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School Pairings and Real Thoughts

AuthorMessage
Survivor
Aug 13, 2018
11
Hello! I've been playing with my wife on this game for a little over a month now after being infuriated with it years ago. I have a small problem or issue im wondering about that even my wife who has a 120 ice and a vet of the game can't seem to answer. Its like this and for real: " It seems to me that by taking a secondary school only hinders you later on. Mostly its taken when you reach level 5, but I've done tons and tons of testing and it looks like to me there really is no good pairings since after all your playing against RNG mostly. So the quarry is this; is it really even worth having a secondary school in the first place since you really won't be using it hardly much after level 35? This is something I have tested and seems like there is way too much fizzling going on in this game. What's the answer here on how to be most effective with your fights? Also one more thing while im here: Why the forced combat in lots of areas? My wife helped me push an ice wizard to level 80 so he was just starting Azteca, and I have noticed in most areas of the game you travel to the NPC's always seem to march to you and the walls push you into combat. Will there ever be a fix for this? From what I can tell, player choice has been pretty much been taken away with the "Illusion" you have a choice, which in MOST cases you don't. This game has really stressed me out and I am with out a doubt a veteran MMORPG player. I.E RIFT, WoW, LOTRO (lord of the rings online), Neverwinter...just to name a few. RNG seems to rule this game. Will that ever change to allow players to fight/duel their way? Just some thoughts and questions I've had for a very long time. Thanks in advance if anyone can really answer this. :) I really like the looks of this game and at times I do enjoy it, but I'm very tired of being infuriated more times than not in this game and really want to be able to sit and enjoy a VIDEO GAME that won't make me feel like: " Oh god now what do I need to do? OMG I gotta go there and do that now?!?! " That's what I've been feeling every morning since I've subscribed to this game to play with my wife. That's not a cheery feeling to have just to enjoy time with your wife who has like minded interests and hobbies.

A+ Student
Mar 31, 2009
1713
AlphaWolf37 on Jan 2, 2022 wrote:
Hello! I've been playing with my wife on this game for a little over a month now after being infuriated with it years ago. I have a small problem or issue im wondering about that even my wife who has a 120 ice and a vet of the game can't seem to answer. Its like this and for real: " It seems to me that by taking a secondary school only hinders you later on. Mostly its taken when you reach level 5, but I've done tons and tons of testing and it looks like to me there really is no good pairings since after all your playing against RNG mostly. So the quarry is this; is it really even worth having a secondary school in the first place since you really won't be using it hardly much after level 35? This is something I have tested and seems like there is way too much fizzling going on in this game. What's the answer here on how to be most effective with your fights? Also one more thing while im here: Why the forced combat in lots of areas? My wife helped me push an ice wizard to level 80 so he was just starting Azteca, and I have noticed in most areas of the game you travel to the NPC's always seem to march to you and the walls push you into combat. Will there ever be a fix for this? From what I can tell, player choice has been pretty much been taken away with the "Illusion" you have a choice, which in MOST cases you don't. This game has really stressed me out and I am with out a doubt a veteran MMORPG player. I.E RIFT, WoW, LOTRO (lord of the rings online), Neverwinter...just to name a few. RNG seems to rule this game. Will that ever change to allow players to fight/duel their way? Just some thoughts and questions I've had for a very long time. Thanks in advance if anyone can really answer this. :) I really like the looks of this game and at times I do enjoy it, but I'm very tired of being infuriated more times than not in this game and really want to be able to sit and enjoy a VIDEO GAME that won't make me feel like: " Oh god now what do I need to do? OMG I gotta go there and do that now?!?! " That's what I've been feeling every morning since I've subscribed to this game to play with my wife. That's not a cheery feeling to have just to enjoy time with your wife who has like minded interests and hobbies.
Can I just first commend you for playing with your spouse? My spouse will play with me sometimes and even though, I know it's not her favorite thing to do, I appreciate her willingness to do an activity that I enjoy.

Secondary school is a little bit of a misnomer, as you probably will train multiple secondary schools. When you are training secondary schools, you'll want to look for for spells that have effects that you can use instead of "off-school damage spells" So Train for Utility Spells, like Tower Shield, or Weakness instead of trying to get Evil Snowman or Scorpion (granted you'll be getting both when you go for the effect spells).

You can get gear to improve your accuracy. There are also some spells that improve your accuracy as well. (Precision learned by Balance Wizards, an AOE version learned by Life, and various Sun Enchantment spells, 2 different Star Auras, Storm also has a Storm specific one. If your partner has reached level 100 and trained in the Balance school they can access precision.)

