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New Pips/Training Minions/Extension of Player Ring

AuthorMessage
Survivor
Oct 14, 2008
9
I was playing in the test realm before getting kicked due to inactivity but I can paraphrase what I was typing before losing about 20 minutes of typing.

1. Extension of the Pip Ring
At level 90, after the player completes the final quest for Azteca,and before starting Khrysalis, Ambrose should call in the player saying that there is a new way to cast bigger and better spells. When you get there he tells you about a pip type called either "Nova Pips" or "Transcendent Pips" that account for 3 pips total. Since white pips are 1 pip, power count for 2, why not add a new pip type with a unique color that counts for 3 pips? The player would then be sent to Diego where you will duel Diego with the new pip type at the start instead of the normal 2 power pips we are so used to seeing. So the player would have one Nova/Transcendent pip at start and one power pip given by their wand. Then he would proceed to explain pros and cons of the new pip such as their low occurrence or their usefulness. A player would have a base starting at 10% and have no way to increase that chance with gear until level 100. From there it would increase to a base of 40% just as power pips did when the player leveled up more.

OR

When the player reaches 100, and still completes Khrysalis, they are sent to Ambrose anyway to be told about how there is a way to have more pips and to be able to survive in the Spiral longer, the player must learn to adjust to having room for more spells or bigger spells. When the player hits the normal cap in their ring of 7 pips, the ring would rotate slightly around so that the player now has the potential to gain 7 more pips. They would do the same thing as the suggestion to fight Diego with the new setup so that combat can be better explained to the new way combat is set up. This gives the player more room to cast multiple spells. How this would be protected from spells such as Mana Burn, would be that the ring does NOT extend until the player reaches 7 pips.

2. Minion Training
In Pirate101, the player has the ability to have multiple helpers escort them through the game if used correctly. So why not do the same with Wizard101 in that the player must train and rank up their minion(s) individually. So when a player completes a quest, 2 - 5% of the experience goes to the minion. The only way that the minion will gain experience is through quests, so that grinding minion ranks cannot be abused. I find this to be the most useful because sometimes it's hard to get through the game when players are scarce or not anywhere in the game you are at the time. Late game worlds are barren and with the addition to make a minion more useful would help to allow a player to complete the story. Another helpful update to being able to level a minion would be to control the spells they learn and what they cast. So that the spells are displayed small until hovered over with a mouse with player on top and minion on bottom.

Defender
Mar 02, 2009
108
In terms of pips, I think the idea is clever. We will eventually need the aid, or else 14 rank spells will be the last! About the minions. There is potential here. But perhaps with more thought. Think about the way this could be abused with low level treasure cards. And the storm minion, healing. And the myth minions instead of blades. But the thought of a slight more control over the minions does sound nice-- Talos is nearly useless when we get to critical!

Survivor
Oct 14, 2008
9
With the amount of space I have to post on here, I didn't know if the basis for minion training would be brought into understanding. I do understand how this could be abused but this is how I saw that minions would work:

1.) Minion Deck Building
A minion would have it's own independent deck that the player both builds, customizes, and works without the use of treasure cards. I understand that in game a player's minion at lower levels typically casts whatever it wants to and it's not a treasure card, it's just a defined basic spell that is in their set list. With this system I will eliminate the chances of having a random card being cast at any time. That way a player can decide what spells they will have and no be able to abuse it through means of equipment. It would be way abused if the minion could be determined by the player as far as equipment and stats because it would be way easy to tack on a mastery amulet for and just have him only spec heals to his deck.

2.) Point of Having a Minion with complete control
It is like training another player within that same school. The major difference is that you are not allowed to change resist/incoming healing/outgoing healing/damage and so on. The game will determine all of this based on a minion's rank. Another thing that makes this more useful to a player is that they have someone else there. I know it can be frustrating when someone jumps into their fight and either leans on you or flees the fight adding yet another mob to the fight that you may not have the ability to deal with. This system of instead of having a minion that takes your converts or steals your feints, will allow you to direct the minion in a direction so that you can complete a fight with more ease.

Survivor
Oct 14, 2008
9
3.) Limitations
I realize that having 2 hands in front of you can make micromanaging a fight very daunting for some players and it would also make turns longer because sometimes you have to add a sharpen to your blade, a potent trap to your feints, or put a buff onto your attack, and during all this time you have to then select your target or yourself. Managing 2 separate decks and hands would make for a very challenging task to manage for some people. As a step to make that seem more simple, a notification could be created to let you know like what your minion deck is setup to do overall. So if you have 14 attacks, 6 buffs, 4 heals, 9 blades, 3 auras, and 0 traps, that deck would be classified as an assault deck for the amount of attacks it holds. And then the minion could either be told what you what to do. Kinda like a stance change but for your minion. Then you could set that minion stance to either player controlled or autopilot. Another limit is that you could NOT place cards outside of your school inside the minion deck unless you spec the minion into that school for those spells. And even then you will have the minion set up to play without a mastery of another school.

4.) Balancing
Every 2 ranks, cost another pip to play your minion. Starting with a minion would be too overpowered and as such, I would expect that Kingsisle would adjust the difficulty of the fights such as making fights in Unicorn way a 2v2 instead of 1v1 because you would now have that minion and so on with other fights. The player cannot change the minions stats. These will be determined automatically based on rank. Each world has a rank cap on mobs and so should your minion. Your minion cannot be rank 10 in a rank 3 area just because you grinded XP for it. So as you progress through the Spiral, your minions rank will be allowed to increase. Minions will also be PvP locked, because their ability to act as another player would tip the scales in favor of who has their minion first.