50% chance, no save) but they also really annoy the caster making it difficulty to cast spells for 4 seconds (50% spell failure chance). That sounds worse than those in Bad. 50% spell failure is obviously much worse than Shrinkage 20% damage reduction. Not only is it 50% damage reduction, it also causes utility spells to fail. This ability would prevent me from wanting to 'upgrade' Bad surges to Neutral surges, because this is in fact worse. Only the fact that it also hinders enemies may keep it from being Very Bad.

Bad:
So tired: You become fatigued. That's not so bad. Not compared to the other two in Bad, at least. It's obviously not Neutral but popping a lesser restoration pot hardly is a fun annoyance.