Why it feels bad to be a Pure Mage & What can be done to fix it

[Jasa]

After 1240 hours of gameplay on my mage I have finally filled my spellbook, I have exclusively been a mage on this single character, with many others ranging from Footfighter, Paladin or meme. I believe I have some qualification of time investment and experience in this classification. I've done all the bosses in the game, and every dungeon to date. I have most of the content under my belt, as well as most of the magic schools currently in the game.

Magic is a powerful tool, there is no doubt that dropping burst damage feels good against other players, even on NPCs during a boss fight. In a traditional MMO or RPG the MO2 Mage would be a coin toss on being overpowered or made to be useless in one aspect of gameplay. In this retrospective I am going to try and explain the pro's and cons in the unique playstyle that is Mortal Online’s mage.

The Mage of Mortal​

Lets start with what makes MO2s mage unique. In most games a mage or caster lives or dies by their mana bar. Most casters are not healers, and most healers are not Damage dealers. In this case healers generally die when the mana bar goes out, or the mage fails to function as the fight drags on too long and goes oom as well needing to sit out. In Mo2 the mage is both a Healer, DPS and Support. in most cases you regen more mana than a lesser heal assuming you have Mental Focus leveled, allowing you to regen mana while healing. Most spells in the game do high amounts of damage for a decent amount of mana, in most cases a mage only gets 4-5 casts of the larger spells before going dry on mana. The only time we can say this is not the case is casting 'Spurt' or 'Outburst' though unlike with healing their mana cost is high enough that regening while casting is impossible with these spells.

The Mo2 Mage has a marathon progression system to acquire new magic schools and spells in a Spellbook. Unlike in other games you do not go to a trainer, or level up to get new spells. You have a spellbook that you either bought or ran a dungeon to obtain. You must then actively seek out and either learn scribing to put these spells into your book or trust a Scribe to hold your book to scribe the spell into. This system requires an unhealthy amount of time & Commitment. The upside is that as a mage in most cases the cost of your progression is frontloaded. Once you have these spells unlike a sword will never lose them unless the book in question is lost or stolen as it is soulbound. This item can and has sold for 10k gold a 'stack' or more. A full spellbook, is more gold than the average player will ever have their hands on in this game. The amount of time and effort to create such a thing is a quest in of itself.

One more major difference is the reliance on Reagents, as it was said the daily cost is front heavy and the needed materials for specific spells can mostly be bought in towns, or from other players as a byproduct in professions for cheap. Spells requiring these reagents causes a desire to carry more things on the mage than they may need in any given situation. they may never need or have the ability to use the spell but when the situation comes about it is a painful lesson that many do not wish to see repeated. The 'Kit' of the mage is extremely cheap compared to a Footfighters armor and weapons however knowing the amount of time the mage needs to spend and the cost of such a thing to reach that point, one can understand why.

 

[Jasa]

Clashing of Identity & Function​

Now that we know what the Mo2 Mage is, we need to look at what role the mage fills in any given situation. The Healer is simplistic, every game needs a healer, the healer and tank roles are typically the lowest played class or archetype in any game. With a game like Mortal Online you have the flexibility to be a healer and a DPS with massive burst damage. This makes you valuable to any group allowing you to tag along to dungeons and content that most people cannot go do on their own. This is an MMO Afterall.

However the road is not kind to mages. Being a mage in a party of footfighters means you are the healer, you may have come to be a DPS, however the footfighters will get to the enemy before you and bodyblock you from casting your spell. The archers will shoot it before you are even in range and it will most likely be dead by the time the spell is done charging. The gameplay experience of a mage is showing up to a fight and finding they cannot do anything other than heal the foot fighters who killed it several seconds before you arrived. The loot already grabbed up by them and you Then needing to heal them so they can repeat the process. Before we did not get any clade for this. Though a good footfighter will most likely not need to be healed as they can just parry most things allowing them to walk away with no damage, meaning you do not get clade at all. In the case of a bossfight you now get a good portion of the clade, however 120clade from a bossfight hardly counts towards 25-30 mobs that gave the footfighters 12-20+ clade points.

one would think the burst damage is enough to kill most content in the game, it is not. The true reality is that most mages crumple over and die to even scoundrels or bandits and their HP values make them tankier than players in most cases. It takes 4-5 casts to kill a bandit or scoundrel, that is your entire mana bar or close to over it. You then need to sit down and regenerate your mana or run away. In a game where in most cases you are outnumbered a mage dies easily. Pulling two mobs means you need to reset or pray you kill one before they get to you. Then pray they do not chain interrupt you 3-4 times causing you to need to recast the spell, it has and will happen. To catch up to footfighters, you need to pull out a weapon, to run faster, or be insane enough to have no weapon and run with fists out. Then you need to put the weapon away to cast your spells, this only adds to the time between you getting a spell off or just accepting that you do not get to partake in a fight. The icing on the cake is just that most mage spells are shorter range than a Shortbow, you have very little time to prepare and cast a spell.

The mage in most cases, cannot solo content on their own in a reasonable amount of time, being a mounted mage is about what one can expect and taking four times as long as a mounted archer to kill something is the norm. If it’s a ranged enemy like a bowman, forget killing it with magic as you will not be able to out dps it, or get enough casts to make a difference.

So burst damage, has ironically a higher time to kill then everyone else. It can solo one regular mob, but it cannot keep going. A good footfighter with sub metal armor and weapons can 1v1 a Mino, Risar Commander, a mage cannot on foot. Magic has its uses in PvP, however you die faster to a player and are interrupted more from a Hostile player so once they are on top of you, then you need to stop being a mage or die in 3 hits. The archetype of being a caster, now needs to put down their spellbook that they worked for, and become a rogue or dagger mage/dex mage. If you try to be a caster in these moments, you die and usually with full mana or close to it. The average mage, is not a mage, but some degree of Hybrid. There is no such thing as a Pure Mage if you wish to survive in any content in this game.

The long quest to obtain powerful magics, the ideal of being able to overpower others and be a master of your magic school, is not real. It is not present. The function of the mage is a healbot for footfighters, and an occasional surprise damage if things go well. The answer to dealing with you is always to get in melee, there is never a time where it is not the answer. The gameplay of a mage is to find that they are not built for magical ranged DPS, but burst damage that costs so much, to do so little. In a game where every footfighter is a tank and DPS, and every mage is a healer and subpar dps. where everyone has a role to play, you are the enabler for them to do their content. While you need them, they do not need you.

