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[Magicka] Murder yourself with magic.
Blain
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Latest News
Magicka: Vietnam DLC Announced
What's Magicka? (Steam demo; PA Steam group)
At first glance, Magicka (official site) looks like your basic co-op diablo clone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nXdnuvT01c
The more I heard, the less excited I was.
- There's almost no loot.
- There's no leveling.
- It's supposed to be funny (cause that always works :P).
- But hey! You can combine elements to make nifty spells!
Yeah, whatever. I've heard that before.
Then came a post on Rock, Paper, Shotgun which described why this game may turn out to be a hilarious festival of accidental murder.
The Rules of Magicka
1) Elemental combos are very powerful, encouraging you to exploit them, experiment with them, and think fast to use them under pressure.
2) There are many ways to screw up, thereby obliterating yourself and your co-op buddies.
- Didn't notice your buddy had just tromped through a river before casting that Lighting spell? Oops.
- Tried to heal a buddy with a Life beam just as he cast some Arcane AoE? Oops. (Think matter and anti-matter.)
- Enclosed your party in a safety shield just as your buddy let loose with a giant fireball? Oops.
I encourage you to grab the demo and start experimenting. But if you need more convincing that the mechanics are interesting enough to merit a 300MB download, here are the basics.
The Basics (not spoilered because it's all in the tutorial)
Elements: You build spells by combining eight "elements". Water, fire, earth, etc. Some elements have opposites they will not combine with. Some elements also combine to form new elements not in your list. Forgetting (or not knowing about) those last two caveats is a leading cause of spell fizzles and suicides.
Charging: You can have up to five elements in a spell, so if you want a bigger flame, add more fire. Charging takes time and slows your movement, so it's a good way to get killed by enemies.
Shaping: Some elements can be combined to change their effects. Fire by itself is a flame thrower. Fire plus earth makes a handy fireball with much better range, plus a nice (and very dangerous) explosion radius. If you hit the keys too fast, the elements don't queue, which causes more fizzles and suicides.
Focus: You can focus elements on your wizard, in front of your wizard, all around your wizard, or into your wizard's sword. Or you can try to cast a spell with them. Using the wrong focus is yet another way to cause fizzles and suicides.
Status: Players and enemies can be wet. They can be on fire. They can be frostbitten. They can be poisoned. Every status has a cure. Some statuses can be combined with certain attacks for bonus damage. Knowing these will let you dominate enemies. Not paying attention to these will kill you and your friends.
And once in a blue moon, you'll accidentally cast something that turns out way cooler than you expected, leaving you to wonder how to reproduce the effect.
If this sounds fun to you, grab the demo. If not, see you in some other thread!
Morrandir's Guide to Basic Magicks (Spoilering for you people who like discovery)
Media
Magicka: Vietnam DLC Announced
What's Magicka? (Steam demo; PA Steam group)
At first glance, Magicka (official site) looks like your basic co-op diablo clone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nXdnuvT01c
The more I heard, the less excited I was.
- There's almost no loot.
- There's no leveling.
- It's supposed to be funny (cause that always works :P).
- But hey! You can combine elements to make nifty spells!
Yeah, whatever. I've heard that before.
Then came a post on Rock, Paper, Shotgun which described why this game may turn out to be a hilarious festival of accidental murder.
The Rules of Magicka
1) Elemental combos are very powerful, encouraging you to exploit them, experiment with them, and think fast to use them under pressure.
2) There are many ways to screw up, thereby obliterating yourself and your co-op buddies.
- Didn't notice your buddy had just tromped through a river before casting that Lighting spell? Oops.
- Tried to heal a buddy with a Life beam just as he cast some Arcane AoE? Oops. (Think matter and anti-matter.)
- Enclosed your party in a safety shield just as your buddy let loose with a giant fireball? Oops.
I encourage you to grab the demo and start experimenting. But if you need more convincing that the mechanics are interesting enough to merit a 300MB download, here are the basics.
The Basics (not spoilered because it's all in the tutorial)
Elements: You build spells by combining eight "elements". Water, fire, earth, etc. Some elements have opposites they will not combine with. Some elements also combine to form new elements not in your list. Forgetting (or not knowing about) those last two caveats is a leading cause of spell fizzles and suicides.