As far as walking from place to place and getting pulled in battles. Some worlds are a pain (Azteca especially sorry) and others are not really much of an issue IMO. To help relieve some of the pain, make sure that you are using your Teleport Mark, the Return to Commons button, Teleporting to Friends, and the Friendly Player Menu. You can get around relatively easily doing that. Again, Azteca is going to probably be the most drudgery of a world, it does get better as you go along.

Players can fight/duel there way, but if you play with other players (especially Storm Wizards) people tend to expect that you play to the standard alpha-strike strategy/rolls. (And there isn't much of a Role for that for Ice Wizards). However, if it's just you and your wife, then you guys can play however you want. They did release a dev diary recently talking about how they want to change that and make each school more desirable on teams. I'm hoping that they make those changes soon myself. As it currently stands, my Ice Wizard is right there with you, wishing I could do something to help.

There are also other activities that you can do beside just questing: Do Side Quests, do Deckathalon, Spiral Scene, Beastmoon Hunt and Monster Mayhem, Fishing, House decorating/touring, farm for gear, gardening, Pet Training, Team Ups, PVP (Ice is supposed to be a good school for that, if you take the time to practice and figure it out.) etc.

Moral of the story, Azteca is a drag. Take breaks, build another character, do some other activities. Find things that you like to do. If you want to get out of Azteca as soon as possible stick strictly to just the mainline quest. I'd also talk to your spouse and let them know sort of what you're feeling and see if they have any other ideas of what you could do in game.

I also really enjoy the graphics and sometimes the story of this game. You might also want to give Pirate101 a try if you like those aspects-the combat system is different, but it's also fun.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Survivor
Aug 13, 2018
11
Hey thank you for the reply. Yeah RNG Probability really isn't my cup of tea but im enduring it for her lol. It does kind of help in a good way. Before Wizards i did try Pirates and was completely lost haha, but that was just my newbieness at work. I think my gripe is the lack of player choice and control and being confined to one thing or another. There is an obvious gear and stat choke. I do know you speak the truth about gear with stats on them, but the issue i seem to always have is that I can hardly ever find the right ones and must sacrifice damage for accuracy or health and that should never happen. The traversal is only a gripe because I know walls literally pushing you into combat should NEVER happen. Im still having a hard time understanding the combat system and how it calculates your hand. I think the BIGGEST problem is that I have a hard time coming to terms with a game that TELLS me how to play rather than LETTING me play. Im having a hard time with accepting the whole "Fizzle" mantra, it feels like false bravado on Kings Isle's part, and also the level differences as well. My wifes Ice Wizard gets hit like a fresh level 5 in Cyclops lane even with all of her resist stats she has, and oh boy does she have them, im actually jealous a little lol :) . Thats the other small detail about my post, theres something about this game that doesn't take into account that you've earned certain things in the game and seeing how she gets ground down from 7k health to 4k in wizard city when she helps with my wizards makes me question a lot about the game. I've threatened to quit a total of 118 times already this past 30 days lol. She takes it and of course im back at it. There is just too much that don't add up to me. So in short, Yes i do pick up the gear with accuracy on them, but then im not as effective and pretty shortly have my booty handed to me in a fight. I don't think there really is a good answer to this issue. I've seen some youtube videos and i saw some that tells you to never trade Strength and Health for anything as the other stats simply will not matter. Im coming close to believing this because i've built my Level 80 Ice Wizard with almost max Resist and still get hit in Wizard City fights like im walking naked in the street. The issue i've found is the gear really has no real stats on them. Armor, Endurance/Health, Mana, Spellpower, Crit, Crit Power,... so on and so forth are not present. Taking away the freedom to cast spells your way is very critical to a game making it or breaking it in the future, you should never take away player choice and freedom. Primary School Spells should never fizzle, but however secondary ones can as long as they are attacks. The idea of PIPS is fun, but overall annoying since you have mana as well. The idea of a shuffle system makes little sense because now your trying to be both a magic slinging game AND a card collecting game at the same time and these at least in this case are not mixing well. So lets make our minds up if we are going to be an Adventure MMO with Magic Casting or if we are going to static Turn Based Card Collecting. If Kings Isle made a few changes this game could take over the entire industry and their capital would almost quadruple over night. But the fact that this game isn't "Game Friendly", is the reason they are seeing massive drops. This game could rule it all IF they made some tweaks AND changes. This game has so much potential and I could help with that, and so could others if they would just listen for once. But Hey, I appreciate you taking the time to make such a considerate reply to my rant and question and wish you all the best.