This is only exacerbated by Mage specific content drops in 'Mage Dungeons' that as one might expect to be doable by mages, this is however not the case. The mage needs those footfighters to help them brave the dungeon or spawn locations to get the materials or spells for their school. The footfighter needs to consistently farm Risar's for their grain steel and pig iron to create armor and weapons, it is a weekly if not daily grind that rewards them massively. The mage needs to run that content a few times and it is done. After you have your spells why go back to that dungeon? What is it that you get out of it? what does the footfighter get? The answer is nothing, while a footfighter can spend 5-10mins clearing a Risar camp and walk away with enough materials for a few swords, a mage would take 10-20mins to clear the same camp and likely walk away with nothing of value to them..

This creates a divide between mages and footfighters, they can solo content, a mage cannot. The mage is chasing after items they do not want, You need to farm it to end the grind, they need to farm to continue the fight. While a mage takes a thousand or more hours to be prepared farming bobbles, sators, necromancers, bandits and others, a footfighter once stepping out of haven only needs 20-40hours to be fully prepared skill wise and then begins the farm for better gear that they can solo farm towards. While you chase scrolls they are ready for end game and just need to reach it or join in on a few runs with established players, a mage needs to brave these locations time and time again or shell out copious amounts of gold to expedite this process.

The reality of a mage is painful. You are not a powerful caster that slaps aside their foes, your quest to obtain forbidden and secret knowledge is not rewarded. The strongest of mages, played by the most skillful of players can still die to a footfighter who just installed the game. The footfighter can simply sacrifice a bit of dex con or strength to have 20-30 psy and negate 25-35% of a mages magical damage. Magic Reflect enforces mages with limited range to spend what precious few moments they have in PvP to cast another spell to strip that shield or suffer painful magic. The mage cannot wear heavy armor as they will lose mana regen. The mage cannot invest in Con and negate the damage of a sword. We have no Physical barrier that lasts as long or does that much. Ironically while the Footfighter has options, the mage with all its utility does not.

The only time my arguments falter is when one is a pet user and a mage, though the two are not mutually exclusive. Ritualism,Taming and Dominating are all good options to help a mage. Though domination was not in the game for many months, and is still not fully implemented. Taming is just a dominator as breeding is not out, so doubly painful. Ritualism just came out, and the expense and time investment to become one is once more a journey, then the cost of learning what is good and what is bad as a pet, only to find they nerfed or changed a stat, a gem no longer giving as much damage, a carcass no longer viable. Just like Alchemy, the recipe and data you collected is useless. Wait a few years when they forget about it to start experimenting until then, it is unreliable at best.

The mage is a fun idea, it has a majesty to it. The reality is that most players who quit this game were mages. The majority of mages who played the game for a long time and now do not, are the ones who experienced this and gave up. The community memes about nerfing mages, why nerf a classification that has a nearing 70% attrition rate. 68% just does not sound as catchy. Mage makes up about a 10th of the population. If everything I've typed out does not make it crystal clear why, then I apologize. I'm not that smart, and a bit unhinged. You have to hate yourself to be a mage, and you have to not be a mage to play this game.

 

[Jasa]

The Summary of The Problem​

There is not one thing that makes mages unfun, it is a multitude of them.

Burst Damage not being enough, Mana Problems, PVP being unable to defend yourself, Hard CCed by Melee or Arrows, Being forced into a playstyle you do not like or want, Dungeons not attracting both Mages & Footies, Gameplay changes that force meta's or enforce/Destroy a Playstyle, Community beatdown of said archetype, Clade farming taking too long/impossible, inability to do content on your own, Balancing based on Content not yet in the game, forced compliance of role in party, low survivability, lacking mobility options, lacking defensive options, Magic Schools not rewarding specialization, Lacking options beyond burst damage, Time Investment to complete skill set and lacking reward on said skills, balancing of magic schools based on future updates, unfinished spells, spells specifically countering mages.

Not all of these problems need to be fixed, not all of these problems are 'bad' they however need to be addressed in some fashion as much like Necromancies Walkers, there is too much going on to make use of them. The same is happening to Mage, too many downsides for too little upside. Something needs to happen. Someone needs to correct the state that is Mage.

If I had to pick any three; These are the problems that affect mages the most.

The Core of the Problem
Consistent reliable damage
Melee survivability
Melee Retaliation​

It is a little dramatic, though magic has been its own death knell for the entire classification. Pets were supposed to be the great equalizer, they were not. Necromancy was supposed to be the great equalizer, it was not. Elementalism is said to be changing many things, adding projectiles, placeable AoEs rather than targeted hitscan, additional effects of heating and cooling spell interactions causing unique effects or damage types other than magic. This is supposed to be a great equalizer, but will it? No doubt chain lightning will be powerful and Healing AoE may be a godsend, though It does not fix the core of what is wrong with mages.

The Last Hope; Staff Magic​

It may be a bit dramatic but I honestly believe that Staff magic needs to resolve the core problems of mages. Everyone I’ve talked to has agreed that Mages should be and are the counter to footfighters, while archers counter mages however burst damage is not enough. Survival in Melee is paramount while also giving an option to fight back. The ability to actually deal damage in a meaningful and consistent way while also giving utility back to the mage. Ecumenical may be prided as a magic school that is a starting point for all mages, I argue Staff magic should instead take that place as the only magic school that we know of that will have an item related to it much like a Spellbook.

The core of what staff magic should be; Consistent reliable damage, Melee survivability & Retaliation

Let us start with the first;

Reliable (Non-Burst) Damage​

Mages burst damage is not reliable for Clade Farming or Material farming. A staffs projectile attack should be similar to an archer though limited in range much like how most magic is now or make it a slow projectile. The staff should take mana from the user and be the only attack a mage has that does not cost reagents. Much like a footfighters sword, there should only be a limit on how many times you can attack based on Stam&Mana as you launch attacks at players. This damage should be just about half to outburst in damage and mana cost should be variable and reasonable. I could see staffs being separated into one handed and two handed with one handed being less mana/stamina cost with less damage but it would be like healing you regen mana as you go. While the heavier one would still be a good alternative and good damage but drain your mana more consistently.

