Twitch Skill vs Tactical Skill

[Teknique]

I've heard from more than one person that twitch skill should not be the primary factor in an mmorpg.

I would like to invite my forum colleague @Kaemik who suggests that a reduction of twitch skill allows for players with more tactical skill to shine to comment.

I will argue that

Twitch skill and tactical skill are not distinct, or if they are distinct tend to occur together and do not mutually exclude. In contrast to the argument that twitch game play overrides tactical game play and a reduction of twitch means there is an increase in tactical game play, or that too much twitch can undermine tactical game play.



Since twitch gameplay isn't really defined i'll take one from wikipedia

"Twitch gameplay keeps players actively engaged with quick feedback to their actions, as opposed to turn-based gaming that involves waiting for the outcome of a chosen course of action. Twitch can be used to expand tactical options and play by testing the skill of the player in various areas (usually reflexive responses) and generally add difficulty (relating to the intensity of "twitching" required)."

Since MO isn't a turn based game it is by nature a twitch based game (it has skill based in the game description by the developers).

We would like to point out that almost all high twitch games in their true competitive forms are team games with a moving objective. This by nature puts an emphasis on tactical gameplay in the form of assisting your teammates, taking and holding map control, using special items or utility to throw off the opponents twitch skill, and timing (intentionally delaying your action). None of these have anything to do with twitch skill if we had to definite it as tactical or twitch and if twitch skill and tactical skill mutually exclude we would expect to see none of these things at competitive levels.

Instead a good player will likely have both in abundance and we reject the argument that players are so tactically sound that they're just being held back by their reaction time and that other players are so fast that they're just not using tactics at all and out speeding everyone.

Next we argue that there are no low twitch builds. Since things move quickly in a real fight in mortal or elsewhere your reaction time will be important. How quickly do you have your heal spell, how good are you at aiming it, do you know when to switch between purify, heal, and offence, how quickly do you react to teammates communications?

Below I am playing a dominator mage/paladin, I didn't use my pet in this because there's no point when just gatefighting, but if you look carefull you can see that I have one. This in my opinion is a very high twitch skill ceiling build because it requires actively scanning for friendlies who need heals, healing and attacking moving targets at range, micro managing your pet and devoting extra key binds to it. Low twitch skill mages are what we call bad mages and they can be absolutely fatal to have on your side if they do not have heals prepped, do not actively scan for heals and miss all the time. They would be better off playing a fighter in armor and leave the healing and pet management to the twitch boys.

The above is good tactics, keeping your teammates healed, calling for them and helping them get finishes and it also is good twitch. They are the same or at the very least occur together.

Should twitch skill be in an mmorpg? I think by definition it has to unless its a turn based game. WoW honestly has a tonne of twitch skill even if it is tab targeting. Managing 15 different spells and knowing when to use them, using proper mouse movement and not keyboard turning. Sure, it isn't counter strike but it is and has been played as an esport. So what is the difference, just the loss that occurs in WoW is pretty meaningless effectively nothing, maybe some buffs thats you have and 1-2 points of durability.

So the answer is yes.

So does reducing twitch skill in a game increase tactics? We can see no reason why it would

 

[Kaemik]

Carrying this over from another thread where it was distracting from the primary conversation:

...you will need good comms, engage with teammates, good utility usage and reaction speed only as a function of accuracy or crosshair placement.

Agreed. But these are separate skills than the split-second reactions required to counter an incoming blade on a bad ping. You don't need to be a particularly fast player to become absolutely phenomenal at any of these skills with the possible exception of accuracy. Which even then is a bit easier to master on a hitscan class. You're never going to fully remove reaction speed from the equation unless you make a game turn-based. Which nobody except pro-twitch trolls has advocated. But good battle comms and utility usage are absolutely something you can master with practice unless you have a severe handicap in terms of reaction speed. Perfect parries and counters are something many average people have as much chance of mastering as they do being a professional tackle for the NFL.

