A serious Wizard thread.

[Sundance]

SS13 is serious business k?
No but honestly, now that nuke has been steamrolled into a palpable and enjoyable gamemode, I think we really need to look (and talk) about Wizard mode.
I'm going to be frank: I hate wizard rounds. There's nothing fun about fighting a wizard, you often have to be on KILL mode, and be rather underhand in fighting a wizard.
While being a wizard you have a choice: Choose shit spells and get some fun out of them before getting your ass murdered, or choose the powerful but boring spells and bring the station to its knees. Two wizards with fireball is almost a guaranteed win. Yet it can change for worse in a literal instant. That's not good.
There's no in-between, it's the most unbalanced of all the gamemodes.

There's been rather complicated revamp threads and plenty of "nerf fireball threads".
I personally think wizard mode doesn't need that much work to make it better. Just a thorough look at.

What I think wizard needs is less deadliness (which he has in bucketloads) and more survivability and defense.
Nerfing existing spells that outright mess up a player, like fireball, rathen secret, shocking grasp and (perhaps controversially) clown's revenge.
Giving the wizard more utility, such 1-2 new staffs.
Allowing the wizard to start with teleport, for free, to increase survival rates, but also so he can brew potions back at his lair (see below)
Whilst allowing the wizard to have health/stamina/speed/whatever buffs. One thing that's already in game (kinda) but not implemented is potions. Perhaps hocus pocus cauldrons could be a way of implementing this. It could simply be recharge thing, you can only make so many potions at a time, stronger potions require more time. Or it could be item orientated, melting down a captains ID for a certain buff, or HoS beret, or AI core, or bible, etc.

I have a more fleshed out idea of what needs to be done, but quite frankly given this forum making an effort post is akin to writing a novel then throwing it in the fireplace. I'd much rather see people converse about it, so we could expand upon the idea more fluidly rather than me just writing several paragraphs.

Thoughts?

[Vitatroll]

Wizard mode could be more balanced and diversified, for sure.

I agree that there are basically the two main modes at current: Creative and impotent, Destructive and bland. You can also be totally defensive and be nearly invulnerable to anything but trickery and luck. I'd like to see a change, but at current I don't have any ideas that wouldn't just increase the mode count by one or two, which wouldn't really solve the problem.

I kinda wish we worked on a system that limited spell usage; not spell availability. A mana system, or a system like DnD wizard. Right now I guess the wizards work more like DnD sorcerers, funnily enough.

[Ed Venture]

No but honestly, now that nuke has been steamrolled into a palpable and enjoyable gamemode

Speak for yourself. New Syndie rounds need alot more work till it's "good" and it was added into the game before it was finished at the current moment new syndie is just Team Deathmatch with a big explosive.


Do I think wizard mode should be reworked like syndie mode? Hell no. IF it got handle like new nuke did it will be sloppy as hell and I rather not sit though months of another broken game mode before it got little fixes making it somewhat playable again. Could it use some changes? Sure I think so but you seem to just want all the powerful spells nerf into oblivion including Clown's revenge and I simply disagree with nerfs like that. Sure Fireball could use a nerf but not one that completely makes it useless. I will now explain why the other spells are ok where they are. Spells like Shocking grasp takes a good three/five seconds to work and anything can happen when you are trying to use it, anything from being shot/tased to getting caught and having to run away or succeeding. Maybe the time it takes can be increased?
Rathen's Secret removes butts and stuns people and is only good for two reasons. One to give the wizard a laugh or to combo with another spell. Clown's Revenge is literally perfect and does not even need to be nerfed shame on you for thinking otherwise. I've been cluwned by a wizard and later got my revenge on him for it.

So in a nutshell do I think it could use a reworking. Yeah I do, I Agree that fireball could use a slight nerfing and that shocking grasp timer should be increased. Do I agree that all powerful spells should be nerfed into the ground. Hell no that would be sucking all the fun out of being a wizard. One thing people forget is that antags are meant to be OP. You have a point in wanting the wizard to be more balanced something can still be powerful and balanced at the same time. But not if you nerf it into the ground. Coders if you do rework wizard in the form of new nuke then please wait until it's finished and not in a broken mess before you add it into the game and maybe, just maybe have a discussion with the community if you seriously got to change it.

[DyssalC]

So were Cult rounds or Wizards rounds where corruption was a thing sort of like a more ideal Wizard round?

I can't speak from experience because I've never played either of those, but to me it seems like weakening the wizard a bit and requiring them to build their power over time and giving them an objective besides "murder the absolute fuck out of the crew" and making them use a bit more subtlety might be what a lot of people are requesting. Or perhaps it's not at all what anybody wants, I was just curious if anybody had considered a return to some of the older ways.

