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Fizzle issues...

AuthorMessage
Explorer
Dec 11, 2008
83
Has anyone gotten aggrivated at the fact that you fizzle in your own school of magic? It's really irritating me, because when I have the perfect set-up for a big spell combo, and pull out the big guns, like my Skeleton Pirate, it fizzles, then i'm left with a troll or ghoul to use that combo.

I think that you should not be able to fizzle in your own school of magic, such as a necromancer with death spells, or have a higher accuracy percentage on that school.

Please tell me what you think, because this is really bothering me..

Survivor
Dec 09, 2008
11
I think that fizzling is a good and bad thing.
I think it is good because sometimes it can make your enemy miss a turn.
I think it is bad because sometimes it can make you miss your turn.
A good solution might be to make it so that you can't fizzle in your own school of magic. If you try to preform a spell in a different school, you can fizzle.
Does anyone like this idea?

Explorer
Dec 11, 2008
83
Mastermind
Sep 20, 2008
347
Think about it in the positive way. First off someone more like a storm wizard would be complaining about this. No offence. Death fizzles around once every five rounds. Have you ever played and said Ah! then jumped up? when you fizzle? You feel sad right. Think about in this way. The card is put back in your deck. You didn't die. And maybe If you put more sketatal pirates in your deck you might see them more offten. All I am saying is fizzling is kind of like gambling its all about luck. When you do a scratch off you lose. No big deal. Right. Same thing with fizzling. But sometimes when you win $$ $$ you get lucky. Like right now I can imagine your in Marelybone. When you defeat meowority . You feel like $$$$. Enjoy . Any luck for me . They probaly won't remove it. It brings fun to wizard101.

- Colin :-)

Squire
Dec 02, 2008
543
Differing fizzle rates are part of the differences between classes needed to balance them. Storm has high damage, for example, but one of the main costs of this is a high fizzle rate. If that is so upsetting, then go Life, instead.

Furthermore, combat being so probabilistic is what adds the depth. Fizzles are one of the main factors here, with the random order of card drawing, choice of which side goes first, and varying damage from particular cards the other factors. Getting a string of bad luck can be annoying, but without the probabilistic element, combats would be boring. A particular strategy would either always work or never work, with nothing in between, and once you found one that always worked, that particular battle would be boring.

With combat being probabilistic, the first thing you come up with might work for a particular battle 80% of the time, but you can make some changes to your deck and strategy to perhaps win 95% of the time. That creates the possibility of improving your strategy and keeps the combat interesting.

The fizzles are necessary. We don't need a dumbed-down combat system in which in most battles, you know absolutely for certain whether you'll win or lose with a particular approach.

Survivor
Dec 06, 2008
2
ok in regards to fizzles, they are a needed, nothing works 100% of the time. What I would like to see in regards to this would be a bonus for your school, because one thing I have noticed, using death since I am a death wizard and know it best, is that most of my cards are 85% accuracy but I fizzle much more often than 15% of the time. what I mean by bonus is this your primary school you get say a 5% bonus aim on your secondary school maybe get a 2% bonus, and if you choose a third school then it would actually go against you with say a -2% to your aim this would be closer to real life because if you work on something really hard you are usually better at it, but if it is something you just kinda play around with (third school) you are no where near as good as others in the same school

cards that are received from items, ie necklaces and such, and treasure cards would be face value of the card since they are a "magical items" this would make people think about the schools they go with and may make the game even more enjoyable

Explorer
Dec 11, 2008
83
I understand what you all are getting at, but honestly, have some way to reduce the chances, because I generally have to solo instances, and thus, the bosses as well, since nobody I know is a member and can help me. So when I'm in a boss fight, alone, I almost get the boss down to being dead, and i've downed it's henchman, then suddenly I fizzle, and take a heavy blow, resulting in death...

Explorer
Sep 02, 2008
73
At level 50 (Grandmaster-which I am) I would expect NOT to see ANY of my spells fizzle or very rare if it did happen. Fizzle chances should decrease as the character advances in character levels NOT based upon what items/spell cards that I find/buy within the game setting that I use to decrease my fizzle chances.

However, for the most part I do think the spell cards (that when used that add a % increase to the success rate) are OK to keep in the game.

Just my 2 cents.

Squire
Dec 02, 2008
543
A bonus to accuracy of spells of your primary class would be better described as systematically increasing the accuracy of everything, and then adding a malus to spells not your primary class.

If you want to decrease your fizzle chance, then load up on +accuracy gear.

Making characters get stronger too quickly as they level tends to hurt gameplay, as it greatly constricts the level range at which players can reasonably do content.

Removing fizzles entirely at level 50 would be bad for the same reasons that removing them at all levels would be bad. Having an end-game that specifically removes the factors that made the game interesting at lower levels is how to build an incredibly awful end-game.

Survivor
Dec 12, 2008
12
i have a lvl 25 ice storm wizard and it just got me so mad. i fizzled when i was about to die. i couldnt stand it any more! so then i made a death life wizard and WOW big diffrence! i only fizzled like once every 5 battles. so i dont need to worry about getting armor that increases my hitting chances. all my death spells have a 85% of hitting and life spells with 90%. i was going crazy how good he is. and because of this i never die.(and cause i am a death life so i heal and attack.) so if you are always are fizzling try a diffrent class.

- Ian DeathShard lvl 23.

Hero
Sep 08, 2008
712
Most of the valid and important points have pretty much already been mentioned, but I am going to add my own words to this.

I am Storm wizard. The very first time I created my wizard, before I even got introduced to the game and the trial version, was Storm. Storm is incredibly powerful, coming with the highest percentage of fizzles is just there to balance out that class.

Now, lets say there were no fizzles. Every single spell is 100%. Make a Storm wizard, and you know you'd be the one casting the most powerful magic out there. So.. what would the Life wizards say? And what would the others say that do not have quite as much power as the Storm wizards?

True, I have gotten killed because of fizzles... but.. its just something that comes with the game. Thats why there are "misses" and "dodges" in Final Fantasy, "resists" and "blocks" in World of Warcraft, and "evade" in both. Well, there are "misses, resists, dodges, parries, and blocks" in all rpgs. Except Wizard101.... instead, you simply have a window for random damage, (105-145 Thunder Snake), and fizzles. Of course.. opponents being hit by spells from their own schools do resist... but that is just a universal trait that all games and rpgs already share.

Survivor
Dec 17, 2008
31
The percentages on the cards are there to tell you what the fizzle rate is. A percentage of 75 means that if you cast this spell 4 times in a row, it will fail once. Unfortunately, ingame, this is rarely the case. If you cast two 100% spells (wand, or 2 shield spells for example) to start combat, your third spell, if less than 100%, will fizzle at a higher rate than the on card percentage plus gear buff leads you to believe. No adequate explanation has been given for this.
I have lost count of the number of times I have cast wand/+10% accuracy/85% spell only to have the now 95% spell fizzle. It still happens with my gear that increases my accuracy. The third spell fizzles once every three or four times which leaves me with a frustrating 75-80% accuracy on a spell that should work well over 90% of the time.