Charging: You can have up to five elements in a spell, so if you want a bigger flame, add more fire. Charging takes time and slows your movement, so it's a good way to get killed by enemies.
Shaping: Some elements can be combined to change their effects. Fire by itself is a flame thrower. Fire plus earth makes a handy fireball with much better range, plus a nice (and very dangerous) explosion radius. If you hit the keys too fast, the elements don't queue, which causes more fizzles and suicides.
Focus: You can focus elements on your wizard, in front of your wizard, all around your wizard, or into your wizard's sword. Or you can try to cast a spell with them. Using the wrong focus is yet another way to cause fizzles and suicides.
Status: Players and enemies can be wet. They can be on fire. They can be frostbitten. They can be poisoned. Every status has a cure. Some statuses can be combined with certain attacks for bonus damage. Knowing these will let you dominate enemies. Not paying attention to these will kill you and your friends.
And once in a blue moon, you'll accidentally cast something that turns out way cooler than you expected, leaving you to wonder how to reproduce the effect.
If this sounds fun to you, grab the demo. If not, see you in some other thread!
Morrandir's Guide to Basic Magicks (Spoilering for you people who like discovery)
An intro to elements
In Magicka, you have 10 friends and up to 3 enemies/victims/targets/convenient jump nodes for lightning/other players playing with you.
Arcane and Healing are two sides of the same coin: Both have the exact same shapes, but one damages, the other heals. Cold, Fire, Water, and Steam are all sprays, putting out a cone of whatever it is. Ice is a variable-sized arc of shards. Lightning is also slightly conical, but will jump between targets, making it unpredictable, but with a large area effect. Earth conjures a physical-damage projectile, with a variable speed based on charge time. Shield creates barriers to protect areas and wizards. Or doom them to being locked in an inescapable prison with a troll.
Non-elemental casting
Two basic spells can be done without any elemental charge. The first is a directional push done by a normal cast, the other is a circular push via AoE casting. These can be charged for more power, which is needed for some of the larger enemies, and for more entertainment by going Goblin Golfing. There is no damaging effect from either of these (Unless you shove them into something that will, like a fire or another spell), but they're handy for getting some breathing space.
Spellcasting
The first thing to note is that there is apparently a sort of diminishing returns system in place. Casting 5 Arcanes into a beam is exceptionally powerful, but it's not as powerful as casting 1 Arcane beam 5 times. While not correct, it's easiest to remember consecutive charges' power levels in terms of "5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1" and such. Much experimenting is needed to get the right numbers down. You'll be fine as long as you just remember that when making a mixed spell, you're probably best off with only 1 or 2 charges of a specific element, unless you need as much of X as possible.
Secondly, there are two hidden elements; Steam and Ice. The former is formed by a Water and Fire charge, the latter by Water and Cold. Casting the third combo element (For example: Water, Cold, (Forms Ice), Fire) will undo the change and leave you with a single Water charge.
Now, the most important thing to remember is how the elements interact. Here's a little chart, even.
Red marks are cancellations: Putting both of these in a spell will remove both of them. This is a good way to fix botched spells before you explode yourself or your teammates. Shield is unique in that it cancels itself, which also means you can only ever have 1 charge of it in a spell. Green marks are combinations: Casting both will make them fuse into a new element, as explained above. When prepping a spell, any combos or cancels will take effect on the latest charge. If you charge Fire, Earth, Fire, Water, the second Fire will be the one to turn into Steam.
Now, in actual casting, mixing elements is a bad idea. An explosively bad one. Watch what your teammates prefer hurling around and plan accordingly. If the beams meet in the right place, though, this becomes a valuable weapon. So it depends on how lucky you're feeling.
Of the elements, three have status effects that go along with them: Water will soak creatures, causing Lightning spells to deal more damage, as well as preventing charging of Lightning spells by the wet. And by prevent I mean "Shock them every time they try." Fire will ignite anything struck, causing a diminishing-over-time damage effect. Cold will slow targets. These three also interact with the environment: Cold will freeze water, Fire will thaw it, Water will extinguish fires. These interactions apply to characters and enemies as well: A soaked person will be frozen solid by a Cold attack, or dried off by Fire, while a chilled one will be warmed by Fire.