This could be a toggle ability so you turn on and off ranged attacks, it would be another thing on the bar, but I think it would be a skill thing to work out.

If the damage is consistent then you can farm, you have an item you need to invest into and it can cost a gem and materials so you need to go farm like a footy, you have the ability to attack as a mage in melee as no one can interrupt a staff launching a bolt. Treat it like a cantrip, and you can still wack people with the staff for a little blunt, mages might even build a staff to be a Benny to wack a footy that gets too close.

Melee Survivability​

The staff should be a weapon you keep out at all times. It is a weapon a mage can use consistently and reliably. Let us just assume this is the case, when a footfighter gets in melee of a mage they cease to stop being a mage. With a staff you can block, this is already a boon as you do not need to swap weapons as a mage only pull it out or you already have it out.

If we assume the staff is focused for a mage, then lets make a little wild suggestion when you block with a staff or parry the damage that bleeds over a % of it goes towards your mana. This keeps ranged archers as the bane of mage, footfighters drain the mana of the mage so keeping your mana high for dives becomes a gamble for a mage. This rewards mages with block as they take less over damage from block/parry and thus have more mana to survive longer. Two footfighters will still destroy a mage but at least a single diver takes a bit longer to kill you.

Retaliation​

Finally we reach a hard sell, but I think that a mage that gets dived needs a way to retaliate. I think that if we go with what makes a mage a mage, it's being prepared and thinking ahead. Spells take time to charge and we have to be mindful of every action or reaction we take. I think that there should be a way to charge spells into your staff and when you melee attack with it the spell goes off. It could have a cooldown between uses as you cannot just T-Lash over and over again, but I think that the mana cost should be predone so a mage has a few tricks up their staff.

I suggest making it so you need to be able to cast the spell with its full mana cost and however many charges needed to put into the staff. It could also be dependent on what the staff is made of, or the gem quality. You could just tweak the damage or mana of the base spell to make sure spells you do not want to see in a staff go off. If a mage charges during combat then they are out of mana and are vulnerable in those moments. Mages with higher mana are thus able to charge more powerful spells. I could see it like the trinket system but the mage can refill it sort of like reloading a boomstick.

This would allow a mage to strip the magic reflect of a footy rushing into them, and to bonk them with a spell that they precharged, though if they used it in PvE or ran out of charges. It would have a CD and you cannot spam it but it gives a mage the ability to retaliate. This would make staff mages a bit dangerous to walk up on. It gives us an option to fight back and I do not think it is over powered.

Final Thoughts​

After 1240hrs of mage, these are the major issues that need to be addressed with mages and I think that staff magic should be the magic school to address them. Elementalism sounds like long ranged nukes. Mentalism will give us things like invisibility and blink but It does not fundamentally fix the core of the issue, it's a cool set of spells, but I think that staff magic is the best, and last hope to solve these problems for mage.

Let me know what you think. Do these seem like reasonable problems, what do you think is causing most mages to leave the game? Is it the hitscan funky ness? Is it a non-issue? Are footies going to cry and say this would kill the game if mages were viable again?

 

[JohnOldman]

The main problem is that the Mage's enemies don't see any of the downsides, they are used to run with 10 psyche not willing to sacrifice a single point of strength or dexterity and to be able to parry incoming damage, so they feel cheated when they cannot reactively defend themselves against magic damage. They are desperate to get those sweet 11% damage rings, in the meantime they would never consider investing money into a 9% ecu defense amulet, they rather cry NERF MAGE MAGE OP. When in reality the only situation when that mage had any chance to cast those "deadly" spells was when he outnumbered or ambushed his opponent.

Other than the vast majority of the player base misunderstanding or ignoring any of the shortcomings a mage has to deal with, i think that the current Time to kill is overall way too short. (only exception being Heavy armored Oghmirs on Tungsteel or Oghmium) Mages on rugged garments or ranger armor wont last more than 3 hits of a guy with damage trinkets and steel weapons, this can happen in 2-3 seconds, Imo there should be buffs to HP tied to constitution, also some boost to psyche may be in line to make it more appealing (maybe a 1% bonus to blunt/slash/pierce defense every 20 points, if not this something else has to be done to buff psyche).

This way it would be harder for people to die at the hands of mage's burst damage and maybe mages would be able to survive more than 3 seconds if some footie gets close to them.

 

[Jackdstripper]

If you have ever played a melee character you can see why mages are kept in a “weak” state. Melee fighting is not easy, it requires a lot practice to master and, if your opponent is good at parrying, it takes a while to get the kill. You have to learn the range of your weapon, avoiding handle hits, parrying, fainting, timing attacks, movement, hiding animations, spinning, dealing with ping, etc, etc. its very involved, not to even get into all the work/gold required to get good gear which is very crucial.


Now here comes a mage that is almost naked, all he has to do is aim, he can damage you from far beyond your reach, you cant block his damage, you cant mitigated that damage with better gear, and you cant run away because he will just keep shooting you from afar. The only thing you can do is run him down and kill him before he kills you.


This is why SV has to keep mages “weak” at least in solo mode. Otherwise there would be absolutely no point in playing a melee warrior.also the stronger a solo mage is the more ridiculous multiple mages focus firing becomes. Already multiple mages can insta pop enemies. Its very tricky to balance solo and also group gameplay.

 

[Jasa]

If you have ever played a melee character you can see why mages are kept in a “weak” state. Melee fighting is not easy, it requires a lot practice to master and, if your opponent is good at parrying, it takes a while to get the kill. You have to learn the range of your weapon, parrying, fainting, timing attacks, movement, hiding animations, spinning, dealing with ping, etc, etc. its very involved, not to even get into all the work/gold required to get good gear which is very crucial.


Now here comes a mage that is almost naked, all he needs to do is aim, he can damage you from far beyond your reach, you cant block his damage, you cant mitigated that damage with better gear, and you cant run away because he will just keep shooting you from afar. The only thing you can do is run him down and kill him before he kills you.


This is why SV has to keep mages “weak” at least in solo mode. Otherwise there would be absolutely no point in playing a melee warrior.also the stronger a solo mage is the more ridiculous multiple mages focus firing becomes. Already multiple mages can insta pop enemies. Its very tricky to balance solo and also group gameplay.

