Let's talk about Magicka

[Teleku]

Yeah, I need to know how the beam thing works.  I was fighting a goblin shaman boss guy, and I shot a beam of some sort at him, at the same time he shot a beam at me.  They met a bit closer to him, there was an explosion, and the boss died instantly.  And I got the achievement "Never cross the beams".  Hmm.

[Typhon]

If beams have elements that are opposite eachother, they cause an explosion when combining.  Fire and cold definitely do.  I believe lightening and water, arcane and life will also cause an explosion (no first hand knowledge though).

[Strazos]

As anyone seen beam paths react to anything besides other beams and shields? I could have sworn my water sprays were bending beams at one points...

[Soulflame]

The end of chapter six is hard.   

[Yegolev]

In Soviet Magicka, elements conjure you!

The goblin shaman makes me mad.

[Soulflame]

More fixes today.

Updates to Magicka have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted.

Fixed jittering caused by avatar move orders persisting on clients.
Fixed issue where self shields would get desynced.
Fixed so that elementals that weren’t initialized collided with beam spells.
Fixed crash initializing a dialogue chain with a dead actor.
Fixed crash due to navigation desync in chapter 2 secret area.
Fixed “Too fancy for fireballs” achievement sometimes not being awarded.
Fixed crash on Chapter 11 boss confuse ability.
Fixed so that Chapter 12 boss does not start attacking before cutscene is done.
Features
Added Chapter 1 Text in intro.
Known Issues
Network uplink bandwidth, while improved, can be demanding
Steam attempts to install XNA framework every time game is launched on rare occasion
Quitting the game while the credits are rolling will not award a game complete.
Mouse outside screen in full screen with multiple monitors will minimize the game.
Crash due to leaving too many enemies alive in previous scenes (NonPlayerCharacterCache is empty)

[Yegolev]

I don't know what happened to the goblin shaman, but he definitely died when I hit him in the face with a large boulder.  Also, the J-monster died when he rammed a plain E-shield.

[Mrbloodworth]

Stability still seems hit and miss, two friends in a three player game kept crashing at various moments during play.

[Soulflame]

I haven't tried multiplayer yet, although I think the game would be fun in multi.

I figured out how to trivialize the islands in chapter 6.  Those fights went from impossible to over in less than six seconds.   

[Merusk]

This game is breaking my mind.  The fights get damned frustrating at times, particularly when the game doesn't seem to recognize you hit 2 elements then a cast.  "Whoops, blew that spell because there was still a life element in it and I healed the fuckers" 

Some of the places so they rez you when you die are also frustrating.  Starting up in the middle of 8 goblins in chapter 3 (The room right before the shaman) over and over again meant several deaths before I finally figured out some good quick spells to drop. (Oh lighting bombs, I love you.)

It's fun, but frustrating solo.  I think it'd be more fun if I had at least one NPC mage or someone else to play with.

[K9]

Pro Tip: spamming space while inside a shield dome boosts it so it absorbs more damage.

[Mrbloodworth]

Multiplayer is where its at, but, bugs. Not that there isn't still fun to be had.

[Soulflame]

Multiplayer isn't something I'll likely engage in a lot of.  It looked like most games were passworded, and I tried to join a game, only to be notified it was in progress.

I guess it's something you need to set up in advance with the people you're going to play with?

[Mrbloodworth]

Absolutely.

The grief potential for this title is high, I would never, EVER play with pickups.  Can you imagine, this game is 100% friendly fire and insta-zaps! 


If ever any of you on my steam list see me going in game, i'll give you an invite if I have a free spot.

[Yegolev]

I recently determined that casting two E on myself, meaning you have to do it before it congeals into one E, is how to activate my staff.  Related: random teleport, lol.

[Soulflame]

Middle mouse button without any elements queued is how you activate the ability on the staff.

I'm not certain how to activate the ability on your weapon, or if it even needs to be activated.

[Teleku]

Don't all weapons have passive abilities?  So you just swing it?

[Soulflame]

It may be that swinging does trigger the ability.  I haven't messed with weapons much.

Other than to play with the M60 enough to know that thing is stupid overpowered.   

[rattran]

I've tried the game a few times, I just can't find the fun.

[birdsguts]

Yeah shift+click for imbuing a weapon with something.
Make sure you hold the left click until it triggers itself so you get the full effect. Especially with shields. You can slice them out of your sword and create longer more rectangular barrier walls.

Also if you are playing solo and get stuck in a bad spawn the best method I found was to immediately cast the AOE shield and use space to pump it up... then start casting lighting barriers (lightning lightning lightning lightning shield right click) through the bubble and it will land right where they are standing and slowly drain all the guys pounding on your little shell down to nothing. You could probably also use some kind of water wall too to increase damage. They all cast through the AOE shield bubble. It's not what I'd call "fun", but it gets your through bad situations with less headache.

I can't play with half my friends though because they are getting various "cannot authenticate" bugs and various other CTD issues. We have yet to get through a whole adventure game together... it just keeps dumping us out or trashing our saves the next day.

Too bad. I hope they fix it up a bit and add stuff to it. Perhaps a silly battle royale arena or something... even though it would likely be a ridiculous mess.

[Merusk]

My problem with the AOE-Shield & Lightning Field strat was my bad respawn was against goblins.  Those fuckers jump on you and make you step backwards... into your lightning shield. 

Which is why I started dropping the mines. It's a quick 2-button & click combo that blew the assholes back away from me and gave me some breathing room to setup.

[K9]

Don't all weapons have passive abilities?  So you just swing it?

Some weapons don't have a passive, most do though. War staff is still the best I have seen so far though.

[Ivanneth]

Don't all weapons have passive abilities?  So you just swing it?

Some weapons don't have a passive, most do though. War staff is still the best I have seen so far though.

The invisibility staff is great too. It got me past those damned Yetis and saved my bacon in quite a few trapped-by-a-crowd situations.

[Vaiti]

Invisibility staff and spamming summons I find to be my prefered way of dealing with just about anything. I like the arcane saber as well. Then I just spam tons of undead and arcane elementals and can go to town without worrying about killing my own guys.

[Strazos]

Wait, summoning? I never saw that.

[Trippy]

Is there a way to keep from getting knocked down? I spend most of my non-1-on-1 fights on my ass.

[ashrik]

Having a personal shield up is what lets you be knocked down, which is why the Staff Of War is the best one in the game

[Trippy]

Uh, okay, that's counter-intuitive but thanks.

[Vaiti]

You're being knocked down by ranged units. It's arrows and whatnot that knock you down while the shield is up.

[Trippy]

The jumping beastmen knock me down (and off the cliff) as well.

[Vaiti]

I think they knock you down shield or not, it's an ability they have. I still say AoE Arcana spam is the best way to handle beastmen.

[ezrast]

I throw a water in with the arc, but yeah, best way to not be knocked down by beastmen is to knock them down first. For orcs it's to distract them with rocks. If they're close enough to knock you down at all you've done something wrong, although you can sometimes save yourself from a chain KB-fest by casting shield+earth on yourself and then prepping some sort of plan B - usually an AoE knockback, a freeze, or maybe a teleport if you have that.

[K9]

The beastmen knock each other down too. Although I agree that getting knocked into a corner is annoying before you have teleport as they can effectively lock you down there. Once you get to level (6?) and get teleport a lot of these issues become less of a hassle.

[Morfiend]

I would love to play some multiplayer with some people. Anyone interested?

[Strazos]

Got maybe halfway through the game with 2 buddies last time I played.

I love lightning bolt.