One of the biggest problems with magic in Mortal Online 2 is how heavily it depends on pure manual aiming in a non-target combat system. On paper, that may sound like skill-based gameplay. In practice, for mages, it often turns into something that is not challenging in a fun way, but simply frustrating and exhausting.
I personally stopped playing mages for exactly this reason. I have a fully leveled necromancer, a fully leveled elementalist, and a fully leveled regular mage, but playing them feels awful. When you fight from range, you have to carefully line up every single shot, stand almost perfectly still, adjust your position constantly, and sacrifice movement just to have a chance of landing a spell. That alone is already annoying. But if your target is another player who is moving, strafing, changing direction, and actively avoiding your casts, then landing spells becomes nearly impossible. It creates a ridiculous situation: you spend all that time grinding magic schools, leveling your character, farming zombies, and building up your mage, only to get destroyed by almost any mediocre player simply because the magic system is too awkward and unreliable in real PvP.
Because of this, mages feel weak not necessarily because of raw numbers, but because of how terrible they feel to control. Playing a mage does not make you feel powerful, dangerous, or precise. Instead, it feels like you are fighting the game itself more than the enemy.
My suggestion is to add a system that sits somewhere between full target and pure non-target combat. It should not be full auto-targeting, because that would remove too much player skill. But the current situation, where you are expected to hit tiny moving targets manually with projectile magic, also does not work.
The solution would be a target lock system similar to what fighter jets use. The basic idea is simple: when you aim at an enemy, a visible lock zone appears around them, for example in the form of a fairly large square or targeting frame. Instead of having to hit the exact tiny model of the opponent, the mage only needs to launch the spell into that lock zone. If the spell is cast within that area, it then tracks onto the target.
This would still preserve manual aiming, because the player would still need to keep the enemy inside the targeting area and choose the right moment to cast. At the same time, it would remove the most irritating part of the current system, where even visually correct aim still misses because the target moved slightly or because the hitbox is too small and inconsistent in actual PvP.
A system like this would make magic feel much more fluid and playable. It would not turn Mortal Online 2 into a tab-target game, because the mage would still need to maintain aim, track movement, respect distance, and use good timing. Targets could still escape the lock zone, positioning would still matter, and skill would still matter. But at least the mage would stop feeling like a clown who has to stand still and try to snipe a pixel while everyone else runs circles around him.
In addition to that, I would also suggest a visual warning system for incoming magic. If a spell is flying at you, the game should give you a clear on-screen warning about what kind of magic it is. For example, the player should be able to see whether the incoming spell is fire, ice, necrotic, or another specific type. That would give players a chance to respond properly: put up the correct protection, use the right counterspell, drink the right resistance potion, or make a better decision in combat.
Right now, magical combat suffers not only from poor hit reliability, but also from poor readability. A player often gets hit without having enough time to clearly understand what exactly is coming at them and what the best response should be. Adding a warning system would make mage combat more comfortable, but also deeper. It would turn magical fights into something more tactical and readable, instead of just a messy exchange of hard-to-read effects.
So the proposal has two main parts:
First, an expanded target lock system for magic, where a large aiming window appears around the enemy, and if the mage casts into that area, the spell correctly homes in on the target.
Second, a magic warning system that lets players understand what type of spell is coming at them, so they can react in time with the appropriate defense, countermeasure, or potion.
The main goal of this idea is not to dumb magic down, but to finally make it comfortable, readable, and truly viable in PvP. Right now, the problem is not that mage gameplay takes skill. The problem is that it requires players to tolerate unnecessary frustration. And frustration is not the same thing as depth or challenge. It is simply a reason to quit playing.
I personally stopped playing mages for exactly this reason. I have a fully leveled necromancer, a fully leveled elementalist, and a fully leveled regular mage, but playing them feels awful. When you fight from range, you have to carefully line up every single shot, stand almost perfectly still, adjust your position constantly, and sacrifice movement just to have a chance of landing a spell. That alone is already annoying. But if your target is another player who is moving, strafing, changing direction, and actively avoiding your casts, then landing spells becomes nearly impossible. It creates a ridiculous situation: you spend all that time grinding magic schools, leveling your character, farming zombies, and building up your mage, only to get destroyed by almost any mediocre player simply because the magic system is too awkward and unreliable in real PvP.
Because of this, mages feel weak not necessarily because of raw numbers, but because of how terrible they feel to control. Playing a mage does not make you feel powerful, dangerous, or precise. Instead, it feels like you are fighting the game itself more than the enemy.
My suggestion is to add a system that sits somewhere between full target and pure non-target combat. It should not be full auto-targeting, because that would remove too much player skill. But the current situation, where you are expected to hit tiny moving targets manually with projectile magic, also does not work.
The solution would be a target lock system similar to what fighter jets use. The basic idea is simple: when you aim at an enemy, a visible lock zone appears around them, for example in the form of a fairly large square or targeting frame. Instead of having to hit the exact tiny model of the opponent, the mage only needs to launch the spell into that lock zone. If the spell is cast within that area, it then tracks onto the target.
This would still preserve manual aiming, because the player would still need to keep the enemy inside the targeting area and choose the right moment to cast. At the same time, it would remove the most irritating part of the current system, where even visually correct aim still misses because the target moved slightly or because the hitbox is too small and inconsistent in actual PvP.
A system like this would make magic feel much more fluid and playable. It would not turn Mortal Online 2 into a tab-target game, because the mage would still need to maintain aim, track movement, respect distance, and use good timing. Targets could still escape the lock zone, positioning would still matter, and skill would still matter. But at least the mage would stop feeling like a clown who has to stand still and try to snipe a pixel while everyone else runs circles around him.
In addition to that, I would also suggest a visual warning system for incoming magic. If a spell is flying at you, the game should give you a clear on-screen warning about what kind of magic it is. For example, the player should be able to see whether the incoming spell is fire, ice, necrotic, or another specific type. That would give players a chance to respond properly: put up the correct protection, use the right counterspell, drink the right resistance potion, or make a better decision in combat.
Right now, magical combat suffers not only from poor hit reliability, but also from poor readability. A player often gets hit without having enough time to clearly understand what exactly is coming at them and what the best response should be. Adding a warning system would make mage combat more comfortable, but also deeper. It would turn magical fights into something more tactical and readable, instead of just a messy exchange of hard-to-read effects.
So the proposal has two main parts:
First, an expanded target lock system for magic, where a large aiming window appears around the enemy, and if the mage casts into that area, the spell correctly homes in on the target.
Second, a magic warning system that lets players understand what type of spell is coming at them, so they can react in time with the appropriate defense, countermeasure, or potion.
The main goal of this idea is not to dumb magic down, but to finally make it comfortable, readable, and truly viable in PvP. Right now, the problem is not that mage gameplay takes skill. The problem is that it requires players to tolerate unnecessary frustration. And frustration is not the same thing as depth or challenge. It is simply a reason to quit playing.