There is no distinction between tactical play and twitch play

Disagreed. When I play Age of Empires 2, I have slow reactions I can't bounce all over the map and manage 3 different armies and multiple scouts with complex maneuvers while microing archers and managing an economy. I've come closer to these things by learning hotkeys and practicing proper build orders so that my main build doesn't require as much of my attention but there is a wall I'm going to hit well before I can ever contest someone like the Viper. That being said, since like 5th grade I've known every unit, what it counters, and what counters it. And to a certain degree this has allowed me to win in many matches against slightly faster opponents that aren't as good at building counters.

That is the difference between tactics and twitch. Chess is an an all tactics game. Magic The Gathering is all tactics and luck. A button that times your reaction from hearing a noise to pressing a button would be a pure twitch game. Age of Empires, Counterstrike, Darkfall, Mortal. They fall somewhere in between. Twitch and tactics are not the same things and I think some of the classes should rely far more on tactics than twitch.

I am not saying these roles such as tamer/dominator should be less twitchy than they were in MO1. I'm saying they should increase the tactical challenge, and make them comparable in power to a twitch role.

As to why that's good? Well, I play and enjoy AoE2 knowing I'll never be on the Viper's level. I'll also likely never play against the Viper. When I win matches my rank goes up, when I lose matches my rank goes down and I have roughly a 50% win rate 1v1 because their ranking system for 1v1s is pretty good. In an MMO, everyone fights everyone. It's good to have multiple methods you can use to advance and grow more powerful in the world because people who feel checked by a particular class's skillset feeling that only through that class can they advance as a player are likely not going to be people who stick with your game.

Thankfully in almost every MMO I have ever played, certain roles appeal to me when others do not because of the variety of skills roles allow. While others my disparage or praise certain classes I play for the most parts developers treat them equally and nerf them when they are too powerful or buff them when they are too weak with no regard to if it's a primarily twitch or tactics class. This is the way.

 

[Teknique]

Carrying this over from another thread where it was distracting from the primary conversation:




Agreed. But these are separate skills than the split-second reactions required to counter an incoming blade on a bad ping. You don't need to be a particularly fast player to become absolutely phenomenal at any of these skills with the possible exception of accuracy. Which even then is a bit easier to master on a hitscan class. You're never going to fully remove reaction speed from the equation unless you make a game turn-based. Which nobody except pro-twitch trolls has advocated. But good battle comms and utility usage are absolutely something you can master with practice unless you have a severe handicap in terms of reaction speed. Perfect parries and counters are something many average people have as much chance of mastering as they do being a professional tackle for the NFL.



Disagreed. When I play Age of Empires 2, I have slow reactions I can't bounce all over the map and manage 3 different armies and multiple scouts with complex maneuvers while microing archers and managing an economy. I've come closer to these things by learning hotkeys and practicing proper build orders so that my main build doesn't require as much of my attention but there is a wall I'm going to hit well before I can ever contest someone like the Viper. That being said, since like 5th grade I've known every unit, what it counters, and what counters it. And to a certain degree this has allowed me to win in many matches against slightly faster opponents that aren't as good at building counters.

That is the difference between tactics and twitch. Chess is an an all tactics game. Magic The Gathering is all tactics and luck. A button that times your reaction from hearing a noise to pressing a button would be a pure twitch game. Age of Empires, Counterstrike, Darkfall, Mortal. They fall somewhere in between. Twitch and tactics are not the same things and I think some of the classes should rely far more on tactics than twitch.

I am not saying these roles such as tamer/dominator should be less twitchy than they were in MO1. I'm saying they should increase the tactical challenge, and make them comparable in power to a twitch role.

As to why that's good? Well, I play and enjoy AoE2 knowing I'll never be on the Viper's level. I'll also likely never play against the Viper. When I win matches my rank goes up, when I lose matches my rank goes down and I have roughly a 50% win rate 1v1 because their ranking system for 1v1s is pretty good. In an MMO, everyone fights everyone. It's good to have multiple methods you can use to advance and grow more powerful in the world because people who feel checked by a particular class's skillset feeling that only through that class can they advance as a player are likely not going to be people who stick with your game.

Thankfully in almost every MMO I have ever played, certain roles appeal to me when others do not because of the variety of skills roles allow. While others my disparage or praise certain classes I play for the most parts developers treat them equally and nerf them when they are too powerful or buff them when they are too weak with no regard to if it's a primarily twitch or tactics class. This is the way.

