how would you react if spells worked like this?..

now.. i know this should be in general discussion.. but then people are gonna start talking about pve and random stuff and my head'll spin.. so.

how would you feel.. if dark souls had the same system as dragon's dogma- but only for spells.. or hell, for everything even.

"what the hells dragons dogma rifter?"

well if you haven't played this game.. i'll save you the trouble. skip if you've played it obviously.

Spoiler:

so what if dark souls had a system like dragons dogma for casting, but they had spells that where similar to using an actual weapon.. like a bow or what not. not overpowered, not utility- but on par with a weapon. you could have slow spells similar to tempest or sword dance, medium spells that would be similar to an r2 that can overextend itself easily and bread and butter fast spells like fireball or soul arrow.

maybe.. because the exhaustion state in dragons dogma would be weird in dark souls, there could be a magic bar that would require the correct amount like in demons souls- but would constantly regenerate like a stamina bar.

what do you think? or even better.. what would you want or do?

I think that might be able to work. I would love to see the combination of the cloranthy ring and the BDR in pve and pvp. My guess it would be quite a destructive set.

It could definitely work and so long as the stamina drain was high enough for stronger spells, it would dissuade spell spamming.

Magicians would still be lil b*****es

I like that idea. Dark Bead would cost nearly a full bar of stamina and pursuers should take out all of your stamina and reduce stamina recovery until the orbs dissipate.

I think either a stamina drain or go back to having a "manna" bar that fills slower than stamina... I never liked the "number of casts" system. What kind of mage looks down and goes "whelp, looks like i'm outta spells!"

Why is my mage with 40 something intelligence, only able to memorize a few casts? WTH is up with that?

Sloth9230 wrote:Why is my mage with 40 something intelligence, only able to memorize a few casts? WTH is up with that?

Exactly! Thats why I think a manna bar would work better. Something that gets bigger the more you raise your Int...

i brought this topic up with someone again last night.. and i went into even more depth with what I would like to see in dark souls for spells.

pyromancies = very fast r1/regular r1 spells
soceries = regular r1/r2 spells
faith= r2/high powered aoe

every tree would have utility spells easily accessable to every build with some small stat investment.
pyromancy would get a fire buff.

thered be a mana bar that would recover like a stamina bar but much slower.
there'd be a stat to increase mana regeneration and that tied to all pyromancy spells and some of the faster casting sorceries.
there'd be a stat to increase the mana pool size and it'd be tied to some of the slower casting sorceries and all of the faith spells.

if you went 40(50)/40(50) 50 being the strongest spells for each tree to unlock you'd basically be able to use every spell on a whim except the very powerful faith and sorceries constantly but would have invested 80+ stats alone out of your build to get there.
define glass cannon.

the regen tree and mana pool tree would offer attunement slots at varying levels up to 40 for the faster spells and slower spells.

talisman/catalyst r2s would be removed. instead, you'd be able to attune two spells in groups together. one for r1, and one for r2, and you could toggle them with up on the dpad in those groups.

offhand would be limited to two spells. there'd be no attunement limit, just spell limit.

return of a talisman of beasts for pyro/sorc, sorc/faith and faith/pyro.

oh last but not least, serious damage decreases in the spells to put the fast r1 dmg above regular bows by a little. balancing as needed.. the existent spells from des and dks together could be reworked and used.

would never happen tho. haha.

I would hate it.

I had too many cresant randoms in Demon's to want to be accepting of Refilling mana bars.

I actually really like a lot about the #casts system in Dark. Once you see a spell you can track it, and know if/when they might be out. Third WoG? He might be done, or there might be 3 more. TCC bead? 3 or 6 mayyybe 9. Manus Persuers? 1 most likely, 2 is a huge stretch. It makes fighting against casters more interesting because you can feel like you're involved in their spells more than "get out of the way" And as a caster it forces you to play well, you can't just wastefully spam your best spells at every random chance.

Also spells costing stamina would seriously bone the full caster low low low END builds, which isn't something I think should happen as it adds a level of diversity.

Also also. Dragon's Dogma was more fun than I gave it credit for, even if pawns are morons

Jansports: pursuers would be 3 if they had it equipped twice... which I do

See you'd suprise the hell out of me, cause I can't remember the last time I saw more than a single cast of it.

getting 2 stacks is kind of a waste as u can swap out the cat after the first and have 2 with one stack.

but yeah jan, what if they didn't hit as hard.. the spells atm are strong because they have stacks, but if they where nerfed to be comparable to using regular weapons, what then?

So your suggestion is like for example Soul Spear, is basically just like a blue magic version of the BSS r2. great soul arrow is a claymore 1hr1, just pew pew pew at a fairly reasonable clip?

Also I'd point out weapons can do just as much damage as most spells. I think at 44int CSS tops around 1k damage on bosses. I hit about that hard with my DGM co-oper. Sure I've never gotten a 4 digit hit even with Leo ring while using the winged spear, but I can also get 3ish attack out in the time it takes to soul spear so.. I dunno.

