Please read this

[Alteran]

Hi Alteran,
I wanted to first consult with you instead of posting on the forum. Thing is I'm very frustrated right now, will explain why, and think is wise to share this first with you instead of posting a post on the forum when under such stress as I'm now.

I didn't play for some time and apparently things got changed a lot meanwhile, for the worst for the magicuser classes it seems. I just went out for a small hunt with my mage and thought to go hit a daemon.

[current mage attributes are 105 evaluate int, 104,8 magery, 101.9 med]

NOTE: Fighting method is WITHOUT summoned creatures/daemon/elementals, or Tamed animals.

1. Mage bless lasts 7 minutes. Same goes for protection and Curse spells apparently! It is impossible to play... not sure if this was same before, if it was oh well I'm getting old then (i'm 31 atm btw), but since you have to meditate constantly (all the fuck**g time) it just adds to the real frustration that follows in the next points.
For Curse spells I'm almost completely convinced they lasted way longer!
2. You run to the daemon, put his magic reflection down, curse it,... run back to meditate and recast reflection up, you come back and... the daemon SPAMS magic reflection ALL THE F* time up. The curse disappears like after you succeede to perform 2 manadrains. To not mention that it appeared sometimes as the daemon silent casted magic reflect?! What the hell??? Sometimes you just run off screen to cast in peace and come back, target the spell.. reflected again. I'm talking about 12am-2am of attacking the stupid Daemon, after that I went to test the same thing on a Djini since I thought that is maybe just that daemons got toughter. (btw, I used to solo Ice fiends WITHOUT summons before).
The Djini fight was from 2am to 5:30am! Yes, i was manadraining the stupid Djini for more then 3 fucking worst hours in my life! Tried every possible combination: with walls, fireballs, poison, magic arrows, manadrains,... with different approaches: first wall, then drain, fireball, wall again, etc. etc. different scenarios.
3. Spell casting monsters seem to be able to regenerate the mana CONSTANTLY. It is fucking impossible to drain them out completely. Even when I succeeded they regenerated it too QUICKLY for me to be able to do anything (mind you had to meditate as quickly as possible between spells). So... they recast, obviously, magic reflect up EVERYTIME. How am I supposed to kill something if I can't "soften" it or get through its defenses? If summons is the answer, then why the f**king hell having an 8 page spell*fuc*ing book?! Why not giving magicusers such kind of fast mana regeneration too then? Lustrus aura kind of. Blegh.
4. And as that wasn't BAD enough, FIREBALL does NOT interrupt Kal Vas Flam or whichever spell!! (???????) This happened 2 times on the Djini for Flamestrike, and zilions times for other spells as I was trying the fireballing spree when nothing else worked (and this didn't work either), while the Djini interrupted my casting with an MAGIC ARROW! Doing like almost no damage! At 101.9 meditation! I'm really startled and disappointed.
5. Before I had this long break of UO it was logical to drain (any way possible) the monsters out of energy and then finish them off. And it took time and it wasn't straightforwardly easy either. That's how giants died, that's how everything died in the game.

As it is now I suppose I'd need a goddamn SCEPTER on a mage to be able to do anything. And this is what pisses me off, the imbalance and the supposition that magicusers are practically 2nd class to even merchants (my interpretation)... that they are needed only to open stupid gates around.

I don't dare to think how bad is at 40 evaluate inteligence for other classes, like necro, monk, bards, druids. Well ok, at least they have some extra options (meh... should ask a bit around about this, but it seems that everyone completely doesn't give a fuck about magicusers (or just not anymore), and use Fighters instead as they prefer the type of fight. But hey, I have a priest too, and I realy much prefer my mage. Had great times years ago on Pangaea with the mage). My believe is that the shard should be open for a player base that is of different tastes and not only fighter oriented. (I won't even start mentioning spells imbalance and usefulness... magic lock, disarm trap, etc.)

Just to finish making my point: It is very very VERY easy to kill both the mentioned monsters with a priest, almost EFFORTLESSLY! What the hell is going on here? Some days ago me and a friend killed the "same" daemon in like 10 seconds!! We just run onto him and whack whack whack interrupting his spellcasting and casting rites on it. Does this shard really has to be a whack whack with a scepter thing... I think not and I don't want to believe this. There is a lot of ppl out there like me who really prefer and enjoy playing spell casters.
Otherwise why then not simply remove the magicuser classes and make a Fighter/Mage class that can open the stupid gates for people %-| and call the class "Conjurer of gates" (sarcasm).

