There are a lot of people complaining how long dungeons take and how low of a chance to get rewards there are. I think these people would be at least partially placated with a way to do the dungeon faster: Turbo Mode.
Let's face it: Spell animations take forever. That's the only reason why Tartarus takes an hour and a half. With Turbo Mode on, spell animations will not play, instead their effects will occur all at once after all wizards select their spells.
How will this be implemented? At the beginning of the dungeon, you will be able to select whether or not you will use Turbo Mode. This will occur either with a majority decision upon entering (a tie defaults to Turbo Mode) or an individual selection upon entering Team Up, which will team you with wizards of the appropriate speed selection. During combat, you will be able to click a button on the chat box, which will activate Play-By-Play mode. This will show you the effects of each spell in text format; i.e. Ill-Fated Serpentine in position used Sabertooth. (1000 damage to Kane WildThief). This will allow wizards to check through anything they may have missed with all spells occuring at once.
Practically speaking, I foresee headaches with this as described.
Turbo mode = people toggling the option, then needing to go AFK for drinks, sandwiches, to do homework, to watch a movie, to get the phone, etc. Then, you and your team lose a partner who might actually be needed for several rounds, instead of just a couple. The spell animations sometimes give you a needed opportunity to do other things. But, who knows, maybe the time savings would still be positive in the end.
And, just to put this out there, there might be other ways to cut spell animation time.
AoE spells waste a lot of time targeting each specific player, yet as we saw with Morganthe, there is a way to program them to just hit everyone simultaneously. This would make lots of the biggest stall-spells much faster, like Rain of Fire, Rebirth, Ra, Unicorn, Sun Serpent, Avenging Fossil, and Hades' death attack.
The "pet chorus" after hits, where everyone's pet does every heal ever, can be shortened. People can recognize within a fraction of a second whether a spell is sprite, fairy, energizing current, lifebat, etc. Thus, no needs for these spells to take 7-10 seconds each (heal 10 times, and you've added over a full minute to the dungeon). If any animation is needed, maybe cut straight to the part where the fairy/sprite/lifebat produces the green heal effects, then stop.
...I've been thinking about this some more, because although I think people are generally irresponsible when estimating their own attention span, there might be significant value added if KI gave a way to shorten gameplay. I consider it a game design flaw when humans can't remember that they were stunned 30 seconds ago. (Hint: That means animations are too long!)
How about if Turbo Mode showed everyone the card view of what was just played with some dubbed sound effects. So, instead of activating the Frost Giant animation, the card popped up in the middle of the circle on that position's turn for 5 seconds. If someone's pet activates, same deal, card view.
There are a lot of people complaining how long dungeons take and how low of a chance to get rewards there are. I think these people would be at least partially placated with a way to do the dungeon faster: Turbo Mode.
Let's face it: Spell animations take forever. That's the only reason why Tartarus takes an hour and a half. With Turbo Mode on, spell animations will not play, instead their effects will occur all at once after all wizards select their spells.
How will this be implemented? At the beginning of the dungeon, you will be able to select whether or not you will use Turbo Mode. This will occur either with a majority decision upon entering (a tie defaults to Turbo Mode) or an individual selection upon entering Team Up, which will team you with wizards of the appropriate speed selection. During combat, you will be able to click a button on the chat box, which will activate Play-By-Play mode. This will show you the effects of each spell in text format; i.e. Ill-Fated Serpentine in position used Sabertooth. (1000 damage to Kane WildThief). This will allow wizards to check through anything they may have missed with all spells occuring at once.
Second Chance chests were specifically designed to decrease the amount of time spent farming in dungeons and KI has repeatedly indicated that it will take Crowns to shortcut content that normally takes time (Crowns vs. Time).
However, I do believe your suggestion should be applied in a similar fashion to the Options menu (to turn off animations we've seen hundreds of times) to all battles, not just dungeons. Maybe as an option when solo, or maybe just attack animations (that take the longest). The computer calculations are already completed at the beginning of the round, as the animations just "play out the calculations." You can verify this when rejoining an in-progress battle, as you can see all the results of the round while all the players are still watching the animations that led to those results.
I won't hold my breathe for this option, since Wizard101 is based on a CCG setup, where the play (spell) is the core piece of the battle system. I also personally believe that the Wizard101 team accounts for the spell animations in determining the overall length of content for expansions. Lowering it would leave wizards hungry for more, on top of what they already crave.
Practically speaking, I foresee headaches with this as described.