RTS is the most twitch intensive genre

I doubt you would own the below player with your tactics, just a guess.

but yes, you can learn the game and get better that way like you're saying. I just don't see how you could ever make the argument that twitch players have bad tactics. They should have both and therefore still win.

 

[Kaemik]

AoE2, generally considered a much worse RTS than starcraft is still part of the RTS genre. Which is likely the most twitch intensive type of game out there.

I simply used AoE2 as an example, I played Starcraft as well and like AoE counters were important and you could beat a faster opponent by using the proper counters. I send all aircraft that can hit ground targets, you send zealots or zerglings. I win. That simple. The counters actually were harder than in Age of Empires where every unit is at least capable of damaging every other.

The point wasn't what game is better or worse. The point is it illustrates the differences between twitch and tactics. A high twitch player will micro their units super well and be all over the map doing multiple things at once. A high tactics player is going to have very good building placement, technology selection, and always know what to run as a counter when they see your units.

That is the difference between twitch and tactics.

And yes RTS at the highest levels is the most insanely twitchy genre in existence because you have to combine great tactics with great twitch to reach the pro-level. It's not like MMOs where there are different roles. The genre thrives despite of it because of ranking systems that always keep you playing players who are roughly on your level. If newb/moderate RTS players got stomped by pros on the daily, the genre would die overnight.

Most successful MMOs have certain classes that are more tactical, certain classes that are more twitchy, and balance those classes against each other regardless of which skillset the class uses more heavily. This keeps a genre where everyone will face every level of player more engaging by ensuring you won't be skill capped by the particular skillset of any specific role or class. The player has some agency over what skills will be required to master their role or class in that they can select a role or class that uses the skillset they prefer. MO2 should do the same. I have spoken.

 

[Teknique]

I simply used AoE2 as an example, I played Starcraft as well and like AoE counters were important and you could beat a faster opponent by using the proper counters. I send all aircraft that can hit ground targets, you send zealots or zerglings. I win. That simple. The counters actually were harder than in Age of Empires where every unit is at least capable of damaging every other.

The point wasn't what game is better or worse. The point is it illustrates the differences between twitch and tactics. A high twitch player will micro their units super well and be all over the map doing multiple things at once. A high tactics player is going to have very good building placement, technology selection, and always know what to run as a counter when they see your units.

That is the difference between twitch and tactics.

And yes RTS at the highest levels is the most insanely twitchy genre in existence because you have to combine great tactics with great twitch to reach the pro-level. It's not like MMOs where there are different roles. The genre thrives despite of it because of ranking systems that always keep you playing players who are roughly on your level.

Most successful MMOs have certain classes that are more tactical, certain classes that are more twitchy, and balance those classes against each other regardless of which skillset the class uses more heavily. This keeps a genre where everyone will face every level of player more engaging by ensuring you won't be skill capped by the particular skillset of any specific role or class. The player has some agency over what skills will be required to master their role or class in that they can select a role or class that uses the skillset they prefer. MO2 should do the same. I have spoken.

Sure there are people who cannon rush to diamond , but they're objectively not really considered good by anyone.

Knowing your build orders, your counters, your expansion times, and scouting while tactical play is going to take a tremendous amount of twitch to do properly.

I don't know if you played at that level, I wasn't particularly good at it, but are you telling me that having your upgrades started and 3rd base going down by the 5 minute mark didn't take a lot of twitch? Because that's the easy part after that it gets incredibly overwhelming to keep up.

Minus a cannon rush, or some other pocket build I don't think your low twitch players from MO are out playing anyone in starcraft with tactics.

As above so below, the person who most emulates a pro player by using both twitch and tactics will win, the only way to change is that by making it turn based or rock paper scissors.

 

[Kaemik]

No. I am not saying that at all. You made the point twitch and tactics are the same thing. I said "no they aren't" and used the RTS genre as an example to illustrate the difference. Now you're going off on some tangent entirely unrelated to the argument we were having before.

If you can see the difference between beating someone because you had good micro, and beating them because they kept sending zealots while you went air units, then you know the difference between twitch and tactics so we can resume the conversation we were having earlier.