What about the others? Well, they don't so much have status effects as special effects. Lightning will show you the wireframe skeleton of whatever you're zapping, also making it occasionally stop as it fries, Arcane will make things explode if it's the killing blow, Heal harms undead and makes them explode in healy goodness (And Arcane heals them), and Earth is actually counted as a physical attack.
Shaping Spells
There are 4 different ways to cast a spell: Normally (via staff), on self, AoE, and on weapon. Each makes spells behave very differently: For example. A pure Arcane spell will, in order, fire in a beam, explode you (bad), explode aroundyou (good), and give you a powerful, long-reaching melee attack. In addition, spells act wildly differently depending on mixture, most notably if you toss Shield into the casting.
The following elements change the design of a spell, in order of what will take precedence for spell shape:
Shield
Earth
Ice
Arcane/Heal
Lightning
Everything else
Shield-typed spells will form a barrier of sorts, Earth will turn them into a charged projectile, Ice will hurl shards shotgun style and can be charged to narrow the angle, Arcane/Heal creates a beam, and Lightning remains the same, just with the effects of the others added to it.
Casting a spell on a weapon will cause it to use the spell, either in an arc in front of you, or a line-based area of effect. Shield causes a short, long-lasting line, Earth causes a long, short-lasting line, Ice will form a massive vertically-striking blade, Arcane/Heal will create a sweeping arc, and Lightning will still shoot out of the weapon, though not as powerfully or long-ranged as a normally-cast spell of the same makeup. Weapon-casting spells is a good way to store a powerful spell without slowing down to a crawl during travel. In addition, spells can be added to a weapon if it still has "room," but opposing elements still cancel. For example: You cast 3 charges of Lightning and add it to your sword. Later on, you feel like adding 2 Fire. They will be added to the 3 Lightnings without issue. If, however, you try to add 2 Water, you will end up with a single Lightning charge. So remember what you have on that sword!
Combination effects
Most spell effects are easy to figure out: If you put lightning and fire together, you get lightning that sets them on fire. Simple enough. But some are more abstract.
Overall, a combined-element spell will be stronger than the sum of its parts if it is very diverse, but weaker if it is composed of only one, or in larger charge amounts, two elements. For instance, an Arcane Arcane Steam Lightning Fire beam will deal a great amount more damage than each one cast as a unique spell.
Shield + whatever except Earth or Ice, self cast: This gives you protection from the element in question. For the duration of it, you can't be affected by it. More elemental charges give an aura that protects all within. If you cast protection from Water, you won't get wet; protection from Lightning, you won't explode when your overly destructive teammate does a Rain + 5 charge Lightning combo. There is, however, one very bad thing to cast: Protection from Healing. Yes, it's a thing. It prevents you from being healed, and your team will laugh at you when you do it while trying to heal yourself before tossing up your personal shield.
Reflection: Shield (Of any kind!) + beam = ricochet. Fun times are had if some idiot does this inside a full bubble, even more good times when a teammate bank shots a goblin with a beam off your personal shield. Less good times if he tries this as your shield goes down. Note that an Arcane explosion will cause the shield to drop, while a healing one will charge it.
Shield + Earth or Ice, self cast: As opposed to just a protection spell, this actually encases you in the element in question. Think of it, perhaps, as "Protection from Physical," as that's the damage type both Ice and Earth deal. Good for buying time to prep another spell, but prevents you from attacking. This is a preferable spell to the bubble if enemies are too close to keep them outside. The Earth shield is stronger, but the Ice shield will damage melee attackers.
Earth + Heal, self cast: This provides a unique combination of spell casting methods. Due to the way Earth self cast works (Drops rock from sky directly on wizard), this instead causes a rock to fall from the sky and heal both the wizard and the area around him.
Blocking: This is perhaps the "balance" for Lightning, which is pretty clear cut to be one of the stronger attacking elements. If you block (left Ctrl by default) a Lightning attack, the damage will be nullified and your weapon enchanted with Lightning at the same time.
Arcane as a minor element: When another spell takes precedence over Arcane for shaping, most of the time, Arcane will change to a knockback effect instead of a damage one. This is most easily seen with an Earth + Arcane weapon cast. This gives a solid option for maneuvering enemies into more open positions, away from teammates, and/or off cliffs when Water charges aren't doing it.
