Spell Balance

[KDR_11k]

More importantly which spell is best for which situation. But the problem is that currently you may see modifiers that make a different spell better in a situation (e.g. enemies are immune to the best you have so you use another one) but there's rarely a need for more than one spell at a time. There are many magic systems out there that work on a combination basis, whether it's chaining attacks together or spells reacting to different status modifiers for different results or just enhancing those effects.

E.g. Xenoblade has the chain of status effects that's stagger -> knockdown -> unconscious or various moves with extra effects when performed from the back or side (from basic damage multipliers to status effects).

[keith.lamothe]

DPSPM is an utterly nonsensical number.

Not necessarily, at least for balancing.  But for balance the more important question is "are both DPS _and_ DPM on the same side of average?"  If a spell is good on both those counts, it's fairly likely it's OP unless there's a really significant tradeoff (really slow projectile, melee-range, potentially a long CD could balance some of it, etc).  Same deal for a spell that is poor on both counts; it needs something else pretty good to balance it out (piercing, sniper-range-insta-shot, etc).

But for that you need to look at DPS and DPM separately, or you can't tell the difference between those two cases.

[KDR_11k]

DPSPM is an utterly nonsensical number.

Not necessarily, at least for balancing.

It's nonsense from a mathematical standpoint, the formula damage / (cooldown * cost per shot) has no meaning. Cooldown and cost per shot have nothing connecting them. If you want something that makes at least some sense then do (damage ^ 2) / (cooldown * cost) because then you got an index number of some kind (DPS * DPM).

[BobTheJanitor]

It's kind of like saying miles per hour per gallon. (Or kilometers per hour per liter, for any euros here) You're mixing units without converting. My physics teacher would give you a stern talking to.

[keith.lamothe]

My physics teacher would give you a stern talking to.

I think said teacher is still tied up in a discussion with a utahraptor about the thermal and fluid-mechanical problems with an ambush plan that involves hiding in lava and leaping out of it at full speed.

My money's on the raptor.

[tigersfan]

My physics teacher would give you a stern talking to.

I think said teacher is still tied up in a discussion with a utahraptor about the thermal and fluid-mechanical problems with an ambush plan that involves hiding in lava and leaping out of it at full speed.

My money's on the raptor.

Having SEEN said ambush, I completely agree.

[BobTheJanitor]

So couldn't the spell info just include something like "MPS: 200, Shots per full bar: 3" ?

[KDR_11k]

Probably would be easy, I doubt I'd read those numbers (DPS and DPM are enough for me) but if you got a use for them why not add them...

The basic issue of bad balance remains though. As a first step I'd drastically lower the mana cost of plasma bolt and tidal pulse, those two spells are designed to be spammed and their costs should reflect that. Especially PB should be dirt cheap (one of those "free spells") since its low DPS would keep it balanced in that role. TP would probably see more use from me if it was more usable for saturating an area with steadily damaging projectiles. Alternatively it could get multi-shot attacks.

[Terraziel]

I think both Plasma Bolt and Tidal Pulse will both feel much better if, as noted elsewhere, the global cooldown is taken out, as it stands I am losing considerable DPS on both because of it.

Plasma bolt is "free" already but as to Tidal Pulse,  personally i'd say the problem it has is that if i want piercing then i'm going to take the high damage ones, and compared to the non-piercing spells it is expensive.

It does need the extra hook to it, maybe make it hang around for X seconds after it has reached a certain distance, creating pools of water if you will. That way it has become more distinct and it's not really competing with either the piercing or non-piercing spells. It would probably need it's damage decreased a fair bit.

EDIT:

On the topic of DPS, MPS what have you, maybe they should be toggles in the options somewhere, so 1) you can pick which ones you want, and 2) People who don't want any aren't bogged down by the info. This way you could also add tooltips to explain what they all mean.

[BobTheJanitor]

Plasma bolt is far from free, or even "free". It's one of the more expensive spells. Yes, it costs 35 mana, but it has a default refire time of .5 seconds. That's 70 MPS vs 37 mana regen per second.

(The whole reason I've been arguing that spells need an MPS measurement clearly defined on the spell, to avoid this confusion.)

[Terraziel]

Plasma bolt is far from free, or even "free". It's one of the more expensive spells. Yes, it costs 35 mana, but it has a default refire time of .5 seconds. That's 70 MPS vs 37 mana regen per second.

(The whole reason I've been arguing that spells need an MPS measurement clearly defined on the spell, to avoid this confusion.)

True, but technically any given shot of the spell is free, hence "free". and before anyone comments on it, I use single shots of it quite a lot, it's a goodway of knocking back enemies so i can have room to cast creeping death again.

Edit: on the MPS note it has the 8th lowest MPS (out of 21). beating both forest rage and ball lightning quite easily.

Edit 2: To follow up, ordering the spells by MPS makes for a very odd list. lowest to highest. In case you wonder why these numbers aren't the ones you would expect, it's because they are based off the "Real" cooldown numbers.

SplashBack              10
InsectOrb                 24
CircleOfFire              30
EnergyPulse            30
Fireball                    38
LaunchMeteor         40
CreepingDeath       50
PlasmaBolt             53.03
MeteorShower       53.33
BallLightning          58.67
GoldBoomerang     60
IceCross                60
FireTouch               76
LaunchRock            80
MiasmaWhip          90.91
StormFist               100
TidalPulse               100
Rockslide               106.67
ForestRage            130
IceBurst                151.52
DeathTouch           363.64

[TechSY730]

Goodness gracious. damage/second, damage/mana, shots/second, shots/mana. For all of these, higher is better, but each one has different usefulnesses for different times.

And that's not even getting into the weirder stuff like damage/bullet, (damage * shots)/second, damage/(seconds * mana) and other such crazy stats. And of course the straight up stats by themselves (like high damage, or low mana cost)

Who knew that measuring efficiency was so complicated?

[BobTheJanitor]

True, but technically any given shot of the spell is free, hence "free". and before anyone comments on it, I use single shots of it quite a lot, it's a goodway of knocking back enemies so i can have room to cast creeping death again.

I find your definition of "free" at best spurious. Any spell in a regenerating mana system is "free" when you append the words '...if I wait a while to shoot it again'. By that definition, Sunrise and Nightfall are "free" as long as you wait 13 seconds between each recasting. (And aside from that, even in that second that you fired it, it's not free. You've still only regenerated 2 mana instead of 37 mana in the second you shot it. By that definition everything I buy on payday is free, as long as I don't spend my whole check!) Sure, the spell is cheap compared to other spells, but when the conversation is about balancing efficiencies you kind of have to have a baseline of comparison.

But I'll allow that it's not really one of the more expensive spells compared to the rest of the available spells on a scale of MPS. Although for what it does, I think it's still overpriced.

[Penumbra]

... By that definition everything I buy on payday is free, as long as I don't spend my whole check!)

This would only work if you were only able to keep $300 in the bank, and if you ever had that much, your employer stopped paying you. In that case, anything earned while at cap is wasted, and only buying things would allow you to be payed more. Then, anything bought for a price less than you earn in a pay period while you were at cap would effectively be "free," since both before and after the purchase you had $300. 

[keith.lamothe]

I've apparently been reading too much order of the stick lately, because seeing this exchange caused the mental image "Thog no like talky man metaphors!".

Yes, clearly too much of something, he'd never say "metaphors".