Questions about magic and spell casting

kenawyn

Hi everyone, this is my first post.

I have just finished watching Asmongold's interview with Ashes of Creation Director Steven Sharif and i must say this game piqued my interest.

Here are some questions about the magic and spell casting that i wrote down while i was watching the interview.

Will casting / combat animations be customizable?
Most casting animations look nice, but i am not a big fan of the firebolt throwing animation where the character jumps up in the air and swings his staff with great effort throwing a bolt of fire at the enemy. This kind of kung-fu spell casting looks silly.
I would like to play as an elderly wizard... and jumping around like some young monk would ruin my immersion.

Since the game will have a cosmetic store - my question is this: are there some plans to sell custom spell casting animations in the future? I wouldn't mind spending some money to replace the jumpy firebolt spell casting animation with a simple point at the target with the staff while doing a circular hand-wave motion followed by some particle effect - like glowing runes or something. The projectile looks fine as it is.

The other question regarding this: Will there be cosmetics available to replace spell effects?

How complex / interactive is Spell combat?
Most spell casting that was shown in the game play video was simple blasting and some AoE. I am a big fan of D&D and DDO so my question is how complex will magic be?
IMPORTANT NOTE: I know very little about the magic system of the game - so everything presented here are examples that show what i mean by complex spell combat.
Will there be any:
- Detect Magic - a short duration buff that lets us see ongoing magical effects, allied buffs and enemy debuffs.
- Counter Magic - a stance where the mage tries to anticipate the enemy spell and activates an appropriate counter measure to negate it. To make it more interesting the stance could have 3 active icons - red, green and blue and the caster must guess the color of the enemy spell correctly to successfully counter it. Being under the effect of Detect Magic will reveal the color of the spell. The enemy caster must be selected before activating the counter magic. If the caster selects the wrong color the enemy spell is unaffected. The counter magic costs 10% mana of the enemy spell being targeted. Counter Magic only works on spells being actively cast or channeled.
- Dispel Magic - a spell that removes harmful buffs from allies, strips beneficial buffs from enemies and ends ongoing AoE effects. This spell will not cancel spells being actively cast and will not remove magical protections like Spell Lock or Spell Reflection. Note: Spells cast by higher level spell-casters might resist the effect.
- Spell Lock - a spell protection buff that protects against dispel magic.
- Spell Reflection - a spell protection buff that reflects spells back at the target.
- Spell Break - a spell negation effect designed to breach magical protections like Spell Lock or Spell Reflection.
Example: Our mage is protected by various buffs including Spell Lock to prevent enemy casters from dispelling them. First the enemy uses Detect Magic to examine our buffs and decides to remove them by casting Spell Break followed by Dispel Magic. We notice that our Spell Lock was removed and see that the enemy is preparing to cast again. Since we are vulnerable to Dispel Magic we use Counter Magic to cancel the enemy cast successfully protecting our buffs.
- Meta-Spell Effects - spells designed to alter other spells. They will apply to the next spell cast after activating the meta-spell effect. The main cost of adding meta-spell effects to spells is increased casting time.
[Empower Spell] : by activating the empower spell meta-spell effect our next spell will be stronger or gains additional effects
[Extend Spell] : by activating the extend spell meta-spell effect our next spell will have its duration increased
Example 1: we cast empower spell followed by Blink to teleport twice as far forward to cross a ravine.
Example 2: we cast extend spell followed by Spell Lock to double the duration of Spell Lock
Example 3: we cast empower spell followed by Meteor Storm to call down bigger and meaner meteors that deal more damage and has a chance to knockdown the targets hit be the meteors.

Are there any Flight spells?
Since the game has flying mounts
- Will there be flight spells, that allow full 3D movement for some constant mana upkeep. The fun starts when the enemy dispels it or you ran out of mana...
- Levitation spell that allow you to levitate over a ravine / river?
- Will there be a feather fall spell to avoid fall damage?
- if you are a summoner can you summon flying mounts?
- are there any shapeshifting or shapechanging spells that lets you turn into a bird and fly?

Teleportation spells?
In the interview it was mentioned that travel will be limited to enhance the PvP experience. If i remember correctly Lineage 2 had some teleportation options like recall scrolls, Return and Party Return spells for the Elven Elder (i think...)
so:
- Will there be spells / scrolls / items that teleport the player to cities, temples or memorized locations?
examples: Mark and Recall, Divine Intervention, Teleport to City
- If yes, are there any group versions of these spells?
examples: Mass Recall / Group Recall, City Portal
- If yes, can i use them for profit by charging money for taxi services?
- Will there be hostile teleportation spells that lets you teleport the target against their will to split enemy groups apart, if they fail to resist it or have no wards against teleportation?
- Dimension Door - a spell that creates a gate to cross small distances / alternatively in DDO this spell returns the user to the entrance of an instance - which is super useful

How powerful are Summons?
This is a very hard topic, since it's a balance issue. So
- How strong will summons be in PvE compared to players of the same role? (for example - tank summon vs tank player)
- How strong / useful will summons be in PvP?
- How smart will summons be? Thinking about pathfinding and skill use. Can their AI be customized / scripted? How are they controlled?
- Can summons be improved using skills? Will they have their own talent tree?
- Will there be cosmetics available to customize my summons?
- How many summons can i control at the same time?
- Will summons drain XP like they did in Lineage 2 - i hope not.

Sorry if these questions were discussed elsewhere. I tried to search for some of them.

Aardvark

We will know in about 3 months