[Suggestion] A way to balance MP costs.

[Lienn]

After the addition of MP regenthings became too easy for mages since the MP regen is proportional to the max MP. This would, occasionally, ends in the raising of spells' MP cost, which would be bad in my opinion.

So the idea is to match the MP cost of non-mage classes to mage classes. And, to do this, i'd change the way the "area effect" button works.

When targeting a single target (or hitting only one target while having AoE on), everything would stay as it is. But, once the spell hits 2 or more targets, the MP cost would be multiplied by the number of targets, making the MP cost similar to the case of someone being casting the spell on one by one.

Example: If you cast a cure. You spend 12 MP and heals the dude. But right now you need no skill to do this...any mage can spam cure, spending 12 MP and healing everyone in range, not even worrying if some of them actually need healing.

With this change, the correct usage of AoE commands will become important since, when he heals one target he will spend 12 MP but, when he heals 8 targets (assuming the new full party size) he will spend 96 MP.

Same works for nukes and any other spells. With the flexibility that comes with the AoE option so would come the strategy. Once the enmity is also balanced, making enmity generated receiving a multiplier based on AoE usage would also be welcome, making mages having to learn when to use a spell with area of effect on and when to use it off.

Also, this suggestion would not affect any class that is using crossclass spells but cannot use area of effect option (disciple of war) in any way, which is much better than an overall raise of MP cost of spells, that would make things much more troublesome for classes with low MP pool.

But, obviously, this suggestion only affects MP. In spells that have different kinds of cost (like sacrifice), the other costs would stay unchanged regardless of "area of effect" button being on or off.

[Dreamer]

I personally wish they had left the passive mana regen out. It makes mana management completely negligible.

[Lienn]

Indeed. It was a very poor way of dealing with MP. Right now any skill/spell for MP regen is just useless unless the player is completely brainless...and even going brainless its a hard goal to run out of MP. This will, sooner or later, generate adjustments because i doubt they will remove this MP regen...that's why i posted this suggestion..afterall raising MP costs would not only need more effort than this suggestion, but also not adding strategy to the way mages play right now and bringing problems to disciples of war that want to use some spells.

[Xatsh]

I am fine with the mp regen but they need to increase MP usage, with the new system it is almost impossible to run out of mp... sorta was before as well but now it is just at a crazy level.

Mp amounts should be about the same as XI's cost where now that you can regen mp. That way it is not an endless pool of mp. Also while Siphon mp is great it is horribly overpowered... I can get like 500-600mp back in 1 cast. Need to make siphon mp single target and increase recast to 1min or reduce its potency greatly on multiple targets.

[Lienn]

I like siphon numbers. Its a fair spell when you think that DoW classes might only be able to target a single target. It would also be fair to mages in this system, since AoE casting would have high MP cost (siphon MP II have 25 MP cost...if it hit 4 monsters the MP cost would jump to 100 MP. Same works for Sacrifice III...32 MP x 8 party members = 256 MP per heal if it hits all membersl)

This would foprce mages to play with single target spells instead of spamming AoE spells like crazy. This change, not only wouldn't hurt DoW but also would make skilled mages, that know how to play his class, worth searching. Who didn't like in XI when you received a /t of someone asking you to join his party even when you weren't looking for party because some party members told you're badass?

[Demoleon]

I personally think that they should add a /heal. Limit HP and MP regen to that.

Yes I understand that FFXI did it, But so have other games and it works. The passive mode HP and MP regen right is too grind friendly IMO. You have virtually no downtime.

[Aldarin]

I like the idea of increasing MP cost for AoE. I wouldn't however increase the mp cost based on the number of people affected, as then people may use more mp than they wanted. granted this might not be a problem now, but it would later. I would say leave single target mp cost as it is, and multiplying AoE mp cost by 3. 3 being the standard number for expected targets. thus single target cure is 8mp, and AoE cure (curaga) is 24mp.

I'm also of the idea that AoE should probably be extended to DoW classes, considering DoM classes can get almost full benefit of DoW abilities.