Fallen
01-21-2006, 05:10 PM
Here is an interesting post regarding the spell Mana Focus by RedOrc.
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>>a bit late in this thread...but yeah it used to be Level + Aura bonus. So if you were simply old enough, you'd never fail.
>>the amount of mana in your head has no effect on this spell; it certainly doesn't make sense. That'd be like saying the more water (mana) you have in your bucket (head) the harder it is to get it to rain overhead (node).
>>Encumberance I'm not so sure about. But I do seem to recall someone doing a study where they withdrew millions of coins in silvers and noded several rooms without any noticable change in success rates.
>>If I had to gamble, I'd say that it's based on elemental mana control (duh), aura bonus, discipline bonus, and minor elemental spell ranks. Not level, as Nilven (assuming he handles this circle) has said recently he prefers skill checks to level checks (though you can easily point out some spells that indicate otherwise).
>>~Moredin
Alright, I was the person who did the testing on encumberance. I did it because I was sure that it affected the spell (and it did in the past), but thorough testing proved that encumberance doesn't play a factor at all. I don't have that info saved, but I collected enough data to be sure. (And admitted I was wrong)
The old formula by the way included minor elemental ranks as well as level, but it's true that basically you wouldn't ever fail under normal circumstances if you were old enough and properly trained. Encumberance did use to cause the spell to fail, stance off was preferrable. It was annecdotal evidence at best that having less mana in your head improved your succcess rate, however it was common practice to send all your mana to someone else, excepting the 18 for the spell before casting. The true reason for this was that if you did fail, almost any failure, even the minor ones drained mana... so it was better to have someone hold on to the extra. Of course now that unless the game forces excess mana into your head (Only example that springs to mind is the rift), you can't hold more than your max, so unless you and your hunting partner are both running low, it's not really practical to have someone hold your mana.
As to the current formula, I would bet that it's still heavily based on level and minor elemental spells known. However, levels are condensed, and CS forumula changed, so that the max level can add is 100, and people are likely to have fewer MnE ranks. I don't have characters with access to the spell spread accross enough of a sprectrum to come up with anything specific, except obviously the higher level and more MnE ranks, the easier it is to cast.
Also, you should note that either noding in town has a bonus, or noding in a hunting area has a penalty. I can cast 19 out of 20 times in town fine, and in a hunting area see that lowered to 15/20 or so. These are aproximations as i'm not retesting right now. Certain places however are specifically designed to make gathering the flows more difficult. The rift is one such place. I die maybe one in 8 times casting the spell, but succeed only another 3/8... a good half the time failing to some degree.
~Martin
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>>a bit late in this thread...but yeah it used to be Level + Aura bonus. So if you were simply old enough, you'd never fail.
>>the amount of mana in your head has no effect on this spell; it certainly doesn't make sense. That'd be like saying the more water (mana) you have in your bucket (head) the harder it is to get it to rain overhead (node).
>>Encumberance I'm not so sure about. But I do seem to recall someone doing a study where they withdrew millions of coins in silvers and noded several rooms without any noticable change in success rates.
>>If I had to gamble, I'd say that it's based on elemental mana control (duh), aura bonus, discipline bonus, and minor elemental spell ranks. Not level, as Nilven (assuming he handles this circle) has said recently he prefers skill checks to level checks (though you can easily point out some spells that indicate otherwise).
>>~Moredin
Alright, I was the person who did the testing on encumberance. I did it because I was sure that it affected the spell (and it did in the past), but thorough testing proved that encumberance doesn't play a factor at all. I don't have that info saved, but I collected enough data to be sure. (And admitted I was wrong)
The old formula by the way included minor elemental ranks as well as level, but it's true that basically you wouldn't ever fail under normal circumstances if you were old enough and properly trained. Encumberance did use to cause the spell to fail, stance off was preferrable. It was annecdotal evidence at best that having less mana in your head improved your succcess rate, however it was common practice to send all your mana to someone else, excepting the 18 for the spell before casting. The true reason for this was that if you did fail, almost any failure, even the minor ones drained mana... so it was better to have someone hold on to the extra. Of course now that unless the game forces excess mana into your head (Only example that springs to mind is the rift), you can't hold more than your max, so unless you and your hunting partner are both running low, it's not really practical to have someone hold your mana.
As to the current formula, I would bet that it's still heavily based on level and minor elemental spells known. However, levels are condensed, and CS forumula changed, so that the max level can add is 100, and people are likely to have fewer MnE ranks. I don't have characters with access to the spell spread accross enough of a sprectrum to come up with anything specific, except obviously the higher level and more MnE ranks, the easier it is to cast.
Also, you should note that either noding in town has a bonus, or noding in a hunting area has a penalty. I can cast 19 out of 20 times in town fine, and in a hunting area see that lowered to 15/20 or so. These are aproximations as i'm not retesting right now. Certain places however are specifically designed to make gathering the flows more difficult. The rift is one such place. I die maybe one in 8 times casting the spell, but succeed only another 3/8... a good half the time failing to some degree.
~Martin