I've played 250hrs of footfighter, I have played 315hrs of Paladin and 150 of Spelladin. Melee takes personal skill to play at top levels, this is not in dispute, it is a well known fact that some foot fighters can slam down 6-10 footies, we have all seen the 2v10 videos. Top end mages at best get 1v2 and when they do it's with a dagger in hand, not a spell being thrown. Throw down a video of a mage killing 4+ people and tickle me surprise since it never happens.

If you have played any amount of mage you would understand that mage is in a sorry state. I farmed out 20 clade in less than 60hrs on a footfighter and my Mage is still at clade 17 after 1240hrs. I have walked in your armor for a hundred hours, you cannot even begin to walk in mine for fifty.

I have partaken in many fights, with Mana, Unbroken & Rising Sun, NorthOrder, Koto, Integrity, Legion, Nightfall, Karni, Levia and more. I can tell you I've only seen the magical 'MageBang' happen twice. where a footy goes down in half a second. In most cases this does not happen. In reality what happens is the mages spread out and attempt to bang down a footy that is currently dancing with a mage who is parrying. This is how groupfights tend to go with mages. If you have enough footies to dance with the mages they lose, if you have half the numbers of the mages you have a decent chance to win. The average mage is weaker than the average footfighter.

You hardly read my post if you are talking about kits, Mages pay up more upfront than any other playstyle in the game. Arguing to make the most time intensive gameplay style in the game 'weak' is why we have lost more mages. Though do go ahead and keep spouting on about footy supremacy. Mage must be week to keep foot fighters happy. This is also in my post, You do not care about mages, or the state of the game. You are part of the problem and why so many mages have quit.

I might as well join them since nothing will convince the footies who stayed. Who cares about mages, now that they make up a sliver of the playerbase. Enjoy the corpse of a game that you are creating.

 

[JohnOldman]

If you have ever played a melee character you can see why mages are kept in a “weak” state. Melee fighting is not easy, it requires a lot practice to master and, if your opponent is good at parrying, it takes a while to get the kill. You have to learn the range of your weapon, avoiding handle hits, parrying, fainting, timing attacks, movement, hiding animations, spinning, dealing with ping, etc, etc. its very involved, not to even get into all the work/gold required to get good gear which is very crucial.


Now here comes a mage that is almost naked, all he has to do is aim, he can damage you from far beyond your reach, you cant block his damage, you cant mitigated that damage with better gear, and you cant run away because he will just keep shooting you from afar. The only thing you can do is run him down and kill him before he kills you.


This is why SV has to keep mages “weak” at least in solo mode. Otherwise there would be absolutely no point in playing a melee warrior.also the stronger a solo mage is the more ridiculous multiple mages focus firing becomes. Already multiple mages can insta pop enemies. Its very tricky to balance solo and also group gameplay.

The only thing you can do is run him down and kill him before he kills you

Thing that you will always be able to do in a 1v1 situation there is no way in hell he is within casting range of a footie and said footie cannot get to melee and chop him to pices before he ates 4 to 5 spells.

Already multiple mages can insta pop enemies

This nonsense im tired of reading as an excuse, the time to kill is already ridiculously low on a 1v1 and you expect a 5v1 to have any chance? Tell me witch 5 footies or 5 archers cannot deal in the same manner with a single enemy.
And if we talk about a 5v5 any 5 archers will pierce to death 5 mages before they are on any sort of range to cast any spell, against 5 footies if the 5 mages have good sync and they wont miss probably will be able to kill one of the footies before they get dived at that point worst case scenario MAYBE another footie dies and there is already 5 dead mages and 3 footies still alive. now if we talk about 1 mage and 4 footies vs 5 mages, the 5 mages may not be able to kill a single person because they would all have spell reflect on and then the focus target may be body blocked by others while getting more reflects and heals.


Every single footie here claiming "all he has to do is aim" is nonsensical. 99% of the complaints against mages always come from people that were being outnumbered and they lost all the outplay potential they had as soon as the mage started free casting on them, mother fucker you were on a 1vX what the fuck did you expect? The level of entitlement to think that a whole playstyle is only there for them to get healed and do their thing is mind blowing to me.

I will repeat myself again, the only situation when that mage had any chance to cast those "deadly" spells was when he outnumbered or ambushed his opponent. And even this tiny amount of niche is enough for footies to complain 24/7 about the time they were winning a 1v1 and a mage came to finish the job.

Honestly at this point i may advocate for all ecu spells to be projectile based with travel time instead of hit scan so footies can finally stu about mage not taking any skill. the amount of upfront investment a mage has to do for then to then hear:

Now here comes a mage that is almost naked, all he has to do is aim

you know why he is naked? because he is gonna die on 2 hits either way, and if you cannot kill a naked rat mage you are doing something wrong and this will only happen in gettho level fights next to graveyards, you wont see any mage going naked to a dungeon and they have to invest a shit ton of gold in spirit boxes and necro regents, not only those but also hundreds of ecumenical reagents also, buying reagents for a mage is much more expensive than people like you thinks, it may be even more expensive than going around with steel weapons.

 

[ArcaneConsular]

The problem is simple: Because mages don't need armor to deal high damage, and because mages can deal damage through armor, they will always have to be 'meh' because if you buff mages then they can just run around naked with a few reagents and kill fully geared up players. So they can't make mages good, could only fix it without unbalancing the broken risk/reward system of being a mage

 

[Jackdstripper]

I have walked in your armor for a hundred hours, you cannot even begin to walk in mine for fifty.



You hardly read my post if you are talking about kits, Mages pay up more upfront than any other playstyle in the game. Arguing to make the most time intensive gameplay style in the game 'weak' is why we have lost more mages. Though do go ahead and keep spouting on about footy supremacy. Mage must be week to keep foot fighters happy. This is also in my post, You do not care about mages, or the state of the game. You are part of the problem and why so many mages have quit.

I might as well join them since nothing will convince the footies who stayed. Who cares about mages, now that they make up a sliver of the playerbase. Enjoy the corpse of a game that you are creating.

Dude what is wrong with you, seriously? I’ve mained as a mage since 2010 in MO1. Ive been in more pvp, wars and sieges thatn you can imagine. And let me tell you that you 700 hours of melee character is laughable.

There is no need to be condescending and talk down to me. All you are doing is showing your own ignorance and bigotry.