Turbo mode = people toggling the option, then needing to go AFK for drinks, sandwiches, to do homework, to watch a movie, to get the phone, etc. Then, you and your team lose a partner who might actually be needed for several rounds, instead of just a couple. The spell animations sometimes give you a needed opportunity to do other things. But, who knows, maybe the time savings would still be positive in the end.
And, just to put this out there, there might be other ways to cut spell animation time.
AoE spells waste a lot of time targeting each specific player, yet as we saw with Morganthe, there is a way to program them to just hit everyone simultaneously. This would make lots of the biggest stall-spells much faster, like Rain of Fire, Rebirth, Ra, Unicorn, Sun Serpent, Avenging Fossil, and Hades' death attack.
The "pet chorus" after hits, where everyone's pet does every heal ever, can be shortened. People can recognize within a fraction of a second whether a spell is sprite, fairy, energizing current, lifebat, etc. Thus, no needs for these spells to take 7-10 seconds each (heal 10 times, and you've added over a full minute to the dungeon). If any animation is needed, maybe cut straight to the part where the fairy/sprite/lifebat produces the green heal effects, then stop.
Totally agree! I would love it if the AoE spells hit everybody at the same time, did the damage to all, then applied the after effects all at the same time. let's look at some examples with 4 enemies (ignoring the initial casting and appearance animation):
Scarecrow: sucks life from all 4 at the same time, spins, "belches" the healing effect once
Earthquake: Hits all 4 enemies at the same time, then just erases everything except stun block on all (instead of animating each individual removing of one type, spinning to the next character, removing the same type, then spinning back to the first person and removing the next type). In this newer animated version, you could even "blow up" everything except stun block and be done with it
Rebirth: Heals all at the same time, puts up an Absorb at the same time
Things like this would speed up the game a lot. Know what else would? A "Smart Spinner". Right now, the way the combat pointer works is like this (based off of a 4v4):
Step 1) Enemy #1 Attacks Step 2) Ally #4's Pet casts a spell. The pointer goes from Enemy #1, clockwise, to Ally #4 Step 3) Ally #1's pet casts a spell. The pointer goes clockwise from Ally #4, Enemy #1, Enemy #2, enemy #3, enemy #4, then to Ally #1.
With this proposed change, what would happen is this:
Step 1) Enemy #1 Attacks Step 2) Ally #4's Pet casts a spell. The pointer goes from Enemy #1, clockwise, to Ally #4 Step 3) Ally #1's pet casts a spell. The pointer goes COUNTERclockwise from Ally #4, to Ally #3, to Ally #2, to Ally #1. While it only saves one move, it also saves it from spinning across the blanks spaces between each team
I'm going to run out of room so will reply a second time
Practically speaking, I foresee headaches with this as described.
Turbo mode = people toggling the option, then needing to go AFK for drinks, sandwiches, to do homework, to watch a movie, to get the phone, etc. Then, you and your team lose a partner who might actually be needed for several rounds, instead of just a couple. The spell animations sometimes give you a needed opportunity to do other things. But, who knows, maybe the time savings would still be positive in the end.
And, just to put this out there, there might be other ways to cut spell animation time.
AoE spells waste a lot of time targeting each specific player, yet as we saw with Morganthe, there is a way to program them to just hit everyone simultaneously. This would make lots of the biggest stall-spells much faster, like Rain of Fire, Rebirth, Ra, Unicorn, Sun Serpent, Avenging Fossil, and Hades' death attack.
The "pet chorus" after hits, where everyone's pet does every heal ever, can be shortened. People can recognize within a fraction of a second whether a spell is sprite, fairy, energizing current, lifebat, etc. Thus, no needs for these spells to take 7-10 seconds each (heal 10 times, and you've added over a full minute to the dungeon). If any animation is needed, maybe cut straight to the part where the fairy/sprite/lifebat produces the green heal effects, then stop.