I feel like I'd dislike it. WoG is serious. GLS feels like it's got "oomph" Sorcery is somewhat nuts, mostly thanks to dark bead(where before you had very limited casts of the better spells for bosses bead not only has more casts than SS but also simply adds another spell to attune that gets merit simply for not being GHSA)

even reading their descriptions spells seem like "oh **** it's a soul spear back the hell up" On par with Gwyn's lightning? Jesus Logan you monster. And that's kinda how I think spells fundamentally should be. Perhaps this is because my first encounter with magic as a mechanic was FF1, where spells had cast limits and were stronger than a regular attack by a fair margin. But it's how I've always felt.

^ I always figured that was the point of magic as well. The issue here (imo) is that mages don't have to sacrifice enough to get it. The int based weapons and fairly minor difference between light and heavy armor, especially when combined with the wolf ring, gives casters comparable melee abilities, but with magic as well.

A good start would be to increase the defensive difference between light and heavy armors, to increase the required stats for high power spells, and possibly to add str requirements for heavy armor. This would ensure that pure mages, while extremely powerful, would be fragile to compensate where mage tanks or hybrids get better defense but lose out on the CSS that deals 1800 damage.

Following Pirate's suggestion for higher stat requiremnts. I think Dark Bead(should it return) should work like the homing attacks, more int, more beads. I also think that getting 5 orbs for the homing attacks should require more INT than just 31.

Melee builds get to swing there sword as much as they want(as much as there stamina will allow anyway), why should mages be any different? I don't like having to rely on a weapon once I run out of spells. Even if MLGS is awesome.

Because magic is stronger. Its a do or die deal.

Ever fought someone with 15 wogs that deal 1200 damage each? Thats why magic is generally limited.

it also tends to leave you more vulnerable though, aside from form force like miracles and souls arrows/darkbead, they tend to leave you standing still for a few seconds. If magic recharged then I would be willing to have it weakened.

Then why not just use a bow or a melee weapon? At best an enchanted weapon like the mlgs?

You've missed my point. In most things I see it in, magic is supposed to be hugely powerful, but extremely limited, either by being very specific in its use or with limited casts.

This is done to deferentiate it from bows and melee. If it recharges, it has to be much weaker, which makes it just an irritatingly high maintenance melee or bow, because you have an additional resource to manage AND your damage is inconsistent compared to physical damage.

The "standard" balancing system is: Mages give warriors problems by dealing lots of damage at range, warriors kill archers/stealthers because they are resistant to the physical damage, archers/stealthers kill mages because they deal physical damage at range or specialise in getting close undected. Where more skill comes in, is in killing a mage as a warrior or a warrior as a stealther

Many of my suggestions are geared toward this tried and true, logically sound system.

Skies of arcadia, Final fantasy 8 and skyrim are all good examples of magic done as is suggested, or in a similar manner and it generally sucks in all of them, for the very reasons I've specified

If limiting is whats needed then the MP system should come back. However, to me the attunement system makes little sense. It makes me feel like my spells are being created on the spot, and that I'm lugging around the items I need to create them.

However, in most places where I see magic being used(like Harry Potter) I never see it run out. In animes like fairytail it does run out, but it also recharges on it's own over time. Aside from RPG's(where they have potions that restore it if I remember right) I can't think of any games where magic runs out.

Forgive me if I misunderstood you again.

This Explains why magic tends to be stronger than melee at higher levels.

It's true for Dark Souls too. If it weren't for the Oolacile Catalyst, then early game magic would completely suck.

I was only refering to games, books and movies don't need balance.

It recharges overtime with *rest* which is done at bonfires in dks. Even outside RPGs, infamous has an mp system, lair has limited rage, mtg has manna, far cry has limited stims, racing games have limited NO2. For all the same reasons, the only difference is that in rpgs a class is built around that limited resource. Because its limited, they are powerful, more so than the other classes. If they weren't, why bother with the class at all? Just put in stims or rage and call it good.

As for the attunement system, its never explained, so it could be any number of things. An easy one is not far from the pokemon system, the caster can only hold so many casts in mind at once (for some magic reason because this is magic) and has to decide to switch a spell out and rest before he's got the strength to use it. I know how to use a flashlight, but I can't if I didn't bring one. Its like that, but in their mind.

As I said, mages pummel warriors. Stealthers and arches decimate mages with their specifically anti mage talents, and tent to get thrashed by warriors superior defences. Thats part of the reason dks needs a decent stealth system. All the power in the universe amounts to nothing if you die before you can bring it to bear.

Right, rest, but if i'm not fighting then technically I am resting. Unless spells take metal toll or something, in which case they'd require sleep. Most other games have ways of resting MP during fights.
Out of those games I've only played Infamous,(you can recharge) and Pokemon(MP potions). Racing games make sense, you can only carry so much NO2 or Nos as they like to call it.

Edit: Decent stealth system would be nice.