 

[Teknique]

No. I am not saying that at all. You made the point twitch and tactics are the same thing. I said "no they aren't" and used the RTS genre as an example to illustrate the difference. Now you're going off on some tangent entirely unrelated to the argument we were having before.

If you can see the difference between beating someone because you had good micro, and beating them because they kept sending zealots while you went air units, then you know the difference between twitch and tactics so we can resume the conversation we were having earlier.

I anticipated that argument

"or if they are distinct tend to occur together and do not mutually exclude."

 

[Kaemik]

And I'm not arguing that they are mutually exclusive. Just that they are separate things.

The argument I am making and which you seem to take exception to, is some classes should lean more heavily on tactics (knowledge of that game and applying it appropriately to earn an advantage) and some classes should rely more heavily on twitch (reaction speed/micromanagement). And neither skillset should be considered inherently superior or inferior.

 

[Teknique]

And I'm not arguing that they are mutually exclusive. Just that they are separate things.

The argument I am making and which you seem to take exception to, is some classes should lean more heavily on tactics (knowledge of that game and applying it appropriately to earn an advantage) and some classes should rely more heavily on twitch (reaction speed/micromanagement). And neither skillset should be considered inherently superior or inferior.

I do not believe that to be possible.

The hitscan in the first game was more difficult than melee. There are no tactics that aren't available to everyone since there are no true classes. Warriors have virtually no special abilities so there really isn't anything to balance.

Furthermore I have no idea what that looks like. A Dominator mage should pick a pet that does blunt damage? It couldn't be any more simple tell your pet to attack.

Now I personally often set my pet to attack, called it back to me, set it on a different target, kited around it for protection, but that is all twitch.

Forgive me if I don't remember some of your suggestions, but what tactic beyond "pet attack target" are you looking to utilize.

 

[Kaemik]

My suggestions on pets

You're going to notice some of my suggestions actually do incorporate elements of twitch. That is because I don't intend to play chess while everyone else is playing whack-a-mole.

When you say:

"Now I personally often set my pet to attack, called it back to me, set it on a different target, kited around it for protection, but that is all twitch."

Are you implying this is anywhere near the same level of twitch that it currently takes to play melee in either MO1 or MO2?

If not you can perhaps come to understand what I mean when I say a role should rely "more heavily" on tactics and not "entirely".

Will activating abilities require to make your pet pop off require some twitch? Yes. Absolutely. As much twitch as it takes to be a melee fighter? No. Hopefully nowhere near. But hopefully, these abilities take a bit more thought and situational awareness than a melee build.

 

[Kaemik]

A really simple analogy. Many games had Direct Healing heavy healer builds and Heal Over Time heavy healing builds. While I would play healers balanced between these when these were available, HoT abilities have always been my favorite heals. I've also always very much liked any kind of active buffer build. Why?

HoT healer builds and buffers are about anticipating needs and keeping your entire party constantly cared for. They are very tactical roles when played well. Direct healing exclusive roles are about reacting to needs like "Oh shit Joey's at 1, gotta throw in some clutch heals to save his ass!"

I could get practiced enough to be above average at the 2nd type of healing but I could never be the absolute fastest at saving someone whose at 1 or purging negative conditions instantly. It was through absolutely mastering elements like pro-active heals/buffs and mana-management in addition to being kinda good at the later healing types that I pretty much carried some fights and had people commenting on how amazing of a healer I was in many games.

Neither role was all tactics. Neither role was all twitch. But pro-active healing is more tactics and thus I was much more capable of getting close to the skill-cap in that form of healing.

 

[Teknique]

A really simple analogy. Many games had Direct Healing heavy healer builds and Heal Over Time heavy healing builds. While I would play healers balanced between these when these were available, HoT abilities have always been my favorite heals. I've also always very much liked any kind of active buffer build. Why?

HoT healer builds and buffers are about anticipating needs and keeping your entire party constantly cared for. They are very tactical roles when played well. Direct healing exclusive roles are about reacting to needs like "Oh shit Joey's at 1, gotta throw in some clutch heals to save his ass!"