A warning about Magicks
Apparently, some of the Magicks (Spells with a specific sequence, like Haste) are mouse-targeted, and if you are playing with a controller, you become the target of the spell. Hopefully this is fixed later, or I am incorrect on the matter. If a keyboard and mouse user can test Thunderstorm to see if they can get struck by lightning less than 20 times, I would appreciate it.
A note on shields
When nearby a barrier-type shield (AoE, Weapon cast, or arc, but not personal), you will see "Boost (keyprompt)." Spam this key to increase the shield's health, buying you more time to prepare spells. Shields can be taken down by damage, so if your jerk friend traps you in one, smack it down. For personal shields, healing will "repair" them (But not heal the wizard if he's hurt, his shield must be down to heal him), or you can just cast Shield on self twice to dispel it and then summon a fresh one.
In addition, a personal shield is kind of a "Sorta protection from everything" spell. It's harder (but not impossible) to soak, ignite, or freeze a wizard with a shield on him.
In Magicka, you have 10 friends and up to 3 enemies/victims/targets/convenient jump nodes for lightning/other players playing with you.
Arcane and Healing are two sides of the same coin: Both have the exact same shapes, but one damages, the other heals. Cold, Fire, Water, and Steam are all sprays, putting out a cone of whatever it is. Ice is a variable-sized arc of shards. Lightning is also slightly conical, but will jump between targets, making it unpredictable, but with a large area effect. Earth conjures a physical-damage projectile, with a variable speed based on charge time. Shield creates barriers to protect areas and wizards. Or doom them to being locked in an inescapable prison with a troll.
Non-elemental casting
Two basic spells can be done without any elemental charge. The first is a directional push done by a normal cast, the other is a circular push via AoE casting. These can be charged for more power, which is needed for some of the larger enemies, and for more entertainment by going Goblin Golfing. There is no damaging effect from either of these (Unless you shove them into something that will, like a fire or another spell), but they're handy for getting some breathing space.
Spellcasting
The first thing to note is that there is apparently a sort of diminishing returns system in place. Casting 5 Arcanes into a beam is exceptionally powerful, but it's not as powerful as casting 1 Arcane beam 5 times. While not correct, it's easiest to remember consecutive charges' power levels in terms of "5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1" and such. Much experimenting is needed to get the right numbers down. You'll be fine as long as you just remember that when making a mixed spell, you're probably best off with only 1 or 2 charges of a specific element, unless you need as much of X as possible.
Secondly, there are two hidden elements; Steam and Ice. The former is formed by a Water and Fire charge, the latter by Water and Cold. Casting the third combo element (For example: Water, Cold, (Forms Ice), Fire) will undo the change and leave you with a single Water charge.
Now, the most important thing to remember is how the elements interact. Here's a little chart, even.
Red marks are cancellations: Putting both of these in a spell will remove both of them. This is a good way to fix botched spells before you explode yourself or your teammates. Shield is unique in that it cancels itself, which also means you can only ever have 1 charge of it in a spell. Green marks are combinations: Casting both will make them fuse into a new element, as explained above. When prepping a spell, any combos or cancels will take effect on the latest charge. If you charge Fire, Earth, Fire, Water, the second Fire will be the one to turn into Steam.
Now, in actual casting, mixing elements is a bad idea. An explosively bad one. Watch what your teammates prefer hurling around and plan accordingly. If the beams meet in the right place, though, this becomes a valuable weapon. So it depends on how lucky you're feeling.
Of the elements, three have status effects that go along with them: Water will soak creatures, causing Lightning spells to deal more damage, as well as preventing charging of Lightning spells by the wet. And by prevent I mean "Shock them every time they try." Fire will ignite anything struck, causing a diminishing-over-time damage effect. Cold will slow targets. These three also interact with the environment: Cold will freeze water, Fire will thaw it, Water will extinguish fires. These interactions apply to characters and enemies as well: A soaked person will be frozen solid by a Cold attack, or dried off by Fire, while a chilled one will be warmed by Fire.
What about the others? Well, they don't so much have status effects as special effects. Lightning will show you the wireframe skeleton of whatever you're zapping, also making it occasionally stop as it fries, Arcane will make things explode if it's the killing blow, Heal harms undead and makes them explode in healy goodness (And Arcane heals them), and Earth is actually counted as a physical attack.