Let's look at the savings in the most extreme, yet highly possible, situation:
Earthquake (current method): Attack: Spell animates, then hits ally #1, 1 step to ally #2, 1 step to ally #3, 1 step to ally #4 (4 steps) Remove Blades: camera shift to ally #1, shift to ally #2, shift to ally #3, shift to ally #4 (4 steps) Remove Traps:camera shift to ally #1, shift to ally #2, shift to ally #3, shift to ally #4 (4 steps)
Total steps + camera shifts: 12
Earthquake (proposed method): Attack: animation hits everybody all at once (one step), all allies have their shields/blades/traps/wards/etc blowup and get removed (2 steps)
Total steps + camera shifts = 2
Current method: Step 1) Enemy #1 Earthquakes (12 steps) Step 2) Ally #4's Pet casts a spell. The pointer goes from Enemy #1, clockwise 8 steps (including blank spaces), to Ally #4 Step 3) Ally #3's Pet casts a spell. The pointer goes from Ally #4, clockwise 9 steps, to Ally #3 Step 4) Ally #2's Pet casts a spell. The pointer goes from Ally #3, clockwise 9 steps, to Ally #2 Step 5) Ally #1's Pet casts a spell. The pointer goes from Ally #2, clockwise 9 steps, to Ally #1
Total Pointer Steps (including blank spaces) + camera shifts: 47
Proposed method (where we see the biggest benefit): Step 1) Enemy #1 Attacks all allies at the same time (2 steps) Step 2) Ally #4's Pet casts a spell. The pointer goes from Enemy #1, counterclockwise to Ally #4 (2 steps) Step 3) Ally #3's Pet casts a spell. The pointer goes from Ally #4, counterclockwise to Ally #3 (1 step) Step 4) Ally #2's Pet casts a spell. The pointer goes from Ally #4, counterclockwise to Ally #2 (1 step) Step 5) Ally #1's Pet casts a spell. The pointer goes from Ally #4, counterclockwise to Ally #1 (1 step)
Total Pointer Steps (including blank spaces): 7 steps
That is a HUGE savings of time AND animation of time. How much time is saved by making this change? Simple, 85% of the time. Even if nobody had a pet even equipped and earthquake hit, you're going from 12 steps down to 2, with a savings of time of 83%. Would this require a lot of recoding? Yes. Are there other things in the game more important that need fixing? yes. Does that make this idea invalid? NO!
I'll take this one step further. What happens if one of the pet casts causes a monster's cheat to happen? And if that monster's cheat causes maycast to happen? These are REALISTIC situations in the game! Sure, we can talk what ifs, and I know that if you what if it, we could go around in circles ad nauseum, but, it's still possible to happen. This is the exact reason why animation should be made more efficient. Want another reason? how about if all 4 allies cast sprite swarm? Do the math, it's 48 camera rotations/heal over time additions vs what would be 2 (spell casts, we see a top down camera angle, 4 sprites come out of the ground and heal everybody simultaneously, give HoT effects to all simultaneously).
If Sprite Swarm is ever made to be may cast, this will be a HUGE thing
Second Chance chests were specifically designed to decrease the amount of time spent farming in dungeons and KI has repeatedly indicated that it will take Crowns to shortcut content that normally takes time (Crowns vs. Time).
However, I do believe your suggestion should be applied in a similar fashion to the Options menu (to turn off animations we've seen hundreds of times) to all battles, not just dungeons. Maybe as an option when solo, or maybe just attack animations (that take the longest). The computer calculations are already completed at the beginning of the round, as the animations just "play out the calculations." You can verify this when rejoining an in-progress battle, as you can see all the results of the round while all the players are still watching the animations that led to those results.
I won't hold my breathe for this option, since Wizard101 is based on a CCG setup, where the play (spell) is the core piece of the battle system. I also personally believe that the Wizard101 team accounts for the spell animations in determining the overall length of content for expansions. Lowering it would leave wizards hungry for more, on top of what they already crave.
I'm not sure if you get it, Oran. Second Chance chests are not, to my knowledge, in those heavily farmed dungeons such as Waterworks, Tartarus, etc. They also allow you to effectively skip the dungeon, something that Turbo Mode does not do; it just cuts out the spell animations that we've all seen 10,000 times. The game is mostly spell animation, and while it's cool to see how awesome your new spell looks, it gets very boring very fast, especially in dungeons.
I'm not sure if you get it, Oran. Second Chance chests are not, to my knowledge, in those heavily farmed dungeons such as Waterworks, Tartarus, etc. They also allow you to effectively skip the dungeon, something that Turbo Mode does not do; it just cuts out the spell animations that we've all seen 10,000 times. The game is mostly spell animation, and while it's cool to see how awesome your new spell looks, it gets very boring very fast, especially in dungeons.
Please read my whole post, since I basically want the same thing as your asking (just not exclusively for dungeons)....so I get it, but I also understand KI's policy. Please read the portion on KI's stated policy in my previous post on Crowns vs. Time, since your suggestion, if it ever materializes just for dungeons, will cost Crowns (it does lower the total time) since it is not in line with KI's current policy. If a dungeon doesn't already have a Second Chance Chest, KI would more likely implement one (not all chests are put in game the same time as the boss...see below link).
Finally, Second Chance Chests can only be used a certain amount of times per character per day. So while you may "skip" the dungeon a few times, you still have to farm it.
position used Sabertooth. (1000 damage to 
Kane WildThief). This will allow wizards to check through anything they may have missed with all spells occuring at once.