I challenge you or/and other GMs to TRY kill a Djini or a Daemon with GrandMaster Mage without using summons as it is now. After that you can try to whack the hell out of em and see the obvious difference. I'm 100% sure things got changed at some point on the server. Hell, I'm even surprised I'm able to kill a gargoyle. A phase spider took me 10 minutes or so! ...and I think I got lucky to do enough damage in between magic reflects since they stop casting and try to escape when really low on health (as it always used to be).

I'm waiting for your reply about this. Maybe we can discus it on ICQ or googletalk, wherever you prefer.

Still, thanks a bunch for keeping the server up and running! Really, good job and keep up the good work! I'm not angry on you or anyone of the guys, please understand, it is just killing me of frustration to see such imbalance in place, and the only char I really love to play on Pang is my mage, but since it is as now I can't do shit with it, what am I supposed to do... and it's 6:24am now, can't even sleep out of desperation, and I usualy go sleep at latest at 4am (yes, Djini took 1h30minutes extra of my sleep and nerves).

sincerely,
Ovinnik

I am going to test this , but i think he is right.

[Kent Strider]

He is extremely right, I quit using my mage because of how right he is. You must 100% use summons to do ANYTHING. And then the fail rate is so ridiculous its funny.

[Quintoz]

Yeah to put this is terms that I understand.

During a t-bag your b*lls hit the girl alot, thats how offen you fail to summon.

[Geryn Farodae]

I'm thinking their balance was in regards to PvP on the other shard. I mean, If with 80 resist, a GM mage can curse for 40-50... For PvP, the "adjustment" makes perfect sense. PvM, a magic user is even more useless as a support fighter than a bard.

It makes sense for PvP, but PvM it's rediculous.

[Rohan Koht]

Casting times changed when Reppy changed a few things in magery. At the point even the bless spell took nearly 5 seconds, I quit my magic user to the point of still being stuck in an island since the first wipe.

[Houston]

I doupt that Ovinnik remembers my guides of pangaea.


But yes, the number two complain from me;

People who have played a magicuser for ages, the magicusers have been nerfed and not only. The ways of killing mobs have been made harder for fighters, wich turned a LOT worse for magicusers.

So, every (almost) player who had a moderate magicuser, created a stronger char, a fighter obviously.
One who can kill mobs of nowadays, a priest with piaty. There's nothing stronger than having a 80 piaty ancient priest. (any religion, if you know how to play).

To put it straight, i had some ideas of the mage, everything got turned down.

Sarkania tried to give his best, ofcourse some spells got boosted, but as you see thats not enough. Since the best mage of the shard is talking about his experiences of different tactics.

Hell, i do love to hunt with my mage, but im aswell out of options, just like Ovinnik, just like the other magicusers, who have no options left than pokehunting. Got my point?

So the only option what i see, is to make the mage very good for 1 vs 1. In PvM and PvP.

[Quintoz]

Houston It's acculy Piety.

60 Piety is now max and only HP's can have that much so, 50 piety priest.

[Gorath Blackmind]

Quintoz,

*facepalm*

[Houston]

My bad, im not a religious person nor really interested to be updated.

However, it matters of how you play a character, but we've come that far that almost (in my eyes, the whole shard) does see a big problem in the "balanced" class system.

It is a big honor that Alteran and Co. are taking a look into it. Our whines are taking effect here guys!

But hell, lets not use the chance of that the admins are listening to our complains, lets make them hear the major issues we get beaten up so badly for.

Magic users are the weak ones, simply they are.

Failrate, damage, casting time, mana drain and yada yada.

Come up with ideas, people.

Mage;
Magery - Decrease failrate, casting time.
Evaluating intelligence - Decrease mana consume, increase spell damage/effectivity (a lot more than it is now)

In my eyes, the mage should singlehandedly kill/defeat major number of casters around.

There isnt many people around here, so give them a chance to hunt alone, make money alone.
Make big quests to gather people, make teamwork more effective, providable and forth.

Druid;
Magery - Decreased failrate for druidspells, decreased casting time for druidspells.
Animal Lore - Decreased consume of mana, increased spell effectivity/damage or w/e.

Necromancer;
Magery - Decreased failrate for chants, decreased casting time for chants.
Spirit Speak - Decreased consume of mana, increased spell effectivity/damage.


Well, of course you may come up with more ideas and suggestions, it is a must to be exact.

[Quintoz]

Quintoz,

*facepalm*

See'ing how he was right about everything else, I didn't see it appropriate to point that out.