I could get practiced enough to be above average at the 2nd type of healing, but it was through absolutely mastering elements like pro-active heals/buffs and mana-management in addition to being kinda good at the later healing types that I pretty much carried some fights and had people commenting on how amazing of a healer I was in many games.

Neither role was all tactics. Neither role was all twitch. But pro-active healing is more tactics and thus I was much more capable of getting close to the skill-cap in that form of healing.

It sounds like you’re referring to prehoting on a Druid in a raid.

So would you be for tab targeting in mortal.

I couldn’t get your suggestions to open up but I still fail to see how the most twitch aim intensive class mage, coupled with pet micro in any way is the answer for noobs. Other than it is powerful in a 1v1

People complained rightfully about necro summons because they actually didn’t take anything beyond telling it to attack an opponent. They blocked for themselves and had dimensional phase shifting armour and would teleport back to the caster while regenerating 20 hp a second. Is that the kind of tactics we need?

 

[PatWins]

Hi

 

[Kaemik]

I didn't play WoW for any extended period of time. But no you're putting words in my mouth again. More examples of pro-active healing would be how I laid down circles for allies to stand in as a crusader cleric in Crowfall (Non-tab-targeted) or the druid build in that game was EXTREMELY proactive, setting up healing orbs only visible to allies that they had to pick up for themselves. It was entirely proactive healing, damn near entirely non-twitch based, but orb placement and team comms were EXCEPTIONALLY important to making that role pop off.

Running into enemy AoEs with my shield up to redirect the damage I was blocking as healing to my allies didn't take much twitch skill, but it took good situational awareness and class familiarity.

Throwing a DoT on an allied melee as I see him preparing to charge the enemy vs. hitting him with a direct heal while he's already engaged and low is an example of a tactical decision vs. a twitch-type skillshot.

I couldn’t get your suggestions to open up but I still fail to see how the most twitch aim intensive class mage, coupled with pet micro in any way is the answer for noobs.

No. You equate tactical skill with being a newb. I do not. Tactical roles aren't for "newbs" they are for people who want a class that requires in-depth game knowledge, situational awareness, and the ability to think on your feet. If anything they are classes for the MOST experienced players.

If the aiming is ridiculously difficult then I'll probably play something less aim-based. Usually, I've found hitscan builds easiest builds to play next to things like turret builders and melee's in most FPS titles (Because melee is easy without parry) and I imagine that might be more true on a game built on a newer engine. But micromanaging a pet doesn't sound at all beyond my capabilities. Part of the reason I say I want to be a dominator necromancer is that summoning the right minion for the situation at hand sounds more fun than landing Tlashes. If most direct aim abilities get dropped from my build in favor of being a better minion master it won't hurt my feelings at all.

 

[Kaemik]

Pets and Minions, Let's Unbox This Can of Worms on Christmas Day!

Alright, it's about time we dive into this one. Domination, Taming, and Necromancy are all skills in MO2 character sheets right now. As the dude who built a skill calculator for MO2 I can tell you the skills are not pure cut and paste. There are missing skills. There are added skills. There are...

mortalonline2.com

My thread on pets again. If it doesn't work for you this time just scroll toward the top of the 2nd page and look for a thread with my avatar as the OP.

 

[Rhias]

Regarding pets... In my opinion they should involve/offer more tactics and movement, and not just plain attacking.
E.g. you can tell your pet to run into a certain direction. Then the enemy is basically between you and your pet. Then tell your pet to use a charge attack. The pet gets a bonus for charging the enemy into the back.

Or certain attack combinations. Your pet is able to execute a certain attack that results in blocks instead of parrys for the next 1/4 second. So you need to time your player attack properly in sync with your pet attack.

 

[Kaemik]

Or certain attack combinations. Your pet is able to execute a certain attack that results in blocks instead of parrys for the next 1/4 second. So you need to time your player attack properly in sync with your pet attack.

Sounds like a pet meant specifically to complement a melee player. I think that's a great idea for specific pets though I think more often pets will be controlled by mages and/or archers.

 

[Rhias]

Sounds like a pet meant specifically to complement a melee player. I think that's a great idea for specific pets though I think more often pets will be controlled by mages and/or archers.