I simply understand why mages are kept in the state they are in by design. It works in group play and keeps the majority of population as melee( as SV envisions). Make individual mages stronger and thats all anyone will play. Of course in solo gameplay it makes mages very weak, as they should be. Magery is easy and low risk gameplay. This is a fact.

I understand that you want to be able to solo 4 people as a mage, but frankly that would be broken af.

 

[Emdash]

I suck sooooo much at hit scan. Now, I could learn. Like most other things in my life I've failed hard at doing, I realized there was a 'simpler way' to do it. I would like no hit scan T B H. I would like projectiles. How would heals works? Like calm breezes or AoEs either around you or something you could put down. Pretty sure there is/was a blindness AoE? Stuff like that is interesting.

I really think that the solo PvE problem is huge, especially considering clade. They should at least have some way to stun an animal and finish it off. I'd die if I had to kill a springbok w/ magic haha, even mounted. That's not really true cuz you start w/ fulm, but you get the idea.

Mages being able to do stuff that other classes can't... I mean, there is more to the game than just fighting dog shit mobs. Fighting mobs is ASS. It can be relaxing to MA a big ball of mobs, but in general, it's not something you want to do. Stuff like... being able to cast a spell to jump higher, being able to cast it on other people. Being able to cast fall dmg 'resist,' general life stuff. Not talkin' about flying, but just things that would help. PvE 'stuns' would fix a lot of the mage problems, but it would still be unbearably long to kill. I think that's an L mage is gonna have to take. It's poor design, but I don't think there is a way to fix it. But being able to enchant a pick axe and get more gains, being able to carry more, walk on water, etc lol. It might sound like I'm on acid, but stuff like that I think would make mage cooler. It'd still be limited by the clade thing, but I'd def spend time maging around if I could do those things.

Biggest problem is def accessibility. It's not like where I can craft a flake sword instead of ogh, it's binary. You either have the spell or don't. Once again, I hear, "I'm surprised you haven't tried Necro..." It's like yea, man, there's just no possible way I'm gonna put that time into MO2. - shrug - Even if Necro is underpowered, I'd find a way. They thought necro was underpowered in GW1 end game content, but yaboy was like hmm... look at all these corpses tho.

So yeah, mage making unachievable things achievable would be pretty cool TO ME. That would be enough. Once they fix acquiring clade. From the outside in, and yea was derpin on mage in MO1, too. The fact you can't get the skills and you have to dedicate yourself to clading... like it would make the most sense to spec MA, clade, then switch to your mage. That sucks! That's epic grind. Spells AND clade, and like you said, as a ranger you don't get any loot, but also, don't play w/ dickwads who refuse to share loot haha.

I think Spiritism might have been an attempt to help mages farm, but again... it's some completely off-the-map level stuff.

MO1 mage had fewer skills, still had PvE problems, but you could go around and live your life cuz you had all the skills and the main 'hard part' of speccing a mage was going to JC to get the books or spurting yourself.

I would look at fixing mage into a world-alterer outside of group fights, opposed to trying to make it viable solo, and I would say the only part I disagree with is that mages should be able to counter dives because, 1, even popping off a good spell at someone you know is gonna dive should get the dude killed if your team is on it and 2, you have to have some risk.

ALL IMO, of course.

Peace.

Dude what is wrong with you, seriously? I’ve mained as a mage since 2010 in MO1. Ive been in more pvp, wars and sieges thatn you can imagine. And let me tell you that you 700 hours of melee character is laughable.

There is no need to be condescending and talk down to me. All you are doing is showing your own ignorance and bigotry.

I simply understand why mages are kept in the state they are in by design. It works in group play and keeps the majority of population as melee( as SV envisions). Make individual mages stronger and thats all anyone will play. Of course in solo gameplay it makes mages very weak, as they should be. Magery is easy and low risk gameplay. This is a fact.

I understand that you want to be able to solo 4 people as a mage, but frankly that would be broken af.

I love you jack Let's all be friends. As the vet, pretend you are an elder. Be nice to da kids.

 

[Zaldimar]

In regards to the pure magic user in this game and others:

I got my love of RPG's from playing D&D Red Box edition on in the 80's, loved and always played casters feeding on inspiration of Gandolf, Raistlin, and Yoda Early Sierra Games, Like the Quest for Glory games (Hero's Quest: at first), Ultima Series starting with the first one all the way through Ultima Online and yes, even shroud of the avatar. Gold Box Editions as they released from TSR and Eye of the Beholder II, Icewind dale, and everything in between and on. Everquest I & II, Ashrons call, Aeon, Rift Warhammer online... you name it and I ate it up looking for that rush to meet my internal expectation of a wizard and what it was in my head.

Early on in the MMO world I literally got pulled into the industry starting as a guide due to my in game knowledge and solving of quests that people missed. These were in the days before journals and online guides. Trying to solve broken quest lines like the tome of ages, slime crystal staff, and even being a major contributing factor in solving the first ever epic weapon quest in EQ for the wizard staff.

This lead me to working for a time with both SOE and Blizzard on Everquest and World of Warcraft..

I say all this not to parade myself but to try to give understanding as to who and where my though processes come from when talking about such a delicate subject. Years ago, while at one of those companies we started taking the tests of people doing the scientific approach to game player styles. I will attach one of my old profiles as well:

https://apps.quanticfoundry.com/profiles/gamerprofile/b7ff0ae971b94c43a537060d87c3fd5e/?n

I find it interesting because when it comes to games, I want nothing more than to play Mortal Online II. I talk to my friends about it constantly even though I have not logged in for quite some time. It has all the components I crave in a game.

Full loot open world PvP, Hidden lore and player driven economy, a skill point system with a hard cap forcing specialization while preventing god mode characters that allow players to be self sufficient forcing them to work with or trade with other people.

What I lack is the time to do what I did in my 20's. Now, I have kids, life responsibilities, and the inability to have play sessions last into the morning hours forgoing sleep and rolling into work. I wish I could but I can't and I would never want to prevent anyone that does have that time commitment to devote themselves to spend it as they can. In a way, I envy people that can.

THE MAGE:

With all that said. Game players and Developers/Designers have different expectations of what they want or need. I've been consulted multiple times on different games about how to make their pvp games better... and quite often my answer is “You can't.” usually it is because of how the game has worked in the past or general (legacy abilities or character design).

