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Polaris new mechanics

AuthorMessage
Explorer
Jun 27, 2014
82
With the highly debated topics of the 108 spells and critical changes I would like for a minute to look at other new mechanics Polaris has introduced. Bosses who cast cloaked debuffs, bosses with pets, bosses appearing midway in battles are just some I have found. i find all of these highly interesting and appropriate given we have moved on from ravenwood and entering a new era akin to moving from high school to college/university and should expect new challenges pushing us to develop more indepth strategies to cope.Not much mention has been made of these new mechanics anywhere and I feel they deserve some recognition and praise.To anyone who also quested in Polaris how do you feel about these changes?

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
I love them personally. We are even seeing some improved AI-monsters casting shields when they are at lower health, monsters saving pips and coordinating attacks, bosses bladestacking into a large hit, utility and debuffs galore. This adds more depth and enjoyment to the game and I believe it's a great tradition that should be continued.

Archon
Sep 17, 2012
4162
I love that the creatures have more utilities, stack blades and play more intelligently. Now if they would only add this mechanic to henchmen and minions to make them useful instead of just always attacking when they can or randomly casting a blade on someone.

Explorer
Jun 27, 2014
82
seethe42 on Nov 3, 2015 wrote:
I love that the creatures have more utilities, stack blades and play more intelligently. Now if they would only add this mechanic to henchmen and minions to make them useful instead of just always attacking when they can or randomly casting a blade on someone.
Completely agree those henchmen sure are kinda dumb xd healing when you have full health but not often when you need it xd. It would be nice if all school minions could at least cast sprite on other players too.

Adherent
Mar 18, 2009
2737
Eric Stormbringer on Nov 3, 2015 wrote:
I love them personally. We are even seeing some improved AI-monsters casting shields when they are at lower health, monsters saving pips and coordinating attacks, bosses bladestacking into a large hit, utility and debuffs galore. This adds more depth and enjoyment to the game and I believe it's a great tradition that should be continued.
I love the addition of the mechanics Dizzy Diana mentioned in the first post, but there are some monsters whose AI is severely lacking compared to previous worlds.

For example, the Sea Chicken pirates will all four cast Myth global spells in row, then they will cast the Rat Magician spell each four times in a row in the same round (which is just replacing their last Myth global), then they will each cast a minion spell four times in a row on the same round....with absolutely no spot for a minion. So while overall the new abilities for the monsters is welcomed...some of them need a lesson in how to use them properly.

Explorer
Jun 27, 2014
82
Oran of Urz on Nov 4, 2015 wrote:
I love the addition of the mechanics Dizzy Diana mentioned in the first post, but there are some monsters whose AI is severely lacking compared to previous worlds.

For example, the Sea Chicken pirates will all four cast Myth global spells in row, then they will cast the Rat Magician spell each four times in a row in the same round (which is just replacing their last Myth global), then they will each cast a minion spell four times in a row on the same round....with absolutely no spot for a minion. So while overall the new abilities for the monsters is welcomed...some of them need a lesson in how to use them properly.
I completely agree that the AI is somewhat lacking with minions/bosses if you have ever been beguiled in the Malistaire fight and see minions trying to cast spells they dont have the pips for it shows how much its lacking.I am not sure how the AI works but i can imagine it goes something like this - one spell is picked at random from their possible spells and they attempt to use it regardless of whether or not they can. Each mob or minion acts independently of each other which can lead to what you describe all minions casting the same Rat magician spell which does seem rather pointless.I would imagine to vastly improve this would take an immense amount of work getting them to co-ordinate more etc. Hopefully KI will look at this and improve it but it would take them allot of time to do so.

Explorer
Jan 30, 2009
59
and the overall meaning of all that - more time in a battle. a battle can already stretch over 5m with a precise speed hitting deck, and in many other games a fight against mobs generally will last less then 20s for a properly geared player of the equivocal lvl. in fact I rarely play this game anymore because why should I spend 2 hours to clear tartarus/graveyard/or similar type dungeon when I can clear equivocal dungeons in another game in under 30m. on top of that the other game will have more challenging mechanics that require you to have x amount of health, do a specific action ect. which brings another problem, that the reason for so many issues in graveyard. kingsisle is trying to copy those mechanics while avoiding the reason those games can do them. take for example elder scrolls online, they have dungeon mechanics that require a minimum of x amount of health, require you to block the hit, dodge the hit ect they can do that because its not a turn based game nor a random skill game. you preselect what skills you want to use in the battle (up to 10) plus you can block anytime you have the resource to do so. this is not something you can do in wizard101 and frankly as long as its a turn based randomized deck game, it never will be. take graveyard, the odds of you beating that without anyone dying is nearly zero. I know I have seen people die a turn after being healed to full immediately after the big mechanic hits. that shows an obvious mistake in balancing of the mechanics. a life with over a hundred outgoing, poping double heal boosts and healing every 4 rounds (the quantificable limit in this game due to its mechanics) to heal for 2-4k every 4 rounds and still watch people die shows an issue with the balancing.