True, I'm personally a melee players but I also like pets.
In MO1 pet + melee was never a big thing (unless you count those ridiculous DKs with infinite life).
But for "normal" pets most of the time your pet was blocking your path and running into the way.
And of cause they handed out a shitload of free parrys.
And you also had no way to call your pet "back" while you're in the frontline (unless you sent it to another player in the backline). So you would need to run out of meele distance to make your pet stay, and then run back to melee distance.

But those mechanics to control pets as a melee player in Mo1 were more workaround than actually controlling.

 

[Kaemik]

A simple ground targeted "Go here" ability would be nice both as a reliable way to get your pet out of the action, and because you could say, aim slightly to the side and behind the enemies and tell it "Go here" then tell it to attack an enemy once it's behind their lines for a flanking maneuver. I imagine if you're a melee who uses your pet to give yourself flanking you would very often find yourself snapping off a "go here" command to send it next to your healers.

Of course, that feeds into them being better for ranged classes still IMO as you're going to have a more zoomed-out view of the action as opposed to needing to present your back to the enemy to tell it to go back to your allies. But at least you should be able to keep your own pet from tripping you up if the commands are responsive and long-range enough. Melee+pet sounds like it could be deadly 1v1 if the pet AI isn't total trash though.

 

[Handsome Young Man]

@Kaemik I think where we found common ground was a look at Guild Wars Necromancy system.

For a brief run down...

Necromancers were a class in a game called Guild Wars. Guild Wars was a tab-target game, designed for competitive play. This is way monsters followed the class system the players had to follow so players could learn the different abilities and how to counter them. If you have never played the first Guild Wars (Guild Wars Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall + Eye of the North [Expansion of sorts]). I highly recommend buying it and playing it. It's a good game, and while the pop has definitely died down dramatically - it can still be played solo to about 85% of it's content.

Guild Wars operates off of tab targeting and a skill bar composed of eight abilities which you choose before you go out into the world. (Zones were instanced. Cities were safe hubs to socialize, learn skills, get quests, group up, organize, etc. Zones were open and filled with pre-spawned mobs, random generated loot locations, etc.)

Necromancers were a class in Guild Wars that offered a lot of different 'builds' which ranged from Curses, Hexes, and most notably Death Magic, usually dubbed 'Minion Mastery'.

Minion Mastery was the skill line dedicated to the raising of the Undead, and having them fight for you. However - Minion Mastery had it's draw backs of course.

1.) Required a corpse for the summoning of your specified minion.
2.) Gradually lost HP at a fixed rate, meaning they had to be healed.

I feel as if Necromancy in MO1 was super problematic due to the fact the Necromancy pets were made more permanent whilst also being extremely valuable due to high damage mitigation, self healing, ranged attacks, unlimited stamina, etc.

I feel minions under Necromancy should of worked more like, in it's entirety, the skeletons and zombies summons that they had. They weren't permanent, but people could find uses for them.

The skeletons could be used to mass produce and actually explode in combination with another spell - literally nuking players (Not effective, but unique nonetheless).

Zombies / Mummies actually were pretty effective.

Notice how the mummies are using ranged attacks, but not hitting that hard; but also noting that the mummies were low HP and very easily killed - just in this specific situation they were very advantageous.

I feel necromancy 'pets' should follow this path. Just to continue affirming this idea... Let us take another example. World of Warcraft: Classic (Vanilla).

One of the most memorable classes in Vanilla WoW was easily the Warlock. It's kind of hard to just 'not remember' the Class or not even have seen it even if you never played. They had by far one of the most unique set of spells, unique pets, and tons of other nifty abilities.

What I'm obviously going to focus on is their pets. Was every single pet outright powerful? No. But they had strengths and weaknesses. I feel MO could take a look at Guild Wars Minion Mastery system as well as Vanilla WoW's Warlock pet system.

Summonable pets should never be permanent, but when dying they can be somewhat easily replaced.

They shouldn't outright be the best at everything, but rather specific in their designs. If we take a look at both Guild Wars and WoW we can see this.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Death_Magic#Death_Magic_skills <-- Refer to any abilities in the guild wars wiki with the pretext of 'Animate' in this section to see how minions sometimes had different 'purposes'.

