04-30-2012, 05:09 PM
Changes to weapon swinging
For every DEX above 100 you now increase swing rate by 0.4%. This applies to all weapon types. Note also that before the changes every DEX below 100 meant the loss of 0.8% weapon swing rate, this still appies.
The main aim of this change is that, in conjunction with the changes to bandages, it should be more viable to concentrate on a high DEX approach to combat, but without resulting in auto-attack only victories, magic (input) should always be necessary in a system with no weapon moves and no skill cap.
In particular I think high DEX may work well in confined spaces like duels, but this is largely untested because people didn't want to shift stats just for the testing area, I hope warrior-inclined players can give me some feedback on this soon.
Changes to mana management
Passive mana regeneration now works. To balance this mana potions give 75% as much mana as before. Mana regeneration is dependent on INT and Meditation. When the combination of these two is 200+ then you get maximum regeneration which is ~ 1 mana/s.
In the old system a constantly-chugging player could get 36mana/27s. In the new system the same approach will give 27mana/27s plus a regen of 1mana/s which is 54mana in the same time frame. This is significantly more and regeneration rate is certainly something I'll be keeping an eye on. However, increased mana intakes for a number of spells and greater incentives for use of other potion types means that overall mana regeneration for most people will remain significantly below this cap. But, a judgement call is there for whether you wish to go that mana intensive at the cost of not being able to use Heals and so on (the advantages of which I have discussed above).
Additionally there are a number of ways to negatively impact your opponent's mana pool (see Mana Drain and Mind Blast).
Changes to weapons
Only 1H bladed weapons can now be poisoned. This is to enhance their usefulness whilst recognising with the new poison mechanics that the hardest hitting weapons should not be able to apply poison as well. To balance this further changes were also made: Now poison pots give a greater number of charges to help with keeping poisonable weapons useful (since in general they do poorer damage) and also previously-poisonable weapons (all 2H Axes and Spears) which can no longer be poisoned have had their damage levels increased (mostly in the form of minimum damage increases with only slight increases in max damage to give a more reliable and less luck-based damage output).
Changes to stamina management
This has never been a big part of the game but a quick note to say that Refresh potions have their delay reduced to 8s.
Further to this Stam drain on macing weapons is now fixed. It was in fact bugged before and was draining way more than intended so this is less of a change and more of a fix but I figured it should be mentioned. Before maces could drain up to 10 stam per hit, now the cap is 4.
Changes to scrolls
These changes have been covered in the spell details above. But to reiterate one of the most important points, the following list of scrolls cast the same as the spell book and as such serve no purpose beyond increasing your casting success chance: Harm, Fireball, Mind Blast, Cure, Heal, Poison, Mana Drain, Lightning.
This still leaves a large number of scrolls which are vital to PvP: Flame Strike, Greater Heal, Magic Reflect, Paralyze, Magic Arrow, Energy Bolt, Explosion.
And also many that are at least useful: Bless, Curse, Teleport, Wall of Stone, Dispel Field.
For every DEX above 100 you now increase swing rate by 0.4%. This applies to all weapon types. Note also that before the changes every DEX below 100 meant the loss of 0.8% weapon swing rate, this still appies.
The main aim of this change is that, in conjunction with the changes to bandages, it should be more viable to concentrate on a high DEX approach to combat, but without resulting in auto-attack only victories, magic (input) should always be necessary in a system with no weapon moves and no skill cap.
In particular I think high DEX may work well in confined spaces like duels, but this is largely untested because people didn't want to shift stats just for the testing area, I hope warrior-inclined players can give me some feedback on this soon.
Changes to mana management
Passive mana regeneration now works. To balance this mana potions give 75% as much mana as before. Mana regeneration is dependent on INT and Meditation. When the combination of these two is 200+ then you get maximum regeneration which is ~ 1 mana/s.
In the old system a constantly-chugging player could get 36mana/27s. In the new system the same approach will give 27mana/27s plus a regen of 1mana/s which is 54mana in the same time frame. This is significantly more and regeneration rate is certainly something I'll be keeping an eye on. However, increased mana intakes for a number of spells and greater incentives for use of other potion types means that overall mana regeneration for most people will remain significantly below this cap. But, a judgement call is there for whether you wish to go that mana intensive at the cost of not being able to use Heals and so on (the advantages of which I have discussed above).
Additionally there are a number of ways to negatively impact your opponent's mana pool (see Mana Drain and Mind Blast).
Changes to weapons
Only 1H bladed weapons can now be poisoned. This is to enhance their usefulness whilst recognising with the new poison mechanics that the hardest hitting weapons should not be able to apply poison as well. To balance this further changes were also made: Now poison pots give a greater number of charges to help with keeping poisonable weapons useful (since in general they do poorer damage) and also previously-poisonable weapons (all 2H Axes and Spears) which can no longer be poisoned have had their damage levels increased (mostly in the form of minimum damage increases with only slight increases in max damage to give a more reliable and less luck-based damage output).
Changes to stamina management
This has never been a big part of the game but a quick note to say that Refresh potions have their delay reduced to 8s.
Further to this Stam drain on macing weapons is now fixed. It was in fact bugged before and was draining way more than intended so this is less of a change and more of a fix but I figured it should be mentioned. Before maces could drain up to 10 stam per hit, now the cap is 4.
Changes to scrolls
These changes have been covered in the spell details above. But to reiterate one of the most important points, the following list of scrolls cast the same as the spell book and as such serve no purpose beyond increasing your casting success chance: Harm, Fireball, Mind Blast, Cure, Heal, Poison, Mana Drain, Lightning.
This still leaves a large number of scrolls which are vital to PvP: Flame Strike, Greater Heal, Magic Reflect, Paralyze, Magic Arrow, Energy Bolt, Explosion.
And also many that are at least useful: Bless, Curse, Teleport, Wall of Stone, Dispel Field.