Shaping Spells
There are 4 different ways to cast a spell: Normally (via staff), on self, AoE, and on weapon. Each makes spells behave very differently: For example. A pure Arcane spell will, in order, fire in a beam, explode you (bad), explode aroundyou (good), and give you a powerful, long-reaching melee attack. In addition, spells act wildly differently depending on mixture, most notably if you toss Shield into the casting.
The following elements change the design of a spell, in order of what will take precedence for spell shape:
Shield
Earth
Ice
Arcane/Heal
Lightning
Everything else
Shield-typed spells will form a barrier of sorts, Earth will turn them into a charged projectile, Ice will hurl shards shotgun style and can be charged to narrow the angle, Arcane/Heal creates a beam, and Lightning remains the same, just with the effects of the others added to it.
Casting a spell on a weapon will cause it to use the spell, either in an arc in front of you, or a line-based area of effect. Shield causes a short, long-lasting line, Earth causes a long, short-lasting line, Ice will form a massive vertically-striking blade, Arcane/Heal will create a sweeping arc, and Lightning will still shoot out of the weapon, though not as powerfully or long-ranged as a normally-cast spell of the same makeup. Weapon-casting spells is a good way to store a powerful spell without slowing down to a crawl during travel. In addition, spells can be added to a weapon if it still has "room," but opposing elements still cancel. For example: You cast 3 charges of Lightning and add it to your sword. Later on, you feel like adding 2 Fire. They will be added to the 3 Lightnings without issue. If, however, you try to add 2 Water, you will end up with a single Lightning charge. So remember what you have on that sword!
Combination effects
Most spell effects are easy to figure out: If you put lightning and fire together, you get lightning that sets them on fire. Simple enough. But some are more abstract.
Overall, a combined-element spell will be stronger than the sum of its parts if it is very diverse, but weaker if it is composed of only one, or in larger charge amounts, two elements. For instance, an Arcane Arcane Steam Lightning Fire beam will deal a great amount more damage than each one cast as a unique spell.
Shield + whatever except Earth or Ice, self cast: This gives you protection from the element in question. For the duration of it, you can't be affected by it. More elemental charges give an aura that protects all within. If you cast protection from Water, you won't get wet; protection from Lightning, you won't explode when your overly destructive teammate does a Rain + 5 charge Lightning combo. There is, however, one very bad thing to cast: Protection from Healing. Yes, it's a thing. It prevents you from being healed, and your team will laugh at you when you do it while trying to heal yourself before tossing up your personal shield.
Reflection: Shield (Of any kind!) + beam = ricochet. Fun times are had if some idiot does this inside a full bubble, even more good times when a teammate bank shots a goblin with a beam off your personal shield. Less good times if he tries this as your shield goes down. Note that an Arcane explosion will cause the shield to drop, while a healing one will charge it.
Shield + Earth or Ice, self cast: As opposed to just a protection spell, this actually encases you in the element in question. Think of it, perhaps, as "Protection from Physical," as that's the damage type both Ice and Earth deal. Good for buying time to prep another spell, but prevents you from attacking. This is a preferable spell to the bubble if enemies are too close to keep them outside. The Earth shield is stronger, but the Ice shield will damage melee attackers.
Earth + Heal, self cast: This provides a unique combination of spell casting methods. Due to the way Earth self cast works (Drops rock from sky directly on wizard), this instead causes a rock to fall from the sky and heal both the wizard and the area around him.
Blocking: This is perhaps the "balance" for Lightning, which is pretty clear cut to be one of the stronger attacking elements. If you block (left Ctrl by default) a Lightning attack, the damage will be nullified and your weapon enchanted with Lightning at the same time.
Arcane as a minor element: When another spell takes precedence over Arcane for shaping, most of the time, Arcane will change to a knockback effect instead of a damage one. This is most easily seen with an Earth + Arcane weapon cast. This gives a solid option for maneuvering enemies into more open positions, away from teammates, and/or off cliffs when Water charges aren't doing it.
A warning about Magicks
Apparently, some of the Magicks (Spells with a specific sequence, like Haste) are mouse-targeted, and if you are playing with a controller, you become the target of the spell. Hopefully this is fixed later, or I am incorrect on the matter. If a keyboard and mouse user can test Thunderstorm to see if they can get struck by lightning less than 20 times, I would appreciate it.