<-- Random video of it in action.

https://classic.wowhead.com/guides/wow-classic-warlock-demon-pets <-- An overview of how warlock pets had different strengths and weaknesses.

I couldn't find an 'overview' of the different Warlock pets without fully diving into lengthy tutorials of the entire class. But just do the research.

Just to take away suggestions from both of these games as inspiration, and combine them with the experiences I've had among others in MO1 is that necromancy pets should not be permanent as it creates high gold sinks which people then use to justify the damage / OP nature of them whilst keeping them relatively low-skill i.e. "Pets attack all."

1.) Summonable pets should have their HP based off their purpose. High damage pets should have low HP, low damage pets should have high HP. This shouldn't be followed 1:1 but a general basis to go off of.

2.) Summonable pets should gradually lose health at a fixed rate. They are temporary, undead, and are not natural. They should realistically decay and die without care. Necromancers in MO could even gave sacrificial healing spells to heal pets. A small % based spell of their total HP to heal a pet for much more then a normal healing spell. Gives more incentive to the players to engage with their pet, also deepens class fantasy.

3.) The gold sink / time sink should be in getting the abilities, not the creations. Mages, IMO, should always have to work super hard for their higher tier spells - not work for them then also put tons of gold / materials into a single spell. It creates an artificial sink that then justifies a creation that breaks balance.

What are some suggestions I could make in ways of Necromancy? As in, new pets.

Low Tier:

1. Skeletal Archers (Ranged)

2. Skeletal Warriors (Melee)

3. Skeletal Mages (Magical Ranged)

Medium Tier:

1. Mummified Archer (Ranged)

2. Mummified Warrior (Melee)

3. Mummified Mage (Magical Ranged)

High Tier: (Uniquely named /and-or/ unique purpose)

1. Risen Khurite (Ranged)

2. Risen Knight (Melee)

3. Risen Mage (Magical Ranged)

4. Tupilak (Poisonous - Ranged)

5. Death Knight (Tank - Melee)

6. Shade (Lifesteal - Magical Ranged)


All these pets would be on the spot summonable, varying in cast times, mana used, and price / rarity of reagents.

The last three which were originally in MO1, would require more expensive and rare reagents - but wouldn't necessarily be the tremendous gold sinks they initially were.

The tupilak now becoming a towering ranged creature that inflicts poisonous attacks (purifiable), so a ranged heal-denier.

The death knight would now shift from an all-in-one foot fighter that blocks, hits, ranged, etc. To just a pure tank with extremely low damage output, but it's attacks cause immense aggro. (Think of a Void Walker from WoW).

The shade would now have ranged magical attacks which heal itself upon hit, meaning so long as it's on someone it'll self-sustain unless focused.


The damage of all these pets should also scale. I'll use the armor tiers naked, bone, scale, and metal to distinguish damage differences with the damage being labeled low, medium, and high.

Low Tier:

Naked - High Damage.

Bone - Medium Damage.

Scale - Low Damage.

Metal - Low Damage.

Medium Tier:

Naked - High Damage

Bone - Medium to High Damage.

Scale - Medium Damage.

Metal - Low Damage.

High Tier:

Naked - High Damage

Bone - High Damage

Scale - Medium to High Damage.

Metal - Low to Medium Damage.

Since magical attacks ignore armor, this would be my tier list for damage.

Low Tier - Spells should hit anywhere from 5 to 15 damage.

Medium Tier - Spells should hit anywhere from 10 to 25 damage.

High Tier - Spells should hit anywhere from 20 to 35 damage.

You have to keep in mind. The average HP of players will be anywhere from 160 to 210. With magic only relying on psyche for resistances, and many players not having psyche for the most part; this damage is more than effective / sufficient. Especially when you have the unique summons.

Just my take, not like I expect SV to read this and follow it to any degree. But I feel like this system would work way better.

As for pet users in general. All pet users should have to use spells to issue commands. This makes pet users utilize their mana rather than acting like docile mana batteries which stay in reserve and regen their mana to heal their pet. It's a dumb system.