If you take something from a player you will upset them. A basic example would be This Item turned out to be exploitable or overpowered. Early on in MMO history the running way of dealing with this was leave the item in but prevent future players from obtaining this. Ex: for old school gamers ( The Thex dagger or Guise of the Deceiver) BTW: I still find the dagger a sore subject as mine was auto thrown into an Ice Giant and never replaced or returned LOL.

Ability wise we have instances like Age of Conan or Rift where they are in a rush for quick fixes that they constantly are adjusting abilities before even the core abilities are working correctly. Which we also see here. This game is still developing. Not everything is in place. Which for me personally lead to much of my loss of interest in it choosing to wait until things are more manageable at times.

Mage players tend to gravitate to some core aspects in RPG and MMO gameplay.

Raw Burst Damage: These player generally don't care about the class more the mechanic. They will run to Archery or become what we see as war clerics. They care only about the amount of damage they can do in the shortest amount of time, They use elements of surprise, advantage, and their heals only for themselves. Their Ideal scenario would be pop out of invisibility or stealth, while a player is engaged or half dead with a mob, one shot them at range with no risk let the mob de-agro and loot the player corpse. While not my playstyle valid and often the one that causes the “Balance” issues due to perception.

Utility Mages: people that love the Buff/Debuff. They are the silent defenders of guilds. In a world where people live and die by achievements and rankings People get removed or kicked from groups because they don't place high enough on the DPS/HEAL parse. Often the value of a debuff/buff goes unnoticed.

Healers: Is a huge often separate topic as it is often a differentclass all together. In Mortal Online II there is no class system so this provides some of the issues for understanding the gameplay of mages or pure casters.

Mindset of Mages and Secondary Trades:

Mage players tend to move towards Alchemy, Herbalisim, Crafting: Wands and Magic Items, Lore, spell scrolls and solving puzzles.

As stated by the Original Poster: Time and expense is huge in this game. Quite often what the mage needs is Blocked behind Unobtainable goals unless a large guild is willing to help the caster. Example of Multi-Universal Lore etc. Which honestly, I sometimes question why we are obtaining things from a giant minotaur or lizard and not some high ranking wizard, lich, or something that lends itself to an arcane mindset.

I failed when I started this game. I chose what honestly didn't exist in this game in its entirty preventing me from finding a way to make the required currency to afford my characters studies. I wanted to (Scribe spells, Cast travel/Gate spells, Make useful potions, carry and use an iconic useful staff and robes. Control Elemental summoned creatures, and live in tower where people could come and buy my wares like UO from a merchant vendor.

So I started the game... Maxed out my Domination, Alchemy, All Casting classes available at the time (ecumenical, spiritisim) though I never was able to get the scribe book lore on my own I gave up until the price dropped, and the only way I was able to get multiverse lore was the help of the guild, Honestly the best thing this game has going for it in regards to mages, is John Oldman. Most mages would have no hope of being one without him.

Potions are a full time job, we might solve it and there are great alchemist out there but ultimately at this point all I know we can make are Healing pots, to a pure mage is a joke and sold to a fighter just kill us, and size potions... Which food do better on both fronts anyway. Besides all casters know it's not the size of the wand that matters.... just the magic in the stick.

Staff magic isn't in yet, and honestly, I don't know how to get the skill points to do that. I already gave up any hope of weapon skills. Which honestly it would make sense to use the blunt weapon on it...

Elemental magic isn't in yet.

Domination I heard might have just been made useful, so maybe it's worth logging in again to look.


TLDR This idiots ramblings:

• Developers have a hard time balancing healing, damage, and Damage Reduction especially with burst damage. Even harder when people can handpick skills to be what they want.
  
• Players will always want it all and never be happy.
  
• I was really sad when Channeling failed to be useful in Age of Conan too.

This game has a hell of a lot of potential, even though I haven't logged into it in a long time. I dream of the day I have the time to play it and feel like I accomplish something in it during a play session.

 

[Kyuzo-Grimger]

In regards to the pure magic user in this game and others:

TLDR This idiots ramblings:

• Developers have a hard time balancing healing, damage, and Damage Reduction especially with burst damage. Even harder when people can handpick skills to be what they want.
  
• Players will always want it all and never be happy.
  
• I was really sad when Channeling failed to be useful in Age of Conan too.

This game has a hell of a lot of potential, even though I haven't logged into it in a long time. I dream of the day I have the time to play it and feel like I accomplish something in it during a play session.

Potential doesnt mean accomplished, if you're as versed in MMO balancing as you claim this fact should be well understood, not to mention a lot of what you say isn't specific, and off-topic, if it isn't purely about MOII then what was the point with your idiotic ramblings? The point of an EA or beta game is specifically to find where the game is weakest at, not to appease to a specific crowd of whinners that makes up your playerbase purely because of a botched implementation of core game mechanics that has litereally removed a huge portion of the playerbase. MC's are in a sorry state, that much is easily visible to anyone with half a brain, time invested should be time rewarded, nobody here is asking for daddy god mage, just something more viable and on a more even playing field whenever they need to solo content. It isn't like everyone is no lifing and playing the game 24/7 just to give help to a mage, and the risk to go with randoms is worse because of the cost of each spell, why would you purposefully gimp or gank yourself?

 

[Alanel]

Dude what is wrong with you, seriously? I’ve mained as a mage since 2010 in MO1. Ive been in more pvp, wars and sieges thatn you can imagine. And let me tell you that you 700 hours of melee character is laughable.

There is no need to be condescending and talk down to me. All you are doing is showing your own ignorance and bigotry.

I simply understand why mages are kept in the state they are in by design. It works in group play and keeps the majority of population as melee( as SV envisions). Make individual mages stronger and thats all anyone will play. Of course in solo gameplay it makes mages very weak, as they should be. Magery is easy and low risk gameplay. This is a fact.

I understand that you want to be able to solo 4 people as a mage, but frankly that would be broken af.

Dear veteran player!

With all due respect I, like many other players, came to this game solely because of the magic system.

If you have played a mage since MO1 then you should know about it's issues. What I don't understand is why would you go and ridicule people that do a lot of work to provide suggestions to make game better?

Since the launch all I hear is everyone talking about how the game has a lot of potential, that it needs to attract more players. Instead of continuing to pretend that the problem doesn't exist, we should be helping Henrik's team and the game advance by giving feedback. We won't get far by promoting such mentality and continue to loose dedicated players.