A note on shields
When nearby a barrier-type shield (AoE, Weapon cast, or arc, but not personal), you will see "Boost (keyprompt)." Spam this key to increase the shield's health, buying you more time to prepare spells. Shields can be taken down by damage, so if your jerk friend traps you in one, smack it down. For personal shields, healing will "repair" them (But not heal the wizard if he's hurt, his shield must be down to heal him), or you can just cast Shield on self twice to dispel it and then summon a fresh one.
In addition, a personal shield is kind of a "Sorta protection from everything" spell. It's harder (but not impossible) to soak, ignite, or freeze a wizard with a shield on him.
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Steam
1. Shield + Water for wall of rain.
Lightning + Healing + Shield for lightning mines behind that wall, or whatever your preferred lightning attack is.
2. Healing + Shield creates healing mines that heal a RIDICULOUS amount. The trade off is, of course, enemies might use them.
3. Element + Shield + middle click will create a shield that protects against that element. So, if you do Water + Shield before a rainstorm magick, you won't get wet from it. At least till your shield wears off, anyway.
4. Arcane + Shield + Fire + Earth = a wall of rocks that explode when enemies attack it too much. Nuff said.
5. If you try to combine lightning and water, they cancel each other out. Steam (Fire + Water) combines with lightning just fine, though. Fire + Water (= Steam) + Lightning + Arcane = ELECTRIFIED STEAM BEAM OF DEATH.
So yeah. Buy this fucking game tomorrow, it's amazing.
http://beta.humugus.com/index.php/auth/register/inv/1966
The best thing to enchant your sword with is a magical minelayer. When I'm under fire, I like to throw up a forcefield and conjure mines onto the flanks.
Rainstorms make lightning nukes more powerful, right? You just have to remember to ward yourself against water first.
Shield+self gives you a damage sponge shield, very handy.
Shield+Rock+self instantly encases you in stone, the more rock you added the more damage it will take. While inside you can prep any spell you like, very handy for when you get mobbed and want to let off a big boom.
PSN: Dyvion -- Eternal: Dyvion+9393 -- Genshin Impact: Dyvion
Also, I had a bit of a chuckle at "Grams Workshop" :P
Yup!
Ahahah. I was just playing co-op with my roomamte and I was healing him, then there was a healing nova explosion! He had full health, I flew up and arced down into a chasm.
Also, I hope there are more references like this in the full game:
I want it. Multiplayer is going to be hilarious.
This is because you're alone.
throwing around arcane all willy nilly while your teamates are around is going to be a fun lesson for you, unless they're all using the same element.
"In the distant North there is only war"
I assume that they're playing local co-op (plugging a controller into the PC), not online co-op.
I second this motion.
Motion Carries.
PSN: Dyvion -- Eternal: Dyvion+9393 -- Genshin Impact: Dyvion
If I can get a machine gun that lays magic mines when I fire it, I'm calling this as Game of the Year 2011.
(btw, yeah, I don't think it was mentioned in the OP: This game has a machine gun):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FEd8I3BKE4
(skip to 2:30)
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
I knew it.
Magicka is one of the lucky few.
That syntax error seems to be happening for everyone. Thing is, its just the DirectX installer doing that. Game should run fine. Try downloading a DirectX package directly and installing that? Or maybe your laptop has a good old intel integrated graphics thing and has no hope of running it.
And I was like "Ok will there be 4pax?"
Clicking Cancel will just let you go right to launching into the game.
Get DX9 elsewhere if you need it.
This is true for most steam games.
I'm waiting to see if a 4 pack goes up when it's released, myself.
Nevermind, I changed my Mouse Wheel Left/Right to act as Middle.
Man, this is seriously cool.
Yeah, I searched all over the files in the install directory looking for a way to rebind that to mouse4, and had no luck. Hopefully that's in the full version.
I think it just does that when you take off a certain amount of the bosses health.
Yeah, happened to me when I got the boss down to 30 or so percent.
A number of times now I've tried to heal my ally only to zap him, freeze him, set him on fire, knock him off a cliff, block him outside a bubble shield...