[Ed Venture]

So were Cult rounds or Wizards rounds where corruption was a thing sort of like a more ideal Wizard round?

I can't speak from experience because I've never played either of those, but to me it seems like weakening the wizard a bit and requiring them to build their power over time and giving them an objective besides "murder the absolute fuck out of the crew" and making them use a bit more subtlety might be what a lot of people are requesting. Or perhaps it's not at all what anybody wants, I was just curious if anybody had considered a return to some of the older ways.

Corruptions was with wizards and it was cool. I miss it.

[Frank_Stein]

I like the idea of mana. If corruption is something added back in, maybe that could speed up mana regeneration?

I'd also like to see something more like spell themes.

Like, instead of just a fireball spell that's offensive there would be a fire themed discipline, with fireball as the offensive spell but several other fire themed spells with defensive, evasive, and protective spells tied with it.

Spell selection would be more of a theme selection.

[Mageziya]

Corruption was removed because it lagged the shit out of everything, right? Maybe add it back in, but in a way that doesn't do that.

[Zadeon]

Corruption was fun with wizard when it was in. Gave him things to do besides kill people. Also this argument was made before but why does clown's revenge take longer to cool down than shocking grasp, a spell that effectively removes a player from the game? I think the mana idea is good, more variety of uses with spells that way (use one lesser spell multiple times or some bigger spells once).

[Frank_Stein]

Corruption was removed because it lagged the shit out of everything, right? Maybe add it back in, but in a way that doesn't do that.

How about some kind of wizard artifact power crystal spire thingie? The wizard spawns them in a spot, and they just kinda hum and glow. The wizard could draw power from them while they are up, and the crew can smash them down.

Would also make skeletons and golems more important as guards for the spires while you go set more up.

[Mageziya]

Corruption was removed because it lagged the shit out of everything, right? Maybe add it back in, but in a way that doesn't do that.

How about some kind of wizard artifact power crystal spire thingie? The wizard spawns them in a spot, and they just kinda hum and glow. The wizard could draw power from them while they are up, and the crew can smash them down.

Would also make skeletons and golems more important as guards for the spires while you go set more up.

You must construct additional pylons.

Hell, one of the wizard style artifacts that can appear is literally just a recolored protoss pylon.

Because of that alone: Yes.

[Roomba]

I think nuke mode shows the issue with that. If anyone feels like actually putting in effort, it's not very hard to destroy a single stationary object, unless you dedicate all your time in defending it.

[BaneOfGiygas]

Yeah, I'd say that the spire suggestion is a tad bit too similar to nuke mode to be very feasible.

To understand how wizard rounds should be reworked, we must first look at what wizard rounds really are and what they provide as far as game mode balance. Wizards and nuke ops are the two chief "blunt" round types, as both antagonists are almost always very obvious in their methods and very uncomplicated in their motives. However, where nuke ops and wizards differentiate is a matter of numbers. Nuke ops teams are, and I'm speaking in terms of the ideal setup here, meant to pit teams against teams, with the nuke ops squad strategizing against the station forces, who must subsequently strategize to combat the syndicate menace.

Wizard rounds, on the other hand, are usually complete fucking bedlam, since the goals are much simpler than nuke ops: There's a big powerful dude trying to kill you, so kill him first. And you know what, there's nothing wrong with that! One good round of death and destruction flying around everywhere and the rules being thrown out of the window to catch that spell-swinging nerd is a good thing to have; it's a nice change of pace from the tension that pervades traitor/changeling rounds.

However, complaints abound about how wizard rounds are dull, bland, repetitive. Madcap murder doesn't need to just be giving one dude a bunch of guns and letting them loose on the station, but I think that wizards should remain as they are currently: Crazy overpowered antagonists who zoom in and start fucking shit up. If we start getting into resource management or other nonsense, it'll detract from what makes wizard rounds wizard rounds, and consequentially, what separates them from all the other antagonist types.

So how do we make an antagonist who's only job is murder enjoyable both for the antagonist and for those fighting them? The current issue that pervades the wizard's loadout is that of a power imbalance, which I'm sure is old news by this point, but should probably be mentioned if only for completion's sake. I think that the ubiquitous nature of fireballs and Shocking Grasp comes from them being basically the only dependable methods of dealing damage in a wizard's loadout: Skeletons and golems can be unreliable in their pathing, ice burst is more debilitating than anything else and is sort of rendered redundant by magic missile anyways, bull's charge is esoteric and really hard to use in a lethal manner, Rathen's Secret is rather unreliable for dealing damage, and the cluwne spell has a ludicrously long cooldown.