Magic is just as core as melee. As you know very well, pure mage is impossible to play at the start of the game, and magic itself is mostly endgame play.

It is much easier to play at the start of the game with a bit of trained melee skills, than it is now with pumped up magic skills and having a lot of spells in the book (420 hours in-game time). Plus, I feel like I'll have to spend just as much more time lvling and buying things I don't have (leftover necromancy spells, ritualism, and the blasted portal book).

Melee fighting is not easy, it requires a lot practice to master and, if your opponent is good at parrying

No one argues that it takes skill and effort. But what should a mage player do after spending over 1000 hours in the game, realizing that literally nothing changes. There has to be at least some pay-off.

Of course in solo gameplay it makes mages very weak, as they should be. Magery is easy and low risk gameplay. This is a fact.

I don't understand this. Why does solo gameplay has to be like that? Every other game is making it just fine. How is that an easy and low risk gameplay if TTK a mage in PVP and PVE is counted in seconds. To balance things out we already have limited mana, reagents, concentration, casting time (no instacast spells for sustain like in other games), low armor weight limit, nausiating amount of time and gold investment (and that's only for 3 magic schools that we have now).
No one literally is asking to buff the damage, Jasa in her other feedback post even tried to provide more restrictions on mages for the sake of making our gameplay more enjoyable. It seems that we are already masochists at our core, that just want to play this game and feel rewarded for our investment.

What I wish to see is to developers and the community to find a reasonable compromise.

Mages should not be considered a flavour side-content of the game.


Edit: a bunch of typos.

 

[Footwork]

TLDR.

Mages are a support class. We heal and purify our footies and finish targets, it's that simple.

Solo Mage PvE is lame, let's not even discuss this.

p.s Die doing damage.

 

[Stonefather]

I cannot say mage damage is overpowered or underpowered, I can say that it feels terrible to be a mage most of the time in PvE and PvP. As a fat mage the game is only relatively playable on the back of a horse. Int curve changes made dex mages way more viable which IMO has caused way more balance problems. Most of the time when footies complain about mage damage it's going to be because of a dex mage because of their survivability, an Oghmir has roughly 30-40 more HP than the average dex mage which most of the time is one more hit unless they popped Rock Solid which lasts only for 15 seconds.

Mana regen is a great balancing factor for mages but also makes them feel terrible. Firing 8 Tlashes and having to strip naked and sit as a fat mage is terrible. PvE farming works exactly like that, if I go farm Risars it'll take me a minute or two to kill a Risar and the same down time to regen mana if not longer.

And one of the gravest sins is I'm fine with all of this if I have to suffer it but if I was a human fat mage I could have nearly the same damage and move at 390 speed which is about 20% faster than my Oghmir which makes them viable for foot content, I am giving up viability for 3-4 damage increase which is only viable on the back of a horse, this is why I think the int scale should be reverted or finding a middle ground from what it was in beta, Dex Mages being able to get to 100-110 int and having around 20%-25% less damage but being able to move 30%-35% is definitely a larger issue. Magic is best balanced when you're a glass cannon but in Mortal Online 2 being able to move is nearly if not more important than your HP.

 

[Zaldimar]

Potential doesnt mean accomplished, if you're as versed in MMO balancing as you claim this fact should be well understood, not to mention a lot of what you say isn't specific, and off-topic, if it isn't purely about MOII then what was the point with your idiotic ramblings? The point of an EA or beta game is specifically to find where the game is weakest at, not to appease to a specific crowd of whinners that makes up your playerbase purely because of a botched implementation of core game mechanics that has litereally removed a huge portion of the playerbase. MC's are in a sorry state, that much is easily visible to anyone with half a brain, time invested should be time rewarded, nobody here is asking for daddy god mage, just something more viable and on a more even playing field whenever they need to solo content. It isn't like everyone is no lifing and playing the game 24/7 just to give help to a mage, and the risk to go with randoms is worse because of the cost of each spell, why would you purposefully gimp or gank yourself?

I agree, potential doesn't mean accomplished. It is far from balanced in a good way in this game. Yes, I Am totally off-topic and rambling as I stated in my post. take what you want from it but the last thing people need is more fighting with an inability to compromise. I think our politics and religions do enough of that we don't need it in what we for entertainment. I am part of the playerbase that stopped playing even though I activley want too, the point I was trying to make was that games like this require a higher amount of time investment to stay in the middle of the bell curve as it does attract a more competitive playerbase.

I could continue by adding a bunch of direct attacks on or insulting other posters but why would I? Personally, I agree that mages need a ton of work. I simply tried to also ask that people understand that balancing such mechanics from a developer or design side is a hard thing to do. Perhaps that's my Libra side. The original post had a lot of valid points and adding to a conversation could be done in a constructive way rather than a combative way. After all I think the point of a game is to have fun, not attach ones ego to it for validation, for that therapy helps.

 

[Doom and Gloom]

Yeap, realized a long time ago what the mage's role in this game is, and as a mage character have basically stopped playing now after seeing Necromancy changed nothing, like I expected. Sure, I am a tamer as well, as just pure mage is impossible garbage, but taming has so many issues as well and is so unfinished that it is just too frustrating.

This really is the only game where a mage has been so damn boring to play, with my guild I quickly noticed I was a healbot ONLY, specifically told only to cast heals, and I also saw why, there is no point to cast 2-3 s for a spell to do as much damage as one melee fighters sword hit, which takes 1/4 of the time ish. It is just unbeliavably unsatisfying to grind for the spells which end up being useless.

 

[Deathstrik3]

I think we can all agree that balancing different systems in a game is not an easy thing to do, but the changes that SV tend to make seem to always be in favor of the foot fighters and against every other type of build. They seem to want to force mages into a support role, while the majority of the magic in the game at the moment is not really support magic.

As others have stated, there are several elements that games in the past have used to balance magic. If we go back to the more old school RPGs and TTRPGs in general, it's done with spell slots and reagents. Then came Mana, followed shortly by cooldowns. Not to mention the myriad of other attempts at balancing different "classes", armour weight and dodge abilities from the Dark Souls franchise being a good example. I do agree with the observations of others, that there are far to many restrictions in place for mages in MO2. Not being able to move while casting for the vast majority of spells, extremely limited mana pools, low mana regeneration, armour weight affecting mana regeneration etc. All those drawbacks combined is just too much for too little reward. Those things could very well change as more schools of magic are added, whenever that happens to be, but the issue still exists today.

In most other RPGs and MMOs, mages usually have a type of defensive spell that helps them against taking damage. In MO2 we have Spell Reflect, which I think is honestly too excessive. I would rather see it replaced with a more traditional "Mana Shield". One way it could act is as a Buff with a duration of several minutes that provides a "shield" with a flat amount of HP, and when it is broken, the timer for the buff remains. While the buff timer is still going, you cannot benefit from a second casting. Also, while the shield is up, damage inflicted to the shield doesn't interrupt casting. The shield should also not benefit from damage reduction that you have from any source, that way it would break fairly quickly, but it gives you enough of a buffer to do get at least one guaranteed spell off, or to break line of sight.

If that type of spell shield is too much, it could act in a similar way to the Sorceresses Energy Shield in Diablo 2, while the buff is active a percentage of all damage taken is applied to mana instead of HP, with the remainder going through to the users HP. This could potentially make a mage far more durable, but it would mean their mana will be even more limited for other options.

One thing I would definitely like to see change, Mana pools should get larger, but mana regen should go down. Mages shouldn't be able to infinitely cast Lesser Heal. Give a far larger mana pool, potentially 5-6x higher, that will give headroom for some future spells to cost a lot more to cast, and then you reduce in combat regeneration by at least 50%. Then out of combat mana recover while resting should be significantly increased. Basically adjust the mana so that mages can fight three or four mobs before needing to rest, and then lower the recovery time enough so they can get right back to the fun stuff with only a minute or so of downtime. Right now, more than likely a mage would be killing 1-2 mobs before needing to rest for a minute or two. So, this change would ideally increase the number of enemies a mage could fight back to back without stopping, while keeping downtime roughly the same. Which, in reality, is still going to be slower than a foot fighter. Depending on what they are fighting, how skilled the player is, and the build and gear they are using, some foot fighters can take on enemies without much or any downtime. No matter how skilled a mage is, there will always be a hard limit to how many things they can fight back to back because of mana.

With the way this game is designed, there will likely never be a state of perfect balance, but it can definitely be a lot better. Mages don't have to be OP to be enjoyable in all types of content. SV should be looking to the predecessors in the genre, and listening to feedback from all sides, not just the foot soldiers because they make up the majority of the population. If anything, they should look at the numbers and realise that most people play foot soldiers because they are just superior to the other types of builds.

 

[Fearce]

There would be an easy fix to all of that:

Make all current and following spellschools be able to cast while moving and make us able to decide after the cast if we want to use the spell on ourselves or on enemies (Q or E)
This is the only rework we need to fix a lot of problems. Right now the system is clunky as shit. It does not feel like you control magic at all. Just one example: To make your walkers follow you you need to Click the button with "command undead" and than feint the cast or pull your weapon out to make it cacel and THAN cast again with your self cast key. What kind of a shitty, clunky and unreliable system is that?

 

[Zaldimar]

I think we can all agree that balancing different systems in a game is not an easy thing to do, but the changes that SV tend to make seem to always be in favor of the foot fighters and against every other type of build. They seem to want to force mages into a support role, while the majority of the magic in the game at the moment is not really support magic.

As others have stated, there are several elements that games in the past have used to balance magic. If we go back to the more old school RPGs and TTRPGs in general, it's done with spell slots and reagents. Then came Mana, followed shortly by cooldowns. Not to mention the myriad of other attempts at balancing different "classes", armour weight and dodge abilities from the Dark Souls franchise being a good example. I do agree with the observations of others, that there are far to many restrictions in place for mages in MO2. Not being able to move while casting for the vast majority of spells, extremely limited mana pools, low mana regeneration, armour weight affecting mana regeneration etc. All those drawbacks combined is just too much for too little reward. Those things could very well change as more schools of magic are added, whenever that happens to be, but the issue still exists today.

In most other RPGs and MMOs, mages usually have a type of defensive spell that helps them against taking damage. In MO2 we have Spell Reflect, which I think is honestly too excessive. I would rather see it replaced with a more traditional "Mana Shield". One way it could act is as a Buff with a duration of several minutes that provides a "shield" with a flat amount of HP, and when it is broken, the timer for the buff remains. While the buff timer is still going, you cannot benefit from a second casting. Also, while the shield is up, damage inflicted to the shield doesn't interrupt casting. The shield should also not benefit from damage reduction that you have from any source, that way it would break fairly quickly, but it gives you enough of a buffer to do get at least one guaranteed spell off, or to break line of sight.

If that type of spell shield is too much, it could act in a similar way to the Sorceresses Energy Shield in Diablo 2, while the buff is active a percentage of all damage taken is applied to mana instead of HP, with the remainder going through to the users HP. This could potentially make a mage far more durable, but it would mean their mana will be even more limited for other options.

One thing I would definitely like to see change, Mana pools should get larger, but mana regen should go down. Mages shouldn't be able to infinitely cast Lesser Heal. Give a far larger mana pool, potentially 5-6x higher, that will give headroom for some future spells to cost a lot more to cast, and then you reduce in combat regeneration by at least 50%. Then out of combat mana recover while resting should be significantly increased. Basically adjust the mana so that mages can fight three or four mobs before needing to rest, and then lower the recovery time enough so they can get right back to the fun stuff with only a minute or so of downtime. Right now, more than likely a mage would be killing 1-2 mobs before needing to rest for a minute or two. So, this change would ideally increase the number of enemies a mage could fight back to back without stopping, while keeping downtime roughly the same. Which, in reality, is still going to be slower than a foot fighter. Depending on what they are fighting, how skilled the player is, and the build and gear they are using, some foot fighters can take on enemies without much or any downtime. No matter how skilled a mage is, there will always be a hard limit to how many things they can fight back to back because of mana.

With the way this game is designed, there will likely never be a state of perfect balance, but it can definitely be a lot better. Mages don't have to be OP to be enjoyable in all types of content. SV should be looking to the predecessors in the genre, and listening to feedback from all sides, not just the foot soldiers because they make up the majority of the population. If anything, they should look at the numbers and realise that most people play foot soldiers because they are just superior to the other types of builds.

Yes.... this.