If the whole point of the wizard is to use their spells to kill people, why can only a few spells be depended on to kill people?

I think that the solution for making wizard rounds more entertaining is simply a matter of expanding the ways in which they can inflict magical death upon the station, giving them more solid and dependable tools in addition to the more esoteric and utility-based spells. Wizards have not been and do not need to be stealthy, that's just not what they're designed to be. Plus, while taking the station's arms is an option that some wizards take advantage of, that just seems embarrassing to be toting around mundane firearms when you're a space wizard who can bend the laws of reality to your whim.

Also, to this end, I am an advocate of downsizing the power of spells in exchange for having more slots for spells. A more diverse loadout allows for more viable combinations of powers, which equates to more variety in wizard loadouts, which equates to more variety in wizard encounters, which in theory equates to more fun in wizard rounds.

[Ed Venture]

Yeah, I'd say that the spire suggestion is a tad bit too similar to nuke mode to be very feasible.

To understand how wizard rounds should be reworked, we must first look at what wizard rounds really are and what they provide as far as game mode balance. Wizards and nuke ops are the two chief "blunt" round types, as both antagonists are almost always very obvious in their methods and very uncomplicated in their motives. However, where nuke ops and wizards differentiate is a matter of numbers. Nuke ops teams are, and I'm speaking in terms of the ideal setup here, meant to pit teams against teams, with the nuke ops squad strategizing against the station forces, who must subsequently strategize to combat the syndicate menace.

Wizard rounds, on the other hand, are usually complete fucking bedlam, since the goals are much simpler than nuke ops: There's a big powerful dude trying to kill you, so kill him first. And you know what, there's nothing wrong with that! One good round of death and destruction flying around everywhere and the rules being thrown out of the window to catch that spell-swinging nerd is a good thing to have; it's a nice change of pace from the tension that pervades traitor/changeling rounds.

However, complaints abound about how wizard rounds are dull, bland, repetitive. Madcap murder doesn't need to just be giving one dude a bunch of guns and letting them loose on the station, but I think that wizards should remain as they are currently: Crazy overpowered antagonists who zoom in and start fucking shit up. If we start getting into resource management or other nonsense, it'll detract from what makes wizard rounds wizard rounds, and consequentially, what separates them from all the other antagonist types.

So how do we make an antagonist who's only job is murder enjoyable both for the antagonist and for those fighting them? The current issue that pervades the wizard's loadout is that of a power imbalance, which I'm sure is old news by this point, but should probably be mentioned if only for completion's sake. I think that the ubiquitous nature of fireballs and Shocking Grasp comes from them being basically the only dependable methods of dealing damage in a wizard's loadout: Skeletons and golems can be unreliable in their pathing, ice burst is more debilitating than anything else and is sort of rendered redundant by magic missile anyways, bull's charge is esoteric and really hard to use in a lethal manner, Rathen's Secret is rather unreliable for dealing damage, and the cluwne spell has a ludicrously long cooldown.

If the whole point of the wizard is to use their spells to kill people, why can only a few spells be depended on to kill people?

I think that the solution for making wizard rounds more entertaining is simply a matter of expanding the ways in which they can inflict magical death upon the station, giving them more solid and dependable tools in addition to the more esoteric and utility-based spells. Wizards have not been and do not need to be stealthy, that's just not what they're designed to be. Plus, while taking the station's arms is an option that some wizards take advantage of, that just seems embarrassing to be toting around mundane firearms when you're a space wizard who can bend the laws of reality to your whim.

Also, to this end, I am an advocate of downsizing the power of spells in exchange for having more slots for spells. A more diverse loadout allows for more viable combinations of powers, which equates to more variety in wizard loadouts, which equates to more variety in wizard encounters, which in theory equates to more fun in wizard rounds.

I 100% agree with all of this.

[Paineframe]

Does Spell Shield actually work yet? Wizards do already have a sort of progression, in that they get a lot more powerful if they're left alone for a few minutes to gather materials and equipment on the station (this is why "friendly wizards" rarely work out), but defensively they're just regular humans with a stun attack and a few active defense powers, nearly all of which are useless if they've already been stunned or badly injured by some jerk with a energy gun or a bomb or a nasty chem mix. Wizards and the crew simply can't afford to leave each other alone.

Also, Fireball might be better split into two spells? It's fantastic at killing people, but it's also practically the only Wizard spell that can reliably destroy things as well as people.

[medsal15]

I like potion making. Throw the wrong potion at them, they get buffed (I know this is gonna happen).